Mystic Isles of the South Seas.

nt scenery from the sea-Island of fairy folk-Landing and preparation for the fea

chooner 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 land

ing glasses, converse, Rabelasian tales, and flirting with the gay Tahitian women in the cinemas or at dances. There was a tolerance, page 128almost a standard, of such actions among the men of T

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 mora

r 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 tigh

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

ds. 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 o

ch 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. T

ail 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 resista

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. T

ied 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

uickly, 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 f

ns 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 pag

written in honor of the junketing, and this they played scores of times before we set foo

ssionaries, and these they termed himenes; so that any song is a himene, and there is no other word for v

e nei

e no o

te

paah

t

upi i

ma

a t

no

ua

no oe t

pii r

arii Tahit

e pia aro

i ta oe Ta

i. pa

ult to translate these intimate and slang phrases as it would be to put "Yankee Dood

ing joyf

ney over

nd agreeable thing

it! That

use it i

ld on

O, Love, c

tian c

to

all dri

t our

t them

Tahitian

hem; 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 d

ahitians have curious variations of European and American airs, of which they adapt many, carrying the page 134thread of them, but differentiating enough to

istinctively 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 charmi

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

ighty Titans of old, into gigantic fortresses, which the lightnings, temblors, and whirlwinds of the eons had page 135rent into ruins. Its heights were not green like

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 w

ys; 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 a

h colors of the tropics could furnish. The artist had spilled all his shades of green upon the palette, and so delicately blended

e 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

ning surf break gently on the beach. Along this wall of coral, hidden, but charted by its crown of foa

ich 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 ap

-which, if one forgot the words, was an especially carnal melody,-we tramped, singing a parody

bunches of scarlet oleander, and decorated with a deep fringe woven of hibiscus fiber. The roof was a thatch of pandanus a

slippery for bottles and glasses. A bench ran on both sides, and underfoot was the deep-green vegetation that covers every foot

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 wa

, 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 mar

the roots of the palm partly covered by the salt water, and partly by a tangle of lilac marine convol

hite and vari-colored flowers of stone, of fans and vases and grotesque shapes, huge sponges and waving bushes and stunted trees

e. 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