CHAPTER IV

Anchorage of Taha-Uka; Exploding Eggs, and his engagement as valet;
inauguration of the new governor; dance on the palace lawn.


As we approached Hiva-oa the giant height of Temetiu slowly lifted
four thousand feet above the sea, swathed in blackest clouds. Below,
purple-black valleys came one by one into view, murky caverns of
dank vegetation. Towering precipices, seamed and riven, rose above
the vast welter of the gray sea.

Slowly we crept into the wide Bay of Traitors and felt our way into
the anchorage of Taha-Uka, a long and narrow passage between
frowning cliffs, spray-dashed walls of granite lashed fiercely by
the sea. All along the bluffs were cocoanut-palms, magnificent,
waving their green fronds in the breeze. Darker green, the mountains
towered above them, and far on the higher slopes we saw wild goats
leaping from crag to crag and wild horses running in the upper
valleys.

A score or more of white ribbons depended from the lofty heights,
and through the binoculars I saw them to be waterfalls. They were
like silver cords swaying in the wind, and when brought nearer by
the glasses, I saw that some of them were heavy torrents while others,
gauzy as wisps of chiffon, hardly veiled the black walls behind them.

The whole island dripped. The air was saturated, the decks were wet,
and along the shelves of basalt that jutted from the cliffs a