Frederick O'Brien

White Shadows in the South Seas Frederick O'Brien

By the white coral wall of Papeite beach the schooner Fetia Taiao (Morning Star) lay ready to put to sea. Beneath the skyward-sweeping green heights of Tahiti the narrow shore was a mass of colored gowns, dark faces, slender waving arms. All Papeite, flower-crowned and weeping, was gathered beside the blue lagoon. Lamentation and wailing followed the brown sailors as they came over the side and slowly began to cast the moorings that held the Morning Star. Few are the ships that sail many seasons among the Dangerous Islands. They lay their bones on rock or reef or sink in the deep, and the lovers, sons and husbands of the women who weep on the beach return no more to the huts in the cocoanut groves. So, at each sailing on the "long course" the anguish is keen."Ia ora na i te Atua! Farewell and God keep you!" the women cried as they stood beside the half-buried cannon that serve to make fast the ships by the coral bank.