Page:A Lady's Cruise in a French Man-of-War.djvu/188

162 Thus Aimata became known as Pomare-Vahine; the correct designation for a married woman being thus to append the term for wife to the name of the husband. In January 1827 she succeeded her brother, Pomare III., and reigned supreme till 1843, when the French assumed the Protectorate.

Young Queen Marau Pomare is one of a large family of very handsome half-whites—children of a high chiefess of Tahiti, who married a much respected English Jew, Mr Salmon. She has three stalwart sons and five most comely daughters, whose rich olive complexion, black silken tresses, mellifluous voices, and foreign intonation in speaking English, are all suggestive of Italy.

The eldest daughter, who owns the formidable title of Tetuanuireiaiteruiatea—though, happily, known to her personal friends by the more euphonious name of Titaua—is herself a very high chiefess both of Tahiti and Moorea, on each of which she owns several large estates. At the early age of fourteen she married a wealthy Scotch merchant—Mr Brander—who died a few months ago, leaving to his young widow a heavy weight of care, in that her two eldest daughters have married Germans, whose mercantile interests are diametrically opposed to those of the house of Brander; and who, having vainly striven to wrest the business from her, are now pressing for immediate division of property—a process which necessitates a most exasperating amount of legal discussion, in which questions of English law, native law, and, above all, the Code Napoléon, which is the law of the Protectorate, crop up by turns.

Moetia, the second daughter of Mrs Salmon, married the American Consul, Mr Attwater. Marau, as you already know, married her royal kinsman; while Lois (commonly called Prie, which is a contraction of Beretanie—a name adopted out of compliment to Britain) and Manihinihi, the two youngest sisters (who both fully sustain the beauty of their race), live with their