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Updated: June 12, 2025
Farewell to Papeite beach; at sea in the Morning Star; Darwin's theory of the continent that sank beneath the waters of the South Seas. Beneath the skyward-sweeping green heights of Tahiti the narrow shore was a mass of colored gowns, dark faces, slender waving arms. All Papeite, flower-crowned and weeping, was gathered beside the blue lagoon.
Very lovely looked the young bride, in her silken robe of virgin white, her misty veil, and drooping, flower-crowned head. Very sweet, and fair, and innocent, and as pale as her snowy dress, the centre of all eyes, as she moved up the aisle, on her father's arm. There were four bride-maids; the Demoiselles La Touche came from Ottawa for the occasion. Miss Emily Howard, and Miss La Favre.
There were no flower-crowned men and maidens, no brown babies rolling in the shade of the avocado trees. In the doorway, crouched and rocking back and forth, sat Mataara, the old queen. She wept afresh at sight of him, divided between the tale of her woe and regret that no follower was left to dispense to him her hospitality. "And so they have taken Naumoo," she finished. "Motauri is dead.
Yield yourself to the delights of the moment, drink from the golden goblet of joy, my Endymion!" "Yes, I will drink, drink, for Venus drinks with me." "She hands you, Endymion, the flower-crowned goblet! Drink! drink! drink! Enjoy the moment! Taste the pleasures of this hour! But think of the coming hour which is to consummate our bliss!" "When will it be, beloved? And where shall I meet you?"
And again she wrung her hands and turned her tear-stained flower-crowned face to Heaven, looking so lovely in her despair for she was indeed a beautiful woman that assuredly the sight of her would have melted the hearts of any less cruel than were the three fiends before us. Prince Arthur's appeal to the ruffians who came to blind him was not more touching than that of this savage girl.
The evening of the day we landed, parties of officers and ladies mounted at the door, and with much mirth disappeared on moonlight rides, and the white robes of flower-crowned girls gleamed among the trees, as groups of natives went by speaking a language which sounded more like the rippling of water than human speech.
Not that we grieve, when, after some seven months of storm and bitter frost, Spring, in the guise of a flower-crowned virgin, is seen driving away the hoary despot, pelting him with violets by the handful, and strewing green grass on the path behind him.
She to the left, on the contrary, was clothed in a black robe round which was broidered the shape of a blood-red snake, whose head rested upon her breast. Leonard noticed that the appearance of this woman was that of extreme terror, for she shrank and trembled, whereas that of the flower-crowned bride was jubilant and even haughty.
The tourists found the streets in the older part of Genoa narrow, seldom more than ten feet wide, with lofty buildings on either side. But in the new portions, especially on the wide Strada Nuova and the Strada Balbi, the palaces and edifices present fine architecture. Nearly a day was spent in driving about Genoa with its flower-crowned terraces.
It grew fair, and free, and flower-crowned now, in the midst of a tranquil and sunlit lake; but was it of more value than a drifted weed bearing the snake-egg hidden at its root?
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