Mystic Isles of the South Seas.

the Master of the Revel; Kelly, the I.V.W., and His Himene-The

s on the bamboo table. One might have thought the feast would have been spread on soft mats on the sward, as

ious in taste, but raw fish is tough and at first hard to chew unt

e for half a day. The sauce was made by pouring a cup of seawater over grated cocoanuts and after

k of the stream which flowed past the bower the oven had been made. page 141The 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

es. As usual, the beverages were lavishly dispensed, beginning with Scotch whisky as an appetizer, and following with claret, s

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, page 142very 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 b

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 worl

down, until dark. When they did not eat, they drank. Occasionally one of us slipped down and took his place with them. I sat wi

r 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 intel

nched. Every town I went to in the United States I denounced the police and the rotten government, and they throwe

tian 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

ne the glory! H

ne the glory! r

s vers

a bum! Hallelu

us a hand-out! To

g the sacred lines, one of whi

you work, as

we work when ther

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

e 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 b

under the beetling brows w

hose 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 understoo

two francs a bottle, and so a conscientious native had been delegated to give it out slowly. He had the barrel containing the

ia!" "More beer

e inexorable mas

accordion, and forth wen

often recurred to the song of Kelly. Having no g, l, or s among the thirteen l

m a boom! Hahray

andow! To tave ut

ing been two generations in Tahiti, they knew his history. They now and again ca

au tiar

ri te a

no Tapor

ear, some

es on the li

t so the jui

ities 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 constan

bout a hundred feet away, dancing or listening with delight. They

land by the lagoon and sea-beach. In that twelve leagues there are a succession of dales, ravines, falls page 147precipices, and brooks, as picturesque as the l

re the swaying palms dipped their boles in the ultramarine, and bulky banana-plants and splendid breadfruit-trees formed a temple of shadow and c

of his farm, and more for sociability than gain. He was in a depressed and angry mood, for one o

oth had been in these

what he owed me, and the next I knew he was shutting out the light with his fists. I will go to

and what did you

he hadn't a sou marquis. I needed a little money to-day, and meeting page 148him up the road, I demanded my account. He is thirty yea

ck a dirty book, a tattered register of his guests. He turned a number of pages-there were only a few

icent gesture. "Let the whole

I looked over the register. Hardly any one had neglected to write beside

h a hearty word for the host, and "This is the most b

the "Lotus Eaters," or Omar, but Englishmen had written their own. English university men are generous poetasters. I

When Moorea had only sail from Tahiti, the blackguards did not come, page 149but now the

is westward until he went

r way back to

to the bleedin' beach-combers. If I meet t

hed roof of our bowe

rar

Tamari

L

beer had been securely locked against the needs of the morrow, and t

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

had plucked ferns and flowers for wreaths. Without such sweet treasures upon them they page 150have no festal spirit. There were

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 man

e, but needed no artificial spirits to spur the

e upaupa veiled

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

eeks a coc

d commenced an improvisation in song about him. She praised his descent from his mother, his strength, his capacity for rum, and especially his p

e nautch, and minstrelsy combined. So rapid was the movement, so fast the music, so strenuous the singing, an

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 meth

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 ce

tly modeled, a tawny Juno. Her hair was in two plaits, wound with red peppers, and on her head a crown of tuberoses. She wore

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 spr

table, and she came to us. She put her hand on Landers. The big trader, who was dr

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

ly 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

ers 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 mos

re, and I, though with only a Celtic urge and a couple of years in Hawaii to teach me, faced Temanu. The bandsmen could not rem

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

leep. From the bower the song and music rang out continuou

d 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

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,

ts stood while we ate and drank. We, guests in their own comfortable house,

native rank. You cannot afford to let

nry

in his stall, and he's all right;

, 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

stors and their flocks of the various competing page 155churches passed on their way to services, the band was keyed up in G, and was parading the streets, so that th

Moorea, glimpsed the grove of Daphne and McTavish's bungalow at Urufara, and saw the heights, the desolated castle, t

ver the mountains of Tahiti, and the green carpet of the hills fell from the clouds t

oorea, and deposited her in the hold. She emerged fresh from her nap, and apparently ready for an upaupa that night.