have to pay our fares here and now! Perhaps they thought we'd be too drunk by the time we'd arrive at the bar and that we wouldn't pay our fares. Anyway it was all rather bewildering. The two drivers stood, one on either side of the windowless wagon, and with great haste collected the money. The chirpy younger members of the party were so bemused with liquor that they handed out their money with reckless generosity. I was flabbergastered! I think I was a little befuddled too; for we had passed the bottle round. I got out of the wagon and I stormed up to the drivers, as though I was doing a Maori haka: “I think this is disgusting! We haven't reached the bar yet. Why collect the money now?” Whether they understood me or not, I don't know. I only remember that I grabbed all the money that they were holding and even succeeded in producing some they had already pocketed. My husband, a more experienced traveller than I am, came at this stage to sooth my indignant feathers. “Now, now,” he said, “Don't be too hasty. Keep calm.” Together we counted the dirty notes and administered justice. The balance we distributed to the passengers amidst much laughter and merriment. Once arrived at our destination, we enjoyed more dancing, beer and vigorous music, till we were a group of very tired people who wisely departed at a time when it looked as looked as though we too would get involved in a boxing match between seamen and taxi drivers. The incident over the taxi fares was never forgotten by my fellow passengers. Particularly the men came up repeatedly and complimented me: “Remember Tahiti? Gee, you were great. You fixed those taxi drivers. We wouldn't have known what to do without you.” There was much sighing from the men as we left Tahiti. “No, the women on board are not as beautiful! Can't tell you why. No, they're not the same.” My husband and I both sighed because in Tahiti we had found beauty—the sun, the women, a people with a great charm. We had no need of our faded garlands. We had a memory.

PEOPLE AND THEIR TALK And crowds become faces and faces become individuals, with whom you meet and talk and become familiar. You begin to know how some people think and how they feel or react to certain topics of conversation. With some companions conversation is stimulating, with some it is pleasant, and with others it is limited to the weather, gossip, and grumbling. On a boat you cannot avoid meeting the latter but at least you have a choice of attaching yourself to those who most interest you. There are days when you feel like a jelly fish—no bones, no living flesh, just a mass of floating, unthinking protoplasm. On such occasions you seek the company of the controversial thinker, who soon shakes you out of this limpid state of mind. Suddenly we discovered we had nothing to read. So far we had not missed the companionship of a book, but as we felt pleasantly relaxed we longed for the printed page. We browsed through the ship's library but found little to satisfy our curiosity. One morning I saw my husband speak to a well-built gentleman who was reading a volume of short stories by Somerset Maughan, just the kind of reading for a boat. We borrowed the book and this made a contact which led to a friendship. Our new friend is a professor of classics from a New Zealand university, on leave for a year. Beneath his rather awesome curiosity we discovered a great simplicity. He loved to dance and sing, so at least we had a common ground of conversation if intellectual topics grew rather weighty. He also loved drinking, and when he was merry, he'd sit on the deck and recite a few lines from Virgil, or tell us of the wonderful age of Greek supremacy, or he'd compose a poem and never quite succeed. There was another face which fascinated us. He was a Dutchman, full of life and successful in business. He was always ready for an argument about religion or the colour-bar or the exploitation of the black man by the white. I remember one night; we were almost ready to go to bed when he came up to wish us goodnight. Somehow an argument developed over communism. A young New Zealand girl had expressed her admiration for communism, and an Englishman who had recently entered the Roman Catholic church was shocked. There was a man from East Germany at the table too. He supported her by commenting that as far as he was concerned beliefs did not matter very much as long as people's material wants were satisfied. Somehow the argument went astray when the East German replied to someone else: “I like all people no matter what colour or creed.” This comment was rapidly taken up by our Dutch friend: “Ah! You tell me you like all people no matter what colour or creed. Now, would you agree to your son marrying a negro?” The answer came rather haltingly. “Well, I'd say to my son, ‘It's your life, please yourself’,” “That's not what I meant,” said the Dutchman, “Would you welcome the idea?” “I don't know,” was the honest reply of the German. Sometimes I liked our Dutch friend, sometimes I didn't. He was so insistent in his own logic that your own convictions about certain things—perhaps religion or corpulency—started to lost shape. (For him corpulency was the outward sign of laziness and helplessness, of passive acceptance of what life brings.) My husband always sought his company when life was a little dull. Our Dutch friend was an extreme egotist. I couldn't help but admire him; he knew his own mind. At the same time it irritated me that he