"What do they preach?" I asked Noanoa Tiare.

"Those missionaries, the Tonito? Oh, they speak evil of the Mormons. I
do not know how they speak of God." She laughed. "I am not interested
in religions," she explained. "They are so difficult to understand. Our
own old gods seem easier to know about."

We had arrived at the part of the beach into which the broad avenue
of Fautaua debouched.

The road was beside the stream of Fautaua, and arching it were
magnificent dark-green trees, like the locust-trees of Malta. This
avenue was in the middle of the island, and looking through the
climbing bow of branches I saw Maiauo, the lofty needles of rock
which rise black-green from the mountain plateau and form a tiara,
Le Diademe, of the French. A quarter of an hour's stroll brought us
to a natural basin into which the stream fell. It was of it Louis
Marie Julien Viaud, shortly after he had been christened Loti, wrote:

The pool had numerous visitors every day; beautiful young women of
Papeete spent the warm tropical days here, chatting, singing and
sleeping, or even diving and swimming like agile gold fish. They
went here clad in their muslin tunics, and wore them moist upon their
bodies while they slept, looking like the naiads of the past.

We were already warm from walking, and I, in my pareu and light coat
of pongee silk, looked longingly at the water sparkling in the sun,
but the princess took me by the hand and led me on.