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Updated: May 19, 2025
Some stragglers, as I said, came to meet our approach; a few still hung about the ship as we departed. The crying died away, the last pair of wings was left behind, and once more the low shores of Kauehi streamed past our eyes in silence like a picture. I supposed at the time that the birds lived, like ants or citizens, concentred where we saw them.
Conceive, on a vast scale, the submerged hoop of the duck-hunter, trimmed with green rushes to conceal his head water within, water without you have the image of the perfect atoll. Conceive one that has been partly plucked of its rush fringe; you have the atoll of Kauehi.
And the sound of the surf accompanied us, now in a drowsy monotone, now with a menacing swing. The isle lay nearly east and west, barring our advance on Fakarava. We must, therefore, hug the coast until we gained the western end, where, through a passage eight miles wide, we might sail southward between Raraka and the next isle, Kauehi.
So that here at Kauehi, as the day before at Taiaro, the Casco sailed by under the fire of unsuspected eyes. And one thing is surely true, that even on these ribbons of land an army might lie hid and no passing mariner divine its presence.
'Land ahead! said the steersman. 'By God, it's Kauehi! cried the mate. And so it was. And with that I began to be sorry for cartographers. But my captain was more sorry for himself to be afloat in such a labyrinth; laid the Casco to, with the log line up and down, and sat on the stern rail and watched it till the morning. He had enough of night in the Paumotus.
By daylight on the 9th we began to skirt Kauehi, and had now an opportunity to see near at hand the geography of atolls.
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