Once the steamer has come and gone, a dreamy peace settles down upon the island. There is seldom much certainty as to clock time, since every one goes by his own time-piece, and all vary largely, nor does any one heed the day of the month overmuch. This pleasant disregard of time is the true secret of the fascination of island life--or perhaps one of the secrets, since no one has ever really succeeded in defining the unspeakable charm of these lotus lands. Imagine a civilised community, where people dine out in evening dress, leave cards and have “At Home” days, yet where there is no post except the monthly ship mail, there are no telegrams, trains, trams, times, appointments, or engagements of any kind! Picture the peace that comes of knowing certainly that, for all the time of the steamer’s absence there can be no disturbance of the even current of life; no great events at home or abroad, no haste, or worry, or responsibility! People keep young long in Raratonga; faces are free from weariness and strain; the white man with the “burden” laughs as merrily and as often as the brown man who carries nought but his flowery necklace and his pareo. Nobody is rich--rich men do not come down to the islands to run small plantations, or trading stores, or to take up little appointments under a little Government--but every one has enough, and extravagance is impossible, since luxuries are unpurchasable on the island. There are so social distinctions, save that between white and brown--all the seventy or eighty white residents knowing one another on a footing of common equality, although in England or even New Zealand, they would certainly be split up into half a score of mutually contemptuous sets.
As for the natives--the jolly, laughing,-brown-skinned, handsome men and women of the island--their life is one long day of peace and leisure and plenty. The lands of the six thousand who once inhabited Raratonga are now for the most part in the hands of the nineteen hundred survivors, and every native has therefore a good deal more than he wants. Breadfruit; bananas of many kinds, oranges, mammee-apples, and countless other fruits, grow altogether, or almost, without cultivation; taro, yam, and sweet potatoes need little, and cocoanuts are always to be had. A native house can be put up in a day or two, furniture is superfluous, and clothes consist of a few yards of cotton print. The Raratongan, therefore, owes no tale of labour to Nature or Society for his existence in quiet comfort, if he does not choose to work. But in many cases he does choose, for he wants a buggy and a horse, and a bicycle or two, and a sewing machine for his wife; shoes with squeaking soles for festive wear--deliberately made up with “squeakers” for island trade, these--bottles of coarse strong scent, tins of meat and salmon as an occasional treat, and, if he is ambitious, one of those concrete, iron-roofed houses of which I have already spoken, to enhance his social position, and make the neighbours envious, what time he continues to live peaceably and comfortably in his palm hut outside--not being quite such a fool in this matter as he looks.