OF THE SOUTH SEAS 95 



schooner voyages. However, through him I met an- 

 other group who spoke Enghsh, and who were not of 

 Latin blood. They were Llewellyn, an islander — 

 Welsh and Tahitian; Landers, a New Zealander; 

 Pincher, an Enghshman ; David, McHenry, and Brown, 

 Americans; Count Polonsky, the Russo-Frenchman 

 who was fined a franc; and several captains of vessels 

 who sailed between Tahiti and the Pacific coast of the 

 United States or in these latitudes. 



The Noa-Noa was overdue from New Zealand, by 

 way of Raratonga, and her tardiness was the chief sub- 

 ject of conversation at our first meeting. A hundred 

 times a day was the semaphore on the hill spied at for the 

 signal of the A^oa-Noas sighting. High up on the ex- 

 pansive green slope which rises a few hundred feet be- 

 hind the Tiare Hotel is a white pole, and on this are 

 hung various objects which tell the people of Papeete 

 that a vessel is within view of the ancient sentinel of the 

 mount. An elaborate code in the houses of all per- 

 sons of importance, and in all stores and clubs, inter- 

 prets these symbols. The merchants depended to a 

 considerable extent upon this monthly liner between 

 San Francisco and Wellington and way ports, and all 

 were interested in the mail and food supplies expected 

 by the Noa-Noa. Cablegrams sent from any part of 

 the world to New Zealand or San Francisco were for- 

 warded by mail on these steamships. Tahiti was en- 

 tirely cut off from the great continents except by vessel. 

 There was no cable, and no wireless, on this island, nor 

 even at the British island of Raratonga, two days' 

 steaming from Papeete. The steamships had wireless 

 systems, and kept in communication with San Francisco 



