The pullers yelled warnings in Tahitian to those who might impede their way or be run over.  The stir was tremendous, for fires were rare and greatly feared.  The regulations of the possession and storage of combustibles were severe, even a wagon or handcart containing as little as one can of kerosene being compelled to fly a red flag.

After a mile we came to the fire, a Chinese restaurant beside a little creek and in a cocoanut-grove.  The roof had fallen in and there were reports that a woman and two children had been killed.  Two men with quart cans threw water from the stream on the edge of the blaze.

The little hose-carts, with a small ladder, arrived with eclat, native gendarmes clearing the road, and Frenchmen and natives shouting the danger of death by these formidable engines.  They were of no purpose, the water-taps which were conspicuous in the main streets being absent here, and no water under pressure was available.  They knew this, of course, but the hose was unreeled, and a dozen people tripped up by its snakelike movements, the while bandsmen and gendarmes roared out manoeuvers.  By now a thousand were there.  I counted roughly several hundred bicycles and two public automobiles, holding thirty persons each, came from the center of town, the enterprising owners canvassing the coffee-shops and saloons for passengers.  These carryalls drew up by the stream within forty feet of the blaze, forcing the pedestrians and cyclists to retreat.

Lovaina appeared, puffing furiously.  Vava was roused to a high pitch.  He told me by signs how he had seen the fire and given the alarm to the mairie, or city hall, the bell of which tolled for an hour.

There was no wind, and the flames rose straight up, scorching the cocoanut-leaves, but unharming other houses within twenty-five feet.  The crowd lingered until the last timber had fallen.  After seeing that there was small danger to the adjoining buildings, and learning that the loss fell upon Chinese only, that no one had been hurt, and that a can of kerosene had exploded, interest in the conflagration dropped, and friends and acquaintances who had met chatted amiably on other subjects.  The proximity of the fire and the marshy condition of the ground made it proper for the ladies with well-turned legs to raise their gowns high, displaying garterless stockings held up by the “native twist” above the calf.  Accordions and mouth-organs enlivened the talk, and not until only charred boards remained did we leave.

Besides the occasional concerts of the band, boxing and moving-pictures made up the public night life of Papeete.  Attached to the theaters were bars, as at the Palais, and these were the foci of those who hunted distraction, and the trysting-places of the amorous.  One found in them or flitting about them all the Tahitian or part Tahitian girls in Papeete who were not kept from them by higher ambition or by a strict family rule.  From Moorea, Raiatea, Bora-Bora, and other islands, and from the rural districts of Tahiti, drifted the fairest who pursued pleasure, and to these cafes went the male tourists, the gayer traders, the sailors, and the Tahitian men of city ways, the chauffeurs, clerks, and officials.