480 MYSTIC ISLES 



proficiency in the pastimes of war, as did the Greeks, 

 who addressed Diagoras, after he and his two sons had 

 been crowned in the arena: "Die, for thou hast nothing 

 short of divinity to desire." These ambitions had been 

 ended in Tahiti by the frowns of the missionaries, to 

 whom athletics were a species of diabohcal possession, 

 unworthy souls destined for hell or heaven, with but a 

 brief span to avert their birthright of damnation in sack- 

 cloth and ashes. 



We entered the river regularly at eleven and four, 

 but Choti, T'yonni, and I also swam in the lagoon at the 

 mouth of the river, and never suffered bad consequences 

 unless we cut or scraped ourselves on coral. About 

 noon I prepared my dejeuner a la fourcliette, and had 

 a wide choice of shrimp, eels, fish, taro, chicken, bread- 

 fruit, yams, and all the other fruits. The solicitude of 

 the homesick missionaries had added to those indigenous, 

 oranges, hmes, shaddocks, citrons, tamarinds, guavas, 

 custard apples, peaches, figs, grapes, pineapples, water- 

 melons, pumpkins, cucumbers and cabbages. They had 

 grown these foreign flora many years before they made 

 sprout a single shoot of Christianity. 



I invented a stove from a five-gallon oil tin. With a 

 can-opener I cut a strip out on opposite sides ten inches 

 from the bottom, and laid two iron bars across, and 

 under them, inside the receptacle, built a fire. Upon 

 this I cooked my coffee in the percolator, while upon 

 the earth and hot stones other delicious dishes boiled, 

 stewed, and fried. If I baked, I used the native oven 

 in the ground, with earth and leaves inclosing. 



I passed hours on the reef with Raiere and ^latatini 

 or in canoes, drawing the nets and catching shrimp and 



