128 MYSTIC ISLES 



erance, almost a standard, of such actions among the 

 men of Tahiti, though of course consuls, high officials, a 

 banker or two of the Banque de I'lndo-Chine, and a 

 few lawyers or speculators sacrificed their flesh to their 

 ambitions or hid their peccadillos. 



A chorus of wives and widows — there were no old 

 maids in Tahiti — condemned scathingly the conduct of 

 the voluptuaries, and the preachers of the gospel lashed 

 them in conversation or sermon now and then. But on 

 the whole there was not in Tahiti any of the spirit of 

 American towns and villages, which wrote scarlet let- 

 ters, ostracized offenders against moral codes, and made 

 Philistinism a creed. Gossip was constant, and while 

 sometimes caustic, more often it partook of curiosity and 

 mere trading of information or salacious prattle. 



Tahitian women concealed nothing. If they won the 

 favors of a white man, they announced it proudly, and 

 held nothing sacred of the details. One's pecuharities, 

 weaknesses, idiosyncrasies, physical or spiritual blem- 

 ishes, all became delectable morsels in the mouths of one's 

 intimates and their acquaintances. One's passions, ac- 

 tions, and whisperings were as naked to the world as 

 the horns on a cow. Every one knew the import of 



Polonsky's dorsal tattooings, that Pastor had a case 



of gin in his house, and that the governor, after a bottle 

 or two of champagne, had squeezed so tightly the waist 

 of an English lady with whom he waltzed that she had 

 cried out in pain. Though bavardage accounted for 

 much of the general knowledge of every one's affairs, 

 there was an uncanny mystery in the speed at which a 

 particular secret spread. One spoke of the bamboo tele- 

 graph. 



