ter, have learned
these names of their forefathers and mothers who were noble and
renowned. What does it matter? We will all be gone soon, and the
cocoanut-groves of our islands will know us no more. We come, we do
not know whence, and we go, we do not know where. Only the sea
endures, and it does not remember."

She sat on the mat beside me, and pressed my hand. I had been
adopted as her son, and she was sorry to see me departing to the
unknown island from which I had come, and from which, she knew, I
would never return. She was mournful; she said that her heart was
heavy. But I praised lavishly her beautifully tattooed legs, and
complimented the decoration of her hair until she smiled again, and
when from the shadowy edges of the ring of torch-light voices began
an old chant of feasting, she took it up with the others.

There were Marquesans who could recite one hundred and forty-five
generations of their families, covering more than thirty-six hundred
years. Enough to make family trees that go back to the Norman
conquest appear insignificant. I had known an old Maori priest who
traced his ancestry to Rangi and Papa, through one hundred and
eighty-two generations, 4,550 years. The Easter Islanders spoke of
fifty-seven generations, and in Raratonga ninety pairs of ancestors
are recited. The pride of the white man melts before such records.

Such incidents as the sack of Jerusalem, the Crusades, or Cassar's
assassination, are recent events compared to the beginnings of some
of these families, whose last descendants have died or are dying
to-day.

I took Titihuti's words with me as I went down the trail from my
little blue cabin at the foot of Temetiu for the last time:
"We come, we do not know whence, and we go, we do not know where.
Only the sea endures, and it does not remember."

Great Fern, Haabuani, Exploding Eggs, and Water carried my bags and
boxes to the shore, while I said _adieux_ to the governor, Bauda,
and Le Brunnec. When I reached the beach all the people of the valley
were gathered there. They sat upon the sand, men and women and
children, and intoned my farewell ode--my _pae me io te_:

"Apae!
Kaoha! te Menike!
Mau oti oe anao nei
i te apua Kahito"
o a'Tahiti.
Ei e tihe to metao iau e hoa iriti oei an ote vei mata to taua.
E avei atu."

"O, farewell to you, American!
You go to far-distant Tahiti!
There you will stay, but you will weep for me.
Ever