for a glass of water, you are almost always presented with a cocoa-nut
instead.

From Punauia onwards the scenery increased in beauty, and the foliage
was, if possible, more luxuriant than ever. The road ran through
extensive coffee, sugar-cane, Indian corn, orange, cocoa-nut, and
cotton plantations, and vanilla, carefully trained on bamboos, growing
in the thick shade. Near Atimaono we passed the house of a great
cotton planter, and, shortly afterwards, the curious huts, raised on
platforms, built by some islanders he has imported from the Kingsmill
group to work his plantations. They are a wild, savage-looking set,
very inferior to the Tahitians in appearance. The cotton-mills, which
formerly belonged to a company, are now all falling to ruin; and in
many other parts of the island we passed cotton plantations uncleaned
and neglected, and fast running to seed and waste. So long as the
American war lasted, a slight profit could be made upon Tahitian
cotton, but now it is hopeless to attempt to cultivate it with any
prospect of adequate return.

The sun was now at its height, and we longed to stop and bathe in one
of the many fresh-water streams we crossed, and afterwards to eat our
lunch by the wayside; but our Chinese coachman always pointed onwards,
and said, 'Eatee much presently; horses eatee too.' At last we arrived
at a little house, shaded by cocoa-nut trees, and built in an
enclosure near the sea-shore, with 'Restaurant' written up over the
door. We drove in, and were met by the proprietor, with what must have
been rather an embarrassing multiplicity of women and children about
his heels. The cloth was not laid, but the rooms looked clean, and
there was a heap of tempting-looking fish and fruit in a corner. We
assured him we were starving, and begged for luncheon as soon as