ghts,
living on roots and on birds they snared. In the end they went to
Motopu. They were well received, for the Tahuata warriors thought a
god had aided them, and they and their children lived long there."

Ugh! smiled reminiscently as if his thoughts were returning from
pleasant things, and clapped his hands as a signal for reembarking.

The bowls of food remaining were tied in baskets of leaves and hung
in the banian tree to await the boatsmen's return for the night,
the steersman was carried to his place, and the boat pushed through
the surf.

A gaunt shark swam close to the reefs as we rowed out, a hungry,
ill-looking monster. One of the bottles of rum the oarsmen had drunk
on the way to Hana Hevane, the other was stored for their return,
and to gain a third the son of Ugh! offered to go overboard and tie
a rope to the shark's tail, which is the way natives often catch them.
A shark was not worth a liter of rum, I said, being in no mind to
risk the limbs of a man in such a sport. Besides, I had no more to
give away. I could imagine the rage of Seventh Man Who Wallows
should he learn of my wasting in such foolishness what would keep us
both warm if it rained.

As we caught the wind a flock of _koio_ came close to us in their
search for fish. The black birds were like a cloud; there must have
been fifty thousand of them, and flying over us they completely cut
off the sunlight, like a dark storm. If they had taken a fancy to
settle on us they must have smothered us under a feathered avalanche.
Ugh! was startled and amazed that the birds should come so close,
and all raised an uproar of voices and waved arms and oars in the air,
to frighten them off. They passed, the sun shone upon us again, and
in a sparkling sea we made our way past Iva Iva Iti and Iva Iva Nui,
rounding a high green shore into the bay of Vait-hua.

The mountains above the valley loomed like castellated summits of
Italy, so like huge stone fortresses that one might mistake them for
such from the sea. The tiny settlement reaching from the beach half
a mile up the glen was screened by its many trees.

The whaleboat slid up to a rocky ledge, and my luggage and I were
put ashore. Exploding Eggs, who had insisted on accompanying me,
took it into his charge, and with it balanced on his shoulders we
sauntered along the road to the village where the French gendarme had
lost his nose to the mad _namu_-drinker.

CHAPTER VII

Idyllic valley of V