urrounded by four mountains unequally raised up--Tetufera, Urufaa,
Purahu, and Terouotupo. It is half a mile long and a third wide,
of curious shape, the banks making it appear in the dusk like a babe
in swaddling-clothes with its arms outside the band. A great natural
reservoir, fed by many subterranean springs, it gives birth to many
others at the feet of the mountains, in Mataiea and Papeari.

After a repast, it being already late, we built a house to sleep in
away from the dews of the heights, and Tiura recalled that the first
Pomare took his name from a time when he had spent the night here and
coughed from the exposure. His followers had spoken of the po mare,
meaning literally, night cough, and the euphony pleased the king so
that he adopted the name and bequeathed it to four successors. All
these Polynesians took their names at birth or later from incidents
in their own or others' lives, as my own chief's--"Deal Coffin," from
a relative being buried in a sailor's chest; "Press Me" because the
chief so named had heard these as the last word uttered by a dying
grandchild, and Dim Sight because his grandfather had weak eyes.

Taata Mata, the name of a charming Tahitian woman I knew, signifies
"Man's Eye," her own large eyes, perhaps, explaining the name, and
Mauu, the name borne by a Tahitian man of good family in Papeete,
"Moist." In all Polynesia one found picture names for people, as among
the American Indians, and as among all nations, though with Europeans
the meanings are forgotten. Moses means "Pulled out of the Water," or
"Water Baby." Some of our names of people and places have ridiculous
import in Tahiti. I remember Lovaina laughed immoderately, and called
all the maids to view a line in the Tiare Hotel register in which a
man had put himself down from "Omaha."

After we had eaten, we sat smoking in the darkness, I feeling very
close to the blue field of stars. In the tropics the mountains, even
so low as these, are impressive of a vast harmony of nature and of
kinship with the force that rumpled them with its mighty hand. They
have always inspired great thoughts. Moses framed in the mountains
the ten taboos of Israel, which we hold as sacred as did the chosen
people. Jesus made the mountains the seat of his most important acts,
and was there transfigured in glory.

We had been pointed out by Tiura a great crack in the precipice,
called Apoo Taria, the "Hole of the Ears." In the bloody struggles
of th