FIJI-NEW ZEALAND EXPEDITION 345 
of which is European, mostly French. Papeete, the capital, has 
a population of three thousand six hundred. The main products 
are oranges, copra, pearls, vanilla, beche-de-mer (big holothurians) 
cotton, fungus and phosphate, according to my notes taken from 
‘‘Stewart’s Handbook of the Pacific.’’? Cook said that ‘‘the 
natives surpass all others in physical beauty.’’ The islands have 
been described by many writers from Captain Cook down to 
Frederick O’Brien and pictured by many artists. 
Impressions of Tahiti from the ship’s deck: Pretty white 
schooners against the dark green of the trees and deep shadows 
of the water front. Bad smells from the huge piles of copra 
stored in the wharf ware-houses. French idlers along the water 
front with long pallid faces. Chinaman with his family in a 
two-wheeled cart. Native men with magnificent physiques, more 
alert looking than at Rarotonga. The women also beautiful, 
with lustrous eyes and skin almost of our University color ‘‘old 
gold.’’ All degrees of racial admixtures, but the people generally 
a light brownish yellow or golden tan. Pretty houses embowered 
in flowers and over-shadowed by palms of various sorts. A 
water cart laying the dust and cooling the streets along the 
water front. 
While ashore we visited the cemetery of neat graves, orna- 
ments of fancy bead-work wreaths, crosses and hemispheres of 
glass enclosing flowers often reduced to dust. There was but 
one American buried there, so far as we saw, a sailor from a 
United States vessel. It was very hot in the sun but the streets 
were cool and quiet everywhere. We saw a number of white 
babies with Tahitian nurses, often quite neat and attractive look- 
ing women. 
Looking back towards the wharf we could see the S. S. Tahiti, 
our floating home, standing out clear in the sunshine, the fan- 
tastic peaks of Moorea purple in the distance across the intense 
blue of the ocean. Further inland we saw very populous Chinese 
houses with prosperous looking truck gardens. Native homes 
were thatched with palms and walled with reeds. People every- 
where greeted us courteously. The Island of Oahu may be as 
pretty as Tahiti, but it has been too much modernized by the 
American hotels and various enterprises to retain its original 
charm; there is much more bustle and feverish movement than 
at Tahiti, where the ever-lasting calm of the real sleepy tropical 
island is unspoiled as yet by the turbulent world. 
