Noanoa Tiare said that the guava had its merits. Horses and cattle
ate its leaves and fruit, and the wood was a common fuel throughout
Tahiti. The fruit was delicious, and in America or England would be
all used for jelly, but only Lovaina preserved it. The passion-flowers
of the granadilla vines, white and star-like, with purpling centers,
were intermingled with the guavas, a brilliant and aromatic show,
the fruit like miniature golden pumpkins. Their acid, sweetish pulp
contained many seeds, each incased in white jelly. One ate the seeds
only, though the pulp, when cooked, was palatable.

The road dwindled into a narrower path, and then a mere trail. The
road had crossed the brook many times on frail bridges, some tottering
and others only remnants. Habitations ceased, and we were in a dark,
splendid gorge, narrow, and affording one no vision straight ahead
except at intervals.

The princess named many of the growths we passed, and explained their
qualities. The native is very close to the ground. The lantana, with
its yellow and magenta flowerets, umbrella ferns, and aihere, the herbe
de vache, and the bohenia, used by the Tahitians for an eye lotion,
were all about. Palms, with cocoanuts of a half dozen stages of growth,
and giant banana-plants lined the banks, and bushes with blue flowers
like violets, and one with red buttons, intermingled with limes and
oranges to form a thicket through which we could hardly force our way.

We were yet on the level of the rivulet, but now, the princess said,
must take to the cliff. We had come to a pool which in symmetry and
depth, in coolness and invitingness, outranked all before. I was very
hot, the beads of perspiration like those in a steamroom.