31701-0195-0002
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3X
People used to imagine of me, "who is the gaunt old man? He walks with his head in the clouds & hasn't been seen to smile." If only they could have seen & heard the tales he unfolded to me.
A spiral of white smoke upon an islet off the bay had aroused my curiosity for weeks past. It appeared every day at sunset. Clearly it was some kind of signal to a watcher on shore, yet no one of the local units could explain it. I visited the island yesterday & the riddle was answered. One of the two native inhabitants I found preparing with coconut fronds a smoke fire. He lit it, & with a bag sent a single dense column of smoke skywards. Across the bay towards my village came answering signal. The boy fed the fire with more leaves & began singing. The [two words illegible] accompanying me told the secret. We'd been witnesing a love call. The boy had fallen in love with one of my marys & this was their customary gesture of a tryst by proxy. It seemed to me a beautiful custom more in keeping with romantic fiction than fact.
Many who left this Bay I envy.
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