No Levite sat within the shrine or watched to see if profane hand
touched the sacred symbols, and were Charlie Eager sure of that before
we left, he had secured a trophy. Not knowing but that from one of
the numerous crannies or mayhap from the open roof the wrathful eye
of a hierophant was upon him, he had to content himself with a prayer
from the pagoda, which proved on close inspection to be a furnace
for the burning of the paper slips on which the aspirations of the
faithful were written. Whether the prayers had been granted, were out
of date, or the time paid for hanging in the joss-house had expired,
the crematory was four feet deep with the red and white rice-paper
legends, awaiting an auspicious occasion for incineration. Eager of
Inglewood, California, fished secretly, hidden by my body, until
he found a particularly long and intricate set of hieroglyphics,
and deposited it in his pocket. Then we fled.

More than two thousand Chinese in Tahiti, nearly all kin within
a few degrees, found in this humble church a substitute for their
family temples in China, where usually each clan has its own place of
worship. The laboring class of this fecund people seldom extend their
real devotion beyond their ancestors and the principle of fatherhood,
their reasoning being that of the wise Jewish charge to honor one's
father (and mother) that one's life may be long. Loving sons take
care of old parents. It is the old Oriental patriarchy sublimated by
the imposition of commerce upon agriculture.

The Chinese came to Tahiti during the American Civil War. They were
brought by an English planter to grow cotton, then scarce on account
of the blockade and desolation of the South. With the end of the war,
and the looms of Manchester again supplied, the plantation languished,
and the Chinese took other employment, became planters themselves,