hat Monsieur Lontane put
a revolver against the stomach of one of the stokers, and that
provoked the nastiness. Until then it had been uncouth mirth caused
by the vile liquor sold by the saloons licensed by the Government,
and against the Papeete regulations that no more intoxicants shall
be sold to a man already drunk. But when this British citizen,
scum of Sydney or Glasgow as he might be, saw the deadly weapon,
he felt aggrieved. This revolver practice is all too common on the
part of Monsieur Lontane. Six such complaints I have had in as many
months. As to that part of your letter that the crew of the Noa-Noa
not be allowed to land here on its return to Papeete, I agree with you,
but it will be for you to enforce this prohibition."

It was agreed that on the day the Noa-Noa arrived on her return trip,
all gendarmes and available guard be summoned from the country to
preserve order, and that, as asked in the letter, the consul demand
that the captain of the steamship punish the rioters.

And all this being done through an interpreter, and the consul having
unlimbered his falchion and removed his helmet, he and the governor
had an absinthe frappe and made a date for a bridge game.

"Te tamai i te taporo i te arahu i te umaru," the natives termed the
skirmish. "The conflict of the limes, the coal, and the potatoes." A
new himene was improvised about it, and I heard the girls of the
Maison des Cocotiers chanting it as I went to Lovaina's to dinner.

It was something like this in English:

"Oh, the British men they drank all day
And threw the limes and iron.
The French in fear they ran away.
The brave Tahitians alone stood firm."

And there were many more verses.

Chapter VIII

Gossip in Papeete--Moorea, a near-by island--A two-days' excursion
there--Magnificent scenery from the sea--Island of fairy folk--Landing
and preparation for the feast--The First Christian mission--A canoe
on the lagoon--Beauties of the sea-garden.

My acquaintances of the Cercle Bougainville, Landers, Polonsky,
McHenry, Llewellyn, David, and Lying Bill, were at this season bent on
pleasure. Landers, the head of a considerable business in Australasia,
with a Papeete branch, had time heavy on his hands. Lying Bill and
McHenry were seamen-traders ashore until their schooner sailed for
another swing about the French groups of islands. Llewellyn and David
were associates in planting, curing, and shipping vanilla-bea