y-gathered leaves, formed a delightful couch.

Here I often lay for hours, covered with a gauze-like veil of tappa,
while Fayaway, seated beside me, and holding in her hand a fan woven
from the leaflets of a young cocoanut bough, brushed aside the insects
that occasionally lighted on my face, and Kory-Kory, with a view of
chasing away my melancholy, performed a thousand antics in the water
before us.

As my eye wandered along this romantic stream, it would fall upon the
half-immersed figure of a beautiful girl, standing in the transparent
water, and catching in a little net a species of diminutive shell-fish,
of which these people are extraordinarily fond. Sometimes a chattering
group would be seated upon the edge of a low rock in the midst of the
brook, busily engaged in thinning and polishing the shells of cocoanuts,
by rubbing them briskly with a small stone in the water, an operation
which soon converts them into a light and elegant drinking vessel,
somewhat resembling goblets made of tortoise shell.

But the tranquillizing influence of beautiful scenery, and the
exhibition of human life under so novel and charming an aspect were not
my only sources of consolation.

Every evening the girls of the house gathered about me on the mats, and
after chasing away Kory-Kory from my side--who nevertheless, retired
only to a little distance and watched their proceedings with the most
jealous attention--would anoint my whole body with a fragrant oil,
squeezed from a yellow root, previously pounded between a couple of
stones, and which in their language is denominated 'aka'. And most
refreshing and agreeable are the juices of the 'aka', when applied to
ones, limbs by the soft palms of sweet nymphs, whose bright eyes are
beaming upon you with kindness; and I used to hail with delight the
daily recurrence of this luxurious operation, in which I forgot all my
troubles, and buried for the time every feeling of sorrow.

Sometimes in the cool of the evening my devoted servitor would lead me
out upon the pi-pi in front of the house, and seating me near its edge,
protect my body from the annoyance of the insects which occasionally
hovered in the air, by wrapping me round with a large roll of tappa.
He then bustled about, and employed himself at least twenty minutes in
adjusting everything to secure my personal comfort.

Having perfected his arrangements, he would get my pipe, and, lighting
it, would hand it to me. Often he was obl