They may enter into galleons and serve him on the sea.


In Tahiti the sea was very near and meant much. One felt toward it
as must the mountaineer who lives in the shadow of the Matterhorn;
it was always part of one's thoughts, for all men and things came
and went by it, and the great world lay beyond it.

But dear or near as the sea might be to such a man as I, a mere
traveler upon it to reach a goal, to the Tahitian it was life and
road and romance, too. Legends of it filled the memories of those old
ones who, though in tattered form, preserved yet awhile the deeds of
daring of their fathers and the terrors of storm and sea monster,
of long journeys in frail canoes, of discoveries and conquerings,
of brides taken from other peoples, and of the gods and devils who
were in turn masters of the deep.

Once a Tahitian stopped the sun as it sank beyond Moorea not to
wage war, as Joshua, but to please his old mother. The sea and the
heavens are brothers to the Tahitian. The sky had two great tales
for him--guidance for his craft and prophecies for his soul; but he
did not inhabit it with his gods or his dead, as do Christians and
other religionists, for the mountains, the valleys, and the caves
were the abiding-places of spirits, and the Tahitian had named only
those stars which blazed forth most vividly or served him as compass
on the sea. He did, however, mark the various phases of the sky,
and in his musical tongue named them with particularity.

The firmament is te ao, te rai, and the atmosphere te reva, and when
peaceful, raiatea. This is the name of one of the most beautiful