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Updated: May 13, 2025
Not only was the mind charmed by the varied details of grove and bay, thicket and grotto, but the eye was attracted irresistibly to the magnificent trees and shrubs which stood prominent in their individuality such as the light and elegant aito-tree; the stately apape, with its branchless trunk and light crown of pale green leaves, resembling those of the English ash; the splendid tamanu, an evergreen, with its laurel-shaped leaves; the imposing hutu-tree, with foliage resembling the magnolia and its large white flowers, the petals of which are edged with bright pink; these and many others, with the feathery palm and several kinds of mimosa lining the seashore, presented a display of form and colour such as the brothers had not up to that time even dreamed of.
The inhabitants of this island also dye yellow with the fruit of the tamanu; but how the colour is extracted, we had no opportunity to discover. They have also a preparation with which they dye brown and black; but these colours are so indifferent, that the method of preparing them did not excite our curiosity.
It would be impossible and cruel, I reflected, to convey to those extravagants in adjectives the richness of herbage and the brilliancy of scene about the isthmus. The vegetation was ampler than anywhere else in Tahiti. The tamanu-, the hotu-, and the mape-trees were in abundance.
The tamanu yields tacamac, a yellow, resinous substance with a strong odor and a bitter, aromatic taste, that is used as incense and in ointments. The Tahitians call the tamanu the healing-tree. It grows just above high water on any kind of shore, embowering, with dark foliage, and peculiarly easeful in midday on the hot sands.
An announcement that the visitors intend to go pigeon shooting is warmly applauded, and each white man is at once provided with a guide, for, unless he has had experience of the Samoan forest, he will return with an empty bag, as, however plentiful the birds may be, their habit of hiding in the branches of the lofty tamanu and masa'oi-trees render them difficult of detection.
Right beside the thatch-covered dwelling of Macy O'Shea, now a man of might, there towers a stately TAMANU tree; and, as the first faint murmur of women's voices arises from the native huts, there is a responsive twittering and cooing in the thickly-leaved branches, and further back in the forest the heavy, booming note of the red-crested pigeon sounds forth like the beat of a muffled drum.
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