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Many of these were cottages in modern style, but a dozen or so were the true Tahitian faré, of bamboo and thatch. All were covered with flowering vines, and surrounded by many fruiting trees. "Tautira nei!" announced my coachman. "Tautira is here!" He pulled up the horse. I had not given any thought to my lodging, and I jumped out and looked around.
They were concerned with his vigorous manhood, though he was a youthful grandfather when the Casco brought Robert Louis Stevenson to Tahiti to live in the house of Ori. I reminded him of their exchanging names in blood brothership, so that Stevenson was Teriitera, and Ori was Rui. Rui was his pronunciation of Louis, as all his family in Tautira called the Scotch author.
When I returned to my bird cage at Tautira, I sat down and considered at length all these facts and fancies.
Pomaré, directed by the now militant missionaries, sent a body of gunmen to Tautira to capture the god Oro, whose principal temple was very near where stood my kitchen. The iconoclasts, with the zeal of neophytes, destroyed every vestige of the magnificent marae, and, unwinding the many coverings of Oro, carried to the king the huge log which had been the national god for ages.
My easiest route to Tautira was by crossing the isthmus of Taravao, to the other side of the peninsula, as nowhere in Tahiti except at Lake Vaihiria were there even passable trails across the lofty spine of the island. I was for sending back the cart and horse to Taravao and taking a canoe to Tautira.
I was eager for the adventure, to voyage to the valley of Typee, where Herman Melville had lived with Fayaway and Kori-Kori, where Captain Porter had erected the American flag a century before, and where cannibalism and tattooing had reached their most artistic development. But to sever the tie with Tautira was saddening.
In Spain at that date the king whose name had been coupled with Christ's on the cross near my house at Tautira was expelling the Jesuits from his kingdom, and the Holy Office recorded its thirtieth thousand human being burned at the stake in that country in the name of Jesus Christ.
I sent with her my love to the Tetuanui clan, and some delicacies from the Maison des Varos for the half-blind Haamoura. The diligence did not run farther than Taravao, and the next day, with my impedimenta in the cart, and with a boy to drive it, I turned my back on the road to Papeete, and began the jog trot to the famous, but hardly ever visited, district of Tautira.
The ship was at once sent to Papeete for repairs, but as it was impossible to obtain new masts of a proper size there, they were obliged to be content with patching up the old ones. This let the party in for a long stay at Tautira, at which none repined, for the scenery and climate were delightful, and their new friends hospitable and interesting. Following island custom, Mrs.
The steamships, spending only twenty-four hours in Papeete port every four or five weeks, sent no trippers, and the bureaucrats, traders, and sojourners in Papeete apparently were not aware of the enchantment at our end of the island. T'yonni had found Tautira only after four or five voyages to Tahiti, and Choti had first come as his guest.
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