White Shadows in the South Seas (novel) (2024)

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White Shadows in the South Seas (1919) is a novel by Frederick O'Brien

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FOREWORD

There is in the nature of every man, I firmly believe, a longing to see and know the strange places of the world. Life imprisons us all in its coil of circ*mstance, and the dreams of romance that color boyhood are forgotten, but they do not die. They stir at the sight of a white-sailed ship beating out to the wide sea; the smell of tarred rope on a blackened wharf, or the touch of the cool little breeze that rises when the stars come out will waken them again. Somewhere over the rim of the world lies romance, and every heart yearns to go and find it.

It is not given to every man to start on the quest of the rainbow'send. Such fantastic pursuit is not for him who is bound by ties ofhome and duty and fortune-to-make. He has other adventure at his owndoor, sterner fights to wage, and, perhaps, higher rewards to gain.Still, the ledgers close sometimes on a sigh, and by the cosiestfireside one will see in the coals pictures that have nothing to dowith wedding rings or balances at the bank.

It is for those who stay at home yet dream of foreign places that Ihave written this book, a record of one happy year spent among thesimple, friendly cannibals of Atuona valley, on the island ofHiva-oa in the Marquesas. In its pages there is little of profoundresearch, nothing, I fear, to startle the anthropologist or torevise encyclopedias; such expectation was far from my thoughts whenI sailed from Papeite on the _Morning Star_. I went to see what Ishould see, and to learn whatever should be taught me by the days asthey came. What I saw and what I learned the reader will see andlearn, and no more.

Days, like people, give more when they are approached in not toostern a spirit. So I traveled lightly, without the heavy baggage ofthe ponderous-minded scholar, and the reader who embarks with me onthe "long cruise" need bring with him only an open mind and a lovefor the strange and picturesque. He will come back, I hope, as I did,with some glimpses into the primitive customs of the long-forgottenancestors of the white race, a deeper wonder at the mysteries of theworld, and a memory of sun-steeped days on white beaches, of palmsand orchids and the childlike savage peoples who live in thebread-fruit groves of "Bloody Hiva-oa."

The author desires to express here his thanks to Rose Wilder Lane,to whose editorial assistance the publication of this book is verylargely due.

Author's Note

Author's Note. Foreign words in a book are like rocks in a path. Thereare two ways of meeting the difficulty; the reader may leap over them,or use them as stepping stones. I have written this book so that theymay easily be leaped over by the hasty, but he will lose much enjoymentby doing so; I would urge him to pronounce them as he goes. Marquesanwords have a flavor all their own; much of the simple poetry of theislands is in them. The rules for pronouncing them are simple;consonants have the sounds usual in English, vowels have the Latinvalue, that is, a is ah, e is ay, i is ee, o is oh, and u is oo.Every letter is pronounced, and there are no accents. The Marquesanshad no written language, and their spoken tongue was reproduced assimply as possible by the missionaries.

CHAPTER I

Farewell to Papeite beach; at sea in the _Morning Star_; Darwin'stheory of the continent that sank beneath the waters of the SouthSeas.

By the white coral wall of Papeite beach the schooner _FetiaTaiao_ (_Morning Star_) lay ready to put to sea. Beneath theskyward-sweeping green heights of Tahiti the narrow shore was a massof colored gowns, dark faces, slender waving arms. All Papeite,flower-crowned and weeping, was gathered beside the blue lagoon.

Lamentation and wailing followed the brown sailors as they came overthe side and slowly began to cast the moorings that held the _MorningStar_. Few are the ships that sail many seasons among the DangerousIslands. They lay their bones on rock or reef or sink in the deep,and the lovers, sons and husbands of the women who weep on the beachreturn no more to the huts in the cocoanut groves. So, at each sailingon the "long course" the anguish is keen.

"_Ia ora na i te Atua!_ Farewell and God keep you!" the women criedas they stood beside the half-buried cannon that serve to make fastthe ships by the coral bank. From the deck of the nearby _Hinano_came the music of an accordeon and a chorus of familiar words:

 "I teie nie mahana Ne tere no oe e Hati Na te Moana!"

 "Let us sing and make merry, For we journey over the sea!"

It was the _Himene Tatou Arearea_. Kelly, the wandering I.W.W.,self-acclaimed delegate of the mythical Union of Beach-combers andStowaways, was at the valves of the accordeon, and about himsquatted a ring of joyous natives. "_Wela ka hao!_ Hot stuff!" theyshouted.

Suddenly Caroline of the Marquesas and Mamoe of Moorea, mostbeautiful dancers of the quays, flung themselves into the _upaupahura_,the singing dance of love. Kelly began "Tome! Tome!" a Hawaiian hula.Men unloading cargo on the many schooners dropped their burdens andbegan to dance. Rude squareheads of the fo'c'sles beat time withpannikins. Clerks in the traders' stores and even Marechel, thebarber, were swept from counters and chairs by the sensuous melody,and bareheaded in the white sun they danced beneath the crowdedbalconies of the Cercle Bougainville, the club by the lagoon. Theharbor of Papeite knew ten minutes of unrestrained merriment, tearsforgotten, while from the warehouse of the navy to the Poodle Stewcafé the hula reigned.

[Illustration: Beach at Viataphiha-Tahiti]

[Illustration: Where the belles of Tahiti lived in the shade towhiten their complexions.]

Under the gorgeous flamboyant trees that paved their shade withred-gold blossoms a group of white men sang:

 "Well, ah fare you well, we can stay no more with you, my love, Down, set down your liquor and the girl from off your knee, For the wind has come to say 'You must take me while you may, If you'd go to Mother Carey!' (Walk her down to Mother Carey!) Oh, we're bound for Mother Carey where she feeds her chicks at sea!"

The anchor was up, the lines let go, and suddenly from the sea camea wind with rain.

The girls from the Cocoanut House, a flutter of brilliant scarletand pink gowns, fled for shelter, tossing blossoms of the sweettiati Tahiti toward their sailor lovers as they ran. Marao, thehaughty queen, drove rapidly away in her old chaise, the PrincessBoots leaning out to wave a slender hand. Prince Hinoi, the fatspendthrift who might have been a king, leaned from the balcony ofthe club, glass in hand, and shouted, "_Aroha i te revaraa!_" acrossthe deserted beach.

So we left Papeite, the gay Tahitian capital, while a slashingdownpour drowned the gay flamboyant blossoms, our masts and riggingcreaking in the gale, and sea breaking white on the coral reef.

Like the weeping women, who doubtless had already dried their tears,the sky began to smile before we reached the treacherous pass in theouter reef. Beyond Moto Utu, the tiny islet in the harbor that hadbeen harem and fort in kingly days, we saw the surf foaming on thecoral, and soon were through the narrow channel.

We had lifted no canvas in the lagoon, using only our engine toescape the coral traps. Past the ever-present danger, with the windnow half a gale and the rain falling again in sheets--theintermittent deluge of the season--the _Morning Star_, under reefedforesail, mainsail and staysail, pointed her delicate nose toward theDangerous Islands and hit hard the open sea.

She rode the endlessly-tossing waves like a sea-gull, carrying herhead with a care-free air and dipping to the waves in jaunty fashion.Her lines were very fine, tapering and beautiful, even to the eye ofa land-lubber.

A hundred and six feet from stem to stern, twenty-three feet of beamand ten feet of depth, she was loaded to water's edge with cargo forthe islands to which we were bound. Lumber lay in the narrow lanesbetween cabin-house and rails; even the lifeboats were piled withcargo. Those who reckon dangers do not laugh much in these seas.There was barely room to move about on the deck of the _Morning Star_;merely a few steps were possible abaft the wheel amid the play ofmain-sheet boom and traveler. Here, while my three fellow-passengerswent below, I stood gazing at the rain-whipped illimitable watersahead.

Where is the boy who has not dreamed of the cannibal isles, thosestrange, fantastic places over the rim of the world, where nakedbrown men move like shadows through unimagined jungles, and horridfeasts are celebrated to the "boom, boom, boom!" of the twelve-footdrums?

Years bring knowledge, paid for with the dreams of youth. The wide,vague world becomes familiar, becomes even common-place. London,Paris, Venice, many-colored Cairo, the desecrated crypts of thepyramids, the crumbling villages of Palestine, no longer glimmerbefore me in the iridescent glamor of fancy, for I have seen them.But something of the boyish thrill that filled me when I pored overthe pages of Melville long ago returned while I stood on the deck ofthe _Morning Star_, plunging through the surging Pacific in thedriving tropic rain.

Many leagues before us lay Les Isles Dangereux, the Low Archipelago,first stopping-point on our journey to the far cannibal islands yetanother thousand miles away across the empty seas. Before we saw thegreen banners of Tahiti's cocoanut palms again we would travel notonly forward over leagues of tossing water but backward acrosscenturies of time. For in those islands isolated from the world foreons there remains a living fragment of the childhood of ourCaucasian race.

Darwin's theory is that these islands are the tops of a submergedcontinent, or land bridge, which stretches its crippled body alongthe floor of the Pacific for thousands of leagues. A lost land,whose epic awaits the singer; a mystery perhaps forever to beunsolved. There are great monuments, graven objects, hieroglyphics,customs and languages, island peoples with suggestive legends--all,perhaps, remnants of a migration from Asia or Africa a hundredthousand years ago.

Over this land bridge, mayhap, ventured the Caucasian people, thedominant blood in Polynesia to-day, and when the continent fell fromthe sight of sun and stars save in those spots now the mountainousislands like Tahiti and the Marquesas, the survivors were isolatedfor untold centuries.

Here in these islands the brothers of our long-forgotten ancestorshave lived and bred since the Stone Age, cut off from the mainstream of mankind's development. Here they have kept the childhoodcustoms of our white race, savage and wild, amid their primitive andsavage life. Here, three centuries ago, they were discovered by thepeoples of the great world, and, rudely encountering a civilizationthey did not build, they are dying here. With their passing vanishesthe last living link with our own pre-historic past. And I was to seeit, before it disappears forever.

CHAPTER II

The trade-room of the _Morning Star_; Lying Bill Pincher;M. L'Hermier des Plantes, future governor of the Marquesas;story of McHenry and the little native boy, His Dog.

"Come 'ave a drink!" Captain Pincher called from the cabin, andleaving the spray-swept deck where the rain drummed on the canvasawning I went down the four steps into the narrow cabin-house.

The cabin, about twenty feet long, had a tiny semi-private room forCaptain Pincher, and four berths ranged about a table. Here, groupedaround a demijohn of rum, I found Captain Pincher with my threefellow-passengers; McHenry and Gedge, the traders, and M. L'Hermierdes Plantes, a young officer of the French colonial army, bound tothe Marquesas to be their governor.

The captain was telling the story of the wreck in which he had losthis former ship. He had tied up to a reef for a game of cards with alike-minded skipper, who berthed beside him. The wind changed whilethey slept. Captain Pincher awoke to find his schooner breaking herbacks on the coral rocks.

"Oo can say wot the blooming wind will do?" he said, thumping thetable with his glass. "There was Willy's schooner tied up next to me,and 'e got a slant and slid away, while my boat busts 'er sides openon the reef, The 'ole blooming atoll was 'eaped with the bloomingcargo. Willy 'ad luck; I 'ad 'ell. It's all an 'azard."

He had not found his aitches since he left Liverpool, thirty yearsearlier, nor dropped his silly expletives. A gray-haired, red-faced,laughing man, stockily built, mild mannered, he proved, as theafternoon wore on, to be a man from whom Münchausen might havegained a story or two.

"They call me Lying Bill," he said to me. "You can't believe wot Isay."

"He's straight as a mango tree, Bill Pincher is," McHenry assertedloudly. "He's a terrible liar about stories, but he's the bestseaman that comes to T'yti, and square as a biscuit tin. You know how,when that schooner was stole that he was mate on, and the rottenthief run away with her and a woman, Bill he went after 'em, andbrought the schooner back from Chile. Bill, he's whatever he says heis, all right--but he can sail a schooner, buy copra and shell cheap,sell goods to the bloody natives, and bring back the money to theowners. That's what I call an honest man."

Lying Bill received these hearty words with something less than hisusual good-humor. There was no friendliness in his eye as he lookedat McHenry, whose empty glass remained empty until he himselfrefilled it. Bullet-headed, beady-eyed, a chunk of rank flesh shapedby a hundred sordid adventures, McHenry clutched at equality withthese men, and it eluded him. Lying Bill, making no reply to hisenthusiastic commendation, retired to his bunk with a paper-coverednovel, and to cover the rebuff McHenry turned to talk of trade withGedge, who spoke little.

The traderoom of the _Morning Star_, opening from the cabin, was tome the door to romance. When I was a boy there was more flavor intraderooms than in war. To have seen one would have been as aglimpse of the Holy Grail to a sworn knight. Those traderooms of myyouthful imagination smelt of rum and gun-powder, and beside themwere racks of rifles to repel the dusky figures coming over thebulwarks.

The traderoom of the _Morning Star_ was odorous, too. It had nowindow, and when one opened the door all was obscure at first, whilesmells of rank Tahiti tobacco, cheap cotton prints, a broken bottleof perfume and scented soaps struggled for supremacy. Gradually theeye discovered shelves and bins and goods heaped from floor toceiling; pins and anchors, harpoons and pens, crackers and jewelry,cloth, shoes, medicine and tomahawks, socks and writing paper.

Trade business, McHenry's monologue explained, is not what it was.When these petty merchants dared not trust themselves ashore theirguns guarded against too eager customers. But now almost everyinhabited island has its little store, and the trader has to pursuehis buyers, who die so fast that he must move from island to islandin search of population.

"Booze is boss," said McHenry. "I have two thousand pounds in bankin Australia, all made by selling liquor to the natives. It'sagainst French law to sell or trade or give 'em a drop, but we alldo it. If you don't have it, you can't get cargo. In the divingseason it's the only damn thing that'll pass. The divers'll dig upfrom five to fifteen dollars a bottle for it, depending on theFrench being on the job or not. Ain't that so, Gedge?"

"_C'est vrai_," Gedge assented. He spoke in French, ostensibly forthe benefit of M. L'Hermier des Plantes. That young governor of theMarquesas was not given to saying much, his chief interest in lifeappearing to be an ample black whisker, to which he devoted incessanttender care. After a few words of broken English he had turned anegligent attention to the pages of a Marquesan dictionary, inpreparation for his future labors among the natives. Gedge, however,continued to talk in the language of courts.

It was obvious that McHenry's twenty-five years in Frenchpossessions had not taught him the white man's language. He demandedbrusquely, "What are you _oui-oui_-ing for?" and occasionallyinterjected a few words of bastard French in an attempt to be jovial.To this Gedge paid little attention.

Gedge was chief of the commercial part of the expedition, and hismanner proclaimed it. Thin-lipped, cunning-eyed, but strong andself-reliant, he was absorbed in the chances of trade. He had beentwenty years in the Marquesas islands. A shrewd man among kanakas,unscrupulous by his own account, he had prospered. Now, afterselling his business, he was paying a last visit to his long-timehome to settle accounts.

"'Is old woman is a barefoot girl among the cannibals," Lying Billsaid to me later. "'E 'as given a 'ole army of ostriches to fortune,'e 'as."

One of Captain Pincher's own sons was assistant to the engineer,Ducat, and helped in the cargo work. The lad lived forward with thecrew, so that we saw nothing of him socially, and his father neverspoke to him save to give an order or a reprimand. Native mothersmourn often the lack of fatherly affection in their white mates.Illegitimate children are held cheap by the whites.

[Illustration: Lieutenant L'Hermier des Plantes, Governor of theMarquesas Islands]

[Illustration: Entrance to a Marquesan bay]

For two days at sea after leaving Papeite we did not see the sun.This was the rainy and hot season, a time of calms and hurricanes,of sudden squalls and maddening quietudes, when all signs fail andthe sailor must stand by for the whims of the wind if he would savehimself and his ship. For hours we raced along at seven or eightknots, with a strong breeze on the quarter and the seas rufflingabout our prow. For still longer hours we pushed through a windlesscalm by motor power. Showers fell incessantly.

We lived in pajamas, barefooted, unshaven and unwashed. Fresh waterwas limited, as it would be impossible to replenish our casks formany weeks. McHenry said it was not difficult to accustom one's selfto lack of water, both externally and internally.

There was a demijohn of strong Tahitian rum always on tap in thecabin. Here we sat to eat and remained to drink and read and smoke.There was Bordeaux wine at luncheon and dinner, Martinique andTahitian rum and absinthe between meals. The ship's bell was struckby the steersman every half hour, and McHenry made it the knell ofan ounce.

Captain Pincher took a jorum every hour or two and retired to hisberth and novels, leaving the navigation of the _Morning Star_ tothe under-officers. Ducat, the third officer, a Breton, joined us atmeals. He was a decent, clever fellow in his late twenties,ambitious and clear-headed, but youthfully impressed by McHenry'sself-proclaimed wickedness.

One night after dinner he and McHenry were bantering each otherafter a few drinks of rum. McHenry said, "Say, how's your kanakawoman?"

Ducat's fingers tightened on his glass. Then, speaking English andvery precisely, he asked, "Do you mean my wife?"

"I mean your old woman. What's this wife business?"

"She is my wife, and we have two children."

McHenry grinned. "I know all that. Didn't I know her before you? Shewas mine first."

Ducat got up. We all got up. The air became tense, and in thesilence there seemed no motion of ship or wave. I said to myself,"This is murder."

Ducat, very pale, an inscrutable look on his face, his black eyesnarrowed, said quietly, "Monsieur, do you mean that?"

"Why, sure I do? Why shouldn't I mean it? It's true."

None of us moved, but it was as if each of us stepped back, leavingthe two men facing each other. In this circle no one would interfere.It was not our affair. Our detachment isolated the two--McHenry quitedrunk, in full command of his senses but with no controllingintelligence; Ducat not at all drunk, studying the situation,considering in his rage and humiliation what would best revenge himon this man.

Ducat spoke, "McHenry, come out of this cabin with me."

"What for?"

"Come with me."

"Oh, all right, all right," McHenry said.

We stepped back as they passed us. They went up the steps to the deck.Ducat paused at the break of the poop and stood there, speaking toMcHenry. We could not hear his words. The schooner tossed idly, afaint creaking of the rigging came down to us in the cabin. The samequestion was in every eye. Then Ducat turned on his heel, andMcHenry was left alone.

Our question was destined to remain unanswered. Whatever Ducat hadsaid, it was something that hushed McHenry forever. He nevermentioned the subject again, nor did any of us. But McHenry'sattitude had subtly changed. Ducat's words had destroyed that lastsecret refuge of the soul in which every man keeps the vestiges ofself-justification and self-respect.

McHenry sought me out that night while I sat on the cabin-housegazing at the great stars of the Southern Cross, and began to talk.

"Now take me," he said, "I'm not so bad. I'm as good as most people.As a matter of fact, I ain't done anything more in my life thananybody'd've done, if they had the chance. Look at me--I had asinglet an' a pair of dungarees when I landed on the beach in T'yti,an' look at me now! I ain't done so bad!"

He must have felt the unconvincing ring of his tone, lacking thefull and complacent self-assurance usual to it, for as if gropingfor something to make good the lack he sought backward through hismemories and unfolded bit by bit the tale of his experiences. Scotchborn of drunken parents, he had been reared in the slums of Americancities and the forecastles of American ships. A waif, newsboy, loafer,gang-fighter and water-front pirate, he had come into the South Seastwenty-five years earlier, shanghaied when drunk in San Francisco.He looked back proudly on a quarter of a century of trading, thieving,selling contraband rum and opium, pearl-buying and gambling.

But this pride on which he had so long depended failed him now.Successful fights that he had waged, profitable crimes committed,grew pale upon his tongue. Listening in the darkness while theengine drove us through a black sea and the canvas awning flappedoverhead, I felt the baffled groping behind his words.

"So I don't take nothing from no man!" he boasted, and fell intouneasy silence. "The folks in these islands know me, all right!" heasserted, and again was dumb.

"Now there was a kid, a little Penryn boy," he said suddenly."When I was a trader on Penryn he was there, and he used to comearound my store. That kid liked me. Why, that kid, he was crazyabout me! It's a fact, he was crazy about me, that kid was."

His voice was fumbling back toward its old assurance, but there waswonder in it, as though he was incredulous of this foothold he hadstumbled upon. He repeated, "That kid was crazy about me!

"He used to hang around, and help me with the canned goods, and he'dgo fishing with me, and shooting. He was a regular--what do you call'em? These dogs that go after things for you? He'd go under thewater and bring in the big fish for me. And he liked to do it. Younever saw anything like the way that kid was.

"I used to let him come into the store and hang around, you know.Not that I cared anything for the kid myself; I ain't that kind. ButI'd just give him some tinned biscuits now and then, the way you'd do.He didn't have no father or mother. His father had been eaten by ashark, and his mother was dead. The kid didn't have any name becausehis mother had died so young he hadn't got any name, and his fatherhadn't called him anything but boy. He give himself a name to me,and that was 'Your Dog.'

"He called himself my dog, you see. But his name for it was Your Dog,and that was because he fetched and carried for me, like as if hewas one. He was that kind of kid. Not that I paid much attention tohim.

"You know there's a leper settlement on Penryn, off across the lagoon.I ain't afraid of leprosy y'understand, because I've dealt with 'emfor years, ate with 'em an' slept with 'em, an' all that, likeeverybody down here. But all the same I don't want to have 'em rightaround me all the time. So one day the doctor come to look over thenatives, and he come an' told me the little kid, My Dog, was a leper.

"Now I wasn't attached to the kid. I ain't attached to nobody. Iain't that kind of a man. But the kid was sort of used to me, and Iwas used to havin' him around. He used to come in through the window.He'd just come in, nights, and sit there an' never say a word. WhenI was goin' to bed he'd say, 'McHenry, Your Dog is goin' now, butcan't Your Dog sleep here?' Well, I used to let him sleep on thefloor, no harm in that. But if he was a leper he'd got to go to thesettlement, so I told him so.

"He made such a fuss, cryin' around--By God, I had to boot him outof the place. I said: 'Get out. I don't want you snivelin' around me.'So he went.

"It's a rotten, God-forsaken place, I guess. I don't know. Thegovernment takes care of 'em. It ain't my affair. I guess for aleper colony it ain't so bad.

"Anyway, I was goin' to sell out an' leave Penryn. The diving seasonwas over. One night I had the door locked an' was goin' over myaccounts to see if I couldn't collect some more dough from thenatives. I heard a noise, and By God! there comin' through thewindow was My Dog. He come up to me, and I said: 'Stand away, there!'I ain't afraid of leprosy, but there's no use takin' chances. Younever know.

"Well sir, that kid threw himself down on the floor, and he said,'McHenry, I knowed you was goin' away and I had to come to see you.'That's what he said in his Kanaka lingo.

"He was cryin', and he looked pretty bad. He said he couldn't standthe settlement. He said, 'I don't never see you there. Can't I livehere an' be Your Dog again?'

"I said, 'You got to go to the settlement.' I wasn't goin' to getinto trouble on account of no Kanaka kid.

"Now, that kid had swum about five miles in the night, with sharksall around him--the very place where his father had gone into a shark.That kid thought a lot of me. Well, I made him go back. 'If you don'tgo, the doctor will come, an' then you got to go,' I said. 'Youbetter get out. I'm goin' away, anyhow,' I said. I was figuring onmy accounts, an' I didn't want to be bothered with no fool kid.

"Well, he hung around awhile, makin' a fuss, till I opened the dooran' told him to git. Then he went quiet enough. He went right downthe beach into the water an' swum away, back to the settlement. Nowlook here, that kid liked me. He knowed me well, too--he was aroundmy store pretty near all the time I was in Penryn. He was a fool kid.My Dog, that was the name he give himself. An' while I was in T'yti,here, I get a letter from the trader that took over my store, and hesent me a letter from that kid. It was wrote in Kanaka. He couldn'twrite much, but a little. Here, I'll show you the letter. You'll seewhat that kid thought of me."

In the light from the open cabin window I read the letter, painfullywritten on cheap, blue-lined paper.

"Greetings to you, McHenry, in Tahiti, from Your Dog. It is hard tolive without you. It is long since I have seen you. It is hard. I goto join my father. I give myself to the _mako_. To you, McHenry, fromYour Dog, greetings and farewell."

Across the bottom of the letter was written in English: "The kiddisappeared from the leper settlement. They think he drowned himself."

CHAPTER III

Thirty-seven days at sea; life of the sea-birds; strangephosphorescence; first sight of Fatu-hiva; history of the islands;chant of the Raiateans.

Thirty-seven days at sea brought us to the eve of our landing inHiva-oa in the Marquesas. Thirty-seven monotonous days, varied onlyby rain-squalls and sun, by calm or threatening seas, by thechanging sky. Rarely a passing schooner lifted its sail above thefar circle of the horizon. It was as though we journeyed throughspace to another world.

Yet all around us there was life--life in a thousand varying forms,filling the sea and the air. On calm mornings the swelling waveswere splashed by myriads of leaping fish, the sky was the playgroundof innumerable birds, soaring, diving, following their accustomedways through their own strange world oblivious of the humancreatures imprisoned on a bit of wood below them. Surrounded by auniverse filled with pulsing, sentient life clothed in suchmultitudinous forms, man learns humility. He shrinks to a speck onan illimitable ocean.

I spent long afternoons lying on the cabin-house, watching thefrigates, the tropics, gulls, boobys, and other sea-birds thatsported through the sky in great numbers. The frigate-birds werecalled by the sailors the man-of-war bird, and also the sea-hawk.They are marvelous flyers, owing to the size of the pectoral muscles,which compared with those of other birds are extraordinarily large.They cannot rest on the water, but must sustain their flights fromland to land, yet here they were in mid-ocean.

[Illustration: The ironbound coast of the Marquesas]

[Illustration: A road in Nuka-Hiva]

My eyes would follow one higher and higher till he became a mere dotin the blue, though but a few minutes earlier he had risen from hispursuit of fish in the water. He spread his wings fully and did notmove them as he climbed from air-level to air-level, but his longforked tail expanded and closed continuously.

Sighting a school of flying-fish, which had been driven to franticleaps from the sea by pursuing bonito, he begins to descend. Firsthis coming down is like that of an aeroplane, in spirals, but athousand feet from his prey he volplanes; he falls like a rocket,and seizing a fish in the air, he wings his way again to the clouds.

If he cannot find flying-fish, he stops gannets and terns in mid-airand makes them disgorge their catch, which he seizes as it falls.Refusal to give up the food is punished by blows on the head, butthe gannets and terns so fear the frigate that they seldom have thecourage to disobey. I think a better name for the frigate would bepirate, for he is a veritable pirate of the air. Yet no lawrestrains him.

I observed that the male frigate has a red pouch under the throatwhich he puffs up with air when he flies far. It must have someother purpose, for the female lacks it, and she needs wind-powermore than the male. It is she who seeks the food when, having laidher one egg on the sand, she goes abroad, leaving her husband tokeep the egg warm.

The tropic-bird, often called the boatswain, or phaëton, also climbsto great heights, and is seldom found out of these latitudes. He isa beautiful bird, white, or rose-colored with long carminetail-feathers. In the sun these roseate birds are brilliant objectsas they fly jerkily against the bright blue sky, or skim over the sea,rising and falling in their search for fish. I have seen them manytimes with the frigates, with whom they are great friends. It wouldappear that there is a bond between them; I have never seen thefrigate rob his beautiful companion.

In such idle observations and the vague wonders that arose from them,the days passed. An interminable game of cards progressed in thecabin, in which I occasionally took a hand. Gedge and Lying Billexchanged reminiscences. McHenry drank steadily. The future governorof the Marquesas added a _galon_ to his sleeves, marking his advanceto a first lieutenancy in the French colonial army. He was a verysoft, sleek man, a little worn already, his black hair a trifle thin,but he was plump, his skin white as milk, and his jetty beard andmustache elaborately cared for. He was much before the mirror,combing and brushing and plucking. Compared to us unkempt wretches,he was as a dandy to a tramp.

The ice, which was packed in boxes of sawdust on deck, afforded onecold drink in which to toast the gallant future governor, and thatwas the last of it. At night the Tahitian sailors helped themselves,and we bade farewell to ice until once more we saw Papeite.

It was no refreshment to reflect that had we dredging apparatus longenough we could procure from the sea-bottom buckets of ooze thatwould have cooled our drinks almost to the freezing point.Scientists have done this. Lying Bill was loth to believe the storyand the explanation, that an icy stream flows from the Antarcticthrough a deep valley in the sea-depths.

"It's contrar-iry to nature," he affirmed. "The depper you go the'otter it is. In mines the 'eat is worse the farther down. And 'owabout 'ell?"

I slept on the deck. It was sickeningly hot below. The squalls hadpassed, and as we neared Hiva-oa the sea became glassy smooth, butthe leagues-long, lazy roll of it rocked the schooner like a cradle.

The night before the islands were to come into view the sea was litby phosphorescence so magnificently that even my shipmates, absorbedin écarté below, called to one another to view it. The engine tookus along at about six knots, and every gentle wave that broke was alamp of loveliness. The wake of the _Morning Star_ was a milky pathlit with trembling fragments of brilliancy, and below the surface,beside the rudder, was a strip of green light from which a billionsparks of fire shot to the air. Far behind, until the horizon closedupon the ocean, our wake was curiously remindful of the boulevard ofa great city seen through a mist, the lights fading in the dimdistance, but sparkling still.

I went forward and stood by the cathead. The blue water stirredby the bow was wonderfully bright, a mass of coruscatingphosphorescence that lighted the prow like a lamp. It was as iflightning played beneath the waves, so luminous, so scintillatingthe water and its reflection upon the ship.

The living organisms of the sea were _en fete_ that night, as thoughto celebrate my coming to the islands of which I had so long dreamed.I smiled at the fancy, well knowing that the minute _pyrocistis_,having come to the surface during the calm that followed the storms,were showing in that glorious fire the panic caused among them bythe cataclysm of our passing. But the individual is ever an egoist.It seems to man that the universe is a circle about him and hisaffairs. It may as well seem the same to the _pyrocistis_.

Far about the ship the waves twinkled in green fire, disturbed evenby the ruffling breeze. I drew up a bucketful of the water. In thedarkness of the cabin it gave no light until I passed my handthrough it. That was like opening a door into a room flooded byelectricity; the table, the edges of the bunks, the uninterestedfaces of my shipmates, leaped from the shadows. Marvels do not seemmarvelous to men to live among them.

I lay long awake on deck, watching the eerily lighted sea and thegreat stars that hung low in the sky, and to my fancy it seemed thatthe air had changed, that some breath from the isles before us hadsoftened the salty tang of the sea-breeze.

Land loomed at daybreak, dark, gloomy, and inhospitable. Rain felldrearily as we passed Fatu-hiva, the first of the Marquesas Islandssighted from the south. We had climbed from Tahiti, seventeen degreessouth of the equator, to between eleven and ten degrees south, andwe had made a westward of ten degrees. The Marquesas Islands laybefore us, dull spots of dark rock upon the gray water.

They are not large, any of these islands; sixty or seventy miles isthe greatest circumference. Some of the eleven are quite small, andhave no people now. On the map of the world they are the tiniestpin-pricks. Few dwellers in Europe or America know anything aboutthem. Most travelers have never heard of them. No liners touch them;no wire or wireless connects them with the world. No tourists visitthem. Their people perish. Their trade languishes. In Tahiti, whencethey draw almost all their sustenance, where their laws are made,and to which they look at the capital of the world, only a few men,who traded here, could tell me anything about the Marquesas. Thesem*n had only the vague, exaggerated ideas of the sailor, who goesashore once or twice a year and knows nothing of the native life.

Seven hundred and fifty miles as the frigate flies separates theseislands from Tahiti, but no distance can measure the differencebetween the happiness of Tahiti, the sparkling, brilliant lovelinessof that flower-decked island, and the stern, forbidding aspect of theMarquesas lifting from the sea as we neared them. Gone were thelaughing vales, the pale-green hills, the luring, feminine guise ofnature, the soft-lapping waves upon a peaceful, shining shore. Thespirit that rides the thunder had claimed these bleak and desolateislands for his own.

While the schooner made her way cautiously past the grim and rockyheadlands of Fatu-hiva I was overwhelmed with a feeling of solemnity,of sadness; such a feeling as I have known to sweep over an army thenight before a battle, when letters are written to loved ones andcomrades entrusted with messages.

That gaunt, dark shore itself recalls that the history of theMarquesas is written in blood, a black spot on the white race. It isa history of evil wrought by civilization, of curses heaped on astrange, simple people by men who sought to exploit them or to moldthem to another pattern, who destroyed their customs and theirhappiness and left them to die, apathetic, wretched, hardly knowingtheir own miserable plight.

The French have had their flag over the Marquesas since 1842. In1521 Magellan must have passed between the Marquesas and Paumotas,but he does not mention them. Seventy-three years later a Spanishflotilla sent from Callao by Don Garcia Hurtado de Mendoza, viceroyof Peru, found this island of Fatu-hiva, and its commander, Mendaña,named the group for the viceroy's lady, Las Islas Marquesas deMendoza.

One hundred and eighty years passed, and Captain Cook againdiscovered the islands, and a Frenchman, Etienne Marchand,discovered the northern group. The fires of liberty were blazinghigh in his home land, and Marchand named his group the Isles of theRevolution, in celebration of the victories of the French people. Ayear earlier an American, Ingraham, had sighted this same group andgiven it the name of his own beloved hero, Washington.

Had not Captain Porter failed to establish American rule in 1813 inthe island of Nuka-hiva, which he called Madison, the Marquesasmight have been American. Porter's name, like that of Mendaña, islinked with deeds of cruelty. The Spaniard was without pity; theAmerican may plead that his killings were reprisals or measures ofsafety for himself. Murder of Polynesians was little thought of.Schooners trained their guns on islands for pleasure or practice,and destroyed villages with all their inhabitants.

"To put the fear of God in the nigg*r's hearts," were the words ofmany a sanguinary captain and crew. They did not, of course, meanthat literally. They meant the fear of themselves, and of all whites.They used the name of God in vain, for after a century and more ofsuch intermittent effort the Polynesians have small fear or faithfor the God of Christians, despite continuous labors of missionaries.God seems to have forgotten them.

The French made the islands their political possessions with littledifficulty. The Marquesans had no king or single chief. There weremany tribes and clans, and it was easy to persuade or compel pettychiefs to sign declarations and treaties. But it was not easy tokill the independence of the people, and France virtually abandonedand retook the islands several times, her rule fluctuating withpolitical conditions at home.

There were wars, horrible, bloody scenes, when the clansmen slew thewhites and ate them, and the bones of many a gallant French officerand sea-captain have moldered where they were heaped after the orgyfollowing victory. But, as always, the white slew his hundreds tothe natives' one, and in time he drove the devil of liberty anddefense of native land from the heart of the Marquesan.

Before the French achieved this, however, the white had sowed a cropof deadly evils among the Marquesans that cut them down faster thanwar, and left them desolate, dying, passing to extinction.

As I looked from the deck of the _Morning Star_ I was struck by thefittingness of the scene. Fatu-hiva had been left behind and Hiva-oa,our destination, was before us, bleak and threatening. To my eyes itappeared as it had been in the eyes of the gentler Polynesians ofold time, the abode of demons and of a race of terrible warriors.Hence descended the Marquesans, Vikings of the Pacific, in giantcanoes, and sprang upon the fighting men of the Tahitians, theRaiateans and the Paumotans, slaughtering their hundreds and carryingaway scores to feast upon in the High Places.

"Mauri i te popoi a ee i te au marere i hiti tovau. Ia tari a oe. Tari a rutu mai i hea? A rutu mai i toerau i hitia! O te au marere i hiti atu a Vaua a ratu i reira A rutu i toerau roa! Areare te hai o Nu'u-hiva roa. I te are e huti te tai a Vavea."

"The spirit of the morning rides the flying vapor that rises salt from the sea. Bear on! Bear on! And strike--where? Strike to the northeast! The vapor flies to the far rim of the Sea of Atolls. Strike there! Strike far north! The sea casts up distant Nuka-Hiva, Land of the War Fleet, where the waves are towering billows."

This was the ancient chant of the Raiateans, sung in the old daysbefore the whites came, when they thought of the deeds that weredone by the more-than-human men who lived on these desolate islands.

[Illustration: Harbor of Tai-o-hae]

[Illustration: Schooner _Fetia Taiao_ in the Bay of Traitors

 The little isle behind the schooner is Hanake]

CHAPTER IV

Anchorage of Taha-Uka; Exploding Eggs, and his engagement as valet;inauguration of the new governor; dance on the palace lawn.

As we approached Hiva-oa the giant height of Temetiu slowly liftedfour thousand feet above the sea, swathed in blackest clouds. Below,purple-black valleys came one by one into view, murky caverns ofdank vegetation. Towering precipices, seamed and riven, rose abovethe vast welter of the gray sea.

Slowly we crept into the wide Bay of Traitors and felt our way intothe anchorage of Taha-Uka, a long and narrow passage betweenfrowning cliffs, spray-dashed walls of granite lashed fiercely bythe sea. All along the bluffs were cocoanut-palms, magnificent,waving their green fronds in the breeze. Darker green, the mountainstowered above them, and far on the higher slopes we saw wild goatsleaping from crag to crag and wild horses running in the uppervalleys.

A score or more of white ribbons depended from the lofty heights,and through the binoculars I saw them to be waterfalls. They werelike silver cords swaying in the wind, and when brought nearer bythe glasses, I saw that some of them were heavy torrents while others,gauzy as wisps of chiffon, hardly veiled the black walls behind them.

The whole island dripped. The air was saturated, the decks were wet,and along the shelves of basalt that jutted from the cliffs ahundred blow-holes spouted and roared. In ages of endeavor the oceanhad made chambers in the rock and cut passages to the top, throughwhich, at every surge of the pounding waves, the water rushed androse high in the air.

Iron-bound, the mariner calls this coast, and the word makes one seethe powerful, severe mold of it. Molten rock fused in subterraneanfires and cast above the sea cooled into these ominous ridges, andstern unyielding walls.

There upon the deck I determined not to leave until I had lived fora time amid these wild scenes. My intention had been to voyage withthe _Morning Star_, returning with her to Tahiti, but a mysteriousvoice called to me from the dusky valleys. I could not leave withoutpenetrating into those abrupt and melancholy depths of forest,without endeavoring, though ever so feebly, to stir the cold brew oflegend and tale fast disappearing in stupor and forgetfulness.

Lying Bill protested volubly; he liked company and would regret mycontribution to the expense account. Gedge joined him in seriousopposition to the plan, urging that I would not be able to find aplace to live, that there was no hotel, club, lodging, or food for astranger. But I was determined to stay, though I must sleep under abreadfruit-tree. As I was a mere roamer, with no calendar or even awatch, I had but to fetch my few belongings ashore and be a Marquesan.These belongings I gathered together, and finding me obdurate, LyingBill reluctantly agreed to set them on the beach.

On either side of Taha-Uka inlet are landing-places, one in front ofa store, the other leading only to the forest. These are stairwayscut in the basaltic wall of the cliffs, and against them the wavespound continuously. The beach of Taha-Uka was a mile from where welay and not available for traffic, but around a shoulder of thebluffs was hidden the tiny bay of Atuona, where goods could be landed.

While we discussed this, around those jutting rocks shot a smallout-rigger canoe, frail and hardly large enough to hold the body ofa slender Marquesan boy who paddled it. About his middle he wore ared and yellow _pareu_, and his naked body was like a small andperfect statue as he handled his tiny craft. When he came over theside I saw that he was about thirteen years old and very handsome,tawny in complexion, with regular features and an engaging smile.

His name, he said, was Nakohu, which means Exploding Eggs. This lasttouch was all that was needed; without further ado I at once engagedhim as valet for the period of my stay in the Marquesas. His dutieswould be to help in conveying my luggage ashore, to aid me in themysteries of cooking breadfruit and such other edibles as I mightdiscover, and to converse with me in Marquesan. In return, he was toprofit by the honor of being attached to my person, by an option onsuch small articles as I might leave behind on my departure, and bythe munificent salary of about five cents a day. His gratitude anddelight knew no bounds.

Hardly had the arrangement been made, when a whaleboat rowed byMarquesans followed in the wake of the canoe, and a tall, rangyFrenchman climbed aboard the _Morning Star_. He was Monsieur AndréBauda, agent special, _commissaire_, postmaster; a _beau sabreur_,veteran of many campaigns in Africa, dressed in khaki, medals on hischest, full of gay words and fierce words, drinking his rum neat,and the pink of courtesy. He had come to examine the ship's papers,and to receive the new governor.

A look of blank amazement appeared upon the round face of M. L'Hermierdes Plantes when it was conveyed to him that this solitarywhaleboat had brought a solitary white to welcome him to his seat ofgovernment. He had been assiduously preparing for his reception formany hours and was immaculately dressed in white duck, his legs inhigh, brightly-polished boots, his two stripes in velvet on hissleeve, and his military cap shining. He knew no more about theMarquesas than I, having come directly via Tahiti from France, and hewas plainly dumfounded and dismayed. Was all that tender care of hiswhiskers to be wasted on scenery?

However, after a drink or two he resignedly took his belongings, anddropping into the wet and dirty boat with Bauda, he lifted anumbrella over his gaudy cap and disappeared in the rain.

"'E's got a bloomin' nice place to live in," remarked Lying Bill."Now, if 'e 'd a-been 'ere when I come 'e 'd a-seen something! Icome 'ere thirty-five years ago when I was a young kid. I come witha skipper and I was the only crew. Me and him, and I was eighteen,and the boat was the _Victor_. I lived 'ere and about for ten years.Them was the days for a little excitement. There was a chief, Mohuho,who'd a-killed me if I 'adn't been _tapu'd_ by Vaekehu, the queen,wot took a liking to me, me being a kid, and white. I've seen Mohuhoshoot three natives from cocoanut-trees just to try a new gun. 'Ewas a bad 'un, 'e was. There was something doing every day, them days.God, wot it is to be young!"

A little later Lying Bill, Ducat, and I, with my new valet's canoein the wake of our boat, rounded the cliffs that had shut off ourview of Atuona Valley. It lay before us, a long and narrow stretchof sand behind a foaming and heavy surf; beyond, a few scatteredwooden buildings among palm and banian-trees, and above, the ribbedgaunt mountains shutting in a deep and gloomy ravine. It was a lonely,beautiful place, ominous, melancholy, yet majestic.

"Bloody Hiva-oa," this island was called. Long after the French hadsubdued by terror the other isles of the group, Hiva-oa remainedobdurate, separate, and untamed. It was the last stronghold ofbrutishness, of cruel chiefs and fierce feuds, of primitive andterrible customs. And of "the man-eating isle of Hiva-oa" AtuonaValley was the capital.

We landed on the beach dry-shod, through the skill of theboat-steerer and the strength of the Tahitian sailors, who carriedus through the surf and set my luggage among the thick green vinesthat met the tide. We were dressed to call upon the governor, whoseinauguration was to take place that afternoon, and leaving mybelongings in care of the faithful Exploding Eggs, we set off up thevalley.

The rough road, seven or eight feet wide, was raised on rocks abovethe jungle and was bordered by giant banana plants and cocoanuts. Atthis season all was a swamp below us, the orchard palms standing manyfeet deep in water and mud, but their long green fronds and thedarker tangle of wild growth on the steep mountain-sides werebeautiful.

The government house was set half a mile farther on in the narrowingravine, and on the way we passed a desolate dwelling, squalid, setin the marsh, its battered verandas and open doors disclosing awretched mingling of native bareness with poverty-stricken Europeanfittings. On the tottering veranda sat a ragged Frenchman, beardedand shaggy-haired, and beside him three girls as blonde as German_Mädchens_. Their white delicate faces and blue eyes, in suchsurroundings, struck one like a blow. The eldest was a girl ofeighteen years, melancholy, though pretty, wearing like the others adirty gown and no shoes or stockings. The man was in soiled overalls,and reeling drunk.

"That is Baufré," said Ducat. "He is always drunk. He married thedaughter of an Irish trader, a former officer in the British IndianLight Cavalry. Baufré was a _sous-officier_ in the French forces here.There is no native blood in those girls. What will become of them, Iwonder?"

A few hundred yards further on was the palace. It was a wooden houseof four or five rooms, with an ample veranda, surrounded by an acreof ground fenced in. The sward was the brilliantly green, luxuriantwild growth that in these islands covers every foot of earth surface.Cocoanuts and mango-trees rose from this volunteer lawn, and underthem a dozen rosebushes, thick with excessively fragrant bloom.Pineapples grew against the palings, and a bed of lettuce flourishedin the rear beside a tiny pharmacy, a kitchen, and a shelter forservants.

On the spontaneous verdure before the veranda three score Marquesansstood or squatted, the men in shirts and overalls and the women intunics. Their skins, not brown nor red nor yellow, but tawny likethat of the white man deeply tanned by the sun, reminded me againthat these people may trace back their ancestry to the Caucasiancradle. The hair of the women was adorned with gay flowers or theleaves of the false coffee bush. Their single garments of gorgeouscolors clung to their straight, rounded bodies, their dark eyes weresoft and full of light as the eyes of deer, and their features,clean-cut and severe, were of classic lines.

The men, tall and massive, seemed awkwardly constricted inill-fitting, blue cotton overalls such as American laborers wearover street-clothes. Their huge bodies seemed about to break throughthe flimsy bindings, and the carriage of their striking heads madethe garments ridiculous. Most of them had fairly regular features ona large scale, their mouths wide, and their lips full and sensual.They wore no hats or ornaments, though it has ever been the customof all Polynesians to put flowers and wreaths upon their heads.

Men and women were waiting with a kind of apathetic resignation;melancholy and unresisting despair seemed the only spirit left tothem.

On the veranda with the governor and Bauda were several whites, onea French woman to whom we were presented. Madame Bapp, fat andred-faced, in a tight silk gown over corsets, was twice the size ofher husband, a dapper, small man with huge mustaches, a paper collarto his ears, and a fiery, red-velvet cravat.

On a table were bottles of absinthe and champagne, and severaldemijohns of red wine stood on the floor. All our company attackedthe table freight and drank the warm champagne.

A seamy-visaged Frenchman, Pierre Guillitoue, the village butcher--aphilosopher and anarchist, he told me--rapped with a bottle on theveranda railing. The governor, in every inch of gold lace possible,made a gallant figure as he rose and faced the people. His whiskerswere aglow with dressing. The ceremony began with an address by anative, Haabunai.

Intrepreted by Guillitoue, Haabunai said that the Marquesans wereglad to have a new governor, a wise man who would cure their ills, ajust ruler, and a friend; then speaking directly to his own people,he praised extravagantly the newcomer, so that Guillitoue choked inhis translation, and ceased, and mixed himself a glass of absintheand water.

The governor replied briefly in French. He said that he had come intheir interest; that he would not cheat them or betray them; that hewould make them well if they were sick. The French flag was theirflag; the French people loved them. The Marquesans listened withoutinterest, as if he spoke of some one in Tibet who wanted to sell agreen elephant.

In the South Seas a meeting out-of-doors means a dance. ThePolynesians have ever made this universal human expression of therhythmic principle of motion the chief evidence of emotion, andparticularly of elation. Civilization has all but stifled it in manyislands. Christianity has made it a sin. It dies hard, for it is thebasic outlet of strong natural feeling, and the great groupentertainment of these peoples.

[Illustration: André Bauda, Commissaire]

[Illustration: The public dance in the garden]

The speeches done, the governor suggested that the national spiritbe interpreted to him in pantomine.

"They must be enlivened with alcohol or they will not move," saidGuillitoue.

"_Mon dieu!_" he replied. "It is the 'Folies Bergère' over again!Give them wine!"

Bauda ordered Flag, the native gendarme, and Song of the Nightingale,a prisoner, to carry a demijohn of Bordeaux wine to the garden. Withtwo glasses they circulated the claret until each Marquesan had apint or so. Song of the Nightingale was a middle-aged savage, with awicked, leering face, and whiskers from his ears to the corners ofhis mouth, surely a strange product of the Marquesan race, none ofwhose men will permit any hair to grow on lip or cheek. While Songcirculated the wine M. Bauda enlightened me as to the crime that hadmade him prisoner. He was serving eighteen months for sellingcocoanut brandy.

When the cask was emptied the people began the dance. Three rowswere formed, one of women between two of men, in Indian file facingthe veranda. Haabunai and Song of the Nightingale brought forth thedrums. These were about four feet high, barbaric instruments of skinstretched over hollow logs, and the "Boom-Boom" that came from themwhen they were struck by the hands of the two strong men wasthrilling and strange.

The dance was formal, slow, and melancholy. Haabunai gave the orderof it, shouting at the top of his voice. The women, with blue andscarlet Chinese shawls of silk tied about their hips, moved stiffly,without interest or spontaneous spirit, as though constrained andindifferent. Though the dances were licentious, they conveyed nomeaning and expressed no emotion. The men gestured by rote,appealing mutely to the spectators, so that one might fancy themorators whose voices failed to reach one. There was no laughter, noteven a smile.

"Give them another demijohn!" said the governor.

The juice of the grape dissolved melancholy. When the last of it hadflowed the dance was resumed. The women began a spirited _danse duventre_. Their eyes now sparkled, their bodies were lithe andgraceful. McHenry rushed on to the lawn and taking his place amongthem copied their motions in antics that set them roaring with thehearty roars of the conquered at the asininity of the conquerors.They tried to continue the dance, but could not for merriment.

One of the dancers advanced toward the veranda and in a ceremoniousway kissed the governor upon the lips. That young executive was muchsurprised, but returned the salute and squeezed her tiny waist. Allthe company laughed at this, except Madame Bapp, who glared angrilyand exclaimed, "_Coquine!_" which means hussy.

The Marquesans have no kisses in their native love-making, but smellone or rub noses, as do the Eskimo. Whites, however, have taughtkisses in all their variety.

The governor had the girl drink a glass of champagne. She wasperhaps sixteen years old, a charming girl, smiling, simple, andlovely. Her skin, like that of all Marquesans, was olive, not brownlike the Hawaiians' or yellow like the Chinese, but like that ofwhites grown dark in the sun. She had black, streaming hair, sloeeyes, and an arch expression. Her manner was artlessly ingratiating,and her sweetness of disposition was not marked by hauteur. When Inoticed that her arm was tattoed, she slipped off her dress and satnaked to the waist to show all her adornment.

There was an inscription of three lines stretching from her shoulderto her wrist, the letters nearly an inch in length, crowded togetherin careless inartistry. The legend was as follows:

 "TAHIAKEANA TEIKIMOEATIPANIE PAHAKA AVII ANIPOENUIMATILAILI TETUATONOEINUHAPALIILII"

These were the names given her at birth, and tattooed in herchildhood. She was called, she said, Tahiakeana, Weaver of Mats.

Seeing her success among us and noting the champagne, her companionsbegan to thrust forward on to the veranda to share her luck. Thisangered the governor, who thought his dignity assailed. At Bauda'sorder, the gendarme and Song of the Nightingale dismissed thevisitors, put McHenry to sleep under a tree, and escorted the newexecutive and me to Bauda's home on the beach.

There in his board shanty, six by ten feet, we ate our first dinnerin the islands, while the wind surged through swishing palm-leavesoutside, and nuts fell now and then upon the iron roof with theresounding crash of bombs. It was a plain, but plentiful, meal ofcanned foods, served by the tawny gendarme and the wicked Song,whose term of punishment for distributing brandy seemed curiouslysuited to his crime.

At midnight I accompanied a happy governor to his palace, which hadone spare bedroom, sketchily furnished. During the night the slatsof my bed gave way with a dreadful din, and I woke to find thegovernor in pajamas of rose-colored silk, with pistol in hand,shedding electric rays upon me from a battery lamp. There wasanxiety in his manner as he said:

"You never can tell. A chief's son tried to kill my predecessor. Ido not know these Marquesans. We are few whites here. And, _mon dieu!_the guardian of the palace is himself a native!"

[Illustration: Antoinette, a Marquesan dancing girl]

[Illustration: Marquesans in Sunday clothesThe daughter of Titihuti, chieftess of Hiva-Oa. On the left her husband,Pierre Pradorat, on the right, his brother]

CHAPTER V

First night in Atuona valley; sensational arrival of the Golden Bed;Titi-huti's tattooed legs.

It was necessary to find at once a residence for my contemplatedstay in Atuona, for the schooner sailed on the morrow, and my briefglimpse of the Marquesans had whetted my desire to live among them.I would not accept the courteous invitation of the governor to stayat the palace, for officialdom never knows its surroundings, andgrandeur makes for no confidence from the lowly.

Lam Kai Oo, an aged Chinaman whom I encountered at the trader'sstore, came eagerly to my rescue with an offered lease of hisdeserted store and bakeshop. From Canton he had been brought inhis youth by the labor bosses of western America to help build thetranscontinental railway, and later another agency had set him downin Taha-Uka to grow cotton for John Hart. He saw the destruction ofthat plantation, escaped the plague of opium, and with his scantsavings made himself a petty merchant in Atuona. Now he was old andhad retired up the valley to the home he had long established therebeside his copra furnace and his shrine of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

He led me to the abandoned shack, a long room, tumbledown, moist,festooned with cobwebs, the counters and benches black withreminiscences of twenty thousand tradings and Chinese meals. Thewindows were but half a dozen bars, and the heavy vapors of a cruelpast hung about the sombre walls. Though opium had long beencontraband, its acrid odor permeated the worn furnishings. Here withsome misgivings I prepared to spend my second night in Hiva-oa.

I left the palace late, and found the shack by its location next theriver on the main road. Midnight had come, no creature stirred as Iopened the door. The few stars in the black velvet pall of the skyseemed to ray out positive darkness, and the spirit of Po, theMarquesan god of evil, breathed from the unseen, shuddering forest.I tried to damn my mood, but found no profanity utterable. Rainbegan to fall, and I pushed into the den.

A glimpse of the dismal interior did not cheer me. I locked the doorwith the great iron key, spread my mat, and blew out the lantern.Soon from out the huge brick oven where for decades Lam Kai Oo hadbaked his bread there stole scratching, whispering forms that slidalong the slippery floor and leaped about the seats where many longsince dead had sat. I lay quiet with a will to sleep, but the hairstirred on my scalp.

The darkness was incredible, burdensome, like a weight. The sound ofthe wind and the rain in the breadfruit forest and the low roar ofthe torrent became only part of the silence in which those invisiblepresences crept and rustled. Try as I would I could recall no gooddeed of mine to shine for me in that shrouded confine. The Celticvision of my forefathers, that strange mixture of the terrors ofDruid and soggarth, danced on the creaking floor, and witch-lightsgleamed on ceiling and timbers. I thought to dissolve it all with amatch, but whether all awake or partly asleep, I had no strength toreach it.

Then something clammily touched my face, and with a bound I had thelantern going. No living thing moved in the circle of its rays. Myflesh crawled on my bones, and sitting upright on my mat I chantedaloud from the Bible in French with Tahitian parallels. The glow ofa pipe and the solace of tobacco aided the rhythm of the prophets indispelling the ghosts of the gloom, but never shipwrecked marinergreeted the dawn with greater joy than I.

In its pale light I peered through the barred windows--the windowsof the Chinese the world over--and saw four men who had set down acoffin to rest themselves and smoke a cigarette. They sat on therude box covered with a black cloth and passed the pandanus-wrappedtobacco about. Naked, except for loin-cloths, their tawny skinsgleaming wet in the gray light, rings of tattooing about their eyes,they made a strange picture against the jungle growth.

They were without fire for they had got into a deep place crossingthe stream and had wet their matches. I handed a box through the bars,and by reckless use of the few words of Marquesan I recalled, andbits of French they knew, helped out by scraps of Spanish one hadgained from the Chilean murderer who milked the cows for the Germantrader, I learned that the corpse was that of a woman of sixty years,whose agonies had been soothed by the ritual of the Catholic church.The bearers were taking her to Calvary cemetery on the hill.

Their cigarettes smoked, they rose and took up the long poles onwhich the coffin was swung. Moving with the tread of panthers, firm,noiseless, and graceful, they disappeared into the forest and I wasleft alone with the morning sun and the glistening leaves of therain-wet breadfruit-trees.

On the beach an hour later I met Gedge, who asked me with aquizzical eye how I had enjoyed my first night among the Kanakas. Ireplied that I had seldom passed such a night, spoke glowingly ofthe forest and the stream, and said that I was still determined toremain behind when the schooner sailed.

"Well, if you will stay," said he, and the trader's look came intohis eye, "I've got just the thing you want. You don't want to lieon a mat where the thousand-legs can get you--and if they get you,you die. You want to live right. Now listen to me; I got the bestbrass bed ever a king slept on. Double thickness, heavy brass bed,looks like solid gold. Springs that would hold the schooner,double-thick mattress, sheets and pillows all embroidered like itbelonged to a duch*ess. Fellow was going to be married that I broughtit for, but now he's lying up there in Calvary in a bed they dug forhim. I'll let you have it cheap--three hundred francs. It's worthdouble. What do you say?"

A brass bed, a golden bed in the cannibal islands!

"It's a go," I said.

On the deck of the _Morning Star_ I beheld the packing-cases broughtup from the hold, and my new purchase with all its parts andappurtenances loaded in a ship's boat, with the iron box that heldmy gold. So I arrived in Atuona for the second time, high astride thesewed-up mattress on top of the metal parts, and so deftly did theTahitians handle the oars that, though we rode the surf right up tothe creeping jungle flowers that met the tide on Atuona beach, I wasnot wet except by spray.

[Illustration: Vai Etienne]

[Illustration: The pool by the Queen's house]

Our arrival was watched by a score of Marquesan chiefs who had beensummoned by Bauda for the purpose, as he told me, of being urged tothrash the tax-tree more vigorously. The meeting adjourned instantly,and they hastened down from the frame building that housed thegovernment offices. Their curiosity could not be restrained. A scoreof eager hands stripped the coverings from the brass bed, andexposed the glittering head and foot pieces in the brilliant sunlight.Exclamations of amazement and delight greeted the marvel. This wasanother wonder from the white men's isles, indicative of wealth androyal taste.

From all sides other natives came hastening. My brass bed and I werethe center of a gesticulating circle, dark eyes rolled withexcitement and naked shoulder jostled shoulder. Three chiefs,tattooed and haughty, personally erected the bed, and when Idisclosed the purpose of the mattress, placed it in position. Everywoman present now pushed forward and begged the favor of beingallowed to bounce upon it. It became a diversion attended with highhonor. Controversies meantime raged about the bed. Many voicesestimated the number of mats that would be necessary to equal thethickness of the mattress, but none found a comparison worthy of itssoftness and elasticity.

In the midst of this mêlée one woman, whose eyes and facial contourbetrayed Chinese blood, but who was very comely and neat, pushedforward and pointing to the glittering center of attraction repeatedover and over.

"_Kisskisskissa? Kisskisskissa?_"

For awhile I was disposed to credit her with a sudden affection forme, but soon resolved her query into the French "Qu'est-ce que c'estque ca? What is that?"

She was Apporo, wife of Puhei, Great Fern, she said, and she owned ahouse in which her father, a Chinaman, had recently died. This houseshe earnestly desired to give me in exchange for the golden bed, andwe struck a bargain. I was to live in the house of Apporo and, ondeparting, to leave her the bed. Great Fern, her husband, was calledto seal the compact. He was a giant in stature, dark skinned, with aserene countenance and crisp hair. They agreed to clean the housethoroughly and to give me possession at once.

They were really mad to have the bed, in all its shiny golden beauty,and once the arrangement was made they could hardly give overexamining it, crawling beneath it, smoothing the mattress andfingering the springs. They shook it, poked it, patted it, andfinally Apporo, filled with feminine pride, arrogated to herself thesole privilege of bouncing upon it.

Lam Kai Oo wailed his loss of a tenant.

"You savee thlat house belong lep'," he argued earnestly. "My sto'elittee dirty, but I fixum. You go thlat lep' house, bimeby flingerdlop, toe dlop, nose he go." He grimaced frightfully, and indicatedin pantomime the ravages of leprosy upon the human form.

His appeal was in vain. The Golden Bed, upraised on the shoulders offour stalwart chiefs, began its triumphal progress up the valley road.Behind it officiously walked Exploding Eggs, puffed up withimportance, regarded on all sides with respect as _Tueni Oki Kiki_,Keeper of the Golden Bed, but jostled for position by Apporo, enviedof women. Behind them up the rough road hastened the rest of thevillage, eager to see the installation of the marvel in its newquarters, and I followed the barbaric procession leisurely.

My new residence was a mile from the beach, and off the mainthoroughfare, though this mattered little. The roads built decadesago by the French are so ruined and neglected that not a thousandfeet of them remain in all the islands. No wheel supports a vehicle,not even a wheelbarrow. Trails thread the valleys and climb the hills,and traffic is by horse and human.

My Golden Bed, lurching precariously in the narrow path, led methrough tangled jungle growth to the first sight of my new home, asmall house painted bright blue and roofed with corrugated iron. Setin the midst of the forest, it was raised from the ground on a_paepae_, a great platform made of basalt stones, black, smoothand big, the very flesh of the Marquesas Islands. Every house builtby a native since their time began has been set on a _paepae_, andmine had been erected in days beyond the memory of any living man.It was fifty feet broad and as long, raised eight feet from the earth,which was reached by worn steps.

Above the small blue-walled house the rocky peak of Temetiu rosesteeply, four thousand feet into the air, its lower reaches clothedin jungle-vines, and trees, its summit dark green under a clear sky,but black when the sun was hidden. Most of the hours of the day itwas but a dim shadow above a belt of white clouds, but up to itsmysterious heights a broken ridge climbed sheer from the valley, andupon it browsed the wild boar and the crag-loving goat.

Beside the house the river brawled through a greenwood ofbread-fruit-, cocoanut-, vi-apple-, mango- and lime-trees. Thetropical heat distilled from their leaves a drowsy woodland odorwhich filled the two small whitewashed rooms, and the shadows of thetrees, falling through the wide unglassed windows, made a sun-fleckedpattern on the black stone floor. This was the House of Lepers, nowrechristened the House of the Golden Bed, which was to be my homethrough the unknown days before me.

The next day I watched the _Morning Star_ lift her sails and moveslowly out of the Bay of Traitors into the open sea, with lessregret than I have ever felt in that moment of wistfulness whichattends the departure of a sailing-ship. Exploding Eggs, at my side,read correctly my returning eyes. "Kaoha!" he said, with a widesmile of welcome, and with him and Vai, my next-door neighbor, Ireturned gladly to my _paepae_.

Vai, or in English, Water, was a youth of twenty years, a dandy; onordinary occasions naked, except for the _pareu_ about his loins,but on Sundays or when courting rejoicing in the gayest ofEuropeanized clothes. He lived near me in a small house on theriver-bank with his mother and sister. All were of a long line ofchiefs, and all marvelously large and handsome.

The mother, Titihuti, would have been beloved of the ancient artistswho might have drawn her for an Amazon. I have never seen anotherwoman of such superb carriage. Her hair was blood-red, her brow lofty,and an indescribable air of majesty and pride spoke eloquently ofher descent from fathers and mothers of power. She had wonderful legs,statuesque in mold, and tattooed from ankles to thigh in mostamazing patterns. To a Marquesan of her generation the tattooed legsof a shapely woman were the highest reach of art.

Titihuti was very proud of her legs. Though she was devout Catholicand well aware of the contempt of the church for such vanities,religion could not entirely efface her pride. During the first fewdays she passed and repassed my cabin in her walks about herhousehold duties, lifting her tunic each day a little higher. Hervanity would no doubt have continued this gradual course, but thatone day I came upon her in the river entirely nude. Hergratification was unconcealed; naively she displayed the innumerablewhirls and arabesques of her adornment for my compliments, andthereafter she wore only a _pareu_ when at home, entirely droppingalien standards of modesty and her gown.

She said that people came from far valleys to see her legs, and Icould readily believe it. It was so with the leg of the late QueenVaekehu, a leg so perfect in mold and so elaborately andartistically inked that it distinguished her even more than her rank.Casual whites, especially, considered it a curiosity, and offendedher majesty by laying democratic hands upon the masterpiece. I hadknown a man or two who had seen the queen at home, and who testifiedwarmly to the harmonious blending of flesh color with the candle-nutsoot. Among my effects in the House of the Golden Bed I had aphotograph showing the multiplicity and fine execution of thedesigns upon Vaekehu's leg, yet comparing it with the two realitiesof Titihuti I could not yield the palm to the queen.

The legs of Titihuti were tattooed from toes to ankles with anet-like pattern, and from the ankles to the waistline, where thedesign terminated in a handsome girdle, there were curves, circlesand filigree, all in accord, all part of a harmonious whole, andmost pleasing to the eye. The pattern upon her feet was much likethat of sandals or high mocassins, indicating a former use ofleg-coverings in a cold climate. Titihuti herself, after an anxiousinch-for-inch matching of picture and living form, said complacentlythat her legs were _meitai ae_, which meant that she would not havehesitated to enter her own decorations in beauty competition withthose of Vaekehu.

Kake, her daughter, had been christened for her mother's greatestcharm, for her name means Tattooed to the Loins, though there wasnot a tattoo mark upon her. She was a beautiful, stately girl ofnineteen or twenty, married to a devoted native, to whom, shortlyafter my arrival, she presented his own living miniature. I was thestartled witness of the birth of this babe, the delight of hisfather's heart.

My neighbors and I had the same bathing hour, soon after daylight,and usually chose the same pool in the clear river. Kake was lyingon a mat on their _paepae_ when I passed one morning, and when Isaid "Kaoha" to her she did not reply. Her silence caused me tomount the stairway, and at that moment the child was born.

Half an hour later she joined me in the river, and laughing back atme over her shoulder as she plunged through the water, called thatshe would give the child my name. That afternoon she was sitting onmy _paepae_, a bewitching sight as she held the suckling to herbreast and crooned of his forefather's deeds before the white hadgripped them.

CHAPTER VI

Visit of Chief Seventh Man Who is So Angry He Wallows in the Mire;journey to Vait-hua on Tahuata island; fight with the devil-fish;story of a cannibal feast and the two who escaped.

"The Iron Fingers That Make Words," the Marquesans called mytypewriter. Such a wonder had never before been beheld in the islands,and its fame spread far. From other valleys and even from distantislands the curious came in threes and fours. They watched thestrange thing write their names and carefully carried away the bitsof paper.

"Aue!" they cried as I showed them my speed, which would be a shameto a typist.

Chiefs especially were my visitors, thinking it proper to theirestate and to mine that they should call upon me and invite me totheir seats of government.

So it happened that one morning as I sat on my _paepae_ eating abreakfast of roasted breadfruit prepared for me by Exploding Eggs,my naked skin enjoying the warmth of the sun and my ears filled withthe bubbling laughter of the brook, I beheld two stately visitorsapproaching. Exploding Eggs named them to me as they came up thetrail.

Both were leading chiefs of the islands. Katu, Piece of Tattooing,of Hekeani, led the way. His severe and dignified face was a darkblue in color. His eyes alone were free from imbedded indigo ink.They gleamed like white clouds in a blue sky, but their glance wasmild and kindly. Sixty years of age, he still walked with uprightgrace, only the softened contours of his face betraying that he waswell in his manhood when his valley was still given over to tribalwarfares, orgies, and cannibalism.

Behind him came Neo Afitu Atrien, of Vait-hua, a stocky brown manwith a lined face, stubby mustache, and brilliant, intelligent eyes.He mounted the steps, shook hands heartily, and poured outhis informed soul in English.

"Johnny, I spik Ingrish. You Iris'man. You got 'O,' before name. Iknow you got tipwrite can make machine do pen. I know Panama Canal.How is Teddy and Gotali?"

I assured the chief that both Roosevelt and Goethals were well atlast account, and he veered to other topics.

"Before time, come prenty whaleship my place," he said. "I knowgeograffy, mappee, grammal. I know Egyptee, Indee, all country; Iknow Bufflobillee. Before time, whaleship come America for takewater and wood. Stay two, t'ree week. Every night sailor come ashorecatchee girls take ship. Prenty rum, biskit, molassi, good Americantobbacee. Now all finish. Whaleship no more. That is not good."

His name means The Seventh Man Who Is So Angry He Wallows In The Mire."Neo" means all but the number, and for so short a word to betranslated by so detailed a statement would indicate that there weremany Marquesans whose anger tripped them. Else such a word hadhardly been born.

I showed the chiefs the marvels of my typewriter, displayed to theirrespectful gaze the Golden Bed, and otherwise did the honors. Asthey departed, Neo said earnestly,

"You come see me you have my house. You like, you bring prenty rum,keep warm if rain."

"A wicked man," said Exploding Eggs in Marquesan when the trail layempty before us. "One time he drink much rum, French gendarme go toarrest him, he bite--" With an eloquent gesture my valet indicatedthat Neo's teeth had removed in its entirety the nose of the valiantdefender of morals. "No good go see him," he added with finality.

However, the prospect intrigued my fancy, and finding a few dayslater that Ika Vaikoki, whose discerning parents had named him Ugh!Dried-up Stream! was voyaging toward Vait-hua in a whaleboat, Ioffered him ten francs and two litres of rum to take me. RememberingNeo's suggestion, I took also two other bottles of rum.

While our whaleboat shot across the Bordelaise Channel pursued by abrisk breeze, Ugh! a wisp of a man of fifty, held the helm. He wasfor all the world like a Malay pirate; I have seen his doublesteering a proa off the Borneo coast, slim, high-cheeked, with asashful of saw-like knives. Ugh! had no weapon, but his eye was asmall flaming coal that made me thankful cannibalism is a thing ofthe past. He had been carried through the surf to his perch upon thestern because one of his legs was useless for walking, but once hegrasped the tiller, he was a seaman of skill.

The oarsmen wore turbans of pink, blue, and white muslin to protecttheir heads from the straight rays of the white sun. Bright-colored_pareus_ were about their loins, and several wore elasticsleeve-holders as ornaments on tawny arms and legs, while one, theson of Ugh! sported earrings, great hoops of gold that flashed inthe sunshine. With their dark skins, gleaming eyes, and white teeth,they were a brilliant picture against the dazzling blue of the sea.Straight across the channel we steered for Hana Hevane, a little bayand valley guarded by sunken coral rocks over which the water foamedin white warning. Two of the men leaped out into the waves and huntedon these rocks for squids, while we beached the boat on a shoreuninhabited by any living creature but rats, lizards, and centipedes.Several small octopi were soon brought in, and one of the men placedthem on some boulders where the tide had left pools of water, andcleaned them of their poison. He rubbed them on the stone exactly asa washerwoman handles a flannel garment, and out of them came alather as though he had soaped them. Suds, bubbles, and froth--onewould have said a laundress had been at work there. He dipped themoften in a pool of salt water, and not until they would yield nomore suds did he give each a final rinsing and throw it on the firemade on the beach. Suddenly a shout broke my absorption in this task.The son of Ugh! with the gold earrings, waving his arms from amidstthe surf on the reef, called to me to come and see a big _feke_. Ashis companions were dancing about and yelling madly, I left thelaundrying of the small sea-devils and splashed two hundred yardsthrough the lagoon to the scene of excitement. Four of the crew hadattacked a giant devil-fish, which was hidden in a cave in the rocks.From the gloom it darted out its long arms and tried to seize thestrange creatures that menaced it. The naked boatsmen, dancing justout of reach of the writhing tentacles, struck at them with longknives. As they cut off pieces of the curling, groping gristle, Ithought I heard a horrible groan from the cave, almost like thevoice of a human in agony. I stayed six feet away, for I had noknife and no relish for the game.

Four of the long arms had been severed at the ends when suddenly theoctopus came out of his den to fight for his life. He was areddish-purple globe of horrid flesh, horned all over, with a headnot unlike an elephant's, but with large, demoniacal eyes, bitter,hating eyes that roved from one to another of us as if selecting hisprey. Eight arms, some shorn of their suckers, stretched out tenfeet toward us.

The Marquesans retreated precipitately, and I led them, laughingnervously, but not joyously. The son of Ugh! stopped first.

"_Ta! Ta! Ta! Ta!_" he cried. "Are we afraid of that ugly beast? Ihave killed many. _Pakeka!_ We will eat him, too!"

He turned with the others and advanced toward the _feke_, shoutingscornful names at him, threatening him with death and being eaten,warning him that the sooner he gave up, the quicker ended his agony.But the devilfish was not afraid. His courage shamed mine. I wasbehind the barrier of the boatsmen, but once in the throes of thefight a slimy arm passed between two of them and wound itself aroundmy leg. I screamed out, for it was icy cold and sent a sickeningweakness all through me, so that I could not have swum a dozen feetwith it upon me. One of the natives cut it off, and still it clung tomy bloodless skin until I plucked it away.

The son of Ugh! had two of the great arms about him at one time, buthis companions hacked at them until he was free. Then, regardless ofthe struggles of the maimed devil, they closed in on him and stabbedhis head and body until he died. During these last moments I wasamazed and sickened to hear the octopus growling and moaning in itsfury and suffering. His voice had a curious timbre. I once heard aman dying of hydrophobia make such sounds, half animal, half human.

"That _feke_ would have killed and eaten any one of us," said theson of Ugh! "Not many are so big as he, but here in Hana Hevane,where seldom any one fished, they are the biggest in the world. Theylie in these holes in the rocks and catch fish and crabs as they swimby. My cousin was taken by one while fishing, and was dragged downinto the hidden caverns. He was last seen standing on a ledge, andthe next day his bones were found picked clean. A shark is easier tofight than such a devil who has so many arms."

The boatsmen gathered up the remnants of the foe and brought them tothe beach, where the elder Ugh! was tending the fire. Crabs werebroiling upon it, and the pieces of the _feke_ were flung besidethem and the smaller octopi.

When they were cooked, a trough of _popoi_ and one of _feikai_, orroasted breadfruit mixed with a cocoanut-milk sauce, were placed onthe sand, and all squatted to dine. For a quarter of an hour theonly sounds were the plup of fingers withdrawn from mouths filledwith _popoi_, and the faint creaming of waves on the beach.Marquesans feel that eating is serious business. The devil-fish andcrabs were the delicacies, and served as dessert. Blackened by thefire, squid and crustacean were eaten without condiment, thetentacles being devoured as one eats celery. I was soon satisfied,and while they lingered over their food and smoked I strolled up thevalley a little way, still feeling the pressure of that severed arm.

Hana Hevane had its people one time. They vanished as from a hundredother valleys, before the march of progress. The kindly green of thejungle had hidden the marks of human habitations, where once they hadlived and loved and died.

Only the bones of _La Corse_, the schooner Jerome Capriata hadsailed many years, lay rotting under a grotesque and dark banian,never more to feel the foot of man upon the deck or to toss upon thesea. A consoling wave lapped the empty pintles and gave the decayingcraft a caress by the element whose mistress she so long had been.Her mast was still stepped, but a hundred centipedes crawled overthe hull.

When I returned to the fire, the boatmen were talking. Ugh! Dried-upStream! his stomach full and smoke in his mouth, bethought himselfof a tale, an incident of this very spot. In a sardonic manner hebegan:

"The men of this island, Tahuata, in the old days descended onFatu-hiva to hunt the man-meat. After the battle, they brought theircaptives to Hana Hevane to rest, to build a fire and to eat one oftheir catch. This they did, and departed again. But when they were intheir canoes, they found they had forgotten a girl whom they hadthrown on the sand, and they returned for her. The sea was rough,and they had to stay here on the beach for the night.

"As was the custom, they erected a gibbet, two posts and ahorizontal bar, and on the bar they hung the living prisoners, witha cord of _parau_ bark passed through the scalp and tied around thehair. Their arms were tied behind them, and they swung in the breeze.

"In the night, when the Tahuata men slept from their gluttony, oneof them arose silently and unbound a prisoner who was his friend,and told him to run to the mountains. He then lay down and slept,and in the darkness this man who had been freed returned stealthilyin the darkness, and unloosed a girl, the same who had beenforgotten on the sand. In the morning the other captives were dead,but those who escaped were months in the fastness of the heights,living on roots and on birds they snared. In the end they went toMotopu. They were well received, for the Tahuata warriors thought agod had aided them, and they and their children lived long there."

Ugh! smiled reminiscently as if his thoughts were returning frompleasant things, and clapped his hands as a signal for reembarking.

The bowls of food remaining were tied in baskets of leaves and hungin the banian tree to await the boatsmen's return for the night,the steersman was carried to his place, and the boat pushed throughthe surf.

A gaunt shark swam close to the reefs as we rowed out, a hungry,ill-looking monster. One of the bottles of rum the oarsmen had drunkon the way to Hana Hevane, the other was stored for their return,and to gain a third the son of Ugh! offered to go overboard and tiea rope to the shark's tail, which is the way natives often catch them.A shark was not worth a liter of rum, I said, being in no mind torisk the limbs of a man in such a sport. Besides, I had no more togive away. I could imagine the rage of Seventh Man Who Wallowsshould he learn of my wasting in such foolishness what would keep usboth warm if it rained.

As we caught the wind a flock of _koio_ came close to us in theirsearch for fish. The black birds were like a cloud; there must havebeen fifty thousand of them, and flying over us they completely cutoff the sunlight, like a dark storm. If they had taken a fancy tosettle on us they must have smothered us under a feathered avalanche.Ugh! was startled and amazed that the birds should come so close,and all raised an uproar of voices and waved arms and oars in the air,to frighten them off. They passed, the sun shone upon us again, andin a sparkling sea we made our way past Iva Iva Iti and Iva Iva Nui,rounding a high green shore into the bay of Vait-hua.

The mountains above the valley loomed like castellated summits ofItaly, so like huge stone fortresses that one might mistake them forsuch from the sea. The tiny settlement reaching from the beach halfa mile up the glen was screened by its many trees.

The whaleboat slid up to a rocky ledge, and my luggage and I wereput ashore. Exploding Eggs, who had insisted on accompanying me,took it into his charge, and with it balanced on his shoulders wesauntered along the road to the village where the French gendarme hadlost his nose to the mad _namu_-drinker.

CHAPTER VII

Idyllic valley of Vait-hua; the beauty of Vanquished Often; bathingon the beach; an unexpected proposal of marriage.

The beach followed the semi-circle of the small bay, and was hemmedin on both sides by massive black rocks, above which rose steepmountains covered with verdure. The narrow valley itself slopedupward on either hand to a sheer wall of cliffs. In the couple ofmiles from the water's edge to the jungle tangle of the high hillswere thousands upon thousands of cocoanut-palms, breadfruit-, mango-,banana-, and lime-trees, all speaking of the throng of people thatformerly inhabited this lovely spot, now so deserted. The tinysettlement remaining, with its scattered few habitations, wasbeautiful beyond comparison. A score or so of houses, small, butneat and comfortable, wreathed with morning-glory vines and shadedby trees, clustered along the bank of a limpid stream crossed atintervals by white stepping-stones. Naked children, whose heads werewreathed with flowers, splashed in sheltered pools, or fled likemoving brown shadows into the sun-flecked depths of the glade as weapproached.

We were met beneath a giant banian-tree by the chief, who greeted uswith simple dignity and led us at once to his house. The mostpretentious in the village, it consisted of two rooms, built ofredwood boards from California, white-washed, clean, and bare,opening through wide doors upon the broad _paepae_. This house, thechief insisted, was to be my home while I remained his guest inVait-hua. My polite protestations he waved away with a courtlygesture and an obdurate smile. I was an American, and his guest.

My visit was obviously a great event in the eyes of Mrs. Seventh ManWho Is So Angry He Wallows In The Mire. A laughing Juno of thirtyyears, large and rounded as a breadfruit-tree, more than six feet inheight, with a mass of blue-black hair and teeth that flashed whiteas a fresh-opened cocoanut, she rose from her mat on the _paepae_and rubbed my nose ceremoniously with hers. Clothed in a necklace offalse pearls and a brilliantly scarlet loincloth, she was truly abarbaric figure, yet in her eye I beheld that instant preoccupationwith household matters that greets the unexpected guest the worldover.

While the chief and I reclined upon mats and Exploding Eggs satvigilant at my side, she vanished into the house, and shortlyreturned to set before us a bowl of _popoi_ and several cocoanuts.These we ate while Neo discoursed sadly upon the evil times that hadbefallen his reign.

"Me very busy when prenty ship come," he mourned. "Me fix for wood;get seven dollar load. Me fix for girl for captain and mate. Me stayship, eat hard-tackee, salt horsee, chew tobacco, drink rum. Goodtime he all dead."

The repast ended, we set out to view the depleted village with itsfew inhabitants, the remainder after Europe had subtracted nativehabits and native health.

The gorge that parted the valley was wide and deep for the silverstream that sang its way to the bay. When the rain fell in cascadesthe channel hardly contained the mad torrent that raced from theheights, a torrent that had destroyed the road built years beforewhen whaler's ships by the dozens came each year. Now the nativesmade their way as of old, up and down rocky trails and over thestepping-stones.

Near the beach we came upon a group of tumbledown shanties, remnantsof the seat of government. Only a thatched schoolhouse and a tinycabin for the teacher were habitable. Here the single artist of theislands, Monsieur Charles Le Moine, had taught the three "R's" toVait-hua's adolescents for years. He was away now, Neo said, but wefound his cabin open and littered with canvases, sketches,paint-tubes, and worn household articles.

"He got litt'ee broomee, an' sweep paint out litt'ee pipe on thingmake ship's sails," Neo explained. Surely a description of a broadmodern style.

On the wall or leaning against it on the floor were a dozen drawingsand oils of a young girl of startling beauty. Laughing, clear-eyed,she seemed almost to speak from the canvas, filling the room withcharm. Here she leaned against a palm-trunk, her bare brown bodywarm against its gray; there she stood on a white beach, a crimson_pareu_ about her loins and hibiscus flowers in her hair.

"That Hinatini," said Seventh Man Who Wallows, speaking always inwhat he supposed to be English. "She some pumkin, eh? Le Moine likemore better make _tiki_ like this than say book. She my niece."

The rich colors of the pictures sang like bugle-notes among theshabby odds and ends of the studio. A cot, a broken chair or two, atable smeared with paints, an old shoe, a pipe, and a sketch of theSeine, gave me La Moine in his European birthright, but the absenceof any European comforts, the lack even of dishes and a lamp, toldme that Montmartre would not know him again. The eyes of the girlwho lived on the canvases said that Le Moine was claimed by the Landof the War Fleet.

Turning from the dingy interior of his cabin, I saw in the sunlightbeyond the door his model in the life. Le Moine had not the brush todo her justice. Vanquished Often, as Hinatini means, was perhapsthirteen years old, with a grace of carriage, a beauty and perfectionof features, a rich coloring no canvas could depict. Her skin was ofwarm olive hue, with tinges of red in the cheeks and the lipscherry-ripe. Her eyes were dark brown, large, melting, childishlyintrospective. Her hands were shapely, and her little bare feet,arched, rosy-nailed, were like flowers on the sand. She wore thethinnest of sheer white cotton tunics, and there were flamboyantflowers in the shining dark hair that tumbled to her waist.

She greeted me with the eager artlessness of the child that she was.She was on her way to the _vai puna_, the spring by the beach, shesaid. Would I accompany her thither? And would I tell her of thewomen of my people in the strange islands of the _Memke?_ They werevery far away, were they not, those islands? Farther even than Tahiti?How deep beneath the sea could their women dive?

I answered these, and other questions, while we walked down the beach,and I marveled at the unconscious grace of her movements. The chiefwonder of all these Marquesans is the beauty and erectness of theirstanding and walking postures. Their chests are broad and deep,their bosoms, even in girls of Vanquished Often's age, rounded,superb, and their limbs have an ease of motion, an animal-likelitheness unknown to our clothed and dress-bound women.

Vanquished Often was the most perfect type of all these physicalperfections, a survival of those wondrous Marquesan women who addledthe wits of the whites a century ago. There was no blemish on her,nor any feature one would alter.

Half a dozen of her comrades were lounging upon the sand when wereached the _via puna_. Here an iron pipe in the mountain-sidetapped subterranean waters, and a hollowed cocoanut-tree gave themexit upon the sand where salt waves flowed up to meet them. Longlean curving cocoanuts arched above, and beneath their ribbons ofshade lay an old canoe, upon which sat those who waited their turnto bathe, to fill calabashes, or merely to gossip.

For all time, they said, this had been the center of life in Vait-hua.Old wives' tales had been told here for generations. The whalersfilled their casks at this spring, working every hour of thetwenty-four because the flow was small. Famous harpooners, steersmenwho winked no eye when the wounded whale drew their boat through asmother of foam, shanghaied gentlemen, sweepings of harbors,Nantucket deacons, pirates, and the whole breed of sailors andfighting fellows, congregated here to bathe and to fill theirwater-casks. Near this crystal rivulet they slashed each other intheir quarrels over Vait-hua's fairest, and exchanged theirslop-chest luxuries and grog for the favors of the island chiefs.

It was Standard Oil, sending around the world its _tipoti_, or tincans, filled with illuminating fluid cheaper than that of the whale,that ended the days of the ships in Vait-hua, and they sailed awayfor the last time, leaving an island so depopulated that its fewremaining people could slip back into the life of the days before thewhites came.

"_Alice Snow_ las' whaleship come Vait-hua six years before," saidthe Seventh Man Who Wallows. "Before that, one ship, _California_name, Captain Andrew Hicks. Charlie, he sailmaker, run away fromAndrew Hicks. One Vait-hua girl look good to him. She hide him inhills till captain make finish chase him. That him children."

Indeed, most of the faces turned toward me from the group about thespring were European, either by recent heredity or tribal nature. Icould see the Saxon, the Latin, and the Viking, and one girl was allJapanese, a reference to which caused her to weep. "Iapona" was toher pretty ears the meanest word in Vait-hua's vocabulary, and herplaymates held it in reserve for important disagreements.

Vanquished Often, slipping from her white tunic, stepped beneath thestream of crystal water and laughed at the cool delight of it on hersmooth skin. It was a picture of which artist's dream, the nakedgirl laughing in the torrents of transparent water, the wet crimsonblossoms washing from her drowned hair, and beneath the stripedshade of the palm-trunks her simple, savage companions waiting theirturn, squatting on the sand or crowded on the canoe, their loinswrapped in crimson and blue and yellow _pareus_. Behind them all themountains rose steeply, a mass of brilliant green jungle growth, andbefore them, across the rim of shining white sand, spread the wideblue sea.

Courtesy suggested that I should be next to feel the refreshingtorrent. We let slip the garment of timorous covering very easilywhen nudity is commonplace. Vait-hua was to teach me to be modestwithout pother, to chat with those about me during my ablutionswithout concern for the false vanities of screens or even theshelter of rocks as in the river in Atuona. In such scenes oneperceives that immodesty is in the false shame that makes one clingto clothes, rather than in the simple virtues that walk naked andunashamed.

Tacitus recites that chastity was a controlling virtue among theTeutons, ranking among women as bravery among men, yet all Teutonsbathed in the streams together. In Japan both sexes bathe in publicin natural hot pools, and that without diffidence. The Japanese,though a people of many clothes, regard nudity with indifference,but use garments to conceal the contour of the human form, while weare horrified by nakedness and yet use dress to enhance the form,especially to emphasize the difference between sexes. Our women'saccentuated hips and waistlines shock the Japanese, whose looseclothing is the same for men and women, the broader belt and doublefold upon the small of the back, the obi, being the onlydifferentiation.

Mohammedan women surprised in bathing cover their faces first; theChinese, the feet. Good Erasmus, that Dutch theologian, said that"angels abhor nakedness." Devout Europeans of his day never saw theirown bodies; if they bathed, they wore a garment covering them fromhead to feet. Thus standards of clothing vary from age to age andfrom country to country.

Missionaries bewilder the savage mind by imposing their ownstandards of the moment and calling them modesty. The African negro,struggling to harmonize these two ideas, wore a tall silk hat and apair of slippers as his only garments when he obeyed Livingstone'sexhortations to clothe himself in the presence of white women.

Vait-hua was all savage; whatever bewilderments the missionaries hadbrought had faded when dwindling population left the isle to its ownpeople. In the minds of my happy companions at the _vai puna_,modesty had no more to do with clothing than, among us, it had to dowith food. The standards of the individual are everywhere formed bythe mass-opinion of those about him; I came from my bath, replacedmy garments, and felt myself Marquesan.

The sensation was false. Savage peoples can never understand ourphilosophy, our complex springs of action. They may ape our manners,wear our ornaments, and seek our company, but their souls remainindifferent. They laugh when we are stolid. They weep when we areunmoved. Their gods and devils are not ours.

From our side, too, the abyss is impassable. Civilization with itsrefinements and complexities has stripped us of the power ofcomplete surrender to simple impulses. The white who would becomelike a natural savage succeeds only in becoming a beast. "_Plussauvage que les kanakas_," is a proverb in the islands. Itsimplications I had occasion to heed ere the evening was ended.

Wrapped only in a gorgeous red _pareu_, I sat on the _paepae_ of thechief's house, now become mine. I was the especial care of Mrs. SeventhMan Who Wallows, who all afternoon long had sat on her haunches overa cocoanut husk fire stirring savory foods for me. Fish, chickens,pigs, eggs, and native delicacies of all kinds she had cooked andsauced so appetizingly that I conferred on her the title of "Chefess"_de Cuisine_, and voiced my suspicions that some deserting cookfrom a flagship had traded his lore for her kisses. Her laughter wasspiced with pride, and the chief himself smilingly nodded and gesturedto assure me that I had guessed right.

Now in the quiet of the evening, empty bowls removed, pandanus-leafcigarettes lighted, and pipe passing from hand to hand, we satrejoicing in the sweet odors of the forest, the murmur of the stream,and the ease of contentment. Many elders of the village had come tomeet the stranger, to discuss the world and its wonders, and tomarvel at the ways of the whites. The glow of the pipe lightedshriveled yet still handsome countenances scrolled with tattooing,and caught gleams from rolling eyes or sparkles from necklace andearring. Above the mountains a full moon rose, flooding the valleywith light and fading the brilliant colors of leaf and flower topale pastel tints.

Vanquished Often sat beside me, her dark hair falling over my knee,and listened respectfully to the conversation of her elders, whodiscussed the gods of the stranger.

They wondered what curious motive had impelled the Jews, the_Aati-Ietu_, to kill _Ieto Kirito_ the Savior of the world.They discussed the strange madness that had possessed _IudaIskalota_, that he had first bought land with his forty pieces ofsilver and then hanged himself to a _purau_ tree. Was it cocoanutland? they asked. Was it not good land?

Often across the worn stones of the _paepae_ stole a _vei_, acentipede, upon which a bare foot quickly stamped. The chief saidcasually, "If he bite you, you no die; you have hell of a time."They were not natives of the Marquesas originally, he said; theycame in the coal of ships. His patriotism outran his knowledge, forthe first discoverers bitterly berated these poisonous creatures,though no more warmly than Neo, who drew heavily upon his stock ofEnglish curses to tell his opinion of them.

When the time came for saying _apae kaoha_ my kindly hosts sought toconfer upon me the last proof of their friendliness. They proposedthat I marry Vanquished Often.

My refusal was incomprehensible to them, and Vanquished Often'shappy smile in the moonlight quickly faded to a look of pain andhumiliation. They had offered me their highest and most reveredexpression of hospitality. To refuse it was as uncustomary and asrude as to refuse the Alaskan miner who offers a drink at a publicbar.

"_Menike_," pleaded the chief, "that Hinatini more better marrywhite man, friend of Teddy, from number one island. She some punkinsfor be good wife. Suppose may be you like Vait-hua you stay long time;suppose you go soon, make never mind!"

The fair chieftess shook her earrings and smiled archly. "Bonnefilly pooh voo, Menike," she urged in her Marquesan French."Good wife for you. It is my pleasure that you are happy. She isbeautiful and good. You will be the son of our people while you arehere."

Vanquished Often, who had a vague notion of the greatness of heruncle's Menike friends, Teddy and Gotali, and of the desirability ofan alliance with one of their tribe, approached me softly and rubbedmy back in a circle the while she crooned a broken song of thewhaling days, concerning the "rolling Mississippi" and the "BlackBall line." Seventh Man Who Wallows in the Mire himself began tomake concentric circles on my breast with his heavy hand, so that Iwas beset fore and aft by the most tender and friendly advances ofthe Marquesan race. Never was hapless guest in more unfortunateplight.

She was but a child, I said; Americans did not mate with children.They smiled as at a pleasantry, and again extolled her charms.Desperately I harked back to the ten commandments in an endeavor tosupport my refusal by other reasons than distaste or discourtesy,but laughter met my text. "White man does not follow white man's_tapus_," said my hostess, gently placing my hand in that ofVanquished Often. The slender fingers clung timorously to mine.Unhappy Hinatini feared that she was about to be disgraced before herpeople by the white man's scorn of her beauty.

I was fain to invent a romance upon the spot. I was madly enamouredof an Atuona belle, I said. She waited for me upon my own _paepae_;she was a mighty woman and swift to anger. She would wreak vengeanceupon me, and upon Vanquished Often. I would adopt Vanquished Oftenas my sister. In token of this I pressed my lips upon her foreheadand kissed her hands. She smiled bewitchingly, pleased by the novelhonor.

My hosts and their friends departed with her, half pleased, halfpuzzled at this latest whimsy of the strange white, and I lay downupon the mats of the chief's house, with Exploding Eggs lying acrossthe doorway at my feet.

The night brought fitful dreams, and in the darkest hour I woke tofeel a frightening thing upon my leg. By the light of the dimlyburning lantern I saw a thousand-leg, reddish brown and ten incheslong, halting perhaps for breath midway between my knee and waist.It seemed indeed to have a thousand legs, and each separate footmade impresses of terror on my mind, while each toe and clawclutched my bare flesh with threatening touch.

The brave man of the tale who saves himself from cobra or rattler byletting the serpent crawl its slow way over his perfectly controlledbody might have withheld even a quiver of the flesh, but I am noSpartan. At my convulsive shudder each horrid claw gripped adeath-hold. In one swift motion I seized a corkscrew that lay nearby,pried loose with a quick jerk every single pede and threw the odiousthing a dozen yards. A trail of red, inflamed spots rose where ithad stood and remained painful and swollen for days.

[Illustration: Idling away the sunny hours]

[Illustration: Nothing to do but rest all day]

Whether it was because this experience became mixed with my firstdreams in beautiful Vait-hua, or whether my Celtic blood seesportents where they do not exist, certain it is that as the stealthycharm of that idyllic place grew upon me through the days somethingwithin me resisted it. I was ever aware that its beauty concealed amenace deadly to the white man who listened too long to the rustleof its palms and the murmur of its stream.

CHAPTER VIII

Communal life; sport in the waves; fight of the sharks and the motherwhale; a day in the mountains; death of Le Capitaine Halley; returnto Atuona.

Life in Vait-hua was idyllic. The whites, having desolated anddepopulated this once thronged valley, had gone, leaving the remnantof its people to return to their native virtue and quietude. Here,perhaps more than in any other spot in all the isles, the Marquesanlived as his forefathers had before the whites came.

Doing nothing sweetly was an art in Vait-hua. Pleasure is nature'ssign of approval. When man is happy, he is in harmony with himselfand his environment. The people of this quiet valley did not craveexcitement. The bustle and nervous energy of the white wearied themexcessively. Time was never wasted, to their minds, for leisure wasthe measure of its value.

Domestic details, the preparation of food, the care of children, thenursing of the sick, were the tasks of all the household. Husbandand wife, or the mates unmarried, labored together in delightfulunity. Often the woman accompanied her man into the forests,assisting in the gathering of nuts and breadfruit, in the fishingand the building. When these duties did not occupy them, or whenthey were not together bathing in the river or at the _via puna_,they sat side by side on their _paepaes_ in meditation. They mightdiscuss the events of the day, they might receive the visits ofothers, or go abroad for conversation; but for hours they often werewrapped in their thoughts, in a silence broken only by the rollingof their pandanus cigarettes or the lighting of the mutual pipe.

"Of what are you thinking?" I said often to my neighbors whenbreaking in upon their meditation.

"Of the world. Of those stars," they replied.

They would sympathize with that Chinese traveler who, visitingAmerica and being hurried from carriage to train, smiled at our ideaof catching the fleeting moment.

"We save ten minutes by catching this train," said his guide,enthusiastically.

"And what will you do with that ten minutes?" demanded the Chinese.

To be busy about anything not necessary to living is, in Marquesanwisdom, to be idle.

Swimming in the surf, lolling at the _via puna_, angling from rockor canoe or fishing with line and spear outside the bay, searchingfor shell-fish, and riding or walking over the hills to other valleys,filled their peaceful, pleasant days. A dream-like, care-free life,lived by a people sweet to know, handsome and generous and loving.

That he never saw or heard of the slightest quarrel betweenindividuals was the statement a century ago of Captain Porter, theAmerican. Then as now the most perfect harmony prevailed among them.They lived like affectionate brothers of one family, he said, theauthority of the chiefs being only that of fathers among children.They had no mode of punishment for there were no offenders. Theftwas unknown, and all property was left unguarded. So Porter, who,with his ship's company, killed so many Marquesans, was fully awareof their civic virtues, their kindness, gentleness and generosity.

It is so to-day, in Vait-hua where the whites are not. I have had mytrousers lifted from my second-story room in a Manila hotel by theeyed and fingered bamboo of the Tagalog _ladron_, while I washed myface, and stood aghast at the mystery of their disappearance withdoor locked, until looking from my lofty window I beheld them movingrapidly down an _estero_ in a _banca_. I have given over my watch toa gendarme in Cairo to forfend arrest for having beaten an Arab whotripped me to pick my pocket, and I have surrendered to the rapacityof a major-general-uniformed official in Italy, who wouldincarcerate me for not having a tail-light lit. In San Francisco,when robbed upon the public street, I have listened while the policesuggested that I offer a fee to the "king of the dips" and a rewardto certain saloonkeepers to intercede with the unknown-to-mehighwaymen for the return of an heirloom.

Yet through the darkest nights in Vait-hua I slept serenely,surrounded by all the possessions so desirable in the eyes of myneighbors, in a house the doors of which were never fastened. Therewas not a lock in all the village, or anything that answered thepurpose of one. The people of this isolated valley, forgetting theirbrief encounter with the European idea of money and of theaccumulation of property, had reverted to the ways of their fathers.

Before interference with their natural customs the Marquesans werecommunists to a large degree. Their only private property consistedof houses, weapons, ornaments, and clothing, for the personal use ofthe owner himself. All large works, such as the erection of houses,the building of large canoes, and, in ancient days, the raising of_paepaes_ and temples, were done by mutual cooperation; thougheach family provided its own food and made provision for the futureby storing breadfruit in the _popoi_ pits. Neo, like the long lineof chiefs before him, had gathered a little more of the good thingsof life than had the majority, but he was in no sense a dictator,except as personality won obedience. In the old days a chief wasoften relegated to the ranks for failure in war, and always for anoverbearing attitude toward the commoners. Such arrogant fellowswere kicked out of the seat of power unceremoniously.

"Our pure republican policy approaches so near their own," said theAmerican naval captain, Porter, a hundred years ago.

Men were honored for their artistry, highest place being given tothe tattooers, the carvers, the designers, and builders of canoes,the architects, doctors, and warriors. Men and women rose toinfluence and chiefly rank only by deeds that won popular admiration.These people were hero-worshippers, and in the bloodiest of the olddays those of fine soul who had a message of entertainment orinstruction were _tapu_ to all tribes, so that they could travelanywhere in safety and were welcome guests in all homes.

It is true that in Hawaii and Tonga conquerors made themselves kings,but not there or in Samoa, Tahiti, or the Marquesas were kingssupreme rulers until the whites established them for their own tradepurposes and sold them firearms by which to maintain their power.

That day of the whites had passed in Vait-hua. The chief nowmaintained his authority by the fondness of his people alone.Generous he was, and gentle, yet I minded that he had bitten off thenose of Severin, the French gendarme, when the _namu_ had made himmad. Now whether guided by pride in his discipline or by memory ofevil-doing repented, he was strict in his enforcement of theprohibition of cocoanut toddy, and sobriety made the days and nightspeaceful.

Early in the mornings I called "Kaoha!" from my _paepae_ toMrs. Seventh Man, who came each day from her bath in the _viapuna_ attired in her earrings only.

Sauntering along the bank of the brook still dripping from the spring,her wet black hair clinging to her shapely back and her tawny skinglistening in flickering light and shade, she was for all the worldmy conception of Mother Eve before even leaves were modesty. Hernudity was a custom only at this time, for when she reappeared toaid Exploding Eggs in preparing my breakfast she always wore ascarlet _pareu_ and her hair was done like Bernhardt's.

Vanquished Often appeared with her aunt, carefully dressed inspotless, diaphanous tunic, fresh flowers in her hair, a treasuredpink silk garter clasping her rounded arm. "Big White Brother," shecalled me with pride, though often I saw a sad wonder in her greateyes as she squatted near, silently watching me. Her possessive wayswere pretty to see as she walked close by my side on the trail frommy cabin to the beach, while Exploding Eggs regarded her jealously,insisting on his prerogative as _Tueni Oki Kiki_, Keeper of theGolden Bed, the glittering magnificence of which he describedminutely to her.

We arrived at a merry scene upon the beach. Women and children werein the surf, or on rocks under the cliffs, fishing for _popo_, theyoung of _uua_. With bamboo poles twenty feet long and lines of evengreater length, we stood up to our necks in the sea and threw outthe hook baited with a morsel of shrimp. The breakers tumbled usabout, the lines became tangled, amid gales of laughter and a medleyof joyous shouts. Tiring of fishing, Vanquished Often and I wouldbreast the creaming waves side by side, to turn far out and dash inon the breakers, overturning all but the wary. Or a group of us,climbing high on the cliffs, would fling ourselves again and againinto the sea, turning in mid-air, life and delight quickening everymuscle.

Wearying of this sport, we embarked in canoes, fishing or sailing,and many small adventures we had, for the younger and more daringspirits delighted in scaring me into expostulation or the silence ofthe condemned and then saving my life by a hair's-breadth.

We had gone one morning about the southern cape, and were harpooningswordfish and the gigantic sunfish when a commotion a thousand feetaway brought shouts of warning from my companions. We saw two whales,one with a baby at her breast. The other we took to be the fatherwhale. Huge black beasts they were. Upon this mated pair a band ofsharks had flung themselves to seize the infant.

There were at least twenty-five sharks in the mad mob, great whitemonsters thirty feet in length, man-eaters by blood-taste, tigers indisposition. Though they could not compare with their prey in sizeor power, they had heads as large as barrels, and mouths that woulddrag a man through their terrible gaps. That their hunger was pastall bounds was evident, for the whale is not often attacked by suchinferior-sized fish. Storms had raged on the sea for days, and maybehad cheated the sharks of their usual food.

They swam around and around the mountainous pair, darting in and out,evidently with some plan of drawing off the male. Both the whalesstruck out incessantly with their mammoth flukes; their great tails,crashing upon the sea-surface, lashed it to mountains of foam. Ourboats tossed as in a gale.

Carried away by the pity and terror of the scene, we shouted threatsand curses at the monsters, calling down on them in Marquesan thewrath of the sea-gods. Frenziedly handling tiller and sails, wecircled the battle, impotent to aid the poor woman-beast and her baby.The sharks harried them as hounds a fox. Desperately the parentsfought, more than one shark sank wounded to the depths and one,turning its white belly to the sun, floated dead upon the waves.Another was flung high in air by a blow of the mother's tail. But itwas an uneven contest. At last we saw the nursling drawn from herbreast, and the mother herself sank, still struggling. She may haverisen, of course, far away, but she seemed disabled.

We did not wait about that bloody spot when the sharks had fallenupon their prey, for our canoe was low in the water, and with such asight to warn us, we did not doubt that the loathly monsters wouldattack us.

From such a sight it was a relief to turn to the mountains. Alongthe steep trails I roamed far with Vanquished Often and ExplodingEggs. We played at being alone with nature, foregoing in living allthat the white man had brought. I left the house of the chief nakedsave for a loin-cloth of native make, and I wore no shoes or hat.Vanquished Often and my valet were attired as I, and thus we shouted"Kaoha!" to the chieftess and started toward adventure.

Seventh Man was dubious about my setting off without some preparedfood, _popoi_ or canned fish or biscuits, and without sleeping-mats."You ketchee hungery by an' soon," he protested. "No got Gold Bed inmountains."

Vanquished Often laughed merrily, and the chief looked like a fatherwhose child has thrown a stone at the bogie-man. I rubbed his nosewith mine in farewell, and we began our journey, barehanded as Crusoe,yet more fortunate than he since we were in the best of company andI had the comforting knowledge that Marquesan youth would not gohungry or permit me to do so.

Our way led up heights of marvelous beauty, along the edges of deepdefiles that opened below our feet like valleys of Paradise. Thecandlenut, the _ama_, with its lilac bloom, the hibiscus and pandanus,green and glossy, the _petavii_, a kind of banana the curving frondsof which spread high in air, the snake-plant, _makomako_, ayellow-flowered shrub, and many others none of us could name,carpeted the farther mountain-sides with brilliant colors.Everywhere were cocoanuts, guavas, and mangos. In the tree-tops overour heads the bindweed shook its feathery seed-pods, the parasite_kouna_ dripped its deeply serrated leaves and crimson umbels, andthousands of orchids hung like butterflies.

"It is beautiful in your islands, is it not?" Vanquished Often saidwistfully. "Tell us more of the marvels there! Are the girls of yourvalleys very lovely, and do they all sleep in golden beds?"

All daughters of chiefs slept in golden beds, I told her. Often theywore golden slippers on their feet. When they wished to go over themountains they did not walk, or ride on donkeys, but went in seatscovered with velvet, a kind of cloth more soft than the silk ribbonof her pink garter-armlet, and these seats were drawn at incrediblespeed by a snorting thing made of iron, not living, but strongerthan a hundred donkeys.

"How do they make that cloth?" said Vanquished Often, eagerly. Theydid not make it, I explained. It was made for them by girls who werenot daughters of chiefs, and therefore had no golden beds.

Her eyes clouded with bewilderment, but Exploding Eggs listenedbreathlessly, and demanded more tales. I told them of wirelesstelegraphy. This they believed as they believed the tales of magictold by old sorcerers, but they scoffed at my description of anelevator, perceiving that I was loosing the reins of my fancy andsoaring to impossibilities.

"The girls in your island must always be happy," said VanquishedOften, sighing. All daughters of chiefs were happy, I said."What is the manner of their fishing?" asked Exploding Eggs.

In such conversation we proceeded, walking for miles through afairyland in which we were the only living creatures, save for thesmall scurrying things that slipped across the trail, and thebright-colored birds that fluttered through the tree-tops.

At noon we paused for luncheon. Vanquished Often disappeared in theforest, to return shortly with her gathered-up tunic filled withmangos and guavas, four cocoanuts slung in a neatly plaited basketof leaves on her bare shoulders. Exploding Eggs, cutting two sticksof dry wood from the underbrush, whirled them upon each other withsuch speed and dexterity that soon a small fire, fed by shreds ofcocoanut fiber, blazed on a rock, with plantains heaped about it toroast.

While we rested after the feast Vanquished Often, squatted by my side,made for my comfort a wide-brimmed hat of thick leaves pinnedtogether with thorns, a shelter from the sun's rays that was gratefulto my tender scalp. Resuming our way, we met upon the trail ahandsome small wild donkey, fearful of our kind, yet longing forcompany.

"_Pureekee!_" said Exploding Eggs, meaning _bourrique_, the Frenchfor donkey. And Vanquished Often related that once hundreds of thesebeasts roamed through the jungle, descendants of a pair of assesescaped from a ship decades before, but that most of them hadstarved to death in dry periods, or been eaten by hungry natives.

Farther on we passed acres of the sensitive plant, called by theMarquesans _teita hakaina_, the Modest Herb. A wide glade in a curveof the mountains was filled with a sea of it, and my companionsdelighted in dashing through its curiously nervous leafa*ge, thatshuddered and folded its feathery sprays together at their touch. Ifshocked further it opened its leaflets as if to say, "What's the use?I'm shy, but I can't stay under cover forever."

In such artless amusem*nts the day passed, a day that remainsforever an idyl of simple loveliness to me, such as any man is thericher for having known. When darkness overtook us, we made forourselves the softest of ferny beds, and slept serenely, untroubledby anything, under the light of the stars.

As we returned next day to the village in the valley, we found upona hill far from the beach the tombs of the sailors who first raisedthe standard of France in these islands. The eternal jungle had sohoused in their monuments that we had hot work to break through thejealous lantana and pandanus to see the stones. Neither VanquishedOften nor Exploding Eggs had ever cast eyes on them, and neither hadbut a legendary memory of how these men of the conquering race hadmet their death.

A great slab of native basalt eroded by seventy years of sun andrain bore the barely discernible epitaph:

 "Ci Git Edouard Michel Halley Capitaine de Corvette Officier de la Légion d'honneur Fondateur de la colonie de Vait-hua Mort au champ d'honneur Le 17 ----bre, 1842"

I read it to my friends. They pressed their hands to their brows toconjure up a vision of this dead man whom their grandfathers hadfought and slain, as I told them the story of his death in thejungle at our feet.

It was at Vait-hua that the French first took possession of theMarquesas. Here already were missionaries and beach-combers of manynationalities, ardent spirits all, fighting each other for the soulsof the natives; gin and the commandments at odds, ritual andexploitation contending. Unable to subdue the forces that threatenedthe peace of his people, Iotete, Vait-hua's chief, sent a messageasking the help of the French admiral. It came at once; a garrisonwas established on the beach, and the tricolor rose.

Whatever the cause, it had been upraised barely two months whenchief and people in a body deserted their homes and fled to the hills.Commander Halley, having vainly exhorted and commanded them to return,declared war on them in punishment for their disobedience, andmarshaling his forces in three columns set out to seek them.

Ladebat led the van, armed with a fowling-piece. Halley himselfwalked at the head of the middle column, a youthful, debonairFrenchman, carrying only a cane, which he swung jauntily as hefollowed the jungle trail. When the soldiers arrived at a few feetfrom the main body of the natives, Iotete advanced and cried out,"_Tapu!_"

Ladebat instantly fired his shot-gun at the chief, and instantly twoballs from native guns pierced his brain.

"Halley," runs the old chronicle, "advanced from the shelter of acocoanut-tree to give orders to his men, but fell on his knees as ifin prayer, embracing the tree, three paces from the corpse of Ladebat.Five of his men dropped mortally wounded beside him. Third OfficerLaferriere had the retreat sounded."

Here, but a few feet from the spot where the gay young Frenchman fell,the jungle had covered his tomb. Fifty thousand Marquesans have diedto bring peace to the soul of that _corvette_ commander who sojauntily flourished his cane in the faces of the wondering savages.Iotete would better have endured the pranks of brutal sea-adventurers,perhaps. This mausoleum was the seal of French occupancy.

Farther down the hill we came upon the first church built in theMarquesas. It was a small wooden edifice bearing a weatherbeatensign in French, "The Church of the Mother of God." Above theshattered doors were two carven hearts, a red dagger through one anda red flame issuing from the other. A black cross was fixed abovethese symbols, which Vanquished Often and Exploding Eggs regardedwith respect. To the Marquesan these are all _tiki_, or charms,which have superseded their own.

Beside the decaying church stood a refectory far gone in ruin, thatonce had housed a dozen friars. Breadfruit-, mango- and orange-treesgrew in the tangled tall grass, and the garden where the priests hadread their breviaries was a wilderness of tiger-lilies. Among themwe found empty bottles of a "Medical Discovery," a patent medicinedispensed from Boston, favored in these islands where liquor istabooed by government.

Seventh Man, coming up the trail to meet us, found us looking at them.He lifted one and sniffed it regretfully.

"Prenty strong," he said. "Make drunkee. Call him Kennedee. He costmuch. Drinkee two piece you sick three day." He smiled reminiscently,and once more I thought of that day when the unfortunate gendarmehad surprised the orgiasts in the forest and lost his nose. Thechief accompanied us down the trail.

"My brother of grandfather have first gun in Marquesas," he saidwith meaning when I spoke of the days of Halley. "One chief Iotetehave prenty trouble _Menike_ whaleman. He send for French admiralhelp him. Captiane Halley come with sailor. Frenchman he never go'way." Again his teeth gleamed in a smile. "My brother ofgrandfather have gun long time in hills," he added cryptically.

Too soon the time came when I must return to my own _paepae_ inAtuona. Vanquished Often wept at my decision, and Mrs. Seventh Manrubbed my nose long with hers as she entreated me to remain in thehome she had given over to me. The chief, finding remonstranceuseless, volunteered to accompany me on my return, and one midnightwoke me to be ready when the wind was right.

We went down the trail through wind and darkness, the chief blowinga conch-shell for the crew. In the straw shanty where my hosts hadspread their mats that I might have the full occupancy of theircomfortable home, we found Mrs. Seventh Man making tea for me.Vanquished Often sat apart in the shadow, her face averted, but whenmy cocoanut-shell was filled with the streaming brew she sprangforward passionately and would let no hand but hers present it to me.

All day it had been raining, and the downpour rushed from the eaveswith a melancholy sound as we sat in the lantern-lighted dimnessdrinking from the shells. The crew came in one by one, their nakedbodies running water, their eyes eager for a draught of the tea, intowhich I put a little rum, the last of the two litres. Squallfollowed squall, shaking the hut. At half-past two, in a little lullwhich Neo guessed might last, we went out to the rain-soaked beach,launched the canoe, and paddled away.

My last sight of Vait-hua was the dim line of surf on the sand, andbeyond it the slender figure of Vanquished Often holding aloft alantern whose rays faintly illumined against the darkness herwindblown white tunic and blurred face.

The storm had lured us by, a brief cessation. We had hardly left thebeach before the heavens opened and deluged us with rain. Watersluiced our bare backs and ran in streams down the brawny armsbending to the oars. We paddled an hour before the wind was favorable,and a dreary hour it was. The canoe had an out-rigger, but was sonarrow that none could sit except on the sharp side. I fell asleepeven upon it, and woke in the sea, with the chief, who had flunghimself to my rescue, clutching my hair.

Morning found our canoe close to the rocky coast of Hiva-oa. As istheir custom, instead of making a beeline for our destination orsailing to it close-hauled as the winds permitted, the Marquesanshad steered for the nearest shore, following along it to port. Thismethod is attended with danger, for off the threatening cliffs aheavy sea was running, great waves dashing on the rocks, and we wereperforce in the trough as we skirted the land.

[Illustration: Catholic Church at AtuonaDescribed by Stevenson in _The South Seas_]

[Illustration: A native spearing fish from a rock]

We quit the sail for oars, and it took every ounce of strength andskill on the part of the rowers and Seventh Man to avoid shipwreck.Each breaker as it passed tossed the frail craft skyward, and we fellinto the abysses as a rock into a bottomless pit. Every instant itseemed that we must capsize. While we fought thus, in a frenziedeffort to keep off the rocks, the sun rose, and every curl of waterturned to clearest emerald, while the hollows of the leaping waveswere purple as dark amethysts.

Suddenly, as we slid breathlessly downward, a great wall of waterrose beside us, higher and higher until it seemed to touch the sky,clear and solid-looking as a sheet of green glass, a sight sostupendous that amazement took the place of fear. For an instant itremained poised above us, then crashed down with the shock of anearthquake.

Stunned, I emerged from a smother of water to find our canoecompletely under the waves, kept afloat solely by grace of theoutrigger. All hands were overside, clinging to the edge of thesubmerged craft, while Exploding Eggs and I bailed for our lives.Strong swimmers, they held us off-shore until we had so lowered thewater that they could resume the oars.

For two hours we tossed about, while the chief held the steering-oarand his men paddled through a welter of jeweled color thatthreatened momentarily to toss us on the rocks. If we smashed onthem we were dead men, for even had we been able to climb them thehigh tide would have drowned us against the wall of the cliffs. Noman showed the slightest fear, though they pulled like giants andobeyed instantly each order of the chief.

Battling in this fashion, we rounded at last Point Teaehoa and wonthe protection of the Bay of Traitors. I, at least, feltimmeasurable relief, that quickly turned to exhilaration as wehoisted sail and drove at a glorious speed straight through thebreakers to the welcoming beach of Atuona.

CHAPTER IX

The Marquesans at ten o'clock mass; a remarkable conversation aboutreligions and Joan of Arc in which Great Fern gives his idea of thedevil.

I was surprised to note that the few natives within view when welanded were dressed in the stiff and awkward clothes of the European;some fête must have been arranged during my absence, I thought. Thenwith a shock I realized that the day was Sunday. In the lovely,timeless valley of Vait-hua the calendar had dropped below thehorizon of memory as my native land had dropped below the rim of thesea. Here in Atuona, whose life was colored by the presence of whites,the days must take up their constricted regular march again.

Already through the crystal air of a morning after rain the missionbells were ringing clear, and Chief Neo, forgetting the night oftoil and danger past, was eager to accompany me to church. It wouldbe an honor befitting his chiefly rank to sit with the distinguishedwhite man in the house of worship, and I, remembering his perfecthospitality, was glad to do him honor in my own valley.

We hastened to my cabin, Exploding Eggs running before us up thetrail with my luggage balanced on his shoulders. Cocoanuts and_popoi_, coffee and tinned biscuits, were waiting when we arrived.We ate hastily and then donned proper garments, Exploding Eggsrejoicing in a stiff collar and a worn sailor-hat once mine. Theysat oddly upon him, being several sizes too large, but he borehimself with pride as we set out toward the church.

In the avenue of bananas leading to the mission I lingered toobserve the beauty of the flakes upon the ground. They are theoutside layers of the pendulum of that graceful plant, the purpleflower-cone that hangs at the end of the fruit cluster with itsvolute and royal-hued stem. The banana-plants, which we call trees,lined the road and stood twenty feet high, their long slender leavesblowing in the light wind like banners from a castle wall.

The flakes that had dropped upon the ground were lovely. Large as alady's veil, ribbed satin, rose and purple, pink and scarlet, thefilmy edges curled delicately, they hinted the elegance and luxuryof a pretty woman's boudoir. And, like all such dainty trifles, thecharming flower that hangs like a colored lamp in the green chapelof the banana-grove it is useless after it has served its briefpurpose. The fruit grows better when it is cut off.

Opposite the spacious mission grounds the worshippers were gatheringbeneath two gnarled banian-trees, giant-like in height and spread.Behind them a long hedge of bananas bordered the cocoanut plantationof the church, and across the narrow road rose the chapel, thepriests' residence and the nuns' house, with several schoolbuildings now empty because of the French anti-clerical law.

Exploding Eggs in his new finery and the visiting chief fromVait-hua found welcome among the waiting natives, while Titihuti ofthe tattooed legs took her seat beside me. She had combed her Titiantresses and anointed them with oil till they shone like the kelp bedsof Monterey. Her tunic was of scarlet calico, and she carried in herhand a straw hat with a red ribbon, to put on when she entered thechurch. "_Kaoha!_" I said to her, and she smiled, displaying her even,white teeth.

Suddenly, looking past her at the church, my eye caught a sight thattransfixed me. In the misty light I saw the Christ upon the cross ason Calvary. The sublime figure was in the agony of expiration, and atthe foot of the cross stood the ever faithful mother and the lovingJohn in attitudes of amazement and grief. The reality was startling;for the moment I forgot all about me.

But Titihuti coughed, and I saw her tattooed legs and felt the roughroots of the banian under me, and I was back in the courtyard. Thespectacle of the Crucifixion was raised on a basalt platform fullytwenty feet long. The figures were of golden bronze, and the crosswas painted white. Over it hung the branches of a loftybreadfruit-tree, a congruous canopy for such a group. The Bread ofLife, in truth.

A tablet on the cross bore the inscription:

 "1900 Le Christ Dieu Homme Vit Regne Commande Christo Redemptori Jubilé 1901 Atuona."

"The _tiki_ of the true god," said Titihuti, observing my gaze, andcrossed herself with the fervor of the believer in a new charm.

On the roof a score of doves were cooing as we filed into the church.There were bas-reliefs of cherubim and seraphim over the doorway, fat,distorted bodies with wings a-wry, yet with a celestial visionshowing through the crude workmanship. A loop-holed buttress oneither side of the facade spoke of the days when the forethought ofthe builders planned for defence in case a reaction of paganismcaused the congregation to attack the Christian fathers.

Inside the doorway a French nun in blue robes tugged at a ropedepending from the belfry, and above us the bells rang out from twotiny towers. She looked curiously at me and my savage companion, herpale peasant's face hard, homely, unhealthy; then she kicked at abig dog who was trying to drink the holy water from the clam-shellbeside the door. "_Allez_, Satan!" she said.

The _benetier_, large enough to immerse an infant, was fixed to aboard, a fascinating, blackened old bracket, carved with theinstruments of torture, the nails, the spear, the scourge, and thorns.Ivory and pearl, stained by a century or more, were inlaid. As Idipped my hand in the shell a huge lizard that made his nest in thehollow of the bracket ran across my knuckles.

Within, there were seats with kneeling-planks, hewed out of hardwood and still bearing the marks of the adze. Upon them thecongregation soon assembled, the women on one side, the men on theother. The women wore hats, native weaves in semi-sailor style,decorated with Chinese silk shawls or bright-colored handkerchiefs.All were barefooted except the pale and sickly daughters of Baufré,who wore clumsy and painful shoes. Many Daughters, the little,lovely leper, came with Flower, of the red-gold hair, the Weaver ofMats, who had her names tattooed on her arm. They dipped in the fontand genuflected, then bowed in prayer.

Many familiar faces I recognized. Ah Yu, the Chinaman who owned thelittle store beyond the banian-tree and had murder upon his soul;Lam Kai Oo, my erstwhile landlord; Flag, the gendarme; Water, in allthe glory of European trousers; Kake, with my small namesake on herarm. The old women were tattooed on the ears and neck in scrolls,and their lips were marked in faint stripes. The old men, their eyesringed with tattooing, wore earrings and necklaces of whale's teeth.

The church was painted white inside, with frescoes and dados ofgaudy hues, and windows of brilliantly colored glass. The altar, asalso the statues of Joseph and Mary, had a reredos handsomely carved.Outside the railing was a charming Child in the Manger, lying onreal straw, surrounded by the Virgin, Joseph, the Magi, the shepherds,and the kings, all in bright-hued robes, and pleasant-looking cowsand asses with red eyes and green tails.

The singing began before the priest came from the sacristy. The mensang alone and the women followed, in an alternating chant that attimes rose into a wail and again had the nasal sound of a bag-pipe.The Catholic chants sung thus in Marquesan took on a wild, barbaricrhythm that thrilled the blood and made the hair tingle on the scalp.

Bishop David le Cadre appeared in elegant vestments, his eyes graveabove a foot-long beard, and the mass began. The acolyte was veryagile in a short red cassock, below which his naked legs, and barefeet showed. The people responded often through the mass, rising,sitting down, and kneeling obediently. Baufré sat on a chair in thevestibule and added accounts.

Ah Kee Au was the sole communicant at the rail. No cloth was spread,but the bell announced the mystery of transubstantiation, and allbowed their heads while Ah Kee Au reverently offered his communion tothe welfare of Napoleon, his grandson who had accidentally shothimself.

The service over, the people poured from the church into thebrilliant sunshine of the road, and Ah Kee Au said to me, "You saveethlat communio' blead b'long my place. My son makee for pliest." LamKai Oo, pressing forward, offered the communicant a draught of fieryrum he had obtained by the governor's permission. He had been toldthat to give a glass of water to a communicant, who must of coursehave fasted and abstained from any liquid since midnight according tothe law of the Church, was a holy act which brought the giver ablessing, and so the subtle Chinese thought to make his blessinggreater by offering a drink better than water.

Ah Kee Au drank with fervor. "My makee holee thliss morn'," he saidgladly. "Makee Napoleon more happy." Sincerity is not a matter ofbroken English or a drink of rum; the poor old grandfather of theLittle Corporal's namesake believed earnestly that Napoleon wouldimprove by his sacramental offering. He, like most Marquesans, tookthe white man's religion with little understanding. It is new magicto them, a comfort, an occupation, and an entertainment. But whoknows the human heart, or understands the soul?

That afternoon while Neo and I lay on my _paepae_ awaiting thefavoring wind which should carry him back to his own isle, myneighbors gathered from far and near to lounge the sunny hours awayin conversation. Squatted on the mats, they engaged in seriousdiscussion of the puzzles of religion, appealing to me often tosettle vexing questions which they had long wearied of asking theirbetter-informed instructors in religious mysteries.

Their native tongue has no word for religion. Bishop Dordillon hadbeen obliged to translate it, "_Te mea e hakatika me te mea e hanamea koaha toitoi i te Etua_" which might be rendered, "Belief in theworks and love of a just God." Etua, often spelled Atua, was thename of divinity among all Maori peoples, but religion was soassociated with natural things, the phenomena of nature, of livingthings, and of the heavens and sea, that it was part of daily lifeand needed no word to distinguish it.

Never were people less able to comprehend the creeds and formulas inwhich the religious beliefs of the white men are clothed. Marquesansare not deep thinkers. In fact, they have a word, _tahoa_, whichmeans, "a headache from thinking." Ten years of ardent and noblyself-sacrificing work by missionaries left the islands still withouta single soul converted. It was not until the chiefs began to setthe seal of their approval on the new outlandish faiths that thepeople flocked to the standard of the cross. And when they did beginto meditate the doctrines preached to them as necessary beliefs inorder to win salvation, their heads ached indeed.

Even after years of faithful church-going many of my friends stillstruggled with their doubts, and when these were propounded to me Iwas fain to wrinkle my own brow and ponder deeply.

The burning question as to the color of Adam and Eve had long beensettled. Adam and Eve were brown, like themselves. But if, as thepriests said was most probable, Adam and Eve had received pardon andwere in heaven, why had their guilt stained all mankind?

Also, would Satan have been able to tempt Eve if God had not madethe tree of knowledge _tapu_? Was not knowledge a good thing? Whatmotive had led the Maker and Knower of all things to do this deed?

What made the angels fall? Pride, said the priests. Then how did itget into heaven? demanded the perplexed.

The resurrection of the body at the last judgment horrified them.This fact, said the husband of Kake, had led to the abandonment ofthe old manner of burying corpses in a sitting posture, with theface between the knees and the hands under the thighs, the wholebound round with cords. Obviously, a man buried in such a positionwould rise deformed. Their dead in the cemetery on the heights sleptnow in long coffins of wood, their limbs at ease. But other and lesspremeditated interments still befell the unwary islander.

What would God do in cases where sharks had eaten a Marquesan? Andwhat, when the same shark had been killed and eaten by otherMarquesans? And in the case of the early Christian forefathers, whowere eaten by men of other tribes, and afterward the cannibals eatenin retaliation, and then the last feaster eaten by sharks? _Aue!_There was a headache query!

At this point in the discussion an aged stranger from the valley ofTaaoa, a withered man whose whole naked chest was covered withintricate tattooing, laid down his pipe and artlessly revealed hisidea of the communion service. It was, he thought, a religiouscannibalism, no more. And he was puzzled that his people should betold that it was wrong to feed on the flesh of a fellow humancreature when they were urged to "eat the body and drink the blood"of _Ietu Kirito_ himself.

It was long afterward, in that far-away America so incomprehensibleto my simple savage friends, that I read beneath the light of anelectric lamp a paragraph in "Folkways," by William Graham Summer,of Yale:

 "Language used in communion about eating the body and drinking the blood of Christ refers to nothing in our _mores_ and appeals to nothing in our experience. It comes down from very remote ages; very probably from cannibalism."

The printed page vanished, and before my eyes rose a vision of my_paepae_ among the breadfruit- and cocoanut-trees, the ring ofsquatting dusky figures in flickering sunlit leaf-shade, Kake in herred tunic with the babe at her breast, Exploding Eggs standing bywith a half-eaten cocoanut, and the many dark eyes in their circlesof ink fixed upon the shriveled face of the reformed cannibal whosehead ached with the mysteries of the white man's religion.

None too soon for me, the talk turned about history, the tales ofwhich were confused in my guests' minds with those of the saints.Great Fern insisted that if the English roasted Joan of Arc they ateher, because no man would apply live coals, which pain exceedingly,to any living person, and fire was never placed upon a human bodysave to cook it for consumption. This theory seemed reasonable tomost of the listeners, for since such cruelty as the Marquesanspracticed in their native state was thoughtless and never intentional,the idea of torture was incomprehensible to their simple minds.

Malicious Gossip, a comely savage of twenty-five with false-coffeeleaves in her hair, declared, however, that the governor had toldher the English roasted Joan alive because she was a heretic. Thestatement was received with startled protests by those present whohad themselves incurred that charge when they deserted Catholicismfor Protestantism some time earlier.

"Exploding Eggs," said I hastily, "make tea for all." Every shadevanished from shining eyes when I produced the bottle of rum andadded a spoonful of flavor to each brimming shellful. All perplexingquestions were forgotten, and simple social pleasure reigned againon my _paepae_, while Great Fern explained to all his idea of theChristian devil.

The Marquesan deity of darkness was Po, a vague and elemental spirit.But the _kuhane anera maaa_ of the new religion had definite andfearful attributes explained by the priests. So Great Fern conceivedhim as a kind of cross between a man and a boar, with a tail likethat of a shark, running through the forests with a bunch of lightedcandlenuts and setting fire to the houses of the wicked.

And the wicked? Morals as we know them had nothing to do with theirsin in his mind. The wicked were the unkind, those who were cruel tochildren, wives who made bad _popoi_, and whites with rum privilegeswho forgot hospitality.

Non-Christians may grin at the efforts of missionaries among heathens.But the missionaries are the only influence for good in the islands,the only white men seeking to mitigate the misery and ruin broughtby the white man's system of trade. The extension of civilizedcommerce has crushed every natural impulse of brotherliness, kindness,and generosity, destroyed every good and clean custom of thesechildren of nature. Traders and sailors, whalers and soldiers, havebeen their enemies.

Whatever the errors of the men of God, they have given their livesday by day in unremitting, self-sacrificing toil, suffering much toshare with these despoiled people the light of their own faith in abetter world hereafter. In so far as they have failed, they havefailed because they have lacked what proselytizing religion hasalways lacked--a joy in life that seeks to make this mundaneexistence more endurable, a grace of humor, and a broad simplicity.

Polynesians have always been respecters of authority. Under theirown rule, where priest and king equally rose to rank because ofadmired deeds, the _tapus_ of the priests had the same force asthose of chiefs, and life was conducted by few and simple rules. Now,when sect fights sect; when priests assure the people that France isa Catholic nation and the Governor says the statement is false;where the Protestant pastor teaches that Sunday is a day ofsolemnity and prayer, and the Frenchmen make it a day of merrimentas in France; where salvation depends on many beliefs bewilderingand incompatible, the puzzled Marquesan scratches his head andswings from creed to creed, while his secret heart clings to the oldgods.

The Marquesan had a joyful religion, full of humor and abandon,dances and chants, and exaltation of nature, of the greatness oftheir tribe or race, a worship that was, despite its ghastly ritesof human sacrifice, a stimulus to life.

The efforts of missionaries have killed the joy of living as theyhave crushed out the old barbarities, uprooting together everything,good and bad, that religion meant to the native. They have given himinstead rites that mystify him, dogmas he can only dimly understand,and a little comfort in the miseries brought upon him by trade.

I have seen a leper alone on his _paepae_, deep in the Scriptures,and when I asked him if he got comfort from them I was answered,"They are strong words for a weak man, and better than pig." Butonly a St. Francis Xavier or a Livingstone, a great moral force,could lift the people now from the slough of despond in which theyexpire.

Upon this people, sparkingly alive, spirited as wild horses, notdepressed as were their conquerors by a heritage of thousands ofyears of metes and bounds, religion as forced upon them has been notonly a narcotic, but a death potion.

CHAPTER X

The marriage of Malicious Gossip; matrimonial customs of the simplenatives; the domestic difficulties of Haabuani.

Mouth of God and his wife, Malicious Gossip, soon became intimatesof my _paepae_. Coming first to see the marvelous Golden Bed and tolisten to the click-click of the Iron Fingers That Make Words, theyremained to talk, and I found them both charming.

Both were in their early twenties, ingenuous, generous, clever, anddevoted to each other and to their friends. Malicious Gossip wasbeautiful, with soft dark eyes, clear-cut features, and a grace andlovely line of figure that in New York would make all heads whirl.She was all Marquesan, but her husband, Mouth of God, had whiteblood in him. Whose it was, he did not know, for his mother'sconsort had been an islander. His mother, a large, stern, andCalvinistic cannibal, believed in predestination, and spent her daysin fear that she would be among the lost. Her Bible was ever near,and often, passing their house, I saw her climb with it into abreadfruit-tree and read a chapter in the high branches where shecould avoid distraction.

They lived in a spacious house set in three acres of breadfruit andcocoanuts, an ancient grove long in their family. Often I squattedon their mats, dipping a gingerly finger in their _popoi_ bowl anddrinking the sweet wine of the half-ripe cocoanut, the while Mouthof God's mother spoke long and earnestly on the abode of the damnedand the necessity for seeking salvation. In return, Malicious Gossipspent hours on my _paepae_ telling me of the customs of her peoplenew and old.

"When I was thirteen," she said, "the whalers still came to Vait-hua,my valley. There came a young _Menike_ man, straight and bright-eyed,a passenger on a whaling-ship seeking adventure. I sighed the firsttime in my life when I looked on him. He was handsome, and not likeother men on your ships.

"The kiss you white men give he taught me to like. He was generousand gentle and good. Months we dwelt together in a house by thestream in the valley. When he sailed away at last, as all white mendo who are worth wanting to stay, he tore out my heart. My milkturned to poison and killed our little child.

"I met long after with Mouth of God. He took me to his house in thebreadfruit-grove. He was good and gentle, but I was long in learningto love him. It was the governor who made me know that I was hiswoman. It came about in this manner:

"That governor was one whom all hated for his coldness and cruelty.Mouth of God worked for him in the house where medicines are made,having learned to mix the medicines in a bowl and to wrap clothsabout the wounds of those who were sick. One day, according to thecustom of white men who rule, the governor said to Mouth of God thathe must send me to the palace that night.

"When he came home to the house where we lived together, Mouth ofGod gave me his word. He said: 'Go to the river and bathe. Put onyour crimson tunic and flowers in your hair and go to the palace. Thegovernor gives a feast to-night, and you are to dance and to sleepin the governor's bed.'"

Malicious Gossip shuddered, and rocked herself to and fro upon themats. "Then I would have killed him! I cried out to him and said: 'Iwill not go to the governor! He is a devil. My heart hates him. I ama Marquesan. What have I to do with a man I hate?'"

"'Go!' said Mouth of God, and his eyes were hard as the black stonesof the High Place. 'The governor asks for you. He is the government.Since when have Marquesan women said no to the command of the_adminstrateur_?'

"I wept, but I took my brightest _kahu ropa_ from the sandalwoodchest my _Menike_ man had given me, and I went down the path to thestream. As I went I wept, but my heart was black, and I thought totake a keen-edged knife beneath my tunic when I went to the palace.But my feet were not yet wet in the edge of the water when Mouth ofGod called to me.

"'Do not go,' he said.

"I answered: 'I will go. You told me to go. I am on my way.' Mytears were salt in my mouth.

"'No!' said Mouth of God. He ran, and he came to me in the poolwhere I had flung myself. There in the water he held me, and hisarms crushed the breath from my ribs. 'You will not go!' he said. 'Ispoke those words to know if you would go to the governor. If youhad gone quickly, if you had not wept, I would kill you. You are mywoman. No other shall have you.'

"Then I knew that I was his woman, and I forgot my _Menike_ lover.

"You see," she said to me after a pause, "I would have gone to thepalace. But I would never have come back to the house of Mouth of God.That was the beginning of our love. He would yield me to nobody. Hetold the governor that I would not come, and he waited to kill thegovernor if he must. But the governor laughed, and said there weremany others. Mouth of God and I were married then by Monsieur Vernier,in the church of his mother.

"That was the manner of my marriage. The same as that of the girlsin your own island, is it not?"

It was much the same, I said. It differed only in some slightmatters of custom. She listened fascinated while I described to herour complicated conventions of courtship, our calling upon youngladies for months and even years, our gifts, our entertainments, ourgiving of rings, our setting of the marriage months far in the future,our orange wreaths and veils and bridesmaids. She found these thingsalmost incredible.

"Marriage here," she said, "may come to a young man when he does notseek or even expect it. No Marquesan can marry without the consentof his mother, and often she marries him to a girl without his eventhinking of such a thing.

"A young man may bring home a girl he does not know, perhaps a girlhe has seen on the beach in the moonlight, to stay with him thatnight in his mother's house. It may be that her beauty and charmwill so please his mother that she will call a family council afterthe two have gone to bed. If the family thinks as the mother does,they determine to marry the young man to that girl, and they do soafter this fashion:

"Early in the morning, just at dawn, before the young couple awake,all the women of the household arouse them with shrieks. They beattheir breasts, cut themselves with shells, crying loudly, _Aue! Aue!_Neighbors rush in to see who has died. The youth and the girl runforth in terror. Then the mother, the grandmother and all otherwomen of the house chant the praises of the girl, singing her beauty,and wailing that they cannot let her go. They demand with anger thatthe son shall not let her go. All the neighbors cry with them,_Aue! Aue!_ and beat their breasts, until the son, covered withshame, asks the girl to stay.

"Then her parents are sent the word, and if they do not object, thegirl remains in his house. That is often the manner of Marquesanmarriage."

Yet often, of course, she explained, marriage was not the outcome ofa night's wooing. The young Marquesan frequently brought home a girlwho did not instantly win his mother's affection. In that case shewent her way next morning after breakfast, and that was all. Ourregard for chastity was incomprehensible to Malicious Gossip,instructed though she was in all the codes of the church. It was toher a creed preached to others by the whites, like wearing shoes ormaking the Sabbath a day of gloom, and though she had been told thatviolation of this code meant roasting forever as in a cannibal pitwhose fires were never extinguished, her mind could perceive noreason for it. She could attach no blame to an act that seemed toher an innocent, natural, and harmless amusem*nt.

The truth is that no value was, or is, attached to maidenhood in allPolynesia, the young woman being left to her own whims without blameor care. Only deep and sincere attachment holds her at last to theman she has chosen, and she then follows his wishes in matters offidelity, though still to a large extent remaining mistress ofherself.

The Marquesan woman, however, often denies her husband the freedomshe herself openly enjoys. This custom persists as a strikingsurvival of polyandry, in which fidelity under pain of dismissalfrom the roof-tree was imposed by the wife on all who shared heraffections.

This was exactly the status of a household not far from my cabin.Haabuani, master of ceremonies at the dances, the best carver anddrum-beater of all Atuona, who was of pure Marquesan blood, butspoke French fluently and earnestly defended the doctrine of thePope's infallibility,--even coming to actual blows with a defiantProtestant upon my very _paepae_--explained his attitude.

"If I have a friend and he temporarily desires my wife, Toho, I amglad if she is willing. But my enemy shall not have that privilegewith my consent. I would be glad to have you look upon her with favor.You are kind to me. You have treated me as a chief and you havebought my _kava_ bowl. But, _écoutez, Monsieur_, Toho does what shepleases, yet if I toss but a pebble in another pool she is furious.See, I have the bruises still of her beating."

With a tearful whine he showed the black-and-blue imprints of Toho'sanger, and made it known to us that the three _piastres_ he had ofme for the _kava_ bowl had been traced by his wife to the till of LeBrunnec's store, where Flower, the daughter of Lam Kai Oo, had spentthem for ribbons. Toho in her fury had beaten him so that for a dayand a night he lay groaning upon the mats.

"That is as it should be," said Malicious Gossip, sternly, while hercurving lips set in straight lines. Sex morality means conformity tosex _tapus_, the world over.

Free polyandry still exists in many countries I have seen, and inothers its dying out leaves these fragmentary survivals. I havevisited the tribe of Subanos, in the west and north of the island ofMindanao in the Philippine archipelago, where the rich men arepolygamists, and the poor still submit to polyandry. Economicconditions there bring about the same relations, under a differentguise, as in Europe or America, where wealthy rakes keep up severalestablishments, and many wage-earners support but one prostitute.

Polyandry is found almost exclusively in poor countries, where thereis always a scarcity of females. Thus we have polyandry founded on asurplus of males caused by poverty of sustenance. The female is, infact, supposed to be the result of a surplus of nutrition; more boysthan girls are born in the country districts because the city dietis richer, especially in meat and sugar. It is notable that thefamilies of the pioneers of western America bore a surprisingmajority of males.

In the Marquesas, where living was always difficult and the diet poor,there were always more men than women despite the frequent wars inwhich men were victims. Another reason was that male children weresaved often when females were killed in the practice of infanticide,also forced by famine. The overplus of men made them amenable to thecommands of the women, who often dominated in permanent alliances,demanding lavishment of wealth and attention from their husbands.

Yet--and this is a most significant fact--the father-right in thechild remained the basis of the social system.

Throughout all Australia, Melanesia, and Papuasis on the east, andAmerica on the west, the mother-right prevailed among primitivepeoples. Children followed the mother, took their name from her, andinherited property through her. I have known a Hawaiian nobleman who,commenting on this fact, said that the system had merit in that nochild could be called a bastard, and that the woman, who sufferedmost, was rewarded by pride of posterity. He himself, he said, wasthe son of a chieftess, but his father, a king, was the son of anegro cobbler.

The father-right, so familiar to our minds that it seems to-dayalmost the only natural or existing social system, was in factdeveloped very lately among all races except the Caucasian and sometribes of the Mongols. Yet in the Marquesas, these islands cut offfrom all other peoples through ages of history, the father-rightprevailed in spite of all the difficulties that attended itssurvival in polyandry.

Each woman had many husbands, whom she ruled. The true paternity ofher children it was impossible to ascertain. Yet so tenaciously didthe Marquesans cling to the father-right in the child, that eventhis fact could not break it down. One husband was legally thefather of all her children, ostensibly at least the owner of thehousehold and of such small personal property as belonged to itunder communism. The man remained, though in name only, the head ofthe polyandrous family.

I seemed to see in this curious fact another proof of the ancientkinship between the first men of my own race and the prehistoricgrandfathers of Malicious Gossip and Haabunai. My savage friends,with their clear features, their large straight eyes and olive skins,showed still the traces of their Caucasian blood. Their forefathersand mine may have hunted the great winged lizards together throughprimeval wildernesses, until, driven by who knows what urge ofwanderlust or necessity, certain tribes set out in that drivethrough Europe and Asia toward America that ended at last, when acontinent sunk beneath their feet, on these islands in the southernseas.

It was a far flight for fancy to take, from my _paepae_ in thejungle at the foot of Temetiu, but looking at the beauty and graceof Malicious Gossip as she sat on my mats in her crimson _pareu_, Iliked to think that it was so.

"We are cousins," I said to her, handing her a freshly-openedcocoanut which Exploding Eggs brought.

"You are a great chief, but we love you as a blood-brother," sheanswered gravely, and lifted the shell bowl to her lips.

CHAPTER XI

Filling the _popoi_ pits in the season of the breadfruit; legend ofthe _mei_; the secret festival in a hidden valley.

On the road to the beach one morning I came upon Great Fern, mylandlord. Garbed in brilliant yellow _pareu_, he bore on hisshoulders an immense _kooka_, or basket of cocoanut fiber, filledwith quite two hundred pounds of breadfruit. The superb musclesstood out on his perfect body, wet with perspiration as though hehad come from the river.

"Kaoha, Great Fern!" I said. "Where do you go with the _mei_?"

"It is _Meinui_, the season of the breadfruit," he replied."We fill the _popoi_ pit beside my house."

There is a word on the Marquesan tongue vividly picturing theterrors of famine. It means, "one who is burned to drive away adrought." In these islands cut off from the world the very life ofthe people depends on the grace of rain. Though the skies had beenkind for several years, not a day passing without a gentle downpour,there had been in the past dry periods when even the hardiestvegetation all but perished. So it came about that the Marquesan wasobliged to improvise a method of keeping breadfruit for a long time,and becoming habituated to sour food he learned to like it, as manyAmericans relish ill-smelling cheese and fish and meat, or drinkwith pleasure absinthe, bitters, and other gagging beverages.

In this season of plenteous breadfruit, therefore, Great Fern hadopened his _popoi_ pit, and was replenishing its supply. Ahalf-dozen who ate from it were helping him. Only the enthusiasm ofthe traveler for a strange sight held me within radius of its odor.

It was sunk in the earth, four feet deep and perhaps five in diameter,and was only a dozen years old, which made it a comparatively smalland recently acquired household possession in the eyes of my savagefriends. Mouth of God and Malicious Gossip owned a _popoi_ pit dugby his grandfather, who was eaten by the men of Taaoa, and near thehouse of Vaikehu, a descendant of the only Marquesan queen, therewas a _uuama tehito_, or ancient hole, the origin of which was lostin the dimness of centuries. It was fifty feet long and said to beeven deeper, though no living Marquesan had ever tasted its stores,or never would unless dire famine compelled. It was _tapu_ to thememory of the dead.

All over the valley the filling of the pits for reserve against needwas in progress. Up and down the trails the men were hastening,bearing the _kookas_ filled with the ripe fruit, large as Edamcheeses and pitted on the surface like a golf-ball. A breadfruitweighs from two to eight pounds, and giants like Great Fern orHaabuani carried in the _kookas_ two or three hundred pounds formiles on the steep and rocky trails.

In the banana-groves or among thickets of _ti_ the women weregathering leaves for lining and covering the pits, while around thecenter of interest naked children ran about, hindering and thinkingthey were helping, after the manner of children in all lands whenfuture feasts are in preparation.

There was a time when each grove of breadfruit had its owners, whoguarded it for their own use, and even each tree had its allottedproprietor, or perhaps several. Density of population everywherecauses each mouthful of food to be counted. I have known in Ceylon anEnglish judge who was called upon to decide the legal ownership ofone 2520th part of ten cocoanut-trees. But my friends who werefilling the _popoi_ pits now might gather from any tree they pleased.There was plenty of breadfruit now that there were few people.

Great Fern was culling from a grove on the mountain-side above myhouse. Taking his stand beneath one of the stately trees whosefreakish branches and large, glossy, dark-green leaves spreadperhaps ninety feet above his head, he reached the nearer boughs withan _omei_, a very long stick with a forked end to which was attacheda small net of cocoanut fiber. Deftly twisting a fruit from its stemby a dexterous jerk of the cleft tip, he caught it in the net, andlowered it to the _kooka_ on the ground by his side.

When the best of the fruit within reach was gathered, he climbed thetree, carrying the _omei_. Each brown toe clasped the boughs like afinger, nimble and independent of its fellows through long use ingrasping limbs and rocks. This is remarkable of the Marquesans; eachtoe in the old and industrious is often separated a half inch fromthe others, and I have seen the big toe opposed from the other fourlike a thumb. My neighbors picked up small things easily with theirtoes, and bent them back out of sight, like a fist, when squatting.

Gripping a branch firmly with these hand-like feet, Great Fernwielded the _omei_, bringing down other breadfruit one by one,taking great care not to bruise them. The cocoanut one may throweighty feet, with a twisting motion that lands it upon one end sothat it does not break. But the _mei_ is delicate, and spoils ifroughly handled.

Working in this fashion, Great Fern and his neighbors carried downto the _popoi_ pit perhaps four hundred breadfruit daily, pilingthem there to be prepared by the women. Apporo and her companionsbusied themselves in piercing each fruit with a sharp stick andspreading them on the ground to ferment over night.

In the morning, squatted on their haunches and chanting as theyworked, the women scraped the rind from the fermented _mei_ withcowry shells, and grated the fruit into the pit which they had linedwith banana leaves. From time to time they stood in the pit andtramped down the mass of pulp, or thumped it with wooden clubs.

For two weeks or more the work continued. In the ancient days muchceremoniousness attended this provision against future famine, butto-day in Atuona only one rule was observed, that forbidding sexualintercourse by those engaged in filling the pits.

"To break that _tapu_," said Great Fern, "would mean sickness anddisaster. Any one who ate such _popoi_ would vomit. The forbiddenfood cannot be retained by the stomach."

To vomit during the fortnight occupied in the task of conserving thebreadfruit brought grave suspicion that the unfortunate had brokenthe _tapu_. When their own savage laws governed them, that unhappyperson often died from fear of discovery and the wrath of the gods.To guard against such a fate those who were not strong and well tookno part in the task.

This curious connection between sex and the preparation of foodapplied in many other cases. A woman making oil from dried cocoanutswas _tapu_ as to sexual relations for four or five days, andbelieved that if did she sin, her labor would produce no oil. A mancooking in an oven at night obeyed the same _tapu_. I do not know,and was unable to discover, the origin of these prohibitions. Likemany of our own customs, it has been lost in the mist of ages.

A Tahitian legend of the origin of the breadfruit recounts that inancient times the people subsisted on _araea_, red earth. A couplehad a sickly son, their only child, who day by day slowly grewweaker on the diet of earth, until the father begged the gods toaccept him as an offering and let him become food for the boy. Fromthe darkness of the temple the gods at last spoke to him, grantinghis prayer. He returned to his wife and prepared for death,instructing her to bury his head, heart and stomach at differentspots in the forest.

"When you shall hear in the night a sound like that of a leaf, thenof a flower, afterward of an unripe fruit, and then of a ripe, roundfruit falling on the ground, know that it is I who am become foodfor our son," he said, and died.

She obeyed him, and on the second night she heard the sounds. In themorning she and her son found a huge and wonderful tree where thestomach had been buried. The Tahitians believe that the cocoanut,chestnut, and yam miraculously grew from other parts of a man'scorpse.

Breadfruit, according to Percy Smith, was brought into these islandsfrom Java by the ancestors of the Polynesians, who left Indiaseveral centuries before Christ. They had come to Indonesiarice-eaters, but there found the breadfruit, "which they took withthem in their great migration into these Pacific islands twocenturies and more after the beginning of this era."

Smith finds in the Tahitian legend proof of this contention. In thePolynesian language _araea_, the "red earth" of the tale, is thesame as _vari_, and in Indonesia there were the words _fare_or _pare_, in Malay _padi_ or _peri_, and in Malagasy _vari_, allmeaning rice. A Rarotongan legend relates that in Hawaiki two newfruits were found, and the _vari_ discarded. These fruits were thebreadfruit and the horse-chestnut, neither of which is a native ofPolynesia.

I related these stories of the _mei_ to Great Fern, who replied:"_Aue!_ It may be. The old gods were great, and all the world is awonder. As for me, I am a Christian. The breadfruit ripens, and Ifill the _popoi_ pit."

Great Fern was my friend, and, as he said, a Christian, yet I fearthat he did not tell me all he knew of the ancient customs. Therewas an innocence too innocent in his manner when he spoke of them,like that of a child who would like one to believe that the cat atethe jam. And on the night when the _popoi_ pits were filled, presseddown and running over, when they had been covered with banana leavesand weighed with heavy stones, and the season's task was finished,something occurred that filled my mind with many vague surmises.

I had been awakened at midnight by the crashing fall of a cocoanuton the iron roof above my head. Often during the rainy nights I wasstartled by this sound of the incessantly falling nuts, that bangedand rattled like round shot over my head. But on this night, as Icomposed myself to slumber again, my drowsy ears were uneasy withanother thing, less a sound than an almost noiseless, thrummingvibration, faint, but disturbing.

I sat up in my Golden Bed, and listened. Exploding Eggs was gonefrom his mat. The little house was silent and empty. Straining myears I heard it unmistakably through the rustling noises of theforest and the dripping of rain from the eaves. It was the far, dim,almost inaudible beating of a drum.

Old tales stirred my hair as I stood on my _paepae_ listening to it.At times I thought it a fancy, again I heard it and knew that Iheard it. At last, wrapping a _pareu_ about me, I went down my trailto the valley road. The sound was drowned here by the splashingchuckle of the stream, but as I stood undecided in the pool ofdarkness beneath a dripping banana I saw a dark figure slip silentlypast me, going up toward the High Place. It was followed by another,moving through the night like a denser shadow. I went back to mycabin, scouted my urgent desire to shut and barricade the door, andwent to bed. After a long time I slept.

When I awoke next morning Exploding Eggs was preparing my breakfastas usual, the sunlight streamed over breadfruit and palm, and thenight seemed a dream. But there were rumors in the village of astrange dance held by the inhabitants of Nuka-hiva, on another island,in celebration of the harvest of the _mei_. Weird observances werehinted, rites participated in only by men who danced stark naked,praising the old gods.

This was a custom of the old days, said Great Fern, with thosetoo-innocent eyes opened artlessly upon me. It has ever been theceremony of Thanks-giving to the ancient gods, for a bountifulharvest, a propitiation, and a begging of their continued favor. Asfor him, he was a Christian. Such rites were held no more in Atuona.

I asked no more questions. Thanks-giving to an omnipotent ruler forthe fruits of the harvest season is almost universal. We have put ina proclamation and in church services and the slaughter of turkeyswhat these children do in dancing, as did Saul of old.

The season's task completed, Great Fern and Apporo sat back wellcontent, having provided excellently for the future. Certain oftheir neighbors, however, filled with ambition and spurred on by thefact that there was plenty of _mei_ for all with no suspicion ofgreediness incurred by excessive possessions, continued to workuntil they had filled three pits. These men were regarded withadmiration and some envy, having gained great honor. "He has three_popoi_ pits," they said, as we would speak of a man who owned asuperb jewel or a Velasquez.

[Illustration: A volunteer cocoanut grove, with trees of all ages]

[Illustration: Climbing for cocoanuts]

The grated breadfruit in the holes was called _ma_, and bore thesame relation to _popoi_ as dough bears to bread. When the _ma_ wassufficiently soured Apporo opened the pit each morning and took outenough for the day's provision, replacing the stones on the bananaleaves afterward. The intrusion of insects and lizards was notconsidered to injure the flavor.

I often sat on her _paepae_ and watched her prepare the day's dinner.Putting the rancid mass of _ma_ into a long wooden trough hollowedout from a tree-trunk, she added water and mixed it into a paste ofthe consistency of custard. This paste she wrapped in _purua_ leavesand set to bake in a native oven of rocks that stood near the pit.

Apporo smoked cigarettes while it baked, perhaps to measure the time.Marquesans mark off the minutes by cigarettes, saying, "I will doso-and-so in three cigarettes," or, "It is two cigarettes from myhouse to his."

When the cigarettes were consumed, or when her housewifely instincttold Apporo that the dish was properly cooked, back it went into thetrough again, and was mashed with the _keatukipopoi_, the Phallicpounder of stone known to all primitive peoples. A _pahake_, orwooden bowl about eighteen inches in diameter, received it next, andthe last step of the process followed.

Taking a fistful of the mass, Apporo placed it in another _pahake_,and kneaded it for a long time with her fingers, using oil fromcrushed cocoanuts as a lubricant. And at last, proudly smiling, sheset before me a dish of _popoi kaoi_, the very best _popoi_ that canpossibly be made.

It is a dish to set before a sorcerer. I would as lief eatbill-poster's paste a year old. It tastes like a sour, acid custard.Yet white men learn to eat it, even to yearn for it. Captain Capriata,of the schooner _Roberta_, which occasionally made port in Atuona Bay,could digest little else. Give him a bowl of _popoi_ and a stewed orroasted cat, and his Corsican heart warmed to the giver.

As bread or meat are to us, so was _popoi_ to my tawny friends. Theyate it every day, sometimes three or four times a day, and consumedenormous quantities at a squatting. As the peasant of certaindistricts of Europe depends on black bread and cheese, the poorIrish on potatoes or stirabout, the Scotch on oatmeal, so theMarquesan satisfies himself with _popoi_, and likes it really betterthan anything else.

Many times, when unable to evade the hospitality of my neighbors, Isquatted with them about the brimming _pahake_ set on their _paepae_,and dipped a finger with them, though they marveled at my lack ofappetite. In the silence considered proper to the serious business ofeating, each dipped index and second finger into the bowl, andneatly conveyed a portion of the sticky mass to his mouth, returningthe fingers to the bowl cleansed of the last particle. Littlechildren, beginning to eat _popoi_ ere they were fairly weaned, puttheir whole hands into the dish, and often the lean and mangy cursthat dragged out a wretched dog's existence about the _paepaes_ werenot deprived of their turn.

If one accept the germ theory, one may find in the _popoi_ bowl acause for the rapid spread of epidemics since the whites broughtdisease to the islands.

CHAPTER XII

A walk in the jungle; the old woman in the breadfruit tree; a nightin a native hut on the mountain.

Atuona Valley was dozing, as was its wont in the afternoons, whenthe governor, accompanied by the guardian of the palace, eachcarrying a shot-gun, invited me to go up the mountain to shoot_kukus_ for dinner. The _kuku_ is a small green turtle-dove, verycommon in the islands, and called also _u'u_ and _kukupa_. Under anyof these names the green-feathered morsel is excellent eating whenbroiled or fried.

I did not take a gun, as, unless hunger demands it, I do not like tokill. We started out together, climbing the trail in single file,but the enthusiasm of the chase soon led my companions into thedeeper brush where the little doves lured them, and only the sharpcrack of an occasional shot wakening the echoes of the cliffsdisturbed my solitude.

The dark stillness of the deep valley, where the shadows of themountains fell upon groves of cocoanuts and miles of tangled bush,recalled to me a cañon in New York City, in the center of the worldof finance, gloomy even at noon, the sky-touching buildings darkeningthe street and the spirits of the dwellers like mountains. There,when at an unsual moment I had come from the artificially-lightedcage of a thousand slaves to money-getting, and found the street fora second deserted, no figure of animal or human in its sombre sweep,I had the same sensation of solitude and awe as in this jungle.Suddenly a multitude of people had debouched from many points, andshattered the impression.

But here, in Atuona Valley, the hoot of the owl, the _kouku_, whichin Malay is the ghost-bird, the _burong-hantu_, seemed to deepen thesilence. Does not that word _hantu_, meaning in Malay an evil spirit,have some obscure connection with our American negro "hant," agoblin or ghost? Certainly the bird's long and dismal "Hoo-oo-oo"wailing through the shuddering forest evoked dim and chillingmemories of tales told by candlelight when I was a child in Maryland.

Here on the lower levels I was still among the cocoanut-groves. Thetrail passed through acres of them, their tall gray columns risinglike cathedral arches eighty feet above a green mat of creeping vines.Again it dipped into the woods, where one or two palms struggledupward from a clutching jungle. Everywhere I saw the nuts tied bytheir natural stems in clumps of forty or fifty and fastened tolimbs which had been cut and lashed between trees. These had beengathered by climbers and left thus to be collected for drying intocopra.

Constantly the ripe nuts not yet gathered fell about me. These heavymissiles, many six or seven pounds in weight, fell from heights offifty to one hundred feet and struck the earth with a dull sound.The roads and trails were littered with them. They fall every hour ofthe day in the tropics, yet I have never seen any one hurt by them.Narrow escapes I had myself, and I have heard of one or two who wereseverely injured or even killed by them, but the accidents areentirely out of proportion to the shots fired by the trees. Onebecomes an expert at dodging, and an instinct draws one's eyes tothe branch about to shed a _mei_, or the palm intending to launch acocoanut.

As I made my way up the trail, pausing now and then to look about me,I came upon an old woman leaning feebly on a tall staff. Although itwas the hour of afternoon sleep, she was abroad for some reason, andI stopped to say "_Kaoha_," to her. A figure of wretchedness she was,bent almost double, her withered, decrepit limbs clad in a ragged_pareu_ and her lean arms clutching the stick that bore her weight.She was so aged that she appeared unable to hear my greeting, andreplied only mutteringly, while her bleary eyes gleamed up at mebetween fallen lids.

Such miserable age appealed to pity, but as she appeared to wish noaid, I left her leaning on her staff, and moved farther along thetrail, stopping again to gaze at the shadowed valley below while Imused on the centuries it had seen and the brief moment of a man'slife. Standing thus, I was like to lose my own, for suddenly I hearda whirr like that of a shrapnel shell on its murderous errand, andat my feet fell a projectile.

I saw that it was a breadfruit and that I was under the greatesttree of that variety I had ever seen, a hundred feet high andspreading like a giant oak. In the topmost branches was thetottering beldame I had saluted, and in both her hands the staff, adozen feet long. She was threshing the fruit from the tree withastounding energy and agility, her scanty rags blown by the wind,and her emaciated, naked figure in its arboreal surroundings likethat of an aged ape.

How she held on was a mystery, for she seemed to lean out from alimb at a right angle, yet she had but a toe-hold upon it. No partof her body but her feet touched the branch, nor had she any othersupport but that, yet she banged the staff about actively and sentmore six-pounders down, so that I fled without further reflection.

The score of houses strung along the upper reaches of Atuona Valleywere silent at this hour, and everywhere native houses were decaying,their falling walls and sunken roofs remembering the thousands whoonce had their homes here. Occasionally in our own country we seehouses untenanted and falling to ruin, bearing unmistakableevidences of death or desertion, and I have followed armies thatdevastated a countryside and slew its people or hunted them to thehills, but the first is a solitary case, and the second, though fullof horror, has at least the element of activity, of moving andstruggling life. The rotting homes of the Marquesan people speakmore eloquently of death than do sunken graves.

In these vales, which each held a thousand or several thousand whenthe blight of the white man came, the abandoned _paepaes_ are solemnand shrouded witnesses of the death of a race. The jungle runs overthem, and only remnants remain of the houses that sat upon them.Their owners have died, leaving no posterity to inhabit their homes;neighbors have removed their few chattels, and the wilderness hasclaimed its own. In every valley these dark monuments to thebenefits of civilization hide themselves in the thickets.

None treads the stones that held the houses of the dead. They are_tapu_; about them flit the _veinahae_, the _matiahae_, and the_etuahae_, dread vampires and ghosts that have charge of thecorpse and wait to seize the living. Well have these ghoulishphantoms feasted; whole islands are theirs, and soon they will situpon the _paepae_ of the last Marquesan.

I reached the top of the gulch and paused to gaze at its extent. Thegreat hills rose sheer and rugged a mile away; the cocoanuts ceasedat a lower level, and where I stood the precipices were a mass ofwild trees, bushes, and creepers. From black to lightest green thecolors ran, from smoky crests and gloomy ravines to the streamsinging its way a hundred feet below the trail.

A hundred varieties of flowers poured forth their perfume upon thelonely scene. The frangipani, the red jasmine of delicious odor, andtropical gardenias, weighted the warm air with their heavy scents.

Beside the trail grew the _hutu_-tree with crimson-tasseled flowersamong broad leaves, and fruit prickly and pear-shaped. It is a fruitnot to be eaten by man, but immemorally used by lazy fishermen toinsure miraculous draughts. Streams are dammed up and the pearsthrown in. Soon the fish become stupified and float upon the surfaceto the gaping nets of the poisoners. They are not hurt in flavor oredibility.

The _keoho_, a thorny shrub, caught at my clothes as I left the trail.Its weapons of defence serve often as pins for the native, who inthe forest improvises for himself a hat or umbrella of leaves.Beside me, too, was the _putara_, a broad-leaved bush and the lemonhibiscus, with its big, yellow flower, black-centered, was twistedthrough these shrubs and wound about the trunk of the giant _aea_, inwhose branches the _kuku_ murmured to its mate. Often the floweringvine stopped my progress. I struggled to free myself from its clutchas I fought through the mass of vegetation, and pausing perforce tolet my panting lungs gulp the air, I saw around me ever new andstranger growths--orchids, giant creepers, the _noni enata_, a smallbush with crimson pears upon it, the _toa_, or ironwood, which gavedeadly clubs in war-time, but now spread its boughs peacefullyamidst the prodigal foliage of its neighbors.

The umbrella fern, _mana-mana-hine_, was all about. The _ama_, thecandlenut-tree, shed its oily nuts on the earth. The _puu-epu_, thepaper mulberry, with yellow blossoms and cottony, round leaves,jostled pandanus and hibiscus; the _ena-vao_, a wild ginger withedible, but spicy, cones, and the lacebark-tree, the _faufee_, whichfurnishes cordage from its bark, contested for footing in the richearth and fought for the sun that even on the brightest day neverreached their roots.

I staggered through the bush, falling over rotten trees andstruggling in the mass of shrubs and tangled vines.

Away up here, hidden in the depths of the forest, there were threeor four houses; not the blue-painted or whitewashed cabins of thesettlement, but half-open native cots, with smoke rising from thefire made in a circle of stones on the _paepaes_. The hour of sleephad passed, and squatted before the troughs men and women mashed the_ma_ for the _popoi_, or idled on the platform in red and yellow_pareus_, watching the roasting breadfruit. There must bepoverty-stricken folk indeed, for I saw that the houses showed nosign whatever of the ugliness that the Marquesan has aped from thewhites. Yet neither were they the wretched huts of straw and thatchwhich I had seen in the valley and supposed to be the only remnantsof the native architecture.

As I drew nearer, I saw that I had stumbled upon such a house as theMarquesan had known in the days of his strength, when pride ofartistry had created wonderful and beautiful structures of nativewood adorned in elegant and curious patterns.

It was erected upon a _paepae_ about ten feet high, reached by abroad and smooth stairway of similar massive black rocks. The house,long and narrow, covered all of the _paepae_ but a veranda in front,the edge of which was fenced with bamboo ingeniously formed intopatterns of squares. A friendly call of "_Kaoha!_" in response tomine, summoned me to the family meeting-place, and I mounted thesteps with eagerness.

I was met by a stalwart and handsome savage, in earrings andnecklace and scarlet _pareu_, who rubbed my nose with his andsmelled me ceremoniously, welcoming me as an honored guest. Severalwomen followed his example, while naked children ran forwardcuriously to look at the stranger.

Learning the interest and admiration I felt for his house, my hostdisplayed it with ill-concealed pride. Its frame was of thelargest-sized bamboos standing upright, and faced with hibiscusstrips, all lashed handsomely and strongly with _faufee_ cordage.Upon this framework were set the walls, constructed of canes arrangedin a delicate pattern, the fastenings being of _purau_ or otherrattan-like creepers, all tied neatly and regularly. As theresidence was only about a dozen feet deep, through three times thatlength, these walls were not only attractive but eminentlyserviceable, the canes shading the interior, and the intersticesbetween them admitting ample light and air.

We entered through a low opening and found the one long chamberspacious, cool, and perfumed with the forest odors. There were nofurnishings save two large and brilliantly polished cocoanut-treetrunks running the whole length of the interior, and between thempiles of mats of many designs and of every bright hue that roots andherbs will yield.

While I admired these, noting their rich colors and soft, yet firm,texture, a murmurous rustle on the palm-thatched roof announced thecoming of the rain. It was unthinkable to my host that a strangershould leave his house at nightfall, and in a downpour that mightbecome a deluge before morning. To have refused his invitation hadbeen to leave a pained and bewildered household.

_Popoi_ bowls and wooden platters of the roasted breadfruit werebrought within shelter, and while the hissing rain put out the fireson the _paepae_ the candlenuts were lighted and all squatted for theevening meal. Breadfruit and yams, with a draught of cocoanut milk,satisfied the hunger created by my arduous climb. Then the womencarried away the empty bowls while my host and I lay upon the matsand smoked, watching the gray slant of the rain through thedarkening twilight.

Few houses like his remained on Hiva-Oe, he said in reply to mycompliments. The people loved the ways of the whites and longed forhomes of redwood planks and roofs of iron. For himself, he loved theways of his fathers, and though yielding as he must to the paymentsof taxes and the authority of new laws, he would not toil in thecopra-groves or work on traders' ships. His father had been awarrior of renown. The _u'u_ was wielded no more, being replaced bythe guns of the whites. The old songs were forgotten. But he, whohad traveled far, who had seen the capital of the world, Tahiti, andhad learned much of the ways of the foreigner, would have none ofthem. He would live as his fathers had lived, and die as they haddied.

"It is not long. We vanish like the small fish before the hunger ofthe _mako_. The High Places are broken, and the _pahue_ covers our_paepaes_. It does not matter. _E tupu te fau; e toro to farero, emou te taata._ The hibiscus shall grow, the coral shall spread, andman shall cease. There is sleep on your eyelids, and the mats areready."

His hospitality would give me the place of honor, despite my protests,and soon I found myself lying between my host and his wife, whilethe other members of the household lay in serried rank beyond her onthe mats that filled the hollow between the palm-trunks. All sleptwith the backs of their heads upon one timber, and the backs oftheir knees over the other, but I found comfort on the soft pilebetween them. My companions slumbered peacefully, as I have remarkedthat men do in all countries where the people live near, and much in,the sea. There was no snoring or groaning, no convulsive movement ofarms or legs, no grimaces or frowns such as mark the fitful sleep ofmost city dwellers and of all of us who worry or burn the candle atboth ends.

I lay listening for some time to their quiet breathing and the soundof rain drumming on the thatch, but at last my eyes closed, and onlythe dawn awoke me.

[Illustration: Splitting cocoanut husks in copra making process]

[Illustration: Cutting the meat from cocoanuts to make copra]

CHAPTER XIII

The household of Lam Kai Oo; copra making; marvels of thecocoanut-groves; the sagacity of pigs; and a crab that knows thelaws of gravitation.

Next morning, after bidding farewell to my hosts, I set out down themountain in the early freshness of a sunny, rain-washed morning. Ifollowed a trail new to me, a path steep as a stairway, walled in bythe water-jeweled jungle pressing so close upon me that at times Isaw the sky only through the interlacing fronds of the tree-fernsabove my head.

I had gone perhaps a mile without seeing any sign of human habitation,hearing only the conversation of the birds and the multitudinousmurmuring of leaves, when a heavy shower began to fall. Pressing on,hampered by my clinging garments and slipping in the path that hadinstantly become a miniature torrent, I came upon a little clearingin which stood a dirty, dark shanty, like a hovel in the outskirtsof Canton, not raised on a _paepae_ but squat in an acre of mud andthe filth of years.

Two children, three or four years old, played naked in the muck, andFlower, of the red-gold hair, reputed the wickedest woman in theMarquesas, ironed her gowns on the floor of the porch. Raising herhead, she called to me to come in.

This was the house of Lam Kai Oo, the adopted father of Flower.Seventy-one years old, Lam Kai Oo had made this his home since heleft the employ of Captain Hart, the unfortunate American cottonplanter, and here he had buried three native wives. His fourth, awoman of twenty years, sat in the shelter of a copra shed nursing asix-months' infant. Her breasts were dark blue, almost black, acharacteristic of nursing mothers here.

Both the mother and Flower argued with me that I should make ManyDaughters my wife during my stay in Atuona, and if not the leper lass,then another friend they had chosen for me. Flower herself had doneme the honor of proposing a temporary alliance, but I had persuadedher that I was not worthy of her beauty and talents. Any plea thatit was not according to my code, of even that it was un-Christian,provoked peals of laughter from all who heard it; sooth to say, thewhites laughed loudest.

Beneath a thatch of palm-leaves Lam Kai Oo was drying cocoanuts. Hiswithered yellow body straddled a kind of bench, to which was fixed asharp-pointed stick of iron-wood. Seizing each nut in his claw-likehands, he pushed it against this point, turning and twisting it ashe ripped off the thick and fibrous husk. Then he cracked each nutin half with a well-directed blow of a heavy knife. For the bestcopra-making, the half-nuts should be placed in the sun, concaveside up. As the meats begin to dry, they shrink away from the shelland are readily removed, being then copra, the foundation of themany toilet preparations, soaps and creams, that are made fromcocoa-oil.

As it rains much in the Marquesas, the drying is often done in ovens,though sun-dried copra commands a higher price. Lam Kai Oo wasoperating such an oven, a simple affair of stones cemented with mud,over which had been erected a shed of palm-trunks and thatch. Thehalved cocoanuts were placed in cups made of mud and laid on woodenracks above the oven. With the doors closed, a fire was built in thestone furnace and fed from the outside with cocoa-husks and brush.Such an oven does not dry the nuts uniformly. The smoke turns themdark, and oil made from them contains undesirable creosote.Hot-water pipes are the best source of heat, except the sun,but Lam Kai Oo was paying again for his poverty, as the poorman must do the world over.

Forty-four years earlier he had left California, after having givenseven years of his life to building American railways. The smoke ofthe Civil War had hardly cleared away when Captain Hart hadpersuaded him, Ah Yu and other California Chinese to come to Hiva-oa,and put their labor into his cotton plantations. Cannibalism wascommon at that date. I asked the old man if he had witnessed it.

"My see plenty fella eatee," he replied. "Kanaka no likee Chineeman.Him speak bad meatee."

He told me how on one occasion the Lord had saved him from drowning.With a lay brother of the Catholic Mission, he had been en route toVait-hua in a canoe with many natives. There was to be a church feast,and Lam Kai Oo was carrying six hundred Chile _piastres_ to back hisskill against the natives in gambling; Lam, of course, to operatethe wheel of supposed chance.

The boat capsized in deep water. The lay brother could not swim, butwas lifted to the keel of the upturned boat, while the others clungto its edges. He prayed for hours, while the others, lifting theirfaces above the storming waves, cried hearty amens to hissupplications. Finally the waves washed them into shallow water. Thebrother gave earnest thanks for deliverance, but Lam thought thatthe same magic should give him back the six hundred pieces of silverthat had gone into the sea.

"My savee plenty Lord helpee you," said he. "Allee samee, him hellto live when poor. Him Lord catchee Chile money, my givee fittydolla churchee."

He sighed despairingly, and fed more cocoa-husks to his make-shiftoven. The shower had passed, moving in a gray curtain down the valley,and picking my way through the mire of the yard, I followed it inthe sunshine.

My way led now through the cocoanut-groves that day and night makethe island murmurous with their rustling. They are good company,these lofty, graceful palms, and I had grown to feel a realaffection for them, such as a man has for his dog. Like myself, theycan not live and flourish long unless they see the ocean. Theirhabit has more tangible reason than mine; they are dependent on airand water for life. The greater the column of water that flows dailyup their stems and evaporates from the leaves, the greater thegrowth and productivity.

Evaporation being in large measure dependent on free circulation ofair, the best sites for cocoanut plantations are on the seashore,exposed to the winds. They love the sea and will grow with theirboles dipped at high tide in the salt water.

These trunks, three feet in diameter at the base and taperingsmoothly and perfectly to perhaps twelve inches at the top, are inreality no more than pipes for conveying the water to the thirstyfronds. Cut them open, and one finds a vast number of hollow reeds,held together by a resinous pitch and guarded by a bark both thickand exceedingly hard. There is no branch or leaf except at the verytip of the trunk, where a symmetrical and gigantic bouquet of leavesappears, having plumes a dozen feet long or more, that nod with everyzephyr and in storms sway and lash the tree as if they were livingthings.

I used to wonder why these great leaves, the sport of the idlestbreeze as well as the fiercest gale, were not torn from the tree,but when I learned to know the cocoanut palm as a dear friend Ifound that nature had provided for its survival on the wind-sweptbeaches with the same exquisite attention to individual need that isshown in the electric batteries and lights of certain fishes, or inthe caprification of the fig. A very fine, but strong, matting,attached to the bark beneath the stalk, fastened half way around thetree and reaching three feet up the leaf, fixes it firmly to thetrunk but gives it ample freedom to move. It is a natural brace,pliable and elastic.

There is scarcely a need of the islander not supplied by theseamiable trees. Their wood makes the best spars, furnishes raftersand pillars for native houses, the knee- and head-rests of their beds,rollers for the big canoes or whale-boats, fences against wild pig,and fuel. The leaves make screens and roofs of dwellings, baskets,and coverings, and in the pagan temples of Tahiti were the rosariesor prayer-counters, while on their stiff stalks the candlenuts arestrung to give light for feasts or for feasting. When the tree isyoung the network that holds the leaves is a beautiful silver, asfine as India paper and glossy; narrow strips of it are used as hairornaments and contrast charmingly with the black and shining locksof the girls. When older, this matting has every appearance ofcoarse cotton cloth, and is used to wrap food, or is made into bagsand even rough garments, specially for fishermen.

The white flowers are small and grow along a branching stalk,protected by a sheath, and just above the commencement of the leaf.From them is made the cocoanut-brandy that enables the native toforget his sorrows. Flowers and nuts in every stage of developmentare on the same tree, a year elapsing between the first blossom andthe ripe nut. Long before it is ripe, but after full size has beenattained, the nut contains a pint or even a quart of delicious juice,called milk, water, or wine, in different languages. It is clear asspring water, of a delicate acidity, yet sweet, and no idea of itstaste can be formed from the half-rancid fluid in the ripe nuts soldin Europe or America. It must be drunk soon after being taken fromthe tree to know its full delights, and must have been gathered atthe stage of growth called _koie_, when there is no pulp within theshell.

Not long after this time the pulp, white as snow, of the consistencyand appearance of the white of a soft-boiled egg, forms in a thinlayer about the walls of the nut. This is a delicious food, and fromit are made many dishes, puddings, and cakes. It is no more like theshredded cocoanut of commerce than the peach plucked from the treeis like the tinned fruit.

The pulp hardens and thickens as time goes on, and finally is aninch in thickness. Occasionally the meat when hard and ripe isbroiled and eaten. I like it fairly well served in this fashion.

If left on the tree, the nut will in time fall, and in due coursethere begins in it a marvelous process of germination. A sweet,whitish sponge forms in the interior, starting from the inner end ofthe seed enclosed in the kernel, opposite one of the three eyes inthe smaller end of the nut. This sponge drinks up all the liquid, and,filling the inside, melts the hard meat, absorbs it, and turns itinto a cellular substance, while a white bud, hard and powerful,pushes its way through one of the eyes of the shell, bores throughseveral inches of husk, and reaches the air and light.

This bud now unfolds green leaves, and at the same period two otherbuds, beginning at the same point, find their way to the two othereyes and pierce them, turning down instead of up, and forcing theirway through the former husk outside the shell, enter the ground.Though no knife could cut the shell, the life within bursts it open,and husk and shell decay and fertilize the soil beside the new roots,which, within five or six years, have raised a tree eight or ninefeet high, itself bearing nuts to reproduce their kind again.

All about me on the fertile soil, among decaying leaves andluxuriant vines, I saw these nuts, carrying on their mysterious andpowerful life in the unheeded forest depths. Here and there ahalf-domestic pig was harrying one with thrusting snout. These pigs,which we think stupid, know well that the sun will the sooner causea sprouting nut to break open, and they roll the fallen nut into thesunlight to hasten their stomachs' gratification, though withsufficient labor they can get to the meat with their teeth.

There is a crab here, too, that could teach even the wisest,sun-employing pig some tricks in economics. He is the last word inadaptation to environment, with an uncanny knowledge that makes theuninformed look askance at the tale-teller. These crabs climbcocoanut-trees to procure their favorite food. They dote on cocoanuts,the ripe, full-meated sort. They are able to enjoy them by variousendeavors demanding strength, cleverness, an apparent understandingof the effect of striking an object against a harder one, and of thevelocity caused by gravity. Nuts that resist their attempts to openthem, they carry to great heights, to drop them and thus break theirshells.

These crabs are called by the scientists _Birgos latro_, by theMarquesans _tupa_, by the Paumotans _kaveu_, and by the Tahitians,_ua vahi haari_. It was a never-failing entertainment on my walksin the Paumotas to observe these great creatures, light-brown orreddish in color, more than two feet in length, stalking about withtheir bodies a foot from the ground, supported by two pairs ofcentral legs. They can exist at least twenty-four hours withoutvisiting the water, of which they carry a supply in reservoirs onboth sides of the cephalothorax, keeping their gills moist.

[Illustration: A Marquesan home on a _paepae_]

[Illustration: Isle of Barking Dogs]

They live in large deep burrows in the cocoanut-groves, which theyfill with husks, so that the natives often rob them to procure aquick supply of fuel. These dens are contrived for speedy entry whenpursued. Terrifying as they appear when surprised on land, theyscuttle for safety either to a hole or to the sea, with an agilityastounding in a creature so awkward in appearance. Though they maybe seen about at all hours of the day, they make forays upon thecocoanuts only at night.

Darwin first saw these creatures in the Indian Ocean, and said thatthey seek the sea every night to moisten their branchiae. The youngare hatched and live for some time on the sea-coast, venturing farfrom water only as they grow older. Darwin said that their feat inentering the cocoanut "is as curious a case of instinct as was everheard of, and likewise of adaptation in structure between twoobjects apparently so remote from each other in the scheme of nature,as a crab and a cocoanut-tree."

When darkness descends and all is quiet, the robber crab ascends thetree by gripping the bark with his claws. The rays of my electricflash-light have often caught him high over my head against the graypalm. Height does not daunt him. He will go up till he reaches thenuts, if it be a hundred feet. With his powerful nippers he seversthe stem, choosing always a nut that is big and ripe. Descending thepalm, he tears off the fibrous husk, which, at first thought, itwould seem impossible for him to do. He tears it fiber by fiber, andalways from that end under which the three eye-holes are situated.With these exposed, he begins hammering on one of them until he hasenlarged the opening so that he can insert one of the sharp pointsof his claw into it. By turning his claw backward and forward hescoops out the meat and regales himself luxuriously.

This is his simplest method, along the line of least resistance, butlet the nut be refractory, and he seizes it by the point of a clawand beats it against a rock until he smashes it. This plan failing,he will carry the stubborn nut to the top of the tree again and hurlit to the earth to crack it. And if at first he does not succeed, hewill make other trips aloft with the husked nut, dropping it againand again until at last it is shattered and lies open to his claws.

It is said that if a drop of oil be placed on the long and delicateantennae of these crabs they die almost instantly. We have asomewhat similar rumor with respect to salt and a bird's tail.Seldom does a robber crab linger to be oiled, and so other means ofdestroying him, or, at least, of guarding against his depredations,are sought. With the rat, who bites the flower and gnaws the youngnuts, this crab is the principal enemy of the planter. The treeowner who can afford it, nails sheets of tin or zinc around the treea dozen feet from the earth. Neither rat nor crab can pass thisslippery band, which gives no claw-hold. Thousands of trees are thusprotected, but usually these are in possession of white men, for tinis costly and the native is poor.

The ingenious native, however, employs another means of saving thefruit of his groves. He climbs the palm-trunk in the daytime, andforty feet above the ground encircles it with dirt and leaves. Onhis mat for the night's slumber, he smiles to think of the revengehe shall have. For the crab ascends and passes the puny barrier toselect and fell his nuts, but when in his backward way he descends,he forgets the curious bunker he went over and, striking it again,thinks he has reached the ground. He lets go, and smashes on therocks his crafty foe has piled below.

CHAPTER XIV

Visit of Le Moine; the story of Paul Gauguin; his house, and asearch for his grave beneath the white cross of Calvary.

I rose one morning from my Golden Bed to find a stranger quietlysmoking a cigarette on my _paepae_. Against the jungle background hewas a strangely incongruous figure; a Frenchman, small, thin,meticulously neat in garments of faded blue denim and shining highboots. His blue eyes twinkled above a carefully trimmed beard, andas he rose to meet me, I observed that the fingers on the cigarettewere long, slender, and nervous.

This was Monsieur Charles le Moine, the painter from Vait-hua, whosestudio I had invaded in his absence from that delightful isle. Wesat long over breakfast coffee and cigarettes, I, charmed by hisconversation, he, eager to hear news of the world he had forsaken.He had studied in Paris, been governor of the Gambier Islands, andat last had made his final home among the palms and orchids of theseforgotten isles. His life had narrowed to his canvases, on which hesought to interpret Marquesan atmosphere and character, its beautyand savage lure.

I said to him that it was a pity many great painters did not comehere to put on canvas the fading glamor and charm of the Marquesas.

"Our craft is too poor," he replied with a sigh. "A society built onmoney does not give its artists and singers the freedom they had inthe old days in these islands, my friend. We are bound to a wheelthat turns relentlessly. Who can come from France and live herewithout money? Me, I must work as gendarme and school-teacher to beable to paint even here. One great painter did live in this valley,and died here--Paul Gauguin. He was a master, my friend!"

"Paul Gauguin lived here?" I exclaimed. I had known, of course, thatthe great modernist had died in the Marquesas, but I had never heardin which valley, and no one in Atuona had spoken of him. In FlorenceI had met an artist who possessed two glass doors taken from MadameCharbonnier's house and said to have been painted by Gauguin inpayment for rent. I had been in Paris when all artistic France wasshuddering or going into ecstacies over Gauguin's blazing tropic work,when his massive, crude figures done in violent tones, filled withsinister power, had been the conversation of galleries and saloons.

Strindberg wrote of Gauguin's first exhibition and expressed dislikefor the artist's prepossession with form, and for the savage modelshe chose. Gauguin's reply was:

"Your civilization is your disease; my barbarism is my restorationto health. I am a savage. Every human work is a revelation of theindividual. All I have learned from others has been an impediment tome. I know little, but what I do know is my own."

Now I learned from the lips of Le Moine that this man had lived anddied in my own valley of Atuona, had perhaps sat on this _paepae_where we were breakfasting. Imagination kindled at the thought."I will take you to his house," said Le Moine.

We walked down the road past the governor's palace until oppositeBaufré's depressing abode, where, several hundred yards back from astone wall, sunk in the mire of the swamp, had for ten years beenGauguin's home and studio. Nothing remained of it but a few fainttraces rapidly disappearing beneath the jungle growth.

While we stood in the shade of a cocoanut-palm, gazing at these, wewere joined by Baufré, the shaggy and drink-ruined Frenchman, in historn and dirty overalls.

"This weather is devilish," said Baufré, with a curse. "It is not asit used to be. The world goes to the devil. There were seven hundredpeople in Atuona when I came here. They are all dead but two hundred,and there is nobody to help me in my plantation. If I pay threefrancs a day, they will not work. If I pay five francs, they willnot work. Suppose I give them rum? They will work hard for that, forit means forgetting, but when they drink rum they cannot work at all."

"But you are a philosopher, and absinthe or rum will cure you," saidLe Moine.

"_Mon dieu!_ I am not a philosopher!" retorted Baufré. "Of what goodis that? Gauguin was a philosopher, and he is dead and buried onCalvary. You know how he suffered? His feet and legs were very bad.Every day he had to tie them up. He could not wear shoes, but hepainted, and drank absinthe, and injected the morphine into his belly,and painted.

"_Sapristi!_ He was a brave one! Am I not here over thirty years,and have I met a man like Gauguin? He never worried. He painted. Thedealer in Paris sent him five hundred francs a month, and he gaveaway everything. He cared only for paint. And now he is gone._Regardez_, here is where his house stood."

We walked through the matted grass that sketched upon the fertilesoil the shape of that house where Gauguin had painted.

It had been raised from the marsh six feet on trunks of trees, andwas about forty-five feet long and twenty wide. The floor was ofplanks, and one climbed a stairway to reach the veranda. The frameof the house was of wood, but the sides all of split bamboo, with arow of windows of glass and a roof of cocoanut thatch. The lightentered from the north, and except for a small chamber for sleepingand a closet for provisions, the entire house was a studio, a lofty,breeze-swept hall, the windows high up admitting light, but not thehot sunshine, and the expanse of bamboo filtering the winds in theireternal drift from south to north and north to south.

Below the floor, on the ground, was a room for work in sculpture, inwhich medium Gauguin took much interest, using clay and wood, thelatter both for bas-relief and full relief, Gauguin being hampered,Baufré said, by lack of plasticity in the native clay. Next to thisworkroom was a shelter for the horse and cart, for Gauguin had theonly wheeled vehicle in the Marquesas.

Baufré exhausted all his rhetoric and used four sheets of foolscapin his endeavor to make me see these surroundings of the artist,whom he evidently considered a great man.

"Five hundred francs a month, _mon ami_, whether he painted or not!But he was a worker. Drunk or sober, he would paint. _Oui_, I haveseen him with a bottle of absinthe in him, and still he would paint.Early in the morning he was at work at his easel in the studio orunder the trees, and every day he painted till the light was gone.His only use for the cart was to carry him and his easel and chairto scenes he would paint. He would shoot that accursed morphine intohis belly when the pain was too bad, and he would drink wine andtalk and paint.

"He had no wife or woman, but he took one in the way of the whiteman here now and then. He lived alone, save for a half-Chinese boywho cooked and cleaned for him. He never said he was sick. There wasno doctor on this island, for the government was then at Nuka-hiva,and he had no time to go there. He suffered terribly, but he nevercomplained. 'Life is short,' he would say, 'and there is not long topaint.'

"He would not talk politics, but after the light was gone he wouldsit at the organ in his studio and make one cry with his music. Whenat home he wore only a _pareu_, but he would put on trousers when hewent out. He worked and drank and injected his morphine, and onemorning when the boy came he found him dead, and he was smiling.

"The government hated him because he cursed it for not letting thenatives keep their customs. The church hated him because heridiculed it. Still, they buried him in the Catholic cemetery. Iwent with the body, and four Marquesans carried it up the trail.

"The government sold his house to Gedge, and Gedge sold it to anative, who tore it down for the materials. It was of no use to anyone, for it was built for an artist.

"_Vous savez; mon garçon_, I am not acquainted with pictures, andhave never seen any but his, but I felt that they were good. Theymade one feel the sun. There was in them the soul of these islands.And you know that Polonaise, with the one eye-glass, that lives inPapeite, that Krajewsky? _Eh bien!_ he was here to buy these stoneimages of gods, and he said that in Paris they were paying tens ofthousands of francs for those things of Gauguin's he would havegiven me for the asking. Ah well! he had the head and he was aphilosopher, but he lies up there in Calvary."

"Perhaps," said Le Moine.

"_Mon ami_," said the shaggy man, "I go to church, and you and I andGauguin are the same kind of Catholic. We don't do what we pray for.That man was smarter than you or me, and the good God will forgivehim whatever he did. He paid everybody, and Chassognal of Papeitefound seven hundred francs in a book where he had carelessly laid it.If he drank, he shared it, and he paid his women."

"He was an atheist," persisted Le Moine.

"Atheist!" echoed Baufré. "He believed in making beautiful pictures,and he was not afraid of God or of the mission. How do you know whatGod likes? Mathieu Scallamera built the church here and the missionhouses, and he is dead, and all his family are lepers. Did God dothat? _Non! Non!_ You and I know nothing about that. You like todrink. Your woman is tattooed, and we are both men and bad. Come andhave a drink?"

We left him beside the road and walked slowly beneath the arch oftrees toward the mountain whose summit was crowned by the whitecross of Calvary graveyard.

"He drank too much, he took morphine, he was mortally ill, and yethe painted. Those chaps who have to have leisure and sandal-woodcensors might learn from that man," said Le Moine. "He was a paganand he saw nature with the eyes of a pagan god, and he painted it ashe saw it."

I reminded him of James Huneker's words about Gauguin: "He is yetfor the majority, though he may be the Paint God of the Twentiethcentury. Paint was his passion. With all his realism, he was asymbolist, a master of decoration."

Past the governor's mansion, we turned sharply up the hill. Apartfrom all other dwellings, on a knoll, stood a Marquesan house. As wefollowed the steep trail past it, I called, "_Kaoha!_"

"_I hea?_" said a woman, "_Karavario?_ Where do you go? To Calvary?"

There was a sad astonishment in her tone, that we should make thearduous climb to the cemetery where no dead of ours lay interred.

A fairly broad trail wound about the hill, the trail over which thedead and the mourners go, and the way was through a vastcocoanut-orchard, the trees planted with absolute regularity liftingtheir waving fronds seventy or eighty feet above the earth. Therewas no underbrush between the tall gray columns of the palms, only atwisted vegetation covered the ground, and the red volcanic soil ofthe trail, cutting through the green, was like a smear of blood.

The road was long and hot. Halting near the summit, we looked upward,and I was struck with emotion as when in the courtyard I saw thegroup of the crucifixion. A cross forty feet high, with a Christnailed upon it, all snow-white, stood up against the deep blue sky.It was like a note of organ music in the great gray cathedral of thepalms.

Another forty minutes climbing brought us to the foot of the whitesymbol. A half-acre within white-washed palings, like any countrygraveyard, lay on the summit of the mountain.

To find Gauguin's grave we began at the entrance and searched row byrow. The graves were those of natives, mounds marked by small stonesalong the sides, with crosses of rusted iron filigree showing skullsand other symbols of death, and a name painted in white, mildewingaway. Farther on were tombs of stone and cement, primitive andmassive, defying the elements. Upon one was graven, "_Ci Git DanielVaimai, Kata-Kita_, 1867-1907. R.I.P." The grave of a catechist, anative assistant to the priests. Beneath another lay "August Jorss,"he who had ordered the Golden Bed in which I slept. Most conspicuousof all was a mausoleum surrounded by a high, black, iron railingbrought from France. On this I climbed to read while perched on thepoints:

"_Ici repose Mg. Illustrissime et Reverendissime_ Rog. Jh. Martin,"and much more in Latin and French. It was the imposing grave of theBishop of Uranopolis, vicar-apostolic to the Marquesas, predecessorto Bishop le Cadre, who had no pride and whom all called plainFather David.

Suddenly rain poured down upon us, and looking about to find ashelter we saw a straw penthouse over a new and empty grave linedwith stones. We huddled beneath it, our faces toward the sea, andwhile the heavy rain splashed above our heads and water rushed downthe slope, we gazed in silence at the magnificent panorama below.

We were directly above the Bay of Traitors, that arm of the seawhich curved into the little bays of Taka-Uka and Atuona. At one side,a mere pinnacle through the vapor about his throat, rose the ruggedhead of Temetiu, and ranged below him the black fastnesses of thevalleys he commands. In the foreground the cocoas, from the rockyheadlands to the gate of Calvary, stood like an army bearing palmsof victory. In rows and circles, plats and masses, the gray trunksfollowed one another from sea to mountain, yielding themselves tothe storm, swaying gently, and by some trick of wind and rainseeming to march toward the cross-crowned summit.

The flimsy thatch under which we crouched, put up only to keep thesun from the grave-digger, bent to north and south, and threatenedto wing away. But suddenly the shower ran away in a minute, as if ithad an engagement elsewhere, and the sun shone more brightly in therain-washed air.

We continued our search, but uselessly. Hohine and Mupui hadadvertisem*nt of their last mortal residence, but not Gauguin. Wefound an earring on one little tomb where a mother had laid her child,and on several those _couronnes des perles_, stiff, ugly wreathsbrought from France, with "Sincere Regrets" in raised beads,speaking pityfully of the longing of the simple islanders to dohonor to the memory of their loved ones. But the grave of Gauguin,the great painter, was unmarked. If a board had been placed at itshead when he was buried, it had rotted away, and nothing was left toindicate where he was lying.

The hibiscus was blood-red on the sunken graves, and cocoanutssprouted in the tangled grass. Palms shut out from the half-acre haddropped their nuts within it, and the soil, rich in the ashes of man,was endeavoring to bring forth fairer fruit than headstones and ironcrosses. The _pahue_, a lovely, long, creeping vine that wanders onthe beaches to the edge of the tides, had crawled over many graves,and its flowers, like morning-glories, hung their purple bells onthe humbler spots that no hand sought to clear.

Perhaps under these is the dust of the painter who, more than anyother man, made the Marquesas known to the world of Europe.

CHAPTER XV

Death of Aumia; funeral chant and burial customs; causes for thedeath of a race.

On the _paepae_ of a poor cabin near my own lived two women, Aumiaand Taipi, in the last stages of consumption. Aumia had been, only afew months earlier, the beauty of the island.

"She was one of the gayest," said Haabunai, "but the _pokoko_ hastaken her."

She was pitifully thin when I first saw her, lying all day on a heapof mats, with Taipi beside her, both coughing, coughing. An epidemicof colds had seized Atuona, brought, most probably, by the schooner_Papeite_, for no other had arrived since the _Morning Star_.Aumia coughed at night, her neighbor took it up, and then, likelaughter in a school, it became impossible to resist, and down tothe beach and up to the heights the valley echoed with thedistressing sounds. So, a breadfruit season ago, had Aumia coughedfor the first time, and the way she was going would be followed bymany of my neighbors.

I stopped every day to chat a moment with Aumia, and to bring herthe jam or marmalade she liked, and was too poor to buy from thetrader's store. She asked me this day if I had seen her grave. Shehad heard I had visited the cemetery, and I must describe it to her.It was the grave over which Le Moine and I had crouched from thestorm.

Aumia's husband and Haabunai, with Great Fern, had dug it and pavedit a couple of days ago, and her husband had given the others a pigfor their work, slaughtering it on the tomb of the Bishop ofUranopolis. No thought of profanation had entered their minds; itwas convenient to lay the pig over the imposing monument, with a manon either side holding the beast and the butcher free-handed. Thecarcass had been denuded of hair in a pail of hot water and buriedunderground with fire below and above him. When the meat was welldone, I had a portion of it, and Sister Serapoline, who had come inher black nun's habit to console Aumia with the promises of thechurch, ate with us, and accepted a haunch for the nun's house.

"Aumia is able to eat pig, and yet they have made her grave," I said.

"Oh, _c'est ça!_" replied the nun, holding the haunch carefully."That is the custom. Always they used to dig them near the house, sothat the sick person might see the grave, and in its digging thesick had much to say, and enjoyed it. Now, _grâce à dieu!_ ifCatholics, they are buried in consecrated ground where the body mayrest serene until the trumpet sounds the final judgment. Death isterrible, but these Marquesans make no more of it than of a journeyto another island, and much less than of a voyage to Tahiti. Theydie as peacefully as a good Catholic who is sure of his crown inHeaven. And as they are children, only children, the wisest or theworst of them, the Good God will know how to count their sins. It isthose who scandalize them who shall pay dear, those wicked whiteswho have forsaken God, or who worship him in false temples."

The coffin of Aumia was then beside the house, turned over so thatrain might not make it unpresentable. She had asked for it weeksbefore. To the Marquesan his coffin is as important as, to us, thehouse the newly-married pair are to live in. These people know thatalmost every foot of their land holds the bones or dust of a corpse,and this remnant of a race, overwhelmed by tragedy, can look ondeath only as a relief from the oppression of alien andunsympathetic white men. They go to the land of the _tupapaus_ ascalmly as to sleep.

"I have never seen a Marquesan afraid to die," said Sister Serapoline."I have been at the side of many in their last moments. It is aterrible thing to die, but they have no fear at all."

The husband of Aumia, a jolly fellow of thirty, was practising on adrum for the entertainment of his wife. He said that the corpse ofhis grandfather, a chief, had been oiled and kept about the houseuntil it became mummified. This, he said, had been quite the custom.The body was washed very thoroughly, and rubbed with cocoanut-oil.It was laid in the sun, and members of the family appointed to turnit many times a day, so that all parts might be subjected to an evenheat. The anointing with oil was repeated several times daily. Weeksor months of this process reduced the corpse to a mummified condition,and if it were the body of a chief it was then put in his canoe andkept for years in a ceremonial way. But no mark was ever placed toshow where the dead were buried, and there were no funeral ceremonies.Better that none knew where the body was laid and that the chosenfriends who carried it to the sepulchre forgot the spot.

In the very old days the Marquesans interred the dead secretly inthe night at the foot of great trees. Or they carried the bodies tothe mountains and in a rocky hole shaded by trees covered them overand made the grave as much as possible like the surrounding soil.The secret of the burial-place was kept inviolate. Aumia's husbandrelated an instance of a man who in the darkest night climbed asupposedly inaccessible precipice carrying the body of his youngwife lashed to his back, to place it carefully on a lofty shelf anddescend safely.

These precautions came probably from a fear of profanation of thedead, perhaps of their being eaten by a victorious enemy. Todevastate the cemeteries and temples of the foe was an aim of everyinvading tribe. It was considered that mutilating a corpse injuredthe soul that had fled from it.

Afraid of no living enemy nor of the sea, meeting the shark in hisown element and worsting him, fearlessly enduring the thrust of thefatal spear when an accident of battle left him defenseless, theMarquesan warrior, as much as the youngest child, had an unutterablehorror of their own dead and of burial-places, as of the demons whohovered about them.

Christianity has made no change in this, for it, too, is encumberedwith such fears. Who of us but dreads to pass a graveyard at night,though even to ourselves we deny the fear? Banshees, werwolves anddevils, the blessed candles lit to keep away the Evil One, or evento guard against wandering souls on certain feasts of the dead, wereall part of my childhood. So to the Marquesan are the goblins thatcause him to refuse to go into silent places alone at night, andoften make him cower in fear on his own mats, a _pareu_ over his head,in terror of the unknown.

But death when it comes to him now is nothing, or it is a going tosleep at the end of a sad day. Aumia, eating her burial meats andlooking with pleasure at her coffin, carefully and beautifully builtby her husband's hands, smiled at me as serenely as a child. But themelancholy sound of her coughing followed me up the trail to theHouse of the Golden Bed.

It was barely daylight next morning when I awoke, a soft, deliciousair stirring the breadfruit leaves. I plunged into the river, andreturning to my house was about to dress--that is, to put on my_pareu_--when a shriek arose from the forest. It was sudden, sharp,and agonizing.

"_Aumia mate i havaii_" said Exploding Eggs, approaching to buildthe fire. Literally he said, "Aumia is dead and gone below," for theMarquesans locate the spirit world below the earth's surface, asthey do the soul below the belt.

The wailing was accompanied shortly by a sound of hammering on boards.

"The corpse goes into the coffin," said Exploding Eggs. The firstnail had been driven but a moment after Aumia's last breath.

All day the neighborhood was melancholy with the cries from the house.All the lamentations were in a certain tone, as if struck from thesame instrument by the hand of sorrow. Each visitor to the houseshrieked in the same manner, and all present accompanied her, sothat for ten minutes after each new mourner arrived a chorus of loudwails and moans assailed my ears. I had never known such aheart-rending exhibition of grief.

But the sorrow of these friends of Aumia was not genuine. It couldnot be; it was too dramatic. When they left the house the mournerslaughed and lit cigarettes and pipes. If no new visitor came theyfell to chatting and smoking, but the sight of a fresh and unharrowedperson started them off again in their mechanical, thoughnerve-racking, cry.

I had known Aumia well, and at noon, desiring to observe theproprieties, I stepped upon the _paepae_ of her home.

"She loved the _Menike!_" shouted the old women in chorus, and theythrew themselves upon me and smelt me and made as if I had been oneof the dead's husbands. The followed me up the trail to my cabin andsat on my _paepae_ wailing and shrieking. It was some time before Irealized that their poignant sorrow should force consolation from me.There was not a moan as the rum went round.

I had puzzled at the exact repetition of their plaint. Harrowing asit was, the sounds were almost like a recitation of the alphabet. Awoman who had adopted me as her nephew said they called it the"_Ue haaneinei_" That, literally, is "to make a weeping on the side."The etiquette of it was intricate and precise. Each vowel wasmemorized with exactness. It ran, as my adopted aunt repeated itover her shell of consolation, thus:

"Ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke ke!

A a a a a a a a a a a a a a!E e e e e e e e e e e e e e e!I i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i!O o o o o o o o o o o o o o o!U u u u u u u u u u u u u u u!"

To omit a vowel, to say too many, or to mix their order, would bedisrespect to the spirit of the dead, and a reflection on the mourner.Nine times the "ke," fourteen "a's," fifteen "e's," eighteen"i's" and fifteen "o's" and "u's."

Aumia was carried to Calvary in the afternoon and put in the gravefor which the pig had been paid. So strongly did the old feelingstill prevail that only three or four of her friends could bepersuaded by the nuns to accompany the coffin up the trail.

Exploding Egg's consignment of Aumia to Havaii, the underworld,spoke strongly of the clinging of his people to their old beliefs inthe destiny of the spirit after death. They share with the Ainos ofJapan--a people to which they have many likenesses, being of thesame division of man--a faith in a subterranean future.

Does not Socrates, in the dialogues of Plato, often speak of"going to the world below," where he hopes to find real wisdom?

Havaii or Havaiki is, of course, the fabled place whence came thePolynesians, as it is also the name of that underworld to whichtheir spirits return after death. One might read into this fact adim groping of the Marquesan mind toward "From dust he came, to dustreturneth," or, more likely, a longing of the exiled people for theold home they had abandoned. Ethnologists believe that the namerefers to Java, the tarrying-point of the great migration ofCaucasians from South Asia toward Polynesia and New Zealand, or toSavaii, a Samoan island whence the emigrants later dispersed.

Whatever the origin of the word, to-day it conveys to the Marquesanmind only that vague region where the dead go. In it there is nosuffering, either for good or bad souls. It is simply the placewhere the dead go. It is ruled by Po, the Darkness.

There is, however, a paradise in an island in the clouds, wherebeautiful girls and great bowls of _kava_, with pigs roasted to aturn, await the good and brave. The old priests claimed to be ableto help one from Po to this happy abode, but the living relatives ofthe departed spirit had to pay a heavy price for their services. TheChristianized Marquesan fancies that he finds these old beliefsrevived when Père David tells him of purgatory, from which prayersand certain good acts help one's friends, or may be laid up inadvance against the day when one must himself descend to that middlestate of souls.

All Marquesans live in the shadow of that day. They see it withoutfear, but with a melancholy so tragic and deep that the sorrow of itis indescribable.

"I have seen many go as Aumia has gone," said Father David to me."All these lovable races are dying. All Polynesia is passing. Someday the whites here will be left alone amid the ruins of plantationsand houses, unless they bring in an alien race to take the places ofthe dead."

A hundred years ago there were a hundred and sixty thousandMarquesans in these islands. Twenty years ago there were fourthousand. To-day I am convinced that there remain not twenty-onehundred.

A century ago an American naval captain reckoned nineteen thousandfighting men on the island of Nuka-hiva alone. In a valley wherethree thousand warriors opposed him, there are to-day four adults. Ivisited Hanamate, an hour from Atuona, where fifty years agohundreds of natives lived. Not one survived to greet me.

Consumption came first to Hanavave, on the island of Fatu-hiva. Oneof the tribe of merciless American whaling captains having sentashore a sailor dying of tuberculosis, the tattooed cannibalsreceived him in a Christ-like manner, soothed his last hours, andbreathed the germs that have carried off more than four-fifths oftheir race, and to-day are killing the remnant.

The white man brought the Chinese, and with them leprosy. TheChinese were imported to aid the white in stealing the native landof the Marquesan, and to keep the Chinese contented, opium wasbrought with him. Finding it eagerly craved by the ignorant native,the foolish white fastened this vice also upon his other desiredslave. The French Government, for forty thousand francs, licensed anopium farmer to sell the drug still faster, and not until alarmed bythe results and shamed by the outcry in Europe, did it forbid thedevastating narcotic. Too late!

Smallpox came with a Peruvian slave-ship that stole thousands of theislanders and carried them off to work out their lives for the whitein his own country. This ship left another more dread disease, whichraged in the islands as a virulent epidemic, instead of running theslow chronic course it does nowadays when all the world has beenpoisoned by it.

The healthy Marquesans had no anti-toxins in their pure blood toovercome the diseases which with us, hardened Europeans anddescendants of Europeans, are not deadly. Here they raged anddestroyed hundreds in a few days or weeks.

The survivors of these pestilences, seeing their homes and villagesdesolated, their friends dying, their people perishing, supposedthat these curses were inflicted upon them by the God of theforeigners and by the missionaries, who said that they were hisservant. In their misery, they not only refused to listen to thegospels, but accused the missionaries in prayer before their own god,begging to be saved from them. Often when the missionaries appearedto speak to the people, the deformed and dying were brought out andlaid in rows before them, as evidences of the evilness and cruelty oftheir white god.

But after one has advanced all tangible reasons and causes for thedepopulation of the Marquesas, there remains another, mysterious,intangible, but it may be, more potent than the others. The comingof the white has been deadly to all copper-colored races everywherein the world. The black, the yellow, the Malay, the Asiatic and thenegro flourish beside the white; the Polynesian and the red races ofAmerica perished or are going fast. The numbers of those dead fromwar and epidemics leave still lacking the full explanation of thefearful facts. Seek as far as you will, pile up figures and causesand prove them correct; there still remains to take into account theshadow of the white on the red.

Prescott says:

 The American Indian has something peculiarly sensitive in his nature. He shrinks instinctively from the rude touch of a foreign hand. Even when this foreign influence comes in the form of civilization, he seems to sink and pine under it. It has been so with the Mexicans. Under the Spanish domination their numbers have silently melted away. Their energies are broken. They live under a better system of laws, a more assured tranquillity, a purer faith. But all does not avail. Their civilization was of the hardy character that belongs to the wilderness. Their hardy virtues were all their own. They refused to submit to European culture--to be engrafted on a foreign stock.

 Free! Understand that well, it is the deep commandment, dimmer or clearer, of our whole being, to be free. Freedom is the one purpose, wisely aimed at or unwisely, of all man's struggles, toilings, and sufferings, in this earth.

I am persuaded that the Polynesians, from Hawaii to Tahiti, aredying because of the suppression of the play-instinct, an instinctthat had its expression in most of their customs and occupations.Their dancing, their tattooing, their chanting, their religious rites,and even their warfare, had very visible elements of humor andjoyousness. They were essentially a happy people, full of dramaticfeeling, emotional, and with a keen sense of the ridiculous. Therule of the trader crushed all these native feelings.

To this restraint was added the burden of the effort to live. Withthe entire Marquesan economic and social system disrupted, food wasnot so easily procurable, and they were driven to work by commands,taxes, fines, and the novel and killing incentives of rum and opium.The whites taught the men to sell their lives, and the women to selltheir charms.

Happiness and health were destroyed because the white man came hereonly to gratify his cupidity. The priests could bring no inspirationsufficient to overcome the degradation caused by the traders. TheMarquesan saw that Jesus had small influence over their rulers.Civilization lost its opportunity because it gave precept, but noexample.

Even to-day, one white man in a valley sets the standard of sobriety,of kindness, and honor. Jensen, the frank and handsome Dane whoworks for the Germans at Taka-Uka who was in the breadline in NewYork and swears he will never return to civilization, told me thatwhen he kept a store in Hanamenu, near Atuona, to serve the barehandful of unexterminated tribesmen there, the people imitated himin everything, his clothes, his gestures, his least-studied actions.

"I was the only white. I planted a fern in a box. Every one came tomy store and, feigning other reasons, asked for boxes. Soon every_paepae_ had its box of ferns. I asked a man to snare four or fivegoats for me in the hills. They were the first goats tethered orenclosed in the valley. Within a week the mountains were harried forgoats, and the village was noisy with their bleating. I ate my goats;they ate theirs. Not one was left. When I forsook Hanamenu, thewhole population moved with me. Sure, I was decent to them, that wasall.

"I never want to see the white man's country again. I have starvedin the big cities, and worked like a dog for the banana trust in theWest Indies. I have begged a cup of coffee in San Francisco, andbeen fanned by a cop's club. Here I make almost nothing, I have manyfriends and no superiors, and I am happy."

Had these lovable savages had a few fine souls to lead them, toshield them from the dregs of civilization heaped on them for acentury, they might have developed into a wonder race to set a pacein beauty, courage, and natural power that would have surprised andhelped Europe.

They needed no physical regeneration. They were better born intohealth and purity--bloody as were some of their customs--than mostof us. Their bodies had not become a burden on the soul, but, lightand strong and unrestrained, were a part of it. They did not knowthat they had bodies; they only leaped, danced, flung themselves inand out of the sea, part of a large, happy, and harmonious universe.

If to that superb, almost perfect, physical base that nature hadgiven these Marquesans, to that sweetness simplicity, generosity,and trust acknowledged by all who know them, there could have beenadded a knowledge of the things we have learned; if by example andkindness they could have been given rounded and informed intelligence,what living there would have been in these islands!

All they needed was a brother who walked in the sunlight and showedthe way.

CHAPTER XVI

A savage dance, a drama of the sea, of danger and feasting; the rapeof the lettuce.

Drums were beating all the morning, thrilling the valley andmountain-sides with their barbaric _boom-boom_. The savage beat ofthem quickened the blood, stirring memories older than mankind,waking wild and primitive instincts. Toho's eyes gleamed, and hertoes curled and uncurled like those of a cat, while she told me thatthe afternoon would see an old dance, a drama of the sea, of war,and feasting such as the islands had known before the whites came.

The air thrummed with the resonance of the drums. All morning I satalone on my _paepae_, hearing them beat. The sound carried one backto the days when men first tied the skins of animals about hollowtree-trunks and thumped them to call the naked tribes together underthe oaks of England. Those great drums beaten by the hands ofHaabunai and Song of the Nightingale made one want to be a savage,to throw a spear, to dance in the moonlight.

Erase thirty years, and hear it in Atuona when the "long pig thatspeaks" was being carried through the jungle to the dark High Place!Then it was the thunder of the heavens, the voice of the old godshungry for the flesh of their enemies.

We who have become refined and diverse in our musical expression,using a dozen or scores of instruments to interpret our subtleemotions, cannot know the primitive and savage exaltation thatsurges through the veins when the war-drum beats. To the Marquesansit has ever been a summons to action, an inspiration to daring andbloody deeds, the call of the war-gods, the frenzy of the dance.Born of the thunder, speaking with the voice of the storm and thecataract, it rouses in man the beast with quivering nostrils andlashing tail who was part of the forest and the night.

Music is ever an expression of the moods and morals of its time. Thebugle and the fife share with the drum the rousing of martial spiritin our armies to-day, but to our savage ancestors the drum wassupreme. Primitive man expressed his harmony with nature by imitatingits sounds. He struck his own body or a hollow log covered with skin.Uncivilized peoples crack their fingers, snap their thighs, orstrike the ground with their feet to furnish music for impromptudancing. In Tonga they crack their fingers; in Tahiti they pound theearth with the soles of their feet; here in Atuona they clap hands.The Marquesans have, too, bamboo drums, long sections of the hollowreed, slit, and beaten with sticks. For calling boats and forsignaling they use the conch-shell, the same that sounded when"the Tritons blew their wreathed horn." They also have the jew's-harp,an instrument common to all Polynesia; sometimes a strip of barkheld between the teeth, sometimes a bow of wood strung with gut.

[Illustration: The _haka_, the Marquesan national dance]

[Illustration: Hot Tears (on the left) with Vai Etienne]

Civilization is a process of making life more complex and subtle. Wehave the piano, the violin, the orchestra. Yet we also have rag-time,which is a reaction from the nervous tension of American commerciallife, a swinging back to the old days when man, though a brute, wasfree. There is release and exhilaration in the barbaric, syncopatedsongs and in the animal-like motions of the jazz dances with theirwild and passionate attitudes, their unrestrained rhythms, and theirdirect appeal to sex. These rag-time melodies, coming straight fromthe jungles of Africa through the negro, call to impulses in man thatare stifled in big cities, in factory and slum and the nerve-wearingstruggle of business.

So in the dance my Marquesan neighbors returned to the old ways andexpressed emotions dying under the rule of an alien people. With themaking light of their reverenced _tapus_, the proving that theirgods were powerless, and the ending of their tribal life, the dancedegraded. They did not care to dance now that their joy in life wasgone. But the new and jolly governor, craving amusem*nt, sought torevive it for his pleasure. So the drums were beating on the palacelawn, and afternoon found the trails gay with _pareus_ and brilliantshawls as the natives came down from their _paepaes_ to the seat ofgovernment.

Chief Kekela Avaua, adopted son of the old Kekela, and head man ofthe Paamau district, called for me. He was a dignified and importantman of forty-five years, with handsome patterns in tattooing on hislegs, and Dundreary whiskers. He was quite modishly dressed in brownlinen, beneath which showed his bare, prehensile-toed feet.

Kirio Patuhamane, a marvelous specimen of scrolled ink-marks fromhead to foot, who sported Burnside whiskers, an English cricket cap,and a scarlet loin-cloth, accompanied us down the road.

A hundred natives were squatting in the garden of the palace, andrum and wine were being handed out when we arrived. Haabunai andSong of the Nightingale, the man under sentence for making palmbrandy, were once more the distributors, and took a glass often. Thepeople had thawed since the dance at the governor's inauguration. AsKirio Patuhamane explained, they had waited to observe thedisposition of their new ruler, the last having been severe,dispensing no rum save for his own selfish gain, and having a wifewho despised them.

My tawny feminine friends resented keenly white women's airs ofsuperiority, and many were the cold glances cast by Malicious Gossip,Apporo, and Flower at the stiffly gowned Madame Bapp, who sat on theveranda drinking absinthe. They scorned her, because she beat herhusband if he but looked at one of them, though he owned a store anddesired their custom. Poor Madame Bapp! She thought her little manvery attractive, and she lived in misery because of theopenly-displayed charms of his customers. She loved him, and whenjealous she sought the absinthe bottle and soon was busy with whipand broom on the miserable Bapp, who sought to flee. It was useless;she had looked to doors and windows, and he must take a painfulpunishment, the while the crockery smashed and all Atuona Valleylistened on its _paepaes_, laughing and well knowing that the littleman had given no cause for jealousy.

She greeted me with cold politeness when I mounted to the veranda,and the governor dispensed glasses of "Dr. Funk," a drink known toall the South Seas. Its secret is merely the mixing of a stiff drinkof absinthe with lemonade or limeade. The learned man who added thisdeath-dealing potion to the pleasures of the thirsty was Stevenson'sfriend, and attended him in his last illness. I do not know whetherDr. Funk ever mixed his favorite drink for R.L.S., but his own famehas spread, not as a healer, but as a dram-decocter, from Samoa toTahiti. "Dr. Funk!" one hears in every club and bar. Its particularmerits are claimed by experts to be a stiffening of the spine whenone is all in; an imparting of courage to live to men worn out bydoing nothing.

The governor in gala attire was again the urban host, assisted byAndré Bauda, now his close friend and confidant. Bauda himself hadbeen in the island only a few months, and knew no more Marquesanspeech than the governor. Both these officials were truly hospitable,embarrassingly so, considering my inability to keep up with them intheir toasts.

Soon the demijohn of rum had been emptied into the glasses passingfrom hand to hand in the garden; Haabunai and Song of theNightingale again evoked the thrumming beat of the great drums, andthe dance began. This was a tragedy of the sea, a pantomine ofdanger and conflict and celebration. For centuries past theancestors of these dancers had played it on the Forbidden Height.Even the language in which they chanted was archaic to thisgeneration, its words and their meanings forgotten.

The women sat upon the grass in a row, and first, in dumb show, theylifted and carried from its house to the beach a long canoe. Thestraining muscles of their arms, the sway of their bodies, imitatedthe raising of the great boat, and the walking with its weight, thelaunching, the waiting for the breakers and the undertow that wouldenable them to pass the surf line, and then the paddling in roughwater.

Meantime at a distance the men chanted in chorus, giving rhythmictime to the motions of the dancers and telling in the long-disusedwords the story of the drama. And the drums beat till their rollingthunder resounded far up the valley.

After the canoe was moving swiftly through the water the women rested.It seemed to me that the low continued chant of the men expressed alonging for freedom, for a return to nature, and a melancholy commenton the days of power and liberty gone forever. Though no personpresent understood the ancient language of the song, there was noneed of words to interpret the exact meaning of the dance. Though noword had been uttered, the motions of the women would have clearlytold the tale.

When they began again, the sea grew more agitated. Now the wail ofthe men reproduced the sound of waves beating on the canoe, and thewhistling of the wind. The canoe was tossed high by the pounding sea;it slid dizzily down into the troughs of waves and rocked as theoarsmen fought to hold it steady. The squall had grown into a gale,roaring upon them while they tried to hold it steady. The canoebegan to fill with water, it sank deeper and deeper, and in anothermoment the boatsmen were flung into the ocean. There they struggledwith the great seas; they swam; they regained the canoe; theyrighted it, climbed into it. The storm subsided, the seas went down.

Again the women rested, their arms and bodies shining withperspiration. All this time they had remained immobile from thewaist downward; their naked legs folded under them like those ofstatues. The chant of the men was quieter now, expressing a memoryof the old gaiety now crushed by the inhibitions of the whites, byridicule of island legends, and by the stern denunciations ofpriests and preachers. Yet it was full of suggestion of days gone byand the people who had once sailed the seas among these islands.

Again the dancers raised their arms, and the canoe sailed over sunnywaters. At length it touched at an isle, it was carried through thebreakers to a resting place on the sand. Its oarsmen rejoiced, theydanced a dance of thanksgiving to their gods, and wreathed the_ti_ leaves in their hair.

At this moment Haabunai, master of ceremonies, gave a cry of dismayand ceased to beat his drum. With an anguished glance at theassembled spectators, he dashed around the corner of the house, toreappear in an instant with his hands full of green leaves.

"_Mon dieu!_" cried the governor. "_Mon salade! Mon salade!_"

Haabunai, busied with his duties, had forgotten to provide the realand sacred _ti_. In despair at the last moment he had raided andutterly destroyed the governor's prized lettuce bed, the soleprovision for salad-making in Atuona. He hastily divided the preciousleaves among the dancers, and with wilting lettuce enwreathed intheir tresses the oarsmen launched the canoe once more in the wavesand returned to their own isle, praising the gods.

All relaxed now, to receive the praises of the governor and thebrimming glasses once more offered by the diligent Haabunai and Song,aided by the gendarme.

A gruesome cannibal chant followed, accompanied by the booming ofthe drums, and then, warmed by the liquor that fired their brains,the dancers began the _haka_, the sexual dance. Inflamed by the rum,they flung themselves into it with such abandon as I have never seen,and I saw a _kamaaina_ in Hawaii and have seen Caroline, Miri, andMamoe, most skilled dancers of the Hawaiian Islands. With thecontinued passing of the cup, the _hurahura_ soon became general. Themen and women who had begun dancing in rows, in an organized way,now broke ranks and danced freely all over the lawn. Men sought outthe women they liked, and women the men, challenging each other infrenzied and startling exposition of the ancient ways.

The ceaseless booming of the drums added incitement to the frenzy;the grounds of the governor's palace were a chaos of twisting brownbodies and agitated _pareus_, while from all sides rose cries, shouts,hysterical laughter, and the sound of clapping hands and thumpingfeet. Here and there dancers fell exhausted, until by eliminationthe dance resolved itself into a duet, all yielding the turf to ManyDaughters, the little, lovely leper, and Kekela Avaua, chief ofPaumau. These left the lawn and advanced to the veranda, where socontagious had become the enthusiasm that the governor was doing the_hurahura_ opposite Bauda, and Ah Yu danced with Apporo, while Song,the prisoner, and Flag, the gendarme, madly emulated the starperformers.

Kekela, who led the rout, was a figure at which to marvel. A verybig man, perhaps six feet four inches in height, and all muscle, hiscontortions and the frenzied movements of his muscles exceeded allanatomical laws. Many Daughters, her big eyes shining, her red lipsparted, followed and matched his every motion. Her entire trunkseemed to revolve on the pivot of her waist, her hips twisting inalmost a spiral, and her arms akimbo accentuating and balancing herlascivious mobility.

The governor and the commissionaire, Ah Yu and Apporo, Monsieur Bappwith Song of the Nightingale and Flag, made the palace tremble whilethe _thrum_ of the great drums maddened their blood.

Exhausted at last, they lay panting on the boards. Song was tellingme that the liquor of the governor's giving surpassed all hisillicit make, and that when his sentence expired he would remain atthe palace as cook. Ah Yu, in broken English, sang a ditty he hadheard forty years earlier in California, "Shoo-fle-fly-doan-bodder-me."Apporo, overcome by the rum and the dance, was lying among therose-bushes. Many others were flung on the sward, and more roseagain to the dance, singing and shouting and demanding more rum. Thegirls came forward to be kissed, as was the custom, and Madame Bappdrove them away with sharp words.

Soon the hullabaloo became too great for the dignity of the governor.He gave orders to clear the grounds, and Bauda issued commands fromthe veranda while Song and Flag lugged away the drums and drove theexcited mob out of the garden and across the bridge. All in all,this Sunday was typical of Atuona under the new régime.

After a quiet bath in the pool below my cabin I got my own dinner,unassisted by Exploding Eggs, and went early to bed to forestallvisitors. The crash of a falling cocoanut awakened me at midnight,and I saw on my _paepae_ Apporo, Flower, Water, and Chief KekelaAvaua, asleep. The chief had hung his trousers over the railing, andwas in his _pareu_, his pictured legs showing, while the others laynaked on my mats. There was no need to disturb them, for it is thegood and honored custom of these hospitable islands to sleep whereverslumber overtakes one.

The night was fine, the stars looked down through thebreadfruit-trees, and Temetiu, the giant mountain, was dark andhandsome in the blue and gold sky. Two sheep were huddled togetherby my trail window, the horses were lying down in the brush, and anightingale lilted a gay love song in the cocoanut-palms above theHouse of the Golden Bed.

Next morning all Atuona had a tight handkerchief bound over itsforehead. I met twenty men and women with this sign of repentanceupon their brows. Watercress, the chief of Atuona, who guards thegovernor's house, was by the roadside.

"You have drunk too much," I remarked, as I spied the rag about hishead.

"Not too much, but a great deal," he rejoined.

"_Faufau_," I said further, which means that it is a bad thing.

"_Hana paopao_" he said sadly. "It is disagreeable to work. Onelikes to forget many things."

There was bitterness and sorrow in his tone. His father was a warrior,under the protection of Toatahu, the god of the chiefs, and led manya victorious foray when Watercress was a child. The son remembers theold days and feels deeply the degradation and ruin brought by thewhites upon his people. A distinguished-looking man, dignified andhaughty, he was one of half a dozen who were working out taxes byrepairing the roads, and he was one of the few who worked steadily,saying little and seldom smiling.

CHAPTER XVII

A walk to the Forbidden Place; Hot Tears, the hunchback; the story ofBehold the Servant of the Priest, told by Malicious Gossip in thecave of Enamoa.

It was a drowsy afternoon, and coming up the jungle trail to mycabin I saw Le Brunnec, the trader, accompanied by Mouth of God andTahiapii, half-sister to Malicious Gossip.

Le Brunnec, a Breton, intelligent, honest, and light-hearted, ownedthe store below the governor's palace on the road to Atuona beach.He lived above it, alone save for a boy who cooked for him, and allthe Marquesans were his friends. He had come this afternoon to takeme for a walk up Atuona valley, and on the main road below my houseLe Moine, Jimmy Kekela, Hot Tears, the hunchback, and MaliciousGossip awaited us.

We waded the river and found a trail that wandered along it crossedit now and then and hung in places on the high banks above it. Thetrail had been washed by freshets often and was rough and stony,overhung with trees and vines. Along it, a hundred feet or so fromthe river, were houses sparsely scattered in the almost continuousforest of cocoanut and breadfruit. Oranges and bananas, mangoes andlimes, surrounded the cabins, most of which were built of roughplanks and roofed with iron. Here and there I saw a native house ofstraw matting thatched with palm leaves, a sign of a poverty thatcould not reach the hideous, but admired, standard of the whites.

Many people sitting on their _paepaes_ called to us, and one womanpointed to me and said that she wished to take my name and give meher own. This is their custom with one to whom they are attracted,but I affected not to understand. I did not want, so early in myresidence in Atuona, to lose a name that had served me well for manyyears, and besides, if I took another I would have to abide bywhatever it might be and be known by it. It would be pleasant to becalled "Blue Sky" or "Killer of Sharks," but how about "Drowned inthe Sea" or "Noise Inside"?

"Keep your name to yourself, _mon ami_," said Le Moine. "They expectmuch from you if you give them yours. They will give you heaps ofuseless presents, but you alone have the right to buy rum."

Following a curve in the stream, we came upon Teata (Miss Theater),the acknowledged beauty of Atuona, waist-deep in a pool, washing hergowns. She was a vision of loveliness, large-eyed, tawny, her hair adark cascade about her fair face and bare shoulders, the crystalwater lapping her slender thighs and curling into ripples about her,the heavy jungle growth on the banks making an emerald background toher beauty.

"They are like the ancient Greeks," said Le Moine, "with the graceof accustomed nudity and the poise of the barefooted. You must notjudge them by the present standards of Europe, but by the statues ofGreece or Egypt. M'a'mselle Theater there in the brook would havebeen renowned in the Golden Age of Pericles. I must paint her beforeshe is older. They are good models, for they have no nerves and willsit all day in a pose, though they dislike standing, and must havetheir pipe or cigarette. You have seen Vanquished Often, in my ownvalley of Vait-hua, whom I have painted so much. Ah, there is beauty!One will not find her like in all the world. Paris knows nothinglike her."

Teata waved her hand at us from the brook, and flung her heavy hairbackward over her shoulder as she went on with her task. Lookingback at her before the trail wound again into the forest, I saw thather features in repose were hard and semi-savage, the lines stillbeautiful, but cast in a severe and forbidding mold.

We climbed steadily, jumping from rock to rock and clinging to thebushes. A mile up the valley we came suddenly upon a plateau, andsaw before us the remains of an ancient _Pekia_, or High Place, agrim and grisly monument of the days of evil gods and man-eating.

This, in the old days, was the _paepae tapu_, or Forbidden Height,the abode of dark and terrible spirits. Upon it once stood thetemple and about it in the depths of night were enacted the rites ofmystery, when the priests and elders fed on the "long pig that speaks,"when the drums beat till dawn and wild dances maddened the blood.

When it was built, no man can say. Centuries have looked upon theseblack stones, grim as the ruins of Karnak, created by a mysteriousgenius, consecrated to something now gone out of the world forever.For ages hidden in the gloom of the forest, it was swept andpolished by hands long since dust; it was held in reverence and dread.It was _tapu_, devoted to terrible deities, and none but the priestsor the chiefs might approach it except on nights of ghastly feasting.

[Illustration: The old cannibal of Taipi Valley]

[Illustration: Enacting a human sacrifice of the Marquesans]

It stood in a grove of shadowy trees, which even at mid-afternooncast a gloom upon the ponderous black rocks of the platform and thehigh seats where chiefs and wizards once sat devouring the corpsesof their foes. Above them writhed and twisted the distorted limbs ofa huge banian-tree, and below, among the gnarled roots, there was adeep, dark pit.

We paused in a clear space of green turf delicately shaded bymango-trees walled in with ferns and grass and flowering bushes, andgazed into the gloom. This was forbidden ground until the French came.No road led to it then; only a narrow and dusky trail, guarded bydemons of Po and trod by humans only in the whispering darkness ofthe jungle night, brought the warriors with the burdens of livingmeat to the place of the gods. But the French, as if to mock thesacred things of the conquered, made two roads converge in this veryspot, from which one wound its way over the mountains to Hanamenuand the other followed the river to an _impasse_ in the hills.

"My forefathers and mothers ate their fill of 'long pig' here anddanced away the night," said Hot Tears, the hunchback, as he lighteda cigarette and sat upon the stone pulpit that once had been awizard's. His heavy face, crushed down upon his crooked chest, showednot the slightest trace of fear; a pale imp danced in each of hisnarrowed eyes as he looked up at me.

"That banian-tree, my grandfather said, held the _toua_, the cord ofcocoanut fiber that held the living meat suspended above the bakingpit. There, you see, among the roots--that was the oven, above whichthe prisoners hung. Here stood the great drums, and the servants ofthe priests beat them, till the darkness was filled with sound andall the valleys heard.

"_Aue!_" The hunchback leaped to the edge of the pit. He raised histhin arms in the air, and I seemed to see, amidst the contortedlimbs of the aged banian, fifty feet above, the quivering bodiesswaying. "The _toua_ breaks! They fall. Here on the rocks. They arekilled with blows of the _u'u_, thus! And thus the meat is cut, andwrapped in the _meika aa_. Light the fire! Pile in the wood! Itroasts!"

His ghoulish laughter rose in the dark stillness of the jungle, andthe hair stirred on my scalp. To my vision the high black seats werefilled with shadowy figures, the light of candlenut torches fell ontattooed faces and gleaming eyes. When the hunchback moved from thetree of death, feigning to carry a platter, first to the great seatsof the chiefs, then to the wide platform below, the flesh crawled onmy bones.

"_Ai!_ They dance! _Ai! Ai! Ai!_ They danced, and they loved! Allnight the drums beat. The drums! The drums! The drums!" He flung histwisted body on the green and laughed madly, till the old banianitself answered him. For a moment he writhed in a silence even moreghastly than his laughter, then lay still.

"_Au!_" he said, turning over on his back. "My grandfather believedthis Pekia to be the abode of demons." He paused. "As for me, Ibelieve in none of them, or in any other gods." And he blew out hisbreath contemptuously.

Le Moine surveyed the scene critically.

"What a picture at night, with torches flickering, and theseats filled with men in red _pareus_! _Mais, c'est terrible!_"

He got off a hundred feet and squinted through a roll of paper.

"I wish I could paint it," he said. "It must be a big canvas, andall dark but the torches and a few faces. _Mon dieu!_ Magnificent!"

Is cannibalism in the Marquesas a thing of the past? Do those grimwarriors who survive the new régime ever relapse? Who can say? It isnot probable, for the population of the valleys is so small and themovements of the people so limited that absence is quickly detected.Yet every once in awhile some one is missing.

"_Haa mate_. He has leaped into the sea. He was _paopao_. Life wastoo long."

Or, if the disappearance was in crossing from one valley to another,it is said that a rock or a fall of earth had swept the absent oneover a cliff. These are reasonable explanations, yet there persistwhispers of foul appetitites craving gratification and of old ritesrevived by the _moke_, the hermits who hide in the mountains.

Two such dissappearances had occurred during my brief stay in Atuona,and I had made little of the whispers. But now, with the hideouslaughter of the hunchback still ringing in my ears, they slippeddarkly through my mind, and I never felt the sunshine sweeter ortasted the mountain air with more delight than when we left thatunholy place and were out on the trail again.

Our destination was a waterfall, with a pool in which we might bathe,and after leaving the _Pekia_ we followed the stream, climbinghigher and higher from the sea. In the Marquesas all the riversbegin in the high mountains, where from the precipices leap thetorrents in times of rain. As the valleys are mere ravines at theirheads, the waters collect in their depths and roll to the ocean,rippling gently on sunny days, but after a downpour raging, rollinghuge boulders over and over and tearing away cliffs.

These streams are the life of the people in the upper valleys. Inthe old days of warfare many of these mountain dwellers never knewthe sea; they were prevented from reaching it by the beach clansmenwho claimed the fishing for their own and made it death for the hillpeople to venture down to the shore. All the people of a singlevalley, six or perhaps a dozen clans, united to war against othervalleys, its people risking their lives if they trespassed beyondthe hills. Yet under a wise and powerful chief a whole valley livedin amity and knew no class or clan divisions.

"We are going to _Vaihae_, The Waters of the Great Desire," saidMalicious Gossip. "It was a sacred place once upon a time."

We climbed painfully, Le Moine and I suffering keenly from the sharpedges of the stones that cut even through the thick soles of ourshoes. The others, who were barefooted, made nothing of them,walking as easily and lithely as panthers on the jagged trail.Soon we heard the crash of the _Vaihae_, and sliding down themountain-side a hundred feet we came into a depths of a gorge a yardor two wide, a mere crack in the rocks, filled with the boom androar of rushing water. The rain-swollen stream, cramped in thenarrow passage, flung itself foaming high on the spray-wet cliffs,and dashed in a mighty torrent into a deep howl riven out of thesolid granite twenty feet below.

We put off our clothes and leaped into the pool, enjoying intenselythe coolness of the swirling water after the sweat of our climb.Malicious Gossip and her sister would not go in at first, but when Ihad climbed the face of a slippery rock twenty feet high to dive,and remained there gazing at the melancholy grandeur of the scene,Malicious Gossip put off her tunic and swam through the race,bringing me my camera untouched by the water. She was a naiad of theold mythologies as she slipped through the green current, her hairstreaming over her shoulders and her body moving effortlessly as afish. Once wetted, she remained in the water with us, and she toldme there was a cave behind the waterfall, hidden by the glassy sheetof water.

"It is called _Enamoa_ (Behold the Servant of the Priest) and it hasa terrible history," said Malicious Gossip. "Follow me and we willenter it."

She swam across the pool and turning lithely in the water curved outof sight beneath the surface of the vortex. _Kekela_ followed her,and I made several attempts, but each time was flung back, bruisedand breathless. It was not until Kekela, finding a long stick in thecave, thrust it through the white foam, that by catching its end inthe whirling water I was able to fight through the roaring andsmashing deluge.

The cave was obscure and damp, its only light filtering through themoving curtain of green water. Black and crawling things squirmed atour feet, and darkness filled the recesses of the cavern. MaliciousGossip's body was a blur in the dimness, and her low soft voice waslike an overtone of the deep organ notes of the torrent.

"The tale of the cave of _Enamoa_ is not a legend," she said,"for it is more. It was a happening known to our grandfathers. Therewere two warriors who coveted a woman, and she was _tapu_ to them.She was a _taua vehine_, a priestess of the old gods. But theycoveted her, and they were friends, who shared their wives as theydivided their _popoi_."

"_Panalua_," said Kekela. "That is 'dear friend custom.' We had it inHawaii. Brothers shared their wives, and sisters their husbands."

"These two were name-brothers, and loved as though they werebrothers by blood," said Malicious Gossip. "And their hearts wereconsumed with flame when they looked on this girl. It was evil ofthem, for it was against the will of the gods. She was of their ownclan, and the priests had made her _tapu_ until she had reached acertain age. Her brother was the servant of the priests, and she wasconsecrated to the gods. She was guarded by most sacred custom. Itwas forbidden to touch her or her food.

"Yet these warriors, _toa_ they were, and renowned in battle,coveted her with a desire that ate their sleep. And at last whenthey had drunk the fiery _namu enata_ till their brains were filledwith flames, they lay in wait for her.

"She came down to this pool to bathe. The pool itself was _tapu_save for those consecrated to the gods, yet this wretched pair creptthrough the lantana there on the bank, and watched her. She stood onthe rock above the pool and put off her _pae_, her cap of gauze, herlong robe, and her _pareu_, all of finest tree-cloth, for in thosedays before the whites came our people were properly clothed. Allnaked then in the sunlight, she lifted her arms toward the sky andlaughed, and sat down on a rock to bathe her feet.

"Suddenly the lustful warriors sprang upon her, and stopping hercries with her own _pae_ they swam with her into this cave. Thoughtand breath had left her; she lay as one dead, and before they hadattained their will they heard a sound of one approaching and singingon the rocks. They had no time to kill her, as they had intended,that she might not bring death to them. They left her and fled alongthe cliffs, barely escaping before the other man came.

"He had seen from the corner of his eye a sight of some one fleeingfrom the cave. He was curious, and swam to it. It was late in the day,for the priestess had come for the evening bath. The sun had hiddenhimself behind Temetiu and the cave was dark. The man came, then,stepping with care, and his feet found in the darkness a living body,warm and soft and perfumed with flowers.

"Then in the darkness, finding her very sweet, he yielded to thedemon. But when he brought her at last through the falling water tothe evening light, he cried aloud. He was the _moa_, the servant ofthe high priest, and this was his sister whom he loved.

"He screamed thrice, so that all the valley heard him, and then heflung her into the pool to drown. The people saw him fleeing to theheights. He never returned to them. He became a _moke_, a sorcerer,who lived alone in the forest, dreaded by all. He was heardshrieking in the night, and then the storms came. His eyes were seenthrough the leaves on jungle trails, and he who saw died.

"Then the people gave the cave a name, the name of _Enamoa_, Beholdthe Servant of the Priest. It was much larger then than now, aslarge as a grove. But one night the people heard the noise of thefalling of great rocks, and in the morning the cave was small as now.The _moke_ was never seen again. He had brought down the walls ofthe cave upon himself, because it had seen his sin."

Malicious Gossip, having finished her tale, slipped again beneaththe green curtain of the waterfall. When I had fought through theblinding, crashing waters and floated with aching lungs on thesurface of the pool, she was donning her tunic on the rocks above it,and soon, with our clothes over our wet bodies, we strolled back toAtuona, Tahiapii smoking Kekela's pipe.

[Illustration: Interior of Island of Fatu-hiva, where the authorwalked over the mountains]

[Illustration: The plateau of Ahoa]

CHAPTER XVIII

A search for rubber-trees on the plateau of Ahoa; a fight with thewild white dogs; story of an ancient migration, told by the wildcattle hunters in the Cave of the Spine of the Chinaman.

I went one day with Le Brunnec, the French trader, in search ofrubber trees on the plateau of Ahao, above Hanamenu, on the otherside of Hiva-oa Island.

Mounted on small, but sturdy, mountain ponies, we followed the trailacross the river and up the steep mountain-side clad withimpenetrable jungle, climbing ever higher and higher above deepgorges and dizzying precipices, until at noon we crossed theloftiest range and dipped downward to the wide plateau.

A thousand feet above the valley, level as a prairie, andindescribably wild and deserted, the plain stretched before us. Atsome distance to our right a long and narrow mound rose five hundredfeet from the plateau, a hill that did not mar the vast level expanse,but seemed instead a great earthwork piled upon it by man. Its greenterrace was a wild garden of flowers and fruit growing in luxuriantconfusion, watered by a stream that leaped sparkling among tall ferns.

There was no breadfruit, for it will live only where man is there totend it, and in all the extent of the tableland there was no humanbeing or sign of habitation. Wild cattle and boars moved in drovesamong the scattered trees, or stood in the shallow stream watching uswith curiosity as we passed. Thousands of guinea-pigs scamperedbefore our horses' feet, and the free descendants of house-trainedcats from the cities of Europe and America perched upon loftybranches to gaze down at our cavalcade.

I have seen the Garden of Allah, and the Garden of Eden,--if I canbelieve the Arab sheik whose camel I bought for the journey,--I havebeen in Nikko at its best, and known Johore and Kandy _en fête_, butfor the hours in which I looked upon it this plateau of Ahao was themost exquisite spot upon the earth. The wilderness of its tropicbeauty, the green of its leafa*ge, the rich profusion and splendor ofits flowers, the pale colors that shimmered along its far horizon,and the desolate grandeur of Temetiu's distant summit wrapped inthunderous clouds, gave it an aspect primitive, mysterious, andsublime.

Upon the trees hundreds of orchids hung like jewels, and vines wereswung in garlands. Flowers of every hue spread a brilliant carpetbeneath the horses' hoofs; the hart's-tongue, the _manamana-o-hina_,the _papa-mako_ and the parasol-plant, with mosses of everydescription and myriads of ferns, covered the sward. Some were thegiant tree-ferns, tall as trees, others uncurled snaky stems frommasses of rusty-colored matting, and everywhere was spread thedelicate lace of the _uu-fenua_, a maiden-hair beside which theflorist's offering is clumsy and insignificant.

We made our own way through the tall grass and tangles of floweringshrubs, for there were no trails save those made by the great herdsof wild cattle that wandered across the plain. Three thousand headat least I saw grazing on the luxuriant herbage, or pausing withlifted heads before they fled at our approach.

"They are descendants of a few left by shipmasters decades ago,"said Le Brunnec. "Twenty years ago they roamed in immense herds allover the islands. I have chased them out of the trail to Hanamenuwith a stick. Like the goats left by the American captain, Porter,on Nuka-hiva, they thrived and multiplied, but like the goats theyare being massacred.

"Both cattle and goats were past reckoning when, with peace fullyestablished and the population dwindling, the French permitted theMarquesans to buy guns. The natives hunt in gangs. Fifteen or twentymen, each with rifle or shot-gun, go on horseback to the grazinggrounds. The beasts at the sound of the explosions rush to thehighest point of the hills. Knowing their habits, the natives postthemselves along the ridges and kill all they can. They eat or takeaway three or four, but they kill thirty or forty. They die in thebrush, and their bones strew the ground."

I told him of the buffalo, antelope, and deer that formerly filledour woods and covered our prairies; of Alexander Wilson, who inKentucky in 1811 estimated one flight of wild carrier pigeons as twothousand millions, and of there being not one of those birds now leftin the world so far as is known.

Le Brunnec sighed, for he was a true sportsman, and would not killeven a pig if he could not consume most of its carcass. Often hehalf-lifted the shot-gun that lay across the pommel, but let it dropagain, saying, "We will have a wild bird for supper."

We pitched our tent as the moon hung her lantern over the brow ofthe hill. Never was tent raised in a spot lonelier or lovelier. Wechose for our camp the shelter of a _moto_ tree, one of the mostlordly of all the growths of these islands. Not ten of them wereleft in all the Marquesas, said Le Brunnec as I admired its toweringcolumn and magnificent spread of foliage. "The whites who used theaxe in these isles would have made firewood of the ark of thecovenant."

We made a fire before our tent and cooked a wild chicken he had shot,which, with pilot-biscuit and Bordeaux wine, made an excellent dinner.Darkness closed around us while we ate, the wide plateau stretchedabout us, mysterious in the light of the moon, and the night wascool and pleasant. We lay in lazy comfort, enjoying the fresh lightair of that altitude and smoking "John's" mixture from Los Angeles,till sleepiness spilled the tobacco. Our numbed senses scarcely letus drag our mats into the tent before unconsciousness claimed us.

I was wakened by the blood-chilling howls of a wolf-pack in full cry,and a shout from Le Brunnec, "The dogs!"

He stood by the open flap of the tent, a black silhouette of man andgun. When I had clutched my own rifle and reached his side I saw inthe moonlight a score of huge white beasts, some tangled in asnarling heap over the remains of our supper, others crouching ontheir haunches in a ring, facing us. One of them sprang as LeBrunnec fired, and its hot breath fanned my face before my ownfinger pressed the trigger.

The two wounded brutes struggled on the ground until a second shotfinished them, and the rest made off to a little distance, where LeBrunnec kept them with an occasional shot while I brought up theterrified ponies, snorting and plunging. More wood thrown on thecoals spread a circle of firelight about us, and Le Brunnec and Itook turns in standing guard until morning, while the white dogs satlike sheeted ghosts around us and made the night hideous with howls.One or the other of us must have dozed, for during the night thebeasts dragged away the two dead and picked their bones.

These, Le Brunnec said, were the sons and daughters of dogs oncefriendly to humanity, and like the wild cats we had seen, they boremute testimony to the numbers of people who once lived on thisplateau.

When dawn came the mountain rats were scurrying about the meadows,but the dogs had gone afar, leaving only the two heaps of bones andthe wreckage of all outside the tent to tell of their foray. The sunflooded the mesa, disclosing myriad fern-fronds and mosses andcolored petals waving in the light breeze as Le Brunnec and I wentdown to the stream to bathe.

Alas! I lolled there on the bank, thinking to gaze my fill at allthis loveliness, and sat upon the _puke_, a feathery plant exquisiteto the eye, but a veritable bunch of gadflies for pricking meanness.It is a sensitive shrub, retreating at man's approach, its petiolesfolding from sight, but with all its modesty it left me a stingingreminder that I had failed to respect its privacy.

At noon we came to the hill that rises from the plateau, and foundat its base a cistern, the sole token we had seen of the domain ofman, except the dogs and cats that had returned to the primitive. Itwas a basin cut in the solid rock, and doubtless had been the watersupply of the tribes that dwelt here hemmed in by enemies. There wasabout it the vague semblance of an altar, and in the brush near itwe saw the black remains of a mighty _paepae_ like that giant Maraiof Papara in Tahiti, which itself seemed kin to the great pyramidtemple of Borobodo in Java. Melancholy memorials these of man, whois so like the gods, but who passes like a leaf in the wind.

Lolling in the stream that overflowed the edge of the ancient cistern,we discussed our plans. Le Brunnec was convinced that the _eva_,which we had found in considerable numbers, was a rubber-tree. Hesaid that rubber was obtained from many trees, vines, roots, andplants, and that the sap of the _eva_, when dried and treated, hadall the necessary bouncing qualities. We were to estimate the numberof _eva_ trees on the plateau and size up the value of the land fora plantation. Thus we might turn into gold that poison tree whosereddish-purple, alluring fruit has given so many Marquesans escapefrom life's bitterness, whose juice wounded or mutilated warriorsdrank to avoid pain or contempt.

Idling thus in the limpid water, we heard a voice and started upsurprised. A group of natives looked down upon us from the hill above,and their leader was asking who were the strange _haoe_ who had cometo their valley.

Le Brunnec shouted his name--Proneka, in the native tongue--andafter council they shouted down an invitation to breakfast. We hadno guns, or, indeed, any other clothing than a towel, our horsesbeing tethered at some distance, but we climbed the hill. Half way upthe steep ascent we were confronted by a wild sow with eight piglets.Le Brunnec said that one of them would be appreciated by our hosts,but the mother, surmising his intention, put her litter behind herand stood at bay. To attempt the rape of the pork, naked, afoot, andunarmed, would have meant grievous wounds from those gnashing tusks,so we abandoned the gift and approached our hosts empty-handed.

We found them waiting for us in the Grotto of the Spine of theChinaman, a shallow cave in the side of the hill. There were sevenof them, naked as ourselves, thick-lipped, their eyes ringed withthe blue _ama_-ink and their bodies scrolled with it. They hadkilled a bull the day before and had cooked the meat in bamboo tubes,steaming it in the earth until it was tender and tasty. We gorgedupon it, and then rested in the cool cave while we smoked. They werecurious to know why we were there, and asked if we were after beef.I disclaimed this intention, and said that I was wondering if Ahaohad not held many people once.

"Ai! _E mea tiatohu hoi!_ Do you not know of the Piina of Fiti-nui?Of the people that once were here? _Aoe?_ Then I will tell you."

While the pipe went from mouth to mouth, Kitu, the leader of thehunters, related the following:

"The Piina of Fiti-nui had always lived here on the plateau of Ahao.The wise men chronicled a hundred and twenty generations since theclan began. That would be before Iholomoni built the temple in Iudea,that the priests of the new white gods tell us of. The High Place ofthe Piina of Fiti-nui was old before Iholomoni was born.

"But, old as was the clan, there came a time when it grew small innumber. For longer than old remembered they had been at war with thePiina of Hana-uaua, who lived in the next valley below this plateau.These two peoples were kinsman, but the hate between them was bitter.The enemy gave the Piina of Fiti-nui no rest. Their _popoi_ pitswere opened and emptied, their women were stolen, and their menseized and eaten. Month after month and year after year the clanlost its strength.

"They had almost ceased to tattoo their bodies, for they asked whatit served them when they were so soon to bake in the ovens of theHana-uaua people. They could not defeat the Hana-uaua, for they weresmall in number and the Hana-uaua were great. The best fighters weredead. The gods only could save the last of the tribe from the_veinahae_, the vampire who seizes the dead.

"The _taua_ went into the High Place and besought the gods, but theywere deaf. They made no answer. Then in despair the chief, Atituahuei,set a time when, if the gods gave no counsel, he would lead everyman of the tribe against the foe, and die while the war-clubs sang.

"Atituahuei went with the _taua_ to the giant rock, Meae-Topaiho,the sacred stone shaped like a spear that stood between the lands ofthe warring peoples, and there he said this vow to the gods. And thepeople waited.

"They waited for the space of the waxing and waning of the moon, andthe gods said nothing. Then the warriors made ready their _u'u_ ofpolished ironwood, and filled their baskets with stones, and madeready the spears. On the darkest night of the moon the Piina ofFiti-nui was to go forth to fight and be killed by the Hana-uaua.

"But before the moon had gone, the _taua_ came down from the HighPlace, and said that the gods had spoken. They commanded the peopleto depart from Ahao, and to sail beyond the Isle of Barking Dogsuntil they came to a new land. The gods would protect them from thewaves. The gods had shown the _taua_ a hidden valley, which ran tothe beach, in which to build the canoes.

"For many months the Piina of Fiti-nui labored in secret in thehidden valley. They built five canoes, giant, double canoes, withhigh platforms and houses on them, the kind that are built no more.In these canoes they placed the women and children and the aged, andwhen all was ready, the men raided the village of the Piina ofHana-uaua, and in the darkness brought all their food to the canoes.

"At daybreak the Fiti-nui embarked in four of the canoes, but onethey must leave behind for the daughter of the chief, who expectedto be delivered of a child at any hour, and for the women of herfamily, who would not leave her. The hidden valley was filled withthe sound of lamentation at the parting, but the gods had spoken,and they must go.

"When the four canoes were in the sea beyond the village of Hana-uaua,all their people beat their war-drums and blew the trumpets of shell.The people of Hana-uaua heard the noise, and said that strangers hadcome, but whether for a fight or a feast they did not know. Theyrushed to the shore, and there they saw on the sea the people of theFiti-nui, who called to them and said that they were going far away.

"Then the Hana-uaua tribe wept. For they remembered that they werebrothers, and though they had fought long, the warriors of Fiti-nuihad been good fighters and brave. Also many Fiti-nui women had beentaken by the men of Hana-uaua, and captured youths had been adopted,and the tribes were kin by many ties.

"The two tribes talked together across the waves, and the tribe ofHana-uaua begged their brothers not to go. They said that they wouldfight no more, that the prisoners who had not been eaten should bereturned to their own valley, that the two clans would live foreverin friendship.

"Then the people of Fiti-nui wept again, but they said that the godshad ordered them to sail away, and they must go.

"'But,' said the chief of the Fiti-nui, 'you will know that we havereached a new land safely when the Meae-Topaiho falls, when thegreat spear is broken by the gods, you will know that your brothersare in a new home.'

"Then they departed, the four canoes, but the daughter of the chiefdid not go, for her child was long in being born. She lived with thepeople of Hana-uaua in peace and comfort. And when the season of thebreadfruit had come and gone, one night when the rain and the windmade the earth tremble and slip, the people of Hana-uaua heard aroaring and a crashing.

"'The gods are angry,' they said. But the daughter of the chief said,'My people have found their home.' And in the morning they foundthat the Meae-Topaiho had fallen, the blade of the spear was broken,and the prophecy fulfilled.

"That was four generations ago, and ever since that time the peopleof Hana-uaua have looked for some sign from their brothers who wentaway. Their names were kept in the memories of the tribe. Ten yearsago many men were brought here to work on the plantations, fromPuka-Puka and Na-Puka in the Paumotas, and they talked with thepeople.

"_Aue!_ They were the children's children of the Piina of Fiti-nui.In those low islands to which their fathers and mothers went, theykept the words and the names of old. They had kept the memory of thejourney. And one old man was brought by his son, and he rememberedall that his father had told him, and his father was the son of thechief, Atituahuei.

"These people did not look like our men. The many years had madethem different. But they knew of the spear rock, and of the prophecy,and they were in truth the lost brothers of the Hana-uaua people.

"But the Hana-uaua people, too, were dying now. None was left of theblood of the chief's daughter. No man was left alive on the plateauof Ahao.

"Their _popoi_ pits are the wallows of the wild boar; on their_paepaes_ sit the wild white dogs. The horned cattle wander wherethey walked. _Hee i te fenua ke!_ They are gone, and the strangershall have their graves."

CHAPTER XIX

A feast to the men of Motopu; the making of _kava_, and its drinking;the story of the Girl Who Lost Her Strength.

The Vagabond, Kivi, who lived near the High Place, came down to my_paepae_ one evening to bid me come to a feast given in AtuonaValley to the men of Motopu, who had been marvelously favored by thegod of the sea.

Months of storms, said Kivi, had felled many a stately palm ofTaka-Uka and washed thousands of ripe cocoanuts into the bay, whencethe current that runs swift across the channel had swept thefruitage of the winds straight to the inlet of Motopu, on the islandof Tahuata. The men of that village, with little effort to themselves,had reaped richly.

Now they were come, bringing back the copra dried and sacked. Sevenhundred francs they had received for a ton of it from Kriech, theGerman merchant of Taka-Uka, from whose own groves it had beenstolen by the storms.

On the morrow, their canoes laden with his goods, they would sailhomeward. One day they had tarried to raft redwood planks ofCalifornia from the schooner in the bay to the site of Kivi's newhouse. So that night in gratitude he would make merry for them. Therewould be much to eat, and there would be _kava_ in plenty. He prayedthat I would join them in this feast, which would bring back thegood days of the _kava_-drinking, which were now almost forgotten.

[Illustration: Kivi, the _kava_ drinker with the _hetairae_ ofthe valley]

[Illustration: A pool in the jungle]

I rose gladly from the palm-shaded mat on which I had lain vainlyhoping for a breath of coolness in the close heat of the day, andgirded the red _pareu_ more neatly about my loins. Often I had heardof the _kava_-drinking days before the missionaries had insisted onoutlawing that drink beloved of the natives. The traders had addedtheir power to the virtuous protests of the priests, for _kava_ costthe islanders nothing, while rum, absinthe, and opium could be soldthem for profit. So _kava_-drinking had been suppressed, and afterdecades of knowing more powerful stimulants and narcotics, thenatives had lost their taste for the gentler beverage of theirforefathers.

The French law prohibited selling, exchanging, or giving to anyMarquesan any alcoholic beverage. But the law was a dead letter, foronly with rum and wine could work be urged upon the Marquesans, andI failed to reprove them even in my mind for their love of drink.One who has not seen a dying race cannot conceive of the prostrationof spirit in which these people are perishing. That they arecourteous and hospitable--and that to the white who has ruinedthem--shows faintly their former joy in life and their aboundinggenerosity. Now that no hope is left them and their only future isdeath, one cannot blame them for seizing a few moment's forgetfulness.

Some years earlier, in the first bitterness of hopeless subjugation,whole populations were given over to drunkenness. In many valleysthe chiefs lead in the making of the illicit _namu enata_, orcocoanut-brandy. In the Philippines, where millions of gallons ofcocoanut-brandy are made, it is called _tuba_, but usually its nameis arrack throughout tropical Asia. Fresh from the flower spathes ofthe cocoanut-tree, _namu_ tastes like a very light, creamy beer ormead. It is delicious and refreshing, and only slightly intoxicating.Allowed to ferment and become sour, it is all gall. Its drinkingthen is divided into two episodes--swallowing and intoxication.There is no interval. "Forty-rod" whiskey is mild compared to it.

I had seen the preparation of _namu_, which is very simple. Thenative mounts the tree and makes incisions in the flowers, of whicheach palm bears from three to six. He attaches a calabash under themand lets the juice drip all day and night. The process is slow, asthe juice falls drop by drop. This operation may be repeatedindefinitely with no injury to the tree. In countries where theliquor is gathered to sell in large quantities, the natives tiebamboo poles from tree to tree, so that an agile man will runthrough the forest tending the calabashes, emptying them into largerreceptacles, and lowering these to the ground, all without descendingfrom his lofty height.

The _namu_ when stale causes the Marquesans to revert to wickedestsavagery, and has incited many murders. Under the eye of thegendarme its making ceases, but a hundred valleys have no whitepolicemen, and the half score of people remaining amid theirhundreds of ruined _paepaes_ give themselves over to intoxication. Ihave seen a valley immersed in it, men and women madly dancing theancient nude dances in indescribable orgies of abandonment andbestial*ty.

_Namu enata_ means literally "man booze." The Persian-Arabic word,_nam_, or _narm-keffi_, means "the liquid from the palm flower."From this one might think that Asia had taught the Marquesans theart of making _namu_ during their prehistoric pilgrimage to theislands, but the discoverers and early white residents in Polynesiasaw no drunkenness save that of the _kava_-drinking. It was theEuropean, or the Asiatic brought by the white, who introducedcomparatively recently the more vicious cocoanut-brandy, as well asrum and opium, and it is these drinks that have been a potent factorin killing the natives.

It has ever been thus with men of other races subjugated by thewhites. Benjamin Franklin in his autobiography tells that when hewas a commissioner to the Indians at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, he andhis fellow-commissioners agreed that they would allow the Indians norum until the treaty they earnestly sought was concluded, and thatthen they should have plenty.

He pictures an all-night debauch of the red men after they hadsigned the treaty, and concludes: "And, indeed, if it be the designof Providence to extirpate these savages in order to make room forcultivators of the earth, it seems not improbable that rum may bethe appointed means. It has annihilated all the tribes who formerlyinhabited the sea-coast."

It was not for me to speculate upon the designs of Providence withrespect to the Marquesans. _Kava_ had been the drink ordained by theold gods before the white men came. Its making was now almost a lostart; I knew no white man who had ever drunk from the _kava_-bowl. Soit was with some eagerness that I followed Kivi down the trail.

Broken Plate, a sturdy savage in English cloth cap and whale's-teethearrings, stood waiting for us in the road below the House ofthe Golden Bed, and together the three of us went in search ofthe _kava_ bush. While we followed the narrow trail up themountain-side, peering through masses of tangled vines and shrubsfor the large, heart-shaped leaves and jointed stalks we sought,Kivi spoke with passion of the degenerate days in which he lived.

Let others secretly make incisions in the flower of the cocoanut andhang calabashes to catch the juice, said he. Or let them crook thehinges of the knee that rum might follow fawning on the whites. Nothe! The drink of his fathers, the drink of his youth, was goodenough for him! Agilely he caught aside a leafy branch overhangingthe trail, and in the flecks of sunshine and shade his naked, strongbrown limbs were like the smooth stems of an aged manzanita tree.

He had not the scaly skin or the bloodshot eyes of the _kava_debauchee, whose excesses paint upon their victim their own vividsigns. I remembered a figure caught by the rays of my flashlight onemight on a dark trail--a withered creature whose whole face and bodyhad turned a dull green, and at the memory of that grisly phantom Ishuddered. But Broken Plate, on the trail ahead, called back to usthat he had found a goodly bush, and without more words we clamberedto it.

The _kava_, a variety of the pepper-plant, grows to more than sixfeet in height, and the specimen we had found thrust above our headsits many jointed branches rustling with large, flat leaves. Thedecoction, Kivi explained, comes from the root, and we set to work todig it.

It was huge, like a gigantic yam, and after we had torn it from thestubborn soil it taxed the strength and agility of two of us tocarry it to the _paepae_ of Broken Plate, where the feast was to be.A dozen older women, skilled in grating the breadfruit for _popoi_making, awaited us there, squatting in a ring on the low platform.The root, well washed in the river, was laid on the stones, and thewomen attacked it with cowry-shells, scraping it into particles likeslaw. It was of the hardness of ginger, and filled a large _tanoa_,or wooden trough of ironwood.

The scraping had hardly well begun, while Broken Plate and I restedfrom our labors, smoking pandanus-leaf cigarettes in the shade, whenup the road came half a dozen of the most beautiful young girls ofthe village, clothed in all their finery.

Teata, with all the arrogance of the acclaimed beauty, walked first,wearing a tight-fitting gown with insertions of fishnet, evidentlycopied from some stray fashion-book. She wore it as her only garment,and through the wide meshes of the novel lace appeared her skin, ofthe tint of the fresh-cooked breadfruit. She passed us with acoquettish toss of her shapely head and took her place among herenvious companions.

They sat on mats around the iron-wood trough and chewed the gratedroot, which, after thorough mastication, they spat out intobanana-leaf cups. This chewing of the Aram-root is the very being of_kava_ as a beverage, for it is a ferment in the saliva thatseparates alkaloid and sugar and liberates the narcotic principle.Only the healthiest and loveliest of the girls are chosen to munchthe root, that delectable and honored privilege being refused tothose whose teeth are not perfect and upon whose cheeks the roses donot bloom.

Nevertheless, as I smoked at ease in my _pareu_ upon the _paepae_ ofmy simple hosts I felt some misgivings rise in me. Yet why cavil atthe vehicle by which one arrives at Nirvana? Had I not tasted the_chicha_ beer of the Andes, and found it good? And vague analogiesand surmises floated before me in the curls of smoke that rose inthe clear evening light.

What hidden clue to the remotest beginnings of the human race liesin the fact that two peoples, so far apart as the Marquesans and theSouth American Indians, use the same method of making their nativebeverage? In the Andes corn takes the place of the _kava_ root, andyoung girls, descendants of the ancient Incas, chew the grains,sitting in a circle and with a certain ceremoniousness, as amongthese Marquesans. The Marquesas Islands are on the same parallel oflatitude as Peru. Were these two peoples once one race, living onthat long-sunken continent in which Darwin believed?

Dusk fell slowly while I pondered on the mysteries in which our lifeis rooted, and on the unknown beginnings and forgotten significancesof all human customs. The iron-wood trough was filled with themasticated root, and in groups and in couples the girls slipped awayto bathe in the river. There they were met by arriving guests, andthe sound of laughter and splashing came up to us as darkness closedupon the _paepae_ and the torches were lit.

Lights were coming out like stars up the dark valley as eachhousehold made its vesper fire to roast breadfruit or broil fish,and lanterns were hung upon the bamboo palisades that marked thelimits of property or confined favorite pigs. A cool breeze rose andrustled the fronds of cocoanut and bamboo, bringing from forestdepths a clean, earthy odor.

The last bather came from the brook, refreshed by the cooling watersand adorned with flowers. All were in a merry mood for food and fun.Half a dozen flaring torches illuminated their happy, tattooed facesand dusky bodies, and caught color from the vivid blossoms in theirhair. The ring of light made blacker the rustling cocoanut grove,the lofty trees of which closed in upon us on every side.

Under the gaze of many sparkling eyes Kivi pierced green cocoanutsbrought him fresh from the climbing, and poured the cool wine ofthem over the masticated _kava_. He mixed it thoroughly and thenwith his hands formed balls of the oozy mass, from which he squeezedthe juice into another _tanoa_ glazed a deep, rich blue by itsfrequent saturation in _kava_. When this trough was quite full of amuddy liquid, he deftly clarified it by sweeping through it a net ofcocoanut fiber. All the while he chanted in a deep resonant voicethe ancient song of the ceremony.

"_U haanoho ia te kai, a tapapa ia te kai!_" he called withsolemnity when the last rite was performed. "Come to supper; all isready."

"_Menike_," he said to me, "You know that to drink _kava_ you mustbe of empty stomach. After eating, _kava_ will make you sick. If youdo not eat as soon as you have drunk it, you will not enjoy it. Takeit now, and then eat, quickly."

He dipped a shell in the trough, tossed a few drops over hisshoulder to propitiate the god of the _kava_-drinking, and placedthe shell in my hands.

Ugh! The liquor tasted like earth and water, sweetish for a momentand then acrid and pungent. It was hard to get down, but all the mentook theirs at a gulp, and when Kivi gave me another shellful, Ifollowed their pattern.

"_Kai! Kai._ Eat! Eat!" Kivi shouted then. The women hurried forwardwith the food, and we fell to with a will. Pig and _popoi_, sharksweetbreads, roasted breadfruit and sweet potatoes, fruits andcocoanut-milk leaped from the broad leaf platters to wide-open mouths.Hardly a word was spoken. The business of eating proceeded rapidly,in silence, save for the night-rustling of the palms and the softsound of the women's hastening bare feet.

Only, as he saw any slackening, Kivi repeated vigorously, "_Kai! Kai!_"

I sat with my back against the wall of the house of Broken Plate, asI ate quickly at the mandate of my host, and soon I felt the need ofthis support. The feast finished, the guests reclined upon the mats.Women and children were devouring the remnants left upon the leafplatters. The torches had been extinguished, all but one. Itsflickering gleam fell upon the aged face of Kivi, and the whites ofhis eyes caught and reflected the light. The tattooing that framedthem appeared like black holes from which the sparks glinteduncannily, and the _kava_ mounting to his brain or to mine gave thosesparks a ghastliness that fascinated me in my keen, somnolent state.

From the shadows where the women crouched the face of Teata roselike an eerie flower. She had adorned the two long black plaits ofher hair with the brilliant phosphorescence of Ear of the Ghost Woman,the strange fungus found on old trees, a favored evening adornmentof the island belles. The handsome flowers glowed about her bodilesshead like giant butterflies, congruous jewels for such a temptressof such a frolic. The mysterious light added a gleam to her velvetcheek and neck that made her seem like the ghost-woman of old legend,created to lead the unwary to intoxicated death.

The palaver came to me out of the darkness, like voices from aphonograph-horn, thin and far away. One told the tale of Tahiapepae,the Girl Who Lost Her Strength.

Famine had come upon Atuona Valley. Children died of hunger on the_paepaes_, and the breasts of mothers shrunk so that they gaveforth no milk. Therefore the warriors set forth in the great canoesfor Motopu. Meat was the cry, and there was no other meat than_puaa oa_, the "long pig."

Then in the darkness the hungry fighting men of Atuona silentlybeached their canoes and crept upon the sleeping village of Motopu.Seven were killed before they could fly to the hills, and one wascaptured alive, a slender, beautiful girl of ten years, whom theytied hands and feet and threw into the canoe with the slain ones.

Back they came from their triumph, and landed on the shore here,within spear's-throw from the _paepae_ of Broken Plate. Their peoplemet them with drum-beating and with chanting, bringing rose-woodpoles for carrying the meat. The living girl was slung over theshoulder of the leader, still bound and weeping, and in single fileheroes and their people marched up the trail past the Catholicmission. Tohoaa, Great Sea Slug, chief of Atuona and grandfather ofFlag, the gendarme, was foremost, and over his massive shoulder hungthe Girl Who Had Lost Her Strength.

Then from the mission came Père Orens, crucifix in hand. Tall hestood in his garment of black, facing the Great Sea Slug, andlifting on high his hand with the crucifix in it. Père Orens hadbeen made _tapu_ by Great Sea Slug, to whom he had explained thewonders of the world, and given many presents. To touch him was death,for Great Sea Slug had given him a feast and put upon him the white_tapa_, emblem of sacredness.

Powerful was the god of Père Orens, and could work magic. In hispocket he carried always a small god, that day and night said"_Mika! Mika!_" and moved tiny arms around and around a plate ofwhite metal. This man stood now before the Great Sea Slug, and thechief paused, while his hungry people came closer that they mighthear what befell.

"Where are you going?" said Père Orens.

"To Pekia, the High Place, to cook and eat," said Great Sea Slug.Then for a space Père Orens remained silent, holding high thecrucifix, and the chief heard from his pocket the voice of the smallgod speaking.

"Give to me that small piece of living meat," said Père Orens then.

"_Me mamai oe_. If it is your pleasure, take it," said Great Sea Slug."It is a trifle. We have enough, and there is more in Motopu."

With these words he placed his burden upon the shoulder of the priest,and heading his band again led them past the mission, over the riverand to the High Place, where all night long the drums beat at thefeasting.

But The Girl Who Lost Her Strength remained in the house of PèreOrens, who cut her bonds, fed her, and nursed her to strength again.Baptized and instructed in the religion of her savior, she wassecretly returned to her surviving relatives. There she lived to agood age, and died four years ago, grateful always to the God thathad preserved her from the oven.

He who spoke was her son, and here at the _kava_ bowl together werethe men of Motopu and the men of Atuona, enemies no longer.

The voice of the Motopu man died away. A ringing came in my ears aswhen one puts a seashell to them and hears the drowsy murmur of thetides. My cigarette fell from my fingers. A sirocco blew upon me, hot,stifling. Kivi laughed, and dimly I heard his inquiry:

"_Veavea?_ Is it hot?"

"_E, mahanahana_. I am very warm," I struggled to reply.

My voice sounded as that of another. I leaned harder against thewall and closed my eyes.

"He goes fast," said Broken Plate, gladly.

A peace passing the understanding of the _kava_-ignorant was upon me.Life was a slumbrous calm; not dull inertia, but a separated activity,as if the spirit roamed in a garden of beauty, and the body, allsuffering, all feeling past, resigned itself to quietude.

I heard faintly the chants of the men as they began improvising theafter-feasting entertainment. I was perfectly aware of being liftedby several women to within the house, and of being laid upon matsthat were as soft to my body as the waters of a quiet sea. It was asif angels bore me on a cloud. All toil, all effort was over; Ishould never return to care and duty. Dimly I saw a peri waving a fan,making a breeze scented with ineffable fragrance.

I was then a giant, prone in an endless ease, who stretched from thewaterfall at the topmost point of the valley to the shore of the sea,and about me ran in many futile excitements the natives of Atuona,small creatures whose concerns were naught to me.

That vision melted after eons, and I was in the Oti dance in thePaumotas, where those old women who pose and move by the music ofthe drums, in the light of the burning cocoanut husks, leap into theair and remain so long that the white man thinks he sees the law ofgravitation overcome, remaining fixed in space three or four feetfrom the ground while one's heart beats madly and one's brain throbsin bewilderment. I was among these aged women; I surpassed them all,and floated at will upon the ether in an eternal witches' dance ofmore than human delight.

The orchestra of nature began a symphony of celestial sounds. Therustling of the palm-leaves, the purling of the brook, and the songof the _komoko_, nightingale of the Marquesas, mingled in musicsweeter to my _kava_-ravished ears than ever the harp of Apollo uponMount Olympus. The chants of the natives were a choir of voicesmelodious beyond human imaginings. Life was good to its innermostcore; there was no struggle, no pain, only an eternal harmony of joy.

 * * * * *

I slept eight hours, and when I awoke I saw, in the bright oblong ofsunlight outside the open door, Kivi squeezing some of the root ofevil for a hair of the hound that had bitten him.

[Illustration: The Pekia, or Place of Sacrifice, at Atuona]

[Illustration: Marquesan cannibals, wearing dress of human hair]

CHAPTER XX

A journey to Taaoa; Kahuiti, the cannibal chief, and his story of anold war caused by an unfaithful woman.

It was a chance remark from Mouth of God that led me to take ajourney over the hills to the valley of Taaoa, south of Atuona.Malicious Gossip and her husband, squatting one evening on my mats inthe light of the stars, spoke of the Marquesan custom in namingchildren.

"When a babe is born," said Mouth of God, "all the intimates of hisparents, their relatives and friends, bestow a name upon the infant.All these names refer to experiences of the child's ancestors, or ofthe namers, or of their ancestors. My wife's names--a few ofthem--are Tavahi Teikimoetetua Tehaupiimouna. These words areseparate, having no relation one to another, and they mean MaliciousGossip, She Sleeps with God, The Golden Dews of the Mountain.

"My first three names are Vahatetua Heeafia Timeteo. Vahatetua isMouth of God; Heeafia, One Who Looks About, and Timeteo is Marquesanfor Timothee, the Bible writer.

"My uncle, the Catechist, is Tioakoekoe, Man Whose Entrails WereRoasted on a Stick, and his brother is called Pootuhatuha, meaningSliced and Distributed. That is because their father, Tufetu, waskilled at the Stinking Springs in Taaoa, and was cooked and sent allover that valley. You should see that man who killed him, Kahuiti!He is a great man, and strong still, though old. He likes the 'longpig' still, also. It is not long since he dug up the corpse of oneburied, and ate it in the forest."

When I said that I should indeed like to see that man, Mouth of Godsaid that he would send a word of introduction that should insurefor me the friendliness of the chief who had devoured his grandfather.Mouth of God bore the diner no ill-will. The eating was a thingaccomplished in the past; the teachings of that stern Calvinist, hismother, forbade that he should eat Kahuiti in retaliation, thereforetheir relations were amicable.

The following morning, attended by the faithful Exploding Eggs, Iset out toward Taaoa Valley. The way was all up and down, five miles,wading through marshy places and streams, parting the jungle, caughtby the thorns and dripping with sweat. Miles of it was throughcocoanut forests owned by the mission.

The road followed the sea and climbed over a lofty little cape,Otupoto, from which the coast of Hiva-oa, as it curves eastward, wasunrolled, the valleys mysterious caverns in the torn, convulsedpanorama, gloomy gullies suggestive of the old bloody days. Abovethem the mountains caught the light and shone green or black underthe cloudless blue sky. Seven valleys we counted, the distant onesmere faint shadows in the expanse of varied green, divided by therocky headlands. To the right, as we faced the sea, was the point ofTeaehoa jutting out into the great blue plain of the ocean, andlandward we looked down on the Valley of Taaoa.

This was the middle place, the scene of Tufetu's violent end. Agreat splotch of red gleamed as a blot of blood on the green floorof the hollow.

"_Vai piau!_" said Exploding Eggs. He made a sign of lifting waterin his hands, of tasting and spitting it out. The Stinking Springswhere Tufetu was slain!

They were in a fantastic gorge, through which ran a road blastedfrom solid rock, stained brown and blue by the minerals in the waterthat bubbled there and had carved the stone in eccentric patterns.Bicarbonate of soda and sulphur thickened the heavy air and encrustedthe edges of the spring with yellow scum. A fitting scene for adeadly battle, amid smells of sulphur and brimstone! But it was noplace in which to linger on a tropic day.

Taaoa Valley was narrow and deep, buried in perpetual gloom by theshadows of the mountains. Perhaps thirty houses lined the banks of aswift and rocky torrent. As we approached them we were met by asturdy Taaoan, bare save for the _pareu_ and handsomely tattooed.His name, he said, was Strong in Battle, and I, a stranger, must seefirst of all a tree of wonder that lay in the forest nearby.

Through brush and swamp we searched for it, past scores of ruined_paepaes_, homes of the long-dead thousands. We found it at length,a mighty tree felled to the earth and lying half-buried in vine andshrub.

"This tree is older than our people," said Strong in Battle,mournfully regarding its prostrate length. "No man ever rememberedits beginning. It was like a house upon a hill, so high and big. Ourforefathers worshipped their gods under it. The white men cut it tomake planks. That was fifty years ago, but the wood never dies.There is no wood like it in the Marquesas. The wise men say that itwill endure till the last of our race is gone."

I felt the end of the great trunk, where the marks of the axe andsaw still showed, and struck it with my fist. The wood did indeedseem hard as iron, though it seemed not to be petrified. So far as Icould ascertain from the fallen trunk, it was of a species I hadnever seen.

"Twenty years ago I brought a man of Peretane (England) here to seethis tree, and he cut off a piece to take away. No white man haslooked on it since that time," said Strong in Battle. He brought anaxe from a man who was dubbing out a canoe from a breadfruit log,and hacked away a chip for me.

We returned to the village and entered an enclosure in which a groupof women were squatting around a _popoi_ bowl.

"What does the _Menike_ seek?" they asked.

"He wants to see the footprint of Hoouiti," said my guide.

On one of the stones of the _paepae_ was a footprint, perfect fromheel to toe, and evidently not artificially made.

"Hoouiti stood here when he hurled his spear across the island,"said Strong in Battle. "He was not a big man, as you see by hisfoot's mark."

"Fifteen kilometers! A long hurling of a spear," said I.

"_Aue!_ he was very strong. He lived on this _paepae_. These whomyou see are his children's children. Would you like to meet mywife's father-in-law, Kahuiti? He has eaten many people. He talkswell."

_Eo!_ Would I! I vowed that I would be honored by the acquaintanceof any of the relatives of my host, and specially I desired toconverse with old, wise men of good taste.

"That man, Kahauiti, has seen life," said Strong in Battle."I am married to the sister of Great Night Moth, who was a verybrave and active man, but now foolish. But Kahauiti! O! O! O! Ai! Ai!Ai! There he is."

I never solved the puzzle of my informant's relation to the man whowas his wife's father-in-law, for suddenly I saw the man himself,and knew that I was meeting a personage. Kahauiti was on the verandaof a small hut, sitting Turk fashion, and chatting with another oldman. Both of them were striking-looking, but, all in all, I thoughtKahauiti the most distinguished man in appearance that I had seen,be it in New York or Cairo, London or Pekin.

He had that indefinable, yet certain, air of superiority, of assuredposition and knowledge, that stamps a few men in the world--a YuanShih Kai, Rabindranath Tagore, Sitting Bull, and Porfirio Diaz. Hewore only a _pareu_, and was tattooed from toenails to hair-roots. Asolid mass of coloring extended from his neck to the hip on the leftside, as though he wore half of a blue shirt. The _tahuna_ who haddone the work seemed to have drawn outlines and then blocked in thehalf of his torso. But remembering that every pin-point of color hadmeant the thrust of a bone needle propelled by the blow of a mallet,I realized that Kahauiti had endured much for his decorations. Noiron or Victoria Cross could cost more suffering.

The bare half of his bosom, cooperish-red, contrasted with thiscobalt, and his face was striped alternately with this natural colorand with blue. Two inches of the _ama_ ink ran across the eyes fromear to ear, covering every inch of lid and eyebrow, and from thisseeming bandage his eyes gleamed with quick and alert intelligence.Other stripes crossed the face from temple to chin, the lowestjoining the field of blue that stretched to his waist.

His beard, long, heavy, and snow-white, swept downward over theindigo flesh and was gathered into a knot on his massive chest. Itwas the beard of a prophet or a seer, and when Kahauiti rose to hisfull height, six feet and a half, he was as majestic as a man indiadem and royal robes. He had a giant form, like one ofBuonarroti's ancients, muscular and supple, graceful and erect.

When I was presented as a _Menike_ who loved the Marquesans and who,having heard of Kahauiti, would drink of his fountain ofrecollections, the old man looked at me intently. His eyes twinkledand he opened his mouth in a broad smile, showing all his teeth,sound and white. His smile was kindly, disarming, of a realsweetness that conquered me immediately, so that, foolishly perhaps,I would have trusted him if he had suggested a stroll in the jungle.

He took my extended hand, but did not shake it. So new ishandshaking and so foreign to their ideas of greeting, that theymerely touch fingers, with the pressure a rich man gives a poorrelation, or a king, a commoner. His affability was that of amonarch to a courtier, but when he began to talk he soon becamesimple and merry.

Motioning me to a seat on the mat before him, he squatted again in adignified manner, and resumed his task of plaiting a rope of _faufee_bark, a rope an inch thick and perfectly made.

"Mouth of God, of the family of Sliced and Distributed and Man WhoseEntrails Were Roasted On A Stick, has told me of the slaying ofTufetu, their ancestor," I ventured, to steer our bark ofconversation into the channel I sought.

At the names of the first three, Kahauiti smiled, but when Tufetuwas mentioned, he broke into a roar. I had evidently recalled proudmemories. On his haunches, he slid nearer to me.

"_Afu! Afu! Afu!_" he said, the sound that in his tongue means thegroan of the dying. "You came by the _Fatueki?_".

"I tasted the water and smelled the smell," I answered.

"It was there that Tufetu died," he observed. "I struck the blow,and I ate his arm, his right arm, for he was brave and strong. Thatwas a war!"

"What caused that war?" I asked the merry cannibal.

"A woman, _haa teketeka_, an unfaithful woman, as always," repliedKahauiti. "Do you have trouble over women in your island? Yes. It isthe same the world over. There was peace between Atuona and Taaoabefore this trouble. When I was a boy we were good friends. Wevisited across the hills. Many children were adopted, and Taaoa mentook women from Atuona, and Atuona men from here. Some of thesewomen had two or three or five men. One husband was the father ofher children in title and pride, though he might be no father at all.The others shared the mat with her at her will, but had nopossession or happiness in the offspring.

[Illustration: Tepu, a Marquesan girl of the hills, and her sisterHer ancestry is tattooed on her arms]

[Illustration: A tattooed Marquesan with carved canoe paddle]

"Now Pepehi (Beaten to Death) was of Taaoa, but lived in Atuona witha woman. He had followed her over the hills and lived in her house.He was father to her children. There was a man of Atuona, Kaheutahi,who was husband to her, but of lower rank. He was not father to herchildren. Therefore one night he swung his war-club upon the head ofBeaten to Death, and later invited a number of friends to the feast."

Kahuiti smiled gently upon me. Take off his tattooing, make him white,and clothe him! With his masterful carriage, his soft, cultivatedvoice, and his attitude of absolutism, he might have been Leopold,King of the Belgians, a great ambassador, a man of power in finance.Nevertheless, I thought of the death by the Stinking Springs. Howcould one explain his benign, open-souled deportment and his cheerylaugh, with such damnable appetites and actions? Yet generals sendten thousand men to certain and agonized death to gain a pointtoward a goal; that is the custom of generals, by which they gainhonor among their people.

"Killed by the war-club of Kaheutahi and eaten by his friends,Beaten to Death was but a ghost, and Kaheutahi took his place andbecame father of the children of the house. He said they were his infact, but men were ever boastful."

The other old man, who said nothing, but was all attention, lit apipe and passed it to Kahuiti, who puffed it a moment and passed itto Strong in Battle. The tale lapsed for a smoking spell.

"Beaten to Death perished by the club? He was well named," said I."His father was a prophet."

Kahuiti began to chant in a weird monotone.

"_Va! Va! A tahi a ta! Va! A tahi va! A ua va! A tou va!_" was hischant. "Thus said the war-club as it crashed on the skull of Beatento Death. That is the speech of the war-club when it strikes. Thebones of Beaten to Death were fishhooks before we knew of his death.All Taaoa was angry. The family of Beaten to Death demanded vengeance.The priest went into the High Place, and when he came out he ran allday up and down the valley, until he fell foaming. War was the cryof the gods, war against Atuona.

"But there was too much peace between us, too many men with Atuonawomen, too many Atuona children adopted by Taaoa women. The peacewas happy, and there was no great warrior to urge."

"You had brave men and strong men then," I said, with a sigh for thethings I had missed by coming late.

"_Tuitui!_ You put weeds in my mouth!" exclaimed Kahuiti. "I cannottalk with your words. _Ue te etau!_ By the great god of the dead! Iam born before the French beached a canoe in the Marquesas. Our godswere gods then, but they turned to wood and stone when the tree-gunsof the _Farani_ roared and threw iron balls and fire into our valleys.The Christian god was greater than our gods, and a bigger killer ofmen."

"But Beaten to Death--?" I urged.

"Beaten to Death was in the stomachs of the men of Atuona, and theylaughed at us. Our High Priest said that the _Euututuki_, the mostprivate god of the priests, commanded us to avenge the eating ofBeaten to Death. But the season of preserving the _mei_ in pits wasupon us. Also the women of Atuona among us said that there should bepeace, and the women of Taaoa who had taken as their own manychildren from Atuona. Therefore we begged the most high gods toexcuse us."

"Women had much power then," I said.

Kahuiti chuckled.

"The French god and the priests of the _Farani_ have taken it fromthem," he commented. "I have known the day when women ruled. She hadher husbands,--two, four, five. She commanded. She would send two tothe fishing, one to gathering cocoanuts or wood, one she would keepto amuse her. They came and went as she said. That was _mea pe_!Sickening! _Pee!_ There are not enough men to make a woman happy.Many brave men have died to please their woman, but--" He blew outhis breath in contempt.

Strong in Battle said aside, in French:

"He was never second in the house. Kahauiti despised such men. Hewas first always."

"So the slaying of Beaten to Death was unavenged?" I asked.

"_Epo!_ Do not drink the cocoanut till you have descended the tree!I have said the warriors were withheld by the women, and there wasno great man to lead. Yet the drums beat at night, and the fightingmen came. You know how the drums speak?"

His face clouded, and his eyes flashed against their foil oftattooing.

"'_Ohe te pepe! Ohe te pepe! Ohe te pepe!_' said the drum calledPeepee. '_Titiutiuti! Titiutiuti!_' said the drum called Umi._Aue!_ Then the warriors came! They stood in the High Place at thehead of the valley. Mehitete, the chief, spoke to them. He said thatthey should go to Atuona, and bring back bodies for feasting. Manynights the drums beat, and the chief talked much, but there was nowar.

"The High Priest went to the _Pekia_ again, and when he came away heran without stopping for two days and a night, till he fell withoutbreath, as one dead, and foam was on his mouth. The gods were angry.Still there was no war.

"Then came Tomefitu from Vait-hua. He was chief of that valley,having been adopted by a woman of Vait-hua, but his father and hismother were of Taaoa. He had heard of the slaying of Beaten to Death,his kinsman, and he was hot in the bowels. _Aue!_ The thunder of theheavens was as the voice of Tomefitu when angered. The earth groanedwhere he walked. He knew the _Farani_ and their tricks. He had gunsfrom the whalers, and he was afraid of nothing save the Ghost Womanof the Night. Again the warriors came to the High Place, and nowthere were many drums."

Kahuiti sprang to his feet. He struck the corner post of the hutwith his fist. His eyes burned.

 "'Kaputuhe! Kaputuhe! Kaputuhe! Teputuhe! Teputuhe! Teputuhe! Tuti! Tuti! Tutuituiti!"

"That was what the war drums said. The sound of them rolled from thePekia, and every man who could throw a spear or hold a war-club cameto their call."

Kahuiti's soul was rapt in the story. His voice had the deep tone ofthe violoncello, powerful, vibrant, and colorful. He had lived inthat strange past, and the things he recalled were precious memories.

The sound of the drums, as he echoed them in the curious tone-wordsof Marquesan, thrilled me through. I heard the booming of theten-foot war-drums, their profound and far-reaching call like theroaring of lions in the jungle. I saw the warriors with their spearsof cocoanut-wood and their deadly clubs of ironwood carved andshining with oil, their baskets of polished stones slung about theirwaists, and their slings of fiber, dancing in the sacred grove ofthe Pekia, its shadows lighted by the blaze of the flickeringcandlenuts and the scented sandalwood.

"'I am The Wind That Lays Low The Mighty Tree. I am The Wave ThatFills The Canoe and Delivers The People To The Sharks!' said Tomefitu.'The flesh of my kinsman fills the bellies of the men of Atuona, andthe gods say war!

"'There is war!' said Tomefitu. 'We must bring offerings to the gods.Five men will go with me to Otoputo and bring back the gifts. I willbring back to you the bodies of six of the Atuona pigs. Prepare!When we have eaten, the chiefs of Atuona will come to Taaoa, andthen you will fight!

"'Make ready with dancing. Polish spears and gather stones for theslings. Koe, who is my man, will be obeyed while I am gone. I havespoken,' said Tomefitu. That night Tomefitu and I, with four others,went silently to Otoputo, the dividing rock that looks down on theright into the valley of Taaoa and on the left into Atuona. There welay among rocks and bushes and spied upon the feet of the enemy.That man who separated himself from others and came our way to seekfood, or to visit at the house of a friend, him we secretly fell upon,and slew.

"Thus we did to the six named by Tomefitu, and as we killed them, wesent them back by others to the High Place. There the warriorsfeasted upon them and gained strength for battle.

"Then, missing so many of their clan, the head men of Atuona came toOtoputo, and shouted to us to give word of the absent. We shoutedback, saying that those men had been roasted upon the fire and eaten,and that thus we would do to all men of Atuona. And we laughed atthem."

Kahuiti emitted a hearty guffaw at thought of the trick played uponthose devoured enemies.

"But Tufetu, the grandfather of my friend Mouth of God?" I persisted.

"_Epo!_ There was war. The men of Atuona gathered at Otupoto, andrushed down upon us. We met them at the Stinking Springs, and thereI killed Tufetu, uncle of Sliced and Distributed and Man WhoseEntrails Were Roasted On A Stick. I pierced him through with myspear at a cocoanut-tree's length away. I was the best spear-throwerof Taaoa. We drove the Atuonans through the gorge of the StinkingSprings and over the divide, and I ate the right arm of Tufetu thathad wielded the war-club. That gives a man the strength of his enemy."

He turned again to plaiting the rope of _faufee_.

"_O ia aneihe_, I have finished," he said. "Will you drink _kava_?"

"No, I will not drink _kava_," I said sternly. "Kahuiti, is it notgood that the eating of men is stopped?"

The majestic chief looked at me, his deep brown eyes lookingchild-like in their band of blue ink. For ten seconds he stared atme fixedly, and then smiled uncertainly, as may have Peter thefisherman when he was chided for cutting off the ear of one ofJudas' soldiers. He was of the old order, and the new had left himunchanged. He did not reply to my question, but sipped his bowl of_kava_.

CHAPTER XXI

The crime of Huahine for love of Weaver of Mats; story of Tahia'swhite man who was eaten; the disaster that befell Honi, the whiteman who used his harpoon against his friends.

During my absence in Taaoa there had been crime and scandal in myown valley. André Bauda met me on the beach road as I returned andtold me the tale. The giant Tahitian sailor of the schooner _Papeite_,Huahine, was in the local jail, charged with desertion; a seriousoffense, to which his plea was love of a woman, and that womanWeaver of Mats, who had her four names tattooed on her right arm.

Huahine, seeing her upon the beach, had felt a flame of love thatnerved him to risk hungry shark and battering surf. Carried from hereven in the moment of meeting, he had resisted temptation until theschooner was sailing outside the Bay of Traitors, running before abreeze to the port of Tai-o-hae, and then he had flung himself nakedinto the sea and taken the straight course back to Atuona, reachinghis sweetheart after a seven-hour's struggle with current and breaker.Flag, the gendarme, found him in her hut, and brought him to thecalaboose.

The following morning I attended his trial. He came before his judgeelegantly dressed, for, besides a red _pareu_ about his middle, hewore a pink silk shawl over his shoulders. Both were the gift ofWeaver of Mats, as he had come to her without scrip or scrap. Heneeded little clothing, as his skin was very brown and his strongbody magnificent.

He was an acceptable prisoner to Bauda, who had charge of the makingand repair of roads and bridges, so Huahine was quickly sentencedand put to work with others who were paying their taxes by labor.Weaver of Mats moved with him to the prison, where they livedtogether happily, cooking their food in the garden and sleeping onmats beneath the palms.

On all the _paepaes_ it was said that Huahine would probably be sentto Tahiti, as there are strict laws against deserting ships andagainst vagabondage in the Marquesas. Meantime the prisoner was happy.Many a Tahitian and white sailor gazes toward these islands as ahaven from trouble, and in Huahine's exploit I read the story ofmany a poor white who in the early days cast away home and friendsand arduous toil to dwell here in a breadfruity harem.

"There is a tale told long ago by a man of Hanamenu to a travelernamed Christian," I said to Haabunai, the carver, while we satrolling pandanus cigarettes in the cool of the evening. "It runs thus:

"Some thirty years ago a sailor from a trading schooner that had putinto the bay for sandalwood was badly treated by his skipper, whor*fused him shore-leave. So, his bowels hot with anger, this sailordetermined to desert his hard and unthanked toil, wed some islandheiress, and live happy ever after. Therefore one evening he swamashore, found a maid to his liking, and was hidden by her until theship departed.

"Now Tahia was a good wife, and loved her beautiful white man; allthat a wife could do she did, cooking his food, bathing his feet,rolling cigarettes for him all day long as he lay upon the mats. Buther father in time became troubled, and there was grumbling among thepeople, for the white man would not work.

"He would not climb the palm to bring down the nuts; he lay andlaughed on his _paepae_ in the Meinui, the season of breadfruit,when all were busy; and when they brought him rusty old muskets tocare for, he turned his back upon them. Sometimes he fished, goingout in a canoe that Tahia paddled, and making her fix the bait onthe hook, but he caught few fish.

"'_Aue te hanahana, aua ho'i te kaikai_,' said his father-in-law. 'Hewho will not labor, neither shall he eat.' But the white man laughedand ate and labored not.

"A season passed and another, and there came a time of little rain.The bananas were few, and the breadfruit were not plentiful. Oneevening, therefore, the old men met in conference, and this wastheir decision: 'Rats are becoming a nuisance, and we will abate them.'

"Next morning the father sent Tahia on an errand to another valley.Then men began to dig a large oven in the earth before Tahia's house,where the white man lay on the mats at ease. Presently he looked andwondered and looked again. And at length he rose and came down tothe oven, saying, 'What's up?'

"'Plenty _kaikai_. Big pig come by and by,' they said.

"So he stood waiting while they dug, and no pig came. Then he said,'Where is the pig?' And at that moment the _u'u_ crashed upon hisskull, so that he fell without life and lay in the oven. Wood waspiled about him, and he was baked, and there was feasting in Hanamenu.

"In the twilight Tahia came over the hills, weary and hungry, andasked for her white man. 'He has gone to the beach,' they said.

"He will return soon, therefore sit and eat, my daughter," said herfather, and gave her the meat wrapped in leaves. So she ate heartily,and waited for her husband. And all the feasters laughed at her, sothat little by little she learned the truth. She said nothing, butwent away in the darkness.

"And it is written, Haabunai, that searchers for the _mei_ came uponher next day in the upper valley, and she was hanging from a tallpalm-tree with a rope of _purau_ about her neck."

"That may be a true story," said Haabunai. "Though it is the customhere to eat the _eva_ when one is made sick by life. And very fewwhite men were ever eaten in the islands, because they knew too muchand were claimed by some woman of power." He paused for a moment topuff his cigarette.

"Now there was a sailor whom my grandfather ate, and he was white.But there was ample cause for that, for never was a man so provoking.

"He was a harpooner on a whale-ship, a man who made much money, buthe liked rum, and when his ship left he stayed behind. They sent twoboats ashore and searched for him, but my grandfather sent my fatherwith him into the hills, and after three days the captain thought hehad been drowned, and sailed away without him.

"My grandfather gave him my father's sister to wife, and like thatman of whom you told, he was much loved by her, though he would donothing but make _namu enata_ and drink it and dance and sleep.Grandfather said that he could dance strange dances of the sailorthat made them all laugh until their ribs were sore.

"This man, whose name was Honi--"

"Honi?" said I. "I do not know that word."

"Nor I. It is not Marquesan. It was his name, that he bore on theship."

"Honi?" I repeated incredulously, and then light broke. "You meanJones?"

"It may be. I do not know. Honi was his name, as my grandfather saidit. And this Honi had brought from the whale-ship a gun and a harpoon.This harpoon had a head of iron and was fixed on a spear, with along rope tied to the head, so that when it was thrust into thewhale he was fastened to the boat that pursued him through the water.There was no weapon like it on the island, and it was much admired.

"Honi fought with us when our tribe, the Papuaei, went to war withthe Tiu of Taaoa. He used his gun, and with it he won many battles,until he had killed so many of the enemy that they asked for peace.Honi was praised by our tribe, and a fine house was built for himnear the river, in the place where eels and shrimp were best.

"In this large house he drank more than in the other smaller one. Heused his gun to kill pigs and even birds. My grandfather reprovedhim for wasting the powder, when pigs could easily be killed withspears. But Honi would not listen, and he continued to kill until hehad no more powder. Then he quarreled with my grandfather, and oneday, being drunk, he tried to kill him, and then fled to theKau-i-te-oho, the tribe of redheaded people at Hanahupe.

"Learning that Honi was no longer with us, the Tiu tribe of Taaoadeclared war again, and the red-headed tribe had an alliance withthem through their chief's families intermarrying, so that Honifought with them. His gun being without powder, he took his harpoon,and he came with the Tui and the Kau-i-te-oho to the dividing-linebetween the valleys where we used to fight.

"Where the precipices reared their middle points between the valleys,the tribes met and reviled one another.

"'You people with hair like cooked shrimp! Are you ready for theovens of our valley?' cried my grandfather's warriors.

"'You little men, who run so fast, we have now your white warriorwith us, and you shall die by the hundreds!' yelled our enemies."

This picture of the scene at the line was characteristic ofPolynesian warfare. It is almost exactly like the meeting of armieslong ago in Palestine and Syria, and before the walls of Troy.Goliath slanged David grossly, threatening to give his body to thefowls of the air and the beasts of the field, and David retorted inkind. So, when Ulysses launched his spear at Soccus, he cried:

 "Ah, wretch, no father shall they corpse compose, Thy dying eye no tender mother close; But hungry birds shall tear those balls away, And hungry vultures scream around their prey."

"For a quarter of an hour," said Haabunai, "my grandfather's peopleand the warriors of the enemy called thus to each other upon the topof the cliffs, and then Honi and the brother of my grandfather, headmen of either side, advanced to battle.

"The first time Honi threw his harpoon, he hooked my great-uncle. Hehooked him through the middle, and before he could be saved, a halfdozen of the Tiu men pulled on the rope and dragged him over the lineto be killed and eaten.

"Two more of our tribe Honi snared with this devilish spear, and itwas not so much death as being pulled over to them and roasted thatgalled us. All day the battle raged, except when both sides stoppedby agreement to eat _popoi_ and rest, but late in the afternoon astrange thing happened.

"Honi had thrown his harpoon, and by bad aim it entered a tree. Theend of the line he had about his left arm, and as he tried to pullout the spear-head from the wood, his legs became entangled in therope, and my grandfather, who was very strong, seized the rope nearthe tree, dragged the white man over the line, and killed him with arock.

"The enemy ran away then, and that night our people ate Honi.Grandfather said his flesh was so tough they had to boil it. Therewere no _tipoti_ (Standard-oil cans) in those days, but our peopletook banana leaves and formed a big cup that would hold a couple ofquarts of water, and into these they put red-hot stones, and thewater boiled. Grandfather said they cut Honi into small pieces andboiled him in many of these cups. Still he was tough, butnevertheless they ate him.

"Honi was tattooed. Not like Marquesans, but like some white sailors,he had certain marks on him. Grandfather saved these marks, and worethem as a _tiki_, or amulet, until he died, when he gave it to me. Hehad preserved the skin so that it did not spoil."

Haabunai yawned and said his mouth was parched from much talking,but when a shell of rum was set before him and he had drunk, hefetched from his house the _tiki_. It was as large as my hand, darkand withered, but with a magnifying glass I could see a rude crossand three letters, I H S in blue.

"Grandfather became a Christian and was no longer an _enata Ttaikaia_,an eater of men, but he kept the _tiki_ always about his neck,because he thought it gave him strength," said my guest.

I handed him back the gruesome relic, though he began advances tomake it my property. For the full demijohn he would have parted withthe _tiki_ that had been his grandfather's, but I had no fancy for it.One can buy in Paris purses of human skin for not much more than oneof alligator hide.

"Honi must have been very tough," I said.

"He must have been," Haabunai said regretfully. "Grandfather had histeeth to the last. He would never eat a child. Like all warriors hepreferred for vengeance's sake the meat of another fighter."

He had not yet sprung the grim jest of almost all cannibalisticnarratives. I did not ask if Honi's wife had eaten of him, as hadTahia of her white man. It is probable that she did, and that theydeceived her. It was the practical joke of those days.

I had seen Apporo, my landlady, staggering homeward a few daysearlier in a pitiful state of intoxication. Some one had given her aglass of mixed absinthe, vermuth, and rum, and with confidence inthe giver she had tossed it down. That is the kind of joke that inother days would have been the deluding of some one into partakingof the flesh of a lover or friend.

Reasoning from our standpoint, it is easy to assume that cannibalismis a form of depravity practised by few peoples, but this error isdispelled by the researches of ethnologists, who inform us that itwas one of the most ancient customs of man and began when he wasclose brother to the ape. Livingstone, when he came upon it on theDark continent, concluded that the negroes came to that horribledesire from their liking for the meat of gorillas, which so nearlyapproach man in appearance. Herodatus, writing twenty-five hundredyears ago, mentions the Massagetae who boiled the flesh of theirold folks with that of cattle, both killed for the occasion.Cannibalism marked the life of all peoples in days of savagery.

Plutarch says that Cataline's associates gave proof of their loyaltyto that agitator and to one another by sacrificing and eating a man.Achilles expressed his wish that he might devour Hector. The Kafirsate their own children in the famine of 1857, and the Germans ateone another when starvation maddened them, long after Maryland andMassachusetts had become thriving settlements in the New World.There is a historic instance of a party of American pioneers lost inthe mountains of California in the nineteenth century, who in theirlast extremity of hunger ate several of the party.

To devour dead relatives, to kill and eat the elders, to feast uponslaves and captives, even for mothers to eat their children, werereligious and tribal rites for many tens of thousands of years. Wehave records of these customs spread over the widest areas of theworld.

Undoubtedly cannibalism began as a question of food supply. In earlytimes when man, emerging from the purely animal stage, was withoutagricultural skill, and lived in caves or trees, his fellow was hiseasiest prey. The great beasts were too fierce and powerful for hisfeeble weapons except when luck favored him, and the clan or family,or even the single brave hunter, sought the man-meat by stealth orcombat, or in tunes of stress ate those nearest and dearest.

Specially among peoples whose principal diet is heavy, starchy food,such as the breadfruit, the demand for meat is keen. I saw Marquesanwomen eating insects, worms, and other repellant bits of flesh out ofsheer instinct and stomachic need. When salt is not to be had, thedesire for meat is most intense. In these valleys the upper tribes,whose enemies shut them off from the sea with its salt and fish,were the most persistent cannibals, and the same condition exists inAfrica to-day, where the interior tribes eat any corpse, while noneof the coast tribes are guilty.

As the passion for cannibalistic feasts grew,--and it became apassion akin to the opium habit in some,--the supply of other meathad little to do with its continuance. In New Britain human bodieswere sold in the shops; in the Solomon Islands victims were fattenedlike cattle, and on the upper Congo an organized traffic is carriedon in these empty tenements of the human soul.

Although cannibalism originated in a bodily need, man soon gave itan emotional and spiritual meaning, as he has given them to allcustoms that have their root in his physical being. Two forms ofcannibalism seem to have existed among the first historic peoples.One was concerned with the eating of relatives and intimates, forfriendship's sake or to gain some good quality they possessed. Thuswhen babies died, the Chavante mothers, on the Uruguay, ate them toregain their souls. Russians ate their fathers, and the Irish, ifStrabo is to be credited, thought it good to eat both deceasedparents. The Lhopa of Sikkim, in Tibet, eat the bride's mother atthe wedding feast.

But Maori cannibalism, with its best exposition in the Marquesas,was due to a desire for revenge, cooking and eating being thegreatest of insults. It was an expression of jingoism, a hatred forall outside the tribe or valley, and it made the feud betweenvalleys almost incessant.

It was in no way immoral, for morals are the best traditions andways of each race, and here the eating of enemies was authorized byevery teaching of priest and leader, by time-honored custom and thestrongest dictates of nature.

White men and Chinese, in fact, all foreigners, were seldom eatenhere. There were exceptions when vengeance impelled, such at that ofHoni or Jones, whom Haabunai's grandfather ate, but as a rule theywere spared and indeed cherished, as strange visitors who mightteach the people useful things. Only their own depravity broughtthem to the oven.

At such times, the feast was even a disagreeable rite. It is a factthat the Marquesan disliked the flesh of a white man. They said hewas too salty. Hundreds of years ago the Aztecs, according to BernalDiaz, who was there, complained that "the flesh of the Spaniardsfailed to afford even nourishment, since it was intolerably bitter."This, though the Indians were dying of starvation by hundreds ofthousands in the merciless siege of Mexico City.

Standards of barbarity vary. Horrible and revolting as the verymention of cannibalism is to us, it should be remembered that itrested upon an attitude toward the foreigner and the slave that insome degree still persists everywhere in the world. Outside the tribe,the savage recognized no kindred humanity. Members of every clansave his own were regarded as strange and contemptible beings,outlandish and barbarous in manners and customs, not to be regardedas sharers of a common birthright. This attitude toward the strangerdid not at all prevent the cannibal from being, within his own tribe,a gentle, merry, and kindly individual.

Even toward the stranger the Marquesan was never guilty of tortureof any kind. Though they slew and ate, they had none of therefinements of cruelty of the Romans, not even scalping enemies asdid the Scythians, Visigoths, Franks, and Anglo-Saxons. In their mostbloody wars they often paused in battle to give the enemy time toeat and to rest, and there is no record of their ever ringing avalley about with armed warriors and starving to death the women andchildren within. Victims for the gods were struck down withoutwarning, so that they might not suffer even the pangs of anticipation.The thumb-screw and rack of Christendom struck with horror those ofmy cannibal friends to whom I mentioned them.

CHAPTER XXII

The memorable game for the matches in the cocoanut-grove of Lam KaiOo.

Parables are commonly found in books. In a few words on a printedpage one sees a universal problem made small and clear, freed fromthose large uncertainties and whimsies of chance that make life inthe whole so confusing to the vision. It was my fortune to see, inthe valley of Atuona on Hiva-oa, a series of incidents which wereat the time a whirl of unbelievable merriment, yet which slowlyclarified themselves into a parable, while I sat later consideringthem on the leaf-shaded _paepae_ of the House of the Golden Bed.

They began one afternoon when I dropped down to the palace to have asmoke with M. L'Hermier des Plantes, the governor. As I mounted thesteps I beheld on the veranda the governor, stern, though perspiring,in his white ducks, confronting a yellowish stranger on crutches whopleaded in every tone of anguish for some boon denied him.

"_Non!_ No! _Ned!_" said the governor, poly-linguistically emphatic."It cannot be done!" He dropped into a chair and poured himself aninch of Pernod, as the defeated suitor turned to me in despair.

He was short and of a jaundiced hue, his soft brown eyes setslightly aslant. Although lame, he had an alertness and poiseunusual in the sea's spawn of these beaches. In Tahitian, Marquesan,and French, with now and then an English word, he explained that he,a Tahitian marooned on Hiva-oa from a schooner because of a brokenleg, wished to pass the tedium of his exile in an innocent game ofcards.

"I desire a mere permission to buy two packs of cards at theChinaman's," he begged. "I would teach my neighbors here the _jeu de_pokaree. I have learned it on a voyage to San Francisco. It isAmericaine. It is like life, not altogether luck. One must thinkwell to play it. I doubt not that you know that game."

Now gambling is forbidden in these isles. It is told that throughoutthe southern oceans such a madness possessed the people to play thewhite men's games of chance that in order to prevent constantbloodshed in quarrels a strict interdiction was made by theconquerors. Of course whites here are always excepted from suchsin-stopping rules, and merchants keep a small stock of cards fortheir indulgence.

"But why two packs?" I asked the agitated Tahitian.

"_Mais, Monsieur_, that is the way I was taught. We played with tenor fourteen in the circle, and as it is merely _pour passer le temps_,more of my poor brother Kanakas can enjoy it with two packs."

He was positively abased, for no Tahitian says "_Kanaka_" of himself.It is a term of contempt. He might call his fellow so, but only asan American negro says "nigg*r."

I looked at him closely. Some gesture, the suggested slant of hisbrows, the thin lips, reminded me of a certain "son of Ah Cum" whoguided me into disaster in Canton, saying, "Mis'r Rud Kippeling hego one time befo'."

"Your name?" I asked in hope of confirmation.

"O Lalala," he replied, while the smile that started in his eyes waskilled by his tightening lips. "I am French, for my grandfather wasof Annam under the tri-color, and my mother of Tahiti-iti."

Now fourteen-handed poker, with O Lalala as instructor to thoseignorant of the game, the code of which was written by a UnitedStates diplomat, appealed to me as more than a passing of the time.It would be an episode in the valley. My patriotism was stimulated.I called the governor aside.

"This poker," I said, "is not like écarté or baccarat. It is a studyof character, a matching of minds, a thing we call bluff, weAmericans. These poor Marquesans must have some fun. Let him do it!No harm can come of it. It is far to Paris, where the laws are made."

The governor turned to O Lalala.

"No stakes!" he said.

"_Mais, non!_ Not a _sou_!" the lame man promised. "We will use onlymatches for counters. _Merci, merci, Monsieur l'Administrateur!_ Youare very good. Please, will you give me now the note to Ah You?"

As he limped away with it, the governor poured me an inch of absinthe.

"_Sapristi!_" he exclaimed. "O Lalala! O, la, la, la!" He burst intolaughter. "He will play ze bloff?"

I spent that evening with Kriech, the German trader of Taka-Uka.Over our Hellaby beef and Munich beer we talked of copra and thebeautiful girls of Buda-Pesth, of the contemplated effort of theFrench government to monopolize the island trade by subsidizing acorporation, and of the incident of the afternoon.

"The _Herr Doktor_ is new," said Kriech, with a wag of his head."That O Lalala! I have heard that that poker iss very dansherous.That Prince Hanoi of Papeite lose his tam headt to a Chinaman.Something comes of this foolishnesses!"

At midnight I had again gained the House of the Golden Bed and hadlain down to sleep when on the breeze from up the valley there camea strangely familiar sound to my upper ear. I sat up, listening. Inthe dark silence, with no wind to rustle the breadfruit andcocoanut-trees, and only the brook faintly murmuring below, I hearda low babble of voices. No word was distinguishable, not even thelanguage, yet curiously the sound had a rhythm that I knew.

I have heard from a distance preaching in many languages. Thoughonly the cadences, the pauses, and rhythm reached me, I had nodifficulty in knowing their origin and meaning. Thought casts themold of all speech. Now my drowsy mind harked back to American days,to scenes in homes and clubs.

I rose, and wrapping the loin-cloth about me, set out with a lanternin search of that sound. It led me down the trail, across the brook,and up the slope into the dense green growth of the mountain-side.Beyond I saw lights in the cocoanut-grove of Lam Kai Oo.

My bare feet made no noise, and through the undergrowth I peeredupon as odd a sight as ever pleased a lover of the bizarre. A blazeof torches lighted a cleared space among the tall palm columns, andin the flickering red glow a score of naked, tattooed figurescrouched about a shining mat of sugar-cane. About them great pilesof yellow-boxed Swedish matches caught the light, and on the canemat shone the red and white and black of the cards.

O Lalala sat facing me, absorbed in the game. At his back the yellowboxes were piled high, his crutch propped against them, andcontinually he speeded the play by calling out, "Passy, calley ormakum bigger!" "Comely center!" or, "Ante uppy!"

These were the sounds that had swept my memory back to civilizationand drawn me from my Golden Bed. O Lalala had all the slang ofpoker--the poker of the waterfronts of San Francisco and ofShanghai--and evidently he had already taught his eager pupils thatpatois.

They crouched about the mat, bent forward in their eagerness, andthe flickering light caught twisting mouths and eyes ringed withtattooing. Over their heads the torches flared, held by breathlessonlookers. The candlenuts, threaded on long spines of cocoanut-leaves,blazed only a few seconds, but each dying one lit the one beneath asit sputtered out, and the scores of strings shed a continuous thoughwavering light upon the shining mat and the cards.

The midnight darkness of the enclosing grove and the vague columnsof the palms, upholding the rustling canopy that hid the sky, hintedat some monstrous cathedral where heathen rites were celebrated.

I pushed through the fringe of onlookers, none of whom heeded me,and found Apporo and Exploding Eggs holding torches. The madness ofplay was upon them. The sad placidity of every day was gone; as inthe throes of the dance they kept their gleaming eyes upon thefluctuations of fortune before them. Twice I spoke sharply beforethey heard me, and then in a frenzy of supplication Apporo threwherself upon me.

Would I not give her matches--the packets of matches that were underthe Golden Bed? She and her husband, Great Fern, had spent but anhour in the magic circle ere they were denuded of their every match.Couriers were even now scouring the valley for more matches. Quick,hasten! Even now it might be that the packets under the Golden Bedwere gone!

"Surely, then, come," I said, struck by an incredible possibility.Could it be that the crafty O Lalala--absurd! But Apporo, hurryingbefore me down the lantern-lighted trail, confirmed my suspicions.

O Lalala had stated and put into effect the prohibition of any otherstakes other than the innocent matches--mere counters--which he hadmentioned to the governor. But swift messengers had heraldedthroughout the valley that there would be gambling--authorized_par gouvernement_--in Lam Kai Go's plantation, and already thecards had been shuffled for seven or eight hours. Throughout allAtuona matches had been given an extraordinary and superlative value.To the farthest huts on the rim of the valley the cry was "Matches!"And as fast as they arrived, O Lalala won them.

We hastened into my cabin, and Apporo was beneath the Golden Bed erethe rays of my lantern fell upon the floor. The packets haddisappeared.

"Exploding Eggs!" cried Apporo, her dark eyes tolling in rage.

"But--he is honest," I objected.

In such a crisis, she muttered, all standards were naught. ExplodingEggs had been one of the first squatters at the sugar-cane mat."The Bishop himself would trade the holy-water fonts for matches,were he as thirsty to play as I am!"

There were no more matches in the valleys of Atuona or Taka-Uka, shesaid. Every dealer had sold out. Every house had been invaded. Thelosers had begged, borrowed, or given articles of great value formatches. The accursed Tahitian had them all but a few now being waged.Defeated players were even now racing over the mountains in thedarkness, ransacking each hut for more.

The reputation of Hiva-oa, of the island itself, was at stake. Aforeigner had dishonored their people, or would if they did not winback what he had gained from them. She was half Chinese; herfather's soul was concerned. He had died in this very room. To savehis face in death she would give back even her interest in theGolden Bed, she would pledge all that Great Fern possessed, if Iwould give her only a few matches.

Her pleas could only be hopeless. There was not a match in the cabin.

Together we returned to the cocoanut-grove. O Lalala still satcalmly winning the matches, the supply of which was from time totime replenished by panting newcomers. He swept the mat clean atevery valuable pot.

His only apparent advantage was that he made the rules wheneverquestions arose. He was patient in all disputes, yielding in smallmatters, but he was as the granite rocks of the mountain above himwhen many matches were at stake. With solemnity he invoked the nameof Hoy-lee, the mysterious person who had fixed immutably the_tapus_ of pokaree. He made an occult sign with his thumb againsthis nose, and that settled it. If any one persisted in challengingthis _tiki_ he added his other thumb to the little finger of hisfirst symbol, and said, "Got-am-to-hellee!" As a last recourse, hewould raise his crutch and with public opinion supporting him wouldthreaten to invoke the law against gambling and stop the game ifdisputation did not cease.

Steadily the pile of Swedish _toendstikkers_ grew behind him. Allthrough the night the game raged beneath the light of the candlenuts,in a silence broken only by the hoarse breathing of the crouchingbrown men, the sandy-sounding rustle of the palm-fronds overhead, andcries of "Ante uppy!" or "Comely center!" When dawn came graylythrough the aisles of the grove, they halted briefly to eat a bowlof _popoi_ and to drink the milk of freshly gathered nuts. O Lalala,relaxing against the heap of his winnings, lifted a shell to his lipsand over its rim gave me one enigmatic look.

Whistling softly, I went down to the House of the Golden Bed,breakfasted there without the aid of Exploding Eggs, and then soughtthe governor. He had gone by the whale-boat of Special Agent Baudato an adjoining deserted island to shoot _kuku_. Hiva-oa was withouta government.

All day the madness raged in the cocoanut-grove. In the afternoonthe vicar apostolic of the Roman Catholic Church, supported by thefaithful Deacon Fariuu, himself toiled up the slope to stop the game.The bishop was received in sullen silence by regular communicants. Acatechist whom he had found squat before the mat paid no attentionto his objurgations, save to ask the bishop not to stand behind him,as O Lalala had said that was bad luck. The churchmen retired in ahaughty silence that was unheeded by the absorbed players.

Later the deacon returned, bringing with him the very matches thathad been kept in the church to light the lamps at night service.These he stacked on the sugarcane mat. The vicar bishop followed himto call down the anathema maranatha of high heaven upon this renegadewho had robbed the cathedral and the priests' house of every_toendstikker_ they had held, and when he had again retired, thedeacon, dropping his last box on the woven table, elevated his handstoward the skies and fervently asked the Giver of All Good Things toaid his draw. But he received a third ace, only to see O Lalala putdown four of the damnable bits of paper with three spots on each one.

At three o'clock next morning the game lapsed because the Tahitianhad all the counters. These he sent to his house, where they wereguarded by a friend. For a day he sat waiting by the sugar-cane mat,and the Monte Carlo was not deserted. O Lalala would not budge tothe demands of a hundred losers that he sell back packages ofmatches for cocoanuts or French francs or any other currency. Pigs,fish, canned goods, and all the contents of the stores he spurned asbreaking faith with the kindly governor, who would recognize thatwhile matches were not gambling stakes, all other commodities were.

On the fourth day the canoes that had paddled and sailed to everyother island of the archipelago began to return. Some brought fiftypackets, some less. Dealers had tossed their prices sky-ward whenasked to sell their entire stocks.

[Illustration: A chieftess in _tapa_ garments with _tapa_ parasol]

[Illustration: Launching the whale-boat]

Now the game began again with the fierceness of the typhoon afterthe center has passed. Men and women stood in line for the chance toredeem their fortunes, to slake their rage, to gain applause. Oncethey thought they had conquered the Tahitian. He began to lose, andbefore his streak of trouble ended, he had sent more than thirtypackages from his hut to the grove. But this was the merest breathof misfortune; his star rose again, and the contents of the canoeswere his.

On the fifth day it became known that the Shan-Shan syndicate ofCantonese had a remaining case of _toendstikkers_. They claimedthat until now they had overlooked this case. It held a hundredpackages, or twelve hundred boxes. It was priceless as the solepossible barrier against the absolute ending of the game.

The Shan-Shan people were without heart. They demanded for the casefive francs a packet. Many of the younger Marquesans counselledgiving the Cantonese a taste of the ancient _u'u_, the war-club of aprevious generation. Desperate as was the plight of the oldergamesters, they dared not consent. The governor would return, thelaw would take its course, and they would go to Noumea to work outtheir lives for crime. No, they would buy the case for francs, butthey would not risk dividing it among many, who would be devouredpiecemeal by the diabolical O Lalala.

"Kivi, the Vagabond, the Drinker of _kava_, is the chief to lead ourcause," said Great Fern. "He has never gone to the Christian church.He believes still in the old gods of the High Place, and he istattooed with the shark."

Kivi was the one man who had not played. He cared nothing for thepleasures of the _Farani_, the foolish whites. After palaver, hisneighbors waited on him in a body. They reasoned with him, theybegged him. He consented to their plan only after they had wept attheir humbling. Then they began to instruct him.

They told him of the different kinds of combinations, of straightsand of flushes, and of a certain occasional period when the Tahitianwould introduce a mad novelty by which the cards with one fruit onthem would "runnee wil'ee." They warned him against times whenwithout reason the demon would put many matches on the mat, andafter frightening out every one would in the end show that he had nocards of merit.

Immediately after sunset, when the _popoi_ and fish had been eaten,and all had bathed in the brook, when the women had perfumed theirbodies and put the scarlet hibiscus in their hair, and after Kivihad drunk thrice of _kava_, the game began. The valley was deserted,the _paepaes_ empty. No fires twinkled from the mountainsides. Onlyin the cocoanut-grove the candlenuts were lit as the stars peepedthrough the roof of the world.

A throng surrounded the pair of combatants. The worn cards had beenoiled and dried, and though the ominous faces of the _tiki_ uponthem shone bravely, doubtless they were weary of strife. The pipe wasmade to smoke; Kivi puffed it and so did all who had joined in thepurchase of the case from the thieves of Cantonese. Then the cardswere dealt by Kivi, who had won the cut.

O Lalala and he eyed each other like Japanese wrestlers before thegrapple. Their eyes were slits as they put up the ante of fivepackets each. O Lalala opened the pot for five packets and Kivi,nudged by his backers, feverishly balanced them. He took three cards,O Lalala but one. Standing behind the Tahitian, I saw that he had nocards of value, but coolly he threw thirty packets upon the mat. Theothers shuddered, for Kivi had drawn deuces to a pair of kings. Theymade the pipe glow again. They puffed it; they spat; they put theirheads together, and he threw down his cards.

Then calmly the Tahitian laid down his own, and they saw that theycould have beaten him. They shouted in dismay, and withdrew Kivi,who after some palaver went away with them into the darkness.

One or two candlenut torches dimly illumined the figures of thesquatting women who remained. Upon the sugar-cane mat O Lalalastretched himself at ease, closing his eyes. A silence broken onlyby the stealthy noises of the forest closed upon us. Teata, her darkeyes wide, looked fearfully over her shoulder and crept close to me.In a low voice she said that the absent players had thrown earthover their shoulders, stamped, and called upon Po, the Marquesandeity of darkness, yet it had not availed them. Now they went to makemagic to those at whose very mention she shuddered, not naming them.

We waited, while the torches sputtered lower, and a dank breath ofthe forest crept between the trees. O Lalala appeared to sleep,though when Apporo attempted to withdraw a card he pinned it withhis crutch.

It was half an hour before the players returned. Kivi crouched tohis place without a word, and the others arranged themselves behindhim in fixed array, as though they had a cabalistic number-formationin mind.

Fresh torches were made, and many disputed the privilege of holdingthem, as they controlled one's view of the mat. O Lalala satimperturbable, waiting. At last all was ready. The light fell uponthe giant limbs and huge torsos of the men, picking out arabesques oftattooing and catching ruddy gleams from red _pareus_. The women, incrimson gowns caught up to the waist, their luxuriant hair adornedwith flowers and phosphorescent fungus, their necks hung with thepink peppers of Chile, squatted in a close ring about the players.

The lame man took up the pack, shuffled it, and handed it to Kivi tocut. Then Kivi solemnly stacked before him the eighty-five packetsof matches, all that remained in the islands. Five packs went uponthe mat for ante, and Kivi very slowly picked up his cards.

He surveyed them, and a grim smile of incredulity and delight spreadover his ink-decorated countenance. He opened for ten packets. OLalala quickly put down as many, and thirty more.

Kivi chuckled as one who has his enemy in his hand, but stifles hisfeelings to hide his triumph. He then carefully counted hisremaining wealth, and with a gesture of invitation slid the entireseventy packets about his knees. They were a great bulk, quite 840boxes of matches, and they almost obscured the curving palms of bluetattooed on his mighty thighs.

Again he chuckled and this time put his knuckles over his mouth."Patty!" said Great Fern for him, and made a gesture disdaining morecards.

O Lalala scrutinized his face as the sailor the heavens in a storm,and then studied the visages of all his backers. He closed his eyesa moment. Then, "My cally!" he said, as he pushed a great heap of_toendstikkers_ onto the cane mat. The _kava_-drinkers grew blackwith excitement.

Kivi hesitated, and then, amid the most frightful curses of hiscompany, laid down only a pair of kings, a six, a nine, and a jack.O Lalala, without a smile, disclosed a pair of aces and threemeaningless companions.

The game was over. The men of Hiva-oa had thrown their last spear.Magic had been unavailing; the demon foreigner could read throughthe cards. Kivi fell back helpless, grief and _kava_ prostrating him.The torches died down as the winner picked up his spoils andprepared to retire.

At this moment a man dashed madly through the grove, displaying twoboxes and a handful of separate matches. O Lalala at first refusedto play for this trifling stake, but in a storm of menacing criesconsented to cut the pack for double or nothing, and in a twinklingextinguished the last hope.

The last comer had looted the governor's palace. The ultimate matchin the Marquesas had been lost to the Tahitian. He now had theabsolute monopoly of light and of cooking.

Soberly the rest of the valley dwellers went home to unlighted huts.

Next morning, after a cold breakfast, I was early afoot in the valley.On the way to the trader's store I beheld the complacent winner inhis cabin. Through the open door I saw that every inch of the wallswas covered with stacked boxes of matches, yellow fronts exposed. Onhis mat in the middle of this golden treasury O Lalala reclined,smoking at his leisure, and smiling the happy smile of Midas.Outside a cold wind swept down from Calvary Peak, and a gray sky hidthe sun.

I paused in the reek of those innumerable matches, which tainted theair a hundred feet away, and exchanged morning greetings with theirowner, inquiring about his plans. He said that he would make a threedays' vigil of thanks, and upon the fourth day he would sell matchesat a franc a small box. I bade him farewell, and passed on.

The valley people were coming and going about their affairs, butsadly and even morosely. There was no match to light the fire forroasting breadfruit, or to kindle the solacing tobacco. O Lalalawould not give one away, or sell one at any price. Neither would helet a light be taken from his own fire or pipe.

The next schooner was not expected for two months, as the last wasbut a fortnight gone. Le Brunnec had not a match, nor Kriech. Thegovernor had not returned. The only alternatives were to golightless and smokeless or to assault the heartless oppressor. Manydark threats were muttered on the cheerless _paepaes_ and in thedark huts, but in variety of councils there was no unity, and nonedared assault alone the yellow-walled hut in which O Lalala smiledamong his gains.

On the second day there was a growing tension in the atmosphere ofthe valley. I observed that there were no young men to be seen onthe beach or at the traders' stores. There were rumors, hints hardlyspoken, of a meeting in the hills. The traders looked to their guns,whistling thoughtfully. There was not a spark of fire set in allAtuona, save by O Lalala, and that for himself alone.

So matters stood until the second night. Then old Kahuiti, thathandsomest of cannibals, who lived in the valley of Taaoa, strolledinto Atuona and made it known that he would hold a meeting in theHigh Place where of old many of his tribe had been eaten by Atuonamen.

Exploding Eggs, Malicious Gossip, and I climbed the mountain early.The population of the valley, eager for counsel, was gathered on theold stone benches where half a century earlier their sorcerers hadsat. In the twilight Kahuiti stood before us, his long white beardtied in a Psyche knot on his broad, tattooed chest. His voice wasstern.

We were fools, he said, to be denied food and smoke by the foreigner.What of matches before the French came? Had he known matches in hisyouth? _Aue!_ The peoples of the islands must return to the ways oftheir fathers!

He leaped from the top of the Pekia, and seizing his long knife, hecut a five-foot piece of _parua_-wood and shaped it to four inchesin width. With our fascinated gaze upon him, he whittled sharp afoot-long piece of the same wood, and straddled the longer stick.Holding it firmly between his two bare knees he rubbed the shorter,pointed piece swiftly up and down a space of six inches upon hismount. Gradually a groove formed, in which the dust collected at oneend.

Soon the wood was smoking hot, and then the old man's hands moved sorapidly that for several moments I could not follow them with the eye.The smoke became thicker, and suddenly a gleam of flame arose,caught the dust, and was fed with twigs and cocoanut-husks by scoresof trembling brown hands. In a few minutes a roaring fire wasblazing on the sward.

Pipes sprang from loin-cloths or from behind ears, and theincense of tobacco lifted on the still air of the evening.Brands were improvised and hurried home to light the firesfor breadfruit-roasting, while Kahuiti laughed scornfully.

"A hundred of this tribe I have eaten, and no wonder!" he said as hestrode away toward Taaoa.

The monopoly of O Lalala was no more. Atuona Valley had turned backthe clock of time a hundred years, to destroy the perfect world inwhich he sat alone. He heard the news with amazement andconsternation. For a day he sat disconsolate, unable to credit thedisaster that had befallen his carefully made plans. Then he offeredthe matches at usual traders' prices, and the people mocked him. Allover the island the fire-ploughs, oldest of fire-making tools in theworld, were being driven to heat the stones for the _mei_. Atuonahad no need of matches.

The governor on his return heard the roars of derision, gathered thestory from a score of mirthful tongues, seized and sold the matches,and appropriated the funds for a barrel of Bordeaux. And for manyweeks the unhappy O Lalala sat mournfully on the beach, gazing atthe empty sea and longing for a schooner to carry him away.

CHAPTER XXIII

Mademoiselle N----.

The _Jeanne d'Arc_, a beautiful, long, curving craft manned bytwelve oarsmen, came like a white bird over the blue waters of theBay of Traitors one Saturday afternoon, bringing Père Victorien toAtuona. He was from Hatiheu, on the island of Nuka-hiva, seventymiles to the north. A day and a night he had spent on the open sea,making a slow voyage by wind and oar, but like all these priests hemade nothing of the hardships. They come to the islands to stayuntil they die, and death means a crown the brighter for martyrdom.

He looked a tortured man in his heavy and smothering vestments whenI met him before the mission walls next morning. His face and handswere covered with pustules as if from smallpox.

"The _nonos_ (sand-flies) are so furious the last month," he saidwith a patient smile. "I have not slept but an hour at a time. I wasafraid I would go mad."

News of his coming brought all the valley Catholics to eight o'clockmass. The banana-shaded road and the roots of the old banian werecrowded with worshippers in all their finery, and when they pouredinto the mission the few rude benches were well filled. I found achair in the rear, next to that of Baufré, the shaggy drunkard, andas the chanting began, I observed an empty _prie-dieu_, speciallyprepared and placed for some person of importance.

"Mademoiselle N----" said Baufré, noticing the direction of my glance."She is the richest woman in all the Marquesas."

At the Gospel she came in, walking slowly down the aisle and takingher place as though unaware of the hundred covert glances thatfollowed her. Wealth is comparative, and Mademoiselle N----, withperhaps a few hundred thousand dollars in cash and cocoanut-grove,stood to the island people as Rockefeller to us. Money and landswere not all her possessions, for though she had never traveled fromher birthplace, she was very different in carriage and costume fromthe girls about her.

She wore a black lace gown, clinging, and becoming her slenderfigure and delicately charming face. Her features were exquisite,her eyes lustrous black pools of passion, her mouth a scarlet lineof pride and disdain. A large leghorn hat of fine black straw, withchiffon, was on her graceful head, and her tiny feet were in silkstockings and patent leather. She held a gold and ivory prayer-bookin gloved hands, and a jeweled watch hung upon her breast.

She might have passed for a Creole or for one of those beautifulFilipino _mestizas_, daughters of Spanish fathers and Filipinomothers. I suppose coquetry in woman was born with the fig-leaf.This dainty, fetching heiress, born of a French father and a savagemother, had all the airs and graces of a ballroom belle. Where hadshe gained these fashions and desires of the women of cities, ofEurope?

I had but to look over the church to feel her loneliness. Teata,Many Daughters, Weaver of Mats, and Flower, savagely handsome,gaudily dressed, were the only companions of her own age. Flower, ofthe red-gold hair, was striking in a scarlet gown of sateen, awreath of pink peppers, and a necklace of brass. She had beenornamented by the oarsmen of the _Jeanne d'Arc_, fortunately withoutPère Victorien's knowledge. Teata, in her tight gown with itsinsertions of fishnet revealing her smooth, tawny skin, a red scarfabout her waist, straw hat trimmed with a bright blue Chinese shawlperched on her high-piled hair, was still a picture of primitive andsavage grace. They were handsome, these girls, but they were wildflowers. Mlle. N---- had the poise and delicacy of the hothouseblossom.

Her father had spent thirty years on Hiva-oa, laboring to wring afortune from the toil of the natives, and dying, he had left it allto this daughter, who, with her laces and jewels, her elegant, slimform and haughty manner, was in this wild abode of barefooted,half-naked people like a pearl in a gutter. She was free now to dowhat she liked with herself and her fortune. What would she do?

It was the question on every tongue and in every eye when, after mass,she passed down the lane respectfully widened for her in the throngon the steps and with a black-garbed sister at her side, walked tothe nuns' house.

"If only she had a religious vocation," sighed Sister Serapoline."That would solve all difficulties, and save her soul and happiness."

Vainly the nuns and priests had tried during the dozen years of hertutelage in their hands to direct her aspirations toward this goal,but one had only to look into her burning eyes or see the supplemovement of her body, to know that she sought her joy on earth.

Liha-Liha, the natives called her father, which means corporal, andthat they had hated and yet feared him when Hiva-oa was still givenover to cannibalism outlined his character. He had lived and died inhis house near the Stinking Springs on the road to Taaoa. The solewhite man in that valley, he had lorded it over the natives moresternly than had their old chiefs. He had fought down the wilderness,planted great cocoanut-plantations, forced the unwilling islandersto work for him, and dollar by dollar, with an iron will, he hadwrung from their labor the fortune now left in the dainty hands ofhis half-savage daughter.

Song of the Nightingale, the convict cook of the governor, gave melight on the man.

"I loved his woman, Piiheana (Climber of Trees Who Was Killed andEaten), who was the mother of Mademoiselle N----," said Song of theNightingale. "One night he found me with her on his _paepae_. He shotme; then he had me condemned as a robber, and I spent five years inthe prison at Tai-o-hae."

"And Climber of Trees Who Was Killed and Eaten?"

"He beat her till her bones were broken, and sent her from him. Thenhe took Daughter of a Piece of Tattooing, to whom he left in hiswill thirty-five thousand francs. It was she who brought upMademoiselle."

Mademoiselle herself walked daintily down to the road, where herhorse was tied, and I was presented to her. She gave me her handwith the air of a princess, her scarlet lips quivering into a faintsmile and her smouldering, unsatisfied eyes sweeping my face. With a,conciliating, yet imperious, air, she suggested that I ride over thehills with her.

Picking up her lace skirt and frilled petticoat, she vaulted intothe man's saddle without more ado, and took the heavy reins in hersmall gloved hands. Her horse was scrubby, but she rode well, as doall Marquesans, her supple body following his least movement and herslim, silk-stockinged legs clinging as though she were ridingbareback. When the swollen river threatened to wet her varnishedslippers, she perched herself on the saddle, feet and all, and madea dry ford.

Over the hills she led the way at a gallop, despite wretched trailand tripping bushes. Down we went through the jungle, walled in by ahundred kinds of trees and ferns and vines. Now and then we cameinto a cleared space, a native plantation, a hut surrounded bybreadfruit-, mango- and cocoanut-, orange- and lime-trees. No onecalled "_Kaoho!_" and Mademoiselle N---- did not slacken her pace.We swept into the jungle again without a word, my horse following hermount's flying feet, and I ducking and dodging branches andnoose-like vines.

In a marshy place, where patches of _taro_ spread its magnificentleaves over the earth, we slowed to a walk. The jungle tangle wasall about us; a thousand bright flowers, scarlet, yellow, purple,crimson, splashed with color the masses of green; tall fernsuncurled their fronds; giant creepers coiled like snakes through theboughs, and the sluggish air was heavy with innumerable deliciousscents. I said to Mademoiselle N---- that the beauty of the islandswas like that of a fantastic dream, an Arabian Night's tale.

"Yes?" she said, with a note of weariness and irony. The feet of thehorses made a sucking sound on the oozy ground. "I am half white,"she said after a moment, and as the horses' hoofs struck the rockytrail again, she whipped up her mount and we galloped up the slope.

After a time the trail widened into a road and I saw before us aqueer enclosure. At first sight I thought it a wild-animal park.There were small houses like cages and a big, box-like structure inthe center, all enclosed in a wire fence, a couple of acres in all.Drawing nearer, I saw that the houses were cabins painted in gaudycolors, and that the white box was a marble tomb of great size. Eachslab of marble was rimmed with scarlet cement, and the top of thetomb, under a corrugated iron roof, was covered with those abominablebead-wreaths from Paris.

Like the humbler Marquesans who have their coffins made and gravesdug before their passing, Mademoiselle N----'s father had seen to itthat this last resting-place was prepared while he lived, and he hadplaced it here in the center of his plantation, before the house thathad been his home for thirty years. With something of his own crudestrength and barbaric taste, it stood there, the grim reminder ofher white father to the girl in whose veins his own blood mingledwith that of the savage.

She looked at it without emotion, and after I had surveyed it, wedismounted and she led me into her house. It was a neat andshowily-furnished cottage, whose Nottingham-lace curtains, varnishedgolden-oak chairs and ingrain carpet spoke of attempts at mail-orderbeautification. Sitting on a horse-hair sofa, hard and slippery, Idrank wine and ate mangoes, while opposite me Mademoiselle N----'smother sat in stiff misery on a chair. She was a withered Marquesanwoman, barefooted and ugly, dressed in a red cotton garment of thehideous night-gown pattern introduced by the missionaries, and hereyes were tragedies of bewilderment and suffering, while hertoothless mouth essayed a smile and she struggled with a few wordsof bad French.

Though Mademoiselle N---- was most hospitable, she was not at ease,and I knew it was because of the appearance of her mother, thiswoman whom her father had discarded years before, but to whom thedaughter had shown kindness since his death. The mother appearedmore at ease with her successor, a somewhat younger Marquesan woman,who waited on us as a servant, and seemed contented enough.Doubtless the two who had endured the moods of Liha-Liha had manyconfidences now that he was gone.

I had to describe America to Mademoiselle N----, and the inventionsand social customs of which she had read. She would not want to livein such a big country, she said, but Tahiti seemed to combinecomfort with the atmosphere of her birthplace. Perhaps she might goto Tahiti to live.

As I took my hat to leave, she said:

"I have been told that they are separating the lepers in Tahiti andconfining them outside Papeite in a kind of prison. Is that so?"

"Not a prison," I replied. "The government has built cottages forthem in a little valley. Don't you think it wise to segregate them?"

She did not reply, and I rode away.

A week later I met her one evening at Otupoto, that dividing placebetween the valleys of Taaoa and Atuona, where Kahuiti and hisfellow warriors had trapped the human meat. I had walked there tosit on the edge of the precipice and watch the sun set in the sea.She came on horseback from her home toward the village, to spendSunday with the nuns. She got off her horse when she saw me, and lita cigarette.

"What do you do here all alone?" she asked in French. She never useda word of Marquesan to me. I replied that I was trying to imaginemyself there fifty years earlier, when the meddlesome white sangvery low in the concert of the island powers.

"The people were happier then, I suppose," she said meditatively, asshe handed me her burning cigarette in the courteous way of hermother's people. "But it does not attract me. I would like to seethe world I read of."

She sat beside me on the rock, her delicately-modeled chin on herpink palm, and gazed at the colors fading from vivid gold and roseto yellow and mauve on the sky and the sea. The quietness of thescene, the gathering twilight, perhaps, too, something in the factthat I was a white man and a stranger, broke down her reserve.

"But with whom can I see that world?" she said with sudden passion."Money--I have it. I don't want it. I want to be loved. I want a man.What shall I do? I cannot marry a native, for they do not think as Ido. I--I dread to marry a Frenchman. You know _le droit du mari_? AFrench wife has no freedom."

I cited Madame Bapp, who chastised her spouse.

"He is no man, that _criquet!_" she said scornfully.

"I would be better off not to marry, if I had a real man who loved me,and who would take me across the sea! What am I saying? The nunswould be shocked. I do not know--oh, I do not know what it is thattears at me! But I want to see the world, and I want a man to love me."

"Your islands here are more beautiful than any of the developedcountries," I said. "There are many thieves there, too, to take yourmoney."

"I have read that," she answered, "and I am not afraid. I am afraidof nothing. I want to know a different life than here. I will atleast go to Tahiti. I am tired of the convent. The nuns talk alwaysof religion, and I am young, and I am half French. We die young,most of us, and I have had no pleasure."

I saw her black eyes, as she puffed her cigarette, shining with hervision. Some man would put tears in them soon, I thought, if shechose that path.

Would she be happy in Tahiti? If she could find one of her own kind,a half-caste, a paragon of kindness and fidelity, she might be. Withthe white she would know only torture. There is but one American thatI know who has made a native girl happy. Lovina, who keeps the TiareHotel in Papeite and who knows the gossip of all the South Seas,told me the story one day after he had come to the hotel to fetchtwo dinners to his home. He had a handsome motor-car, and the manhimself was so clean-looking, so precise in every word and motion,that I spoke of the contrast to the skippers, officials, andtourists who lounged about Lovina's bar.

"He is a strange one, that man," said Lovina. "Two years ago I havenice girl here, wait on bar, look sweet, and I make her jus' so mydaughter. I go America for visit, and when I come back that girlruin'. That American take her 'way, and he come tell me straight hecouldn't help it. He jus' love her--mad. He build her fine house,get automobile. She never work. Every day he come here get mealstake home."

That tall, straight chap, his hair prematurely gray, his face sad,had made the barmaid the jewel of a golden setting. He devotedhimself and his income solely to her. Stranger still, he had madeher his legal wife.

But she is an exception rare as rain in Aden. These native girls ofmixed blood, living tragedies sprung from the uncaring selfishnessof the whites, struggle desperately to lift themselves above themire in which the native is sinking. They throw themselves away onworthless adventurers, who waste their little patrimony, break theirhearts, and either desert them after the first flush of passionpasses, or themselves sink into a life of lazy slovenliness worsethan that of the native.

All these things I pondered when Mlle. N---- spoke of her hope offinding happiness in Tahiti. I was sure that, with her wealth, shewould have many suitors,--but what of a tender heart?

"It is love I want," she said. "Love and freedom. We women are usedto having our own way. I know the nuns would be horrified, but Ishall bind myself to no man."

The last colors of the sunset faded slowly on the sea, and the worldwas a soft gray filled with the radiance of the rising moon. I roseand when Mile. N---- had mounted I strolled ahead of her horse inthe moonlight. I was wearing a tuberose over my ear, and she remarkedit.

"You know what that signifies? If a man seeks a woman, he wears awhite flower over his ear, and if his love grows ardent, he wears ared rose or hibiscus. But if he tires, he puts some green thing intheir place. _Bon dieu!_ That is the depth of ignominy for the womanscorned. I remember one girl who was made light of that way in church.She stayed a day hidden in the hills weeping, and then she threwherself from a cliff."

There was in her manner a melancholy and a longing.

"Tahitians wear flowers all the day," I said. "They are gay, andlife is pleasant upon their island. There are automobiles by thescore, cinemas, singing, and dancing every evening, and manyEuropeans and Americans. With money you could have everything."

"It is not singing and dancing I desire!" she exclaimed. "_Pas detout!_ I must know more people, and not people like priests andthese copra dealers. I have read in novels of men who are like gods,who are bold and strong, but who make their women happy. Do you knowan officer of the _Zelee_, with hair like a ripe banana? He is talland plays the banjo. I saw him one time long ago when the warshipwas here. He was on the governor's veranda. Oh, that was long ago,but such a young man would be the man that I want."

Her Marquesan blood was speaking in that cry of the heart,unrestrained and passionate. They are not the cold, chaste women ofother climes, these women of the Marquesas; with blood at fever heatand hearts beating like wild things against bars, they listen whenlove or its counterfeit pours into their ears those soft words withnothing in them that make a song. They have no barriers of reserveor haughtiness; they make no bargains; they go where the heart goes,careless of certified vows.

"_Mon dieu!_" Mademoiselle N---- exclaimed and put her tiny hand toher red lips. "What if the good sisters heard me? I am bad. I know._Eh bien!_ I am Marquesan after all."

We were about to cross the stream by my cabin, and I mounted thehorse behind her to save a wetting. She turned impulsively andlooked at me, her lovely face close to mine, her dark eyes burning,and her hot breath on my cheek.

"Write to me when you are in Tahiti, and tell me if you think Iwould be happy there?" she said imploringly. "I have no friends here,except the nuns. I need so much to go away. I am dying here."

Coming up my trail a few days later, I found on my _paepae_ ashabbily dressed little bag-of-bones of a white man, with a dirtygray beard and a harsh voice like that of Baufré. He had a note tome from Le Brunnec, introducing M. Lemoal, born in Brest, anaturalized American. The note was sealed, and I put it carefullyaway before turning to my visitor. It read:

 "CHER CITOYEN:

 "I send you a specimen of the Marquesan beaches, so that you can have a little fun. This fellow have a very tremendous life. He is an old sailor, pirate, gold-miner, Chinese-hanger, thief, robber, honest-man, baker, trader; in a word, an interesting type. With the aid of several glasses of wine I have put him in the mood to talk delightfully."

A low-browed man was Lemoal, sapped and ruthless, but certainly hehad adventured.

Was the Bella Union Theater still there in Frisco? Did they stillfight in Bottle Meyers, and was his friend Tasset on the policeforce yet? His memories of San Francisco ante-dated mine. He hadbeen a hoodlum there, and had helped to hang Chinese. He had gone toTahiti in 1870 and made a hundred thousand francs keeping a bakery.That fortune had lasted him during two years' tour of the world.

"Now I'm bust," he said bitterly. "Now I got no woman, no children,no friends, and I don't want none. I am by myself and damn everybody!"

I soothed his misanthropy with two fingers of rum, and he mellowedinto advice.

"I saw you with that daughter of Liha-Liha," he said, using thenative name of the dead millionaire. "You be careful. One time Ibaked bread in Taaoa. My oven was near his plantation. I saw thatgirl come into the woods and take off her dress. She had a mirror tosee her back, and I looked, and the sun shone bright. What she saw,I saw--a patch of white. She is a leper, that rich girl."

His eyes were full of hate.

"You don't like her," I said. "Why?"

"Why? Why?" he screamed. "Because her father was an accursed villian.He was always kissing the dirty hands of the priests. He used togive his workmen opium to make them work faster, and then he wouldgo to church. He made his money, yes. He was damn hypocrite. And nowhis daughter, with all that rotten money, is a leper. I telleverybody what I saw. Everybody here knows it but you. Everybodywill know it in Tahiti if she goes there."

The man was like a snake to me. I threw away the glass he had drunkfrom. And yet--was it idle curiosity, or was it fear of being shutaway in the valley outside Papeite by the quarantine officers, thatmade her ask me that question about the segregation of lepers?

Liha-Liha had spent thirty years making money. He had coined thesweat and blood and lives of a thousand Marquesans into a goldenfortune, and he had left behind him that fortune, a marble tomb, andMlle. N----.

CHAPTER XXIV

A journey to Nuka-hiva; story of the celebration of the fête of Joanof Arc, and the miracles of the white horse and the girl.

Père Victorien said that I must not leave the Marquesas before Ivisited the island of Nuka-hiva seventy miles to the northward andsaw there in Tai-o-hae, the capital of the northern group of islands,a real saint.

"A wonderful servant of Christ," he said, "Père Simeon Delmas. He isvery old, and has been there since the days of strife. He has notbeen away from the islands for fifty years, but God preserves him forHis honor and service. Père Simeon would be one of the first in ourorder were he in Europe, but he is a martyr and wishes to earn hiscrown in these islands and die among his charges. He is a saint, astruly as the blessed ones of old.

"It was he who planned the magnificent celebration of the feast ofJoan of Arc some years ago, and as to miracles, I truly believe thatthe keeping safe of the white horse during the terrible storm andperhaps even the preservation of a maiden worthy to appear in thearmor of the Maid, are miracles as veritable as the apparition atLourdes. _Pour moi_, I am convinced that Joan is one of the mostglorious saints in heaven, and that Père Simeon himself is of theband of blessed martyrs."

"Ah, Père Victorien, I would like nothing better than to meet thatgood man," I said, "but I am at a loss to get to Tai-o-hae. The_Roberta_, Capriata's steamer, will not be here for many weeks,and there is no other in the archipelago just now."

"You shall return with me in the _Jeanne d'Arc_," he replied quickly."It may be an arduous voyage for you, but you will be well repaid."

A fortnight later his steersman came running to my cabin to tell meto be ready at one o'clock in the morning.

The night was a myriad of stars on a vast ebon canopy. One could seeonly shadows in denser shadows, and the serene sure movements of themen as they lifted the whale-boat from Bauda's shed and carried itlightly to the water were mysterious to me. Their eyes saw wheremine were blind. Père Victorien and I were seated in the boat, andthey shoved off, breast-deep in the turmoil of the breakers, runningalongside the bobbing craft until it was in the welter of foam and,then with a chorus, in unison, lifting themselves over the sides andseizing the oars before the boat could turn broadside to the shore.

"He-ee Nuka-hiva!" they sang in a soft monotone, while they pulledhard for the mouth of the bay. The priest and I were fairlycomfortable in the stern, the steersman perched behind us on thevery edge of the combing, balancing himself to the rise and fall ofthe boat as an acrobat on a rope. I laid my head on my bag and fellasleep before the sea had been reached. The last sound in my earswas the voice of Père Victorien reciting his rosary.

I awoke to find a breeze careening our sail and the _Jeanne d'Arc_rushing through a pale blue world--pale blue water, pale blue sky,and, it seemed, pale blue air. No single solid thing but the boatwas to be seen in the indefinite immensity. Sprawling on its bottomin every attitude of limp relaxation, the oarsmen lay asleep; only PèreVictorien was awake, his hands on the tiller and his eyes gazingtoward the east.

"_Bonjour!_" said he. "You have slept well. Your angel guardianthinks well of you. The dawn comes."

I asked him if I might relieve him of tiller and sheet, and he, withan injunction to keep the sail full and far, unpocketed his breviary,and was instantly absorbed in its contents.

Our tack was toward the eastern distance, and no glimpse of land orcloud made us aught but solitary travelers in illimitable space. Thesun was beneath the deep, but in the hush of the pale light one feltthe awe of its coming. Slowly a faint glow began to gild a line thatcircled the farthest east. Gold it was at first, like a segment of amarriage ring, then a bolt of copper shot from the level waters tothe zenith and a thousand vivid colors were emptied upon the sky andthe sea. Roses were strewn on the glowing waste, rose and gold andpurple curtained the horizon, and suddenly, without warning, abruptas lightning, the sun beamed hot above the edge of the world.

The Marquesans stirred, their bodies stretched and their lungsexpanded in the throes of returning consciousness. Then one sat upand called loudly, "_A titahi a atu!_ Another day!" The others rose,and immediately began to uncover the _popoi_ bowl. They had cannedfish and bread, too, and ate steadily, without a word, for tenminutes. The steersman, who had joined them, returned to the helm,and the priest and I enjoyed the bananas and canned beef with waterfrom the jug, and cigarettes.

All day the _Jeanne d'Arc_ held steadily on the several tacks westeered, and all day no living thing but bird or fish disturbed theloneliness of the great empty sea. Père Victorien read his breviaryor told his beads in abstracted contemplation, and I, lying on thebottom of the boat with my hat shielding my eyes from the beatingrays of the sun, pondered on what I knew of Tai-o-hae, the port onthe island of Nuka-hiva, to which we were bound.

For two hundred years after the discovery of the southern group--theislands we had left behind us--the northern group was still unknownto the world. Captain Ingraham, of Boston, found Nuka-hiva in 1791,and called the seven small islets the Washington Islands. Twentyyears later, during the war of 1812, Porter refitted his ships thereto prey upon the British, and but for the perfidy,--or, from anotherview, the patriotism,--of an Englishman in his command, Porter mighthave succeeded in making the Marquesas American possessions.

Tai-o-hae became the seat of power of the whites in the islands; itwaxed in importance, saw admirals, governors, and bishops sitting instate on the broad verandas of government buildings, witnessed thatnew thing, the making of a king and queen, knew the stolid march ofconvicts, white and brown, images of saints carried in processions,and schools opened to regenerate the race of idol-worshippers.

Tai-o-hae saw all the plans of grandeur wane, saw saloons and opium,vice and disease, fastened upon the natives, and saw the converted,the old gods overthrown, the new God reigning, cut down like treeswhen the fire runs wild in the forest.

The dream of minting the strength and happiness of the giant men ofthe islands into gold for the white labor-kings dissolved into anightmare as the giants perished. It was hard to make the freepeoples toil as slaves for foreign masters, so the foreign mastersbrought opium. To get this "Cause of Wonder Sleep," of more delightthan _kava_, the Marquesan was taught to hoe and garner cotton, togather copra and even to become the servant of the white man. Thehopes of the invaders were rosy. They faded quickly. The Marquesansfaded faster. The saloons of Tai-o-hae were gutters of drunkenness.The _paepaes_ were wailing-places for the dead. No governmentarrested vice or stopped the traffic in death-dealing drugs until toolate. Then, with no people left to exploit, the colonial ministersin Paris forgot the Marquesas.

In the lifetime of a man, Tai-o-hae swelled from a simple nativevillage with thousands of healthy, happy people, to the capital ofan archipelago, with warships, troops, prisons, churches, schools,and plantations, and reverted to a deserted, melancholy beach, withdecaying, uninhabited buildings testifying to catastrophe. SinceKahuiti, my man-eating friend of Taaoa, was born, the cycle had beencompleted.

I was on my way now to see, in Tai-o-hae, a man who was giving hislife to bring the white man's religion to the few dying natives whor*mained.

At dusk the wind died, and we put out the oars. Hour after hour therowers pulled, chanting at times ancient lays of the war-canoes, ofthe fierce fights of their fathers when hundreds fed the sharksafter the destruction of their vessels by the conquerors, and of theold gods who had reigned before the white men came. Père Victorienlistened musingly.

"They should be singing of the Blessed Mother or of Joan," he saidwith sorrow. "But when they pull so well I cannot deny them a threadof that old pagan warp. Those devils whom they once worshipped waitabout incessantly for a word of praise. They hate the idea that weare hurrying to the mission, and they would like well to delay us."

Whatever the desires of those devils, they were balked, for the windcame fair during the second night, and when the second dawning camewe were in the bay of Tai-o-hae.

It was a basin of motionless green water, held in the curve of ashore shaped like a horseshoe, with two huge headlands of rock forthe calks. The beach was a rim of white between the azure of thewater and the dark green of the hills that rose steeply from it.Above them the clouds hung in varying shapes, here lit by the sun tosnowy fleece, there black and lowering. On the lower slopes a fewhouses peeped from the embowering _parau_ trees, and on a small hill,near the dismantled fort, the flag of France drooped above thegendarme's cabin.

By eight o'clock in the morning, when we reached the shore, thebeach was shimmering in the sunlight, the sand gleaming under theintense rays as if reflecting the beams of gigantic mirrors.Heat-waves quivered in the moist air.

This was the beach that had witnessed the strange career of JohnHoward, a Yankee sailor who had fled a Yankee ship fifty yearsbefore and made his bed for good and all in the Marquesas. LyingBill Pincher had told me the story. Howard, known to the natives asT'yonny, had been welcomed by them in their generous way, and the_tahuna_ had decorated him from head to foot in the very higheststyle of the period. In a few years, what with this tattooing andwith sunburn, one would have sworn him to be a Polynesian. He wasambitious, and by alliances acquired an entire valley, which he leftto his son, T'yonny Junior. Mr. Howard, senior, garbed himself likethe natives and was like them in many ways, but he retained a deeplove for his country and its flag, and when he saw an Americanman-of-war entering the harbor, he went aboard with his many tawnyrelatives-in-law.

The captain was amazed to hear him talking with the sailors.

"'E was blooming well knocked off 'is pins," said Lying Bill."'Blow me!' 'e sez, 'if that blooming cannibal don't talk the King'sEnglish as if 'e was born in New York!' 'E 'ad 'im down in the cabinto 'ave a drink, thinking 'e was a big chief. 'Oward took a cigar andsmoked it and drank 'is whiskey with a gulp and a wry face like allAmericans.

"'I must say,' sez the captain, 'you're the most intelligent 'eathenI've seen in the 'ole blooming run.'

"'Eathen?' sez 'Oward. 'Me a 'eathen! I was born in Iowa, and I'm ablooming good American.'"

"'What, you an American citizen?' sez the captain. 'Born in my ownstate, and painted up like Sitting Bull on the warpath? Get off thisship,' sez 'e, wild, 'get off this ship, or I'll put you in ironsand take you back to the blooming jail you escaped from!'

"'Oward leaped over the side and swum ashore."

An avenue ran the length of the beach, shaded by trees, and crossinga gentle stream. Along this avenue was all the life and commerce ofTai-o-hae. Two traders' shops, empty offices, a gendarme, a handfulof motley half-castes lounging under the trees--this was all thatwas left of former greatness. Only nature had not changed. It flungover the broken remnants of the glory and the dream its lovely cloakof verdure and of flower. Man had almost ceased to be a figure in thescene he had dominated for untold centuries.

Crossing the stepping-stones of the brook we met a darkish, stoutman in overalls.

"Good morn'," he said pleasantly. I looked at him and guessed hisname at once.

"Good-morning," I answered. "You are the son of T'yonny."

"My father, Mist' Howard, dead," he said. "You _Menike_ like him?"

Before I could answer something entered my ear and something my nose.These somethings buzzed and bit fearsomely. I coughed and sputtered.An old woman on the bank was sitting in the smudge of a fire ofcocoanut husks. She was scratching her arms and legs, covered withangry red blotches.

"The _nonos_ never stop biting," she said in French. These _nonos_are the dread sand-flies that Père Victorien had run from to getsome sleep in Atuona. They are a kind of gadfly, red-hot needles onwings.

We sauntered along the road, tormented by the buzzing pests at whichwe constantly slapped and, crossing a tiny bridge over the brook,approached the Mission of Tai-o-hae, that once pompous and powerfulcenter of the diffusion of the faith throughout the Marquesas. Theroad was lined with guavas, mangos, cocoanuts, and tamarinds, allplanted with precision and care. The ambitious fathers who had begunthese plantings scores of years before had provided the choicestfruits for their table. All over the world the members of the greatreligious orders of Europe have carried the seeds of the bestvarieties of fruits and flowers, of trees and shrubs and vegetables;more than organized science they deserve the credit for introducingnon-native species into all climes.

About the mission grounds was a stone wall, stout and fairly high,which had assured protection when orgies of indulgence in rum hadmade the natives brutal. The clergy must survive if souls are to besaved. Within the wall stood the church, the school, and a ramblingrectory, all made beautiful by age and the artistry of tropicalnature. Mosses and lichens, mosaics of many shades of green, fainttouches of red and yellow mould, covered the old walls which werefast decaying and falling to pieces.

By the half-unhinged door stood an old man of venerable figure, hislong beard still dark, though his hair was quite white. He wore asoiled soutane down to the ankles of his rusty shoes, a sweaty,stained, smothering gown of black broadcloth, which rose andfell with his hurried respiration. His eyes of deepest brown,large and lustrous, were the eyes of an old child, shining withsimple enthusiasms and lit with a hundred memories of worthyaccomplishments or efforts.

[Illustration: Père Simeon Delmas' church at Tai-o-hae]

[Illustration: Gathering the _feis_ in the mountains]

Père Victorien presented me, saying that I was a lover of theMarquesas, and specially interested in Joan of Arc. Père Simeonseized me by the hand and, drawing me toward him, gave me theaccolade as if I were a reunited brother. Then he presented me to aMarquesan man at his side, "_Le chef de l'isle de Huapu_," who waswaiting to escort him to that island that he might say mass and hearconfession. The chief was for leaving at once, and Père Simeonlamented that he had no time in which to talk to me.

I said I had heard it bruited in my island of Hiva-oa that thecelebration of the fete of Joan of Arc had been marked byextraordinary events indicating a special appreciation by theheavenly hosts.

Tears came into the eyes of the old priest. He dismissed the chiefat once, and after saying farewell to Père Victorien, who wasembarking immediately for his own island of Haitheu, Père Simeon andI entered his study, a pitifully shabby room where rickety furniture,quaking floor, tattered wall-coverings, and cracked plates andgoblets spelled the story of the passing of an institution oncepossessing grandeur and force. Seated in the only two sound chairs,with wine and cigarettes before us, we took up the subject so dearto Père Simeon's heart.

"I am glad if you cannot be a Frenchman that at least you are not anEnglishman," he said fervently. "God has punished England for themurder of Jeanne d'Arc. That day at Rouen when they burned my belovedpatroness ended England. Now the English are but merchants, and theyhave a heretical church.

"You should have seen the honors we paid the Maid here. _Mais,Monsieur_, she has done much for these islands. The natives love her.She is a saint. She should be canonized. But the opposition will notdown. There is reason to believe that the devil, Satan himself, orat least important aides of his, are laboring against the doing ofjustice to the Maid. She is powerful now, and doubtless has greatinfluence with the Holy Virgin in Heaven, but as a true saint shewould be invincible." The old priest's eyes shone with his faith.

"You do not doubt her miraculous intercession?" I asked.

Père Simeon lit another cigarette, watered his wine, and lifted froma shelf a sheaf of pamphlets. They were hectographed, not printedfrom type, for he is the human printing-press of all this region,and all were in his clear and exquisite writing. He held them andreferred to them as he went on.

"She was born five hundred years ago on the day of the procession inTai-o-hae. That itself is a marvel. Such an anniversary occurs buttwice in a millennium. After all my humble services in these islandsthat I should be permitted to be here on such a wonderful day provesto me the everlasting mercy of God. Here is the account I havewritten in Marquesan of her life, and here the record of the fêteupon the anniversary."

As he showed me the brochures written beautifully in purple and redinks, recording the history of the Maid of Orleans, with manycanticles in her praise, learned dissertations upon her career andholiness, maps showing her march and starred at Oleane, Kopiegne,and Rua to indicate that great things had occurred at Orleans, Compiègne,and Rouen, Père Simeon pointed out to me that it was of supremeimportance that the Marquesan people should be given a properunderstanding of the historical and geographical conditions ofEngland and France in Joan's time.

He had spent months, even years, in preparing for the celebration ofher fête-day.

"And _Monsieur_, by the blessed grace of Joan, only the whites gotdrunk. Not a Marquesan was far gone in liquor throughout the threedays of the feast. There was temptation in plenty, for though I gaveonly the chiefs and a few intimates any wine, several of theEuropeans in their enthusiasm for our dear patroness distributedabsinthe and rum to those who had the price. There was a moment whenit seemed touch and go between the devil and Joan. But, oh, how shecame to our rescue! I reproached the whites, locked up the rum, andJoan did the rest. It was a three-days' feast of innocence."

"But there are not many whites here?" I asked.

"No," he replied. "There are one hundred and twenty people inTai-o-hae now, and but a few are whites. Alas, _mon ami_, they donot set a good example. They mean well; they are brave men, but theydo not keep the commandments. Here is a chart I drew showing therise of the church since Peter. It is divided into twenty periods,and I have allotted the fifteenth to Joan. She well merits a period."

My mind continually harked back to the prompting of Père Victorienconcerning the horse and the girl of the jubilee.

"There were signs at the commemoration?" I interposed.

Père Simeon glanced at me eagerly. His naivete was not of ignoranceof men and their motives. He had confessed royalty, cannibals,pirates, and nuns. The souls of men were naked under his scrutiny.But his faith burned like a lambent flame, and to win to thestandard of the Maid of Orleans one who would listen was a duty owedher, and a rare chance to aid a fellow mortal.

He rose and brushed the cigarette ashes down the front of his frayedcassock as an old native woman responded to his call and broughtanother bottle of Bordeaux. The _nonos_ were incessantly active. Islapped at them constantly and sucked at the wounds they made. Buthe paid no attention to them at all except when they attacked himunder his soutane; then he struck convulsively at the spot.

"God sends us such trials to brighten our crown," he saidcomfortingly. "I have seen white men dead from the _nonos_. Theywere not here in the old days, but since the jungle has overrun usbecause of depopulation, they are frightful. During the mass, whenthe priest cannot defend himself, they are worst, as if sent by thedevil who hates the holy sacrifice. But, _mon vieux_, you wereasking about those signs. _Alors_, I will give the facts to you, andyou can judge."

He poured me a goblet of the wine; I removed my cotton coat, coveredmy hands with it, against the gadflies, and prepared to listen.

"Seven years before the great anniversary," said Père Simeon,sipping his wine, "I thought out my plan. There would be masses,vespers, benedictions, litanies, and choirs. But my mind was setupon a representation of the Maid as she rode into Rheims to crownthe king after her victories. She was, you will remember, clothedall in white armor and rode a white horse, both the emblems of purity.That was the note I would sound, for I believe too much had beenmade of Joan the warrior, Joan the heroine, and not enough of Joanthe saint. Oh, _Monsieur_, there have been evil forces at work there!"

He clasped his thigh with both hands and groaned, and I knew thatthough a _nono_ had bitten him there, his anguish was more of soulthan body. I lighted his cigarette, as he proceeded:

"Two things were needful above all; a handsome white horse and aMarquesan girl of virtue. Three years before the jubilee I wasenabled, through a gift inspired by Joan, to buy a horse of thatkind in Hiva-oa. I had this mare pastured on that island until thetime came for bringing her here.

"Now as to the girl, I found in the nun's school a child who wasbeautiful, strong, and good. Her father was the captain of a foreignvessel and had dwelt here for a time; he was of your country. Of themother I will not speak. The girl was everything to be desired. Butthis was seven years before the day of the fête. That was adifficulty.

"I stressed to the good sisters the absolute necessity of bringingup the child in the perfect path of sanctity. I had her dedicated toJoan, and special prayers were said by me and by the nuns that theevil one would not trap her into the sins of other Marquesan girls.Also she was observed diligently. For seven years we watched andprayed, and _Monsieur_, we succeeded. I will not say that it was amiracle, but it was a very striking triumph for Joan.

"That for the human; now for the beast. A month before the fête Icommissioned Captain Capriata to bring the mare to Tai-o-hae in hisschooner. The animal came safely to the harbor. She was still on deckwhen a storm arose, and Capriata thought it best for him to lift hisanchor and go to the open sea. The wind was driving hard toward theshore, and there was danger of shipwreck."

The old priest stood up and, leading me to a window, pointed to theextreme end of the horseshoe circle of the bay.

"See that point," he said. "Right there, just as Capriata swung hisvessel to head for the sea, the mare broke loose from her halter,and in a bound reached the rail of the schooner and leaped into thewaves. Capriata could do nothing. The schooner was in peril, and he,with his hand upon the wheel and his men at the sails, could onlyutter an oath. He confesses he did that, and you will find no manmore convinced of the miracle than he."

The aged missionary paused, his eyes glowing. The _nonos_ thatsettled in a swarm on his swollen, poisoned hands were nothing tohim in the rapture of that memory.

"This happened at night. Throughout the darkness the schooner stayedoutside the bay, returning only at daylight. Immediately afteranchoring, the captain hastened to inform me of the misfortune, andfound me saying mass. It was one of the few times he had ever beenin the sacred edifice."

Père Simeon smiled, and held up one finger to emphasize my attention."As soon as mass was finished, Capriata told me of what had happened,and his certainty that the mare was drowned. I fell on my knees andsaid a despairing prayer to Joan. That instant we heard a neighoutside, and rushing out of the church, we saw, cropping the grassin the mission enclosure, the white mare that was destined to bearthe figure of Joan in the celebration of her fete."

I could not restrain an exclamation of amazement. "_Vraiment?_"

"_Absolument_," answered Père Simeon. "Unbelievers might explain thatwaves swept the mare ashore, and that through some instinct shefound her way along the beach or over the hills. But that she shouldcome to the mission grounds, to the very spot where her home was tobe, though she had never seen the islands before--no, my friend, noteven the materialist could explain that as less than supernatural. Ihave sent the proofs to our order in Belgium. They will form part ofthe evidence that will one day be offered to bring about thecanonization of Joan."

"And the procession, was it successful?" I inquired.

"_Mais oui!_ It was magnificent. When it started there was a grandfanfare of trumpets, drums, fireworks, and guns. Never was theresuch a noise here since the days of battle between the whites andthe natives. There were four choirs of fifty voices each, thenatives from all these nearby islands, each with a common chant inFrench and particular _himines_ in Marquesan. I walked first withthe Blessed Sacrament; then came Captain Capriata with the banner ofthe mission, and then, proceeded by a choir, came the virgin on thewhite horse.

"She was all in silver armor, as was the mare. Two years before Ihad sent to France for the pasteboard and the silver paper, and hadmade the armor. The helmet was the _pièce de résistance_. The girlwore it as the Maid herself, and sat the horse without faltering,despite the _nonos_ and the heat. It was a wonderful day for Joanand for the Marquesas."

He sat for a moment lost in the vision.

"So it was all as you had planned?"

"_Mon ami_, it was not I, but Joan herself, to whom all honor belongs.There was a moment--Captain Capriata had taken absinthe with hismorning _popoi_, and was unsteady. He stumbled. I called to him tobreathe a prayer to his patron saint--he is of Ajaccio inCorsica--and to call upon Joan for aid. He straightened up at once,after one fall, and bore the white banner of the Maid in good stylefrom the mission to the deserted inn by the leper-house.

"We had three superb feasts, one on each day of the fête. We hadspeeches and songs, three masses a day to accommodate all, fourfirst communicants, and two marriages. I will tell you, though itmay be denied by the commercial missionaries, that five protestantsattended and recanted."

Père Simeon's eyes flashed as he recalled those memorable days. Hefell into a reverie, scratching his legs after the _nonos_ andletting his cigarette go out.

I arose to depart. He must go to Huapu with the chief, who was againat the door,

"And did the fête help the parish?" I asked with that bromidic zealto please that so often discloses the fly just when the ointment'ssmell is sweetest.

"Alas!" he replied, with a sorrowful shake of his beard. "Even thegirl who had worn the white armor leaped from the mast of a ship toescape infamy and was drowned. Yet there was grandeur of sacrifice inthat. But for the others, they die fast, too. Some day the priestwill be alone here without a flock."

He picked up a garment or two, placed the Holy Sacrament with piouscare in his breast, and we walked together through the mournful anddecaying village, passing a few melancholy natives.

I said to Père Simeon as he stepped into the canoe, "You are like ashepherd who pursues his sheep wherever they may wander, to gatherthem into the fold at last."

"_C'est vrai_," he smiled sadly. "The bishop himself had to go toHiva-oa from here, because there were really not enough people leftalive for the seat of his bishopric. At least, there will be somehere when I die, for I am old. Ah, thirty years ago, when I came here,there were souls to be saved! Thousands of them. But I love the lastone. There are still a hundred left on Huapu. There is work yet, forthe devil grows more active yearly."

CHAPTER XXV

America's claim to the Marquesas; adventures of Captain Porter in1812; war between Haapa and Tai-o-hae, and the conquest of Typeevalley.

America might have been responsible for the death of the Marquesanrace had not the young nation been engaged in a deadly struggle withGreat Britain when an American naval captain, David Porter, seizedNuka-hiva. A hundred years ago the Stars and Stripes floated overthe little hill above the bay, and American cannon upon it commandedthe village of Tai-o-hae. Beneath the verdure is still buried theproclamation of Porter, with coins of the young republic, unless thenatives dug up the bottle after the destruction of the last ofPorter's forces. They witnessed the ceremony of its planting, whichmust have appeared to them a ritual to please the powerful gods ofthe whites. Unless respect for the _tapu_ placed on the bottle by"Opotee" restrained them, they probably brought it to the light andexamined the magic under its cork.

The adventures of Porter here were as strange and romantic as thoseof any of the hundreds of the gypsies of the sea who sailed thistropic and spilled the blood of a people unused to their ways andignorant of their inventions and weapons of power.

Porter had left the United States in command of the frigate _Essex_,to destroy British shipping, capture British ships, and Britishsailors. Porter, son and nephew of American naval officers, destinedto be foster-father of Farragut, the first American admiral, andfather of the great Admiral Porter, was then in his early thirtiesand loved a fight. He harried the British in the Atlantic, doubledCape Horn without orders, and did them evil on the high seas, and atlast, with many prisoners and with prize crews aboard his captures,he made for the Marquesas to refresh his men, repair his ships, andget water, food, and wood for the voyage home.

In Tai-o-hae Bay he moored his fleet, and was met by flocks offriendly canoes and great numbers of the beautiful island women, whoswam out to meet the strangers. Among them he found Wilson, anEnglishman who had long been here and who was tattooed from head tofoot. On first seeing this man Porter was strongly prejudicedagainst him, but found him extremely useful as an interpreter, andconcluded that he was an inoffensive fellow whose only failing was astrong attachment to rum. With Wilson's eagerly offered help, Portermade friends with the people of Tai-o-hae, established a camp onshore, and set about revictualing his fleet.

The tribes of Tai-o-hae, or Tieuhoy, as Porter called it, wereannoyed by the combative Hapaa tribe, or collection of tribes, whichdwelt in a nearby valley, and these doughty warriors came withinhalf a mile of the American camp, cut down the breadfruit trees, andmade hideous gestures of derision at the white men. In response,Porter landed a six-pound gun, tremendously heavy, and said that ifthe Tai-o-hae tribe would carry it to the top of a high mountainoverlooking the Hapaa valley, he would drive the Hapaas from thehills where they stood and threatened to descend.

To Porter's amazement, the Tai-o-hae men, surmounting incredibledifficulties, laid the gun in position, and as the Hapaas scornedthe futile-looking contrivance and declared that they would not makepeace with the whites, Porter sent his first assistant with forty men,armed with muskets and accompanied by natives carrying these weaponsand ammunition for the cannon.

The battle began with a great roar of exploding gunpowder, and fromthe ships the Americans saw their men driving from height to heightthe Hapaas, who fought as they retreated, daring the enemy to followthem. A friendly native bore the American flag and waved it intriumph as he skipped from crag to crag, well in the rear of thewhite men who pursued the fleeing enemy.

In the afternoon the victorious forces descended, carrying five dead.The Hapaas, fighting with stones flung from slings and with spears,had taken refuge, to the number of four or five thousand, in afortress on the brow of a hill. Not one of them had been wounded, andfrom their impassable heights they threw down jeers and showers ofstones upon the retiring Tai-o-haes and their white allies.

This was intolerable. On the second day, with augmented forces, theAmericans stormed the height and took the fort, killing many Hapaas,who, knowing nothing of the effect of musket bullets, fought tilldead. The wounded were dispatched with war-clubs by the Tai-o-haes,who dipped their spears in the blood. Wilson said the Tai-o-haeswould eat the corpses. Porter, horrified, interrogated his allies,who denied any such horrid appetite, so that Porter was not surewhat to believe.

The Hapaas were now become lovers of the whites, and sent adeputation to complain that the Taipis (Typees), in another valley,harrassed them and, being their traditional enemies, werecontemplating raiding Hapaa Valley. The Typees were the mostterrible of all the Nuka-hivans, with four thousand fighting men,with strongest fortifications and the most resolute hearts.

The Typees were informed that they must be peaceful, also that theymust send many presents as proof of friendliness, or the white menwould drive them from their valley. The Typees replied that ifPorter were strong enough, he could come and take them. They saidthe Americans were white lizards; they could not climb the mountainswithout Marquesans to carry their guns, and yet they talked ofchastising the Typees, who had never fled before an enemy and whosegods were unbeatable. They dared the white men to come among them.

At this juncture Porter faced treachery in his own camp. He had manyEnglish prisoners captured from British ships, and these made a plotto escape by poisoning the rum of the Americans. Porter learned ofthis, and finding an American sentry asleep he shot him with his ownhand, and ordered every Englishman put in irons. He was alsotroubled by mutinies among his own men, who were loth to face anymore battles, being contented as they were with plenty of drink, thebest of food, and the passionate devotion of the native women, whothronged the camp day and night. With no light hand Porter put downrevolt and mutiny, and prepared to begin war on the Typees.

First he built a strong fort, assisted by the Tai-o-haes and Hapaas,and there he took possession of the Marquesas in the name of theUnited States. On November 19, 1813, the American flag was run upover the fort, a salute of seventeen guns was fired from theartillery mounted there and answered from the ships in the bay. Rumwas freely distributed, and standing in a great concourse ofwondering natives, with the Englishman, Wilson, at his sideinterpreting his words, Porter read the following proclamation:

 It is hereby made known to the world that I, David Porter, a captain in the navy of the United States of America, now in command of the United States frigate _Essex_, have, on the part of the United States, taken possession of the island called by the natives Nooaheevah, generally known by the name of Sir Henry Martin's Island, but now called Madison's Island. That by the request and assistance of the friendly tribes residing in the valley of Tieuhoy, as well as of the tribes residing on the mountains, whom we have conquered and rendered tributary to our flag, I have caused the village of Madison to be built, consisting of six convenient houses, a rope-walk, bakery, and other appurtenances, and for the protection of the same, as well as for that of the friendly natives, I have constructed a fort calculated for mounting sixteen guns, whereon I have mounted four, and called the same Fort Madison.

 Our rights to this island being founded on Priority of discovery, conquest, and possession, cannot be disputed. But the natives, to secure to themselves that friendly protection which their defenseless situation so much required, have requested to be admitted into the great American family, whose pure republican policy approaches so near their own. And in order to encourage these views to their own interest and happiness, as well as to render secure our claim to an island valuable on many considerations, I have taken on myself to promise them that they shall be so adopted; that our chief shall be their chief; and they have given assurances that such of their brethren as may hereafter visit them from the United States shall enjoy a welcome and hospitable reception among them and be furnished with whatever refreshments and supplies the island may afford; that they will protect them against all their enemies and as far as lies in their power prevent the subjects of Great Britain from coming among them until peace shall take place between the two nations.

There followed a list of the tribes from whom Porter had receivedpresents, to the number of thirty-one tribes, and the documentcontinued:

 Influenced by considerations of humanity, which promise speedy civilization to a race of men who enjoy every mental and bodily endowment which nature can bestow, and which requires only art to perfect, as well as by views of policy, which secure to my country a fruitful and populous island possessing every advantage of security and supplies for ships, and which of all others is most happily situated as respects climate and local position, I do declare that I have, in the most solemn manner, under the American flag displayed in Fort Madison and in the presence of numerous witnesses, taken possession of the said island for the use of the United States.

To the guileless natives, made happy with rum, listening to thenecessarily imperfect translation of these words, the ceremony maywell have been a strange magic to unknown gods, but it is notdifficult to imagine the feelings of Wilson, the tattooed Englishman,as he translated this proclamation giving the rich and happy islandsto a country at war with his own. He listened and repeated, however,with patriotic protests unuttered, and prepared to assist Porter inhis contemplated war against the Typees.

A week later one of the warships, with five boats and ten war-canoes,sailed for the Typee beach. Ten canoes of Hapaas joined them there.The tops of all the neighboring mountains were thronged with friendlywarriors armed with clubs, spears, and slings, and altogether notless than five thousand men were in the forces under Porter, amongthem thirty-five Americans with guns, which he thought enough.

The Typees pelted them with stones as they sat at breakfast, andPorter sent a native ambassador, offering peace at the price ofsubmission. He came back, running madly and bruised by his reception.Porter then ordered the advance.

The company advanced into the bushes, and were received by averitable rain of stones and spears. Not an enemy was in sight. Onall sides they heard the snapping sound of the slings, the whistlingof the stones, the sibilant hiss of the spears that at every stepfell in increasing numbers, but they could not see whence they came,and no whisper or rustle of underbrush revealed the lurking Typees.

They pushed on, hoping to get through the thicket, which Wilson hadassured them was of no great extent. Lieutenant Down's leg wasshattered by a stone, and Porter had to send a party with him to therear. This left but twenty-four white men. The native allies did nofighting, but merely looked on. They were not going to make bittererenemies of the Typees if the godlike whites could not whip them. Thesituation was desperate.

However, Porter chose to go on. They crossed a river, and in ajungle had to crawl on their hands and knees to make progress. Theythought themselves happy to make their way through this, butimmediately found themselves confronted by a high wall of rock,beyond which the enemy took their stand and showered down stones.The cartridges were almost exhausted. Porter sent four men to theship for more, and, with three men knocked senseless by stones, wasreduced to sixteen men.

There was nothing to do but run for safety, and pursued by thesneering foe, they gained the beach. Thence he sent anothermessenger to the Typees offering them another chance to surrenderand pay tribute.

The Typees returned word that they "had driven the whites before them,that their guns missed fire often, that bullets were not as painfulas stones or spears, that they had plenty of men to spare and thewhites had not. They had counted the boats, knew the number theywould carry, and laughed at the whites."

The Hapaas and other allies came down from the hills and began todiscuss the victory of the Typees, with fear in their voices and acertain disdain of the whites. Porter ordered his men into the boatsto return to the ship, but scarcely had they reached it when theTypees rushed on the Hapaas and drove them into the water. Porterreturned to Tai-o-hae.

There he saw no alternative but to whip the Typees soundly. Thistime he determined to lack no force, and to go without allies. Heselected two hundred men from his ships and prizes, and, with guides,upon a moonlight evening started to march overland to Typee Valley.

At midnight they heard the drums beating in Typee Valley. They hadhad a fearful march over mountain and dale and around yawningprecipices. Silently they had struggled on, so as to give no hint oftheir intention to Typee sentinels or even to a Hapaa village.Numbers of the Tai-o-hae had followed them, but quietly, and thesenow told Porter that the songs floating up from the Typeesettlements were rejoicings at their victory over the Whites andprayers to the gods to send rain to spoil the guns.

Porter was for descending at once, but the Tai-o-haes warned himthat the path was so steep and dangerous that even in daylight itwould take all their skill to go down it. To attempt it at nightwould be inviting death.

The Americans lay down to rest on this height, which commanded TypeeValley, and shortly rain began to fall in torrents. Cries of joy andpraise to their gods arose from the Typees. Porter and his men,huddled in puddles, unable to find shelter, and fearful that everyblast of the storm might hurl them from their slippery height, triedin vain to keep muskets and powder dry.

At daybreak they found half the ammunition useless, and themselveswearied, while the steepness of the track to the valley, and itstreacherous condition after the rain made it wise to seek the Hapaasfor rest and food. But, first, they fired a volley to let friendlytribes know they still had serviceable weapons, and as threat andwarning to the Typees. They heard the echo in the blowing ofwar-conches, shouts of defiance, and the squealings of the pigswhich the Typees began to catch for removal to the rear.

The Hapaas were none too pleasant to the whites, and had to beforced by threats to bringing and cooking hogs and breadfruit. Allday the Americans rested and prepared their arms, at night they slept,and at the next daybreak they stood again to view the scene of theirapproaching battle.

The valley lay far below them, about nine miles in length and threein width, surrounded on every side, except at the beach, by loftymountains. The upper part was bounded by a precipice many hundredfeet in height, from which a handsome waterfall dropped and formed ameandering stream that found its outlet in the sea. Villages werescattered here and there, in the shade of luxuriant cocoanut- andbreadfruit-groves; plantations were laid out in good order, enclosedwithin stone walls and carefully cultivated; roads hedged withbananas cut across the spread of green; everything spoke of industry,abundance, and happiness.

A large force of Typee warriors, gathered beside the river thatglided near the foot of the mountain, dared the invaders to descend.In their rear was a fortified village, secured by strong stone walls.Nevertheless, the whites started down, and in a shower of stonescaptured the village, killed the chief Typee warrior, and chasinghis men from wall to wall, slew all who did not escape. Few fled,however; they charged repeatedly, even to the very barrels of themuskets and pistols.

Porter realized that he would have to fight his way over every footof the valley. He cautioned conservation of cartridges, and leavingtwo small parties behind to guard the wounded, he, with the main body,marched onward, followed by hordes of Tai-o-hae and Hapaa men, whodispatched the wounded Typees with stones and spears. They burnedand destroyed ten villages one by one as they were reached, untilthe head of the valley was reached.

At the foot of the waterfall they turned and began the nine-miletramp to the bay. Again they had to meet spear and stone as theyburned temples and homes, great canoes, and wooden gods. FinallyPorter attained the fort that had stopped him during the first fight,and found it a magnificent piece of construction, of great basalticslabs, impregnable from the beach side. He saw that if he had triedthat entrance to the valley again, he would have failed as before.Only heavy artillery could have conquered that mighty stronghold.

From the beach the Americans climbed by an easier ascent into themountains, leaving a desolated valley behind them, and afterfeasting with the Hapaas, they marched back to Tai-o-hae almost deadwith fatigue.

The Typees sued for peace, and when asked for four hundred hogs sentso many that Porter released five hundred after branding them. Hehad made peace between all the tribes; war was at an end; and withthe island subdued, Porter sailed again to make war on Britishshipping.

He left behind him three captured ships in charge of three officersand twenty men, with six prisoners of war, ordering them to remainfive months and then go to Chile if no word came from him. Within afew days the natives began again to show the spirit of resistanceand were brought to courtesy by a show of force. Then anotherdifficulty arose. All but eight of the crew joined with the Englishprisoners in seizing the officers, and put Lieutenant Gamble, thecommander, with four loyal seamen, adrift in a small boat, while themutineers went to sea in one of the English ships.

The five men reached another of the ships in the bay, where theylearned that Wilson had instigated the mutiny. The worst had not come,for very soon the natives, perhaps also urged on by the Englishman,murdered all the others but Gamble, one seaman, one midshipman, andfive wounded men. Of the eight survivors, only one was acquaintedwith the management of a ship, and all were sufferings from woundsor disease. With these men Lieutenant Gamble put to sea.

After incredible hardship, he succeeded in reaching Hawaii, only tobe captured by a British frigate which a few weeks earlier hadassisted in the capture of the _Essex_ and Captain Porter. TheUnited States never ratified Porter's occupation of Nuka-hiva, andit was left for the French thirty years later to seize the group. Atabout the same time Herman Melville, an American sailor, venturedoverland into Typee Valley, and was captured and treated as a royalguest by the Typee people. He lived there many months, and heard nowhisper of the havoc wrought by his countrymen a little time before.The Typees had forgiven and forgotten it; he found them a happy,healthy, beautiful race, living peacefully and comfortably in theircommunistic society, coveting nothing from each other as there wasplenty for all, eager to do honor to a strange guest who, they hoped,would teach them many useful things.

CHAPTER XXVI

A visit to Typee; story of the old man who returned too late.

I said, of course, that I must visit Typee, the scene of Porter'sbloody raid and Herman Melville's exploits, and while I was makingarrangements to get a horse in Tai-o-hae I met Haus Ramqe,supercargo of the schooner _Moana_, who related a story concerningthe valley.

"I was working in the store of the Socéité Comerciale de l'Ocean inTai-o-hae when the _Tropic Bird_, a San Francisco mail-schooner,arrived. That was ten years ago. An old man, an American, came intoour place and asked the way to Typee.

"'Ah,' I said, 'you have been reading that book by Melville.' Hemade no reply, but asked me to escort him to the valley. We set outon horseback, and though he had not said that he had ever been inthese islands before, I saw that he was strangely interested in thescenes we passed. He was rather feeble with age, and he grew soexcited as we neared the valley that I asked him what he expected tosee there.

"He stopped his horse, and hesitated in his reply. He was terriblyagitated.

"'I lived in Typee once upon a time,' he said slowly. 'Could thereby chance be a woman living there named Manu? That was a long timeago, and I was young. Still, I am here, and she may be, too.'

"I looked at him and could not tell him the truth. It was evident hehad made no confidant of the captain or crew of the _Tropic Bird_,for they could have told him of the desolation in Typee. I hated,though, to have him plump right into the facts.

"'How many people were there in your day?' I asked him. He repliedthat there were many thousands.

"'I lived there three years,' he said. 'I had a sweetheart named Manu,and I married her in the Marquesan way. I was a runaway sailor, andone night on the beach I was captured and taken away on a ship. Ihave been captain of a great American liner for years, alwaysmeaning to come back, and putting it off from year to year. All mypeople are dead, and I thought I would come now and perhaps find herhere and end my days. I have plenty of money.'

"He seemed childish to me--perhaps he really had lost mental poiseby age. I hadn't the courage to tell him the truth. We came on itsoon enough. You must see Typee to realize what people mean to aplace.

"The _nonos_ were simply hell, but as I had lived a good many yearsin Tai-o-hae I was hardened to them. The old man slapped at themoccasionally, but made no complaint. He hardly seemed to feel them,or to realize what their numbers meant. It was when we pushed up thetrail through the valley, and he saw only deserted _paepaes_, thathe began to look frightened.

"'Are they all gone?' he inquired weakly.

"'No,' I said, 'there are fifteen or twenty here.' We came to aclearing and there found the remnant of the Typees. I questioned them,but none had ever heard of him. There had been many Manus,--the wordmeans bird,--but as they were the last of the tribe, she must havebeen dead before they were born, and they no longer kept in theirmemories the names of the dead, since there were so many, and allwould be dead soon.

"The American still understood enough Marquesan to understand theiranswers, and taking me by the arm he left the horses and led me upthe valley till he came to a spot where there were fragments of anold _paepae_, buried in vines and torn apart by their roots.

"'We lived here,' he said, and then he sat on the forsaken stonesand cried. He said that they had had two children, and he had beensure that at least he would find them alive. His misery made me feelbad, and the damned _nonos_, too, and I cried--I don't know how damnsentimental it was, but that was the way it affected me. The oldchap seemed so alone in the world.

"'It is three miles from here to the beach,' he said, 'and I haveseen men coming with their presents for the chief, walking a yardapart, and yet the line stretched all the way to the beach.'

"He could hardly ride back to Tai-o-hae, and he departed with the_Tropic Bird_ without saying another word to any one."

Typee, they told me, was half way to Atiheu and a good four miles byhorse. The road had been good when the people were many, and wasstill the main road of the island, leading through the Valley ofHapaa. My steed was borrowed of T'yonny Howard, who, though he owneda valley, poured cement for day's wages.

"What I do?" he asked, as if I held the answer. "Nobody to help mework there. I cannot make copra alone. Even here they bring men fromother place do work. Marquesan die too fast."

If T'yonny revered his father's countrymen, his horse did not. Theseisland horses are unhappy-looking skates, though good climbers andsliders.

"You don't need person go with you," said the son of the formerliving picture. "That horsey know. You stay by him."

The saddle must have been strange to the horsey, for uneasinesscommunicated itself from him to me as we set out, an uneasinessaugmented to me by the incessant vicious pricks of the ever-present_nonos_.

The way led ever higher above the emerald bay of Tai-o-hae set inthe jade of the forest, and valley after valley opened below as thetrail edged upward on the face of sheer cliffs or crossed the littleplateaus of their summits. Hapaa lay bathed in a purple mist thathid from me the mute tokens of depopulation; Hapaa that had givenPorter its thousands of naked warriors, and that now was devoid ofhuman beings.

Dipping slightly downward again, the trail lay on the rim of a deepdeclivity, a sunless gulf in which the tree-tops fell away in rankbelow rank into dim depths of mistiness. There was no sign of humanpassing on the vine-grown trail, a vague track through a melancholywilderness that seemed to breathe death and decay. A spirit of gloomseemed to rise from the shadowed declivity, from the silence of themournful wood and the damp darkness of the leaf-hidden earth.

I had given myself over to musing upon the past, but suddenly in thenarrowest part of the trail the beast I rode turned and took mycanvas-covered toes in his yellow teeth. A vague momentary flash ofhorror came over me. Did I bestride a metempsychosized man-eater, arevenant from the bloody days of Nuka-hiva? In those wicked eyes Isaw reflected the tales of transmigatory vengeance, from the wolf ofLittle Red Riding Hood to the ass that one becomes who kills aBrahman. I gave vent at the same second to a shriek of anguish andstruck the animal upon the nose, the tenderest part of his anatomywithin reach. He released my foot, whirled, cavorted, and, as Iseized a tree fern on the bank, went heels over head over the cliff.

T'yonny had said to "stay by horsey," but he could not have foreseenthe road he would take. I was sorry for him as I heard thereverberations of his crashing fall. No living thing could escapedeath in such a drop, for though the cliff down which he haddisappeared was not absolutely perpendicular, it was nearly so.Peering over it, I could not see his corpse, for fern and tree-tophid all below. At least, I thought, he had surcease of all ills now.And so I descended the steep trail on foot--mostly on onefoot--until I reached the vale of Typee.

I found myself in a loneliness indescribable and terrible. No soundbut that of a waterfall at a distance parted the somber silence. Thetrail was through a thicket of ferns, trees, and wild flowers. Theperfume of _Hinano_, of the _vaovao_, with its delicate blue flowers,and the _vaipuhao_, whose leaves are scented like violets, filledthe heavy air, and I passed acres of _kokou_, which looks liketobacco, but has a yellow fruit of delicious odor. It was such agarden as the prince who woke the _Sleeping Beauty_ penetrated toreach the palace where she lay entranced, and something of the samesense of dread magic lay upon it. Humanity was not so much absent asgone, and a feeling of doom and death was in the motionless air,which lay like a weight upon leaf and flower.

The thin, sharp buzzing of the _nonos_ was incessant. They had comewhen man departed; there were none when Porter devastated the valley,nor when Melville spent his happy months here thirty years later. Onemust move briskly to escape them now, and I was pushing through thebushes that strove to obliterate the trail when I came upon a native.

He was so old that he must have been a youth in the valley when itwas visited by the American-liner captain as a boy. He was quitenude save for a ragged cincture, and his body had shrunk and puckered,and his skin had folded and discolored until he looked as if lifehad ebbed away from him and left him high and dry between the pastand the hereafter. A ragged chin beard, ashen in hue, hung below hisgaping, empty mouth. But there was a spirit in his bosom still, forupon his head he wore a circle of bright flowers to supplement thesparse locks.

His eyes were barely openable, and his face, indeed, his whole body,was a coppery green, the soot of the candlenut, black itself, butblue upon the flesh, having turned by age to a mottled and hideouscolor. Only the striking patterns, where they branched from thebiceps to the chest, were plain.

That he had been one of the great of Nuka-hiva was certain; the factwas stamped indelibly upon his person, and though worn and faded tothe ghastly green of old copper, it remained to proclaim his lineageand his rank.

"_Kaoha te iki!_" said this ancient, as he stood in the path.

"_Kaoha e!_" I saluted him.

"_Puaka piki enata_" he said further, and pointed down the trail.

What could he mean? _Puaka_ is pig, _piki_ is to mount or climb,and _enata_ is man. A great white light beat about my brow. "The pigmen climb?" Could he mean Rozinante, the steed to whom T'yonny hadentrusted me, and who had so basely deserted his trust over a cliff?

I hurried on incredulous, and, in a clearing where there were threeor four horses, beheld the suicide grazing upon the luscious grass.He had lost much cuticle, and the saddle was in shreds, but the_puaka piki enata_ was evidently in fairly good health.

The old man had slowly followed me down the trail, and he stoodwithin the doorway of a rude hut, blinking in the sun as he watchedmy movements. In the houses were altogether fewer than a dozen people.They sat by cocoanut-husk fires, the acrid smoke of which dauntedthe _nonos_.

The reason any human beings endure such tortures to remain in thisgloomy, deserted spot can only be the affection the Marquesan hasfor his home. Not until epidemics have carried off all but one ortwo inhabitants in a valley can those remaining be persuaded to leaveit.

This dozen of the Taipi clan are the remainder of the twenty Ramqesaw with the heartbroken American. They have clung to their lonely_paepaes_ despite their poverty of numbers and the ferocity of the_nonos_. They had clearings with cocoanuts and breadfruit, butthey cared no longer to cultivate them, preferring rather to sitsadly in the curling fumes and dream of the past. One old man readaloud the "Gospel of St. John" in Marquesan, and the otherslistlessly listened, seeming to drink in little comfort from theverses, which he recited in the chanting monotone of their _uta_.

Nine miles in length is Typee, from a glorious cataract that leapsover the dark buttress wall where the mountain bounds the valley, tothe blazing beach. And in all this extent of marvelously rich land,the one-time fondly cherished abode of the most valiant clan of theMarquesas, of thousands of men and women whose bodies were asbeautiful as the models for the statues the Greeks made, whosehearts were generous, and whose minds were eager to learn all goodthings, there are now this wretched dozen too old or listless togather their own food. In the ruins of a broken and abandoned_paepae_, in the shadow of an acre-covering banian, I smoked andasked myself what a Christ would think of the havoc wrought by mencalling themselves Christians.

CHAPTER XXVII

Journey on the _Roberta_; the winged co*ckroaches; arrival at a Swissparadise in the valley of Oomoa.

I sailed from Tai-o-hae for an unknown port, carried by the schooner_Roberta_, which had brought the white mare from Atuona and whoseskipper had bore so well the white banner of Joan in the processionthat did her honor. The _Roberta_ was the only vessel in thosewaters and, sailing as she did at the whim of her captain and thenecessities of trade, none knew when she might return to Nuka-hiva,so I could but accept the opportunity she offered of reaching thesouthern group of islands again, and trust to fortune or favor toreturn me to my own island of Hiva-oa.

The _Roberta_ lay low in the water, not so heavily sparred as the_Morning Star_, or with her under-cut stern, but old and battered,built for the business of a thief-catcher, and with a history asscarred as her hull and as slippery as her decks. Was she not oncethe _Herman_, and before that something else, and yet earliersomething else, built for the Russians to capture the artfulpoachers of the Smoky Sea? And later a poacher herself, and stilllater stealing men, a black-birder, seizing the unoffending nativesof these South Seas and selling them into slavery of mine orplantation, of guano-heap and sickening alien clime. Her decks haverun blood, and heard the wailing of the gentle savage torn from hisbeloved home and lashed or clubbed into submission by the superiorwhite. Name and color and rig had changed time and again, owners andmasters had gone to Davy Jones's locker; the old brass cannon on herdeck had raked the villages of the Marquesans and witnessed athousand deeds of murder and rapine.

I pulled myself aboard by a topping-lift, climbed upon the lowcabin-house, and jumped down to the tiny poop where Jerome Capriataheld the helm.

This Corsican, with his more than sixty years, most of them in thesewaters, was a Marquesan in his intuitive skill in handling hisschooner in all weather, for knowing these islands by a glimpse ofrock or tree, for landing and taking cargo in all seas. Old and worn,like the _Roberta_, he was known to all who ranged the southern ocean.What romances he had lived and seen were hidden in his grizzled bosom,for he said little, and nothing of himself.

The supercargo, Henry Lee, a Norwegian of twenty-five years, six ofwhich he had passed among the islands, set out the rum and wine anda clay bottle of water. He introduced me to Père Olivier, a priestof the mission, whose charge was in the island of Fatu-hiva. Fromhim I learned that the _Roberta_ was bound for Oomoa, a port of thatIsland.

That I had not been given the vaguest idea what our first landfallwould be was indicative of the secrecy maintained by these tradersin the competition for copra. The supply being limited, often it isthe first vessel on the spot after a harvest that is able to buy it,and captains of schooners guard their movements as an army its ownduring a campaign. The traders trust one another as a cat with amouse trusts another cat.

The priest was sitting on a ledge below the taffrail, and I spoke tohim in Spanish, as I had heard it was his tongue. His _buenos dias_in reply was hearty, and his voice soft and rich. A handsome man wasPadre Olivier, though in sad disorder. His black soutane, cut likethe woolen gown of our grandmothers, was soaking wet, and his lowrough shoes were muddy. A soiled bandana was about his head. Hisfinely chiseled features, benign and intelligent, were framed by asnow-white beard, and his eyes, large and limpid, looked benevolenceitself. He was all affability, and eager to talk about everything inthe world.

The rain, which all day had been falling at intervals, began again,and as the _Roberta_ entered the open sea, she began to kick up herheels. Our conversation languished. When the supercargo called usbelow for dinner, pride and not appetite made me go. The priestanswered with a groan. Padre Olivier was prostrate on the deck, hisnoble head on a pillow, his one piece of luggage, embroidered withthe monogram of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, the needlework of the nunsof Atuona.

"I am seasick if I wade in the surf," said the priest, in mournfuljest.

The _Roberta's_ cabin was a dark and noisome hole, filled withdemijohns and merchandise, with two or three untidy bunks in corners,the air soaked with the smells of thirty years of bilge-water,sealskins, copra, and the cargoes of island traffic. Capriata, HarryLee, and I sat on boxes at a rough table, which we clutched as the_Roberta_ pitched and rolled.

[Illustration: Near the Mission at Hanavave]

[Illustration: Starting from Hanavave for Oomoa]

When the ragged cook brought the first dish, unmistakably a catswimming in a liquid I could have sworn by my nose to be drippingsfrom an ammonia tank, I protested a lack of hunger for any food. Myruse passed for the moment, but was exposed by a flock or swarm ofco*ckroaches, which, scenting a favorite food, suddenly sprang uponthe table and upon us, leaping and flying into the plates anddrawing Corsican curses from Capriata and Norwegian maledictionsfrom Lee. I did not wait to see them throwing the invaders from thebattlements of the table into the moat of salt water and spilt winebelow, but quickly, though feebly, climbed to the deck and laidmyself beside Père Olivier, nor could cries that the enemy had beendefeated and that "only a few" were flying about, summon me belowagain.

Père Olivier and I stayed prone all night in alternate pelting rainand flooding moonlight, as a fair wind bowled us along at six knotsan hour. Padre Olivier, between naps, recited his rosary to take hismind from his woes. I could tell when he finished a decade by hisinvoluntary start as he began a new one. I had no such comfort asbeads and prayers, and the flight of those schooner griffins hadstruck me in the solar plexus of imagination.

"Accept them as stations of the cross," said the priest. "This lifeis but a step to heaven."

I replied with some comments indicating my belief that co*ckroachesbelonged on a still lower rung, and going in an opposite direction.

"I know those _blattes_, those _saligauds_," he said with sympathy."They are sent by Satan to provoke us to blasphemy. I never go below."

Those pests of insects can hardly be estimated at their truedreadfulness by persons unacquainted with the infamous habits of thenocturnal beetle of the tropics. Sluggish creatures in the temperatezone, in warm countries they develop the power of flying, andobstacles successfully interposed to their progress in countrieswhere they merely crawl are ineffectual here. They had entirepossession of the _Roberta_.

The supercargo, Lee, was not to be blamed, for he told me that oncehe had taken time in port to capture by poisonous lures a number hecalculated at eight thousand, and that within a month those who hadescaped had repopulated the old schooner as before. Then he despaired,and let them have sway. To sleep or eat among them was not possibleto me, and the voyage was a nightmare not relieved by an incident ofthe second night.

Capriata, whose feet were calloused from going bare for years, awokefrom a deep slumber that had been aided by rum, to find that theco*ckroaches in his berth had eaten through the half inch or more ofhard skin and had begun to devour his flesh. With blasphemous andblood-chilling yells he bounded on deck, where he sat treating thewounds and cursing unrestrainedly for some time before joining PèreOlivier and me in democratic slumber on the bare boards. Severalweeks later his feet had not recovered from their envenomed sores.

When eight bells sounded the hour of four, I got upon my feet and inthe mellow dawn saw a panorama of peak and precipice, dark andthreatening, the coast of Fatu-hiva and the entrance to Oomoa Bay,the southernmost island of the Marquesas, and the harbor in whichthe first white men who saw the islands anchored over three hundredyears ago.

Those Spaniards, on whose ships the cross was seen in cabin andforecastle, on gun and halberd, murdered many Marquesans at Oomoa toglut their taste for blood. The standard of death the white flewthen has never been lowered. Oomoa and Hanavave, the adjacent bayand village, were resorts for whalers, who brought a plague of illsthat reduced the population of Fatu-hiva from many thousands to lessthan three hundred. Consumption was first brought to the islands byone of these whalers, and made such alarming inroads on the peopleof Hanavave that most of the remainder forsook their homes andcrossed to the island of Tahuata, to escape the devil the white manhad let loose among them.

We sailed on very slowly after the mountains had robbed us of thebreeze, and when daylight succeeded the false dawn, we dropped ourmud hooks a thousand feet from the beach. On it we could see alittle wooden church and two dwellings, dwarfed to miniature by thegrim pinnacles of rock, crude replicas of the towers of the Alhambra,slender minarets beside the giant cliffs, which were clothed withcreeping plants in places and in places bare as the sides of aliving volcano.

The fantastic and majestic assemblage of rock shapes on the shoresof Fatu-hiva appeared as if some Herculean sculptor with disorderedbrain and mighty hand had labored to reproduce the fearful chimerasof his dreams.

The priest and I, with the supercargo, went ashore in a boat at sixo'clock, and reached a beach as smooth and inviting as that of Atuona.A canoe was waiting for Père Olivier; he climbed into it at once,his black wet robe clinging to him, and called "_Adios!_" as his menpaddled rapidly for Hanavave, where he was to say mass and hearconfessions.

Lee and I took a road lined with a wall of rocks, and passing manysorts of trees and plants entered an enclosure through a gate.

After a considerable walk through a thrifty plantation, we were infront of a European house which gave signs of comfort and taste. Atthe head of a flight of stairs on the broad veranda was a man ingold-rimmed eye-glasses and a red breechclout. His well-shaped, baldhead and punctilious manner would have commanded attention in anyattire.

I was introduced to Monsieur François Grelet, a Swiss, who had livedhere for more than twenty years, and who during that time had neverbeen farther away than a few miles. Not even Tahiti had drawn him toit. Since he arrived, at the age of twenty-four years, he had dweltcontentedly in Oomoa.

After we had chatted for a few moments he invited me to be his guest.I thought of the _Roberta_ and those two kinds of co*ckroaches, theBlatta orientalis and the Blatta germanica, who raid by night and byday respectively; I looked at Grelet's surroundings, and I accepted.While the _Roberta_ gathered what copra she could and flitted, Ibecame a resident of Oomoa until such time as chance should give mepassage to my own island.

Twenty years before my host had planted the trees that embowered hishome. With the Swiss farmer's love of order, he had neglectednothing to make neat, as nature had made beautiful, his surroundings.

"I learned agriculture and dairying on my father's farm inSwitzerland," said Grelet. "At school I learned more of their theory,and when I had seen the gay cities of Europe, I went to the newworld to live. I was first at Pecos City, New Mexico, where I hadseveral hundred acres' of government land. I brought grape-vinesfrom Fresno, in California, but the water was insufficient for thesterile soil, and I was forced to give up my land. From SanFrancisco I sailed on the brig _Galilee_ for Tahiti. I have neverfinished the journey, for when the brig arrived at Tai-o-hae I lefther and installed myself on the _Eunice_, a small trading-schooner,and for a year I remained aboard her, visiting all the islands ofthe Marquesas and becoming so attached to them that I bought landand settled down here."

Grelet looked about him and smiled.

"It isn't bad, _hein_?"

It was not. From the little cove where his boat-house stood a roadswept windingly to his house through a garden of luxuriant verdure.Mango and limes, breadfruit and cocoanut, _pomme de Cythère_, orangeand papaws, banana and alligator-pear, candlenut and chestnut,mulberry and sandalwood, _tou_, the bastard ebony, and rosewood, therose-apple with purple tasseled flowers and delicious fruit, thepistachio and the _badamier_, scores of shrubs and bushes andmagnificent tree-ferns, all on a tangled sward of white spider-lilies,great, sweet-smelling plants, an acre of them, and with them otherferns of many kinds, and mosses, the nodding _taro_ leaves and the_ti_, the leaves which the Fatu-hivans make into girdles andwreaths; all grew luxuriantly, friendly neighbors to the Swiss, setthere by him or volunteering for service in the generous way of thetropics.

The lilies, oranges, and pandanus trees yielded food for the bees,whose thatched homes stood thick on the hillside above the house.Grelet was a skilled apiarist, and replenished his melliferousflocks by wild swarms enticed from the forests. The honey hestrained and bottled, and it was sought of him by messengers fromall the islands.

Orchard and garden beyond the house gave us Valencia and Mandarinoranges, lemons, _feis_, Guinea cherries, pineapples, Barbadoescherries, sugar-cane, sweet-potatoes, watermelons, cantaloups, Chilepeppers, and pumpkins. Watercress came fresh from the river.

Cows and goats browsed about the garden, but Grelet banned pigs to asecluded valley to run wild. One of the cows was twenty-two years old,but daily gave brimming buckets of milk for our refreshment. Beefand fish, breadfruit and _taro_, good bread from American flour, rum,and wine both red and white, with bowls of milk and green cocoanuts,were always on the table, a box of cigars, packages of the veritableScaferlati Supérieur tobacco, and the Job papers, and a dozen pipes.No king could fare more royally than this Swiss, who during twentyyears had never left the forgotten little island of Fatu-hiva.

His house, set in this bower of greenery, of flowers and perfumes,was airy and neat, whitewashed both inside and out, with a broadveranda painted black. Two bedrooms, a storeroom in which he soldhis merchandise, and a workroom, sufficed for all his needs. Theveranda was living-room and dining-room; raised ten feet from theearth on breadfruit-tree pillars placed on stone, it provided a rooffor his forge, for his saddle-and-bridle room, and for the smallkitchen.

The ceilings in the house were of wood, but on the veranda he hadcleverly hung a canvas a foot below the roof. The air circulatedabove it, bellying it out like a sail and making the atmosphere cool.Under this was his dining-table, near a very handsome buffet, bothmade by Grelet of the false ebony, for he was a good carpenter as hewas a crack boatsman, farmer, cowboy, and hunter. Here we sat overpipe and cigarette after dinner, wine at our elbows, the gardenbefore us, and discussed many things.

Grelet had innumerable books in French and German, all the greatauthors old and modern; he took the important reviews of Germany andFrance, and several newspapers. He knew much more than I of historypast and present, of the happenings in the great world, art andmusic and invention, finances and politics. He could name thecabinets of Europe, the characters and records of their members, ordiscuss the quality of Caruso's voice as compared with Jean deReszke's, though he had heard neither. Twenty-two years ago he hadleft everything called civilization, he had never been out of theMarquesas since that time; he lived in a lonely valley in whichthere was no other man of his tastes and education, and he wascontent.

"I have everything I want; I grow it or I make it. My horses andcattle roam the hills; if I want meat, beef or goat or pig, I go orI send a man to kill an animal and bring it to me. Fish are in theriver and the bay; there is honey in the hives; fruit and vegetablesin the garden, wood for my furniture, bark for the tanning of hides.I cure the leather for saddles or chair-seats with the bark of therose-wood. Do you know why it is called rose-wood? I will show you.Its bark has the odor of roses when freshly cut. Yes, I have allthat I want. What do I need from the great cities?"

He tamped down the tobacco in his pipe and puffed it meditatively.

"A man lives only a little while, _hein_? He should ask himself whathe wants from life. He should look at the world as it is. Thesetraders want money, buying and selling and cheating to get it. Whatis money compared to life? Their life goes in buying and selling andcheating. Life is made to be lived pleasantly. Me, I do what I wantto do with mine, and I do it in a pleasant place."

His pipe went out while he gazed at the garden murmurous in thetwilight. He knocked out the dottle, refilled the bowl and lightedthe tobacco.

"You should have seen this island when I came. These natives die toofast. Ah, if I could only get labor, I could make this valleyproduce enough for ten thousand people. I could load the ships withcopra and cotton and coffee."

He was twenty-two years and many thousands of miles from the greatcities of Europe, but he voiced the wail of the successful man theworld over. If he could get labor, he could turn it into buildinghis dreams to reality, into filling his ships with his goods for hisprofit. But he had not the labor, for the fruits of a commercialcivilization had killed the islanders who had had their own dreams,their own ships, and their own pleasures and profits in life.

CHAPTER XXVIII

Labor in the South Seas; some random thoughts on the "survival of thefittest."

"I pictured myself cultivating many hundreds of acres when I firstcame here," said Grelet. "I laid out several plantations, and onceshipped much coffee, as good, too, as any in the world. I gatherenough now for my own use, and sell none. I grew cotton andcocoanuts on a large scale. I raise only a little now.

"There were hundreds of able-bodied men here then. I used to buyopium from the Chinese labor-contractors and from smugglers, andgive it to my working people. A pill once a day would make theMarquesans hustle. But the government stopped it. They say that thebook written by the Englishman, Stevenson, did it. We must findlabor elsewhere soon, Chinese, perhaps. Those two Paumotans broughtby Begole are a godsend to me. I wish some one would bring me ahundred."

The two Paumotan youths, Tennonoku and Kedeko-lio, lay motionless onthe floor of the veranda twenty feet away. They had been sold toGrelet for a small sum by Begole, captain of a trading-schooner. Inpassing the Paumotan Islands, many hundred miles to the south,Begole had forgotten to leave at Pukatuhu, a small atoll, a few bagsof flour he had promised to bring the chief on his next voyage, andthe chief, seeing the schooner a mile away, had ordered these boys toswim to it and remind the skipper of his promise. Begole meanwhilehad caught a wind, and the first he knew of the message was when theboys climbed aboard the schooner many miles to sea. He did nottrouble to land them, but brought them on to the Marquesas and soldthem to Grelet.

They spoke no Marquesan, and Grelet had difficulty in making themunderstand that they must labor for him, and in enforcing his orders,which they could not comprehend. There was little copra being madein the rainy weather, and they lay about the veranda or squattedon the _paepae_ of the laborers' cookhouse, making a fire ofcocoanut-husks twice a day to roast their breadfruit. Their savagehearts were ever in their own atoll, the home to which the nativeclings so passionately, and their eyes were dark with hopelesslonging. No doubt they would die soon, as so many do when exiled,but Grelet's copra crop would profit first.

The dire lack of labor for copra-making, tree-planting, or any formof profitable activity is lamented by all white men in thesedepopulated islands. Average wages were sixty cents a day, but evena dollar failed to bring adequate relief. The Marquesan detests labor,which to him has ever been an unprofitable expenditure of life anddid not gain in his eyes even when his toil might enrich whiteowners of plantations. Since every man had a piece of land thatyielded copra enough for his simple needs, and breadfruit and fishwere his for the taking, he could not be forced to work except forthe government in payment for taxes.

The white men in the islands, like exploiters of weaker raceseverywhere in the world, were unwilling to share their profits withthe native. They were reduced to pleading with or intoxicating theMarquesan to procure a modicum of labor. They saw fortunes to bemade if they could but whip a multitude of backs to bending for them,but they either could not or would not perceive the situation fromthe native's point of view.

In America I often heard men who were out of employment,particularly in bad seasons, in big cities or in mining camps, arguethe right to work. They could not enforce this alleged natural right,and in their misery talked of the duty of society or the state inthis direction. But they were obliged to content themselves with thethin alleviation of soup-kitchens, charity wood-yards, and othereasers of hard times, and with threats of sabotage or other violence.

Here in the islands, where work is offered to unwilling natives, theemployers curse their lack of power to drive them to the copraforests, the kilns and boats. Thus, as in highly civilized countrieswe maintain that a man has no inherent or legal right to work, inthese islands the employer has no weapon by which to enforce toil.But had the whites the power to order all to do their bidding, theywould create a system of peonage as in Mexico.

An acquaintance of mine in these seas took part in, and profitedlargely by, the removal to a distant place of the entire populationof an island on which the people had led the usual life of thePolynesian. He and his associates sold three hundred men toplantation labor, which they hated and to which they wereunaccustomed. Within a year two hundred and fifty of them had diedas fast as disease could sap their grief-stricken bodies. Theirformer home, which they died longing to see again, was made afeeding-place for sheep. The merchants reaped a double toll. Theywere paid well for delivering the owners of the land to theplantations, and in addition they got the land.

Now, my acquaintance is a man of university education, a quoter ofHaeckel and Darwin, with "survival of the fittest" as his guidingmotto since his Jena days. Says he, quoting a Scotchman:

"Tone it down as you will, the fact remains that Darwinism regardsanimals as going up-stairs, in a struggle for individual ends, oftenon the corpses of their fellows, often by a blood-and-ironcompetition, often by a strange mixture of blood and cunning, inwhich each looks out for himself and extinction besets the hindmost."

Further says my stern acquaintance, specially when in his cups:

"The whole system of life-development is that of the lower providingfood for the higher in ever-expanding circles of organic existence,from protozoea to steers, from the black African to the educated andemploying man. We build on the ribs of the steers, and on the backsof the lower grade of human."

Scientific books have taken the place of the Bible as aquotation-treasury of proof for whatever their reader most desiresto prove. Now I am no scientist and take, indeed, only the casualinterest of the average man in the facts and theories of science.But it appears to me that in his theory of the survival of thefittest my acquaintance curiously overlooks the question of man'sown survival as a species.

If we are to base our actions upon this cold-blooded and inhumanview of the universe, let us consider that universe as in factinhuman, and having no concern for man except as a species of animalvery possibly doomed to extinction, as many other species of animalhave been doomed in the past, unless he proves his fitness tosurvive not as an individual, but as a species.

Now man is a gregarious animal; he lives in herds. Thecharacteristic of the herd is that within it the law of survival ofthe fittest almost ceases to operate. The value of a herd is thatit* members protect each other instead of preying upon each other.Nor, in what we are pleased to call the animal kingdom, do herds ofthe same species prey upon each other. They rather unite for theprotection of their weaker members.

So far as I am informed, mankind is the only herd of which this isnot true. Cattle and horses unite in protecting the young and feeble;sheep huddle together against cold and wolves; bees and ants workonly for the welfare of the swarm, which is the welfare of all. This,we are told, is the reason these forms of life have survived. Butship officers beat sailors because sailors have no firearms and fearcharges of mutiny. Policemen club prisoners who are poorly dressed.Employees make profits from the toil of children. Strong nationsprey on weak peoples, and the white man kills the white man and theblack and brown and yellow man in mine, plantation, and forest theworld over.

He defends this murder of his own kind by the pat phrase "survivalof the fittest." But man is not a solitary animal, he is a herdanimal, and within the herd nature's definition of fitness does notapply. The herd is a refuge against the law of tooth and fang.Importing within the herd his own interpretation of that law, man isdestroying the strength of his shelter. By so much as one man preysupon or debases another man, he weakens the strength of the man-herd.And for man it is the herd, not the individual, that must meet thatstern law of "the survival of the fittest" on the vast impersonalarena of the universe.

"Bully 'Ayes was the man to make the Kanakas work!" said Lying BillPincher. "I used to be on Penryn Island and that was 'is old 'ang-out.'Ayes was a pleasant man to meet. 'E was 'orspitable as a 'ungryshark to a swimming missionary. Bald he was as a bloomin' crab,stout and smiling.

"'E 'ad two white wives a-setting in his cabin on the schooner, andthey called it the parlor. Smart wimmen they was, and saved 'is lifefor 'im more 'n once. 'E 'd get a couple of chiefs on board bydeceiving 'em with rum, and hold 'em until 'is bloomin' schooner waschock-a-block with copra. The 'ole island would be working itself todeath to free the chiefs. Then when 'e 'ad got the copra, 'e 'dsteal a 'undred or two Kanakas and sell 'em in South America.

"'E was smart, and yet 'e got 'is'n. 'Is mate seen him coming overthe side with blood in his eye, and batted 'im on 'is conch as 'isleg swung over the schooner's bul'ark. 'Ayes dropped with 'is knifebetween 'is teeth and 'is pistols in both 'ands.

"'E'd murdered 'undreds of white and brown and black men, and 'e wassmart, and 'e got away with it. But 'e made the mistake of nothaving made a friend of 'is right 'and man."

CHAPTER XXIX

The white man who danced in Oomoa Valley; a wild-boar hunt in thehills; the feast of the triumphant hunters and a dance in honor ofGrelet.

Grelet had gone in a whale-boat to Oia, a dozen miles away, tocollect copra, and I was left with an empty day to fill as I chose.The house, the garden, and the unexplored recesses of Oomoa Valleywere mine, with whatever they might afford of entertainment oradventure. Every new day, wherever spent, is an adventure, but whento the enigmatic morning is added the zest of a strange place, itmust be a dull man who does not thrill to it.

I began the day by bathing in the river with the year-old Tamaiti,Grelet's child. Her mother was Hinatiaiani, a laughing, beautifulgirl of sixteen years, and the two were cared for by Pae, a woman offorty, ugly and childless. Hinatiaiani was her adopted daughter, andPae had been sorely angered when Grelet, whose companion she hadbeen for eighteen years, took the girl. But with the birth of Tamaiti,Pae became reconciled, and looked after the welfare of the infantmore than the volatile young mother.

Tamaiti had never had a garment upon her sturdy small body, andlooked a plump cherub as she played about the veranda, crawling inthe puddles when the rain drove across the floor.

"The infant has never been sick," Grelet had said. "One afternoon Iwas starting for the river to bathe, when that girl was makingherself a bed of cocoanut-leaves under the house. She said sheexpected the baby, as, when she climbed a cocoanut-tree a momentearlier, she had felt a movement. She would not lie in a bed, but,like her mother before her, must make her a nest of cocoanut-leaves.When I returned from my bath, Tamaiti was born. She was choppingwood next day--the mother, I mean."

Though scarcely a twelve-month old, the baby swam like a frog in theclear water of the river, gurgling at intervals scraps of what musthave been Marquesan baby-talk, unintelligible to me, but showingplainly her enjoyment. Something of European caution, however, stillremained with me and, perhaps unnecessarily, I picked up thedripping little body and carried her up the garden path to the housewhen I returned for breakfast. Pae received her with no concern, andgave her a piece of cocoanut to suck. I saw the infant, clutching itin one hand, toddling and stumbling river-ward again when afterbreakfast I set out for a walk up Oomoa Valley.

Oomoa was far wilder than Atuona, more lonely, with hundreds ofvacant _paepaes_. Miles of land, once cultivated, had been takenagain by the jungle, as estates lapsed to nature after thousands ofyears of man. Still, even far from the houses, delicate trees hadpreserved themselves in some mysterious way, and oranges and limesoffered themselves to me in the thickets.

The river that emptied into the bay below Grelet's plantation floweddown the valley from the heights, and beside it ran the trail, aroad for half a mile, then a track growing fainter with every mile,hardly distinguishable from the tangle of trees and bushes on eitherside. Here and there I saw a native house built of bamboo and matting,very simple shelters with an open space for a doorway, but wholesome,clean, and, to me, beautiful. I met no one, and most of the hutswere on the other side of the river, but from one nearer the track avoice called to me, "_Kaoha! Manihii, a tata mai!_ Greeting, stranger,come to us!"

The hut, which, by measurement, was ten feet by six, held six womenand girls, all lying at ease on piles of mats. It was a rendezvousof gossips, a place for siestas and scandal. One had seen and hailedme, and when I came to their _paepae_, they all filed out andsurrounded me, gently and politely, but curiously. Obviously theyhad seen few whites.

The six were from thirteen to twenty years of age, four of themstrikingly beautiful, with the grace of wild animals and the bright,soft eyes of children. Smiling and eager to be better acquaintedwith me, they examined my puttees of spiral wool, my pongee shirt,and khaki riding-breeches, the heavy seams of which they felt anddiscussed. They discovered a tiny rip, and the eldest insisted thatI take off the breeches while she sewed it.

As this was my one chance to prevent the rip growing into a gulfthat would ultimately swallow the trousers, I permitted the stitchin time, and having nothing in my pockets for reward, I danced a jig.I cannot dance a step or sing a note correctly, but in thisarchipelago I had won inter-island fame as a dancer of strange andamusing measures, and a singer of the queer songs of the whites.

Recalling the cake-walks, sand-sifting, pigeon-winging, andJuba-patting of the south, the sailor's hornpipe, the sword-dance ofthe Scotch, and the metropolitan version of the tango, I did my best,while the thrilled air of Oomoa Valley echoed these words, yelled tomy fullest lung capacity:

 "There was an old soldier and he had a wooden leg, And he had no tobacco, so tobacco did he beg. Said the soldier to the sailor, 'Will you give me a chew?' Said the sailor to the soldier, 'I'll be damned if I do! Keep your mind on your number and your finger on your rocks, And you'll always have tobacco in your old tobacco box.'"

Dancing and singing thus on the flat stones of the _paepae_ of thesix Fatu-hiva ladies, I gave back a thousand-fold their aid to mydisordered trousers. They laughed till they fell back on the rocks,they lifted the ends of their _pareus_ to wipe their eyes, and theydemanded an encore, which I obligingly gave them in a song I hadkept in mind since boyhood. It was about a young man who took hisgirl to a fancy ball, and afterward to a restaurant, and though hehad but fifty cents and she said she was not hungry, she ate the menufrom raw oysters to pousse-café, and turned it over for more.

It went with a Kerry jig that my grandfather used to do, and ifgrandfather, with his rare ability, ever drew more uproariousapplause than I, it must have been a red-letter day for him, even inIreland. My hearers screamed in an agony of delight, and othersdwelling far away, or passing laden with breadfruit and bananas,gathered while I chortled and leaped, and made the mountain-sidering with Marquesan bravos.

With difficulty I made my escape, but my success pursued me."_Menike haka!_" came the cry from each house I passed, for the newshad been called over the distance, and to the farthest reaches ofthe valley it was known that an American, the American who had comeon the _Roberta_, with a box that wrote, was dancing along the route.

As in the old days of war or other crisis, the cry had been raised,and was echoed from all directions, and from hut to cocoanut-tree tocrag the call was heard, growing fainter and more feeble, dyinggradually from point to point, echoing farther and yet farther in thedistance. This was the ancient telegraph-system of the islanders, bywhich an item of information sped in a moment to the most remoteedges of the valley. Unwittingly, in my gratitude, I had raised it,and now I pursued my way in the glare of a pitiless publicity.

I was met almost immediately by a score of men and women who hadleft the gathering of fruit or the duties of the household to greetme. Fafo, the leader, besought me earnestly to accompany them to aneighboring _paepae_ and dance for them.

He had the finest eyes I have ever seen in a man's head, dark brown,almond-shaped, large and lustrous, wells of melancholy. There wassomething exquisite about the young man, his lemon-colored skin, hisdelicate hands and feet, his slender, though strong, body, and hisregular, brilliant teeth. Some Spanish don had bred him, or somemoody Italian with music in his soul, for he was a Latin in face andfigure. His eyes had that wistfulness as they sought mine which theTahitians have put well in one of their picture-words, _ano-ano'uri_,"the yearning, sorrowful gaze of a dog watching his master at dinner."

A belated shrinking from renown, however, made me reject his pleas,and perceiving a pool near at hand, I softened refusal by asuggestion that we bathe. The pool, I learned, was famous in thevalley, for one could swim forty feet in it, and on the other sidethe hill rose straight, with banana-trees overhanging the water fortyfeet above. We climbed this rocky face and dived into the wateragain and again, rejoicing in its coolness and in that sheer pagandelight of the dive, when in the air man becomes all animal, freedfrom every restraint and denied every safeguard save the strength ofhis own muscle and nerve.

We saw at last, on the edge of the bank, one of Grelet's dogs,whining for attention. He was badly wounded in two places, blooddripped on the rocks from open cuts three inches long, and one pawhung helpless, while with eager cries and beseeching looks he urgedus to avenge him in his private feud with a boar. Assured of ourinterest, he stayed not to be comforted or cured, but hobbledeagerly up the trail, begging us with whines to accompany him.

Five men and several other dogs followed the wounded hound, and Iwent with them. The Marquesans had war-clubs and long knives likeundersized machetes. Every Islander carries such a knife for cuttingunderbrush or cocoanut-stems, and usually it is his only tool forbuilding native houses, so that he becomes very expert with it, asthe Filipino with his bolo or the Cuban with his machete.

For several hours we climbed the slopes, until we came upon a narrowtrail cut in the side of a cliff, a path perhaps two feet wide, withsheer wall of rock above and abrupt precipice below. On this thechief hunter stationed himself and two men while the others scoutedbelow. This leader was a man of sixty, tattooed from toes to scalpon one side only, so that he was queerly parti-colored, and cappingthis odd figure, he wore a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles. Hemotioned to me to take my place in a niche of the cliff, where Icould stand and sweep the trail with my eyes, secure from assault.He had given directions to the others and intended to provide for mea rare sight, and to gain for himself a trifle of the glory that hadbeen his as a young man in wars against neighboring valleys.

For an hour we waited and smoked, hearing from time to time theclamor of men and dogs in the thickets below. The common way ofhunting boars, said the chief, was to chase them through the woodsand kill them by throwing tomahawks at them. This method allows thehunter to have a tree always within a short run, and about thesetrees he dodges when pursued, or if too closely pressed, climbs one.It is dangerous sport, as only a cool and experienced man can drivea knife into a vital part of a boar in full career, and no wound innon-vital parts will cause the desperate beast even to falter.

Gradually the cries of the men and the barking of the dogs grewnearer, and suddenly, bursting from the bushes some distance downthe trail, we saw ten bristling hogs. They had been driven upwarduntil they reached the artificial shelf, and behind them hounds andhunters cut off all escape.

"_Apau! Aia oe a!_" shouted the rear-guard as the boars took thetrail. "Lo! Prepare to strike!"

The three slayers gripped their clubs and braced their feet. I wasabove the chief, who was the last of the trio. Where he planted hisfeet, the path was most narrow, so that two could not pass. Hisknife was in his _pareu_, which, to leave his legs unhampered, he hadrolled and tucked in until it was no more than a G-string. Hismuscles were like the cordage of the _faufee_--the vine thatstrangles--and his chest like a great buckler, half blue and halfcopper.

"_Peo! Pepo! Huepe! Huope!_" yelled the scouts, in the "tally-ho!"cry of Marquesan, and the boars struck the trail with hatred hot intheir eyes and with gnashing tusks.

The three slayers were five hundred feet apart. The first struck atall ten, as singly they rushed past him. Three he stopped. Thesecond man laid prostrate four. The three remaining were, naturally,the fittest. They were huge, hideous, snarling beasts, bared teethgleaming in a slather of foam, eyes bloodshot and vicious. The oldchief saw them coming; he saw, too, that I had shrunk to a plasteron the wall while he faced the danger like a warrior in thespear-test of their old warfare.

"_Aia! Aia!_" he said to encourage me. His club of ironwood, itsedge sharp and toothed, he grasped with both hands; he widened hisfoothold and threw his body forward to withstand a shock. Hecalculated to an inch the arrival of the first boar, and swung his_u'u_ on its head with precision. The boar crumpled up and felldown the hillside. The second he struck as unerringly, but the thirdhe chose to kill with his knife.

[Illustration: _Feis_, or mountain bananasMan in _pareu_, native loin cloth]

[Illustration: Where river and bay meet at Oomoa, Island of Fatu-hiva]

He laid down the _u'u_ and drew the knife with one motion, and asthe powerful brute rushed at him, stepped aside in the split secondbetween his gauge of its position and its leap. His knife was thruststraight out. It met the boar with perfect and delicate accuracy.The beast fell, quivered a moment, and lay still.

It was a perfection of butchery, for one slash of those tusks,ripping the chief's legs, and he would have been down, crashing overthe cliff, and dead. I was almost in chants of admiration for hisnerve and accuracy.

"Ah, if this had been war, and these had been enemies!"

The dead boars were slung on poles, but a half dozen had to be lefton branches of trees for the morrow, and it was late in the day whenwe reached Grelet's house for the feast.

Pae, the elder woman of the household, received us joyously. In themaster's absence she had become a different being from the sulky,contrary one I had seen while he was at home. Usually she andHinatiaiani, the mother of the baby, ate their food squatting besidethe cook-house; they rarely came upon the veranda, never sat upon achair, and never were asked to our table. Now they were incomplete possession of the house and Pae was transformed into ajolly soul, her kinsfolk about her on the veranda and the bottlesemptying fast. She celebrated our arrival with the boars by bringingout two quarts of _crème de menthe_ and a bottle of absinthe, sothat the mice with the big cat away played an uncorking air rightmerrily.

All was now a bustle of preparation for the feast. While manyprepared the earth-oven for the pig, the head cook made fire intheir primitive way, using the fire-plough of _purau_-wood bracedagainst a pillar of the veranda. Meantime the oven was dug, sides andbottom lined with stones, and sticks piled within it for the fire. Atop layer of stones was placed on the flames and when it had grownred-hot, the pig was pulled and hauled over it until the bristleswere removed. The carcass was then carried to the river, theintestines removed, and inside and outside thoroughly washed in aplace where the current was strong.

The oven was made ready for its reception by removing the upperlayer of stones and the fire, and placing banana-leaves all aboutthe bottom and sides, in which the pig, his own interior filled withhot stones wrapped in leaves, was placed, with native sweet-potatoesand yams beside him. More leaves covered all, and another layer ofred hot stones. A surface of dirt sealed the oven.

A young dog was also part of the fare, and was cooked in the samemanner as the pig. The Marquesans are fond of dogs. This particularone had been brought to this valley from another and was not onfriendly terms with any of his butchers. In fact, his death was duemore to revenge than to hunger for his flesh. He had bitten the legof a man who lived in the upper part of Oomoa, and when this man camelimping to the banquet, he brought the biter as his contribution.

Those who would turn up their noses at Towser must hear Captain Cook,who was himself slain and dismembered in Hawaii:

"The flesh of the South Sea Dog is a meat not to be despised. It isnext to our English Lamb."

Personally I am willing to let it be next to lamb at every meal, andI shall always take its neighbor, but it argues a narrow taste notto concede that the dishes of our foreign friends may have a relishall their own. Dog has been a Maori tidbit for thousands of years.It was introduced into New Zealand from these islands. Theaborigines had a fierce, undomesticated dog, which they hunted forits flesh. It was a sort of fox, but disappeared before thePolynesians reached the islands.

All Polynesians have liked dogs, liked them as pets, as they doto-day, and liked them as grub. If one asks how one can pet FidoMonday and eat him Tuesday, I will reply that we, the highest typesof civilization, pet calves and lambs, chickens and rabbits, and findthem not a whit the less toothsome. The Marquesan loves his pig aswe love our dog, cuddles him, calls him fond names, believes that hegoes to heaven,--and nevertheless roasts him for dinner.

The yams, potatoes, breadfruit, and other accompaniments of the dog,pig, and chicken were all ready at six o'clock, when cries ofdelight summoned us idlers. The earth had been cleared from the oven,the leaves removed, and the pig was lifted into the air, cooked to aturn, succulent, steaming, delicious. The feast was spread in aclearing, so that the sun, sinking slowly in the west, might filterhis rays through the lofty trees and leave us brightened by hispresence, but cool in the shadows. For me a Roman couch of mats wasspread, while the natives squatted in the comfort of men whose legsare natural.

The women waited upon us, passing all the food in leaves, in cleanlyfashion. Pae herself, though hostess, could not eat till all the menwere satisfied, for the _tapu_ still holds, though without authority.Knives nor forks hindered our free onslaught upon the edibles, andthere were cocoanut-shells beside each of us for washing our handsbetween courses, a usual custom.

_Piahi_, the native chestnuts shelled and cooked in cocoanut-milk,were an appetizer, followed by small fish, which we ate raw aftersoaking them in lime juice. There is no dish that the white man sosoon learns to crave and so long remembers when departed. Some ofthe guests did not like the sauce, but took their small fish by thetail, dripping with salt water, and ate it as one might eat celery,bones, and all.

With the main course were served dried squid and porpoise, and freshflying-fish and bonito and shrimp. The feast was complete withmangoes, oranges, and pineapples, also bananas ripened in theexpeditious way of the Marquesas. They bury them in a deep holelined with cracked candlenuts and grass and cover all with earth. Inseveral days--and they know the right time to an hour--the bananasare dug up, yellow and sweet.

[Illustration: Sacred banyan tree at Oomoa]

[Illustration: Elephantiasis of the legs]

Pae furnished a limited quantity of rum for the fete, and acocoanut-shell filled with _namu_ was passed about. Every one wasalready enthusiastic, and after several drinks of the powerfulsugar-distillation pipes were lit and palaver began. I had to tellstories of my strange country, of the things called cities, largevillages without a river through them, so big that they held _tinitini tini tini mano mano mano mano_ people, with single houses inwhich more people worked than there were in all the islands. Such ahouse might be higher than three or four cocoanut trees stood one onthe other, and no one walked up-stairs, but rode in boxes lifted byropes.

"How many men to a rope?" asked Pae.

The old men told me about their battles, much as at a reunion of theGrand Army of the Republic the veterans fight again the Civil war.One man, whose tattooing striped his body like the blue bands of aconvict's suit, said that it was the custom on Fatu-hiva for theleader or chief on each side to challenge the enemy champion.

"Our army stood thirty or forty feet away from the other army," saidhe, "and our chief stood still while the other threw his spear. Ifit struck our chief, at once the warriors rushed into battle; if itmissed, our chief had the right to go close to the other and thrusta spear through his heart. The other stood firm and proud. He smiledwith scorn. He looked on the spear when it was raised, and he didnot tremble. But sometimes he was saved by his courage, for ourchief after looking at him with terrible eyes, said, 'O man of heart,go your way, and never dare again to fight such a great warrior as I!'

"That ended the war. The other chief was ashamed, and led his mendown to their own valley. But if our chief had killed him, thenthere was war; at once we struck with the _u'u_ and ran forward withour spears. These battles gave many names to children, namesremembering the death or wounding of the glorious deeds of thewarriors. To await calmly the spear of the other chief, the headraised, the eyes never winking, to look at the spear as at a welcomegift--that was what our chiefs must do. Death was not so terrible,but to leave one's body in the hands of the foe, to be eaten, to knowthat one's skull would be hung in a tree, and one's bones made intotattoo needles or fish-hooks--! _Toomanu!_

"We are not the men we were. We do not eat the 'Long Pig' any more,but we have not the courage, the skill, or the strength. When thespears were thrown, and each man had but one, then the fight waswith the _u'u_, hand to hand and eye to eye. That was a fight of men!The gun is the weapon of cowards. It is the gun that fights, not theman.

"Our last fight we brought back four bodies. Meat spoils quickly. Wehad our feast right here where we sit now."

Excited barking of the dogs announced the arrival of Grelet withseveral men. They had rowed all the way to Oia and had sailed back,arriving by chance in time to share the abundance of our feast.After the twelve-mile pull in the blazing sun and the toilsomejourney back by night this feast was their reward, and all their pay.

Pae, reduced once more to sullen servitude, poured the rum, generousportions of it in cocoanut-shells, which the newcomers emptied asthey ate, hastening soon to join the other guests on the broadveranda, where late at night a chant began.

Half a dozen men, tattooed from toes to waist and some to the rootsof their hair, sat on a mat on the floor, all naked except for their_pareus_, the red and yellow of which shone in the light of theoil-lamps in brightening contrast to brown skins and dark blue ink.One was far gone with _fefe_, his legs almost as large as those ofan elephant. He was a grotesque in hideous green. The blue of thecandlenut-ink, in bizzare designs upon body and legs, had turned ascaly greenish hue from age and _kava_ excesses. Revealed in theyellow light, he was like a ghastly bronze monstrosity that had knownthe weathering of a century.

He was the leader of the chant and, like all the others, had drunkplenty of Grelet's rum. The pipe was passing, and Grelet took hispull at it in the circle. The chant was of the adventures of the day.The hunters and specially Namu Ou Mio, the slayer of the three boars,told of the deed of prowess on the cliff-side, while the others sangof their journey and the sea. Squatting on the mat, they bent andswayed in pantomime, telling the tales, lifting their voices inpraises of their own deeds and of the virtues of Grelet.

That thrifty Swiss, in red breech-clout and spectacles, thelamplight shining on his bald head, sat in the midst of them,familiar by a score of years with their chants. Pae filled the pipeand the bowls and joined in the chorus, while the Paumotan boys, ina shadowy recess, sipped their rum and rolled their eyes inastonished appreciation of the first joviality of their lives. Whenthe leader began the ancient cannibal chant, the song of war and offeasting at the High Place, the tattooed men forgot even the rum.The nights of riot after return from the battle, the fightingqualities of their fathers, the cheer of the fires, the heat of theovens, and the baking of the "Long Pig," and the hours when the mostbeautiful girls danced naked to win the acclaim of the multitude andto honor their parents; all these they celebrated. The leader gavethe first line in a dramatic tone, and the others chanted the chorus.Most of the verses they knew by rote, but there were improvisationsthat brought applause from all.

At midnight the man with the elephantiasis removed his _pareu_ tofree his enormous legs for dancing, and he and the others, theirhands joined, moved ponderously in a tripping circle before thecouch on which I lay. The chant was now a recital of my merits, thechief of which was that I was a friend of Grelet, that mighty manwiser than Iholomoni (Solomon), with more wives than that great king,and stronger heart to chase the wild bull. He steers a whale-boatwith a finger, but no wave can tear the helm from his grasp. Longhas he been in Oomoa, just and brave and generous has he been, andhis rum is the best that is made in the far island of Tahiti.

So passed the night and the rum, in a pandemonium of voices,gyrating tattooed bodies, flashes of red and yellow and blue _pareus_,rolling eyes, curls of smoke drifting under the gently moving canvasceiling, while from the garden came the scent of innumerable dewyflowers; and at intervals in the chanting I heard from the darknessof the bay the sound of a conch-shell blown on some wayfaring boat.

I dozed, and wakened to see Grelet asleep. Pae was still filling theemptied cocoanut-shells, and the swollen green man postured beforeme like some horrid figment of a dream. I roused myself again. Paehad locked up the song-maker, and all the tattooed men slumberedwhere they sat, the Paumotan boys with sunbonnets tied about theirheads lay in their corner, dreaming, perhaps, of their loved home onPukaruha. I woke again to find the garden green and still in thegray morning, and the veranda vacant.

The Marquesans were all in the river, lying down among the bouldersto cool their aching heads. The _fefe_ sufferer stood like aslime-covered rock in the stream. His swollen legs hurt himdreadfully. Rum is not good for _fefe_.

"Guddammee!" he said to me in his one attempt at our culturedlanguage, and put his body deep in a pool.

CHAPTER XXX

A visit to Hanavave; Père Olivier at home; the story of the lastbattle between Hanahouua and Oi, told by the sole survivor; themaking of _tapa_ cloth, and the ancient garments of the Marquesans.

Grelet said that the conch I had heard at night sounding off Oomoamust have been in a canoe or whale-boat bound for Hanavave, a valleya dozen miles away over the mountains, but only an hour or so by sea.It might have brought a message of interest, or perhaps would be aconveyance to my own valley, so in mid-forenoon we launched Grelet'swhale-boat for a journey to Hanavave.

Eight men carried the large boat from its shelter to the water,slung on two short thick poles by loops of rope through holes inprow and stern. It was as graceful as a swan, floating in the edgeof the breakers. Driving it through the surf was cautious, skilfulwork, at which Grelet was a master. Haupupuu, who built the boat, ayoung man with the features of Bonaparte and a _blase_ expression,was at the bow, and three other Marquesans, with the two Paumotanboys, handled the oars. There was no wind and they rowed all the way,spurting often for love of excitement.

We skirted a coast of almost vertical cliffs crowned by cocoas, thefaces of the rock black or covered above the waterline with vinesand plants, green and luxuriant. Long stretches of white curtainsand huge pictures in curious outlines were painted on the sablecliffs by encrusted salt. The sea surged in leaping fountainsthrough a thousand blow-holes carved from the black basalt, and theceaseless wash of the waves had cut the base of the precipices into_paniho_, or teeth, as the Marquesans say.

There were half a dozen indentations in the bleak and rugged coast,each a little valley guarded by cliffs on both sides, the naturalobstacle to neighborliness that made enemies of the clans.Inhabitants of plains are usually friendly. Mountains make feuds.

We passed the valley of Hana Ui, inhabited when Grelet came, andfull of rich cotton-fields, now a waste with never a soul in it. Wepassed Eue, Utea, Tetio, Nanifapoto, Hana Puaea and Mata Utuoa, allempty of the living; graveyards and deserted _paepaes_. Thousandsmade merry in them when the missionaries first recorded their numbers.Death hung like a cloud over the desolate wilderness of these valleys,over the stern and gloomy cliffs, black and forbidding, carved intomonstrous shapes and rimmed with the fantastic patterns made by theunresting sea.

Near Matu Utuoa was a great natural bridge, under which the oceanrushed in swirling currents, foam, and spray. Turning a shoulder ofthe cliff, we entered the Bay of Virgins and were confronted withthe titanic architecture of Hanavave, Alps in ruins, once coralreefs and now thrust up ten thousand feet above the sea. Fantasticheadlands, massive towers, obelisks, pyramids, and needles were anextravaganza in rock, monstrous and portentous. Towering structureshewn by water and wind from the basalt mass of the island rose likecolossi along the entrance to the bay; beyond, a glimpse of greatblack battlements framed a huge crater.

A dangerous bay in the lee wind with a bad holding-ground. Wemanoeuvered for ten minutes to land, but the shelving beach of blackstone with no rim of sand proved a puzzle even to Grelet. We reachedthe stones again and again, only to be torn away by the racing tide.At last we all jumped into the surf and swam ashore, except one manwho anchored the whale-boat before following us.

The canoe that had sounded the conch off Oomoa was lying on the shale,and those who had come in it were on the stones cooking breadfruit.The village, half a dozen rude straw shacks, stretched along a rockystream. Beyond it, in a few acres enclosed by a fence, were a tinychurch, two wretched wooden cabins, a tumbling kiosk, five or sixold men and women squatting on the ground amid a flock of dogs andcats. This was the Catholic mission, tumbledown and decayed,unpainted for years, overgrown by weeds, marshy and muddy, passingto oblivion like the race to which it ministered.

Grelet and I found Père Olivier sweeping out the church, cheerful,humming a cradle-song of the French peasants. He was glad to see us,though my companion was avowedly a pagan. Dwelling alone here withhis dying charges, the good priest could not but feel a common bondwith any white man, whoever he might be.

The kiosk, to which he took us, proved to be Père Olivier'seating-place, dingy, tottering, and poverty-stricken, furnished witha few cracked and broken dishes and rusty knives and forks, theequipment of a miner or sheep-herder. Père Olivier apologized for themeager fare, but we did well enough, with soup and a tin of boiledbeef, breadfruit, and _feis_. The soup was of a red vegetable, notappetizing, and I could not make out the native name for it, _huearahi_, until Grelet cried, "Ah, _j'ai trouvé le mot anglais!_Ponkeen, ponkeen!" It was a red pumpkin.

[Illustration: Removing the pig cooked in the _umu_, or native oven]

[Illustration: The _Koina Kai_ or feast in Oomoa]

"_La soupe maigre de missionaire_," murmured the priest.

I led the talk to the work of the mission.

"We have been here thirty-five years," said Père Olivier, "and I,thirty. Our order first tried to establish a church at Oomoa, butfailed. You have seen there a stone foundation that supports thewild vanilla vines? Frère Fesal built that, with a Raratongaislander who was a good mason. The two cut the stones and shaped them.The valley of Oomoa was drunk. Rum was everywhere, the palm _namu_was being made all the time, and few people were ever sober. Therewas a Hawaiian Protestant missionary there, and he was not goodfriends with Frère Fesal. There was no French authority at Oomoa,and the strongest man was the law. The whalers were worse than thenatives, and hated the missionaries. One day when the valley wascrazed, a native killed the Raratonga man. You will find the murdererliving on Tahuata now. Frère Fesal buried his assistant, and fledhere.

"That date was about the last Hanavave suffered from cannibalism andextreme sorcery. The _taua_, the pagan priest, was still powerful,however, and his gods demanded victims. The men here conspired withthe men of Hanahouua to descend on Oi, a little village by the seabetween here and Oomoa. They had guns of a sort, for the whalers hadbrought old and rusty guns to trade with the Marquesans for wood,fruit, and fish. Frère Fesal learned of the conspiracy, but the menwere drinking rum, and he was helpless. The warriors went stealthilyover the mountains and at night lowered themselves from the cliffswith ropes made of the _fau_. There were only thirty people left inOi, and the enemy came upon them in the dark like the wolf. Only oneman escaped--There he is now, entering the mission. We will ask himto tell the story."

He stood in the rickety doorway and called, "Tutaiei, come here!" Anold and withered man approached, one-eyed, the wrinkles of his faceand body abscuring the blue patterns of tattooing, a shrunken, buthideous, scar making a hairless patch on one side of his head.

"I was on the beach pulling up my canoe and taking out the fish Ihad speared," said this wreck of a man. "Half the night was spent,and every one was asleep except me. We were a little company, forthey had killed and eaten most of us, and others had died of thewhite man's curse. In the night I heard the cries of the Hanavaveand Hanahouua men who had lowered themselves down the precipice andwere using their war-clubs on the sleeping.

"I was one man. I could do nothing but die, and I was full of life.In the darkness I smashed with a rock all the canoes on the beachsave mine. In my ears were the groans of the dying, and the war-cries.I saw the torches coming. I put the fish back in my canoe, andpushed out.

"They were but a moment late, for I have a hole in my head intowhich they shot a nail, and I have this crack in my head upon whichthey flung a stone. They could not follow me, for there were nocanoes left. I paddled to Oomoa after a day, during which I did whatI have no memory of."

"They had guns?" I asked him.

"They had a few guns, but they used in them nails or stones, havingno balls of metal. Their slings were worse. I could sling a stone asbig as a mango and kill a man, striking him fair on the head, at thedistance those guns would shoot. We made our slings of the bark ofthe cocoanut-tree, and the stones, polished by rubbing against eachother, we carried in a net about the waist."

"But if that stone broke your head, why did you not die?"

"A _tatihi_ fixed my head. The nail in my leg he took out with aloop of hair, and cured the wound."

"Did you not lie in wait for those murderers?"

Tutaiei hemmed and cast down his eye.

"The French came then with soldiers and made it so that if I killedany one, they killed me; the law, they call it. They did nothing tothose warriors because the deed was done before the French came. Iwaited and thought. I bought a gun from a whaler. But the time nevercame.

"All my people had died at their hands. Six heads they carried backto feast on the brains. They ate the brains of my wife. I kept thenames of those that I should kill. There was Kiihakia, who slewMoariniu, the blind man; Nakahania, who killed Hakaie, husband ofTepeiu; Niana, who cut off the head of Tahukea, who was theirdaughter and my woman; Veatetau should die for Tahiahokaani, who wasyoung and beautiful, who was the sister of my woman. I waited toolong, for time took them all, and I alone survive of the people of Oi,or of those who killed them."

"The vendetta between valleys--called _umuhuke_, or the Vengeance ofthe Oven,--thus wiped out the people of Oi," commented Père Olivier."The skulls were kept in banian-trees, or in the houses. Frère Fesalstarted the mission here and built that little church. There wereplenty of people to work among. But now, after thirty years I havebeen here, they are nearly finished. They have no courage to go on,that is all. _C'est un pays sans l'avenir._ The family of the dyingnever weep. They gather to eat the feast of the dead, and the cryingis a rite, no more. These people are tired of life."

It was Stevenson who though that "the ending of the most healthful,if not the most humane, of field sports--hedge warfare--" had muchto do with depopulation. Either horn of the dilemma is dangerous totouch. It is unthinkable, perhaps, that white conquerors should haveallowed the Marquesans to follow their own customs of warfare. Butchanges in the customs of every race must come from within that raceor they will destroy it. The essence of life is freedom.

Any one who has read their past and knows them now must admit thatthe Marquesans have not been improved in morality by their contactwith the whites. Alien customs have been forced upon them. And theyare dying for lack of expression, nationally and individually.Disease, of course, is the weapon that kills them, but it finds itsvictims unguarded by hope or desire to live, willing to meet deathhalf way, the grave a haven.

[Illustration: Beach at Oomoa]

[Illustration: Putting the canoe in the water]

In the old days this island of Fatu-hiva was the art center of theMarquesas. The fame of its tattooers, carvers in wood and stone,makers of canoes, paddles, and war-clubs, had resounded through thearchipelago for centuries. Now it is one of the few places whereeven a feeble survival of those industries give the newcomers aglimpse of their methods and ideals now sinking, like theiroriginators, in the mire of wretchedness.

Outside the mission gates, in the edge of the jungle, Père Olivierand I came upon two old women making _tapa_ cloth. Shrunken with age,toothless, decrepit, their only covering the ragged and faded_pareus_ that spoke of poverty, they sat in the shade of abanian-tree, beating the fibrous inner bark of the breadfruit-tree.Over the hollow log that resounded with the blows of their woodenmallets the cloth moved slowly, doubling on the ground into a heapof silken texture, firm, thin, and soft.

This paper-cloth was once made throughout all the South Sea Islands.Breadfruit, banian, mulberry, and other barks furnished the fiber.The outer rough bark was scraped off with a shell, and the innerrind slightly beaten and allowed to ferment. It was then beaten overa tree-trunk with mallets of iron-wood about eighteen inches long,grooved coarsely on one side and more finely on the other. Thefibers were so closely interwoven by this beating that in thefinished cloth one could not guess the process of making. Whenfinished, the fabric was bleached in the sun to a dazzling white,and from it the Marquesans of old wrought wondrous garments.

For their caps they made remarkably fine textures, open-meshed,filmy as gauze, which confined their abundant black hair, and towhich were added flowers, either natural or beautifully preserved inwax. Their principal garment, the _cahu_, was a long and flowingpiece of the paper-cloth, of firmer texture, dyed in brilliant colors,or of white adorned with tasteful patterns. This hung from theshoulders, where it was knotted on one shoulder, leaving one arm andpart of the breast exposed. Much individual taste was expressed inthe wearing of this garment; sometimes the knot was on one shoulder,sometimes on the other, or it might be brought low on the chest,leaving the shoulders and arms bare, or thrown behind to expose thecharms of a well-formed back or a slender waist. Beneath it theywore a _pareu_, which passed twice around the waist and hung to thecalves of the legs.

Clean and neat as these garments always were, shining in the sun,leaving the body free to know the joys of sun and air and swift,easy motion, it would be difficult to imagine a more graceful,beautiful, modest, and comfortable manner of dressing.

For dyeing these garments in all the hues that fancy dictated, thewomen used the juices of herb and tree. Candlenut-bark gave a richchocolate hue; scarlet was obtained from the _mati_-berries mixedwith the leaves of the _tou_. Yellow came from the inner bark of theroot of the _morinda citrifolia_. Hibiscus flowers or delicate fernswere dipped in these colors and impressed on the _tapas_ in elegantdesigns.

The garments were virtually indestructible. Did a dress needrepairing, the edges of the rent were moistened and beaten together,or a handful of fiber was beaten in as a patch. Often for fishermenthe _tapas_ were made water-proof by added thicknesses and theemployment of gums, and waterproof cloth for wrappings was madethick and impervious to rain as the oilcloth it resembled.

Hardly one of these garments survives in the Marquesas to-day. Theyhave been driven out by the gaudy prints of Germany and Englandbrought by the traders, and by the ideas of dress which themissionaries imported together with the barrels of hideousnight-gown garments contributed by worthy ladies of American villages.

The disappearance of these native garments brought two things,idleness and the rapid spread of tuberculosis. The _tapa_ clothcould not be worn in the water or the rain, as it disintegrated.Marquesans therefore left their robes in the house when they wentabroad in stormy weather or bathed in the sea. But in their newcalicos and ginghams they walked in the rain, bathed in the rivers,and returned to sleep huddled in the wet folds, ignorant of thedanger.

As the _tapa_ disappeared, so did the beautiful carvings of canoesand paddles and clubs, superseded by the cheaper, machine-madearticles of the whites. Little was left to occupy the hands or mindsof the islanders, who, their old merrymakings stopped, their warsforbidden, their industry taken from them, could only sit on their_paepaes_ yawning like children in jail and waiting for the deaththat soon came.

The Marquesans never made a pot. They had clay in their soil, asGauguin proved by using it for his modeling, but they had no need ofpottery, using exclusively the gourds from the vines, wooden vesselshollowed out, and temporary cups of leaves.

This absence of pottery is another proof of the lengthy isolation ofthe islands. The Tongans had earthen ware which they learned tomake from the Fijians, but the Polynesians had left the mainlandbefore the beginning of this art. Thus they remained a people whowere, despite their startling advances in many lines, the leastencumbered by useful inventions of any race in the world.

Until hardly more than a hundred years ago the natives were like ourforefathers who lived millenniums ago in Europe. But being in agentler climate, they were gentler, happier, merrier, and far cleaner.One can hardly dwell in a spirit of filial devotion upon the relationof our forefathers to soap and water, but these Marquesans bathedseveral times daily in dulcet streams and found soap and emollientsto hand.

It was curious to me to reflect, while Père Olivier and I stoodwatching the two aged crones beating out the _tapa_ cloth, upon whatslender chance hung the difference between us. Far in the remotemists of time, when a tribe set out upon its wanderings from thehome land, one man, perhaps, hesitated, dimly felt the dangers anduncertainties before it, weighed the advantages of remaining behind,and did not go. Had he gone, I or any one of Caucasian blood in theworld to-day, might have been a Marquesan.

It would be interesting, I thought, to consider what the hundredthousand years that have passed since that day have given us of joy,of wealth of mind and soul and body, of real value in customs andmanners and attitude toward life, compared to what would have beenour portion in the islands of the South Seas before his white cousinfell upon the Marquesan.

CHAPTER XXXI

Fishing in Hanavave; a deep-sea battle with a shark; Red Chickenshows how to tie ropes to shark's tails; night-fishing for dolphins,and the monster sword-fish that overturned the canoe; the nativedoctor dresses Red Chicken's wounds and discourses on medicine.

Grelet returned to Oomoa in the whale-boat, but I remained inHanavave for the fishing. My presence had stimulated the waninginterest of the few remaining Marquesans, and the handful of youngmen and women went with me often to the sea outside the Bay ofVirgins, where we lay in the blazing sunshine having great sportwith spear or hook and line.

We speared a dozen kinds of fish, specially the cuttlefish andsunfish, the latter more for fun and practice than food. They arehuge masses, these pig-like, tailless clowns among the gracefulfamilies of the ocean, with their small mouths and clumsy-lookingbodies, but they made a fine target at which to launch harpoon orspear from the dancing bow of a canoe. Keeping one's balance is thefinest art of the Marquesan fisherman, and he will stand firm whilethe boat rises and falls, rolls and pitches, his body swaying andbalancing with the nice adjustment that is second nature to him. Itis an art that should be learned in childhood. Many were thesplashes into the salt sea that fell to my lot as I practised it,one moment standing alert with poised spear in the sunlight, thenext overwhelmed with the green water, and striking out on thesurface again amid the joyous, unridiculing laughter of my merrycompanions.

Wearying of the spear, we trolled for swordfish with hook and line,or used the baitless hook to entice the sportful albicore, or dolphin,whose curving black bodies splashed the sea about us. A piece ofmother-of-pearl about six inches long and three-quarters of an inchwide was the lure for him. Carefully cut and polished to resemblethe body of a fish, there was attached to it on the concave side abarb of shell or bone about an inch or an inch and a half in length,fastened by _faufee_ fiber, with a few hog's bristles inserted. Theline was drove through the hole where the barb was fastened and,being braided along the inner side of the pearl shank, was tiedagain at the top, forming a chord to the arch. Thus when thebeguiled dolphin took the hook and strained the line, he securedhimself more firmly on the barb.

This is the best fish-hook, as it is perhaps the oldest, everinvented, and I have found it in many parts of the South Seas, butnever more artfully made than here on Hanavave. It needs no bait,and is a fascinating sight for the big fish, who hardly everdiscover the fraud until too late.

The line was attached to a bamboo cane about fifteen feet long, andstanding in the stern of the canoe, I handled this rod, allowing thehook to touch the water, but not to sink. Behind me my companions,in their red and yellow _pareus_, pushed the boat through the waterwith gentle strokes of their oars. When I saw a fish approaching,they became active, the canoe raced across the sparkling sea, andthe hook, as it skimmed along the surface, looked for all the worldlike a flying fish, the bristles simulating the tail. Soon thehastening dolphin fell upon it, and then became the tug-of-war,bamboo pole straining and bending, the line now taut, now relaxing,as the fish lunged, and the paddlers watching with cries ofexcitement until he was hauled over the side, wet and flopping, afeast for half a dozen.

One never-to-be-forgotten afternoon we ran unexpectedly upon a wholeschool of dolphins a few miles outside the bay, and before the sunsank I had brought from the sea twenty-six large fish. Some of thesewere magnificent food-fish, weighing 150 to 200 pounds. We had tosend for two canoes to help bring in this miraculous draught, andall the population of the valley rejoiced in the supply of fresh andappetizing food.

The Marquesan methods of fishing are not so varied to-day as whentheir valleys were filled with a happy people delighting in allforms of exercise and prowess and needing the fish to supplement ascanty diet. For many weeks before I came, they said, no man had gonefishing. There were so few natives that the trees supplied them allwith enough to eat, and the melancholy Marquesan preferred to sitand meditate upon his _paepae_ rather than to fish, except whenappetite demanded it. There is a Polynesian word that means"hungry for fish," and to-day it is only when this word rises totheir tongues or thoughts that they go eagerly to the sea or to thetooth-like base of the cliffs.

Often we took large quantities of fish among these caves and rocksby capturing them in bags, using a wooden fan as a weapon. The sportcalled for a cool head, marvelous lungs, and skill. It was extremelydangerous, as the sharks were numerous where fish were plentiful,and the angler must needs be under the water, in the shark's owndomain.

[Illustration: Pascual, the giant Paumotan pilot and his friends]

[Illustration: A pearl diver's sweetheart]

The best hand and head for this sport in all Hanavave was a girl,Kikaaki, a name which means Miss Impossibility. She was not handsome,save with the beauty of youth and abounding health, but her widemouth and bright eyes were intelligent and laughter-loving.

Starting early in the morning, we would go to the edge of the bay,where the coral rises from the ocean floor in fantastic shapes andbuilds strange grottoes and cells at the feet of the basalt rocks.While I held the canoe, Miss Impossibility would remove her shapelesscalico wrapper, and attired only in scarlet _pareu_, her hair piledhigh on her head and tied with the white filet of the cocoanut-palm,she would go overboard in one curving dive, a dozen feet or morebeneath the sea.

When the water was quiet and shadowed by the cliffs, I could see herthrough its green translucence, swimming to the coral lairs of thefish that gleamed in the reflected, penetrating sunlight. Walking onthe sandy bottom, a hand net of straw in one hand, and a stickshaped like a fan in the other, she would cover a crevice with thenet and with the fan urge the fish into it.

Foolish as was their conduct, the fish appeared to be deceived bythe lure, or made helpless by fear, for they streamed into thereceptacle as Miss Impossibility beat the water or the coral. Shewould have seemed to me well named had I never seen her at the sport.

She would usually stay beneath the water a couple of minutes, risingwith her catch to rest for a moment or two with her hand on the edgeof the boat, breathing deeply, before she went down again. Losingsight of her among the under-water caves one day, I waited for whatseemed an eternity. I cannot say how long she was gone, for as thetime lengthened seconds became minutes and hours, while I was tornbetween diving after her and remaining ready for emergency in theboat. When at last she came to the surface, she was nearly dead withexhaustion, and I had to lift her into the canoe. She said her hairhad been caught in the branching coral, and that she had been barelyable to wrench it free before her strength was gone.

I went down with her several times, but could not master the art ofentrapping the fish, and was overcome with fear when I had enteredone of the dark caves and heard a terrible splashing nearby, as if ashark had struck the coral in attempting to enter my hazardous refuge.

Even Miss Impossibility had not the courage to face a shark; yetevery time she dived she risked meeting one. Red Chicken had killedone at this very spot a few weeks earlier. The danger even to a manarmed with a knife was that the shark would obstruct from a cave, orcome upon him suddenly from behind.

Often we had with us in the fishing a Paumotan, Pascual, the pilotof the ship _Zelee_, who was in Hanavave visiting a relative. He wasthe very highest physical and mental type of the Paumotan, ahoney-comb of good-nature, a well of laughter, and a seaman beyondcompare. To be a pilot in the Isles of the Labyrinth demands manystrong qualities, but to be the pilot of the only warship in thissea was the very summit of pilotry. He had an accurate knowledge offorty harbors and anchorages, and spoke English fluently, French,Paumotan, Tahitian, Marquesan, and other Polynesian tongues. Fromboyhood until he took up pilotage he was a diver in the lagoons forshell and in harbors for the repair of ships.

"I have killed many sharks," he said, "and have all but fed themmore than once. I had gone one morning a hundred feet. The water isalways colder below the surface, and I shivered as I pulled at apair of big shells under a ledge. It was dark in the cavern, and Iwas both busy and cold, so that as I stooped I did not see a sharkthat came from behind, until he plumped into my spine.

"I turned as he made his reverse to bite me, and passed under him,out to better light. I knew I had but a second or two to fight. Iseized his tail quickly, and as he swept around to free himself Ihad time to draw the knife from my _pareu_ and stab him. He passedover me again, and this time his teeth entered my shoulder, here--"He opened his shirt and showed me a long, livid scar, serrated, thehall-mark of a fighter of _mako_.

"But by fortune--you may be sure I called on God--I got my knifehome again, and sprang up for the air, feeling him in the waterbehind me. Twice I drove the blade into him on the way, for he wouldnot let me go. My friend in the canoe, who saw the struggle, jumpeddown to my aid, and being fresh from the air, he cut that devil topieces. I was not too strong when I reached the outrigger and hungmy weight upon it. We ate the liver of that _mako_, and damned himas we ate. I had fought him from the ledge upward at least eightyfeet of the hundred."

"_Aue!_" said Red Chicken, hearing me exclaim at the tale. "You havenever seen a man fight the _mako_? _Epo!_ To-morrow we shall show you."

On the following day when the sun was shining brightly, several ofus went in a canoe to a place beneath the cliffs haunted by thesharks, and there prepared to snare one. A rope of hibiscus was madefast to a jagged crag, and a noose at the other end was held by RedChicken, who stood on the edge of a great boulder eagerly watchingwhile others strewed pig's entrails in the water to entice a victimfrom the dark caves.

At length a long gray shape slid from the shadows and wavered belowour feet. Instantly Red Chicken slipped from the rock, slidnoiselessly beneath the water, and slipped the noose over theshark's tail before it knew that he was nearby. The others, whosehands were on the rope, tightened it on the instant, and with a yellof triumph hauled the lashing, fighting demon upon the rocks, wherehe struggled gasping until he died.

There was still another way of catching sharks, Red Chicken said,and being now excited with the sport and eager to show his skill, heinsisted upon displaying it for my benefit, though I, who find smallpleasure in vicarious danger, would have dissuaded him. For thisexploit we must row to the coral caves, where the man-eating fishstay often lying lazily in the grottoes, only their heads protrudinginto the sun-lit water.

Here we maneuvered until the long, evil-looking snout was seen; thenRed Chicken went quietly over the side of the canoe, descendedbeside the shark and tapped him sharply on the head. The fish turnedswiftly to see what teased him, and in the same split-second of time,over his fluke went the noose, and Red Chicken was up and away,while his companions on a nearby cliff pulled in the rope and killedthe shark with spears in shallow water. Red Chicken said that he hadlearned this art from a Samoan, whose people were cleverer killers ofsharks than the Marquesans. It could be done only when the shark wasfull-fed, satisfied, and lazy.

I had seen the impossible, but I was to hear a thing positivelyincredible. While Red Chicken sat breathing deeply in the canoe,filled with pride at my praises, and the others were contrivingmeans of carrying home the shark meat, I observed a number of fishswimming around and through the coral caves, and jumped to theconclusion that from their presence Red Chicken had deduced thewell-filled stomachs and thoroughly satisfied appetite of the shark.Red Chicken replied, however, that they were a fish never eaten bysharks, and offered an explanation to which I listened politely, butwith absolute unbelief. Imagine with what surprise I found RedChicken's tale repeated in a book that I read some time later when Ihad returned to libraries.

 There is a fish, the Diodon antennatus, that gets the better of the shark in a curious manner. He can blow himself up by taking in air and water, until he becomes a bloated wretch instead of the fairly decent thing he is in his normal moments. He can bite, he can make a noise with his jaws, and can eject water from his mouth to some distance. Besides all this, he erects papillae on his skin like thorns, and secretes in the skin of his belly a carmine fluid that makes a permanent stain. Despite all these defences, if the shark is fool enough to heed no warning and to eat Diodon, the latter puffs himself up and eats his way clean through the shark to liberty, leaving the shark riddled and leaky, and, indeed, dead.

Should this still be doubted, my new authority is Charles Darwin.

After his display of skill and daring--and, as I thought, vividimagination--Red Chicken became my special friend and guide, and onone occasion it was our being together, perhaps, saved his life, andafforded me one of the most thrilling moments of my own.

He and I had gone in a canoe after nightfall to spear fish outsidethe Bay of Virgins. Night fishing has its attractions in thesetropics, if only for the freedom from severe heat, the glory of themoonlight or starlight, and the waking dreams that come to one uponthe sea, when the canoe rests tranquil, the torch blazes, and thefish swim to meet the harpoon. The night was moonless, but the seawas covered with phosphorescence, sometimes a glittering expanse oflight, and again black as velvet except where our canoe moved gentlythrough a soft and glamorous surface of sparkling jewels. A nightfor a lover, a lady, and a lute.

Our torch of cocoanut-husks and reeds, seven feet high, was fixed atthe prow, so that it could be lifted up when needed to attract thefish or better to light the canoe. Red Chicken, in a scarlet _pareu_fastened tightly about his loins, stood at the prow when we hadreached his favorite spot off a point of land, while I, with a paddle,noiselessly kept the canoe as stationary as possible.

Light is a lure for many creatures of land and sea and sky. The mothand the bat whirl about a flame; the sea-bird dashes its bodyagainst the bright glass of the lonely tower; wild deer come to seewhat has disturbed the dark of the forest, and fish of differentkinds leap at a torch. Red Chicken put a match to ours when we wereall in readiness. The brilliant gleam cleft the darkness and sentacross the blackness of the water a beam that was a challenge to thecuriosity of the dozing fish. They hastened toward us, and RedChicken made meat of those who came within the radius of his harpoon,so that within an hour or two our canoe was heaped with half a dozenkinds.

Far off in the path of the flambeau rays I saw the swordfish leapingas they pursued small fish or gamboled for sheer joy in the luminousair. They seemed to be in pairs. I watched them lazily, withacademic interest in their movements, until suddenly one rose ahundred feet away, and in his idle caper in the air I saw a bulk soimmense and a sword of such amazing size that the thought of dangerstruck me dumb.

He was twenty-five feet in length, and had a dorsal fin that stoodup like the sail of a small boat. But even these dimensions cannotconvey the feeling of alarm his presence gave me. His next leapbrought him within forty feet of us. I recalled a score of accidentsI had seen, read, and heard of; fishermen stabbed, boats rent,steel-clad ships pierced through and through.

Red Chicken held the torch to observe him better, and shouted:

"_Apau!_ Look out! Paddle fast away!"

I needed no urging. I dug into the glowing water madly, and thesound of my paddle on the side of the canoe might have been heardhalf a mile away. It served no purpose. Suddenly half a dozen of theswordfish began jumping about us, as if stirred to anger by our torch.I called to Red Chicken to extinguish, it.

He had seized it to obey when I heard a splash and the canoereceived a terrific shock. A tremendous bulk fell upon it. With asudden swing I was hurled into the air and fell twenty feet away. Inthe water I heard a swish, and glimpsed the giant espadon as heleaped again.

I was unhurt, but feared for Red Chicken. He had cried out as thecanoe went under, but I found him by the outrigger, trying to rightthe craft. Together we succeeded, and when I had ousted some of thewater, Red Chicken crawled in.

"_Papaoufaa!_ I am wounded slightly," he said, as I assisted him."The Spear of the Sea has thrust me through."

The torch was lost, but I felt a big hole in the calf of his rightleg. Blood was pouring from the wound. I made a tourniquet of astrip of my _pareu_ and, with a small harpoon, twisted it until theflow of blood was stopped. Then, guided by him, I paddled as fast asI could to the beach, on which there was little trouble in landingas the bay was smooth.

Red Chicken did not utter a complaint from the moment of his firstoutcry, and when I roused others and he was carried to his house, hetook the pipe handed him and smoked quietly.

"The Aavehie was against him," said an old man. Aavehie is the godof fishermen, who was always propitiated by intending anglers in thepolytheistic days, and who still had power.

[Illustration: Spearing fish in Marquesas Islands]

[Illustration: Pearl shell divers at work]

There was no white doctor on the island, nor had there been one formany years. There was nothing to do but call the _tatihi_, or nativedoctor, an aged and shriveled man whose whole body was an intricatepattern of tattooing and wrinkles. He came at once, and with hisclaw-like hands cleverly drew together the edges of Red Chicken'swound and gummed them in place with the juice of the _ape_, abulbous plant like the edible _taro_. Red Chicken must have sufferedkeenly, for the _ape_ juice is exceedingly caustic, but he made noprotest, continuing to puff the pipe. Over the wound the _tatihi_applied a leaf, and bound the whole very carefully with a bandage of_tapa_ cloth folded in surgical fashion.

About the mat on which Red Chicken lay the elders of the villagecongregated in the morning to discuss the accident and tell taleswhile the pipe circulated. One had seen his friend pierced throughthe chest by a sword-fish and instantly killed. Numerous incidentsof their canoes being sunk by these savage Spears of the Sea wererecited by the wise men who, with no books to bother them or writtenrecords to dull their memories, preserved the most minuterecollections of important events of the past.

For my part, on the subject of the demoniacal work of the swordfish,I regaled them with accounts of damage wrought to big ships; of howa bony sword had penetrated the hull of the _Fortune_, of Plymouth,cutting through copper, an inch of under-sheathing, a three-inchplank of hard wood, twelve inches of solid, white-oak timber, twoand a half inches of hard oak ceiling, and the head of an oil cask;of the sloop _Morning Star_, which had to be convoyed to port with aleak through a hole in eight and a half inches of white oak; of theUnited States Fish Commission sloop, _Red Hot_, rammed and sunk; ofthe British dreadnaught, which was pumped to Colombo where the leakmade by the fish was found, and 15,000 francs insurance paid.

"Our fathers never went fishing until they had implored the favor ofthe gods," said Red Chicken. "I am a Catholic, but it may be the seais so old, older than Christ, that the devils there obey the oldgods we used to worship. If that largest Spear of the Sea that wesaw had attacked me or our boat, he would have killed us and sunkthe canoe, for he was four fathoms long, and his weapon was as tallas I am."

The _tatihi_ nodded his head gravely. His soul was still in thekeeping of the gods of his fathers, and-he saw in Red Chicken'swound the vengeance of the un-appeased Aavehie.

I was amazed to find that Red Chicken had no fever, and wasrecovering rapidly. Without modern medicine or knowledge of it, the_tatihi_ had healed the sufferer, and I drew him on to talk of hisskill.

His surgical knowledge was excellent; he knew the location of thevital organs quite accurately from frequent cutting up of bodies foreating. He had treated successfully broken bones, spear-woundsthrough the body, holes knocked in skulls by the vicious, egg-sizedsling-stones. If the skull was merely cracked, with no smashing ofthe bone, he drilled holes at the end of each crack to preventfurther cleavage and, replacing the skin he had folded back, boundthe head with cooling leaves and left nature to cure the break. Ifthere was pressure on the brain or a part of the skull was in bits,his custom was to remove all these and, trimming the edges of thehole in the brainpan, to fit over it a neat disk of cocoanut-shell,return the scalp, and nurse the patient to health.

He had known of cases when injured brain matter was replaced withpig-brains, but admitted that the patient in such cases became firstviolently angry and then died. Lancing boils and abscesses withthorns had been his former habit, but he favored a nail for thepurpose nowadays.

Fearing lest fever should attack Red Chicken, he had prepared adecoction from the hollow joints of the bamboo, which headministered in frequent doses from a cocoanut-shell. It wasmilk-white, and became translucent in water, like that beautifulvariety of opal, the hydrophane. There was a legend, said the_tatihi_, that the knowledge of this medicine had been gleaned froma dark man who had come on a ship many years before, and with thisclue I recognized it as _tabasheer_, a febrifuge long known in India.

A fire had been built outside the straw hovel in which Red Chickenlay, and stones were heating in it, so that if milder medicine didnot avail the patient might be laid on a pile of blazing stonescovered with protecting leaves, and swathed in cloths untilperspiration conquered fever. The patient would then be rushed to thesea or river and plunged into cold water.

But this procedure was not necessary. Red Chicken got well rapidly,and in a few days was walking about as usual, though with athoughtful look in his eye that promised a soul-struggle with PèreOlivier, whose new gods had not protected the fisherman against thegods of the sea.

CHAPTER XXXII

A journey over the roof of the world to Oomoa; an encounter with awild woman of the hills.

Père Olivier tried to dissuade me from walking back to Oomoa, andoffered me his horse, but I determined to go afoot and let Orivie, anative youth, be my mounted guide. Orivie is named for Père Olivier;there being no "l" in the Marquesan language, the good priest's nameis pronounced as if spelled in English Oreeveeay.

The horse, the usual small, tough mountain-pony, was caught, andupon him we strapped the saddle with cow-skin stirrups, hairy and big,and a rope bridle. Orivie, handsomely dressed in wrinkled denimtrousers, a yellow _pareu_ and an aged straw hat, mounted the beast,and bidding farewell to the friends I had made, we began to climbthe trail through the village.

At each of the dozen houses we passed I had to stop and say _Kaoha_to the occupants. In these islands there is none of that coldnesstoward the casual passer-by which is common in America, where onemay walk through the tiniest village and receive no salutation unlessthe village constable sees a fee in arresting the wayfarer for nothaving money or a job. All the elders were tattooed, and as everyisland and even every valley differed in its style of skin decoration,these people had new patterns and pictures of interest to me. I madeit a point to linger a little before each house, praising theappearance of these tattooed old people, both because it pleasedthem and because it is a pity that this national art expressionshould die out at the whim of whites who substitute nothing for it.By this deprivation, as by a dozen others, the Marquesans have beenrobbed of racial pride and clan distinction, and their social lifedestroyed.

Despite this delay, Orivie and I were soon past the houses. Aspopulation has decreased in all the valleys the people have moveddown from the upper heights to districts nearer the sea, forneighborliness and convenience. Only a few in some places haveremained in the further glens, and these are the non-conformists, whor*tain yet their native ways of thought and living and their ancientcustoms. This I knew, but I pursued my way behind the climbinglittle horse, enjoying the many sights and perfumes of the jungle,in happy ignorance of an experience soon to befall me with one ofthese residents of the heights. It fell upon me suddenly, the mostembarrassing of several experiences that have divided me betweenfear and laughter.

Perhaps a mile above the village, in a wilderness of shrubbery, trees,and giant ferns, we came upon a cross-trail, a thin line of travelhardly breaking the dense growth, and saw a woman appear from amongthe leaves. She was large, perhaps five feet, ten inches, tall; aJuno figure, handsome and lithe. Such a woman of her age, abouttwenty-two years, does the work of a man, makes copra, fells trees,lifts heavy stones, and is a match for the average man in strength.She was dark, as are all Marquesans who live a hardy and vigorouslife unsheltered from sun and wind, and in the half shadow of theforest she seemed like an animal, wild and savage. Her scarlet_pareu_ and necklace of red peppers added color to a picture thatstruck me at once as bizarre and memorable.

The horse had passed her, and turning about in the saddle Oriviereplied to her greeting, while I added a courteous "_Kaoha!_" Shelooked at me with extraordinary attention, which I ascribed to mywhite ducks and traveling cap, while she asked who I was. Oriviereplied that I was a stranger on my way over the mountains. Sheadvanced into the main trail then, letting slip from her shoulders aweight of packages, tea, and other groceries, and suddenly embracedme, smelling my face and picking me up in a bear hug that, startledas I was, nearly choked me.

"Take care!" cried Orivie, in a tone between alarm and amusem*nt. Ibacked hastily away, and sought to take refuge beside a boulder, butshe vaulted after me, and seizing me again, resumed her passionateattack.

"She is a woman of the mountains! She will take you away to her_paepae_!" my excited guide yelled warningly.

That was her intention. There was no doubt about it. She seized meby the arm and tried to drag me away from the boulder to which Iclung. For several moments I was engaged in a struggle more sincerethan chivalrous on my part and ardently demonstrative on hers. Butas I absolutely would not accede to her desire to give me a home inthe hills, she was forced to give up hope after a final embrace,which I ended rudely, but scientifically. Rising to her feet again,she picked up her burden, which must have weighed fully a hundredpounds, and went her way.

"She is a _hinenao pu_," said Orivie. That means literally a coquettewithout reason. I did not seek for double meaning in the remark, butexpressed my opinion of all _hinenaos_ as I replaced my cap andreadjusted my garments.

"These women of the heights are all like that," said my guide."They have no sense and no shame. If they see a stranger near theirhome, they will seize him, as men do women. If they are in the mood,they will not take no for an answer. It has always been their custom,as that of the hill men capturing the valley women. It is shameful,but it has never changed. She would give you food and treat you withkindness as a man does his bride. You know, in the old days thestrong women had more than one husband; sometimes four or five, andthey chose them in this way. If you were nearer where Tepu lives,she would make you a prisoner. They have often done that."

"Do we go near her home?" said I.

"No; we see no more _paepaes_," replied Orivie.

"Then," I said, "let us hasten onward."

We mounted at every foot, and soon were above the cocoanuts. Thetrail was a stream interspersed with rocks, for in these steepaccents the path, worn lower than its borders, becomes in the rainyseason the natural bed of the trickle or torrent that runs to thevalley. The horse leaped from rock to rock, planting his back feetand springing upward to a perch, upon which he hung until he gotbalance for another leap. I followed the animal, knowing him wiserin such matters than I. From time to time Orivie urged me to rideand when I refused gave me the knowing look bestowed upon the witless,the glance of the asylum-keeper upon the lunatic who thinks himselfa billiard ball.

We were soon so high that I saw below only a big basin, in which wasa natural temple, the vast ruin of a gigantic minster, it seemed,and across the basin a rugged, saw-like profile of the mountain-top.Eons ago the upper valley was a volcano, when the island ofFatu-hiva was under the sea. Once the fire burst through the craterside toward the present beach, and after the explosion there wasleft a massive gateway of rock, through which we had come from thevillage. Towering so high that they were hardly perceptible when wehad been beside them, they showed from this height their wholeformation, like the wrecked walls of a stupendous basilica.

Up and up we went. The way was steeper than any mountain I have everclimbed, except the sheer sides of chasms where ropes are necessary,or the chimneys of narrow defiles. I have climbed on foot Vesuvius,Halaakela, Kilauea, Fuji, and Mayon, and the mountains of America,Asia, and South America, though I know nothing by trial of theterrors of the Alps. However, the horse could and did go up the steep,though it taxed him to the utmost, and these horses are likemountain-goats, for there is hardly any level land in the Marquesas.

[Illustration: Catholic Church at HanavaveFrère Fesal on left, Père Olivier on right]

[Illustration: A canoe in the surf at Oomoa]

Unexpectedly, the sea came in view, with the Catholic church and itswhite belfry, but in another turn it disappeared. I fell again andagain; the horse floundered among the stones in the trough and fell,too, Orivie seizing trees or bushes that lined the banks to savehimself. Rocks as large as hundred-ton vessels were on themountainside above, held from falling only by small rocks interposed,feeble obstacles to an avalanche. Beetling precipices overhung thevillage. I thought they might fall at any moment, and the Marquesansrecount many such happenings. In Tai-o-hae three hundred nativeswere entombed forever by a landslide, and Orivie pointed out thetracks of such slides, and immense masses of rock in the far depthsbelow, beside strips of soft soil brought down by the rains.

The wild guava and the thorny _keoho_, the taro, the pandanus andthe banian, all the familiar and useful trees and plants were leftbehind. We toiled onward in a wilderness of stone.

I climbed around the edge of a precipice, and stood above the sea.The blue ocean, as I looked downward, was directly under my eyes,and I could see the fishing canoes like chips on the water. It was athousand feet straight down; the standing-place was but three feetwide, wet and slippery. The mighty trade-wind swept around the cragsand threatened to dislodge me.

That demoniacal impulse to throw oneself from a height tookpossession of me. Almost a physical urging of the body, as if somehidden Mephistopheles not only poured into the soul his hellishadvice to end your life, but pushed you to the brink. As neverbefore the evil desire to fall from that terrible height attacked me,and the world became a black dizziness. Struggling, I threw out myhand; the unconscious grip upon a stunted fern, itself no barrieragainst falling, gave me a mental grip upon myself, and the crisiswas passed.

On hands and knees I crept around the ledge, for the wind was a gale,and a slip of a foot might mean a drop of a fifth of a mile.

The next valley, Tapaatea, came in view, and Hanavave a cleft in themountains, the stream a silver cord. A cascade gleamed on theopposite side against the Namana hills. It is Vaieelui, the youthOrivie informed me, as we went higher, still on the dangerous ledgethat binds the seaward precipice. All the valleys converged to apoint, and nothing below was distinct.

Higher we went, and were level with the jagged ridge of the Faeonemountains toward the north, and could look through the piercedmountain, Laputa; through the hole, _tehavaiinenao_, that is like around window to the sky, framed in black, about which legends areraised. Orivie smiled indulgently as I explained to him that thathole was made by sea-currents when Laputa was under the ocean. Heknew that a certain warrior, half god and half man, threw his spearthrough the mountain once upon a time.

We came then to the veriest pitch of the journey, like the roof ofthe world, and it was necessary to crawl about another ledge thatpermitted a perpendicular view of 2500 feet, so desperate in itsattraction that had I known the name of that saint who is the patronof alpenstock buyers I would have offered him an _ave_. This was theapex. Once safely past it, the trail went downward to a plateau.

I caught up with Orivie and the horse, and my muscles so rejoiced atthe change of motion in descent that almost involuntarily I took afew steps of a jig and uttered the first verses of "I Only Had FiftyCents." Mosses and ferns by the billion covered every foot of thesmall plateau. There were no trees. The trail was a foot deep inwater, like an irrigation ditch. One still might easily break one'sneck. And I reflected that Père Olivier crosses many times a yearbetween Oomoa and Hanavave, in his black soutan and on his wearyhorse, in all weathers, alone; it is a fact to treasure forrecalling when one hears all missionaries included in the accusationof selfishness that springs so often to the lips of many men.

We reached the plane of cocoanuts, and I asked Orivie to fetch downa couple, after essaying to perform that feat myself and failingdismally besides scratching my nose and hands. Bare feet are arequisite--bare and tough as leather. The Marquesans cut notches inthe trees after they reach maturity, to make the climbing easier, acustom they have in many parts of Asia, but not in Tahiti. Thesefootholds are made every three feet on opposite sides. They are cutshallowly, inclining downward and outward, in order not to wound thewood of the tree or to form pockets in which water would collect androt it. With these aids they climb with ease, using a rope of_purau_ bark tied about the wrists, and by these they pullthemselves from notch.

I have seen a child of six years reach the top of a sixty-foot treein a minute or so, and I have seen a man or woman stop on the way,fifty feet from the earth, and light a cigarette. Slim, fat, chiefsor commoners, all learn this knack in infancy. Men who puff alongthe road because of their bulk will attain the branches of a palmwith the agility of monkeys.

Orivie had no notches to assist him, but tied his ankles togetherwith a piece of tough vine, leaving about ten inches of play, andwith this band, pressed tightly against the tree, giving firmsupport while his arms, clasping the trunk above, drew him upward ayard at a time, he was at the crest of a fifty-foot tree in a minute,and threw down two drinking nuts. They were as big as foot-balls andweighed about five pounds each. We had no knife, but broke in thetops with stones, and holding up the shining green nuts, let thewine flow down our throats. Never was a better thirst-quencher orheartener! The hottest noon on the hottest beach, when the coralburns the feet, this nectar is cool. After the most arduous climb,when lungs and muscles ache with weariness, it freshens strength andlifts the spirit.

By the cocoanut-grove ran a level stream shaded with pandanus, andfollowing it, we commenced again to mount on a pathway arched bysmall trees, down which the stream coursed. The cocoanuts fell awayas we went up the ridge and emerged upon a tableland covered withferns, some green and some dead and dry, carpeting the flat expanseas far as eye could see with a mat of lavender, the green and thebrown melting into that soft color.

We were further on the broad roof on the mountains, in the middlenow and not on the edge, so we ran and galloped and shouted. Wildhorses fled from us, and we heard the grunt of boar in the fernthickets. The fan-palms, dwarfs, but graceful, intermingled withmagnificent tree-ferns, while above them curved the _huetu_, theimmense mountain plantain, called _fei_ in Tahiti, where they arethe bread of the people; they have ribbed, emerald leaves, as big asa man. Feeders of dark people in many lands for thousands of years,theirs is the same golden fruit I had eaten at breakfast with PèreOlivier, three thousand feet below. They grow only in the mountains,and the men who bring them into the villages have feet shaped like ahand spread out to its widest, with toes twisted curiously byclimbing rocks and grasping roots for support.

The rain began to fall again, and the wind came stronger, but now wewere going down in earnest. The sea shone again, but it was on theOomoa side. We passed under trees hung with marvelous orchids, the_puaauetaha_, Orivie said, parasitic vines related to the vanillaas the lion is related to the kitten, cousins, but with littlefamily likeness.

The trail became very dangerous at this point, a rocky slide, withsteps a foot or two apart like uneven stairs, and all a foot, orsometimes two, under running water. I jumped and slid and slipped,following the unhappy plunging horse. Darkness came on quickly withthe blinding rain, and the descent was often at an angle offorty-five degrees, over rocks, eroded hills, along the edge of aprecipice. I fell here, and saved myself by catching a root in thetrail and pulling myself up again. I would have dropped upon the roofof the gendarme's house a thousand feet below.

We heard the sound of the surf, and letting the horse go, Orivie ledme, by that sense we surrender for the comforts of civilization,down the bed of a cascade to the River of Oomoa, which we waded, andthen arrived at Grelet's house. We had come thirteen miles. I wastired, but Orivie made nothing of the journey.

Covered with mud as I was, I went to the river and bathed in therain and, returning to the house, looked after my health. A halfounce of rum, a pint of cocoanut-milk from a very young nut, thejuice of half a lime just from the tree, two lumps of sugar, and Ihad an invigorating draught, long enough for a golf player afterthirty-six holes, and delicate enough for a debutante after herfirst cotillion. The Paumotan boys and Pae looked on in horror,saying that I was spoiling good rum.

CHAPTER XXXIII

Return in a canoe to Atuona; Tetuahunahuna relates the story of thegirl who rode the white horse in the celebration of the féte of Joanof Arc in Tai-o-hae; Proof that sharks hate women; steering by thestars to Atuona beach.

The canoe we had followed to Hanavave stopped in Oomoa on its way toHiva-oa, my home, for I had bargained with Tetuahunahuna, its owner,for my conveyance to Atuona. Grelet would eventually havetransported me, but so great was his aversion to leaving Fatu-hivathat I felt it would be asking too much of him. He reminded me thatKant, the great metaphysician, had lived eighty years in hisbirthplace and never stirred more than seven miles from it.

The canoe had come to Hanavave to bring back two young women. Onewas dark, a voluptuous figure in a pink satin gown over a lacepetticoat. A leghorn hat, trimmed with shells and dried nuts, satcoquettishly upon her masses of raven hair. Upon her neck, roundedas a young cocoanut-tree, was a necklace of pearls that an empressmight have envied her, had they been real and not the synthetic giftof some trader. Small and shapely feet, bare, peeped from under herfilmy frills. Her eyes were the large, limpid orbs of the typicalMarquesan, like sepia, long-lashed; her nose straight and perfect,her mouth sensuous and demanding. Ghost Girl, her name signified,and she flitted about the islands like a sprite.

"She levies tribute on all whom she likes," said Grelet. "Herdevotions are rum and tobacco." On meeting me she squatted and spatthrough her fingers to show her thirst, as do all Marquesans whosemanners have not been corrupted by strangers.

The other girl, younger, in a scarlet tunic with a wreath ofhibiscus flowers on her head, startled me by appearing with all herbody that I could see colored a brilliant yellow. She had deckedherself for the journey with a covering of _ena_-paste, perfumedwith saffron, a favorite cosmetic of island beauties.

The sun was white on Oomoa beach as we came down to it from thegrateful shade of Grelet's plantation. Against the blinding glimmerof it the half-naked boatsmen, bearing bunches of bananas, dozensof drinking nuts, bread, and wine, the gifts of my host, were darksilhouettes outlined against the blue sea.

Behind them walked Tetuahunahuna. Calm, unburdened, and without atattoo mark on his straight brown body, he looked the commander ofmen that he was, a man whose word none would think to question or todoubt. Indifferent alike to the dizzying heat and to the admiringglances of the women, he set at once to ordering the loading of theboat that lay upon the sands beyond the reach of the breakers.

A dozen women lounged in the ancient public place beneath the baniantree, a mighty platform of black stone on which the island women hadsat for centuries to watch their men come and go in canoes to thefishing or to raids on neighboring bays, and where for decades theyhave awaited the landing of their white sailor lovers.

"_Tai, menino!_ A pacific sea!" they called to us as we passed them,and their eyes followed with envy the progress of Ghost Girl andSister of Anna.

The boat was already well loaded when I reached it. The fermentedbreadfruit wrapped in banana-leaves, the pig dug from the pit thatmorning and packed in sections of bamboo, the calabashes of riverwater, the bananas and drinking nuts, were all in place. Withdifficulty my luggage was added to the cargo, and we found crampedplaces for ourselves and bade farewell to Grelet, while the oarsmenheld the boat steady at the edge of the lapping waves. Tetuahunahuna,watching the breakers, gave a quick word of command, and we plungedthrough the foam.

The boat leaped and pitched in the flying spray. The oarsmen,leaping to their places, struck out with the oars. A sharp "_Haie!_"of alarm rose behind me, and I saw that an oar had snapped. ButTetuahunahuna, waist-deep in the water at our stern, gave a mightypush, and we were safely afloat as he clambered over the edge andstood dripping on the steersman's tiny perch, while the men, holdingthe boat head-on to the rolling waves, drove us safely through toopen water.

Outside the bay they put by their oars and we waited for a breeze togive the signal for hoisting mast and sail. The beach lay behind us,a narrow line of white beyond the whiter curve of surf. The blue skyburned above us, and to the far shimmering horizon stretched theblue calm of a windless sea.

We rolled idly, the sun scorching us. In an hour I was so hot that Ibegan to wonder if I could endure the torment. The buckle on mytrousers burned my flesh, and I could not touch my clothes withoutpain. The Marquesans lay comfortably on the seats and bundles,enjoying their pandanus-leaf cigarettes. Every few moments thebow-oar skillfully rolled one, took a few puffs and handed it to thenext man, who, after taking his turn, passed it down the waiting line.

From time to time Tetuahunahuna, squatting in the stern, made a sign,and a fresh cigarette passed untouched through eight hands to his.He smoked serenely, gazing at the smooth swells of water and waitingwith inexhaustible patience for the wind. At his feet thefifteen-year-old girl, Sister of Anne, disposed her saffron-coloredbody upon oars laid across the thwarts and slept. Ghost Girl, besideme, laid her glossy head in my lap to doze more comfortably.

Jammed against the unyielding thwarts, I passed miserable hours,unable to move more than a few inches in the narrow space. At noon,with the vertical eye of the evil sun staring down upon us, myclothes were so hot that I had to hold them off my body. I meditatedleaping into the ocean and swimming awhile. Ghost Girl saw myintention when I stirred, and pulled me back beside her.

"_Mako!_" she cried. "_Puaa hae!_" She pointed to starboard. A grayfin moved slowly through the water twenty feet away. "A shark, and awicked beast he is!" She reached to pick up an opened cocoanut andtossed some of the milk over her shoulder to appease the demon."_Mako!_" she repeated. "_Puaa hae!_"

"_Requin!_" echoed Tetuahunahuna in French. "The devil of theMarquesas!"

"But you are not afraid of them. You swim where they are," said I.

"Few of us are bitten by sharks," said Tetuahunahuna, sizing up apuff of wind that brought a faint hope. It died, and he continued."We are often in the sea, and do not fear the _mako_ enough to makeus weak against him. I have killed many with a knife. I have tiedropes about their bellies and made them feel silly as we pulled themin. I have tickled their bellies with the point of the knife thatslit them later. They are awkward, they must turn over to bite, andthey are afraid of a man swimming. But they are devils, and hatewomen. They do not like men, but women they will go far to kill."

He took the cigarette Ghost Girl handed him and, squatting on therudder deck, looked at me to see if I were interested. Wretched as Ifelt, I returned his glance, and said "_Tiatohoa?_" which means,"Is that so?" and showed that I was attentive.

"It is so," he replied. "There are reasons for this. In times beforethe memory of man a shark-god was deceived by a woman. In his angerhe overturned an island, but this did not appease his hate. Sincethat time all sharks have preyed on women."

Sister of Anne moved restlessly in her sleep and put her_ena_-covered feet across my knees, feet as hot as an ironpump-handle on a July noon.

"_Hakaia!_" exclaimed Ghost Girl, and hung the feet over the side.

"Sharks will let men live to kill women," Tetuahunahuna resumed."There are many proofs of this, but most convincing is a happeningthat every one in Tai-o-hae and Nuka-hiva knows, because it happenedonly a few years ago. I saw that happening."

I looked at him with attention, and after a few puffs of smoke hecontinued.

"You may think, you who use the Iron Fingers That Make Words, thatthe shark does not know the difference between men and women. I haveseen it, and I will tell you honestly. I have thought often of it,for all who live in Tai-o-hae know that woman, and her foster-sistersits there with the _ena_ upon her. She does not lie in the cemetery,this girl of whom I speak, nor is her body beside that of herfathers in the _ua tupapau_. Her name was Anna, a name for yourcountry, _fenua Menike_, for her father was captain of a vessel withthree masts that came from Newbeddifordimass, a place where all theMenike ships that hunt the whale came from. Her mother was O Take Oho,of the valley of Hapaa, whose father was eaten by the men ofTai-o-hae in the war with that white captain, Otopotee.

"_Ue!_ Those big ships that hunt the whale come no more. The _paaoa_spouts with none to strike him. Standireili makes the lanterns burnin Menike land, and they send it here in tipoti, the big cans. Theold days are gone.

"The father of Anna saw her first when she was one year old andcould barely swim. He came in his ship from Newbeddifordimass, andhe said that it was for the last time, for the whaling was done. Hewas a young man, strong and a user of strong words, but he lookedwith pride on the little Anna, and kept her with her with her motheron his ship for many weeks, while the men of the ship danced withthe girls. He would bathe on the beach in the bay of Tai-o-hae, andthe little Anna would swim to him through the deep water. He gaveher a small silver box with a silver chain, for the _tiki_ ofBernadette, on the day that he sailed away.

"He did not come again to Tai-o-hae, nor Atuona, nor Hanavave. Weheard that he traded with Tahiti, and had given up the chase of the_paaoa_. I have never been in Tahiti. They say that it isbeautiful and that the people are joyous. They have all the _namu_they can drink. The government is good to them." Tetuahunahuna sighed,and looked at my bag, in which was the bottle of rum Grelet hadgiven me.

I poured a drink into the cocoanut-shell Ghost Girl had emptied, andgave it to him. "_Kaoha!_" he said and, having swallowed the rum,went on.

"When Anna had fourteen years she was _mot kanahua_, as beautiful asa great pearl. She was tall for her age as are the daughters of thegreat. Her hair was of red and of gold, like that of Titihuti ofAutuona. Her eyes were the color of the _mio_, the rosewood whenfreshly cut, and her breasts like the milk-cocoanut husked fordrinking.

"Many young men, Marquesan men and all the white men, and GeorgeWashington, the black American, tried to capture Anna, but PèreSimeon, the priest, had given her to the blessed Maria Peato, andthe Sisters guarded her carefully. From the time she played naked onthe beach she wore the tiki of Bernadette in the silver box givenher by her father, and she said the prayers Père Simeon taught herfrom the book. She wore a blue _pareu_, and that was strange, foronly old people, and few of them, wear any but the red or yellowloin-cloth. But blue, said little Anna, is the color of Maria Peato,mother of Christ."

The others were listening curiously. Ghost Girl crossed herself andmuttered, "_Kaoha_, Maria Peato!"

"When she had fourteen years, then, Anna was different from allother girls on these beaches. All men sighed for her, but she wasone who would not follow the custom of our girls since always. Shewas made different by her mother, by the prayers of Père Simeon, andby something strange in her _kuhane_--what do you say? Soul. Shecared nothing for drink or _pipi_, the trinkets girls adore. Shespoke of herself always as the daughter of a Menike captain, afather who would come for her and take her away. Her mother had keptthis always in her mind, and Anna never joined the dances.

"Her mother, who lived on the beach and waited for the sailors, sawher seldom, for Père Simeon had taken Anna away, and kept her in thenuns' house, and they guarded her. He had put a _tapu_ upon her."

I sat up suddenly, struck by a memory. "It was she who rode thewhite horse, and bore the armor of Joan in the great parade?"

"It was she. The nuns would have had her live in the nun's houseforever, and become one of them. But Anna told me on the beach whenshe came hiding to see her mother, that she would live in the nuns'house only until her Menike father came to take her away. She keptthe _tiki_ of Bernadette in its silver box upon her neck, and it washer god to whom she said her prayers."

"_Epo!_" I said, sitting up, dumfounded. "Go on, Tetuahunahuna. Tellme more."

"There came the great day of the blessed Joan," said Tetuahunahuna,after tasting a fresh cigarette. "There were drums and chants, andrum for all. Père Simeon took away the rum, alas! and only theMenike sailors on the ships could have enough. Anna wore a garmentthat shone like the sun on the waves, and sat upon a white horse,riding from the mission to the House of Lepers on the beach. PèreSimeon walked before her carrying the tiki of the Sacrament, andthere were banners white as the new web of the cocoanut. Anna didnot look to right or to left as she sat upon the horse, but when shestood on the sand by the House of Lepers, she looked long at a newship in the bay.

"Anna said that this ship might be that of her white father, but thename was different, and this ship was not from Newbeddifordimass.She said she would swim to this ship to see her father, but hermother said no. Her mother told her that the waters were full ofsharks, and that not even a _tiki_ of Bernadette would save her.Then came the nuns, and took Anna away. Anna wept as she went withthem, for she desired to stay and look at the ship.

"That night the boats of the ship could not land on the beach ofTai-o-hae, for the sea was too great, so that they came and wentfrom Peikua, the staircase in the rocks. The sailors had leave to dowhat they wished and they had plenty of rum given them by the captainwho was born that day forty years before. I went then to the ship todrink the captain's rum and to buy tobacco. I am of Hiva-oa, and theship was large, and new to me."

Tetuahunahuna's gesture brought quickly to him a fresh cigarette,and he savored its rank smoke with satisfaction. The slender canoeswung like a hammock in the long, sluggish rollers. The sun blazedpitilessly upon us, and no slightest ruffle of white broke thesurface of the calm, unrelenting sea that held us prisoner.

"At night there was nobody on the ship not drunk. Some of the menhad seized several women on the road that leads to Tai-o-hae, andhad forced them to the boat and carried them aboard. Among thesewomen was Anna, who had fled from the nuns to seek word of her father.She fought like a wild woman of the hills when they held her in jestto make her swallow the rum, but the strong ship men conquered her,and the sound of their laughter and her cries was so great that thecaptain himself came forward. When he saw her he claimed her as theyoungest, as is the custom.

"She went with him weeping. When they came to his cabin, we heardher crying aloud to Maria Peato. We heard the shouts of the captain,enraged, subduing her with blows. There was much rum, and the womenwere dancing. There was much noise, but I had drunk little, havingjust come to the ship, and I heard the crying and weeping of Anna."

"After a time came Anna, running across the deck. It was a largevessel, and it was a dark night. The captain pursued her. Sheclimbed the rigging, and the captain ordered two men to go aloft andbring her to him.

[Illustration: The gates of the Valley of Hanavave]

[Illustration: A fisherman's house of bamboo and cocoanut leaves]

"Every one came to look, with yells and with songs. The sailorsclimbed after her, and she went higher and higher, until near thetop of that tall mast, taller than the greatest cocoanut-tree inAtuona. There she held to the wood, calling upon Maria Peato. Thecaptain was like a man mad with _namu_. He called to the sailors toclimb higher. But when one reached to take her by the foot, shethrew herself into the air and fell a great distance into the water.

"The captain cried that he would give four litres of rum to the manthat brought her back. Some ran to get the boat, others dived afterher. I was one of these.

"I have said that it was a black night. When in the water we couldget no sight of her. Then on the ship one turned a bright lantern onthe sea, and all of us saw her arm as it was raised to swim. She wasa hundred feet before us, and swimming with great swiftness. Thesailors meantime had set out in the boat, but they had drunk much rum,and rowed around and around. We three men swimming in the beams ofthe lantern came closer to her at every stroke.

"Almost my hand was upon her, when the largest shark I have everseen rose beside her. You know it is at night that these devils lookfor their prey. Anna saw the _mako_ at the same moment, and made agreat splashing. I heard her call out the name of Bernadette theBlessed.

"The men with me turned about, but I kept on. I cried to the boat tohurry to us. I could see the _mako_ turn in the water, as he must doto take anything into his mouth. I kicked him and I struck him, andI cursed him by the name of _Manu-Aiata_, the shark god. If I hadhad a knife I could have killed him easily.

"But, Menike, I could do nothing. He did not want me. The boat came,but not in time. I saw the devil take her in his jaws as the wildboar takes a bird that is helpless, and I felt him descend into thedepths of the sea. I could do nothing."

A cat's-paw stole across the sea from the southeast, the boat rolledhard, and Tetuahunahuna sprang erect.

"_A toi te ka!_ Make sail!" he said.

They raised the slender mast, a rose-wood tree, roughly shaped inthe forest, and fastened it to either thwart with three ropes.Through a ring at its head was passed the lift, and the sail of mats,old and worn, was set, men and women all fastening the strings tothe boom. Two sheets were used, one cleated about five feet from therudder, the other at the disposition of the steersman, who let outthe boom according to the wind.

The breeze sprang up and died, and sprang up again. At last thedeathly calm, the sickening heat, were over, and we sped across thefreshening waves.

Mast and sail out of the way, we stretched ourselves in the boatwith more comfort, enjoying the cooling current of air. Tetuahunahuna,the sheet in his hand, squatted again on his narrow perch.

"You returned to that ship when the boat picked you up?" I asked.

"_Aue!_" he replied. "The captain was crazed with anger. He cursed me,and said that the girl has swum ashore."

"'No, the shark has taken Anna,' I said. 'She will look for herwhite father no more.'

"The captain had a glass of rum at his mouth, but he put it down. Hewould have me tell him again her name. When I did so, he shook as ifwith cold, and he swallowed the rum quickly.

"'Where was she born?' he said next.

"'At Hapaa. Her mother is O Take Oho, whose father was eaten by themen of Tai-o-hae,' I said, and looking at his face I saw that hiseyes were the color of the _mio_, the rosewood when freshly cut.

"The captain went to his cabin, and soon he leaped up the stairs,falling over the thing they look at to steer the ship, and there,lying on the deck, he cried again and again that I had done wrongnot to tell him earlier.

"He held in his hand the _tiki_, the silver box that Anna had alwaysworn about her neck, that her father had given her.

"He was like a wild bull in the hills, that ship's captain, when hearose, roaring and cursing me. I feared that he would shoot me, forhe had a revolver in his hand and said that he would kill himself.But he did not.

"A Marquesan who was as hateful to himself would have eaten the_eva_, but this man had not the courage, with all his cries. Iswam ashore when he became maddened as a _kava_ drinker who does noteat. The mother of Atuona, whom I told in Tai-o-hae, went to see him,but he did not know her, and she took the _tiki_ from his cabin whenshe found him praying to it. He was _paea_, his stomach empty ofthought. When the ship left, he was tied with the irons they havefor sailors, and the second chief sailed the vessel."

The Ghost Girl shook the _ena_-covered maiden.

"_Oi vii!_" she said petulantly. "Take in your feet. Do you want the_mako_ to eat them? Do you not remember your sister?"

The shark still moved a few fathoms away.

We were now in the open sea, with forty miles to go to the Bay ofTraitors. The boat lay over at an angle, the boom hissed through thewater when close-hauled, and when full-winged, its heel bounced andsplashed on the surface, as we made our six knots. There was twicetoo much weight in the canoe, but these islanders think nothing ofloads, and for hours the company sat to windward or on the thwartwhile we took advantage of every puff of wind that blew. The sixoarsmen took turns in bailing, using a heavy carved wooden scoop,but in the frequent flurries the waves poured over the side.

The island of Fatu-hiva faded behind us, and raised Moho-Tani, theIsle of Barking Dogs, a small, but beautifully regular, islet, likea long emerald. No soul dwells there. The Moi-Atiu clan peopled itbefore a sorcerer dried up the water sources. A curse is upon it,and while the cocoanuts flourish and all is fair to the eye, itremains a shunned and haunted spot.

Tahuata, that lovely isle of the valley of Vait-hua, rose on our left,with the cape _Te hope e te keko_, a purple coast miles away, whichas the dusk descended grew darker and was lost. The shadowysilhouettes of the mountains of Hiva-oa projected themselves on thehorizon.

Night fell like a wall, and nothing was to be seen but the glow ofthe pipe that passed as if by spirit hands around our huddled group.The head of Ghost Girl was on my knees, and among the sons anddaughters of cannibals peace enveloped me as at twilight in a grove.More in tune with the moods of nature, the rhythm of sea and sky,the breath of the salt breeze, than we who have sold our birthrightfor arts, these savages sat silent for a little while as if thespirit of the hour possessed their souls.

Then the stars began to take their places in heaven to do their dutytoward the poor of earth, and I saw the bright and inspiring facesof many I knew. The wind shifted and freshened, the sail was drawnnearer, and our speed became perilous. The waves grew, butTetuahunahuna, seeing nothing, but feeling with sheet and helm thetemper of changing air and water, kept the canoe's prow steady, andthe men, in emergencies, threw themselves half over the starboardgunwale. I was on the edge of the steersman's perch, enjoying themist of the flying spray and watching the stars appear one by one.

Tetuahunahuna pointed toward the northern sky.

"_Miope!_ I steer by the star the color of the rosewood tree," hesaid. There was our own Mars, redder than the sunsets over Mariveles.Northwest he was, this god of war and fertility, and our bow beacon.Turning and gazing toward Fatu-hiva I saw the Southern Cross, low inthe sky, brilliant, and splendid.

"_Mataike fetu!_" Ghost Girl named the constellation. "The Small Eyes."

"Miope has rivers like Taka-Uku and Atuona," I said, relying on thealleged canals of Mars to save my soul. "I have seen through a_karahi mea tiohi i te fetu_, the Mirror Thing Through Which OneLooks At The Stars, long as a tree and big around as a pig. Miopehas people upon it."

"Are they Marquesans?"

"They must be Marquesans for there are islands," I replied.

"And _popoi_ and pigs?" demanded the _ena_-perfumed one.

"_Namu?_ Have they rum?" whispered the Ghost Girl, and nestled closer,remembering that soon we would be at my own house.

I had confidence in Tetuahunahuna's stars. The Polynesians havealways had an excellent working knowledge of the heavens and weredeeply interested in astronomy. They knew the relative positions ofthe stars, their changes and phases. They predicted weather changesaccurately, and kept in their memories periodicity charts so thatthey are able to form estimates of what will be, by considering whathas been. They had a wonderful art of navigation, considering thatthey had no compass, sextant, or other instrument, and that theirvessels were always comparatively small. The handling of canoes,like swimming, is instinctive with them, and no white ever compareswith them in skill.

Our boat doubled Point Teachoa, and we were in the Bay of Traitors.The wind suddenly fell flat, and we rowed several miles to the beach.A score of lights moved about on the dark waters of the bay, andfishermen shouted to us to come to them. We found Great Fern, mylandlord, with Apporo, Broken Plate with the Vagabond, and they hadseveral canoes full of fish. They were delighted at my return, andrubbed noses with me over the gunwales.

Getting ashore at the stone steps of Taka-Uka was a task worthy ofsuch boatsmen, in the darkness, the sea beating madly against thecliffs. Tetuahunahuna listened to the smashing waves and peered forthe blacker outlines of the stairway and the faint gleam of the foam.The boat approached; the sea leaped to break it against the rocks.The steersman held it a second, and in that second you had to leap.It is touch and go, and heaven help you! If you miss, you fall intothe sea, or the boat crushes you against the rocks. The swell sweepsthe place you land on, and you must ascend quickly to safety or findhold against the suck of the retiring water.

Tetuahunahuna ran to the nearest house for a lantern and poles, andwhile two remained in the boat to hold it off the rocks, the otherscarried my luggage to Atuona. I took the lead in a drizzling rain,carrying the light, mighty glad to stretch my legs after more than adozen hours of cramp. Passing the house of the chief-of-police, Iheard laughter and the clink of glasses. Bauda halted me with aleveled revolver, thinking we were a rum-smuggling gang. That braveAfrican soldier was ever dramatic, and _D'Artagnan_ could not havestruck a finer attitude as he thrust the gun in my face and calledout, "_Halte là_!"

"_Ah, c'est le Yahnk' Doodl'. Mais tonnerre de dieu_, you have beenaway a long time!"

CHAPTER XXXIV

Sea sports; curious sea-foods found at low tide; the peculiaritiesof sea-centipedes and how to cook and eat them.

With what delight I returned to lazy days in Atuona Valley, loungingon the black _paepae_ of my own small blue cabin in the shadow ofTemiteu, idling on the sun-warm sands of the familiar beach, walkingthe remembered road between banana hedges heavy with yellowing fruit!The heart of man puts down roots wherever it rests; it is perhapsthis sense of home that gives the zest to wandering, for newexperiences gain their value from contrast with the old, and onemust have felt the bondage, however light, of emotion and habitbefore he can know the joy of freedom from it. Still a man leavespart of himself in every home he makes, and the wanderer, free ofthe one strong cord that would hold him to one place, feels alwaysthe urge of a thousand slender ties pulling him back to the thousandtemporary homes he has made everywhere on the world.

So the old routine closed around me pleasantly; mornings in theshade of my palms and breadfruit, eating the breakfasts prepared forme by Exploding Eggs over the fire of cocoanut husks, baths in theclear pool of the river with my neighbors, afternoons spent in thecocoanut-groves or with merry companions on the beach. ExplodingEggs directed the surf board with a sure hand, lying flat, kneelingor even standing on the long plank as he came in on the crest of thebreakers. I had now and again succeeded in being carried along whileflat on my stomach on the board, but failed many times oftener thanI succeeded. Now I set myself in earnest to learn the art ofmastering the surf.

Three or four o'clock in the afternoon was the time I usually chosefor the sport, and once I had made it a practice, all the boys andgirls of the village accompanied me, or waited for me at the shore,sure of hilarious hours. I must make children my companions, here,for my older friends were so oppressed by the gloom of raceextinction that save for Malicious Gossip and one or two others,there was no capacity for joyousness left in them. Exploding Eggs wasmy chum, paid as forager and firemaker, but giving from friendlinesshis services as a wise and admirable teacher of the unknown to oneunmade by civilization.

The bay of Atuona, narrow between high cliffs covered withcocoanut-trees, was the scene of my lessons. The tide came boominginto this cove from the Bay of Traitors, often with bewildering force,and a day or two a month as gently as the waves at Waikiki. Theriver spread a broad mouth to drink the brine, and the white sandwas over-run by the flowered vines that crept seaward to taste thesalt. No house was in sight, no man-made structure to mar theprimitive, as our merry crew of boys and girls sported naked in thesurf, fished from the rocks, or lay upon the shining beach.

For my first essay I used the lid of a box that had enclosed anornate coffin ordered from Tahiti by a chief who anticipated dying.It was large, and weighty to drag or push through the surf to theproper distance. Laboring valiantly with it, I reached some distancefrom the shore, and prepared a triumphal return. The waves were big,curving above me in sheets of clearest emerald crested with spray,breaking into foam and rising again, endlessly reshaping, repeatingthemselves.

Awaiting my opportunity, I chose one as it rose behind me, and flungmyself upon it. Up and up and still higher I went, carried byresistless momentum, and suddenly like a chip in a hurricane I wasflung forward at a fearsome speed, through rushing chaos of wind andwater, seeing the beach dashing toward me, shouting with exultation.

At the next instant my trusty board turned traitor. Its prow sank,the end beneath me rose, and like a stone discharged from a sling Iwas thrown under the waves, head over heels, banging my head andbody on the sand, leaped upon by following waves that piled me intoshallow water, rolling me over and over, striking me a blow with thecoffin-lid at every roll.

I lay high and dry, panting and aching, while from all the beachrose shouts of laughter. Exploding Eggs rolled on the sand in hisdelight, holding his gasping sides, scarcely able to remind me ofthe necessity, which in my excitement I had forgotten, of keepingthe prow of the board pointed upward as I rode.

Often as I repeated this instruction in my mind, firmly as Idetermined to remember it while I toiled sea-ward again with thecoffin-lid, the result was always the same. A moment of rest in theunresting waves, a quick, agile spring, a moment of mad,intoxicating joy, and then--disaster. I became a mass of bruises, theskin scraped inch by inch from my chest by contact with the roughwood. I would not give up until I had to, and then for a week I wasconvalescing.

One stiff ache from head to foot, I lay ignominiously on the sand,and watched Exploding Eggs, with a piece of box not bigger than afat man's shirt-front, take wave after wave, standing on the board,dashing far across the breakers to the shore, with never a failure,while Gedge's little half-breed daughter, a beautiful fairy-likecreature, darted upon the sea as a butterfly upon a zephyr.

After several weeks of effort and mishap, one day the secret came tome like a flash, and the trick was learned. I had been using thegreat board and was weary. I exchanged with Exploding Eggs for aplank three feet long and fourteen inches wide. Almost exhausted, Iwaited as usual with the butt of the board against my stomach forthe incoming breaker to be just behind and above me, and then leapedforward to kick out vigorously, the board pressed against me and myhands extended along its sides, to get in time with the wave.

But the wave was upon me before I had thought to execute theseinstructions, I straightened myself out rigidly, and lo! I shot inlike a torpedo on the very top of the billow, holding the point ofthe board up, yelling like a Comanche Indian. So fast, so straightdid I go, that it was all I could do to swerve in the shallow waterand not be hurled with force on the sand.

"_Metai! Me metai!_" cried my friends in excited congratulation,while like all men who succeed by accident, I stood proudly, takingthe plaudits as my due.

From that afternoon I had most exhilarating sport, and indeed, thisis the very king of amusem*nts for fun and exercise. Skeeing,tobogganing, skating, all land sports fade before the thrills of this;nor will anything give such abounding health and joy in living assurf-riding in sunny seas.

A hundred afternoons on Atuona Bay I spent in this exhilaratingpastime. To it we added embellishments, multiplying excitements. Ascore of us would start at the same moment from the same line andrace to shore; we would carry two on a board; we would stand andkneel and direct our course so that we could touch a marked spot onthe beach or curve about and swerve and jostle each other. ExplodingEggs was the king of us all, and Teata was queen. She advanced aseffortlessly as a mermaid, her superb figure shining on the shiningwater, tossing her long black hair, and shrieking with delight.

Occasionally we varied these sports by a much more dangerous andarduous game. We would push our boards far out in the bay, half amile or more, diving under each wave we faced, until aftertremendous effort we reached the farthest sea-ward line of breakers.Often while I swam, clinging to the board and struggling with thewaves for its possession, I saw in the emerald water curling aboveme the shadowy shapes of large fish, carried on the crests of thecombers, transfigured clearly against the sky, fins and heads andtails outlined with light.

Once in smoother water we waited for the proper moment, counting thefoam-crests as they passed. Waves go in multiples of three, thethird being longer and going farther than the two before it, and theninth, or third third, being strongest of all. This ninth wave wewaited for. Choosing any other meant being spilled in tumbling waterwhen it broke far from land, and falling prey to the succeeding ones,which bruised unmercifully.

[Illustration: Double canoes]

[Illustration: Harbor sports]

But taking the ninth monster at its start, we rode marvelously,staying at its summit as it mounted higher and higher, shoutingabove the lesser rollers, until it dashed upon the smooth sand halfa mile away. Exultation kept the heart in the throat, the pulsesbeating wildly, as the breaker tore its way over the foaming rollers,I on the roof of the swell, lying almost over its front wall,holding like death to my plank while the wind sang in my ears andsky and sea mingled in rushing blueness.

To take such a ride twice in an afternoon taxed my strength, but theMarquesan boys and girls were never wearied, and laughed at myviolent breathing.

The Romans ranked swimming with letters, saying of an uneducated man,"_Nec literas didicit nec natare._" He had neither learned to readnor to swim. The sea is the book of the South Sea Islanders. Theyswim as they walk, beginning as babies to dive and to frolic in thewater. Their mothers place them on the river bank at a day old, andin a few months they are swimming in shallow water. At two and threeyears they play in the surf, swimming with the easy motion of a frog.They have no fear of the water to overcome, for they are accustomedto the element from birth, and it is to them as natural as land.

It should be so with all, for human locomotion in water is no moretiresome or difficult than on the earth. One element is as suitableto man as the other for transportation of himself, when habitudegive natural movement, strength, and fearlessness. A Marquesan whocannot swim is unknown, and they carry objects through the water aseasily as through a grove. I have seen a woman with an infant at herbreast leap from a canoe and swim through a quarter of a mile ofbreakers to the shore, merely to save a somewhat longer walk.

One's hours at the beach were not all spent in the water. Many werethe curious and delicious morsels we found on the rocks that wereuncovered at low tide, stranded fish, crabs, and small crawlingshell-fish. One of our favorites was the sea-urchin, called _hatuke_,_fetuke_, or _matuke_. Round, as big as a Bartlett pear, with greenishspines five or six inches long, they were as hideous to see as theywere pleasant to eat. In the last quarter of the moon they werespecially good, though what the moon has to do with their flavorneither the Marquesans nor I know. It is so; the Marquesans havealways known it, and I have proved it.

The spines of these sea-urchins make slate-pencils in some of theislands, and are excellent for hastily writing on a nearby cliff amessage to a friend who is following tardily. The creatures arepoisonous when alive, however, and revenge a blow of careless handor foot by wounds that are long in healing.

We found lobsters among the rocks, too, and on some beaches astrange kind of lobsterish delicacy called in Tahiti _varo_, a kindof mantis-shrimp that looks like a superlatively villainous centipede.They grow from six to twelve inches long and a couple of inches wide,with legs or feelers all along their sides, like the teeth of apocket-comb. Their shells are translucent yellow with black markings;the female wears a red stripe down her back and carries red eggsbeneath her. Both she and her mate, with their thousand crawling legs,their hideous heads and tails, have a most repulsive appearance. Ifone did not know they are excellent food and most innocent in theirhabits, one would flee precipitately at sight of them.

Catching the _varo_ is a delicate and skilful art. They live in theshallows near the beach, digging their holes in the sand under twoor three feet of water. When the wind ruffles the surface, it isimpossible to see the holes, but on calm days we waded knee-deep inthe clear water, stepping carefully and peering intently for thehomes of the sea-centipede. Finding one, we cautiously lowered intothe hole a spool fitted with a dozen hooks.

A pair of the creatures inhabits the same den. If the male was athome, he seized the grapnel and was quickly lifted and captured, thehooks being lowered again for the female. But if the female emergedfirst, it was a sure sign that her mate was absent.

I pondered as to this habit of the _varo_, and would have liked topersuade me that the male, being a courteous shrimp, combatted theinvading hooks first in an effort to protect his mate. But thegrapnel is baited with fish, and though masculine pride could wishthat chivalry urged the creature to defend his domestic shrine, itappears regrettably certain that he is merely after the bait, towhich he clings with such selfish obstinacy that he sacrifices hisliberty and his life. However, the lady soon shows the same graspingtendency, and their deserted tenement is filled by the shifting sands.

Catching _varo_ calls for much patience and dexterity. I neversucceeded in landing one, but Teata would often skip back to thesands of the beach with a string of them. Six would make a good meal,with bread and wine, and they are most enjoyable hot, though alsomost dangerous.

"Begin their eating by sucking one cold," warned Exploding Eggs whenpresiding over my first feast upon the twelve-inch centipedes."If he does not grip you inwardly, you may then eat them hot and ingreat numbers."

Many white men can not eat the _varo_. Some lose appetite at itsappearance, its likeness to a gigantic thousand-leg, and others findthat it rests uneasy within them, as though each claw, or tooth ofthe comb, viciously stabbed their interiors. I found them excellentwhen wrapped in leaves of the _hotu_-tree and fried in brown butter,and they were very good when broiled over a fire on the beach. Onetakes the beastie in his fingers and sucks out the meat. Beginnersshould keep their eyes closed during this operation.

CHAPTER XXXV

Court day in Atuona; the case of Daughter of the Pigeon and thesewing-machine; the story of the perfidy of Drink of Beer and thedeath of Earth Worm who tried to kill the governor.

The Marquesan was guaranteed his day in court. There was one judgein the archipelago and one doctor, and they were the same, beingunited in the august person of M. L'Hermier des Plantes, who wasalso the pharmacist. The jolly governor, in his twenties, withmedical experience in an African army post and in barracks in France,was irked by his judicial and administrative duties, though littletroubled by his medical functions, since he had few drugs and knewthat unless these were swallowed by the patient in his presence theywould be tried upon the pigs or worn as an amulet around the neck.Faithful to his orders, however, the judge sat upon the woolsackSaturdays, unless it was raining or he wished to shoot _kuku_.

One Saturday morning, being invited to breakfast at the palace, Istrolled down to observe the workings of justice. Court was calledto order in the archives room of the governor's house. The judge satat a large table, resplendent in army blue and gold, with cavalryboots and spurs, his whiskers shining, his demeanor grave and stern.Bauda, clerk of the court, sat at his right, and Peterano, a nativecatechist, stood opposite him attired in blue overalls and anecklace of small green nuts, ready to act as interpreter.

Each defendant, plaintiff, prisoner, and witness was swornimpressively, though no Bible was used; which reminded me that inHongkong I saw a defendant refuse to handle a Bible in court, andwhen the irate English judge demanded his reasons, calmly repliedthat the witness who had just laid down the book had the plague, andit was so proved.

The first case was that of a Chinese, member of the Shan-Shansyndicate which owned a store in Atuona. He was charged withshooting _kukus_ without a license. There were not many of thesesmall green doves left in the islands, and the governor, whosefavorite sport and delicacy they were, was righteously angered at theChinaman's infraction of the law. He fined the culprit twenty dollars,and confiscated to the realm the murderous rifle which had aided thecrime.

The Shan-Shan man was stunned, and expostulated so long that he wasled out by Flag, the gendarme, after being informed that he mightappeal to Tahiti. He was forcibly put off the veranda, struggling toexplain that he had not shot the gun, but had merely carried it as areserve weapon in case he should meet a Chinese with whom he had afeud.

A sailor of the schooner _Roberta_, who had stolen a case ofabsinthe from Captain Capriata's storeroom aboard and destroyed thepeace of a valley to which he took it as a present to a femininefriend, was fined five dollars and sentenced to four months' work onthe roads.

The criminal docket done, civil cases were called. The barefootedbailiff, Flag, stole out on the veranda occasionally to take acigarette from the inhabitants of the valley of Taaoa, who crowdedthe lawn around the veranda steps. All save Kahuiti, they had comeover the mountains to attend in a body a trial in which two of themfigured--the case of Santos vs. Tahiaupehe (Daughter of the Pigeon).

Santos was a small man, born in Guam, and had been ten years in Taaoa,having deserted from a ship. He and I talked on the veranda inSpanish, and he explained the desperate plight into which love haddragged him. He adored Tahaiupehe, the belle of Taaoa. For months hehad poured at her feet all his earnings, and faithfully he hadlabored at copra-making to gain money for her. He had lavished uponher all his material wealth and the fierce passion of his Malay heart,only to find her disdainful, untrue, and, at last, a runaway. Whilehe was in the forest, he said, climbing cocoanut-trees to provideher with luxuries, she had fled his hut, carrying with her a certain"Singaire" and a trunk. He was in court to regain this property.

"_Ben Santos me Tahaiupehe mave! A mai i nei!_" cried Flag, pompously.The pair entered the court, but all others were excluded except me.As a distinguished visitor, waiting to breakfast with the judge andthe clerk, I had a seat.

The Daughter of the Pigeon, comely and voluptuous, wore anexpression of brazen bitterness such as I have seen on the faces offew women. A procuress in Whitechapel and a woman in America whohad poisoned half a dozen of her kin had that same look; sneering,desperate, contemptuous, altogether evil. I wondered whatexperiences had written those lines on the handsome face of Daughterof the Pigeon.

Ben Santos was sworn. Through the interpreter he told his sad taleof devotion and desertion and asked for his property. The Singairehad been bought of the German store. He had bought it that Daughterof the Pigeon might mend his garments, since she had refused to doso without it. He had not given it to her at all, but allowed herthe use of it in consideration of "love and affection" he swore.

Daughter of the Pigeon glared at the unhappy little man with anintensity of hatred that alarmed me for his life. She took the stand,malevolently handsome in finery of pink tunic, gold ear-rings, andnecklace of red peppers, barefooted, bare-armed, barbaric. She spatout her words.

"This man made love to me and lived with me. He gave me thesewing-machine and the trunk. He is a runt and a pig, and I am tiredof him. I left his hut and went to the house of my father. I took mySingaire and my trunk."

"Ben Santos," inquired the judge, with a critical glance at Daughterof the Pigeon, "What return did you make to this woman for keepingyour house?"

"I provided her food and her dresses," stammered the little man.

"Food hangs from trees, and dresses are a few yards of stuff," saidthe surgical Solomon. "The fair ones of the Marquesas do not givethemselves to men of your plainness for _popoi_ and muslin robes.You are a foreigner. You expect too much. The preponderance ofprobability, added to the weight of testimony, causes the court tobelieve that this woman is the real owner of the sewing-machine andthe trunk. It is so adjudged."

"_La mujer es una diabola, pero me gusto mucho_," said Santos to me,and sighed deeply. "The woman is a devil, but I like her very much."

[Illustration: Tahaiupehe, Daughter of the Pigeon, of Taaoa]

[Illustration: Nataro Puelleray and wifeHe is the most learned Marquesan and the only one who knows the languageand legends thoroughly]

The unfortunate Malay got upon his horse and, his soul deep in theswamp of jealousy, departed to resume his copra-making.

Court adjourned. The judge, the clerk, and the interpreter, Daughterof the Pigeon, and I toasted the blind goddess in rum, the sun beingvery hot on the iron roof. Bauda and I stayed to breakfast at eleveno'clock, and the governor permitted me to look through the _dossier_of Daughter of the Pigeon. This record is kept of all Marquesans orothers resident in the islands; each governor adds his facts andprejudices and each newcoming official finds the history andreputation of each of his charges set down for his perusal. In thisrecord of Daughter of the Pigeon I found the reason for themalevolent character depicted by her face.

The men of the hills have a terrible custom of capturing any womanof another valley who goes alone in their district. Grelet's firstcompanion was caught one night by forty, who for punishment builtthe ten kilometres of road between Haniapa and Atuona. Many Daughters,the beautiful little leper, when thirteen years old was a victim ofseventeen men, some of whom were imprisoned. Daughter of the Pigeonhad had a fearful experience of this kind. It had seared her soul,and Santos was paying for his sex.

In feud times this custom was a form of retaliation, as the slayingof men and eating them. It has survived as a sport. Lest horrorshould spend itself upon these natives of the islands, I mentionthat in every state in our union similar records blacken our history.War's pages from the first glimmerings to the last foul moment reekwith this deviltry. British and French at Badajoz and Tarragona, inSpain, left fearful memories. Occident and Orient alike are guilty.This crime smutches the chronicle of every invasion. It is part ofthe degradation of slums in all our cities, a sport of hoodlum gangseverywhere. In the Marquesas it is a recognized, though forbidden,game, and has its retaliatory side. Time was when troops of womenhave revenged it in strange, savage ways.

This unsubmissive and aggressive attitude of Marquesan women wasbrought home to me this very afternoon after the trial, whenDaughter of the Pigeon came galloping up to my cabin. She reined inher horse like a cowboy who had lassoed a steer and, throwing thebridle over the branch of an orange-tree, tripped into my living-room,where I was writing.

Without a word she put her arms around me, and in a moment I wasenacting the part of Joseph when he fled from Potiphar's wife. Withsome muscular exertion I got her out of the house at the cost of myshirt. Puafaufe (Drink of Beer), a chief of Taaoa, appeared at thismoment, while I was still struggling with her upon my _paepae_.

"_Makimaki okioki i te!_ An ungovernable creature!" he commented,shaking his head, and looking on with interest as she again attackedme vigorously, to the danger of my remaining shreds of garments.Chivalry is not a primitive emotion, but it dies hard in thecivilized brain, and I was attempting the impossible. Fending heroff as best I could, I conjured the chief by the red stripe on thesleeve of his white jacket, his badge of office, to rescue me, forMadame Bapp was now on her _paepae_, craning her fat neck, and I hadno mind to be laughed at by my own tint.

The chief, however, maintained the impartial attitude of thebystander at a street fight. Smothered in the embraces of Daughterof the Pigeon, covered with embarrassment, I struggled and cursed,and had desperately decided to fling her bodily over the eight-footwall of the _paepae_ into the jungle, when another arrival dashed upthe trail. This was the brother of Daughter of the Pigeon.

It was evident that my cabin had been appointed as a rendezvous,though I had no acquaintance with any of my three visitors. Asuspicion was born in my dull brain. To make it surety, I grasped myfeminine wooer by wrists and throat and thrust her into the arms ofthe chief with a stern injunction to hold her. Then, without hint ofmy intention, I hastened into the house and brought forth thedemijohn and cocoanut-shells.

The amorous fury of Daughter of the Pigeon melted into gratitude,and after two drinks apiece the company galloped away, leaving me torepair tattered garments and thank my stars for my supply of _namu_.

But the end of court-day was not yet. I had barely fallen into myfirst slumber that night when I was awakened by the disconsolateShan-Shan man, who came humbly to present me with a half-pounddoughnut of his own making, and to beg my intercession with thegovernor for the return of his gun. He reiterated tearfully that hehad not meant to shoot _kukus_ with it, that he had not done so,that he desired it only in order to be able to take a pot-shot atthe offending countryman in the village. He urged desperately thatthe other Chinese still possessed a gun well oiled and loaded. Heasserted even with tears that he had all respect and admiration forthe white man's law. But he wanted his gun, and he wanted it quickly.

I calmed him with the twice-convenient _namu_, and after promisingto explain the situation to the governor, I sat for some time on my_paepae_ in the moonlight, talking with the unhappy convict.Without prompting he divulged to me that my suspicions had beencorrect; Drink of Beer had himself instigated the raid of the boldDaughter of the Pigeon upon my rum. Drink of Beer, it appeared, wasknown in the islands for many feats of successful duplicity. One hadnearly cost the life of Jean Richard, a young Frenchman who workedfor the German trader in Taka-Uka.

"Earth Worm was a man of Taaoa," said my guest, sitting cross-leggedon my mats, his long-nailed, yellow fingers folded in his lap."He was nephew of Pohue-toa, eater of many men. Earth Worm wasarrested by Drink of Beer and brought before the former governor,Lailheugue, known as Little Pig.

"Drink of Beer said that Earth Worm had made _namu enata_, the juiceof the flower of the palm that makes men mad. Earth Worm swore thathe had done no wrong. He swore that Drink of Beer had allowed him,for a price, to make the _namu enata_, and that Drink of Beer hadsaid this was according to the law. But when he failed to pay again,Drink of Beer had arrested him.

"Drink of Beer said this not true. He wore the red stripe on hissleeve; therefore the governor Little Pig said that Earth Worm lied,and sent him to prison for a year.

"Now Earth Worm was an informed man, a son of many chiefs, andhimself resolved in his ways. He said that he would speak before thecourts of Tahiti, and he would not go in shame to the prison. Atthis time that governor was finished with his work here and wasdeparting on a ship to Tahiti, and Earth Worm with hate in his heart,embarked on that ship, saying nothing, but thinking much.

"He lived forward with the crew, and said nothing, but thought.Others spoke to him, saying that he would not profit by the journeyto Tahiti where the word of the governor was powerful, but he didnot reply. The men of the crew wished Earth Worm to kill the governor,for every Marquesan hated him, and he had done a terrible thing forwhich he deserved death.

"There had been an aged gendarme who fell ill because of a curselaid on him by a _tahuna_. He was dying. This governor took from hisbox in the house of medicines a sharp small knife, and with it hecut the veins of a Marquesan who had done some small wrong againstthe law and lay in jail. He bound this man by the arm to thegendarme who was dying, and through the cut the blood ran into thegendarme's veins. His heart sucked the blood from the body of theMarquesan like a vampire bat of the forest, and he lay bound, feelingthe blood go from him. The village knew that this was being done,and could do nothing but hate and fear, for it was the governor whohad done it.

"The gendarme died, and you may yet see on the beach sometimes thatman who was a strong and brave Marquesan. He trembles now like_hotu_ leaves in the wind, for he never forgets the terrible magicdone upon him by that governor. He remembers the hours when he laybound to that man who was dying, and the dying man sucked his bloodfrom him.

"Now this governor was on the ship going away, and he had not beenkilled. This made all Marquesans sad, and those in the crew talkedto Earth Worm, who had also been wronged, and urged him to rise andstrike. But he said nothing.

"The ship came to the Paumotas, and the governor sat all day long ona stool on the deck, watching the islands as they passed. Earth Wormsat in his place, watching the governor. One night at dark he rose,and taking an iron rod laid beside him by one of the crew he creptalong the deck and stood behind the man on the stool. He raised theiron rod and brought it down with fury upon the head of that man,who fell covered with blood. Then he leaped into the sea.

"But the governor had gone below, and it was Jean Richard who sat onthe stool in the darkness. He was found bleeding upon the deck, andthe bones of his head were cut and lifted and patched, so thatto-day he lives, as well as ever. Earth Worm was never found. A boatwith a lantern was lowered, but it found nothing but the fins ofsharks.

"That was the work of Drink of Beer, who had hated Earth Wormbecause he was a brave and strong man of Taaoa. When this was toldto Drink of Beer, he smiled and said, 'Earth Worm is safer where heis.'

"I have talked too much. Your rum is very good. I thank you for yourkindness. You will not forget to deign to speak to the governorconcerning the matter of the gun?"

I promised that I would not forget, and after a prolongedleavetaking the Shan-Shan man slipped silently down the trail andvanished in the moon-lit forest.

CHAPTER XXXVI

The madman Great Moth of the Night; story of the famine and the onefamily that ate pig.

Le Brunnec, the trader, was opening a roll of Tahiti tobacco fivefeet long, five inches in diameter at the center, and taperingtoward the ends. It was bound, as is all Tahiti tobacco, in a_purau_ rope, which had to be unwound and which weighed two pounds.The eleven pounds of tobacco were hard as wood, the leaves cementedby moisture. Le Brunnec hacked it with an axe into suitable portionsto sell for three francs a pound, the profit on which is a franc.

The immediate customer was Tavatini (Many Pieces of Tattooing), arich man of Taaoa, in his fifties. His face was grilled with _ama_ink. One streak of the natural skin alone remained. Beside him onthe counter sat a commanding-looking man, whose eyes, shining from ablue background of tattooing, were signals to make one step asidedid one meet him on the trail. They had madness in them, but theywere a revelation of wickedness.

Some men, without a word or gesture, make you think intently. Thereis that in their appearance which starts a train of ideas, of wonder,of guesses at their past, of horror at what is written upon theirfaces. This man's visage was seamed and wrinkled in a network oflines that said more plainly than words that he was a monster whosevillainies would chill imagination. The brain was a spoiled machine,but it had been all for evil.

"That man," said Le Brunnec, "is the worst devil in the Marquesas."Between blows of the axe, the trader told me something of his history:

The madman was Mohuho, whose name means Great Moth of the Night. Heis the chief whom Lying Bill saw shoot three men in Tahuata forsheer wantonness. He was then chief of Tahuata, and the power in thatisland, in Hiva-oa and Fatu-hiva. He slew every one who opposed him.He was the scourge of the islands. He harried valley after valleyfor lust of blood and the terrible pride of the destroyer. It washis boast that he had killed sixty people by his own hand, otherwisethan in battle.

He was a man of ceaseless energy, a builder of roads, of houses, andcanoes. At Hapatone he had constructed several miles of excellentroad with the enforced labor of every man in the valley for a year.It is all lined with _temanu_ trees, is almost solid stone, andendures. Its blocks are cemented with blood, for Great Moth of theNight drove men to the work with bullets.

His arsenal was stocked by the French, whose ally he was, and towhom he was very useful in furnishing men for work and in upholdingFrench supremacy. In Hapatone he was virtually a king, and the fearof him extended throughout the southern Marquesas.

One day he came as a guest to a feast in Taaoa. There was a blind man,a poor, harmless fellow, who was eating the pig and _popoi_ andsaying nothing. Great Night Moth had a new gun, which he laid besidehim while he drank plentifully of the _namu enata_, until he becamequite drunk.

At last the blind man, scared by his threats, started to walk awayin the slow, halting way of the sightless, and attracted Great NightMoth's attention. He picked up his new gun and while all werepetrified with fear of being the target, he shot the blind man sothat his body fell into the oven in which the pig had been baked. Thepeople could only laugh loudly, if not heartily, as if pleased bythe joke.

In Hana-teio a man in a cocoanut-tree gathering nuts was ordered tocome down by Great Night Moth who was passing on a boar hunt. Theman became confused. His limbs did not cling to the tree as usual.He was fearful and could make no motion.

"_Poponohoo! Ve mai! A haa tata!_ Come down quickly!" yelled thechief.

The poor wretch could not obey. He saw the gun and knew the chief.Great Night Moth brought him down a corpse.

There was no punishment for him. The French held him accountableonly for deeds against their sovereignty. A superstition that he wasprotected by the gods, combined with his strength and desperatecourage, made him immune from vengeance by the islanders.

These were incidents Le Brunnec knew from witnesses, but it was ManyPieces of Tattooing who told the ancestry of Great Night Moth.

"Pohue-toa (Male Package) uncle of Earth Worm, was prince of Taaoaand father of this man," said Many Pieces. "He was one of thebiggest men of these islands, and the strongest in Taaoa. He livedfor a while in Hana-menu.

"There was no war then between the valley of Atuona and that ofHana-menu; the people of both crossed the mountains and visited oneanother. But it was discovered in Atuona that a number of the peoplewere missing. Some had gone to Hana-menu and never reached there,others had disappeared on their way home. The chief of Atuona sent amessenger who was _tapu_ in all valleys, to count the people of thisvalley who were in Hana-menu and to warn them to return in a band,armed with spears. Meanwhile the priest went to the High Place andspoke to the gods, and after two days and nights he returned andsaid that the danger was at the pass between the valleys; that ademon had seized the people there.

"The demon was Male Package. You know the precipice there is nearthe sky, and at the very height is a _puta faiti_, a narrow place.There Male Package lay in wait, armed with his spear and club, andhidden in the grass. He was hungry for meat, for Long Pig, and whenhe saw some one he fancied, he threw his spear or struck them downwith the _u'u_. He took the corpse on his back and carried it to hishut in the upper valley of Hana-menu as I would carry a sack of copra.There he ate what he would, alone.

"Oh, there were those who knew, but they were afraid to tell. Afterit became known to the people of Atuona, to the kin of those who hadbeen eaten, they did nothing. Male Package was like Great Night Mothlater--a man whom the gods fought for."

Great Night Moth sat smoking, listening to what was said in thelistless way that lunatics listen, unable to focus his attention,but gathering in his addled brain that he was being discussed. Iwatched him as one does a caged tiger, guessing at the beast'sthoughts and thankful that it can prey no more.

Many Pieces of Tattooing had no tone of horror or regret in hisvoice while he recounted the bloody deeds of Mohuho and Pohue-toa,but smiled, as if he would say that they had occurred under adifferent dispensation and were not blameful.

"Was Great Night Moth the real son of Male Package?" I asked.

"Ah, that is to be told," said Many Pieces. "He was his son, yes.Shall I tell you the tale of how he escaped death at the hands ofhis father? _Ea!_ I remember the time well. Menike, you have seenthe rivers big and the cocoanut-trees felled by the flood, but youhave not seen the _ave one_, the time of no food, when the ground isas dry as the center of a dead tree, and hunger is in the valleyslike the ghost-women that move as mist. There have been many suchperiods for the island peoples.

"That two years it did not rain. The breadfruit would not yield. Thegrass and plants died. There were no nuts on the palms. The pigs hadno food, and fell in the forest. The banana-trees withered. Thepeople ate the _popoi_ from the deepest pits, and day and night theyfished. Soon the pits were empty and the people ate roots, bark,anything. There were fish, but it is hard to live on fish alone.

"Some lay in their canoes and ate the _eva_ and died. The stomachsof some became empty of thought, and they threw themselves into thesea. The father of Great Night Moth sent all his children to thehills. There is always more rain there, and there was some food to befound. His wife he kept at the fishing, day and night, till sheslept at the paddle, and he himself went to the high plateaus tohunt for pig.

"For many days he came down weak, having found none. But at last shecame to find baked meat ready for her, and she wept and ate andthanked him. He had found a certain green spot, he said, where therewere more.

"Many times he brought the meat to her, and she said that thechildren should come back to share the food, but he said, 'No. Eat!They have plenty.'

"She came from the fishing one day with empty baskets. The sea hadbeen rough, and there were no fish. Her husband had become a surlyman, and cruel; he beat her. She said, 'Is there no pig?'

"'Pig, you fool!' said her husband. 'You have eaten no pig. You haveeaten your children. They are all dead.'

"Great Night Moth had escaped because he had been adopted by thechief of Taaoa, while his father was hunting the children in theforest."

"That is horrible, horrible!" said Le Brunnec. "Maybe this GreatNight Moth could not but be bad with such a father. All these chiefs,the hereditary ones, are rotten. Their children are often insane.They have degenerated. After the whalers came and gave them whiskey,and the traders absinthe and drugs, they learned the vices of thewhite man, which are worse for them than for us."

"Do you think the eating of men began by the _ave one_, the famine?"I put the question to Many Pieces of Tattooing, who was about toleave the store with Great Night Moth.

"_Ae, tiatohu!_ It is so," he answered. "Our legends say that oftenin the many centuries we have remembered there have been years whenfood failed. It was in those times that they began to eat one another,and when food was plenty, they continued for revenge. They learnedto like it. Human meat is good."

"Ask the gentleman if he has himself enjoyed such feasts," I urgedLe Brunnec.

"I will not!" said the Frenchman, hastily. "Tavatini is a goodcustomer. He has money on deposit with me. He eats biscuits and beef.He might be offended and buy of the Germans."

Many Pieces of Tattooing nudged Great Night Moth, and they advancedto their horses, which were tied to the store building. The madmanmounted with the ease of a cowboy, and they rode off at speed.

CHAPTER XXXVII

A visit to the hermit of Taha-Uka valley; the vengeance that made theScallamera lepers; and the hatred of Mohuto.

Le Verogose, a Breton planter who lived in Taka-Uka Valley, was fullof _camaraderie_, esteeming friendship a genuine tie, and given tomany friendly impulses. He had a two-room cabin set high on theslope of the river bank, unadorned, but clean, and though his busy,hardworking days gave him little time for social intercourse, heoccasionally invited me there to dinner with him and his wife.

One Sunday he dined me handsomely on eels stewed in white wine, tameduck, and codfish balls, and after the dance, in which his wife,Ghost Girl, Malicious Gossip, Water, and the host joined, we sat forsome time singing "Malbrouck se va t'en guerre," "La Carmagnole,"and other songs of France. Stirred by the memories of home, thesemelodies awakened, Le Vergose remembered a countryman who livednearby.

"There is a hermit who lives a thousand feet up the valley," said he."We might take him half a litre of rum. He is a Breton of Brest whohas been here many years. He eats nothing but bananas, for he livesin a banana grove, and he is able only to totter to the river forwater. He never moves from his little hut except to pick a fewbananas. He lives alone. Hardly any one sees him from year to year.I think he would be glad to have a visitor."

A wet and slippery trail through the forest along the river bank ledtoward the hermit's grove. Toiling up it, sliding and clutching theboughs that overhung and almost obliterated it, we passed a smallnative house of straw, almost hidden by the trees, and were hailedby the voice of a woman.

"_I hea?_ Where do you go?" The words were sharp, with a tone almostof anxiety, of fear.

"We go to see Hemeury Francois," replied Le Vergose.

The woman who had spoken came half-way down the worn and dirty stepsof her _paepae_. She was old, but with an age more of bitter anddevastating emotion than of years. Her haggard face, drawn andseamed with cruel lines, showed still the traces of a beauty that hadbeen hard and handsome rather than lovely. She said nothing more,but stood watching our progress, her tall figure absolutelymotionless in its dark tunic, her eyes curiously intent upon us. Ifelt relief when the thick curtains of leaves shut us from her view.

"That is Mohuto," said Le Vergose. "She is a solitary, too. All herpeople have died, and she has become hard and bitter. That is astrange thing, for an islander. But she was beautiful once. Perhapsshe broods upon that."

We entered the banana-grove, an acre or two of huge plants, thirtyfeet high, so close together that the sun could not touch the soil.The earth was dank and dark, almost a swamp, and the trees were likeyellowish-green ghosts in the gloom. Their great soft leaves shut outthe sky, and from their limp edges there was a ceaseless drip ofmoisture. A horde of mosquitos, black and small, emerged from theshadows, thousands upon thousands, and smote us upon every exposedpart. In a few minutes our faces were smeared with blood from theirkilling. Curses in Breton, in Marquesan, and American rent thestillness.

In this dismal, noisome spot was a wretched hut built of _purau_saplings, as crude a dwelling as the shelter a trapper builds for afew days' habitation. It was ten feet long and four wide, shaky androtten. Inside it was like the lair of a wild beast, a bed of moldyleaves. A line stretched just below the thatched roof held a fewdiscolored newspapers.

On the heap of leaves sat the remnant of a man, a crooked skeletonin dirty rags, his face a parchment of wrinkles framed by a mass ofwhitening hair. He looked ages old, his eyes small holes, red rimmed,his hands, in which he held a shaking piece of paper, foul claws.His flesh, through his rags, was the deadly white of the morgue. Helooked a Thing no soul should animate.

"Ah! Hemeury Francois," said Le Vergose in the Breton dialect thatrecalled their childhood home, "I have brought an American to see you.You can talk your English to him."

"By damn, yes," croaked the hermit, in the voice of a raven loosedfrom a deserted house. But he made no movement until Le Vergose heldbefore his bone-like nose a pint of strong Tahiti rum. Far back inhis eyes, away beyond the visible organs, there came a gleam ofgreater consciousness, a realization of life around him. His mouth,like a rent in an old, battered purse, gaped, and though no teethwere there, the vacuity seemed to smile feebly.

He felt about the litter of paper and leaves and found a dirtycocoanut-shell and a calabash of water. Shaking and gasping, hepoured the bottle of rum into the shell, mixed water with it andlifted the precious elixir tremblingly to his lips. He made twochoking swallows, and dropped the shell--empty.

His eyes, that had been lost in their raw sockets, scanned me. Thenin mixed French and English he began to talk of himself. From hisrags he produced a rude diary blocked off on scraps of paper, aminute record of the river and the weather, covering many years.

"Torrent, torrent, torrent." That word was repeated many tunes._Hause_ appeared often, signifying that the brook had risen. Everyday he had noted its state. The river had become his god. Alone amongthose shadowing, dripping banana-plants, with no human companionship,he had made his study of the moods of the stream a worship. Pagesand pages were inscribed with lines upon its state.

"Bacchus," I saw repeated on the dates July 13, 14, 15.

"Another god on the altar then?" I asked. "_Mais, oui_," he answeredin his rusty voice. "The Fall of the Bastile. Le Vergose sent me abottle of rum to honor the Republic."

What he had just drunk was seething in him. Little by little hecommanded that long disused throat, he recalled from the depths ofhis uncertain mind words and phrases. In short, jerky sentences,mostly French, he spun his tale.

"Brest is my home, in Finnistere. I have been many years in theseseas. I forget how many. How many years--? _Sacré!_ I was on the_Mongol_. She was two thousand tons, clipper, and with skysails.The captain was Freeman. We brought coals from Boston to SanFrancisco. That was long ago. I was young. I was young and handsome.And strong. Yes, I was strong and young.

"That was it--the _Mongol_. A clipper-ship from Boston, two thousandtons, and with skysails. Around the Horn it almost blew the sticksout of that _Mongol_. We froze; we worked day and night. It wasterrible. The seas almost drowned us. Ah, how we cursed! _Tonnerrede dieu!_ Had we known it we were in Paradise. The inferno--we werecoming to the inferno."

It took him long to tell it. He wanted to talk, but weaknessovercame him often, and the words were almost hushed by his breaththat came short and wheezing.

"One day we opened the hatches to get coal for the galley. The smellof gas arose. The coal was making gas. No fire. Just gas. If therewas fire we never knew it. We felt no heat. We could find no fire.But every day the gas got worse.

"It filled the ship. The watch below could not sleep because of it.If we went aloft, still we smelled it. The food tasted of gas. Ourlungs were pressed down by it. Day after day we sailed, and the gassailed with us.

"The bo'sn fell in a fit. A man on the t'gallant yard fell to thedeck and was killed. Three did not awake one morning. We threw theirbodies over the side. The mate spat blood and called on God as heleaped into the sea. The smell of the gas never left us.

"The captain called us by the poop-rail, and said we must abandonthe ship any time.

"We were twenty men all told. We had four whale-boats and a yawl.Plenty for all of us. We provisioned and watered the boats. But westayed by the _Mongol_. We were far from any port and we dared notgo adrift in open boats.

"Then came a calm. The gas could not lift. It settled down on us. Itlay on us like a weight. It never left us for a moment. Men lay inthe scuppers and vomited. Food went untouched. No man could walkwithout staggering. At last we took to the boats. Two thousand milesfrom the Marquesas. We lit a fuse, and pushed off. Half a mile awaythe _Mongol_ blew up.

"We suffered. _Mon dieu_, how we suffered in those boats! But thegas was gone. We struck Vait-hua on the island of Tahuata. It washeaven. Rivers and trees and women. Women! _Sacré!_ How I loved them!

"I came to Taha-Uka with Mathieu Scallamera. We worked for CaptainHart in the cotton, driving the Chinese and natives. Bill Pincherwas a boy, and he worked there, too. In the moonlight on the beachthere were dances. The women danced naked on the beaches in themoonlight. And there was rum. Mohuto danced. Ah, she was beautiful,beautiful! She was a devil.

"Scallamera and I built a house, and put on the door a lock of wood.It was a big lock, but it had no key. The natives stole everything.We could keep nothing. Scallamera was angry. One day he hid in thehouse while I went to work. When a hand was thrust through theopening to undo the lock, Scallamera took his brush knife and cut itoff. He threw it through the hole and said, 'That will steal no more.'"

The hermit laughed, a laugh like the snarl of a toothless old tiger.

"That was a joke. Scallamera laughed. By gar! But that without ahand lived long. He gave back all that he had taken. He smiled atScallamera, and laughed, too. He worked without pay for Scallamera.He became a friend to the man who had cut off his hand. A year wentby and two years and three and that man gave Scallamera a piece ofland by Vai-ae. He helped Scallamera to build a house upon it.

"Land from hell it was, land cursed seven times. Did not Scallamerabecome a leper and die of it horribly? And all his twelve childrenby that Henriette? It was the ground. It had been leprous since theChinese came. Oh, it was a fine return for the cut-off hand!"

Gasping and choking, the ghastly creature paused for breath, and inthe shuddering silence the banana-leaves ceaselessly dripped, andthe hum of innumerable mosquito-wings was sharp and thin.

"I did not become a leper. I was young and strong. I was never sick.I worked all day, and at night I was with the women. Ah, thebeautiful, beautiful women! With souls of fiends from hell. Mohutois not dead yet. She lives too long. She lives and sits on the pathbelow, and watches. She should be killed, but I have no strength.

"I was young and strong, and loved too many women. How could I knowthe devil behind her eyes when she came wooing me again? I had lefther. She was with child, and ugly. I loved beautiful women. But shewas beautiful again when the child was dead. I was with another.What was her name? I have forgotten her name. Is there no more rum?I remember when I have rum.

"So I went again to Mohuto. The devil from hell! There was poison inher embraces. Why does she not die? She knew too much. She was toowise. It was I who died. No, I did not die. I became old before mytime, but I am living yet. The Catholic mission gave me this land. Iplanted bananas. I have never been away. How long ago? _Je ne saispas._ Twenty years? Forty? I do not see any one. But I know thatMohuto sits on the path below and waits. I will live long yet."

He was like a two-days' old corpse. He rose to his feet, staggered,and lay down on the heap of soggy leaves. The mosquitos circled inswarms above him. They were devouring us, but the hermit they neverlighted on. Le Vergose and I fled from the hut and the grove.

"He is an example like those in Balzac or the religious books," saidthe Breton, crossing himself. "I have been here many years, andnever before did I come here, and again. _Jamais de la vie!_ I mustbegin to go to church again."

We said nothing more as we slid and slipped downward on the wet trail,but when we came again to the straw hut hidden in the trees Mohutowas still on the _paepae_, watching us, and I paused to speak to her.

"You knew Hemeury Francois when he was young?"

She put her hand over her eyes, and spat.

"He was my first lover. I had a child by him. He was handsome once."Her eyes, full of malevolence, turned to the dark grove. "He diesvery slowly."

The memory of her face was with me when at midnight I went alone tomy valley. On my pillows I heard again the cracked voice of thehermit, and saw the blue-white skin upon his shaking bones. He couldnot believe in Po, the Marquesan god of Darkness, or in the _Veinehae_,the Ghost-Woman who watches the dying; nor did I believe in them orin Satan, but about me in my Golden Bed until midnight was long pastthe spirits that hate the light moaned and creaked the hut.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

Last days in Atuona; My Darling Hope's letter from her son.

Exploding Eggs was building my fire of cocoanut-husks as usual inthe morning to cook my coffee and eggs, when a whistle split thesultry air. Far from the bay it came, shrill and demanding; my callto civilization.

Long expected, the first liner was in the Isles of the Cannibals.France had begun to make good her promise to expand her trade inOceania, and the isolation of the dying Marquesans and empty valleyswas ended. The steamship _Saint François_, from Bordeaux by way ofTahiti, had come to visit this group and pick up cargo for Papeiteand French ports.

Strange was the sight of her in Taha-Uka Bay where never her likehad been, but stranger still, two aboard her, the only two not French,were known to me. Here thousands of miles from where I had seen them,unconnected in any way with each other, were a pair of human beingsI had known, one in China, and the other in the United States, bothAmerican citizens, and sent by fate to replace me as objects ofinterest to the natives.

They came up from the beach together, one a small black man, theother tall and golden brown, led by Malicious Gossip to see theAmerican who lived in these far-away islands. The black lingered totalk at a distance, but the golden-brown one advanced.

His figure was the bulky one of the trained athlete, stocky andtremendously powerful, his hide that of an extreme blond burned bymonths of a tropic sun upon salt water. His hair was an aureole,yellow as a sunflower, a bush of it on a bullet-head. And, incrediblealmost--as if made of putty by a joker--his nose stuck out like thefirst joint of a thumb, the oddest nose ever on a man. His littleeyes were blue and bright. Barefooted, bare-headed, in thesleeveless shirt and short trousers of a life-guard, with anembroidered V on the front of the upper garment, he was radiantlyhealthy and happy, a civilized being returned to nature's ways.

Though he did not recognize me, I knew him instantly for a trainerand beach-patrol of Southern California, a diver for planted shellsat Catalina Island, whom I had first seen plunging from the raftersof a swimming-tank, and I remembered that he had flattened his noseby striking the bottom, and that a skilful surgeon had saved him itsremnant.

He had with him a bundle in a towel, and setting it down on my_paepae_, introduced himself nonchalantly as Broken Bronck,"Late manager of the stable of native fighters of the Count deM---- of the island of Tahaa, near Tahiti."

"I'm here to stay," he said carelessly. "I have a few francs, and Ihear they're pretty hospitable in the Markeesies. I came on the deckof the _Saint François_, and I've brung my things ashore."

He undid the towel, and there rolled out another bathing-suit and aset of boxing gloves. These were his sole possessions, he said.

"I hear they're nutty on prizefighting like in Tahiti, and I'llteach 'em boxing," he explained.

The Marquesan ladies who speedily assembled could not take theireyes from him. They asked me a score of questions about him, andwere not surprised that I knew him, or even that I called the negroby name when he sauntered up. We must all be from the same valley,or at least from the same island, they thought, for were we not allAmericans?

I kept Broken Bronck to luncheon, and gave him what few householdfurnishings I had not promised to Exploding Eggs or to Apporo, whowith the promise of the Golden Bed about to be realized--for Iannounced my going--camped upon it, hardly believing that at lastshe was to own the coveted marvel. Some keepsakes I gave toMalicious Gossip, Mouth of God, Many Daughters, Water, Titihuti, andothers, and drank a last shell of _namu_ with these friends.

News of my packing reached far and wide. I had not estimated sooptimistically the esteem in which they held me, these companions ofmany months, but they trooped from the farthest hills to say farewell.Good-byes even to the sons and daughters of cannibals are sorrowful.I had come to think much of these simple, savage neighbors. Some ofthem I shall never forget.

Mauitetai, a middle-aged woman with a kindly face, was long on my_paepae_. Her name would be in English My Darling Hope, and itwell fitted her mood, for she was all aglow with wonder and joy atreceiving a letter from her son, who three years before had goneupon a ship and disappeared from her ken. The letter had come uponthe _Saint François_, and it brought My Darling Hope into intimaterelations with me, for I uncovered to her that her wandering boy hadbecome a resident of my own country, and revealed some of themysteries of our polity.

The letter was in Marquesan, which I translate into English, seekingto keep the flavor of the original, though poorly succeeding:

 "I write to you, me, Pahorai Calizte, and put on this paper greetings to you, my mother, Mauitetai, who are in Atuona.

 "_Kaoha nui tuu kui_, Mauitetai, mother of me. Great love to you.

 "I have found in Philadelphia work for me; good work.

 "I have found a woman for me. She is Jeanette, an artist, a maker of tattooings on cloth. I am very happy. I have found a house to live in. I am happy I have this woman. She is rich. I am poor. It is for that I write to you, to make it known to you that she is rich, and I am poor. By this paper you will know that I have pledged my word to this woman. I found her and I won her by my work and by my strength and my endeavor.

 "She is _moi kanahau_; as beautiful as the flowers of the _hutu_ in my own beloved valley of Atuona. She is not of America. She is of Chile. She has paid many piasters for the coming here. She has paid forty piasters. She has been at home in Las Palmas, in the islands of small golden birds.

 "I will write you more in this paper. I seek your permission to marry Jeanette. She asks it, as I do. Send me your word by the government that carries words on paper.

 "It is three years since I have known of you. That is long.

 "Give me that word I ask for this woman. I cannot go to marry in Atuona. That is what my heart wants, but it is far and the money is great. The woman would pay and would come with me. I say no. I am proud. I have shame. I am a Marquesan.

 "I live with that woman now. I am not married. It is forbidden. The American _mutoi_ (policeman) may take hold of me. Five months I am with this woman of mine. The _mutoi_ has a war-club that is hard as stone.

 "Give me quickly the paper to marry her. I await your word.

 "My word is done. I am at Philadelphia, New York Hotel. A.P.A. Dieu. Coot pae, mama."

Mauitetai had read the letter many times. It was wonderful to hearfrom her son after three years and pleasant to know he had found awoman. She must be a _haoe_, a white woman. Were the women of thatisland, Chile, white?

I said that they ran the color scale, from blond to brown, fromEuropean to Indian, but that this Jeanette who was a tattooer, amaker of pictures on canvas, no doubt an artist of merit, must bepale as a moonbeam. Those red peppers that were hot on the tonguecame from Chile, I said, and there were heaps of gold there in themountains.

My Darling Hope would know what kind of a valley was Philadelphia.

It was the Valley of Brotherly Love. It was a very big valley, withtwo streams, and a bay. No, it was not near Tahiti. It was abreadfruit season away from Atuona, at the very least.

What could a hotel be? The New York hotel in which her poor son lived?

I did not know that hotel, I told her, but a hotel was a house inwhich many persons paid to live, and some hotels had more rooms thanthere were houses in all the Marquesas.

What! In one house, under one roof? By my tribe, it was true.

Did I know this woman? I was from that island and I had been in thatvalley. I must have seen her.

I replied that I knew a Jeanette who answered the descriptionbeautiful, but that she was not from Chile.

Now, My Darling Hope knit her brow. Why would the _mutoi_ take holdof her son, as he feared?

I soothed her anxiety. The _mutoi_ walked up and down in front ofthe hotel, but he would not bother her son as long as her son couldget a few piasters now and then to hand to him. The woman was rich,and would not miss a trifling sum, five or ten piasters a month forthe _mutoi_.

But why was it forbidden for her son to live with Jeanette, beingnot married to her?

That was our law, but it was seldom enforced. The _mutois_ were fatmen who carried war-clubs and struck the poor with them, but her sonwas _tapu_ because of Jeanette's money.

She was at ease now, she said. Her son could not marry without herpermission. No Marquesan had ever done so. She would send the wordby the next schooner, or I might take it with me to my own islandand hand it to her son. He could then marry.

I had done her a great kindness, but one thing more. Neither she norTitihuti nor Water could make out what Pahorai Calizte meant by"Coot Pae, Mama." "A.P.A. Dieu." was his commendation of her to God,but _Coot Pae_ was not Marquesan, neither was it French. Shepronounced the words in the Marquesan way, and I knew at once._Coot pae_ is pronounced Coot Pye, and Coot Pye was PahoraiCalizte's way of imitating the American for _Apae Kaoha_. "Good-by,mama," was his quite Philadelphia closing of his letter to his mother.

I addressed an envelop to her son with The Iron Fingers That MakeWords, and gave it to My Darling Hope. A tear came in her eye. Sherubbed my bare back affectionately and caressed my nose with hers asshe smelled me solemnly. Then she went up the valley to enlightenthe hill people.

CHAPTER XXXIX

The chants of departure; night falls on the Land of the War Fleet.

On the eve of my going all the youth and beauty of Atuona crowded my_paepae_. Water brought his _ukulele_, a Hawaiian _taro_-patchguitar, and sang his repertoire of ballads of Hawaii--"Aloha Oe,""Hawaii Ponoi," and "One, Two, Three, Four." Urged by all, I gavethem for the last time my vocal masterpiece, "All Night Long HeCalls Her Snooky-Uku*ms!" and was rewarded by a clamor of applaudingcries. Marquesans think our singing strange--and no wonder! Theirsis a prolonged chant, a monotone without tune, with no high notesand little variance. But loving distraction, they listened with deepamusem*nt to my rendering of American airs, as we might listen toChinese falsettos.

They repaid me by reciting legends of their clans, and Titihutichanted her genealogy, a record kept by memory in all families. Water,her son, who had learned to write, set it down on paper for me. Itnamed the ancestors in pairs, father and mother, and Titihutiremembered thirty-eight generations, which covered perhaps athousand years.

We sat in a respectful circle about her while she chanted it. AnAmazon in height and weight, nearly six feet tall, body and headcast in heroic mold, she stood erect, her scarlet tunic gathered todisplay her symmetrical legs, tattooed in thought-kindling patterns,the feet and ankles as if encased in elegant Oriental sandals. Herred-gold hair, a flame in the flickering light of the torches, waswreathed with bright-green, glossy leaves, necklaces of peppers andsmall colored nuts rose and fell with her deep breathing.

Her voice was melodious, pitched low, and vibrating with thepeculiar tone of the chant, a tone impossible of imitation to onewho has not learned it as a child. Her eyes were kindled with prideof ancestry as she called the roll of experiences and achievementsof the line that had bred her, and her clear-cut Greek featuresmirrored every emotion she felt, emotions of glory and pride, ofsorrow and abasem*nt at the fall of her race, of stoic fortitude inthe dull present and hopeless future of her people. With one shapelyarm upraised, she uttered the names, trumpet-calls to memory andimagination:

 Enata (Men) Vehine (Women) Na tupa efitu Metui te vehine Tupa oa ia fai Puha Momoo O tupa haaituani O haiko O nuku Oui aei O hutu Moeakau O oko Oinu vaa O moota O niniauo O tiu Moafitu otemau Fekei O mauniua O tuoa Hotaei O meae Oa tua hae O tehu eo Kei pana O ahunia Tui haa O taa tini Kei pana Nohea Tou mata Tua kina Papa ohe Tepiu Punoa Tui feaa Tuhina Naani Eiva Eio Hoki Teani nui nei O tapu ohi Ani hetiti Opu tini O kou aehitini O take oho O taupo O te heva Tui pahu Otiu hoku O hupe Oahu tupua O papuaei O honu feti Pepene tona Honu tona Haheinutu O taoho Kotio nui Taihaupu Motu haa Mu eiamau Hope taupo Tuhi pahu Taupo tini Anitia fitu Ana tete Pa efitu Kihiputona Tahio paha oho Taua kahiepo Honu tona Mahea tete Titihuti Aino tete tika Tua vahiane Kui motua Titihuti

Loud sang the names themselves, proclaiming the merits of theirbearers or their fathers in heraldic words, in titles like bannerson castle walls, flying the standard of ideals and attainments ofmen and women long since dust.

Masters of Sea and Land, Commander of the Stars, Orderers of theWaxing and Waning of the Moon, Ten Thousand Ocean Tides, Man of FairCountenance, Caller to Myriads, Climber to the Ninth Heaven, Man ofUnderstanding, Player of the Game of Life, Doer of Deeds of Daring,Ten Thousand Cocoanut Leaves, The Enclosure of the Whale's Tooth,Man of the Forbidden Place, The Whole Blue Sky, Player of the WarDrum, The Long Stayer; these were the names that called down thecenturies, bringing back to Titihuti and to us who sat at her feetin the glow of the torches the fame and glory of her people throughages past.

How compare such names with John Smith or Henry Wilson? Yet weourselves, did we remember it, have come from ancestors bearingnames as resonant. Nero was Ahenobarbus, the Red-Bearded, to hiscontemporaries of Rome, at the time when Titihuti's forefathers werebrave and great beneath the cocoanut-palms of Atuona. Our lists ofearly European kings carry names as full of meaning as theirs;Charles the Hammer, Edward the Confessor, Charles the Bold, Richardthe Lion-Hearted, Hereward the Wake.

Titihuti, having gravely finished her chant, stood for a moment insilence. Then, "_Aue!_" she said with a sigh. "No one will rememberwhen I am gone. Water, my son, nor Keke, my daughter, have learnedthese names of their forefathers and mothers who were noble andrenowned. What does it matter? We will all be gone soon, and thecocoanut-groves of our islands will know us no more. We come, we donot know whence, and we go, we do not know where. Only the seaendures, and it does not remember."

She sat on the mat beside me, and pressed my hand. I had beenadopted as her son, and she was sorry to see me departing to theunknown island from which I had come, and from which, she knew, Iwould never return. She was mournful; she said that her heart washeavy. But I praised lavishly her beautifully tattooed legs, andcomplimented the decoration of her hair until she smiled again, andwhen from the shadowy edges of the ring of torch-light voices beganan old chant of feasting, she took it up with the others.

There were Marquesans who could recite one hundred and forty-fivegenerations of their families, covering more than thirty-six hundredyears. Enough to make family trees that go back to the Normanconquest appear insignificant. I had known an old Maori priest whotraced his ancestry to Rangi and Papa, through one hundred andeighty-two generations, 4,550 years. The Easter Islanders spoke offifty-seven generations, and in Raratonga ninety pairs of ancestorsare recited. The pride of the white man melts before such records.

Such incidents as the sack of Jerusalem, the Crusades, or Cassar'sassassination, are recent events compared to the beginnings of someof these families, whose last descendants have died or are dyingto-day.

I took Titihuti's words with me as I went down the trail from mylittle blue cabin at the foot of Temetiu for the last time:"We come, we do not know whence, and we go, we do not know where.Only the sea endures, and it does not remember."

Great Fern, Haabuani, Exploding Eggs, and Water carried my bags andboxes to the shore, while I said _adieux_ to the governor, Bauda,and Le Brunnec. When I reached the beach all the people of the valleywere gathered there. They sat upon the sand, men and women andchildren, and intoned my farewell ode--my _pae me io te_:

 "Apae! Kaoha! te Menike! Mau oti oe anao nei i te apua Kahito" o a'Tahiti. Ei e tihe to metao iau e hoa iriti oei an ote vei mata to taua. E avei atu."

 "O, farewell to you, American! You go to far-distant Tahiti! There you will stay, but you will weep for me. Ever I shall be here, and the tears fall like the river flows. O friend and lover, the time has come. Farewell!"

The sky was ominous and the boats of the _Saint François_ wererunning a heavy surf. I waded waist-deep through the breakers toclimb into one. Malicious Gossip, Ghost Girl and the little leperlass, Many Daughters, were sobbing, their dresses lifted to theireyes.

"_Hee poihoo!_" cried the steersman. The men in the breakers shovedhard, and leaped in, and we were gone.

My last hour in the Marquesas had come. I should never return. Thebeauty, the depressingness of these islands is overwhelming. Whycould not this idyllic, fierce, laughter-loving people have stayedsavage and strong, wicked and clean? The artists alone have knownthe flower destroyed here, the possible growth into greatness andpurity that was choked in the smoke of white lust and greed.

At eight o'clock at night we were ready to depart.

The bell in the engine-room rang, the captain shouted orders fromthe bridge, the anchors were hoisted aboard. The propeller began toturn. The searchlight of the _Saint François_ played upon the rockystairway of Taha-Uka, penciled for a moment the dark line of thecliffs, swept the half circle into Atuona Inlet, and lingered on thewhite cross of Calvary where Gauguin lies.

The gentle rain in the shaft of light looked like quicksilver. Thesmoke from the funnel mixed in the heavy air with the mist and thelight, and formed a fantastic beam of vapor from the ship to theshore. Up this stream of quivering, scintillating irradiation, asbrilliant as flashing water in the sun, flew from the land thousandsof gauze-winged insects, the great moths of the night, wondrous,shimmering bits of life, seeming all fire in the strange atmosphere.Drawn from their homes in the dark groves by this marvelousillumination, they climbed higher and higher in the dazzlingsplendor until they reached its source, where they crumpled and died.They seemed the souls of the island folk.

They pass mute, falling like the breadfruit in their dark groves.Soon none will be left to tell their departed glories. Their skullsperhaps shall speak to the stranger who comes a few decades hence,of a manly people, once magnificently perfect in body, masters oftheir seas, unexcelled in the record of humanity in beauty, vigor,and valor.

To-day, insignificant in numbers, unsung in history, they go to theabode of their dark spirits, calmly and without protest. A race goesout in wretchedness, a race worth saving, a race superb in manhoodwhen the whites came. Nothing will remain of them but their ruinedmonuments, the relics of their temples and High Places, remnants ofthe mysterious past of one of the strangest people of time.

The _Saint François_ surged past the _Roberta_, the old sea-wolf,worn and patched, but sturdy in the gleam of the searchlight.Capriata, the old Corsican, stood on his deck watching us go.

I walked aft and took my last view of the Marquesas. The tops of themountains were jagged shadows against the sky, dark and mournful.The arc-light swung to shine upon the mouth of the bay, and the Landof the War Fleet was blotted out in the black night.

Some day when deeper poverty falls on Asia or the fortunes of wargive all the South Seas to the Samurai, these islands will again bepeopled. But never again will they know such beautiful children ofnature, passionate and brave, as have been destroyed here. Theyshall have passed as did the old Greeks, but they will have left nowritten record save the feeble and misunderstanding observations ofa few alien visitors.

_Apai! Kaoha e!_

Front matter

WHITE SHADOWS IN THE SOUTH SEAS

by

FREDERICK O'BRIEN

With Many Illustrations from Photographs

T. Werner Laurie, Ltd.

1919

[Illustration: Village of Atuona, showing peak of TemetiuThe author's house is the small white speck in the center]

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

Farewell to Papeite beach; at sea in the _Morning Star_; Darwin'stheory of the continent that sank beneath the waters of the SouthSeas

CHAPTER II

The trade-room of the _Morning Star_; Lying Bill Pincher;M. L'Hermier des Plantes, future governor of the Marquesas;story of McHenry and the little native boy, His Dog

CHAPTER III

Thirty-seven days at sea; life of the sea-birds; strangephosphorescence; first sight of Fatu-hiva; history of the islands;chant of the Raiateans

CHAPTER IV

Anchorage of Taha-Uka; Exploding Eggs, and his engagement as valet;inauguration of the new governor; dance on the palace lawn

CHAPTER V

First night in Atuona valley; sensational arrival of the Golden Bed;Titihuti's tattooed legs

CHAPTER VI

Visit of Chief Seventh Man Who is So Angry He Wallows in the Mire;journey to Vait-hua on Tahuata island; fight with the devil-fish;story of a cannibal feast and the two who escaped

CHAPTER VII

Idyllic valley of Vait-hua; the beauty of Vanquished Often; bathingon the beach; an unexpected proposal of marriage

CHAPTER VIII

Communal life; sport in the waves; fight of the sharks and themother whale; a day in the mountains; death of Le Capitaine Halley;return to Atuona

CHAPTER IX

The Marquesans at ten o'clock mass; a remarkable conversation aboutreligions and Joan of Arc in which Great Fern gives his idea of thedevil

CHAPTER X

The marriage of Malicious Gossip; matrimonial customs of the simplenatives; the domestic difficulties of Haabuani

CHAPTER XI

Filling the _popoi_ pits in the season of the breadfruit; legend ofthe _mei_; the secret festival in a hidden valley

CHAPTER XII

A walk in the jungle; the old woman in the breadfruit tree; a nightin a native hut on the mountain

CHAPTER XIII

The household of Lam Kai Oo; copra making; marvels of thecocoanut-groves; the sagacity of pigs; and a crab that knows thelaws of gravitation

CHAPTER XIV

Visit of Le Moine; the story of Paul Gauguin; his house, and asearch for his grave beneath the white cross of Calvary

CHAPTER XV

Death of Aumia; funeral chant and burial customs; causes for thedeath of a race

CHAPTER XVI

A savage dance, a drama of the sea, of danger and feasting; the rapeof the lettuce

CHAPTER XVII

A walk to the Forbidden Place; Hot Tears, the hunchback; the storyof Behold the Servant of the Priest, told by Malicious Gossip in thecave of Enamoa

CHAPTER XVIII

A search for rubber-trees on the plateau of Ahoa; a fight with thewild white dogs; story of an ancient migration, told by the wildcattle hunters in the Cave of the Spine of the Chinaman

CHAPTER XIX

A feast to the men of Motopu; the making of _kava_, and its drinking;the story of the Girl Who Lost Her Strength

CHAPTER XX

A journey to Taaoa; Kahuiti, the cannibal chief, and his story of anold war caused by an unfaithful woman

CHAPTER XXI

The crime of Huahine for love of Weaver of Mats; story of Tahia'swhite man who was eaten; the disaster that befell Honi, the whiteman who used his harpoon against his friends

CHAPTER XXII

The memorable game for the matches in the cocoanut-grove of Lam KaiOo

CHAPTER XXIII

Mademoiselle N----

CHAPTER XXIV

A journey to Nuka-hiva; story of the celebration of the fête of Joanof Arc, and the miracles of the white horse and the girl

CHAPTER XXV

America's claim to the Marquesas; adventures of Captain Porter in1812; war between Haapa and Tai-o-hae, and the conquest of Typeevalley

CHAPTER XXVI

A visit to Typee; story of the old man who returned too late

CHAPTER XXVII

Journey on the _Roberta_; the winged co*ckroaches; arrival at a Swissparadise in the valley of Oomoa

CHAPTER XXVIII

Labor in the South Seas; some random thoughts on the "survival ofthe fittest"

CHAPTER XXIX

The white man who danced in Oomoa valley; a wild-boar hunt in thehills; the feast of the triumphant hunters and a dance in honor ofGrelet

CHAPTER XXX

A visit to Hanavave; Père Olivier at home; the story of the lastbattle between Hanahouua and Oi, told by the sole survivor; themaking of _tapa_ cloth, and the ancient garments of the Marquesans

CHAPTER XXXI

Fishing in Hanavave; a deep-sea battle with a shark; Red Chickenshows how to tie ropes to sharks' tails; night-fishing for dolphins,and the monster sword-fish that overturned the canoe; the nativedoctor dresses Red Chicken's wounds and discourses on medicine

CHAPTER XXXII

A journey over the roof of the world to Oomoa; an encounter with awild woman of the hills

CHAPTER XXXIII

Return in a canoe to Atuona; Tetuahunahuna relates the story of thegirl who rode the white horse in the celebration of the fête of Joanof Arc in Tai-o-hae; Proof that sharks hate women; steering by thestars to Atuona beach

CHAPTER XXXIV

Sea sports; curious sea-foods found at low tide; the peculiaritiesof sea-centipedes and how to cook and eat them

CHAPTER XXXV

Court day in Atuona; the case of Daughter of the Pigeon and thesewing-machine; the story of the perfidy of Drink of Beer and thedeath of Earth Worm who tried to kill the governor

CHAPTER XXXVI

The madman Great Moth of the Night; story of the famine and the onefamily that ate pig

CHAPTER XXXVII

A visit to the hermit of Taha-Uka valley; the vengeance that madethe Scallamera lepers; and the hatred of Mohuto

CHAPTER XXXVIII

Last days in Atuona; My Darling Hope's letter from her son

CHAPTER XXXIX

The chants of departure; night falls on the Land of the War Fleet

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Village of Atuona, showing peak of Temetiu

Beach at Viataphiha-Tahiti

Where the belles of Tahiti lived in the shade to whiten theircomplexions

Lieutenant L'Hermier des Plantes, Governor of the Marquesas Islands

Entrance to a Marquesan Bay

The ironbound coast of the Marquesas

A road in Nuka-Hiva

Harbor of Tai-o-hae

Schooner _Fetia Taiao_ in the Bay of Traitors

André Bauda, Commissaire

The public dance in the garden

Antoinette, a Marquesan dancing girl

Marquesans in Sunday clothes

Vai Etienne

The pool by the Queen's house

Idling away the sunny hours

Nothing to do but rest all day

Catholic Church at Atuona

A native spearing fish from a rock

A volunteer cocoanut grove, with trees of all ages

Climbing for cocoanuts

Splitting cocoanut husks in copra making process

Cutting the meat from cocoanuts to make copra

A Marquesan home on a _paepae_

Isle of Barking Dogs

The _haka_, the Marquesan national dance

Hot Tears with Vai Etienne

The old cannibal of Taipi Valley

Enacting a human sacrifice of the Marquesans

Interior of Island of Fatu-hiva, where the author walked over themountains

The plateau of Ahoa

Kivi, the _kava_ drinker with the _hetairae_ of the valley

A pool in the jungle

The Pekia, or Place of Sacrifice, at Atuona

Marquesan cannibals, wearing dress of human hair

Tepu, a Marquesan girl of the hills, and her sister

A tattooed Marquesan with carved canoe paddle

A chieftess in _tapa_ garments with _tapa_ parasol

Launching the whale-boat

Père Simeon Delmas' church at Tai-o-hae

Gathering the _feis_ in the mountains

Near the Mission at Hanavave

Starting from Hanavave for Oomoa

Feis, or mountain bananas

Where river and bay meet at Oomoa, Island of Fatu-hiva

Sacred banyan tree at Oomoa

Elephantiasis of the legs

Removing the pig cooked in the _umu_, or native oven

The _Koina Kai_, or feast in Oomoa

Beach at Oomoa

Putting the canoe in the water

Pascual, the giant Paumotan pilot and his friends

A pearl diver's sweetheart

Spearing fish in Marquesas Islands

Pearl shell divers at work

Catholic Church at Hanavave

A canoe in the surf at Oomoa

The gates of the Valley of Hanavave

A fisherman's house of bamboo and cocoanut leaves

Double canoes

Harbor sports

Tahaiupehe, Daughter of the Pigeon, of Taaoa

Nataro Puelleray and wife