NEW YEAR’S DAY IN TAHITI—ASCENT OF FAUTAWA VALLEY—OF PALM SALADS,
SCREW-PINES, AND BREAD-FRUIT—PACKING MANGO-STONES—RETURN OF GILBERT
ISLANDERS—DEPARTURE OF THE SEIGNELAY.
FAUTAWA, _New Year’s Day, 1878_.
The dancers of last night did not come home till 3.30, and at 7 A.M. the
band of La Magicienne came here to serenade Mrs Brander, and played
divinely. Many friends drove out to offer their New Year greetings, and
so, as if by magic, the lawn was soon crowded with a joyous party, all
the girls dressed in the prettiest, freshest of sacques, and their hair
wreathed with bright flowers. What could they do but dance? The band,
having pledged their hostess in her best champagne, played with a will
for a couple of hours, when they were provided with a substantial
breakfast, and then all the gentlemen drove off to another place
belonging to Mrs Brander, there to preside at a great breakfast to all
her _employés_.
I drove into Papeete with pretty Pree, Manihinihi, and Naani, to call on
Marau, Moë, and other friends; and so we began the New Year brightly and
happily, in ideal, civilised-South-Sea fashion.
_January 25th._
Ever since I arrived here, we have been planning an expedition to the
French fort at some distance up this valley, at a height of about 1600
feet above the sea. So one beautiful morning last week, several friends
from the Seignelay arrived here before sunrise, and Ariipaea Salmon
undertook to be our guide. He had, unfortunately, hurt his foot, so he
and I were privileged to ride, the others walking.
For a considerable distance the path winds through a dense thicket of
guavas, all self-sown, and considered by the people as great a curse as
the (equally imported) _lantanna_ in Ceylon, both plants having a fatal
facility for spreading and taking permanent possession of every
neglected corner. They are the Chinamen of the vegetable world, and are
quite as useful in their way. The guava forms the principal firewood of
Tahiti. It bears an abundant crop of excellent fruit, which is now
ripening just as the mango season is finishing; and I think the Tahitian
guava is better than those of India and Ceylon. Certainly it has a far
less sickly smell. Cattle and horses alike munch both fruit and leaves
with avidity, so I cannot see why the guava should be so generally
despised; but the fact remains, strange to say, no one here seems ever
to think of making the delicious crimson jelly which we, in England,
prize so highly. The fruit is left to drop from the trees utterly
unheeded.
Further up the valley the track becomes steep and narrow, and in places
runs along the face of the cliff, with the rushing stream immediately
below, and overhanging boughs festooned with vines growing so rankly as
somewhat to endanger a rider. The beautiful large granadilla
passion-flower here runs riot, but its fruit is now all finished. When
ripe it resembles a good-sized pumpkin of a bright golden colour, and
contains a multitude of seeds like those of a melon, each encased in
white jelly. These lie inside a sweetish pulp about two inches thick,
which is generally thrown away, but is nevertheless quite worth cooking
as a vegetable.
I found the drooping branches so troublesome, that I foolishly abandoned
my horse very early, and had a much longer tramp than I counted on. We
had not gone very far ere we quite lost the foot-track, and coming to a
place where two ravines and two streams meet, Ariipaea, who had not been
here for a long time, quite forgot which we were to follow; so first we
tried the right side, and clambered up a steep and difficult path, till
we were convinced that we were on the wrong track, and returning to the
junction, we tried the other ravine, crossing and recrossing the stream.
At length, after much loss of time and energy, we concluded that our
best course was again to return to the junction and there breakfast,
trusting that by good luck it might prove to be the day on which “Père
Fautawa” (as the old soldier in charge of the fort is commonly called)
would be returning from Papeete with his rations. Fortune favoured us;
and ere we had finished the contents of our hamper (carried by French
sailors) the old man appeared, and led the way by a middle path between
the two streams. It was a very steep scramble, among great boulders and
masses of rent crag, half hidden by the wealth of tree-ferns, young
palms, wild bananas, and other tropical foliage, such as ginger,
turmeric, wild caladium, and dracæna. The stems of the large trees are
covered with parasitic ferns, especially the handsome bird’s-nest fern,
which here grows luxuriantly.
After crossing several small streams, we climbed to the verge of a deep
ravine, at the head of which rises a precipitous cliff 600 feet high.
Over this rushes a cataract of white foam, which fades into shadowy mist
as it loses itself among the tall palms and feathery foliage of the
tree-ferns and parasitic vines which veil its base. Above the fall is
situated the French fortress.
The interest of the place does not lie in the fort of the foreigners,
but in the fact that this was the last stronghold of the Tahitians, in
their struggle to retain their independence and resist the hated
invaders. Here it was that the last man who fell in that brave strife
was shot, betrayed by one of his countrymen, who now reaps the reward of
his treachery in the enjoyment of foreign gold and the red ribbon of the
Legion of Honour. This was the last blood shed. Now the red roses grow
undisturbed on the ramparts, and the lines of defence are so many
terraced gardens, where the solitary old soldier grows strawberries for
sale in Papeete, whither he descends once or twice a week to draw his
rations and to see the world.
It is a lonely ending for the old man’s days, and a strange contrast to
his former barrack-life. Now he is often for days together enveloped in
mists, which enfold him in an isolated cloud-world. It is comparatively
cold, too, at this high level, where at nights the thermometer sometimes
falls below 60°. At Père Fautawa’s bidding we gathered ripe strawberries
from his little garden, the first I had seen growing for many a day.[68]
Then while the sailors busied themselves preparing coffee, we dispersed
in search of pleasant pools for bathing, a luxury never more prized than
after such a scramble in a tropical valley. Hitherto the day had been
quite lovely, now it rapidly overcast, and heavy clouds came down and
hid the Diadème—the beautiful crown-shaped mountain, that heads the
valley. It is called by the natives Maiao, and though its height does
not exceed 4363 feet, it is one of the most remarkable forms in Tahiti.
Ere we had finished our welcome coffee it began to pour so heavily that
I voted for camping where we were; but the others feared a freshet, such
as might make the streams impassable for days. So they voted for
starting instantly, and of course carried the day; and we descended the
steep mountain-path in blinding rain, which blurred all beauty, and
rushed in rivulets beneath our feet. We were so thoroughly saturated,
that crossing and recrossing the stream ceased to give us a moment’s
thought; and by the time we reached this house, I confess to having been
thoroughly exhausted, as was to be expected, after a scramble of fully
eight miles without any time to rest.
Of course, as soon as we got back the weather cleared, and we had a most
lovely evening, followed by an exquisite moonlight night, and a sunrise
which, seen from Fautawa, would have been too fascinating. It was with
sore regret that I gazed upward to the sunlit peaks; while for days
afterwards I felt too utterly done to do more than creep about the
garden.
The upper heights of the valley are wellnigh inaccessible. They
culminate in a crag-ridge about 4000 feet in height, forming a crest so
narrow as to be a mere saddle barely three feet across—literally a
gigantic crag-wall, wooded to the summit. Few are the bold spirits who
have cared to scale this barrier in their endeavour to cross the island.
Only by painful climbing from ledge to ledge, clinging to overhanging
trees, trailing screw-pine, and sturdy vines, which act as natural
ropes, is it possible to make any way. Indeed it is necessary to carry
strong ropes in case of emergency; and little help can be expected from
native guides, who never dream of expending toil so fruitlessly, unless
worried into doing so by some unrestful foreigner. I am sure I do not
wonder at their being satisfied with lower levels, seeing how enchanting
these are. I find day after day gliding by in such peaceful enjoyment,
that time passes unmarked, and the further expeditions, of which we have
sometimes talked, seem to involve too great exertion. Evidently I am
becoming indolent in these dreamy southern isles!
_January 30th._
I have just been feasting on a cocoa-palm salad, which would make the
fortune of the happy _chef_ who could introduce it at an alderman’s
feast. That, fortunately for the plantations, is quite out of his power,
unless some process be discovered by which to preserve uncooked
vegetables. For this dainty consists of the embryo primary shoot of the
tree—the unborn fronds, which lie curled up within in a close compact
white mass, about the size of a man’s arm, and resembling a gigantic
stick of celery, with a flavour of filberts. Of course so costly a dish
as this (which sacrifices the life of the tree) is rarely indulged in,
save when a hurricane has snapped the crown of the tall palm, or when
some rich chief wishes to entertain a guest, regardless of expense.
Another very agreeable product of the cocoa-palm, which you in England
can never hope to taste, is an over-ripe nut, when in the very act of
sprouting. Previous to this, a very curious change has occurred. As you
must know, the germ of the plant lies just within the three little eyes,
which we used in nursery days to call the monkey’s face. Indeed I fear
that in those days of our ignorance we imagined they were the marks left
by the stalk, quite forgetting that the nut lies in a large outer case
of that brown fibre which, in these our later days, we know as “coir.”
Well, the sharp end of the nut lies next the stalk, and the monkey-face
at the further end, so _that_ nursery theory was fallacious, like some
others.
When the nut is fully ripe, a fibrous, spongy substance begins to form
all round the germ, and this gradually extends, absorbing both the
so-called milk and the hard kernel, till the whole shell is full of a
soft, sweet, white growth, like a very light _blanc-mange_. If at this
stage the nut escapes the _gourmet_ of the South Seas, the young germ
will soon force open one of the three eyes, and, working its way through
the fibrous husk, begin its heavenward growth; while from the other two
eyes will sprout two rootlets, which instinctively turn downwards, and
likewise penetrating the thick protecting outer case, find their way to
mother earth, and there strike root. Still the white sponge within the
nut goes on expanding, till at length it splits the hard wooden shell,
and then gradually decays, and so forms a light nourishing soil, which
acts as mother’s milk to the baby tree in its delicate early days. After
a while it needs no such provision, but flourishes, in grace and beauty,
where other trees would starve.
I wonder that no one has ever discovered in the cocoa-palm a meet emblem
of charity. Of all plants that grow, none asks so little, or gives so
largely. It matters not how dry and barren is the shallow soil, or how
briny the coral-sand, washed by every rising tide, the hardy palm
strikes its roots among the fragments of coral, and, bending to the
gale, weathers the wild storms, and yields its generous increase as
abundantly as its more fortunate brethren in the rich soil of sheltered,
well-watered valleys. The poorest islander on the loneliest atoll,
possessed of a few cocoa-palms, can exist. They give him food and drink,
a fibrous material, all ready woven, like coarse canvas, for dress;
leaves for thatch, and oil for light, and for personal adornment and
comfort. To obtain the latter, he collects a lot of old nuts, such as
those we see for sale in England, and scraping out the kernel into some
old canoe, leaves the whole mass for some days exposed to the sun, till
the pure oil exudes, and without further trouble he stores it in any
vessels he may possess—gourds or bamboos. Of course, a European who
trades in palm-oil prefers to collect it in the form of _coppra_—_i.e._,
dried cocoa-nut—as a much larger amount of oil is obtained by pressure
of machinery.
Another hardy child of these coral-isles is the pandanus, or screw-pine,
as it is commonly called, because its leaves, which grow in tufts at the
tips of the branches, are all set like a screw, twisting round the stem,
which is thus marked with a spiral pattern from the root upward. Like
the cocoa-palm, it grows in the clean dry coral-sand, where there is
apparently no moisture; yet when cut it is found to be full of oily sap.
The wood is close and hard, and though rarely exceeding five or six
inches in diameter, it often grows perfectly upright, for fifteen or
twenty feet, and yields excellent posts for building; they are, however,
hollow like a bamboo. The long drooping leaves are valuable for thatch,
being from three to five feet in length, and about three inches wide.
They are edged with sharp prickles, but, when torn into strips, are
useful for plaiting mats and canoe-sails.
The women steep the leaves in sea-water, and then beat them with a
mallet till all the green skin comes off, leaving a beautifully white
silky fibre, which they dye red, yellow, and brown, and then plait into
wonderfully fine sashes, about a foot wide. It has been suggested that
this pure white fibre would prove a valuable material for paper-making,
but I have not heard of its being tried. A stronger fibre is obtained by
crushing the aerial roots, which this strange tree throws out in all
directions, forming stays by which it protects itself against the
violent gales,—a necessary precaution, where the main root grows only in
the sand.
The flower of the pandanus is exceedingly fragrant; but though I have
seen thousands of screw-pines, I have rarely had the luck to find one in
blossom. Its fruit resembles a coarse pine-apple. When ripe it becomes
bright scarlet, and the Samoans use it for making necklaces. It is
divided into honeycomb sections. When the fruit is ripe these fall
apart, each being a separate conical lump, of which the inner end is
soft and saccharine, and can be chewed like sugar-cane.
When the capsules are thoroughly dried, they can be cracked, and yield a
kernel, which is edible; and in the barren isles, near the equator, this
fruit is considered a valuable product. It is dried and grated, and the
sweet brown sawdust thus obtained is stored as the only substitute for
flour; and cakes of it are baked, as occasion may require, to eke out a
fish diet, which is not always forthcoming. It is said to be wholesome,
nourishing food; but in these more luxuriant southern isles I have never
seen it eaten by the natives, only by the foreign labour—_i.e._, the men
imported from the groups to the north-east, who are engaged to work on
the plantations. In their own isles they have discovered a means of
steaming and mashing the fruit which, when fermented, yields a strong
and highly intoxicating spirit. The whalers who years ago settled among
them, taught them to improve on this liquor by distillation, and also
instructed them how to obtain a fiery spirit from the innocent
palm-trees. So, thanks to their tuition, and generally civilising
influence, the Line islanders have become infinitely more debased than
they previously were.
It does seem too bad, does it not, to extract poison from these useful
trees? But whether it be orange-rum in Tahiti, or barley-bree in the
isles nearer home, I suppose the white race will find means to procure
fire-water wherever it goes, and seems to turn every sort of plant to
the same use. What with rum from the sugar-cane, and fiery spirit from
the sweet dracæna root, and even from innocent bananas, it appears as if
every good gift of heaven was liable to be misused in like manner.
I hear some people say that they weary of the monotony of the
cocoa-palms; and certainly a low coral-shore, with an unbroken line of
palm-trees, is somewhat dull. Here, however, there is an amazing variety
in the foliage of the seaboard. Besides the many beautiful large-leaved
shrubs, there are various handsome trees, which attain a great size,
and, as I described to you, many grow so close to the shore that their
boughs literally dip into the sea. Some of these are fruit-bearing. The
_vi_ bears bunches of large yellow plums, and the _ahia_[69] yields a
lovely pink fruit, with white juicy flesh.
But of all the indigenous trees none can compare for beauty and value to
the bread-fruit, which, though it demands a richer soil in the first
instance, rivals the cocoa-palm in its manifold uses. Though it does not
give drink to the thirsty, or coir for ropes and matting, its resin
forms a strong glue which is useful in caulking the boats, and the bark
of the young branches yields a fibre from which strong cloth is made.
Its timber is exceedingly valuable; and its thick glossy leaves, which
are sometimes eighteen inches in length by about twelve in breadth, are
also turned to good account.
But of course it is chiefly prized for its abundant food-supply. Each
tree yields three, sometimes four, crops annually; and as there are in
these isles about fifty recognised varieties, which ripen at different
seasons, it follows that, with a little care in cultivation, the supply
might very easily be so regulated as never to fail. A large bread-fruit
tree in full bearing is certainly a most beautiful object, with its
wealth of green or yellow fruit hanging from beneath the handsome deeply
indented leaves. A good tree will bear several hundred fruits—each about
eight inches long by six wide,—with a rough green rind, divided into a
lozenge-shaped pattern. This is sometimes peeled off before the white
pulp is cooked; but I infinitely prefer the bread-fruit roasted whole on
the embers or baked in the earth in a native oven, when the blackened
rind is scraped off, and the inside is found thoroughly cooked, and in
taste something like the thick scones known in the colonies as
“dampers,” or like the cold “chupatties” we used to eat on the march in
the Himalayas—floury but rather tough. I don’t think that these natural
loaves are to be compared to a good potato. However, they are the bread
of the favoured tropics; and nowhere else does mother nature yield so
much wholesome food for so little human toil.
You need not, however, imagine that these good things are common
property, to be gathered and cooked by every hungry man. On the
contrary, every cocoa-palm and fruit-bearing tree on these or any other
isles that I know of, has its owner, and is very likely the sole wealth
of a whole family. So each fruit commands as regular a market-value in
the South Sea Isles, as do the apples and potatoes of the English
farmers. This is a simple fact, apparently not always recognised by
visitors and others, who occasionally write to request their friends
living here to send them cases of oranges and other fruits, as if they
supposed that these were to be had for the mere trouble of gathering and
packing!
Speaking of gathering and packing, I have for some time past been
devoting a considerable amount of energy to collecting mango-stones, or
rather kernels, with a view to sending them to Fiji. It is only about
eighteen years since the mango-tree was introduced to these isles from
Rio Janeiro, and so wonderful is the rapidity with which it has spread,
that it now holds its place as the most marked feature in the vegetation
of this group. Every homestead is embowered in these and other
fruit-bearing trees, and for the last two months every man, woman, and
child (to say nothing of quadrupeds) seems to be for ever eating ripe,
delicious, golden mangoes; and every road, indeed the ground in every
direction, is strewn with _les noyaux_; though the people so fully
appreciate the luxury of a feast by the river-side, where they may enjoy
the juicy dainties without the smallest respect for conventional
appearances, that an immense number of the finest kernels are thrown
into the water—indeed, since I have been so anxious to collect good
sorts, I observe with annoyance that though I entreat these careless
easy-going people (_le peuple_) to throw the best stones in some corner
for me, they seem by preference (or probably by force of habit) always
to chuck them into the water.
The French have taken immense trouble in perfecting this valuable fruit,
and have now introduced so many excellent varieties that one crop
succeeds another in rotation. The round mango is succeeded by the golden
egg, and that by a small purple, while the large long sort seems
inexhaustible. Best of all are those specially cultivated by Monseigneur
Janssen, Bishop of Axièri, who has raised a super-excellent mango with a
very large fruit, and a long stone so thin and flat as to resemble the
inner sole of a child’s shoe.
The bishop has also been inspired with the happy thought of distributing
mango-stones in other groups, and sent off a large consignment last
month by a vessel going direct to New Caledonia. He is most kind in
helping me to collect a good assortment for Fiji: at the same time, he
warns me that taking the best seed is no sure warrant for getting
equally good plants, as no other tree exists, so faithless in
reproducing its own kind, and variety of soil produces every conceivable
variety of tree. You may take twin fruits from one tree, and plant them
a few yards to right and left of the parent tree. One will grow up
infinitely superior to its mother—the other will be all stone and fibre,
and scarcely fit for the pigs. The only certainty lies in taking grafts
of the good ones, and so utilising the stock; also in planting, the
richest soil must be selected, as the tree has a long tap-root and
strikes deep.
Now there is abundance of rich soil in Fiji, and the ordinary vegetation
is identical with that of Tahiti; so there can be no reason why the
mango should not be acclimatised there as well as here, and it would be
a very great satisfaction to me to aid in bestowing so great a boon on
the young colony. I am sure I deserve that the attempt should succeed,
for it has already cost me an immense amount of trouble. In spite of all
precautions, of careful drying and turning, &c., a very large number of
the stones I collected in the early part of the season have already
sprouted. Some are quite respectable young trees.
So now I am making a more systematic attempt, and have devoted several
days to driving to all the very finest gardens in the neighbourhood,
where, with the help of a pretty Tahitian boy (who rather enjoyed such a
chance of an unlimited feed), I set to work to collect the half-decayed
fruit, which lay rotting under all the best trees. I can tell you that
cleaning the stones was about the hottest, dirtiest, and most fatiguing
work I have done for many a day. However, notwithstanding the heat, I
stuck to it for six hours one day and three the next, and two hours on
several other days. And the result is a splendid lot of _noyaux_, which
every morning I turn and re-turn, in order to dry them thoroughly,
hoping to prevent their sprouting like the first lot. But in spite of
all my precautions, the large flat seeds of the finest mango have
already done so—so they, at least, can only be propagated by graffs.
Another difficulty is, that hitherto all my efforts to send plants from
Fiji to England by Wardian cases of island manufacture have proved
abortive. In every case the plants have died, so I do not feel much
encouraged to try the experiment again.
The great difficulty lies in the length of time that must elapse ere
either plants or stones can reach Fiji; as, of course, such a chance as
that of the vessel which brought me thence, direct to this group, is of
very rare occurrence. The probability is, that the seeds which I am now
collecting will have to wait for an opportunity of being sent by sailing
vessel 2000 miles north to Honolulu; there to be transhipped to a
Pacific mail-steamer, and be carried south-west 4000 miles to Sydney;
where they would find another steamer to take them the 1700 miles to
Levuka, whence they will find their way by sundry small sailing-boats to
the various Fijian isles. A somewhat circuitous route, you must allow!
_February 3d._
After all, I have found a somewhat more direct route by which to send
some of my mango-stones. Le Limier was despatched to-day on special
service to the Gilbert Isles, thence to proceed to New Caledonia, and
her very obliging captain, Commandant Puèch, offered to carry a large
case to the care of the British Consul (Mr Layard), who will forward it
to Sir Arthur Gordon by the first opportunity. So I set to work to pack
4000 carefully selected stones, laying them side by side as neatly as
though building a wall with children’s little bricks. It took me a whole
day’s work, and, considering that each seed has passed through my hands
six or eight times, while collecting, cleaning, scraping, drying,
turning, selecting, and finally packing, you will not wonder that I
looked after the departing case with a feeling of quite maternal
interest.[70]
The mission on which Le Limier is now bound is to take back 200 of the
Arawais, inhabitants of the Gilbert Islands, who were brought here as
foreign labourers about nine years ago, on the understanding that they
would very soon be sent home again, whereas they have been detained all
these years. When Admiral Serres commenced critical inquiries on the
various abuses at which previous governors had winked, this fact became
known, and he decided that the labourers should be sent back soon after
the New Year—an announcement which filled their masters with dismay, in
view of ungathered crops, but was hailed by the Arawais with joy till
they learnt by what vessel they were to travel. Then they were filled
with alarm, believing that so large a ship would not dare to risk the
dangerous navigation between their little isles; and that they would
probably all be landed (as has often been done in similar cases) on one
or two of the principal isles, where they would be left quite as much in
a strange land as in Tahiti, and, moreover, with the certainty of being
robbed, and the probability of being eaten by hostile tribes. So a
considerable number have refused to go on this occasion. Indeed M. Puèch
is himself much perturbed as to how to accomplish this really difficult
business.
He invited a few friends, including myself, to go on board at the last
moment, to _faire les adieux_. The vessel presented a curious
scene—picturesque, certainly, with abundance of bright colour, but more
like an emigrant ship than a man-of-war. Le Limier is so constructed
that she has not sufficient accommodation to allow of all the crew
sleeping below at one time. So these wretched Arawais, including women
and children, are taken only as deck passengers; and as the cruise,
under steam, cannot take less than from sixteen to eighteen days, during
which they must take their chance of whatever weather they may
encounter, you can understand that the voyage does not promise to be a
pleasure-trip.
The vessel carries much extra coal, to provide against the danger of a
calm. So half her deck is loaded with this dirty store, and the 200
Gilbert Islanders are huddled together on the main-deck. Each labourer
has a trade box, containing a few clothes, a good deal of tobacco, and
some cheap toys for children; and this is _all_ they carry home as the
fruit of their long exile. Nine years of ceaseless toil in a far
country, repaid by a little wooden box full of cheap rubbish!
While we were on board, a little baby died on deck in its mother’s arms.
Some fellow-countrymen, who had come to see their friends start,
undertook to carry the poor little body ashore for burial. The father
opened his box of trade, and took out a few yards of coarse printed
calico, which he gave to the said friends, apparently as payment for
their trouble. The poor mother fell on her face at the gangway, wailing
piteously. She appeared utterly miserable. It was a sad beginning for a
voyage, and we all doubly regretted the departure of our friends with
such an unpleasant three weeks in prospect.
When I saw how terribly overcrowded the vessel was, I thought Captain
Puèch must surely repent of his kindness in offering to carry the big
case of mango-stones; but on the contrary, he made it appear as though I
had done him quite a favour in letting him take charge of the precious
seeds, which, we trust, will hereafter become so valuable a boon to
Fiji. Kind, good friend, we all wished him _bon voyage_ with all our
hearts; then returning to the shore we watched the good ship sail, amid
hearty cheers from Le Seignelay, and with large bouquets on each mast,
to mark that she is homeward-bound.
THE RED HOUSE, PAPEETE,
_Friday, February 8th_.
The Ségond, French man-of-war, has just arrived from San Francisco,
bringing the new French governor—a fine jovial naval officer—with an
A.D.C. who, like his chief, is well known in Tahiti for his strong
liking for natives and native customs.
So while the appointment has caused great delight to one section of the
community, others foresee a speedy relapse from the high-pressure
morality, and various reforms which, under the good admiral’s _régime_,
made Papeete so strictly respectable that its own inhabitants said the
like had never been seen under any previous rule. But everything changes
with the admiral and governor of the day, and every one here declares
that the ships in harbour during the last few months have been of such
exceptionally good type that the result has been a model era, probably
too perfect to last.
To-morrow Le Seignelay is to sail for Valparaiso to restore M.
D’Oncieue, M. Fayzeau, and the band, to La Magicienne. So to-day Mrs
Brander gave a farewell breakfast at Fautawa to as many as could come,
after which we all adjourned here, as being more convenient for a great
reception at Government House to-night, when the good band will play for
the last time. Henceforth Papeete must be content with the feebler
efforts of a band recruited from her own citizens, but as yet not up to
the mark.
_Saturday, February 9th._
Le Seignelay sailed this morning, and with most true regret I bade adieu
to the pleasant companions of the last five months. With unchanging
kindness they again offered me the hospitality of the ship, and placed a
cabin at my disposal in case I cared to visit Valparaiso; but I do not
feel tempted by that unpicturesque coast, and its very gay and
gorgeously apparelled Spanish-German society. In a very few days the
Maramma must return from the Sandwich Isles with her cargo of cattle,
and then I hope to start for the volcanoes.