CHAPTER XIV 



The market in Papeete — Coffee at Shin Bung Lung's with a prince — Fish 

 the chief item — Description of them — The vegetables and fruits — The 

 fish strilce — Rumors of an uprising — Kelly and the I. W. \V. — The mys- 

 terious session at Fa' a — Halellujah! I 'm a Bum! — The strike is broken. 



THEf market in Papeete, the only one in Tahiti, 

 has an air all its own. It is different in its 

 amateur atmosphere and roseate color, in its 

 isothermal romance and sheer good humor, from all 

 others I have seen — Port of Spain, Peking, Kandy, or 

 Jolo. It is more fascinating in its sensuous, tropical 

 setting, its strange foods, and its laughing, lazy crowds 

 of handsome people, than any other public mart I know. 

 There is no financial exchange in Tahiti. Stocks and 

 bonds take the shape of cocoanuts, vanilla-beans, fish, 

 and other comforts. The brokers are merry women. 

 The market is spot, and buyers must take delivery im- 

 mediately, as usually not a single security is left at the 

 end of the day's trading. 



One must be at the market before five o'clock to see 

 it all. Sunday is the choicest day of all the week, be- 

 cause Sunday is a day of feasting, and the marche then 

 has a more than gala air. The English missionaries had 

 once made even cooking a fish on Sunday a crime, se- 

 verely punished; but the French priests changed all 

 that, and the French Sabbath, the New York Sabbath, 

 was en regie. 



All the east is purple and red, gorgeous, flaring, 



268 



