■letter xvi.] A MIDNIGHT STROLL. 161 



(broken in upon by two monstrous cockroaches really as large 

 las mice, with fierce-looking antennas and prominent eyes, both 

 iof which mounted guard on my pillow. On rising to drive 

 [[them away, I found to my dismay that they were but the 

 i leaders of a host, which only made a temporary retreat, rust- 

 jling over the mat and dried grass with the crisp tread of 

 Imice, and scaring away sleep for some hours. Worse than 

 (these were the mosquitos, also an imported nuisance, which 

 (stabbed and stung without any preliminary droning ; and the 

 I heat was worse still, for thirteen human beings were lying on 

 [the floor and the door was shut. Had I known that two of 

 [these were lepers, I should have felt far from comfortable. As 

 lit was, I got up soon after midnight, and cautiously stepping 

 I among the sleeping forms, went out of doors. Everything fa- 

 [voured reflection, but I think the topics to which my mind 

 most frequently reverted were my own absolute security — a 

 lone white woman among " savages/' and the civilizing in- 

 fluence which Christianity has exercised, so that even in this 

 (isolated valley, gouged out of a mountainous coast, there was 

 [nothing disagreeable or improper to be seen. The night was 

 very still, but the sea was moaning; the river rippled very 

 gently as it brushed past the reeds; there was a hardly per- 

 ceptible vibration in the atmosphere, which suggested falling 

 water and quivering leaves; and the air was full of a heavy, 

 drowsy fragrance, the breath of orange flowers, perhaps, and 

 of the night-blowing Cereus, which had opened its ivory 

 urn to the moon. I should have liked to stay out all night 

 in the vague, delicious moonlight, but the dew was heavy, 

 and moreover I had not any boots on, so I reluctantly re- 

 I turned to the grass house, which was stifling with heat and 

 | smells of cocoa-nut oil, tobacco, and the rancid smoke from 

 beef fat. 



Before sunrise this morning my horse was saddled, and a 

 number of natives had assembled. Hananui had disappeared, 

 but the man who lent me his bare-backed horse yesterday was 

 ready to act as guide. My boots could not then be found, so 

 I adopted the native fashion of riding with bare feet. We 

 again rode up the river in that slow and solemn fashion in 

 which horses walk in water, galloped over a stretch of grass, 

 crossed a bright stream several times, and then entered a dense 

 jungle of Indian shot, plantains, and sadlerias, with bread- 

 fruit, kukiri, and ohia rising out of it. There w r ere thousands 

 of plantains, a fruit resembling the banana, but that it requires 



M 



