eat Fern!" I said. "Where do you go with the _mei_?"

"It is _Meinui_, the season of the breadfruit," he replied.
"We fill the _popoi_ pit beside my house."

There is a word on the Marquesan tongue vividly picturing the
terrors of famine. It means, "one who is burned to drive away a
drought." In these islands cut off from the world the very life of
the people depends on the grace of rain. Though the skies had been
kind for several years, not a day passing without a gentle downpour,
there had been in the past dry periods when even the hardiest
vegetation all but perished. So it came about that the Marquesan was
obliged to improvise a method of keeping breadfruit for a long time,
and becoming habituated to sour food he learned to like it, as many
Americans relish ill-smelling cheese and fish and meat, or drink
with pleasure absinthe, bitters, and other gagging beverages.

In this season of plenteous breadfruit, therefore, Great Fern had
opened his _popoi_ pit, and was replenishing its supply. A
half-dozen who ate from it were helping him. Only the enthusiasm of
the traveler for a strange sight held me within radius of its odor.

It was sunk in the earth, four feet deep and perhaps five in diameter,
and was only a dozen years old, which made it a comparatively small
and recently acquired household possession in the eyes of my savage
friends. Mouth of God and Malicious Gossip owned a _popoi_ pit dug
by his grandfather, who was eaten by the men of Taaoa, and near the
house of Vaikehu, a descendant of the only Marquesan queen, there
was a _uuama tehito_, or ancient hole, the origin of which was lost
in the dimness of centuries. It was fifty feet long and said to be
even deeper, though no living Marquesan had ever tasted its stores,
or never would unless dire famine compelled. It was _tapu_ to the
memory of the dead.

All over the valley the filling of the pits for reserve against need
was in progress. Up and down the trails the men were hastening,
bearing the _kookas_ filled with the ripe fruit, large as Edam
cheeses and pitted on the surface like a golf-ball. A breadfruit
weighs from two to eight pounds, and giants like Great Fern or
Haabuani carried in the _kookas_ two or three hundred pounds for
miles on the steep and rocky trails.

In the banana-groves or among thickets of _ti_ the women were
gathering leaves for lining and covering the pits, while around the
center of interest naked children ran about, hindering a