Its

The names

Certainly this is a very pretty little town. simple village streets are all laid out as boulevards, and form pleasant shady avenues, the commonest tree being the pretty yellow hybiscus with the claret-coloured heart, so common in Fiji, where it is called surya. Here its name is boorau. of the streets recall Parisian memories. The shadiest and widest street is the Chinese quarter, and its poor little wooden houses are Chinese stores and tea-shops. It rejoices in the name of Rue de Pologne, while the principal real street is the Rue de Rivoli, where are merchants' stores, cafés, grogshops, and even hotels of some sort. Of course the pleasantest locations are those which face the harbour and catch the sweet sea-breeze; and the largest stores for provisions and dry goods are in the Rue de Commerce, each possessing its own wharf. I fear the word wharf may suggest the dirty prosaic wharves of England, an idea which you must banish at once; for business in its dingy aspect is not obtrusive, and the harbour-wall is but a stone coping for soft green turf, where girls with light rods sit fishing, and market-boats land their cargo of gay fruit and fish, while the motley throng pass and repass-Tahitians, French sailors and soldiers, Chinamen, black-robed French priests, and all the nondescript nationalities from the ships.

There is a considerable foreign population, in

cluding, of course, a large staff of French officials of all sorts-civil, naval, and military-and their presence seems a raison d'être for a strong corps of gens d'armes, who otherwise would certainly seem an incongruous element in the South Seas.

By a recent census I learn that the native population of Tahiti is somewhere about 8000; that of Moorea, 1500. That there are in the group 830 French, 144 citizens of the United States, 230 British subjects, and about 700 Chinese.

The French have both a Protestant and Roman Catholic Mission. The former was made necessary by the fact that, on the establishment of the Protectorate in 1843, the English missionaries were subjected to such very oppressive regulations as greatly impeded their ministrations among the people, all of whom were at that time Christians, and, moreover, still in the fervour of first lovea love which, it is to be feared, has now in a great measure faded to the light of common day, as might be expected from the large influx of infidel, or at best, wholly indifferent, foreigners.

The Church of Rome having resolved to proselytise this already occupied field, sent here a bishop and many priests, with a supplementary staff of "Frères et Soeurs de Charité." I think the Sisters are of the order St Joseph de The foreigners connected with the Catholic mission number in

FRENCH PROTESTANT MISSION.

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all about forty persons. They have had large aid and encouragement from the French Government, who compelled the chiefs of Tahiti and Moorea to build a church for their use in each district. Nevertheless, out of the 8000 inhabitants, 300 nominal adherents is the maximum which the Catholics themselves have ever claimed, but fifty is said to be nearer the mark.

The French Protestant Mission, however, found it desirable to send French subjects to the support of the London Mission, of which Mr Green is now the only representative. His coadjutors are M. Viennot, M. Vernier, and M. Brun-all married men and pères de famille. The latter is pasteur of Moorea. M. Viennot has a large Protestant school both for boys and girls of pure French and pure Tahitian blood, and of all shades of mixed

race.

We went to see his charming house, which is the most romantic nest, for a school, that you can well imagine, with wide verandahs and a large pleasant garden. Several of the daughters of the early English missionaries assist in teaching; and everything about the establishment seems bright and healthy in tone.

The third French pasteur, M. Vernier, was a student friend of Lord Lorne's at Geneva (under Merle d'Aubigné) and returned with him to Inveraray for three months, ere resuming his own studies

for a while in Edinburgh. Consequently he retains most loving recollections of everything linked with those very happy days; and it struck me pleasantly, in this far-away isle, to find in his little drawingroom many familiar photographs of Inveraray faces and places. Now his pretty wife is mother of halfa-dozen typical French little ones, the youngest of whom was the hero of a very pleasant dinner-party, given by his parents the night before last, in honour of his baptism. There were about a dozen persons present, including all the members of the Protestant Mission, Captain Guignon of the Bossuet

most friendly trading-vessel belonging to the firm of Messrs Tandonnet of Bordeaux), and myself. All the time of dinner, the petit nouveaubaptisé was laid on the floor, where he rolled about laughing and crowing with delight, while the other children played quietly beside him. It was a scene of graceful home life, and illustrates the easy unconventional pleasures of social existence in this sweet isle.1

It certainly is very strange how one invariably finds home links in all corners. of the earth. If there was one place more unlikely than another to

1 Soon after my return to England, I heard that this happy home had been invaded by ophthalmia of a virulent type, necessitating an immediate return to France, and long and anxious care; but nevertheless resulting in the partial blindness for life of two of those merry boys. Even the Tahitian paradise has its thorns.

LA MAISON BRANDÈRE.

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do so, I should have thought it was Tahiti. But, as usual, I find myself quite en pays de connaissance. The day after I landed, Mrs Miller drove me in her nice pony-phaeton to call on Mrs Brander. I naturally expected that our conversation would be on purely insular subjects. Imagine my astonishment when, after the first greetings, this beautiful Anglo-Tahitian turned the conversation to Scotland-Morayshire, Speyside, Elgin, and many friends there-and spoke of them all from intimate personal acquaintance!

Then, for the first time, it flashed across me that the name which had become so familiar to my ear as that of la Maison Brandère, was simply that of a county neighbour in Scotland; and that Mr Brander of Tahiti was none other than a halfbrother of Lady Dunbar Brander,1 who in his early youth left Elgin and went forth to carve his fortune in foreign lands. You know how little interest people in Britain take in watching the career of such lads, unless they chance to come home to spend their gold. Mr Brander did not come home. He found in the South Seas a field for his vast energies-embarked in trade, added ship to ship till

1 The late Sir Archibald Dunbar of Northfield, in the county of Elgin, married, firstly, my father's sister, Miss Gordon Cumming of Altyre and Gordonstown; and secondly, Miss Brander, heiress of Pitgaveny, whom, consequently, we have known all our lives, and loved much.