OF THE SOUTH SEAS 201 



the assumed relation of father all the pride and joy we 

 take only with surety of our relationship. 



Afa was a handsome half-caste, his mustache and 

 light complexion, his insouciance and frivolity, his per- 

 fect physique, skill with canoe and fish-net and spear, 

 his flirtations with many women, and his abihty to pro- 

 vide amusement for the guests, making him a superior 

 type of the white-brown blood. There was a black 

 tragedy in this life which, with all his heedlessness, often 

 and again imprisoned hira in deep melancholy. 



His father was a wealthy Italian who lived near the 

 home of a Tahitian princess, and who won the girl's 

 love against her father's commands. Afa was born, 

 the princess was sent away, and the child brought up in 

 a good family. When he was fourteen years old he 

 was taken to the United States. His father became en- 

 gaged in a quarrel with certain natives whom he forbade 

 to cross his land to gather feis in the mountains. As 

 thej^ had always had this right, they resented his imposi- 

 tion, and plotted to kill him. He disappeared, and a 

 long time afterward his body was found loosely covered 

 with earth, the feet above the surface. In court the 

 surgeons swore that he had been alive when buried. A 

 number of men were tried for the crime and sentenced 

 to life imprisonment in New Caledonia. 



Afa returned from America to find that much of his 

 father's property had been stolen or claimed by others, 

 and he became a cook and servant. He had been many 

 years with Lovaina, and though he owned valuable 

 land, he preferred the hotel life, half domestic, half 

 manager and confidant, to the quietude of the country. 

 In Afa's single room were two brass bedsteads, many 



