about to begin, and promised peace and pardon to all who should submit.
His friends, as well as his enemies, realized, in their astonishment,
the enormous difference brought in by the new faith. This clemency did
as much as actual power to win over those defeated. Most all men
submitted to the new great chief, to the new religion; the _maraes_ were
destroyed, the image of the god Oro, a palladium long fought over, the
cause of cruel wars, was burned; the people turned to Christianity, and
the old order was completely broken up, carrying with it the power of
the chiefs on which, unfortunately, the social system was based; because
this power was more intimately connected with religious awe and belief
than with military supremacy.
Had I more time, I should have liked to describe more fully the details
of what I have only indicated. The whole story of the years between the
decadence of Oberea’s control and Pomarés triumph is full of meaning to
the Teva. With our clan, Opufara is still a representative of its
courage and its pride. With no little feeling does Queen Marau urge me,
when I return to Paris, to seek out the _omare_ or club of the great
Chief Opufara, preserved perhaps yet in the Musée des Souverains. In the
Museum at Sydney in Australia, among the fragments and samples of cloth
and dresses collected by Captain Cook, I shall perhaps find some bits of
the garments of Oberea.
Saturday, June 6th at Sea.
Wednesday was to be our last day. We had decided to join the steamer
chartered by us for Fiji not on its arrival but later at Hitiaa on the
opposite southeastern coast of the island, partly to see the other side
of the island, partly to say good-bye to Tati who would load our steamer
with oranges.
We were to leave at noon for our drive around the island and there were
to be prayers that day in all the churches against the illness now
afflicting the island. The King was ill; our chiefess wished her family
to be present at church. Before the breakfast to which we were asked,
she bade us good-bye as she proposed to return to church: they have a
way there of spending the day off and on--the natives--as we remembered
at Tautira.
She drank our healths and made us a little speech, having kissed
Tauraatua, and holding our hands in her soft palms, she wished us again
good-bye. She was very dignified and simple. Nothing could have been
simpler or more touching. As I remember, she wished us the usual safe
journey home and health and “hoped that we might return, where, if we
did not find her, we should at least find her children.” After that we
had a long and cheerful breakfast with the remaining family, and then we
drove away around the coast to Hitiaa which we reached in the early
evening.
The drive, though a rough one, was beautiful; of course we could not see
inland the high mountains and deep valleys, except when on one occasion
we crossed a wide river and valley and could look back. But we skirted
the sea everywhere, and our road ran between the cliffs, every few rods
making new and exquisite pictures of sea and trees and rocks, and of
waters running to the sea. I do not know if this side of the island be
finer, all is so lovely in detail, but it is bolder and more rocky. I
thought, as we drove along and had passed Point Venus, how well chosen
had been Bougainville’s name of Nouvelle Cythere, for we were on his
side of the island. The feminine beauty of the landscape and its
“infinite variety” completed the ideal of a place where woman was most
kind.
The charm of the day closed in our arrival at Hitiaa where we were to
pass the night--in a little village of pretty huts set in cleanly order,
in a grove of high bread-fruit trees. All was green even to the road,
except a few spaces in front of houses, neatly pebbled. In the shade
were the figures of Tati and of our hosts, coming to meet us--all in
light colours, white, blue, red, and yellow, making a picture that might
have done for a Watteau. We dined out on the green right by the shore,
where the surf broke a few feet from us. The air was sweet with odours,
and cool. It was pleasant to be with Tati again and hear his laugh,
something like Richardson’s, whom he resembles in size as well as in
many little matters. But I know that I said this before.
We slept in a cleanly native hut, of the usual style, a long thatched
building, lifted on a stone base with a floor, and sides made of rods
like a cage, but with European doors. At either semi-circular end,
muslin was hung along the walls so as to exclude the light and to
protect a little from draught. Each end had a curtain drawn across it,
so that one’s bed was enclosed, but our host and hostess watched us to
the last with unabated kindness. Everything was scrupulously clean. The
next morning was like the evening. Blue clouds blown over a pink sky,
all far above us, for all the trees rose high and we moved about from
shade to shade. Tati had driven away before daylight to put oranges on
board. The village was very silent, as if deserted. We spent the morning
in idleness; walked to the great Tamanu trees at the end of the village
of which Tati had told us when he tried to find words for the impression
of solemnity which European Cathedrals had made upon him. The trees are
like great oaks, but rise with a great sweep before branching. Right by
the road is a cluster of them with great roots, all grown together in a
lifted mass. We sat idly by the sea and looked at Taiarapu all in blue,
and at the sea between us and our little Tautira also all blue, which we
shall never see again. Men, on the inside reef alongside, were fishing,
standing patiently in the water.
Over us, stretching far and touching the water at places, spread the
great Tamanu trees. We sat there in their shade. The water came up to my
feet and washed out my drawings in the sand, as memories of things are
effaced.
It was pleasant to be absolutely idle, listening to the soft noise of
the tide rolling minute pebbles on the sand, looking at its edges
fringed with bubbles, that folded one over the other like drapery, and
watching the wet fade smoothly off the shore.
The trade wind blew strong. The air was very cool. Mrs. Tati gave us
breakfast with a smile of welcome and _iorana_, and little Tita flirted
with us.
Then I slept; and waking determined to have some record of this our last
day, and sat again on the shore, and made a note of Taiarapu across the
water on which the rainbow played. Near me the surf ran in rapidly on
the shallows, all in blue shade; the Tamanu’s branches above me were
reflected in the motion--and underneath the trees, boys paddled in and
out, in their little boats without outriggers, using their hands for
paddles, so that as they swung their arms they looked as if swimming
hand over hand. It was still very cool, and I felt that I had probably
exposed myself to what is the danger of this place at this time. It can
be so cool after heat, and so damp with such draughts that I do not
wonder at the constant colds and troubles of the lungs that I have
noticed. I should call it a lovely climate--and an exquisite
climate--but not one for a pulmonary patient. Now I am astonished that
Piri’s doctors sent her back here.
In the evening we had Tati again at dinner and talked with him about his
perhaps coming over in ’93, Exposition time, and about the correctness
of his sister’s translations of poetry. We tried in vain to get some
love songs, though he promised to send some to me later, but he told us
stories of Turi, famous for prowess in love--the Arabian love of the
South Seas--also of the tradition of an isle inhabited by women only,
such as is told of on the farther shores of the Pacific, and such as
Ariosto wrote of; and some anecdotes, not to their credit, of Pomaré the
great or his father Teu, some of the scandalous scenes of which had been
enacted not far from there, and had been commemorated in the names of
the rivers. “But perhaps after all,” Tati said, “they were no worse than
other chiefs who lived before them, for as they all had unlimited power
that power led them to many excesses.”
The next morning we arose to find the little steamer some three miles
off. Perhaps there were fewer rocky ledges upon our path nor did we see
the olive gray mist of the _aito_ trees (iron wood) against the blue
sea, or the shining wet rocks. But otherwise it was like a continuation
of the ride of the day before, a dragging through grassy, wet roads, and
plunging into small streams, where coral rocks whitened the clear grey
bottom. A very few people nodded to us as we passed. I suppose that most
every one was engaged at the packing of the oranges further away; orange
trees filled the roads, the peel of oranges in long, yellow spirals,
dotted the grassy edges of the rivers hear the huts. Small black pigs
scampered and tore away into the “brush” on either side, where in a
hollow of the road undisturbed by our passing so close, old Eumaeus the
swine-herd crouched alongside of his black hogs who ate savagely what
he had provided. And again we came to such a place as we had seen on our
drive of Wednesday, something never noticed elsewhere by us, where some
ledge of rock came up toward the sea, leaving only a narrow passage.
There a little wicker fence had been built across the road resting
against the rock on one side and the trees on the slope below; and there
we opened a gate, as if all this lovely land had been but some domain,
and had been set out in its beauty of arrangement by skilful hands, to
please owners who lived perhaps inland, behind the vague spaces of
forest trees, or up the hazy valleys. All that was wanting to the idyl
was what we had seen before, red bunches of wild bananas brought down
from the mountains and hung on bamboo poles or left supported by
branches and roots, on the wayside, along with heaps of cocoanuts half
hidden in grassy hollows, giving the idea that other owners and
gatherers had but just placed them there while they went off for a
moment; for a plunge into cool water perhaps, after the hard toil of the
carrying.
Tati has explained to us how that really the owners were not far away,
but that afraid at our coming or at that of others they were concealed.
It was what is called their consciences, or rather what the French have
subtly called “le respect humain,” that drove these good people into
concealment behind pandanus or orange trees. That day that we drove
away, leaving our dear chiefess go to church, was all through the
country, apparently, a church holiday, and no one having gone to the
mountains for such worldly things as banana food wished to be seen at
work, when all were apparently moving to and from the churches, clad in
brightest garments, and looking like the lilies of the field.
But this morning, like yesterday, was a day of work; and soon we saw
along the shore and drove past it, a very long shed, with shining
thatch, and with hanging curtains of matted palm, where were many
people, men, women and children, who had been packing oranges and now
were resting and eating. The place was as joyous and full as the
previous land had been solitary; work had stopped, the last boxes of
oranges were being taken to the ship in double canoes, that is to say,
two canoes joined together by an upper planking or deck of canes. On one
of these with our luggage, we also embarked--the ropes that were
fastened to the trees on shore to steady the steamer, were loosened, the
anchors lifted, and with a good-bye to Tati we were off. That afternoon
we saw little of the island lost in cloud until we turned the corner of
Point Venus, and looked up the gorges that led toward the Aorai. Then
soon we were in Papeete and could go ashore and watch the packet from
San Francisco just sailing in behind us, and try to say good-bye again.
Again I felt the curious twinge of parting, again Ori’s wife Haapi
kissed my hands. The late afternoon flooded the island and the clouds
half covering it with a dusty haze of yellow light. The sea tossed fresh
and blue as if lit by another sky. We passed the fantastic peaks and
crags of Moorea, seen for the first time on its other side and wrapped
above in the scud of the trade winds blowing in our favour. So in a
gentle sadness the two islands faded into the dark; the end of the charm
we have been under--too delicate ever to be repeated.
There I thought, five hundred years ago, I was young, happy and famous,
along with Tauraatua.
“Ils sont passés, ces jours de fête,
Ils sont passés, ils ne reviendront plus.”
If only when I received my name and its associations I could have been
given the memories of my long youth; the reminiscence of similar days
spent in an exquisite climate, in the simplest evolution of society, in
great nearness to Nature, that I might find comfort in those
recollections against the weariness of that civilized life which is to
surround my few remaining years.
D. M.
Oberea
S
Posuit
Teraitua
TAHITI TO FIJI
Sunday, June 14th, at Sea.
Lat. 20-42 S. 839 miles from Rarotonga.
Long. 174-44 W., 431 miles to Fiji.
On Tuesday we were before Rarotonga: on _Tuesday_ according to the ways
of the place, where, as in Samoa, the missionaries made an error in
time, and have never dared to rectify it. But to us outsiders it would
have been nearly a Monday, though later, no doubt, the captain would
throw off a day for us as we went west, perhaps even drop it here
politely.
Rarotonga of the Cook Islands is a little island about twenty miles
around, with outlines reminding one of Moorea; the look of a great
crater whose sides had been broken out, leaving sharp crags and here and
there curious peaks.
I had been suffering very much from my ancient enemy, sciatica, which
declared itself almost as soon as we left Tahiti, and has kept me in
pain up to this moment. But I managed to get ashore, and to take a long
walk along the pretty road that goes around the island. We called on the
Resident, Mr. Moss who took us to see the Queen or Chiefess Makea, for
whom we had a letter from Queen Marau. She was the usual tall, smiling
Polynesian chiefess, pleased at the addresses of her letter, which made
her out a _queen_, as she showed to the Resident. For I gathered in the
careless accidents of conversation, she had been lately elected chiefess
by a parliament composed of representatives of the islands who are
supposed to have federated for a general government. But Makea is a
chiefess of great descent, being straight from Rarika, one of the two
chiefs who years ago met here, one of them coming from Tahiti, the other
from Samoa; one driven away, the other in exploration; and who colonized
the islands, and in the persons of their descendants fought for
supremacy down to this date. So that it is something that this
representative of one descent should have been agreed upon. Many of
these traditions have been recorded by the Rev. W. W. Gill in his “Myths
and Songs from the South Pacific”; though his book refers particularly
to Mangaia which is a neighbouring island about one hundred miles
distant.
“Yes,” said the Queen, “Moni Gill.” She had seen his book and proposed
to make some corrections. Money Gill, he was nicknamed because he was so
fond of money. Let me add that I also understood that the gentleman was
generous enough and not mean.
The missionaries have had complete control all this time; and yet
things “laissent à désirer,” as the French have it. There has been a
system of “government,” as Mr. Moss rather ironically sounded the name.
There had been one hundred policemen in this little island of Rarotonga.
Each policeman was a deacon, and the punishment of everything was a
fine; the fines being pooled together and divided afterward.
Many deeds were fined and punished that were innocent or excusable, but
all the fining had not in these thirty years increased the chastity of
the women. Though the reports of the missions do not carry out this
fact, the individual missionaries admit it, and what weakening of real
authority has resulted one can only guess.
Some years ago the missionaries objected to smoking. To-day our
missionary on board has a cigar or pipe in his mouth most of the time.
In those years Makea was fined and excommunicated for smoking a
cigarette. Being driven out she became reckless, and I am “credibly
informed,” drank and “even danced.” And so her example stood in the way,
and the missionary came back to her and begged her to return and be
disexcommunicated, even if she should smoke; so that at least others
should not have her precedent for dancing. But she refused. How it all
ended I should have liked to remain to inquire, of her or the Resident,
but the steamer waits not, and I only get these queer little bits of
information by chance hearing. But you know that I believe that one gets
a good deal from such trifles. I find the British Resident cheerfully
hopeful of getting these people under some shape of government other
than the kind of thing they had which cannot last. He took us to the
building which is a schoolhouse and Parliament house, and we heard a
little of what he was doing to get them to regulate matters in some
shape that can serve as a basis. But you can imagine what little
difficulties come up when those of the neighbouring island, whose
chiefess Namuru I saw at the Queen’s, had sent word in their innocence
that they had fined a Chinaman for complaining to her and writing what
they called a lying letter. In their Polynesian simplicity (and they are
shrewd enough) they had forgotten that in an interview they had admitted
all and given the Resident every detail.
But there is no doubt that everywhere, the native churchmen, put up to
the use of arbitrary authority, will do many queer things--things that
everybody knows of through all the South Seas, so that there is no need
of detailing them. They suffer, too, from having but one book, the
Bible, which (especially the Old Testament) they know by heart, and
where they can easily find a precedent for anything they may choose.
They might get ideas from other books, but then they would have to
learn English, etc. “What then will happen?” say the missionaries. “Do
you see these good people reading Zola?” Their conduct is somewhat
Zolaish at times, but then it is carried out in their own language.
Hence much objection to teaching them English or anything that might
lead to danger. It is the old trouble that missionaries have always
found--more especially if they were obliged by principle to suppose that
they might have some liberty of choice. The position is a hard one. I
saw the expression of the missionary’s wife when another hinted under
his breath that perhaps the Catholic Sisters might be allowed to come
and teach. Such an extremity, however, would blow things sky-high; and
if it be necessary that there be education, perhaps the missionaries
will consent rather than see the enemy bring it. The English
protectorate has only lately been established, and naturally all these
questions are fresh.
We took away with us the next day one of the missionaries, his wife and
four children, who fill up quite a little corner of our little boat. The
scene at their leaving was very pretty--as far as the apparent devotion
of the native women who had charge of the children. They kissed their
arms and legs, and so humbly the hands of the missionaries, with such an
appealing look for answer. They are pretty young people, our clerical
friends--the wife Irish, I should say--and are interesting as types.
The poor little lady has been ill all the time, but I can see that even
then she has a will of her own. The care of the small baby has devolved
on the husband missionary, who has some trouble. The children are wild,
good natured and Polynesian and sing hymns with the Polynesian accent
and cadence, occasionally bursting out in a cheerful laugh when they
have apparently hit it successfully.
We have a French captain of artillery who is leaving Tahiti for Noumea
(New Caledonia) and who tells me things of his expedition in the Chinese
war and the taking of Formosa; also a Tahitian judge on furlough, who
confirms what I have seen of the oral claims to land through genealogies
committed to memory, the authenticity of which he has to leave to his
native associates on the bench to decide.
This afternoon we pass two little islands, Onga-Onga and Onga Hapai,
uninhabited; to which people come at certain seasons to make a little
copra. They seem lost and without relation, for we do not understand the
ocean bottom that would make all rational. Near them, and some five
miles from us, a long line thicker in the middle, is the new island
thrown up some five years ago or so, of which Mr. Baker, premier of
Tonga, gave us an account. He had visited the place while the eruption
of mud was still active, had come quite close to it, even nearer than
was safe, for the wind came near forcing him within range of the
explosion. He has related it in a little pamphlet.
“This perhaps,” says Adams “was the beginning of an atoll, a mud
eruption, spreading out like this one under the sea, a surface upon
which the coral started.” We had seen in the morning of our second day
out, a “low” island, Mauki--a low mass upon which any elevation
counted--but it was a mere mass of grey-green upon violet and blue, in
the twilight of that day, so that we did not make it out at all. The
island besides has no outside lagoon like a true atoll, but a
fresh-water lake inside; so that we have not yet seen an atoll.
The little volcanic islands, perhaps both belonging to one crater, are
edges of its walls still standing, and a long ledge that runs to meet
some projecting wall or dyke, may either belong to the side of the
crater, or may it be a raised beach? Adams looks carefully through the
glass, but there is too much haze. The little islands grow smaller and
smaller as I write--little patches of sharp shape, of a fleshy violet on
the clouded blue of sea and sky. It is late evening. The wind, which has
been unfavourable, seems to veer a little. We have been _unfortunate_:
the trades that should have blown steadily have almost deserted us, but
we are fortunate to have a steamer. And all through we have felt cold,
though not officially, that is to say, at midday the thermometer marks
from 80 to 83.
Monday, June 15th.
Still fine weather, blue sea, blue sky; some little islands--the end of
a chain of reefs and islands Onga Fiki appears in the horizon and
promises us arrival for to-morrow.
The passengers are more cheerful, the children less feverish. The little
missionary lady plays on the piano and sings a hymn, the Judge leaning
over her.
The Captain “profite de son dernier jour pour perfectionner” his
English, and bewails with me the unreasonableness of English or British
pronunciation. “Why,” says he, “does the steward say ‘am,’ for ‘ham,’ I
suppose, for he can’t mean anything else, and why does he say there is
much ‘hair’ when the wind blows? French seems more logical.” I comfort
him as best I can, but he no doubt has a hard time before him.
More islands to the northwest, and later at night we shall make others,
and to-morrow be at Suva of Fiji; unless we run on some reef, but the
captain has been here before--some ten years ago, it is true.
FIJI
Suva, Wednesday, June 17th.
Yesterday we arrived as expected, and have been since that, reposing in
the calm that can never so pleasantly come upon one as after an
uncomfortable sea voyage. The steamer, unknown to the island, unawaited,
must have appeared to bring some important news: perhaps something in
the nature of a disturbance or trouble in some of the places connected
with this one politically; perhaps in Rarotonga that we had left, where
the new English order is but recent. But if such was the case we knew
nothing of it, and waited quietly on board in the beautiful little
harbour; looked at the lines of mountains on one side of the
amphitheatre, edge upon edge of blue; upon the reef’s haze of white
light; and on the other side, upon the little town stretched out on low
land, but prettily connected with the distance, and high land by little
hills picturesquely balanced and arranged, with trees and houses and
some native buildings; and then along the beach, the usual shops and
trade buildings, more British than anything we had yet seen.