"The people have quite abandoned the manufacture of _tappa_, or native cloth, and dress entirely in goods of European make. They have learned how to distil intoxicating liquor from the orange, and this delicious fruit threatens to be a curse to them instead of a blessing. They have given up tattooing, which was never practised to so great an extent as in the Marquesas; there would be no use for tattooing now, as they have all taken to wearing clothes just as in the Sandwich Islands.
"As to the products of the islands," continued Frank, "they consist principally of cocoanut-oil and coppra (the dried substance of the cocoanut, from which oil is extracted after its arrival in Europe), arrow-root, cotton, sugar, and mother-of-pearl shells. The cotton cultivation has not been profitable; and as to the trade in sugar, it has not been anywhere nearly so successful as in the Sandwich Islands."
"You have omitted one thing from your list of products," said Doctor Bronson, as Frank paused. "You have made no mention of beche-de-mer."
"That's so," was the reply; "but the fact is, I wanted to learn more about it than I know now."
"I thought so," said the Doctor, smiling, "and so I've arranged that we will go to the reef to-morrow morning to see how beche-de-mer is taken. We must make an early start, so as to be there at daylight."
Further talk about the Society Islands was indefinitely postponed, and the party adjourned to bed. All were up in ample season on the morrow for the excursion to the reef.
The best time for visiting the reef is at low tide. The tides in the Society Islands differ from those in most parts of the world, by never varying from one day to another throughout the year. At noon and at midnight is the height of the flood, and at six o'clock morning and evening is the lowest of the ebb. Ordinarily the rise is about two feet; periodically twice a year there comes a tidal-wave that breaks over the reef with great violence, and sweeps across the lagoon to the shore.
Frank and Fred sought an explanation of this tidal peculiarity, but were unable to obtain a satisfactory one. A resident of Papéiti said the tides were so certain in their movements that many people were able to tell the time of day very nearly by a glance at the reef.