Vanquished Often, slipping from her white tunic, stepped beneath the
stream of crystal water and laughed at the cool delight of it on her
smooth skin. It was a picture of which artist's dream, the naked
girl laughing in the torrents of transparent water, the wet crimson
blossoms washing from her drowned hair, and beneath the striped
shade of the palm-trunks her simple, savage companions waiting their
turn, squatting on the sand or crowded on the canoe, their loins
wrapped in crimson and blue and yellow _pareus_. Behind them all the
mountains rose steeply, a mass of brilliant green jungle growth, and
before them, across the rim of shining white sand, spread the wide
blue sea.

Courtesy suggested that I should be next to feel the refreshing
torrent. We let slip the garment of timorous covering very easily
when nudity is commonplace. Vait-hua was to teach me to be modest
without pother, to chat with those about me during my ablutions
without concern for the false vanities of screens or even the
shelter of rocks as in the river in Atuona. In such scenes one
perceives that immodesty is in the false shame that makes one cling
to clothes, rather than in the simple virtues that walk naked and
unashamed.

Tacitus recites that chastity was a controlling virtue among the
Teutons, ranking among women as bravery among men, yet all Teutons
bathed in the streams together. In Japan both sexes bathe in public
in natural hot pools, and that without diffidence. The Japanese,
though a people of many clothes, regard nudity with indifference,
but use garments to conceal the contour of the human form, while we
are horrified by nakedness and yet use dress to enhance the form,
especially to emphasize the difference between sexes. Our women's