"But what's the matter of our bathing suits?" asked the Commodore in the amazement of perfect innocence. "Oh—perhaps the sailors have been a little informal in the costumes they have worn for their morning plunges."
"No, it isn't the sailors," was the reply. "The people are saying that the gentlemen's suits have no sleeves and legs and that—that the skirts of the ladies come only to their knees, and—"
"Of course," cut in the Commodore impatiently; "what's wrong with that? Women wear trains on ball gowns, not on bathing suits. Besides, the yacht is a good cable's length off shore, and it takes keen eyes to tell a bathing suit from pajamas at that distance."
"I know, sir," was the naïve reply; "but you would be surprised, sir, to learn how many of the better class of people living along the beach have telescopes."
"Oh!" we chorused—and again "Oh!"
Before showing our solicitous young friend to his canoe, we were at pains to enquire what was the orthodox bathing costume worn by the ladies of the "better class"—brown and white—calling his attention first to some girls from the public wash-house who, not far up the beach, were disporting themselves in the shallows in nothing but their pareos, short pieces of gaudy print which fell from the waist to the knees. He replied that the "real ladies," white and brown, never entered the water in public unless modestly draped from neck to heel.
This turned out to be the truth. A couple of days later, in the course of a ride, I came upon some mission girls about to take a dip in one of the big pools of the Faa-tua. For ten centimes one of them allowed me to take her photograph in the "orthodox" costume before entering the water. When the bath was over it cost me two francs to get her to come out into the sunshine and stand for another snap. I paid it willingly, however, rightly judging that the second photograph would be worth double the price asked in bolstering up the faltering confidence of the Mater and Claribel in the comparative propriety of their American bathing suits. I submit the two photographs without comment.
Native woman washing on the beach, Tahiti
