Apoplexy—Or

Patience!

The Trials Of A Tahitian Shipowner

From Our Own Correspondent.

Papeete, July 25.

WHEN a man transplants himself from the turmoil of civilization to the placid calm of the South Seas, his future is determined by his choice of two alternatives: The cultivation of an im pregnable patience or —apoplexy. This is particularly the case if he enters the is land industry of coconut planting.

We have an acquaintance who owns a distant island. As he indulges in varied activities which keep him at his office in Papeete, the management of his plan tation on the island is entrusted to an overseer.

To supply this overseer and workman and to bring away copra, our acquaint ance has a small schooner. Every three months he loads this vessel with a gen erous supply of provisions, engages a native captain, picks up a miscellaneous crew, and hopefully despatches his argosy to the far away atoll.

Two months ago the schooner was sent away under a new captain. Allowing for all eventualities, the time of the outward and inward voyages should not have ex ceeded three weeks.

Three weeks passed; then four, five, six, seven.

Finally, in the middle) of the eighth week, the schooner appeared with her hatches full and bags of copra piled mountain high, on her deck.

The owner, who long ago has achieved th,e virtue of patience, repaired joyously to the wharf to inspect the cargo.

“You are late.” he said to the captain, “but you have brought a fine cargo, and I am satisfied.”

The captain stretched his mouth into an ingratiating smile.

“Eiaha oe ia inoino (do not be vexed)”, he said. “But this is not your copra—ex cept two tons.”

“What do you mean—not my copra?” shouted the owner.

“It belongs to Andre Tamatahi of Kauataki”, said the captain.

“Kauataki!” roared the owner. “What in the name of a thousand devils were you doing at Kauataki?” (Kauataki is more than a hundred miles off the course to the owner’s island).

The captain spread his arms.

“It was like this”, he said. “We stop ped at Ravaheru, Harakoto and Nukureka to refresh ourselves, and then, one night, when I left one of the sailors at the tiller, so that I might rest for an hour below, he fell asleep and the schooner drifted on the reef at Kauataki. The people of Kauataki helped me to get the vessel off. There are only a few holes in the bottom—nothing to worry about. Then Andre Tamatahi asked me to bring his copra to Papeete, and here I am.”

When, after hearing this recital, the owner had figuratively executed a series of spectacular evolutions in the sub stratosphere, and had come back to earth,

he gasped; “Then you have been away all this time without going near my island?”

“E pal (surely)” quoth the captain.

“And the provisions?”

“It was a long voyage”, explained the captain. “We ate what we had need of, and the rest I traded at Kauataki for the two tons of copra.”

The owner stared at the captain for a moment; then raised his hands on high, turned on his heel, and went back to his office.

“Why didn’t you kill him?” inquired a friend to whom he had told the story.

“If I had” replied the schooner-owner, “I should be compelled to engage another captain. I have already tried five others and they are worse than this one. Most of the others would not have brought back the two tons of copra. There is nothing to do but repair the vessel and send it out again. Perhaps the captain will find my island next time.”

This gentleman will never die of apop lexy.