The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, May 5, 1901, Page 1

is the last ef the island prin- cesses of the Pacific. Her sov- ereignty hes, like that of Dom Pedro, been voluntarily ended to make way for the all-conguering rule of the peo- ple. When missionary disturbances threatened to upset the pesce of the islands France extended her protec- tion over the group, and then, instead of exterminating the mnatives, gave them a system of self-government, and guaranteed to them the tenure of their lends. The end of the Pomare dymasty came when the present Princess was cnly = child, but still she can remem- ber the time when her father was sa- luted as absolute monarch of the pearl-crusted islands, and she carries Lerself with the dignity that befits a qQueen. She is tall, with dark, waving halr end brown eyes, 81 years old, and with the light creamy complexion of the higher class of natives of Oceanica. Her calm serenity and dignified bearing would mark her anywhere as & person of note. The antiquity of the line of rulers from which she is descended may be judged from the fact that the monu- mental stone colossi of the islands about Tahiti which mark the tombs cof the rulers are so much older than pu'xm- POMARE of Papeete those of Egypt that no archaeologist kas yet been able to even approach the subject of their age. They ante- date the pyraniids and sphinx of Egypt as_those crumbling relics do the monuments of to-day. The colossi are standing stone fig- Wres measuring over thirty feet from 4 2 GROUP P e ZNA TATLITIAN VI -1%7}% & De trat.portea on the cars. The of the place are of the yvields nsed nature, such as beans; E warth $1 50 a pound, and can be profit- ably tra without steam. The pearis which are found in the oys- ters within the. barrier reef are of un- usual v and bril y. and 'So nu- ained as-to make ged: In Al § are gathered anot! most as in one ftis a the sea ages individual efforts and doces not lend itself to the advanc of either in- venticrs er monc I one man can Aiva as well se another. and the sea is hips to head and crowned with red coral stone crowns twelve feet in diameter which have been transported from quarries miles away by power and reeans which are mysterious to- day alike to the whites and to the descendants of the mighty races that raised the monoliths as guardians of their tombs. The insular kingdom has had an uninterrupted succession of rulers, for no powerful dggregation of mainland marauders could have reached it since the prehistoric times when it wag first cut off from the Asian cradle by ths sinking of Oceanica. Thus it is that Princess Pomare comes of a line of queens who have continued unbrokenly since the time cf Cleopatra, and only researches of the future among the colossal statues and the tombs can tell how much clder even than Cleopatra’s time was the dynasty of which Princess Po- mare is the last descendant. There is & ficld for research almost as rich as that of Egypt—perhaps more s0, no one knows, for no one has lcoked to seze what is the meaning of these lonely giant statues on the far- away islets. Now that the great round-the-world roadway of steam travel has been run toward them there is no doubt that interest will ba stimulated. That the people who raised them were of high intelligence can be seen by the regular and order- ly way in which their hieroglyphic inscriptions were made, being a far advance on the crude pictographs of the Egyptians. Princess Pomare arrived on the last trip of the Oceanic steamship Australia from Tahiti and during her stay here remained at a fashionable S boarding-house on Ellis street. She is by birth a pure-blooded Tahitian. By education and taste she is a Paris- 1enne; fond of music, which she exs- cutes admirably; fond of dress, as a¥l women are. Fondest of all of her isl- and home, from which even the dress, gayety and music of a metropolis can- not win her for long. Her opinions of life in the Pacific islands are val- uable wlien so many are turning their faces westward. TEegat By Princess Pomare. HERE is one place in the world where the primal curse does not or at least touches but lightly Tahiti, the pearl island of the rn seas. ¢ There it not necessary that men wring the sweat from their brows to obtain their daily bread. Women do not suffer as they do elsewhere. £ 4 Sin, with its swift following purish- nents, is almost unknown. Lere have béen upon the island but six murders in a third of a century. This will net be believed at first. It naturally would not be by people who eat blood-soaked meat three times a day. Our people of Tahiti live upon the foods. T sou! which recent high developments of biolog-, ical science show to be the natural sus- tenance of human beings—fruit and nuts. Arother reason why it is not necessary for our people to commit crime so fre- quently as it is with Americans is that we have not the three great incentives to murder and self-destruction—debt, drugs and drunkenness. ~ There is no necessity for debt in Tahitl, for no one has yet seized the bulk of the land. Nature causes sea and sofl to yield all that life demands and nature does not charge. . Drugs that mad®en, such as cocaine and morphine, are not needed, for the natural, out of door life and healthy foods do not cause the racking diseases that demand opiates to assuage their pain. T'runkenness fhe people 8o not eare for. Tha'r natural merriment never having been repressed and stamped out by artifi- | cially simulated dignity, they are nat- uraily, more -gay . than intoxicants could make them, and they have no sorrows to drown. Such simple laws as have been put in force by the French Government do not bear hardly on.the people, for there is one law ir thelr own hearts which renders all others superfluous. It Is the old maxim of “Do as you would have others do.” * And so it is done by all. Hospitality is the rule of the place. iere are no beggars. Each has so much’ that the greatest pleasure is in finding some othes to whom he can give some-’ thing. 4 At the time of eating all who pass are welcomed. There is no-withdrawal to privacy, to eat In solitude, for fear that the meal might have to be shared. A guest 1s.a boon, a delight to his host, for the host feels himself to be but a guest at the great, bounteous table which nature spreads and loads the whole year “round with the daintiest foods of the epi- cure’s dreams. Hospltality goes farther than a casual invitatjon to meals. Will not the guest stay for a week? For weeks? For months? Soclety is what Is wanted. Company for that lonesome feel- ing that pursues all humanity and half, the brutes, even in this happy island. Not only for months is the guest wel- come, but for life, if young. .There is probably no other place in the world where prevails the strange and ‘beautiful custom, an account of which I shall relate. When it is known that the storks have brought a little baby, sometimes even be- fore, there is an eager rivalry among the melghbors of the parents to see if the lit- tle child will not be given to one of them a8 the most preclous gift that one human being can bestow upon another. Not only do childless people thus seek to gain for themselves a family, but those who have children already- are just as pleased to welcome another little stranges into their happy homes. The unwelcome child fs an unknown Pperson. The result is that no one, after grow- ing up In Tahiti, ever asks the question, “Is life worth Hving?” It answers itself before asking, and no onme ever commits sulclde. Why should they? ¢ Financial ~disappointments there are rione, for finances are not worth mention- ing,. and no one in Tahitl is ever disap- pointed in love. . Often, too, in other places, man mars the peace, that God has made by offi- clous .interference, useless, misdirected energy and unceasing, perniclous activ- ity - £ 73 .what s another curse that the {slands have escaped, for the’ mild and liberal government of .the. French colonial sys- tem gives liberty that even. Americans might envy. / & _It scems droll to.me—so very. droll— that Americans should, ask, “Are they civilized In Tahiti?” when there were nearly .10,000 murders committed {n the United States last year and but half a dozen in*thirty. years in -Tahiti—since 1570 ' Nin iz ‘It is true that we have the comforts of. civilization, the pleasures given by music and the study of languages and such things, yet without what I consiger the drawbacks, such as railroads, that, by their gigantic operations, make pos- sible dangerous aggregations of ocapital. The absence of rallroads is less felt than one would think for. Thers 1s no hurry in Tahiti, and the people do not BN o wark IRIskiE Hosuy cargoss:to free to all. It is the opportu.aties of the: place for individual effort that makes all %0 ‘independent and uniformly pros- perous. i Mills and factories. teo, are lacking, which' gives more freedom for thoss who work,. and prevents the unheelthy crowd- ing of adjacent districts. There is no deprivation to any one in the absence of asmoky chimneys and crowded tenements. Those are some of the improvements of civilization which we ean well do with- out. /Hotels, too, are rendered almost unnecessary by . the -hospitable customs’ Lois of Fish bu of the courtry, and as the people do not have to work half the night in order to have enough to.get their breakfast in the morning, there is no use of electric lights., .The . climate is so equable that steam heaters and ice factories are alfke su- perfluous. After all, tions of the day are to make up for cli- matic deficiencies of the places where' they are used, and the other half are to enable one man to do the work of- ten and strain himself dccordingly. The only useléss improvement of civiliz- ation which the Tahftians are®adopting is the European style 'of 'dwelling * house. These they put up, not for use, but to show to thelr neighbors. Fortunately they are so uncomfortable,” compared ‘to the beautiful grass huts, that no one lives in them, and for that reason only the bank aceount and‘not the health of the owner is injured. .Roads and driveways In Tahiti are far ahead of what they are here. There is one road which extends entirely around the island, a distance of 300 miles, and is travelable by automobilé the entire dis- tance. Automobiles are now being built at Papeete for the purpose of carryirg passengers and the malls, and they will undoubtedly secure such a foothold as to THE Rovar. Patacs. WITH HRARBoR o= TARITL 1IN DISTANCE,, half of the inven-- 100om the fact £IUC FTONCH PEOMT b e v FWIHTIRNS, and se combine the twe natiomal sere- montals in one. A recent writer eoncerning the isands has the following to say in regard te thess celebrations: “In July of each ysar the natives jeim with the French in the annual cbssrvaacs of the Fall of the Bastils, and nething among all the festivities in the Islands of the Pacific compares with the resulting demonstration. Inhabitants of tha Soclety, Marquesas and nelghbering insular groups assembls from points as far dis- tant as 500 miles and, together with the people of Tahiti itself, induige in & cele- bration that is one of the most memorable that travelers can witness in any part of *he world. For the time being the cele- brants become utterly oblivious te the fact that the habits of modern times have affected them, and simply immerse them- seives in a revival of the pastimes, the dances and the music and revelry of the old times, making a complets Teproduc~ tion of-the iifs and econditions of the South Pacific before they were touched by civilization. Once in every two years the celebration is mors than doubled In size and zeal, it so happening that the present year will 'witness perhaps the largest that has been held during the past decade.” Few Mermaids. The colonel occasionally broke forth in language not exactly suited to the thg-room, says the New York I Sun. The colonel was well on in the ¢ and had. not married. Not couldn’t, Ke was wont to explain, but Lo cayse.so few women struck his faney. les s 'One evening the colonel attend tle “at home,” and taking the very dear friend of his, aside, poured her ear'the story of his rejection by a charming young woman whom he had askeéd o be his wife. The Npstess th the colonel needed sympathy, and, beck- oning a charming dinner companion to her, said: *“Colonel has been telling me t} has not been fortunate in winning hand of Miss —. Now, I‘think the c nel ought to remember the old ada “There are just as good fish In the sea as ever were caught’"™ “Yes, madam, lots of figm, But there are so—few mermaids,” Interzupted ths sr= nek o the