Here, when the tide was high, sailed boats lay to be loaded; when

the tide was low, the boats took ground some half a mile away, and

an endless series of natives descended the pier stair, tailed

across the sand in strings and clusters, waded to the waist with

the bags of copra, and loitered backward to renew their charge.

The mystery of the copra trade tormented me, as I sat and watched

the profits drip on the stair and the sands.

In front, from shortly after four in the morning until nine at

night, the folk of the town streamed by us intermittingly along the

road: families going up the island to make copra on their lands;

women bound for the bush to gather flowers against the evening

toilet; and, twice a day, the toddy-cutters, each with his knife

and shell. In the first grey of the morning, and again late in the

afternoon, these would straggle past about their tree-top business,

strike off here and there into the bush, and vanish from the face

of the earth. At about the same hour, if the tide be low in the

lagoon, you are likely to be bound yourself across the island for a

bath, and may enter close at their heels alleys of the palm wood.

Right in front, although the sun is not yet risen, the east is

already lighted with preparatory fires, and the huge accumulations

of the trade-wind cloud glow with and heliograph the coming day.

The breeze is in your face; overhead in the tops of the palms, its

playthings, it maintains a lively bustle; look where you will,

above or below, there is no human presence, only the earth and

shaken forest. And right overhead the song of an invisible singer

<<BackPagesTo menuNext>>