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SOUTH-SEA IDYLS.
by
CHARLES WARREN STODDARD.
[Illustration: (Printer's logo)]
Boston:
James R. Osgood and Company,
Late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co.
1873.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873,
by Charles Warren Stoddard,
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
University Press: Welch, Bigelow, & Co.,
Cambridge.
[Decoration]
CONTENTS.
PAGE
IN THE CRADLE OF THE DEEP 7
CHUMMING WITH A SAVAGE.
I. KÁNA-ANÁ 25
II. HOW I CONVERTED MY CANNIBAL 43
III. BARBARIAN DAYS 57
TABOO.--A FÊTE-DAY IN TAHITI 80
JOE OF LAHAINA 112
THE NIGHT-DANCERS OF WAIPIO 128
PEARL-HUNTING IN THE POMOTOUS 146
THE LAST OF THE GREAT NAVIGATOR 169
A CANOE-CRUISE IN THE CORAL SEA 184
UNDER A GRASS ROOF 197
MY SOUTH-SEA SHOW 202
THE HOUSE OF THE SUN 221
THE CHAPEL OF THE PALMS 240
KAHÉLE 259
LOVE-LIFE IN A LANAI 283
IN A TRANSPORT 300
A PRODIGAL IN TAHITI 324
[Decoration]
[Decoration]
_TO MY DEAR FRIEND ANTON ROMAN._
[Decoration]
[Decoration]
THE COCOA-TREE.
Cast on the water by a careless hand,
Day after day the winds persuaded me:
Onward I drifted till a coral tree
Stayed me among its branches, where the sand
Gathered about me, and I slowly grew,
Fed by the constant sun and the inconstant dew.
The sea-birds build their nests against my root,
And eye my slender body's horny case.
Widowed within this solitary place
Into the thankless sea I cast my fruit;
Joyless I thrive, for no man may partake
Of all the store I bear and harvest for his sake.
No more I heed the kisses of the morn;
The harsh winds rob me of the life they gave;
I watch my tattered shadow in the wave,
And hourly droop and nod my crest forlorn,
While all my fibres stiffen and grow numb
Beck'ning the tardy ships, the ships that never come!
[Decoration]
[Decoration]
SOUTH-SEA IDYLS.
IN THE CRADLE OF THE DEEP.
Forty days in the great desert of the sea,--forty nights camped under
cloud-canopies, with the salt dust of the waves drifting over us.
Sometimes a Bedouin sail flashed for an hour upon the distant horizon,
and then faded, and we were alone again; sometimes the west, at sunset,
looked like a city with towers, and we bore down upon its glorified
walls, seeking a haven; but a cold gray morning dispelled the illusion,
and our hearts sank back into the illimitable sea, breathing a long
prayer for deliverance.
Once a green oasis blossomed before us,--a garden in perfect bloom,
girded about with creaming waves; within its coral cincture pendulous
boughs trailed in the glassy waters; from its hidden bowers spiced airs
stole down upon us; above all, the triumphant palm-trees clashed their
melodious branches like a chorus with cymbals; yet from the very gates
of this paradise a changeful current swept us onward, and the happy
isle was buried in night and distance.
In many volumes of adventure I had read of sea-perils: I was at last to
learn the full interpretation of their picturesque horrors. Our little
craft, the Petrel, had buffeted the boisterous waves for five long
weeks. Fortunately, the bulk of her cargo was edible: we feared neither
famine nor thirst. Moreover, in spite of the continuous gale that swept
us out of our reckoning, the Petrel was in excellent condition, and, as
far as we could judge, we had no reason to lose confidence in her. It
was the gray weather that tried our patience and found us wanting; it
was the unparalleled pitching of the ninety-ton schooner that
disheartened and almost dismembered us. And then it was wasting time at
sea. Why were we not long before at our journey's end? Why were we not
threading the vales of some savage island, and reaping our rich reward
of ferns and shells and gorgeous butterflies?
The sea rang its monotonous changes,--fair weather and foul, days like
death itself, followed by days full of the revelations of new life, but
mostly days of deadly dulness, when the sea was as unpoetical as an
eternity of cold suds and blueing.
I cannot always understand the logical fitness of things, or, rather, I
am at a loss to know why some things in life are so unfit and illogical.
Of course, in our darkest hour, when we were gathered in the confines
of the Petrel's diminutive cabin, it was our duty to sing psalms of hope
and cheer, but we didn't. It was a time for mutual encouragement: very
few of us were self-sustaining, and what was to be gained by our
combining in unanimous despair?
Our weather-beaten skipper,--a thing of clay that seemed utterly
incapable of any expression whatever, save in the slight facial
contortion consequent to the mechanical movement of his lower jaw,--the
skipper sat, with barometer in hand, eying the fatal finger that pointed
to our doom; the rest of us were lashed to the legs of the centre-table,
glad of any object to fix our eyes upon, and nervously awaiting a turn
in the state of affairs, that was then by no means encouraging.
I happened to remember that there were some sealed letters to be read
from time to time on the passage out, and it occurred to me that one of
the times had come--perhaps the last and only--wherein I might break the
remaining seals and receive a sort of parting visit from the fortunate
friends on shore.
I opened one letter and read these prophetic lines: "Dear child,"--she
was twice my age, and privileged to make a pet of me,--"dear child, I
have a presentiment that we shall never meet again in the flesh."
That dear girl's intuition came near to being the death of me. I
shuddered where I sat, overcome with remorse. It was enough that I had
turned my back on her and sought consolation in the treacherous bosom of
the ocean; that, having failed to find the spring of immortal life in
human affection, I had packed up and emigrated, content to fly the ills
I had in search of change; but that parting shot, below the water-line
as it were,--that was more than I asked for, and something more than I
could stomach. I returned to watch with the rest of our little company,
who clung about the table with a pitiful sense of momentary security,
and an expression of pathetic condolence on every countenance, as though
each was sitting out the last hours of the others.
Our particular bane that night was a crusty old sea-dog whose memory of
wrecks and marine disasters of every conceivable nature was as complete
as an encyclopædia. This "old man of the sea" spun his tempestuous yarn
with fascinating composure, and the whole company was awed into silence
with the haggard realism of his narrative. The cabin must have been
air-tight,--it was as close as possible,--yet we heard the shrieking of
the wind as it tore through the rigging, and the long hiss of the waves
rushing past us with lightning speed. Sometimes an avalanche of foam
buried us for a moment, and the Petrel trembled like a living thing
stricken with sudden fear; we seemed to be hanging on the crust of a
great bubble that was, sooner or later, certain to burst, and let us
drop into its vast, black chasm, where, in Cimmerian darkness, we should
be entombed forever.
The scenic effect, as I then considered, was unnecessarily vivid; as I
now recall it, it seems to me strictly in keeping and thoroughly
dramatic. At any rate, you might have told us a dreadful story with
almost fatal success.
I had still one letter left, one bearing this suggestive legend: "To be
read in the saddest hour." Now, if there is a sadder hour in all time
than the hour of hopeless and friendless death, I care not to know of
it. I broke the seal of my letter, feeling that something charitable and
cheering would give me strength. A few dried leaves were stored within
it. The faint fragrance of summer bowers reassured me: somewhere in the
blank world of waters there was land, and there Nature was kind and
fruitful; out over the fearful deluge this leaf was born to me in the
return of the invisible dove my heart had sent forth in its extremity. A
song was written therein, perhaps a song of triumph. I could now silence
the clamorous tongue of our sea-monster, who was glutting us with tales
of horror, for a jubilee was at hand, and here was the first note of its
trumpets.
I read:--
"Beyond the parting and the meeting
I shall be soon;
Beyond the farewell and the greeting,
Beyond the pulse's fever-beating,
I shall be soon."
I paused. A night black with croaking ravens, brooding over a slimy
hulk, through whose warped timbers the sea oozed,--that was the sort of
picture that rose before me. I looked further for a crumb of comfort:--
"Beyond the gathering and the strewing,
I shall be soon;
Beyond the ebbing and the flowing,
Beyond the coming and the going,
I shall be soon."
A tide of ice-water seemed rippling up and down my spinal column; the
marrow congealed within my bones. But I recovered. When a man has supped
full of horror and there is no immediate climax, he can collect himself
and be comparatively brave. A reaction restored my soul.
Once more the melancholy chronicler of the ill-fated Petrel resumed his
lugubrious narrative. I resolved to listen, while the skipper eyed the
barometer, and we all rocked back and forth in search of the centre of
gravity, looking like a troupe of mechanical blockheads nodding in
idiotic unison. All this time the little craft drifted helplessly, "hove
to" in the teeth of the gale.
The sea-dog's yarn was something like this: He once knew a lonesome man
who floated about in a waterlogged hulk for three months; who saw all
his comrades starve and die, one after another, and at last kept watch
alone, craving and beseeching death. It was the stanch French brig
Mouette, bound south into the equatorial seas. She had seen rough
weather from the first: day after day the winds increased, and finally a
cyclone burst upon her with insupportable fury. The brig was thrown upon
her beam-ends, and began to fill rapidly. With much difficulty her masts
were cut away, she righted, and lay in the trough of the sea rolling
like a log. Gradually the gale subsided, but the hull of the brig was
swept continually by the tremendous swell, and the men were driven into
the foretop cross-trees, where they rigged a tent for shelter and
gathered what few stores were left them from the wreck. A dozen wretched
souls lay in their stormy nest for three whole days in silence and
despair. By this time their scanty stores were exhausted, and not a drop
of water remained; then their tongues were loosened, and they railed at
the Almighty. Some wept like children, some cursed their fate. One man
alone was speechless,--a Spaniard, with a wicked light in his eye, and a
repulsive manner that had made trouble in the forecastle more than once.
When hunger had driven them nearly to madness they were fed in an almost
miraculous manner. Several enormous sharks had been swimming about the
brig for some hours, and the hungry sailors were planning various
projects for the capture of them. Tough as a shark is, they would
willingly have risked life for a few raw mouthfuls of the same.
Somehow, though the sea was still and the wind light, the brig gave a
sudden lurch and dipped up one of the monsters, who was quite secure in
the shallow aquarium between the gunwales. He was soon despatched, and
divided equally among the crew. Some ate a little, and reserved the rest
for another day; some ate till they were sick, and had little left for
the next meal. The Spaniard with the evil eye greedily devoured his
portion, and then grew moody again, refusing to speak with the others,
who were striving to be cheerful, though it was sad enough work.
When the food was all gone save a few mouthfuls that one meagre eater
had hoarded to the last, the Spaniard resolved to secure a morsel at the
risk of his life. It had been a point of honor with the men to observe
sacredly the right of ownership, and any breach of confidence would have
been considered unpardonable. At night, when the watch was sleeping, the
Spaniard cautiously removed the last mouthful of shark hidden in the
pocket of his mate, but was immediately detected and accused of theft.
He at once grew desperate, struck at the poor wretch whom he had robbed,
missed his blow, and fell headlong from the narrow platform in the
foretop, and was lost in the sea. It was the first scene in the mournful
tragedy about to be enacted on that limited stage.
There was less disturbance after the disappearance of the Spaniard. The
spirits of the doomed sailors seemed broken; in fact, the captain was
the only one whose courage was noteworthy, and it was his indomitable
will that ultimately saved him.
One by one the minds of the miserable men gave way; they became peevish
or delirious, and then died horribly. Two, who had been mates for many
voyages in the seas north and south, vanished mysteriously in the night;
no one could tell where they went or in what manner, though they seemed
to have gone together.
Somehow, these famishing sailors seemed to feel assured that their
captain would be saved; they were as confident of their own doom, and to
him they intrusted a thousand messages of love. They would lie around
him,--for few of them had strength to assume a sitting posture,--and
reveal to him the story of their lives. It was most pitiful to hear the
confessions of these dying men. One said: "I wronged my friend; I was
unkind to this one or to that one; I deserve the heaviest punishment God
can inflict upon me"; and then he paused, overcome with emotion. But
another took up the refrain: "I could have done much good, but I would
not, and now it is too late." And a third cried out in his despair, "I
have committed unpardonable sins, and there is no hope for me. Lord
Jesus, have mercy!" The youngest of these perishing souls was a mere
lad; he, too, accused himself bitterly. He began his story at the
beginning, and continued it from time to time as the spirit of
revelation moved him; scarcely an incident, however insignificant,
escaped him in his pitiless retrospect. O, the keen agony of that boy's
recital! more cruel than hunger or thirst, and in comparison with which
physical torture would have seemed merciful and any death a blessing.
While the luckless Mouette drifted aimlessly about, driven slowly onward
by varying winds under a cheerless sky, sickness visited them. Some were
stricken with scurvy; some had lost the use of their limbs and lay
helpless, moaning and weeping hour after hour; vermin devoured them; and
when their garments were removed, and cleansed in the salt water, there
was scarcely sunshine enough to dry them before night, and they were put
on again, damp, stiffened with salt, and shrunken so as to cripple the
wearers, who were all blistered and covered with boils. The nights were
bitter cold: sometimes the icy moon looked down upon them; sometimes the
bosom of an electric cloud burst over them, and they were enveloped for
a moment in a sheet of flame. Sharks lingered about them, waiting to
feed upon the unhappy ones who fell into the sea overcome with physical
exhaustion, or who cast themselves from that dizzy scaffold, unable
longer to endure the horrors of lingering death. Flocks of sea-fowl
hovered over them; the hull of the Mouette was crusted with barnacles;
long skeins of sea-grass knotted themselves in her gaping seams; myriads
of fish darted in and out among the clinging weeds, sporting gleefully;
schools of porpoises leaped about them, lashing the sea into foam;
sometimes a whale blew his long breath close under them. Everywhere was
the stir of jubilant life,--everywhere but under the tattered awning
stretched in the foretop of the Mouette.
Days and weeks dragged on. When the captain would waken from his
sleep,--which was not always at night, however, for the nights were
miserably cold and sleepless,--when he wakened he would call the roll.
Perhaps some one made no answer; then he would reach forth and touch the
speechless body and find it dead. He had not strength now to bury the
corpses in the sea's sepulchre; he had not strength even to partake of
the unholy feast of the inanimate flesh. He lay there in the midst of
pestilence; and at night, under the merciful veil of darkness, the fowls
of the air gathered about him and bore away their trophy of corruption.
By and by there were but two left of all that suffering crew,--the
captain and the boy,--and these two clung together like ghosts, defying
mortality. They strove to be patient and hopeful: if they could not eat,
they could drink, for the nights were dewy, and sometimes a mist covered
them,--a mist so dense it seemed almost to drip from the rags that
poorly sheltered them. A cord was attached to the shrouds, the end of it
carefully laid in the mouth of a bottle slung in the rigging. Down the
thin cord slid occasional drops; one by one they stole into the bottle,
and by morning there was a spoonful of water to moisten those parched
lips,--sweet, crystal drops, more blessed than tears, for _they_ are
salt; more precious than pearls. A thousand prayers of gratitude seemed
hardly to quiet the souls of the lingering ones for that great charity
of Heaven.
There came a day when the hearts of God's angels must have bled for the
suffering ones. The breeze was fresh and fair; the sea tossed gayly its
foam-crested waves; sea-birds soared in wider circles; and the clouds
shook out their fleecy folds, through which the sunlight streamed in
grateful warmth. The two ghosts were talking, as ever, of home, of
earth, of land. Land,--land anywhere, so that it were solid and broad.
O, to pace again a whole league without turning! O, to pause in the
shadow of some living tree! To drink of some stream whose waters flowed
continually; flowed, though you drank of them with the awful thirst of
one who has been denied water for weeks and and weeks and weeks, for
three whole months,--an eternity, as it seemed to them.
Then they pictured life as it might be if God permitted them to return
to earth once more. They would pace K---- Street at noon, and revisit
that capital restaurant where many a time they had feasted, though in
those days they were unknown to one another; they would call for coffee,
and this dish and that dish, and a whole bill of fare, the thought of
which made their feverish palates grow moist again. They would meet
friends whom they had never loved as they now loved them; they would
reconcile old feuds and forgive everybody everything; they held
imaginary conversations, and found life very beautiful and greatly to be
desired; and somehow they would get back to the little _café_ and there
begin eating again, and with a relish that brought the savory tastes and
smells vividly before them, and their lips would move and the impalpable
morsels roll sweetly over their tongues.
It had become a second nature to scour the horizon with jealous eyes;
never for a moment during their long martyrdom had their covetous sight
fixed upon a stationary object. But it came at last. Out of a cloud a
sail burst like a flickering flame. What an age it was a coming! how it
budded and blossomed like a glorious white flower, that was transformed
suddenly into a bark bearing down upon them! Almost within hail it
stayed its course, the canvas fluttered in the wind; the dark hull
slowly rose and fell upon the water; figures moved to and fro,--men,
living and breathing men! Then the ghosts staggered to their feet and
cried to God for mercy. Then they waved their arms, and beat their
breasts, and lifted up their imploring voices, beseeching deliverance
out of that horrible bondage. Tears coursed down their hollow cheeks,
their limbs quaked, their breath failed them; they sank back in despair,
speechless and forsaken.
Why did they faint in the hour of deliverance when that narrow chasm was
all that separated them from renewed life? Because the bark spread out
her great white wings and soared away, hearing not the faint voices,
seeing not the thin shadows that haunted that drifting wreck. The
forsaken ones looked out from their eyrie, and watched the lessening
sail until sight failed them; and then the lad, with one wild cry,
leaped toward the speeding bark, and was swallowed up in the sea.
Alone in a wilderness of waters. Alone, without compass or rudder, borne
on by relentless winds into the lonesome, dreary, shoreless ocean of
despair, within whose blank and forbidding sphere no voyager ventures;
across whose desolate waste dawn sends no signal and night brings no
reprieve; but whose sun is cold, and whose moon is clouded, and whose
stars withdraw into space, and where the insufferable silence of vacancy
shall not be broken for all time.
O pitiless Nature! thy irrevocable laws argue sore sacrifice in the
waste places of God's universe!...
The Petrel gave a tremendous lurch, that sent two or three of us into
the lee corners of the cabin; a sea broke over us, bursting in the
companion-hatch, and half filling our small and insecure retreat. The
swinging lamp was thrown from its socket and extinguished; we were
enveloped in pitch darkness, up to our knees in salt water. There was a
moment of awful silence; we could not tell whether the light of day
would ever visit us again; we thought perhaps it wouldn't. But the
Petrel rose once more upon the watery hill-tops and shook herself free
of the cumbersome deluge; and at that point, when she seemed to be
riding more easily than usual, some one broke the silence: "Well, did
the captain of the Mouette live to tell the tale?"
Yes, he did. God sent a messenger into the lonesome deep, where the
miserable man was found insensible, with eyes wide open against the
sunlight, and lips shrunken apart,--a hideous, breathing corpse. When he
was lifted in the arms of the brave fellows who had gone to his rescue,
he cried, "Great God! am I saved?" as though he couldn't believe it when
it was true; then he fainted, and was nursed through a long delirium,
and was at last restored to health and home and happiness.
Our cabin-boy managed to fish up the lamp, and after a little we were
illuminated; the agile swab soon sponged out the cabin, and we resumed
our tedious watch for dawn and fairer weather.
Somehow, my mind brooded over the solitary wreck that was drifting about
the sea. I could fancy the rotten timbers of the Mouette clinging
together, by a miracle, until the Ancient Mariner was taken away from
her, and then, when she was alone again, with nothing whatever in sight
but blank blue sea and blank blue sky, she lay for an hour or so,
bearded with shaggy sea-moss and looking about a thousand years old.
Suddenly it occurred to her that her time had come,--that she had
outlived her usefulness, and might as well go to pieces at once. So she
yawned in all her timbers, and the sea reached up over her, and laid
hold of her masts, and seemed to be slowly drawing her down into its
bosom. There was not an audible sound, and scarcely a ripple upon the
water; but when the waves had climbed into the foretop, there was a
clamor of affrighted birds, and a myriad bubbles shot up to the surface,
where a few waifs floated and whirled about for a moment. It was all
that marked the spot where the Mouette went down to her eternal rest.
"Ha, ha!" cried our skipper, with something almost like a change of
expression on his mahogany countenance, "the barometer is rising!" and
sure enough it was. In two hours the Petrel acted like a different craft
entirely, and by and by came daybreak, and after that the sea went down,
down, down, into a deep, dead calm, when all the elements seemed to have
gone to sleep after their furious warfare. Like half-drowned flies we
crawled out of the close, ill-smelling cabin to dry ourselves in the
sun: there, on the steaming deck of the schooner, we found new life, and
in the hope that dawned with it we grew lusty and jovial.
Such a flat, oily sea as it was then! So transparent that we saw great
fish swimming about, full fathom five under us. A monstrous shark
drifted lazily past, his dorsal fin now and then cutting the surface
like a knife and glistening like polished steel, his brace of pilot-fish
darting hither and thither, striped like little one-legged harlequins.
Flat-headed gonies sat high on the water, piping their querulous note as
they tugged at something edible, a dozen of them entering into the
domestic difficulty: one after another would desert the cause, run a
little way over the sea to get a good start, leap heavily into the air,
sail about for a few minutes, and then drop back on the sea,
feet-foremost, and skate for a yard or two, making a white mark and a
pleasant sound as it slid over the water.
The exquisite nautilus floated past us, with its gauzy sail set, looking
like a thin slice out of a soap-bubble; the strange anemone laid its
pale, sensitive petals on the lips of the wave and panted in ecstasy;
the Petrel rocked softly, swinging her idle canvas in the sun; we heard
the click of the anchor-chain in the forecastle, the blessedest
seasound I wot of; a sailor sang while he hung in the ratlines and
tarred down the salt-stained shrouds. The afternoon waned; the man at
the wheel struck two bells,--it was the delectable dog-watch. Down went
the swarthy sun into his tent of clouds; the waves were of amber; the
fervid sky was flushed; it looked as though something splendid were
about to happen up there, and that it could hardly keep the secret much
longer. Then came the purplest twilight; and then the sky blossomed all
over with the biggest, ripest, goldenest stars,--such stars as hang like
fruits in sun-fed orchards; such stars as lay a track of fire in the
sea; such stars as rise and set over mountains and beyond low green
capes, like young moons, every one of them; and I conjured up my spells
of savage enchantment, my blessed islands, my reefs baptized with silver
spray; I saw the broad fan-leaves of the banana droop in the motionless
air, and through the tropical night the palms aspired heavenward, while
I lay dreaming my sea-dream in the cradle of the deep.
[Decoration]
[Decoration]
CHUMMING WITH A SAVAGE.
PART I.
KÁNA-ANÁ.
There was a little brown rain-cloud, that blew over in about three
minutes; and Bolabola's thatched hut was dry as a haystack in less than
half that time. Those tropical sprays are not much, anyhow; so I lounged
down into the banana-patch, for I thought I saw something white there,
something white and fluttering, moving about. I knew pretty well what it
was, and didn't go after it on an uncertainty.
The Doctor looked savage. Whenever he slung those saddle-bags over his
left shoulder, and swung his right arm clean out from his body, like the
regulator of a steam-engine, you might know that his steam was pretty
well up. I turned to look back, as he was strapping up his beast of
burden till the poor animal's body was positively waspish; then he
climbed into his saddle, and sullenly plunged down the trail toward the
precipice, and never said "Good by," or "God bless you," or any of those
harmless tags that come in so well when you don't know how to cut off
your last words.
I solemnly declare, and this without malice, the Doctor was perfectly
savage.
Now, do you know what demoralized that Doctor? how we came to a
misunderstanding? or why we parted company? It was simply because here
was a glorious valley, inhabited by a mild, half-civilized people, who
seemed to love me at first sight. I don't believe I disliked them,
either. Well! they asked me to stop with them, and I felt just like it.
I wanted to stop and be natural; but the Doctor thought otherwise of my
intentions; and that was the origin of the row.
The next thing I knew, the Doctor had got up the great precipice, and I
was quite alone with two hundred dusky fellows, only two of whom could
speak a syllable of English, and I the sole representative of the
superior white within twenty miles. Alone with cannibals,--perhaps they
were cannibals. They had magnificent teeth, at any rate, and could bite
through an inch and a half sugar-cane, and not break a jaw.
For the first time that summer I began to moralize a little. Was it best
to have kicked against the Doctor's judgment? Perhaps not! But it is
best to be careful how you begin to moralize too early; you deprive
yourself of a great deal of fun in that way. If you want to do anything
particularly, I should advise you to do it, and then be sufficiently
sorry to make it all square.
I'm not so sure that I was wrong, after all. Fate, or the Doctor, or
something else, brought me first to this loveliest of valleys, so shut
out from everything but itself that there were no temptations which
might not be satisfied. Well! here, as I was looking about at the
singular loveliness of the place,--you know this was my first glimpse of
its abrupt walls, hung with tapestries of fern and clambering
convolvulus; at one end two exquisite waterfalls, rivalling one another
in whiteness and airiness, at the other the sea, the real South Sea,
breaking and foaming over a genuine reef, and even rippling the placid
current of the river that slipped quietly down to its embracing tide
from the deep basins at these waterfalls,--right in the midst of all
this, before I had been ten minutes in the valley, I saw a straw hat,
bound with wreaths of fern and _maile_; under it a snow-white garment,
rather short all around, low in the neck, and with no sleeves whatever.
There was no sex to that garment; it was the spontaneous offspring of a
scant material and a large necessity. I'd seen plenty of that sort of
thing, but never upon a model like this, so entirely tropical,--almost
Oriental. As this singular phenomenon made directly for me, and, having
come within reach, there stopped and stayed, I asked its name, using one
of my seven stock phrases for the purpose; I found it was called
Kána-aná. Down it went into my note-book; for I knew I was to have an
experience with this young scion of a race of chiefs. Sure enough, I
have had it. He continued to regard me steadily, without embarrassment.
He seated himself before me; I felt myself at the mercy of one whose
calm analysis was questioning every motive of my soul. This sage
inquirer was, perhaps, sixteen years of age. His eye was so earnest and
so honest, I could return his look. I saw a round, full, rather girlish
face; lips ripe and expressive, not quite so sensual as those of
most of his race; not a bad nose, by any means; eyes perfectly
glorious,--regular almonds,--with the mythical lashes "that sweep,"
etc., etc. The smile which presently transfigured his face was of the
nature that flatters you into submission against your will.
Having weighed me in his balance,--and you may be sure his instincts
didn't cheat him; they don't do that sort of thing,--he placed his two
hands on my two knees, and declared, "I was his best friend, as he was
mine; I must come at once to his house, and there live always with him."
What could I do but go? He pointed me to his lodge across the river,
saying, "There was his home and mine." By this time, my _native_ without
a master was quite exhausted. I wonder what would have happened if some
one hadn't come to my rescue, just at that moment of trial, with a fresh
vocabulary? As it was, we settled the matter at once. This was our
little plan,--an entirely private arrangement between Kána-aná and
myself: I was to leave with the Doctor in an hour; but, at the
expiration of a week we should both return hither; then I would stop
with him, and the Doctor could go his way.
There was an immense amount of secrecy, and many vows, and I was almost
crying, when the Doctor hurried me up that terrible precipice, and we
lost sight of the beautiful valley. Kána-aná swore he would watch
continually for my return, and I vowed I'd hurry back; and so we parted.
Looking down from the heights, I thought I could distinguish his white
garment; at any rate, I knew the little fellow was somewhere about,
feeling as miserably as I felt,--and nobody has any business to feel
worse. How many times I thought of him through the week! I was always
wondering if he still thought of me. I had found those natives to be
impulsive, demonstrative, and, I feared, inconstant. Yet why should he
forget me, having so little to remember in his idle life, while I could
still think of him, and put aside a hundred pleasant memories for his
sake? The whole island was a delight to me. I often wondered if I should
ever again behold such a series of valleys, hills, and highlands in so
small a compass. That land is a world in miniature, the dearest spot of
which, to me, was that secluded valley; for there was a young soul
watching for my return.
That was rather a slow week for me, but it ended finally; and just at
sunset, on the day appointed, the Doctor and I found ourselves back on
the edge of the valley. I looked all up and down its green expanse,
regarding every living creature, in the hope of discovering Kána-aná in
the attitude of the watcher. I let the Doctor ride ahead of me on the
trail to Bolabola's hut, and it was quite in the twilight when I heard
the approach of a swift horseman. I turned, and at that moment there was
a collision of two constitutions that were just fitted for one another;
and all the doubts and apprehensions of the week just over were
indignantly dismissed, for Kána-aná and I were one and inseparable,
which was perfectly satisfactory to both parties!
The plot, which had been thickening all the week, culminated then, much
to the disgust of the Doctor, who had kept his watchful eye upon me all
these days--to my advantage, as he supposed. There was no disguising our
project any longer, so I out with it as mildly as possible. "There was a
dear fellow here," I said, "who loved me, and wanted me to live with
him; all his people wanted me to stop, also; his mother and his
grandmother had specially desired it. They didn't care for money; they
had much love for me, and therefore implored me to stay a little. Then
the valley was most beautiful; I was tired; after our hard riding, I
needed rest; his mother and his grandmother assured me that I needed
rest. Now, why not let me rest here awhile?"
The Doctor looked very grave. I knew that he misunderstood me,--placed a
wrong interpretation upon my motives; the worse for him, I say. He tried
to talk me over to the paths of virtue and propriety; but I wouldn't be
talked over. Then the final blast was blown; war was declared at once.
The Doctor never spoke again, but to abuse me; and off he rode in high
dudgeon, and the sun kept going down on his wrath. Thereupon I renounced
all the follies of this world, actually hating civilization, and feeling
entirely above the formalities of society. I resolved on the spot to be
a barbarian, and, perhaps, dwell for ever and ever in this secluded
spot. And here I am back to the beginning of this story, just after the
shower at Bolabola's hut, as the Doctor rode off alone and in anger.
That resolution was considerable for me to make. I found, by the time
the Doctor was out of sight and I was quite alone, with the natives
regarding me so curiously, that I was very tired indeed. So Kána-aná
brought up his horse, got me on to it in some way or other, and mounted
behind me to pilot the animal and sustain me in my first bareback act.
Over the sand we went, and through the river to his hut, where I was
taken in, fed, and petted in every possible way, and finally put to bed,
where Kána-aná monopolized me, growling in true savage fashion if any
one came near me. I didn't sleep much, after all. I think I must have
been excited. I thought how strangely I was situated: alone in a
wilderness, among barbarians; my bosom friend, who was hugging me like a
young bear, not able to speak one syllable of English, and I very shaky
on a few bad phrases in his tongue. We two lay upon an enormous
old-fashioned bed with high posts,--very high they seemed to me in the
dim rushlight. The natives always burn a small light after dark; some
superstition or other prompts it. The bed, well stocked with pillows, or
cushions, of various sizes, covered with bright-colored chintz, was hung
about with numerous shawls, so that I might be dreadfully modest behind
them. It was quite a grand affair, gotten up expressly for my benefit.
The rest of the house--all in one room, as usual--was covered with mats,
on which various recumbent forms and several individual snores betrayed
the proximity of Kána-aná's relatives. How queer the whole atmosphere of
the place was! The heavy beams of the house were of some rare wood,
which, being polished, looked like colossal sticks of peanut candy.
Slender canes were bound across this framework, and the soft, dried
grass of the meadows was braided over it,--all completing our tenement,
and making it as fresh and sweet as new-mown hay.
The natives have a passion for perfumes. Little bunches of
sweet-smelling herbs hung in the peak of the roof, and wreaths of
fragrant berries were strung in various parts of the house. I found our
bedposts festooned with them in the morning. O, that bed! It might have
come from England in the Elizabethan era and been wrecked off the coast;
hence the mystery of its presence. It was big enough for a Mormon. There
was a little opening in the room opposite our bed; you might call it a
window, I suppose. The sun, shining through it, made our tent of shawls
perfectly gorgeous in crimson light, barred and starred with gold. I
lifted our bed-curtain, and watched the rocks through this window,--the
shining rocks, with the sea leaping above them in the sun. There were
cocoa-palms so slender they seemed to cast no shadow, while their
fringed leaves glistened like frost-work as the sun glanced over them. A
bit of cliff, also, remote and misty, running far into the sea, was just
visible from my pyramid of pillows. I wondered what more I could ask for
to delight the eye. Kána-aná was still asleep, but he never let loose
his hold on me, as though he feared his pale-faced friend would fade
away from him. He lay close by me. His sleek figure, supple and graceful
in repose, was the embodiment of free, untrammelled youth. You who are
brought up under cover know nothing of its luxuriousness. How I longed
to take him over the sea with me, and show him something of life as we
find it. Thinking upon it, I dropped off into one of those delicious
morning naps. I awoke again presently; my companion-in-arms was the
occasion this time. He had awakened, stolen softly away, resumed his
single garment,--said garment and all others he considered superfluous
after dark,--and had prepared for me, with his own hands, a breakfast,
which he now declared to me, in violent and suggestive pantomime, was
all ready to be eaten. It was not a bad bill of fare,--fresh fish, taro,
poe, and goat's milk. I ate as well as I could, under the circumstances.
I found that Robinson Crusoe must have had some tedious rehearsals
before he acquired that perfect resignation to Providence which delights
us in book form. There was a veritable and most unexpected table-cloth
for me alone. I do not presume to question the nature of its miraculous
appearance. Dishes there were,--dishes, if you're not particular as to
shape or completeness; forks, with a prong or two,--a bent and
abbreviated prong or two; knives that had survived their handles; and
one solitary spoon. All these were tributes of the too generous people,
who, for the first time in their lives, were at the inconvenience of
entertaining a distinguished stranger. Hence this reckless display of
tableware. I ate as well as I could, but surely not enough to satisfy my
crony; for, when I had finished eating, he sat about two hours in deep
and depressing silence, at the expiration of which time he suddenly
darted off on his bareback steed and was gone till dark, when he
returned with a fat mutton slung over his animal. Now, mutton
doesn't grow wild thereabout, neither were his relatives shepherds;
consequently, in eating, I asked no questions for conscience' sake.
The series of entertainments offered me were such as the little valley
had not known for years: canoe-rides up and down the winding stream;
bathings in the sea and in the river, and in every possible bit of
water, at all possible hours; expeditions into the recesses of the
mountains, to the waterfalls that plunged into cool basins of fern and
cresses, and to the orange grove through acres and acres of guava
orchards; some climbings up the precipices; goat hunting, once or twice,
as far as a solitary cavern, said to be haunted,--these tramps always by
daylight; then a new course of bathings and sailings, interspersed with
monotonous singing and occasional smokes under the eaves of the hut at
evening.
If it is a question how long a man may withstand the seductions of
nature, and the consolations and conveniences of the state of nature, I
have solved it in one case; for I was as natural as possible in about
three days.
I wonder if I was growing to feel more at home, or more hungry, that I
found an appetite at last equal to any table that was offered me!
Chicken was added to my already bountiful rations, nicely cooked by
being swathed in a broad, succulent leaf, and roasted or steeped in hot
ashes. I ate it with my fingers, using the leaf for a platter.
Almost every day something new was offered at the door for my
edification. Now, a net full of large guavas or mangoes, or a sack of
leaves crammed with most delicious oranges from the mountains, that
seemed to have absorbed the very dew of heaven, they were so fresh and
sweet. Immense lemons perfumed the house, waiting to make me a capital
drink. Those superb citrons, with their rough, golden crusts, refreshed
me. Cocoa-nuts were heaped at the door; and yams, grown miles away, were
sent for, so that I might be satisfied. All these additions to my table
were the result of long and vigorous arguments between the respective
heads of the house. I detected trouble and anxiety in their expressive
faces. I picked out a word, here and there, which betrayed their secret
sorrow. No assertions, no remonstrances on my part, had the slightest
effect upon the poor souls, who believed I was starving. Eat I must, at
all hours and in all places; and eat, moreover, before they would touch
a mouthful. So Nature teaches her children a hospitality which all the
arts of the capital cannot affect.
I wonder what it was that finally made me restless and eager to see new
faces! Perhaps my unhappy disposition, that urged me thither, and then
lured me back to the pride of life and the glory of the world. Certain I
am that Kána-aná never wearied me with his attentions, though they were
incessant. Day and night he was by me. When he was silent, I knew he was
conceiving some surprise in the shape of a new fruit, or a new view to
beguile me. I was, indeed, beguiled; I was growing to like the little
heathen altogether too well. What should I do when I was at last
compelled to return out of my seclusion, and find no soul so faithful
and loving in all the earth beside? Day by day this thought grew upon
me, and with it I realized the necessity of a speedy departure.
There were those in the world I could still remember with that
exquisitely painful pleasure that is the secret of true love. Those
still voices seemed incessantly calling me, and something in my heart
answered them of its own accord. How strangely idle the days had grown!
We used to lie by the hour--Kána-aná and I--watching a strip of sand on
which a wild poppy was nodding in the wind. This poppy seemed to me
typical of their life in the quiet valley. Living only to occupy so much
space in the universe, it buds, blossoms, goes to seed, dies, and is
forgotten.
These natives do not even distinguish the memory of their great dead, if
they ever had any. It was the legend of some mythical god that Kána-aná
told me, and of which I could not understand a twentieth part; a god
whose triumphs were achieved in an age beyond the comprehension of the
very people who are delivering its story, by word of mouth, from
generation to generation. Watching the sea was a great source of
amusement with us. I discovered in our long watches that there is a very
complicated and magnificent rhythm in its solemn song. This wave that
breaks upon the shore is the heaviest of a series that preceded it; and
these are greater and less, alternately, every fifteen or twenty
minutes. Over this dual impulse the tides prevail, while through the
year there is a variation in their rise and fall. What an intricate and
wonderful mechanism regulates and repairs all this!
There was an entertainment in watching a particular cliff, in a peculiar
light, at a certain hour, and finding soon enough that change visited
even that hidden quarter of the globe. The exquisite perfection of this
moment, for instance, is not again repeated on to-morrow, or the day
after, but in its stead appears some new tint or picture, which,
perhaps, does not satisfy like this. That was the most distressing
disappointment that came upon us there. I used to spend half an hour in
idly observing the splendid curtains of our bed swing in the light air
from the sea; and I have speculated for days upon the probable destiny
awaiting one of those superb spiders, with a tremendous stomach and a
striped waistcoat, looking a century old, as he clung tenaciously to the
fringes of our canopy.
We had fitful spells of conversation upon some trivial theme, after
long intervals of intense silence. We began to develop symptoms of
imbecility. There was laughter at the least occurrence, though quite
barren of humor; also, eating and drinking to pass the time; bathing to
make one's self cool, after the heat and drowsiness of the day. So life
flowed out in an unruffled current, and so the prodigal lived riotously
and wasted his substance. There came a day when we promised ourselves an
actual occurrence in our Crusoe life. Some one had seen a floating
object far out at sea. It might be a boat adrift; and, in truth, it
looked very like a boat. Two or three canoes darted off through the surf
to the rescue, while we gathered on the rocks, watching and ruminating.
It was long before the rescuers returned, and then they came
empty-handed. It was only a log after all, drifted, probably, from
America. We talked it all over, there by the shore, and went home to
renew the subject; it lasted us a week or more, and we kept harping upon
it till that log--drifting slowly, O how slowly! from the far mainland
to our island--seemed almost to overpower me with a sense of the
unutterable loneliness of its voyage. I used to lie and think about it,
and get very solemn, indeed; then Kána-aná would think of some fresh
appetizer or other, and try to make me merry with good feeding. Again
and again he would come with a delicious banana to the bed where I was
lying, and insist upon my gorging myself, when I had but barely
recovered from a late orgie of fruit, flesh, or fowl. He would mesmerize
me into a most refreshing sleep with a prolonged and pleasing
manipulation. It was a reminiscence of the baths of Stamboul not to be
withstood. From this sleep I would presently be wakened by Kána-aná's
performance upon a rude sort of harp, that gave out a weird and
eccentric music. The mouth being applied to the instrument, words were
pronounced in a guttural voice, while the fingers twanged the strings in
measure. It was a flow of monotones, shaped into legends and lyrics. I
liked it amazingly; all the better, perhaps, that it was as good as
Greek to me, for I understood it as little as I understood the strange
and persuasive silence of that beloved place, which seemed slowly but
surely weaving a spell of enchantment about me. I resolved to desert
peremptorily, and managed to hire a canoe and a couple of natives, to
cross the channel with me. There were other reasons for this prompt
action.
Hour by hour I was beginning to realize one of the inevitable results of
Time. My boots were giving out; their best sides were the uppers, and
their soles had about left them. As I walked, I could no longer disguise
this pitiful fact. It was getting hard on me, especially in the gravel.
Yet, regularly each morning, my pieces of boot were carefully oiled;
then rubbed, or petted, or coaxed into some sort of a polish, which was
a labor of love. O Kána-aná! how could you wring my soul with those
touching offices of friendship!---those kindnesses unfailing,
unsurpassed!
Having resolved to sail early in the morning, before the drowsy citizens
of the valley had fairly shaken the dew out of their forelocks, all that
day--my last with Kána-aná--I breathed about me silent benedictions and
farewells. I could not begin to do enough for Kána-aná, who was, more
than ever, devoted to me. He almost seemed to suspect our sudden
separation, for he clung to me with a sort of subdued desperation. That
was the day he took from his head his hat--a very neat one, plaited by
his mother--insisting that I should wear it (mine was quite in tatters),
while he went bareheaded in the sun. That hat hangs in my room now, the
only tangible relic of my prodigal days. My plan was to steal off at
dawn, while he slept; to awaken my native crew, and escape to sea before
my absence was detected. I dared not trust a parting with him, before
the eyes of the valley. Well, I managed to wake and rouse my sailor
boys. To tell the truth, I didn't sleep a wink that night. We launched
the canoe, entered, put off, and had safely mounted the second big
roller just as it broke under us with terrific power, when I heard a
shrill cry above the roar of the waters. I knew the voice and its
import. There was Kána-aná rushing madly toward us; he had discovered
all, and couldn't even wait for that white garment, but ran after us
like one gone daft, and plunged into the cold sea, calling my name, over
and over, as he fought the breakers. I urged the natives forward. I knew
if he overtook us, I should never be able to escape again. We fairly
flew over the water. I saw him rise and fall with the swell, looking
like a seal; for it was his second nature, this surf-swimming. I believe
in my heart I wished the paddles would break or the canoe split on the
reef, though all the time I was urging the rascals forward; and they,
like stupids, took me at my word. They couldn't break a paddle, or get
on the reef, or have any sort of an accident. Presently we rounded the
headland,--the same hazy point I used to watch from the grass house,
through the little window, of a sunshiny morning. There we lost sight of
the valley and the grass house, and everything that was associated with
the past,--but that was nothing. We lost sight of the little sea-god,
Kána-aná, shaking the spray from his forehead like a porpoise; and this
was all in all. I didn't care for anything else after that, or anybody
else, either. I went straight home and got civilized again, or partly
so, at least. I've never seen the Doctor since, and never want to. He
had no business to take me there, or leave me there. I couldn't make up
my mind to stay; yet I'm always dying to go back again.
So I grew tired over my husks. I arose and went unto my father. I
wanted to finish up the Prodigal business. I ran and fell upon his neck
and kissed him, and said unto him, "Father, _if_ I have sinned against
Heaven and in thy sight, I'm afraid I don't care much. Don't kill
anything. I don't want any calf. Take back the ring, I don't deserve it;
for I'd give more this minute to see that dear, little, velvet-skinned,
coffee-colored Kána-aná, than anything else in the wide world,--because
he hates business, and so do I. He's a regular brick, father, moulded of
the purest clay, and baked in God's sunshine. He's about half sunshine
himself; and, above all others, and more than any one else ever can, he
loved your Prodigal."