erved fish, and cups of wine disappeared with marvellous rapidity.
We did all rational beings could be expected to perform under the
circumstances, but at last were obliged to cry _peccavi!_ Not so our
lady guests--the war of maids and viands had only begun; my friend,
Toanni, thought a trifle of taking five or six of these oily little
sardines at a mouthful, pushing them down with half a banana, and
violent thrust of bread. She devoured ham and fowls with great apparent
relish, wagging her lower jaw, to detach any stray masses of
unmasticated matter that chanced to have escaped the ivory hopper, and
fallen between her capacious cheeks; every few seconds giving her round
fingers a sharp suck, like popping a cork. Truely Toanni's head room was
enormous. Once or twice, when thinking her rage entirely appeased, she
relapsed again, and performed prodigies with rashers of baked pig. I
believe it was Voltaire who designated the illustrious Shakspeare as a
"sublime barbarian;" could he have seen these island maidens, he
certainly would have awarded the palm to Toanni; and I'll wager a flask
of bordeaux--a peculiar weakness of mine--that these Tahitian belles can
eat more, laugh longer, talk faster, all at once or separately, than any
others of their adorable sex the wide world over. I speak advisedly,
and am prepared by documentary evidence to prove it.

Rescuing a small cruse of cogniac from the melee, I reclined upon a
rocky bed, with my heels in the water, for a doze, induced by the
soothing fumes of a pipe! But, alas! hardly were my eyes closed, before
I was startled by the cries of our frolicksome light-hearted companions,
who with a lizard-like facility of grasp, were running up the
perpendicular surface of the peak, clinging and climbing by fibres and
roots, that crept and laced themselves about the crevices of the rocks.
Plucking a quantity of bright flowers, the girls bounded into the
stream, and then commenced weaving never-ending wreaths and chaplets.
This universal fondness for these spontaneous jewels of the earth, with
their love for bathing, are the most innocent and beautiful natural
tastes possessed by the savages of Polynesia.

We were three hours getting back to Papeetee, only pausing for a last
cooling swim in the lower stream.

The evening previous to our departure from Tahiti we attended the usual
soiree of the French Governor. Important despatches had just been
received from France, and the saloons wer