OF THE SOUTH SEAS 495 



presents Rui handed me. Tati said that I ate with my 

 fingers, and that he was the head of the Teva clan; so 

 I gave them to him. Many papaa visit Tati at Papara. 

 He is rich. Aue! I have not the presents Rui put 

 down on my table." 



I said over for him what Rui had written: 



I love the Polynesian ; this civilization of ours is a dingy, 

 ungentlemanly business ; it drops out too much of man, and too 

 much of that the very beauty of the poor beast ... if you 

 could live, the only white folk, in a Polynesian village, and 

 drink that warm, light vin du pays of human affection, and 

 enjoy that simple dignity of all about yooi . . . 



Paiere, the adopted son of Ori, who was a boy when 

 the Casco was at Tautira, claimed a vivid remembrance 

 of many incidents. He especially had been impressed 

 by the numbers of corks that flew in the house and on the 

 green; and when I invited him to a bottle of champagne, 

 he made hissing sounds and a plop to indicate that Rui 

 had a penchant for that kind of wine. 



"I used to fetch him oranges and mangoes, and climb 

 for drinking nuts, of which Rui was fond," said Paiere. 



Paiere was a deacon or functionary of the Protestant 

 church, as was Ori-a-Ori, and I went with the entire 

 family to the Sunday evening service. For weeks pre- 

 parations and rehearsals for a himene nui, a mammoth 

 song service, had been agitating the village. Under my 

 trees the children gathered of late afternoons and imi- 

 tated the grown-up folk in their melodies. From the 

 verandas and from the church at night issued the pe- 

 culiar strain of the himene, somehow bringing to me. 



