Men unloading cargo on the many schooners dropped their burdens and
began to dance. Rude squareheads of the fo'c'sles beat time with
pannikins. Clerks in the traders' stores and even Marechel, the
barber, were swept from counters and chairs by the sensuous melody,
and bareheaded in the white sun they danced beneath the crowded
balconies of the Cercle Bougainville, the club by the lagoon. The
harbor of Papeite knew ten minutes of unrestrained merriment, tears
forgotten, while from the warehouse of the navy to the Poodle Stew
café the hula reigned.

[Illustration: Beach at Viataphiha-Tahiti]

[Illustration: Where the belles of Tahiti lived in the shade to
whiten their complexions.]

Under the gorgeous flamboyant trees that paved their shade with
red-gold blossoms a group of white men sang:

"Well, ah fare you well, we can stay no more with you, my love,
Down, set down your liquor and the girl from off your knee,
For the wind has come to say
'You must take me while you may,
If you'd go to Mother Carey!'
(Walk her down to Mother Carey!)
Oh, we're bound for Mother Carey where she feeds her chicks at sea!"

The anchor was up, the lines let go, and suddenly from the sea came
a wind with rain.

The girls from the Cocoanut House, a flutter of brilliant scarlet