red and white oleanders. I drew in their perfume as Ori-a-Ori said,
"Ia ora na!" and took and held my hand a moment, while his grave eyes
studied my face in all kindliness.

Choti put him the question of my habitation, and he instantly offered
me either a room in his own house or a small, native building on the
opposite side of the road and nearer the beach. We walked over, and
found it unoccupied. It was a bird-cage, all one room, with a thatch
of pandanus and a floor of dried grass covered with mats. The walls
were of split bamboo, like reeds, and the sun and air penetrated it
through and through; but hanging mats were arranged, one as a door,
and others to keep out the rain. It was exactly suited for sleeping and
lounging purposes, and the chief said that I could cook in a convenient
hut. I brought in my belongings, which included bedding, and in half
an hour was enough at home to dismiss the coachman and his equipage,
and to lie down, as was my wont during the heat of the day. I put my
bed in the doorway, and before I fell into my first sleep at Tautira,
filled my eyes with the blue of the shimmering lagoon and the hoary
line of the reef. I sank into dreams, with the slumbrous roar upon
the coral barrier like the thunder of a sea god's rolling drum.

Chapter XXIII

My life at Tautira--The way I cook my food--Ancient Tahitian
sports--Swimming and fishing--A night hunt for shrimp and eels.

T'yonni and Choti were the only aliens except myself in all Tautira,
nor did others come during my stay. The steamships, spending only
twenty-four hours in Papeete port every four or five weeks, sent no
trippers, and the bureaucrats, traders, and sojourners in Papeete
apparently were not aware of the enchantment at our end of the
island. T'yonni had found Tautira only after four or five voyages
to Tahiti, and Choti had first come as his guest. T'yonni had no art
but that of living, while Choti had studied in Paris, and was bent on
finding in these scenes something strong and uncommon in painting, as
Gauguin, now dead, had found. They lived separately, T'yonni studying
the language and the people,--he had been a master at a boys' school
in the East,--and the artist painting many hours a day. But we three
joined with the villagers in pleasure, and in pulling at the nets in
the lagoon.

The routine of my day was to awake about six o'clock and see the
sun swinging slowly up out of the sea and hesitating a moment on the
level