42 MYSTIC ISLES 



la Mission, with the rue des Remparts, speak the early 

 building of school and CathoHc church and fortifica- 

 tions. 



Rue Cook, rue de Bougainville and many others 

 record the giant figures of history who took Tahiti from 

 the mist of the half -known, and wrote it on the charts 

 and in the archives. Other streets hark back to that 

 beloved France to which these French exiles gaze with 

 tearful eyes, but linger all their years ten thousand miles 

 away. They saunter along the rue de Rivoli in Pa- 

 peete, and see again the magnificence of the Tuileries, 

 and hear the dear noises of la belle Paris. They are 

 sentimental, these French, patriots all here, and over- 

 come at times by the flood of memories of la France, 

 their birthplaces, and their ancestral graves. Some 

 born here have never been away, and some have spent 

 a few short months in visits to the homeland. Some 

 have brown mothers, half-islanders; yet if they learn 

 the tripping tongue of their French progenitor and 

 European manners, they think of France as their ulti- 

 mate goal, of Paris their playground, and the "Mar- 

 seillaise" their himene par excellence. 



One might conjure up a vision of a tiny Paris with 

 such names in one's ears, and these French, who have 

 been in possession here nearly four-score years, have 

 tried to make a French town of Papeete. 



They have only spoiled the scene as far as unfit archi- 

 tecture can, but the riot of tropical nature has mocked 

 their labors. For all over the flimsy wooden houses, 

 the wretched palings, the galvanized iron roofing, the 

 ugly verandas, hang gorgeous draperies of the giant 

 acacias, the brilliant flamboyantes, the bountiful, yellow 



