422 MYSTIC ISLES 



With him was his sister, Tetuanui, who was departing 

 for Raratonga, and her husband. He was a brother of 

 Cowan, the prize-fighter, and in their honor was the 

 luncheon. Introduced to all by the chief of Mataiea, I 

 was asked to sit with them. The group was extraor- 

 dinarily interesting, for besides the prince's heir and 

 his sister, Chief Tetuanui, and his brother-in-law Charlie 

 Ling, was Paraita, son of a German schooner captain, 

 who was adopted by Pomare V, and Tinau, another 

 adopted son of the late king, who owned, and ran for 

 hire, a motor-car. There were other men, but among 

 the women, all of whom sat below the humblest man, 

 myself, was the Princesse de Joinville of Moorea, mother 

 of Prince Hinoe, and grandmother of the youth at the 

 head of the table, and of the boy, Ariipae, who attended 

 to the chief's garden. 



This grandmother, known as Vahinetua Roriarii, was 

 one of the very last survivors among the notable figures 

 of the kingdom. She had a cigarette in the corner of 

 her sunken mouth, but she tossed it away when she and 

 Haamoura, the chief's wife, kissed each other on both 

 cheeks in the French way. The Princesse de Joinville 

 was tottering, but with something in her face, a disdain, 

 a trace of power, that attracted me before I knew her 

 rank or history. Her once raven hair was streaked 

 with gray, she trembled, and her step was feeble; but 

 all her weaknesses and blemishes impressed me as the 

 disfigurement by age and abrasion of a beautiful and 

 noble statue. She was more savage-looking than any 

 modern Tahitian woman, more aboriginal, and yet more 

 subtle. I once contemplated in the jungle of Johore 

 an old tigress just trapped, but marked and wounded 



