s hundreds of orchids hung like jewels, and vines were
swung in garlands. Flowers of every hue spread a brilliant carpet
beneath the horses' hoofs; the hart's-tongue, the _manamana-o-hina_,
the _papa-mako_ and the parasol-plant, with mosses of every
description and myriads of ferns, covered the sward. Some were the
giant tree-ferns, tall as trees, others uncurled snaky stems from
masses of rusty-colored matting, and everywhere was spread the
delicate lace of the _uu-fenua_, a maiden-hair beside which the
florist's offering is clumsy and insignificant.

We made our own way through the tall grass and tangles of flowering
shrubs, for there were no trails save those made by the great herds
of wild cattle that wandered across the plain. Three thousand head
at least I saw grazing on the luxuriant herbage, or pausing with
lifted heads before they fled at our approach.

"They are descendants of a few left by shipmasters decades ago,"
said Le Brunnec. "Twenty years ago they roamed in immense herds all
over the islands. I have chased them out of the trail to Hanamenu
with a stick. Like the goats left by the American captain, Porter,
on Nuka-hiva, they thrived and multiplied, but like the goats they
are being massacred.

"Both cattle and goats were past reckoning when, with peace fully
established and the population dwindling, the French permitted the
Marquesans to buy guns. The natives hunt in gangs. Fifteen or twenty
men, each with rifle or shot-gun, go on horseback to the grazing
grounds. The beasts at the sound of the explosions rush to the
highest point of the hills. Knowing their habits, the natives post
themselves along the ridges and kill all they can. They eat or take
away three or four, but they kill thirty or forty. They die in the
brush, and their bones strew the ground."

I told him of the buffalo, antelope, and deer that formerly filled
our woods and covered our prairies; of Alexander Wilson, who in
Kentucky in 1811 estimated one flight of wild carrier pigeons as two
thousand millions, and of there being not one of those birds now left
in the world so far as is known.

Le Brunnec sighed, for he was a true sportsman, and would not kill
even a pig if he could not consume most of its carcass. Often he
half-lifted the shot-gun that lay across the pommel, but let it drop
again, saying, "We will have a wild bird for supper."

We pitched our tent as the moon hung her lantern over the brow of
the hill. Never was tent