Chapter IV: Part 4

A person terrified with the imagination of spectres is more reasonable
than one who thinks the appearance of spirits fabulous and groundless.

ADDISON.

With the progress and spread of education of the masses, superstition will gradually be starved out here as elsewhere. The greatest vice of the Tahitians is licentiousness, which remains as when Captain Cook visited the island. In speaking of the looseness of the marital relations, he says:

And so agreeable is this licentious plan of life to their disposition,
that the most beautiful of both sexes thus commonly spend their
youthful days, habituated to the practice of enormities which would
disgrace the most savage tribes, but are peculiarly shocking amongst a
people whose general character in other respects has evident traces of
the prevalence of humane and tender feelings.

The Tahitians have reason to claim that

The vices collected through so many ages for a long time past flow in
upon us.

SENECA.

Intemperance among the natives has never had a firm foothold in the island and tobacco is used with moderation. Gambling, such a common vice among the peoples of the Orient, has never been cultivated and practiced to any extent in Tahiti. These ocean-bound people, living in happy and contented isolation, had no desire for national or personal wealth or fame, neither had they any inclination or desire for art or the sciences. They believed in the mottoes:

If you are but content, you have enough to live upon with comfort.

PLAUTUS.

and

Ambition breaks the ties of blood, and forgets the obligations of
gratitude.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

They lived a restful, unselfish life, happy in the companionship of their families, relatives and friends, with no morbid desires to distract them from the full enjoyment of what Nature showered upon them with bountiful never-failing liberality.

Their customs are by Nature wrought; But we, by art, unteach what
Nature taught.

DRYDEN.

THE INSIGNIA OF TAHITIAN ROYALTY

Tahitian royalty was hereditary, and women were not excluded. There were chiefs and chiefesses governing tribes, and head chiefs and head chiefesses ruling over several tribes or the whole island. There were no crowns and no sceptres. The insignia of royalty was a belt ornamented with feathers. The red feathers were what the diamonds and other precious stones are in ancient and modern crowns. This belt was called Maro. Captain Cook gives the following description of a maro:

It is a girdle, about five yards long, and fifteen inches broad; and,
from its name, seems to be put on in the same manner as is the common
maro, or piece of cloth used by these people to wrap round the waist.
It was ornamented with red and yellow feathers; but mostly with the
latter, taken from a dove found upon the island. The one end was
bordered with eight pieces, each about the size and shape of a
horseshoe, having their edges fringed with black feathers. The other
end was forked, and the points were of different lengths. The feathers
were in square compartments, ranged in two rows, and otherwise so
disposed to produce a pleasing effect. They had been first pasted or
fixed upon some of their own cloth, and then sewed to the upper end of
the pendant which Captain Wallis had displayed, and left flying
ashore, the first time that he landed at Matavai.

This insignia of office was highly respected by the natives and was handed down from one generation of rulers to the other, carrying with it the sovereignty of the office. One of the civil wars in the island was caused by a failure on the part of one of the chief esses (Purea) to deliver the maro to her legitimate successor.

DISEASES OF TAHITI

Before the Europeans came to Tahiti, the beautiful little island was a sanatorium. The natives were temperate, frugal in their habits, subsisting almost exclusively on fish, fruit and vegetables, and lived practically an outdoor life even in their bamboo huts. They were unencumbered by useless clothing and spent, as they do now, much of their time in sea and fresh-water bathing. They were almost exempt from acute destructive diseases. They were free from the most fatal of acute contagious and infectious diseases, such as smallpox, measles, scarlatina, cholera, etc. Tuberculosis and venereal diseases were unknown before the white man invaded the island. The immediate effect of the European civilization on the health and lives of the natives was frightful. On this subject I will let Ariitaimai speak:

When England and France began to show us the advantages of their
civilization, we were, as races then went, a great people. Hawaii,
Tahiti, the Marquesas, Tonga, Samoa and New Zealand made a respectable
figure on the earth's surface, and contained a population of no small
size, better fitted than any other possible community for the
condition in which they lived. Tahiti, being the first to come in
close contact with the foreigners, was first to suffer. The people,
who numbered, according to Cook, two hundred thousand in 1767,
numbered less than twenty thousand in 1797, according to the
missionaries, and only about five thousand in 1803. This frightful
mortality has been often doubted, because Europeans have naturally
shrunk from admit ting the horrors of their own work, but no one
doubts it who belongs to the native race. Tahiti did not stand alone
in misery; what happened there happened everywhere, not only in the
great groups of high islands, like Hawaii with three or four hundred
thousand people, but in little coral atolls which could only support a
few score.

These are strong words, but they are nevertheless only too true. Civilization brings to savage races curses as well as blessings. The primitive people are more receptive of new vices than new virtues.

In 1880 the number of inhabitants had again increased to thirteen thousand five hundred, but since that time it has been reduced to eleven thousand, as shown by the last census. When Captain Cook visited the island he emphasized particularly the absence of acute diseases. In speaking of chronic diseases he remarks:

They only reckon five or six which might be called chronic, or
national disorders, amongst which are the dropsy and the _fefai_, or
indolent swellings before mentioned as frequent at Tongataboo.

The fearful, swift depopulation of the island was caused by the introduction of new acute infectious and contagious diseases, such as smallpox, measles, whooping-cough, la grippe, etc., which among these people was attended by a frightful mortality. It was only three years ago that an epidemic of measles, a trifling disease with us, claimed several hundred lives, including many adults, and extended to nearly all of the islands of the entire group. The disease that is now threatening the extinction of the race in a short time is pulmonary tuberculosis. The natives are extremely susceptible to this disease, and the small native houses, crowded with large families, are the breeding stations for infection.

The French government has at last recognized the need of taking active measures to improve the sanitary conditions of their colony and protect the natives against the spread of infectious diseases. A corps of three physicians, sent by the French government on this mission, made the voyage from San Francisco to the island on the steamer _Mariposa_ with me. The names of these physicians are: Dr. Grosfillez, surgeon-major of the first class of the colonial troops; Dr. H. Rowan, a graduate of the Pasteur Institute, and Dr. F. Cassiau, of the clinic of Marseilles. The military surgeon receives an annual salary of fifteen hundred dollars, the two civil doctors twelve hundred dollars each. They are under contract for five years. They have been given judicial power to enforce all sanitary regulations they see fit to institute. They will be stationed at different points and will establish a requisite number of lazarettos, something which will fill a long-felt and pressing need.

PRESENT PREVAILING DISEASES

The average temperature of the inhabited part of the island, which can not be less than 78 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit, has a relaxing influence on the natives and much more so on the small contingent of whites. The Europeans and Americans find it necessary every three to five years to seek for a few months a cooler climate to restore their energies and vigor. The government officials and officers of the small garrison are not obliged to serve for more than the same time consecutively, when they are relieved from their posts and commands. It is this relaxation which, to a certain extent, at least, is responsible for the great mortality of comparatively mild, acute, infectious diseases, and the severity of pulmonary tuberculosis among the natives. Tuberculosis of the lymphatic glands, skin, bones and joints appears to be extremely rare. The moisture-laden atmosphere and the suddenness with which the cool land and ocean breezes set in after the heat of the day, are conducive to the development of rheumatic affections, which are prevalent in all parts of the island, more especially during the rainy season in midwinter. The same can be said of bronchial affections and pneumonia. The free and unrestrained intercourse among natives accounts for the rapid spread of tuberculosis and acute infectious diseases among the entire population and from island to island.

The sanitary commission now engaged, in efforts to reduce the mortality of the natives will establish rules and regulations which will have for their object the prevention of dissemination of acute as well as chronic infectious diseases, and will undoubtedly accomplish much toward the preservation of the race; but these officers will meet with stubborn opposition on the part of the natives when attempts are made, in their interest, to curtail their personal liberties. The ties of relationship and friendship among the natives are very strong, and become most apparent in case of misfortunes and sickness. Smallpox breaks out almost every year, and claims its share of victims. Vaccination is supposed to be compulsory, but the natives are inclined to escape it. Vaccination is done gratuitously at the Military Hospital for all natives who can be induced to submit to it. Under present conditions it is almost impossible to reach the inhabitants of the small atoll islands.

Like in all tropic countries, tetanus is of quite frequent occurrence. The small native pony is found everywhere, and as the rural natives are all barefooted and spend much of their time in the jungles in impregnating the flower of the vanilla-bean and gathering fruits, wounds prone to infection with the tetanus bacillus are of frequent occurrence.

Malarial diseases are comparatively rare, although the plasmodium-carrying mosquitoes are numerous and aggressive, and children in the country districts are nude, and the men limit their clothing to the wearing of a loin-cloth. No case of typhoid fever has been known to have originated in the island. For this there exists a satisfactory explanation. The exemption in this island from this disease, so widely distributed over the entire part of the inhabited globe, is due entirely to an abundant supply of the purest drinking water supplied by the numerous mountain streams. Nearly all the inhabitants live on the coast, near the outlet of a brook or stream, where, consequently, there is no danger whatever of water-contamination. I found three cases of typhoid fever in the Military Hospital, members of one family, who had been brought there from one of the neighboring atoll islands.

Varicose veins, varicocele and hydrocele are very common. The absence of anything like a large ulcer in many cases of large and numerous varicose veins of the leg, I attributed to the toughness of the skin of the bare legs. Venereal diseases are widespread throughout the entire island, and more especially in Papeete and the near-by larger villages. For over a hundred years the natives have suffered from this scourge brought there by the European sailors and adventurers. Syphilis has been transmitted from generation to generation until it has contaminated the major part of the population, for

The gods visit the sins of the fathers upon the children.

EURIPIDES.

and

The wickedness of a few brings calamity on all.

PUBLIUS SYRUS.

The length of time the disease has existed among the natives has established a certain degree of tolerance or immunity, as it pursues a comparatively mild course, as I found very few instances of the ravages of the remote results of syphilis. I saw only one case of saddle nose, caused by tertiary syphilis.

Leprosy is not as prevalent as in the Hawaiian Islands, but isolated cases are found in nearly all the islands belonging to this group, being more prevalent in some than in others. Segregation has never been attempted. The lepers mix freely with the members of their families and neighbors, and are not shunned by any one. I was informed that many of the lepers, much disfigured by the disease, seek an island where many of these unfortunates have founded a colony for the purpose of escaping from public gaze. There, away from relatives and friends, they spend their short span of life and await patiently the final relief which only death can bring.

O Death, the Healer, scorn thou not, I pray. To come to me; of
cureless ills thou art The one physician. Pain lays not its touch upon
a corpse.

ÆSCHYLUS.

Elephantiasis in its worst forms has taken a firm hold on the natives, especially the inhabitants of the near-by island of Moorea. There this disease can be studied in all its stages, from a slight enlargement of one of the extremities to colossal swellings, which, when the upper and lower extremities are affected at the same time, make it necessary for the patient to crawl on his hands and feet in dragging himself from place to place. Regarding elephantiasis as it exists in Tahiti and the other islands of the French colony, I will make use of a few extracts taken from a valuable paper on this subject by Dr. Lemoine, recently in charge of the Military Hospital, and published in one of the government reports. According to this author, who has seen much of this disease in Tahiti and surrounding islands, it may affect most regions of the body, and not infrequently makes its appearance as an acute affection with all the symptoms characteristic of lymphangitis, including quite a violent continued remittent form of fever, which lasts two or three months. The acute form is, almost without exception, complicated by synovitis of the joints of the affected limb, which he regards as almost pathognomonic of the disease, differentiating it from ordinary forms of lymphangitis. After the subsidence of the acute symptoms and in the chronic form the disease is essentially a chronic lymphangitits, accompanied by marked enlargement of the veins. According to his observations the regions most frequently involved are the lower extremities, external genitals, and lastly, the hands and forearms. Three years ago I was given an opportunity to see at the hospital and poorhouse at Antigua, West Indies, ninety cases of elephantiasis, and not in a single one of them did the disease affect the upper extremity, while in the French colony of the South Seas this is not infrequently the case. I do not know that a satisfactory explanation has ever been given why the disease should behave so differently in fixing its location in the two groups of islands. Lemoine, as well as other writers on elephantiasis, has seen the disease become stationary by the removal of the patient to a colder climate. Europeans become susceptible to elephantiatic infection after a prolonged residence in tropical countries where the disease prevails.

Lemoine does not agree with Manson, who believes that elephantiasis is caused by the _Filaria sanguinis_, and is suspicious that the essential parasitic cause is a yet undiscovered microbe. He made blood examinations night and day of patients under his care, and was unable to constantly detect the filariæ in their embryonic state in the peripheral blood, and consequently claims that the presence of filaria in the organism is not an infallible diagnostic indication, and that their abundance is not proportionate to the intensity of the disease. The fact that the elephantiatics improve in colder climates he regards as another proof that filariasis is not the essential cause of the disease.

In a number of cases extirpation of the infiltrated enlarged lymphatic glands was followed by decided improvement, and in the case of a Tahitian the improvement remained at the end of three years. He has also operated on a number of cases by partial excision of the mass, first on one side of the limb, then on the other, with decided benefit to the patient in most of them. In some cases deep incisions through the entire thickness of the indurated mass afforded relief and resulted in diminution of the size of the swelling. He relates the details of the case of a native, fifty years old, the subject of elephantiasis of the lower limbs, that he operated on in two stages several weeks apart, removing first a large section from the anterior and later from the posterior part of the swelling, and as shown by the accompanying illustrations in the report depicting the condition of the limbs before and after operation, with an excellent result. However, in some of the cases the benefit thus derived did not last for any considerable length of time.

In making the excision, the superfluous skin is excised with the underlying indurated tissues, and the skin margins reflected for some distance in order to create sufficient room for a more liberal removal of the deep tissues. In one case, that of a woman thirty-eight years of age, the patient died two weeks after the second operation. Death was attributed to loss of blood and the debilitated condition of the patient when she entered the hospital. In another case, a Tahitian, thirty-five years old, affected with elephantiasis of all limbs and the external genitals, he operated successfully on one of the arms, the seat of an enormous swelling below the elbow. The excised mass weighed fifteen kilograms. Owing to the large size of the swelling, the operation proved one of great difficulty, and on account of the tension incident to the approximation of the margins of the flaps the sutures cut through and the wound ultimately healed by granulation. At the second operation nearly the entire mass was removed, with the result that the wound finally healed after a prolonged suppuration and the patient was relieved of the incumbrance caused by the great weight of the swelling. The relief afforded induced the patient to request additional operations for the removal of the swellings involving other regions of the body, but as the surgeon soon after left the island his desire could not be gratified.

The climate of Tahiti is not congenial for pulmonary and rheumatic affections, as the atmosphere is too moist. It is admirably adapted for patients the subjects of nervous affections in all their protean forms. The quietude, balmy air and pleasing surroundings are the best therapeutic agents to secure mental rest and refreshing sleep. It is in the treatment of such affections that a trip to Tahiti can not be too strongly recommended.

THE KAHUNA OR NATIVE DOCTOR

For centuries the practice of the healing art was largely in the hands of priests. They ministered to the body as well as the soul. Their practice was purely empirical and the surgery, even of the most skilled, rude and often brutal. The human mind is very much inclined to look upon disease and the methods used to effect a cure as something mysterious. Even at this late day many people who are well educated and who in everything else seem to possess a liberal amount of good common sense, have very strange ideas in regard to disease and the means employed in treatment. Promises to cure and a liberal expenditure of printers' ink render them an easy prey to mysterious methods. All races and all tribes have always had among them men and women in whom they confided in case of accident or disease. Very often priesthood and medicine were combined in the same person. Among the ancient Tahitians the chief was at the same time priest and medical adviser. The American Indians had their medicine-men, the Tahitians and other South Sea Islanders their Kahuna. It is very interesting to know something of the early practice of medicine and surgery among the Tahitians. Captain Cook gives them great credit from what he saw of their surgery:

They perform cures in surgery, which our extensive knowledge in that
branch has not, as yet, enabled us to imitate. In simple fractures,
they bind them up with splints, but if part of the substance of the
bone be lost, they insert a piece of wood, between the fractured ends,
made hollow like the deficient part. In five or six days, the rapooa,
or surgeon, inspects the wound, and finds the wood partly covered with
the growing flesh. In as many more days, it is generally entirely
covered; after which, when the patient has acquired some strength, he
bathes in the water, and recovers.

In speaking of medicine he says:

Their physical knowledge seems more confined; and that, probably,
because their diseases are fewer than their accidents. The priests,
however, administer the juices of herbs in some cases; and women who
are troubled with after-pains, or other disorders after child-bearing,
use a remedy which one would think needless in a hot country. They
first heat stones, as when they bake their food; then they lay a thick
cloth over them, upon which is put a quantity of a small plant of the
mustard kind; and these are covered with another cloth. Upon this they
seat themselves, and sweat plentifully, to obtain a cure. They have no
emetic medicine.

In referring to the few indigenous diseases he adds:

But this was before the arrival of the Europeans; for we have added to
this short category a disease which abundantly supplies the place of
all the others; and is now almost universal [syphilis]. For this they
seem to have no effectual remedy. The priests, indeed, sometimes give
them a medley of simples; but they own that it never cures them, and
yet, they allow that, in a few cases, nature, without the assistance
of a physician, exterminates the poison of this fatal disease, and
perfect recovery is produced. They say that a man affected with it
will often communicate it to others in the same house, by feeding out
of the same utensils, or handling them, and that, in this case, they
frequently die, while he recovers; though we see no reason why this
should happen.

On his fourth voyage to the Society Islands Captain Cook learned to what fearful extent syphilis had spread throughout all of the islands of the group and became aware what ravages it had caused among the natives. On visiting new islands he did all in his power to protect the natives against this scourge by excluding all women visitors from the ship and by strictly enjoining persons known to be infected from landing. On the probable effects of these new regulations he comments:

Whether these regulations, dictated by humanity, had the desired
effect, or no, time only can discover. I had been equally attentive to
the same object when I first visited the Friendly Islands; yet I
afterward found, with real concern, that I had not succeeded, and I am
afraid that this will always be the case, in such voyages as ours,
whenever it is necessary to have a number of people on shore.

Massage as a remedial agent in the treatment of disease originated in the Orient, and the Tahitians were familiar with it and frequently made use of it. On this subject Captain Cook can speak from personal experience. During his stay in Tahiti in 1777 he suffered evidently from a severe attack of sciatica, the pain extending from the hip to the toes. King Otoo's mother, his three sisters and eight more women came on his ship one evening for the purpose of giving him treatment and remained all night to fulfill their well-meant mission. Here is the account of the treatment to which he was subjected by the women:

I accepted the kindly offer, had a bed spread for them upon the cabin
floor, and submitted myself to their directions. I was desired to lay
myself down amongst them. Then, as many of them as could get around
me, began to squeeze me with both hands, from head to foot, but more
particularly on the parts where the pain was lodged, till they made my
bones crack, and my flesh became a perfect mummy. In short, after
undergoing this discipline about a quarter of an hour, I was glad to
get away from them. However, the operation gave me immediate relief,
which encouraged me to submit to another rubbing down before I went to
bed; and it was so efficient that I found myself pretty easy all the
night after. My female physicians repeated their prescription the next
morning, before they went ashore, and again in the evening, when they
returned on board; after which, I found the pains entirely removed,
and the cure being perfected, they took leave of me the following
morning. This they call _romee_, an operation which, in my opinion, far
exceeds the flesh-brush, or anything of the kind that we make use of
externally. It is universally practised amongst the islanders, being
sometimes performed by men, but more generally by women.

PHYSICIANS IN TAHITI

Tahiti is not an Eldorado for doctors. The entire island has only eleven thousand inhabitants and the great majority of them are too poor to pay for medical services. The only place in Tahiti where a doctor can be found is in Papeete. At the time I visited the island there was only one physician in private practice in the capital city, Dr. Chassaniol, a retired naval surgeon, the only private practitioner in the whole group of islands. The bulk of medical practice is in the hands of the government physician, always a military man who has at the same time charge of the Military Hospital and takes care of the sick poor, and supervises all matters pertaining to sanitation. The only other physicians in the island are the naval surgeons on board a small man-of-war almost constantly anchored in the harbor of Papeete. The government physician is privileged to practice outside of the hospital, and from this source he receives the bulk of his income. As the resident physician and the government physician are the only qualified physicians in the whole archipelago, it requires no stretch of the imagination to realize that until the present time the French government has not made adequate provisions for their subjects who require the services of a physician.

The Tahitians have not lost their faith in their Kahunas or native doctors, who without any medical knowledge, practice their art. These men, with a local reputation as healers of disease, are to be found in nearly every village. They are well thought of and are influential members of society in their respective communities. Like the medicine-men of our Indians, they make use of roots, bark and herbs as remedial agents, and the natives, like many of our own people, have more faith in this mysterious kind of medication than in modern, concentrated, palatable drugs prescribed by the most eminent physician. To the credit of these native medicine-men, it must be said that they give to all afflicted who apply for treatment not only their services, but also the medicines without any expectation of a financial reward or even the gratitude of their clients.

HÔPITAL MILITAIRE

The military hospital at Papeete is the only one in the French colonial possession of the Society Islands, numbering one hundred and sixty-eight islands and containing thirty thousand inhabitants, of whom eleven thousand live in Tahiti. As some of these islands are more than one hundred miles apart, it is somewhat strange that the French government has not taken earlier action in establishing small cottage hospitals in a number of the larger islands, as in case of severe injuries or sudden illness the natives of the distant islands are not within reach of timely medical aid and the transportation of a sick or injured person to Papeete from the far-off islands or villages by small schooners or canoes is necessarily slow and in many instances dangerous. The Sanitary Commission now stationed in the islands will, it is to be hoped, act promptly in remedying this serious defect in the care of the sick natives.

The Military Hospital at Papeete is an old structure of brick and cement, situated near the western limits of the city in a large square yard inclosed by a high stone wall, surmounted by a crest of fragments of glass, which imparts to the inclosure a prison-like appearance, the austerity of which, however, is much relieved by beautiful tropical trees, shrubbery and flowers in front of the entrance and in the courtyard. The hospital proper comprises seven buildings, only one of which is two stories high. The hospital has accommodations for forty beds. The officers' rooms contain two beds each; the remaining space is divided into small wards for privates and civilians. In one ward, the windows of which are strongly barred, are kept the military prisoners, and another small ward is devoted to obstetrical cases. The rooms and wards are well ventilated and clean, the beds comfortable; the hospital furniture otherwise is scanty and antique. The drug-room is large, richly supplied with capacious jars, mortars of all sizes, herbs, roots and a complete outfit for making infusions, decoctions and tinctures, which reminds one very vividly of an apothecary shop of half a century ago. This department is in charge of a pharmacist who, besides mixing drugs, does some chemical and bacteriological work in a small and imperfectly equipped laboratory. The operating-room is an open passageway between two adjoining wards, and all it contained suggestive of its use were an operating table of prodigious size and decidedly primitive construction, and, suspended from the wall, a tin irrigator, to which was attached a long piece of rubber tubing of doubtful age. The hospital is well supplied with water, and contains a bathroom, a shower-bath and modern closets. The hospital is in charge of the government physician, who is always a medical officer of the colonial troops, detailed for this special service, usually for a period of three years. From the official reports I gleaned that on an average this institution takes care of about three hundred and fifty patients a year. At the time of my visit the number of patients did not exceed fifteen, among them one in the prison ward. All of the patients were the subjects of trifling affections, with the exception of three cases of typhoid fever sent to the hospital from one of the atoll islands. The patients are being cared for by three Catholic sisters and orderlies as they are needed. The poor are admitted gratuitously; private patients pay from six to fifteen francs a day. The hospital is beautifully located on the principal street of the city and faces the charming little harbor. A small private hospital for the foreign residents and tourists is needed here and under proper management would prove a remunerative investment.

THE ISLAND OF PLENTY

O Christ! it is a goodly sight to see

What heaven hath done for this delicious land.

BYRON.

The wealth of Tahiti is on its surface. Its mountains are not pregnant with precious metals nor has nature stored up in their interior material for fuel and illumination, as none of these are needful to make the people content and happy. The Tahitian has no desire to accumulate wealth; the warm rays of the sun reduce the use of fuel to a minimum, and the millions of glittering stars and the soft silvery light of the moon in the clear blue sky create a bewitching light at night, which, more than half of the time, would make artificial illumination a mockery. Then, too, Tahiti is the land of gentle sleep and pleasant dreams, where people do not turn night into day, but rise with the sun and retire soon after he disappears in the west behind the vast expanse of the ocean. God created Tahiti for an ideal island home and not as a place for get-rich-quick methods, speculation and bitter competition for business, for

Where wealth and freedom reign, contentment fails,

And _honor lacks_ where commerce long prevails.

GOLDSMITH.

Tahiti's fabulous wealth consists in its inexhaustible soil and the perennial warm, stimulating breath of the tropic sun. It is the island of never-fading verdure and vigorous and never-ceasing vegetation. The fertile soil, the abundant rainfall throughout the year, the warm sunshine and the equable climate are most conducive to plant-life and here these conditions are so harmonious that there can be no failure of crops in the Lord's plantation. There never has been a famine in Tahiti, and there never will be, provided the government protects the magnificent mountain forests—nature's system of irrigation. Tahiti's food-supply is select and never-failing, and is furnished man with the least possible exertion on his part. The bounteous provisions nature has made here for the abode of man are a marvel to the visitor and after he has once seen them and has become familiar with them he can not escape the conclusion that he is in

A land flowing with milk and honey.

JEREMIAH xxxii:22.

The food products and fruits grown in the forests without the toil of man are admirably adapted for the climatic conditions, being laxative and cooling, and undoubtedly account for the excellent health of the natives before the invasion of the island by the Europeans. The island was destined for the natives, and the natives were suited to the island.

Man's rich with little, were his judgment true;

Nature is frugal, and her wants are few;

These few wants answer'd, bring sincere delights;

But fools create themselves new appetites.

YOUNG.

Content with what the sea and forest provided for them, these children of Nature lived a happy life, free from care, free from morbid desires for wealth or fame.

O blissful poverty!

Nature, too partial, to thy lot assigns

Health, freedom, innocence, and downy peace, —

Her real goods, — and only mocks the great

With empty pageantries.

FENTON.

No sullen discontent nor anxious care.

E'en though brought thither, could inhabit there.

DRYDEN.

The Tahitian people, before they tasted the questionable advantages of European civilization, had much in common and lived happily in the full enjoyment of Nature's varied and bountiful gifts. Tribal life was family life, and public affairs were managed to suit the wants of the people, and if any one in power failed in his duties, the people took the law in their own hands and corrected the evil, usually without bloodshed. If the people were not prosperous according to our ideas of life, they were at least happy, and

We must distinguish between felicity and prosperity; for prosperity
leads often to ambition, and ambition to disappointment.

LANDOR.

TAHITI'S NATURAL BREAD SUPPLY

The Tahitians have no corn or grain of any kind out of which to make bread. They found in the forests excellent substitutes for bread, and more healthful for that climate, in the form of breadfruit, wild plantain and tubers rich in starch. This is the kind of bread they have been eating for centuries, and which they prefer to our bread to-day. When the island was densely populated and the demand on nature's resources exceeded the supply, the natives had to plant trees, roots and tubers in vacant spaces in the forest, high up on the mountainsides, where they grew luxuriantly without any or little care, and by these trifling efforts on the part of man the food-supply kept pace with the increase of the population. Trees and plants distributed in this manner found a permanent home in the new places provided for them, and have since multiplied, and thus increased greatly the annual yield. Evidences of dissemination of bread and fruit-yielding trees and plants by the intervention of man are apparent to-day throughout the island by the presence of cocoa-palms, breadfruit and other fruit trees, and plantains, in localities where nature could not plant them, in places formerly inhabited but abandoned long ago when the population became so rapidly decimated by the virulent diseases introduced into the island by the Europeans. To-day the fruit and fruit-supply is so abundant that it is within easy reach of every family and can be had without money and without labor. We will consider here a few of the most important substitutes for bread on which the Tahitians largely subsist:

_Breadfruit_.—Breadfruit is the most important article of food of the Tahitians. It is the fruit of the breadfruit tree _Arfocarpus incisiva_ (Linné), a tree of the natural order, _Artocarpaceæ_, a native of the islands of the Pacific Ocean and of the Indian Archipelago. This fruit is one of the most important gifts of nature to the inhabitants of the tropics, serving as the principal part of their food, the inner tough bark of the tree furnishing a good material for native cloth, while the trunk of the tree is used as a material for canoes. The exudation issuing from cuts made into the stem, a resinous substance, is in use for closing the seams of canoes. Several varieties of breadfruit trees are to be found in Tahiti, differing in the structure of their leaves and in the size and time of ripening of the fruit, so that ripe breadfruit is obtainable more or less abundantly throughout the year. The foliage of this tree is the greenest of all green, and it is this deep green which distinguished this tree at once from its neighbors. The male flowers are in catkins, with a two-leaved perianth and one stamen; the female flowers are nude. The leaves are large, pinnatifid, frequently twelve to eighteen inches long, smooth and glossy on their upper surface. The much branched tree attains a height of twenty to fifty feet. The fruit is a _sorosis_, a compound or aggregate the size of a child's head, round or slightly oblong, light green, fleshy and tuberculated on the surface. The rind is thick, and marked with small square or lozenge-shaped divisions, each having a small elevation in the middle. The fruit hangs by a short, thick stalk from the small branches, singly or in clusters of two or three together. It contains a white, somewhat fibrous pulp, which when ripe becomes juicy and yellow, but has then a rotten taste. The fruit is gathered for use before it is ripe, and the pulp is then white and mealy, of the consistence of fresh bread. The fruit is prepared in many ways for food, roasted on hot coals, boiled or baked, or converted by the experienced native cook into complicated dainty dishes. The common practice in Tahiti is to cut each fruit into three or four pieces and take out the core; then to place heated stones in the bottom of a hole dug in the ground; to cover them with green leaves, and upon this place a layer of the fruit, then stones, leaves and fruit alternately, till the hole is nearly filled, when leaves and earth to the depth of several inches are spread over all. In half an hour the breadfruit is ready; the outsides are, in general, nicely browned, and the inner part presents a white or yellowish cellular substance. Breadfruit prepared in this manner and by other methods of cooking is very palatable, as I can speak from my own experience, slightly astringent and highly nutritious, a most excellent dietetic article for the tropics. The tree is very prolific, producing two and sometimes three crops a year. When once this tree has gained a firm foothold in a soil it cherishes, and in a climate it enjoys, it exhibits a tenacity to reproduce itself to an extent often beyond desirable limits. Of this Captain Cook writes:

I have inquired very carefully into their manner of cultivating the
breadfruit tree; but was always answered that they never plant it. The
breadfruit tree plants itself, as it springs from the roots of the old
ones, so that the natives are often under the necessity of preventing
its progress to make room for trees of other sorts to afford some
variety in their food.

The timber is soft and light, of a rich yellow color, and assumes when exposed to the air the appearance of mahogany.

_Manioc_.—Manioc is another important article of food in Tahiti and likewise serves as an excellent substitute for baker's bread. It is the large, fleshy root of _Manihot utilissima_, a large, half-shrubby plant of the natural order _Euphorhiaceæ_, a native of tropical America, and much cultivated in Tahiti as an article of food. In this island the plant has run wild in some of the ravines formerly inhabited. The plant grows in a bushy form, with stems usually six to eight feet high, but sometimes much higher. The stems are brittle, white, and have a very large pith; the branches are crooked. The leaves are near the ends of the branches, large, deeply seven-parted, smooth and deep green. The roots are very large, turnip-like, sometimes weighing thirty pounds, from three to eight growing in a cluster, usually from twelve to twenty-four inches in length. They contain an acrid, milky juice in common with other parts of the plant, so poisonous as to cause death in a few minutes; but as the toxic effect is owing to the presence of hydrocyanic acid, which is quickly removed by heat, the juice, inspissated by boiling, forms the excellent sauce called _casareep_; and fermented with molasses it yields an intoxicating beverage called _onycou_; whilst the root, grated, dried on hot metal plates and roughly powdered, becomes an article of food. It is made into thin plates which are formed into cakes, not by mixing with water, but by the action of heat, softening and agglutinating the particles of starch. The powdered root prepared in this manner is an easily digestible and nutritious article of farinaceous food. The root is largely made use of in the manufacture of starch and is exported from Tahiti for this purpose to a considerable extent. The starch made from this root is also known as Brazilian arrowroot, and from it tapioca is made. Manioc is propagated by cuttings of the stem, and is of rapid growth, attaining maturity in six months.

_Sweet Cassava_.—Sweet cassava is the root of _Manihot Aipi_, a woody plant indigenous to tropical South America, growing in great abundance in the dense forest of the mountain valleys of Tahiti. The plant grows to a height of several feet and has large long leaves growing from the foot of the stem. The root is reddish and nontoxic; it can therefore be used as a culinary esculent, without any further preparation than boiling, while its starch can also be converted into tapioca. The _Aipi_ has tough, woody fibres, extending along the axis of the tubers, while generally the roots of the manioc (bitter cassava) are free from this central woody substance.

_Arrowroot_ or _Arru Root_.—The commercial arrowroot is prepared from different starch-yielding roots, but the bulb of the _Maranta marantaceæ_ produces more starch and of a better quality than any of the others. It is a native of the West Indies and South America, and is cultivated quite extensively in Tahiti. Many little patches of this plant may be seen along the road from Papeete to Papara, where the lowland soil is well adapted for its cultivation. The starch-producing plant which is cultivated most extensively in Tahiti and other South Sea Islands is the _Tacca pinnatifolia_. This perennial plant will even thrive well in the sandy soil near the shore. The stalk, with terminal spreading pinnatifid leaves, is from two to three feet high and the root is a tuber about the size of a small potato. The tacca starch is much valued in medicine, and is particularly used in the treatment of inflammatory affections of the gastro-intestinal canal.

_Taro or Tara_.—Taro is another very important food-product of Tahiti, as well as other islands of the Pacific, notably the Hawaiian Islands. It is the root of _Colocasia macrorhiza_, a plant of the natural order _Araceæ_, of the same genus with _cocoa_. The plant thrives best in low, marshy places. In all of the South Sea Islands it is very extensively cultivated for its roots, which constitute in these islands a staple article of food, excellent substitutes for potatoes and bread. The roots are very large, from twelve to sixteen inches in length, and as much in circumference. They are washed in cold water to take away their acridity, which is such as to cause excoriation of the mouth and palate. The roots are cooked in the same way as the breadfruit, the rind being first scraped off. Another very common way of eating taro is in the form of _poi_. This method of preparing the root was known to the Tahitians when Captain Cook visited the island. He compared _poi_ with "sour pudding." It requires some skill to make _poi_. The root, finely grated, is allowed to ferment over night. It tastes sour and is a refreshing, delicate and nutritious dish, when served ice-cold. The plant has no stalk; the petioled heart-shaped leaves spring from the root. The flower is in the form of a spathe. The boiled leaves can be used as a substitute for spinach.

_Wild Plantain_.—The wild plantain furnishes its liberal share of food-supply for the Tahitians. It is a tree-like, perennial herb (_Musa paradisiaca_) with immense leaves and large clusters of the fruits. In its appearance it resembles very closely the banana, but differs from it as the hands and fingers of the bunches of fruit are turned in the opposite direction. The fruit is long and somewhat cylindrical, slightly curved, and, when ripe, soft, fleshy and covered with a thick but tender yellowish skin. This plant is indigenous to Tahiti and is found in abundance in the forests. The fruit is cooked or baked and is keenly relished by the natives.

All of the articles of food I have referred to above are easily digested, palatable and nutritious, and for the Tahiti climate more healthful than bread and potatoes, on which the masses of people living in colder climates subsist to a large extent. I attribute the comparative immunity of the South Sea Islanders from attacks of appendicitis principally to their diet, which is laxative, easily digested and not liable to cause fermentation in the gastro-intestinal canal. Appendicitis does occur in these islands, but this disease is extremely rare as compared with the frequency with which it is met in Europe, and more especially in the United States. The Americans are the most injudicious and reckless eaters in the world, which goes far in explaining the prevalence of gastric and intestinal disorders among our people.

THE COCOANUT, THE MEAT OF THE TAHITIANS

It is fortunate that the inhabitants of the tropics have no special liking for a meat diet, as the free indulgence in meat could not fail in resulting detrimentally to the health of the inhabitants. The continuously high temperature begets indolence, and indolence tends to diminish secretion and excretion, conditions incompatible with a habitual consumption of meat. Nature has established fixed rules concerning the manner of living in the tropics. She deprives man of the appetite for meat and other equally heavy articles of food, and supplies him with nourishment adapted for the climate. It is under such climatic conditions that we are made to realize that

The more we deny ourselves, the more the gods supply our wants.

HORATIUS.

and

We can not use the mind aright when the body is filled with excess of
food.

CICERO.

For the preservation of health in the tropics, it is necessary that the food should be laxative, cooling, easy of digestion and nutritious. Fish and fruit of various kinds meet these requirements. From observations and experience, the ignorant natives have made a wise selection of what is best for them to eat, and know what to avoid. High living brings its dire results in temperate and cold climates, but any one indulging in it in the tropics will curtail his life, as it can not fail to be productive, in a short time, of organic changes of a degenerative type in important internal organs, which soon begin to menace life and never fail in diminishing the vital resistance against acute diseases. Luxury in the tropics in the way of eating and drinking is a dangerous experiment, and it is well to remember, especially when living in a hot climate, that

By degrees man passes to the enjoyments of a vicious life, porticoes,
baths and elegant banquets; this by the ignorant was called a
civilized mode of living, though in reality it was only a form of
luxury.

TACTICUS.

No such mistakes are made by the natives of Tahiti as long as they remain true to their ancient manner of living. With few exceptions, indeed, they lack the means of imitating the foreigners in living a life of luxury. Any native who departs too far from the simple, natural life of his ancestors will pay dearly for the doubtful pleasures of a life of luxury. The average native, fortunately, has no such inclinations; he is satisfied to live the simple, natural life his forefathers led, and he follows the scriptural advice.

And having food and raiment, let us be therewith content. I. Timothy
vi:8.

Nature has provided for the South Sea Islanders something better than beef and mutton in the form of meat—fish and cocoanut. Fish are very abundant all around the coast of Tahiti, and the lagoons, where the fishing is mostly done, are as quiet as inland lakes. More than two hundred varieties of fish have been found in these waters. But the real and best meat for the Tahitians is the cocoanut. The meat of this wonderful nut contains a large per cent, of oil, which supplies the system with all the fatty material it requires, and for the tropic climate this bland, nutritious vegetable oil is far superior to any animal fats. We will give here the Cocoa-palm the liberal space it so well deserves:

THE COCOA-PALM

Through groves of palm

Sigh gales of balm,

Fire-flies on the air are wheeling;

While through the gloom

Comes soft perfume,

The distant beds of flowers revealing.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

The cocoa-palm is the queen of the forests of the South Sea Islands. The tall, slender, branchless, silvery stem and fronded crown of this graceful tree distinguish it at once from all its neighbors and indicate the nobility of its race. The great clusters of golden fruit of giant size, partially obscured by the drooping leaves and clinging to the end of the stem, supply the natives with the necessities of life. The cocoa-palm is the greatest benefactor of the inhabitants of the tropics.

It is meat, drink and cloth to us.

RABELAIS.

Fruits of palm-tree, pleasantest to thirst

And hunger both.

MILTON.

This noble tree grows and fructifies where hard manual labor is incompatible with the climate, in islands and countries where the natives have to rely largely on the bounteous resources of nature for food and protection. The burning shores of India and the islands of the South Pacific are the natural homes of the cocoa-palm. It has a special predilection for the sandy beach of Tahiti and the innumerable atoll islands near to and far from this gem of the South Seas. The giant nuts often drop directly into the sea and are carried away by waves and currents from their native soil to strange islands, where they are cast upon the sandy shore, to sprout and prosper for the benefit of other native or visiting tribes. By this manner of dissemination, all of these islands have become encircled by a lofty colonnade of this queen of the tropics.

Beautiful isles! beneath the sunset skies

Tall silver shafted palm-trees rise between

Tall orange trees that shade

The living colonnade:

Alas! how sad, how sickening is the scene

That were ye at my side would be a paradise.

MARIA BROOKS.

The cocoa-palm (_Cocos nucifera_), is a native of the Indian coasts and the South Sea Islands. It belongs to a genus of palms having pinnate leaves or fronds, and male and female flowers on the same tree, the latter at the base of each spadix. It is seldom found at any considerable distance from the seacoast, except where it has been introduced by man, and generally thrives best near the very edge of the sea. In Tahiti isolated cocoa-palms are found on the lofty hilltops, projecting, with their proud crowns of pale green leaves, far above the level of the sea of the dense forest and impenetrable jungles. This transplantation from shore to the sides and summits of the foot-hills had its beginning before the discovery of the island, when the overpopulation made it necessary to provide for a more abundant food-supply. There it has prospered and multiplied since without the further aid of man, yielding its rich harvests of fruit with unfailing regularity. The frightful reduction in the number of inhabitants since the white man set his foot on the island has made this additional food-supply superfluous, as the palms within easier reach in the lowlands along the shore more than meet the present demands.