BOMBARDMENT OF PAPEETE 



By A Tahitian of High Rank 



[An article in the December American Forestry on "Tahiti," the French possession in the 

 South Pacific, by E. T. Allen, referred briefly to the recent bombardment of the island port, Papeete, 

 by the German cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau (later sunk by the British in an engagement 

 near the Falkland Islands). This article attracted so much attention that Mr. Allen was asked 

 to contribute a further description of the German attack upon the surprised little Polynesian 

 capital. He replied by sending the following account written a few days after the bombard- 

 ment by an English-speaking Polynesian (whose name is omitted for obvious diplomatic reasons) 

 and reproduced here without change. It is an interesting document with many traces of the 

 well-known Polynesian humor. Editor's Note.] 



"A 



BREAK of day of the 

 twenty-second of September, 

 1914, two big cruisers were 

 lying right in front of the 

 passage Toata Papeete, attended by a 

 big steamer supposed to be a coal 

 tramp. As they had no flag up the 

 naval commander who is in charge of 

 the French defense force on the little 

 gunboat Zelee and on land gave 

 orders to fire blank cartridges to demand 

 the cruisers to show their colors, which 

 were utterly ignored. A second blank 

 shot was fired. No answer. Still the 

 two cruisers came nearer and nearer 

 to the mouth of the passage. The third 



shot was with a real shell across the bows 

 of the first cruiser. At this the two 

 backed out and steamed slowly to the 

 N. E. until both had gained the position 

 about a mile and a half between the 

 island of Motu utu and Fareute Point. 

 "When they reached this point up 

 went the Kaiser's flag and two shots 

 followed which raked the Chinese stores 

 by Donald's Store, followed by two 

 more shots which raked the stores of 

 Mr. John Brander on the other side 

 of the street of Donald's Store. This 

 shot passed right through the meat 

 market. The following shots were fired 

 at the Zelee, the gunboat lying in 



The Public Market Burned, 

 the shells of the german cruisers set fire to this market and it was burned to its concrete 



foundations. 



553 



