The Noa-Noa comes to port--Papeete en féte--Rare scene at the Tiare
Hotel--The New Year celebrated--Excitement at the wharf--Battle of
the Limes and Coal.
The Noa-Noa came in after many days of suspense, during which rumors
and reports of war grew into circumstantial statements of engagements
at sea and battles on land. A mysterious vessel was said to have
slipped in at night with despatches for the governor. All was sensation
and canard, on dit and oui dire, and all was proved false when the
liner came through the passage in the reef. Nothing had happened to
disturb the peace of nations, but a dock strike in Auckland had tied
up the ship. The relief of mind of the people of Papeete caused a wave
of joy to pass over them. Business men and officials, tourists who
expected to leave for America and the outside world on the Noa-Noa,
overflowed with evidence of their delight. The consuls of the powers
met at the Cercle Militaire the governor, and laughed hectically at
the absurd balloon of tittle-tattle which had been pricked by the
Noa-Noa's facts. There had been absolutely nothing to the rumors but
the fears or the antipathies of nationals in Tahiti.
It was the holiday season, the New Year at hand, and, moreover, there
was added cause for rejoicing in the safety of the Saint Michel,
a French-owned inter-island steamship which had been missing six
weeks. She had left one of the Paumotu atolls and failed to reach her
next port, thirty miles away. Rumor had sent her to the bottom. She
was a crank vessel, with a perpetual list, and a roll of twenty-five
degrees in the quietest sea; the dread of all compelled by affairs
to take passage on her.
"She's sunk; rolled over too much, and turned turtle," was the verdict
at the Cercle Bougainville. Her agents had sent the Cholita, a small
power schooner, to go over the Saint Michel's course, and find trace
of her, if possible. Imagine the excitement along the waterfront
when, almost coincident with the sighting of the Noa-Noa, the Saint
Michel appeared, pulled by the Cholita. Familiar faces of passengers
appeared on her deck as she made fast to the quay, holding cigarettes
as if they had waked up after a night in their own beds. The Cholita
had found the Saint Michel at the Marquesas Islands, whither she had
drifted after losing her rudder on a rock. After a month lying inert
at the Marquesas, the Cholita had taken hold and dragged the crippled
Saint back to Papeete.
The joy and surprise of the families and friends of the passengers and
the crew must have the vent usual here, and what with the Noa-Noa's
crew of amateur sailors, firemen, and yachtsman, and six licensed
captains, taking the places of the strikers, the town was filled with
pleasure-seekers. A high mass of thanksgiving at the cathedral was
followed by a day of explanations, anathemas upon the owners of the
Saint Michel, and the striking labor-unions, and of music, dancing,
and toasts.
New Year's eve, two picture shows, hulas, and the festivities of the
wedding of Cowan, the prize-fighter, brought in a throng from the
districts to add to the Papeete population and the voyagers.
The streets were a blaze of colored gowns and flower-crowned girls
and women. The quays were lined with singing and playing country
folk. Small boats and canoes were arriving every few minutes during
the afternoon with natives who preferred the water route to the
Broom Road. Cowan was a favorite boxer, and shortly to face the
noted Christchurch Kid, of Christchurch, New Zealand, whose fist
was described on the bill-boards as "a rock thrown by a mighty
slinger." Cowan, a half-Polynesian, was beloved for his island blood,
and was marrying into a Tahitian family of note and means. The nuptials
at the church were preceded by a triumphal procession of the bride
and groom in an automobile, with a score of other cars following, the
entire party gorgeously adorned with wreaths,--hei in Tahitian,--and
the vehicles lavishly decorated with sugar-cane and bamboo tassels. The
band of the cinema led the entourage, and played a free choice of
appropriate music, "Lohengrin" before the governor's palace, and
"There'll be a Hot Time in the Old Town To-night" as they passed
Lovaina's. The company sang lustily, and toasts to the embracing
couple were drunk generously from spouting champagne-bottles as the
cortege circled the principal streets.
There was rare life at Lovaina's, for besides all the diners in
ordinary and extraordinary in the salle-à-manger, Stevens, the London
stockbroker, had a retired table set for the American, British, and
German consuls, and their wives. The highest two officials of France
in this group, Messieurs, l'Inspecteurs des Colonies, were there,
eating solemnly alone, as demanded by their exalted rank, and their
mission of criticism. They glanced down often at their broad bosoms to
see that their many orders were on straight, to note the admiration
of lesser officialdom, and to make eyes at the women. Their long and
profuse black beards were hidden by their napkins, which all Frenchmen
of parts hereabouts tuck in their collars, and draw up to their mouths,
a precaution which, when omitted, is seen to have been founded on an
etiquette utilitarian and esthetic.
The company was complex. At a table opposite me sat the juge inferieur
and the daughter of the Chinese cook at the Hotel Central, a smart,
slender woman with burning eyes, and with them, in full uniform,
were two French civil officials, who wore, as customary, clothes like
soldiers. One unfamiliar with their regalia might mistake, as I did,
a pharmacist for an admiral. Mary, the cook's half-Tahitian daughter,
was in elaborate European dress, with a gilded barret of baroque
pearls in her copious, ebon tresses, and with red kid shoes buckled
in silver and blister pearls.
The son of Prince Hinoe, who would have been the King of Tahiti
had the dynasty continued to reign, had a dozen chums at a table,
oafs from seventeen to twenty, and with the fish course they began
to chant. The captain of the Saint Michel was with Woronick, the
pearl-buyer, who had made the fearful trip to the Marquesas with
him. There was Heezonorweelee, as the natives call the Honorable
Walter Williams, the most famous dentist within five thousand miles,
and the most distinguished white man of Tahiti; Landers; Polonsky;
David; McHenry; Schlyter, the Swedish tailor; Jones and Mrs. Jones,
the husband, head of a book company in Los Angeles; a Barbary Coast
singer and her man; a demirep of Chicago and her loved one; three
Tahitian youths with wreaths; the post-office manager, and with him
the surgeon of the hospital; a notary's clerk, the governor's private
secretary; the administrateur of the Marquesas Islands, Margaret,
Lurline and Mathilde, Lena, and Lucy, lovely part-Tahitian girls
who clerked in stores; the Otoman, chauffeur for Polonsky; English
tourists; Nance, the California capitalist; and others.
Curses upon Saint Michel, threats of damage suits for fright and
delay, laughable stories of the mistakes of the volunteer crew of the
Noa-Noa; discussions of the price of copra, mingled with the chants of
the native feasters and ribald tales. The Tiare girls, all color and
sparkle, exchanged quips with the male diners, patted their shoulders,
and gigglingly fought when they tried to take them into their laps.
In the open porch, Lovaina, gaily adorned, her feet bare, but a
wreath of ferns on her head, sped the dishes and the wine. She kept
the desserts before her and cut portions to suit the quality of her
liking for each patron.
"Taporo e taata au ahu" said Atupu.
"The lime and the tailor," that means, and identified Landers
and Schlyter. Landers was the "lime" because a former partner
of his establishment exported limes, and Landers succeeded to his
nickname. Landers and Schlyter were good customers, so they got larger
slices of dried-apple pie.
Chappe-Hall, being bidden farewell on his leaving for Auckland, was
apostrophizing Tahiti in verse, all the stanzas ending in "And the
glory of her eyes over all." There were bumpers and more, and "Bottoms
up," until a slat-like American woman bounced off the veranda with her
sixth course uneaten to complain to Lovaina that her hotel was no place
for a Christian or a lady. Lovaina almost wept with astonishment and
grief, but kept the champagne moving toward the Chappe-Hall table as
fast as it could be cooled, meanwhile assuring the scandalized guest
that nothing undecorous ever happened in the Tiare Hotel, but that
it were better it did than that young men should go to evil resorts
for their outbursts.
"My place respectable," Lovaina said dignifiedly. "I don' 'low no
monkey bizeness. Drinkin' wine custom of Tahiti. Make little fun,
no harm. If they go that Cocoanut House, get in bad."
Lovaina told me all about it. She was quite hurt at the aspersions
upon her home, and entered the dining-room in a breathing spell to
sit at my table, a rather unusual honor I deeply felt. I pledged my
love for her in Pol Roger, but she would have nothing but water.
"I no drink these times," she explained. "Maybe some day I do
again. Make fat people too much bigger. That flat woman from 'Nited
States, ain't she funny? I think missionary."
From the screened area in which the consuls dined with the broker
one heard:
"Here's to the king, God bless him!" "Hoch der Kaiser!" "Vive la
Republique!" "The Stars and Stripes!" as the glasses were emptied by
the consuls and their wives and host.
Lovaina had taken up the rug in the parlor, and a graphophone
ground out the music for dancing. Ragtime records brought out the
Otoman, a San Franciscan, bald and coatless. He took the floor with
Mathilde, a chic, petite, and graceful half-caste, and they danced
the maxixe. David glided with Margaret, Landers led out Lucy, and
soon the room was filled with whirling couples. A score looked on
and sipped champagne, the serving girls trying to fill the orders
and lose no moment from flirtation. On the camphor-wood chest four
were seated in two's space.
When midnight tolled from the cathedral tower, there was an
uncalled-for speech from a venerable traveler who apparently was not
sure of the date or the exact nature of the fête:
"Fellow-exiles and natives bujus Teetee. We are gathered together
this Fourth of July--"
Cries of "Altai" "Ce n'est-pas vrai!" "Shove in your high! It's
New Year!"
"--to cel'brate the annivers'ry of the death of that great man--"
Yells of "Sit down!" "Olalala!" "Aita maitai!" and the venerable
orator took his seat. He was once a governor of a territory under
President Harrison, and now lived off his pension, shaky, sans teeth,
sans hair, but never sans speech.
The Englishmen and Americans clattered glasses and said "Happy New
Year!" and the Tahitians: "Rupe-rupe tatou iti! I teienei matahiti
api!" "Hurrah for all of us! Good cheer for the New Year!"
Monsieur Lontane, second in command of the police, arrived just in
time to drink the bonne année. He executed a pas seul. He mimicked a
great one of France. He drank champagne from a bottle, a clear four
inches between its neck and his, and not a drop spilled.
Lovaina sat on her bench in the porch and marked down the debits:
Fat face............3 Roederer..........
New Doctor..........5 champag...........
Hair on nose........2 champ.............
Willi...............4 pol..............
The electric lights went out. There was a dreadful flutter among the
girls. Some one went to the piano and began to play, "Should Auld
Acquaintance be Forgot," and the Americans and English sang, the
French humming the air. The wine flattened in the glasses and open
bottles, but no one cared. They gathered in the garden, where the
perfume of the tiare scented the night, and the stars were a million
lamps sublime in the sky. Song followed song, English and French,
and when the lazy current pulsated again, the ball was over.
We walked to the beach, Nance and I.
"It's hell how this place gets hold of you," said Nance, who had shot
pythons in Paraguay and had a yacht in Los Angeles harbor. "I dunno,
it must be the cocoanuts or the breadfruit."
Walking back alone through a by-path, I saw the old folks sitting on
their verandas and the younger at dalliance in the many groves. Voices
of girls called me:
"Haere me ne!" "Come to us!" "Hoere mai u nei ite po ia u nei!"
The Himene tatou Arearea of our Moorea expedition came from many
windows, the accordions sweet and low, and the subdued chant in
sympathy with the mellow hour. "The soft lasceevious stars leered
from these velvet skies."
Lovaina had gone to bed, but, with the lights on again, patrons of
the prize-fight had dropped in. The Christchurch Kid had beaten Teaea,
a native, the match being a preliminary clearing of the ground before
the signal encounter with the bridegroom.
The glass doors of the salle-à-manger were broken in a playful scuffle
between the whiskered doctor of the hospital, and Afa, the majordomo
of the Tiare. The medical man ordered five bottles of champagne,
and, putting them in his immense pockets, returned to his table and
opened them all at once. He had them spouting about him while their
fizz lasted, and then drank most of their contents. He then threw all
the crockery of his table to the roadway, and Afa wrestled him into
a better state, during which process the doors were smashed. When
the bombilation became too fearful, Lovaina called out from her bed:
"Make smaller noise! Nobody is asleep!"
At two in the morning the gendarmes advised the last revelers to
retire, and the Tiare became quiet. But Atupu slept in a little
alcove by the bar, and any one in her favor had but to enter her
chamber and pull her shapely leg to be served in case of dire need.
The incidents of the departure of the Noa-Noa that day for San
Francisco will live in the annals of Papeete. Its calamitous happenings
are "in the archives." I have the word of the secretary-general of the
Etablissments Français de l'Oceanie for that, and in the saloons and
coffee-houses they talked loudly of the "bataille entre les cochons
Anglais et les héros les Français et les Tahitiens."
It was a battle that would have rejoiced the heart of Don Quixote,
and that redoubtable knight had his prototype here in the van of it,
the second in command of the police of Papeete, M. Lontane, the mimic
of the Tiare celebration.
The Noa-Noa's amateur crew of wretched beach-combers, farm laborers,
and impossible firemen, stokers, and stewards, a pitiable set, were
about the waterfront all day, dirty, dressed in hot woolen clothes,
bedraggled and as drunk as their money would allow. The ship was down
to leave at three-thirty o'clock, but it was four when the last bag
of copra was aboard. There were few passengers, and those who booked
here were dismayed at the condition of the passageways, the cabins,
and the decks. The crowd of "scabs," untrained white sailors, and
coal passers was supplemented by Raratonga natives, lounging about
the gangway and sitting on the rails. On the wharf hundreds of people
had gathered as usual to see the liner off. Lovaina was there in a
pink lace dress, seated in her carriage, with Vava at the horse's
head. Prince Hinoe had gathered about him a group of pretty girls,
to whom he was promising a feast in the country. All the tourists,
the loafers, the merchants, and the schooner crews were there, too,
and the iron-roofed shed in which it is forbidden to smoke was filled
with them. The Noa-Noa blew and blew her whistle, but still she
did not go. The lines to the wharf were loosened, the captain was
on the bridge, the last farewells were being called and waved, but
there was delay. Word was spread that some of the crew were missing,
and as at the best the vessel was short-handed, it had to tarry.
At last came three of the missing men. They, too, had welcomed the
New Year, and their gait was as at sea when the ship rises and falls
on the huge waves. They wheeled in a barrow a mate whose mispoise
made self-locomotion impossible. The trio danced on the wharf, sang a
chantey about "whisky being the life of man," and declared they would
stay all their lives in Tahiti; that the "bloody hooker could bleedin'
well" go without them. They were ordered on board by M. Lontane,
with two strapping Tahitian gendarmes at his back.
If there are any foreigners the average British roustabout hates it
is French gendarmes, and the ruffians were of a mind to "beat them
up." They raised their fists in attitudes of combat, and suddenly
what had been a joyous row became a troublesome incident.
Sacré bleu! those scoundrels of English to menace the uniformed
patriots of the French republic! The second in command drew a revolver,
and pointing at the hairy breast of the leader of the Noa-Noans,
shouted: "Au le vapeur! Diable! What, you whisky-filled pigs, you
will resist the law?"
He took off his helmet and handed it to one of the native policemen
while he unlimbered the revolver more firmly in the direction of the
seamen. The sailor shrank back in bewilderment. Guns were unknown in
shore squabbles.
"I'll 'ave the British Gov'ment after ye," roared the leader. "I'll
write to the Sydney papers. Ye've pulled a gun in me face."
Steadily and with some good nature the Tahitian officers pushed
the trio toward the gangway and up it. Once aboard, the gangway was
hoisted, the pilot clambered up the side, and it seemed as if the liner
was away. But no; the three recalcitrants jumped on the bulwarks, and
joined by a dozen others, yelled defiance at the authorities. As the
Noa-Noa gradually drew out these cries became more definite, and the
honor of France and of all Frenchmen was assailed in the most ancient
English Billingsgate. Gestures of frightful significance added to the
insults, and these not producing retorts in kind from the second in
command and the populace, a shower of limes began to fall upon them.
Sacks of potatoes, lettuce-heads, yams, and even pineapples,
deck cargo, were broken open by the infuriated crew to hurl at the
police. The crowd on the wharf rushed for shelter behind posts and
carriages, the horses pranced and snorted, and M. Lontane leaped to the
fore. He advanced to the edge of the quay, and in desperate French,
of which his adversaries understood not a word, threatened to have
them dragged from their perches and sent to New Caledonia.
A well-aimed lime squashed on his cheek, and with a "Sapristi!" he
fled behind a stack of boxes. The riot became general, the roustabouts
heaving iron bars, pieces of wood, and anything they could find. No
officer of the Noa-Noa said a word to stop them, evidently fearing a
general strike of the crew, and when the missiles cut open the head
of a native stevedore and fell even among the laughing girls, the
courtesies began to be returned. Coal, iron nuts, stones, and other
serious projectiles were thrown with a hearty good-will, and soon
the crew and the passengers of the Noa-Noa were scuttling for safety.
The storm of French and Tahitian adjectives was now a cyclone, Tahitian
girls, their gowns stained by the fruity and leguminous shot of the
Australasians, seized lumps of coal or coral, and took the van of the
shore legions. Atupu struck the leader of the Noa-Noa snipers in the
nose with a rock, and her success brought a paean of praise from all
of us.
The entente cordiale with Britain was sundered in a minute. The mêlée
grew into a fierce battle, and only the increasing distance of the
vessel from shore stopped the firing, the last shots falling into
the lagoon.
The second in command had been reinforced by the first in command,
and now, summoned by courier, appeared the secretary-general of
the Etablissements Françaises de l'Oceanie, bearded and helmeted,
white-faced and nervous, throwing his arms into the air and shrieking,
"Qu' est-que ce que ça? Is this war? Are we human, or are these
savages?"
Lovaina, in the rear of whose carriage I had taken refuge, exclaimed:
"They say Tahiti people is savage! Why this crazy people must be
finished. Is this business go on?"
"Non, non!" replied the secretary-general, with patriotic anger,
"We French are long suffering, but c'est assez maintenant."
He spoke to the first in command, and an order was shouted to M. Wilms,
the pilot, to leave the Noa-Noa. That official descended into his boat
and returned to the quay, while the liner hovered a hundred yards away,
the captain afraid to come nearer, fearful of leaving port without
expert guidance, and more so that the crew might renew the combat.
The secretary-general conferred with the private secretary of
the governor, the first and second in command, and several old
residents. They would apply to the British consul for warrants for
the arrest of the ruffianly marksmen, they would wrench them from
the rails, and sentence them to long imprisonments.
So for an hour more the steamship puffed and exhausted her steam,
while the high officials paced the wharf shaking their fists at the
besotted stokers, who shook theirs back.
The stores, closing at five o'clock, sent their quota of clerks
to swell the mob at the quay, and the "rubberneck wagon," alert to
earn fares, took the news of the fray into the country, and hauled in
scores of excited provincials, who had vague ideas that la guerre was
on. The wedding party, only six motor-cars full on the second day,
all in wreaths of tuberoses and wild-cherry rind, the bride still in
her point-lace veil, and the groom and all the guests cheered with
the champagne they had drunk, drove under the shed from the suburbs
and honked their horns, to the horror of the secretary-general and
the others.
The situation was now both disciplinary and diplomatic.
"C'est tres serieux," whispered the secretary to the governor's private
secretary, a dapper little man whose flirting had made his wife a Niobe
and alarmed the husbands and fathers of many French dames et filles.
"Serious, monsieur?" said the private secretary, twisting his black
wisp of a mustache, "it is more than serious now; it is no longer
the French Establishments of Oceania. It is between Great Britain
and France."
A peremptory order was given to drive every one off the quay, and
though the crowd chaffed the police, the sweep of wharf was left free
for the marchings and counter-marchings of the big men.
"What would be the result? Would the entire British population
of the ship resist the taking away of any of the crew? Oh, if the
paltry French administration at Paris had not removed the companies
of soldiers who until recently had been the pride of Papeete! And
crown of misfortune, the gun-boat, sole guardian of French honor in
these seas, was in Australia for repairs. Eh bien, n'importe! Every
Frenchman was a soldier. Did not Napoleon say that? Nom de pipe!"
Wilfrid Baillon, a cow-boy from British Columbia, was standing near me
with his arms folded on his breast and a look of stern determination
on his sunburned face.
"We must look sharp," he said to me. "We may all have to stand
together, we whites, against these French frog-eaters."
The tension was extreme. The warrants had not come from the British
consul, and there seemed no disposition on the Noa-Noa to save the face
of la belle republique, for the blackened and blackguardly stokers
still dangled their legs over the rail and made motions which caused
the officials to shudder and the ladies to shut their eyes.
The agent of the vessel in Papeete, an American, appeared. He talked
long and earnestly with the secretary-general and the first and second,
and to lend even a darker color to the scene, the procureur-général,
the Martinique black, tall, protuberant, mopping his bald head, took
the center of the conclave. Noses were lowered and brought together,
feet were stamped, hands were wiggled behind backs, and right along
the American, the agent, talked and talked.
They demurred, they spat on the boards, they lifted their hands
aloft--and then they ordered the pilot to return to the Noa-Noa, and
that vessel, whistling long and relievedly, pointed her nose toward
the opening in the reef.
Mon Dieu! the suspense was over. The people melted toward their homes
and the restaurants, for it was nearly seven o'clock. I drifted into
the knot about the officials.
"It is in the archives," said the secretary-general. "It will go down
in history. That is enough."
The delightful M. Lontane, in khaki riding breeches,--he, as all
police, ride bicycles--his khaki helmet tipped rakishly over his
cigarette, blew a ringlet.
"C'est comme ça. We would not press our victory," he said
gallantly. "We French are generous. We have hearts."
The secretary-general, the procureur-général, the first in command
and the private secretary, sighted the carriage of the governor,
who had not appeared until the Noa-Noa was out of the lagoon, and
they went to tell him of the great affair.
The agent of the line, grim and unsmiling, climbed to the wide veranda
of the Cercle Bougainville, and ordered a Scotch and siphon.
"There she goes," he said to me, and pointed to the steamer streaking
through the reef gate. "There she goes, and I'm bloody well satisfied."
At tea the next afternoon the British consul cast a new light on the
international incident. He was playing bridge with the governor and
others when the demand for the warrants was brought.
"The blighters interrupted our rubber," said the consul, "and the
governor was exceedingly put out. I told them the Noa-Noa couldn't
proceed without the stokers, and as it carries the French mail, they
patched it up to arrest them when they return. We quite lost track
of the game for a few minutes."
But the cruel war would not down. There was not a good feeling between
the English and French in Tahiti. A slight opposition cropped out
often in criticism expressed to Americans or to Tahitians, or to
each other's own people. New Zealand governs the Cook group, of which
Raratonga is the principal island. Comparisons of sanitation, order,
neatness, and businesslike management of these islands, with the
happy-go-lucky administration of the Society, Paumotus, Marquesas,
and Austral archipelagoes, owned by the French, were frequent by the
English. The French shrugged their shoulders.
"The Tahitians are happy, and we send millions of francs to aid
France," they said. "The English talk always of neatness and golf links
and cricket-grounds. Eh bien! There are other and better things. And
as for drink, oh, la, la! Our sour wines could not fight one round
of the English boxe with whisky and gin and that awful ale."
The French residents protested at the missiles of the crew and the
laissez-faire of the Noa-Noa officers, and the British consul received
a letter from the governor in which the affair of the riot was revived
in an absurd manner.
One might understand M. Lontane, second in command of the police
forces,--six men and himself,--magnifying the row between the tipsy
stokers and his battalions, but to have the governor, who was a
first-rate hand at bridge, and even knew the difference between a
straight and a flush, putting down in black and white, sealed with
the seal of the Republique Française, and signed with his own hand,
that "France had been insulted by the actions of the savages of the
Noa-Noa," was worthy only of the knight of La Mancha.
So thought the consul, but he was a diplomat, his adroitness gained
not only in the consular ranks, but also in Persia as a secretary of
legation, and in many a fever-stricken and robber-ridden port of the
Near and Far East. He pinned upon his most obstreperous uniform the
medal won by merit, straddled a dangling sword, helmeted his head,
and with an interpreter, that the interview might lack nothing of
formality, called upon the governor at his palace.
He told him that the letter of complaint had roused his wonderment,
for, said his British Majesty's representative, "There can be no
serious result, diplomatically or locally, of this Donnybrook
Fair incident. In a hundred ports of the world where war-ships
and merchant ships go, their crews for scores of years have fought
with the police. Besides, I am informed that 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 frappé 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.