OF THE SOUTH SEAS 15 



"How you 're goin' a get any bloody fun with no 

 roast beef, no mutton, no puddin', and let alone a drop 

 of ale and a pipe?" 



The Swiss smiled beatifically. 



"You can get rid of all those desires," he said. 



"My Gawd! I don't want to get rid o' them, I don't. 

 I 'm bringing up my kiddies right, and I 'm a proper 

 family man, but I want my meat and my bread and my 

 puddin'. The world needs proper entertainment; 

 that 's what '11 cure the troubles." 



The Swiss was also ardent in attention to the women 

 aboard, and I wondered if there was a new school of 

 self-denial. The old celibate monks eschewed women, 

 but had Gargantuan appetites, which they satisfied with 

 meat pasties, tubs of ale, and vats of wine. 



There were two Tahitians aboard, both females. 

 One was an oldish woman, ugly and waspish. She 

 counted her beads and spoke to me in French of the 

 consolations of the Catholic religion. She had been to 

 America for an operation, but despaired of ever being 

 well, and so was melancholy and devout. I talked to 

 her about Tahiti, that island which the young Darwin 

 wrote, "must forever remain classical to the voyager in 

 the South Seas," and which, since I had read "Rarahu" 

 as a boy, had fascinated me and drawn me to it. She 

 warned me. 



"Prenez-garde vous, moTisieur!" she said. "There are 

 evils there, but I am ashamed of my people." 



The other was about twenty-two years old, slender, 

 kolil-eyed, and black-tressed. She was dressed in the 

 gayest colors of bourgeois fashion in San Francisco, 

 with jade ear-rings and diamond ornaments. Her face 



