Bambridge had worked the charts and Murnau the helm. At some points the coral shelves had glided by only meters from their hull. The shoals churned white water into the air. A fine mist soaked everything. Rainbows bisected their masts.

Once back in open water, they congratulated themselves on their seamanship. Eddy took the wheel. Flying fish appeared off their windward side, following the ship.

They took a ponyback trip over three-thousand-foot mountain passes into the valley of Typee to view the spot where Melville had been held prisoner. Pal was trounced by a wild pig. They made a pilgrimage to Gauguin’s grave at Atuona. On the gravestone someone had scrawled the painter’s words: All that your civilization gives rise to produces only disease.

They were told that the sort of natives they were looking for might be found in Ua-Pou, close by to the south, since it was rocky and infertile and off the usual shipping routes. Sailing south-west to Takapoto, they witnessed the sobering industrial ugliness of the copra trade. They passed waterfront hovels of corrugated iron. On one of the nearby atolls, they had lunch and a paddle around the lagoon with Matisse the painter. He gave Murnau a tour of his makeshift studio. He was amused at Pal’s South Seas adventure: this German dog, on a tour of the tropics. Murnau talked with him about the light and colors. David photographed them in a dugout with Pal and a native boy. Matisse wore a pith helmet for the photo, like Dr. Livingstone.

Matisse was skeptical about their plans, though he thought the islands were full of legends well suited to a photoplay. He mentioned the pearl-fishers who dived despite the peril of sharks; a giant crayfish that was said to seize its victims in its claws and hold them to drown in a nearby lagoon; the wide-eyed conger that lived in the coral caves.

He had run across no one like Spiess. But he’d just arrived himself, after all.

He complained at length about the Chinese merchants.

He gave Murnau a new hat with sombrero-like dimensions.

He was the last stop before Tahiti.

****30 June. 11 p.m. Papeete, bathed in a sea of light, rising up out of the black water and a thousand beams.

****1 July. The first full day in Tahiti, and things could not be worse. The production is at a standstill. Flaherty met us at the quay and welcomed us to Tahiti. He asked after his brother’s asthma and announced that no money had been forwarded to meet them. The entire company has apparently lived on credit for the last two months.