My Tahiti by Robert Dean Frisbie — Read

Solomon was a half-caste Hebrew-Tahitian who lived in what he called a "European house," half-way between the Vaiiti River and the Chinaman's shop. A tall raw-boned man of forty, blind in one eye and half blind in the other, he wore glasses of an incredible thickness; and when he walked he turned his head slightly to one side so as to get a better view, from the one passable eye, round his beaked nose. He had the native's love of pleasure--though he seldom smiled--and the Jew's thrift. He played the accordion divinely and sang--not so divinely; but when he played he touched the keys lightly so as not to wear out the instrument, and when a particularly frugal mood would sweep over him he would pump the accordion so gently that one could scarcely hear a sound. Solomon would slave in his vanilla plantation a full year; but when his beans were harvested, the love of ostentation and pleasure would take control of him, and more than likely he would spend the profits of the whole year's work in a single Papeete carouse. or, because he thought it a bargain, he would buy some such thing as a lightning wagon.

Solomon did not know whether to be a Jew or a Tahitian,--as was evinced in the conflict between ostentation and avarice in the church festival,--so he took turns about. When the Tahitian chromosomes were dominant he was fairly happy, in his own gloomy way; but when the Jewish ones got the upper hand he would be full of schemes to make money and miserable because he could not carry them through.