When we retired from the scene late at night, the upaupa was still active.  We went to the house of Pai, a handsome native woman, whose half-caste husband was Mr. Fuller.  There were only three beds in the house, which Landers, Lying Bill, and McHenry fell on before any one else could claim them.  I contented myself with a mat on the veranda, and noticed that, besides the remainder of our party, Pai and her tane were also on that level.

At half past two in the morning we lay down.  I could not sleep.  From the bower the song and music rang out continuously, mingled with laughter and the sounds of shuffling feet.

I got up at five, and with a pareu about me, followed the stream until I found a delicious pool, where I bathed for an hour, while I read “The Ballad of Reading Gaol.”  The level land between the sea and the mountains was not more than a quarter mile broad, and the near hills rose rounded and dark green, with mysterious valleys folded in between them.  All about were cocoanuts and bananas, their foliage wet with the rain that had fallen gently all night.  The stream was edged with trees and ferns and was clear and rippling.  At that early hour there was no sensation of chill for me, though the men of native blood balked at entering the water until the sun had warmed it.  A Chinese vegetablegrower sat on the bank with his Chinese wife and cleaned heads of lettuce and bunches of carrots.  She watched me apathetically, as if I were a little strange, but not interesting.

A dozen natives came by and by to bathe in the next pool.  They observed me, and called to me, pleasantly, “Ia ora na!” which is the common greeting of the Tahitian, and is pronounced “yuranna.”  The white is always a matter of curiosity to the native.  These simple people have not lost, though generations of whites have come and bred and died or gone, at least some of their original awe and enjoyment of their conquerors and rulers.

When we had coffee in the morning, our serious and distinguished native hosts stood while we ate and drank.  We, guests in their own comfortable house, did not ask them to join us.  Llewellyn, when I put the question, answered: 

“No.  I am both white and of too high native rank.  You cannot afford to let the native become your social equal.”

McHenry said: 

“You’re bloody well right.  Keep him in his stall, and he’s all right; but out of it, ye’ll get no peace.”

So the gentle Pai and her husband—­they are religious people, and went to the Faatoai church three times this Sunday—­stood while we lolled at ease.  Courtesy here seems a native trait, though even a little native blood improves on the white as far as politeness is concerned.  En passant, the average white here is not of the leisure class, in which manners are an occupation; the native, on the other hand, is of a leisure class by heredity, and it is only when tainted by a desire to make money quickly or much of it that he loses his urbanity.