I felt the end of the great trunk, where the marks of the axe and saw still showed, and struck it with my fist. The wood did indeed seem hard as iron, though it seemed not to be petrified. So far as I could ascertain from the fallen trunk, it was of a species I had never seen.
“Twenty years ago I brought a man of Peretane (England) here to see this tree, and he cut off a piece to take away. No white man has looked on it since that time,” said Strong in Battle. He brought an axe from a man who was dubbing out a canoe from a breadfruit log, and hacked away a chip for me.
We returned to the village and entered an enclosure in which a group of women were squatting around a popoi bowl.
“What does the Menike seek?” they asked.
“He wants to see the footprint of Hoouiti,” said my guide.
On one of the stones of the paepae was a footprint, perfect from heel to toe, and evidently not artificially made.
“Hoouiti stood here when he hurled his spear across the island,” said Strong in Battle. “He was not a big man, as you see by his foot's mark.”
“Fifteen kilometers! A long hurling of a spear,” said I.
“Aue! he was very strong. He lived on this paepae. These whom you see are his children's children. Would you like to meet my wife's father-in-law, Kahuiti? He has eaten many people. He talks well.”
Eo! Would I! I vowed that I would be honored by the acquaintance of any of the relatives of my host, and specially I desired to converse with old, wise men of good taste.