But a ship, never; they are too large, these southern seas; there are no meetings there. Once, however, we came across a little oceanic island surrounded by a white belt of coral. Some women who dwelt there approached in canoes, and the captain allowed them to clamber on board, guessing why they had come. They all had admirable figures, eyes of true savages, scarcely opened and fringed with very heavy lashes, and teeth of wonderful whiteness which their laugh revealed to their whole extent. On their skin, which was of the colour of reddish copper, were very complicated tattooings resembling a network of blue lace. Their passage had broken for a day the continence which the sailors preserved. And then the island, barely seen, had vanished with its white beach and its green palms, a very little thing amid the immense desert of the waters, and we thought of it no more. But there was no boredom on board. The days were quite adequately filled with duties and amusements. At certain hours, on certain days fixed in advance, the sailors were allowed to open the canvas sacks in which their treasures were stored (it was known as "getting out the sacks"). Then they spread out all their little belongings, which had been folded inside with a comical care, and the deck of the _Primauguet_ took on all at once the appearance of a bazaar. They opened their needle-work boxes, and sewed little patches very neatly on holes in their clothes, which the continual play of strong muscles soon wore out. There were some of them who stripped to the skin and sat gravely mending their shirts; others, who pressed their big collars in a rather extraordinary way (by sitting on them for a long time); others who took from their writing cases poor little faded yellow papers, bearing the postmarks of remote little corners of Brittany or of the Basque country, and settled down to read: they were letters from mothers, sisters, sweethearts, who dwelt in villages at the other side of the earth. And, later on, at the sound of a particular whistle, which signified: "Pack up the sacks!" all this disappeared as by enchantment, folded, packed and re-consigned once more to the bottom of the hold, in the numbered lockers which the terrible sergeants-at-arms came and locked with little iron chains. Looking at them, one might have been deceived by their wise and patient airs, if one had not known them better; seeing them so absorbed in these occupations of little girls, in these unpackings of dolls, it was impossible to imagine what these same young men might become capable of once they were allowed on shore. There was only one hour of inevitable melancholy; it was when the evening prayer had been said, when the Bretons had finished making the sign of the cross and the sun had set: at that hour, assuredly, many of them thought of home.