ABSTRACT
Rarahu, in a fit of exasperation had called me a long lizard without feet, and just at first I had not quite understood. The serpent being a creature absolutely unknown in Polynesia, the half-breed who had educated Rarahu, to explain to her the form under which the devil had tempted the first woman, had made use of this description. So Rarahu was in the habit of thinking of the long lizard without feet as the most wicked and dangerous of terrestrial creatures, and that was why she had flung the words in my teeth.
