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I'm a bum!" and "Faararirari ta oe Tamarii Tahiti! La, li!" One never makes merry privately in the South Seas. Through Papeete we went along the eastern Broom Road, our train attracting much attention. We stopped at the glacerie for ice, and Polonsky insisted that we make a detour to his residence to drink a stirrup-cup of champagne.
The business of government in these archipelagoes was bizarre comedy-drama, with Tartarins at the front of the stage, and a cursing or slumbrous audience. Count Polonsky, a Russian-born Frenchman, appeared in court to answer to the charge of letting his automobile engine run when no one was in the car.
Lying Bill and McHenry sailed on their schooner for the Paumotu and the Marquesas islands, Landers left for Auckland, and Count Polonsky for a flying visit to America.
Polonsky was a study in sheeny hues. He was twenty-seven, his black and naturally curled hair was very thin, there were eight or nine teeth that answered no call from his meat, and he wore in his right eyesocket a round glass, with no rim or string, held by a puckering of cheek and brow, giving him a quizzical, stage-like stare, and twisting his nose into a ripple of tiny wrinkles.
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 pièce de résistance was the sucking pig, with taro and feis, but roasted in an oven, and not in native style; and there was a delicious young turkey from New Zealand, a ham from Virginia, truffles, a salad of lettuce and tomatoes, and a plum pudding from London. The claret was 1900 and 1904, a vintage obtained by Polonsky in Paris. The champagne, also, was of a year, and frappéd.
The lake lies high in the mountains, at the very summit of the valley of Mataiea, and overlooks the Great Valley of Papenoo, owned by Count Polonsky, the cultivated Slav-Frenchman. Tiura, the chief's oldest adopted son, arranged for the journey, and led the four of us who made it.
Gossip in Papeete Moorea, a near-by island A two-days' excursion there Magnificent scenery from the sea Island of fairy folk Landing and preparation for the feast The First Christian mission A canoe on the lagoon Beauties of the sea-garden. My acquaintances of the Cercle Bougainville, Landers, Polonsky, McHenry, Llewellyn, David, and Lying Bill, were at this season bent on pleasure.
I don't know much about painting, but if you call that crazy stuff of Gauguin's proper painting, then I'm a furbelowed clam." "Eh bien," Count Polonsky said, with a smile of the man of superior knowledge, "he is the greatest painter of this period, and his pictures are bringing high prices now, and will bring the highest pretty soon. I have bought every one I could to hold for a raise."
It was three o'clock when the scores were settled, and, the chief leading with a lantern, we tramped through the great cocoanut-grove to his residence. Landers and I each took a bed, I being warned to be forehanded by my experience in Moorea, where I slept on the floor. The chief retired, and Polonsky went off with his arm about his inamorata's waist, she having apparently awaited his return.
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