h height and magnitude must have been a work of infinite labor and
fatigue. In the center of the summit was the representation of a bird,
carved in wood; close to this was the figure of a fish which was in
stone. This pyramid made part of one side of a wide court or square,
the sides of which were nearly equal; the whole was walled in, and
paved with flat stones.

When we reached the thirty-ninth kilometer-stone we met my host,
Tetuanui, in his one-horse vehicle, inspecting the road. He agreed,
though a little reluctantly, to take us to the marae (pronounced
mah-rye). We turned down a road across a private, neglected property,
and for almost a mile urged the horse through brambles and brush that
had overgrown the way. We were going toward the sea along a promontory,
"the point" upon which Cook's mariners saw the etoa-trees a century
and a half ago, about the time that Americans were seeking separation
from England, before Napoleon had risen to power, and when gentlemen
drank three bottles of port after dinner and took their places under
the table.

"Tooti was in love with Oberea," said the chief. "She was hinaaro
puai."

The expression is difficult to translate, but Sappho and Cleopatra
expressed it in their lives; perhaps ardent in love would be a mild
synonym.

At last, after hard struggles, we reached Point Mahaiatea, the "point"
of Cook, on the bay of Popoti, which swept from it to the beginning
of the valley of Taharuu. The reef was very close to the shore, and
the sea had encroached upon the land, covering a considerable area
of the site of the marae. The waves had torn away the coral blocks,
and they lay in confusion in the water. The beach, too, was paved
with coral fragments, the debris of the temple. Though devastated
thus by time, by the waves, and by the hands of house-, bridge-,
and road-builders, by lime-makers, and iconoclastic vandals, the
marae yet had majesty and an air of mystery. It was not nearly of the
original height, hardly a third of it, and was covered with twisted
and gnarled toa, or ironwood, trees like banians, the etoa of Cook,
and by very tall and broad pandanus, by masses of lantana and other
flowering growths. Tetuanui, Brooke, and I stumbled through these,
and walked about the uneven top, once the floor of the temple.

"Every man in Tahiti brought one stone, and the marae was builded,"
said Tetuanui. "We were many then."

He had not been there in fifty years.

We crawled down