"One day, after a period of low tides, I saw another method of fishing—rarely practised nowadays—an ora, or fish-poisoning picnic. You know the barringtonia, probably—the big tree from which they make their drums; it grows on all the high islands, and sometimes one finds it on the richer atolls. There were a few on Mataora. Ever notice the flower? It is a lovely thing—a tassel of silky cream-colored stamens, shading to old rose at the ends, and tipped with golden beads. The fruit is odd-looking, like a squarish pomegranate, and it has odd properties, for when pounded up and put into shallow water it seems to stupefy the fish.
"I was sitting in the shade beside Tari's house when a boy came through the settlement, blowing melancholy blasts on a conch shell and announcing that the chief wanted everyone to be on hand that afternoon at a certain part of the lagoon, where an ora was to be held. We set out at noon, the women carrying the crushed seeds of the barringtonia in hastily woven baskets of green coconut frond. A crowd from the other settlements was awaiting our arrival; and when the babies had been put to sleep in the shade, with small children stationed beside them to fan away the flies, the fun began. A shallow stretch of lagoon lay before us, half a mile long by a quarter wide, and into this plunged the women and girls, wading and swimming in all directions, trailing behind them their baskets of poison. As time went on, a faint and curious odor began to rise from the water—a smell which reminded me vaguely of potassium cyanide. Soon the spearmen were busy—wild brown figures, naked except for scarlet loin cloths—pursuing the half-stupefied fish among the crevices of the coral. Before the effect of the poison wore off and the reviving fish began to make their escape to deeper water the men were returning to the beach, the strings of hibiscus bark at their belts loaded and dragging.
"On another day I joined a party of young people for a picnic across the lagoon. It was glassy calm; the water was like a mirror in which the palms of the wooded islets were reflected with motionless perfection. The beaches on the far side, invisible on an ordinary day, seemed to rise far out of water in the mirage. We landed on an uninhabited island, hauled up our canoes, and set out on a hunt for coconut crabs.
"They are extraordinary creatures, these crabs, enormous, and delicious to eat. You will not find many on the high islands; but in a place like Mataora there are hundreds of them, and they do a lot of damage to the coconuts. During the day they hide in their holes, deep among the roots of some big trees; at night they come out, climb the palms, nip off the nuts with their powerful claws, descend to the ground, tear off the husks, break open the shells, and devour the meat. To catch them, one can either dig them out or build a fire at the mouth of the hole, which never fails to draw them. Fire simply fascinates the brutes. They must be handled warily, for their claws can grip like a pair of pipe tongs and shear off a man's finger without an effort.
"We lit a fire under the shade of a puka tree and liberated the crabs we had captured. It sounds incredible, but they walked into the fire, and sat down quietly on the embers to roast! One of the boys climbed a palm and brought us some coconuts of a variety called nu mangaro, with an edible husk, sweet and fibrous, like sugar cane. After lunch we had a swim in the deep water close inshore and lay about smoking while the girls wove us wreaths of sweet fern. It was an idyllic sort of a day.
"I spent five months on Mataora. At first, when the schooner did not appear, I was worried and used to fret a little; but as time went on I grew to like the easy-going, dreamy life, and when at last a schooner came to take me off I didn't know whether to be glad or sorry—there were moments when I almost decided to send for a few things and follow the example of old Ruri.
"During those five months I knew more disinterested kindliness than I had supposed existed in the world; my heart warmed to the people of Mataora.
"Finally the day came when the schooner dropped anchor in the lee of the village—Whitmore's Tureia. Canoe after canoe shot out through the surf; the women gathered in the shade of the canoe houses on the beach, awaiting the landing of the boatmen, who would bring news of husbands diving for shell in distant lagoons, or relatives scattered among far-off groups of islands. As I shook hands with Whitmore I heard a prolonged wailing from the village—the tangi of a new widow.
"When I went to the house to get my things together Tari informed me that, as the schooner would not leave till next day, the people were preparing a farewell feast in my honor. It was held in the assembly house of the village, decorated with arches of palm frond, garlands of scented fern, and the scarlet flowers of the hibiscus. Everyone brought a gift for the departing stranger—a fan, a hat, a pearl fishhook, a drinking cup of ornamented coconut shell, a carved paddle of porcupine wood inlaid with mother-of-pearl. I distributed what little I had to offer, wishing it were a dozen times as much.
"On the beach next morning the people of Mataora gathered for a last handclasp; smile cynically if you will—there were tears shed; I wasn't too happy myself when I heard their plaintive song of farewell floating out across the water."