270 MYSTIC ISLES 



pours out bad words — I cannot mention them — in in- 

 nocent faith in their propriety. In French or Tahitian 

 she speaks correctly. 



Outside the bath I hear the vehicles hurrying to 

 market, and dressing quickly in white drill, and wear- 

 ing on my Paumotu hat a brilliant scarlet pugaree, once 

 the badge of subjugation to the Mohammedan conquer- 

 ors of India, I join the procession. 



Bon dieu! what a morning! The reds and purples 

 are dying in the orient, and the hills are swathed in the 

 half -white light of day. The lagoon is now a glistening 

 pearly gray. Moorea, the isle of the fairy folk, is 

 jagged and rough, as if a new throe of earth had torn its 

 heights and made new steeps and obelisks. Moorea is 

 never the same. Every hour of the day and every smile 

 and frown of the sun creates valleys and spires, and al- 

 ters the outlines of this most capricious of islets. 



Past the bust of Bougainville, past the offices of 

 Emile Levy, the pearler whom, to Levy's intense anger, 

 Jack London slew in "The House of Mapuhi"; past 

 the naval depot, the American consulate with the red, 

 white, and blue flung in the breeze; the Commissariat 

 de Police^ the pool of Psyche, and all the rows of schoon- 

 ers that line the quays, with their milken sails drying on 

 their masts, and I am by the stores of the merchants. 

 The dawn is slipping through the curtain of night, but 

 lamps are still burning. The traffic has roused the 

 sleepers, and they are dressing. They have brought, 

 tied in parens^ their Sunday clothes. Women are 

 changing gowns, and men struggle with shirts and 

 trousers, awkward inflictions upon their ordinarily free 

 bodies. 



