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This was the very same Pablo on whose feet Tonio had put the lizard. He was Pedro's son. Pedro was loading the boat with bundles of reeds. They were the reeds used for weaving the petates or sleeping-mats. The reeds grew all about the lake, but the people in the town could not easily get them, so Pedro had gathered a supply to sell to them. The boat was quite large.
In addition to her eight or ten Kanaka sea men, her white captain, mate, and supercargo, and her six cabin passengers, she sailed from Rangiroa with something like eighty-five deck passengers Paumotuans and Tahitians, men, women, and children, each with a trade-box, to say nothing of sleeping-mats, blankets, and clothes-bundles.
These hunters go out frequently on long expeditions, taking in their canoes their wives and children, cooking-pots, and sleeping-mats. When they reach a good game district, they erect temporary huts on the bank, and there dry the meat they have killed.
Then all around us, stowed in every conceivable place, were bundles of young drinking coco-nuts, husked and unhusked, taking up a great deal of room, and weighing heavily, and three or four rolls of sleeping-mats, presented to Niâbon, were wedged into the cabin.
In addition to her eight or ten kanaka seamen, her white captain, mate, and supercargo, and her six cabin passengers, she sailed from Rangiroa with something like eighty-five deck passengers Paumotans and Tahitians, men, women, and children each with a trade box, to say nothing of sleeping-mats, blankets, and clothes-bundles.
The furniture of the house consisted of a number of large sleeping-mats, five or six carved wooden stools, and two narrow tables, or rather shelves, of wicker-work, fastened against the wall at opposite sides of the room. Upon one of these were arranged a number of calabashes, carved wooden dishes, cocoa-nut drinking-cups, and other domestic utensils.
The floor was dry, the roof high, and it would have made a good room. And a room in occupation it was; for, now they took stock of it, there were signs of the occupants everywhere a stack of wood in one corner, several karosses rolled up, sleeping-mats, cooking-pots, wooden spoons, a bundle of reeds for arrow-making, and a half-shaped bow, and other odds and ends.
Vanquished Often and my valet were attired as I, and thus we shouted "Kaoha!" to the chieftess and started toward adventure. Seventh Man was dubious about my setting off without some prepared food, popoi or canned fish or biscuits, and without sleeping-mats. "You ketchee hungery by an' soon," he protested. "No got Gold Bed in mountains."
These are sometimes used for basi, but more often they contain broken rice, cotton, or small articles. Above the jars is a rack or hangar on which dishes or coconut shells are placed. At one end of the room a set of pegs, deer horns, or a cord supports a variety of clothes, blankets, a woman's switch, and perhaps a man's belt. The sleeping-mats either hang here or occupy a rack of their own.
The miserable condition of the settlement gave it the name of a living graveyard, which name, I am happy to state, is to-day no longer applicable to our place." In a few days the grass beneath their sleeping-mats began to emit a "very unpleasant vapour."
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