A Voyage from San Francisco to Tahiti 



415 



to eat, but, finding a lot of empty match- 

 boxes, they cut up one body into small 

 pieces and sent it as tid-bits in these 

 little boxes over the island ! 



July I. — In the " Doldrums; " much 

 warmer. A white gull with a long 

 feather in its tail (the "tropic bird") 

 and sundry flapping and diving birds ac- 

 company the vessel. 



July 2. — ^Frequent showers ; warm. 



July J. — Vessel rolls a great deal, 

 many sick, but I am exempt. Cool 

 wind and very pleasant. 



July ^.— Pass the Equator at 7 a. m. 

 ship's time. Celebration by the Amer- 

 icans—speeches, one by Judge K., brief 

 and appropriate. In afternoon, games, 

 " chalking the deck," mock prizes, etc. 



July 5. — A little warmer. We are to 

 see Nukahiva tomorrow morning. 



THE MARQUESAS 



July 6. — Awoke at 5.30, dressed, and 

 went on deck. It was a quarter of an 

 hour before sunrise, but onlj^ the eastern 

 sky was bright. The boat's engine had 

 stopped, and the bow was pointed to a 

 great mass of rock of jagged outline, yet 

 covered with green nearly to the summit, 

 all laying to the north of us. The sun 

 below the horizon seemed to radiate 

 greenish-blue fan-shaped streamers, the 

 sky between and below which shifted 

 rapidly between these and primrose tints, 

 or what was not primrose, but some 

 nameless shade of delicate quickening 

 color, that we all looked at in delight. 

 Just before the sun arose the bright light 

 struck between the awning and the deck 

 and lit up the groups of passengers on a 

 dark background with an effect like that 

 of the lime-light at a play. It was per- 

 fect, unless it might have been charged 

 with being a bit theatrical ! 



The vessel anchored half a mile from 

 the shore. The harbor of Tyowai is on 

 the south of the island. We waited two 

 or more hours, apparently until the 

 French official in charge had finished 

 his breakfast, and only at 9 o'clock we 



went ashore. I believe A. was the only 

 one who remained on board. He proph- 

 esied intolerable sand flies and heat for 

 us, but we found neither. 



The old queen, who was the last au- 

 thentic relic of the ancient sovereignty, 

 had died 24 days before, so there was 

 nothing to see but the mission. The 

 nuns gave us something they called 

 lemonade — a mildly fermented sort of 

 drink. 



The shore was covered with cocoanut, 

 breadfruit, and orange trees. There 

 were no native houses, only 30 to 40 

 European-built wooden ones, and every- 

 thing, except perhaps the mission, had 

 an air of shabby decay. The island's 

 population is said to have dwindled from 

 18,000 to 350. The missionaries, I un- 

 derstand, whether Catholic or Protest- 

 ant, feel obliged to admit that as a rule 

 they have been able to change the na- 

 tives' lives in external form only. Cloth- 

 ing is worn and hymns are sung instead 

 of savage songs ; marriage is nominal, 

 and underneath this everything is abso- 

 lutely as it was in pagan times. 



A little outrigged boat, with one man, 

 had come out with a few bananas and 

 "vees," a sort of small mango, pear- 

 shaped, with a thin banana-like skin 

 and a very juicy interior, having a mild 

 pineapple taste. But this was the only 

 thing good save the cocoanuts, of whose 

 water we drank abundantly. We had 

 been expected for long; our arrival was 

 what might be called the great event of 

 their year, but no one paid any atten- 

 tion to it. No one got anything ready 

 to sell or came off to see the ship, except 

 the man in the little boat, until just be- 

 fore we were leaving. 



The natives wear European dress, 

 when they wear anything, the women 

 being in very gaudy French calicoes. 

 The men, especiall}^ the elder, are tat- 

 tooed, the effect being that of uniform 

 bands of olive-greenish color across the 

 face, rather than any design. One old 

 lady, however, had her left hand and 

 wrist elaborately tattooed, and I was told 



