hats, censers, candlesticks, and cathedrals.
Methought when he looked upon the cardinal's hat a voice said low in his
ear: "Your foot is on the ladder."

Under the guidance of Taniera we were soon installed in what I believe
to have been the best-appointed private house in Fakarava. It stood just
beyond the church in an oblong patch of cultivation. More than three
hundred sacks of soil were imported from Tahiti for the Residency
garden; and this must shortly be renewed, for the earth blows away,
sinks in crevices of the coral, and is sought for at last in vain. I
know not how much earth had gone to the garden of my villa; some at
least, for an alley of prosperous bananas ran to the gate, and over the
rest of the enclosure, which was covered with the usual clinker-like
fragments of smashed coral, not only coco-palms and mikis but also
fig-trees flourished, all of a delicious greenness. Of course there was
no blade of grass. In front a picket fence divided us from the white
road, the palm-fringed margin of the lagoon, and the lagoon itself,
reflecting clouds by day and stars by night. At the back, a bulwark of
uncemented coral enclosed us from the narrow belt of bush and the nigh
ocean beach where the seas thundered, the roar and wash of them still
humming in the chambers of the house.

This itself was of one story, verandahed front and back. It contained
three rooms, three sewing-machines, three sea-chests, chairs, tables, a
pair of beds, a cradle, a double-barrelled gun, a pair of enlarged
coloured photographs, a pair of coloured prints after Wilkie and
Mulready, and a French lithograph with the legend: "_Le brigade du
General Lepasset brulant son drapeau devant Metz._" Under the stilts of
the house a stove was rusting, till we drew it forth and put it in
commission. Not far off was the burrow in the coral whence we supplied
ourselves with brackish water. There was live stock, besides, on the
estate--cocks and hens and a brace of ill-regulated cats, whom Taniera
came every morning with the sun to feed on grated cocoa-nut. His voice
was our regular reveille, ringing pleasantly about the garden:
"Pooty--pooty--poo--poo--poo!"

Far as we were from the public offices, the nearness of the chapel made
our situation what is called eligible in advertisements, and gave us a
side look on some native life. Every morning, as soon as he had fed the
fowls, Taniera set the bell agoing in the small belfry; and the
faithful, who were