HIS TATTOOED WIFE
1
Something there is in the very bearing of the people in the Pacific
which, despite the obvious differences between us, strikes a note of
kinship in the mind of the white man least conscious of his true
relationship to these brown folk. A certain chemical affinity, as it
were, makes the problem of intermarriage with the Polynesians an
altogether different matter from that among Eurasians. For in the
marriage of an Occidental and a true Oriental there is the clashing of
two antagonistic cultures each equally complex and tenacious, while
"here there is evidence in the physique of the people that three great
divisions of mankind have intermixed."
But in the Pacific islands the white man feels himself among his kind.
The reason is hard to explain. Certainly it is not the loose and
ungainly Mother-Hubbard gowns which are still the style of the native
maiden. Yet the stoutish, portly individual who is introduced to you as
a chief and who parades the street along the waterfront in a suit of
silk pajamas might easily be a continental sleep-walker who has no
remembrance of the thousands of years that lie between him and the men
among whom he is waking. And the white man just arrived drops off under
the anæsthetic influence of the tropics, forgetful of the thousands of
years in which he has been busy laying up his treasures on earth.
Under this narcotic influence I wandered along the shores of Apia,
Samoa, toward sundown, the day before my departure. Within me was a
melancholy satisfaction, an unwillingness to admit even to myself the
truth that I was glad to go, like one conscious of being cured of a
delightful vice. I had had my fill of association with men whose main
theme of conversation when together was the virtues of whisky and soda
as an antidote for dengue fever, and when apart, the faults of one
another. I had watched the process of acclimatization as it attacks the
souls of men, and pitied some of them. Many would have scorned my pity.
Some did not deserve it. Others did not need it. The story of one is
worth while, though it has no solution.
He had been stationed in Samoa as a member of the military staff with
police duties. Behind him he had left a wife and kiddies. He longed for
them as only a man struggling against tropic odds to remain faithful to
his promise needs must long. He was faithful, but she was fearful. She
was writing to him daily not to forget. No woman forgets easily the
ill-repute of her fellow-women, and all Northern women distrust their
sisters of the warmer worlds. Women hear and believe that there is none
of their kind of virtue in the tropics, and they do not trust the best
of their men. They do not seem to be at all aware of the fact that
faithfulness and devotion are as strong impulses in the breasts of the
dark maidens as among themselves, and that semi-savage girls have
hearts, too, which can be broken. So this man whose friendship I had won
urged that I write to his wife and, in my own way, assure her of his
loyalty. I have never heard the end. But if ever she reads this account,
I hope she will believe in him.
For there are women in the tropics, just like her, who pray that their
men will be faithful. I was walking along, thinking of him and of her.
The evening glow, full to overflowing of tropic loveliness, was all
about. The white foam of the breakers dashing themselves against the
reefs out there, a quarter of a mile away, came softly in, over the
smooth water, to land. The laughter of little children on the beach
seemed to tease, the hiss of the sea, a combination of elemental things
utterly without tragedy.
Just then I came upon a group of people gathered at the little pier.
Strewn about their feet were trunks and bags and kits, indicating
departure in haste, while the presence of a handful of soldiers,
standing at attention, was an unspoken explanation of what was toward.
The civilians clustered in a little group, quiet, communicating with one
another in whispers. They comprised seventeen Germans, erstwhile the
wealthiest plantation-owners, now prisoners of war, and their wives and
children, from whom they were to be parted. The cause of their departure
is not pertinent here. The human equation is.
As the officer issued his order for embarkation, there was a momentary
commotion. Soldiers, by no means unfriendly to their prisoners, assisted
them in the placing of luggage on the boat. The men, turning to their
women and children with warm embraces, called in forced cheerfulness
that they would soon be back. All the men stepped into the rowboats and
with full, powerful strokes of Samoan oarsmen they were borne out across
the reefs toward the steamer anchored beyond. Upon the beach remained
bewildered native women and their half-caste children, some of them in
an agony of grief now run wild. One family lingered, weeping silently. A
group of two middle-aged women, a girl of about twenty, two small girls,
and two boys stood gazing out toward the ship. They brushed away tears
absent-mindedly. A little girl and boy cried quietly. And like that
white wife in the temperate world, these dark-skinned women of the
tropics were left to wonder whether their husbands would remain faithful
to them in a world of which they had vague if not altogether wrong
notions.
A full, mellow afterglow threw the ship for a moment into relief, and
twilight lowered. Upon the end pile of the pier sat a young Samoan in a
halo of dim light. From this modern scene which may some day be the
theme for a South Sea "Evangeline" I moved away wondering what this
cleavage of people would mean to the Polynesians. An unconscious
curiosity led me into the village. It was night. From the various huts
rang the voices of happy natives. Fires flamed under their evening
meals. Dim lamps revealed shadow-figures of men and women. A slight
drizzle brushed over the valley and disappeared. Then the firm tread of
feet sounded in the dusty road. About twenty girls, two abreast,
stamping their naked feet, passed by and on into the darkness to drop,
matrice-like, each into her own home. Earlier that evening they had
escorted to the ship the white woman who was their missionary teacher.
One long skiff had held them all. Each had a single oar in hand, short
and spear-headed, with which she struck the gunwale of the boat after
every stroke, thus beating time to a native song. Here was another case
of contact and cleavage. Their teacher was returning to her land,
leaving them with the glimmer of her ideals, her notions of life and
loyalty. How much of it would hold them? Coming and going, the fusion of
races, once of a common stock, is taking place.
2
I cannot recall having received any definite invitation from any of the
principals responsible for the party I attended one evening in Apia, but
in the islands the respectable stranger does not find himself lonely. It
was sufficient that I was a friend of one of the guests. Four young men
who were leaving were given a send-off; and the celebrations were to
take place in the little Sunday-school shack.
[Illustration: THREE VIEWS OF A MAORI WOMAN
In European clothes
With her New Zealand husband at home
In her native costume]
[Illustration: A GROUP OF WHITES AND HALF-CASTES IN SAMOA
The father of the two girls was a lawyer and the son of a Sydney
(Australia) clergyman]
[Illustration: A SHIP-LOAD OF "PICTURE-BRIDES" ARRIVING AT SEATTLE
Japanese seldom marry other than Japanese women]
[Illustration: A MAORI WOMAN WITH HER CHILDREN
The father is a white man--a New Zealand shepherd]
That evening the little structure was metamorphosed from crude solemnity
by a generous trimming in palm branches and flowers, as though it had
been turned outside in. Oil-lamps hung from the rafters by stiff
wires, unyielding even to the weight of the light-giving vessels. The
awkwardness of some of the natives in their relations with the whites
could not be overcome even by their obvious inclination. But the music
stirred us all into a whirl of equality. It was furnished by an old
crone of a native woman. She was dressed in a shabby Mother-Hubbard gown
and her feet were bare. Her stiff fingers worked upon the keys of an
accordion in a sluggish fashion, as she confused old-fashioned
barn-dances with sentimental melodies. She was stirred on to greater
sentiment by the teasing approaches of one white man fully
three-quarters drunk. As for the dancers,--what to them were
half-expressed notes? Their own fresh blood more than overcame any lack.
Pretty young flappers, eager for the arms of the white chaps, moved
about among stolid dames whose purity of race revealed itself in russet
skins and slightly flattened noses. They had finer features than the
matrons. The white "impurities" shone out of them. But they were not
quite free, not quite absolved from the weight of their primitive
forebears. They were shy and had little to say for themselves, and it
seemed they wished they could just cast off the high-heeled shoes and
tight garments and be that which at least half of themselves wished to
be. Yet they were erect and proud,--and gay.
Behind the curtain which hung across the little rostrum stood tables
fairly littered with bananas, mangos, and watermelons, mingled with the
fruits of the Northern kitchen stove,--cakes, pies, and meats enough to
satisfy a harvesting-gang. And when the call to supper came, the
invasion of this hidden treasure island and its despoliation proved that
however much mankind may be differentiated socially and intellectually,
gastronomically there is universal equality.
There is another basis upon which the wide world is one, and that is in
its affections. Long after midnight the party would have still been in
progress but for the threat of the ferry-men. They wished to retire and
announced that the last boat was soon to start across the
moon-splattered reefs. There was a hurried meeting of lips in farewell.
The silver light revealed more than one sweet face crumpled before
separation. Then with the first dip of their oars into the sea the
swarthy oarsmen began the song which, exotic and sentimental as it was,
left every heart as aching for the shore as it did those of the simple
half-caste maidens for their casual lovers of the colder Antipodes.
"Oh, I neva wi' fo-ge-et chu," drawled the oarsmen, and they on shore
joined in with the softer voices of that gentler world.
3
I had been an unknown and unknowing guest, paying my rates for keep at
the hotel. For most of an hour I had been in a small upper room with
three or four white men whose sole object seemed to be to get as drunk
as they could and to induce me to join them. In those clear moments that
flash across leary hours, they gave voice to their disapproval of
intermarriage with the natives. Then I learned of the wedding taking
place below. My curiosity led me downstairs, and though an utter
stranger, I made my way into the company. Not for a moment did I feel
myself out of place. Such is the nature of life in the tropics. Among
those present were pretty half-caste maidens, slovenly full-blooded
native matrons, men and women of all ages and conditions of attire.
There were German-Samoans, English, English-Samoans, American and
American-Samoans, with a salting of no (or forgotten) nationality. Some
were in Mother-Hubbard gowns, some in pongee silks, some in canvas and
white duck, cut either for street or evening wear. One young chap, the
clerk at the customs, came dressed in the latest tuxedo. And a
half-caste chief appeared in a suit of silk pajamas.
The marriage-feast was as sumptuous as any that ever tempted the palate
of man. It was spread not on acres, as in the olden days, but on a long
table which stretched the length of the thirty-foot room. Photographs
are everywhere sold displaying so-called cannibal feasts, with huge
turtles and hundreds of tropical vegetables. However it may have been in
those days, at this feast the guests were cannibal in manners only. They
stood round the table and helped themselves with that disregard of
to-morrow's headache and the hunger of the day after which is said to be
primitive lack of economy.
As the guests were led out into the dance-hall, one young stalwart took
the remnant of the watermelon rind he had been gnawing and slung it
straight at the pretty back of a Euro-Polynesian girl in evening frock.
She tittered at him. The jollity was running too high for any one to be
disturbed by anything like that.
Soon the dance was in full swing. Not the tango, which we regard as
primitive and wild, but sober editions of dances with us long out of
date. The need is more pressing in the tropics among folk of part-white
parentage than an appearance of real civilization. And though it is not
so long in the history of the Pacific since the coming of the first
white man, there is already an intermediate race growing up which,
beginning with Samoa, spreads northward and southward and all around as
far as the reaches of the sea. Nor is the mixture always to be
deprecated.
The night wore on. The dancing ceased. Flushed faces and perspiring
forms slipped out into the moonlight. The white collar which had adorned
the tuxedo of the clerk was now brother to the pajamas. The white men
who had tried to drown their objections to intermarriage had yielded to
the lure of the pretty half-caste maidens. One of them now disappeared
with his "tart."
A traveling-salesman from Suva, thin and wiry, had been in dispute with
a new civil officer. They contradicted each other just to be contrary.
The officer had a wife at home to whom he was bound to be faithful in
matters of sex; in the matter of spirits he could not be unfaithful,
since in that all the world is one. When the two of them and I left the
party, they were still disputing the question of intermarriage, in which
neither believed but on which both had pronounced complexes.
To change the subject, which was bordering on a fight, I asked: "Why do
the palms bend out toward the sea?"
"Now, what difference does it make to you?" said the salesman. "You're
always asking why this, why that?"
"Why shouldn't he?" grumbled the officer, more sober and more
intelligent.
We rambled along. The salesman soon slipped into his hotel. The officer
and I wandered toward the native village.
"Strange," he said, somewhat sobered by the sea air. "If I met him in
Auckland I wouldn't speak to him. He's beneath me."
Free and easy as the relationship of marriage seems to be here, one not
infrequently runs across descendants of very happy and desirable unions.
I had gone on a little motor jaunt with some of the men of the British
Club. Our way was along the road the natives had built in gratitude to
R. L. S., and our destination the home of a friend of his, who had
married a native woman. The house was of European construction, solid
and comfortable, with a veranda affording a view of the open sea. The
interior was in every way as typical of British colonial life as any I
later saw in New Zealand. There were photographs on the wall, hanging
shelves, bric-á-brac, a piano,--all importations of crude Western
manufactories.
The hosts were Euro-Polynesians; the father a lawyer and son of a
clergyman of Sydney, Australia, who had settled in the islands years
ago. I do not recall whether, like his closest friend, Stevenson, he was
buried on the island, but certainly he left by no means unworthy
offspring, whatever prejudice may say.
Thus, in the mixture of emotions often sterile, and in the bones of
white devotees is the reunion of the races of these regions being slowly
effected. And at the two extremities of the Pacific--New Zealand and
Hawaii--we find the process nearer completion.
4
In the journeys to and fro across the vast spaces of the South Pacific
one rarely meets a white man who takes his native wife with him. One
such I did meet when slipping down from Hawaii to the Fiji Islands.
There were two couples on board who always kept more or less to
themselves, two rough-looking white men, a white woman, and one who for
all I could tell was a middle-class Southern European woman. She wore
simple clothes,--a blouse hanging over her skirt and comfortable shoes.
She was in no sense shy, laughed heartily, moved about with a
self-conscious air of importance, but with ease, and made no effort to
hide the curving blue lines of tattooing that decorated her chin. She
was a Maori princess, and all the vigor of her race disported itself in
the supple lines of her figure.
Her husband, Mr. Webb, however, was not a British prince. Blunt in his
manners, he was ultra-radical in his opinions,--a proud member of New
Zealand's working class. Domineering in his temperament he was, but she
was a match for him. It was obvious that she had missed in her native
training any lessons in subservience to a mere husband. She spoke a
clear, broad, fluent English without the slightest accent, and when her
extremely argumentative husband made a strong point, she gave her assent
in no mistaken terms.
At table she was more mannerly than her spouse, though laboring under no
difficulties whatever in the acquisition of food. I have never seen a
person more self-possessed. Her royal lineage was writ large in her
every expression. Though out on deck they both seemed somewhat out of
place among the white folk and preferred a corner apart, in the
dining-room they were kin to all men.
I found them both extremely interesting, and when the usual invitations
were passed round for a continuance of the acquaintanceship after
landing, I accepted theirs more readily than any other. Blunt and
without finesse as they were, there was an obvious cordiality and
virility in their manner, and no man alert to adventure turns so
promising an offer aside.
Months afterward I was in Auckland, New Zealand, and made myself known
to them. Most cordial was the reception they gave me when I stepped upon
the well-built pier that jutted out into the inlet from the little
launch that brought me there. Back upon the knoll stood Madame, her
heavy head of curly hair loose about her shoulders. Her very being
greeted me with welcome, firmness of foot and arm and calmness of poise
proclaiming her nativity. When I approached, her strong hand grasped
mine, her face beamed, and she led the way over the grass-grown path to
the porch with even more self-confidence than when she had gone to her
seat in the saloon, on shipboard.
Yet it was no saloon they led me into, but a simple hollow-tile
structure with slate roofing and plain plastered walls. Just an ordinary
four-roomed house, the haven of the rising pioneer. There were no
decorations on the walls, no modern equipment of any kind, not even a
stove. The table was machine-turned, the chairs ordinary, and on the
mantelpiece stood some bleached photographs. My hosts went about in
their bare feet, and otherwise as loosely clad as the early November
spring permitted. They prepared their meals on the open fire, and the
menu was as simple as anything ever offered me; and for the first time
in my life I ate boiled eels, the great Maori staple and delicacy. Had
it not been for the emanation of her genial personality and his
vigorous, breezy, almost hard pleasure in my presence, I should have
felt chilled in that habitation. But in place of things was sincere
welcome. I had proof of that that night, for I was placed in the
guest-room, upon a soft, comfortable bed, while my hosts themselves
spread a mattress on the floor in the living-room. Lest I misunderstand,
they explained that it was their custom, Maori fashion, to sleep on the
floor, as they preferred the hard support to that of the yielding
spring.
I woke next morning just as the sun peeped over the hill directly into
my window. It was a sober dawn,--just a healthy flush of life, with
crisp, invigorating air. One branch of a young kauri pine-tree stretched
across the rising orb like nature rousing itself from sleep. And in the
other room I could hear my hosts moving quietly about, preparing
breakfast.
Without word of warning or any apparent welcome, the wife's brother and
his young bride arrived. It was obvious that the visit was no unusual
occurrence. They made themselves as much a part of the place as
possible, and were ignored by the white man and his Maori wife as though
they were servants. Yet they were both, to me at least, delightful. He
was broad-shouldered, erect, rounded of limb but muscular,--as handsome
a boy of twenty as I have ever seen, and it gave one joy to see him
mated to so fine a girl. Their beings vibrated to each other with the
joy of their union.
And she was as fine a mate for him. Though she accentuated every feature
of her sex, it was with the joy of fitness for him, not with any effort
to be alluring. She wore a very close fitting middy-blouse, which made
more firm the rounded breasts of her young maidenhood. She was supple
and plump and moved with litheness and grace, full of animal spirits.
With an affected air she swung about to the step of an American rag, and
every once in a while she would throw herself into her lover's arms, and
take a turn about out of sheer happiness. It had never occurred to me
how extremely civilized and not primitive our rag-time music is until I
saw these young "savages" affect it. But however ill-fitting the tune to
their emotions, there was something absolutely natural in their
adoration and their rushing into each other's arms which no amount of
civilization could tarnish.
In the afternoon they went digging for eels in the mud of the inlet.
While they were gone, my host and his wife cleared the yard of overgrown
weeds and rubbish.
"That's the way they are," said he. "All day long they dance and fool
away their time. They think they've done a lot if they dig for eels all
afternoon. When we went away to Hawaii we left them to look after our
house without charging them any rent. This is what we found when we
returned. The whole place was overgrown with weeds, the fences were
broken down, the gates were off, and the place was strewn with rubbish.
They don't know what it is to be careful." And he struck a match to the
heap of weeds he and his wife had gathered.
Presently the two lovers returned with a basket full of eels. The young
"housewife" hung her catch by the tails on the clothes-line to dry, and
in a pail of clear water washed the mud-suckers they had gathered as
by-product. Then they felt they were entitled to rest.
All afternoon until late evening they lay upon the spring of an unused
matressless bedstead, which stood upon the veranda. Their heads were at
the opposite ends of the bed. He kicked his feet in the air, but every
time a move of hers showed more of her legs than he thought proper, he
pulled down her tight skirt. He held an accordion over him upon which
he played a medley of airs, while she whirled a soft hat with her
fingers. From their throats issued a fountain of song, harmonious only
in the spirit of joy which inspired it.
So far they might just as well have been guests at a hotel for all the
attention their elders paid to them. We had had our meals by ourselves.
They were simply tolerated. But after nightfall, they joined their
relatives in a game of cards. Every move provoked a burst of laughter,
whether successful or unsuccessful to the hilarious one, and never a
suggestion of strife or thought of gain was manifest.
The Maories are more sober than their kinsmen of the upper South Seas.
Life was never to them less than a serious struggle. I daresay they are
happier to-day than they were in their own time, with peace and
prosperity guaranteed them. But that is problematical. Laughter and play
are to-day urgent necessities. The dances and games that were native to
them--when not stimulated by some social event--do not come to them with
the same old spontaneity. It took considerable begging on my part and
nudging from Mr. Webb to persuade the women to show me a native dance.
Donning her skirt of rushes, Mrs. Webb stepped into the center of the
room, giggling all the while, and insisting that her sister-in-law dance
with her. The latter took a stick in her hand and they began. But after
two or three movements they doubled over with laughter, and faltered. I
kept urging them on. At last they caught the spirit of it, and for a few
minutes they were as though possessed. Their movements, mainly of the
hands and hips, were not unlike those of the geisha dances of Japan.
They kept them up for fifteen minutes. Suddenly they stopped, as though
struck self-conscious, almost as a modest girl who had wakened from a
somnambulant journey in her nightgown. They slipped into chairs, and
were silent. Then for about half an hour they sat "yarning" soberly
before the hearth fire. And something sad seemed to creep away up the
chimney.
The two young lovers decided they would take a bath, and went into
another chamber to heat the water. My bed was spread for me; the hosts
unrolled the mattress which had been lying in the corner on the floor
all day. We retired. Then from the other room came sounds of hilarious
laughter, the splashing of water in the tub, and the slapping of naked
wet flesh. It kept up for hours, long after midnight. When silence
finally reigned over the household, an adorably cool moon peeped in at
our windows, and I knew that the two lovers in the room next mine were
at last overcome by the conspiracy of moonlight and fatigue.
"Did you hear those mad Maories?" said Mr. Webb to me the first thing in
the morning. "Such mad things! To keep the whole house awake till long
after midnight!" Then he, too, seemed to become self-conscious. Wasn't
he passing reflections on the tribe of his wife? We strolled out into
the fields. He seemed to feel the necessity of an explanation. Among his
people, the white folk, though he was not ostracized for having taken a
native wife (for it is common enough), still it did lower one in the
social scale. I steered the conversation round till he himself spoke of
it. He referred to his wife, somewhat soberly. "I like her and am
satisfied with her. She's a good woman." And during the whole of my
visit I saw nothing to indicate that their marriage was not a success.
She was tidy, thrifty, and companionable. He always treated her with
respect and affection, though once or twice with undue firmness. But she
always stood her ground with dignity and good-nature. When he poked
kindly fun at some photographs of her, she smiled and winked at me. Then
she said of a picture taken of him on the beach: "I wouldn't lose it for
all the world, just for his sake."
By way of apology for the absence of more furnishings, they explained
that they had sold out; they were tired of labor conditions in New
Zealand, of the too great closeness to the "tribe" and in consequence
had paid a visit to Hawaii, where they bought a plantation. Thither they
went shortly afterward, the Briton and his Maori wife, he to mix with
his European cousins, she with her Polynesian kinsfolk, and a more
general reunion, after centuries of separation, consummated.
Not the least lovable among the fifty-seven blends of humanity that make
up the inhabitants of the South Seas and the Pacific are these Maories
and their half-brothers and sisters.
5
From a Member of Parliament I had received several letters of
introduction, one of which was to the famous Dr. Pomare, the native M.
P. who represented native interests in the Dominion's parliament. When I
arrived at Wellington, the capital, I presented myself at his office and
was received by a most genial, well-spoken, widely read individual whose
tongue would have entertained the most sophisticated of European
gatherings. There was hardly a subject we touched in which he was not
well versed, and his native qualities rang out in intermittent bursts of
laughter such as only a healthy-minded and healthy-bodied individual
could indulge in. When we began to discuss the question of the virtues
and vices of his native race, the Maories, he assured me:
"Oh, we're just like any people. There are good and bad amongst us. Some
of our people will sell their lands, if they can, and buy an automobile
which they run madly about and then leave in an open plot in ruin. On
the other hand, one of our women has been very clever with her property,
has sold it off, and invested her money in stocks so that to-day she
owns the greatest number of shares in the Wellington tram lines. So you
see we are just like other people."
And so it is. But there is a slight exception, for I have heard from
every one that the tendency to revert to type is very great, and that
one of the wealthiest native woman in the Dominion will frequently leave
her mansion, her jewels, her limousine, her fine clothes, and spend a
time in a Maori _pah_, eating eels in the good old native way.
But such reversions cannot last long. Despite that drift, there are
indications of a racial recrudescence through the half-castes, a
tendency noticed by students of the primitive peoples throughout the
Pacific. Hope for the Maories is in the younger elements who have that
happy mixture in them, called Pakeha-Maori. Visiting a class of young
women in a commercial school in Dunedin I noticed among them one whose
dark face and black eyes were full of a certain wicked fascination. She
was as bright and alert as any member of the class. And when I spoke of
her to the head of the school, he said, "Oh, that little half-caste
girl." I should not have known it.
One does not like to be too enthusiastic, but if these savage
Polynesians can in the course of three generations, and with the aid of
a slight mixture, change from fierce cannibalism to something as sweet
and lovable as this, there is indeed great hope for them. What though
the prejudiced assure you that, however far the mixture may have gone,
it reveals itself in a tendency to squat when least expected? There is
in the most civilized of us still enough of the savage strain to make us
wary of carrying our aversions too far.
Doubtless the Britons of New Zealand would enter any debate with the
Americans of Hawaii as to which is the superior people, the Maories or
the Hawaiians. For our own peace of mind let us accept their Polynesian
kinship at the outset. Both are worth saving as separate races or in
mixture with others.
The Maori M.P., the rebellious priest, Rua, later released from prison,
the Hawaiian clerk in the throne-room, the Fijian chief turned governor,
the Samoan chief in pajamas who, with the customs officials, boarded the
steamer anchored beyond the reefs, and Mrs. Webb, the princess,--all
these are natives playing the new part allotted to them in this strange
new world.
Thus slowly, into the life and fabric of the South Seas, is coming this
consciousness of rebirth. It is a new class, a new race. Not the
Eurasians, scorned by the white and the superior Asiatics,--but the
reverse. Half-caste, but the proud possessors of the virtues of the
natives, with the strength and superiority of the white; half-caste in
blood but not always so in spirit.