CHAPTER LXVIII.
A DINNER-PARTY IN IMEEO IT WAS just in the middle of the merry, mellow afternoon that they ushered us to dinner, underneath a green shelter of palm boughs; open all round, and so low at the eaves that we stooped to enter.
Within, the ground was strewn over with aromatic ferns--called "nahee"-- freshly gathered; which, stirred underfoot, diffused the sweetest odour.

On one side was a row of yellow mats, inwrought with fibres of bark stained a bright red.

Here, seated after the fashion of the Turk, we looked out, over a verdant bank, upon the mild, blue, endless Pacific.

So far round had we skirted the island that the view of Tahiti was now intercepted.
Upon the ferns before us were laid several layers of broad, thick "pooroo" leaves; lapping over, one upon the other.

And upon these were placed, side by side, newly-plucked banana leaves, at least two yards in length, and very wide; the stalks were withdrawn so as to make them lie flat.