Mystic Isles of the South Seas.

visit to the Bougainville-Skippers and merchants-A song

e 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,

litics 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

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

n the car. He was fined a franc, which he would take from his pocket page 88then and there, but must wait many days to pay, until circumlo

le douane, "pas maintenant. No h

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, a

he language, or Tahitian. I speak both. Why d

the consul's belief in the préposé's sinister ancestry and in eternal punis

sides of questions already page 89settled 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

se gamblers in that Bougainville joint! They'l

iti. 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 page 90soul with cooling drinks.

t. 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

mily from secret quarters in the rear, and father, mother, an

ee 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 m

her's large furniture shop. One could be going along the street in full view of important and respectable people, and suddenly disappear.

ughty 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

inese 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

roup of habitués, When I reached the balcony I saw a group of Frenchmen at a table who were

ut suddenly I heard them humming the air of "

to my ears, and later, "Wayd'

turned my head away. It would not do to ge

I recognized, though they sa

me; then one of the merrymakers came over to me. I had a flee

ime, we sing your songs, and m

eneral, fresh-faced, glowing and with a soul for music and for joy. He was so smiling,

this day," said M. Brault, "and m

ould but accept the champagne he ordered. page 93"I am great satis

toasted the two republics; Lafayet

tek!" said

f Tahiti. He was the creator of Tahitian melodies, as Kappelmeister Berger was of Hawaiian. For our delectation Braul

un exce

it rien dans

naissait q

anter, rire

isciple d

iait sa p

crifiait

rs de son

FR

yeux, d'hum

même un p

reux Ro

ple est for

t eu de l

gouverné

egrets son

t mort, n'en

e 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

I least of any; so we la-la-la'd through it, and when we parted for luncheon, we went down the cr

imait tant l

joyeux, la

rdent de

a plus heu

urs que l

sein de so

que l'

odeste toi

the club, Hallman went there but seldom, and only to talk about pearl-shell, copra, and the profits of page 95schooner 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 Tahitia

t 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 worl

guesses at the c

r table, with his glass of Pernoud. "Germany and England have come to

Frenchman asserting vehemently that France would aid England if necessary, or to get back Alsace-Lorraine. There were gatherings

France would be defeated. After generations of rule by France, the vanquished stil

t his," said a ch

ir best peignoirs, and several times donned shoes and stockings to go to the quay. Passengers for San Francisco who had packed their trunks had unpacke

me of the page 97larger business houses had no signs to indicate the firms' names or what

e 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 fi

er, 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 st

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.

owed exactly how the blow was struck. He brought down the cane so vi

hot glance from the melancholy eyes under his black th

hed sourly,

k 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 fr

sion he had made. The others said not a word of comment, and it may have been an often-t

put the page 99leaves over him?" I

grinne

If he was alive, the leaves didn't finish him, and if he was croaked, it didn't matter. I was obligin' a fr

leaned over the table a

ve 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

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 concoc

ore he go to die in les ?sles Marquises," page 100remarked Levy, the m

eneral' take," said

lonsky said as he claimed his game of écarté against Tati, the chief of Papara district.

e 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 ap

ed close to him at Atuona all the time he was there till he died. He was bughouse. I don't know much ab

greatest painter of this period, and his pictures are bringing high prices page 101now, an

ds 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

American consul. It exactly ministered to the comforts of a demanding page 102European 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-ca

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 onl

ter guards

to plu

o by

en household. His butler was a Javanese, his chef a Quan-tung Chinese, his valet a Japanese, his chambermaid a Martinique page 1

of Papetoa

veranda McHenry and Llewel

t me on the streets of Papeete. She wouldn't dare to in public until I gave her the high sign. You're a

s his ancestors. Although extremely aristocratic in his attitude toward strangers, his nativ

t hadn't been for that same old lady of yours, you'd have

I'm not goin' to sacrifice my dignity as a white man. If ye let go everyth

of a man of that name, and that he owned a little cutter which traded to Raiaroa, on which

arrowly. 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

-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 wa

w you had?"

. My father was a curate in Devon. Well, we pulled through all right, because here I am, and the cop

mine. He was very ingen

with your pulling through and savin

well scared, and I meant what I said about being sorry. But

e 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

er-girl of Raiaroa who waited for him, and a new baby. He had been only a

ven years old, and the Kellogg, too, high up in her teens, if not twenties. Their skippers we

those days. There'd be only one pipe among a dozen kanakas, and each had a draw or so

ose to the quay in front of the club. He gave an order to th

the mate, "and I will

challenge. Stores were deserted

k, and walked to the forecastle head, where t

ipper, a foot from

e a crime; he would go to jail a

ter tau

whip you so your mother wouldn't know you, y

n the quay and in the embowered street. He looked down at the deck, and he caught sight of a capstan-bar,

yes to the black brow of the s

bout that cannon!" sai

nd the Raratonga stevedores on other vessel

garded him balefully, muttered a few words, and returned to the club for a Dr. Funk. Th

or part of the drink's name made it seem almost like a prescription, and often, when amateurs so

out. Why, he kept people alive on that mi