TAHITI 



875 



House Built by Europeans. 



a residence near papeete, the only town in tahiti. this is a th.\tched dwelling, with a porch and far 



better fitted for comfortable living than the native house. 



To such a people, who welcomed the 

 white man with every hospitality, his 

 weapons, liquors and religion soon 

 proved bewildering. By the time the 

 missionaries arrived in 1797 they found 

 English firearms aiding a single chief 

 to subdue his neighbors with the new 

 European idea of kingship. Throwing 

 in their lot with him, as probably their 

 strongest protector, they aided this am- 

 bition. Tahitian history during the 

 first 30 years of European influence can 

 perhaps be best epitomized by a com- 

 parison of the population of 150,000 

 which Cook found with the population 

 of about 10,000 which survived. Step 

 by step the resentful nobles were driven 

 back, measles took a frightful toll, and 

 in 1815 the chief who had been fortunate 

 enough to command gunpowder estab- 

 lished a dynasty which continued until 

 the island was finally taken by the 

 French after several decades of squab- 

 bling by various European interests. 



During the heyday of the whaling 

 industry Papeete was a popular rendez- 

 vous. Herman Melville's "Omoo" de- 

 scribes his adventures in Tahiti as an 

 escaped mutineer from a whaleship that 

 touched there, although it is far less 

 creditable than his more famous "Typee" 

 and "Moby Dick." As South Sea 

 trade in copra, shell and pearls devel- 

 oped, the port began to assume impor- 

 tance as its principal center. The Mar- 

 quesas, the Paumotus or Law Archi- 

 pelago, the Gamblers, the Austral 

 group, Manahiki, Easter Island, and 

 other less known palm-clad and surf- 

 beaten islands came to support a fleet 

 of picturesque schooners of the "Cur- 

 rency Lass" type Stevenson loved so 

 well to describe. Papeete beach, where 

 the sorry adventurers of "The Ebb 

 Tide" pooled their misfortunes and 

 Captain John Daxds performed for his 

 breakfast on just such a vessel as may 

 be seen there in numbers today, is elo- 



