Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support
our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online
at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - Throughout the island world of the
Pacific, scattered men of many European races and from almost every
grade of society carry activity and disseminate disease. Some
prosper, some vegetate. Some have mounted the steps of thrones and
owned islands and navies. Others again must marry for a livelihood;
a strapping, merry, chocolate-coloured dame supports them in sheer
idleness; and, dressed like natives, but still retaining some
foreign element of gait or attitude, still perhaps with some relic
(such as a single eye-glass) of the officer and gentleman, they
sprawl in palm-leaf verandahs and entertain an island audience with
memoirs of the music-hall. And there are still others, less
pliable, less capable, less fortunate, perhaps less base, who
continue, even in these isles of plenty, to lack bread. At the far
end of the town of Papeete, three such men were seated on the beach
under a purao tree. It was late. Long ago the band had broken up
and marched musically home, a motley troop of men and women,
merchant clerks and navy officers, dancing in its wake, arms about
waist and crowned with gar- lands. Long ago darkness and silence
had gone from house to house about the tiny pagan city. Only the
street lamps shone on, making a glow-worm halo in the umbrageous
alleys or drawing a tremulous image on the waters of the port. A
sound of snoring ran among the piles of lumber by the Government
pier. It was wafted ashore from the graceful clipper-bottomed
schooners, where they lay moored close in like dinghies, and their
crews were stretched upon the deck under the open sky or huddled in
a rude tent amidst the disorder of merchandise.
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