730 ISLE OF PINES AND MARE. 



several visits to the native who was the nominal chief of the tribe, but he failed to 

 understand my wishes and showed me no hospitality. I made an abortive attempt to 

 reach his heart by means of a present, which he accepted, and sent a man in brass 

 buttons to me on the following day to know what it was for. 



Altogether I found the Isle of Pines an unsatisfactory .place in which to pursue my 

 special and peculiar avocation, and the eighteen days which I spent here were only 

 relieved by two circumstances, namely, the opportunity of studying Ptychodera flava 

 which I found at low tide in sandy rock pools on the coralline platform at the base of 

 the cliffs where the breakers expend their fury, and secondly the companionship of my 

 native servant, an important chief from Lifu who had been exiled from his native place 

 for drunkenness accompanied by violence. A man of forty with a distinguished face and 

 bearing, speaking fair English and better French, he served me well in return for his 

 food and one franc a day. He would have made an ideal " roi de Lifu " but for his 

 addiction to the vile vitriol which does duty for liquor. He answered, temporarily, to the 

 name of Eugene, and in the course of conversation he strongly urged me to make for 

 Lifu rather than Mare - , although I had been thinking of the latter. Fortunately his 

 counsels prevailed and I left the Isle of Pines on August 5 in a cutter manned by Mar6 

 islanders. We anchored for the night at a point called Gadji, at the northern end of the 

 Isle Of Pines. Here there are extensive reefs, mud-flats, quicksands and sand which is 

 strongly elastic, rebounding to the tread like india-rubber, imparting an unusual and 

 somewhat exhilarating sensation. There are also numerous islets clothed with vegetation 

 and undermined in a characteristic manner by the action of the sea 1 . 



The next morning at 4 a.m. we left Gadji with the rising of the moon and had 

 a fair wind to Mare, where we arrived at sundown. There is some difficulty in landing 

 here as the rock-bound coast drops sheer into the sea, and the rudeness of the rocks 

 simply anticipates the astonishing inhospitality of the natives. It is true I presented 

 a dilapidated appearance, especially after walking over the scraggy limestone surface of 

 the island, and had it not been for the good offices of a petty chief called Wainani, who 

 had been a fellow passenger on the cutter, I should have been in a still more desolate 

 condition, being already mistaken for a libere. The Government representative on Mare 

 was the Commandeur, M. Journot, who entertained me at luncheon on my way to the 

 great chief Neisselin at Netchi. With the best will my friend Wainani none the less led 

 me into a trap, by which I became exposed to the merciless and humiliating diatribes 

 of Neisselin's wife, delivered in excellent English. The population of Mare consists of 

 Catholics and Protestants, and the latter have for some years been left without a white 

 shepherd, but they conduct their own services with a gusto which must be heard to be 

 appreciated. 



Besides the usual beehive huts they have white plaster houses which are rather 

 oppressive. I boarded with a native called Ito Pupu and after prayers went to bed. 

 Next day he informed me that his father had partaken of white man. I had agreed 

 with a tall handsome bearded native called Waiyowara, the owner of a cutter, for my 

 passage to Lifu, the arrangement being that he would call for me at a certain place 

 and time. He was not punctual, and such was my anxiety to leave this island where 



1 Similar mushroom-shaped islets occur in the Fijis and have been described and figured by Mr J. Stanley 

 Gardiner in the Proc. Camb. Phil. Soc, Vol. ix. Part 8, 1898; see p. 459. 



