Il était un excellent roi
Dont on ne dit rien dans l’histoire,
Qui ne connaissait qu’une Loi:
Celle de chanter, rire, et boire.
Fervent disciple de Bacchus
Il glorifiait sa puissance,
Puis, sacrifiait à Venus
Les loisirs de son existence.
REFRAIN:
Toujours joyeux, d’humeur gauloise,
Et parfois même un peu grivoise
Le généreux Roi Pomarè
Par son peuple est fort regretté.
S’il avait eu de l’eloquence
Il aurait gouverné la France!
Mais nos regrets sont superflus;
Puisqu’il est mort, n’en parlons plus!
“Ah, he was a chic type, that last King of Tahiti,” said M. Brault, who had written so many praiseful, merry verses about him. “He would have a hula about him all the time. He loved the national dance. He would sit or lie and drink all day and night. He loved to see young people drink and enjoy themselves. Ah, those were gay times! Dancing the nights away. Every one crowned with flowers, and rum and champagne like the falls of Fautaua. The good king Pomaré would keep up the upaupa, the hula dance, for a a week at a time, until they were nearly all dead from drink and fatigue. Mon dieu! La vie est triste maintenant.”
Before we parted we sang the “Marseillaise” and the “Star-Spangled Banner.” Nobody knew the words, I least of any; so we la-la-la’d through it, and when we parted for luncheon, we went down the crooked stairway arm in arm, still giving forth snatches of “Le Bon Roi Pomaré” in honor of our host:
Mais, s’il aimait tant les plaisirs,
Les chants joyeux, la vie en rose,
Le plus ardent de ses désirs,
Pour lui la plus heureuse chose,
Fut toujours que l’humanité
Regnât au sein de son Royaume;
De même que l’Egalité
Sous son modeste toit de chaume.
Hallman, with whom I journeyed on the Noa-Noa, dropped into the Cercle Bougainville occasionally, but he was ordinarily too much occupied with his schemes of trade. Besides, he had only one absorbing vice other than business, and with merely wine and song to be found at the club, Hallman went there but seldom, and only to talk about pearl-shell, copra, and the profits of schooner voyages. However, through him I met another group who spoke English, and who were not of Latin blood. They were Llewellyn, an islander—Welsh and Tahitian; Landers, a New Zealander; Pincher, an Englishman; David, McHenry, and Brown, Americans; Count Polonsky, the Russo-Frenchman who was fined a franc; and several captains of vessels who sailed between Tahiti and the Pacific coast of the United States or in these latitudes.
The Noa-Noa was overdue from New Zealand, by way of Raratonga, and her tardiness was the chief subject of conversation at our first meeting. A hundred times a day was the semaphore on the hill spied at for the signal of the Noa-Noa’s sighting. High up on the expansive green slope which rises a few hundred feet behind the Tiare Hotel is a white pole, and on this are hung various objects which tell the people of Papeete that a vessel is within view of the ancient sentinel of the mount. An elaborate code in the houses of all persons of importance, and in all stores and clubs, interprets these symbols. The merchants depended to a considerable extent upon this monthly liner between San Francisco and Wellington and way ports, and all were interested in the mail and food supplies expected by the Noa-Noa. Cablegrams sent from any part of the world to New Zealand or San Francisco were forwarded by mail on these steamships. Tahiti was entirely cut off from the great continents except by vessel. There was no cable, and no wireless, on this island, nor even at the British island of Raratonga, two days’ steaming from Papeete. The steamships had wireless systems, and kept in communication with San Francisco or with New Zealand ports for a few days after departure.
There were many guesses at the cause of the delay.
“Nothing but war!” said the French post-office clerk who sat at another table, with his glass of Pernoud. “Germany and England have come to blows. Now that accursed nation of beer-swillers will get their lesson.”
The subject was seriously discussed, the armaments of the two powers quoted, and the certainty of Germany’s defeat predicted, the Frenchman asserting vehemently that France would aid England if necessary, or to get back Alsace-Lorraine. There were gatherings all over Papeete, the war rumor having been made an alleged certainty by some inexplicable communication to an unnamed merchant.