The Noa-Noa was overdue from New Zealand, by way of Raratonga, and her tardiness was the chief subject of conversation at our first meeting.  A hundred times a day was the semaphore on the hill spied at for the signal of the Noa-Noa’s sighting.  High up on the expansive green slope which rises a few hundred feet behind the Tiare Hotel is a white pole, and on this are hung various objects which tell the people of Papeete that a vessel is within view of the ancient sentinel of the mount.  An elaborate code in the houses of all persons of importance, and in all stores and clubs, interprets these symbols.  The merchants depended to a considerable extent upon this monthly liner between San Francisco and Wellington and way ports, and all were interested in the mail and food supplies expected by the Noa-Noa.  Cablegrams sent from any part of the world to New Zealand or San Francisco were forwarded by mail on these steamships.  Tahiti was entirely cut off from the great continents except by vessel.  There was no cable, and no wireless, on this island, nor even at the British island of Raratonga, two days’ steaming from Papeete.  The steamships had wireless systems, and kept in communication with San Francisco or with New Zealand ports for a few days after departure.

There were many guesses at the cause of the delay.

“Nothing but war!” said the French post-office clerk who sat at another table, with his glass of Pernoud.  “Germany and England have come to blows.  Now that accursed nation of beer-swillers will get their lesson.”

The subject was seriously discussed, the armaments of the two powers quoted, and the certainty of Germany’s defeat predicted, the Frenchman asserting vehemently that France would aid England if necessary, or to get back Alsace-Lorraine.  There were gatherings all over Papeete, the war rumor having been made an alleged certainty by some inexplicable communication to an unnamed merchant.

The natives hoped fervently that the war was between France and Germany, and that France would be defeated.  After generations of rule by France, the vanquished still felt an aversion to their conquerors here, as in the Holy Land when Herod ruled.

“I hope France get his,” said a chief, aside, to me.

The mail’s delay upset all business.  Letters closed on the day the liner was expected were reopened.  For three days the girls at Lovaina’s had worn their best peignoirs, and several times donned shoes and stockings to go to the quay.  Passengers for San Francisco who had packed their trunks had unpacked them.  The air of expectancy which Papeete wore for a day or two before steamer-day had been so heated by postponement that nerves came to the surface.

Tahiti was a place of no exact knowledge.  Few residents knew the names of the streets.  Some of the larger business houses had no signs to indicate the firms’ names or what they sold.  Hardly any one knew the names of the trees or the flowers or fishes or shells.