August 26.--The vale behind the village, narrowing swiftly to a
mere ravine, was choked with profitable trees. A river gushed in
the midst. Overhead, the tall coco-palms made a primary covering;
above that, from one wall of the mountain to another, the ravine
was roofed with cloud; so that we moved below, amid teeming
vegetation, in a covered house of heat. On either hand, at every
hundred yards, instead of the houseless, disembowelling paepaes of
Nuka-hiva, populous houses turned out their inhabitants to cry
'Kaoha!' to the passers-by. The road, too, was busy: strings of
girls, fair and foul, as in less favoured countries; men bearing
breadfruit; the sisters, with a little guard of pupils; a fellow
bestriding a horse--passed and greeted us continually; and now it
was a Chinaman who came to the gate of his flower-yard, and gave us
'Good-day' in excellent English; and a little farther on it would
be some natives who set us down by the wayside, made us a feast of
mummy-apple, and entertained us as we ate with drumming on a tin
case. With all this fine plenty of men and fruit, death is at work
here also. The population, according to the highest estimate, does
not exceed six hundred in the whole vale of Atuona; and yet, when I
once chanced to put the question, Brother Michel counted up ten
whom he knew to be sick beyond recovery. It was here, too, that I
could at last gratify my curiosity with the sight of a native house
in the very article of dissolution. It had fallen flat along the
paepae, its poles sprawling ungainly; the rains and the mites
contended against it; what remained seemed sound enough, but much
was gone already; and it was easy to see how the insects consumed
the walls as if they had been bread, and the air and the rain ate
into them like vitriol.
A little ahead of us, a young gentleman, very well tattooed, and
dressed in a pair of white trousers and a flannel shirt, had been
marching unconcernedly. Of a sudden, without apparent cause, he
turned back, took us in possession, and led us undissuadably along
a by-path to the river's edge. There, in a nook of the most
attractive amenity, he bade us to sit down: the stream splashing
at our elbow, a shock of nondescript greenery enshrining us from
above; and thither, after a brief absence, he brought us a cocoa-
nut, a lump of sandal-wood, and a stick he had begun to carve: the
nut for present refreshment, the sandal-wood for a precious gift,
and the stick--in the simplicity of his vanity--to harvest
premature praise. Only one section was yet carved, although the
whole was pencil-marked in lengths; and when I proposed to buy it,
Poni (for that was the artist's name) recoiled in horror. But I
was not to be moved, and simply refused restitution, for I had long
wondered why a people who displayed, in their tattooing, so great a
gift of arabesque invention, should display it nowhere else. Here,
at last, I had found something of the same talent in another
medium; and I held the incompleteness, in these days of world-wide
brummagem, for a happy mark of authenticity. Neither my reasons
nor my purpose had I the means of making clear to Poni; I could
only hold on to the stick, and bid the artist follow me to the
gendarmerie, where I should find interpreters and money; but we
gave him, in the meanwhile, a boat-call in return for his sandal-
wood. As he came behind us down the vale he sounded upon this
continually. And continually, from the wayside houses, there
poured forth little groups of girls in crimson, or of men in white.
And to these must Poni pass the news of who the strangers were, of
what they had been doing, of why it was that Poni had a boat-
whistle; and of why he was now being haled to the vice-residency,
uncertain whether to be punished or rewarded, uncertain whether he
had lost a stick or made a bargain, but hopeful on the whole, and
in the meanwhile highly consoled by the boat-whistle. Whereupon he
would tear himself away from this particular group of inquirers,
and once more we would hear the shrill call in our wake.
August 27.--I made a more extended circuit in the vale with Brother
Michel. We were mounted on a pair of sober nags, suitable to these
rude paths; the weather was exquisite, and the company in which I
found myself no less agreeable than the scenes through which I
passed. We mounted at first by a steep grade along the summit of
one of those twisted spurs that, from a distance, mark out
provinces of sun and shade upon the mountain-side. The ground fell
away on either hand with an extreme declivity. From either hand,
out of profound ravines, mounted the song of falling water and the
smoke of household fires. Here and there the hills of foliage
would divide, and our eye would plunge down upon one of these deep-
nested habitations. And still, high in front, arose the
precipitous barrier of the mountain, greened over where it seemed
that scarce a harebell could find root, barred with the zigzags of
a human road where it seemed that not a goat could scramble. And
in truth, for all the labour that it cost, the road is regarded
even by the Marquesans as impassable; they will not risk a horse on
that ascent; and those who lie to the westward come and go in their
canoes. I never knew a hill to lose so little on a near approach:
a consequence, I must suppose, of its surprising steepness. When
we turned about, I was amazed to behold so deep a view behind, and
so high a shoulder of blue sea, crowned by the whale-like island of
Motane. And yet the wall of mountain had not visibly dwindled, and
I could even have fancied, as I raised my eyes to measure it, that
it loomed higher than before.
We struck now into covert paths, crossed and heard more near at
hand the bickering of the streams, and tasted the coolness of those
recesses where the houses stood. The birds sang about us as we
descended. All along our path my guide was being hailed by voices:
'Mikael--Kaoha, Mikael!' From the doorstep, from the cotton-patch,
or out of the deep grove of island-chestnuts, these friendly cries
arose, and were cheerily answered as we passed. In a sharp angle
of a glen, on a rushing brook and under fathoms of cool foliage, we
struck a house upon a well-built paepae, the fire brightly burning
under the popoi-shed against the evening meal; and here the cries
became a chorus, and the house folk, running out, obliged us to
dismount and breathe. It seemed a numerous family: we saw eight
at least; and one of these honoured me with a particular attention.
This was the mother, a woman naked to the waist, of an aged
countenance, but with hair still copious and black, and breasts
still erect and youthful. On our arrival I could see she remarked
me, but instead of offering any greeting, disappeared at once into
the bush. Thence she returned with two crimson flowers. 'Good-
bye!' was her salutation, uttered not without coquetry; and as she
said it she pressed the flowers into my hand--'Good-bye! I speak
Inglis.' It was from a whaler-man, who (she informed me) was 'a
plenty good chap,' that she had learned my language; and I could
not but think how handsome she must have been in these times of her
youth, and could not but guess that some memories of the dandy
whaler-man prompted her attentions to myself. Nor could I refrain
from wondering what had befallen her lover; in the rain and mire of
what sea-ports he had tramped since then; in what close and garish
drinking-dens had found his pleasure; and in the ward of what
infirmary dreamed his last of the Marquesas. But she, the more
fortunate, lived on in her green island. The talk, in this lost
house upon the mountains, ran chiefly upon Mapiao and his visits to
the Casco: the news of which had probably gone abroad by then to
all the island, so that there was no paepae in Hiva-oa where they
did not make the subject of excited comment.
Not much beyond we came upon a high place in the foot of the
ravine. Two roads divided it, and met in the midst. Save for this
intersection the amphitheatre was strangely perfect, and had a
certain ruder air of things Roman. Depths of foliage and the bulk
of the mountain kept it in a grateful shadow. On the benches
several young folk sat clustered or apart. One of these, a girl
perhaps fourteen years of age, buxom and comely, caught the eye of
Brother Michel. Why was she not at school?--she was done with
school now. What was she doing here?--she lived here now. Why
so?--no answer but a deepening blush. There was no severity in
Brother Michel's manner; the girl's own confusion told her story.
'Elle a honte,' was the missionary's comment, as we rode away.
Near by in the stream, a grown girl was bathing naked in a goyle
between two stepping-stones; and it amused me to see with what
alacrity and real alarm she bounded on her many-coloured under-
clothes. Even in these daughters of cannibals shame was eloquent.
It is in Hiva-oa, owing to the inveterate cannibalism of the
natives, that local beliefs have been most rudely trodden
underfoot. It was here that three religious chiefs were set under
a bridge, and the women of the valley made to defile over their
heads upon the road-way: the poor, dishonoured fellows sitting
there (all observers agree) with streaming tears. Not only was one
road driven across the high place, but two roads intersected in its
midst. There is no reason to suppose that the last was done of
purpose, and perhaps it was impossible entirely to avoid the
numerous sacred places of the islands. But these things are not
done without result. I have spoken already of the regard of
Marquesans for the dead, making (as it does) so strange a contrast
with their unconcern for death. Early on this day's ride, for
instance, we encountered a petty chief, who inquired (of course)
where we were going, and suggested by way of amendment. 'Why do
you not rather show him the cemetery?' I saw it; it was but newly
opened, the third within eight years. They are great builders here
in Hiva-oa; I saw in my ride paepaes that no European dry-stone
mason could have equalled, the black volcanic stones were laid so
justly, the corners were so precise, the levels so true; but the
retaining-wall of the new graveyard stood apart, and seemed to be a
work of love. The sentiment of honour for the dead is therefore
not extinct. And yet observe the consequence of violently
countering men's opinions. Of the four prisoners in Atuona gaol,
three were of course thieves; the fourth was there for sacrilege.
He had levelled up a piece of the graveyard--to give a feast upon,
as he informed the court--and declared he had no thought of doing
wrong. Why should he? He had been forced at the point of the
bayonet to destroy the sacred places of his own piety; when he had
recoiled from the task, he had been jeered at for a superstitious
fool. And now it is supposed he will respect our European
superstitions as by second nature.
CHAPTER XV--THE TWO CHIEFS OF ATUONA
It had chanced (as the Casco beat through the Bordelais Straits for
Taahauku) she approached on one board very near the land in the
opposite isle of Tauata, where houses were to be seen in a grove of
tall coco-palms. Brother Michel pointed out the spot. 'I am at
home now,' said he. 'I believe I have a large share in these
cocoa-nuts; and in that house madame my mother lives with her two
husbands!' 'With two husbands?' somebody inquired. 'C'est ma
honte,' replied the brother drily.
A word in passing on the two husbands. I conceive the brother to
have expressed himself loosely. It seems common enough to find a
native lady with two consorts; but these are not two husbands. The
first is still the husband; the wife continues to be referred to by
his name; and the position of the coadjutor, or pikio, although
quite regular, appears undoubtedly subordinate. We had
opportunities to observe one household of the sort. The pikio was
recognised; appeared openly along with the husband when the lady
was thought to be insulted, and the pair made common cause like
brothers. At home the inequality was more apparent. The husband
sat to receive and entertain visitors; the pikio was running the
while to fetch cocoa-nuts like a hired servant, and I remarked he
was sent on these errands in preference even to the son. Plainly
we have here no second husband; plainly we have the tolerated
lover. Only, in the Marquesas, instead of carrying his lady's fan
and mantle, he must turn his hand to do the husband's housework.
The sight of Brother Michel's family estate led the conversation
for some while upon the method and consequence of artificial
kinship. Our curiosity became extremely whetted; the brother
offered to have the whole of us adopted, and some two days later we
became accordingly the children of Paaaeua, appointed chief of
Atuona. I was unable to be present at the ceremony, which was
primitively simple. The two Mrs. Stevensons and Mr. Osbourne,
along with Paaaeua, his wife, and an adopted child of theirs, son
of a shipwrecked Austrian, sat down to an excellent island meal, of
which the principal and the only necessary dish was pig. A
concourse watched them through the apertures of the house; but
none, not even Brother Michel, might partake; for the meal was
sacramental, and either creative or declaratory of the new
relationship. In Tahiti things are not so strictly ordered; when
Ori and I 'made brothers,' both our families sat with us at table,
yet only he and I, who had eaten with intention were supposed to be
affected by the ceremony. For the adoption of an infant I believe
no formality to be required; the child is handed over by the
natural parents, and grows up to inherit the estates of the
adoptive. Presents are doubtless exchanged, as at all junctures of
island life, social or international; but I never heard of any
banquet--the child's presence at the daily board perhaps sufficing.
We may find the rationale in the ancient Arabian idea that a common
diet makes a common blood, with its derivative axiom that 'he is
the father who gives the child its morning draught.' In the
Marquesan practice, the sense would thus be evanescent; from the
Tahitian, a mere survival, it will have entirely fled. An
interesting parallel will probably occur to many of my readers.
What is the nature of the obligation assumed at such a festival?
It will vary with the characters of those engaged, and with the
circumstances of the case. Thus it would be absurd to take too
seriously our adoption at Atuona. On the part of Paaaeua it was an
affair of social ambition; when he agreed to receive us in his
family the man had not so much as seen us, and knew only that we
were inestimably rich and travelled in a floating palace. We, upon
our side, ate of his baked meats with no true animus affiliandi,
but moved by the single sentiment of curiosity. The affair was
formal, and a matter of parade, as when in Europe sovereigns call
each other cousin. Yet, had we stayed at Atuona, Paaaeua would
have held himself bound to establish us upon his land, and to set
apart young men for our service, and trees for our support. I have
mentioned the Austrian. He sailed in one of two sister ships,
which left the Clyde in coal; both rounded the Horn, and both, at
several hundred miles of distance, though close on the same point
of time, took fire at sea on the Pacific. One was destroyed; the
derelict iron frame of the second, after long, aimless cruising,
was at length recovered, refitted, and hails to-day from San
Francisco. A boat's crew from one of these disasters reached,
after great hardships, the isle of Hiva-oa. Some of these men
vowed they would never again confront the chances of the sea; but
alone of them all the Austrian has been exactly true to his
engagement, remains where he landed, and designs to die where he
has lived. Now, with such a man, falling and taking root among
islanders, the processes described may be compared to a gardener's
graft. He passes bodily into the native stock; ceases wholly to be
alien; has entered the commune of the blood, shares the prosperity
and consideration of his new family, and is expected to impart with
the same generosity the fruits of his European skill and knowledge.
It is this implied engagement that so frequently offends the
ingrafted white. To snatch an immediate advantage--to get (let us
say) a station for his store--he will play upon the native custom
and become a son or a brother for the day, promising himself to
cast down the ladder by which he shall have ascended, and repudiate
the kinship so soon as it shall grow burdensome. And he finds
there are two parties to the bargain. Perhaps his Polynesian
relative is simple, and conceived the blood-bond literally; perhaps
he is shrewd, and himself entered the covenant with a view to gain.
And either way the store is ravaged, the house littered with lazy
natives; and the richer the man grows, the more numerous, the more
idle, and the more affectionate he finds his native relatives.
Most men thus circumstanced contrive to buy or brutally manage to
enforce their independence; but many vegetate without hope,
strangled by parasites.
We had no cause to blush with Brother Michel. Our new parents were
kind, gentle, well-mannered, and generous in gifts; the wife was a
most motherly woman, the husband a man who stood justly high with
his employers. Enough has been said to show why Moipu should be
deposed; and in Paaaeua the French had found a reputable
substitute. He went always scrupulously dressed, and looked the
picture of propriety, like a dark, handsome, stupid, and probably
religious young man hot from a European funeral. In character he
seemed the ideal of what is known as the good citizen. He wore
gravity like an ornament. None could more nicely represent the
desired character as an appointed chief, the outpost of
civilisation and reform. And yet, were the French to go and native
manners to revive, fancy beholds him crowned with old men's beards
and crowding with the first to a man-eating festival. But I must
not seem to be unjust to Paaaeua. His respectability went deeper
than the skin; his sense of the becoming sometimes nerved him for
unexpected rigours.
One evening Captain Otis and Mr. Osbourne were on shore in the
village. All was agog; dancing had begun; it was plain it was to
be a night of festival, and our adventurers were overjoyed at their
good fortune. A strong fall of rain drove them for shelter to the
house of Paaaeua, where they were made welcome, wiled into a
chamber, and shut in. Presently the rain took off, the fun was to
begin in earnest, and the young bloods of Atuona came round the
house and called to my fellow-travellers through the interstices of
the wall. Late into the night the calls were continued and
resumed, and sometimes mingled with taunts; late into the night the
prisoners, tantalised by the noises of the festival, renewed their
efforts to escape. But all was vain; right across the door lay
that god-fearing householder, Paaaeua, feigning sleep; and my
friends had to forego their junketing. In this incident, so
delightfully European, we thought we could detect three strands of
sentiment. In the first place, Paaaeua had a charge of souls:
these were young men, and he judged it right to withhold them from
the primrose path. Secondly, he was a public character, and it was
not fitting that his guests should countenance a festival of which
he disapproved. So might some strict clergyman at home address a
worldly visitor: 'Go to the theatre if you like, but, by your
leave, not from my house!' Thirdly, Paaaeua was a man jealous, and
with some cause (as shall be shown) for jealousy; and the feasters
were the satellites of his immediate rival, Moipu.
For the adoption had caused much excitement in the village; it made
the strangers popular. Paaaeua, in his difficult posture of
appointed chief, drew strength and dignity from their alliance, and
only Moipu and his followers were malcontent. For some reason
nobody (except myself) appears to dislike Moipu. Captain Hart, who
has been robbed and threatened by him; Father Orens, whom he has
fired at, and repeatedly driven to the woods; my own family, and
even the French officials--all seemed smitten with an irrepressible
affection for the man. His fall had been made soft; his son, upon
his death, was to succeed Paaaeua in the chieftaincy; and he lived,
at the time of our visit, in the shoreward part of the village in a
good house, and with a strong following of young men, his late
braves and pot-hunters. In this society, the coming of the Casco,
the adoption, the return feast on board, and the presents exchanged
between the whites and their new parents, were doubtless eagerly
and bitterly canvassed. It was felt that a few years ago the
honours would have gone elsewhere. In this unwonted business, in
this reception of some hitherto undreamed-of and outlandish
potentate--some Prester John or old Assaracus--a few years back it
would have been the part of Moipu to play the hero and the host,
and his young men would have accompanied and adorned the various
celebrations as the acknowledged leaders of society. And now, by a
malign vicissitude of fortune, Moipu must sit in his house quite
unobserved; and his young men could but look in at the door while
their rivals feasted. Perhaps M. Grevy felt a touch of bitterness
towards his successor when he beheld him figure on the broad stage
of the centenary of eighty-nine; the visit of the Casco which Moipu
had missed by so few years was a more unusual occasion in Atuona
than a centenary in France; and the dethroned chief determined to
reassert himself in the public eye.
Mr. Osbourne had gone into Atuona photographing; the population of
the village had gathered together for the occasion on the place
before the church, and Paaaeua, highly delighted with this new
appearance of his family, played the master of ceremonies. The
church had been taken, with its jolly architect before the door;
the nuns with their pupils; sundry damsels in the ancient and
singularly unbecoming robes of tapa; and Father Orens in the midst
of a group of his parishioners. I know not what else was in hand,
when the photographer became aware of a sensation in the crowd,
and, looking around, beheld a very noble figure of a man appear
upon the margin of a thicket and stroll nonchalantly near. The
nonchalance was visibly affected; it was plain he came there to
arouse attention, and his success was instant. He was introduced;
he was civil, he was obliging, he was always ineffably superior and
certain of himself; a well-graced actor. It was presently
suggested that he should appear in his war costume; he gracefully
consented; and returned in that strange, inappropriate and ill-
omened array (which very well became his handsome person) to strut
in a circle of admirers, and be thenceforth the centre of
photography. Thus had Moipu effected his introduction, as by
accident, to the white strangers, made it a favour to display his
finery, and reduced his rival to a secondary role on the theatre of
the disputed village. Paaaeua felt the blow; and, with a spirit
which we never dreamed he could possess, asserted his priority. It
was found impossible that day to get a photograph of Moipu alone;
for whenever he stood up before the camera his successor placed
himself unbidden by his side, and gently but firmly held to his
position. The portraits of the pair, Jacob and Esau, standing
shoulder to shoulder, one in his careful European dress, one in his
barbaric trappings, figure the past and present of their island. A
graveyard with its humble crosses would be the aptest symbol of the
future.
We are all impressed with the belief that Moipu had planned his
campaign from the beginning to the end. It is certain that he lost
no time in pushing his advantage. Mr. Osbourne was inveigled to
his house; various gifts were fished out of an old sea-chest;
Father Orens was called into service as interpreter, and Moipu
formally proposed to 'make brothers' with Mata-Galahi--Glass-Eyes,-
-the not very euphonious name under which Mr. Osbourne passed in
the Marquesas. The feast of brotherhood took place on board the
Casco. Paaaeua had arrived with his family, like a plain man; and
his presents, which had been numerous, had followed one another, at
intervals through several days. Moipu, as if to mark at every
point the opposition, came with a certain feudal pomp, attended by
retainers bearing gifts of all descriptions, from plumes of old
men's beard to little, pious, Catholic engravings.
I had met the man before this in the village, and detested him on
sight; there was something indescribably raffish in his looks and
ways that raised my gorge; and when man-eating was referred to, and
he laughed a low, cruel laugh, part boastful, part bashful, like
one reminded of some dashing peccadillo, my repugnance was mingled
with nausea. This is no very human attitude, nor one at all
becoming in a traveller. And, seen more privately, the man
improved. Something negroid in character and face was still
displeasing; but his ugly mouth became attractive when he smiled,
his figure and bearing were certainly noble, and his eyes superb.
In his appreciation of jams and pickles, in is delight in the
reverberating mirrors of the dining cabin, and consequent endless
repetition of Moipus and Mata-Galahis, he showed himself engagingly
a child. And yet I am not sure; and what seemed childishness may
have been rather courtly art. His manners struck me as beyond the
mark; they were refined and caressing to the point of grossness,
and when I think of the serene absent-mindedness with which he
first strolled in upon our party, and then recall him running on
hands and knees along the cabin sofas, pawing the velvet, dipping
into the beds, and bleating commendatory 'mitais' with exaggerated
emphasis, like some enormous over-mannered ape, I feel the more
sure that both must have been calculated. And I sometimes wonder
next, if Moipu were quite alone in this polite duplicity, and ask
myself whether the Casco were quite so much admired in the
Marquesas as our visitors desired us to suppose.
I will complete this sketch of an incurable cannibal grandee with
two incongruous traits. His favourite morsel was the human hand,
of which he speaks to-day with an ill-favoured lustfulness. And
when he said good-bye to Mrs. Stevenson, holding her hand, viewing
her with tearful eyes, and chanting his farewell improvisation in
the falsetto of Marquesan high society, he wrote upon her mind a
sentimental impression which I try in vain to share.
PART II: THE PAUMOTUS
CHAPTER I--THE DANGEROUS ARCHIPELAGO--ATOLLS AT A DISTANCE
In the early morning of 4th September a whale-boat manned by
natives dragged us down the green lane of the anchorage and round
the spouting promontory. On the shore level it was a hot,
breathless, and yet crystal morning; but high overhead the hills of
Atuona were all cowled in cloud, and the ocean-river of the trades
streamed without pause. As we crawled from under the immediate
shelter of the land, we reached at last the limit of their
influence. The wind fell upon our sails in puffs, which
strengthened and grew more continuous; presently the Casco heeled
down to her day's work; the whale-boat, quite outstripped, clung
for a noisy moment to her quarter; the stipulated bread, rum, and
tobacco were passed in; a moment more and the boat was in our wake,
and our late pilots were cheering our departure.
This was the more inspiriting as we were bound for scenes so
different, and though on a brief voyage, yet for a new province of
creation. That wide field of ocean, called loosely the South Seas,
extends from tropic to tropic, and from perhaps 123 degrees W. to
150 degrees E., a parallelogram of one hundred degrees by forty-
seven, where degrees are the most spacious. Much of it lies
vacant, much is closely sown with isles, and the isles are of two
sorts. No distinction is so continually dwelt upon in South Sea
talk as that between the 'low' and the 'high' island, and there is
none more broadly marked in nature. The Himalayas are not more
different from the Sahara. On the one hand, and chiefly in groups
of from eight to a dozen, volcanic islands rise above the sea; few
reach an altitude of less than 4000 feet; one exceeds 13,000; their
tops are often obscured in cloud, they are all clothed with various
forests, all abound in food, and are all remarkable for picturesque
and solemn scenery. On the other hand, we have the atoll; a thing
of problematic origin and history, the reputed creature of an
insect apparently unidentified; rudely annular in shape; enclosing
a lagoon; rarely extending beyond a quarter of a mile at its chief
width; often rising at its highest point to less than the stature
of a man--man himself, the rat and the land crab, its chief
inhabitants; not more variously supplied with plants; and offering
to the eye, even when perfect, only a ring of glittering beach and
verdant foliage, enclosing and enclosed by the blue sea.
In no quarter are the atolls so thickly congregated, in none are
they so varied in size from the greatest to the least, and in none
is navigation so beset with perils, as in that archipelago that we
were now to thread. The huge system of the trades is, for some
reason, quite confounded by this multiplicity of reefs, the wind
intermits, squalls are frequent from the west and south-west,
hurricanes are known. The currents are, besides, inextricably
intermixed; dead reckoning becomes a farce; the charts are not to
be trusted; and such is the number and similarity of these islands
that, even when you have picked one up, you may be none the wiser.
The reputation of the place is consequently infamous; insurance
offices exclude it from their field, and it was not without
misgiving that my captain risked the Casco in such waters. I
believe, indeed, it is almost understood that yachts are to avoid
this baffling archipelago; and it required all my instances--and
all Mr. Otis's private taste for adventure--to deflect our course
across its midst.
For a few days we sailed with a steady trade, and a steady westerly
current setting us to leeward; and toward sundown of the seventh it
was supposed we should have sighted Takaroa, one of Cook's so-
called King George Islands. The sun set; yet a while longer the
old moon--semi-brilliant herself, and with a silver belly, which
was her successor--sailed among gathering clouds; she, too,
deserted us; stars of every degree of sheen, and clouds of every
variety of form disputed the sub-lustrous night; and still we gazed
in vain for Takaroa. The mate stood on the bowsprit, his tall grey
figure slashing up and down against the stars, and still
'nihil astra praeter
Vidit et undas.
The rest of us were grouped at the port anchor davit, staring with
no less assiduity, but with far less hope on the obscure horizon.
Islands we beheld in plenty, but they were of 'such stuff as dreams
are made on,' and vanished at a wink, only to appear in other
places; and by and by not only islands, but refulgent and revolving
lights began to stud the darkness; lighthouses of the mind or of
the wearied optic nerve, solemnly shining and winking as we passed.
At length the mate himself despaired, scrambled on board again from
his unrestful perch, and announced that we had missed our
destination. He was the only man of practice in these waters, our
sole pilot, shipped for that end at Tai-o-hae. If he declared we
had missed Takaroa, it was not for us to quarrel with the fact,
but, if we could, to explain it. We had certainly run down our
southing. Our canted wake upon the sea and our somewhat drunken-
looking course upon the chart both testified with no less certainty
to an impetuous westward current. We had no choice but to conclude
we were again set down to leeward; and the best we could do was to
bring the Casco to the wind, keep a good watch, and expect morning.
I slept that night, as was then my somewhat dangerous practice, on
deck upon the cockpit bench. A stir at last awoke me, to see all
the eastern heaven dyed with faint orange, the binnacle lamp
already dulled against the brightness of the day, and the steersman
leaning eagerly across the wheel. 'There it is, sir!' he cried,
and pointed in the very eyeball of the dawn. For awhile I could
see nothing but the bluish ruins of the morning bank, which lay far
along the horizon, like melting icebergs. Then the sun rose,
pierced a gap in these debris of vapours, and displayed an
inconsiderable islet, flat as a plate upon the sea, and spiked with
palms of disproportioned altitude.
So far, so good. Here was certainly an atoll; and we were
certainly got among the archipelago. But which? And where? The
isle was too small for either Takaroa: in all our neighbourhood,
indeed, there was none so inconsiderable, save only Tikei; and
Tikei, one of Roggewein's so-called Pernicious Islands, seemed
beside the question. At that rate, instead of drifting to the
west, we must have fetched up thirty miles to windward. And how
about the current? It had been setting us down, by observation,
all these days: by the deflection of our wake, it should be
setting us down that moment. When had it stopped? When had it
begun again? and what kind of torrent was that which had swept us
eastward in the interval? To these questions, so typical of
navigation in that range of isles, I have no answer. Such were at
least the facts; Tikei our island turned out to be; and it was our
first experience of the dangerous archipelago, to make our landfall
thirty miles out.
The sight of Tikei, thrown direct against the splendour of the
morning, robbed of all its colour, and deformed with
disproportioned trees like bristles on a broom, had scarce prepared
us to be much in love with atolls. Later the same day we saw under
more fit conditions the island of Taiaro. Lost in the Sea is
possibly the meaning of the name. And it was so we saw it; lost in
blue sea and sky: a ring of white beach, green underwood, and
tossing palms, gem-like in colour; of a fairy, of a heavenly
prettiness. The surf ran all around it, white as snow, and broke
at one point, far to seaward, on what seems an uncharted reef.
There was no smoke, no sign of man; indeed, the isle is not
inhabited, only visited at intervals. And yet a trader (Mr. Narii
Salmon) was watching from the shore and wondering at the unexpected
ship. I have spent since then long months upon low islands; I know
the tedium of their undistinguished days; I know the burden of
their diet. With whatever envy we may have looked from the deck on
these green coverts, it was with a tenfold greater that Mr. Salmon
and his comrades saw us steer, in our trim ship, to seaward.
The night fell lovely in the extreme. After the moon went down,
the heaven was a thing to wonder at for stars. And as I lay in the
cockpit and looked upon the steersman I was haunted by Emerson's
verses:
'And the lone seaman all the night
Sails astonished among stars.'
By this glittering and imperfect brightness, about four bells in
the first watch we made our third atoll, Raraka. The low line of
the isle lay straight along the sky; so that I was at first
reminded of a towpath, and we seemed to be mounting some engineered
and navigable stream. Presently a red star appeared, about the
height and brightness of a danger signal, and with that my simile
was changed; we seemed rather to skirt the embankment of a railway,
and the eye began to look instinctively for the telegraph-posts,
and the ear to expect the coming of a train. Here and there, but
rarely, faint tree-tops broke the level. And the sound of the surf
accompanied us, now in a drowsy monotone, now with a menacing
swing.
The isle lay nearly east and west, barring our advance on Fakarava.
We must, therefore, hug the coast until we gained the western end,
where, through a passage eight miles wide, we might sail southward
between Raraka and the next isle, Kauehi. We had the wind free, a
lightish air; but clouds of an inky blackness were beginning to
arise, and at times it lightened--without thunder. Something, I
know not what, continually set us up upon the island. We lay more
and more to the nor'ard; and you would have thought the shore
copied our manoeuvre and outsailed us. Once and twice Raraka headed
us again--again, in the sea fashion, the quite innocent steersman
was abused--and again the Casco kept away. Had I been called on,
with no more light than that of our experience, to draw the
configuration of that island, I should have shown a series of bow-
window promontories, each overlapping the other to the nor'ard, and
the trend of the land from the south-east to the north-west, and
behold, on the chart it lay near east and west in a straight line.
We had but just repeated our manoeuvre and kept away--for not more
than five minutes the railway embankment had been lost to view and
the surf to hearing--when I was aware of land again, not only on
the weather bow, but dead ahead. I played the part of the
judicious landsman, holding my peace till the last moment; and
presently my mariners perceived it for themselves.
'Land ahead!' said the steersman.
'By God, it's Kauehi!' cried the mate.
And so it was. And with that I began to be sorry for
cartographers. We were scarce doing three and a half; and they
asked me to believe that (in five minutes) we had dropped an
island, passed eight miles of open water, and run almost high and
dry upon the next. But my captain was more sorry for himself to be
afloat in such a labyrinth; laid the Casco to, with the log line up
and down, and sat on the stern rail and watched it till the
morning. He had enough of night in the Paumotus.
By daylight on the 9th we began to skirt Kauehi, and had now an
opportunity to see near at hand the geography of atolls. Here and
there, where it was high, the farther side loomed up; here and
there the near side dipped entirely and showed a broad path of
water into the lagoon; here and there both sides were equally
abased, and we could look right through the discontinuous ring to
the sea horizon on the south. Conceive, on a vast scale, the
submerged hoop of the duck-hunter, trimmed with green rushes to
conceal his head--water within, water without--you have the image
of the perfect atoll. Conceive one that has been partly plucked of
its rush fringe; you have the atoll of Kauehi. And for either
shore of it at closer quarters, conceive the line of some old Roman
highway traversing a wet morass, and here sunk out of view and
there re-arising, crowned with a green tuft of thicket; only
instead of the stagnant waters of a marsh, the live ocean now
boiled against, now buried the frail barrier. Last night's
impression in the dark was thus confirmed by day, and not
corrected. We sailed indeed by a mere causeway in the sea, of
nature's handiwork, yet of no greater magnitude than many of the
works of man.
The isle was uninhabited; it was all green brush and white sand,
set in transcendently blue water; even the coco-palms were rare,
though some of these completed the bright harmony of colour by
hanging out a fan of golden yellow. For long there was no sign of
life beyond the vegetable, and no sound but the continuous grumble
of the surf. In silence and desertion these fair shores slipped
past, and were submerged and rose again with clumps of thicket from
the sea. And then a bird or two appeared, hovering and crying;
swiftly these became more numerous, and presently, looking ahead,
we were aware of a vast effervescence of winged life. In this
place the annular isle was mostly under water, carrying here and
there on its submerged line a wooded islet. Over one of these the
birds hung and flew with an incredible density like that of gnats
or hiving bees; the mass flashed white and black, and heaved and
quivered, and the screaming of the creatures rose over the voice of
the surf in a shrill clattering whirr. As you descend some inland
valley a not dissimilar sound announces the nearness of a mill and
pouring river. Some stragglers, as I said, came to meet our
approach; a few still hung about the ship as we departed. The
crying died away, the last pair of wings was left behind, and once
more the low shores of Kauehi streamed past our eyes in silence
like a picture. I supposed at the time that the birds lived, like
ants or citizens, concentred where we saw them. I have been told
since (I know not if correctly) that the whole isle, or much of it,
is similarly peopled; and that the effervescence at a single spot
would be the mark of a boat's crew of egg-hunters from one of the
neighbouring inhabited atolls. So that here at Kauehi, as the day
before at Taiaro, the Casco sailed by under the fire of unsuspected
eyes. And one thing is surely true, that even on these ribbons of
land an army might lie hid and no passing mariner divine its
presence.
CHAPTER II--FAKARAVA: AN ATOLL AT HAND
By a little before noon we were running down the coast of our
destination, Fakarava: the air very light, the sea near smooth;
though still we were accompanied by a continuous murmur from the
beach, like the sound of a distant train. The isle is of a huge
longitude, the enclosed lagoon thirty miles by ten or twelve, and
the coral tow-path, which they call the land, some eighty or ninety
miles by (possibly) one furlong. That part by which we sailed was
all raised; the underwood excellently green, the topping wood of
coco-palms continuous--a mark, if I had known it, of man's
intervention. For once more, and once more unconsciously, we were
within hail of fellow-creatures, and that vacant beach was but a
pistol-shot from the capital city of the archipelago. But the life
of an atoll, unless it be enclosed, passes wholly on the shores of
the lagoon; it is there the villages are seated, there the canoes
ply and are drawn up; and the beach of the ocean is a place
accursed and deserted, the fit scene only for wizardry and
shipwreck, and in the native belief a haunting ground of murderous
spectres.
By and by we might perceive a breach in the low barrier; the woods
ceased; a glittering point ran into the sea, tipped with an emerald
shoal the mark of entrance. As we drew near we met a little run of
sea--the private sea of the lagoon having there its origin and end,
and here, in the jaws of the gateway, trying vain conclusions with
the more majestic heave of the Pacific. The Casco scarce avowed a
shock; but there are times and circumstances when these harbour
mouths of inland basins vomit floods, deflecting, burying, and
dismasting ships. For, conceive a lagoon perfectly sealed but in
the one point, and that of merely navigable width; conceive the
tide and wind to have heaped for hours together in that coral fold
a superfluity of waters, and the tide to change and the wind fall--
the open sluice of some great reservoirs at home will give an image
of the unstemmable effluxion.
We were scarce well headed for the pass before all heads were
craned over the rail. For the water, shoaling under our board,
became changed in a moment to surprising hues of blue and grey; and
in its transparency the coral branched and blossomed, and the fish
of the inland sea cruised visibly below us, stained and striped,
and even beaked like parrots. I have paid in my time to view many
curiosities; never one so curious as that first sight over the
ship's rail in the lagoon of Fakarava. But let not the reader be
deceived with hope. I have since entered, I suppose, some dozen
atolls in different parts of the Pacific, and the experience has
never been repeated. That exquisite hue and transparency of
submarine day, and these shoals of rainbow fish, have not
enraptured me again.
Before we could raise our eyes from that engaging spectacle the
schooner had slipped betwixt the pierheads of the reef, and was
already quite committed to the sea within. The containing shores
are so little erected, and the lagoon itself is so great, that, for
the more part, it seemed to extend without a check to the horizon.
Here and there, indeed, where the reef carried an inlet, like a
signet-ring upon a finger, there would be a pencilling of palms;
here and there, the green wall of wood ran solid for a length of
miles; and on the port hand, under the highest grove of trees, a
few houses sparkled white--Rotoava, the metropolitan settlement of
the Paumotus. Hither we beat in three tacks, and came to an anchor
close in shore, in the first smooth water since we had left San
Francisco, five fathoms deep, where a man might look overboard all
day at the vanishing cable, the coral patches, and the many-
coloured fish.
Fakarava was chosen to be the seat of Government from nautical
considerations only. It is eccentrically situate; the productions,
even for a low island, poor; the population neither many nor--for
Low Islanders--industrious. But the lagoon has two good passages,
one to leeward, one to windward, so that in all states of the wind
it can be left and entered, and this advantage, for a government of
scattered islands, was decisive. A pier of coral, landing-stairs,
a harbour light upon a staff and pillar, and two spacious
Government bungalows in a handsome fence, give to the northern end
of Rotoava a great air of consequence. This is confirmed on the
one hand by an empty prison, on the other by a gendarmerie pasted
over with hand-bills in Tahitian, land-law notices from Papeete,
and republican sentiments from Paris, signed (a little after date)
'Jules Grevy, Perihidente.' Quite at the far end a belfried
Catholic chapel concludes the town; and between, on a smooth floor
of white coral sand and under the breezy canopy of coco-palms, the
houses of the natives stand irregularly scattered, now close on the
lagoon for the sake of the breeze, now back under the palms for
love of shadow.
Not a soul was to be seen. But for the thunder of the surf on the
far side, it seemed you might have heard a pin drop anywhere about
that capital city. There was something thrilling in the unexpected
silence, something yet more so in the unexpected sound. Here
before us a sea reached to the horizon, rippling like an inland
mere; and behold! close at our back another sea assaulted with
assiduous fury the reverse of the position. At night the lantern
was run up and lit a vacant pier. In one house lights were seen
and voices heard, where the population (I was told) sat playing
cards. A little beyond, from deep in the darkness of the palm-
grove, we saw the glow and smelt the aromatic odour of a coal of
cocoa-nut husk, a relic of the evening kitchen. Crickets sang;
some shrill thing whistled in a tuft of weeds; and the mosquito
hummed and stung. There was no other trace that night of man,
bird, or insect in the isle. The moon, now three days old, and as
yet but a silver crescent on a still visible sphere, shone through
the palm canopy with vigorous and scattered lights. The alleys
where we walked were smoothed and weeded like a boulevard; here and
there were plants set out; here and there dusky cottages clustered
in the shadow, some with verandahs. A public garden by night, a
rich and fashionable watering-place in a by-season, offer sights
and vistas not dissimilar. And still, on the one side, stretched
the lapping mere, and from the other the deep sea still growled in
the night. But it was most of all on board, in the dead hours,
when I had been better sleeping, that the spell of Fakarava seized
and held me. The moon was down. The harbour lantern and two of
the greater planets drew vari-coloured wakes on the lagoon. From
shore the cheerful watch-cry of cocks rang out at intervals above
the organ-point of surf. And the thought of this depopulated
capital, this protracted thread of annular island with its crest of
coco-palms and fringe of breakers, and that tranquil inland sea
that stretched before me till it touched the stars, ran in my head
for hours with delight.
So long as I stayed upon that isle these thoughts were constant. I
lay down to sleep, and woke again with an unblunted sense of my
surroundings. I was never weary of calling up the image of that
narrow causeway, on which I had my dwelling, lying coiled like a
serpent, tail to mouth, in the outrageous ocean, and I was never
weary of passing--a mere quarter-deck parade--from the one side to
the other, from the shady, habitable shores of the lagoon to the
blinding desert and uproarious breakers of the opposite beach. The
sense of insecurity in such a thread of residence is more than
fanciful. Hurricanes and tidal waves over-leap these humble
obstacles; Oceanus remembers his strength, and, where houses stood
and palms flourished, shakes his white beard again over the barren
coral. Fakarava itself has suffered; the trees immediately beyond
my house were all of recent replantation; and Anaa is only now
recovered from a heavier stroke. I knew one who was then dwelling
in the isle. He told me that he and two ship captains walked to
the sea beach. There for a while they viewed the oncoming
breakers, till one of the captains clapped suddenly his hand before
his eyes and cried aloud that he could endure no longer to behold
them. This was in the afternoon; in the dark hours of the night
the sea burst upon the island like a flood; the settlement was
razed all but the church and presbytery; and, when day returned,
the survivors saw themselves clinging in an abattis of uprooted
coco-palms and ruined houses.
Danger is but a small consideration. But men are more nicely
sensible of a discomfort; and the atoll is a discomfortable home.
There are some, and these probably ancient, where a deep soil has
formed and the most valuable fruit-trees prosper. I have walked in
one, with equal admiration and surprise, through a forest of huge
breadfruits, eating bananas and stumbling among taro as I went.
This was in the atoll of Namorik in the Marshall group, and stands
alone in my experience. To give the opposite extreme, which is yet
far more near the average, I will describe the soil and productions
of Fakarava. The surface of that narrow strip is for the more part
of broken coral lime-stone, like volcanic clinkers, and
excruciating to the naked foot; in some atolls, I believe, not in
Fakarava, it gives a fine metallic ring when struck. Here and
there you come upon a bank of sand, exceeding fine and white, and
these parts are the least productive. The plants (such as they
are) spring from and love the broken coral, whence they grow with
that wonderful verdancy that makes the beauty of the atoll from the
sea. The coco-palm in particular luxuriates in that stern solum,
striking down his roots to the brackish, percolated water, and
bearing his green head in the wind with every evidence of health
and pleasure. And yet even the coco-palm must be helped in infancy
with some extraneous nutriment, and through much of the low
archipelago there is planted with each nut a piece of ship's
biscuit and a rusty nail. The pandanus comes next in importance,
being also a food tree; and he, too, does bravely. A green bush
called miki runs everywhere; occasionally a purao is seen; and
there are several useless weeds. According to M. Cuzent, the whole
number of plants on an atoll such as Fakarava will scarce exceed,
even if it reaches to, one score. Not a blade of grass appears;
not a grain of humus, save when a sack or two has been imported to
make the semblance of a garden; such gardens as bloom in cities on
the window-sill. Insect life is sometimes dense; a cloud o'
mosquitoes, and, what is far worse, a plague of flies blackening
our food, has sometimes driven us from a meal on Apemama; and even
in Fakarava the mosquitoes were a pest. The land crab may be seen
scuttling to his hole, and at night the rats besiege the houses and
the artificial gardens. The crab is good eating; possibly so is
the rat; I have not tried. Pandanus fruit is made, in the
Gilberts, into an agreeable sweetmeat, such as a man may trifle
with at the end of a long dinner; for a substantial meal I have no
use for it. The rest of the food-supply, in a destitute atoll such
as Fakarava, can be summed up in the favourite jest of the
archipelago--cocoa-nut beefsteak. Cocoa-nut green, cocoa-nut ripe,
cocoa-nut germinated; cocoa-nut to eat and cocoa-nut to drink;
cocoa-nut raw and cooked, cocoa-nut hot and cold--such is the bill
of fare. And some of the entrees are no doubt delicious. The
germinated nut, cooked in the shell and eaten with a spoon, forms a
good pudding; cocoa-nut milk--the expressed juice of a ripe nut,
not the water of a green one--goes well in coffee, and is a
valuable adjunct in cookery through the South Seas; and cocoa-nut
salad, if you be a millionaire, and can afford to eat the value of
a field of corn for your dessert, is a dish to be remembered with
affection. But when all is done there is a sameness, and the
Israelites of the low islands murmur at their manna.
