this band, pressed tightly against the tree, giving firm
support while his arms, clasping the trunk above, drew him upward a
yard at a time, he was at the crest of a fifty-foot tree in a minute,
and threw down two drinking nuts. They were as big as foot-balls and
weighed about five pounds each. We had no knife, but broke in the
tops with stones, and holding up the shining green nuts, let the
wine flow down our throats. Never was a better thirst-quencher or
heartener! The hottest noon on the hottest beach, when the coral
burns the feet, this nectar is cool. After the most arduous climb,
when lungs and muscles ache with weariness, it freshens strength and
lifts the spirit.

By the cocoanut-grove ran a level stream shaded with pandanus, and
following it, we commenced again to mount on a pathway arched by
small trees, down which the stream coursed. The cocoanuts fell away
as we went up the ridge and emerged upon a tableland covered with
ferns, some green and some dead and dry, carpeting the flat expanse
as far as eye could see with a mat of lavender, the green and the
brown melting into that soft color.

We were further on the broad roof on the mountains, in the middle
now and not on the edge, so we ran and galloped and shouted. Wild
horses fled from us, and we heard the grunt of boar in the fern
thickets. The fan-palms, dwarfs, but graceful, intermingled with
magnificent tree-ferns, while above them curved the _huetu_, the
immense mountain plantain, called _fei_ in Tahiti, where they are
the bread of the people; they have ribbed, emerald leaves, as big as
a man. Feeders of dark people in many lands for thousands of years,
theirs is the same golden fruit I had eaten at breakfast with Pere
Olivier, three thousand feet below. They grow only in the mountains,
and the men who bring them into the villages have feet shaped like a
hand spread out to its widest, with toes twisted curiously by
climbing rocks and grasping roots for support.

The rain began to fall again, and the wind came stronger, but now we
were going down in earnest. The sea shone again, but it was on the
Oomoa side. We passed under trees hung with marvelous orchids, the
_puaauetaha_, Orivie said, parasitic vines related to the vanilla
as the lion is related to the kitten, cousins, but with little
family likeness.

The trail became very dangerous at this point, a rocky slide, with
steps a foot or two apart like uneven stairs, and all a foot, or
sometimes tw