ge, under which the ocean
rushed in swirling currents, foam, and spray. Turning a shoulder of
the cliff, we entered the Bay of Virgins and were confronted with
the titanic architecture of Hanavave, Alps in ruins, once coral
reefs and now thrust up ten thousand feet above the sea. Fantastic
headlands, massive towers, obelisks, pyramids, and needles were an
extravaganza in rock, monstrous and portentous. Towering structures
hewn by water and wind from the basalt mass of the island rose like
colossi along the entrance to the bay; beyond, a glimpse of great
black battlements framed a huge crater.

A dangerous bay in the lee wind with a bad holding-ground. We
manoeuvered for ten minutes to land, but the shelving beach of black
stone with no rim of sand proved a puzzle even to Grelet. We reached
the stones again and again, only to be torn away by the racing tide.
At last we all jumped into the surf and swam ashore, except one man
who anchored the whale-boat before following us.

The canoe that had sounded the conch off Oomoa was lying on the shale,
and those who had come in it were on the stones cooking breadfruit.
The village, half a dozen rude straw shacks, stretched along a rocky
stream. Beyond it, in a few acres enclosed by a fence, were a tiny
church, two wretched wooden cabins, a tumbling kiosk, five or six
old men and women squatting on the ground amid a flock of dogs and
cats. This was the Catholic mission, tumbledown and decayed,
unpainted for years, overgrown by weeds, marshy and muddy, passing
to oblivion like the race to which it ministered.

Grelet and I found Pere Olivier sweeping out the church, cheerful,
humming a cradle-song of the French peasants. He was glad to see us,
though my companion was avowedly a pagan. Dwelling alone here with
his dying charges, the good priest could not but feel a common bond
with any white man, whoever he might be.

The kiosk, to which he took us, proved to be Pere Olivier's
eating-place, dingy, tottering, and poverty-stricken, furnished with
a few cracked and broken dishes and rusty knives and forks, the
equipment of a miner or sheep-herder. Pere Olivier apologized for the
meager fare, but we did well enough, with soup and a tin of boiled
beef, breadfruit, and _feis_. The soup was of a red vegetable, not
appetizing, and I could not make out the native name for it, _hue
arahi_, until Grelet cried, "Ah, _j'ai trouve le mot anglais!_
Ponkeen, ponkeen!" It was a red pumpkin.