The Beauty Of Leisure

And Tahiti

ONE is happy to record that the com pany of motorists who refuse to drive as gentlemen should drive, has become reduced almost to the vanishing point on Tahiti.

The peril to our children, who are obliged to use the common highway, when going to and coming from school; the increasing number of accidents which have caused injury and death—both to pedestrians and to other motorists; per haps, too, a revival of the gracious, old Tahitian instinct of courtesy—these have awakened our careless drivers to the value of consideration for others who must use the narrow highways of the Islands.

Moreover, there is so much to see on Tahiti, when one travels leisurely: A foaming cascade within the recess of a fern-clad cliff, the exquisite colours of sea water overlying shallow coral-beds; the flash of emerald from a curtain of sea-wave; the beauty of a garden, seen through an opening of an hibiscus hedge.

And one has time, too, to return the kindly greeting of native friends, whom one does not choke with dust as one passes.

And one arrives at his journey’s end, unfatigued by the nervous tension of fast driving—within the space of three hours even if his destination be the most re mote settlement.