Dr Coutras was an old Frenchman of great stature and exceeding bulk.His body was shaped like a huge ducks egg;and his eyes,sharp,blue,and goodnatured,rested now and then with selfsatisfaction on his enormous paunch.His complexion was florid and his hair white.He was a man to attract immediate sympathy.He received us in a room that might have been in a house in a provincial town in France,and the one or two Polynesian curios had an odd look.He took my hand in both of his－they were huge－and he gave me a hearty look,in which,however,was great shrewdness.When he shook hands with Capitaine Brunot he inquired politely after Madame et les enfants. For some minutes there was an exchange of courtesies and some local gossip about the island,the prospects of copra and the vanilla crop;then we came to the object of my visit.

　　I shall not tell what Dr Coutras related to me in his words,but in my own,for I cannot hope to give at second hand any impression of his vivacious delivery.He had a deep,resonant voice,fitted to his massive frame,and a keen sense of the dramatic.......