496 MYSTIC ISLES 



lying on my mat under the stars, a sense of fitness to the 

 prospect — the clear heavens, the purple lagoon, the wind 

 in the groves, and the low rumble of the surf. 



On the Sunday of the himene nui, I met the French 

 priest as he tied his horse by the door of the Catholic 

 church. He was in a dark cassock or gown, his long, 

 black beard and a flat, half-melon shaped hat giving him 

 a distinctive appearance in the simple settlement. He 

 was old, and weary from his hot ride, but courteous as 

 world-wide travelers are, and at his request I dropped 

 in on his service before the other. He sat by the middle 

 door, and the twenty or thirty of the congregation on the 

 floor at one end. They sang a himene, and he foUowed 

 and corrected them from a book, so that their method 

 was formal. Congregational singing not being custo- 

 mary in Catholic churches, it was probable that in Ta- 

 hiti they had had to meet the competition of the Protest- 

 ants, who from their beginnings in Polynesia had made a 

 master stroke by developing this form of worship in ex- 

 traordinary consonance with the native mind. 



The Protestant temple held a hundred and fifty 

 people. It was a plain hall, with doors opposite each 

 other in the middle, and at one end a slightly raised 

 platform on which sat the pastor and half a dozen dea- 

 cons. The pastor was delivering his sermon as I en- 

 tered, he and all his entourage in black Prince- Albert 

 coats. He had a white shirt and collar and tie, but 

 others masked a pareu under the wool, and were bare- 

 legged. All wore solemn faces of a jury bringing in a 

 death-verdict. Paiere nodded to a volunteer janitor, 

 who insisted upon my occupying a chair he brought. 



Every one else was on the floor on mats, in two 



