NORESION= PARI 
head-dress, and a certain baron is said to 
have remarked that his daughters were 
accustomed to pick up the latest things 
in hats from those they saw in church 
on the heads of the peasant girls. 
In the Protestant town of Calw, ona 
market day the women from the country 
NOTES 
947 
round all wore red or white handker- 
chiefs bound over their heads; but ex- 
cept for this there was nothing to remark 
in their dress. A fair sprinkling of the 
men showed up in their red waistcoats 
and knee breeches, though for the most 
part rather dilapidated. 
ON TAHITI 
By H. W. Smiru, Massacuusetts INsTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY 
With Photographs by the Author 
the South Sea Islands by careful 
and accurate observers, as well as 
by those who possess the faculty of 
forming complete impressions in a few 
days, that there remains little of general 
interest to describe. Indeed, one must 
go far from the more accessible islands 
to find conditions approaching those so 
charmingly presented by Charles Warren 
Stoddard and by Stevenson, and the 
changes that have taken place will be 
more likely to impress the traveler than 
the things which have fascinated him in 
those authors. 
While the simplicity and attractiveness 
of character of the native Polynesian is 
now much as it was in the time of Ste- 
venson, the depopulation of the islands 
has continued where the natives have 
been unable to develop a resistance to 
the white man’s diseases, and in other 
islands the increase of alien population 
has much changed the character of the 
people. The Chinese, bringing with them 
habits of industry from a densely settled 
and less productive land, have proved 
formidable competitors with the easy- 
going Kanaka, who for generations has 
found abundant living from the fish of 
the reef and the bread-fruit and “fei” of 
the mountains. 
Tahiti, of the Society Islands, is one 
of the most important of the French 
possessions in the Pacific, with steamship 
connection to San Francisco and New 
Zealand. The hotel accommodations at 
S O MUCH has been written about 
Papeete, the principal town, and at a few 
other places, are comfortable and well 
adapted to tropical life, and in July many 
tourists visit the island to be present at 
the annual native festivities that occur 
in connection with the anniversary of the 
fall of the Bastile. At that time canoes 
from many of the neighboring islands 
come to Papeete, bringing crowds of 
pleasure-seekers, who, with their dances 
and songs, give the traveler a glimpse of 
the native life of former days. 
The Society Islands are of volcanic 
origin, rising from the low bed of the 
ocean, which has depths near the islands 
of 1,500 to 2,000 fathoms, while the 
highest peak, in the center of the island 
of Tahiti, reaches an altitude of 7,300 
feet! On a clear morning the view as 
the ship approaches the harbor of Pa- 
peete is most beautiful, showing deep 
valleys penetrating from the coast to the 
mountain peaks of the interior. On page 
948 is a view of the hills by the coast 
at Papara, with the water from recent 
showers falling in cascades down the 
sides of the cliffs. 
An interesting and somewhat strenu- 
ous excursion is to follow one of the 
valleys upward to the center of the 
island, and the writer made one such trip 
in the Waihiraia Valley. It is preferable 
to camp near the head of the valley, in 
order to have the opportunity of reach- 
ing the highest part of the trip before the 
clouds, which gather early, have cut off 
the view. Page 949 shows the spot where 
