Madame Pfeiffer heard from a merchant the following story:—­A grave-digger, on his way to the churchyard with one of these deceased angelitos, tarried at a tavern to refresh himself with a cup of wine.  The landlord inquired what he was carrying under his cloak, and on learning that it was an angelito, offered him a shilling for it.  A bargain was soon struck; the landlord quickly fitted up a flowery niche in the drinking-saloon, and then took care that his neighbours should know what a treasure he had acquired.  They came; they admired the angelito; they drank copiously in its honour.  But the parents hearing of the affair, interfered, carried away their dead child, and summoned the landlord before the magistrate.  The latter gravely heard the pleadings on both sides, and as no such case was mentioned in the statute-book, arranged it amicably, to the satisfaction of both parties.

[Scene in Tahiti:  page57.jpg]

* * * * *

Wearying of Valparaiso, our restless and adventurous traveller, who was bent upon accomplishing a voyage round the world, took her passage for China in the Dutch barque Lootpurt, Captain Van Wyk Jurianse.

They sailed from Valparaiso on the 18th of March, and on the 26th of April came in sight of that gem of the South Seas, Tahiti, the Otaheite of Captain Cook, and the largest and most beautiful of the Society group.  From the days of Bougainville, its discoverer, down to those of “the Earl and the Doctor,” who recently published a narrative of their visit, it has been the theme of admiration for the charms of its scenery.  It lifts its lofty summit out of a wealth of luxuriant vegetation, which descends to the very margin of a sea as blue as the sky above it.  Cool green valleys penetrate into its mountain-recesses, and their slopes are loaded with groves of bread-fruit and cocoa-nut trees.  The inhabitants, physically speaking, are not unworthy of their island-Eden; they are a tall, robust, and well-knit race, and would be comely but for their custom of flattening the nose as soon as the child is born.  They have fine dark eyes, and thick jet-black hair.  The colour of their skin is a copper-brown.  Both sexes are tattooed, generally from the hips half down the legs, and frequently over the hands, feet, and other parts of the body; the devices being often very fanciful in design, and always artistically executed.

The women of Tahiti have always been notorious for their immodesty, and the island, notwithstanding the labours of zealous missionaries, continues to be the Polynesian Paphos.  The French protectorate from which it suffers has not raised the moral standard of the population.

Madame Pfeiffer undertook an excursion to the Lake Vaihiria, assuming for the nonce a semi-masculine attire, which any less strong-minded and adventurous woman would probably have refused.  She wore, she tells us, strong men’s shoes, trousers, and a blouse, which was fastened high up about the hips.  Thus equipped, she started off with her guide, crossing about two-and-thirty brooks before they entered the ravines leading into the interior of the island.