OF THE SOUTH SEAS 207 



deep with the red and white rice-paper legends, await- 

 ing an auspicious occasion for incineration. Eager of 

 Ingle wood, Cahfornia, fished secretly, hidden by my 

 body, until he found a particularly long and intricate 

 set of hieroglyphics, and deposited it in his pocket. 

 Then we fled. 



More than two thousand Chinese in Tahiti, nearly all 

 kin within a few degrees, found in this humble church 

 a substitute for their family temples in China, where 

 usually each clan has its own place of worship. The 

 laboring class of this fecund people seldom extend their 

 real devotion beyond their ancestors and the principle 

 of fatherhood, their reasoning being that of the wise 

 Jewish charge to honor one's father (and mother) that 

 one's life may be long. Loving sons take care of old 

 parents. It is the old Oriental patriarchy sublimated 

 by the imposition of commerce upon agriculture. 



The Chinese came to Tahiti during the American 

 Civil War. They were brought by an English planter 

 to grow cotton, then scarce on account of the blockade 

 and desolation of the South. With the end of the war, 

 and the looms of Manchester again supplied, the plan- 

 tation languished, and the Chinese took other employ- 

 ment, became planters themselves, or set up little shops. 

 They now had most of the retail business of the island, 

 and all of it outside Papeete. 



The secretary-general gave me figures about them. 



"There are twenty-two hundred Chinese in Tahiti 

 now," said he. "We are willing to receive all who come. 

 They are needed to restore the population. Who would 

 keep the stores or grow vegetables if we did not have 

 the Chinese? We exact no entrance fee, but we num- 



