The natives remove the outer husk, just leaving a little piece to serve as a foot for the pale brown cup to rest on.  They then smooth off the top, and you have an elegant vase, something like a mounted ostrich egg in appearance, lined with the snowiest ivory, and containing about three pints of cool sweet water.  Why it is called milk I cannot understand, for it is as clear as crystal, and is always cool and refreshing, though the nut in which it is contained has generally been exposed to the fiercest sun.  In many of the coral islands, where the water is brackish, the natives drink scarcely anything but cocoa-nut milk; and even here, if you are thirsty and ask 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 possible; and, in the meantime, went for a dip in the sea.  But the water was shallow, and the sun made the temperature at least 90 deg., so that our bath was not very refreshing.  On our return we found the table most enticingly laid out, with little scarlet crayfish, embedded in cool green lettuce leaves, fruit of various kinds, good wine and fair bread, all arranged on a clean though coarse tablecloth.  There was also a savoury omelette, so good that Tom asked for a second; when, to our