d hiding-places the paddles and the pretty triangular
sails are fetched and fastened on the canoes; then the boats are pushed
off and the whole crowd jumps in. The babies sit in their mothers'
laps or hang on their backs, perilously close to the water, into
which they stare with big, dark eyes. By twos and threes the canoes
push off, driven by vigorous paddling along the shore, against the
current. Sometimes a young man wades after a canoe and joins some
fair friends, sitting in front of them, as etiquette demands. The
fresh breeze catches the sails, and the ten or fifteen canoes glide
swiftly across the bright water, the spread sails looking like great
red butterflies. The spray splashes from the bows, one woman steers,
and the others bale out the water with cocoa-nuts,--a labour worthy of
the Danaides; sometimes the outrigger lifts up and the canoe threatens
to capsize, but, quick as thought, the women lean on the poles joining
outrigger and canoe, and the accident is averted. In a few minutes
the canoes enter the landings between the torn cliffs on the large
island, the passengers jump out and carry the boats up the beach.

A few stragglers, men of importance who have been detained by politics,
and bachelors, who have nothing and nobody to care for but themselves,
follow later on, and only a crowd of boys stays in Vao, to enjoy
themselves on the beach and get into all sorts of mischief.

Obliging as people sometimes are when the fancy strikes them, a
youth took us over to the other island in his canoe, and was even
skilful enough to keep us from capsizing. Narrow paths, bordered with
impenetrable bush, led us from the beach across coral boulders up to
the plantations on top of the tableland. Under some cocoa-nut palms
our guide stopped, climbed nimbly up a slim trunk, as if mounting a
ladder, and three green nuts dropped to the ground at our feet. Three
clever strokes of the knife opened them, and we enjoyed the refreshing
drink in its natural bowl. Sidepaths branched off to the gardens, where
every individual or family had its piece of ground. We saw big bananas,
taro, with large, juicy leaves, yams, trained on a pretty basket-shaped
trellis-work; when in bloom this looks like a huge bouquet. There
were pine-apples, cabbages, cocoa-nut and bread-fruit trees, bright
croton bushes and highly scented shrubs. In this green and confused
abundance the native spends his day, working a little, loafing a
great deal. He shoo