There was a certain traffic in our anchorage at Atuona; different indeed
from the dead inertia and quiescence of the sister island, Nuka-hiva.
Sails were seen steering from its mouth; now it would be a whale-boat
manned with native rowdies, and heavy with copra for sale; now perhaps a
single canoe come after commodities to buy. The anchorage was besides
frequented by fishers; not only the lone females perched in niches of the
cliff, but whole parties, who would sometimes camp and build a fire upon
the beach, and sometimes lie in their canoes in the midst of the haven
and jump by turns in the water; which they would cast eight or nine feet
high, to drive, as we supposed, the fish into their nets. The goods the
purchasers came to buy were sometimes quaint. I remarked one outrigger
returning with a single ham swung from a pole in the stern. And one day
there came into Mr. Keane’s store a charming lad, excellently mannered,
speaking French correctly though with a babyish accent; very handsome
too, and much of a dandy, as was shown not only in his shining raiment,
but by the nature of his purchases. These were five ship-biscuits, a
bottle of scent, and two balls of washing blue. He was from Tauata,
whither he returned the same night in an outrigger, daring the deep with
these young-ladyish treasures. The gross of the native passengers were
more ill-favoured: tall, powerful fellows, well tattooed, and with
disquieting manners. Something coarse and jeering distinguished them,
and I was often reminded of the slums of some great city. One night, as
dusk was falling, a whale-boat put in on that part of the beach where I
chanced to be alone. Six or seven ruffianly fellows scrambled out; all
had enough English to give me ‘good-bye,’ which was the ordinary
salutation; or ‘good-morning,’ which they seemed to regard as an
intensitive; jests followed, they surrounded me with harsh laughter and
rude looks, and I was glad to move away. I had not yet encountered Mr.
Stewart, or I should have been reminded of his first landing at Atuona
and the humorist who nibbled at the heel. But their neighbourhood
depressed me; and I felt, if I had been there a castaway and out of reach
of help, my heart would have been sick.
Nor was the traffic altogether native. While we lay in the anchorage
there befell a strange coincidence. A schooner was observed at sea and
aiming to enter. We knew all the schooners in the group, but this
appeared larger than any; she was rigged, besides, after the English
manner; and, coming to an anchor some way outside the _Casco_, showed at
last the blue ensign. There were at that time, according to rumour, no
fewer than four yachts in the Pacific; but it was strange that any two of
them should thus lie side by side in that outlandish inlet: stranger
still that in the owner of the _Nyanza_, Captain Dewar, I should find a
man of the same country and the same county with myself, and one whom I
had seen walking as a boy on the shores of the Alpes Maritimes.
We had besides a white visitor from shore, who came and departed in a
crowded whale-boat manned by natives; having read of yachts in the Sunday
papers, and being fired with the desire to see one. Captain Chase, they
called him, an old whaler-man, thickset and white-bearded, with a strong
Indiana drawl; years old in the country, a good backer in battle, and one
of those dead shots whose practice at the target struck terror in the
braves of Haamau. Captain Chase dwelt farther east in a bay called
Hanamate, with a Mr. M’Callum; or rather they had dwelt together once,
and were now amicably separated. The captain is to be found near one end
of the bay, in a wreck of a house, and waited on by a Chinese. At the
point of the opposing corner another habitation stands on a tall paepae.
The surf runs there exceeding heavy, seas of seven and eight feet high
bursting under the walls of the house, which is thus continually filled
with their clamour, and rendered fit only for solitary, or at least for
silent, inmates. Here it is that Mr. M’Callum, with a Shakespeare and a
Burns, enjoys the society of the breakers. His name and his Burns
testify to Scottish blood; but he is an American born, somewhere far
east; followed the trade of a ship-carpenter; and was long employed, the
captain of a hundred Indians, breaking up wrecks about Cape Flattery.
Many of the whites who are to be found scattered in the South Seas
represent the more artistic portion of their class; and not only enjoy
the poetry of that new life, but came there on purpose to enjoy it. I
have been shipmates with a man, no longer young, who sailed upon that
voyage, his first time to sea, for the mere love of Samoa; and it was a
few letters in a newspaper that sent him on that pilgrimage. Mr.
M’Callum was another instance of the same. He had read of the South
Seas; loved to read of them; and let their image fasten in his heart:
till at length he could refrain no longer—must set forth, a new Rudel,
for that unseen homeland—and has now dwelt for years in Hiva-oa, and will
lay his bones there in the end with full content; having no desire to
behold again the places of his boyhood, only, perhaps—once, before he
dies—the rude and wintry landscape of Cape Flattery. Yet he is an active
man, full of schemes; has bought land of the natives; has planted five
thousand coco-palms; has a desert island in his eye, which he desires to
lease, and a schooner in the stocks, which he has laid and built himself,
and even hopes to finish. Mr. M’Callum and I did not meet, but, like
gallant troubadours, corresponded in verse. I hope he will not consider
it a breach of copyright if I give here a specimen of his muse. He and
Bishop Dordillon are the two European bards of the Marquesas.
‘Sail, ho! Ahoy! _Casco_,
First among the pleasure fleet
That came around to greet
These isles from San Francisco,
And first, too; only one
Among the literary men
That this way has ever been—
Welcome, then, to Stevenson.
Please not offended be
At this little notice
Of the _Casco_, Captain Otis,
With the novelist’s family.
_Avoir une voyage magnifical_
Is our wish sincere,
That you’ll have from here
_Allant sur la Grande Pacifical_.’
But our chief visitor was one Mapiao, a great Tahuku—which seems to mean
priest, wizard, tattooer, practiser of any art, or, in a word, esoteric
person—and a man famed for his eloquence on public occasions and witty
talk in private. His first appearance was typical of the man. He came
down clamorous to the eastern landing, where the surf was running very
high; scorned all our signals to go round the bay; carried his point, was
brought aboard at some hazard to our skiff, and set down in one corner of
the cockpit to his appointed task. He had been hired, as one cunning in
the art, to make my old men’s beards into a wreath: what a wreath for
Celia’s arbour! His own beard (which he carried, for greater safety, in
a sailor’s knot) was not merely the adornment of his age, but a
substantial piece of property. One hundred dollars was the estimated
value; and as Brother Michel never knew a native to deposit a greater sum
with Bishop Dordillon, our friend was a rich man in virtue of his chin.
He had something of an East Indian cast, but taller and stronger: his
nose hooked, his face narrow, his forehead very high, the whole
elaborately tattooed. I may say I have never entertained a guest so
trying. In the least particular he must be waited on; he would not go to
the scuttle-butt for water; he would not even reach to get the glass, it
must be given him in his hand; if aid were denied him, he would fold his
arms, bow his head, and go without: only the work would suffer. Early
the first forenoon he called aloud for biscuit and salmon; biscuit and
ham were brought; he looked on them inscrutably, and signed they should
be set aside. A number of considerations crowded on my mind; how the
sort of work on which he was engaged was probably tapu in a high degree;
should by rights, perhaps, be transacted on a tapu platform which no
female might approach; and it was possible that fish might be the
essential diet. Some salted fish I therefore brought him, and along with
that a glass of rum: at sight of which Mapiao displayed extraordinary
animation, pointed to the zenith, made a long speech in which I picked up
_umati_—the word for the sun—and signed to me once more to place these
dainties out of reach. At last I had understood, and every day the
programme was the same. At an early period of the morning his dinner
must be set forth on the roof of the house and at a proper distance, full
in view but just out of reach; and not until the fit hour, which was the
point of noon, would the artificer partake. This solemnity was the cause
of an absurd misadventure. He was seated plaiting, as usual, at the
beards, his dinner arrayed on the roof, and not far off a glass of water
standing. It appears he desired to drink; was of course far too great a
gentleman to rise and get the water for himself; and spying Mrs.
Stevenson, imperiously signed to her to hand it. The signal was
misunderstood; Mrs. Stevenson was, by this time, prepared for any
eccentricity on the part of our guest; and instead of passing him the
water, flung his dinner overboard. I must do Mapiao justice: all
laughed, but his laughter rang the loudest.
These troubles of service were at worst occasional; the embarrassment of
the man’s talk incessant. He was plainly a practised conversationalist;
the nicety of his inflections, the elegance of his gestures, and the fine
play of his expression, told us that. We, meanwhile, sat like aliens in
a playhouse; we could see the actors were upon some material business and
performing well, but the plot of the drama remained undiscoverable.
Names of places, the name of Captain Hart, occasional disconnected words,
tantalised without enlightening us; and the less we understood, the more
gallantly, the more copiously, and with still the more explanatory
gestures, Mapiao returned to the assault. We could see his vanity was on
the rack; being come to a place where that fine jewel of his
conversational talent could earn him no respect; and he had times of
despair when he desisted from the endeavour, and instants of irritation
when he regarded us with unconcealed contempt. Yet for me, as the
practitioner of some kindred mystery to his own, he manifested to the
last a measure of respect. As we sat under the awning in opposite
corners of the cockpit, he braiding hairs from dead men’s chins, I
forming runes upon a sheet of folio paper, he would nod across to me as
one Tahuku to another, or, crossing the cockpit, study for a while my
shapeless scrawl and encourage me with a heartfelt ‘_mitai_!—good!’ So
might a deaf painter sympathise far off with a musician, as the slave and
master of some uncomprehended and yet kindred art. A silly trade, he
doubtless considered it; but a man must make allowance for
barbarians—_chaque pays a ses coutumes_—and he felt the principle was
there.
The time came at last when his labours, which resembled those rather of
Penelope than Hercules, could be no more spun out, and nothing remained
but to pay him and say farewell. After a long, learned argument in
Marquesan, I gathered that his mind was set on fish-hooks; with three of
which, and a brace of dollars, I thought he was not ill rewarded for
passing his forenoons in our cockpit, eating, drinking, delivering his
opinions, and pressing the ship’s company into his menial service. For
all that, he was a man of so high a bearing, and so like an uncle of my
own who should have gone mad and got tattooed, that I applied to him,
when we were both on shore, to know if he were satisfied. ‘_Mitai
ehipe_?’ I asked. And he, with rich unction, offering at the same time
his hand—‘_Mitai ehipe_, _mitai kaehae_; _kaoha nui_!’—or, to translate
freely: ‘The ship is good, the victuals are up to the mark, and we part
in friendship.’ Which testimonial uttered, he set off along the beach
with his head bowed and the air of one deeply injured.
I saw him go, on my side, with relief. It would be more interesting to
learn how our relation seemed to Mapiao. His exigence, we may suppose,
was merely loyal. He had been hired by the ignorant to do a piece of
work; and he was bound that he would do it the right way. Countless
obstacles, continual ignorant ridicule, availed not to dissuade him. He
had his dinner laid out; watched it, as was fit, the while he worked; ate
it at the fit hour; was in all things served and waited on; and could
take his hire in the end with a clear conscience, telling himself the
mystery was performed duly, the beards rightfully braided, and we (in
spite of ourselves) correctly served. His view of our stupidity, even
he, the mighty talker, must have lacked language to express. He never
interfered with my Tahuku work; civilly praised it, idle as it seemed;
civilly supposed that I was competent in my own mystery: such being the
attitude of the intelligent and the polite. And we, on the other
hand—who had yet the most to gain or lose, since the product was to be
ours—who had professed our disability by the very act of hiring him to do
it—were never weary of impeding his own more important labours, and
sometimes lacked the sense and the civility to refrain from laughter.