zenith of her beauty and fame she sang and danced at the cannibalistic
feasts, was the belle of the Isles and a kind of Helen of Troy of the
South Seas. She was taken prisoner by various tribes, bought by the big
tattooed chiefs and, when they sickened of her, sold again and again
until at last she emerged from the door of a South Sea Divorce Court,
and fell into the arms of one of the Island Kings and, becoming a Queen,
became virtuous, in so far as she possibly could be after being reformed
to the Christian religion. Hornecastle called at her lonely Isle once,
while we were cruising around in a sloop. He, of course, knew her well,
and after introducing me to her as his son, I brought the fiddle out at
“Castle’s” request, and played to her, as she sat old and wrinkled by
her hut door. She was a most extraordinary-looking old woman; when she
smiled her face puckered up into a map of wrinkles and her small
shrunken black eyes twinkled as though through the dark came back old
memories of those lusty stalwart chiefs of long ago. Then she readjusted
her pince-nez and I saw the tears in her eyes as her black fingers
nervously turned over leaf after leaf of the big English Bible which she
had on her bony knees. She had grown very pious and sedate and no one on
earth would have guessed her past history as she sat there, with nothing
on except an old bustle skirt, which only reached to her knees, and
stuck on her head a large Parisian hat of the fashion about the time of
the French Revolution.
I suppose she’s dead now and gone to the land of her fathers. I often
think of her and the way she gazed at my white face as I dropped on one
knee, with all the respect due to a Queen, and kissed that shrivelled
hand. I can still see the faint, majestic smile flickering on those aged
lips that had received in the bloom of maidenhood how many kisses on
their soft amorous curves—and the lithe brown body’s outline of
breathing beauty, how often had it been folded in the arms of brief
paradise? There she sat, a wrinkled-up bit of humanity, jealous and
fretful of those who had not seen their day, for all the world like some
old ladies of my own country, as she surveyed with approval, the decorum
of the future race romping about her, tumbling head over heels on the
plantation slopes, partially clothed in palm-leaf hats, and lava-lava,
extending from the waist to the knees.
Hornecastle could speak the “Island lingo” like a native and many were
the modest blushes she gave as the old chap went over reminiscences of
the glorious past, telling her of her past beauty and swearing that she
had but slightly changed, and that for the better, giving me a vigorous
side wink as he told that thundering lie with its inner meaning. Poor
old Castle, he may be still alive. I never met a more knowing and yet
sentimental old shell-back and he grafted into my mind more than any
other man the knowledge of South Sea Island life and the inefficacy of
white men of religious aspirations. I would not even be surprised to
hear that he was now pious and sobered down. I never met a man like
Castle for strength. I’ve seen him pick up a tree trunk that weighed
three hundredweight and handle it as though it were a one-seater canoe.
He once told me that he had only had two illnesses in his life and they,
he said, were “Bronshitus and Pew-Monja.” He was born in the early days
of old England when they did not teach the boys and girls Latin, French,
German and Euclid, long before children looked upon their parents as
fools, and held the candle while their old mother fetched up a ton of
coal.
There was one other eccentric old man whom I have forgotten to mention;
his name was Bodey, he’d travelled the world over and had spent ten
years of peace and rest in Darlinghurst Gaol, Sydney. I never saw him
sober, so that I cannot tell you anything of his real character,
excepting that he was extremely devoted to his Samoan wife, who likewise
struck me as very fond of him. She was a tall, fine-looking woman of
about forty years of age. Her original beauty had long since departed;
her front teeth also had gone; her plump, full lips were much shrunken,
but her eyes still remained cheerful-looking and moved quickly and
intelligently as she spoke. Bodey gave her a terrible shock once. He
broke his ankle and, being utterly helpless, could not get down to the
beach drinking shanty, and so got quite sober. For two days running, his
manner was so different that his wife gazed upon him as a stranger, and
he too gazed upon her, as she nursed him and bathed his foot, with
suspicion, quizzing her with astonishment, but I took mercy on him, went
and got a bottle of Samoan whisky and the couple in half-an-hour were
once more united and happy. Three weeks after that he died of shock.
Hornecastle and I went to his grave, to place a large cross on it, which
we had made ourselves. When we got there Hornecastle cried like a child,
and I gave a Samoan who was lying asleep near by a large silk
handkerchief and one “mark” to dig a hole after we had gone, and place
that cross over our dead friend. I remember well how Hornecastle in his
drunken grief stuck the cross in and kept poking down and down, as
though he was searching for his old comrade, and when I pulled him away
he staggered back, fell on his knees and kissed the earth with his lips,
crying out, “Bodey, old mate, can yer hear me?”
It upset me terribly at the time; I did not know Castle had such deep
feeling in his nature. I pulled him off and told the Samoan to make the
grave neat and he bowed his brown face fourteen times reverently to show
me that he understood my wishes. As soon as we had gone he bolted off
with the tombstone; what he wanted it for only heaven knows.
It was about that time that the Islanders had some great festive ball
and I and Hornecastle went inland and had a fine spree. Hornecastle got
fearfully drunk, and I played the violin as the Samoan men, boys and
girls, dressed up in a very picturesque way, flowers in their hair, and
grasses and leaves clinging to their brown bodies, went through their
ancient dances, in the shade of the banyans and mangroves. It was a
great meeting; the old fighting chiefs were all there, dethroned kings
and discarded queens, claimants to fallen dynasties of the Islands
around. Robert Louis Stevenson was there. Hornecastle smacked him on the
back to let me see that he was in with the best society. Stevenson took
it all in good part and laughed heartily as the half-naked Island women
danced and whirled around and threw up their legs while Hornecastle kept
shouting “Hen-core! Hen-core!” He was a low old scoundrel, but I
couldn’t help liking him; he was most sincere in all his likes and
dislikes and never put on any side. Stevenson liked him too, for while
he was gazing interestedly on the weird moonlit forest scene of that
primeval ballroom I noticed he often gazed sideways with intense
amusement at Hornecastle, who kept getting enthusiastic about the
various nude figures of the Samoan women, and made critical remarks
about their limbs and beauty, slapping me on the shoulder every now and
again, and poking me in the ribs as he noticed some especial point about
them that interested him. The presence of Robert Louis Stevenson
standing close by made me feel a bit uncomfortable in my association
with Hornecastle, especially as the old reprobate would appeal to me at
every incident, as though he thought I was as bad as himself. It was
almost dawn before the Tribes finished their grand war dances. All the
little children, tired out, lay huddled in groups under the scattered
palms and coco-nut trees fast asleep, their tiny dark faces revealed by
the moonbeams which crept over their pretty eyelids and tiny parted
sleeping lips, as the night wind blew aside the long-fingered
palm-leaves just above them.
The few whites, Robert Louis Stevenson and his friends, went off home
some time before the grand finale, which consisted of the banging of
drums and the kicking of legs and movement of bodies in a manner
something resembling the modern “cakewalk,” except that it was a deal
more rhythmical and fascinating to gaze upon. Hornecastle fell madly in
love with a fat old dark woman of about sixty years of age; round and
round the two of them went together, and the old chap, I’ll swear,
cocked his legs quite as high as the South Sea maid of sixty summers. In
the morning he looked pretty bad and kept sticking his head in a tub of
cold seawater to keep it cool, and till he got a few more drinks down
him he looked a bit ashamed of himself, and well he ought to,
considering I have only told you half the truth with regard to his
behaviour.
[Illustration: PLANTING COCO-NUTS]
I must tell you, before I go on, about the German missionary “Von
Sour-Craut.” One night he was caught out with one of the high caste
chieftain’s daughters; what he had been really doing I don’t know, but
there was a terrible rumpus. One of the old Inland tribes who were
staying on for some feast at Satufa and were on the warpath (for at that
time there was always some trouble about over-chief jealousy) got hold
of him and took him off into the forest. The whites, English and
American missionaries, got wind of his predicament and off we all went
and succeeded in finding him trussed up like a fowl. Hornecastle swore
that they were an emigrant tribe of Solomon Islanders and that their
intention was to roast him on a cannibalistic spit; he even told me
afterwards that he saw the oil basting pot; anyway, true or not true, we
all had a terrible fighting scramble to rescue Sour-Craut. Hornecastle
knocked six of them over with a log. I got in a blow on one of them and
had my knuckle dislocated as I put my hand up to protect my head as a
warrior lifted his club and brought it down with a crash! We won the day
though and released the trussed-up victim, and the whole tribe of
outraged mothers and fathers, who had attempted to get their own back,
scampered off into the moonlit forest like a pack of mammoth rats. We
tried to get the truth out of Sour-Craut the missionary as to what he
had done to cause such wrath among the natives, but he insisted that
divine prayer was his only object in seeking out the dusky maid, but we
all had our suspicions and Sour-Craut got the sack by the authorities
and left those parts. Hornecastle had a nasty wound in the back and one
of his ears was partly chewed off. He had good blood though and it soon
healed. The way he swore over that wound was something terrible, in fact
I really think he used worse language than he did when we went to
Nuka-Hiva and slept side by side in a hut that had previously been
inhabited by a half-caste Chinaman. We were just going off to sleep when
out they came from their hungry vigil and running in all directions
started to taste the two of us—for they were bugs as big as hornets! We
did smash them up too, and I’ll swear that they were more tenacious in
their death struggles than the New York species that came down the walls
in vast regiments and nearly ate my eyelids away, but I will tell you of
all that terrible time later on.
One night soon after the first-mentioned event, a German sailor gave me
a copy of A. Lindsay Gordon’s poems. I read the “Sick Stockrider” and
felt like leaving the Islands for a pilgrimage to the author’s grave. I
at once came under the influence of the unfortunate Omar Khayyam of the
Australian Bush and wrote off yards of quatrains. I think if they had
been published they would have made me famous as the author of the
world’s worst poems; anyway I liked them, and when I read them to
Hornecastle and he smacked me on the back and said I was a genius I
almost put them in an envelope to send to the Poet Laureate of England.
I dedicated the poems to Hornecastle, and that’s the only part of it
that I wish to remember.
Mr Castle introduced me to a real poet; he wore long shaggy hair,
unfortunately he was a Dane and wrote in his own language, but I knew
that he was a real poet by the way he gazed at the pretty brown Samoan
girls as they passed by us on the beach, their arms round each other’s
naked shoulders, crimson flowers in their rough hair, and their ridis
adorned with leaves and blossoms that dangled to their bare knees. The
poet came under the influence of Castle’s loose ways and one night while
half intoxicated fell on his knees and attempted to embrace a beautiful
Samoan wife of about twenty-five years of age. I knew the husband
intimately and quickly explained matters to him, told him that he was
only a poet, otherwise there would, I am sure, have been another rumpus.
The Dane and I became very friendly after that episode and, to my
delight, I found that he could play the violin, and had a lot of fine
duets for two fiddles. We went to the native hut villages and borrowed a
disused hut, and sat there together playing for all we were worth. The
native children, men and women stood by their small doors and huddled
round us delighted and astonished as we scraped away in the twilight by
the border of the forest. Old Hornecastle got quite jealous of my
friendship with that Danish poet, but I soon stroked him down the right
way, and took him down to a grog shanty and gave him several “splashes.”
A touring party came across the Bay one day, four of them altogether;
they were English and had come across from New South Wales. One of them
was a retired judge; he had a head without much front to it, and the
back stuck up like a large walnut with a few hairs gummed on it. His son
spent the whole day in taking photos; he took snap-shots of everything
for miles, also of Hornecastle in all positions, and the old chap was
delighted.
“Castle” and I persuaded that judge’s son to sail across to the Isle
where that old Marquesan Queen lived with the sole purpose of taking her
photo. I was an innocent party to the whole business, but they took
several hundreds of photographs of Castle’s friends, etc., and the old
judge discovered them among his son’s belongings and there was a row! I
never saw such wrath, such virtuous indignation as that man was capable
of. I don’t know what became of the son, but I have a suspicion that he
is on the Bench in England to-day, a good and prosperous man, and if he
ever reads these memoirs of mine he need not be frightened as I have not
the slightest intention of giving him away over that photo business. How
sad is life when you think of things, but the best thing to do is not to
think too much. I have seen men become prematurely old through worrying
over the inevitable things of civilised life. Why try and improve things
or make them worse? “Socialism,” “Trade Unionism” and all the other
thousand “isms” if they are for the betterment of the race will come,
or, if not, fall away. Universal approval will guide the laws of mankind
as well as the laws of nature, and so things fall into their places or
fall from their assumed places as sure as the stars of heaven roll and
fall to the universal laws of gravitation. And so I jog along doing my
best for my immediate circle and do not get excited over the awful event
that will never happen.
I must tell you of a gentleman I met one night who came across the
Pacific from the Island of Pitcairn where the mutinous crew of the
_Bounty_ landed years ago. They are all dead now, but their children are
still living there; in fact, the whole race are now partly descendants
of the sailors of that long-ago ship. I have met in my later musical
rambles many of the blue-blooded folk of different lands and I think if
God makes Peers and Knights of dead men in heaven, very few of them will
be able to go on with their title, but if that son of the old mutineer
of the _Bounty_ does not get a title when he’s dead it will be a shame.
He was a splendid fellow, brave, sincere in his conversation. He
tolerated Hornecastle’s numerous repetitions of past loyal deeds, etc.,
like a hero, and gave me my first lesson in astronomy. With a quick
soulful ear he heard the note of pathos as I played some old folk songs
to him; he gave me a long and wonderful account of the beauty of life
and the sadness of death, and when he told me who he was I could have
fallen over with astonishment. I had thought he was at least the head of
some English University on tour. I was of course young then, and the
astonishment would be, now I am more in with the world, more on the side
of finding a University man who had some really original information to
impart. Some men think too much learning kills originality and makes men
become automatic penny-in-the-slot machines. Ask the question of them
and their memory reverts back to the fourteenth chapter of the _Odyssey_
or Plato’s _Ethics_ to seek for the reply and so their faculties through
long disuse slowly fade away and they die from the head downwards. I
don’t know if it’s true or not, but I have heard that some great
theoretical men always when just dead cool off at the head first, their
feet being warm long after stiffness has set in, but this is a gloomy
topic and quite out of my province, so I will ask my reader’s
forgiveness and change the subject at once.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
IX
Descendants of Mutineers—Cannibalism—I play a Violin Overture at what I
fear is a Cannibalistic Feast—A Samoan Chief’s Philosophy—Musings
BEFORE I proceed I will tell you about the crew of the _Bounty_ just as
I heard it from the lips of one of the descendants of the old mutineers
whom I have awhile back spoken of.
The _Bounty_ left England considerably more than a hundred years ago,
and made a voyage to the South Seas, calling at the Isle of Tahiti. No
one knows exactly what the mutiny was about; anyway there certainly was
a mutiny and the crew cast the Captain and one or two officers adrift,
then ran the ship ashore in the Pacific and hid themselves in the Isles
among the savage Tahitian men and women. The latter being beautiful to
look upon, the sailors took them to wife, and with my knowledge of
seafaring men of my own day I can assure you that they did not grieve
much over their exile and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. The Government
sent out a search for them and some of them got collared and were taken
home to England and executed. The remainder, who had gone off to another
Isle taking their wives with them, eluded their pursuers, lived and
ended their lives on the Isle of “Pitcairn” and left behind them
hundreds of half-caste children, who turned out to be anything but what
one would have expected, being an intelligent and upright race. It
appears that the mutineers went in for debauchery; fought over each
other’s wives, and even their comrades’ daughters as the years rolled
by. Eventually they all died excepting Adams, the mutineer ring-leader,
who, seeing all his old comrades dead, grew pious and remorseful over
his wild career, and being king of the Island race brought the whole
family up to be strictly upright and honest in all their ways, and he
succeeded too; and there they are out there to-day in the South Seas,
happy and industrious. By the irony of fate old Adams proved to be the
best and most successful missionary that ever reared a brood in the
South Seas, and all men who have been that way will agree with all I
have said and tell you that even to this generation the Island children
of those parts are brave sailors, and their faces resemble the long dead
lineaments of those sailors of long ago, and most of the families have
English names, such as Johnson, Noble, etc.
I am now going to tell you about cannibalism in the Pacific Islands just
as I saw it and heard of it. Of course, a lot has been written on the
subject by many travellers, but you may be interested to know my views
and experiences on this gruesome but interesting matter.
I knew two Islanders who still hungered after the flesh of man; they
were not the true natives of Samoa, for the Samoans were not at all
addicted to cannibalism. One night they listened to me as I sat playing
the violin under the shade of some banyan-trees, and invited me into the
forest village to their den. Well, when I arrived inside their snug
little homestead I noticed a grizzled old man and woman nibbling away at
the remains of a thigh bone of some departed enemy whom they had roasted
and eaten. As I looked across at them sitting there enjoying that awful
meal they swiftly hid the bone behind them. The man was a simple-looking
fellow; his shrunken gleaming eyes gazed kindly upon me, but I could not
conjure up in my heart much love for him, especially when he grinned and
revealed his yellowish front teeth that had chewed up the remains of who
knows who? Some missing white trader, or someone of his own race, or
even a missionary with M.A. after his name. They were very fond of
missionaries, as I’ve heard that they eat well, being nicely nourished,
and not being addicted to too much drink they have not the rum-flavour
that traders have had who have met the awful fate of supplying the
cannibalistic festive board with meat.
I felt rather nervous as I caught sight of that awful remainder of
departed woe, but I took good care not to let them see that I had
noticed, as they knew what would happen to them if they were found out,
and consequently, I being at that moment in their power, they might have
thought it advisable to put an end to my existence and make me into
provisions for their secret larder! I was very young, white and tender
in those days and would have eaten well.
I am quite sure these remarks of mine may make you think I treat such
things as cannibalism lightly, but it is not so; good and bad are
comparative, and when I sit here and write and see life with sadder and
more earnest eyes I simply think what a lucky fellow I was not to have
been born in the South Seas. Had my parents been South Sea Islanders,
and I born in Fiji instead of Kent, doubtless someone would have already
recorded in their autobiography my own cannibalistic revels and terrible
sins, for I am adventurous and wayward enough now with all the
advantages of birth and education—so what would I have been if I had
crept into the world and seen the first light and heard the first sounds
in some Fijian moonlit forest? And you too, reader, what would you have
been? Probably both happier than we are now—who knows?
Well, I looked over at that grim couple and smiled pleasantly to let
them see I had noticed nothing, and as I spoke to them and the woman
picked her teeth with her finger and nearly choked as she swallowed the
mouthful that she sought to conceal, and said, “No savee,” I heard a
noise outside in the forest and they both jumped up. I looked outside
and saw a group of the savages passing along through the forest. It was
already twilight, yet I could see most of their swarthy faces distinctly
and I at once recognised an old Tongan friend of mine whom I had long
since thought had gone back to Tonga. The four of us left the den and
went across the clearing and met the group as they hurried along,
dragging behind them a heavy load. What I am going to tell you is
absolute truth, and I will tell you the details just as I saw them with
my own eyes. That load which they dragged behind them was a body, and
they were off into the forest depth bound for the grand cannibalistic
feast!
As I came up to them they all looked startled and frightened and made as
though to go for me, and I believe now that I look back that had not my
Tongan friend appealed on my behalf I should have been immediately
killed. I had my fiddle with me, and they looked upon my violin as some
kind of enchanter, some spirit of the dead, and after a hurried
consultation, standing there under the trees with fierce faces and
frizzly heads, muttering in guttural tones, they all turned toward me,
and one said, “Ova lu-lu,” and made signs that I should follow them into
the forest and play music to them, their intention being not to kill me
but to entice me on with them so that I could not return and give them
away, and so I was commandeered.
At that moment I had not the slightest suspicion that the load that
bumped behind them, tightly wrapped up, as it parted the tall grasses
and flowers as they hurried along, was the dead body of some fallen
enemy, otherwise I am quite sure that I should have made a bolt for it,
but possibly my slow comprehension saved my life, for however fast I ran
I doubt if I could have out-run a South Sea savage.