458 MYSTIC ISLES 



dangers from hummocks of coral and sunken banks. 



Our canoe was twenty feet long, and with a very 

 strong outrigger, but though all four of us paddled, 

 Teta, the chief man of Puforatoai, in the stern, steering, 

 the vaa labored heavily. Tatini was adept in canoeing, 

 and with a quartet of hoe we would have ordinarily sent 

 the Vaa spinning through the water; but we were near- 

 ing the southernmost extremity of the Presqu'ile, and 

 the wind and current from the northeast swept about 

 the broken coast in a confusion of puffs and blasts, 

 choppy waves and roaring breakers, and made our pro- 

 gress slow and hazardous. The breeze caught up the 

 foam and formed sheets of vapor which whipped our 

 faces and blinded us, while an occasional roller broke on 

 our prow, and soon gave Tatini continuous work in bail- 

 ing with a handled scoop. 



Opposite the pass of Tutataroa our greatest peril 

 came. The ocean swept through this narrow channel 

 like a mill-race. The first swell tossed us up ten feet, 

 and we rode on it fifty before Teta could disengage us 

 from its clasp, and, without capsizing, divert our course 

 westward instead of toward the parlous shore. One 

 such jeopardy succeeded another. We were in a quar- 

 ter of an hour directly under black and frowning heights 

 from which a score of cascades and rills leaped into the 

 air, their masses of water, carried by the gusts, falling 

 upon us in showers and clouds, aiding the flying scud 

 in shielding the distance ahead from our view. 



'"Aita e raveaf' shouted Teta to me. "It is impossible 

 to go on." 



We were all as wet as if in the sea, our faces and 

 bodies stung by the spindrift, and we were barely able 



