has no sense of Christian shame, and as in the Philippines, he dresses
his women gaily, and wins their favors despite his evil reputation,
his ugliness, and his being despised.

At the Cercle Bougainville I saw more than one Chinese playing cards
and drinking. These were Chinese who had made money, and who in the
give and take of business have pushed themselves into the club of
the other merchants, who feared and watched them.

Women were not allowed in barrooms in Papeete. The result was that
they went to the Chinese restaurants and coffee-houses to drink
beer and wine at tables, as legalized. A concomitant of this was
that men went to these places to meet women, and further that women
were retained or persuaded by the Chinese to frequent their places
so as to stimulate the sale of intoxicants. The Chinese restaurants
naturally became assignation houses.

Walking back, late in the afternoon, from the joss-house, we met
Lovaina in her automobile, with the American negro chauffeur, William,
and Temanu, Atupu, and Iromea. She invited me to accompany them to swim
in the Papenoo River, a few miles towards Point Venus. Other guests
of the Tiare Hotel came in hired cars, and twenty or thirty joined
in the bath. The river was a small flood, rains having swelled it
so that a current of five or six knots swept one off one's feet and
down a hundred and fifty feet before one could seize the limb of an
overhanging tree. We undressed in the bushes, and the men wore only
pareus, while the girls had an extra gown. They were expert swimmers,
climbing into the tops of the trees, and hurling themselves with
screams into the water. They struck it in a sitting posture making
great splashes and reverberations. Their muslin slips outlined