THE HIGH SEAT OF ABUNDANCE
On the arrival of strangers, every man endeavoured to obtain one as a
friend and carry him off to his own habitation, where he is treated
with the greatest kindness by the inhabitants of the district; they
place him on a high seat and feed him with abundance of the finest
food.—_Polynesian Researches_.
The _Snark_ was lying at anchor at Raiatea, just off the village of
Uturoa. She had arrived the night before, after dark, and we were
preparing to pay our first visit ashore. Early in the morning I had
noticed a tiny outrigger canoe, with an impossible spritsail, skimming
the surface of the lagoon. The canoe itself was coffin-shaped, a mere
dugout, fourteen feet long, a scant twelve inches wide, and maybe
twenty-four inches deep. It had no lines, except in so far that it was
sharp at both ends. Its sides were perpendicular. Shorn of the
outrigger, it would have capsized of itself inside a tenth of a second.
It was the outrigger that kept it right side up.
I have said that the sail was impossible. It was. It was one of those
things, not that you have to see to believe, but that you cannot
believe after you have seen it. The hoist of it and the length of its
boom were sufficiently appalling; but, not content with that, its
artificer had given it a tremendous head. So large was the head that no
common sprit could carry the strain of it in an ordinary breeze. So a
spar had been lashed to the canoe, projecting aft over the water. To
this had been made fast a sprit guy: thus, the foot of the sail was
held by the main-sheet, and the peak by the guy to the sprit.
It was not a mere boat, not a mere canoe, but a sailing machine. And
the man in it sailed it by his weight and his nerve—principally by the
latter. I watched the canoe beat up from leeward and run in toward the
village, its sole occupant far out on the outrigger and luffing up and
spilling the wind in the puffs.
“Well, I know one thing,” I announced; “I don’t leave Raiatea till I
have a ride in that canoe.”
A few minutes later Warren called down the companionway, “Here’s that
canoe you were talking about.”
Promptly I dashed on deck and gave greeting to its owner, a tall,
slender Polynesian, ingenuous of face, and with clear, sparkling,
intelligent eyes. He was clad in a scarlet loin-cloth and a straw hat.
In his hands were presents—a fish, a bunch of greens, and several
enormous yams. All of which acknowledged by smiles (which are coinage
still in isolated spots of Polynesia) and by frequent repetitions of
_mauruuru_ (which is the Tahitian “thank you”), I proceeded to make
signs that I desired to go for a sail in his canoe.
His face lighted with pleasure and he uttered the single word, “Tahaa,”
turning at the same time and pointing to the lofty, cloud-draped peaks
of an island three miles away—the island of Tahaa. It was fair wind
over, but a head-beat back. Now I did not want to go to Tahaa. I had
letters to deliver in Raiatea, and officials to see, and there was
Charmian down below getting ready to go ashore. By insistent signs I
indicated that I desired no more than a short sail on the lagoon. Quick
was the disappointment in his face, yet smiling was the acquiescence.
“Come on for a sail,” I called below to Charmian. “But put on your
swimming suit. It’s going to be wet.”
It wasn’t real. It was a dream. That canoe slid over the water like a
streak of silver. I climbed out on the outrigger and supplied the
weight to hold her down, while Tehei (pronounced Tayhayee) supplied the
nerve. He, too, in the puffs, climbed part way out on the outrigger, at
the same time steering with both hands on a large paddle and holding
the mainsheet with his foot.
“Ready about!” he called.
I carefully shifted my weight inboard in order to maintain the
equilibrium as the sail emptied.
“Hard a-lee!” he called, shooting her into the wind.
I slid out on the opposite side over the water on a spar lashed across
the canoe, and we were full and away on the other tack.
“All right,” said Tehei.
Those three phrases, “Ready about,” “Hard a-lee,” and “All right,”
comprised Tehei’s English vocabulary and led me to suspect that at some
time he had been one of a Kanaka crew under an American captain.
Between the puffs I made signs to him and repeatedly and
interrogatively uttered the word _sailor_. Then I tried it in atrocious
French. _Marin_ conveyed no meaning to him; nor did _matelot_. Either
my French was bad, or else he was not up in it. I have since concluded
that both conjectures were correct. Finally, I began naming over the
adjacent islands. He nodded that he had been to them. By the time my
quest reached Tahiti, he caught my drift. His thought-processes were
almost visible, and it was a joy to watch him think. He nodded his head
vigorously. Yes, he had been to Tahiti, and he added himself names of
islands such as Tikihau, Rangiroa, and Fakarava, thus proving that he
had sailed as far as the Paumotus—undoubtedly one of the crew of a
trading schooner.
After our short sail, when he had returned on board, he by signs
inquired the destination of the _Snark_, and when I had mentioned
Samoa, Fiji, New Guinea, France, England, and California in their
geographical sequence, he said “Samoa,” and by gestures intimated that
he wanted to go along. Whereupon I was hard put to explain that there
was no room for him. “_Petit bateau_” finally solved it, and again the
disappointment in his face was accompanied by smiling acquiescence, and
promptly came the renewed invitation to accompany him to Tahaa.
Charmian and I looked at each other. The exhilaration of the ride we
had taken was still upon us. Forgotten were the letters to Raiatea, the
officials we had to visit. Shoes, a shirt, a pair of trousers,
cigarettes, matches, and a book to read were hastily crammed into a
biscuit tin and wrapped in a rubber blanket, and we were over the side
and into the canoe.
“When shall we look for you?” Warren called, as the wind filled the
sail and sent Tehei and me scurrying out on the outrigger.
“I don’t know,” I answered. “When we get back, as near as I can figure
it.”
And away we went. The wind had increased, and with slacked sheets we
ran off before it. The freeboard of the canoe was no more than two and
a half inches, and the little waves continually lapped over the side.
This required bailing. Now bailing is one of the principal functions of
the vahine. Vahine is the Tahitian for woman, and Charmian being the
only vahine aboard, the bailing fell appropriately to her. Tehei and I
could not very well do it, the both of us being perched part way out on
the outrigger and busied with keeping the canoe bottom-side down. So
Charmian bailed, with a wooden scoop of primitive design, and so well
did she do it that there were occasions when she could rest off almost
half the time.
Raiatea and Tahaa are unique in that they lie inside the same
encircling reef. Both are volcanic islands, ragged of sky-line, with
heaven-aspiring peaks and minarets. Since Raiatea is thirty miles in
circumference, and Tahaa fifteen miles, some idea may be gained of the
magnitude of the reef that encloses them. Between them and the reef
stretches from one to two miles of water, forming a beautiful lagoon.
The huge Pacific seas, extending in unbroken lines sometimes a mile or
half as much again in length, hurl themselves upon the reef,
overtowering and falling upon it with tremendous crashes, and yet the
fragile coral structure withstands the shock and protects the land.
Outside lies destruction to the mightiest ship afloat. Inside reigns
the calm of untroubled water, whereon a canoe like ours can sail with
no more than a couple of inches of free-board.
We flew over the water. And such water!—clear as the clearest
spring-water, and crystalline in its clearness, all intershot with a
maddening pageant of colours and rainbow ribbons more magnificently
gorgeous than any rainbow. Jade green alternated with turquoise,
peacock blue with emerald, while now the canoe skimmed over reddish
purple pools, and again over pools of dazzling, shimmering white where
pounded coral sand lay beneath and upon which oozed monstrous
sea-slugs. One moment we were above wonder-gardens of coral, wherein
coloured fishes disported, fluttering like marine butterflies; the next
moment we were dashing across the dark surface of deep channels, out of
which schools of flying fish lifted their silvery flight; and a third
moment we were above other gardens of living coral, each more wonderful
than the last. And above all was the tropic, trade-wind sky with its
fluffy clouds racing across the zenith and heaping the horizon with
their soft masses.
Before we were aware, we were close in to Tahaa (pronounced Tah-hah-ah,
with equal accents), and Tehei was grinning approval of the vahine’s
proficiency at bailing. The canoe grounded on a shallow shore, twenty
feet from land, and we waded out on a soft bottom where big slugs
curled and writhed under our feet and where small octopuses advertised
their existence by their superlative softness when stepped upon. Close
to the beach, amid cocoanut palms and banana trees, erected on stilts,
built of bamboo, with a grass-thatched roof, was Tehei’s house. And out
of the house came Tehei’s vahine, a slender mite of a woman, kindly
eyed and Mongolian of feature—when she was not North American Indian.
“Bihaura,” Tehei called her, but he did not pronounce it according to
English notions of spelling. Spelled “Bihaura,” it sounded like
Bee-ah-oo-rah, with every syllable sharply emphasized.
She took Charmian by the hand and led her into the house, leaving Tehei
and me to follow. Here, by sign-language unmistakable, we were informed
that all they possessed was ours. No hidalgo was ever more generous in
the expression of giving, while I am sure that few hidalgos were ever
as generous in the actual practice. We quickly discovered that we dare
not admire their possessions, for whenever we did admire a particular
object it was immediately presented to us. The two vahines, according
to the way of vahines, got together in a discussion and examination of
feminine fripperies, while Tehei and I, manlike, went over
fishing-tackle and wild-pig-hunting, to say nothing of the device
whereby bonitas are caught on forty-foot poles from double canoes.
Charmian admired a sewing basket—the best example she had seen of
Polynesian basketry; it was hers. I admired a bonita hook, carved in
one piece from a pearl-shell; it was mine. Charmian was attracted by a
fancy braid of straw sennit, thirty feet of it in a roll, sufficient to
make a hat of any design one wished; the roll of sennit was hers. My
gaze lingered upon a poi-pounder that dated back to the old stone days;
it was mine. Charmian dwelt a moment too long on a wooden poi-bowl,
canoe-shaped, with four legs, all carved in one piece of wood; it was
hers. I glanced a second time at a gigantic cocoanut calabash; it was
mine. Then Charmian and I held a conference in which we resolved to
admire no more—not because it did not pay well enough, but because it
paid too well. Also, we were already racking our brains over the
contents of the _Snark_ for suitable return presents. Christmas is an
easy problem compared with a Polynesian giving-feast.
We sat on the cool porch, on Bihaura’s best mats while dinner was
preparing, and at the same time met the villagers. In twos and threes
and groups they strayed along, shaking hands and uttering the Tahitian
word of greeting—Ioarana, pronounced yo-rah-nah. The men, big strapping
fellows, were in loin-cloths, with here and there no shirt, while the
women wore the universal _ahu_, a sort of adult pinafore that flows in
graceful lines from the shoulders to the ground. Sad to see was the
elephantiasis that afflicted some of them. Here would be a comely woman
of magnificent proportions, with the port of a queen, yet marred by one
arm four times—or a dozen times—the size of the other. Beside her might
stand a six-foot man, erect, mighty-muscled, bronzed, with the body of
a god, yet with feet and calves so swollen that they ran together,
forming legs, shapeless, monstrous, that were for all the world like
elephant legs.
No one seems really to know the cause of the South Sea elephantiasis.
One theory is that it is caused by the drinking of polluted water.
Another theory attributes it to inoculation through mosquito bites. A
third theory charges it to predisposition plus the process of
acclimatization. On the other hand, no one that stands in finicky dread
of it and similar diseases can afford to travel in the South Seas.
There will be occasions when such a one must drink water. There may be
also occasions when the mosquitoes let up biting. But every precaution
of the finicky one will be useless. If he runs barefoot across the
beach to have a swim, he will tread where an elephantiasis case trod a
few minutes before. If he closets himself in his own house, yet every
bit of fresh food on his table will have been subjected to the
contamination, be it flesh, fish, fowl, or vegetable. In the public
market at Papeete two known lepers run stalls, and heaven alone knows
through what channels arrive at that market the daily supplies of fish,
fruit, meat, and vegetables. The only happy way to go through the South
Seas is with a careless poise, without apprehension, and with a
Christian Science-like faith in the resplendent fortune of your own
particular star. When you see a woman, afflicted with elephantiasis
wringing out cream from cocoanut meat with her naked hands, drink and
reflect how good is the cream, forgetting the hands that pressed it
out. Also, remember that diseases such as elephantiasis and leprosy do
not seem to be caught by contact.
We watched a Raratongan woman, with swollen, distorted limbs, prepare
our cocoanut cream, and then went out to the cook-shed where Tehei and
Bihaura were cooking dinner. And then it was served to us on a
dry-goods box in the house. Our hosts waited until we were done and
then spread their table on the floor. But our table! We were certainly
in the high seat of abundance. First, there was glorious raw fish,
caught several hours before from the sea and steeped the intervening
time in lime-juice diluted with water. Then came roast chicken. Two
cocoanuts, sharply sweet, served for drink. There were bananas that
tasted like strawberries and that melted in the mouth, and there was
banana-poi that made one regret that his Yankee forebears ever
attempted puddings. Then there was boiled yam, boiled taro, and roasted
_feis_, which last are nothing more or less than large mealy, juicy,
red-coloured cooking bananas. We marvelled at the abundance, and, even
as we marvelled, a pig was brought on, a whole pig, a sucking pig,
swathed in green leaves and roasted upon the hot stones of a native
oven, the most honourable and triumphant dish in the Polynesian
cuisine. And after that came coffee, black coffee, delicious coffee,
native coffee grown on the hillsides of Tahaa.
Tehei’s fishing-tackle fascinated me, and after we arranged to go
fishing, Charmian and I decided to remain all night. Again Tehei
broached Samoa, and again my _petit bateau_ brought the disappointment
and the smile of acquiescence to his face. Bora Bora was my next port.
It was not so far away but that cutters made the passage back and forth
between it and Raiatea. So I invited Tehei to go that far with us on
the _Snark_. Then I learned that his wife had been born on Bora Bora
and still owned a house there. She likewise was invited, and
immediately came the counter invitation to stay with them in their
house in Born Bora. It was Monday. Tuesday we would go fishing and
return to Raiatea. Wednesday we would sail by Tahaa and off a certain
point, a mile away, pick up Tehei and Bihaura and go on to Bora Bora.
All this we arranged in detail, and talked over scores of other things
as well, and yet Tehei knew three phrases in English, Charmian and I
knew possibly a dozen Tahitian words, and among the four of us there
were a dozen or so French words that all understood. Of course, such
polyglot conversation was slow, but, eked out with a pad, a lead
pencil, the face of a clock Charmian drew on the back of a pad, and
with ten thousand and one gestures, we managed to get on very nicely.
At the first moment we evidenced an inclination for bed the visiting
natives, with soft _Iaoranas_, faded away, and Tehei and Bihaura
likewise faded away. The house consisted of one large room, and it was
given over to us, our hosts going elsewhere to sleep. In truth, their
castle was ours. And right here, I want to say that of all the
entertainment I have received in this world at the hands of all sorts
of races in all sorts of places, I have never received entertainment
that equalled this at the hands of this brown-skinned couple of Tahaa.
I do not refer to the presents, the free-handed generousness, the high
abundance, but to the fineness of courtesy and consideration and tact,
and to the sympathy that was real sympathy in that it was
understanding. They did nothing they thought ought to be done for us,
according to their standards, but they did what they divined we wanted
to be done for us, while their divination was most successful. It would
be impossible to enumerate the hundreds of little acts of consideration
they performed during the few days of our intercourse. Let it suffice
for me to say that of all hospitality and entertainment I have known,
in no case was theirs not only not excelled, but in no case was it
quite equalled. Perhaps the most delightful feature of it was that it
was due to no training, to no complex social ideals, but that it was
the untutored and spontaneous outpouring from their hearts.
The next morning we went fishing, that is, Tehei, Charmian, and I did,
in the coffin-shaped canoe; but this time the enormous sail was left
behind. There was no room for sailing and fishing at the same time in
that tiny craft. Several miles away, inside the reef, in a channel
twenty fathoms deep, Tehei dropped his baited hooks and rock-sinkers.
The bait was chunks of octopus flesh, which he bit out of a live
octopus that writhed in the bottom of the canoe. Nine of these lines he
set, each line attached to one end of a short length of bamboo floating
on the surface. When a fish was hooked, the end of the bamboo was drawn
under the water. Naturally, the other end rose up in the air, bobbing
and waving frantically for us to make haste. And make haste we did,
with whoops and yells and driving paddles, from one signalling bamboo
to another, hauling up from the depths great glistening beauties from
two to three feet in length.
Steadily, to the eastward, an ominous squall had been rising and
blotting out the bright trade-wind sky. And we were three miles to
leeward of home. We started as the first wind-gusts whitened the water.
Then came the rain, such rain as only the tropics afford, where every
tap and main in the sky is open wide, and when, to top it all, the very
reservoir itself spills over in blinding deluge. Well, Charmian was in
a swimming suit, I was in pyjamas, and Tehei wore only a loin-cloth.
Bihaura was on the beach waiting for us, and she led Charmian into the
house in much the same fashion that the mother leads in the naughty
little girl who has been playing in mud-puddles.
It was a change of clothes and a dry and quiet smoke while _kai-kai_
was preparing. _Kai-kai_, by the way, is the Polynesian for “food” or
“to eat,” or, rather, it is one form of the original root, whatever it
may have been, that has been distributed far and wide over the vast
area of the Pacific. It is _kai_ in the Marquesas, Raratonga, Manahiki,
Niuë, Fakaafo, Tonga, New Zealand, and Vaté. In Tahiti “to eat” changes
to _amu_, in Hawaii and Samoa to _ai_, in Ban to _kana_, in Nina to
_kana_, in Nongone to _kaka_, and in New Caledonia to _ki_. But by
whatsoever sound or symbol, it was welcome to our ears after that long
paddle in the rain. Once more we sat in the high seat of abundance
until we regretted that we had been made unlike the image of the
giraffe and the camel.
Again, when we were preparing to return to the _Snark_, the sky to
windward turned black and another squall swooped down. But this time it
was little rain and all wind. It blew hour after hour, moaning and
screeching through the palms, tearing and wrenching and shaking the
frail bamboo dwelling, while the outer reef set up a mighty thundering
as it broke the force of the swinging seas. Inside the reef, the
lagoon, sheltered though it was, was white with fury, and not even
Tehei’s seamanship could have enabled his slender canoe to live in such
a welter.
By sunset, the back of the squall had broken though it was still too
rough for the canoe. So I had Tehei find a native who was willing to
venture his cutter across to Raiatea for the outrageous sum of two
dollars, Chili, which is equivalent in our money to ninety cents. Half
the village was told off to carry presents, with which Tehei and
Bihaura speeded their parting guests—captive chickens, fishes dressed
and swathed in wrappings of green leaves, great golden bunches of
bananas, leafy baskets spilling over with oranges and limes, alligator
pears (the butter-fruit, also called the _avoca_), huge baskets of
yams, bunches of taro and cocoanuts, and last of all, large branches
and trunks of trees—firewood for the _Snark_.
While on the way to the cutter we met the only white man on Tahaa, and
of all men, George Lufkin, a native of New England! Eighty-six years of
age he was, sixty-odd of which, he said, he had spent in the Society
Islands, with occasional absences, such as the gold rush to Eldorado in
’forty-nine and a short period of ranching in California near Tulare.
Given no more than three months by the doctors to live, he had returned
to his South Seas and lived to eighty-six and to chuckle over the
doctors aforesaid, who were all in their graves. _Fee-fee_ he had,
which is the native for elephantiasis and which is pronounced fay-fay.
A quarter of a century before, the disease had fastened upon him, and
it would remain with him until he died. We asked him about kith and
kin. Beside him sat a sprightly damsel of sixty, his daughter. “She is
all I have,” he murmured plaintively, “and she has no children living.”
The cutter was a small, sloop-rigged affair, but large it seemed
alongside Tehei’s canoe. On the other hand, when we got out on the
lagoon and were struck by another heavy wind-squall, the cutter became
liliputian, while the _Snark_, in our imagination, seemed to promise
all the stability and permanence of a continent. They were good
boatmen. Tehei and Bihaura had come along to see us home, and the
latter proved a good boatwoman herself. The cutter was well ballasted,
and we met the squall under full sail. It was getting dark, the lagoon
was full of coral patches, and we were carrying on. In the height of
the squall we had to go about, in order to make a short leg to windward
to pass around a patch of coral no more than a foot under the surface.
As the cutter filled on the other tack, and while she was in that
“dead” condition that precedes gathering way, she was knocked flat.
Jib-sheet and main-sheet were let go, and she righted into the wind.
Three times she was knocked down, and three times the sheets were flung
loose, before she could get away on that tack.
By the time we went about again, darkness had fallen. We were now to
windward of the _Snark_, and the squall was howling. In came the jib,
and down came the mainsail, all but a patch of it the size of a
pillow-slip. By an accident we missed the _Snark_, which was riding it
out to two anchors, and drove aground upon the inshore coral. Running
the longest line on the _Snark_ by means of the launch, and after an
hour’s hard work, we heaved the cutter off and had her lying safely
astern.
The day we sailed for Bora Bora the wind was light, and we crossed the
lagoon under power to the point where Tehei and Bihaura were to meet
us. As we made in to the land between the coral banks, we vainly
scanned the shore for our friends. There was no sign of them.
“We can’t wait,” I said. “This breeze won’t fetch us to Bora Bora by
dark, and I don’t want to use any more gasolene than I have to.”
You see, gasolene in the South Seas is a problem. One never knows when
he will be able to replenish his supply.
But just then Tehei appeared through the trees as he came down to the
water. He had peeled off his shirt and was wildly waving it. Bihaura
apparently was not ready. Once aboard, Tehei informed us by signs that
we must proceed along the land till we got opposite to his house. He
took the wheel and conned the _Snark_ through the coral, around point
after point till we cleared the last point of all. Cries of welcome
went up from the beach, and Bihaura, assisted by several of the
villagers, brought off two canoe-loads of abundance. There were yams,
taro, _feis_, breadfruit, cocoanuts, oranges, limes, pineapples,
watermelons, alligator pears, pomegranates, fish, chickens galore
crowing and cackling and laying eggs on our decks, and a live pig that
squealed infernally and all the time in apprehension of imminent
slaughter.
Under the rising moon we came in through the perilous passage of the
reef of Bora Bora and dropped anchor off Vaitapé village. Bihaura, with
housewifely anxiety, could not get ashore too quickly to her house to
prepare more abundance for us. While the launch was taking her and
Tehei to the little jetty, the sound of music and of singing drifted
across the quiet lagoon. Throughout the Society Islands we had been
continually informed that we would find the Bora Borans very jolly.
Charmian and I went ashore to see, and on the village green, by
forgotten graves on the beach, found the youths and maidens dancing,
flower-garlanded and flower-bedecked, with strange phosphorescent
flowers in their hair that pulsed and dimmed and glowed in the
moonlight. Farther along the beach we came upon a huge grass house,
oval-shaped seventy feet in length, where the elders of the village
were singing _himines_. They, too, were flower-garlanded and jolly, and
they welcomed us into the fold as little lost sheep straying along from
outer darkness.
Early next morning Tehei was on board, with a string of fresh-caught
fish and an invitation to dinner for that evening. On the way to
dinner, we dropped in at the _himine_ house. The same elders were
singing, with here or there a youth or maiden that we had not seen the
previous night. From all the signs, a feast was in preparation.
Towering up from the floor was a mountain of fruits and vegetables,
flanked on either side by numerous chickens tethered by cocoanut
strips. After several _himines_ had been sung, one of the men arose and
made oration. The oration was made to us, and though it was Greek to
us, we knew that in some way it connected us with that mountain of
provender.
“Can it be that they are presenting us with all that?” Charmian
whispered.
“Impossible,” I muttered back. “Why should they be giving it to us?
Besides, there is no room on the _Snark_ for it. We could not eat a
tithe of it. The rest would spoil. Maybe they are inviting us to the
feast. At any rate, that they should give all that to us is
impossible.”
Nevertheless we found ourselves once more in the high seat of
abundance. The orator, by gestures unmistakable, in detail presented
every item in the mountain to us, and next he presented it to us _in
toto_. It was an embarrassing moment. What would you do if you lived in
a hall bedroom and a friend gave you a white elephant? Our _Snark_ was
no more than a hall bedroom, and already she was loaded down with the
abundance of Tahaa. This new supply was too much. We blushed, and
stammered, and _mauruuru’d_. We _mauruuru’d_ with repeated _nui’s_
which conveyed the largeness and overwhelmingness of our thanks. At the
same time, by signs, we committed the awful breach of etiquette of not
accepting the present. The _himine_ singers’ disappointment was plainly
betrayed, and that evening, aided by Tehei, we compromised by accepting
one chicken, one bunch of bananas, one bunch of taro, and so on down
the list.
But there was no escaping the abundance. I bought a dozen chickens from
a native out in the country, and the following day he delivered
thirteen chickens along with a canoe-load of fruit. The French
storekeeper presented us with pomegranates and lent us his finest
horse. The gendarme did likewise, lending us a horse that was the very
apple of his eye. And everybody sent us flowers. The _Snark_ was a
fruit-stand and a greengrocer’s shop masquerading under the guise of a
conservatory. We went around flower-garlanded all the time. When the
_himine_ singers came on board to sing, the maidens kissed us welcome,
and the crew, from captain to cabin-boy, lost its heart to the maidens
of Bora Bora. Tehei got up a big fishing expedition in our honour, to
which we went in a double canoe, paddled by a dozen strapping Amazons.
We were relieved that no fish were caught, else the _Snark_ would have
sunk at her moorings.
The days passed, but the abundance did not diminish. On the day of
departure, canoe after canoe put off to us. Tehei brought cucumbers and
a young _papaia_ tree burdened with splendid fruit. Also, for me he
brought a tiny, double canoe with fishing apparatus complete. Further,
he brought fruits and vegetables with the same lavishness as at Tahaa.
Bihaura brought various special presents for Charmian, such as
silk-cotton pillows, fans, and fancy mats. The whole population brought
fruits, flowers, and chickens. And Bihaura added a live sucking pig.
Natives whom I did not remember ever having seen before strayed over
the rail and presented me with such things as fish-poles, fish-lines,
and fish-hooks carved from pearl-shell.
As the _Snark_ sailed out through the reef, she had a cutter in tow.
This was the craft that was to take Bihaura back to Tahaa—but not
Tehei. I had yielded at last, and he was one of the crew of the
_Snark_. When the cutter cast off and headed east, and the _Snark’s_
bow turned toward the west, Tehei knelt down by the cockpit and
breathed a silent prayer, the tears flowing down his cheeks. A week
later, when Martin got around to developing and printing, he showed
Tehei some of the photographs. And that brown-skinned son of Polynesia,
gazing on the pictured lineaments of his beloved Bihaura broke down in
tears.
But the abundance! There was so much of it. We could not work the
_Snark_ for the fruit that was in the way. She was festooned with
fruit. The life-boat and launch were packed with it. The awning-guys
groaned under their burdens. But once we struck the full trade-wind
sea, the disburdening began. At every roll the _Snark_ shook overboard
a bunch or so of bananas and cocoanuts, or a basket of limes. A golden
flood of limes washed about in the lee-scuppers. The big baskets of
yams burst, and pineapples and pomegranates rolled back and forth. The
chickens had got loose and were everywhere, roosting on the awnings,
fluttering and squawking out on the jib-boom, and essaying the perilous
feat of balancing on the spinnaker-boom. They were wild chickens,
accustomed to flight. When attempts were made to catch them, they flew
out over the ocean, circled about, and came back. Sometimes they did
not come back. And in the confusion, unobserved, the little sucking pig
got loose and slipped overboard.
“On the arrival of strangers, every man endeavoured to obtain one as a
friend and carry him off to his own habitation, where he is treated
with the greatest kindness by the inhabitants of the district: they
place him on a high seat and feed him with abundance of the finest
foods.”