Waimanu had turned out to meet us about thirty people on horseback,
all of whom shook hands with me, and some of them threw over me
garlands of ohia, pandanus, and hibiscus. Where our cavalcade
entered the river, a number of children and dogs and three canoes
awaited us, and thus escorted I returned triumphantly to the house.
The procession on the river of paddling canoes, swimming children,
and dogs, and more than thirty riders, with their feet tucked up
round their horses' necks, all escorting a "pale face," was
grotesque and enchanting, and I revelled in this lapse into
savagery, and enjoyed heartily the kindliness and goodwill of this
unsophisticated people.
When darkness spread over the valley, clear voices ascended in a
weird recitative, the room filled up with people, pipes circulated
freely, poi was again produced, and calabashes of cocoa-nut milk.
The meles were long, and I crept within my curtain and lay down, but
the drowsiness which legitimately came over me after riding thirty
miles and wading two, was broken in upon by two monstrous
cockroaches really as large as mice, with fierce-looking antennae
and prominent eyes, both of which mounted guard on my pillow. On
rising to drive them away, I found to my dismay that they were but
the leaders of a host, which only made a temporary retreat, rustling
over the mat and dried grass with the crisp tread of mice, and
scaring away sleep for some hours.
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