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diff --git a/11400-0.txt b/11400-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..230b2b1 --- /dev/null +++ b/11400-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,15612 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11400 *** +Mystic Isles of the South Seas + +By + +Frederick O'Brien + + + + + + + +Ia Ora Na! + +This is a simple record of my days and nights, my thoughts and dreams, +in the mystic isles of the South Seas, written without authority +of science or exactitude of knowledge. These are merely the vivid +impressions of my life in Tahiti and Moorea, the merriest, most +fascinating world of all the cosmos; of the songs I sang, the dances +I danced, the men and women, white and tawny, with whom I was joyous +or melancholy; the adventures at sea or on the reef, upon the sapphire +lagoon, and on the silver beaches of the most beautiful of tropics. + +In this volume are no discoveries unless in the heart of the human. I +went to the islands below the equator with one thought--to play. All +that I have set down here is the profit of that spirit. + +The soul of man is afflicted by the machine he has fashioned through +the ages to achieve his triumph over matter. In this light chronicle +I would offer the reader an anodyne for a few hours, of transport +to the other side of our sphere, where are the loveliest scenes the +eyes may find upon the round of the globe, the gentlest climate of +all the latitudes, the most whimsical whites, and the dearest savages +I have known. + +"Mystic Isles of the South Seas" precedes in experience my former book, +"White Shadows in the South Seas," and will be followed by "Atolls of +the Sun," which will be the account of a visit to, and a dwelling on, +the blazing coral wreaths of the Dangerous Archipelago, where the +strange is commonplace, and the marvel is the probability of the hour. + +These three volumes will cover the period I spent during three +journeys with the remnants of the most amazing of uncivilized races, +whose discovery startled the old world, and whom another generation +will cease to know. + +Tirara! + +Maru-tané. + +Kaoha, Sausalito, California. + +In this book the reader may be tempted to stumble over some foreign +words. I have put them in only when necessary, to give the color and +rhythm of Tahiti. The Tahitian words are very easily pronounced and +they are music in the mouth of any one who sounds them properly. Every +letter and syllable is pronounced plainly. The letters have the Latin +value and if one will remember this in reading, the Tahitian words +will flow mellifluously. For instance, "tane" is pronounced "tah-nay," +"maru" is pronounced "mah-ru." "Tiare" is "tee-ah-ray." The Tahitian +language is dying fast, as are the Tahitians. Its beauties are worth +the few efforts necessary for the reader to scan them. + +Frederick O'Brien. + + + +Contents + +Chapter I + +Departure from San Francisco--Nature man left behind--Fellow-passengers +on the Noa-Noa--Tragedy of the Chinese pundit--Strange stories of +the South Seas--The Tahitian Hula + +Chapter II + +The Discovery of Tahiti--Marvelous isles and people--Hailed by a +wind-jammer--Middle of the voyage--Tahiti on the horizon--Ashore +in Papeete + +Chapter III + +Description of Tahiti--A volcanic rock and coral reef--Beauty of +the scenery--Papeete the center of the South Seas--Appearance of +the Tahitians + +Chapter IV + +The Tiare Hotel--Lovaina the hostess, the best-known woman in the +South Seas--Her strange ménage--The Dummy--A one-sided tryst--An +old-fashioned cocktail--The Argentine training ship + +Chapter V + +The Parc de Bougainville--Ivan Stroganoff--He tells me the history +of Tahiti--He berates the Tahitians--Wants me to start a newspaper + +Chapter VI + +The Cercle Bougainville--Officialdom in Tahiti--My first visit to the +Bougainville--Skippers and merchants--A song and a drink--The flavor +of the South Seas--Rumors of war + +Chapter VII + +The Noa-Noa comes to port--Papeete en fête--Rare scene at the Tiare +Hotel--The New Year celebrated--Excitement at the wharf--Battle of +the Limes and Coal + +Chapter VIII + +Gossip in Papeete--Moorea, a near-by island--A two-days' excursion +there--Magnificent scenery from the sea--Island of fairy folk--Landing +and preparation for the feast--The First Christian Mission--A canoe +on the lagoon--Beauties of the sea-garden + +Chapter IX + +The Arearea in the pavilion--Raw fish and baked feis--Llewellyn, +the Master of the Revel; Kelly, the I. W. W. and his himene--The +Upaupahura--Landers and Mamoe prove experts--The return to Papeete + +Chapter X + +The storm on the lagoon; making safe the schooners--A talk on missing +ships--A singular coincidence--Arrival of three of the crew of the +shipwrecked El Dorado--The Dutchman's Story--Easter Island + +Chapter XI + +I move to the Annexe--Description of the building--The baroness +and her baby--Evoa and Poia--The corals of the lagoon--The Chinese +shrine--The Tahitian sky + +Chapter XII + +The princess suggests a walk to the falls of Fautaua, where Loti went +with Rarahu--We start in the morning--The suburbs of Papeete--The Pool +of Loti--The birds, trees and plants--A swim in a pool--Arrival at +the cascade--Luncheon and a siesta--We climb the height--The princess +tells of Tahitian women--The Fashoda fright + +Chapter XIII + +The beach-combers of Papeete--The consuls tell their troubles--A bogus +lord--The American boot-blacks--The cowboy in the hospital--Ormsby, +the supercargo--The death of Tahia--The Christchurch Kid--The Nature +men--Ivan Stroganoff's desire for a new gland + +Chapter XIV + +The market in Papeete--Coffee at Shin Bung Lung's with a prince--Fish +the chief item--Description of them--The vegetables and fruits--The +fish strike--Rumors of an uprising--Kelly and the I. W. W.--The +mysterious session at Fa'a--Hallelujah! I'm a Bum!--the strike +is broken + +Chapter XV + +A drive to Papenoo--The chief of Papenoo--A dinner and poker on the +bench--Incidents of the game--Breakfast the next morning--The chief +tells his story--The journey back--The leper child and her doll--The +Alliance Française--Bemis and his daughter--The band concert and the +fire--The prize-fight--My bowl of velvet + +Chapter XVI + +A journey to Mataiea--I abandon city life--Interesting sights on the +route--The Grotto of Maraa--Papara and the Chief Tati--The plantation +of Atimaono--My host, the Chevalier Tetuanui + +Chapter XVII + +My life in the house of Tetuanui--Whence came the Polynesians--A +migration from Malaysia--Their legends of the past--Condition of +Tahiti when the white came--The great navigator, Cook--Tetuanui tells +of old Tahiti + +Chapter XVIII + +The reef and the lagoon--Wonders of marine life--Fishing with spears +and nets--Sponges and hermit crabs--Fish of many colors--Ancient +canoes of Tahiti--A visit to Vaihiria and legends told there + +Chapter XIX + +The Arioi, minstrels of the tropics--Lovaina tells of the +infanticide--Theories of depopulation--Methods of the Arioi--Destroyed +by missionaries + +Chapter XX + +Rupert Brooke and I discuss Tahiti--We go to a wedding feast--How the +cloth was spread--What we ate and drank--A Gargantuan feeder--Songs +and dances of passion--The royal feast at Tetuanui's--I leave for +Vairao--Butscher and the Lermantoffs + +Chapter XXI + +A heathen temple--The great Marae of Oberea--I visit it with Rupert +Brooke and Chief Tetuanui--The Tahitian religion of old--The wisdom +of folly + +Chapter XXII + +I start for Tautira--A dangerous adventure in a canoe--I go by land +to Tautira--I meet Choti and the Greek god--I take up my home where +Stevenson lived + +Chapter XXIII + +My life at Tautira--The way I cook my food--Ancient Tahitian +sports--Swimming and fishing--A night hunt for shrimp and eels + +Chapter XXIV + +In the days of Captain Cook--The first Spanish +missionaries--Difficulties of converting the heathens--Wars over +Christianity--Ori-a-Ori, the chief, friend of Stevenson--We read the +Bible together--The church and the himene + +Chapter XXV + +I meet a sorcerer--Power over fire--The mystery of the fiery +furnace--The scene in the forest--Walking over the white-hot +stones--Origin of the rite + +Chapter XXVI + +Farewell to Tautira--My good-bye feast--Back at the Tiare--A talk +with Lovaina--The Cercle Bougainville--Death of David--My visit to +the cemetery--Off for the Marquesas + + + + + +MYSTIC ISLES OF THE SOUTH SEAS + +Chapter I + +Departure from San Francisco--Nature man left behind--Fellow-passengers +on the Noa-Noa--Tragedy of the Chinese pundit--Strange stories of +the South Seas--The Tahitian Hula. + +The warning gong had sent all but crew and passengers ashore, though +our ship did not leave the dock. Her great bulk still lay along the +piling, though the gangway was withdrawn. The small groups on the +pier waited tensely for the last words with those departing. These +passengers were inwardly bored with the prolonged farewells, and +wanted to be free to observe their fellow-voyagers and the movement +of the ship. They conversed in shouts with those ashore, but most of +the meanings were lost in the noise of the shuffling of baggage and +freight, the whistling of ferries, and the usual turmoil of the San +Francisco waterfront. I was glad that none had come to see me off, +for I was curious about my unknown companions upon the long traverse +to the South Seas, and I had wilfully put behind me all that America +and Europe held to adventure in the vasts of ocean below the equator. + +But the whistle I awaited to sound our leaving was silent. Officers +of the ship rushed about as if bent on relieving her of some +pressing danger, and I caught fragments of orders and replies which +indicated that until a search was completed she could not stir on +her journey. Then I heard cries of anger and protest, and caught +a glimpse of a man whose appearance provoked confusing emotions of +astonishment, admiration, and laughter. He was dressed in a Roman +toga of rough monk's-cloth, and had on sandals. He was being hustled +bodily over the restored gangway, and was resisting valiantly the +second officer, purser, and steward, who were hardly able to move him, +so powerfully was he made. One of his sandals suddenly fell into the +bay. He had seized hold of the rail of the gangway, and the leather +sandal dropped into the water with a slight splash. His grasp of the +rail being broken, he was gradually being pushed, limping, to the +dock. His one bare foot and his half-exposed and shapely body caused +a gale of laughter from the docks and the wharf. + +The gangway was quickly withdrawn, and our ship began to move from +the shore. The ejected one stood watching us with sorrow shadowing +his large eyes. He was of middle size; with the form of a David +of Michelangelo, though lithe, and he wore no hat, but had a long, +brown beard, which, with his brown hair, parted in the middle and +falling over his shoulders, and his archaic garb, gave me a singular +shock. It was as if a boyhood vision, or something seen in a painting, +was made real. His eyes were the deepest blue, limpid and appealing, +and I felt like shouting out that if it was a matter of money, +I would aid the man in the toga. + +"Christ!" yelled the frantic dock superintendent. "Get that line cast +off and let her go! Are you ceemented to that hooker?" + +Instantly before me came Munkácsy's picture of the Master before +Pilate, evoked by the profanity of the wharf boss, but explaining +the vision of a moment ago. The Noa-Noa emitted a cry from her iron +throat. The engines started, and the distance between our deck and +the pier grew as our bow swung toward the Golden Gate. The strange +man who had been put ashore, with his one sandal in his hand, and +holding his torn toga about him, hastened to the nearest stringer of +the wharf and waved good-by to us. It was as if a prophet, or even +Saul of Tarsus, blessed us in our quest. He stood on a tall group of +piles, and called out something indistinguishable. + +The passengers hurried below, to return in coats and caps to meet the +wind that blows from China, and the second officer and the surgeon +came by, talking animatedly. + +"Oh, yus," said the seaman, chuckling, "'e wuz 'auled out finally. The +beggar 'ad 'id 'imself good and proper this time. 'E wuz in the +linen-closet, and 'ad disguised 'imself as a bundle o' bloomin' +barth-towels. 'E wuz a reg'lar grand Turk, 'e wuz. Blow me, if you'd +'a' knowed 'im from a bale of 'em, 'e wuz so wrapped up in 'em. 'E +almost 'ad us 'ull down this time. The blighter made a bit of a +row, and said as 'ow he just could n't 'elp stowin' aw'y every boat +for T'iti." + +"He's a bally nut," said the surgeon. "I say, though, he did take me +back to Sunday school." + +I recalled a man who walked the streets of San Francisco carrying a +small sign in his upraised hand, "Christ has come!" He looked neither +to the right nor the left, but bore his curious announcement among the +crowds downtown, which smiled jestingly at him, or looked frightened +at the message. If many had believed him, the panic would have been +illimitable. He was dressed in a brown cassock, and looked like the +blue-eyed man who had been refused passage to my destination. Probably, +that American in the toga and sandals, exiled from the island he loved +so well, had a message for the Tahitians or others of the Polynesian +tribes of the South Seas; Essenism, maybe, or something to do with +virginal beards and long hair, or sandals and the simple life. I +wished he were with us. + +We were in the Golden Gate now, that magnificent opening in the +California shores, riven in the eternal conflict of land and water, +and the rending of which made the bay of San Francisco the mightiest +harbor of America. Before our bows lay the immense expanse of the +mysterious Pacific. + +The second officer was directing sailors who were snugging down +the decks. + +"What did the queer fellow want to go to Tahiti for?" I asked him. + +He regarded me a moment in the stolid way of seamen. + +"The blighter likes to live on bananas and breadfruit and that kind +of truck," he replied. "The French won't let 'im st'y there. 'E's +too bloomin' nyked. 'E's a nyture man. They chysed 'im out, and +every steamer 'e tries to stow 'imself aw'y. 'E's a bleedin' trial +to these ships." + +That was puzzling. Did not these natives of Tahiti themselves wear +little clothing? Who were they to object to a white man doffing the +superfluities of dress in a climate where breadfruit and bananas +grow? Or the French, the governors of Tahiti? Were they, in that +isle so distant from Paris, their capital, practising a puritanism +unknown at home? Was nature so fearful? The figure of the barefooted +man often arose as I watched the Farallones disappear, the last of +land we would see until we arrived at Tahiti, nearly two weeks later. + +The days fell away from the calendar; they obliterated themselves +as quietly as our ship's wake to the north, as we planed over the +smooth waters toward the equator. Gradually the passengers took on +character, and out of the first welter of contacts came those definite +impressions which are almost always right and which, though we modify +them or reverse them by acquaintance, we return to finally. + +There was a Chinese, the strangest figure of an Asiatic, with a thin +mustache, and wearing always a black frock-coat and trousers, elastic +gaiters, and a stiff, black hat. His face was long and oval and the +color of old ivory. He had tried to gain admission to Australia and New +Zealand, and then the United States, and had been excluded under some +harsh laws. He was plainly a scholar, but had brought with him from +China a store of curios, probably to enable him to earn money in the +land of the white. Australia had refused him; he had been shut out of +San Francisco, and the very steamship that brought him was compelled +to take him away. He had failed to bring a necessary certificate, +or something of the sort, and the inexorable laws of three Christian +countries had sent him wandering, so that it was inevitable he must +return to China by the route he had come. He was the most mournful of +sights, sitting most of the day in a retired spot, brooding, apparently +over his fate. He never smiled, though I who have been much in China, +tried to stir him from his sadness by exclamations and gestures. His +race has a very keen sense of humor. They see a thousand funny things +about them, and laugh inwardly; but they never see anything amusing +in themselves. The individual man conceives himself a dignified figure +in a world of burlesque. + +This man's face was rid of any self-pity. I think he was stunned by +the horror of the thing, that he, a man of Chinese letters, who had +departed from the centuried custom of his pundit caste of remaining +in their own country, who had left his family or clan to increase +his store of lesser knowledge, should be denied the door by these +inferior nations of the West. He might have recalled Chien Lung, a +Manchu emperor, who, when apologized to in writing by a Dutch governor +of Batavia who had murdered almost all the Chinese there, replied that +China had no interest in wretches who had left their native land. A +thousand years ago the Chinese put the soldier lowest in the scale and +the scholar highest, with the man of business as of no importance. And +yet these commercial peoples barred their gates to him! For a number +of days he took his place in the shade of a davited boat, and now +and again he read from a quaint book the Analects of Confucius. + +We sailed on Wednesday, and on Sunday made the first tropic, nearly +twenty-three and a half degrees above the line. No rough weather +or unkindly wind had disturbed us from the hour we had left the +"too nyked" man upon the wharf, and Sunday, when I went to take my +bath before breakfast, I felt the soft fingers of the South caress my +body, and looking out upon the purple ocean, whose expanse was barely +dimpled by gleams of silver, I saw flying-fish skimming the crests +of the swinging waves. The officers and stewards appeared in white; +the passengers, too, put off their temperate-zone clothes, and the +decks were gay with color. We all seemed to feel that we must be in +consonance with the loving nature that had made the sky so blue and +the sea so still. + +The Chinese--he was Leung Kai Chu on the list--did not change his +melancholy black. The deck sports were organized, ship tennis, quoits, +and golf, and the disks rattled about his feet; but though he often +moved his chair to aid those seeking a lost quoit or ring, and bowed +ceremoniously to those who begged his pardon for bothering him, he +kept his position. I felt a somber sense of gathering tragedy. In +his face was a growing detachment from everything about him; he +hardly knew that we were there, that he ate and slept, and took his +seat by the boat. All of us felt this, but with many it meant merely +remarking that "the Chink is getting off his head," and a wish that +he would not obtrude his grief when we were filled with the joy of +sunny skies and a merry company. + +The tragedy came sooner than expected by me. I had cast a thought to +my understanding that the philosophy of Confucius did not contemplate +self-destruction, and had been divided between relief and wonder that +it was so. + +It was dusk of Monday. The sun had sunk behind the glowing rim of +the western horizon, and the air was suffused with a trembling rose +color, when Leung Kai Chu tapped at my cabin-door, which gave on the +boat-deck. I opened it, and he bowed, and handed me an image. It was +of porcelain, precious, and I was at a loss to know whether he had +felt the need of a little money and had brought it to sell, or had +been impelled to give it to me because of my feeble efforts to cheer +him. I made a gesture which might have meant payment, but he raised +his hand deprecatingly, and for the first time I saw him smile, +and I was afraid. He bowed, and in the mandarin language invoked +good fortune upon me. He had the aspect of one beyond good and evil, +who had settled life's problem. When he left me I stood wondering, +holding in my hands the majestic god seated upon the tiger, the symbol +of the conquest of the flesh. + +I heard a shout, and dropping the image, I rushed aft. Leung Kai +Chu had thrown himself over the rail just by the purser's office. A +steward had seen him fling himself into the white foam. I tore a +gas-buoy from its rack and tossed it toward the screw, in which +direction he must have been swept. A sailor ran to the bridge, the +whistle blew, and the ship shook as the engines ceased revolving, +and then reversed in stopping her. Orders were flung about fast. A man +climbed to the lookout as the first officer began to put a boat into +the water. The crew of it and the second officer were already at the +oars and the tiller as the ropes slid in the blocks. The passengers +came crowding from their cabins, where they were dressing for dinner, +and there were many expressions of surprise and slight terror. Death +aboard ship is terrible in its imminence to all. The buoy, with its +flaming torch, had drifted far to leeward, and the lookout could do no +more than follow its fainting light as the dark of the tropics closed +in. An hour the Noa-Noa lay gently heaving upon the mysterious waters +in which the despairing pundit had sought Nirvana, until the boat +returned with a report that it had picked up the buoy, but had seen no +sign of the man. Doubtless he had been swept into the propellers, but +if not quickly given release in their cyclopean strokes, he may have +watched for a few minutes our vain attempt to negative his fate. If so, +I imagine he smiled again, as when he gave me the god upon the tiger. + +As they hoisted the boat to its davits, I found in the lantern light +his ancient volume, the "Analects of Confucius," and claimed it for +my own. It was the very boat he had been accustomed to sit under, and +he must have laid down the ancient philosopher to procure the gift for +me, his grim determination already made. I had caught a glimpse of him +Sunday morning listening to the Christian services conducted by the +captain in the social hall, and when I told the brooding captain that, +he was struck by the idea that perhaps some word of his preachment +might have come to Leung Kai Chu's mind in his agony in the waters, +and that at the last moment he might have repented and been saved. + +"One aspiration, and he might be washed as white as snow. 'This day +thou shalt be with Me in Paradise,'" said the commander, who was +known as the parson skipper, dour, but ever on the watch for the +first sign of repentance. + +On the other hand, Hallman more nearly stated the general feeling: + +"By God, he spoiled sport, that black ghost on deck. He was like a +tupapau, a Polynesian demon." + +Hallman was in his early forties, with twenty years of South-Seas +trading, a tall, strong, well-featured, but hard-faced, European, +with thin lips over nearly perfect teeth, and cold, small, +pale-blue eyes. He talked little to men, but isolated young women +whenever possible, and bent over them in attempted gay, but earnest, +converse. He was one of those cold sensualists whose passion is as +that of some animals, insistent, prowling, fierce, but impersonal. An +English South-Sea trader aboard gave me an astonishing light upon him: + +"Some dozen years ago," he said, "I made a visit of a few weeks to the +Marquesas Islands. Hallman had kept a store there then for more than +ten years, and had a good part of the business of buying and shipping +copra and selling supplies to the natives and a few whites. He lived +in a shack back of his little store, with his native woman and four or +five half-naked children. They told me queer stories about his madness +for women. They said he would go out of his house and into the jungle +near the trails and would lie in wait. If a woman he coveted passed, +he would seize her, and even if her husband or consort was ahead of +her, in the custom of these people, he would grab her feet, and make +her call out that she was delaying a minute, that her companion was +to go along, and she would catch up in a minute. He had some funny +power over those women. Anyhow, that's the story they told me in those +cannibal islands. And yet, you know, there's something different in +him, because he sent two of his sons to school, and afterward to a +university in Europe. To make it queerer yet, one of them is here +on this ship, in the second class, and wouldn't dare to speak to +his father without being asked. Of course he's a half-Marquesan--the +son--and looks it. I know them all, and only yesterday I heard Hallman +call his son on the main-deck, away from where any one could see him, +and threaten him with 'putting him back in the jungle, where he came +from,' if he appeared again near the first-class space. I tell you, +I'd hate to be in his hands if I was in his way." + +Fictionists who take the South Seas for their scenery too often +paint their characters in one tone--black, brown, or yellow, or even +white. Their bad men are super-villains, and yet there are no men +all bad. I know there are no supermen at all, bad or good, but only +that some men do super acts now and then; none has the grand gesture +at all times. Napoleon had a disgraceful affliction at Waterloo, +which rid him of strength, mental and physical; the thief on the +cross became wistful for an unknown delight. + +Hallman had said to me in the smoking-room that he never drank alcohol +or smoked tobacco, because "it took the edge off the game." Now, +a poet might say that, or even a moralist, but he was neither. + +That night I walked through the waist of the ship and on to the +promenade-deck of the third-class passengers, where a huddle of +stores, coiled ropes, and riff-raff prevented these poor from taking +any pleasurable exercise. I stood at the taffrail and peered down at +the welter of white water, the foam of the buffets of the whirling +screws, and then at the wide wake, which in imagination went on and +on in a luminous path to the place we had departed from, to the dock +where we had left the debarred lover of nature. The deep was lit +with the play of phosphorescent animalculae whom our passage awoke +in their homes beneath the surface and sent questing with lights for +the cause. A sheet of pale, green-gold brilliancy marked the route +of the Noa-Noa on the brine, and perhaps far back the corpse of the +celestial philosopher floated in radiancy, with his face toward those +skies, so brazen to his desires. + +A Swiss with a letter of introduction to me presented it when seven +days out. It was from the manager of a restaurant in San Francisco, and +asked me to guide him in any way I could. The Swiss was middle-aged, +and talked only of a raw diet. He was to go to the Marquesas to eat +raw food. One would have thought a crude diet to be in itself an end in +life. He spoke of it proudly and earnestly, as if cooking one's edibles +were a crime or a vile thing. He told me for hours his dictums--no +alcohol, no tobacco, no meat, no fish; merely raw fruit, nuts, +and vegetables. He was a convinced rebel against any fire for food, +making known to any one who would listen that man had erred sadly, +thousands of years ago, in bringing fire into his cave for cooking, +and that the only cure for civilization's evils was in abolishing +the kitchen. He would live in the Marquesas as he said the aborigines +do. Alas! I did not tell him they ate only their fish raw. + +Ben Fuller, the Australian theatrical manager, frowned on him. Fuller +was as round as a barrel, and he also was certain of the remedies +for a sick world. + +"How you 're goin' a get any bloody fun with no roast beef, no mutton, +no puddin', and let alone a drop of ale and a pipe?" + +The Swiss smiled beatifically. + +"You can get rid of all those desires," he said. + +"My Gawd! I don't want to get rid o' them, I don't. I'm bringing up +my kiddies right, and I'm a proper family man, but I want my meat +and my bread and my puddin'. The world needs proper entertainment; +that's what'll cure the troubles." + +The Swiss was also ardent in attention to the women aboard, and I +wondered if there was a new school of self-denial. The old celibate +monks eschewed women, but had Gargantuan appetites, which they +satisfied with meat pasties, tubs of ale, and vats of wine. + +There were two Tahitians aboard, both females. One was an oldish +woman, ugly and waspish. She counted her beads and spoke to me in +French of the consolations of the Catholic religion. She had been to +America for an operation, but despaired of ever being well, and so +was melancholy and devout. I talked to her about Tahiti, that island +which the young Darwin wrote, "must forever remain classical to the +voyager in the South Seas," and which, since I had read "Rarahu" +as a boy, had fascinated me and drawn me to it. She warned me. + +"Prenez-garde vous, monsieur!" she said. "There are evils there, +but I am ashamed of my people." + +The other was about twenty-two years old, slender, kohl-eyed, +and black-tressed. She was dressed in the gayest colors of +bourgeois fashion in San Francisco, with jade ear-rings and diamond +ornaments. Her face was of a lemon-cream hue, with dark shadows +under her long-lashed eyes. Her form was singularly svelt, curving, +suggestive of the rounded stalk of a young cocoa-palm, her bosom +molded in a voluptuous reserve. Her father, a clergyman, had cornered +the vanilla-bean market in Tahiti, and she was bringing an automobile +and a phonograph to her home, a village in the middle of Tahiti. + +One night when a Hawaiian hula was played on the phonograph, she +danced alone for us. It was a graceful, insinuating step, with +movements of the arms and hands, a rotating of the torso upon the +hips, and with a tinge of the savage in it that excited the Swiss, +the raw-food advocate. Hallman was also in the social hall, and, +after waltzing with her several times, had persuaded her to dance +the hula. He clapped his hands loudly and called out: + +"Maitai!" + +That is Tahitian for bravo, and I saw a look in Hallman's face that +recalled the story by the Englishman of the jungle trail. He was +always intent on his pursuit. + +Was I hypercritical? There was Leung Kai Chu with the sharks, and the +nature man left behind! The one had lost his dream of returning to +Tahiti, in which the Chinese might freely have lived, and the other +had thrown away life because he could not enter the America that +the other wanted so madly to leave. The lack of a piece of paper +had killed him. Was it that happiness was a delusion never to be +realized? If the pundit had bribed the immigration authorities, as +I had known many to do, he might now have been studying the strange +religion and ethics which had caused the whites to steal so much of +China, to force opium upon it at the cannon's mouth, to kill tens +of thousands of yellow men, and to raise to dignities the soldiers +and financiers whom he despised, as had Confucius and Buddha. And if +that white of the sandals had kept his shirt on in Tahiti, he might +be lying under his favorite palm and eating breadfruit and bananas. + +People have come to be afraid to say or even to think they are +happy for a bare hour. We fear that the very saying of it will +rob us of happiness. We have incantations to ward off listening +devils--knocking on wood, throwing salt over our left shoulders, +and saying "God willing." + +What was I to find in Tahiti? Certainly not what Loti had with Rarahu, +for that was forty years ago, when the world was young at heart, and +romance was a god who might be worshiped with uncensored tongue. But +was not romance a spiritual emanation, a state of mind, and not people +or scenes? I knew it was, for all over the earth I had pursued it, +and found it in the wild flowers of the Sausalito hills in California +more than among the gayeties of Paris, the gorges of the Yangtse-Kiang, +or in the skull dance of the wild Dyak of Borneo. + + + +Chapter II + +The Discovery of Tahiti--Marvelous isles and people--Hailed by a +windjammer--Middle of the voyage--Tahiti on the horizon--Ashore +in Papeete. + +What did Tahiti hold for me? I thought vaguely of its history. The +world first knew its existence only about the time that the American +colonies were trying to separate themselves from Great Britain. An +English naval captain happened on the island, and thought himself the +first white man there, though the Spanish claim its discovery. The +Englishman called it King George Island, after the noted Tory monarch +of his day; but a Frenchman, a captain and poet, the very next spring +named it the New Cytherea, esteeming its fascinations like the fabled +island of ancient Greek lore. It remained for Captain James Cook, +who, before steam had killed the wonder of distance and the telegraph +made daily bread of adventure and discovery, was the hero of many a +fireside tale, to bring Tahiti vividly before the mind of the English +world. That hardy mariner's entrancing diary fixed Tahiti firmly in +the thoughts of the British and Americans. Bougainville painted such +an ecstatic picture that all France would emigrate. Cook set down +that Otaheite was the most beautiful of all spots on the surface of +the globe. He praised the people as the handsomest and most lovable +of humans, and said they wept when he sailed. That was to him of +inestimable value in appraising them. + +About the beginning of the nineteenth century the first English +missionaries in the South Seas thanked God for a safe passage from +their homes to Tahiti, and for a virgin soil and an affrightingly +wicked people to labor with. The English, however, did not seize the +island, but left it for the French to do that, who first declared it +a protectorate, and made it a colony of France, in the unjust way of +the mighty, before the last king died. They had come ten thousand miles +to do a wretched act that never profited them, but had killed a people. + +All this discovery and suzerainty did not interest me much, but +what the great captains, and Loti, Melville, Becke, and Stoddard, had +written had been for years my intense delight. Now I was to realize the +dream of childhood. I could hardly live during the days of the voyage. + +I remembered that Europe had been set afire emotionally by the first +reports, the logs of the first captains of England and France who +visited Tahiti. In that eighteenth century, for decades the return to +nature had been the rallying cry of those who attacked the artificial +and degraded state of society. The published and oral statements of +the adventurers in Tahiti, their descriptions of the unrivaled beauty +of the verdure, of reefs and palm, of the majestic stature of the +men and the passionate charm of the women, the boundless health and +simple happiness in which they dwelt, the climate, the limpid streams, +the diving, swimming, games, and rarest food--all these had stirred +the depressed Europe of the last days of the eighteenth and the first +of the nineteenth centuries beyond the understanding by us cynical +and more material people. The world still had its vision of perfection. + +Tahiti was the living Utopia of More, the belle île of Rousseau, the +Eden with no serpent or hurtful apple, the garden of the Hesperides, +in harmony with nature, in freedom from the galling bonds of government +and church, of convention and clothing. The reports of the English +missionaries of the nakedness and ungodliness of the Tahitians created +intense interest and swelled the chorus of applause for their utter +difference from the weary Europeans. Had there been ships to take them, +thousands would have fled to Tahiti to be relieved of the chains and +tedium of their existence, though they could not know that Victorianism +and machines were to fetter and vulgarize them even more. + +Afterward, when sailors mutinied and abandoned their ships or +killed their officers to be able to remain in Tahiti and its +sister islands, there grew up in England a literature of wanderers, +runagates, and beach-combers, of darkish women who knew no reserve +or modesty, of treasure-trove, of wrecks and desperate deeds, piracy +and blackbirding, which made flame the imagination of the youth of +seventy years ago. Tahiti had ever been pictured as a refuge from a +world of suffering, from cold, hunger, and the necessity of labor, +and most of all from the morals of pseudo-Christianity, and the +hypocrisies and buffets attending their constant secret infringement. + +One morning when we were near the middle of our voyage I went on +deck to see the sun rise. We were that day eighteen hundred miles +from Tahiti and the same distance from San Francisco, while north +and west twelve hundred miles lay Hawaii. Not nearer than there, +four hundred leagues away, was succor if our vessel failed. It was +the dead center of the sea. I glanced at the chart and noted the spot: +Latitude 10º N.; Longitude 137º W. The great god Ra of the Polynesians +had climbed above the dizzy edge of the whirling earth, and was making +his gorgeous course into the higher heavens. The ocean was a glittering +blue, an intense, brilliant azure, level save for the slight swaying +of the surface, which every little space showed a flag of white. The +evaporation caused by the blazing sun of these tropics made the water +a deeper blue than in cooler latitudes, as in the Arctic and Antarctic +oceans the greens are almost as vivid as the blues about the line. + +I watched the thousand flying-fishes' fast leaps through the air, and +caught gleams of the swift bonitos whose pursuit made birds of their +little brothers. Then, a few miles off, I saw the first vessel that +had come to our eyes since we had sunk the headlands of California +more than a week before. She was a great sailing ship, under a cloud +of snowy canvas, one of the caste of clippers that fast fades under +the pall of smoke, and, from her route, bound for the Pacific Coast +from Australia. The captain of the Noa-Noa came and stood beside me +as we made her out more plainly, and fetching the glasses, he glanced +at her, started, and said in some surprise: + +"She 's signaling us she wants to send a boat to us. That's the first +time in thirty years in this line I have ever had such a request from +a wind-jammer. She left her slant to cross our path." + +Half a mile away a beautiful, living creature, all quivering with +the restraint, she came up into the eye of the wind, and backed +her fore-yard. A boat put off from her, and we awaited it with +indefinable alarm. It was soon at the gangway we had hastily lowered, +unknowing whether woman or child might not be our visitor. It was +a young Russian sailor whose hand had been crushed under a block a +fortnight before, and who, without aid for his injury other than the +simple remedies that make up the pharmacopoeia of sailing vessels, +was like to die from blood-poisoning. Had our ship not been met, he +would undoubtedly have perished, for no other steamer came to these +points upon the chart, and, as we were to learn, his own ship did +not reach her port for many weeks. He was a mere boy, his face was +drawn with continued pain, but, with the strong repression of emotion +characteristic of the sailor, he uttered no sound. The passengers, +relieved from silent fears of any catastrophe aboard the sailing ship, +and perhaps salving their souls for fancied failure toward the drowned +Leung Kai Chu, crowded to fill the boat with books, fruit, and candy, +and to help the unfortunate boy. When he had been made comfortable +by the surgeon, he was overwhelmed with presents. + +My vis-à-vis at table, Herr Gluck, a piano manufacturer of Munich, was +a follower of Horace Fletcher, the American munching missionary. Unlike +the Swiss, who craved raw food, Herr Gluck ate everything, but +each mouthful only after thorough maceration, salivation, and slow +deglutition. At breakfast he absorbed a glass of milk and a piece of +toast, but took longer than I did to bolt melon, bacon and eggs, toast, +coffee, and marmalade. He sold the pianos his family had made for a +hundred years, and munched all about the world. He professed rugged +health, and never tired of dancing; but he looked drawn and melancholy, +and had naught of the rugged masculinity of the bolters. Once or +twice he drank in my company a cocktail, and he munched each sip as +if it were mutton. He would occupy the entire dinner-time with one +baked potato. I was endeared to him because I had known his master, +Fletcher, and with him, too, had chewed a glass of wine in the patio +of the Army and Navy Club in Manila. I longed to pit the Swiss and +Herr Gluck in argument, but in sober thought had to give the laurel to +the latter, because, in case of stress, one might, with his system, +live on a trifle, while raw, nourishing food might be difficult to +get in quantity. + +Most of the passengers were Australians and New-Zealanders returning +home, and only a few were bound for Tahiti--the Tahitian women, +the Swiss, Hallman and his son, and M. Leboucher, a young merchant, +born there, of a Spanish mother. William McBirney of County Antrim, +but long in Raratonga, an island two days' steaming from Tahiti, +was going back to his adopted home. + +"Sure," he said, "I'm never happy away from the sound of the surf on +the reef and the swish of the cocoanuts. I was fourteen years in the +British army in England when I made up my mind to quit civilization. I +put it to the missus, a London woman, and she was for it. I've had +nearly ten years now in the Cook group. D'ye know, I've learned one +thing--that money means very little in life. Why, in Aitutaki you +can't sell fish. The law forbids it, but do you suppose people don't +fish on that account? Why, a man goes out in his canoe and fishes +like mad. He brings in his canoe, and as he approaches the beach he's +blowing his pu, the conch-shell, to let people know he has fish. Fish +to sell or to barter? Not at all. He wants the honor of giving them +away. Now, if he makes a big catch, do you see, he has renown. People +say, 'There's Taiere, who caught all those fish yesterday.' That's +worth more to him than money. But if he could sell those fish, if +there was competition, only the small-minded, the business souls, +would fish. I'm not a socialist, but Aitutaki shows that, released +from the gain, man will serve his fellows for their plaudits. And, +mind you, no person took more fish than he needed. There was no greed." + +"That's rot!" broke in Hallman, who entered the smoking-room. "The +natives are frauds. You've got to kick 'em around or bribe 'em to do +any work. Haven't I lived with 'em twenty years? They're swine." + +"It depends on what you bring them and what you seek," said +McBirney. "Ah, well, it's getting too civilized in Raratonga. There's +an automobile threatening to come there, though you could drive +around the island in half an hour. And they're teaching the Maoris +English. I must get away to the west'ard soon. It's a fact there are +two laws for every inhabitant." + +Would I, too, "go native"? Become enamored of those simple, primitive +places and ways, and want to keep going westward? Would I, too, fish +to be honored for my string? Would I go to the Dangerous Archipelago, +those mystic atolls that sent to the Empress Eugénie that magnificent +necklace of pearls she wore at the great ball at the Tuileries when +the foolish Napoleon made up his mind to emulate his great namesake +and make war? Would I there see those divers who are said to surpass +all the mermen of legend in the depths they go in their coral-studded +lagoons in search of the jewels that hide in gold-lipped shells? Was it +for me to wander among those fabulous coral isles flung for a thousand +miles upon the sapphire sea, like wreaths of lilies upon a magic lake? + +The doldrums brought rain before the southeast wind came to urge us +faster on our course and to clear the skies. Now we were in the deep +tropics, five or six hundred miles farther south than Honolulu, and +plunging toward the imaginary circle which is the magic ring of the +men who steer ships in all oceans. Our breeze was that they pray for +when the wind alone must drive the towering trees of canvas toward +Australia from America. + +The breeze held on while games of the formal tournaments progressed, +and prizes were won by the young and the spry. + +One night I came on deck when the moon had risen an hour, and saw as +strange and beautiful a sight as ever made me sigh for the lack of +numbers in my soul. A huge, long, black cloud hung pendent from midway +in the sky, with its lower part resting on the sea. It was for all the +world of marvels like a great dragon, shaped rudely to a semblance of +the beast of the Apocalypse, and with its head lifted into the ether, +so that it was framed against the heavens. The moon was in its mouth; +the moon shaped like an eye, a brilliant, glowing, wondrous orb, more +intensely golden for its contrast with the ominous blackness of the +serpentine cloud. I felt that I had found the origin of the Oriental +fable. Some minutes the illusion held, and then the cloud lowered, +and the moon, alone against a pale-blue background, the horizon a +mass of scudding draperies of pearly hue, lit the ocean between the +ship and the edge of the world in a tremulous and mellow gilded path. + +There was dancing on the boat-deck, the Lydian measures of the +Hawaiian love-songs, those passionate melodies in which Polynesian +pearls have been strung on European filaments, filling the balmy air +with quivering notes of desire, and causing dancers to hold closer +their partners. The Occident seemed very far away; even older people +felt the charm of clime that had come upon them, and laughter rang +as stories ran about the group in the reclining-chairs. + +The captain, though grim from a gripping religion that had squeezed +all joy from his scripture-haunted soul, added an anecdote to the +entertainment. + +"Passing from Fiji to Samoa," he said, "I had to leave the mail at +Niuafou, in the Tongan Islands. It is a tiny isle, three miles long by +as wide, an old crater in which is a lagoon, hot springs, and every +sign of the devastation of many eruptions. The mail for Niuafou was +often only a single letter and a few newspapers. We sealed them in a +tin can, and when we met the postmaster at sea, we threw it over. He +would be three miles out, swimming, with a small log under arm for +support, and often he might be in company with thirty or forty of +his tribe, who, with only the same slight aids to keeping afloat, +would be fishing leisurely. They carried their tackle and their catch +upon their shoulders, and appeared quite at ease, with no concern for +their long swim to shore or for the sharks, which were plentiful. They +might even nap a little during the middle afternoon." + +"When our people wanted to sleep at sea," said McBirney, "if there +were two of them, though we never bothered to take along logs, one +rested on the other's shoulder." + +One listened and marveled, and smiled to think that, had one stayed at +home, one might never know these things. Forgotten was the wraith of +Leung Kai Chu, the jungle trail of Hallman, and even the trepidation +with which we had awaited the sailing ship's boat. I was soon to be +in those enchanted archipelagoes, and to see for myself those mighty +swimmers and those sleepers upon the sea. I might even get a letter +through that floating postmaster. + +There was a Continental duchess aboard, whom I pitied. She was oldish +and homely, and couldn't forget her rank. She had a woman companion, an +honorable lady, a maid, and a courier, but she sat all day knitting or +reading poor novels. She had nothing to do with the other passengers, +eating with her companion at an aloof table, and sitting before her +own cabin, apart from others. The courier and I talked several times, +and once he said that her Highness was much interested in a statement +I had made about the origin of the Maori race, but she did not invite +me to tell her my opinion directly. Poor wretch! as Pepys used to +say, she was entangled in her own regal web, and sterilized by her +Continental caste. + +For days and nights we moved through the calm sea, with hardly more +than the sparkling crests of the myriad swelling waves to distinguish +from a bounded lake these mighty waters that wash the newest and oldest +of lands. It seemed as if all the world was only water and us. The +ship was as steady in her element as a plane in those upper strata +of the ether where the winds and clouds no longer have domain. The +company in a week had found themselves, and divided into groups in +which each sought protection from boredom, ease of familiar manners, +and opportunity to talk or to listen. + +Often when all had left the deck I sat alone in the passage before the +surgeon's cabin to drink in the coolness of the dark, and to wonder at +the problem of life. If a man had not his dream, what could life give +him? In his heart he might know by experience that it never could come +true, but without it, false as it might be, he was without consolation. + +One night, the equator behind, I saw the Southern Cross for the first +time on the voyage, its glittering crux, with the alpha and beta +Centaur stars, signaling to me that I was beyond the dispensation +of the cold and constant north star, and in the realm of warmth and +everchanging beauty. + +Tahiti, the second Sunday out, was a day off. I arose Monday with +a feeling of buoyancy and expectancy that grew with the morning. I +was as one who looks to find soon in reality the ideal on earth his +fancy has created. The day became older, and the noontide passed. I +had gone forward upon the forecastle head to seize the first sign +of land, and was leaning over the cathead, watching the flying-fish +leaping in advance of the bow, and the great, shining albacore throwing +themselves into the rush of our advance, to be carried along by the +mere drive of our bows. + +I drew a deep breath of the salt air when there came to me a new and +delicious odor. It seemed to steal from a secret garden under the sea, +and I thought of mermaids plucking the blossoms of their coral arbors +for the perfuming and adornment of their golden hair. But sweeter +and heavier it floated upon the slight breeze, and I knew it for the +famed zephyr that carries to the voyager to Tahiti the scents of the +flowers of that idyllic land. It was the life vapor of the hinano, +the tiare and the frangipani exhaled by those flowers of Tahiti, to be +wafted to the sailor before he sights the scene itself, the breath of +Lorelei that spelled the sense of the voyager. No shipwrecked mariner +could have felt more poignancy in his search for a hospitable strand +than I on the plunging prow of the Noa-Noa in my quest through the +bright sunshine of that afternoon for the haven of desire. I strained +my eyes to see it, to realize the gossamer dream I had spun since +boyhood from the leaves of beloved poets. + +It was shortly after three o'clock that the vision came in reality, +more marvelous, more exquisite, more unimaginable than the conception +of all my reveries--a dim shadow in the far offing, a dark speck in +the lofty clouds, a mass of towering green upon the blue water, the +fast unfoldment of emerald, pale hills and glittering reef. Nearer as +sailed our ship, the panorama was lovelier. It was the culmination of +enchantment, the fulfilment of the wildest fantasy of wondrous color, +strange form, and lavish adornment. + +The island rose in changing shape from the soft Pacific sea, here sheer +and challenging, there sloping gently from mountain height to ocean +sheen; different all about, altering with hiding sun or shifting view +its magic mold, with moods as varied as the wind, but ever lovely, +alluring, new. + +I marked the volcanic make of it, cast up from the low bed of Neptune +an eon ago, its loftiest peaks peering from the long cloud-streamers +a mile and a half above my eyes, and its valleys embracing caverns +of shadow. It was a stupendous precipice suspended from the vault of +heaven, and in its massive folds secreted the wonders I had come so +far to see. Every minute the bewildering contours were transmuted by +the play of sun and cloud and our swift progression toward the land. + +Red spots appeared rare against the field of verdure where the +mountain-side had been stripped naked by erosion, and the volcanic +cinnabar of ages contrasted oddly with the many greens of frond and +palm and hillside grove. Curious, fantastic, the hanging peaks and +cloud-capped scarps, black against the fleecy drift, were tauntingly +reminiscent of the evening skies of the last few days, as if the +divine artist had sketched lightly upon the azure of the heavens the +entrancing picture to be drawn firmly and grandly in beetling crag +and sublime steep. + +Most of all, as the island swam closer, the embracing fringe of +cocoanut-trees drew my eyes. They were like a girdle upon the beautiful +body of the land, whose lower half was in the ocean. They seemed the +freewaving banners of romance, whispering always of nude peoples, of +savage whites, of ruthless passion, of rum and missionaries, cannibals +and heathen altars, of the fierce struggle of the artificial and the +primitive. I loved these palms, brothers of my soul, and for me they +have never lost their romantic significance. + +From the sea, the village of Papeete, the capital and port, was all but +hidden in the wood of many kinds of trees that lies between the beach +and the hills. Red and gray roofs appeared among the mass of growing +things at almost the same height, for the capital rested on only a +narrow shelf of rising land, and the mountains descended from the sky +to the very water's-edge. Greener than the Barbadoes, like malachite +upon the dazzling Spanish Main, Tahiti gleamed as a promise of Elysium. + +A lighthouse, tall minister of warning, lifted upon a headland, and +suddenly there was disclosed intimately the brilliant, shimmering surf +breaking on the tortuous coral reef that banded the island a mile +away. It was like a circlet of quicksilver in the sun, a quivering, +shining, waving wreath. Soon we heard the eternal diapason of these +shores, the constant and immortal music of the breakers on the white +stone barrier, a low, deep, resonant note that lulls the soul to +sleep by day as it does the body by night. + +Guardian sound of the South Seas it is, the hushed, echoic roar of a +Jovian organ that chants of the dangers of the sea without, and the +peace of the lagoon within, the reef. + +A stretch of houses showed--the warehouses and shops of the merchants +along the beach, the spire of a church, a line of wharf, a hundred +tiny homes all but hidden in the foliage of the ferns. These gradually +came into view as the ship, after skirting along the reef, steered +through a break in the foam, a pass in the treacherous coral, and +glided through opalescent and glassy shallows to a quay where all +Papeete waited to greet us. + +The quay was filled with women and men and children and dogs. Carriages +and automobiles by the score attended just outside. Conspicuous +above all were the Tahitian and part-Tahitian girls. In their long, +graceful, waistless tunics of brilliant hues, their woven bamboo +or pandanus hats, decorated with fresh flowers, their feet bare or +thrust into French slippers, their brown eyes shining with yearning, +they were so many Circes to us from the sea. They smiled and looked +with longing at these strangers, who felt curious thrills at this +unknown openness of promise. + +Louis de Bougainville wrote in his diary at his first coming to Tahiti +a hundred and fifty years ago: + +The boats were now crowded with women, whose beauty of face was +equal to that of the ladies of Europe, and the symmetry of their +forms much superior. + +Leboucher called to his mother. "Madre mia! Como estas tu?" + +Cries rang out in French, in Tahitian and in English. Islanders, +returning, demanded information as to health, business ventures, +happenings. Merry laughter echoed from the roof of the great shed, +and I felt my heart suddenly become joyous. + +The girls and women absorbed the attention of passengers not of +Tahiti. The New-Zealanders of the crew called excitedly to various +ones. Most of the men passengers, tarrying only with the vessel, +planned to see a hula, and they wondered if any of those on the wharf +were the dancers. + +A white flower over the ear seemed a favorite adornment, some wearing +it on one side and some on the other. What struck one immediately was +the erect carriage of the women. They were tall and as straight as +sunflower-stalks, walking with a swimming gait. They were graceful +even when old. Those dark women and men seemed to fit in perfectly +with the marvelous background of the cocoas, the bananas and the +brilliant foliage. The whites appeared sickly, uncouth, beside the +natives, and the white women, especially, faded and artificial. + +The Noa-Noa was warped to the wharf, and I was within a few feet now +of the welcoming crowd and could discern every detail. + +Those young women were well called les belles Tahitiennes. Their +skins were like pale-brown satin, but exceeding all their other charms +were their lustrous eyes. They were very large, liquid, melting, and +indescribably feminine--feminine in a way lost to Occidental women +save only the Andalusians and the Neapolitans. They were framed in +the longest, blackest, curly lashes, the lashes of dark Caucasian +children. They were the eyes of children of the sun, eyes that had +stirred disciplined seamen to desertion, eyes that had burned ships, +and created the mystery of the Bounty, eyes of enchantresses of the +days of Helen. + +"Prenez-garde vous!" said Madame Aubert, the invalid, +in my ear. + +Mixed now with the perfumes of the flowers was the odor of cocoanuts, +coming from the piles of copra on the dock, a sweetish, oily smell, +rich, powerful, and never in foreign lands to be inhaled without its +bringing vividly before one scenes of the tropics. + +The gangway was let down. I was, after years of anticipation, +in Tahiti. + + + +Chapter III + +Description of Tahiti--A volcanic rock and coral reef--Beauty of +the Scenery--Papeete the center of the South Seas--Appearance of +the Tahitians. + +Tahiti was a molten rock, fused in a subterranean furnace, and cast in +some frightful throe of the cooling sphere, high up above the surface +of the sea, the seething mass forming into mountains and valleys, the +valleys hemmed in except at their mouths by lofty barriers that stretch +from thundering central ridges to the slanting shelf of alluvial +soil which extends to the sand of the beach. It is a mass of volcanic +matter to which the air, the rain, and the passage of a million years +have given an all-covering verdure except upon the loftiest peaks, +have cut into strangely shaped cliffs, sloping hills, spacious vales, +and shadowy glens and dingles, and have poured down the rich detritus +and humus to cover the coral beaches and afford sustenance for man +and beast. About the island countless trillions of tiny animals have +reared the shimmering reef which bears the brunt of the breaking +seas, and spares their impact upon the precious land. These minute +beings in the unfathomable scheme of the Will had worked and perished +for unguessed ages to leave behind this monument of their existence, +their charnel-house. Man had often told himself that a god had inspired +them thus to build havens for his vessels and abodes of marine life +where man might kill lesser beings for his food and sport. + +Always, in the approach to the island in steamship, schooner, or +canoe, one is amazed and transported by the varying aspect of it. A +few miles away one would never know that man had touched it. His +inappreciable structures are erased by the flood of green color, which, +from the edge of the lagoon to the spires of La Diadème, nearly eight +thousand feet above the water, makes all other hues insignificant. In +all its hundred miles or so of circumference nature is the dominant +note--a nature so mysterious, so powerful, and yet so soft-handed, +so beauty-loving and so laughing in its indulgences, that one can +hardly believe it the same that rules the Northern climes and forces +man to labor in pain all his days or to die. + +The scene from a little distance is as primeval as when the first +humans climbed in their frail canoes through the unknown and terrible +stretches of ocean, and saw Tahiti shining in the sunlight. A mile +or two from the lagoon the fertile land extends as a slowly-ascending +gamut of greens as luxuriant as a jungle, and forming a most pleasing +foreground to the startling amphitheater of the mountains, darker, +and, in storm, black and forbidding. + +Those mountains are the most wonderful examples of volcanic rock on +the globe. Formed of rough and crystalline products of the basic fire +of earth, they hold high up in their recesses coral beds once under +the sea, and lava in many shapes, tokens of the island's rise from +the slime, and of mammoth craters now almost entirely obliterated by +denudation--the denudation which made the level land as fertile as +any on earth, and the suitable habitation of the most leisurely and +magnificent human animals of history. + +A thousand rills that drink from the clouds ever encircling the +crags, and in which they are often lost from view, leap from the +heights, appearing as ribbons of white on a clear day, and not +seldom disappearing in vapor as they fall sheer hundreds of feet, +or thousands, in successive drops. When heavy rains come, torrents +suddenly spring into being and dash madly down the precipitous cliffs +to swell the brooks and little rivers and rush headlong to the sea. + +Tahiti has an unexcelled climate for the tropics, the temperature for +the year averaging seventy-seven degrees and varying from sixty-nine +to eighty-four degrees. June, July, and August are the coolest and +driest months, and December to March the rainiest and hottest. It is +often humid, enervating, but the south-east, the trade-wind, which +blows regularly on the east side of the islands, where are Papeete +and most of the settlements, purifies the atmosphere, and there are +no epidemics except when disease is brought directly from the cities +of America or Australasia. A delicious breeze comes up every morning +at nine o'clock and fans the dweller in this real Arcadia until past +four, when it languishes and ceases in preparation for the vesper +drama of the sun's retirement from the stage of earth. + +Typhoons or cyclones are rare about Tahiti, but squalls are frequent +and tidal waves recurrent. The rain falls more than a hundred days +a year, but usually so lightly that one thinks of it as liquid +sunshine. In the wet quarter from December until March there are +almost daily deluges, when the air seems turned to water, the land +and sea are hidden by the screen of driving rain, and the thunder +shakes the flimsy houses, and echoes menacingly in the upper valleys. + +Papeete, the seat of government and trade capital of all the French +possessions in these parts of the world, is a sprawling village +stretching lazily from the river of Fautaua on the east to the cemetery +on the west, and from the sea on the north to half a mile inland. It +is the gradual increment of garden and house upon an aboriginal +village, the slow response of a century to the demand of official and +trading white, of religious group and ambitious Tahitian, of sailor +and tourist. Here flow all the channels of business and finance, +of plotting and robbery, of pleasure and profit, of literature and +art and good living, in the eastern Pacific. Papeete is the London +and Paris of this part of the peaceful ocean, dispensing the styles +and comforts, the inventions and luxuries, of civilization, making +the laws and enforcing or compromising them, giving justice and +injustice to litigants, despatching all the concomitants of modernity +to littler islands. Papeete is the entrepot of all the archipelagoes +in these seas. + +The French, who have domination in these waters of a hundred islands +and atolls between 8º and 27º south latitude, and between 137º and 154º +west longitude, a stretch of about twelve hundred miles each way, +make them all tributary to Papeete; and thus it is the metropolis +of a province of salt water, over which come its couriers and its +freighters, its governors and its soldiers, its pleasure-seekers and +its idlers. From it an age ago went the Maoris to people Hawaii and +New Zealand. + +Papeete has a central position in the Pacific. The capitals of Hawaii, +Australia, New Zealand, and California are from two and a half to +three and a half thousand miles away. No other such group of whites, +or place approaching its urbanity, is to be found in a vast extent +of latitude or longitude. It is without peer or competitor in endless +leagues of waves. + +Yet Papeete is a little place, a mile or so in length and less in +width, a curious imposition of European houses and manners upon a +Tahitian hamlet, hybrid, a mixture of loveliness and ugliness, of +nature savage and tamed. The settlement, as with all ports, began at +the waterfront, and the harbor of Papeete is a lake within the milky +reef, the gentle waters of which touch a strip of green that runs +along the shore, broken here and there by a wall and by the quay at +which I landed. Coral blocks have been quarried from the reef and +fitted to make an embankment for half a mile, which juts out just +far enough to be usable as a mole. It is alongside this that sailing +vessels lie, the wharf being the only land mooring with a roof for +the housing of products. A dozen schooners, small and large, point +their noses out to the sea, their backs against the coral quay, and +their hawsers made fast to old cannon, brought here to war against +the natives, and now binding the messengers of the nations and of +commerce to this shore. Where there are no embankments, the water +comes up to the roots of the trees, and a carpet of grass, moss, +and tropical vegetation grows from the salt tide to the roadway. + +Following the contour of the beach, runs a fairly broad road, and +facing this original thoroughfare and the sea are the principal +shops of the traders and a few residences. French are some of +these merchants, but most are Australasian, German, American and +Chinese. France is ten thousand miles away, and the French unequal +in the struggle for gain. Some of the stores occupy blocks, and in +them one will find a limited assortment of tobacco, anchors, needles, +music-boxes, candles, bicycles, rum, novels, and silks or calicos. Here +in this spot was the first settlement of the preachers of the gospel, +of the conquering forces of France, and of the roaring blades +who brought the culture of the world to a powerful and spellbound +people. Here swarmed the crews of fifty whalers in the days when +"There she blows!" was heard from crows'-nests all over the broad +Pacific. These rough adventurers, fighters, revelers, passionate +bachelors, stamped Tahiti with its first strong imprint of the white +man's modes and vices, contending with the missionaries for supremacy +of ideal. They brought gin and a new lecherousness and deadly ills and +novel superstitions, and found a people ready for their wares. An old +American woman has told me she has seen a thousand whalemen at one +time ashore off ships in the harbor make night and day a Saturnalia +of Occidental pleasure, a hundred fights in twenty-four hours. + +As more of Europe and America came and brought lumber to build houses, +or used the hard woods of the mountains, the settlement pushed back +from the beach. Trails that later widened into streets were cut through +the brush to reach these homes of whites, and the thatched huts of the +aborigines were replaced by the ugly, but more convenient, cottages +of the new-comers. The French, when once they had seized the island, +made roads, gradually and not too well, but far surpassing those of +most outlying possessions, and contrasting advantageously with the +neglect of the Spanish, who in three hundred years in the Philippines +left all undone the most important step in civilization. One can +drive almost completely around Tahiti on ninety miles of a highway +passable at most times of the year, and bridging a hundred times the +streams which rush and purl and wind from the heights to the ocean. + +The streets of Papeete have no plan. They go where they list and +in curves and angles, and only once in a mile in short, straight +stretches. They twist and stray north and south and nor'nor'west +and eastsou'east, as if each new-comer had cleft a walk of his own, +caring naught for any one else, and further dwellers had smoothed it +on for themselves. + +I lost myself in a maze of streets, looked about for a familiar +landmark, strolled a hundred paces, and found myself somewhere +I thought a kilometer distant. Everywhere there are shops kept +by Chinese, restaurants and coffee-houses. The streets all have +names, but change them as they progress, honoring some French hero +or statesman for a block or two, recalling some event, or plainly +stating the reason for their being. All names are in French, of course, +and many are quaint and sonorous. + +As the sea-wall grew according to the demands of defense or commerce +the sections were rechristened. The quai des Subsistences tells its +purpose as does the quai de l'Uranie. The rue de l'Ecole and the rue +de la Mission, with the rue des Remparts, speak the early building +of school and Catholic church and fortifications. + +Rue Cook, rue de Bougainville and many others record the giant figures +of history who took Tahiti from the mist of the half-known, and wrote +it on the charts and in the archives. Other streets hark back to that +beloved France to which these French exiles gaze with tearful eyes, +but linger all their years ten thousand miles away. They saunter +along the rue de Rivoli in Papeete, and see again the magnificence +of the Tuileries, and hear the dear noises of la belle Paris. They +are sentimental, these French, patriots all here, and overcome at +times by the flood of memories of la France, their birthplaces, +and their ancestral graves. Some born here have never been away, and +some have spent a few short months in visits to the homeland. Some +have brown mothers, half-islanders; yet if they learn the tripping +tongue of their French progenitor and European manners, they think +of France as their ultimate goal, of Paris their playground, and the +"Marseillaise" their himene par excellence. + +One might conjure up a vision of a tiny Paris with such names in +one's ears, and these French, who have been in possession here nearly +four-score years, have tried to make a French town of Papeete. + +They have only spoiled the scene as far as unfit architecture can, +but the riot of tropical nature has mocked their labors. For all +over the flimsy wooden houses, the wretched palings, the galvanized +iron roofing, the ugly verandas, hang gorgeous draperies of the giant +acacias, the brilliant flamboyantes, the bountiful, yellow allamanda, +the generous breadfruit, and the uplifting glory of the cocoanut-trees, +while magnificent vines and creepers cover the tawdry paint of the +façades and embower the homes in green and flower. If one leaves the +few principal streets or roads in Papeete, one walks only on well-worn +trails through the thick growth of lantana, guavas, pandanus, wild +coffee, and a dozen other trees and bushes. The paths are lined with +hedges of false coffee, where thrifty people live, and again there +are open spaces with vistas of little houses in groves, rows of tiny +cabins close together. Everywhere are picturesque disorder, dirt, +rubbish, and the accrued wallow of years of laissez-aller; but the +mighty trade-winds and the constant rains sweep away all bad odors, +and there is no resultant disease. + +"My word," said Stevens, a London stockbroker, here to rehabilitate +a broken corporation, "if we English had this place, wouldn't there +be a cleaning up! We'd build it solid and sanitary, and have proper +rules to make the bally natives stand around." + +The practical British would that. They have done so in a dozen of +their far-flung colonies I hare been in, from Singapore to Barbadoes, +though they have failed utterly in Jamaica. Yet, I am at first sight, +of the mind that only the Spanish would have kept, after decades of +administration, as much of the simple beauty of Papeete as have the +Gauls. True, the streets are a litter, the Government almost unseen +as to modern uplift, the natives are indolent and life moves without +bustle or goal. The republic is content to keep the peace, to sell +its wares, to teach its tongue, and to let the gentle Tahitian hold +to his island ways, now that his race dies rapidly in the spiritual +atmosphere so murderous to natural, non-immunized souls and bodies. + +Many streets and roads are shaded by spreading mango-trees, a fruit +brought in the sixties from Brazil, and perfected in size and flavor +here by the patient efforts of French gardeners and priests. The trees +along the town ways are splendid, umbrageous masses of dark foliage +whose golden crops fall upon the roadways, and which have been so +chosen that though they are seasonal, the round mango is succeeded +by the golden egg, and that by a small purple sort, while the large, +long variety continues most of the year. Monseigneur Jaussen, the +Catholic bishop who wrote the accepted grammar and dictionary of the +Tahitian language, evolved a delicious, large mango, with a long, +thin stone very different from the usual seed, which occupies most +of the circumference of this slightly acidulous, most luscious of +tropical fruits. Often the pave is a spatter of the fallen mangos, +its slippery condition of no import to the barefooted Tahitian, +but to the shod a cause of sudden, strange gyrations and gestures, +and of irreverence toward the Deity. + +Scores of varieties of fruits and flowers, shade-trees, and ornamental +plants were brought to Tahiti by ship commanders, missionaries, +officials, and traders, in the last hundred years, while many of +the indigenous growths have been transplanted to other islands and +continents by those whose interests were in them. The Mutiny of +the Bounty, perhaps the most romantic incident of these South Seas, +was the result of an effort to transport breadfruit-tree shoots from +Tahiti to the West Indies. It is a beautiful trait in humankind, which, +maybe, designing nature has endowed us with to spread her manifold +creations, that even the most selfish of men delight in planting in +new environments exotic seeds and plants, and in enriching the fauna of +faraway islands with strange animals and insects. The pepper- and the +gum-tree that make southern California's desert a bower, the oranges +and lemons there which send a million golden trophies to less-favored +peoples, are the flora of distant climes. Since the days of the white +discoverers, adventurers and priests, fighting men and puritans, +have added to the earth's treasury in Tahiti and all these islands. + +Walking one morning along the waterfront, I met two very dark +negresses. They had on pink and black dresses, with red cotton +shawls, and they wore flaming yellow handkerchiefs about their woolly +heads. They were as African as the Congo, and as strange in this +setting as Eskimos on Broadway. They felt their importance, for they +were of the few good cooks of French dishes here. They spoke a French +patois, and guffawed loudly when one dropped her basket of supplies +from her head. They were servants of the procureur de la République, +who had brought them from the French colony of Martinique. + +Many races have mingled here. One saw their pigments and their lines +in the castes; here a soupçon of the French and there a touch of the +Dane; the Chileño, himself a mestizo, had left his print in delicacy +of feature, and the Irish his freckles and pug, which with tawny +skin, pearly teeth, and the superb form of the pure Tahitian, left +little to be desired in fetching and saucy allurement. Thousands of +sailors and merchants and preachers had sowed their seed here, as did +Captain Cook's men a century and a half ago, and the harvest showed +in numerous shadings of colors and variety of mixtures. Tahiti had, +since ship of Europe sighted Orofena, been a pasture for the wild +asses of the Wanderlust, a paradise into which they had brought their +snakes and left them to plague the natives. + +There were phonographs shrieking at one from a score of verandas. The +automobile had become a menace to life and limb. There were two-score +motor-cars in Tahiti; but as the island is small, and most of them +were in the capital, one met them all the day, and might have thought +there were hundreds. Motor-buses, or "rubberneck-wagons," ran about the +city, carrying the natives for a franc on a brief tour, and, for more, +to country districts where good cheer and dances sped the night. A +dozen five- and seven-passenger cars with drivers were for hire. Most +nights until eleven or later the rented machines dashed about the +narrow streets, hooting and hissing, while their care-free occupants +played accordions or mouth-organs and sang songs of love. Louis de +Bougainville, once a French lawyer, and afterward soldier, sailor, +and discoverer and a lord under Bonaparte, had a monument in a tiny +green park hard by the strand and the road that, beginning there, +bands the island. He is best known the world about because his name is +given to the "four-o'clock" shrub in warm countries, as in Tahiti, +which sends huge masses of magenta or crimson blossoms climbing +on trellises and roofs. I walked to this monument from the Tiare +along the mossy bank of a little rivulet which ran to the beach. It +was early morning. The humble natives and whites were about their +daily tasks. Smoke rose from the iron pipes above the houses, coffee +scented the air, men and women were returning from the market-place +with bunches of cocoanuts, bananas, and breadfruit, strings of fish +and cuts of meat in papers. Many of them had their heads wreathed in +flowers or wore a tiare blossom over an ear. + +The way in which one wears a flower supposedly signifies many +things. If one wore it over the left ear, one sought a sweetheart; +if over the right, it signified contentment, and though it was as +common as the wearing of hats, there were always jokes passing about +these flowers, exclamations of surprise or wishes of joy. + +"What, you have left Terii?" + +"Aita. No." + +"Aue! I must change it at once." + +Now, really there was no such idea in the native mind. It was invention +for tourists. The Tahitian wears flowers anywhere, always, if he can +have them, and they do express his mood. If he is sad, he will not put +them on; but if going to a dance, to a picnic, or to promenade, if he +has money in his pocket, or gaiety in his heart, he must bloom. Over +one ear, or both, in the hair, on the head, around the neck, both sexes +were passionately fond of this age-old sign of kinship with nature. The +lei in Hawaii around the hat or the neck spells the same meaning, but +the flood of outsiders has lost Hawaii all but the merest remnant of +its ancient ways, while here still persisted customs which a century +of European difference and indifference has not crushed out. Here, +as there, more lasting wreaths for the hat were woven of shells or +beads in various colors. + +As I strolled past the houses, every one greeted me pleasantly. + +"Ia ora na," they said, or "Bonjour!" I replied in kind. I had not +been a day in Tahiti before I felt kindled in me an affection for +its dark people which I had never known for any other race. It was +an admixture of friendship, admiration, and pity--of affection for +their beautiful natures, of appreciation of the magnificence of their +physical equipment, and of sympathy for them in their decline and +inevitable passing under the changed conditions of environment made +by the sudden smothering of their instinctive needs in the sepia of +commercial civilization. I saw that those natives remaining, laughing +and full of the desire for pleasure as they were, must perish because +unfit to survive in the morass of modernism in which they were sinking, +victims of a system of life in which material profits were the sole +goal and standard of the rulers. + +The Tahitians are tall, vigorous, and superbly rounded. The men, +often more than six feet or even six and a half feet in height, have +a mien of natural majesty and bodily grace. They convey an impression +of giant strength, reserve power, and unconscious poise beyond that +made by any other race. American Indians I have known had much of this +quality when resident far from towns, but they lacked the curving, +padded muscles, the ease of movement, and, most of all, the smiling +faces, the ingratiating manner, of these children of the sun. + +The Tahitians' noses are fairly flat and large; the nostrils dilated; +their lips full and sensual; their teeth perfectly shaped and very +white and sound; their chins strong, though round; and their eyes +black and large, not brilliant, but liquid. Their feet and hands are +mighty--hands that lift burdens of great weight, that swing paddles +of canoes for hours; feet that tread the roads or mountain trails +for league on league. + +The women are of middle size, with lines of harmony that give them a +unique seal of beauty, with an undulating movement of their bodies, +a coordination of every muscle and nerve, a richness of aspect in +color and form, that is more sensuous, more attractive, than any +feminine graces I have ever gazed on. They have the forwardness of +boys, the boldness of huntresses, yet the softness and magnetism of +the most virginal of their white sisters. One thinks of them as of old +in soft draperies of beautiful cream-colored native cloth wound around +their bodies, passed under one arm and knotted on the other shoulder, +revealing the shapely neck and arm, and one breast, with garlands upon +their hair, and a fragrant flower passed through one ear, and in the +other two or three large pearls fastened with braided human hair. + +The men never wore beards, though mustaches, copying the French custom, +are common on chiefs, preachers, and those who sacrifice beauty and +natural desires to ambition. The hair on the face is removed as it +appears, and it is scanty. They abhor beards, and their ghosts, the +tupapau, have faces fringed with hair. The usual movements of both +men and women are slow, dignified, and full of pride. + + + +Chapter IV + +The Tiare Hotel--Lovaina the hostess, the best-known woman in the +South Seas--Her strange ménage--The Dummy--A one-sided tryst--An +old-fashioned cocktail--The Argentine training ship. + +The Tiare Hotel was the center of English-speaking life in +Papeete. Almost all tourists stayed there, and most of the white +residents other than the French took meals there. The usual traveler +spent most of his time in and about the hotel, and from it made +his trips to the country districts or to other islands. Except for +two small restaurants kept by Europeans, the Tiare was the only +eating-place in the capital of Tahiti unless one counted a score +of dismal coffee-shops kept by Chinese, and frequented by natives, +sailors, and beach-combers. They were dark, disagreeable recesses, +with grimy tables and forbidding utensils, in which wretchedly made +coffee was served with a roll for a few sous; one of them also offered +meats of a questionable kind. + +The Tiare Hotel was five minutes' walk from the quay, at the junction +of the rue de Rivoli and the rue de Petit Pologne, close by Pont du +Remparts. It was a one-storied cottage, with broad verandas, half +hidden in a luxuriant garden at the point where two streets come +together at a little stone bridge crossing a brook--a tiny bungalow +built for a home, and stretched and pieced out to make a guest-house. + +I was at home there after a few days as if I had known no other +dwelling. That is a distinctive and compelling charm of Tahiti, +the quick possession of the new-comer by his environment, and his +unconscious yielding to the demands of his novel surroundings, +opposite as they might be to his previous habitat. + +Very soon I was filled with the languor of these isles. I hardly +stirred from my living-place. The bustle of the monthly steamship-day +died with the going of the Noa-Noa, the through passengers departing +in angry mood because their anticipated hula dance had been a +disappointment--wickedness shining feebly through cotton gowns when +they had expected nudity in a pas seul of abandonment. There was a +violent condemnation by the duped men of "unwarranted interference +by the French Government with natural and national expression." + +Hogg, an American business traveler, said "The Barbary Coast in +Frisco had Tahiti skinned a mile for the real thing," and Stevens, +a London broker, that the dance was "bally tame for four bob." + +Papeete, with the passing throng gone, was a quiet little town, +contrasting with the hours when the streets swarmed with people +from here and the suburbs, the band playing, the bars crowded, and +all efforts for gaiety and coquetry and the selling of souvenirs +and intoxicants. What exotic life there was beyond the clubs, +the waterfront, and the Asiatic quarter revolved around the Tiare, +and entirely so because of its proprietress, Lovaina. She was the +best-known and best-liked woman in all these South Seas, remembered +from Australia to the Paumotus, from London to China, wherever were +people who had visited Tahiti, as "dear old Lovaina." + +She was very large. She was huge in every sense, weighing much +more than three hundred pounds, and yet there was a singular +grace in her form and her movements. Her limbs were of the girth of +breadfruit-trees, and her bosom was as broad and deep as that of the +great Juno of Rome, but her hands were beautiful, like a plump baby's, +with fascinating creases at the wrists, and long, tapering fingers. Her +large eyes were hazel, and they were very brilliant when she was merry +or excited. Her expansive face had no lines in it, and her mouth +was a perfection of curves, the teeth white and even. Her hair was +red-brown, curling in rich profusion, scented with the hinano-flower, +adorning her charmingly poised head in careless grace. + +When she said, "I glad see you," there was a glow of amiability, an +alluring light in her countenance, that drew one irresistibly to her, +and her immense, shapely hand enveloped one's own with a pressure +and a warmth that were overpowering in their convincement of her good +heart and illimitable generosity. + +Lovaina was only one fourth Tahitian, all the remainder of her racial +inheritance being American; but she was all Tahitian in her traits, +her simplicity, her devotion to her friends, her catching folly as +it flew, and her pride in a new possession. + +One morning I got up at five o'clock and went to the bath beside the +kitchen. It was a shower, and the water from the far Fautaua valley +the softest, most delicious to the body, cool and balmy in the heat +of the tropic. Coming and going to baths here, whites throw off +easily the fear of being thought immodest, and women and men alike +go to and fro in loin-cloths, pajamas, or towels. I wore the pareu, +the red strip of calico, bearing designs by William Morris, which +the native buys instead of his original one of tapa, the beaten cloth +made from tree bark or pith. + +I met Lovaina coming out of the shower, a sheet about her which could +not cover half of her immense and regal body. She hesitated--I was +almost a stranger,--and in a vain effort to do better, trod on the +sheet, and pulled it to her feet. I picked it up for her. + +"I shamed for you see me like this!" she said. + +I was blushing all over, though why I don't know, but I faltered: + +"Like a great American Beauty rose." + +"Faded rose too big," exclaimed Lovaina, with the faintest air of +coquetry as I hastily shut the door. + +A little while later, when I came to the dining-room for the first +breakfast, I met Lovaina in a blue-figured aahu of muslin and +lace, a close-fitting, sweeping nightgown, the single garment that +Tahitians wear all day and take off at night, a tunic, or Mother +Hubbard, which reveals their figures without disguise, unstayed, +unpetticoated. Lovaina was, as always, barefooted, and she took me +into her garden, one of the few cultivated in Tahiti, where nature +makes man almost superfluous in the decoration of the earth. + +"This house my father give me when marry," said Lovaina. "My God! you +just should seen that arearea! Las' all day, mos' night. We jus' move +in. Ban's playin' from war-ship, all merry drinkin', dancin'. Never +such good time. I tell you nobody could walk barefoot one week, +so much broken glass in garden an' street." + +Her goodly flesh shook with her laughter, her darkening eyes suffused +with happy tears at the memory, and she put her broad hand between +my shoulders for a moment as if to draw me into the rejoicing of her +wedding feast. She led me about the garden to show me how she had from +year to year planted the many trees, herbs, and bushes it contained. It +had set out to be formal, but, like most efforts at taming the fierce +fecundity of nature in these seas, had become a tangle of verdure, +for though now and then combed into some regularity, the breezes, +the dogs, the chickens, and the invading people ruffled it, the +falling leaves covered the grass, and the dead branches sighed for +burial. Down the narrow path she went ponderously, showing me the +cannas, jasmine and rose, picking a lime or a tamarind, a bouquet of +mock-orange flowers, smoothing the tuberoses, the hibiscus of many +colors, the oleanders, maile ilima, Star of Bethlehem, frangipani, +and, her greatest love, the tiare Tahiti. There were snakeplants, +East-India cherries, coffee-bushes, custard-apples, and the hinano, +the sweetness of which and of the tiare made heavy the air. + +I said that we had no flower in America as wonderful in perfume +as these. + +Lovaina stopped her slow, heavy steps. She raised her beautiful, +big hand, and arresting my attention, she exclaimed: + +"You know that ol' hinano! Ol' time we use that Tahiti cologne. Girl +put that on pareu an' on dress, by an' by make whole body jus' like +flower. That set man crazee; make all man want kiss an' hug." + +Doubtless, our foremothers when they sought to win the hunters of their +tribes, took the musk, the civet, and the castor from the prey laid at +their feet, and made maddening their smoke- and wind-tanned bodies to +the cave-dwellers. When they became more housed and more clothed, they +captured the juices of the flowers in nutshells, and later in stone +bottles, until now science disdains animals and flowers, but takes +chemicals and waste products to make a hundred essences and unguents +and sachets for toilet and boudoir. These odors of the hinano and +tiare were philters worthy of the beautiful Tahitian girls, with their +sinuous, golden bodies so sensualized, so passionate, and so free. + +The ordinary life of the Tiare Hotel was all upon the broad verandas +which surrounded it, their high lattices covered with the climbing +bougainvillea and stephanotis vines, which formed a maze for the +filtering of the sunlight and the dimming of the activities of the +streets. On these verandas were the tables for eating, and in the +main bungalow a few bedrooms, with others in detached cottages within +the inclosure. + +There was a parlor, and it was like the parlors of all ambitious +Europeans or Americans in all islands--a piano with an injured tone, +chairs blue and scarlet with plush covers that perspiring sitters +of years had made dark brown, a phonograph, and signed photographs +of friends and visitors who had said farewell to Tahiti. There were +paintings of flowers by Lovaina, showing not a little talent and much +feeling. All these were the pride of her birthright--"Murricaine" +fashion, as the hostess said pensively. + +I have said that the life of the hotel was upon the veranda, and so +it was at meal-time and for the casual tourist staying a day with +a steamship to or from New Zealand or the United States; but to the +resident of Tahiti, the American, Britisher, or non-Latin European, +the place of interest in Papeete other than the clubs was a small +porch approached from the street by a few steps. + +On this tiny porch was a large table, and behind it a couch. The table +was the only desk for letter-writing, the serving-stand for meals, +the board for salad and cake-making, and the drink-bar. A few feet +removed from this table, and against the wall, was a camphorwood +chest on which two might sit in comfort and three might squeeze at +angles. In the chest was kept all the bed and table linen, so that +one might often be disturbed by the quest of sheets or napkins. + +Upon this little porch the kitchen, bath, and toilets opened, a few +feet from the table. It was the sleeping and amusement quarters +of five dogs, the loafing place for the girls, the office of the +hotel, the entry for guests to the dining-room or to the other +conveniences. Through it streamed all who came to eat or drink or +for any other purpose. The hotel having grown slowly from a home, +hardly any changes of plumbing had been made, and men and women +in dressing-gowns, in pajamas, or in other undress came and went, +under the interested gaze of idlers and drinkers, and they had often +to endure intimate questions or badinage. All were on a footing as +to the arrangements, and I saw the haughty duchess of the Noa-Noa +follow Lovaina's American negro chauffeur, while a former ambassador +waited on the chest. There was no distinction of rank, since Tahiti, +excepting for an occasional French official, was the purest democracy +of manners in the world, a philosophy the whites had learned from +the natives, who think all foreigners equally distinguished. + +Those not of the South Seas, and unused to the primitive publicity +of the natural functions there, suffered intensely at first from +embarrassment, but in time forgot their squeamishness, and perhaps +learned to carry on conversations with those who drank or chatted +outside. + +The Tahitian cook slept all day between meals on a chair, with his +head hanging out a window. He was ill often from a rush of blood +to his head. Lovaina had offered him a mat to lie on the floor, but +he pleaded his habit. All the refuse of the kitchen was thrown into +the garden under this window, and with the horses, chickens, dogs, +and cats it was first come, first served. + +On the couch back of the table Lovaina sat for many hours every +day. Her great weight made her disinclined to walk, and from her +cushions she ruled her domain, chaffing with those who dropped in +for drinks, advising and joking, making cakes and salads, bargaining +with the butcher and vegetable-dealer, despatching the food toward the +tables, feeding many dogs, posting her accounts, receiving payments, +and regulating the complex affairs of her ménage. She would shake a +cocktail, make a gin-fizz or a Doctor Funk, chop ice or do any menial +service, yet withal was your entertainer and your friend. She had the +striking, yet almost inexplicable, dignity of the Maori--the facing +of life serenely and without reserve or fear for the morrow. + +Underneath the table dogs tumbled, or raced about the porch, barking +and leaping on laps, cats scurried past, and a cloud of tobacco smoke +filled the close air. Lovaina, in one of her sixty bright gowns, +a white chemise beneath, her feet bare, sat enthroned. On the chest +were the captain of a liner or a schooner, a tourist, a trader, a girl, +an old native woman, or a beach-comber with money for the moment. It +was the carpet of state on which all took their places who would have +a hearing before the throne or loaf in the audience-chamber. + +In her low, delightfully broken English, in vivid French, or sibilant +Tahitian, Lovaina issued her orders to the girls, shouted maledictions +at the cook, or talked with all who came. Through that porch flowed all +the scandal of the South Seas--tales of hurricanes and waterspouts, +of shipwrecks, of accidents, of lucky deals in pearls or shells, of +copra, of new fashions and old inhabitants, of liaisons of white and +brown, of the flirtations of tourists, of the Government's issuing an +ultimatum on the price of fish, of how the consuls quarreled at a club +dinner, and of how one threw three ribs of roasted beef at the other, +who retorted with a whole sucking pig just from the native oven, +of Thomas' wife leaving him for Europe after a month's honeymoon; +and all the flotsam and jetsam of report and rumor, of joke and +detraction, which in an island with only one mail a month are the +topics of interest. + +The porch was the clearing-house and the casual, oral record of the +spreading South Seas. It was the strangest salon of any capital, +and Lovaina the most fascinating of hostesses. Stories that would +be frowned down in many a man's club were laughed at lightly over +the table, but not when tourists, new-comers, were present. Then +the dignified Lovaina, repressing the oaths of potvaliant skippers, +putting her finger to her lips when a bald assertion was imminent, +said impressively: + +"That swears don't go! What you think? To give bad name my good house?" + +Only when old-timers were gathered, between steamships, when the +schooners came in a drove from the Paumotu atolls, and gold and silver +rang on the table at all hours, there was little restraint. + +With only one mail a month to disturb the monotony, and but trifling +interest in anything north of the equator except prices of their +commodities, these unrepressed rebels against the conventions and even +the laws of the Occident must have their fling. On that camphor-wood +chest had sat many a church-going woman and dignified man of Europe or +America, resident for a month or longer in Tahiti, and shuddered at +what they heard--shuddered and listened, eager to hear those curious +incidents and astonishing opinions about life and affairs, and to mark +the difference between this and their own countries. It was without +even comment that people who at home or among the conventions would be +shocked at the subjects or their treatment, in these islands listened +thrilled or chucklingly to stories as naked as the children. Double +entendre is caviar to the average man and woman of Tahiti, who call the +unshrouded spade by its aboriginal name. The Tahitians were ever thus, +and the French have not sought to correct their ways. I heard Atupu, +one of the girls of the hotel, in a Rabelaisian passage of wit the +while she opened Seattle beer for thirsty Britishers, old residents, +traders, and planters. One could not publish the phrases if one could +translate them. + +Lovaina, in her bed just off the porch, was laughing at the retorts +of Atupu, who by her native knowledge of the tongue was discomfiting +the roisterers, who spoke it haltingly. I heard an apt interjection +on the part of the proprietress which set them all roaring, and so +lowered their self-esteem that they left summarily. + +One day when I was hurrying off to swim in the lagoon, I asked +Lovaina to guard a considerable sum of money in bank-notes. She +assented readily, but when several days later I mentioned the money +she struck her head in alarm. She thought and thought, but could not +remember in what safe place she had hidden the paper francs. + +"My God! Brien," she said in desperation, "all time I jus' like that +crazee way. One time one engineer big steamship come here, he ask +me keep two thousan' dollar for him. I busy jus' like always, an' +I throw behin' that couch I sit on. My God! he come back I fore-get +where I put. One day we look hard. I suffer turribil, but the nex' +day I move couch and find money. Was n't that funny?" + +I suggested we try the couch again, but though we turned up a number +of lost odds and ends, it was not the cache of my funds. By way +of cheering her, I ordered a rum punch, and when she went to crack +the ice, a gleam of remembrance came to her, and, lo! my money was +found in the reserve butter supply in the refrigerator, where she had +artfully placed it out of harm's way. It was quite greasy, but intact. + +The first breakfast at the Tiare began at 6:30, but lingered for +several hours. It was of fruit and coffee and bread; papayas, bananas, +oranges, pineapples, and alligator-pears, which latter the French +call avocats, the Mexicans ahuacatl, and were brought here from the +West Indies. To this breakfast male guests dropped in from the bath +in pajamas, but the déjeuner à la fourchette, or second breakfast at +eleven, was more formal, and of four courses, fish, bacon and eggs, +curry and rice, tongues and sounds, beefsteak and potatoes, feis, +roast beef or mutton, sucking pig, and cabbage or sauer-kraut. For +dessert there was sponge- or cocoanut-cake. All business in Papeete +opened at seven o'clock and closed at eleven, to reopen from one +until five. Dinner at half-past six o'clock was a repetition of the +late breakfast except that a vegetable or cabbage soup was also served. + +Two Chinese youths, To Sen and Hon Son, were the regular waiters, +but were supplemented by Atupu, Iromea, Pepe, Akura, Tetua, Maru, +and Juillet, all Tahitian girls or young women who had a mixed status +of domestics, friends, kinfolk, visitors, and hetairae, the latter +largely in the sense of entertainers. I doubt if they were paid more +than a trifle, and they were from the country districts or near-by +islands, moths drawn by the flame of the town to soar in its feverish +heat, to singe their wings, and to grow old before their time, or to +grasp the opportunity to satiate their thirst for foreign luxuries +by semi-permanent alliances with whites. + +Lovaina's girls! How their memory must survive with the guests of the +Tiare Hotel! One read of them in every book of travel encompassing +Tahiti. One heard of them from every man who had dropped upon this +beach. Once in Mukden, Manchuria, I sat up half the night while the +American consul and a globe-trotter painted for me the portraits of +Lovaina's girls. + +I was atop a disorderly camel named Mark Twain nosing about the Sphinx +when my companion remarked that that stony-faced lady looked a good +deal like Temanu of Lovaina's. Then I had to have the whole story of +Lovaina and her household. I have heard it away from Tahiti a dozen +times and always different. + +Doubtless, in the dozen years the gentle Lovaina ministered to the +needs of travelers and residents, many girls came and went in her +house. Some have married, and some have gone away without a ring, +but all have been made much of by those they served, and have lived +gayly and by the way. + +Lovaina, herself, said to me: + +"You know those girl', they go ruin. That girl you see here few +minutes ago I bring her up just like Christian; be good, be true, do +her prayers, make her soul all right. Then I go San Francisco. What +you think? When I come back she ruin. 'Most break my heart. That man +he come to me, he say: 'Lovaina, I take good care that girl. I love +her.' That girl with him now. She happy, got plenty dress, plenty +best to eat, and nice buggy. I tell you, I give up trying save those +girl'. I think they like ruin best. I turn my back--they ruin." + +Iromea was the sturdy veteran of the corps. Tall, handsome, straight, +mother of four children, obliging, wise in the way of the white, +herself all native. + +"And the babies?" I inquired. + +"They all scatter. Some in country; some different place," answered +Iromea, who ran from English to French to Tahitian, but of course +not with the ease of Lovaina, for that great heart knew many of the +cities of her father's land, was educated in needlework style, and +with a little dab of Yankee culture, now fast disappearing as she +grew older. One marked that tendency to reversion to the native type +and ways among many islanders who had been superficially coated with +civilization, but whom environment and heredity claim inexorably. + +Iromea was thirty years old. She had been loved by many white men, +men of distinction here; sea-rovers, merchants, and lotus-eaters, +writers, painters, and wastrels. + +Juillet, whose native name was Tiurai, helped old Madame Rose to care +for the rooms at the Tiare. She was thirteen years old, willowy, +with a beautiful, smiling face, and two long, black plaits. Though +innocent, almost artless, in appearance, she was an arch coquette, +and flirted with old and young. One day a turkey that shared the back +yard with two automobiles, a horse, three carriages, several dogs, +ten cats, and forty chickens, disappeared. Juillet was sent to find +the turkey. She was gone four days, and came back with a brilliant +new gown. She brought with her the turkey, which she said she had +been trying to drive back all the four days. + +Juillet was named for the month of July. Her mother was the cook +of a governor when she was born on the fourteenth of July, the +anniversary of the fall of the Bastile, and the governor named her +for the month. She was also named Nohorae, and noho means to be naked +and rae forehead. Juillet had a high forehead. + +Lovaina pointed out to me the man who had taken away her favorite +helper. He was about forty years old, tall, angular, sharp-nosed, with +gold eyeglasses. I would have expected to meet him in the vestry of +a church or to have been asked by him at a mission if I were saved, +but in Tahiti he had gone the way of all flesh. His voice had the +timbre of the preacher. He had come to the hotel in an expensive, +new automobile to fetch cooked food for himself and Ruiné. + +"Seven or eight leper that man support," said Lovaina to me. "They +die for him, he so good to them. He help everybodee. He give them +leper the Bible, and sometime he go read them." + +It would be the Song of Solomon he would read to Ruiné. She had red +hair, red black or black red, a not unusual color in Tahiti, and +her eyes had a glint of red in their brown. She was exquisite in her +silken peignoir, a wreath of scarlet hibiscus-flowers on her head, +and a string of gorgeous baroque pearls about her rounded neck. + +My room at the Tiare was in the upper story of an old house that sat +alone in the back garden, among the domestics, automobiles, carriages, +horses, pigs, and fowls. The house had wide verandas all about it, +and the stairway outside. A few nights after I had arrived in Tahiti +I was writing letters on the piazza, the length of the room away from +the stairs. I had a lamp on my table, and the noise of my type-writer +hushed the sounds of any one entering the apartment. It was about ten +o'clock, and between sentences I looked at the night. The stars were +in coruscating masses, the riches of the heavens disclosed as only +at such a cloudless hour in this southern hemisphere, the Milky Way +showing ten thousand gleaming members of the galaxy that are hidden +in our skies. I thought of those happy mariners who first sailed their +small, wooden ships into these mysterious seas, and first of our race, +saw this strangely brilliant macrocosm, and appreciated it for its +marvels and its differences from their own bleaker, Western vault. + +There were no doors in the openings into my room from the verandas, but +hangings of gorgeous scarlet calico, pareus, kept out the blazing sun, +and lent a little privacy at night. All the furniture was a chair, +a dressing-table, and two large beds, canopied with mosquito-nets, +evidently provided for a double lodging if needed. + +As I finished my letters twenty feet away, a Tahitian girl parted the +farther curtain nearest the stairway, and slipped into the room with +the silence of the accustomed barefooted. Imagine her in her gayest +gown of rose color, a garland of hinano-flowers on her glossy head, +her tawny hair in two plaits to her unconfined waist, and her eyes +shining with the spirit of her quest! + +She looked through the room to where I sat in the semi-obscurity, +and then knelt down by the first bed, and waited. I gazed again at +the starry heavens, and, stepping over the threshold, entered the +chamber, lamp in hand. I undressed leisurely, and putting about +me the pareu Lovaina had given me, I threw the light upon the two +beds to make my nightly choice. I surveyed them both critically, +but the one nearest to me having the netting arranged for entrance, +I selected it, and setting the lamp upon the dresser, extinguished +it, groped to the bed in darkness, and lay down upon the coverless +sheet. A few minutes I stayed awake going over the happenings of the +day, and fell asleep in joyful mood that I was in the island I had +sought so long in desire and dream. I knew nothing of my visitor, +for she had made no audible sound, and the shadows had hidden her. + +At breakfast the next morning I was waited on by Atupu, the beauty. Her +face was tear-stained, and a deep weariness was upon her. She regarded +me with a glance of mixed anger and hurt. + +"Vous etes faché avec moi?" she inquired accusingly. + +"I angry with you?" I repeated. "Why what have I done to show it?" + +And then she told me of her visit and vigil. Seeing me alone in +Tahiti, and kind-hearted, she said, she had thought to tell me of +the Tahitian heart and the old ways of the land. She had robed, +perfumed, and adorned herself, and entered my sleeping-place, as she +said was the wont of Tahitian girls. I had certainly heard her enter, +and seen her kneel to await my greeting, and if not then, I had seen +her plainly when I lifted the lamp, for the light had streamed full +upon her. She had remained there upon the floor half an hour until my +audible breathing had compelled her to believe against her will that I +was asleep. Then she had fled and wept the night in humiliation. Never +in her young life had such a horror afflicted her. + +I was stunned, and could only reiterate that I had not known of her +presence, and with a trinket from my pocket I dried her tears. + +Rupert Brooke in a letter to a friend in England drew a little etching +of our lodging: + +I am in a hovel at the back of my hotel, and contemplate the yard. The +extraordinary life of the place flows round and near my room--for +here no one, man or woman, scruples to come through one's room +at any moment, if it happens to be a shortcut. By day nothing much +happens in the yard--except when a horse tried to eat a hen, the other +afternoon. But by night, after ten, it is filled with flitting figures +of girls, with wreaths of white flowers, keeping assignations.... It is +all--all Papeete--like a Renaissance Italy with the venom taken out, +No, simpler, light-come and light-go, passionate and forgetful, like +children, and all the time South Pacific, that is to say unmalicious +and good-tempered. + +When a steamship was in port the Tiare was a hurly-burly. Perhaps +forty or even a hundred extra patrons came for meals or drinks. It +was amusing to hear their uncomprehending anger at their failure to +obtain quick service or even a smile by their accustomed manner toward +dark peoples. The British, who were the majority of the travelers, +have a cold, autocratic attitude toward all who wait upon them, +but especially toward those of the colored races. In Tahiti they +suffered utter dismay, because Tahitians know no servitude and pay +no attention to sharp words. + +I saw a red-faced woman giving an order for apéritifs to To Sen, +the Chinese waiter. + +"Two old-fashioned gin cocktails," she iterated. "You savee, gin +and bitters? Be sure it's Angostura, and lemon and soda, and two +Manhattans with rye whisky. Hurry along now! Old-fashioned, remember!" + +In ten minutes Temanu came for the order. To Sen knew no English, +and Temanu only, "Yais, ma darleeng," and "Whatnahell?" + +"Spik Furanche?" she begged. + +"Oui, oui!" said the red-faced lady. "Dooze cocktail! Vous savez +cocktail, à la mode des ancients? Gin, oon dash bittair, lem' et soda!" + +"Mais, madame, douze cocktail!" and the half-caste Chinese girl +held up all her fingers and added two more. "Vous n'êtes que quatre +ici! Quatre cocktails, n'est-ce pas?" + +"Dooze gin, dooze Manhattan? My heavens! They ought to +understand my French in this out-of-the-way place when they do in +Paris. Listen! Dooze is two in French," and she held up two pudgy +fingers. But Temanu was gone and returned with four cocktails made +after her own liking. + +All the girls, Atupu, Iromea, Pepe, Maru, Tetua, and Mme. Rose +and Mama-Maru, helped in the service, some beginning with shoes and +stockings, but soon slipping them off as the crowd grew and their feet +became weary. Lovaina herself moved happily about the salle-à-manger +telling her friends that she was a grandmother. A letter had given the +information that her daughter had a child. She was a doting parent, and +we all must toast the newborn. Two grave professors of the University +of California, ichthyologists or entomologists, sat entranced at the +unconventionality of the scene, drinking vin ordinaire and gazing +at the Tahitian girls, or eating breadfruit, raw fish, and taro, +as if they were on Mars and did not know how they got there. + +I saw an entry in Lovaina's day-book on the table: + +"Germani to Fany 3 feathers." + +This was a charge made by Atupu against a Dane for three cocktails. He +took his meals at Mme. Klopfer's restaurant. Her first name is +Fanny, and Atupu thinks all men not English, French, or Americans, +are Germans; so she identified the Dane as the German who went to +Fanny's for his meals. + +Lovaina said to me: + +"I hear you look one house that maybe you rent. You don't get wise +if you rent from that French woman. I don't say nothing about her, +but you know her tongue? So sharp jus' like knife. All time she have +trouble. Can't rent her house so sharp. Some artist he rent; she take +box, peep over see what he do jus' because he have some girl. Nobody +talk her down. No, I take back. Jus' one French woman who know to +swear turribil. This swear woman she call her turribil name and say, +'Everybody don't know you was convict in Noumea for killing one man +for money.' That turribil talk, and she jus' fell down. Good for her, +I think." + +Lovaina seldom rode in her automobile, which she kept primarily for +renting to guests for country tours. She had had for years a carriage, +a surrey, drawn by one horse, which had grown old and rickety with +the vehicle. The driver was a mute, Vava, his name meaning dumb in +Tahitian, and the English and Americans called him the Dummy. He was +attached to Lovaina as a child to his mother--a wayward, jealous, +cloudy-minded child, who almost daily broke into fits of anger +over incidents misunderstood by his groping mentality, and because +of his incommunicable feelings. The hotel was in a fearsome uproar +when Vava fell into a tantrum, women patrons afraid of his possible +actions and men threatening to club him into a mild frame of mind. I +doubt if any one there could have subdued him physically, for he was +a thick-bodied man in his thirties, with a stamina and a strength +incredibly developed. I had seen him once lift over a fence a barrel +of flour, two hundred pounds in weight, and without full effort. His +skin was very dark, his facial expression one of ire and frustration, +but of conscious superiority to all about him. He had had no aids to +overcome his natal infirmity of deafness and consequent dumbness, none +of the educational assistance modern science lends these unfortunates, +no finger alphabet, or even another inarticulate for sympathy. He was +like the mutes of history, of courts and romances, condemned to suffer +in silence the humor and contempt of all about him, though he felt +himself better than they in body and in the understanding of things, +which he could not make them know. This repression made him often +like a wild beast, though mostly he was half-clown and half-infant +in his conduct. He had a gift of mimicry incomparably finer than any +professional's I knew of. This, with his gestures, stood him instead +of speech. A certain haughty English woman whose elaborate hats in an +island where women were hatless, or wore simple, native weaves, were +noted atrocities, and whose chin was almost nil, kept the carriage and +me waiting for breakfast while she primped in her lodging. The Dummy +uttered one of his abortive sounds, much like that of an angry puma, +contorted his face, and put his hand above his head, so that I had +a very vivid suggestion of the lady, her sloping chin and her hat, +at which all Papeete laughed. Vava's gesticulations and grimaces +were unerring cartoons without paper or ink. If one could have seen +him draw one-self, one's pride would have tumbled. He saw the most +ridiculous aspect of one. His indication of Lovaina's figure made one +shriek, and the governor would have sentenced him for lese-majesty +had he seen himself taken off. The sounds he made in which he greeted +any one he liked, or in anger, were terrible, dismaying. They; must +have been those made by our ancestors, the first primates, when they +began the struggle toward intelligent language. Vava's sounds were as +the muttering of an ape, deep in his throat, or, when he was roused, +high and shrill, like the cry of a rabbit when the hound seizes it. He +could make Lovaina know anything he wanted to, and she could direct +him to do anything she wished. In that house of mirth, brightness, +and laughter, he was as a cunning and, at times, hateful jester, +feared by the Tahitians, and, indeed, to whites a shadowy skeleton +at the feast, a thing of indescribable possibilities. I knew him, +he liked me, and I drew from him by motions and expressions some +measure of his feelings and sufferings. But I, too, occasionally, +shuddered at the animal cries and frightful grimaces wrung from him +in beating down his soul bent on murder. + +Lovaina was a spendthrift, giving money liberally to relatives, +lending it to improvident borrowers, and dispensing it with open hands +when she had it, though always herself in debt. Yet she liked to make +money, and to have her hotel filled with tourists who patronized her +little bar or drank at meals other wines than the excellent Bordeaux, +white or red, which was free with food. Most she loved the appearance +of prosperity, the crowding of casual voyagers on steamer-days, the +visit of war-ships, the sound of music in her parlor, the rustling of +dancers, and the laughter and excitement when the maids were busied +carrying champagne and cheaper drinks to the verandas. + +I saw her at her best when El Presidente Sarmiento, an Argentine +training-ship, came to port with a hundred cadets. A madness then +possessed the girls of Tahiti. + +Forsaking their old loves or those of the moment, they threw themselves +into the arms of the visitors, determined on conquest. The quays +where the launches of the Sarmiento landed their passengers, and the +streets about the saloons, restaurants, and theaters, were thronged +with the fairest and gayest girls of the island. They poured in from +the country to share in the lovemaking. The cafés were filled with +dancing and singing crowds, the volatile Argentineans matching the +Tahitians in abandon and ardor. + +Accordions, violins, guitars, and mandolins were played everywhere. The +scores of public automobiles were engaged by joyous parties who +sallied to the rural resorts, each Juan with his vahine. Mostly +unable to exchange a word, they were kissing and embracing in their +seats. The ship had been there a year before, and many of the men +were hunting former sweethearts. They found that very difficult, +as they had not accurate descriptions. + +"A beauty named Atupu," or "A black-eyed girl?" They had no aid among +the girls they interrogated. + +"Why bother with some one who may be dead when we are here?" they +asked. And Juan listened to the sirens and rested content. + +At Lovaina's there were seventy to dinner. Captain and officers were +cheek by jowl with gunners and plain sailors. The veranda was jammed +with tables, corks hitting the ceiling, glasses clinking, and Spanish, +French, English, and Tahitian confused in the chatter and the shouts +of To Sen, Hon Son, the maids, and a dozen friends of the hostess +who always came at such times to share the glory of the service. + +Lovaina was at the serving-table with volunteers cutting cakes and +taking the money. The parlor, with its red and blue plush chairs, +was filled with Argentineans playing the piano and singing songs of +their country. Suddenly Lovaina discovered that some one had stolen +the album of portraits from the piano-top. These were of her family, +and of notable visitors who had written grateful notes after their +return home, and sent their pictures to her. Professor Hart, teacher +of English aboard the Sarmiento, was asked to find the thief, and he +promised that he would have the ship searched. + +Lovaina lamented her loss, but counted her sovereigns. The Argentineans +had English gold, and Lovaina passed the shining, new pieces from +one hand to the other, enjoying their glitter and sound. She liked +to play with coins, and often amused herself as did the king in the +blackbird-pie melody. + +"My God!" said Lovaina, as she pulled me down to her bench and rubbed +my back, "that Argentina is good country! Forty dollars lime squash +by himself." She opened her purse, and poured out more gold. With it +fell a cloth medallion, red letters on white flannel, "The Apostleship +of Prayer in League with the Sacred Heart of Jesus." + +"I find that on the floor two day' 'go," said Lovaina, "and I put it +in purse to see if good luck. What you think? Argentinas come in nex' +day. I don' know, but that thing is good to me. See those bottle' +champagne goin' in?" + +Perhaps I shall carry longer than any other memory of Tahiti that +of the endearing nature, the honest heart, and the laughing, starry +eyes of Lovaina, with a tiarè-blossom over her ear, or a chaplet +of those flowers upon her head, as she sat on her throne behind the +serving-table, and I on the camphor-wood chest. + + + +Chapter V + +The Parc de Bougainville--Ivan Stroganoff--He tells me the history +of Tahiti--He berates the Tahitians--Wants me to start a newspaper. + +In the parc de Bougainville I sat down on a bench on which was an +old European. He was reading a tattered number of "Simplicissimus," +and held the paper close to his watery eyes. I said, "Good morning" +and he replied in fluent though accented English. + +His appearance was eccentric. He was stout, and with a rough, white +beard all over his face and neck, and even on his chest. He wore a +frock coat and a large cow-boy hat of white felt. His sockless feet +were in old base-ball shoes of "eelskin," which were of the exact +color of his coat, a dull green, like moldy, dried peas. Apparently +the coat was his only garment; but it was capacious, and came almost +to his knobby knees. Missing buttons down its front were replaced by +bits of cord or rope. The pockets were stuffed with papers, mangos, +and a hunk of bread. A stump of lead-pencil was behind his ear. His +hair, a dusty white, met the frayed collar of the coat, and through +the temporary gaps which he made in its length to cool his body, +I saw it like a gnarled and mossy tree. His hands were grimy and +his nails black-edged, but there was intellect in his eye, and a +broken force in his huddled, loosed attitude. He was not decrepit, +or with a trace of humility, but had the ease of the philosopher +and also his detachment. It was plain he did the best he could with +his garb, and was entirely undisturbed, and perhaps even unmindful, +of its ludicrousness. He was as serene as Diogenes must have been +when he crawled naked from his tub into the sun. + +We talked first of the horses in the lagoon a dozen yards from us, +their grooms or their owners submerging them, and squatting on the +ground to chat as the horses wallowed willingly in five feet of salt +water. We agreed that the Tahitians were as bad drivers as the Chinese, +and that they were, wittingly or unwittingly, cruel to their beasts of +burden. This led to a discussion of native traits, and he was caustic +in his castigation of the Tahitians. He asked me my name and what +brought me to Tahiti; and when, wanting to be as honest-spoken as he, +I said, "Romance, adventure," he burst out that I was crazy. + +"I have been here seventeen years," he said bitterly--"me, Ivan +Stroganoff, who was once happy as secretary to the governor of +Irkutsk! I was better off when I was on the Merrimac fighting the +Monitor, or with Mosby, the guerilla, than I am in this accursed +island. I think a man is mad who can leave Tahiti and stays here. I +wish I could go away. I would like to die elsewhere. I am eighty years +old, I starve here, and I sleep in a chicken-coop in the suburbs." + +"You are lodged exactly as was Charlie Stoddard, who wrote 'South +Sea Idylls,'" I interposed. + +"They have lied always, those writers about Tahiti," said Ivan +Stroganoff. "Melville, Loti, Moerenhout, Pallander, your Stevenson,--I +don't know that Stoddard,--all are meretricious, with their pomp of +words and no truth. I have comparisons to make with other nations. I +am more than sixty years a traveler, and I am here seventeen years +without cessation, in hell all the time." + +"You Russians always like the French. How about their achievements +here?" I questioned, hoping to lift his shade of melancholy. + +"The French?" he repeated. "They are brigands and weak governors. They +have been in Tahiti four generations. Do you want to know how they +got hold here? A monarchy, a foolish Louis, sent a marine savant +and soldier named Dumont D'Urville to the South Seas with the casual +orders: + +"'D'apprivoiser les hommes, et de rendre les femmes un peu plus +sauvages;' to tame the men and make the women a little more savage. The +French did both, and took all of this part of the world they could +find unseized by Europe, and tamable, at not too great a shedding +of French blood. They said that it was their duty to restore Temoana +his kingdom in the Marquesas Islands, eight hundred miles from here, +northward, Temoana had been a singer of psalms at the Protestant +mission in his valley of Tai-o-hae, in the island of Nukahiva, a +victim of shanghaiers, a cook on a whaler, a tattooed man in English +penny shows, a repatriate, a protege of the Catholic archbishop of the +Marquesans, and finally, through the influence of the Roman church, +a king. He worked damned hard for the French flag and the church, +and the generous colonial bureau of France paid his widow a pension +of ten dollars a month until she died of melancholy among the nuns. I +knew her and I knew men who knew him. He was given a gorgeous uniform +of gold lace by his promoters, which I think killed him, though when +he sweated, he would strip to his handsomely marked skin and sit +naked in the breeze. The queen never wore more than a diaper or a gown. + +"With the Marquesas Islands taken, the French warships came to +Tahiti. French Catholic priests had been deported from here because the +Protestants were already in possession, and objected to competition, +saying that the priests were children of Beelzebub, and taught false +doctrines and morals. The Queen of Tahiti, whose dynasty the Protestant +missionaries had created, advised the pope's men to seek a heathen +people not already worshiping the true God. The zealous priests +who had come with explicit commands to found a mission in Tahiti, +launched the curse of Rome upon the king, the Protestant ministers, +and especially upon Mr. Pritchard, the British consul and the queen's +physician and spiritual adviser. + +"Pritchard had the interests of England and the Lord at heart, and +his whispers in the queen's ear sent the earnest priests aboard a ship +bound for a distant port. They complained, and the French admiral then +arrived and pointed his guns at the palace and the Protestant mission, +and demanded thirty thousand dollars for the insult to the French flag; +and for the jibe at the pope, the matching of every Protestant church +in the islands, by a Catholic edifice. The queen had a panic and fled +to Moorea in a canoe. The admiral then put Consul Pritchard in jail +for ten days, and after chastening his mood, put him on an English +ship at sea homeward bound. France and England were showing their +teeth at each other over more important differences, which ended in +a revolution in Paris and a change of kings, so that the admiral had +his way. The queen came back, the priests established their mission +and their churches, and the Tahitians with any blood in them went to +war again. The French built forts about the island, and killed off +with their guns all the natives they could get sight of. Then they +took all the other islands around here that England didn't have, +declared Tahiti had to be a protectorate in 1843, and in 1880 gave +King Pomaré Fifth twelve thousand dollars a year to let them annex +his kingdom. You see, after all, his crown was made by the British +puritans, and taken from him by the French or Romish Church." + +The aged Russian laughed in his huge whiskers. He fished in the rear +of his frock and produced the stump of a cigar, for which I yielded +a match. + +"I found that on the steps of the Roman Catholic bishop's carriage, +which was standing near here an hour ago," he said. "They'll tell +you that you will burn in hell; but they smoke here, and good Havana +tobacco." + +"I think it's a pity the Tahitians weren't left alone," I asserted. + +He gave me a look such as Diogenes might have given the man who stood +in his sunlight. He lit his cigar-end, puffed it diligently for a +minute, and then said arbitrarily: + +"The Tahitian is, first, a coward, afraid to fight the white; but +if he can, in a group or by secret, kill or hurt you, he will. He +is treacherous, and the more he pretends to be your friend, the more +he connives to cheat you. I should have said first of all that he is +lazy, but that is not to be disputed. He was corrupt to begin with, +and religion accentuates every evil passion in him. He is a profound +hypocrite, and yet a puritan for observance of the ceremonies and +interdictions of his faith. He has more guile than a Japanese guide, +and in land deals can skin a Moscow Jew. He will sell you land and +get the money, and later prove that his father or brother is the real +owner, and that relation will do the same, and you will pay several +times for the same land. In the Paumotus, where the missionaries are +like a swarm of gnats, this deception is threefold as bad." + +"But the Tahitians are at least generous," I broke in. + +Stroganoff combed his whiskers with a twig of the flamboyant tree +under which we sat. He glared at me. + +"Generous! If you have money they will overwhelm you with presents, +looking for a double return; but if you are poor, they will treat +you as dirt under their feet. I know, for I am poor, and I live among +them. They are like those mina birds here, which will steal the button +off your coat if you do not guard it." + +"Does not Christianity improve them?" + +"No. The combats between Protestants, Catholics, and Mormons ended all +hope of that. They are never sincere except when they become fanatics, +and even then they never lose their native superstitions. Beliefs in +the ghosts of Tahiti, the tupapau, ihoiho, and varua ino, are common +to all of them." + +"My dear Mr. Stroganoff," I expostulated, "your czars believed +in icons. My grandmother believed in werewolves and banshees, and +we burned blessed candles and sprinkled holy water in our houses +on All Souls' night to keep away demons. I have seen a clergyman, +educated in Paris and Louvain, exorcising devils with bell, book, +and candle in Maryland, in one of the oldest and proudest cities of +the United States. I have seen the American Governor-General of the +Philippines carrying a candle in a procession in honor of a mannikin +from a shrine at Antipolo, near Manila. Why, I could tell you--" + +"Please, please, let me talk," Ivan Stroganoff interrupted. "What I +say is true, nevertheless. The Tahitian has not one good quality. He +is not to be compared with the American negro for any desirable trait." + +"Do you know the negro?" I asked. + +The old man grunted. He relit his cigar, now only an inch long, +and said: + +"I was on the Merrimac when she fought the Monitor in two +engagements. I was a sailor on other Confederate men-of-war. I was +one of Colonel Mosby's guerillas, and was wounded with them. I have +lived thirteen years in the United States. I know the coon well. I +fought to keep him a slave." + +"You are not an American?" + +"I am a Russian, an anarchist once, and now I am for Root and Lodge, +the stand-pats. I lived in Russia in its darkest days, under several +czars, when your life was the forfeit of a wink. I was a lawyer there, +a politician, an intrigant. I knew Bebel and Jaurès and the men before +them. I lived in Germany many years, in France, in England, anywhere, +everywhere. I first came to New York from Siberia. I was broke. The +Civil War was on. There were agents of Lee and Jeff Davis in New York +seeking sailors. They offered lots of money,--thousands,--and I went +along, smuggled into the South by an underground road." + +Stroganoff threw away the shreds of tobacco, now a mere fiery wafer +that threatened his mouth's seine of silver strands. He put his hand +in his Prince Albert and scratched his stomach. + +"Mr. Stroganoff," I queried, with a moral tide rising, "how could +you join in a life-and-death issue like that of the Civil War, and +kill men without hatred of their cause in your heart?" + +He patted my shoulder. + +"My dear young American," he replied, "you join anything, even a +sheriff's posse, into which you are dragged, and have a bullet from +the other side slit your ear, or a round shot bang against your deck, +and you'll soon convince yourself that you are in the right, or, +anyway, that your adversary is a scoundrel. I handled a gun on the +Merrimac in Hampton Roads when that cheese-box of a Monitor rattled +her solid shot on our slippery sides. I was two years in that damned +un-Civil War, and as I started on the Southern side, I stayed on +it. I left the navy to go with John Mosby and burn houses. When +the war was over, and I recovered from my wound, I went to 'Frisco +and crossed to Siberia, and thus back to Moscow. No, I never was an +exile in Siberia or in a Russian prison. I knew and worked for the +leaders of the old Nihilists. I was with them till I knew them, and +then I saw they were selfish and fakers. I knew the socialist chiefs +in France and Germany, the fathers of the present movement there. I +was red-hot for the cause until I knew them, and I quit." + +He sat meditatively for a few moments. + +"I'm all but eighty years old," the raider of the '60's continued +sorrowfully. "I work now for Chinese, preparing their mail, their +custom-house papers, and orders. I scrape along like a watch-dog in a +sausage factory, getting sufficient to eat, but fearful all the time +that the job will kill me. Most of the time I live a few kilometers +from Papeete, toward Fa'a, and come in to town about steamer-time. I +sleep in the chicken-coop or anywhere. I make about forty francs a +month." He stamped upon the grass. "I take it you are a journalist, +and, do you know, what is needed here most is publicity. Graft +permeates the whole scheme. Mind you, there are no secrets. You +could not whisper anything to a cocoanut-tree but that the entire +island would know it to-morrow. But there is no open publicity. Start +a newspaper!" + +"In what language?" I demanded, interested. + +"Huh? That's it. If in French, only the French would read it; and if +in Tahitian, the French won't touch it; and English is known only +by the Chinese and the few British and Americans here. I hate that +Tahitian. I don't know a word of it after seventeen years. Say what you +will, Roosevelt made them stand around. I liked him for many things; +but, after all, the old order must stand, and Root is the boy for +me. This fellow Wilson is a regular pedagogue." + +"But they have newspapers here?" I asked. + +"Newspapers? They call them that." + +He stood up and searched in the pockets of his voluminous coat, +which he opened. I saw that the lining was of silk, but now worn and +torn. He brought out a roll of papers. + +"Here is 'La Tribune de Tahiti,'" he said. "It is edited by +Jean Delpit, the lawyer whose offices are next to the Bellevue +Restaurant. It's a monthly, published in San Francisco, and has a brief +summary of world events, besides articles on the administrative affairs +of Tahiti. It's against the Government. Then there's 'Le Liberal,' +a socialist journal, with Eugène Brunschwig editor, which pours hot +shot into the Government. Look at his announcement! Do you understand +that? He is fierce. He is an anarchist and wants to be bought up. Of +course he is attacking from outside Tahiti. + +"There is no newspaper printed here except the 'Journal Officiel' +which, of course, is not a newspaper, but a gazette of governmental +notices, etc. The Government has its own printing-office, but if +these other, the 'Tribune' and the 'Liberal,' had establishments +here, they would be raided and closed, for they would hardly be +allowed to criticize the Government as harshly as they do. The +'Tribune' is in French and Tahitian, the 'Liberal' and the 'Journal +Officiel' in French. One time it was recommended that the official +paper might be more popular if it had some fiction for the natives, +so they printed a translation of 'Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves,' +but everybody laughed, so it was dropped. + +"The Mormons have the best paper here. It is a monthly, too. There +is plenty need here for a fearless newspaper. The faults, weaknesses, +and venality of the Government call for publicity, but I'm afraid the +journalist might soon find himself in prison. You can do nothing. The +fault is in this damned climate--la fièvre du corail. Paul Deschanel, +senator of France, who wrote a book on this island without ever +leaving his chair in Paris, says: + +"In presence of the apparent facts one is forced to ask himself +if there is not in the climate of this enchanted Tahiti, in the +soft air that one breathes, a force sweet but invincible which at +length penetrates the soul, enervates the will and enfeebles all +sense of usefulness or right, or the least energy necessary to make +them triumph. + +"It is this spirit, without any harmony, bereft of all real cordiality +between neighbors, of family and family, which one must find in the +ambient air and which is called the coral fever." + +"It torments these French, former sailors or petty officials gone into +trade or speculation, with delusions and ambitions of grandeur. There +is no remedy. The King of Apamama said it all when he divided the +whites into three classes, 'First, him cheat a litty; second, him +cheat plenty; and third, him cheat too much.'" + +Stroganoff got on his feet, rubbed his knees to limber them, and +began to move off slowly toward Fa'a, his place of abode. + +"But, Mr. Stroganoff," I called to him, "you said all that about the +Tahitians, also." + +The Russian octogenarian drew an over-ripe mango from his skirt, and +bit into it, with dire results to his whiskers and coat,--it should +be eaten only in a bathtub,--and replied wearily: + +"I except nobody here." + + + +Chapter VI + +The Cercle Bougainville--Officialdom in Tahiti--My first visit to the +Bougainville--Skippers and merchants--A song and a drink--The flavor +of the South Seas--Rumors of war. + +In Papeete there were two social clubs, the Cercle Bougainville and the +Cercle Militaire. Even in Papeete, which has not half as many people +as work in a certain building in New York, there is a bureaucracy, +and the Cercle Militaire, in a park near the executive mansion on +the rue de Rivoli, is its arcanum. Only members of the Government +may belong, and a few others whose proposals must be stamped by the +political powers. There is a garden, with a small library, but not many +read in this climate, and the atmosphere of the Cercle Militaire was +tedious. The governor himself and the black procureur de la Republique, +born in Martinique, the secretary-general, naval officers, and the +file of the upper office-holders frequent the shade of the mangos and +the palms, but themselves confessed it deadly dull there. Bureaucracy +is ever mediocre, ever jealous, and in Papeete the feuds among the +whites were as bitter as in a monastery or convent. Every man crouched +to leap over his fellow, if not by position, at least by acclaim. None +dared to discuss political affairs openly, but nothing else was talked +of. It was a round of whispered charges and recriminations and audible +compliments. A few jolly chaps, doctors or naval lieutenants, passed +the bottle and laughed at the others. + +Every now and then a new governor supplanted the incumbent, +who returned to France, and a few of the chiefer officials were +changed; but the most of them were Tahitian French by birth or long +residence. Republics are wretched managers of colonies, and monarchies +brutal exploiters of subject peoples. Politics controlled in the South +Seas, as in the Philippines, India, and Egypt. Precedence at public +gatherings often caused hatreds. The procureur was second in rank +here, the governor, of course, first, the secretary-general third, +and the attorney-general fourth. When the secretary-general was not +at functions, the wife of the governor must be handed in to dinner +and dances by the negro procureur. This angered the British and +American consuls and merchants, and the French inferior to him in +social status, although the Martinique statesman was better educated +and more cultivated in manners than they. + +The indolence of mind and body that few escape in this soft, delicious +air, the autocracy of the governing at such a distance from France, +and the calls of Paris for the humble taxes of the Tahitians, robbed +the island of any but the most pressing melioration. The business +of government in these archipelagoes was bizarre comedy-drama, with +Tartarins at the front of the stage, and a cursing or slumbrous +audience. + +Count Polonsky, a Russian-born Frenchman, appeared in court to answer +to the charge of letting his automobile engine run when no one was +in the car. He was fined a franc, which he would take from his pocket +then and there, but must wait many days to pay, until circumlocution +had its round, six weeks after the engine had been at fault. I was +assessed two sous duty on a tooth-brush. I reached for the coins. + +"Mais, non" said the préposé de le douane, "pas maintenant. No +hurry. We will inform you by post." + +These officials had pleasing manners, as do almost all Frenchmen, +and though they uttered many sacrés against the home Government +and that of these islands, they were fiercely chauvinistic toward +foreigners, as are all nationals abroad where jingoism partakes +of self-aggrandizement. The American consul, a new appointee, +addressed the customs clerk in his only tongue, Iowan, and received no +response. I spoke to him in French, and the préposé replied in mixed +French and English, out of compliment to me. The consul was enraged, +considering himself and the American eagle affronted. I interposed, +but the customs-man answered coldly in English: + +"This is a French possession, and French is the language, +or Tahitian. I speak both. Why don't you? You are supposedly an +educated man." + +The Stars and Stripes were unfolded in a breeze of hot words that +betrayed the consul's belief in the préposé's sinister ancestry and +in eternal punishment. No entente cordiale could ever be cemented +after that lingual blast. + +The consuls all had honorary memberships in the Cercle Militaire, +and none of them entered the Cercle Bougainville, it not being de +rigueur. I had a carte d'invite personelle to that club, and there +I went with roused curiosity to hear the other sides of questions +already settled for me by the amiable officials and officers on the +rue de Rivoli. I had been warned against the Cercle Bougainville +by staid pensioners as being the resort of commoners and worse, of +British and American ruffians, of French vulgarians, and of Chinese +smugglers. This advice made a seductive advertisement of the club to +me, anxious to know everything real and unveiled about the life here, +and to find a contrast to the ennui of the official temple. + +A consul said to me: "Look out for some of those gamblers in +that Bougainville joint! They'll skin you alive. They drink like +conger-eels." + +M. Leboucher, my fellow-passenger on the Noa-Noa, sent me the card to +the Jacobin resort, and I got in the habit of going there just before +the meat breakfast and before dinner. I found that the warning of +the aristocratic bureaucrats was of a piece with their philosophy and +manners, hollow, hypocritical, and calculated to deny me the only real +human companionship I could endure. From about eleven to one o'clock +and from five until seven, and in the evenings, the Cercle Bougainville +held more interesting and merry white skins than the remainder of +Tahiti. Merchants and managers of enterprises and shops, skippers +of the schooners that comb the Dangerous Archipelago and the dark +Marquesas for pearl and shell and copra, vanilla- and pearl-buyers, +planters, and lesser bureaucrats, idlers or retired adventurers +living in Tahiti, and tourists made the club for a few hours a day +a polyglot exchange of current topics between man and man, a place +of initiation and of judgment of business deals, a precious refuge +against smug bores and a sanctuary for refreshment of body and soul +with cooling drinks. Naturally, every one played cards, dominoes, +or dice for the honor of signing the chits, and it goes without +saying that one might roar out an oath against the Government and +go unscathed. Even in the Bougainville lines were drawn; only heads +of commercial affairs were admitted. It was bourgeois absolutely, +but bosses could not imbibe and play freely in the presence of their +employees whom they might have to reprimand severely for bad habits, +nor scold them for inattention to trade when their employers spent +precious hours at écarté or razzle-dazzle. + +The club was within fifty feet of the lagoon, close to the steamship +quay, its broad verandas overlooking the fulgent reef and the quiet +waters within it. In odd hours one might find Joseph, the steward, +angling on the coral wall for the black and gold fish, and a shout +from the balcony would bring him to the swift succor of a thirsty +member. During the four hours before the late déjeuner and dinner, +he had incessant work to answer the continuous calls. + +When Joseph became overwhelmed with orders he summoned his family +from secret quarters in the rear, and father, mother, and children +squeezed, shook, and poured for the impatient crowd. + +When the monthly mail between America and Australasia was in, few packs +of cards were sold, for every one was busied with letters and orders +for goods. But only three or four days a month were so disturbed, +and for nearly four weeks of the month Papeete lolled at ease, with +endless time for games and stimulants. Leisure, the most valuable coin +of humanity in the tropics, was spent by white or brown in pleasure +or idleness with a prodigality that would have made Samuel Smiles weep. + +The entrance to the Cercle Bougainville was very plain, with no +name-plate, as had the Militaire,--a mere hole in the front wall +of Leboucher's large furniture shop. One could be going along the +street in full view of important and respectable people, and suddenly +disappear. A few steep stairs, a quick turn, and one was on the +broad balcony, with easy-chairs and firm tables, and bells to hand +for Joseph's ear. + +In a room off the balcony there was a billiard-table, the cloth +patched or missing in many spots, and with cues whose tips had +long since succumbed to perpetual moisture. A few old French books +were on a shelf, and a naughty review or two of Paris on a dusty +table. Undoubtedly, this club had begun as a mariner's association, +and there was yet a decided flavor of the sea about it. Indeed, all +Tahiti was of the sea, and all but the mass of natives who stayed in +their little homes were at times sailors, and all whites passengers +on long voyages. Everything paid tribute to the vast ocean, and all +these men had an air of ships and the dangers of the waves. + +Nautical almanacs, charts, and a barometer were conspicuous, +and often were laid beside the social glasses for proof in +hot arguments. Occasionally an old Chinese or two, financiers, +pearl-dealers, labor bosses, or merchants, drained a glass of eau +de vie and smoked a cigarette there. One sensed an atmosphere of +mystery, of secret arrangements between traders, or hard endeavors +for circumvention of competitors in the business of the dispersed +islands of French Oceania. + +A delightful incident enlivened my first visit, and gave me an +acquaintance with a group of habitués, When I reached the balcony I +saw a group of Frenchmen at a table who were singing at the top of +their voices. I sat down at the farthest table and ordered a Dr. Funk. + +I did not look at them, for I felt de trop; but suddenly I heard them +humming the air of "John Brown's Body," and singing fugitive words. + +"Grory, grory, harreruah!" came to my ears, and later, "Wayd' 'un S'ut' +in le land de cottin." + +They were making fun of me I thought, and turned my head away. It +would not do to get angry with half a dozen jovial Frenchmen. + +"All Coons Look alike to Me," I recognized, though they sang but +fragments of the text. + +Through a corner of my eye I saw them all anxiously staring at me; +then one of the merrymakers came over to me. I had a fleeting thought +of a row before he bowed low and said in English: + +"If you please, we make good time, we sing your songs, and must be +happy to drink with you." + +He announced himself as M. Edmond Brault, chief clerk of the office +of the secretary-general, fresh-faced, glowing and with a soul for +music and for joy. He was so smiling, so ingenuous, that to refuse +him would have been rank discourtesy. I joined the group. + +"I am twenty-eight times married this day," said M. Brault, "and my +friends and I make very happy." + +The good husband was rejoicing on his wedding anniversary, and I +could but accept the champagne he ordered. "I am great satisfaction +to drink you," he said. "My friends drink my wife and me." + +We toasted his admirable wife, we toasted the two republics; Lafayette, +Rochambeau, and Chateaubriand. + +"Ah, le biftek!" said M. Leboucher. + +We toasted Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, and then we sang +for an hour. M. Brault was the leading composer of Tahiti. He was +the creator of Tahitian melodies, as Kappelmeister Berger was of +Hawaiian. For our delectation Brault sang ten of his songs between +toasts. I liked best "Le Bon Roi Pomare," the words of one of the +many stanzas being: + + + Il était un excellent roi + Dont on ne dit rien dans l'histoire, + Qui ne connaissait qu'une Loi: + Celle de chanter, rire, et boire. + Fervent disciple de Bacchus + Il glorifiait sa puissance, + Puis, sacrifiait à Venus + Les loisirs de son existence. + + REFRAIN: + + Toujours joyeux, d'humeur gauloise, + Et parfois même un peu grivoise + Le généreux Roi Pomarè + Par son peuple est fort regretté. + S'il avait eu de l'eloquence + Il aurait gouverné la France! + Mais nos regrets sont superflus; + Puisqu'il est mort, n'en parlons plus! + + +"Ah, he was a chic type, that last King of Tahiti," said M. Brault, who +had written so many praiseful, merry verses about him. "He would have +a hula about him all the time. He loved the national dance. He would +sit or lie and drink all day and night. He loved to see young people +drink and enjoy themselves. Ah, those were gay times! Dancing the +nights away. Every one crowned with flowers, and rum and champagne like +the falls of Fautaua. The good king Pomaré would keep up the upaupa, +the hula dance, for a a week at a time, until they were nearly all +dead from drink and fatigue. Mon dieu! La vie est triste maintenant." + +Before we parted we sang the "Marseillaise" and the "Star-Spangled +Banner." Nobody knew the words, I least of any; so we la-la-la'd +through it, and when we parted for luncheon, we went down the crooked +stairway arm in arm, still giving forth snatches of "Le Bon Roi Pomaré" +in honor of our host: + + + Mais, s'il aimait tant les plaisirs, + Les chants joyeux, la vie en rose, + Le plus ardent de ses désirs, + Pour lui la plus heureuse chose, + Fut toujours que l'humanité + Regnât au sein de son Royaume; + De même que l'Egalité + Sous son modeste toit de chaume. + + +Hallman, with whom I journeyed on the Noa-Noa, dropped into the Cercle +Bougainville occasionally, but he was ordinarily too much occupied with +his schemes of trade. Besides, he had only one absorbing vice other +than business, and with merely wine and song to be found at the club, +Hallman went there but seldom, and only to talk about pearl-shell, +copra, and the profits of schooner voyages. However, through him +I met another group who spoke English, and who were not of Latin +blood. They were Llewellyn, an islander--Welsh and Tahitian; Landers, +a New Zealander; Pincher, an Englishman; David, McHenry, and Brown, +Americans; Count Polonsky, the Russo-Frenchman who was fined a franc; +and several captains of vessels who sailed between Tahiti and the +Pacific coast of the United States or in these latitudes. + +The Noa-Noa was overdue from New Zealand, by way of Raratonga, and her +tardiness was the chief subject of conversation at our first meeting. A +hundred times a day was the semaphore on the hill spied at for the +signal of the Noa-Noa's sighting. High up on the expansive green slope +which rises a few hundred feet behind the Tiare Hotel is a white pole, +and on this are hung various objects which tell the people of Papeete +that a vessel is within view of the ancient sentinel of the mount. An +elaborate code in the houses of all persons of importance, and in all +stores and clubs, interprets these symbols. The merchants depended to +a considerable extent upon this monthly liner between San Francisco +and Wellington and way ports, and all were interested in the mail +and food supplies expected by the Noa-Noa. Cablegrams sent from any +part of the world to New Zealand or San Francisco were forwarded by +mail on these steamships. Tahiti was entirely cut off from the great +continents except by vessel. There was no cable, and no wireless, on +this island, nor even at the British island of Raratonga, two days' +steaming from Papeete. The steamships had wireless systems, and kept +in communication with San Francisco or with New Zealand ports for a +few days after departure. + +There were many guesses at the cause of the delay. + +"Nothing but war!" said the French post-office clerk who sat at +another table, with his glass of Pernoud. "Germany and England have +come to blows. Now that accursed nation of beer-swillers will get +their lesson." + +The subject was seriously discussed, the armaments of the two powers +quoted, and the certainty of Germany's defeat predicted, the Frenchman +asserting vehemently that France would aid England if necessary, or to +get back Alsace-Lorraine. There were gatherings all over Papeete, the +war rumor having been made an alleged certainty by some inexplicable +communication to an unnamed merchant. + +The natives hoped fervently that the war was between France and +Germany, and that France would be defeated. After generations of rule +by France, the vanquished still felt an aversion to their conquerors +here, as in the Holy Land when Herod ruled. + +"I hope France get his," said a chief, aside, to me. + +The mail's delay upset all business. Letters closed on the day +the liner was expected were reopened. For three days the girls at +Lovaina's had worn their best peignoirs, and several times donned +shoes and stockings to go to the quay. Passengers for San Francisco +who had packed their trunks had unpacked them. The air of expectancy +which Papeete wore for a day or two before steamer-day had been so +heated by postponement that nerves came to the surface. + +Tahiti was a place of no exact knowledge. Few residents knew the names +of the streets. Some of the larger business houses had no signs to +indicate the firms' names or what they sold. Hardly any one knew the +names of the trees or the flowers or fishes or shells. + +A story once told, even facts thoroughly well known, changed with +each repetition. A month after an occurrence one might search in vain +for the actuality. It was more difficult to learn truthful details +than anywhere I had been. The French are niggardly of publications +concerning Tahiti. An almanac once a year contained a few figures and +facts of interest, but with no newspapers within thousands of miles, +every person was his own journal, and prejudices and interest dictated +all oral records. + +McHenry hushed war reports to talk about Brown, an American merchant +who had left the club a moment before, after a Bourbon straight +alone at the bar. McHenry was a trader, mariner, adventurer, +gambler, and boaster. Rough and ready, witty, profane, and obscene, +he bubbled over with tales of reef and sea, of women and men he had +met, of lawless tricks on natives, of storm and starvation, and of +his claimed illicit loves. Loud-mouthed, bullet-headed, beady-eyed, +a chunk of rank flesh shaped by a hundred sordid deeds, he must get +the center of attention by any hazard. + +"Brown's purty stuck up now," he said acridly. "I remember the time +when he didn't have a pot to cook in. He had thirty Chile dollars a +month wages. We come on the beach the same day in the same ship. His +shoes were busted out, and he was crazy to get money for a new girl +he had. There was a Chink had eighteen tins of vanilla-beans worth +about two hundred American dollars each. He got the Chink to believe +he could handle the vanilla for him, and got hold of it, and then out +by the vegetable garden Brown hit the poor devil of a Chink over the +nut with a club." + +McHenry got up from the table, and with Llewellyn's walking-stick +showed exactly how the blow was struck. He brought down the cane +so viciously against the edge of the table that he spilled our rum +punches. + +"Mac," exclaimed Llewellyn, testily, as he shot him a hot glance +from the melancholy eyes under his black thatch of brows, "behave +yourself! You know you're lying." + +McHenry laughed sourly, and went on: + +"I was chums with Brown then, and when I caught up to him,--I was +walkin' behind them,--he asked me to see if the Chink was dead. I +went back to where he had tumbled him. He was layin' on his back in +a kind o' ditch, and he was white instead o' yeller. He was white +as Lyin' Bill's schooner. How would you 'a' done? Well, to protect +that dirty pup Brown, I covered him over with leaves from head to +foot--big bread-fruit and cocoanut-leaves. He never showed up again, +and Brown had the vanilla. That's how he got his start, and, so help +me God! I never got a franc from the business." + +There was venom in McHenry's tone, and he looked at me, the newcomer, +to see what impression he had made. The others said not a word of +comment, and it may have been an often-told tale by him. He had +emptied his glass of the potent Martinique rum four or five times. + +"Was the Chinaman sure dead when you put the leaves over him?" I asked, +influenced by his staring eyes. + +McHenry grinned foully. + +"Aye, man, you want too much," he replied. "I say his face was white, +and he was on his back in the marsh. If he was alive, the leaves didn't +finish him, and if he was croaked, it didn't matter. I was obligin' +a friend. You'd have done as much." He took up his glass and muttered +dramatically, "A few leaves for a friend." + +I shuddered, but Landers leaned over the table and said to me, +sotto voce: + +"McHenry's tellin' his usual bloody lie. Brown got the vanilla +all right, but what he did was to have the bloomin' Chink consign +it to him proper', and not give him a receipt. Then he denied all +knowledge of it, and it bein' all the bleedin' Chinaman had, he died +of a broken heart--with maybe too many pipes of opium to help him on a +bit. McHenry and Pincher are terrible liars. They call Pincher 'Lyin' +Bill,' though I 'd take his word in trade or about schooners any day." + +I had been introduced to a Doctor Funk by Count Polonsky, who told +me it was made of a portion of absinthe, a dash of grenadine,--a +syrup of the pomegranate fruit,--the juice of two limes, and half +a pint of siphon water. Dr. Funk of Samoa, who had been a physician +to Robert Louis Stevenson, had left the receipt for the concoction +when he was a guest of the club. One paid half a franc for it, and +it would restore self-respect and interest in one's surroundings when +even Tahiti rum failed. + +"Zat was ze drink I mix for Paul Gauguin, ze peintre sauvage, here +before he go to die in les îsles Marquises," remarked Levy, the +millionaire pearl-buyer, as he stood by the table to be introduced +to me. + +"Absinthe seul he general' take," said Joseph, the steward. + +"I bid fifty thousand francs for one of Gauguin's paintings in Paris +last year," Count Polonsky said as he claimed his game of écarté +against Tati, the chief of Papara district. "I failed to get it, +too. I bought many here for a few thousand francs each before that." + +"Blow me!" cried Pincher, the skipper of the Morning Star. "'E was a +bleedin' ijit. I fetched 'im absinthe many a time in Atuona. 'E said +Dr. Funk was a bloomin' ass for inventin' a drink that spoiled good +Pernoud with water. 'E was a rare un. 'E was like Stevenson 'at wrote +'Treasure Island.' Comes into my pub in Taiohae in the Marquesas +Islands did Stevenson off'n his little Casco, and says he, ''Ave +ye any whisky,' 'e says, ''at 'asn't been watered? These South Seas +appear to 'ave flooded every bloomin' gallon,' 'e says. This painter +Gauguin wasn't such good company as Stevenson, because 'e parleyvoud, +but 'e was a bloody worker with 'is brushes at Atuona. 'E was cuttin' +wood or paintin' all the time." + +"He was a damn' fool," said Hallman, who had come in to the Cercle +to take away Captain Pincher. "I lived close to him at Atuona all +the time he was there till he died. He was bughouse. I don't know +much about painting, but if you call that crazy stuff of Gauguin's +proper painting, then I'm a furbelowed clam." + +"Eh bien," Count Polonsky said, with a smile of the man of superior +knowledge, "he is the greatest painter of this period, and his +pictures are bringing high prices now, and will bring the highest +pretty soon. I have bought every one I could to hold for a raise." + +Polonsky was a study in sheeny hues. He was twenty-seven, his black +and naturally curled hair was very thin, there were eight or nine +teeth that answered no call from his meat, and he wore in his right +eyesocket a round glass, with no rim or string, held by a puckering +of cheek and brow, giving him a quizzical, stage-like stare, and +twisting his nose into a ripple of tiny wrinkles. He weighed, say, +one hundred pounds or less, was bent, but with a fresh complexion +and active step. I saw him rise naked from his cot one morning, and +the first thing he put on was the rimless monocle. The natives, who +name every one, called him "Matatitiahoe," "the one-windowed man." He +had journeyed about the world, poked into some queer places, and in +Japan had himself tattooed. On his narrow chest he had a terrible +legendary god of Nippon, and on his arms a cock and a skeleton, +the latter with a fan and a lantern. On his belly was limned a +nude woman. He had certain other decorations the fame of which had +been bruited wide so that a keen curiosity existed to see them, and +they were discussed in whispers by white femininity and with many +"Aucs!" of astonishment by the brown. They were Pompeiian friezes in +their unconventionality of subject and treatment. + +Llewellyn, McHenry, David, and I accompanied the count to his residence +on the outskirts of Papeete to taste a vintage of Burgundy he had sent +him from Beaune. Like most modern houses in Tahiti, his was solely +utilitarian, and was built by a former American consul. It exactly +ministered to the comforts of a demanding European exquisite. The +house was framed in wide verandas, and was in a magnificent grove +of cocoanut-trees affording beauty and shade, with extensive fields +of sugar-cane on the other side of the road, and a glimpse of the +beach and lagoon a little distance away. A singing brook ran past +the door. The bedrooms were large and open to every breeze, and the +tables for dining and amusement mostly set upon the verandas. + +Polonsky's toilet-table was covered with gold boxes and bottles and +brushes; scents and powders and pastes. If he moved out, Gaby de Lys +might have moved in and lacked nothing. He was a boulevardier, his +clothes from Paris, conforming not at all to the sartorial customs +of Tahiti, and his varnished boots and alpine hat, with his saffron +automobile, marked him as a person. In that he resembled Higby, +an Englishman in Papeete, who wore the evening dress of London +whenever a steamship came in, though it might be noon, and on the +king's birthday and other British feasts put it on when he awoke. He +was the only man who went to dinner at the Tiare in the funeral garb +of society. He said he was setting up a proper standard in Tahiti. It +was suspected really that he was short of clothes, with perhaps only +one or two cotton suits, and that when those were soiled he had to +resort to full dress during the laundering. + +While David and I inspected the house and grounds, McHenry and +Llewellyn sat at the wine. Polonsky had a curious and wisely chosen +household. His butler was a Javanese, his chef a Quan-tung Chinese, +his valet a Japanese, his chambermaid a Martinique negress, and his +chauffeur an American expert. These had nothing in common and could +not ally themselves to cheat him, he said. + +As I came back to the front veranda McHenry and Llewellyn were +talking excitedly. + +"I've had my old lady nineteen years," said McHenry, boastfully, "and +she wouldn't speak to me if she met me on the streets of Papeete. She +wouldn't dare to in public until I gave her the high sign. You're a +bloody fool makin' equals of the natives, and throwin' away money on +those cinema girls the way you do." + +This incensed Llewellyn, who was of chiefly Tahitian blood, and +who claimed kings of Wales as his ancestors. Although extremely +aristocratic in his attitude toward strangers, his native strain +made him resent McHenry's rascally arrogance as a reflection upon +his mother's race. + +"Shut up, Mac!" he half shouted. "You talk too much. If it hadn't been +for that same old lady of yours, you'd have died of delirium-tremens +or fallen into the sea long ago." + +"Aye," said the trader, meditatively, "that vahine has saved my life, +but I'm not goin' to sacrifice my dignity as a white man. If ye let go +everything, the damn' natives'll walk over ye, and ye'll make nothin' +out o' them." + +Lovaina had occasionally called me Dixey, and had explained that I was +the "perfec' im'ge" of a man of that name, and that he owned a little +cutter which traded to Raiaroa, on which atoll he lived. I walked +like him, was of the same size, and had the "same kin' funny face." + +She piqued my curiosity, and so when I found him at the round table +of the Polonsky-Llewellyn group at the Cercle Bougainville, I looked +him over narrowly. His name was Dixon,--Lovaina never got a name +right,--an Englishman, a wanderer, with an Eton schooling, short, +solidly built, with a bluff jaw and a keen, blue eye. He was not +good-looking. He had learned the nickname given me, and was in such +a happy frame of mind that he ordered drinks for the club. + +"I'm lucky to be here at all," he said seriously. "I have a seven-ton +cutter, and left the Paumotus four days ago for Papeete. We had +eight tons of copra in the hold, filling it up within a foot of the +hatch. Eight miles off Point Venus the night before last, at eleven +o'clock, we hoped for a bit of wind to reach port by morning. It +was calm, and we were all asleep but the man at the wheel, when +a waterspout came right out of the clear sky,--so the steersman +said,--and struck us hard. We were swamped in a minute. The water +fell on us like your Niagara. Christ! We gave up for gone, all of us, +the other five all kanakas. We heeled over until the deck was under +water,--of course we've got no freeboard at all,--and suddenly a gale +sprung up. We pulled in the canvas, but to no purpose. Under a bare +pole we seemed every minute to be going under completely. We have +no cabin, and all we could do was to lay flat on the deck in the +water, and hold on to anything we could grab. The natives prayed, +by God! They 're Catholics, and they remembered it then. The mate +wanted to throw the copra overboard. I was willing, but I said, +'What for? We're dead men, and it'll do no good. She can't stand up +even empty.' We stayed swamped that way all night, expecting to be +drowned any minute, and I myself said to the Lord--I was a chorister +once--that if I had done anything wrong in my life, I was sorry--" + +"But you knew you had?" I interposed. + +"Of course I did, but I wasn't going to rub it in on myself in +that fix. I knew He knew all about me. My father was a curate in +Devon. Well, we pulled through all right, because here I am, and the +copra's on the dock. What do you think--the wind died away completely, +and we had to sweep in to Papeete." + +I touched his glass with mine. He was very ingenuous, a four-square +man. + +"Did the prayers have anything to do with your pulling through and +saving the copra?" I questioned, curious. + +"I don't know. I didn't make any fixed promises. I was bloody well +scared, and I meant what I said about being sorry. But that's all +gone. Let's drink this up and have another. Joseph!" + +Hélas! the waterspout did not harm my twin half so much as the +rum-spout, which soon had him three sheets in the wind and his rudder +unmanageable. When I went down the rue de Rivoli that night to the +Cercle Militaire, he had drifted into the Cocoanut House, and was +sitting on a fallen tree telling of the storm to a woman in a scarlet +gown with a hibiscus-blossom in her hair. I got him by the arm, and +with an expressed desire to know more of the details of the escape, +steered him to the Annexe, where he had a room. + +A good sort was Dixon. He had in the Paumotus a little store, a dark +mother-girl of Raiaroa who waited for him, and a new baby. He had been +only a year in the group. He referred to "my family" with honest pride. + +The captains of the Lurline and the O. M. Kellogg were at the +club. The Lurline was twenty-seven years old, and the Kellogg, too, +high up in her teens, if not twenties. Their skippers were Americans, +the Kellogg's master as dark as a negro, burned by thirty years of +tropical sun. + +"I used to live in Hawaii in the eighties," he said. "I used to pass +the pipe there in those days. There'd be only one pipe among a dozen +kanakas, and each had a draw or so in turn. They have that custom in +the Marquesas, too, and so had the American Indians." + +I walked with the Kellogg's skipper to his vessel, moored close to +the quay in front of the club. He gave an order to the mate, who told +him to go to sheol. The mate had been ashore. + +"Come aboard," cried the mate, "and I will knock your block off." + +The whole waterfront heard the challenge. Stores were deserted to +witness the imminent fight. + +The dark-faced captain ascended the gang-plank, and walked to the +forecastle head, where the mate was directing the making taut a line. + +"Now," said the skipper, a foot from the mate, "knock!" + +The mate hesitated. That would be a crime; he would go to jail and +the captain would be delighted. + +The master taunted him: + +"Knock my block off! Touch my block, and I'll whip you so your mother +wouldn't know you, you dirty, drunken, son of a sea-cook!" + +The mate looked at him angrily, but uncertainly. He heard the +laughter and the cheers of the bystanders on the quay and in the +embowered street. He looked down at the deck, and he caught sight of +a capstan-bar, which he gazed at longingly. Any blow would send him +to prison, but why not for a sheep instead of a lamb? + +He hesitated, and lifted his eyes to the black brow of the skipper, +lowering within touch. + +"Make fast your line about that cannon!" said the master, sharply. + +The sailors waited joyfully for the fray, and the Raratonga stevedores +on other vessels stopped their work. But nothing happened. + +"Aye, aye, sir," said the mate, and shouted the order to the men +ashore. The captain regarded him balefully, muttered a few words, +and returned to the club for a Dr. Funk. That medical man ranked here +above Colonel Rickey, who invented the gin-rickey in America. + +Herr Funk was better known in the Cercle Bougainville than Charcot +or Lister or Darwin. The doctor part of the drink's name made it seem +almost like a prescription, and often, when amateurs sought to evade a +second or third, the old-timers laughed at their fears of ill results, +and said: + +"That old Doctor Funk knew what he was about. Why, he kept people +alive on that mixture. It's like mother's milk." + + + +Chapter VII + +The Noa-Noa comes to port--Papeete en féte--Rare scene at the Tiare +Hotel--The New Year celebrated--Excitement at the wharf--Battle of +the Limes and Coal. + +The Noa-Noa came in after many days of suspense, during which rumors +and reports of war grew into circumstantial statements of engagements +at sea and battles on land. A mysterious vessel was said to have +slipped in at night with despatches for the governor. All was sensation +and canard, on dit and oui dire, and all was proved false when the +liner came through the passage in the reef. Nothing had happened to +disturb the peace of nations, but a dock strike in Auckland had tied +up the ship. The relief of mind of the people of Papeete caused a wave +of joy to pass over them. Business men and officials, tourists who +expected to leave for America and the outside world on the Noa-Noa, +overflowed with evidence of their delight. The consuls of the powers +met at the Cercle Militaire the governor, and laughed hectically at +the absurd balloon of tittle-tattle which had been pricked by the +Noa-Noa's facts. There had been absolutely nothing to the rumors but +the fears or the antipathies of nationals in Tahiti. + +It was the holiday season, the New Year at hand, and, moreover, there +was added cause for rejoicing in the safety of the Saint Michel, +a French-owned inter-island steamship which had been missing six +weeks. She had left one of the Paumotu atolls and failed to reach her +next port, thirty miles away. Rumor had sent her to the bottom. She +was a crank vessel, with a perpetual list, and a roll of twenty-five +degrees in the quietest sea; the dread of all compelled by affairs +to take passage on her. + +"She's sunk; rolled over too much, and turned turtle," was the verdict +at the Cercle Bougainville. Her agents had sent the Cholita, a small +power schooner, to go over the Saint Michel's course, and find trace +of her, if possible. Imagine the excitement along the waterfront +when, almost coincident with the sighting of the Noa-Noa, the Saint +Michel appeared, pulled by the Cholita. Familiar faces of passengers +appeared on her deck as she made fast to the quay, holding cigarettes +as if they had waked up after a night in their own beds. The Cholita +had found the Saint Michel at the Marquesas Islands, whither she had +drifted after losing her rudder on a rock. After a month lying inert +at the Marquesas, the Cholita had taken hold and dragged the crippled +Saint back to Papeete. + +The joy and surprise of the families and friends of the passengers and +the crew must have the vent usual here, and what with the Noa-Noa's +crew of amateur sailors, firemen, and yachtsman, and six licensed +captains, taking the places of the strikers, the town was filled with +pleasure-seekers. A high mass of thanksgiving at the cathedral was +followed by a day of explanations, anathemas upon the owners of the +Saint Michel, and the striking labor-unions, and of music, dancing, +and toasts. + +New Year's eve, two picture shows, hulas, and the festivities of the +wedding of Cowan, the prize-fighter, brought in a throng from the +districts to add to the Papeete population and the voyagers. + +The streets were a blaze of colored gowns and flower-crowned girls +and women. The quays were lined with singing and playing country +folk. Small boats and canoes were arriving every few minutes during +the afternoon with natives who preferred the water route to the +Broom Road. Cowan was a favorite boxer, and shortly to face the +noted Christchurch Kid, of Christchurch, New Zealand, whose fist +was described on the bill-boards as "a rock thrown by a mighty +slinger." Cowan, a half-Polynesian, was beloved for his island blood, +and was marrying into a Tahitian family of note and means. The nuptials +at the church were preceded by a triumphal procession of the bride +and groom in an automobile, with a score of other cars following, the +entire party gorgeously adorned with wreaths,--hei in Tahitian,--and +the vehicles lavishly decorated with sugar-cane and bamboo tassels. The +band of the cinema led the entourage, and played a free choice of +appropriate music, "Lohengrin" before the governor's palace, and +"There'll be a Hot Time in the Old Town To-night" as they passed +Lovaina's. The company sang lustily, and toasts to the embracing +couple were drunk generously from spouting champagne-bottles as the +cortege circled the principal streets. + +There was rare life at Lovaina's, for besides all the diners in +ordinary and extraordinary in the salle-à-manger, Stevens, the London +stockbroker, had a retired table set for the American, British, and +German consuls, and their wives. The highest two officials of France +in this group, Messieurs, l'Inspecteurs des Colonies, were there, +eating solemnly alone, as demanded by their exalted rank, and their +mission of criticism. They glanced down often at their broad bosoms to +see that their many orders were on straight, to note the admiration +of lesser officialdom, and to make eyes at the women. Their long and +profuse black beards were hidden by their napkins, which all Frenchmen +of parts hereabouts tuck in their collars, and draw up to their mouths, +a precaution which, when omitted, is seen to have been founded on an +etiquette utilitarian and esthetic. + +The company was complex. At a table opposite me sat the juge inferieur +and the daughter of the Chinese cook at the Hotel Central, a smart, +slender woman with burning eyes, and with them, in full uniform, +were two French civil officials, who wore, as customary, clothes like +soldiers. One unfamiliar with their regalia might mistake, as I did, +a pharmacist for an admiral. Mary, the cook's half-Tahitian daughter, +was in elaborate European dress, with a gilded barret of baroque +pearls in her copious, ebon tresses, and with red kid shoes buckled +in silver and blister pearls. + +The son of Prince Hinoe, who would have been the King of Tahiti +had the dynasty continued to reign, had a dozen chums at a table, +oafs from seventeen to twenty, and with the fish course they began +to chant. The captain of the Saint Michel was with Woronick, the +pearl-buyer, who had made the fearful trip to the Marquesas with +him. There was Heezonorweelee, as the natives call the Honorable +Walter Williams, the most famous dentist within five thousand miles, +and the most distinguished white man of Tahiti; Landers; Polonsky; +David; McHenry; Schlyter, the Swedish tailor; Jones and Mrs. Jones, +the husband, head of a book company in Los Angeles; a Barbary Coast +singer and her man; a demirep of Chicago and her loved one; three +Tahitian youths with wreaths; the post-office manager, and with him +the surgeon of the hospital; a notary's clerk, the governor's private +secretary; the administrateur of the Marquesas Islands, Margaret, +Lurline and Mathilde, Lena, and Lucy, lovely part-Tahitian girls +who clerked in stores; the Otoman, chauffeur for Polonsky; English +tourists; Nance, the California capitalist; and others. + +Curses upon Saint Michel, threats of damage suits for fright and +delay, laughable stories of the mistakes of the volunteer crew of the +Noa-Noa; discussions of the price of copra, mingled with the chants of +the native feasters and ribald tales. The Tiare girls, all color and +sparkle, exchanged quips with the male diners, patted their shoulders, +and gigglingly fought when they tried to take them into their laps. + +In the open porch, Lovaina, gaily adorned, her feet bare, but a +wreath of ferns on her head, sped the dishes and the wine. She kept +the desserts before her and cut portions to suit the quality of her +liking for each patron. + +"Taporo e taata au ahu" said Atupu. + +"The lime and the tailor," that means, and identified Landers +and Schlyter. Landers was the "lime" because a former partner +of his establishment exported limes, and Landers succeeded to his +nickname. Landers and Schlyter were good customers, so they got larger +slices of dried-apple pie. + +Chappe-Hall, being bidden farewell on his leaving for Auckland, was +apostrophizing Tahiti in verse, all the stanzas ending in "And the +glory of her eyes over all." There were bumpers and more, and "Bottoms +up," until a slat-like American woman bounced off the veranda with her +sixth course uneaten to complain to Lovaina that her hotel was no place +for a Christian or a lady. Lovaina almost wept with astonishment and +grief, but kept the champagne moving toward the Chappe-Hall table as +fast as it could be cooled, meanwhile assuring the scandalized guest +that nothing undecorous ever happened in the Tiare Hotel, but that +it were better it did than that young men should go to evil resorts +for their outbursts. + +"My place respectable," Lovaina said dignifiedly. "I don' 'low no +monkey bizeness. Drinkin' wine custom of Tahiti. Make little fun, +no harm. If they go that Cocoanut House, get in bad." + +Lovaina told me all about it. She was quite hurt at the aspersions +upon her home, and entered the dining-room in a breathing spell to +sit at my table, a rather unusual honor I deeply felt. I pledged my +love for her in Pol Roger, but she would have nothing but water. + +"I no drink these times," she explained. "Maybe some day I do +again. Make fat people too much bigger. That flat woman from 'Nited +States, ain't she funny? I think missionary." + +From the screened area in which the consuls dined with the broker +one heard: + +"Here's to the king, God bless him!" "Hoch der Kaiser!" "Vive la +Republique!" "The Stars and Stripes!" as the glasses were emptied by +the consuls and their wives and host. + +Lovaina had taken up the rug in the parlor, and a graphophone +ground out the music for dancing. Ragtime records brought out the +Otoman, a San Franciscan, bald and coatless. He took the floor with +Mathilde, a chic, petite, and graceful half-caste, and they danced +the maxixe. David glided with Margaret, Landers led out Lucy, and +soon the room was filled with whirling couples. A score looked on +and sipped champagne, the serving girls trying to fill the orders +and lose no moment from flirtation. On the camphor-wood chest four +were seated in two's space. + +When midnight tolled from the cathedral tower, there was an +uncalled-for speech from a venerable traveler who apparently was not +sure of the date or the exact nature of the fête: + +"Fellow-exiles and natives bujus Teetee. We are gathered together +this Fourth of July--" + +Cries of "Altai" "Ce n'est-pas vrai!" "Shove in your high! It's +New Year!" + +"--to cel'brate the annivers'ry of the death of that great man--" + +Yells of "Sit down!" "Olalala!" "Aita maitai!" and the venerable +orator took his seat. He was once a governor of a territory under +President Harrison, and now lived off his pension, shaky, sans teeth, +sans hair, but never sans speech. + +The Englishmen and Americans clattered glasses and said "Happy New +Year!" and the Tahitians: "Rupe-rupe tatou iti! I teienei matahiti +api!" "Hurrah for all of us! Good cheer for the New Year!" + +Monsieur Lontane, second in command of the police, arrived just in +time to drink the bonne année. He executed a pas seul. He mimicked a +great one of France. He drank champagne from a bottle, a clear four +inches between its neck and his, and not a drop spilled. + +Lovaina sat on her bench in the porch and marked down the debits: + + + Fat face............3 Roederer.......... + New Doctor..........5 champag........... + Hair on nose........2 champ............. + Willi...............4 pol.............. + + +The electric lights went out. There was a dreadful flutter among the +girls. Some one went to the piano and began to play, "Should Auld +Acquaintance be Forgot," and the Americans and English sang, the +French humming the air. The wine flattened in the glasses and open +bottles, but no one cared. They gathered in the garden, where the +perfume of the tiare scented the night, and the stars were a million +lamps sublime in the sky. Song followed song, English and French, +and when the lazy current pulsated again, the ball was over. + +We walked to the beach, Nance and I. + +"It's hell how this place gets hold of you," said Nance, who had shot +pythons in Paraguay and had a yacht in Los Angeles harbor. "I dunno, +it must be the cocoanuts or the breadfruit." + +Walking back alone through a by-path, I saw the old folks sitting on +their verandas and the younger at dalliance in the many groves. Voices +of girls called me: + +"Haere me ne!" "Come to us!" "Hoere mai u nei ite po ia u nei!" + +The Himene tatou Arearea of our Moorea expedition came from many +windows, the accordions sweet and low, and the subdued chant in +sympathy with the mellow hour. "The soft lasceevious stars leered +from these velvet skies." + +Lovaina had gone to bed, but, with the lights on again, patrons of +the prize-fight had dropped in. The Christchurch Kid had beaten Teaea, +a native, the match being a preliminary clearing of the ground before +the signal encounter with the bridegroom. + +The glass doors of the salle-à-manger were broken in a playful scuffle +between the whiskered doctor of the hospital, and Afa, the majordomo +of the Tiare. The medical man ordered five bottles of champagne, +and, putting them in his immense pockets, returned to his table and +opened them all at once. He had them spouting about him while their +fizz lasted, and then drank most of their contents. He then threw all +the crockery of his table to the roadway, and Afa wrestled him into +a better state, during which process the doors were smashed. When +the bombilation became too fearful, Lovaina called out from her bed: + +"Make smaller noise! Nobody is asleep!" + +At two in the morning the gendarmes advised the last revelers to +retire, and the Tiare became quiet. But Atupu slept in a little +alcove by the bar, and any one in her favor had but to enter her +chamber and pull her shapely leg to be served in case of dire need. + +The incidents of the departure of the Noa-Noa that day for San +Francisco will live in the annals of Papeete. Its calamitous happenings +are "in the archives." I have the word of the secretary-general of the +Etablissments Français de l'Oceanie for that, and in the saloons and +coffee-houses they talked loudly of the "bataille entre les cochons +Anglais et les héros les Français et les Tahitiens." + +It was a battle that would have rejoiced the heart of Don Quixote, +and that redoubtable knight had his prototype here in the van of it, +the second in command of the police of Papeete, M. Lontane, the mimic +of the Tiare celebration. + +The Noa-Noa's amateur crew of wretched beach-combers, farm laborers, +and impossible firemen, stokers, and stewards, a pitiable set, were +about the waterfront all day, dirty, dressed in hot woolen clothes, +bedraggled and as drunk as their money would allow. The ship was down +to leave at three-thirty o'clock, but it was four when the last bag +of copra was aboard. There were few passengers, and those who booked +here were dismayed at the condition of the passageways, the cabins, +and the decks. The crowd of "scabs," untrained white sailors, and +coal passers was supplemented by Raratonga natives, lounging about +the gangway and sitting on the rails. On the wharf hundreds of people +had gathered as usual to see the liner off. Lovaina was there in a +pink lace dress, seated in her carriage, with Vava at the horse's +head. Prince Hinoe had gathered about him a group of pretty girls, +to whom he was promising a feast in the country. All the tourists, +the loafers, the merchants, and the schooner crews were there, too, +and the iron-roofed shed in which it is forbidden to smoke was filled +with them. The Noa-Noa blew and blew her whistle, but still she +did not go. The lines to the wharf were loosened, the captain was +on the bridge, the last farewells were being called and waved, but +there was delay. Word was spread that some of the crew were missing, +and as at the best the vessel was short-handed, it had to tarry. + +At last came three of the missing men. They, too, had welcomed the +New Year, and their gait was as at sea when the ship rises and falls +on the huge waves. They wheeled in a barrow a mate whose mispoise +made self-locomotion impossible. The trio danced on the wharf, sang a +chantey about "whisky being the life of man," and declared they would +stay all their lives in Tahiti; that the "bloody hooker could bleedin' +well" go without them. They were ordered on board by M. Lontane, +with two strapping Tahitian gendarmes at his back. + +If there are any foreigners the average British roustabout hates it +is French gendarmes, and the ruffians were of a mind to "beat them +up." They raised their fists in attitudes of combat, and suddenly +what had been a joyous row became a troublesome incident. + +Sacré bleu! those scoundrels of English to menace the uniformed +patriots of the French republic! The second in command drew a revolver, +and pointing at the hairy breast of the leader of the Noa-Noans, +shouted: "Au le vapeur! Diable! What, you whisky-filled pigs, you +will resist the law?" + +He took off his helmet and handed it to one of the native policemen +while he unlimbered the revolver more firmly in the direction of the +seamen. The sailor shrank back in bewilderment. Guns were unknown in +shore squabbles. + +"I'll 'ave the British Gov'ment after ye," roared the leader. "I'll +write to the Sydney papers. Ye've pulled a gun in me face." + +Steadily and with some good nature the Tahitian officers pushed +the trio toward the gangway and up it. Once aboard, the gangway was +hoisted, the pilot clambered up the side, and it seemed as if the liner +was away. But no; the three recalcitrants jumped on the bulwarks, and +joined by a dozen others, yelled defiance at the authorities. As the +Noa-Noa gradually drew out these cries became more definite, and the +honor of France and of all Frenchmen was assailed in the most ancient +English Billingsgate. Gestures of frightful significance added to the +insults, and these not producing retorts in kind from the second in +command and the populace, a shower of limes began to fall upon them. + +Sacks of potatoes, lettuce-heads, yams, and even pineapples, +deck cargo, were broken open by the infuriated crew to hurl at the +police. The crowd on the wharf rushed for shelter behind posts and +carriages, the horses pranced and snorted, and M. Lontane leaped to the +fore. He advanced to the edge of the quay, and in desperate French, +of which his adversaries understood not a word, threatened to have +them dragged from their perches and sent to New Caledonia. + +A well-aimed lime squashed on his cheek, and with a "Sapristi!" he +fled behind a stack of boxes. The riot became general, the roustabouts +heaving iron bars, pieces of wood, and anything they could find. No +officer of the Noa-Noa said a word to stop them, evidently fearing a +general strike of the crew, and when the missiles cut open the head +of a native stevedore and fell even among the laughing girls, the +courtesies began to be returned. Coal, iron nuts, stones, and other +serious projectiles were thrown with a hearty good-will, and soon +the crew and the passengers of the Noa-Noa were scuttling for safety. + +The storm of French and Tahitian adjectives was now a cyclone, Tahitian +girls, their gowns stained by the fruity and leguminous shot of the +Australasians, seized lumps of coal or coral, and took the van of the +shore legions. Atupu struck the leader of the Noa-Noa snipers in the +nose with a rock, and her success brought a paean of praise from all +of us. + +The entente cordiale with Britain was sundered in a minute. The mêlée +grew into a fierce battle, and only the increasing distance of the +vessel from shore stopped the firing, the last shots falling into +the lagoon. + +The second in command had been reinforced by the first in command, +and now, summoned by courier, appeared the secretary-general of +the Etablissements Françaises de l'Oceanie, bearded and helmeted, +white-faced and nervous, throwing his arms into the air and shrieking, +"Qu' est-que ce que ça? Is this war? Are we human, or are these +savages?" + +Lovaina, in the rear of whose carriage I had taken refuge, exclaimed: + +"They say Tahiti people is savage! Why this crazy people must be +finished. Is this business go on?" + +"Non, non!" replied the secretary-general, with patriotic anger, +"We French are long suffering, but c'est assez maintenant." + +He spoke to the first in command, and an order was shouted to M. Wilms, +the pilot, to leave the Noa-Noa. That official descended into his boat +and returned to the quay, while the liner hovered a hundred yards away, +the captain afraid to come nearer, fearful of leaving port without +expert guidance, and more so that the crew might renew the combat. + +The secretary-general conferred with the private secretary of +the governor, the first and second in command, and several old +residents. They would apply to the British consul for warrants for +the arrest of the ruffianly marksmen, they would wrench them from +the rails, and sentence them to long imprisonments. + +So for an hour more the steamship puffed and exhausted her steam, +while the high officials paced the wharf shaking their fists at the +besotted stokers, who shook theirs back. + +The stores, closing at five o'clock, sent their quota of clerks +to swell the mob at the quay, and the "rubberneck wagon," alert to +earn fares, took the news of the fray into the country, and hauled in +scores of excited provincials, who had vague ideas that la guerre was +on. The wedding party, only six motor-cars full on the second day, +all in wreaths of tuberoses and wild-cherry rind, the bride still in +her point-lace veil, and the groom and all the guests cheered with +the champagne they had drunk, drove under the shed from the suburbs +and honked their horns, to the horror of the secretary-general and +the others. + +The situation was now both disciplinary and diplomatic. + +"C'est tres serieux," whispered the secretary to the governor's private +secretary, a dapper little man whose flirting had made his wife a Niobe +and alarmed the husbands and fathers of many French dames et filles. + +"Serious, monsieur?" said the private secretary, twisting his black +wisp of a mustache, "it is more than serious now; it is no longer +the French Establishments of Oceania. It is between Great Britain +and France." + +A peremptory order was given to drive every one off the quay, and +though the crowd chaffed the police, the sweep of wharf was left free +for the marchings and counter-marchings of the big men. + +"What would be the result? Would the entire British population +of the ship resist the taking away of any of the crew? Oh, if the +paltry French administration at Paris had not removed the companies +of soldiers who until recently had been the pride of Papeete! And +crown of misfortune, the gun-boat, sole guardian of French honor in +these seas, was in Australia for repairs. Eh bien, n'importe! Every +Frenchman was a soldier. Did not Napoleon say that? Nom de pipe!" + +Wilfrid Baillon, a cow-boy from British Columbia, was standing near me +with his arms folded on his breast and a look of stern determination +on his sunburned face. + +"We must look sharp," he said to me. "We may all have to stand +together, we whites, against these French frog-eaters." + +The tension was extreme. The warrants had not come from the British +consul, and there seemed no disposition on the Noa-Noa to save the face +of la belle republique, for the blackened and blackguardly stokers +still dangled their legs over the rail and made motions which caused +the officials to shudder and the ladies to shut their eyes. + +The agent of the vessel in Papeete, an American, appeared. He talked +long and earnestly with the secretary-general and the first and second, +and to lend even a darker color to the scene, the procureur-général, +the Martinique black, tall, protuberant, mopping his bald head, took +the center of the conclave. Noses were lowered and brought together, +feet were stamped, hands were wiggled behind backs, and right along +the American, the agent, talked and talked. + +They demurred, they spat on the boards, they lifted their hands +aloft--and then they ordered the pilot to return to the Noa-Noa, and +that vessel, whistling long and relievedly, pointed her nose toward +the opening in the reef. + +Mon Dieu! the suspense was over. The people melted toward their homes +and the restaurants, for it was nearly seven o'clock. I drifted into +the knot about the officials. + +"It is in the archives," said the secretary-general. "It will go down +in history. That is enough." + +The delightful M. Lontane, in khaki riding breeches,--he, as all +police, ride bicycles--his khaki helmet tipped rakishly over his +cigarette, blew a ringlet. + +"C'est comme ça. We would not press our victory," he said +gallantly. "We French are generous. We have hearts." + +The secretary-general, the procureur-général, the first in command +and the private secretary, sighted the carriage of the governor, +who had not appeared until the Noa-Noa was out of the lagoon, and +they went to tell him of the great affair. + +The agent of the line, grim and unsmiling, climbed to the wide veranda +of the Cercle Bougainville, and ordered a Scotch and siphon. + +"There she goes," he said to me, and pointed to the steamer streaking +through the reef gate. "There she goes, and I'm bloody well satisfied." + +At tea the next afternoon the British consul cast a new light on the +international incident. He was playing bridge with the governor and +others when the demand for the warrants was brought. + +"The blighters interrupted our rubber," said the consul, "and the +governor was exceedingly put out. I told them the Noa-Noa couldn't +proceed without the stokers, and as it carries the French mail, they +patched it up to arrest them when they return. We quite lost track +of the game for a few minutes." + +But the cruel war would not down. There was not a good feeling between +the English and French in Tahiti. A slight opposition cropped out +often in criticism expressed to Americans or to Tahitians, or to +each other's own people. New Zealand governs the Cook group, of which +Raratonga is the principal island. Comparisons of sanitation, order, +neatness, and businesslike management of these islands, with the +happy-go-lucky administration of the Society, Paumotus, Marquesas, +and Austral archipelagoes, owned by the French, were frequent by the +English. The French shrugged their shoulders. + +"The Tahitians are happy, and we send millions of francs to aid +France," they said. "The English talk always of neatness and golf links +and cricket-grounds. Eh bien! There are other and better things. And +as for drink, oh, la, la! Our sour wines could not fight one round +of the English boxe with whisky and gin and that awful ale." + +The French residents protested at the missiles of the crew and the +laissez-faire of the Noa-Noa officers, and the British consul received +a letter from the governor in which the affair of the riot was revived +in an absurd manner. + +One might understand M. Lontane, second in command of the police +forces,--six men and himself,--magnifying the row between the tipsy +stokers and his battalions, but to have the governor, who was a +first-rate hand at bridge, and even knew the difference between a +straight and a flush, putting down in black and white, sealed with +the seal of the Republique Française, and signed with his own hand, +that "France had been insulted by the actions of the savages of the +Noa-Noa," was worthy only of the knight of La Mancha. + +So thought the consul, but he was a diplomat, his adroitness gained +not only in the consular ranks, but also in Persia as a secretary of +legation, and in many a fever-stricken and robber-ridden port of the +Near and Far East. He pinned upon his most obstreperous uniform the +medal won by merit, straddled a dangling sword, helmeted his head, +and with an interpreter, that the interview might lack nothing of +formality, called upon the governor at his palace. + +He told him that the letter of complaint had roused his wonderment, +for, said his British Majesty's representative, "There can be no +serious result, diplomatically or locally, of this Donnybrook +Fair incident. In a hundred ports of the world where war-ships +and merchant ships go, their crews for scores of years have fought +with the police. Besides, I am informed that Monsieur Lontane put +a revolver against the stomach of one of the stokers, and that +provoked the nastiness. Until then it had been uncouth mirth caused +by the vile liquor sold by the saloons licensed by the Government, +and against the Papeete regulations that no more intoxicants shall +be sold to a man already drunk. But when this British citizen, +scum of Sydney or Glasgow as he might be, saw the deadly weapon, +he felt aggrieved. This revolver practice is all too common on the +part of Monsieur Lontane. Six such complaints I have had in as many +months. As to that part of your letter that the crew of the Noa-Noa +not be allowed to land here on its return to Papeete, I agree with you, +but it will be for you to enforce this prohibition." + +It was agreed that on the day the Noa-Noa arrived on her return trip, +all gendarmes and available guard be summoned from the country to +preserve order, and that, as asked in the letter, the consul demand +that the captain of the steamship punish the rioters. + +And all this being done through an interpreter, and the consul having +unlimbered his falchion and removed his helmet, he and the governor +had an absinthe frappé and made a date for a bridge game. + +"Te tamai i te taporo i te arahu i te umaru," the natives termed the +skirmish. "The conflict of the limes, the coal, and the potatoes." A +new himene was improvised about it, and I heard the girls of the +Maison des Cocotiers chanting it as I went to Lovaina's to dinner. + +It was something like this in English: + + + "Oh, the British men they drank all day + And threw the limes and iron. + The French in fear they ran away. + The brave Tahitians alone stood firm." + + +And there were many more verses. + + + +Chapter VIII + +Gossip in Papeete--Moorea, a near-by island--A two-days' excursion +there--Magnificent scenery from the sea--Island of fairy folk--Landing +and preparation for the feast--The First Christian mission--A canoe +on the lagoon--Beauties of the sea-garden. + +My acquaintances of the Cercle Bougainville, Landers, Polonsky, +McHenry, Llewellyn, David, and Lying Bill, were at this season bent on +pleasure. Landers, the head of a considerable business in Australasia, +with a Papeete branch, had time heavy on his hands. Lying Bill and +McHenry were seamen-traders ashore until their schooner sailed for +another swing about the French groups of islands. Llewellyn and David +were associates in planting, curing, and shipping vanilla-beans, +but were roisterers at heart, and ever ready to desert their office +and warehouse for feasting or gaming. Polonsky was a speculator +in exchange and an investor in lands, and was reputed to be very +rich. He, too, would leave his strong box unlocked in his hurry if +cards or wassail called. These same white men were sib to all their +fellows in the South Seas except a few sour men whom avarice, satiety, +or a broken constitution made fearful of the future and thus heedful +of the decalogue. + +These merry men attended to business affairs for a few hours of +mornings, unless the night before had been devoted too arduously to +Bacchus, and the remainder of the day they surrendered to clinking +glasses, converse, Rabelasian tales, and flirting with the gay +Tahitian women in the cinemas or at dances. There was a tolerance, +almost a standard, of such actions among the men of Tahiti, though +of course consuls, high officials, a banker or two of the Banque de +l'Indo-Chine, and a few lawyers or speculators sacrificed their flesh +to their ambitions or hid their peccadillos. + +A chorus of wives and widows--there were no old maids in +Tahiti--condemned scathingly the conduct of the voluptuaries, and the +preachers of the gospel lashed them in conversation or sermon now and +then. But on the whole there was not in Tahiti any of the spirit of +American towns and villages, which wrote scarlet letters, ostracized +offenders against moral codes, and made Philistinism a creed. Gossip +was constant, and while sometimes caustic, more often it partook of +curiosity and mere trading of information or salacious prattle. + +Tahitian women concealed nothing. If they won the favors of +a white man, they announced it proudly, and held nothing sacred +of the details. One's peculiarities, weaknesses, idiosyncrasies, +physical or spiritual blemishes, all became delectable morsels in the +mouths of one's intimates and their acquaintances. One's passions, +actions, and whisperings were as naked to the world as the horns on a +cow. Every one knew the import of Polonsky's dorsal tattooings, that +Pastor ---- had a case of gin in his house, and that the governor, +after a bottle or two of champagne, had squeezed so tightly the waist +of an English lady with whom he waltzed that she had cried out in +pain. Though bavardage accounted for much of the general knowledge +of every one's affairs, there was an uncanny mystery in the speed at +which a particular secret spread. One spoke of the bamboo telegraph. + +It was proposed at the Cercle Bougainville that we have a series +of jaunts to points some distance away. I was promised that I +would see fully the way my acquaintances enjoyed themselves in the +open. Llewellyn was given charge of the first excursion. It was to +Moorea, an island a dozen miles or so to the northwest from Papeete, +and which, with Tetiaria and Mehetia and Tahiti, constitute les îles +de Vent, or Windward Islands of the Society archipelago. + +In clear weather one cannot look out to sea from Papeete, to the north +or west, without Moorea's weird grandeur confronting one. The island +of fairy-folk with golden hair, it was called in ancient days by the +people of other islands. A third of the size of Tahiti, it was, until +the white man came, the abode of a romantic and gallant clan. Eimeo, +it was called by the first whites, but the name of Moorea clings +to it now. Over it and behind it sets the sun of Papeete, and it is +associated with the tribal conflicts, the religion, and the journeys +of the Tahitians. Now it is tributary to this island in every way, and +small boats run to and from with passengers and freight almost daily. + +We met at seven o'clock of a Saturday morning at the point on +the coral embankment where the Potii Moorea was made fast, the +gasolene-propelled cargo-boat which we had rented for the voyage. A +hundred were gathered about a band of musicians in full swing when I +appeared at the rendezvous on the prick of the hour. The bandsmen, +all natives but one, wore garlands of purau, the scarlet hibiscus, +and there was an atmosphere of abandonment to pleasure about them +and the party. + +A schooner swung at her moorings near by, under a glowing, flamboyant +tree, and her crew was aboard in expectation of sailing at any +hour. Another small craft, a sloop, was preparing to sail for Moorea, +also. She was crowded with passengers and cargo, and all about the +rail hung huge bunches of feis, the mountain bananas. Most of the +people aboard had come from the market-place with fruit and fish and +vegetables to cook when they arrived at home. A strange habit of the +Tahitians under their changed condition is to take the line of least +resistance in food, eating in Chinese stores, or buying bits in the +market, whereas, when they governed themselves, they had an exact and +elaborate formula of food preparation, and a certain ceremoniousness +in despatching it. Only feasts bring a resumption nowadays of the +ancient ways. + +The crews of the schooner and of the other Moorea boat besides our +own had a swarm of friends awaiting the casting off. Even a journey +of a few hours meant a farewell ceremony of many minutes. They +embrace one another and are often moved to tears at a separation of +a few days. When one of them goes aboard a steamship for America or +Australasia, the family and friends enact harrowing scenes at the +quay. They are sincerely moved at the thought of their loved ones +putting a long distance between them, and I saw a score of young +and old sobbing bitterly when the Noa-Noa left for San Francisco +though they stormed the stokers lustily when aroused. Their life is +so simple in these beloved islands that the dangers of the mainland +are exaggerated in their minds, and to the old the civilization of a +big city appears as a specter of horrible mien. The electric cars, +the crowds, the murders they read of and are told of, the bandits +in the picture-shows, the fearful stranglers of Paris, the lynchers, +the police, who in the films are always beating the poor, as in real +life, the pickpockets, and the hospitals where willy-nilly they render +one unconscious and remove one's vermiform appendix--all these are +nightmares to the aborigines whose relations are departing. + +When heads were counted, Landers's was missing, and jumping into +Llewellyn's carriage, an old-fashioned phaëton, I drove to Lovaina's, +where he occupied the room next to mine in the detached house in +the animal-yard. He was sound asleep, having played poker and drunk +until an hour before; but when I awoke him I could not but admire the +serenity of the man. His body was in the posture in which he had lain +down, and his breathing was as a child's. + +"Landers, get up!" I shouted from the doorway. He opened his eyes, +regarded me intently, and without a word went to the shower-bath by the +camphor-wood chest, returned quickly, and dressed himself. I fancied +him a man who would have answered his summons before a firing-squad as +calmly. He had a perfection of ease in his movements; not fast, for +he was very big, but with never an unnecessary gesture nor word. He +was one of the finest animals I had ever seen, and fascinating to +men and women of all kinds. + +The Potii Morea had taken on her passengers when we returned, and we +put off from the sea-wall at once, with two barrels of bottled beer, +and half a dozen demi-johns of wine prominent on the small deck. Often +the sea between Tahiti and Moorea is rough in the daytime, and passage +is made at night to avoid accident, but we were given a smooth way, +and could enjoy the music. We sat or lay on the after-deck while the +bandsmen on the low rail or hatch maintained a continuous concert. + +During the several days between our first planning the trip and the +going, a song had been written in honor of the junketing, and this +they played scores of times before we set foot again in Papeete. It +was entitled: "Himene Tatou Arcarea," which meant, "Our Festal Song." + +One easily guessed the meaning of the word himene. The Polynesians' +first singing was the hymns of the missionaries, and these they termed +himenes; so that any song is a himene, and there is no other word +for vocal music in common use. The words of the first stanza of the +"Himene Tatou Arearea" and the refrain were: + + + I teie nei mahana + Te tere no oe e Hati + Na te moana + Ohipa paahiahia + No te au + Tei tupi i Moorea + tamau a + Tera te au + Ei no te au + Tamua a--aue + + Ei reo no oe tau here + I te pii raa mai + Aue oe Tamarii Tahiti te aroha e + A inu i te pia arote faarari + + Faararirari ta oe Tamarii Tahiti + La, Li. + + +Llewellyn put the words into approximate meaning in English, saying +it was as difficult to translate these intimate and slang phrases +as it would be to put "Yankee Doodle" into French or German. His +translation, as he wrote it on a scrap of paper, was: + + + Let us sing joyful to-day + The journey over the sea! + It is a wonderful and agreeable thing to happen in Moorea, + Hold on to it! That is just it; + And because it is just it, + Why hold on to it! + + Your voice, O, Love, calls to us. + O Tahitian children, + Love to you! + Let us all drink beer, + And wet our throats! + And wet them again + To you, Tahitian Children! + + +The bandsmen were probably all related to Llewellyn, or at least +they were of his mother's clan. His own son and nephew by unmarried +mothers were among them; so that they were of our party, and yet on a +different footing. They were our guests, we paying them nothing, but +they not paying their scot. They did not mingle with us intimately, +although probably all the whites except myself knew them well, and +at times were guests at their houses outside Papeete. + +The air to which the himene was sung eluded me for long. It was, +"Oh, You Beautiful Doll!" They had changed the tune, so that I had +not recognized it. The Tahitians have curious variations of European +and American airs, of which they adapt many, carrying the thread of +them, but differentiating enough to cause the hearer curiously mixed +emotions. It was as if one heard a familiar voice, and, advancing to +grasp a friendly hand, found oneself facing a stranger. + +None of these island peoples originally had any music save +monotones. In fact, in Hawaii, after the missionaries, Kappelmeister +Berger, who came fifty years ago from Germany to Honolulu, +was largely the maker of the songs we know now as distinctively +Hawaiian. He fitted German airs to Hawaiian words, composed music on +native themes, and spontaneously and by adaptation he, with others, +gave a trend to the music of Hawaii nei that, though European in the +main, is yet charmingly expressive of the soft, sweet nature of the +Hawaiians and of the contrasts of their delightful gaiety and innate +melancholy. These native tongues of the South Seas, with their many +vowels and short words, seem to be made for singing. + +The voyage from Tahiti to Moorea was a two-hours' panorama of +magnificence and anomalism in the architecture of nature. Facing my +goal was Moorea, and behind me Tahiti, scenes of contrary beauty as +the vessel changed the distance from me to them. Tahiti, as I left it, +was under the rays of the already high sun, a shimmering beryl, blue +and yellow hues in the overpowering green mass, and from the loftiest +crags floating a long streamer-cloud, the cloud-banner of Tyndal. + +Moorea was the most astonishing sight upon the ocean that my eyes +had ever gazed on. It was as if a mountain of black rock had been +carved by the sons of Uranus, the mighty Titans of old, into gigantic +fortresses, which the lightnings, temblors, and whirlwinds of the +eons had rent into ruins. Its heights were not green like Tahiti's, +but bare and black, true children of the abysmal cataclysm which in +the time of the making of these oases of the sea thrust them up from +the fires of the deep. + +Far up near the peak of Afareaitu, nearly a mile above the wave, +in one of the colossal splinters of the basalt rocks, was an eye, +an immense round hole through which the sky shone. One saw it plainly +from Tahiti. It was made by the giant Pai of Tautira when he threw his +spear a dozen miles and pierced a window in the solid granite that all +might know his prowess. One felt like a fool to rehearse to a Tahitian, +telling one the tale, the statement of scientists that the embrasure +had been worn by water when Afareaitu was under the ocean during its +million-year process of rising from the mud. It would be like asking +Flammarion, the wisest of French astronomers, to cease believing in the +mystery of transubstantiation. He would smile as would the autochthon. + +There was one picture in murky monochrome which never could be +forgotten--a long sierra of broken pinnacles and crags which had +all the semblance of a weathered and dismantled castle. It stood out +against the tender blue of the morning sky like the ancient stronghold +of some grisly robber-baron of medieval days; towers of dark sublimity, +battlements whence invaders might have been hurled a thousand feet +to death, slender minarets, escarpments and rugged casements through +which fleecy clouds peeped from the high horizon. I once saw along the +Mediterranean in Italy or France the fastness of a line of nobles, +set away up on a lonely hill, glowering, gloomy, and unpeopled, the +refuge, mayhap, of the mountain goat, the abiding-place of bats and +other creatures of the night. Moorea's fortress conjured up the vision +of it, its wondrous ramparts and unscalable precipices strangely the +counterpart of the Latin castle. + +But if one dropped one's eyes from the hills, gone was the recollection +of aught of Europe. There was a scene which only the lavish colors +of the tropics could furnish. The artist had spilled all his shades +of green upon the palette, and so delicately blended them that they +melted into one another in a very enchantment of green. The valleys +were but darker variants of the emerald scheme. + +The confused mass of lofty ridges resolved into chasms and combes, +dark, sunless ravines, moist with the spray of many waterfalls, which +nearer became velvet valleys of pale green, masses of foliage and +light and shadow. The mountains of Moorea were only half the height +of Tahiti's, but so artfully had they been piled in their fantastic +arrangement that they seemed as high, though they were entirely +different in their impress upon the beholder. Tahiti from the sea was +like a living being, so vivid, so palpitating was its contour and its +color, but Moorea, when far away, was cold and black, a beautiful, +ravishing sight, but like the avatars of a race of giants that had +passed, a sepulcher or monument of their achievements and their end. + +As about Tahiti, a silver belt of reef took the rough caresses of +the lazy rollers, and let the glistening surf break gently on the +beach. Along this wall of coral, hidden, but charted by its crown of +foam, we ran for miles until we found the gateway--the blue buckle +of the belt, it appeared at a distance. + +Within the lagoon the guise of the island was more intimate. Little +bays and inlets bounded themselves, and villages and houses sprang +up from the tropic groves. The band, which so far as I knew had not +been silent a moment to awaken me from my adoration of the sculpture +and painting of nature, now poured out the "Himene Tatou Arearea" in +token of our approaching landing, which was at Faatoai, the center +of population. All its hundred or two inhabitants were at the tiny +dock to greet us, except the Chinese, who stayed in their stores. + +Headed by the pipe and accordion, the brass and wood, now playing +"Onward, Christian Soldier,"--which, if one forgot the words, +was an especially carnal melody,--we tramped, singing a parody, +through the street of Faatoai, and into a glorious cocoanut grove, +where breakfast was spread. + +A pavilion had been erected for our feasting. It was of bamboo and +pandanus, the interior lined with tree ferns and great bunches of +scarlet oleander, and decorated with a deep fringe woven of hibiscus +fiber. The roof was a thatch of pandanus and breadfruit leaves, the +whole structure, light, flimsy, but a gamut of golds and browns in +color and cool and beautiful. + +A table fifty feet or longer was made of bamboo, the top of twenty +half sections of the rounded tubes, polished by nature, but slippery +for bottles and glasses. A bench ran on both sides, and underfoot +was the deep-green vegetation that covers every foot of ground in +Moorea except where repeated footfalls, wheels, or labor kills it, +and which is the rich stamp of tropic fertility. + +The barrels of beer were unheaded, the demi-johns from Bordeaux were +uncorked, and from the opened bottles the sugary odor of Tahiti rum +permeated the hot air. The captain of the Potii Moorea and the hired +steward began to set the table for the déjeuner and to prepare the +food, some of which was being cooked a few feet away by the steward's +kin. The guests disposed themselves at ease to wait for the call +to meat, the bandsmen lit cigarettes and tuned their instruments or +talked over their program, while they wetted their throats with the +rum, as admonished by the "Himene Tatou Arearea." + +I strolled down the road along the shore of the lagoon. Here was +erected the first Christian church in this archipelago. British +Protestant missionaries, who had led a precarious life in Tahiti, +and fled from it to Australia in fear of their lives, were induced +to come here and establish a mission. The King of Tahiti, Pomaré, +had fled to Moorea after a desperate struggle with opposing clans, +and he welcomed the preachers as additions to his strength. The high +priest of the district, Patii, collected all the gods under his care, +and they were burned, with a Bible in sight, to the exceeding fear of +the native heathen, and the holy anger of the other native clergy, +who felt as Moses did when he saw his disciples worshiping a golden +calf. On the very spot I stood had been the marae, or Tahitian temple, +in which the images were housed, now a rude heap of stones. A hundred +years ago exactly this exchange of deities had been made. Alas! it +could not have been the true Christ who was brought to them, for they +had flourished mightily under Oro, and they began almost at once to +die. Not peace, but a sword, a sword of horrors, of frightful ills, +was brought them. + +There was a little canoe under a noble cocoanut-tree on the +shell-strewn and crab-haunted coral beach, the roots of the palm +partly covered by the salt water, and partly by a tangle of lilac +marine convolvulus. I pushed the tiny craft into the brine, and +paddled off on the still water of the shining lagoon. + +No faintest agitation of the surface withheld a clear view of the +marvelous growths upon the bottom. I peered into a garden of white +and vari-colored flowers of stone, of fans and vases and grotesque +shapes, huge sponges and waving bushes and stunted trees. Fish of +a score of shapes and of all colors of the spectrum wove in and out +the branches and caverns of this wondrous parterre. + +Past the creamy reef the purple ocean glittered in the nooning sun, +while the motionless waters of the lagoon were turquoise and bice near +by and virescent in the distance. Looking toward the shore, the edge +of milky coral sand met the green matting of moss and grass, and then +the eye marked the fields of sugar-cane, the forests of false coffee +on which grew the vanilla-vines, the groves of cocoanuts, and then +the fast-climbing ridges and the glorious ravines, the misty heights +and the grim crags. + + + +Chapter IX + +The Arearea in the pavilion--Raw fish and baked feis--Llewellyn, +the Master of the Revel; Kelly, the I.V.W., and His Himene--The +Upaupahura--Landers and Mamoe prove experts--The return to Papeete. + +The company was assembled in the pavilion when I walked through the +streets of Faatoai again, and the food was on the bamboo table. One +might have thought the feast would have been spread on soft mats on +the sward, as is the Tahitian custom, but these whites are perverse +and proud, and their legs unbending to such a position. + +We had raw fish cut up, with bowls of cocoanut sauce. It was delicious +in taste, but raw fish is tough and at first hard to chew until one +becomes accustomed to the texture. Whites learn to crave it. + +This fish was cut in small pieces thicker and bigger than a domino, +and steeped in fresh lime-juice for half a day. The sauce was made +by pouring a cup of seawater over grated cocoanuts and after several +hours' straining through the fiber of young cocoanut shoots. It was +thick, like rich cream. + +We had excellent raw oysters and raw clams on the shell, crabs stewed +with a wine sauce that was delicious, fish, boiled chicken, and baked +pig. I had not tasted more appetizing food. It was all cooked in the +native fashion on hot stones above or under ground. We saw the pig's +disinterment. On the brink of the stream which flowed past the bower +the oven had been made. The cooks, Moorea men, removed a layer of +earth that had been laid on cocoa-palm leaves. This was the cover +of the oven. Immediately below the leaves were yams and feis and +under them a layer of banana leaves. The pig came next. It had been +cut into pieces as big as mutton-chops and had cooked two and a half +hours. It was on stones, coral, under which the fire of wood had been +thoroughly ignited, the stones heated, and then the different layers +placed above. The pig was tender, succulent, and the yams and feis +finely flavored. + +The two native men, in pareus, and with crowns of scarlet hibiscus, +waited on us, while the son of Llewellyn uncorked the bottles. As +usual, the beverages were lavishly dispensed, beginning with Scotch +whisky as an appetizer, and following with claret, sauterne, vintage +Burgundy, and a champagne that would have pleased Paris. These more +expensive beverages were for us hosts only. + +We were an odd company: Llewellyn, a Welsh-Tahitian; Landers, +a British New-Zealander; McHenry, Scotch-American; Polonsky, +Polish-French; Schlyter, the Swedish tailor; David, an American +vanilla-grower; "Lying Bill," English; and I, American. There was +little talk at breakfast. They were trenchermen beyond compare, and +the dishes were emptied as fast as filled. These men have no gifts +of conversation in groups. Though we had only one half-white of the +party, Llewellyn, he to a large degree set the pace of words and +drink. In him the European blood, of the best in the British Isles, +arrested the abandon of the aborigine, and created a hesitant blend +of dignity and awkwardness. He was a striking-looking man, very tall, +slender, about fifty years old, swarthy, with hair as black as night, +and eyebrows like small mustaches, the eyes themselves in caverns, +usually dull and dour, but when he talked, spots of light. I thought +of that Master of Ballantrae of Stevenson's, though for all I remember +he was blond. Yet the characters of the two blended in my mind, and I +tried to match them the more I saw of him. He was born here, and after +an education abroad and a sowing of wild oats over years of life in +Europe, had lived here the last twenty-five years. He was in trade, +like almost every one here, but I saw no business instincts or habits +about him. One found him most of the time at the Cercle Bougainville, +drinking sauterne and siphon water, shaking for the drinks, or playing +écarté for five francs a game. + +Below the salt sat his son and his nephew, men of twenty-five years, +but sons of Tahitian mothers, and without the culture or European +education of their fathers. With them two chauffeurs were seated. One +of these, an American, the driver for Polonsky, had tarried here on +a trip about the world, and was persuaded to take employment with +Polonsky. The other was a half-caste, a handsome man of fifty, whose +employer treated him like a friend. + +Breakfast lasted two hours for us. For the band it kept on until +dinner, for they did not leave the table from noon, when we sat down, +until dark. When they did not eat, they drank. Occasionally one of +us slipped down and took his place with them. I sat with them half +an hour, while they honored me with "Johnny Burrown," "The Good, +Old Summertime," and "Everybody Doin' It." + +The heavy leads of the band were carried by an American with +a two-horsepower accordion. He told me his name was Kelly. He was +under thirty, a resolute, but gleesome chap, red-headed, freckled, and +unrestrained by anybody or anything. He had no respect for us, as had +the others, and had come, he said, for practice on his instrument. He +had a song-book of the Industrial Workers of the World, a syndicalistic +group of American laborers and intellectuals, and in it were scores +of popular airs accompanied by words of dire import to capitalists and +employers. One, to the tune of "Marching through Georgia," threatened +destruction to civilization in the present concept. + +"I'm an I. W. W.," said Kelly to me, with a shell of rum in his +hand. "I came here because I got tired o' bein' pinched. Every town +I went to in the United States I denounced the police and the rotten +government, and they throwed me in the calaboose. I never could +get even unlousy. I came here six weeks ago. It's a little bit of +all right." + +When Kelly played American or English airs and the Tahitians sang their +native words, he gave the I. W. W. version in English. Some of these +songs were transpositions or parodies of Christian hymns, and one in +particular was his favorite. Apparently he had made it very popular +with the natives of the band, for it vied with the "Himene Tatou +Arearea" in repetition. It was a crude travesty of a hymn much sung +in religious camp-meetings and revivals, of which the proper chorus as +often heard by me in Harry Monroe's mission in the Chicago slums, was: + + + Hallelujah! Thine the glory! Hallelujah! Amen! + Hallelujah! Thine the glory! revive us again! + + +Kelly's version was: + + + Hallelujah! I'm a bum! Hallelujah! Bum again! + Hallelujah! Give us a hand-out! To save us from sin. + + +He had the stanzas, burlesquing the sacred lines, one of which the +natives especially liked: + + + Oh, why don't you work, as other men do? + How the hell can we work when there 's no work to do? + + +None of us had ever heard Kelly's songs, nor had any one but I ever +heard of his industrial organization, and I only vaguely, having +lived so many years out of America or Europe. But they all cheered +enthusiastically except Llewellyn. He was an Anglican by faith or +paternal inheritance, and though he knew nothing of the real hymns, +they being for Dissenters, whom he contemned, he was religious at soul +and objected to making light of religion. He called for the "Himene +Tatou Arearea." He took his pencil and scribbled the translation I +have given. + +"This is the rough of it," he said. "To write poetry here is +difficult. When I was at Heidelberg and Paris I often spent nights +writing sonnets. That merely tells the sense of the himene, but +cannot convey the joy or sorrow of it. Well, let's sink dull care +fifty fathoms deep! Look at those band-boys! So long as they have +plenty of rum or beer or wine and their instruments, they care little +for food. Watch them. Now they are dry and inactive. Wait till the +alcohol wets them, They will touch the sky." + +Llewellyn's deep-set eyes under the beetling brows were lighting with +new fires. + +His idea of inactivity and drought was sublimated, for the musicians +were never still a moment. They played mostly syncopated airs of the +United States, popular at the time. All primitive people, or those +less advanced in civilization or education, prefer the rag-time +variants of the American negro or his imitators, to so-called good +or classical music. It is like simple language, easily understood, +and makes a direct appeal to their ears and their passions. It is the +slang or argot of music, hot off the griddle for the average man's +taste, without complexities or stir to musing and melancholy. + +The musicians had drunk much wine and rum, and now wanted only +beer. That was the order of their carouse. Beer was expensive at two +francs a bottle, and so a conscientious native had been delegated to +give it out slowly. He had the barrel containing the quartbottles +between his legs while he sat at the table, and each was doled out +only after earnest supplications and much music. + +"Horoa mai te pia!" "More beer!" they implored. + +"Himene" said the inexorable master of the brew. + +Up came the brass and the accordion, and forth went the inebriated +strains. + +Between their draughts of beer--they drank always from the bottles--the +Tahitians often recurred to the song of Kelly. Having no g, l, or s +among the thirteen letters of their missionary-made alphabet, they +pronounced the refrain as follows: + + + Hahrayrooyah! I'm a boom! Hahrayrooyah! Boomagay! + Hahrayrooyah! Hizzandow! To tave ut fruh tin! + + +Landers being very big physically, they admired him greatly, and +his company having been two generations in Tahiti, they knew his +history. They now and again called him by his name among Tahitians, +"Taporo-Tane," ("The Lime-Man"), and sang: + + + E aue Tau tiare ate e! + Ua parari te afata e! + I te Pahi no Taporo-Toue e! + + Alas! my dear, some one let slip + A box of limes on the lime-man's ship, + And busted it so the juice did drip. + + +The song was a quarter of a century old and recorded an accident +of loading a schooner. Landers's father's partner was first named +Taporo-Tane because he exported limes in large quantities from Tahiti +to New Zealand. The stevedores and roustabouts of the waterfront made +ballads of happenings as their forefathers had chants of the fierce +adventures of their constant warfare. They were like the negroes, +who from their first transplantation from Africa to America had put +their plaints and mystification in strange and affecting threnodies +and runes. + +All through the incessant himenes a crowd of natives kept moving +about a hundred feet away, dancing or listening with delight. They +would not obtrude on the feast, but must hear the music intimately. + +The others of our party, having breakfasted until well after two, +sought a house where Llewellyn was known. McHenry and I followed +the road which circles the island by the lagoon and sea-beach. In +that twelve leagues there are a succession of dales, ravines, falls +precipices, and brooks, as picturesque as the landscape of a dream. We +walked only as far as Urufara, a mile or two, and stopped there at +the camp of a Scotsman who offered accommodation of board and lodging. + +His sketchy hotel and outhouses were dilapidated, but they were in +the most beautiful surrounding conceivable, a sheltered cove of the +lagoon where the swaying palms dipped their boles in the ultramarine, +and bulky banana-plants and splendid breadfruit-trees formed a temple +of shadow and coolth whence one might look straight up the lowering +mountain-side to the ghostly domes, or across the radiant water to +the white thread of reef. + +We met McTavish, the host of the hotel, an aging planter, who kept +his public house as an adjunct of his farm, and more for sociability +than gain. He was in a depressed and angry mood, for one of his eyes +was closed, and the other battered about the rim and beginning to +turn black and blue. + +He knew McHenry, for both had been in these seas half their lives. + +"In all my sixty years," he said, "I have not been assaulted quite +so viciously. I asked him for what he owed me, and the next I knew he +was shutting out the light with his fists. I will go to the gendarme +for a contravention against that villain. And right now I will fix +him in my book." + +"Why, who hit you, and what did you do?" asked McHenry. + +"That damned Londoner, Hobson," said McTavish. "He was my guest here +several years ago, and ate and drank well for a month or two when he +hadn't a sou marquis. I needed a little money to-day, and meeting him +up the road, I demanded my account. He is thirty years younger than me, +and I would have kept my eyes, but he leaped at me like a wild dog, +and knocked me down and pounded me in the dirt." + +I sympathized with McTavish, though McHenry snickered. The Scot +went into an inner room and brought back a dirty book, a tattered +register of his guests. He turned a number of pages--there were only +a few guests to a twelvemonth--and, finding his assailant's name, +wrote in capital letters against it, "THIEF." + +"There," he said with a magnificent gesture. "Let the whole world +read and know the truth!" + +He set out a bottle of rum and several glasses, and we toasted him +while I looked over the register. Hardly any one had neglected to +write beside his name tributes to the charm of the place and the kind +heart of McTavish. + +Charmian and Jack London's signatures were there, with a hearty word +for the host, and "This is the most beautiful spot in the universe," +for Moorea and Urufara. + +There were scores of poems, one in Latin and many in French. Americans +seem to have been contented to quote Kipling, the "Lotus Eaters," or +Omar, but Englishmen had written their own. English university men are +generous poetasters. I have read their verses in inns and outhouses of +many countries. Usually they season with a sprig from Horace or Vergil. + +"I'm goin' to the west'ard," said McTavish. "There are too many +low whites comin' here. When Moorea had only sail from Tahiti, the +blackguards did not come, but now the dirty gasolene boat brings +them. I must be off to the west'ard, to Aitutaki or Penrhyn." + +Poor Mac! he never made his westward until he went west in soldier +parlance. + +McHenry, on our way back to Faatoai, said: + +"McTavish is a bloody fool. He gives credit to the bleedin' +beach-combers. If I meet that dirty Hobson, I'll beat him to a pulp." + +From under the thatched roof of our bower came the sounds of: + + + Faararirari + to oe Tamarii Tahiti + La Li. + + +The himene was in its hundredth encore. The other barrel of bottled +beer had been securely locked against the needs of the morrow, and +the bandsmen's inspiration was only claret or sauterne, well watered. + +We sat down for dinner. The déjeuner was repeated, and eggs added +for variety. We had risen from breakfast four hours before, yet +there was no lack of appetite. The drink appeared only to make +their gastric juices flow freely. I hid my surfeit. The harmonies +had by now drawn the girls and young women from other districts, +word having been carried by natives passing in carts that a parcel +of papaa (non-Tahitians) were faarearea (making merry). + +These new-comers had adorned themselves for the taupiti, the public +fête, as they considered it, and as they came along the road had +plucked ferns and flowers for wreaths. Without such sweet treasures +upon them they have no festal spirit. There were a dozen of these +Moorea girls and visitors from Tahiti, one or two from the Tiare Hotel, +whose homes were perhaps on this island. + +The dinner being finished, the bandsmen laid down their instruments +and the girls were invited to drink. Tahitian females have no thirst +for alcohol. They, as most of their men, prefer fruit juices or cool +water except at times of feasting. They had no intoxicants when the +whites came, not in all Polynesia. It was the humor of the explorers, +the first adventurers, and all succeeding ones, to teach them to like +alcohol, and to hold their liquor like Englishmen or Americans. Kings +and queens, chiefs and chiefesses, priests and warriors, were sent +ashore crapulous in many a jolly-boat, or paddled their own canoes, +after areareas on war-ships and merchantmen. Some learned to like +liquor, and French saloons in Papeete and throughout Tahiti and Moorea +encouraged the taste. Profits, as ever under the business rule of +the world overweighed morals or health. + +These girls in our bower drank sparingly of wine, but needed no +artificial spirits to spur their own. Music runs like fire through +their veins. + +Iromea of the Tiare Hotel--perhaps some of Lovaina's maidens knew our +plans and came over on the packet--took the accordion from Kelly. She +began to play, and two of the Moorea men joined her, one with a pair +of tablespoons and the other with an empty gasolene-can. The holder +of the spoons jingled them in perfect harmony with the accordion, and +the can-operator tapped and thumped the tin, so that the three made +a singular and tingling music. It had a timbre that got under one's +skin and pulsated one's nerves, arousing dormant desires. I felt like +leaping into the arena and showing them my mettle on alternate feet, +but a Moorea beauty anticipated me. + +She placed herself before the proud Llewellyn, half of her own blood, +and began an upaupahura. She postured before him in an attitude of +love, and commenced an improvisation in song about him. She praised +his descent from his mother, his strength, his capacity for rum, +and especially his power over women. He was own brother to the great +ones of the Bible, Tolomoni and Nebutodontori, who had a thousand +wives. He drew all women to him. + +The dance was a gambol of passion. It was a free expression +of uninhibited sex feeling. The Hawaiian hula, the nautch, and +minstrelsy combined. So rapid was the movement, so fast the music, +so strenuous the singing, and so actual the vision of the dancer, +that she exhausted herself in a few minutes, and another took the turf. + +A thousand years the Tahitians had had these upaupahuras. Their +national ballads, the achievements of the warrior, the fisherman, the +woodsman, the canoe-builder, and the artist, had been orally recorded +and impressed in this manner in the conclaves of the Arioi. Dancing +is for prose gesture what song is for the instinctive exclamation +of feeling, and among primitive peoples they are usually separated; +but those cultured Tahitians from time immemorial had these highly +developed displays of both methods of manifesting acute sensations. The +Kamchadales of the Arctic--curious the similarities of language and +custom between these far Northerners and these far Southerners--danced +like these Tahitians, so that every muscle quivered at every moment. + +The dancing in the bower was at intervals, as the desire moved +the performers and bodily force allowed. The himene went on +continuously, varying with the inspiration of the dancer or the +whim of the accordion-player. They snatched this instrument from +one another's hands as the mood struck them, and among the natives, +men and women alike had facility in its playing. Pepe of Papara, +and Tehau of Papeari, their eyes flashing, their bosoms rising and +falling tumultuously, and their voices and bodies alternating in +their expressions of passion, were joined by Temanu of Lovaina's, the +oblique-eyed girl whom they called a half-Chinese, but whose ancestral +tree, she said, showed no celestial branch. Temanu was tall, slender, +serpent-like, her body flexuous and undulatory, responding to every +quaver of the music. Her uncorseted figure, with only a thin silken +gown upon it, wreathed harmoniously in tortile oscillations, her long, +black hair flying about her flushed face, and her soul afire with +her thoughts and simulations. + +Now entered the bower Mamoe of Moorea, a big girl of eighteen. She was +of the ancient chiefess type, as large as a man, perfectly modeled, +a tawny Juno. Her hair was in two plaits, wound with red peppers, +and on her head a crown of tuberoses. She wore a single garment, +which outlined her figure, and her feet were bare. She surveyed the +company, and her glance fell on Landers. + +She began to dance. Her face, distinctly Semitic, as is not seldom +the case in Polynesia, was fixed a little sternly at first; but as +she continued, it began to glow. She did not sing. Her dance was the +upaupa, the national dance of Tahiti, the same movement generally +as that of Temanu, but without voice and more skilled. One saw at +once that she was the première danseuse of this isle, for all took +their seats. Her rhythmical swaying and muscular movements were of +a perfection unexcelled, and soon infected the bandsmen, now with +all discipline unleashed. One sprang from the table and took his +position before her. Together they danced, moving in unison, or the +man answering the woman's motions when her agitation lulled. The +spectators were absorbed in the hula. They clapped hands and played, +and when the first man wearied, another took his place. + +Mamoe stopped, and drank a goblet of rum. Her eyes wandered toward our +end of the table, and she came to us. She put her hand on Landers. The +big trader, who was dressed in white linen, accepted the challenge. He +pushed back the bench and stood up. + +Landers in looks was out of a novel. If Henry Dixey, the handsome +actor, whose legs made his fame before he might attest his head's +capacity, were expanded to the proportions of Muldoon, the wrestler, +he might have been Landers. Apparently about thirtythree, really +past forty, he was as big as the young "David" of the Buonarroti, +of the most powerful and graceful physique, with curling brown hair, +and almost perfect features; a giant of a man, as cool as an igloo, +with a melodious Australasian voice pitched low, and a manner with +men and women that was irresistible. + +He faced Mamoe, and Temanu seized the accordion and broke into a mad +upaupa. An arm's-length from Mamoe Landers simulated every pulsation +of her quaking body. He was an expert, it was plain, and his handsome +face, generally calm and unexpressive, was aglow with excitement. Mamoe +recognized her gyratory equal in this giant, and often their bodies +met in the ecstasy of their curveting. Landers, towering above her, +and bigger in bone and muscle than she in sheer flesh, was like a +figure from a Saturnalia. The call of the isles was ringing in his +ears, and one had only to glance at him to hear Pan among the reeds, +to be back in the glades where fauns and nymphs were at play. + +I saw Landers a care-free animal for the moment, rejoicing in his +strength and skill, answering the appeal of sex in the dance. When he +sat down the animal was still in him, but care again had clouded his +brow. I think our early ancestors must have been much like Landers +in this dance, strong, and merry for the time, seeking the woman +in pleasures, fiery in movement for the nonce, and relapsing into +stolidity. I can see why Landers, who takes what he will of womankind +in these islands, still dominates in the trading, and bends most +people his way. The animal way is the way here. The way of the city, +of mere subtlety, of avoidance of issues, of intellectual control, +is not the way of Polynesia. Bulk and sinew and no fear of God or +man are the rules of the game south of the line, as "north of 53." + +With Landers dancing, so must the others. Hobson had dropped in, +and he, David, McHenry, Schlyter, and Lying Bill, trod a measure, +and I, though with only a Celtic urge and a couple of years in Hawaii +to teach me, faced Temanu. The bandsmen could not remain still, and, +with Kelly to play the accordion, the rout became general. McHenry +did not molest Hobson, who remained. + +When we retired from the scene late at night, the upaupa was still +active. We went to the house of Pai, a handsome native woman, whose +half-caste husband was Mr. Fuller. There were only three beds in the +house, which Landers, Lying Bill, and McHenry fell on before any one +else could claim them. I contented myself with a mat on the veranda, +and noticed that, besides the remainder of our party, Pai and her +tane were also on that level. + +At half past two in the morning we lay down. I could not sleep. From +the bower the song and music rang out continuously, mingled with +laughter and the sounds of shuffling feet. + +I got up at five, and with a pareu about me, followed the stream until +I found a delicious pool, where I bathed for an hour, while I read +"The Ballad of Reading Gaol." The level land between the sea and +the mountains was not more than a quarter mile broad, and the near +hills rose rounded and dark green, with mysterious valleys folded in +between them. All about were cocoanuts and bananas, their foliage wet +with the rain that had fallen gently all night. The stream was edged +with trees and ferns and was clear and rippling. At that early hour +there was no sensation of chill for me, though the men of native blood +balked at entering the water until the sun had warmed it. A Chinese +vegetablegrower sat on the bank with his Chinese wife and cleaned +heads of lettuce and bunches of carrots. She watched me apathetically, +as if I were a little strange, but not interesting. + +A dozen natives came by and by to bathe in the next pool. They observed +me, and called to me, pleasantly, "Ia ora na!" which is the common +greeting of the Tahitian, and is pronounced "yuranna." The white is +always a matter of curiosity to the native. These simple people have +not lost, though generations of whites have come and bred and died +or gone, at least some of their original awe and enjoyment of their +conquerors and rulers. + +When we had coffee in the morning, our serious and distinguished +native hosts stood while we ate and drank. We, guests in their own +comfortable house, did not ask them to join us. Llewellyn, when I +put the question, answered: + +"No. I am both white and of too high native rank. You cannot afford +to let the native become your social equal." + +McHenry said: + +"You're bloody well right. Keep him in his stall, and he's all right; +but out of it, ye'll get no peace." + +So the gentle Pai and her husband--they are religious people, and went +to the Faatoai church three times this Sunday--stood while we lolled at +ease. Courtesy here seems a native trait, though even a little native +blood improves on the white as far as politeness is concerned. En +passant, the average white here is not of the leisure class, in which +manners are an occupation; the native, on the other hand, is of a +leisure class by heredity, and it is only when tainted by a desire +to make money quickly or much of it that he loses his urbanity. + +We had breakfasted in the bower at ten o'clock, with the band in +attendance. Not one of the musicians had slept except Kelly, who said +he had forty winks. When the pastors and their flocks of the various +competing churches passed on their way to services, the band was +keyed up in G, and was parading the streets, so that the faith of the +Tahitians was severely tried. Even the ministers tarried a minute, +and had to hold tightly their scriptures to control their legs, +which itched to dance. + +Aboard the Potii Moorea the bandsmen came sober, a revelation in +recuperation. Again we passed the idyllic shores of Moorea, glimpsed +the grove of Daphne and McTavish's bungalow at Urufara, and saw the +heights, the desolated castle, the marvels of light and shade upon +the hills and valleys, left the silver circlet of the reef, and made +the open sea. + +The glory of the Diadem, a crown of mountain peaks, stood out above +the mists that cover the mountains of Tahiti, and the green carpet +of the hills fell from the clouds to the water's-edge, as if held +above by Antæus and pinned down by the cocoanut-trees. + +At landing I discovered that the bandsmen had stolen away the sleeping +Mamoe, and had carried her aboard the Potii Moorea, and deposited her +in the hold. She emerged fresh from her nap, and apparently ready +for an upaupa that night. We marched to the Cercle Bougainville to +recall the incidents of the excursion over a comforting Dr. Funk. + + + +Chapter X + +The storm on the lagoon; Making safe the schooners--A talk on +missing ships--A singular coincidence--Arrival of three of crew of +the shipwrecked El Dorado--The Dutchman's story--Easter Island. + +It blew a gale all one day and night from the north, and at break +of the second day, when I went down the rue de Rivoli from the Tiare +Hotel to the quay, the lagoon was a wild scene. Squall after squall +had dashed the rain upon my verandas during the night, and I could +faintly hear the voices of the men on the schooners as they strove to +fend their vessels from the coral embankment, or hauled at anchor-ropes +to get more sea-room. + +The sun did not rise, but a gray sky showed the flying scud tearing +at the trees and riggings, and the boom of the surf on the reef was +like the roaring of a great steelmill at full blast. The roadway was +littered with branches and the crimson leaves of the flamboyants. The +people were hurrying to and from market in vehicles and on foot, +soaked and anxious-looking as they struggled against the wind and +rain. I walked the length of the built-up waterfront. The little +boats were being pulled out from the shore by the several launches, +and were making fast to buoys or putting down two and three anchors +a hundred fathoms away from the quays. + +The storm increased all the morning, and at noon, when I looked at +the barometer in the Cercle Bougainville it was 29.51, the lowest, +the skippers said, in seven years. The William Olsen, a San Francisco +barkentine, kedged out into the lagoon as fast as possible, and +through the tearing sheets of rain I glimpsed other vessels reaching +for a holding-ground. The Fetia Taiao had made an anchorage a thousand +feet toward the reef. The waves were hammering against the quays, +and the lagoon was white with fury. + +In the club, after all had been made secure, the skippers and managers +of trading houses gathered to discuss the weather. Tahiti is not so +subject to disastrous storms as are the Paumotu Islands and the waters +toward China and Japan, yet every decade or two a tidal-wave sweeps +the lowlands and does great injury. Though this occurs but seldom, +when the barometer falls low, the hearts of the owners of property and +of the people who have experienced a disaster of this kind sink. The +tides in this group of islands are different from anywhere else in the +world I know of in that they ebb and flow with unchanging regularity, +never varying in time from one year's end to another. + +Full tide comes at noon and midnight, and ebb at six in the morning +and six in the evening, and the sun rises and sets between half +past five and half past six o'clock. There is hardly any twilight, +because of the earth's fast rotation in the tropics. This is a fixity, +observed by whites for more than a century, and told the first seamen +here by the natives as a condition existing always. Another oddity +of the tides is that they are almost inappreciable, the difference +between high and low tide hardly ever exceeding two feet. But every six +months or so a roaring tide rolls in from far at sea, and, sweeping +with violence over the reef, breaks on the beach. Now was due such a +wave, and its possibilities of height and destruction caused lively +argument between the traders and the old salts. More than a dozen +retired seamen, mostly Frenchmen, found their Snug Harbor in the Cercle +Bougainville, where liberty, equality, and fraternity had their home, +and where Joseph bounded when orders for the figurative splicing of +the main-brace came from the tables. + +George Goeltz, a sea-rover, who had cast his anchor in the club after +fifty years of equatorial voyaging, was, on account of his seniority, +knowledge of wind and reef, and, most of all, his never-failing +bonhommie, keeper of barometer, thermometer, telescopes, charts, +and records. When I had my jorum of the eminent physician's Samoan +prescription before me, I barkened to the wisdom of the mariners. + +Captain. William Pincher, who had at my first meeting informed me he +was known as Lying Bill, explained to me that some ignorant landsmen +stated that this tidal regularity was caused by the steady drift of +the tradewinds at certain hours of the day. + +"That don't go," said he, "for the tides are the same whether there's +a gale o' wind or a calm. I've seen the tide 'ighest 'ere in Papeete +when there wasn't wind to fill a jib, and right 'ere on the leeward +side of the bloody island, sheltered from the breeze. How about it +at night, too, when the trade quits? The bleedin' tide rises and +falls just the same at just the same time. Those trades don't even +push the tidal waves because they always come from the west'ard, +and the trades are from the east." + +"I can look out of the veranda of this Cercle Bougainville and tell +you what time it is to a quarter of an hour any day in the year just +by looking at the shore or the reef and seein' where the water is," +said Goeltz. "You can't do that any place on the globe except in +this group." + +A beneficent nature has considered the white visitor in this concern, +for he can go upon the reef to look for its treasures at low tide, +at sun-up or sun-fall, when it is cool. + +We fell to talking about missing ships, and Goeltz insisted on Lying +Bill telling of his own masterful exploit in bringing back a schooner +from South America after the captain had run away with it and a +woman. Pincher was mate of the schooner, which traded from Tahiti, +and the skipper was a handsome fellow who thought his job well lost +for love. He became enamored of the wife of another captain. One night +when by desperate scheming he had gotten her aboard, he suddenly +gave orders to up anchor and away. The schooner was full of cargo, +copra and pearl-shell and pearls, and was due to return to Papeete to +discharge. But this amative mariner filled his jibs on another tack, +and before his crew knew whither they were bound was well on his long +traverse to Peru. + +Lying Bill was the only other white man aboard, and he took orders, as +he had to by law and by the might of the swashbuckler captain. The lady +lived in the only cabin--a tiny corner of the cuddy walled off--and ate +her meals with her lover while Pincher commanded on deck. At a port +in Peru the pirate sold the cargo, and taking his mistress ashore, +he disappeared for good and all from the ken of the mate and of the +South Seas. + +"Now," said Captain George Goeltz, "Bill here could 'a' followed suit +and sold the vessel. Of course they had no papers except for the +French group, but in South America twenty-five years ago a piaster +was a piaster. Bill was square then, as he is now, and he borrows +enough money to buy grub, and he steers right back to Papeete. Gott +im Himmel! Were the owners glad to see that schooner again? They had +given her up as gone for good when the husband told them his wife +had run away with the captain. That's how Bill got his certificate +to command vessels in this archipelago, which only Frenchmen can have." + +Goeltz picked up the "Daily Commercial News" of San Francisco, and +idly read out the list of missing ships. There was only one in the +Pacific of recent date whose fate was utterly unknown. She was the +schooner El Dorado, which had left Oregon months before for Chile, +and had not been sighted in all that time. The shipping paper said: + +What has become of the El Dorado, it is, of course, impossible to +say with any degree of accuracy, but one thing is almost certain, +and that is that the likelihood of her ever being heard of again is +now practically without the range of possibility. Nevertheless she +may still be afloat though in a waterlogged condition and drifting +about in the trackless wastes of the South Pacific. Then again she may +have struck one of the countless reefs that infest that portion of the +globe, some entirely invisible and others just about awash. She is now +one hundred and eighty-nine days out, and the voyage has rarely taken +one hundred days. She was reported in lat. 35:40 N., long. 126:30 W., +174 days ago. + +"There'll be no salvage on her," said Captain Pincher, "because +if she's still afloat, she ain't likely to get in the track of +any bloody steamer. I've heard of those derelic's wanderin' roun' +a bloody lifetime, especially if they're loaded with lumber. They +end up usually on some reef." + +This casual conversation was the prelude to the strangest coincidence +of my life. When I awoke the next morning, I found that the big +sea had not come and that the sun was shining. My head full of +the romance of wrecks and piracy, I climbed the hill behind the +Tiare Hotel to the signal station. There I examined the semaphore, +which showed a great white ball when the mail-steamships appeared, +and other symbols for the arrivals of different kinds of craft, +men-of-war, barks, and schooners. There was a cozy house for the +lookout and his family, and, as everywhere in Tahiti, a garden of +flowers and fruit-trees. I could see Point Venus to the right, with +its lighthouse, and the bare tops of the masts of the ships at the +quays. Gray and red roofs of houses peeped from the foliage below, +and a red spire of a church stood up high. + +The storms had ceased in the few hours since dawn, and the sun was +high and brilliant. Moorea, four leagues away, loomed like a mammoth +battle-ship, sable and grim, her turrets in the lowering clouds on the +horizon, her anchors a thousand fathoms deep. The sun was drinking +water through luminous pipes. The harbor was a gleaming surface, +and the reef from this height was a rainbow of color. All hues were +in the water, emerald and turquoise, palest blue and gold. I sat down +and closed my eyes to recall old Walt's lines of beauty about the + + + --World below the brine. + Forests at the bottom of the sea, the branches and leaves. + Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seed. + The thick tangle,... and pink turf. + + +When I looked again at the reef I espied a small boat, almost a speck +outside the coral barrier. She was too small for an inter-island +cutter, and smaller than those do not venture beyond the reef. She +was downing her single sail, and the sun glinted on the wet canvas. I +called to the guardian of the semaphore, and when he pointed his +telescope at the object, he shouted out: + +"Mais, c'est curieux! Et ees a schmall vessel, a sheep's boat!" + +I waited for no more, but with all sorts of conjectures racing through +my mind, I hurried down the hill. Under the club balcony I called up +to Captain Goeltz, who already had his glass fixed. He answered: + +"She's a ship's boat, with three men, a jury rig, and barrels and +boxes. She's from a wreck, that's sure." + +He came rolling down the narrow stairway, and together we stood at +the quai du Commerce as the mysterious boat drew nearer. We saw that +the oarsmen were rowing fairly strongly against the slight breeze, +and our fears of the common concomitants of wrecks,--starvation +and corpses--disappeared as we made out their faces through the +glasses. They stood out bronzed and hearty. The boat came up along +the embankment, one of the three steering, with as matter of fact an +air as if they had returned from a trip within the lagoon. There was a +heap of things in the boat, the sail, a tank, a barrel, cracker-boxes, +blankets, and some clothing. + +The men were bearded like the pard, and in tattered garments, their +feet bare. The one at the helm was evidently an officer, for neither +of the others made a move until he gave the order: + +"Throw that line ashore!" + +Goeltz seized it and made fast to a ring-bolt, and then only at another +command did the two stand up. We seized their hands and pulled them up +on the wall. They were as rugged as lions in the open, burned as brown +as Moros, their hair and beards long and ragged, and their powerful, +lean bodies showing through their rags. + +"What ship are you from?" I inquired eagerly. + +The steersman regarded me narrowly, his eyes squinting, and then said +taciturnly, "Schooner El Dorado." He said it almost angrily, as if +he were forced to confess a crime. Then I saw the name on the boat, +"El Dorado S. F." + +"Didn't I tell you so?" asked Lying Bill, who was in the crowd now +gathered. "George, didn't I say the El Dorado would turn up?" + +He glared at Goeltz for a sign of assent, but the retired salt sought +kudos for himself. + +"I saw her first," he replied. "I was having a Doctor Funk when I +looked toward the pass, and saw at once that it was a queer one." + +The shipwrecked trio shook themselves like dogs out of the water. They +were stiff in the legs. The two rowers smiled, and when I handed each +of them a cigar, they grinned, but one said: + +"After we've e't. Our holds are empty. We've come thirty-six hundred +miles in that dinghy." + +"I'm captain N.P. Benson of the schooner El Dorado." vouchsafed the +third. "Where's the American Counsul?" + +I led them a few hundred feet to the office of Dentist Williams, +who was acting as consul for the United States. He had a keen love of +adventure, and twenty years in the tropics had not dimmed his interest +in the marvelous sea. He left his patient and closeted himself with +the trio, while I returned to their boat to inspect it more closely. + +All the workers and loafers of the waterfront were about it, but +Goeltz would let none enter it, he believing it might be needed +untouched as evidence of some sort. There are no wharf thieves and +no fences in Tahiti, so there was no danger of loss, and, really, +there was nothing worth stealing but the boat itself. + +Captain Benson and his companions hastened from the dentist's to +Lovaina's, where they were given a table on the veranda alone. They +remained an hour secluded after Iromea and Atupu had piled their +table with dishes. They drank quarts of coffee, and ate a beefsteak +each, dozens of eggs, and many slices of fried ham, with scores of +hot biscuits. They never spoke during the meal. A customs-officer +had accompanied them to the Tiare Hotel, for the French Government +wisely made itself certain that they might not be an unknown kind of +smugglers, pirates, or runaways. Their boat had been taken in charge +by the customs bureau, and the men were free to do what they would. + +When they came from their gorging to the garden, they picked flowers, +smelled the many kinds of blossoms, and then the sailors lighted their +cigars. This pair were Steve Drinkwater, a Dutchman; and Alex Simoneau, +a French-Canadian of Attleboro, Massachusetts. + +"Where's the El Dorado?" I asked of the captain. + +Again he looked at me, suspiciously. + +"She went down in thirty-one degrees: two minutes, south and one +hundred twenty-one: thirty-seven west," he said curtly, and turned +away. There was pride and sorrow in his Scandinavian voice, and a +reticence not quite explicable. The three, as they stood a moment +before they walked off, made a striking group. Their sturdy figures, in +their worn and torn clothes, their hairy chests, their faces framed in +bushes of hair, their bronzed skins, and their general air of fighters +who had won a battle in which it was pitch and toss if they would +survive, made me proud of the race of seamen the world over. They +are to-day almost the only followers of a primeval calling, tainted +little by the dirt of profit-seeking. They risk their lives daily +in the hazards of the ocean, the victims of cold-blooded insurance +gamblers and of niggardly owners, and rewarded with only a seat in +the poorhouse or a niche in Davy Jones's Locker. I was once of their +trade, and I longed to know the happenings of their fated voyage. + +Next morning the three were quite ordinary-looking. They were shorn +and shaved and scrubbed, and rigged out in Schlyter's white drill +trousers and coats. They had rooms under mine in the animal-yard. They +were to await the first steamship for the United States, to which +country they would be sent as shipwrecked mariners by the American +consulate. This vessel would not arrive for some weeks. The captain +sat outside his door on the balcony, and expanded his log into a story +of his experiences. He had determined to turn author, and to recoup +his losses as much as possible by the sale of his manuscript. With +a stumpy pencil in hand, he scratched his head, pursed his mouth, +and wrote slowly. He would not confide in me. He said he had had +sufferings enough to make money out of them, and would talk only to +magazine editors. + +"There's Easter Island," he told me. "Those curiosities there are +worth writing about, too. I've put down a hundred sheets already. I'm +sorry, but I can't talk to any one. I'm going to take the boat with +me, and exhibit it in a museum and speak a piece." + +He was serious about his silence, and as my inquisitiveness was now +beyond restraint, I tried the sailors. They would have no log, but +their memories might be good. + +Alex Simoneau, being of French descent, and speaking the Gallic +tongue, was not to be found at the Tiare. He was at the Paris, or +other cafe, surrounded by gaping Frenchmen, who pressed upon him +Pernoud, rum, and the delicate wines of France. So great was his +absorption in his new friends, and so unbounded their hospitality, +that M. Lontane laid him by the heels to rest him. Simoneau was wiry, +talking the slang of the New York waterfront, swearing that he would +"hike for Attleboro, and hoe potatoes until he died." I was forced to +seek Steve Drinkwater. Short, pillow-like, as red-cheeked as a winter +apple, and yellow-haired, he was a Dutchman, unafraid of anything, +stolid, powerful, but not resourceful. I called Steve to my room +above Captain Benson's, and set before him a bottle of schnapps, +in a square-faced bottle, and a box of cigars. + +"Steve," I said, "that squarehead of a skipper of yours won't tell +me anything about the El Dorado's sinking and your great trip in +the boat. He said he's going to write it up in the papers, and make +speeches about it in a museum. He wants to make money out of it." + +"Vere do ve gat oop on dat?" asked the Hollander, sorely. "Ve vas +dere mit 'im, und vas ve in de museum, py damage? Dot shkvarehet +be'n't de only wrider?" + +I shuddered at the possible good fortune. I transfixed him with a +sharp eye. + +"Steve," I asked gentry, "did you keep a log? Pour yourself a +considerable modicum of the Hollands and smoke another cigar." + +"Vell," said the seaman, after obeying instructions, "I yoost had vun +hell of a time, und he make a long rest in de land, I do py dammage! I +keep a leedle book from off de day ve shtart ouid." + +I heard the measured pace of the brave "shkvarehet" below as he +racked his brains for words. I would have loved to aid him, to do +all I could to make widely known his and his crew's achievements and +gain him fortune. However, he would sow his ink and reap his gold +harvest, and I must, by master or by man, hear and record for myself +the wonderful incidents of the El Dorado's wreck. The insurance was +doubtless long since paid on her, and masses said for the repose of the +soul of Alex Simoneau. The world would not know of their being saved, +or her owners of the manner of her sinking, until these three arrived +in San Francisco, or until a few days before, when the steamship +wireless might inform them. + +Steve came back with a memorandum book in which he had kept day by day +the history of the voyage. But it was in Dutch, and I could not read +it. I made him comfortable in a deep-bottomed rocker, and I jotted +down my understanding of the honest sailor's Rotterdam English as he +himself translated his ample notes in his native tongue. I pieced +these out with answers to my questions, for often Steve's English +was more puzzling than pre-Chaucer poetry. + +The El Dorado was a five-masted schooner, twelve years old, and left +Astoria, Oregon, for Antofagasta, Chile, on a Friday, more than seven +months before, with a crew of eleven all told: the captain, two mates, +a Japanese cook, and seven men before the mast. She was a man-killer, +as sailors term sailing ships poorly equipped and undermanned. The +crew were of all sorts, the usual waterfront unemployed, wretchedly +paid and badly treated. The niggardliness of owners of ships caused +them to pick up their crews at haphazard by paying crimps to herd them +from lodging-houses and saloons an hour or two before sailing to save +a day's wages. Once aboard, they were virtual slaves, subject to the +whims and brutality of the officers, and forfeiting liberty and even +life if they refused to submit to all conditions imposed by these +petty bosses. + +Often the crimps brought aboard as sailors men who had never set +foot on a vessel. On the El Dorado few were accustomed mariners, +and the first few weeks were passed in adjusting crew and officers +to one another, and to the routine of the overloaded schooner. When +they were fifteen days out they spoke a vessel, which reported them, +and after that they saw no other. The mate was a bucko, a slugger, +according to Steve, and was hated by all, for most of them during +the throes of seasickness had had a taste of his fists. + +On the seventy-second day out the El Dorado was twenty-seven hundred +miles off the coast of Chile, having run a swelling semicircle to +get the benefit of the southeast trades, and being far south of +Antofagasta. That was the way of the wind, which forced a ship from +Oregon to Chile to swing far out from the coast, and make a deep +southward dip before catching the south-west trades, which would +likely stay by her to her port of discharge. + +They had sailed on a Friday, and on Wednesday, the eleventh of the +third month following, their real troubles began. Steve's diary, as +interpreted by him, after the foregoing, was substantially as follows, +the color being all his: + +"From the day we sailed we were at the pumps for two weeks to bale +the old tub out. Then she swelled, and the seams became tight. There +was bad weather from the time we crossed the Astoria bar. The old man +would carry on because he was in a hurry to make a good run. The mate +used to beat us, and it's a wonder we didn't kill him. We used to lie +awake in our watch below and think of what we'd do to him when we got +him ashore. All the men were sore on him. He cursed us all the time, +and the captain said nothing. You can't hit back, you know. He would +strike us and kick us for fun. I felt sure he'd be murdered; but when +we got into difficulty and could have tossed him over, we never made +a motion. + +"On the seventy-third day out, came the terror. The wind is from the +southeast. There is little light. The sea is high, and everything is +in a smother. We took down the topsails and furled the spanker. The +wind was getting up, and the call came for all hands on deck. We had +watch and watch until then. That's four hours off and four hours +on. When the watch below left their bunks, that was the last of +our sleep on the El Dorado. A gale was blowing by midnight. We were +working all the time, taking in sail and making all snug. There was +plenty of water on deck. Schooner was bumping hard on the waves and +making water through her seams. We took the pumps for a spell. + +"We had no sleep next day. In the morning we set all sails in a lull, +but took them down again quickly, because the wind shifted to the +northwest, and a big gale came on. Now began trouble with the cargo. We +had the hold filled with lumber, planks and such, and on the deck we +had a terrible load of big logs. These were to hold up the walls and +roofs in the mines of Chile. Many of them were thirty-six feet long, +and very big around. They were the trunks of very big trees. They +were piled very high, and the whole of them was fastened by chains +to keep them from rolling or being broken loose by seas. In moving +about the ship we had to walk on this rough heap of logs, which lifted +above the rails. They were hard to walk on in a perfectly smooth sea, +and with the way the El Dorado rolled and pitched, we could hardly +keep from being thrown into the ocean. + +"This second day of the big storm, with the wind from the northeast, +the El Dorado began to leak badly again. All hands took spells at the +pumps. We were at work every minute. We left the ropes for the pumps +and the pumps for the ropes. We double-reefed the mizzen, and in the +wind this was a terrible job. It nearly killed us. At eight o'clock +to-night we could not see five feet ahead of us. It was black as hell, +and the schooner rolled fearfully. The deck-load then shifted eight +inches to starboard. This made a list that frightened us. We were all +soaking wet now for days. The after-house separated from the main-deck, +and the water became six feet deep in the cabin. + +"We had no sun at all during the day, and at midnight a hurricane +came out of the dark. All night we were pulling and hauling, running +along the great logs in danger always of being washed away. We had to +lash the lumber, tightening the chains, and trying to stop the logs +from smashing the ship to pieces. It did not seem that we could get +through the night. + +"This is Friday. When a little of daylight came, we saw that everything +was awash. The sea was white as snow, all foam and spindrift. It +did not seem that we could last much longer. The small boat that +had been hanging over the stern was gone. It had been smashed by the +combers. We should have had it inboard, and the mate was to blame. Now +we took the other boat, the only one left, and lashed it upright to +the spanker-stays. In this way it was above the logs and had a chance +to remain unbroken. + +"We sounded the well, and the captain ordered us again to the +pumps. These were on deck between the logs, which were crashing +about. We couldn't work the pumps, as there was seven feet of water +in there on deck. The second mate spoke to the captain that it would +be best to start the steam pump. The smokestack and the rest of the +steam fittings were under the fo'c's'le head. It took a long time +to get them out, and then the steam pump would not work. The water +gained on us all the time now, and the captain ordered us to throw +the deck-load overboard. We were nearly dead, we were so tired and +sleepy and sore. This morning, the cook served coffee and bread when +daylight came at six o'clock. That was the last bit of food or drink +we had on the El Dorado. + +"The taking off of the great chain was a murderous job. When we +loosened it, the huge seas would sweep over the logs and us while +we tried to get them overboard. It was touch and go. We had to use +capstanbars to pry the big logs over and over. We tried to push them +with the rolling of the ship. One wave would carry a mass of the +logs away, and the next wave would bring them back, crashing into +the vessel, catching in the rigging, and nearly pulling it down, +and the masts with it. Dodging those big logs was awful work, and +if you were hit by one, you were gone. They would come dancing over +the side on the tops of the waves and be left on the very spot from +which we had lifted them overboard. The old man should have thrown +the deck-load over two days before. The water now grew deeper all the +time, and the ship wallowed like a waterlogged raft. The fo'c's'le +was full of water. The El Dorado was drowning with us aboard. + +"We were all on deck because we had nowhere else to go. There was +nothing in the cabin or the fo'c's'le but water. The sea was now +like mountains, but it stopped breaking, so that there was a chance +to get away. We were hanging on to stays and anything fixed. + +"The captain now gave up hope, as we had long ago. He ordered all hands +to make ready to lower the one boat we had left, and to desert the +ship. We had a hard time to get this boat loose from the spanker-stay, +and we lowered it with the spanker-tackle. Just while we were doing +that, a tremendous wave swept the poop, with a battering-ram of logs +that had returned. Luckily, the boat we were lowering escaped being +smashed, or we had all been dead men now. + +"We filled a tank with twenty-five gallons of water from the +scuttle-butts and carried it to the boat. The old man ordered the +cook and the boy to get some grub he had in a locker in his cabin, +high up, where he had put it away from the flood. The cook and the +boy were scared stiff, and when they went into the cabin, a sea came +racing in, and all saved was twenty pounds of soda crackers, twelve +one-pound tins of salt beef, three of tongue, thirty-two cans of milk, +thirty-eight of soup, and four of jam. + +"We went into the boat with nothing but what we wore, and that was +little. Some of us had no coats, and some no hats, and others were +without any shoes. We were in rags from the terrible fight with the +logs and the sea. The old man went below to get his medicine-chest. He +threw away the medicine, and put his log and the ship's papers in +it. He took up his chronometer to bring it, when a wave like that +which got the cook and the boy knocked the skipper over and lost the +chronometer. All he got away with was his sextant and compass and +his watch, which was as good as a chronometer. + +"We got into the boat at four o'clock. The boat had been put into +the water under the stern and made fast by a rope to the taffrail. We +climbed out the spankerboom and slid down another rope. The seas were +terrific, and it was a mercy that we did not fall in. We had to take +a chance and jump when the boat came under us. Last came the old man, +and took the tiller. He had the oars manned, and gave the order to +let go. That was a terrible moment for all of us, to cast loose from +the schooner, bad as she was. There we were all alone in the middle +of the ocean, bruised from the struggle on deck, and almost dying +from exhaustion and already hungry as wolves. In twenty-four hours +we had had only a cup of coffee and a biscuit. + +"It was very dark, and we had no light. We were, however, glad to leave +the El Dorado, because our suffering on her for weeks had been as much +as we could bear. The last I saw of the schooner she was just a huge, +black lump on the black waters. We rose on a swell, and she sank into +a valley out of sight. + +"The captain spoke to us now: 'We have a good chance for life,' he +said. 'I have looked over the chart, and it shows that Easter Island +is about nine hundred miles northeast by east. If we are all together +in trying, we may reach there.' + +"None of us had ever been to Easter Island, and hardly any of us +had ever heard of it. It looked like a long pull there. All night +the captain and the mate took turns in steering, while we, in turn, +pulled at the oars. We did not dare put a rag of canvas on her, +for the wind was big still. The old man said that as we had both +latitude and longitude to run, we would run out the latitude first, +and then hope for a slant to the land. We were then, he said, in +latitude 31º south, and longitude 121º west. That being so, we had +about three hundred miles to go south and about six hundred east. He +said that Pitcairn Island was but six hundred miles away, but that +the prevailing winds would not let us sail there. We set the course, +then, for Easter Island. We wondered whether Easter Island had a +place to land, and whether there were any people on it. There might +be savages and cannibals. + +"It rained steady all night, and the sea spilled into the boat now and +then. Two of us had to bale all the time to keep the boat afloat. We +were soaked to the skin with fresh and salt water, weak from the days +of exposure and hunger, and we were barely able to keep from being +thrown out of the boat by its terrible rocking and pitching, and yet +we all felt like singing a song. All but the Japanese cook. Iwata +had almost gone mad, and was praying to his joss whenever anything +new happened. During that night a wave knocked him over and crushed +one of his feet against the tank of drinking water. The salt water +got into the wound and swelled it, and he was soon unable to move. + +"The second day in the small boat was the captain's forty-eighth +birthday. The old man spoke of it in a hearty way, hoping that when +he was forty-nine he would be on the deck of some good ship. There +was no sign of the El Dorado that morning. But with wind and sea as +they were, we could not have seen the ship very far, and we had made +some distance under oarpower during the night. We put up our little +sail at nine o'clock, though the wind was strong. The skipper said +that we could not expect anything but rough weather, and that we had +to make the best of every hour, considering what we had to eat and +that we were eleven in the boat. The wind was now from the southwest, +and we steered northeast. We had to steer without compass because it +was dark, and we had no light. + +"We had our first bite to eat about noon of this second day out. We +had then been nearly three months at sea, or, to be exact, it was +seventy-eight days since we had left port. It was thirty hours after +the coffee and biscuit on the El Dorado, and God knows how much longer +since we had had a whole meal, and now we didn't have much. The old +man bossed it. He took a half-bucket of fresh water, and into this he +put a can of soup. This he served, and gave each man two soda crackers +and his share of a pound of corned beef. We dipped the crackers into +the bucket. (I tell you it was better than the ham and eggs we had +at the hotel when we landed.) We had this kind of a meal twice a day, +and no more. + +"The next day the wind was again very strong, with thunder and +lightning, and we ran dead before the wind with no more sail than +a handkerchief. The sea began to break over the boat, and our old +man said that we could not live through it unless we could rig up a +sea-anchor. We were sure we would drown. We made one by rolling four +blankets together tightly and tying around them a long rope with +which our boat was made fast to the ship when we embarked. This we +let drag astern about ninety-feet. It held the boat fairly steady, +and kept the boat's head to the seas. We fastened it to the ring in +the stern. We used this sea-anchor many times throughout our voyage, +and without it we would have gone down sure. Of course we took in +a great deal of water, anyhow; but we could keep her baled out, +and the sea-anchor prevented her from swamping. + +"The nights were frightful, and many times all of us had terrible +dreams, and sometimes thought we were on shore. Men would cry out about +things they thought they saw, and other men would have to tell them +they were not so. We were always up and down on top of the swells, and +our bodies ached so terribly from the sitting-down position and from +the joggling of the motion that we would cry with pain. The salt water +got in all of our bruises and cracked our hands and feet, but there +was no help for us, and we had to grin and bear it. A shark took hold +of our sea-anchor and we were afraid that he would tear it to pieces. + +"Every day the captain took an observation when he could, and told +us where we were. We made about a hundred miles a day, but very often +we steered out of our course because we had no matches or lantern. + +"On the eighteenth we were in latitude 26º 53' South, and the captain +said that Easter Island was in the 27th degree, so after all we had +steered pretty well. + +"On the night of the nineteenth, we had a fearful storm. It seemed +worse than the hurricane we had on the El Dorado. All night long we +thought that every minute would end us, and we lay huddled in misery, +not caring much whether we went down or not. But the next morning, +we set part of the sail again, and at noon that day the captain took a +sight and found that we were in latitude 27º 8' south. Easter Island +is 27º 10' south. And now we began to fear that we might run past +Easter Island. If we did, we knew we could never get back with the +wind. We had squall after squall now, but we felt sure that soon we +must see land. Our soup was all gone, and we were living on the soda +crackers mixed with water and milk. Each of us got a cupful of this +stuff once a day. + +"On the twenty-second, when we were nine days out, I saw the land at +ten o'clock in the morning, thirty miles away. We felt pretty good +over that, and had two cupfuls of the mixture, because we felt we +were nearly safe. My God! what we felt when we saw the rise of that +land! The captain said it was Easter Island for certain, but that +it was not a place that any merchant ships ever went, as there was +no trade there. Once we saw the land we could not get any nearer +to it. We tried to row toward it, but the wind was against us. Two +days we hung about the back of that island, just outside the line +of breakers. We were afraid to risk a landing, for the coast was +rocky. On the eleventh day we saw a spot where the rocks looked white, +and we rowed in toward it with great pains and much fear. A big sea +threw us right upon a smooth boulder, and we leaped from the boat and +tried to run ashore. We were weak and fell down many times. Finally +we got a hold and we carried everything out of the boat, and after +hours hauled it up out of reach of the breakers. + +"There was a cliff that went right up straight from the rocks, and +we could not climb it, we were so weak from hunger and the cramped +position we had had to keep in the boat. We laid down a while, and +then it was decided that the first and second mates should have a good +feed and try to get up the precipice. We were taking risks, because +we had very little grub left. It was about a hundred feet up, and we +watched them closely as they went slowly up. They did not come back, +and we were much afraid of what they might find. We did not know but +there might be savages there. During the day the other sailors also +got up, leaving the old man and me to watch the boat. + +"Help arrived for us. The mates had walked all night, and at daybreak +they reached the house of the head man, employed by the owner of +Easter Island. It was a sheep and horse island. The mates were fed, +and then they went on to the house of the manager. Horses were gotten +out, and bananas and poi sent to us. The water just came in time, +because we were all out. They brought horses for all of us then, and +after we had started the people of the island went ahead and came back +with water and milk, which did us a world of good. At the house of the +governor we had a mess of brown beans, and then we all fell asleep +on the floor. God knows how long we slept, but when we waked up we +were like wolves again. We then had beans with fresh killed mutton, +and that made us all deathly sick because our stomachs were weak." + + * * * * * + +Underneath us, while the red-cheeked and golden-haired Steve uttered +his puzzling sentences in English, I heard from time to time the +heavy tread of Captain Benson. He was, doubtless, living over again +the hours of terror and resolution on the El Dorado and in the boat, +and seeking to find words to amplify his log by his memories. I +heard him sit down and get up more than once; while opposite me in an +easy-chair, with his glass of Schiedam schnapps beside him, was the +virile Dutchman, hammering in his breast-swelling story of danger and +courage, of starvation and storm. I sighed for a dictaphone in which +the original Dutch-English might be recorded for the delight of others. + +Alex Simoneau came back after a night of the hospitality of M. Lontane, +and soon was joyous again, telling his wondrous epic of the main to +the beach-combers in the parc de Bougainville or in the Paris saloon, +where the brown and white toilers of land and sea make merry. + +"A man that goes to sea is a fool," he said, with a bang of his fist +on the table that made the schnapps dance in its heavy bottle. "My +people in Massachusetts are all right, and like a crazy man I will +go to sea when I could work in a mill or on a farm. They must think +I'm dead by now." + +Alex was corroborative of all that Steve said, but I could not pin +him down to hours or days. He was too exalted by his present happy +fate--penniless, jobless, family in mourning, but healthy, safe, and +full-stomached, not to omit an ebullience of spirits incited by the +continuing wonder of each new listener and the praise for his deeds +and by the conviviality of his admirers. + +Alex was sure of one point, and that was that the El Dorado was +overloaded. + +"Dose shkvarehet shkippers vould dake a cheese-box to sea mit a cargo +of le't," commented Steve. "All dey care for is de havin' de yob. De +owner he don't care if de vessel sink mit de insurance." + +When Alex had shuffled out of the cottage, I gave the Dutchman the +course of his narrative again. + +"You were safe on Easter Island, and ill from stuffing yourself with +fresh mutton," I prompted, "And now what?" + +Steve spat over the rail. + +"Ram, lam', sheep, und muddon for a hundred und fife days. Dere vas +noding odder. Dot's a kveer place, dot Easter Island, mit shtone gotts +lyin' round und det fulcanoes, und noding good to eat. Ve liffed in a +house de English manager gif us. Dere's a Chile meat gompany owns de +island, und grows sheep. Aboud a gouple of hundred kanakas chase de +sheep. Ve vas dreaded vell mit de vimmen makin' luff und the kanakas +glad mit it. Dere vas noding else to do. De manager he say no ship +come for six months, und he vanted us to blant bodadoes, und ve had no +tobacco. He say de bodadoes get ripe in eight months, und I dink if I +shtay dere eight months I go grazy. Ve vas ragged, und efery day ve go +und look for a vessel. Ve gould see dem a long vay ouid, und ve made +signals und big fires, but no ship efer shtopped. De shkipper made +a kvarrel mit de mates, und de old man he say he go away in de boat, +und he bick Alex und me because ve was de bestest sailormen. Ve vas +dere nearly four months ven ve shtart ouid. De oder men dey vas sore, +but dey vanted de old man to bromise to gif dem big money, und ve go +for noding. Ve fix oop de boat und ve kvit." + +Steve went on to describe how they fixed up the boat for the voyage +by making guards of canvas about the sides, and an awning which they +could raise and lower. They took a ten-gallon steel oil-drum and +made a stove out of it. They cut it in two at the middle and kept the +bottom half. They then made a place for holding a pot, with pieces of +scrap-iron fixed to the side of the drum, so that they could make a +fire under the pot without setting fire to the boat. Then the captain +set them to learning to make fire by rubbing sticks, and after many +days they learned it. The manager had a steer killed, and they jerked +the meat and loaded up their boat beside with sweet potatoes, taro, +white potatoes, five dozen eggs, and twenty gallons of water in their +tank, with twenty-five more in a barrel. + +Then bidding good-by to everybody who gathered to see them off, they +steered for Pitcairn Island. They soon found that the prevailing +wind would not permit them to make that course, and so they laid +for Mangareva in 23º south and 134º west, sixteen hundred miles +distant. They had to go from 28º south and 110º west, 5º of latitude +and 24º of longitude. Again they were at the mercy of the sea, but +now they had only three men in the boat, and had enough food for many +days, rough as it was. In the latitude of Pitcairn, the island so +famous because to it fled the mutineers of the Bounty, they all but +perished. For two days a severe storm nearly overwhelmed them. The boat +was more buoyant, and with the sea-anchor trailing, they came through +the trial without injury. Steve said the lightning was "yoost like a +leedle bid of hell." It circled them about, hissed in the water, and +finally struck their mast repeatedly, so that the wise captain took +it down. The entire heavens were a mass of coruscating electricity, +and they could feel the air alive with it. They were shocked by +the very atmosphere, said Steve, and feared for their lives every +moment. The sea piled up, the wind blew a gale, and death was close +at hand. They wished they had not left Easter Island, and envied +those who had remained there. + +But they rode it out, with their pile of blankets a-trail, and with +helm and oars alert to keep the boat afloat. + +The gale amended after several days, and on the sixteenth day +from their departure they reached Mangareva. That island is in the +Gambier group, and a number of Europeans live there. The castaways +were received generously, and were informed that a schooner was +expected in a fortnight, which might carry them to some port on +their way home. But the old man said they must push on. He had to +report to his owners the loss of the El Dorado; he had to see his +family. They had come twenty-six hundred miles since deserting the +schooner, and the thousand miles more to Tahiti was not a serious +undertaking. He persuaded Steve and Alex to his manner of thinking, +and with the boat stocked with provisions they took the wave again, +after a couple of days at Mangareva. + +Now the bad weather was over. The sea was comparatively smooth, and +the breeze favorable. But fate still had frowns for them, as if to +keep them in terror. Sharks and swordfish, as though resenting the +intrusion of their tiny craft in waters where boats were seldom seen, +attacked them furiously. Five times a giant shark launched himself +at their boat, head on, and drove them frantic with his menace of +sinking them. They were so filled with this dread that they fastened +a marlinespike in the spar, and despite probability of provoking the +shark to more desperate onslaughts, maneuvered so that they were able +to kill him with a blow. + +The next day a swordfish of alarming size played about them, +approaching and retreating, eying them and acting in such a manner +that they felt sure he was challenging the boat as a strange fish +whose might he disputed. One thrust of his bony weapon, and they +might be robbed of their chance for life. They shouted and banged on +the gunwales, and escaped. + +Steve hurried through this part of his diary. So near to safety then, +he had had not much thought for a record. There was little more +to tell, for after the lightning, the sharks, and the swordfish, +they had had no unusual experiences. They had made the voyage of +nearly four thousand miles from the pit of water in which they had +left the El Dorado, and were glad that they had not stayed behind on +Easter Island. Steve had only good words for the skipper's skill as +a seaman, but now that they were there, he would like to be assured +of his wages. The captain said he did not know what the owners would +do about paying Steve for the time since the El Dorado sank. He +was sure she had gone down immediately, for, he said, he would not +have left his ship had he not been certain she could not stay on the +surface. He contrasted his arrival in Papeete with his coming years +before in the brig Lurline, when he brought the first phonograph to +the South Seas. Crowds had flocked to the quay to hear it, and it +was taken in a carriage all about the island. + +The superb courage of these men, their marvelous seamanship, and their +survival of all the perils of their thousands of miles' voyage were +not lessened in interest or admiration by their personality. But one +realized daily, as one saw them chewing their quids, devouring rudely +the courses served by Lovaina, or talking childishly of their future, +that heroes are the creatures of opportunity. It is true Steve and Alex +were picked of all the crew for their sea knowledge and experience, +their nerve and willingness, by the sturdy captain, and that he, too, +was a man big in the primitive qualities, a viking, a companion for a +Columbus; but--they were peculiarly of their sept; types molded by the +wind-swept spaces of the vasty deep, chiseled by the stress of storm +and calm, of burning, glassy oceans, and the chilling, killing berg; +men set apart from all the creeping children of the solid earth, and +trained to seize the winds from heaven for their wings, to meet with +grim contempt the embattled powers of sky and wave, and then, alas! on +land to become the puny sport of merchant, crimp, and money-changer, +and rum and trull. + +Goeltz, Lying Bill, Llewellyn, and McHenry sat in the Cercle +Bougainville with eager looks as I read them the diary of Steve +Drinkwater. The seamen held opinions of the failure of Captain Benson's +seamanship at certain points, and all knew the waters through which +he had come. + +"Many of the people of Mangareva came from Easter Island," said Lying +Bill. "There was a French missionary brought a gang of them there. 'E +was Père Roussel, and 'e ran away with 'em because Llewellyn's bloody +crowd 'ere tried to steal 'em and sell 'em. They lived at Mangareva +with 'im till he died a few years ago, and they never went back." + +Llewellyn lifted his dour eyes. There was never such a dule countenance +as his, dark naturally with his Welsh and Tahitian blood, and shaded +by the gloom of his soul. He looked regretfully at Captain Pincher. + +"You are only repeating the untruthful assertion of that clergyman," +he said accusingly. "He put it in a pamphlet in French. My people +have had to do with Easter Island for forty years. I lived there +several years and, as you know, I made that island what it is now, a +cattle and sheep ranch. It is the strangest place, with the strangest +history in the world. If we knew who settled it originally and carved +those stone gods the Dutch sailor spoke of, we would know more about +the human race and its wanderings. + +"The Peruvians murdered and stole the Easter Islanders. Just before +we took hold there, a gang of blackbirders from Peru went there and +killed and took away many hundreds of them. They sold them to the +guano diggings in the Chincha Islands. Only those escaped death or +capture who hid in the dark caverns. Nearly all those taken away died +soon. We then made contracts with some of those left, and took them +to Tahiti to work. It is true they died, too, most of them, but some +you can find where McHenry lives half a mile from here at Patutoa. We +sold off the stock to Chileans, and that country owns the island now. + +"I think the island had a superior race once. There are immense +platforms of stone, like the paepaes of the Marquesas, only bigger, +and the stones are all fitted together without cement. They built them +on promontories facing the sea. Some are three hundred feet long, and +the walls thirty feet high. On these platforms there were huge stone +gods that have been thrown down; some were thirty-seven feet high, +and they had redstone crowns, ten feet in diameter. There were stone +houses one hundred feet long, with walls five feet thick. How they +moved the stones no one knows, for, of course, these people there +now were not the builders. Some race of whom they knew nothing was +there before them. + +"They are one of the greatest mysteries in the world. Easter is the +queerest of all the Maori islands. They had nothing like the other +Maoris had in any of these islands, but they had plenty of stone, their +lances were tipped with obsidian, and they were terrible fighters among +themselves. They had no trees, and so no canoes; and they depended +on driftwood and the hibiscus for weapons. They are all done for now." + +Captain Benson was still busied with his log when the steamship from +New Zealand arrived to take the shipwrecked men away. The El Dorado's +boat was stowed carefully on the deck of the liner. I saw the skipper +watching it as the deck-hands put chocks under it and made it fast +against the rolling of the ship. That boat deserved well of him, +for its stanchness had stood between him and the maws of the sharks +many days and nights. + +I bade him and the two seamen good-by on the wharf. The old man was +full of his plan to exhibit the boat in a museum and of selling his +account of his adventures to a magazine. + +The crew left on Easter Island were rescued sooner than they had +expected. A British tramp, the Knight of the Garter, put into Easter +Island for emergency repairs, having broken down. The castaways left +with her for Sydney, Australia, and from there reached San Francisco +by the steamship Ventura, ten months after they had sailed away on +the El Dorado. That schooner was never sighted again. + + + +Chapter XI + +I move to the Annexe--Description of building--The baroness and her +baby--Evoa and poia--The corals of the lagoon--The Chinese shrine--The +Tahitian sky. + +Lovaina suggested, since I liked to be about the lagoon, that I move +to the Annexe, a rooming-house she owned and conducted as an adjunct +to the Tiare. I moved there, and regretted that I had stayed so long +in the animal-yard. And yet I should have missed knowing Lovaina +intimately, the hour-to-hour incidents of her curious menage, the +close contact with the girls and the guests, the El Dorado heroes, +the Dummy, and others. + +The Annexe fronted the lagoon. It was a two-story building, with broad +verandas in front and rear, and stood back a few feet from the Broom +Road. It had a very large garden behind, with tall cocoanut trees, +and the finest rose-bushes in Tahiti. Vava, the Dummy, put all the +sweepings from his stable on the flower beds, and Lovaina cut the +roses for the tables at the Tiare Hotel and for presents to friends +and prosperous tourists. Vava was often about the garden, and drove +Lovaina to and fro in her old chaise. + +When he brought me and my belongings from the Tiare, Lovaina came with +us. She signed to him to go to the glacerie, the ice- and soda-water +factory, to buy ice for the hotel. The Dummy was intensely jealous +of new-comers whom Lovaina liked. He left on foot, but merely took a +walk, and, returning, answered her question by opening his hands and +shaking his head, conveying perfectly the statement that the glacerie +had refused Lovaina credit because of her debt to it of two hundred +francs, and that cash was demanded. He intimated that the proprietor +had ridiculed her. + +"That dam' lie," said Lovaina to him and to me,--she always +supplemented her gestures to him with words,--and she made a sign that +she had paid the bill. He uttered a choking sound of anger, accompanied +by a dreadful grimace, and after a little while came back with a large +piece of ice, which he placed in the carriage. Lovaina told him to +break off a lump for my room. He became indignant, and in pantomime +vividly described the suffering of guests at the Tiare with the ice +exhausted, and Lovaina's plight if she could sell no more drinks. + +Lovaina persisted, and when I went to take the ice myself, he struck +me with his horsewhip. Temanu, who had come with Lovaina, rushed out +shrieking, and the Dummy, seeing his advantage, began to threaten all +who came at the noise. Afa, a half-white, who lives in a cottage in +the garden, and who alone could control him, slapped his face. The +wretched mute sat down and wept bitterly until Lovaina rubbed his +back, and informed him that he was again in her good graces. I, too, +smiled upon him, and he became a happy child for a moment. + +The Annexe was decaying fast. In the great storm of 1906 it was +partly blown down, and was poorly restored. It was the prey of rat +and insect, dusty, neglected, but endearing. It had had a season +of glory. It was built for the first modern administration office +of the French Government, over sixty years before, and was painted +white with blue trimmings. In its bare and dusty entrance-hall hung +two steel engravings entitled, "The Beginning of the Civil War in the +United States" and "The End of the Civil War in the United States." The +former showed Freedom in the center; Justice with a sword and balance; +the Stars and Stripes being torn from a liberty-tree, with a snake +winding about it; an aged man labeled Buchanan asleep on a big book; +and a gentleman named Floyd counting a bag of money; on the other side +Abraham Lincoln exhorted a white-haired general who commanded a file of +soldiers, and some rich-looking men were throwing money on the floor. + +The other picture was indeed florid. It represented three ladies, +Freedom, Justice, and Mercy, disputing the center, slaves being +unshackled, the army of victory led by Grant claiming honors, +Lee handing over a sword, an ugly fellow toting off a bag of gold +(graft?) and a gang of conspirators egging on the madman Booth to +slay Lincoln. In both these engravings there were scores of supposed +likenesses, but I could not identify them. They were published by +Kimmel & Forster in New York in 1865, and had probably decorated +Papeete walls for half a century. There were large, ramshackle +chambers on the first floor, and an exquisite winding staircase, +with a rosewood balustrade, led to the second story, where I lived. + +In this building all the pomp and circumstance of the Nations in Tahiti +had been on parade, kings and queens of the island had pleaded and +submitted, admirals and ensigns had whispered love to dusky vahines, +and the petty wars of Oceanic had been planned between waltzes and +wines. Here Loti put his arms about his first Tahitian sweetheart, +and practised that vocabulary of love he used so well in "Rarahu," +"Madame Chrysantheme," and his other studies of the exotic woman. A +hundred noted men, soldiers, and sailors, scientists and dilettanti, +governors and writers, had walked or worked in those tumbling rooms. + +Lovaina had owned the building many years, buying it from the thrifty +French Government. + +My apartment was of two rooms, and my section of the balcony was cut +off by a door, giving privacy unusual in Tahiti. The coloring of the +wall was rich in hue. + +Any color, so it's red, said a satirist, who might have been +characterizing my rooms. Turkey-red muslin with a large, white diamond +figure was pasted on the plaster walls and hung in the doorways. + +"It very bes' the baroness could do in T'ytee," explained Lovaina. "She +must be bright all about, and she buy and fix rooms. She have whole top +floor Annexe, and spen' money like gentleman, two or three thousand +dollar' every month. I wish you know her. She talk beautiful', and +never one word smut. Hones', true. Johnny, my son, read 'Three Weeks' +that time, and he speak the baroness, 'You jus' like that woman +in the book.' She have baby here and take with her to Paris. She +want that baby jus' like 'Three Weeks.' Oh, but she live high! She +have her own servants, get everything in market, bring peacocks and +pheasants and turkeys from America. How you think? Dead? No. She sen' +man to bring on foot on boat. You go visit her, she give champagne +jus' like Papenoo River. She beautiful? My God! I tell you she like +angel. She speak French, English, Russian, German, Italian, anything +the same. She good, but she don't care a dam' what people say. When +she go 'way Europe she give frien's all her thing'. Now she back in +her palace with her baby. She write once say she come back T'ytee +some day by'n'by. She love T'ytee somethin' crazee." + +At the Cercle Bougainville Captain William Pincher told me more of +the baroness. + +"Is the bloody meat-safe still on the back porch? The baroness made a +voyage with me to the Paumotus just for the air. She sat on deck all +the time, rain or shine. I'd put a' awnin' over 'er in fair weather +or when it rained and there wasn't much wind. She was a bloody good +sailor, too, and ate like us, only she never went below except at +night. I give her my cabin. She'd spen' hours lookin' over the side +in a calm--we had no engine--an' she'd listen to all the yarns." + +Lying Bill burst out with one of his choicest oaths. + +"She wasn't like some of those ladees I've 'ad aboard. She was a +proper salt-water lass. She loved to 'ear my yarns of the sea. When +she was big with child an' I ashore, I 'ad the 'abit o' droppin' in o' +afternoons and 'avin' a slice of 'am or chicken out o' the safe. Afa +ran 'er bloody show for 'er, an' it cost 'er a bloody fortune. I +used to lie for 'er to 'ear 'er laugh. You know I'm called Lyin' +Bill, but McHenry tells more real lies in a day than I do in a bloody +year. She was the finest-looking girl of the delicate kind I ever saw, +all pink and white an' with fringy clothes an' little feet. Oh! there +was nothing between us but the sea, an' I know that subject." + +Lying Bill sighed like a diver just up from the bottom of the lagoon. + +"You know that big cocoanut tree in the garden of the Annexe? She +would sit under that with me an' smoke her Cairo cigarettes an' +talk about her bally kiddie. She wanted him to be strong an' to love +the sea, and she thought by talking with me about 'im an' ships an' +the ocean she could sort of train him that way, though he'd been +got in Paris an' might be a girl. Is there anything in that bleedin' +idea? She could quote books all right about it." + +Ah, beautiful and brave baroness! I often thought of you during those +months in the Annexe. You will come again, you say, to Tahiti, bathe +again in its witching waters, and let the spell of its sweetness bind +you again to its soil. Maybe, but baroness, you will never again be +as you were, flinging all body and soul into the fire of passion, +and yearning for motherhood! Such times can never be the same. We +burn, even desire, and consume our dreams. Child of aristocracy, you +found in this South Sea eyot the freedom your atavism, or shall I say, +naturalness, craved, and you drank your cup to the lees and thought +it good. I shall not be the one to point a finger at you, nor even to +think too vivid the scarlet of my toilet set. That flamboyant outside +my window, once yours, is as garish, and yet lacks no consonance with +all about it. + +The scene from my veranda was a changing picture of radiance and +shadow. Directly below was the Broom Road. Umbrageous flamboyants--the +royal poincianas, or flame-trees--sheltered the short stretch of +sward to the water, and their blossoms made a red-gold litter upon the +grass. A giant acacia whose flowers were reddish pink and looked like +thistle blooms, protected two canoes, one my own and one Afa's. The +Annexe was bounded by the Broom Road and the rue de Bougainville, +and across that street was the restaurant of Mme. Fanny. It was built +over a tiny stream, which emptied fifty feet away into the lagoon. A +clump of banana-trees hid the patrons, but did not obscure their view +from Fanny's balcony. + +In the lagoon, a thousand yards from me, was Motu Uta, a tiny island +ringed with golden sand, a mass of green trees half disclosing a +gray house. Motu Uta was a gem incomparable in its beauty and its +setting. It had been the place of revels of old kings and chiefs, +and Pomaré the Fourth had made it his residence. Cut off by half a +mile of water from Papeete, it had an isolation, yet propinquity, +which would have persuaded me to make it my home were I a governor; +but it was given over to quarantine purposes, with an old caretaker +who came and went in a commonplace rowboat. + +The Annexe housed many rats. I brought to my rooms a basket of bananas, +and put it on a table by my bed, the canopied four-poster in which +the son of the baroness was born. In the night I was awakened by +a tremendous thump on the floor and a curious dragging noise. I +listened breathlessly. But the rat must have heard me, for he ceased +operations, only returning when he thought I was asleep. He leaped on +the table, scratched a banana from the basket, threw it to the floor, +and pulled it to his den near the wardrobe. The joists and floor +boards were eaten away by the ants, and in one hole six or seven +inches long this rat had entrance to his den between the floor and +the ceiling of the room below. He had trading proclivities, and in +exchange brought me old and valueless trifles. I once knew a miner +in Arizona who found a rich gold-vein through a rat bringing him a +piece of ore in exchange for a bit of bacon. He traced the rat to his +nest and discovered the source of the ore. The rats had their ancient +enemies to guard against, and the cats of Tahiti, not indigenous, +slept by day and hunted by night. They cavorted through the Annexe +in the smallest hours, and one often wakened to their shrieks and +squeals of combat. The tom-cats had tails longer than their bodies, +the climate, their habits and food developing them extraordinarily. + +The roosters grew to a size unequaled, and those in the garden of the +Annexe roused me almost at dawn. Their voices were horrific, and one +that had fathered a quartet of ducks--an angry tourist had killed the +drake because of his quacking--was a vrai Chantecler. When he waked me, +the sun was coming over the hills from Hitiaa, brightened Papenoo and +leaped the summits to Papeete, but it was long before the phantom of +false morning died and the god of day rode his golden chariot to the +sea. The Diadem was gilded first, and down the beach the long light +tremulously disclosed the faint scarlet of the flamboyant-trees, +their full, magnificent color yet to be revealed, and their elegant +contours like those graceful, red-tiled pagodas on the journey to +Canton in far Cathay. + +Motu Uta crept from the obscurity of the night, and the battlements +of Moorea were but dim silhouettes. The lagoon between the reef and +the beach was turning from dark blue to azure pink. The miracle of +the advent of the day was never more delicately painted before my eyes. + +In my crimson pareu I descended the grand staircase, which had often +echoed to the booted tread of admiral and sailor, of diplomat and +bureaucrat, and outside the building I passed along the lower rear +balcony to the bath. The Annexe, like the Tiare Hotel, made no pretense +to elegance or convenience. The French never demand the latter at home, +and the Tahitian is so much an outdoor man that water-pipes and what +they signify are not of interest to him. + +The bath of the Annexe was a large cement tank, primarily for washing +clothes. Its floor was as slippery as ice. One held to the window-frame +at the side, and turned the tap. + +A shower fell a dozen feet like rose-leaves upon one. Ah, the waters +of Tahiti! Never was such gentle, velvety rain, a benediction from +the tauupo o te moua, the slopes of the mountains. + +I deferred my pleasure a few minutes as the place under the shower +was occupied by an entrancing pair, Evoa, the consort of Afa, and her +four-months-old infant, Poia. Evoa was sixteen years old, tall, like +most Tahitians, finely figured, slender, and with the superb carriage +that is the despair of the corseted women who visit Tahiti. Her +features were regular, but not soft. Her skin was ivory-white, with +a glint of red in cheek and lip, and the unconfined hair that reached +her hips was intensely black and fine, I could see no touch or tint of +the Polynesian except in the slight harshness of the contours of her +face, and that her legs were more like yellow satin than white. Her +foot would have given Du Maurier inspiration for a brown Trilby. It +was long, high-arched, perfect; the toes, never having known shoes, +natural and capable of grasp, and the ankle delicate, yet strong. Her +father she believed to have been a French official who had stayed only +a brief period in Bora-Bora, her mother's island, and whose very name +was forgotten by her. She had not seen her mother since her first year, +having, as is the custom here, been adopted by others. + +Poia had a head like a cocoanut, her eyes shiny, black buttons, her +body roly-poly, and her pinkish-yellow feet and hands adorable. Evoa +was dressing her for the market in a red muslin slip, a knitted shawl +of white edged with blue, and, shades of Fahrenheit! a cap with pink +ribbons, and socks of orange. Evoa herself would wear a simple tunic, +which was most of the time pulled down over the shoulder to give Poia +ingress to her white breast. Poia was like a flower, and I had never +heard her cry, this good nature being accounted for perhaps by an +absence of pins, as she was usually naked. She had two teeth barely +peeping from below. + +Evoa spoke only Tahitian, which is the same tongue as that spoken in +Bora-Bora, and she was totally without education. Afa had found her, +and brought her to his cabin in the garden. He did not claim to be the +father of Poia, but was delighted, as are all Polynesians, to find +a mate and, with her, certainty of a little one. They have not our +selfishness of paternity, but find in the assumed relation of father +all the pride and joy we take only with surety of our relationship. + +Afa was a handsome half-caste, his mustache and light complexion, his +insouciance and frivolity, his perfect physique, skill with canoe and +fish-net and spear, his flirtations with many women, and his ability +to provide amusement for the guests, making him a superior type of +the white-brown blood. There was a black tragedy in this life which, +with all his heedlessness, often and again imprisoned him in deep +melancholy. + +His father was a wealthy Italian who lived near the home of a +Tahitian princess, and who won the girl's love against her father's +commands. Afa was born, the princess was sent away, and the child +brought up in a good family. When he was fourteen years old he was +taken to the United States. His father became engaged in a quarrel +with certain natives whom he forbade to cross his land to gather feis +in the mountains. As they had always had this right, they resented +his imposition, and plotted to kill him. He disappeared, and a +long time afterward his body was found loosely covered with earth, +the feet above the surface. In court the surgeons swore that he had +been alive when buried. A number of men were tried for the crime and +sentenced to life imprisonment in New Caledonia. + +Afa returned from America to find that much of his father's +property had been stolen or claimed by others, and he became a +cook and servant. He had been many years with Lovaina, and though +he owned valuable land, he preferred the hotel life, half domestic, +half manager and confidant, to the quietude of the country. In Afa's +single room were two brass bedsteads, many gaudy tidies, an engraving +of the execution of Nathan Hale, and a toilet-table full of fancy +notions. Evoa was always barefooted, but Afa, on steamer days and +when going to the cinematograph, appeared in immaculate white and with +canvas shoes. Otherwise he wore only a fold of cloth about the loins, +the real garment of the Tahitian, and the right one for that climate. + +Again on my balcony, I saw the sun had passed the crown of the +Diadem and was slanting hotly toward Papeete. Moorea was emerging +from darkness, its valleys a deep brown, and the tops of the serried +mountains becoming green. + +Along the reef, outside, a schooner, two-masted, was making for +the harbor. She was very graceful, and as she entered the lagoon +through the passage in the barrier I was struck by her lines, slender, +swelling, and feminine. She passed within a few hundred feet of me, +and I saw that she was the Marara, the Flying-Fish. + +I did not know it then, but I was to go on that little vessel to the +blazing atolls of the Dangerous Archipelago, and to see stranger and +more fascinating sights than I had dreamed of on the Noa-Noa during +my passage to Tahiti. + +I dragged my canoe to the edge of the quai des Subsistances, +so-called because of the naval depot. The craft was dubbed out of a +breadfruit-tree trunk, and had an outrigger of purau wood, a natural +crooked arm, with a small limb laced to it. The canoe was steady enough +in such smooth water, and I paddled off to Motu Uta. That islet is a +rock of coral upon which soil had been placed unknown years before, +and which produced fruits and flowers in abundance under the hand of +the caretaker. Motu Uta is about as large as a city building lot, and +the coral hummock shelves sharply to a considerable depth. Under this +declining reef were the rarest shapes and colors of fish. They swam +up and down, and in and out of their blue and pink and ivory-colored +homes, slowly and majestically, or darting hither and thither, angered +at the intrusion of my canoe in their domain, courting and rubbing +fins, repelling invaders. The little ones avoiding dexterously the +appetites of their big friends, and these moving pompously, but warily, +seeking what they might devour. + +A collector of corals would find many sorts there. They are wonderful, +these stony plants, graceful, strange, bizarre. The Tahitian, who +has a score of names for the winds, and who classifies fish not only +by their names, but changes these names according to size and age, +makes only a few lumps of the coral. It is to'a, and when round is +to'a ati, to'a apu; when branching, uruhi, uruana; when in a bank, +to'a aau; when above the surface of the water, to'a raa. A submerged +mass is to'a faa ruru, and the coral on which the waves break, to'a +auau. However, the native knows well that one species of coral, the +ahifa, is corrosive, irritating the skin when touched, and another, +which is poisoned by the hara plants, is termed to'a harahia. + +Coral makes good lime for whitening walls, and is cut into blocks for +building. Many churches in Tahiti were built of coral blocks. The puny +fortifications erected by the French in the war with the Tahitians +decades ago were of coral stones, and are now black with age and +weather. + +I headed my canoe toward the barrier reef, and tied it to a knob +of coral. Then I stepped out upon the reef itself, my tennis shoes +keeping the sharp edges from cutting my feet. It was the low tide +succeeding sunrise, and the water over the reef was a few inches +deep, so that I could see the marine life of the wall, the many kinds +of starfish, the sea-urchins, and the curious bivalves which hide +with their shell-tips just even with the floor of the lagoon, and, +keeping them barely even, wait for foolish prey. + +The floor of the lagoon was most interesting; the prodigality of nature +in the countless number of low forms of life, their great variety, +their beauty, and their ugliness, and, appealing to me especially, +the humor of nature in the tricks she played with color and shape, +her score of clowns of the sea equaling her funny fellows ashore, +the macaws, the mandrills, the dachshunds, and the burros. + +The sunlight on the water at that hour was like silver spangles on a +sapphire robe. I paddled near to the Marara, and watched her let go +her anchor and send her boat ashore with a stern line. Fastened to +a cannon and passed around a bitt on the schooner, the crew hauled +her close to the embankment, and soon she was broadside to, and her +gangway on the quay. Her captain, M. Moet, Woronick, a pearl merchant, +a government physician, and the passengers from the Paumotus were soon +ashore shaking hands with friends. I walked behind them to Lovaina's +for coffee, and was introduced to them all. + +Woronick took me to his house across the street from the Tiare +Hotel, and there opened a massive safe and showed me drawer after +drawer of pearls. They were of all sizes and shapes and tints, from +a pear-shaped, brilliant, Orient pearl of great value, to the golden +pipi of inconsiderable worth. Woronick spoke of a pearl he had bought +some years ago in Takaroa, the creation of which, he said, had cost +the lives of three men including a great savant. + +"If you go to Takaroa," said Woronick, "be sure to see old Tepeva +a Tepeva. He used to be one of the best divers in the Low Islands, +but he's got the bends. He sold me the greatest pearl ever found in +these fisheries in the last twenty years, and I made enough profit +on it to buy a house in Paris and live a year. Get him to tell you +his yarn. It beats Monte Cristo all hollow." + +Which I made a note to do. + +In the afternoon, with Charlie Eager, a guest at the Annexe, I went +to the worship-place of the Chinese, on the Broom Road. Outwardly, +it had not the flaunting distinction of the joss-houses of the Far +East or those of New York or San Francisco. The Chinese usually builds +his temples even in foreign lands in the same Oriental superfluity +of color and curve and adornment that makes them exclusively the +Middle Kingdom's own; but here he had been content to have a simple, +whitewashed church which might be a meeting-house or school. It +was set in the center of a great garden in which mango and cocoa +and breadfruit abounded. We were struck by the superb breadth and +immense height of a breadfruit-tree the shadows of which fell over +a small brick pagoda. This tree was a hundred feet tall, and the +always glorious leaves, as large as aprons, indented and a glossy, +dark green, made it a temple in itself worthier of the ministrations +of priests than the ugly brick or frame structure of our cities. The +Druids in their groves were nearer to the real God than the pursy +bishop in the steam-heated cathedral. + +A native woman, aged and bent, said "Ia ora na!" to us, and we +replied. With my few words of Tahitian I gained from her that the +joss-house was open. We entered it, and found no one there. The +center was wide to the sky, that the rain might fall and the stars +shine within it. The altars were brilliant with memorial tablets, +the green, red, and gold flower vases, and sandalwood taper-holders, +so familiar to me, and all about were the written prayers of devotees, +soliciting the favor of Heaven, asking success in business, or the +averting of illness. They were evidently painted by the bonze of the +fane, for his slab of India ink was on a table nearby, as also the +brushes for the ideographs. + +Sons expressed their filial duties in glittering excerpts from +Confucius, carved and gilded on expansive boards, and the incense +of the poor arose from the humble punksticks stuck in dishes of sand +upon the floor. + +No Levite sat within the shrine or watched to see if profane hand +touched the sacred symbols, and were Charlie Eager sure of that before +we left, he had secured a trophy. Not knowing but that from one of +the numerous crannies or mayhap from the open roof the wrathful eye +of a hierophant was upon him, he had to content himself with a prayer +from the pagoda, which proved on close inspection to be a furnace +for the burning of the paper slips on which the aspirations of the +faithful were written. Whether the prayers had been granted, were out +of date, or the time paid for hanging in the joss-house had expired, +the crematory was four feet deep with the red and white rice-paper +legends, awaiting an auspicious occasion for incineration. Eager of +Inglewood, California, fished secretly, hidden by my body, until +he found a particularly long and intricate set of hieroglyphics, +and deposited it in his pocket. Then we fled. + +More than two thousand Chinese in Tahiti, nearly all kin within +a few degrees, found in this humble church a substitute for their +family temples in China, where usually each clan has its own place of +worship. The laboring class of this fecund people seldom extend their +real devotion beyond their ancestors and the principle of fatherhood, +their reasoning being that of the wise Jewish charge to honor one's +father (and mother) that one's life may be long. Loving sons take +care of old parents. It is the old Oriental patriarchy sublimated by +the imposition of commerce upon agriculture. + +The Chinese came to Tahiti during the American Civil War. They were +brought by an English planter to grow cotton, then scarce on account +of the blockade and desolation of the South. With the end of the war, +and the looms of Manchester again supplied, the plantation languished, +and the Chinese took other employment, became planters themselves, +or set up little shops. They now had most of the retail business of +the island, and all of it outside Papeete. + +The secretary-general gave me figures about them. + +"There are twenty-two hundred Chinese in Tahiti now," said he. "We +are willing to receive all who come. They are needed to restore the +population. Who would keep the stores or grow vegetables if we did +not have the Chinese? We exact no entrance fee, but we number every +man, and photograph him, to keep a record. There is no government +agent in China to further this emigration, but those here write home, +and induce their relatives to come. We hope for enough to make labor +plentiful. All cannot keep stores." + +"Have you no Japanese?" + +"Only those who work for the phosphate company at the island of +Makatea," replied the secretary-general. "They are well paid, their +fare to Tahiti and return secured, and otherwise they are favored. The +Government has agreed with a company to promote Chinese emigration to +the Marquesas. There are thousands needed. In French Oceanie there +are twelve thousand possible workers for nearly a million acres of +land. This land could easily feed two hundred thousand people. The +natives are dying fast, and we must replace them, or the land will +become jungle." + +"Couldn't you bring French Chinese from Indo-China?" I asked. + +"We haven't any workers to spare there," he answered. + +In Papeete the Chinese were, as in America, a mysterious, elusive +race, the immigrants remaining homogeneous in habits, closely united +in social and business activities, and with a solid front to the +natives and the whites. They lived much as in China, though in more +healthful surroundings. Every vice they had in China they brought to +Tahiti; their virtues they left behind, except those strict ethics +in commerce and finance which must be carried out successfully to +"save face." Their community in this island, with a climate and +people as different from their own as the land from the sea, was in +their thoughts a part of Canton and the farms of Quan-tung. All the +bareness, dirt, and squalid atmosphere of home they had sought to bring +to the South Seas. They saw the other nationals here as objects of +ridicule and spoilage. The amassing of a competence before old age or +against a return to China, and the marrying there, or the resumption +of marital relations with the wife he had left to make his fortune, +was the fiercely sought goal of each. + +Loti wrote nearly fifty years ago, a decade after their influx: + +"The Chinese merchants of Papeete were objects of disgust and horror +to the natives. There was no greater shame than for a young woman +to be convicted of listening to the gallantries of one of them. But +the Chinese were wicked and rich, and it was notorious that several +of them, by means of presents and money, had obtained clandestine +favors which made amends to them for public scorn." + +Had Admiral Julien Viaud returned now to Tahiti, he would have found +the Chinese stores thronged by the handsomest girls, their restaurants +thriving on their charms, and the Chinese the possessors of the pick of +the lower and middle classes of young women. Ah Sin is persistent; he +has no sense of Christian shame, and as in the Philippines, he dresses +his women gaily, and wins their favors despite his evil reputation, +his ugliness, and his being despised. + +At the Cercle Bougainville I saw more than one Chinese playing cards +and drinking. These were Chinese who had made money, and who in the +give and take of business have pushed themselves into the club of +the other merchants, who feared and watched them. + +Women were not allowed in barrooms in Papeete. The result was that +they went to the Chinese restaurants and coffee-houses to drink +beer and wine at tables, as legalized. A concomitant of this was +that men went to these places to meet women, and further that women +were retained or persuaded by the Chinese to frequent their places +so as to stimulate the sale of intoxicants. The Chinese restaurants +naturally became assignation houses. + +Walking back, late in the afternoon, from the joss-house, we met +Lovaina in her automobile, with the American negro chauffeur, William, +and Temanu, Atupu, and Iromea. She invited me to accompany them to swim +in the Papenoo River, a few miles towards Point Venus. Other guests +of the Tiare Hotel came in hired cars, and twenty or thirty joined +in the bath. The river was a small flood, rains having swelled it +so that a current of five or six knots swept one off one's feet and +down a hundred and fifty feet before one could seize the limb of an +overhanging tree. We undressed in the bushes, and the men wore only +pareus, while the girls had an extra gown. They were expert swimmers, +climbing into the tops of the trees, and hurling themselves with +screams into the water. They struck it in a sitting posture making +great splashes and reverberations. Their muslin slips outlined +their strong bodies, so that they were like veiled goddesses, their +brownblack hair floating free, as they leaped or fought and tumbled +with the tide. We stayed an hour at this sport, joined when school +was dismissed by all the youth of Papenoo. Under twelve they bathed +naked, but those older wore pareus. + +It was hard to keep on a pareu in a swift-running stream unless +one knew how to tie it. I lost mine several times, and had to grope +shamefacedly in the race for it, until finally Lovaina made the proper +knots and turned it into a diaper. + +"I not go swim now," she said regretfully, "'cep' some night-time. Too +big. Before I marry, eighteen seven'y-nine, and before my three +children grow up, I swim plenty then." + +"Lovaina," I said, "it was hardly eighteen seventynine you were +married. You are only forty-three now. Was it not eighty-nine?" + +"Mus' be," she replied thoughtfully. "I nineteen when marry. My +father give me that house, now Tiare Hotel, for weddin' present. All +furnish. You should see that marry! My God! there was bottle in yard +all broken. Admiral French fleet send band; come hisself with all his +officer'. Five o'clock mornin'-time still dance and drink. Bigges' +time T'ytee. You not walk barefoot long time 'count broken glass +everywhere." + +I had heard that delicious incident before, but it never lost savor. + +After dinner and a prolonged session upon the camphor-wood chest to +hear Lovaina's chatter, I came leisurely to the Annexe along the shore +of the lagoon. It was after midnight, and the heavens sang with stars +as the ripe moon dipped into the western sea. + +The tropics only know the fullness of the firmament, the myriad of suns +and planets, the brilliancy of the constellations, and the overpowering +revelation of the infinite above. In less fervent latitudes one can +never feel the bigness of the vault on high, nor sense the intimacy +one had here with the worlds that spin in the measureless ether. + +Two lofty-sparred ships but newly from the California coast swung at +moorings within a dozen feet of the grass that borders the coral banks, +and on their decks, under the light of lamps, American sailors lifted a +shanty of the rolling Mississippi. I remembered when I had first heard +it. I was a boy, and had stolen away on a bark, the Julia Rollins, +bound for Rio, and as we hauled in the line let go by the tow-boat, +a seaman raised the bowline song. To me, with "Two Years Before the +Mast" and Clark Russell's galley yarns churning in my mind, it was +sweeter far than ever siren voiced to lure her victims to their death, +and rough and tarry as was the shanty-man, Caruso had never seemed +to me such a glorious figure. + +This fascination of the sea and of its border had never left me, +though I had passed years on ships and nearly all my life within sound +of the surf. It is as strong as ever, holding me thrall in the sight +of its waters and its freights, and unhappy when denied them. Best +of all literature I love the stories of old ocean, and glad am I + + + That such as have no pleasure + For to praise the Lord by measure, + They may enter into galleons and serve him on the sea. + + +In Tahiti the sea was very near and meant much. One felt toward it +as must the mountaineer who lives in the shadow of the Matterhorn; +it was always part of one's thoughts, for all men and things came +and went by it, and the great world lay beyond it. + +But dear or near as the sea might be to such a man as I, a mere +traveler upon it to reach a goal, to the Tahitian it was life and +road and romance, too. Legends of it filled the memories of those old +ones who, though in tattered form, preserved yet awhile the deeds of +daring of their fathers and the terrors of storm and sea monster, +of long journeys in frail canoes, of discoveries and conquerings, +of brides taken from other peoples, and of the gods and devils who +were in turn masters of the deep. + +Once a Tahitian stopped the sun as it sank beyond Moorea not to +wage war, as Joshua, but to please his old mother. The sea and the +heavens are brothers to the Tahitian. The sky had two great tales +for him--guidance for his craft and prophecies for his soul; but he +did not inhabit it with his gods or his dead, as do Christians and +other religionists, for the mountains, the valleys, and the caves +were the abiding-places of spirits, and the Tahitian had named only +those stars which blazed forth most vividly or served him as compass +on the sea. He did, however, mark the various phases of the sky, +and in his musical tongue named them with particularity. + +The firmament is te ao, te rai, and the atmosphere te reva, and when +peaceful, raiatea. This is the name of one of the most beautiful +islands of this Society group, "Raiatea la Sacrée," it is called, +"Raiatea the Blessed," and its own serenity is betokened in its name. + + + E hau maru, e maru to oe rai + E topara, te Mahana + I Ra' i-atea nei! + + +So ran the rhyme of Raiatea: + + + Full of a sweet peace, serene thy sky; + Bright are all thy days + At Raiatea here. + + +Rai poia or poiri, they say for the gloomy heavens, and rai maemae +when threatening, parutu when cloudy, moere if clear; if the clouds +presage wind, tutai vi. The sunset is tooa o te ra, and the twilight +marumarupo. + +The night is te po or te rui, and the moment before the sun rises +marumaru ao. A hundred other words and phrases differentiate the +conditions of sky and air. I learned them from Afa and Evoa and others. + +The moon is te marama, and the full moon vaevae. Mars is fetia ura, +the red star; the Pleiades are Matarii, the little eyes; and the +Southern Cross, Tauha, Fetia ave are the comets, the "stars with a +tail," and the meteors pao, opurei, patau, and pitau. + +The moon was gone, but the stars needed no help, for they shone as if +the trump of doom were due at dawn, and they should be no more. Blue +and gold, a cathedral ceiling with sanctuary lamps hung high, the +dome of earth sparkled and glittered, and on the schooners by the +Cercle Bougainville himenes of joy rang out on the soft air. + +I passed them close, so close that a girl of Huahine who was dancing +on the deck of the Mihimana seized me by the arm and embraced me. + +"Come back, stranger!" she cried in Tahitian. "There is pleasure here, +and the night is but just begun." + +A dozen island schooners swayed in the gentle breeze, their stays +humming softly, their broadsides separated from the quays by just +a dozen or twenty feet, as if they feared to risk the seduction of +the land, and felt themselves safer parted from the shore. On all the +street-level verandas, the entrances to the shops and the restaurants, +the hundreds of natives who had not wanted other lodging slept as +children in cradles until they should rise for coffee before the +market-bell. + +From the Chinese shop at the corner the strains of a Canton actor's +falsetto, with the squeak of the Celestial fiddles issued from a +phonograph, but so real I fancied I was again on Shameen, listening +over the Canton River to the noises of the night, the music, and the +singsong girls of the silver combs. + +I went on, and met the peanut-man. He sold me two small bags of roasted +goobers for eight sous. He wore the brown, oilskin-like, two-piece +suit of the Chinese of southern China, and he had no teeth and no +hair, and his eyes would not stay open. He had to open them with his +fingers, so that most of the time he was blind; but he counted money +accurately, and he had a tidy bag of silver and coppers strapped to +his stomach. He looked a hundred years old. + +When I paid for the two bags, he raised his lids, believed that I +was a speaker of English, and said, "Fine businee!" + +As I went past the queen's palace, the two mahus were chanting low, +as they sat on the curbing, and they glanced coquettishly at me, +but asked only for cigarettes. I gave them a package of Marinas, +made in the Faubourg Bab-el-oued, in Algiers, and they said "Maruru" +and "Merci" in turn and in unison. Strange men these, one bearded and +handsome, the other slender and in his twenties, their dual natures +contrasting in their broad shoulders and their swaying hips, their +men's pareus and shirts, and bits of lace lingerie. I met them half +a dozen times a day, and as I was now known as a resident, not the +idler of a month, they bowed in hope of recognition. + +In the Annexe all was quiet, but in the great sailing canoe of Afa, +on the grass by the water, there were two girls smoking and humming, +and waiting for the cowboy and the prize-fighter who lived beside me, +and who were dancing to-night at Fa'a. Like Indians, these Tahitians, +especially the women, would sit and watch and wait for hours on hours, +and make no complaint, if only their dear one--dear mayhap for only +a night--came at last. + +I was awakened from happy sleep by the cries of a frightened woman, +confused with outlandish, savage sounds. I lit my lamp and leaned +over the balcony. Under a flamboyant-tree was a girl defending herself +from the attack of Vava. She was screaming in terror, and the Dummy, +a giant in strength, was holding her and grunting his bestial laugh. I +threw the rays full in his face, and he looked up, saw me, and ran +away up the beach, yelping like a frustrated beast. In voice and +action he resembled an animal more than any human I had ever seen. The +guilelessness and cunning of child and fiend were in his dumb soul. + + + +Chapter XII + +The princess suggests a walk to the falls of Fautaua, where Loti went +with Rarahu--We start in the morning--The suburbs of Papeete--The Pool +of Loti--The birds, trees and plants--A swim in a pool--Arrival at +the cascade--Luncheon and a siesta--We climb the height--The princess +tells of Tahitian women--The Fashoda fright. + +The falls of Fautaua, famed in Tahitian legend, are exquisite in +beauty and surrounding, and so near Papeete that I walked to them +and back in a day. Yet hardly any one goes there. For those who have +visited them they remain a shrine of loveliness, wondrous in form and +unsurpassed in color. Before the genius of Tahiti was smothered in the +black and white of modernism, the falls and the valley in which they +are, were the haunt of lovers who sought seclusion for their pledgings. + +A princess accompanied me to them. She was not a daughter of a king +or queen, but she was near to royalty, and herself as aristocratic in +carriage and manner as was Oberea, who loved Captain Cook. I danced +with her at a dinner given by a consul, and when I spoke to her of +Loti's visit to Fautaua with Rarahu, she said in French: + +"Why do you not go there yourself with a Rarahu! Loti is old and an +admiral, and writes now of Egypt and Turkey and places soiled by crowds +of people, but Rarahu is still here and young. Shall I find you her?" + +I looked at her and boldly said: + +"I am a stranger in your island, as was Loti when he met Rarahu. Will +you not yourself show me Fautaua?" + +She gave a shrill cry of delight, and in the frank, sweet way of the +Tahitian girl replied: + +"We will run away to-morrow morning. Wear little, for it will be warm, +and bring no food!" + +"I will obey you literally," I said, "and you must find manna or +charm ravens to bring us sustenance." + +I had coffee opposite the market place in the shop of Wing Luey, and +chatted a few moments with Prince Hinoe, the son of the Princesse +de Joinville, who would have been king had the French not ended +the Kingdom of Tahiti. No matter what time Hinoe lay down at night, +he was up at dawn for the market, for his early roll and coffee and +his converse with the sellers and the buyers. There once a day for +an hour the native in Papeete touched the country folk and renewed +the ancient custom of gossip in the cool of the morning. + +The princess--in English her familiar Tahitian name, Noanoa Tiare, +meant Fragrance of the Jasmine--was in the Parc de Bougainville, +by the bust of the first French circumnavigator. + +"Ia ora na!" she greeted me. "Are you ready for adventure?" + +She handed me a small, soft package, with a caution to keep it safe +and dry. I put it in my inside pocket. + +The light of the sun hardly touched the lagoon, and Moorea was still +shrouded in the shadows of the expiring night. As we walked down the +beach, the day was opening with the "morning bank," the masses of +white clouds that gather upon the horizon before the tradewind begins +its diurnal sweep, to shift and mold them all the hours till sunset. + +Fragrance of the Jasmine was in a long and clinging tunic of pale +blue, with low, white shoes disclosing stockings also of blue, and +wore a hat of pandanus weave. She carried nothing, nor had I anything +in my hands, and we were to be gone all day. I regretted that I had +not lingered longer with Prince Hinoe over the rolls and coffee. + +We fared past the merchants' stores, the Cercle Bougainville, and +the steamship wharf, and over the Pont de l'Est, or Eastern bridge, +to Patutoa. The princess pointed out to me many wretched straw +houses, crowded in a hopeless way. They were like a refugee camp +after a disaster, impermanent, uncomfortable, barely holding on to +the swampy earth. One knew the occupants to be far from their own +Lares and Penates. + +"Those are the habitations of people of other islands," she said. "The +people of the Paumotus, the Australs, and of Easter Island settled +there. They were brought here by odious labor contractors, and died +of homesickness. Those men murdered hundreds of them to gain un +pen d'argent, a handful of gold. Eh b'en, those who did it have +suffered. They have faded away, and most of their evil money, +too. Aue!" + +Llewellyn's dark face as he protested against Lying Bill's sarcastic +statement of guilt came before me. + +To lighten the thought of the princess I told her the thread of +"The Bottle Imp," and that the magic bottle had disappeared out of +the story right there, by the old calaboose. She was glad that the +white sailor who did not care for life had saved the Hawaiians. + +Framed in the door of a rough cabin I saw McHenry. He was in pajamas, +barefooted, and unshaven. I recalled that he had an "old woman" +there. Llewellyn had reproved him for speaking contemptuously of +her as beneath him socially. I waved to McHenry, who nodded charily, +and pulled down the curtain which was in lieu of a door. The shack +looked bare and cheap, as if little money or effort had been spent +upon it. Perhaps, I thought, McHenry could afford only the drinks and +cards at the Cercle Bougainville and economized at home. He did not +reappear, but a comely native woman drew back the curtain, and stood +a moment to view us. She was large, and did not look browbeaten, as +one would have supposed from McHenry's boast that he would not permit +her even to walk with him except at a "respectful distance." Of course +I knew him as a boaster. + +The church of the curious Josephite religion was near by, and in the +mission house attached to it I saw the American preachers of the sect. + +"What do they preach?" I asked Noanoa Tiare. + +"Those missionaries, the Tonito? Oh, they speak evil of the Mormons. I +do not know how they speak of God." She laughed. "I am not interested +in religions," she explained. "They are so difficult to understand. Our +own old gods seem easier to know about." + +We had arrived at the part of the beach into which the broad avenue +of Fautaua debouched. + +The road was beside the stream of Fautaua, and arching it were +magnificent dark-green trees, like the locust-trees of Malta. This +avenue was in the middle of the island, and looking through the +climbing bow of branches I saw Maiauo, the lofty needles of rock +which rise black-green from the mountain plateau and form a tiara, +Le Diademe, of the French. A quarter of an hour's stroll brought us +to a natural basin into which the stream fell. It was of it Louis +Marie Julien Viaud, shortly after he had been christened Loti, wrote: + +The pool had numerous visitors every day; beautiful young women of +Papeete spent the warm tropical days here, chatting, singing and +sleeping, or even diving and swimming like agile gold fish. They +went here clad in their muslin tunics, and wore them moist upon their +bodies while they slept, looking like the naiads of the past. + +We were already warm from walking, and I, in my pareu and light coat +of pongee silk, looked longingly at the water sparkling in the sun, +but the princess took me by the hand and led me on. + +"It were better to go directly up the valley and out of the heat," +she advised. "We shall have many pools to bathe in." + +It was at the next that I took from my pocket "Rarahu, ou le mariage +de Loti," a thin, poorly printed book in pink paper covers that I had +possessed since boyhood, and which I had read again on the ship coming +to Tahiti. The princess, like all reading Tahiti, knew it better than +I, for it was the first novel in French with its scenes in that island, +and for more than forty years had been talked about there. + +"Here at this pool," she said, with her finger on the page, "Loti +surprised Rarahu one afternoon when for a red ribbon she let an old +and hideous Chinese kiss her naked shoulder. Mon dieu! That French +naval officer made a bruit about a poor little Tahitian girl! We will +talk about her when we are at déjeuner." + +Déjeuner! My heart leaped. Whence would the luncheon come? Had this +child of Tahiti arranged beforehand that she should be met by a jinn +with sandwiches and cakes? I dared not ask. + +We pushed on, and passed many residences of natives. They were almost +all of European construction, board cottages, because the houses of +native sort are forbidden within the municipal limits. Beyond them we +saw no houses. The Tahitian families were cooking their breakfasts, +brought from the market, on little fires outside their houses. They +all smiled, and called to us to partake with them. + +"Ia ora na! Haere mai amu!" + +"Greeting! Come eat with us!" + +They looked happy in the sunshine, the smoke curling about them in +milky wreaths, the men naked except for pareus, and the children +quite as born. Fragrance of the Jasmine answered all with pleasant +badinage, and each must know whither we were bound. They thought it +not at all odd, apparently, that a princess of their race should be +going to the waterfalls with a foreigner, and they beamed on me to +assure me of their interest and understanding. + +The broad avenue lessened into a broken road, roofed by many kinds +of trees. Though the sun ascended from the ocean on the other side of +Tahiti above the fantastic peak of Maiauo, it had not shed a beam upon +the ferns and mosses. The guava was a dense growth. Like the lantana +of Hawaii and Ceylon, imported to Tahiti to fill a want, it had abused +hospitality, and become a nuisance without apparent remedy. How often +man works but in circles! Everywhere in the world plants and insects, +birds and animals, had been pointed out to me that had been acquired +for a beneficent purpose, and had become a curse. + +The mina-bird was brought to Tahiti from the Moluccas to eat wasps +which came from South America, and were called Jack Spaniards. The +mina, perhaps, ate the insects, but he also ate everything else, +including fruit. He stole bread and butter off tables, and his hoarse +croak or defiant rattle was an oft-repeated warning to defend one's +food. The minas were many in Tahiti, and, like the English sparrow +in American cities and towns, had driven almost all other birds to +flight or local extinction. The sparrow's urban doom might be read +in the increasing number of automobiles, but the mina in Tahiti, +as in Hawaii, had a sinecure. + +Noanoa Tiare said that the guava had its merits. Horses and cattle +ate its leaves and fruit, and the wood was a common fuel throughout +Tahiti. The fruit was delicious, and in America or England would be +all used for jelly, but only Lovaina preserved it. The passion-flowers +of the granadilla vines, white and star-like, with purpling centers, +were intermingled with the guavas, a brilliant and aromatic show, +the fruit like miniature golden pumpkins. Their acid, sweetish pulp +contained many seeds, each incased in white jelly. One ate the seeds +only, though the pulp, when cooked, was palatable. + +The road dwindled into a narrower path, and then a mere trail. The +road had crossed the brook many times on frail bridges, some tottering +and others only remnants. Habitations ceased, and we were in a dark, +splendid gorge, narrow, and affording one no vision straight ahead +except at intervals. + +The princess named many of the growths we passed, and explained their +qualities. The native is very close to the ground. The lantana, with +its yellow and magenta flowerets, umbrella ferns, and aihere, the herbe +de vache, and the bohenia, used by the Tahitians for an eye lotion, +were all about. Palms, with cocoanuts of a half dozen stages of growth, +and giant banana-plants lined the banks, and bushes with blue flowers +like violets, and one with red buttons, intermingled with limes and +oranges to form a thicket through which we could hardly force our way. + +We were yet on the level of the rivulet, but now, the princess said, +must take to the cliff. We had come to a pool which in symmetry and +depth, in coolness and invitingness, outranked all before. I was very +hot, the beads of perspiration like those in a steamroom. + +"We will rest here a few minutes, and you may bathe," said my lovely +guide. "I have not been to Fautaua vaimato for several years, but I +never forget the way. I will make a basket, and here we will gather +some fruit for our déjeuner for fear there might not be plenty at +the waterfalls." + +I took off my tennis-shoes, hung my silk coat on a limb, and plunged +into the pool. Never but in the tropics does the human being fully +enjoy the dash into cool water. There it is a tingling pleasure. I +dived time and again, and then sat in the small glitter of sunlight +to dry and to watch Noanoa Tiare make the basket. She said she had +a wide choice there, as the leaves of the banana, cocoanut, bamboo, +pandanus, or aihere would serve. She had selected the aihere, the +common weed, and out of its leaves she deftly fashioned a basket a +foot long and wide and deep. + +Although she had been in Paris and London and in New York, knew how +to play Beethoven and Grieg and Saint-Saëns, had had gowns made by +Paquin, and her portrait in the salon, she was at home in this glade +as a Tahitian girl a hundred years ago. The airs of the avenue de +l'Opéra in Paris, and, too, of the rue de Rivoli in Papeete, were +rarefied in this simple spot to the impulses and experiences of her +childhood in the groves and on the beaches of her beloved island. + +When I had on my coat, we gathered limes, bananas, oranges, and a wild +pineapple that grew near by in a tangle of coffee and vanilla, and +the graceful acalypha. The yellow tecoma, a choice exotic in America, +shed its seeds upon the sow thistle, a salad, and the ape or wild +taro. The great leaves of the ape are like our elephant's ear plant, +and the roots, as big as war-clubs, are tubers that take the place +of potatoes here. In Hawaii, crushed and fermented, and called poi, +they were ever the main food. The juice of the leaf stings one's skin. + +The princess removed her shoes and stockings, and I carried them over +my shoulder. We deflected from the rivulet to the cliff above it, +and there forced our way along the mountain-side, feeling almost by +instinct the trail hidden by the mass of creepers and plants. + +It was a real jungle. Man had once dwelt there when his numbers in +this island were many times greater. Then every foot of ground from +the precipices to the sea was cleared for the breadfruit, the taro, +the cocoanut, and other life-giving growths, which sowed themselves +and asked no cultivation. Now, except for the faint trail, I was on +primeval ground, from all appearances. + +The cañon grew narrower and darker. The undefined path lay inches +deep in water, and the levels were shallow swamp. Nature was in vast +luxuriance, in a revel of aloofness from human beings, casting its +wealth of blazing colors and surprising shapes upon every side. We slid +down the edge of the hill to the burn, where the massive boulders and +shattered rocks were camouflaged by the painting of moss and lichen, +the ginger, turmeric, caladium, and dracaena, and by the overhanging +palms covered with the rich bird's-nest ferns. + +We sat again in this wild garden of the tropic to invite our souls +to drink the beauty and quietude, the absence of mankind and the +nearness of nature. We became very still, and soon heard the sounds +of bird and insect above the lower notes of the brawling stream. + +The princess put her finger on her lips and whispered in my ear: + +"Do you hear the warbling of the omamao and the olatare? They are +our song-birds. They are in these high valleys only, for the mina has +frightened them from below--the mina that came with the ugly Chinese." + +"Noanoa Tiare," said I, "you Tahitians are the birds of paradise +of the human family. You have been driven from the rich valleys of +your old life to hills of bare existence by the minas of commerce +and politics. I feel like apologizing for my civilization." + +She pressed my hand. + +"Taisez-vous!" she replied, smiling. "Aita peapea. I am always +happy. Remember I still live in Tahiti, and this is my time. My +foremothers' day is past. Allons! We will be soon at the vaimato, +and there we will have the déjeuner." + +As we moved on I saw that the yellow flowers of the purau, dried +red by the sun,--poultices for natives' bruises,--and candlenuts in +heaps,--torches ready to hand,--littered the moss. + +The mountain loomed in the distance, and the immense Pic du Français +towered in shadow. Faintly I heard the boom of the waterfall, and +knew we were nearing the goal. + +The cañon grew yet narrower and darker, and the crash of water +louder. We had again attained a considerable height over the stream, +and the trail seemed lost. The princess took my hand, and cautiously +feeling the creepers and plants under our feet, we slipped and crept +down the hidden path. Suddenly, the light became brilliant, and I +found myself in a huge broken bowl of lava rock, the walls almost +vertical. From the summit of the precipice facing me fell a superb +cascade into a deep and troubled tarn. The stream was spun silver in +the sun, which now was warm and splendid. So far it fell that much of +it never reached the pool as water, but, blown by the gentle breeze, +a moiety in spume and spray wet the earth for an acre about. Like +the veil of a bride, the spindrift spread in argent clouds, and a +hundred yards away dropped like gentle rain upon us. Verdure covered +everything below except where the river ran from the tarn and hurried +to the lesser things of the town. The giant walls, as black as the +interior of an old furnace, were festooned with magnificent tree +ferns, the exquisite maidenhair, lianas, and golden-green mosses, +all sparkling in the sun with the million drops of the vaimato. + +We withdrew a few paces from the vapor, and found a place on the edge +of the brook to have our fruit and, perhaps, a siesta. A carpet of +moss and green leaves made a couch of Petronian ease, and we threw +ourselves upon it with the weariness of six miles afoot uphill in +the tropics. It was not hot like the summer heat of New York, for +Tahiti has the most admirable climate I have found the world over, +but at midday I had felt the warmth penetratingly. Noanoa Tiare made +nothing of it, but suggested that we both leap into the tarn. + +I knew a moment of squeamishness, echo of the immorality of my +catechism and my race conventions. I felt almost aghast at finding +myself alone with that magnificent creature in such a paradisiacal +spot. I wondered what thoughts might come to me. I had danced with her, +I had talked with her under the stars, but what might she expect me +not to do? And what was an Occidental, a city man, before her? She +retired behind a bird's-nest fern, on the long, lanceolate leaves +of which were the shells of the mountain snail. At her feet was the +bastard canna, the pungent root of which makes Chinese curry. + +When she emerged, she was an amazing and enchanting personage. She had +removed her gown, and wore a pareu of muslin, with huge scarlet leaves +upon white. She was tall and voluptuously formed, but she had made +the loin-cloth, two yards long and a yard wide, cover her in a manner +that was modest, though revealing. It was the art of her ancestors, +for this was the shape of their common garment of tapa, a native +cloth. With a knot or two she arranged the pareu so that it was like +a chemise, coming to a foot above her knees and covering her bosom. + +Her black, glossy hair was loose and hung below her waist, and upon +it she had placed a wreath she had quickly made of small ferns. That +was their general custom, to adorn themselves when happy and at the +bath. The eyes of Fragrance of the Jasmine were very large, deep brown, +her skin a coppery-cinnamon, with a touch of red in the cheeks, and +her nose and mouth were large and well formed. Her teeth were as the +meat of the cocoanut, brilliant and strong. Her limbs were rounded, +soft, the flesh glowing with health and power. She was of that line +of Tahitian women who sent back the first European navigators, the +English, to rave about an island of Junos, the French to call Tahiti +La Nouvelle Cythère, the new isle of Venus. + +I had but to tie up my own pareu of red calico with white leaves in +the manner Lovaina had shown me to have an imitation of our usual +swimming-trunks. + +"Allons!" cried the princess, and running toward the waterfall, she +climbed up the cliff to a height of a dozen feet, and threw herself, +wreathed as she was, with a loud "Aue!" into the pool. + +I followed her, and she dived and swam, brought up bottom, treaded +water, and led me in a dozen exercises and tricks of the expert +swimmer. The water was very cool, and ten minutes in it, with our +sharpening hunger, were enough delight. Fragrance of the Jasmine, as +she came dripping from water and lingered a few moments on the brink, +was a rapturous object. With unconscious grace she flung back her +head many times to shake the moisture from her thick hair, and ran +her fingers through it until the strands were fairly separated. The +pareu disclosed the rounded contour of her figure as if it were +painted upon her. She was one of those ancient Greek statues, those +semi-nudes on which the artists painted in vivid tints the blush of +youth, the hue of hair, and a shadow of a garment. She entranced me, +and I called out to her, "Nehenehe!" "Beautiful!" + +She ran to her boudoir behind the bird's-nest fern, and soon returned +in her tunic, still barefoot, and with her pareu in her hand for +drying on a rock. She brought two wreaths now and put one upon me. We +resumed our couches upon the green sward, and the princess laid the +basket of fruit between us. + +"Maintenant pour le déjeuner!" she said. + +We ate the bananas first, and then the pineapple, which we cut with a +sliver of basalt,--we were in the stone age, as her tribe was when the +whites came,--and last the oranges. She made cups of leaves and filled +them with water, and into them we squeezed the limes for a toast. + +"Inu i te ota no te!" she said and lifted her cup. "A health to +you! He who eats the fei passes under a spell; he must return again +to the islands. Have you eaten the fei?" + +"Not yet, Princess," I replied. + +"There they are in abundance on the hillside," she said. "Look! If we +had fire, I would roast one for you, but to-morrow will be another +day." + +The fei, the mountain banana, the staple of the Tahitian, was there +aplenty. The plant or stalk was that of the banana, but very dark at +the base, and the leaves thicker. The fruit was two or three times +as large, and red, and a striking difference was that it was placed +on the bunches erect, while bananas hang down from the stem. + +I drank to her increasing charm, and I told her how much the beauty +and natural grace of the Tahitians appealed to me; how I intended to +leave Papeete and go to the end of the island to be among the natives +only; that I had remained thus long in the city to learn first the +ways of the white in the tropics, and then to gain the contrast by +seeking the Tahitian as nearly as possible in his original habitat. + +Noanoa Tiare took the orange-peel and rubbed it upon her hair. + +"Noanoa!" she said. "Mon ami américain, I will give you a note to +Aruoehau a Moeroa, the tava, or chief of Mataiea district, and you +can stay with him. You will know him as Tetuanui. He will gladly +receive you, and he is wise in our history and our old customs. Do +not expect too much! We ate in the old day the simple things at hand, +fish and breadfruit, feis and cocoanut milk, mangoes and bananas and +oranges. Now we eat the dirty and prepared food of the Tinito, the +Chinaman, and we depend on coffee and rum and beer for strength. The +thin wheat bread has no nourishment compared with the breadfruit +and the fei, the yam and the taro. And clothes! The fools taught us +that the pareu, which left the body exposed to the air, clean and +refreshed by the sun and the winds, was immodest. We exchanged it for +undershirts and trousers and dresses and shoes and stockings and coats, +and got disease and death and degeneration. + +"You are late, my friend," the princess went on, with a note of pity +in her soft voice. "My mother remembered the days Loti depicted in +'Rarahu.' My grandmother knew little Tarahu of Bora-Bora of whom he +wrote. Viaud was then a midshipman. We did not call him Loti, but Roti, +our coined word for a rose, because he had rosy cheeks. But he could +not call himself Roti in his novel, for in French, his language, that +meant roasted, and one might think of boeuf à la rôti. We have no L +in Tahitian. We also called him Mata Reva or the Deep-Eyed One. Tarahu +was not born on Bora-Bora, but right here in Mataiea." + +She lay at full length, her uptilted face in her hands, and her +perfect feet raised now and then in unaware accentuation of her words. + +"What Tahitian women there were then! Read the old French writers! None +was a pigmy. When they stood under the waterfall the water ran off +their skins as off a marble table. Not a drop stayed on. They were +as smooth as glass." + +Fragrance of the Jasmine sighed. + +"Aue! Hélas!" + +I had it in my mouth to say that she was as beautiful and as +smooth-skinned as any of her forebears. She was as enticing as +imaginable, her languorous eyes alight as she spoke, and her bare +limbs moving in the vigor of her thoughts. But I could not think of +anything in French or English not banal, and my Tahitian was yet too +limited to permit me to tutoyer her. She was an islander, but she +had seen the Midnight Follies and the Bal Bullier, the carnival in +Nice, and once, New Year's Eve in San Francisco. An Italian and a +Scandinavian prince had wooed her. + +I spoke of Loti again, and of other writers' comments upon the attitude +of women in Tahiti toward man. + +The princess sat up and adjusted her hei of ferns. She studied a +minute, and then she said: + +"I have long wanted to talk with an intelligent American on that +subject; with some one who knew Europe and his own country and these +islands. There is a vast hypocrisy in the writing and the talking about +it. Now, Maru (I already had been given my native name), the woman +of Tahiti exercises the same sexual freedom as the average white man +does in your country and in England or France. She pursues the man she +wants, as he does the woman. Your women pursue, too, but they do it +by cunning, by little lies, by coquetry, by displaying their persons, +by flattery, and by feeding you. + +"The Tahitian woman makes the first advances in friendship openly, +if she chooses. She arranges time and place for amours as your women +do. She does not take from the Tahitian man or from the foreigner his +right to choose, but she chooses herself, too. I feel sure that often +an American woman would give hours of pain to know well a certain +man, but makes no honest effort to draw him toward her. They have +told me so!" + +I got up, and standing beside her, I quoted: + +"Ships that pass in the night and speak each other in passing; +Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness; +So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another, +Only a look and a voice; then darkness again and silence." + +"Mais, c'est vrai!" she said, musingly. "The Tahitian woman will not +endure that. She is on a par with the man in seeking. Without fear +and without shame, and, attendez, Maru, without any more monogamy +than you men. I have told some of those suffrage ladies of London +and of Washington that we are in advance of their most determined +feminism. They will come to it. More women than men in Europe will +bring it there." + +Her long, black lashes touched her cheeks. + +"We are a little sleepy, n'est-ce pas?" she asked. "B'en, we will +have a taoto." + +She made herself a pillow of leaves with her pareu, and arranging her +hair in two braids, she stretched herself out, with her face toward +the sky, and a cool banana-leaf laid over it. I copied her action, +and lulled by the falling water, the rippling of the pool, and the +drowsy rustling of the trees, I fell fast asleep, and dreamed of Eve +and the lotus-eaters. + +When I awoke, the princess was refreshing her face and hands in +the water. + +"A hio! Look!" she said eagerly. "O tane and O vahine!" + +In the mist above the pool at the foot of the cascade a double rainbow +gleamed brilliantly. O tane is the man, which the Tahitians call the +real arch, and O vahine, the woman, the reflected bow. They appeared +and disappeared with the movement of the tiny, fleecy clouds about +the sun. The air, as dewy as early morn in the braes o' Maxwelton, +was deliciously cool. + +"If you have courage and strength left," the princess said excitedly, +"we will go to the fort of Fautaua, and I will show you where the +last of my people perished fighting to drive out the French invader, +and where the French officials fled with the treasure-box when they +feared war with England not very long ago." + +She pointed up to the brim of the precipice, where the river launched +itself into the air, to drop six hundred feet before it fed the stream +below. Sheer and menacing the black walls of the crevasse loomed, as if +forbidding approach, but through a network of vines and bushes, over +a path seldom used, we climbed, and after half a mile more of steeps, +reached the fort. Rugged was the way, and we aided each other more +than once, but rejoiced at our effort when we surmounted the summit. + +The view was indescribably grand. One felt upon the roof of the +island, though the farther heights of the valley culminated in a +gigantic crag-wall, a saddle only a yard across, and wooded to the +apex, and above that even towered Orohena, nearly a mile and a half +high, and never reached by man despite many efforts. Tropic birds, +the bo's'ns of the sailor, their bodies whitish gray, with their +two long tail-feathers, had their haunt there, and piped above the +trees. The river was a fierce torrent, and leaped into a water-hewn +lava basin, where it swirled and foamed before it rushed, singing, +through a stone funnel to the border of the chasm, and sprang with +a dull roar into the ether. + +There was a chorus of sounds from the cataract, the river, the wind, +the trees, and the birds, a mighty music of elements of the earth +and of life, rising and falling rhythmically, and inspiring, but +nerve-racking. Fragrance of the Jasmine seized my hand and held it. + +"Let us go to a more peaceful spot, where I can tell you the story," +she said in my ear. We passed the rough fort, broken-down and mossy, +and moving carefully along the trail, clambering over rocks and +tearing away twigs and broad leaves, we reached a dismantled and +crumbling chalet. + +We sat down upon its steps, and I removed my coat and was naked to +my pareu in the afternoon zephyr. + +"That fort," said the princess, "was built by the French in the +forties, when they were stealing my country. From it they could +command the gorge of Fautaua and that and other valleys. This place +was the last stronghold of the Tahitian warriors before the enemy +overcame them, and erected the ramparts and the fort. The last man to +die fell by the river basin. The band of heroes would have held out +longer, but were betrayed by a Tahitian. He led the French troops by +night and by secret paths to a hill overlooking them, so that they +were shot down from above. The traitor lived to wear the red ribbon +of the Legion of Honor and to spend pleasantly the gold the French +Government gave him. C'est la vie." + +We cast our eyes over the scene. There was a forest of wild ginger, +ferns, and dracasna all about. Thousands of roses perfumed the air, +and other flowers and strawberries, and feis, green or ripe-red, +wondrous clusters of fruit, awaited man's culling. The stream purled +about worn rocks, and we came to two gloomy pools, black from the +reflection of their bowls, the water bubbling and surging from springs +beneath. It was deliciously cold, and we drank it from leaf cups. + +"How about the time the French came here with the treasure?" I +inquired. "Have we time for that history?" + +"Mais, oui!" said Noanoa Tiare. "That is too good for you not to +know. You know that the French are excitable, n'est-ce pas? B'en, +a French officer, Major Marchand, put up the tricolor in some place +called Fashoda in Africa, and the English objected. There was some +parleying between the two nations, and the information arrived in +Tahiti that England was going to make war on France. The French papers +or the American papers said so, and every one was alarmed. + +"'The treacherous Anglais might strike at any moment,' said the +French, and they were afraid. Then one night some one rode in from near +Point Venus and reported to the Governor that two British frigates had +been sighted. Mon dieu! what to do? There was only a French transport +at Papeete, worth nothing for defense. They tore the trimmings from +that vessel and prepared to scuttle her. The guns were rushed to +Faere Hill for a last, desperate stand against odds. They could die +like Frenchmen! All lights were ordered extinguished, and even the +beacon of Point Venus was dark. The enlisted natives were sent to +watch on every headland, a cabinet meeting was held,--the apothecary, +and the governor, and the secretaries, and the doctor,--and it was +determined to save the money of the city and the archives of the +Government. The valuables and the papers were put in strong boxes +and the governor and all of them made a mad race for this fort." + +The princess covered her mouth with her hand to still her laughter. + +"Was it not funny? They arrived here at daybreak, and buried +the boxes. They were still at it when an officer of marines came +hurrying to notify them that the frigates were French schooners +from the Paumotus. The whole population had hidden itself away in +the meantime. Well, they had many jokes about it and many songs, +but the governor built this house on the steps of which we sit as a +permanent depository for archives in case of war, and here he used +to come for picnics until a few years ago. There was a post-office, +with a guard of sailors, here. They planted the garden, the flowers, +and strawberries that now run wild. You know our chiefs were always +being secretly warned that England, which owns most of the islands +in these seas, wanted to seize our island." + +Over the Diadem the dark shadows were lengthening. The daring pinnacles +of Maiauo were thrust up like the mangled fingers of a black hand +against the blue sky. + +Noanoa Tiare pointed to them. + +"The ahiahi comes. Night is not far off," she said warningly. "If we +lingered here much longer, we might have to stay all the night." + +"How memorable to me would be a sunrise from here," I replied. "I +would never forget it." + +She looked at me archly over her shoulder. + +"I would like it myself. It would be magnificent, and I have never +spent the night just here." + +She considered a moment, and my mind took up the matter of +arrangements. We could cook feis, and there was plenty of other fruit, +with shelter in the house, if we needed that. We could start down early +and be at Lovaina's for the first déjeuner. Zeus! to pass the night in +such a solitude! To hear in the pitch darkness the mysterious voices +of po, the tenebræ of the Tahitian gods; the boom of the cascade in +the abyss; the deep bass of the river in the rocky chute; the sigh of +the wind in the trees; the murmur of the stream near by; the fantasia +and dirge of the lofty night in the tropics. What a setting for her +telling some old legend or fairy-tale of Tahiti! + +Fragrance of the Jasmine ended my reverie. She slapped her thigh. + +"I dine and dance to-night at eight o'clock," she said. "A rohi! We +must go! Besides, Maru, it would be too cold without blankets. The +mercury here goes to sixty of your thermometer." + +We descended by the route we had come, picking up her shoes and +stockings and our hats by our couch, and with the princess leading, +hurrying along the obscuring trail. We passed a Tahitian youth who +had been gathering feis, probably near the tarn, and who was bringing +them to the market of the next morning. He was burdened with more than +a hundred pounds of fruit, which he carried balanced on a pole over +his shoulder, and with this he was to go seven or eight miles from +their place of growth. He was a pillar of strength, handsome, glowing +with effort, clad in a gorgeous pareu of red, and as we went by him, +he smiled and said, "Ia ora na! I hea! Vaimato?" Greeting! Where have +you been? The waterfall?" + +"E, hitahita. Yes, we are hurrying back," the princess called +vivaciously. + +"Those are our real men, not the Papeete dolts," she said. "If we +had time, we would catch shrimp in the river. I love to do that." + +When we came to where the habitations began and the road became +passable for vehicles, Noanoa Tiare sat down on a stone. She put on her +pale-blue silk stockings and her shoes, and asked me for the package +she had given me at starting. She unfolded it, and it was an aahu, +a gown, for which she exchanged, behind a banana-plant, her soiled +and drenched tunic. The new one was of the finest silk, diaphanous, +and thus to be worn only at night. The sun was down, and the lagoon +a purple lake when we were again at the bust of Bougainville. + +I thanked her at parting. + +"Noanoa Tiare," I said, "this day has a heavenly blue page in my +record. It has made Tahiti a different island for me." + +"Maru, mon ami, you are sympathetic to my race. We shall be dear +friends. I will send you the note to Tetuanui, the chief of Mataiea, +to-morrow. Au revoir and happy dreams." + + + +Chapter XIII + +The beach-combers of Papeete--The consuls tell their troubles--A bogus +lord--The American boot-blacks--The cowboy in the hospital--Ormsby, +the supercargo--The death of Tahia--The Christchurch Kid--The Nature +men--Ivan Stroganoff's desire for a new gland. + +I played badminton some afternoons at the British consulate. The old +wooden bungalow, with broad verandas, stood in a small garden a dozen +yards from the lagoon, where the Broom Road narrowed as it left the +business portion of Papeete and began its round of the island. There +was just room enough on the salt grass for the shuttlecock to fall +out of bounds, and for the battledores to swing free of the branches +of the trees. The consul, though he wore a monocle, was without the +pretense of officialdom except to other officials and, of course, +at receptions, dinners, and formal gatherings. After the games, with +tea on the veranda, I heard many stories of island life, of official +amenities, and the compound of nationalities in our little world. + +Half a dozen intimates of the consul dropped in about four, Willi, the +rich dentist and acting American consul; Stevens, the London broker; +Hobson, who closed an eye for the Moorean, McTavish; and others. All +were British except me, but our home tongue and customs drew us closer +together than to Frenchmen, and we could speak with some freedom on +local affairs. If no woman was present other than the cosmopolitan +wife of the consul, born in Persia, we were quite at ease. + +Both consuls were usually worried because of the refusals of crews of +vessels flying their flags to leave Tahiti, complaints of the police +of the misconduct of their nationals, or appeals for assistance from +impecunious or spendthrift tourists. It was an every-week happening +for sailors of American vessels and of the New Zealand steamships to +flee to the distant districts or to Moorea, to live in a breadfruit +grove with dryads who asked no vows, or to escape the grind of work +and discipline at sea. + +They must be pursued by the French gendarmes, under the warrant +of their own flag, caught, and sent in irons aboard their ships, +with fees paid by their furious captains. Many times the chase was +futile, so well did the dryads secrete them, and the natives of the +district abet the offense. To a Tahitian an amorous adventure, either +as principal or aid, is half of life, and he would risk his liberty +and property to thwart, in his opinion, hard and stupid officials +who wanted to separate loving hearts. + +We talked about the kinds of men, other than these sailors, who made +Tahiti their playground, to the annoyance of their consuls. Crime among +the Tahitians was almost unknown. A petty theft rarely happened. They +were never paupers, for their own people cared for them, and unless +absolutely mat-ridden, they could find food on the trees about +them. The whites--and not the French whites either--caused the trouble, +and but for them M. Lontane might have left off his revolver and club. + +"There is a type of Britisher," said the consul, "who thinks Tahiti is +his oyster, to be opened with false pretenses, and a pearl found. This +type has two varieties, impecunious, but well-educated, youths, +younger sons, maybe; and valets and varlets. These scoundrels afflict +me dreadfully, because they all ultimately claim the protection of the +British flag or are reported by the police for skullduggery. There +is a fellow now on my hands who is threatenin' suicide. I wish +to Gog and Magog that he would take to the reef or find a stick +of dynamite. Monsieur Lontane, that busy French gendarme, found +him tryin' to borrow a revolver or a stiletto, and thought he was +going to kill a Frenchman. He put him in the calaboose and brought +his effects to me. They consisted of a book of poems and a letter, +but not a ha'penny." + +"What does the bounder look like?" asked Stevens. + +"He looks like a beadle in a dissentin' church, with a long, skinny +neck, a pasty face, and a cockney accent. I went to see him, and he +talked like an underdone curate who had had a bad night. When he got +off the ship, where he owed everybody, includin' the smokin'-room, +he came to see me with some crazy papers for me to sign. He said then +he had not a shillin', and I advised him to go to work. He said there +wasn't any work; so knowin' Llewellyn was badly in need of people, +I sent him to his vanilla plantation out Mataiea way. You know here +they haven't the bees or whatever it is that transfers the pollen +from the stigma to the anther or what-d 'ye-call-it, and so they do +it by hand with a piece of bamboo or a stem of grass. The girls do it +mostly, but I thought this jackpuddin' could make an honest pound or +two. He came tearin' back to me sayin' I'd insulted him with the work, +askin' him, a nobleman, to pander in the vegetable kingdom." + +"I know him. He was at Lovaina's," I interposed. "He was at the bar all +the time, quoting Pope and Dryden and himself. He said he was going +around the globe on a wager of a fortune. He was a poisonous bore, +and always popped up for a drink. By the way, he wears a monocle." + +"You've named him," went on the consul. "That's more of the cockney's +pretense. Here's the poem he wrote in the calaboose. He did it on his +shirt-front because the economical French gave him no paper. Lontane +thought it might be his will or a plot, and brought the shirt here, +and I copied the accursed thing for my record, as I am compelled to +by the rules of the august devils of Downing Street." + + + THE HOME-LAND CALL + + Why wilt thou torture me with unripe call, + Bringing these visions of the dear old land? + Dost think 't is sweet to let thy mock'ry fall? + For me to hear forgotten noises in the Strand? + Insidious voice that will not grant my plea, + The mem'ry of thy pleasures dost remain: + Oxonian-Cantabs club; blue-lit Gaiety!' + + +"What he needs is a permanent permit to patronize the opium den +the Government runs here for the Chinese," said Hobson. "He's off +his dope." + +"Just a minute," continued the consul. "He claims to be a lord and +a millionaire. Here's the letter. He needs no opium to have nightmares:" + + +Tuesday. + +Of course, I will be called coward now, but the same people who +call me this are those who have caused me to seek death, for they +branded me liar and wastrel, simply on an untrue report appearing +in an American newspaper. Chief among these people are that most +despicable cad Hallman, and secondly, the British Consul. Even had +I been guilty of all that has been said, why were they not manly and +generous enough to give or find me congenial employment? They are not +blind and could see how anxious and willing I was to obtain this. No, +they only gloated over my starving and pitiable condition. Well, they +spring from the proletariat class and not much else could be expected. + +God only knows how much I want to live and how I dread having to take +my own life, but only for the sake of my people. If I could only see +them again it would be easier. How did I ever fall so low! God help +me! Is there nothing else for me but this ignominious death? But +I must save my people from knowing. I am not using my correct name +here, so it will be useless for any one to make inquiries. A volume +of poems will be found in my pocket. I wonder if the Bishop would +kindly post these to Miss B. Wilmer, Broken Hill, West Australia, +but only telling her I died here, without particulars, and saying I +have written these since leaving home. Oh, why did I ever leave there, +where love and all that is good and pure was lavished on me? + +If it is possible, could I be buried in the sea? Just placed in a +coffin and dropped into the peaceful ocean, peace that I have not +known for four years. Please have this done for me. + +I do not think I am committing suicide, rather I am being murdered by +men who have none of the nobler feelings, ungenerous, unsympathetic +and cruelly unkind. The fact of my death will not affect one of those +who ruined my reputation here, who deprived me of obtaining food, +and a room to sleep in. They have no more conscience so cannot feel +remorse. I will not sign my true name but only part of it. + +Gordon Innes. + + +"He's off his onion," Stevens commented. "The bally fool needs hard +labor and raw feis." + +The consul grinned. + +"Wait till you hear me read the document with the suicide note. It's +as good as Marie Corelli." + +"All right, old thing," answered Stevens. "Fire the whole broadside!" + +"No, no; I'm goin' to spare you the whole official document. It +pretends to be a formal instruction to this beef-headed flunky, +from his guardian, of a test to prove his mettle and gain experience +to fit him for the highest posts of the diplomatic service by going +round the bally world and doin' other people in for their tin. It +is a yard long, and was undoubtedly written by the same dish-washer +who wrote that doggerel on his shirt. It promises him half a million +sterling when he comes back to London after visiting Australasia, +China, India, and other countries, and pickin' up his tucker free as +he goes. Also, the shark is permitted to send back for coin at this +date, and he must get married to a Tahitian. He probably fixes it +different in every country. It's signed, 'Your affectionate guardian, +James Kitson, Baron Airedale of Gledhow.'" + +"Whew!" spluttered Hobson, "the blighter has no limits. Do you mean +to tell me he gets away with that folderol?" + +"For months he has lived at Lovaina's, Fanny's, and even on the +Chinese. He has borrowed thousands of francs, and spent it for drink +and often for champagne. He did old Lovaina up for money as well as +board. She believes in him yet, and calls him Lord Innes or Sir Gordon, +but says she has no more to risk. He promised to build her a big hotel +where the Annexe is. He's got many of the Tahitian girls and their +mothers mad over his style and his prospects. Finally, he was warned +by me to leave the island, and the result was his tryin' to borrow the +lethal weapon, the poem and the letter. The Baron Airedale document he +showed me when he first landed, to try to get my indorsement. There's +no Burke in the South Seas, and there probably is no such bloomin' +baron. Sounds more like a dog." The consul chuckled. + +"Those lairds are as plentiful as brands of Scotch whisky made in +England," Stevens said derisively. "What will you do to uphold the +honor of the British crown? Is the Scotch bastard to go on with his +fairy-tale and do brown the colonials?" + +"I am going to have the diplomat repair the roads of Tahiti for two +months, and then ship him third-class to New Zealand, where he has to +go to carry out his blasted fate," the consul declared, and ordered +all glasses filled. + +We discussed the sudden and abnormal appearance of boot-blacks. One +had set up an ornate stand on the rue de Rivoli. He was an American, +Tom Wilkins, and the first ever known to practise his profession in +the South Seas. He had come like a non-periodic comet, and suddenly +flashed his brass-tagged platform and arm-chair upon the gaping +natives. Most of them being barefooted, one would have thought his +customers not many; but the novelty of a white man doing anything +for them was irresistible to all who had shoes. He did not lower +himself in their estimation. It is noteworthy that the Tahitian does +not distinguish between what we call menial labor and other work. Nor +did we until recently. The kings and nobles of Europe were actually +served by the lords of the bedchamber and the maids in waiting. The +American boot-black was really a boot-white, as all wore white canvas +shoes except preachers and sailors. + +The boot-white called out, "Shine!" and the word, unpronounceable +by the native, entered a himene as tina. Within a week he had his +Tahitian consort doing the shining most of the time while he loafed in +the Paris saloon. He lived at the Annexe, and told me that he was not +really a boot-cleaner, but was going around the world on a wager of +twenty thousand dollars, "without a cent." He, too, had a credulous +circle, who paid him often five francs for a shine to help him win +his bet by arriving at the New York City Hall on a fixed date with +a certain sum of money earned by his hands. He raised the American +flag over his stand, and referred to Uncle Sam as if he were a blood +relation to whom he could appeal for anything at any time. + +All the foregoing was brought out in our conversation at the British +consul's. Willi, temporarily conducting American affairs in French +Oceanie, gave a denouement. + +"The shine isn't a bad fellow," he said, "but he's serious about +the twenty thousand dollars. His statement was doubted to-day by an +English sailor, who called him 'a blarsted Hamerican liar,' and the +shine took off his own rubber leg, and knocked the sailor down. He +could move faster on his one leg than the other on two, and Monsieur +Lontane had to summon two assistants to take him to the calaboose. He +wouldn't resume his rubber leg. I saw him being led and pulled by my +office, calling out, 'Tell the 'Merican consul a good American is in +the grip of the frogs.'" + +Within a month of the rubber-legged shiner's début, there were two +other boot-blacks on the streets. A madness possessed the people, +Tahitians and French, who all their lives had cleaned their own shoes, +to sit on the throne-like chairs, and women and girls waited their +turns. John Conroy and a negro from Mississippi were the additions to +the profession, and during the incarceration of the premier artist, +his sweetheart, a former hula danseuse, remained faithful to his +brushes. When a shoeless man or woman regarded the new-fangled +importations interestedly, the proprietors offered to beautify their +naked feet, and, ridiculous as it may seem, attempted it. + +Although I heard odd tales at the consulate, it was at the parc de +Bougainville that I met the gentleman of the beach intimately. + +There I often sat and talked with whomever loafed. Natives frequented +the parc hardly ever, but beach-combers, tourists, and sailors, or +casual residents in from the districts, awaited there the opening of +the stores or the post-office, or idled. The little park, or wooded +strip of green, named after the admiral, and containing his monument, +skirted the quay, and was between the establishment of Emile Levy, +the pearl-trader, and the artificial pool of fresh water where the +native women and sailors off the ships washed their clothes. From +one's bench one had a view of all the harbor and of the passers-by +on the Broom Road. + +In the morning the pool was thronged with the laundresses, and one +heard their paddles chunking as they beat the clothes. The French +warship, the Zélée, was moored close by, and often the linen of +its crew hung upon lines in the parc, and the French sailors came +and went upon their duties, or sat on the coral wall and smoked and +sang chansons. In the afternoon horses were brought down to bathe, +and guests of the Annexe swam in the lagoon. People afoot, driving +carts or carriages, on bicycles and in automobiles, went by on the +thoroughfare about the island, the Frenchmen always talking as if +excited over cosmic affairs, and the natives laughing or calling to +one another. + +If there happened to be a shoal of fish near the quays, I was sure +to see Joseph, to whom the wise Dr. Funk had confided his precious +concoction. He would desert the Cercle Bougainville, but still within +hail of a stentorious skipper whose coppers were dry, and with a +dozen other native men and women, boys and girls, lure the fish with +hooks baited with bits of salted shrimp. Joseph was as skilful with +his rod as with a shaker, and he would catch twenty ature, four or +five inches long, in half an hour. + +The water, about fifteen feet deep near the made embankment, was +alive with the tiny fish, squirming in a mass as they were pursued +by larger fish. The son of Prince Hinoe, a round-shouldered lout, +very tall, awkward, and merry, held a bamboo pole. His white suit was +soiled and ragged, and he whistled "All Coons Look alike to Me!" The +peanut-vender had brought a rod, and was fishing with difficulty +and mostly by feel. He could keep one eye open only, as one hand was +occupied, but he pulled in many ature. + +The parc was the occasional assembling-place for the drifting whites +made thoughtful by trolling the jolly, brown bowl, and by those to +whom lack of francs denied the trolling. It was there I first met +Ivan Stroganoff, the aged Russian philosopher, and it was from there +I took Wilfrid Baillon to the hospital. Baillon was a very handsome +cow-boy from British Columbia, and was housed in Papeete with a +giant Scandinavian who owned a cattle ranch in South America. He +was generally called the Great Dane, and was the person meant in the +charge for three cocktails at Lovaina's: "Germani to Fany, 3 feathers." + +The cow-boy became ill. I prescribed castor-oil, and Mme. Fanny, +half a tumbler of Martinique rum, with the juice of a lime in it. She +was famous for this remedy for all internal troubles, and I took one +with the cowboy as a prophylactic, as I might have been exposed to +the same germs. He did not improve, though he followed Fanny's regimen +exactly. He was sitting dejectedly in the parc, looking pale and thin, +when I broached the subject. + +"As the Fanny physic fails to straighten you out," I said to him, +"why not try the hospital?" + +He recoiled. + +"Have you ever lamped it?" he asked. "It looks like a calaboose." + +"It ain't so bad," said Kelly, the I.W.W., who was proselyting as +usual among the flotsam and jetsam of the waterfront. "I 've been in +worse joints in the United States." + +The cow-boy yielding, I escorted him to the institution, carrying +his bag, as what with his disease and his antidote he was weak. The +hospital was a block away from the lagoon. It was surrounded by a +high stone wall, and as it was built by the military, it was ugly and +had the ridiculous effrontery of the army and all its lack of common +sense. The iron gate was shut, and a sign said, "Sonnez s'il vous +plait!" A toothless French portière of thirty years let us in. All the +doctors of Tahiti had left the island for a few days on an excursion, +and the gay scientist who opened the champagne in his pockets at the +Tiare Hotel New Year's eve was in command. He sat in an arm-chair in a +littered office and was smoking a pipe. His beard had a diameter of a +foot, and obviated any need of collar or shirt-band, for it grew from +his shoulder-blades up, so that his forehead, eyes, nose, and lips +were white islands in a black sea, and even his nose was not bare, +for he had been debited by Lovaina for his champagne as "Hair on nose." + +He was reading a novel, and asked gruffly what we were there for. I +told him, and Baillon was assigned a room at twelve francs a day, +and was required to pay for ten days in advance. + +The next morning I visited him. He could speak no French, so I +questioned Blackbeard in his office, where we had an aperitif. He +was voluble. + +"He has amoeban dysentery," said he. "It is contagious and infectious, +specifically, and it is fortunate your friend is attended by me. I +have had that disease and know what's what." + +I, too, had had it in the Philippine Islands, and I was amazed that +it was infectious. How could he have got it? + +"Alors," replied the physician, "where has he taken meals?" + +"Lovaina's, Fanny's, and some with the Chinese." + +The Frenchman threw his arms around the door in mock horror. He gagged +and spat, exciting the cowboy into a fever. + +"Oh! la! la!" he shouted. "Les Chinois! Certainement, he is ill. He has +eaten dog. Amoeban dysentery! Mais, monsieur, it is a dispensation +of the bon dieu that he has not hydrophobia or the leprosy. Les +Chinois! Sacré nom de chien!" + +Lovaina had often accused her rivals, the Chinese restaurateurs, of +serving dog meat for beef or lamb. Perhaps it was so, for in China +more than five millions of dogs are sold for food in the market every +year, and in Tahiti I knew that the Chinese ate the larvae of wasps, +and M. Martin had mountain rats caught for his table. + +The cow-boy's room was bare and cheerless, but two Tahitian girls of +fourteen or fifteen years of age were in it. One was sitting on his +bed, holding his hand, and the other was in a rocking-chair. They +were very pretty and were dressed in their fête gowns. The girl on +the bed was almost white, but her sister fairly brown. Probably they +had different fathers. They told me that they had seen Baillon on +the streets, had fallen in love with him, and though they had never +spoken to him, wanted to comfort him now that he was sick. Jealousy +did not rankle in their hearts, apparently. That absence often shocked +non-Polynesians. Brothers shared wives, and sisters shared husbands +all over old Polynesia. + +This pair of love-lorn maidens had never exchanged a word with Baillon, +for he spoke only English. The whiter girl wore a delicate satin gown, +a red ribbon, and fine pearls in her hair. The cow-boy lay quietly, +while she sat with her bare feet curled under her on the counterpane, +looking actually unutterable passion. + +"Shucks!" said he to me, safe in their ignorance of his tongue, +"this is getting serious. They mean business, and I was foolin'. I +got a little girl in the good ol' United States that would skin her +alive if she saw her sittin' like that on my sheets. A man's takin' +chances here that bats his eye at one o' these T'itian fairies. Do +you know, their mother came here with them this morning?" + +"They mean to have you in their family," I said. "That mother may +have had a white husband or lover, and aids in the pursuit of you +for auld lang syne." + +Wilfrid Baillon was out of the hospital in just ten days. His release, +as cured by the doctor, coincided curiously with his payment in +advance. I saw him off for New Zealand by the steamship leaving the +next day. + +"Those people were awful good to me," he said in farewell. "It hurts +me to treat those girls this way, but I'm scairt o' them. They're +too strong in their feelings." + +He ran away from a mess of love pottage that many men would have gone +across seas to gain. + +Ormsby, an Englishman in his early twenties, good-looking and +courteous, with an air of accustomedness to luxury, but of being +roughened by his environment, was sitting on a bench one morning with +a girl. He called me over to meet her. + +"You are an old-timer here now," he began, "and I've got to go away on +the schooner to the Paumotus to-morrow. Drop in at Tahia's shack once +in a while and cheer her up. She lives back of the Catholic mission, +and she's pretty sick." + +Tahia was desperately ill, I thought. She was thin, the color of the +yellow wax candles of the high altar, and her straight nose, with +expanded nostrils, and hard, almost savage mouth, features carved as +with the stone chisel of her ancient tribe, conjured up the profile +of Nenehofra, an Egyptian princess whose mummy I had seen. She was +stern, silent, resigned to her fate, as are these races who know the +inexorable will of the gods. + +"Is she your girl?" I asked Ormsby. + +He colored slightly. + +"I suppose so, and the baby will be mine if it's ever born. At any +rate, I'm going to stick to her while she's in this fix. I'll tell you +on the square, I'm not gone on her; but she had a lover, an Australian +I knew, and he was good to her, but he got the consumption and couldn't +work. Maybe he came here with it. They hadn't a shilling, and Tahia +built a hut in the hills up there near where the nature men live, +and put him in it, and she fed and cared for him. She went to the +mountains for feis she came down here to the reef to fish, and she +found eggs and breadfruit in other people's gardens. She kept him +alive, the Lord knows how, until he could secure money from Sydney +to go home and die. Now, she's got the con from him, I suppose, and +it would be a shabby trick to leave her when she's dying and will be +a mother in two months, according to Doctor Cassiou!" + +He made a wry face and lit his pipe. The girl could not understand +a word and sat immovable. + +"She's Marquesan," he went on. "Her mother has written through a +trader in Atuona, on Hiva-Oa, to send her to her own valley, but she's +quit. She sits and broods all day. I 'd like to go back to my own home +in Warwickshire. I know I'm changing for the bad here. I live like a +dam' beach-comber. I only get a screw of three hundred francs a month, +and that all goes for us two, with medicines and doctors. She'd go +to Atuona if I'd go; but I can't make a living there, and I'm rotten +enough now without living off her people in the cannibal group. She's +skin and bones and coughs all night." + +Ormsby puffed his pipe as Tahia put her hand in his. Her action +was that of a small dog who puts his paw on his master's sleeve, +hesitating, hopeful, but uncertain. She regarded me with slightly +veiled hostility. I was a white who might be taking him away to +foreign things. + +"She's heard us talking about Atuona and Hiva-Oa, and she thinks +maybe I 've concluded to go. I can't do it, O'Brien. If I go there, +I'll go native forever. I've got a streak of some dam' savage in +me. Listen! I've got to go on the Etoile to Kaukura tojmorrow. Now, +the natives are always kind to any one, but sickness they are not +interested in. You go and see her, won't you? She's about all in, +and it won't hurt you." + +Ormsby went to the Dangerous Isles on the Etoile, and did not return +for three weeks. He did not find Tahia in her shack on the hill. She +was in the cemetery,--in the plot reserved for the natives of other +islands,--and her babe unborn. She had died alone. I think she made +up her mind to relieve the Englishman of her care, and willed to die +at once. Dr. Cassiou, with whom I visited her, said: + +"She ought to have lasted several months. Mais, c'est curieux. I +have treated these Polynesians for many years, and I never found one +I could keep alive when he wanted to die. She had already sent away +her spirit, the âme, or essence vitale, or whatever it is, and then +the body simply grows cold." + +Ormsby and I talked it all over in the parc. He was deeply affected, +and he uncovered his own soul, as men seldom do. + +"I 'm dam' glad she's dead," he said, with intense feeling. "I might +have failed, and she died before I did fail. I'm going back to Warwick +now at first chance, and whatever I do or don't do, I've got that +exception to my credit. It's one, too, to the credit of the whites +that have cursed these poor islanders." + +He had chalked it down on a record he thought quite black, but which +I believe was better than our average. He and I went to the cemetery +and had a wooden slab put up: + + + Tahia a Atuona + Tamau te maitai. + + Tahia of Atuona + She held fast. + + +The Christchurch Kid and I were friendly, and he allowed me once a day +during his training periods to put on the gloves with him for a mild +four rounds. He was an open-hearted fellow, with a cauliflower ear and +a nose a trifle awry from "a couple of years with the pork-and-beaners +in California," as he explained, but with a magnificent body. He also +lived at the Annexe, and did his training in the garden under Afa's +clever hands. The Dummy must have admired him, for he would watch him +exercising and boxing for hours, and make farcical sounds and grotesque +gestures to indicate his understanding of the motions and blows. + +The Kid asked me if I knew Ernest Darling, "the nature man," and +identified the too naked wearer of toga and sandals on the San +Francisco wharf as Darling. + +"'E looked like Christ," said the boxer. "'E was a queer un. How'd +you like to chyse up there to his roost in the 'ills?" + +The next morning at five--it was not daybreak until six--we met at Wing +Luey's for coffee and bread, which cost four cents. Prince Hinoe was +there as usual, and asked us whither away. He laughed when we told +him, and said the nature men were maamaa, crazy. The Kid was of the +same mind. + +We went up the rue de Sainte Amelie to the end of the road, and +continued on up the valley. We could see far above us a small +structure, which was the Eden that Darling had made for the Adamic +colony he had established. + +The climb was a stiff one on a mere wild pig-trail. + +"The nyture man would 'ike up 'ere several times a day, after the +frogs closed his road," said the New Zealander. "There was less +brush than now, though, because 'e cut it aw'y to carry lum'ber and +things up and to bring back the things 'e grew for market. 'E and +'is gang believed in nykedness, vegetables, socialism, no religion, +and no drugs. The nytives think they're bug-'ouse, like Prince Hinoe, +and I don't think they 're all there, but you couldn't cheat him. 'E'd +myke a Glasgow peddler look sharp in buyin' or sellin'." + +The Christchurch Kid was himself strictly conventional, and had +been genuinely shocked by Darling's practices, and especially by his +striking resemblance to the Master as portrayed by the early painters, +and by Munkácsy in Christ Before Pilate. + +"'E was all right," he explained to me as we climbed, "but 'e ought +to been careful of 'is looks. I was 'ard up 'ere in Papeete once, and +was sleepin' in an ole ware'ouse along with others. Darling slept on +a window-sill, and 'e used to talk about enjoyin' the full sweep o' +the tradewind. We doubted that, an' so one night we crept upstairs +and surprised him. 'E was stretched out on a couple o' sacks, and a +reg'ler gale was blowin' on him. 'E bathed a couple o' times a day in +the lagoon or in fresh water, but 'e believed in rubbin' oil on his +skin, and when a bloke is all greasy and nyked, 'e looks dirty. 'Is +whiskers were too flossy in the tropics." + +It took all my wind to reach the Eden, a couple of miles from our +starting-point, and we were on all fours part of the way. + +"'E could run up here like an animal," declared the fighter. "Once when +a crowd of us went to visit 'im, 'e ran up this tr'il a'ead of us, +and when we arrived all winded, blow me up a bloomin' gum-tree if 'e +'ad n't a mess of feis and breadfruit cooked for us." + +We came to a sign on the trail. "Tapu," it said, which means taboo, +or keep away; and farther on a notice in French that the owner forbade +any one to enter upon his land. + +"'E's a cryzy Frenchman with long whiskers," said the Kid. "'E +'as a grudge against any one who speaks English and also against +the world. They s'y that 'is American wife ran aw'y from 'im, or an +American took 'is nytive wife aw'y. 'E packs a revolver." + +Everywhere the mountain-side was terraced, and planted in cocoanuts, +breadfruits, bananas, flowers, and other plants, more than two +thousand growths. Darling's toil had been great, and my heart bled +at the memory of his standing on the piling as we steamed away. He +had intended to have a colony, with bare nature-worshipers from all +over the world. He had written articles in magazines, and tourists +and authors had celebrated him in their stories. A score of needy +health-seekers had arrived in Papeete and joined him, but could not +survive his rigid diet and work. He had talked much of Eves, white, +in the Eden, but none had offered. + +On a platform fifteen hundred feet above the sea Darling had built a +frame of beams, boards, and branches, with bunks and seats, much like +a woodcutter's temporary shelter in the mountains, a mere lean-to. The +view was stupendous, with the sea, the harbor, Moorea, and Papeete +hardly seen in the foliage. He had thought his work in life to be +peopling these hills with big families of nature children and the +spread of socialism and reformed spelling. + +His dream was transient. He had been treated with contempt, and had +been driven from his garden, as had his first father, and without an +Eve or a serpent. The whiskered Frenchman had bought Eden for a song, +and had made it taboo to all. + +We shouted in vain for the Frenchman, so we searched the premises. The +boxer was afraid that after we left he might roll a rock down our trail +because of our breaking his taboo. We found the spring from which +he drank, and a pool dug by Darling for bathing, now only a mass of +vegetation. Evidently the present tenant was not an ablutionist. + +"There's a beastly German down on that next level," remarked the +Christchurch Kid. "'E 'ates this Frenchman. Now they don't speak, +but they sent warnin' to each other o' trouble. The frog carries the +revolver for the sauer-kraut. Some day they'll kill each other right +'ere. They're both 'ermits, and 'ermits are terrible when they get +excited." + +It was almost a straight drop to the German's, a small promontory, with +an acre of land, a platform raised eight feet on poles for a roof, and +under it a berth. A chest held his belongings. He lived on the fruit +he raised and the fish he caught in the sea, to which he went every +day. He tried to keep chickens, but the mountain rats, of which Darling +had trapped more than five thousand, ate most of them. The German, +too, was away from his simple home. Both these men sought in life +only peace and plain living, yet were consumed with hate. One day the +upper dweller had accidentally caused a small stone to roll down upon +the other's roof. The German had shouted something to the Frenchman, +hot words had passed, and now they carried revolvers to intimidate +or shoot each other. Their days and nights were spent on plans to +insult or injure. And because of their feud they hated the whole world. + +Once again in Papeete, we met the Swiss of the Noa-Noa who had intended +to eat raw foods in the Marquesas. He was to return to America on +the next steamer. + +"De wegetables in Tahiti have no wim in dem," he said. "In California +I ead nudds und raisins mit shtrent' in dem. I go back." + +The fighter pointed out the "cryzy" Frenchman of Eden. He was the +customs employee who had provoked the American consul by refusing to +understand English. + +I asked M. Lontane, the second in command of the police, why Darling +had gone. + +The hero of the battle of the limes, coal, and potatoes, looked at +me fiercely. + +"Is the French republic to permit here in its colony the whites who +enjoy its hospitality to shame the nation before the Tahitians by +their nakedness? That sacrée bête wore a pareu in town because the law +compelled him to, but, monsieur, on the road, in his aerial resort, +he and all his disciples were as naked as--" + +"I have seen artistes at the music-halls of Paris," I finished. + +"Exactement," he spluttered. "Are we to let Tahiti rival Paris?" + +Ivan Stroganoff I met two or three times a month. He stayed in his +chicken-coop except when the opportunities came for gaining a few +francs, at steamer-time, and when sheer boredom drove him to Papeete +for converse. With his dislike for the natives and his disdainful +attitude toward the French, he had to seek other nationals in town, +for there were none at Fa'a except a Chinese storekeeper. Stroganoff +at eighty was as keen for interesting things as a young man, but his +philosophy was fatal to his enjoyment. He saw the flaw in the diamond +the sunbeam made of the drop of water on the leaf. He had lived too +long and was too wise in disappointments. He was generous in his +poverty, for he brought me a tin of guava-jelly he had made and a box +of dried bananas. These had had their skins removed, and were black +and not desirable-looking, but they were delicious and rare. In turn, +not wishing to exaggerate the difference between our means, I gave +him a box of cigars I had brought from America. I visited him at Fa'a, +and found his coop had been a poultry shelter, and was humble, indeed; +but I had slept a hundred nights in many countries in worse. He had a +box for a table for eating and writing, and a rude cot. A few dishes +and implements, and a roost of books and reviews in Russian, English, +French, German, and other languages, completed his equipment. + +He had several times reiterated his earnest wish to leave Tahiti, and +his longing rested heavily on my heart. Upon lying down at night I had +felt my own illiberality in not making it possible for him to realize +his desire. A hundred dollars would send him there, with enough left +over for a fortnight's keep. But my apology for not buying him a ticket +was the real fear of his unhappiness. What could a friendless man of +eighty do to exist in the United States other than become the inmate +of a poorhouse? The best he could hope for would be to be taken in by +the Little Sisters of the Poor, who house a few old men. They were, +doubtless, kind, but probably insistent on neatness and religiosity. + +The cold, the brutal policemen and guards, the venial justice, the +crystallized charity in the name of a statistical Christ, arrested +my hand. I had known it all at first hand, asking no favor. I +believed that he would be worse off than in his chicken-coop. He +could wear anything or nearly nothing in Tahiti, and his old Prince +Albert comforted him; but he would have to conform to dress rules +in a stricter civilization. Nature was a loving mother here and a +shrewish hag there, at least toward the poor. And yet I was uneasy +at my own argument. + +For a month or two he had led the talk between us and any others in +the parc to new discoveries in medicine. From his Fa'a seclusion he +followed these very closely through European publications, for which +his slender funds went. He had a curiously opposed nature, quoting +with enthusiasm the idealistic philosophers, and descending into such +abject materialism as haunting the bishop's palace for the cigar-stubs. + +He would say that the purest joy in life is that which lifts us out +of our daily existence and transforms us into disinterested spectators +of it. + +"This divine release from the common ways of men can be found only +through art," Stroganoff would apostrophize. "The final and only +true solution of life is to be found in the life of the saint. True +morality passes through virtue, which is rooted in sympathy into +asceticism. Renunciation only offers a complete release from the +evils and terrors of existence." + +Kelly was on the bench one day when the Russian uttered this rule of +the cenobite school. They were good friends, but differed. They agreed +that the world was sick and needed a radical medicine. Kelly was for a +complete cure by ending private business through the workers seizing it +when the time was ripe, which he believed would be soon. Stroganoff was +for an empery of wise men, of scientists, philosophers, and artists, +who would kick out the statesmen and politicians, and manage things +by enlightened pragmatism. For the individual man who sought happiness +his formula was as above--retirement to an aery. + +When Kelly was gone to practise on his accordion,--he had opened +a dancing academy at Fa'a,--the octogenarian asked me if I had +read of the recent achievements of the scientists who were making +the old young. He elaborated on the discoveries and experiments of +Professor Leonard Huxley in England with thyroid gland injections, +of Voronoff in France with the grafting of interstitial glands of +monkeys, and of Eugen Steinach in Austria and Roux in Germany, with +germ glands and X-rays. Steinach, especially, he discoursed on, and +drew a magazine picture of him from his Prince Albert. The Vienna +savant had a cordon of whiskers that made him resemble Stroganoff, +and his eyes in the photograph peered through all one's disguises. + +"That is what grates me," said Stroganoff. "I am far from all these +worth-while things, these men of brain. I knew Ilya Ilich Metchnikoff +before he became director of the Pasteur Institute. Here I am a rotting +hulk. In the Caucasus I had kephir, and I used to carry kephir grains, +and in America I, at least, could have kumiss or Ilya Ilich's lait +caille. Look! I came here as Ponce de León to Florida to find youth, +or to keep from growing older; in a word to escape anno Domini." + +I turned and looked at him. He was a venerable figure, but there was +no sign of eighty years in him. Rid of that white, hirsute mask, +so associated with age, Stroganoff might have been twenty years +younger. I said so, but it did not allay his yearning. + +"I am well enough," he said, "because I have not dissipated for +thirty years. I turned a leaf, as did Leo Nikolaievitch, after 'War +and Peace.' Now I feel myself slipping into the grave." + +He gazed ruminantly away from the lagoon to the pool of Psyche, +where the Tahitian women squatted on their shapely haunches and +thumped their clothes. + +"See," he said earnestly. "I am old and useless. Why should not +Steinach or the others make the grand experiment on me? If they +succeed, very good; if they fail, there is no loss. They say those +glands make a man over, no matter what his age. I offer myself +freely. I am not afraid of death. Me, I am a philosopher." + +He spoke excitedly. His eyes were fixed on distance, and I followed +them. + +Auro, the Golden One, as her name meant, had been washing her muslin +slips in the pool of Psyche, and now stood in the entrance to it. She +was for a fleeting second in her pareu only, her tunic raised above +her head to pull on, and her enravishing form disclosed from her +waist to her piquant face, over which tumbled her opulent locks. + +It flashed on me that, wise and old as he was, the spectrum of the +philosopher's soul had all the colors of the ignorant and the young. I +looked from the nymphs of the pool to his darkening eyes, and I had a +revelation of the persistence of common humanity in the most learned +and the most philosophical. My castigation of myself for not buying +his steamship ticket ceased in a moment, though not the less did I +continue to enjoy his fount of learning and experience. + + + +Chapter XIV + +The market in Papeete--Coffee at Shin Bung Lung's with a prince--Fish +the chief item--Description of them--The vegetables and fruits--The +fish strike--Rumors of an uprising--Kelly and the I. W. W.--The +mysterious session at Fa'a--Halellujah! I'm a Bum!--The strike +is broken. + +The market in Papeete, the only one in Tahiti, has an air all its +own. It is different in its amateur atmosphere and roseate color, +in its isothermal romance and sheer good humor, from all others +I have seen--Port of Spain, Peking, Kandy, or Jolo. It is more +fascinating in its sensuous, tropical setting, its strange foods, +and its laughing, lazy crowds of handsome people, than any other +public mart I know. There is no financial exchange in Tahiti. Stocks +and bonds take the shape of cocoanuts, vanilla-beans, fish, and other +comforts. The brokers are merry women. The market is spot, and buyers +must take delivery immediately, as usually not a single security is +left at the end of the day's trading. + +One must be at the market before five o'clock to see it all. Sunday +is the choicest day of all the week, because Sunday is a day of +feasting, and the marché then has a more than gala air. The English +missionaries had once made even cooking a fish on Sunday a crime, +severely punished; but the French priests changed all that, and the +French Sabbath, the New York Sabbath, was en règle. + +All the east is purple and red, gorgeous, flaring, when I awake. There +are no windows in my connecting rooms in the Annexe. The sun rises +through their wallless front, and sets through their opening to the +balcony. What more liberal dispensation of nature? I am under the +shower in two minutes, long enough to go down the curved staircase, +with its admirable rosewood balustrade, and through the rear veranda to +the room in which the large cement basin serves for bath and laundry +and to lend a minute to the Christchurch Kid, the prize-fighter, to +inform me that he is to open a school of the manly art, with diplomas +for finished scholars and rewards for excellence. The recitals are +to be public, a fee charged, and all ambitious pupils are to be +guaranteed open examination in pairs and a just decision. The Kid +and Cowan are to be hors de combat. + +A daughter of a French governor of the Low Archipelago is in the basin, +the door ajar, and the spray blinding her to my presence. She is +seventeen, café au lait--beaucoup de lait, kohl-eyed, meter-tressed, +and slim-bodied. She sings the himene of the battle of the limes and +coal and potatoes, with a new stanza concerning the return of the +Noa-Noa, and the vengeance of the Tahitian braves upon the pigs of +Peretania, Britain. + +"Ia or a na! Bonjour, Goo' night!" she says impartially, and modestly +slips her pareu about her. + +"Ia ora na oe!" I reply. "All goes well?" + +"By cripe' yais; dam' goo'!" she answers, and goes humming on her +way to her shanty in the yard. She is the maid of my chamber, gentle, +willing, but never to be found for service. She learns English from +the Kid, the rubber-legged boot-black, and other gentleman adventurers +and tars of America and Europe, and she pours out bad words--I cannot +mention them--in innocent faith in their propriety. In French or +Tahitian she speaks correctly. + +Outside the bath I hear the vehicles hurrying to market, and dressing +quickly in white drill, and wearing on my Paumotu hat a brilliant +scarlet pugaree, once the badge of subjugation to the Mohammedan +conquerors of India, I join the procession. + +Bon dieu! what a morning! The reds and purples are dying in the orient, +and the hills are swathed in the half-white light of day. The lagoon +is now a glistening pearly gray. Moorea, the isle of the fairy folk, +is jagged and rough, as if a new throe of earth had torn its heights +and made new steeps and obelisks. Moorea is never the same. Every +hour of the day and every smile and frown of the sun creates valleys +and spires, and alters the outlines of this most capricious of islets. + +Past the bust of Bougainville, past the offices of Emile Levy, the +pearler whom, to Levy's intense anger, Jack London slew in "The House +of Mapuhi"; past the naval depot, the American consulate with the red, +white, and blue flung in the breeze; the Commissariat de Police, the +pool of Psyche, and all the rows of schooners that line the quays, +with their milken sails drying on their masts, and I am by the stores +of the merchants. The dawn is slipping through the curtain of night, +but lamps are still burning. The traffic has roused the sleepers, and +they are dressing. They have brought, tied in pareus, their Sunday +clothes. Women are changing gowns, and men struggle with shirts and +trousers, awkward inflictions upon their ordinarily free bodies. + +All the night people who have journeyed from Papara, from Papenoo, +or nearer districts slumber upon the sidewalks. This sleeping about +anywhere is characteristic of the Tahitian. On the quays, in the +doorways of the large and small stores, in carriages, and on the +decks of the vessels, men and women and children lie or crouch, +sleeping peacefully, with their possessions near them. + +In the fare tamaaraa, the coffee-houses of the Tinitos, the Chinese, +the venders of provender and the marketers alike are slipping their +taofe tau, their four-sous' worth of coffee, with a tiny pewter mug +of canned milk, sugar, and a half-loaf of French bread with butter. + +My vis-á-vis at Shin Bung Lung's is Prince Hinoe, the heir to the +broken throne, a very large, smiling brown gentleman, who sits with +the French secretary of the governor, the two, alack! patting the +shoulders, pinching the cheeks, and fondling the long, ebon plaits +of the bevy of beauties who are up thus early to flirt and make +merry. Tahiti is the most joyous land upon the globe. Who takes life +seriously here is a fool or a liver-ridden penitent. The shop is +full of peals of laughter and stolen kisses. Those sons of Belial +who taught the daughter of the governor of the Dangerous Isles her +unspeakable vocabulary are here. They have been to the Paris, the +premier saloon of Papeete, for their morning's morning, an absinthe, +or a hair of the dog that bit them yester eve. + +What jokes they have! Stories of what happened last night in the +tap-room of the cinematograph, how David opened a dozen bottles +of Roederer, and there was no ice, so all alike, barefooted and +silk-stockinged, drank the wine of Champagne warm, and out of beer +glasses; of Captain Minne's statement that he would kill a scion of +Tahitian royalty (not Hinoe) if he did not marry his daughter before +the captain returned from the Paumotus; and of Count Polonsky's +calling down the black procureur, the attorney-general, right in the +same tap-room, and telling him he was a "nigger," although they had +been friends before. + +Tahitian and French and English, but very little of the latter, +echoes through the coffee-room. Even I make a feeble struggle to +speak the native tongue, and arouse storms of giggles. + +The market-place faces the Mairie, the city hall, and its center +is a fountain beloved of youth. There sit or loll the maidens of +Papeete at night, and titter as pass the sighing lads. There wait +the automobiles to carry the pleasure bent to Kelly's grove at Fa'a, +where the maxixe and the tango rage, the hula-dancers quiver and +quaver, and wassail has no bounds. + +When the whites are at dinner, the natives meet in the market-place, +which is the agora, as the place du gouvernment is the forum of the +dance and music of these ocean Greeks. + +But at this hour it is wreathed with women, scores squat upon their +mats on the pave, their goods spread before the eyes of the purchasers. + +The sellers of the materials for hats are many. The bamboo fiber, +yellowish white, is the choicest, but there are other colors and +stuffs. The women venders smoke cigarettes and are always laughing. Old +crones, withered and feeble, shake their thin sides at their own and +others' jokes. + +Already the buyers are coming fast, householders and cooks and +bachelors and beaux, tourists and native beauties. + +A score of groups are smoking and chatting, flirting and running +over their lists. Carriages and carts are tied everywhere, country +folk who have come to sell or to buy, or both, and automobiles, too, +are ranged beside the Mairie. + +Matrons and daughters, many nationals, are assembling. The wife +of a new consul, a charming blonde, just from New Jersey, has her +basket on her arm. She is a bride, and must make the consul's two +thousand dollars a year go far. A priest in a black gown and a young +Mormon elder from Utah regard each other coldly. A hundred Chinese +cafe-keepers, stewards, and merchants are endeavoring to pierce the +exteriors of the foods and estimate their true value. The market is +not open yet. It awaits the sound of the gong, rung by the police +about half past five. Four or five of these officials are about, +all natives in gaudy uniforms, their bicycles at the curb, smoking, +and exchanging greetings with friends. + +The question of deepest interest to the marketers is the fish. The +tables for these are railed off, and, peering through the barriers, +the onlookers comment upon the kinds and guess at the prices. + +The market-house is a shed over concrete floors, clean, sanitary, +and occupied but an hour or two a day. There are three main divisions +of the market, meat, fish, and green things. Meat in Tahiti is better +uneaten and unsung. It comes on the hoof from New Zealand. Now, if you +are an epicure, you may rent a cold-storage chamber in the glacerie, +and keep your steaks and roasts until tender. + +Fish is the chief item to the Tahitian. Give him only fish, and he +may murmur at his fate; but deny him fish, and he will hie him to the +reef and snare it for himself. All night the torches of the fishermen +gleam on the foaming reef, and often I paddle out near the breakers and +hear the chants and cries of the men as they thrust their harpoons or +draw their nets. So it is the women who sell the fish, while the weary +husbands and fathers lie wrapped in dreams of a miraculous draught. + +There are three great aquariums in the world, at Honolulu, Naples, and +New York. There is no other such fish-market as this of Papeete, for +Hawaii's has become Asiaticized, and the kanaka is almost nil in the +angling art there. But those same fish that I gazed at in amazement in +the tanks of the museums are spread out here on tables for my buying. + +Impossible fish they are, pale blue; brilliant yellow; black as +charcoal; sloe, with orange stripes; scarlet, spotted, and barred in +rainbow tints. The parrot-fish are especially splendid in spangling +radiancy, their tails and a spine in their mouths giving them their +name. + +The impression made upon one's first visit to the Papeete market is +overwhelming, the plenitude of nature rejoicing one's heart, and the +care of the Great Consciousness for beauty and color, and even for +the ludicrous, the merely funny, causing curious groping sensations +of wonder at the varied plan of creation. + +Sexual selection and suitability to survive are responsible. Those +vivid colors, those symmetrical markings, and laughable forms are +all part of the going on of the world, the adaptation to environment, +and the desire for love and admiration in the male and female. + +These things from the deep seem hardly fish. They are bits of the +sunset, fragments of a mosaic, Futuristic pictures; anything but our +sodden, gray, or wateryhued fish of temperate climes. Some are as +green as the hills of Erin, others as blue as the sky, as crimson as +blood, as yellow as the flag of China. They are cut by nature in many +patterns, round, or sectional, like a piece of pie, triangular, almost +square; some with a back fin that floats out a foot or two behind. + +They are grotesque, alarming, apparently the design of a joker. But +tread not on the domain of the scientist, for he will prove to +you that each separate queerness is only a trick of nature to fit +its owner to the necessities of his habitat. The parrot-fish are +screamingly fantastic. There are not even in the warm California or +Florida waters the duplicates of these rainbow fish. The Garibaldi +perch and the electric fish excite interest at Santa Catalina, but +here are a hundred marvels, and if I wish I can see them all as they +swim in and out of the coral caverns within the lagoon. + +Porcupine fish are a delicacy, squid are esteemed, and even the +devilfish is on the tables, hideous, repellent, slimy, horned, and +tentacled; not mighty enough to crush out the life of the fisher, +as was the horrific creature in Victor Hugo's "Toilers of the Sea," +whom his hero fought, yet menacing even when dead. It is a frightful +figure in its aspect of hatred and ugliness, but good to eat. See +that fat Tahitian thrust his finger into the sides of the octopus to +plumb its cooking qualities. It is quickly sold. + +There are crabs and crawfish, eels and shrimps, prawns and varos, +all hung up on strings. There are oysters and maoao, alive +and dripping. The maoao is the turbo, a gastropod, a mysterious +inhabitant of a twisted shell, who shuts the door to his home with +a brightly-colored operculum, for all the world like half of a +cuff-button. One eats him raw or cooked or dried. But he is not so +odd as the varo one of the most delicious and expensive of Tahitian +foods. These sea centipedes, as the English call them in Tahiti, +are a species of ibacus, and are from six to twelve inches long, +and two wide. They have legs or feelers all along their sides, like +a pocket comb, a hideous head, and tail, and a generally repulsive +appearance. If one did not know they were excellent eating, and most +harmless in their habits, one would be tempted to run or take to a +tree at sight of them. Their shell is a translucent yellow, with black +markings. The female has a red stripe down her back, and red eggs +beneath her. She is richer in flavor, and more deadly than the male +to one who has a natural diathesis to poisoning by varos. Many whites +cannot eat them. Some lose appetite at their looks, their likeness to +a gigantic thousand-leg. Others find that the varo rests uneasy within +them, as though each claw or tooth of the comb grasped a vital part of +their anatomy. I think varos excellent when wrapped in hotu leaves, +and grilled as a lobster. I take the beastie in my fingers and suck +out the meat. Amateurs must keep their eyes shut during this operation. + +Catching varos is tedious and requires skill. They live in the sand of +the beach under two or three feet of water. One has to find their holes +by wading and peering. They are small at the top, but roomy below. One +cannot see these holes through ruffled water. Once located, grapnels, +or spools fitted with a dozen hooks, are lowered into them. A pair +inhabits the same den. If the male is at home, he seizes the grapnel, +and is raised and captured, and the female follows. But if the female +emerges first, it is a sure sign that the male is absent in search of +food. I have pondered as to this habit of the varo, and have tried +to persuade me that the male, being a courteous shrimp,--he is a +kind of mantis-shrimp,--combats the intruding hooks first in order +to protect his loved one; but the grapnel is baited with fish, and +though masculine pride would insist that chivalry urges varo homme +to defend his domestic shrine, fishers for the tidbit say that he +is after the bait, and holds to it so tightly that he sacrifices his +life. Nevertheless, the lady embraces the same opportunity to rise, +and their deserted tenement is soon filled by the sands. + +Trapping varos calls for patience and much dexterity. The mere finding +of the holes is possible only to natives trained from childhood. Six +varos make a good meal, with bread and wine, and they are most +enjoyable hot--also most indigestible. + +"Begin their eating by sucking a cold one," once said a bon vivant +to me. "Only when accustomed to them should you dare them hot and +in numbers." + +Flying-fish are sold, many of them delicate in taste and shapely. + +One may buy favorite sauces for fish, and some of the women offered +them to me. One is taiaro, made of the hard meat of the cocoanut, +with pounded shrimp, and allowed to ferment slightly. It is put up in +bamboo tubes, three inches in diameter, and four or five feet long, +tied at the opening with a pandanus-leaf for a seal. It is delicious +on raw fish. I have seen a native take his fish by the tail and +devour it as one would a banana; but the Tahitians cut up the fish, +and, after soaking it in lime-juice, eat it with the taiaro. It is +as tasty as Blue Points and tabasco. + +There are two other epicurean sauces, one made of the omotu, the +soft cocoanut, which is split, the meat dug out and put in the hue, +the calabash, mixed with a little salt water, lime-juice, and the +juice of the rea, the saffron, and allowed to ferment. This is the +mitihue, a piquant and fetid, puante sauce that seasons all Tahitian +meals. The calabash is left in the sun, and when the sauce dries up, +water is poured on the dry ingredients, a perpetual saucebox. + +In the arrangement of vegetables our own hucksters could learn. Every +piece is scraped and cleansed. String beans are tied together in +bundles like cigars or asparagus, and lettuce of several varieties, +romaine and endive, parsnips, carrots, beets, turnips, and even +potatoes, sweet and white, are shown in immaculate condition. The +tomatoes do not rival ours, but Tahiti being seventeen degrees below +the equator, one cannot expect such tropical regions to produce +temperate-zone plants to perfection. That they are provided at all is +due to the Chinese, those patient, acute Cantonese and Amoyans. The +Tahitian has no competence in intensive cultivation or the will to +toil. Were it not for the Chinese, white residents in many countries +would have to forego vegetables. It is so in Mexico and Hawaii and +the Philippines, although Japanese in the first two compete with them. + +The main food of the Tahitians is feis, as is bread to us, or rice to +the Asiatic. It is not so in the Marquesas, eight hundred miles north, +where breadfruit is the staff, nor in Hawaii, where fermented taro +(poi) is the chief reliance of the kanaka. The feis, gigantic bananas +of coarse fiber, which must be cooked, are about a foot in length, +and three inches in diameter, and grow in immense, heavy bunches in +the mountains, so that obtaining them is great labor. They are wild +creatures of heights, and love the spots most difficult of access. Only +barefooted men can reach them. These feis are a separate species. The +market-place is filled with them, and hardly a Tahitian but buys +his quota for the day. The fei-gatherers are men of giant strength, +naked save for the pareu about the loins, and often their feet from +climbing and holding on to rocks and roots are curiously deformed, the +toes spread an inch apart, and sometimes the big toe is opposed to the +others, like a thumb. There are besides many kinds of bananas here for +eating raw; some are as small as a man's finger, and as sweet as honey. + +The fei-hunters hang six or seven bunches on a bamboo pole and bring +them thus to market. One meets these young Atlases moving along the +roads, chaplets of frangipani upon their curling hair, or perhaps a +single gardenia or tube-rose behind their ears, singing softly and +treading steadily, smiling, and all with a burden that would stagger +a white athlete. + +The taro looks like a war-club, several feet long, three inches thick, +and with a fierce knob. It and its tops are in demand. The breadfruit +are as big as Dutch cheese, weighing four or five pounds, their green +rinds tuberculated like a golf-ball. Sapadillos, tamarinds, limes, +mangoes, oranges, acachous, and a dozen other native fruits are to be +had. Cocoanuts and papayas are of course, favorites. There are many +kinds of cocoanuts. I like best the young nut, which has the meat +yet unformed or barely so, and can be eaten with a spoon, and holds +about a quart of delicious wine. No matter how hot the day, this wine +is always cool. One has only to pierce the top of the green rind, +and tilt the hole above one's mouth. If one has alcoholic leanings, +the wine of a cocoanut, an ounce of rum, two lumps of sugar, a dash +of grenadine, and the mixture were paradise enow. + +The papayas, which the British call mammee-apple or even mummy-apple or +papaw, because of the West Indian name, mamey, are much like pumpkins +in appearance. They grow on trees, quite like palms, from ten to thirty +feet high, the trunk scaly like an alligator's hide, and the leaves +pointed. The fruit hangs in a cluster at the crown of the tree, green +and yellow, resembling badly shaped melons. The taste is musky sweet +and not always agreeable to tyros. The seeds are black and full of +pepsin. Boiled when green, the papaya reminds one of vegetable marrow; +and cooked when ripe, it makes a pie stuffing not to be despised. I +have often hung steaks or birds in the tree, protected by a cage +from pests, or wrapped them in papaya-leaves to make them tender. The +very atmosphere does this, and the pepsin extracted from the papaya +by science is much used by druggists instead of animal extracts. + +The market closed, the venders who have come in carts drive home, +while those Tahitians who are not too old adorn themselves with +flowers and seek pleasure. Young and old, they are laughing. Why? I +need never ask the reason here, but look to the blue sky, the placid +sea within the lagoon, the generous fruitage of nature, the palms and +flowers ever present and inviting; the very sign of the gentle souls +and merry hearts of these most lovable people. When I am alone with +them I do not walk. I dance or skip. + +Life is easy. The fei, the breadfruit, the cocoanut, the mango, and the +taro are all about. No plow, no hoe, or rude labor, but for the lifting +of one's hand there is food. The fish leap in the brine, and the pig +fattens for the oven. Clothes are irksome. A straw hut may be built +in an hour or two, and in the grove sounds the soft music of love. + +Aue! nom de poisson! within a day the market became a +wailing-place. There were no fish. The tables daily covered with +them were empty. The happy wives and consorts who had been wont to +sell the catch of the men remained in their homes, and the fishers +themselves were there or idle on the streets. The districts around +the island, which for decades had despatched by the daily diligence, +or by special vehicle or boat, the drafts of the village nets, sent not +a fin. Never in Tahiti's history except when war raged between clans, +or between Tahitians and French, had there been such a fish famine. + +And, name of a dog! it was due to a grève, a strike. It came upon the +Papeete people like a tidal wave out of the sea, or like a cyclone +that devastates a Paumotu atoll, but, entre nous, it had been brooding +for months. Fish had been getting dearer and dearer for a long time, +and householders had complained bitterly. They recalled the time +when for a franc one could buy enough delicious fish for a family +feast. They called the taata hara, the native anglers, cochons, +hogs, and they discussed when they gathered in the clubs, or when +ladies met at market, the weakness of the authorities in allowing +the extortion. But nothing was done. The extortion continued, and +the profanity increased. At the Cercle Bouganville Captain Goeltz +and the other retired salts banged the tables and said to me: + +"Sacré redingote! is it that the indigènes pay the governor or give +him fish free? Are we French citizens to die of hunger that savages +may ride in les Fords?" + +They shouted for Doctor Funks, and drank damnation to the régime +that let patriots surfer to profit les canaques. But, in reality, +the governor months ago had secretly begun a plan to help them. + +One day the governor, his good lady being gone to visit at Raiatea, +had given his cook three francs to buy fish for the déjeuner at the +palace. When they came on the table, a bare bite for each of the +company, the governor had called in the chef. + +"Mais, I gave you three francs for the fish, n'est-ce pas?" + +"Mais, vous don' lai moi t'ree franc, oui, oui," answered the +Chinese. "Moi don'lai canaque po po'sson." + +The governor had led in the chorus of sácres and diables. All at +the table were of the redingote family, all feeding from the national +trough at Paris, and they had the courage and power to end the damnable +imposition on the slender purses of Papeete citizens. Sapristi! this +robbery must cease. He must go slow, however. Being an honest and +unselfish man, he investigated and initiated legislation so carefully +and tardily that the remedy for the evil was applied only four days +ago. He had returned to France, so one could not say that he consulted +his own purse; but the present governor, an amiable man and a good +bridge-player, also liked fish, and they pay no bonanza salaries, +the French. The fishermen had known, of course, of the approaching +end of their piracy, but, like Tahitians, waited until necessity +for action. The official paper in which all laws are published had +the ordinance set out in full. Translated, briefly, from the French, +it ran like this: + +That the Governor of the establishments of France in Oceania, +a chevalier of the Legion of Honor [this information is inserted +in every degree, announcement and statement the governor makes, and +stares at one from a hundred trees], in view of the "article du decret +du 21 decembre, 1885," etc. [and in view of a dozen other articles +of various dates since], considering that fish is the basis of the +alimentation of the Tahitians, that in the Papeete public market, fish +has been monopolized with the result that its price has been raised +steadily, and a situation created injurious to the working people, +the cost of living necessitating a constant increase in salaries, +orders that after a date fixed, fish be sold by weight and at the +following prices per kilo, according to the kind of fish: + + +30 cents a kilo 25 cents a kilo 20 cents a kilo +1st category 2d category 3d category + +Aahi Auhopu Ature +Ahuru Au aavere Atoti + +Anae Ioio Aoa-Ropa +Apai Mahimahi Faia +Ava Moi Fee +Lihi Nato Fai +Mu Nape Honu +Nanue Orare Inaa +Oeo Paere Maere +Paaihere Parai Maito +Paraha peue Puhi pape Marara +Tehu Tohe veri Manini +Varo Taou Mao +Oura (chevrette) Uhi Mana +Paapaa (crabs) Ume Ouma +Oura-miti (langouste) Vau Oiri + Roi Pahoro + Tuhura Patia + Puhu miti + Pahua + Tapio + + +As a kilo is two and a fifth pounds, the ature that Joseph caught +by the Quai de Commerce, being in the third category, would cost, +under the ukase, less than ten cents a pound. Crabs being in the +first category--paapaa,--would cost about thirteen cents a pound, +and the succulent varo the same, whereas they were then two francs, +or forty cents a pound. We lovers of sea centipedes toasted the brave +governor vociferously. + +The decrees were nailed to the trees on the Broom Road, in the rue +de Rivoli, and in the market-place. The populace were joyous, though +some old wholesale buyers like Lovaina questioned the wisdom of the +governor's edict and the effect on themselves. + +"If they do that," said she, "maybe, by'n'by they fix my meal or +lime squash." + +Until the date of carrying out the mandate, one picked out a pleasing +fish or string of fish, all nicely wrapped in leaves, and one asked, +"A hia? How much?" + +When Lovaina inquired the price, she smiled her sweetest, rubbed +the saleslady's back, and uttered some joke that made her sway with +laughter, so that price became of no importance. But a sour-faced +white or a pompous bureaucrat paid her saving, and Chinese, who kept +the restaurants, invoked the curse of barrenness upon the venders. + +The day came for the new scheme of fish-selling to go into effect. The +mayor, a long-bearded and shrewd druggist, had bought up all the +half-way accurate scales in the city, for there had not been a +balance in the market. Everything was by strings, bunches, feels, +and hefts. The fish counters, polished by the guardian of the marché, +were now brilliant with the shiny apparatus. + +The long-awaited morning found a crowd peeping through the +railing half an hour earlier than usual. All would have a fill +of delicacies. Lovaina with the Dummy drove down to the Annexe for +me. Vava was making queer signs to her which either were unintelligible +or which she thought absurd. She waved her long forefinger before him, +which meant: "Don't talk foolishness. I am not a fool." + +We reached the market-place when only a score or two had gathered. + +A thousand devils! there was not a fish on the slabs. The merry wives +were absent. The condition was plain. + +The Dummy uttered a demoniacal grunt, and shook his head and hands +before Lovaina in accusation. She answered him with a movement of +her head up and down, which signified acquiescence. + +"Dummy know," she said mysteriously. "That Vava he find everything. He +like old-time tahutahu, sorcerer. He tell me Annexe no fish. He say +now no fish till finish those masheen." + +She laughed and rubbed my shoulders. + +"The fish slip away," she said, "and leave only their scales! Aue!" + +M. Lontane, the second in command of the gendarmes, was sent +scouting, and reported to the governor--not the one who originated +the manifesto--that the famine was the result of an organized revolt +against the law and order of the land. Fishermen he had questioned, +replied simply, "Aita faito, paru! Aita hoo, paru!" Which, holy +blue! meant, "No scales, fish! No price, fish!" + +What to do? One cannot make a horse drink unless one gives him +red peppers to eat. Even the Government could not make a fisherman +fish for market, as there was a law against enforced labor except as +punishment for crime or in emergencies, such as during the existence +of martial law, the guarding against a conflagration, or a tidal +wave or cyclone. At the Cercle Militaire many of the bureaucrats, +and especially the doctor who had treated the cow-boy, were for +martial law, anyway. Napoleon knew, said the fierce médecin. "A +whiff of grapeshot, and the reef would be again gleaming with lights, +and the diligences would pour in with loads of fish." + +Doctor Cassiou, a very old resident, and not at all fierce, asked +his confrere against whom would the grapeshot be directed. Would he +gather the fishermen from all over Tahiti, and decimate them, the +way the Little Corporal purged mutiny out of his regiments? Lontane +was sent out again. In the Cerele Bougainville he took a rum punch +before starting on his bicycle, and he swore by his patron saint, +Bacchus, that he would solve the problem even if denied the remedy +of force majeure. + +Within three hours of his return from Patutoa, a meeting was called +of the council of state, the governor, the doctors, the druggist, +a merchant or two, and a lawyer, and before it M. Lontane disclosed +that the natives were possessed by a new devil that he feared was a +recrudescence of the ancient struggle for independence. + +Each fisherman he had examined refused to answer his interrogations, +saying only, "I dobbebelly dobbebelly." + +The governor scratched his ear, and the mayor wiggled his hands behind, +as he had on the wharf after the battle of the limes, coal, and +potatoes. The lawyer said it must be an incantation, but that it was +not Tahitian, for that language had no "d" in its alphabet. M. Lontane +and all his squad were given peremptory orders to unriddle the enigma. + +Meanwhile the fishless market continued. It was not entirely fishless, +for before the bell rang we would see over the railings a few handfuls +of varos, crayfish, and shrimps and perhaps a dozen small baskets of +oysters. A policeman prevented a riot, but could not stay the rush +when the bell rang and the gate was opened. The lovers of shellfish +and the servants of the well-to-do snatched madly at the small supply, +and paid whatever extravagant price was demanded. The scales were +never touched, and any insistence upon the new legal plan and price +was laughed at. With these delicacies beyond their means, the natives +stormed the two pork butchers, the Tinitos. They grabbed the chops and +lumps of pig, poking and kneading them, shouting for their weight, +and in some instances making off without paying. There was such a +howdy-do that extra policemen were summoned to form all into line. + +There were no scaly fish, and it came out that the shellfish were +caught by women, widows who had no men to obey or please, who had +children, or who wanted francs to buy gewgaws or tobacco; and a few +unsocial men fishers who did not abide by the common interests of +their group. + +At Lovaina's we were on a tiresome round of canned salmon, eggs, +and beef, and eggs rose to six sous each. In about a fortnight we +began to have fish as usual, and Lovaina signed to me that the Dummy +procured them in the country. I was very curious, and asked if I might +accompany him. She said that he would call for me at the Annexe the +next time he went. + +I was awakened after midnight in my room--the doors were never +locked--by the Dummy leaning over and shaking me. I opened my eyes, +and he put his fingers to his lips. I dressed, and went with him in +the old surrey. We drove through the night along the Broom Road. Once +past the cemetery we were in the country. The cocoanut-trees were +gray ghosts against the dark foliage and trunks of the breadfruits +and the sugar cane; the reef was a faint gleam of white over the +lagoon and a subdued sound of distant waters. + +We jogged along, and as we approached Fa'a, I lit a match and looked +at my watch. It was nearly two o'clock. The Dummy stopped the horse +at Kelly's dance-hall in a palm grove. The building was of bamboo +and thatch, with a smooth floor of Oregon pine, and was a former +himene house. Kelly had rented it from the church authorities. The +dancing was over for the night, but a few carts were in the grove, +and the lights were bright. We went inside, and found forty or fifty +Tahitians, men and women, squatting or sitting on the floor, while on +the platform was Kelly himself, with his accordion on the table. He saw +me and shouted "Ia ora na!" And after a few minutes, while others came, +began to speak. What he said was interpreted by a Frenchman, who, to my +astonishment, proved to be the editor of one of those anti-government +papers printed in San Francisco, that Ivan Stroganoff had shown me. + +Kelly addressed the audience, "Fishermen and fellow stiffs." He said +that the fish strike was a success, and if they all remained true to +one another, they would win, and the scales would be kicked out. The +few scabs who sold fish in the market only made sore those unable to +buy. He said that he had found out that the law applied only to the +market-place, and that a plan would be tried of hawking fish from house +to house in Papeete. They would circumvent the governor's proclamation +in that way. He praised their fortitude in the struggle, and after the +editor had interpreted stiffs by te tamaiti aroha e, which means poor +children, and scabs by iore, which means rats, and had ended with a +peroration that brought many cries of "Maitai! Good!" Kelly took up +his accordion, and began to play the sacred air of "Revive us Again!" + +He led the singing of his version: + + + "Hallelujah! I'm a bum! Hallelujah! Bum again! + Hallelujah! Give us a hand-out! To save us from sin!" + + +The Tahitians rocked to and fro, threw back their heads, and, their +eyes shut as in their religious himenes, chorused joyfully: + + + "Hahrayrooyah! I'm a boom! Hahrayrooyah! Boomagay! + Hahrayrooyah! Hizzandow! To tave ut fruh tin!" + + +They sang the refrain a dozen times, and then Kelly dismissed the +meeting with a request for "three cheers for the I. W. W." + +There is no "w" in French or in Tahitian, and the interpreter said, +"Ruperupe ah-ee dohblevay dohblevay!" And the Tahitians: "Ai dobbebelly +dobbebelly!" + +Kelly came down from the platform, his freckled face shining and +his eyes serious but twinkling. He greeted me as the natives lit +cigarettes and filed out. + +"I'm runnin' their strike for them," he said. "It 's on the square. The +poor fish! They don't make hardly enough to pay for their nets, let +alone an honest day's pay, and they're up half the night and takin' +chances with the sharks and the devil-fish. They have to pay market +dues and all sorts of taxes. They 're good stiffs all right, and +every one has a membership card in the I. W. W. applied for." + +When we went outside, I saw that the Dummy who had been a witness of +the scene in the hall, had a large package of fish in the surrey, +and all around there were other packages of them. The men had been +selling to those who came to Fa'a for them, the law extending only +to the market in Papeete. + +The strikers hawked the fish in town the next day, but this was +immediately forbidden. Hungry for fish--the Tahitians have one word +meaning all that--though the people were, few could drive out to Fa'a +to fetch them. Within Papeete fish were mysteriously nailed to the +trees at night, and over each was a card with the letters, "I. W. W." + +Again a meeting of the council of state was called, and at it +M. Lontane revealed the meaning of those cabalistic letters and the +leadership of Kelly. He had tracked down the fishermen and found +their headquarters at the dance hall. + +At the Cercle Bougainville there was an uproar. Merchants drank +twice their stint of liquor in their indignation. Syndicalism was +invading their shores, and their already limited labor supply would +be corrupted. + +I could not picture too seriously the wrath of the honest traders +at the traitorous conduct of Kelly, "a white man," as told by +M. Lontane. I was upbraided because of Kelly being an American with +an Irish name. Lying Bill said it was "A bloody Guy Fawkes plot." + +M. Lontane took full credit for the discovery of what he termed +"A complot that would rival the Dreyfus case." + +He struck his chest, and asked me sternly if I knew of M. LeCoq, +the great detective, of Emile Gaboriau. + +Kelly was arrested in the midst of his dancing soirée at Fa'a. He +was put in the calaboose, and when he frankly said that he had come +to Tahiti to preach the gospel of I. W. W.-ism and that he believed +the fishermen had all the right on their side, he was sentenced as +"a foreigner without visible means of support, a vagrant, miscreant, +vagabond, and dangerous alien," to a month on the roads, and then to +be deported to the United States, whence he had come. + +The strike or walk-out was broken. With the cessation of the +direction of Kelly and his heartening song, the fishermen gradually +went back to their routine, and their women folk to the market. The +scales were in operation, but the himene, "Hahrayrooyah! I'm a +boom! Hahrayrooyah! Boomagay!" was sung from one end of Tahiti +to another, and "Ai dobbebelly dobbebelly" was made at the Cercle +Bougainville a password to some very old rum said to have belonged +to the bishop who wrote the Tahitian dictionary. + + + +Chapter XV + +A drive to Papenoo--The chief of Papenoo--A dinner and poker on the +beach--Incidents of the game--Breakfast the next morning--The chief +tells his story--The journey back--The leper child and her doll--The +Alliance Française--Bemis and his daughter--The band concert and the +fire--The prize-fight--My bowl of velvet. + +We had another picnic; this time at Papenoo. Polonsky owned thirty +thousand acres of land in the Great Valley of Papenoo, the largest +of all the valleys of Tahiti. He had bought it from the Catholic +mission, which, following the monastic orders of the church in other +countries for a thousand years, had early adopted a policy of acquiring +land. But there were too few laborers in Tahiti now. Christianity +had not worked the miracle of preserving them from civilization. The +priests were glad to sell their extensive holdings at Papenoo, and the +energetic Russo-French count said that he would bring Slav families +from Europe to populate and develop it. He would plant the vast acreage +in cocoanut-trees, vanilla vines, and sugar-cane, and build up a white +community in the South Seas. He had noble plans for a novel experiment. + +We started from the Cercle Bougainville in the afternoon in carriages +pulled by California bronchos. The dour Llewellyn, the handsome +Landers, the boastful McHenry, Lying Bill, David, the young American +vanilla-shipper, Bemis, an American cocoanut-buyer, the half-castes of +the orchestra, and servants, filled three roomy carryalls. The ideal +mode of travel in Tahiti in the cool of the day would be a donkey, a +slow, patient beast, who might himself take an interest in the scenery, +or at least the shrubbery. But the white must ever go at top speed, +and we dashed through the streets of Papeete, the accordions playing +"Revive us again!" the "Himene Tatou Arearea," and other tunes, and +we singing, "Hallelujah! I'm a bum!" and "Faararirari ta oe Tamarii +Tahiti! La, li!" One never makes merry privately in the South Seas. + +Through Papeete we went along the eastern Broom Road, our train +attracting much attention. We stopped at the glacerie for ice, and +Polonsky insisted that we make a detour to his residence to drink a +stirrup-cup of champagne. He donned riding-breeches and took a horse +from his well-appointed stable. + +Against the road on each side were close hedges of acalypha, or false +coffee, called in Tahitian tafeie, a small tree which grows quickly, +and the leaves of which are red or bronze or green, handsome and +admirably suited for fencing. Through these hedges and the broad +entrances I saw the houses and gardens, the residents and family life +of the people. Everywhere was a small prosperity, with gladness; pigs +and sheep cropping the grass and herbs, which were a mat of green, +rising so fast with the daily showers that only flocks could keep +it shorn. On the verandas and on the turf idle men and women were +gazing at the sky, talking, humming the newest air, plaiting hats, +or napping. No one was reading. There was no book-store in Tahiti. I +had not read a line since I came. I had not stepped up to the genial +dentist's to see an American journal. After years of the newspaper +habit, reading and writing them, it had fallen away in Tahiti as +the prickly heat after a week at sea. Of what interest was it that +the divorce record was growing longer in New York, that Hinky Dink +had been reëlected in Chicago, and that Los Angeles had doubled in +population. A dawn on the beach, a swim in the lagoon, the end of +the fish strike, were vastly more entertaining. + +We passed the gorge of Fautaua, where Fragrance of the Jasmine and I +had had a charmed day. The pinnacles of the Diadem were black against +the eastern sky. Aorai, the tallest peak in sight, more than a mile +high, hid its head in a mass of snowy clouds. + +Not far away was the mausoleum of the last king of the Society Islands, +Pomaré the Fifth, with whose wide-awake widow, the queen, I had smoked +a cigarette a day ago. It was a pyramid of coral, a red funeral-urn +on top, and a red P on the façade. Pillars and roof were of the same +color, and a chain surrounded it. The tomb was rococo, glaring, +typical of the monuments in the South Seas where the aboriginal +structures of beauty or interest were destroyed by the missionaries +to please their Clapham Seminary god. Pomaré, who had been the victim +of French political chicane, enjoyed now but one privilege. If his +spirit had senses, it heard the lapping of the waves upon the beach +of the lagoon across which his ancestor, the first Pomaré, had come +from Moorea to be a king. + +We left the Broom Road for Point Venus to see the monument to Captain +James Cook, the great mariner of these seas. The only lighthouse +on Tahiti is there. On that spot Cook and his astronomers had +observed the transit of Venus in 1769, and it was there the first +English missionaries landed from the ship Duff to convert the pagan +Tahitians. Cook has a pillar, with a plate of commemoration, in a +grove of purau-trees, cocoanuts, pandanus, and the red oleander; +Cook who is an immortal, and was loved by a queen here. + +We left behind Paintua, Taunoa, Arahim, Arue and Haapape, and came +to a shore where no reef checked the waves in a yeasty line a mile or +less from the beach. The breakers roared and beat upon a black shore, +strangely different from the Tahitian strand that I had seen. For miles +a hundred feet of sable rocks, pebbles, some small and others as big as +a man's hand, lay between the receded tide and the road, and all along +huge islets of somber stone defended themselves as best they could +against the attack of the surf. Signs of surrender showed in some, +caverns and arches cut by the constant hammer of swell and billow. + +Sugar-cane, vanilla, pineapples, coffee, bananas, plantation after +plantation, with the country houses of Papeete's merchants, officials, +lawyers, and doctors, moved past our vehicle, and, as we increased +the distance from the capital, the beautiful native homes appeared. + +Simple they were, with no windows or doors, mere shelters, but cool and +cheap, with no division of rooms, and no furniture but the sleeping +mats and a utensil or two. Natives were seen cooking their simple +meal of fish and breadfruit, or only the latter. The fire was in the +ground or under a grill of iron on stones. They would not go hungry, +for mango-trees lined the road, and bananas, feis, and pineapples +were to be had for the taking. + +We drove through Aapahi and Faaripoo and saw a funeral. In the grounds +of the dead man sat two large groups of people, the men and the women +separate. They talked of his dying and his property, and his children, +while those who liked to do so made him ready for the grave. A hundred +yards away, in a school-yard, twoscore men, women, boys, and girls +played football. The males were in pareus, naked except about the +waist, and they kicked the heavy leather sphere with their bare feet. + +Pare, Arue, and Mahina districts behind us, we were in Papenoo, a +straggling village of a few hundred people along the road, the houses, +all but the half-dozen stores of the Chinese, set back a hundred yards, +and the domestic animals and carts in the front. + +With a flourish we drove into the inclosure of the largest, newest, +and most pretentious house, and were greeted by Teriieroo, the Tahitian +chief, all native, but speaking French easily and musically. Count +Polonsky shook hands with him, as did we all, but when a daughter +appeared, neither Polonsky nor we paid her any attention. Yet she was +Polonsky's "girl," as they say here, and he kept her in good style +in a house near her father's, sending his yellow automobile for her +when he wanted her at his villa near Papeete. + +The chief's house had four bedrooms, each with an European bed, +three-quarter size, and with a mattress two feet high, stuffed with +kapok, the silky cotton which grows on trees all over Tahiti, These +mattresses were beveled, and one must lie in their middle not to slip +off. The coverlets were red and blue in stamped patterns. + +It was dark when we touched the earth after two hours' driving, and +leaving the coachman to care for the horses, we went with the chief, +each of us carrying a siphon of seltzer or a bottle of champagne or +claret. Our way was through an old and dark cocoanut grove, a bare +trail, winding among the trees, and ending at the beach. + +Polonsky had had built a pavilion for the revel. Fifty feet away was +a kitchen in which the dinner was cooking, its odors adding appetite +to that whetted by the several cocktails which Polonsky had mixed +when the ice was brought in a wheelbarrow from the wagon. + +We sat down in chairs on the turf a foot from the jetty boulders, +and watched the inrush of the breakers. A light breeze outside had +stirred the water, and the combers were white and high. + +"Every sea is really three seas," said McHenry, pipe in hand, as he +sipped his Martini. "We fellows who have to risk our cargoes and lives +in landing in the Paumotus and Marquesas, study the accursed surf to +find out its rules. There are rules, too, and the ninth wave is the +one we come in on. That is the last of the third group, the biggest, +and the one that will bring your boat near enough to shore to let +all hands leap out and run her up away from the undertow." + +Lights were placed in the new house. It was elegantly made, of small +bamboos up and down, with a floor of matched boards, the roof of +cocoanut-leaves, and hung with blossoms of many kinds. The table had +been spread, and there was a glitter of silver and glass, with all +the accoutrements of fashion. We sat down, eight, the chief making +nine, and ate and drank until ten o'clock. The pièce de résistance +was the sucking pig, with taro and feis, but roasted in an oven, +and not in native style; and there was a delicious young turkey from +New Zealand, a ham from Virginia, truffles, a salad of lettuce and +tomatoes, and a plum pudding from London. The claret was 1900 and +1904, a vintage obtained by Polonsky in Paris. The champagne, also, +was of a year, and frappéd. Tahitian coffee, with brown sugar from +the chief's plantation, ended the banquet. + +There was no conversation of any interest. The Parisian count was +far removed in experience and culture from the others, and probably +only the necessity of companionship in revelry and cards brought +them together. Europe, and all the earth, was his playground, and +doubtless he had lavished a fortune in pleasure in the capitals of the +Continent. Llewellyn had an education in the universities of England +and Germany, but since young manhood had been in his birthplace, +and the others were the rough and ready stuff of business or seafaring. + +The table for the gambling was moved to the sward by the shingle, +and lamps hung upon bamboos planted at each end. It was balmy, and we +sat in our shirts, the bosoms open for the breeze, the count with his +gorgeous Japanese god shining upon his ivory breast, and the round +glass in his eye. The tattooed skeleton upon his forearm was uncanny +in the flickering light, the black shadows of the eyes seeming to +open and close as the rays fell upon it. + +Landers, though he had drunk with all, was appreciative of every +nicety of the game, and won fifteen hundred francs. He alone was cool, +watching the faces of the players at every crisis, quick to detect +a weakness, to interpret rightly a gesture or counting of losses and +gains, remorselessly hammering home his victories, and always suave +and generous in action. + +Llewellyn would withdraw his attention to listen to the himene of the +musicians thirty feet away, which consisted mostly of familiar American +airs, interpolated with bizarre staves and dissonances. One caught a +beloved strain, and then it wandered away queerly as if the musician +had forgotten the score and had done his best otherwise. I never heard +in Tahiti one air of Europe or America played through as composed, +without variation or omission, except the national anthem of France. + +"They are happy, those boys," mused Llewellyn. "They get more out +of life than we do. Why should we fool with these cards here when we +might sing?" + +Llewellyn was only a quarter Tahitian, but at times the island blood +was the only pulse he felt. One noticed it especially during the +himenes, when he seemed to wander far from the business in hand. That +business being poker, and Landers all attention to the cards and the +psychology of his antagonists, every time Llewellyn harked to the +himene he lost a little, and when he became entangled in a jackpot +of size, and drew too many cards on account of his abstraction, he +was mulcted of fifty francs and failed of winning the two hundred he +might have won. + +"Unlucky at cards, lucky in something else," said he, self-consolingly. + +"Ye want to drop that other thing when ye're playing cards," McHenry +advised as he scooped in the pot. "The cards are all queens to you." + +Chief Teriieroo a Teriieroterai sat ten feet removed from the players, +but kept his eyes on the money. They played with notes, five francs +being the smallest, and the others twenties and hundreds. The chief +smiled whenever Count Polonsky drew in a heap of these, and when one +fell on the floor, he scrambled under the table to prevent it being +blown on the rocks. The Javanese served the drinks, and a crowd of +natives watched curiously the shifting vantages from a respectful +distance. + +It was three o'clock when the scores were settled, and, the chief +leading with a lantern, we tramped through the great cocoanut-grove +to his residence. + +Landers and I each took a bed, I being warned to be forehanded by my +experience in Moorea, where I slept on the floor. The chief retired, +and Polonsky went off with his arm about his inamorata's waist, +she having apparently awaited his return. When Llewellyn and McHenry +appeared half an hour later, having emptied a bottle reminiscent to +McHenry of his father's liking for Auld Reekie, they were discomfited +by the beds being all occupied, the other two having been early +claimed by two men who ate and drank and immediately slept. + +When I awoke, the sun was up half an hour, and Landers and I went +for a bath in the brook. We found a pool famed in the legends of the +natives. In the olden days the kings and chiefs would have made it +tabu to themselves. + +Landers had on a pareu only, his two hundred and fifty pounds of +bone and muscle a refreshing sight, and his eyes as bright as if he +had had the prescribed eight hours. They looked at him, sighingly, +the young women of the village, even at this hour busied cooking +breadfruit or fish and coffee; and Landers flirted with each one and +in Tahitian called out words which made them laugh, and sometimes +hide their heads coquettishly. + +"I dated them all," he said to me when we were under the water. We +threw off our garments at the edge of the pool and plunged in. The +water was as soft as milk and as clear as crystal, cool and +invigorating. I drank my fill of it as I swam. + +Breakfast we had in the chief's house, the remains of the amuraa +rahi of the night before. The chief drank coffee with us, and when +we had gone to sit on the veranda, his eight children and wife took +the board. I talked with Teriieroo a Teriieroterai for half an hour +in French. He was thirty-eight years old, very engaging, and had +several grandchildren. + +"Eh bien," he said to my question, "I will tell you. I was married +first at sixteen years of age and this is my third wife." He pointed +over his shoulder to a tow-headed German for all I could see, and +who certainly showed no sign of the native except in her dress and +manners and avoirdupois. + +"My first wife died," continued the arii, contemplatively. "I divorced +the second, and the third is just now eating the first déjeuner in +that room. I have eight children, and will have twenty, and I am +the chief of the Papenoo district, but this is not the place of my +ancienne famille. I was appointed here by the French Governor three +years ago to administer the district, which needed a strong hand. I +like it, and have bought land and built this house. I will stay my +days here. There is the farehau, the administration building where +I meet the people and we have conferences." + +He pointed to a wooden cottage near by, with what looked like a +dancing-pavilion attached. There the people come to squat upon the +floor and relate their grievances. Most of the disputes before minor +and major courts were over land and water rights. + +It was half past seven o'clock when we inspanned for the trek +to Papeete, a balmy, brilliant morning. The banks and cliffs were +masses of ferns, the living imposed upon the dead, and hibiscus and +gardenias and clumps of bamboo in a dissolving pageant mingled with +plots of taro and yams, pineapples and bananas. The majestic bread +trees and the spreading mangoes, the latter with their fruit verging +from gold to russet, were surflnounted by the soaring cocoanuts, +the monarchs of the tropics, whose banners fly from every atoll, +and fall only before the most terrible might of the King of Storms. + +A cocoanut-palm bears at eight years and when about twenty-five feet +high. It rises seventy or eighty feet, and has a hundred curves. It +is the wily creature of the winds, but outwits them in all but their +worst moods. To the tropical man the cocoa-palm is life and luxury. He +drinks the milk and eats the meat, or sells it dried for making soaps +and emollients and other things; the oil he lights his house with and +rubs upon his body to assuage pain; he builds his houses and wharves of +it, and thatches his home with the husks, which also serve for fuel, +fiber for lines and dresses and hats, leaves for canoe-sails and the +shell of the nut for his goblet. Its roots he fashions into household +utensils. The cocoa grows where other edibles perish. It dips its bole +in the salt tide, and will not thrive removed from its beloved sea. + +To me there is an inexpressible sentiment in the presence of these +cocoa-palms. They are the symbol of the simplicity and singleness +of the eternal summer of the tropics; the staff and gonfalons of the +dominion of the sun. My heart leaps at their sight when long away. They +are the dearest result of seed and earth. I drink their wine and esteem +dwelling in their sight a rare communion with the best of nature. + +They joked Count Polonsky about his girl, and he began to explain. + +"I was here a year before I found one that suited me," he said as +he rode beside the wagon. "I don't love her, nor she me, but I pay +her well, and ask only physical fidelity for my physical safety. Her +father is practical and influential, and will help me with my plans +for development of the Papenoo valley, which I have bought." + +Three tall and robust natives in pareus of red and yellow, and carrying +long spears, went by, accompanied by a dozen dogs. We stopped them, +and they said they were from the Papara district on their way to hunt +pig in the Papenoo Mountains for Count Polonsky. The latter remembered +he had ordered such a hunt, and explained through Llewellyn that he +was their employer. + +They faced him, and seldom was greater contrast. Magnificent +semi-savages, clothed in only a rag, their powerful muscles responsive +to every demand of their minds, and health glowing in their laughing +countenances: Polonsky, slight, bent, baldish, arrayed in Paris +fashions, a figure from the Bois de Boulogne, his glass screwed in +his weak eye, the other myopic, teeth missing, and face pale. But +at his command they hunted, for he had that which they craved, the +money of civilization, to buy its toys and poisons. Polonsky had a +reputation for generous dealing. + +A bent native man repairing the road near Faaripoo had his face swathed +in bandages. He greeted us with the courteous, "Ia ora na!" but did +not lift his head. + +"He is a leper," said Llewellyn. "I have seen him for years on this +road. He may not be here many more days, because they are segregating +the lepers. The Government has built a lazaretto for them up that +road." + +We saw a group of little houses a short distance removed from the +road. They were fenced in and had an institutional look. + +"There's hundreds of lepers in Tahiti," remarked McHenry. + +"Mac, you're a damned liar," replied Llewellyn. He was an overlord +in manner when with natives, but his quarter aboriginal blood caused +the least aspersion on them by others to touch him on the raw. + +"Well, there's a bloody lot o'them," broke in Lying Bill. + +"Eighty only," stated Llewellyn, conclusively. "The Government has +taken a census, and they 're all to be brought here. Did you hear +that Tissot left for Raiatea when he heard of the census? He's a +leper and a white man. They seized young Briand yesterday." + +I was astonished, because the latter had lived opposite the Tiare +Hotel, and I had met him often at the barber's. I had been "next" +to him at Marechal's shop a week before. + +"He did not know he was a leper until they examined him," Llewellyn +went on. "He does not know how he contracted the disease. I don't +mind it. I am not afraid. You get used to it. I tell you, the only +leper I ever knew that made me cry was a kid. I used to see on the +porch of a house on the road to Papara from Papeete a big doll. A +little leper girl owned it, and she was ashamed to be seen outside +her home, so she put on the veranda the doll she loved best to greet +her friends. She made out that the doll was really herself, and she +loved to listen when those who might have been playmates talked to +the doll and fondled it. She lived for and in the doll, and those +who cherished the little girl saw that each Christmas the doll was +exchanged secretly for a bigger one, keeping pace with the growth of +the child. I have caressed it and sung to it, and guessed that the +child was peeping and listening inside. She herself never touched +it, for it would be like picking up one's own self. Each Christmas +she saw herself born again, for the old dolls were burned without +her knowledge. And all the time her own little body was falling to +pieces. Last Christmas she was carried to the door to see the new +doll. I bought it for her, and I had in it a speaking-box, to say +'Bonjour!' I sent to Paris for it. She's dead now, poor little devil, +or they'd have shut her up in the lazaretto." + +Bemis bought cocoanuts for shipment for food purposes. His firm sold +them all over America to fruitdealers for eating raw by children, +and shredded and prepared them for confectioners and grocers. He was +the only buyer in Tahiti of fresh nuts, as all others purchased them +as copra, split and dried, for the oil. Bemis had been here years ago, +he said. + +"I'm married now," he told me, "but in those days I was a damn +fool about the Tahitian girls. I put in six months here before I +was married." + +He became thoughtful, and asked me to accompany him to the soiree of +the Alliance Française, in the Palais cinema-hall. The Alliance was +for encouraging the study and use of the French language. A few decades +ago Admiral Serre, the governor, had forbidden the teaching of French +to girls in the country districts as hurtful to their moral weal. It +was feared that they would seek to air their learning in Papeete, +and, as said Admiral Serre, be corrupted. A new regime reckoned a +knowledge of French a requisite of patriotism. + +At the Palais the scene was brilliant. Two large banana-trees were +apparently growing at the sides of the stage, and the pillars of the +roof were wreathed in palm-leaves. Scores of French flags draped the +walls. Pupils of the government schools occupied many seats, and their +families, friends, and officials the others. The galleries were filled +with native children. Marao, the former queen, and her daughters, the +Princesses Boots and Tekau, with a party of English acquaintances, were +in front, and the general audience consisted of French and every caste +of Tahitian, from half to a sixteenth. The men were in white evening +suits, and the women and girls in décolleté gowns, white and colored. + +It was eight o'clock when the governor entered on the arm of the +president of the Alliance, Dr. Cassiou. He was in a white drill +uniform, with deep cuffs of gold bullion, and a blazing row of +orders on his breast. The république outdoes many monarchies in +decorating with these baubles its heroes of politics. The governor, +a wholesome-looking diplomat, was the image of the famous host of +the Old Poodle Dog restaurant in San Francisco, who himself would +have had a hundred ribbons in a just democracy. + +The band of native musicians played "The Marseillaise," but nobody +stood. With all their embellishments, the French would not incommode +themselves at the whim of a baton-wielder, who in America had only to +wave his stick in "The Star-Spangled Banner," and any one who did not +humor his whim by getting on his feet was beaten by his neighbors, +who would not suffer without him. + +With the governor were the inspecteurs colonials, the bearded +napkin-wearers of Lovaina's. They, too, had a line of gay ribbon +from nipple to nipple. These three and the boulevardier, the gay +secretary, sat upon the stage beside a stack of gilded red books. The +band played "La Croix d'Honneur," and the good Dr. Cassiou read from a +manuscript his annual address in a low voice becoming a ministrant at +sick-beds. Another piece by the band, and the books were distributed to +the pupils, who went tremulously upon the stage to receive them from +the governor's hand. This was a lengthy process, but each child had a +claque, which communicated enthusiasm to the others of the audience, +and there was continuous clapping. + +"Les Cadets de Russie" by the band preceded the allocution by the +governor. He also spoke sotto voce, as if to himself, and as no +one heard his words, the fans of native straw and Chinese turkey +feathers were plied incessantly. The heat was oppressive. A sigh of +relief came with the entr'acte, when all the grown folk flocked to +the attached saloon. I joined the queen's group for a few moments, +and drank champagne with her and her daughters, and I was called over +to have a glass of Perrier Jouet with the governor's party. Most of +the natives drank bottled lemonade from the glacerie at five sous +a bottle. The queen wore a rose in her hair. She was very large, +with almost a man's face, shrewd, heavy, determined, and yet lively, +and without a shade of pretense. Her walk was singularly majestic, +and was often commented upon. + +The Princess Tekau was beautiful, quite like a Spanish senorita in +color and feature, her ivory skin gleaming against a pale-blue bodice, +and her blue-black hair piled high. We talked French or English, with +many Tahitian words thrown in, according to the mood or need of the +moment. Every one was laughing. After all, Tahiti was very simple, +and even officialdom could not import aristocracy or stiffness into +a climate where starch melted before one could impress a spectator. + +The inspecteurs and others of the suite had smiles and quips for +humbler girls than princesses. I saw one of the awesome whiskerandos +from Paris, haughty and secretive toward the French, lighting the +cigarette of a blanchisseuse at the Pool of Psyche, his arm about her, +and his black bristles nearer than necessary to her ripe mouth. A +merchant dining away from home slapped caressingly the hips of the +girls who waited upon him, nor concealed his gestures. Hypocrisy had +lost her shield in Tahiti, because, except among a few aged persons, +and the pastors, she was not a virtue, as in America and England, +but a hateful vice. + +Back again in the Palais, cooled and made receptive to music by +the joyous quarter of an hour in the buffet, we heard Mme. Gautier +sing "Le Cid," by Massenet, and the Princess Tekau accompany her +effectively on the piano. A solo de piston, a violin, a flute, all +played by Tahitians, entertained us, and then came the fun. M. X---- +was down for a monologue. Who could it be? He bounced on the stage in +a Prince-Albert coat and a Derby hat, rollicking, truculent, plainly +exhilarated. Why, it was M. Lontane in disguise, the second in command +of the police, the hero of the battle of the limes, the coal, and +the potatoes. He gave a side-splitting burlesque of the conflict. He +acted the drunken stoker, the man who would write to "The Times" +when M. Lontane placed his pistol at his stomach, and he made us see +the fruit and coal flying. It was all good natured, and his dialogue +(monologue) amusing. We saw how we Anglo-Saxons appeared to the French, +and learned how the hoarse growl of the British sailor sounded. + +The governor was delighted, the inspecteurs also. The officials +took their cue, the entire audience laughed, and the galleries of +children, not understanding at all, but convulsed at the antics of +the head policeman, yelled encore. The British consul grinned, and the +governor turned and winked at him. The entente cordiale was cemented +again. The second in command, who provoked the sundering of the tie, +had reunited it by his comicality. Ire dissolved in glee. + +A play followed, in which several of the players were in the audience, +and in which my barber, M. Bontet, shone, and moving-pictures +followed. The babies were long asleep, and we yawning when we were +dismissed at half past twelve. + +Bemis, the cocoanut-buyer, sat through the entr'acte, not accompanying +me to the buffet. He received a shock during the handing out of +the premiums and was silent afterward. Bemis was a striking man, +because the very regular features of his young face were set off by +a mass of white hair. He was placid, without a disturbing intellect, +and interested solely in the price and condition of fresh cocoanuts +for shipment. I had seen him start when a little girl of distinctive +expression was called to the stage to receive her book. She sat with +her mother and putative father, and their other children. When I +first saw her, I pulled his arm. + +"Bemis," I said, "for heaven's sake, look at that girl!" + +He looked, and his face tensed, growing ashen white. "She's the image +of you, Bemis," I pursued. + +"For God's sake, talk low!" he cautioned. "People are rubbering at me +now. She is mine, I'm sure. I was here six months a dozen years ago +and had an affair with her mother, who sits there. What can I do? I +have my own at home in Oakland. I could not tell. I never knew about +that girl until a week ago. She doesn't know me. I saw her on the Broom +Road, so I came to-night to have a good look at her. I was afraid to +come alone. It would do no good for me to tell her. She's taken care +of. She's lovely, isn't she? I'd like to take her in my arms once." + +We walked to the Annexe. + +"I'll tell you," he resumed. "I can't blame myself. I was like any +young fellow who comes down here,--I wasn't more than twenty-five,--but +I feel like hell. That child's face is almost identical, except for +color, with my baby of eight or nine at home. I'm afraid I'll see it +at night when I go back." + +On the trees, which carry all the public announcements, appeared a +notice of a concert by the local band: + + + Fanfare de Papeete + Le public est informé la Fanfare donnera son + Concert sur la Place du Gouvernement Mardi Soir a 8 heures. + + RETRAITE + + aux Flambeaux! + + +All day it rained, but at seven a myriad of stars were in the sky. The +Place du Gouvernement is a large lawn between the group of buildings +devoted to administrative affairs, with seats for several score, +but not for the hundreds who attended the band concert. The notice +about the flambeaux drew even the few boys and youths who might not +have come for the music. + +In the center of the lawn was a kiosk, and on the four sides the +rue de Rivoli, the garden of the Cercle Militaire, the grounds of +the former palace of the Pomarés, now the executive offices, and the +pavilion of the Revues. + +I went early when the lights were being turned on. Only the sellers of +wreaths had arrived, and they seated themselves along the square, their +ferns and flowers on the ground beside them. Then came the venders +of sweets, ice-cream, and peanuts, and soon the band and the throng. + +An allegro broke upon the air, and stilled for a moment +the chatter. Most of the people stood or strolled in twos or +dozens. They bought wreaths and placed them on their bare heads, +while the few who wore hats encircled them with the brilliant greens +and blossoms. Bevies of handsome girls and women in their prettiest +tunics, many wearing Chinese silk shawls of blue or pink, their hair +tied with bright ribbons, sat on the benches or grouped about the +confectionery-stands. Many carriages and automobiles were parked in +the shadows, holding the more reserved citizens--the governor, the +royal family, the bishop, the clergy, and dignified matrons of girth. + +The bachelors and male coquets of the Tahitians and French, with a +sprinkling of all the foreigners in Papeete, the officers and crews +of the war-ship Zélée and sailing vessels, smoked and endeavored to +segregate vahines who appealed to them. The dark procureur général +from Martinique had an eye for beauty, and the private secretary of +the governor was in his most gallant mood, a rakish cloth hat with +a feather, a silver-headed stick, a suit of tight-fitting black, +and a tiare Tahiti over his ear, marking him among the other Lotharios. + +The band was led by a tall, impressive native who both beat and hummed +the airs to guide the others. A tune ended, the bandsmen hurried to +mix with the audience, to smoke and flirt. The shading acacia-trees +lining the avenues permitted privacy for embraces, kisses, for making +engagements, and for the singing of chansons and himenes of scandalous +import. Better than the Latin, the Tahitian likes direct words and +candor in song. + +French naval officers and sailors passed and repassed, or sought +the obscurity of the mangoes or the acacias. One heard the sibilance +of kisses, the laughter, and the banter, the half-serious blows and +scoldings of the vahines who repelled over-bold sailors. In an hour +the sedate and the older took leave; the governor and the procureur +turned into the Cercle Militaire for whist or écarté and a glass +of wine, the carriages withdrew, and the band's airs and manner +of playing took on a new freedom and abandon. A polka was begun, +and couples danced upon the grass, the ladies in their peignoirs, +their black hair floating, and their lips chanting, their wreaths +and flowers nodding to their motions. + +In retired nooks where the lamp-lights did not penetrate ardent ones +threw themselves into the postures and agitations of the upaupa, +the hula. + +Boys now began to light the flambeaux for the retraite. These +were large bundles of cocoanut-husks and candlenuts soaked in oil, +and they gave a generous flare. Suddenly, we heard the mairie-bell +tolling. The band-leader climbed upon the roof of the kiosk, descended, +and gave a vigorous beat upon the air for "the Marseillaise," which +ends all concerts. + +It was quickly over, and seizing the flambeaux, all rushed from the +Place du Gouvernement, lighting the way of the retraite, now more +furious even than planned. The band struck up, "There'll be a Hot Time +in the Old Town To-night," the drum and bugle made warlike notes, and +down the rue de Rivoli we went madly toward the conflagration sighted +by the leader. After the band and the flambeaux-bearers danced the +jolly commoners, with here and there a more important pair of legs, +an English clerk, a tourist, or an official, all excited by the music, +the torches, and the running to the fire. The flambeaux reeled to and +fro with the skipping and leaping of their carriers, the multitude +sang loudly, and the music became broken as the leader lost control +of his men. They came to the house of the hose-cart, and transformed +themselves into firemen, laying down their instruments and harnessing +themselves to the lines. Away we went again, now at top speed. Other +carts with apparatus dashed into the Broom Road from side streets +and caught up with us. + +The pullers yelled warnings in Tahitian to those who might impede +their way or be run over. The stir was tremendous, for fires were rare +and greatly feared. The regulations of the possession and storage +of combustibles were severe, even a wagon or handcart containing as +little as one can of kerosene being compelled to fly a red flag. + +After a mile we came to the fire, a Chinese restaurant beside a little +creek and in a cocoanut-grove. The roof had fallen in and there were +reports that a woman and two children had been killed. Two men with +quart cans threw water from the stream on the edge of the blaze. + +The little hose-carts, with a small ladder, arrived with éclat, native +gendarmes clearing the road, and Frenchmen and natives shouting the +danger of death by these formidable engines. They were of no purpose, +the water-taps which were conspicuous in the main streets being absent +here, and no water under pressure was available. They knew this, of +course, but the hose was unreeled, and a dozen people tripped up by +its snakelike movements, the while bandsmen and gendarmes roared out +manoeuvers. By now a thousand were there. I counted roughly several +hundred bicycles and two public automobiles, holding thirty persons +each, came from the center of town, the enterprising owners canvassing +the coffee-shops and saloons for passengers. These carryalls drew up +by the stream within forty feet of the blaze, forcing the pedestrians +and cyclists to retreat. + +Lovaina appeared, puffing furiously. Vava was roused to a high +pitch. He told me by signs how he had seen the fire and given the alarm +to the mairie, or city hall, the bell of which tolled for an hour. + +There was no wind, and the flames rose straight up, scorching +the cocoanut-leaves, but unharming other houses within twenty-five +feet. The crowd lingered until the last timber had fallen. After seeing +that there was small danger to the adjoining buildings, and learning +that the loss fell upon Chinese only, that no one had been hurt, and +that a can of kerosene had exploded, interest in the conflagration +dropped, and friends and acquaintances who had met chatted amiably +on other subjects. The proximity of the fire and the marshy condition +of the ground made it proper for the ladies with well-turned legs to +raise their gowns high, displaying garterless stockings held up by the +"native twist" above the calf. Accordions and mouth-organs enlivened +the talk, and not until only charred boards remained did we leave. + +Besides the occasional concerts of the band, boxing and moving-pictures +made up the public night life of Papeete. Attached to the theaters +were bars, as at the Palais, and these were the foci of those who +hunted distraction, and the trysting-places of the amorous. One found +in them or flitting about them all the Tahitian or part Tahitian +girls in Papeete who were not kept from them by higher ambition or +by a strict family rule. From Moorea, Raiatea, Bora-Bora, and other +islands, and from the rural districts of Tahiti, drifted the fairest +who pursued pleasure, and to these cafés went the male tourists, +the gayer traders, the sailors, and the Tahitian men of city ways, +the chauffeurs, clerks, and officials. + +Boxing and cinemas were novelties in Tahiti, and though the bars +were only adjuncts of the shows, they had become the scenes of a +hectic life quite different from former days. The groves, the beach, +and the homes were less frequented for merrymaking, the white having +brought his own comparatively new customs of men and women drinking +together in public houses. And there had crept in on a small scale an +exploitation of beauty by those who profited by the receipts at the +prize-fights, the cinemas, and the bars. The French or part castes who +owned these attractions were copying the cruder methods of the Chinese. + +Llewellyn, David, and McHenry were habitués of these resorts, and I +not an infrequent visitor. We went together to a prize-fight, which +had been well advertised. A small boy with a gong handed me a bill +on the rue du Four, which read: + + + Casino de Tahiti + Ce Soir Vendredi + + Pour le championnat des Etablissements français de l'Oceanie + + Grand Match de Boxe Entre MM. + Great Boxing Match Between MM. + Moto Raa rahi i rotopu ia + + Opeta (Raratonga) & Teaea (Mataiea) + + 10 Rounds + +Moni parahiraa 1re 2f. 50 2me 2f. 3me 1f. 50 + + +The bill said further in French and Tahitian that this was to be +the climax of all ring battles in the South Seas between natives, +the Christchurch Kid and Cowan, the bridegroom, being hors concours. + +Every seat was reserved by noon. All day the automobile stages ran +into the country districts to bring natives, and from Moorea came +boat-loads of spectators. On the streets native youths emulated the +combatants, and at every corner boys were at fisticuffs. The Casino +de Tahiti was on the rue de Rivoli, a large wooden shed painted in +polychromatic tints, and with a gallery open to the air for the band, +which played an hour before all events to summon patrons. Groups were +in the street by eight o'clock, many having been unable to buy seats, +and others there merely to hear the music and to laugh. Many were +Chinese, queueless, smartly dressed in conventional white suits and +American straw hats. The storekeepers had come in from the country. The +men heatedly discussed the merits of the boxers. Opeta of Raratonga +was mentioned as the champion of the world--this part of it. + +Smoking was not allowed inside, so not until the last moment did the +men file in. Hundreds of women were long in their places, some white, +many part white, and others Tahitians. They were in their best gowns, +flirting, eating fruit and nuts, laughing, and talking. Every girl +of the Tiare Hotel was there, and all the guests. I was wedged in +between Lovaina and Atupu, and the latter stroked my leg often, +as one does a cat or dog, affectionately, but without much thought +about it. Lovaina, too, rubbed my back from time to time. + +A picture preceded the fight. It was of cow-boys, robbers, and the Wild +West, with much shooting. A half-caste explained it, and his wit was +considerable, tickling the ears as the scenes tickled the eyes. The +natives applauded or execrated the films as the Parisians do at the +opera. They encouraged the heroes and cursed the villains. Lovaina +was interested, but said: + +"Those robber in picshur make all boy bad. The governor he say that +maybe he stop that Bill 'Art kind of picshur. Some Tahiti boy steal +horse and throw rope on other boy for lassoo." + +When the screen was removed, a roped enclosure, a square "ring," was +disclosed. The announcer spoke in Tahitian of the signal achievements +of the two fighters, of their determination to do their best then +and there. The women cheered these declarations. Seated just below +me was a red-headed French girl, with perhaps a slight infusion of +Polynesian blood, who had a baby in a perambulator. Her strawberry +plaits dangled temptingly as she cooed to the baby. She was for Opeta, +the foreign competitor. + +A white-haired Australian woman, with a strong accent, favored Teaea, +and when the Raratonga youth was winning, shouted to Teaea: + +"'It 'im 'arder, Ol' Peet! 'E's outa wind! Knock 'is shell hoff!" + +The Casino de Tahiti had two galleries, and in the topmost, at a franc, +five sous each, sat the little gods, as with us. Others were perched +on doors, on projections of cornices, and in every nook. + +The fighters were naked except for breech-clouts. They were +barefooted. They wore their hair longish, and it appeared like +rough, black caps, which now and again fell over their faces and was +flung back by a toss of their heads. They were handsome men, framed +symmetrically, lithe, and healthy-looking. Their bodies soon shone +with the sweat. Their eyes, as soft as velvet to begin, grew fiery +as they punished each other. In truth, this punishment was not severe +from American prize-ring standards. The islander was unused to blows, +and the gloves were of the biggest size, such as those worn by business +men in gymnasiums. + +Opeta had as seconds American beach-combers; and Teaea, natives. They +had all the pugilistic appurtenances of towels, bottles, etcetera, +and fanned and rubbed their men between rounds as if they were matched +for a fortune. + +Teaea had a green ribbon in his loin-cloth. He was taller and heavier +than Opeta, but showed his inferiority quickly. They danced about +and fiddled for an opening, sparred for wind, and did all the fancy +footwork of the fifth-class fighter, but they seldom came together +except in clinches. The referee, the Christchurch Kid, was the +martyr, for he had to pull them apart every minute. The rounds were +of two minutes' duration, and the rests one minute. After seven very +tame rounds, the spectators became angered, and in the eighth Teaea +went down, and took the count of ten on his hands and feet, warily +watching his opponent. In the ninth, Opeta, excited by the demands of +the gallery, slugged him in the head. Teaea sought the boards again, +and the counting of ten by the referee began. + +The Mataiea boxer was on his back, but his glazing eyes stared +reproachfully at Opeta. The latter, now clearly the victor, glanced +at the red-headed girl, who was dancing on the floor beside her +perambulator and waving her congratulations. The house was on its feet +yelling wildly to Teaea to rise. Those who had bet on him were calling +him a knave and a coward, while Opeta's backers were imploring him +to kill Teaea if he stood up. The Raratonga champion became excited, +confused and when Teaea, at the call of eight, cautiously turned over +and lifted his head, he struck him lightly. + +The inhabitants of the country districts vociferated in one voice: + +"Uahani! Uahani!" + +"Faufau! Faufau!" cried the gods. + +"Foul! Foul! 'E 'it' im, 'hand' e's hon 'is 'ands hand kneeses," +exclaimed the Australian woman. + +The audience took up the chorus in French, Tahitian, and +English. Though Opeta had won them all by his ability and fairness +and was plainly the better man, the sentiment was for the rules. The +Christchurch Kid thought a moment, and conferred with the announcer, +who talked with all the seconds. The spectators were insistent, +and though loath to end the show, the Kid held up the gloved hand of +the Mataiean. + +The announcer declared him the "champignon" of Papeete, but naïvely +declared that Opeta was still full of fight, and challenged the +universe. The Raratonga man was dumfounded at the result of his +forgetfulness, and gazed coldly and accusingly at the red plaits. The +people, too, now regretted their enthusiasm for the right, which had +shortened their program of rounds, and demanded that the battle go +on. But the band had left, the lights were dimmed, and gradually the +crowd departed. + +The Australian waited to shake the hand of her knight, to whom +she said: + +"I bloomin' well knew you 'd do 'im hup! 'E's got nothin' hin 'is +right. 'E's a runaw'y, 'e is." + +David and I went into the buffet of the cinema after the fight to +hear the arguments over it, and he to collect bets. He had chosen the +winner by the toss of a coin. The French Governor of the Paumotus was +there, gaily bantering half a dozen girls for whom he bought drinks. We +joined him with Miri and Caroline and Maraa and others, the best-known +sirens of Papeete. They were handsome, though savage-looking, and +they had lost their soft voices. Alcohol and a thousand upaupahuras +had made them shrill. They smoked endless cigarettes. Some wore shoes +and stockings, and some were barefooted. Their dresses were red or +blue, with insertions of lace and ribbons, and they were crowned with +flowers in token of their mood of gaiety. + +David insisted on a bowl of velvet, three quarts of champagne, and +three of English porter mixed in a great urn. The champagne bubbled in +the heavier porter, and the brew was a dark, brilliant color, soft and +smooth. It was delicious, and seemed as safe as cocoanut milk. I drank +my share of it in the cinema cafe, and after that was conscious only +vaguely of going to the Cocoanut House garden, where Miri and Caroline +and Maraa danced nude under the trees by the light of the full moon. + +Then came blankness until I awoke several hours after midnight. I +was sitting on the curbing of the Pool of Psyche, and some one was +holding my hand. I thought it must be Atupu or Lovaina, and groped +for a moment before I could pull my senses together. I looked up, +and saw a wreathed and bearded native, and then down and saw his +attire, mixed man's and woman's, and knew he was one of the mahus +who loafed about the queen's grounds. I drew away my hand as from a +serpent's jaws, and clasped my head, which rocked in anguish. A horrid +chuckle or dismal throaty sound caused me to see the Dummy standing +in the gateway, looking contemptuously at me, and witheringly at my +companion. I had a second's thought of myself as a son of Laocoön. + +The mahu got up and hastened away, and Vava put his hand on my shoulder +and lifted me as a child to the road. He pointed toward the Annexe, +and as I went haltingly with him, he now and again uttered unearthly +cackles and bawls as if enjoying a farce I could not see. He, like the +mahu, was one of those mishaps of nature assigned to play an absurd +and sorry part in the tragicomedy of life in which all must act the +rôles assigned by the great author-manager until death puts us out +of the cast. In that scene I myself was the buffoon of fate. + + + +Chapter XVI + +A journey to Mataiea--I abandon city life--Interesting sights on the +route--The Grotto of Maraa--Papara and the Chief Tati--The plantation +of Atimaono--My host, the Chevalier Tetuanui. + +Life in the country made me laugh at myself for having so long +stayed in the capital. The fever of Papeete had long since cooled +in my veins. A city man myself, I might have known that all +capitals are noxious. Great cities are the wens on the body of +civilization. They are aggregations of sick people, who die out +in the third generation. Greed builds them. Crowded populations +increase property values and buy more manufactured luxuries. The +country sends its best to perish in these huddlements. In America, +where money interests boom cities and proudly boast their corruption +in numbers, half the people are already in these webs in which the +spider of commerce eats its victims, but ultimately may perish for +lack of food. Brick and steel grow nothing. + +I had made excursions from Papeete, but always carrying the poisons +of the town with me. At last my playmates deserted me. Lying Bill and +McHenry sailed on their schooner for the Paumotu and the Marquesas +islands, Landers left for Auckland, and Count Polonsky for a flying +visit to America. Llewellyn, though an interesting study, learned +in native ways, and with comparisons of Europe and America, was +too atrabilious, and, besides, had with his young partner, David, +abandoned himself to the night life, the cinema bars, with their +hilarious girls and men, the prize-fights, and the dancing on the +beach in the starlight. Schlyter, the tailor, an occasional companion, +was busied cutting and sewing a hundred uniforms for a war-ship's crew. + +I bethought me of the letter Princess Noanoa Tiare had given me to +the chief of Mataiea, and with a bag I departed for that village at +daybreak, after taofe tau for four sous at Shin Bung Lung's Fare +Tamaaraa. The diligence was open at the sides and roofed with an +awning, and was drawn by two mules, with bells on their collars. + +On the stage I paid twenty centimes a kilometre, or six and a half +cents a mile. It carried the mail, passengers, and freight. In every +district there was a mailbox on the fence of the chefferie, the chief's +office, and on the trees alongside the road at regular intervals, +and the driver took mails from people who hailed him. Arriving +at a chefferie, the stage halted, the district mutoi, or native +policeman-postman, appeared leisurely, opened the locked box on the +diligence, looked at ease over the contents, took out what he liked, +and put back the remainder, with the postings of the chefferie. + +A glance at the map of Tahiti shows it shaped like a Samoan fan, or, +roughly, like a lady's hand mirror. It is really two islands, joined +by the mile-wide isthmus of Taravao. The larger island is Poroiunu +or Tahiti-nui (big Tahiti), and the smaller Taiarapu, or Tahiti-iti +(little Tahiti). Tahiti-nui is almost round; and Tahitiiti, oval. Both +are volcanic, distinct in formation. They are united by a sedimentary +piece of land long after they were raised from the ocean's bed. + +Mataiea is twenty-seven miles from Papeete, and well on toward the +isthmus. + +Most of our passengers were Chinese, and I realized the Asiaticizing +of Tahiti. They were store-keepers, small farmers, or laborers. The +Broom Road lay most of the way along the beach, back of the fringe of +cocoanut and pandanus-trees, and between the homes and plantations +of Tahitians and foreigners. I saw all the fruits of the islands in +matchless profusion, intermingled with magnificent ferns, the dazzling +bougainvillea, the brilliant flamboyant-tree, and a thousand creepers +and plants. Every few minutes the road rushed to the water's-edge, +and the glowing main, with its flashing reef, and the shadowy outlines +of Moorea, a score of miles away, appeared and fled. Past villages, +churches, schools, and villas, the shops of the Chinese merchants, +the sheds for drying copra, rows of vanilla-vines, beaches with +canoes drawn up and nets drying on sticks, men and women lolling +on mats upon the eternal green carpet of the earth, girls waving +hands to us, superb men, naked save for pareus, with torsos, brown, +satiny, and muscled like Greek gladiators, women bathing in streams, +their forms glistening, their breasts bare; and constant to the scene, +dominating it, the lofty, snakelike cocoanuts and their brothers of +less height and greater girth. + +At Fa'a a postwoman appeared. Before opening the mail-box she tarried +to light a cigarette and to chat with the driver about the new picture +at the cinema in Papeete. She commented laughingly on the writers and +addressees of the letters, and flirted with a passenger. The former +himene-house, which had been the dance-hall of Kelly, the leader of +the fish-strike, was vacant, but I heard in imagination the strains of +his pagan accordion, and the himene which will never be forgotten by +the Tahitians, "Hallelujah! I'm a bum!" Kelly had gone over the water +to the jails of the United States, where life is hard for minstrels +who sing such droll songs. + +In Punaauia, the next district to Fa'a, was a schoolhouse and on it +a sign: 2 x 2 = 4. + +M. Souvy, a government printer of Tahiti, had given the site out of his +humble savings. By the sign, in his blunt way, he struck at education +which does not teach the simple necessity of progress--common sense. + +"Cela saute aux yeux," he had said. + +He was long dead, but his symbol provoked a question from every +new-comer, and kept alive his name and philosophy. I never saw it but +I thought of an article I had once written that led to the overturning +of the educational system of a country. How all guide-posts point to +oneself! Near the school-house, a dozen yards from the salt water, +was a native house with a straw roof, a mere old shell, untenanted. + +M. Edmond Brault, the government employee and musical composer, +a passenger on the diligence, had with him his violin, intending to +spend the day in company with it in a grove. He remarked the tumbledown +condition of the house, and said: + +"I have sat under that toil de chaume, that straw roof, and talked +with and played for a painter who was living there quite apart from +the world. He was Monsieur Paul Gauguin, and he had a very distingué +establishment. The walls of his atelier were covered with his canvases, +and in front of the house he had a number of sculptures in wood. That +was about 1895, I think. I can see the maitre now. He wore a pareu +of red muslin and an undershirt of netting. He said that he adored +this corner of the world and would never leave it. He had returned +from Paris more than ever convinced that he was not fitted to live +in Europe. Yet, mon ami, he ran away from here, and went to the +savage Marquesas Islands, where he died in a few years. He loved the +third étude of Chopin, and the andante of Beethoven's twenty-third +sonata. You know music says things we would be almost afraid to put +in words, if we could. If Flaubert might have written 'Madame Bovary' +or 'Salambô' in musical notes, he would not have been prosecuted by +the censor. We musicians have that advantage." + +"In America," I replied, "we have never yet censored musical +compositions, and many works are played freely because the censors +and the reform societies' detectives cannot understand them. But if +our inquisitors take up music, they may yet reach them. For instance, +the prelude of 'Tristan and Isolde,' and Strauss' 'Salome.'" + +"No," returned the Frenchman, quickly; "music would make them +liberals." + +A little farther on, in the valley of Punaruu, the amiable violinist +and pianist showed me the ruins of defense works thrown up by the +French to withstand the attacks of the great chieftain, Oropaa of +Punaauia, who with his warriors had here disputed foot by foot the +advance of the invaders. These Tahitians were without artillery, +mostly without guns of any sort, but they utilized the old strategy +of the intertribal wars, and rolled huge rocks down upon the French +troops in narrow defiles. + +We saw from our seats through the shadows of the gorge of Punaruu +two of the horns of Maiao, the Diadem. In the far recesses +of those mountains were almost inaccessible caves in which the +natives laid their dead, and where one found still their moldering +skeletons. M. Brault touched my shoulder. + +"Rumor has it that the body of Pomaré the Fifth is there," he said; +"that it was taken secretly from the tomb you have seen near Papeete, +and carried here at night. There are photographs of those old skeletons +taken in that grotto of the tupapaus, as the natives call the dead +and their ghosts. The natives will not discuss that place." + +It was from Punaauia that Teriieroo a Teriierooterai had gone to +Papenoo to be chief. This was the seat of his ancienne famille. Here +he had been a deacon of the church, as he was in Papenoo, because +it meant social rank, and was possible insurance against an unknown +future. The church edifice was the gathering-place, as once had been +the marae, the native temple. This was Sunday, and I passed a church +every few miles, the Roman Catholic and the Protestant vying. They +had matched each other in number since the French admiral had exiled +the British missionary-consul, and compelled the queen to erect a +papal church for every bethel. + +Along the road and in the churchyards the preachers and deacons were +in black cloth, sweating as they walked, their faces beatudinized as +in America. + +Many carried large Bibles, and frowned on the merry, singing crew +who went by on foot, in carriages and automobiles. Everywhere, in +all countries, the long, black coat and white or black cravat are +the uniforms of evangelism. In Tahiti I saw ministers of the gospel, +white and brown, appareled like circuit-riders in Missouri; hot, +dusty, and their collars wilted, but their souls serene and sure in +their mission. They associated God and black, as night and darkness. + +The sound of sermons echoed from chapels as we progressed, the voices +raised in the same tone one heard in a Methodist camp-meeting in +Kansas, and the singing, when in French, having much the same effect, +a whining, droning fashion; without spirituality or art. + +But why look for a moment at these unfortunates or listen to their dull +chants when marvels of nature unfolded at every step! There was never +such luxuriant vegetation, never such a riot of color and richness of +growth as on every side. The wealth of the bougainvillea's masses of +lustrous magenta was matched by the dazzling flamboyant, trees forty +feet high, and their foliage a hundred in circumference, a sheen of +crimson. Clumps of bamboo as big as a city lot and towering to the +sky, with the yellow allamanda framing the bungalows, and a tangle +of bananas, lantana, tafeie, cocoas, and a hundred other fruits, +flowers and creepers, made the whole journey through a paradise. + +Around many cocoanut-palms were bands of tin or zinc ten or twenty feet +from the earth. These were to foil the rats or crabs which climb the +trees and steal (can a creature steal from nature?) the nuts. Every +available piece of thin metal was used for this. The sheets were +often flattened kerosene- and gasoline-cans and were drawn taut and +smooth. These are impasses for the wily climbers. + +"Ils ne passeront pas," said the French; "Aita haere!" the Tahitians. + +The road was good, but narrow, in few places room for two to pass +except by turning out, skirting the beach at the water's-edge, +crossing causeways over inlets, and in admirable curves clinging to +the hillsides, which bathed in the sea. Moving over a small levee we +came to the pointe de Maraa, where was the Grotto of Maraa, a gigantic +recess worn in the solid wall of rock, a dark mysterious interior, +which gave me a momentary surge of my childhood dread and love of +caves and secret entrances to pirates' lairs. The diligence halted +at the request of M. Brault, and he and I jumped out and ran to the +grotto. In it was a lake with black waters, and down the face of the +cliff, which rose hundreds of feet straight, dripped a million drops of +the waters of the hills, so that the ground about was in puddles. The +inside walls and arched ceiling were covered with a solid texture of +verdant foliage, wet and fragrant. We found a little canoe fastened +to a stone, and adventured on the quiet surface of the pond until at +about eighty yards of penetration we came to a blind curtain of stone. + +"This grot," said M. Brault, "was for centuries the retreat of those +conquered in war, sacred to gods, and a sanctuary never violated, like +those cities of refuge among the Hebrews and Greeks. Now it is a picnic +rendezvous, very dear to Papeete whites and to tourists. C'est la vie." + +Tahitian women passengers were adorning their heads with wreaths of +maiden-hair and rare ferns from the cavern. Great lianas hung down +the walls, and these they climbed to reach the exquisite draperies of +the chamber. The farther we left behind the capital, the more smiling +were the faces, the less conventional the actions and gestures of +the people. + +Papara was at hand, the richest and most famous of all the districts +of Tahiti. The village was a few Chinese stores, a Catholic and +a Protestant church, a graveyard, and a scattered collection of +homes. I bade au revoir to my delightful companion, Edmond Brault, +having determined to walk the remaining kilometers, and to send on +my inconsiderable bag of clothing. + +Lovaina had given me a note to the chief of Papara, Tati, whose father +was Salmon, an English Jew, and whose sister was Marao, the relict of +the late king, and known as the queen. His father was the first white +to marry formally a Tahitian noblewoman. Pomaré IV had generously +granted permission for the high chiefess of Papara to ally herself +with the shrewd descendant of the House of David, and their progeny +had included the queen, Tati, and others celebrated in Tahitian life. + +Tati welcomed me with the heartiness of the English gentleman and +the courtesy of the Tahitian chief. He was a man of large parts +himself, limited in his hospitality only by his means, he, like all +natives, having thrown away most of his patrimony in his youth. He +was the best-known Tahitian next to Prince Hinoe, but much abler than +he. He knew the Tahitian history and legends, the interwoven tribal +relations, the descents and alliances of the families, better than +any one else. Such knowledge was highly esteemed by the natives, +for whom chiefly rank still bore significance. The Tatis had been +chiefs of Papara for generations, and had entertained Captain Cook. + +He lived in a bungalow near the beach, handsome, spreading, and with +a mixed European and indigenous arrangement and furnishing that was +very attractive. I met his sons and daughters, and had luncheon with +them. Tati, of course, spoke English fluently, yet with the soft +intonation of the Tahitian. Some of the dishes and knives and forks +had belonged to Robert Louis Stevenson, who, said Tati, had given them +to him when he was departing from Tahiti. Tati's sister, a widow, was +of the party, and together we went to the Protestant churchyard to her +husband's tomb. It was imposing and costly, and the inscription read: + +In Memory of Dorence Atwater, beloved husband of arii inoore Moetia +Salmon. Born at Terryville, Conn., Feb. 3, 1845. Died at San Francisco, +Cal., November 28, 1910. As a last tribute to his name there was +erected in his native state a monument with this inscription: + +This memorial is dedicated to our fellow townsman, Dorence Atwater, +for his patriotism in preserving to this nation the names of 13,000 +soldiers who died while prisoners at Andersonville, Ga. + +He builded better than he knew; some day, perchance, in surprise he +may wake to learn: + +He builded a monument more enduring than brass. + +Tupuataroa. + +The name given Atwater when he married Moetia Salmon was Tupuataroa, +which means a wise man. Mrs. Atwater was rich and melancholy. She +mourned her dead. Atwater had come to Tahiti as American consul, and +had piled franc on franc in trade and speculation, with great dignity +and success. He had been the leading American of his generation in +the South Seas, and had left no children. + +Tati said that when the church was dedicated--it was a box-like +structure of wood and coral, whitewashed and red-roofed--three thousand +Tahitians had feasted in a thatched house erected for the arearea. The +himene-chorus was made up of singers from every district in Tahiti +and Moorea. Tati had presided. + +"We ate for three days," he related to me. "More than two hundred +and fifty swine, fifteen hundred chickens, and enough fish to equal +the miraculous draft on the shores of Galilee. We Polynesians were +always that way, Gargantuan eaters at times, but able to go fifty +miles at top speed on a cocoanut in war." + +Tati would have me stay indefinitely his guest, but I had written to +Mataiea of my intended arrival there, and though there were insistent +cries that I return soon, I said farewell. + +Tati himself walked with me to the bridge over the Taharuu River, +one of the hundred and fifty streams I crossed in a circuit of Tahiti. + +"My ancestor, the old chief Tati," he told me, "cut down the sacred +trees of our clan marae near by, the aitos, tamanus, and miros. He +had become a Christian, as was fashionable, and at the instigation of +the English missionaries destroyed many beautiful and ancient trees, +statues, carvings, and buildings. The Tahitians who mourned his +iconoclasm had a chant which said that the Taharuu River ran blood +when their gods were dishonored." + +From the stream the vast domain of the plantation of Atimaono stretched +to Mataiea. It had been planted in the sixties, when British demands +for cotton, and the blockade and laying waste of the South in the +American Civil War caused a thousand such speculations all over +the world. + +It was for this plantation, the most celebrated in Tahiti, that +Chinese were imported, and a thousand had their shanties where now +is brush. Those were the times that the Marquesas had their cotton +boom, and lapsed, too. Upon a hill of this plantation the English +manager, a former cavalry officer, had built himself a palatial +mansion, and lived like a feudal lord, the most powerful resident +of Tahiti. Travelers from all the world were his guests. Fair ladies +danced the night away upon his broad verandas and drank the choicest +wines of France. Scandal wove a dozen strange stories of intrigues, +of a high official who sold his wife to him, of Arioian orgies, and all +the associations of semi-regal rule and accountability to none. Cotton +prices declined, the bubble burst in bankruptcy, the miserable death +of the aristocrat, and the fury of cheated English investors. + +The plantation was now owned by a storekeeper of Tahiti, prosy and +disliked, who had fattened by ability to outwit the natives; but the +glory had departed, and the place languished, ruins and jungle, the +prey of guava and lantana. The neighborhood was known as Ati-Maono, +"The Clan of Maon." + +The lines between village and country were not rigid, and often +the hamlet straggled along the road for much of the district. Every +kilometer there was a stone marking the distance from Papeete. One +knew the villages more by the Chinese stores than by any other feature. + +"You will find the Papara country full of oranges," Fragrance of the +Jasmine had said. + +The fruit was as sweet and delicious as any I had eaten, and the trees +larger than their parents of Sydney, Australia. I strolled along the +road eating, speaking all who passed or were in sight within their +gardens, and came to Mataiea, where I was to live months and to learn +the Tahitian mind and language. + +Ariioehau Amerocarao, commonly known as Tetuanui Tavana, or Monsieur +le Chef de Mataiea, Tetuanui, and his wife, Haamoura, were the salt of +the earth. The chief was a large man, molded on a great frame, and very +corpulent, as are most Polynesians of more than thirty years. He was +about sixty, strong and sweet by nature, brave and simple. His vahine +was very stout, half blind from cataracts, but ever busied about her +household and her guests. As chief and roadmaster of his district, +Tetuanui received a small compensation, but not enough for the wants +of his dependents, so a few paying white guests were sent to him by +Lovaina. The house was set back from the Broom Road in a clearing +of a wood of cocoanuts, breadfruits, badamiers, and vi-apples. The +father of Haamoura had given the land to his daughter, and they had +built on it a residence of two high stories, with wide verandas. + +The chief and his wife had no children, but had adopted +twenty-five. They had brought most of these to manhood and womanhood, +and many were married. Perhaps their care, dots for the daughters, +and estates for the sons, had made the parents poor. One was the +blood son of Prince Hinoe, and was now a youth, and worked about the +plantation of the chief. His christened name was Ariipaea Temanutuanuu +Teariitinorua Tetuanui a Oropaa Pomare. He was a prince and very +handsome and gentle, but he gathered the leaves from the volunteer +lawn for the horses. There was an atmosphere of affection and happiness +about the home I have not sensed more keenly anywhere else. + +The Duke of Abruzzi's photograph and one of the Italian war-ship +Liguria, were on a wall in the drawing-room, with others of notable +people whom the chief had entertained. He himself wore the cross of +the Legion of Honor, which had been presented to him in Paris when +he visited there many years before. + +The house was raised ten feet from the earth, and the ground below +was neatly covered with black pebbles from the shore. Shaded by the +veranda-floors, which formed the ceilings of their open rooms, the +family sat on mats, and made hats, sewed, sang, and chatted. They +laughed all day. A dozen children played on the sward where horses, +ducks, geese, chickens, and turkeys fed and led their life. When rice +or corn was thrown to them, the mina-birds flocked to share it. These +impudent thieves pounced on the best grains, and though the chickens +fought them, they appeared to be afraid only of the ducks. These +hated the minas, and pursued them angrily. But the minas can fly, and, +when threatened, lazily lifted themselves a few feet out of reach of +the bills, and returned when danger was over. + +The chief's plantation extended from the sea to the mountain, +altogether about ten acres, which in Tahiti is a good-sized single +holding. Cocoanuts, breadfruit, limes, oranges, badamiers, mangoes, +and other trees made a dense forest, and a hectare or more was planted +with vanilla-vines that grew on the false coffee of which hedges were +usually made. A hundred yards away a stream meandered toward the sea, +and there women of the household sat and washed clothes. + +They had no taro planted, though there was much about. Taro, the +staple food of Hawaiians, either simply boiled or fermented as poi, +was not a decided favorite in Tahiti. The natives thought it tasteless +compared with the fei, so rich in color and flavor. The taro is a lily +(Arum), and its great bulbs are the edible part, though the tops of +small taro-plants are delicious, surpassing spinach, and we had them +often on our table. + +Our customary meals at eleven and at six were of raw oysters, +shrimp, crabs, craw-fish, or lobsters; fish of many kinds, chicken, +breadfruit, vi-apples stewed, bananas, oranges, feis, cocoanuts, +and sucking pigs. The family ate sitting or squatting on the ground, +but I had a table and silver, glass and linen. It is the way of the +Tahitian. The big house, well furnished, was not inhabited by the +chief's family. It was their monument of success. They slept in one +of several houses they had near by, and their elegant dishes were +unused except for white guests. + +On the beach at the river's mouth the heron sat or stalked solemnly, +and the tern flew about the reef. The white iitae lived about the +cocoanut-trees. + +From the broad veranda in front was a view of the sea, and all day +and night the breakers beat upon the reef a mile away, now as soft +as the summer wind in the lime-trees of Seville, and again loud as +winter in the giant pine forests of Michigan. The fleecy surf gleamed +and shimmered in the sun as it rolled over the coral dam, and when the +sea was strong, there was another sound, the lapping of the waves on +the sand a hundred yards from me. A little wharf had been built there +by the Government, and a schooner arrived and departed every few days, +with people and produce. + +I ate alone mostly, at a table on the veranda in front of my chamber, +waited on by Tatini, a very lovely and shy maiden of fourteen years. To +her I talked Tahitian, as with all the family, in an effort to perfect +myself in that tongue. + +I was happy that I had pulled up anchor in Papeete, and as contrast is, +after all, comparative, I felt like a New-Yorker who finds himself in +Arcadia, though I had thought Papeete, on first sight, the garden of +Allah. In Mataiea I realized the wonder of the Polynesian people, and +found my months with the whites of the city a fit background for study +of and ardent delight in the brown islanders I was to know so well. + + + +Chapter XVII + +My life in the house of Tetuanui--Whence came the Polynesians--A +migration from Malaysia--Their legends of the past--Condition of +Tahiti when the white came--The great navigator, Cook--Tetuanui tells +of old Tahiti. + +Happiness in civilization consists in seeing life other than it really +is. At Mataiea the simple truth of existence was joy. In the house of +the chief, Tetuanui, I knew a peace of mind and body as novel to me +as my surroundings. For the first time since unconcerned childhood I +felt my heart leap in my bosom when the dawn awoke me, and was glad +merely that I could see the sun rise or the rain fall. All of us have +had that feeling on certain mornings; but was it not interwoven with +the affairs of the day--a picnic, a rendezvous, our wedding, a first +morning of the vacation encampment? In Mataiea it was spontaneous, the +harking back to a beneficent mood of nature; the very sense of being +stirring the blood in delight, and girding up the loins instantly to +pleasurable movement. + +I slept without clothing, and in a bound was at the door, with my +pareu about me. Already the family had begun the leisurely tasks of the +day. The fowls were on the sward under the breadfruit and papaya-trees, +and the mina-birds were swooping down on the grass near them to profit +by their uncovering of food. Those discriminating birds are like the +Japanese, seldom pioneering in wild places, but settling on developed +lands to gain by the slower industry of other peoples. "Birds that +live on cows," the Tahitians call the minas, because where there are +enough ruminants each bird selects one, and spends the day upon its +back, eating the insects that infest its skin. + +The sun at six barely lit the beach and revealed the lagoon, +into which a stream from the mountains poured within Tetuanui's +confines. I threw off my garment and plunged into a pool under a clump +of pandanus-trees. It was cool enough at that hour to give the surface +nerves the slight shock I craved, but warmed as I lay in the limpid +water and watched the light sweeping past the reef in the swift way +of the tropics. + +I danced upon the beach and pursued the land crabs to their burrows. I +hoped to see one wrench off a leg to prove what I had been told--that +if one in its movement to the salt water through the tall grass beyond +the sand, touched any filth, it clawed off the polluted leg, and that +a crab had been seen thus to deprive itself of all its eight limbs, +and after a bath to hobble back to its hole with the aid of its claws, +to remain until it had grown a complement of supports. I wondered +why it did not content itself with washing instead of mutilation. To +the biblical expounder it was an apt illustration of "cutting off an +offending member," as recommended in the Book. + +At the house the family were preparing their first meal, and I +shared it with them--oranges, bananas, coffee, and rolls. The last, +with the New Zealand tinned butter, came from the Chinese store. We +sat on mats, and we drank from small bowls. The coffee was sweetened +with their own brown sugar, and the juice of nearly ripe cocoanuts, +grated and pressed, made a delicious substitute for cream. Over the +breakfast we talked, Tetuanui and Haamoura answering my questions +and taking me along the path of my inquiry into far fields of +former customs and ancient lore. They were, as their forefathers, +gifted in oral tradition, with retentive memories for their own past +and for the facts and legends of the racial history. We who have +for thousands of years put in writing our records cannot grasp the +fullness of the system by which the old Polynesian chiefs and priests, +totally without letters, or even ideographs, except in Easter Island, +kept the archives of the tribe and nation by frequent repetition of +memorized annals. So we got Homer's Odyssey, and the Song of Solomon. + +What Tahiti was like before the white? That was to me a subject of +intense interest, now that I was fully aware of the situation after a +hundred and fifty years of exploitation, seventy-five years of French +domination, and thirty years of colonialism. The nature of the people +was little changed. The Tahitian was still naïf, hospitable, gentle, +indolent except as to needs, valuing friendship above all things, +accepting the evangelism of many warring Christian sects as a tumult +among jealous gods and priests, and counting sex manifestations free +expressions of affection, and of an appetite not more sacred nor more +shameful than hunger or thirst. + +These were the qualities and rules of conduct ascribed to the +Tahitians by the first discoverers, especially by those who were +not narrowed in judgment by inexperience and religious fanaticism, +as were the British and French missionaries of early days, peasants +and apprentices who had forsaken the fields and workshops for the +higher sphere of devoteeism and freedom from manual labor. These +clerics, though often self-sacrificing and yearning for martyrdom, +attributed all differences from their standards or preachments to +inherent wickedness or diabolism. + +One of the ablest of them had regretted sorrowfully his having to +inform the Tahitians that all their ancestors were in hell. Some +clerics had made wearing bonnets the test of decency, and all had +taught that God hated any open ardor of attraction for the opposite +sex. Yet it was almost entirely to them that the far-away student +had to turn to learn any of the details of native life undefiled. The +mariners had stayed too brief a time to enter into these, and could +not speak Tahitian. + +I knew that Tahitian life, political and economic, social and +religious, had been utterly changed, but I longed for an understanding +of what had been; a panorama of it before my eyes. I set out to +obtain this by constant interrogations of every one I thought might +have even a scrap of enlightenment for me. + +On rainy days, when Chief Tetuanui did not oversee the making or +repair of roads in his district, and always when we were both at +leisure, I sat with him, and the elders of the neighborhood, and +queried them, or repeated for correction and comment my notes upon +their antiquities--notes founded on reading and my observation. + +Whence had come these Polynesians or Maoris who peopled the ocean +islands from Hawaii to New Zealand, and from Easter Island to the +eastern Fijis? A race set apart by its isolation for thousands of years +from all the rest of the world, distinguished in all its habitats-- +Hawaii, Samoa, the Marquesas, Tonga, the Paumotus, and the Society +archipelago, and New Zealand--by beauty of form, tint and uniformity +of color, height, and soft expression--an expression they vainly +sought to make terrible by tattooing? + +The legends and chants of the race unfolded much of the mystery; +its language's relation to others, more. These Tahitians and all +their kind were ancient Aryans who in the dim past were in India, +and afterward in the Indian archipelago. They were in Sumatra, in +Java, in the Philippines long before the Malays. Certainly their +blood brothers, changed by millenniums of a different environment, +remain in Malaysia, known there as the aborigines (Orang-Benoa), +by the majority races. D'Urville said the Harfouras of Celebes were +identical physically with the Polynesians. At some unfixed date the +first of the Polynesians pushed out in their insecure craft for this +sea, driven away by the Malay-Hindu invasion or by interracial feuds. + +The pioneer, according to the legend, was Hawaii-uli-kai-oo, Hawaii +and the Dotted Sea, a great fisherman and navigator. He sailed toward +the Pleiades from his unknown home in the far West, and arrived at +eastern islands. So pleased was he with them, that he returned to +his western birthplace for his family, and brought them to Polynesia. + +Other Polynesians left the Asiatic archipelago about the end of the +first century, and went to many islands. Finally they reached the +Samoan, Tongan, Marquesan, Paumotuan, and Society groups, and Easter +Island and New Zealand. In pushing eastward they skirted Papua, but +were unable to stay, because the Papuans, whom the Polynesians had +long ago driven out of the Asiatic archipelago, were stronger than the +emigrants. They next tried Fiji, and tarried there longest, leaving +those powerful imprints on the Papuans in appearance and language +that make Fiji the anomaly of Melanesia. But the Fiji-Papuans at last +drove them out, and they left with blood in their eyes. When the whites +found the Marquesans in the sixteenth century, they were building at +Vaitahu great war-canoes to "attack the black people who used bows +and arrows." No living Marquesan had ever seen them nor could they +have attained Fiji in any strength, yet the historical hate persisted. + +The Marquesans of the north said their race came from Hawaii, and +those of the south from Vavao. Seventeen places they had stopped at +in their great migration eastward, they said. + + + Pu te metani me Vevau + A anu te tai o Hawa-ii! + Pu atu te metani me Hawa-ii + A anu te ao e Vevau! + + Blow winds from Vavao + And cool the sea of Hawaii! + Blow back, winds from Hawaii, + And cool the air of Vavao! + + +That was the Marquesan legendary chant, the primal command of their +God after creation. Vevau and Hawaii were placed in their former +abode toward India (Hawaii being undoubtedly Java; and Vevau being +Vavao, in Malagasy); but they had brought the names with them, and +when they reached the present American territory, of which Honolulu +is the capital, they called it Hawaii, as they had an island of the +Samoan group, Sawaii. It was in the fifth century they peopled the now +American Hawaii, and they remained unknown there until the eleventh, +when Marquesans, Tahitians, and Samoans began to pour in on them, +and continued to do so for a few generations. Then the present +Hawaiians were isolated and forgotten for twenty-one generations +until rediscovery by Captain Cook in 1778. + +They gave the old names to Polynesia that they knew in Asia, as all +over the world emigrants carry their home names, not only Hawaii, +or Savaii, for Java, but Moorea, a Javan place, to the island near +Tahiti; Bora-Bora from Sumatra to a Society island; Puna of Borneo +to places in Tahiti, Kauai, and Hawaii; Ouahou of Borneo to Oahu, on +which Honolulu is; and Molokai, from the Moluccas, to another island +of Hawaii. One might cite hundreds of examples, all going to prove +their far-away origin, as Florida, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, +New England, New York, and Albany, indicate theirs. + +That there were any inhabitants in the South Sea islands occupied by +the Polynesians is improbable but a race of mighty stone-carvers had +swept through that ocean, perhaps many thousands of years before, +and had left in the Ladrones and in Easter Islands monuments and +statues now existing which are a profound mystery to the ethnologist, +the archaeologist, and the engineer. If the Polynesians came upon +any of the stone builders, they had killed or absorbed them. + +The interpretation of the curious ideographs carved on wood in Easter +Island by some of the Polynesians there half a century ago would +denote there had been intercourse with the people who had made them, +and who were not the Polynesians. + +Once in Samoa, and finally at home there, after their Fiji disaster, +they had gone adventuring, or the canoe drift of unfortunates caught +by wind and tide had brought populations to all the other Polynesian +islands, and principally to Tahiti. This island in the center of +Polynesia, and especially favored by nature, had been a source of +growth and distribution of the race, the Paumotus, New Zealand, +and probably the Marquesas, and Hawaii having been stocked from it, +the language developing furthest in it, and customs, refinements, +and leisure reaching their highest pitch in the marvelous culture, +savage though it was, which astounded the Europeans. Yet all these +people remained curious as to what might be beyond the distance, +and a hundred years ago were fitting out exploring expeditions to +search for Utupu, a Utopia from which the god Tao introduced the +cocoanut-tree. They looked to the westward for the mystic land of +their forefathers, as from Ireland to India the happy isles of the +west was a myth. The mariners of Erin had long seen the Tir-n'an-Oge +just beyond the horizon. + +The Tahitians had a legend of the god Maui, that "he brought the earth +up from the depths of the ocean, and when mankind suffered from the +prolonged absence of the sun and lived mournfully in obscurity, with +no ripening fruits, Maui stopped the sun and regulated its course, +so as to make day and night equal, as they are in Tahiti." + +Does not this hark back to a clime where the inequality of day and +night was greater than in the tropics? + +Lieutenant Bovis of the French navy, who seventy years ago, after +ten years of study in Tahiti, wrote his conclusions, said that +after him it would be useless to hunt in the memories of the living +for anything of the past, for the old men were dead or dying, and +those now in middle age did not even speak or understand the old +language in which the records were told. He had, he said, arrived +in Tahiti when the real Tahiti, the Tahiti of the true native, the +Tahiti unspoiled by European civilization, was only a memory, but +by years of labor he had taken from the lips of the venerable their +recollections of conditions in their childhood and early manhood, +and what their fathers had told them, and by comparison he had been +able to write intelligently of former times. + +If Bovis found the real Tahiti no longer existent seventy years ago, +what must I look for when two generations or three had died since, +and swift steamships coursed where only the clipper had sailed? Yet +Tahiti was the least spoiled of islands on liner routes, because France +being so far from it, and the French such poor business men, they had +not exploited the natives except in the way of taxes. The bureaucracy +lived on the imposts, but they had not reformed the people by laws +and punishments, and made them see the wisdom of acquiescence in a +scheme of regular work, as had the British missionary government in +Tahiti and the American missionary government in Hawaii, in the name +of an avenging and critical Lord. No people believed in the dignity +of labor more than the Tahitians, because they refused to do any more +than was requisite for health, cleanliness, comfort, and pleasure, +and saw no more dignity or greater indignity in helping me on with my +boots or bringing me my dinner or massaging my body than in listening +to a sermon or catching fish. + +They thought absurd and artificial the ideas foisted by politicians, +merchants, and lawyers that it was dignified to sit in an office, to +sell goods, or to draw up agreements, or undignified to disembowel a +pig, make a net, or dig an oven. They saw governors and bankers spend +all day chasing a boar or angling for a fish which they did not eat +when they possessed it. They thought them queer, and that their own +regimen of work and play was more sensible. + +"What land is this?" asked Cook, and understanding him, the Tahitians +answered, "Otaiti oia" or, "This is Tahiti." + +Cook put it down as Otaheite, pronounced by him Otahytee. It was Cook's +carpenter who was building a house for a chief, a friend of Cook's, +and lost all his tools during the visit of the high priest of the +god Hiro and his acolytes. Hiro was the first king in their myths, +and, until Christianity came, the god of business. When Cook sailed +away, the tools were taken to the marae, or temple of Hiro, where +the priest said he would cause the prized tools to reproduce their +kind, like fruit. He planted them in a field near by and watched for +results. The lack of any result except rust was an able argument for +the Christian missionaries, when they came, to destroy his cult by +laughing at the foolishness of his ideas and the weakness of his god. + +The discoverers reported that the Tahitians and all other Polynesians +were thieves and liars, for the reason that they often seized pieces +of iron, tools, and firearms that they saw on the ships or ashore +in the houses occupied by the first whites, and then lied about +their actions. The whites killed scores for these crimes, one of the +initial murders of Cook's crew being the shooting of Chief Kapupuu +as he departed in his canoe from their ship with some bits of metal +he had taken. Malo, the native historian, who heard the account from +eye-witnesses, explained the incident as follows, first mentioning +the sighting of Cook's vessels and the wonder of the natives: + +One said to another, "What is that great thing with branches?" Others +said, "It is a forest that has slid down into the sea," and the gabble +and noise was great. Then the chiefs ordered some natives to go in a +canoe and observe and examine well that wonderful thing. They went, +and when they came to the ship, they saw the iron that was attached +to the outside of the ship, and they were greatly rejoiced at the +quantity of iron. + +Because the iron was known before that time from wood with iron +[in or on it] that had formerly drifted ashore, but it was in small +quantity, and here was plenty. And they entered on board, and they +saw the people with white foreheads, bright eyes, loose garments, +corner-shaped heads, and unintelligible speech. + +Then they thought that the people [on board] were all women, because +their heads were so like the women's heads of that period. They +observed the quantity of iron on board of the ship, and they were +filled with wonder and delight. + +Then they returned and told the chiefs what they had seen, and how +great a quantity of iron. On hearing this, one of the warriors of the +chief said, "I will go and take forcible possession of this booty, +for to plunder is my business and means of living." + +The chiefs consented. Then this warrior went on board of the ship +and took away some of the iron on board, and he was shot at and was +killed. His name was Kapupuu. The canoes [around the ship] fled away +and reported that Kapupuu had been killed by a ball from a squirt-gun. + +And that same night guns were fired and rockets were thrown up. They +[the natives] thought it was a god, and they called his name Lonomakua, +and they thought there would be war. + +Then the chiefess named Kamakahelei, mother of Kaumualii, said, +"Let us not fight against our god; let us please him that he may +be favorable to us." Then Kamakahelei gave her own daughter as a +woman to Lono. Lelemahoalani was her name; she was older sister of +Kaumualii. And Lono [Captain Cook] slept with that woman, and the +Kauai women prostituted themselves to the foreigners for iron. + +Cook was one of the best of the navigators of the South Seas, a +devout churchman, and a believer in the decalogue of Moses. He thought +stealing or lying odious before the Lord and men. But the Polynesians +did not so think. Most of their possessions were in common, and telling +the truth was unimportant. If one asked them about anything they had +no interest in, they might tell the truth or might not. If they had +interests, these were served by their replies. This is as in diplomacy +to-day, when the interests of one's country allows prevarication, +and even in Christian ethics both patriotism and self-preservation, as +well as hospitality, permit flat falsehood. Our own spies are honest +heroes, and the man who would not deceive a man who sought to kill +him or burn his house would be considered a fool and not worth saving. + +"There is plenty more in the kitchen," we say to guests out of +hospitality and pride, though the kitchen is as bare as Mother +Hubbard's cupboard. She could not lie to the dog. + +Now, to the native who saw all around him on the ship huge masses +of the material most precious to him in the world, it was as if an +American in Yucatan saw in a native hut heaps of gold and diamonds +not valued by the savage. Suppose the savage left the American alone +with the treasure! + +But the Tahitians did not murder for blood lust, had no assassination, +and virtually no theft. Our own Anglo-Saxon law laid down the maxim, +"Caveat emptor!" "Let the buyer beware!" which meant that the truth +notwithstanding, the buyer must not let the seller of anything cheat +him by failure to state the exact facts or faults, and expect the +law to remedy his stupidity. + +Chief Tetuanui's word was his bond because he had learned that +square-dealing brought him peace of mind, but other natives had found +out that to cheat the white man first was the only possible way of +keeping even with him. The maxim of the king of Apamama, quoted by +Ivan Stroganoff, was pertinent. Hospitality was as sacred to the +Tahitians as to the old Irish. It was shameful not to give a guest +anything he desired. + +"Es su casa, señor!" said the Spaniard, and did not mean it; but the +Tahitians literally did mean that the visitor was welcome to all his +valuables, and did not reserve his family, as did the don. + +The chevalier of the Legion of Honor upon whose mat I sat was emphatic +as to the respect of the old Tahitians for their chiefs. + +"It was the whole code," said he, "and when the French broke it down +they destroyed us. There is Teriieroo a Teriierooterai, whose family +were chiefs of Punaauia for generations, shifted to Papenoo. Each +governor or admiral made these transfers here, as in the Marquesas +and all the islands, with the primary object of lessening native +cohesion, of Frenchifying us. They ruined our highest aspirations +and our manners." + +I had seen something of the same sweeping away of a code and the +resultant evils and degradation in Japan. When Bushido imposed itself +on all above the herd, they had a sense of honor not surpassed +by the people of any nation; but commerce, the destruction of the +castes of samurai, heimin, and eta, the plunging of a military people +into business and competition with Western cunning, and the lacquer +of Christianity which had done little more than Occidentalize to a +considerable degree a few thousands, without giving them the practice +of the golden rule, or an appreciation of the Sermon on the Mount, +had robbed the Japanese of an ancient code of morality and honor, +and replaced it with nothing worth while--an insatiable ambition to +equal Occidental peoples and to conquer Oriental ones, and a thousand +factories which killed women and children. + +"We were divided into three distinct castes," said Tetuanui. "The Arii, +or princes; Raatira, or small chiefs and simple landed proprietors; +and the Manahune, or proletariat. Alliances between Arii and Raatira +made an intermediate class--Eietoai. There was also a caste of +priests subject to the chief, their power all derived from him, but +yet tending to become hereditary by the priests instructing their +sons in the ceremonies and by taking care of the temple." + +"That's the way the Aaron family got control of the Jewish priesthood," +I interpolated. "They gave the people what they wanted, first a golden +calf god, and then an ark, and they had charge of both." + +The chief frowned. He was a confirmed Bible reader, and the Old +Testament was so much like the Tahitian legends that he believed +every word of it. + +"The Arii," he said, "were sacred and had miraculous strength and +powers. The food they touched was for others poison. There was a head +in each Arii family to whom the others were subject; he was often +an infant, and almost always a young man, for the eldest son of the +chief was chief and the father only regent. This custom continued +until comparatively recently in most families besides those of the +Arii. The Arii were the descendants of the last conquerors of these +islands. But their advent must have been ancient, for their power was +uncontested, and their rights were so many, their duties so few, and +the devotion of the people to them was so great, that only centuries +could have established them so firmly. Probably they came after the +Raatira. The Raatira were separated by too great a barrier to have +assisted in the conquest. No Raatira could become an Arii; no Arii a +Raatira. The latter were closer to the commoners, and paid the same +respect to the Arii as did the Manahune. + +"If an Arii woman wedded a Raatira man, the marriage was said to be +with a taata ino, ino meaning literally bad, and taata man. This term +applied to all not Arii, and indicated the contempt of the Arii for +all below them. The Arii had many words solely for their own use, and +tapu, or prohibited, to all others; they had a hundred privileges. The +Raatira were probably the power broken by the Arii. The Raatira +had conquered the Manahune, and were themselves bested by the Arii, +the newest come." + +The chief sighed. He was like an old Irish storyteller recounting +the departed glories of Erin. + +I read to him in French Bovis' opinions that the Raatira, defeated, +retained part of their lands, served the new masters, and kept in +subjection the people they had themselves beaten. They attached +themselves to the Arii of their district, fought for them in their +quarrels or wars, and were consulted in assemblies, and allowed to +speak to the crowd. I recalled that this was a privilege dearly prized +by all Polynesians, the lack of reading and writing having, as in +Greece, developed oratory and orators to a remarkable excellence. I +was in Hawaii when the offices of the first legislature under the +American flag were campaigned for, after years of repression by the +sugar planters' oligarchy, and I had heard the natives speak a score +of times, and always with delight and wonder. They valued free speech. + +"The Arii were shrewd," said Chief Tetuanui, "and early invented a +plan for keeping the Raatira in subjection. If two Raatira disputed +possession of land, the one who believed himself defrauded could +yield to the king or a member of the royal family the land, to which +he usually had no right at all. The Arii thus got possession of more +and more land from time to time, and the Raatira were loath to contend +among themselves. + +"The Manahune owned nothing by law, but they lived on the lands of +Arii and Raatira, and were seldom evicted. They had the fruits of +their labor with a tithe or so for their masters; they left to their +children their accumulations, tentative, but actual, and their service +was pleasant; more in the nature of gifts than rent. The Manahune +could not rise above his caste except by the rare nomination of the +king, but they could become Teuteu Arii, or servants of an Arii, +and might thus acquire immense importance. + +"Like the eunuchs at courts or the mistresses of the noble and rich," +I remarked. + +The chief shrugged his shoulders. + +"The Manahune might become a priest or even join the society of the +Arioi," he rejoined. "The government was simple. The will of the prince +was supreme, but by custom things ran smoothly, and the prince, or +Arii, had seldom to urge his power. There were, of course, instances +of extortion, of bursts of anger, of feuds, of jealousies; but most +of the time the Raatira saw that the Arii were well served, and were +their intermediates with the commoners. The regular obligations of the +inferior classes were to meet at certain times to hand to the chiefs +presents, food, clothing or useful instruments, and they sought to +exceed one another in generosity. They met to build houses, to repair +them, or to construct the rock foundations of houses, according to +the importance of the chief, or Arii. They built the canoes, made +the nets, and did the fishing. The sea was divided into properties, +as was the land. The Arii had the reefs where the fish most abounded. + +"War was declared with religious ceremonies. Sacrifices were the basis +of these ceremonies, and a human victim the most efficacious. The +augurs examined the entrails, the auspices, much as did the pagans +of old. Certain priests had certain duties. The Tahua Oripo, night +runners, reported the movements of the enemy. They were professional +war spies, and they acquired a marvelous ability. Sometimes they were +able to lead their party so as to surprise the enemy and slaughter +them, but usually there were preliminaries to war which warned the +other side. A herald was sent in the costume of a great warrior. He +was of high birth or famous for his fighting. He delivered himself of +his mission ceremoniously, and was never attacked. Every locality had +its war-chants, its songs of defiance. Today only a few fragments +survive. Wars were waged mostly on account of the ambitions of +princes, as to-day in Europe and Asia. But the effort of Christianity +to oust paganism in Tahiti brought about many sanguinary conflicts, +and plainly God was with the missionaries, who caused the battles. In +1815 the Battle of Feipi gave Tahiti to Pomaré the Great, and to the +Protestant ministers, who were his backers. Over three hundred were +killed. A woman, the queen of the island of Huahine, commanded in +the absence of Pomaré. + +"Sometimes after a battle the vanquished sent heralds to signify their +yielding and to know the wish of the victor; they disbanded their +troops, left their arms on the field, and the war was over. Usually +the defeated warriors were allowed to return home without more ado +after their confession of failure, but when the rage was great, the +victors, with furious cries, gave the signal of carnage, and slew +all they met. If the prince beaten escaped the first consequences +of the rout, he was safe and lost only a portion of his territory, +and in some wars only his prestige. He remained respected, and his +privileges were about the same as before. The Arii were all of the +same tribe, all related, and though they ruled different districts +and valleys, and fought one another, they would not degrade one of +their own family and rank. Thus power remained in the same families, +princes, chiefs, and priests, and only the Raatira and the Manahune, +the bourgeoisie and the commoners, really suffered. + +"We copied you in Europe," I interposed. "There the kings, kaisers, +and czars took care not to lower the dignity of monarchy, and are +virtually all related. None of them ever deposed another of long +enthroning, and none of them has been killed in a battle in centuries." + +"Aue!" exclaimed the chief. "Ioba said, 'Wisdom is no longer with +the old.'" + +"Job talked like a revolutionist," I said. "That would be treason +among the diplomats and lawyers of Europe and America. How did women +get along in your father's day?" + +Tetuanui got up to stretch his huge body. He had been squatting on +his haunches for an hour. + +"Let Haamoura, my wife, say as to them," he returned laughingly. "She +knows all the old ways. I must see if the nets are to be stretched +to-day." + +Mme. Tetuanui and I had a lengthy confabulation. No Tahitian was +better informed than she upon the former status of her sex in Tahiti, +and from her I gained a lively summary. + +Woman was inferior among the old Tahitians. Man had here as everywhere +so ordained, and religion had fixed her position by taboos, as among +the Hebrews. She was often merely a servant, yet she maintained a +unique sex freedom. Her body was her own, and not her husband's as in +the English common law. She prepared the man's food and never sat at +meals with him. If she ate at the same time, which was seldom, she sat +at a distance, but near enough to hear his commands. It is so to-day +when Tahitian men gather for feasting without foreigners, as in the +Philippines, Japan, and China, and in many European countries. The +Hausfrau of the small merchant, laborer, or farmer is a drudge. In +Japan the woman remains subject to the hourly whims and wants of her +husband, and to his frequent infidelity, though she is true to him. + +The Tahiti wife had the care of the canoe, the paddles, and all the +fishing and hunting things, and she accompanied her husband often in +these pursuits. The husband had to make the fire, prepare the oven, +kill the pig or dog or fowl, and do the outside chores; but she +had a lesser position than he at all public observances. She could +not become a priest or enter the temple, but must remain always at +a distance from the marae. Yet she could be a queen or a chiefess, +and as such was as powerful as a man, making war in person, and often +leading her troops valiantly. The Tahitian women were nearly as strong +as the men and mentally their full equal. They wound their husbands +around their fingers or treated them cruelly in many instances, +astonishing the whites by their independence. Only religion, the +taboos, held them in any restraint. + +If a queen bore a child by an unknown father, the child was as royal +as if the descendant of a long line of kings; but if the father was +notoriously a commoner, the child remained a prince, though not so high +of rank as if his father had been an Arii. If a king had children by +a woman beneath his rank, they had no rights from their father, but +held a mixed position proportioned to the power of the father. He +established their rank by his personal prestige, as the kings of +Europe forced their bastards on the courts. Sixty years ago Tamatoa, +King of Raiatea of the Society Islands, himself the highest born of +all the chiefs of the archipelago, was forced to adopt a child of +King Pomaré of Tahiti to succeed him because his own children were +by a woman of the people. + +The woman thus had an advantage over the man in being able to transmit +her rank to her children, a survival of the matriarchate custom once +ruling the world. Polygamy was rarely indulged, though not forbidden. A +chief here and there might have two or three wives. Women were allowed +only one husband, but often avowed lovers were tolerated, if not +feared, by the husband. Mr. Banks, president of the Royal Astronomical +Society of England, was horrified after he had made love to Queen +Oberea of Papara in the absence of her husband to find her attendant +was a cavalière servente. His Anglican morals were shocked. He had +thought himself the only male sinner by her complacence. + +Before Christianity was forced on them, the Tahitians married in +the same rank, and with considerable right to choice. The tie might +be dissolved by the same authority binding it, the chief or head +of the clan. Inequality of rank, or near consanguinity, were the +only obstacles to marriage. Rank might be overcome, but never the +other. It was as in China, where Confucius himself laid down the law: +"A man in taking a wife does not choose one of the same surname as +himself." And in one of the Chinese commentaries the following reason +is given for this law: "When husband and wife are of the same surname, +their children do not do well and multiply." The prohibited degrees +were more distant than among us. It was a horror of incest that had +led to the general custom all over Polynesia of exchanging children +for adoption. Only this explanation could reconcile it with the +almost superstitious love the Polynesian father and mother have for +children. Their feeling surpasses the parental affection prevailing +in the remainder of the world, yet adoption is a stronger bond than +blood. No child was raised by its own genitors. The Tetuanuis had +brought up twenty-five, all freely given them at birth or after +weaning. The taboo was strict. + +Illegitimate children were as welcome as others. The husband might +have been so jealous as to meditate killing his wife; but when her +child was born, although he knew it to be a bastard, he gave it the +same love and care as his own. There were exceptions, but one might +cite on the opposite side innumerable cases where, despite the most +open adultery, the husband has taken his wife's offspring for his +own. It was well that this was so, for adultery was so habitual that +were bastards not made welcome, there would have been much suffering +by children, innocent themselves. Here, as in civilization, men love +their bastards often more than their legitimate sons and daughters. + +This prohibition against keeping one's own must have arisen when +there were very few inhabitants in Tahiti, for it is the outcome of a +natural guarding against sexual relationship in tribes or communities +where all are thrown together intimately, and stringent opposition +to such practices needed to prevent promiscuity. One must look, as +in the case of taboos, deeper than the surface for the beginning of +this custom of trading babies, for that is what it often amounted +to--friends exchanging offspring as they might canoes. + +It is said that the powerful sentiment among historical nations +opposing marriage between brother and sister and other close kindred +originated in the desire to make such connections odious, to preserve +virtue and decency among those in hourly intimacy. Monarchs and +nations long refused to bend to it. The Ptolemies and Pharaohs +married incestuously; Cleopatra, her brother. The Ptolemies married +their daughters, as did Artaxerxes, who wedded Atossa. The Ballinese +married twins of different sex. Abraham married his half-sister +by the same father. Moses's father married his aunt. Jacob took +to wife two sisters, his own cousins. In Great Russia until this +century a father married his son to a young woman, and then claimed +her as his concubine. When a son grew up, he followed his father's +example, though his wife was old and with many children. The Tamils +of southeast India, the Malaialais of the Kollimallais hills, have the +same custom. Inbreeding maintains a fineness of breed, but at the cost +of its vigor. That inbreeding is harmful is fairly certain. Examples +to the contrary are numerous in human and animal life. More than nine +hundred residents of Norfolk Island are descendants of the mutineers of +the British ship Bounty. They were begat by eight of the mutineers, and +intermarried for a century. They show no deterioration from this cause. + +Hardly any crime is more loathed than incest, but the abomination grew +slowly as man progressed. Such ties have been abhorrent for long in +most countries. A belief that incestuous children were weak mentally +or physically came much later in the ages. The Polynesians must have +remarked that inbreeding accentuated the faults in a strain, making +for an accumulation of them. This would be a very far advance in human +observation; but the Polynesian, by experience, or knowledge brought +from his old Asiatic home, must have held such a theory, and sought +in the system of adoption, and in not bringing up consanguineous +children together, to ward off such misfortune. This at least is a +plausible reason for such an unnatural practice among a people so +unquestionably child-lovers. + +The Marquesans had no totemism to save them. There were no exogamous +taboos. The tribe or clan was the chief unit, not the family. The +phratry tie was stronger than that of the father and mother. In the +totem scheme of other islands and continental groups all the women +of his mother's totem were taboo to a man, though their relationship +might be remote. Yet as husband and wife had different totems, and +children took their mothers' totems, a man might in rare instances, +even with this barrier, wed his own daughter. This has happened in +Buka and in North Bougainville. + +The plan of adoption in Polynesia is matched to a degree by the +fosterage common in Ireland in early days. There children were sent +to be reared in the families of fellow-clansmen of wealth. At a year +they left their own thresholds, and their fosterage ended only at +marriage. Every fostered person was under obligation to provide for +the old age of his foster-parents, and the affection arising from +this relationship was usually greater and regarded more sacred than +that of blood relationship. This is true to-day of the Tahitians. + +"But children nowadays are often brought up by their own parents," +said Mme. Tetuanui, rising to prepare the déjeuner, and I for a swim +in the lagoon, "and if adopted, they go from one home to the other +as they will. Parents are not as willing as before to let go their +children; for whereas my grandmother had fifteen, I have none, and few +of us have many. We are made sterile by your civilization. Tetuanui +and I were happy and able to persuade the mothers of twenty-five to +give their infants to us because we were childless and were chiefs +and well-to-do. Our race is passing so fast through the miseries the +white has brought us that little ones are as precious as life itself." + + + + +Chapter XVIII + +The reef and the lagoon--Wonders of marine life--Fishing with spears +and nets--Sponges and hermit crabs--Fish of many colors--Ancient +canoes of Tahiti--A visit to Vaihiria and legends told there. + +About a mile from the beach was the reef, on which the breakers +beat clamorously or almost inaudibly, depending on the wind and the +faraway surge of the seas. The Passe of Rautirare afforded entrance +for small vessels. It was an opening in the wall about the island +caused by the Vairahaha, the stream which emptied into the lagoon at +our door, and the fresh waters of which had ages ago prevented the +coral zoöphytes from building a structure there, as at Papeete and +all other passages. Fresh water did not agree with these miraculous +architects whose material was their own skeletons. + +I went out toward the reef many mornings in a little canoe that +Tiura, the eldest son of the chief, loaned me. I carried from the +house a paddle and three harpoons of different sizes. The canoe had +an outrigger and was very small, so that it moved fast through the +usually still lagoon, propelled by the broad-bladed paddle. In the +bottom of it might be an inch of water, for occasionally I shipped a +tiny wave, but wetness was no bother in this delicious climate; a pareu +was easily removed if vexatious and a cocoanut-shell was an ample bale. + +Low tide was at sunrise, and warmed with my fruit and coffee, and +the happy ia ora na, Maru! of the family, I paddled to the reef with +never-failing expectation of new wonders. The marine life of the +Tahiti reef is richer than anywhere in these seas, as the soil of +the island is more bountiful. + +At that state of the tide the surf barely broke upon the reef, and, +almost uncovered, its treasures were exposed for a little while as +if especially for me. The reef itself was a marvel of contrivance by +the blind animals which had died to raise it. If I had been brought +to it hooded, and known nothing of such phenomena, I would have sworn +it was an old concrete levee. The top was about fifty feet wide, as +level as a floor, pitted with innumerable holes, the hiding-places of +millions of living forms which fed on one another, and were continually +replenished by the rolling billows. The wall of the reef opposed to +the sea was a rough slope from the summit to the bottom, buttressed +against the attacks of storms, and defended by chevaux-de-frise +such as the Americans sank in the Hudson River in 1777. I ventured +cautiously over the edge. A student of ancient tactics would have +found there all the old defenses in coral--caltrops, and abatis, +molded in dark-gray coral, battered and shot-marked. It was a dream +of a sunken city wall of old Syracuse, and conjured up a vision of +the hoary Archimedes upon it before the inundation, directing the +destruction, by his burning-glass, of the enemy's ships. The side +of the reef toward the land was as sheer as an engineer could make +it with a plumb-line. The coral animals had as accurate a measure of +the vertical as of defense against the ocean. + +Over this levee rolled or slid a dozen kinds of shellfish spying +out refuges against the breakers and their brother enemies in the +troughs and holes of the coral floor. With my small spears I pried +out dozens of them, Mao, starfish, clams, oysters, furbelowed clams, +sea-urchins, and sponges. The mao is the turbo, the queer gastropod +sold in the market in Papeete. He lives in a beautiful spiral shell, +and has attached to him a round piece of polished shell, blue, green, +brown, or yellow, which he puts aside when he wishes to feed on the +morsels passing his door, and pulls shut when he wants privacy. He fits +himself tightly into a hollow in the reef and dozes away the hours +behind his shield, but ready to open it instantly at the perception +of his favorite food. The mao was wedged in the recess so cleverly +that it was difficult to extract him by my hand alone. His portal +I kept after eating him raw or cooked, to have set in silver as an +exquisite souvenir of my visit. These jewels studded the drinking +cups from which the Vikings drank "Skoal to the Northland!" + +The starfish were magnificent, of many colors, and one with fifteen +arms covered with sharp, gray spines, and underneath pale yellow, +fleshy feelers with suckers like a sea-anemone. These were as pliant +as rubber in the water, but, when long out, as hard as stone. The +sea-urchins were of many kinds, some with large spikes, as firm as +rock, and others almost as brittle as glass, their needles, half +a dozen inches long and sharp, dangerous to step on even with my +rubber-soled, canvas shoes. All hues were these urchins, blood-red +and heavenly blue, almost black, and as white as snow, the last with +a double-star etched upon his shell. Others were round like blow-fish, +with their spickles at every angle, menacing in look. + +The clams and oysters were small, except the furbelowed clam, whose +shell is fluted, and who grows to an immense size in the atolls of +the Paumotus. I always ate my fill of these delicacies raw as I walked +along the reef, smashing the shells to get at the inmates. + +When the tide was approaching high or when it began to ebb I had +immortal experiences upon the reef. I went with Tiura or with the chief +and a party, and found the waves dashing and foaming upon the natural +mole, sweeping over it with the noise of thunder, crashing upon the +sloping front, and riding their white steeds over the solid flagging +to the lower lagoon. In this smother of water we stood knee-deep, +receiving its buffets upon our waists and the spray upon our faces, +and watched for the fish that were carried upon its crests. With +spears couched, we waited the flying chance to arrest them upon the +points, a hazardous game, for often they were powerful creatures, +and were hurled against us with threatening impact. + +But inspiring as was this sport at sunset or by moonlight, it was even +more exciting when we trod the reef with torches of dried reeds or +leaves or candlenuts threaded upon the spines of cocoanut-leaves, +and lanced the fish that were drawn by the lure of the lights, +or which we saw by their glare passing over the reef. The gleam of +the torches, the blackness all about, the masterful figures of the +Tahitians, the cries of warning, the laughter, the shouts of triumph, +and the melancholy himenes, the softness and warmth of the water, +the uncanny feel of living things about one's feet and body, the +imaginative shudder of fear at shark or octopus or other terrible +brute of the sea, the singing journey home in the canoes, and the +joyous landing and counting of the catch--all these were things +never to be forgotten, pictures to be unveiled in drabber scenes or +on white nights of sleeplessness. + +The sponges were oddities hard to recognize as the tender toilet +article. Some were soft and some were full of grit. The grit was +their skeletons, for every sponge has a skeleton except three or four +very low specimens, and some without personal skeletons import them +by attraction and make up a frame from foreign bodies. I examined +and admired them, reasoning that I myself, in the debut of living +creatures, was close in appearance to one; but my basic interest in +them was to sit on them. + +Many times I went only to where the coral began, half-way to the +reef. This was away from the path of the Vairahaha River, and where +the coral souls had manifestly indulged a thousand fancies in contour +and color. After the million years of their labor in throwing up the +bastion of the reef, with all its architectural niceties, they had +found in the repose behind it opportunities for the indulgence of +their artistry. They were the sculptors, painters, and gardeners of +the lagoon. + +I brought with me a lunette, the diver's aid, a four-sided wooden +frame fifteen inches each way, with a bottom of glass and no top. I +stuck my head in the box and looked through the glass, which I +thrust below the surface, thus evading the opaqueness or distortion +caused by the ripples. One did not need this invention ordinarily, +for the water was as clear as air when undisturbed, and the garden of +the sea gods was a brilliant and moving spectacle below my drifting +canoe. One must be a child again to see all of it; the magic shapes, +the haunting tints, the fairy forms. The gardener who had directed the +growth of the aquarium believed in kelpies, undines, and mermaids, and +had made for them the superbest playground conceivable even by sprites. + +There were trees, bushes, and plants of yellow and white coral, +of scarlet corallins, dahlias and roses, cabbages and cauliflowers +simulated perfectly, lilies and heaps of precious stones. On flat +tables were starfish lazying at full width, strewn shells, and +hermit-crabs entering and leaving their captured homes. Mauve and +primrose, pink and blue, green and brown, the coral plants nodded in +the glittering light that filtered through the translucent brine. They +were alive, all these things, as were the sponges, with stomachs +and reactions, and impulses to perpetuate their species and to be +beautiful. They had no relation to me except as I had to nature, but +they were my beginnings, my simple ancestors who had stayed simple +and unminded, and I was to count those hours happy when I communed +with them. + +Taken from their element they died, but left their mold, to harden +in the air they could not breathe, and to amaze the less fortunate +people who could not see them in their own estate. The seaweeds +grew among them, green or brown, more primordial than the corals, +with less of organic life, vegetables and not animals, but eager, +too, for expression in their motions, their increase in size, and +their continuance through posterity. All these were the display of +the kindness of the same spirit who rode the thunder, who permitted +a million babes to starve, who stirred in men the madness to slay a +myriad of their brothers, and who fixed the countless stars in the +firmament to guide them in the darkness. + +The hermit-crabs drew my minute attention, and I anchored my canoe +and with the lunette watched them by the hour. They were as provident +and as handy--with claws--as the bee that stores honey. The hermit +inhabits the vacant shells of other mollusks, entering one soon after +birth, sometimes finding them untenanted, and sometimes killing the +rightful occupant, and changing his house as he grows. I had been +surprised to see small and large shells moving fast over the reef, +and on the beach at the water's-edge; shells as big as my thumbnail +and nearly as big as my head. I seized one, and behold! the inmate was +walking on ten legs with the shell on his back, like a man carrying +a dog-house. I attempted to pull him out of his lodging, and he +was so firmly fastened to the interior by hooks on his belly that +he held on until he was torn asunder. His abdomen is soft and pulpy +and without protecting plates, as have other crabs, and he survived +only by his childhood custom of stealing a univalve abode, though +he murdered the honest tenant. In one I saw the large pincher of the +crab so drawn back as to form a door to the shell as perfect as the +original. When he felt growing pains the hermit-crab unhooked himself +from his ceiling and migrated in search of a more commodious dwelling. + +Interesting as were these habits of the cenobite crustacean, his +keeping a policeman or two on guard on his roof, and moving them to +his successive domiciles, was more so. These policemen are anemones, +and I saw hermit crab-shells with three or four on them, and one even +in the mouth of the shell. When the anchorite was ready for a new +shell, he left his old one and examined the new ones acutely. Finding +one to suit his expected growth, he entered it belly first, and +transferred the anemone, by clawing and pulling loose its hold, +to the outside of his chosen shell. How skilfully this was done may +be judged by the fact that I could not get one free without tearing +the cup-like base which fastened it. The anemone assisted in the +operation by keeping its tentacles expanded, whereas it withdrew +them if any foreign object came near. The stinging cells of the +anemone prevent fishes from attacking the hermit, and that is the +reason of his care for the parasite. It is the commensalism of the +struggle for existence, learned not by the individual crab, but by +his race. Some crabs wield an anemone firmly grasped in each claw, +the stinging nematocysts of the parasite warding off the devilish +octopus, and the anemone having a share of the crab's meals and the +pleasure of vicarious transportation. The anemone at the mouth of +the shell keeps guard at the weakest spot of the hermit's armor. + +These sea-anemones themselves are mysterious evidences of the gradual +advance of organisms from the slime to the poem. They are animals, +and attach themselves by a muscular base to the rocks or shells, +or are as free-swimming as perch. I saw them two feet in diameter, +seeming all vegetable, some like chrysanthemums and some resembling +embroidered pin-cushions. They were of many colors, and are of the +coral family. + +In this wonderful sea garden, where lobsters, crabs, sea-urchins, +turbos, starfish, and hundreds of other sentient beings lived, I saw +a thousand true scaled fish, most of them highly colored, and many +so curiously marked, fashioned, and equipped with eccentric members +that I was startled into biblical phrases. In the market they were +strange enough, dead and on the marble slabs, or in green leaves, but +in the lagoon they were a kaleidoscope of complexions and shapes. They +were the lovely elves to complement the fantastic shellfish, yellow, +striped with violet; bright turquoise, with a gold collar; gold, +with broad bands of black terminating in winglike fins; scarlet, +with cobalt polka-dots; silver, with a rosy flush; glossy green, +dazzling crimson, black velvet, solid red. + +They darted and flashed in and out of the caves in the coral, caressed +the sea-anemones, idled about the shells, avoided by dexterous +twistings and turnings a thousand collisions, and continued ever the +primary endeavor, the search for those particular bits of food their +appetites craved. + +The effect upon me of all this splendor and grace of water life, as I +bent over the surface of the lagoon or walked with lunette among the +beds of coral, was, after the oft-repeated periods of bewilderment at +the gorgeousness and whimsicality of the universe, a deep rejoicing for +its prodigality of design and purpose, and a merry sorrow for those +who would inflict dogma and orthodoxy on a practical and heterodox +world. I leaned on the side of the canoe or on my spears and laughed +at the fools of cities, and at myself, who had been a fool among them +for most of my life. Just how this train of reasoning ran I cannot say, +but it moved inexorably at the contemplation of the sublime radiancy +of the vivarium of the Mataiea lagoon. It always appeared a symbol of +the cosmic energy which poured the bounty of rain upon the sea as upon +the thirsty earth, and which is beyond good and evil as we reckon them. + +When I became myself the hunter for fish, and stood upon the hummocks +of coral in water up to my waist or neck, lunette in one hand +and spears in another, I saw a different aspect of the garden. I, +naked among the coral and the plants, must have looked to them like +a frightful demon, white and without scales, a horrible devil-fish, +my arms and legs glabrous tentacles, and the lunette and spears adding +to my hideousness and foul menace. I know that was the impression I +made on the rainbow-fish, for they fled within the caves, and only by +peeping in through the glass could I see them to drive the spear into +them. These slender spears were a dozen feet of light, tough wood, two +of them with single iron points two feet long, and a third fitted with +ten fine-pointed darning-needles. For small fish I used the latter, +and in thrusting into a school was pretty sure to impale one or two. + +I tied the rope of pandanus-leaves about my shoulder, and pulled the +canoe along with me as a creel, tossing the fish into it as I took +them. The first seven were often of different kinds, and I did not +despise the yellow and black eels, the lobsters, the mao, or the +oysters and clams. + +I would rest my spears in the canoe, and meander slowly and +meditatively over the coral terraces, repeating verses: + + + We wandered where the dreamy palm + Murmured above the sleepy wave; + And through the waters clear and calm + Looked down into the coral cave + Whose echoes never had been stirred + By breath of man or song of bird. + + +When sky and wind were propitious, and other signs familiar to the +Maori indicated that fish were plentiful in the lagoon, the whole +village dragged the net. This belonged to the chief, who for his +ownership received a percentage of the catch. The net was a hundred +and fifty feet long, and was carried out by a dozen canoes or by half +a hundred or more men and women, who let it sink to the bottom when +up to their necks in water. They then approached the shore with the +net in a half-circle, carrying it over the coral heaps, and artfully +driving into it all the fish they encountered. In shallow water others +waited with little baskets, and, scooping up the fish from the net, +emptied them into larger baskets slung from their waists. These +fish were not very big, but when larger ones were netted, marksmen +with spears waited in the shallows to kill any that leaped from the +seine. If the haul was bigger than the needs of the village, the +overplus was sent to the market in Papeete, or kept in huge anchored, +floating baskets of wicker. These fishermen had been heart and soul +in the tahatai oneone, the fish strike, and when we had poor luck, +often the best spearsman led the clan in the air taught them by the +leader whom they remembered with pride and affection: + + + Hayrahrooyah! I'm a boom! Hayrahrooyah! Boomagay! + + +They associated the air and words with the fish, and deep down in their +primitive hearts thought it an incantation, such as their tahutahu, +the sorcerers of the island, spoke of old. + +"Tellee haapao maitai! Kelly was a wise man!" they would lament. + +Every one used a fine casting-net when fishing alone along the +shores. The net was weighted, and was thrown over schools of small +fish so dexterously that hundreds were snared in one fling. The tiniest +fish were the size of matches. When cooked with a paste, they were as +dainty as whitebait served at Greenwich to a London gourmet, and sung +by Shakespere. The nets were plaited of the fibers of the hibiscus, +banyan, or pandanus-bark, and when a mighty catch was expected, one +of small mesh was laid inside a net of stronger and coarser make, +to intercept any large fish that might break through the first line +of offense. The weights were stones wrapped in cocoanut-fiber, and +the floats were of the buoyant hibiscus-wood. In front of the grounds +of the chefferie there hung on the trees a long line of nets drying +in the breeze. + +Before a feast, if there were not conditions auspicious for a tuu +i te upea toro, a dragging of the seine, the village was occupied +during the day or the wind was unfavorable, we went out at night after +the trades had died down, and in a dozen or twenty canoes we speared +them by torchlight. One was at the paddle, and the other at the prow, +with uplifted flambeau, searching the waters for the fleeing shadows +beneath, and launching the dart at the exact instant of proximity. The +congregation of lights, the lapping of the waves, and perhaps the +very gathering of humans excited the fish. They leaped and splashed, +and unaware of their betrayal of their presence to slayers, informed +our eyes and ears of their whereabouts. I could not compete with +the Tahitians with the spears, and held a paddle, and that slight +occupation gave me time and thought for the scene. The torches threw +a lurid glare upon the exaggerated, semi-nude figures of the giant +bronzes on the beaks of the pirogues, their arms raised in the poise +of the weapon, each outlined against the darkness of the night, +glorious avatars yet of their race that had been so mighty and was +so soon to pass from the wave. + +"Maru," said the chief, when we sat on the mats at late supper +after a return from the lagoon, "it is a pity you were not here +when the Tahitians had their 'ar'ia and pahi, our large canoes for +navigating on the moana faa aro, the landless sea. The 'ar'ia was a +double canoe, each seventy feet long, high in the stern, and lashed +together, outrigger to outrigger. A stout, broad platform was held +firm between the canoes with many lashings of sennit, a strong, but +yielding, framework on which was a small house of straw where the +crew lived. We had no nails, but we used wooden pegs and thousands of +cocoanut-fiber ropes, so that everything, aloft and alow, was taut, +but giving in the toss of the sea. + +"The pahi was eighty feet long, broad in the middle, very carefully +and neatly planked over inside, forming a rude bulkhead or inner +casing, and had a lofty carved stem rising into one or two posts, +terminating in a human form. It was in these vessels that we made the +long journeys from island to island, the migrations and the descents +upon other Polynesian peoples in war. Both the 'ar'ia and the pahi +were propelled by a huge 'i'e, or mat sail of pandanus-leaves shaped +like a leg of a fat hog. In modern times these great canoes were built +in Bora-Bora, the island the Hawaiians say they came from, and the +name of which means 'Land of the Big House Canoes.' With a good wind +we could sail a hundred and twenty miles a day in those vessels. We +would attend the fa'a-Rua, which we now call the ha'a-Piti, the wind +that blows both ways, for we waited for the northeast or southwest +trade-winds according to the direction we made for." + +The chief lifted his glass of wine, and chanted: + + + "Aue mouna, mouna o Havaii! + Havaii tupu ai te ahi veavea!" + + "Hail! mighty mountains, mountains of Havaii! + Havaii where the red, flaming fire shoots up high!" + + +Brooke had been to Lake Vaihiria, and suggested that I go. The +excursion had been long in my mind, for every time an eel was caught +or served some one exclaimed, "Aue! You should see the eels in +Vaihiria. But, be careful!" + +The warning referred to the dangers of the climb, but also to a +mysterious menace of tupapaus, or ghosts. I had seen a canoe with the +head of an eel carved in wood, and had heard often a hesitant reference +to a legend of metempsychosis, of a human and eel transmigration. The +chief, after much persuasion, said that the clans of Mataiea had always +believed they were descended directly from eels; that an eel of Lake +Vaihiria had been the progenitor of all the people of the valley. A +vahine of another clan had been overcome by the eel's sorcery, as +Mother Eve by the serpent, which doubtless was an eel. + +As the eel and the water-snakes are the only serpentine animals in +Tahiti, his reasoning was sound. The lake lies high in the mountains, +at the very summit of the valley of Mataiea, and overlooks the +Great Valley of Papenoo, owned by Count Polonsky, the cultivated +Slav-Frenchman. + +Tiura, the chief's oldest adopted son, arranged for the journey, and +led the four of us who made it. One was an Australian, a doctor of the +bush country of Queensland, in his thirties, very tall, and strong, +though thin. He was a guest of the chief, and had walked entirely +around Tahiti, barefooted, as had Mr. and Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson, +to the consternation of the conservative English residents of Tahiti, +who wanted them to live in Papeete and hold teas. Two pleasant native +youths went with us to carry our necessities. + +One cannot make the trip in the wet season, usually, but we had had +a period of quite dry weather, and were nearing the end of the rainy +period. The beginning of the Valley of Vaihiria, the next to that of +Mataiea, was reached within an hour by the crooked road that leaves the +beach. The valley was very fertile, and its picturesqueness a foretaste +of the heights. The brook that ran through it murmured that it, too, +climbed to the mountains, and would be our music on the way. The +ascent was difficult and wearisome. We walked through long grass, +over great rocks, and pulled ourselves around huge trees. The birds, +so rare near the sea-shore, sang to us, and we saw many nests of fine +moss. The scenery was different from that of the Valley of Fautaua, +which I had climbed with Fragrance of the Jasmine, more rugged, and +less captivating, yet beautiful and inspiring. The enormous blocks +of basalt often poised upon a point alarmed us, and Tiura said that +many times they had crashed down into the abyss. We saw a score of +white cascades. It seemed: + + + A land of streams. Some like a downward smoke, + Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go; + And some through wavering lights and shadows broke, + Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below. + + +We arrived at a plateau after seven hours of hard toil, almost all +the time pursuing a rocky path: it was the crown of the mountain +and the borders of the lake. Though we had surmounted only thirteen +hundred feet of vertically, we had come by such steeps that we +could not wait an instant before throwing off our light garments +and plunging into the water. The lake occupied an extinct crater, +surrounded by four mountains unequally raised up--Tetufera, Urufaa, +Purahu, and Terouotupo. It is half a mile long and a third wide, +of curious shape, the banks making it appear in the dusk like a babe +in swaddling-clothes with its arms outside the band. A great natural +reservoir, fed by many subterranean springs, it gives birth to many +others at the feet of the mountains, in Mataiea and Papeari. + +After a repast, it being already late, we built a house to sleep in +away from the dews of the heights, and Tiura recalled that the first +Pomaré took his name from a time when he had spent the night here and +coughed from the exposure. His followers had spoken of the po mare, +meaning literally, night cough, and the euphony pleased the king so +that he adopted the name and bequeathed it to four successors. All +these Polynesians took their names at birth or later from incidents +in their own or others' lives, as my own chief's--"Deal Coffin," from +a relative being buried in a sailor's chest; "Press Me" because the +chief so named had heard these as the last word uttered by a dying +grandchild, and Dim Sight because his grandfather had weak eyes. + +Taata Mata, the name of a charming Tahitian woman I knew, signifies +"Man's Eye," her own large eyes, perhaps, explaining the name, and +Mauu, the name borne by a Tahitian man of good family in Papeete, +"Moist." In all Polynesia one found picture names for people, as among +the American Indians, and as among all nations, though with Europeans +the meanings are forgotten. Moses means "Pulled out of the Water," or +"Water Baby." Some of our names of people and places have ridiculous +import in Tahiti. I remember Lovaina laughed immoderately, and called +all the maids to view a line in the Tiare Hotel register in which a +man had put himself down from "Omaha." + +After we had eaten, we sat smoking in the darkness, I feeling very +close to the blue field of stars. In the tropics the mountains, even +so low as these, are impressive of a vast harmony of nature and of +kinship with the force that rumpled them with its mighty hand. They +have always inspired great thoughts. Moses framed in the mountains +the ten taboos of Israel, which we hold as sacred as did the chosen +people. Jesus made the mountains the seat of his most important acts, +and was there transfigured in glory. + +We had been pointed out by Tiura a great crack in the precipice, +called Apoo Taria, the "Hole of the Ears." In the bloody struggles +of the ancient tribes here the conquerors cut off the ears of their +victims--some say their captives--and threw them in this hole. + +"Because of those ears," said Tiura, "all the eels in this lake have +very large ears, and it is so because the father of all the Mataiea +folk was an eel. We shall see the eels to-morrow, but I must tell +you of the chief of the district of Arue, near Papeete, about which +M. Tourjee, the American, wrote the himene. The chief was married to +a strong woman of this district, and in those days there were so many +Tahitians that the mountains as well as the valleys were filled with +them. He had a pet puhi, an eel named Faaraianuu. The eel had his home +in a spring in the Arue district. The spring is there to this day." + +"Oia ia! It is true!" I interjected. "I have seen it." + +"One day," went on Tiura, "the chief remarked to his vahine that he +was starting up the mountain to see her grandparents. She wanted to go, +too, but he said that he would just hurry along, and be back in a day +or two. Against her will he went alone. He did come back in a day or +two, and to her questions replied that he had had a delightful visit +to her tupuna. After that he got the peu, the habit, of departing +for the mountains and remaining for hours daily. The chief's vahine +became anoenoe (curious) to see what was his real reason for making +these journeys every day. So she followed him secretly. She came +to the mountain, where she saw him stop by an umu, a native oven he +had evidently built before. He took out a bamboo, the kind in which +we cooked small pieces of meat, and she saw him draw out a piece of +meat and heard him say 'Maitai! Good!' as he ate it. She watched him +closely, and was anxious to know what meat he had cooked, for he had +said nothing about it. + +"When he had left, she rushed to the oven, opened the bamboo, and +saw on pieces of meat the special tattoomarks of the thighs of her +grandmother and grandfather. Aue! She was riri. She fell to the earth +and wept, and then she was angry. She made up her mind to get even +with her false tane, and to hurt him the worst way possible. She +hurried to his spring by their home in Arue, and caught his pet eel, +Faaraianuu, who was sunning himself on the surface. She slashed him +with her knife of pearl shell, and baked him in an umu. She ate his +tail at once and put the remainder of the eel in a calabash. Then +she left, with the ipu in her hand, for Lake Vaihiria." + +Tiura halted his tale a minute to point out the constellation of the +Scorpion, and to say, "Those stars are Pipiri Ma, the children, who +lived at Mataiea long ago. That is a strange story of their leaving +their parents' house for the sky!" + +"Aue! Tiura," said I, "the stars are fixed, but there was the vahine +with all but the tail of Faaraianuu in her ipu, walking toward this +very spot. What became of her?" + +The son of Tetuanui smiled, and continued: + +"On her way she stopped to see the sorcerer, Tahu-Tahu and his +vahine. They were friends. After a paraparau, the usual gossip of +women, they asked her what she had in her calabash, and she replied, +'Playthings.' Then they told her her journey would be unsuccessful, +but she kept on to this lake and put the remains of the eel in the +water, right here where we are. But the eel would not stay in the +lake, and though time and again she threw him in, he always came +out. Finally she put him back in her ipu and returned to the house +of Tahu-Tahu. She told her misfortune, and Tahu-Tahu made passes and +thrashed about with the sacred ti-leaves, and commanded her to put +Faaraianuu in the lake again. This she did, and he stayed, but even +now, if you put a cocoanut in this lake at this spot, it will come +out at the spring in Arue. The eel still has power over that spring." + +Tiura spoke in Tahitian and French, and I handed on his narrative. + +"The eel in Tahiti, from what I hear, has seen better days," +commented the Queensland doctor. "All over the world the primitive +people endowed this humble form of animal--the serpentine--with a +cunning and supernatural power surpassing that of the four-footed +creatures. I think it was because in the cradle of the human family +there were so many hurts from the bites of snakes and sea-eels--they +couldn't guard against them--that man salved his wounds by crediting +his enemy with devilish qualities. That's the probable origin of the +garden of Eden myth." + +Again Tiura spoke of the Scorpion in the sky, and I knew he desired +to talk of Pipiri Ma. The other Tahitians were already under the roof +on their backs, upon the soft bed of dried leaves gathered by them +for all of us, but the long, lean physician listened with unabated +interest. He had run away for a change from the desert-like interior +of his vast island, where he treated the ills of a large territory +of sheep-herders, and to be on this mountain under such a benignant +canopy, and to hear the folk-lore of the most fascinating race on +earth, was to him worth foregoing sleep all night. + +Tiura assumed a serious pose for the divulgement of secret lore. His +language became grandiose, as if he repeated verbatim a rune of +his ancestors: + +"We Maoris lived at that time in the great peace of our long, quiet +years. No outside influence, no evil wind, troubled our dreams. The +men and women were hinuhinu, of high souls. At the head of the valley, +in a grove of breadfruit, lived Taua a Tiaroroa, his vahine Rehua, +and their two children, whose bodies were as round as the breadfuit, +and whose eyes were like the black borders of the pearl-shells of the +Conquered atolls. They were named Pipiri and Rehua iti, but were known +as Pipiri Ma, the inseparables. One night when the moon, Avae, was +at the height of its brilliancy, Taua and Rehua trod the green path +to the sea. They lifted their canoe from its couch upon the grass, +and with lighted torch of cocoanut-leaves glided toward the center +of the lagoon. + +"The woman stood motionless at the prow, and from her right hand +issued the flames of their torch with a hissing sound--the flames +which fell later in smoky clouds along the shore. A multitude of fish +of strange form, fascinated by the blinding light, swam curiously +about the canoe like butterflies. Taua stopped padpling, and directed +his twelve-pronged harpoon toward the biggest fish. With a quick and +powerful stroke the heavy harpoon shot like an arow from his hand +and pierced the flashing scales. Soon the baskets of purau-fiber +were filled, and they took back the canoe to its resting-place, +and returned to their house, again treading the emerald trail which +shone bright under the flooding moon. On the red-hot stones of the +umu the fish grew golden, and sent forth a sweet odor which exceeded +in deliciousness even the smell of monoi, the ointment of the oil of +the cocoanut and crushed blossoms. Pipiri Ma rolled upon their soft +mats, and their eyes opened with thoughts of a bountiful meal. They +awaited with hearts of joy the moment when their mother would come +to take them to the cook-house, the fare umu. + +"The parents did not come to them. The minutes passed slowly in the +silence, counted by beats of their hearts. Yet their mother was not +far away. They heard the noise of the dried purau-leaves as they were +placed on the grass. They distinguished the sound of the breadfruit +as they rolled dully upon the large leaves, and then the silvery +sound of cups filled with pape miti and the miti noanoa from which a +pleasant aroma arose. They heard also the freeing of the cocoanuts +from their hairy covering to release their limpid nectar. On their +mats the children became restless and began to cry. Their eyes filled +with bitter tears, and their throats choked with painful sobs. + +"'All is ready,' said Rehua, gladly, to her husband, 'but before we +eat, go and wake our little ones so dear to us.' + +"Taua was afraid to break the sweet sleep of the babies. He hesitated +and said: + +"'No, do not let us wake them. They sleep so soundly now.' + +"Pipiri Ma heard these touching words of their father. Why was he +afraid to wake them to-night when always they ate the fish with their +parents--the fish just from the sea and golden from the umu? Had the +love of their father been so soon lost to them, as under the foul +breath of a demon that may have wandered about their home? + +"Taua eats and enjoys his meal, but Rehua is distracted. A cloud +gathers on her brow, and her eyes, full of sadness, are always toward +the house where the children are sleeping. The meal finished, she, +with her husband, hurry to the mats on which the children slept, but +the little ones had heard the noise of their feet upon the dewy leaves. + +"'Haere atu! Let us go!' said the brother to the sister. The door is +closed, and with his slender arms he parts the light bamboo palings +which surround the house, and both flee through the opening. + +"A long time they wandered. They followed the reaches of the +valley. They dipped their bruised feet in the amorous river that sang +as it crept toward the ocean. They broke through the twisted brush +which was shadowed by the giant leaves, and while they so hurried +they heard often the words of their parents, which the echoes of the +valley brought to their ears: + +"'Come back! Come back to us, Pipiri Ma! Ma! Haere mai, haere mai, +Pipiri Ma!' + +"And they called back from the depths of their bosoms, 'No, no; we +will never come back. The torchlight fishing will again yield the +children nothing.' + +"They hid themselves on the highest mountains which caress the +sky with their misty locks. They climbed with great difficulty the +lower hills from which they looked down on the houses as small as a +sailing canoe on the horizon. They came upon a dark cave where the +tupapaus made their terrible noises, and in this cavern dwelt a tahu, +a sorcerer. They were afraid, but the sorcerer was kind, and when he +awoke, spoke so softly to them they thought they heard the sough of +the hupe, the wind of the night, out of the valley below them. + +"When he spoke, the spirit with whom the tahu was familiar let down +a cloud and from it fell a fringe of varied hues. Pipiri Ma seized +the threads that looked the most seducing, threads of gold and rose, +and upon these they climbed to the skies. Their parents who saw them +as they ascended, begged them, 'Pipiri Ma, come back! Oh, come back +to us!' but the babes were already high in the heavens, higher than +Orohena, the loftiest mountain, and their voices came almost from +under the sun: 'No, we will never return. The fishing with the torches +might be bad again. It might not be good for the children.' + +"Taua and Rehua went back to their hut in tears. Whenever the +torchlight fishing was bountiful, and the fish were glowing on the +hot stones of the umu, Rehua lifted sorrowful eyes toward the skies, +and vainly supplicated, 'Pipiri Ma, return to us!' and Taua answered, +shaking his head with a doleful and unbelieving nod, 'Alas! it is +over. Pipiri Ma will not come back, for one day the torchlight fishing +was bad for the children.'" + +Tiura finished with a finger pointing to Antares, of the Scorpion +constellation. + +"That," he concluded, "is the cloud which was itself transformed." + +The doctor shook out his pipe as we entered the flimsy hut. + +"Sounds like it was written by a child who wanted a continuous +supply of sweets, but these people are so crazy on children that their +legends point a moral to parents and never to the kiddies. They reverse +'Honor thy father and mother.'" + +In the morning the Valley of Vaihiria unrolled under the rays of +the sun like a spreading green carpet, and the sea in the distance, +a mirror, sent back the darts of the beams. After breakfast we built +a raft of banana-trunks, which we tied with lianas, and on it we +floated about to observe the big-eared eels. Except by the shore +the natives warned us against swimming for fear of these monsters, +but we were not disturbed. We looked into the dismal pit, Apo Taria, +and tumbled rocks down it. + +"It has no bottom," said Tiura. "We have sounded it with our longest +ropes." + +The sun was now climbing high, and we began the descent, moving at a +fast pace, leaping, slipping and sliding, with the use of the rope, +and arriving at the Chefferie a little after noon. + +The long draft of a cocoanut, a full quart of delicious, cooling +refreshment, and we were ready for the oysters and the fish and taro. + + + +Chapter XIX + +The Arioi, minstrels of the tropics--Lovaina tells of the +infanticide--Theories of depopulation--Methods of the Arioi--Destroyed +by missionaries. + +Lovaina came out to Mataiea with the news and gossip of the capital. A +wretched tragedy had shocked the community. Pepe, the woman of +Tuatini, had buried her new-born infant alive in the garden of the +house opposite the Tiare Hotel. Lovaina was full of the horror of +it, but with a just appreciation of the crime as a happening worth +telling. The chefferie was filled with aues. + +"Aue!" cried Haamoura, the chief's wife. + +"Aue!" said the chief, and Rupert Brooke, with whom I had been +swimming. + +"Aue!" exclaimed O'Laughlin Considine, the Irish poet of New Zealand, +stout, bearded, crowned with a chaplet of sweet gardenias, and quoting +verses in Maori, Gaelic, and English. + +There were laments in Tahitian by all about, sorrow that the mother +had so little loved her babe, that she had not brought it to Mataiea, +where Tetuanui and Haamoura or any of us would have adopted it. And +Lovaina said, in English for Considine, whom she had brought to +Mataiea, and for Brooke: + +"She had five children by that Tuatini. He is custom-officer at +Makatea, phosphate island, near T'ytee. He been gone one year, an' she +get very fat, but she don' say one thing. Then she get letter speakin' +he come back nex' week. One ol' T'ytee woman she work for her to keep +all chil'ren clean, an' eat, an' she notice two day ago one mornin' +she more thin. She ask her, 'Where that babee?' She say the varua, +a bad devil, take it. The ol' woman remember she hear little cry in +night, an' when a girl live my hotel tell her she saw Pepe diggin' +in garden, she talk and talk, an' by 'n' by police come, an' fin' +babee under rose-bush. It dead, but Cassiou, he say, been breathe +when bury, because have air in lung. Then gendarme take hol' Pepe, +and she tell right out she 'fraid for her husban', an' when babee born +she go in night an' dig hole an' plant her babee under rosebush. Now, +maybe white people say that Pepe jus' like all T'ytee woman." + +Lovaina wore a wine-colored peignoir, and in her red-brown hair +many strands of the diaphanous reva-reva, delicate and beautiful, a +beloved ornament taken from the young palm-leaf. O'Laughlin Considine +and Brooke were much concerned for the unhappy mother, and asked how +she was. + +"She cut off her hair," answered Lovaina, "like I do when my l'i'l boy +was killed in cyclone nineteen huner' six. It never grow good after +like before." Her hair was quite two feet long and very luxuriant, +and like all Tahitian hair, simply in two plaits. + +Brooke expressed his curiosity over what Lovaina had said, "jus' +like all T'ytee woman." + +"Was that a custom of Tahiti mothers, to bury their babes alive at +birth?" he asked. + +Lovaina blushed. + +"Better you ask Tetuanui 'bout them Arioi," she replied confusedly. + +The chief pleaded that he could not explain such a complicated matter +in French, and if he did, M. Considine would not understand that +language. But with the question raised, the conversation continued +about infanticide and depopulation. The chief quoted the death-sentence +upon his race pronounced by the Tahitian prophets centuries ago: + + + "E tupu te fau, et toro te farero, e mou te taata!" + + "The hibiscus shall grow, the coral spread, and man shall cease!" + + +"There were, according to Captain Cook, sixty or seventy thousand +Tahitians on this island when the whites came," continued the chief, +sadly. "That number may have been too great, for perhaps Tooti +calculated the population of the whole island by the crowd that always +followed him, but there were several score thousand. Now I can count +the thousands on the fingers of one hand." + +We talked of the sweeping away of the people of the Marquesas +Islands and of all the Polynesians. The Hawaiians are only twenty-two +thousand. When the haole set foot on shore there, he counted four +hundred thousand. + +Time was when so great was the congestion in these islands, as in +the Marquesas and Hawaii, that the priests and chiefs instituted +devices for checking it. Infanticide seemed the easiest way to +prevent hurtful increase. Stringent rules were made against large +families. On some islands couples were limited to two children or +only one, and all others born were killed immediately. Race suicide +had here its simplest form. The Polynesian race must have grown to +very great numbers on every island they settled from Samoa to Hawaii, +and perhaps these numbers induced migrations. They doubtless grew to +threatening swarms before they began checking the increase. Thomas +Carver, professor of political economy at Harvard, says: + +Even if the wants of the individual never expanded at all, it is quite +obvious that an indefinite increase in the number of individuals in +any locality would, sooner or later, result in scarcity and bring +them into conflict with nature, and, therefore, into conflict with +one another. That human populations are physiologically capable of +indefinite increase, if time be allotted, is admitted, and must be +admitted by any one who has given the slightest attention to the +subject. Among the non-economizing animals and plants, it is not the +limits of their procreative power but the limits of subsistence which +determine their numbers. Neither is it lack of procreative power which +limits numbers in the case of man, the economic animal. With him also +it is a question of subsistence, but of subsistence according to some +standard. Being gifted with economic foresight he will not multiply +beyond the point where he can maintain that standard which he considers +decent. But--and this is especially to be noted--so powerful are his +procreative and domestic instincts that he will multiply up to the +point where it is difficult to maintain whatever standard he has. + +Instinct early taught society everywhere protection against the irksome +condition of too many people and too little food. The old were killed +or deserted in wanderings or migrations, and infanticide and abortion +practised, as they are commonly in Africa to-day. Six-sevenths of India +have for ages practised female infanticide, yet India increases two +millions annually, and famine stalks year in and year out. Fifteen +million Chinese are doomed to die of starvation in 1921, according +to official statements. + +Able-bodied adults in their prime bear the burdens of society +everywhere. The elders and their children are a burden on them, +especially in primitive society, where capital is not amassed, and +food must be procured by some labor, either of the chase, fishing, +or gathering fruits and herbs. Only advance in economic power has +arrested infanticide. The Greeks thought it proper; the Romans, +too. The early Teutons exposed babes. The Chinese have always done so. + +Procreation, if not a dominant passion, would probably have ceased +long ago, and the race perished. Individual and even national "race +suicide" in France and New England indicated the possibilities of +this tendency. The teachings of asceticism which had such power +among Christians until the sixteenth century are again heard under a +different guise in at least one of the modern cults most successful +in the United States. Neo-Malthusianism is found exemplified in the +two-child families of the nobles of France and Germany and the rich +of New England. Parents want to do more for children, and so have +fewer, and think proper contraception and even killing the foetus in +its early stages. Modern medicine has aided this. Many women in many +countries for ages have practised abortion in order not to spoil their +bodies by child-bearing. To-day the demands of fashion and of social +pleasures have caused large families to be considered even vulgar +among the extremists in the mode. Organizations incited by the new +feminism send heralds of contraception schemes on lecture tours to +instruct the proletariat, and brave women to go to prison for giving +the prescription. The well-to-do have always been cognizant of it. + +The Tahitians have ever been adoring of little ones, and if +their annals are stained by the blood of innumerable innocents +murdered at birth, let it be remembered that it was a law, and not a +choice of parents--a law induced by the sternest demands of social +economy. Religion or the domination of priests commanded it. They +obeyed, as Abraham did when he began to whet his knife for his son +Isaac. To-day in Europe conditions prescribe conduct. Morality fades +before race demands. Polygamy or promiscuity looms a possibility, +and may yet have state and church sanction, as in Turkey. + +In Tahiti, from time immemorial, as native annals went, there was +a wondrous set of men and women called Arioi who killed all their +children, and whose ways and pleasures recall the phallic worshipers of +ancient Asian days. Forgotten now, with accounts radically differing as +to its composition, its aims, and even its morals, a hundred romances +and fables woven about its personnel, and many curious hazards upon +its beginnings and secret purposes, the Arioi society constitutes +a singular mystery, still of intense interest to the student of the +cabalistic, though buried with these South Sea Greeks a century ago. + +The Arioi, in its time of divertisement, was a lodge of strolling +players, musicians, poets, dancers, wrestlers, pantomimists, and +clowns, the merry men and women of the Pacific tropics. They were +the leaders in the worship of the gods, the makers and masters of the +taboo, and when war or other necessity called them from pleasure or +religion, the leaders in action and battle. + +The ending of the celebrated order came about through the work of +English Christian missionaries and the commercialized conditions +accompanying the introduction among the Tahitians of European +standards, inventions, customs, and prohibitions. The institution was +of great age, without written chronicles, and, like all Polynesian +history, obscured by the superstitions bred of oral descent. + +"The Arioi have been in Tahiti as long as the Tahitians," said the +old men to the first whites. + +Of all the marvels of the South Seas unfolded by their discovery to +Europeans, and their scrutiny by adventurers and scientists, none seems +so striking and so provocative of curiosity as the finding in Tahiti +of a sect thoroughly communistic in character, with many elements of +refinement and genius, which obliterated the taboos against women, and +though nominally for the worship of the generative powers of nature, +mixed murder and minstrelsy in its rites and observance. For what wrote +red the records of this society in the journals of the discoverers, +missionaries, and early European dwellers in Tahiti, was the Arioi +primary plank of membership--that no member should permit his or her +child to live after birth. As at one time the Arioi society embraced +a fifth of the population, and had unbounded influence and power, +this stern rule of infanticide had to do with the depopulation of +the island, or, rather, the prevention of overpopulation. Yet while +the Arioi had existed as far back as their legends ran, Captain Cook, +as said Tetuanui, estimated the Tahitians to number seventy thousand +in 1769. The chronicles say that the bizarre order was rooted out +a hundred years ago. There are barely five thousand living of this +exquisite race, which the white had found without disease, happy, +and radiantly healthy. Evidently the Arioi had merely preserved a +supportable maximum of numbers, and it remained for civilization to +doom the entire people. + +The Arioi fathers and mothers strangled their children or buried them +immediately after birth, for it was infamous to have them, and their +existence in an Arioi family would have created as much consternation +as in a Tibetan nunnery. + +Infanticide in Tahiti and the surrounding islands was not confined +to the Arioi. The first three children of all couples were usually +destroyed, and twins were both killed. In the largest families more +than two or three children were seldom spared, and as they were a +prolific race, their not nursing the sacrificed innocents made for +more frequent births. Four, six, or even ten children would be killed +by one couple during their married life. Ellis, an English missionary, +says that not fewer than two-thirds of all born were destroyed. This +was the ordinary habit of the Tahitians. The Arioi spared not one. + +Ellis wrote ninety years ago. He helped to disrupt the society. The +confessions of scores of its former members were poured into his +burning ears. In his unique book of his life in Tahiti, he described +their dramas, pantomimes, and dances, their religious rituals and +the extraordinary flights to which their merriment and ecstasy +went. Says Ellis: + +These, though the general amusements of the Ariois, were not the only +purposes for which they were assembled. They included: + +"All monstrous, all prodigious things." + +And these were abominable, unutterable; in some of their meetings, +they appear to have placed invention on the rack to discover the worst +pollutions of which it was possible for man to be guilty, and to have +striven to outdo each other in the most revolting practices. The +mysteries of iniquity, and acts of more than bestial degradation, +to which they were at times addicted, must remain in the darkness in +which even they felt it sometimes expedient to conceal them. I will +not do violence to my sensibilities or offend those of my readers, +by details of conduct, which the mind cannot contemplate without +pollution and pain. + +In these pastimes, in their accompanying abominations, and the +often-repeated practices of the most unrelenting, murderous cruelty, +these wandering Ariois passed their lives, esteemed by the people as +a superior order of beings, closely allied to the gods, and deriving +from them direct sanction, not only for their abominations, but even +for their heartless murders. Free from care or labor, they roved from +island to island, supported by the chiefs and priests; and were often +feasted with provisions plundered from the industrious husbandman, +whose gardens were spoiled by the hands of lawless violence, to provide +their entertainments, while his own family were not infrequently +deprived thereby for a time, of the means of subsistence. Such was +their life of luxurious and licentious indolence and crime. + +Yet each Arioi had his own wife, also a member of the society. Improper +conduct toward an Arioi's wife by an Arioi was punished often by +death. To a woman such membership meant a singular freedom from the +tabus, prohibitions, that had forbidden her eating with men, tasting +pig, and other delicacies. She became the equal and companion of +these most interesting of her race, and talent in herself received +due honor. She sacrificed her children for a career, as is done to-day +less bloodily. + +Believers in the immortality of the soul, the Arioi imagined a heaven +suited to their own wishes. They called it Rohutu noa-noa, or Fragrant +Paradise. In it all were in the first flush of virility, and enjoyed +the good things promised the faithful by Mohammed. The road to this +abode of houris and roasted pig was not to be trod in sackcloth or +in ashes, but in wreaths and with gaily colored bodies. To the sound +of drums and of flutes they were to dance and sing for the honor +of their merry god, Oro, and after a lifetime of joy and license, +of denial of nothing, unless it hurt their order, they were to die +to an eternity of celestial riot. + +As old as the gods was the society of the Arioi, said the +Tahitians. Oro, the chief god, took a human wife, and descended on a +rainbow to her home. He spent his nights with her, and every morning +returned to the heavens. Two of his younger brothers searched for him, +and lacking wedding presents, one transformed himself into a pig and +a bunch of red feathers. The other presented these, and though they +remained with the wedded pair, the brother took back his own form. Oro, +to reward them, made them gods and Arioi. Ever after a pig and red +feathers were offerings to the idol of Oro by the Arioi. The brothers +formed the society and named the charter members of it in different +islands, and by these names those holding their offices were known +until they were abolished. + +When called together by their chief, the members of the order made a +round of visits throughout the archipelago, in as many as seventy great +canoes, carrying with them their costumes and musical instruments +and their servants. They were usually welcomed enthusiastically +at their landing, and pigs, fruits, and kava prepared for their +delectation. They were gorgeous-looking performers in their pantomimes, +for besides tattooing, which marked their rank, they were decorated +with charcoal and the scarlet dye mati, and wore girdles of yellow +ti-leaves, or vests of ripe, golden plantain-leaves. Their heads were +wreathed in the yellow and red leaves of the hutu, and perhaps behind +an ear they wore a flower of brilliant hue. + +They had seven ranks, like the chairs of a secret order in Europe or +in the United States nowadays. The first, the highest, was the Avae +parai, painted leg. The Arioi of this class was tattooed solidly +from the knees down. The second, Otiore, had both arms tattooed; +the third, Harotea, both sides of the body; the fourth, Hua, marked +shoulders; the fifth, Atoro, a small stripe on the left side; the +sixth, Ohemara, a small circle around each ankle, and the seventh, +Poo, were uninked. They were the neophytes, and had to do the heavy +work of the order, though servants, not members, termed fauaunau, +were part of the corps. These were sworn not to have any offspring. + +The Arioi kept the records of the Tahitian nation. In their plays +they reënacted all the chief events in the history of the race, and +as there was no written account, these dramas were, with the legends +and stories they recited, the perpetuation of their archives and +chronicles. They were apt in travesty and satire. They ridiculed +the priests and current events, and by their wit made half the +people love them and half fear them. A manager directed all their +performances. They aimed at perfect rhythm in their chants and dances, +and grace and often sheer fun in their pantomimes. Some were wrestlers, +but boxing they left for others. As with the Marquesans to-day, they +had a fugleman, or leader, in all songs, who introduced the subject +in a prologue, and occasionally gave the cue to a change. + +No man could reach high rank with them except by histrionic ability +and a strict compliance with their rules. Exceptions to the first +requirement might be found in the great chiefs. A candidate came before +the lodge in gala fashion, painted, wreathed, and laughing. Leaping +into their circle, he joined madly in the rout, and thus made known his +desire for admittance. If worthy, he became a servant, and only after +proving by a long novitiate his qualities was he given the lowest +rank. Then he received the name by which he would be known in the +society. He swore to kill his children, if he had any, and crooking +his left arm, he struck it with his right hand, and repeated the oath: + +"The mountain above, the sacred mountain; the floor beneath Tamapua, +projecting point of the sea; Manunu, of majestic forehead; Teariitarai, +the splendor in the sky; I am of the mountain huruhuru." He spoke +his Arioi name, and snatched the covering of the chief woman present. + +Occasionally there might be persons or districts that felt themselves +unwilling or too poor to entertain the Arioi. These had many devices +to overcome such obstacles. They would surround a child and pretend +to raise him to kingly rank, and then demand from his parents suitable +presents for such a distinction. + +At death there were rites for the Arioi apart from those for +others. They paid the priest of Romotane, who kept the key of +their paradise, to admit the decedent to Rohutu noa-noa in the reva +or clouds above the mountain of Temehani unauna, in the island of +Raiatea. The ordinary people could seldom afford the fees demanded by +the priest, and had to be satisfied with a denial of this Mussulman +Eden reserved for the festive and devil-may-care Arioi, as ordinary +people perforce abstain from intoxicants in America while the rich +drink their fill. The historian Lecky says: + +It was a favorite doctrine of the Christian Fathers that concupiscence, +or the sensual passion, was the "original sin" of human nature; and +it must be owned that the progress of knowledge, which is usually +extremely opposed to the ascetic theory of life, concurs with the +theological view, in showing the natural force of this appetite to +be far greater than the well-being of man requires. The writings of +Malthus have proved, what the Greek moralists appear in a considerable +degree to have seen, that its normal and temperate exercise would +produce, if universal, the utmost calamities to the world, and that, +while nature seems, in the most unequivocal manner, to urge the +human race to early marriages, the first condition of an advancing +civilization is to restrain or diminish them. + +Conceive the state of Tahiti, where, as through all Polynesia, +the girls have their fling at promiscuity from puberty to the late +teens or early twenties, when an immense and increasing population +compelled the thinking men to devise a remedy for the starvation which +in times of drought or comparative failure of the feis or breadfruit +or a scarcity of fish menaced the nation! That the cruel remedy of +infanticide was chosen may be laid to ignorance of foeticidal methods, +and the indisposition of the languorous women to suffer pain or to +risk their own lives or health. + +Lecky says that however much moralists may enforce the obligation +of extra-matrimonial purity, this obligation has never been even +approximately regarded. One could hardly expect from the heathen +Tahitians moral restraint. Malthus, a Christian clergyman, did not +until the second edition of his book add that to vice and misery as +checks of nature to an increase of humans faster than the means of +subsistence. Nor have most Christian or civilized nations made such +a check effectual. + +The ever-dominant and only inherent impulse in all living beings, +including man, is the will to remain alive--the will, that is, to +attain power over those forces which make life difficult or impossible. + +All schemes of morality are nothing more than efforts to put into +permanent codes the expedients found useful by some given race in +the course of its successful endeavors to remain alive. + +Did not Zarathustra so philosophize, and is not the national trend +in Europe exalting his theory? With the difference that nationalism +takes the place of individualism in the scheme of survival and a +better place in the sun is the legend on the banners. + +Unable to find enemies to keep their numbers down, exempt from the +epidemics and endemics of Europe and Asia, unacquainted with the +contraceptives known until recently only by our rich, but now preached +by organized societies to the humblest, the Tahitian, Marquesan, +and Hawaiian came to consider the blotting out of lives just begun +worthy deeds. + +"The only good Indian is a dead Indian," was our own cynical Western +maxim when life and opportunity to lay by for the future meant +ceaseless struggle with the dispossessed. + +We, in situations of dire necessity, eat our own fellows. We have done +it at sea and on land. We eat their flesh when shipwreck or isolation +urges survival. We let children die by the myriad for lack of proper +care and sustenance, and kill them in factories and tenements to +gain luxuries for ourselves. One justification for slavery was that +it gave leisure for culture to the slave-owners, and that Southern +chivalry and the charm of Southern womanhood outweighed the fettered +black bodies and souls in the scale of achievement. + +The Tahitian did the best he could, and the Arioi set the example in +a total observance not to be demanded or expected of the mass. It is +related that if the child cried before destruction, it was spared, +for they had not the heart to kill it. If Arioi, the parents must +have given it away or otherwise avoided the opprobrium. + +Another explanation of the bloody oath of the Arioi might be found +in an effort of the princes of Tahiti to prevent in this manner the +excessive growth of the Arii, or noble caste. The Arioi society +was founded by princes and led by them, but that they sought to +break down the power of the nobles is evidenced by their admitting +virtually all castes to it, thus making it a privileged democracy, +in which birthrights had not the sway they had outside it, but in +which the chap who could fight and dance, sing, and tell good stories +might climb from lowly position to honor and popularity, and in which +a clever woman could make her mark. + +The early missionaries who had to combat the influence of the Arioi +may have exaggerated its baseness. In their unsophisticated minds, +unprepared by reading or experience for comparisons, most of them +sailing directly from English divinity schools or small bucolic +pastorates, the devout preachers thought Sabbatarianism of as much +consequence as morals, and vastly more important than health or +earthly happiness. They believed in diabolical possession, and were +prone to magnify the wickedness of the heathen, as one does hard +tasks. When Christianity had power in Tahiti, the bored natives were +sometimes scourged into church, and fines and imprisonment for lack of +devotion were imposed by the native courts. Often self-sacrificing, +the missionaries felt it was for the natives' eternal walfare, and +that souls might be saved even by compulsion. The Arioi society melted +under a changed control and Christian precepts. + +Livingstone in the wilds of primeval Africa, making few converts, +but giving his life to noble effort, meditated often upon the success +of the missionaries in the South Seas--a success perhaps magnified +by the society which financed and cheered the restless men whom it +sent to Tahiti. Livingstone in his darker moments, consoling himself +with the accounts of these achievements in the missionary annals, +doubted his own efficacy against the deep depravity and heathenism of +his black flock. The fact unknown to him was that the missionaries in +Polynesia preached and prayed, doctored and taught, ten years before +they made a single convert. It was not until they bagged the king +that a pawn was taken by the whites from the adversaries' stubborn +game. The genius of these strugglers against an apparent impregnable +seat of wickedness was patience, "the passion of great hearts." + +But conquering once politically, the missionaries found their task all +but too easy to suit militant Christians. As the converted drunkard +and burglar at a slum pentecost pour out their stories of weakness and +crime, so these Arioi, glorying in their being washed white as snow, +recited to hymning congregations confessions that made the offenses +of the Marquis de Sade or Jack the Ripper fade into peccadilloes. + +Christian says: + +Their Hevas or dramatic entertainments, pageants and tableaus, +of varying degrees of grossness, similar to the more elaborate and +polished products of the early Javanese and Peruvian drama ... one +cannot help fancying must be all pieces out of the same puzzle ... I +have with some pains discovered the origin of the name "Arioi." It +throws a lurid light on the character of some of the Asiatic explorers +who must have visited this part of the Eastern Pacific prior to the +Europeans. In Maori the word Karioi means debauched, profligate, +good-for-nothing. In Raratonga [an island near Tahiti] the adjective +appears as Kariei. These are probably slightly worn down forms of +the Persian Khara-bati, which has precisely the same significance +as the foregoing. One is forced to the conclusion that the Arabian +Nights stories of the voyages of Sindbad the Sailor were founded +on a bed-rock of solid fact, and that Persian and Arab merchants, +pirates and slave-traders, must have penetrated into these far-off +waters, and brought their vile, effeminate luxury and shameful customs +with them from Asia, of which transplanted iniquity, the parent soil +half-forgotten, this word, like several others connected with revelry +and vice, like a text in scarlet lettering, survives to this day. + +The first Jesuit missionaries to the Caroline Islands found there +an organization with privileges and somewhat the same objects as the +Arioi, which was called Uritoi. As "t" is a letter often omitted or +altered in these island tongues, it is not hard by leaving it out to +find a likeness in the names Arioi and Urioi. The Carolines and Tahiti +are thousands of miles apart, and not inhabited by the same race. + +Ellis was a missionary incapable by education, experience, and +temperament of appreciation of the artistic life of the Arioi. He +would have chased the faun into seclusion until he could clothe him +in English trousers, and would have rendered the Venus of Milo into +bits. Despite an honest love for mankind and considerable discernment, +he saw nothing in the Arioi but a logical and diabolical condition of +paganism. Artistry he did not rank high, nor, to find a reason for the +Arioi, did he go back of Satan's ceaseless seeking whom he may devour. + +Bovis, a Frenchman, world traveled, having seen perhaps the frescos +of Pompeii, and familiar with the histories of old Egypt, India, +Greece, Persia, and Rome, knew that Sodom and Gomorrah had their +replicas in all times, and that often such conduct as that of the +Arioi was associated among ancient or primitive peoples with artistic +and interesting manifestations. + +He searched the memories of the old men and women for other things +than abominations, and gave the Arioi a good name for possession of +many excellent qualities and for a rare development of histrionic +ability. But more than being mere mimes and dancers, the Arioi were +the warriors, the knights of that day and place, the men-at-arms, +the chosen companions of the king and chiefs, and in general the +bravest and most cultivated of the Tahitians. They were an extended +round-table for pleasure in peace and for counsel and deeds of +derring-do in war. The society was a nursery of chivalry, a company +which recruited, but did not reproduce themselves. They had a solid +basis, and lasted long because the society kept out of politics. + +The members never forgot the duty due their chiefs. They accompanied +them in their enterprises, and they killed their fellow-members in the +enemy's camp, as Masons fought Masons in the American Civil War and +in the wars of Europe. In peace they were epicures. They consorted +together only for pleasure and comfort in their reunions. The Arioi +made their order no stepping-stone to power or office, but in it swam +in sensuous luxury, each giving his talents to please his fellows +and to add luster to his society. + +To the English missionaries who converted the Tahitians to the +Christian faith the Arioi adherent was the chief barrier, the fiercest +opponent, and, when won over, the most enthusiastic neophyte. In +that is found the secret of the society's strength. It embraced +all the imaginative, active, ambitious Tahitians, to whom it gave +opportunities to display varied talents, to form close friendships, +to rise in rank, to meet on evener terms those more aristocratic in +degree, and, above all, to change the monotony of their existence by +eating, drinking, and being merry in company, and all at the expense +of the other fellow. But--and the more you study the Polynesian, +the subtler are his strange laws and taboos--the main provision in +the Arioi constitution was undoubtedly conceived in the desire to +prevent over-population. + +Pepe, the woman of Tuatini, had returned to the ways of the Arioi +because her husband had adopted the white convention of jealousy and +monogamy. Only Tahitians like Tetuanui now knew anything about the +order, and so many generations had they been taught shame of it that +the very name was unspoken, as that of the mistletoe god was among +the Druids after St. Patrick had accomplished his mission in Ireland. + + + +Chapter XX + +Rupert Brooke and I discuss Tahiti--We go to a wedding feast--How the +cloth was spread--What we ate and drank--A Gargantuan feeder--Songs +and dances of passion--The royal feast at Tetuanui's--I leave for +Vairao--Butscher and the Lermontoffs. + +At Mataiea weeks passed without incident other than those of the +peaceful, pleasant round of walking, swimming, fishing, thinking, +and refreshing slumber. My mind dismissed the cares of the mainland, +and the interests thrust upon me there--business, convention, the +happenings throughout the world. I achieved to a degree the state in +which body and spirit were pliant instruments for the simple needs and +indulgences of my being, and my mind, relieved of the cark of custom +in advanced communities, considered, and clarified as never before, +the values of life. It was as if one who had been confined indoors +for years at a task supervised by critical guardians was moved to +a beautiful garden with only laughing children for playmates and a +kindly nature alone for contemplation and guide. + +Brooke, who was busied an hour or two a day at poems and letters, and +was physically active most of the time, spoke of this with me. There +were few whites in Tahiti outside Papeete except in the suburbs. The +French in the time of Louis le Debonnaire and of all that period +thought nature unbeautiful. The nation has ever been afraid of it, but +let natural thoughts be freely spoken and written, and natural acts be +less censured than elsewhere. Even in late years their conception of +nature has been that of the painter Corot, delicate, tender, and sad; +not free and primitive. They had possessed Tahiti scores of years, +and yet one hardly saw a Frenchman, and never a Frenchwoman, in the +districts. The French seldom ever ventured in the sea or the stream or +to the reef. Other Europeans and Americans found those interesting, +at least, a little. Brooke and I swam every day off the wharf of the +çhefferie. The water was four or five fathoms deep, dazzling in the +vibrance of the Southern sun, and Brooke, a brilliant blond, gleamed +in the violet radiancy like a dream figure of ivory. We dived into +schools of the vari-colored fish, which we could see a dozen feet +below, and tried to seize them in our hands, and we spent hours +floating and playing in the lagoon, or lying on our backs in the +sun. We laughed at his native name, Pupure, which means fair, and at +the titles given Tahiti by visitors: the New Cytherea by Bougainville, +a russet Ireland by McBirney, my fellow voyager on the Noa-Noa and +Aph-Rhodesia by a South-African who had fought the Boers and loved +the Tahitian girls and who now idled with us. Brooke, as we paddled +over the dimpled lagoon, quoted the Greek for an apt description, the +innumerable laughter of the waves. Brooke had been in Samoa, and was +about to leave for England after several months in Tahiti. He wrote +home that he had found the most ideal place in the world to work and +live in. On the wide veranda he composed three poems of merit, "The +Great Lover," "Tiare Tahiti," and "Retrospect." He could understand +the Polynesian, and he loved the race, and hated the necessity of +a near departure. Their communism in work he praised daily, their +singing at their tasks, and their wearing of flowers. We had in common +admiration of those qualities and a fervor for the sun. For his Greek +I gave him St. Francis's canticle, which begins: + + + Laudate sie, mi signore, cum tuote le tue creature, + Spetialmente messer lo frate sole. + + +Praised be my Lord, with all his creatures, and especially our brother +the Sun, our sister the Moon, our brother the Wind, our sister Water, +who is very serviceable unto us and humble and chaste and clean; our +brother Fire, our mother Earth, and last of all for our sister Death. + +We remarked that while we plunged into the sea bare, Tahitians +never went completely nude, and they were more modest in hiding their +nakedness than any white people we had ever met. They could not accede +to the custom of Americans and Englishmen of public school education +when bathing among males of stripping to the buff and standing about +without self-consciousness. The chief had said that in former times men +retained their pareus except when they went fishing, at which time they +wore a little red cap. He did not know whether this was a ceremonial to +propitiate the god of fishes or to ward off evil spirits in scales. Man +originated on the seashore, and many of the most primitive habits of +humans, as well as their bodily differences from the apes, came from +their early life there. Man pushed back from the salt water slowly. + +The official affairs of the çhefferie, beyond the repair of roads and +bridges, were few. Crime among Tahitians being almost unknown, the +chief's duties as magistrate were negligible, and the family uttered +many aues when I related to them the conditions of our countries, +with murders, assaults, burglaries and rapine as daily news. The +French law required a civil ritual for marriage, and Tetuanui tied the +legal knots in his district. I was at the çhefferie when a union was +performed. The bride and groom were of the middle class of prosperous +landholders. They arrived in an automobile wonderfully adorned with +flowers, with great bouquets of roses and ferns on the lamps. They +were accompanied by cars and carriages filled with their families and +friends. The bride was in a white-lace dress from Paris, with veil and +orange-blossoms, and the groom in a heavy black frock-coat over white +drill trousers with lemon-colored, tight shoes; both looking very ill +at ease and hot. The father of the groom must have us to the church +and to the wedding feast, so Brooke and I rode in a cart, I on the +mother's lap, and the poet on the knees of the father. The jollity of +the arearea was already apparent, and the father vainly whipped his +horse to outspeed the automobile. All the vehicles raced along the +road and into the yard of the Protestant church of Mataiea at top gait. + +It was the season of assemblage of the manu patia, the wasps brought +from abroad, and quite ten thousand were clustered on the church +ceiling, while thousands more patrolled the air just over our heads, +courting and quarreling, buzzing and alighting on our heads and +necks. The preacher in a knee-length Prince Albert of black wool, +opened so that I saw he had nothing but an undershirt beneath, +recited the ceremony and addressed the couple. He took a ring from +his trousers-pocket, unwrapping and opening its box. A bridesmaid in a +rose-colored satin gown had taken off the bride's glove, and the pastor +put the ring upon her finger. A number of young men acted as aids +and witnesses, and all who stood were pounced upon by the wasps. They +betrayed no evidence of nervousness, but at the installation of the +ring, the groom, with a desperate motion, tore off his stiff collar +and bared his robust neck. He did not replace it that day. The bride's +mother wept upon my shoulder throughout the quarter of an hour. Not +a trace was indicated of the old wedding customs of the Tahitians, +as Christianity had effaced them rigorously, and though the Tahitians +had had plenty of ceremonies for all public acts, as had the Greeks +and Romans, many had been forgotten under the scourge of orthodoxy +before any white wrote freely of the island. They are lost to record +with the old language. + +After the rite, all made a dash for their equipages, and raced for the +bride's home, where, as customary, the fête champêtre was given. Again +on mama's lap, and Brooke on papa's, both ample, we hurried, +the bon père not averse to taking a wheel off the bridal party's +motor-car. With cries of delight we drove into a great cocoanut-grove, +and a thousand feet back from the Broom Road emerged into a sunlit, +but shady, clearing. Huro! the banquet was already being spread. From +different parts of the plantation men came bearing huge platters of +roasted pig, chicken, taro, breadfruit, and feis, with bamboo tubes +of the taiaro sauce like the reeds of a great pipe-organ. Caldrons +of shrimp, crabs, prawns, and lobsters bubbled, and monstrous heaps +of tiny oysters were being opened. Fresh fruit was in rich hoards: +bananas, oranges, custard-apples, papayas, pomegranates, mangoes, +and guavas. + +A magnificent bower a hundred feet long, broad and high, had been +erected of bamboo and gigantic leaves. It was similar to a temple +builded by the ardent worshipers of Dionysus to celebrate the +vine-god's feast. The roof of green thatch was supported on a score +of the slender pillars of the ohe, the golden bamboo, and there +were neither sides nor doors. The pillars were wreathed with ferns +and orchids from the forest near by, and on the sward between them +were spread a series of yellow mats woven in the Paumotu atolls. They +carpeted the green floor of the temple, and upon them, in the center, +the graceful leaves of the cocoanut stretched to mark the division +of the vis-à-vis. + +From these long leaves rose graduated alabaster columns, the inner +stalks of the banana-plants, and on them were fastened flowers +and ornaments, fanciful creations of the hands of Tahitian women, +fashioned of brilliant leaves and of bamboo-fiber and the glossy white +arrowroot-fiber. From the top of each column floated the silken film of +the snowy reva-reva, the exquisite component of the interior of young +cocoa-palm-leaves, a gossamer substance the extraction of which is as +difficult as the blowing of glass goblets. Varos, marvelously spiced, +prawns, and crayfish, garlanded the bases of these sylvan shafts, +all highly decorative, and within reach of their admirers. + +The stiff hand of the white which had garbed the wedding party in +the ungraceful clothing of the European mode had failed to pose the +natural attitude of the Tahitian toward good cheer. + +A pile of breadfruit-leaves were laid before each feaster's space in +lieu of plates, and four half-cocoanut-shells, containing drinking +water, cocoanut-milk, grated ripe cocoanut, and sea-water. The last +two were to be mixed to sauce the dishes, and the empty one filled +with fresh water for a finger-bowl. + +The bride and groom sat at the head of the leafy board, their intimates +about them, and the pastor, who had joined them, stood a few moments +with bowed head and closed eyes to invoke the blessing of God upon the +revel, as did the orero, the pagan priest of Tahiti a few generations +ago. The pastor and I, with the owner of the Atimaona plantation and +a Mr. Davey, had had an appetizer a moment before. + +We all sat on the mats according to bodily habit, the lithe natives on +their heels, the grosser ones and we whites with legs crossed, and with +the minister's raising of his head we fell to, with ease of position, +and no artificial instruments to embarrass our hands. We transferred +each to his own breadfruit-leaves what he desired from the stores +in the center, meat and vegetables and fruit, and seasoned it as we +pleased. New leaves brought by boys and girls constantly replaced +used ones, and the shells of salt and fresh water were refilled. + +Barrels of white and red wine had been decanted into bottles, and with +American and German beer stood in phalanges beside the milky banana +columns, and from these all replenished their polished beakers of +the dark nuts. + +The oysters, of a flavor equaling any of America or Europe, were +minute and of a greenish-copper hue, and we removed them with our +tongues, draining the ambrosial juice with each morsel, and ate twenty +or thirty each. The fish was steeped in lime-juice, not cooked, and +flavored with the cocoanut sauce and wild chillies. The crayfish were +curried with the curry plant of the mountains, the shrimp were eaten +raw or boiled, and the goldfish were baked. + +The sucking pig and fowl had been baked in a native umu, or oven, +on hot stones, and the taro and yams steamed with them. Taro tops +were served with cocoanut cream. One was not compelled by any absurd +etiquette to choose these dishes in any sequence. My left-hand neighbor +was indifferent in choice, and ate everything nearest to him first, and +without order, taking feis or bananas or a goldfish, dozens of shrimps, +a few prawns, a crayfish, and several varos, but informing me, with a +caress of his rounded stomach, that he was saving most of his hunger +for the chicken, pig, and poi. He was a Tahitian of middle age, with a +beaming face, and happy that I spoke his tongue. When the pig and poi +were set before us, he devoured large quantities of them. The poi was +in calabashes, and was made of ripe breadfruit pounded until dough with +a stone pestle in a wooden trough, then baked in leaves in the ground, +and, when cooked, mixed with water and beaten and stirred until a mass +of the consistency of a glutinous custard. He and I shared a calabash, +and his adroitness contrasted with my inexperience in taking the poi +to our mouths. He dipped his forefinger into the poi, and withdrew it +covered with the paste, twirled it three times and gave it a fillip, +which left no remnant to dangle when the index was neatly cleaned +between his lips. Custom was to lave the finger in the fresh-water +shell before resuming relations with the poi. + +My handsome neighbor ate four times as much as I, and I was hungry. His +appetite was not unusual among these South Sea giants. I noticed that +he ate more than three pounds of pig and a quart of poi after all his +previous devastation of shellfish, feis, chicken, and taro, besides +two fish as big as both my hands. My right-hand neighbor was Mr. Davey, +an urbane and unreserved American, who informed me in a breath that he +was a dentist, a graduate of Harvard University, seventy-two years old, +and had been in Tahiti forty-two years. He called his granddaughter +of eighteen to meet me, and she brought her infant. Only he of his +tribe could speak English, but she talked gaily in French. + +He practised his profession, he said, but with some difficulty, as +the eminent Acting-Consul Williams had by law a monopoly of dentistry +in the French possessions in the South Seas. The monopoly had been +certified to by the courts after a controversy between them, but his +Honor Willi did not enforce the prohibition except as to Papeete, +and besides was very rich, and had more patients than he could +possibly attend. + +At the lower end of the mats the bachelors sat,--there were only +three whites at the feast,--and merriment had its home there. After +the first onslaught, the vintages of Bordeaux and of the Rhineland, +and the brews of Munich and Milwaukee shared attention with the +viands. The head of the mats had a sedate atmosphere, because of +the several preachers there, and those Tahitians ambitious to shine +in a diaconal way talked seriously of the problems of the church, +of future himenes, and the waywardness of those who "knew not the +fear of Ietu-Kirito." Their indications of grief at the hardness +of the heathens' hearts grew more lively as they sipped the wine, +thinking perhaps of that day when the Master and the disciples did +the same at another wedding feast. + +Soon their voices were drowned by the low notes of an accordion and the +chanting by the bachelors of an ancient love-song of Tahiti. Miri and +Caroline and Maraa, being of Mataiea, had returned for this arearea, +and were seated with the young men. The Tahitians are charitable in +their regard of very open peccadilloes, especially those animated by +passion or a desire for amusement, thinking probably that were stones +to be thrown only by the guiltless, there would be none to lift one; +certainly no white in Tahiti. The dithyramb of a bacchanal sounded, +and the outlaw dentist was reminded of his former intimate friend, +King Pomaré the Fifth. + +"I was a bosom chum of the king," he said confidentially as he +poured me a shell of Burgundy. "He was much maligned. He drank too +much for his health, but so do almost all kings, from what I've read +and seen. Lord! what a man he was! He'd sit around all night while +the hula boomed, applauding this or that dancer, and seeing that the +booze circulated. He was a fish, that's a fact. He never had enough, +and he could stow away a cask. Good-hearted! When he would go to the +districts he always sent word when he had laid out his course, and +after a few days in each place he would go on with his crowd. He paid +for everything except, of course, gifts of fruit and fish. Every night +there would be a big time, dancing and drinking. Jiminy! But times were +different then. Look at me! I've lived freely all my life, and I am +over forty years here, but you wouldn't know I was past seventy. It's +the climate and not worrying or being worried about clothes or sin." + +The bride had long since left the table, removed her shoes, and put +on a Mother Hubbard gown. She and her mother I saw having a bite +together in private comfort. + +There were many speeches by Tahitians, most of them long, and +some referring to the happy couple and their progeny in the quaint +way of the medieval French in the chamber scenes after marriage, +as related in story and drama. The pastors depressed their mouths, +the deacons filled theirs with food to stifle their laughter, and the +groom was the subject of flattering raillery. The women did not sit +down, because mostly occupied in the service; but the hetairæ, Miri, +Caroline, and Maraa, entertained the bachelors without criticism or +competition. The Tahitian women had no jealousy of these wantons, or, +at least, no condemnation of them. They have always had the place in +Polynesia that certain ancient nations gave them, half admired and +half tolerated. They had official note once a year when the most +skilful of them received the government cachet for excellence in +dances before the governor and his cabinet celebrating the fall of +the Bastile. They became quite as well known in their country by their +performance on those festal days as our greatest dancers or actresses. + +When the mats became deserted, and the pastors had taken their carts +for their homes, a little elated but still quoting holy writ, the +nymphs and a dozen other girls of seething mirth took possession of the +temple with a score of young men, and sang their love-songs and set +the words to gesture and somatic harmony. Brooke and I lay and mused +as we listened and gazed. When a youth crowned with ferns began to play +a series of flageolets with his nose, the poet put his foot on mine. + +"We are on Mount Parnassus," he whispered. "The women in faun +skins will enter in a moment, swinging the thyrsus and beating the +cymbals. Pan peeps from behind that palm. Those are his pipes, as +sure as Linus went to the dogs." + +I met others of the royal family than the former queen, Marao, and her +daughters, the Princesses Tekau and Boots, at an amuraa maa given at +the mansion of Tetuanui. The preparations occupied several days, and +we all assisted in the hunt for the oysters, shrimp, crabs, mao, and +fish, going by twos and threes to the lagoon, the reef, the stream, and +the hills for their rarest titbits. The pigs and fowl were out of the +earth by the day of the feast, and Haamoura and Tatini set the table, +a real one on legs. The veranda was elegantly decorated with palms, +but the table was below stairs in the cooler, darker, unwalled rooms, +on the black pebbles brought from a far-away beach. The pillars of +the house were hung with banana-leaves and ferns, but the atmosphere +was not vividly gay because of the high estate and age of Tetuanui +and his visitors. + +The company arrived in automobiles, conspicuous among them Hinoe +Pomaré, the big hobbledehoy son of Prince Hinoe, and, next to his +father, heir to the throne. With him was his sister, Tetuanui, who was +departing for Raratonga, and her husband. He was a brother of Cowan, +the prize-fighter, and in their honor was the luncheon. Introduced to +all by the chief of Mataiea, I was asked to sit with them. The group +was extraordinarily interesting, for besides the prince's heir and +his sister, Chief Tetuanui, and his brother-in-law Charlie Ling, was +Paraita, son of a German schooner captain, who was adopted by Pomaré +V, and Tinau, another adopted son of the late king, who owned, and +ran for hire, a motor-car. There were other men, but among the women, +all of whom sat below the humblest man, myself, was the Princesse de +Joinville of Moorea, mother of Prince Hinoe, and grandmother of the +youth at the head of the table, and of the boy, Ariipae, who attended +to the chief's garden. + +This grandmother, known as Vahinetua Roriarii, was one of the very +last survivors among the notable figures of the kingdom. She had a +cigarette in the corner of her sunken mouth, but she tossed it away +when she and Haamoura, the chief's wife, kissed each other on both +cheeks in the French way. The Princesse de Joinville was tottering, +but with something in her face, a disdain, a trace of power, that +attracted me before I knew her rank or history. Her once raven hair was +streaked with gray, she trembled, and her step was feeble; but all her +weaknesses and blemishes impressed me as the disfigurement by age and +abrasion of a beautiful and noble statue. She was more savage-looking +than any modern Tahitian woman, more aboriginal, and yet more subtle. I +once contemplated in the jungle of Johore an old tigress just trapped, +but marked and wounded by the pit and the blows of her captors. She +looked at me coolly, but with a glint in her eye that meant, I thought, +contempt for all that had occurred since her last hour of freedom. + +In the curious network of lines all over the worn face of the princess +there were suggestions of the sensual lure that had made her the +mistress of the court; a gentle but pitiful droop to the mouth that I +had noticed persisting in the roués and sirens of Asia after senility +had struck away all charm. The princess refused a third glass of wine +at the table, but smoked incessantly, and listened absent-mindedly +to the music and the songs. Her thoughts may have been of those mad +nights of orgy which Davey, the dentist, and Brault, the composer, had +described. Her cigarettes were of native tobacco wrapped in pandanus +leaf, as the South American wraps his in corn husk. They were short; +merely a few puffs. + +Afa, the tane of the lovely Evoa of the Annexe, brought to the luncheon +Annabelle Lee, the buxom wife of Lovaina's negro chauffeur. She was +a quadroon, a belle of dark Kentucky, with more than a touch of the +tar-brush in her skin and hair, and her gaudy clothes and friendly +manner had won the Tahitians completely. She was receiving much +attention wherever she went in Tahiti, for she had the fashion and +language and manners of the whites, as they knew them, and yet was +plainly of the colored races. The chauffeur himself, a self-respecting +negro, had sat at table with Lovaina many times. There was in Tahiti no +color-line. In America a man with a drop of colored blood in his veins +is classed as a colored man; in Cuba a drop of white blood makes him +a white man. The whites honor their own pigment in all South America, +but in the United States count the negro blood as more important. In +Tahiti all were color-blind. + +The amuraa maa was over in a few hours. There were no speeches, but +much laughter, and much singing of the himene written by the king, +"E maururu a vau!" + +The tune was an old English hymn, but those were all the words of +the song, and they meant, "I am so happy!" They were verses worthy +of monarchy anywhere, and equaled the favorite of great political +gatherings in America, "We're here because we're here!" + +"When I was made chief of Mataiea," said Tetuanui, reminiscently to +me as we sang, "I went, as was the custom, to Papeete to drink with +the king. He had just fallen down a stairway while drunk, and injured +himself severely, so that our official drinking was limited. He hated +stairs, anyhow, but his trouble was that he mixed his drinks. That is +suicidal. He would empty into a very large punch-bowl champagne, beer, +absinthe, claret, whisky and any other boissons, and drink the compound +from a goblet. He could hold gallons. He was dead in two weeks after +I had my chiefly toasts with him. His body was like an old calabash +in which you have kept liquor for a quarter of a century. We had no +alcohol until the whites brought it." Tetuanui ended with a line of +Brault's song about Pomaré: "Puisqu'il est mort ... N'en parlons plus!" + +Mataiea was the farthest point on Tahiti from Papeete I had reached, +and wishing to see more of the island, I set out on foot with Tatini, +my handmaid. We bade good-bye to Tetuanui and Haamoura and all the +family after the dawn breakfast. Mama Tetuanui cried a few moments +from the pangs of separation, and the chief wrung my hand sorrowfully, +though I was to be back in a few days. + +From the reef at Mataiea I had glimpsed the south-west of Tahiti, the +lower edge of the handle of the fan-shaped double isle, mountainous and +abrupt in form, and called commonly the presqu'ile de Taiarapu. The +chief said that at the isthmus of Taravao, the junction of the fan +and handle, there was the Maison des Varos, a famous roadhouse, kept +by M. Butscher, where one might have the best food in Tahiti if one +notified the host in advance. + +"One must wake him up," said Tetuanui. "He is asleep most of the time." + +I wrote him a letter, and on the day appointed, Tatini and I, +barefooted, started. We went through Tetuanui's breadfruit-grove, +and there, as wherever were choice growths, I stopped to examine and +admire. No other tree except the cocoa equals the maori in usefulness +and beauty. The cocoa will grow almost in the sea and in any soil, +but the breadfruit demands humus and a slight attention. The cocoas +flourish on hundreds of atolls where man never sees them, but the +maoris ask a clearing of the jungle about their feet. The timber +of the breadfruit is excellent for canoes and for lumber, and its +leaves, thick and glossy, and eighteen inches long by a foot broad, +are of account for many purposes, including thatch and plates. There +are half a hundred varieties, and each tree furnishes three or four +crops a year, hundreds of fruits as big and round as plum-puddings, +green or yellow on the tree, pitted regularly like a golf-ball, +in lozenge-shaped patterns. The bark of the young branches was used +for making a tough tapa, native cloth, and resin furnishes a glue +for calking watercraft. The tree bears in the second or third year, +is hardy, but yields its life to a fungus, for which there is no +remedy except, according to the natives, a lovely lily that grows in +the forest. Transplanted, at the roots of the maori, the lily heals +its disease and drives away the parasite. The missionaries cited +this as a parable of Christianity, which would save from damnation +the convert no matter how fungusy he was with sin. In tribal wars the +enemy laid a sea-slug at the heart of the maori, and, its foe unseen, +the tree perished from the corruption of the hideous trepang. + +Papeari, the next district west of Mataiea, was well watered, as its +name signified, and we passed cows and sheep and horses grazing under +the trees or in pastures of lush grass. Swamps had been ditched and +drained, and there was evidence of unusual energy in agriculture. The +country gained in tropical aspect as we approached the narrow strip of +land which is the nexus of Tahiti-nui and Tahiti-iti, of the blade and +the handle of the fan. Tahitian mythology does not agree with geology, +any more than does the catechism; for though the scientists aver that +these separate isles were not united until ages after their formation, +a legend ran that at one time the union was complete, but that a +sea-god conceived a hatred for the inhabitants of the Presqu'ile of +Taiarapu, the fearless clans of the Teva-i-tai and the Te-Ahupo. + +One very dark night when the moon was in the ocean cavern of this +evil Atua, he began his horrid labors to sever the tie. He smote the +rocks from the foundations, and the people heard in terror throughout +the night the thunders of his blows. He had almost achieved his task +when the goodly sun-god appeared over the mountains far in advance +of his usual time, and blinded the Titan so that he sought safety +beneath the ocean. Tatini showed me the fearful signs of the demon's +fury. Monstrous masses of rock were in the sea, and the isthmus +was reduced to a mere mile of width, an extensive bay filling the +demolished area. The deep inlet of Port Phaëton swept in there like +the Gulf of Corinth in Greece. All this peninsula of Taiarapu was +ceded to Captain Cook. He called it Tiaraboo in his journal, but he +never took possession of his principality, realizing that the cession +was in the fashion of the Spaniard who says, "All I have is yours," +but would think you unmannerly to carry away anything of value. + +Port Phaëton is famed in the annals of the early French conquerors, for +in it they anchored their warships, and the Paris chauvinists dreamed +of a navy-yard and a large settlement there. On the plateau of Taravao, +a hilltop raised fifty feet, is an old fort of the French, a solid +construction against the stubborn Tahitians whom they insisted, with +cannon and musket, must receive Christianity through the French clergy +of the Order of the Sacred Heart of Jesus instead of through English +dissenters. From the plateau we could see the immense extent of the +forests, which rose almost from the water to the tops of the mountains. + +A dozen magnificent kinds of trees were all about us. The earth wore +a verdant coat of grass, ferns, and vines, so profuse and bright that +by contrast a remembrance of the barren parts of America crossed my +mind, with the fulsome praise of them by the pious thieves of that +region who sell them. It would be impossible and cruel, I reflected, +to convey to those extravagants in adjectives the richness of herbage +and the brilliancy of scene about the isthmus. The vegetation was +ampler than anywhere else in Tahiti. + +The tamanu-, the hotu-, and the mape-trees were in abundance. The +tamanu yields tacamac, a yellow, resinous substance with a strong +odor and a bitter, aromatic taste, that is used as incense and in +ointments. The Tahitians call the tamanu the healing-tree. It grows +just above high water on any kind of shore, embowering, with dark +foliage, and peculiarly easeful in midday on the hot sands. I have +had a tamanu-leaf soaked in fresh water laid upon my eye inflamed by +too long a vigil in the sun on the reef. The small gray ball within +its round green fruit affords a greenish oil that is a liniment of +wizardry for bruises, stiffness, rheumatism, and fevers. In every +house was a gourd stored with it. + +The mape, the Tahitian chestnut, grew farther from the water, a +powerful, commanding figure, with flowers of sublimated sweetness, and +with it the tiairi, or tutui-tree, covered with blossoms, like white +lilac, and bearing nuts with oily kernels. It is the candlenut-tree, +which has furnished lights for Tahitians since they wandered to +these latitudes. The nuts are baked to make brittle their shell, +and the kernels of walnut size easily extracted and pierced. Strung +on the midrib of a palm-leaf, the combination makes wax and wick, +and has lighted many a council and many a dance in Polynesia. + +The pandanus likes the coral sand, and is in appearance a tree out of a +dream. It grows twenty feet high and stands on aërial roots resembling +inclined stilts. The leaves are in tufts at the tips of the branches, +set like a screw, twisting around the stem in graceful curves, and +marking the stem with a spiral pattern from the root upward. The +leaves are edged with spines. The wood is close, hard, and hollow, +and full of oil. From the pandanus are made posts five or six inches +through. The leaves, four or five feet long, are torn into strips +for making hats, thatch, mats, and canoe sails. They are steeped in +sea-water, and beaten with a mallet to remove the green outer skin, +the residue being white, silken fiber. This is dyed to weave hats and +belts. The aërial roots are crushed to make a tougher fiber for ropes, +baskets, and mats. The fruit is something like a coarse pineapple, and +the blossoms are very fragrant. The ripe fruit is crimson, and strings +like beads into favorite necklaces. The fruit separates into cones, +and one chews the inner end like licorice, while, when dried, the +kernels can be ground into a brown, sweet flour for cakes, a wholesome, +nourishing food, but esteemed only in more barren islands, where fish +and cocoanuts are the principal diet. From the fruit is distilled a +fiery liquor that the early whalers taught the line islanders to drink. + +At the isthmus was the only crossing of the belt or, Broom Road, about +Tahiti. One had to choose the left or the right, and we wound to the +right to reach the Maison des Varos. To the left we could have gone to +Tautira, famous as the last stand of the god Oro against the cross, +and still under the chieftaincy of Ori-a-Ori, with whom R.L.S. and +his family lived several months. + +The road was a fairy-tale brightly illuminated by plantation, +jungle, and garden, by reef and eyot. The sea lapped gently on sand +as white as the fleecy clouds. Carts of Chinese and Tahitians passed, +carrying their owners and produce. The Chinese said, "Yulanna!" for +"Ia ora na!" and the natives called to us to eat with them in their +near-by homes. But we walked on, saying, "Ua maururu!" "Much obliged!" + +M. Butscher had a good-sized, rambling house, with verandas for dining, +and bedrooms for sleep. We found him on his largest table, lying flat +on his back, and contemplating, in the eternal and perplexing way of +the Polynesians. The Daibutsu, the great Buddha of Kamakura, had no +more peaceful, meditative aspect than had the Taravao taverner. He +was long and meager, as dry as a cocoanut from the copra oven, as if +all the juices of his body and soul had been expressed in his years +of cooking the sea-centipedes for which he was celebrated. Tatini +addressed him slowly: "Bocshair, ia ora na!" + +He sat up stiffly, and regarded us with indifference. He was cast +for an old and withered Mephistopheles, his lines all downward, his +few teeth fangs, and his smile a threatening leer, as if he thought +of a joke he could not tell to decent visitors, but which almost +choked him to withhold. His clothes were rags, and his naked feet +like the flippers of seals. He opened his mouth, yawned, and said, +"Iiii," a word which means, "I slept with my eyes open." + +He settled back upon the table, and became immersed again in +reverie. On the floor by the kitchen was a Tahitian woman with a +baby and a pandanus-basket of varos. They squirmed and wriggled, +contorted and crackled like giant thousand-legs, and almost excited +in me a repulsion. + +The vahiné laughed at me. + +"I fished for them with a dozen grapnels," she said. "It was good +fishing to-day. I put a piece of fish on each group of hooks. You know +those holes are very small at the top and under two or three feet of +water. Not many know how to find them. I set a grapnel in each hole, +and then returned to the first to pull out the varo. I have more than +twenty here." + +Butscher rose, and sluggishly began to prepare the breakfast. He +wrapped the varos in hotu-leaves, and put them in the umu to steam on +the red-hot stones, and began to open oysters and fry fish in brown +butter, as Tatini and I hastened to the beach for a bath. The sea +was studded with coral growth, and sponges by the thousand, and we +sat on these soft cushions under the surface, and watched the little +fishes' antics, and chatted. Tatini had gathered half a dozen nono, +a fruit that has a smooth skin and no stone, and she threw them at me. + +"Do you know about the nono?" she asked merrily. "It was in our +courtship. When a crowd of young men were gathered to bathe in the +pools or to lie on the banks under the shade of the trees, suddenly a +missile struck one of them on the shoulder. The others began to shout +at him and to sing, for it was a sign that a vahiné had chosen him. He +jumped to his feet and ran in the direction of the hidden thrower, and +she ran, too, but no farther than away from the eyes of the others." + +"Tatini," I said, "the nono was the Tahitian arrow of a little fat +god we have called Cupid." + +"Aue!" she replied. "It was not always oaoa for him, because it might +be an old woman, or some one he did not like, but who loved him. The +Arii, the aristocratic ladies, no matter how old, threw nono at the +youngest and handsomest youth, and they had to pursue them, because +of good manners. You know, Maru, that an illegitimate child is called +to-day taoranono, and taora means to throw." + +"When I was in Hawaii," I told her, "the old natives used to talk of a +game there which, under King Kalakaua, their next to last sovereign, +was played at night in Iolani palace or in the garden, but a ball +of twine took the place of the nono, and all stood about, men and +women, in a circle, to speed and receive the token of passion. The +missionaries severely condemned the game." + +At the Maison des varos I breakfasted alone, for Tatini was too shy +to break the taboo that separated the sexes at meals. Butscher waited +on me, bringing one plate of ambrosia after another--oysters, shrimp, +varos, and fish. I warmed his frigid blood with a cup or two of Pol +Roger, 1905, a bottle of which he dragged from a cave. + +"I am born in Papenoo," he volunteered, "fifty-three years ago. My +father came from Alsace seventy-five years ago, when Tahiti had not +many white people. I am a tinsmith, but I gave up that business many +years ago to keep this maison. I was a catechist in the Catholic +church here nine years, teaching the ignorant. I gave it up; it +didn't pay. I got nothing out of it. I worked about the church, +read the prayers, and led the service when the priest was not there, +and I never made a penny. Everything for me was the future life. Vous +savez, monsieur, toute à l'avenir! Sacré! what a fool I was! Mais, +one day when I was lying on that table as you found me, I was iiii, +and I dreamed that there was no hell and that I was a fool. I turned +over a new leaf that moment. Now I never go near the church, and the +future can take care of itself. That's my son-in-law going by in the +cart. He's the richest young man in Taravao. Ah, oui! he'll spend a +hundred francs here with me in a week for drinks. That's their baby." + +Butscher's leathern, yellow visage contracted in an appalling grin. + +"They have been married long?" I remarked politely. + +"Mais, they are not married yet," replied the father-in-law. "There +is no hurry." + +Leaving Tatini to her own pleasures, I rented a horse and cart +of Mephistopheles and drove into the district of Vairao. From the +outset I realized the iniquitous character of the Atua who had tried +to destroy or set adrift the people of the presqu'ile of Taiarapu, +for they were handsomer and, if possible, more hospitable than those +of Tahiti-nui. The road was closer to the water of the lagoon, +and the reef and coral banks were nearer. I allowed the horse to +go his own gait, and we jogged slowly, stopping to browse and to +consider the landscape. The beach was covered with seeds and pods, +the square-shaped seeds of the Barringtonia in their outer case of +fiber, tutui-nuts, cocoanuts, flowers and bits of wood, and objects +that would cause a naturalist to weep for lack of time. Our beaches +of the temperate zones are wastes compared with these, for not only +were the sands strewn with a vast débris of forest and jungle, but +animal life abounded. The hermits toddled about, carrying their +stolen shells, some as small as watch charms, and the land-crabs +fed on the purauand hibiscus-leaves. They are the scavengers of the +shore, eating everything, and thus acting as conservators of health, +as do the lank pigs of the Philippines. They were in myriads, rushing +about seemingly without purpose, and diving into their holes beneath +the palm-roots. Their legs, unshelled, are as excellent food as the +crabs of the Atlantic. In the water a foot or two away moved exquisite +creatures, darting fish, and sailing craft--Portuguese men-of-war, +and other almost intangible shapes of pearly hue. + +The village of Vaieri is opposite the pass of Tapuaeraha. Far from the +capital, and from the distractions of tourists and bureaucracy, this +tiny group of homes along the beach was less touched by the altering +hand of the white than Mataica, its setting and atmosphere affectingly +unspoiled. There was a mildness, a reticence, a privacy surrounding +the commune that bespoke a gentle people, living to themselves. It +was almost at the end of the belt road, which virtually terminated +at Puforatiai. Gigantic precipices, high cliffs, and rugged mountains +forbade travel, and from a boat only could one see the extreme southern +end of Tahiti-nui Marearea, Great Tahiti the Golden, as it was called +by its once proud race. + +Vaieri was environed by all the plants of this clime. They ran +along the road and embosomed the houses. Guavas and oranges were +tangled with bananas, roses, reeds, papayas, and wild coffee. The +blue duranta and the white oleander, the cool gray-green hibiscus +with lemon-colored blossoms, the yellow allamanda, the trumpet lily, +acacias, lilac ipomaea, tree ferns, and huge bird's-nest ferns mingled +with white convolvulus, and over all lifted groves of cocoas and the +symmetrical breadfruit. + +In this surrounding was a wooden house, built partly over the water, +so that a seaward veranda extended into the lagoon, high on posts, and +commanded a view of the sea and the mountain. I saw on this veranda a +more arresting figure of a white man than I had before come upon in +Tahiti. His body, clothed only in a pareu, was very brown, but his +light beard and blue eyes proved his Nordic strain. He was of medium +size, powerful, with muscles rounded, but evident, under his satin +skin, and with large hands and feet. He was reading a book, and as +I ambled by, he raised his head and looked at me with a serious smile. + +I checked the horse, and tied him to a candlenut-tree. I felt that +I had arrived at the end of my journey. + +I spent the remainder of the day and the night there. The man and his +wife were as stars on a black night, as music to a blind bard. His name +was Nicolai Lermontoff, born in Moscow, and his wife was an American, +Alaska her place of birth, and of residence most of her life. They +were each about forty years old, and of extraordinary ease of manner +and felicity of expression. + +"Muy simpatica," had said the old Gipsy at the Generalife in Granada +when I had spoken bolee with him. Lermontoff shook hands with me. His +was as hard as leather, calloused as a sailor's or a miner's, and so +contradicted his balanced head, intellectual face, and general air +of knowledge and world experience that I said: + +"You have the horniest palm in Tahiti." + +"I am a planter," he replied. "We have been here a few years, and after +buying the ground I had to clear it, because it had been permitted +to go to bush. There were a few hundred cocoanut-trees, but nothing +else worth while. I began at the highest point and worked to the sea." + +I drew from him that he had bought eighteen acres of land for twelve +hundred dollars, and had spent most of a year in preparing it for +vanilla, cocoanuts, a few breadfruit, a small area of coffee and taro, +and a vegetable patch. + +"We have very little money," he explained, "and live largely on catches +in the sea and stream, and fruit and vegetables, with a dozen chickens +for eggs. I pull at the net with the village. Actually, we figure +that fifteen dollars a month covers our expenditures. This house cost +five hundred and eight dollars, but, of course, I did a lot of work +on it. The chief items for us are books, reviews, and postage." + +Three walls of the house were covered with books, and the fourth +stopped at the floor to make the wide veranda over the lagoon. + +Mrs. Lermontoff had on the peignoir of the natives, and was +barefooted within the house, but wore sandals outside. She sat before +a sewing-machine. + +"I am making a gown or two for a neighbor who is sick," she said. "I +do not give many hours to sewing. I like better the piano." + +She knew all the Russian composers well, had studied at a conservatory +in the German capital, and she also played Grieg for me with much +feeling and a strong, yet delicate, touch. For dinner we had a broiled +fish, which I myself cooked on stones outside the house, and tuparo, +mountain feis steamed and mashed into a golden pulp, with cocoanut +cream. With these we ate boiled green papaya, which tasted like +vegetable marrow; and for dessert sweet oranges with grated fresh +cocoanut, and for drink, the wine of the nut. + +After the food we sat and looked at the reef, the purple sea, and the +stars, and talked. These two were weary of life in the big countries +of the world, and would rest in Tahiti. If they made enough money, +they would like to go to America and work for the revolution they +hoped for. They did not believe in bringing it about by violence, +but by acting on the Christ principle, as they interpreted it. Yet +they were not religionists. + +"Of course one is not sure of the aims and end of life," said +Lermontoff. "I have no greater certainty than the kaisers and czars +or your great men, Morgan and Rockefeller; but, at least, theirs are +not worth while for the race of man. I hold that man is the greatest +product of life so far, and not government or trade. That the whirling +spheres are made for man I disbelieve, but on this planet, and in +our ken, he is the object we most prize, and rightfully. Therefore to +build him in health and character, in talent and happiness, is all of +existence. The life after death we are not sure of, but beauty is on +earth, and to know it and worship it in nature, and in man and his +thoughts and deeds are our ends. The individual man gains only by +sacrifice for his fellows. He must give freely all he has. This is +his only way out of the shadow that may be inherent in our growth, +but in any event has been made certain by machinery and business +control of world ethics." + +They were believers in the doctrines of Leo Tolstoi, and especially in +non-resistance, and the possessing little or no property to encumber +their free souls. In the village they had become the guides of the +Tahitians in the devious path of enforced civilization. + +Mrs. Lermontoff, in lamenting the Tahitian's degradation, physical +and spiritual, said that she was reminded always of the Innuit, +the Eskimo, among whom she and her husband had passed several years. + +"They are the most ethical, the most moral, the most communal people +I know of," she commented. "They have a quality of soul higher than +that of any other race, a quality reached by their slow development and +constant struggle. I imagine they went through a terrible ordeal in the +more temperate zones farther south before they consented to be pushed +into the frozen lands of Canada, and then, following the caribou in +the summer, to mush to the Arctic sea. There, while they had to change +their habits, clothing and food, to learn to live on the seal and the +bear and the caribou in the midst of ice and snow, they were spared +for thousands of years the diseases and complexes of civilization, +and reached a culture which is more worth while than ours." + +I was skeptical, but she quoted several eminent anthropologists to +support her statement that the Eskimo were better developed mentally +than other people, and that in simplicity of life, honesty, generosity, +provision for the young and the old, in absence of brutality, +murder and wars, they had a higher system of philosophy than ours, +which admits hells, prisons, asylums, poor houses, bagnios, famines +and wars, and fails even in the recurrent periods of hard times to +provide for those stricken by their lash. + +"But," said Lermontoff, "the Innuit, too, is corrupting under the +influence of trade, of alcohol, and the savage lust of the white +adventurer. He attained through many centuries, perhaps thousands +of years, of separation from other peoples, and without any of the +softening teachings of Christianity, a Jesus-like code and practice, +which the custodians of Christianity have utterly failed to impress +on the millions of their normal adherents." + +I looked out upon the reef where the waves gleamed faintly, upon the +scintillating nearer waters of the lagoon, and upon us, barefooted, +and clothed but for decency, and I had to jolt my brain to do justice +to the furred and booted Eskimo in his igloo of ice. The difference +in surroundings was so opposite that I could barely picture his +atmosphere climatological and moral. I led the conversation back to +their situation in Vaieri. + +He had planted his vanilla-vines on coffee-bushes, the vanilla being an +orchid, a parasite, that creeps over the upstanding plants, coffee, +or the vermillion-tree. Lermontoff said that it was a precarious +crop, a world luxury, the price of which fluctuated alarmingly. Yet +it was the most profitable in Tahiti, which produced half of all the +vanilla-beans in the world. + +This man and woman made a deep impression upon me. They had seen +cities everywhere, had had position and fashion, and were, for their +advanced kind, at peace. + +"We have no nerves here," said Mrs. Lermontoff. "Our neighbors are all +fishermen, and we are friends. We drink no wine, we want no tobacco. We +have health and nature; books and music supply our interests. Life +is placid, even sweet." + +When I bade them good-by it was with regret. They had found a refuge, +and they had love, and yet they wanted to aid in the revolution they +believed in. I restrained myself from pointing out that Tolstoi, +at the last, forsook even his family to seek solitude and die. + + + +Chapter XXI + +A heathen temple--The great Marae of Oberea--I visit it with Rupert +Brooke and Chief Tetuanui--The Tahitian religion of old--The wisdom +of folly. + +Reading one day from Captain Cook's Voyages about a heathen temple +not far from Mataiea which Cook had visited, I suggested to Brooke +that we go to it. None of the Tetuanui younger folk had seen it, but +Haamoura directed us to return toward Papara as far as the thirty-ninth +kilometer-stone, and to strike from that point towards the beach. Cook +had had a sincere friendship, if not a sweeter sentiment, for Oberea, +the high chiefess of the clan of Tevas at Papara, and whom at first +he thought queen of Tahiti. He described her as "forty years of age, +her figure large and tall, her skin white, and her eyes with great +expression." That handsome lady had led him a merry chase, her +complacent husband, Oamo, abetting her in the manner of Polynesia, +where women must have their fling. The temple Cook and his officers +inspected was the tribal church of the noble pair. The Voyages say: + +The morai consisted of an enormous pile of stone work, raised in +the form of a pyramid with a flight of steps on each side, and was +nearly two hundred and seventy feet long, about one-third as wide, +and between forty and fifty feet high. As the Indians were totally +destitute of iron utensils to shape their stones, as well as mortar +to cement them when they had made them fit for use, a structure of +such height and magnitude must have been a work of infinite labor and +fatigue. In the center of the summit was the representation of a bird, +carved in wood; close to this was the figure of a fish which was in +stone. This pyramid made part of one side of a wide court or square, +the sides of which were nearly equal; the whole was walled in, and +paved with flat stones. + +When we reached the thirty-ninth kilometer-stone we met my host, +Tetuanui, in his one-horse vehicle, inspecting the road. He agreed, +though a little reluctantly, to take us to the marae (pronounced +mah-rye). We turned down a road across a private, neglected property, +and for almost a mile urged the horse through brambles and brush that +had overgrown the way. We were going toward the sea along a promontory, +"the point" upon which Cook's mariners saw the etoa-trees a century +and a half ago, about the time that Americans were seeking separation +from England, before Napoleon had risen to power, and when gentlemen +drank three bottles of port after dinner and took their places under +the table. + +"Tooti was in love with Oberea," said the chief. "She was hinaaro +puai." + +The expression is difficult to translate, but Sappho and Cleopatra +expressed it in their lives; perhaps ardent in love would be a mild +synonym. + +At last, after hard struggles, we reached Point Mahaiatea, the "point" +of Cook, on the bay of Popoti, which swept from it to the beginning +of the valley of Taharuu. The reef was very close to the shore, and +the sea had encroached upon the land, covering a considerable area +of the site of the marae. The waves had torn away the coral blocks, +and they lay in confusion in the water. The beach, too, was paved +with coral fragments, the débris of the temple. Though devastated +thus by time, by the waves, and by the hands of house-, bridge-, +and road-builders, by lime-makers, and iconoclastic vandals, the +marae yet had majesty and an air of mystery. It was not nearly of the +original height, hardly a third of it, and was covered with twisted +and gnarled toa, or ironwood, trees like banians, the etoa of Cook, +and by very tall and broad pandanus, by masses of lantana and other +flowering growths. Tetuanui, Brooke, and I stumbled through these, +and walked about the uneven top, once the floor of the temple. + +"Every man in Tahiti brought one stone, and the marae was builded," +said Tetuanui. "We were many then." + +He had not been there in fifty years. + +We crawled down the other side, a broken incline, and to the +beach. Land-crabs scrambled for their holes, the sole inhabitants of +the spot once given to chants and prayers, burials, and the sacrifice +of humans to the never-satisfied gods. There was an acrid humor in the +name of the bay on which we looked, Popoti meaning cockroach. That +malodorous insect would be on this shore when the last Tahitian was +dead. It existed hundreds of millions of years before man, and had not +changed. It was one of the oldest forms of present life, better fitted +to survive than the breed of Plato, Shakespere, or Washington. Its +insect kind was the most dangerous enemy man had: the only form of +life he had not conquered, and would be crooning cradle-songs when +humanity, perhaps through its agency, or perhaps through the sun +growing cold, had passed from the earth. Not impossibly, insects +would render extinct all other beings, and then the cockroach could +proclaim that creation had its apotheosis in it. + +The marae was the cathedral of the Tahitians. About it focused all the +ceremonies of the worship of divinity, of consecration of priests and +warriors to their gods and their chiefs. The oldest marae was that of +Opoa, on the island of Raiatea, the source of the religion of these +groups. It was built by Hiro, the first king of Raiatea, who, deified +after death, became the god of thieves. The Papara marae was made of +coral, but the quarried mountain rock was laid at the foundation, and +these ponderous, uneven stones being patched with coral, in time the +blocks had become tightly cemented together. A lime-kiln was along +the land side of this marae of Oberea, and for years had furnished +the cement, plaster, and whitewash of the district. + +In the rear of the marae was the ossary where the bones of the +victims were thrown. In Manila I had viewed immense heaps of these +discarded skeletons of humans dragged from niches in a wall and +flung indiscriminately on the ground by the monks, who owned the Paco +cemetery, because the rent for the niches was past due. Tetuanui said +that in his grandfather's day there was a bad odor about the ossary, as +there was in Paco until the American Government abolished the iniquity. + +The altar itself was called Fatarau. Here were laid the offerings of +fruit and meat, but human victims were not exposed on it. Their bodies +were thrown into the ossary after the ceremony was completed. The +altar was always bare except at these times, and none ascended it +but priests, ecstatics, and the man who carried the god. Only he and +the high priest might touch this idol. The demoniacs were usually in +collusion with the priests, willy-nilly. + +The idol was the king's or prince's god. Each had his own. A royal +idol was wrapped in precious cloths and adorned with feathers, made +usually of ironwood, and was about six feet long. They diminished in +size with the importance of the owner, and among the commoners might +be put in a pocket or a piece of bamboo, like the pocket saints one +buys in Rome. Besides, every chief and little chief had his own marae, +which might be very small indeed, as family shrines. Of great religious +events the royal maraes were the scenes, and the high priests were +attached to these. The personnel of the marae was: + +The king, chief, or master of the temple; all ceremonies were for +his benefit. The high priest and his assistants, the latter ordinary +priests. The high priests served only the maraes of the first rank. The +orero, who were preachers or poets; the oripou, or night runners; +the guardian porters of the idol. The sorcerers or demoniacs. + +Thus there were six ranks in the service of the temple. The high +priest was supreme under the king, and decided when a human sacrifice +was demanded by the gods. He was a kind of cardinal or bishop, and +his jurisdiction extended over the maraes in the territory of his +master. The priests' functions were like those of the high priest +except that they were subordinate, and they could not replace him in +certain ceremonies. The orero was the living book of the religion, +the holy chants of tradition, of ancestry, and of state. He must +recite without hesitation these various records before the marae in +the middle of an immense crowd. The orero cultivated their memories +marvelously. They were usually sons of oreros or priests, and trained +by years of study to retain volumes, as actors do parts. The oripou +or haerepo were youths, neophytes, intended for the priesthood, and +assisted the ordinary priests; but their special duties were singular +and interesting. They were the couriers of the night, the spies of +their districts upon neighboring clans. In war-time their work was +arduous and most important, and their calling very honorable. Kings' +sons sometimes were oripou. The idol-carriers were tabu. Their persons +might not be touched nor their food. + +The sorcerers, ecstatics, and demoniacs were not regularly organized +into a caste. When a man fancied himself possessed by a god, he became +a recognized saint. He was tabu. He ascended to the altar and danced +or gyrated as he pleased. The old missionaries, who believed these +sorcerers inhabited by devils, record incredible deeds by them. Often +the spirit forsook them, and they became common clay, but when primed +with the deity's power, they would ascend vertical rocks of great +height by touching the smooth surface with tiny idols which they held +in their hands, and without any contact by their feet. These demoniacs +recall the oracles of ancient nations, and especially Simon Magus, +the precursor of innumerable fathers of new religions, who by the +power of the "Christian God" fell to a horrible death when he tried +to fly before the Roman emperor on the wings of the devil. + +Before a day of sacrifice a victim was selected by the high priest. The +victim had no knowledge of his approaching end. He must not be +informed, and though his father and mother and family were told in +advance, they never warned their unfortunate loved one. No hand was +lifted to avert his fate, for he was tabu to the gods. Though no excuse +could be offered for the slaying of their own clansman except the +direful hold of religion, which in Tahiti, as in Europe not so long +ago, put Protestant and Catholic on the pyre in the name of Christ, +yet so soft-hearted were these people that they could not disturb +the peace of mind of the offering, and until the moment when he was +struck down from behind he was as unconcerned as any one. They never +tortured as the English and French tortured Joan of Arc, and as the +police of America torture thousands of Americans every day. + +I looked long at this ruined pagan tabernacle, this arc of the +covenant for Oberea and Oamo, and for Tetuanui's fathers. The chief +said that his grandfather had seen it in its palmy period. Oberea +was an ancestress of my host of Papara, Tati Salmon, who had the +table-ware of Stevenson, and who was of the clan of Teva, as she. + +Wrecked, battered by the surf, torn to pieces by pickaxes, undermined +by the sea, and overgrown by the rank foliage of the tropics, +the marae preserved for me and for Brooke, too, a solemnity and +reminiscent grandeur that brought a vision of the beauty and might +of the passionate Oberea, who had commanded it to be built. Though +different in environment as the sea from the desert, and in size and +aspect, materials and history, I was transported from this Tahitian +temple to the pyramids on the sands of Egypt. Forty centuries later +I could trace the same aspiration for community with deity and for +immortality of monument which had sweated a hundred thousand men +for twenty years to rear the lofty pile of Gizeh. In Borobodo, in the +jungle of Java, I had seen, as near Cairo, the proudest trophy, temple, +and tomb of king and priest humbled in the dust by the changing soul +of man in his fight to throw off the shackles of the past. + +This marae had not been a place of cannibalism, as the Paepae Tapu +of the Marquesas Islands. The Tahitians had no record of ever having +eaten humans. They replied to the first whites who asked them if they +ate people: + +"Do you?" + +Yet when a human sacrifice was made, the presiding chief was offered +the left eye of the victim, and at least feigned to eat it. Was this +a remnant of a forgotten cannibalistic habit, or a protest of the +Tahitians and Hawaiians against the custom as not being Polynesian, but +a concession to a fashion adopted in fighting the Fijian anthropopogi? + +The people of Huahine, an island near Tahiti, had a supreme god named +Tané, who might be touched only by one human being, a man selected for +that purpose. He was the sole bachelor on the island, being forbidden +to marry. Whenever the priests wanted Tané moved to a shrine, this +chap, te amo atua (the god-bearer) had to pack him on his back. The +idol was a heavy block of wood, and when his bearer wearied, it had +to appear that the god wanted to rest, for a god-bearer could not be +tired. The missionaries burned Tané with glee, after a battle between +the Christian converts and the heathen reactionaries. The progressives +won, and convinced the enemy that Tané was a wretched puppet of the +priests, so that they dragged the god from his lofty house, and kicked +him on to his funeral pyre. "There was great rejoicing in heaven that +day," says a pious English commentator. + +The Polynesians had very fixed ideas upon the origin of the universe +and of man. In Hawaii, Taaroa made man out of red earth, araea, +and breathed into his nostrils. He made woman from man's bones, and +called her ivi (pronounced eve-y). At the hill of Kauwiki, on the +eastern point of the island of Maui, Hawaii, the heaven was so near +the earth that it could be reached by the thrust of a strong spear, +and is to-day called lani haahaa. + +The Marquesans said that in the beginning there was no light, +life, or sound in the world; that a boundless night, Po, enveloped +everything, over which Tanaoa, (Darkness), and Mutu-hei, (Silence), +ruled supreme. Then the god of light separated from Tanaoa, fought +him, drove him away, and confined him to night. Then the god Ono, +(Sound), was evolved from Atea, (Light), and banished Silence. From +all this struggle was born the Dawn, (Atanua). Atea married the Dawn, +and they created earth, animals, man. + +In most of Polynesia there are legends of a universal flood from +which few escaped. In Fiji it was said that two races were entirely +wiped out, one of women, and the other of men and women with tails. A +little bird sat on the top of the uncovered land and wailed the +destruction. The Marquesans built a great canoe like a house, with +openings for air and light, but tight against the rain. The ark was +stored with provisions, and the animals of the earth were driven in +two by two, fastened in couples. Then the family of four men and four +women entered the ark, sacrificed a turtle to God, and retired to rest +amidst the terrific din of the confined animals. The storm burst, and +the waters covered the entire land. The storm ceased and a black bird +was sent over the sea of Hawaii. It returned to the ark, and a wind +set in from the north. Another bird was loosed, and alighted on the +sea-shore. It was recalled, and a third bird brought back twigs. The +ark soon grounded, and the four men and four women released the beasts, +and went ashore. These repopulated the earth. + +The Samoans believed that the earth was once covered with water and the +sky alone was inhabited, until God sent his only begotten daughter in +the form of a kuri, or snipe, to look for dry land. She found a spot, +and brought down to it earth, and a creeping plant, which grew and +decomposed into worms, and, lo! the worms turned into men and women. + +In Hawaii Nuu was saved from a similar flood, and with him his +three sons and their families. Ten generations later Kanehoalani +was commanded by God to introduce circumcision. He went to a far-off +country, had a son by a slave woman and one by his wife. He was then +commanded, this descendant of Nuu in the tenth generation, to go up +on a mountain and perform a sacrifice. He sought a mountain, but none +appeared suitable; so he communed with God, who told him to travel +to the east, and he would find a precipice. He departed with his son +and a servant. The Hawaiians still call the mountains back of Koolau, +near Honolulu, after the name of the three, and when the missionaries +gave them the Jewish sacred books, were delighted to point out that +long before Christ came to earth they had believed as above, and that +Abraham was the tenth from Noah, that Abraham practised circumcision, +and was father of Isaac and the illegitimate Ishmael, and that their +descendant of Nuu, as Abraham, became the father of twelve children, +and the founder of the Polynesian race, as Abraham had of the Jews. + +One might detect some relation to the Hebraic scriptures in the legends +of the Maoris of New Zealand and Tonga that the older son of the first +man killed his brother, and that in Fiji one still is shown the site +where a vast tower was built because the Fijians wanted to peer into +the moon to discover if it was inhabited. A lofty mound was erected, +and the building of timber upon it. It was already in the sky when +the fastenings broke, and the workmen were precipitated over every +part of Fiji. + +The sun stood still for Hiaka when she attempted to recover the body +of Lohiau, her sister Pele's lover. There was not daylight enough +to climb the mountain Kalalau and bring down the body from a cave, +so she prayed, and the sun set much later than usual. Aukelenui-a +Iku, the next to the youngest of twelve children, was hated by his +brothers because he was his father's favorite, and they threw him +into a pit to die. His next eldest brother rescued him, and he became +a traveler, and found the water of life, with which he restored his +brother who had been drowned years before. The Chaldeans had a similar +legend. Ninkigal, goddess of the regions of the dead, ordered Simtar, +her attendant, to restore life to Ishtar with the "waters of life." + +Naula-a-Maihea of Oahu, not far from Honolulu, was upset from his +canoe while paddling to Kauai, and was swallowed by a whale, which +kindly threw him up on the beach of Wailua. + +Kana-loa and Kane-Apua, prophets, walked about the world, causing water +to flow from rocks, as did Moses, and in the ancient litany, recited +by priest and congregation, the responses of "Hooia, e oia!" meant +"It is true!" as does Amen, the response of Christian litanies +to-day. The custom of using holy water prevailed all over Polynesia. + +"The ocean which surrounds the earth was made salt by God so it should +not stink," said the legend, "and to keep it salt is the special work +of God." + +To celebrate God's act, the priests of Polynesia blessed waters for +purification, for prayer, and for public and private ceremonies, +and to exorcise demons and drive away diseases, as the priests of +America and Europe do. Holy water was called ka wai kapu a Kane, and +from the baptizing of the new-born child to the sprinkling of the +dying its sacred uses were many. To-day the older people use these +pagan ablutions to alleviate pain and cure maladies. The old Greeks +used salt water for the same purposes, and had holy-water fonts at +the temple gates, as do the Catholic churches to-day. + +Levy and Woronick believed, or pridefully affected to believe, +that at a remote period a band of Israelites, perhaps one of the +lost tribes carried away by the Assyrians, peopled these islands; +or settled in Malaysia before the Polynesian exodus from there, +and gave them their lore. Père Rambaud of the Catholic mission at +Papeete considered it more probable that Spaniards, reaching Hawaii +from wrecked Spanish galleons voyaging between Mexico and Manila, +brought the holy doctrines. His explanation, however, often advanced, +fell utterly before the fact that the Polynesians had no knowledge of +Jesus or any man or god like him, and knew nothing of original sin; +but, more convincing, all Polynesia had these legends, and there +had been no communication with the Maoris of New Zealand and with +Fiji after the Spanish entered the Philippines. It is to me quite +certain that the Polynesians brought with them from Malaysia or India +or from farther toward Europe those traditions of the beginnings of +mankind which grew up hundreds of thousands of years ago, and were +dispersed with each group setting out for adventure or driven from +the birthplace of thinking humans. + +Taaroa, whose name was spelt differently in separated archipelagos, was +the father of the Tahitian cosmogony. His wife was Hina, the earth, +and his son, Oro, was ruler of the world. Tané, the Huahine god, +was a brother of Oro, and his equal, but there were islands which +disputed this equality, and shed blood to disprove it, as the sects +of Christianity have since the peaceful Jesus died by the demands of +the priests of his nation. + +Haui was the Tahitian Hercules. Of course he, too, bade the sun to +stay a while unmoving, and it did. Joshua, the son of Nun, whose +astronomical exploit at Gibeon brought him immortal fame, was a +glorious warrior; but Haui's unwritten achievements, as chanted by +the orero at the marae where Tetuanui, Brooke, and I stood, would +have forced the successor of Moses to have withdrawn his book from +circulation, as too dull. + +The Polynesian creator put on earth hogs, dogs, and reptiles. There +were many kinds of dogs in their mythology, including the "large dog +with sharp teeth," and the "royal dog of God." Among reptiles was +Moo, a terrible dragon living in caverns above and beneath the sea, +who was dreaded above all dangers. He was to them the monster that +guarded the Hesperides garden, and the beast that St. George slew; +but as the common lizard was the largest reptile in Polynesia, this, +too, was an heirloom from another land. In the old Havaii--probably +Java--they must have known those fierce crocodiles that I have seen +drag down a horse drinking in the river at Palawan, and noted swimming +in the open sea between Siassi and Borneo. + +The chief and Brooke and I sat in the shade of the etoa-trees, and +conversed about these ancient stories. Fixed in the mind of the race +by the repetition of ages, they are the most difficult of all errors +to erase, and the professors of this wisdom stamp it upon the heart +and brain of the child in almost indelible colors, and make it tabu, +sacrilege, or treason to deny its verity. Half a century ago repairs +became necessary to Mohammed's tomb at Medina, and masons were asked +to volunteer to make them, and submit to beheading immediately +after. There was no lack of desirous martyrs. One descended into +the mausoleum, finished the task, and, reaching the air again, +knelt, turned his face toward Mecca, and bent his head for the +ax. The Mussulman keepers of the tomb justified their act, as, the +forbidding telling the truth about religion and government, about +war and business, is justified. Their words were: + +"We picture those places to ourselves in a certain manner, and for +the preservation of our holy religion, and the safety of society, +there must not be any one who can say they are otherwise." + +It was noon when Brooke and I--Tetuanui having gone to instruct his +gang--plunged into the sea in front of the chefferie, and laughed +in the joy of the sweet hour. He had written lines of beauty that +interpreted our humor: + + + Tau here, Mamua, + Crown the hair, and come away! + Hear the calling of the moon, + And the whispering scents that stray + About the idle warm lagoon. + Hasten, hand in human hand, + Down the dark, the flowered way, + Along the whiteness of the sand, + And in the water's soft caress + Wash the mind of foolishness, + Mamua, until the day. + Spend the glittering moonlight there, + Pursuing down the soundless deep + Limbs that gleam and shadowy hair; + Or floating lazy, half-asleep. + Dive and double and follow after, + Snare in flowers, and kiss, and call, + With lips that fade, and human laughter + And faces individual! + Well this side of Paradise! ... + There 's little comfort in the wise. + + + + +Chapter XXII + +I start for Tautira--A dangerous adventure in a canoe--I go by land +to Tautira--I meet Choti and the Greek God--I take up my home where +Stevenson lived. + +Seeing the way the Lermontoffs lived, caused me to resolve that during +the remainder of my stay in Tahiti I would go even farther from Papeete +than Mataiea. They suggested Tautira, a village they had never visited, +but which was at the very end of the habitable part of the Presqu'île +of Taiarapu. My easiest route to Tautira was by crossing the isthmus +of Taravao, to the other side of the peninsula, as nowhere in Tahiti +except at Lake Vaihiria were there even passable trails across the +lofty spine of the island. I was for sending back the cart and horse +to Taravao and taking a canoe to Tautira. A council of the elders of +Vaieri opposed me, but yielded to my persistence by advising me at +least to ride as far as possible in the cart along the western road, +and to find, nearer to Tautira, in Maora, or farther on, in Puforatoai, +a canoe and canoeists for the risky attempt. + +Tatini, who had lagged behind at Butscher's, appeared as I harnessed +the horse. She had accompanied the Tinito storekeeper of Taravao to +Vaieri, and would not permit me to go on alone. She climbed into the +vehicle, and we wended a winding road, and forded several streams until +we came to Puforatoai, having gone through Hatiti and Maora. There +was a pass in the reef admitting to a questionable shelter, Port +Beaumanoir, used by the French when little gunboats threatened to +bombard villages to force the rule of Paris. + +Puforatoai was a handful of houses, hardly a village. My advent was +of importance, and its few people gathered about us. They voiced +their amazement when Tatini announced our wish to find a navigator +and vessel to Tautira. They all said it was impossible, that the +coast to Pari, with the submerged reef of Faratara, was too rough +now for any but a large power boat, and the wind would be baffling +and threatening. But as fear of the sea was unknown to them, they +expressed a will to make the attempt. We launched a large canoe, +and two sturdy natives, relations of Tatini, took the paddles. They +had made the journey more than once, but not at this season. + +We got into difficulties from the start. The shores were very different +from those of Mataiea, Papeari, and Vairao, the three districts +I had come through from the house of Tetuanui. The alluvial strip +of land which in them stretched from a quarter of a mile to a mile +from the lagoon to the slopes of the hills, here was cramped to the +barest strip. The huts of the indigenes, few and far apart outside +of Puforatoai, seemed to be set in terraces cut at the foot of the +mountains which rose almost straight from the streak of golden sand +to the skies. In every shade of green, as run by the overhead sun +upon the altering facets of precipice and shelf, of fei and cocoa, +candlenut and purau, giant ferns and convolvulus, tier upon tier, +was a riot of richest vegetation. But everywhere in the lagoon were +bristling and hiding dangers from hummocks of coral and sunken banks. + +Our canoe was twenty feet long, and with a very strong outrigger, +but though all four of us paddled, Teta, the chief man of Puforatoai, +in the stern, steering, the vaa labored heavily. Tatini was adept in +canoeing, and with a quartet of hoë we would have ordinarily sent the +vaa spinning through the water; but we were nearing the southernmost +extremity of the Presqu'île, and the wind and current from the +northeast swept about the broken coast in a confusion of puffs and +blasts, choppy waves and roaring breakers, and made our progress +slow and hazardous. The breeze caught up the foam and formed sheets +of vapor which whipped our faces and blinded us, while an occasional +roller broke on our prow, and soon gave Tatini continuous work in +bailing with a handled scoop. + +Opposite the pass of Tutataroa our greatest peril came. The ocean swept +through this narrow channel like a mill-race. The first swell tossed +us up ten feet, and we rode on it fifty before Teta could disengage +us from its clasp, and, without capsizing, divert our course westward +instead of toward the parlous shore. One such jeopardy succeeded +another. We were in a quarter of an hour directly under black and +frowning heights from which a score of cascades and rills leaped +into the air, their masses of water, carried by the gusts, falling +upon us in showers and clouds, aiding the flying scud in shielding +the distance ahead from our view. + +"Aita e ravea," shouted Teta to me. "It is impossible to go on." + +We were all as wet as if in the sea, our faces and bodies stung by +the spindrift, and we were barely able to glimpse a dark and heaving +panorama of surf, rock, and bluff in the mists that now and again +were penetrated by the hot sun. + +"Maitai! Hohoi!" I replied above the clangor, and raised my paddle. + +Carefully and in a wide circle the vaa crept around to head back toward +our port, and it was after sunset before we were in Teta's house in +Puforatoai. The villagers met us with torches and incredulous aues +and we walked up the road singing the song of the "Ai Dobbebelly +Dobbebelly," which was known wherever a fisher for market dwelt in +all Tahiti. The farther from Papeete and more and more as time passed, +the words lost resemblance to English, and became mere native sounds +without any exact meaning, but with a never-forgotten sentiment of +rebellion against government and of gild alliance. + +"Give us a hand-out!" had changed from "hizzandow" in Papeete, to +"Hitia o te ra!" which meant that the sun was rising. Within a year +or two the entire text would doubtless merge into Tahitian with only +the martial air of "Revive us again!" and the dimming memory of the +fish-strike to recall its origin. I had known a native who, whenever +he approached me, sang in a faltering tone, "Feery feery!" + +I asked him after many weeks what he meant, and he said that that was a +himene, which a young American had sung at his potations in his village +in the Marquesas Islands. I had him repeat "Feery feery!" dozens of +times, and finally snatched at an old glee which ran through my mind: +"Shoo Fly, don't bother me!" and when I sang it, + + + "I feel, I feel, I feel, + I feel like a morning star!" + + +he struck his thigh, and said, "Ea! That is the very thing!" And to be +fair to all races, one has only to listen to an American assemblage +singing "The Starspangled Banner" to learn that after the first few +lines most patriots decline into "ah-ah-la-la-ha-la-ah-la-la." + +Before our supper of fish and fei, Teta, who was a deacon in the +Protestant church, but of superior knowledge of his own tongue and +legends, asked a blessing of God, and afterward recited for me the +Tahitian chant of creation, the source of which was in the very +beginnings of his race, perhaps even previous to the migration from +Malaysia. He intoned it, solemnly, as might have an ancient prophet +in Israel, as we sat in the starlit night, with the profound notes +of the reef in unison with his deep cadence: + + + He abides--Taaroa by name-- + In the immensity of space. + There was no earth, there was no heaven, + There was no sea, there was no mankind. + Taaroa calls on high; + He changes himself fully. + Taaroa is the root; + The rocks (or foundation); + Taaroa is the sands; + Taaroa stretches out the branches (is wide-spreading). + Taaroa is the light; + Taaroa is within; + Taaroa is, ---- + Taaroa is below; + Taaroa is enduring; + Taaroa is wise; + He created the land of Hawaii; + Hawaii great and sacred, + As a crust (or shell) for Taaroa. + The earth is dancing (moving). + O foundations, O rocks, + Oh sands! here, here. + Brought hither, pressed together the earth; + Press, press again! + They do not ------ + Stretch out the seven heavens; let ignorance cease. + Create the heavens, let darkness cease. + Let anxiety cease within; + Let immobility cease; + Let the period of messengers cease; + It is the time of the speaker. + Fill up the foundation, + Fill up the rocks, + Fill up the sands. + The heavens are inclosing. + And hung up are the heavens + In the depths. + Finished he the world of Hawaii. + E pau fenua no Hawaii. + + +The cart at my request had been driven back to Taravao; so in the +morning Tatini and I walked back to the isthmus. We drank coffee at +five, and at three we had covered the twelve miles in the sauntering +gait of the Tahitian girl, stopping to make wreaths, and to bathe in +several streams. Butscher was on his table in his after-breakfast +lethargy, and I regretted disturbing his iiii to ask him to serve +us. Again Tatini refused to sit at table with me. Evidently, she +feared the scowls of Butscher, who had none of the white's ideas of +the equality of females with males at the board. Butscher added many +francs to my bill by pouring me another bottle of Pol Roger, 1905, +which after several days of cocoanut juice took on added delight. I +made up my mind to tarry with Butscher a day, while Tatini returned +to the Tetuanui mansion by diligence, and despatched my bags to me +by the same carrier. I sent with her my love to the Tetuanui clan, +and some delicacies from the Maison des Varos for the half-blind +Haamoura. The diligence did not run farther than Taravao, and the +next day, with my impedimenta in the cart, and with a boy to drive +it, I turned my back on the road to Papeete, and began the jog trot +to the famous, but hardly ever visited, district of Tautira. + +I counted it the third stage in my pilgrimage in Tahiti. The first +had been in and about the capital, mingling mostly with white men, +and living in a public inn; the second at Mataiea had taken me far +from those rookeries, and had introduced me to the real Tahitians, +to their language, their customs, and their hearts; but still I had +been a guest, and a cared-for and guarded white among aborigines. Now +I wanted to cut off entirely from the main road, to sequester myself +in a faraway spot, and to live as close to the native as was possible +for me. My time was drawing near for departure. I must see all of the +Etablissements Français de l'Oceanie, the blazing Paumotu atolls, +and the savage Marquesas, and I must make the most of the several +months yet remaining for me in Tahiti. + +The highway along the eastern portion of the Presqu'île was much +like that between Taravao and Puforatoai, tortuous, constricted, +and often forced to hang upon a shelf carved out of the precipice +which hemmed it. The route hugged the sea, but at every turn I +saw inland the laughing, green valleys, deserted of inhabitants, +climbing slowly between massive walls of rock to which clung great +tree ferns, with magnificent vert parasols, enormous clumps of feis, +with huge, emerald or yellow upstanding bunches of fruit; candlenut- +and ironwood-trees. Uncounted, delicious odors filled the air, +distilled from the wild flowers, the vanilla, orchids, and the forests +of oranges, which, though not of Tahiti, were already venerable in +their many decades of residence. Not a single path struck off from the +belt road, except that as we came toward the centers of Afaahiti and +Pueu districts the inevitable store or two of the Chinese appeared, +the cheferie, a church or two, and the roofs of the Tahitians. These +were always near the beach, set back a few hundred feet from the +road in rare instances, but mostly only a few steps from it. The +Tahitian never lived in hamlets, as the Marquesan and the Samoan, +but each family dwelt in its wood of cocoanuts and breadfruit, or +a few families clustered their inhabitants for intimacy and mutual +aid. The whites, missionaries, conquerors, and traders found this +system not conducive to their ends. Churches demand for prosperity +a flock about the ministrant, business wants customers close to the +store, and government is more powerful where it can harangue and +proclaim, parade before and spy upon its subjects. Individualistic +and segregated domestic circles give rise to tax evasions, feuds, +and moonshining, plots and the growth of strong men. The city is +the corral where humans mill like cattle in a panic, are more easily +ridden down en masse, and become habitual buyers of unnecessary things. + +The French, after their bold seizure of the island in the name of +liberty for the earnest friars, and sealing their brave conquest in +the blood of the obstinate Polynesian who had hated to learn a new +liturgy and to unlearn his old Protestant songs, feared that the +dispersion of the people upon their little plantations, to which +they were greatly attached, would make their Frenchifying a long +task. So, about sixty years ago, a governor, who, ten thousand miles +from his superiors, with an exchange of letters taking many months, +was an autocrat, decided that all the people of the same region must +be huddled in a village. His name was Gaultier de la Richerie. His +office was snatched from him by another politician before he could +carry out his plan, and only one village exemplified it. In all the +districts I had passed through from Papeete, while in each was the +knot of chefferie, churches, stores, and perhaps a house or two, the +other residences stretched along the entire length of the political +divisions, from six to eight miles. + +I was approaching the exception, Tautira, which, though farthest of +all from the palace of the governor, had been chosen for the first +experiment, and which had adapted its life to the paternal will of +M. de la Richerie, now long since laid in the bosom of Père Lachaise. + +The estimable troubadour, Brault, had advised me of the history of +Tautira. It was seldom visited by white tourists, as even the post +brought by the diligence ended at Taravao, and letters for farther +on were carried afoot by the mutoi, or postman-policeman of the +adjoining district, who handed on to his contiguous confrère those +for more distant confines. But for centuries Tautira was known as a +focus of the wise, of priests, sorcerers, and doctors, and, said the +knowing Brault, especially of the dancers, and those who, he explained, +under the banner of Venus. + + + Ont vu maintes batailles + Et reçu nombre d'entailles + Depuis les pieds jusqu'au front. + + +The little boy and I chatted as the horse ambled at will, occasionally +urged to a trot by a shaking of the reins. The country as we progressed +became far more beautiful than that behind. A new wildness, not fierce +and rugged as between Vaiere and Puforatoai, but gentler and more +inviting, preluded the exquisite setting of the village. We had to +ford a stream three or four feet deep, the Vaitapiha, and the struggle +through it was a rare pleasure, the child on the back of the animal, +and I with the reins and a purau twig directing and commanding in +vain. We had to leap into the water and remove a boulder or two that +stymied the wheels. When we had pulled through to the opposite shore, +I was reduced to a dry pareu, and in it alone, barefooted, I reached +the rustic paradise, the loveliness of which was to content me more +than any spot except the strangely fascinating valley of Atuona in +the sad isle of Hiva-Oa. + +In a delta formed by the Vaitapiha the settlement lay among tents +of verdure. For a mile it sprawled around a small point of land +which thrust out into the sea, and which was guarded by the most +wonderful of walls, a reef of madrepore, as solid as granite and sixty +feet wide. The road was arched by splendid trees of many kinds, and +facing it, every several hundred feet, was a home. Many of these were +cottages in modern style, but a dozen or so were the true Tahitian +faré, of bamboo and thatch. All were covered with flowering vines, +and surrounded by many fruiting trees. + +"Tautira nei!" announced my coachman. "Tautira is here!" + +He pulled up the horse. I had not given any thought to my lodging, +and I jumped out and looked around. The brook curved about a mango +grove, and under its high trees was a new native house, a replica +of the commodious dwellings of old days. I walked into the grove, +and was admiring the careful, but charming, arrangements of ferns +and orchids, which, though brought from the forests, had been fitted +into the scene to simulate a natural environment. All of a sudden +a something I could not see hurled itself from a limb upon my head, +and two affrighting paws seized my right ear and my hair, grown long +at Mataiea, and tried to tear them out by the roots, while at the +same time many fierce teeth closed, though without much effect, on +my tough and weathered shoulder. In horror at the attack, I covered +yards in two bounds, and my assailant was torn from its hold upon me. + +I then turned and saw that it was a monkey tied to a rope fastened to +the limb of the tree. He stood upright on the ground, his jaws agape, +and a look of devilish glee upon his uncannily manlike face. At the +same moment a white man ran from the house and called in English: + +"You damned little scoundrel! How often have I whipped you for +that same trick! I would better have left you in the slums in San +Francisco." + +And then apologetically to me: + +"I ought to kill him for that. He's a devil, that monkey. He has +bitten all the children around here, has killed all my chickens, +and raised more hell in this village than the whole population put +together. I swear, I believe he just enjoys being mean. Come in and +have a snifter after that greeting! Did he hurt you?" + +My would-be host was himself a very striking somebody. He wore only +a pareu, as I, of scarlet muslin, with the William Morris design, +but he had wound his about so that it was a mere ornamental triangle +upon his tall, powerful, statuesque body. His chest and back had a +growth of red-gold hair, which, with his bronzed skin, his red-gold +beard, dark curls over a high forehead, handsome nose, and blue +eyes, made him all of the same color scheme. He was without doubt as +near to a Greek deity in life, a Dionysus, as one could imagine. He +had two flaming hibiscus blossoms over his ears, and he looked in +his late twenties. Accustomed as I was to semi-nudity and to white +men's return to nature, I had never seen a man who so well fitted +into the landscape as the owner of the ape. He was the faun to the +curling locks and the pointed ears, with not a trace of the satyr; +all youth and grace and radiance. + +He walked on before me to the faré, and, opening the door, bade me +welcome. The house differed from the aboriginal in a wooden floor and +three walls of wire screen above four feet of wainscot. The roof was +lofty, of plaited pandanus-leaves, with large spaces under the eaves +for the circulation of air; but the immediate suggestion was of an +aviary, a cage thirty feet square. Attached to this room was a lean-to +kitchen, and near by, hidden behind the cage, was another native +house for sleeping. The aviary was the living- and dining-quarters, +protected from all insect pests, and an arbor covered with vines led +to the water. + +Many canvases were about, on an easel an unfinished group of three +Tahitian boys, and a case of books against the one solid wall. + +Half a dozen Tahitian youths were lolling outside in the shade, and +one, at the request of the host, led up the horse and the boy who +guarded it. The child skirted the circumference of the monkey's swing, +and then, a few feet away, squatted to regard the animal with intense +surprise and interest. + +"Uritaata," he said; "I never saw one before, but I have read in my +school-book that they have those dogmen in French colonies." + +Uri means dog and taata man, and the compound name was that which +sprang to the lips of the Tahitians on seeing a monkey, just as they +called the horse puaa horo fenua, the pig that runs on the earth, and +the goat, horo niho, the pig with horns. The pig and the dog were the +only land mammals they knew before the white arrived. The race-track +near Papeete was puaa horo fenua faa titi auraa. If a pig could talk, +he would say that man was a wickeder and stronger pig. Jehovah has +whiskers like a Rabbi. The Rabbis made him like themselves. Man has +no other ideal. + +The Tahitian youth addressed the Greek god as T'yonni, which was +an effort to say John, and I adopted it instanter, as he did my +own Maru. T'yonni said that Uritaata was the bane of his existence +at Tautira. After building his faré he had been called to America, +and had danced in Chinatown the night before his steamship departed +for his return to Papeete. He remembered obscurely drinking grappo +with a deep-sea sailor, and had awakened in his berth, the vessel +already at sea, and Uritaata asleep at his feet. Many Tahitians, he +said, had never seen such a fabulous brute, and T'yonni had stirred +in them a mood of dissatisfaction by telling that their forefathers +had descended from similar beings. + +"How about Atamu and Eva?" they had asked the pastors. + +Those conservatists had replied emphatically that Adam and Eve, the +first man and woman, were created by God, which agreed thoroughly with +the Tahitian legends, and after that T'yonni's generosity was ranked +higher than his knowledge. He laughed over the stories as we sat at +breakfast with my coachman in the kitchen. T'yonni said that the deacon +of the Protestant church expressed a belief that the Paumotuans or +even the French might have followed the Darwinian course of descent, +but that Tahitians could not swallow a doctrine that linked them in +relationship with Uritaata. The Tongans, Polynesians like themselves, +had a tradition that God made the Tongan first, then the pig, and +lastly the white man. + +"He quoted the Tongan with compassion for me," said T'yonni. "And now +about a place where you can live. Choti, a painter, whose pictures +you see around here, lives with the school-teacher up the road, and +he might find you a place. He's an American, as I am, and I suppose +you, too." + +I raised my glass to our native land, and finding that the boy of +Taravao had eaten his fill of fei and fish, I said ariana to T'yonni, +and drove to Choti's. The painter was on the veranda of a cottage, +finishing the late breakfast. He received me with enthusiasm. Tall, +very spare, and his skin pale despite his wearing only a pareu +and never a hat, Choti's black eyes shone under long, black hair, +and over a Montmartre whisker that covered his boyish face from his +chiseled nose. + +"Hello!" he said. "Come and have déjeuner?" + +The manner of both T'yonni and Choti, while hospitable, and their +glances at my bags, showed a probable wonderment of my intentions. + +Was I an average tourist or loafer come to put an unknown quantity in +their smoothly working problem of a pleasant life in this Eden? The +artist must have looked me over for indications of familiarity with +brush and palette. + +I replied to Choti that I had breakfasted with T'yonni, and he smiled +at my knowledge of his friend's Tautira name. + +"How about getting an apartment or a suite of rooms?" I inquired. + +Choti sucked the last particle of poi from his forefinger, +dipped it into a shell of water, shook hands, and against my +pleadings, accompanied me to the house of Ori-a-Ori, the chief of +the district. The chief, an excessively tall man, quite six and a +half feet and big all over, but not fat, like many natives, was very +dark and slightly grizzled. He had a singular solemnity of address, +a benignity and detachment which were the externals of a thoughtful, +simple, generous nature, no longer interested deeply in trifles. His +house was toward the farther end of the main street, and set upon a +spacious lawn a hundred feet from the street, which, by the same token, +was also a lawn, for there was no sign of the unadorned earth. So +little wheeled traffic was there that bare feet walked on a matting +of grass and plants as soft as seaweed on the beach. The street was +bordered with cocoanuts and pandanus, and the chief's dwelling had +about it breadfruit, papayas, and cocoanuts. The grounds were divided +from neighbors' parks by hedges of tiare Tahiti, gardenias, roses, +and red and white oleanders. I drew in their perfume as Ori-a-Ori said, +"Ia ora na!" and took and held my hand a moment, while his grave eyes +studied my face in all kindliness. + +Choti put him the question of my habitation, and he instantly offered +me either a room in his own house or a small, native building on the +opposite side of the road and nearer the beach. We walked over, and +found it unoccupied. It was a bird-cage, all one room, with a thatch +of pandanus and a floor of dried grass covered with mats. The walls +were of split bamboo, like reeds, and the sun and air penetrated it +through and through; but hanging mats were arranged, one as a door, +and others to keep out the rain. It was exactly suited for sleeping and +lounging purposes, and the chief said that I could cook in a convenient +hut. I brought in my belongings, which included bedding, and in half +an hour was enough at home to dismiss the coachman and his equipage, +and to lie down, as was my wont during the heat of the day. I put my +bed in the doorway, and before I fell into my first sleep at Tautira, +filled my eyes with the blue of the shimmering lagoon and the hoary +line of the reef. I sank into dreams, with the slumbrous roar upon +the coral barrier like the thunder of a sea god's rolling drum. + + + +Chapter XXIII + +My life at Tautira--The way I cook my food--Ancient Tahitian +sports--Swimming and fishing--A night hunt for shrimp and eels. + +T'yonni and Choti were the only aliens except myself in all Tautira, +nor did others come during my stay. The steamships, spending only +twenty-four hours in Papeete port every four or five weeks, sent no +trippers, and the bureaucrats, traders, and sojourners in Papeete +apparently were not aware of the enchantment at our end of the +island. T'yonni had found Tautira only after four or five voyages +to Tahiti, and Choti had first come as his guest. T'yonni had no art +but that of living, while Choti had studied in Paris, and was bent on +finding in these scenes something strong and uncommon in painting, as +Gauguin, now dead, had found. They lived separately, T'yonni studying +the language and the people,--he had been a master at a boys' school +in the East,--and the artist painting many hours a day. But we three +joined with the villagers in pleasure, and in pulling at the nets in +the lagoon. + +The routine of my day was to awake about six o'clock and see the +sun swinging slowly up out of the sea and hesitating a moment on the +level of the horizon, the foliage brightened with his beams. I sprang +from my bed, washed my hands and face, and hastened to the faré umu, +the kitchen in a grove of pandanus trees, a few steps away. There +from a pile of cocoanut husks and bits of jetsam I selected fuel, +which I placed between a group of coral rocks on which were several +iron bars. I lit the fire, and put into a pot three tablespoonfuls +of finely ground coffee and two cups of fresh water. The pot was a +percolator, and beside it I placed a frying-pan, and in it sliced +bananas and a lump of tinned butter from New Zealand. Leaving these +inanimate things to react under the dissolving effect of the blaze, +I ran to the beach, where I watched the sunrise. There recurred to me +the mornings and evenings in the Orient when I had seen the Parsees, +the fire-worshippers of India, offer their devotions, standing or +kneeling on their rugs on the seashore. I, too, raised my hands +in silent admiration of the mother of all life. Then I observed +about me the hurry and scurry of the dwellers on the sands and in +the water. Small hermit-crabs in shells many sizes too big for them +toddled about, land-crabs rushed frantically and awkwardly for their +holes, and Portuguese men-of-war sailed by the coast, luffing to avoid +casting up on the beach. A brief period of observation, and I dashed +back to the faré umu, and trimmed the fire. When cooked, I brought +my food to my house, where I had a low table like a Japanese zen, +and with rolls from the Chinese store I made my first meal, adding +oranges, papayas and pineapple. + +From the doorway, for all I encompassed in my view, I might have +been the sole human on this island. I could look to the reef and far +across the lagoon to Hitiaa or down the beach, but from that spot no +other house was in sight. If I went around the house, I was almost on +the Broadway of Tautira, the home of Ori-a-Ori before me, and a coral +church close to it, with other buildings and groves toward the mango +copse of T'yonni. On the bushes huge nets were drying, and canoes were +drawn up into the purau and pandanus clumps. As the day advanced, +the artless incidents of the settlement aroused my interest. I saw +about me scenes and affairs which had caused a famous poet after a +week or two in this very lieu to write: + + + Here found I all I had forecast: + The long roll of the sapphire sea + That keeps the land's virginity; + The stalwart giants of the wood + Laden with toys and flowers and food; + The precious forest pouring out + To compass the whole town about; + The town itself with streets of lawn, + Loved of the moon, blessed by the dawn, + Where the brown children all the day + Keep up a ceaseless noise of play, + Play in the sun, play in the rain, + Nor ever quarrel or complain; + And late at night in the woods of fruit, + Hark! do you hear the passing flute? + + +The school-house was near to the master's home where Choti lived, +and often I heard the children learning by singsong, the way I +myself had been taught the arithmetical tables. The teacher was +Alfred, a Tahitian, who, being a scholar, must have a French name, +and wear clothes and shoes when in his classes, but who very sensibly +sat with Choti upon his veranda in only his pareu. Much of the time +the pupils played in the grounds, hopscotch and wrestling on stilts +being favorite games. Alfred regretted that the ancient Tahitian +games which his grandfather played were out of style. Among these was +a variation of golf, with curved sticks, and a ball made of strips +of native cloth; and foot-ball with a ball of banana-leaves tightly +rolled. Grown-ups in those Tahitian times were experts in all these +sports, women excelling at foot-ball, with thirty on each side, and +captains, backs, and guards, or similar participants, and with hard +struggles for the ball, which, as the games were played on the beach, +often had to be fought for in the sea. The spectators, thousands, +did not view the contest from seats, but literally followed it as it +surged up and down within the space of a mile. + +Wrestling was the most notable amusement, and boxing was fashionable +for women, some of whom were skilled in fistic combats. The wrestlers, +as their Greek prototypes, first invoked the favor of the gods, and +offered sacrifices when victorious. The palestra was on a lawn by +the sea, and in formal contests district champions met those of other +districts, and islands competed for supremacy with other islands. The +maona wore a breech-clout and a coat of cocoanut oil freshly laid on, +but not sand, as in the Olympiads. When one was thrown, the victor's +friends shouted in triumph and sang and danced about him to the music +of tom-toms, while the backers of the loser met the demonstrations with +ridicule. This was much like the organized yelling on our gridirons; +and when the wrestling began again there was instant silence. It was +all good-humored, as was the boxing. + +Spear-throwing and stone-slinging at targets were both fun and +preparation for war, for in the battles the slingers took the +van. The stones were here, as in the Marquesas, as big as hens' +eggs, and rounded by the action of the streams in which they were +found. Braided cocoanut-fiber formed the sling, or flax was used, +and looped about the wrist the sling was flung down the back, whirled +about the head, and the missile shot with deadly force and accuracy. + +Archery was associated with religion in Tahiti, as in Japan, between +which countries there are many strange similarities of custom. The +costumes of the bowmen and their weapons were housed in the temple, and +kept by devotees, and were removed and returned with ceremonies. The +bows, less than six feet, the arrows, half that long, were never +used in war or for striking a mark, but merely for distance shooting, +and the experts were credited with reaching a thousand feet. + +Tatini had pointed out to me, when we walked the peninsula of Taravao, +a projecting rock, marked with deep-worn grooves, from which the +Tahitians once flew very large kites. These were tied to the rocks, +and the ropes of cocoanut sennit in the course of hundreds of years +had worn the stones away. Often when the wind was favorable, they +intrusted themselves to their kites, and slipping the ropes, flew +to the opposite side of the bay, forerunners in the air of a certain +Lyonnais of 1783, and contemporaneous with the Siamese who centuries +ago indulged their levitative dreams by leaping with parachutes. + +Alfred had registered all these obsolete things in his memory, while +most Tahitians had no detailed knowledge of them, being crammed with +the lore of theology, of saints, of automobiles, and moving pictures, +and prize-fights for money. Matatini Afaraauia, son of Faaruia, +of chiefly descent, a boy of seven, and of a guileless, bewitching +disposition, made me his intimate friend, and through his sharp +eyes I discovered phenomena that might have escaped my untutored +mind. He lifted a stone, and beneath it was a spider larger than a +tarantula. It was tabu to Tahitians, harmless, and a voracious eater of +insects. Spiders are larger in these tropics than elsewhere, and here, +too, the male was smaller than the female. Being seized and slain and +devoured by his lady love even in the very transports of husbandly +affection, it had been bitten in on his subconscious sensibilities +that diminutiveness was life-saving, and natural selection had made him +inferior in size to his cannibal mate. He had a very shrinking attitude +in her presence, as Socrates must have affected about Xantippe. + +At eleven o'clock of the forenoon I, with Matatini and Raiere, a youth +of twenty, strolled down the grassy street to the garden of Alfred, +where Choti might be painting under the trees, and if a halloo did +not bring him bounding to us, we went on to T'yonni's, where he would +surely be, either under the mango trees or in the salon. Choti had +many canvases completed, some six feet long, and he also did excellent +silver-point heads of the villagers. Tahitians were indifferent models, +as they were not much interested in pictures, not seeing objects, as +we do, and found posing irksome. Only Choti's friendship for them, +his bonhomie, and many merry jokes in their tongue could keep them +still for his purposes. + +T'yonni's house was half a mile from my own. A quarter of a mile +farther, and the same distance from the junction of lagoon and river, +we had our swimming-place. On an acre or two of grass and moss, +removed from any habitation, grew a score of lofty cocoas, and under +these we threw off our pareus or trousers and shirts. The bank of the +stream was a fathom from the water which was brackish at high tide and +sweet at low. With a short run and a curving leap we plunged into the +flowing water. It was refreshing at the hottest hour. The Tahitians +seldom dived head first, as we did, but jumped feet foremost, and the +women in a sitting posture, which made a great splash, but prevented +their gowns from rising. As I remarked before, we three Americans +bathed stark when with men, but the modest Tahitian men never for a +moment uncovered themselves, but wore their pareus. Captain Cook said +that in their houses he had not seen a single instance of immodesty, +though families slept in one room. Choti avowed that he had to make +love to his girl models to induce them to pose in the altogether, +for money would not make them adopt the garb of Venus. + +The Tahitians did not enter the sea for pleasure. The rivers and brooks +were their bathing- and resting-places. They attributed sicknesses +to the too frequent touch of salt water. They had not the habitude +of swimming within the lagoons, as at Hawaii; it was not with them +an exercise or luxury, but a part of their every-day activities in +fishing and canoeing. A farmer after his day's work does not run +foot-races. Yet in gatherings these people often vied for supremacy +in every sort of sea sport, and beforetime, in bays free of coral, +developed an astonishing skill in surf-riding on boards, in canoes, +and without artificial support. Such skill was ranked on a par with +or perhaps the same as proficiency in the pastimes of war, as did the +Greeks, who addressed Diagoras, after he and his two sons had been +crowned in the arena: "Die, for thou hast nothing short of divinity +to desire." These ambitions had been ended in Tahiti by the frowns +of the missionaries, to whom athletics were a species of diabolical +possession, unworthy souls destined for hell or heaven, with but +a brief span to avert their birthright of damnation in sackcloth +and ashes. + +We entered the river regularly at eleven and four, but Choti, T'yonni, +and I also swam in the lagoon at the mouth of the river, and never +suffered bad consequences unless we cut or scraped ourselves on +coral. About noon I prepared my déjeuner à la fourchette, and had a +wide choice of shrimp, eels, fish, taro, chicken, breadfruit, yams, +and all the other fruits. The solicitude of the homesick missionaries +had added to those indigenous, oranges, limes, shaddocks, citrons, +tamarinds, guavas, custard apples, peaches, figs, grapes, pineapples, +watermelons, pumpkins, cucumbers and cabbages. They had grown these +foreign flora many years before they made sprout a single shoot +of Christianity. + +I invented a stove from a five-gallon oil tin. With a can-opener I +cut a strip out on opposite sides ten inches from the bottom, and +laid two iron bars across, and under them, inside the receptacle, +built a fire. Upon this I cooked my coffee in the percolator, while +upon the earth and hot stones other delicious dishes boiled, stewed, +and fried. If I baked, I used the native oven in the ground, with +earth and leaves inclosing. + +I passed hours on the reef with Raiere and Matatini or in canoes, +drawing the nets and catching shrimp and eels. In the lagoon we usually +secured a plentiful draft of fish, brilliant creatures of silver and +crimson, as they leaped from the sea into the nets, and were later +tumbled into canoes or on the beach. The orare, aturi, and paaihere +were like the gleaming mesh purses worn by the women of our cities, +but the ihi was as red as the beard of the Greek god T'yonni. These +fish we kept in tubs of sea water, alive and even moderately happy +until cooked. + +Saturday's parties went far into the woods to gather a choice kind of +fei, and the oranges and limes of the foot-hills. Raiere, Matatini, +and another boy, Tahitua, hunted the shrimp and eel. After our suppers, +about seven or eight o'clock, when it was quite dark, we equipped +ourselves for the chase, each with a torch and two or three lances, +all but Tahitua, who carried a bag. + +We followed the grand chemin, as Alfred called it, along the lagoon +and past the clump of trees in which lived Uritaata, whom we saw +sleeping peacefully a dozen feet from the earth in the branches of +a mango. He lay on his back, with his arms above his little head, +and one foot grasping a leaf, and did not arouse to notice our +passing. The Tahitians gave him wide avoidance, with a mutter of +exorcism. We descended the bank, and entered the stream at a point +just below the last hut of the village. + +Raiere cast a glow upon the water with his torch, and we saw the +shrimp resting upon the bottom or leaping into the air in foot-wide +bounds. He poised his smallest lance and thrust it with a very quick, +but exact, motion, so that almost every time he impaled a shrimp upon +its prongs. The oura was instantly withdrawn, and Tahitua received it +in his bag. All but he then began in earnest the quest of the bonnes +bouches. We separated a hundred feet or so, and treading slowly the +pebbled or bouldered and often slippery floor of the river, keeping to +the shallow places, we lighted the rippling waters with our torches, +and sought to spear the agile and fearful prey. The oura lances were +five feet long, not thicker than a fat finger, and fitted with three +slender prongs of iron--nails filed upon the basalt rock. One saw the +faintest glimpse of a shrimp on the bottom, or a red shadow as the +animal darted past, and only the swiftest coordination of mind and body +won the prize. Whereas Raiere and even Matatini secured most of those +they struck at, I made many laughable failures. I missed the still +body through the deceptive shadows of the water, or failed to strike +home because of the lightning-like movements of the alarmed shrimp. + +The sport was fascinating. The water was as warm as fresh milk, +transparent, and with here a gentle and there a rapid current. A +million stars glittered in a sky that was very near, and the trees and +vegetation were in mysterious shadows. Only when our torches lit the +darkness did we perceive the actual forms of the cocoanuts, mango- +and purau-trees which bordered the banks and climbed the hills into +the distance. The puraus often seemed like banians, stretching far over +the water in strange and ghostlike shapes, with twisting branches and +gnarled trunks that in the obscurity gave a startling suggestion of +the fetish growths of the ancients. I felt a faint touch of fear as +I groped through the stream, now and again falling into a deep hole +or stumbling over a stone or buried branch, and I looked often to +reassure myself that Raiere's gigantic figure loomed in the farther +gloom. There was no danger save in me; the scene was peaceful, but for +our own disturbance of the night and the river, and not even a breeze +fluttered the dark leaves of the trees. The mountain rose steeply at +our backs, and constellations appeared to rest upon its shadowy crest. + +At last we came to a place where a tiny natural dam caused the stream +to break in glints of white on a crooked line of rocks, and pausing +there, Raiere suddenly bent over. He called peremptorily to Tahitua +to bring him the big lance, which the little boy carried along with +the bag. + +"Puhi! Haere mai!" he said in a low, but urgent, voice. + +Tahitua flew through the ripples, and we all hurried to see the +new adventure. + +"Puhi! Puhi!" again said Raiere, and pointed to the rocks. We +cautiously stepped that way, and saw, apparently asleep at the foot of +the stones, a tangle of huge eels. Their black and gray slate-colored +bodies lay inert in folds, as if they had gathered for a night's +good slumber, and not until Raiere, with unerring aim thrust the +great spear, with its half-dozen points of iron, into one of them, +did the others scatter in a mad swim for safety. The mere transfixing +of the eel did not always mean his securing, but another of us must +put a lance in the contorting curves and with quick and dexterous +motion lift him to the bank where his struggles might be ended with +knife or rock. The release of him for a second might permit him to +wriggle to the river and escape. + +With the finding of the first eel, began an hour's search for his +fellows. We had struck their haunt, but they did not yield us half +a dozen of their kind without diligent, though pleasant, work. We +splashed to places when one sang out that an eel was in sight, and +pursued them in their divagations through the river, trusting to +drive them into eddies or under the fringe of plants hanging from +the banks where we hunted them out. + +In a couple of hours we found ourselves with a full creel of eels and +oura, and I a trifle dismayed at facing the march home. Raiere relieved +Tahitua of the burden, and a song shortened the way. I gave them the +ditty of the New-Zealand Maori, who metaphorically toasted his enemy: + + + O, the saltiness of my mouth + In drinking the liquid brains of Nuku + Whence welled up his wrath! + His ears which heard the deliberations! + Mine enemy shall go headlong + Into the stomach of Hinewai! + My teeth shall devour Kaukau! + The three hundred and forty of my enemy + Shall be huddled in a heap in my trough; + Te Hika and his multitudes + Shall boil in my pot! + The whole tribe shall be + My sweet morsel to finish with! E! + + + + +Chapter XXIV + +In the days of Captain Cook--The first Spanish +missionaries--Difficulties of converting the heathens--Wars over +Christianity--Ori-a-Ori, the chief, friend of Stevenson--We read the +Bible together--The church and the himene. + +Captain Cook barely escaped shipwreck here. The Bay of Tautira is +marked on the French map, "Mouillage de Cook," the anchorage of +Cook. That indomitable mariner risked his vessels in many dangerous +roadsteads to explore and to procure fresh supplies for his crews. When +he had exhausted the surplus of pigs, cocoanuts, fowls, and green stuff +at one port, he sailed for another. Scurvy, the relentless familiar +of the sailor on the deep sea, made no peril or labor too severe. At +night Cook's ships approached Oati-piha, or Ohetepeha, Bay, as his +log-writers termed this lagoon, from the Vaitapiha River, flowing into +it, and the dawn found them in a calm a mile and a half from the reef. + +They put down boats and tried to tow off their ships, but the tide set +them in more and more toward the rocks. For many hours they despaired +of saving the vessels, though they used "warping-machines," anchors, +and kedges. From my cook-house I saw where they had struggled for +their lives with breaker, current, and chartless bottom. A light +breeze off the land saved them, and in another day they returned to +"obtain cocoanuts, plantains, bananas, apples, yams and other roots, +which were exchanged for nails and beads." From the very pool into +which I dived Cook's hearties filled their casks with fresh water, +after shooting "two muskets and a great gun along the shore to +intimidate the Indians who were obstinate." + +Cook, on his third voyage to Tahiti, found here a large wooden cross +on which was inscribed in Latin: + + Christ conquered + Charles the Third Emperor + 1774 + +It was plain that Spaniards had erected the cross, for Charles III was +King of Spain. These English tars hated the dons, with whom they had +but recently been embattled. When they were convinced that a Spanish +ship had been at Tautira twice since they had departed, and that the +builders of the cross had earned the respect and affection of the +natives, the Britons, in their old way of fair and assertive dealing, +left the cross standing after carving on the reverse in good Latin +as a claim of prediscovery: + + George III King + 1767, 1769, 1773, 1774, 1777. + +Two Spanish priests, they learned, had lived in the village between +the arrival and return of the Spanish ships from Peru. They left no +imprint of their Catholic religion except the cross and a memory +of kindness; and why they resigned their mission to Tahiti is not +known. The British missionaries did not come until 1797, on the +Duff. They planted gardens and worked diligently and prayed. They +had vast patience, and confidence in their all-powerful and avenging +God, and a rapt devotion to his son, who forgave the sins of those +who adopted His faith. Their ideals were as fixed as the stars, and +their courage superior to the daily discouragements of their lives and +continuous hardships of separation from home. But they could not break +the strength of the superstitions of the pagans. A dozen years these +English ecclesiastics delved in their gardens, built their houses, and +begged Jehovah and Jesus to give them victory. Five years they mourned +without message or aid from England. Their clothes were in tatters, +and as covering their whole bodies with European garments from feet to +scalp, except face and hands, was a rigid prescription of their own +morals' and an example to the almost nude Tahitians, they suffered +keenly from shame. When, after half a decade, a brig arrived, its +supplies were found ruined by salt water and mold. The poor clerics, +in an earthly paradise, but hostile atmosphere, with little to report +to an unheeding England save the depths of the untilled field of +heathenry and depravity, might not have been blamed if they, too, +had given up their mission. The fruits of twelve years of gardening +and horticulture were destroyed in a day by ravaging parties. The +fact that their lives were spared and their persons not attacked, +except in a rare instance of an individual piece of villainy, is proof +of the mild dispositions of the infidels. The Tahitians worshiped +their gods with a superstitious awe not exceeded anywhere, and the +outlandish white men proclaimed openly that these gods were dirty +lumps of wood and stone and fiber, and to be despised in comparison +with the Christian Gods, Father and Son, which they implored them under +pain of eternal punishment to adopt. Imagine the fate of strangers who +settled in New England or Spain a hundred and twenty years ago and who +announced daily year in and year out that all the ancestors of the +people there were in hell, that their God and their angels, saints, +priests, and images were demons, or doing the work of demons, and +that only by acknowledging their belief in a deity unheard-of before, +by having water sprinkled on their heads, and ceasing the customs and +thoughts taught as most moral and divine by their own revered priests, +could they escape eternal misery as a consequence of a mistake made by +a man and a woman named Atamu and Ivi six thousand years earlier! In +Spain at that date the king whose name had been coupled with Christ's +on the cross near my house at Tautira was expelling the Jesuits from +his kingdom, and the Holy Office recorded its thirtieth thousand human +being burned at the stake in that country in the name of Jesus Christ. + +The incredulous Tahitians tolerated the queer white men who wore +long, black coats and who had learned their language, and who, +except as to religion, spoke gently to them, healed their wounds, +patted their children on the head, and taught them how to use iron and +wood in unknown fashions. They saw that these men drank intoxicants +in great moderation, lived in amity, and did not advantage themselves +in trade or with the native women, as did all the other white men. And +they wondered. + +But they were convinced of the truth of their own religion. Their +chiefs and priests replied: + +"If your first man and woman took the lizard's word and ate fruit +from the tabu tree, they should have been punished, and if their +children killed the son of your God, they should have been punished; +but why worry us about it? We have not killed you, and our first man +and woman respected all tabu trees." + +They disdained the cruel message that their forefathers were in the +perpetually burning umu, the oven, as did that Frisian king, Radbod, +who with one leg in the baptismal font, bethought him to ask where +were his dead progenitors, and was answered by the militant bishop, +Wolfran, "In hell, with all unbelievers." + +"Then will I rather feast with them in the halls of Woden than dwell +with your little, starveling Christians in heaven" said the pagan, +and withdrew his sanctified limb to walk to an unblessed grave in +proud pantheism. + +Otu, the son of King Pomaré, had a revelation that the god Oro wished +to be removed to Tautira from Atehuru. The chiefs of that district +protested, and Otu's followers seized the idol, and went to sea +with him. They landed as soon as it was safe, and mollified the god +by a sacrifice; and having no victim, they killed one of Pomaré's +servants. The island then divided into hateful camps, and Moorea +joined the fray. The mission sided with the king, and the crews of two +English vessels fortified the mission, and with their modern weapons +helped the royal party to whip the other faction. Wars followed, the +mission was again invaded, the houses burned, and the missionaries, not +desiring martyrdom, fled to Australia, thousands of miles away. But two +remained, and kept at their preaching, and finally the genius of the +Clapham clerics triumphed. Pomaré ate the tabu turtle of the temple, +and a Christian nucleus was formed, headed by the sovereign. For years +a bloody warfare over Christianity distracted the islands, comparable +in intensity of feeling to that between Catholics and Huguenots in +France. The Christian converts were slaughtered by the hundreds, +and the pagans drove all the survivors to Moorea. After a season +the conquerors grew lonesome, and invited them to return and abjure +their false god, Ietu Kirito, whom they had defeated, and who by the +Christians' own statement had been hanged on a tree by the Ati-Iuda, +the tribe of Jews. Pomaré and eight hundred men landed from Moorea, +and with the missionaries began a song service on the beach, and +"Come, let us join our friends above," and "Blow ye the trumpets, +blow!" echoed from the hills. + +Couriers carried all over Tahiti word of the outrage to the gods, +and the incensed heathens rose in immense numbers and attacked the +hymners. Fortunately, says the missionary chronicle, the Christians +had their arms with them, and after prayers and exhortations by the +clergy, Pomaré led his cohorts, men and women; and by the grace of God +and the whites, with a few muskets, they smote the devil-worshipers +hip and thigh, and chased them to the distant valleys. + +Pomaré, directed by the now militant missionaries, sent a body of +gunmen to Tautira to capture the god Oro, whose principal temple was +very near where stood my kitchen. The iconoclasts, with the zeal of +neophytes, destroyed every vestige of the magnificent marae, and, +unwinding the many coverings of Oro, carried to the king the huge log +which had been the national god for ages. The king first used it in +his cook-house as a shelf, and finally for firewood. + +From then on the cross hecame the symhol of the new religion, +and those who had been most faithful to the old were the strongest +disciples. Until the French expelled the missionary-consul of England, +Pritchard, the missionaries virtually governed Tahiti; but with the +conflict of sects and the growing claims of trade, piety languished, +until now church-going was become a social pastime, and of small +influence upon the conduct of the Tahitians. The pastors were no longer +of the type of the pioneers, and with the fast decrease of the race, +the Tahitians were left largely to their own devices. Half a dozen +religions supported ministers from America and Europe in Papeete; +but there was no longer a fire of proselytizing, as all were nominally +Christians. In Tautira everybody went to the Protestant or the Catholic +church, the latter having a fifth as many attendants as the former. A +reason for this may have been that there was no French priest resident +at Tautira, and no Tahitian priests, whereas Tahitian preachers +abound. Also the chiefs were Protestants, and their influence notable. + +Ori-a-Ori, though busied in his official duties, and by nature a +silent man, assumed of me a care, and in time gave me a friendship +beyond my possible return to him. I sent to Papeete for a variety +of edibles from the stores of the New-Zealand and German merchants, +and spread a gay table, to which I often invited Choti and T'yonni, +who were my hosts as frequently. Ori-a-Ori every evening sat with me, +and numbers of times we read the Bible, I, first, reciting the verse in +French, and he following in Tahitian. His greatest liking was for the +chapters in which the Saviour's life on the seaside with the fishermen +was described, but the beatitudes brought out to the fullest his deep, +melancholy voice, as by the light of the lamp upon the low table the +chief intoned the thrilling gospel of humility and unselfishness. + +Never before had I appreciated so well the divine character of +Jesus or conjectured so clearly the scenes of his teaching upon the +shores of the Lake of Galilee. Excepting the tropical plants and the +eternal accent of the reef, the old Tahitian and I might have been in +Palestine with Peter and the sons of Zebedee and the disciples. They +were people of slender worldly knowledge, the carpenter's son knew +nothing of history, and ate with his fingers, as did Ori-a-Ori; but +their open eyes, unclouded by sophistication and complex interests, +looked at the universe and saw God. They lived mostly under the open +sky in touch with nature, dependent on its manifestations immediately +about them for their sustenance, and with its gifts and curses for +their concerns and symbols. + +Occidentals, who seldom muse, to whom contemplation is waste of time, +do not enjoy the oneness with nature shared by these Polynesians +with the sacred Commoner whose beatitudes were to bring anarchy upon +the Roman world, and destroy the effects of the philosophies of the +ablest minds of Greece. The fishermen of Samaria were gay and somber +by turn, as were the Tahitians, doing little work, but much thinking, +and innocent and ignorant of the perplexing problems and offensive +indecencies of striving and luxury. The air and light nurtured them, +and they confidently leaned upon the hand of God to guide and preserve. + +Thoreau's "Cry of the Human" echoed in the dark as the chief and I +chanted the idealistic desires of the friend of man: + +We talk of civilizing the Indian, but that is not the name for his +improvement. By the wary independence and aloofness of his dim forest +life he preserves his intercourse with his native gods and is admitted +from time to time to a rare and peculiar society with nature. He has +glances of starry recognition to which our salons are strangers. The +steady illumination of his genius, dim only because distant, is like +the faint but satisfying light of the stars compared with the dazzling +and shortlived blaze of candles. + +One evening when we had walked down to the beach to gaze at the +heavens and to speculate on the inhabitants of the planets, we sat +on our haunches, our feet lapped by the warm tide, and for the first +time I drew our conversation to a man who in a brief friendship had +won the deep affection of this noble islander. + +"Ori-a-Ori," I began, "in America, in the city where I lived, my +house was near a small aua, a park in which was a tii, a monument, to +a great writer, a teller of tales on paper. On a tall block of stone +is a ship of gold, with the sails spread; so she seems to be sailing +over the ocean. The friends of the teller of tales built this in in +his honor after he died. Now that writer was once here in Tautira--" + +Ori-a-Ori leaned toward me, and in a voice laden with memories, +a voice that harked back over a quarter of a century, said slowly +and meditatively, but with surety: + +"Rui? Is the ship the Tatto?" + +I had awakened in his mind recollections, doubtless often stirred, +but very vague, perhaps, almost mythical to him, after so long a +time in which nothing like the same experience had come to him. Yet +that they were dear to him was evident. They were concerned with +his vigorous manhood, though he was a youthful grandfather when +the Casco brought Robert Louis Stevenson to Tahiti to live in the +house of Ori. I reminded him of their exchanging names in blood +brothership, so that Stevenson was Teriitera, and Ori was Rui. Rui was +his pronunciation of Louis, as all his family in Tautira called the +Scotch author. Ori-a-Ori had known them all, his mother, his wife, +and his loved stepson, Lloyd Osborne. Nine weeks they had stayed in +his house, which the Princess Moë, Pomaré's sister-in-law, had asked +Ori to vacate for the visitors before he knew them, but which he was +glad he had done when they became friends. Ori and his family had +retained only one room for their intimate effects, and had slept in a +native house on the site of my own. On the wild lawn across the road, +before his home, Rui had given his generous feast, costing him eighty +dollars at a time when he was most uncertain of funds, and gaining +him the reputation of the richest man known to the Tautirans, the +owner of the Silver Ship, as the Casco was called by the Paumotuans, +and by Stevenson afterward. There were four or five Tahitians I knew +here who remembered the amuraa maa of the sick man, who had his own +schooner, his pahi tira piti; but only Ori retained the deep, though +misty, impression made by a meeting of hearts in warmest kinship. + +"Rui gave me knives and forks and dishes from the schooner to remember +him by," said the chief, abstractedly. "Tati, my relation, has them. I +have not those presents Rui handed me. Tati said that I ate with my +fingers, and that he was the head of the Teva clan; so I gave them +to him. Many papaa visit Tati at Papara. He is rich. Aue! I have not +the presents Rui put down on my table." + +I said over for him what Rui had written: + +I love the Polynesian; this civilization of ours is a dingy, +ungentlemanly business; it drops out too much of man, and too much +of that the very beauty of the poor beast ... if you could live, +the only white folk, in a Polynesian village, and drink that warm, +light vin du pays of human affection, and enjoy that simple dignity +of all about you.... + +Paiere, the adopted son of Ori, who was a boy when the Casco was at +Tautira, claimed a vivid remembrance of many incidents. He especially +had been impressed by the numbers of corks that flew in the house +and on the green; and when I invited him to a bottle of champagne, +he made hissing sounds and a plop to indicate that Rui had a penchant +for that kind of wine. + +"I used to fetch him oranges and mangoes, and climb for drinking nuts, +of which Rui was fond," said Paiere. + +Paiere was a deacon or functionary of the Protestant church, as was +Ori-a-Ori, and I went with the entire family to the Sunday evening +service. For weeks preparations and rehearsals for a himene nui, +a mammoth song service, had been agitating the village. Under my +trees the children gathered of late afternoons and imitated the +grown-up folk in their melodies. From the verandas and from the +church at night issued the peculiar strain of the himene, somehow +bringing to me, lying on my mat under the stars, a sense of fitness +to the prospect--the clear heavens, the purple lagoon, the wind in +the groves, and the low rumble of the surf. + +On the Sunday of the himene nui, I met the French priest as he tied his +horse by the door of the Catholic church. He was in a dark cassock or +gown, his long, black beard and a flat, half-melon shaped hat giving +him a distinctive appearance in the simple settlement. He was old, +and weary from his hot ride, but courteous as world-wide travelers are, +and at his request I dropped in on his service before the other. He sat +by the middle door, and the twenty or thirty of the congregation on the +floor at one end. They sang a himene, and he followed and corrected +them from a book, so that their method was formal. Congregational +singing not being customary in Catholic churches, it was probable that +in Tahiti they had had to meet the competition of the Protestants, +who from their beginnings in Polynesia had made a master stroke by +developing this form of worship in extraordinary consonance with the +native mind. + +The Protestant temple held a hundred and fifty people. It was a +plain hall, with doors opposite each other in the middle, and at +one end a slightly raised platform on which sat the pastor and half +a dozen deacons. The pastor was delivering his sermon as I entered, +he and all his entourage in black Prince-Albert coats. He had a white +shirt and collar and tie, but others masked a pareu under the wool, +and were barelegged. All wore solemn faces of a jury bringing in a +death-verdict. Paiere nodded to a volunteer janitor, who insisted +upon my occupying a chair he brought. + +Every one else was on the floor on mats, in two squares or separate +divisions. Babies lay at their mothers' extended feet, and others +ran about the room in silence. The pastor's sermon was about Ioba +and his tefa pua, which he scraped with poa, the shells of the +beach. He pictured the man of patience as if in Tautira, with his +three faithless friends, Elifazi, Bilidadi, and Tofari, urging him +to deny God and to sin; and the speaker struck the railing with his +fist when he enumerated the possessions taken from Ioba by God, but +returned a hundredfold. After he had finished, wiping the sweat from +his brow with a colored kerchief, the himene began. + +The only advance we have made since the Greeks is, in music. Possibly +in painting we have better mediums; but in philosophy, poetry, +sculpture, decency, beauty, we have not risen. We cure diseases +more skilfully, but we have more; in health we are crippled by our +cities and our customs. Our violins and pianos, our orchestras, +and symphonies, are our great achievements; but in these South Seas, +where they do not count, the people had evolved a mass utterance of +canticles more thrilling and, more enjoyable than the oratorios of +Europe. In these himenes one may see transfigured for moments the +soul of the Polynesian ascending above the dust of the west, which +smothers his articulation. + +A woman in the center of a row suddenly struck a high note, beginning +a few words from a hymn, or an improvisation. She sang through a +phrase, and then others joined in, singly or in pairs or in tens, +without any apparent rule except close harmony. These voices burst +in from any point, a perfect glee chorus, some high, some low, some +singing words, and others merely humming resonantly, a deep, booming +bass. The surf beating on the reef, the wind in the cocoanut-trees, +entered into the volume of sound, and were mingled in the emmeleia, +a resulting magnificence of accord that reminded me curiously of a +great pipe-organ. + +The himene was the offspring of the original efforts of the +Polynesians to adapt the songs of the sailormen, the national airs +of the adventurers of many countries, the rollicking obscenities and +drinking doggerel of the navies, and the religious hymns drilled into +their ears by the missionaries, English and French. Now the words and +the meanings were inextricably confused. A leader might begin with, +"I am washed in the blood of the Lamb," or, "The Son of Man goes +forth to war, a golden crown to gain; His blood-red banner streams +afar--who follows in his train?" But those striking in might prefer +such a phrase as, "The old white pig ran into the sea," or, "Johnny +Brown, I love your daughter," or something not possible to write +down. It was mostly in the old Tahitian language, almost forgotten, +and thus unknown to the foreign preachers. Sex and religion were as +mingled here as in America. + +The airs were as wild as they were melodious; here a rippling torrent +of ra, ra, ra-ra-ra, and la, la, la-la-la breaking in on the sustained +verses of the leaders; falsetto notes, high and strident, savage and +shrilling, piercing the thrumming diapason of the men; long, droning +tones like bagpipes, bubbling sounds like water flowing; and all +in perfect time. The clear, fascinating false soprano of the woman +leader had a cadence of ecstasy, and I marked her under a lamp. Her +head was thrown back, her eyes were closed, and her features set as +in a trance. Her throat and mouth moved, and her nostrils quivered, +her countenance glorified by her visions which had transported her +to the bosom of Abraham. + +The atmosphere rang as with the chimes of a cathedral, the +echoes--there were none in reality--returning from roof and tree, and +I had the feeling of the air being made up of voices, and of whirling +in this magic ether. The woman I observed would seem about to stop, +her voice falling away almost to no sound, and the prolonged drone +of the chorus dying out, when, as if she had come to life again, +she sang out at the top of her lungs, and the ranks again took up +their tones. I could almost trace the imposition of the religious +strain upon the savage, the Christian upon the heathen, like the +negro spirituals of Georgia, and I sat back in my chair, and forgot +the scene in the thoughts induced by the himene. + +The souls of the Tahitians were not much changed by all their outward +transformation. Superficial, indeed, are the accomplishments of +missionaries, merchants, and masters among these Maoris. The old +guard dies, but never surrenders; the boast of Napoleon's soldiers +might be paraphrased by the voice of the Maori spirit. Our philosophy, +our catechisms, and our rules have not uprooted the convictions and +thought methods of centuries. Bewildered by our ambitions, fashions, +and inventions, they emulate us feebly, but in their heart of hearts +think us mad. Old chiefs and chiefesses I have had confess to me that +they were stunned by the novelties, commands, and demands of the papaa +(foreigner), but that their confusion was not liking or belief. In his +youth, in the midst of these bustling whites, the Tahitian imitates +them and feels sometimes humiliated that he is not one of them. But +in sober middle age all these new desires begin to leave him, and he +becomes a Maori again. The older he grows, the less attractive seem +the white man's ways and ambitions, though pride, habit, and perhaps +an acquired fear of the hell painted by priests and preachers from the +distant lands keep him church-going. Gods may differ, but devils never. + +Choti and T'yonni and I spent an hour at my house before they walked +home to bed, and Choti read as a soporific, with a few bottles of +Munich beer, the "Sermon to the Fishes" of St. Antonius. As he read, +we heard the joyous stridence of an accordion in a hula harmony. The +upaupahura was beginning in the grove where Uritaata lived. The austere +St. Antonius had lectured long to the eels on the folly of wiggling, +to the pikes on the immorality of stealing, and to the crabs and +turtles on the danger of sloth. But: + + + "The sermon now ended, + Each turned and descended; + The pikes went on stealing, + The eels went on eeling; + Much edified were they, + But preferred the old way. + + + + "The crabs are back-sliders, + The stock-fish thick-siders, + The carps are sharp-set, + All the sermon forget; + Much delighted were they, + But preferred the old way." + + + + +Chapter XXV + +I meet a sorcerer--Power over fire--The mystery of the fiery +furnace--The scene in the forest--Walking over the white hot +stones--Origin of the rite. + +Walking to the neighboring district of Pueu with Raiere to see the +beauties of the shore, we met a cart coming toward Tautira, and one of +the two natives in it attracted my interest. He was very tall and broad +and proud of carriage, old, but still unbroken in form or feature, +and with a look of unconformity that marked him for a rebel. Against +what? I wondered. Walt Whitman had that look, and so had Lincoln; +and Thomas Paine, who more than any Englishman aided the American +Revolution. Mysticism was in this man's eyes, which did not gaze at +the things about him, but were blinds to a secret soul. + +Raiere exchanged a few words with the driver of the cart, and as they +continued on toward Tautira, he said to me in a very serious voice: + +"He is a tahua, a sorcerer, who will enact the Umuti, the walking +over the fiery oven. He is from Raiatea and very noted. Ten years ago, +Papa Ita of Raiatea was here, but there has been no Umuti since." + +"What brings him here now?" I asked. "Who pays him?" + +Raiere answered quickly: + +"Aue! he does not ask for money, but he must live, and we all will +give a little. It is good to see the Umuti again." + +"But, Raiere, my friend," I protested, "you are a Christian, and only +a day ago ate the breadfruit at the communion service. Fire-walking +is etené; it is a heathen rite." + +"Aita!" replied the youth. "No, it is in the Bible, and was taught +by Te Atua, the great God. The three boys in Babulonia were saved +from death by Atua teaching them the way of the Umuti." + +"Where will the Umuti be?" I inquired. "I must see it." + +"By the old tii up the Aataroa valley, on Saturday night." + +That was five days off, and it could not come soon enough for me. I was +eager for this strangest, most inexplicable survival of ancient magic, +the apparent only failure of the natural law that fire will burn human +flesh. I had seen it in Hawaii and in other countries, and had not +reached any satisfying explanation of its seeming reversal of all +other experience. I knew that fire-walking as a part of the racial +or national worship of a god of fire, had existed and persisted in +many far separated parts of the world. + +Babylon, Egypt, India, Malaysia, North America, Japan, and scattered +Maoris from Hawaii to New Zealand all had religious ceremonies in +which the gaining and showing of power over fire was a miracle seen and +believed in by priests and laity. Modern saints and quasi-scientists +had claims to similar achievements. Dr. Dozous said he saw Bernadette, +the seeress of Lourdes, hold her hands in a flame for fifteen +minutes without pain or mark, he timing the incident exactly by +his watch. Daniel Dunglas Home, the famous Scottish spiritist, was +certified by Sir William Crookes and Andrew Lang to handle red-hot +coals in his hands, and could convey to others the same immunity. Lang +tells of a friend of his, a clergyman, whose hand was badly blistered +by a coal Home put in his palm, Home attributing the accident to the +churchman's unbelieving state of mind. Crookes, the distinguished +physicist, took into his laboratory handkerchiefs in which Home had +wrapped live coals, and found them "unburned, unscorched, and not +prepared to resist fire." + +The scene of the Umuti was an hour's walk up the glen of Aataroa, +which began at our swimming-place. On Thursday Choti, T'yonni, and +I accompanied Raiere to the place of the tii, where the preparations +for the sorcery were beginning. We went through a continuous forest +of many kinds of trees, a vast, climbing coppice, in which all +the riches of the Tahitian earth were mingled with growths from +abroad. Oranges and lemons, which had sprung decades before from +seeds strewn carelessly, had become giant trees of their kinds; and +the lianas and parasites, guava, lantana, and a hundred species of +ferns and orchids, with myriad mosses, covered every foot of soil, +or stretched upon the trunks and limbs, so that exquisite tapestries +garlanded the trees and hung like green and gold draperies between +them. Mapé-trees prevailed, immense, weirdly shaped, often appalling +in their curious buttresses, their limbs writhing as if in torture, +suggestive of the old fetishism that had endowed them with spirits +which suffered and spoke. Utterly uninhabited or forsaken, there was +a bare trail through this wood, which, led by Raiere, we followed, +wading the Aataroa River twice, and I arriving with my mind deeply +impressed by the esoteric suggestiveness of the scene. + +On a level spot, under five ponderous mapé-trees, eight or ten men +of Tautira and of Pueu and Afaahiti were completing the oven. They +had dug a pit twenty-five feet long, eighteen wide, and five deep, +with straight sides. It had been done with exactitude at the direction +of the tahua, who was staying alone in a hut near by. The earth from +the pit formed a rampart about it, but was leveled to not more than a +foot's height. At the bottom of the umu had been laid fagots of purau- +and guava-wood, and on them huge trunks of the tropical chestnut, +the mapé. On the trunks were laid basaltic rocks, or lumps of lava, +boulders, and the stones about, as big as a man's head. The oven was +completed for the lighting. + +To the north stood a giant phallus of stone, buried in the earth, +but protruding six feet, and inclined toward the north. It was a +foot in diameter, and was carved au naturel as the Maori lingam and +yoni throughout Polynesia, and in India, where doubtless the cult +originated. Before the break-down of their culture, this stone had +been sprinkled with water, or anointed with cocoanut-oil, and covered +with a black cloth, as in Hawaii. The Greeks called their similar god, +Priapus, the Black-Cloaked. + +A trench had been made on the west side of the pit from which to ignite +the fuel, a torch lit by fire struck from wood by friction. I did +not see the lighting, which occurred Friday morning, thirty-six hours +before the ceremony. The ordinance was set for eight o'clock. I swam +in the river at five on Saturday, and lay down in my bird cage to be +thoroughly rested for the night. It was not easy to fall asleep. There +was a thicket of pandanus near my house, the many legs of the curious +trees set in the sand of the upper beach, and these trees were favorite +resort of the mina birds, which were as familiar with me as children +of a family, and in many cases impudent beyond belief. They were the +size of crows, and had bronzed wings, lined with white; but their +most conspicuous color was a flaring yellow, which dyed their feet and +their beaks and encircled their bold eyes like canary-colored rims of +spectacles. Their usual voice was a hoarse croak that a raven might +disavow, but they also emitted a disturbing rattle and a whistle, +according to their moods. They were thieves, as I have said, but one +was more audacious than the others. He would come into my open house +at daybreak, and perch on my body, and awaken me pecking at imaginary +ticks. He picked up a small compass by its chain and flew away with it. + +This particular wretch had learned to speak a little, and would say, +"Ia ora na oe!" sharply, but with a decided grackle accent. Despite +the irritating cacophony of the mina, I must have slept more than +an hour; for when I was suddenly awakened, the sun was almost lost +behind the hills. The talking mina was dancing on my bare stomach +and calling out his human vocabulary. + +I sprang up, my tormentor uttering a raucous screech as I tossed +him away. While I hastily cooked my supper, the colors of the hiding +sun spread over the sky in entrancing variety. I could not see the +west, but to the northeast were rifts of blood-red clouds edged with +gold over a lake of pearly hue, and to the right of it a bank of +smoke. Against this was a single cocoa on the edge of the promontory, +a banner my eye always sought as the day ended. Rising a hundred feet +or more, the curving staff upheld a dozen dark fronds, which nodded +in the evening breeze. + +There was the slightest chill in the air, unusual there, so that I put +on shirt and trousers of thin silk and tennis shoes for my walk, and +with a lantern set out for the tii. Along the road were my neighbors, +the whole village streaming toward the goblin wood. Mahine and Maraa, +two girls of my acquaintance, unmarried and the merriest in Tautira, +joined me. They adorned me with a wreath of ferns and luminous, +flower-shaped fungus from the trees, living plants, the taria iore, +or rat's-ear, which shone like haloes above our faces. The girls +wore pink gowns, which they pulled to their waists as we forded the +streams. Mahine had a mouth-organ on which she played. We sang and +danced, and the tossing torches stirred the shadows of the black +wold, and brought out in shifting glimpses the ominous shapes of the +monstrous trees. With all our gaiety, I had only to utter a loud +"Aue!" and the natives rushed together for protection against the +unseen; not of the physical, but of the dark abode of Po. In this +lonely wilderness they thought that tupapaus, the ghosts of the +departed, must have their assembly, and deep in their hearts was a +deadly fear of these revenants. + +When we approached the umu, I felt the heat fifty feet away. The +pit was a mass of glowing stones, and half a dozen men whom I knew +were spreading them as evenly as possible, turning them with long +poles. Each, as it was moved, disclosed its lower surface crimson +red and turning white. The flames leaped up from the wood between +the stones. + +About the oven, forty feet away, the people of the villages who had +gathered, stood or squatted, and solemnly awaited the ritual. The +tahua, Tufetufetu, was still in a tiny hut that had been erected for +him, and at prayer. A deacon of the church went to him, and informed +him that the umu was ready, and he came slowly toward us. He wore +a white pareu of the ancient tapa, and a white tiputa, a poncho of +the same beaten-bark fabrics. His head was crowned with ti-leaves, +and in his hand he had a wand of the same. He was in the dim light +a vision of the necromancer of medieval books. + +He halted three steps from the fiery furnace, and chanted in Tahitian: + + +O spirits who put fire in the oven, slack the fire! +O worm of black earth, +O worm of bright earth, fresh water, sea water, heat of the oven, red +of the oven, support the feet of the walkers, and fan away the fire! +O Cold Beings, let us pass over the middle of the oven! +O Great Woman, who puts the fire in the heavens, hold still the leaf +that fans the fire! +Let thy children go on the oven for a little while! +Mother of the first footstep! +Mother of the second footstep! +Mother of the third footstep! +Mother of the fourth footstep! +Mother of the fifth footstep! +Mother of the sixth footstep! +Mother of the seventh footstep! +Mother of the eighth footstep! +Mother of the ninth footstep! +Mother of the tenth footstep! +O Great Woman, who puts the fire in the heavens, all is hidden! + + +Then, his body erect, his eyes toward the stars, augustly, and without +hesitation or choice of footprints, the tahu walked upon the umu. His +body was naked except for the tapa, which extended from his shoulders +to his knees. The heat radiated from the stones, and sitting on the +ground I saw the quivering of the beams just above the oven. + +Tufetufetu traversed the entire length of the umu with no single +flinching of his muscles or flutter of his eyelids to betray pain or +fear. He raised his wand when he reached the end, and, turning slowly, +retraced his steps. + +The spectators, who had held their breaths, heaved deep sighs, but +no word was spoken as the tahua signed all to follow him in another +journey over the white-hot rocks. All but a few, their number obscured +in the darkness, ranged themselves in a line behind him, and with +masses of ti-leaves in their hands, and some with girdles hastily +made, barefooted they marched over the path he took again. When +the cortège had passed once, the priest said, "Fariu! Return!" and, +their eyes fixed on vacancy, six times the throng were led by him +forward and back over the umu. A woman who looked down and stumbled, +left the ranks, and cried out that her leg was burned. She had an +injury that was weeks in curing. + +At a sign from Tufetufetu, the people left the proximity of the pit, +and while he retired to his hut, several men threw split trunks of +banana-trees on the stones. A dense column of white smoke arose, and +its acrid odor closed my eyes for a moment. When I opened them, my +friends of our village were placing the prepared carcasses of pigs on +the banana-trunks, with yams, ti-roots and taro. All these were covered +with hibiscus and breadfruit leaves and the earth of the rampart, which +was heaped on to retain the heat, and steam the meat and vegetables. + +I examined the feet and legs of Raiere and the two girls I had come +with, and even the delicate hairs of their calves had not been singed +by their fiery promenade. + +Meanwhile all disposed themselves at ease. The solemnity of the Umuti +fell from them. Accordions, mouth-organs, and jews'-harps began to +play, and fragments of chants and himenes to sound. Laughter and +banter filled the forest as they squatted or lay down to wait for +the feast. I did not stay. The Umuti had put me out of humor for +fun and food. I lit my flambeau and plodded through the mapé-wood +in a brown study, in my ears the fading strains of the arearea, +and in my brain a feeling of oneness with the eerie presences of +the silent wilderness. I was with Meshack, Shadrach, and Abednego +in their glorious trial in Nebuchadnezzar's barbaric court. I was +among the tepees of the Red Indians of North America when they leaped +unscathed through the roaring blaze of the sacred fire, and trod the +burning stones and embers in their dances before the Great Spirit. + +The Umuti was not all new to me. Long ago, when I lived in Hawaii, +Papa Ita had come there from Tahiti. His umu was in the devastated +area of Chinatown, a district of Honolulu destroyed by a conflagration +purposely begun to erase two blocks of houses in which bubonic plague +recurred, and which, unchecked, caused a loss of millions of dollars. + +The pit was elliptical, nine feet deep, and about twenty-four feet +long. Wood was piled in it, and rocks from the dismantled Kaumakapili +church. The fire burned until the stones became red and then white, +and they, too, were turned with long poles to make the heat even. I +inspected the heating process several times. At the hour advertised in +the American and native papers, in an enclosure built for the occasion, +with seats about the pit, the mystery was enacted. The setting was +superb, the flaming furnace of heathenism in the shadow of the lonely +ruin of the Christian edifice. Papa Ita appeared garbed in white tapa, +with a wonderful head-dress of the sacred ti-leaves and a belt of the +same. The spectators were of all nations, including many Hawaiians. The +deposed queen, Liliuokalani, was a most interested witness. + +Papa Ita looked neither to the right nor left, but striking the ground +thrice with a wand of ti, he raised his voice in invocation and walked +upon the stones. He reached the other end, paused and returned. Several +times he did this and when photographers rushed to make a picture, +he posed calmly in the center of the pit, and then, with all the air +of a priest who has celebrated a rite of approved merit, he retired +with dignity. As he departed from the inclosure, the natives crowded +about him, fearfully, as viewed the Israelites the safety of Daniel +emerging from the lions' den. Did I not see the former queen lift the +hem of his tapa and bow over it? It was night, the lights sputtered, +and I was awed by the success of the incantation. A minute after +Papa Ita had gone, I threw a newspaper upon the path he had trod, +and it withered into ashes. The heat seared my face. The doctors, +five or six of them, Americans and English, resident in Honolulu, +shrugged their shoulders. They had examined Papa Ita's feet before the +ceremony and afterward. The flesh was not burned, but, well--What? I +confess I do not know. A thermometer held over the umu of Papa Ita +at a height of six feet registered 282 degrees Fahrenheit. + +There could be no negation of the extreme heat of the oven of +Tufetufetu. I had tested it for myself. No precaution was taken by +the walkers. I knew most of them intimately. There was no fraud, +no ointment or oil or other application to the feet, and all had not +the same thickness of sole. At Raratonga, near Tahiti, the British +resident, Colonel Gudgeon, and three other Englishmen had followed +the tahua as my neighbors had here. The official said that though his +feet were tender, his own sensations were of light electric shocks +at the moment and afterward. Dr. William Craig, who disobeyed the +tahua and looked behind, was badly burned, and was an invalid for +a long time, though Dr. George Craig and Mr. Goodwin met with no +harm. The resident half an hour after his passage tossed a branch on +the stones, and it caught fire. In Fiji, Lady Thurston with a long +stick laid her handkerchief on the shoulder of one of the walkers, +and when withdrawn in a few seconds it was scorched through. A cloth +thrown on the stones was burned before the last man had gone by. + +What was the secret of the miracle I had witnessed? How was it that +in all the Orient, and formerly in America, this power over fire was +known and practised, and that it was interwoven with the strongest and +oldest emotions of the races? That from the Chaldea of millenniums ago +to the Tautira of to-day, the ceremonial was virtually the same? Our +own boys and girls who in the fall leaped over the bonfire of burning +leaves were unpremeditatedly imitating in a playful manner and with +risk what their forefathers had done religiously. + +In Raiatea, the chief Tetuanui informed me, the membership of the +Protestant church of Uturoa walked on the umu, and embarrassed the +missionaries, who had taught them, as the Tautirans were taught, +that the Umuti was a pagan sacrament. + +In some islands it was called vilavilairevo, and in Fiji the oven +was lovu. According to legend, the people of Sawau, Fiji, were drawn +together to hear their history chanted by the orero, when he demanded +presents from all. Each, in the brave way of Viti, tried to outdo +the other in generosity, and Tui N'Kualita promised an eel that he +had seen at Na Moliwai. Dredre, the orero, said he was satisfied, +and began his tale. It was midnight when he finished. He looked for +his present at an early hour next morning. + +Tui N'Kualita had gone to Na Moliwai to hunt for the eel, and there, +as he sank his arms in the eel's hole, he found it a piece of tapa +that he knew to be the dress of a child. Tui N'Kualita shouted: + +"Ah! Ah! this must be the cave of children. But that doesn't matter +to me. Child, god, or new kind of man, I'll make you my gift." + +He kept on angling with his hand in the hole, and caught hold of a +man's hand. The man leaped back and broke his grasp, and cried: + +"Tui N'Kualita, spare my life and I will be your wargod. My name is +Tui Namoliwai." + +Tui N'Kualita answered him: + +"I am of a valiant people, and I vanquish all my enemies. I have no +need of you." + +The man in the eel's hole called out to him again: + +"Let me be your god of property." + +"No," said Tui N'Kualita; "the tapa I got from the god Kadavu is +good enough." + +"Well, then, let me be your god of navigation." + +"I'm a farmer. Breadfruit is enough for me." + +"Let me be your god of love, and you will enjoy all the women of Bega." + +"No, I've got enough women. I'm not a big chief. I'll tell you: +you be my gift to the orero." + +"Very well; and let me have another word. When you have a lot of ti +at Sawau, we will go to cook it, and will appear safe and sound." + +Next morning Tui N'Kualita built a big oven. Tui Namoliwai appeared +and signed to him to follow. + +"Maybe you are fooling me, and will kill me," said Tui N'Kualita. + +"What? Am I going to give you death in exchange for my life? Come!" + +Tui N'Kualita obeyed, and walked on the lovu. The stones were cool +under his feet. He told Tui Namoliwai then that he was free to go, +and the latter promised him that he and his descendants should always +march upon the lovu with impunity. + +When I returned to my bird cage at Tautira, I sat down and considered +at length all these facts and fancies. I believed in an all inclusive +nature; that the Will or Rule of God which made a star hundreds of +millions of times larger than the planet I had my body on, that took +care of billions of suns, worlds, planets, comets, and the beings upon +them, was not concerned in tricks of spiritism or materializations +at the whim of mediums or tahuas. But I had in my travels in many +countries seen inscrutable facts, and to me this was one. Nobody knew +what was the cause of the inaction of the fire in the lovu or umu. It +was not a secret held by anybody, or a deception. + +One might believe that the stones arrive at a condition of heat +which the experienced sorcerers know to be harmless. One might +conceive that the emotion of the walkers produces a perspiration +sufficient to prevent injury during the brief time of exposure; or +that the sweat and oily secretions of the skin aided by dust picked +up during the journey on the oven was a shield; or that the walkers +were hypnotized by the tahua, or exalted by their daring experiment, +so that they did not feel the heat. Even this theory might not account +for the failure to find the faintest burn or scorch upon those who +fulfilled the injunction of the sorcerers. + +The people of Tautira, from Ori-a-Ori to Matatini, had the fullest +confidence that Tufetufetu had shown them a miracle, and that it was +not evil; but to the American and European missionaries the Umuti +was deviltry, the magic of Simon Magus and his successors, This was +shown clearly in the statement of Deacon Taumihau of Raiatea, which +I give in Tahitian and English: + +E parau teie te umu a Tupua. + +Teie te huru a taua ohipa ra. + +Tapuhia te vahie e toru etaeta i te aano. E fatahia taua umu ra i te +mahana matamua e faautahia i te ofai inia iho i taua umu ra, eiaha +ra te ofai no pia iho i te marae, no te mea te marae ra te faaea raa +no te varua ino oia te arii no te po. + +E i te po matamua no taua umu ra e haere te mau tahua ora no te ao +nei oia Tupua e te mau pipi i Pihaiho i taua umu r ae hio te mau +varua taata no te po e haere ratou inia iho taavari ai; ia ore i puai +te auahi. + +E ei taua po ra, e haere ai hoe taata e hio i te rau Ti, ia i te oia +i te rau Ti i te hauti raa mai te hauti ie te matai rahi ra, te o +reira te raoere Ti e ofati mai, e tau mau rauti ra te afai hia i te +mahana e haere ai te taata na roto i taua umu ra e i te hora maha i +te popoi na e tutui hia'i taua umu ra. + +Ia ama taua umu ra, e ia puai roa te ama raa ei reira te tahua parau. + +Atu ai i te taata pihei te umu, ia oti taua umu ra i te pihei, haere +aturaa tupua i te hiti o te umu a parau tana a haere ai i reira. + +Teie tana parau: E na taata e tia i te hiti ote umu nei, pirae uri +e pirae tea. E tu'u atu i te nu'u Atua ia haere i te umu. + +Ei reira Tupua parau ai: E te pape e a haere! E te miti e a haere! + +Tairi hia'tura te rauti i te hiti o te umu raparau faahou, atura te +tahua. Te Vahine tahura'i e po'ia te tu'u raa ia o te avae iroto i +te umu, ei reira toa te mau taata i hinaaro i te haere na roto i te +umu ra e haere. Ai na muri iho eiaha ra te hoe taata e fariu imuri; +te taata hopea ra te tuo i te tahua e fariu; na fariu ia, mai te +mea e tuo te taata i ropu e fariu, tau roa te taata i ropu e fariu, +pau roa te taata i te auahi; na reira toa ia haere no te aano o te umu. + +Te i te huru o taua ohipa ra, e ohipa tiaporo te tumu ia i taua ohipa +a Tupua ra. + +E vahine varua ino teie tona ioa o te Vahine tahura'i. O pirae uri, +o pirae tea, i ore ratou ia parau hia. + +Aita e faufaa i taua ohipa ra. Eiaha Roa'tu orua a rave i taua ohipa +ra i te fenua Papa'a na e ama te taata i te anahi, no te mea e ere +i te ohipa mau, e ohipa varua ino no te po te reira te huru o taua +ohipa a Tupua ra. + +Tereira te mau havi rii i roa'a mai ia'u no tau a ohipa ra. Tirara. + +Taumihau tane. + +This is the word of the oven of Tupua. + +This is the way he did that thing. He cut three fathoms of wood. The +oven was three fathoms long and three wide. Heap up the wood the +first day, and carry by sea the stones for the oven. + +Do not take the stones of the marae, for the marae receives the evil +spirits, the spirit of the god of the night. + +The first night of the ceremony, the sorcerers of Raiatea, Tupua and +his kind, march around the oven. They seek the spirits of the men of +the night, and they go about the oven, but they do not light the fire. + +That same night one goes to find the sacred leaves of the ti. He +takes the leaves that float in the wind; those called raoere ti, +and which are used as medicine. He gathers the leaves and carries +them to the oven. + +The fire is lighted at four of the morning. When the fire is burning +brightly, and the oven is very hot, the sorcerer gives his assistants +charge of the fire, and instructs them as to their duties. + +When the flames are down, Tupua approached the oven, and before +walking upon it, he pronounced the following prayer. + +"O men about the oven! Piraeuri and Piraetea! Let us join the army +of the gods in the furnace!" + +Then, said Tupua: + +"O water, go in the fire! O sea water, go in the fire!" + +Waving the ti leaves on the border of the oven, Tupua said: + +"O Woman who puts the fire in the heaven and in the clouds, permit +us to go on foot over the oven!" + +Then those who wish to, pass onto the oven, one after another. If +but one falls all will be burned. The last must watch the sorcerer, +to return when he makes the sign. + +That is the way this deed, the deed of the devil, is done by Tupua. + +The woman called Vahine tahura'i is an evil spirit. + +Concerning Piraeuri and Piritea, Tupua would better not have spoken, +as it was a useless prayer. + +Do not introduce the sorcery in the land of the whites! + +Do not carry there this custom of lighting the oven! + +It is the work of an evil spirit of the night; this act of Tupua. + +For that reason I have said little of him in my story. I have spoken. + +--Taumihau, The Man. + + + + +Chapter XXVI + +Farewell to Tautira--My good-bye feast--Back at the Tiare--A talk with +Lovaina--The Cercle Bougainville--Death of David--My visit to the +cemetery--Off for the Marquesas. + +The smell of the burning wood of the Umuti was hardly out of my +nostrils before my day of leaving Tautira came. I had long wanted to +visit the Marquesas Islands, and the first communication I had from +Papeete in nearly three months was from the owners of the schooner +Fetia Taiao, notifying me that that vessel, commanded by Captain +William Pincher, would sail for the archipelago in a few days, +"crew and weather willing." I was eager for the adventure, to voyage +to the valley of Typee, where Herman Melville had lived with Fayaway +and Kori-Kori, where Captain Porter had erected the American flag a +century before, and where cannibalism and tattooing had reached their +most artistic development. But to sever the tie with Tautira was +saddening. Mataiea and the tribe of Tetuanui had won my affections, +but at Tautira I had become a Tahitian. I had lived in every way as +if bred in the island, and had fallen so in love with the people and +the mode of life, the peace and simplicity of the place, that only +the already formed resolution to visit all the seas about stirred me +to depart. + +The village united to say good-by to me at a feast which was +spread in the greenwood of the Greek god along the shore of the +lagoon. T'yonni and Choti, the student and the painter, were foremost +in the preparations of the amuraa ma, and many houses supplied the +extensive, soft mats which were put on the sward for the table, +while the ladies laid the cloth of banana leaves down their center, +and adorned it with flowers. + +Ori-a-Ori sat at the head and I beside him. His venerable countenance +bore a smile of delight in being in such jovial company, and he +answered the quips and drank the toasts as if a youth. I was leaving +early in the afternoon, and the banquet was begun before midday. We +had hardly reached the dessert when the accordions burst into the +allegro airs of the adapted songs of America and Europe. Between them +speeches of friendship were addressed to me by the chief and others, +and I sorrowfully replied. Choti gave the key-note to our mutual +regrets at my leaving by quoting the letter in Tahitian written by +Ori-a-Ori to Rui at Honolulu long ago: + +I make you to know my great affection. At the hour when you left us, +I was filled with tears; my wife, Rui Telime, also, and all of my +household. When you embarked I felt a great sorrow. It is for this that +I went up on the road, and you looked from that ship, and I looked +at you on the ship with great grief until you had raised the anchor +and hoisted the sails. When the ship started I ran along the beach to +see you still; and when you were on the open sea I cried out to you, +"Farewell, Louis"; and when I was coming back to my house I seemed to +hear your voice crying, "Rui, farewell." Afterwards I watched the ship +as long as I could until the night fell; and when it was dark I said +to myself, "If I had wings I should fly to the ship to meet you, and to +sleep amongst you, so that I might be able to come back to shore and to +tell to Rui Telime, 'I have slept upon the ship of Teriitera.'" After +that we passed that night in the impatience of grief. Towards eight +o'clock I seemed to hear your voice, "Teriitera--Rui--here is the hour +for putter and tiro (cheese and syrup)." I did not sleep that night, +thinking continually of you, my very dear friend, until the morning; +being then still awake, I went to see Tapina Tutu on her bed, and +alas, she was not there. Afterwards I looked into your rooms; they did +not please me as they used to do. I did not hear your voice saying, +"Hail, Rui"; I thought then that you had gone, and that you had left +me. Rising up, I went to the beach to see your ship, and I could not +see it. I wept, then, until the night, telling myself continually, +"Teriitera returns into his own country and leaves his dear Rui +in grief, so that I suffer for him, and weep for him." I will not +forget you in my memory. Here is the thought: I desire to meet you +again. It is my dear Teriitera makes the only riches I desire in +this world. It is your eyes that I desire to see again. It must be +that your body and my body shall eat together at one table: there is +what would make my heart content. But now we are separated. May God +be with you all. May His word and His mercy go with you, so that you +may be well and we also, according to the words of Paul. + +The chief listened throughout the message with his eyes empty of us, +conjuring a vision of the Rui who so far back had won his heart; +and when Choti had concluded, Ori-a-Ori lifted his glass, and said, +"Rui e Maru!" coupling me in his affection with the dim figure of +his sweet guest of the late eighties. + +The last toast was to my return. + +"You have eaten the fei in Tahiti nei, and you will come back," +they chanted. + +Raiere drove me in his cart to Taravao, where I had arranged for +an automobile to meet me. At Mataiea I was clasped to the bosom of +Haamoura, and spent a few minutes with the Chevalier Tetuanui. They +could not understand us cold-blooded whites, who go long distances +from loved ones. My contemplated journey to the Marquesas Islands +was to them a foolish and dangerous labor for no good reason. + +The trip to Papeete from Mataiea by motor-car took only an hour and +a half, and I was in another world, on the camphorwood chest at the +Tiare hotel, by five o'clock. + +"Mais, Brien, you long time go district!" exclaimed Lovaina. "What +you do so long no see you? I think may be you love one country vahine!" + +She rubbed my back, and said that Lying Bill, who had been at the +Tiare for luncheon, hoped to sail in two days. McHenry was to go +with us as a passenger on the schooner. Everybody knew everybody's +business. Lovaina suddenly bethought herself of a richer morsel of +gossip. She struck her forehead. + +"My God! how long you been? You not meet that rich uncle of David +from America? You not hear about that turribil thing?" + +She was on the point of beginning her narrative when the telephone +rang, and she was called away. I knew I would catch the before-dinner +groups at the Cercle Bougainville, and walked there, waving my hand or +speaking to a dozen acquaintances on the route. I climbed the steep +stairs, and at the first table saw Fung Wah, a Chinese immigrant +importer and pearl merchant, with Lying Bill, McHenry, Hallman, and +Landers, the latter only recently back from Auckland. I was immediately +aware of the sad contrast with Tautira. The club-room looked mean +and tawdry after so many weeks among the cocoas and breadfruits; the +floor, tables, and chairs ugly compared with the grass, the puraus, +the roses, and the gardenias, the endearing environment of that +lovely village. The white men before me had as hard, unsympathetic +faces as the Asiatic, who was reputed to deal in opium as well as +men and women and jewels. + +Yet their welcoming shout of fellowship was pleasant, despite a +note of derision for my staying so long away from the fleshpots of +Papeete. Pincher and McHenry were themselves lately arrived, but +evidently had learned of my absence from Lovaina. + +"What did you do? Buy a vanilla plantation?" asked McHenry. + +"Vanilla, hell!" said Hallman, whose harp had one string, "he's been +having his pick of country produce." + +Lying Bill said: + +"Well, you'd better pack your chest for the northern islands to-morrow +if you're goin' with the Fetia Taiao. We'11 be off for Atuona and +Hallman's tribe of cannibals nex' mornin'." + +I sat down and quaffed a Doctor Funk, and then inquired idly: + +"Where's David?" + +"David!" said Hallman. "For God's sake! don't dig into any graves!" + +"'E's a proper ghoul, 'e is," Lying Bill said sarcastically. "'E +thinks you're a mejum!" + +They all stared at me as if I were crazy, and I felt myself in an +atmosphere of mystery, in which I had broached a distasteful subject. I +wondered what it could be, but determined to know at all hazards, +reckoning on no fine feelings to hurt. + +"What is the secret?" I asked. "I've been away a few months, and +haven't heard the news. Has David run off with Miri or Caroline?" + +Was this what Lovaina was bursting with? + +They all remained quiet, until McHenry, with an oath, blurted out: + +"What the hell's the good of all this bloody silence? He's been away +and don't know." Then turning to me, he slapped me on the shoulder +and bawled: + +"We'll have a drink on you, O'Brien! David blew his brains out on +Llewellyn's doorstep just after we left for the Marquesas. Joseph, +bring one all around!" + +As if at his word Llewellyn came up the stairs. His countenance +was blacker than usual, his eyes more than half closed under their +clouds of brows. His shoulders drooped, and he thumped his stick +on the floor of the club as he came toward us. I felt certain that +he detected something in the air--a sudden cessation of talk or +a strained attitude on our part. He drooped heavily into a chair, +and banged his stick on his chair-leg. + +"Joseph," he called, "give me a Doctor Funk. Quick! No, make it +straight absinthe." + +Our own drinks were coming by now, and as the steward stirred about, +Llewellyn for the first time saw me. + +"Hello! Where did you come from? I thought you had gone back to +the States." + +"I've been past the isthmus," I replied, "and I haven't seen a +soul or heard a word in that time. What's this terrible thing about +young David?" + +Llewellyn's arm jerked convulsively toward his body and knocked his +glass from the table. + +"Joseph, for God's sake, bring me a drink! Bring me a double absinthe!" + +Joseph fetched the drink hurriedly, and stopped to pick up the +broken glass. + +"Mon dieu!" snapped Llewellyn, "you can do that afterward. Clear out!" + +Then he turned to me, and his eyes contracted into mere black gleams +as he asked: + +"Are you like all these others? By God! I was passing the opium den +here a few minutes ago, and I heard Hip Sing say something like that: +What have I to do with David? Was I responsible for his death? Any +man can come to your front door and kill himself. He was a friend +of mine. I didn't see much of him before he died; I was busy with +the vanilla." + +Llewellyn swept us with an inclusive glance. + +"Now you fellows have got to stop bringing up this David matter when +I come in here, or I'll quit this club." + +Hallman answered him, spitefully: + +"For Heaven's sake, Llewellyn, I never heard a living soul mention +David before, except at first, when there was so much curiosity. You're +bughouse." + +Fung Wah sat there, his small, astute eyes, in a saffron face, +fixed alternately upon the speakers, with an appraising grimace but +half-veiled. And as he sipped his grenadine syrup and soda water, he +admired his three-inch thumbnail, the token of his rise from the estate +of a half-naked coolie in Quan-tung to equality with these Taipans, +the whites of Tahiti. He may or may not have known what rumors there +were, but wanting the good-will of all influential residents in his +widening scheme for money-making, he tried to soften the asperities +of the interchange: + +"Wa'ss mallah, Mis' Le'llyn?" he asked. "Ev'ybody fliend fo' +you. Nobody makee tlouble fo' you 'bout Davie. My think 'm dlinkee +too muchee, too muchee vahine, maybe play cart, losee too muchee +flanc. He thlinkee mo' bettah finish." + +The words of Fung Wah were poison in the ears of Llewellyn. He leaned +forward and, raising his forefinger, pointed it at the Chinese. + +"Aue! You hold your damned yellow mouth!" he said huskily. "I'll +get out of the islands if you people keep up this any longer. I'm +sick of it all. That old liar Morton has made my good name black in +Tahiti. Everybody knows the Llewellyns. God damn him! I ought to have +killed him when he threatened me in the Tiare!" + +He took my untouched glass of Dr. Funk, and gulped the mixture, +nervously. Then he stood up unsteadily. + +"I don't get any sleep," he said, as if to himself, wearily. "I'm +going to my shop and lie down." + +He moved heavily down the stairs, and we breathed relief. + +"Too muchee Pernoud!" Fung Wah commented. + +"No, Fung Wah, you've sized 'im wrong," answered Lying Bill. "'E's +seein' things. 'E's put enough absint' down his throat, but 'he's +proper used to that. Let's take the matter up, an' consider it like ol' +Raoul, the lawyer, did when Murray killed the gendarme at Areu. David's +a young kid, an' wild, an' without any good home like you an 'me 've +got, an' runnin' round the Barbary Coast in Frisco, with those bloody +vampires there. 'Is uncle, Morton, is afraid 'e'll get the 'abit, +and wants to sen' 'im pretty far. Well, 'e remembers 'e was in Tahiti +forty years before, an' 'e been dealin' in a way in vanilla with ol' +Llewellyn's 'ouse 'ere. So 'e makes arrangements to put ten thousan' +dollars in with our friend that 's jus' gone out, and buy the kid +a interest in the business. Down comes David, and Llewellyn takes a +shine to 'im, an' soon they're thick as thieves. I see it all between +voyages. It's the cinema, the prize-fight, the upaupa, the women, an' +the bloody booze, day an' night. The vanilla business goes to hell +or to Fung Wah or some other Chink. David blows in all 'is bleedin' +capital, 'e busts in 'is 'ealth, an' may be, 'e's afraid o' somepin' +worse. 'E gets a bloody funk, an' goes to Llewellyn's desk an' gets +the gun. Then 'e writes a letter to 'is uncle in Frisco, an' goin' +out on the step, 'e blows out 'is brains. I'm on the schooner, so I +can't get any blame." + +Captain Pincher lit his pipe, and the glasses were refilled. + +McHenry attempted to pick up the thread of the tragedy, and began: + +"Me, too, I'm with Bill drivin' the Fetia for Nuka-Hiva when David +croaks himself. I drank as much as he did ashore, and I 'm no slouch +with the vahines; but I can hold my booze, I can." + +Lying Bill, with his drink down, and his pipe smoking, resumed, +with no attention to McHenry, and a withering glance at Fung Wah, +who was bored and walked over to the wall to glance at the barometer. + +"Well, there's David dead on the doorstep,--'e probably shot 'imself +about midnight,--and Llewellyn comes rollin' in a couple o' hours +later, an' stumbles over 'is bloody corpse. 'E's tired, but 'e gets a +lantern, an' sees the kid there, like a bleedin' wreck on the reef. It +fair knocks 'im out, an' 'e sits down on the same step, an' when the +kanaka comes in the mornin' to sweep up, 'e fin's the two o' them." + +Landers broke in: + +"Blow me! I'd 'a' hated to been that poor kanaka! But Doctor Cassiou, +the coroner, said it was suicide all right. Llewellyn's in the clear." + +"Of course, 'e 's in the clear, an' proper right," said Pincher, +irritatedly. "But when the letter's mailed to ol' Morton in Frisco, +'e comes down on the nex' steamer, an' carries a gun to kill Llewellyn, +an' tells everybody 'at Llewellyn dragged his nephew to 'ell, an' +M'seer Lontane takes 'is gun away when Llewellyn meets 'im in Lovaina's +porch, an' 'e pulls the gun, an' the Dummy stops 'im, and Llewellyn +grabs a knife off the table. Why, there's some reason for 'im comin' +in 'ere like a bloody queer un an' abusin' us." + +"Hell! that's all over!" said Hallman. "I'll tell you, Llewellyn's +always been sour. That's what that dam' German university highfalutin' +education does for you. It takes the guts out of you. I know. I never +had any of it. I'm a business man, by God! and I'm not crammed full +of Dago and other rot. All the Davids in the world could croak on my +doorstep, and if the police couldn't get me for it, I'd worry. I--" + +"Belay there!" Lying Bill shouted at Hallman. "You don't know +Llewellyn like I do. How about the tupapau, the bloody ghosts? You +forget that Llewellyn's a quarter Kanaka, an' born 'ere. All that +German university stuff ain't no good against the tupapau. Suppose +you were part Kanaka, an' the kid 'ad done what 'e did? I've seen +some things myself in these waters. That's what's eatin' Llewellyn, +an', believe me, it's goin' to kill 'im if he don't bloody well drink +'imself dead, first. I've seen too many Kanakas go that way when the +tahua got the tupapau after them. Llewellyn remembers what Lovaina said +ol' man Morton hollered when M'seer Lontane took the gun away from him +at the Tiare. 'All right!' hollered the uncle. 'All right! I'll leave +it to God!' The ol' boy loved that kid. 'E told Lovaina 'at 'is whole +bloody family was drowned when the Rio Janeiro went down off Mile Rock +in Frisco bay. The kid was 'is sister's only child, an' 'is uncle left +a thousand francs with the American consul for a proper tombstone on +'is grave in the cemetery. The ol' gent worshipped that kid." + +Our session was over, the dinner hour having come; but Hallman had +his final say: + +"If Llewellyn 's got the tupapau horrors, for God's sake! let him +stay away from the club. It's got so I hate to see him come in here, +looking like a death's head. He spoils my drink. I'd rather be in +the Marquesas with old Hemeury François, who is dyin' by inches of +the spell Mohuto 's put on him. They're alike, these Kanakas; they're +afraid of God and the devil, their own and the dam' missionary outfit, +too. They've got them coming and going. No wonder they're getting so +scarce you can't get any work done." + +The next day was all preparation. I would be gone several months, +the usual time for the voyage of a trading schooner to the Marquesas +and return to Papeete. I had no bother about clothes, as I was to +be in the same climate, and in less formal circles even than in +Tahiti. But I desired to carry with me a type-writer, and mine was +out of order. There was no tinker of skill in Papeete, and I had +about given up hope of repairs, when Lovaina said: + +"May be that eye doctor do you. He married one of those girl whose +father before ran away with that English ship and Tahiti girls to +Pitcairn Island, and get los' there till all chil'ren grow up big. He +has little house on rue de Petit Pologne." + +I found on that street in a cottage an American vendor of spectacles, +who by some chance of propinquity had married a descendant of a +mutineer of the Bounty. I surrendered my machine to him while I talked +with his wife, whose ancestors, one English, the other Tahitian, had +sailed away from here generations ago, after the crew had possessed +themselves of the British warship Bounty, and cast their officers +adrift at sea. She was a resident of Norfolk Island, and I wished I +had time to hear the full story of her life. But before we had come +to more than platitudes, the eye doctor had repaired the type-writer, +and called his wife to other duties. + +We had a going-away dinner at the Tiare hotel, Landers, Polonsky, +McHenry, Hallman, Schlyter, the tailor, and Lieutenant L'Hermier des +Plantes, a French army surgeon who was sailing on the Fetia Taiao to +the Marquesas to be acting governor there. Lovaina would not join +us, but after we had eaten an excellent dinner, she came in while +we drank her health. Llewellyn had been asked, but did not appear, +and McHenry said he was "very low" at five o'clock when he passed him +on the rue de Rivoli. Lying Bill preferred to spend his last evening +ashore with his native wife, or else wished to avoid the chance of +a headache on the morrow. + +We drank our last toasts at midnight, and I was averse to arising +when called at six by Atupu for the early breakfast and the last +disposition of my affairs. By nine o'clock I had put my baggage on +board the schooner, Lovaina taking me in her carriage, driven by the +Dummy. Vava was excited and puzzled by my return from the country, +and my sudden departure for the sea. While Lovaina stayed in the +garden of the Annexe, gathering a garland of roses for my hat, the +Dummy endeavored to narrate to me the tragedy of David. His own part +in preventing Morton from shooting, Vava showed in vivid pantomime +with a fervor that would have made a moving-picture actor's fame; and +when he indicated Morton's abandonment of revenge, though the Dummy +could have no knowledge of his words, he gestured with a dignity that +conveyed all the meaning of Lying Bill's relation of the incident. In +the expression and motion of the dramatic mute the aged uncle had +the sublimity of Lear. For Vava, in a mask and an attitude, by some +cryptic understanding encompassed the resignation and appeal to Deity. + +Lovaina had left me on the deck of the Fetia Taiao, as Captain Pincher +said that it would be an hour or two before he sailed. His crew +was having a few extra upaupas in the Cocoanut House. I sat on the +rail with Vava's dumb-show uppermost in my mind, and a strong desire +came to me to see the grave of David, and the tombstone erected by +his frenzied kinsman. I strolled up the Broom road to the Annexe, +and past Madame Fanny's restaurant to the garden of the Banque de +l'Indo-Chine, and continued westward to the cemetery. + +It was a lonely spot, that acre of God in these South Seas, for the +resting-place of one who had been so alive as that young American. The +hours of our last wassail, the bowl of velvet, and my waking by the +Pool of Psyche with the mahu and the Dummy beside me, were painted +on my brain. + +"There, but for the grace of God, goes John Wesley," said the exhorter +when he saw a murderer on the way to the gallows. + +Some such dismal thought assailed me as the lofty exotic cypress in +the center of the Golgotha met my eye; the tree of the dead over all +the world. I halted to view the expanse of mausoleums and foliage. The +rich had built small houses or pagodas to roof their loved from the +torrential rains, and, from my distance, only these buildings and the +trees could be seen; but as I was about to cross the road to enter +the gate, a figure approached. I drew back, for, of all men, it was +Llewellyn. He seemed to walk an accustomed course, observing none +of the surroundings, and with his head down, and his stick touching +the ground like the staff of a blind man. He turned in the entrance +and moved up the winding path until he came to a grave. There he +stood a few seconds irresolutely, and then stooped beside the white +stone. He leaned over, and appeared to read the inscription. Instantly +he turned, and started almost to run, but halted after a few paces, +and returned to the stone. I saw him put his hand to his forehead, +cover his eyes, and then he took off his hat and dropped upon his +knees, and bent nearly to the rounded earth. When he stood up again, +he kept the hat in his left hand, and, his cane tapping hard upon +the soil, came through the gate, and passed me, unseeing. There was +a look of terror on his face that affected me deeply. + +I crossed the road behind him, and walked swiftly to the grave. My time +was short. There I perceived that the tombstone had just been raised, +for the tools of the cemetery keeper were near by. On a plain, white +slab of marble was the name, Morton David, and the date; and below +these, an inscription: + + Vengeance Is Mine + I Will Repay. + +This was what had frozen that look upon the face of Llewellyn. The +tupaupa that should haunt him was this inscription. The old uncle +who had loved the dead man had well left it to God. + +I hurried away and back to the schooner. Lovaina was sitting in +her shabby surrey under the flamboyants, the Dummy at the horse's +head. Lying Bill was giving orders for raising his bow anchor, and +the loosening of the shore lines. McHenry and Lieutenant L'Hermier +des Plantes shouted to me to come aboard. Lovaina hugged me to her +capacious bosom, the Dummy stroked my back a moment, and I was off +for the cannibal isles. + + + +IONEI OE! + +A letter from Fragrance of the Jasmine, to Frederick O'Brien, at +Sausalito, California: + +"Ia ora na oe! Maru: + +"Great sorrow has come to Tahiti. The people die by thousands from a +devil sickness, the grippe, or influenza. It came from your country +as we were rejoicing for the peace in France. The Navua brought it, +and for weeks we have died. Tati is dead. Tetuanui is dead. They cannot +lay the corpses in the graves, they fall so fast. There are no people +to help. The dogs and pigs have eaten them as they slept their last +sleep in their gardens. Now the corpses are burning in great trenches, +and drunken white sailors with scared faces burn them, and drive the +dead wagons crosswise in the streets. The burning of our loved ones is +affrighting, and the old people who are not dead are in terrible fear +of the flames. It is like the savages of the Marquesas in olden times. + +"Your dear friend Lovaina was the first to die of the hotahota, as +some call this sickness. Lovaina had a bad cough. The man who looks +after the engines of the Navua went to see her, and she kissed him on +the cheek. Then the good doctor of Papeete who visits the ships was +called to see her. Maru, could that doctor have brought the hotahota +to Lovaina? She was dead in a little while. + +"Lovaina had good fortune all her life, for, being the first one +to die, she was buried as we have always buried our people. All of +Tahiti that was not ill walked with her coffin. Oh, Maru, I wept for +Lovaina. Vava, whom you whites call the Dummy, is dead, too. When +Lovaina was taken to the cemetery, Vava drove her old chaise with her +children in it; and then, Maru, he was seen again only by a Tahitian +who had gone to bathe in the lagoon because the fever was burning +him. You know how Vava always took the old horse of Lovaina at sunset +to swim in front of the Annexe. This man who was ill said that he +saw Vava ride the horse into the sea, and straight out toward the +reef. Vava signed farewell to the man with the fever. The man stayed +in the lagoon to cool his body until the sun was below Moorea, and +your friend, the Dummy, did not return. Maru, we loved dear Lovaina, +but to Vava she was mother and God. + +"It is strange, Maru, the way of things in the world. The lepers who +are confined towards Arue were forgotten, and as nobody went near them, +the hotahota passed them by. + +"I cannot write more. O Maru, come back to aid us. It is a long time +since those happy days when we walked in the Valley of Fautaua. + +"Ia ora na i te Atua! + +"NOANOA TIARE." + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11400 *** |