Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 17, 2025
"Now, where is the Red One?" he asked. "He is in the house, painting. I have not told him you were coming. Go in and see him." "But what does he complain of? If he is well enough to paint, he is well enough to have come down to Taravao and save me this confounded walk. I presume my time is no less valuable than his." Ata did not speak, but with the boy followed him to the house.
"You enter without ceremony," said Strickland. "What can I do for you?" The doctor recovered himself, but it required quite an effort for him to find his voice. All his irritation was gone, and he felt <i eh bien, oui, je ne le nie pas> he felt an overwhelming pity. "I am Dr. Coutras. I was down at Taravao to see the chiefess, and Ata sent for me to see you." "She's a damned fool.
But the doctor was out when the summons came, and it was evening when he received it. It was impossible to start at so late an hour, and so it was not till next day soon after dawn that he set out. He arrived at Taravao, and for the last time tramped the seven kilometres that led to Ata's house. The path was overgrown, and it was clear that for years now it had remained all but untrodden.
It was clear that Papeete did not agree with him, and it was decided to remove him to a more suitable place. After a perilous trip around the island in the Casco, during which the ship was twice nearly lost on the reefs, they reached Taravao, but found it hot and full of mosquitoes. Mr.
Coutras had gone one day to Taravao in order to see an old chiefess who was ill, and he gave a vivid picture of the obese old lady, lying in a huge bed, smoking cigarettes, and surrounded by a crowd of dark-skinned retainers.
Their eyes rested on a nude woman suckling a baby, while a girl was kneeling by their side holding out a flower to the indifferent child. Looking over them was a wrinkled, scraggy hag. It was Strickland's version of the Holy Family. I suspected that for the figures had sat his household above Taravao, and the woman and the baby were Ata and his first son. I asked myself if Mrs.
Before long we found ourselves close to Taravao, the narrow strip of land connecting the two peninsulas into which Tahiti is divided, and commenced to ascend the hills that form the backbone of the island. We climbed up and up, reaching the summit at last, to behold a magnificent prospect on all sides. Then a short sharp descent, a long drive over grass roads through a rich forest, and again a brief ascent, brought us to our sleeping-quarters for the night, the Hotel de l'Isthme, situated in a valley in the midst of a dense grove of cocoa-nuts and bananas, kept by two retired French sailors, who came out to meet us, and conducted us up a flight of steps on the side of a mud bank to the four rooms forming the hotel. These were two sleeping apartments, a salon, and a salle
Strickland told Tane, the boy, to lead him to the village. Dr. Coutras paused for a moment, and then he addressed himself to me. "I did not like him, I have told you he was not sympathetic to me, but as I walked slowly down to Taravao I could not prevent an unwilling admiration for the stoical courage which enabled him to bear perhaps the most dreadful of human afflictions.
It is really two islands, joined by the mile-wide isthmus of Taravao. Tahiti-nui is almost round; and Tahitiiti, oval. Both are volcanic, distinct in formation. They are united by a sedimentary piece of land long after they were raised from the ocean's bed. Mataiea is twenty-seven miles from Papeete, and well on toward the isthmus.
More than two years passed before I went to Taravao again, and then it was once more to see the old chiefess. I asked them whether they had heard anything of Strickland. By now it was known everywhere that he had leprosy. First Tane, the boy, had left the house, and then, a little time afterwards, the old woman and her grandchild. Strickland and Ata were left alone with their babies.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking