A pavilion had been erected for our feasting. It was of bamboo and
pandanus, the interior lined with tree ferns and great bunches of
scarlet oleander, and decorated with a deep fringe woven of hibiscus
fiber. The roof was a thatch of pandanus and breadfruit leaves, the
whole structure, light, flimsy, but a gamut of golds and browns in
color and cool and beautiful.

A table fifty feet or longer was made of bamboo, the top of twenty
half sections of the rounded tubes, polished by nature, but slippery
for bottles and glasses. A bench ran on both sides, and underfoot
was the deep-green vegetation that covers every foot of ground in
Moorea except where repeated footfalls, wheels, or labor kills it,
and which is the rich stamp of tropic fertility.

The barrels of beer were unheaded, the demi-johns from Bordeaux were
uncorked, and from the opened bottles the sugary odor of Tahiti rum
permeated the hot air. The captain of the Potii Moorea and the hired
steward began to set the table for the déjeuner and to prepare the
food, some of which was being cooked a few feet away by the steward's
kin. The guests disposed themselves at ease to wait for the call
to meat, the bandsmen lit cigarettes and tuned their instruments or
talked over their program, while they wetted their throats with the
rum, as admonished by the "Himene Tatou Arearea."

I strolled down the road along the shore of the lagoon. Here was
erected the first Christian church in this archipelago. British
Protestant missionaries, who had led a precarious life in Tahiti,
and fled from it to Australia in fear of their lives, were induced
to come here and establish a mission. The King of Tahiti, Pomaré,