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Not one indigenous tree grew there, not one French flower; nothing but exotic plants, gum trees, calabashes, cotton trees, coconut palms, mangos, bananas, cactuses, figs and a baobab. One might have thought oneself in the middle of Africa, thousands of miles from Tarascon.
The candlenut, the ama, with its lilac bloom, the hibiscus and pandanus, green and glossy, the petavii, a kind of banana the curving fronds of which spread high in air, the snake-plant, makomako, a yellow-flowered shrub, and many others none of us could name, carpeted the farther mountain-sides with brilliant colors. Everywhere were cocoanuts, guavas, and mangos.
The country here, though elevated, is, from the nature of the soil and formation, much more fertile than what I had left. Water is abundant, both in tanks and wells, and rice-fields, broad and productive, cover the ground; while groves of tamarinds and mangos, now loaded with blossoms, occur at every village.
It is 272 acres in extent, has a large number of ponds and lakes, and many fine avenues of palms, mahogany, mangos, tamarinds, plantains and other trees, and its greatest glory is a banyan tree which is claimed to be the largest in the world.
It is still famous for the size and excellence of its mangos, which ripen late in May; but this year the crop had been destroyed by the damp heats of spring, the usual north-west dry winds not having prevailed.
Around this toothpick-holder are placed glass fruit-trays from which rise pyramids of oranges, lansons, ates, chicos, and even mangos in spite of the fact that it is November. On wide platters upon bright-hued sheets of perforated paper are to be seen hams from Europe and China, stuffed turkeys, and a big pastry in the shape of an Agnus Dei or a dove, the Holy Ghost perhaps.
Although our time here was so short, we had an opportunity of knowing that this island produced cocoa-nuts, yams, plantains, bananas, sugar-cane, beetle-nut, mangos, bread-fruit, and guavas. Most of the natives chew the beetle, and with it used the chenam and a leaf, as practised in the East-Indies; by which the mouth appeared very red, and their teeth, after a time, became black.
Often the pave is a spatter of the fallen mangos, its slippery condition of no import to the barefooted Tahitian, but to the shod a cause of sudden, strange gyrations and gestures, and of irreverence toward the Deity.
The scene was at that time very animated groups of men, women, and children, were to be seen staggering under a load of coconuts, wading out to the boats, scrambling to be first served, and shouting out to attract attention to their wares, which in addition included some tortoise-shell, a few yams, bananas and mangos.
He would stay with them until he completed his task, rural, sodden and destitute as they were, no doubt sleeping on the planks of a wooden shack if not on a dirt floor once again, drinking boiled tea colored tap water or worse mixed with lemon juice, eating once a day as they did, consuming rice with fish sauce or salt sometimes mixed with an ant egg curry and a few boiled vegetables purchased cheaply as they were on the verge of rotting, somtam, chicken, noodles, boiled eggs, sticky rice and mangos of the more wealthy almost as exotic as French cuisine, and out of respect to them ostentatious, flickering gold would no longer adorn his brown skin to replace his slave collar of plaited noodles and in lieu of the yellow plastic wrist band of mindless King Rama myrmidons who also wore yellow T-shirts with royal insignias on Mondays and Fridays the thousand dollar wrist watch would have to be deposited obscurely into his luggage.
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