6 MYSTIC ISLES 



downtown, which smiled jestingly at him, or looked 

 frightened at the message. If many had believed him, 

 the panic would have been illimitable. He was dressed 

 in a brown cassock, and looked like the blue-eyed man 

 who had been refused passage to my destination. 

 Probably, that American in the toga and sandals, ex- 

 iled from the island he loved so well, had a message for 

 the Tahitians or others of the Polynesian tribes of the 

 South Seas; Essenism, maybe, or something to do with 

 virginal beards and long hair, or sandals and the simple 

 life. I wished he were with us. 



We were in the Golden Gate now, that magnificent 

 opening in the California shores, riven in the eternal 

 conflict of land and water, and the rending of which 

 made the bay of San Francisco the mightiest harbor of 

 America. Before our bows lay the immense expanse of 

 the mysterious Pacific. 



The second officer was directing sailors who were 

 snugging down the decks. 



"What did the queer fellow want to go to Tahiti 

 for?" I asked him. 



He regarded me a moment in the stolid way of sea- 

 men. 



"The blighter likes to live on bananas and breadfruit 

 and that kind of truck," he rephed. "The French won't 

 let 'im st'y there. 'E 's too bloomin' nyked. 'E 's a 

 nyture man. They chysed 'im out, and every steamer 

 'e tries to stow 'imself aw'y. 'E 's a bleedin' trial to 

 these ships." 



That was puzzling. Did not these natives of Tahiti 

 themselves wear little clothing? Who were they to ob- 

 ject to a white man doffing the superfluities of dress 



