and their eyes
black and large, not brilliant, but liquid. Their feet and hands are
mighty--hands that lift burdens of great weight, that swing paddles
of canoes for hours; feet that tread the roads or mountain trails
for league on league.

The women are of middle size, with lines of harmony that give them a
unique seal of beauty, with an undulating movement of their bodies,
a coordination of every muscle and nerve, a richness of aspect in
color and form, that is more sensuous, more attractive, than any
feminine graces I have ever gazed on. They have the forwardness of
boys, the boldness of huntresses, yet the softness and magnetism of
the most virginal of their white sisters. One thinks of them as of old
in soft draperies of beautiful cream-colored native cloth wound around
their bodies, passed under one arm and knotted on the other shoulder,
revealing the shapely neck and arm, and one breast, with garlands upon
their hair, and a fragrant flower passed through one ear, and in the
other two or three large pearls fastened with braided human hair.

The men never wore beards, though mustaches, copying the French custom,
are common on chiefs, preachers, and those who sacrifice beauty and
natural desires to ambition. The hair on the face is removed as it
appears, and it is scanty. They abhor beards, and their ghosts, the
tupapau, have faces fringed with hair. The usual movements of both
men and women are slow, dignified, and full of pride.

Chapter IV

The Tiare Hotel--Lovaina the hostess, the best-known woman in the
South Seas--Her strange menage--The Dummy--A one-sided tryst--An
old-fashioned cocktail--The Argentine training ship.

The Tiare Hotel was the center of English-speaking life in
Papeete. Almost all tourists stayed there, and most of the white
residents other than the French took meals there. The usual traveler
spent most of his time in and about the hotel, and from it made
his trips to the country districts or to other islands. Except for
two small restaurants kept by Europeans, the Tiare was the only
eating-place in the capital of Tahiti unless one counted a score
of dismal coffee-shops kept by Chinese, and frequented by natives,
sailors, and beach-combers. They were dark, disagreeable recesses,
with grimy tables and forbidding utensils, in which wretchedly made
coffee was served with a roll for a few sous; one of them also offered
meats of a questionable kind.

The Tiare Hotel was five minutes' wa