[Illustration: A Tahitian Lady.]

After breakfast, and a chat, and an examination of the photograph
books, &c., we all landed, and went to see Messrs. Brander's stores,
where all sorts of requisites for fitting out ships and their crews
can be procured. It is surprising to find how plentiful are the
supplies of the necessaries and even the luxuries of civilised life in
this far-away corner of the globe. You can even get _ice_ here, for
the manufacture of which a retired English infantry officer has set up
an establishment with great success. But what interested me most were
the products of this and the neighbouring islands. There were tons of
exquisitely tinted pearl shells, six or eight inches in diameter,
formerly a valuable article of commerce, but now worth comparatively
little. The pearls that came out of them had unfortunately been sent
away to Liverpool--1,000_l_. worth by this morning's, and 5,000_l_ by
the last mail-ship. Then there was vanilla, a most precarious crop,
which needs to be carefully watered and shaded from the first moment
it is planted, and which must be gathered before it is ripe, and dried
and matured in a moist heat, between blankets and feather-beds, in
order that the pods may not crack and allow the essence to escape. We
saw also edible fungus, exported to San Francisco, and thence to Hong
Kong, solely for the use of the Chinese; tripang, or _bêche-de-mer_, a
sort of sea-slug or holothuria, which, either living or dead, fresh or
dried, looks equally untempting, but is highly esteemed by the
Celestials; coprah, or dried cocoa-nut kernels, broken into small
pieces in order that they may stow better, and exported to England and
other parts, where the oil is expressed and oil-cake formed; and
various other articles of commerce. The trade of the island is fast
increasing, the average invoice value of the exports having risen from
8,400_l_ in 1845 to 98,000_l_ in 1874. These totals are exclusive of