OF THE SOUTH SEAS 463 



hang upon a shelf carved out of the precipice which 

 hemmed it. The route hugged the sea, but at every 

 turn I saw inland the laughing, green valleys, deserted 

 of inhabitants, climbing slowly between massive walls 

 of rock to which clung great tree ferns, with magnificent 

 vert parasols, enormous clumps of feis, with huge, em- 

 erald or yellow upstanding bunches of fruit ; candlenut- 

 and ironwood-trees. Uncounted, delicious odors filled 

 the air, distilled from the wild flowers, the vanilla, or- 

 chids, and the forests of oranges, which, though not of 

 Tahiti, were already venerable in their many decades of 

 residence. Not a single path struck off from the belt 

 road, except that as we came toward the centers of 

 Afaahiti and Pueu districts the inevitable store or two 

 of the Chinese appeared, the chefferie, a church or 

 two, and the roofs of the Tahitians. These were al- 

 ways near the beach, set back a few hundred feet from 

 the road in rare instances, but mostly only a few steps 

 from it. The Tahitian never lived in hamlets, as the 

 Marquesan and the Samoan, but each family dwelt in 

 its wood of cocoanuts and breadfruit, or a few families 

 clustered their inhabitants for intimacy and mutual aid. 

 The whites, missionaries, conquerors, and traders found 

 this system not conducive to their ends. Churches de- 

 mand for prosperity a flock about the ministrant, busi- 

 ness wants customers close to the store, and government 

 is more powerful where it can harangue and proclaim, 

 parade before and spy upon its subjects. Individual- 

 istic and segregated domestic circles give rise to tax 

 evasions, feuds, and moonshining, plots and the growth 

 of strong men. The city is the corral where humans 



