Mystic Isles of the South Seas.

n the South Seas-Her strange ménage-The Dummy-A one-sided t

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 frequ

du Remparts. It was a one-storied cottage, with broad verandas, half hidden in a luxuriant garden at the point where two streets come t

51compelling charm of Tahiti, the quick possession of the new-comer by his environment, and his unconsc

hrough passengers departing in angry mood because their anticipated hula dance had been a disappointment-wickedness shining feebly through cotton gowns when they had expected n

Frisco had Tahiti skinned a mile for the real thing," and Steven

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,

ep 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.

that drew one irresistibly to her, and her immense, shapely hand enveloped one's own with a pressure

being American; but she was all Tahitian in her traits, her simplicity, her devoti

y 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 page

f her immense and regal body. She hesitated-I was almost a stranger,-and in a vain eff

ou see me like

er, though why I don'

t American B

vaina, with the faintest air of co

he 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. Lovai

ll day, mos' night. We jus' move in. Ban's playin' from war-ship, all merry drinkin', dancin'. Never such g

ike 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, jasmi

ower in America as wonde

She raised her beautiful, big hand, and

rl put that on pareu an' on dress, by an' by make whole body jus'

llers. 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

gainvillea and stephanotis vines, which formed a maze for the filtering of the sunlight and the dimming of the activities of the streets. O

overs 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 pain

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

ad 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

tel 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 o

there, suffered intensely at first from embarrassment, but in time forgot their squeamishn

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 kitche

alads, 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

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 w

dents, 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 roa

ng of hostesses. Stories that would be frowned down in many a man's club were laughed at lightly over the page 59table, but not when tourists, new-comers, were pre

What you think? To give

schooners came in a drove from the Paumotu atolls, and gold and s

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 cavia

f the tongue was discomfiting the roisterers, who spoke it haltingly. I heard an apt interjection on the pa

in bank-notes. She assented readily, but when several days later I mentioned the money she struck her head i

e 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

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 fou

is 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 cab

riends, 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 f

el encompassing Tahiti. One heard of them from every man who had dropped upon page 62this beach. Once in Mukden, Manchuri

t that stony-faced lady looked a good deal like Temanu of Lovaina's. Then I had to have the whole sto

nts, many girls came and went in her house. Some have married, and some have gone away without a

herself,

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 wi

andsome, straight, mother of four children, obligin

babies?"

reat 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 mark

white men, men of distinction here; sea-rovers, mercha

t 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

urteenth of July, the anniversary of the fall of the Bastile, and the governor named her for the month. Sh

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 o

"They die for him, he so good to them. He help everybodee.

l color in Tahiti, and her eyes had a glint of red in their brown. She was exquisite in her silken peignoir, a

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 page 65southern hemisphere, the Milky

pareus, kept out the blazing sun, and lent a little privacy at night. All the furniture was a chair, a dressi

he room with the silence of the accustomed barefooted. Imagine her in her gayest gown of rose color, a garland of hinano-flowe

ven 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 upo

eauty. Her face was tear-stained, and a deep weariness was up

avec moi?" she in

repeated. "Why what ha

ping-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

t I had not known of her presence, and with

a friend in England drew a

o 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 assignati

ir 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 to

ng an order for apéritifs to

nd bitters? Be sure it's Angostura, and lemon and soda, and two Ma

. To Sen knew no English, and Temanu onl

he?" she beg

ocktail! Vous savez cocktail, à la mode des a

se girl held up all her fingers and added two more. "Vou

the-way place when they do in Paris. Listen! Dooze is two in French," and she held up two p

out 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 Californi

n Lovaina's day-

to Fany 3

fer's restaurant. Her first name is Fanny, and Atupu page 69thinks all men not English, French, or

a said

le. 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 tu

ess, 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.

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 vo

n Argentine training-ship, came to port with a hundre

nto 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

o 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 be

ack-eyed girl?" They had no aid

when we are here?" they asked. And Juan

with tables, corks page 73hitting the ceiling, glasses clinking, and Spanish, French, English, and Tahitian confused in the chatter and th

s 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

ina passed the shining, new pieces from one hand to the other, enjoying their glitter and sound. S

! Forty dollars lime squash by himself." She opened her purse, and poured out more gold. With it fell a cloth

to see if good luck. What you think? Argentinas come in nex' day. I don' kno

, and the laughing, starry eyes of Lovaina, with a tiarè-blossom over her ear, or a chaplet of those flower