Early next day, when Taura came to demand half a dozen axes for his men, I did my first bit of trading. Then I closed the store, and Marama and I went with the canoe-builders to select their trees in the valley far up among the mountains. We followed the river up from the bay toward Faaroa, the great central valley of the island. A dim path, along which we walked in single file, led through the jungle, winding about the trunks of fallen trees, across the rushing, waist-deep stream, high along the mountain-side, at a place where the valley became a gorge. I saw thickets of _fei_, the wild plantain, bearing great bunches of its reddish fruit; jungle cock crowed shrilly among the hills; and once a troop of wild pig, led by a gray old boar, crashed off, grunting, through the undergrowth. It was strange to think that only three generations had passed since Marama's ancestors, fierce brown warriors armed with rude ironwood clubs and spears, had stolen along this same path on forays against neighboring clans. The wild hibiscus seldom grows large enough to furnish a log for a twenty-foot canoe, and it took us the best part of the day to choose our trees. All were close enough to be dragged to the river and floated down to Faatemu, and while the work was going on Marama and I went out every day with the men. First of all, the tree was felled and the branches chopped off smoothly, flush with the trunk. Then a twenty-foot length was measured along the straightest part of the tree and the ends cut off, before the log was rolled and dragged to the riverside. Finally, when our fifteen logs were ready, it took a strenuous day's work, pushing over shallow reaches and swimming through deep pools, to float them to the beach.