An Inland March—The Great Chief—A Siva Dance—A Sailor’s Party—Nina’s
Samoan Fairy Tale—Death—The Golden Horn—Idols—A Marquesan Village—We
ship as Stowaways
I EASILY recall to mind my farewell days in Samoa, and the native trader
with whom I lodged. His homestead was a comfortable bungalow, sheltered
by coco-palms, and not far from Saluafata village. I had not much money
at that time, and my friendly native only charged me just what I could
afford to give him, which was, unfortunately, very little. He had three
daughters and two grown-up sons who were just about my age; they spoke
good English, were good companions, and we had merry times together. I
gave the eldest daughter music lessons during my short stay. Her father
purchased a cheap German violin down in the stores at Apia, and the
Samoan’s daughter made rapid progress. I taught her to play by ear. Her
relatives came in from the districts to hear her play her first Samoan
hymn. I have never been so complimented for my teaching ability in my
life as I was over that dusky girl’s progress. I felt well repaid by
their gratitude. They fed me up, for I had been ill for a fortnight with
a severe cold and was getting thin. I went off almost every evening with
the sons fishing, and lived in real native style. I enjoyed the various
native dishes, for Mrs Pompo, my host’s wife, was a clever cook, and
served up the cooked fish with stewed yams and many more island
delicacies. Poi-poi was a favourite dish: a mixture of taro,
bread-fruit, yams and wild bananas.
My host had several wealthy relatives living inland, and at last the
sons, young Pompy and Tango, succeeded in persuading me to go off to the
inland villages with my violin to visit them. I well remember the long,
hot march they gave me, as I tramped between them for miles and miles
along tracks just by the coast, and then inland across paths by the
coco-palms. Some of the journey was over rough jungle country beautiful
with tropical trees and flowers. Merrily my comrades sang as I plucked
the fiddle strings, banjo fashion, marching along far away, with the
civilised cities thousands of miles behind.
We slept out the first night, as indeed I often did in my travels. Pompy
and Tango lay asleep on each side of me as, sleepless, I looked round my
bedroom floor and saw my palm-trees standing windless and still and my
bright stars over me flashing in the midnight skies.
Next day we passed across thick island jungle and then suddenly emerged
on to a large clearing, where by a river stood several isolated huts.
Through the doors came rushing brown-faced native girls, with delight
and wonder shining in their dark eyes at hearing the music of the
fiddle! Like little dark devils bare-footed children came running behind
us, and then, just as we were passing close by the half-open hut door,
out came the picturesque bigger girls for the second time, for they had
seen my white face and had rushed indoors with haste, all screaming out,
“Papalangi!” They had forgotten their fig-leaf, so to speak. At the very
most, natives, boys and girls who lived inland, wore little dress beyond
the primitive ridi, and if they wore more than usual it was some remnant
of European clothes, given them in exchange for curios, or as wages by
artful traders.
On the green, scrubby slope, under a palm-tree by her hut door, stood a
full-figured, dark Samoan mother, showing her white teeth as she smiled.
She looked like some grotesque statue as she stood there quite still
beneath the blue tropical sky, for she wore a delicate undergarment as a
robe, which just covered half of her bronzed figure—a present, possibly,
from some trader’s wife.
As the native girls came down and walked by me, gazing sideways with
great curiosity, the tall grass brushed their bare knees and their eyes
shone as they revealed their pearly rows of teeth and laughed, calling
out to each other, “Arika pakea!”[5] Samoan girls are great flirts, yet
I felt that I trod some enchanted land where vice was unknown. The faint
inland wind stirred their loose, bronze-coloured hair, wherein they had
stuck white and crimson hibiscus blossoms or grass. Several little
mites, with tiny wild faces, came close up to us and stood with boastful
bravery a moment in front of me, their little demon-like eyes anxiously
striving to examine my violin, and when I suddenly struck all the
strings together—r-h-r-r-r-r-r-r r-r-n-k—off they rushed back to the hut
doors and gave a frightened scream. Out poked the frizzy heads of all
the mothers to see what the hullabaloo was about. When they saw me they
waved their dark hands and shouted, “Kaoha!” or “How do you do?” as I
tramped by between my two comrades.
Footnote 5:
White man.
About a mile farther on we came across another small group of huts, not
far from a grove of orange-trees, where we picked the golden fruit out
of the deep grass; it tasted like pine-apples and oranges mixed. Only
two old native women were in sight. They were very busy, it was their
washing day, and one of them stooped over an old salt pork ship’s
barrel, washing the village clothes: on a line hard by, stretched
between two coco-nut trees, hung a row of newly washed ridis, steaming
in the hot sun. As we approached, Pompy and Tango intimated that it was
the abode of one of their great relatives. On the ground beneath a clump
of bamboos, stretched out flat, was an old Samoan chief. “O Le Tula!”
Pompy shouted, and the old fellow slowly lifted his wrinkled face and
welcomed us. My comrades, his grandsons, jabbered away to him in native
lingo, and introduced me with pride, telling me that I was gazing on one
of the past great chiefs who had been King Malietoa’s special favourite.
He had a classical profile that was slightly spoilt, for one of his ears
was missing; it had been blown off by a gun-shot in a tribal battle some
years before. As I gazed upon him with reverence his eyes looked
straight in front of him and he pulled himself up majestically. His
large frame was well tattooed. Suddenly he signed to me and said
something over and over again in broken English. When I at last
understood I forced a smile to my lips and handed him my last shilling.
I could not very well refuse, as I had walked many miles to see him. He
grabbed the coin, and his face went into a mass of wrinkles as he
grunted out “Mitar.” On a slope about five hundred yards off was a
tin-roofed mission room, and a missionary’s homestead close by. There
was only a half-caste assistant there; “the Boss” had gone off to Apia.
The half-caste seemed a decent fellow, and gave us a cup of German tea;
for Malietoa’s old chief had bolted off to the nearest rum shop, miles
away probably, directly he had got possession of my shilling, to get _te
rom_.[6]
Footnote 6:
Gin or rum.
That night I witnessed a native dance, resembling in character the
dances which I have already described in my first book of reminiscences.
But this dance slightly differed from the dance scenes of my previous
experience. It was more rhythmical and, instead of being grotesque, was
a weirdly beautiful sight; for as the large, low moon, half submerged by
the distant hill, sent a flood of light through the coco-palms and
banyan-trees, it lit up the moving, dark faces on the forest stage
floor, which was a cleared patch. A picturesque Samoan girl stood
swathed in a girdle of festival flowers and sang, while the squatting
Siva dancers rocked their bodies to and fro and clapped their hands. I
stood close by and played on my violin a minor melody; and its silvery
wails were accompanied by the full orchestral moan of the whole forest
of giant moonlit trees as the wind blew fitfully through them. Then came
the wild chorus, as the circle of girls rose and, like a crowd of wood
nymphs made of moonshine, embraced each other and then divided, whirling
and waving their arms fantastically in the glimpsing moonlight that
poured through the palms. As for me, I stood in the middle of the
dancers playing my violin and firing away double forte, and presto
velocity, to keep in with the barbarian tempo. About a mile off was the
spot to which I had been dragged by a tribe of natives, who had forced
me to play at a cannibalistic feast during my previous sojourn in Samoa.
After the forest ball had closed, and the performers were dispersing and
going off to their homes, a well-dressed native, who had known me when I
was in Samoa before, recognised me, and I was extremely pleased to see
him. He was a trader and an intimate friend of Hornecastle’s—my
convivial old friend of earlier days. I learnt from him that Hornecastle
had gone away to the Gilbert Group, or to the Solomon Isles, I forget
which. The trader invited us to his house, where we spent the night. We
had no sooner got under the shelter of his welcome roof than clouds slid
over the sky and a terrific storm came on. It lasted well into the night
and nearly blew me off my sleeping-mat, for the Samoan’s house was open
all round. To ease my restlessness I rose and looked out on to the
sleeping village. The rain had ceased and the moon, low on the ranges of
Vaea Mountain, looked like a globe lamp wedged between the sky and the
earth. Space was quite clear for miles, but far away was a travelling
wreck of foaming cloud that looked like a serried line of mighty
breakers silently charging across a shore of starlit blue. I well recall
this particular night, for I was greatly impressed by a sad sight. Under
some coco-palms just below I saw a light glimmering in one of the
natives’ shed-like huts, and I heard native voices. Going down the
slope, I spoke to a Samoan who was standing by the door, and from him I
understood that a native youth was dying. He had been ailing for some
time and had been suddenly taken worse. The relatives had fetched the
priest, who was kneeling by the bed-mat giving the last benediction. I
saw the outline of the sick boy’s face and the half-conscious smile of
faith on his quivering lips ere he died. I will draw a veil over the
rest, which would make very uncheerful reading.
The following day, on our way back, we met a crowd of English sailors
going inland. They had several natives with them who had been drinking
rather heavily down in Apia. As we approached, the sailors, spying me
and my violin, shouted out: “Hallo! matey, where did you get that hat?
Any girls round these parts?”, and then all started to do a double
shuffle. Not far off was a small village, and when I offered to go there
with them Pompy and Tango jumped about and laughed with delight; and the
eldest seaman of the crowd, the boatswain, I think, smacked me genially
on the back with such force that I looked up at him a bit wildly at
first; but I quickly recovered as he gleefully gave me another nudge in
the ribs, saying, as he winked with good fellowship: “Don’t kill me,
youngster.”
As they approached the village, loudly singing the latest London hit,
and emerged from the thickets of bamboo, a covey of native boys and
girls came running down the slope, from a group of native huts, to
welcome the jolly white men: two of the wild crew were blowing their
hardest, mouth organs at their lips, and the eldest, who had goatee
whiskers, and wore a Tam o’ Shanter kind of seaman’s cap, sang lustily,
with wide opened mouth, just behind them; at intervals he stumbled
slightly through being half-seas-over.
Sunset was fading on the horizon out seaward and touching the coco-palms
and the distant mountain range with golden light as the shadows fell
over the island. From the hut doors the naked children peeped and
clapped their hands with delight. The primitive town fairly buzzed with
excitement when, under the palms, Samoan maids whirled around, clasped
in the arms of the joyful sailors, who made the wild island country echo
to their singing voices. A crowd of stalwart Samoan men left their work
on the banana plantation close by and came to watch the sailors ashore.
Dressed in their ridis only they stood, with their white teeth shining
and their eyes sparkling merrily to see the novel sight. The pretty
Samoan girls screamed with laughter, and their long brown legs went up
and swung across the grass and fern-carpeted floor of the primitive
ballroom, as they twirled round and round in the sailors’ arms, and
looked over their brown shoulders at a corpulent, fat native woman, who
hailed from the Solomon Isles. For she imitated the drunken boatswain’s
high kicks and fell down, purposely, on her heavy bareness, to the
shrieking delight of the whole onlooking village, as I played the
fiddle. “Birds of a feather flock together” is a true saying; and I must
confess I enjoyed myself seeing my countrymen so happy.
At the far end of the village was a native store, run by a half-caste
who sold kava and terrible stuff called the “finest whisky.” When the
first dance was over, with their bashful partners on their arms, dark
eyes looking up admiringly into blue ones, they all went across the
slope to get refreshments. The sailors had money and treated the
natives, who were all on their own, for the missionaries were away on
the coast somewhere, attending a festival. So the mission rooms were
deserted, and the lotu songs unsung that night, and the sailors were
welcomed by them all as missionaries had never been. Pompy, Tango and I
followed the crew about and they treated us to lime-juice drinks; we
refused the whisky. When they were all primed up again with native
spirit, and the stars flashed over the windless palms, they had another
dance, and six native women, who did not care a “tinker’s cuss” for
anyone on earth when the missionaries were away, stood opposite the
sailormen all in a row, mimicking them in a jig, the hibiscus blossoms
stuck in their thick hair tossing about.
The missionaries somehow got to hear of it all and there was an awful
row. Some of the women were taken before the _fakali_, or native judge,
and fined a dollar, one month’s wages, and they sat with shamed faces
for hours in the mission room, counting their beads (about the only
dress they had worn that night), doing penance, while the real culprits
went on to their ship out in the bay.
When we got back, in the early hours of the morning, old Pompo jumped
off his sleeping-mat and started bellowing at his two sons for
overstaying their leave. I took all the blame, and explained that the
old grandfather, the late high chief Tuloa, had been so pleased to see
us that we had been compelled, through sheer courtesy, after his
enthusiastic welcome, to accept his invitation to stay on. Hearing this,
the old chap toned down, and we went to bed and slept soundly.
I went on the tramp steamer _S——_ next day and applied for a berth. The
chief mate promised me a job; so I went back to my friend the Samoan’s
home and stayed there till the matter was settled.
Nina, the youngest daughter of my host, who was about twelve years of
age, was an extremely pretty girl, and very romantic. A day or two
before I left Samoa I came across her sitting by the shore holding a
sea-shell to her ear, listening attentively to its murmur and singing to
herself.
“Why do you listen to the shell’s voice, Nina?” I asked.
“They are singing to me,” she said, as she looked up into my face with
earnest, wondering eyes.
“Who is singing to you, Nina?” I responded, rather surprised at her
remark and the assurance in her manner that someone was singing to her
in the shell. Then I heard from her lips an example of the poetical
_Arabian Nights_ of the South Seas. Crossing her legs, she arranged her
pretty yellow frock, then put her finger up as though to tell me a great
secret, and as I sat by her on the rock she told me the following
story:—“There still lives an old heathen god deep down under the sea.
His home is a large cavern, so big that its roof is the floor of all the
ocean. In this big cavern is a beautiful country, lit up by the light of
all the sunsets that have ever sunk down into the great waters out in
the west. For it is in the west, deep down in the sea, where the old
grey-bearded god’s door is. Every night, just as the days are going to
bed, the lonely god stands by his door, with his big watching eyes
gazing up through the waters, as the sun sinks slowly down into the sea.
For he knows it is on the sunset fires that he will catch the shadows of
dead Samoan sailors who have been drowned by the upsetting of their
canoes when the great storms blow. For when they die their shadows swim
away to the sun directly it commences to sink, and then, clinging to the
golden light, they go down, down, and are caught by the big god as he
stands by his door under the sea, pulling the sunset in as a fisherman
does his nets.”
“And what does the god do with them, Nina?” I said, as she sat
hesitating and looking up at me with her pretty brown eyes.
“Well,” she continued, as she put her finger to her lips and dabbled her
little brown feet in the waves that crept up the shore in foamy curls,
“for thousands and thousands of years he has been watching and catching
the dead sailors, and all those who are drowned in the storms; and as he
stalks along through his wonderful countries, his endless forests under
the sea, moving through the light of yesterday’s sunsets, all the
shadows of the dead sailors follow behind him, singing, and begging him
to catch also the dead girls and women who have been drowned. But in a
deep voice that echoes, and is the thunder you hear when the storms
blow, he says: ‘_Mia fantoes_’ (my children), ‘you must only love me and
not love mere women.’ But still the shadows follow him, imploring and
singing, ‘Oh, bring us the beautiful dead girls and women’; and their
voices, for ever echoing through the cavern roof, come up to the top of
the ocean shores and caves, and you can hear them, though they are far
away, faintly calling, calling to the big god under the sea. So all the
girls and women come down to the shore and, if they have no one to love
them, they put the shells to their ears and listen to the calling voices
of the dead sailormen.”
“Do you believe that, Nina?” I said, as I looked at her.
Then she nodded her pretty head with absolute conviction; and I too
listened to the shell’s murmur and pretended to be astonished and
convinced. “Nina, and what becomes of the dead girls who are drowned?”
For answer she looked up at me sorrowfully for a while, then said: “The
big sea-god is jealous of women, so he takes them out of his nets of
sunset and throws them back into the waters, just as a fisherman does
with the fish that are of no use to him.”
“And what becomes of them then, Nina?”
“They turn to _ruios_” (sea-swallows), “and you can see them very early
after dawn flying away into the fire of the rising sun, whence all that
is beautiful comes”; and saying that she looked up at me with her pretty
eyes staring thoughtfully.
“Who told you all those beautiful things, Nina?” I said.
[Illustration: A RIVER WHARF, WEST AFRICA]
Then she looked up and told me that when she went to see her
grandfather, who was that old chief, “O Le Tula,” he told her many
wonderful things about the sea-gods, and the old heathen gods who once
lived in the clouds and the forest of Samoa. So I tell you that which
Nina told me, though I could never infuse into her beautiful, simple
story the earnestness of her pretty eyes, the note of certitude in her
innocent voice, or the poetry of her childish imagination.
I liked that little Samoan maid. “Good-bye, Nina,” I said, after bidding
the others farewell.
“You go away on _te kaibuke_[7] and never come again?”
Footnote 7:
A ship.
“I may come back some day,” I answered. I saw the tears in her eyes as I
left her. She’s a woman now. I wonder if she remembers me.
Before I proceed I must relate an adventure I had while passing along a
forest track after playing at a native dance. It was a beautiful
evening; the coco-palms, mangroves and dark orange and lime trees were
bathed in the sunset’s light, and the soft wind from seaward drifted
sweet scents to my nostrils. I was hurrying towards Apia town before
dark came on. Suddenly I heard a scream! The knight-errant fever of
other days leapt like lightning to my eyes: a woman was in distress. I
stood still and cursed inwardly, for I had only my violin as a weapon. I
threw my shoulders back, looked swiftly at the skies, then rushed up to
the slope’s top. A white man stood under an orange-tree; in front of him
was a beautiful Samoan girl. He seemed to be a large-framed, well-knit
man, and I felt a tiny thrill of hesitation; but in the forest shadows
just behind me my old heroes, with dauntless eyes, seemed to be
shouting: “Forward to the rescue of distressed loveliness—onward!”
The white man had once more gripped the native girl and was shaking her.
Her eyes looked around appealingly. The supreme moment to do or die
thrilled me. I dropped my violin-case and, longing for a comrade, with a
bound I was on him! For a moment we wrestled silently. “Ach Gott!” and
“D—n!” the villainous seducer muttered as I gripped him by the throat!
Crash! On my head came a blow—the Samoan girl had struck me on the back
of the head with my violin-case! I heard the fiddle within hum
trr-err-rh, as the four strings vibrated to the blow. They were jealous,
quarrelling lovers, and the girl, seeing that I was getting the better
of the German, had suddenly relented. I had a thundering headache all
night and have never rescued a woman since.
I saw an old Mataafan chief die of old age in Saluafata village. I shall
never forget the sight, or my feelings at the time. He lifted his aged,
shrivelled face from the sleeping-mat, whereon he died, and begged the
heavens to save him. Around him wailed his children and grandchildren;
he was well loved, for all seemed earnest in their grief. I saw his
eyelids close; I heard him murmur in Samoan a prayer to the gods of old,
for the child’s belief revives at death. His dying frame tried to sit
up; the tattoo engraving on his breast, of warriors and weapons, went
out of shape as his skin wrinkled in agony, and then his eyelids closed
for ever. His death forced me to wonder on the mysterious cruelty of the
Universe. Theologies give death a divine intention, but that sight
affected a sense in my innermost soul, and death did not appear to me as
a boon.
Soon after I joined the ship in Apia harbour. We stayed in port a few
days, and then I shipped on the _Golden Horn_, bound for the Marquesas
Islands. I had been there a year or two before and had a fancy that I
should like to see the old spots once more. The schooner’s crew were
mostly Samoans, the cook being a German. The skipper, Alfred Richardson,
an Englishman, was not more than thirty years of age. I slept in the
cuddy. The “Old Man” took a fancy to me, or at least to my
violin-playing, so he, the English mate and I had a fine time together.
The weather was squally for a week and kept the crew busy, and then a
calm fell and we hardly moved. The boat was a splendid sailer and ran
like a hound with the yards almost squared. I remember the beautiful,
calm nights as the sails half filled and flopped and the rigging
rattled. The ocean about us was drenched with mirrored stars; so calm
and bright was the water that we could look over the side and see the
shadow of our ship and all the silent heavens over it, and the mirrored,
beautiful _katafa_ (frigate-bird) sail across the sky on silent wings.
The Samoan sailors squatted on deck and sang weird ditties; I played the
violin, and even the skipper joined in in good fellowship. Sometimes we
fished and caught bonito, a beautifully coloured fish. Soon the wind
sprang up again, and we made rapid headway across the wonderful world of
waters. One moonlight night I was standing on the starboard side
thinking, and gazing at the sky-lines, ghostly bright in the moonlight
for miles around us, when the great ocean silence was broken by a
complaining monotone, such as you hear when you place a sea-shell to
your ear. I instinctively gazed over the side and saw far off, opposite
the weather-side of the moonlit sky-line, curling and tossing breakers,
where liquid masses soared and dissolved on the coral reefs of an
enchanted isle; for enchanted it looked to me as the tiny wind drifted
us onward. Slowly the inland palm-clad mountain ranges rose, and the
groves of coco-palms and dark-leafed tropical trees, and out of the
creeks and bay came native canoes filled with paddling, singing savages!
Presently we saw their dusky faces as they raced across the moonlit
water, bringing their bargains of fruit, pine-apples, wild bananas and
corals; and alas, two or three of them, who had no wares to sell, were
accompanied by their immoral wives!
Up the side they came, clambering like savage mermen out of the ocean
depths. Their frizzly, wet heads came above the rails and, puff! they
leapt on deck and pattered about on naked feet. They were pleasant,
bright-eyed, shaggy fellows and the world’s greatest talkers: they
jabbered and jabbered till sunrise burst over the ocean, and before us,
over the bows, half-a-mile away, lay Hiva-oa.
I asked the skipper to give me a long leave of absence ashore. “Very
well, Middleton, we are not going for a fortnight. You can go off; and
mind you behave yourself and bring that fiddle back.”
“All right, sir, and thank you,” I said gratefully, for he really did
treat me as though I were a passenger. I had played cards with him and
taught him melodies by ear on the fiddle.
“Come on, Sam Slick,” I said to my comrade, who was an American fellow
and came from ’Frisco. I was reading _Sam Slick the Clock-maker_, and so
gave him that name, for he was a kind of Slick. He was about twenty-six
years old, but as boyish as I was; a merry-looking fellow, with a little
straw-coloured moustache, grey, kind eyes, thin lips, good-natured and
determined, and his long legs balanced on enormous feet. We went off,
and I had not gone far before I met a Frenchman who had known me on my
previous visit. I understood from him that a lot of the people I had
been friendly with before were still living there.
Slick, who had not been to the Marquesas before, was enraptured with the
sights we saw. I made him go up to Turoa village and see the natives _en
déshabillé_. He made a splendid pioneer forest breaker, as his boots
crashed down and levelled the jungle scrub, and I followed cautiously in
the track he left behind him. The heat was terrific when we arrived, at
last emerging from the thick tropical scrub and dust into the native
town’s open space.
There was a store erected by the village, a new wooden, one-roomed shed.
We fairly steamed as we loosened our shirts and stood drinking native
toddy, and the little wind blew through the pandanus and dark spreading
palm leaves on to our bare breasts. Out from their beehive-shaped huts
came the Marquesan girls, dressed in their undraped beauty. Their fine
dark eyes shone and their somewhat sensual lips, laughing, revealed
their pearl-like teeth. The Marquesan girls are slightly darker skinned
than the Samoans, and do their hair very attractively, almost with a
Parisian effect. Some of the youths also bunch their hair up, and it is
impossible at times to tell the difference between the youths and the
maids till they stand in the grass smiling before one, and one sees the
straight limbs of the males and the feminine curves of the dusky,
smiling Eves. Sam Slick’s eyes twinkled with curiosity and very evident
pleasure as they spoke to him in pidgin-English and by signs. One pretty
girl, about fourteen years old, held her own baby up for our inspection.
Slick held it in his hands. It was not much larger than a green
coco-nut. Its skin was a pretty red-tinted brown colour. I held it on
one hand and, to please the admiring mother, kissed its tiny bald head.
Then all the little native children, who had crept up to us and were
watching our white faces with childish interest, rushed back under the
forest palms, screaming with delight. Off they went to tell the whole
village population that the big white man had kissed Temarioa’s _fantoe_
(child) on the head. I gave the girls a coin each, and they clapped
their hands and said: “Yuranah!”[8]
Footnote 8:
Thank you.
Man’s imagination could never picture a paradise to outrival the beauty
of that Marquesan village. But on we tramped, and as we turned up the
winding tracks we sighted the sea, and the waves breaking in the hot
sunlight over the reefs by the palm-clad shores, and far away we saw the
masts of our schooner, the _Golden Horn_. We got hold of a half-caste,
who took us off to the various tribal districts and then left us. In the
solitude of the bush-land, sheltered by an enormous tree, we saw a large
wooden god. As we approached, and our feet snapped the twigs, a
frightened Marquesan girl, who was kneeling before the hideous,
one-eyed, grimy wooden god, rose and fled like a frightened rabbit. We
saw her hair flying in the wind over her bare shoulders as she faded
away in the forest glooms, just looking over her shoulder once with
awestruck eyes as she ran, and then disappeared!
Slick and I were quite impressed by the sight of the running wild girl,
and then we stood and looked up at the heathen idol. It was about eight
feet high, broad shouldered, and the acme of ugliness. It was
considerably decayed, for one eye was gone, and swarms of large
white-bodied ants filed in and out of the curved wooden lips. “Fancy
praying to that thing,” said Slick. “Yes, seems strange,” I responded.
My comrade caught hold of a large bough, and standing a little way off
swung it back; and then crash! he smashed the old heathen deity’s head
in! Then we stood and gazed upon it, and across the forest silence came
a low wail of anguish, as once more we saw the heathen girl run across a
cleared patch, running so fast that we could only just see the twinkle
of her bare legs as she fled in terrible fright at seeing us crash her
god’s skull in, and yet both stand unharmed!
Slick wasn’t anything of a poet, or even of a reflective temperament,
but the silence of that spot, the broken god and the poor,
terror-stricken girl made him say: “Well now, did you ever, mate!”;
while I too looked round half frightened and said, “No, I never; but I’m
off.” When I explained to him that the girl would rush and tell some
more of her tribe, who were Christianised but worshipped idols on the
sly, and that they would come into the forest and get their own back,
probably by strangling us and serving us up at the next cannibalistic
feast, he too agreed. Just as we turned away, and I had carefully placed
the god’s eye in my pocket as a valuable curio, we heard a noise and
looked over our shoulders. About twenty stalwart Marquesan savages were
leaping towards us, not half-a-mile away! I am tall, and to this day I
thank God that my legs are long. I know not what my primitive ancestors
were, or what deeds they were capable of, or what barbarian strain they
have infused into my blood, but I always feel thankful that they gave me
the capacity for fast running! I never knew that Sam Slick could show
such swift movement either, as simultaneously we made an unprintable
remark and like two race-horses, chin by chin and neck by neck, we
bolted off. I had been to the Marquesas before, and I knew that the
inland tribes still nursed old cannibalistic appetites, and an intense
hatred for those who hurt their gods, and that knowledge electrified my
feet. Only the mechanical pumping of our breath could be heard as we
raced across the slopes. Presently I saw that I was gaining in the
flight; my nose was moving through space just about one inch beyond
Slick’s nose! The savages were shouting behind us! I distinctly heard
the wild, savage wails, and looking back I saw their dark faces coming
through the forest of palms. Slick’s face had gone white; mine, I think,
had turned ashen-grey! The sound of running in the forest just behind us
grew louder. If we did not reach the village before they overtook us we
should have to fight for our lives. I had by then gained the courage of
resignation, and turning slightly I gazed back through the great beads
of perspiration dripping from my eyebrows. I told Slick to
“P-p-pp-ick—up—sti-ick—as—you—r-run.” Each word came out in jerks, for
at that time we were almost tumbling down a steep slope. As we rushed up
the next incline I spied some stout branches, and together we stooped
and gripped one each. “I’m done, Slick,” I muttered. “So am I,” he
breathed out, as we stood on the top of the slope and entrenched
ourselves behind a lot of bush, prepared to sell our lives dearly. We
both felt nearly dead as we leaned against each other and prepared to
give battle to the semi-savage men who were rushing down the opposite
slope.
Then the strangest thing happened, but one which I believe happens to
most men. When we found that we _had_ to fight a splendid delirium
thrilled us. We piled the dead logs up, gripped our weapons and waited
with a grim feeling of exultation at our hearts: we would go down to the
festive board game!
Slick stood by my side, a real brick. “Let ’em come, the brutes,” he
said. Up came a stalwart fellow and almost leapt over our branch
parapet. I lifted my club and down it came, crash! on Slick’s head! I
shall never forget that terrible miss of mine, or poor old Slick’s cry
as I fell, and the savage buried his teeth in my leg, while with both my
hands clutching his hair I called loudly to Slick to help me. Down came
my chum’s club on to the foe’s shoulder, and in a moment we had him up
bodily and between us swung him and hurled him over the dead wood; and
down the slope he went rolling!
All this had only taken a minute to happen, and the remaining members of
the horde were all standing at the bottom of the slope to see the result
of their leader’s attack. When we returned their chief to them half dead
they stood perfectly still, hesitating, and looking up to us tried to
call a truce.
“Got any tobacco plug with you, Slick?” I said quickly. To my delight my
comrade pulled out two plugs of ship’s tobacco. I broke it into four
pieces and holding it up in my hand I said, “Tobac! tobac!” and made
friendly signs. In a moment the grim, savage faces of the foe were lit
up with smiles. All the dusky lips grinned and, incredible as it may
seem, they came rushing up the slope with outstretched hands. I at once
made signs to them not to come too near, and then called the
best-natured-looking one; and, as he came close up to me, I stretched
forth my hand and said: “I give you te pakea.”[9] Then I put a bit of
tobacco plug in his dark fingers and signed to him that if they all went
away I would give him a lot more. Upon which he went back; and presently
all his companions went away up the slope opposite us, and standing at
the top of the hill watched the truce-bearer return to us for the
promised tobacco.
Footnote 9:
Tobacco.
“Don’t you give it him till they go another mile off,” said Slick; and
after parleying again we got them out of sight, and then, to make doubly
sure, gave them only half of the remaining tobacco. As soon as the
truce-bearer went off with it to his companions we took to our heels and
did not stop running till we arrived at the village where we had left
the half-caste guide. Outside the guide’s homestead we lay and rested
for two or three hours before we recovered from our exertion in the sun,
and the fright. We told the guide about the idol, and he said that if we
told the authorities they would go and arrest the Marquesans. Then he
asked us if we would be witnesses and not say that he had anything to do
with giving them away. I at once declined, and so did Slick: we did not
want the whole tribe to swear a vendetta and seek our lives.
We made ourselves comfortable and happy in the village. Many of the old
chiefs lolled about by the huts, pretty little homes made of twisted
bamboo, elevated on crossed palm stems. Scarred with old wounds which
they had received in tribalistic battles, they looked grim, wonderful
warriors. Some were tattooed extensively and had large hairy warts on
their cheeks and ears. They loved to talk of the good old days ere the
bloated whites came across the seas and the Marquesan Rome fell. Sly old
native women, hideous and wonderful looking, peeped at us, then sighed,
and went on chewing their tobacco or betel-nut. Pretty girls, with hats
made of palm leaves and clad in a _mumu_[10] trimmed with flowers,
passed along the tracks that lead from village to village.
Footnote 10:
A tappu-cloth chemise that reached to the knees.
As we went on after resting we heard the confusion of noises in the
native huts. In some the occupants were singing happily and in others
shouting with hot rage in family squabbles. Often a youth or a girl
suddenly rushed forth from the den door, flying for dear life, as the
old chief’s gnarled, tattooed face peered forth, ablaze with anger that
his own children should dare argue with him and say the heathen gods
were only wood and stone! Sometimes babies disappeared in a mysterious
way, and the native mothers wandered about the villages beating their
hands together and wailing most mournfully. Terrible rumours floated
about in those days, for some of the old chiefs had a taste for “sucking
long pig”: no man who had any respect for his soul would swear by it
that the grizzly old chiefs, and old concubines, did not sit by the
festive fires far away inland and gnaw the bones of those very missing
children!
Slick and I bathed in a lagoon and felt greatly refreshed. I rubbed the
bruise that my club had given him with palm-oil, and though he moaned a
bit the lump soon went down. Next day we went to our schooner and slept
on board. The skipper was away for a week, so we once more went off
wandering, and when we returned to go aboard, to our surprise the
_Golden Horn_ had gone! She had been originally chartered to take a
cargo of tinned meats and foodstuffs to Papeete and many of the isles
and groups scattered about, and had suddenly received orders to sail.
The skipper had sent off to try and find us, and then left word that he
would probably be back in three weeks. Three days later, being stranded,
we went aboard a trading steamer and asked for a job. She was bound for
the Carolines, and then across to Samoa and Tonga. They did not want any
hands, so at dusk, just before she sailed, Slick and I went down in the
hold and stowed away. They put the hatch on about ten minutes after we
had got below and we were then imprisoned in darkness. We lay side by
side against some barrels and bunches of green bananas and unripe
oranges, which are always plucked green for cargo purposes. We had a
terrible time together. The days and nights became a blank. We lived on
the bananas and green orange juice. At last in our desperation we
climbed up over the barrels and thumped the decks, but no one heard us.
As we lay down, trying to sleep, large hairy ship rats jumped at us and
squeaked. I struck at them with my violin-case and smashed it, and as I
lay half asleep I felt their soft snouts poke and sniff in my ears.
Slick swore that they were flying rats, because they seemed everywhere
and flapped about. We found out after that large island cockroaches were
flying about us and the rats were leaping at them!
Slick became as downhearted as I did, though he was a good fellow and
brave too. “I’d sooner have stopped in Hiva-oa for years than go through
this, mate,” he said. One night, when the steamer was rolling and
pitching, I sat on the barrel by Slick’s side and played the violin
furiously. “Perhaps they will hear that,” I said. “Go on, scrape the
d——d thing,” said my comrade, and I tore away at full speed. “It’s no
good, Slick. It’s blowing hard. Can’t you feel her rolling? We must wait
till it’s calm.”
Next day, or night, it was silent, and we only heard the screw-shaft
revolving, so I got the violin out and started scraping again. I must
have torn away for two hours. Suddenly a stream of light flooded over
us! The man-hatch had been lifted off! And the crew of astonished
sailors, and the skipper, mate and chief engineer, were looking down!
“God d—n it! I wonder what next is going to happen on this old packet!”
shouted the astonished skipper. “Come up, you men.” Slick went up the
iron ladder first and I followed after, while the chief mate looked
grimly down at the bare banana stems and at heaps of green orange peel.
They had heard the violin through the storm, during the first night’s
orchestral appeal for help, and had come to the conclusion that a ghost
was aboard. For, as the mate told me afterwards, it was only a wail that
sounded faint and far off above the storm. The skipper forgave us and we
were treated well—considering our sins. I was placed in the stokehold
and Slick was put to coal-trimming. When we arrived at Upolu (Samoa)
Slick made up his mind to stay and go off with her to Honolulu. I left.
Nina, Pompo and all my old native friends were delighted to see me
again, and took me straight off on a fishing excursion round the coast.
I never saw Slick again; but if ever he chances to gaze upon these
reminiscences he will see I have remembered him, and still feel that I
could not have found a better comrade the world over for the escapades
that we went through together.
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