To Terii Tuahu, Dr.,
1 dozen beacon lanterns............at 480 frs....Frs. 480
To Ohiti Poene, Dr.,
12 sacks Lily-Dust flour...........at 300 frs....Frs. 3600
To Low Hung Chin, Dr.,
1 gross Night-King flash lamps.....at 3600 frs...Frs. 3600
The work of checking up finished, we went out for a breath of air. The
atoll lay abeam and still far distant; a faint bluish haze lifted a bare
eighth of an inch above the circle of the horizon. Behind us, rain fell
in a straight wall of water from a single black cloud which cast a deep
shadow over the path we had come. Elsewhere the sky was clear and the
sea the incredible blue of the tropics. Tino broke a long silence.
"Look here," he said. "What is it that interests you in these islands?
I've never known anyone to visit them for pleasure before. Is it the
women, or what?"
Under pressure, I admitted that Nature seemed to have spent her best
effort among the Paumotuans in fashioning the men.
"You're right," said Tino. "The women are healthy enough, of course,
but they don't set your heart beating a hundred to the minute. They
have fine hands and white teeth, and you won't find such black hair in
all the world as you find in these atolls. But that's the size of it.
You can't praise them any further for looks. Maybe you haven't noticed
their ears, because they always cover them up with their hair; but
they're large, and their feet and ankles--tough as sole leather and all
scarred over with coral cuts. That is well enough for the men, but with
the women it's different. Makes you lose your enthusiasm, don't it?"
I had seen a good many striking exceptions in our wanderings, but I
agreed that, in the main, what he said was true.
"Well, if it isn't the women, what else is there to be interested in?
Not the islands themselves? Lord! When you've seen one you've seen the
lot. Living on one of them is like living aboard ship. Not room to
stretch your legs. They're solid enough, and they don't sink; but in a
hurricane I'd a heap rather take my chances out to sea with the
_Winship_ than to be lashed to the stoutest coconut tree in the whole
group. Now you take Rutiaro. It was washed over seventeen years ago and
all but twenty of the people killed. They are back to seventy-five now,
but wait till the next bad blow down that way. They'll drown like rats
just as they did before.
"Well, we won't have to stop long," he added, grouchily. "I'll take
what copra they have and get out. It's a God-forsaken hole. They only
make about twenty-five tons a year. The island could produce three
times that amount under decent management. They're a lazy, independent
lot, at Rutiaro. You can't get 'em to stir themselves."