Fautaua, and I will show you where the
last of my people perished fighting to drive out the French invader,
and where the French officials fled with the treasure-box when they
feared war with England not very long ago."

She pointed up to the brim of the precipice, where the river launched
itself into the air, to drop six hundred feet before it fed the stream
below. Sheer and menacing the black walls of the crevasse loomed, as if
forbidding approach, but through a network of vines and bushes, over
a path seldom used, we climbed, and after half a mile more of steeps,
reached the fort. Rugged was the way, and we aided each other more
than once, but rejoiced at our effort when we surmounted the summit.

The view was indescribably grand. One felt upon the roof of the
island, though the farther heights of the valley culminated in a
gigantic crag-wall, a saddle only a yard across, and wooded to the
apex, and above that even towered Orohena, nearly a mile and a half
high, and never reached by man despite many efforts. Tropic birds,
the bo's'ns of the sailor, their bodies whitish gray, with their
two long tail-feathers, had their haunt there, and piped above the
trees. The river was a fierce torrent, and leaped into a water-hewn
lava basin, where it swirled and foamed before it rushed, singing,
through a stone funnel to the border of the chasm, and sprang with
a dull roar into the ether.

There was a chorus of sounds from the cataract, the river, the wind,
the trees, and the birds, a mighty music of elements of the earth
and of life, rising and falling rhythmically, and inspiring, but
nerve-racking. Fragrance of the Jasmine seized my hand and held it.

"Let us go to a more peaceful spot, where I can tell you the story,"
she said in my ear. We passed the rough fort, broken-down and mossy,
and moving carefully along the trail, clambering over rocks and
tearing away twigs and broad leaves, we reached a dismantled and
crumbling chalet.

We sat down upon its steps, and I removed my coat and was naked to
my pareu in the afternoon zephyr.

"That fort," said the princess, "was built by the French in the
forties, when they were stealing my country. From it they could
command the gorge of Fautaua and that and other valleys. This place
was the last stronghold of the Tahitian warriors before the enemy
overcame them, and erected the ramparts and the fort. The last man to
die fell by the river basin. The band of heroes would have held