FIJI-NEW ZEALAND EXPEDITION 343 
Seas. Of course this might have been expected as Tahiti is a 
French possession and Papeete is one of the oldest settlements 
in the South Pacific. The houses were mostly wooden and typically 
French in architecture with ‘‘French blinds’’ and a good deal 
of filigree work about them; many of them being embowered in 
tropical trees and flowering plants. Back of the street along the 
water front are others parallel to it, all of them very well shaded 
and giving the impression of somnolent coolness. 
The people are much like those of Rarotonga, but with a con- 
siderable admixture of Chinese and European blood. Some of 
the native men are strikingly handsome and the children are 
often beautiful. Occasionally one sees a really pretty woman. 
Not so many of them were given to over-weight as those we met 
at Rarotonga. The people have the dolce far mente air that re- 
minds one of southern Italy. 
We returned to the steamer about six o’clock in the evening 
just in time to see an exquisite sunset over the placid harbor 
and the peaks of Moorea beyond. It was a scene comparable 
with a gorgeous sunrise we saw off the island of St. Vincent in 
the West Indies four years before; a picture never to be for- 
gotten. In the evening some of us went ashore to engage in the 
metropolitan whirl of night-life in Papeete but found it not so 
very exciting after all. We were interested in noting that the 
American ice cream cone had made its appearance in this far 
away island. 
The law requires the steamers of the Union Line to remain at 
Papeete at least twenty-four hours, so we had almost all of the 
next day, August 23, for adventures ashore on this island, per- 
haps the most beautiful in the vast expanse of the South Pacific. 
Certainly it is the most written about and is pictured more fre- 
quently than any of the others. And indeed it deserves its repu- 
tation as nothing that I have seen could surpass its loveliness of 
high purple mountains, deep gorges, wealth of vegetation and 
encircling coral reefs beyond which roared the breakers; and 
still further out the deep calm of the blue sea. Mr. and Mrs. 
Welch and I hired an auto for an around-the-island ride which 
afforded many entrancing vistas. 
We saw Cook’s Monument marking the spot where that great 
navigator took observations of the transit of Venus in 1769. 
This illustrates the influence of the stars on terrestrial affairs, 
for it was at the instance of the Royal Astronomical Society that 
