In the Morning. 
3 6 5 
long slender-barrelled guns. Every now and 
then a shot awakes the echoes of the mountain 
caves, and a pigeon falls heavily from his perch 
upon some fruit-laden masaoi or tamanu tree ; 
a frightened, shrieking cry from some paroquets, 
and then the quiet forest aisles are hushed 
again. Far up the mountain-side a wild boar 
hurries to his lair beneath the buttressed bole 
of a mighty tree, and listens. He, too, has 
heard the gunshots, and knows that danger lies 
down there upon the cool forest flats, where the 
thick carpet of dew-soaked leaves gives forth no 
sound to the naked footstep of man. 
The white trader finishes his coffee, and, 
stepping down from his verandah, opens his 
store for the day’s business. Then the bathers 
come back, the men stopping at the store to 
lounge about and smoke cigarettes awhile ; the 
women, wringing out their wettened tresses as 
they pass, go to their homes to prepare the 
morning meal of fish and taro. As the sun 
rises higher and the dew-soaked palm and 
breadfruit trees begin to sway and rustle to the 
trade wind, smoke ascends from behind every 
thatch-covered dwelling, as the women kindle 
fires to make their umu (oven) of hot stones, 
