130 MYSTIC ISLES 



glowing, flamboyant tree, and her crew was aboard in 

 expectation of sailing at any hour. Another small 

 craft, a sloop, was preparing to sail for Moorea, also. 

 She was crowded with passengers and cargo, and all 

 about the rail hung huge bunches of feis, the mountain 

 bananas. Most of the people aboard had come from the 

 market-place with fruit and fish and vegetables to cook 

 when they arrived at home. A strange habit of the 

 Tahitians under their changed condition is to take the 

 line of least resistance in food, eating in Chinese stores, 

 or buying bits in the market, whereas, when they gov- 

 erned themselves, they had an exact and elaborate 

 formula of food preparation, and a certain ceremonious- 

 ness in despatching it. Only feasts bring a resumption 

 nowadays of the ancient ways. 



The crews of the schooner and of the other INIoorea 

 boat besides our own had a swarm of friends awaiting 

 the casting off. Even a journey of a few hours meant 

 a farewell ceremony of many minutes. They embrace 

 one another and are often moved to tears at a separation 

 of a few days. A\nien one of them goes aboard a steam- 

 ship for America or Australasia, the famity and friends 

 enact harrowing scenes at the quay. They are sincerely 

 moved at the thought of their loved ones putting a long 

 distance between them, and I saw a score of young and 

 old sobbing bitterly when the Noa-Noa left for San 

 Francisco though the}'^ stormed the stokers lustily when 

 aroused. Their life is so simple in these beloved islands 

 that the dangers of the mainland are exaggerated in 

 their minds, and to the old the civilization of a big city 

 appears as a specter of horrible mien. The electric cars, 

 the crowds, the murders they read of and are told of, 



