f stings one's skin.

The princess removed her shoes and stockings, and I carried them over
my shoulder. We deflected from the rivulet to the cliff above it,
and there forced our way along the mountain-side, feeling almost by
instinct the trail hidden by the mass of creepers and plants.

It was a real jungle. Man had once dwelt there when his numbers in
this island were many times greater. Then every foot of ground from
the precipices to the sea was cleared for the breadfruit, the taro,
the cocoanut, and other life-giving growths, which sowed themselves
and asked no cultivation. Now, except for the faint trail, I was on
primeval ground, from all appearances.

The canon grew narrower and darker. The undefined path lay inches
deep in water, and the levels were shallow swamp. Nature was in vast
luxuriance, in a revel of aloofness from human beings, casting its
wealth of blazing colors and surprising shapes upon every side. We slid
down the edge of the hill to the burn, where the massive boulders and
shattered rocks were camouflaged by the painting of moss and lichen,
the ginger, turmeric, caladium, and dracaena, and by the overhanging
palms covered with the rich bird's-nest ferns.

We sat again in this wild garden of the tropic to invite our souls
to drink the beauty and quietude, the absence of mankind and the
nearness of nature. We became very still, and soon heard the sounds
of bird and insect above the lower notes of the brawling stream.

The princess put her finger on her lips and whispered in my ear:

"Do you hear the warbling of the omamao and the olatare? They are
our song-birds. They are in these high valleys only, for the mina has
frightened them from below--the mina that came with the ugly Chinese."

"Noanoa Tiare," said I, "you Tahitians are the birds of paradise
of the human family. You have been driven from the rich valleys of
your old life to hills of bare existence by the minas of commerce
and politics. I feel like apologizing for my civilization."

She pressed my hand.

"Taisez-vous!" she replied, smiling. "Aita peapea. I am always
happy. Remember I still live in Tahiti, and this is my time. My
foremothers' day is past. Allons! We will be soon at the vaimato,
and there we will have the dejeuner."

As we moved on I saw that the yellow flowers of the purau, dried
red by the sun,--poultices for natives' bruises,--and candlenuts in
heaps,--torches ready to hand,--littered the moss.

The mountain l