I ship with a genuine Old-time Crew—Poetic
Nightmares—Tattooed Manuscripts of the Seas!—I learn the
Art of Forcible Expression—Tar-pots—The Storm—Washed
Overboard—Papeete—Pokara—How the first Coco-nuts
came—Star Myths.
THERE are many sceptics who may disbelieve my account of the crew of the
“Zangwahee,” but away with such people!
About a week after losing sight of Pango-Pango I went across to Savaii
Isle. I had heard that there was an old sailing-ship anchored off
Matautu, and that she was bound on a long voyage across the Pacific. I
shall never forget the wonder I felt on first sighting the “Zangwahee”
as she lay out in the bay. “Looks like an old Spanish galleon,” I
thought, as I stared at the yellowish canvas sails and the antiquated
rigging imaged in the dark-toned waters of the bay. For a moment I eyed
the outlines of that craft with intense curiosity. The beautifully
carven emblematical figure-head (a goddess with outstretched praying
hands) kept my eyes spellbound. The poetry of the artist’s brain, the
magic that had inspired the human hands to carve such outlines, seemed
to enter my soul, as the light of the setting sun touched the
saffron-hued sails and glimmered across the silent, blue lagoons. The
movements of a man’s form on her deck made me realize the truth; for in
some credulous fancy I had half thought that she was some long-lost
treasure-trove ship that had lain there for centuries!
“Where you bound for?” I cried, hailing a weird-looking seadog who had
suddenly stared over the bulwark side.
Placing his hand to his lips, he yelled back, “Bound for Tarhoyti!”
“Where the h——’s Tarhoyti?” I yelled back. But no response came; the old
sailor simply pulled his dilapidated cap over his eyes and spat
melancholy-wise into the ocean. In a few moments I had taken one of the
beach canoes and paddled out to the “Zangwahee.” Clambering up the rope
gangway, I went on board. As I stood on deck, I stared in astonishment.
The crew, who were busy coiling up the ropes on deck, all stood up, and
looked like rows of mummies clad in rags. They were wrinkled and
sun-tanned to a yellowish hue! They might have been the crew of the
“Flying Dutchman,” so weird did they look, those old-time sailormen. And
talk about blasphemous oaths, when I meekly asked if they thought there
was any chance of a job!
“Captain Vanderdecken aboard?” I said, hoping to break the ice by such
an evident bit of humour on my part. One old sailorman, who had a Rip
Van Winkle look about him, stared at my blue serge suit of the
nineteenth century, and then, touching his cap respectfullike, said,
“Thar’s the Ole Man aft; cawn’t ye see ’im?”
Looking aft, I got a bit of a shock, I can tell you. The skipper looked
as ancient as his ship! He had a monstrous grey beard and O, the
expression on his face! I might have made a bolt over the side but for
the fact that he had already spotted me. Going straight aft, I looked
him in the face and said, “Any chance of a job, sir?”
Metaphorically speaking, he picked me up by the heels, smelt me, looked
at my teeth, screwed my neck round twice, examined my spine, thumped me
on the ribs, and said, “UM!”
I fancied I saw the dust of ages on his bony neck as a whiff of wind
came across the Pacific and divided the tresses of his beard. Then he
looked down on the deck and said, “Wha’s thawt?”
“My violin, sir,” I responded, as curiosity toned down much of the funk
I was in.
“Ho ho! He he! Haw haw!” he yelled, as he gazed on the deck at my
fiddle-case. In obedience to his commands, I at once took my instrument
from its case and commenced to play! It was like seeing God smile as his
wrinkled face lit up with delight. “Yoom’ll do,” he said. Then, taking
hold of me by the scruff of the neck, he pitched me headlong down the
alley-way into the dingy cuddy (saloon). Alighting gently on a rather
soft-plushed settee of prehistoric pattern, I murmured my thanks. You
see, I had sailed on sailing ships and well knew that the treatment I
was receiving was of marked courtesy in comparison with that which I had
experienced whilst on the Clipper Lines.
So did I become a member of a crew who, I should think, were the last of
the genuine old seadogs.
Next day the yards were squared to a stiff, fair breeze, and to the
strain of some old Spanish chanty I found myself bound for Tahiti! My
description of this voyage and the crew may appear like some gross
exaggeration; but I can assure the reader that I could not possibly
describe that crew and their ancient craft _without_ appearing to
exaggerate. I even remember the thrill that went through me when I saw
the ancient-looking yellowish sails belly to the Pacific wind as we
passed beyond the barrier reefs and caught the outer foam. But alas! the
thrill passed away when I sat down in the forecastle with those
marvellous old shellbacks and had my first meal.
I might say that the salt-horse and biscuits of the “Zangwahee” were as
ancient as the crew appeared to be. Perhaps it was natural enough that
there should be an affinity between the ancient members of that crew (a
few members belonged to my own century) and the horses that had
apparently roamed the primeval Arabian plains! Only a great poet could
describe the antique “Menu” of that forecastle. I have a brilliant
imagination, and so it was easy enough for me to imagine that the corn
that those biscuits were made of had ripened in Assyrian cornfields! I
only had to eat a foc’sle biscuit to enter at once the realms of
enchantment. Just as good wine intoxicates the brain, the fumes of those
cast-iron mouldy biscuits created a gassy atmosphere in my stomach and
inspired my brain with weird poetic fancies. I imagined I saw Ruth
standing amid the “alien corn”; and, taking another nibble, I had
visions of old rivers flowing by ancient walls, and of the desert towers
of the Pharaohs! I saw tired harvest girls, sickle in hand, sleeping by
their garnered heaps under Assyrian suns. Yes, reader, such dreams were
mine when I had poetic nightmares after partaking of the “Zangwahee’s”
forecastle menu of salt-horse and hard-tack.
Though I could fill reams with the wonders of the “Zangwahee’s” menu and
all that my brain fancied, I have only space to set down the stern facts
that apply to the “Zangwahee’s” crew. As I’ve said, they were
hairy-chested men, real seadogs of another age. To see their
thick-bearded lips and their crooked noses, as they sang and climbed
aloft, made me half fancy that I had been blown across a century into
the Nelson period. Notwithstanding the old skipper’s rough exterior, I
found him quite human. Surely few young men who have gone to sea have
had the experiences I have had, for that old skipper would get blind
drunk, and, lying in his bunk, roar mighty encores as I played
selections on my violin to him! He loved sea hymns, and, when I played
“For those in peril on the sea,” he would mumble deep in his beard, his
eyes becoming wet with tears! Though I liked that strange old captain
(and I believed he liked me), my chief delight was to come off watch and
sit in the forecastle with the crew as they tugged their beards, shook
their fists, cursed the mate, the skipper, and the Universe! As they sat
on their sea-chests in the dim-lit forecastle, they looked exactly what
they were—genuine high priests who worshipped at the altar of monstrous
yarns and the best rum!
Some of them had fine, fierce, kind eyes, and bearded lips that never
tired of yelling forth the wild mystery of the sea and oaths of
inexhaustible beauty! They were able to express, in one neat phrase, the
pictorial ruggedness of their adventurous, unholy careers. They were
true sea-poets—possessing forcible descriptive genius that enabled one
to conjure up weird visions of the wondrous countries they had seen and
the “charming” women they had known. And I vow that they made their
verse scan, subtle verse devoid of any direct influence from the idyllic
school of romanticism. Some hailed from ’Frisco, Japan, Callao, New
York, London Town, Norway, etc., so there was a splendid mixture of the
world’s maritime literature. Consequently that forecastle’s audience
made a terrific school of the “Sturm und Drang” persuasion, a school
that fairly hummed with the unrestraint of Rousseau’s _Confessions_, at
the same time favouring Mallarmé and Browning for concentrated
expression. A forcible accent came on their rhymes too! One epic
punch-rhyme would make one’s eyes see stars! What hairy fists they had!
But those older hands seldom quarrelled. O Le Tao’s frame was as bare as
an egg when compared to the hieroglyphics and tattooed sea-heraldry
inscribed on their carcases. I had never seen such living art before,
such brazen display as they revealed when they sat by their bunks and
undressed in that forecastle. Watching by the mingy oil-lamp that hung
from the fo’c’sle roof-beam, I seemed to be witnessing some life-like,
wondrous Madame Tussaud’s waxwork of the sea, as one by one they pulled
their coats and vests off, revealing their herculean, muscular frames in
the nude! What a sight I beheld!—the tattooed storied history of their
adventurous careers! On one old sea-weary sailor’s chest was engraved,
in curves of red and blue, a goddess-like girl, the one great romantic
love of his youth. She was exquisitely designed, and one unloosed tress
fell down to her bare shoulders. I was fascinated as, leaning forward, I
made out the faint words inscribed beneath the feet—“My Lucille,” then
again, over the crown of hair, “Mizpah.” Others were veritable living
volumes, depicting all those things that influence sailormen in the
seaports of the world: shapely-limbed maids of Shanghai, Tokio, Callao,
’Frisco, New York, and London Town adorned their figures. “My True love
Harriet,” Lucille, Unita, Mary Ann, Bill’s Alice, Ducky-Sarah, Angelina,
Una, Fan-Tan, all were there, pug-nosed, and some, alas, indelicately
underclad. I do not exaggerate when I say that I was initiated into the
storied, tragical history of the oceans, of wrecks, the morals and
poetic characteristics of strange womenkind in distant lands, and the
shattered hopes of faithful sailormen, as I studied those weather-beaten
manuscripts of the seas. For many of those tattooesque designs were
sentimental symbols telling of fidelity in love, some deep faith in
“Alice, dated 1879,” and lo, the recorded disillusionment with the later
date—1880—the design of a heart with a dagger through it, revealing
something of the bitterness brought to those old sailors’ hearts through
the faithlessness of those old loves whose names were tattooed on their
massive, hairy chests and muscular arms! It would indeed be a weird
chapter of memoirs that told of my brazen explorations, of my astonished
exclamations, as I curiously scanned and studied the tattooesque history
of those violent old manuscripts. Many of the inscriptions had faded
with age. Old Hans, who had sailed the seas fifty years, before I was
born, would yarn for hours as I frequently interrupted to stare at his
chest, his arms, wrists, and fingers.
“Who was she?” I’d ask.
He would shake his head sadly and tell me how Unita jilted him; how
Kum-Kum slept in Tokio, and Leila in Kensal Green, and Singa-Samber in
some old cemetery in the South Seas. Once he put forth his tarry
thumbnail, and by the mingy gleams of the fo’c’sle’s hanging oil-lamp
helped me to trace out a faint figure on his big wrinkled chest, and,
lo! I plainly discerned the face, legs, and shoulders of some old pal
hanging on a foreign gibbet! I often thought that I must be dreaming it
all, as they sat there in the shadows, yarning away, as the Pacific
combers banged against the vessel’s side, and we rolled along on our
lonely course bound for old Papeete. It took some time before that crew
acknowledged me as one of their legitimate members, for they were often
cantankerous devils.
Ah, memory of it all—and my first oath! For, though I had been many
voyages and roughed it “on the wallaby” with old sundowners in Australia
and New Zealand, I had not blossomed into a true sea-poet of the great
unromantic school of the oceans. No unfledged _prima donna_, no
débutante, ever rehearsed her first part as I did, I know. _I’d_ show
them how to swear! After deep meditation, I gathered together the finest
swear words extant. Over and over again I repeated those vile phrases
until they fell glibly, naturally, from my tongue—full-blooded
adjectives that resolved into monstrous illegitimate pronouns that I may
not print here! I longed to publish those words, so to speak, to inflict
them, sear them on the soul of one of those cantankerous old seadogs,
for they played many scurvy tricks upon me, such tricks as must remain
unrecorded. Though many opportunities presented themselves before I got
the swear-phrases off by heart, I had to wait quite four days before I
could get my own back in a legitimate way. At last the desired moment
came. It was just at sunset. I was standing on deck gazing on the
horizon, admiring the expanse of peace, the ineffable beauty of
awakening stars and approaching night. Suddenly the modern sailor, who
hailed from a local pub, Houndsditch, London, walked out of the
forecastle, looked at me as I stared over the bulwark, then yawned, and
dabbed me negligently—smash! in the mouth with a coal-tar brush, and
calmly asked me if “Me mother knew I was out?”
I clapped my hand to my tar-smeared face; then I let forth my pent-up
volley of oaths, which I well punctuated with a splendid driving blow on
that son of Houndsditch’s nasal organ. The applause and calls of encore
from the whole crew, who had rushed up to see the fight, were terrific.
They cheered and cheered. Then I gave them something more to cheer
about—I picked up the nearest tar-pot—there was a row of them by the
galley door—and crash! it fitted like a cap over my opponent’s cranium,
hiding his brow, eyes, nose, and mouth too! It was splendid. The cheer
that followed that unrehearsed act of mine soothed my ruffled nerves
considerably. I was declared the winner, and, metaphorically speaking,
was awarded on the spot the Nobel prize for swearing! I gained and
maintained the highest respect from those seasoned sailormen. They
nudged me in the ribs when “Houndsditch” passed me on deck, and reviewed
my contributions to ocean-poetry in the most friendly spirit as I swore
and swore. So have I slowly and painfully educated myself that I may
compete with my fellow-man and fight the world with my sleeves up. I
recall that I was quite comfortable on board after that fight. Ah! I
often think to myself, that if I were a king or a millionaire, how I
should purchase thousands of tar-pots, and fix them—crash!—over the
heads of some people I know. But why digress to record one’s personal
viciousness? Except for the incidents recorded it was a monotonous
voyage; and I was delighted when we caught a good trade wind and, with
all sails set, the “Zangwahee” fairly danced and bowed as she did her
ten knots toward old Papeete.
I had been to Papeete before, so knew what I was up against. I wasn’t
touring the world with a camera and a thousand a year; and, though
“South Sea palm-clad isles and wine-dark seas” sounds poetic and
comfortable like, you have to rough it a bit if you’ve only got
fourpence halfpenny in the exchequer. But these facts didn’t trouble me
overmuch, since I could play the fiddle and swear.
The cook of the “Zangwahee” was a most grotesque character. He swore
like the much-maligned trooper, banged his pots and pans about, and
behaved like a lunatic when we stood by the galley door and held our
noses, as we cynically praised the terrible effluvia of the cooking
salt-horse. He, too, belonged to another age. He was sun-tanned to a
yellowish hue, and had a large, drooping nose with bristly hair on the
end. He would purse his lips up and, giving me a contemptuous glance as
I smelt the galley odours, would say: “You call yerself a saylorman! yer
God-damned galoot, clear art of it!” But in the end he and I became
quite chummy. He would sit by his galley doorway and tell about the good
old days, curse the modern sailormen and seafaring ways, as I agreed
with all he had to say. “You orter been a-living in _our_ time, when men
_was_ sailors,” he’d say, as I softly pressed him to take another sip of
rum from the flask which I always carried, so that I might with ease
bribe those dogmatic seafarers. After that he would cook a small bit of
salted horse in fresh water instead of sea-water for my especial
benefit. He even gave me fresh-made biscuits at times. So did I manage
to exist on the “Zangwahee”; otherwise I should have been buried over
the side and gone out of this story years ago. When rum was plentiful,
the cook would stop on deck dancing half the night. Through being
bow-legged, he looked like some mammoth frog clad in an apron, as he
shuffled in a jig in the moonlight, close by his galley door. The songs
he sang were quite tuneless, consequently he sang and sang. He would
fold his arms on his breast and open his mouth like a puppet, as I
played the violin and he danced. I’ve never played an obligato to a
frog’s solo; but for tune and _tempo_ give me the frog! (I don’t think
it’s usually known, but the Polynesian swamp frog was the original
inventor of the syncopated accent of the modern cake-walk.) Its chant
goes:
[Illustration]
[Music:
_Bis_
Clack, click, click. Clack, click, clack.
]
And to sit in a South Sea forest by moonlight and hear an old marsh-frog
conduct an orchestra composed of the weird denizens of the forest—the
Samoan nightingale wrapt in its green and bluish velvet robe, singing
exquisitely as _prima donna_, the mosquitoes buzzing on their weird
flutes, while the grey, swallow-tailed gnat, sitting on the tall
fern-spray, sweeps majestic strains from its wondrous violin, as the old
forest trees waltz—is a musical treat and sight to be ever remembered.
It is wonderful what we mortals can see and hear when we keep our inward
ears and eyes wide open. Of course, such sights were as nothing to me; I
had long since realized that the great truths of this world exist
outside the realms that men persist in erroneously dubbing “Reality.”
It was an engrossing spectacle to watch those old-time sailors
dance on deck by moonlight. The very winds in the sails seemed to
sing an eerie accompaniment, as the weird old shellbacks jigged
and tossed their arms to the moon. I’d play the fiddle, as the
strain of “Oh, oh for Rio Grande!” came ghost-like from the
dancers’ bearded lips. It looked as though they were the ragged
phantom crew of a ghostly ship, as they shuffled on deck, their
sea-boots going “Tip-er-te-tap-tum-per-te-thump-thump!” their eyes
bright with merriment, as they opened their big, tuneless mouths
and joined in the chorus. Then a cloud would suddenly pass across
the moon’s face, and lo, puff! they had all vanished, gone, blown
overboard!
I’d stare aghast, and see lumps of ragged clothes and misty stuff, like
remnants of old beards, swept off on the night winds, as their
parchment-like hands clutched in vain at the clouds in space!
Some unimaginative folk might have sworn that it was nothing more than
hovering albatrosses asleep on the wing, floating on the wind. But
still, it’s a weird place is the South Sea.
However, in the morning, there they were, all in their bunks, fast
asleep, or half awake, dipping their swollen heads in buckets of cool
sea-water—as real as real could be!
With all that voyage’s discomforts I found it in no way monotonous. For
that forecastle was a wonderful breathing library of stirring adventure.
The characters of the books walked about, talked, and took mighty oaths
if one dared to doubt their veracity.
I often marvelled how any shipping-office officials came to engage such
ancient-looking sailormen. They looked infirm and useless. I sometimes
half fancy that I dreamed them, or that I am quite a thousand years old,
as they come to me in some memory of the night, and dance till I
distinctly hear their sea-boots tapping on my bedroom floor in this old
inn. Olaf was clean-shaven, and was so wrinkled and tanned that he
looked like some neptuonic mummy clad in modern duck-pants and a belt.
Steffan wore a peculiar-shaped bristly beard round his neck only, which
looked like an old, frayed, grey woolly scarf, a fixture round his
throat. Hans, the boatswain, who always said “Thou canst,” and “thee,”
and “shiver-me-timbers,” would look straight into the mate’s eyes and
say, “Avast there, you lubber!” He had one enormous tooth that protruded
from his compressed lips, which seemed ever grinning, were he awake or
asleep. At other times he would remind me of a wonderfully carved
heathen idol, a kind of South Sea Laocoön that I had once seen in a
tambu-house in New Guinea. For he would stand on deck bathing in a large
tub that hardly reached to his knees, his muscles and veins swollen,
vividly standing out as though through some mental and physical agony,
while he stared on the skyline, then once again scanned his tanned arms
and chest, whereon were tattooed the strange names of women he had
known! Olwyn Saga, who wore a beard that brushed against his hips and
where through the winds whistled eerie melodies when storms blew, had
cornflower-blue eyes that had ogled the women of Shanghai and Callao
before any modern sailor was born.
Even the skipper would tug his huge beard in a kind of meditative way
whenever he met Olwyn on deck. As for the mate, a Scot, he almost
apologized before shouting out his orders to those grand old fathers of
the sea. Even their songs sounded like echoes from another age, as the
old fo’c’sle dog, Moses, sat upright before them, tears coursing down
his cheeks as the strains seemingly awakened memories of other days. And
when Olwyn jigged in the forecastle by night, the hands would sit
huddled on their sea-chests, their chins leaning on their horny hands as
they dreamily watched. And I would fiddle a weird obligato,
shivery-like, as I stood beneath the fo’c’sle’s oil-lamp, playing, not
to Olwyn’s dancing figure, but to his shadow that mimicked him as it
bobbed up and down in the gloom of the bunks and wooden bulwark side,
first to port and then to starboard, as, folding his arms under his
beard, he slewed round and round! Only the shuffling sounds of the big
sea-boots, “Tump-er-te-tump-er-thump-er-te-thump,” told of the reality,
as I, avoiding Olwyn and staring at his silently moving shadow in the
gloom, was enabled to feed my imagination and extemporize an eerie
accompaniment to a melody that had been sung on the Spanish Main a
century before.
It was in the hush of the hot, calm, tropic night, when the “Zangwahee”
wallowed in the swell and plomped till the hanging canvas seemed to be
drumming to the destiny of the marching stars, that I blessed those aged
sailormen. For, as they yarned and yarned, telling of their far-off
experiences, my admiration for them became unbounded. They were either
the most glorious old liars that ever existed, or had lived in Olympian
times when nothing was impossible and only the marvellous occurred.
Treasure-troves, typhoons, scented merchandise from the Indies,
faithless lovers, dusky beauties on mysterious uncharted isles, and God
knows what else, haunted my dreams, as I, at last, fell asleep, with
their voices still mumbling in my ears. Old Hans, who smoked a filthy
terra-cotta clay pipe and gassed me into insensibility on nights of sad
rememberings, took a fancy to me. I became quite interested in the
lonesome dog-watches. I’d sit by his bunk, and he’d point to the faded
pictures of the foreign women he’d known and shake his head. “When did
she die, Hans?” I’d say, as I pointed to one of the faded outlines of
his bunk’s photographs.
“She?—why, shipmate, she died ages ago!” Then I’d hear all about the
reality of that shadowy outline on the wooden wall. So did I become
familiar with the inner dramas of those old sailors’ lives. Sometimes
I’d hear things that made a shiver go down my spine, or, rather, down
where the remnants of my spinal column remained, for the mate had surely
broken it in three places (I had experienced so much in my travels that
it did not seem strange that I should go off to sea in search of romance
and lose my spine).
“You must be mighty old, Hans, to have experienced such things,” I
ventured to say, as he yarned on one night. Then, so that he might see
that I wasn’t as green as he appeared to think I was, I added, “Might
you have met Abraham or any of the Pharaohs in your time?”
For a moment he puffed his antique pipe, his fingers toiling away as he
stitched the fragments of his ancient clothing together; for quite a
while longer his chin pressed his white beard against his chest, as he
sat in an attitude of deep thought. Then I distinctly observed an amused
twinkle shoot into his pale blue eyes, as, solemnly shaking his head, he
replied, “No, I’ve never ’eard of them coves; they muster ’ave been born
_after_ my time!”
“Do you mean to tell me that you’re older than Abraham?” I said quietly.
Hans looked steadily at me, then gave me a solemn nudge in the ribs. And
then I knew that old Hans had been a bit of a humorist in his youth,
ages ago! I didn’t cotton to Steffan as keenly as I did to Hans. The
fact is, he would get drunk and shout all through the night, mind you:
Blow! blow! bully boys, blow—O!
We’re bound, bound for Callao—O!
We, the sailormen of long ago—O!
So let the winds roar what they know—O!
Blow! blow! bully boys, blow—O!
Then he’d finish up by expectorating a stream of tobacco juice right
through the port-hole on the figure-head’s dishevelled hair! (It is only
the callow youth who sees the poetry and romance of carven wood.) But
even Steffan became emotional when he opened his sea-chest and took
forth his old tattered love-letters. It seemed unbelievable as I
listened to the soft, sweet things romantic girls of eastern lands had
written in praise of Steffan’s eyes, tender ways, and figure! Then he
would fold each tattered yellow fragment up, and moan with the winds
outside in the foremast rigging, as tears coursed down his wrinkled
cheeks! I think it was when the skipper mustered the crew for prayers,
aft in the cuddy, that those old sailormen appeared the most emotional.
It was quite evident by their voices that they believed in a Supreme
Being’s watchful care over the lot of old sailormen. I would play the
fiddle as they stood by the cuddy’s table, prayer-book in hand, lifting
their sea-weary eyes mournfully, as their voices rose and fell. What
voices! Mellow and sombre with years, the deep bass notes seemed to come
from beneath the deck under their feet and echo through their beards.
The skipper, divested of all his erstwhile blasphemy, would hit the
cuddy’s table with his knuckles as he tried to keep the _tempo_ and the
language the same (they sang in various tongues). And one night, when
they all stood singing with their huddled backs bent, and the cuddy’s
dim lamp swung to and fro sending glimmerings over their wrinkled faces,
I seemed to have suddenly passed into a bygone age. “Houndsditch” and
the two other modern sailors were mysteriously blown, like cobweb
figures, out of the saloon by a puff of wind. Only those eight
hairy-chested, tattooed figures stood there, looking like misty things
with hollow eyes and eerie grey beards, as they sang a hymn that
strangely echoed up in the wailing sails. The tap, tap of the skipper’s
knuckles on the cuddy table sounded afar off. I heard only the long, low
plunge of the “Zangwahee’s” bows as she roamed onward and the praying
hands of the figure-head swerved, dived, or softly lifted towards the
tropic skies, while I stared across the little swaying table, fiddling
to the voices of those old sailors, as we sailed the dim, starlit seas
of romance!
One night, while we were playing cards in the dogwatch, something struck
the “Zangwahee” like a tremendous hammer-blow. We were carrying a lot of
canvas at the time. The “Zangwahee” heeled over and tumbled us in a heap
on the port side of the forecastle. The boatswain’s dog, old Moses, a
huge, fluffy fellow with fine brown eyes that were full of wisdom,
rushed out on deck and barked at the stars. Moses was always alert,
being the first to obey the mate’s orders. In a moment we had followed
Moses on deck in a regular stampede. The mate was yelling and swearing
like a madman.
“Where the blazing h—— are ye, mon? Take in sail; she’ll have the masts
ripped out of her!” (The mate seldom gave direct orders to those old
sailormen who had run the Easter down and doubled Cape Horn before he
was at his mother’s breast!)
That typhoon had struck us without the slightest warning. The
“Zangwahee” was already diving, as I clambered aloft with the rest of
the crew. The seas, calm as a sheet of glass when the sun went down,
were heaving angrily as the wind howled across the night. It was a
marvellous and grand sight, for there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The
stars were flickering as though the typhoon’s wild breath reached to the
remote outer spaces of infinity. As I crawled along the foot-ropes
aloft, I looked down on the “Zangwahee’s” swaying decks and distinctly
saw old Moses barking as he stared aloft, his hairy nose sniffing the
stars. I looked seaward and saw the ramping seas rolling away to the dim
night skylines like travelling mountains. As we fisted the canvas, the
old skipper roared his orders from the poop; his beard blew upward and
went over his shoulders as the wind struck him. Of course, up there
aloft we got the full force of the blast. I clung on like grim death. We
had to keep our faces to leeward, otherwise it were impossible to
breathe at all, as the wind struck us like a solid mass. I cursed that
typhoon. I hadn’t any diplomas for ability in going aloft on dark nights
while typhoons blew. Besides, I had a swollen face through toothache. I
felt as though I was being tossed about in space, lost in an infinity of
wind and darkness, with only the stars around me.
“‘Old ’ard! yer son of a gun!” roared an old salt, as I clutched the
canvas with one hand and grabbed his beard with the other when the
“Zangwahee” nearly turned turtle. It was Olwyn Saga, and for a moment I
had thought that a kind, vast white beard had been thrust out of space,
until I heard the mouth give a muffled oath. Only one who has been aloft
on a sailing-ship in really bad weather knows the sensation one feels
when one hangs on to the taut ropes of a stick that seems to wobble in
space, a stick with a dozen singing sailors clinging to it, using
frightful oaths as they apparently grab the stars and curse, when they
should be thinking of the supreme possibility of suddenly appearing
before their Maker.
“Avast there! Shiver-me-timbers! What yer doing, yer young B——!” seemed
to groan a sepulchral bearded voice from out the stars!
“Nothing,” I wailed, as the vessel, pooping a tremendous sea, seemed to
dive over the rim of the world into an abyss. I had instinctively
clutched the nearest solid portion of the visible universe—the seat of
the aged boatswain’s pants! And still those old salts sang some strange
chanty as we see-sawed to and fro in space. The moon had just risen,
blood-red on the horizon, sending a wild glow over the storm-tossed
waters. And, as I looked down from my perch in space, I saw the
tremendous seas lifting their oily backs, like mammoth monsters, as they
chased and charged the staggering ship. The skipper was still on the
poop, using his hands as a siren, as he yelled to the winds apparently.
Suddenly a tremendous smudge seemed to obliterate the world, a smudge
that incarnadined the ocean. The “Zangwahee” rose like a leaping stag,
then fell. Even the seasoned salts clinging beside me ceased their
eternal chanty at that awful moment. Crash! the “Zangwahee” had
apparently collided with the blood-red moon! I distinctly saw the
outstretched praying hands of the emblematical figure-head as the
jibboom dived and then stabbed the moon, and I went head-over-heels and
fell softly into the moon’s ghostly fires! So did it all seem to me, as
the “Zangwahee” nearly foundered, and I, in some inexplicable
double-somersault, had a swift glimpse of the horizon, as she fell
between the mountainous seas and I was jerked into old Olwyn’s arms. I
saw the great living walls of foam-lashed waters flying past us. For one
moment the foretop-gallant yard seemed exactly level with the foaming
pinnacles of the mountains of water that were travelling S.W. But for
Olwyn’s providential grip on me, I should surely have fallen from aloft,
that I know. I thanked Heaven when everything was snug aloft and we all
carefully descended the rattlings. I recall that I had barely got my
bare feet on the bulwark side, prior to jumping down on deck, when
another sea struck us. Again it seemed that we had foundered and that
the waters were thundering over our heads, ramping along, shrieking with
delight as we awaited the trump of doom. When the “Zangwahee” once more
righted herself, we picked the skipper up as he lay by the galley
amidships. He had been washed off the poop. By some miracle the man at
the wheel had been able to stick to his post, and so had managed to keep
the “Zangwahee” from falling broadside on into the tremendous seas. The
chief mate helped to carry the skipper aft and lay him in his bunk. His
leg had been broken. Suddenly old Hans wailed out in a horror-stricken
voice, “By the soul of Neptune, if my old Moses ain’t gone overboard!”
The huddled crew stood by the cuddy’s alley-way, white-faced as they
stared over the wild waters. The swollen moon’s wild red light, sweeping
the mountainous seas, made a glow that somehow harmonized with the
intense inner drama, the sorrow of that moment. The faithful eyes of
that comrade, who had stood sentinel by their bunks, were out there,
staring blindly in the engulfing cataclysms of those terrible night
waters.
“Shiver-me-timbers!” breathed forth those ancient men, as it came
again—a faint, deep, baying sound out of the night, “Wough! Wough!”
That familiar sound touched the very heart-strings of those ancient
sailormen. “God ’elp us all, me shipmate’s overboard!” said Hans to the
chief mate. The “Zangwahee” rose on a mountainous sea; then once more we
shipped heavy water. The torn sails of the mizzen-yard flapped, booming
like big drums, as those old seadogs stood there looking into each
other’s eyes. As for old Hans, he had never looked so appealingly or
spoken in so abject a way to a modern officer before.
For a moment the clear eyes of “Scotty,” for so they called the mate,
stared on Hans. He was hesitating. In that supreme moment he was the
true monarch of that buffeting little empire of wooden planks on an
infinity of water. His humble subjects awaited the order that would
prove if his heart glittered with the true stuff that would stamp him as
a man in their eyes.
Though the first force of the typhoon had blown itself out, the
“Zangwahee” was pitching terrifically, and to lower a boat on such a
night was a risky thing.
“’E’s been a good shipmate to us, sor,” said another, as Hans watched
the mate’s face and clutched his vast beard that had blown backward
right over his shoulder.
“I dinna ken what to do, mon; the skapper wouldnae think on’t, I know,”
said the mate, as he lifted his oilskin cap and scratched his red head.
Then he looked into Hans’s eyes and said quietly, “All right, mon, lower
No. 3 starboard boat.”
Possibly the mate remembered that old Moses had always obeyed him and
pulled the blanket off his bunk true to time when the midnight hot
coffee was ready. Even at that supreme moment a faint, deep, anguished
baying called to him out of the night. It was as though Moses’ wondrous
instinct knew that he was something of an outsider in a world of
two-legged men, and so might be left to his fate. In a moment the old
hands had scampered to No. 3 boat. Their hearts were out on those dark
thrashing waters. They cared not one iota about the risk they took that
night. The great loneliness of the ocean and the wild poetry of the
storm only strengthened the link of fellowship between them and the
brown eyes that stared from those seas at the flying, storm-tossed
“Zangwahee.” I had more than once seen men lower a boat to save a man
overboard, and I swear that there was no less determination and
eagerness displayed by those old salts when they struggled with the
tackle and risked the tremendous seas in lowering that boat.
“Give a hand there, youngster!” yelled Olwyn, as I clung to the davits
and did my best to help them. Then, just before they lowered away, I
jumped into the boat to give Hans his clasp-knife to cut some tangled
tackle. It was at that moment that one of the men, who was watching for
the critical moment to lower away, saw his chance, and loosened the
tackle, and I found myself numbered with the old salts in that boat. For
a moment I thought we had been swamped, for, as the boat touched the
back of the great oily sea that lifted the “Zangwahee” till she heeled
over as though she would turn turtle, another sea struck her. But those
old sea-poets were not amateurs: they knew how to make the seas scan and
the rolling waters rhyme to their requirements. But still for a long
time we all had to use our whole strength to keep the boat’s head to the
seas. It was then that I discovered, for the first time, that, though
the moon was well up on the horizon, a terrible darkness existed in the
gulfs of the waves. Once, when our tiny craft rode buoyantly on the top
of a tremendous sea, I got a swift kaleidoscopic glimpse of the
“Zangwahee’s” swaying masts and rigging, far-off, with the blood-red
moon just behind her. The sight of those illimitable miles of tossing
waters, our lonely ship and lonelier castaway boat, the frantic, hoarse
calls of the boat’s crew, calling “Moses! Moses!” was something
unforgettable, to be remembered when old ambitions and natural
catastrophes are long forgotten.
No reply came to that frantic call. Not a soul spoke as we all listened,
down there in the silence of the hollows, while the wind shrieked
overhead and we dropped into the sheer silence, as vast walls of living
waters rose around us. So strangely silent was it down there in that
gulf of the ocean, that I distinctly heard the deep breathing of the
sailors as they strained at the oars. At last we heard it come again,
that faint deep baying of our struggling canine shipmate. There was no
fancy about it; we heard the wild note of appeal and despair in each
faint, deep bark that answered us between the intervals of silence and
the crash of the seas.
“Damn the moon!” groaned the boatswain, as he stood by the tiller,
stared around him, and almost wept. We all knew that, had the moon been
high in the sky, we should have had a thousand better chances of
rescuing Moses.
“Yell, boys! Bully boys, yell!” roared Hans. And by faith they did yell.
Again they listened and stared out over the wild waters. Back it came—a
faint response, very faint. It was evident that, through the heavy seas
repeatedly washing over our shipmate’s head, he was fast becoming weak,
and so less able to resist the onrush of the travelling seas that would
bear him from us for ever. “Shout again, boys!” said Hans. And again we
shouted. We well knew that it was the only chance. For Moses would
instinctively hear from which direction our voices came and swim towards
us. It was then, whilst we all strained at the oars, and listened, that
we heard a faint, far-off cry of anguish. It sounded more like the
terrified cry of a human being than anything else I could think of.
Every face blanched, I know, as we heard that last faint, terrified
scream! Old Hans, who stood by the tiller, his eyes looking quite
glassy, nearly fell over the side in his eagerness to see what had
happened. Indeed, the boat was nearly swamped, for we left off rowing
when we realized that something else had come out of the vast night in
answer to poor old Moses’, our shipmate’s, despairing appeal to us. We
knew that the Pacific was infested by grey-nosed sharks. We had caught
three monsters on a hook with fat pork only a day or two before. I know
that we all shivered at that moment. We well knew that Moses would give
a scream like that only if _one_ thing happened.
* * * * *
Next night, as the “Zangwahee” once again stole steadily on her course,
I sat in the fo’c’sle with those strange old sailormen. There they sat,
huddled on their sea-chests, smoking their pipes and chewing
melancholy-wise, shuffling the cards as though they played a game that
was part of their destiny. Even their silhouettes, moving on the wooden
walls as the swinging oil-lamp sent its mingy gleams on the low table,
looked strangely mournful as the big-bearded mouths drew in tobacco
smoke and blew it forth again in clouds. The boatswain, old Hans, had
torn his Bible in half and used shocking atheistical expressions. I
heard the tramp, tramp of the look-out man just overhead, and the wail
of the rigging and heavy foremast canvas as the “Zangwahee” crept along
to the pushing hands of the night winds. Then old Hans lifted his bowed
head and looked towards the fo’c’sle doorway, where old Moses, night
after night, had sat on his mat, on watch, his hairy nose pointing to
the stars as we slept in our bunks. I heard the old sailor give a
muffled oath as he blew his nose in his dirty bit of sailcloth
handkerchief.
Then the cook closed the galley door for the night and, stepping softly
into the fo’c’sle, plumped down a large jar of the best Jamaica rum on
Hans’ sea-chest. It was a present from the bed-ridden skipper; and, as
the old salts slowly opened their mouths and in one melancholy gulp gave
a sad toast to the memory of Moses’ soul, I once more seemed to be
voyaging across the seas of some far-off age. I heard the melodies of
the winds wailing aloft in the grey sails that swayed along under the
stars. And, somehow, I felt the touch of the sea’s old sorrow and
romance blow across the deck. The moonlight was falling in an eerie way
through the spread canvas and wavering ghostly-wise on the deck just by
the fo’c’sle doorway. Again I felt that visionary presence, as it
rustled like a richly melancholy-scented wind along the deck, a
something that my senses could not place. I felt it creep into the
fo’c’sle, sending its shifting fingers tenderly over the bowed heads of
those old-time sailormen, who mourned the loss of Moses, the one who had
instinctively loved them all, through knowing the hidden virtue of their
hearts.
* * * * *
When we arrived off Papeete, we seemed to have dropped anchor in some
celestial harbour of a world beyond the stars. Dotted about along the
shore, under the waveless coco-palms, were tiny, yellow wickerwork,
bamboo huts. The sun was setting. It was a sight to please the most
unpoetical being, as dusky figures, clad in tappa-cloth and sashes of
gorgeous hues, flitted under the banyan groves. The far-away background
of that island world looked like some vast canvas daub, some tremendous
transcendent silence lit up by a liquid setting sun. The mountain ranges
of Orehena, visible for miles, resembled some old chaos of unhewn
creation stuffed, piled up, overgrown with forests, and encircled by the
distant blue pigment of the ocean skyline. But the savage children of
Adam and Eve were there right enough. Fleets of outrigger canoes were
being paddled out by the primitive peoples who had sighted the
“Zangwahee.” Those canoes were the Tahitians’ tiny argosies, and were
crammed with sweet-scented merchandise, coco-nuts, limes, softly-tinted
shells, corals, and luscious fruits. Those merchants of the south
clambered up the vessel’s side, rushed about the decks gabbling in a
musical tongue that was the more fascinating through being strange to
our ears. Some were in such haste that they dived from their canoes into
the sea, and, leaping on deck, looked like bronzed mermen as they shook
themselves. The water glistened from their lime-dyed locks and ran down
their handsome figures. “Yarana!” was their oft-reiterated salutation.
It was hard to tell which were the most attractive, the pretty maids
with hibiscus blossoms in their curly hair, or the handsome
terra-cotta-coloured youths. Whilst the hubbub and general pandemonium
of those pretty merchants were in full swing, old Hans, Olwyn, Steffan,
Olaf, and the rest of the old salts walked solemnly out of the
forecastle, hired a twelve-seated outrigger from the natives, and were
immediately paddled ashore.
It was at that moment that I sighted for the first time the old Tahitian
chief, Pokara. So tall was he that he overtopped the gabbling crowd who
stood on the “Zangwahee’s” deck. He was a handsome, wrinkled old fellow,
and his looks did not belie him, for he was a mighty heathen poet and
philosopher. Though old, he stood there in his resplendent youth of
seventy summers, his eyes ashine with the light of some witchery and
fond beliefs shared by no one else. Pokara, was one of a type who are
born old and grow up youthful. The blue days, and the death-blood of
some thousands of sunsets down his seventy years had mellowed his faith
in human things, sent the dross to the winds, leaving him a
simple-minded, grand old man. But, withal, directly Pokara sighted my
face, he made a bee-line for me. His fine bronze figure was almost
hidden, so heavily laden was he with his scented merchandise.
“You nicer white boy, me know!—me know!” said he, as he dropped his
bundles, crash! at my feet. Then he continued, “Wise old Pokara say to
’imself, as soon as he jumper on ship, ah, there stand ’ansome nicer
Englis’ boy; he gotter nicer face and alle-same-ee know that kind old
Pokara am here to sell tings bemarkable cheap.”
After finishing that flattering oration, the old Tahitian drew back a
few steps so that he might the better renew his scrutinizing glance over
my youthful physiognomy. A second look at my face seemed to make the old
chief fairly chuckle to himself. I must have appeared a tenderfoot! He
behaved as though he would have me know that he had, by a still more
careful study of my features, discovered hitherto undreamed-of virtues
and beauty in myself, such virtues that had quite escaped his notice
during his first hasty glance of admiration!
Majestically waving away the other scrambling native pedlars with his
hand, he said, “Ha! Ha! Yorana!” So how could I do otherwise than
purchase a few things that I did not want from that artful old man? I
tell these things concerning my introduction to Pokara, because he was a
typical Tahitian pedlar, a child in his duplicity, and a fine sample of
his race. But Pokara was a child in more ways than one. He was a genuine
survival of the heathen days, and his mind was a veritable repository of
old legends, star-myths, and the storied history of shadowland. He was a
mighty actor by nature, and, withal, was level-headed and good-hearted.
Consequently I never regretted meeting him that evening on the
“Zangwahee” decks, or at any time during my lengthy stay in Papeete.
I recall that, after I left the “Zangwahee,” I secured a good position
as first violinist in the French Presidency orchestra, which I took
under my leadership and made into a capital string band. Monsieur le
President allowed me a good salary from the official exchequer, and this
established me firmly on my feet. But, alas for the foolishness of
unsatisfied youth! I tired of success and went a-wandering. But I must
admit, and on my own behalf, that Pokara was at the bottom of that
business, for I suddenly met him again and got under his pleasing
influence. First, I must say that I was in a somewhat melancholy mood
that day. The night before, and by the merest chance too, I had seen the
last of the “Zangwahee’s” crew. I had just emerged from the Presidency
midnight ball, my violin in my hand, thinking to go straight home to my
lodgings (an old hut at the end of the township), for, as I have said,
it was close on midnight. A glorious full moon was shining over the
palm-clad mountains as I hurried on; but it so happened that, after all,
I did not return to my diggings till daybreak. For, as I stared between
the huddled spaces of the thick clumps of bamboos, I caught sight of
some eight ragged-looking human beings attired in ancient seamen’s
clothes and antique cheesecutter caps. They turned out to be none other
than the “Zangwahee’s” crew on their last night ashore. There they were,
old Hans with vast beard leading the way, Steffan, Olaf, Olwyn, the
cook, and the rest walking one behind the other in solemn Indian file
under the palms, as they made for the nearest café that sold the
cheapest and best rum and cognac. And as we all sat together in the
shanty by the mountains, the hills round Papeete rang with the echoes of
the wild sea chanties of an age that I had never known, while they
yarned and sang and drank solemnly at my expense. Old Joffre, the night
gendarme, and the sleepless natives came and stood by the café’s
doorway, and stared in wonder as those old salts smacked me on the back
and yelled many lamentations over their farewells. For I had told them
that I had decided not to return to the “Zangwahee” any more. I was
truly sorry to see the last of them. They had admitted me to their
distinctive social circle, had initiated me into the poetic art of
looking backward into a seemingly remote past, and, above all, they had
flavoured my soul with a dash of the romance and true poetry of the sea
that still wandered on the oceans in the shape of peculiar, old,
tattooed men, when I was a boy.
But to resume about Pokara. After leaving those old salts, I happened to
be strolling beneath the coco-palms by Motoa beach, a lonely spot by the
lagoons outside Papeete. I was standing by the wooden-columned portico
of a forest shanty listening to the tuneless chuckling of the
blue-winged parakeets, when I was startled by seeing a handsome, silent
figure standing beneath a palm tree. It was alive, for the full dark
eyes blinked as they stared towards the mountains. The magnificently
curved shoulders were squared to their full width, a tappa-sash of
gorgeous colour swathed the waist and was tied bow-wise at the left hip,
the tasselled end flung gracefully over the right shoulder. The figure
exactly resembled a bronze statue. The left knee was bent slightly
forward, and one hand was on the chin as the eyes stared in deep
meditation. The pose was perfect. Had a handsome Greek statue suddenly
stepped down from its pedestal and gripped my hand in friendship I could
not have been more astonished. That figure was none other than old
Pokara, shorn of his cumbersome merchandise and clad in the full
festival costume of ancestral chiefdom. His eagle-like eyes had seen me
coming down the orange groves!
The old chief bent forward on one knee, and, seizing my hand, pressed it
fervently to his lips. I discovered that the little wooden building by
the palms was the residence of a native friend of his, whom he had just
left after a visit. For a while we walked together, then at my
suggestion we went away over the slopes and retired into a café and had
a drink. Lord Pokara and I became staunch friends. I found that he was
looked upon by all the natives, and by the white settlers too, as a
character worth knowing. His majestic bearing was not the least of his
attractive attributes. Though his face was wrinkled into a deep,
expressive map by Time’s toiling hand, his terra-cotta-hued shoulders,
well greased with coco-nut oil, were as smooth as a youth’s. His thick
head of hair was undoubtedly grey; but Pokara was “up to snuff,” and had
checkmated Time’s tell-tale pigment by dying his locks to a golden hue
with strong coral lime. He had evidently been a gay cavalier in his
earlier days, for I observed that when the picturesque Tahitian maids
passed us on the forest track, all chanting their _himines_ (legendary
melodies), he returned their coquettish glances without stint,
negligently tossing his shoulder-sash. Nor must we blame old Pokara for
his love of sensuous beauty, for he was very old then and so must be
sleeping soundly to-night.
“You stopper at Papeete?” said he, as we finished our drink and came out
of the café.
“Yes,” I replied; and this answer of mine seemed to give him immense
satisfaction.
I saw Pokara almost daily after that, and I vow that it was chiefly his
wondrous personality and its effect on my youthful mind that made me
leave the Presidency orchestra and take to troubadouring with the old
Tahitian chief.
“You comer with me and play violin in villages a longer way off, and we
make lots of money,” said he one day, after I had been down at his
primitive homestead. Then he began to tell me _Arabian Nights_ tales
concerning the riches of the native villages and the wonders to be seen
in the pagan citadels over the mountains. And so it happened that we
went off together. It was a glorious day when I found myself tramping
with my violin strung beside me, crossing the palm-clad slopes of Mount
Orehena, _en route_ for the pagan villages where dwelt great high-caste
chiefs and chiefesses.
It seemed like some wild dream of a mediæval age when I first stood in a
pagan township playing my violin to dark-eyed, dusky houris. They stood
with finger to their hushed lips as I played by their bamboo huts and
Pokara sang a weird _himine_. I might say here that Pokara had made me
memorize several quaint heathen tunes before we started off on that
expedition, as well as telling me monstrous tales about princes and
chiefs who would cast pearls at my feet as prolifically as one throws
rice on a happy marriage morn. But, alas! it was not all as rosy as my
Tahitian comrade had painted it. And I thanked Heaven that the expenses
attached to the rôle of troubadouring were not over-abundant in those
glorious climes. Beyond languishing glances from the star-eyed,
golden-skinned Tahitian belles, I did not get much out of the adventure;
but I must admit that the sight of Pokara, with his tasselled sash flung
gracefully over his tawny shoulder and a fascinating poetic grin on his
wrinkled mouth, was something worth sweating across those tropic miles
for in far-off Tahiti. I know that Pokara seemed to look upon that trip
as the time of his life, as he passed round amongst our dusky audiences
with his coco-nut-shell collecting-box. Often the old chiefs would
persuade us to stay the night in the village, so that we might serenade
them at their sacred festival rites and wedding ceremonies. And for such
services we would receive the highest honours and valuable
curios—tappa-cloth, pearl shells, and many things that would make a
heavy load. Pokara managed to get hold of two large sacks, and, filling
them with our presents, had the cheek to ask me to carry one. But this I
positively refused to do, whereupon Pokara hid his booty in the jungle
till such time as he could come back and fetch it.
I think we had been on this South Sea buskin march for about three weeks
when we arrived at a pagan citadel where we had quite an exciting
adventure,—though, in good truth, we had many adventures that may not be
recorded here. One night, after we had been tramping miles through
breadfruit forests and by the rugged feet of lines of mountains, we came
to a pagan citadel called Ta-e-mao. I shall never forget the surprise of
the dusky inhabitants as we emerged from beneath the palms and I began
to play an old Tahitian madrigal, while Pokara wailed out words that I
did not understand. I was attired in duck pants and a brass-bound
midshipman’s reefer jacket, and had on my head a large, dilapidated
helmet hat. As for Pokara, though he was travel-stained and perspiration
had washed much of the gold pigment from his ambrosial locks, he was a
sight fitted to awaken admiration in all hearts. After the inhabitants
had rushed from their huts and got over the first surprise of our sudden
appearance, they were overcome with joy as I played on and Pokara sang.
I don’t exactly know what happened that night in Ta-e-mao, though I do
know that the high chiefs and chiefesses treated us both with that
punctilious etiquette always accorded troubadours in those South Sea
mediæval ages. It appeared that we had arrived on the occasion of a
great festival that was being given in honour of the visit of an aged
king from one of the islands to the south. He was a remarkable-looking
old fellow. He had a face like a gnarled tree-trunk carved to resemble a
man. His teeth were white as snow. He wore side-whiskers and had a large
seashell tied on to them. He was so stout that, when he went to drink
out of the festival calabash, the royal attendants laid the receptacle
down on the top of his corporation, then bowed and withdrew. He had
brought with him his two daughters, or granddaughters, I forget which.
They were comely-looking girls. One was even beautiful, according to our
European ideas of that oft-misused word. Her thick, curly hair was
artistically adorned with orange blossoms, and her attire consisted of a
most attractively woven raiment of tappa-cloth that fell to her knees.
She had fine dark eyes, luminous with a golden light, and they might
well have fired the imagination of a less bold and outrageous youth than
myself. Though I was not aware of it, Pokara well knew that she was
_taboo-bride_, which means that she had just arrived of age, and, being
a princess of a certain grand old dynasty, was entitled to propose to,
and accept, the first high chief of royal blood, or whoever might please
her eyes. In short, my confession is this: I made gallant advances to
her, and she received them with an abandonment that was boundlessly
refreshing and romantic, not only to myself but to the royal assemblage
of high chiefs and the old king also. One thing will I say in palliation
of all that I may have done, and that is, that I had not the slightest
idea that the delicious cooling drink proffered to Pokara and myself
with immense liberality was an intoxicating beverage. And I am sure that
that drink had a good deal to do with the heathenish doings of Pokara
and myself and the final episode that night in Ta-e-mao. Her name was
Soovalao, and it is a positive fact that Soovalao stood before me,
lifted one dusky arm, and sang a heathen bridal _himine_ to my eyes! The
applause at this choice of hers was terrific! It is even possible that
I, in some subconscious way, responded to the princess’s love-tokens and
modest caresses. For I distinctly recall that I heard the tribal drums
crash forth a mighty _fortissimo con passione_ as I gallantly accepted
the beautifully-carved tortoise-shell comb from her hair, kissed her
hand, and repeated some old Tahitian rite! But alas! in delicate
compassion for those who would resent this sad confession, I will draw a
veil of forgetfulness over the final heathen dance, when I played the
fiddle and Pokara sang, and it seemed that a thousand dusky beauties of
a phantom forest seraglio somersaulted beneath the moonlit palms!
At daybreak I awoke. Pokara was stirring beside me.
“Hush, O Papalagi, ’tis well that we fly at once.”
“Fly where?” I said, as I rubbed my eyes and stared.
Then the old chief looked at me, and said:
“O Papalagi, you did accept the princess’s comb, great gift from her
hair, and the whole tribe have accepted you as great chief!”
“Have they?” said I.
Then, as the dawn’s first bird commenced to sing in the banyans and the
village still slept on, Pokara and I crept forth from our little pagan
hut, and dived noiselessly into the forest!
“What happened? What _did you_ do, O Pokara?” said I, as we camped by a
lagoon that day, ten miles from that pagan citadel.
“You no wanter marry princess this day, and go way to ’nother island to
the south of the setting sun, and Pokara see you no more?” said Pokara.
“Um! so that’s how the wind blows,” I muttered to myself.
It was after the aforesaid experiences that we decided to return to
Papeete, and at once set out on our long return journey. Pokara would
swear terrifically, I know, in his own tongue, as he dropped his huge
sack of tribal presents and sat on a decayed tree trunk, irritated, as I
climbed the trees in search of birds’ nests. Somehow the old schoolboy’s
instinct of bird-nesting _would_ come back to me. It would have made any
collector’s eyes shine to see the mighty nests that I found, and the
richly-hued splashed cockatoos’, parakeets’, and strange tropic birds’
eggs that I discovered. Most of them were too far advanced in
fertilization to “blow out”; but, still, I secured a few fine specimens
that had hard shells and would not easily break.
One night, just as we had made up our beds of moss and fern grass by a
belt of mangroves, and Pokara was telling me his old legendary stories,
we were both startled by seeing a strange apparition step out of the
forest. It was a fine moonlight night. Pokara leapt to his feet as I
bravely leapt _behind_ him! At first I thought it was a heathen god. But
I discovered that the peculiar being was real enough, for It wore ragged
side-whiskers, large loose pantaloons held up by a belt, and a
tremendous wide-brimmed hat that had nothing spiritual-looking about it.
It was a derelict sailor.
“What oh, shipmate!”
“What oh!” I responded, as the stranger gave a loud guffaw and roared
out:
“Damn me blasted whiskers, where ther ’ell you sprung from?—a wirelin
too!” he added, as he stared down at my fiddle.
On hearing all that we chose to tell him, he winked, and told us that he
had knocked the skipper of his ship down, and had made a bolt from
Papeete to save being placed in irons.
He _did_ keep us alive that night, I must admit. He had a large flask of
whisky in his pantaloons and plied himself from it liberally. And the
way he sat by us that night and sang awful songs was something
extraordinary and thrilling. He seemed to be unable to sleep, and every
time I dozed off he caught me a whack on the back and said:
“Wake up, yer young b——!”
At daybreak he informed us that he must make tracks, as he wanted to
slip down to the coast and stow away on one of the trading schooners
that traded between the Marquesas group and Tahiti. I think that we were
about three days’ slow journey from Papeete when he left us. The last I
saw of him was when his big boots crashed though the forest scrub,
making the parrots rise and scream above the giant breadfruit trees, as
his herculean figure faded away into the shadows of the wooded depths.
Pokara seemed mighty glad to see him go! I was sorry. I recall that we
camped by a large lagoon near the shore that night. It was a glorious
starlit sky, and Pokara, who never wearied of telling me his wondrous
stories and old legends as we camped by those high sea ways, sat there
by the mountains and told me a very fascinating legend. I saw his eyes
brighten as the tale he told revived the legendary atmosphere of his
youth.
“You see stars—tips of light up there in sky?” said he, as I lit my pipe
and prepared to listen.
“Yes,” said I, as I looked up at the heavens and saw, millions of miles
beyond his dark, pointing finger, a small constellation of stars, six in
all—two very bright ones, and the remainder stars of about the fourth
magnitude.
“You liker know, O Papalagi, who those stars are, why they get in sky
and stop up there?”
“Indeed I would!” I responded.
Then the old pagan astronomer sighed deeply, and proceeded:
“Tousands and tousands of moons ago, big canoe come from Isles that am
in the setting sun. As big canoe get near Papeete, the win’ blew and
blew. Then the _moani_ (sea) jump and jump and push canoe on the reefs;
bottom of canoe fall out and sailors all go bottom of sea! One great
chief did try to keep life that belonger him, and so he not sink for a
longer time; but then he too go bottom. But, though he go to bottom of
ocean, he no die dead. It was then that he look round bottom of sea and
feel much worried; big place, all ’lone. Then he call out: ‘Me great
chief Ora Tua am here at bottom of sea—where am gods?’
“It so did happen that goddess Tarioa, who sat at her cave door weaving
the sunsets, seaweed, and the hairs of dead women to make mats for gods’
feet, look suddenly round cave door’s corner and see great chief Ora Tua
lying on floor of ocean. Her eyes did shine, for he, too, look ’andsome
chief as he stood up all tangled in the sunset. For you must know that
the sun was sinking just same time as canoe bottom was knock out on
reefs.
“When goddess Tarioa saw Ora Tua, she put her hand to eyes and stare
longer while to see so nice chief, chief who had belonger world ’way up
’bove sea floor. She slowly creep out of cave, and while Ora Tua was
looker ’nother way, she catch hold of his hair and pull ’im outer of the
sunset. As he stand before her, his face and form all shining with
golden fire and sunlight that once shine over this world, she say, ‘Ora
Tua, you are ’andsome chief!’
“Then Ora Tua look at goddess Tarioa, and answer nice things ’bout the
goddess’s face, and he say, ‘Oh, who are you, so beautiful under the
sea?’ Then no time am waste between them, they faller in love! Big day
gods and Atua (Thunder-god), the god who open door to let out kind sun
in morning and tattoo sky by night, peep through crack in that big cave
and say, ‘Oh, dear! Dear me! goddess Tarioa am gone now and kiss that
Ora Tua, a dead chief who am not _tapu_, but am mortal who once live up
in world by the sea.’
“It was then that big gods all rush out of caves and run after goddess
Tarioa and Ora Tua, so that they may not kiss again. But so big were
their shoulders, all moving alonger underneath ocean water, that it make
big waves tumble about up on sea beneath the stars; and so ’nother canoe
that was filled with nicer Tahitian maidens knock on reefs and go to
bottom of sea too!
“The gods were so pleased that the dead Tahitian girls so pretty all
stand before them, that they forget all about wicked goddess Tarioa and
chief Ora Tua.”
“What happened then, Pokara?” said I, as the chief licked his lips and
looked up towards the starlit skies in deep meditation. And he continued
in this wise:
“Well, longer time after Ora Tua kiss goddess, she had two children same
time!”
“Twins?” said I, as I laughed, and Pokara vouchsafed a solemn smile.
“The gods of shadowland were terrible angry: they stamp feet till world
shake. It was terrible thing for goddess Tarioa to give forth in birth
two mortal children!
“Goddess Tarioa know this much, so she cry and cry out: ‘O great gods,
giver unto me nice sweet milk for my two _strikas_ (children)!’ for her
grief was mucher, since goddess do have no bosoms.
“The gods did all look through the big ocean water like great faces
looking through white man’s image glass; they looker terrible angry at
Tarioa and say: ‘Your babies wanter milk?—why am this?’
“And Tarioa did hang her head to her bosomless bosom, where the little
ones did move their mouths and fingers in much sorrow. For a moment the
gods did look in wonder at the children, then they said: ‘O Tarioa,
since thy children are mortal, they must die!’
“Then the god who tattoos the skies by night look out of the great Ink
of Night, and say: ‘Is it well, O great Atua, to kill these children?
Are they not of those who gaze on the great blue ways as my finger,
toiling brightly, tattoos the stars?’
“And so did it happen that one god did pray for Tarioa and her children.
So they no kill Tarioa, but they run after her and drive her to the far
north-west of big ocean floor till she come to the shores! And then she
did run up into the world of sunlight, and standing on the shore did
say: ‘Oh, how nicer a world!’
“As she look up at nice trees all blowing and singing in win’ and saw
above the trees the kind blue sky, she look so beautiful that
_kamoka-bird_ (evening-nightingale) fly out of big forest by the sea and
sit on her head. It sang and flutter its wings as its feet get much
entangle in goddess’s hair. Then it hopped down on her shoulder, and try
mucher to poke _stalos_ (fireflies) in babies’ mouths as they cry and
cry for milk.
“But still they cry and cry. Fireflies no good! Then Tarioa very sad, so
she call out. ‘O god of Rain, Ora, Tane, Maker-of-flowers and birds and
nicer things, I have sin in thy sight, but now I do offer prayer. I
will, O gods, be as sacrifice to thy altars, and my children shall
worship thee if they do live.’
“The great god Tane, hearing her prayer, did walk out of forest. Seeing
so beautiful a goddess before his eyes, he say: ‘You wanter food, milk
for babies?’ Then he put forth his big hand and held babies up on tip of
one finger—and looker much pleased! He then say: ‘Your children, O
goddess of sin, may grow up beautiful through having so nicer a goddess
mother; they might have light of the great gods, my vassals, in their
hearts.’
“Then as the babies cry, god Tane turn in great hurry to a palm tree
just by. He touch the top, that was ’gainst sky, with his finger, and
lo! out sprang a bunch of ripe coco-nuts! Then he touch shell and so
make soft holes. And then he place babies’ mouths to the holes so that
they could drink of the nicer sweet milk. He then turn to goddess
Tarioa, and touch her breast, and her bosoms did grow—not two bosoms,
but four. So did she, being a great goddess and loved by Tane, have four
nipples.
“So did goddess Tarioa become mortal. Her children grew up and did have
more children who do ever have a far-away look in their eyes when they
stare towards the setting sun. For you must know that they are _tapu_
children, and live on the Isles that are far to the north-west. And
long, long ago, goddess Tarioa did go ’way to shadowland that is far up
in the sky. And it is up in the sky that her eyes did stop and still
stop as she ever watches by night over her children.”
Saying the foregoing, Pokara pointed up to the constellation of six
stars to the far north-west, and said:
“Papalagi, there she is!—those two bright stars are her eyes and the
four pale little stars am her nipples.
“So you see, O Papalagi, why all the children of the islands ’way to
north-west are _tapu_ (sacred), for they are the children of the
children who did once drink tapu-milk from the bosom of the stars.”
As Pokara finished, he looked intently up at the heavens. And as I too
looked up and saw the two bright stars, and the accompanying smaller
stars twinkling out there, far-off in the clear night sky, I understood
how wonderful the universe must have appeared to the old heathens of
many ages ago. I could not laugh over Pokara’s story, as we sat there by
the forest lagoons. I must confess that I too felt some weird
fascination for his heathen world. And, as the old chief laid his weary
head down on the forest floor and the winds sang mournfully in the
mangroves, I looked up towards the sky and strangely fancied that I saw
the beautiful goddess Tarioa watching from the night-heavens amongst the
stars, watching over her lost children. Then I laid my head down on my
pillow of gathered moss and tried to sleep. As I watched the moon slowly
climbing the blue vault of space over the forest height, Pokara’s deep
bass snores broke gently through my meditations. After a while I gazed
on the sleeping chief’s face and fancied he looked like some tattooed
mummy who had lain there in its scented swathings beside me for possibly
a thousand years. It was at that precise moment that my eyes spied a
bright spot that shone like a vast jewel under the distant ivory nut
palms. It was a small forest lagoon that I had not observed before. I
was not as surprised as one might suppose, when the water stirred and a
shock-head of glistening hair protruded and two sparkling eyes peered at
me. I could hardly believe my own eyes as the head rose higher and a
beautiful form slowly emerged from the silent depths. She was a
goddess-like creation of wondrous beauty; the glistening waters ran from
her tresses down below her thighs as she gazed upon me. She was not more
than twelve yards away.
“The wonders of the South Seas have no end,” thought I, as with finger
to her lips she beckoned to me and came gliding towards me on tiptoe. I
instinctively understood her meaning. In a moment I obeyed. Jumping to
my feet, I clutched my violin and followed her. I heard the eerie rustle
of her shadowy raiment, as her feet, pattering like rain on palm-leaves,
sped softly beside me. Then we came to the sea. It was a wild, solitary
spot. Only the tiny whirl of the incoming waves broke the moonlit
stillness that dwelt at the feet of the mountains which rose like mighty
sentinels to the north-west. Taking me by the hand, she led me out to
the edge of the promontory. As I stood there staring on the strange
greenish hue of the sea-line, I realized that I was standing on the most
solitary point of the earth. Then, as gracefully as possible, I did
exactly as she bade me—sat down in the large bowl of moonlight she had
mysteriously placed there. And, so seated, I lifted my violin to my chin
and played a weird melody, such a melody as a troubadour might well play
to a beautiful enchantress. It was all real enough, no dream at all. I
even touched myself. “No mistaking me!” I mumbled. Then I gazed on the
sky, and observed that the stars swam like goldfish across the midnight
blue. I knew that Pokara still lay fast asleep in the forest shadows,
little dreaming of the strange visitant who had lured me from his side.
In some strange way I realized how envious he would have been, could he
have seen me sitting there in that bowl of moonlight playing my violin.
He, I knew, always _would_ think the magic of things was wholly on his
side and not on mine; and there I was, being strangely favoured by the
gods of the present reality, whereas Pokara had to dive far back into a
heathen past ere he realized such wonders as I realized that very night.
And still I played on, as the maid danced in a way that surely none had
ever seen before. It did not seem at all strange when she leaned forward
and sang into my ears the melodious old English ballad “The Mistletoe
Bough”; and while I played a tender staccato on my violin the waves
wailed a wistful obligato _con anima espressione_, as they rippled on
the moonlit coral reefs.
Suddenly the maid, who had been dancing with her hands raised, stayed
the silent trippings of her feet and fell on one knee before me. In my
finest Hans Andersen style, I took her hand and listened to her
pleading. My heart beat rapidly, I know, as she said in accents soft and
low:
“O pale-faced troubadour from the western seas, come! Follow me!”
“Fancy this being the end of my wanderings in the southern seas!” I
muttered deep within my soul, as she knelt there on the promontory’s
edge and gazed into my eyes in a final mute appeal. Then I rose to my
feet. I well knew that many men had risked their all for the sake of the
light of witchery in a woman’s eyes. Perhaps she observed my hesitation,
for, as she gazed on me, I saw her eyes blink, and, lo! I got one
splendid glimpse of the stars that shone in their liquid depths. Nor
could I help myself, as, standing there, I touched her lips with my own
thrice before I took the final plunge. I instinctively placed my violin
under my coat so that it would not get wet. Once more I looked up at the
sky. Then we both dived noiselessly into the ocean and faded away into
the depths of a great silence.
I opened my eyes. Pokara was still beside me, fast asleep. Only the
passionate song of the _O Le Mao_, high up in the breadfruits just
overhead, disturbed the silence of the forest as I stared up at the
stars. Then in some vague longing I turned over and tried to sleep, so
that I might catch up the thread of that dream again.
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