Past the bust of Bougainville, past the offices of Emile Levy, the pearler whom, to Levy’s intense anger, Jack London slew in “The House of Mapuhi”; past the naval depot, the American consulate with the red, white, and blue flung in the breeze; the Commissariat de Police, the pool of Psyche, and all the rows of schooners that line the quays, with their milken sails drying on their masts, and I am by the stores of the merchants.  The dawn is slipping through the curtain of night, but lamps are still burning.  The traffic has roused the sleepers, and they are dressing.  They have brought, tied in pareus, their Sunday clothes.  Women are changing gowns, and men struggle with shirts and trousers, awkward inflictions upon their ordinarily free bodies.

All the night people who have journeyed from Papara, from Papenoo, or nearer districts slumber upon the sidewalks.  This sleeping about anywhere is characteristic of the Tahitian.  On the quays, in the doorways of the large and small stores, in carriages, and on the decks of the vessels, men and women and children lie or crouch, sleeping peacefully, with their possessions near them.

In the fare tamaaraa, the coffee-houses of the Tinitos, the Chinese, the venders of provender and the marketers alike are slipping their taofe tau, their four-sous’ worth of coffee, with a tiny pewter mug of canned milk, sugar, and a half-loaf of French bread with butter.

My vis-a-vis at Shin Bung Lung’s is Prince Hinoe, the heir to the broken throne, a very large, smiling brown gentleman, who sits with the French secretary of the governor, the two, alack! patting the shoulders, pinching the cheeks, and fondling the long, ebon plaits of the bevy of beauties who are up thus early to flirt and make merry.  Tahiti is the most joyous land upon the globe.  Who takes life seriously here is a fool or a liver-ridden penitent.  The shop is full of peals of laughter and stolen kisses.  Those sons of Belial who taught the daughter of the governor of the Dangerous Isles her unspeakable vocabulary are here.  They have been to the Paris, the premier saloon of Papeete, for their morning’s morning, an absinthe, or a hair of the dog that bit them yester eve.

What jokes they have!  Stories of what happened last night in the tap-room of the cinematograph, how David opened a dozen bottles of Roederer, and there was no ice, so all alike, barefooted and silk-stockinged, drank the wine of Champagne warm, and out of beer glasses; of Captain Minne’s statement that he would kill a scion of Tahitian royalty (not Hinoe) if he did not marry his daughter before the captain returned from the Paumotus; and of Count Polonsky’s calling down the black procureur, the attorney-general, right in the same tap-room, and telling him he was a “nigger,” although they had been friends before.

Tahitian and French and English, but very little of the latter, echoes through the coffee-room.  Even I make a feeble struggle to speak the native tongue, and arouse storms of giggles.