Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (2024)

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Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (1)

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (2)

Photo from L. Gauthier
Nature’s mirror showed him why he could not leave

IATOLLS

OF THE SUN

BY

FREDERICK O’BRIEN

Author of “Mystic Isles of the South Seas,” “White Shadows

in the South Seas,” etc.

WITH MANY

ILLUSTRATIONS

FROM

PAINTINGS, DRAWINGS AND PHOTOGRAPHS

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (3)

TORONTO

McCLELLAND & STEWART

1922

Copyright, 1922, by

The Century Co.

PRINTED IN U. S. A.

To G——

II

FOREWORD

“Atolls of the Sun” is a book of experiences, impressions,and dreams in the strange and lonely islands ofthe South Seas. It does not aim to be literal, or sequential,though everything in it is the result of mywanderings in the far and mysterious recesses of thePacific Ocean.

I am not a scientist or scholar, and can relate onlywhat I saw and heard, felt and imagined, in my dwellingwith savage and singular races among the wonderfullagoons of the coral atolls, and poignant valleysof disregarded islands.

If I can make my reader see and feel the sad andbeautiful guises of life in them, and the secrets of afew unusual souls, I shall be satisfied. The thrills ofadventure upon the sea and in the shadowy glens, theodors of rare and sweet flowers, the memories of lovablehumans, are here written to keep them alive in myheart, and to share them with my friends.

Life is not real. It is an illusion, a screen uponwhich each one writes the reactions upon himself of hissensory knowledge. The individual is the movingcamera, and what he calls life is his projection of thepanorama about him—not more actual than the figuresand storms upon the cinema screen. In this book Ihave put the film that passed through my mind in wildplaces, and among natural people.

IIIIt is useless to look to find in the South Seas whatI have found. It is there, glowing and true, and yet,as each beholder conjures a different vision of thehuman spectacle about him, each can see the islandsof romance only by the lens life has fitted upon his soul.

To seek a replica of experience or scenes is to spoila possession.

If this book has interest, one may read and laugh,be entertained or repelled with thanks that one can sitat ease, and watch this picture made on another’s mindin long journeys and in many days and nights of hazardand delight.

IV

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

Leaving Tahiti—The sunset over Moorea—Bound for the Paumotu Atolls—The Schooner Marara, Flying Fish—Captain Jean Moet and others aboard—Sighting and Landing on Niau 3

CHAPTER II

Meeting with Tommy Eustace, the trader—Strange soil of the atoll—A bath in the lagoon—Momuni, the thirsty bread baker—Off for Anaa 23

CHAPTER III

Perilous navigation—Curious green sky—Arrival at Anaa—Religion and the movies—Character of Paumotuans 40

CHAPTER IV

The copra market—Dangerous passage to shore at Kaukura—Our boat overturns in the pass—I narrowly escape death—Josephite Missionaries—The deadly nohu—The himene at night 58

CHAPTER V

Captain Moet tells of Mapuhi, the great Paumotuan—Kopcke tells about women—Virginie’s jealousy—An affrighting waterspout—The wrecked ship—Landing at Takaroa 80

V

CHAPTER VI

Diffidence of Takaroans—Hiram Mervin’s description of the cyclone—Teamo’s wonderful swim—Mormon missionaries from America—I take a bath 96

CHAPTER VII

Breakfast with elders—The great Mapuhi enters—He tells of San Francisco—Of prizefighters and Police gazettes—I reside with Nohea—Robber-crabs—The cats that warred and caught fish 114

CHAPTER VIII

I meet a Seventh Day Adventist missionary, and a descendant of a mutineer of the Bounty—They tell me the story of Pitcairn island—An epic of isolation 135

CHAPTER IX

The fish in the lagoon and sea—Giant clams and fish that poison—Hunting the devilfish—Catching bonito—Snarling turtles—Trepang and sea cucumbers—The mammoth manta 157

CHAPTER X

Traders and divers assembling for the diving—A story told by Llewellyn at night—The mystery of Easter Island—Strangest spot in the world—Curious statues and houses—Borrowed wives—Arrival of English girl—Tragedy of the Meke Meke festival 175

CHAPTER XI

Pearl hunting in the lagoon—Previous methods wasteful—Mapuhi shows me the wonders of the lagoon—Marvelous stories of sharks—Woman who lost her arm—Shark of Samoa—Deacon who rode a shark a half-hour—Eels are terrible menace 211

VI

CHAPTER XII

History of the pearl hunger—Noted jewels of past—I go with Nohea to the diving—Beautiful floor of the Lagoon—Nohea dives many times—Escapes shark narrowly—Descends 148 feet—No pearls reward us—Mandel tells of culture pearls 230

CHAPTER XIII

Story of the wondrous pearls planted in the lagoon of Pukapuka—Tepeva a Tepeva, the crippled diver, tells it—How a European scientist improved on nature—Tragedy of Patasy and Mauraii—The robbed coral bank—Death under the sea 249

CHAPTER XIV

The palace of the governor of the Marquesas in the vale of Atuona—Monsieur L’Hermier des Plantes, Ghost Girl, Miss Tail, and Song of the Nightingale—Tapus in the South Seas—Strange conventions that regulate life—A South Seas Pankhurst—How women won their freedom 271

CHAPTER XV

The dismal abode of the Peyrals—Stark-white daughter of Peyral—Only white maiden in the Marquesas—I hunt wild bulls—Peyral’s friendliness—I visit his house—He strikes me and threatens to kill me—I go armed—Explanation of the bizarre tragic comedy 294

CHAPTER XVI

In the valley of Vaitahu—With Vanquished Often and Seventh Man He Is So Angry He Wallows in the Mire—Worship of beauty in the South Seas—Like the ancient Greeks—Care of the body—Preparations for a belle’s début—Massage as a cure for ills 319

VII

CHAPTER XVII

Skilled tattooers of Marquesas Islands a generation ago—Entire bodies covered with intricate tattooed designs—The foreigner who had himself tattooed to win the favor of a Marquesan beauty—The magic that removed the markings when he was recalled to his former life in England 336

CHAPTER XVIII

A fantastic but dying language—The Polynesian or Maori Tongue—Making of the first lexicons—Words taken from other languages—Decay of vocabularies with decrease of population—Humors and whimsicalities of the dictionary as arranged by foreigners 364

CHAPTER XIX

Tragic Mademoiselle Narbonne—Whom shall she marry?—Dinner at the home of Wilhelm Lutz—The Taua, the sorcerer—Lemoal says Narbonne is a leper—I visit the Taua—The prophecy 384

CHAPTER XX

Holy Week—How the rum was saved during the storm—An Easter Sunday “Celebration”—The Governor, Commissaire Bauda and I have a discussion—Paul Vernier, the Protestant Pastor, and his church—How the girls of the Valley imperilled the immortal souls of the first missionaries—Jimmy Kekela, his family—A watch from Abraham Lincoln 414

CHAPTER XXI

Paul Gauguin, the famous French-Peruvian Artist—A Rebel against the society that rejected him while he lived, and now cherishes his paintings 439

VIII

CHAPTER XXII

Monsieur l’Inspecteur des Etablissements Français de l’Océanie—How the school house was inspected—I receive my congé—The runaway pigs—Mademoiselle Narbonne goes with Lutz to Papeete to be married—Père Siméon, about whom Robert Louis Stevenson wrote 460

CHAPTER XXIII

McHenry gets a caning—The fear of the dead—A visit to the grave of Mapuhi—En voyage 482

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Nature’s mirror showed him why he could not leave Frontispiece
PAGE
Map 7
The atoll of Niau 16
The anchorage at Tahauku. Atuona lies just around the first headland to the right 17
A Paumotu atoll after a blow 32
A squall approaching Anaa 33
Picking up the atoll of Anaa from the deck of the schooner Flying Fish 48
Canoes and cutters at atoll of Anaa, Paumotu Islands 49
The road from the beach 64
An American Josephite missionary and his wife, and their church 65
Typical and primitive native hut, Paumotu Archipelago 80
Copra drying 81
Atoll of Hikuera after the cyclone 96
The wrecked County of Roxburgh 97
Mormon elders baptizing in the lagoon 112
Over the reef in a canoe 113
Robber-crab ascending tree at night. One of the few photographs taken of the marauder in action 128
Where the Bounty was beached and burned 129
The church on Pitcairn Island 144
The shores of Pitcairn Island 145
Spearing fish 160
A canoe on the lagoon 161
Ready for the fishing 161
Spearing fish in the lagoon 176
The Captain and two sailors of the El Dorado 177
Beach dancers at Tahiti 192
After the bath in the pool 193
Old cocoanut-trees 208
The dark valley of Taaoa 209
Launch towing canoes to diving grounds in lagoon 224
Divers voyaging in Paumotu atolls 225
Ghost Girl 256
A double canoe 257
A young palm in Atuona 272
Atuona valley and the peak of Temetiu 273
Malicious Gossip, Le Brunnec, and his wife, At Peace 304
Exploding Eggs and his chums packing copra 304
Frederick O’Brien and Dr. Malcolm Douglas at home in Tahiti 305
Some friends in my valley 320
Wash-day in the stream by my cabin 321
Te Ipu, an old Marquesan chief, showing tattooing 336
The famous tattooed leg of Queen Vaikehu 337
Tattooing at the present day 352
Easter Islander in head-dress and with dancing-wand 353
My tattooed Marquesan friend 353
The author with his friends at council 368
House of governor of Paumotu Islands. Atoll of Fakarava 369
Nakohu, Exploding Eggs 384
Haabuani, the sole sculptor of Hiva-Oa 385
The coral road and the traders’ stores 416
Scene on beach a few miles west of Papeete 417
Tahiatini, Many Daughters, the little leper lass 432
François Grelet, the Swiss, of Oomoa 433
Brunneck, the boxer and diver 464
A village maid in Tahiti 465
A Samoan maiden of high caste 465
Throwing spears at a cocoanut on a stake 480
The raised-up atoll of Makatea 481
Paumotuans on a heap of brain coral 496
Did these two eat Chocolat? 496
The stonehenge men in the South Seas 497

ATOLLS OF THE SUN

3ATOLLS OF THE SUN

CHAPTER I

Leaving Tahiti—The sunset over Moorea—Bound for the PaumotuAtolls—The Schooner Marara, Flying Fish—Captain Jean Moet andothers aboard—Sighting and Landing on Niau.

“NOUS partons! We air off—off!” shoutedCapitaine Moet, gaily, as the Marara, theschooner Flying Fish, slipped through the narrow,treacherous pass of the barrier-reef of PapeeteHarbor. “Mon ami, you weel by ’n’ by say dam Moetfor take you to ze Iles Dangereuses. You air goin’to ze worse climate in ze sacré mundo. Eet ees hotand ze win’ blow many time like ’urricane. An’ younevaire wash, because ze wataire ees salt comose o-c-ean.”

We had waited for a wafting breeze all afternoon,the brown crew alert to raise the anchor at every zephyr,but it was almost dark when we were clear of the reefand, with all sails raised, fair on our voyage to themysterious atolls of the Paumotu Archipelago. OftenI had planned that pilgrimage in my long stay inTahiti. At the Cercle Bougainville, the business club,where the pearl and shell traders and the copra buyersdrank their rum and Doctor Funks, I had heard manystories of a nature in these Paumotus strangely differentof aspect from all other parts of the world, of4a native people who had amazing knowledge of thesecrets of the sea and its inhabitants, and of whitedwellers altered by residence there to a pattern verycontrary from other whites. For scores of years thesetraders and sailors or their forerunners had played allthe tricks of commerce on the Paumotuans, and theylaughed reminiscently over them; yet they hinted ofdemons there, of ghosts that soared and whistled, andof dancers they had seen transfixed in the air. Whatwas true or untrue I had not known; nor had they, Ibelieved.

Llewellyn, the Welsh-Tahitian gentleman, afterfour or five glasses of Pernoud, would ask, “Do youknow why the Paumotus are unearthly?” and wouldanswer in the same liquorish breath, “Because theyhaven’t any earth about them. They’re all whitebones.”

Woronick, the Parisian expert in pearls, referredoften to the wonderful jewel he had bought in Takaroafrom a Paumotuan, and the fortune he had made onit.

“That pearl was made by God and fish and man,and how it was grown and Tepeva a Tepeva got it, isa something to learn; unique. It is bizarre, effrayant.I will not recite it here, for you must go to Takaroato hear it.”

And Lying Bill and McHenry, in a score of vividphrases, told of the cyclones that had swept entirepopulations into the sea, felled the trees of scores ofyears’ growth, and left the bare atoll as when first itemerged from the depths.

“I knew a Dane who rode over Anaa on a tree like a5bloody ’orse on the turf,” said Lying Bill to me, witha frightening bang of his tumbler on the table. “’E wascaught by the top of a big wave, an’ away ’e drove fromone side of the bleedin’ island to the other, and comeright side up. A bit ’urt in the ’ead, ’e was, but ableto take ’is bloomin’ oath on what ’appened.”

I had not depended on these raconteurs for a vicariousunderstanding of the Paumotus; for I had read andnoted all that I could find in books and calendars aboutthem, but yet I had felt that these unlettered actorsin the real dramas laid there gave me a valid picture.My hopes were fixed in finding in spirit what they sawonly materially.

Moet stood by the wheel until we cleared the waterswhere the lofty bulk of the island confused thewinds, and I, when the actions of the sailors in shiftingthe sails with his repeated orders had lost newness,looked with some anguish at that sweet land I was leaving.It had meant so much to me.

A poetic mood only could paint the swiftly changingpanorama as the schooner on its seaward tacks movedslowly under the faint vesper breeze; the mood of adiarist could tell how “the sun setting behind Moorea ina brilliant saffron sky, splashed with small golden andmauve-colored clouds, threw boldly forward in a clear-cut,opaque purple mass that fantastically pinnacledisland, near the summit of whose highest peak thereglittered, star-like, a speck of light—the sky seenthrough a hole pierced in the mountain. How in thesea, smooth as a mirror, within the reef, and here andthere to seaward, blue ruffled by a catspaw, away to thehorizon was reflected the saffron hue from above; how6against purple Moorea a cocoa-crowned islet in theharbor appeared olive-green—a gem set in the yellowwater. How the sunlight left the vivid green shore ofpalm-fringed Tahiti, and stole upward till only thehighest ridges and precipices were illuminated withstrange pink and violet tints springing straight fromthe mysterious depth of dark-blue shadow. How fromthe loftiest crags there floated a long streamer cloud—thecloud-banner of Tyndal. Then, as the sun sanklower and lower, the saffron of the sky paled to the turquoise-blueof a brief tropical twilight, the cloud-bannermelted and vanished, and the whole color deepenedand went out in the sudden darkness of the night.”

If one must say farewell to Tahiti, let it be in theevening, in the tender hues of the sunset, the effacingshadows of the sinking orb in sympathy with the day’stasks done; the screen of night being drawn amid flaming,dying lights across a workaday world, the dreampictures of the Supreme Artist appearing and faintingin the purpling heavens. I was leaving people andscenes that had taught me a new path in life, or, atleast, had hung lamps to guide my feet in an appreciationof values before unknown to me.

I came back to the deck of the schooner with Moet’scall for a steersman, and his invitation to go below forfood and drink. I refused despite his “Sapristi! Eefyou no eat by ’n’ by you cannot drink!” and when hedisappeared down the companion-ladder I climbed tothe roof of the low cabin. The moon was now high—aplate of glowing gold in an indigo ceiling. The swellingsea rocked the vessel and now and then lifted hersharp prow out of the water and struck it a blow of7friendship as it rejoined it. I unrolled a straw mat,and, placing it well aft so that the jibing boom wouldnot touch me, lay upon my back, and visioned the prodigiousworld I was seeking. The very names givenby discoverers were suggestive of extravagant adventure.The Half-drowned Islands, the Low Archipelago,the Dangerous Isles, the Pernicious Islands,were the titles of the early mariners. For three hundredyears the Paumotus had been dimly known on thecharts as set in the most perilous sea in all the round ofthe globe. I had read that they were more hazardousthan any other shores, as they were more singular inform. They had excited the wonder of learned menand laymen by even the scant depiction of their astoundingappearance. For decades after the eyes of a Europeanglimpsed them they were thought by many bookishmen to be as fabulous as Atlantis or Micomicon;too chimerical to exist, though witches then were asurety, and hell a burning reality.

I fell asleep, and as during the night the wind shiftedand with it the schooner veered, I had but a precarioushold upon the mat and was several times stood on myfeet in the narrow passageway. The dream jinn seizedthese shiftings and twistings, the shouts of the matein charge, the chants of the sailors at work, the whistleof the wind through the cordage, and wove them intofantasies,—ecstasies or nightmares,—and thus wardedoff my waking.

But the sun, roused from his slumber beneath the dipof the sphere, could be put off with no fine frenzies.When even half above the dipping horizon his beamsopened my eyes as if a furnace door had been flung8wide, and I turned over to see my hard couch occupiedby others. Beside me was McHenry, next to himMoet, and furthest, the one white woman aboard, thecaptain’s wife. We yawned in unison; and, with aquick, accustomed movement, she dropped below. Theday had begun on the schooner.

The Marara was once a French gunboat of these seaswhen cannons were needed to prevent dishonor to thetricolor by failure to obey French discipline, whileFrance was making good colonists or corpses of allpeoples hereabout. She was the very pattern of therakish craft in which the blackbirders and pirates sailedthis ocean for generations—built for speed, for enteringthreatening passes, for stealing silently away undergiant sweeps, and for handling by a small number ofstrong and fearless men. The bitts on the poop werestill marked by the gun emplacements, and the railabout the stern was but two feet high.

Now her owners were a company of Tahiti Europeanswho, trusting largely to the seamanship and businessshrewdness of her master, despatched her everyfew weeks or months on voyages about the French islandswithin a thousand miles or so to sell the nativesall they would buy, and to get from them at the leastcost the copra, shells, and pearls which were virtuallythe sole products of these islands.

TUAMOTU ARCHIPELAGO
(PACIFIC OCEAN)
click on map for a larger view

The cabin was one room, stuffy and hot, and malodorousof decades of cargo. A small table in thecenter for dining was alone free from shelves and boxesholding merchandise, which was displayed as in a countrystore. Besides all kinds of articles salable to aprimitive people, there were foods in barrels, boxes,9tins, and glass, for whites and for educated nativepalates.

Jean Moet, the commander of the Marara, was of thetype of French sailor encountered in the Mediterranean,and especially about Marseilles and Spanish ports.He had a slight person, with hair and moustache blackas the stones of Papenoo beach—nervous, excitable,moving incessantly, gesturing with every word.Twenty-eight of his forty years had been passed inships. He had visited the Ile du Diable, and had seenDreyfus there; he chattered of New York, Senegal,Yokohama, Cayenne, was full of French ocean oaths,breaking into English or Spanish to enlighten me orpress a point, singing a Parisian music-hall chansonette,or a Spanish cancioncita. His language was acurious hodge-podge bespeaking the wanderings of theman and his intensely mercurial temperament.

His wife, who sailed with him on all voyages sincetheir marriage five years before, was his opposite—large-bonedand heavy, like a Millet peasant, looking at herbrilliant husband as a wistful cow at her master, butnot fearing to caution him against extravagance instimulant or money. Her life had begun in Tahiti,and she had always been there until the dashing son ofthe Midi had lifted her from the house of her father—apetty official—to the deck of the Flying Fish. Shewas a housekeeper and accountant.

She paid especial attention to the shelves of pain-killers,cough cures, perunas, bitters and medical discoveriesfrom America, which, in islands where all alcoholicliquors were forbidden to the aborigines, soldreadily to all who sickened for them. Moet was affectionate10but stern toward Virginie, the wife, and talkedto her as does a kind but wise master to a trained seal.

For breakfast, the captain, Madame Moet, McHenry,and I had canned sardines, canned hash from Chicago,California olives, canned pineapple from Hawaii, andred wine from Bordeaux.

Virginie explained in Tahitian French that Jean hadforgotten to get aboard stores of fresh food. He hadbeen at the Cercle Bougainville until we had goneaboard, she said caustically. Jean put his arm abouther fat waist.

Mais, dar-leeng,” he said, soothingly, “tais-toi!”And then to me, “We are camarades, ma femme y mi,compañeros buenos. Ma wife she wash ze linge. Thatgood, eh? Amerique ze woman got boss hand now.Diable! C’est rottan! Hombre, ze wife ees for zecuisine, and ze babee.”

He pressed her middle, and advised her to clear upthe table while we went on deck for a smoke.

He became confidential with me after a pousse caféor two.

“We faire ze chose économique, Virginie y mi,” hesaid. “Maybee som’ day we weesh avoir leetle farmen France. En vérité, mon ami, I forget ze vegetablean’ ze meat because I beat McHenry at écarté in zeCercle Bougainville, jus’ avant we go ’way from Papeete.I nevaire play ze carte on ze schoonaire!Jamais de la vie!

The captain had aboard a brown pup, a mongrel hehad found in the Marquesas Islands. He had namedhim Chocolat, and passed hours each day in teachinghim tricks—to lie down and sit up at command, to11stand and to bark. The dog liked to run over theroof of the cabin and to crouch upon the low rail at thestern. As any roll or pitch of the vessel might tosshim into the ocean, I feared for his longevity, butChocolat—pronounced by Moet “Shockolah”—was ableto fall inboard whenever the motion jeopardized hissafety.

Eh, petit chien,” Jean Moet would cry, when Chocolatskated down the inclined deck into the scuppers,or hung for a moment indecisively on the rail, “youby ’n’ by goin’-a be eat by ze requin. Ze big sharkgetta you, perrillo, an’ you forget all my teach you, miquerido!”

He whipped Chocolat many times a day, when thepuppy let down from “attention” before told, or whenhe attacked his food before a certain whistled note.

“What will you do with him when his education iscomplete?” I asked Moet.

“When he ees educate, hein? He will be like ze saircussanimal. One year old, maybe, he make turnover,fight ze boxe, drink wine, an’, puedeser, he talk leetle.Zen I sell heem some tourist, some crazee Americain whozink he do for heem like me. I sharge five hunderfranc.”

McHenry, who kicked Chocolat whenever he had anopportunity unseen, ridiculed Moet’s dream of gain.

“You will like hell!” said McHenry. “When you’vegot the dirty little bastard sayin’, ‘Good mornin’, ‘nicean’ proper, he’ll sneak ashore in some boat-load o’truck, an’ some Paumotuan ’ll hotpot him. Wait tillhe’s fat! You know what they’ll do for fresh meat.”

Non, non!” answered the captain, angrily. “I am12not afraid of zat. I teach heem I keel heem he go inboat, but maybe you take heem an’ sell heem on zequiet, McHenry.”

The small, cold eyes of McHenry gleamed, and aqueer smile twisted his mouth.

“Well, keep him from under my feet!” he warned,and laughed at some thought now fully formed in hismind. I could see it squirming in his small brain.

McHenry was as rollicking a rascal as I knew in allthe South Seas. He was bitter and yet had a flavor ofreal humor at odd times. Without schooling except thatof a wharf-rat in Liverpool, New York, and San Francisco,he had come into these latitudes twenty years before.Cunning yet drunken, cruel but now and againdoing a kindness out of sheer animal spirits or a desireto show off, he had many enemies, and yet he had a fewfriends. When the itching for money or the desire tofeel power over those about him urged him, as most ofthe time, he proved himself the ripest and rottenest productof his early and present environment. He had haddesperate fights to keep from being a decaying beachcomber,a parasite without the law; but a certain Scotchcaution, a love of making and amassing profits, and, asI learned later, a firm and towering native wife, hadkept him at least out of jail and in the groove of trading.

Boasting was his chief weakness. He would go farto find the chance to ease his latent sense of inferiorityto an audience that did not know fully his poverty ofcharacter and attainment. After years of ups anddowns he had now quarreled with his recent employers,and was going to pitch his trade tent on some Paumotuatoll where copra and pearl-shell might be found. He13thought that he might stay a while in Takaroa, one ofour ports, because the diving season was about to openthere. He and I being the only ones whose languagewas English, we were much together, but I always halfdespised myself for not speaking my mind to him.Still, those lonely places make a man compromise asmuch as do cities. What one might fear most wouldbe having no one to talk with.

We lived on deck, all four of us, the Moets, McHenry,and I, along with a half-caste mate, sleeping always onthe roof of the cabin, and taking our meals off it, exceptin rain. In that moist case we bundled on the floor ofthe cabin. There was no ceremony. The cook broughtthe food through the cabin, and we handed up and downthe dishes through the after scuttle, helping ourselves atwill to the wine and rum which were in clay bottles onthe roof. McHenry and I were the only passengers,and the crew of six Tahitians was ample for all tasks.They were Piri a Tuahine, the boat-steerer; Peretia aHuitofa, Moe a Nahe, Roometua a Terehe, Piha aTeina, and Huahine, with Tamataura, the cook.

The whole forward deck of the schooner was crowdedwith native men, women, and children, the families ofchurch leaders who were returning to their Paumotuhomes after attending a religious festival in Tahiti.They lay huddled at night, sleeping silently in the moonlightand under the stars. All day, and until eightor nine o’clock, they conversed and ate, and worked withtheir hands, plaiting hats of pandanus, sugar-cane, bamboo,and other materials. White laborers massed insuch discomfort would have quarreled, squabbled forplace, and eased their annoyance in loud words, but the14Polynesian, of all races, loves his fellow and keeps histemper.

These were the first Paumotuan people I had seen intimately,and I listened to them and asked them questions.A deacon who at night removed a black coat andslept in a white-flowered blue loin-cloth, the pareu of allthe Polynesians, gazed at the heavens for hours. Heknew many of the stars.

“Our old people,” he said, “believed that the godswere always making new worlds in distant sky placesbeyond the Milky Way, the Maoroaheita. When a newworld was made by the strong hands of the gods, theAtua, it went like a great bird to the place fixed for it.That star, Rehua,”—he pointed toward Sirius “wasfirst placed by the Atua near the Tauha, the SouthernCross, but afterwards they changed it, and sent it towhere it is now.”

I looked at the glowing cross, and remembered theemotion its first sight had stirred in me. I was tossingon the royal yard of a bark bound for Brazil, up a hundredfeet and more from deck, when, raising my headfrom the sail I had made fast, there burst upon me thewonderful form and brilliance of the constellation whichfive thousand years ago entranced the Old World butwhich is hidden from it now.

The deacon again raised his hand and indicated thespot where Rehua had shone before the divine mind hadchanged. It was the Coal-sack, the black vacancy inthe Magellan Clouds, so conspicuous below the crosswhen all the rest of the sky is cloudless and clear. TheMaori mind had wisely settled upon that vast space inthe stellar system in which not even an atom of stellar15dust sheds a single flicker of luminosity as the pointfrom which the gods had plucked Rehua. I had no suchlucid reason for this amazing, celestial void as the half-nakeddeacon on the deck of the Marara.

We had a poor wind for two days, and I looked longhours in the water, so close to the deck, at the manifestationsof organic and vegetable vitality. All life of theocean, I knew, depended ultimately on minute plants.The great fish and mammals fed on plant forms whichwere distributed throughout the seas. These grew inthe waters themselves or were cast into them along theirshores or by the thousands of rivers which eventuallyfeed the ocean. The flora of all the earth, seeds, nuts,beans, leaves, kernels, swam or sank in the majority element,and aided in the nourishment of the creaturesthere. They had, also, taken root on shores foreign totheir birth, and had, from immigrants, become esteemednatives of many lands. They had increased man’sknowledge, too, as the sea-beans found on the shores ofScotland led to the discovery of that puzzle of all currents,the Gulf Stream. After all was said, the landwas insignificant compared to the water—little morethan a fourth of the surface of the globe, and in massas puny. The average elevation of the land was lessthan a fifth of a mile, while the average depth of thesea was two miles, or thirty times the mass of the land.If the solid earth were smoothed down to a level, it wouldbe entirely covered a mile deep by the water. I feltvery close to the sea, and fearful of its might. I enviedthe natives their assurance, or, at least, stolidity.

The days were intensely hot. When the sails werefurled or flapped idly, and the Marara lay almost still,16listening for even a whisper of wind, I suffered keenly.The second noon our common exasperation broke outin the inflammable Moet.

The captain shouted to Huahine, a sailor, to coverhis head with a hat. The man was a giant, weighingmore than two hundred and fifty pounds, but Moet addressedhim as he would a child.

Sapristi!” he yelled, “Taupoo! Maamaa! Yourhat, you fool!”

Diablo! amigo,” he said, testily. “Zose nateev airbabee. I have ze men paralyze by ze sun in ze Marqueses.In ze viento, when ze win’ blow, no dan-gair,but when no blow—sacré! ze sun melts ze brain off-off.”

Captain Moet was dramatic. Whatever he said heacted with face, hands and arms, feet, and even his wholebody. He made a gesture that caused me to touch myown hat, to consider its resistance to the sun, to feelan anticipation of harm. Suddenly he took the arm ofthe sailor at the wheel, Piha a Teina, a Tahitian, and,releasing the spokes from his hands, himself began tosteer.

“Go there in the lee of the mainsail,” he said in Tahitian,“and tell the American about your terrible adventurewhen you almost died of thirst!”

“Look at him!” said Moet to me. “He is old beforehis time. The sun did that.”

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (5)

Photo from L. Gauthier
The atoll of Niau

Piha a Teina stood beside me, shy, slow to begin hisepic. He was shriveled and withered, pitifully markedby some experience unusual even to these Maori mastersof this sea. I gave him a cigarette, and, lighting it, hebegan;

“I am Piha a Teina,” he said. “I was living in the17island of Marutea in the Paumotus when this thing happened.I set out one day in a cutter for Manga Reva.That island was seven hundred miles away, and we weresent, Pere Ani, my friend, and I, to bring back copra.The cutter was small, not so large as a ship’s boat. Wehad food for eight or nine days, and as the wind was aswe wanted it, blowing steadily toward Manga Reva, wefelt sure we would arrive there in that time. But welost the stars. They would not show themselves, andsoon we did not know which way to steer. This schoonerhas a compass, but we could not tell the direction by thesun as we had not the aveia. We became uneasy andthen afraid. Still we kept on by guess and hope, believingthe wind could not have changed its mind sincewe started. On the tenth day we ate the last bite ofour food. We had not stinted ourselves until the eighthday, and then we felt sure the next day or the nextwould bring the land.

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (6)

The anchorage at Tahauku. Atuona lies just around the first headland to the right

“But on the eleventh day we saw nothing but the sea.I had a pearl hook and with it we caught bonito. Weate them raw. They made us thirsty, and we drank allour water. It did not rain for many days, and we drankthe salt water. When it rained we had nothing in whichto catch and keep the fresh water. We could only suckthe wet sail which we had taken down because we hadbecome too weak to handle it if the gale had caught uswith it up. We drifted and drifted with the current.The sun beat upon us and we were burned like the breadfruitin the oven. I could not touch my breast in thedaytime it was so hot. The time went on as slowly asthe cocoanut-tree grows from the nut we plant. We leftin the month you call October. Days and nights we18floated without using the tiller except to keep the cutterbefore the wind when it blew hard. We had been asleepmaybe a day or two when a storm came. We did notwake up, but it cast us on the island of Rapa-iti. PereAni never woke up, but I am here. The sun killedhim.”

“How long were you in the cutter?” I asked.

Moet heard my question and replied:

Mais, zey lef’ Marutea in octobre, an’ ze Zelee, theFranche war-sheep, fin’ zem on Rapa-iti in Januaire.Zey was—yo no se—more zan seexty day in ze boat.”

Piha a Teina expressed neither gladness nor sorrowthat he had escaped the fate of Pere Ani. He knew, ashis race, that fate was inexorable, and he contemplatedlife as the gift of a powerful force that could not beargued with nor threatened by prayers, though, to bein the mode, he might make such supplications.

“If I had had such a hohoa moana, a chart of the sea,as we formerly made of sticks,” he said, “I could havefound Manga Reva without the stars. We made themof straight and curved pieces of wood or bamboo, and wemarked islands on them with shells. They showed thecurrents from the four quarters of the sea, and withthem we made journeys of thousands of miles to theMarquesas and to Hawaii and Samoa. But we haveforgotten how to make them, and I know nothing of thepaper charts the white man has, but I can read theaveia, the compass of the schooner. We did not takeour hooa in our canoes, but studied them at home.”

The captain whistled, caught my eye, touched his foreheadto signify Piha a Teina was wandering mentally,and summoned the sailor to take the wheel.

19“He ees maamaa evvair since zat leetle voyage,” hesaid, sagely.

On the morning of the fourth day from Papeete thefirst of the eighty Paumotu atolls raised a delicate greenfringe of trees four or five miles away. It lay so lowthat from the deck of the schooner it could not be seeneven on the clearest days at a greater distance. Oneheard the surf before the island appeared. It was onlya few feet above the plane of the sea, flat, with no hillor eminence upon it, a leaf upon the surface of a pond.I could hardly believe it part of the familiar globe. Itwas more like the fairy-island of childhood, the coralstrand of youth, the lotus land of poesy. It was, inreality, the most beautiful, fascinating, inconceivablesight upon the ocean.

McHenry and I stood with Chocolat and watched theslow rise of the atoll of Niau, as the Marara, under lessenedsail and with Captain Moet at the helm, cautiouslyapproached the land. We crept up to it, as one mightto a trap in which one hoped to snare a hare but fearedto find a wolf. All hands stood by for orders.Though the sky was azure and the sun broiling, onenever knew in the Pernicious Islands when the unforeseenmight happen.

Seven miles long and five wide, Niau was a matchlessbracelet of ivory and jade. Grieg Island, some Anglo-Saxondiscoverer once named it, but Grieg had fameabroad only. None spoke his name as we advancedwarily over the road, familiar to them all as the SuluSea to me. The cargo for Niau came through thehatches, thrown up from the hold, sailor to sailor, andwas piled on deck until all was checked. Madame Moet20was on the poop by the after door of the cabin, hangingover each item and marking it off upon her inventory,while Jean hummed the “Carmagnole,” and swung theFlying Fish about on short tacks for her goal. Betweenthe shifting of the canvas the long-boat was lowered, andthe goods heaped in it: boxes and barrels, bales andbuckets, edibles and clothing, matches and tobacco, gimcracksand patent medicines.

As closer we went, I saw that Niau was a perfectoval, composed of a number of separate islets or motus.These formed the land on which were the trees andshrubs and the people, but this oval itself was inclosedby a hidden reef, several hundred feet wide, on whichthe breakers crashed and spilled in a flood of foamingbillows.

There was no enthusiasm over the beauty of Niauexcept in my heaving breast, and I concealed it as Iwould free thinking in a monastery. To McHenryand Jean and Virginia, a lovely atoll was but a speckupon the ocean on which to cozen inferior creatures.

Madre de Dios!” vociferated the skipper, when, amile from the gleaming teeth of the reef, he brought theMarara up into the wind and halted her like a pantingmare thrown upon her haunches. “Mc’onree et M’sieu’O’Breeon, eef you go ’shore, tomble een, pronto!”

He released the wheel to the mate, and we threescrambled over the rail and jumped upon the cargo asthe boat rose on a wave, joining the four Tahitians whowere at the heavy oars, with Piri a Tuahine at the stern,holding a long sweep for a rudder. It was attached bya bight of rope, and by a longer rope kept from floatingaway in case of mishap.

21Now came as delicate a bit of action with sails as ayachtsman, with his mother-in-law as a guest, might recklesslyessay. Captain Moet sang out from his perch ona barrel to the half-caste at the wheel to go ahead, andthe Flying Fish, which for a few minutes had been tremblingin leash, turned on her heel and headed directlyfor the streak of foam, the roar of which drowned ourvoices at that distance.

Eight hundred feet away, when it must have looked toa landsman on the schooner that she was almost in thebreakers, we cast off the line and took to our oars. Itwas nice seamanship to save time by minimizing rowing,but certainly not in Lloyd’s rules of safety. Those whoreckon dangers do not laugh in these parts. A merryrashness helps ease of mind.

In five minutes our boat was in the surf, rolling andtumbling, and I on my merchandise peak clasped a balefervently, though McHenry and Moet appeared gluedto barrels which they rode jauntily. It was now I sawthe art of the Polynesians, the ablest breaker boatmenin the world.

All about seemed to me solid coral rock or distortedmasses of limestone covering and uncovering with thesurging water, but suddenly there came into my alteringview, as the steersman headed toward it, a strange pit inthe unyielding strata. Into this maelstrom the waterrushed furiously, drawn in and sucked out with each rollof the ocean. The Tahitians, at a word, stopped rowing,while Piri a Tuahine scrutinized intently the onrushingwaves. He judged the speed and force of each asit neared him, and on his accuracy of eye and mind dependedour lives.

22The oarsmen tugged with their blades to hold theboat against the sweeping tide, and abruptly, with awild shout, Piri a Tuahine set them to pulling like mad,while he with his long oar both steered and sculled.

Tamau te paina!” all yelled amid the boom of thesurf.

“Hold on to the wood!” and down into the pit wetore; down and in, the boat raced through the vortex ofthe chute, the pilot avoiding narrowly the coffin-likesides of the menacing depression, and the sailors, withtheir oars aloft for the few dread seconds, awaiting withjoyous shouts the emergence into the shallows. Allwas in the strong hands and steady nerves of Piri aTuahine. A miscalculated swerve of his sturdy lever,and we would have been smashed like egg-shells, boatand bodies, against the massive sides. But spirit andwood were stedfast, and I rode as high and dry from theimminent Scylla as if on a camel in the Sahara.

In a few twinklings of an eye we were past the reef,and in the moat in fast shoaling, quiet water, studdedwith hummocks and heaps of coral. The sailors leapedinto it shoulder-deep, and guided and forced the boatas far shoreward as possible, to curtail the cargo-carryingdistance. Captain Moet, McHenry, and I went upto our waists, and reached the beach.

23

CHAPTER II

Meeting with Tommy Eustace, the trader—Strange soil of the atoll—Abath in the lagoon—Momuni, the thirsty bread baker—Off for Anaa.

THE crusader who entered Jerusalem had nodeeper feeling of realization of a long-cherishedhope than I when my foot imprinted its mold inthe glistening sand of the atoll of Niau. I stood in mytrack and scanned it, as Crusoe the first human markother than his own he saw on his lonely island. Notwith his dismay, but yet with a slight panic, apleasant but alarmed perturbation, an awe at the wonderof the scene. The moment had the tenseness ofthat when I saw my first cocoanut-palm; it mingled afear that I had passed one of the great climacterics ofvisual emotion.

Here was I in the arcanum of romance, the promisedland of chimera, after years of faint expectation. Iwas almost stunned by the reality, and I felt sensiblythe need of some one to share the pathos that oppressedme. I did not forsake my love for Tahiti. That wasfixed, but this atoll was not the same. Tahiti was anadored mistress, this a light o’ love, a dazzling, aliensiren, with whom one could not rest in safety; a fancifulabode for a brief period, as incomparable to Tahiti asan ice-field to a garden.

“What the bloody hell’s eatin’ on you?” exclaimed theirked McHenry, questioningly as he glared at me.24“Aren’t your feet mates? Let’s see Tommy Eustace!He might have a bottle o’ beer buried in a cool place.”

Moet was shaking the salt water from his long, inkyhair. He had stumbled and dipped his head in thebrine.

’Sus-Maria!” he swore. “Virginie she say Jeanbeen drink.”

A shed-like building of rough boards, with unpaintedcorrugated iron roof, was a hundred steps from thewater, the store and warehouse of the single trader, whosupplied the wants and ambitions of the hundred inhabitantsof Niau and endeavored to monopolize ameager output of copra and pearl-shell. It was on arude road, which stretched along the beach, edged by adozen houses, small, wooden huts, or thatched strawshanties, much more primitive and poor than in Tahiti.All the remainder of Niau was coral, water, and cocoanut-trees,except a scanty vegetation.

Thomas Eustace, the trader, or Tomé, as the nativescalled him, was in the doorway of his establishment,awaiting the sailors who had begun at once to carry theMarara’s freight from the boat through the moat. Aquarter of a century ago, a broth of a boy from Ireland,he had stepped off a ship alongside the Papeete quay,and had never left the South Seas since.

Faix, I had the divil’s own toime to shtay,” sayTomé, as we four sat by an empty barrel head and drankthe warmish beer he had offered us with instant hospitality.

“I waz that atthracted by the purty gir-ruls, thethrees, and the foine-shmellin’ flowers that the ould manof the ship nivir could dhraw me back to the pots an’25pans iv the galley. I waz the flunky in the kitchin iv awind-jammin’ Sassenach bark, peelin’ praties, an’waitin’ on sailormin. The father iv a darlin’ hid me outbe Fautaua falls, an’ the jondarmy hunted an’ hunted,wid nothin’ for their thrubble.”

A stoutish, quizzical man was Tomé, withbrown face and throat and hands, a stubby, chewedmustache and sleepy, laughing eyes. By the purlingsteam of Fautaua, where Loti had lived his idyl withRarahu and I had walked with a princess, ThomasEustace became Tomé forever and ever. He was wellsatisfied to be bashaw of an atoll, unused to greater comfortas he was, and enamored of reef and palm, and thelazy, unstandardized life of the South Seas.

“Ye may picther me,” he went on, as he poured thebeer, “jumpin’ out iv the p’isonous galley iv that wind-jammin’man-killer, an’ fallin’, be the grace iv God,into a grove iv cocoanuts, wid roas’ pig, breadfruit, andoranges fur breakfus, deejunee, an’ dinner, to whistlelow about a brown fairy that swung on the same branchwid me! The Emerald Isle the divil! ‘Tis Tahiti’sthe Tir-na’n-Og! This beats the bogs an’ the peat an’the stirabout, wid no peeler to move you on, an’ nosoggarth to tell ye ye’re a sinner!”

Tomé was ten years in Penrhyn, the noted pearl islandbelonging to New Zealand, and known as Tongareva.Lying Bill, McHenry, and Eustace were fellow-tradersin that lonely spot. “Fellow” in such relations meantthe affectionate intercourse of wolves who united tochase the sheep and quarrel over the carcass. McHenryand Tomé had greeted each other with cold familiarity,each knowing the other through and through, wondering26how the other would beat him, and yet not averse to anexchange of trade news and the gossip of Tahiti andthe Group, as they called the Paumotus.

“How’s old Lovaina?” asked Tomé.

“Chargin’ as much as ever for her cheap scoffin’s,”replied McHenry, who had never eaten a better mealthan that served at the Tiaré Hotel. Eustace, I doubtednot, was a square and genial man, but among his businesskind he had to fight bludgeon with bludgeon. Heopened a fresh cocoanut and diverted the mouth of aninfant from its natural fount to make it swallow a fewdrops. The mother, a handsome, young woman, proudof her armful, gestured smilingly that Tomé was itsfather.

Mavourneen dheelish!” he called her, and the baby,“Molly.”

Cocoanuts differ in kind and quality as much asapples, and Eustace gave me a kaipoa, which at hisdirection I ate, husks and all, and found it delicious.

Leaving the two merchants to continue their armedbanter, I stepped outside the store and struck off theroad toward the center of the island, through fields ofbroken coral, mysterious in its oppositeness from allother terrestrial formations. There was no earth thatone could see or feel, but a matted vegetation in spotsshowed that even in these whited sepulchers of the coralanimals outlandish plants had found the substance oflife. The flora, though desperate in its poverty, washeartening in that it could survive at all. The loftycocoanut-palm, standing straight as a mast or curvingin singular grace, grew luxuriantly—the evergreenbanner of this giant fleet of anchored ships of stone.27Through a few hundred yards of this weird desert-jungle,I reached the lagoon which the inner marge of thegreat coral reef inclosed.

No lake that I have seen approached this merein simple beauty, nor had artist’s vision wroughta more startling, extravagant, yet perfect work ofcolor. The lagoon of Niau was small enough toencompass with a glance from where I stood. Ifelt myself in an enchanted spot. Niau was notall wooded. For long stretches only the white corallined the shores, with here and there the plumypalms refreshing the eyes—brilliant in contrast withthe bare sheen of the coral, and softly rustling in thebreeze.

The water of the lagoon was palest blue, verging togreen, clear almost as the pure air, and the beach shelvedrapidly into depths.

The beach was made up of tiny shells crumbling intosand, billions and billions of them in the twenty milesabout the lagoon. In each of the legion coral isles thiswas repeated, so that the mind contemplating them wasconfused at the incalculable prodigality of the life expendedto build them and the oddity of the problem arrangedby the power planning them.

“Every single atom, from the least particle to thelargest fragment of rock, in this great pile,” said Darwin,“bears the stamp of having been subjected to organizedarrangement. We feel surprised when travelerstell us of the vast dimensions of the Pyramids and othergreat ruins, but how utterly insignificant are the greatestof these when compared to these mountains of stone accumulatedby the agency of various minute and tender28animals. This is a wonder which does not at first strikethe eye of the body, but, after reflection, the eye ofreason.”

I sat down under a dwarf cocoanut and let my eyesand mind dwell upon the gorgeousness of the prospectand the insight into nature’s reticences it afforded.Everywhere were the tombs or skeletons of the myriadcreatures who had labored and died to construct thesefootstools of Might. Could man assume that these eonsof years and countless births, efforts, and deaths, werefor any concern of his? But else, he asked, why werethey? To show the boundless power and caprice of theCreator? Was not the world made for humanity?

An atoll was to an island as a comet to a star—a freakor sport in the garden of the sea-gods. It was as if theDesigner had planned to set up, in the thousand milesof ocean through which the Dangerous Islands stretched,a whimsical cluster of shallower salt lakes, and so hadhidden trillions of tiny beings to inclose them. For,after all, an atoll was but a lagoon surrounded by a reefof coral, or rather two reefs, for in the plan of theArchitect there was built a second reef for every atoll,and this outer barrier was sunken, as the one throughwhich we had come, but yet took the brunt of the waves,and prevented them from washing away and destroyingthe inner and habitable reef on which I then sat.

This hidden shoal belted the beach regularly, so thatit made a moat between the two; and yet in most atollsthere was such an opening as that through which we hadcome, often a mere depression, sometimes a deep andwide mouth. One was forced to consider whether theArchitect had not taken man into his scheme, for without29such an opening no people could reach the shore andlagoon. But the grievous fact was that in some atollsthe minute workers had left no door and that man himselfhad torn one open with tools and explosives. Even oncewithin the moat, our boat was in comparative safety onlyin the mildest weather, for the moat was studded withlumps and boulders of coral, and the most crafty guardianshipwas imperative to keep our craft whole.

If there had been an entry through the inner shoreinto the peaceful lagoon by which I lolled, then wouldanchorage and calm have been assured. So, of course,nature had in some other atolls than Niau attended tothis detail, and these I was to find more inhabited andmore developed, for in some even schooners might seekthe haven of the lake, and a fleet lie there in security.The lagoons were thus, generally, safe and unflurried,though sometimes terribly harried by cyclones, such asLying Bill described the Dane as riding from sea tosea across the entire island of Anaa.

Each of the Paumotus was made up of a number ofmotus, or islets, parted by lower strata in which was themoat water. This string of motus assumed many dissimilarfigures. One had fifty pieces in its puzzle—apuzzle not fully solved by science, or, at least, stillin dispute. The motus were all formed of coral rockof comparatively recent origin geologically. Werethese atolls the mountain-tops of a lost Atlantis orthrust-up marine plateaus? The wise men differed.A theory was that the atolls were coral formations uponvolcanic islands that had slowly sunk, each a monumentmarking an engulfed island or mountain peak.

Another, that volcanic activity, which mothered the30high islands in these seas, caused to rise from the bottomof the ocean a series of submerged tablelands, leveledby the currents and waves, on which the coral insectserected the reefs—reefs just peeping above the surfaceof the water—and on which the storms threw greatblocks of madrepores and coral broken from the mass.When in this condition, mere rocky rings of milky coral,over which each billow swept, without life or aught elsethan the structures of the marvelous zoöphytes, floorscut and broken here and there by the surging andpounding breakers, the hand of the Master raised themup, as through Polynesia other islands had been raised,and fixed these Paumotus as the fairest growths ofNeptune’s park.

Lifted above the watery level, they were able to begintheir task of usefulness. Seeds carried by currents,borne by the winds, or brought by those greatest of allpioneers and settlers of new countries, the sea-birds,were flung on these ready, but yet barren, atolls, andvegetation gave them an entrancing present.

Volcano and insect combined to make these coralblossoms of the South Seas so different from any othermundane formations that the man with any dreamingin his soul stood awe-struck at the wonder and artistryof nature. They were the most wonderful and simpleof nature’s works. They eluded portrayal by brushand camera. No canvas or film could grasp their symmetryand grace, seize more than a fragment of theiralluring form or hint of their admirable colors. Ravishingscenes from the deck of a ship, and marvels of constructionand hue when upon them, they were sad and31disappointing to the dweller, like a lovely woman whohas a bad disposition.

Circles, ovals, and horseshoes, regular and irregular,a few miles or a hundred in circumference, the Paumotuswere always essentially the same—the lagoon andthe fringe of reef and palm. These Iles Dangereuseswere the supreme in creation in harmonious light andshade. They were the very breath of imagination.My thoughts harked back to the dawn of life, and thestruggle between the land and water in which continentsand islands were drowned, and others rose to be thehome of beast and man, when God said, “Let the dryland appear.”

These atolls had fought the ceaseless war whichslowly, but eternally, shifted our terrestrial foothold.Makatea, nearer Tahiti, lifted its strange cliffs two hundredfeet in the air. It had been raised by subterraneanforce thirty-five fathoms from the sea-level, andits coasts were vertical walls of that height.

The young Darwin’s theory appealed even with theseexamples of resurgence. It was improbable that anelevatory force would uplift through an immense areagreat, rocky banks within twenty or thirty fathoms ofthe surface of the sea, and not a single point above thatlevel. Where on the surface of the globe was a chainof mountains, even a few hundred miles in length, withtheir many summits rising within a few feet of a givenlevel, and not one pinnacle above it? Yet that was thecondition in these atolls, for the coral animal could notlive more than thirty fathoms or so below the atmosphere,so that the basic foundations of the atolls, on which the32mites laid their offerings and their bones, were fewerthan two hundred feet under the surface. The polypgnome died from the pressure of water at greaterdepths. Just outside the reefs or between theatolls, the depths were often greater than a mileor two.

The vague science I possessed stimulated the memoriesof my reading of that oldest civilization in tradition,the immense continent of Pan, which a score of millenniumsago, according to the poet archæologists, flourishedin this Pacific Ocean. Its cryptogram attendedin many spots the discovery of a new Rosetta stone.I myself had seen huge monoliths, half-buried pyramidsand High Places, hieroglyphs and carvings, certainlythe fashioning of no living races. Were these Paumotus,and many other islands from Japan to Easter,the tops of the submerged continent, Pan, whichstretched its crippled body along the floor of the Pacificfor thousands of leagues? There were legends,myths, customs, inexplicable absences of usages andknowledge on the part of present peoples, all perhapscapable of interpretation by this fascinating theory ofa race lost to history before Sumer attained coherenceor Babylon made bricks.

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (7)

A Paumotu atoll after a blow

Over this land bridge, mayhap, ventured a Caucasianpeople, the dominant blood in Polynesia to-day, andwhen the connecting links in the chain to their cradlefell from the sights of sun and stars, the survivors wereisolated for ages on the islands like Tahiti and the Marquesas.On the mountain-tops, plateaus beneath thewater, the coral insect built up these atolls until theystood in their wondrous shapes splendid examples of33nature’s self-arrested labor, sculptures of unbelievablebrilliancy.

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (8)

Photo by Dr. Theodore P. Cleveland
A squall approaching Anaa

To them came first Caucasians who had been sparedin the cataclysm, and later the new sailors of giantcanoes who followed from Asia the line of islets andatolls, fighting with and conquering the Caucasians,and merging into them in the course of generations.These first and succeeding migrations must have beenforced by devastating natural phenomena, by terribleeconomic pressure, by wars and tribal feuds. It wasnot probable that any people deliberately chose theseatolls in preference to the higher lands, but that theyoccupied them in lieu of better on account of evil fortune.

These eighty Paumotu islands averaged about fortymiles apart, with only two thousand people in all ofthem, which would allow, if equally distributed, onlytwenty-five inhabitants to each. On more than halfof them no person lived, and all the others were scantilypeopled. Three or four hundred might occupy oneatoll where shell and cocoanuts were bountiful and fishplentiful and good, while two score and more atollswere left for the frigate-bird to build its nest and forthe robber-crab to eat its full of nuts.

The thud of a cocoanut beside me stirred me from myreverie. I was wet with the wading ashore and thesweat of my walk, and so I removed my few garmentsand plunged into the lagoon. Going down to test thedeclivity a yard or so from the water’s edge I droppedtwenty feet and touched no bottom. The water waslimpid, delicious, and I could see the giant coral fanswaving fifty feet below me.

34As I loitered on my back in the water, and lookeddown into the crystal depths and at the cloudless sky,I had a moment’s phantasm of a great city, its loftytrade battlements, its crowded streets, the pale, setfaces of its people, the splendor of the rich houses, thesqualor of the tenements, the police with clubs and guns,and the shrieking traffic. Here was the sweetest contrast,where man had hardly touched the primitive workof nature. It was long from Sumer, and far fromGotham.

I was floating at ease when I heard a voice. Itseemed to come out of the water. It was soft and almostetheric.

Maitai!” it said, which meant, “You’re all right.”

I turned on my side, and by my garments was along, gaunt Niauan, with a loose mouth, loafing there,with his eyes fawning upon me. He smiled sweetly,and said, “Goodanighta!”

As it was hardly seven o’clock in the morning, thesun a ball of fire, and the glare of the reef like the shineof a boy’s mirror in one’s eyes, I argued against hisEnglish education. But courtesy is not correction.I said in kind, “Goodanighta!” He came into thewater and repaid me by shaking my hand, and with amovement toward the beach, said, “Damafina!”

Maitai!” I corroborated his opinion, and then hebeckoned to me to leave the lagoon and follow him. Idressed, all moist as I was, and we returned toward thevillage, I wondering what design on me he had.

“She canna fik (fix) you show Niau,” my ciceroneexplained, as he waved toward the island.

“All right, good, number one,” I assented.

35He laughed with pleased vanity at his success in conversingwith me in my tongue and at the envious looksof the people on their tiny porches as we passed them,and I saluted them.

Momuni! Momuni!” they called after him withscornful laughter, and beckoned me to leave him andjoin them.

Haere mai!” they said, sweetly to me. Come tous!

My guide did not like either the name they gavehim or their efforts to alienate us. He retorted withan impolite gesticulation, and cried, “Popay! Popay!Momuni, though, was plainly nervous, and afraid thatI might be won over by the opposition. He plucked meby my wet sleeve and directed me to a shanty of oldboards set upon a platform of coral rocks four feetfrom the bed of the atoll. In its single room on awhite bedspread were a dozen loaves of bread, crispand white, and smelling appetizingly. He lifted one,squeezed it to show its sponginess, and put it to mynose. He sniffed, and said, “She the greata coo-ooka.”

I guessed that he referred to himself as the baker.He pointed out toward the schooner and made meunderstand that this baking was a present to me. Iwas embarrassed, and with many flourishes explainedthat the Tahitian cook of the Marara could not be comparedwith him as a bread-maker, but that he was ofa jealous disposition and might resent bitterly the gift.My companion was cast down for a moment, but brightenedwith another idea. Through a hundred yardsmore of coral bones we plowed to his oven, a huge, coralstove like a lime-kiln, with a roof, and bags of Victor36flour from the Pacific Coast beside it. Pridefully hemade me note everything, as an artist might his studio.

Momuni then touched my arm, and said, “Haere!We can do.”

We walked along the beach of the lagoon and founda road that paralleled the one we had come. It waslower than the other and the rain had flooded it. Thewater was brown and stagnant, even red in pools, likeblood. Uncanny things shot past my feet or crawledupon them, and once something that had not the feelof anything I knew of climbed the calf of my leg, andwhen I turned and saw it dimly I leaped into the air andkicked it off. I heard it plop into the dark water.

Down this marsh we plodded and paddled, flounderedand splashed for half a mile. The cocoanut-palmsarched across it, but there was not a person nor a habitationin view. I wondered why “she the great cook”had led me into this morass. Momuni looked at memysteriously several times, and his lips moved as if hehad been about to speak.

He studied my countenance attentively, and severaltimes he patted and rubbed my back affectionately andsaid, “You damafina.” Then, slimy and sloppy as Iwas, covered with the foul water up to my waist, whenwe were in the darkest spot Momuni halted and drewme under a palm.

He would either seek to borrow money or to cutmy throat, I thought hastily. Again he scanned meclosely, and I, to soften his heart and avert the evil,tried to appear firm and unafraid. To my astonishmenthe took from his pocket five five-franc notes, thoseugly, red-inked bills which are current in all the37Etablissements Français de l’Oceanie, and held themunder my nose. He smiled and then made the motionof pulling a cork, and of a bottle’s contents gurglingthrough his loose mouth and down his long neck.

I shuddered at my thoughts. Could it be that in thisdry atoll, with intoxicants forbidden, and prison thepenalty of selling or giving them to a native, this hospitableNiauan had offered me his bread and shown me hisoven, and the glories of the isle, and was displayingthose five red notes to seduce me into breaking the law,into smuggling ashore a bottle of rum or wine?

I was determined to know the worst. I drew frommy drawers (I had worn no trousers) an imaginarycorkscrew, and from my undershirt an unsubstantialbottle. I pulled a supposititious cork, and took a longdrink of the unreal elixir. Momuni was transfixed.His jaws worked, and his tongue extended. Hesqueezed my hand with happiness and hope, and leftin it the five scarlet tokens of the Banque de l’Indo-Chine.

“Wina damafina; rumma damafina,” he confided.The man would be content with anything, so it bit histhroat and made him a king for an evil hour.

Tomé was dealing out tobacco when we reached hisstore. His wife and baby, an Irish-Penrhyn baby,were now eating a can of salmon and Nabisco wafers.

“Who is this gentleman, Mr. Eustace?” I asked,pointing to Momuni.

“He’s an omadhaun, a nuisance, that he is, sure,”said Tomé. “He’s a Mormon deacon that peddlesbread an’ buys his flour from some one else because Iwon’t trust him. He’s the only Mormon in this blessed38island. Every last soul is a Roman Cat’lic, except me,and I’m a believer in the leprechawn. Has that hooliganbeen thryin’ to work ye for a bottle of rum? He’lltalk a day for a drink.”

“What’s Momuni and Popay?”

Momuni is the way they say ‘Mormons.’ Theother’s the pope wid the accint on the last syllable.It’s the name for Cat’lics all over these seas, becausethey worship the pope iv Rome. The Popays run thisisland, but the Momunis have got Takaroa and someothers by the tail.”

I turned to look at my guide, the bread-maker. Ihad new admiration for him. It took courage to be theone Mormon among a hundred Catholics, and to tryto sell them the staff of life. But he could not withstandthe withering glances of Tomé, and fled, withgestures to me which I could only hazard to mean tomeet him later in the fearsome swamp, with the rum.

“Does Momuni owe you any money?” I asked thetrader, who was lighting his wife’s cigarette.

“Does he? He owes me forty francs for flour, andI’ll nivir see the shadow iv them. I’ll tell ye, though,he’s the best baker in the Group, an’ they’re crazyabout his bread.”

Eustace had no cargo for us, and McHenry and Icaught the last boat for the Marara, Moet having stayedfor one trip only.

“Come an’ shtay wid us a month or two,” said Toméin farewell. “We’ll make ye happy and find ye asweetheart! ’Tis here ye can shpend yer valibil timedoin’ nawthin’ at all, at all.”

He laughed heartily at his joke on virtue, and as we39dashed through the surf to climb into the boat I turnedto see him telling the assembling villagers some storythat might provoke a laugh and keep their copra a monopolyfor him.

40

CHAPTER III

Perilous navigation—Curious green sky—Arrival at Anaa—Religion andthe movies—Character of Paumotuans.

A CURRENT set against us all night. Now Iunderstood fully the alarms and misgivingsthat had caused the first and following discoverersof the “Pernicious Islands” to curse them bythe titles they gave them. Our current was of themischievous sort that upset logarithms and dead reckoning,and put ships ashore.

“This group is a graveyard of vessels,” said McHenry,“and there’d be ten times as many wrecked,if they come here. Wait till you see the County ofRoxburgh at Takaroa! I’ve been cruisin’ round heremore’n twenty years, and I never saw the current thesame. The Frog Government at Papeete is alwaystalkin’ about puttin’ lighthouses on a half dozen of theseatolls, but does nothin’. Maybe the chief or a traderhangs a lantern on top of his house when he expects acargo for him, but you can’t trust those lights, andyou can’t see them in time to keep from hittin’ the reef.There’s no leeway to run from a wind past beating.It’s lee shore in some bloody direction all the time.

“There’s a foot or two between high and low, andit’s low in the lagoon when the moon is full. It’shigh when the moon rises and when it sets. In atollswhere there’s a pass into the lagoon, there’s a hell41of a current in the lagoon at the lowerin’ tide, and inthe sea near the lagoon when the tide is risin’.We’re goin’ to beat those tides with engines.In five years every schooner in the group will have anauxiliary. There’s only one now, the Fetia Taiao, andshe’s brand new. It used to be canoes, and then whale-boats,and then cutters here, and purty soon it’ll begasolene schooners.”

Then will the cry arise that romance has perished ofartificiality. But the heart of man is always the same,and nothing kills romance but sloth.

We battled with the current and a fresh wind duringthe long, dark hours, Jean Moet never leaving the deck,and I keeping him company. Below on a settee Virginiesaid her beads or slept. I could see her by thesmudgy cabin lamp, and hear her call to her husband twoor three times, hours apart, “Ça va bien?” Jean wouldanswer in Tahitian, as to a sailor, “Maitai,” and invariablywould follow his mechanical reply, with “Et toi,dors-tu?

Ever light-hearted, currents nor squalls could burdenhis Gascon spirit. He looked at the stars, and helooked at the water, he consulted with the mate, andgave orders to the steersman.

Eh b’en,” he said to me, “moi, I am comme monsieurze gouverneur ov ze Paumotu who live een Favarava,over zere.” He pointed into the darkness. “’E ’as aleetle schoonaire an’ ’e keep ze court and ze calaboose,bot mos’ly ’e lis’en to ze musique an’ make ze dance.La vie est triste; viva la bagatelle! Maybee we pickop Anaa in ze morning. Eef not, amigo mio, Virginieshe weel pray for nous both.”

42Anaa, or Chain Island, as Captain Cook named it becauseof its eleven motus or islets, strung like emeraldsand pearls in a rosary, was not visible at daybreak, butas I studied the horizon the sky turned to a brilliantgreen. I thought some dream of that Tir-na’n-Ogspoken of by Tomé in Niau obsessed me. I turned myback and waited for my eyes to right themselves. Onesees green in the rainbow and green in the sunset, butnever had I known a morning sky to be of such a hue.McHenry came on deck in his pajamas, and lookedabout.

Erin go bragh!” he remarked. “Ireland is castin’a shadow on the bloody heaven. There,” he pointed, “isthe sight o’ the bleedin’ world. You’ve never seen itbefore an’ you won’t see it again, unless you come toAnaa in the mornin’ or evenin’ of a purty clear day.It’s the shinin’ of the lagoon of Anaa in the sky, an’it’s nowhere else on the ball. There’s many a Kanakain ’is canoe outa sight o’ land has said a prayer to hisgod when he seen that green. He knew he was nearAnaa. You can see that shine thirty or thirty-fivemiles away, hours before you raise the atoll.”

Some curious relation of the lagoon to the sky hadpainted this hazy lawn on high. It was like a greatfield of luscious grass, at times filmy, paling to the colorof absinthe touched with water, and again a true aquamarine,as I have seen the bay of Todos Santos, at Enseñadaof Lower California. Probably it is the shallownessof the waters, which in this lagoon are strangelydifferent from most of the inland basins of the SouthSea Isles. To these mariners, who moved their littleboats between them, the mirage was famed; and the43natives had many a legend of its origin and cause, and oftheir kind being saved from starvation or thirst by itskindly glint.

McHenry called down the companionway, “Hey,monster, you can see the grass on Anaa. Vite-vite!

Moet, who was below, drinking a cup of coffee, leapedup the companionway. He called out swift orders togo over on the other tack, and headed straight for themirage. The schooner heeled to the breeze, now fresheningas the sun became hotter, and we reeled off sixor seven knots with all canvas drawing. In an hourthe celestial plot of green had vanished, fading outslowly as we advanced, and we began to glimpse thecocoanuts on the beach, though few trees showed onthe sky-line, and they were twisted as in travail.

Anaa, as others of these islands and Tahiti, too, hadsuffered terribly by a cyclone a few years ago. Morethan any other island of this group Anaa had felt thedevastating force of the matai rorofai, the “wind thatkills”—the wind that slew Lovaina’s son and made hercut her hair in mourning. Hikueru lost more people,because there were many there; but Anaa wasmangled and torn as a picador’s horse by the horns ofthe angry bull. A half-mile away we could plainlysee the havoc of wind and wave. The reef itself hadbeen broken away in places, and coral rocks as big ashouses hurled upon the beach.

“I was there just after the cyclone,” said McHenry.“It was a bloomin’ garden before then, Anaa. It wasthe only island in the Paumotus in which they grewmost of the fruits as in Tahiti, the breadfruit, thebanana, the orange, lime, mango, and others. It may44be an older island than the others or more protectedusually from the wind; but, anyhow, it had the richestsoil. The Anaa people were just like children, happyand singin’ all the time. That damned storm knockedthem galley-west. It tore a hole in the island, as youcan see, killed a hundred people, and ended their prosperity.There was a Catholic church of coral, old andbloody fine, and when I got here a week after the cycloneI couldn’t find the spot where the foundationshad been. I came with the vessels the Governmentsent to help the people. You never seen such a sight.The most of the dead were blown into the lagoon or layunder big hunks of coral. People with crushed headsand broken legs and arms and ribs were strewn allaround. The bare reef is where the village was, andthe people who went into the church to be safe wereswept out to sea with it.”

As at Niau, the schooner lay off the shore, and thelong-boat was lowered. In it were placed the cargo,and with Moet, McHenry, and me, men, women, andchildren passengers, four oarsmen and the boat-steerer,it was completely filled, we sitting again on the boxes.

Once more the Flying Fish towed the boat very nearto the beach, and at the cry of “Let go!” flung awaythe rope’s end and left us to the oars. The passagethrough the reef of Anaa was not like that of Niau.There was no pit, but a mere depression in the rocks,and it took the nicest manœuvering to send the boat inthe exact spot. As we approached, the huge boulderslowered upon us, threatening to smash us to pieces, andwe backed water and waited for the psychological moment.The surf was strong, rolling seven or eight feet45high, and crashing on the stone with a menacing roar,but the boat-steerer wore a smile as he shouted, “Tamaute paina!

The oars lurched forward in the water, the boat roseon the wave, and onward we surged; over the reef,scraping a little, avoiding the great rocks by inches almost,and into milder water. The sailors leaped out,and with the next wave pulled the boat against thesmoother strand; but it was all coral, all rough and alldangerous, and I considered well the situation beforeleaving the boat. I got out in two feet of water andraced the next breaker to the higher beach, my cameratied on my head.

There was no beach, as we know the word—only ajumbled mass of coral humps, millions of shells, somewhole, most of them broken into bits, and the rest merecoarse sand. On this were scattered enormous massesof coral, these pieces of the primitive foundation upheavedand divided by the breakers when the cycloneblew. The hand of a Titan had crushed them intoshapeless heaps and thrown them hundreds of feet towardthe interior, the waves washing away the soil,destroying all vegetation, and laying bare the crudefloor of the island. From the water’s edge I walkedover this waste, gleaming white or milky, for a hundredyards before I reached the copra shed of Lacour, aFrench trader, and sat down to rest. The sailors borethe women and children on their shoulders to safety, andthen commenced the landing of the merchandise for Lacour.Flour and soap, sugar, biscuit, canned goods,lamps, piece goods; gauds and gewgaws, cheap jewelry,beads, straw for making hats, perfumes and shawls.

46Lacour, pale beneath his deep tan, black-haired andslender, greeted us at the shed with the dead-and-alivemanner of many of these island exiles, born of torridheat, long silences, and weariness of the driven flesh.A cluster of women lounged under a tohonu tree, theonly shade near-by, and they smiled at me and said,“Ia ora na oe!

I strolled inland. It was an isle of desolation, ravagedyears ago, but prostrated still, swept as by a giganticflail. Everywhere I beheld the results of thecataclysm.

Picking up shells and bits of coral at haphazard, Icame upon the bone of a child, the forearm, bleachedby wind and rain. Few of the bodies of the drownedhad been interred with prayer, but found a last resting-placeunder the coral débris or in the maws of the sharksthat rode upon the cyclone’s back in search of prey.

It was very hot. These low atolls were always excessivelywarm, but not humid. It was a dry heat.The reflection of the sunlight on the blocks of coral andthe white sand made a glare that was painful to whites,and made colored glasses necessary to shield their eyes.Temporary blindness was common among new-comers,thus unprotected.

I walked miles and never lost the evidence of violenceand loss. There was an old man by a coral pen, inwhich were three thin, measly pigs, a grayish yellow incolor. He showed me to a small, wooden church.

“There are four Catholic churches in Anaa,” he said,“with one priest, and there are three hundred souls alltold in this island. The priest goes about to the differentchurches, but money is scarce. This New Year47the contribution was so trifling, the priest, who knew thebishop in Papeete would demand an accounting, sentword to know why—and what do you think he got back?That Lacour, the trader, with his accursed cinematograph,had taken all the money. He charged twenty-fivecocoanuts to see the views in his copra shed, andthey are wonderful; but the churches are empty. Weare all Katorika.”

Katorika?” I queried. “That is Popay?”

The old man frowned.

“Popay! That is what the Porotetani [Protestants]call the Katorika. I am the priest’s right hand. Butwe are poor, and Lacour, with his store and now withhis machine that sets the people wild over cowaboyas,and shows them the Farani [French] and the Amariti[Americans] in their own islands—there is no moneyfor the church.”

I interrupted the jeremiad of the ancient acolyte.

“Was there nothing left of the old church?” I asked.

The hater of cinematographs took me into the humblewooden structure, and there were a bronze crucifix andsilver candlesticks that had been in the coral edifice.

“I saved them,” he said proudly. “When I saw thewind was too great, when the church began to rock, Itook them and buried them in a hole I dug. I did thisbefore I climbed the tree which saved me from the bigwave. Ah, that was a real cathedral. The people ofAnna are changed. The best died in the storm. Theywant now to know what is going on in Papeete, thegreat world.”

A hundred years ago the people of Anaa erected threetemples to the god of the Christians. For a century48they have had the Jewish and Christian scriptures.

Anaa had witnessed a bitter struggle between contendingchurches to win adherents. When France tookhold, France was Catholic, and the priests had every opportunityand assistance to do their pious work. Theschools were taught by Catholic nuns. Their governmentalsubsidy made it difficult for the English Protestantsto proselytize, and with grief they saw theirflocks going to Rome. Only the most zealous Protestantmissionaries were unshaken by the change. Whenthe anti-clerical feeling in France triumphed, the Concordatwas broken, and the schools laicized, the priestsand nuns in these colonies were ousted from the schools;the Catholic church was not only not favored, but, inmany instances, was hindered by officials who were ofanti-clerical feelings. The Protestant sects took heartagain, and made great headway. The Mormons returned,the Seventh Day Adventists became active, andmany nominal Catholics fell away. The fact was thatit was not easy to keep Polynesians at any heat of religion.They wanted entertainment and amusement,and if a performance of a religious rite, a sermon, revival,conference, or other solace or diversion was notoffered, they inclined to seek relaxation and even pleasurewhere it might be had. Monotony was the substanceof their days, and relief welcomed in the mosttrifling incident or change.

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (9)

Photo from Underwood and Underwood
Picking up the atoll of Anaa from the deck of the schooner Flying Fish

Lacour’s wife, granddaughter of a Welshman but allnative in appearance, sat with the other women underthe tohonu tree when I returned. I had seen thousandsof fallen cocoanut-trees rotting in the swamps, and hadclimbed over the coral fields for several miles. There49was no earth, only coral and shells and white shell-sand.Chickens evidently picked up something to eat, for Isaw a dozen of them. In the lagoon, fish darted to andfro.

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (10)

Photo from L. Gauthier
Canoes and cutters at atoll of Anaa, Paumotu Islands

Lacour’s wife had a yellowish baby in her lap, andshe wore earrings, a wedding-ring, and a necklace andbracelets.

The boat was plying from the schooner to the shore,and I watched its progress. Piri a Tuahine held thesteering oar, laughing, calling to his fellows to pull ornot to pull, as I could see through a glass. A currentaffected the surf, increasing or decreasing its force atintervals, and it was now at its height. The boat enteredthe passage on a crest, but a following wave struckit hard, turned it broadside, and all but over. A floodentered the boat, but the men leaped out and, thoughup to their shoulders in the water, held it firm, andfinally drew it close to the beach. The flour and theboxes and beds of native passengers were wetted, butthey ran to the boat and carried their belongings nearto the copra shed, and spread them to dry. Lacourcursed the boat and the sailors.

Near Lacour’s store was a house, in which lived CaptainNimau, owner of a small schooner. Nimau invitedme to sleep there and see the moving pictures. We hadbrought Lacour a reel or so, and in anticipation, thepeople of Anaa had been gathering cocoanuts for a week.The films were old ones that Tahiti had wearied of, andLacour got them for a trifle. The theater was his coprahouse, and there were no seats nor need of them.

He set the hour of seven for the show, and I alonestayed ashore for it. By six o’clock the residents began50flocking to the shed with their entrance-fees. Each boreupon his back twenty-five cocoanuts, some in bags andothers with the nuts tied on a pole by their husk.Fathers carried double or even triple quantities for theirlittle ones, and each, as he arrived at Lacour’s, countedthe nuts before the trader.

The women brought their own admission tickets.The acolyte, who had inveighed against the cinematograph,was second in line, and secured the best squattingspace. His own cocoanuts were in Lacour’s bin.

When the screen was erected and the first pictureflashed upon it, few of the people of Anaa were absent,and Lacour’s copra heap was piled high. There werea hundred and sixty people present, and four thousandnuts in the box-office.

The first film was concerned with the doings of NickWinter, an English detective in France, a burlesque ofSherlock Holmes, and other criminal literatures. Thespectators could not make a head nor tail of it,but they enjoyed the scenes hugely and wereintensely mystified by many pictures. An automobile,which, by the trickery of the camera, wasmade to appear to climb the face of a sky-scraper,raised cries of astonishment and assertions of diablerie.The devil was a very real power to South Sea Islanders,whether they were Christians or not, and they hadfashioned a composite devil of our horned and cloven-hoofedchap and their own demons, who was made responsiblefor most trouble and disaster that came tothem, and whose machinations explained sleight ofhand, and even the vagaries of moving pictures.

What pleased them most were cow-boy pictures, the51melodramatic life of the Wild West of America, withbucking bronchos, flying lassos, painted Indians whomthey thought tattooed, and dashes of vaqueros, bordersheriffs, and maidens who rode cayuses like Comanches.Tahiti was daft over cow-boys, and had adopted thatword into the language, and these Anaans were vastlytaken by the same life. Lacour explained the picturesas they unrolled, shouting any meanings he thoughtmight pass; and I doubted if he himself knew muchabout them, for later he asked me if all cow-boys werenot Spaniards.

This was the first moving picture machine in theseislands. Lacour had only had it a few weeks. Hepurposed taking it through the Group on a cutter thatwould transport the cocoanut receipts. Lacour, Nimau,and I sat up late. These Frenchmen save for a fewexceptions were as courteous as at home. Peasants orsailors in France, they brought and improved with theirposition that striking cosmopolitan spirit which distinguishesthe Gaul, be he ever so uneducated. TheEnglish and American trader was suspicious, sullen orblatant, vulgar and often brutal in manner. TheFrenchman had bonhomie, politeness. England andAmerica in the South Seas considered this a weakness,and aimed at the contrary. Manners, of course, originatedin France.

“This island is on the French map as La Chaîne,”said Captain Nimau, “but we who traverse these seasalways use the native names. Those old admirals whotook word to their king that they had discovered newislands always said, too, that they had named themafter the king or some saint. A Spaniard selected a52nice name like the Blessed Sacrament or the HolyMother of God, or some Spanish saint, while a Frenchmanchose something to show the shape or color of theland. The Englishman usually named his find aftersome place at home, like New England, New Britain,and so on. But we don’t give a sacré for those names.How could we? All those fellows claimed to have beenhere first, and so all islands have two or three Europeannames. We who have to pick them up in the night,or escape from them in a storm, want the native nameas we need the native knowledge of them. The landmarks,the clouds, the smells, the currents, the passes,the depths—those are the items that save or lose usour lives and vessels. Let those vieux capitaines fightit out below for the honor of their nomenclature andprecedence of discovery!”

What recriminations in Hades between Columbusand Vespucci!

“Take this whole archipelago!” continued Nimau.“The Tahitians named it the Poumotu or pillar islands,because to them the atolls seemed to rise like white treesfrom the sea. But the name sounded to the peoplehere like Paumotu, which means conquered or destroyedislands, and so, after a few petitions or requests byproud chiefs, the French in 1852 officially named themTuamotu, distant, out of view, or below the horizon.That was more than a half century ago, but we still callthem the Paumotu. There’s nothing harder to changethan the old names of places. You can change a man’sor a whole island’s religion much easier.”

Near the little hut in which we were, Nimau’s house,a bevy of girls smoked cigarettes and talked about me.53They had learned that I was not a sailor, not one ofthe crew of the Marara, and not a trader. What couldI be, then, but a missionary, as I was not an official,because not French? But I was not a Catholic missionary,for they wore black gowns; and I could not beMormoni nor Konito, because there in public I waswith the Frenchmen, drinking beer. Two, who werehandsome, brown, with teeth as brilliant as the heart ofthe nacre, and eyes and hair like the husks of the ripecocoanut, came into the house and questioned Lacour.

“They want to know what you are doing here,” interpretedLacour.

“I am not here to make money nor to preach theGospel,” I replied.

The younger came to me and put her arms aboutme, and said: “Ei aha e reva a noho io nei!” And thatmeant, “Stay here always and rest with me!”

After a while the acolyte joined us, and I put themall many questions.

The Paumotuans were a quiet people, dour, or atleast serious and contemplative. They were not likethe Tahitians, laugh-loving, light-hearted, frenzieddancers, orators, music worshipers, feasters. The Tahitianshad the joy of living, though with the melancholystrain that permeated all Polynesia. The folk of theDangerous Archipelago were silent, brooding, and religious.The perils they faced in their general vocationof diving, and from cyclones, which annihilated entirepopulations of atolls, had made them intensely susceptibleto fears of hell-fire and to hopes of heaven. Therather Moslem paradise of Mormonism made strong appeal,but was offset by the tortures of the damned,54limned by other earnest clerics who preached the oldWesley-Spurgeon everlasting suffering for all not oftheir sect.

Had religion never affected the Paumotuans, theirfood would have made them a distinct and a restrainedpeople. We all are creatures of our nourishment.The Tahitians had a plentitude of varied and deliciousfood, a green and sympathetic landscape, a hundredwaterfalls and gentle rills. The inhabitants of theselow isles had cocoanut and fish as staples, and oftentheir only sustenance for years. No streams meanderthese stony beds, but rain-water must be caught, ordependence placed on the brackish pools and shallowwells in the porous rocks or compressed sand, whichebbed and flowed with the tides.

To a Tahitian his brooks were his club, where oftenhe sat or lay in the laughing water, his head crownedwith flowers, dreaming of a life of serene idleness.Once or twice a day he must bathe thoroughly. Hewas clean; his skin was aglow with the effect of airand water. No European could teach him hygiene.He was a perfect animal, untainted and unsoiled, accustomedto laving and massage, to steam, fresh, andsalt baths, when Europeans, kings, courts, and commonerswent unwashed from autumn to summer; whenin the “Lois de la Galanterie,” written for beaux anddandies in 1640, it was enjoined that “every day oneshould take pains to wash one’s hands, and one shouldwash one’s face almost as often.”

Environment, purling rivulets under emboweringtrees, the most enchanting climate between pole andpole, a simple diet but little clothing, made the Tahitian55and Marquesan the handsomest and cleanest races inthe world. Clothes and cold are an iron barrier tocleanliness, except where wealth affords comfort andprivacy. Michelangelo wore a pair of socks manyyears without removing them. Our grandfatherscounted a habit of frequent bathing a sign of weakness.In old New England many baths were thought conduciveto immorality, by some line of logic akin to thatof my austere aunt, who warned me that oysters led todancing.

The Paumotuan, before the white man made him amere machine for gathering copra and pearl-shell andpearls, had a very distinct culture, savage though itwas. He was the fabric of his food and the actionsinduced in him by necessity. Ellis, the interesting missionarydiarist of Tahiti and Hawaii, recorded that in1817, when at Afareaitu, on Moorea, he was printingfor the first time the Bible in Tahitian “among the variousparties in Afareaitu ... were a number of nativesof the Paumotu, or Pearl Islands, which lie to the northwestof Tahiti and constitute what is called the DangerousArchipelago. These numerous islands, like those ofTetuaroa to the north, are of coralline formation, andthe most elevated parts of them are seldom more thantwo or three feet above high-water mark. The principal,and almost only, edible vegetable they produce isthe fruit of the cocoanut. On these, with the numerouskinds of fishes resorting to their shores or among thecoral reefs, the inhabitants entirely subsist. They appeara hardy and industrious race, capable of enduringgreat privations. The Tahitians believe them to becannibals.... They are in general firm and muscular,56but of a more spare habit of body than the Tahitians.Their limbs are well formed, their stature generallytall. The expression of their countenance, and theoutline of their features, greatly resemble those of theSociety Islanders; their manners are, however, morerude and uncourteous. The greater part of the bodyis tattooed, sometimes in broad stripes, at others inlarge masses of black, and always without any of thetaste and elegance frequently exhibited in the figuresmarked on the persons of the Tahitians.”

One who traveled much in the isolated parts of theworld was often struck by the unfitness of certain populated places to support in any comfort and safety thepeople who generation after generation persisted in living in them. For thousands of years the slopes ofVesuvius have been cultivated despite the imminenthorror of the volcano above. The burning Paumotuatolls are as undesirable for residences as the desert ofSahara. Yet the hot sands are peopled, and have beenfor ages, and in the recesses of the frozen North theprocesses of birth and death, of love and greed, are asabsorbing as in the Edens of the earth. Hateful as alengthy enforced stay in the Paumotus might be toany of us, I have seen two Paumotuan youths dwellingabroad for the first time in their lives, eating deliciousfood and hardly working at all, weep hours upon hoursfrom homesickness, a continuous longing for their atollof Puka-ruhu, where they had half starved since birth,and where the equatorial typhoon had raped timeand again. Nature, in her insistence that mankindshall continue, implanted that instinct of home in usas one of the most powerful agents of survival of the57species. Enduring terrible privation, even, we learnedto love the scenes of our sufferings. Never was thatbetter exemplified than in these melancholy and maddening-atollsof the half-browned Archipelago.

58

CHAPTER IV

The copra market—Dangerous passage to shore at Kaukura—Our boatoverturns in the pass—I narrowly escape death—Josephite Missionaries—Thedeadly nohu—The himene at night.

WORD we got at Anaa of a few tons of copraat Kaukura sent us hurrying there. Thewind was against us, and we drew long sidesof a triangle before we reached that atoll, which was,as our starting-point, at the base of the isosceles. Kaukurawas a divergence from our intended course, butthese schooners were like birds of the air, which musttake their sustenance as fortune wills. Copra wasscarce, and competition in buying, fierce. The nativesreceived about four cents a pound, but as paymentwas usually in goods, the Tahiti traders, who shippedcopra to America and Europe, profited heavily. Therewere grades in copra, owing to the carelessness of thenatives in drying it. Green or poorly-dried nutsshrank, and the nuts parched in kilns developed moreundesirable creosote than sun-dried. All copra wassold by weight and quality, and it continually lessenedin weight by evaporation of oil. Time was the essenceof a good bargain. The sooner to the presses of themainland, the greater the return. Crude mills in thePaumotus or Tahiti crushed out the oil formerly, andit was sealed in bamboo lengths, and these exported.These tubes, air-tight, were common mediums of exchange,as wampum among Indians, or gold-dust in59Alaska. Modern processes extracted double the oil ofthe old presses, and the eight-foot sections of the longgrass were almost obsolete for cocoanut-oil, and usedmostly for sauces sold in the Papeete market-place.

“Trade ain’t what it was,” said McHenry. “There’smore traders than natives, almost. I remember whenthey were so crazy to exchange our stuff for their produce,we’d have the trade-room crowded all day, an’had to keep guns handy to chase the mob away, to addup the bloody figures. Now every atoll has its store,and the trader has to pat his copra-makers an’ diverson the back, instead o’ kickin’ them the way we usedto. The damn Frogs treat these Kanakas like they werewhite people, an’ have spoiled our game. We can’ttrade in the Paumotus unless the schooner has a Frenchregistry and a French captain,—Lyin’ Bill is a Frogcitizen for not stealin’ a vessel he had a chance to,—an’when you leave the Papeete you’ve got to registerevery last drop o’ booze you’ve got aboard. It’s supposedto be only for us on the schooner, and for thewhites in the Paumotus, or a few chieves who havepermits, for bein’ Froggy. But it’s the rotten missionarieswho hurt us, really. We could smuggle itin, but they tell on us.”

We had not caught a fish from the schooner, despitehaving a tackle rigged most of the days. I had fixeda bamboo rod, about eighteen feet long and very strong,on the rail of the waist of the vessel, and from it lettrail a hundred feet or so of tough line. The hook wasthe most perfect for the purpose ever made by man.It was cut out of the mother-of-pearl lining of thePaumotuan pearl-oyster shell. It was about six inches60long, and three quarters wide, shaped rudely like aflying-fish, and attached to it on the concave side wasa barb of bone about an inch and a half in length, fastenedwith purau fiber, and a few hog’s bristles inserted.The line was roved through the hole where the barbwas fastened, and, being braided along the inner sideof the pearl shank, was tied again at the top, forminga chord to the arch. Unbaited, the hook, by the pullof the schooner, skipped along the surface of the sealike a flying-fish. I had made a telltale of a piece ofstick, and while McHenry and I talked and Jean Moetslept it snapped before my eyes. To seize the rod andhold on was the act of a second. I let out the entirefive hundred feet of line, before the fish tired, and thenit took four of us to drag him to the deck. He was aroroa, a kind of barracuda, about ten feet long, andweighing a couple of hundred pounds.

The fish made a welcome change in our diet and wasenough for all, including a number of Paumotuans whowere returning to Takaroa for the opening of the divingseason. Chocolat nibbled a head, but preferredthe remnants of a can of beef. He improved dailyin his tricks and in his agility in avoiding being hurtledinto the water by the roll or pitch of the schooner.He had an almost incredible instinct or acquired knowledgeof the motion of the Marara, and when I felt surewe had lost him—that he would fall overboard in anotherinstant—he would leap to the deck and frolicabout the wheel. The spokes of it were another constantthreat to his health, for one blow when they spunfast might kill him; but he was reserved for a morehorrid fate.

61Kaukura rose from the sea at dawn, after a nightof wearing and tacking. It was an atoll, irregularlyannular in shape, twenty-six miles long and ten wide,wooded in patches, and with vast stretches where onlythe dazzling coral shone. It, too, had been spoiled inprosperity by an inimical wind and tide, and the cocoa-palmshad been annihilated that had once grown uponall its many component islets. The cocoanut-tree livesmore than eighty years, and does not fruit until sevenyears old, so that the loss of thousands of these life-givingpalms was a fearful blow. Each tree bore a hundrednuts annually, and that crop was worth to theowner for copra nearly a dollar, besides being much ofhis food.

Landmarks we gradually discerned; a village, twochurches, and a row of houses, and then the Frenchtricolor on a pole. The surf broke with a fierce roaringon the reef, and when McHenry and I left the schooner,Moet stayed aboard, as the wind was ominous. Therewas no pass into the lagoon at this village, and even thepit in the barrier-reef had been made by French engineers.They had blown up the madrepore rock, andmade a gateway for small boats.

The schooner did not take our painter, for the breezewas too stiff for the venture, and so we had a half-mileto row. When we neared the reef and entered the pit,I felt that it was touch-and-go, for we rose and totteredon the huge swells, and dived into their hollows,with a prophetic certainty of capsizing. I could hardlykeep on the box under me, and swayed forebodingly.Then suddenly the steering oar caught under a bankof coral. I barely heard the cry of Piri a Tuahine,62E era! There she goes!” when the boat rose on itsstern with a twisting motion, as if a whale had struckit with its fluke, and turned turtle. I was slighted intothe water at its topmost teeter, falling yards away fromit, and in the air I seemed to see the Tahitians leapingfor safety from its crushing thwarts and the cargo.

McHenry’s “What the bloody——!” as we bothsomersaulted, was in my ears as I was plunged beneaththe surface.

With the fear of encountering the boat, the dark bulkof which I saw dimly above me, I swam hard underthe water a dozen strokes, and rose to find myself beneaththe reef, which grew in broken ledges. Whenmy head in stunning contact with the rock knelled awarning to my brain, I opened my eyes. There wasonly blackness. I dived again, a strange terror chillingme, but when I came up, I was still penned from airin abysmal darkness.

Now fear struck me weak. I realized my extraordinaryperil, a peril glimpsed in nightmares. I hadpenetrated fifteen or twenty feet under the ledge, andI had no sense of direction of the edge of the coral.My distance from it was considerable; I knew by theinvisible gloom. With a fleeting recollection of camerafilms in my shirt pocket, came the choking dread ofsuffocation, and death in this labyrinth.

I supposed I invoked God and his Son to save me.Probably in my agony I promised big things to themand humanity if I survived. I kept my eyes open andstruck out. After swimming a few yards I felt thecoral shelving inwardly. I realized that I had gone63farther from my only goal of life. I felt the end wasclose, but still in desperation moved my limbs vigorously.

Then I felt the water lashing about me. Somethingseized my arm. Shark stories leaped from my memory’scold storage to my very soul. My blood was anicy stream from head to toes. Singular to relate, Iwas aware of a profound regret for my murders ofmany sharks—who, after all, I reasoned with an atavisticimpulse of propitiation, were but working out thewise plan of the Creator. But the animal that graspedmy arm did not bite. It held me firmly, and draggedme out from that murky hell, until in a few secondsthe light, God’s eldest and loveliest daughter, appearedfaintly, and then, bright as lightning, and all of a sudden,I was in the center of the sun, my mouth open atlast, my chest heaving, my heart pumping madly, andmy head bursting with pain. I was in the arms ofPiri a Tuahine, who, as all the other Tahitians, hadswum under the reef in search of me.

In the two or three minutes—or that half-hour—duringwhich I had been breathless, the sailors had recapturedthe boat and were righting it, the oars still fastenedto the gunwales. I was glad to be hauled intothe empty boat, along with McHenry, who was sputteringand cursing.

“Gorbli-me!” he said, as he spat out salt water, “youmade a bloody fool o’ yerself doin’ that! Why didn’tye look how I handled meself? But I lost a half-poundof tobacco by that christenin’.”

I was laid down on the cargoless seats, and the men64rowed through the moat, smiling at me with a worthysense of superiority, while McHenry dug the soakedtobacco out of his trousers pocket.

“Ye can always trust the Kanaka to get ye out o’the water if ye capsize,” said he, artfully. “We’vetaught him to think o’ the white man first. He damnwell knows where he’d get off, otherwise.”

A hundred feet farther, we came to a spit of rocks,which stopped progress. A swarm of naked childrenwere playing about it. Assisted by the Tahitians Iwas lifted to my feet, and, with McHenry, continuedto the sand.

There I took stock of my physical self. I was batteredand bruised, but no bones were broken. Myshins were scraped and my entire body bleeding as ifa sharp steel comb had raked me. My head was bloody,but my skull without a hole in it, or even marked depression,except my usual one where phrenologists locatethe bump of reverence. I was sick at my stomach,and my legs bent under me. I knew that I would beas well as ever soon, unless poisoned, but would bearthe marks of the coral. All these white men who journeyedabout the Paumotus bore indelible scars of coralwound.

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (11)

The road from the beach

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (12)

An American Josephite missionary and his wife, and their church

My friend, the poet, Rupert Brooke, had been madevery ill by coral poisoning. He wrote from the TiareHotel in Papeete: “I’ve got some beastly coral-poisoninginto my legs, and a local microbe on top of that,and made the places worse by neglecting them, and sea-bathingall day, which turns out to be the worst possiblething. I was in the country, at Mataiea, when it cameon bad, and tried native remedies, which took all the65skin off, and produced such a ghastly appearance thatI hurried into town. I’ve got over it now and feelspry.” His nickname, Pupure, meant leprous, as wellas fair, and was a joking double entendre by the natives.

I was later, in the Marquesas, to see a man die ofsuch poison received in the Paumotus. But, in Kaukura,I had to make the best of it, and after a shortrest began to see the sights. There was a crowd ofpeople about, men and women, and still more children,all lighter than the Paumotuans in complexion andstouter in body. They were dressed up. The menwere in denim trousers and shirts, and some with thestiff white atrocities suffered by urbanites in Americaand Europe. The women wore the conventional night-gownsthat Christian propriety of the early nineteenthcentury had pulled over their heads. They were notthe spacious holokus of Hawaii. These single garmentsfitted the portly women on the beach as the skinof a banana its pulpy body—and between me and thesun hid nothing of their roly-poly forms. I recognizedthe ahu vahine of Tahiti.

Ia ora na i te Atua!” the people greeted me, withwinning smiles. “God be with you!” was its meaning,and their accent confirmed their clothing. They wereTahitians. I spoke to them, and they commiseratedmy sad appearance, and pointed out a tall young whiteman who came striding down the beach, his mouthpursed in an anxious question as he saw me.

“Got any medicine on that hay wagon?” he asked.“We’ve got a bunch of dysentery here.”

I knew at once by his voice issuing through his nostrilsinstead of his mouth, and by the sharp cut of his66jib, that he was my countryman, and from the MiddleWest. He had the self-satisfied air of a Kansan.

“The trade-room of the Marara is full of medicaldiscoveries, perunas, Jamaica ginger, celery compounds,and other hot stuff,” I replied, “but what they’ll cureI don’t know. We have divers patent poisons knownto prohibition.”

“That’s all rotten booze. My people don’t use thedevilish stuff,” he commented, caustically. He continuedon, wading to the boat, and, after a parley, proceedingwith it to the schooner.

McHenry had half determined to plant himself, atleast temporarily, in Kaukura, and left me to spy onthe store of a Chinese, who had brought a stock of goodsfrom Papeete. I walked toward an enormous thatchedroof, under which, on the coral strand, were nearlya thousand persons. The pungent smoke from a hundredsmall fires of cocoanut husks gave an agreeabletang to the air; the lumps of coral between which theywere kindled were red with the heat, the odors rose frombubbling pots. All the small equipment of Tahitiantravelers was strewn about. Upon mattresses and matsin the shed, the sides of which were built up severalfeet to prevent the intrusion of pigs and dogs, lay oldpeople and children, who had not finished their slumbers.Stands for the sale of fruits, ice, confections,soda-water, sauces, and other ministrants to hunger andhabit bespoke the acquired tastes of the Tahitians; butmost of the people were of Kaukura and other atolls.

Kaukura alone had nearly a thousand inhabitants.Its lagoons were the richest in pearl of all the group.Being one of the nearest of the Paumotus to Tahiti,67it had been much affected by the proselytizing and commercializingspirits of that island—spirits often at variancebut now and again joined, as on a greater scaletrust magnates capitalize and direct missions and religiousinstitutions with the left hand, while their righttakes toll of life-killing mill and mine.

The village was as attractive as a settlement could bein these benighted islands, the houses stretching alongone or two roads, some in gala color. A small, sprightlywhite man was donning shirt and trousers on the verandaof the best residence at the end of the street. Hewas about forty years old, with a curiously keen face,a quick movement, and an eye like an electric lightthrough a keyhole.

“Hello,” he said, briskly, “by golly, you’re not anAmerican, are you? I’m getting my pants on a littlelate. We were up all hours last night, but I flatter myselfGod was glad of it. Kidd’s my name; JohnnyKidd, they call me in Lamoni. I’m glad to meet you,Mr. ——?”

“O’Brien, Frederick O’Brien, of almost anywhere,except Lamoni,” I replied, laughingly, his good-naturedenthusiasm being infectious.

He looked at me, inquiringly.

“Not in my line, are you?” he asked, with an appraisingsurvey of me.

My head bleeding and aching, my body quiveringwith the biting pain of its abraded surface, I still surrenderedto the irony of the question. I guessed thathe was a clergyman from his possessive attitude towardGod, but he was so simple and natural in manner,with so little of a clerical tone or gesture, that I would68have thought him a street-faker or professional gamblerhad I had no clue to his identity. I remembered, too,the oft-quoted: “In my Father’s house are many mansions.”

“I’m merely a beachcomber,” I assured him. “Itake a few notes now and then.”

“Oh, you’re not a sky-pilot,” he went on, in comicrelief. “You never can tell. Those four-flushingMormons have been bringing a whole gang of youngelders from Utah to Tahiti to beat us out. I’m anelder myself of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christof Latter Day Saints. They usually call us the Josephites.In these islands we are Konito or Tonito.We’ve been having a grand annual meeting here. Oversixty from Tahiti, and altogether a thousand andseventy members. They’ve been gathering from mostof the Paumotus for weeks, coming with the wind, butwe’re about over now.”

“But I thought the Church of Jesus Christ of LatterDay Saints was the Mormons,” said I, puzzled.

“Mormon!” There was such vigor in his explosivecatching up of my query that I may well be pardonedif I thought he placed the common name for Sheol afterthat of the sect. But it stands to reason that he didnot. His whole training would stop such a word ereit escaped him.

“Mormon! I should say not! Those grafters andpolygamists are not our kind. They stole our name.We were the same until Brigham Young split off andled his crowd to Utah. Our headquarters is at Lamoni,Iowa, but I. N. Imbel, who’s gone to theschooner, my partner, and I are the missionaries in these69islands. We’re properly authorized ministers whomake this our regular and whole business. My pal andI live in Papeete, but run through the Paumotus whenthere’s anything doing.”

The reverend fellow had no airs about him.

“Sit down and take off your clothes and dry them,and I’ll rub your cuts with some liniment,” he invited.“They’ll dry in the sun, and here’s a pareu to slip overyou. I’d like to tell you more about our work, so’syou won’t mix us up with those Mormons. They’re atough bunch. My father’s the head of our mission inEngland, and I’m in charge of these islands. Everyyear we have a business meeting. That’s what this is;not a revival. We don’t believe in that emotion game.We call it a ‘reasonable service.’ We take up a collection,of course. We invite the natives to investigateour claims. We have the custom to get converts bydebating with the Mormons, but after we had accepteda challenge to meet them in Papeete the French governorstopped the show, because a French law forbadesuch meetings. They used to have riots in France, itseems. The Mormons teach polygamy and otherabominations. They’ll tell you they don’t, but they do.You ask any Mormon native if he believes in pluralwives, and he’ll say yes, that the elders from Americateach that it’s right. Those Mormons ran away fromhere once, when the French government scared them,and we got in and had most of the natives in the Paumotusthat the Catholics hadn’t kept. Then whenthe Mormons saw there was no danger, they came backhere from Salt Lake. Oh, they’re a bad outfit.We’re regularly ordained ministers, not farmers off on70a lark. This temple here cost a thousand dollars, withoutthe labor. That was all voluntary. Wait aminute!”

He dashed into a room, and returned with a pamphletwhich purported to be the findings of the Court ofLake County, Ohio, and he read from it a decree thatthe Utah Mormons were a fragment and split off fromthe real simon-pure religion established by JosephSmith in New York. I wished that Stevenson hadbeen there to hear him, for I remembered his page ofbewilderment at the enigma of the “Kanitu” and Mormoniin the Paumotus, and how he made comparisonsof the Holy Willies of Scotland, and a New Guineagod named Kanitu. His uninquiring mind had notsolved the problem.

“We beat those wolves in sheep’s clothing in thiscourt,” said Elder Kidd, animatedly. “We’re thereal church, and the Brighamites are a hollow sham.”

Mr. Kidd engaged my interest, true or pseudo-discipleof Joseph Smith. He was so human, so guileful,and had such an engaging smile and wink. He seemedto feel that he was in a soul-saving business thoroughlyrespectable, yet needing to be explained and defendedto the Gentile. His competitors’ incompetencyhe deemed worthy of emphasis.

“Not long ago,” he said, “in certain of these Paumotusthere had been a good deal of backsliding fromour church. Nobody had stirred them up, and withthese people you have got to keep their souls awake allthe time or they’ll go to sleep, or, worse, get into thecontrol of those Mormons. They’ll steal a convert likeyou’d peel a banana, and that’s what I call the limit71of a dirty trick. The Mormons thought they had apuddin’ in these backsliders to pull them over to theirside. I heard about it, and without a word to any oneI took a run through the group. I went through thatcrowd of backsliders with a spiritual club, and I notonly redeemed the old Josephites, but I baptizedseventy-five others before you could run a launch fromhere to Anaa. It was like stealin’ persimmons froma blind farmer whose dog is chained. I was talkin’to the head Mormon in Papeete shortly afterward, andhe asked me what we were doin’. I counted off theseventy-five new ones, and he had to acknowledge hischurch hadn’t made a count in a long time. I offeredto bet him anything he was beat to a finish, but he quitcold.”

The Reverend Mr. Kidd excused himself to go tothe meeting-house and get his breakfast with someof his deacons. McHenry had returned from his tourof espionage. He was cast down at the poor chancefor business.

“There’s nothing doin’,” he said. “Twenty yearsago I was here with a schooner o’ booze to a Konitomeetin’ like this. There was kegs o’ rum with bloodytops knocked in right in the road. An’ wimmin’!You’d a-gone nuts tryin’ to choose. This is what religi’ndoes to business. A couple o’ bleedin’ chinkssellin’ a few bottles o’ smell water, an’ a lot o’ Tahitianswith fruit an’ picnic stuff. A thousand Kanakas in onebunch an’ not one drunk. By cripes, the mishes haveruined the trade. The American Government oughtto interfere. You and me had better skin out to west’ardwhere there ain’t so many bloody preachers, an’72you can handle the Kanaka the way you want. To-nightthis mob’ll be in that meetin’-house singin’ theirheads off, instead o’ buyin’ rum and dancin’ like theyused to. Them two sky-pilots has got all the francs.Even the Chinks hasn’t made a turn. Kopcke of Papeeteis here an’ ain’t made a sou. He’s goin’-a goto leeward.”

“McHenry,” I interrogated, “do you never considerthe other fellow? Aren’t these poor people better offchanting hymns and praying than getting drunk anddancing the hula, just to make you money.”

He regarded me with contemptuous malice.

“I knew after all you were a bloody missionary,” hesaid, acridly. “I been on to you. You’ll be in thatstraw shed to-night singin’ ‘Come to Jesus.’ You’dbetter look out after your cuts! You’ll be sore’n aboil to-morrow when they get stiff. Let’s go back tothe schooner and get drunk!”

I was tempted to return to the Marara to ease mymisery, and only the promise of Elder Kidd to assuageit with liniment, and an ardent desire to attend theJosephite services that night, detained me in the heatof the atoll. McHenry persisting in his decision tocool his coppers in rum, and I to see everything ofKaukura, I joined with a friendly native for a stroll.The Josephite temple was a small coral edifice, washedwhite with coral lime. An old and uncared-forCatholic church was near-by. Most of the residenceswere thatched huts, or shacks made of pieces of boxesand tin and corrugated iron, with a few formal woodencottages, painted red, white, and blue. They were very73poor, these Kaukurans, from our point of view, earningbarely enough to sustain them in strength, and withfew comforts in their huts, except the universal sewing-machine.Everywhere that was the first ambition ofthe uncivilized woman roused to modern vanities, asof the poor woman in all countries.

Walking along the beach I narrowly escaped a moreserious accident than the disaster of the reef, for onlythe warning of my companion stayed me from treadingupon a nohu, the deadliest underfoot danger of thePaumotus. It was a fish peculiarly hateful to humans,yet gifted by nature with both defensive disguise andoffensive weapons, a remnant of the fierce struggle forsurvival in which so many forms of life had disappearedor altered in changing environment. The nohu lay onthe coral strand where the tide lapped it, looking thetwin of a battered, mossy rock, so deceiving that onemust have the sight of the aborigine to avoid steppingupon it, if in one’s way. Put a foot on it, and beforeone could move, the nohu raised the bony spines of itsdorsal fin and pierced one’s flesh as would a row of hatpins;not only pierced, but simultaneously injectedthrough its spines a virulent poison that lay at the baseof a malevolent gland. The nohu possessed a protectivecoloring and shape more deluding than any othernoxious creature I know, and kept its mouth shut exceptwhen it swallowed the prey for which it lay inwait. Its mouth is very large, and a brilliant lemon-colorinside, so that if it parts its lips it betrays itself.Brother to the nohu in evil purpose is the tataraihau.But what a trickster is nature! The nohu is as ugly74as a squid, and the tataraihau beautiful as a piece of thesunset, a brilliant red, with transverse bands of chocolate,bordered with ebony.

“If you can spit on the nohu before he sticks histaetae into you, it will not poison you,” sagely saidmy savior, as he stabbed the wretch with his knife.

Pliny, as translated by Holland, said:

All men carry about them that which is poyson to serpents:for if it be true that is reported, they will no better abide thetouching with man’s spittle than scalding water cast upon them:but if it happen to light within their chawes or mouth, especiallyif it comes from a man that is fasting, it is present death.

Pliny in his day may have known of quick-wittedpeople who, when assailed by a snake, had presence ofmind to expectorate in his chawes, but the most hungry,salivary man could hardly avail himself of this prophylacticunless he recognized the nohu before treadingupon him. The Paumotuans employ the mape, thenative chestnut, the atae, ape, and rea moeruru. Theseare all “yarb” remedies, and the first, the juice of thechestnut, squeezed on the head and neck, they swear by.The French doctors advise morphine injection or laudanumexternally, or to suck the wound and cup it. Coagulatingthe poison in situ by alcohol, acids, or causticalkali, or the use of turpentine, is also recommended.If the venom is not speedily drawn out or nullified, thefeet of the victim turn black and coma ensues. TheFrench called the nohu, La Mort, The Death.

My Paumotuan friend and Elder Kidd together gaveme this information, and when we brought the nohu tothe house in which he lived the clergyman said we would75eat it. The native heated an old iron pipe and, afterflaying the skin off the fish, boiled it. The flesh wasremarkably sweet and tender.

I lay on a mat, and, after the American had laved mewith the liniment, the Paumotuan, a Konito elder, massagedme for an hour, during which grievous process Ifell asleep, and woke after dark when the “reasonableservice” was beginning.

The people were ranged under the immense roof inorderly ranks, the Tahitians being in one knot. Boththe American elders were upon a platform, surroundedby the native elders, who aided in the conductof the program, which was in Paumotuan. The Paumotuanlanguage is a dialect closely allied to the Maori,which includes the Tahitian, Hawaiian, Marquesan,New Zealand, Samoan, and other island tongues. ThePaumotuan was crossed with a strange tongue, theorigin of which was not fixed, but which might be theremains of an Aino or negroid race found in the Paumotusby the first Polynesian immigrants. Tahitianseasily understood the Paumotuans, though many wordswere different, and there were many variations in pronunciationand usage. The Tahitians had been livingclosely with Europeans for a hundred years, and theirlanguage had become a mere shadow of its past form.The Paumotuan had remained more primitive, for thePaumotuan was a savage when the Tahitians were themost cultivated race of the South Seas; not with aculture of our kind, but yet with elaborated ceremonials,religious and civil, ranks of nobility, drama, oratory,and wit.

It being the conclusion of the grand annual meeting76of the Josephites, a summing up of the business conditionof the sect in these waters was the principal item.Elders Kidd and Imbel stressed dependence of the Almightyupon his apostles, prophets, evangelists, andpastors, and of these called-of-God men upon the francscollected at such gatherings as this.

Both the divines spoke earnestly, and mentioned Jehovahand Joseph Smith many times, with Aarona,Timoteo, Pauro, and other figures from the Scriptures.They struck the pulpit when they spoke of the Mormoni,and the faces of the congregation took on expressionsof holy disdain.

Somewhat like the modern preacher of the largercities, the elders strove to entertain as well as instruct,edify, and command their flock. They proposed acharade or riddle, which they said was of very ancientorigin, and perhaps had been told in the time of theMaster’s sojourn among men. They spoke it veryslowly and carefully and repeated it several times, sothat it was thoroughly understood by all:

He walked on earth,

He talked on earth,

He reproved man for his sin;

He is not in earth,

He is not in heaven,

Nor can he enter therein.

This mysterious person was written about in the Bible,said Elder Kidd.

Aue! That was a puzzler! Who could it be?Many scratched their heads. Others shook theirs despairingly.A few older men, of the diaconate, probably,77smiled knowingly. Some began to eliminatelikely biblical characters on their fingers. Iesu-Kirito,Aberahama, Ioba, Petero, and so on through a list ofthe more prominent notables of Scripture. But afterfive minutes of guesses, which were pointed out by Mr.Kidd not to comply with the specifications of thecharade, the answer was announced with impressive unction:

“Asini Balaama.”

Balaam’s ass. Aue! Why, of course. I hadnamed to myself every persona dramatis of the Book Icould recall, but the talkative steed had escaped me.We all laughed. Most of the congregation had neverseen an ass or even a horse, and the word itself waspulled into their language by the ears. But they couldconjure up a life-like picture of the scene from theirpastor’s description, and there were many interchangesbetween neighbors about the wisdom of the beast, andhis kindness in saving Balaam from the angry angelwho would have killed him.

But in time the prose part of the service came to anend, and the singing began. I moved myself to theshadows outside the pale, and stretching at full lengthon a mat on the sand, gave myself to the rapture oftheir poetry, and the waking dreams it brought.

Himene, all mass singing was called in these islands—themissionary hymn Polynesianized. They hadonly chants when the whites came; proud recitatives ofvalor in war, of the beginnings of creation, of the wanderingsof their heroes, challenges to the foe, and prayersto the mysterious gods and demons of their supernalregions. They learned awedly the hymns of Christianity,78and struggled decades with the airs. Confusedwith these were songs of the white sailors, the spiritedbowline and windlass chanteys of the British and Americantars, the trivial or obscene lays of beach-combersand soldiers, and later the popular tunes of nationsand governments. Out of all these the Polynesianshad evolved their himenes, singing as different fromany ever heard in Europe or America as the bagpipefrom the violin, but never to be forgotten when onceheard to advantage, for its barbaric call, its poignancyof utterance, and its marvelous harmony.

In the great shed outside which I lay under the purplesky, the men and women were divided, and thewomen led the himene. One began a wail, ahigh note, almost a shriek, like the keening of awake, and carrying but a phrase. Others met hervoice at an exact interval, and formed a chorus,into which men and women entered, apparently atwill, but each with a perfect observance of time, so thatthe result was an overwhelming symphony of vocalsounds which had in them the power of a pipe-organ toevoke thought. I heard the cry of sea-birds, the crashof the waves on the reef, the thrashing of the giantfronds of the cocoa-palms, the groans of afflicted humans,and the pæans of victory of embattled warriors.The effect was incredibly individual. Each whiteheard the himene differently, according to his own cosmos.

There under the stars on Kaukura, cast down and consciousas I had been of my trivial hurts, and of a certainloneliness of situation, I forgot all in the thrill of emotioncaused by the exquisite though unstudied art of79these simple Josephites, worshipers, whose voicespierced my heart with the sorrows and aspirations of anoccult world. The Reverends Kidd and Imbel wereforgotten, and all but the mysterious conflict of manwith his soul. I fell asleep as the himene went on forhours, and was awakened by Kopcke, the trader, whosaid that the Marara was to sail at midnight, and thathe had been asked to bring me aboard.

Chocolat barked a welcome from the taffrail as weboarded the schooner, and with the offshore wind we welcomedI could hear a faint human noise which I interpretedas the benediction of the Reverend Johnny Kidd.

80

CHAPTER V

Captain Moet tells of Mapuhi, the great Paumotuan—Kopcke tells aboutwomen—Virginia’s jealousy—An affrighting waterspout—The wreckedship—Landing at Takaroa.

“Maintenant”, said Captain Moet, as hegave orders for the course, “we weel veesit zeking ov ze Paumotu. Monsieur O’Breeon, ’egot no nose, bot ’e ees magnifique. ’E like out ov zestory-book. Ze bigges’ tradaire, ze bes’ divaire, ze bonpère ov ze Paumotu. An’ ’e ees reech, eef ’e don’ geeve’way ev’rysing. Nevaire ’ave I know one hombre like‘eem!”

“He’s lost his grip since he got old,” McHenry interrupted,in his contrary way. “They say he’s got a millionfrancs out in bad accounts to natives. He’s rotteneasy, and spoils trade for a decent white man, by cripes!”

Nom d’une pipe!” cried the Marseillais. “Mac,you nevaire see anysing nice. ’E ees not easy; ’e ees notrotten. ’E ’as got old, an’ maintenant, ’e ees ’fraidov ze devil, ze diablo malo. Mac, eef you waire so niceas Mapuhi, I geeve you wan hug an’ kees. ’E ees’onnes’, Mac, vous savez! Mapuhi say somesing, eetees true. Zat bad for you, eh?”

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (13)

Photo by Brown Bros.
Typical and primitive native hut, Paumotu Archipelago

Mapuhi! In Tahiti, among the Paumotu traders atthe Cercle Bougainville, his name was every-day mention.He was the outstanding figure of the Paumatuanrace. Lying Bill had narrated a dozen stories about81him over our glasses, and Goeltz, Hallman, all theskippers and supercargos, had spoken of him.

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (14)

Copra drying

“Mapuhi’s som’mat for looks without ’is nose,” saidCaptain Pincher. “I’ve known ’im thirty years, an’’e’s the biggest man in the group in all that time.’E’s got Mormonism stronger now, an’ ’e’s bloody wellafraid of ’ell, the ’ell those Mormon missionaries tellabout; but ’e’s the best navigator in these waters.”

“He’s past eighty now, big-hearted but shrewd,and loving his own people,” said Woronick, the Parisian,and cunningest of Tahiti pearl merchants, exceptLevy. “He’s gone on Mormonism, but he’s smartwith all his religion. The trouble is he’s let charityrun away with business principles, and divers and othersget into him for hundreds of thousands of francs. I’dtake his word for anything, and you know me! Theydidn’t keep me out of the United States because I’ma dummy, hein?”

“He’s a remarkable man, this Kanaka,” joined inWinnie Brander, master of a sieve of a schooner, as hedrank his Doctor Funk. “When he was a boy he wasa savage. His father ate his enemies. For fifty yearsMapuhi has been sailing schooners in the Paumotus.He’s the richest man there, and the best skipper inthese waters that ever weathered the New Year gales.I’m captain of a schooner and I have sailed the Groupsince a boy, but, matching my experience against his,—andI haven’t had a tenth of his,—Mapuhi knows moreby instinct of weather, of reefs, of passes, and of seamanshipthan I have learned. He’s known from Samoato Tahiti as a wizard for sailing. He knows every oneof the eighty Paumotus by sight. Wake him up anywhere82in the Group in sight of land, and he’ll take asquint and tell where they are. God knows that’sthe hardest bit of spying there is, because these atollsare mostly all alike at a distance—just a few specksof green, then a bunch of palms, and a line of coral.It’s something uncanny the way this fellow can locatehimself. They say he can tell them at night by thesmell.”

“’E’s a bloody Rockefeller down ’ere,” Lying Billtook up the story. “’E’s combed this ’ere ’ole ocean.I remember when ’e lost the Tavaroa ’e ’ad built byMatthew Turner in California, and four other schooners,in the cyclone of 1906. Many a boat ’e built ’imself.’E was the devil for women, with the pick of thegroup an’ ’im owin’ ’alf the families in debt. Then theMormons got a ’olt of ’im, an’ ’e began prayin’ an’preachin’, and stuck by ’is proper wife. You’ll seethat big church, if you go to Takaroa, ’e built, an’ where’is ol’ woman is buried.”

And now I was bound for the atoll of this mightychief of his tribe, and was to see him face to face.From Kaukura, the Marara raced and lagged by turn.The glass fell, and I spoke to McHenry about it, pointingto the recording barometer.

“There’s trouble comin’,” he said, testily. “I knowthat. I don’t need any barometer. We South Seamen have got enough mercury in us to tell the weatherwithout any barometer.”

The rain fell at intervals, but not hard enough fora bath on deck, the prized weather incident of theseparts. With no fresh water in Niau, Anaa, or Kaukura,or not enough for bathing, and with only a dole83on the Marara for hands and faces, I, with remembranceof Rupert Brooke’s complaint about the effectof sea-water on coral wounds, was about half-crazyfor a torrential shower. But the rain passed, and thesunset soothed my sorrow. Never had I known suchskies. In this heaven’s prism were hues not beforeseen by me. Manila, I had thought, was of all theworld apart for the beauty and brilliancy of its sunsets.Such bepainted clouds as hung over the hill of Mariveleswhen I rode down the Malecon in the days of theEmpire! But Manila was here surpassed in startlingshape and blazing color.

A great bank of ocher held the western sky—a perfectcurtain for a stage upon which gods might enactthe fall of the angels. It depended in folds and fringesover stripes of gold—a startling, magnificent designwhich appeared too regular in form and color to be accidentof clouds. One had to remember the bits of glassin the kaleidoscope.

The gold grew red, the stripes became a sheet ofscarlet, and that vermilion and maroon, swiftly changingas deeper dipped the sun into the sea, until the entiresky was broken into mammoth fleecy white tiles,the tesselated ceiling of Olympus. The canopy grewgray, and night dropped abruptly. A wind came outof the darkness and caught the Marara under full canvas.It drove her through the fast-building waves ateleven knots. The hull groaned in tune with the shriekingcordage. The timbers that were long from theforest, and had fought a thousand gales, lamented theirage in moans and whines, in grindings and fierce blows.The white water piled over the bows, deluged the deck,84and foamed on the barrier of the cabin rise. I strippedand went forward to meet it. I could have danced init for joy. Oh! the joy of sail! Steam and motormade swift the path of the ship, but they had in themno consonance with nature. They were blind and deafto the wind and wave, which were the very life of theschooner. They brought no sense of participation inspeed as did the white wings of the Marara, nor of kinshipwith the main. They were alive, those swellingand careening sheets of canvas, that swung to and frowith the mind of the breeze, and cried and laughed instress of labor.

The rain blanketed the ocean, the vessel heeled overto starboard until her rail was salty, the jibs pleadedfor relief, but man was implacable. For hours we heldour course, driving fast in the obscure night toward thehome of the wondrous diver, the man without a nose,Mapuhi, the uncrowned king of the Dangerous Isles.

But when the moon lit the road to Takaroa, shelulled the wind. The eleven knots fell to seven, and tofive, and at midnight we drifted in a zephyr.

When I went below in a light squall, sure sign ofnear-by land, Kopcke, the handsome trader, and a nativegirl were asleep on a mat in the passageway besideand partly under my bunk. I had to step over them.Her red tunic was drawn up over her limbs in her restlessslumber, and a sheet covered closely her head. Helay on his back, his eyes facing the cabin lamp, hisbreathing that of a happy child after a day of hardplay. As a matter of fact he had drunk a half dozentots of rum since he had brought me aboard.

Kopcke had failed at Kaukura, and like McHenry85was bound for Takaroa, to set up a store for the divingseason. He was a ne’er-do-well who existed withouthard work merely because of familiarity with thepeople and languages of the islands. After a fewglasses on board he had spilled his affairs to me, andespecially his amorous adventures, in the boasting wayof his kind. “Mary pity women!” A quarter-Tahitian,his father a European, and his mother FrenchTahitian, he was remarkably good-looking, in the styleof a cinema idol. He had first married the half-castedaughter of Lying Bill, one of the many children ofthat Bedouin of the Pacific, who, in more than threedecades of roaming the islands, had, according to hisbrag, scores of descendants. She had died, and Kopckehad left their child to charity, and taken up with anotherwhom he had deserted after a year, leaving hertheir new-born infant.

“She would not obey me,” Kopcke explained to Virginieand me. “I was good to her, but she was obstinate,and I had to send her to Takepoto. She had agood thing but could not appreciate me. I then tookthis girl here, whose father is an old diver in Takaroa,with a good deal of money. He once picked up asingle pearl worth a big fortune. She is sixteen, and iseasily managed. You’ve got to get them young, monami, to learn your ways. That Takepoto girl feelssorry now. Women are queer, all of them, mon vieux,n’est-ce pas?”

Virginie was all Huguenot French blood though bornin Tahiti, and Kopcke went against her puritan grain.She thought him a bad example for her Jean, who,though as devoted a husband as seaman, was dangerously86attractive to the native girls. Moet couldtutoyer them in their own tongue, with a roughish butalluring manner toward them that, though it crowdedthe trade-room of the Marara with customers for fineryand cologne water, tortured Virginie. His endearingterms, his gentle slaps on their hips, and momentaryarm about their waists, rended Virginie between jealousyand profits.

Mais,” Jean would exclaim, after an interchange ofbitter words, in which cochon had been applied to him,“how zat femme zink I do bees’ness. Wiz kicks ‘ango-to-’ells? She count ze money wiz plaisir, bot JeanMoet, ’er ’usbin’, ’e mos’ be like wan mutton. ’Sus-Maria!I will make show ’oo ees boss!”

Kopcke was rather more honest in his dealings withwomen than the white men. His quarter-native strainmade him less ruthless, and more understanding ofthem. The ordinary European or American in theSouth Seas had not his own home’s standards insuch affairs. He released himself with a pridefulassertiveness from such restraints, and went to anopposite ethic in his breaking of the chain. Hisusual attitude to women here was that of the averageman toward domesticated animals—to pet and feedthem, and to abuse them when disobedient or at whim.

Of course, the white flotsam and jetsam of humanityin these islands, who in their own countries had probablystarved for caresses, and who may never haveknown women other than the frowzy boughten ones ofthe cabaret and brothel, were here giving back to thesex what it had bestowed on them in more formalizedcircles. The soft, loving women of Polynesia paid for87the sex starvation enforced by economic conditionsamong the superior whites. A feast brought the ingratitudeof the beggar.

All day, with half a gale, we sailed past atolls andbare reefs, groves of palms and rudest rocks, primalstrata and beaches of softest and whitest sand. Theschooner went close to these islands, so that it appearedI could throw my hat upon them; but distances herewere deceptive, and I suppose we were never less than athousand feet away. Yet we were near enough to hearthe smash of the surf and to see the big fish leap in thelagoon, to drink the intoxicating draft of oneness withthe lonely places, and to feel the secrets of their isolation.I was happy that before I died I had again seenthe Thing I had worshipped since I began to read.

I slipped off the coat of years and was a boy on apirate schooner, my hand on Long Tom, the brass gun,ready to fire if the cannibals pushed nearer in theircanoes. Again I had trained my hand and eye so thatI brought down the wild pigeon with my sling, and Ioutran the furious turtle on the beach. I dived underthe reef into the cave where the freebooters had storedtheir ill-gotten treasure, and reveled in the bags ofpieces of eight, and the bars of virgin gold. I thoughtof Silver, and sang:

“Fifteen men on the Dead Man’s Chest—

Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!”

Mais vous êtes gai,” said Jean Moet. “Qu’est cela?You not drink wan bottle when I no look?”

At three o’clock in the afternoon the gale had almostdied away. The sun was struggling to break through88the lowering sky. McHenry and Kopcke were engagedin their usual bombast of personal achievementwith women and drink, and I, to shut out their blague,was playing with Chocolat. Suddenly Kopcke broke offin a sentence and shouted to Moet, who was in thetrade-room.

Capitaine! Capitaine!” he called loudly throughthe window of the cabin. “There is a flood in air.Puahiohio! On deck! On deck!”

His voice vibrated with alarm, and Moet made threejumps and was at the wheel. He looked ahead, andI, too, saw, directly on the course we were steering, aconvolute stem of water stretching from the sea to thesky. Well I knew what it was. I whirled McHenryaround.

“Look!” I said, and pointed to the oncoming spectacle.

“A bloody waterspout!” yelled McHenry. “Bycripes—here’s where we pay up!”

I heard the native passengers and the sailors forwardshouting confusedly, and saw them throwingthemselves flat on deck, where they held on to thehatch lashings and other stable objects. Moet, with afierce oath, ordered the sailors to the halyards.

“Off with every stitch!” he commanded, as he threwthe wheel hard over. “Vave! Vave!

Trombe!” he warned his wife, who was in the cabinwith Kopcke’s girl. “Hold on, Virginie, hold on!Pray, and be quick about it!”

McHenry, Kopcke, and I sprang to the main boom,and helped to take down the canvas and make it fast.The jibs were still standing, when the Marara turned89on her heel like a hare pursued by a hound. The waterspoutwas yet miles distant, but rushing toward us, aswe made slow starboard progress from our previouswake. The daylight faded; the air seemed full of water.The sailors were again prone, and we, at the calmthough sharp word of Moet, pulled over the companioncover. I shrank behind the house, and McHenrytucked his head into the bend of my body, while Kopcke,on his knees, held on to the traveler.

Sacramento!” said Moet, as if to himself. “Maybeshe no can meet zat!”

With pounding heart, but every sense alert, Iwatched the mad drive of the sable column. The Mararawas now in smooth water,—the glassy circle of thePuahiohio,—and so near was the terrifying, twistingmass of dark foam and spindrift that it seemed impossiblewe could avoid it. Every inch the master, Moetalone stood up. Chocolat was huddled whimpering betweenhis feet. I saw the captain pull up the strapsthat held the wheel when in light airs we drifted peacefully,and attach them so that the helm was fixed.There was a dreadful roaring a short way off and nearingevery second. The spout was bigger than any ofthe great trees I had seen in the California forests, andfrom its base a leaden tower of hurrying water seemedto wind in a spiral stream to the clouds.

“She’s going to drop,” said McHenry in my ear.“Now hold on, and we’ll see who comes out of thebloody wash!”

The roar was that of a blast-furnace, and so close, sofearful, I ceased to breathe. Captain Moet crouchedby the steadfast wheel, his hand on the spokes. Forward,90I saw two Tahitians with their palms upon theirears.

Suddenly the Marara heeled over. The starboardrail was in the water, and Kopcke, McHenry, and I, atangled heap against the rail, as we struggled to keepour heads above the foam. Farther and farther theschooner listed. It was certain to me that we must meetdeath under it in another instant. Moet’s feet weredeep in the water, and now the wheel held him up. Weclutched madly at the stanchions of the rail, as wechoked with the salt flood.

Came the supreme moment. The waterspout roseabove us on the port bow like a cliff, solid as stone. Amillion trumpets blew to me the call of Judgment Day.Then the wall of water passed by a hundred feet toport. In another breath the Marara regained her poiseand was on an even keel. The peril was over.

Mais, tonnère de Dieu!” cried Moet, excitedly, “zatwas a cochon ov a watairespouse! Zere air many inzese latitude. Some time I see seex, seven, playin’‘round at wan time. I sink we make ze sail, and takewan drink queeck. Eh, Virginie, ici! Donne-moi unbaiser, little cabbage! Deed you pray ’ard?”

Over his petit verre, the captain said to me, confidentially,“Moi, I was almos’ become a bon catholiqueagain.”

Chocolat, who must have thought he had borne hispart bravely in the crisis, frisked wildly about the wheel,risking his own brown hide at every leap, to testify hisjoy at his safety.

McHenry and Kopcke, with the heartening rum intheir stomachs, resumed their palaver.

91“That spout didn’t come within fifty feet of us,” saidMcHenry. “I’ve seen one in which a bird was bein’carried up, whirlin’ round and round, and not able tofly away. It was comin’ toward us like lightnin’ whenI jumped into the shrouds with a big tin tub, an’ bangedit like bloody hell. It scared the spout away, an’ itbusted far enough from us not to hurt us. Bill an’Tommy Eustace can swear to that.”

Diable!” Kopcke broke in. “Mapuhi and his daughterwere in a cutter coming from Takepoto when theywere attacked by a trombe. It did not strike them butthe force of it overturned their cutter, four miles fromshore, and knocked the girl insensible, so that Mapuhihad to swim to shore with her.”

They are fearsome spectacles at their best, these phenomenaof the sea, comparable only in awe-inspiringqualities to the dread composants of St. Elmo’s Fire,those apparitions of flame which appear on mastheadsand booms on tempestuous nights, as if the spirits ofhell had come to welcome the sailor to Davy Jones’slocker. Waterspouts I had seen many times. Theywere common in these waters,—more frequent, perhaps,than anywhere else,—and to the native they were themost alarming manifestation of nature. Many a canoehad been sunk by them. There were legends of destructionby them, and of how the gods and devils usedthem as weapons to destroy the war fleets of the enemiesof the legend-telling tribes.

When I went to sleep at ten o’clock that night, wewere ranging up and down between Takepoto and Takaroa,steering no course but that of prudence, and waitingfor the dawn.

92I came on deck again at four. The moon was twothirds down the steep slope of the west, a golden spherevaster than ever before. The sea was bright and quaking,and shoals of fish were waking and parting theshining surface of the water.

Suddenly from out of the gloom of the distance thereloomed as strange a vision as ever startled a wayfarer.

A huge ship, under bare poles, solemn and lonelyof aspect and almost out of the water, lifted a blackbulk as if bearing down upon us. Somber and ominous,void of light or life, fancy peopled it with a ghostlycrew. I almost expected to read upon its quarter thename of Vanderdecken’s specter-ship, and to hear themournful voice of the Flying Dutchman’s skipper reportthat he had at last reached a haven.

The weirdness of this unexpected sight was incrediblysurprising. It electrified me, dismayed me, asfew phenomena have.

Piri a Tuahine, at the wheel, called down to the captain.

Paparai te pahi matai!” he announced in the eventone of the Maori sailor. “The ship wrecked in thecyclone!”

Moet came on deck in pajamas, surveyed the spectacleof desolation, said “Bon jour!” to me, gave anorder to the sailor to “Keep her off,” and returned tosnatch another nap. I saw through the stripped mastsof the wrecked ship the fires of the bakers who mix theirflour with cocoanut-milk, and wrap their loaves in cocoanut-leavesto bake. They were comforting as tokensof the living, contrasted with the sorrowful skeletonof one-time glory in that isolated cradle of rocks.93Kopcke stuck his head through the companionway toobserve our bearings, squinted at the somber wraiththrough his heavy eyes,—he and McHenry had playedécarté most of the night,—and replied to my query:

“As you say, mon garçon, it is the County of Roxburgh,that English ship. She lost her reckoning, andin a big hurricane crashed upon the reef. Her crewput over a boat but it was smashed at once, and thosewho reached the shore were badly bruised and brokenby the coral. When the people of Takaroa—my girl’sfather was one of them—rushed to succor them, theyfought them off, because their books said the Paumotuanswere savages and cannibals. It wasn’t till theysaw Takauha, the gendarme, and he showed them hisred stripe on the sleeve of his jacket, that they realizedthey were not on a cannibal isle. Takauhabrought Monsieur George Fordham, an Englishman,to interpret for them, and they were taken care of.They had broken arms and legs, and heads, too. Mapuhibought the ship from Lloyd’s for fifteen hundredfrancs. Think of that! He took everything off hecould, but the hull, masts, and yards stayed on. Hemade thousands of dollars out of the ship, and in hisstore you will find the doors and chests and the glass.She was built in Scotland.”

Her hull and decks of heavy metal, and her mastsand yards, great iron tubes, she had defied even thatmaster wrecker, Mapuhi, to disrobe her of more thanher ornaments. Carried over the reef upon a giganticwave, and perched upon a bed of coral in which she nowfitted as snugly as in a dry-dock, she had withstood thestorms and tides of years, and doubtless must stay in94that solitary spot until time should disintegrate hermetal and dissolve its atoms in the eternal sea.

The palms on the atoll paraded in battalions, wavingtheir dark heads like shakos, and the surf shone in silversplashes, as I sat on the cabin house and watched thedawn unfold. Slowly the moon withdrew. At half-pastfive o’clock, the mother of life and her coldlybrilliant satellite were in concert, and the ocean wasexquisitely divided by sunbeams and moonbeams matchingfor favor in my admiring eyes.

Kopcke reappeared with a cigarette. He had anunusual chance to find me alone, and was hungry for information.

“There is a passage in the reef at Takaroa,” he said,“but you can bet the Marara won’t go through it. It isplenty big enough to let her in, but that takes seamanship.Now, I have seen Mapuhi sail his schoonerthrough this passage in half a gale of wind, and swingher about inside in the space most chauffeurs in Tahitineed to turn their automobiles. No one else would tryit. He won’t go in; but Mapuhi would have his crewstand by, and, with the wheel in his own hands, wouldtear through the opening as if he had all the seven seasabout him.”

I was below washing my hands, when the roar ofthe breakers came to my ears with the call of Moetthat a boat was leaving. I rushed to the waist of theschooner and, catching hold of a belayed rope’s end,dropped on the dancing thwart. Chocolat made abound and landed on his master’s lap. Moet swore,but we were away.

There was a high sea, and for a few seconds it was95pitch and toss whether we could keep right side up.However, we struck the gait of the rollers, and, withPiri a Tuahine at the long steering oar, moved towardthe beach, urged on by rowers and breakers, but opposedby a strong outsetting current.

The dexterity of the steersman saved us a dozentimes from capsizing. Often we climbed waves that,but for an expert guidance, would have crashed overus. Many and many a boat turns over in these“landings” and spills its life freight to death or hurt.Nearing the passage, a white and brawling two hundredfeet between murderous rocks, the boat had to beswung obliquely to enter, and we hung upon a comber’speak for a seeming age, the rowers sweating furiously atthe oars, until Piri a Tuahine gave a staccato signal.Oars inboard, we rushed down the shore side of thebreaker, and were at peace in a lovely lagoon.

Of the many miles of circumference of Takaroa, atiny motu was inhabited by the hundred and fiftypeople, and on it they had built a stone quay for smallboats. We made fast to it and sprang ashore.

96

CHAPTER VI

Diffidence of Takaroans—Hiram Mervin’s description of the cyclone—Teamo’swonderful swim—Mormon missionaries from America—Itake a bath.

THERE was no stir on the quay of Takaroa. Inthese latitudes the civilized stranger is shockedby the indifference to his arrival of the half-nakednative. It enrages a prideful white. He perhapsremembers the pages of Cook and the other discoverers,who wrote of the overflowing enthusiasm ofthe new-found aborigines for them; but he forgets thepages of history since national, religious, and businessrivalries invaded the South Seas. These Paumotuans,and, indeed, most Polynesian peoples, are kin to petcats who madden mistresses by pretending not to hearcalls, and by finding views from windows interestingwhen asked to show their accomplishments or fine coats.Though they may have seen no outsider for months,these Paumotuans will appear as unconcerned at a whitevisitor’s coming as if circuses dropped in their midstdaily. Yet every movement, every word of a newcomeris as alluring to their imaginations, bored by thesameness of their days, as a clown’s antics to a child.

“It is a politeness and pride, not indifference,” hadexplained my friend, that first gentleman of Tahiti,the Chevalier Tetuanui, of Mataiea. “We simple islandershave been so often rebuffed by uncultivatedwhites that we wait for advances. It is our etiquette.”

97The main thoroughfare of the village stretched upfrom the quay half a mile, with one or two ramifyingbyways, along which straggled the humble homes of theTakaroans. There were not the usual breakfast firesbefore them, as in Tahiti, where breadfruit and feis areto be cooked, nor did the appetizing odor of coffee rise,as in Tahiti, for Mormonism forbade coffee to its adherentsas it did alcohol and tobacco. Beside the quaywere dozens of cutters, and a small launch. Canoes werebeing relegated to lesser civilizations by the fast sailingcutters. Motor power was new here; almost new inTahiti. But a few years and it would be common, forwhile the islander cared nothing for time, he was attractedto labor-saving machines.

Captain Moet set the sailors to unload the Marara’sboat, and the chief of Takaroa appeared. The French,whose island possessions in Polynesia occupy sea roomin spots from eight to twenty-seven degrees below theequator, and from 136 to 155 west of Greenwich, haveleft survive, in title at least, the chieftaincies, the formof government they found upon seizure. “Monsieurle Chef,” they said of the native officials here, as theydid of a head cook in a restaurant. These chiefs,though nominally the representatives of French sovereignty,were, in pitiable reality, wretchedly-paid taxcollectors, policemen, and bailiffs. But they often weregentlemen—gentlemen of rich color. The strapping fellowwho had viséd the documents of the Marara, thoughwearing only denim overalls, lacked nothing in courtesy.A rent disclosed that the “alls” were over hisbirth-suit.

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (15)

Atoll of Hikuera after the cyclone

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (16)

The wrecked County of Roxburgh

I was not arrayed very smartly, having left collar,98cravat, and socks, as well as shirt and undershirt, aboard.Pongee coat and trousers, with flexible shoes, were inthis tropic an ideal compromise with culture. Open thecoat, and the breeze had access to one’s puris naturalibus,and, if one had to swim or wade, little clothingwas wetted. The chief surveyed me, saw that I took nointerest in the cargo, and drew his own conclusion.

Ia ora na!” he said gently, and led me toward thevillage.

It was seven years earlier that the last great cyclonehad devastated these islands. Takaroa was mute witnessof its ruin. The houses were almost all mere shacksof corrugated iron—walls and roofs of hideous graymetal. A few wooden buildings, including two stores,were the exceptions. The people had neither couragenor money to rebuild comfortable abodes. Lumbermust be brought from Tahiti and carpenters employed.No more unsuitable material than iron for a house inthis climate could be chosen, except glass, but it wascomparatively cheap, easily put together, and anovelty. It was as unharmonious a note among thepalms as rag-time music in a Greek theater, and inthe next cyclone each separate sheet would be a guillotine.Nothing more than a few feet above the groundwithstands these hurricanes, which fell cocoanuts asfire eats prairie-grass.

We had not walked a hundred yards before a powerfulhalf-caste stopped me with a soft “Bon jour!” Agood-looking, clean-cut man of thirty years, the whiteblood in him showed most in his efficient manner andhis excellent French.

99“You are American,” he said in that tongue in thewildest voice.

Mais oui.” I replied.

“I am Hiram Mervin, son of Captain Mervin, ownerof the schooner France-Austral. My father is American,and I am half American, though I speak no English.You may have read of me. I repaired his boat,the Shark, for that American author, Jack. Hisengine was broken down. He wanted me to go toAustralia as his mechanician, but my father said no,and when an American says no, he means that, n’est-cepas, Monsieur?

“Where were you,” I inquired, “when the last cycloneblew?”

His fine brown face wrinkled. Hiram had a firmchin, a handsome black mustache, and teeth as hard andwhite as the keys of a new piano.

“Ah, you have heard of how we escaped? Non?Alors, Monsieur, I will tell you. I am a diver, andhere I keep a store. We were at Hikueru, my fatherand I, when it began to storm. Father watched thebarometer, and the sea. The mercury lowered fast,and the waves rolled bigger every hour.

“‘The barometer is sinking fast. The ocean willdrown the island,’ said my father. ‘Noah built an ark,but we cannot float on one; we must get above the water.’

“There were four cocoanut-trees, solid and thick-trunked,that grew a few feet from one another. Badplanting, oui, but most useful. He set me and someothers, his close friends, to climbing these trees and cuttingoff their heads, so that they stood like pillars of100the temple. It was a pity, I thought, for we ruinedthem. Then we took heavy planks and lifted them tothe tops of these trees and spiked and roped them in aplatform.

Attendez, Monsieur! All this time the cyclone increased.My father was not with us. It was the divingseason on Hikueru, and people were gathered fromall over the atolls, and from Tahiti, hundreds of Maoris,and many whites. My father was directing the effortsof the people to save their property. We had not yetthought of our lives being in great danger. We islanderscould not live if we expected the worst.

“A gale from the east, strong but not dangerous, hadlashed the water of the lagoon and made it like theocean, and then, turning to the west, had driven theocean mad. Now the ocean was coming over the reef,the waves very high and threatening. We knew thatif ever the sea and the lagoon met to fight, we would bethe victims. Thus, Monsieur, the lagoon surroundedby the island, and the usually calm waters inside theouter reef, were both in a frightful state, and we beganto fear what had been in other atolls. My father waswise, but, being a Mormon and also an American, hemust not think of himself first. My father came to usand tested the platform, and showed us where tostrengthen it.

“‘The island will be covered by the sea and the lagoon,’he said. ‘Make haste, in the name of God!’

“Some one, a woman, called to him for help, and heran to her. A sheet of iron from a roof came throughthe air, and wounded him. I thought his head was almostcut off, from the quantity of blood. Mais, Monsieur,101c’etait terrible! We caught hold of my father,and made a sling with our ropes, and lifted him, unconscious,to the platform at the top of the trees. Heraised his head and looked around.

“‘Go down again!’ he commanded. ‘Cut down thosethree trees. If they fall they will strike us.’

“Monsieur, that was my father, the American, whospoke, though nearly dead. He was wise. We did ashe said, as quickly as we could, and climbed back tothe platform. The great breakers of the ocean werenow far up on our beach at each end of the tide. Thewhole width of the land from the edge of the beach tothe lagoon is but the length of four or five cocoanut-trees.The water below the atoll was forced up throughthe coral sand, Monsieur, until it was like the doughof the baker when he first pours in the cocoanut juice.People still on the ground went up to their arms in it.We feared the atoll would be taken back to the depths.Our platform was nearer the lagoon than the moat—tobe exact, two hundred feet from the moat, and a hundredfrom the lagoon. My father had us tie him to theplatform and to the trees. We had brought plenty ofropes for that.

Mon Dieu! Below the poor people were tying themselvesto the trunks of the cocoanut-trees, and climbingthem, if they could, and roosting in the branches likethe wild birds of the air. They were shrieking andpraying. There were many whites, too, because all thepearl-shell and pearl buyers, and the keepers of storeslike us, were there from Papeete. The little childrenwho could not climb were crying, and many parentsstayed with them to die. The sea was now like the reef,102white as the noon clouds with foam. We had boundmy father’s wounds with my shirt, but the blood drippedon the boards where he lay with his eyes open and watchingthe cyclone.”

The chief, who had accompanied me, became restless.He understood no French.

Monsieur l’Americain, do I detain you?” HiramMervin asked me.

I signed for him to continue.

“Then came the darkness. There were only thesounds of the wind and water, the crash of the cocoanut-treesas they fell with their human fruit. We heard thehouses being swept away; we thought we caughtglimpses of vessels riding on the breakers, and we imaginedwe caught the shrieks of those being destroyed.But the wind itself sounded like the voices of people.I heard many calling my name.

“‘Hiram Mervin, pray for us! Save us!’ said thecyclone.

“Ah, I cannot tell it! It was too dreadful. It washours after darkness that the sea reached its height.Those below were torn from hummocks of coral, fromthe roofs of houses, and from trees. We knew that thesharks and other devils of the sea were seizing them.The sea rushed over the land into the lagoon and thelagoon returned to the sea. When they met under us,they fought like the bulls of Bashan. Hikueru wasbeing swallowed as the whale swallowed Iona, the perofeta.We held on though our trees bent like the mastof a schooner in a typhoon. We called often to oneanother to be sure none was lost. When morningcame, after night on night of darkness, the waters receded,103and we saw the work of the demon. Almostevery house had been cut down, and most of the trees.The cemeteries were washed up, and the bodies, bones,and skulls of our dead for decades were strewn about orin the ocean. The lagoon was so full of corpses old andnew that our people would not fish nor dive for shellsthere for a long time. The spirits are still seen as theyfly through the air when there is a gale. But, Monsieur,our four cocoanut-trees had stood as the pillarsof the temple of Birigi’ama Iunga. Not for nothingwas my father born in America. Mais, Monsieur, thechief is waiting. The mitinare will be glad to see you.Au revoir.

Hiram took a step to return to the quay when hecalled back to me. “Ah, there is Teamo, who is theLiving Ghost,” and he pointed to a Paumotuan womanwho was coming up from the quay towards where wethree stood. Teamo had the balanced gait of one whosits or stands much in canoes, and she strode like a man,her powerful figure showing under her red Mother-Hubbardwhich clung close to her stoutish form. Short, shewas like most of the Paumotuans, of middle height, butwith her head set upon a pillar of a neck, and her barechocolate arms, rounded, but hinting of the powerfulmuscles beneath the skin. Her hair was piled high onher head like a crown, and upon it was a basket in whichwere two chickens. A live pig was under her arm.She was carrying this stock from our boat.

“There,” said Hiram, “there is Teamo, who is thegreatest swimmer of all these seas, and who wentthrough the great cyclone as does a fish. Haere mai!”he called, “This monsieur, who is an American, like my104father, wants to hear about your swimming of the seasin the matai rorofai.”

Teamo put down her pig and the chickens from herhead, sat upon her haunches, and drawing a diagram inthe coral sand, she told her strange tale in her ownlanguage.

“The water is coming over the atoll, and the lagoonand the sea are one,” said Teamo, “when my brotherand sisters and I climbed the great cocoanut-tree by ourhouse, because it is death below. You know the cocoanut-trees.You see they have no limbs. You knowthat it is hard to hold on because the great trees shake inthe wind, and there is no place to sit. Only we couldput our arms around the leaves and hold as best wemight. When it comes on dark we feel the wind roaringlouder about us, and we hear the cries of those who arein other trees. Then far out on the reef we hear thepounding of the sea and the waves begin more andmore to come over the atoll until they cover it deeperand deeper, and each succeeding wave climbs higher andhigher toward where we cling. We know that soonthere will come a wave whose teeth will tear us fromthe tree.

“That wave came all of a sudden. It was like acloud in the sky. It lifted me out of the cocoanut-leavesas the diver tears the shell from the bank atthe bottom of the lagoon. It lifted me and took meover the lagoon, over the tops of all trees, and whenit went back to the ocean, it carried me miles with it.I was on the top of its back, almost in the sky, andit was as black as the spittle of the devilfish.”

105The chief was listening attentively, for she spoke inPaumotuan. Hiram Mervin interposed:

“Teamo went away from Hikueru on that wave andstayed three days,” said he. “She was numbered withthe dead when the count of the living was made by myfather.”

Teamo squatted on the sand of the road. I wasafraid she would weary in her relation, as do her race.“Parau vinivini!” I said, and smoothed her shoulders.

“I kept upon its back,” she resumed. “All throughthat night I swam or floated, fighting the waves, andfearing the sharks. I called on Birigi’ama Iunga andon Ietu Kirito, and on God. Hours and hours I keptup until the dawn. Then I saw a coral-reef, and swamfor it. I was nearly crushed time and time on therocks, but at last I crawled up on the sand above thewater, and fell asleep.

“When I awoke I was all naked. The waves hadtorn my dress from me, and the sun was burning mybody. I was bruised and wounded, but I prayed mythanks to the God of the Mormons. I stood upon myfeet, and I saw all about me the pohe roa, the blackeningand broken bodies of people of Hikueru. They,too, had floated on the same wave, but they had perished.They were all about me. I searched for cocoanuts,for I was drying up with thirst and shaking withhunger. At last I found one under the body of mycousin, and, breaking it with a rock, I drank the waterin it, and again fell asleep.

“Now when I awoke I was stronger, and a distanceaway in the water I saw a box floating. I broke it106open, and found it had in it tins of salmon. Theywere from some store in Hikueru, for I soon knewthere was no living human on that atoll but me. Icould not open the tins of salmon but pierced holesin them with a piece of coral and sucked out the fish.God was even better to me, for I found a camphor-woodchest with a shirt and pareu in it, and I put themon. I then found a canoe thrown up on the beach,and it was half full of rain-water. I made up mymind to return to my home in the canoe. It was brokenand there was no paddle. I patched it, I found theoutrigger, and tied it on with cocoanut-fiber which Iplaited. I made a paddle from the top of the salmoncase, and lashed it to the handle of a broom I found.I kept enough fresh water in the canoe, and after twodays of eating and resting I pushed out in the canoe,with the remainder of the salmon. I could not see anyother atoll, but I trusted to God and prayed as I paddled.I pushed over the reef at daybreak of the thirdday, and paddled until the next morning, when I sawHikueru, and reached the remnants of my village.”

Teamo gathered up her burdens and, with a reminiscentsmile, walked on.

Monsieur l’Americain,” said Hiram, “you may besure that when she returned to Hikueru from Tekokota—thatatoll was fifteen miles away—they were afraidof her, as the friends of Lataro when Ietu Kirito raisedhim from the dead.”

The chief’s restlessness increased, as if he must deliverme somewhere quickly; but I thought of the manthey called the king of the Paumotus.

“The house of Mapuhi, is it—”

107“The chief is taking you there now,” said Hiram.“The elders are there. My father was long-time thepartner of Mapuhi. They sailed their schooners togetherand had their divers.”

“You and your father are Mormons?”

Nous sommes bons Mormons,” replied the half-caste,seriously. “Am I not named for the king who builtthe temple of Solomon. It is a shame, Monsieur, thatthose Konito are permitted in these islands. Theycorrupt the true religion.”

The chief touched my arm, and we proceeded, afteran exchange of bows with the son of the American.We walked to the very end of the small motu orislet. The motus are often long but always verynarrow, between three hundred and fifteen hundredfeet.

The people of Takaroa had chosen to pitch their hutson this spot of the whole atoll because of the pass intothe lagoon being there. That was the determiningfactor just as the banks of rivers and bays wereselected by American pioneers. Where the salt waterwas on three sides—the moat, the lagoon, and the channelbetween the next motu—was the residence of ourseeking.

It was a neat domicile of dressed lumber, raised tenfeet from the ground on stilts. It was fenced about, andhere and there a banana-plant or fig-tree grew in ahole dug in the coral, surrounded by a little wall of coraland with rotting tin cans heaped about. Driven in thetrunks were nails. I asked the chief the reason, andhe replied vaguely that the trees needed the iron of thecans and the nails.

108We were entering the grounds now, and I guessed itwas Mapuhi’s house.

“Mapuhi is here?” I inquired.

’E, he is at prayer, maybe.”

The chief shrank back, as we were on the porch.

Faaea oe; tehaeri nei au. You stay; I go,” he said.

On the side veranda, a girl of seventeen or so, in ablack gown, lay on a mattress and yawned as shescratched her knee with her toes—not of the same leg.She was almost naked, slender and very brown. ThesePaumotuans are darkened by the sun, their hair is notlong and beautiful like the Tahitians’. Beauty is amatter of food and fresh water. She lay on this baremattress, without sheets or pillows, evidently justawakening for the day. She made quite a picturewhen she smiled. The daughter of the king, doubtless.

There was a noise in response to my knock, and thedoor opened. A tousled pompadour of yellowish-redhair above hazel eyes peeped out, the eyes snapped inamazement, and their owner, a strapping chap oftwenty-five, put out his hand.

“Hello! Where are you from?” he said.

“Off the Marara just now, and from the UnitedStates not long ago.”

“Well, gee cricketty, I’m glad to see you! Myname’s Overton, T. E. Overton of Logan, Utah.Come here, Martin! He’s Martin De Kalb of Koosharem,Utah. We’re Mormon elders. Say, it’s goodto talk United States!”

A body leaped out of bed in an inner room, and a pair109of blue eyes under brown hair, an earnest face, supportedby an athletic figure in pajamas, rushed out.The owner seized my hand.

“I’ll be doggoned! I didn’t know anything was insight. The Marara! Any mail for me? Come in, andwe’ll dress.”

The king’s daughter had fled when the missionariesappeared. I entered the living-room and found a chair,while the elders flooded me with questions from theirsleeping quarters, as they put on their clothes. WhileI answered, I looked at the home of this foremost of thePaumotuans, whose father and mother had eaten theirkind.

A dining-room table and half a dozen cheap chairswere all the furniture. South Sea Islanders found sittingin chairs uncomfortable, and these were plainlyguest seats, for governors and pearl-buyers and missionaries.

The walls held prints curiously antagonistic. BrighamYoung, founder of the Utah Mormon colony, witha curly white beard, smooth upper lip, and glorifiedcountenance, sat in an arm-chair, holding a walking-stickof size, with a gilded head. A splendiferous coloredlithograph of the temple at Salt Lake flanked theportrait.

On the other wall was a double pink page from a NewYork gazette, usually found in barber-shops and onboot-black stands, with pictures of two prize-fighters,Jeffries and Johnson, one white and the other black,glaring viciously at each other, and with threateninggloved fists. Beneath this picture was in handwriting:

110Teferite e Tihonitone

na

Taata Moto

Emerging from their bedroom, the elders caught myeyes fastened on the pink page, and they looked grieved,as housewives whose kitchen is found in disorder.

“They’re crazy about boxing,” said Overton.“That’s young Mapuhi who put that up and wrote that.We reprove them for such ungodly interests, but theyare good Mormons, anyhow.”

I led the conversation to their own work in this group.They became enthusiastic. Sincere faces they had,simple and strong, of the pioneer type. They weresons of healthy peasantry, and products of plain livingin the open. De Kalb had left a wife and child in Koosharem,and Overton a sweetheart in Logan, to taketheir part in spreading their gospel among these natives.They were voluntary missionaries, paying their own expensesfor the two or three years they were to give toproselytizing, according to the rule of their church, theysaid. They were eager to return to their women andtheir farms, and their service was soon to be at an end.Each had spent a year or so in Papeete in the MormonMission House, learning the Paumotuan language andthe routine of their duties, and now for a year and morethey had journeyed from atoll to atoll where they hadchurches, preaching and making converts, they said.They talked with fervor of their success.

“The Lord has been mighty good to us,” said DeKalb, who was in his twenties. “We’ve got this islandhog-tied. If it weren’t for the Josephites and some ofthose Catholic priests, we’d have every last one. Those111Josephites are sorest, because they are deserters fromMormonism. Why are they? Why, their so-calledprophet was Joseph. I forget his other name. Oh,no, he was not our martyr, Joseph Smith. They splitoff from the real church. They don’t amount to a hillof beans, but when the Mormons left these islands, becausethe French were hostyle, these Josephites sneakedin and got quite a hold by lying about us, before we goton to their game and came back here. They’re outfor the stuff. The real name of our church here is,Te Etaretia a Jesu Metia e te feia mo’a i te Mau MahanaHopea Nei.”

“Gosh, I’d like to get my hair cut and roached,” saidElder Overton. “It was fine, when I left Papeete. Ijust have to let it go,” and he stirred his golden shockwith the air of a man who has abandoned comfort for anideal.

“Do the Paumotuans cling to their heathen customs?”I asked.

Overton looked at the floor, but De Kalb, the older,spoke up.

“They will circumcise,” he said hesitatingly. “Wetry to stop it, but they say it is right; that it makesthem a separate people. They often wait until thirteenyears of age before prompted to perform the rite. Thekids don’t appreciate it.”

“And tithes? Your church members give a tenth oftheir incomes?”

Again De Kalb replied:

“They should,” he said. “These Takaroans are justbeginning to see the beauty of that divine law. It ishard to make them exact. Perhaps they give a twentieth.112It’s cocoanuts, you know, and it’s hard to keepaccount.”

“Of course, polygamy is—” I was about to say “forbidden,”when I felt that I had broached a delicate topic.I was stupid. Here in a lagoon surrounded by a narrowfringe of coral, to bang the eternal polyangle of oneman and many women! The elders looked pained. Iwas about to withdraw the remark with an apology, butWestover made the most of his twenty-four years andwaived aside my amends.

“It must be met,” he said. “We obey the laws of theland. The American law forbids plural marriages, andour church expressly forbids them. We are loyalAmericans. We say to these people that polygamyis not to be practised. That’s true, no matter whatthe Josephites say.”

Elder De Kalb, who was watching me, interposed:

“I suppose you’re not a Mormon, but, as a matterof fact, isn’t polygamy, with wives and children to theextent of a man’s purse, all avowed and cherished, betterthan adultery?”

Overton got upon his feet. “You bet it is,” he declared,with intense feeling. “It’s nature’s law. Thereare more women than men by millions. Men are polygamousby instinct. And, by heavens! look at all thoseold maids at home and in England!”

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (17)

Photo from Underwood and Underwood
Mormon elders baptizing in the lagoon

Considering the sorrows of old maids, I felt my standardsbeing endangered, but was saved from downrightperversion by accepting the royal favor of a tub offresh water from a cistern that caught the rain-waterfrom the roof. I was seeking to immerse myself in theinadequate bath when I saw the daughter of the king113gazing at me interestedly, and I hope that I blushed.But the princess distinctly winked in the direction ofmy hosts as I attempted to sink into oblivion in the ten-gallonpail.

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (18)

Over the reef in a canoe

114

CHAPTER VII

Breakfast with elders—The great Mapuhi enters—He tells of San Francisco—Ofprizefighters and Police gazettes—I reside with Nohea—Robbercrabs—The cats that warred and caught fish.

TIMES in my life a bath had been a guerdonafter days of denial in desert and at sea, butseldom so grateful as that in the stony gardenof Mapuhi under the tropical sun. My wounds werehealing, but the new skin forming in a score of placesbound me like patches of plaster. Not many houses inthe Paumotus were constructed to impound rain, evenfor drinking purposes. The cocoanut furnished theliquid for quenching thirst, or the brackish rain-waterretained in holes dug five or six feet in the coral wasdrunk by the natives. The Europeans of any permanentresidence gathered the rain in barrels or cisterns,and sometimes made ample reservoirs, while in a fewatolls were little fresh lakes fed by rains, the bottoms ofwhich were formed by a coral limestone impervious towater. Such lakes were very precious.

When I went up the steps to the house, I found theMormon elders fully dressed and preparing breakfastfor three. A can of California peaches, a small broiledfish, and pilot biscuits were all the meal, but the gracewas worthy of a feast. They bowed their heads, closedtheir eyes, and implored God to bless their fare, to makeit strengthen them for the affairs of this world only asthey conduced to His greater honor and glory. And115they put in a word for me, “Our brother who has comeamong us all unannounced, but doubtless for some goodpurpose known to Him who directs the sparrow’s fall,and the sphere’s movements.”

“We have to economize dreadfully,” said De Kalb,apologetically. “We are spending our savings.Canned goods are dear. But we are saving souls rightalong. There is to be a service in the temple in half anhour, and we would like you to attend. We are goingto pray for a successful rahui, the diving season, and forthe safety of the divers. You know they never knowwhen they’re going to come up dying or dead fromthe bottom of the lagoon.”

As he spoke there was framed in the doorway a nativewhom I knew instinctively to be the monarch of thiscluster of atolls. He wore only a dark-blue pareustamped with white flowers, but some men have an airwhich makes you know at first sight that they are mastersof those about them. So was this Mapuhi, who, of allPaumotuans in a hundred years, had become distinguishedamong whites. Mapuhi was a giant in stature,a man solidly planted on spreading bare feet of whicheach toe was articulated as the fingers of a masterpianist’s hand. His legs were rounded columns, themuscles hidden under the pad of flesh, his chest a greatbarrel, and below it a mighty belly, the abdomen of aJapanese or Chinese god of plenty. He was almostblack from a life upon and in the salt water.

His head was huge, a mass of grizzled hair low uponhis forehead. His eyes, very large and luminous, gentlebut piercing, gave an impression of absolute fearlessness,of breadth of mind, and of devotion to his idea, be116it ideal or indulgence. His chin was round and powerful,but not prognathous. His mouth was well-formed,big and sensual under the short gray mustache, andnot lacking in humor or a trace of irony. His nose wasall but missing, for once when building a schooner anadz had slipped and cut it off. His face was thus flattened,with a slight suggestion of a fragment of a Greekgladiator’s head; but it was not so disfigured as onemight think, and preserved a mien of dignity and reserveforce, of moral grandeur and superiority whichone might call kingly were kings as of old. But itwas in his eyes I read the reasons for his rise from theruck of his race to lordship over it, and to the admirationof the white traders and mariners whom he bested in alltheir own ways—navigation, ship-building, and eventrade.

When Mapuhi saw me, he looked inquiringly at theelders, and then smiled. I saw two rows of teeth, largeas my thumb nail, and as brilliant as the pearl-shell fromwhich he had wrung his vast fortune. He stood upright,straight as a mast, solid as a tree, and commandingin every sense. More than seventy years of wrestlingwith the devils of the sea and lagoon, and the outcastsof Europe and America, had failed to bow him an inch orto take from him apparently a single attribute of hisvigorous manhood except that across his broad face rana score of wrinkles, which criss-crossed his forehead intodiamond panes, and made one know he had learned thesecrets of man and wind and water by fearful experience.

Thus was Mapuhi who had made the winds and currentshis sport, who in the dark of night ran the foaming117passes that the white mariner shunned even in daylight,and who had made the trees and lagoons of his isles payhim princely toll. This was the man who alone had outwittedthe white trader who came to take much and givelittle.

“Good morning,” said Mapuhi, in English, of whichhe knew only a few words. He gave me a probingglance, and retired, to appear in a few minutes in blackcalico trousers, a pink undershirt, and a belt of red silk.His eyes asked me if I was a trader come to competewith him. He sat down in a great chair that vaguelyresembled a throne, wrought of bamboo, and carved, andtrussed to bear the exceeding weight of the man, forMapuhi was over three hundred pounds. As he sathe inquired of the elders the reason for my being there.He did it with his foot. He twisted his toes into themost expressive interrogation, which was a plain questionto the elders. They said in Paumotuan that I wasan American, an important man, but precisely whatwere my affairs they did not know. I was interestedin Mormonism, in Takaroa, and in the career of Mapuhi.Assured that I was not another Tahiti trader,Mapuhi put out his great hands and took into them oneof mine, and pressed it, as he said in Paumotuan, “Myisland is yours.”

I was loath to talk my poor Paumotuan, because Iwanted to get as closely as possible to the mind of thisnoblest of his tribe; and so I conversed in French, exceptwhen I appealed to the elders for more exact meaningsin Paumotuan.

“Mapuhi,” I began, “even in San Francisco sailorsknow your skill in these dangerous waters.”

118“Ah, San Francisco!” said Mapuhi, regretfully. “Iwas there. I had a ship built there, and I sailed it toTakaroa. I lived there a week in your great house intowhich one drives with horses.”

I conjured a picture of Mapuhi coming in a hack fromthe dock in San Francisco to the Palace Hotel, and ofthe striking contrast between this mighty man of theseisles and the little men of finance and of commerce whomust have dined about him. Kalakaua, king of theHawaiian Islands, had lived there, and had died there.But charming as was that prince of bons vivants, he wasnevertheless the victim of the white man’s vices, and asyears passed, his appearance became that of an overfed,over-ginned head porter. Even the patrons of thePalace must have had some vision of this man Mapuhion the deck of his schooner, his vast chest and arms bare,his hair blown by the wind. Or, emerging from thewaters of the lagoon, arising from the plunge to thecoral cave where the lethal shark looks for prey. Thiswas what he spoke in face and form to me.

“I had seven nights,” said Mapuhi, “in your greathouse, and seven days in your streets. The people werelike the fish in the lagoon of Pukapuka, where no manseeks them, and where they crowd each other until theykill. I went in a room from the ground to where I slept,a room that moved on a cord; and I rode in other roomsthat moved about the roads on iron bands in which peoplesat who never said a word to one another, and who neverspoke to me. As I walked in the roads they were darkas in the cocoanut-groves, for your houses make cavesof the roads, as under the barrier-reef.”

“But, Mapuhi,” I said, “we are happy in our way.”

119“You do not laugh much,” returned the chief. “OnlyI heard the laughter from the houses in which you soldrum. I am a good Mormon. I do not now drink yourmad waters, but in your city only the mad waters mademen happy. I was a gentile myself many years and didnot know the truth. I, too, drank the mad waters.”

Mapuhi’s eyes sought the picture of Brigham Youngwhich was on the wall, but mine went to the figuresof the prize-fighters, Jeffries and Johnson. Mapuhiintercepted my glance and immediately becamealert.

“Was it possible that I had ever seen Teferite or Tihonitone?”

This question was put to Elder Overton, who hesitatedto interpret. The subject was a scandal throughoutthe Paumotus. I read that in the preacher’s face,but, comprehending the import of the words, I said thatI knew Teferite; that he lived very near me, and thatI saw him often in his store. Once or twice I hadbought goods of him. He was getting very fat sinceTihonitone had whipped him, and most of his time hehunted fish and wild animals. Tihonitone, the neega,as the Paumotuans call Afro-Americans, I had seenmore than once, I said.

“That neega knocked down the white Teferite andtook the hundreds of thousands of francs given thewinner,” said Mapuhi, with spirit. “They are bothgreat men, but the neega is the greatest. Next to thechiefs of the Mormon church, they are the greatestAmericans.”

“Have you never heard of Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt?”I demanded.

120He did not know the man. An acquaintance in Tahitisent him now and then the pink paper which containedthe pictures of fighting men, of fighting dogs,and of women whose bosoms and legs were bare.America must now be full of these fights, and of beautifulwomen almost naked, he said.

“Your two most famous men, Teferite and Tihonitone,sell rum. The goods you bought of Teferite wasrum, for he keeps a rum store in Los Angelese, and theneega, in Keekago.”

Each sentence tore the elders’ hearts, but Mapuhisalved their wounds.

“These men are gentiles, I know,” he concluded.“The elders have informed me. Mormons sell no rum.But tell me, is Tihonitone master of his white wife? Ihave her picture. She is beautiful.”

Overton frowned.

“Mapuhi,” he said, gently, “you make too much ofthose ‘Police Gazette’ pictures. The godly in Americanever see them. They are for the rum-drinkers, andare found only in the resorts of the wicked. Strengthis admirable, but the fighting men of our country arethe Philistines whom Jehovah chastised.”

To me, in English, the Utahan said: “That coon’slicking the white man has cost the whole white race dear.A preacher in India told me England could better haveafforded to give Johnson five million dollars, for whatit has cost in troops. The same in Africa. The evilof prize-fighting, was never better exemplified. Jeffries’beating has hurt religion seriously.”

Mapuhi and the elders left the room, and returned ina few minutes in black broadcloth coats and high white121collars, in which they sweated woefully. We all walkedto the temple. It was close beside the beach, built ofcoral blocks, smeared with cement, white as the oceanfoam. Its iron roof, painted crimson, was the only spotof color on the motu, except the nodding palms.

“It is like the blood of the martyrs,” exclaimed Overton,piously. “The temple was begun over twenty yearsago. Nine years it took to build it, because the convertswere few and poor, and labor scarce. Twicecyclones leveled it. Ten years ago the Takaroans beganit again, and for two years it has been completed. Iknow of no more sublime monument to the true religionthan this little temple. Every block of coral is a redeemedsoul. If only the gentiles in America knew thework we were doing!”

We entered the temple reverently, the congregation,already seated, nearly filling it. On its rude coral floorwere rough benches accommodating five or six personseach. A pulpit of gingerbread scrollwork, theonly other furniture, was apologized for by De Kalb.

“It was the plainest we could get. It was made forthe Catholics. They like ’em fancy, like their religion.”

Elder Overton preached the sermon. De Kalb readfrom the Bible and the “Book of Mormon.” Thepeople who filled the edifice paid all attention. Seriousalways in their demeanor, except when affected by alcohol,they were positively melancholy in religion. Allwho could afford it wore black, and the oldsters hadlong frock coats of funereal hue, and collars like theAmericans.

After the services, I broached to the elders my necessityof a habitation. With the diving season opening122in a few weeks, divers and traders would be at Takaroafrom all about, and the 140 people of the atoll wouldbe multiplied three or four times. Most of these diverswould crowd in the houses of the natives, and the majorityof the traders would live on their schooners. Mapuhiregretted that all his accommodations were bespoken.

The elders took me to the house of Nohea, a small,neat cottage, at the end of the avenue leading from themole, an avenue all shining white with coral sand. Itreminded me of the shell roads of my native State,Maryland, in my childhood. It was lined with theshanties and huts of the inhabitants.

Nohea greeted me quietly. He was a dark man, sixfeet four inches in height, big all over, his muscles wellinsulated by deep fat, and with the placid giantism ofa Yeddo wrestler. He was taciturn, reserved, andmelancholy. Most of these natives became spirituallystrained when, as commonly, late in life, they gave upthe wicked pleasures of the flesh—alcohol, tobacco, andphilandering. They lost toleration for unrighteousness,and the joy that in their unregenerate state had oozedfrom their wicked pores turned to acid.

A friend and sometime partner of Mapuhi, and asdevout a Mormon, Nohea was, next to Mapuhi, the foremostfigure in the archipelago. He was not a trader,except that he sold his pearls, shell, and copra for moneyand merchandise; but he had dignity, strength, andpersonality—not quite as had Mapuhi, but more than anyother Takaroan. Among Paumotuans few menshowed distinctive character. Nohea possessed that,and also physical strength and skill for the diving, for123the handling of boats, and for the making of copra.When there was no white missionary at Takaroa, hewas the hierophant of the Mormon church. He conductedthe services and advised the faithful, collectedthe tithes, and admonished the sinners. He did not failin zeal for that task. Nohea painted a hell darker thana shark’s jaws, a pit of horror, lit by black flames whichburned the non-Mormons, and a heaven on earth wherebaked pig was a free dish at all hours. The Mormonheaven is nearer the Mussulman’s than the Christian’s.Food and rills of fresh water, many beautiful and passionatewives, song and feasting, were promised thePaumotuan. Golden harps and streets of pearl wouldhardly have brought their tithes to the church treasury.

The very day I joined him I began to see thingsthrough his eyes. I was bathing at dusk in the clearwaters of the lagoon near our home. The severe heatof the equatorial day had passed, and the still salt lakewas as refreshing to my sun-stricken and coral-scratchedbody as the spring of the oasis to the parched traveler.The night was riding fast after the sunken sun, anddriving the last gleam of color from the sky.

As I floated at ease upon the quiet surface of thepale-green lagoon, the sounds of the murmuroustwilight—the rustling of the trees and the splash of thesurf on the outer shore—were made discordant by a peculiarscraping noise near-by. I turned lazily over onmy face and raised my head from the water.

On the coral in the deceptive half-light of the crepusculewas a hideous, shell-backed monster, which hademerged from an unseen lair, and moved slowly andlumberingly toward the cocoanut-trees. Its motions124and appearance, in the semi-obscurity, took on the qualityof a dream-beast, affrighting in its amazing novelty.It was like a great paper-mâché animal in a pantomine.

I was beset by apprehension that it might advance tothe lagoon and approach me in an element in which itwould be my master. I swam swiftly to shore andcalled, “Nohea!”

My companion came from near our hut, where on thered-hot coral stones, which had been made to glow by afire of cocoanut-husks, he cooked the fish he had caughtthat afternoon.

He looked at me inquiringly, and I pointed to thealarming creature now disappearing in the palm-grove.

Aue!” he cried irascibly, and sprang after the nightmare.When I overtook him, he was standing at thefoot of a lofty cocoanut-tree and shaking his fist at theobject of his pursuit, which was climbing with unbelievablespeed up the slippery gray trunk.

I teienei! It is the kaveu, that devil of the nightwho robs us of our cocoanuts while we sleep. But wait!I made a vow to destroy the next one I found thieving!”

Nohea went a hundred yards to where a bananaplant was growing in earth brought from Tahiti. Hegathered clay and leaves, and with painstaking effortfashioned a wreath of the mixture six inches wide andseveral feet in length. I stood in wonderment, guessingthat he was making a charm to bring about the deathof the despoiler of the groves.

Nohea took a length of coir, the rope the Paumotuansmake of cocoanut-fiber,—from the tree which feeds them,clothes them, and houses them,—and, tying it into agirdle but little larger than the girth of the palm, put125it about his wrists. The cocoanut-tree had, at regularintervals upon its trunk, projecting bands of its toughbark, and about the first of these above his head Noheaslipped the rope. He pulled himself up by it, and,clasping the tree with his legs, seized a higher holding-place.Thus he proceeded with ease until he hadreached a point half-way of the lofty column. Therehe halted, and, taking from his shoulders his mattedband, he plastered it firmly around the trunk.

He then slipped to the ground. I was as puzzledas a boy who was told at sailing that the ship wasweighing its anchor, and saw no scale.

“That will do for him,” said Nohea, “as the reefshatters the canoe when the steersman fails to find thepass.”

He returned to the fire, and soon we were absorbed inthe pleasant processes of supper. We lived simply, becomingnear-to-nature folk, but we had plenty. First,we ate popo, tiny fish we had snared in our traps, andwhich we swallowed raw, after a soaking in the juice oflimes. With our bonito steak we had broiled cocoanut-meat,and for drink we opened the wondrous chalicesof the green nuts and enjoyed the cool wine. Therewas no breadfruit, for these islands of stone affordedno nourishment to such delicate and rich plants. Butwe had ship’s biscuit from the schooner, and for deserta pot of loganberry jam. Nohea, his stomach full, satcontemplatively on his haunches. Now and then hecocked his ear toward the cocoanut-grove, but he saidnothing. The crown of the tree in which the giantcrustacean had vanished was lost in the gloom of night.A slight breeze sprang up from the distance toward the126Land of the War Fleet, and pandanus and mikimikibushes nodded and gave forth little noises as their leavesand branches rubbed together.

Over all was the atmosphere of mystic aloofness whichthe white feels so keenly in these far-away dots—theutter difference of scene and incident from the accustomedone of the home land. I mused about my ownfuture in these little known tropics—

Nohea cautiously raised himself to his feet, and, motioningme to be silent, directed my attention to thetree up which had gone the ugly marauder an hour before.We heard plainly a grating, incisive noise, and ina moment a huge cocoanut fell from among the swayingleaves to the earth.

A smothered exclamation of fury broke from thePaumotuan, but he made no step and continued pointingat the palm. Then I heard a scratching, and peeringthrough the darkness with the aid of my electric torch,I saw the colossal crab coming down the trunk. Heheld on to the slippery bark by the sharp points of hiswalking legs, and backwardly descended with extremecare.

Nohea watched intently as the animal neared thegirdle of clay and leaves. I noted his excitement, butstill could not resolve his plan. It flashed upon me asits success was established in an instant of action.

The robber-crab, touching the clay, moved less carefully,and suddenly, to my astonishment, let go hishold, and with claws wildly beating the air, whirleddownward from the height of forty feet, crashing onthe rocks at the foot of the tree. In a second Noheawas upon him with a club of purau wood. But there127was no need for further punishment. The drop hadcaused instant death. The immense shell was smashedand the monster lay inert upon the coral stones.

The diver sprang in the air and clapped his handsrapidly, as might a winning better at a prize-fight.

“The fool!” he said. “He has no koekoe—no bowelsof wisdom. He thought the clay was the bottom, andthat he was already with the nut he had robbed me of,and which he could open and eat. Many I have killedlike that one, but it takes time. I have had such a thiefsteal my pareu for his house, and a bottle of kerosenefor mere mischief. We will eat the flesh of this one’slegs, and I will melt his fat against the rahui when Imight have rheumatism.”

Nohea showed me a great mass of blue fat under thekaveu’s tail, and from this he boiled down a quart ofthe finest oil. It was not only a specific for rheumatismbut the best possible lubricant for sewing-machines andclocks, he said. He put some of the oil in the sun, andwhen thickened it made butter, though not with a milkytaste.

This thievish crab seemed marked by his star—doubtlessof the Cancer constellation—to play a deceptive partin the crustacean world, for not only had he practicallyabandoned the water as his element, learned to climbtrees, and to eat food utterly foreign to his natural appetite,but he had a habit of hiding his tail when the restof his body was in full view. He would stick it in anyconvenient hole, under a log, or even in the cocoanut-shellhe had emptied. He was over-conscious and seeminglyashamed of it, like an awkward man of his handsat a wedding.

128The kaveu’s descent from the hermit-crab familymight explain his tail-concealment custom, for the hermitconcealed his entire body in a borrowed shell, andso, perhaps, the robber-baron was but showing an atavisticremnant of the disguise instinct. The whole crabtribe seemed tainted with this fear of being merely themselves.Many of them picked up a piece of seaweed andstuck in on their projecting curved bristles, and let itgrow as a kind of permanent bonnet. Others tookpieces of live sponge, and fastened them to hooks ontheir backs. One clever chap stitched seaweed threadstogether to form a tube, and then crawled into it. Andone masonic crab mixed a sandy cement and plasteredits back with it until it looked like the floor of its pond.

These specious masqueraders selected colors, too, tosuit their background, and the seaweed or sponge mustmatch the environment or be rejected. Older and hardenedbacksliders invited oysters and other mollusks andworms that live in limestone pipes to dwell on theirshells, and move about with them. I was convincedthat these low-down-in-the-scale beings knew moreabout their environment, and practised “safety first”more assiduously, than did man himself. The biggestrobber-crab in the Takaroa groves could not have got ahumble hermit brother to volunteer to go to war againsta crab colony, or risk his life to glorify the crab state.

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (19)

Photo by Dr. Theodore P. Cleveland
Robber-crab ascending tree at night. One of the few photographs taken of
the marauder in action

In carrying a cocoanut, the robber crab held it undersome of its walking legs, and retired, raised high on thetips of its other members a foot from the ground. Itsbody measured two feet long by eighteen inches wide.It did not use its claws in ascending the tree, but clungwith the sharp points of its legs; and I saw it go up steep129rocks upon these. The remarkable strength of this molluskwas proved when one was placed in an ordinarytin cracker-box, which it could not take hold of, anda few hours later had twisted off the lid. Nohea saidthat they were not easy to trap, and that more than oncea Paumotuan, who had climbed a tree in the night toprocure nuts, to his great horror had had his hair seizedby a crab. He said that usually they bit off from six toten nuts upon each ascent of a palm.

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (20)

Photo from Dr. Theodore P. Cleveland
Where the Bounty was beached and burned

“The kaveu likes to eat the young turtles when theyare hatched and making their first journey to the water,”Nohea informed me. “The crab, knowing where theeggs are buried, watches them as they mature in thesand.”

I told Nohea of the crabs I had seen in Japanesewaters, some stretching seven or eight feet, and anotherwhich bore a human face upon its back. To see one ofthe latter crawling upon the sand was to see what apparentlywas a human mask moving across the beach.The Japanese said that these crabs were never knownuntil after a fleet of pirates had been destroyed, and theleading villains beheaded upon the sea-shore.

Against the rat, which was perhaps a worse enemy ofthe beneficent cocoanut than the crab, my friend Noheahad no safeguard. He could not afford to encircle histrees with bands of tin, as did corporate owners of plantationsin Tahiti, but he told me, with great appreciation,the story of Willi, the clever American dentist, and hisatoll of Tetiaroa, near Tahiti. Once it was the resortof the kings and aristocracy of Tahiti, the sanatoriumto which they went when jaded, or wounded in war orsport, and to which the belles retired to whiten their130complexion by wearing off the sunburn in the shade ofthe banyans and cocoanuts. It was famed in the annalsof the Arioi, the ancient minstrels of Tahiti, as a sceneof orgiastic dances.

“The atoll of Tetiaroa,” said Nohea, “had alwaysmany cocoanut-trees. The lagoon is as rich in fish asis Takaroa. Never had many people lived there, forit was tabu, and only for the Arii, the nobles, and theArioi. But now it belongs to the man who takes awayteeth from the head, and who hammers gold upon thosethat remain.”

The master diver spun his tale vividly but slowly.Often he repeated the same statement, for the Paumotuanspeech, like that of all Polynesia, is a picture language,and iteration and harping is the soul of it, as ofthe ancient Hebrew chronicles.

Upon my mat and gazing into the expressive eyes ofthe diver, I recalled what I myself had been told bythe owner of Tetiaroa, and, with Nohea’s story, piecedtogether the facts.

Dr. Walter Johnstone Williams, the dentist of Tahitifor twenty years, had, as related Nohea, taken awaythe teeth of the South Sea Islanders or gilded thosewhich remained. They love those shiny, precious-metalteeth, these children of the tropics, and would give almostanything to gain the golden smile they admired.So when the royal family of Tahiti fell in debt to Dr. Williams,they bartered, in exchange for fillings andpullings, facings and bridges, and for other good andsufficient consideration, the wondrous atoll of Tetiaroa.Upon it the shrewd and skillful dentist found tens ofthousands of cocoanut-palms which had grown as volunteers131in the generous way of tropic verdure, and he himselfplanted tens of thousands more in order to increasethe copra crop. He found a plague of rats, and, beingunwilling to expend the large sum that would be neededfor the metal bands which would frustrate the rats, helonged for a Pied Piper to lead the pests into the sea.But he bethought himself of the proverbial appetite ofthe domestic cat for the rat, and, lacking a magic whistler,he advertised for cats, offering to pay a franc foreach one brought to his house by the Papeete quay. Hehad copies of his advertisement struck off on the pressand posted upon the trees in and about Papeete, as wasthe custom.

The result was a flood, a deluge, a typhoon of cats.The Tahitian boy was as eager as his American brotherto earn a few coins to spend on luxuries; and sothe cats, much like our own in appearance except fortheir tails, which were curved like a question-mark,came in bags, in boxes, and in nets, while others werepersonally conducted, yowling, in the arms of theTahitian youth.

Dentist Williams had not expected so many, and hadmuch trouble in finding places for them to reside untilhe could remove them to Tetiaroa.

There were cats in his office, cats on the landings,cats in every room, and his garden was a boarding-placeof felines. When more than a thousand had beencollected, he posted a notice to ward off any further sellers,and, chartering a schooner, hastened with his livecargo to the atoll. There was no necessity of puttingdown a gangway from the vessel to the little wharf atTetiaroa, for once she was made fast it needed but132the loosening of their bonds to cause the thousand catsto reach the shore in one bound from the deck.

Of course, the cats set immediately about their pleasantbusiness of catching and eating the rodents. Therewere tens of thousands of them, perhaps hundreds ofthousands, because the island had been little inhabitedfor many years and the rats had been multiplyingunmolested. But with a thousand South Sea Islandcats to prey upon them, the easy supply of ratswas soon exhausted. Then the cats chased them up anddown the trees, in and out of caves and from everyrefuge, so that there came a day when the last ratwas in the maw of a cat.

Meanwhile, with such rich meat diet the cats increasedmightily. When the rats were all gone, theywere confronted with the problem of existence for uncountedthousands of cats. They might have learnedto eat cocoanuts, but they had become such confirmedmeat-eaters that they would not abandon their carnalappetites. They did what greed does the world over—whatthe Russians did recently—they began to eat oneanother. And they followed the example of industrialismwhich takes the young in factories.

First toms and tabbies lay in wait for the children ofother cats, and soon there was not a kitten left alive,nor could the parents prevent the devouring of theirchildren because of the avid hunger of the adults.

With the kittens gone, began a struggle, with thedeath of all as the apparent end in view. Swifterand stronger cats slew weaker cats, and the cats whichallied themselves in bands, attacked distant strongholdsof cats. Slowly and surely went on this internecine133warfare, with the seeming certainty that, if not halted,one day the last two cats on Tetiaroa would face eachother in the final contest of prowess. Then one lonecat might remain doomed to certain death from starvation,because there would be no meat left.

Once on a leviathan Atlantic liner, when the usualexterminating process of hydrocyanic gas could notbe used, all food was removed, and the rats were leftto starve, with a dozen cats to hasten the end. But therats ate the cats, and then the leather cushions, andfinally their weaker brethren, until the last rat died ofstarvation.

But on Tetiaroa when there were but a few dozenof the quickest, cleverest, and strongest cats remaining,the process suddenly stopped. Atavism, heredity,or the stern battle for life, developed in the survivorsunusual intelligence, or they had a return of plaincat-sense. Perhaps they held a powwow, or meowmeow,or whatever a council of cats should be called,and decided upon the one course that would preservetheir species. In any event, they saved themselves byending the warfare. They reverted to the habits oftheir forefathers, and went fishing. It is as naturalfor a cat to fish as for a dog to hunt a rabbit. Falconermarked the ferocious jaguars of South Americalying in wait upon the shores of the river Plata to seizethe fish that passed by the roots of the trees. Mygoldfish ponds in California were raided by cats manytimes.

“I myself,” said Nohea, “have seen the fisher-catsof Tetiaroa stretched at length on the shores of thelagoon, awaiting their prey. I have seen a mother cat,134with her kittens stringing in a cue behind her, snaringin silence, and with paws fierce to strike, the smallfish which come in the eddies of the shallow pools. Ihave seen the good parent pass a small fish back toher child and smile under her bristling whiskers ather cleverness in providing such fare for her littleones.”

The diver ceased speaking, and unrolled his mat.He knelt a moment and prayed, and then he laid himdown, and in a moment his deep breathing was informingof his serene slumber.

I lay there a few minutes thinking of his story, ofthe robber-crabs and the fisher-cats, and above me thevast fronds of the cocoas inclined to and fro, while,doubtless, other industrious crabs, unwarned by theirkindred’s fate, were climbing for nuts.

135

CHAPTER VIII

I meet a Seventh Day Adventist missionary, and a descendant of a mutineerof the Bounty—They tell me the story of Pitcairn island—Anepic of isolation.

MAPUHI, though a zealous Mormon, was notilliberal in his posture toward other faiths.In his long years he had entertained a numberof them as ways to salvation before the apostles ofSalt Lake sent their evangelists to Takaroa. A dayor two after landing he brought to Nohea’s hut twoaliens, whom, he said, I should know, because theirlanguage was my own. He introduced them as JabezLeek, mahana maa mitinare, a “Saturday missionary,”and Mayhew December Christian, his assistant. Theyhad come to the atoll to dive in living waters for souls.A few words and they were revealed as exceptionalmen, from far-away places. The Reverend JabezLeek was my countryman, as were the opposing eldersI had met here and at Kaukura. He said, with ourhalf-defiant local pride, that he came from the homeof “postum and grape nuts.” A divine of theSeventh Day Adventist persuasion, he cheerfully associateddiet and religion, as do most sects, the Jewswith kosher foods and no pork; the Catholics with abstinencefrom meat on certain days, and Mormons fromalcohol, coffee, and tea; and Protestants with the partakingof the Lord’s Supper.

136“I am hoping to win for the true Christ a few soulsfor saving from the lake of fire in that final day,” saidthe Reverend Mr. Leek, with the accent of sincerity.There are few hypocrites among missionaries. Theybelieve in their remedies.

Mapuhi, when Mr. Leek’s declaration was interpretedto him by Mayhew December Christian, wasstirred. He said so, and the most interesting subjectin the world to elderly people the world over—the stateof man after death—was discussed eagerly, though withthe reserve of proselytizing disputants. They agreedthat in Mormonism and Seventh Day Adventism theyhad in common the personal reign of Christ on earthand prophecy. Joseph Smith, the Mormon prophet,the pastor from Battle Creek, Michigan, compared withthe God-inspired Ellen G. White, who, he said, hadled humanity back to the infallibility and perfection ofthe Bible as the sole rule of life and faith. They bothbelieved in a Supreme God, and that only in the lastcentury, two thousand years after his son had beenhere in person, God had raised up men and women toconduct sinners to paradise. It had been a revolutionarycentury in revealed religion. The Battle Creekpreacher began to tell of the apocalyptic Mrs. Whiteand her prophetic announcements, and Mapuhi wasbeginning to prick up his big brown ears when he wascalled away. The Mormon elders needed him in a conference.The slow, interpreted speech of the ministerflowed into rapid English as he directed his words tome and Mr. Christian. The latter was evidently ofmixed blood, with Anglo-Saxon features, light-brownhair, dark-blue eyes, but a dark skin and the voluptuous137mouth of these seas. His voice, too, had a uniquetimbre, and his English was slightly confused byPolynesian arrangement of sentences.

“God has set his seal upon rebellion for his ownpurposes,” continued Leek. “The conflict with Satanis fiercer every year, but the Lord listens to those whosupplicate him. He is proof of his mercy.”

He put his hand on the shoulder of Mayhew DecemberChristian.

“The first white settlers in the South Seas wererebels. They were traitors to their king, murderers, andrevolters against religion, morals, and society. Theywere in the hands of Satan, and some of them mustperish in the lake of fire after the final judgment. ButChristian here is a true sample of the strange way Godworks out his plans. He is a great-grandson ofFletcher Christian, who led the mutiny of the Britishship Bounty, and he is a Seventh Day Adventist and amissionary of our denomination.”

The mutiny of the Bounty! A phrase projects ahazy page of history or raises the curtain upon an almost-forgottenepisode. Fletcher Christian! Therewas a name. They frightened children with it whilehe was still alive, and it became a synonym for insubordinationat sea. A thousand sailors in two generationswere spread-eagled or hailed to the mast andgiven the cat while the offended officer shouted, “You’dbe a damned Christian, would you? I’ll take theChristian out o’ you!” He and his desperate gang hadcommitted the most romantically infamous crime oftheir time, and their story had been for a hundred yearssingular in the manifold annals of violent deeds in the138tropics. Their rebellion and its outcome was writtenscarlet in the records of admiralty, and for long wasa mysterious study for psychologists, a dreadful illustrationto the godly of sin’s certain punishment, and themost fascinating of temptations to seamen and adventurers.

The Bounty had gone to Tahiti from England totransport breadfruit-trees to the West Indies. GeorgeIII was on the throne of maritime England, and betweenthe equator and the polar circle his flag flewalmost undisputed. Captain Cook had carried homeknowledge of the marvelous fruit in Tahiti, “about thesize and shape of a child’s head, and with a taste betweenthe crumb of wheaten bread and Jerusalem artichoke.”The West Indies had only the scarcelywholesome roots of the manioc and cassava as the mainfood of the African slaves, and their owners believedthat if the breadfruit were plentiful there, the negroeswould be able to work harder. Lieutenant Bligh,Cook’s sailing-master, was despatched with forty-fourmen in the two-hundred-ton Bounty to secure the treesin the Society Islands, and fetch them to St. Vincentand Jamaica. When they at last reached maturitythere, the slaves refused to eat them, and another dreamof perfection went by the board.

Bligh was a hell-roarer of the quarter-deck, of thestripe less common to-day than then, only because ofsuch mutinies as it prompted. Crowded in a leakyship, with moldy and scanty provisions, half aroundCape Horn, and all around Cape of Good Hope, aftertwenty-seven thousand miles of sailing, and a year andtwo months of harsh discipline and depressing lack of139decent food or sufficient water, the green and lovelyshores of Tahiti were a haven to the weary tars. Theywere greeted as heaven-sent, and for six months theyate the fruits of the Isle of Venus, swam in its clearstreams, and were made love to by its passionate andfree-giving women in its groves. When, with a thousandbreadfruit shoots aboard, Bligh ordered up-anchorand away, the contrast between the sweets of the presentand the prospect of another year of Bligh’s tyranny,with a certainty of poverty in England or hardshipat sea, turned the scale against the commander.An attempt to wreck the ship by cutting its cable failed,but the second night of the homeward voyage FletcherChristian, master’s mate, who had made three voyagesunder Bligh, being in charge of the deck, led a mutiny.Bligh was seized in his bunk, bound, and, with eighteenof the crew who were not in the plot, and a smallamount of food and water, set adrift in a small boat.Bligh’s party reached Malaysia after overcoming overwhelmingdangers and sufferings, and most of themwent from there in a merchant’s ship to London, whereBligh’s account of the mutiny, and his and his loyalmen’s wanderings, “filled all England with the deepestsympathy, as well as horror of the crime by which theyhad been plunged into so dreadful a situation.” Thefrigate Pandora, with twenty-four guns and 166 fightingmen, blessed by bishops, and with a special word fromthe king, but just temporarily recovered from his recurrentinsanity, sailed speedily to “apprehend the mutineers.”

Those hearties had meanwhile arranged their ownfates. The Bounty was now a democracy with Christian140as president, and the vote, after an experiment inanother islet, was to go back to the fair ones in thegroves of Tahiti. There sixteen of the twenty-fiveaboard, determined to become landsmen, and, with thejoyous shouts and hula harmonies of their native friends,transferred their share of the plunder on the ship tothe shore, and went to dancing among the breadfruits.Christian was shrewder. He knew well the long armof the British monarchy, and warned his shipmates theirhaven would be but for a little while. They were caperingto the pipes of Pan and would not listen, and so withnine Englishmen, six Tahitian men, ten Tahitian belles,and a girl of fifteen, the Bounty weighed and steereda course unknown to those who stayed.

These latter weltered in an Elysium of freedom fromhumiliations, discipline, work, and unrequited cravingsfor mates, and in a perfection of warmth, deliciousviands, exaltation of rank, and amorous damsels.Chiefs adopted them, maidens caressed them, the tenderzephyrs healed their vapors, and they were happy; untilthe Pandora arrived, snared them, and took them inchains to England, where they were tried and threehanged in chains at Spithead. The Pandora reportedthat no trace could be found of the Bounty, and themost that could be done was to anathematize Christianand the mutineers, and to make the path of the ordinaryseaman more thorny, as a deterrent to others.

For twenty-four years England heard nothing of thefurther movements of the pirates. The new generationforgot them, but Christian’s name lingered as a threatand a curse. The ship and crew disappeared as completelyas though at the bottom of the sea; and when141their refuge finally was disclosed, horrifying and alsowonderfully poignant chapters were added to the logof the Bounty, and one of the most curious and affectingconditions of humanity brought to light. The bare outlineof all this is in every Pacific chronography, butone must have heard its obscure intricacies from a scionof a participant to appreciate fully their lights andshadows. Mayhew December Christian told me these,and the Reverend Jabez Leek commented and pointedthe moral.

“My great grandfatheh want go farthes’ from Engalan’,”said Mayhew, “and he look on chart of Bountyan’ fin’ small islan’ not printed but jus’ point of pencilmade by cap’in where English ship some years beforefind. It was call’ Pitcairn for midshipman who firs’see it from mas.’ He steer there an’ in twenty-threeday Bounty arrive. That where I was born.”

Not by any spelling or clipping of letters could Iconvey the speech and accent of the islander, English,Tahitian, and American,—Middle Western,—combinedinto a peculiar patois, soft at times, and strident atothers, with admixture of Tahitian words. He wenton to tell how his ancestor and his companions lookedwith hope at the land which must give them safety ordeath. They reached the shore through a rocky inletand rough breakers, and, on finding stone images, hatchets,and traces of heathen temples, were cast down byfear of savages. But as days passed, and they graduallywandered over the entire island without trace of anypresent inhabitants, they felt secure. Its smallness inthat vast and then trackless waste of waters below theline reassured them of its insignificance to mariners or142rulers, it being only five miles long by two wide, andwith no harbor or protected bay. Rugged in outline, anduninviting from the deck, with peaks and precipicessheer and sterile-looking, the mutineers were gladdenedto walk through forests of beautiful and useful trees,with fruit and grasses for making native clothes; andabout its borders to be able to catch an abundance offish and crustaceans.

They drove and warped the ship into the inlet againstthe cliff, and fastened it by a cable to a mighty tree,and in a few weeks removed everything useful to theupland where they pitched their first camp. Christian,with the determination and foresight that saved hisgroup from the ignominious end of those who wouldnot abjure the ease of Tahiti, insisted on burning theBounty, to remove all indication of their origin to visitors,and, doubtless, to make impossible belated effortsto desert their sanctuary. They lived in tents made ofthe canvas until they built houses from the ship’s planks,and these among the spreading trees so that they werecompletely unseen from the sea. They had ample provisionsfrom the stores until they could raise a crop ofvegetables, and the plants they brought might supplementthose indigenous. The island was covered withluxurious growths, there was water, and they extractedsalt from pools among the rocks. They parceled out allthe land among the Englishmen, and each with his Tahitianwife set up his own home. The Tahitian menhelped different ones in their building and cultivation,and in peace and comparative plenty they began one ofthe most startling experiments of mankind.

Nine Englishmen, mostly rude sailors, with ten Tahitian143women and a girl, and six Tahitian men,—unevenlydivided as to sex, whites and Polynesians unable toconverse except meagerly, with totally different inheritanceand habits,—were there as the experimenters, withno restraint upon passions or covetings except the feeblecheck of mutual interests. A hamlet in the ripest civilizationhas difficulty to govern by these. Compromisethrough a supposed expression of the will of the majorityin elections has become an accepted solvent, but inreality the determined and organized minority wins usually.On Pitcairn, as in Eden, a woman caused the failure.After two years of associated achievement, the wifeof Williams, a mutineer, having fallen to death froma cliff while gathering sea-birds’ eggs, that subject ofKing George demanded and was awarded the wife ofa Tahitian comrade. The committee of the whole,Anglo-Saxon whole, in contemplation of their ownnaked souls, could not deny Williams. The womanleft the hut of her husband and shared the couch ofthe victor in the award. There was no appeal, forthe supreme court, as in America, was final, no matterwhat the congress of the people wished. The lady wascomplacent, but the cuckolded Tahitian got togetherhis color majority and protested. He was told tonurse his wrath in hell, and the court administered summarysentences to all who disputed its power or equity.Timiti had murmured, but, as mere treason was toosublimated a charge, they brought another against him,and the tribunal was assembled, with the entire citizenryas witnesses and auditors. Christian walked up anddown in the house as evidence was offered, and once,as he turned, Timiti, sure of the court’s finding, flew144out of the door. He escaped to the other shore of theisland, but after weeks was decoyed by false promisesand murdered as his deceivers combed his tangled hair,a sign of friendship.

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (21)

Photo from Dr. Theodore P. Cleveland
The church on Pitcairn Island

The remaining Tahitian males formed a committee ofvigilance, and voted to rid the island of the entire supremecourt. Its members were saved from immediateassassination by their wives, who, in the way of womenon continent and islet, loved them because they werethe fathers of their children. Moreover, since Cookclaimed as paramour in Hawaii the Princess Lelemahoalani,dark women have been fired by ambition for socialand environmental climbing on a white family tree.The wives of the English in Pitcairn were able to informtheir husbands through the gossip of the wives of theTahitians, who also sided with the whites. One carriedher adherence far enough to murder her spouse whilehe slept. Life was made fearful for these wives, andonce they constructed a raft and were beyond the breakersto sail to Tahiti or oblivion, when the Englishmen’swomen’s wailing and pleading induced them to return.For months more it was touch and go as to survival.Murder stalked hourly, and the oppression of thewhites became that of masters towards slaves. Then theTahitians crept into their huts and secured the firearms,and with these hunted down the Europeans. Theykilled first John Williams, the successful litigant, andthen Fletcher Christian, the chief justice, and, quickly,John Mills, Isaac Martin, and William Brown. WilliamMcCoy, John Quintal, and John Adams were fleetenough to reach the woods, and Edward Young, midshipmanof the Bounty, beloved of all the women, was145secreted by them. John Adams when hunger-pressedshowed himself, and was shot and badly wounded. Heran to the bluff above the sea, and was about to hurlhimself to destruction when induced to refrain by hispursuers, whose hearts failed them. Adams, Young,McCoy, and Quintal, but a quartet of the nine mutineers,remained, and five of the six Tahitian men. Thelatter had cut down the four to a minority of the malepopulace, and were delighted to swear eternal amity.Adams recovered, and, at a midnight session, the whitesreleased themselves from their oaths and decreed thewiping out of every male but themselves. They sworeas allies the widows of the other sailors, and, as fast asdark opportunity offered, the decree was executed.They were, shortly, the only men.

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (22)

Photo from Dr. Theodore P. Cleveland
The shores of Pitcairn Island

Now was a second chance for peace and success. Theexperiment of putting together without higher authoritya band of white men with women and slaves as spoilshad miscarried. The inferior tribesmen were finished,but there were four of the higher race, and eleven nativewomen, still subjects for further probation. Onewould say for certain that on that lonely speck of land,having glutted any blood lust, and with twelve of theirnumber already dead, these four men of the same race,religion, and profession would get along somehow. Itwas not to be.

“McCoy,” said Mayhew December Christian, “likedto drink liquor. Before he was a seaman he worked ina distillery in England, and on Pitcairn he distilled tileaves in his tea-kettle. They all had drunk his alcohol,and it had been a factor in the quarrels. He got worseas he became older, and he and Quintal kept up a146continuous spree until the devil gripped McCoy for hisown, and McCoy tied a rock around his waist andleaped into the sea. Three whites were left, and Quintalhad learned nothing from the past. He drankthe ti liquor, and when his wife came from fishing withtoo few fish he bit off her ear. When she fell fromthe cliff and was drowned, Quintal, with all the otherwomen to choose from, demanded the wife of one ofhis two shipmates. He made terrible threats againstboth of them, and they knew he meant what he said.”

In the first case since its institution the court ofPitcairn divided. Adams and Young, taunted by thecontinuing insults of Quintal to their matrimonial integrity,and faced with the probability of extinction unlessthey acted vigorously, seceded from the minority.They deluded Quintal into a momentary incautiousnesswhen the recurrent insistence of his demand was beingquarreled over in the presence of the entire community,and butchered him with a hatchet.

“I heard the daughter of John Mills, an old woman,relate the incident,” said Mayhew. “They were gatheredtogether, children and all, in Adams’s house, whenhe and Young jumped upon Quintal and chopped himto pieces. The blood was everywhere, she said, and wegrew up with a song about it. My mother used tocroon it to me on her lap.”

Young, midshipman, of gentle breeding, and a seriousman at his lightest, faded away, and in his last,melancholy days, uttered the name of God. Convincedthat Adams would not strike him down, hegave way to a conviction of sin, the remembrance of hischildhood at home. He died begging for mercy, which147Adams assured him would be granted to a contrite heart.They laid him in a grave upon the land he had cultivated,and over him was said the first word of funeral sermonpronounced in Pitcairn. John Adams, the preacher,of the fifteen males who had sailed in the Bounty fromTahiti, was sole survivor. Fourteen had perished, thirteenviolently, in the search for happiness and freedomfrom restraint. Man had almost annihilated hisbrother.

John Adams had a dream in which it was pointed outto him that upon his head was not merely the blood ofthe many who had been murdered, but that the bodiesand souls of the innocents remaining were in his care.

“Thou art thy brother’s keeper,” said the scroll inhis vision. He counted his human kind. The feud hadswallowed fourteen strong and wilful men, but nature,as it had allowed their crops to grow and their trees tobecome fruitful, had preserved eight of the women, andtheir fertility had given twenty-three children to themutineers. Christian had fathered three, McCoy three,Quintal the bold, five, Young six, Mills two, and Adamsfour. Adams drew about him these thirty-one beings,and commenced a new regimen. He forswore the democracyof Pitcairn, and in the sweat of his soul dedicatedthe island to the God of the Bible and prayer-bookthat had molded on a shelf until then. In tears and withvows he gathered his flock about him and daily andnightly expounded to them verses and read them prayers.He did not lose sight of the material needs in hisflinging himself on the compassion of heaven, but gaveevery one a task and saw that it was done. He taughtthe children English from these, the only books saved,148and it was not the least of his accomplishments that hewas able to make his language theirs, for their mothersknew nothing of it. The thirty-two became one family,the eight widows looking upon him as their father, asdid the little ones. Morning and evening, and all Sunday,a stream of prayers for their welfare and salvationwas directed by him toward the seat of the Almighty,and the theocracy of Pitcairn waxed fat and sweet.With one head, and many hands, yearly increasing asthe children grew, they perfected their fields and bowers,their fewer houses and their gear, and, born intothe environment, the adolescents became marvelouslyadapted to its necessities. When the scene was unveiledto the outer world, it would have needed a Rousseauto describe its felicity.

Captain Mayhew Folger, a sealer from Boston, commandingthe Topaz, lifted the curtain twenty years afterthe mutiny and ten years after Adams had becomeits sole survivor. He sailed to Pitcairn to look forseals, and offshore was hailed in English by three youthsin a boat who offered him cocoanuts, and told him anEnglishman was there. He landed, and was receivedwith warm hospitality. He put down Adams’s statementin the Topaz’s log, with the comment that whateverhis crimes in the past, he was now “a worthy man,and might be useful to navigators who traverse thisimmense ocean.” He also recorded that Adams gavehim hogs, cocoanuts, and plantains.

England did not gain a clue to the “mystery of theBounty” through the Topaz log. Captain Folgertarried a day at Pitcairn, and his ship was confiscated atValparaiso shortly afterwards by the Spanish governor149of Chile. Young America and England were not closefriends, and their navies and merchant marines were atodds. Six years elapsed before even the British admiraltyknew the facts. They were gained on an expeditionof immense interest to Americans. CaptainPorter, of the Yankee navy, had been not long beforein the Marquesas Islands, to which he had taken prizeships captured in the war between Great Britain andthe United States, and where he had flown the Americanflag in token of possession, and killed many helplessnatives to indicate his power. The British capturedPorter in the Essex, undid at Nuku-Hiva what he haddone, and did it over in the name of King George.Bound from the Marquesas to Chile, Captain Stainesof the Briton unexpectedly sighted Pitcairn and wasconfounded at the signs of human life in huts and laid-outfields, but more so when Thursday October Christianand George Young shouted from a small boat to “throwthem a rope.” Invited aboard the Briton and putat table, they asked a blessing in English, and said theyhad been taught by John Adams of the Bounty toreverence God in every act. The Briton commander,amazed at this apparition of civilization from the ghostlypast, put ashore a party, and investigated the colonyof forty-eight. The stupified Pitcairn folk were afraidthat Adams would be taken prisoner, and he doubtlesswould have been except for the pleadings of the young,and especially of Adams’s “beautiful grown daughter.”The captain stayed a few hours and reported to theadmiralty in England the answer to the Bounty riddle,and that never in his lifetime had he seen such amodel settlement or such virtuous and happy people.150England was at war with Napoleon, and left Adamsto time. Ten years later came a British whaler, andAdams confessed himself old to its captain. He beggedfor a helper in governing his commonwealth, and especiallyin teaching them. The captain assembled the crewand asked for a volunteer. John Buffet, twenty-six,cabinet-maker, twice shipwrecked, and a lover of hisfellow, stepped out and was accepted. He knew that itmeant years of isolation from Europe, but that waswhat he had craved in his rovings. When his ship wasready to sail, Johnny Evans, nineteen, Buffett’s chum,was missing. He had hidden in a hollow stump. Thecommunity was obliged to receive him. And so twowhite men, fresh from Europe, became members of afamily of several score half-breeds who, in an idyllicsimplicity and a gentle savagery, had lived for yearsundisturbed by a foreign or dissentient element, andwho in their common affection and openness of heartwere remindful of the Christians of the catacombs. Thesecond period of Pitcairn was ended.

It continued as a secluded handful of people, but newtheocracies began to govern them. God had been alwaystheir dependence and lord paramount, but his vicegerentshad guided them in tortuous paths toward histhrone.

The Reverend Jabez Leek, who had often suppliedlinks in the chain which had led the relation of MayhewDecember Christian from the mutiny to the coming ofBuffett and Evans, said this:

“I was induced to go to Pitcairn by the devotion ofone of its sons to the place of his birth,” he explained.“I met him in California. He was a young man, and151one of the few Pitcairners who had ever been toAmerica. He had voyaged to England as a sailor ona ship that had touched at Pitcairn, and was trying toreturn home. That seemed impossible. Twice he hadshipped on vessels bound for Australia, with promisesto land him if the wind permitted, and once had sightedhis island, but his ships were driven past both times,and he had been forced to go half-way round the worldon them. He told me that he had left home in orderto earn money to start married life better. He hadengaged himself to a Pitcairn girl, and, as is the customthere, the marriage day was put three years away. Itwas already two years and a half since he had departed.He had not the means to charter a ship,—that wouldhave cost thousands,—and his health was fast going.Just homesickness. It was nothing else. The doctorssaid there was nothing the matter with his body, but hegot weaker. There was no ship offering, and I doubt ifhe could have passed muster, but daily he examined theshipping lists, and often went to the docks and officesto get a chance. It was he who told me about Pitcairnand its God-fearing people, and he first introducedme to the true religion of Christ. He was a sincereSeventh Day Adventist, and confident of the comingof Christ on earth and of his own salvation. It waspitiful to see him fail. We lodged in the same house,and I talked to him daily. He said that when he sawPitcairn receding in the distance after seven months onthe Silverhorn, he could not leave the rail of the ship,and remained there when night came peering into thedarkness until at dawn he had to take up his duties.His only hope was in God, but he was destined to wait152until the first resurrection, unknowing time or space,until he comes before the judgment of God. As theday set for his marriage came nearer, he abandoneddesire to live past it, and the only sorrow he had wasthat his sweetheart could not know his inability to keephis troth. He died the day before the three years expired,and in his last moments advised me that God hadmade him the channel through which the truth of religionmight be made known to me. His death openedmy eyes, and I accepted the gospel.

“I studied for our ministry, and, with service in otherfields, I was fortunate enough to be chosen to go toPitcairn after expressing my earnest desire to see God’swill and power shown in such manifest ways. Our denominationhad its own missionary vessel, the Pitcairn,doing the Master’s work in these seas, and I went on it.On the thirty-third day we came to Bounty Bay andanchored, and in the boat that put off to greet us, besidestwo of our own elders, was this young man, great-grandsonof the Fletcher Christian who had, we fear,died without knowing God’s mercy. I remained onPitcairn a long time, a fruitful, peaceful span, for allthere were devout members of our church, and God hadblessed them greatly in faith and works. They had notbeen without religious trials, though, and it was only in1886 that they received the gift of the truth. Buffett,the young Englishman upon whom Adams put theteaching, married Midshipman Young’s daughter, Dorothy;and Evans, John Adams’s girl, Rachel. Theywere there a half dozen years when George Hun Nobbsarrived with an American named Bunker. They camefrom Chile in a yawl. Nobbs had heard there the153Bounty story, and was so excited over it that he inducedBunker to start out with him for Pitcairn in a small boat.Nobbs said he was the son of a Marquis, and soonclaimed the hand of Sarah Christian, the mutineer’sgranddaughter. Bunker tried for her sister, Peggy,and when she refused, threw himself from a cliff, asMcCoy had done long before. Nobbs built a house outof the lumber of his boat, and, because he was the besteducated man, took Buffett’s place as schoolmaster.Buffett was angry, but the people chose Nobbs becauseBuffett had fallen once into a very terrible sin. Everybodyknew it, and though he had repented bitterly, itwas remembered. Then John Adams died after fortyyears on Pitcairn, and thirty of contrition, and Nobbsbecame pastor, too.

“A tremendous change came about then. Tahiti wascontrolled by the London Protestant missionaries; andthey made an arrangement with the Pitcairners to givethem land, and transportation to Tahiti. Every onewas moved to Tahiti, and Pitcairn left uninhabited. InPapeete they saw for the first time in their lives, money,immorality, saloons, vile dances, gambling, and scarletwomen. Buffett and his family returned within a fewweeks, and after fourteen had died of fever, a schoonerwas chartered to take all back. It was paid for bythe copper stripped from the Bounty, which had beencarried to Tahiti. Back in their old homes, all was notas before. Adams had never broken the still used byMcCoy and Quintal, and it began to be more active.Nobbs and Buffett, though good men, liked a drop ofthe ti juice, and there was a let-down in strict morality.Things were at a pass when Joshua Hill arrived. In154England he had learned about Pitcairn, and throughHawaii and Tahiti had come a roundabout route. Hillpretended to have been deputized by the British Government,and declared he was the governor and pastor, both.He fired out Nobbs from the church and school, andmade no bones of what he thought of Buffett and Evans,the other Englishmen. Hill was past seventy, but hehad his way. Nobbs, Buffet, and Evans were supportedby Charles Christian, Fletcher’s son, but Hill ruled withan iron hand. He had Buffett beaten with a cat-o’-nine-tailsin public, and announced that he was goingto reform Pitcairn if he had to flog every person. Hequoted Jesus’s action in the temple, and when he heardthat several of the women had been talking about hisown dereliction, he called everybody in prayer to judgethem. His own prayer was:

“‘O Lord, if these women die the common death of allmen, thou hast not sent me.’”

“This was going too far, and there were no amens,which made Hill furious. I have heard this from onewho was present. When he learned about Buffett’ssin, and that it had been concealed from him, he madeup his mind to give Buffett an unforgettable lesson witha whip. Then he put the three whites on the firstvessel touching Pitcairn, and exiled them. This wasthe straw that broke Hill’s rule. A schooner captainbrought back the trio, and they and others opposedHill. An elder’s daughter took some yams that did notbelong to her, and at her trial Hill said she should beexecuted for her crime. The father indignantly opposedany severe sentence. Hill, who had felt his authoritylessening, rushed into his room and returned155with a sword, and shouted out for the father to confesshis sins as he intended to kill him immediately. Agrandson of Quintal, who had bitten his wife’s ear off,leaped over a table, and though he threw Hill down, hecould not prevent Hill from stabbing him many times.Others came to his rescue, and Hill was disarmed. Hewas soon deported, as the Englishmen had written tothe British admirality in Chile about his madness, anda war vessel came to quiet things. Nobbs took holdagain, and when our missionary came, they were readyfor the real word of God. Within two weeks they all hadgiven up Sunday as the Sabbath and were keeping Saturday,the Seventh Day, the Sabbath instituted at theend of creation, and the day Christ and his apostlesrigidly observed. I loved the Pitcairn brethren.When my time came to go into other fields, I broughtwith me Mayhew December Christian, who had beenselected for his understanding of our beliefs and hisspiritual growth.”

The Reverend Mr. Leek stopped, and Nohea, whohad awakened with a start from a fitful slumber, saidloudly, “Amene!

“You should read the account of Pitcairn by Buffett’sgranddaughter,” said the minister. “Mayhew, we willsing before we go to sleep our hymn of Pitcairn, fifthand last verses!”

The descendant of the arch-mutineer led in a mellowbaritone, which Mr. Leek supported in a firm bass:

“We own the depths of sin and shame,

Of guilt and crime from which we came;

Thy hand upheld us from despair,

Else we had sunk in darkness there.

156“Thou know’st the depths from whence we sprung;

Inspire each heart, unloose each tongue,

That all our powers may join to bless

The Lord, our strength and righteousness.”

When they had said good night, I felt as sinful asMary Magdalene; and Nohea, though the words wereGreek to him, sensed their meaning, and before takingto his mat knelt and groaned deeply.

157

CHAPTER IX

The fish in the lagoon and sea—Giant clams and fish that poison—Huntingthe devilfish—Catching bonito—Snarling turtles—Trepangand sea cucumbers—The mammoth manta.

THE schooner Marara unloaded her cargo ofsupplies after several days of riding on andoff the lee of the island, and went on hervoyage to other atolls. McHenry and Kopcke joinedinterests for the nonce, and tried to draw me into thenet they said they were spreading for the natives. Iwas convinced that I was as edible fish for them as thePaumotuans, and, besides, I was determined to availmyself of the leisure of the wise Nohea before the rahui,to learn all about the fish in the lagoon and sea. Anignorant amateur of the life of the ocean, I was devouredwith curiosity to peer into it under his guidance,and I was resolute to spend my days in such sportinstead of in sleep after roistering of nights with thetraders.

“Nohea,” I said, “will you show me what the Creatorhas put in the water? In my country I know the fish,but not here. Soon you will go to the rahui, but wehave a few weeks yet, and you are skilled in thesematters.”

The diver replied, “E, I will show you”; and he kepthis word, with a prideful exactitude. Days and nightsI returned dog-weary, from the sea and the lagoon, butnever once threw myself on my mat and counted my158pains for naught, as scores of times I had on the brooks,bays, and oceans of America. With our variety ofedibles in islands and continents where there are realsoil and domestic animals of many kinds, we can hardlyappreciate the desperate necessity of the Paumotuansto comb the waters of their bare atolls for food.

The pig, the only domestic mammifer before thewhites came a century ago, ate only cocoanuts, and,like fowls, was generally small and thin, as well as tooexpensive for other meals than feasts. Few were thebirds in these white islands. In many only the sandpiper,the frigate, the curlew, and the tern were found,but in uninhabited atolls others abounded. I saw manypigeons, black with rusty spots which lived in the tohonutree and ate its seeds and also those of the nono. Greenpigeons or doves, called oo, were sometimes seen.None of these constituted any part of the diet.

Except for cocoanuts, the atoll yielded few growthsof value. The most characteristic was a small treeor bush with white flowers, the mikimiki, the wood ofwhich was very dense. It grew even in the most solidcoral blocks, and was formerly much used for thegreat shark-hooks, for harpoons, and handles for theirshovels of shells. The huhu, another little tree, withyellow blossoms and the general appearance of themikimiki, was useless for timber, but the kahia, withdeliciously-perfumed flowers, made an excellent fuel.The geogeo furnished boat-knees, the tou was fit forcanoes, and the pandanus, the screw-pine, filled almostas many needs as the cocoanut-palm. Its fruitwas eaten by poor islanders, its wood and leaves formedtheir houses, its leaves also made mats and hats and159the sails of the pahi, the sailing canoes, and, as throughoutPolynesia, the wrappers of cigarettes. All theclothing was formerly made of this prince of treesfor native wants. The tamanu was scarce, and purau;but there were some herbaceous plants, the cassythafiliformis, which climbed on the huhu and the mikimiki;a little lepturus repens; a heliotrope; a cruciferousplant, and a purslane that afforded a poor salad,and was also boiled. I also saw the nono, not herethe arrow of Cupid as in Tahiti, but a sour fruit, eatenonly when hunger compelled.

In Takaroa, particularly favored by absence of cyclones,by safety of harbor, breadth and depth of passinto the lagoon, and plentitude of cocoa-palms andpearl-shell, herculean efforts had been made by bringingwhole schooner cargoes of soil to grow some of thefood plants and trees of Tahiti, but all such growthswere a trivial item in the daily demand for sustenance.

When Polynesians in their legends spoke of a richisland, they described it as abounding in fish, as theJews, pastoral tribes, sang of milk and honey, the redIndian of happy hunting-grounds, and Christians ofstreets of gold, and harps and hymns.

Shell-fish, mollusks and crustaceans, played as importanta part in their aliment as ordinary fish, andia or ika meant both. In some islands the people wereforced to subsist largely on taclobo, the furbelowedclam or giant tridacna called pahua here and benitierin Europe, where the shells were used for holy waterfonts. The flesh of the pahua was sold in the Papeetemarket but was not a delicacy. The clam itself weighedup to fifty pounds or more, and the pair of shells160from a dozen to eight hundred pounds according tothe age of the living clams. The shells were so hardthat they furnished the blades of the shovels with whichthe native had anciently dug wells to hold the brackishwater.

“The pahua is also a devil,” said Nohea. “In thelagoon he lies with his shells open to catch his prey.Many a shark has torn off his tail in trying to get freewhen the pahua has closed on him, or has died in thetrap. When a young man, I put my hand into ashell not bigger than your face, and it shut upon it.I was feeling for pearl-shell under fifty feet of water.I could not reach the threads that anchor the clam tothe rock because it was in a crevice. If I could havecut them I could have freed myself, but I was ableafter a minute to force my knife beside my hand andstab the pahua so that it let me go. Paumotuans haveoften lost their lives in the pahua’s shells, and one cutoff his fingers and left them to the fish. I alwaysdrive my knife into him, and then cut the cord thatties him to the rock. They are hard to lift,—the bigpahua,—and often we must leave them. Sometimesthey have pearls in them that are very fine—not likeoyster-pearls, but just like the white inside of the clam-shellitself, which is like the marble of the tombstoneof Mapuhi’s wife.”

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (23)

Photo by Brown Bros.
Spearing fish

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (24)

Photo by Dr. Theodore P. Cleveland
A canoe on the lagoon

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (25)

Photo by Dr. Theodore P. Cleveland
Ready for the fishing

Nohea rubbed me every day with the oil from therobber-crab’s tail, and my wounds healed quickly, althoughthe scars remained. He said that Paumotuansdied of coral poisoning, but usually recovered, unlesstheir blood was tainted by tona, the syphilis broughtoriginally by the white, and which the Paumotuan cured161with native remedies. He pointed to a species of coralswhich stung one if touched. The stony branches orplates when fresh from the water had a harsh feelingand a bad smell, but were not slimy. They prickedme when pressed against my arm, and the sting lastedfrom a few minutes to half an hour, with different specimens.The sensation was as painful as from nettlesor the Physalia, the Portuguese man-of-war. Onecoral, sulphurous or dark in color, Nohea warned menot to touch, saying it would cause my hand and armto swell for days. There was a jellyfish, he said, thekeakea, that in certain months, January, February, andMarch, almost filled the lagoon, and they stung sofiercely, especially about the eyes, that diving ceased assoon as they appeared.

There were fish, too, that were deadly to eat, someat one time and some at another, as fish venomous inone lagoon were innocuous in another. Some isles wereblessed by having no poisonous fish, as Hao, Amanu,Negonego, Marokau, Hikueru, Vahitahi, Fakahina, andPukapuka. Marutea of the north, Raraka, Kauehi,Katiu, Makemo, Takume, Moruroa, and Marutea ofthe south, were cursed by the opposite condition. InRangira only the haamea of the pass was hurtful.The meko was the most feared fish at Marutea of thesouth, occasioning a terrible dysentery with cramps,which ended in vertigo and extreme weakness. Mullets,also, were often harmful in certain lagoons, andthe muraena killed.

What made these fish poisonous? Science guessedthat the larvæ of the coral animals were the cause.These fish ate the coral, and it was noticed that in December,162January, and February, at the time the coralsexpelled their larvæ,—were in blossom, as the expressionwent,—the toxicity of the fish was highest. Otherfish were made poisonous by eating the sea-centipede,curious creatures which looked like yards of blackstring and wound themselves around the corals. Theyhad thousands of minute legs.

While all land-crabs were safe to eat, certain sea-crabswere injurious, one in particular, a stark-whitespecies, which was death to swallow, and which despairingPaumotuans had bolted as a suicide potion.Even certain starfish must be avoided, one, a lovelycone-shaped kind, being deadly, their barbs injectinga virulent poison which speedily dilated the arm andthen the body hugely, and made the heart stop beating.To the native such illnesses were awesome mysteries,yet he had learned ages ago to distinguish thebaneful fishes by the empire path of pain and deathwhich all races have trod toward safety from the enemiesof mankind. His more open foes, whom hehunted for food, the native met fearlessly, and foughtwith adroitness.

The devilfish, or octopus, frequented mostly the outsideof the reef and preyed on mollusks and crustaceans,being naturally timid and inoffensive, though capableof affrighting attack when molested. They commonlytook up their abode in some cavern or crevice, and laysafely ensconced in the shadow, simulating the colorof their surroundings so artfully that their victimshardly ever saw them until grasped by the suckers ofthe many long, muscular arms.

“In Samoa,” said Nohea, when we went to a certain163spot to seek out the devilfish, “is the Fale o le Fe’e, theHouse of the Octopus. It is very large, with blackbasalt walls, and has a pillar in the center. It wasbuilt to guard against the tribe of giants who oncetraded with Samoa.”

The devilfish was, as I said, at most times shy andharmless but, when roused, the most dangerous of antagonists.We met one at close quarters the third timewe paddled to the caves or recesses in the coral rock. Itwas near sunset, and there were already black shadowsabout the ledge, which at low tide disclosed the nicheswrought in it by the action of the water. In one ofthese I saw two fiery eyes with white rims as big as dinner-plates,and Nohea said to beware, that they belongedto an enormous fe’e. Nohea had a mighty spear or grainwith three points of solid iron, and a heavy, long shaft, ona rope attached to the prow of the canoe. Better stillI carried a rifle with bullets that would kill a wild bull.Nohea steered the canoe up to the nook and thrust outa long, light stick toward the glittering eyes. Thecuttlefish threw out one tentacle upon it. Noheateased him as one might tease a cat, and another tentacletook hold. Again the stick was manipulated,and finally, after half an hour, ten arms were fastenedtightly upon the rod. Nohea gently drew the rod towardhim, and the fe’e emerged from his den, so that,though the light was growing dim, I was able for aminute to survey him in the fullest detail, as I satwith my rifle to my shoulder.

His body, bigger than a barrel, was like a dirty graybag, with one end three-cornered for use as a steering-fin,or rudder. His mouth was like an opening in a164sack, with a thick, circular lip and a great parrot-likebeak, which was almost hidden at the moment. Histentacles were in a circle around the mouth, and werelarge at the trunk and tapering to the ends. Two mainarms with which he supported himself against the rockwere twice as long as the others, and differently formed.The fiery eyes were serpent-like, and set back of thearms.

“If he were not so strong I would jump on himnow that I have his tentacles engaged, and would bitethe back of his neck till he died,” said Nohea, withanger. “I have slain many that way. But this onewould destroy me in a moment. Once we hooked oneby mistake when we were fishing for barracuda froma canoe. My companion hauled him to the side of thecanoe, when the octopus threw his arms about him andpulled him into the sea. I sprang after him, and put mythumbs in the eyes of the beast. He moaned and cried,and covered us with his black fluid; but he let go, andfled, blinded.”

The octopus was regarding us with apparent calm.The rod he held was twenty-five feet in length, so thatour canoe was more than twenty feet from his eyes.Nohea now agitated the rod, and the fe’e retained hisgrasp, but began to change from a slaty gray to red,with black mottlings.

“He is enraged,” said Nohea, warningly. “Prepareto shoot if the tavero fails!”

He stood up in the canoe, and, resting the bamboorod on the gunwale, poised his spear. The devilfishfelt the menace of his attitude, and his two longesttentacles began to writhe in the air, as he measured165our distance. Then Nohea, with a step back, launchedthe grain, and with so true an aim that it penetratedthe eye of the grisly creature and half unbalanced him.Instantly the air was filled with the cloud of sepia heejected,—a confession of defeat,—and the terriblearms with their twisting, coiling tips were thrust at usin lightning movements. But Nohea had seized apaddle, and parted us by thirty feet. The fe’e waspulled into the water, but was not yet dead. Hestruggled as if drowning, the great arms rising andfalling upon the surface, and a direful groaning issuingwith the bubbles that covered the surface. I firedtwice at his bulk seen clearly in the water, and after tenminutes it relaxed utterly. A musky, delicious odorfilled the air.

With immense difficulty we brought his abhorrentcorpse partly upon the ledge to measure it, and to cutoff some of the tentacles for broiling. Nohea said itweighed a thousand pounds, but that he had seen onethat weighed two tons, and whose arms stretched seventyfeet. The two longest limbs of our octopus wererounded from the body to within two feet of their tips,when they flattened out like blades. Along the edgeswere rows of suckers, each with a movable membraneacross it. When these suckers fastened on an object,the membrane reacted and made a vacuum under eachsucker. Nohea explained that wherever the suckerstouched one’s flesh it puckered and blistered, and twomonths would elapse before it healed. He showed mescars upon his own skin. Our octopus had two thousandand more suckers on its tentacles.

“In Japan,” I told Nohea, “I have seen the men at166night sink in the sea earthenware jars, very tall andstout, and in the morning find them occupied each bya devilfish, who must have thought them suitable toits condition in life.”

We had other methods of catching the fe’e. Onewas to tie many pieces of shell on a large stick withthe pointed ends up, and from our canoe to strike thewater with this. The resulting noise or vibration attractedthe octopi, who thought the bait alive, and,eager to examine, threw themselves upon it and werekilled and hoisted aboard. Nohea would strike thecanoe sometimes with his paddle in a rhythmical manner,and draw them to hear the concert, when he wouldspear them.

At the rookeries of the hair seals on Puget Sound,bounty hunters lure these destroyers of salmon netsand traps, by the wailing of a fiddle string, the wheezeof an accordian, a hymn upon a mouth organ, or almostany musical note. The hair seal rises to the surface tolisten to the entrancing notes, and is shot by the hunterfrom his boat.

The smaller devilfish Nohea eviscerated and ate,or gave to his friends. I could not look at them asfood. The sepia still contained in their sacs he driedfor bait for small-mouthed fish, and we used also thebellies of hermit-crabs, the tentacles of squid, and thetails of various kinds of fish. For the larger, scaledfish, Nohea preferred hooks of mikimiki, which he carvedfrom the bushes, or of turtle-shell or whalebone, thoughthe stores had the modern ones of steel. For bonitowe used only the pearl-hook without barb, and, ofcourse, unbaited. The advantage of the barbless hook—that167is, lacking the backward-projecting point whichmakes extraction difficult—could, perhaps, be appreciatedonly by seeing our way of fishing.

When we came into a school of bonito pursuing flying-fish,I took the paddle, and Nohea, with a fifteen-footpurau rod, and a line as long, trailed the pa, thepearly hook, on the surface, so that it skipped and leapedas does the marara. When a bonito took the lure, Noheawith a dexterous jerk raised the fish out of the water,and brought it full against his chest. He hugged itto him a second and, without touching the hook, threwit hard into the bottom of the canoe where I couldstrike it sharply over the head with the edge of mypaddle. The whole manœuver was a continuous motionon Nohea’s part. The fish seized the hook, therod shot up straight, the bonito came quickly to hisbosom, he embraced it, and, with no barb to release, itslipped off the bone into his powerful grip, and washurled upon the hard wood. Thus no time was lost,and the hook was in the water in another instant. Onceor twice when I failed in my part the bonito raised itselfon the end of its tail, and shot through the air to itselement. That Nohea was not hurt by the fish whenthey were brought bang against his chest, can be explainedonly by his dexterity, which doubtless avoidedthe full impact of the heavy blow. The bonito weighedfrom thirty to a hundred pounds.

The turtle-shell for the hooks Nohea got from theturtles which he caught. They were a prime dish inthe Paumotus, especially the great green turtle. Thevery word for turtle, honu, meant also to be gorged,associating the reptile itself with feasting. The thought168of turtle caused Nohea, a fairly abstemious man, towater at the mouth and to rub his stomach in concentriccircles, as if aiding in its digestion. The honu wasin the days of heathenry sacred to high livers, thepriests and chiefs, and was eaten with pomp and circumstance;to make sure of their husbanding, theywere, in the careful way of the old Maoris, taboo towomen and children under pain of death. An old cannibalchief was called the Turtle Pond because he hada record of more than a hundred humans eaten by him.Turtles were of two hundred species, and were foundsix feet long and weighing eight hundred pounds, butmore ordinarily in the Paumotus from a hundred tofour hundred. After a feast the pieces of turtle meatwere put into cocoanut-shells, with the liquid fat pouredover them, and sealed with a heated leaf, for a reserve,as we put up mince-meat.

The best season for turtles was when the Matariki,the Pleiades, rose in the east, and the time of egg-layingarrived. Then the turtles came from long journeysby sea, and looked for a place to deposit their eggs farfrom the haunts of humans. They came two by two,like proper married folk, and, leaving the husband onthe barrier-reef, the wife, alone, dug a hole from one totwo feet in depth in the coral sand, above the high-watermark, and in it scooped a deeper and smaller pipe, tolay five or six score eggs, white and rough, like enlargedgolf-balls. The moon was usually full when thismost important deed of the turtle’s career was done withintense secrecy. The sand was painstakingly replacedand smoothed, and the wife swam back to the reef and169at high tide touched flippers again with her patientspouse. The operation occupied less than an hour.

McHenry, whom I met every day when I walked tothe village, said that it was the Southern Cross and notthe Pleiades that governed the dropping of the eggs,and that the honu did not approach the beach until thefour stars forming the cross had reached a position exactlyperpendicular to the horizon.

“Those turtles are better astronomers than Lyin’Bill,” said McHenry. “They savvy the SouthernCross like Bill does a Doc Funk.”

The turtle returned to her eggs on the ninth night,but if she saw evidences of enemies about, she left immediately,and waited another novendial period and, ifagain scared, came back on the twenty-seventh evening.But when that fatal night had passed she surrenderedto the inevitable. Nohea knew the habits of the honuas well as she did herself. He knew the broad tracksshe made, which she tried in vain to obliterate, andhe often removed the eggs to eat raw, or freshly cooked.Nohea could swim to the beach where the mother turtlewas, and land so quietly that she would not have noticeof his coming, and so could not escape to the lagoon orthe moat; or he could swim noiselessly to the reef, andforelay the uxorious male napping until the arrival ofhis consort from her oviposition. To rush upon eithermale or female and turn it over on its back was the actof a moment, if strength permitted, but Paumotuansseldom hunted alone for turtles, the fencing them fromthe water being better achieved by two or more. Evenwhen we saw one at sea, Nohea would spring from the170canoe and fasten a hook about the neck and front flipperwhich rendered the honu as helpless as if a human werebound neck and leg. Once fast, the turtle was turned,and then pulled to the beach. Nohea could attach sucha device to a turtle, and without a canoe swim with himto the beach or to a schooner. The turtle was putunder a roof of cocoanut-leaves, until desire for his meatbrought death to him.

Nohea often picked up rori to make soup. Theywere to me the most repulsive offering of the SouthSeas, long, round, thin echinoderms, shaped like cucumbersor giant slugs, and appalling in their hideousness.The Malays called them trepang, the Portuguesebicho-do-mar, or sea-slug, and the scientists holothurian.Slimy, disgusting, crawling beings, they were like sausage-skinsor starved snakes six inches or six feet long,and stretchable to double that length. One end hada set of waving tentacles by which they drew in thesand and coral animalculæ. They crept along the bottomor swam slowly.

There was a small trade in these dried trepang, orbêche de mer, which were shipped to Tahiti and thenceto San Francisco, for transshipment to China, for purchaseby Chinese gourmets. The Chinese usually putthem in their gelatinous soups. I had eaten them atfeasts in Canton and Chifu. They were considered apowerful aphrodisiac, as swallows’-nests and ginseng.

No race so eagerly sought such love philters as theChinese. They had a belief that certain parts and organsof animals strengthened the similar parts or organsin humans. Our own medical men often verged on thesame theory, making elixirs, as the Chinese had for171countless centuries. At a Chinese feast where the heartof a tiger was the pièce de résistance, I had been assuredthat a slice of it would make me brave. There mayhave been something in it, for after eating I felt I wasbrave to have done so.

The fishing for rori was sometimes on a considerablescale. McHenry had often taken a score of Paumotuanmen and women on his schooner to one of the unpopulatedatolls. They built huts ashore for themselves,and others for curing the trepang. They searched forthem with long grains or forks, going in calm weatherto the outer edge of the reef where they found the redrori, which ranked second in the grading by the Chinese,but the black they had to dive for in the lagoon to greatdepths. Some trepang had spicules, or prickles, on theirskin, and some were smooth, while others had teats orambulacral feet, in rows; and these, known to the tradeas teat-fish, and to the Chinese as Se-ok-sum, werebonnes bouches to a Pekinese gourmand. Next in orderwere the red, the black, and the lolly. These latterwe found in great quantities on the reef at low tide inshallow places. They exuded, when stepped on, a horridred liquid, like blood, from all the surface of theirbody.

Against mankind these rori had no defense whenstabbed with the fork or grain, but to touch one of theelongated Blutwursts with any part of one’s body wasto rue one’s temerity. They were like skins filled witha poisonous fluid, and this they ejected with force, sothat if contacted with a scratch or sore, or one’s eye, itset up immediate inflammation, and caused hours ofagony. Many Paumotuans had thus suffered serious172injury to their eyes. The leopard trepang, olive-greenwith orange spots, disgorged sticky threads when molested,and these clung fast to the human skin andraised painful blisters. Nature had armed them forprotection. The native never gathered the rori in basketsor sacks, but made a box to drag about on landor float on the water, into which he put them.

The pawky Paumotuan gave no thought to the aphrodisiacalqualities of the rori, as did the Chinese. Thefilling of his belly or his purse was his sole idea. Thetrepang must be cooked as quickly as possible after removalfrom the water because it quickly dissolved, likea salted slug, into a jellied mass. If the native had nocaldron in which to boil the rori, he threw them on red-hotstones, covered them with leaves, and left them tosteam. In an hour they were shriveled and rid of theirpoisonous power. They were slit with a sharp knifeand boiled for several hours in salt water until the outerskin was removed. Taken from the pot, they wereplaced on screens made of the spinal columns of the cocoanut-palmleaves, and underneath the screens was builta fire of cocoanut-husks. When thoroughly dried andsmoked, the trepang was put in sacks, with great precautionagainst dampness. If not shipped at once theywere from time to time dried in the sun, because thepresence of any moisture prejudiced them to the palatesof the Chinese epicures. In China they sold for a highprice, having the place in their cuisine that rare caviarmight have in ours.

Nohea and I essayed every kind of fishing affordedby the atoll. We often went out at midnight, accordingto the moon, and speared swordfish by the light of173torches, and I also caught these warriors of the seaon hook and line. We hooked sharks and manysorts of fish, and had many strange and stirringadventures.

For rousing hatred and fear, neither the devilfish,with his frightful tentacles and demoniacal body andeyes, nor the swordfish, which could hurl his hundred orthousand pounds against the body or craft of the fishermen,were peers of the manta birostris, the gigantic ray,called the “winged devil of the deep passes,” which wasseen only in the depths between the atolls, and whichwas never fished for because worthless to commerce oras food.

Nohea, Kopcke, and I were out one day in a cutter.This was a sailing craft of about ten tons, which wasused to pick up copra at points away from villages andto bring it to the village or to the waiting schooner. Itwas about noon. We had hooked a dozen bonito, andwere having luncheon when a sailor shouted to us tolook at a sight near-by. We saw a number of the largestmantas any of us had ever seen. A dozen of thesemammoth rays were swimming round and round, incircles not more than a hundred feet in diameter. Theywere about twenty-five feet across, and twenty feet fromhead to tip of tail, and each one raised a tip of an outerfin two feet or so above the water. The fin toward thecenter of the circle was correspondingly depressed, andthey appeared like a flock of incredible bats. Everyfew minutes one threw itself into the air and turnedcompletely over, displaying a dazzlingly white belly.Their long, whip-like tails were armed with daggerspines, double-edged with saw-teeth. Their mouths were174large enough to swallow a man, and their teeth, asthey gleamed, flat as jagged stones.

Nohea said they used these fins to wave their prey,fish and crustaceans, into their maws. He expressedintense terror of them and urged Kopcke to steer awayfrom them.

The manta had lifted the anchor of a vessel in harborby pushing against the chain, and had towed the vessela considerable distance. When harpooned, he haddragged as many as fourteen catamarans or boats withoutapparent weariness. Well might the Paumotuanin his frail fishing-canoe dread the sea-devil! He hadknown him rise beneath his pirogue, and with a blowof his fearful fins shatter fisherman and craft. Notvicious in pursuit of man as the shark, or lithe and ableto impale his victims as the swordfish, yet more terriblewhen aroused by the impotent Paumotuan, the “wingeddevil of the deep passes” stood for all that was perilousand awesome among the beasts of the ocean. Whenharpooned from a schooner large enough not to be indanger from the manta’s strength, the Paumotuan orTahitian sailor loved to vent his hate upon the giantray, and he had names for him then that he would notdare to call him from a smaller boat.

175

CHAPTER X

Traders and divers assembling for the diving—A story told by Llewellynat night—The mystery of Easter Island—Strangest spot in the world—Curiousstatues and houses—Borrowed wives—Arrival of Englishgirl—Tragedy of the Meke Meke festival.

THE scene at Takaroa was now remindful in a diminutiveway of the bustle and turmoil before theopening of a camp-meeting in the United States.The traders and pearl-buyers of Tahiti began to assemble,and divers and their families of other islands to arrive.Soon the huddle had the mild disorder and excitementof an old-fashioned southern revival. Chinese, thecunning Cantonese, two generations in Tahiti, set upstands for selling sweetmeats and titbits, and the merchantsspread out samples of their goods in competitionwith Mapuhi’s and Hiram Mervin’s stores. The whitesdeveloped artful schemes for circumventing one anotherin securing the best divers. These, until contracts weresigned, were importuned and made much of as desirablemembers are solicited by college clubs. The narrowstrand of the atoll crowded up with new-comers whoevery few days alighted from schooner, cutter, andcanoe. All day the moat and sea were alive with boatsunloading the belongings and merchandise of the visitors.The housing problem was settled by each family’sor group’s erecting for itself flimsy abodes ofthe scant building material growing on the isle, piecedout with boards or bits of flattened tin cans or canvas,176while others contented themselves with lean-tos or leafykennels. All was good nature, anticipation of profits,and hope of miraculous drafts from the lagoon.

In the evenings on the verandas or about thebivouacs, there was an incessant chatter. The bargaining,the reuniting of former friends or acquaintances,the efforts of deacons and missionaries, the sly actionsof the traders, the commencements of courtships,and love-making of the free-and-easy foreigners filledthe balmy night air with laughter, whisperings, andconversation. A hundred stories were told—jokes, adventures,slanders, and curious happenings. Religion,business, mirth, and obscenity vied for interest.

Llewellyn, the Welsh Tahitian vanilla-planter, withLying Bill, McHenry, Kopcke, Aaron Mandel, andothers, formed a nightly circle. Sitting on boxes orreclining on mats under the cocoanut-trees, with a lanternor two above them and pipes aglow, these pilgrimsof the deep recited moving tales of phenomena andaccident, of wanderings and hardships, and small villainies.

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (26)

Photo from Dr. Theodore P. Cleveland
Spearing fish in the lagoon

“Sailors are damn fools,” said Captain Nimau, whomI had met in Lacour’s shed on Anaa. “There was aship’s boat passed here some time ago. It was fromthe wrecked American schooner El Dorado, and thethree men in it with eight others of the crew had spentmonths on a lonely island and were beating up forTahiti. They did not reach Papeete for days after Isighted them from Lacour’s, yet they wouldn’t sparethe time to touch at Anaa where they might have gottenplenty of food and water, and rested a day or two. I177wondered who they were until O’Brien here told me. Isaw them only through my glass.”

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (27)

The Captain and two sailors of the El Dorado

“The skipper of the El Dorado who was in the boatwouldn’t let it stop,” said McHenry. “He washurryin’ to Tahiti to find a steamer for America toreport to his owners an’ to get a new billet. I saw himin Papeete, hustlin’ his bleedin’ boat and dunnage onthe steamer for ‘Frisco after three weeks’ wait. Thesailors weren’t in no rush for they know’d they becheated outa their rights, anyway. The squareheadcapt’in had the goods on the owners of the El Doradobecause they couldn’t collect insurance for her withouthis say. He scooted away from Easter Island inthat small boat after four months there, leavin’ all butthose two bloody fools who came with him.”

“He mentioned to me that he was buying a house onthe instalment plan, and would lose everything if hedidn’t get back to make his payment,” I said. “Sohe ventured 3,600 miles in a small boat to save hishome.”

“Any one would have enough of that lonely islandin four months,” said Llewellyn, reminiscently. Hisdeep, melancholy voice came from the shadows wherehe sat on a mat. “I lived years there. It is a placeto go mad in. It isn’t so much that it is the last bitof land between here and South America, and is bareand dry, without trees or streams, and filled with beetlesthat gnaw you in your sleep, but there’s somethingterrible about it. It has an air of mystery, of murder.I have never gotten over my life there. I wish I hadnever seen it, but I still dream about it.”

178Llewellyn was a university man. He had drunkas deeply of the lore of books and charts as he had ofthe products of the stills of Scotland and the winepressesof France. In his library in Tahiti, his birthplace,were many rare brochures, manuscripts, andprivate maps of untracked parts of the Pacific, andkeys to Polynesian mazes impenetrable by the uninstructed.Seventy years before, his father had comehere, and Llewellyn as child and man had roamed widein his vessels in search of secret places that might yieldgold or power. He had worn bare the emotions of hisheart, and frayed his nerves in the hunt for pleasureand excitement. Now in his fifties he felt himselfcheated by fate of what he might have been intellectually.

“I suppose I’m the only man here who has ever beenon Rapa Nui,” he went on. “It’s like Pitcairn, faroff steam and sailing routes, and with no cargoes tosell or buy. Only a ship a year from Chile now, theysay, or a boat from a shipwreck like the El Dorado’s.But the scientific men will always go there. Theythink Easter, or Rapa Nui, as the natives call it now,has the solution of the riddle of the Pacific, of the lostcontinent. You know it had the only written languagein the South Seas, a language the Easter Islanders,the first whites found there, knew apparently littleof.”

McHenry interrupted Llewellyn, to set in movementabout the group a bottle of rum and a cocoanut-shell,first himself quaffing a gill of the scorching molassesliquor. Llewellyn downed his portion hastily,as if putting aside such an appetite while engaged on179an abstruse subject. He knew that rum made all equal;and he was an aristocrat, and now beyond the others inthought.

Allez!” said Captain Nimau. “I am curious. Dites!What did you find out?”

Llewellyn’s eyes smoldering in somber-thatched cellslit a moment as he returned to his enigmatic theme.

“I was a young man not long from a German universityand travel in Europe when I was sent to EasterIsland,” he said, with dignity. “A commercial firm inTahiti, a Frenchman and a Scotchman, had control ofthe island, which was not under the flag of any country,and was employed by them to look after their interests.The firm had a schooner that sailed there now and then,and with me went a young American. He was a graduateof some Yankee college, and had drifted into theSouth Seas a few months before. For some reason wedid not know about, he was eager to go to Easter Island.He could speak none of the lingos hereabouts, and thefirm at first refused him, but on his insistence, and willingnessto agree to stay two years and to work for atrifle, they sent him with me.

“He was about twenty-four, handsome and gay, but astudent. I liked him from the start. Ralph WaldoWillis was his name, and I was glad that I had such acompanion for there was nobody else but natives totalk to, except Timi Linder, a half-Tahitian who wasolder than us and who was our boss. Our cockroachschooner was a month in getting there. It’s more thana thousand miles as the tropic bird goes, but for us itwas sailing the wrong way many days, making half-circlesor beating dead against the wind. We were180about ready to turn round and sail back when we caughta breeze and made sight of land. I hated it at firstview. It was nothing like our South Sea islands, withblack, frowning cliffs worn into a thousand caves andrecesses. The ocean broke angrily against the sternbasalt, or entered these huge pits and sprang out ofthem in welling masses of foam and spray. An iron-boundcoast that defied the heart, or any sentiment butwonder and fear. Boulders as big as ships were halfattached to the precipices or lay near-by to attest thecontinuous devouring of the land by the sea. Comingfrom Tahiti, with its beautiful reefs and beaches, andthe clouds like wreaths of reva-reva, with cocoanut-palmsand breadfruit-trees and bananas covering allthe land, this Easter Island seemed terribly bare andforbidding. There wasn’t a flower on it.”

Llewellyn halted and lit his pipe. In the glow ofthe match his eyes had the inversion of the relator whois remote from his audience.

McHenry, who had been quiet a few minutes, mustcall attention to himself.

“Is there any fightin’ or women in this yarn?” heburst out, with a guffaw.

Llewellyn came back to the present in a dark fume.

“I’ll chuck it,” he said irritably. “You want onlystories that stink!”

Nimau, the Frenchman, took McHenry’s arm.

Nom d’une pipe!” he rapped out. “Take that bottle,McHenry, and throw it and yourself into the lagoon.Monsieur Llewellyn, please go on! The night is justbegun. That Ile de Pâcques is a very curious place.”

McHenry, offended, jumped up. “Go to hell, all181of you!” he blurted. “I’ll go and stir up the Mormons.If they smell my breath, it’ll make ’em jealous.”

Llewellyn took up his narration.

“It’s a cursed place,” he assented. “There’s beennothing but death since the white man found out therewas anything to steal there. They were the healthiestpeople in the world, but we whites knew how to destroythem. Our schooner came into the roadstead of HangaRoa at daybreak. I could see the huge, dead volcano,Rana Roraku, from the masthead. Other extinct volcanoswere all over the rolling land. Te Pito te Henua,the old islanders called it; the Navel and the Womb.That monster crater, Rano Raraku, must have givenit the latter name, for out of it came all those wonderfulimages of stone. The Navel was one of manyrounded, shallower craters all about. When we landedat sunrise and the slanting rays shone on them they werefor all the world like the navels of giants. I fanciedeach of them belonging to a colossus who had turnedto stone. At first, the island was just a gray bulk, thesurface in several sweeping curves dotted with mole-hills.As we climbed upon the cliffs and the details ofthe land grew in the sunlight, the impression was ofa totally different part of the globe, of a cut-off placewhere scenes and people were of an ancient sort, of amystery that stunned as thoughts crowded in on one.That impression never left me. I can feel it now afterthese years. The American, Willis, was fair overcome.He turned pale and put his hand to his stomach as ifsick.

“‘What’s the matter?’ I asked, though I really knew.

182“‘I feel like when I was a little boy and saw the wax-worksin New York,’ he said. ‘All the spirits of thedead and great seem to be around. But I’ve waitedyears to come here.’

“As we walked from point to point that first day,the spectacle was incredible, absolutely bewildering.The whole island was a charnel-house and a relic shrine.It seemed to have been furnished by a race whose mindwas fixed on death instead of life, and who worked forremembrance instead of happiness. Oblivion was theirmost desperate fear, or, at least, they must have thoughtthat the preservation of their bones and the building ofimages of the dead were the chief duties of the living.At intervals all around the coast were immense platformsor High Places of slabs of stone, gigantic stagesfor tremendous statues. These bases were called ahu,and were some three or four hundred feet long, and onthem at regular intervals had been mammoth sculptures.Scores of these lay half buried in the scrub, and somewere covered over entirely by the growth of the grass.Some were fifty or even seventy feet high and othersthree or four feet, as if the makers sized them by thepower or fame of the dead men they represented. Theywere like gray ghosts of the departed.

“I can’t quite tell you the sensation we had at ourfirst stroll about. Our house was at the base of thevolcano, and Timi Linder, who came off to the schoonerin a boat to meet us, took us to it. He was a cousinof mine—some of you remember him—and a fine fellow.He didn’t make anything of all those images orthe tombs. Sheep were his gods, and we had twentythousand of them to take care of, besides hundreds of183horses and cattle. Our house, Willis’s and mine, wasat Mataveri, at the base of the crater Rana Kao, andTimi’s was five miles away at Vaihu. It used to be aCatholic mission. We were soon settled down to a regularroutine.

“We were on horseback all day. Some of the goingwas so bad it meant hours of barely walking the horses.The lower part of the island was all broken sheets oflava, grown over or about with tough grass, and it wasworth your neck to travel fast in it. On the slopes ofthe hills it was smoother, the ash from the volcanoshaving been leveled more in the thousands of yearssince the last eruption. Another horrible thing aboutliving there was that we had to get all our water likein these Paumotus by catching rain on our iron roofinto tanks. God! How I used to long for a drink outof a Tahiti brook! When we were out in the scrub andnoon came it was salvation to find a piece of shade. Itwas not so terribly hot, because Easter is out of thetropics, and, as I say, the climate is perfectly healthful,but the sun came down like lightning on that lavaand the hard grass, and the glare and the heat combined,with the fatigue of the riding, would lay us out. Thenights were cool, with heavy dews which supplied thesheep with enough moisture.

“Timi left us much to ourselves and said that hewanted us to go about without any duties and to learnthe lay of the land. So we did that. The island wasabout thirty-four miles around, but it took us manyweeks to make the circuit, because we followed the indentationsof most of the inlets or bays, determined tosee everything of the marvels before we got down to184work. Those were the days we suffered from thirst.Except for the lakes in the craters which I’ll tell youabout, the so-called puna or springs were far apart, andthen only shoal excavations among the boulders intowhich surface water ran and had been protected byrocky roofs from the sun and animals. Just a few bucketsfulin each at a time, and rank it was. The queerthing was the natives drank but little water. Theywould be surprised every day at our thirst.

“We ascended the crater Rana Kao near our home.It was a quarter of a mile high, and nearly a mile across,a perfect, unbroken circle at its edge except where thelava had cut through and run down to the sea. Theinside was magnificent, like a vast colosseum, and, atthe bottom, a lake unlike any I had ever seen. Sixhundred feet below the rim it was, and more than threehundred feet deep by our soundings, and the sides ofthe volcano were like a regular cone. We saw manycattle feeding or drinking in the midst of lush vegetation,and on getting close to the lake itself we foundthat they were standing or walking on a floating garden.So dense and profound was this matting or raft ofgreen and brown, in which were bushes and even smalltrees, that the cattle moved on it without fear. Yetin places we saw the water rippled by the wind, andat times the cows or bulls drew back from their pathsas if they sensed danger. The water was foul withvegetable and animal matter, but probably once thislake had been cared for, and its waters had quenchedthe thirst of many thousands of people.”

“Ah!” said I, “Llewellyn, I was going to ask you.So far you have been on an uninhabited island. What185about the people you found there. I am more interestedin them even than in the wonderful images andtombs.”

“’E won’t say too bloody much about them,” saidLying Bill, caustically. “‘Is family killed off most of’em.”

Again it seemed that we would hear Llewellyn to noconclusion. He got on his feet, and shook out his pipe.

“A gentleman has no place in the Paumotus,” hesaid, bitterly. “Mr. O’Brien, you must not judgeSouth Sea traders by McHenry or Pincher.”

“Judge and be bloomin’ well damned!” interruptedLying Bill. “I’ll go an’ see where McHenry is.Maybe the bottle’ll ’ave a drink in it, an’ you can stayan’ spin your yarn your own way. I know the bleedin’truth.”

Captain Pincher retreated, muttering, in the darknesstoward the sound of the surf on the reef. The gentlebreeze agitated the cocoanuts above our heads, andKopcke, a child in mentality though a man, beggedLlewellyn to keep on.

“Pay no attention, please, to those bums!” saidKopcke in his politest French. “Now, me, I want tolearn everything.”

Nimau and I apologized for humanity, and insistedthat the scholar proceed. Mollified, and with his piperefilled, the quarter-caste graduate of Leipsic resumedhis account.

“I was going to tell about the people, and I’ll beginat the beginning,” he said, thoughtfully. “A Dutchship discovered Easter Island two hundred years ago,and shot some of the natives. Every succeeding discoverer186did the same. Peruvian blackbirders killed hundredsand carried off five thousand of them to die inthe guano deposits of the Chincha Islands and the minesof Peru. Almost every leading man, the king and everychief, was killed or captured. The prisoners nearly alldied in slavery, and only Pakomeo came back. Helived near us, and told me all about it. Timi Martin believedthere were twenty thousand people on the islandnear the time of the Peruvian raid.

“From then on, with all the livest men gone, thepeople paid no attention to any authority. There hadbeen a hereditary monarchy for ages, and while theclans might go to battle for any reason, no one evertouched the king or his family. But with Maurata,the king, kidnapped, and most of the head men, therewas no boss. Then Frère Eugène, a Belgian priestof Chile, brought back three youths who had been takenby the Peruvians. One was Tepito, the heir of KingMaurata, and the priest thought maybe he could usehim to convert the islanders. He had a hard time, buthe did it. You must say for those old missionaries thatthey stuck to their jobs though hell popped. He hadfifty narrow escapes from being assassinated by nativeswho thought him much like the Peruvians, and justwhen he was baptizing the last of the Rapa Nuiis, andcomplete peace had settled down, trouble began again.A Frenchman who was looking about for a fortune arrivedthere and took up his residence. He saw therewas plenty of land not used for growing yams, the onlycrop, and so he went into partnership with a Scotchmanin Tahiti to grow sheep, cattle, and horses. He gave a187few yards of calico for a mile of land, and started hisranch with the Scotchman’s animals.

“The Frenchman took up with a common woman whohad been the wife of a chief but who was not of the chiefcaste, and he had her made queen. Queen Korato washer name, and she was a caution—like a society womanand a Jezebel, mixed. She bossed everything but herhusband. She started a row between him and FrèreEugène, who claimed authority through the church.There being no regular government, the priest said that,through God and the pope, he was the ruler. He was astrong man, and I must say from all accounts kind tothe natives. They started to work and built again, butthe feud between the church and the queen becamefiercer and fiercer, and finally after personal combats betweenleaders, and a few deaths, Frère Eugène gatheredall his adherents and, securing a vessel through hisbishop, transported them to the Gambier Islands.

“Now the struggle commenced of getting the landaway from the natives. Without any government, andthe land of each district owned in community by eachclan, the queen and the Frenchman had to get title bycunning and force. They did not succeed in that withoutblood. Booze and guns and meat did it. The remaininghead men gave away the land for sheep to eat, forgin and rum to drink, and for guns to shoot those whoobjected to having their land taken. Of course, it wasreally a community, with no private property inside theclans, but the chiefs signed papers they couldn’t read,and the firm claimed everything soon. It was legal asthings go, as legal as England taking New Zealand or188Australia, or France taking my Tahiti. The people dividedinto factions, headed by self-appointed chiefs, andwent to fighting. Some were driven into craters, andsome hid in caves. The crowd that had the upper handchased the other groups. They all began to steal thesheep for food, and the Frenchman hired a band to stopthe marauding and end the war. Then the real massacresbegan. Natives were so pressed they took upcannibalism again, and without fire they ate their meatraw. Ure Vaeiko told me how he warmed a slice of aman’s body in his armpit to make it better eating.

“In the end a kind of peace was made by the terriblemisery of all. But the Frenchman who had gotten theland did not live long to enjoy his bargain. Theycaught him unawares when he was on a ladder helpingto repair the very house we lived in, and which he built.They struck him down with a club, and buried himnear-by. Other whites all but lost their lives later whenthey tried to prevent the islanders from stealing sheepwhen hungry. They were besieged in our house, butfinally were saved by the arrival of a vessel. Now,with their potato plantations destroyed, their housesburned, the natives were done for. They consented tosign contracts to work in the hot sugar-fields of Tahiti.Five hundred were removed there. I often saw them,poor devils. They were homesick to death, and theynever were brought back as promised. They died inTahiti, crying for their own land.

“It was not long after that I went to Easter with theAmerican, Willis. Queen Korato had followed theFrenchman into the grave, and the Scotchman had becomethe sole owner of the island. No one disputed189him, and when Willis and I took up our residence inthe former royal residence at Mataveri, Timi Linderwas the virtual king. The entire population either livedon small plantations which they had to wall in to keepthe cattle and sheep from eating their yams, or theyworked for us looking after the cattle and horses, andshearing the sheep. The fighting was over, for the spiritof the wild islanders was extinct as was almost all thetwenty thousand Linder said were there a few years before.The two or three hundred left lived in the ruins ofthe ancient stone houses, cairns, and platforms, thetombs of the dead Rapa Nuiis for ages. The living piledup more stones or roofed in the walls with slabs andearth, and got along somehow. They had lost all reverencefor the past, and often brought us the skulls oftheir ancestors to trade for a biscuit or two or a drinkof rum.

“Willis and I were young, and though both of us wereintensely interested in the mystery of the island, and theunknown throngs who had built the gigantic sepulchersand carved the monoliths, we had many dull hours.When it rained or at night we thought of the outsideworld. The howling of the sheep-dogs, the moaningof the wind, and the frightful pests of insects made theevenings damnable. The fleas were by the millions, andthe glistening brown cockroaches, two or three incheslong, flew at our lights and into our food, while mosquitoesand hordes of flies preyed on us. We often satwith nets on our heads and denim gloves on, and on ourcots we stuffed our ears with paper to keep out snappingbeetles. Willis was wrapped up in trying to readthe wooden tablets Linder had collected, on which were190rows and rows of picture symbols. First, he had tolearn the Rapa Nui language. There’s one way to dothat in these islands. We all know that, and it waseasy there. They had always had a custom by which ahusband leased his wife to another man for a consideration.Linder attended to that, and sent over to us twogirls to teach us the lingo. They were beautiful andmerry, being young, and looked after our household.Taaroa was assigned to Willis and Tokouo to me. Wegot along famously until one day, after a year or so, aschooner arrived to take away wool, and on it was a whitegirl and her father. That changed everything for us.”

In Llewellyn’s air and low, mournful voice there wasconfession. In his words there had been anger at CaptainPincher’s accusation, but with Lying Bill and McHenry,mockers at all decency, missing from the circle,we others became impressed, I might say, almost oppressed,by impending humiliation. In an assemblage,a public meeting, or a pentecostal gathering, one withstandsthe self reproach and contrition of others, or, perhaps,experiences keen pleasure in announced guilt andremorse, but among a few, it hurts. One’s soul shrinksat its own secrets, and there is not the support and excitementof the throng. We moved uneasily, with a strugglingurge to call it a night, but Llewellyn, absorbed inhis progress toward unveilment, went on without noticingour disquiet.

“My God! What a change for Willis and me! Theschooner was in the offing one morning when we got up.We calculated that the wind would not let her anchorat Hanga Piko, and started out on horses for RanaRaraku to photograph the largest image we had found191on the island. You have been in Egypt, O’Brien?”

I nodded assent, and the lamp threw a spot of lighton Llewellyn’s gloomy face.

“You remember the biggest obelisk in the world isstill unfinished in the quarry at Syene. This one, too,was still in the rough. It lay in an excavation on theslope of the huge crater, not fully cut out of the rockybank, but incredibly big. We measured it as quiteseventy feet long. It was as all those images, a half-lengthfigure, the long, delicate hands almost meetingabout the body, the belly indrawn—pinched, and theface with no likeness to the Rapa Nui face, or to anyof the Polynesians, but harsh and archaic, perhaps showingan Inca or other austere race, and also the wretchednessof their existence. Life must have been dour forthem by their looks and by their working only for thedead. How they ever expected to move this mass wecould not understand. They had no wood, even, tomake rollers, as the Egyptians had, because their thickesttree was the toromiro, not three inches in diameter, butthey had to depend on slipping the monstrous stonesdown slopes and dragging them up hills or on the levelby ropes of native hemp and main strength. Hundredsor thousands of sculptors and pullers must have been requiredfor the 555 monoliths we found carved or almostfinished. But they never were of the race the whitessaw there.

“Before we began the descent of Rana Rauraku westopped a moment to survey the scene. The sun wassetting over La Perouse Bay, and the side of the crateron which we were was deepening in shadow. As wewent down the hill the many images reared themselves192as black figures of terror and awe against the scarletlight. Willis was in a trance. He was a queer fellow,and there was something inexplicable in his attachmentto those paradoxes of rock dolls. He thought he haddiscovered some clue to the race of men or religious cultwhich he believed once went almost all over the worldand built monuments or stonehenges long before metalwas known as a tool. We rode across the swelling plainpast the quarry in the Teraai Hills where the hats forthe images were carved of the red sandstone, and westayed a minute to see again a monster twelve feetacross and weighing many tons. It was a proper head-coveringfor the sculpture in the quarry. What hadcaused the work to stop all of a sudden? There werehundreds of tools, stone adzes and hammers, droppedat a moment, statues near finished or hardly begun,some half-way to the evident place of fixation, and othersalmost at them. What dreadful bell had sounded tohalt it all?

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (28)

Photo by International Newsreel
Beach dancers at Tahiti

“Talking about all that, we came to where we couldsee the Hanga Piko landing, and our company schooneranchored a little offshore. The captain and some of thecrew were engaged in bringing supplies ashore, and itwas not until we rode into the ground of Queen Korato’spalace, our home, that we saw there were white strangersarrived. Imagine the situation! When we called toTaaroa and Tokouo to get a man to care for the horses,out came a beautiful English girl in a white frock, andapologized for having entered the house in our absence.Her father joined her, and we soon knew him, ProfessorScotten Dorey, for the greatest authority on Polynesianlanguages, myths, and migrations. There he was, by193the favor of the Tahiti owners, come to stay indefinitelyand to study the Rapa Nui language. His daughterwas his scribe, she said, and saved his eyes as much aspossible by copying his notes. We were up against it,as O’Brien would say. Our conveniences were scant,—thequeen had not been much for linen or dishes,—andyou know how we fellows live even in such nearer placeslike Takaroa.

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (29)

After the bath in the pool

“Then there was the matter of Taaroa and Tokouo;borrowed wives, recognized as the custom was. Willistook one look at Miss Dorey, and went white as whenhe first saw the sweep of Easter Island. He was assensitive as a child about certain things. There we hadbeen all alone, I used to doing what I damn please, anyhow,and he without any old bavarde to chatter, or evento see. I won’t say, too, that we hadn’t had some drinkingbouts, nights when we had scared away even thecockroaches and the ear-boring beetles with our songs,and the love dances of Taaroa and Tokouo. For me,I’m a gentleman, and I was a student under Nietzscheat Basel, but I hate being interfered with. I’ve livedtoo long in the South Seas. But for the American, ayoung chap just out of college, it was like being seenin some rottenness by a member of his family. You fellowsmay laugh, but that’s the way he felt. He used totalk about a younger sister to me on our voyage up.

“We assured the daughter and father we would carefor them. There was room enough, four or five chambersin the place, and we could improvise beds for them,rough as they might be, but the daily living, the mealsand the evenings, confronted us hatefully. I wouldmind nothing but the being so close to probably very194particular people, the lack of freedom of undress, andthe pretense about Tokouo, but Willis was in a funk.He wanted to go to live with Timi Linder, but I knewthat he could not endure that. Linder was island-bornand almost a native, insects were nothing to him, andhe made no pretense of regular meals like a white. Besideshe was boss, and wanted to live his own life. I toldWillis plainly he had to make the best of it for a fewmonths. He finally said he would break off his intimacywith Taaroa, and I said that that was his lookout.

“So we took the Doreys into our ménage. We gavethem two rooms together, and Willis and I doubled up.Taaroa and Tokouo had their mats in the fourth, andthe fifth was the living- and dining-room. The cook-housewas detached. We improvised a big table forthe professor on which he could spread his dictionariesand comparative lists of South Seas languages, andthere day after day he delved into the Te Pito te Henuamystery. Chief Ure Vaeiko and Pakomeo were interpretersof the tablets and reciters of legends, but, as theprofessor had not yet mastered the Rapa Nui tongue,a go-between in English was needed. For a few daysTimi Linder volunteered for this job, but soon it wasthe American who was called upon. He had made gooduse of his year or so and knew the dialect well. It isonly a dialect of the Malayo-Polynesian language, andthe professor himself in three months knew more of itthan any of us because he spoke six or seven otherbranches of it from New Zealand Maori to Tahitian.

“The schooner, after a month of unloading suppliesand taking on wool and cattle, sailed for Tahiti, andTimi Linder went with her, as he had been three years195away from his relations. This left me in charge, andas the principal settlement was at Vaihu, the formermission, I was ordered by Linder to move there, andWillis to stay at Hanga Piko. You can see easily howfate was shaping things for the American. I tookTokouo with me, and, the year’s lease of Taaroa expiring,she was demanded back by her husband. Anelderly Tahitian couple replaced them as helpers in thepalace. As I was five miles away, with a poor road,and had to keep the accounts of births and deaths ofpeople and animals, look after the warehouse, and bea kind of chief and doctor, I saw less and less of theDoreys, and not much more of Willis. He had to runhis gang, attend to the cattle, the water-holes, and sheepthat got in distress in the craters or caves. Of course,now and then he came over to see me, or I to see himand the English people,—I’m Welsh myself, three quarters,—andI met him often in the scrub.

“Everything seemed going along all right after a fewmonths. The Doreys came in the seventh month ofthe Rapa Nui year, Koro, which corresponds to ourJanuary, Timi Linder left in Tuaharo, February, andTaaroa returned to her husband the last of that month.The month is divided in half, beginning with the newmoon and the full moon. On the first of the full moonin Vaitu-nui, May, we had a party to visit the ahu ofHananakou. The professor, his daughter, and Willisjoined me at Vaihu as it was on the trail, and in companywith several islanders we started. It so happenedthat Taaroa was at my house to visit Tokouo, and whenWillis rode into the inclosure she was the first personhe saw.

196“‘Kohomai!’ he said, which is the usual greeting. Itis like ‘Good day’ or ‘How do you do,’ but it actuallymeans ‘Come to me!’ You answer, ‘Koe!’ which is‘Thou!’ A dozen times a day you might meet and saythis, pleasantly or automatically, but I heard Taaroareply with astonishing bitterness, ‘Koe kovau aita paihenga!’‘Thou! I am not a dog!’ She turned herback on him as Miss Dorey followed in, and I saw on hisface a look of puzzlement and fear. I was struck forthe first time by the contrasting beauty of the two girls,Taaroa the finest type of Polynesian, as fine as the bestMarquesan, and the white girl the real tea-tea, the blondEnglish, the pink-white flesh, the violet eyes and richbrown hair. I tell you I’d like to have been lover tothem both. Taaroa looked intently at Miss Dorey, whospoke to her negligently though kindly, and the incidentwas over. Anyhow, for the time being.

“The ahu of Hananakou was a grim sight in the moonlight.About eighty yards long, and but four wide,it loomed on the sea-cliff like the fort at Gibraltar, black,broken, and remindful of the past. The front was ofhuge blocks of fire-rocks, all squared as neatly as thepyramids, and carved in curious faces and figures barelytraceable in the brilliant night. Among these was theswastika or fylfot. Human remains filled the innerchambers, and bones were lying loose among the boulders.The professor took my arm—he was in his sixtiesthen—and led me to where a fallen statue lay prone onthe steep slope toward the sea.

“‘Agassiz guessed it,’ he said quietly. ‘The Pacificcontinent once extended due west from South Americato here, pretty nearly from the Galapagos to the Paumotus.197The people who built these statues were thesame as the Incas of Peru. In my room now is a drawingmade by my daughter of the figures on the rocks atOrongo. I have its duplicate on a piece of pottery Idug up in an Inca grave. There is the swastika as inancient Troy, India, and in Peru. The Maori legendknown from Samoa to New Zealand was correct. Probablyit came from Rapa Nui people who survived thecataclysm that lowered the continent under the ocean.

“Instinctively I turned my head towards the greatland of South America now two thousand miles away,and in the moonbeams I saw Willis clasping the Englishgirl’s hand. Her face was close to his and her eyes hadhappy tears in them. A jealous feeling came over me.As a matter of fact, I never made love to a whitewoman since I left Europe. I’m satisfied with thepart-native who don’t ask too much time or money.But, by God, I envied him that night, and when wereturned to Queen Korato’s palace I hated him for hisluck.

The mood of Llewellyn was growing more self-accusatory,and his voice less audible. Perhaps AaronMandel, an old pearl-buyer, had heard him tell the storybefore, because he interrupted him, and said:

“What the devil’s the good of openin’ old graves,T’yonni?”

He said it, indulgently, calling him by his familiarTahitian name, but Llewellyn was set to tell it all. Ifelt again and more certainly that it was confession, andexcused my impatient interest by the need of his makingit.

“Let him finish!”

198Llewellyn’s gaze was that of a man relieved from imminentprison.

“It’s not my grave, Mandel,” he said; “I could notforesee the future. When I got back to Vaihu, Tokouobrought me some rum and water, and Taaroa sat on themat with us. She had questions in her black eyes, andI had to answer something after what I had heard hersay to Willis.

“‘We went to Hananakou,’ I began.

“‘He does not need me now,’ she broke in angrily.‘He has gotten all my words, and gives them to theVia tea-tea (white woman). He is a toke-toke, a thief!’

“Remember that Miss Dorey was undoubtedly thefirst white female Taaroa had ever seen, and that jealousyamong women or men in Rapa Nui was unknown.They hated, like us, but jealousy they had no wordfor. And because I was amazed at her emotion, Isaid:

“‘I saw them hohoi (embrace).’

“Taaroa showed then the heat of this new flame onEaster Island. She gave a mocking laugh, repeated it,then choked, and burst into wailing. You could havetold me that moment I knew nothing of the Maori, andI would not have denied it. I was struck dumb, andswallowed my drink. And as I poured another, and satthere in the old mission-house where Frère Eugène hadgathered his flock years before, Taaroa began the lovesong of her race, written in the picture symbols on thewooden tablet I have in my house in Tahiti now. Itis the Ate-a-renga-hokan iti poheraa. You know howit goes. I can hear Taaroa now:

199“Ka tagi, Renga-a-manu—hakaopa;

Ohiu runarme a ita metua.

Ka ketu te nairo hihi—O te hoa!

Eaha ton tiena—e te hoa—e!

“Ta hi tiena ita have.

Horoa ita have.

Horoa moni e fahiti;

Ita ori miro;

Ana piri atu;

Ana piri atu;

Ana tagu atu.”

Even a quarter of Maori blood with childhood spentin Polynesia lends a plaintive quality to the voice of menand women, and gives them an ability to sing their ownsongs in a powerfully affecting manner—the outpouringof the sad, confused hearts of a destroyed people.Under the cocoanut-trees of Takaroa, the lamps all butexpiring by then, the man who had sat under Nietzscheat Basel rendered the song of Takaroa, the primitivelove cry of the Rapa Nuiis, so that I was transportedto the Land of Womb and Navel, and saw as he did thelovely savage Taaroa in her wretchedness.

Auwe!” Kopcke exclaimed. “She could love!”

Eiaha e ru! You shall see!” murmured Llewellyn,forebodingly. “After that I didn’t meet Taaroa fortwo months. She stopped visiting Tokouo, and my girlsaid she was heva, which is wrong in the head. Tokouocouldn’t even understand jealousy. But I did, andI envied the American having two women, the finest onthe island, in love with him. About a month later I was200at the palace to have supper with them. My word,Miss Dorey had straightened out things. There werethe best mats, those the natives make of bulrushes, everywhere.The table was spread as fine as wax, and we hada leg of mutton, tomatoes, and other fresh vegetables.She said they owed the green things to Willis, who hadhunted the islands for them, and found some wild andsome cultivated by natives who had the seed from war-vesselsthat had come years before. The professor hadout my tablets after dinner, and his daughter read thetranslation into English of the song Taaroa had sung.She had brought with her on the schooner a tiny organabout as big as a trunk, and she had set the ute to music,as wild as the wind. The words went like this:

“Who is sorrowing? It is Renga-a-manu-hakopa!

A red branch descended from her father.

Open thine eyelids, my true love.

Where is your brother, my love?

At the Feast in the Bay of Salutation

We will meet under the feathers of your clan.

She has long been yearning after you.

Send your brother as a mediator of love between us,

Your brother who is now at the house of my father.

Oh, where is the messenger of love between us?

When the feast of driftwood is commemorated

There we will meet in loving embrace.

“She was dressed all in white, with a blue sash, anda blue ribbon in her hair, and when she sang I could seeher white bosom as it rose and fell. She was makinglove to the American right before me. Her father, withthe tablet beside him, thought of nothing but the translation,201and she had forgotten me. I could see that thiswas one of many such evenings. Willis stood andturned the leaves on which she had written her wordsand air, and when she sang the word ‘love’ their bodiesseemed to draw each other. There was a girl I knewin Munich—but hell! After the tablets were put away,we talked about the yearly festival of the god MekeMeke, which was about the last of the ancient days stillcelebrated. The schooner was due back, and would takeaway the visitors, and they hoped that it would not gobefore thirty days yet, when it would be Maro, the lastmonth in the Rapa Nui year, our July. That was thereal winter month, and then the sea-birds came by thetens of thousands to lay their eggs. Mostly they preferredthe ledges and hollows of the cliffs, but the firstcomers frequented two islets or points of rock in thesea just below the crater Rano Kao. Both Chief UreVaeiko and the old Pakomeo said that always there hadbeen a ceremony to the god Meke Meke at that time.We had witnessed the one the previous year, and couldtell the English pair about it.

“All the strong men of the island, young and old,met at Orongo after the birds were seen to have returned,and raced by land and water to the rocks, MotuIti and Motu Nui, to seize an egg. The one who cameback to the king and crowd at Orongo was highly honored.The great spirit of the sea, Meke Meke, was supposedto have picked him out for regard, and all the yearhe was well fed and looked after by those who wantedthe favor of the god. The women especially weredrawn to him as a hero, and a likely father of strongchildren. In times gone, said Ure Vaeiko, many were202killed or hurt in the scramble of thousands, and in thefights for precedence that came in the struggle to breakthe eggs of competitors. Now one or two might bedrowned or injured, but, with the few left to take part,often no harm was done anybody.

“When I left that night Willis walked a little distancewith me as I led my horse. He was under stress and,after fencing about a bit, said that he would like to goaway on the schooner. His two years were not complete,but he was anxious to get back to America. Hehad gathered material for a thesis on the tablets andsculptures of Rapa Nui, with which he believed he couldwin his doctor’s degree. That was really what he hadcome for, he said. I was sore because I knew the truth.I didn’t doubt about the thesis. That explained hisbeing there at all, but his wanting to go on that nextvessel was too plain. I said to him that he was not aprisoner or a slave, but that I hoped he would stay, unlessTimi Linder was aboard, when it would be all right,as only two white men were needed, one at each station.We left it that way, though he did not say yes or no.

“Well, Linder was on the schooner, and she came intoHanga Piko Cove two weeks before the Meke Mekefeast, so that her sailing was set for the day after, andWillis was told by Linder it was all right for him togo. Linder had letters for everybody, and new photographicfilms for Willis. I unloaded the vessel, andWillis rode over the island with Linder to show him thechanges, the increase of cattle and sheep, and pick outcertain cattle and horses the schooner was to carry toTahiti. He made dozens of pictures for his thesis.Meanwhile the natives had absolutely quit all work and203moved in a body from their little plantations to the oldsettlement at Orongo to prepare for the race. Orongowas the queerest place in the world. If Rapa Nui wasstrange, then Orongo was the innermost secret of it.It was a village of stone houses in two rough rows,built on the edge of the volcano Rana Kao, and facingthe sea. There were fifty houses, all pretty much alike.They were built against the terraces and rocks of thecrater slope, without design, but according to theground. The doorways to the houses were not two feetwide or high, and the rooms, though from a dozen toforty feet long, never more than five feet wide, and theroofs not more than that high. They were built of slabsof stone, and the floors were the bare earth. The doorpostswere sculptured and the inside walls painted, andthe rocks all about marked with hieroglyphics andfigures. There were lizards, fishes, and turtles, and ahalf-human, mythical beast with claws for legs and arms,but mostly the Meke Meke, the god which ProfessorDorey had discovered the likeness of in the Inca tombsin Peru. The old people said that Orongo had neverbeen occupied except at the time of the feast of MekeMeke.

“So there they were, all that were left of the oncemany thousands, living again in those damp, squattombs, and cooking in the ovens by the doorways thatwere there before Judas hanged himself. All knewthat Orongo was more ancient than the platforms orthe images, and those were built by the same folk whoput up the stonehenges in Britain and in the TongaIslands. Pakomeo, who had escaped from the slaveryin Peru, was in charge of the Meke Meke event, because204Chief Ure Vaeiko was in his eighties. We donateda number of sheep, and, with yams, bananas, andsugar-cane,—we grew a little of these last two,—theshow was mostly of food. A few went to Orongoseveral days before the bird-eggs trial, but all sleptthere the night before. The moon was at its biggest,and the women danced on the terrace in front of thehouses. Professor Dorey and his daughter with Williswere there when Timi Linder and I arrived after supper.They had waited for us, to begin, and the drumswere sounding as we rounded the curve of the crater.

“The English girl was entranced by the beauty of thenight, the weird outlines of the Orongo camp, the over-reachingrise of the volcano, the sea in the foreground,and the kokore toru, the moon that shone so brightlyon that lone speck of land thousands of miles from ourhomes. I heard her singing intimately to him an oldEnglish air. The schooner was to leave the next day,and her lover would go with her.

“When we were seated on mats, Pakomeo struck hishands together, and called out, ‘Riva-riva maitai!’Two women danced, both so covered with mat garmentsand wearing feather hats drooping over their heads thatI did not know them. The tom-tom players chantedabout the Meke Meke, and the women moved aboutthe circle, spreading and closing their mats in imitationperhaps of the Meke Meke’s actions in the sea or air.I was bored after a few minutes, and watched Willisand Miss Dorey. They were in the shadow sittingclose to each other, their hands clasped, and from hissweet words to her I learned her first name. The father205always said simply ‘daughter,’ but Willis called herViola. It was a good name for her, it seemed to me,for she was grave and pathetic like the viola’s notes.The two women were succeeded by others, who put inpantomine the past of their people, the building of theahu and the images, the fishing and the wars, the heroicfeats of the dead, and the vengeance of the gods.Christianity had not touched them much. They stillbelieved in the atua, their name for both god and devil.

“Now the heaps of small fuel brought days before bysevere labor were lit, and when the fires were blazinglow a single dancer appeared. She had on a white tapacloak, flowing and graceful, and in her hair the plumageof the makohe, the tropic bird, the long scarlet feathersso prized by natives. As she came into the light I sawthat she was Taaroa. Her long black hair was in twoplaits, and the makohe feathers were like a coronet.She had a dancing-wand in each hand, the ao, lightand with flattened ends carved with the heads of famousfemale dancers of long ago. The three drums began aslow, monotonous thump, and Taaroa a gentle, swayingmovement, with timid gestures, and coquettishglances—the wooing of a maiden yet unskilled in love.The drums beat faster, and the simulated passion ofthe dancer became more ardent. Her eyes, dark-brown,brilliant, and liquid, commenced to search forthe wooed one, and roved around the circle. They remainedfixed an instant on the American in startlingappeal. I glanced and saw Miss Dorey look at himsurprisedly and inquiringly, and then resentfully atTaaroa. But she was carrying on her pantomine, and206she ended it with a burst of passion, the hula that weall know, though even more attractive than Miri’s orMamoe’s in Tahiti.

“I suppose Miss Dorey had never in her life seen suchan expression of amour, and didn’t know that womentold such things. Her face was like the fire, and shemoved slightly away from Willis. But now Taaroawas dancing again, and altogether differently. Shestood in one spot, and as the drums beat softly, raisedher arms as if imploring the moon, and sang the mourningute of Easter Island:

“‘Ka ihi uiga—te ki ati,—

Auwe te poki, e—’

“The sail of my daughter,

Never before broken by the force of foreign clans!

Ever victorious in all her fights,

She would not drink the poison waters in the cup of obsidian glass.

“We all felt depressingly the sudden reversal ofsentiment, and, when Taaroa had finished, Miss Doreysaid she would like to leave. She shivered. The airwas a little cold, but the Rapa Nuiis built up their firesand prepared to dance through the night. We whites,with Timi Linder, went home with a promise to meet atnoon to-morrow for the egg ceremony. As Timi and Irode to Vaihu, seven or eight miles it was, he remarkedthat Taaroa had gotten much handsomer while he wasaway. He asked if she was still friendly with Willis,and I explained things. Timi didn’t make much ofthose troubles, but ‘Anyhow,’ he said, ‘they’ll all sail207away to-morrow, and her husband can lease her to me.’”

Llewellyn hesitated. His story had been long. Thelamps were out.

“There isn’t much more,” he said, apologeticallythough pleadingly. “When the race started at Orongo,we four, the English people, Willis, and I, went to thesea where we could watch the swimming. Timi Linderstayed with Ure Vaeiko and Pakomeo to award theprize. The runners came swarming down the cliff,some taking paths around and others trying to climbstraight down. They wore loin-cloths only, and weremad as fighters with the excitement. Some fell but gotup, and away they went, and some leaped into the seafrom the bluff at forty or fifty feet high. The rockswere about a hundred fathom off shore, and that is ashort swim for Kanakas. But it was the carrying theegg whole and getting up the bluff again that testedskill and luck. Well, it was over in a little while, andwhen we returned to Orongo, Matatoa, the husband ofTaaroa, had been made the choice of the god MekeMeke for the year.

“As the passengers had their goods already stowed,but intended to go aboard the schooner before nightfallto wait for a favoring wind, Willis proposed thatwe all go back to the beach and have a last bath together.Most of the Rapa Nuiis went with us, and thevictor and Taaroa among them. We all wore pareusand I tell you those two young people made a magnificentpair. That year and a half on Rapa Nui haddone wonders for Willis. He was like a wrestler, andMiss Dorey in her pareu was a picture.

“Some one spoke of the spring under the sea, and208proposed that we all drink from it. It was like that oneat Nâgone. The fresh water runs into the ocean aboutten feet under the ocean at the bottom of the cliff.Willis shouted out that he had never had a drink underthe sea, and would try it first. Nobody, they said,had been down there for years, but in war time it hadbeen a prized spot. Willis was a good diver, and downhe went while we watched from the rocks twenty feetabove on which we climbed. Now, to stay down therelong enough to drink, some one else had to stand onyour shoulders, and some one else on theirs. Willisplunged in, and, of those sporting in the water, Taaroawas first to follow him down. Her husband, the winner,was the second, and we, laughing and joking aboutthe American’s heavy burden, waited for him to comeup spluttering.

“You know how long it seems. We had no watches,but after about a minute, Matatoa suddenly totteredand then dived. The water was not very clear therebecause of the issuance of the spring, and mud stirredup, and we could not see beneath the surface. But weknew something unexpected had happened, and MissDorey seized my arm.

“‘For God’s sake, go down and help him,’ sheshrieked.

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (30)

Old cocoanut trees

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (31)

From the painting by Oscar F. Schmidt
The dark valley of Taaoa

“I hesitated. I didn’t think anything was wrong,but even then I had a feeling of not risking anything tosave him if it was. He had too much already. Rotten!I know it. But that’s my nature. I couldn’t havedone any good. Matatoa came up and went down againand then a half dozen dived to the place where Willisand Taaroa were out of sight. One came up and yelled209that he could not find them, and then we knew the worst.They were gone by this time more than three minutes.Then I leaped in, too, but there were so many of uswe got tangled up with one another under the water,and as Matatoa came near me I told every one else tomove aside, and that we two would make the search.

“Well, we found that at the spring a frightful spongeof seaweed and kelp had grown, and that Willis andTaaroa had become fastened in it. We had to takedown knives to cut them out, and we brought them uptogether. She had him clasped in her arms so tightlywe had to tear them apart. They were like dead. Hisheart was not beating, but we carried them up the rockypath and with as much speed as possible to the fireswhich the natives still had for cooking. There Pakomeoand Ure Vaeiko directed the holding of them in thesmoke which, as you know, does sometimes bring themback, but they were dead as Queen Korato. We putthe body of the American on a horse and took it to thepalace. Taaroa remained at Orongo, and her tribe beganat once preparations to bury her in one of the burrows.Miss Dorey was quiet. Except that one shriekI did not hear her cry. I went to Vaihu that night andleft Timi Linder with them. I got drunk, and Timisaid in the morning that the English girl stayed aloneall night with Willis in the living room.”

I had sat so long listening to Llewellyn that when,with the tension off, I tried to stand up, I reeled. Hesat with his head bowed. Captain Nimau grasped myarm to help himself up, and said, “Mais, mon Dieu! thatwas terrible. You buried the American there, and theDoreys left soon.”

210“The next day, after the burial. I remained twoyears more, and, by the great Atua of Rano Roraku,I wasn’t sober a week at a time.”

Kopcke lit a cigarette, and, as we prepared to separate,said sententiously: “Mon vieux, I know womenand I know the Kanaka, and I do not think Taaroadrowned the American for love. She didn’t knowabout the sea-grass being there.”

Llewellyn did not answer. He only said, vexedly,“Well, for heaven’s sake, let’s get a few drinks beforewe go to sleep!”

I left them to go to Nohea’s shack. On my mat Ipitied Llewellyn. He had a real or fancied contritionfor his small part in the tragedy of Rapa Nui.But my last thought was of the violet eyes of MissDorey. Those months to England must have beenover-long.

211

CHAPTER XI

Pearl hunting in the lagoon—Previous methods wasteful—Mapuhi showsme the wonders of the lagoon—Marvelous stories of sharks—Womanwho lost her arm—Shark of Samoa—Deacon who rode a shark a halfhour—Eels are terrible menace.

THE lagoon of Takaroa was to be the scene ofintense activity and of incredible romance forthe period of the open season for hunting thepearl-oyster. Eighty years or more of this fishing hadbeen a profitable industry in Takaroa, especially forthe whites who owned or commanded the vessels tradinghere. A handful of nails would at one time buythe services of a Paumotuan diver for a day. Trifles,cheap muskets, axes, and hammers, were exchangedfor shells and pearls, often five dollars for five hundreddollars’ worth. The Paumotuan was robbed unconscionablyby cheating him of his rights under contracts,by intimidation, assault, and murder, by getting himdrunk, and the usual villainous methods of unregulatedtrade all over the world. The Sons of Belial werehereabouts. They had to haul down the black flagunder compulsion, but they sighed for the good olddays, and did not constitute themselves honest guardiansfor the natives even now.

The piratical traders of the early decades sailedfrom atoll to atoll, bartering for pearls and shells, orengaging the Paumotuans to dive for them, either bythe month or season, at a wage or for a division of212the gains. For their part, the traders supplied firearms,salt meat, and biscuit or flour, though rum orother alcoholic drink was their principal merchandise.The average native would continue to sell his soul forthe godlike exaltation of the hours of drunkenness,and forget the hell of the aftermath. He did sell hisbody, for often the diver found himself in debt to thetraders at the end of the year. If so, he was lost, forhe remained the virtual slave of the creditor, who gavehim still enough rum to make him quiescent, and tocontinue in debt till he died from the accidents of hisvocation, or from excesses.

The lagoons were emptied of their shells in improvidentmanner, shells of any size being taken, and noprovision made for the future nor for the growth andpropagation of the oysters. The industry was theusual fiercely competitive struggle that marks a newway of becoming rich quickly. The disorder andwasteful methods of the early days of gold diggingin California, and later in Alaska, matched the recklessroguery and foolish mishandling of these rich pearl-fisheriesbefore the French Government tardily endedthe reign of lawlessness and prodigality. Gambling becamea fever, and the white man knew the cards betterthan the brown. Driven by desire for rum and formore money to hazard, the Paumotuan risked terribledepths and killed himself, or ruined his health by toomany descents in a day. Atoll and sea must soonhave been deprived of people and oysters.

Thirty years ago, the secretary of the Collège deFrance, summoned to Tahiti to find a remedy, reportedthat, if laws were not made and enforced against the213conditions he found, the industry would speedily pass.Schooners of many nationalities frequented the atolls.Pearls were not rare, and magnificent shells were foundin many of the eighty lagoons. Their size surpassedall found now. The continuous search had impoverishedthe beds, which were the result of centuries, andhad robbed them of shells of age and more perfectgrowth, as war took the strongest and bravest men ofa nation, and left the race to be perpetuated by cowards,weaklings, and the rich or politic who evaded the frontof battle.

It took five years to grow a fine shell. The sixthyear often doubled the value in mother-of-pearl, andthe seventh year doubled it again. The Chinese, in acertain famous fishery off their coast, sought the shellsonly every ten or fifteen years; but those yellow peoplehad the last word in conservation of soil and everyother source of gain, forced to a sublimated philosophyby the demands of hundreds of millions of hungrybellies.

Warned by the Parisian professor, the French Governmentmade strict regulations to prevent the extinctionof the pearl-oyster, and, incidentally, of the Paumotuan.For the oyster they instituted the closedseason or rahui, forbidding the taking of shells fromcertain atolls except at times stated. Experts examinedthe lagoons, and upon their recommendationsa schedule of the rahui was drawn out, so that whilediving might be permitted in one lagoon for successiveseasons it might be prohibited in another over aterm of years. This had caused a peripatetic schoolof divers, who went about the group from open lagoon214to open lagoon, as vagrants follow projects ofrailroad building. But the lagoons would never beagain what they had been in wealth. The denudinghad been too rapacious. However, the oysters werenow given time to breed, and their food was takencare of to a degree, though France, the most scientificof nations, with the foremost physicists, chemists,and physicians, did not send her genius to her colonies.

To protect the divers and their families, alcohol wasmade contraband. It was unlawful to let a Paumotuanhave intoxicants. The scenes of riotous debaucheryonce common and which always marked the divingseason, in the merciless pitting of pearl- and shell-buyersagainst one another, were rare, but surreptitioussale and donation of drink were still going on.

Mormonism, Josephitism, and Seventh Day Adventism,strict sects as to stimulants, had aided the law,and the Lying Bills and McHenrys, the Mandels andthe Kopckes, had a white god against them in theirdevil-take-the-hindmost treatment of the natives.France also confined the buying and selling in thePaumotus to French citizens, so that the non-Gaulsby blood had been driven to kiss the flag they contemned.But business excused all subterfuges.

One day when the diving term was almost on, Mapuhiand I were talking on his veranda about the venturesof his life, and especially of his experiences underthe sea.

“Come!” he said, with an indulgent smile upon his215flawed but noble face, “American, you and I will goupon the lagoon, and I will show you what may bestrange to you.”

Going to the end of his spit of land, we entered acanoe, and, with the chief paddling swiftly, movedtowards the other side of the lagoon, away from thehabitations of the Paumotuans. When a hundredyards or two offshore, Mapuhi shipped his paddle andlet the outrigger canoe lie idly on the water.

“Look!” he said, appraisingly, “See the wonders ofGod prepared for his children!”

I took the titea mata he handed me, the four-sidedwooden box with a pane of ordinary glass fixed in it,about fifteen inches square, and notched for the neckof the observer. Putting the glass below the surfaceand gazing through it, I was in fairy-land.

The floor of the lagoon was the superbest gardenever seen by the eye of man. A thousand forms oflife, fixed and moving, firm and waving, coral andshells, fish of all the colors of the rainbow, of beauteous,of weird, and of majestic shape and size, decoratedand animated this strange reserve man had invadedfor food and profit. The giant furbelowed clams,largest of all mollusks, white, or tinged with red andsaffron or brown-yellow, a corruscating glare of blue,violet, and yellow from above, reposed like a bed ofdream tulips upon the shining parterre.

The coral was of an infinitude of shape: emeraldone moment and sapphire the next, shot with colorsfrom the sun and the living and growing things beneath.Springing from the sea-floor were cabbages216and roses, cauliflower and lilies, ivory fans and scarletvases, delicate fluted columns, bushes of pale yellowcoral, bouquets of red and green coral, shells of pinkand purple, masses of weeds, brown and black sponges.It was a magic maze of submarine sculpture, fretwork,and flowers, and through all the interstices ofthe coral weaved in and out the brilliant-colored andoften miraculously-molded fish and crustaceans. Therewere great masses of dark or sulphur-hued coral intowhich at any alarm these creatures darted and fromwhich they peeped when danger seemed past. Snakes,blue, gold, or green bars on a velvet black-brown, glidedin and out of the recesses, or coiled themselves aboutbranches.

Big and small were these denizens of the lagoon.The tiny hermit-crab in a stolen mollusk-shell had onhis movable house his much smaller paramour, who,also in her appropriated former tenement of a deadenemy, would spend the entire mating season thus waitingfor his embrace. And now and again as I lookedthrough the crystal water I saw the giant bulks ofsharks, conger-eels, and other huge fish. These Ipointed out to Mapuhi.

He peered through the titea mata.

E!” he exclaimed. “For fifty years I have foughtthose demons. They will take one of us this rahuias before. It may be God’s will, but I think the devilfights on the side of the beasts below. I myself havenever been touched by them though I have killed many.When I think of the many years I entered the waterall over these seas, and in blackest sin, I understandmore and more what the elders say, that God is ever217watching over those He intends to use for His work.I have seen or known men to lose parts of themselvesto the sharks, but to escape death. They prayed whenin the very jaws of the mao, and were heard.”

Mapuhi blew out his breath loudly, as if expellingan evil odor.

Tavana, tell me about some of the bad deeds ofsharks,” I said.

Aue! There are no good ones,” he replied. “InRaiatea, near Tahiti, they were fishing at night forthe ava, the fish something like the salmon. They hada net five meters high, and, after the people of thevillage had drawn the net round so that no fish couldescape, a number of men dived from their canoes. Youknow they try to catch the ava by the tail and makeit swim for the air, pulling the fisherman with it. Thatis an arearea [game]. The torches held by the womenand children and the old people were lighting the waterbrightly when Tamaehu came up with his fish. Hewas baptized Tamaehu, but his common name wasMarae. Just as he brought the ava, or the ava broughtTamaehu, to his canoe, and the occupants were aboutto lift the ava into the canoe, a shark caught Tamaehuby the right foot. He caught hold of the outriggerand tried to shake it off. It was not a big shark, butit was hungry. He shouted, and his companionsleaned over and drove a harpoon into the shark, whichlet go his foot, tore out the harpoon, and swam away.Poor Tamaehu was hauled in, with his foot hangingloose, but in Raiatea the French doctor sewed it onagain. You can see him now limping about, but hepraises God for being alive.”

218“He well may; and there are many others to joinwith him?” I ventured, inquisitively.

“Do you know Piti, the woman of Raroia, in thesePaumotu islands?” he asked. “No? If you go there,look for her. You will know her, for she has but onearm. Raroia has a large door to its lagoon. Thebigger the door the bigger the sharks inside. The lagoonsto which only small boats can enter have smallsharks only. Piti was diving in the lagoon of Raroiaduring the season. She was bringing up shell fromfifty feet below, and had several already in her canoe.She dived again, and, after seizing one shell, startedto come up. Suddenly she saw a shark dart out of acoral bank. She became afraid. She did not pray.She forgot even to swim up. A man like me wouldnot have been afraid. It is the shark that takes youwhen you do not see him that is to fear. Piti didnothing, and the mao took her left arm into his mouth.He closed his teeth and dragged off the flesh downto the elbow where he bit her arm in two. You knowhow when a shark bites, after he sinks his teeth intothe meat, he twists his mouth, so as to make his teethcut. That is the way God made him. This sharktwisted and stripped off Piti’s flesh as he drew downhis teeth. When he bit off her lower arm he swam offto eat it, and she rose to the top. She put her goodarm over the outrigger, and those other women paddledto her and pulled her into the canoe. The bone stuckout six inches below the flesh the shark had left. Therewere no doctors, but they put a healing plant overthe arm. The wound would not heal, and ate and ate219inside for several years until the upper arm fell offat the shoulder-joint. Then she got well.”

“Is the shark himself never frightened? A humanbeing must seem a very queer fish to a shark. Theydo not always attack, do they?” I said. “I have swumwhere they were, and Jack of the Snark, MonsieurLondon, told that at Santa Ana in the SolomonIslands, when they were putting dynamite in the waterto get a supply of fish, the natives leaped into the waterand fought with the sharks for the fish. He said thatthe sharks had learned to rush to the spot whenever theyheard dynamite exploded. The Solomon people hadto grab the stunned fish away from the sharks, andone man who started for the surface with a fish cameto the boat with only half of it, as a shark had takenaway the head.”

E!” answered Mapuhi, “Sharks are devils, but thedevils are not without fear, and sometimes they becomeneneva, and do things perhaps they did not think about.At Marutea Atoll, Tau, a strong man, caught a sharkabout four feet long. They had a feast on the beach,and Tau, to show how strong he was, picked up theshark and played with it after it had been on the sandfor some minutes. The mouth of the mao was nearhis arm, and it opened and closed, and took off theflesh of the upper arm. He got well, but he nevercould use that arm. Right here in Takaroa, in therahui of seven years ago, a man, diving for shell, meta shark on the bottom. He was crawling along thebottom, looking for a good shell, when the shark turneda corner and struck him square in the mouth. The220shark was a little one, not more than three feet long,but so frightened was he that he bit the man’s twocheeks right off, the cheeks and the lips, so that to-dayyou see all his teeth all the time. He has become agood Mormon.”

Mapuhi laughed. I looked at him, and his face wasfilled with mirth. He was not deceived as to the heartof man. Devout he was, but he had dealt too longwith brown and white, and had been too many yearsa sinner—indeed, one of the vilest, if rumor ran true—notto have drunk from the well-springs of the passions.Mapuhi wore a blue loin-cloth and a white shirt.The tails of the latter floated in the soft breeze, andthe bosom was open, displaying his Herculean chest.We could see his house in the distance across the lagoon,and now and then he kept it in his eyes for aminute. He had gone far for a man whose father hadbeen a savage and an eater of his enemies. The Mormontenets permit a proper pride of possession, like theMohammedan philosophy. One can rejoice that Godhas signaled one out for holding in trust the materialassets of life. The bankers of the world have longknown this about their God. Mapuhi had becomethoughtful, and, as I was sure he had other and moreastonishing facts about the sharks not yet related, Isuggested that other archipelagos were also cursed bythe presence and rapacity of the mao.

“In Samoa,” said Mapuhi, “the shark is not calledmao or mako as in Nuku-Hiva, but mălie. There areno lagoons in Samoa, for there are no atolls, but highmountains and beaches. Now the mălie is the sharkthat swims around the islands, but the deep-sea shark,221the one that lives out of sight of land, is the mălietua.The Samoans are a wise people in a rich country.They are not like us poor Paumotuans with only cocoanutsand fish, but the Samoans have bananas, breadfruit,taro, oranges, and cocoanuts and fish, too. Theyare a happy people. Of course, I am a Paumotuan,and I would not live away from here. Once, a womanI had—when I was not a Mormon—wanted me to takemy money and go and live in Tahiti, which is gay.I considered it, and even counted my money. Butwhen I thought of my home and my people, I thrusther out as a bad woman. Now in Manua in Samoawas a half-caste, and his daughter was the queen ofManua. The half-caste’s name was Alatua Iunga,and he was one day fishing for bonito in the way wedo, with a pearl-shell hook, when one of the four orfive Samoans with him said, ‘There is a small shark.Put on a piece of bonito, and we will catch the mălie.’They did so, and then they let their canoe float whilethey ate boiled taro and dried squid.

“Then one of the Samoans said, ‘I see a shark.’Others looked, and they said, also, ‘A shark is risingfrom the deep.’ Now a deep-water shark, as I said,is a mălietua and is not to be smiled at. Iunga said,‘Get the big hook and bait it!’ Then the sharkrose, twenty feet of its body out of the water, and itsjaws opened. They closed on the outrigger of thecanoe, and bit one end clear off. Iunga said again,‘Get the hook!’ He thought the shark would take thebaited hook, and then they could throw the rope attachedto the hook overboard, and the mălietua would betroubled with the rope at the end of his nose and would222cease to attack them. They could see the shark allthis time. He was a blue shark with a flat tail, andwas forty feet long at least. Their canoe was justhalf as long, and they thought of Iona [Jonah]. Theperofeta was swallowed by a shark, because a whale canswallow only little fish. The mălietua would not takethe hook, and, leaving the outrigger, rammed the sternof the canoe. The shock almost threw them into thewater. All were paddling hard to escape, for they knewthat this shark was a real devil and sought to destroythem. Iunga, who was steering the va aalo, rose up andstruck the shark many times on his nose. This angeredhim, but Iunga kept it up, as their one chance of safety.There is a saying in Samoa, ‘O le mălie ma le tu’tu’,which is, ‘Each shark has its pay.’ Iunga and all theSamoans were religious men, though not Mormons, andthey sang a hymn as they paddled hard. They madetheir peace with the Creator, who heard them. For overtwo miles the race was run. The mălietua pursued theva aalo, and Iunga jabbed him with the big paddle.At last they were nearly all dead from weariness, andso Iunga sheered the canoe abruptly to the right, intendingto smash on the reef as a chance for their lives.But just as the va aalo swerved, to strike upon thecoral rocks, they rested on their paddles, and they sawthat the shark had disappeared. If that shark hadkept on for another minute it would have killed itselfon the reef.”

“Mapuhi,” I verified, “I, too, have been to Manua,and heard the story from the kin of Alatua Iunga,whom I knew as Arthur Young, the trader. He became223very pious after that, and was a great help tothe mitinare.”

The republican king of the atolls may have thoughthe detected in my voice or manner a raillery I did notmean to imply, for he inspected my countenance seriously.He had long ago discovered that white menoften speak with a forked tongue. But I was sincere,because I had never known a joyous, unfrightenedperson to become suddenly religious, while I had witnesseda hundred conversions from fear of the devil,hunger, or the future. However, Mapuhi, who wasan admirable story-teller, with a dramatic manner anda voice of poesy, had reserved his chef d’œuvre forthe last.

“American,” he said, “If I were a scoffer or unbelieverto-day and I met Huri-Huri and he informed meof what God had done for him, and his neighbors whohad seen the thing itself brought their proof to his words,I would believe in God’s goodness. Have you seenHuri-Huri at Rangiora? He lives at the village ofAvatoru. He has a long beard. Ah, you have notseen him. Yes, very few Paumotuans have beards,but no Paumotuan ever had the experience of Huri-Huri.He was living in his village of Avatoru, andwas forty years old. He was a good diver but gettingold for that work. It takes the young to go deepand stay down long. As we grow older that weight ofwater hurts us. Huri-Huri was lucky. He was gettingmany large shells, and he felt sure he would pickup one with a valuable pearl in it. He drank the rumthe white trader poisons my people with, and he spent224his money for tobacco, beef, and cloth. He had awatch but it did not go, and he had some foolish thingsthe trader had sold him. But here he was forty yearsold, and so poor that he had to go from atoll to atollwherever there was a rahui because he wanted all theseforeign goods.

“This time he was diving in the lagoon of Rangiroa.He was all alone in his canoe, and was in deep water.He had gone down several times, and had in his canoefour or five pairs of shells. He looked again and sawanother pair, and plunged to the bottom. He had theshells in his sack and was leaving the bank when hesaw just above him a shark so big that, as he said, itcould have bitten him in half as a man eats a banana.The shark thrust down its nose toward Huri-Huri, andhe took out his shells and held them against the beast.He kept its nose down for half a minute but then wasout of breath. He was about to die, he believed, unlesshe could reach the air without the shark followinghim. He threw himself on the shark’s back, andput his hands in the fish’s gills, and so stopped or partlystopped the shark’s breathing. The shark did notknow what to make of that, and hurried upward, headedfor the surface by the diver. Huri-Huri was afraid tolet go even there, because he knew the mao would turnon him and tear him to pieces. But he took severallong breaths in the way a diver understands, and stillheld on and tore the shark’s breathing-places.

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (32)

Launch towing canoes to diving grounds in lagoon

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (33)

Divers voyaging in Paumotu atolls

“Now the shark was angry and puzzled, and sorushed to the bottom again, but with the man on hisback. The shark had not been able to enjoy the airat the top because he breathes water and not air.225Huri-Huri closed his gill openings, and piloted him,and so he came up again and again descended. Bypulling at the gills the shark’s head was brought upand he had to rise. All this time Huri-Huri was thinkinghard about God and his own evil life. He knewthat each second might be his last one in life, and heprayed. He thought of Iona who was saved out ofthe shark’s belly in the sea where Christ was born, andhe asked Iona to aid him. And all the while he jerkedat the gills, which are the shark’s lungs. He knewthat the shark was dying all the time, but the questionwas how long could the shark himself hold out, andwhich would weaken first. Up and down they wentfor half an hour, the shark’s blood pouring out overHuri-Huri’s hands as he minute after minute tore at thegills. Now he could direct the shark any way, and oftenhe guided him toward the beach of the lagoon. Theshark would swim toward it but when he felt the shallowwater would turn. But after many minutes theshark had to stay on top altogether, because he was toofar gone to dive, and finally Huri-Huri steered himright upon the sand. Huri-Huri fell off the mao andcrawled up further, out of reach of him.

“When the people on shore who had watched thestrange fight between the mao and the man came tothem both, the fish could barely move his tail, and Huri-Huriwas like dead. Every bit of skin was rubbed offhis chest, legs, and arms, and he was bleeding from dozensof places. The shark’s body is as rough as a file.When Huri-Huri opened his eyes on his mat in hishouse, and looked about and heard his wife speak tohim, and heard his friends about say that he was the226bravest and strongest Paumotuan who ever lived, hesaid: ‘My brothers, praise God! I called on Iona, andthe prophet heard me, and taught me how to conquerthe devil that would have killed me in my sin!’ Theylistened and were astonished. They thought the firstthing Huri-Huri would say would be, ‘Give me a drinkof rum!’ American, that man is seventy years old now,and for thirty years he has preached about God andsin. Iona was three days and nights in the shark’sbelly, but nobody could ride a shark for a half-hour,and conquer him, except a Paumotuan and a diver.”

Mapuhi was glad to be corroborated by Linnæus inhis opinion that a white shark and not a whale had beenthe divine instrument in teaching the doubting Jonahto upbraid Nineveh even at the risk of his life. Thegreat Swedish naturalist says:

Jonam Prophetum ut veteris Herculem trinoctem, in hujusventriculo, tridui spatro baesisse, verisimile est.

Also, Mapuhi was deeply interested by my tellinghim that at Marseilles a shark was caught in which wasa man in complete armor. He had me describe a suitof armor as I had seen it in the notable collection inMadrid. He was struck by its resemblance to themodern diver’s suit.

“In the Paumotus,” he said, “the French Governmentforbids the use of the scaphandre because itcheated the native of his birthright. The merchants, therich men of Tahiti, could buy and use such diving machinery,but the Paumotuan could not. The nativesasked the French government to send away the scaphandre,and to permit the searching for shells by the227human being only. I had one of the machines. Icould go deeper in it than any diver in the world, sothe merchants said. I would go out in my cutter withmy men and the scaphandre. I did not put on thewhole suit, but only the rubber jacket, on the brasscollar of which the helmet was screwed. I fixed thisjacket tightly around my waist so that no water couldenter, and fastened it about my wrists. Then, withmy legs uncovered, I jumped into the lagoon. I hadbig pieces of lead on my back and breast so as not tobe overturned by the weight of the helmet, and anair-hose from the helmet to the pump in the cutter.I would work three hours at a time, but had to comeup many times for relief from the pressure.

“One day I was in this suit at the bottom of thelagoon of Hikueru. I had filled my net with shells,and had signaled for it to be hauled up. I was examininga ledge of shells when I felt something touchmy helmet. It was a sea-snake about ten feet longand of bright color. It had a long, thin neck, and itwas poisonous. I snatched my knife from my belt,and before the snake could bite me I drove the knifeinto it. It was attacking the glass of my helmet, andnot my legs, fortunately. That snake has its enemy,too, for when it lies on the surface to enjoy the sunthe sea-eagle falls like a thunderbolt from the sky,seizes it by the back of the head, and flies away with it.

“Another time when I was in the suit, a puhi, a verybig eel, wrapped itself about me. I had a narrow escapebut I killed it with my knife. In the olden daysin Hikueru I would have perished, for that puhi eel,the conger-eel, was taboo, sacred as a god, here and228in many islands. To eat that eel or harm him wasto break the taboo. More than eighty people ofFakaofa were driven from that island for eating thepuhi, and they drifted for weeks before they reachedSamoa. The vaaroa, the long-mouthed eel, is dangerousto the diver. It is eight feet long, and Amaru, ofFakarava had the calf of his leg bitten off by one.”

A week I could have listened to Mapuhi. I wasback in my childhood with Jules Verne, Ballantyne,and Oliver Optic. Actual and terrifying as were theharrowing incidents of the diving related by the giant,they found constant comparison in my mind with thedeeds of my boyish heroes. After all, these Paumotuanswere children—simple, honest, happy children.The fate that had denied them the necessaries of ourenvironment, or even the delicious foods and naturalpleasures of the high islands, Tahiti and the Marquesas,had endowed them with health, satisfaction with a rigidfare, and an incomparable ability to meet the hardshipsof their life and the blows of extraordinary circumstancewith fortitude and persistent optimism.They had no education and were happier for the lackof it. The white man had impressed their instincts andhabits but shallowly. Even their very austerity ofsurroundings had kept them freer than the Tahitiansfrom the poisonous gifts and suicidal customs of theforeigner. Their God was near and dear to them, anda mighty fortress in time of trouble.

While Mapuhi talked the canoe had returned with thecurrents nearer to his house, from which we had embarked.It was conspicuous over all the other homeson the motu, though it was a very ordinary wooden229structure of five or six rooms. It was not a fit framefor Mapuhi, I thought. This son of the sea and lagoonwas suited better to a canoe, a cutter, or the deck of aschooner. He had a companionship with this warm saltwater, with the fish in it, and the winds that blewover it, exceeding that of any other man. He drovethe canoe on the sand, and we stepped ashore. I lingeredby the water as he walked on to his store. In hiswhite, fluttering shirt, and his blue pareu, bare leggedand bareheaded, there was a natural distinction andatmosphere of dignity about him that was grandeur.Kingship must have originated in the force and bearingof such men, shepherds or sea-rovers.

230

CHAPTER XII

History of the pearl hunger—Noted jewels of past—I go with Nohea tothe diving—Beautiful floor of the lagoon—Nohea dives many times—Escapesshark narrowly—Descends 148 feet—No pearls reward us—Mandeltells of culture pearls.

MUCH of the mystery and myth of theseburning atolls was concerned with the questof pearls. In all the world those gems hadbeen a subject of romance, and legend had draped theirsearch with a myriad marvels. Poets and fictionistsin many tongues had embroidered their gossamer fabricwith these exquisite lures, the ornament of beauty, thetreasures of queen and odalisque, mondaine and dancer,image and shrine, since humans began to adorn themselveswith more delicate things than the skins and teethof animals. A thousand crimes had their seed in greedfor the possession of these sensuous sarcophagi of deadworms. A million men had labored, fought, and diedto hang them about the velvet throats of the mistressesof the powerful. Hundreds of thousands had perishedto fetch them from the depths of the sea. History andnovel were filled with the struggle of princes and Cyprians,merchants, adventurers, and thieves for ropesof pearls or single specimens of rarity. Krishna discoveredpearls in the ocean and presented them to hisgoddess daughter. The Ethiopians all but worshipedthem, and the Persians believed them rain-drops thathad entered the shells while the oysters sunned themselveson the beach. Two thousand years before our231era, a millennium before Rome was even mud, therecords of the Middle Kingdom enumerated pearlsas proper payments for taxes. When Alexander theGreat was conquering, the Chinese inventoried themas products of their country. The “Url-Ja,” aChinese dictionary of that date, says “they are veryprecious.”

Solomon’s pearls came from the Persian Gulf, India,and Ceylon, and the queen of Sheba’s too. Rivers ofBritain gave the author of the “Commentaries” pearlsto dedicate to Venus Genetrix, and to present to thatlovely assassin who melted two, costing ten millionsesterces, for a love philter, and seduced two Cæsars.Who can forget the salad Philip II of Spain, the uxoriousinquisitor, set upon the royal table for his wife,Elizabeth of Valois, the leaves of which were ofemeralds, the vinegar of rubies, the oil of topazes, andthe salt of pearls? What more appetizing dish fora royal bride? The Orientals make medicine of themto-day, and I myself have seen a sultan burn pearls tomake lime for chewing with the betel-nut.

The New World offered fresh preserves to pearl-hunters;primeval grounds drew a horde of lusty bladesto harry the red men’s treasure-house. South and CentralAmerica fed the pearl hunger that grew with themore even distribution of wealth through commerce,and the rise of stout merchants on the Continent and theBritish Islands. The Spanish king who gave his nameto the Philippines got from Venezuela a pearl thatbalanced an eighth of a pound. I saw it in Madrid.These Paumotus and Australasia were the last to answeryes to man’s ceaseless demand that the earth and232the waters thereof yield him more than bread for thesweat of his brow. On many maps these atolls are yetinscribed as the Pearl Islands. About their gloriouslagoons was a mist of obscurity and of wonder forcenturies. Besides dangers to vessels, the cannibalismof savages, the lack of any food except cocoanuts andfish, and stories of strange happenings, there were accountsof divers who sank deeper in the sea than sciencesaid was possible, and of priceless pearls plundered orbought for a drinking-song.

Custom-houses and organized commerce had rungdown the curtain on the extravaganza of the past, butthe romance of man wrestling with the forces of naturein the element from which he originally came, now sodeadly to him, was yet a supreme attraction. The dayof the opening of the rahui came none too soon for me.Nohea, my host, was to dive, and we had arranged thatI was to be in his canoe. I was assured by Mapuhi,and by Captain Nimau and Kopcke, that despite thefact that his youth was gone, Nohea was the best diverin Takaroa, and especially the shrewdest judge of theworth of a piece of diving ground.

All the village went to the scene of the diving in afleet of cutters and canoes, sailing or paddling accordingto the goal and craft. Nohea and I had a largishcanoe, which, though with a small sail woven of pandanusstraw, could easily be paddled by us. He hadstaked out a spot upon the lagoon that had no recognizablebearings for me, but which he had long ago selectedas his arena of action. He identified it by its distancefrom certain points, and its association with the sun’sposition at a fixed hour.

233We had risen before dawn to attend the Mormonchurch service initiating the rahui. The rude coraltemple was crowded when the young elders from Utahbegan the service. Mapuhi, Nohea, and leaders of thevillage sat on the forward benches. The prayer ofelder Overton was for the physical safety of the electedin the pursuit they were about to engage in.

“Thou knowest, O God,” he supplicated, “that inthe midst of life we are in death.”

E! E! Parau mau!” echoed the old divers, whichis, “Yea, Verily!”

“These, thy children, O God, are about to go underthe sea, but not like the Chosen People in Israel, forwhom the waters divided and let them go dry-shod.But grant, O God, who didst send an angel to JosephSmith to show him the path to Thee through the Bookof Mormon, who didst lead thy new Chosen Peoplethrough the deserts and over the mountains, among wildbeasts and the savages who knew Thee not, to Thycapital on earth, Salt Lake City, that thy loving worshipershere assembled shall come safely through thisday, and that Thy sustaining hand shall support themin those dark places where other wild beasts lie in waitfor them!”

Parau mau!” said all, and the eyes of some of thewomen were wet, for they thought of sons and lovers,fathers and brothers, mothers and sisters, who had goneout upon the lagoon, and who had died there among thecoral rocks, or of whom only pieces had been broughtback. They sang a song of parting, and of commendingtheir bodies to the Master of the universe, and thenwith many greetings and hearty laughter and a hundred234jests about expected good fortune, we parted toput the final touches on the equipment for la pêche deshuitres nacrières. Forgetting the quarter of an hourof serious prayer and song in the temple, the nativeswere now bubbling with eagerness for the hunt. Mapuhihimself was like a child on the first day of vacation.These Paumotuans had an almost perfect communityspirit, for, while a man like Mapuhi became rich, actuallyhe made and conserved what the duller nativeswould have failed to create from the resources aboutthem, or to save from the clutches of the acquisitivewhite, and he was ready to share with his fellows atany time. He, as all other chiefs, was the choice of themen of the atoll at a quadrennial election, and heldoffice and power by their sufferance and his own merits.None might go hungry or unhoused when others hadplenty. Civilization had not yet inflicted on them itsworst concomitants. They were too near to nature.

After a light breakfast of bread and savory friedfish, to which I added jam and coffee for myself, Noheaand I pushed off for our wonder-fishing. In the canoewe had, besides paddles, two titea mata, the glass-bottomedboxes for seeing under the surface of the water,a long rope, an iron-hooped net, a smaller net or bagof coir, twenty inches deep and a foot across, with three-inchmeshes, a bucket, a pair of plain-glass spectaclesfor under-water use, a jar of drinking-water, and foodfor later in the day.

The sun was already high in the unclouded sky whenwe lifted the mat sail, and glided through the pale-bluepond, the shores of which were a melting contrast of alabaster235and viridescence. All about us were our friendsin their own craft, and the single motor-boat of theisland, Mapuhi’s, towed a score of cutters and canoesto their appointed places. A slender breeze sufficedto set us, with a few tacks, at our exact spot. Wefurled our sail, stowed it along the outrigger, and wereready for the plunge. We did not anchor the canoebecause of the profundity of the water and because it isnot the custom to do so. I sat with a paddle in my handfor a few minutes but laid it down when Nohea pickedup the looking-glass. He put the unlidded box intothe water and his head into it and gazed intently for afew moments, moving the frame about to sweep the bottomof the lagoon with his wise eyes.

The water was as smooth as a mirror. I saw thebed of the inland sea as plainly as one does the floor ofan aquarium a few feet deep. No streams poureddébris into it, nor did any alluvium cloud its crystal purity.Coral and gravel alone were the base of its floorand sides, and the result was a surpassing transparencyof the water not believable by comparison with any otherlake.

“How far is that toa aau?” I asked, and pointed to abank of coral.

Nohea sized up the object, took his head from thetitea mata, and replied, “Sixty feet.”

At that distance I could, unaided, see plainly a pieceof coral as big as my hand. The view was as variegatedas the richest landscape—a wilderness of vegetation,of magnificent marine verdure, sloping hills and hightowers with irregular windows, in which the sunshine236streamed in a rainbow of gorgeous colors; and the shellsand bodies of scores of zoöphytes dwelling upon thestructures gleamed and glistened like jewels in the floodof light. About these were patches of snow-whitesand, blinding in refracted brilliancy, and beside themgreen bushes or trees of herbage-covered coral, all beautifulas a dream-garden of the Nereids and as imaginary.Even when I withdrew my eyes from this fantasticscene, the lagoon and shore were hardy less fabulous.The palms waved along the beach as banners of seductionto a sense of sheer animism, of investiture of theirtrunks and leaves with the spirits of the atoll. Notseldom I had heard them call my name in the darkness,sometimes in invitation to enchantment and again inwarning against temptation. The cutters or canoes ofthe village were like lily-pads upon the placid water,far apart, white or brown, the voices of the peoplewhispers in the calm air. I wished I were a boy toknow to the full the feeling of adventure among suchdivine toys which had brought glad tears to my eyesin my early wanderings.

The canoe had drifted, and Nohea slipped over itsside and again spied with the glass. I, too, lookedthrough mine and saw where he indicated a ridge orbank of coral upon which were several oyster-shells.Nohea immediately climbed into the canoe and, restingupon the side prayed a few moments, bowing his headand nodding as if in the temple. Then he began tobreathe heavily. For several minutes he made a greatnoise, drawing in the air and expelling it forcibly, sothat he seemed to be wasting energy. I was almost convincedthat he exaggerated the value of his emotions and237explosive sounds, but his impassive face and remembranceof his race’s freedom from our exhibition conceit,drove the foolish thought away. His chest, verycapacious normally, was bursting with stored air, astorage beyond that of our best trained athletes; andwithout a word he went over the side and allowed hisbody to descend through the water. He made no splashat all but sank as quietly as a stone. I fastened myhead in the titea mata and watched his every movement.He had about his waist a pareu of calico, bluewith large white flowers,—the design of William Morris,—anda sharp sailor’s sheath-knife at the belt. Aroundhis neck was a sack of cocoanut-fiber, and on his righthand a glove of common denim. Almost all his robustbrown body was naked for his return to the sea-slimewhence his first ancestor had once crawled.

Down he went through the pellucid liquid until atabout ten feet the resistance of the water stopped hiscourse and, animated bubble as he was, would havepushed him to the air again. But Nohea turned in aflash, and with his feet uppermost struck out vigorously.He forced himself down with astonishing speedand in twenty seconds was at his goal. He caught holdof a gigantic goblet of coral and rested himself an instantas he marked his object, the ledge of darker rockson which grew the shells. There were sharp-edgedshapes and branching plant-like forms, which, appearingsoft as silk from above would wound him did hegraze them with his bare skin. He moved carefullyabout and finally reached the shells. One he grippedwith the gloved hand, for the shell, too, had serratededges, and, working it to and fro, he broke it loose from238its probable birthplace and thrust it into his sack. Immediatelyhe attacked the other, and as quickly detachedit. He stooped down and looked closely allabout him. He then sprang up, put his arms over hishead, his palms pressed one on the other, and shottoward the surface. I could see him coming towardme like a bolt from a catapult. I held a paddle tomove the canoe from his path if he should strike it,and to meet him the trice he flashed into the ether.

The diver put his right arm over the outrigger boom,and opening his mouth gulped the air as does the bonitowhen first hauled from the ocean. I was as still asdeath. In a séance once I was cautioned not to speakduring the materializations, as the disturbance mightkill the medium. I recalled that unearthly silence, forthe moment of emergence was the most fatal to thediver. His senses after the terrible pressure of such aweight upon his body were as abnormal and acute asa man’s whose nerves have been stripped by flaying.The change in a few seconds from being laden andhemmed in by many tons of water to the lightness ofthe atmosphere was ravaging. Slowly the air was respired,and gradually his system,—heart, glands, lungs,and blood,—resumed its ordinary rhythm, and hisorgans functioned as before his descent. Severalminutes passed before he raised his head from the outrigger,opened his eyes, which were suffused with blood,and said in a low tone of the deaf person, “E tau Atuae!” He was thanking his God for the gift of life andhealth. He had been tried with Meshach, Shadrach,and Abednego, though not by fire.

239Nohea lifted himself into the canoe, and took the sackof coir from his neck. I removed the two pairs ofshells with the reverence one might assume in taking thenew-born babe from its first cradle. They were HolyGrails to me who had witnessed their wringing fromthe tie-ribs of earth. They were shaped like a stemlesspalm-leaf fan, about eight inches tall and ten wide,rough and black; and still adhering to their base wasa tangle of dark-green silky threads, the byssus orstrong filament which attaches them to their fulcrum,the ledge. It was the byssus which Nohea had towrench from the rock. I laid down the shells and restoredthe sack to Nohea, who sat immobile, perhapsthoughtless. Another brief space of time, and hesmiled and clapped his hands.

“That was ten fathoms,” he said. “Paddle towardthat clump of trees” (they were a mile away), “and wewill seek deeper water.”

A few score strokes and we were nearer the centerof the lagoon. With my bare eyes I could not make outthe quality of the bottom but only its general configuration.Nohea said the distance was twenty fathoms.The looking-glass disclosed a long ledge with a flat shelffor a score of feet, and he said he made out a numberof large shells. It took the acutest concentration on mypart to find them, with his direction, for his eyes weretwice as keen as mine from a lifetime’s usage upon hisnatural surroundings. We sacrificed our birthright ofvivid senses to artificial habits, lights, and the printedpage. Nohea made ready to go down, but changedslightly his method and equipment. He dropped the240iron-hooped net into the water by its line and allowedit to sink to the ledge. Then he raised it a few feet sothat it would swing clear of the bottom.

“It will hold my shells and indicate to me exactlywhere the canoe is,” he explained. “At this depth,120 feet, I want to rest immediately on reaching thesurface, and not to have to swim to the canoe. I havenot dived for many months, and I am no longer young.”

He attached the line to the outrigger, and then, aftera fervent prayer to which I echoed a nervous amen, hebegan his breathing exercises. Louder than before andmore actively he expanded his lungs until they held amaximum of stored oxygen, and then with a smile heslid through the water until he reversed his body andswam. In his left hand now he had a shell, a single sideof a bivalve; and this he moved like an oar or paddle,catching the water with greater force, and pulling himselfdown with it and the stroke of the other arm, aswell as a slight motion of the feet. The entire movementwas perfectly suited to his purpose, and he madesuch rapid progress that he was beside the hoop-net inless than a minute. He had a number of pairs of shellsstripped from the shelf and in the swinging net in a fewseconds more, and then, drawn by others he discernedfurther along the ledge, he swam, and dragged himselfby seizing the coral forms, and reached another bank. Ipaddled the canoe gently behind him. I lost sight ofhim then completely. Either he was hidden behind ahuge stone obelisk or he had gone beyond my powerof sight.

A gigantic black shape swam into view near the oscillatinghoop, and a horror swept over me. It disappeared,241but Nohea was still missing. The time beat inmy veins like a pendulum. Every throb seemed asecond, and they began to count themselves in my brain.How long was it since Nohea had left me? A minuteand a half? Two minutes? That is an age withoutbreathing. Something must have injured him. Slowlythe moments struck against my heart. I could notlook through the titea mata any longer. Another sixtyseconds and despair had chilled me so I shook in thehot sunshine as with ague. I was cold and weak. SuddenlyI felt a pull at the rope, the canoe moved slightly,and hope grew warm in me. I perceived an agitationof the water gradually ascending, and in a few instantsthe diver sprang out of the lagoon to his waist. Hethrew his arm over the outrigger, and bent down inagony. His suffering was written in the contortionof his face, the blood in his eyes, and a writhing of hiswhole body. He gasped madly at his first emergence,and then his bosom rose and fell in lessening spasms.The cramp which had convulsed his form relaxed, and,as minute after minute elapsed, his face lost its rigidity,his pulse slackened to normal, and he said feebly, “Etau Atua e!” With my assistance he hauled himselfinto the canoe and lay half prone.

“You saw no shark?” I asked.

“I saw his shadow, but it was not he that detained me.I saw a bank which might hold shells and I exploredit. We will see what I have.”

We pulled up the hoop-net, and in it were thirteenpairs of shells. These were larger than the others,older, and, as he said, from a more advantageous placefor feeding, so that their residents, being better nourished242had made larger and finer houses for themselves.Some of the thirteen were eighteen inches across. Hesaid that he had roamed seventy feet on the bottom, andhe had been down two and a half minutes. He hadmade observation of the ledges all about and intendedgoing a little deeper. I had but to look at the rope ofthe net to gage the distance for it was marked withknots and bits of colored cotton to give the lengths likethe marks on a lead-line on shipboard. I wanted todemur to his more dangerous venture, but I did not.This was his avocation and adventure, his war with theelements, and he must follow it and conquer or fail.

Again he dived, and this time at 148 feet. This wasalmost the limit of men in suits with air pumps or oxygen-tanks,and they were always let down and broughtup gradually, to accustom their blood to the alteringpressure. Half an hour or an hour was often consumedin hauling a diver up from the depth from whichNohea sprang in a few seconds. His transcendent courageand consummate skill were matched by his body’strained resistance to the effect of such extreme pressureof water and the remaining without breathing forso long a time. I could appreciate his achievementsmore than most people, for I had seen the divers ofmany races at work in many waters. Ninety feet wasthe boundary of all except the Paumotuans and thosewho used machines. But here was Nohea exceedingthat by sixty feet in my view, and I knew that greaterdepths must be attained. Impelled by an instantaneousurge to contrast my own capabilities with Nohea’s,I measured off thirty feet on the line, and, putting itin his hands to hold, I breathed to my fullest and leaped243overboard. At three lengths of my figure, less thaneighteen feet, I experienced alarm and pain. I unloosedthe hoop and it swayed down to the end of thefive fathoms of rope, while I kicked and pulled, andafter an interminable period I had barely touched itagain before I became convinced that if I did notbreathe in another second I would open my mouth.Nohea knew my plight, for he yanked at the rope, andwith his effort and my own frantic exertion I made theair, and humbly hugged the outrigger until I was myself.Thirty feet! And Nohea had brought up theshells from 148.

He paid dearly. Several times of the score that heprobed the deeper retreats of the oysters, he was prostratedfor minutes upon his egress and in throes of severepain during the readjustment of pressure; but he continuedto pursue his fascinating and near-fatal employmentuntil by afternoon a heap of heavy, darkish bivalveslay in the canoe. My curiosity had been heatedsince I had lifted the first shell, and it was with increasingimpatience that I waited for the milder but not lessinteresting phase of his labor, the scrutiny of the interiorof the shells for pearls.

There are two moments in a divers life;

One, when, a beggar, he prepares to plunge;

Then, when, a prince, he rises with his pearl.

The poet visioned Nohea’s emotions, perhaps, but hehad schooled himself to postpone his satisfaction untilthe days harvest was gathered. When we had paddledthe canoe into shallow waters, and the sun was slantingfast down the western side of earth, Nohea surrendered244himself to the realization or dissipation of his dream.He knew that a thousand shells contain no pearls, thatthe princely state came to few in decades. But thediver had the yearning and credulous mind of the goldprospector, and lived in expectation as did he. Theglint of a pebble, the sheen of yellow sand, set his pulseto beating more rapidly; and so with the diver. Heknew that pearls of great value had been found manytimes, and that one such trove might make him rich forlife, independent of daily toil, and free of the traps andpangs of the plunge.

Nohea thrust his knife between the blades of a bivalveand pried open his resisting jaws. True pearls lie inthe tissues of the oyster, generally in the rear of thebody and sealed in a pocket. Nohea laid down theparted shell and seized the animal, and dissected hisboneless substance in a gesture of eager inquiry. Iwatched his actions with as sharp response, and sighedas each oyster in turn was thrown into the bucket, inwhich was sea-water. When all had been submitted tothe test and no pearl had flashed upon our hopefuleyes we examined the shells, trusting that though thetrue pearls had escaped us we might find blisters, thosewhich, having a point of contact with the shell, are thusnot perfect in shape and skin, but have a flaw. Theseoften have large value, if they can be skinned to advantage;and the diver put his smaller hopes upon them.

With pearls, orient or blister, eliminated, the primaryand actually more important basis of the industryappealed to Nohea. He estimated the weight and valueof the shells, which would be transported to London formanufacture in the French Department of the Oise245into the black pearl buttons that ornament women’sdresses. These Paumotuan shells were celebrated fortheir black borders, nacre á bord noir, more valuablethan the gold-lipped product of the Philippines, but athird cheaper than the silver-lipped shells of Australia.With at least the comfort of a heavy catch of this less remunerativethough hardly less beautiful creation of theoyster, Nohea pointed out to me that the formation ofthe mother-of-pearl or nacre on the shells was from leftto right, as if the oyster were right minded.

“When the whorls of a shell are from right to left,”he said, “that shell is valuable as a curiosity. The peopleof Asia, the Chinese, pay well for it, and a Chineseshell-buyer now here told me that in Initia [India]they weighed it with gold in old times. In China theykeep such shells in the temples to hold the sacred oil,and the priests administer magic medicine in them.”

Nohea completed the round of the day’s undertakingby macerating the oysters and throwing them into thelagoon that their spawn might be released for anothergeneration. He cut off and threaded the adhesivemuscle of the oyster, the tatari ioro, to eat when dried.It was something like the scallop or abalone abductormuscle sold in our markets. The shells would be putinto the sheds or warehouses to dry and to be beaten andrubbed so as to reduce the bulk of their backs, whichhave no value but weigh heavily.

After we had supped, Nohea and the older diversgathered at Mapuhi’s for a discussion of the day’s luck,and I went along to the coterie of traders by Lying Bill’sfirm’s store. A cocoanut-husk fire was burning, andabout it sat Bill, McHenry, Llewellyn, Nimau, Mandel,246Kopcke, and others. Mandel was the most notablepearl-buyer and expert here, with an office in Paris anda warehouse in Papeete. He was huge and with grossfeatures, and was rated as the richest man in these SouthSeas. His own schooner had dropped anchor off Takaroaa few days before with Mrs. Mandel in command.He might make the bargain for pearls, but she woulddo the paying and squeeze the most out of the priceto the native. She ruled with no soft hand, and in herlong life had solved many difficult problems in money-grubbingin this archipelago. Her husband was thehead of the Mandel tribe, but sons and daughter allknew the dancing boards of the schooner and the intricaciesof the pearl-market. Usually Mandel stayed inTahiti or visited Paris, but the rahui in Takaroa wastoo promising a prize for any of them to remain away,and all of the family were diligent in intrigue and negotiation.Mandel had handled the finest pearls of thePaumotus for many years. I had seen Mrs. Mandelcome ashore, in a sheeny yellow Mother-Hubbard orTahitian ahu vahine and a cork helmet; but she madeher home on her schooner, to which she invited thosefrom whom her good man had purchased shell or pearls.

Pearls were, of course, the subject of the talk aboutthe fire. Toae, a Hikueru man, had found one, andMandel had it already. He showed it to me, a pea-shaped,dusky object, with no striking beauty.

“I may be mistaken,” said Mandel, “but I believethis outside layer is poorer than one inside. In Paris myemployees will peel it and see. It is taking a chance,but we have a second sight about it. You know a pearlis like an onion, with successive skins, and we take off247a number sometimes. It reduces the size but may increasethe luster. Also we are using the ultra-violetray to improve color. I saw a pearl that cost a hundredthousand francs sold for three hundred thousandafter the ray was used on it. You know a pearl is producedonly by a sick oyster. It is a pathological productlike gall-stones, and it is mostly caused by a tapewormgetting into the oyster’s shell, though a grain ofsand is often the nucleus. The oyster feels the gratingor irritating thing and secretes nacre to cover it. Thetapeworm is embalmed in this mother-of-pearl, and thesand smoothed with it. The material, the nacre, isthe same as the interior of the shell, and the oysterseems not to stop covering the intruder when the itchinghas stopped but keeps on out of habit. And so formssmall and big pearls. Now a blister is generally overa bug or snail, though sometimes it is a stop-gap to keepout a borer who is drilling through the shell from theoutside. The blisters are usually hollow, whereas apearl has a yellow center with the carbonate of lime inconcentric prisms. An orient or true pearl is formedin the muscles of the oyster and does not touch theshell; but the blister, which generally is part of the shell,may have been started in the oyster’s sac or folds, andhave dropped out or been released to hold between theoyster and the shell. With these we cut away the outsidedown to the original pearl. A blister itself is onlygood for a brooch or an ornament, but I have gottenfive or ten thousand francs for the best.”

Captain Nimau, who was only less clever than Mandelin the lore of pearls, said that, as the lagoons were oftenthree hundred feet or deeper in places, it was probable248that larger pearls than ever yet brought up were inthese untouched caches.

“The Paumotuan has descended 180 feet,” saidNimau. “I have plumbed his dive. A diver with asuit cannot go any deeper, and so we never have exploredthe possible beds ’way down. The whole faceof the outer reef may be a vast oyster-bed, but the surfprevents us from investigating. I have seen in Decemberand March of many years millions of baby oystersfloating into the lagoons with the rising tide, to remainthere. They never go out again but prefer the quietlife where they can grow up strong and big. The singularthing about these pearl-oysters is that they canmove about. When you try to break them loose fromthe ledge they prove to be very firmly attached by theirbyssus, but they travel from one shelf to another whenthey need a change of food. It is not sand they are mostafraid of. They can spit their nacre on it if it gets intheir shells; but it is the little red crab that bothers themmost. You know how often you find the crab livinghappily in the pearl-shell because when the oyster feedshe gets his share, and he is too active for the oyster tokill as it does the worm, by spitting its nacre on him andentombing him. Some day divers in improved suitswill search for the thousands of pearls that have fallenupon the bottom from dead oysters, and maybe makemillions. Mais, après tout, pearls may soon have littlevalue, for they say that the Japanese and other peopleare growing them like mushrooms, and, though they havenot yet perfected the orient or true pearl, they may someday. One man, some kind of foreigner, who used to bearound here, discovered the secret, but it’s lost now.”

249

CHAPTER XIII

Story of the wondrous pearls planted in the lagoon of Pukapuka—Tepevaa Tepeva, the crippled diver, tells it—How a European scientistimproved on nature—Tragedy of Patasy and Mauraii—Therobbed coral bank—Death under the sea.

THE palace of the governor was within half a mileof my abode in the vale of Atuona, on the islandof Hiva-Oa, the capital of the Marquesan Archipelago.It was a broad and deep valley, “the mostbeautiful, and by far the most ominous and gloomy, spoton earth,” said Stevenson. Umbrageous and silent,it was watered by a stream, which, born in the distanthills, descended in falls and rills and finally a chatteringbrook to the bay. Magnificent forests of manykinds of trees, a hundred vines and flowers, with rarestorchids, and a tangled mass of grasses and creepers,lined the banks of the little river, and filled the risingconfines of the dell, which, as it climbed, grew narrowerand darker, and more melancholy of aspect, the poignantmelancholy of a sad loveliness past telling or analyzing.A huge fortress of rocks rose almost sheer above mycottage, lowering in shadow and terrible in storm, thehighest point in the Marquesas. In sunshine it was thebrilliant rampart of the world-god’s battlement, reflectinghis flashing rays, and throwing a sheen of luminosityupon the depths of the strath. This lofty peak of Temetiu,nearly a mile in the sky, was the tower of a vaststructure of broken hills, gigantic columns, pinnacles,250tilted and vertical rocks, ruins of titanic battles of fireand water in ages gone. I had but to lift my eyes andlower them to know that man here as in the Paumotushad but triflingly affected his environment. From thecastellated summits to the beach where I had landed, thedwellings of humans seemed lost in the dense foliagedominated by the lofty cocoanuts and the spreadingbreadfruits.

The palace of the young French administrator was ina garden in which grew exotic flowers brought by predecessorswho sought to assuage their nostalgia by familiarcharms. The palace had large verandas, and they weremost of it, as in all tropical countries where mosquitoesare not too menacing. The reading and lounging, theeating and drinking, took place there, and generallya delicious breeze cooled the humid air and drove awayany insects that might annoy. Almost daily I was theguest of the governor at a meal, or in the evening afterdinner, for a merry hour or two. We might be alone,or with André Bauda, the tax collector, postmaster, andchief of police, or not seldom with one or more of thefairest of the Marquesan girls of the island of Hiva-Oa.For the governor was host not only to the beauties ofour valley of Atuona, but sent Flag, the native mutoi,or policeman, of the capital, to other villages over themountains, to invite those whom Flag thought wouldlessen his ennui. Far from his beloved Midi, the governorretained a Gallic and gallant attitude towardyoung women, and never tired of their prattle, theirinsatiable thirst for the beverages of France, and theirlight laughter when lifted out of their habitual gravityby these. Determined to learn their tongue as quickly251as possible, being no longer resident than I in the Marquesas,he kept about him a lively lexicon or two to furnishhim words and practice. Midnight often camewith the rest of the village already hours upon theirsleeping-mats, but on the palace porches a gabble ofconversation, the lilt of a chant, or perhaps the patterof a hula dance of bare feet upon the boards. TheProtestant and Catholic missionaries, though opposed toeach other upon doctrinal and disciplinary subjects,united in condemnation of the conduct of the high representativeof sovereignty. But, like the governor ofthe Paumotus, he replied: “La vie est triste; vive labagatalle.” Life is sad; let joy be unconfined.

The governor’s ménage had only one attendant, Songof the Nightingale, and he served only because he wasa prisoner, and preferred the domestic duties to repairingtrails or sitting all day in the calaboose by the beach.There was no servant in the Marquesas. Whatever civilizationhad done to them,—and it had undone themalmost entirely,—it had not made them menials. Therewas never a slave. Here death was preferable. InTahiti one might procure native domestics with extremedifficulty through their momentary craving for gauds,or through affection, but one bought no subservience.The silent, painstaking European or American or Asiatic,the humble, sir-ring butler and footman, could notbe matched in the South Seas. If they liked one, theseindolent people would work for one now and then, butmust be allowed to have their own way and say, and, ifreproved, it must be in the tone one used to a child or arelative. The governor himself was compelled to endureSong of the Nightingale’s lapses and familiarities,252because he was the only procurable cook in the islands.He could not buy or persuade one of his lovely guests,clothed as they were but in a single garment, to washa plate or shake a mat. I, it was true, was assisted byExploding Eggs, a boy of fourteen years, but I madehim an honored companion and neophyte whom I initiatedinto the mysteries of coffee-making and sweeping,and he, too, often wandered away for a day or two withoutwarning.

The table was spread on the veranda when at seveno’clock I opened the garden gate of the palace. Flaghad delivered to me an enveloped card with studiousceremony, the governor sometimes observing the extremeniceties of official hospitality, and again throwingthem to the winds, especially in very hot weather. Flag,barelegged and barefooted as always, wore the red-stripedjacket of the mutoi and a loin-cloth, and carrieda capacious leather pouch from which he had extractedthe made-in-Paris carte d’invitation. To him it was amysterious summons to a Lucullan feast which he mightnot even look upon. The governor was dressing whenI mounted the porch, and I was received by Song of theNightingale. He was a middle-aged desperado, with aleering face, given a Mephistophelian cast by a blackwhisker extending from ear to ear, and by heavy lines ofblue tattooing upon his forehead. He had white bloodin him, I felt sure, for he had a cunning wickedness ofaspect that lacked the simplicity of the Marquesan.He had been a prisoner many years for various offenses,but mostly for theft or moonshining, at whichhe was adept, and he was the one Marquesan I wouldnot trust; he had been too much with whites. One wondered253at times whether one’s life was not the pawn of amood of such a villain, but the French had hammeredtheir dominion upon these sons of man-eaters with leadand steel in the early days, though they were easy andnegligent rulers over the feeble remnant.

The handsome governor came from his boudoir asVehine-hae and Tahia-veo said “Kaoha!” Vehine-haeand Tahia-veo were their names in Marquesan, whichtranslated exactly Ghost Girl and Miss Tail. Thelatter was a petite, engaging girl of seventeen, a brunettein color, and modest and sweet in disposition.Ghost Girl was the enigma of her sex there, nineteenor twenty, living alone in a detached hut, and singularlybeautiful. She was as dark as a Nubian, with a voluptuousfigure, small hands and feet, and baggage eyesof melting sepia that promised devotion unutterable.Her nose was straight and perfect, and her sensualmouth filled with shining teeth. Of all the Marquesangirls she wore a travesty of European dress. They inpublic wore a tight-fitting peignoir or tunic, and in privatea pareu, but Ghost Girl had on a silk bodice opento disclose her ripe symmetry, and a lace petticoat aboutwhich she wore a silk kerchief. In her ebon heap of hairshe wore the phosphorescent flowers of the Rat’s Ear.Her mind was that of a child of ten, inquisitive and acquisitive,exhibitive and demanding.

The governor seated us, the ladies opposite each other,and the dinner began with appetizers of vermouth.The aromatic wine, highly fortified as it was, burnedthe throat of Miss Tail, but Ghost Girl drank hers withzest, and said, “Motaki! That’s fine!” Neither of thegirls spoke more than a few sentences of French, though254they had both been in the nuns’ school, but we were ablewith our knowledge of Marquesan and Song’s fragmentaryFrench to carry on a lively interchange of words,if not of thought.

The governor had shot a few brace of kuku, the greendoves of the forest, and Song had spitted them over apurau wood fire. With the haunch of a wild goat fromthe hills we had excellent fare, with claret and whitewine from Sauterne. We two palefaces wielded forks,but as no Polynesians use such very modern inventionsthe ladies lifted their meat to their months without artificialaid. Ghost Girl, as befitting her European attire,tried to use a fork, but shrieked with pain when she succeededin putting only the tines into her tongue. Wehardly realize the pains our mothers were at to teach ustable-manners, nor that gentlemen of Europe ate withtheir fingers at a period when chop-sticks were in commonuse in China and Japan, except in time of mourning.

Song of the Nightingale, who, doubtless, had indulgedhis convict hankering for alcohol in the secretrecesses of the kitchen, laughed loudly at Ghost Girl’spain, and when he placed a platter of the kuku on thecloth, and she refused to accept one of the grilled birdshis snigger became derisive. He took up the carving-forkand stuck it deep into a kuku’s breast and put iton her plate. She shuddered and started back, withher hands covering her long-lashed eyes. The governordemanded in a slightly angry tone to know whatSong had done to frighten her. The cook explainedthat Ghost Girl was of Hanavave, on the island of Fatuhiva,a day’s journey distant, and that the bon dieu or255god—he said pony-too—of Fatuhiva was the kuku.She had been appalled at his suggestion that she shouldeat the symbolic tenement of her mother’s deity, thoughshe herself ate the transubstantiated host at communionin the Catholic church at Atuona. Not content withhis insult to her ancestral god, and, taking his cue fromthe governor’s roar of laughter at his French or his explanation,the cruel Song said a bitter thing to GhostGirl.

“Eat the kuku!” he said. “It will taste better thanyour grandmother did.”

Tuitui! Shut your mouth!” retorted Vehine-hae.“There were no thieves in our tribe.”

That was a hot shot at Song’s crimes and penal record,and so animated became their repartee that the governorhad to call a halt and demand mutual apologies.The chef informed him that his father in a foray uponHanavave had taken as a prize of war the grandmotherof Ghost Girl, and had eaten her, or at least, whatevertidbit he had liked. It was history that she had beeneaten in Taaoa, Song’s home, in the next valley toAtuona. No more vindictive remark than this, normore hateful action than his offering the kuku to GhostGirl, could be imagined in the rigid etiquette of Marquesassociety. The tears were in the soft eyes ofVehine-hae, and the alarmed governor dismissed Songfrom further service that evening and took the weepingFatuhivan in his arms to console her.

Tapu! Tapu!” sobbed Ghost Girl. The kuku wastapu to her teeth, as the American flag would be to thefeet of a patriot. Song was without other belief thanin the delight of drink, but Ghost Girl was a woman,256the support of every new cult and the prop of every oldone. Superstition the world over will die last in thebreast of the female. She survives subjugated races,and conserves the past, because her instincts are strongerand her faculties less active than man’s, and her needof worship overwhelming.

That word tapu was still one to conjure with in theMarquesas. Flag, the policeman, and sole deputy ofCommissaire Bauda on the island of Hiva-Oa, had invokedit a few days before, after an untoward incident.Bauda and I had returned on horseback from a journeyto the other side of the island, and, at the post-tax-policeoffice near the beach where Bauda lived, encounteredFlag, drunk. Son of a famous dead chief, andhimself an amiable, bright man of thirty, he had not resistedthe temptation of Bauda’s being gone for a day,to abstract a bottle of absinthe from a closet and consumethe quart. Bauda upbraided him and ordered himto his house, but Flag seized a loaded rifle and soundedan ancient battle-cry. It had the blood-curdling qualityof an Indian whoop.

Neither Bauda nor I was armed, and I was for shelterbehind a cocoanut-tree. That would not do for Bauda,nor for discipline.

“Me with six campaigns in Africa! Moi qui parle!”exclaimed the former officer of the Foreign Legion, ashe tapped his breast and voiced his astonishment atFlag’s temerity. He strode toward the staggeringmutoi, and, with utter disregard of the rifle, reached hisside. He wrenched the weapon from him, and with aseries of kicks drove him into the calaboose and lockedthe door on him.

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (34)

Photo from L. Gauthier
Ghost girl

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (35)

A double canoe

257“That means ten years in Noumea for him,” said thecommissaire, savagely. But after dinner, which I got,when he had meditated upon Flag’s willingness as a cookand his ability to collect taxes, he lessened the sentenceto a year at hard labor. I was not surprised to meetFlag at noon the next day with his accustomed whitejacket with its red stripe upon the arm. Man cannotlive without cooks, and perhaps I had aided leniency byburning a bird.

Flag explained to me, though sheepishly, that, overcomeby the litre of absinthe as he was, he would nothave injured a hair of Bauda’s head.

“Bauda is tapu. I would meet an evil fate did Itouch him,” said Flag, when sober and sorry.

I stumbled on tapus daily. Vai Etienne, my neighbor,gave me a feast one day, and half a dozen of us,all men, sat at table. Vai Etienne, having livedseveral years in Tahiti had Frenchified ways. Hismother, the magnificent Titihuti, who was splendidlytattooed from toe to waist, and who was my adoptedmother, waited upon us. Offering her a glass of wine,and begging her to sit with us, I discovered that theglass her son drank from and the chair a man sat inwere tapu to her. She took her wine from a shell, butwould not sit at table with us. Of course, she never satin chairs, anyhow, nor did Vai Etienne, but he had providedthese for the whites.

The subject of the tapus of the South Seas was endless.The custom, tabu or kapu in Hawaiian, andtambu in Fijian, was ill expressed in our “taboo,” whichmeans the pressure of public sentiment, or family orgroup feeling. Tapus here were the conventions of258primitive people made awe-inspiring for enforcement becauseof the very willfulness of these primitives. Thecustom here and throughout society dated from thebeginning of legend. Laws began with the rules laiddown by the old man of the family and made dread inthe tribe or sept by the hocus-pocus of the medicineman. Tapus may have been the foundation of all penallaws and etiquette. The Jews had a hundred nicetiesof religious, sanitary, and social tapus. Warriors weretapu in Homer’s day, and land and fish were tapu toGrecian warriors, according to Plato. Confucius inthe “Li Ki,” ordained men and women not to sit on thesame mat, nor have the same clothes-rack, towel, orcomb, nor to let their hands touch in giving and receiving,nor to do a score of other trivial things. The oldIrish had many tapus and totems, and many legends ofharm wrought by their breaking, a famous one being“The Destruction of Da Derga’s Hostel.”

In the Marquesas tapus were the most important partof life, as ceremony was at the court of the kings ofFrance. They governed almost every action of thepeople, as the rules of a prison do convicts, or theprecepts of a monastery monks. Death followed thedisobedience of many, and others preserved one fromthe hands of enemies. There being no organized governmentin Polynesia, tapus took the place of lawsand edicts. They were, in fact, spiritual laws, superstitionbeing the force instead of a penal code. Theyimposed honesty, for if a man had any dear possession,he had the priest tapu it and felt secure. Tapus protectedbetrothed girls and married women from rakes.

A young woman who worked at the convent in259Atuona, near me, was made tapu against all work.She was never allowed to touch food until it had beenprepared for her. If she broke the tapu the food wasthrown away. From infancy, when a taua had laidthe prohibition upon her, she lived in disagreeable idleness,afraid to break the law of the priest. Only inrecent years did the nuns laugh away her fears, and sether to helping in their kitchen. She told me that shecould not explain the reason for her having been tapufrom effort, as the taua had died who chained her, withoutinforming her.

If a child crawled under a house in the building, thehouse was burned. If I were building a boat, and, fordislike of me, some one named aloud the boat after myfather, I destroyed the boat. Blue was tapu to womenin Nuku-Hiva, and red, too. They could not eat bonito,squid, popii, and koehi. They might not eat bananas,cocoanuts, fresh breadfruit, pigs of brown color, goats,fowls and other edibles.

Females were forbidden to climb upon the sacredpaepaes, to enter the men’s club-houses (this tapu wasenforced in America until the last few years), to eatwith men, to smoke inside the house, to carry mats ontheir heads, and, saddest of all, to weep. Childrenmight not carry one another pickaback. The kuavenafish was tapu to fishermen, as also peata, a kind ofshark.

To throw human hair upon the ground was strictlyprohibited. It might be trodden on, and bring mischiefupon the former wearer. So the chiefs would neverwalk under anything that might be trodden on, andaboard ships never went below deck, for that reason.260Perhaps our superstition as to walking under laddersis derived from such a tapu. To stretch one’s handor an object over the head of any one was tapu. Therewere a hundred things tapu to one sex. Men had theadvantage in these rules, for they were made by men.

The earthly punishments for breaking tapus ran froma small fine to death, and from spoliation to ostracismand banishment. Though there were many arbitrarytapus, the whims and fantasies of chiefs, or the wilesof priests, the majority of them had their beginning insome real or fancied necessity or desirability. Doubtlessthey were distorted, but, like circumcision and theMosaic barring of pork to the Jews, here was health orsafety of soul or body concerned. One might cite theTen Commandments as very old tapus.

The utter disregard for the tapus of the Marquesansshown by the whites eventually had caused them to fallinto general disrepute. They degenerated as mannersdecayed under the influx of barbarians into Rome, asGreek art fell before the corruption of the people. TheCatholic, who bowed his head and struck his breast at theexaltation of the host, could understand the venerationthe Marquesans had for their chief tapus, and their horrorat the conduct of the rude sailors and soldiers whocontemned them. But when they saw that no gods revengedthemselves upon the whites, that no devil devouredtheir vitals when they ate tapu breadfruit orfish or kicked the high priest from the temple, thegentle savages made up their minds that the magic hadlost its potency. So, gradually, though to some peopletapus were yet very sacred, the fabric built up by thousandsof years of an increasingly elaborate system of261laws and rites, melted away under the breath of scorn.The god of the white man was evidently greater thantheirs. Titihuti, a constant attendent of the Catholicchurch, yet treasured a score of tapus, and associatedwith them these others, the dipping of holy water fromthe bénitier, the crossing herself, the kneeling and standingat mass, the telling of her beads, and the kissing ofthe cross.

The abandonment of tapus under the ridicule andprofanation of the whites relaxed the whole intricatebut sustaining Marquesan economy. Combined withthe ending of the power of chiefs of hereditary caste,the doing away with tapus as laws set the natives hopelesslyadrift on an uncharted sea. Right and wrongwere no longer right or wrong.

This fetish system was very aptly called a plague ofsacredness.

“Whoever was sacred infested everything he touchedwith consecration to the gods, and whatever had thusthe microbe of divinity communicated to it could communicateit to other things and persons, and renderthem incapable of common use or approach. Not tillthe priest had removed the divine element by ceremoniesand incantations could the thing or person becomecommon or fit for human use or approach again.”

The Marquesan priests strove with might and mainto extend the tapus, for they meant power and gain.Wise and strong chiefs generally had private conferenceswith the priests and looked to it that tapus didnot injure them.

Allied with tapuism was what is called in Hawaiikahunaism, that is the witchcraft of the priests, the262old wizards, who combined with the imposing and liftingof the bans, the curing or killing of people by enchantment.Sorcery or spells were at the basis of mostprimitive medicine. At its best it was hypnotism, mesmerism,or mind power. After coming through thousandsof years of groping in physic and surgery, weare adopting to a considerable degree the methods of theancient priests, the theurgy, laying on of hands, or invokingthe force of mind over matter, or stated Christlymethods of curing the sick. In Africa witchcraft orvoodooism attains more powers than ever here, buteven in Polynesia the test of a priest’s powers was hisability to kill by willing it. In the New Zealand witchcraftschools no man was graduated until he could makesome one die who was pointed out as his subject. Abelief in this murderous magic is shared by many whiteswho have lived long in Polynesia or New Zealand. Itwas still practised here, and held many in deadly fear.The victims died under it as if their strength ran outlike water.

The most resented exclusion against women in theMarquesas, and one of the last to be broken, was fromcanoes. Lying Bill, as the first seaman who sailed theirships here, had met shoals of women swimming out milesto the vessel as it made for port. In his youth they didnot dare enter a canoe in Hiva-Oa. They tied theirpareus on their heads and swam out, clambered aboardthe ships miles from land with the pareus still dry.

“They’d jump up on the bulwarks,” said Lying Bill,“an’ make their twilight before touchin’ the deck. Themen would come out in canoes an’ find the women hadall the bloomin’ plunder.”

263This tapu, most important to the men, was maintaineduntil a Pankhurst sprang from the ranks of complainingbut inactive women. There being many more men,women had always had a singular sex liberty, but, as Ihave said, the artful men had invoked rigid tapus to keepthem from all water-craft. The females might havethree or four husbands, might outshine an Aspasia inspell of pulchritude and collected tribute, and the portionedmen must submit for passion’s sake, but wheneconomics had concern, the pagan priests brought ordersdirectly from deity.

The dread gods of the High Place, the demons ofthe Paepae Tapu, had centuries before sealed canoesagainst women. In canoes women might wander; theymight visit other bays and valleys, even other islands,and learn of the men of other tribes. They might goabout and fall victims to the enemies of the race. Theymight assume to enter the Fae Enata, the House ofCouncil, which was on a detached islet.

And they certainly would catch other fish than thosethey now snared from rocks or hooked, as both swamin the sea. Fish are much the diet of the Marquesans,and were propitiations to maid and wife—the currentcoin of the food market. To withhold fish was to causehunger. The men alone assumed the hazard of the tossingcanoe, the storms, the hot eye of the vertical sun,and the devils of the deep who grappled with the fisher;and theirs was the reward, and theirs the weapons ofcontrol.

But there were always women who grumbled, womenwho even laughed at such sacred things, and women whopersisted. Finally the very altar of the Forbidden264Height was shaken by their madness. How and whatcame of it were told me by an old priest or sorcerer, aswe sat in the shade of the great banyan on the beachand waited for canoes to come from the fishing.

The sorcerer and I passed the ceremonial pipe, andhis words were slow, as becoming age and a severe outlookon life.

“There were willful women who would destroy thetapu against entering canoes?” I asked, to urge hisspeech.

E, it was so!” he said.

Me imui? What happened?” I queried further.

“A long time this went on. My grandfather told meof a woman who talked against that tapu when he was aboy.”

“And she—?”

“She enraged the gods. She corrupted even men. Acouncil was held of the wise old men, and the wordswent forth from it. She was made to keep within herhouse, and a tapu against her made it forbidden to listento her wildness. In each period another woman aroseto do the same, and more were corrupted. Some womenstole canoes and were drowned. The sharks even hatedthem for their wickedness. We pointed out what fatehad befallen them, but other women returned boasting.We slew some of these. But still it went on. Youknow, foreigner, how the pokoko enters a valley. Onecoughs and then another, and from the sea to the peakof Temetiu, many are made sick by the evil. It was sowith us, and that revolt against religion.”

He sighed and rubbed his stomach.

“Is it not time they came?” he asked.

265Epo, by and by,” I answered. “Why did you mennot yield? After all, what did it really matter?”

O te Etua e! The gods of the High Place forbade,for the women’s own sake!” he said indignantly, andmuttered further.

To break down every sacred relation of centuries!To shatter the tradition of ages! To unsex their belovedmothers, wives, and sisters by the license of canoe riding!The dangers and the hardships of the carven treewere to be spared the consolers of men’s labor and perils.

“Did the gods speak out plainly and severely?”

The taua looked at me quizzically. Foreigners mockholy things of nature. The bishop here had kicked thegraven image of the deity of the cocoanut-tree.

Ea! Po, the god of night, who rules the hereafter,spoke. The priest, the high priest, received the message.You know that grove by the Dark Cave. He heard thevoice from the black recesses. Tapu haa, it said. Adouble tapu against any woman even lifting a paddle,or putting one toe, or her heel, or her shadow within acanoe. All the women were not wicked. Many believedtheir place was in the huaa, the home. These refusedto join the brazen hussies, the deserters of the popoipit. But the dance was dull, and there was strife.The huona, the artists, the women who rejoice men whenthey are merry, the women with three or more husbands,they all seemed to have the madness. They gainedsome of the younger men to their side, and they builtthat long house by those breadfruit-trees. They heldtheir palaver there, and they refused to lie under theirown faa, their roofs of pandanus. They would notdance by the light of the blazing candlenuts the mad266hura-hura, nor let those bravers of the sea share theirmats on the paepae of the valley. Many husbandsfought one another when their wife did not return.The tribe grew apart.”

He sighed and took a shark’s tooth from his loin-cloth,with which he scraped our pipe.

I went and lay where the curling sea caressed mynaked feet. I was within easy distance of the taua’svoice. One must not hurry even in speech in these Islesof Leisure. The old man blew through the bowl andthen the stem, and, taking pieces of tobacco from hispareu, he packed the pipe and lit it. He drew a longwhiff first, as one pours wine first in one’s own glass,and handed it to me.

He responded when I put the pipe again between histrembling fingers.

“The gods grew weary. Messages but few camefrom them. Priests’ wives even ceased to cook thebreadfruit on the hot stones, and went to live in thataccursed haa ite.”

“We esteem such a long house, and call it a club,”I interposed in subconscious defense of my own habits.

Oti! Maybe. Your island forgot wisdom early.You even cook your fish. We will make the firenow.”

I rose and shook off the warm salt water from mybody. My pareu of blue with white stars was on a descendingbranch of the banyan. I put it about mythighs and folded it for holding. Then arm in arm wewalked to our own house on the raised paepae of greatbasalt stones.

I heaped the dried cocoanut fiber in a hollow of a267rock, and about it set the polished coral of our kitchen.A spark from the pipe set it afire, and, heaped withmore fiber and wood of the hibiscus, before longthe stones blushed with the heat, and, growing redderyet, were ready for their service.

The priest of old had withdrawn to make a sauce oflimes and sea-water, which he brought out within thehalf-hour from the penthouse in which we stored oursimple goods. It was in a tanoa formerly used forkava, a trencher of the false ebony, black in life, butturned by the years of decoction of the mysteriousnarcotic to a marvelous green. It was like an ancientbronze in the open. Here we were both ready for ourdelayed food, I, beside the glowing coral stones, thebones of once living organisms, and the old man, withhis bowl of sauce. But the food tarried.

He fluttered about the paepae and chewed a bit of thehibiscus wood to stay his hunger. In the breadfruit-grovethe komako, the Marquesan nightingale, deceivedby a lowering cloud or perhaps impelled by a suddenpassion, was early pouring his soul into the shadowyair. I tended my fire and wondered at man’s smallrelation to most of creation.

“Go, my son,” said the taua impatiently, “to the openingof the forest, and see if they do not come over thewaves!”

I strolled to where the beach met the jungle. Anoutrigger canoe was coming through the surf. A faintshout from it reached me. I ran back to him where hestill chewed an inedible splinter.

Epo,” I said, and made the fire fiercer. He stirredhis mitiaroa, the sauce, and watered his lips.

268“How was the tapu broken finally?” I asked, casually.

“They are long away,” he observed with his eyes onthe break in the trees.

“They are just now beaching the canoe,” I said soothingly.“We will eat in a moment. But taua, youleave me hungry for that last word.

“The women of Oomoa tried to break down your tapuof time immemorial against their entering canoes, andthere was trouble. The gods were against them, andyet to-day—”

“The gods got tired,” he interrupted me. “Thechiefs became afraid of the continuous hakapahi i tefaufau, the excitement and turmoil. You know thechiefs and priests decided all things. Now the womencried out for a vavaotina, for each one of the tribe tolay a candlenut in one of two popoi troughs. One wasassent to the tapu, and the other against it.”

There was argument first, said the taua. After thepriests had called down the curse of Po and other godsof might on all who would invoke a popular judgmentof a sacred and time-webbed commandment, the chiefspictured the dangers to women and to canoes, to thetribe and the valley, if women broke loose from thecenturied bonds that forbade canoeing. Older womenand some younger beauties, the latter fearing hurt totheir prestige by less luxurious belles, urged the inviolabilityof the tapu.

The women of the Long House, the rebels, merelydemanded instant casting of the ama nuts into thehoana. He himself, the taua said, then made the greaterror of his life. He swiftly counted in his mind those269for and against, and, convinced that he had a huge majorityfor the prevailing law and order, shouted out thatthe vavaotina, though long disused, was just and trulyMarquesan.

The troughs were brought from a near-by house tothe beach, and the trial was staged.

“At that moment,” said the old priest, “a canoe whichhad been cunningly making its way to the shore, as ifby a prearranged signal, suddenly took the breakers andcame careening upon the sand. Out of it steppedTaipi, a woman of that red-headed tribe of Tahuata,arranged her kilt of tapa, and advanced. She was likean apparition, but fatal to my count. She was a moikanahau, beautiful and strong, and the first woman whohad ever come except as a prisoner from that fierceisland. But she was stronger in her desires than anyman. She was unbelieving and unafraid of sacredthings. A hundred men sprang forward to greetTaipi. American, she was as the red jasmine, as thefire of the oven, odorous and lovely, but hot to the touchand scorching to know. That woman laughed at themen, and, as if word had been sent her, took her placeamong the women. She seized a candlenut and threwit exactly into the unholy hoana.

“‘O men of Oomoa,’ she cried, ‘so you fear thatwomen may paddle faster and better than you! Haametauhae! You are cowards. Look, I have come anight and a day alone, and no shark god has injured meand I am not weary.’

“There followed a shower of candlenuts into the demontrough, as the stones from the slings in battle.We were beaten, as youth ever defeats age when new270gods are powerful. Our day and the power of all tapuswaned and ended soon. Once in the canoes thosewomen made us release the tapu against their eatingbananas and, later, pig. In a thousand years no Marquesanwoman had tasted a banana or eaten pig. Theywere for the men and there were good reasons knownto the gods. But let woman leave ever so little way thenarrow path of obedience and of doing without thingsthat are evil for her, and she knows no limits. She iswithout the koekoe, the spirit that is in man. The racehas fallen on sorrow.”

He sat down on his powerful haunches and chantedan improvisation about the lost splendor. Low andmournful, the psalm of a Jeremiah, his deep voice rumbledas he fixed his dark eyes on the great globes of thebreadfruit hanging by the plaited roof of the hut.

And through an opening of the forest came the twowomen of his household, Very White and Eyes of theGreat Stars, heavily laden with their morning’s catchof fish. They came tripping over the green carpet ofthe forest, laughing at some incident of their fishing, andthrew down beside him the strung circles of shining ika,large and brilliant bonito, the mackerel of brilliancy,and the maoo, the gay and gaudy flying-fish.

“Oh, ho! sorcerer,” said I. “Did ever men matchwith the cunning of these scaly ones with greater luck?The stones are ready for their broiling.”

The taua made a wry face and stirred his sauce. Hedipped a popo into it and ate it greedily, bones and all.

E, e!” he said and spat out the words. “Piau!The women catch their own fish now.”

271

CHAPTER XIV

The palace of the governor of the Marquesas in the vale of Atuona—MonsieurL’Hermier des Plantes, Ghost Girl, Miss Tail, and Songof the Nightingale—Tapus in the South Seas—Strange conventionsthat regulate life—A South Seas Pankhurst—How women won theirfreedom.

IN Mapuhi’s store, on the counter, taken from thecabin of the County of Roxburgh, lay twenty-fivepearls. They were of different values, two or threemagnificent in size, in shape, and in luster, the fruitof Mapuhi’s tribe’s harvest in Takaroa Lagoon. Hedisplayed them to me and others the night before I wasto sail with Lying Bill for the Marquesas Islands.Aaron Mandel was about to buy them, and as theParisian dealer and Mapuhi discussed their worth, Bill,McHenry, Kopcke, Nimau, and others added theiropinions.

“If you paid for these pearls what they cost in suffering,and in proportion to the earnings of a diver inhis lifetime, you would offer me ten times what you do,”said Mapuhi. “The white women who wear these poecan never know the dangers or the pain endured byour people. Two have aninia, vertigo, and one hasbeen made permanently deaf this rahui.”

“I agree with you,” replied Mandel, “that nothingof money can balance what you Paumotuans go throughto gather shells, but in many parts of the world diversof other races are doing the same. They don’t go asdeep as you do, because their waters are shallower, but272they fix the price for pearls. I have seen them fromCeylon to Australia, and I have to meet their competitionwhen I take these pearls to Paris where themarket is. Also, Mapuhi, the culture pearl is everyyear hurting our trade more and more, and some daymay make pearls so cheap that you will get a third ofwhat you do now. You remember the Taote ofPukapuka!

“That was the devil’s magic, and it will not be again,”said Mapuhi. “Man who loves and serves the trueGod will never interfere with his secrets, but will acceptwhat he offers for man’s struggles and torments. TheTaote was tempted by Satan, and his sin was terriblypunished.”

Mandel smiled.

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (36)

From the painting by Oscar F. Schmidt
A young palm in Atuona

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (37)

From the painting by Oscar F. Schmidt
Atuona valley and the peak of Temetiu

“Yes the Taote got a rough deal,” he admitted.“But his pearls made another man’s fortune, and astonishedall who saw them in Paris. Let me tell you!Last year I visited three culture fields, and they aredoing wonderful things. The Japanese for many yearsonly copied the methods of the Chinese. They forcedthe fresh water mussel and the abalone to coat with nacresubstances they inserted within their folds, but theygot no pearls of the best size, shape, or luster. Now,Kokichi Mikimoto has gone much further than anybody.I spent a week with him at his pearl farm in thebay of Ago in the Inland Sea of Japan. The bay isa dozen miles long and five wide, with an average depthof sixty feet, but it is remarkably free from currentsand severe storms. Mikimoto is a scientist as was theTaote. He opens a three-year-old shell and lays ahead of nacre on the outer, shell-secreting skin of the273oyster. This skin is then dissected off the oyster andfitted about the bead like a sac. This sac is then transplantedinto the tissues of another oyster in its shell, anastringent is sprinkled on the wound, and the secondoyster is planted in the prepared bed at anywhere fromtwenty-five to eighty feet. It stays there from threeto seven years, and then his girl diver brings it up.Mind you, he has laid down suitable rocks in certainshallow places, and when they are covered with oysterspat they are removed to deeper beds and set out inorder. It is these which are dissected at three years ofage, and the nuclei inserted in them. These beads areof all colors, mother-of-pearl or pink or blue coral, andthe pearls are of the color, white or pink or blue, of thebeads. The oysters often spit them out, the starfishand octopus ravage the beds, and the red current sometimesspoils everything for a year. They have similarfarms in other parts of Japan, and in Australia andCeylon, but Mikimoto has done most. He sells millionsof pearls every year. Of course they are blistersand so not orient or perfect, because the bead hastouched the shell while growing, and has not remainedin the folds of the oyster. But I am afraid, for I wastold a few months ago that Mikimoto and others weremaking perfect pearls. If they do they will ruin themarket.”

“You can tell the difference between natural andculture pearls in any case?” I asked.

Mais oui! If you cut open the grafted pearl youfind the center a bead or bit of coral, but in the truepearl the center is a grain of sand, or a hollow formerlyoccupied by the tapeworm or parasite. Well, you274won’t make any money cutting pearls open, so we usethe ultra-violet ray. Most of Mikimoto’s pearls areabout as big as French peas, and, as I say, lack sphericitybecause of attachment to the inner shells. But,mind you, his oysters are merely the avicule or wing-shelledkind, and small. Here are these Paumotu shellsfrom six to eighteen inches across and the oysters in proportion.Think of what they might do, if they were putto work by science and—”

“They were once,” broke in Kopcke. “My girl’sfather knows all about it.”

“I know much about it, too,” said Mandel; “and Ihave never known just what to believe. I only knowthat some one sold a string of pearls in Paris finerthan any in the world, and they are now in New York.

“The Empress Eugénie’s necklace came from here,and so did Queen Victoria’s five-thousand-pound pearl,but these were said to be finer.”

“For heaven’s sake!” I exclaimed. “Tell me whatyou do know of this mysterious Taote and his tragedy.Mapuhi has put the devil to work in it. I have beenhearing talk about it since I landed in Tahiti.”

“Come down to my shack,” said Kopcke, “and Iwill get old Tepeva a Tepeva to tell you his part of it.”

“I will finish with Mapuhi,” Mandel said, “and willbe along in ten minutes.”

That the fixing of a price for the twenty-five pearlswas not to be concluded in public was evident, and soKopcke, Lying Bill, and we others sauntered toKopcke’s hut. Nowhere do whites despise one anotheras feelingly as in the South Seas. Their competitionin business and in love is so intimate and so acute275that there are no distances nor withholdings of emotion.The finesse and impersonal euchering of rivals practisedon mainlands is not copied in this hotter and more primitivemart where adversaries are of ruder breed, andcourtesy is considered weakness. As we strolled underthe palms to Kopcke’s house, McHenry said to me,“This Taote, this doctor or magician they gab about,I knew better than anybody else, an’ he was a bloomin’queer ’un. I kept a store at Penrhyn for years, andthis fellow was around there studyin’ the lagoon.Everybody called him Doc, but whether he was a M.D.I don’t know. He had a tool-chest, though, like abloody sawbones, and could fix a cut or saw off anarm fine. He had michaelscropes and all sorts o’ professorjunk, an’ he was good-hearted, and had moneyenough, too.”

“I remember the fellow well,” Lying Bill interposed.“’E was a han’some man, big as Landers, and dark asLlewellyn. ’E ’ad gold ’air, but never wore a ’at,blow ’igh, blow low, an’ so ’is ’air was so bleedin’ sunburned,it was all colors. ’E was a furriner, an’ ’adstudied in Germany,—if ’e wasn’t a German,—though’e was a reg’ler pollyglut and parlayed every lingo. ’E’ad a ’ole chemist shop with ’im on Penrhyn. I usedto see ’im treatin’ the lepers and studyin’ oysters nightan’ day. At first, I thought he might be a buyer, an’watched ’im, but he ’ad no time for tradin’. In thedivin’ season ’e was always around the lagoons, an’’e’d look at every pearl and the shell it come out of.’E was a myst’ry, ’e was, an’ made no friends with anybody.The natives called ’im Itataupoo Taote, ’AtlessDoctor. ’E played a deep game, ’e did.”

276At Kopcke’s shack he made us welcome. Lampswere lighted, and cigarettes and a black bottle of rumset on the counter.

“I’ll go and hunt up the old man to spin you theyarn,” said Kopcke, and disappeared in the darknessof the outside. Mandel came before he returned,and as the talk was still on the Taote he gathered uphis thread of it.

“This magician’s name was Horace Sassoon, and hewas of a rich and fine family in England,” said Mandel.“I knew much about him because I cashed his draftsmore than once. He was a medical doctor, educatedin Germany, France, and England, and he had beenseven or eight years in India. While in Ceylon or theArabian Gulf he investigated the pearl fisheries and gotinterested in the processes of mother-of-pearl secretionby oysters. I think he was a real savant, and that hehad a strong interest in the treatment of lepers by thechaulmoogra oil and the X-ray. He told me that hewanted to endow a great institution in India, but thathe was unable to raise the funds. Me, I am credulous,but I believe the institution was a beautiful woman whospent much money. He had an income sent from Paristo Tahiti, and the drafts, not large, came through myhouse. I would meet him, as you men did, in Papeeteor in these atolls, or Penrhyn, wherever there was diving,but I never suspected his game, though three or fourtimes he said to me, ‘I will have all the money I needsome day if I am right in my theories.’ I lost track ofhim, and did not associate with him the big pearls thatcame to Paris until I saw the pearl Woronick bought,and heard Tepeva a Tepeva’s account. I won’t spoil277it by repeating it, and anyhow, here he is himself!”

Kopcke entered with his girl and her father. Thelatter was a very big man, the wreck of a giant. Hewas sadly afflicted; he would take a step, and stop, andthen his head would roll over on his shoulder. Eachtime he started to move, he went through convulsivetremors as if winding himself up for the next step—andI recognized the paralysis which seizes the diver whohas dived too often and too deep.

Maite rii, Tamahine! Go slow, daughter!” he wassaying, as he seized a post and let himself down to thefloor, where he squatted.

“He was about the best diver in the group, but thebends have got him,” said Kopcke.

“’E’s a Mormon,” Lying Bill blurted, “an’ ’e won’ttouch the rum.” Bill helped himself, stood the bottlebefore him, and began to doze.

“My father,” said Kopcke, “here is a Marite from faracross the sea, who wants to know of your adventurewith the Taote who gave you the pearl.”

Tepeva a Tepeva shaded his eyes with his hand andpeered at me. “Oia ia! It is well!” he stuttered.His eyes fell upon the bottle, and remained fastenedupon it.

“Would not Tepeva a Tepeva wish to refresh himself?”I said quietly, and passed the bottle to the cripple.He took it, weighed it, removed the cork, smelt thecontents, and poured out a shellful,—a third of a pint,—tossedit off, smacked his lips as if it were cocoanut-milk,and began to speak more freely.

Ea, that ramu is good. I do not drink it as a Mormonbut because I am weak. It is makivi, this thing I278tell you. It is stranger than the stick of Moses turninginto a sea-snake. It costs me dear, as you see,though it paid me well. I am as I am, a cracked canoe,because of it. But I have my house, and all the debtsof my family are paid, and I owe Mapuhi a Mapuhinot a sou. It is good to be free. I was a diver atPenrhyn for the British when I met the foreigner. Hewas a Taote. He said that he was trying to cure thelepers. He had a wonderful medicine. He did not letthem drink it, but put it into their arms through a pipe.But also he watched the diving. Doc, they called him,and he never covered his head. But no man said Itataupooto him. He was no man to laugh at. He spathis words and was done, but he would mend a brokenbone, or cure a coral cut or the wound of a swordfish.He looked through a tube with a glass in it at bloodfrom the lepers, and at pearls and oysters. He hadlamps that made a light like the blue sky. Throughhis tube the water from our wells was as a fish-pond.Hours and hours he watched the shells being opened,and every pearl he must see, and the shell from whichit came. I thought he searched for a pearl to charmthe leprosy. All through the rahui he stayed in Penrhyn.He went to Tahiti on the Pani. I was on thePani, and much we talked about oysters and the differentlagoons.

“I came to Takaroa, my home. Months afterwardthe Taote arrived here in a ten-ton cutter. He hadbut one sailor, a Tahitian, Terii. They lived in thathouse over there. I would not go into that housenow for ten tons of shell. It is ihoiho. When themoon is dark a spirit dances there, the spirit of Mauraii.279He was my cousin, and the Taote hired him to helpthe other man. One day the Taote began to buy provisions,a great quantity which were stored in the cutterwith other big boxes, as if for a long voyage. Theysailed away, Terii and Mauraii, too. ‘Nuku-Hivawill see me next,’ said the Taote to us all. That wasa lie, but I did not know it then. They went to Pukapuka.It is a little atoll, toward the Marquesas, andfar from any other island. Mauraii had dived there,and the Taote knew that. Five moons later the cuttersailed into this lagoon. Mauraii was with the Taote,but Terii was not. The Taote paid Mauraii, and leftin the cutter with another sailor. For two yearsMauraii lived without labor. For two years his jawsremained tight as the jaws of the pahua. He spokewell of the Taote, but he was afraid. When I askedhim more about Terii, he would not talk. Terii hadeaten poisonous fish, he said once. He had trodden onthe nohu, he said another time. I knew Mauraii hadnot been to the Marquesas. He was a Mormon, Mauraii,and he prayed like a man with a secret.

“We forget soon, and it was four years when Patasycame in the Potii Taaha, his own cutter. He was ofIrélani, and drank much ramu. The cutter was leaky,and Mauraii worked to calk the seams. Patasy gavehim hardly any money, but food, and night rum. Mauraii,with rum in him, would now make many wordsto Patasy, and to me. He spoke of a secret that laybetween him and the Taote. He spoke of an oath hehad sworn on the book of Mormon and the picture ofBirigahama Younga. He spoke of something atPukapuka that was growing bigger and bigger. The280Taote was in his native land, and would return soon,and they would both be very rich. Mauraii’s talk waslike a cloudy day that does not let one see far. SometimesI would ask him about Terii, who had gone withMauraii, and who had not come back. That would stillhis big word-making. He would shake a little then,all over. He would say: ‘I must not talk, Tepevaa Tepeva; I must not talk.’ But with more rum hewould talk. He was worried, though. He stoppedgoing to the temple; he lived on Patasy’s cutter. OftenI saw him lying on the deck, full of drink.

“One night he came to my house late. His heartwas very heavy. He had been drinking with Patasy,and he had done something wrong. He cursed Patasy.He said that Patasy had forced him to do evil—that he,Mauraii, had taken an oath, and that now, this night, hehad broken it. It would bring him harm. The Taotewas coming back soon. Mauraii shook when he saidthat, shook just as he did when I would ask him whathad become of the companion who had gone with him toPukapuka and had never come back.

E mea au! I am not the man to search the heartof a brother for what should be hidden. But havingbroken his oath and told his secret to Patasy, I thoughtit right he should tell it to me. But he would say nomore. And he sailed away alone with Patasy.

“For many weeks we heard nothing more of Mauraii.Then from sailors who came from Tahiti we heard thathe and Patasy had returned to Papeete in a month.Then we heard that Patasy had sold his cutter and hadtaken steamship away to his own country. He nevercame back.

281“Mauraii stayed in Papeete. Every little while weheard about him. He had much money, and he wasdrinking all day in the Paris rum store, and dancingthe nights with the Tahiti Magadalenas in the CocoanutHouse.

“When Mauraii had spent all his money the FrenchGovernment brought him back to Takaroa, and he wasmad. Something had broken in his belly, where thethinking-parts are. He would sit all day, looking atthe lagoon and saying nothing. Never did he say anything.Sometimes he would shake all over. And allthe time his back was bent as if some one was comingfrom behind to strike him.

“It was a long time after this that the Taote returned,on the Moana. He came first to my house. He askedme where Mauraii was, and I told him Mauraii washere, but was maamaa, that he was possessed of thedemon. He asked me if it was a talking demon, if itmade Mauraii say everything there was in his head. Itold him it was the other way. The poor man saidnothing, but sat by the lagoon all day, and was fed andcared for by the women.

“‘Let us go to see Mauraii!’ he said. He was angry,and I was afraid, and I went with him. I knew whereMauraii would be, and I pointed him out. He wassitting in the shade of a purau tree, looking at the lagoon.The Taote went to him and spoke to him.Mauraii fell flat, and then he crawled about the sand,and shouted to me not to let the Taote kill him, too.This made him more angry, and he said that Mauraiiwas really maamaa, and that nothing could be donefor him. Mauraii ran to his house when he had turned282his back. After the Moana had gone on her way toNuku-Hiva, the Taote asked me if I could go with himto another island. I did not want to go. If I had notgone, I would not be as I am, but then I would not havemy house, and all the debts paid of my family.

“I said that I had work here. But he said he wouldbe gone but a couple of weeks, and that he would giveme ten taras a day, and that I would have no hard work.Mapuhi and Nohea were absent. No white elders werehere to advise me. Finally I said I would go, thoughwhen I looked at Mauraii and saw what he was, I wasafraid. He said we must take Mauraii with us. Wehad hard work to get Mauraii on the cutter. Whenwe did, which was at night, we put him in the hold andclosed the hatch and sailed out of the pass. It was myown cutter, but the Taote had provided food, and hisbig boxes were in the hold with Mauraii.

“Once outside the reef, the Taote said he would goalmost due east, and that Pukapuka was our island.I said that Pukapuka had no people on it, and he saidthat was true. I said that Pukapuka was closed to thediving, and he said that was true. But we went ontoward Pukapuka. When we slid the cover off thehatch to the hold, Mauraii came up, and when he sawwe were at sea and that the Taote was so near him, heshivered like a diver who has had a struggle with a shark.I thought he would leap into the water, and often helooked at it with longing. But the Taote talked to himstrongly, and put medicine in his arm.

“We steered and trimmed sail by turn. The windwas fair, and we reached Pukapuka in five days. Wehad a hard time to get the boxes ashore. There is no283pass, and you cannot reach the lagoon from the sea.We had brought a small boat lashed on the deck, andthis we carried to the lagoon. It took us a day tomove it, and we made Mauraii help. The man hadchanged since we landed on Pukapuka. He was notwild, but taata ravea paari. He was cunning. Hesmiled to himself sometimes in an evil way. We wereno sooner on the lagoon than the Taote ordered me andthat madman to build a hut and to rest ourselves fora day.

“Pukapuka had not a man upon it. It is like a cocoanut-shell,round all about, and the lagoon deep, andfull of yellow shell with yellow pearls. There are nopoison fish in the water, as in some other islands. Ithought of that, and of the man who had been here withMauraii and had never come back. I was afraid. TheTaote could make Mauraii sleep and sleep with onetouch of a silver pipe on his arm. I was afraid.

“The island is loved by the birds; it was their timefor nesting, and the air was filled with them. Thatwas the only sound. The Taote wore no hat, thoughthe sun upon the coral was as stones heated to cook fish.When we had rested a day, the Taote, who had beenmost of the hours upon the lagoon, spoke to me of ourmission, and we three rowed a little distance until Ijudged we were in water of seventeen fathoms.

“‘It is long,’ said the Taote. ‘It is five years sinceI was here, but I am sure of the spot. There was acocoanut-tree that hid the village if I rowed from thatrock we put there on shore, due west, five umi. Thereis the cocoanut, and it hides the huts the divers live inwhen the lagoon is open.’

284“You see how quiet this lagoon is? Well, that lagoonof Pukapuka was ten times more still. It made meshake as had Mauraii. But now he did not shake. Hewas all brightness, and his eyes were shining, thoughhe said not a word.

“The Taote took the titea mata and looked into thewater. He could see little; his eyes were not strong.I went into the water, took the titea mata, stuck myhead into it and gazed down into the sea.

“‘Do you see shell, large shell?’ he asked quickly,like a man who knows what is in a place.

“‘I see shell,’ I said.

“‘Then dive and bring it up,’ he commanded.

“I said the prayer to Adam and to BirigahamaYounga. I breathed long, and I went down. Therewas in my heart a fear of something strange. Thebottom was at seventeen fathoms, a jungle of coral asbig as the trees in Tahiti, with black caves and largeflowers and sponges, and also many of the pahua, thegreat shell which closes like a trap and can drown aman. Dropping straightaway, I swam upon a ledgeraised above the floor of the lagoon. There was a pairof shells, very large. But where there had been many,only this single pair remained. I moved along theledge, and found that scores had been ripped from thesame bed. A diver sees easily where shells have been.

“‘Robbed!’ I said to myself. ‘There has been athief here.’ Pukapuka had been closed to diving forsix years, and it was forbidden to remove a shell. Iswam over the face of the ledge, and was sure I hadthe sole remaining pair of this bed. I rose to the surfacewith them.”

285The Taote was hanging over the boat with his headin the titea mata, watching me as I came up. As Ihung on the boat to breathe, I saw Mauraii regardinghim with a hateful eye, and I shook my fist at the fool.The foreigner took the shell quickly, and opened it,pulled the oyster out into a bowl, and searched it.Then with a little cry he held up a pearl, a poe matauiui,big and like a ball, as shiny as an eye. Bigger it wasthan any pearl I have ever seen. It was perfect inshape, and with a skin like the gleam of the sun on thelagoon. What Mauraii had said of the Taote growingthings to make him rich came to my mind, as I saw thiswonder-pearl shining in the Taote’s hand. The foreignerfor a moment was as mad as Mauraii, and, takinghold of that man’s hand, shook it and shook it.

“‘Ah, Mauraii,’ he shouted, ‘now we are paid forthose weeks of hell here! You shall have enough toeat and drink always.’

“He laughed and clapped Mauraii on the shoulder,and the maamaa laughed foolishly, and began to dancein the boat. We had to pull him down, or he wouldhave overturned it.

“‘There are more than a hundred pearls like that,’said the Taote. ‘I am richer than King Mapuhi, tentimes as rich, and I can make all I want. I made it.I worked and worked to find out, and Mauraii put thethings in the shell. I am a te Tumu!’

“I did not like that. Te Tumu is the creator. Itis wrong to boast like that. And where was Terii, whohad gone with Mauraii from Takaroa to Pukapuka?He would share in no wealth. And the madman besideme—what happiness left for him?

286“‘I teienei,’ said the Taote, as he rubbed the pearl.‘Go down and bring up as many as you can. Whenwe did the sowing, I worked in a diver’s dress. I havethat machine in those boxes on the cutter. Maybe weshould get it, for we will want more seed.’

“‘There are no more shells in that bed,’ I said. ‘Thiswas the only one there.’

“‘No more shells there!’ he screamed. ‘You are madlike this fellow. We found a hundred and seven there,and we planted seed in each one. Each of them has apearl as fine as this.’

“He tried to be gentle again, though he sweated. Hetried to explain. He had discovered the secret of thepearl; he had planted something in each shell as onemight a cocoanut-sprout in the earth. There was muchI did not understand, for no man had ever tried suchblasphemy. The God that made these lagoons hadwrapped them in the unknown, and had made pearlsthe dispensation of His will.

“‘Whatever was done here by you,’ I said, ‘there areno more shells in that tiamaha. I searched it all about.’

“He tried to laugh, but failed, and he looked atMauraii.

“‘A hundred and seven shells! It took us weeks,’he said. ‘That was the number, Mauraii?’

“The man possessed of the devil nodded his head andreally laughed. It was an evil laugh.

“‘A hundred and seven, and one—this one—makesa hundred and six,’ said he. He smiled, and I wentcold. I knew that before he went mad, Mauraii didnot know how to count. The devil was in him.

“The Taote breathed hard. ‘Tepeva a Tepeva,’ he287said, ‘go down again. It is possible that this is not thebed. We placed a small anchor beside it. Look forthat. I worked seventeen years for this day.’

“Again I went into the water, and to the bottom.I found the place where I had pried off the oyster withthe great pearl. Digging in the sand and ooze, I foundthe anchor. I saw plainly the empty cups of theoysters that had been, and I counted them roughly andmade them about a hundred. I stayed a full minuteand a half, and I hated to go up. I did not like tomeet that wise man looking at me in a terrible waywhen he should see me empty-handed. But I had togo. I was exhausted when I reached the sunlight, anduntil I had gained my breath and my blood was quiet,I did not turn to the Taote.

“‘No more shell?’ he said quietly. ‘You are lying!You are lying! You are trying to cheat me. Lookout! Look out! Ask Mauraii what I did to—but theshell are there. I can see them with the glass. Come,we will get the diving-machine.’

“He cursed me, and said I was trying to steal hiswealth. What he saw through the titea mata was thegleam of the pahua, the great shell the priests use forholy water. I said no more, and with Mauraii went tothe beach. It was night when we had brought themachine to the boat, and we returned to the cutter forfood. I shall not forget that night. The foreignercould not sleep, and he talked to me. He talked as if hehad a fever. He said he had tried for years to find outwhat made pearls in oysters, and to do the work of God.While others had made small ones that clung to theshell, he alone had found the way to put in the shells288large beginnings for the oysters to cover. He hadchosen Pukapuka because it had a lagoon without apass, and so free from currents, and because it wasclosed to diving and no one lived there. No one knewof it, he said—no one but himself and Mauraii.

“I thought of Patasy, of the Potii Taaha. Ofwhat Mauraii had told me when in rum. Of his goingaway with Patasy and coming back to Tahiti, there todrink and dance in the Cocoanut House.

“But I said nothing, for I was afraid. Mauraii hadslept ashore. In the morning we found him prayingand singing by the lagoon. We went out in the boat,and set up the diving-machine, and the Taote told meto put on the dress.

“‘I and Mauraii will work the pump,’ he said. ‘Youstay down ten minutes at least, and search the bottomall about there. Maybe we were mistaken in the exactspot.’ He spoke like a good friend, now.

“I had said nothing about the anchor, because I wasafraid. I sank down to the bottom, and first lookedthat the air came freely and that I was not entangled.Then I walked about and saw that a diver had beenthere. The whole bank had been gathered. The oneshell had escaped merely because the thief had so willedit. I sat down and waited for the ten minutes to go,and I wished I was in Takaroa. Pukapuka Lagoonhad many sharks. In the years that had passed sincethe last diving season they had grown big. When Iwas still, they came by me, and through the glasses Isaw their ugly faces staring at me. I frightened themaway with the air from my wrist, or I clapped my handsin a diver’s way. I had my back to the rock bank.289At last a signal came on the rope, and I had to let thempull me up.”

Tepeva a Tepeva’s voice was weak. He poured himselfthe last drink of rum. Kopcke had gone to attendto the loading and Lying Bill was snoring on thefloor.

“Slowly they lifted me, but it seemed to me like asecond.

“What look the Taote had, I do not know. I didnot turn to him until my helmet was unscrewed, andI had taken off the coat. Without meeting his eyes, Isaid, ‘No shells.’

“‘No shells! My God!’ he said. ‘Are you blind?Did you not the first time bring up this? Mauraiiknows well there are a hundred and six more. Is notthat true, Mauraii?’ he said, coaxingly.

“The madman laughed. ‘A hundred and six more,’he replied; ‘and to hell with Patasy.’

“This moment the eyes of the Taote met me. Hewas shivering, as Mauraii had shivered when he leftTakaroa.

“‘Give me the helmet!’ he ordered. ‘Help me put iton. I will know. I will know!’

“He put the pearl in a purse, and the purse in apocket of the diving-coat. A knife was in his belt. Ifastened the coat and the belt and tied the strings at thewrist. I put the lead weights on his breast and back,and lowered him into the water. Before I screwed thehelmet tight, I said to him: ‘Go slowly! Walk carefully!Don’t bend too low!’

“Mauraii fed the pump as I let out the line, and whenI felt the weight of the line, I took the pump myself.290Now, a man like me, who has dived with the machinefor years, knows every motion of the line.

The Taote was not moving slowly and cautiously.He stopped, and for five minutes there was little motion.

Aueo!” I thought. He has found the robbed bank,and the anchor. He knows the truth. He will comeup now. What will I do? He will be terrible.

“Suddenly I felt a drag at the rope, swift and hard;not the steady pull of walking.

“He has fallen, tripped and fallen, and cannot getup! That was my thought.

“‘Mauraii,’ I said, ‘you man the pump alone. Gosmoothly! If you fail, I will kill you!’

“I leaped in, and swam straight down. The foreignerwas on the bottom, lying on his face. I raisedhis body, light as a shell in that depth. There was agreat rip in the front of the coat. The air rushed fromit, but there was no motion of his body. The knife inhis hand had been used to destroy himself. He hadseen the work of the thief and had cut open the coat.The devil of despair had done that with him.

“A diver thinks quickly. I could not bring him tothe top unless Mauraii aided. I signaled by the rope.There was no reply. The air was not being pumped.It had stopped as I lifted him. Mauraii had left hisduty. I had one chance. I might unscrew the heavyhelmet, and cut the leads and carry him, with the aid ofthe line, to the surface. He might not be dead yet. Iseized the helmet, cut the hose, and began to turn themetal helmet. As I did so, I saw a shadow over myhead, and laid hold of my knife. It was not a shark.It was Mauraii. He was dancing and smiling, dancing291and smiling, as in the Cocoanut House in Papeete. Heslowly settled down in the water. He took hold of meas I twisted at the helmet, and he smiled at me, anddanced on a ledge of coral. Below this, I saw oneof those giant pahua. Aue! Marite! This pair wasas long as I am, and as deep as my legs. The greatanimal in it had opened his doors to eat, and as Mauraiileaped about in his mad dancing from rock to rock, hestepped into the jaws of the pahua. Aue! Theyclosed as the jaws of the turtle upon the fish, and heldthe fool as if he was buried. He was fast to the knees,and fell over upon me as I worked at the helmet, hishead hanging down by my feet.

“My lungs were bursting, my heart beating my breast.I had been more than three minutes a hundred feet belowthe air. I had been using my strength. I pushedthe fool away. Suddenly I felt my leg seized, and thegrip of teeth upon my flesh. I sprang up, pulling atthe rope to give me force, and calling on Adam for help.

“Minutes it was before I could crawl into the boat.I lay there many minutes before I could stand up. Theblood was upon my leg, and the marks of teeth. Theywere not the teeth of a fish, but of a man. I prayed forguidance. The Taote was dead, and Mauraii, too.What could I do for them? Nothing! Yet I hearda whisper in my ear to go down. I slipped into thewater and swam to the bottom. I never touched thesand. I saw the bodies of the Taote and Mauraiifought over by a dozen sharks. I had prayed, and Ihad a knife in my hand. Even a shark fears a bold man.I struck at them right and left and reached the ledgewhere the Taote lay. I slashed at the coat and cut292away the pocket. The water was red with blood aboutme, but I shot up past the sharks with the purse, andreached the boat. I took the oars and rowed as fastas I could to shore. There I knelt and thanked Adamand Ietu Kirito for my life.

“I ran across the reef and swam to the cutter. I cutaway the anchor and raised the sail and left the abodeof the demon. Fakaina I reached in two days; and,with a Takaroa man who was there, I put the cutterabout and sailed for home.

“What does the Book say? In the midst of life weare in death. I had stayed under too long in the lagoonof Pukapuka. Like a thunderbolt came on me thediver’s sickness—and I am as I am.”

Lying Bill had been awake for several minutes.

“You did mighty well,” he commented. “You savedthe pearl and the Doc’s money for yourself. There’sthree men et up by sharks. You sold the pearl to Woronickfor twenty-five thousand francs.... And by thebloody star of Mars, you’ve drunk all the rum whileI’ve been asleep! Come on, O’Brien! Let’s get thebloomin’ ’ell out of ’ere to the schooner! We’ve got tosail at sun-up for the Marquesas.”

Tepeva a Tepeva, the man stricken by the bends, wasstill squatting on the floor immersed in his pregnantmemories when I shook his hand, and went to bid good-byto my friends of the atolls where life is harder butsimpler and sweeter than elsewhere in the world.Mapuhi and Nohea rubbed my back, and commendedme to God. The wind was fluttering wildly the frondsof the cocoanut-trees, and the surf was heavy as werowed through the passage and moat and struck the293breakers on the outer reef. From the sea for a fewminutes the lanterns in the houses were like fireflies inthe cane, but soon the darkness hid them, and I saw onlythe black shadow of the motus, and the gleam of thefoaming crests of the waves in the faint starlight. Ilay down on a mat by the steering-wheel of the FetiaTaiao, and dreamed of the Taote and the dancingMauraii in the trap of the giant pahua.

I awoke with the cries of the sailors raising the mainsail,and the motion of the vessel through the water.We were off with a fair wind for the Land of the WarFleet.

294

CHAPTER XV

The dismal abode of the Peyrals—Stark-white daughter of Peyral—Onlywhite maiden in the Marquesas—I hunt wild bulls—Peyral’s friendliness—Ivisit his house—He strikes me and threatens to kill me—Igo armed—Explanation of the bizarre tragic comedy.

AS I walked up from the beach of Atuona, whereI had touched the shore of the Marquesas forthe first time, I had remarked a Europeandwelling, squalid, forbidding and peculiarly desolate.Painted black originally, the heat and storms of yearshad worn and defaced it, the sun had shrunk the boardsfrom one another, and posts and beams had gone awry.It was set in a cocoanut-grove, the trees so close togetherthat their huge fronds joined and roofed out skyand light. The narrow road along the grove had beenraised later, and formed a dike so that with the heavyrains of the season the land all about was a gloomymarsh to which the sun seldom penetrated. The dingygallery of the house fronting the road had a broken railand dilapidated stairs, and in the shallow swamp andabout the entrance were cast-off articles of householdand plantation. A dismaying mingling of decayedEuropean inventions with native bareness framed a dismaland foreboding scene, contrasting with the brilliancyof nature in the open.

I had felt a sudden fear of the possibilities of degradation,as if the dreary house were a symbol of thewhite man’s deterioration in these wild places. A sense295of physical and spiritual abandonment to alien environment,without fitness of soul or habit, depressed me.

As we passed, I saw on the veranda a girl of sixteenor seventeen, with a white face and light blue eyes. Herlong yellow hair was slightly confined by a piece of ribbon,but hung down loose on her rounded shoulders.She wore a blue cotton gown, becoming and not in keepingwith her soiled and frayed surroundings. Sheseemed not to notice us until we were opposite her,when she raised her head and glanced at us a moment.Those off the schooner she must have known, for shefixed her eyes on me the fleeting instant of her gaze.They had the innocence and appeal of a fawn and themelancholy and detachment of a cloistered nun. Therewas no curiosity in them, though we were the only whitevisitors in months, and had come with the new governor,who had landed but the day before. A second or twoher eyes met mine and conveyed an unconscious messageof youth and sorrow, of budding womanhood that hadhad no guidance or companionship, and only saddreams.

From the room opening on the gallery a man cameand shouted to us “Bon jour!” in a raven-like croak.He was in soiled overalls, barefooted, and reeling drunk.His brown hair and beard had not been cut for monthsor years, and rudely margined his bloated, grievous face,of rugged strength, in which grim despair contendedwith fierce pride.

“That is Peyral,” said Ducat, the second mate of theFetia Taiao. He is always half-seas over, except whenhe sews. He is the village tailor, and makes the priest’sgowns and clothes for any one who will buy them.296That daughter of his is the only white girl in the Marquesas.She is all white, and he keeps her chained inthat dark house as if he was afraid some one would eather.”

“You know bloody well why ’e keeps ’er there,” saidLying Bill. “’E knows you an’ me and ’Allman and’earty bucks like us is not to be trusted; ’at’s why! Iknew ’er mother and ’er grandparents. ’E was a Britishcalvary officer ’oo ’ad served in Injia, an’ come ’erewith ’is wife, an Irish lady, to take charge of the storean’ plantation now owned by the Germans at Tahaaku.They ’ad one daughter. Peyral was a non-com. on aFrench war-ship that come ’ere to shoot up the natives,an’ ’e was purty good to look at then. ’E could do anything,an’ when ’e got ’is papers from the French navy’e went to work for the plantation, courted the girl, an’,when ’er parents weren’t lookin’, married ’er. Theydied, an’ ’e set up a proper ’ouse ’ere, an’ was bloomin’prosp’rous till ’is wife died o’ the pokoko, this gallopin’consumption that takes off the natives. Then he givein, and went to ’ell. ’E ’as three girls, two little ones,an’ ‘ow they live I don’t know. When ’is wife died ’epainted that ’ouse black, an’ ’e ain’t touched it since.’E gathers ’is copra, an’ makes a few clo’s now an’ ’en,an’ spends all the money on absinthe. The girl looksafter ’er sisters, but ’e guards ’er like a bleedin’ dragon.She never goes off the veranda there now except tochurch on Sundays and ’olidays. I don’t know what’ll’e do with ’er, but ’e’ll kill any one that goes too near’er like Ducat ’ere or meself.”

When I was settled in the House of the Golden Bed,as the Marquesans called the cabin I had rented from297Apporo, the wife of Great Fern, in exchange for mybrass bed at my departure, I went almost every day withExploding Eggs to the beach to fish or swim or to ridethe surf on a board. The road wended from my housepast the garden of the palace and thence to the sea.Between the governor’s and the beach was only Peyral’snoisome residence, and twice a day I passed it withina few feet. Sometimes he was at his sewing-machineon the veranda, or gathering the cocoanuts that hadfallen and drying them in the sun, but generally theshaggy Breton was in a stupor or murmurously intoxicated,sitting on a bench or lying on the ground, andtalking to himself in the way of morose, unsocial menwhen inebriated. His daughter was usually on the verandasewing by hand, or apparently wrapt in thoughtswhich obscured her consciousness and painted despondenceon her countenance. I tried not to stare at her,but when I made sure that she was oblivious of me, orintentionally not seeing, I observed her narrowly.

How could she have preserved that miraculous blondnessin these islands? It was amazing. Her skin waslike the inside of a cocoanut, smooth as satin. Theyears in that shadowy house had bleached her white fleshuntil it was pearl-like in transparency, the blue veins asin fine marble. Though hardly seventeen her figurewas the luxuriant one of these latitudes, rounded as thebreadfruit, curving in opulency under her single garment,a diaphanous tunic. Her hair that I had judgedyellow at first sight was silver-gold, almost as white asher flesh, but with glints of topaz and amber. Silky, glistening,as fine as the filament of a web, it did not hide hershapely ears and fell in profusion almost to her waist.298I never saw her smile. Her azure eyes had weptuntil their fountains were dried. She was numb, mute,never having seen aught in sleep but ghosts. She was,in this voluptuous atmosphere, herself voluptuous incontour and color, but frozen. A thousand brutalwords from Peyral must have made her so. In drunkennesshe was harsh, and in less violent hours sullen andsuspicious. The children feared him as Nancy hadBill Sykes, but there was a powerful attachmentbetween them. He must have described to her horriblethings that he guarded her against, and have threatenedunspeakable punishments if she disobeyed him.

Daughter of Europeans, granddaughter of Celt andAnglo-Saxon, this girl did not know her father’s ormother’s language but feebly, and had no more knowledgeof or contact with the world of her forefathers thanif she were all Marquesan. I fancied her spirit infinitelyconfused by her blood and her surroundings,vague aspirations perhaps stirring her to desire for otherthings than the savage and stupid ones about her. Inthe church she must have had some respite. I watchedher there a number of times, bowed over her Marquesanbook of the ritual, reciting the prayers, and beating hersweet breast at the mea culpa as might the most repentantsinner or worst hypocrite.

No one called on Peyral save a very occasional buyerof copra or an infrequent customer for clothes. These,prevalently, met him on the trail or at church, and dealtwith him there. Either his jealous solitude was respected,or disagreeable experiences had caused the villagersto shun his dwelling. He himself infrequentlydropped in at the store of Le Brunnec, or the German’s299establishment at Tahaaku where he had wooed thedaughter of the English officer and the Irish exile. Atthe Catholic church only was he a regular attendant,sitting in the rear by the pahua shell holy-water font,and mumbling the responses. The children were in thepews, the sexes separated, and I, the few times I wasthere, at the door where the breeze was freshest and Imight go out unseen. One Sunday he spoke to me. Iwas as astonished as if Father David had begun a hulaat the altar.

“You are American,” he said in French, his voicehoarse and broken.

I said I was and that I had come to the islands to stayan uncertain length of time. We exchanged the day’sgreetings after that, and when Painter Le Moine andI were examining the remains of the studio of PaulGauguin, who had died here ten years before, it wasPeyral who showed us how everything had been and whotold me of his daily intercourse with the famous symbolist.Thus we struck up a real acquaintance, if notfriendship, and he would tarry a quarter of an hour onmy paepae to drink a shell of rum and to talk aboutcopra and the coming and going of schooners. Hedrew me out about my plans, whether I was going tosettle in the Marquesas or return to my own country,and evinced a flattering interest in my future. And Iwas flattered, as I am easily by the friendliness of unfriendlypeople, and did not question his genuine likingfor me.

Ah Suey, the Chinese baker and storekeeper, who hadbeen tried for the murder of an American, and whospoke English he had learned at Los Angeles and at sea,300might have enlightened me, but that I was beyonddoubt. I was at Ah Suey’s to dance a jig and to sing“The Good Old Summertime” to amuse him. The saturnineChinese, after a drink of rum, said:

“Peylalee all time come you housee takee dlinkee.He no good. More better you tell him poponihoó gohellee! Makee tlubble for you his daughtah.”

Ah Suey puzzled me, but I do not like advice orwarning, and I shunted the subject.

Peyral was a hunter. He would wander, alwaysalone, in the upper valleys, to shoot kuku, or along thebeach for salt-water birds, walking slowly and notalertly; but he was a crack shot and hardly ever failed tobring back a bag of game. He had learned marksmanshipat sea, or perhaps in his native Brittany, and hiscartridges went far. He was not contented with birds,but also tramped to the mountains to kill goats or eventhe wild bulls that were growing scarce there under apromiscuous use of firearms. Le Brunnec, the trader,an amiable and intelligent Breton, and I met him there,fortunately, at a critical moment for me. We had,Le Brunnec and I, climbed on horses in the late afternoonto a plateau high up in the hills and camped therethe night. In that altitude it was cool after the sunhad set, and we sat about a fire of twigs and branchesuntil we were sleepy. We were considerably past theline of cocoanut-palms, and in a rich and varied flora.Magnificent chestnut, ironwood, rose-apple, and othertropical trees formed dark groups about us, and massesof huetu or mountain plantains lined the slopes. Wehad washed down our dinner with a bottle of Moselle,and had a mellow and philosophical hour before sleep.

301Far above us we could see a pair of ducks, a kind ofnon-migratory mallard. They lived only in the lonelyvalleys or woods, and nested on the tops of distantridges where they laid a half dozen eggs. The ducklingsmust be carried by their parents to the feedinggrounds hundreds of feet below.

We talked about the decimation of the Marquesans—LeBrunnec in ten years had seen them depopulatedalmost 50 per cent.

“They are unhappy and soul-sick,” he said. “Theyare animals, and, when they had freedom under theirown rule, prospered enormously. Now there are acouple of thousand instead of the hundred thousandthe whites found. They are in the cage of civilizationand cannot stand the bars. We are adaptable becausewe are an admixture of many races, and have had toexist in changing environments or die. Millions musthave died from the same thing that destroys the Marquesans,but there were enough to keep on and build upagain. The quality of adaptability, of making the bestof it, is wonderful. One time in Tahiti I was at theAnnexe lodging-house of Lovaina when a Frenchmanarrived by steamer from Martinique. He had withhim his four children. The mother, a native of thatisland, was dead, and the oldest child was a girl of thirteen,a child-woman, naive but clever, and very charming.For four years she had been mother to the otherthree, since she was nine, and they were as neat asa gunboat. She was tiny and undeveloped physically,but necessity had adapted her perfectly to her task.The father was looking for work, and, not finding it inTahiti, was off to Dacca, in Africa, leaving the babies302in her care. Mon Dieu! It was brave to see her bathingthem, brushing their hair, reproving them, and feedingthem. If she had been five years older I wouldhave tried to marry her, and the whole flock. Now, yousee, she could keep on because she was continuing thewhite race customs and ideals, and understood them,hard as it was; but these poor people have been told todo something they don’t understand, and that is nottheir ideal. Now take that girl of old Peyral! Hermother spoke English, and her father is French, and shewent to the nuns’ school here for four or five years.Yet she can hardly speak anything but Marquesan, andin that tongue she replies to her father, and talks to hersisters. She is almost a Marquesan, and as they areunhappy in their prison so is she. She is the only whitewoman here, and she has no companions, and her fatherwon’t let her be a native. Pauvre enfant! Now, herI wouldn’t marry for all the cocoanuts on this island.There is one other, Mademoiselle Narbonne, who is therichest person in the Marquesas, for she, too, is fitneither for native life nor for white. The nuns havespoiled her, as her mother spoiled the Peyral girl.”

And so to bed on the grass with a blanket about us.

In the morning we were up at daybreak, and, aftercoffee and hardtack, we rode toward the sea. Therewas a faint trail, but Le Brunnec was a skilled trackerand picked up the spoor in a few minutes. After halfan hour we saw fresher traces of our prey, and beganto make plans for the attack. We felt sure we werethe only ones on the plateau, and so were safe, for Marquesansare reckless with guns, and when we heard ahorse coming toward us we halted and waited. It was303Peyral. We could see his frowsy head a quarter of amile away as it bobbed in the trot.

Eh bien!” said Le Brunnec, philosophically. “He isnot so bad here. It is curious that when Peyral has beendrunk for a month, and reforms so as not to die, he goesto the mountains for a week and shoots an animal.”

We said bon jour, and he joined us. Le Brunnecproposed that we try to kill two bulls, share the laborof carrying the meat to Atuona, and divide it there.Peyral gruffly assented, and, as he was the more skillfulchasseur, gave us our stations. We were to start upone or more taureaux sauvages and to endeavor to refrainfrom firing at them until they were as near aspossible to the cliff. We were successful and had felledone, when another appeared.

Prennez garde!” shouted Le Brunnec. “That hakiukahas blood in his eye.”

“Go around to the left and drive him toward me,”commanded Peyral.

I was riding fast about his flank when my horse puthis foot in a rat’s hole. I had my rifle on my right armand I must have used it as a vaulting-pole unwittingly,for I struck the earth about ten feet from my mount.I was struggling to my feet when I became aware thatthe hakiuka was approaching with malice in his snortings.My horse had got up but too late to bear me tosecurity, and my rifle was choked with mud. I rushedfor a tree but could see none with low branches. I hada big knife in my belt, a kind of Bowie, and, as I feltthe hot breath of the animal on me and saw his hornsmagnified to elephant’s tusks, I drew the weapon. Thebeast was within five feet of me when he dropped. Peyral304had put a Winchester bullet in his heart. His headwas at my feet as he gave it a mighty toss, and laid iton the sward of maidenhair ferns in submission to man’sinvention.

When I had made sure of the poor hakiuka’s beingabsolutely dead, and had shaken myself together, findingno injuries, I thanked Peyral, whom Le Brunnecwas already extolling for marksmanship and quicknessof thought.

Rien! It is nothing!” replied the shaggy man. “Ilike to kill.”

We put ropes over the horns of the victims, andforced our horses to drag them to a certain spot at theedge of the cliff. Below was a wide shelf of rocks atwater-level. We pushed the stiffening bodies over theedge and let them fall. Then we rode back to Atuona,and in a big canoe with three Marquesans, Great Fern,Mouth of God, and Exploding Eggs, went for the carcasses.To retrieve them into the craft was a difficulttask.

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (38)

Malicious Gossip, Le Brunnec, and his wife, at peace

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (39)

Photo by Dr. Malcolm Douglas
Exploding Eggs and his chums packing copra

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (40)

Frederick O’Brien and Dr. Malcolm Douglas at home in Tahiti

The sea surged against the rocks so that we could nottie up close to them, but several of us jumped on themwhile others remained in the canoe, with a line ashoreand a kedge-anchor aft. The Marquesans cut up thebulls into quarters, and each we tied to a rope anddragged through the water into the canoe. Over ourheads a cloud of heron and sea-gulls shrieked for theirshare, and when we had left the rocks these birdsscreamed and fought for the entrails. They had beenattracted when the bulls were killed, and for hours hadpeeked vainly at the carcasses. The dragging them overthe land and hurling them to the ledge, and their hours of305lying there, had drawn an immense concourse of the sea-birds.There were many thousands before we got away,and so rapacious were they that they circled over ourheads and snatched at the bloody meat in the canoe. Wehad to wave our shirts at them to frighten them away.Sharks smelling the blood swam about the canoe, and wewere not a little afraid. We had brought no guns in thecanoe, and we were forced to strike at them with paddles,and shout imprecations at them. They did notenter the breakers, which we ran to the sand. At thebeach near Commissaire Bauda’s residence and offices,we turned over to Peyral his third, and, taking theremainder into the village, Great Fern with saw andknife provided every household, including the Catholicand Protestant clergy and the nuns, with ample for ameal or two. Peyral threw his part over his horse’sback and left us, muttering that he would salt it downfor the uncertain future.

Peyral became increasingly friendly, and a numberof times stopped me on my way to and from the shoreto invite me to drink with him. Le Brunnec said thatthis was something new for Peyral, and that he mustbe “going crazy.” But, like Ah Suey, Le Brunnec hidhis real thought from me when I defended Peyral andsaid that he was sinned against overmuch. Peyral’sdaughter—I hardly ever caught sight of the youngertwo—would desert the veranda if I came upon it, butonce he called her, and when she did not respond immediatelyadded a “sacré” to his order for her to come andbe presented to me.

“She is a fine girl, but shy,” he said, and patted herclumsily.

306Mademoiselle Peyral trembled under his heavycaress, and with merely a slight, awkward bow to mehurried into the sombre chamber.

“She is shy,” he repeated as he drank his absinthewith mouthing and grimacing. “She needs a man totrain her right, a husband, eh, a gentleman, mon garçon.Is not that right?”

Peyral’s voice was almost gentle, but his moodchanged in a breath. He struck the board hard withhis shell, and yelled, “Do you understand, American,I said a gentleman. Her mother was aristocrat. Doyou get that into your noddle?”

Exploding Eggs, who had waited for me on the roadwith my towels, laughed as we ran toward the surf.

“Peyral paeá,” he said. “Too much drink, too muchfight.”

I did not stop after that when he bade me have agoutte with him, for I was sensible of a deep pity forthe girl and an ardent desire to save her embarrassment,the deadly unreasoning shame or perplexity that overwhelmedher at her father’s gross attitude and my presence.After a few weeks, Peyral did not sing out tome any more, and I was conscious of a coldness, of areturn of his first relation to me, and then of fitsand starts of friendship. I felt oppressed by hischanging tempers, and attributed them to his varyingdegrees of inebriety.

I split my rain-coat one day, and, after making a badjob of repairing it, thought of Peyral and his skill as atailor. With the coat on my arm I climbed the stairsto his porch, and, finding no one there, called out Peyral’sname. My voice echoed through the house, and,307with the intention of scribbling a note and leaving thecoat, I entered the nearest room. Mademoiselle Peyralwas sitting near the machine but was not sewing. Shetrembled as I approached her, and looked frightened. Iam timid with women, and her nervousness communicateditself to me. I wished I was not there. She washalf uncovered, having on only a chemise, and her dishabilleadded to my confusion, though that very morningI had bathed in the river nude with Titihuti andothers.

“Please give your father this coat, and ask him to repairit,” I said, and put it down. Her downcast eyesand heaving bosom, her evident extreme timidity, andher pitiable situation overcame me. She was of my ownrace, and she was so white and so fair. Before Icould restrain myself, I said in English, “Don’t beafraid of me! I am very sorry for you,” and I pattedher shoulder as I might have a child’s.

She shrank from me in apparent horror, and ran fromthe room into a farther one, screaming in Marquesan.I started to follow her to explain or to appease her, butreconsidered.

Though I was conscious of no wrong, the familiarincidents in newspapers and gossip of misinterpretedgestures and of false allegations rose to my mind as hercries resounded through the black and tristful house.I moved toward the porch to leave, and deliberated, andawaited some one’s coming. Better to tell the fact andmake a stand there and then, said common sense. But noone answered her alarm, and after a few minutes I left,with the coat, and returned to my own cabin. For halfan hour my mind was actively going over the affair to308find out what might be at the bottom of it, and, of course,to make certain of my clearance of the least onus ofguilt.

Perhaps I was the first man other than her fatherwho had put his hand on her, and I had done that, nomatter how innocently! The nuns had overbalancedher standard of modesty, and her father’s brutal admonitionshad made her hysterical! I tried myself and,having found myself not guilty of even forwardness ordiscourtesy, I cooked my dinner, poured myself a shellof Munich beer that had been cooled in the river, anddismissed the trifle.

The next afternoon as I passed the governor’s gardenon the road to the beach, I saw Peyral on the verandawith the official. I thought of the rent in my rain-coat,and entered the grounds to speak to him about it. AsI approached the steps I heard the tailor speakingloudly and vehemently to Monsieur l’Hermier, andspilling the absinthe in the glass in his hand.

Kaoha!” I said, and Peyral turned and saw me.His face purpled, and he shouted in French somethingI did not understand, and appealed to the governor forcorroboration. A twinge of privity with his emotionswept over me, and I am sure I flushed and looked theculprit. I hadn’t much time for analysis, for Peyralstood up and flung his glass at my head. It went wide.I took a step toward him and asked:

“What’s the matter with him, Monsieur l’Administrateur?Is he drunker than usual?”

Je ne sais pas,” replied the governor, with a shrugof his shoulder. “He has come here to lodge a complaintagainst you of maltreating his daughter. He309wants you tried and sent to prison, and he wants to institutea suit against you for damages. I have told himto return when he is sober. He is bitter, Monsieur, andhe is, after all, a Frenchman.”

Peyral got up from his chair, unsteadily. The governordiscreetly left the veranda and entered his study.I sat down in sheer weariness, when suddenly the frenzieddrunkard confronted me.

Sacré Americain!” he yelled. “You will insult thedaughter of a French patriot. Cochon! I will showyou what I do to such people as you!”

He flung himself upon me and struck me in the face.Peyral was fifty pounds heavier than I, but he was verydrunk. I drove my fist into his chin, and, following theblow with another, sent him sprawling. I regrettedmy violence as I saw the poor devil staggering to hisfeet unsteadily, but when, with the most blasphemousprofanity and the basest epithets in the dialect of Brest,he lurched at me again with his two hundred pounds ofrank bulk, charity fled from my panting heart, and Irealized that I must fight or retreat. Years of addictionto alcohol had not made my assailant anything buttough and strong physically, and I was no match forhim if he was not reeling. He plunged toward me asa drunken elephant might go to combat. I decided notto run, because I wanted to continue to live in Atuonaunderided, and so I sprang to meet him, and hitting himfull tilt in the chin and chest, carried him hard down tothe boards, where we grappled and exchanged powerlessblows.

We had knocked over table, bottle, glasses, andchairs, and the uproar was immense. Song of the310Nightingale, Exploding Eggs, Ghost Girl and ManyDaughters, the little leper lass, had come scurryingfrom the kitchen. Maybe the governor had a plan, orhis dignity was offended, for, without appearing, hegave an order to Song, and the quartet of natives threwthemselves on us, and disentangled us. Song, who laterconfessed to me that he had a grudge against the tailor,took the opportunity in the hurly-burly to deal himvicious blows, and then drove the cursing, strugglingBreton through the garden and out the gateway. Peyral’slast words were a threat to kill me the next timewe met. The village had gathered, and Apporo, mylandlady, Mouth of God, Malicious Gossip, his wife,and a dozen others were running toward the palace.Song dismissed them with a grandiloquent gesture, andhis obscene badinage dissolved their curiosity in galesof laughter.

With the disturbance abated, the governor joined me,his ordinary merry self again, and we drank a libationto Mars. My clothes were torn, my jaw ached, andmy body was bruised from the clutches of the tailor.

“Do not molest yourself!” said the executive. “I donot entertain any evil of you. When the allegation isformally made, I, as magistrate, will hear the evidence.According to his own statement, no one was there buthis daughter and you. I believe you a man of honor.And women? Mon vieux, I have known and lovedmany of them. I am a doctor, and a student of life.They are incomprehensible. But we must take precautions.He has said he will kill you, so you must be onguard. You have no pistol? Eh bien! I will lendyou my Browning automatic I had in Senegal. It is311loaded. Defend yourself, but do not step on his property.Nous verrons!

The governor was dramatic, not to say melodramatic,and, to my nervous conception, he took too lightly thecrime upon my person. I was the one to bring acharge, not Peyral. Assaulted in the palace, at thethrone of justice, in the presence of the judge, I washanded a deadly firearm by the arbiter, and told to protectmyself. It was like the Wild West, or a stagefarce. But I had come a thousand miles with him on asmall vessel, and knew his delight in the least diversionthat would relieve his ennui in a monotonous period ofservice. This was but a scherzo in a slow program.However, I thanked him and, with the heavy pistol,went to the House of the Golden Bed. The girl wasuppermost in my unstable reflections.

What had possessed her to lie so? She must havedistorted my ingenuous action damnably to cause herfather to beset me before the governor, and to swear tokill me! I pictured her as I had last seen her, and tryas I would I could not hate her. I lay down with theBrowning beside me, and dreamed that she was testifyingagainst me at the seat of judgment, and that an austereGod pointed downward. Exploding Eggs wascooking a rasher of bacon on my improvised stove on thepaepae the next morning, when Flag, the mutoi, broughta note, he acting as general messenger of the island. Itwas in a strange hand and on dirty paper. I could notmake out the language except a few French words, andthe signature not at all, and so after breakfast I took itto Le Brunnec at his store.

Le Brunnec glanced over it and looked puzzled.312Then he spoke low, in French, so that the natives inthe room might not glean a word.

Mais,” he said, “it is from Peyral, and it is writtenin Breton and absinthe. I translate it for you intoyour English:

“‘Monsieur: You cannot éviter’—what you say?—‘escape—fromyour insult to ma fille. You have insultedand struck me, too. I will not seek the tribunalto make your apology. The governor has told me youare Irishman, and so you are of the same blood like thegrandparent of my child. In France what you havedone must be paid for in blood or by marriage. Evenif you make intention to return to your own country nomatter. You must marry my daughter or you will beburied in Calvaire cimetière—what you say—graveyard?—Itis necessary that you send me word by to-morrowor I will make justice on you.’ He says he isyours respectful. Well, by gar, it is a situation, myfriend, but I say to you one thing: do not be afraid.He slip back already. You have a revolver? Yes?Keep it in the hand or the pants.”

The merchant took up his sugar scoop to begin business.My wholeness or health seemed not to interesthim seriously. I sauntered up the path in meditation.My feet took me into the mission churchyard, and I saton the roots of a gigantic banian-tree near the colossalcrucifix brought from France by the priests for the jubileeof 1900. The mad note of Peyral had stunned me,and, instead of thinking hard and clearly upon my situation,I fell into fatuous reverie.

A gentle and lovely savage she was, and unspoiled bycivilization. What a singular and perhaps entrancing313task to teach her only the best in it, to unfold throughEnglish or French the music and literature of the world,to take her perhaps to the great cities? Or if I myselfwas done with civilization, as I sometimes persuadedmyself I was, what more delightful companion than thissimple virgin of Atuona? To fish, to swim, to roamthe plateaus; to have a library and to get the reviewsand the new books by the schooners, to create a livingidyll! Love would undoubtedly be the response ofkindness, of sympathy, of tenderness, of love itself. Butcould I love her? There would be children. And theywould grow up here. I remembered her own white feetin the mud of this village. Their mother! And withPeyral’s blood in them! Peyral! Damn him! Whathad I done to make him attack me, to say he would killme? To spoil my peace? I would wear the Browningabout my waist, and if he winked an eyelash I wouldshoot first. He had brought it on himself. She hadlied to him. I had no liking to be in Calvary with Gauguin.My grave would be forgotten like his. A manhere was a bubble in the breeze. It burst and wasnothing.

All these ideas rushed through my head as I returnedto my house. I had concluded not to pass Peyral’shouse unarmed, so I tied a string about my middle overmy pareu and fastened the revolver to it. With onepull the knot undid and the gun came loose into myhand. I wore a light linen coat over my bare body,and no one was the wiser.

Thus ready for my would-be murderer or father-in-law,I whistled to Exploding Eggs the next forenoon,and, he with towels in hand, we walked toward the314sands. There was no one on the veranda of the palace.Except for the residence of the lepers by the cemeterythere was no other house toward the beach but that ofmy enemy.

Obscure under the heavy-leaved palms, I could not besure that Peyral was not ensconced on his gallery witha bottle of absinthe and a shot-gun or rifle waiting topot-shot me. He knew my habit of bathing every day,and maybe was chuckling over scaring me from the spot.I walked boldly and briskly past his house. There wasno figure on the porch but that of a girl. I glimpsedher only, for an emotion of shame—inexplicable shame—directedmy eyes away from her. I continued on tothe water, and, hiding my revolver in the trailing pahuewith its morning-glory blossoms, I took up my surfboardand forgot Peyral in that most exhilarating ofsports.

Exploding Eggs dragged his tiny canoe from thebushes, and we launched it and pushed it through thesurf. With rare dexterity he paddled it seaward, Iwith my board on my knees, a calm admirer of his marvelouscontrol of the little craft: he and it the firstMarquesan and the first canoe I had seen in this archipelago.When we were out half a mile or so we lay stillfor the right breaker. He watched and after a fewminutes began to paddle with intense energy until thewave caught him. We swung to its crest and clungthere as we dashed in at a fast pace without motion onour part. But, when half-way, Exploding Eggs tookmy board from me, and, handing me the paddle, he suddenlyplunged with it from the canoe and, extended full315on the board in rhythm with the billow I rode, accompaniedme to shore.

The sun was dropping down the western sky whenwe dressed to leave the beach, Exploding Eggs in hisloin-cloth and I in mine, with my coat over the Browning.The hours in the salt water with the exercise andthe laughter had cleared the cobwebs of blame from mybrain. My innocent blood would be on the guilty headof Peyral did he kill me. That was comforting. However,I made sure that the knot slipped easily, and withmy valet beside me I made the start.

I had gained half-way when I saw Peyral comingtoward me, a thousand feet away, with a shot-gun overhis shoulder. He was silhouetted against the settingsun and could not be mistaken. His burly form, hisbeard, his general shagginess made him unmistakable,as was also the outline of the weapon.

There was no stopping. The swamp was on eitherside of the ten-foot road, the beach behind me. Fleeingwas out of the question. I might have taken a side roadhad there been one, but just such conditions as presentedthemselves then must be met daily. I kept on, and, aswe came nearer, our eyes joined and remained steadilyfixed. I do not know how Peyral felt, but I was as fascinatedas the proverbial bird by the snake. I movedas if by magnetic power toward my probable slayer, andhe toward me. Neither of us made a movement exceptthat of our legs and stiff bodies.

There came a second when we were about four feetapart, each hugging the edge of the road. Our eyeswere held straight ahead, and mine remained so. We316appeared to hesitate as if we might whirl and seize eachother or draw our weapons. The shot-gun was on hisshoulder but in the flash of an eye might be broughtdown to the level of my vitals. But the eye did notflash. The gun swayed only with his footfalls, and wecontinued our mechanical advance away from eachother.

Prudence whispered to me to turn and protect myselffrom a rear attack, but the message did not affect mylegs. I winced momentarily for the expected load ofshot in my back, but I walked stiffly as if a great ray oflight were penetrating my cerebellum. ExplodingEggs, who knew only about our fight upon the palacebalcony and nothing of my having the Browning, waschanting about the god of night, Po, and paid noattention to Peyral, except to say quite audibly, “Peyraléaoe metai! Peyral is no good!” That did not addto my surety, and the imagined missile or missiles frombehind did not become less vivid until I was beyondshooting distance. Just as I calculated with incrediblerelief that the crisis was past, Peyral’s gun roared out.

My muscles squirmed, my heart leaped, my kneesbent, and my chin touched my bosom. ExplodingEggs laughed.

Peyralé puhi kuku,” he said regretfully; “Peyralhas shot a kuku”—as if I should have shot it. Ilaughed heartily with him. The joke was on me, butI enjoyed it to the echo. I recalled that often of anevening my enemy replenished his larder with an expenditureof Number Four shot. It was funny, andwhen I reached the palace I was trembling with thereverberations of the absurd climax to my fears.

317L’Hermier des Plantes was dancing opposite ManyDaughters a hura-hura, and Song of the Nightingalewas fetching cold water from the brook to water thewine, in the temperate French way.

Hola!” called out the governor. “Come in, monami! Sit down and have a goutte de Pernod. Youare jolly. What? You met Peyral, and he shot notyou but a kuku? O lalala! You give me back theBrowning? All right. You could not have done muchharm with it. See, the cartridges are blanks for firinga salute on the Fall of the Bastille fête. O sapristi!It is droll! I will die!”

He held his stomach while he laughed and laughed.I grinned with fury.

“What the devil is the drôlerie?” I questioned,earnestly.

The governor wiped his eyes, and emptied his glass.

Attendez!” he answered. You were not in anygreat danger or I would have come to your rescue.You know I have here a dossier of every one in theseislands who has been complained against, or has complained.The first week I was here Peyral declaredthat Commissaire Bauda had insulted his daughter, andthat he must marry her or he would kill him. Baudadenied the charge, and Peyral did nothing. Then Iopened his dossier, and in two years he had made threesuch charges, one against a professor who was here amonth, and one against Le Brunnec. C’est curieux.The man is mad with alcohol, but more so with a determinationto marry that stark daughter of his to a whiteman who might take her away. Others have been eliminatedafter such foolishness as this. See, there was no318one but you. Lutz is after higher game, and besides heis a German, and Peyral hates him. Voilà, mongarçon. You were the parti inevitable. It is strangethe way he goes about getting a son-in-law. Onemight expect a dot, or a little hospitality, but no, heruns true to type, and he is not a chic type. But,c’est fini. He has tried and failed. You have met him,and knocked him down, and now you know his gun isfor kuku. Well, we will drink to the health of thepauvre diable, and a good husband for the girl. Butnot you, eh?”

I drank with as much grace as I could, but when Iwalked in the upper valley at dusk, and was alone bythe paepae tapu, the shattered and grown-over templeof the old Marquesan gods, I could have cried for pityfor that girl.

319

CHAPTER XVI

In the valley of Vaitahu—With Vanquished Often and Seventh Man HeIs So Angry He wallows in the Mire—Worship of beauty in the SouthSeas—Like the ancient Greeks—Care of the body—Preparations fora belle’s début—Massage as a cure for ills.

ACROSS the Bordelaise Channel from Atuona,many hours of sailing in an outrigger canoe,lay the island of Tahuata. Its principal settlementwas Vaitahu, and there I went with ExplodingEggs, my adopted brother of fourteen, to stay awhilein the house of the chief, Seventh Man Who Is SoAngry He Wallows in the Mire, as Neo Efitu, his shortname, meant. Atuona personified the brooding spiritof melancholy that possessed the race, the shadow ofthe white upon the Marquesan spirit, but Vaihatu hadas genus loci a blithe and domestic sprite, which had keptthe tiny village—formerly of thousands—in the habitsand moods of the old ways. Waited on as an honoredguest by the chief, his wife, and his niece, VanquishedOften, the friend and playmate of the few score inhabitants,I had happy weeks of simple pleasures, and ofintense interest in searching into the past of the Marquesans,and especially into their customs and mannersin relation to esthetics.

The only foreigner in the valley, by my earnest wishand laughable example, life resumed for a time muchof the old Marquesan method and appearance. Themission church, the first Christian edifice within a thousandmiles, was rejoining the wilderness. Without320clergy or adherent, its walls were fast falling into decay,and its precisely-planned garden was jungle. The artist-schoolmaster,Le Moine, who had taught Vaitahu’schildren to say, “La France est le plus bon pays dumonde,” was gone to seek other models for painting asravishing as Vanquished Often, or men as majestic asKahuiti, the cannibal of Taaoa. Existence, almost asdevoid of invention and artificiality as before the whitecame, I was able to rebuild in my mind the structure ofMarquesan taste, and to view in imagination the attractiveaspect of Vaitahu in its idyllic days of old. Webrought out of the chests the native garments of tapa,and we lived as much as possible—like children playingIndians—a perspective of the past.

I looked from my mat upon the paepae of SeventhMan Who Wallows to see Vanquished Often by theVai Puna, the spring of Vaitahu. She had taken offher ahu or tunic of pink muslin and bent over to receivethe full stream of cool water from the hills which flowedthrough the bamboo pipes. Her beautiful body, theblood mantling under her silken skin, perfect in developmentat thirteen years, glowed in the dazzling lightand under the silvery cascade, and her long, unconfinedhair shone red-gold in the sunbeams. My mind revertedto the descriptions of the women, the men, and thescenes described by these who voyaged here decades ago.

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (41)

Photo by Dr. Theodore P. Cleveland
Some friends in my valley

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (42)

Wash-day in the stream by my cabin

Not any people in all the world, ancient or modern,ranked human beauty higher in the list of life’s giftsthan did the people of these islands. In the star-scatteredarchipelagos of the Pacific tropics a dozen tawnyraces or breeds of superb physical endowment madetheir bodies wondrous temples for their free souls. The321loveliness and grace of women, the symmetry andstrength of men, were, before the white came to destroythem, the fascinating labor of their days, their vividreligion, and the expression of their joy of living.

They brought the culture of beauty and the rhythm ofmotion to an unequaled perfection, and in the adornmentof their bodies and development of their naturalattractions reached a pitch of splendor and artistrywhich, though seeming savage to us of this period,struck beholders, even of our kind, as entrancing andmarvelous.

While all over Polynesia these conditions obtainedwhen the first Anglo-Saxons threw down the anchors oftheir ships in the enchanting harbors of these tropics,they remained longest in the Marquesas Archipelago.

In their simple dress, their practice of manipulationin the development of their bodies, their use of scents,unguents, and lotions, their wearing of flowers and ornaments,their singular and astounding art of the story-teller,the dance and the pantomime, and the exquisitetattooing of their persons, they showed a delicacy of feelingand an understanding of elegance unsurpassed inthe records of the nations of the earth.

As I sat under the pandanus thatch of Seventh ManWho Is So Angry He Wallows in the Mire, I recalledwhat that eminent moralizer, Lecky, had said:

The intense esthetic enthusiasm that prevailed was eminentlyfitted to raise the most beautiful to honor. In a land and beneatha sky where natural beauty developed to the highestpoint, supreme physical perfection was crowned by an assembledpeople. In no other period of the world’s history was the admirationof beauty in all its forms so passionate or so universal.322It colored the whole moral teaching of the time, and led thechief moralists to regard virtue simply as the highest kind ofsupersensual beauty. It led the wife to pray, before all otherprayers, for the beauty of her children. The courtesan wasoften the queen of beauty.

Lecky wrote that of ancient Greece to contrast itwith the morals of the Europe of his day, but I consideredthe striking likeness between the condition hedescribed and the attitude of the ancient Marquesans.Here in these tiny islands, separated by ten thousandmiles of billow from the land of Pericles and Aspasia, apeople whose origin was only guessed at by science,erected the same goal of attainment, and like standardsof harmony of form and movement. Doubtless at thatvery day these Greeks of the tropics, considering theirenvironment, most distant from the birthplace of humanityand from the example of other peoples, werecomparable in brilliancy of person and ease of motion tothe Homeric figures.

The American sea-fighter, Captain David Porter,who ran up the Stars and Stripes in the breadfruitgroves of these islands, said:

The men of the Marquesas are remarkably handsome, oflarge stature and well-proportioned; they possess every varietyof countenance and feature, and a great difference is observablein the color of the skin, which for the most part is of a coppercolor. But some are as fair as the generality of working peoplemuch exposed to the sun of a warm climate.

The young girls were handsome and well-formed; their skinswere remarkably soft and smooth and their complexions nodarker than many brunettes in America, celebrated for theirbeauty. Their modesty was more evident than that of the323women of any place we had visited since leaving our owncountry; and if they suffered themselves (though with apparenttimidity and reluctance) to be presented naked to strangers,may it not be in compliance with a custom which taught themto sacrifice to hospitality all that is most estimable?

Why, and how had this strange race, so far fromothers’ strivings, attained so singular a state of naturalbeauty that discoverer after discoverer and diarist afterdiarist, from the bloody Spaniard, Mendaña, to thegentle Louis Stevenson, set it down as the “handsomeston earth?”

One must guess at the beginnings of the Marquesans.Scientists make explorations to find the route of theCaucasian people who thousands of years ago—maybe,before the Hebrews deserted Jehovah for Baal-Peor—migratedthrough the unknown and fearsome wastesof ocean toward these misty islands of the far south.What equipment of body and soul they brought withthem we do not know, but they were or became the mastersof their seas, and in their frail canoes dared eventhe long voyage to New Zealand and to Hawaii, whenEuropeans and Asiatics in keeled ships crept carefullyabout their own coasts, or crossed the MediterraneanSea only within the threatening Pillars of Hercules.

During the thousands of years the Marquesans wereseparated from Europe they developed a policy of government,a paternalistic democracy, or communism,which was perfectly adapted to their nature and surroundings.A very large part of it was concerned withbeauty, manners, and entertainment, with personaldecoration, carving of stone and wood, building oftemples and houses, oratory, dances, and chants. All324of these were carefully regulated by cults, gilds, andtapus. They must have been an extremely prolongedgrowth, for they had come to a fixed standard of detailand exactness, and an acme of art, bizarre andexotic as it was, that could have been but the minuteaccretion of many centuries. When the first explorerscame into the uncharted spaces of these warm seas, theyfound a culture totally beyond the understanding ofmost of them, and abhorrent to state and church, butwhich a few fine souls glimpsed as an astonishing revelationof the natural development of the human,and, by foil, of the decadence of civilization. Theyfound health and high spirits abounding to a degreeutterly strange to them, the hardiest and most adventurousof Europeans and Americans, and they wereprovoked by the innocence, radiance, and naturalnessof the women.

This Edenic condition astounded the Yankee Porter,who went to sea at sixteen, and who slew scores of Marquesans,for he put in his log:

The Hawaiians, Tahitians, and New Zealanders had byresidence among whites become corrupt; they had fallen intotheir vices and ate the same food. They were no longer ina state of nature; they had, like us, become corrupt, andwhile the honest, guileless faces of the Marquesans shone withbenevolence, good nature and intelligence, the downcast eyeand sullen look of the others marked their inferiority and degeneracy.Guilt, of which by intercourse with us they hadbecome sensible, had already marked their countenances.Every emanation of their souls could not be perceived upontheir countenances as with those of the naked Marquesans.

War, murder, mutiny, desertion, and horrible orgies325marked the reaction of these forecastle denizens, scouringsof slums and dull villages, to the spontaneity, ease,and liberty they found here, in contrast with their uglyand restricted lives aboard ship or in the hard climes andrough grooves of their homes. The sight of such intenseindividual happiness, glowing vitality, and exquisitebodies, of a coöperative existence without kingsor commoners, business or money, palaces or hovels,disease or dirt, prudery or prostitutes, shocked them bythe abrupt differences from their own countries. Theywrote the Marquesans down as barbarians, as theGreeks did the Romans; and church, government, andtrade made haste to hack down their achievement, andto make over the pieces as the wretched patchwork oftheir own hands. They hated it, subconsciously, forits giving the lie to their own boasted institutions.They ended it that it might not mock the degradationand futility of their own conduct and the opposition betweentheir decalogue and their deeds. The merchantcondemned and altered it to make a market for what itdid not then need or desire.

The first approach to change after subjugation andconversion was through clothing, because the most obviousdifference between the whites and the browns wasthat the latter largely exposed their bodies. The missionarypaved the way for the dealer who had cottonsto sell by saying that God abhorred nakedness. Livingstonhimself acted likewise. The Marquesans, intruth, had a small variety of clothing. Much of thetime both sexes wore only the single garment, the pareuor loin-cloth. Their clothes of Tapa or bark were, exceptmattings, the only stuffs made by the Marquesans.326They were of a remarkable texture and coloring, consideringthe materials available. The inner barks ofthe banian, breadfruit, and particularly the mulberrytrees were used. The outer rind was scraped off witha shell, and the inner slightly beaten and allowed toferment. It was then beaten over wooden forms withclubs of ironwood about eighteen inches long, groovedcoarsely on one side and finely on the reverse, a processthat united so closely the fibers that in the finished clothone could not guess the processes of its making.Bleached in the sun on the beaches to a dazzling white,this fabric was either dyed black or brown, yellow orred, or fashioned as it was into the few varieties of garmentsthey affected. All wore the pareu about theloins; a strip two yards or more in length, and a yardwide, which is passed twice about the waist and tuckedin for holding, as the sarong of the Malay. It hangsabove the knees, and like the fundoshi of Japan, wornby royalty and beggar, is capable, for strenuous movements,such as swimming, of being gathered up to forma diaper or breech-cloth.

The cahu or ahu, a long and flowing piece of tapa,was worn by the females, hanging from the shoulders,knotted about or covering one or both breasts at thewhim of the wearer. For the coloring of this and thepareu, rich and alluring dyes were found in the plantsand trees and even the sea-animals of the beaches. Theoutlines of the hibiscus flowers and carven objects wereimprinted upon these tapas, and astronomical, mystic,or tribal signs or records drawn upon them in fantasticbut artistic design.

The method of wearing the cahu for hiding or disclosing327the charms of the female was as varied as thetoilettes of Parisian fashion. The conceit of the girlor woman, the occasion, and the weather decided its beingdraped in any one of a score of manners. A bellemight think it ungenerous to cover too much, and anold or homely woman find the entire surface too scant.When human nature has freest fling, prudery is thefig-leaf of ugliness, here, as in the salon of Mayfair, orbehind the footlights of Broadway.

For the men, while the pareu, always as now, was thecommon apparel, they had a hundred ornaments, in adiversity more numerable than those of the females.Whenever man has not sacrificed his masculine cravingfor adornment to religious or economic pressure, he isthe gaudier of the sexes. From the fiddler-crab withhis rampant claw to the mandrill with his crimson andlilac callosities, nature has so ordained it, and man rejoicedin his privilege. Not until European man feltthe iron hand of the machine age, when the rifle displacedthe bow and the pistol the sword, the factory thehome loom, and the foundry the smithy; not until moneybecame the chief pursuit of all ranks, and puritanism ageneral blight upon brilliancy of costume, did the whiteman relinquish his gewgaws to the parasitic woman.Then he made it a vicarious pride by decorating her withhis riches and making her the vehicle of his pomp in ornature,and the advertisement of his prosperity.

The Marquesans, struck by the glitter of brass buttonsand gold braid, of broadcloth and fur, unfamiliarwith metal, and admiring everything foreign, fell facilevictims to vestures, and when the new-fangled religionsthat followed hot upon the discoverers, enforced covering328by dogma and even by punishment, they clothedthemselves and sweated in fashion and sanctity. Butclothes irk the Marquesans as they do all people livingclose to a kindly nature. Our own babes resent even theswaddles which bind them in the cradle. The first yearsof childhood are a continuing struggle against garments,until, having lost plasticity and the instant responseof muscle to mind that distinguishes the Marquesans,the result is rationalized by adolescents into modestyand convention. After youth, clothing is welcomedby us to enhance imperfect charms and to hidedefects, to screen our unhandsome and puny bodies.The lean shanks, protuberant abdomens, and anatomicalgrotesqueries in a public bath bear witness to oursacrifice. Marriage is often a disclosure of unguessedflaws.

“The gods are naked and in the open,” said Seneca.

Pigalle sculptured the frail old Voltaire in the nude,yet attained dignity. Even Broadway smiles atfrocked heroes in bronze, and must have its ideals inmarble or bronze undraped.

How often, when I lived at the spacious home of myfriend, Ariioehau Ameroearao, the chief at Mataiea inTahiti, I have seen him, chevalier of the Legion ofHonor, come in from the highway in stiff white linen orin religious black, and in a twinkling reduce his garb toa loin-cloth!

His walls were hung with portraits of princes anddistinguished travelers, guests of his in the past score ofyears, and none was more distinguished, though in brilliantuniform and gorgeously decorated, than the oldchief in his strip of cotton print.

329“Three kings naked have I seen, and never a sign ofroyalty,” said the cynical Bismarck.

Plato understood very well the spirit in which thePolynesians were clothed by the whites, the crass pruriencethat pointed out to them the wickedness of nudity,that hid their beautiful bodies under tunics and pantaloons,that laughed at their simplicity.

In the “Republic” he says:

Not long since it was thought discreditable and ridiculousamong the Greeks, as it is now among most barbarian nations,for men to be seen naked. And when the Cretans first, andafter them the Lacedæmonians, began the practice of gymnasticexercises, the wits of the time had it in their power tomake sport of those novelties. But when experience has shownthat it was better to strip than to cover up the body and whenthe ridiculous effect that this plan had to the eye had givenway before the arguments establishing its superiority, it was atthe same time, as I imagine, demonstrated that he is a foolwho thinks anything ridiculous but that which is evil, and whoattempts to raise a laugh by assuming any object to be ridiculousbut that which is unwise and evil.

The Marquesans, perfect animals, had their sensesextraordinarily attuned to the faintest vibrations ofvalue to their survival or delight. They heard soundsplainly that I, with rather better than ordinary civilizedhearing, did not catch. I was with Vanquished Oftenwhen she spoke to Exploding Eggs two hundred feetaway in a conversational tone. I tested them, andfound they could talk with each other intelligibly whenI heard but an indistinct whisper from the farthest. Sowith smell. Ghost Girl and Mouth of God, my neighborat Atuona, could detect any intimates by their330odor in pitch darkness at twenty feet, though Marquesans,because they have little bodily hair and are thecleanest people I know, have less personal odor than we.They enjoyed life through scent infinitely more thando we. They had no kisses but rubbed noses andsmelled each other with indrawings of their breath.Odoriferous herbs, flowers, and seeds were continuallyabout their necks, both men and women, tucked behindtheir ears, or in their hair, and their bodies after bathingswere anointed with the hinano-scented cocoanut-oil.Their noses were sources of sensuous enjoyment to thembeyond my capability. They inhaled emanations fromflowers too subtle to touch my olfactory nerves.

The Marquesan woman has ever been an arch-coquette,paying infinite attention to her appearance, andenduring pain and ennui to improve her beauty. Hercomplexion was as much a pride as with a fashionableAmerican woman to-day. The beauty parlors of ourcities were matched by the steam baths, the use of saffron,of oils, and of massage, and by weeks or evenmonths of preparation before some great festival. Toburst upon the assembled clan, white as the sea-foam,with skin as smooth as a polished calabash, hair oiledand wreathed, and body rounded from dancing practiceand much sleep, and to set beating wildly the pulses ofthe young men, so that, strive as they might to remainmute, they would be forced to yield mad plaudits, wasa result worth months of effort. To be the belle of theball was a distinction a woman remembered a lifetime.It was an honor comparable to the warrior’s wounds, orpossession of the heads of the enemies. Parents feltkeenly the success of their daughters. Titihuti and331others have told me of their triumphs, as Bernhardt orPatti might recite of packed houses and a score of encores.

A curious secrecy or modesty was attached to themaking of the toilet and the enhancement of the naturalcharms. No Marquesan or Tahitian or Hawaiianwould ever have looked at herself in a portable mirror—ifshe had one—as do many of our females, and the whiteningand reddening of cheeks and lips in public placeswould have caused a blush of shame for her sex to suffusethe face of a Marquesan, to whom such intimategestures were for the privacy of her home or the bankof the limpid stream in a grove dedicated to the MarquesanVenus.

Near Tahiti was the atoll of Tetuaroa where for hundredsof years the belles of Tahiti resorted to lose theirsunburn in the bowered groves and to spend a season inbeautification by banting, special foods, dancing, swimming,massage, baths, oils, and lotions.

Here in the Marquesas, as in all Polynesia, a periodof voluntary seclusion preceded the début of the maiden,or the preparation for a special pas seul by a notedbeauty.

Seclusion of the girl was practiced at the time ofpuberty. It has a curious analogy in such far separatedplaces as Torres Straits and British Columbia, one Australasiaand the other North America. The girls of atribe in Torres Straits are hidden for three months behinda circle of bushes in their parent’s house at the firstsigns of womanhood. No sun must reach them, and noman, even though he be the father, enter the house, normust they feed themselves. The Nootkas of British332Columbia also conceal their nubile virgins, and insistthat they touch their own bodies for a period only witha comb or a bone, never laying their hands upon it.

It would seem that all this mystery had the same purpose,that of adding to the attractiveness of the girls andheightening the romance of their new condition. Ourcoming-out parties parallel the goal of these strangepeoples, announcements, formal introductions, as brilliantas possible, being considered desirable both amongsavages and ourselves to give notice of a marriageablestate. Our débuts have not departed far from aboriginalideas.

The Junoesque wife of Seventh Man Who Wallowshad just come from the via puna in her accustomed bathingattire, and, still dripping, seated herself in the sunnear me to dry. She had added a jasmine blossom tothe heavy gold hoops in her ears and had lit her pipe,and her handsome, large face was twisted between smilesand frowns as she tried to put in understandable wordsand gestures her recital of these customs:

“Our girls, daughters of chiefs, such as I am, werekept hidden for months before we appeared for the firsttime in public in the tribal dance. The tapu was strict.We were secret in our mother’s house and inclosure,without supposedly even being seen by any one but ourrelatives and their retainers. It was death to gaze uponus. We were tapu tapu. If we had cause to go out,our official guardian blew a conch-shell to warn all fromthe neighborhood. Not until the day of the dance ormarriage ceremony, not until the feast was spread andthe accepted suitor present to claim us, or the drumsbooming for the dance, were we shown to the multitude;333we had had months of omi omi, and would be in perfectcondition and most beautiful.”

It was this omi omi, or massage, that many of the earlierchroniclers of the South Seas believed to be thecause of the chiefs and headmen of all these islands beingmuch bigger and handsomer than the common people.The hakaiki, or chiefs, men and women, throughoutPolynesia astonished the voyagers and missionariesby their huge size. Often they were from four to sixinches above six feet tall, and framed in proportion.Hardly a writing sailor or visitor to Hawaii, Tahiti,Samoa, or the Marquesas but remarks this striking fact.Many thought these headmen a different race than theothers, but scientists know that family, food, and the curiouseffect of the strenuous massage from infancy accountfor the differences. The omi omi of these islands,the tarumi of Tahiti, and the lomi lomi of the Hawaiiansall have a relation to the momi-ryoji, practiced by thetens of thousands of whistling blind itinerants throughoutJapan.

I had a remarkable illustration of the curative meritsof omi omi when, having bruised my back by awkwardnessin sliding down a rocky waterfall into a once tabooedpool with Vanquished Often and ExplodingEggs, I submitted myself to the ministrations of Junoand Vanquished Often. They would have me in theglare of the early morning sun on Seventh Man’s paepae,and there were gales of laughter as they shoutedout my physical differences from the Marquesans, myexcellences, and my blemishes. On one side and onthe other, both squatted, they handled me as if they understoodthe locations of each muscle and nerve. They334pinched and pulled, pressed and hammered, and otherwisetook hold of and struck me, but all with a mostremarkable skill and seeming exact knowledge of theirmethod and its results. I was in agony over their treatmentof me, but after a day as well as ever.

Before I was given the omi omi, I was bathed by thetwo ladies with a care and nicety not to be bought at ourbest hammams. A tiny penthouse was made quicklyof cocoanut-leaves, and in this was placed a greatwooden trencher of water in which white hot stones weredropped. On a tiny stool I sat in the resulting steam,the delicious odor of kakaa leaves thrown into the boilingwater aiding the vapor in effect on skin and nerves.Quite ten minutes I was compelled to remain in thepenthouse, my fair jailers remaining obdurate outsidedespite my imploring cries to be released, my protestationsthat I was being dissolved and would emerge athing of shreds and patches. When I could not havestood it another second, my lungs bursting with restraint,and my body hot enough to hurt my nervouslycaressing hands, I was suddenly let out and hurried tothe beach, where Vanquished Often rushed with me intothe beating surf.

The sea seemed cold as an Adirondack lake, and I wasfor swimming beyond the breakers in fullest enjoymentof the relief, but my doctors would not allow me anotherminute and hand in hand rushed me to the chief’s paepae,now my own, for my lenitive kneading. Thebruises I had got in my awkward essay to emulate theagility of Exploding Eggs and Vanquished Often weredeep and painful, but after half an hour of their poundingI fell asleep and remained unconscious six hours.335I was to myself a celestial musical instrument, a humanxylophone, from which houris struck notes that madethe stars whirl, and to the music of which VanquishedOften danced in the purple moonlight upon a milkycloud. Their cessation of the omi omi woke me. Itwas past noon when I joined them and the whole merrypopulace of Vaitahu in the warm ocean waves. I waswithout pain or stiffness, and reborn to a childhood Ihad forgotten.

336

CHAPTER XVII

Skilled tattooers of Marquesas Islands a generation ago—Entire bodiescovered with intricate tattooed designs—The foreigner who had himselftattooed to win the favor of a Marquesan beauty—The magicthat removed the markings when he was recalled to his former lifein England.

TATTOOING, the marking of designs on thehuman skin in life, is an art so old that its beginningsare lost to records. It was practisedwhen the Neolithic brute went out to club his fellowsand drag in his body to the fire his mate kept ever burning.Its origin, perhaps, was contemporaneous withvanity, and that was in the heart of man before hebranched from the missing limb of evolution. It perhapsfollowed in the procession of art the rude scratchingson bone and daubing on rock. In the caves ofEurope with these childish distortions are found the implementswith which the savage whites who lived in therecesses of the rocks tattooed their bodies. The Jewswere forbidden by Moses to tattoo themselves, and theArabs, with whom they had much converse, yet practiseit. In 1066 William of Malmesbury said that theEnglish “adorned their skins with punctured designs.”Kingsley, with regard for accuracy, makes Herewardthe Wake, son of the Lady Godiva, have blue tattooingmarks on wrists, throat, and knee; a cross on his throatand a bear on the back of his hand. The Romans foundthe Britons stained with woad. The taste for such337marks existing to-day is evidenced by the pain and pricepaid by sailors and aristocrats of all white nations forthem. Tattooing has faded under clothing which coversit and a less personal civilization which condemns it.In the Marquesas Islands it reached its highest development,and here was the most beautiful form of art knownto the most perfect physical people on earth.

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (43)

From an old drawing
Te Ipu, an old Marquesan chief, showing tattooing

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (44)

The famous tattooed leg of Queen Vaikehu

Until the overthrow of Marquesan culture, the islandof Fatuhiva was the Florence of the South Seas. Themost skillful workers at tattooing as well as carvinglived in its valleys of Oomoa and Hanavave. Duringthe weeks I have resided in them I delved into the historyand curiosities of this most intimate of fine arts,now expiring if not dead. Nataro, the most learnedMarquesan alive, took me into its intricacies and mademe know it for the proud, realistic performance it was,a dry-point etching on a growing plate from which noprints were to be made. Nataro’s wife had one handthat is as famous and as admired in Fatuhiva as “MonaLisa’s” portrait in Paris. A famous tuhuka wroughtits design, a man equal in graphic genius, relatively,to Dürer or Rembrandt. Age and work had faded andwrinkled the picture, but I can believe her husband that,as a young woman, when the art was not cried down,people came from far valleys to view it. I recalled theright leg of the late Queen Vaekehu, the most notablepiece of art in all the Marquesas until it went with itspossessor into the grave at Taiohae. In late yearsthe former queen of cannibals and last monarch of theMarquesas would not show her limb—a modest attitudefor a recluse who lived with nuns and thought only ofdeath. Stevenson confessed he never saw it above the338ankle, though the queen dined with him on the Casco.He had a poet’s delicacy, an absolute lack of curiosity,and Mrs. Stevenson was with him. But he expresseda real sympathy for the iconoclastic ignorance that wasdestroying tattooing here.

The queen, who had been the prize of bloody feudsand had danced at the feast of “long pig,” had gone toher reward after years of beseechment of the ChristianGod for mercy, but I could almost see her once gloriousleg in the life because of the two of my Atuona mother,Titihuti, which for months have passed my hut daily.They are replicas of the Queen’s, said Nataro, with thedifference that Titihuti’s, beginning at her toe nails,reached a gorgeous cincture at her waist, while Vaekehu’sdid not reach her hip, being, indeed, a permanentstocking. Some of the Easter Island women hadan imitation of drawers delineated upon them, givingweight to the theory that these perpetuated the idea ofclothing they wore in a colder clime, but of which theyhad preserved not even a legend.

Women were seldom tattooed above the waist, excepttheir hands, and fine lines about the mouth andupon the insides of the lips. This lip-coloring was,doubtless, the efforts of invaders to make the red lips ofthe Caucasian women, the first Polynesian immigrants,conform to the invaders’ inherited standards, as theManchus put the queue on the Chinese. The Marquesanmen like dark men. The last conquerors here wereprobably a darker race than the conquered, and theypreserved their ideals of color, but, having come withoutwomen and seized the women they found, they let thempreserve their own standards, except for red lips, which339they tattooed blue. These latest comers thought muchpigment meant strong bones, and after a battle theysearched the field for the darkest bodies to furnish fishhooksand tools for canoe-making and carving. Theythought the whites who first arrived were gods, andwhen they found they were men, with their same passions,they thought they were ill. That is the first impressionone who lives long with Polynesians has whenhe meets a group of whites. They look sickly, sharp-faced,and worried. They pay dear for factories andwheeled vehicles.

Very probably the beginning of tattooing was thewish to frighten one’s enemy, as masks were worn bymany tribes, and as the American painted his face withocher. That state was followed by the natural desireof the warrior, as evident yet as in Hector’s day, to lookmanly and individualistic before the maidens of histribe. And finally, as heraldry became complicated,tattooing grew, at least in Polynesia, into a record ofsept and individual accomplishments and distinguishingmarks. Here it had, as an art, freed itself from thebonds of religion, so that the artist had liberty to drawthe Thing as he saw it, and had not to conform to priest-craft,a rule which probably hurt Egyptian art greatly.

In New Zealand, where the Polynesians went fromSamoa, a sometime rigorous climate demanded clothing,and the head became the pièce de résistance of the tattooer.There was a considerable trade among whites inthe preserved heads of New Zealanders until the supplyran out. White dealers procured the raiding of villagesto sell their victim’s visages. Museums and collectorsof such curios paid well for these tattooed faces, but the340demand exhausted the best efforts of the whites. Afterthe rarest examples were dead and smoked, there wasno stimulating the supply. The goods refused to bemanufactured. The Solomon Islands now supplysmoked human heads, but they have no adornment.

Birds, fish, temples, trees, and plants—all the cosmosof the Marquesan—was a model for the tuhuka. He oftendrew his designs in charcoal on the skin, but sometimesproceeded with his inking sans pattern. Henever copied, but drew from memory, though the samelines and tableaux might be repeated a thousand times;and always he bore in mind the caste, tribe, and sex ofthe subject. Thus at a glance one could tell the valleyand rank of any one, much as in Japan the station, age,moral standing, and other artificial qualities of womenare indicated by their coiffure and obi, or sash.

The craft did not require any elaborate tools. Theama or candlenut soot with water, a graduated set ofbone-needles, of human and pig origin, and a malletwere all the requirements. The paint or ink was of butone color, black or brown, which on a dark skin lookedbluish and on a fair skin black. The marking of theparts most delicate and sensitive to pain, as the eyelids,was a parcel of the endeavor to promote stoicism and toshow the foe the mettle of his opponent. Man did notconsent for thousands of years to share his ornamentationwith women, and then insisted that the motif bebeauty or the accentuation of sex.

The tattooers, in order to learn from one another, tohave art chats, to discuss prices and perhaps dead beatsor slow payers, had societies or unions, in which weredegrees and offices, the most favored in ability and by341patronage being given the highest rank, though nowand again a white man, by his superior magic and force,though no tuhuka at all, held the supreme position.

A shark upon the forehead was the card of membershipin the tattooers’ lodge, to which were admitted occasionallyenthusiastic and discerning patrons of art.

At festival times, when tapus were to some degreesuspended and the intertribal enmities forgotten for thenonce, thousands of men, women, and children gatheredto eat, drink, and be merry, and to be tattooed, as one atcountry fairs buys new dresses and trinkets. It wasto these fêtes that the pot-boilers, fakers, and beginnersamong the talent came; men who would make a sitter ascrawl for a heap of pipi, shells and gewgaws, a fewsquealing pigs, a roll of tapa, or, most precious of all,a whale’s tooth. Like our second- and third-classpainters, our wretched daubers who turn out canvasesby the foot (though hand-painted), these tramps, who,by a dispensation of the priests and a mocking providence,were tapu, not to be attacked in any valley,strolled from tribe to tribe, promising much and givinglittle. Some worked largely on repair jobs, doing overspots where the skin had been abraded by injuries inbattles, or by rocks or fire. The man who was welldressed in a suit of tattoo, or the lady who was clothedfrom toes to waist in a washable peau de femme, keptthese garments in as good condition as possible, butwhen accident or the fortune of war injured the ensemblethey hastened to have it touched up.

An artist of the first rank, one who in a Marquesansalon would have a medal of honor, disdained such commissions,but dauber and South Sea Da Vinci alike342often had their work hung upon the line, when they weretaken by the enemy and suspended at the High Placebefore being dropped into the pit for the banquets ofthe cannibal victors.

It was always of interest to me to wonder how menlearned tattooing. Painters, carvers, etchers, andsculptors have material ever available for their lessons.They can waste an infinity of canvas, wood, copper, ormarble if they have the money to spend, but how aboutthe apprentice or student who must have live mediumseven for practice?

Well, just as there are Chinese who, for a consideration,take the place of persons condemned to death(though they do not, as alleged, make a living out of it),and others who, though it exhaust and finally kill them,enter deadly trades or hire out for war, there were Marquesanswho offered themselves as kit-cats for these studentsand sold their surface at so much an inch for anyvile design or miserable execution. I can see these fellows,well covered with tapa, hiding whenever possiblethe caricatures and travesties that made them a laughingshow. These Hessians had no pride in complexion.Their skins they wanted full of food, nor cared at allfor their outside if the inside man was replete.

There were others who, too poor to pay even theitinerant wall-painters, let the students wreak theirworst upon them, merely to be tattooed, good or bad,and many of these, like our millionaire picture buyers,were luckily denied any appreciation of art and did notknow the imperfections of the skin pictures put uponthem.

“Tattooing in these islands,” said Nataro, “was usually343begun upon those able to pay for it at the age ofpuberty; but there were many exceptions of tattooingcommenced upon boys soon after their infancy or deferreduntil mature manhood. Illness, poverty, orother obstacle might prevent, and the desire of parentsmight cause early tattooing. The father or other relativeor protector of the youth or girl paid the tuhukabut at the festivals even the very poor orphans weregiven opportunities to be tattooed by a general contribution,or the chief of the valley paid the fee. Yearswere occupied at intervals in the covering of the entirebody of men, which was the aim; but many had to becontent with having a part pictured, and often elaboratedesigns were never finished. You see many bare places,meant to be covered when the tuhuka began his work.Queen Vaekehu was converted to Christianity with butone leg done and forewent further beautification toserve her new God. Though begun in boyhood, the fulladornment of a man could hardly be terminated beforehis thirtieth year. During his lifetime of sixty yearshe might have it renewed twice, and as each pore couldnot be duplicated exactly the third coat would make hima solid mass of color, the goal of manly beauty.

“Though men usually sought to look terrible so thatwhen they faced their enemies they would inspire fear,with women the sex motif was dominant,” said Nataro.“Girls with beautiful bodies and legs are much moreattractive when tattooed, and we selected the bestformed for the most elaborate designs. These weredrawn so that, as the girls danced naked, the whole patternswere obvious, and those who were the most symmetricalwon high honors in the great public exhibitions.344If in the wide circle that chanted a utanui, while the oldfolks watched, a woman by exposing her beauty in adance caused the voices of the young men to falter, orsome one of them to become so entranced as to leap intothe ring and seize her, she won a prize of acclamationfor her parents which no other equaled. The dancestopped and all united in cheering the dancer. Thesebeauties danced with their legs close together, so as tokeep the design intact, lifting the heels backward andshowing the shapeliness of figure and the fineness oftattooing.”

To analyze thoroughly the meanings of the differentdesigns upon the bodies of the Maoris, or upon thecanoes, paddles, and bowls, was impossible now. Itmight be compared to the study of heraldry. Tattooingin the South Seas was a combination of art and heraldry,racial and individual pride’s sole written or gravenrecord.

In the Marquesas, the art reached its zenith. It wasthe Marquesans’ national expression, their art, theirproof of Spartan courage, the badge of the warrior,and the glory of sex. In the man it marked ambitionto meet the enemy and to win the most beautiful women.In the weaker vessel it was a coquetry, highly developedamong daughters of chiefs and women of personal force;and it afforded those who had submitted to the effortsof the best craftsmen opportunities to display theircharms in public to the most striking advantage.

Nataro said that when the law against tattooing wasenforced here a few years ago a number went to prisonrather than obey it, but that when it was abrogated theart was already dead. It is kept alive now, except in345a few cases, only by the placing of names upon the armsof the girls. Many tuhukas were still living, but therewas little call for their work.

“They were our highest class, next to the chiefs,”said Nataro. “We looked up to them as you do to yourgreat. They were fêted and made much of, and theirschools were our art centers, teaching besides tattooing,the carving of wood, bowls, canoes, clubs, and paddles.Now we buy tin cans and china plates. Von denSteinen, the German philologist, connected with theBerlin museum, who was here ten years ago, copiedevery tattoo pattern he saw, and in many he found arelation to Indian or Asiatic and perhaps other hieroglyphicsand figures of thousands of years ago.”

With the ridiculing of it by the missionaries, who associatedit with heathenry, and the making of it a crimeby the missionary-directed chiefs of Tahiti, tattooingvanished there almost a hundred years ago, but herethe law against it was very recent. The law written bythe English Protestant missionaries in Tahiti was as follows:

No person shall mark with tatau, it shall be entirely discontinued.It belongs to ancient evil customs. The man or womanthat shall mark with tatau, if it be clearly proved, shall betried and punished. The punishment shall be this—he shallmake a piece of road ten fathoms long for the first marking,twenty for the second; or stone work four fathoms long and twowide; if not this, he shall do some work for the king. This shallbe the woman’s punishment—she shall make two large mats, onefor the king and one for the governor; or four small mats, forthe king two, and for the governor two. If not this, nativecloth twenty fathoms long and two wide; ten fathoms for the346king and ten for the governor. The man and woman that persistin tatauing themselves successively four or five times, thefigures marked shall be destroyed by blacking them over, andthe individuals shall be punished as above written.

To achieve a fairly complete picture upon one’s bodymeant many months of intense suffering, the expenditureof wealth, and a decade of years of very gradualprogress toward the goal after manhood was attained;but for a man in the former days to lack the Stripes ofTerror upon his face, to have a bare countenance, or onenot yet marked by the initial strokes of the hammer ofthe tattooer was to be a poltroon and despised of histribe.

Such a one must expect to have no apple of lovethrown at him, to awaken no passion in womankind, norever to find a wife to bear him children. He was asthe giaour among the Turks. He had no honor in lifeor death, no foothold in the ranks of the warriors, orplace among the shades of Po.

So when white men were cast by shipwreck in thoseisles, or fled from duty on whalers or warships, andsought to stay among the Marquesans, they acceded tothe honored customs of their hosts, and adopted theirfacial adornment and often in the course of years theirwhole bizarre garb. The courage that did not shrinkfrom dwelling among cannibals could not wilt at theblow of the hama.

The explorer in the far North, who lets his face becomecovered with a great growth of hair, when he intendsto return to civilization can with a few strokes ofa razor be again as before. But once the curious ink347of the tattooer has bitten into the skin, it is there forever.It is like the pits of smallpox; it can never be erased.Through all his life, and into the grave itself, the humancanvas must bear the pictures painted by the artist ofthe needles. It was a chain as strong as steel, rivetedon him, that fastened him to these lotus isles. So menof America or Europe did not return to their native landfrom the Marquesas, but died here. The whorls andlines in the ama dye wrote exile forever from the lovedones at home.

Is that wholly true? Had not science or sorcery nepenthefor the afflicted by such a horror—horror if unwanted?Is there not one who has escaped such a fatewhen life had become fearful under it?

I asked that question of all, and in the valley of Hanavavewas answered. I had rowed to Hanavave in thewhaleboat of Grelet, and, when he returned to Oomoa,stayed on a month for the fishing with Red Chickenand discussions with Père Olivier.

“There is a sorcerer in the hills near here,” said theold French priest, thirty-five years there without leaving,“who was said to be the best tattooer on Fatuhiva.He is still a pagan, and has a wonderful memory. Takesome tobacco and a pipe, and go to visit him. He maybe in league with the devil, but he is worthy an hour’sjourney.”

Puhi Enata was still vigorous, though very old. Thedesigns upon his face and body were a strange green,the verde antique which the ama ink becomes on theflesh of the confirmed kava drinker. I greeted himwith “Kaoha!” and soon, with the chunk of tobacco besidehim and the new pipe lit, I led him to the subject.348The story is not mine but his, and it has all the weirdflavor of these exotic gardens of mystery. It is truewithout question, and I have often thought since of theAmerican concerned in it, and wondered at his afterfate.

We were seated, Puhi Enata and I, upon the paepaeof his home, the platform of huge stones on which allhouses in the Land of the War Fleet are built.

In the humid air of that tropic parallel he made passbefore me a panorama of fantastic tragedy as real asthe life about me, but as astounding and as vivid in itsfacts and its narration as the recital of a drama of ancientAthens by a master of histrionics. I laughed orshuddered with the incidents of the story. He spoke inhis native tongue, and I have given his words as they filteredthrough the screen of my alien mind, not alwaysexactly, but in consonance with the cast of thought ofthat far-away and unknown land.

“We had no whites here when he came, this man ofyour islands. Other valleys had them, but Hanavave,no. Few ships have come to this bay. Taiohae, aday and a night and more distant, they sought for foodand water and now for copra, but Hanavave was, asalways, lived in by us only. Yet we ever welcomed thehaoe, the stranger, for he had ways of interest, and oftenmagic greater than ours.

“He came one day on a ship from far, this white manI tell about, and of whom even now I often meditate.He was not of the sea, but on the ship as onewho pays to move about over the waters, looking forsomething of interest. That thing he found here. Hebrought ashore his guns and powder, his other possessions349of wonder, and let the ship go away without him.He had seen Titihuti, and his koekoe, his spirit, was setaflame.”

I needed no description by the tuhuka to bring beforeme Titihuti, to see that maddening, matchless child-woman,nor to know the desperate plight of a white whofell in love with her. She must have been the Helen ofthese Pacific Greeks, for men came from other islands towoo her, fought over her, and embroiled tribes in bloodywarfare at her whim. Her affairs had been the historyof her valley for a brief period, and were immortalizedin chants and in legends though she still lived. Manyhad related to me stories of her beauty, her spell overmen, and her wicked pleasure in deceiving them.

She was the daughter of a chief, of a long line ofhakaiki, of noble mothers and of warriors, and an adeptin the marvelous cult of beauty, of sex expression, whichto the Marquesan woman was the field of her dearestambition, the professional stage and the salon of society.

“The day he came to this beach,” said the sorcerer,“was the day she first danced in the Grove of the Mei,at the annual gathering of the tribe. All the peopleof the ship were invited, and not least he who had noduties but his desires, and who brought from the vessela barrel of rum as his gift to the people. It was as richas the full moon, as strong as the surf in storm, and inevery drop a dream of fortune. It made that foreignerof note at once, and he was given a seat at the Hurahura,the Dance of Passion, in which Titihuti for the first timetook her place as a woman and an equal of others. Shewas then thirteen years old, a moi kanahau, her form asthe bud of the pahue flower, her hair red-gold, like the350fish of the lagoon, and her skin as the fresh-openedbreadfruit. The Grove of the Mei you have been in,but you cannot imagine that scene. A hundred torchesof candlenuts, strung on the spine of the palm-leaf, litthe dancing mead. The grass had been cut to a smoothness,and all the valley was there. As is usual in theseannual débuts of our girls, at the height of the breadfruitseason, a dozen were allowed to show their beautyand skill. These danced to the music of drums and ofhand-clapping and chanting before the entire tribeseated on the grass.”

The old man lit the pipe, which had gone out, andpuffed out the blue clouds of smoke as if they wererecollections of the past.

“Finally, as the custom is, the plaudits of the crowdnarrowed the contest to three. Each as she danced appealedfor approval, and each had followers. By thejudgment of the throng all had retired but three aftera first effort. These began the formal titii e te epo.This is the dance of love, the dance we Marquesans haveever made the test of the female’s fascination.

“Before the first of the three danced, the rum waspassed. It was drunk from cups of leaves, and eachin turn drew from the cask. It ran through our veinslike fire through the pandanus. The great drum thensounded the call.

“Tahiatini came from the shadow of the trees. Shewore a dress of tapa, made from the pith of the mulberry-tree,and as the dance became faster she tossed itoff until she moved about quite nude. For this, ofcourse, is part of the test. A hundred men, mostlyyoung, stood and watched her, and watching them were351the judges, the elders of the race, men and women.For, Menike, in the expression, the heat, or the coolnessof those standing men was counted the success or failureof the dancer. And they were taught by pride and bythe rules of the event to conceal every feeling, as did thewarrior who faced the launched spear. They were tobe as the stones of the paepae.

“Tahiatini passed back into the trees, and Moeo succeededher. She seemed to feel that Tahiatini had notscored heavily. She danced marvelously for one whohad never before been in the Grove of Mei, and theshrewd judges reckoned more than one of the silent hundredwho could not restrain from some mark of approval.There was, when she fell back, a shout of praisefrom the crowd, and the judges conferred while the rumwas handed about for the second time.

“Then Titihuti was thrust out from the darkness, andfrom her first step we realized that a new enchantresshad come to torment the warriors. I have lived long,and many of those dances in the Grove of Mei I haveseen. Never before or since that night have I knowna girl to do what she did. Her kahu of tapa was as redas the sun when the sea swallows it, and hung over oneshoulder, so that her bosom, as white as the ripe cocoanut,gleamed in the light of the burning ama.

“Her hair was in two plaits of flame, and the glitteringghost flowers were over her ears. You know shehad for months been out of the day and under the handsof those who prepare the dancers. Her body was asrounded as the silken bamboo, and her skin shone withthe gloss of ceaseless care.

“She advanced before the silent hundred, moving as352the slow waters of the brook, and as she passed eachone she looked into his eyes and challenged him, as thefighting man his enemy. Only she looked love and nothatred. Then she bounded into the center of the lineand, casting off her kahu, she stood before them, andfor the first time bared her beautiful body in the titii ete epo, the Dance of the Naked. She fluttered as a birda few moments, the bird that seeks a mate, the kuku ofthe valley. On her little saffroned feet she ran about,and the light left her now in brilliancy and now inshadow. She was searching for the way from childhoodto womanhood.

“Then the great pahu, the war-drum of human skin,was struck by O Nuku, the sea-shells blew loudly, andthe Hurahura was proclaimed. You know that. Feware the men who resist. Titihuti was as one aided byVeinehae, the Woman Demon. She flung herself intothat dance with madness. All her life she and hermother had awaited that moment. If she could tear thehearts of those warriors so that their breasts heaved,their limbs twitched, and their eyes fell before her, herhonor was as the winner of a battle. It was the supremehour of a woman’s existence.

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (45)

Photo from Brown Bros.
Tattooing at the present day

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (46)

Photo from Dr. Theodore P. Cleveland
Easter Islander in head-dress and with dancing-wand

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (47)

Photo from Dr. Theodore P. Cleveland
My tattooed Marquesan friend

“The judges seized the flambeaux and scrutinizedclosely the faces of the men. First one yielded andthen another. Try as they might to be as the rocks ofthe High Place, they felt the heat and melted. A dozenwere told off in the first few minutes of Titihuti’s dance,though Tahiatini and Moeo had won but two or three.Faster grew the music, and faster spun about her hipsthe torso of Titihuti. The judges caught the rhythm.They themselves were convulsed by the spell of the girl.353The whole line of the silent hundred was breaking when,as the breadfruit falls from the tree, suddenly sprangupon the mead the foreigner who had come but thatday. Though others of the ship tried to hold him, hebroke from them, and, clasping Titihuti in his arms, declaredthat she was his, and that he would defend hiscapture. The drums were quieted, the judges rushedto the pair, and, for the time of a wave’s lapping thebeach, spears were seized.

“But the ritual of the rum began, and in the crushabout the cask the judges awarded Titihuti the Orchidof the Bird, the reward of the First Dancer. She stoodin the light of the now dying torches, and when the foreignerwould embrace her and lead her away she turnedher laughing eyes toward him and called out so thatmany heard:

“‘You are without ornament, O Haoe. Cover yourface as do Marquesan lovers, or get you back to yourisland!’

“Then she hurried away to receive the praise and totaste the glory of her achievement among her ownfamily.”

The Taua took his long knife and with repeated blowshacked off the upper half of a cocoanut to make readyanother drink. I had a very vivid idea of the situationhe had described. That handsome young man of Europe,belike of wealth, seeking to surrender to his vagrantfancies in this contrasting environment, and findingthat among these savages he had position only ashis rum bought it with the men, and was without it at allamong the women. One could fancy him all afire afterthat dance of abandon, ready on the instant to yield to354the deepest of all instincts, and surprised, astounded,almost unbelieving at his repulse. He might havelearned that such repulse was not even in the mannerof the Marquesans, but solely the whim of Titihuti, thebeginning of that career of whimsical passion and insouciancewhich carried her fame from island to island andfetched other proud whites from afar to know her favor.He himself had come a long way to be the unwitting victimof the most prankish girl and woman who everdanced a tribe to death and destruction, but who withalwas worth more than she who launched the thousandships to batter Ilium’s towers.

“And did he cover his face?” I demanded, hurryingto follow the windings of fate.

E!” said the sorcerer. “He gained the friendshipof chiefs. He let his ship sail away with but a paperwith words to his tribe, and he stayed on. He hunted,he swam, and he drank, but he could not touch his noseto the nose of Titihuti, for his nose was naked. Weekspassed, but not his passion. He hovered about her asthe great moth seeks the fireflies, but ever she was busiedwith her pomades and her massage, the ena unguent andthe baths, the omi omi and the combing of her red-goldtresses. She had set him aflame, but had no alleviationfor him.

“And then when the moon was at its height shedanced again, this time alone, as the undisputed vehinehaka of Fatuhiva. The foreigner sat and gazed, andwhen Titihuti glided to where he was and, planting herfeet a metero away, addressed herself to him, he shookwith longing. She was perfumed with the jasmine, andabout her breasts were rings of those pink orchids of355the mountains. The foreigner felt the warmth of herpresence as she posed in the attitudes of love. Hebounded to his feet and, clasping her for the secondtime to him, he shouted that he would be tattooed, hewould be a man among men in the Marquesas.

“There was no delay; I myself tattooed him. Asalways the custom, I took him into the mountains andbuilt the patiki, the house for the rite. That is as itshould be, for tattooing is of our gods and of our religionbefore the whites destroyed it. I was and am themaster of our arts. I did not sketch out my designupon his skin with burned bamboo, as do some, butstruck home the ama ink directly. My needles were thebones of one whom I had slain, an enemy of the Oi tribe.I myself gathered the candlenuts and, burning them topowder, mixed that with water and made my color.My mallet, or hama, was the shin of another whom Ihad eaten.”

Such a man as Leonardo, who painted “Mona Lisa”and designed a hundred other beautiful things, or Celliniof the book and a vast creation of intricate marvels,would have understood the exactness of that art of tattooingin the Marquesas. Suppose “Mona Lisa” herself,an expanse of her fair back, and not mere linen,bore her picture. What infinite pains! Not more thantook the taua in such a task. In his mind his plan, hedipped his needle in the ama soot, and, placing the pointupon a pore of the flesh, he lightly tapped the other extremityof the bone with his hama of shin and impressedthe sepia into the living skin, for each point of flesh makinga stroke.

Followed fever after several hours of frightful anguish.356The dentist is the ministrant of caresses, histhe loved hand of pleasure, compared with the sufferingcaused to the quivering body by the blows of thoseneedles. A séance of tattooing followed, and severaldays of sickness. He had not the strength of the nativesin the pain, and often he cried out, but yet hesigned that the tattooing should go on.

“Across his eyes upon the lids, and from ear to ear,I made a line as wide as two of your teeth, and I crossedlines as wide from the corners of his forehead to the cornersof his chin. As he was to be admitted to the Lodgeof Tattooers, I put upon his brow the sacred shark as bigas Titihuti’s hand. I was four moons in all that, and allthe time he must lie within his hut, never leaving it orspeaking. I handed him food and nursed him betweenmy work. Upon our darker skin the black candlenutink is, as you know, as blue as the deep waters of thesea, but on him it was black as night, for his flesh waswhite.

“He was handsome as ever god of war in the HighPlace, that foreigner, and terrible to behold. His eyesof blue in their black frames were as threatening asthe thunders of the ocean, and above the black sharkglistened his hair, as yellow as the sands of the shore. Abreadfruit season had passed when we descended themountain, and he was received into the tribe of Hanavave.We called him Tohiki for his splendor, thoughhis name was Villee, as we could say it.”

There is a curious quibble in the recital of the Polynesian.He arrives at a crisis of his tale, and avoids itfor a piece of wit or an idle remark. Perhaps it is to357pique the listener’s interest, to deepen his attention, orit is but the etiquette of the bard.

“Titihuti?” I interposed.

Tuitui!” he ejaculated. “You put weeds in mymouth. That girl, that Titihuti, had left her paepaeand vanished. Some said she dwelt with a lover in anothervalley. Others that she had been captured atnight by the men of Oi Valley. It was always our effortto seize the women of other tribes. They made therace stronger. But Titihuti was not in Oi or with alover. Her love was her beauty, and soon we learnedthat she was gone into the hills herself to be tattooed.You, American, have seen her legs, and know the fullyear she gave to those. They are even to-day the hanametai oko, the loveliest and most perfect of all livingthings.”

“And Willie, the splendid Tokihi, what said he?”

Aue! He dashed up and down the valleys seekingher. He offered gifts for her return. He cried andhe drank. But the tattooing is tabu, and it would havebeen death to have entered the hut where she was againstthe wish of the artist. Then he turned on me and cursedme, and often he sat and looked at himself in the poolin the brook by his own paepae. That foreigner lost hisgood heart. No longer was he kind and gentle. Itwas he who led us against the valley of Oomoa, and withhis gun wrought great harm to those people. It washe who was ready to fight at but the drop of a cocoanutupon his roof. He took no women, and he became thefiercest man of Hanavave. When the year had gone,and Titihuti came back, he would not see her in the358dance, though in it she showed her decorative legs for thefirst time. He cursed her, too, and said she was a sisterof the feki, the devilfish. He dwelt among us for severalyears as one who leads the tribe, but is not of it. Oftenhe but missed death by the breadth of a grain ofsand, for he flung himself on the spears, he fought thesea when it was angered, and he drank each night of thenamu, the wine of the cocoanut flower grown old, untilhe reeled to his mat as a canoe tossing at the fishing.

“Then one day came a canoe from Taiohae, withwords on paper for him from his own people. A shipfrom his island was there and had sent on the paper.That was a day to remember. There were with thepaper tiki, those faces of people you make on paper.Villee seized those things, and, running to his paepae, hesat him down and began to look them over. He eyedthe words, and he put the tiki to his lips. Then he laydown upon his mat and wept. For much time he waslike a child. He rolled about as if he had been struckin the body by a war-club, and at last he called me. Iwent to him with a shell of namu.

“‘Drink!’ I said. ‘It will lift you up.’

“He knocked the shell from my hand.

“‘I will drink no more,’ he cried. ‘My father is dead,and my brother. I am the chief of my tribe. I haveland and houses and everything good in my own island,but, alas! I have this!’

“He pointed to the black shark upon his forehead,and then he shouted out harsh words in his own language.I left him, for he was like one from whom thespirit has gone, but who still lives. I thought of thestrangeness of tribes. In ours he was a noble and honored359man for that shark, and yet in his own as hatefulas the barefaced man here. Man is, as the wind cloud,but a shifting vapor.

“Often, a hundred times, I saw him sitting by thepool and gazing into it as though to wash out by hisglances the marks on his countenance. He was as deepin the mire of despair as the victim awaiting the oven.Nature’s mirror showed him why he could not leave forhis land and his chieftaincy. And, American, for awoman, too. I saw him many times look at that tikiand read the words. Maybe he had fled from her inanger. Now he was great among his people, and shecalled him. Maybe. My own heart was heavy for himwhen he fixed his eyes on that still water.

“After weeks of melancholy he summoned me oneday.

“‘Taua,’ he said, ‘is there no magic, no other ink, nobones, that will quit me of this?’

“He swept his hand over his face.

“‘I will give you my gun, my canoe, my coats, and Iwill send you by the ship barrels of rum and manythings of wonder.’

“He took my hand, and the tears followed the linesof the tattooing down his cheeks.

“‘Tokihi,’ I replied, ‘no man in the Marquesas hasever wanted to take from his skin that which made himgreat to his race, yet there is a legend that wandersthrough my stomach. I will consult the lodge. Itwould be magic, and it may be tapu.’

“The next day I found him lying on his paepae, hisface down. He was a leaf that slowly withers.

“‘Villee,’ I said, and rubbed his back, ‘there is for360you perhaps happiness yet. I have talked with the wiseold men of the lodge.’

“He raised himself, and fixed his dull eyes on me.

“‘One Kihiputona says that the milk of a woman willwork the magic. I can not say, for it is with the gods.’

“The foreigner sprang to his feet.

“‘Come, let us lose no time!’ he cried. ‘It is that orthe eva.’

“Marquesans, when tired of life, eat the eva fruit. Imade all ready, and, taking my daughter and her babe,with food, and the things of the tattooing, we againwent to the hut in the mountains. Together we built itover, and made all ready for the trial.

“‘Remember, foreigner,’ I said, ‘this is all before theEtuá, the rulers of each one’s good and evil. I havenever done this, nor even the wisest of us has ought buta faint memory of a memory that once a white man thuswas freed to go back to his kin.’

“‘E aha a—no matter,’ he said. ‘There is no choice.Begin!’

“I warned him not to utter a word until I released thetapu. I made all ready. Then I had him lie down, hishead fixed in a bamboo section, and I began the longtask.”

The sorcerer sighed, and spat through his fingers.

“Two moons he was there, silent. I worked fasterthan before, because I had no designs to make. I onlytraced those of the years before. But the suffering waseven greater, and when I struck the bone-needles uponhis eyelids he groaned through his closed mouth.Every day I worked as long as he could endure. Sometimeshe all but died away, but the omi omi, the rubbing,361made him again aware, and as I went on I gained hopemyself. His own skin was by nature as that of the whiteorchid, and the weeks in the patiki out of the sunlight,with the oil and the saffron, made it as when he waschild. The milk was driven into a thousand little holesin the flesh, and by magic it changed the black of ama towhite. I think some wonder made it do so, but youshould know such things. I left the shark until the last,but long before I came to it the gods had spoken.Faded slowly the candlenut soot, and crept out, as thesilver-fish in the caves of Hana Hevane, the brightcolor of that foreigner.

“Many times his eyes, when I let loose the lids, liftedto mine in inquiry, but I was without answer. Yetnearer I felt the day when I would possess that gun andcanoe and the barrels of rum.

“It came. A week had gone since I had touched withthe needles his face, and most of it he had slept. Nowhe was round with sleep and food, and one morningwhen he awoke, I seized him by the hand and said,‘Kaoha!’ The tapu was ended; the task was done.”

“And he?” I said greedily.

“He was as a man who wakes from a dream of horror.He said not a word, but went with me and with mydaughter and the babe down the trail to this village.Here he stole silently to his pool, and, lying down, helooked long into it. Then he made a wild cry as if hehad come to a precipice in the dark and been kept fromfalling to death by the mere gleam of fungus on a tree.He fell back, and for a little while was without mind.Awake again, he rushed about the village clasping eachone he met in his arms, rubbing noses with the girls, and362singing queer songs—himenes to e aave—of his island.His laughter rang in the groves. Now he was as whenhe had come to us, gay, kind, and without deep thought.

“The gods had for that moon made him theirs, forsoon came a canoe with news that a ship of his countrywas at Taiohae. Never did a man act more quickly.He made a feast, and to it he invited the village. Aday it took to prepare it, the pigs in the earth, the popoi,the fish cooked on the coral stones, the fruits, and thenuts. To it he gave all his rum, and he handed me hisgun, the paddles of his canoe, and his coats.

“But Po, the devil of night, crouched for him. Thecanoe to take him to Taiohae was in the water, waitingbut the end of the koina kai. Plentifully all drank therich rum, but Tokihi most. Titihuti even he hadgreeted, and she sat beside him. She was now loath tohave him go; you know woman. She leaned againsthim, and her eyes promised him aught that he would.She was more beautiful than on that night when she hadspurned him, and she struck from him a spark of herown willful fancy. He took her a moment to his bosom,held her as the wave holds the rock before it recedes,and then, as the madness she ever made crept upon him,he drew back from her, held her again a fierce moment,and, dashing his cup to the earth, he turned upon her infury.

“It was the evil noon. The eye of the sun wasstraight upon him, and as he cursed her, and shoutedthat now he was free from her, the blood rushed into hisface, and painted there scarlet as the hibiscus the marksof the tattooing. The black ama the magic had erasednow shone red. The stripes across his eyes and face363were like the scars a burning brand leaves, and the sharkof the lodge was a leper’s sign upon his brow.

“‘Mutu!’ I cried, for I saw death in the air if heknew, and all the gifts lost to me. ‘Silence!’ And thetribe heeded. No quiver, no glance showed the foreignerthat one had seen what he himself had not. Titihutifastened her gaze on him a fleeting second, and thenbegan the dance of leave-taking.

“We raised the chant:

Apae!

Kaoha! te Haoe.

Mau oti oe anao nei.

“To the canoe we bore him, and thrusting it into thebreakers, we called the last words, ‘E avei atu!

“He was gone forever from Fatuhiva. And thus Igot this latter name I have, Puhi Enata, the Man withthe Gun.”

The old sorcerer rolled a leaf of pandanus about a fewgrains of tobacco.

“And you never had word of him?”

Aoe, no,” he said meditatively. “He went uponthat ship at Taiohae. But, American, I think oftenthat when that man who was Tokihi came to dance inhis own island, to sit at his own tribe’s feasts, or whenthe ardor of love would seize him, always he tried to becalm.”

364

CHAPTER XVIII

A fantastic but dying language—The Polynesian or Maori Tongue—Makingof the first lexicons—Words taken from other languages—Decayof vocabularies with decrease of population—Humors and whimsicalitiesof the dictionary as arranged by foreigners.

MALICIOUS Gossip and Le Brunnec taughtme Marquesan in the “man-eating isle ofHiva-Oa,” as Stevenson termed my home.After supper or dinner I had a lesson in my paepae;often in a mixed group, for the beginnings of democracyare in the needs of company. Here were the governor,the highest official, an army officer and surgeon; LeBrunnec, a small trader; Kekela, a Hawaiian; Puhe, thehunchback servant of Bapp, the trader; ExplodingEggs, Ghost Girl, and Malicious Gossip and her husband,Mouth of God. The governor spoke French anda very little English, Le Brunnec those and Marquesan,Mouth of God and his wife Marquesan and a trifle ofFrench, Kekela Marquesan and English, and the hunchbackMarquesan only. Ghost Girl, of course, knew onlythat, but she never spoke at all except to beg for rum ortobacco. Lonesomeness made us intimate despite ourdifference of origin, status and language. We talkedabout the Marquesan language, and we two comparativenew-comers strove to enlarge our vocabulary.

The derivation of words is an absorbing pursuit.Enwrapped in it are history and romance, the advancefrom the primitive, the gradual march of civilization,365and, besides, many a good laugh; for man made merryas he came up, and the chatterings of the missing linksare often heard in the chase through the buried centuriesfor the beginnings of language. The Aryan, English’sancestor, was originally made up of a single consonantbetween two vowels, and I fancied I was speaking myancestral words in this aboriginal tongue.

“There is nothing more fascinating than etymologies.To the uninitiated the victim seems to have eaten of‘insane roots that take the reason prisoner’; while theilluminate too often looks upon the stems and flowersof language, the highest achievements of thought andpoesy, as mere handles by which to pull up the grim tubersthat lie at the base of articulate expression, sacredknobs of speech, sacred to him as the potato to the Irishman.”James Russell Lowell had himself eaten of thatmaddening weed. These Marquesan verbal radicals engagedme both by their interest and their humor.

The erudite philologist may harken back to the Chaldaicor another dead language of Asia or Africa andmake ponderous tomes upon his research, but the amateurcan dig as he plays only by being actually with asimple, semi-savage people, as I was, and finding amongthem, still active, the base and slight growth of humanthought and emotion in speech. The most alluringtongue in sound and origin is the Maori, and Marquesanis Maori. It is spoken from Hawaii to New Zealand,and is termed the “grand Polynesian” language.The people of those two groups of islands, as well asthose of the Marquesan, Society, Friendly, Paumotuan,Samoan, Tongan, and some other small archipelagos,have it as their vernacular, though its variations are so366great as to prevent converse except limitedly between thedifferent islands. The Maori tongue is as full of melancholyas are those passing races. Soon it will be lost touse, like the ancient Greek or the mellifluous idiom ofthe cultivated Incas. It is decaying so fast now that afew years mark a decided loss of words, and lessen theadherence to any standard. Yet it is the most charmingof all present expressions of thought or emotion, andit is a great pity that it perishes. One sighs for a SouthSeas Sinn Fein to revivify it.

The Polynesians, as scientists call them, know themselves,and therefore their tongue as Maori. And justas “British” to an Englishman is a word of pride, and“American” to our patriotic schoolboys and orators thegreatest word ever coined, so “Maori” actually meansfirst-class, excellent, fine. The Maoris were hundredper centers before the Chosen People.

I have lived much with Maori folk in many archipelagosand listened for years to their soft and simple,sweet and short words. Their speech is like the ripplingof gentle waters, the breezes through the breadfruit-trees.It has color and rhythm and a euphonismunequalled. Language begins as poetry and ends as algebra,but here the algebraic stage was not reached, andthere remained something of the unconscious uprush ofits beginning, and the subliminal laws of mind whichshaped its construction. For the Maori is a very oldlanguage, older than Greek or Latin, and was cut offfrom other languages at the outset of culture, beforethe mud of the Tigris was made into pots. The Marquesanindigene was never so complex, as in acute civilization,that his language could not tell what he thought367and felt, though he, too, had art to supplement words,as his tattooing, carving, houses, and temples prove.

The Maori has one inflexible rule, that no word shallend in a consonant, that no two consonants shall be together,and that all letters in a word be sounded.

There are only fifteen letters, or sounds, in the purealphabet, b, c, d, j, h, l, q, s, w, x, and y being unknown.In some dialects other letters have been introduced inthe adaptation of foreign words. They are not, however,properly Polynesian. Words are usually unchangeable,but pronouns and the auxiliary verb “to be”and many adjectives and verbs have curious doublingquality, like ino iino; horo, hohoro, horohoro; haere, hahaere.Ii in Marquesan means “anger”; iiii means “redin the face from anger.” The adjective follows thenoun, as in moa iti, little chicken, iti is the adjective.The subject comes after the verb “to be,” expressed orunderstood, or after the verb that denotes the action ofthe subject.

The Maoris knew no genders except those for beingsby nature male or female, and these they indicate byfollowing words. In Tahitian, tane means “man,” andvahine “woman,” or “male and female.” Thus I wascalled often O’Brien tane, and, where the same propernames are applied to men and women, the word taneor vahine indicates the sex: The sign of a well-knownmerchant in Papeete, the capital of Tahiti and the entrepôtof the South Seas reads, “Tane Meuel,” theTane being the name his proud parents gave him whenborn to show their delight at his being a boy.

While there is a dispute over the origin of the Maori,my friend, McMillan Brown of New Zealand, a supreme368authority, believes it separated from the primevalAryan a millennium or two ago, in the stone age, andcame into the Pacific with the migration that firstbrought women into these waters. Some scholars saythe language is to be classed with the modern Europeantongues, and especially with English. They cite thereduction of inflection to a minimum, the expression ofthe grammatical relationship of words by their order inthe sentence, the use of auxiliaries and participles, thepower of interchanging the significant parts of speechas occasion requires; the indication of the number ofnouns by articles or other definitives, cases by prepositions,gender by the addition of the word for male orfemale, the degree of adjectives by a separate word, andthe mood and tense of verbs by a participle.

As English spoken in isolated mountain regions—amongthe poor whites of the Middle West and Southof the United States—becomes attenuated and broken,so in many of these islands and archipelagos the Maorilanguage became differentiated by climate and environment,and shriveled by the limitations of its use. TheMarquesan has been weakened by phonetic decay, thel and r almost disappearing, and in some places, too,the k being hardly ever heard.

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (48)

The author with his friends at council

As a nation perishes, so does its language. As itsnumbers decrease, the vocabulary of the survivorsshrinks. It does not merely cease to grow; it lessens.Cornwall proved that and Wales; Ireland and Scotlandexemplify it now. A language waxes with the massand activities of its speakers. Scholars may preservea grammar, as the school Latin, or as the Sinn Fein isdoing in Ireland, but the body and blood of the vulgate369speech waste and ebb without the pulse of growth.Speech fattens with usage. The largest number ofwords in any language is found in that language whichmost people speak. The most enterprising race spreadsits language farthest by religion, commerce, and conquest.

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (49)

Photo from L. Gauthier
House of governor of Paumotu Islands. Atoll of Fakarava

All these Polynesian tongues are dying with the people.Corrupted first by the admixture of Europeanwords, their glossaries written by men unborn to theland, the racial interests that fed them killed by the destructionof customs and ambitions, these languages aremoribund, and as unlike those spoken before the whitecame as is the bison to the family cow.

The French observer Bovis said seventy years agothat only a few Tahitians understood and spoke pureTahitian. No one does now. Yet, obsolescent andgarbled as are these spiritual victims of pale-face domination,the South Sea folk cling to them affectionately.I attended the first sessions of the Hawaiian legislatureunder American territorial government. All proceedingswere in both English and Hawaiian, many of thelegislators not understanding English after eighty yearsof intimate relations with England and America.They, like the other Maoris, had not learned othertongues, but had let their own lapse into a bastardpatois.

The Hawaiian is akin to the Marquesan. The variationsconsist in not using in one dialect words in use inanother, in the sense attached to the same words, in thechanging of vowels and of consonants in the same words,and also by the replacement of consonants by a click ofthe tongue. Almost all dialects have these unuttered370consonants expressed by the guttural accentuation ofthe vowel following.

I must know French to approach Marquesan, becausethese islands are French for eighty years, and Iknow of no practical grammar except that of MonseigneurDordillon, written in 1857, and of no procurabledictionary but his. Both are in French.

A tragedy originating in petty discipline or episcopaljealousy saddened the last days of the writer, BishopDordillon. He had created out of the mouths of hisneophytes the written Marquesan tongue, and he madehis dictionary his life-work. They would not let himpublish it. Ecclesiastical authorities, presumably ofChile,—for all Catholic missionaries here were underthat see in early days,—forbade it. After forty yearsof labor upon the book, he was allowed to put it to print,but not to affix his name as author. Against this prohibitionthe sturdy prelate set his face.

“Not for himself,” said the vicar, Père David, to me,“but for the church and our order, he would not berobbed of the honor. He died very old, and confidedhis manuscript to a fellow-priest. For fifty years eachmissionary to these islands copied it for his personal use.Ten thousand nights have thus passed because of thejealousy of some prelate in Valparaiso or in Paris.Pierre Chaulet, of our order, the Sacré Cœur, revisedthe book after forty-five years’ residence here.”

The Tahitian was the first Maori language reducedto writing. No Polynesian race had a written literaturenor an alphabet. Writing was not invented northought of when they left their European home, nor didthey acquire it in Malaysia. The Polynesians marked371certain epochs and events by monuments, and consecratedthem with ceremonies. These events also markedtheir language, which was peculiarly susceptible tochange and addition. It was abundant, and all the detailsof their material life and history were impressedupon the language in shades of meanings and words.In Tahiti the finer meanings disappeared ninety yearsago, and the adverbs and degrees of comparison werelost. In the Marquesas, because of the lesser infiltrationof whites, the language in its purity lasted longer.One of the mutineers of the Bounty, Midshipman PeterHeywood, who chose to remain in Tahiti rather thansail with Christian, wrote the first vocabulary of Tahitianin prison at Execution Dock in England. Blighhad determined to hang Heywood, and, awaiting hisseemingly assured death, the young officer in his deathcell set down the words he had learned in the happy daysin the Isle of Venus, with their connotation in English.One may imagine it was a sad yet consoling task to liveagain the scenes of his joyous exile, and that each wordof Tahitian he wrote conjured for him a picture of thescene in which he had learned it, and perhaps of the softlips that had often repeated it to him. It is pleasantto know that the youthful lexicographer did not mountthe gallows, and that his vocabulary was eagerly studiedby the first missionaries leaving England for the SouthSeas on the Duff. The first word the clerics heardwhen the Tahitians boarded the Duff was taio, friend,and the reverends wrote to England that as the “heathendanced on the deck in sign of hospitality and friendship,we sang them, ‘O’er the gloomy hills of darkness.’”With Heywood’s list as a preparation, they established372an alphabet for Tahiti which fitted the dulcet sounds asthey registered on their untuned ears. The general rulewas to give the vowels their Italian value and to soundthe consonants as in English. Their fonts of type werelimited, and they had to use makeshifts of other letterswhen they ran out of the proper ones. They made monumentalerrors in their monumental toil, errors unavoidablydue to their not being philologists, nor even welleducated—errors perpetuated and incorporated in thelanguage as finally written. This Tahitian dictionaryand grammar formed the basis of all similar books in theMarquesan, Hawaiian, and other dialects. What storeof ancient tongues the missionaries had, they put intolinguafacturing religious words for the Tahitians. Infact, they were so busy inventing words for ordinary use,and for their prayers, sermons, and the translation of theBible, they did not record many native words. Theybowdlerized the whole Polynesian language, and emasculatedan age-old tongue from which we might havegathered in its strength something of the spirit of ourAryan forefathers.

A chief difficulty of the makers of the written Polynesianlanguages was the adjectives. Primitive peopleshave not the wealth of these that civilized nationspossess, and fine shadings here are often expressed byintonation, grimace, or gesture.

There is no available Tahitian-English lexicon. TheLondon Missionary Society published one before theFrench seized Tahiti in the forties. It is out of print,and as obsolete as to present-day Tahitian as Dr. Johnson’sonce-famous tome is as to English. The onlycopies are in the hands of the Mormon, Josephite and373other English-speaking missionaries in Tahiti, and inthe libraries of collectors. It cannot be bought in Tahiti.Monseigneur Tepano Jaussen wrote one inFrench. I have it, dated at Paris, 1898; but so fast isthe Tahitian tongue degrading into a bloodless wretchedjumble that it, too, is almost archaic.

“A Vocabulary of the Nukahiwa Language; includinga Nukahiwa-English Vocabulary and an English-NukahiwaVocabulary” was printed in Boston in 1848.No living Nukahiwan, or Marquesan, would understandmuch of it, as there has been such radical change and degeneracyin the dialect in the seventy years since it waswritten, and so few Marquesans survive.

The language shows that at one time they did notcount beyond four, and the higher numbers were expressedby multiples of four. Afterward they came tofive, which they made lima or the fingers of one hand.When the ten or denary system was adopted, the wordumi, or whiskers, was chosen to mean ten, or a multitude.

The cardinal numbers are sometimes tiresome. Forinstance, thirty-one is E tahi tekau me te onohuu me temea ke e tahi. I once remarked to a Marquesan chiefthat the Marquesan people said many words to mean atrifle and took a long time to eat their food.

“What else have we to do?” he asked me.

Strangely, the larger numbers are shorter. Twentythousand is tini.

Should I wish to say “once,” meaning at one time, Isay, mamua mamua mamua; more anciently kakiu kakiukakiu kakiu; “a very long time ago,” tini tini tinitini; “quite a long time ago,” tini hahaa tini hahaa tinihahaa tini hahaa; but “always” is anatu and “soon” epo.374This last word is a custom as well as a word, for it is likethe Spanish mañana and the Hawaiian mahope, the Tahitianariana, or our own dilatory “by and by.”

The variations between the dialects in the differentgroups is great, and even in the same group, or on thesame island, meanings are not the same. In the Marquesas,the northwestern islands have a distinct dialectfrom the southeastern. Valleys close together have differentwords for the same object. These changes consistof dropping or substituting consonants, t for k, l forr, etc., but to the beginner they are baffling. Naturally,the letters, as written, have the Latin value. Thus, Tahiatiniis pronounced Tah-heea-teenee, and Puhei, Poo-hay-ee.

For me words have color, form, character: They havefaces, ports, manners, gesticulations;—they have moods, humours,eccentricities:—they have tints, tones, personalities.

Lafcadio Hearn might have written that about theMaori tongue.

The Marquesan language is sonorous, beautiful, andpicturesque, lending itself to oratory, of which the Polynesiansare past masters. Without a written tongueuntil the last century, they perfected themselves inspeaking. It was a treat to hear a Marquesan in thefull flood of address, recalling the days of old and theglories departed, or a preacher telling the love of God orthe tortures reserved for the damned. They were gracefuland extremely witty. They kept their audiencelaughing for minutes or moved them quickly to tears.Their fault was that shared by most European andAmerican orators, long-windedness. The Marquesans375have many onomatopes, or words imitating naturalsounds, and they are most pleasing and expressive. Thewritten words hardly convey the close relation they bearto the reality when spoken. The kivi, a bird, says, “Kivi!kivi! kivi!” The cock says, “Kokoao! va tani te moa!Kokoao!” The god that entered the spirit of the priestessmade a noise in doing so that was like this: “A u uu u u u u u u a! A u u u u u a!

When the pig eats, the sound he makes is thus: “Afu!afu! afu! afu! afu! afu! afu! apu! apu! apu! apu! apu!apu! apu!” In repeating these sounds the native abatesno jot of the whole. The pig’s afus are just so many;no more, no fewer.

When the cocoanut falls to the ground the sound is“tu!” The drinker who takes a long draft makes thenoise, “Aku! aku! aku! aku! aku! aku!

Moemoe is “the cry one makes of joy after killing anyone.”

It is notable that in English the names for edible animalswhen alive are usually the foundational Saxon, butwhen dead and ready for food they are Norman. Ox,steer, bull, and cow are Saxon. Beef and viand areNorman. Calf is Saxon, but veal is Norman; sheep isSaxon, mutton Norman. Probably the caretaker ofthese animals, the Saxon villain who tended them, madehis names for them stick in the composite language,while the sitters at table, the Normans and those whoaped their tongue, applied the names of the preparedmeat as they plied their knives. Pig and hog, the lattermeaning a gilded pig, are English, but pork is Norman.

So in the study of Marquesan one finds that the commonobjects have older names than those less usual.376The missionaries had a hard time suiting a word to thedevil. With their vision of him, horns, hoof and tail,they had to be content with kuhane anera maaa. Kuhanemeans soul or spirit, anera means heavenly spirit,and maaa means wicked, and also a firebrand or incendiary.So Great Fern, my Presbyterian neighbor, gaveme his idea that the devil—Tatana, as Satan is pronounced—wasa kind of cross between a man and a wildboar running along with a bunch of lighted candlenuts,setting fire to the houses of the wicked.

It is not easy to learn well the Marquesan language,but it is not hard to acquire a smattering of the LinguaFranca spoken by natives to whites and whites to natives.The language itself has been so corrupted bythis intercourse that few speak it purely.

Amusing are the English words adapted or meltedinto the native tongue, and it is interesting to trace theirderivation. They call any tin or metal box tipoti (pronounced“teepotee”). The first metal receptacles theysaw aboard the first ships were the teapots of the sailors,and they took the word as applicable to all pots andboxes of metal. The dictionary says “Tipoti—petiteboite en fer-blanc.”

Beef is Pifa (peefa). Poteto—pronounced potato—meansship’s biscuits or American crackers or cakes.The early whalesmen held out their hardtack to the nativesand offered to exchange it for potatoes or yams.The natives took it that the biscuits were potatoes, andcall them so to-day.

A curious and mixed meaning is that of fishuka, whichone might think meant a fish-hook. It means a safety-pin,and is a sought-for article by the women. The377Marquesans had fishhooks always, and a name forthem, and so gave the English name to safety-pins,which appear like unto them.

Metau is a fish-hook, and a pin is piné (pee-nay).There are hundreds of queer and distorted words likethese. Bread is faraoa, pronounced frowwa, which isflower, with an r instead of an l, as they have no l in theiralphabet. In Tahiti, taofe is coffee. K and t and l andr are interchangeable in many Polynesian languages,and fashion has at times banned one or the other or exchangedthem. Whims or even decrees by the paganpriests have expelled letters and words from their vocabularies,and some have been taboo to certain classes orto all. Papeete was once upon a time Vaiete, whichmeans the same, a basket of water, the site conservingthe streams of the hills. Vaiete was smothered under aclerical bull and forgotten along with other wordsthought not up-to-date.

I have heard an aged and educated American womanborn in Honolulu call it Honoruru, and Waikiki, Waititi,as she had learned when a girl.

Coffee here is kahe, not unlike the Japanese kohi.

Area is the same word in Latin and Maori, and virtuallyin English. It means space, in all. Ruma, a house,is much like room, and poaka or puaka, a pig, is akinto the Latin porcus, and the Spanish puerca.

When the missionaries here sought to translate a belovedphrase, “The sacred heart of Jesus,” familiar inCatholic liturgy, they were puzzled. The Polynesianbelieves with some of the Old Testament writers thatthe seat of sentiment is in the bowels. “My very bowelsyearned” is a favorite expression of Oriental authors.

Koekoe is the Marquesan word for entrails. It means378also intelligence, character, and conscience. A man ofgood heart is in Marquesan a man of good bowels. Thegood fathers were sore put to it to write their invocationto the “bleeding heart of the Savior,” and one finds awarning in Bishop Dordillon’s dictionary:

Les Canaques mettent dans les entrailles (koekoe) les sentimentsque nous mettons dans le cœur (houpo).

Quelquefois il convient de traduire ad sensum pluto que adverbum et vice versa; Le cœur de Jesus—te houpo a Ietu.

Extreme unction, the sacrament, is eteremaotio, pronounced,“aytairaymahoteeo.”

The daily usage of common English words fixed certainideas in the minds of the islanders for all time.

Oli mani, a corruption of old man, is used for anythingold; hence a blunt, broken knife or a ragged pairof trousers is oli mani.

A clergyman is mitinané, pronounced mitt-in-ahny,an effort at missionary. In Tahiti the word is mitinareor mikonare, and is one of ribald humor. It is also abitter epithet against one who is sanctimonious. Thewhite traders, beachcombers, and officials have giventhe word this significance by their ridicule of religion andits professors.

What more picturesque record of the introduction ofcattle into Samoa than bullamacow? It is the genericname in those islands for beef, canned beef, and virtuallyall kinds of canned meats. A child could trace itto the male and female bovine ruminants first put ashorethere, and nominated by the whites “bull and a cow.”

The good Bishop Dordillon notes that a cook is enatatunu kai, but that the common word is kuki, and for379kitchen fae kuki. That kuki is our own cook, as theMarquesans heard the sailors call him—cooky. Fae ishouse.

A pipe is paifa (pyfa), and tobacco paké (pahkay),rough pronunciations of the English words.

All through Polynesia the generic name among foreignersfor a native is Kanaka, which is the Hawaiianword for man, or the human race. The Marquesanman is kenana or enata or enana, and woman vehine.The Tahitians and Hawaiians say taata or tane for man,and vahine or wahine for woman. The French wordfor Kanaka is canaque. This word is opprobrious ornot according to the degree of civilization. The Marquesansoften call themselves canaques, as a negro callshimself a negro; but I have seen a Tahitian of mixedblood weep bitterly when termed a Kanaka. Perhapsit is as in the Southern part of the United States, wherethe colored people refer to one another commonly asniggers, but resent the word from a white.

Pig in Marquesan is puaa or puaka.

Piggishness in English means greediness; but cochonnerie,the French verbal equivalent, means filth or obscenity,and in Marquesan has its counterpart in haapuaa, to be indecent; hee haa puaa, to go naked, and kaukauhaa puaa, to bathe naked, words doubtless originatingunder missionary tutelage, as when the Catholicpriests were all-powerful, they made laws forbiddingnudity in public. In fact, a noted English writer whospent some time here was arrested and fined for sleepingupon his veranda one hot noon in the garb of Adambefore the apple episode. The Catholic missionarieshere never bathed in the rivers or sea, and had no bath380arrangements in their house. Godliness has no relationto cleanliness. Celibate man the world over had theodor of sanctity.

Shark is mako, and, curiously, tumu mako is a grosseater, or “pig” in our adopted sense, while vehine makois a prostitute. E haa mako is to deliver over to prostitution.Probably this last phrase has been coined bythe clergy for lack of a more opposite one. Hateté inTahitian is chastity, for which the natives had no wordnor idea.

When card-playing was introduced by the whites, itsnomenclature was adapted. Peré or pepa are cards.Pere is play, pronounced p’ray, and pepa is paper.Taimanu, heata, tarapu, and pereda are diamonds,hearts, clubs, and spades; teata is the knave; te hai—thehigh—is the ace; and furu is a full. Faráoa is flour orbread and faráoa peré—flour play, flour or bread-likeplaying-cards—are biscuits or crackers. Afa miniti isa half-minute, or a little while. Others of the hundredsof bastard words now in the language and dictionaryare: Niru, needle; pia, beer; poti, boat; purumu, broom;putete, potato; punu, spoon; Roretona, London; tara,dollar; tavana, governor or chief; tohita, sugar; uaina,wine; tihu, dix sous, or half a franc; fira, fiddle; puka,book. I must not omit the delightful verkuti for verygood, or all right, or the stiff eelemosina, for alms, forwhich also, the Polynesians had no word, as no one wasa beggar.

As did the American Indians, the Polynesians learnedEnglish and other European tongues through religion.The discoverers, who were officials, traders, or adventurersgained a smattering of the native language, but381hardly ever had the perseverance, if the education, togather a thorough knowledge. Almost all the firstmodern dictionaries and grammars were written byclerics. The prime reason for their endeavors was totranslate the sacred Scriptures into their neophytes’language and to be able to preach them. The Biblehas been the first book of all outlandish living languagesto be reduced to writing for hundreds of years.

Consequently, its diction, its mode of speech, and itsthoughts have molded the island tongues. Words lackingto translate biblical ideas had to be invented, and themissionaries became the inventors. Some with Hebrewand Greek and Latin at their service used bits of themto create new words, and others drew on their imaginations,as do infants in naming people and things aboutthem. In writing their dictionaries, they limited theEuropean vocabulary to necessary, nice, or religiouswords, and the vernacular to all they could find, with astrict omission of those conveying immodest ideas. Asthe Polynesians had no morals from the Christian pointof view, a great number of their commonest words werelost.

The Bible was done into Marquesan in the forties byEnglish Protestants, and the old Hawaiian missionariesin the Marquesas made much of it in their teachings.It is not popular in French, and few copies survive.The Catholics do not recommend it to the laity. Protestantismis apathetic; yet I have seen a leper alone on hispaepae deep in the Scriptures, and when I asked him ifhe got comfort from them, I was answered, “They arestrong words for a weak man, and better than pig.”

The same corruptions that have destroyed the original382purity of the Hawaiian and Tahitian tongues hasmarred that of these islands. The French officials hadhardly ever remained long enough to encompass thelanguage here, and seldom had they been of the scholarlytype.

Rulers over colonies make feeble effort to speak welltheir subjects’ tongues. Perhaps two of the dozen governors,military and civil, the Philippines have had underAmerican ownership could talk Spanish fairly well,and none spoke the aboriginal tongues which are thekey to native thought. They knew the governedthrough interpreters, and therefore knew nothing reallyof them. As our boys laugh at foreigners’ ignorance,so do foreign colonists laugh at ours. I saw a famousAmerican governor stand aghast when, asking his Filipinohost, as he thought, for “a night lamp then andthere,” the astounded presidente of a village broughtbefore the assembled company a something never paradedin polite society.

The missionary dictionaries of the Polynesian dialects,preserving only a very limited number of the words onceexisting, and hardly any of the light and shade, theidioms and picture phrases, of these close observers ofnature, remind one of Shakespeare’s criticism, “Theyhave been at a great feast of languages, and stolen thescraps.”

The English missionaries put the Marquesan soundsinto English letters, but when their day was done inTahiti, and the French came to power because of FrenchCatholic missionaries being expelled at the instigationof Protestant clerics, the poor Marquesans had to unlearntheir English and take up French.

383In Marquesan there never was an English dictionarycirculated that I know of, and so the natives’ firstEuropean language was French as far back as booksand schools were concerned; but the commerce has beenmostly in English, the whalers and the traders talkEnglish, and all Polynesia is stamped by the heel of theSaxon.

A German army officer who traveled with me lamentedthat in German Samoa the language used isEnglish when not Samoan, even the German officialsbeing forced to use it.

On the schooners all commands are in English, thoughthe captains are French and the crews Tahitian, whoseEnglish is confined to these words alone. At the Germantraders’ in Taha-Uku the accounts are in Englishor American. It is the effect of the long dominance ofthe English on the sea and in commerce.

A chief difficulty of the makers of the written Polynesianlanguages was the adjectives. Primitive peopleshave not the wealth of these that civilized nations possess,and fine shadings here are often expressed by intonation,grimace, or gesture.

384

CHAPTER XIX

Tragic Mademoiselle Narbonne—Whom shall she marry?—Dinner at thehome of Wilhelm Lutz—The Taua, the Sorcerer—Lemoal says Narbonneis a Leper—I visit the Taua—The prophecy.

AS long as I live, I shall have, as my avatar oftragedy, Mademoiselle Narbonne. Fate hadmarked her for desolation. The grim dramaof the half-caste whose spirit is riven by heredity and environment,fighting for supremacy of the soul, was enactedhere in scenes of rare intensity and mournful fitness.While I did not await its final dénouement I sawenough to stamp its pitiable acts upon my memory,and later I learned of the last blows of an inevitabledestiny.

Not even the pitiful plight of the bone-white daughterof the drunkard, Peyral, appealed to me as did theconspiracy of life and ungenerous men against the happinessof this singular creature, Mademoiselle Narbonne.

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (50)

From the painting by Oscar F. Schmidt
Nakohu, Exploding Eggs

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (51)

From the painting by Oscar F. Schmidt
Haabuani, the sole sculptor of Hiva-Oa

I recall the impression the first sight of her made uponme. I was by the door of the Catholic Church, the servicehalf over, when she came in, and knelt at a prie-dieuespecially placed for her. Wealth had its privilege inthe house of God here as in the temple of Solomon.But Mademoiselle Narbonne had another claim to distinctionthough it did not win favor with the church.She was exotically beautiful, a distracting and fascinating385contrast with the almost savage girls who knelt in thepews in their cotton tunics of red or white or pink.She had the grace of a hothouse flower among theseblossoms of half-savage nature. She was an orchidamong wild roses.

Peyral was then in process of winning me into hisfamily, and both communicative and monitory.

“She is old Narbonne’s daughter,” he croaked.“The richest person in the Marquesas, now that herfather is dead, but I wouldn’t be her with all her money.Me, I value my skin!”

My whole attention was upon her, and the possiblesinister meaning of his comment escaped me. Whitesblackguarded other whites so commonly in the SouthSeas that one discounted or denied every judgment. Iwas to understand his implication later. MademoiselleNarbonne had no part in the life of our valley of Atuona,nor did she come to it other times than when sheattended the services at the Catholic church or visitedthe nuns with whom she had been from childhood untilthe death of her father a few months before. Uponinheriting his vast cocoanut-groves and considerablemoney she had said good-bye to her ascetic guardiansand left the convent walls to take possession of herdead parent’s house and estate. These were in the adjoiningvalley of Taaoa, and with her in the ugly Europeanhome built by him lived the stepmother she hadknown, and the mother whom he had driven away withblows, years before, when he caught her in a trystwith Song of the Nightingale.

I met her towards sunset a week later. Duringthat time, I had often wondered what her temperament386might be, and what the future would spin forher. Many Daughters, Ghost Girl, and other all Marquesangirls were striking in their aboriginal, hatched-carvedbeauty, but seemed at opposite poles to MademoiselleNarbonne in sophistication and elegance.And yet at times I caught in her a glimpse of savagery,of wilful passion and abandonment to her senses beyondthat upon the faces of these daughters of cannibals.The key to that occasional shift into barbarity I foundin her home. Her father had been a driving, sober,and fierce Frenchman, a native of Cayenne, in Guiana,where the French in three hundred years have achievedonly a devil’s island for convicts with cruelty and foulnessfestering under the tricolor. Narbonne in theMarquesas had risen from a discharged corporal ofmarines to manager of the Catholic mission properties,and, by hook and crook, owner of countless cocoanut-trees.This child of his thirty years of banishmentfrom his own deadly natal land was the one treasurehe had cherished besides property. He had endureddangers in his early career here, fought and subduedswaggering chief and tropical nature, to erect a massivetomb of concrete, and to leave this daughter. She wasalready apathetic to his memory, and disregardful ofthe advice he had given always with mingled caressesand cuffs.

Her mother, Climber of Trees Who Was Killed andEaten, who had been banished from his house for herunfaithfulness, had returned after his death to shareit with Daughter of a Piece of Tattooing, who had replacedher. Between the two women was no jealousy,both enjoying the ease their hard years of serving the387Cayennais had earned them. In Climber of Trees Itraced the source of those pagan moods which nowand then swept from the face of Barbe Narbonne theleast vestige of the mask the nuns had taught her to wear,and let be read the undammed passion and wind-freewill of the real Marquesan woman.

“I will not be a sœur,” she said to me. “The nunsare dear to me, and they want me to come into the convent,or to go to France for training to return here.I am waiting to know life. I am not satisfied with thelove of the saints and of the Blessed Virgin.”

“You are able to go where you please,” I answered.“You do not have to go to France as a Religious.Paris would welcome you. Board the next schoonerfor Tahiti, and you are on the way to the wide world.”

Mademoiselle Narbonne made a gesture of fear.Few Marquesans had ever gone abroad; there wereterrors in the thought. It had been tapu to leave theirisland home, and, though, as far as Christianity mightwork the miracle, she had in the convent been purged ofmost of her mother’s superstitions, she had not rid herselfof this one.

“I would not care to go that great distance,” shesaid, dreamingly, “but I would like to go to Tahiti, tosee the cinema, and perhaps the celebration of the fourteenthof July. I have for years sent to Paris for myclothes. I have read many novels despite the sistersforbid it. I have one here that I wish you might talk tome about. Many nights I have sat up to read it.”

She handed me a yellow paper-covered book, “Jeanet Louise,” by Antonin Dusserre, a story of pastoraland village life in Auvergne, and the unfortunate loves388of a simple peasant youth and maid. Its atmospherewas of the clean earth, the herds, and the harvests in alost corner of France. Its action did not cover tenmiles, yet the hate and injustice, the desires and defeatsof its little world were drawn with such skill that theybecame universal. The author, himself a man in sabots,had breathed into his model of common clay the lifeof all humanity. I had read the book, and I was eagerto hear her opinion of it; of an existence, artless as itwas, still as alien to her knowledge as ancient Greece.

“What do you think about it?” I asked. She spokeFrench vividly, though with many Marquesan insets.

“Jean and Louise loved each other,” she replied,“and, because she was poor and had no money to givea husband, his father separated them; and Jean allowedit. Already, Monsieur Frederick, the girl had shownher true love for him by spending the night with himin the hills with their sheep, and everybody knew shewould have a child. That Jean was an assassin and acoward. Me, I would kill such a man if I loved him,but I could not love that kind.”

Barbe Narbonne’s black eyes flashed with her feeling.

“I am frank with you, Monsieur, because you are astranger. You are not French nor Marquesan. I amboth, and I hate and love both. I hate the French forwhat they have done to my mother’s race, and I hate theMarquesans for not preferring to die than to be conquered.I have not had a lover. I cannot find one herethat can satisfy me. If I did, he might have all mymoney and land. I would want a man who could readbooks, who was honest and strong, but who knew andliked this island of Hiva-Oa, who could ride and fight.389He must love me as”—she paused to weigh her comparison—“asnuns love Christ, for whom they leave theirhomes in France.”

Father David, seeing me with Mademoiselle Narbonneone day, spoke of her to me.

“We have hoped all along that Jean Narbonne’sdaughter would remain with us,” he said, inquisitively.“But the sacred heart of Jesus does not call every one.The church leaves all free to choose a vocation of serviceto God or not. We know she can find happinessonly with the nuns, for there is only wickedness outsidethe convent. Barbe is now a woman, and unfortunatelytoo much like her mother, who was a Magdalen.She cannot marry a native because she cannot live inthe brush. What white can she select. There is thegovernor and Bauda and Le Brunnec, all bad Catholics,and who else?”

“There is Lutz, the big trader at Tahauku,” I said.

“Lutz? No, no! He is a German, an enemy ofFrance, and he is a Protestant, and, besides, he has hadhis own woman fourteen years. He is not married toher, but God knows even the devil could not excuseputting away such an old companion. What would hewant of her but her money?”

“He has some property himself.”

“No, no! It would be impossible. He is a German,a heretic, and I tell you he has that Tahitian womanever since he has been here. Some day he will returnto Germany, the Germany of Martin Luther, and leavebehind any woman here. These Europeans who comehere, except the Fathers, have no consciences. Whenthey have made a little fortune, unless they are like390Guillitoue, or Hemeury François, who are more Canaquethan the Canaques, they go back to marry innocentand unsuspecting women.”

I cannot imagine why I mentioned Lutz. I had neverseen him with Mademoiselle Narbonne, and she had notsounded his name. Of course, he was the only possiblyeligible man other than the whites already enumerated.However, such thoughts did not come by chance, forthe apostolic vicar’s solicitude against him was matchedby the boisterous roarings of Commissaire Bauda, thereincarnated musketeer. Over a Doctor Funk at hisbeach house, my repeating of what Father David hadsaid brought from him an oath and a spluttering:

Sacré cochon! That Lutz will go too far onFrench territory. He has the best lands, most of thetrade, and is the only one who can sell liquor. Do wenot all pay tribute to him? Now, me, I have notthought of marrying, but if that daughter of a Frenchcorporal should look for a suitable mate, who butBauda? I am a soldier, a veteran of wars in Africa,I have the medal General Devinne pinned here,”—heslapped his chest,—“and I am a Frenchman. I couldnot agree to live here, but why not for her a house inMarseilles where there are so many dark people of ourcolonies? I could be there, say half the year, and the restof it in Paris. I would defend her against the world,and in turn, would take my pleasure in the capital.I do not seek it, but rather than the robber, Lutz, shouldtake the money to Germany, as I know he wants to do,it might, perhaps, be arranged. And, pire alors! Iwould soon send to the devil all those notions the church391has put in her little head. A drop of absinthe,mon vieux? Bauda has his eyes on Lutz.”

I had met Herr Lutz each time that I had gone to hisstore at Tahauku, but our social relations began whenhe sent me, by his cook, a Tongan, a formal invitation todinner. Like the young governor, this European merchant,as often as the small voice of his civilization spoketo him, cultivated the customs of his bourgeois class inorder to reassure himself of his retaining them. I havethe letter before me:

Tahauka, le 11 avril.

Dear Mr. O. Brien,

In case that you having nothing else to do, I shall beglad to see you at Tahauku to-night. Do not bother pleaseabout dressing, the roads are too bad. If it suits you, I inviteyou to stay here over night.

With kindest regards,

Yours

Wilhelm Lutz

Certainly I had nothing else to do, except to explainto Exploding Eggs that I would not need his servicesto gather cocoanut husks for my dinner fire, and at fiveo’clock to start for Tahauku. Lutz’s kindly sentenceabout not dressing was to me a joke, for I had to crossboth the Atuona and the Tahauku rivers, and a storm,the day before, had made the trails—there were no roads—merelymuddy indications of the direction. TheAtuona stream I was able to wade with my trousersrolled and canvas shoes in my hands, and when I reachedthe Tahauku River, I found it waist-deep, and the footing392uncertain. A Chinese was gathering the coarsegrass by the river’s bank for Lutz’s horse. It is a rareman who does not make a slave of his inferior who byconquest or necessity is forced to do his will. A man’sa man for a’ that only when fighting equality or massstrength makes him so. I myself, who abhor inequality,proved a sinner there. Averse to getting my clotheswet, I tried to make the Chinese understand my wishthat he take me on his back across the stream. Stupidityor a dislike to play horse caused him to assume avacant look, the Oriental blankness which is maddeningto Occidentals. I took him by the shoulder, mountedhim, and drove him through the hundred feet of rushingwater. On the other side, I thanked him, but his sliteyes gleamed balefully as he turned away.

The sky was racked with clouds, and they hung on themountain like smoky draperies. The evening air washumid and depressing. Tahauku was a lonely, beautifulplace, typical of the Marquesas, isolated, gloomy,but splendid. There were no craft in the bay excepttwo small cutters moored near the foot of the stonestairs. A group of wooden buildings in an extensiveclearing lined the road that led along the cliffs, andabout it were thousands and thousands of palms, thefinest cocoanut-grove that I had ever seen in the SouthSeas or Asia or India. They were planted regularly,not crowded, but with space for roots and for air. Theyhad been set out two generations ago by the grandfatherof the stark daughter of Peyral, the Irish cavalry officer,who was buried among them. Then a thousand Marquesanshad led there the life of their ancestors; a scoreremained.

393In the commodious house erected by the latter, Lutzlived in a determined though inadequate effort to preservehis German birthright. In the sitting-room inwhich he welcomed me stiffly, though courteously, werethe hangings and cheap ornaments of a Prussian lowermiddle-class family, tidies, mottos, and books, includinga large brass-bound Bible and the kaiser’s portrait incolors. A bitters was drunk before the meal. Lutzsat at the head of a longish table, and his two whiteemployees, a Hamburg apprentice just out, and Jensen,a Dane, joined us. The talk was in English, and it wascurious, in this far-away island ruled by the French forseventy years, to find my tongue, as in almost everycorner of the world, the powerful solvent of our mixedthoughts. Lutz talked about America, through whichhe had come from Germany on his way to Tahiti andthe Marquesas. He praised our strength in trade, andderided the French and English, predicting that theGermans would divide the South Seas commerce withus, to the exclusion of others.

I liked Lutz, and, after the Hamburg apprentice andthe Dane had gone to play chess, he and I passed somehours in chatting about music, books, and history. Hehad the solid foundation of the German schools belowthe universities, and he had read constantly his Germanreviews. Stolid, ambitious, swift to take a businessadvantage, he lived in this aloofness from the things heliked, in order to save enough to raise his social statuson his return to his fatherland. Just before he showedme to my room for the night, he said:

“My old woman is going back to Tahiti. She is tiredof it here after so many years. When Captain Pincher394comes in with the Morning Star, I’m sending her backwith him. She’s getting lonesome for her kin. Youknow how those Tahitians are.”

I had seen but a glimpse of the “old woman” thatevening. She had not appeared openly, perhaps becauseof the rigid rule of Lutz, or perhaps from pique.On the road, though, I had said good day to her, a hugesack of a middle-aged creature, long past comeliness, butwith an engaging and strong personality. The wordsof Père David and of Bauda recurred to me before Islept. The “old woman” had been here fourteen years,and her sudden repatriation coincided with MademoiselleNarbonne’s coming into her fortune, and herrestlessness for a white husband.

I sensed a conflict. Tahitian women, as well as allthese Polynesians, were seldom afflicted by sexual jealousy,the soul-ravaging curse of culture, yet they hada pride, an overwhelming dignity of personal relations,which often brought the same dire results. The rejectedone many times had eaten the eva, the poisonousfruit, or leaped to death from a cliff, though she wouldhave shared the house mats with her rival as a friend.That was because they ranked mere physical allianceas but a part of friendship between men and women,often an unimportant beginning, in the natural way ofpropertyless races.

“Lutz will not get rid of Maná so easily.” FrançoisGrelet, the shrewd Swiss, of Oomoa, on the island ofFatuhiva, whom I had visited following my eveningwith Lutz, had remarked to me: “She has as muchstrength of will as he has. Her father was the chiefof Papenoo, in Tahiti, and Lutz had to steal her away395to bring her here. I remember her then because theschooner, on which they were, made port in Oomoa for afew days. Lutz was in his twenties, with a year inTahiti to learn the business before his firm sent himto the Marquesas. Now, you know, for Maná toleave her folks and her island meant a very unusualcourage and will, and she has stuck with Lutz all thistime. He is heavy-handed, too, when vexed over waste.I don’t think it will be a matter of settling with her asto support; they all have a living at home. Also, theTahitians do not love the Marquesans. You will see!”

I had returned from my visit to Grelet, when, arrivingat night in a canoe to the stone steps at theTahauku landing, Tetuahunahuna, the steersman,pointed out to me the dark bulk of a schooner swingingat anchor.

Fetia Taiao,” he said. It was the schooner on whichLutz’s old woman was to depart from her long-timeabode.

In the weeks that had elapsed during my stay withGrelet, the affair of Mademoiselle Narbonne and HerrLutz had actually become the gossip of Atuona. Thechurch, the French nation, the masculinity of all theother whites, were concerned. The suitor was said topay almost daily visits to the Narbonne house in Taaoa,and I saw him galloping past my house in the afternoons,and heard sometimes in the night, his shod horse’shoofs on the pebbly road.

“It is terrible,” Sister Serapoline said to me, when Itook her a catch of popo to the convent. “That Germanis a heathen, and has been living in sin with a goodwoman for years. Now he will drag down to hell the396soul of our dear Barbe. We are offering a novena toJoan of Arc to bring her to us. She has not been inthe church or convent for a month. She would make awonderful sister, for she has a good heart and a true devotionto Joan of Arc. And, to tell the truth, hermoney would be put to a divine purpose instead of goinginto his business here or being wasted in Germany.”

“What about Maná?” I asked. “Is she satisfied togo away?”

“That I doubt, but Maná, too, has not been inside thechurch for a long time. Monsieur, I have heard thatshe has fallen from the true religion, and is dealing withsorcery. The devil is astir in Atuona now.”

Song of the Nightingale was of Taaoa, the valley ofMademoiselle Narbonne, and, as I said, had once beenthe lover of her mother. Through serving a term ofimprisonment for making intoxicants of oranges and ofthe juice of the flower of the cocoanut-tree, his servitudespent as cook for the Governor allowed him leisure fora few stolen hours with his tribe. Song was a very evilman; of that perverse disposition which afflicts greatmurderers like Gilles de Raiz or the Marquis de Sade,and also cowardly ones who do in mean words and accursedinuendoes what the arch villains do in deeds.He hated because he was thwarted. Before the whiterégime he would have set valley against valley, and islandagainst island for mad spleen. I had seen his vilenessin a ludicrous light when he had put Ghost Girl’sgod, the kuku, before her as food, and had reviled hergrandmother eaten by his clan. He often made funof the governor to me, and of me, doubtless, to many.

Song stopped at my house one night late. He was397returning from Taaoa, and had drunk deeply of the illicitnamu enata, the cocoanut brandy. He begged mefor a drink of rum, and I could ill refuse him as he hadfilled my glass so frequently at the palace. He tossedoff a shell of the ardent liquor, and filled his pipe frommy tin. Then he began to talk loosely and boastfullyas was his habit. He ridiculed the churches, and theirteachings, and spoke of Gauguin, and his carven caricatureof the bishop. Gauguin was a “chick tippee,”he said again, and not any more afraid of the sacramentthan was he.

“They cannot hurt you if you are tapu as I am,” hewent on. “The priest talks of Satan and his red-hotfork, and calls the taua, our one remaining priest, achild of Satan. I have been to see that taua. He is ofmy family, and, though he is very old, he does not believein the Christian magic, but in our own. He cando anything he wants to a Marquesan. He can makethem sick or well.”

“How about a white?” I asked, negligently.

“I don’t say that. The taua might work his sorcerywith some, but he does not try. Do you know whom Isaw in his hut to-night? Maná, the woman of Lutz,the Heremani. What did she there? Why do you goto the mission? To get the bon Dieu to help you.Maná went to Taaoa to ask the Marquesan Po, the godof night, to help her. The Taua did not inform me,but Maná said to me that if she sailed on the Fetia Taiaoto Tahiti, Ma’m’selle would never marry Lutz. Thetaua would make her tapu to the Heremani, who wouldbe afraid to take her to his bed.”

Song of the Nightingale poured himself another398drink, and, muttering an incantation in his own language,slunk out toward the palace to hoodwink the governor.My heart misgave me, for I had a sincere admirationfor Mademoiselle Narbonne, and I could nothelp a kindly feeling for the Heremani, Lutz, who hadheaped favors on me. When my money had run out,he had trusted me for months, though he had my bareword that I expected a draft from America. My sympathieswere divided odiously. Lutz seemed to be mercenaryin his pursuit of Narbonne’s daughter, and yetmight not love move him? He had been faithful toManá for fourteen years, according to everybody, whichwas a marvel for a white man. Maná was to be pitied,and her endeavor to circumvent her competitor not to bedespised. I could not sneer at the sorcery of the taua.In Hawaii, I had seen a charming half-English girl,educated and living in a cultured home, yield to a beliefin the necromancy of a Hawaiian kahuna, and die.Her strength “ran out like water.” With everythingto live for, she faded into the grave at twenty.

How was taua to aid Maná to keep the affectionsof Lutz? The philter that Julia sought on the slopesof Vesuvius to win the love of Glaucus came to mind,but the tauas, I remembered, used no physicalmeans to work their spells. They depended entirelyon the mind. They studied its every intricacy, and thepower of suggestion was, I reasoned, their weapon andmedicine as it was with Charcot, Freud, or Coué, themodern tauas of Europe. In my travels and residenceof a dozen years in Asia and the South Seas, I had beenconfronted often with phenomena inexplicable exceptthrough control of others’ minds by the thaumaturgist.399Nevertheless, I had so frequently had such an opinionshattered by a more artful and cunning material explanationthat at each instance I wavered as to the methodof the mage.

The schooner Morning Star, the Fetia Taiao, swungabout the Marquesan group, from Tahauku to Taiohae,Oomoa, and Vaitahu, and after a month dropped anchoragain near the stone steps of Lutz’s magazin. LyingBill I met at the governor’s, and heard him say thathe had as passenger for Papeete the “old woman of theDutchman.”

“I’ll sail with the first ‘an’ful o’ wind after we loadour copra,” he said. “That’ll be in three days. Manáis bloomin’ well angry at Lutz. I’m wonderin’ if shewon’t go over to Taaoa and ’ook out those purty eyes o’Ma’m’selle. ’E oughta ’ave Mc’Enry’s woman to dealwith. She’d take a war-club to im.”

Lutz had me to dinner again the night before theschooner left, and at table were, besides Jensen and theHamburg apprentice, Captain Pincher and Ducat, hismate. I did not get a glimpse of Maná, though Lutzappeared uneasy, and occasionally went out into thekitchen and once into the garden. The good Patzenhoferbeer was plentifully served by the Tongan, and,un-iced as it was, we drank several cases of it with“Hochs!” from Lutz and the Hamburger, “Skoals!”from Jensen, and “‘Ere’s yer bloody ’ealths!” from LyingBill.

McHenry, I learned, was keeping a store on theatoll of Takaroa. The rahui at Takaroa was finished,and the divers dispersed. No great pearl had beenbrought up, though Mapuhi and his tribe had had a400bountiful season. Our party broke up about midnight,and, after the seafarers had gone down the basalt stairsto their boat, and his clerks were in bed, Lutz and I sata few minutes. He, perhaps, wanted to avow his intentionsregarding Barbe Narbonne, to justify himselfabout Maná, and to gain from me the comfort of myconcurrence in his ethics and ambitions, but his stiffPrussian bringing-up forbade him. Instead, he spokeof his childhood at Frankfort, his education, and hisfailure to go to a University on account of poverty. Atseventeen, he had been put to work in an exportinghouse in Hamburg, and had passed seven years as an underlingwith small pay. His chance had come whendebts due the company in Tahiti called for an experiencedman in goods and finance to go to Papeete andwring a settlement from the debtor. He had been ableto please his firm, and to buy out the failing concern byHamburg backing. In the fourteen years since, he hadbeen exiled in Tahauku, and despite his grinding effortsand many voluntary privations, had not amassed much.His mother and father in Germany were dependent onhim, and he had not been able once to visit them becauseof the expense.

Maybe the Patzenhofer had mellowed my sympathies,for I agreed with him that he was a dutiful son and aworthy merchant, and that life had not been quite fairto him. There was a moment when I feared he wasabout to divulge his secret, but a noise outside madehim start, and after he had listened with frowning browa minute he said good night. He did not wish to bealone, it was evident, for he said he would sleep on401a straw couch in my room. I heard him tossing as Ifell asleep.

From the hill of Calvary the next afternoon I saw theMorning Star as she glided past the opposite cliffs ofTahauku. At least the main barrier to Lutz’s planshad gone from the Marquesas. As Mademoiselle Narbonneno longer came to Atuona, I had not seen her formany Sundays, and, although I still saw Lutz on hisperegrinations, and from my Golden Bed hearkened tothe iron of his horse’s heels, I had no direct nor evenfairly certain knowledge that he had won her hand.Gradually a desire to see her, to make sure of her intentions,grew in me, and I had fixed the following Sundayas a date for my journey to Taaoa, when a stupefyingincident disarranged my scheme.

Le Brunnec, the trader, my companion of the wildcattle hunting, was ever on the outlook for informationor entertainment for me. Speaking a little English,and by nature friendly, he now and again sent to mycabin a stranger, with a sealed note explaining thebearer’s particular interest to me. One day, there appearedan American citizen, Lemoal, a twisted, haggardnative of Paimpol, who had been an adventurer and vagabondall about the world. After a shell of rum, he hadboasted a while, and then when I had given him anotherdrop with a gesture of farewell, he had said with a leerand a curse, that he had seen me with Mademoiselle Narbonne,and that “I would better beware.”

“She is a leper, that rich girl,” he had said; “everybodyhere knows it but you. Let the accursed Germanof Tahauku get it, not you!”

402He ambled down the trail like an old kobold, a spiritof evil and filth, wagging his long beard, and sucking athis pipe. I threw away the shell from which he haddrunk. But in my horror at what he had said, I couldnot forget that Mademoiselle Narbonne had asked mea strange question, at first meeting—whether it was truethat the Government was segregating the lepers in Tahiti,and immuring them in a leprosarium. I had answeredin the affirmative, and thought curiosity dictatedthe query. Now, with Lemoal gone, his statement andher question rose together. Le Brunnec’s note saidthat Lemoal was not to be believed always. He mighthave told Le Brunnec about Barbe. It could not betrue! Yet, the missionary’s daughter a half a mileaway from me was a leper, and Tahiatini, Many Daughters,was suspect. The Chinese imported by the American,Hart, had brought the terrible disease from Canton,and many had died from it in the Marquesas. Thosewho had it were free to live as they pleased, for therewas no care of them by the authorities. But in Tahiti,for the first time, they had taken them from their families,and were keeping them in a separate estate. Itwas easy, with the abominable assertion of Lemoal agitatingme, to exaggerate or misinterpret the meaning ofMademoiselle Narbonne’s interrogation.

Did the visit of Maná to the taua have anything to dowith Lemoal’s wretched slander or gossip?

I should be a fool, I reckoned, to believe Lemoal.Even the vicar apostolic had intimated that the Protestantpastor was a rake, and I knew him to be a virtuousman. Gauguin had written in his journal that the403bishop was a “goat,” and I believed him a vow-observingcelibate. Much, then, I was to credit this lifetime villain,Lemoal! Men who stayed too long in the SouthSeas became natural, simple children of the sweet soil,or decayed and rejected, rotten fruit of civilizationwhen unsuited to assimilation.

A week after Lemoal had poisoned my mind with hisintimation, I met Mademoiselle Narbonne at Otupotu,the divide between the valleys of Atuona and Taaoa,where Kahuiti, the magnificent cannibal of Taaoa, hadtrapped the Mouth of God’s grandfather and eaten him.It was a precipice facing the valleys of the island ofHiva-Oa, as it curved eastward. The brilliant stretchof sea contrasted with dark glens in the torn, convulsedpanorama—gloomy gullies, suggestive of the old pagandays when the Marquesans were free and strong.Above the shadowy caverns, the mountains caught thelight of the dying sun and shone green or black underthe cloudless sky. To sit there as the day declined andto view the tragic marvel of the advent of night wasto me a rapturous experience made sorrowful by thefinal sinking of the sun. No long twilight, no romanticgloaming followed the plunge of terror. I have alwayspeopled it with afrits and leprechawns, mischievousif not malicious.

It was an hour before dusk when I arrived, and soonI heard, far down the glade of Taaoa, the slow approachof a horse. As the rider came in view, I waved myhand, and the daughter of the Cayennais called to me,with a trifle of surprise in her soft voice. She dismountedand sat beside me. She had changed. In404what exactly I could not define. She was less self-centered,silent, melancholy. The savage had fled fromher face, and animation with it.

“I am half French, but all Marquesan,” she had saidto me once.

She was all white this evening. The rich color haddeserted her cheeks, and in her pallor was tendernessand longing. I was drawn to her as never before. Herdelicate hand crept into mine, and we remained husheda few minutes. Curiously, the words of Lemoal did notrecur. She was so perfect, so beautiful, the nightfallso embracing, other thoughts were banished. We werein a wild expanse, in a bed of ferns, and landward aprodigal glory of palm and plant, vine and orchid. Naturehad spent its richest colors and scents, its rarestshapes and oddest forms, for bird and insect, star andsun, to look upon and rejoice in, and with no count ofman. In her grandest or most subtle manifestations,nature had no thought to suit herself to man, and onlyas he adapted himself to her thousand smiles and frowns,could he remain alive upon an inconsequential planetwhich was nothing with the blazing star now going downin the west. A shudder, and man died by myriads; abreath, and he perished. But ever nature swelled theseeds of her unthinking creations and ornamented herbody with fresh fruitage.

Sunset and death, the heat of the day and of life, andthen the lapsing years in the descent toward the coldgrave, often stumbling and trembling, and without thecadence and the color of the passing day; and both endingin murk and fear. These tropical islands were foryouth, when every sense was a well of enjoyment.405Age must only regret not having known them sooner.

The slim hand of Barbe Narbonne, folded in mine,excited no pleasanter thoughts than these as we sat atOtupoto. I felt that I must have drawn them fromher, for I was happy, and the tide of life running strongin my veins.

She broke the quiet.

“What do you think of Monsieur Lutz?” she saidsuddenly.

“What do I think of Monsieur Lutz?” I parried.“I like him. Why do you ask me that?”

“Because, Monsieur, he has asked me to marry him;and I am thinking.”

She took away her hand and smoothed her brow asif she swept away cobwebs.

The crisis had come in which her future was at pitchand toss. The years of childhood make most of us whatwe are. The white surrounded by Polynesians in theearly years of life, learning their language first, andhaving them as playmates, willy-nilly becomes morethan half Polynesian. Their tastes, dreads, superstitions,pleasures, and ideals become his. Barbe Narbonnehad the savage blood of her mother to accentuateher environment. The exigency that now confrontedher had kindled in her divided soul for the first time theconflict between the white and the brown. From infancyshe had been in the convent, and now she had had a fewmonths of unrestraint in the society of her two mothers,and recently of release even from the rigors of the confessionaland the nuns’ admonitions. She had beenslipping back fast into the ways of the Marquesans;the palm-groves had claimed her, and the jungle was406closing in upon her. The courtship of the European,Lutz, was a challenge to her white strain, but it wasconfusing, for it added a third element. Her mothers’semi-savagery, and the convent strictness of rule werein strife now with this offer of relief from both by themost important white in the Marquesas except the governor.

“Do you love him?” I asked her, and looked into hereyes.

She cast them down a moment in confusion or meditation.No longer she wore black. That had been inimitation of the sisters’ dull dress, and she had put itaside with the mass and the confession. Her tunic,the simple flowing garment of the valley, was of paleblue. Her hair was parted on her low, delicate forehead.Her legs were stockingless, her feet thrust intosmall, brown shoes.

She raised her eyes, and replied slowly, seeking theanswer herself, maybe, at the moment.

“Monsieur Lutz is a gentleman. He says he lovesme. I must marry a white man. Who else is there?If I stay in Taaoa, I shall become a Marquesan pure.It is so easy.”

Her manner was naïve and confiding, and affectedme deeply. Where lay her chance for happiness?

Abruptly, the accusation of Lemoal rung in my ears;and I could hardly refrain from voicing it, in a wishto hear her fierce denial. Never had she been moreattractive, more the pattern of the most wholesome andfairest of her mingled parentage. I could not resistsaying:

“You know Lemoal?”

407“That canaille! He worked for my father for longand cheated him. Ah, he is a bad one! Only the lastfew weeks he has been hanging about my house towheedle food and drink from me without return. Heis of no account. Why do you ask?”

“He says that you are ill.”

“Ill! I?”

Her eyes closed, and her body became limp an instant.A flush spread over her face.

“Lemoal said that!” she cried. “It is a lie! Whatill have I? Tuberculosis? Do I cough? Am I thin?The miserable! It is strange. Kahuiti and two othershave asked me in the past few days if I were ill. MonsieurFrederick, you are my friend. Look at me! AmI not well?”

She leaped to her feet. An instant she entertainedthe suggestion of stripping her tunic from her, and revealingher entire body for judgment. She bared hergirlish bosom, and her hands tore at the gown, and thenthe convent inhibitions conquered, and she hastily coveredherself.

She blushed darkly, and turned from me. The mortalsin of immodesty had been the daily preachmentof the nuns.

“I must go home before the night,” she said weakly.“I will not go on to the convent. Good-by, my friend.Pray for me!”

The dusk was already thick as she mounted her horse,and I made out the trail to Atuona with difficulty.Dimly, I discerned the workings of an unholy spell, ormy sympathy for her and my hatred for Lemoal conjuredup a web of witchcraft that would affright her408suitor, and bind her to the scene of her birth. How farthis web had been spun I could only guess. I put thematter flatly to Le Brunnec. Yes, he had had the samestory from Lemoal, and so had many others. As toLutz’s hearing it, he did not know, but Lemoal was despisedby Lutz, who had quarreled with him long ago.He would not dare to carry his tale to Tahauku, norwould any one. The Prussian trader in his dealingshad inculcated respect and a decent fear of himself.

That evening I sent Exploding Eggs to tell Songof the Nightingale I wanted to see him at my house.When he came, I referred, after the customary drinkof rum, to the taua, and declared my eager wish to meethim. I knew Kahuiti, of the valley of Taaoa, who wasstill a cannibal, and I must know the last of the paganpriests there. The cook was well pleased, and weagreed that the first evening the governor took his dinnerat the house of Bauda he would come for me. LeBrunnec smiled when I let him know my plan.

“Go ahead!” he said. “I am no believer in anythingbut a reasonable profit, and a merry time. You cando nothing if you are trying to help Mademoiselle Narbonne.I have seen too often the meddling white failwith these Marquesans. They know more about manyimportant things than we do, even if they don’t wearshoes or eat with a fork. That old taua may be a fool,but they don’t think so, and there’s the secret.”

Song of the Nightingale appeared at six, a few eveningslater, and we started on the five miles’ ride toTaaoa. I had borrowed a horse of Mouth of God, andthe prisoner-cook had no difficulty in finding one. Toomany people dreaded his bitter tongue and violent disposition409to refuse him. As we went through the passat Otupotu and descended the winding trail to the adjoiningvalley, the sun was below the far tops of thegreen hills and was tinting all the sky in shades of softestred. Clouds, edged with brilliant gold, were likelilies in a garden of roses. The air was still and heavywhen we rode by the sulphurous springs where Mouthof God’s grandfather was slain by Kahuiti’s spear. Myguide avoided the village of Taaoa, and took a pathwhich led by a graveyard.

On an obelisk had been inscribed half a century before:

Inei Teavi o te mata einana o Taaoa.

“Here lie the bodies of the people of Taaoa.” Anall-inclusive tombstone, for there was no other, but, instead,banana-plants, badamiers, vi-apples, and chilepeppers, the fiery-red pods of the latter bright againstthe green and black. Behind the burial-place were twogreat aoa trees, giant banyans that must have been therewhen the first adventurous white cast anchor in thesewaters. In the lessening light, they had a mysteriousair of life in death; they were moribund with age, twistedand gnarled like those century-old Mission Indians ofCalifornia who sit outside their adobe hovels and showa thousand wrinkles on their naked bodies. Yet thesebanyans were filled with life, for a hundred new shootswere thrusting from above into the rich mold of theearth, and presaging renewal of the dead limbs andgreater growth of the whole.

The trees covered acres, overpowering in their immensity,with columns of regular and solemn symmetry.Their ponderous buttresses were like towers, but divided410into many separate chambers where the branches haddescended from heights to become roots, and later othercolumns. These trees were individuals, shattered andworn by existence, broken by storms, the boughs archinga hundred feet from the ground to let down grotesqueand curving branches that blindly groped for a graspupon the soil. They were tragedies in wood, and stirredin me memories of old French tales of darksome wolds,of the shadowy, dripping spinneys where the loup garoulay in wait for the bodies and souls of his victims.

Into one of the cells of the banyan, Song of the Nightingaleled me. As large as an average room, it was dividedby a tapa hanging, and from behind this came, athis call, the taua. He had a snow-white beard and longhair, and was very old. His body was quite coveredwith tattooing, the most elaborate designs I had seen.The candlenut ink, originally blackish-brown upon hisdark skin, had, as the result of decades of kava drinking,turned to a verde-antique, like the patina upon anancient bronze.

Moa taputoho,” said Song, with extreme seriousness.“A sacred hermit.” One who had forsaken all the commonthings of existence to commune with the gods.

The sorcerer’s surrounding were druidic, remindful ofthe Norns, who dwelt beneath the world-tree Ygdrasil,Urd and Verdande and Skuld, and decided the fate ofmen.

He gazed at me intently, raised his hand in a gravemanner, and said something to my companion whichI did not understand.

“He asks if you want anything of him,” explained theconvict.

411“Yes, I do,” I replied. “Ask him if the daughterof Liha-liha is a leper?”

My interpreter did not put the question direct, butI comprehended his many sentences to state my meaning.

The taua pursed his lips and withdrew behind thecurtain. From his hidden fane issued the deep rumblingof his voice in a chant.

“He is asking the tiki, the image of the god,” saidSong, fearfully.

I confess I was aware of a depression approachingfear. It was dark in the banyan cell, and a torch ofcandlenuts threw a fitful glimmer on the tapa and thescabrous walls.

Soon above the indistinct voice of the taua was thesound of something in the branches of the banyan, ofa flapping of wings, and a knocking.

“It is a bat,” I whispered to Song.

“It is the god coming to answer,” said he, coweringwith real horror.

A dreadful thing it is not to believe in the supernaturalwhen in ordinary surroundings, and yet to be subjectto horrible misgivings when circumstances conjureup visions of terror.

The uncanny noises in the tree increased, and thenthe mammoth banyan shook as though an earthquakevibrated it. Song and I were now flat on the ground,and I repeated an invocation of my childhood:

“From the powers of Lucifer, O, Mary, deliver us!”

I said it over and over again, and it numbed mysenses during the few minutes that the pandemoniumcontinued.

412When the taua emerged, Song turned his back uponhim, and, taking my hand, reversed me, too.

Tapu!” he said, nervously.

Tuitui!” began the moa taputoho. “Be silent!”and in a staccato manner pronounced his divination.His tone was orotund and dignified, and impressive ofsincerity. The words were symbolic, and of othergenerations, and Song waited until he had finished totranslate them. Before he could do this, the taua said,“Apae!” a word of dismissal, and retired. Song seizedme by the hand as I went toward the curtain, and pulledme away; but, for a second, I had a glimpse of a rude,basalt altar built against the trunk of the tree, and onit a stone image before which was a heap of fruit. Iwas directed speedily away from the banyan, and notuntil we had mounted our horses and galloped a hundredfeet did the convict answer my question.

“The moa taputoho said that this girl will offend thegod if she marries a haoe, a foreigner, and that sheknows already how the god will punish her if she leavesher own valley of Taaoa.”

And flinging out the words as we pounded up the hill,it was as if the maker of moonshine was more propheticalthan the taua himself, or was a most interestedmouthpiece, for he put into them a malevolence missingfrom the aged hermit’s voice. That had been majesticthough forboding, while the intonation of Song ofthe Nightingale was personal and harsh. Maybe hehated Lutz as did Lemoal. Le Brunnec corroboratedmy suspicion.

“Lutz found him stealing a demijohn of rum, and hadhim sent to prison for several months,” said the Breton.413“But, granted that every one hates the German,” hecontinued, “you are wasting your sympathy and time.I predict that Lutz will get Mademoiselle Narbonne,but that the taua and his magic will snare her finally.These people are born to be unhappy and to die underour Christian dispensation.”

So, from day to day, the rumor of her dismaying conditionspread, until it was known to almost everyone ofthe few thousand Marquesans in all the islands, and toall others except Lutz. His wooing had not ceased,and when the day’s work was done at Tahauku, and hisevening meal despatched, as for months, he thoughtnothing of the ten slippery miles in the pitchy blacknessto and from the home of his Golden Maid. His hoof-beatsentered into my dreams, and after midnight I oftenawoke as they resounded on the little bridge acrossthe stream by the Catholic Church, Poor devil! He wasto pay dear for his brief dream.

414

CHAPTER XX

Holy Week—How the rum was saved during the storm—An Easter Sunday“Celebration”—The Governor, Commissaire Bauda and I havea discussion—Paul Vernier, the Protestant pastor, and his Church—Howthe girls of the valley imperilled the immortal souls of the firstmissionaries—Jimmy Kekela, his family—A watch from AbrahamLincoln.

HOLY Week passed in a riot of uncommonamusement. Its religious significance—themost sacred period of the year both for Catholicsand Protestants—was emphasized by priest andpreacher with every observance of the church, but thelay white harked back to the mood of the ancient feastof spring and drew the natives with them. Permits tobuy rum and wine were much sought for by the Marquesans,to whom drink was forbidden. The governor wasof an easy disposition, and few who had the price of adame-jeanne of rum or wine failed to secure it. AsLutz, the German trader at Tahauku, the adjoiningvalley, was the only importer of intoxicants, the canoeswere active between our beach of Atuona and the stonesteps at Tahauku, while others rode a-horse or walked.On Holy Thursday an uninformed new-comer mighthave pronounced the Marquesans a bustling race witha liquid diet.

Cloudbursts had swollen the streams, and made thetrails troughs of mud, so that when Exploding Eggsand Mouth of God and I arrived at Atuona beach withour empties we were glad to place the receptacles in the415canoe of a fisherman for transport to Lutz’s. A gestureof my cupped hand to my mouth made him eagerto oblige me. We walked up the hill and past the Scallameraleper-house. My friends’ bare feet and skillmade it hard for me to keep up with them. Shoes areclumsy shifts for naked soles. After a glass of Munichbeer and a pretzel with Lutz, Exploding Eggs findinghis own little canoe at the stone steps, we loaded thedemi-johns in it and the fisherman’s. I went with thelatter, and Mouth of God with my valet. The canoeswere narrow and they sank to the gunwales with theweight. The tide of the swollen river tore through thebay, and soon Mouth of God cried out that we musttake Exploding Eggs in our craft. The boy transferredhimself deftly, and Mouth of God’s canoe shotahead. It became necessary for us to bail, for the waterpoured in over the unprotected sides, and the boy and Iused our hats actively. Suddenly the fisherman in agonizingvoice announced that we could not stay afloat.He gave no thought to our bodily plight, the racing current,and the rapacious sharks, but laid stress on ourfreight.

Aue! The rum will be lost!” he shouted, as thecanoe weltered deeper, and then, without ado, both heand Exploding Eggs leaped into the brine. The canoestaggered and rose, and, after freeing it from water,I paddled it to shore, while the pair swam alongside,watching the precious burden.

All night the torrent roared near my home. The bigboulders rolled down the rocky bed, groaning in travail.The solid shot of cocoanut and breadfruit, sped by thegale, fell on my iron roof while the furious rain was like416cannister. The trees made noises as a sailing ship in astorm, singing wildly, whistling as does the cordage,and the crash of their fall sounding as the freed canvasbanging on the yards. Sleep was not for me, but Ismoked and wrote, and listened to the chorus of angerednature until daybreak.

In the first light I saw Father David, in soutane andsurplice, attended by two barelegged acolytes, fordingthe breast-high river. He held aloft the golden box containingthe sacred bread, and one of the acolytes carrieda bell of warning. Paro had the black leprosy, and inhis hut far up the valley, on his mat of suffering, waitedfor the comfort of communion. All day three priestsmoved up and down urging the people to confess and“make their Easter.”

Titihuti, the magnificently tattooed matron, wentwith me to the ceremony of Honi Peka, the Kissing ofthe Crucifix. Honi really meant to rub noses or smelleach other’s faces, for the Marquesans had no labialkiss. The Catholic church was well filled, and each nativein turn approached the railing of the channel, andrubbed his nose over the desolate figure of the Savior.It was a wonderful magic to them. The next day,Good Friday or Venini Tapu, I asked Great Fern whatevent that day commemorated.

“Ietu Kirito was killed by his enemies, the tribe ofIuda,” he replied, as he might relate a tribal feud inthese islands.

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (52)

Photo from Underwood and Underwood
The Coral road and the traders’ stores

Holy Saturday was a joyous holiday, and on EasterSunday the climax of the feasting and merriment came.The communion-rail was crowded, many complying417with the church compulsion of taking the sacramentonce a year under pain of mortal sin. There was compensationfor celibacy and exile in Father David’s expressionof delight as he put into each communicant’smouth the host. He was the leading actor in a divinedrama, the conversion by his few words of consecrationof a flour wafer into the actual body and blood of JesusChrist. The histrionic was mixed with and a movingpart of his exaltation.

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (53)

Photo by Brown Bros.
Scene on beach a few miles west of Papeete

He gave to all, including Peyral and me, the onlywhite attendants, a little loaf of bread he had blessed;faraoa benetitio in Marquesan, or flour benedicto. AhSuey took communion, and after mass hurried to me.The reputed murderer of Wagner, the American, wasprideful because he was the baker of the faraoa benetitio.

“How you likee that bleadee?” he asked me. “Mybake him bleadee, pliest make him holee. Bimeby meketchee heaven,” he said in all seriousness.

Titihuti, my neighbor, joined me to walk to ourhomes, and, knowing her to miss no masses on Sundays,I asked her why she had not received the sacrament.She said she had never partaken of it, that she had yetto make her first communion of the Lord’s supper.

“But, Titihuti,” I remonstrated, “you know that youare in danger of hell-fire. You believe in the Catholicdoctrine, you say, and despite that you disregard itsstrict order.”

Titihuti I realized was a heathen, still full of animistsuperstitions, and I was not unprepared to hear heranswer:

“If I took the host into my mouth I would die. The418manakao would seize me. I will wait until I am aboutto die, and then Père David will give me the viaticum,and I will go straight to aki.”

The manakao is a demon, and aki is paradise. Titihutiwas intending to take the chance that kings andothers took in the early days of Christianity, when,being taught that baptism wiped out all sins, they keptan alert clergyman always near them to sprinkle themand speed them to heaven, and meanwhile they sinnedas they pleased.

By noon the entire village was chanting and dancing.The unusual removal of the restriction against beveragesmade Easter a pagan rout. The natives becameuninhibited, if not natural, for a few hours. Severaltimes the governor had had groups at his palace to giveexhibitions of their aboriginal dances, but this feast-dayhe extended a general invitation to a levee. Fifty orsixty men or women enjoyed the utmost hospitality.The young ruler was bent on seeing their fullest expressionof mirth, without any restraint of sobriety. Thenoise of their songs echoed to the mission, where thenuns prayed that some brand might be spared from theholocaust. Swaggering chiefs and beauteous damselsabandoned themselves to the spirit of the day. Thedances were without order. Whenever a man or womanfelt the urge they sprang to their feet and began thetapiriata. Under the palms, upon the verandas, in thesalle à manger, in every corner of the palace and itsgrounds, the people, astonished at such unwonted freedomand such lavish bounty, showed their appreciationin movements of their bodies and legs. The fairest girlssurrounded the host, and with sinuous circlings and a419thousand blandishments entertained and thanked him.The chants by the elders were of his greatness. Theyoung sang of passion.

From the hill near the cemetery where Guillitoue, theanarchist, dwelt, sounded the drums. I was the especialguest there in the afternoon, and those who werenot too deep in the pool of pleasure at the palace climbedthe mountain. The orator had built a shelter of bambooand cocoanut leaves, graceful and clean, and uponits carpet of leaves we sat. Guillitoue in a loin-clothand black frock-coat moved about among the threescore with a dame-jeanne in each hand, and poured rumor wine at request. Occasionally he broke into a wildhula, grotesque as he whirled about with the wickeredbottles at arms-length. From other valleys whites andnatives had come to the koina. Thirty horses were tiedto the cemetery railing. Amiable gaiety and ludicrousbaboonery passed the afternoon.

Frederick Tissot, a storekeeper at Puamau, a Swissin his fifties, ten years in the Foreign Legion of Algiers,a worker upon the Chicago Exposition buildingsin the early nineties, and seventeen years here, spokeof the “good time” when he worked at Zinkand’s restaurantin San Francisco.

“I drank thirty quarts of beer a day. I was cook,and the bartenders stood in with me for bonnes bouches.I never tasted solid food. I had soup and booze. Inearly died in a year, and had to leave.”

He sighed at the memory of those golden days.Later I saw him falling off his horse, and laid upon amat in a native house.

James Nichols, son of a Chicagoan, dignified, tall and420thin, almost white, with side-whiskers, a black cutaway,overalls, and bare feet, a shoeless butler for all theworld, had a tale for me of his father’s marrying inTahiti a member of the royal family of Pomaré, andof himself being born on Christmas Island.

“A wild island that,” said the quasi-butler in English.“Captain Cook discovered it when he was steering northfrom Borabora on Christmas day. He stayed there afew weeks and saw an eclipse of the sun. He tookaway three hundred turtles. When I lived there theymelted cocoanuts into oil, and my father was the cooper.Cook had planted cocoanuts there. It is an atoll, alonely place, and I was glad to leave. I learned Englishfrom my father, and married a Paumotu lady. Iwas in Tahiti until eight years ago, when the cyclonewiped me out. Here I work for the mission, makingcopra, and I am the tinker and tinsmith. Here’s lookingat you!”

Jensen, the young and engaging Dane, who willnever return to civilization, trod a measure with acharming girl from Hanamenu.

“The clan of the Puna has left its bare paepaes allover her valley,” he said. “She is the last.”

At dark the cavalcade reeled down the hill, leavingPierre Guillitoue sleeping beside the drum. Despitehis late fifties and his, to say the least, irregular way ofliving, Pierre is strong and healthy.

Captain Cook marveled in his diary that “since thearrival of the ship in Batavia [Java] every person belongingto her has been ill, except the sailmaker, whowas more than seventy years old; yet this man got drunkevery day while we remained there.”

421A white man lured away the consort of Ahi, an agreeableyoung man much in love. I found the lorn husbandscreaming in grief.

“Tahiatauani, my wife, my wife!” he cried out. TheMarquesan weeps with facility. Hour after hour thisstalwart fellow let fall tears, lying on the ground inagony. Then he rose and said no more about it.

Easter Sunday went out in a blaze of riotous glory.I saw Ah Suey after nightfall inquiring anxiously andangrily for his daughter. The nuns had reported tohim that she had failed to appear for vespers. Thatnight in the breadfruit-grove by the High Place theyenacted the old orgies of pre-Christian days. Thirtymen and women, mostly young, sang the ancient songsand danced by the lights of lanterns, of candlenuts andfagots, and to the sound of the booming drums.

I sat at wine the next day with Father David in themission-house. It was bare and ugly as all convents,having the scant, ascetic, uncomfortable atmospherethat monks and nuns dwell in all over the world—no ornaments,no good pictures, no ease. Stark walls, stiffchairs, and the staring, rude crucifix over the door. Theapostolic vicar censured the Government severely. Heplucked his long, black beard nervously, and spoke hisfeelings in the imperious manner of a mortal who holdsthe keys of the kingdom of heaven, castigating foolswho wouldn’t even learn there was a door. There wasno trace of personal pride.

“The government here and in France is unjust tothe church. We suffer from the impiety and wickednessof French officials. The people of France areright at heart, but the politicians are Antichrists. The422Protestants are bad enough, but the French are Catholics,or should be. This young governor here is averitable heathen, and has shown the people the roadto hell again, when they had hardly trod the via trita,via tuta. He and Bauda are godless men. Monsieur,rum is forbidden to be given to a Marquesan, yet thevalley floats in rum. I know that to get copra madeone must stretch the strict rod of the law a trifle, butnot to drunkenness, nor to dances of the devil, dances,that, frowned upon, might be forgotten.”

The governor, Commissaire Bauda, and I dined thatnight on the palace veranda, and afterward we had ananimated discussion. I wrote it down verbatim:

Governor. What was it Père David said to you,mon ami?

I. He said that the Catholic church was badlytreated by the officials here.

Governor. Yes, he wants another great slice ofland. Oh, that church is insatiable! One of my predecessors,Grosfillez, fought them. Here is his reportin the archives: He says that, contrary to their claimsthat they have caused the republic to be loved here,that they have taught the Franch language, and haveraised the natives from savagery, from immorality andevil manners, the facts are that they have not changeda particle the morals of the Marquesans, that theytaught in their schools a trifling smattering of French,and that they did not make France loved and respected,but sought the domination of their order, the PicpusCongregation, at the expense of the Government. Thisdomination they forced in the early days at the point423of the bayonet, to the sacrifice of the lives of French officersand soldiers.

Bauda. That is true here and everywhere weFrench have gone. We have died to spread the powerof the church. Nom d’un chien! Six campaigns in Africa,me! Et pire alors! Did not General La Grandepin this decoration on me?

Governor. Here is the very letter of Grosfillez tothe authorities. He says that he visited the school atTaiohae, and that when he spoke to the pupils, manyof them three or four years in the school, the good sisterasked permission to translate his simple words intocanaque so they could understand. Sapristi! Is thatteaching French? Is not the calendar of the churchhere filled with foolishness, and almost all in canaque?Hein? Read this:

The governor thrust into my hands the almanac writtenby Father Simeon Delmas, of Taiohae, and publishedby the mission. It was in hektograph, neatly andbeautifully written, and contained the religious calendarof the year, and sermons, admonitions, and anecdotes,in Marquesan, with a small minority in French;a photograph of Monseigneur Etienne Rouchouze, formervicar apostolic to Oceanica, with praise for his career;an anecdote of Bernadette of Lourdes, the famouspeasant girl to whom the Virgin Mary appeared, togetherwith a list of the apparitions of the Virgin inFrance, beginning in 1830, the other dates being ’46,’58, ’71, and ’76; a prayer to Joan of Arc, with an attackon Protestantism (Porotetane) for burning her,and something about the Duke of Guise; a stirring article424on Nero’s persecution of the Christians; an accountof the Fall of the Bastille; a comparison between Clovis,king of France, and Napoleon; a tale of Charles V;and a table showing that the Catholic church had establishedmissions in all the inhabited islands of this groupsince 1858, and giving the number of children in theschools when they were closed by the government asclerical.

“The mountain groaned and brought forth a mouse,a soldier,” said the almanac.

“That is treason,” said the governor, looking over myshoulder, “and what has all that foolishness to do witha dying race that does not know what it means? Thechurch has done nothing for these people. They arenot changed except for the worse. What has the churchdone for their health? Nothing. My predecessorwanted to stop the eating of popoi. He knew that it isdirty, not healthful, and the promiscuous way of eatingit spreads disease. The church fought him and saidpopoi was all right. France! Have we not sufferedenough by that church since the Edict of Nantes?Since time immemorial? The church is a corporation,selfish, scheming, always against any government it doesnot control. It has been the evil genius of France.Only Napoleon harnessed the beast and made it do hiswork, but it saw his humbling. The priests tell thecanaques the Government is against the church, andthat the church is in the right; that it is the dutyof every Catholic to love the church first, becausethe church is Christ. They do not preach disaffection.Peut-être, non. But they do not preach affection.

425I. But you must admit that these priests lead livesof self-sacrifice; that personally they gain nothing. Ameager fare and hard work. They visit the sick——

Governor. Visit the sick? They do that, and theybury the dead. But they do nothing to better conditions.We teach sanitation. The priests are themselveseither ignorant or neglectful of sanitation. Theircalendars, their tracts, their preaching, say not a wordabout health, cleanliness; nothing about the body, butall about the soul, about duties to the church. I amhere primarily to study and aid the lepers, the consumptivesand the other sick. To try and halt the diseasewhich has killed thousands of unborn children, and thetuberculosis which takes most of the Marquesans inyouth. I am a soldier, experienced in Africa, used toleprosy, and the care of natives. In Africa the churchgives nothing to the people but its ritual. What hasthe church done here after seventy years?

I. Ah, governor, that is the very question PèreDavid asked me as to the Government. He says theylooked after the lepers when they had a free hand here.

Governor. Looked after them. They were notphysicians. Those men are peasants crammed with apitiful theology. They shall have nothing from me butthe law.

He attacked the intermezzo of “Cavalleria Rusticana”on his flute, as Many Daughters arrived. Over her earwas a sprig of fern, and about her neck a string of fragrantnuts. Her very large eyes were singularly brilliant.

C’est toi qui pousse le pu me metai.” she complimentedand tutoyed. “C’est toi qui n’a pas la pake?426It is thou who playest the flute wonderfully. It is thouwho has not any tobacco?”

“Ah, ma fille, you are well? You will have a drop ofabsinthe?” said the governor.

“With pleasure; I am as dry as the inside of an oldskull.”

“But, my friend,” I remonstrated with the executive,aside. “She is a leper. Her sister is, too. Are younot afraid? She drinks from our glasses.”

“Me? I am a soldier, and a student of leprosy. Itis my hobby. It is mysterious, that disease. I watchher closely.”

If the apostolic vicar felt keenly his inability to managethe affairs of the village and the islands to suit hisideas of morality and religion, so did the Protestant pastor.My house was very near the mission, and it wassome days after I had arrived before I went to the dissentingchurch, half a mile across the valley. MonsieurPaul Vernier, the Protestant pastor, had been manyyears in the Marquesas. He was respected by the ungodly.Guillitoue hailed him as a brother, anarchistand infidel though he was himself. Vernier alternatedbetween hunting souls to save and bulls to shoot, for hewas a very son of Cush, and his quest of the wild cattleof the mountains had put him upon their horns morethan once. Salvation he held first, and he was cannyin copra, but many nights he lay upon the tops of thegreat hills when pursuit of game had led him far.

Vernier had a background, for, though born in Tahiti,his father had been a man of culture and his mother acharming Frenchwoman, whose home in Tahiti wasmemorable to visitors. Vernier had devoted his life to427the Marquesans, and lived in this simple atmospherewithout regret for Tahiti. The apostolic vicar saidthat Vernier was Antichrist made manifest in the flesh,but that was on account of the odium theologicum,which here was as bitter as in Worms or Geneva of old.The spirit of Père David was pierced by the occasionaldefections from his flock caused by the proselytizing ofVernier. Before I met him I had gone to his churchwith Great Fern and Apporo. It was a box-like, redwoodbuilding, its interior lacking the imagery and coloringof the Roman congregation. The fat angels ofBrother Michel, the cherubim and seraphim in plasteron the façade of Father David’s structure were typicalof the genius of that faith, round, smiling, and breathinggood will to the faithful. Protestantism was not inaccord with the palms, the flowers, and the brilliancy ofthe sunlight. Thirty made up the congregation, ofwhom fourteen were men, twelve women, and four children,though the benches would seat a hundred. Thewomen, as in the Catholic church, wore hats, but I wasthe only person shod.

Men and women sat apart. During the service, exceptwhen they sang, no man paid any attention to thepreacher, nor did but three or four of the men. Theyseemed to have no piety. The women with childrenwalked in and out, and four dogs coursed up and downthe aisle. No one stirred a hand or tongue at them.

Fariura, a Tahitian preacher, who replaced Vernier,was a devout figure in blackest alpaca suit and silk tie,but barefooted. As he stood on a platform by a dealtable and read the Bible, I saw his toes were well spread,which in this country was like the horny hand of the428laborer, proof of industry. Climbing the cocoanut-treesmade one’s toes ape one’s fingers in radiation.

Tevao Kekela led the singing in a high-pitched copperyvoice, and those who sang with her had much thesame intonation and manner. Often the sound was likethat of a Tyrolean yodel, and the lingering on the lastnote was fantastic. They sang without animation,rapidly, and as if repeating a lesson. In the Catholicchurch the natives were assisted by the nuns. Thesewords were, of course, Marquesan, and I copied downa stanza or two:

Haere noara ta matorae

Va nia i te ea tiare,

Eare te pure tei rave,

Hiamai, na roto i te,

Taehae ote merie?

O te momona rahi

O te paraue otou, ta mata noaraoe?

Momona rahi roa

O te reira eiti to te merie?

Parau mai nei Ietue

Etimona Peteroe tia mai nioe,

Haa noara vau i tei nei po

Areva tuai aue.

Fariura prayed melodiously and pleadingly for tenminutes, during which Tevao Kekela’s father neverraised his head but remained bowed in meditation. Atattooed man in front of me bent double and groanedconstantly during the invocation. The others were occupiedwith their thoughts.

Then said Fariura, “Ma teinoa o Ietu Kirito, Metia429kaoha nui ia, in the name of Jesus Christ, a good dayto all the world.”

He began his hour’s sermon. The discourse wasabout Rukifero and his fall from Aki, and I discoveredthat Rukifero was Lucifer and Aki was paradise. Hedescribed the fight preceding the drop as much like oneof the old Marquesan battles, with bitter recriminations,spears, clubs, and slings as weapons, and Jehovah narrowlyescaping Goliath’s fate. In fact, the preachersaid He had to dodge a particularly well-aimed stone.Fariura, Kekela, Terii, the catechist, and his wife, Toua,received communion, with fervent faces, while the othersdeparted, lighting cigarettes on the steps, some mountinghorses, and the women fording the river with theirgowns rolled about their foreheads.

The preacher shook hands with me, the only white.He was in a lather from the heat and his unusual clothes,and the rills of sweat coursed down his body. His pantomimeof the heavenly faction fight had been energetic.I took him to my house for a swig of rum, and we hada long chat on the activities of the demon, and ways ofcircumventing his wiles.

Men like Vernier were not deceived by dry ecclesiasticism.They knew how little the natives were changedfrom paganism, and how cold the once hot blast ofevangelism had grown. Religion was for long thestrongest tide in the affairs of the South Seas both underthe heathen and the Christian revelation. Governmentwas not important under Marquesan communism, forgovernment is mostly concerned with enforcing opportunityfor acquisitive and ambitious men to gain and430hold wealth and power. In the days of the tapus godsand devils made sacred laws and religious rites. Thefirst missionaries in the Marquesas, who sailed fromTahiti, were young Englishmen, earnest and confident,but they met a severe rebuff. They relate that a swarmof women and girls swam out to their vessel and boardedit.

“They had nothing on,” says the chronicle, “but girdlesof green ferns, which they generously fed to thegoats we had on board, who seemed to them very strangebeings. The goats, deprived for long of fresh food,completely devastated the garments of the savage females,and when we had provided all the cloth we hadto cover them, we had to drive the others off the ship forthe sake of decency.”

Harris, one of the English missionaries, venturedashore, and the next morning returned in terror, declaringthat nothing would induce him to remain in the Marquesas.He feared for his soul. He said that despitehis protestations and prayers the girls of the valley hadinsisted on examining him throughout the night hoursto see if he was like other humans, and that he hadto submit to excruciating intimacies of a “diabolicalinspiration.” Crooks, Harris’s partner, dared theseand other dangers and remained a year. Crooks saidthat in Vaitahu, the valley in which Vanquished Oftenand Seventh Man Who Wallows in the Mire lived,there were deified men, called atuas, who, still in life,wielded supernatural power over death, disease, the elements,and the harvests, and who demanded humansacrifices to appease their wrath. Crooks believed in431the supremacy of Jehovah, but, like all his cloth then,did not doubt diabolism and the power of its professors.

For half a century American and English centers ofevangelism despatched missionaries to the Marquesas,but all failed. The tapus were too much feared by thenatives, and the sorcerers and chiefs held this power untilthe sailors and traders gradually broke it. They soldguns to the chiefs, and bought or stole the stone andwooden gods to sell to museums and collectors. Theyridiculed the temples and the tapus, consorted with thewomen, and induced them for love or trinkets to sinagainst their code, and they corrupted the sorcerers withrum and gauds. They prepared the ground for theChristian plow, but it was not until Hawaiian missionariestook the field that the harvest was reaped.Then it was because of a man of great and loving soul,a man I had known, and whose descendants I methere.

I was picking my way along the bank of a streamwhen a deep and ample pool lured me to bathe in it.I threw off my pareu and was splashing in the deliciouslycool water when I heard a song I had last heardin a vaudeville theater in America. It was about anewly-wedded pair, and the refrain declared that “allnight long he called her Snookyookums.” The voicewas masculine, soft, and with the familiar intonation ofthe Hawaiian educated in American English. I swamfurther and saw a big brown youth, in face and figurethe counterpart of Kamehameha I, the first king ofHawaii, whose gold and bronze statue stands in Honolulu.He was washing a shirt, and singing in fair tune.

432“Where’s your Snookyookums?” I asked by wayof introduction.

He was not surprised. Probably he heard and sawme before I did him.

“Back on Alakea Street in Honolulu,” he replied,smilingly, “where I wish I was. You’re the perofeta[prophet] they talk about. I been makin’ copra or I’dbeen see you before. My name is Jimmy Kekela, andI was born here in that house up on the bank, but I wassent to school in Honolulu, and I played on the KamehamehaHigh scrub team. The only foot-ball I playnow is with a cocoanut. I had a job as chauffeur forBob Shingle, who married a sister of the Princess Kawananakoa,but my father wrote me to come back here.I’ll wring out this shirt, and we’ll go up and see myfolks.”

The Kekela home was a large, bare house of pineplanks from California raised a dozen feet on a stonepaepae. Unsightly and unsuitable, it was characteristicof the architecture the white had given the Marquesanfor his own graceful and beautiful houses of hardwood, bamboo, and thatch, of which few were left. Iwrung out my pareu, replaced it, and scrambled up thebank with him. The house was in a cocoanut forest,the trees huge and lofty, some growing at an amazingangle owing to the wind shaping them when young.They twisted like snakes, and some so approached parallelismthat a barefooted native could walk up themwithout using his hands, by the mere prehensility of histoes and his accustomed skill. In front of the steps tothe veranda of the home were mats for the drying ofthe copra, and a middle-aged man, very brown and433stout, was turning over the halves of the cocoanut meatto sun them all over.

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (54)

Tahiatini, Many Daughters, the little leper lass

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (55)

François Grelet, the Swiss, of Oomoa

“My father,” said Jimmy to me, and “Perofeta” tohim. He shook hands gingerly in the way all peopledo who are unaccustomed to that greeting, and said,“Kaoha!” My answer, “Aloha nui oe!” surprised him,for it was the Hawaiian salute. On the veranda I waspresented to the entire Kekela family, four generations.By ones and twos they drifted from the room or thegrounds. Hannah, the widow of Habuku, was veryold, but was eager to talk.

“I am a Hawaiian,” she said in that language, “andI have been in Atuona, on this piece of land, sixty years.My husband brought me here, and he was pastor in thatchurch till he died. Auwe! What things went on herethen! I have seen many men being carried by towardthe Pekia, the High Place of Atuona, for roasting andeating. That was in war time, when they fought withthe people of Taaoa, or other valley. Kekela and myhusband with the help of God stopped that evil thing.Matanui, a chief, came to Hawaii in a whale-ship, andasked for people to teach his people the word of the trueGod. Four Hawaiians listened to Matanui, and returnedwith him to Hanavave, where the French priestFather Olivier, is now. A week later a French shiparrived with a Catholic priest. Auwe! He was angryto find the Protestants and tried to drive them out.They stayed with the help of the Lord, though they hada hard time. Then Kekela and we came, and we haveseen many changes. He was a warrior, and not afraidof anything, even the devil. There are his sons, Iamiand Tamueli, and his grandsons and granddaughters434and their children. We are Hawaiian. We have nodrop of Marquesan blood in us. Did you know AberahamaLinoconi?”

Hannah lifted herself from the mat on the floor, andbrought from the house a large gold watch, very heavyand ornate, of the sort successful men bought fifty yearsago. It was inscribed to James Kekela from AbrahamLincoln in token of his bravery and kindness in savingthe life of an American seaman, and the date was 1864.

“That watch,” she said, “was given to Kekela by thebig chief of America. When he died he gave it to hisson, Tamueli. Tell the prophet why Aberahama Linoconigave it to your grandfather, Iami!”

Jimmy, the former chauffeur, tried to persuade hisuncle, Samuel, a missionary on another island, to tellthe story, but finally himself narrated it in English.

“Grandfather Kekela was at Puamau, across this island,when he got this watch. He had been at Puamausome years and teachin’ people stop fightin’ an’ gochurch, when a whale-ship come in from Peru, an’ shotup the town. The Peru men killed a lot of Marquesans,and stole plenty of them to work in the mines likeslave. They had guns an’ the poor Puamau native onlyspear and club, so that got away with it good an’ strong.Well, nex’ year come American whale-ship, an’ the matecome up the valley to ketch girl. He saw girl he lovean’ chase her up the valley. The Puamau people lethim go, an’ ask him go further. Then they tie him upand beat him like the Peru people beat them, and thenthey got the oven ready to cook him. The chief of Puamaucome tell my grandfather what they goin’ do, an’he was some sore. He put on his Sunday clothes he435bring from Hawaii, an’ high collar an’ white necktie,an’ he go start something. He was young and notafraid of all hell. The mate was tied in a straw house,an’ everybody ‘roun’ was getting paralyzed with namuenata—you know that cocoanut booze that is rougherthan sandpaper gin in Hawaii.

“They were scarin’ the mate almost to death whengrandfather come along. The mate could see the umuheatin’ up, and the stones bein’ turned over on whichhe was goin’ to be cooked. Grandfather went in thehut. The mate was lyin’ on his back with his hands an’feet tied with a purau rope, an’ his face was as whiteas a shirt. I remember grandfather used to say howwhite his face was. Kekela knelt down an’ prayed forthe mate, an’ he prayed that the chief would give himhis life. He prayed an’ prayed, and the chief listen an’say nothin’. ‘Long toward mornin’ the chief couldn’thold out no longer, an’ said if grandfather would givehim the whale-boat he brought from Hawaii, his gun,an’ his black coat, he would let him go. Grandfatherhanded them all over, an’ took the mate to our house,and cured his wounds, and finally got him on a boat an’away. It was no cinch, for the American ship hadsailed away, and he had to keep the mate till anothership came. Many time the young men of Puamau triedto get the mate, to eat him, an’ when another ship arrived,an’ Kekela put the mate on board, they followedin their canoes to grab him. They pretty near werekillin’ grandfather for what he did.

“The mate must have told the Pres’ent of UnitedStates about his trouble here, for grandfather got a bagof money, this watch, a new whaleboat, an’ a fine black436coat brought him by an American ship with a letterfrom Mr. Lincoln. Father wrote back to Pres’ent Lincolnin Hawaiian, an’ thank him proper.”

“He must have lived to be a very old man,” I said,“because I was in Kawaiahao Church in Honolulu whenhe preached. He was asking for money for this church,and he took out the watch Lincoln gave him, and bangedit on the pulpit so that we thought he would break it.He was greatly excited. I wrote a piece about his sermonin the Honolulu paper and it was printed in theNupepa Kukoa, the Hawaiian edition of the HonoluluAdvertiser.”

Samuel Kekela leaped to his feet and rushed intothe house, from which he came with a yellowed copy ofthe Nupepa Kukoa, containing the article, with Kekela’spicture. To my own astonishment I read thatthe fourteen Hawaiians of the Kekela families who hadaccompanied the aged pioneer to Honolulu had journeyedin a schooner captained by my own shipmate,Lying Bill. I had seen the schooner in Honolulu Harbor.

Here was a remarkable group, a separate and aliensept, which, though living since before Lincoln’s Presidencyin this wild archipelago, had preserved their Hawaiianinheritances and customs almost intact. Thishad been due to the initial impetus given them by theirancestor, and it had now ceased to animate them, so thatthey were declining into commonplace and dull copramakers, with but a tiny spark of the flame of piety thathad lighted the soul of their progenitor.

“I am not the man my father was,” said John, thefather of Jimmy. “I am an American because I am a437Hawaiian citizen. My father had us all sent to Hawaiito be educated and to marry.”

The old Kekela had been a patriarch in Israel. Notalone had he lessened cannibalism and the rigidity ofthe tapu in the “great, cannibal isle of Hiva-Oa,” buthe had instructed them in foreign ways. He had acquiredlands, and now this family was the richest in theMarquesas. Only the Catholic mission owned moreacres. They were proud, and convinced that they wereanointed of the Lord, though Jimmy, being young, hadno interest at all in religion. If Kekela the first hadnot been a missionary he would have been a chief or acapitalist. Hannah showed me the photographs of thekings and queen of Hawaii since Kamehameha IV withtheir signatures and affectionate words for Kekela.Now they were disintegrating, and another generationwould find them as undone as the Marquesans. Thecontempt of government, trader, and casual white forall religion had affected them, who for two generationshad been Christian aristocrats and leaders among a massof commoners and admiring followers. The ten commandmentswere as dead as the tapus, and the churchhad become here what it is in America, a social and entertainmentfocus for people bored by life. The Germanphilosopher has said that the apparent problem ofall religions was to combat a certain weariness producedby various causes which are epidemic. Christianity forcivilized people may be “a great storehouse of ingenuoussedatives, with which deep depression, leaden languor,and sullen sadness of the physiologically depressedmight be relieved,” but for the Marquesans it had beena narcotic, perhaps easing them into the grave dug by438the new dispensation brought by civilized outsiders.The gentle Jesus had been betrayed by the culture thathad developed in his name, but which had no relationto his teaching or example. These good-willed Kekelaswere as feeble to arrest the decay of soul and bodyof their charges as was the excellent Pastor Vernier orthe self-sacrificing Father David. In the dance at thegovernor’s the flocks, at least, had an expression, corruptedas it was, of their desire for pleasure and forgetfulnessof the stupid present.

439

CHAPTER XXI

Paul Gauguin, the famous French-Peruvian artist—a rebel againstthe society that rejected him while he lived, and now cherishes hispaintings.

ABOVE the village of Atuona was the hill of Calvary,as the French named the Catholic cemetery.Often in the late afternoon I went thereto watch the sun go down behind the peak of Temetiu,and to muse over what might come into my mind. Myfirst visit had been with Charles Le Moine, the schoolteacher of Vaitahu, and the only painter living in theMarquesas. We had gone to search for the grave ofPaul Gauguin, the famous French-Peruvian artist, andhad found no trace of it.

“That woman who swore to keep it right has buriedanother lover since,” said Le Moine, cynically.

A small man, with a long French nose, a red, pointedbeard and mustache, twinkling blue eyes, and dressedin faded denim, Le Moine, though many years in thesearchipelagos, was out of the Latin Quarter. Two frontteeth missing, he had a childish air; one thought hiswhiskers might be a boy’s joke. He was a blageurabout life, but he was very serious about painting, andutterly without thought of else.

“I work at anything the Government will give meto earn leisure and a bare living so as to paint here,”he said.

Alas! Le Moine was not a great artist. His pictures440were so-so. Doubtless the example and fame ofGauguin inspired him to achieve. We had often talkedof him.

“When he died,” said Le Moine, “I was here, and Iattended the night services in the church over his remains.The chief gendarme or agent special, likeBauda now, took charge of his house and effects. Youmay imagine the care he took when I tell you that Gauguinwas under sentence to prison for reviling the gendarmeand the law. He auctioned off everything witha jest, and made fun of the dead man and his work.He said to us: ‘Gauguin is dead. He leaves manydebts, and nothing here to pay for them, but a few paintingswithout value. He was a decadent painter.’Gauguin would have expected that. I had only a fewsous, but was able to buy what I needed most, hisbrushes and palette. Peyral got ‘Niagara Falls,’ as thegendarme shouted its name. It was Gauguin’s last picture;a Brittany village in winter, snow everywhere, afew houses and trees, and the dusk in blue and red andviolet tones. He made that, mon ami, when he was dying.It was his reaching back to his old paintingground in his last thoughts. I think Peyral sold it toPolonsky, the Tahitian banker, who was here lookingto buy anything of Gauguin. Lutz got his cane, carvedby Gauguin, and the other things went for a trifle, includingthe house, which was torn down for the lumber,because nobody here wanted a studio. I admired Gauguin,but he had nothing to do with me because I waswhite and of the Government. He was absorbed withthe Marquesans, and to them he was all kindness andgenerosity. He was the simplest educated white man in441his needs I have ever known, and I myself, as you know,have few demands. Gauguin wanted drink, paint andcanvas. He always kept a bottle of absinthe in a littlepool by his house.”

Lying Bill had said that Gauguin was a seaman.

“’Is ’ands was as tough an’ rough as mine,” said CaptainPincher. “’E’d been to sea on merchant ships an’in the French navy. Gauguin was no bloomin’ pimplike most artists. ’E knew every rope in the schooner,an’ could reef an’ steer. ’E looked like a Spaniard, an’’e could drink like a Yarmouth bloater. Many a timeI brought ’im absinthe to Atuona on my ship. But ’ewas a ’ard worker. I used to sit with ’im sometimeswhen ’e’d play ’is organ. ’E wasn’t bad at it, either.Women didn’t care much for ’im. ’E never mademuch of them, but ’e ’ad plenty. A bleedin’ queer frog,’e was.”

“He was a chic type.” said Song of the Nightingale,the prisoner-cook of the palace. Song said chick tippee,but he meant that Gauguin was a good man toknow. “When there was a big storm here, and all theland of the man next to him was washed away by theriver, Gauguin gave him a piece. Ea! He gave him,too, a paper which made the land his. The family hasit to-day, and they are my relatives.”

Pastor Vernier, Father David, Peyral, Flag, Songof the Nightingale, and others had spoken of Gauguin,but his name never came to their lips spontaneously.Being dead ten years, he was as never having been, tothe Marquesans. To Vernier his note was of small interestand to the vicar apostolic an annoyance. In theseseas when a man was dead he was forgotten unless he442had left an estate, or his ghost walked. The Marquesanand the Paumotuan held the dead in great fear attimes, but not in reverence. The spirit of the artist hadremained with his body, and that was lost in the mattedearth of the graveyard on the height. His dust hadlong ago united with the cocoanut-palms that rose fromhis burial-place on that lonely hill. The purple blossomsof the pahue vine, which crawled over his unmarkedgrave and sent its shoots to search the heart ofthe unhappiest of men, were the only tribute ever laidthere. The woman who had vowed to keep its formaloutline unbroken and to bedew it with her tears smiledat my recalling it. Gauguin here was a name’s faintecho, but in America and Europe they bartered forGauguin’s pictures as if they were of gold, schools ofimitators and emulators were active, and novelists andcritics seized upon his utterances and deeds, his savageways and maddening canvases, to fit fictional charactersto them, or to tell over and over again the mystifyingstory of his career and his work. Here, among the fascinatingscenes nature fashions for those who love itsextravagances, he died in poverty. More is paid to-dayfor one of his pictures than he earned in a lifetime.

The man Gauguin persisted as a legend whereverpainting or Polynesia was much discussed. There wasin him a seed of anarchism, a harking back to the absolutefreedom of the individual, a fierce hatred of theoverlordship of money and fixed decency, of comme ilfaut, which lightened the eye of many conforming people,as a glimpse of light through a distant door in adark tunnel. In this stark, brooding, wounded insurrecto,this child of France and the ardent tropic of443South America, each of us who had suffered, and rebelled,if only in our hearts, gained a vicarious expression,and an outlet for our atavistic and fearful desires.Time that had led man from the anthropoid to the artisthad betrayed Gauguin. He had yielded to the impulsewe all feel at times, and had tried to escape fromthe cage formed by heredity, habits, and the thoughtsof his countrymen. Space he had conquered, and inthese wilds was hidden from the eyes of civilization, buttime he could not blot out, for he was of his age, and evenits leader in the evolution of painting. The savage inman he let take control of himself, or willed it to be, andwas spoiled by the inexorable grasp upon him of hisforebears and his decades of Europe. He was saturatedwith the ennui of the West. He wanted to beprimitive, and had to use morphine, absinthe, and organmusic to remain in the East. He asserted thathe wanted to be “wise and a barbarian.” He was agreat artist but no barbarian.

He wrote: “Civilization is falling from me littleby little. Under the continual contact with pebbles myfeet have become hardened and used to the ground.My body, almost constantly nude, no longer suffersfrom the sun. I am beginning to think simply, to feelvery little hatred for my neighbor—rather, to love him.All the joys, animal and human, are mine. I have escapedeverything that is artificial, conventional, customary.I am entering into the truth, into nature. Inthe certitude of a succession of days like this presentone, equally free and beautiful, peace descends on me.”

He never knew peace. His was a tortured soul andbody, torn by conflicting desires, and absence of the444fame and slight fortune he craved. He had courageand stoicism. In scores of letters to his friend Montfriedhe complained of his fate, of his desperate poverty,his lack of painting materials, the bourgeois whitesabout him, and his lack of recognition in Europe. Hewanted to return there, and Montfried had to tell himin plain terms that he would destroy by his presence inParis any sale there was for his pictures. Gauguinrealized that, for it carried out his own motto, one thathe had put over his door: “Be mysterious and youwill be happy!”

Gauguin was like all cultivated whites who go to theSouth Seas after manhood, like me, unfitted by the poisonsof civilization to survive in a simple, semi-savageenvironment. We demand the toxins of our machinebringing-up and racial ideals, as the addict his drug.Gauguin was already forty-three when he steppedashore at Tahiti, and fifty-three when he came to theMarquesas, but at least he had put into a proper milieuhis portrait of himself made when he said to his opponents,in Paris: “I am a savage. Every human work isa revelation of the individual. All I have learned fromothers has been an impediment to me. I know little,but what I do know is my own.”

Paul Gauguin was dead at fifty-five. An ancestorwas a centenarian. The family was famed in its environmentfor its vitality, but Paul wasted his energyin bitter blows against the steel shield of society, andspoiled his body with the vices of both savage and civilized.

“He was smiling when I saw him dead,” said Mouthof God, who had served him for the love of him.

445That smile was his ever-brave defiance of life, but,too, a thought for France—for the France he adored,and which he dreamed of so often though it had rejectedhim. That last picture, painted in these humid Marquesasin his house set in a grove of cocoanut-palms andbreadfruit-trees, was of Brittany and was a snow scene.He did not defeat his enemy, but sank into his last sleepcontent to go because the struggle had become too anguishing.He knew he was beaten, but he flew no flag ofsurrender. He passed alone, with only the smile as atoken of his final moment of consciousness, and the emotionthat stirred his soul.

As was said best by his friend and biographer, CharlesMorice, Gauguin was one of the most necessary artistsof the nineteenth century. His name now signified adistinctive conception of the nature of art, a certainspirit of creation and mastery of strange technique, anda revolt against established standards and methodswhich constituted an opposition to the accepted thoughtsand morals of art—if not a school, at least a distinctclass of graphic achievement. As the French say, itwas a catégorie. For the conservatives, the regularpainters and critics, he had created un frisson nouveau,a new shudder in art, as Hugo said Baudelaire had inliterature.

Gauguin was not a distinguished writer. “Noa Noa”was written by his friend, Morice, in Paris, from lettersto him. The painter commented upon the book that itwas “not the result of an ordinary collaboration, that is,of two authors working in common, but that I had theidea, speaking for non-civilized people, to contrast theircharacters with ours, and I had enough originality to446write it simply, just like a savage, and to ask Morice, forhis part, to put it in civilized words.” His “IntimateJournals” are actually revelatory of the man, but “NoaNoa” is a tropical dish seasoned with sophistries, thoughbeautiful, and, to a large degree, true. It is a poeticalinterpretation by Morice, a Parisian, of Gauguin’s adventuresin Tahiti.

Gauguin spent little time in writing. Every fiber ofhis weakening body and every lucubration of his mindwere bent on expressing himself in painting, or in clayor wood, but he thought clearly and individualistically,and wrote forcefully and with wit. He was not apoet, nor had he felicity of language.

I revived Gauguin’s memory in the South Seas.Having known about him in Tahiti, I was interested tofind out all I could of his brief life and sorrowful deathhere. Lovaina, the best known woman in the SouthSeas, at whose Hotel Tiaré I lived in Tahiti, spoke ofGauguin one day. She had heard a whisper betweenTemanu and Taata-Mata, two of her handmaids, that Imight leave the Tiaré, her impossible auberge in Papeete,to lodge with Madame Charbonnier or MadameFanny.

Lovaina, three quarters American by blood, but allTahitian in looks, language, and heart, was not assuredthat her impossible hotel was the only possible onewithin thousands of miles, as it was really, and she said:

“Berina, I think more better you go see that damnhouse before you make one bargain. You know whatGauguin say. He have room with Madame Charbonnier,and eve’y day, some time night, she come make447peep his place. He had glass door between that roomfor him and for other man, and he say one day to me(I drink one Pernod with him):

“‘That sacré French women she make peep me. Ibeelong myself. I make one damn pictu’e stop that.’

“You go look for yourse’f to-day. You see that door.Gauguin say he make ugly so nobody make look.”

“That Gauguin was a very happy man in my maison,”said Madame Charbonnier in French to me. “He andI had but one disagreement. One day a native womanaccompanied him here. I knew he must have models,but I want no hussies in my house. I am a respectablecitizeness of France. I looked through the glass door,and I warned him, though he had paid in advance, Imust preserve my reputation. O, la la la! Hepainted that mauvaise picture of that very Tahitian girlon my door to spite me. La voila! Is it not affrighting?”

It was a double-panelled door, and a separate paintingcovered each; to the left a seated girl wearing apareu and to the right a girl playing the vivo, the Tahitianflute, a female figure standing, and the white rabbitGauguin introduced afterward into many paintings.I might have bought the door of Madame Charbonnieror somewhat similar windows and doors in another houseoccupied by Gauguin for a hundred francs or perhapstwo or three times that much. At any rate, for an inconsiderablesum, because they had no value as examplesof the painter’s ability nor were they intrinsicallybeautiful or attractive. Stephen Haweis, a talentedEnglish artist, who was there with me, bought the448door, and W. Somerset Maugham a window, which Isaw afterward in a New York gallery for sale at somethousands of dollars.

I was mentioning Gauguin’s name at Mataiea, inTahiti, at the house of the chief of that district, Tetuanui,a gentleman of charming manners and greatknowledge of things Tahitian. Rupert Brooke and Ihad walked to the ancient marai, or temple, and thepoet and I had tried to rebuild the ruin in our imagination.I had seen marais better preserved, and I hadtalked with many who had studied their formation andhistory.

This one, very famous in the annals of Tahiti, was notfar from Tetuanui’s home, and on it had been enactedstrange and bloody sacrifices in the days of heathenry.It was on the sea-shore, and, indeed, much of it hadfallen into the water, or the surf had encroached uponthe land. We had spent some hours about it, and hadwondered about the people who had made it their cathedrala few score years ago. Here we were living withtheir grandchildren. The father of the chief’s fathermight have participated in the ceremonies there, mighthave seen the king accept and eat the eye of a victim,or feign to do so, for cannibalism had long passed inTahiti even a century ago.

Walking back to Mataiea, we met the chief returningfrom his day’s labor directing the repair ofroads, for, though a chevalier of the Legion of Honor,a former warrior for the French against tribes of otherislands, Tetuanui had small means, and was forced tobe a civil servant of the conquerers.

“We have been to see the marai,” said Brooke.

449Oia mau anei teie?” replied Tetuanui. “Is that so?I have not been there for a long time. The last timewas with that white painter Gauguin. He lived nearhere, and one day I spoke of the marai, and he askedme to show it to him. We walked down there together,but he was disappointed that it was so broken down.”

Once again the chevalier gave me a glimpse of thebarbarian. He and his amiable wife took occasionalboarders, and there were two San Francisco salesgirlsthere for a week. They were shocked at our bathingnude in the lagoon in front of the house, although wewore loin-cloths to walk to the beach and back. Theycomplained to the chief, who was astonished, for Brookewas strikingly handsome, and the Tahitian girls wereopen in their praise of his beauty.

“They should have seen that Gauguin,” said Tetuanui,as he begged our pardon for telling their indignation.“He was always semi-nude and often nude.He became as brown as a Tahitian in a few months.He liked to lie in the sun, and I have seen him at thehottest part of the day sitting at his easel. You know,he had a wife here in the way that the whites take ourwomen, and one day he and she were in swimming, andcame out on the road before putting on pareus. A goodmissionary complained of them—it was not quiteproper, truly, and the gendarme warned both of them.Gauguin was furious, for he hated the gendarmes beforethat.”

Ten years were gone since Gauguin, having fled fromTahiti and a fate that he could not escape, had expiredhere in Atuona in a singular though anguished resignation.His atelier and dwelling had been just below450Peyral’s on the opposite side of the road I trod so oftento and from the beach, and Peyral had known him aswell as such a man can know a master. Mouth of God,the husband of Malicious Gossip, saw Gauguin deadin his house, and it was he who told me that Kahuiti,the recent cannibal chief, had a tiki made by Gauguin.I went to Taaoa, past the Stinking Springs and thehouse of Mademoiselle Narbonne, to see it.

I remembered that James Huneker said, “In the hutsof the natives where cataloguing ceases, many picturesmay be found.”

Kahuiti had one, and dear to the heart of that remarkableanthropophagus. It was a striking figure ofan old god, and a couple of feet square, and in thepainter’s most characteristic style.

When I asked him to sell it to me, he opened widethose large brown eyes which had looked a hundredtimes at the advancing spear, and had watched thecooking of his slain enemy. He said nothing but thewords, “Tiki hoa pii! An image by my dear friend!”

I smoked a pipe with him, and went back to Atuonathoughtful.

Gauguin made many enemies, but he kept his friendseven in death.

Toujours tout a vous de cœur,” he had signed hisletters to his one or two friends, with rare sincerity.

Gauguin had deserted Tahiti because of his frequentquarrels with the representatives of the Governmentthere, and with the church. He precipitated a similarsituation in Atuona almost immediately. In his “IntimateJournals,” he tells of it:

451The first news that reached me on my arrival at Atuona wasthat there was no land to be bought or sold, except at the mission....Even so, as the bishop was away, I should have towait a month. My trunks and a shipment of building lumberwaited on the beach. During this month, as you can well imagine,I went to mass every Sunday, forced as I was to play therôle of a good Catholic and a railer against the Protestants.My reputation was made, and His reverence, without suspectingmy hypocrisy, was quite willing (since it was I) to sell me asmall plot of ground filled with pebbles and underbrush for 650francs. I set to work courageously, and, thanks once moreto some men recommended by the bishop, I was soon settled.

Hypocrisy has its good points. When my hut was finished,I no longer thought of making war on the Protestant pastor,who was a well-brought-up young man with a liberal mindbesides; nor did I think any longer of going to church. Achicken had come along, and war had begun again. When Isay a chicken I am modest, for all the chickens had arrived, andwithout any invitation. His Reverence is a regular goat, whileI am a tough old cock and fairly well-seasoned. If I said thegoat began it, I should be telling the truth. To want to condemnme to a vow of chastity! That’s a little too much;nothing like that, Lizette!

To cut two superb pieces of rose-wood and carve them afterthe Marquesan fashion was child’s play for me. One of themrepresented a horned devil (the bishop), the other a charmingwoman with flowers in her hair. It was enough to name herThérèse for every one without exception, even the school-children,to see in it an allusion to this celebrated love affair.Even if this is all a myth, still it was not I who started it.

Pastor Vernier told me of his acquaintance withGauguin and of his last days. Vernier acknowledged452that he had never been his friend. I would have knownthat, for to Gauguin, professors of theology were as absurdand abhorrent as he to them.

Gauguin’s residence was a half-mile away from Vernier’s.Two years he had lived there after ten inTahiti. Always disappointment, always bodily suffering,and the reaction from alcohol and drugs; an invalida dozen years.

“He was a savage, but a charming man,” said PastorVernier to me. “I could have nothing to say to him,ordinarily, and he did not seek me out. He had no respectfor the law and less for the bon Dieu. The Catholicsespecially he quarreled with, for he made a caricatureof the Bishop, and of a native woman, aboutwhom there was a current scandal. It was commontalk, and the natives laughed uproariously, whichangered the bishop greatly. It was unfit to be seen bya savage. You can imagine it!

“I had not seen him for some time when I had a notefrom Gauguin, scrawled on a piece of wrapping-paper.It said:

“Will it be asking too much for you to come to see me?My sight is all of a sudden leaving me. I am very ill, and cannotmove.”

“I went down the trail to his house, and found Mouthof God with him, as also the old Tioka. His legs wereterribly ulcerated. He had on a red loin-cloth and agreen tam-o’-shanter cap. His skin was as red as firefrom the eczema he had long been afflicted with, and thepain must have been very severe. He shut his lips tightat moments, but he did not groan. He talked of art for453an hour or two, passionately advocating his ideas, andwithout reference to his approaching end. I think hesent for me for conversation and no more. It was thenhe presented me with books and his portrait of Mallarmé.

“We chatted long and I was filled with admirationfor the courage of Gauguin and his prepossession withpainting, at the expense of his doleur. About a fortnightlater I went back when Tioka summoned me, andfound him worse, but still forgetful of everything elsebut his art. It was the eighth of May Tioka cameagain. Gauguin now was in agony. He had had periodsof unconsciousness. He must have known hisdanger, but he talked fitfully of Flaubert and of Poe,of ‘Salammbô’ and of ‘Nevermore.’ When I said adieuhe was praising Poe as the greatest poet in English.

“A few hours afterward I heard the shouts of thenatives that Gauguin was dead.

“‘Haoe mate!’ they called to me. ‘The white is dead.’

“I found Gauguin on his cot, one leg hanging downto the floor. Tioka was urging him in Marquesan tospeak, and was rubbing his chest. I took his arms andtried to cause respiration, but in vain. He was alreadybeginning to grow cold. Do you know, MonsieurAmericain, that the vicar went down there at night beforeI was aware of it, and, though Gauguin despisedhim and his superstitions, forced an entrance and, hadthe body carried to the Catholic Cemetery, with mass,candles, and other mummeries.”

The good Vicar, Père David, had another tale. Hetold it over our wine at the mission. My House of theGolden Bed was but the toss of a mango away, and we454often discussed the fathers, especially Anthony, Jerome,and Francis of Assisi.

“It is not true,” he said, plucking his long, blackbeard nervously, as was his wont. “Gauguin was bornin the church. Did he not tell me he was the descendantof a Borgia? He was at the Jesuits’ school.The devil got hold of him early. Ah, thatFrance is punished for its breaking of the Concordat.Napoleon knew what was needed. Gauguindid make much trouble here. I do not care what he didto the Government. That Government is usually atheist.But he made an obscene image of the bishop.He never entered our mission, after he had securedhis land from us, and labor to build his house. Hederided the sacred things of religion, and when he cameto die he sent for the Protestant. I had hoped alwaysthat he would recant his atheism and change his ways.He was immoral, but then so is nearly everybody hereexcept the fathers, and the nuns. That very pastor—Non!I guard my secret. Mais, it is not a secret, forall the world knows. N’importe! I close my lips.”

He was determined to be charitable, but, as for me,I knew the charge well, and had disproved it by personalresearch. John Kekela, the Hawaiian, had sworn onthe Bible given his father by Kalakaua, the last Hawaiianking, that it was a lie, and Kekela would knowfor sure, and would not kiss the book falsely for fearof death or, at least, the dreaded fefe, which makes one’slegs as big as those of an elephant.

“But despite the antagonism of Gauguin to thechurch and his immorality, you took charge of his bodyand gave him a Catholic funeral,” I said.

455“Who am I to judge the soul of a man?” replied thevicar, deprecatingly, his right hand lifted in appeal.“He was alone in his last moments. Doubtless theHoly Virgin or perhaps even the patron of the Marquesas,the watchful Joan of Arc, aided him. Each onehas his guardian angel who never deserts him. Whenthe shadows of death darken the room, then does thatangel fight with the demons for the soul of his charge.I learned that Gauguin was dead from the catechist.Daniel Vaimai. It was then evening of the day he haddied, and I had been ministering to a sick woman inHanamate, an hour’s ride away. I met Daniel Vaimaiat the cross-roads and he informed me of Gauguin’sdeath. I felt deeply sorry that he had not had the holyoils in his extremity, and had not received absolutionafter confession, but the devil is like a roaring lion ofAfrique, seeking what he may devour.”

“He is especially active here,” I ventured, interestedas I am in all such vital matters. The vicar, who hadbeen talking animatedly and gazing at an invisible congregation,fixed his eyes on me.

“Here in the Marquesas and wherever whites are,”he replied acridly. “But to return to Gauguin! Iimmediately arranged for the interment of the dead manthe next morning. In this climate decay follows deathfast. As a matter of fact, some of us, including twoof the Frères de la doctrine chrètienne, had hastened toGauguin’s house when his death was announced the daybefore. They had planned his funeral for two o’clockthe next morning, but we made it a trifle earlier, andremoved him to the church of Atuona shortly after one.There we had mass for the dead, and did the poor456cadavre all honor, or, rather, we thought of the soulthat had fled to its punishment or reward. We carriedthe body to Calvary and put it in the earth.”

“I find no stone nor any mark at all of his grave,”I said.

Peut-être, that may well be,” said the vicar calmly.“I do not know if one was placed. He had no kin herenor intimates other than natives.”

“But Pastor Vernier says Gauguin had asked longago to be buried with civil rites only, and that he hadwanted to assist in them. He says that you deceivedhim as to the hour of removal to the church, and thatwhen he arrived at two o’clock Gauguin was already inthe mission which he could not enter.”

The vicar shrugged his shoulders.

“I cannot enter into a controversy as to what Verniersays. Gauguin was of Catholic parentage. Have Inot said he claimed to be a descendant of a Borgia, andBorgias were popes? What more or less could thechurch have done? Stern as that Mother may be towayward children in life, she spares no effort even indeath to comfort those remaining, and to help by prayerand ceremony the spirit that wrestles with purgatory.We ever give the benefit of the doubt. A second beforehe succumbed to that heart stroke, or the laudanum,Gauguin may have asked for forgiveness. Only Godknows that, and in His infinite mercy He may have bestowedon him that final penitence. You will not forgetthe thief on Calvary.”

That villainous Song of the Nightingale might havegiven success to my quest for the grave of Gauguin.I cannot remember now that I ever mentioned to him457my looking for it. He pointed it out to a recent governorof the Marquesas Islands, Dr. L. Sasportas, who,in a letter to Count Charles du Parc, now of San Francisco,tells of it:

Gauguin, of whom you wrote, had not departed from thetradition of adopting native customs; and unfortunately, hisinfluence among the Marquesans was rather bad than good. Ihave gathered some details about him, which may interest thosewho know that sad end of this talented painter who came to theMarquesas, to escape the civilized world, its taxes, ugliness andevils. He found here the government, police, the tax collector,etc. If these islands enjoy an eternal summer, disease is notlacking in them.

Gauguin, morphinomaniac, lived close to a bottle of absinthethat he kept fresh in his well. He was condemned to serve injail for three months, and one morning he was found dead near-bya phial of laudanum. He committed suicide. Nothingremains of him. His house has been demolished, and his landis a field of potatoes. His last paintings have been carriedaway, not by admirers, but by merchants who did not ignore thevalue of his work.

My wife and I went once to a little French cemetery whichlies on top of the hill and among a hundred Christian tombswe looked for Gauguin’s. About three quarters of the crosses,worm-eaten, had fallen. One after the other we threw themover to find the name of Gauguin. It was in vain. After wehad come down, we inquired of our cook, prisoner and drunkard,who lived here at the time of Gauguin. We learned that thetomb was for a long time abandoned. We finally found it, andwe had a wreath of natural flowers that he loved so much, rose-laurel,hibiscus, gardenia and others, placed upon the spot.They are decayed now, alas, as is Gauguin.

That again was Gauguin. Fleeing from Europe,458from civilization, from the redingote, and even there,in that most distant isle, thousands of miles from anymainland, being pursued by the gendarme! Had henot abandoned Tahiti after a decade for a wilder spot,yet a thousand miles farther, hidden in a bywater of thevast ocean, and in the “great cannibal isle of Hiva-Oa”been harassed by the law and the church?

He saw there was no escape, and that, after all, thefault was in him. He demanded the impossible froma world corrupted to its horizon. He, too, could sayof himself, as he wrote of the Tahitians, and then of theMarquesans:

The gods are dead and I am dead of their death.

“He had verses on that god he made for his garden,”said Le Moine. “They began:

‘Les dieux sont mort et Atuona meurt de leur mort.’

That was it. Gauguin was like the Marquesans ofhis, of my, village of Atuona. Their old gods weredead, and they perished of the lack of spiritual substance.

Le Moine was to go mad, and to die, as I would haveif I had not fled. The air was one of death.

“Le soleil autrefois qui l’enflammait l’endort

D’un sommeil désolé d’affreux sursauts de rêve,

Et l’effroi du futur remplit les yeux de l’Eve.

Dorée: elle soupire en regardant son sein,

Or, stérile scellé par les divins desseins.”

When I returned to America and wrote of Gauguin,I received a letter from his son:

459... novel couldn’t hurt Gauguin as an artist. We menaren’t insulted when apes yelp at us; but we are sometimesobliged to live amongst them, so when you defend Gauguinagainst the quadrumanes, you make it easier for his son to movein their midst.

I therefore thank you and beg you to believe me your mostgrateful friend and admirer,

Emile Gauguin.

460

CHAPTER XXII

Monsieur l’Inspecteur des Etablissements Français de l’Océanie—How theSchool House was Inspected—I Receive My Congé—The RunawayPigs—Mademoiselle Narbonne goes with Lutz to Papeete to be Married—PèreSiméon, about whom Robert Louis Stevenson wrote.

ONE must admit that the processes of governmentin my islands were simple. Since onlya couple of thousand Marquesans, of an originalmyriad, were alive, after three score years of colonialism,officialdom had lessened according to the mortuarystatistics. Sovereignty was evidenced by the tricolorthat Song of the Nightingale occasionally raisedin the palace garden, while Commissaire Bauda and twogendarmes aided the merry governor in exercising alazy authority. There was no hospital, nor school todistract the people from copra making, and, exceptingfor the court sessions of Saturdays, to hear moonshinecases, or a claim against Chinese rapacity, we mighthave thought ourselves living in an ideal state ofanarchy.

One morning we awoke to the reality of empire andthe solicitude of Paris. Flag, the mutoi, peered throughthe windowless aperture of my cabin, shortly afterdawn, and announced, with the pompousness of a bumbailiff,that the French gunboat Zélée was at Tahauku,and would shortly land Monsieur l’Inspecteur des EtablissementsFrançais de l’Océanie. Flag called the visitor’Sieu Ranisepatu, and in pantomime indicated hisrank and power. The Zélée sent him ashore at the461stone steps of Lutz’s store, and departed for Vaitahu,ostensibly for a fresh water-supply, but, as Painter LeMoine said with an oath, the commander had gone toLe Moine’s adopted village, Vaitahu, to make love toVanquished Often, the artist’s model.

The inspector of colonies occupied the spare roomat the palace and our pleasant parties were suspended.He was a gross, corpulent man, in a colonel’s gilded uniform.One could not see his collar, front or back, forthe rolls of his fat neck and his spacious beard. Thetapis was full of troublesome affairs. The governorand Bauda had fallen out. Rum was responsible.The governor had given Taiao Koe, Flatulent Fish,one of my tattooed neighbors, a permit to buy a gallonof rum for Lutz. Flatulent Fish lightened his jugtoo much. Commissaire Bauda met him wobbling fromport to starboard on his horse, and took the jug. Thatfor Bauda, censor of morals! But the same day, duringthe difficult work of repairing Bauda’s arm-chair,Bauda cheered the natives with rum, and two, madeutterly reckless, invaded the palace garden in search ofmore. The inspector was stupefied, and the governordrove them away with threats of prison and indignantexclamations that such a thing had never happened before.Of course, Bauda had to let the inspector knowof his action in saving Flatulent Fish from a morewobbly state, and he did so in ignorance of his chair-repairershaving betrayed to the inspector his own liberality.The governor did not fancy Flatulent Fish’spermit for rum being brought before the inspector’snotice. So the great man had to decide whether theGovernor or the Commissaire was supreme in rum462matters, rum, of course, being absolutely forbidden tothe natives.

After two days, this matter was settled. The inspectorbecame restless. Every day he said, “I must seethe schoolhouse. It is necessary that I see thatimportant building.”

He meant a tumbledown, unoccupied cabin up thevalley, a dirty, cheap, wooden building, bare planks andan iron roof.

Rain did not permit the inspector to go at once, forhe did not stir out of the Governor’s house while it waswet; but after three days of fair weather he said veryfirmly, “I will visit the schoolhouse. It is my duty andI wish to report on that.”

So, with the governor, he advanced up the brokenroad to the river, which must be crossed to go up thevalley. The river was two feet deep. There werecrossing-stones placed for him, but he was stout andthey were three feet apart. One must jump from onestone to the other. The governor, in boots, plungedinto the purling rill. The inspector cried to the governor,“Mais, mon brave, prenez garde aux accidents!

“It is not dangerous,” said the governor, who in fivestrides had reached the other bank.

“But I may get my shoes wet,” said the inspector.

“It is better to take them off,” advised the governor.

“Yes, that is true. Naturally one removes one’sshoes when one crosses a river on foot. And, in such acase as this, one must take chances. It is imperativethat I inspect the schoolhouse. Mais, nom d’un chien!Where shall I sit to take off my shoes?”

The governor suggested a certain boulder, but it was463too low; another was too high. But, after inspectingmany boulders, one was found that suited the embonpointof the big man. He bent over, then looked atthe river, and sat up straight.

“It is a wooden schoolhouse?” he queried.

“Yes, plain wood,” said the executive.

“And, par conséquence, it has a roof and a floor andsides, and maybe some wooden desks for the scholars.Steps to enter, n’est-ce pas? And a tableau noir, towrite the alphabet on. As a matter of fact, there islittle difference between schoolhouses. You have seenthat schoolhouse, mon ami?

Oui, Monsieur l’Inspecteur, I have seen it. It isexactly as you describe it. Très simple, and the blackboardis there, but a trifle disfigured.”

“Ah, the blackboard is in bad condition! Bien, wemust remedy that. I am well satisfied. I will returnto your house. These stones are very hot.”

The bon homme marched back, puffing, combing hisfan-like whiskers with his fingers, with that quietly exultantair of one who has done his duty despite all risks.

The Zélée returning, and this being the total of hisinspection, he ordered it to speed forthwith to Tahiti,where, doubtless, as in Paris, he recited the dangers anddifficulties of life in the cannibal islands. He forgot tohave the blackboard repaired. I learned by letter fromMalicious Gossip, two years after his notation, of itsdeplorable state. The ingratitude of colonies towardtheir foster-mothers is proverbial. Our own fat men,secretaries of war, senators, and congressmen, make ascursory examinations of our American vassals in thePacific and Atlantic, and with as little help to them.

464Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (56)

Brunneck, the boxer and diver

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (57)

Photo from L. Gauthier
A village maid in Tahiti

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (58)

A Samoan maiden of high caste

The inspector’s congé was almost synchronous withmine. The Saint François of Bordeaux, the first merchantsteamship in the Marquesas, arrived from Tahiti,to swing about the ports of my archipelago and returnto Papeete. My heart ached at leaving; the tendrils ofthe purple-blossomed pahue-vine were about it. Howcould I forsake forever my loved friends of Atuona andVaitahu, Malicious Gossip, Mouth of God, VanquishedOften, Seventh Man Who Is So Angry, Great Fern,Ghost Girl, and the little leper lass, Many Daughters?I must make my choice, and swiftly. If I stayed muchlonger, I would never live again in America; thejungle would creep over me and I should lie, some day,on Calvary’s hill near the lost remains of Paul Gauguin.There was Le Brunnec, the best of the whites, but hewas a Breton peasant, born to the sun and simplicityand nature’s riches; I was of the shade and artificiality,of pavements and libraries. Nor could I show an unabradedsurface to these savage tropics as did Lutz.His Prussianism, his Lutheranism, preserved him cold,and ready to escape at fortune’s opening. My Irishforebears and American generations gave me no suchbuckler, nor ambition.

The one passenger of the Saint François who cameashore on our beach weighted the balance for America.He was Brunneck, an American swimmer, diver, andboxer, whom I had seen Sarah Bernhardt kiss when atCatalina Island he rose through the clear waters ofAvalon Bay to her glass-bottomed boat and presentedher with an abalone shell. I traded him my coffee-potand utensils for the memory of Sarah’s moment ofabandon, and Brunneck tipped the scales for me toward465the America he had deserted. He was an atavist ina grass skirt and a crown of ferns, hatless, purseless, aset of boxing-gloves his only impedimenta. I could notequal his serenity, that of a civilized being again in harmonywith the earth. I hurried aboard the steamshipin Tahauku roadstead to decide my vacillation.

By dark, the Tahauku River, into which some wearycloud had emptied, sent a menacing current down theroadstead. The steamship rolled and swung wildly.As madder grew the fresh torrent, the anchors dragged,and the vessel drifted broadside toward the rocky cliff.Steam was down and the engines would not turn. Thecaptain yelling from the bridge, the Breton sailors innoisy sabots, prancing alarmedly about the decks, asearch-light playing upon the rocks, and lighting thegroups of natives watching from the headlands, theshouting and swearing in French and Breton with aword or two for my benefit in English, all made adramatic incident with a spice of danger.

The Saint François swung until the rail on which Istood was four feet from the jagged wall. A wildchant rose from the Marquesans on shore in the momentof most peril. I made ready to leap, but soon heard thehum of the screw as it began fighting the current. Wegained little by little, and, once clear of the rocks,pointed the prow for the Bordelaise Channel and comparativesafety. The cargo boats had not been hoistedaboard, and they banged to pieces as, urged by therushing river, we drove through the door of the bayand out to sea.

I lay down on a bench, and when I awoke at dawn wewere heading back for Tahauku to finish loading. Exploding466Eggs was beside me. I had not known hewas aboard. The adventures of the night, the fires, theengines, the electric lights, and the danger had delightedhim.

Sacré!” muttered the red-faced captain at breakfast.“These Marquesas are as bad as the Paumotus.”

No lighthouses, charts inaccurate, shore-guides lacking,treacherous tides, winds, currents, reefs, and passages.Lying Bill said it took “bloody near a gen’us toescape with his life after thirty years of navigation inthese waters.”

The Polynesians believed that souls animate flowersand plants, that these are organized beings. For pigs,they had a special heaven, Ofetuna. Each pig had adistinct and arbitrary name, which was never changed,though men changed their names often.

On the deck of the Saint François were half a dozenslender pigs that had once played about my paepae andwere now engaged in resisting the monopolistic tendenciesof Alphonse, a ram bought from the trader.By uniting, they made his habitat painful, and his outcriesbrought the steward, who attempted to correct theram, but was butted into profanity and flight.

“You’re no lam’ o’ goodness! You’ll be chopsmighty soon!” the negro shouted, and threw a pan athim. The ram bolted, knocked open a swinging port,and, followed by the pork, dived into the bay. He mayhave sensed the threat of the steward.

A la chasse! A la chasse!” ordered the captain fromthe bridge. “Tonnerre de Dieu! Our meat is goingashore.”

If a boat coming to the Saint François had not intercepted467the bold deserters, they would have succeededin their break for liberty, and probably have taken tothe wilds. The recovering them was no easy task, but,diverted from the rocks, they were run down, after halfan hour of fierce commands through a megaphonefrom the captain. They were fast swimmers, beingencumbered by no fat. Their adventure dispelled forme the myth that pigs cannot swim. The story ranthat in swimming pigs cut their throats with their hoofs.

I had recognized in the English-African accent ofthe steward the lingo of the West-India negro, andoddly, I remembered having seen the man himself atKowloon, in China, where he had been bartender at theKowloon Hotel. With no word of French, and ten daysaboard from Tahiti, the black man was bursting withconversation. Serving me with a bottle of Bordeauxbeer, he spoke of his hardships, and of familiar figuresof his happier days at Kowloon:

“Yes, sir, men can stand more than animiles,” he said.“They can, sir, work or play. You remember that gorillerthat Osborne had in the Kowloon Hotel grounds?He perished, sir, from his drinking habits. He tookhis reg’lar with the soldiers and tourists, and hisfavoryte tonoc was gin and whiskey mixed, but afterhe was started, he would ‘bibe near anything ’toxicating.You remember how big he was? Big as Sikh, thatgoriller was. He was a African ape like the white perfessersays he is descended from.

“Week before Chrismus, that infantry regiment inbarricks, in Kowloon, kept him late every night, and Iseen him climb to his house in that tree hardly able tohold onto the limbs. Chrismus eve he let nothing slip468his paws. He began with the punch—you remember,sir, the punch I used to make? and he overdone it,though he had a stummick like a India major’s. Hedrank with the officers and he drank with the Tommies.When I opened the bar, Chrismus morning, he wasdead on the ground. He hadn’t never been able toreach his home. Osborne gave him a Christian berrialunder the comquat trees, but as sure as you’re bornevery officer and soldier turned up for more drink thatnight. Men can stand more than animiles, sir.”

All morning I sat on the deck and took my fill of thescenes on either shore, while copra was hoisted aboardfrom canoes and boats. Exploding Eggs was examiningminutely the wonders of the steamship, reportingto me occasionally some astounding discovery.Until then I had refused to consider taking him awayfrom his people, but, in a moment of selfishness, Idrew a plat of America, to attract his thirteen years,—thelofty buildings, motor-cars, telephones, ice and ice-cream,snow and sleighs, roller-skates and moving pictures.He had seen none of these, nor read of them,but, nevertheless, the fear of homesickness caused him,after a few minutes to say:

Aoe metai, Nakohu mata!” which meant, “No good;Exploding Eggs would die!”

Characteristic of all primitive peoples was this nostalgia,and, far from being sentiment easily smothered,it was more often than physical ailment the predisposing,or even actual, cause of death when they were separatedfrom their homes. The Pitcairn youth who diedin California and the Easter Islanders who could notendure even their exile in Tahiti were examples. The469Maori Napoleon, Te Rauparaha, gazed upon his oldhome, Kawhia, and wept in farewell. His legendarysong says:

O my own home! Ah me! I bid farewell to you,

And still, at distance, bid farewell.

Before noon, I was overcome by a longing to seeAtuona again. The voices of the friends who hadchanted their grief were in my ears. I landed at Tahaukuin one of the copra boats which were coming andgoing, and walked along the cliffs until I came withinsight of the beach where, so often, I had ridden the surf.I went at a fast pace down the hill, hoping for a familiarface. At a point overlooking the cove, that very spotStevenson thought the most beautiful on earth, I heardshouts and merry laughter.

I moved to where I could survey the spot. Therewas a group of natives, half the village, at least, and inthe center of the chattering crowd was Brunneck, nakedto the waist, boxing with Jimmy Kekela, the Hawaiian.The yellow hair of the American gleamed against hissun-burnt skin, as he toyed with the amateur. Ghostgirl, an absorbed spectator, held the wreath of theAmerican. Mouth of God, Haabuani, and Great Fernwere dancing about the circle in glee. ExplodingEggs, who had accompanied me, left me without aword, and ran to the ring. I stood fifty feet away, unnoticed.A new god had been thrown up by the sea. Ireturned to the Saint François more content to leave.

When I awoke from a siesta, in the late afternoon, Ifound preparations for immediate departure. The anchorswere being hauled short, the hatches battened470down, and the cargo booms uphoisted. We waited onlythe final accounts from Lutz. He brought them himselfin the last boat, in which were also MademoiselleNarbonne and two nuns. She was again in black, andgreeted me in a distraught manner with “Kaoha!” thenative salutation, as if in her hour of departure from herown island she clung to its language. She went belowto the cabins with the sisters, and only after the screwhad revolved and we turned head for the sea did thethree come on deck.

Tears suffused her eyes as we passed the opening ofAtuona Bay. When Exploding Eggs and others,including Song of the Nightingale, shouted “Kaoha”to us from their canoes, she put her head upon the breastof Sister Serapoline and wept passionately. The nightdrew on as, after many bursts of her sad emotion, sheleaned exhausted on the bosom so long her shelter. Inthe flooding moonlight, she slept, while the nun placidlycounted her rosary.

The Saint François, steering in a smooth sea forTaiohae, on the island of Nuku-hiva, the captain, Lutz,and I gathered about the table for supper and wine.The vessel had narrowly escaped shipwreck in thePaumotus, and had lain for six days on a reef while thebarrels of cement, intended for some improvement atAtuona, were thrown overboard to lighten her.

Lutz did not seek any moment of intimacy with me,and said nothing to explain Mademoiselle Narbonne’spresence aboard. Conforming to strict native etiquette,he paid no attention to her, and a stranger would havethought he hardly knew her. Lutz said that he had471business affairs in Tahiti and had jumped at the chanceof a quick passage in the steamship.

At dawn, we were off the island of Nuku-hiva; highup on a green mountain-side, we saw a silver threadwhich we knew to be the waterfall of Typee Valley, thevalley in which Hermann Melville had lived in captivityand happiness. We rounded Cape Martens, and,as the sun lit the rocky forelands guarding the bay ofTaiohae, the morning breeze brought from Typee thedelicious odor of the wild flowers, the hinano, the tiare,and the frangipani. This beach of Taiohae, months before,I had visited in a whale-boat from Atuona. Ihoped to see again my friend, the good priest, PèreSiméon Delmas, who had held the citadel of God herefor half a century.

In the first boat ashore went the captain and Lutz,and, when after breakfast I asked the mate to be put onland, Mademoiselle Narbonne, seeing me descendingthe ladder, joined me.

“Where do you go?” she asked, when we set foot onthe sand.

“I have a message for Prince Stanislao from LeBrunnec,” I answered.

“I must be back before the nuns miss me, but I willgo with you,” she said.

Leaving the settlement, we were soon on a trail withwhich I was familiar and reached a little wood. Shetook me by the sleeve.

Attendez,” she half whispered. “I am going to bemarried to Monsieur Lutz in Papeete. He is a foreigner,and the priest could not marry us. At Papeete472the judge can do it. The nuns are going with me tomake sure. They oppose, but I am determined. It ismy one chance. Tell me, American, do I make a mistake?”

“Do you love him?”

“Love him?” she said hesitatingly. “I do not knowwhat love is. The nuns have not taught me. Alwaysit has been Joan of Arc, or the Sacred Heart of Jesus.I want love and freedom, but I am afraid of stayingthere at Taaoa alone with those two old women.They are true Canaques, and would make me like them,and I am afraid of the convent. Mon dieu! I am puzzledby life!”

“Come!” I said, “you will have an hour of light-heartednesswith Stanislao. I am puzzled, too.”

Hardly more than a youth, Stanislao was the last ofthe blood royal of the family that had ruled the Marquesas.Temoana had been the only king. The Marquesanswere communists, with chiefs, and had not thecorroding egocentrism of nationality until the Frenchcrowned Temoana. He had been one of the few travelersfrom here. Kidnapped, a dime-museum man inforeign seaports, he returned on a whaler to find favorwith the bishop and to be set on a Catholic throne.Prince Stanislao was not even chief of Taiohae, for ahalf-Hawaiian, of the Kekela tribe, had that office, anddid the French policeman’s chores.

We entered the house of Stanislao and met, besideshim, Antoinette, an odalisque, most beautiful of dancers,who, like Ghost Girl, flitted from island to island bythe grace of her charms. I had known her in the CocoanutHouse in Papeete and her sister, Caroline.473Neither she nor Stanislao accepted the gospel of Christianity.Her warm blood had in it an admixture ofFrench and Italian, giving an archness and spice to hermanner and a coquetry to her eyes—black and dancing—thatmaddened many. In the days about the fourteenthof July, when the French at Tahiti celebratedthe Fall of the Bastille, she was a prize exhibit, for thengovernors and bankers, deacons and acolytes, lost thegrace of God.

These three, Barbe, Antoinette, and Stanislao, wereextraordinary in their unity with the teeming vivid lifehere, the ferns and orchids and flowers on the sward,the palms and breadfruit in the grove. By the alchemyof the brilliant morning and the company of this pairof youthful lovers, Barbe’s mood was suddenly transmutedinto joyousness. I took an accordion off a shelf,and played the upaupahura of Tahiti. Without a moment’shesitation, and with no sense of consciousness,the three danced on the grass.

Carlyle praises that countryman who, matching theboast of a doctor that “his system was in high order,”answered that, for his part, “he had no system.”

Few mortals, it is to be feared, are permanently blessed withthat felicity of “having no system”; nevertheless, most of us,looking backward on young years, may remember seasons ofa light aerial translucency and elasticity and perfect freedom;the body had not yet become the prison-house of the soul, butwas its vehicle and implement, like a creature of the thought,and altogether pliant to its bidding. We knew not that we hadlimbs, we only lifted, hurled and leapt; through eye and earand all avenues of sense came clear, unimpeded tidings fromwithout, and from within issued clear victorious forces. We474stood as in the center of Nature, giving and receiving in harmonywith it all; unlike Virgil’s husbandman, “too happybecause we did not know our blessedness.”

Stanislao seized the instrument and I danced. Wefour were the spirits of a rare and vital esthetic, a harmonywith being that denied all knowledge but thatof our acute and delicately-poised senses of warmth,delicious odors, fresh colors of the plants, and mutualattraction. The ship, Lutz, the nuns, heaven and hell,the Taua and the Tapus were forgotten by me and byBarbe in the glowing hour of dance and play.

Tired we threw ourselves on the grass and drankfrom the cocoanuts which Stanislao climbed a tree tobring us. The prince told us, with solemnity in whichMarquesans speak of olden things, an incident relatedto him by his uncle:

“A French governor here forbade the girls to go tothe war-ships in the bay. They ruined discipline, hesaid. Nevertheless, three daughters of a powerful chiefswam out to a war vessel. The commander, discoveringthem in the morning, sent them ashore to the governor,who put them in prison for three days.

“Their father’s rage was terrible. It had ever beenthe custom for the young women to visit the ships, hesaid, and that his daughters should be the victims of agovernor’s whim, abetted by French sailors themselves,was a deadly insult.

“He sent a message to the governor: ‘I am a chiefwho has eaten my enemies all my life. I will wash thehands of my daughters in French blood.’

“The sailors were forbidden by their officers to leavethe beach. They had been going up the river to bathe475in shady spots, but they were warned of danger and aline was drawn beyond which they were not to go. Aguard was stationed a little higher up the stream, andfor weeks the barrier was not crossed. But sailors knowno authority when woman beckons,”—it has been sosince Jason sought the Golden Fleece,—“and, when,through the glade, they saw the alluring forms of thethree sisters, the governor’s orders were damned astyranny. They outwitted the guard and climbed thetrail to the paepae of their inamoratas. The chief andhis warriors trapped six of them after a struggle. Onesailor, a man famed for strength, killed several with hishands. They were outnumbered and were brought,some wounded and some dead, to an altar up the valley,and there the daughters, at the command of their father,bathed their hands in the men’s blood, as he had sworn.Parts of the bodies were eaten and the remains fed tothe pigs.

“The governor had troops brought ashore to pursuethe chief. For a year he evaded them, but then Vaekehu,the widow of Temoana, sent him word to come toTaiohae and be shot. He obeyed, of course, and metdeath near the hill of the fort.

“That was the palace of Queen Vaekehu,” said theprince, pointing up the hill. It was by a pool, undera gigantic banyan, a lonely site, a palisade of cocoanutsand tamarinds not availing to soften the gloomy impression.Long before she died the queen forsook herroyal residence for the shelter of the convent, where allday she told her beads, or sat in silent contemplation.

Bishop Dordillon who had written my dictionary, hadgiven the queen a Trinity, a Mother of God, and a band476of saints to dwell upon, and more, a bottomless pit offire, with writhing sufferers and devils from it ever ather ear to whisper distraction and temptation.

Mademoiselle Narbonne, hearing a warning whistleof the Saint François, bethought her of her strange position,of the sisters and of Lutz. She trembled, turnedpale, and begged to be excused as she started runningto the beach to catch a boat about to shove off. I alsobade good-by to the two, with a sigh for their fleetingfelicity, and strolled to the Catholic mission.

Père Siméon was seated at a table under an umbrageoushao tree, writing. He was in a frayed and soiledcassock of black. His hair was white, and his beardgrizzled, both long and uncut and flowing over his religiousgown. His face was broad and rubicund, andhis remarkable eyes—a deep, shining brown, eyes ofchildish faith—proclaimed him poet and artist. Aged,he had yet the strength and heartiness of middle age,and when I greeted him he rose and kissed me withwarmth.

“Ah,” he exclaimed, “Monsieur O’Brien, you havereturned to hear more of Jeanne d’Arc, is not that so?You have been too long in Atuona. You should stayin Taiohae, and see what we have here. We go alongwell. Joan of Arc looks after us.”

We entered the sitting-room of the mission, and weresoon with a bottle of wine, and cigarettes, in a discussionof affairs.

I asked to see any recent poems he had written, and,blushingly, he handed me the paper over which he hadbeen bending.

477“There has been an excess of drinking recently,” hesaid ruefully, as he took a sip of his mild claret. I readhis stanzas aloud:

“Comment peut-on pour un moment d’ivresse,

Par le démon se laisser entrainer?

Que de regrets suivraient cette faiblesse!

Je n’ai qu’une âme et je veux la sauver.

“Oh! que je crains la perte de mon âme!

Pour la sauver je saurai tout braver,

J’ai mon refrain pour quiconque me blâme,

Je n’ai qu’une âme et je veux la sauver.”

Now I have no skill in rime, but, inspired by hisready gift, I took his paper and wrote what might becalled a free translation. I read it to him as follows:

Oh, how can a man for a moment’s bibacity

Let the demon take hold of his soul?

Remorse is the fruit of such wicked vivacity;

Hell follows the flowing bowl.

“Oh, how I fear that I weakly may lose it,

And, to guard it, will everything brave!

I’ll tell the world that would tempt me to bruise it;

I have but one soul to save.

Hélas!” commented the priest, “I cannot understandone word of it. Doubtless it surpasses my poorlines in excellence. “I will multiply copies of thispoem on my hectograph,” said Père Siméon, “and Iwill distribute them where they will do most good.”

“Captain Capriata will receive one?” I ventured, recallingthat in the procession in honor of Joan of Arc’s478anniversary the old Corsican skipper had fallen with thebanner of the Maid of Orleans.

Père Siméon’s face glowed with zeal.

“I will name no names,” he said, “but Capriata is agood man and comes often to church now.”

For months, I had desired to ask a question of PèreSiméon, since Lutz had told me that Robert LouisStevenson had written about him. The trader hadshown me his copy of “In the South Seas,” and hadpointed out the error of the printer, who had madeStevenson’s “Father Simeon Delmas” “Father SimeonDelwar.”

Père Siméon,” I said, “a writer about the islandsmentions you in his book. He was here a long timeago in a little yacht, the Casco, and he says that hewent with you from Hatiheu, to a native High Place,and that you named the trees and plants for him. Youhad a portfolio, he said, from which you read.”

The missionary stopped a moment, and plucked hisbeard, inquiringly.

“There have been many come here, in fifty years,”he said slowly, “yachtsmen and students. I do not recallthe name Stevenson.”

Something pricked his recollection, and he took meinto the rectory and produced his portfolio.

“Here is the list; I must have read that author,” hesaid.

“You gave an abstract of the virtues of the trees andplants, Stevenson says in his volume.”

Le voilà” replied the priest. “Stevenson? Doyou mean perhaps Louis, who was a consumptive?”

He made a rapid movement of the hand to his face,479and drew upon the air a mustache and imperial, a slenderfigure with a slight stoop—in a word, the veryshadow of the master of romance.

“He was much with Stanislao, the king’s son. Hewas très distingué. He was here but a little time.However, I remember him well, because he was verysympathique, and a gentleman.

“I will tell you why he impressed me particularly.He was not French, but he spoke it as I do, and he wascurious about the cannibalism which was then practicallyeradicated. There was another priest with mewho was then very ill. He died in my arms. I rememberthe evening he told Stevenson of how he hadsaved the life of a foolish French governor. There hadbeen rumors of a cannibal feast at Hatiheu, and thegovernor was incensed. He feared that the incidentmight be reported to Paris and injure hisprestige. He blamed the chief, and sent him wordthat if it were proved he would personally blow outhis brains.

“Soon word came that the Hatiheu people—I waspastor there for a quarter of a century—had killed severalof their enemies, and were eating them and drinkingnamu enata. The governor started off in hastefrom Taiohae, for Hatiheu and the priest went withhim, as also several gendarmes.

“Hundreds of natives were grouped in the publicplace, chanting, dancing, and drinking.

“‘Where is the chief?’ demanded the governor.

“‘I am here,’ said a voice, stern and menacing, andthe chief broke from the throng and advanced towardthe governor.

480“The latter drew his revolver. ‘You have permittedthis breaking of the law, after I sent you word thatI would kill you if you ate human flesh?’

“‘E!’ replied the chief in a high voice. ‘I am themaster in Hatiheu. Do you wish to be eaten?’

“The war-drums sounded and the grim warriors beganto surround the party. My friend, who was, forsafety, an adopted son of the chief, and thus taboo,seized the governor and led him to the boat. They gotaway by sheer courage on the priest’s part. He describedthis to Louis, who wrote it down. I recall itclearly, because the poor martyr died the next week.Did Louis write of the Marquesas much?”

I said that he had. I should have liked to stay andgain from Père Siméon all I could of his memories ofthe poet, but a boy came running up the road to saythat the Saint François was to leave very soon.

I embraced Père Siméon. He kissed me on bothcheeks, and gave me his blessing. It had been wortha voyage to know him.

Jerome Capriata, the eater of cats, was outside hishouse. He invited me in to meet his wife, a barefootedFrenchwoman who sat in a scantily-furnished room,musing over a bottle of absinthe. I could stay only aminute, as the Saint François whistled insistently. Hiswife set out the bottle and glasses before us, and wedrank the farewell goutte.

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (59)

Photo from Underwood and Underwood
Throwing spears at a cocoanut on a stake

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (60)

The raised-up atoll of Makatea

On the way to the beach I met Mrs. Fisher, whomBishop Dordillon, my dictionary writer, had as adoptedmother, when he was old enough to be her grandfather.That was because Queen Vaekehu had adopted him as481a grandson, and Mrs. Fisher as a daughter, and thebishop had observed the pseudo-relationship strictly.

“Mrs. Stevenson gave me a shawl,” said Mrs. Fisher.“I have shown that to many people. Madame JackLondon wore it when she was here with her husbandon the Snark. They lived with Lutz, the German, whowas then here. Pauvre Stevenson! He had to dieyoung, and here I am, after all these years!”

I waded through the surf to the boat, and reachedthe Saint François to find all the others aboard. Weshipped the buoy and were away in a trice. The lastsight I had of the shore was of the promontory whereCaptain Porter raised the American flag a hundredyears before. I was never to see the Marquesas Islandsagain. The fresh breath of nature was too foulwith the worst of civilization.

482

CHAPTER XXIII

McHenry gets a caning—The fear of the dead—A visit to the grave ofMapuhi—En voyage.

IMAGINE my delight when the captain of theSaint François set our course for Takaroa, theatoll of Mapuhi, Nohea, and the crippled diverwho had possessed the great pearl of Pukapuka! TheMarquesas Islands are only eight hundred miles fromthe Society Islands, of which Tahiti is one, and betweenthe Marquesas and the Society Islands lie the strewneighty atolls of the Iles Dangereuses or Paumotugroup. With steam we ran the half-thousand miles orso from Taiohae in two nights and two days, and atdaybreak of the second day were due to see the familiar,lonely figure of the wrecked County of Roxburghon an uninhabited motu of Takaroa. It was this startlingsight that informed the Londons in the Snark thatthey were out of their course and in danger, and it wasTakaroa the Stevensons in the Casco looked for, onlyto fetch up at Tikei, thirty miles to windward. I hadno confidence in our Breton captain, to whom thesewaters were as unknown as the Indies to Columbus.I breathed a sigh of relief when the lofty iron masts ofthe dismantled vessel loomed on the horizon.

After so many months in the frowning islands ofthe war fleet, with their thunderous headlands, gleamingstreams, and green and black valleys, the spectacle of483the slender ring of white sand and coral, the verdantbanners of this first of the Low Islands lying flat uponthe jeweled waters, aroused in me again sensations ofwonder at the ineffable variety of creation; the myriad-mindednessof the Creator. The crash of the surf uponthe outer reef, the waving of the breeze-stirred cocoanuts,the flight of a solitary bird, contrasted with themarvelous fabrication of man, the metal ship, thrown bya toss of the sea and a puff of the wind among theseevidences of a beautiful yet deadly design.

The Saint François crept along the coast of the atolland anchored opposite the pass, a good mile from thebreakers. Everybody was on deck, the black-gownednuns with Mademoiselle Narbonne—she also in a tunicof religious hue. Since we had left Nuku-hiva they hadnot appeared. The contrary currents and confusedtrade-winds among these Pernicious Islands had keptthem in their cabin. The six-hundred-ton hull of theSaint had see-sawed through the two hundred leaguesof the tropic of Capricorn, and only hardened trenchermenlike the ship’s officers and myself could find appetitefor food. Lutz, too, had raised a mournful faceto the deck but seldom. A few hundred sacks of copraawaited us at Takaroa, and we put off a life-boat tobring it aboard. Lutz and I accompanied the secondofficer with a command from the captain to stay nolonger than the cargo’s loading. Lying Bill’s schooner,the Morning Star, was in the lagoon, and, seeing itthere, I wondered if Mapuhi, the great sailor of theseatolls, had steered it through the narrow pass. Aboutthe landing, despite the uniqueness of the steamship’sarrival, was an unusual quietude, a hush that moved me484to fear, as a presage of evil. A cholera-stricken villagein the Philippines had that same dismal aura. A fewnatives were upon the coral mole, and the Mutoi cameforward to examine our papers.

“Let us go to the house of Mapuhi,” I said toLutz.

Ja wohl,” he replied; “I have not met him in manyyears.”

We left the mate and walked along the path pastthe traders’ stores. The thousand feet that trod thecoral road and had gone in and out the dozen shops ofthe dealers and pearl-buyers during my stay on Takaroawere missing, but more than the stir and hum of therahui was absent. A depressing torpor possessed thelittle village. Mapuhi’s store was closed tightly, andfrom no house or hut did a head show or a greetingcome.

We saw that the door of one shop was ajar, and,going in, happened on a pleasant and illuminatingscene. Angry words in Tahitian we heard as wemounted the steps, and smothered exclamations of aprofane sort in English which had a familiar note.Back of the counter was a very large Tahitian womanwho, with a heavy fishing-rod of bamboo, was thrashinga white man. She was, between blows, telling him thatif he got drunk or spoke rudely to her again, she would“treat him as a Chinaman did his horse in Tahiti,”which is a synonym for roughness. He was evadingthe strokes of the bamboo by wriggling, and guardingwith his arms, and was cursing in return, but was plainlyafraid of her. He was McHenry, my ofttime companionof revels at the Cercle Bougainville in Papeete,485who had come on the Flying Fish with me from Tahiti,and had remained in Takaroa.

Many times he had boasted of his contempt for nativewomen.

“I’ve had my old lady nineteen years,” he said once,“and she wouldn’t speak to me if she met me on thestreets of this town. She wouldn’t dare to in publicuntil I recognized her.”

Lutz and I did not utter a sound, but quickly descendedthe steps.

“I never before saw a native wife beating her husband,”he commented caustically. “That McHenry deservesit. Lying Bill often said McHenry’s vahinetook a stick to him. Tahitian women will not bewhipped themselves.”

Lutz should know. He had had fourteen years witha Tahitian mistress, a wife in her own eyes as much asif wedded in a cathedral. Would he not have to faceher in Papeete when he should be married to MademoiselleNarbonne? Perhaps she had a strongerweapon than a rod! The taua’s sorcery might stretchover the ocean, and be potent in Tahiti.

Lutz and I were almost at Mapuhi’s residence whenwe met Nohea, my host of the fishing and diving. Noheawas in a black cloth coat and a blue pareu, and hiscountenance was distressed.

Ia ora na, Nohea!” I called to him. “Is Mapuhi aMapuhi at home?”

“Mapuhi?” he repeated and shuddered. “Mapuhimáte!

Mapuhi dead! It did not seem possible; the giant Ihad known so recently!

486Nohea began to weep and left us. Outside the inclosureof Mapuhi’s house were a dozen men, andamong them Hiram Mervin, the Paumotu-Americanwho had described to me the cyclone of Hikueru. Weshook hands, and I asked of what Mapuhi had died.Surely not of disease. The reef must have beaten himat last. I could not think of that super-man yielding toa clot or a kidney. He, who had made the wind andcurrents his sport, who in the dark of night had sailedthrough foaming passes the white mariner shunned inbroad daylight, who had given largesse to his people fordecades, and who had made the shells and nuts of hisisles pay him princely toll, despite the cunning of thewhite, the papaa, who came to take much and give little.

“He was eighty,” said Hiram Mervin. “He tooksick on Reitoru, that tiny island near here. He wasbrought here. Some one wanted to give him medicine.

“‘No,’ he said, ‘my time has come. I will not liveby things. I die content. I have been a good Mormonsince I accepted the Word. What I did before wasin darkness, when I was a gentile.’

“He passed away peacefully. We lost a bulwarkof the church, but he will reign with Christ.”

Lutz and I did not wish to intrude upon the kin ofMapuhi, nor to remain longer within the sound of thewailing that now issued from the house at the news thatI, the American, had come back on the steamship. Thisextemporized burst of lamentation was a special honorto me and to the decedent, an expression of a tie betweenus, and, though it swelled suddenly at my arrival,was not the crying of hired mourners but the lacrymationof sincere grief. In wakes among the Irish I had487found exactly the same spirit—an increase or instant renewalof the keening or shrieking when one who hadbeen dear to the dead person appeared.

We two walked away, and encountered McHenry,who had learned of our presence. McHenry wasshaken by the castigation given him by his wife, andassumed an air of brazen indecency and bluster to hidehis condition.

“One bottle of booze and I’ll make ’em all quit theircatabawlin’ an’ dance a hula,” he said. “Much theycare for except the bloomin’ francs the ol’ boy left’em!”

McHenry exposed his own vulturous desires, and notthe feelings of the tribe of Mapuhi. To them the passingof Mapuhi was as to the Jews that of their leaderby Nebo’s lonely mountain. The great man had expiredthe night before, and preparations were beingmade to bury him. In this climate the body hastensto rejoin the elements. The chief was not to lie inthe common charnel in a grove on another motu of Takaroa.As suitable to his rank and wealth and his generosityto the Mormon church, he had retained for himselfa piece of ground beside the temple. A coral wallinclosed the small necropolis. Within a hundred feet ofthe sea, in the brilliant coral sand, rugged and bare,it was fit anchoring ground for this ship among canoes.One tombstone leaned against the wall, a plain slab ofmarble, inscribed:

Punau Mapuhi tei pohe ite 30 Me 1899

Punau was the wife he had clung to under Mormonism,and who had borne him the son and daughter488I knew. Many years he had survived her, and hadnot married another. The religion of polygamy hadmade of the old barbarian an ascetic, who had been aGrand Turk under Protestantism and Catholicism, betweenwhich he had wavered according to the noveltyoffered.

The body of Mapuhi was laid out in the principalroom of his house, the room in which I had met himand the American elders on my first landing. Noheaand others had worked through the night to build acoffin. They had used the strong planks the dead manhad gathered from the deck or cabin of the County ofRoxburgh, and had polished them with cocoanut-oil, sothat they shone. The coffin was lined with the sleeping-matof Mapuhi, and in it he reposed, dressed in hischurchly clothes, a black frock coat, white trousers, anda stiff white shirt. No collar cumbered his neck, norwere shoes upon the ample feet that had walked on thefloor of the sea. Most of the people of Takaroa tooka last look at him, but some did not, for fear. I gazeda few minutes at his face. More than in life, the likenessto a mutilated Greek statue struck me; perhapsthe head of a Goth seen in the Vatican Gallery.Strength, repose, and mystery were in the powerfulmold of it, the broad, low forehead, the rounded chin,and wide-open eyes. I had seen many so-called importantmen in death, when as a reporter I wrote obsequiesat a penny a line. This Paumotuan chief’s corpse hadmore majesty and peace than any of them—a nearerrelation to my conception of an old and wise child ofthe eternal unity, glad to be freed from the illusionof life.

489In the village, the huts were still closed. No fishermanput off in a canoe, and none sat making or mendingnets. McHenry and I paddled out to the MorningStar. The skipper was on deck with Ducat, the mate.Some native had hurried to them with the amusing gossipof McHenry’s vahine beating him, and he had tobear a storm of ridicule. Lying Bill rehearsed hisboasts about her inferiority, and Ducat, who had humiliatedhim before me long ago, taunted him with hissubmission to her.

“I didn’t want to kill her,” was all McHenry couldretort. McHenry had a story of Chocolat which was distracting.Captain Moét of the Flying Fish had comeinto Takaroa a month or two before with Chocolat, afair-sized dog. The tricks Chocolat did when I was onMoét’s schooner were incomparable with his later education.

“The bloomin’ pup would stand on his hind legsand dance to a tune Moét whistled,” said McHenry.“He could count up to five with cards, and could pickall the aces out of a piquet pack. He would let Moétthrow him overboard in port, and catch a rope’s endwith his teeth and hold on while he was pulled up. Hewas a reg’lar circus performer. You know Moét andI ain’t very close. He done me a dirty turn once. Iknew if I could ever get Chocolat to Papeete, an’ onthe steamer from San Francisco, I could sell him to abloody American tourist for a thousand francs. Moétwatched me like a gull does the cook when he emptieshis pail overside. Now, you know me; I ain’t nobodyto say to you can’t do this or that. I laid for that pup,and, when I went aboard the schooner just before she490sailed, I took a little opium I got from the Chink pearl-buyerhere; and I put a pill of it in a piece of freshpork, and took it aboard in my pocket. Just beforeI was goin’ into my boat, after a drink or two withJean, I’d been watchin’ Chocolat stretched out nappin’on the deck. I put the meat alongside of his mouth,and he ate it like a shark does a chunk o’ salt horse.Soon I saw he was knocked out, an’ I asked Moét to godown into the trade-room an’ get me a piece o’ tobacco.He’d no sooner ducked than I grabbed the bloody pupby the scruff an’ stuffed him into my trousers’ front.He was like dead. I was in the boat in a second withno one seein’ him, and reached up to get the tobaccofrom Moét’s hand.

“Of course the purp never let out a bloomin’ whimper,an’ I got away and to shore with no proof that I hadsnared the bow-wow. Moét had trained Chocolat to letout a hell of a yell if any one as much as took him towardthe rail, and so he would have to think that the curhad fallen overboard on his own hook. I took him tomy store unbeknown to any one, and tied him to a chair.He never come to for three hours, an’ was sluggery fora day or two. I was waitin’ for Moét to sail, but thenext day he comes ashore an’ makes a bee-line for myjoint. I saw his boat puttin’ off, an’ I give Chocolatto my Penrhyn boy who tied him in a canoe, an’ hikedout in the lagoon with him. Moét looks me up an’down, curses his sacres an’ his Spanish diablos an’’Sus-Marias, an’ crawled through my place from top to bottom,shoutin’, ‘Chocolat! Chocolat! Pettee sheen!’ an’half cryin’. He had to trip his anchor the next day,and I had the sheen all right.

491“I was goin’ to smuggle him on board Lyin’ Bill’scockroach tub an’ to Papeete, when one day I comeback from Mapuhi’s and found him gone, an’ his stringchewed through. He had skinned out, an’, though Iasked everybody on this island about him, everybodyknew nothin’. After three days I give the beast up. Iknow the Kanaka, an’ I knew that no fat little dogsare let run loose very long. About two weeks later,I went to another motu to buy some copra, an’ the firstnative I run into was wearin’ Chocolat’s collar on hisarm. He was a Mormon churchman, too, but he sworehe found the collar in a canoe.”

Poor little brown Chocolat! He had entertained meoften on the Flying Fish with his antics, and JeanMoét had such dreams of his future! A kindly fatemay have bestowed on him the favor of a quick deathby hotpotting rather than the ignominy of circus one-nightstands or the pampered kennel of a millionaire.He had had his year at sea, and died in the full flushof doghood.

The news that Lutz was a passenger on the SaintFrançois with Mademoiselle Narbonne brought a prolongedwhistle from Ducat, and an exclamation fromLying Bill:

“Well, ’e’ll bloody well get ’is! Maná won’t take aclub to ’im because the ’usban’ does the beatin’ when’e’s a Dutchman, but she’s not lettin’ ’im walk over ’erso easy. I ’ad a long palaver with ’er on the voyageup. She says everybody in Taaoa knows Barbe is aleper, an’ she’s preparin’ to ’ave the bleedin’ Frog doctorscage ’er up out there by Papenoo, if she goes toTahiti.”

492“I never heard before that she had leprosy,” saidDucat. “I think that Maná is spreading that reportto scare Lutz.”

“I feel sure that it has not reached him,” I said.“Nobody in Atuona would mention it to him.”

Abruptly there occurred to me the cryptic assertionof Peyral at my first sight of Barbe in the missionchurch.

“I wouldn’t be her with all her money,” he had said.“Me, I value my skin.”

That was weeks or months before Lemoal had cometo me, or I had known of the taua, or of Lutz’s courtship.If there had been a plot against her happiness, itmust have been laid early, or what did Peyral mean?

McHenry broke in on my train of reasoning.

“I’ll see that the German sausage learns about itdamn soon,” he said spitefully. “He’s doin’ too gooda business in both copra an’ women.”

The whistle of the Saint François blew the recallof boats and crew.

“Why don’t you stay, an’ go to Papeet’ with me,”asked Captain Pincher. “We’ll ’ead out in a day ortwo when the wind is right. You’re in no ‘’urry. Youwant to see ’em lay ol’ Mapuhi in the grave.”

I agreed, and paddled to shore with McHenry. Nativeswere taking the last load of copra out to the steamship,and I rode on the bags with McHenry. On thedeck of the Saint François I passed Barbe and thenuns on my way below to get my trifling belongings.McHenry stayed above, and, when I had bidden good-byto the captain and the first officer, I sought the threewomen, with my canvas bag in hand. The sisters were493my friends, and I shook their hands. I was about tosay au revoir to Barbe when she walked with me a fewyards to the gangway. I explained my intention notto continue on the steamship.

“What shall I do?” she implored, as she squeezed myhand nervously. “I am afraid of everything—”

The whistle sounded again.

Lutz, who was talking with McHenry, approachedme, and drew from me my reason for carrying my assetswith me. I thought he appeared relieved at my leaving,and that his hopes to see me in Papeete wereshammed. In the boat I glanced up to see MademoiselleNarbonne leaning over the rail, her black cloudof hair framing her pale face with its look of sadnessand perplexity, and her eyes still demanding of me theanswer to her question.

“I bloody well put a roach in Lutz’s ear,” said McHenry,as we rowed back.

That he had even mentioned Barbe’s name I did notbelieve. Lutz would have taken him by the throat, andthrown him overboard. On the strand at the atollagain, I saw the smoke streaming from the steamship’sfunnel as she set out for Papeete; and I sent an unspokenmessage of good will to the groping ill-matchedpair whom I could not call lovers, and yet both of whomwere searching for the satisfaction of heart and ambitionI too sought.

Mapuhi was interred that afternoon an hour beforesunset. In these atolls where there is no soil, and wherewater lies close under the coral surface, even burial isdifficult. Cyclones as in Hikueru have torn the coralcoverings off the graves, and swept the coffins, corpses,494and bones into the lagoon and the maws of the sharksand the voracious barracuda. For Mapuhi a marblecenotaph would be ordered in Tahiti, and cover himwhen made in a few weeks.

Nohea and two elders dug the grave. About fourfeet deep, it was wide enough to rest the huge body inthe glistening coffin. This was borne on the shouldersof six young men, nephews of Mapuhi, and in the cortègewere all of the Takaroans of age. Solemnly andsilently they marched down the road. All who ownedblack garments wore them, and others were in whitetrousers, some with and others without shirts, but alltreading ceremoniously with bowed heads and seriousfaces. Nohea was the leader, carrying the large Bookof Mormon from the temple, and at the grave he readfrom it verses about the resurrection, the near approachof the coming of Christ, and Mapuhi’s being quiet inthe grave until the trumpet rang for the assembling ofthe just, the unjust on opposite sides for judgment.

“Mapuhi a Mapuhi will sit very close to BrighamYoung in the judgment and afterward will be amongthe great on earth when the rejected are cast into theterrible pit of fire, and the elect live in plenty and happinesshere.”

The heavy ivory sand rattled on the wood, and the remainsof Mapuhi, last link between the healthy savageryand the present semi-civilization of the Paumotuanrace, were one with the mysterious beach he had so longdwelt upon. He had been born before the white manruled it, and his life had spanned the rise of the imperialindustrialism which had destroyed the Polynesian.

After the funeral I took my bag to the hut of Nohea,495to live the few days until the Morning Star left forPapeete. Our frugal meal was soon eaten, and the olddiver and I sat outside his door in the cool of the sunsetglow. We talked of Mapuhi.

“We had the same father but different mothers,”said Nohea. “Mapuhi was twenty years older than I.For many years he was as my father to me.”

“Where is Mapuhi now?” I asked, to discover his beliefsabout the soul. Nohea trembled, and looked abouthim.

“Is he not in the hole in the coral?” he said, withalarm.

“Oh, yes, Nohea,” I replied, “the body of Mapuhi isin the coral, but where is that part that knew how todive, to steer the schooner, to grow rich, and to pray?Where is that varua or spirit which loved you?”

Nohea responded quickly: “That is with the gods,with Adam, Christ, Joseph Smith, and Brigham Young.Mapuhi is with them making souls for the bodies ofMormon babies on earth. When Israel gathers by andby, I will see him again, for we will all live in Americaand be happy.”

“But Nohea,” I protested, “you will not be happyaway from Takaroa. Your canoe and your fishing-netsand spears will be left behind.”

Nohea was confused, but his faith was strong.

“The elders have explained that in America, whereall the saved people shall live after the judgment, weshall have everything we want. The fish will jump onthe hook, the canoe will paddle itself, and the cocoanutswill be always ready for eating or cool for drinking.”

I tried to draw our conversation around to Mapuhi496again, but Nohea, as the darkness grew thicker,busied himself in making a fire of cocoanut husks andleaves, and evaded any reference to the dead.

Only after the moon began to come up, he said, “Imust now go to keep watch at the grave of Mapuhi. Itis my duty, and I must go.”

He brought from his hut a crazy-quilt, and wrappedit about him, and with extreme hesitancy walked awaythrough the obscurity to carry out the obligation offriendship.

Hardly can we guess at the horror he had to overcometo do this. The remnant of fear of the dead thatour slight inheritance of ancestral delusions causes tolinger in some of us is the merest shadow of the all-pervadingterror that weakens the Paumotuan at thoughtof the ghost of the defunct which stays near the corpseto threaten and perhaps to seize and eat the living. Associated,maybe, with the former cannibalism, when theliving consumed the dead, Nohea, though earnest Mormon,believed that the tupapau hovered over the graveor in the tree-tops, to accomplish this ghastly purpose.Had Punau, the widow of Mapuhi, been living, shewould have had to spend her nights for several weeksby his sepulcher. Being a chief, there were many toperform this devoir, and before I entered the hut tosleep I saw several small fires burning about the spotwhere the watchers cowered and whispered through thenight. Of the dangers of this office of friendship orwidowhood, every atoll in the Paumotus had a hundredtales, and Tahiti and the Marquesas more. In Tahiti,the tupapau, the disembodied and malign ego of thedead, entered the room where the remains were laid out.

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (61)

Photo by Dr. Theodore P. Cleveland
Paumotuans on a heap of brain coral

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (62)

Photo by Dr. Theodore P. Cleveland
Did these two eat Chocolat?

Atolls of the Sun, by Frederick O’Brien—A Project Gutenberg eBook (63)

Photo from Brown Bros.
The Stonehenge men in the South Seas

497A frightening noise was heard in the room or in thatpart of the house, followed by sounds and movementsof a struggle, and in the morning gouts of blood wereon the walls. In Moorea, near Tahiti, I met an educatedEnglishman, there twenty-five years, who saidthat on analysis the blood proved to be human. Acynic in most things, he would not deny that he believedthe circumstance supernatural.

The tupapau had many manifestations: knocks atdoors and on thatched roofs, cries of sorrow and of hate.White it was in the night, and often hovering over thehouse or the grave. It might be that the Ghost Bird,the burong-hantu, a reality which is white, and whosewings make little or no noise when flying, was thefoundation of this phantom.

In the meanwhile the schooner Morning Star hadgone to Tikei for cargo. Lying Bill was to anchor offthe pass of Takaroa in a few days on his voyage toTahiti and to send ashore a boat for me. For ninenights the vigil was kept by the grave of Mapuhi.About four o’clock each morning the ward by the gravewas abandoned, and Nohea threw himself wearily onhis mat near me. Only one time, on the last evening,I questioned him about the tupapau, and then realizedmy discourtesy; it was for him to initiate this subject.

“Have you heard or seen anything rima atua nianatura?Anything by the hand of the spirit?”

Nohea wrapped himself more tightly in his quilt, andhis answer came from under it:

“This morning I heard a scratching. This is ourlast night, thank the gods. I think it was the tupapausaying farewell. We never look at the grave.”

498About two the next morning Nohea shook me.

“The Fetia Taiao is off the passage,” he said.

He had heard in the still air the faint slap of her canvasas she jibed, I thought, but that could not havebeen, as she was too far away. His awareness was notof the ear or eyes, but something different—the keennessof the conscious and unconscious, which had preservedthe Paumotuan race in an environment whichhad meant starvation and death to any other people.

I had my possessions already on the schooner, and,forbidding Nohea to wait with me at the mole, I embracedhim and left him. A wish to look at the gravetook hold of me, and I walked along the path to it.The sun, though below the horizon, was lessening thesombrous color of the small hours, and I could discernvaguely the outline of the walled burial-ground. Thesplash of oars in the water and the rattle of rowlockswarned me of the approach of the boat for me, but I stillhad five minutes.

I sat down on the wall at the farthest end away fromthe grave. Soon I would be in my own country, amongthe commonplace scenes of cities and countryside. Iwould resume the habits and conventions of my nation,and enter into the struggle for survival and for repute.Those goals shrunk in importance on this strip of coral.Never would I be able to express in myself the joy andheat of life, and the conquest of nature at its zenith ofmystery, as had the man whose tenement of clay was sonear. Love had been his animating emotion. In allthe welter of low passions, of conflicting religions, andcommercial standards imported to his island by thewhites, he had remained a son of the atoll, brother and499father of his tribe, disdainful of the inventions and luxuriesoffered him for his wealth, but shaping his courseadroitly for his race’s happiness.

Deep in this strain of reflection, I was recalled to actualityby a grating sound, a queer crunching and creaking.It came from about the tomb, and was like a hundredrats dragging objects on a stone floor—slitheringdiscordant, offensive. If I could have fainted it wouldhave been relief, for I was seized with mortal terror.I could not reason. The boat from the schooner wasnearing fast, and would be at the mole in a minute ortwo. I must go, but I could not move. Then suddenlya bar of light flung up from the sea, the first of thedawn, and by its feeble glimmer I saw a swarm of creaturesabout the barrow. They were the robber-crabswho had come out from the groves, and they were pullingthe pieces of coral off the burial heap, and diggingto pierce the coffin. Scores of the grisly vampireswere working with their huge claws at the pile, and, asthey rushed to and fro on their tall, obscene legs, theywere the very like of ghouls in animal form. This wasthe “scratching” Nohea had heard when with theirback to the grave he and his fellow-watchers dared notturn to see them.

I should have thrown rocks at the foul monsters,have scattered them with kicks and curses, but my deliverancefrom the supernatural was so comforting Icould only burst into nervous laughter and run downthe road to the mole. I leaped into the boat, and gavethe order to shove off. In half an hour I was aboardthe Morning Star and our sails spread for Tahiti andCalifornia.

500

AFTERWARD

A Letter from Exploding Eggs

Atuona, Hiva-Oa, Aperiri, 1922.

O Nakohu.

O au Kaoha tuuhoa Koakoau itave tekao ipatumaito Brunnec; Na Brunnec paki mai iau, tuu onotia Kaohaoko au iave; Atahi au ame tao ave oe itiki iau Auaoto maimai omua ahee taua I Menike ua ite au TaPanama ohia umetao au ua hokotia au eoe Ite aoe.

Mea meitai ote mahina ehee mai oe I Tahiti ahaka itemai oe iau Eavei tau I Tahiti etahi Otaua fiti tia maimei Tahiti Ta maimai oe eavei tau I Tahiti Patu maioe itatahi hamani nau naete inoa Brunnec.

Eahaa iapati mai oe ukoana iau totaua pae ua paotuu tekao iave Kaoha oe iti haa metaino iau tihe itenei mouehua Upeau oe iau eiva ehua ua Vei hakauataua oia tau ete taiene ohua iva ehua.

Kaoha nui I Obriand.

501

From Exploding Eggs

Atuona, Hiva-Oa, April, 1922.

It is I, Nakohu, always, my dear master. I havebeen very glad to receive news of you by Le Brunnec,and I have seen that you have not forgotten me.

It has given me much sorrow that I did not go withyou. I should have seen Panama and many things,but I was afraid that you would grow tired of me andsell me to other Americans.

If it is true that you will return here, write to me inadvance by Le Brunnec, and I will go to get you inPapeete. For your stay in Atuona, fear nothing. Ihave now a nice house of my own on the edge of theriver. There you will live and it will be my wife whowill do the cooking and I will go to get the food forall of us; that will be much better than before.

I am very happy that you have not forgotten me inso long. It is true that you had told me that you wouldcome back before nine years. I shall wait always.

Love to you, Obriand.

502

Letter from Malicious Gossip

Atuona, Hiva-Oa, Iunio, 1915.

E tuu ona hoa:

U Koana i au taoe hama ni, koakoa oko an i te ite ita oe tau te kao. A oe e koe te peau o Mohotu Vehine-hae,i te a te tekao, mimi, pake, namu, Tahiatini, aoe ikoe toia, ate, totahi teoko, tohutohui toia hee, meheihepe Purutia i tihe mai nei io matou. Titihuti, namate ite hitoto. Te moi a Kake ua mate ite hitoto, itepo na mate, titahi, popoui ua mate, tatahi, popoui uamate, titahi, popoui ua mate, te moupuna o Titihuti.U fanau an i te tama e moi o (Elizabethe Taavaupoo)toia inoa pahoe kanahau tautau oko, aoe e hoa e koe tomana metao ia oe, ua inu matou i te kava kona okoBronec, kona oko Tahiapii, kona oko au, ia tihe to matoumetao ia oe, ua too matou i te pora Kava à la santé teFreterick. Ena ua tuu atu nei i te ata na oe, upeau auia ia Lemoine a tuu mai te ata na Freterick. Mea nuitau roti i tenei u fafati au e ua, roti ua tuu i una ou, meaKaoha ia oe, me ta oe vehine. Kaoha atu nei A porome Puhei ia oe, Kaoha atu nei Moetai kamuta ia oe.Kaoha atu nei Nakohu.

Kaoha atu nei Timoia oe, Kaoha nui Kaoha nui Uapao tete kao.

Apae, umoi e koe tooe metao ia matou.

Nau na tooe hoa.

Tavahi.

503Atuona, Hiva-Oa, June, 1915.

Ah my dear friend:

I have received your letter. I was very happy tohave news of you.

Ghost Girl has not forgotten and still says, “Dance,tobacco, rum.”

Many Daughters is not over her sickness; she isworse; when she walks she rolls like the Prussian shipthat came here.

Titihuti died of dysentery. The little daughter ofKaké died of dysentery. The one died in the evening,Titihuti; in the morning the little girl of Titihuti died.I have given birth to a little daughter; her name isElizabeth Taavaupoo, a pretty little girl, healthy andplump.

We have not stopped thinking of you, dear friend.We drank kava. Happy was Le Brunnec, happy wasTahiapii (sister of Tavati, the little woman in blue).I too was happy. Our thoughts went out to you.

We took the bowl of kava and drank to the health ofFrederick. Here I send you as a present my picture.I told Le Moine to take my photograph for you.

I have many roses now; I took two of them which Iput on my head as a souvenir for you and your lady.In this letter you have the love of Aporo and Puhei,of Moetai, the carpenter, and of Nakohu and ofTimoteo.

Great love to you; great love to you.

I have finished speaking; farewell, and may you notforget us in your thoughts.

I, your friend,

Malicious Gossip.

504

Letter from Mouth of God

E tuu ona hoa:

E patu atu nei au i tenei hamani ia oe me tou Kaohanui. Mea meitai matou paotu. E tiai nei an i taoehamani, me te Kakano pua, me te mana roti, u haa mei—taiau i titahi keke fenua kei oko, mea tanu roti. Eiatitahi mea aoe au e kokoa koe nui oe i kokoa koe nuioe i kaoha mai ian Koakoa oko nui matou i taoe hamaniA patu oe i titahi hamani i tooe hoa, o Vai Etienn enaioto ote Ami Koakoa, Apatu oe ia Vehine-hae ena i toheahi, o te haraiipe.

E na Tahiatini i Tarani me L’Hermier, Mea meitaia fiti mai oe i Atuona nei Kanahau oko to matou fenuame he fenua Farani meitaioko tu uapu O Hinatini enaioto ote papu meitai Kaoha atu nei tooe hoa Timo iaoe, u tuhaa ia mei a oe, e aha a, ave oe i tuhaa meia ia.

E metao anatu ia ia oe. Kaoha atu nei Kivi ia oe,E hee anatu i te ika hake Ua pao te tekao kaoha nui.

Tavahi T, Mm. Timotheo.

505Ah my dear friend:

I write you this letter to send you my good wishes.We are all well. I have awaited in vain a letter fromyou with the flower seeds you promised me. I haveinherited a very large piece of land where I could plantroses.

We have been very sorry that you have not given usmore of your news. We have missed you much.

If you wish to write to your friend Vai Etienne, heis in heaven far away.

As for Ghost Girl, she must have fallen into hell.

Many Daughters’ soul must have rejoined l’Hermierin France.

You would do well to return to Atuona. Our landis very beautiful—our roads like those in France.

Vanquished Often is dead, but she must be in paradise.

Your friend, Timoteo, sends you greeting. If youhave forgotten him, he has not forgotten you. Comeback and we will again drink the kava together.

Kivi tells me that he still thinks of you and that hestill goes fishing.

It is finished.

Kaoha nui, Mouth of God.

506

Letter from Le Brunnec to Frederick O’Brien at Sausalito, California.

(Translation)

Atuona, Hiva-Oa, June, 1922.

Cher ami:

You ask me what has become of Barbe Narbonne,of the valley of Taaoa. I will tell you briefly, andprobably some of what I shall say you already know.She was married to Wilhelm Lutz, the Tahauku trader,in Tahiti, and all went well. Her mother was at thewedding, but not Maná, his long-time companion inTaiohae and Atuona. The married pair occupied theupper floor of the German firm’s big store. There wasmuch gaiety among the Germans and her Tahitianfriends. For the first time Barbe rode in an automobile,saw a moving picture, heard a band of music, andattended prize-fights. They were married at the firstof July, and on the fourteenth was celebrated the Fallof the Bastille, with tremendous hulas, much champagne,and speeches by the governor, and even by the friendlyGermans, such as Monsieur Lutz.

Hélas! The Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, the kaiser’scruisers, came here to Atuona, robbed my store, tookJensen, the Dane, and steamed to Tahiti. When theauthorities there saw them, they must fire a pop-gun atthem, and provoke in turn a rain of six-inch shells. AChinese was killed, every one ran to the woods, andmany stores were set on fire and burned.

When the cruisers were gone, Monsieur Lutz and all507the Germans were imprisoned on Motu-Uta, the beautifullittle islet a thousand feet from Lovaina’s AnnexeHotel. Madame Lutz was reproached by the church,the government, and by every one not in prison, formarrying the “animal” Lutz, and immediately they beganto give her a divorce on that very ground—that thehusband was a German, and therefore not a human being,but an animal. It did not take long, and againshe was Mademoiselle Narbonne.

Now she was free, rich, and in civilization. Shedanced and sang and was dressed in your Americanclothes, for no ships came from France. But, as inAtuona, rumors began that she was leprous. That didnot matter much to the Tahitians who, if they like one,care nothing for what one has, but the whites ceased tobe in her company. They did not say aloud what theythought, but only that she had loved a German.

Maná went every day of good weather in a littlecanoe about the islet of Motu-Uta, at a certain distanceprescribed by the guards, and made a gesture toMonsieur Lutz, who sat or stood within an enclosureand looked out to sea. Poor Lutz! He died of ananeurism, or, if you will, of a broken Prussian heart.

Mademoiselle Narbonne one day went toward Papenoo.At Faaripoo she saw the inclosure of the leprosarium,where the three or four score lepers are confined.She returned to the Marquesas Islands.

Pauvre fille! Personne n’a voulu se marier avec elleet elle vit avec un vieux Canaque de Taaoa. Elle estretournée à la brousse—Poor girl! Nobody wants tomarry her and she lives with an old Kanaka of Taaoa.She has returned to the jungle.

508I will tell you, my friend, that no matter what Lemoalhas said, or her own fears, Mademoiselle Narbonneis not a leper. But the sorcery of the taua hasended her. These Marquesans, even if half white, areyet heathen.

Daughter of the Pigeon is dead of tuberculosis.Ghost Girl died of influenza in Tahiti, where she hadgone to continue her joyous life. Peyral and his whitedaughters have fled to France. Exploding Eggs hastaken the daughter of Titihuti; and her husband, fromwhom he seized her, is content to live with them. GovernorL’Hermier des Plantes is governor of the Congo.Song of the Nightingale is in prison for making cocoanutrum. Seventh Man Who Is So Angry has lost hiswife of tuberculosis. Vanquished Often died of leprosyin childbirth. Le Moine, the artist, went mad and isdead. Grelet, the Swiss, is dead. Père David, PèreSimeon, Père Victorin, are well, as all the nuns. JimmyKekela is well; his sister is shut up in a leper hospital.McHenry has been expelled from Tahiti for sellingalcoholic liquors to the natives of the Paumotus.Lemoal is dead. Hemeury François and Scallameraare dead. Vai Etienne, son of Titihuti, is dead. CommissaireBauda went to the wars.

I have named my second child after you, Frederick.You remember her mother, At Peace, the sister of MaliciousGossip. We dwell in comfort and happiness.Return to live with us.

Votre dévoué

Le Brunnec.

  • Transcriber’s Notes:
    • Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.
    • Typographical errors were silently corrected.
    • Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only when a predominant form was found in this book.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 62697 ***

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