Rutiaro
Chance began to move of set purpose in Papeete, on the day I was to
sail with the one-hundred-and-ten-ton schooner, _Caleb S. Winship_,
for the Cloud of Islands. I was on my way to the water front, and,
having plenty of time, walked leisurely, thinking of the long journey
so nearly at hand, of the strange and lonely islands I was to see,
and wondering, as an Anglo-Saxon must when presented with a piece of
good fortune, what I had done to merit it. Oro, the cabin boy of the
_Winship_, was following with my luggage. He kept at some distance,
a mark of respect, as I thought, until I saw him sublet his contract
to a smaller boy. Then he retired to spend the unearned increment
in watermelon and a variety of cakes sold at the Chinese stalls
along the street. Not wanting him to think that I begrudged him his
last little fling on shore, I became interested of a sudden in the
contents of a shop window, and there I saw a boxful of marbles. In
a moment Oro was forgotten. Papeete faded from view, and the warm
air, fragrant with the odors of vanilla and roasting coffee, became
more bracing. There was a tang in it, like that of early April, in
Iowa, for example, at the beginning of the marble-playing season.
Fifteen years dropped lightly from my shoulders and I was back at the
old rendezvous in the imagination, almost as really as I had ever
been in the flesh. The lumber yard of S. M. Brown & Son lay on the
right hand and the Rock Island Railroad tracks on the left. Between,
on a stretch of smooth cinder right of way, a dozen games were in
full swing. There were cries of, "Picks and vents!" "Bunchers!"
"Sneakers!" "Knucks down!" the sharp crack of expert shots; the
crunch of cinders under bare and yet tender feet. Meadow larks were
singing in a nearby pasture, and from afar I heard the deep whistle
of the Rocky Mountain Limited as it came down the Mitchellville
grade.
I bought the marbles--the whole box of them. They cost fifty
francs, about four dollars American, as the exchange was then, but I
considered the investment a good one. I knew that, no matter where
I might be, to lift the lid of my box was to make an immediate
and inexpensive journey back to one of the pleasantest periods
of boyhood. Oro was awaiting me at the quay, and carried my small
sea chest on board with an air of spurious fatigue. I gave him my
purchase and told him to stow it away for me in the cabin, which he
did with such care that I did not find it again until we were within
view of Rutiaro. The _Caleb S. Winship_ was homeward bound then,
from Tanao, where we had left Crichton, the English planter. Rutiaro
lying on our course, it was decided to put in there in the hope that
we might be able to replace our lost deck cargo of copra, washed
overboard in a squall a few days previously.
Neither Findlay's _South Pacific Directory_ nor the _British
Admiralty Sailing Directions_ had much to say about the atoll. Both
agreed that the lagoon is nine miles long by five broad, and that on
June 29, 1887, the French surveying vessel, _St. Étienne_, found the
tide running through a narrow pass at two knots per hour, the flood
as swift as the ebb. It was further stated that in 1889 Her Majesty's
ship, _Prince Edward_, anchored in eight fathoms, three hundred yards
from shore in front of the village, which is situated on the most
westerly island; and that a few pigs and chickens were purchased at
a nominal price from the inhabitants. With this information I had to
be content in so far as my reading was concerned. There was nothing
of a later date in either volume, and the impression I had was that
the atoll, having been charted and briefly described, had remained
unvisited, almost forgotten, for a period of thirty-one years.
This, of course, was not the case. Tinned beef and kerosene oil
had followed the flag there as elsewhere in the world. Religion,
in fact, had preceded it, leaving a broad wake of Bibles and black
mother-hubbards still in evidence among the older generation. But
skippers of small trading schooners are rarely correspondents of
the hydrographic associations, and the "reports from the field" of
itinerant missionaries are buried in the dusty files of the religious
journals, so that Rutiaro is as little known to the world at large as
it has always been. Findlay's general remarks about it were confined
to a single sentence, "A lonely atoll, numbering a population of
between seventy-five and one hundred inhabitants." It certainly
looked lonely enough on the chart, far out on the westerly fringe
of the archipelago, more than six hundred miles from the nearest
steamship route, and that one infrequently traveled. I sought further
information from Tino-a-Tino, the supercargo, a three-quarters
American despite his Tahitian name. He had been trading in the
Low Islands for twenty years, and during that time had created a
voluminous literature with reference to their inhabitants. But it
was all of an occupational nature and confined to the ledgers of the
Inter-Island Trading Company. I found him at his usual task in the
cabin, where he gave me some specimen compositions for criticism.
"I wish you'd look them over," he said. "These copra bugs drive a
man wild. They get in your eyes, in your liquor, in your mouth--Lord!
What a life!"
The cabin was filled with unsacked copra to the level of the upper
tier of bunks. One had to crawl in on hands and knees. The copra bugs
were something of a nuisance, and the smell and heat oppressive. I
had traveled on more comfortable vessels, with tennis courts on the
boat decks and Roman swimming baths below--but they didn't touch at
Rutiaro.
I went through his accounts, verifying long lists of items, such as:
To Terii Tuahu, Dr.,
1 dozen beacon lanterns at 480 frs. Frs. 480
To Ohiti Poene, Dr.,
12 sacks Lily-Dust flour at 300 frs. Frs. 3600
To Low Hung Chin, Dr.,
1 gross Night-King flash lamps at 3600 frs. Frs. 3600
The work of checking up finished, we went out for a breath of air.
The atoll lay abeam and still far distant; a faint bluish haze lifted
a bare eighth of an inch above the circle of the horizon. Behind us,
rain fell in a straight wall of water from a single black cloud which
cast a deep shadow over the path we had come. Elsewhere the sky was
clear and the sea the incredible blue of the tropics. Tino broke a
long silence.
"Look here," he said. "What is it that interests you in these
islands? I've never known anyone to visit them for pleasure before.
Is it the women, or what?"
Under pressure, I admitted that Nature seemed to have spent her best
effort among the Paumotuans in fashioning the men.
"You're right," said Tino. "The women are healthy enough, of course,
but they don't set your heart beating a hundred to the minute. They
have fine hands and white teeth, and you won't find such black hair
in all the world as you find in these atolls. But that's the size of
it. You can't praise them any further for looks. Maybe you haven't
noticed their ears, because they always cover them up with their
hair; but they're large, and their feet and ankles--tough as sole
leather and all scarred over with coral cuts. That is well enough
for the men, but with the women it's different. Makes you lose your
enthusiasm, don't it?"
I had seen a good many striking exceptions in our wanderings, but I
agreed that, in the main, what he said was true.
"Well, if it isn't the women, what else is there to be interested
in? Not the islands themselves? Lord! When you've seen one you've
seen the lot. Living on one of them is like living aboard ship. Not
room to stretch your legs. They're solid enough, and they don't sink;
but in a hurricane I'd a heap rather take my chances out to sea with
the _Winship_ than to be lashed to the stoutest coconut tree in the
whole group. Now you take Rutiaro. It was washed over seventeen
years ago and all but twenty of the people killed. They are back
to seventy-five now, but wait till the next bad blow down that way.
They'll drown like rats just as they did before.
"Well, we won't have to stop long," he added, grouchily. "I'll take
what copra they have and get out. It's a God-forsaken hole. They
only make about twenty-five tons a year. The island could produce
three times that amount under decent management. They're a lazy,
independent lot, at Rutiaro. You can't get 'em to stir themselves."
I asked him what they had to gain by stirring themselves.
"Gain?" he said. "They have everything to gain. There are only two
frame houses on the place. The rest of them are miserable little
shelters of coconut thatch. I haven't sold them enough corrugated
iron in ten years to cover this cockpit. You remember Takaroa and
Niau and Fakahina? Well, there's my idea of islands. Nice European
furniture--iron beds, center tables, phonographs, bicycles--"
A further catalogue of the comforts and conveniences of civilization
which the inhabitants of Rutiaro might have and didn't convinced
me that this was the atoll I had been looking for, and I regretted
that our stay there was to be so brief. I did not begrudge the
inhabitants of richer atolls their phonographs and bicycles. They got
an incredible amount of amusement out of them; listened with delight
to the strange music, and spent entire evenings taking turns with
the bicycles, riding them back and forth from the lagoon beach to the
ocean shore. But the frame houses were blots on the landscape, crude,
barnlike structures, most of them, which offend the eye like factory
chimneys in a green valley. Rutiaro had none of these things and,
having no interest in it from the commercial point of view, I awaited
impatiently our arrival there.
At ten o'clock we were three miles to windward of the village island.
It lay at the narrower end of the lagoon, the inner shore line
curving around a broad indentation where the village was. The land
narrowed in one direction to a ledge of reef. At the farther end
there was a small _motu_ not more than three hundred yards in length
by one hundred broad, separated from the main island by a strip of
shallow water. Seen from aloft, the two islands resembled, roughly,
in outline, an old-fashioned, high-pooped vessel with a small boat in
tow. I could see the whole of the atoll from the mainmast crosstrees,
the lagoon, shimmering into green over the shoals, darkening to
an intense blue over unlit valleys of ocean floor; a solitude of
sunlit water, placid as a lake buried in the depths of inaccessible
mountains. I followed the shore line with my glasses. Distant
islands, ledges of barren reef, leaped forward with an effect of
magic, as though our atom of a vessel, the only sail which relieved
the emptiness of the sea, had been swept in an instant to within
a few yards of the surf. Great combers, green and ominous looking
in the sunlight, broke at one rapidly advancing point, toppled and
fell in segments, filling the inner shallows with a smother of foam.
Beyond it lay the broad fringe of white, deserted beach, the narrow
forest of shrub and palm, the empty lagoon, a border of misty islands
on the farther side. I had seen the same sort of a picture twenty
times before, always with the same keen sense of its desolate beauty,
its allurement, its romantic loveliness. Tino had said, "When you've
seen one you've seen them all," and an old skipper once told me that
"the atolls are as much alike as the reef points on that sail." It
is true. They are as monotonous as the sea itself and as fresh with
varying interest.
The village was hidden among the trees, but I saw the French flag
flying near a break in the reef which marked the landing place for
small boats. Farther back, a little knot of people were gathered,
some of them sitting in the full glare of the sun, others in the deep
shade, leaning against the trees in attitudes of dreamy meditation.
Three girls were combing their hair, talking and laughing in an
animated way. They were dressed in all their European finery, gowns
of flowered muslin pulled up around their bare legs to prevent
soilure. A matronly woman in a red wrapper had thrown the upper
covering aside and sat, naked to the waist, nursing a baby. I put
down my glasses, feeling rather ashamed of my scrutiny, as though I
had been peeping through a window at some intimate domestic scene.
The island leaped into the distance; the broad circle of foam and
jagged reef narrowed to a thread of white, and the _Caleb S. Winship_
crept landward again under a light breeze, an atom of a ship on a
vast and empty sea. Eight bells struck, a tinkling sound, deadened,
scarcely audible in the wide air. I heard Tino's voice as though
coming from an immense distance: "Hello, up there! _Kai-kai's_
ready!" I said: "All right! I'm coming," and was surprised at the
loudness of my own shout. But I waited for a moment to indulge myself
in a last reflection: "It is thirty-one years since the _Prince
Edward_ put in here. Excepting a few traders and missionaries, there
isn't probably one man in one hundred thousand who has ever heard of
this atoll; not one in a million who has ever seen it or ever will
see it. What a piece of luck for me!" Then I saw Oro at the galley
door with a huge platter of boiled beef and sweet potatoes. The
sight of it reminded me that I was very hungry. As I climbed down
to the deck I was conscious of the fact that a healthy appetite and
a good digestion were a piece of luck, too, and that as long as one
could hold it the lure of islands would remain, and one's love of
living burn with a clear flame. Jack, the monkey, seemed to divine
my thought, to agree with it. As Oro, the food bearer, passed him, he
reached down from his perch in the rigging, seized the largest sweet
potato on the platter, and clambered out of reach. Assured of his
safety, he fell to greedily, looking out wistfully toward the land.
The pass was at the farther end of the lagoon, and in order to save
time in getting the work ashore under way, the supercargo and I, with
three of the sailors, put off in the whaleboat, to land on the ocean
side of the village. Half a dozen men rushed into the surf, seized
and held the boat as the backwash poured down the steep incline
at the edge of the reef. Among them was the chief, a man of huge
frame, six feet two or three in height. Like the others who assisted
at the landing, he was clad only in a _pareu_, but he lost none of
his dignity through his nakedness. He was fifty-five years old, as
I afterward learned, and as he stood bidding us welcome I thought
of the strange appearance certain of the chief men in America or
France or England would make under similar circumstances, deprived
of the kindly concealment of clothing. What a revelation it would
be of skinniness or pudginess! What an exhibition of scrawny necks,
fat stomachs, flat chests, flabby arms! To be strictly accurate,
I had seen some fat stomachs among elderly Paumotuans, but they
were exceptions, and always remarkable for that reason. And those
who carried them had sturdy legs. They did not give one the uneasy
feeling, common at home, at the sight of the great paunches of
sedentary men toppling unsteadily along a strip of crimson carpet,
from curb to club doorway.
Wherever one goes in Polynesia one is reminded, by contrast, of
the cost physically to men of our own race of our sheltered way
of living. There on every hand are men well past middle life,
with compact, symmetrical bodies and the natural grace of healthy
children. One sees them carrying immense burdens without exertion,
swimming in the open sea for an hour or two at a time while spearing
fish, loafing ashore with no greater apparent effort for yet longer
periods. Sometimes, when they have it, they eat enormous quantities
of food at one sitting, and at others, under necessity, as sparingly
as so many dyspeptics. It would be impossible to formulate from their
example any rules for rational living in more civilized communities.
The daily quest for food under primitive conditions keeps them alert
and sound of body, so that, whether they work or loaf, feast or fast,
they seem always to acquire health by it.
There had been no boats at Rutiaro in five months and the crowd on
the beach was unfeignedly glad to see us. The arrival of a schooner
at that remote island was an event of great importance; the sight
of new faces lighted their own with pleasure, which warmed the heart
toward them at once. We had brought ashore a consignment of goods for
Moy Ling, the Chinese storekeeper, and when the handshaking was over
they gathered around it as eagerly as a group of American children at
a Christmas tree. Even the village constable seemed unconscious of
any need for a show of dignity or authority. The only badge of his
office was a cigarette-card picture of President Poincaré, fastened
with a safety pin to his old felt hat. He neglected his duties as
a keeper of order, and was one of the most excited of Moy Ling's
helpers with the cargo. He kept patting him affectionately on the
back, saying, "_Maitai! maitai!_" which in that situation may be
freely translated as, "You know me, Moy Ling!" And the old Chinaman
smiled the pleasant, noncommittal smile of his countrymen the world
over.
Tino's was the only sour face on the beach. He moved through the
crowd, giving orders, grumbling and growling half to himself and half
to me. "I told you they were a lazy lot," he said. "They've seen us
making in for three hours, and what have they been doing? Loafing on
the beach, waiting for us instead of getting their copra together!
Moy Ling is the only one in the village who is ready to do business.
Five tons all sacked for weighing. He's worth a dozen Kanakas. Well,
I'll set 'em to work in quick time now. You watch me! I'm going to be
loaded and out of here by six o'clock."
But chance, using me as an innocent accomplice, ordered it otherwise.
It was Sir Thomas Browne who said, "Those who hold that all things
are governed by fortune had not erred had they not persisted
there." He may be right, although I don't remember now where his own
nonpersistence lay. But there are some things, some events, which
chance or fortune--whatever one wishes to call it--governs from the
outset with an amazing show of omnipotence. Tracing them back, one
becomes almost convinced of a fixed intent, a far-sighted, unwavering
determination in its apparently haphazard functioning. It is clear to
me now that, because I had been fond of playing marbles as a boy, I
was to be marooned, fifteen years later, on a fragment of land, six
thousand miles from the lumber yard of S. M. Brown & Son. Tino had
no more to do with that result than I did. He merely lost his temper
because chance disorganized his plans for an early departure; tried
to quench his anger in rum, and became more furious still because
he was drunk. Then off he went in the _Caleb S. Winship_, leaving
me stranded ashore. I can still hear his parting salutation which he
roared at me though a megaphone across the starlit lagoon, "You can
stay--" But this is anticipating. The story moves in a more leisurely
fashion.
As I have said, my box of marbles came to light again only a few
hours before we reached Rutiaro. I took them ashore with me, thinking
they might amuse the children. They had a good knowledge of the
technic of shooting, acquired in a two-handed game common among the
atolls, which is played with bits of polished coral. But theirs
had always seemed to me a tame pastime, lacking the interest of
stakes to be won or lost. I instructed them in the simple rules of
"bull-ring" and "Tom's-dead," which they quickly mastered. Then I
divided the marbles equally among them and gave them to understand
that the winner held his gains, although marbles, like trade goods,
might be bartered for. I emphasized that feature of the game because
of a recollection remaining from my own marble-playing days, of the
contempt in which boys were held who refused to hazard their marbles
in a test of skill. They refused to play "for keeps," and the rest of
us had nothing to do with them. The youngsters of Rutiaro were not
of that stamp. They took their losses in good part. When I saw that
I left them to themselves and went for a walk through the village. I
knew--at least I thought I did--that our stay was to be brief and I
wanted to make the most of it.
I followed the street bordering the lagoon, past the freshly thatched
houses with their entryways wide to the sun and wind, and came at
length to a small burying ground which lay in an area of green shadow
far from the village. There were a dozen or more graves within the
inclosure, some of them neatly mounded over with broken coral and
white shell, others incased in a kind of sarcophagus of native cement
to keep more restless spirits from wandering abroad. Most of them
were unmarked. Two or three had wooden headboards, one of which was
covered with a long inscription in Chinese. Beneath this the word
"Repose" was printed in English, as though it had some peculiar
talismanic significance for the Chinaman who had placed it there. It
was the grave of a predecessor of Moy Ling's. I fell to thinking of
him as I sat there, and of all the Chinamen I had met in the earlier
days, lonely, isolated figures, most of them, without family or
friends or the saving companionship of books. What was it that kept
them going? What goal were they striving toward through lives which
held so little of the comfort or happiness essential to the rest
of humankind? Repose? A better end than that, surely. The air rang
with the sound of the word, the garish sunlight fell pitilessly on
the print of it. To most men, I believe, with the best of life still
before them, there is something terrible, infamous, in the thought
of the unrelieved blackness of an endless, dreamless sleep. I turned
from the contemplation of it; let my thoughts wander in a mist of
dreams, of half-formed fancies which glimmered through consciousness
like streaks of sunlight in a dusty attic. These vanished at length
and for a time I was as dead to thought or feeling as Moy Ling's
predecessor, sleeping beside me.
I was awakened by some one shaking me by the shoulder. A voice said,
"_Haere i te pai!_" ("Come down to the boat!") and a dark figure ran
on before, turning from time to time to urge me to greater speed. It
was almost night, although there was still light enough to see by.
I remembered that Tino had told me to be at the copra sheds at five.
The tide would serve for getting through the pass until eight, but I
hurried, nevertheless, feeling that something unusual had happened.
Rounding a point of land which cut off the view from the village
and the inner lagoon, I saw the schooner, about three hundred yards
off shore, slim and black against a streak of orange cloud to the
northward. She was moving slowly out, under power; the whaleboat
was being hoisted over the side, and at the wheel I saw the familiar
silhouette of the supercargo.
I shouted: "Hi! Tino! Wait a minute! You're not going to leave me
behind, are you?"
A moment of silence followed. Then came the answer with the odd
deliberation of utterance which I knew meant Tahiti rum:
"You can stay there and play marbles till hell freezes over! I'm
through with you!"
What had happened, as nearly as I could make out afterward, was this:
my box of marbles which I had brought ashore for the amusement of
the children, interested the grown-ups as well, particularly the
hazard of stakes in the games I had shown them. Paumotuans have a
good deal of Scotch acquisitiveness in their make-up. They coveted
those marbles--they were really worth coveting--and it was not long
until play became general, a family affair, the experts in one being
pitted against those in another, regardless of age or sex. Tino's
threats and entreaties had been to no purpose. All work came to an
end, and the only copra which got aboard the _Winship_ was Moy Ling's
five tons, carried out by the sailors themselves. Evidently Puarei,
the chief, had been one of the most enthusiastic players. He was not
a man to be bulldozed or browbeaten. He had great dignity and force
of character, for all his boyish delight in simple amusements. What
right had Tino to say that he should not play marbles on his own
island? He gave me to understand, by means of gestures, intonation,
and a mixture of French and Paumotuan, that this was what the
supercargo had done. At last, apparently, Tino had sent Oro on an
unsuccessful search for me. He thought, I suppose, that, having been
the cause of the marble-playing mania, I might be able and willing to
check it. Balked there, he went on board in a fit of violent temper
and had not been seen again, although his voice was heard for an
hour thereafter. Of a sudden anchor was weighed and I was left, as
he assured me, to play marbles with the inhabitants of Rutiaro for an
impossibly long time.
Most of these details I gathered afterward. At the moment I guessed
just enough of the truth not to be wholly mystified. The watery
sputtering of the _Winship's_ twenty-five horse-power engine grew
faint. Then, with a ghostly gleam of her mainsail in the starlight,
she was gone. I was thinking, "By Jove! I wouldn't have missed this
experience for all the copra in the Cloud of Islands!" I was glad
that there were still adventures of that sort to be had in a humdrum
world. It was so absurd, so fantastically unreal as to fit nothing
but reality. And the event of it was exactly what I had wanted all
the time without knowing it. There was no reason why I shouldn't stop
at Rutiaro. To be sure, I was shortly to have met my friend Nordhoff
at Papeete, but our rendezvous was planned to be broken. We were
wandering in the South Pacific as opportunity and inclination should
direct, which, I take it, is the only way to wander.
For a few moments I was so deeply occupied with my own thoughts
that I was not conscious of what was taking place around me. All the
village was gathered there, watching the departing schooner. As she
vanished a loud murmur ran through the crowd, like a sough of wind
through trees--a long-drawn-out Polynesian, "_Aue!_" indicative of
astonishment, indignation, pity. Paumotuan sympathies are large, and
I had been the victim of treachery, they thought, and was silently
grieving at the prospect of a long exile. They gathered around,
patting me on the back in their odd way, expressing their condolences
as best they could, but I soon relieved their minds on that score.
Then Huirai, the constable with the cigarette-card insignia, pushed
his way through with the first show of authority I had seen him make.
"I been Frisco," he said, with an odd accent on the last syllable. He
had made the journey once as a stoker on one of the mail boats. Then
he added, "You go to hell, me," his eyes shining with pride that he
could be of service as a reminder of home to an exiled American. He
was about to take charge of me, in view of his knowledge of English,
but the chief waved him away with a gesture of authority. I was to be
his guest, he said, at any rate for the present. He began his duties
as host by entertaining me at dinner at Moy Ling's store. I was a
little surprised that we did not go to his house for the meal until
I remembered that the Chinaman had received the only consignment of
exotic food left by the _Winship_. Puarei ordered the feast with
the discrimination of a gourmet and the generosity of a sailor on
shore leave for the first time in months. We had smoked herring for
_hors-d'œuvre_, followed by soup, curried chicken and rice, edible
birds' nests flavored with crab meat, from China, and white bread.
For dessert we had small Chinese pears preserved in vinegar, which
we ate out of the tin--"Woman Brand Pears," the label said. There
was a colored picture on it of a white woman, in old-fashioned puffed
sleeves and a long skirt, seated in a garden, while a Chinaman served
her deferentially with pears out of the same kind of a container.
Underneath was printed in English: "These pears will be found highly
stimulating. We respectfully submit them to our customers." That
was the first evidence I had seen of China's bid for export trade in
tinned fruit. "Stimulating" may not have been just the word, but I
liked the touch of Chinese courtesy which followed it. It didn't seem
out of place, even coming from a canning factory.
Puarei gave all his attention to his food, and consumed an enormous
quantity. My own appetite was a healthy one, but I had not his
capacity of stomach; furthermore, he ate with his fingers, while I
was handicapped from the first with a two-prong fork and a small tin
spoon. I believe they were the only implements of the sort on the
island, for the village had been searched for them before they were
found. It was another evidence to me of the unfrequented nature of
Rutiaro, and of its slender contact, even with the world of Papeete
traders. At most of the islands we had visited, knives and forks were
common, although rarely used except in the presence of strangers. The
onlookers at the feast--about half the village, I should say--watched
with interest my efforts to balance mouthfuls of rice on a two-prong
fork. I could see that they regarded it as a ridiculous proceeding.
They must have thought Americans a strange folk, checking appetite
and worrying digestion with such doubtful aids. Finally I decided
to follow the chief's example and set to with my fingers. They
laughed at that, and Puarei looked up from his third plate of rice
and chicken to nod approval. It was a strange meal, reminding me
of stories I had read as a boy, of Louis XV dining in public at
Versailles, with a roomful of visitors from foreign courts looking
on; whispering behind fans and lace cuffs; exchanging awestruck
glances at the splendor of the service, the richness of the food,
and the sight of majesty fulfilling a need common to all humankind.
There was no whispering among the crowd at the Chinaman's shop, no
awestruck glances other than Moy Ling's, at the majesty of Puarei's
appetite. I felt sorry for him as he trotted back and forth from his
outdoor kitchen, bringing in more food, thinking of his depleted
stock, smiling with an expression of wan and worried amiability.
Louis XV would have given something, I'll venture, for that old
Paumotuan chief's zest for food, for the kingly weight of bone and
muscle which demanded such a store of nourishment. He pushed back his
chair at length, with a sign of satisfaction, and a half-caste girl
of seventeen or eighteen removed the empty dishes.
Paumotuan hospitality is an easy, gracious thing, imposing
obligations on neither host nor guest. Dinner over, I told Puarei
that I wanted to take a walk, and he believed me. I was free at
once, and I knew that he would not be worrying meanwhile about my
entertainment. I would not be searched for presently, and pounced
upon with the dreaded: "See here! I'm afraid you are not having a
good time," of the uneasy host. I was introduced to no one, dragged
nowhere to see anything, free from the necessity of being amused. I
might do as I liked--rare and glorious privilege--and I went outside,
grateful for it, and for the cloak of darkness which enabled me to
move about unobserved. It lifted here and there in the glow of supper
fires, or a streak of yellow lamplight from an open doorway. I saw
family groups gathered around their meals of fish and coconuts, heard
the loud intake of breath as they sucked the _miti_ sauce from their
fingers. Dogs were splashing about in the shallows of the lagoon,
seeking their own supper of fish. They are a strange breed, the dogs
of the atolls, like no other that I have ever seen, a mixture of all
breeds one would think, a weird blending of good blood and bad. The
peculiar environment and the strange diet have altered them so that
they hardly seem dogs at all, but, rather, semiamphibious animals,
more at home in the sea than on land. They are gentle-mannered
with their masters and with strangers, but fierce fighters among
themselves. I sat down behind a clump of bushes, concealed from the
light of one of the smoldering supper fires, and watched a group of
Rutiaroan dogs in their search for food. They had developed a sort of
team work in the business, leaped toward the shore all together with
a porpoise-like curving of their bodies, and were as quick as a flock
of terns to see and to seize their prey.
Returning from my walk, I found the village street deserted and all
of the people assembled back of Moy Ling's shop. He was mixing bread
at a table while one of the sons of his strange family piled fresh
fuel on the fire under a long brick oven. It was a great event, the
bread making, after the long months of dearth, and of interest to
everyone. Mats were spread within the circle of the firelight. Puarei
was there, with his wife--a mountain of a woman--seated at his side.
She was dressed in a red-calico wrapper, and her long black hair fell
in a pool of shadow on the mat behind her. She was a fit wife for
a chief, in size, in energy, in the fire and spirit living in the
huge bulk of flesh. Her laughter came in a clear stream which it was
a delight to hear. There was no undertone of foreboding or bitter
remembrance, and the flow of it, as light-hearted as a child's,
heightened the merrymaking mood of the others. There was a babble of
talk, bursts of song, impromptu dancing to the accompaniment of an
accordion and the clapping of hands. As I looked on I was minded of
an account I had read of the Paumotuans in which they were described
as "a dour people, silent, brooding, and religious." Religious
some of them assuredly are, despite a good deal of evidence to the
contrary, and they are often silent in the dreamy way of remote
island people whose moods are drawn from the sea, whose minds lie
fallow to the peace and the beauty of it. But "dour and brooding" is
very far from the truth.
I took a place among them as quietly as possible, for I knew by
repeated experience how curious they are about strangers, and first
meetings were usually embarrassing. Without long training as a freak
with a circus, it would try any man's courage to sit for an hour
among a group of Paumotuans while he was being discussed item by
item. There is nothing consciously brutal or callous in the manner
of it, but, rather an unreflecting frankness like that of children
in the presence of something strange to their experience. I knew
little of the language, although I caught a word here and there which
indicated the trend of the comment. It was not general, fortunately,
but confined to those on either side of me. Two old grandmothers
started a speculation as to whether or not I had any children, and
from this a discussion rose as to which of the girls of Rutiaro would
be best suited as a wife for me. I was growing desperate when Chance,
the godfather of all wanderers, intervened again in my favor.
Moy Ling's fire was burning brightly and it occurred to several of
the youngsters to resume their marble playing. I saw Puarei's face
light with pleasure, and he was on his feet at once with his stake in
the ring. Others followed, and soon all those who had marbles were
in the sport. I understood clearly then how helpless Tino had been.
I could easily picture him rushing from group to group, furious at
the thought of his interests being neglected through such childish
folly. Those marbles were more desirable than his flour and canned
goods, which he stood ready to exchange for copra. The explanation
of this astounding fact may have been that no one thought he would
go off as he did, and to-morrow would do just as well for getting
down to business. Since he had gone, there was an end of that. It
was futile to worry about the lost food. Certainly it was forgotten
during the great tournament which took place that evening. Moy Ling
worked at his bread making unnoticed. His fire died down to a heap
of coals, but another was built and the play went on. Puarei was a
splendid shot, in marble playing as in other respects, the best man
of the village; but there was a slip of a girl who was even better.
During the evening she accumulated nearly half of the entire marble
supply, and at length these two met for a test of skill. It was a
long-drawn-out game. I had never seen anything to equal the interest
of both players and spectators; not even at Brown's lumber yard when
the stakes were a boy's most precious possessions, cornelian stone
taws. No one thought of sleep except a few of the old men and women,
who dozed off at intervals with their heads between their knees.
The lateness of the hour--the bizarre setting for a game so linked
with memories of boyhood, combined to give me an impression of
unreality. I had the feeling that the island and all the people on it
might vanish at any moment, and the roar of the surf resolve itself
into the rumble of street traffic in some gray city. And, though it
were the very city where marbles are made, where in the length or
breadth of it could there be found anyone who knew the use of them,
with either the time or the inclination to play? I might search
it, street by street, to the soot-stained suburbs; I might go on to
the green country, perhaps; visit all the old-time marble-playing
rendezvous from one coast to the other, with no better success. And,
though I passed through a thousand villages of the size of Rutiaro,
could an evening's amusement be provided in any one of them, for
men, women, and children, at an outlay of four dollars, American? The
possibility would not be worth considering. People at home live too
fast in these days, and they want too much. I could imagine Tino, in
a sober mood, giving a grudging assent to this. "But, man!" he would
have added, "I wish they had more of their marble-making enthusiasm
at Rutiaro. I would put in here three times a year and fill the
_Winship_ with copra to within an inch of the main boom every trip."
Moy Ling had enough of it for the whole island, it seemed to me. His
ovens were opened as the tournament came to an end, and for half an
hour he was kept busy passing out crisp brown loaves and jotting
down the list of creditors in his account book. It must have been
nearly midnight. The crowd began to disperse. Puarei joined me,
smiling ruefully, holding out empty hands. He had lost all of his
marbles to a mite of a girl whom he could have put in his vest pocket
had he owned one. His wife teased him about it on the way home,
laughed heartily at his explanations and excuses. They discussed the
events of the day long after the other members of the household had
retired to their mats on the veranda. At last I heard their quiet
breathing, and a strip of light from the last quarter moon revealed
them asleep, two massive heads on the same pillow. I lay awake for
a much longer time, thinking of one thing and another--of my friend
Crichton at Tanao, the loneliest atoll in the world I should say; of
the _Winship_ far out to sea, homeward bound with one hundred and
forty tons of copra in her hold; of Tino with his fits of temper,
and his passion for trade which blinded him to so much of the beauty
and the joy of life. But, after all, I thought, it is men like Tino
who keep wheels turning and boats traveling the seas. If he were to
die, his loss would be felt; there would be an eddy in the current
of life around him. But men like Crichton or myself--we should go
down in our time, and the broad stream would flow over our heads
without a ripple to show where we had been, without a bubble rising
to the surface to carry with it for a moment the memory of our lives.
It was not a comforting thought, and I tried to evade it; but I
realized that my New England conscience was playing a part in these
reflections and was not to be soothed in any such childish manner.
"How much copra have you ever produced or carried to market?" it
appeared to say. I admitted that the amount was negligible. "How
do you mean to justify your presence here?" was the next question,
and before I could think of a satisfactory answer, "What good will
come of this experience, either to yourself or to anyone else?" That
was a puzzler until I happened to think of Findlay's _South Pacific
Directory_. I remembered that his information about Rutiaro was very
scant, the general remarks confined, as I have already said, to a
single sentence, "A lonely atoll, numbering a population of between
seventy-five and one hundred inhabitants." As a sop to my conscience,
it occurred to me that I might write to the publishers of that
learned work, suggesting that, in the light of recent investigations,
they add to that description, "Fond of playing marbles."
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