No other plant, scarcely a bush, is
to be seen within its precincts. The Broom Road passes through its
entire length.
At noonday, this grove is one of the most beautiful, serene, witching
places that ever was seen. High overhead are ranges of green rustling
arches; through which the sun's rays come down to you in sparkles.
You seem to be wandering through illimitable halls of pillars;
everywhere you catch glimpses of stately aisles, intersecting each
other at all points. A strange silence, too, reigns far and near; the
air flushed with the mellow stillness of a sunset.
But after the long morning calms, the sea-breeze comes in; and
creeping over the tops of these thousand trees, they nod their
plumes. Soon the breeze freshens; and you hear the branches brushing
against each other; and the flexible trunks begin to sway. Toward
evening the whole grove is rocking to and fro; and the traveller on
the Broom Road is startled by the frequent falling of the nuts,
snapped from their brittle stems. They come flying through the air,
ringing like jugglers' balls; and often bound along the ground for
many rods.
CHAPTER LXX.
LIFE AT LOOHOOLOO
FINDING the society at Loohooloo very pleasant, the young ladies, in
particular, being extremely sociable; and, moreover, in love with the
famous good cheer of old Marharvai, we acquiesced in an invitation of
his to tarry a few days longer. We might then, he said, join a small
canoe party which was going to a place a league or two distant. So
averse to all exertion are these people that they really thought the
prospect of thus getting rid of a few miles' walking would prevail
with us, even if there were no other inducement.
The people of the hamlet, as we soon discovered, formed a snug little
community of cousins; of which our host seemed the head. Marharvai,
in truth, was a petty chief who owned the neighbouring lands. And as
the wealthy, in most cases, rejoice in a numerous kindred, the family
footing upon which everybody visited him was, perhaps, ascribable to
the fact of his being the lord of the manor. Like Captain Bob, he was,
in some things, a gentleman of the old school - a stickler for the
customs of a past and pagan age.
Nowhere else, except in Tamai, did we find the manners of the natives
less vitiated by recent changes. The old-fashioned Tahitian dinner
they gave us on the day of our arrival was a fair sample of their
general mode of living.
Our time passed delightfully. The doctor went his way, and I mine.
With a pleasant companion, he was forever strolling inland,
ostensibly to collect botanical specimens; while I, for the most
part, kept near the sea; sometimes taking the girls on an aquatic
excursion in a canoe.
