MYSTIC ISLES 457 



reef admitting to a questionable shelter, Port Beau- 

 manoir, used by the French when little gunboats 

 threatened to bombard villages to force the rule of 

 Paris. 



Puforatoai was a handful of houses, hardly a village. 

 My advent was of importance, and its few people 

 gathered about us. They voiced their amazement when 

 Tatini announced our wish to find a navigator and ves- 

 sel to Tautira. They all said it was impossible, that the 

 coast to Pari, with the submerged reef of Faratara, was 

 too rough now for any but a large power boat, and the 

 wind would be baffling and threatening. But as fear of 

 the sea was unknown to them, they expressed a will to 

 make the attempt. We launched a large canoe, and 

 two sturdy natives, relations of Tatini, took the paddles. 

 They had made the journey more than once, but iiot at 

 this season. 



We got into difficulties from the start. The shores 

 were very different from those of Mataiea, Papeari, and 

 Vairao, the three districts I had come through from the 

 house of Tetuanui. The alluvial strip of land which in 

 them stretched from a quarter of a mile to a mile from 

 the lagoon to the slopes of the hills, here was cramped to 

 the barest strip. The huts of the indigenes, few and 

 far apart outside of Puforatoai, seemed to be set in ter- 

 races cut at the foot of the mountains which rose almost 

 straight from the streak of golden sand to the skies. In 

 every shade of green, as run by the overhead sun upon 

 the altering facets of precipice and shelf, of fei and 

 cocoa, candlenut and purau, giant ferns and convolvulus, 

 tier upon tier, was a riot of richest vegetation. But 

 everywhere in the lagoon were bristling and hiding 



