Mystic Isles of the South Seas Part 6

"Huh? That's it. If in French, only the French would read it; and if in Tahitian, the French won't touch it; and English is known only by the Chinese and the few British and Americans here. I hate that Tahitian. I don't know a word of it after seventeen years. Say what you will, Roosevelt made them stand around. I liked him for many things; but, after all, the old order must stand, and Root is the boy for me. This fellow Wilson is a regular pedagogue."

"But they have newspapers here?" I asked.

"Newspapers? They call them that."

He stood up and searched in the pockets of his voluminous coat, which he opened. I saw that the lining was of silk, but now worn and torn. He brought out a roll of papers.

"Here is 'La Tribune de Tahiti,'" he said. "It is edited by Jean Delpit, the lawyer whose offices are next to the Bellevue Restaurant. It's a monthly, published in San Francisco, and has a brief summary of world events, besides articles on the administrative affairs of Tahiti. It's against the Government. Then there's 'Le Liberal,'

a socialist journal, with Eugene Brunschwig editor, which pours hot shot into the Government. Look at his announcement! Do you understand that? He is fierce. He is an anarchist and wants to be bought up. Of course he is attacking from outside Tahiti.

"There is no newspaper printed here except the 'Journal Officiel'

which, of course, is not a newspaper, but a gazette of governmental notices, etc. The Government has its own printing-office, but if these other, the 'Tribune' and the 'Liberal,' had establishments here, they would be raided and closed, for they would hardly be allowed to criticize the Government as harshly as they do. The 'Tribune' is in French and Tahitian, the 'Liberal' and the 'Journal Officiel' in French. One time it was recommended that the official paper might be more popular if it had some fiction for the natives, so they printed a translation of 'Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves,'

but everybody laughed, so it was dropped.

"The Mormons have the best paper here. It is a monthly, too. There is plenty need here for a fearless newspaper. The faults, weaknesses, and venality of the Government call for publicity, but I'm afraid the journalist might soon find himself in prison. You can do nothing. The fault is in this d.a.m.ned climate--la fievre du corail. Paul Deschanel, senator of France, who wrote a book on this island without ever leaving his chair in Paris, says:

"In presence of the apparent facts one is forced to ask himself if there is not in the climate of this enchanted Tahiti, in the soft air that one breathes, a force sweet but invincible which at length penetrates the soul, enervates the will and enfeebles all sense of usefulness or right, or the least energy necessary to make them triumph.

"It is this spirit, without any harmony, bereft of all real cordiality between neighbors, of family and family, which one must find in the ambient air and which is called the coral fever."

"It torments these French, former sailors or petty officials gone into trade or speculation, with delusions and ambitions of grandeur. There is no remedy. The King of Apamama said it all when he divided the whites into three cla.s.ses, 'First, him cheat a litty; second, him cheat plenty; and third, him cheat too much.'"

Stroganoff got on his feet, rubbed his knees to limber them, and began to move off slowly toward Fa'a, his place of abode.

"But, Mr. Stroganoff," I called to him, "you said all that about the Tahitians, also."

The Russian octogenarian drew an over-ripe mango from his skirt, and bit into it, with dire results to his whiskers and coat,--it should be eaten only in a bathtub,--and replied wearily:

"I except n.o.body here."

Chapter VI

The Cercle Bougainville--Officialdom in Tahiti--My first visit to the Bougainville--Skippers and merchants--A song and a drink--The flavor of the South Seas--Rumors of war.

In Papeete there were two social clubs, the Cercle Bougainville and the Cercle Militaire. Even in Papeete, which has not half as many people as work in a certain building in New York, there is a bureaucracy, and the Cercle Militaire, in a park near the executive mansion on the rue de Rivoli, is its arcanum. Only members of the Government may belong, and a few others whose proposals must be stamped by the political powers. There is a garden, with a small library, but not many read in this climate, and the atmosphere of the Cercle Militaire was tedious. The governor himself and the black procureur de la Republique, born in Martinique, the secretary-general, naval officers, and the file of the upper office-holders frequent the shade of the mangos and the palms, but themselves confessed it deadly dull there. Bureaucracy is ever mediocre, ever jealous, and in Papeete the feuds among the whites were as bitter as in a monastery or convent. Every man crouched to leap over his fellow, if not by position, at least by acclaim. None dared to discuss political affairs openly, but nothing else was talked of. It was a round of whispered charges and recriminations and audible compliments. A few jolly chaps, doctors or naval lieutenants, pa.s.sed the bottle and laughed at the others.

Every now and then a new governor supplanted the inc.u.mbent, who returned to France, and a few of the chiefer officials were changed; but the most of them were Tahitian French by birth or long residence. Republics are wretched managers of colonies, and monarchies brutal exploiters of subject peoples. Politics controlled in the South Seas, as in the Philippines, India, and Egypt. Precedence at public gatherings often caused hatreds. The procureur was second in rank here, the governor, of course, first, the secretary-general third, and the attorney-general fourth. When the secretary-general was not at functions, the wife of the governor must be handed in to dinner and dances by the negro procureur. This angered the British and American consuls and merchants, and the French inferior to him in social status, although the Martinique statesman was better educated and more cultivated in manners than they.

The indolence of mind and body that few escape in this soft, delicious air, the autocracy of the governing at such a distance from France, and the calls of Paris for the humble taxes of the Tahitians, robbed the island of any but the most pressing melioration. The business of government in these archipelagoes was bizarre comedy-drama, with Tartarins at the front of the stage, and a cursing or slumbrous audience.

Count Polonsky, a Russian-born Frenchman, appeared in court to answer to the charge of letting his automobile engine run when no one was in the car. He was fined a franc, which he would take from his pocket then and there, but must wait many days to pay, until circ.u.mlocution had its round, six weeks after the engine had been at fault. I was a.s.sessed two sous duty on a tooth-brush. I reached for the coins.

"Mais, non" said the prepose de le douane, "pas maintenant. No hurry. We will inform you by post."

These officials had pleasing manners, as do almost all Frenchmen, and though they uttered many sacres against the home Government and that of these islands, they were fiercely chauvinistic toward foreigners, as are all nationals abroad where jingoism partakes of self-aggrandizement. The American consul, a new appointee, addressed the customs clerk in his only tongue, Iowan, and received no response. I spoke to him in French, and the prepose replied in mixed French and English, out of compliment to me. The consul was enraged, considering himself and the American eagle affronted. I interposed, but the customs-man answered coldly in English:

"This is a French possession, and French is the language, or Tahitian. I speak both. Why don't you? You are supposedly an educated man."

The Stars and Stripes were unfolded in a breeze of hot words that betrayed the consul's belief in the prepose's sinister ancestry and in eternal punishment. No entente cordiale could ever be cemented after that lingual blast.

The consuls all had honorary members.h.i.+ps in the Cercle Militaire, and none of them entered the Cercle Bougainville, it not being de rigueur. I had a carte d'invite personelle to that club, and there I went with roused curiosity to hear the other sides of questions already settled for me by the amiable officials and officers on the rue de Rivoli. I had been warned against the Cercle Bougainville by staid pensioners as being the resort of commoners and worse, of British and American ruffians, of French vulgarians, and of Chinese smugglers. This advice made a seductive advertis.e.m.e.nt of the club to me, anxious to know everything real and unveiled about the life here, and to find a contrast to the ennui of the official temple.

A consul said to me: "Look out for some of those gamblers in that Bougainville joint! They'll skin you alive. They drink like conger-eels."

M. Leboucher, my fellow-pa.s.senger on the Noa-Noa, sent me the card to the Jacobin resort, and I got in the habit of going there just before the meat breakfast and before dinner. I found that the warning of the aristocratic bureaucrats was of a piece with their philosophy and manners, hollow, hypocritical, and calculated to deny me the only real human companions.h.i.+p I could endure. From about eleven to one o'clock and from five until seven, and in the evenings, the Cercle Bougainville held more interesting and merry white skins than the remainder of Tahiti. Merchants and managers of enterprises and shops, skippers of the schooners that comb the Dangerous Archipelago and the dark Marquesas for pearl and sh.e.l.l and copra, vanilla- and pearl-buyers, planters, and lesser bureaucrats, idlers or retired adventurers living in Tahiti, and tourists made the club for a few hours a day a polyglot exchange of current topics between man and man, a place of initiation and of judgment of business deals, a precious refuge against smug bores and a sanctuary for refreshment of body and soul with cooling drinks. Naturally, every one played cards, dominoes, or dice for the honor of signing the chits, and it goes without saying that one might roar out an oath against the Government and go unscathed. Even in the Bougainville lines were drawn; only heads of commercial affairs were admitted. It was bourgeois absolutely, but bosses could not imbibe and play freely in the presence of their employees whom they might have to reprimand severely for bad habits, nor scold them for inattention to trade when their employers spent precious hours at ecarte or razzle-dazzle.

The club was within fifty feet of the lagoon, close to the steams.h.i.+p quay, its broad verandas overlooking the fulgent reef and the quiet waters within it. In odd hours one might find Joseph, the steward, angling on the coral wall for the black and gold fish, and a shout from the balcony would bring him to the swift succor of a thirsty member. During the four hours before the late dejeuner and dinner, he had incessant work to answer the continuous calls.

When Joseph became overwhelmed with orders he summoned his family from secret quarters in the rear, and father, mother, and children squeezed, shook, and poured for the impatient crowd.

When the monthly mail between America and Australasia was in, few packs of cards were sold, for every one was busied with letters and orders for goods. But only three or four days a month were so disturbed, and for nearly four weeks of the month Papeete lolled at ease, with endless time for games and stimulants. Leisure, the most valuable coin of humanity in the tropics, was spent by white or brown in pleasure or idleness with a prodigality that would have made Samuel Smiles weep.

The entrance to the Cercle Bougainville was very plain, with no name-plate, as had the Militaire,--a mere hole in the front wall of Leboucher's large furniture shop. One could be going along the street in full view of important and respectable people, and suddenly disappear. A few steep stairs, a quick turn, and one was on the broad balcony, with easy-chairs and firm tables, and bells to hand for Joseph's ear.

In a room off the balcony there was a billiard-table, the cloth patched or missing in many spots, and with cues whose tips had long since succ.u.mbed to perpetual moisture. A few old French books were on a shelf, and a naughty review or two of Paris on a dusty table. Undoubtedly, this club had begun as a mariner's a.s.sociation, and there was yet a decided flavor of the sea about it. Indeed, all Tahiti was of the sea, and all but the ma.s.s of natives who stayed in their little homes were at times sailors, and all whites pa.s.sengers on long voyages. Everything paid tribute to the vast ocean, and all these men had an air of s.h.i.+ps and the dangers of the waves.

Nautical almanacs, charts, and a barometer were conspicuous, and often were laid beside the social gla.s.ses for proof in hot arguments. Occasionally an old Chinese or two, financiers, pearl-dealers, labor bosses, or merchants, drained a gla.s.s of eau de vie and smoked a cigarette there. One sensed an atmosphere of mystery, of secret arrangements between traders, or hard endeavors for circ.u.mvention of compet.i.tors in the business of the dispersed islands of French Oceania.

A delightful incident enlivened my first visit, and gave me an acquaintance with a group of habitues, When I reached the balcony I saw a group of Frenchmen at a table who were singing at the top of their voices. I sat down at the farthest table and ordered a Dr. Funk.

I did not look at them, for I felt de trop; but suddenly I heard them humming the air of "John Brown's Body," and singing fugitive words.

"Grory, grory, harreruah!" came to my ears, and later, "Wayd' 'un S'ut'

in le land de cottin."

They were making fun of me I thought, and turned my head away. It would not do to get angry with half a dozen jovial Frenchmen.

"All c.o.o.ns Look alike to Me," I recognized, though they sang but fragments of the text.

Through a corner of my eye I saw them all anxiously staring at me; then one of the merrymakers came over to me. I had a fleeting thought of a row before he bowed low and said in English:

"If you please, we make good time, we sing your songs, and must be happy to drink with you."

He announced himself as M. Edmond Brault, chief clerk of the office of the secretary-general, fresh-faced, glowing and with a soul for music and for joy. He was so smiling, so ingenuous, that to refuse him would have been rank discourtesy. I joined the group.

"I am twenty-eight times married this day," said M. Brault, "and my friends and I make very happy."

The good husband was rejoicing on his wedding anniversary, and I could but accept the champagne he ordered. "I am great satisfaction to drink you," he said. "My friends drink my wife and me."

We toasted his admirable wife, we toasted the two republics; Lafayette, Rochambeau, and Chateaubriand.

"Ah, le biftek!" said M. Leboucher.

We toasted Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, and then we sang for an hour. M. Brault was the leading composer of Tahiti. He was the creator of Tahitian melodies, as Kappelmeister Berger was of Hawaiian. For our delectation Brault sang ten of his songs between toasts. I liked best "Le Bon Roi Pomare," the words of one of the many stanzas being: