Omoo
Adventures in the South Seas
by Herman Melville
Contents
PART I
CHAPTER I. MY RECEPTION ABOARD
CHAPTER II. SOME ACCOUNT OF THE SHIP
CHAPTER III. FURTHER ACCOUNT OF THE JULIA
CHAPTER IV. A SCENE IN THE FORECASTLE
CHAPTER V. WHAT HAPPENED AT HYTYHOO
CHAPTER VI. WE TOUCH AT LA DOMINICA
CHAPTER VII. WHAT HAPPENED AT HANNAMANOO
CHAPTER VIII. THE TATTOOERS OF LA DOMINICA
CHAPTER IX. WE STEER TO THE WESTWARD—STATE OF AFFAIRS
CHAPTER X. A SEA-PARLOUR DESCRIBED, WITH SOME OF ITS TENANTS
CHAPTER XI. DOCTOR LONG GHOST A WAG—ONE OF HIS CAPERS
CHAPTER XII. DEATH AND BURIAL OF TWO OF THE CREW
CHAPTER XIII. OUR DESTINATION CHANGED
CHAPTER XIV. ROPE YARN
CHAPTER XV. CHIPS AND BUNGS
CHAPTER XVI. WE ENCOUNTER A GALE
CHAPTER XVII. THE CORAL ISLANDS
CHAPTER XVIII. TAHITI
CHAPTER XIX. A SURPRISE—MORE ABOUT BEMBO
CHAPTER XX. THE ROUND ROBIN—VISITORS FROM SHORE
CHAPTER XXI. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONSUL
CHAPTER XXII. THE CONSUL’S DEPARTURE
CHAPTER XXIII. THE SECOND NIGHT OFF PAPEETEE
CHAPTER XXIV. OUTBREAK OF THE CREW
CHAPTER XXV. JERMIN ENCOUNTERS AN OLD SHIPMATE
CHAPTER XXVI. WE ENTER THE HARBOUR—JIM THE PILOT
CHAPTER XXVII. A GLANCE AT PAPEETEE—WE ARE SENT ABOARD THE FRIGATE
CHAPTER XXVIII. RECEPTION FROM THE FRENCHMAN
CHAPTER XXIX. THE REINE BLANCHE
CHAPTER XXX. THEY TAKE US ASHORE—WHAT HAPPENED THERE
CHAPTER XXXI. THE CALABOOZA BERETANEE
CHAPTER XXXII. PROCEEDINGS OF THE FRENCH AT TAHITI
CHAPTER XXXIII. WE RECEIVE CALLS AT THE HOTEL DE CALABOOZA
CHAPTER XXXIV. LIFE AT THE CALABOOZA
CHAPTER XXXV. VISIT FROM AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE
CHAPTER XXXVI. WE ARE CARRIED BEFORE THE CONSUL AND CAPTAIN
CHAPTER XXXVII. THE FRENCH PRIESTS PAY THEIR RESPECTS
CHAPTER XXXVIII. LITTLE JULIA SAILS WITHOUT US
CHAPTER XXXIX. JERMIN SERVES US A GOOD TURN—FRIENDSHIPS IN POLYNESIA
PART II
CHAPTER XL. WE TAKE UNTO OURSELVES FRIENDS
CHAPTER XLI. WE LEVY CONTRIBUTIONS ON THE SHIPPING
CHAPTER XLII. MOTOO-OTOO A TAHITIAN CASUIST
CHAPTER XLIII. ONE IS JUDGED BY THE COMPANY HE KEEPS
CHAPTER XLIV. CATHEDRAL OF PAPOAR—THE CHURCH OP THE COCOA-NUTS
CHAPTER XLV. MISSIONARY’S SERMON; WITH SOME REFLECTIONS
CHAPTER XLVI. SOMETHING ABOUT THE KANNAKIPPERS
CHAPTER XLVII. HOW THEY DRESS IN TAHITI
CHAPTER XLVIII. TAHITI AS IT IS
CHAPTER XLIX. SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED
CHAPTER L. SOMETHING HAPPENS TO LONG GHOST
CHAPTER LI. WILSON GIVES US THE CUT—DEPARTURE FOR IMEEO
CHAPTER LII. THE VALLEY OF MARTAIR
CHAPTER LIII. FARMING IN POLYNESIA
CHAPTER LIV. SOME ACCOUNT OF THE WILD CATTLE IN POLYNESIA
CHAPTER LV. A HUNTING RAMBLE WITH ZEKE
CHAPTER LVI. MOSQUITOES
CHAPTER LVII. THE SECOND HUNT IN THE MOUNTAINS
CHAPTER LVIII. THE HUNTING-FEAST; AND A VISIT TO AFREHITOO
CHAPTER LIX. THE MURPHIES
CHAPTER LX. WHAT THEY THOUGHT OF US IN MARTAIR
CHAPTER LXI. PREPARING FOR THE JOURNEY
CHAPTER LXII. TAMAI
CHAPTER LXIII. A DANCE IN THE VALLEY
CHAPTER LXIV. MYSTERIOUS
CHAPTER LXV. THE HEGIRA, OR FLIGHT
CHAPTER LXVI. HOW WE WERE TO GET TO TALOO
CHAPTER LXVII. THE JOURNEY ROUND THE BEACH
CHAPTER LXVIII. A DINNER-PARTY IN IMEEO
CHAPTER LXIX. THE COCOA-PALM
CHAPTER LXX. LIFE AT LOOHOOLOO
CHAPTER LXXI. WE START FOR TALOO
CHAPTER LXXII. A DEALER IN THE CONTRABAND
CHAPTER LXXIII. OUR RECEPTION IN PARTOOWYE
CHAPTER LXXIV. RETIRING FOR THE NIGHT—THE DOCTOR GROWS DEVOUT
CHAPTER LXXV. A RAMBLE THROUGH THE SETTLEMENT
CHAPTER LXXVI. AN ISLAND JILT—WE VISIT THE SHIP
CHAPTER LXXVII. A PARTY OF ROVERS—LITTLE LOO AND THE DOCTOR
CHAPTER LXXVIII. MRS. BELL
CHAPTER LXXIX. TALOO CHAPEL—HOLDING COURT IN POLYNESIA
CHAPTER LXXX. QUEEN POMAREE
CHAPTER LXXXI. WE VISIT THE COURT
CHAPTER LXXXII. WHICH ENDS THE BOOK
PART I
CHAPTER I.
MY RECEPTION ABOARD
It was the middle of a bright tropical afternoon that we made good our
escape from the bay. The vessel we sought lay with her main-topsail
aback about a league from the land, and was the only object that broke
the broad expanse of the ocean.
On approaching, she turned out to be a small, slatternly-looking craft,
her hull and spars a dingy black, rigging all slack and bleached nearly
white, and everything denoting an ill state of affairs aboard. The four
boats hanging from her sides proclaimed her a whaler. Leaning
carelessly over the bulwarks were the sailors, wild, haggard-looking
fellows in Scotch caps and faded blue frocks; some of them with cheeks
of a mottled bronze, to which sickness soon changes the rich
berry-brown of a seaman’s complexion in the tropics.
On the quarter-deck was one whom I took for the chief mate. He wore a
broad-brimmed Panama hat, and his spy-glass was levelled as we
advanced.
When we came alongside, a low cry ran fore and aft the deck, and
everybody gazed at us with inquiring eyes. And well they might. To say
nothing of the savage boat’s crew, panting with excitement, all gesture
and vociferation, my own appearance was calculated to excite curiosity.
A robe of the native cloth was thrown over my shoulders, my hair and
beard were uncut, and I betrayed other evidences of my recent
adventure. Immediately on gaining the deck, they beset me on all sides
with questions, the half of which I could not answer, so incessantly
were they put.
As an instance of the curious coincidences which often befall the
sailor, I must here mention that two countenances before me were
familiar. One was that of an old man-of-war’s-man, whose acquaintance I
had made in Rio de Janeiro, at which place touched the ship in which I
sailed from home. The other was a young man whom, four years previous,
I had frequently met in a sailor boarding-house in Liverpool. I
remembered parting with him at Prince’s Dock Gates, in the midst of a
swarm of police-officers, trackmen, stevedores, beggars, and the like.
And here we were again:—years had rolled by, many a league of ocean had
been traversed, and we were thrown together under circumstances which
almost made me doubt my own existence.
But a few moments passed ere I was sent for into the cabin by the
captain.
He was quite a young man, pale and slender, more like a sickly
counting-house clerk than a bluff sea-captain. Bidding me be seated, he
ordered the steward to hand me a glass of Pisco. In the state I was,
this stimulus almost made me delirious; so that of all I then went on
to relate concerning my residence on the island I can scarcely remember
a word. After this I was asked whether I desired to “ship”; of course I
said yes; that is, if he would allow me to enter for one cruise,
engaging to discharge me, if I so desired, at the next port. In this
way men are frequently shipped on board whalemen in the South Seas. My
stipulation was acceded to, and the ship’s articles handed me to sign.
The mate was now called below, and charged to make a “well man” of me;
not, let it be borne in mind, that the captain felt any great
compassion for me, he only desired to have the benefit of my services
as soon as possible.
Helping me on deck, the mate stretched me out on the windlass and
commenced examining my limb; and then doctoring it after a fashion with
something from the medicine-chest, rolled it up in a piece of an old
sail, making so big a bundle that, with my feet resting on the
windlass, I might have been taken for a sailor with the gout. While
this was going on, someone removing my tappa cloak slipped on a blue
frock in its place, and another, actuated by the same desire to make a
civilized mortal of me, flourished about my head a great pair lie
imminent jeopardy of both ears, and the certain destruction of hair and
beard.
The day was now drawing to a close, and, as the land faded from my
sight, I was all alive to the change in my condition. But how far short
of our expectations is oftentimes the fulfilment of the most ardent
hopes. Safe aboard of a ship—so long my earnest prayer—with home and
friends once more in prospect, I nevertheless felt weighed down by a
melancholy that could not be shaken off. It was the thought of never
more seeing those who, notwithstanding their desire to retain me a
captive, had, upon the whole, treated me so kindly. I was leaving them
for ever.
So unforeseen and sudden had been my escape, so excited had I been
through it all, and so great the contrast between the luxurious repose
of the valley, and the wild noise and motion of a ship at sea, that at
times my recent adventures had all the strangeness of a dream; and I
could scarcely believe that the same sun now setting over a waste of
waters, had that very morning risen above the mountains and peered in
upon me as I lay on my mat in Typee.
Going below into the forecastle just after dark, I was inducted into a
wretched “bunk” or sleeping-box built over another. The rickety bottoms
of both were spread with several pieces of a blanket. A battered tin
can was then handed me, containing about half a pint of “tea”—so called
by courtesy, though whether the juice of such stalks as one finds
floating therein deserves that title, is a matter all shipowners must
settle with their consciences. A cube of salt beef, on a hard round
biscuit by way of platter, was also handed up; and without more ado, I
made a meal, the salt flavour of which, after the Nebuchadnezzar fare
of the valley, was positively delicious.
While thus engaged, an old sailor on a chest just under me was puffing
out volumes of tobacco smoke. My supper finished, he brushed the stem
of his sooty pipe against the sleeve of his frock, and politely waved
it toward me. The attention was sailor-like; as for the nicety of the
thing, no man who has lived in forecastles is at all fastidious; and
so, after a few vigorous whiffs to induce repose, I turned over and
tried my best to forget myself. But in vain. My crib, instead of
extending fore and aft, as it should have done, was placed athwart
ships, that is, at right angles to the keel, and the vessel, going
before the wind, rolled to such a degree, that-every time my heels went
up and my head went down, I thought I was on the point of turning a
somerset. Beside this, there were still more annoying causes of
inquietude; and every once in a while a splash of water came down the
open scuttle, and flung the spray in my face.
At last, after a sleepless night, broken twice by the merciless call of
the watch, a peep of daylight struggled into view from above, and
someone came below. It was my old friend with the pipe.
“Here, shipmate,” said I, “help me out of this place, and let me go on
deck.”
“Halloa, who’s that croaking?” was the rejoinder, as he peered into the
obscurity where I lay. “Ay, Typee, my king of the cannibals, is it you
I But I say, my lad, how’s that spar of your’n? the mate says it’s in a
devil of a way; and last night set the steward to sharpening the
handsaw: hope he won’t have the carving of ye.”
Long before daylight we arrived off the bay of Nukuheva, and making
short tacks until morning, we then ran in and sent a boat ashore with
the natives who had brought me to the ship. Upon its return, we made
sail again, and stood off from the land. There was a fine breeze; and
notwithstanding my bad night’s rest, the cool, fresh air of a morning
at sea was so bracing, mat, as soon as I breathed it, my spirits rose
at once.
Seated upon the windlass the greater portion of the day, and chatting
freely with the men, I learned the history of the voyage thus far, and
everything respecting the ship and its present condition.
These matters I will now throw together in the next chapter.
CHAPTER II.
SOME ACCOUNT OF THE SHIP
First and foremost, I must give some account of the Julia herself; or
“Little Jule,” as the sailors familiarly styled her.
She was a small barque of a beautiful model, something more than two
hundred tons, Yankee-built and very old. Fitted for a privateer out of
a New England port during the war of 1812, she had been captured at sea
by a British cruiser, and, after seeing all sorts of service, was at
last employed as a government packet in the Australian seas. Being
condemned, however, about two years previous, she was purchased at
auction by a house in Sydney, who, after some slight repairs,
dispatched her on the present voyage.
Notwithstanding the repairs, she was still in a miserable plight. The
lower masts were said to be unsound; the standing rigging was much
worn; and, in some places, even the bulwarks were quite rotten. Still,
she was tolerably tight, and but little more than the ordinary pumping
of a morning served to keep her free.
But all this had nothing to do with her sailing; at that, brave Little
Jule, plump Little Jule, was a witch. Blow high, or blow low, she was
always ready for the breeze; and when she dashed the waves from her
prow, and pranced, and pawed the sea, you never thought of her patched
sails and blistered hull. How the fleet creature would fly before the
wind! rolling, now and then, to be sure, but in very playfulness.
Sailing to windward, no gale could bow her over: with spars erect, she
looked right up into the wind’s eye, and so she went.
But after all, Little Jule was not to be confided in. Lively enough,
and playful she was, but on that very account the more to be
distrusted. Who knew, but that like some vivacious old mortal all at
once sinking into a decline, she might, some dark night, spring a leak
and carry us all to the bottom. However, she played us no such ugly
trick, and therefore, I wrong Little Jule in supposing it.
She had a free roving commission. According to her papers she might go
whither she pleased—whaling, sealing, or anything else. Sperm whaling,
however, was what she relied upon; though, as yet, only two fish had
been brought alongside.
The day they sailed out of Sydney Heads, the ship’s company, all told,
numbered some thirty-two souls; now, they mustered about twenty; the
rest had deserted. Even the three junior mates who had headed the
whaleboats were gone: and of the four harpooners, only one was left, a
wild New Zealander, or “Mowree” as his countrymen are more commonly
called in the Pacific. But this was not all. More than half the seamen
remaining were more or less unwell from a long sojourn in a dissipated
port; some of them wholly unfit for duty, one or two dangerously ill,
and the rest managing to stand their watch though they could do but
little.
The captain was a young cockney, who, a few years before, had emigrated
to Australia, and, by some favouritism or other, had procured the
command of the vessel, though in no wise competent. He was essentially
a landsman, and though a man of education, no more meant for the sea
than a hairdresser. Hence everybody made fun of him. They called him
“The Cabin Boy,” “Paper Jack,” and half a dozen other undignified
names. In truth, the men made no secret of the derision in which they
held him; and as for the slender gentleman himself, he knew it all very
well, and bore himself with becoming meekness. Holding as little
intercourse with them as possible, he left everything to the chief
mate, who, as the story went, had been given his captain in charge.
Yet, despite his apparent unobtrusiveness, the silent captain had more
to do with the men than they thought. In short, although one of your
sheepish-looking fellows, he had a sort of still, timid cunning, which
no one would have suspected, and which, for that very reason, was all
the more active. So the bluff mate, who always thought he did what he
pleased, was occasionally made a fool of; and some obnoxious measures
which he carried out, in spite of all growlings, were little thought to
originate with the dapper little fellow in nankeen jacket and white
canvas pumps. But, to all appearance, at least, the mate had everything
his own way; indeed, in most things this was actually the case; and it
was quite plain that the captain stood in awe of him.
So far as courage, seamanship, and a natural aptitude for keeping
riotous spirits in subjection were concerned, no man was better
qualified for his vocation than John Jermin. He was the very beau-ideal
of the efficient race of short, thick-set men. His hair curled in
little rings of iron gray all over his round bullet head. As for his
countenance, it was strongly marked, deeply pitted with the small-pox.
For the rest, there was a fierce little squint out of one eye; the nose
had a rakish twist to one side; while his large mouth, and great white
teeth, looked absolutely sharkish when he laughed. In a word, no one,
after getting a fair look at him, would ever think of improving the
shape of his nose, wanting in symmetry as it was. Notwithstanding his
pugnacious looks, however, Jermin had a heart as big as a bullock’s;
that you saw at a glance.
Such was our mate; but he had one failing: he abhorred all weak
infusions, and cleaved manfully to strong drink.. At all times he was
more or less under the influence of it. Taken in moderate quantities, I
believe, in my soul, it did a man like him good; brightened his eyes,
swept the cobwebs out of his brain, and regulated his pulse. But the
worst of it was, that sometimes he drank too much, and a more
obstreperous fellow than Jermin in his cups, you seldom came across. He
was always for having a fight; but the very men he flogged loved him as
a brother, for he had such an irresistibly good-natured way of knocking
them down, that no one could find it in his heart to bear malice
against him. So much for stout little Jermin.
All English whalemen are bound by-law to carry a physician, who, of
course, is rated a gentleman, and lives in the cabin, with nothing but
his professional duties to attend to; but incidentally he drinks “flip”
and plays cards with the captain. There was such a worthy aboard of the
Julia; but, curious to tell, he lived in the forecastle with the men.
And this was the way it happened.
In the early part of the voyage the doctor and the captain lived
together as pleasantly as could be. To say nothing of many a can they
drank over the cabin transom, both of them had read books, and one of
them had travelled; so their stories never flagged. But once on a time
they got into a dispute about politics, and the doctor, moreover,
getting into a rage, drove home an argument with his fist, and left the
captain on the floor literally silenced. This was carrying it with a
high hand; so he was shut up in his state-room for ten days, and left
to meditate on bread and water, and the impropriety of flying into a
passion. Smarting under his disgrace, he undertook, a short time after
his liberation, to leave the vessel clandestinely at one of the
islands, but was brought back ignominiously, and again shut up. Being
set at large for the second time, he vowed he would not live any longer
with the captain, and went forward with his chests among the sailors,
where he was received with open arms as a good fellow and an injured
man.
I must give some further account of him, for he figures largely in the
narrative. His early history, like that of many other heroes, was
enveloped in the profoundest obscurity; though he threw out hints of a
patrimonial estate, a nabob uncle, and an unfortunate affair which sent
him a-roving. All that was known, however, was this. He had gone out to
Sydney as assistant-surgeon of an emigrant ship. On his arrival there,
he went back into the country, and after a few months’ wanderings,
returned to Sydney penniless, and entered as doctor aboard of the
Julia.
His personal appearance was remarkable. He was over six feet high—a
tower of bones, with a complexion absolutely colourless, fair hair, and
a light unscrupulous gray eye, twinkling occasionally at the very devil
of mischief. Among the crew, he went by the name of the Long Doctor, or
more frequently still, Doctor Long Ghost. And from whatever high estate
Doctor Long Ghost might have fallen, he had certainly at some time or
other spent money, drunk Burgundy, and associated with gentlemen.
As for his learning, he quoted Virgil, and talked of Hobbs of
Malmsbury, beside repeating poetry by the canto, especially Hudibras.
He was, moreover, a man who had seen the world. In the easiest way
imaginable, he could refer to an amour he had in Palermo, his
lion-hunting before breakfast among the Caffres, and the quality of the
coffee to be drunk in Muscat; and about these places, and a hundred
others, he had more anecdotes than I can tell of. Then such mellow old
songs as he sang, in a voice so round and racy, the real juice of
sound. How such notes came forth from his lank body was a constant
marvel.
Upon the whole, Long Ghost was as entertaining a companion as one could
wish; and to me in the Julia, an absolute godsend.
CHAPTER III.
FURTHER ACCOUNT OF THE JULIA
Owing to the absence of anything like regular discipline, the vessel
was in a state of the greatest uproar. The captain, having for some
time past been more or less confined to the cabin from sickness, was
seldom seen. The mate, however, was as hearty as a young lion, and ran
about the decks making himself heard at all hours. Bembo, the New
Zealand harpooner, held little intercourse with anybody but the mate,
who could talk to him freely in his own lingo. Part of his time he
spent out on the bowsprit, fishing for albicores with a bone hook; and
occasionally he waked all hands up of a dark night dancing some
cannibal fandango all by himself on the forecastle. But, upon the
whole, he was remarkably quiet, though something in his eye showed he
was far from being harmless.
Doctor Long Ghost, having sent in a written resignation as the ship’s
doctor, gave himself out as a passenger for Sydney, and took the world
quite easy. As for the crew, those who were sick seemed marvellously
contented for men in their condition; and the rest, not displeased with
the general licence, gave themselves little thought of the morrow.
The Julia’s provisions were very poor. When opened, the barrels of pork
looked as if preserved in iron rust, and diffused an odour like a stale
ragout. The beef was worse yet; a mahogany-coloured fibrous substance,
so tough and tasteless, that I almost believed the cook’s story of a
horse’s hoof with the shoe on having been fished up out of the pickle
of one of the casks. Nor was the biscuit much better; nearly all of it
was broken into hard, little gunflints, honeycombed through and
through, as if the worms usually infesting this article in long
tropical voyages had, in boring after nutriment, come out at the
antipodes without finding anything.
Of what sailors call “small stores,” we had but little. “Tea,” however,
we had in abundance; though, I dare say, the Hong merchants never had
the shipping of it. Beside this, every other day we had what English
seamen call “shot soup”—great round peas, polishing themselves like
pebbles by rolling about in tepid water.
It was afterward told me, that all our provisions had been purchased by
the owners at an auction sale of condemned navy stores in Sydney.
But notwithstanding the wateriness of the first course of soup, and the
saline flavour of the beef and pork, a sailor might have made a
satisfactory meal aboard of the Julia had there been any side dishes—a
potato or two, a yam, or a plantain. But there was nothing of the kind.
Still, there was something else, which, in the estimation of the men,
made up for all deficiencies; and that was the regular allowance of
Pisco.
It may seem strange that in such a state of affairs the captain should
be willing to keep the sea with his ship. But the truth was, that by
lying in harbour, he ran the risk of losing the remainder of his men by
desertion; and as it was, he still feared that, in some outlandish bay
or other, he might one day find his anchor down, and no crew to weigh
it.
With judicious officers the most unruly seamen can at sea be kept in
some sort of subjection; but once get them within a cable’s length of
the land, and it is hard restraining them. It is for this reason that
many South Sea whalemen do not come to anchor for eighteen or twenty
months on a stretch. When fresh provisions are needed, they run for the
nearest land—heave to eight or ten miles off, and send a boat ashore to
trade. The crews manning vessels like these are for the most part
villains of all nations and dyes; picked up in the lawless ports of the
Spanish Main, and among the savages of the islands. Like galley-slaves,
they are only to be governed by scourges and chains. Their officers go
among them with dirk and pistol—concealed, but ready at a grasp.
Not a few of our own crew were men of this stamp; but, riotous at times
as they were, the bluff drunken energies of Jermin were just the thing
to hold them in some sort of noisy subjection. Upon an emergency, he
flew in among them, showering his kicks and cuffs right and left, and
“creating a sensation” in every direction. And as hinted before, they
bore this knock-down authority with great good-humour. A sober,
discreet, dignified officer could have done nothing with them; such a
set would have thrown him and his dignity overboard.
Matters being thus, there was nothing for the ship but to keep the sea.
Nor was the captain without hope that the invalid portion of his crew,
as well as himself, would soon recover; and then there was no telling
what luck in the fishery might yet be in store for us. At any rate, at
the time of my coming aboard, the report was, that Captain Guy was
resolved upon retrieving the past and filling the vessel with oil in
the shortest space possible.
With this intention, we were now shaping our course for Hytyhoo, a
village on the island of St. Christina—one of the Marquesas, and so
named by Mendanna—for the purpose of obtaining eight seamen, who, some
weeks before, had stepped ashore there from the Julia. It was supposed
that, by this time, they must have recreated themselves sufficiently,
and would be glad to return to their duty.
So to Hytyhoo, with all our canvas spread, and coquetting with the
warm, breezy Trades, we bowled along; gliding up and down the long,
slow swells, the bonettas and albicores frolicking round us.
CHAPTER IV.
A SCENE IN THE FORECASTLE
I had scarcely been aboard of the ship twenty-four hours, when a
circumstance occurred, which, although noways picturesque, is so
significant of the state of affairs that I cannot forbear relating it.
In the first place, however, it must be known, that among the crew was
a man so excessively ugly, that he went by the ironical appellation of
“Beauty.” He was the ship’s carpenter; and for that reason was
sometimes known by his nautical cognomen of “Chips.” There was no
absolute deformity about the man; he was symmetrically ugly. But ill
favoured as he was in person, Beauty was none the less ugly in temper;
but no one could blame him; his countenance had soured his heart. Now
Jermin and Beauty were always at swords’ points. The truth was, the
latter was the only man in the ship whom the mate had never decidedly
got the better of; and hence the grudge he bore him. As for Beauty, he
prided himself upon talking up to the mate, as we shall soon see.
Toward evening there was something to be done on deck, and the
carpenter who belonged to the watch was missing. “Where’s that skulk,
Chips?” shouted Jermin down the forecastle scuttle.
“Taking his ease, d’ye see, down here on a chest, if you want to know,”
replied that worthy himself, quietly withdrawing his pipe from his
mouth. This insolence flung the fiery little mate into a mighty rage;
but Beauty said nothing, puffing away with all the tranquillity
imaginable. Here it must be remembered that, never mind what may be the
provocation, no prudent officer ever dreams of entering a ship’s
forecastle on a hostile visit. If he wants to see anybody who happens
to be there, and refuses to come up, why he must wait patiently until
the sailor is willing. The reason is this. The place is very dark: and
nothing is easier than to knock one descending on the head, before he
knows where he is, and a very long while before he ever finds out who
did it.
Nobody knew this better than Jermin, and so he contented himself with
looking down the scuttle and storming. At last Beauty made some cool
observation which set him half wild.
“Tumble on deck,” he then bellowed—“come, up with you, or I’ll jump
down and make you.” The carpenter begged him to go about it at once.
No sooner said than done: prudence forgotten, Jermin was there; and by
a sort of instinct, had his man by the throat before he could well see
him. One of the men now made a rush at him, but the rest dragged him
off, protesting that they should have fair play.
“Now come on deck,” shouted the mate, struggling like a good fellow to
hold the carpenter fast.
“Take me there,” was the dogged answer, and Beauty wriggled about in
the nervous grasp of the other like a couple of yards of
boa-constrictor.
His assailant now undertook to make him up into a compact bundle, the
more easily to transport him. While thus occupied, Beauty got his arms
loose, and threw him over backward. But Jermin quickly recovered
himself, when for a time they had it every way, dragging each other
about, bumping their heads against the projecting beams, and returning
each other’s blows the first favourable opportunity that offered.
Unfortunately, Jermin at last slipped and fell; his foe seating himself
on his chest, and keeping him down. Now this was one of those
situations in which the voice of counsel, or reproof, comes with
peculiar unction. Nor did Beauty let the opportunity slip. But the mate
said nothing in reply, only foaming at the mouth and struggling to
rise.
Just then a thin tremor of a voice was heard from above. It was the
captain; who, happening to ascend to the quarter-deck at the
commencement of the scuffle, would gladly have returned to the cabin,
but was prevented by the fear of ridicule. As the din increased, and it
became evident that his officer was in serious trouble, he thought it
would never do to stand leaning over the bulwarks, so he made his
appearance on the forecastle, resolved, as his best policy, to treat
the matter lightly.
“Why, why,” he begun, speaking pettishly, and very fast, “what’s all
this about?—Mr. Jermin, Mr. Jermin—carpenter, carpenter; what are you
doing down there? Come on deck; come on deck.”
Whereupon Doctor Long Ghost cries out in a squeak, “Ah! Miss Guy, is
that you? Now, my dear, go right home, or you’ll get hurt.”
“Pooh, pooh! you, sir, whoever you are, I was not speaking to you; none
of your nonsense. Mr. Jermin, I was talking to you; have the kindness
to come on deck, sir; I want to see you.”
“And how, in the devil’s name, am I to get there?” cried the mate,
furiously. “Jump down here, Captain Guy, and show yourself a man. Let
me up, you Chips! unhand me, I say! Oh! I’ll pay you for this, some
day! Come on, Captain Guy!”
At this appeal, the poor man was seized with a perfect spasm of
fidgets. “Pooh, pooh, carpenter; have done with your nonsense! Let him
up, sir; let him up! Do you hear? Let Mr. Jermm come on deck!”
“Go along with you, Paper Jack,” replied Beauty; “this quarrel’s
between the mate and me; so go aft, where you belong!”
As the captain once more dipped his head down the scuttle to make
answer, from an unseen hand he received, full in the face, the contents
of a tin can of soaked biscuit and tea-leaves. The doctor was not far
off just then. Without waiting for anything more, the discomfited
gentleman, with both hands to his streaming face, retreated to the
quarter-deck.
A few moments more, and Jermin, forced to a compromise, followed after,
in his torn frock and scarred face, looking for all the world as if he
had just disentangled himself from some intricate piece of machinery.
For about half an hour both remained in the cabin, where the mate’s
rough tones were heard high above the low, smooth voice of the captain.
Of all his conflicts with the men, this was the first in which Jermin
had been worsted; and he was proportionably enraged. Upon going
below—as the steward afterward told us—he bluntly informed Guy that,
for the future, he might look out for his ship himself; for his part,
he had done with her, if that was the way he allowed his officers to be
treated. After many high words, the captain finally assured him that,
the first fitting opportunity, the carpenter should be cordially
flogged; though, as matters stood, the experiment would be a hazardous
one. Upon this Jermin reluctantly consented to drop the matter for the
present; and he soon drowned all thoughts of it in a can of flip, which
Guy had previously instructed the steward to prepare, as a sop to allay
his wrath.
Nothing more ever came of this.
CHAPTER V.
WHAT HAPPENED AT HYTYHOO
Less than forty-eight hours after leaving Nukuheva, the blue, looming
island of St. Christina greeted us from afar. Drawing near the shore,
the grim, black spars and waspish hull of a small man-of-war craft
crept into view; the masts and yards lined distinctly against the sky.
She was riding to her anchor in the bay, and proved to be a French
corvette.
This pleased our captain exceedingly, and, coming on deck, he examined
her from the mizzen rigging with his glass. His original intention was
not to let go an anchor; but, counting upon the assistance of the
corvette in case of any difficulty, he now changed his mind, and
anchored alongside of her. As soon as a boat could be lowered, he then
went off to pay his respects to the commander, and, moreover, as we
supposed, to concert measures for the apprehension of the runaways.
Returning in the course of twenty minutes, he brought along with him
two officers in undress and whiskers, and three or four drunken
obstreperous old chiefs; one with his legs thrust into the armholes of
a scarlet vest, another with a pair of spurs on his heels, and a third
in a cocked hat and feather. In addition to these articles, they merely
wore the ordinary costume of their race—a slip of native cloth about
the loins. Indecorous as their behaviour was, these worthies turned out
to be a deputation from the reverend the clergy of the island; and the
object of their visit was to put our ship under a rigorous “Taboo,” to
prevent the disorderly scenes and facilities for desertion which would
ensue, were the natives—men and women—allowed to come off to us freely.
There was little ceremony about the matter. The priests went aside for
a moment, laid their shaven old crowns together, and went over a little
mummery. Whereupon, their leader tore a long strip from his girdle of
white tappa, and handed it to one of the French officers, who, after
explaining what was to be done, gave it to Jermin. The mate at once
went out to the end of the flying jib boom, and fastened there the
mystic symbol of the ban. This put to flight a party of girls who had
been observed swimming toward us. Tossing their arms about, and
splashing the water like porpoises, with loud cries of “taboo! taboo!”
they turned about and made for the shore.
The night of our arrival, the mate and the Mowree were to stand “watch
and watch,” relieving each other every four hours; the crew, as is
sometimes customary when lying at an anchor, being allowed to remain
all night below. A distrust of the men, however, was, in the present
instance, the principal reason for this proceeding. Indeed, it was all
but certain, that some kind of attempt would be made at desertion; and
therefore, when Jermin’s first watch came on at eight bells
(midnight)—by which time all was quiet—he mounted to the deck with a
flask of spirits in one hand, and the other in readiness to assail the
first countenance that showed itself above the forecastle scuttle.
Thus prepared, he doubtless meant to stay awake; but for all that, he
before long fell asleep; and slept with such hearty good-will too, that
the men who left us that night might have been waked up by his snoring.
Certain it was, the mate snored most strangely; and no wonder, with
that crooked bugle of his. When he came to himself it was just dawn,
but quite light enough to show two boats gone from the side. In an
instant he knew what had happened.
Dragging the Mowree out of an old sail where he was napping, he ordered
him to clear away another boat, and then darted into the cabin to tell
the captain the news. Springing on deck again, he drove down into the
forecastle for a couple of oarsmen, but hardly got there before there
was a cry, and a loud splash heard over the side. It was the Mowree and
the boat—into which he had just leaped to get ready for
lowering—rolling over and over in the water.
The boat having at nightfall been hoisted up to its place over the
starboard quarter, someone had so cut the tackles which held it there,
that a moderate strain would at once part them. Bembo’s weight had
answered the purpose, showing that the deserters must have ascertained
his specific gravity to a fibre of hemp. There was another boat
remaining; but it was as well to examine it before attempting to lower.
And it was well they did; for there was a hole in the bottom large
enough to drop a barrel through: she had been scuttled most ruthlessly.
Jermin was frantic. Dashing his hat upon deck, he was about to plunge
overboard and swim to the corvette for a cutter, when Captain Guy made
his appearance and begged him to stay where he was. By this time the
officer of the deck aboard the Frenchman had noticed our movements, and
hailed to know what had happened. Guy informed him through his trumpet,
and men to go in pursuit were instantly promised. There was a whistling
of a boatswain’s pipe, an order or two, and then a large cutter pulled
out from the man-of-war’s stern, and in half a dozen strokes was
alongside. The mate leaped into her, and they pulled rapidly ashore.
Another cutter, carrying an armed crew, soon followed.
In an hour’s time the first returned, towing the two whale-boats, which
had been found turned up like tortoises on the beach.
Noon came, and nothing more was heard from the deserters. Meanwhile
Doctor Long Ghost and myself lounged about, cultivating an
acquaintance, and gazing upon the shore scenery. The bay was as calm as
death; the sun high and hot; and occasionally a still gliding canoe
stole out from behind the headlands, and shot across the water.
And all the morning long our sick men limped about the deck, casting
wistful glances inland, where the palm-trees waved and beckoned them
into their reviving shades. Poor invalid rascals! How conducive to the
restoration of their shattered health would have been those delicious
groves! But hard-hearted Jermin assured them, with an oath, that foot
of theirs should never touch the beach.
Toward sunset a crowd was seen coming down to the water. In advance of
all were the fugitives—bareheaded—their frocks and trousers hanging in
tatters, every face covered with blood and dust, and their arms
pinioned behind them with green thongs. Following them up, was a
shouting rabble of islanders, pricking them with the points of their
long spears, the party from the corvette menacing them in flank with
their naked cutlasses.
The bonus of a musket to the King of the Bay, and the promise of a
tumblerful of powder for every man caught, had set the whole population
on their track; and so successful was the hunt, that not only were that
morning’s deserters brought back, but five of those left behind on a
former visit. The natives, however, were the mere hounds of the chase,
raising the game in their coverts, but leaving the securing of it to
the Frenchmen. Here, as elsewhere, the islanders have no idea of taking
part in such a scuffle as ensues upon the capture of a party of
desperate seamen.
The runaways were at once brought aboard, and, though they looked
rather sulky, soon came round, and treated the whole affair as a
frolicsome adventure.
CHAPTER VI.
WE TOUCH AT LA DOMINICA
Fearful of spending another night at Hytyhoo, Captain Guy caused the
ship to be got under way shortly after dark.
The next morning, when all supposed that we were fairly embarked for a
long cruise, our course was suddenly altered for La Dominica, or
Hivarhoo, an island just north of the one we had quitted. The object of
this, as we learned, was to procure, if possible, several English
sailors, who, according to the commander of the corvette, had recently
gone ashore there from an American whaler, and were desirous of
shipping aboard one of their own country vessels.
We made the land in the afternoon, coming abreast of a shady glen
opening from a deep bay, and winding by green denies far out of sight.
“Hands by the weather-main-brace!” roared the mate, jumping up on the
bulwarks; and in a moment the prancing Julia, suddenly arrested in her
course, bridled her head like a steed reined in, while the foam flaked
under her bows.
This was the place where we expected to obtain the men; so a boat was
at once got in readiness to go ashore. Now it was necessary to provide
a picked crew—men the least likely to abscond. After considerable
deliberation on the part of the captain and mate, four of the seamen
were pitched upon as the most trustworthy; or rather they were selected
from a choice assortment of suspicious characters as being of an
inferior order of rascality.
Armed with cutlasses all round—the natives were said to be an ugly
set—they were followed over the side by the invalid captain, who, on
this occasion, it seems, was determined to signalize himself.
Accordingly, in addition to his cutlass, he wore an old boarding belt,
in which was thrust a brace of pistols. They at once shoved off.
My friend Long Ghost had, among other things which looked somewhat
strange in a ship’s forecastle, a capital spy-glass, and on the present
occasion we had it in use.
When the boat neared the head of the inlet, though invisible to the
naked eye, it was plainly revealed by the glass; looking no bigger than
an egg-shell, and the men diminished to pigmies.
At last, borne on what seemed a long flake of foam, the tiny craft shot
up the beach amid a shower of sparkles. Not a soul was there. Leaving
one of their number by the water, the rest of the pigmies stepped
ashore, looking about them very circumspectly, pausing now and then
hand to ear, and peering under a dense grove which swept down within a
few paces of the sea. No one came, and to all appearances everything
was as still as the grave. Presently he with the pistols, followed by
the rest flourishing their bodkins, entered the wood and were soon lost
to view. They did not stay long; probably anticipating some
inhospitable ambush were they to stray any distance up the glen.
In a few moments they embarked again, and were soon riding pertly over
the waves of the bay. All of a sudden the captain started to his
feet—the boat spun round, and again made for the shore. Some twenty or
thirty natives armed with spears which through the glass looked like
reeds, had just come out of the grove, and were apparently shouting to
the strangers not to be in such a hurry, but return and be sociable.
But they were somewhat distrusted, for the boat paused about its length
from the beach, when the captain standing up in its head delivered an
address in pantomime, the object of which seemed to be, that the
islanders should draw near. One of them stepped forward and made
answer, seemingly again urging the strangers not to be diffident, but
beach their boat. The captain declined, tossing his arms about in
another pantomime. In the end he said something which made them shake
their spears; whereupon he fired a pistol among them, which set the
whole party running; while one poor little fellow, dropping his spear
and clapping his hand behind him, limped away in a manner which almost
made me itch to get a shot at his assailant.
Wanton acts of cruelty like this are not unusual on the part of sea
captains landing at islands comparatively unknown. Even at the Pomotu
group, but a day’s sail from Tahiti, the islanders coming down to the
shore have several times been fired at by trading schooners passing
through their narrow channels; and this too as a mere amusement on the
part of the ruffians.
Indeed, it is almost incredible, the light in which many sailors regard
these naked heathens. They hardly consider them human. But it is a
curious fact, that the more ignorant and degraded men are, the more
contemptuously they look upon those whom they deem their inferiors.
All powers of persuasion being thus lost upon these foolish savages,
and no hope left of holding further intercourse, the boat returned to
the ship.
CHAPTER VII.
WHAT HAPPENED AT HANNAMANOO
On the other side of the island was the large and populous bay of
Hannamanoo, where the men sought might yet be found. But as the sun was
setting by the time the boat came alongside, we got our offshore tacks
aboard and stood away for an offing. About daybreak we wore, and ran
in, and by the time the sun was well up, entered the long, narrow
channel dividing the islands of La Dominica and St. Christina.
On one hand was a range of steep green bluffs hundreds of feet high,
the white huts of the natives here and there nestling like birds’ nests
in deep clefts gushing with verdure. Across the water, the land rolled
away in bright hillsides, so warm and undulating that they seemed
almost to palpitate in the sun. On we swept, past bluff and grove,
wooded glen and valley, and dark ravines lighted up far inland with
wild falls of water. A fresh land-breeze filled our sails, the embayed
waters were gentle as a lake, and every wave broke with a tinkle
against our coppered prow.
On gaining the end of the channel we rounded a point, and came full
upon the bay of Hannamanoo. This is the only harbour of any note about
the island, though as far as a safe anchorage is concerned it hardly
deserves the title.
Before we held any communication with the shore, an incident occurred
which may convey some further idea of the character of our crew.
Having approached as near the land as we could prudently, our headway
was stopped, and we awaited the arrival of a canoe which was coming out
of the bay. All at once we got into a strong current, which swept us
rapidly toward a rocky promontory forming one side of the harbour. The
wind had died away; so two boats were at once lowered for the purpose
of pulling the ship’s head round. Before this could be done, the eddies
were whirling upon all sides, and the rock so near that it seemed as if
one might leap upon it from the masthead. Notwithstanding the
speechless fright of the captain, and the hoarse shouts of the
unappalled Jermin, the men handled the ropes as deliberately as
possible, some of them chuckling at the prospect of going ashore, and
others so eager for the vessel to strike, that they could hardly
contain themselves. Unexpectedly a countercurrent befriended us, and
assisted by the boats we were soon out of danger.
What a disappointment for our crew! All their little plans for swimming
ashore from the wreck, and having a fine time of it for the rest of
their days, thus cruelly nipped in the bud.
Soon after, the canoe came alongside. In it were eight or ten natives,
comely, vivacious-looking youths, all gesture and exclamation; the red
feathers in their head-bands perpetually nodding. With them also came a
stranger, a renegade from Christendom and humanity—a white man, in the
South Sea girdle, and tattooed in the face. A broad blue band stretched
across his face from ear to ear, and on his forehead was the taper
figure of a blue shark, nothing but fins from head to tail.
Some of us gazed upon this man with a feeling akin to horror, no ways
abated when informed that he had voluntarily submitted to this
embellishment of his countenance. What an impress! Far worse than
Cain’s—his was perhaps a wrinkle, or a freckle, which some of our
modern cosmetics might have effaced; but the blue shark was a mark
indelible, which all the waters of Abana and Pharpar, rivers of
Damascus, could never wash out. He was an Englishman, Lem Hardy he
called himself, who had deserted from a trading brig touching at the
island for wood and water some ten years previous. He had gone ashore
as a sovereign power armed with a musket and a bag of ammunition, and
ready if need were, to prosecute war on his own account. The country
was divided by the hostile kings of several large valleys. With one of
them, from whom he first received overtures, he formed an alliance, and
became what he now was, the military leader of the tribe, and war-god
of the entire island.
His campaigns beat Napoleon’s. In one night attack, his invincible
musket, backed by the light infantry of spears and javelins, vanquished
two clans, and the next morning brought all the others to the feet of
his royal ally.
Nor was the rise of his domestic fortunes at all behind the Corsican’s:
three days after landing, the exquisitely tattooed hand of a princess
was his; receiving along with the damsel as her portion, one thousand
fathoms of fine tappa, fifty double-braided mats of split grass, four
hundred hogs, ten houses in different parts of her native valley, and
the sacred protection of an express edict of the Taboo, declaring his
person inviolable for ever.
Now, this man was settled for life, perfectly satisfied with his
circumstances, and feeling no desire to return to his friends.
“Friends,” indeed, he had none. He told me his history. Thrown upon the
world a foundling, his paternal origin was as much a mystery to him as
the genealogy of Odin; and, scorned by everybody, he fled the parish
workhouse when a boy, and launched upon the sea. He had followed it for
several years, a dog before the mast, and now he had thrown it up for
ever.
And for the most part, it is just this sort of men—so many of whom are
found among sailors—uncared for by a single soul, without ties,
reckless, and impatient of the restraints of civilization, who are
occasionally found quite at home upon the savage islands of the
Pacific. And, glancing at their hard lot in their own country, what
marvel at their choice?
According to the renegado, there was no other white man on the island;
and as the captain could have no reason to suppose that Hardy intended
to deceive us, he concluded that the Frenchmen were in some way or
other mistaken in what they had told us. However, when our errand was
made known to the rest of our visitors, one of them, a fine, stalwart
fellow, his face all eyes and expression, volunteered for a cruise. All
the wages he asked was a red shirt, a pair of trousers, and a hat,
which were to be put on there and then; besides a plug of tobacco and a
pipe. The bargain was struck directly; but Wymontoo afterward came in
with a codicil, to the effect that a friend of his, who had come along
with him, should be given ten whole sea-biscuits, without crack or
flaw, twenty perfectly new and symmetrically straight nails, and one
jack-knife. This being agreed to, the articles were at once handed
over; the native receiving them with great avidity, and in the absence
of clothing, using his mouth as a pocket to put the nails in. Two of
them, however, were first made to take the place of a pair of
ear-ornaments, curiously fashioned out of bits of whitened wood.
It now began breezing strongly from seaward, and no time was to be lost
in getting away from the land; so after an affecting rubbing of noses
between our new shipmate and his countrymen, we sailed away with him.
To our surprise, the farewell shouts from the canoe, as we dashed along
under bellied royals, were heard unmoved by our islander; but it was
not long thus. That very evening, when the dark blue of his native
hills sunk in the horizon, the poor savage leaned over the bulwarks,
dropped his head upon his chest, and gave way to irrepressible
emotions. The ship was plunging hard, and Wymontoo, sad to tell, in
addition to his other pangs, was terribly sea-sick.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE TATTOOERS OF LA DOMINICA
For a while leaving Little Jule to sail away by herself, I will here
put down some curious information obtained from Hardy.
The renegado had lived so long on the island that its customs were
quite familiar; and I much lamented that, from the shortness of our
stay, he could not tell us more than he did.
From the little intelligence gathered, however, I learned to my
surprise that, in some things, the people of Hivarhoo, though of the
same group of islands, differed considerably from my tropical friends
in the valley of Typee.
As his tattooing attracted so much remark, Hardy had a good deal to say
concerning the manner in which that art was practised upon the island.
Throughout the entire cluster the tattooers of Hivarhoo enjoyed no
small reputation. They had carried their art to the highest perfection,
and the profession was esteemed most honourable. No wonder, then, that
like genteel tailors, they rated their services very high; so much so
that none but those belonging to the higher classes could afford to
employ them. So true was this, that the elegance of one’s tattooing was
in most cases a sure indication of birth and riches.
Professors in large practice lived in spacious houses, divided by
screens of tappa into numerous little apartments, where subjects were
waited upon in private. The arrangement chiefly grew out of a singular
ordinance of the Taboo, which enjoined the strictest privacy upon all
men, high and low, while under the hands of a tattooer. For the time,
the slightest intercourse with others is prohibited, and the small
portion of food allowed is pushed under the curtain by an unseen hand.
The restriction with regard to food, is intended to reduce the blood,
so as to diminish the inflammation consequent upon puncturing the skin.
As it is, this comes on very soon, and takes some time to heal; so that
the period of seclusion generally embraces many days, sometimes several
weeks.
All traces of soreness vanished, the subject goes abroad; but only
again to return; for, on account of the pain, only a small surface can
be operated upon at once; and as the whole body is to be more or less
embellished by a process so slow, the studios alluded to are constantly
filled. Indeed, with a vanity elsewhere unheard of, many spend no small
portion of their days thus sitting to an artist.
To begin the work, the period of adolescence is esteemed the most
suitable. After casting about for some eminent tattooer, the friends of
the youth take him to his house to have the outlines of the general
plan laid out. It behoves the professor to have a nice eye, for a suit
to be worn for life should be well cut.
Some tattooers, yearning after perfection, employ, at large wages, one
or two men of the commonest order—vile fellows, utterly regardless of
appearances, upon whom they first try their patterns and practise
generally. Their backs remorselessly scrawled over, and no more canvas
remaining, they are dismissed and ever after go about, the scorn of
their countrymen.
Hapless wights! thus martyred in the cause of the Fine Arts.
Beside the regular practitioners, there are a parcel of shabby,
itinerant tattooers, who, by virtue of their calling, stroll unmolested
from one hostile bay to another, doing their work dog-cheap for the
multitude. They always repair to the various religious festivals, which
gather great crowds. When these are concluded, and the places where
they are held vacated even by the tattooers, scores of little tents of
coarse tappa are left standing, each with a solitary inmate, who,
forbidden to talk to his unseen neighbours, is obliged to stay there
till completely healed. The itinerants are a reproach to their
profession, mere cobblers, dealing in nothing but jagged lines and
clumsy patches, and utterly incapable of soaring to those heights of
fancy attained by the gentlemen of the faculty.
All professors of the arts love to fraternize; and so, in Hannamanoo,
the tattooers came together in the chapters of their worshipful order.
In this society, duly organized, and conferring degrees, Hardy, from
his influence as a white, was a sort of honorary Grand Master. The blue
shark, and a sort of Urim and Thummim engraven upon his chest, were the
seal of his initiation. All over Hivarhoo are established these orders
of tattooers. The way in which the renegado’s came to be founded is
this. A year or two after his landing there happened to be a season of
scarcity, owing to the partial failure of the breadfruit harvest for
several consecutive seasons. This brought about such a falling off in
the number of subjects for tattooing that the profession became quite
needy. The royal ally of Hardy, however, hit upon a benevolent
expedient to provide for their wants, at the same time conferring a
boon upon many of his subjects.
By sound of conch-shell it was proclaimed before the palace, on the
beach, and at the head of the valley, that Noomai, King of Hannamanoo,
and friend of Hardee-Hardee, the white, kept open heart and table for
all tattooers whatsoever; but to entitle themselves to this
hospitality, they were commanded to practise without fee upon the
meanest native soliciting their services.
Numbers at once flocked to the royal abode, both artists and sitters.
It was a famous time; and the buildings of the palace being “taboo” to
all but the tattooers and chiefs, the sitters bivouacked on the common,
and formed an extensive encampment.
The “Lora Tattoo,” or the Time of Tattooing, will be long remembered.
An enthusiastic sitter celebrated the event in verse. Several lines
were repeated to us by Hardy, some of which, in a sort of colloquial
chant he translated nearly thus:
“Where is that sound?
In Hannamanoo.
And wherefore that sound?
The sound of a hundred hammers,
Tapping, tapping, tapping
The shark teeth.”
“Where is that light?
Round about the king’s house,
And the small laughter?
The small, merry laughter it is
Of the sons and daughters of the tattooed.”
CHAPTER IX.
WE STEER TO THE WESTWARD—STATE OF AFFAIRS
The night we left Hannamanoo was bright and starry, and so warm that,
when the watches were relieved, most of the men, instead of going
below, flung themselves around the foremast.
Toward morning, finding the heat of the forecastle unpleasant, I
ascended to the deck where everything was noiseless. The Trades were
blowing with a mild, steady strain upon the canvas, and the ship
heading right out into the immense blank of the Western Pacific. The
watch were asleep. With one foot resting on the rudder, even the man at
the helm nodded, and the mate himself, with arms folded, was leaning
against the capstan.
On such a night, and all alone, reverie was inevitable. I leaned over
the side, and could not help thinking of the strange objects we might
be sailing over.
But my meditations were soon interrupted by a gray, spectral shadow
cast over the heaving billows. It was the dawn, soon followed by the
first rays of the morning. They flashed into view at one end of the
arched night, like—to compare great things with small—the gleamings of
Guy Fawkes’s lantern in the vaults of the Parliament House. Before
long, what seemed a live ember rested for a moment on the rim of the
ocean, and at last the blood-red sun stood full and round in the level
East, and the long sea-day began.
Breakfast over, the first thing attended to was the formal baptism of
Wymontoo, who, after thinking over his affairs during the night, looked
dismal enough.
There were various opinions as to a suitable appellation. Some
maintained that we ought to call him “Sunday,” that being the day we
caught him; others, “Eighteen Forty-two,” the then year of our Lord;
while Doctor Long Ghost remarked that he ought, by all means, to retain
his original name,—Wymontoo-Hee, meaning (as he maintained), in the
figurative language of the island, something analogous to one who had
got himself into a scrape. The mate put an end to the discussion by
sousing the poor fellow with a bucket of salt water, and bestowing upon
him the nautical appellation of “Luff.”
Though a certain mirthfulness succeeded his first pangs at leaving
home, Wymontoo—we will call him thus—gradually relapsed into his former
mood, and became very melancholy. Often I noticed him crouching apart
in the forecastle, his strange eyes gleaming restlessly, and watching
the slightest movement of the men. Many a time he must have been
thinking of his bamboo hut, when they were talking of Sydney and its
dance-houses.
We were now fairly at sea, though to what particular cruising-ground we
were going, no one knew; and, to all appearances, few cared. The men,
after a fashion of their own, began to settle down into the routine of
sea-life, as if everything was going on prosperously. Blown along over
a smooth sea, there was nothing to do but steer the ship, and relieve
the “look-outs” at the mast-heads. As for the sick, they had two or
three more added to their number—the air of the island having disagreed
with the constitutions of several of the runaways. To crown all, the
captain again relapsed, and became quite ill.
The men fit for duty were divided into two small watches, headed
respectively by the mate and the Mowree; the latter by virtue of his
being a harpooner, succeeding to the place of the second mate, who had
absconded.
In this state of things whaling was out of the question; but in the
face of everything, Jermin maintained that the invalids would soon be
well. However that might be, with the same pale Hue sky overhead, we
kept running steadily to the westward. Forever advancing, we seemed
always in the same place, and every day was the former lived over
again. We saw no ships, expected to see none. No sign of life was
perceptible but the porpoises and other fish sporting under the bows
like pups ashore. But, at intervals, the gray albatross, peculiar to
these seas, came flapping his immense wings over us, and then skimmed
away silently as if from a plague-ship. Or flights of the tropic bird,
known among seamen as the “boatswain,” wheeled round and round us,
whistling shrilly as they flew.
The uncertainty hanging over our destination at this time, and the fact
that we were abroad upon waters comparatively little traversed, lent an
interest to this portion of the cruise which I shall never forget.
From obvious prudential considerations the Pacific has been principally
sailed over in known tracts, and this is the reason why new islands are
still occasionally discovered by exploring ships and adventurous
whalers notwithstanding the great number of vessels of all kinds of
late navigating this vast ocean. Indeed, considerable portions still
remain wholly unexplored; and there is doubt as to the actual existence
of certain shoals, and reefs, and small clusters of islands vaguely
laid down in the charts. The mere circumstance, therefore, of a ship
like ours penetrating into these regions, was sufficient to cause any
reflecting mind to feel at least a little uneasy. For my own part, the
many stories I had heard of ships striking at midnight upon unknown
rocks, with all sail set, and a slumbering crew, often recurred to me,
especially, as from the absence of discipline, and our being so
shorthanded, the watches at night were careless in the extreme.
But no thoughts like these were entertained by my reckless shipmates;
and along we went, the sun every evening setting right ahead of our jib
boom.
For what reason the mate was so reserved with regard to our precise
destination was never made known. The stories he told us, I, for one,
did not believe; deeming them all a mere device to lull the crew.
He said we were bound to a fine cruising ground, scarcely known to
other whalemen, which he had himself discovered when commanding a small
brig upon a former voyage. Here, the sea was alive with large whales,
so tame that all you had to do was to go up and kill them: they were
too frightened to resist. A little to leeward of this was a small
cluster of islands, where we were going to refit, abounding with
delicious fruits, and peopled by a race almost wholly unsophisticated
by intercourse with strangers.
In order, perhaps, to guard against the possibility of anyone finding
out the precise latitude and longitude of the spot we were going to,
Jermin never revealed to us the ship’s place at noon, though such is
the custom aboard of most vessels.
Meanwhile, he was very assiduous in his attention to the invalids.
Doctor Long Ghost having given up the keys of the medicine-chest, they
were handed over to him; and, as physician, he discharged his duties to
the satisfaction of all. Pills and powders, in most cases, were thrown
to the fish, and in place thereof, the contents of a mysterious little
quarter cask were produced, diluted with water from the “butt.” His
draughts were mixed on the capstan, in cocoa-nut shells marked with the
patients’ names. Like shore doctors, he did not eschew his own
medicines, for his professional calls in the forecastle were sometimes
made when he was comfortably tipsy: nor did he omit keeping his
invalids in good-humour, spinning his yarns to them, by the hour,
whenever he went to see them.
Owing to my lameness, from which I soon began to recover, I did no
active duty, except standing an occasional “trick” at the helm. It was
in the forecastle chiefly, that I spent my time, in company with the
Long Doctor, who was at great pains to make himself agreeable. His
books, though sadly torn and tattered, were an invaluable resource. I
read them through again and again, including a learned treatise on the
yellow fever. In addition to these, he had an old file of Sydney
papers, and I soon became intimately acquainted with the localities of
all the advertising tradesmen there. In particular, the rhetorical
flourishes of Stubbs, the real-estate auctioneer, diverted me
exceedingly, and I set him down as no other than a pupil of Robins the
Londoner.
Aside from the pleasure of his society, my intimacy with Long Ghost was
of great service to me in other respects. His disgrace in the cabin
only confirmed the good-will of the democracy in the forecastle; and
they not only treated him in the most friendly manner, but looked up to
him with the utmost deference, besides laughing heartily at all his
jokes. As his chosen associate, this feeling for him extended to me,
and gradually we came to be regarded in the light of distinguished
guests. At meal-times we were always first served, and otherwise were
treated with much respect.
Among other devices to kill time, during the frequent calms, Long Ghost
hit upon the game of chess. With a jack-knife, we carved the pieces
quite tastefully out of bits of wood, and our board was the middle of a
chest-lid, chalked into squares, which, in playing, we straddled at
either end. Having no other suitable way of distinguishing the sets, I
marked mine by tying round them little scarfs of black silk, torn from
an old neck-handkerchief. Putting them in mourning this way, the doctor
said, was quite appropriate, seeing that they had reason to feel sad
three games out of four. Of chess, the men never could make head nor
tail; indeed, their wonder rose to such a pitch that they at last
regarded the mysterious movements of the game with something more than
perplexity; and after puzzling over them through several long
engagements, they came to the conclusion that we must be a couple of
necromancers.
CHAPTER X.
A SEA-PARLOUR DESCRIBED, WITH SOME OF ITS TENANTS
I might as well give some idea of the place in which the doctor and I
lived together so sociably.
Most persons know that a ship’s forecastle embraces the forward part of
the deck about the bowsprit: the same term, however, is generally
bestowed upon the sailors’ sleeping-quarters, which occupy a space
immediately beneath, and are partitioned off by a bulkhead.
Planted right in the bows, or, as sailors say, in the very eyes of the
ship, this delightful apartment is of a triangular shape, and is
generally fitted with two tiers of rude bunks. Those of the Julia were
in a most deplorable condition, mere wrecks, some having been torn down
altogether to patch up others; and on one side there were but two
standing. But with most of the men it made little difference whether
they had a bunk or not, since, having no bedding, they had nothing to
put in it but themselves.
Upon the boards of my own crib I spread all the old canvas and old
clothes I could pick up. For a pillow, I wrapped an old jacket round a
log. This helped a little the wear and tear of one’s bones when the
ship rolled.
Rude hammocks made out of old sails were in many cases used as
substitutes for the demolished bunks; but the space they swung in was
so confined that they were far from being agreeable.
The general aspect of the forecastle was dungeon-like and dingy in the
extreme. In the first place, it was not five feet from deck to deck and
even this space was encroached upon by two outlandish cross-timbers
bracing the vessel, and by the sailors’ chests, over which you must
needs crawl in getting about. At meal-times, and especially when we
indulged in after-dinner chat, we sat about the chests like a parcel of
tailors.
In the middle of all were two square, wooden columns, denominated in
marine architecture “Bowsprit Bitts.” They were about a foot apart, and
between them, by a rusty chain, swung the forecastle lamp, burning day
and night, and forever casting two long black shadows. Lower down,
between the bitts, was a locker, or sailors’ pantry, kept in abominable
disorder, and sometimes requiring a vigorous cleaning and fumigation.
All over, the ship was in a most dilapidated condition; but in the
forecastle it looked like the hollow of an old tree going to decay. In
every direction the wood was damp and discoloured, and here and there
soft and porous. Moreover, it was hacked and hewed without mercy, the
cook frequently helping himself to splinters for kindling-wood from the
bitts and beams. Overhead, every carline was sooty, and here and there
deep holes were burned in them, a freak of some drunken sailors on a
voyage long previous.
From above, you entered by a plank, with two elects, slanting down from
the scuttle, which was a mere hole in the deck. There being no slide to
draw over in case of emergency, the tarpaulin temporarily placed there
was little protection from the spray heaved over the bows; so that in
anything of a breeze the place was miserably wet. In a squall, the
water fairly poured down in sheets like a cascade, swashing about, and
afterward spirting up between the chests like the jets of a fountain.
Such were our accommodations aboard of the Julia; but bad as they were,
we had not the undisputed possession of them. Myriads of cockroaches,
and regiments of rats disputed the place with us. A greater calamity
than this can scarcely befall a vessel in the South Seas.
So warm is the climate that it is almost impossible to get rid of them.
You may seal up every hatchway, and fumigate the hull till the smoke
forces itself out at the seams, and enough will survive to repeople the
ship in an incredibly short period. In some vessels, the crews of which
after a hard fight have given themselves up, as it were, for lost, the
vermin seem to take actual possession, the sailors being mere tenants
by sufferance. With Sperm Whalemen, hanging about the Line, as many of
them do for a couple of years on a stretch, it is infinitely worse than
with other vessels.
As for the Julia, these creatures never had such free and easy times as
they did in her crazy old hull; every chink and cranny swarmed with
them; they did not live among you, but you among them. So true was
this, that the business of eating and drinking was better done in the
dark than in the light of day.
Concerning the cockroaches, there was an extraordinary phenomenon, for
which none of us could ever account.
Every night they had a jubilee. The first symptom was an unusual
clustering and humming among the swarms lining the beams overhead, and
the inside of the sleeping-places. This was succeeded by a prodigious
coming and going on the part of those living out of sight Presently
they all came forth; the larger sort racing over the chests and planks;
winged monsters darting to and fro in the air; and the small fry
buzzing in heaps almost in a state of fusion.
On the first alarm, all who were able darted on deck; while some of the
sick who were too feeble, lay perfectly quiet—the distracted vermin
running over them at pleasure. The performance lasted some ten minutes,
during which no hive ever hummed louder. Often it was lamented by us
that the time of the visitation could never be predicted; it was liable
to come upon us at any hour of the night, and what a relief it was,
when it happened to fall in the early part of the evening.
Nor must I forget the rats: they did not forget me. Tame as Trenck’s
mouse, they stood in their holes peering at you like old grandfathers
in a doorway. Often they darted in upon us at meal-times, and nibbled
our food. The first time they approached Wymontoo, he was actually
frightened; but becoming accustomed to it, he soon got along with them
much better than the rest. With curious dexterity he seized the animals
by their legs, and flung them up the scuttle to find a watery grave.
But I have a story of my own to tell about these rats. One day the
cabin steward made me a present of some molasses, which I was so choice
of that I kept it hid away in a tin can in the farthest corner of my
bunk. Faring as we did, this molasses dropped upon a biscuit was a
positive luxury, which I shared with none but the doctor, and then only
in private. And sweet as the treacle was, how could bread thus prepared
and eaten in secret be otherwise than pleasant?
One night our precious can ran low, and in canting it over in the dark,
something beside the molasses slipped out. How long it had been there,
kind Providence never revealed; nor were we over anxious to know; for
we hushed up the bare thought as quickly as possible. The creature
certainly died a luscious death, quite equal to Clarence’s in the butt
of Malmsey.
CHAPTER XI.
DOCTOR LONG GHOST A WAG—ONE OF HIS CAPERS
Grave though he was at times, Doctor Long Ghost was a decided wag.
Everyone knows what lovers of fun sailors are ashore—afloat, they are
absolutely mad after it. So his pranks were duly appreciated.
The poor old black cook! Unlashing his hammock for the night, and
finding a wet log fast asleep in it; and then waking in the morning
with his woolly head tarred. Opening his coppers, and finding an old
boot boiling away as saucy as could be, and sometimes cakes of pitch
candying in his oven.
Baltimore’s tribulations were indeed sore; there was no peace for him
day nor night. Poor fellow! he was altogether too good-natured. Say
what they will about easy-tempered people, it is far better, on some
accounts, to have the temper of a wolf. Whoever thought of taking
liberties with gruff Black Dan?
The most curious of the doctor’s jokes, was hoisting the men aloft by
the foot or shoulder, when they fell asleep on deck during the
night-watches.
Ascending from the forecastle on one occasion, he found every soul
napping, and forthwith went about his capers. Fastening a rope’s end to
each sleeper, he rove the lines through a number of blocks, and
conducted them all to the windlass; then, by heaving round cheerily, in
spite of cries and struggles, he soon had them dangling aloft in all
directions by arms and legs. Waked by the uproar, we rushed up from
below, and found the poor fellows swinging in the moonlight from the
tops and lower yard-arms, like a parcel of pirates gibbeted at sea by a
cruiser.
Connected with this sort of diversion was another prank of his. During
the night some of those on deck would come below to light a pipe, or
take a mouthful of beef and biscuit. Sometimes they fell asleep; and
being missed directly that anything was to be done, their shipmates
often amused themselves by running them aloft with a pulley dropped
down the scuttle from the fore-top.
One night, when all was perfectly still, I lay awake in the forecastle;
the lamp was burning low and thick, and swinging from its blackened
beam; and with the uniform motion of the ship, the men in the bunks
rolled slowly from side to side; the hammocks swaying in unison.
Presently I heard a foot upon the ladder, and looking up, saw a wide
trousers’ leg. Immediately, Navy Bob, a stout old Triton, stealthily
descended, and at once went to groping in the locker after something to
eat.
Supper ended, he proceeded to load his pipe. Now, for a good
comfortable smoke at sea, there never was a better place than the
Julia’s forecastle at midnight. To enjoy the luxury, one wants to fall
into a kind of dreamy reverie, only known to the children of the weed.
And the very atmosphere of the place, laden as it was with the snores
of the sleepers, was inducive of this. No wonder, then, that after a
while Bob’s head sunk upon his breast; presently his hat fell off, the
extinguished pipe dropped from his mouth, and the next moment he lay
out on the chest as tranquil as an infant.
Suddenly an order was heard on deck, followed by the trampling of feet
and the hauling of rigging. The yards were being braced, and soon after
the sleeper was missed: for there was a whispered conference over the
scuttle.
Directly a shadow glided across the forecastle and noiselessly
approached the unsuspecting Bob. It was one of the watch with the end
of a rope leading out of sight up the scuttle. Pausing an instant, the
sailor pressed softly the chest of his victim, sounding his slumbers;
and then hitching the cord to his ankle, returned to the deck.
Hardly was his back turned, when a long limb was thrust from a hammock
opposite, and Doctor Long Ghost, leaping forth warily, whipped the rope
from Bob’s ankle, and fastened it like lightning to a great lumbering
chest, the property of the man who had just disappeared.
Scarcely was the thing done, when lo! with a thundering bound, the
clumsy box was torn from its fastenings, and banging from side to side,
flew toward the scuttle. Here it jammed; and thinking that Bob, who was
as strong as a windlass, was grappling a beam and trying to cut the
line, the jokers on deck strained away furiously. On a sudden, the
chest went aloft, and striking against the mast, flew open, raining
down on the heads of a party the merciless shower of things too
numerous to mention.
Of course the uproar roused all hands, and when we hurried on deck,
there was the owner of the box, looking aghast at its scattered
contents, and with one wandering hand taking the altitude of a bump on
his head.
CHAPTER XII.
DEATH AND BURIAL OF TWO OF THE CREW
The mirthfulness which at times reigned among us was in strange and
shocking contrast with the situation of some of the invalids. Thus at
least did it seem to me, though not to others.
But an event occurred about this period, which, in removing by far the
most pitiable cases of suffering, tended to make less grating to my
feelings the subsequent conduct of the crew.
We had been at sea about twenty days, when two of the sick who had
rapidly grown worse, died one night within an hour of each other.
One occupied a bunk right next to mine, and for several days had not
risen from it. During this period he was often delirious, starting up
and glaring around him, and sometimes wildly tossing his arms.
On the night of his decease, I retired shortly after the middle watch
began, and waking from a vague dream of horrors, felt something clammy
resting on me. It was the sick man’s hand. Two or three times during
the evening previous, he had thrust it into my bunk, and I had quietly
removed it; but now I started and flung it from me. The arm fell stark
and stiff, and I knew that he was dead.
Waking the men, the corpse was immediately rolled up in the strips of
blanketing upon which it lay, and carried on deck. The mate was then
called, and preparations made for an instantaneous’ burial. Laying the
body out on the forehatch, it was stitched up in one of the hammocks,
some “kentledge” being placed at the feet instead of shot. This done,
it was borne to the gangway, and placed on a plank laid across the
bulwarks. Two men supported the inside end. By way of solemnity, the
ship’s headway was then stopped by hauling aback the main-top-sail.
The mate, who was far from being sober, then staggered up, and holding
on to a shroud, gave the word. As the plank tipped, the body slid off
slowly, and fell with a splash into the sea. A bubble or two, and
nothing more was seen.
“Brace forward!” The main-yard swung round to its place, and the ship
glided on, whilst the corpse, perhaps, was still sinking.
We had tossed a shipmate to the sharks, but no one would have thought
it, to have gone among the crew immediately after. The dead man had
been a churlish, unsocial fellow, while alive, and no favourite; and
now that he was no more, little thought was bestowed upon him. All that
was said was concerning the disposal of his chest, which, having been
always kept locked, was supposed to contain money. Someone volunteered
to break it open, and distribute its contents, clothing and all, before
the captain should demand it.
While myself and others were endeavouring to dissuade them from this,
all started at a cry from the forecastle. There could be no one there
but two of the sick, unable to crawl on deck. We went below, and found
one of them dying on a chest. He had fallen out of his hammock in a
fit, and was insensible. The eyes were open and fixed, and his breath
coming and going convulsively. The men shrunk from him; but the doctor,
taking his hand, held it a few moments in his, and suddenly letting it
fall, exclaimed, “He’s gone!” The body was instantly borne up the
ladder.
Another hammock was soon prepared, and the dead sailor stitched up as
before. Some additional ceremony, however, was now insisted upon, and a
Bible was called for. But none was to be had, not even a Prayer Book.
When this was made known, Antone, a Portuguese, from the Cape-de-Verd
Islands, stepped up, muttering something over the corpse of his
countryman, and, with his finger, described upon the back of the
hammock the figure of a large cross; whereupon it received the
death-launch.
These two men both perished from the proverbial indiscretions of
seamen, heightened by circumstances apparent; but had either of them
been ashore under proper treatment, he would, in all human probability,
have recovered.
Behold here the fate of a sailor! They give him the last toss, and no
one asks whose child he was.
For the rest of that night there was no more sleep. Many stayed on deck
until broad morning, relating to each other those marvellous tales of
the sea which the occasion was calculated to call forth. Little as I
believed in such things, I could not listen to some of these stories
unaffected. Above all was I struck by one of the carpenter’s.
On a voyage to India, they had a fever aboard, which carried off nearly
half the crew in the space of a few days. After this the men never went
aloft in the night-time, except in couples. When topsails were to be
reefed, phantoms were seen at the yard-arm ends; and in tacking ship,
voices called aloud from the tops. The carpenter himself, going with
another man to furl the main-top-gallant-sail in a squall, was nearly
pushed from the rigging by an unseen hand; and his shipmate swore that
a wet hammock was flirted in his face.
Stories like these were related as gospel truths, by those who declared
themselves eye-witnesses.
It is a circumstance not generally known, perhaps, that among ignorant
seamen, Philanders, or Finns, as they are more commonly called, are
regarded with peculiar superstition. For some reason or other, which I
never could get at, they are supposed to possess the gift of second
sight, and the power to wreak supernatural vengeance upon those who
offend them. On this account they have great influence among sailors,
and two or three with whom I have sailed at different times were
persons well calculated to produce this sort of impression, at least
upon minds disposed to believe in such things.
Now, we had one of these sea-prophets aboard; an old, yellow-haired
fellow, who always wore a rude seal-skin cap of his own make, and
carried his tobacco in a large pouch made of the same stuff. Van, as we
called him, was a quiet, inoffensive man, to look at, and, among such a
set, his occasional peculiarities had hitherto passed for nothing. At
this time, however, he came out with a prediction, which was none the
less remarkable from its absolute fulfilment, though not exactly in the
spirit in which it was given out.
The night of the burial he laid his hand on the old horseshoe nailed as
a charm to the foremast, and solemnly told us that, in less than three
weeks, not one quarter of our number would remain aboard the ship—by
that time they would have left her for ever.
Some laughed; Flash Jack called him an old fool; but among the men
generally it produced a marked effect. For several days a degree of
quiet reigned among us, and allusions of such a kind were made to
recent events, as could be attributed to no other cause than the Finn’s
omen.
For my own part, what had lately come to pass was not without its
influence. It forcibly brought to mind our really critical condition.
Doctor Long Ghost, too, frequently revealed his apprehensions, and once
assured me that he would give much to be safely landed upon any island
around us.
Where we were, exactly, no one but the mate seemed to know, nor whither
we were going. The captain—a mere cipher—was an invalid in his cabin;
to say nothing more of so many of his men languishing in the
forecastle.
Our keeping the sea under these circumstances, a matter strange enough
at first, now seemed wholly unwarranted; and added to all was the
thought that our fate was absolutely in the hand of the reckless
Jermin. Were anything to happen to him, we would be left without a
navigator, for, according to Jermin himself, he had, from the
commencement of the voyage, always kept the ship’s reckoning, the
captain’s nautical knowledge being insufficient.
But considerations like these, strange as it may seem, seldom or never
occurred to the crew. They were alive only to superstitious fears; and
when, in apparent contradiction to the Finn’s prophecy, the sick men
rallied a little, they began to recover their former spirits, and the
recollection of what had occurred insensibly faded from their minds. In
a week’s time, the unworthiness of Little Jule as a sea vessel, always
a subject of jest, now became more so than ever. In the forecastle,
Flash Jack, with his knife, often dug into the dank, rotten planks
ribbed between us and death, and flung away the splinters with some sea
joke.
As to the remaining invalids, they were hardly ill enough to occasion
any serious apprehension, at least for the present, in the breasts of
such thoughtless beings as themselves. And even those who suffered the
most, studiously refrained from any expression of pain.
The truth is, that among sailors as a class, sickness at sea is so
heartily detested, and the sick so little cared for, that the greatest
invalid generally strives to mask his sufferings. He has given no
sympathy to others, and he expects none in return. Their conduct, in
this respect, so opposed to their generous-hearted behaviour ashore,
painfully affects the landsman on his first intercourse with them as a
sailor.
Sometimes, but seldom, our invalids inveighed against their being kept
at sea, where they could be of no service, when they ought to be ashore
and in the way of recovery. But—“Oh! cheer up—cheer up, my
hearties!”—the mate would say. And after this fashion he put a stop to
their murmurings.
But there was one circumstance, to which heretofore I have but barely
alluded, that tended more than anything else to reconcile many to their
situation. This was the receiving regularly, twice every day, a certain
portion of Pisco, which was served out at the capstan, by the steward,
in little tin measures called “tots.”
The lively affection seamen have for strong drink is well known; but in
the South Seas, where it is so seldom to be had, a thoroughbred sailor
deems scarcely any price too dear which will purchase his darling
“tot.” Nowadays, American whalemen in the Pacific never think of
carrying spirits as a ration; and aboard of most of them, it is never
served out even in times of the greatest hardships. All Sydney
whalemen, however, still cling to the old custom, and carry it as a
part of the regular supplies for the voyage.
In port, the allowance of Pisco was suspended; with a view,
undoubtedly, of heightening the attractions of being out of sight of
land.
Now, owing to the absence of proper discipline, our sick, in addition
to what they took medicinally, often came in for their respective
“tots” convivially; and, added to all this, the evening of the last day
of the week was always celebrated by what is styled on board of English
vessels “The Saturday-night bottles.” Two of these were sent down into
the forecastle, just after dark; one for the starboard watch, and the
other for the larboard.
By prescription, the oldest seaman in each claims the treat as his,
and, accordingly, pours out the good cheer and passes it round like a
lord doing the honours of his table. But the Saturday-night bottles
were not all. The carpenter and cooper, in sea parlance, Chips and
Bungs, who were the “Cods,” or leaders of the forecastle, in some way
or other, managed to obtain an extra supply, which perpetually kept
them in fine after-dinner spirits, and, moreover, disposed them to look
favourably upon a state of affairs like the present.
But where were the sperm whales all this time? In good sooth, it made
little matter where they were, since we were in no condition to capture
them. About this time, indeed, the men came down from the mast-heads,
where, until now, they had kept up the form of relieving each other
every two hours. They swore they would go there no more. Upon this, the
mate carelessly observed that they would soon be where look-outs were
entirely unnecessary, the whales he had in his eye (though Flash Jack
said they were all in his) being so tame that they made a practice of
coming round ships, and scratching their backs against them.
Thus went the world of waters with us, some four weeks or more after
leaving Hannamanoo.
CHAPTER XIII.
OUR DESTINATION CHANGED
It was not long after the death of the two men, that Captain Guy was
reported as fast declining, and in a day or two more, as dying. The
doctor, who previously had refused to enter the cabin upon any
consideration, now relented, and paid his old enemy a professional
visit.
He prescribed a warm bath, which was thus prepared. The skylight being
removed, a cask was lowered down into the cabin, and then filled with
buckets of water from the ship’s coppers. The cries of the patient,
when dipped into his rude bath, were most painful to hear. They at last
laid him on the transom, more dead than alive.
That evening, the mate was perfectly sober, and coming forward to the
windlass, where we were lounging, summoned aft the doctor, myself, and
two or three others of his favourites; when, in the presence of Bembo
the Mowree, he spoke to us thus:
“I have something to say to ye, men. There’s none but Bembo here as
belongs aft, so I’ve picked ye out as the best men for’ard to take
counsel with, d’ye see, consarning the ship. The captain’s anchor is
pretty nigh atrip; I shouldn’t wonder if he croaked afore morning. So
what’s to be done? If we have to sew him up, some of those pirates
there for’ard may take it into their heads to run off with the ship,
because there’s no one at the tiller. Now, I’ve detarmined what’s best
to be done; but I don’t want to do it unless I’ve good men to back me,
and make things all fair and square if ever we get home again.”
We all asked what his plan was.
“I’ll tell ye what it is, men. If the skipper dies, all agree to obey
my orders, and in less than three weeks I’ll engage to have five
hundred barrels of sperm oil under hatches: enough to give every
mother’s son of ye a handful of dollars when we get to Sydney. If ye
don’t agree to this, ye won’t have a farthing coming to ye.”
Doctor Long Ghost at once broke in. He said that such a thing was not
to be dreamt of; that if the captain died, the mate was in duty bound
to navigate the ship to the nearest civilized port, and deliver her up
into an English consul’s hands; when, in all probability, after a run
ashore, the crew would be sent home. Everything forbade the mate’s
plan. “Still,” said he, assuming an air of indifference, “if the men
say stick it out, stick it out say I; but in that case, the sooner we
get to those islands of yours the better.”
Something more he went on to say; and from the manner in which the rest
regarded him, it was plain that our fate was in his hands. It was
finally resolved upon, that if Captain Guy was no better in twenty-four
hours, the ship’s head should be pointed for the island of Tahiti.
This announcement produced a strong sensation—the sick rallied—and the
rest speculated as to what was next to befall us; while the doctor,
without alluding to Guy, congratulated me upon the prospect of soon
beholding a place so famous as the island in question.
The night after the holding of the council, I happened to go on deck in
the middle watch, and found the yards braced sharp up on the larboard
tack, with the South East Trades strong on our bow. The captain was no
better; and we were off for Tahiti.
CHAPTER XIV.
ROPE YARN
While gliding along on our way, I cannot well omit some account of a
poor devil we had among us, who went by the name of Rope Yarn, or
Ropey.
He was a nondescript who had joined the ship as a landsman. Being so
excessively timid and awkward, it was thought useless to try and make a
sailor of him; so he was translated into the cabin as steward; the man
previously filling that post, a good seaman, going among the crew and
taking his place. But poor Ropey proved quite as clumsy among the
crockery as in the rigging; and one day when the ship was pitching,
having stumbled into the cabin with a wooden tureen of soup, he scalded
the officers so that they didn’t get over it in a week. Upon which, he
was dismissed, and returned to the forecastle.
Now, nobody is so heartily despised as a pusillanimous, lazy,
good-for-nothing land-lubber; a sailor has no bowels of compassion for
him. Yet, useless as such a character may be in many respects, a ship’s
company is by no means disposed to let him reap any benefit from his
deficiencies. Regarded in the light of a mechanical power, whenever
there is any plain, hard work to be done, he is put to it like a lever;
everyone giving him a pry.
Then, again, he is set about all the vilest work. Is there a heavy job
at tarring to be done, he is pitched neck and shoulders into a
tar-barrel, and set to work at it. Moreover, he is made to fetch and
carry like a dog. Like as not, if the mate sends him after his
quadrant, on the way he is met by the captain, who orders him to pick
some oakum; and while he is hunting up a bit of rope, a sailor comes
along and wants to know what the deuce he’s after, and bids him be off
to the forecastle.
“Obey the last order,” is a precept inviolable at sea. So the
land-lubber, afraid to refuse to do anything, rushes about distracted,
and does nothing: in the end receiving a shower of kicks and cuffs from
all quarters.
Added to his other hardships, he is seldom permitted to open his mouth
unless spoken to; and then, he might better keep silent. Alas for him!
if he should happen to be anything of a droll; for in an evil hour
should he perpetrate a joke, he would never know the last of it.
The witticisms of others, however, upon himself, must be received in
the greatest good-humour.
Woe be unto him, if at meal-times he so much as look sideways at the
beef-kid before the rest are helped.
Then he is obliged to plead guilty to every piece of mischief which the
real perpetrator refuses to acknowledge; thus taking the place of that
sneaking rascal nobody, ashore. In short, there is no end to his
tribulations.
The land-lubber’s spirits often sink, and the first result of his being
moody and miserable is naturally enough an utter neglect of his toilet.
The sailors perhaps ought to make allowances; but heartless as they
are, they do not. No sooner is his cleanliness questioned than they
rise upon him like a mob of the Middle Ages upon a Jew; drag him into
the lee-scuppers, and strip him to the buff. In vain he bawls for
mercy; in vain calls upon the captain to save him.
Alas! I say again, for the land-lubber at sea. He is the veriest wretch
the watery world over. And such was Rope Yarn; of all landlubbers, the
most lubberly and most miserable. A forlorn, stunted, hook-visaged
mortal he was too; one of those whom you know at a glance to have been
tried hard and long in the furnace of affliction. His face was an
absolute puzzle; though sharp and sallow, it had neither the wrinkles
of age nor the smoothness of youth; so that for the soul of me, I could
hardly tell whether he was twenty-five or fifty.
But to his history. In his better days, it seems he had been a
journeyman baker in London, somewhere about Holborn; and on Sundays
wore a Hue coat and metal buttons, and spent his afternoons in a
tavern, smoking his pipe and drinking his ale like a free and easy
journeyman baker that he was. But this did not last long; for an
intermeddling old fool was the ruin of him. He was told that London
might do very well for elderly gentlemen and invalids; but for a lad of
spirit, Australia was the Land of Promise. In a dark day Ropey wound up
his affairs and embarked.
Arriving in Sydney with a small capital, and after a while waxing snug
and comfortable by dint of hard kneading, he took unto himself a wife;
and so far as she was concerned, might then have gone into the country
and retired; for she effectually did his business. In short, the lady
worked him woe in heart and pocket; and in the end, ran off with his
till and his foreman. Ropey went to the sign of the Pipe and Tankard;
got fuddled; and over his fifth pot meditated suicide—an intention
carried out; for the next day he shipped as landsman aboard the Julia,
South Seaman.
The ex-baker would have fared far better, had it not been for his
heart, which was soft and underdone. A kind word made a fool of him;
and hence most of the scrapes he got into. Two or three wags, aware of
his infirmity, used to “draw him out” in conversation whenever the most
crabbed and choleric old seamen were present.
To give an instance. The watch below, just waked from their sleep, are
all at breakfast; and Ropey, in one corner, is disconsolately partaking
of its delicacies. “Now, sailors newly waked are no cherubs; and
therefore not a word is spoken, everybody munching his biscuit, grim
and unshaven. At this juncture an affable-looking scamp—Flash
Jack—crosses the forecastle, tin can in hand, and seats himself beside
the land-lubber.
“Hard fare this, Ropey,” he begins; “hard enough, too, for them that’s
known better and lived in Lun’nun. I say now, Ropey, s’posing you were
back to Holborn this morning, what would you have for breakfast, eh?”
“Have for breakfast!” cried Ropey in a rapture. “Don’t speak of it!”
“What ails that fellow?” here growled an old sea-bear, turning round
savagely.
“Oh, nothing, nothing,” said Jack; and then, leaning over to Rope Yarn,
he bade him go on, but speak lower.
“Well, then,” said he, in a smuggled tone, his eyes lighting up like
two lanterns, “well, then, I’d go to Mother Moll’s that makes the great
muffins: I’d go there, you know, and cock my foot on the ’ob, and call
for a noggin o’ somethink to begin with.”
“What then, Ropey?”
“Why then, Flashy,” continued the poor victim, unconsciously warming
with his theme: “why then, I’d draw my chair up and call for Betty, the
gal wot tends to customers. Betty, my dear, says I, you looks charmin’
this mornin’; give me a nice rasher of bacon and h’eggs, Betty my love;
and I wants a pint of h’ale, and three nice h’ot muffins and butter—and
a slice of Cheshire; and Betty, I wants—”
“A shark-steak, and be hanged to you!” roared Black Dan, with an oath.
Whereupon, dragged over the chests, the ill-starred fellow is pummelled
on deck.
I always made a point of befriending poor Ropey when I could; and, for
this reason, was a great favourite of his.
CHAPTER XV.
CHIPS AND BUNGS
Bound into port, Chips and Bungs increased their devotion to the
bottle; and, to the unspeakable envy of the rest, these jolly
companions—or “the Partners,” as the men called them—rolled about deck,
day after day, in the merriest mood imaginable.
But jolly as they were in the main, two more discreet tipplers it would
be hard to find. No one ever saw them take anything, except when the
regular allowance was served out by the steward; and to make them quite
sober and sensible, you had only to ask them how they contrived to keep
otherwise. Some time after, however, their secret leaked out.
The casks of Pisco were kept down the after-hatchway, which, for this
reason, was secured with bar and padlock. The cooper, nevertheless,
from time to time, effected a burglarious entry, by descending into the
fore-hold; and then, at the risk of being jammed to death, crawling
along over a thousand obstructions, to where the casks were stowed.
On the first expedition, the only one to be got at lay among others,
upon its bilge with the bung-hole well over. With a bit of iron hoop,
suitably bent, and a good deal of prying and punching, the bung was
forced in; and then the cooper’s neck-handkerchief, attached to the end
of the hoop, was drawn in and out—the absorbed liquor being
deliberately squeezed into a small bucket.
Bungs was a man after a barkeeper’s own heart. Drinking steadily, until
just manageably tipsy, he contrived to continue so; getting neither
more nor less inebriated, but, to use his own phrase, remaining “just
about right.” When in this interesting state, he had a free lurch in
his gait, a queer way of hitching up his waistbands, looked
unnecessarily steady at you when speaking, and for the rest, was in
very tolerable spirits. At these times, moreover, he was exceedingly
patriotic; and in a most amusing way, frequently showed his patriotism
whenever he happened to encounter Dunk, a good-natured, square-faced
Dane, aboard.
It must be known here, by the bye, that the cooper had a true sailor
admiration for Lord Nelson. But he entertained a very erroneous idea of
the personal appearance of the hero. Not content with depriving him of
an eye and an arm, he stoutly maintained that he had also lost a leg in
one of his battles. Under this impression, he sometimes hopped up to
Dunk with one leg curiously locked behind him into his right arm, at
the same time closing an eye.
In this attitude he would call upon him to look up, and behold the man
who gave his countrymen such a thrashing at Copenhagen. “Look you,
Dunk,” says he, staggering about, and winking hard with one eye to keep
the other shut, “Look you; one man—hang me, half a man—with one leg,
one arm, one eye—hang me, with only a piece of a carcase, flogged your
whole shabby nation. Do you deny it you lubber?”
The Dane was a mule of a man, and understanding but little English,
seldom made anything of a reply; so the cooper generally dropped his
leg, and marched off, with the air of a man who despised saying
anything further.
CHAPTER XVI.
WE ENCOUNTER A GALE
The mild blue weather we enjoyed after leaving the Marquesas gradually
changed as we ran farther south and approached Tahiti. In these
generally tranquil seas, the wind sometimes blows with great violence;
though, as every sailor knows, a spicy gale in the tropic latitudes of
the Pacific is far different from a tempest in the howling North
Atlantic. We soon found ourselves battling with the waves, while the
before mild Trades, like a woman roused, blew fiercely, but still
warmly, in our face.
For all this, the mate carried sail without stint; and as for brave
little Jule, she stood up to it well; and though once in a while
floored in the trough of a sea, sprang to her keel again and showed
play. Every old timber groaned—every spar buckled—every chafed cord
strained; and yet, spite of all, she plunged on her way like a racer.
Jermin, sea-jockey that he was, sometimes stood in the fore-chains,
with the spray every now and then dashing over him, and shouting out,
“Well done, Jule—dive into it, sweetheart. Hurrah!”
One afternoon there was a mighty queer noise aloft, which set the men
running in every direction. It was the main-t’-gallant-mast. Crash! it
broke off just above the cap, and held there by the rigging, dashed
with every roll from side to side, with all the hamper that belonged to
it. The yard hung by a hair, and at every pitch, thumped against the
cross-trees; while the sail streamed in ribbons, and the loose ropes
coiled, and thrashed the air, like whip-lashes. “Stand from under!” and
down came the rattling blocks, like so many shot. The yard, with a snap
and a plunge, went hissing into the sea, disappeared, and shot its full
length out again. The crest of a great wave then broke over it—the ship
rushed by—and we saw the stick no more.
While this lively breeze continued, Baltimore, our old black cook, was
in great tribulation.
Like most South Seamen, the Julia’s “caboose,” or cook-house, was
planted on the larboard side of the forecastle. Under such a press of
canvas, and with the heavy sea running the barque, diving her bows
under, now and then shipped green glassy waves, which, breaking over
the head-rails, fairly deluged that part of the ship, and washed clean
aft. The caboose-house—thought to be fairly lashed down to its
place—served as a sort of breakwater to the inundation.
About these times, Baltimore always wore what he called his “gale
suit,” among other things comprising a Sou’-wester and a huge pair of
well-anointed sea-boots, reaching almost to his knees. Thus equipped
for a ducking or a drowning, as the case might be, our culinary
high-priest drew to the slides of his temple, and performed his sooty
rites in secret.
So afraid was the old man of being washed overboard that he actually
fastened one end of a small line to his waistbands, and coiling the
rest about him, made use of it as occasion required. When engaged
outside, he unwound the cord, and secured one end to a ringbolt in the
deck; so that if a chance sea washed him off his feet, it could do
nothing more.
One evening just as he was getting supper, the Julia reared up on her
stern like a vicious colt, and when she settled again forward, fairly
dished a tremendous sea. Nothing could withstand it. One side of the
rotten head-bulwarks came in with a crash; it smote the caboose, tore
it from its moorings, and after boxing it about, dashed it against the
windlass, where it stranded. The water then poured along the deck like
a flood rolling over and over, pots, pans, and kettles, and even old
Baltimore himself, who went breaching along like a porpoise.
Striking the taffrail, the wave subsided, and washing from side to
side, left the drowning cook high and dry on the after-hatch: his
extinguished pipe still between his teeth, and almost bitten in two.
The few men on deck having sprung into the main-rigging, sailor-like,
did nothing but roar at his calamity.
The same night, our flying-jib-boom snapped off like a pipe-stem, and
our spanker-gaff came down by the run.
By the following morning, the wind in a great measure had gone down;
the sea with it; and by noon we had repaired our damages as well as we
could, and were sailing along as pleasantly as ever.
But there was no help for the demolished bulwarks; we had nothing to
replace them; and so, whenever it breezed again, our dauntless craft
went along with her splintered prow dripping, but kicking up her fleet
heels just as high as before.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE CORAL ISLANDS
How far we sailed to the westward after leaving the Marquesas, or what
might have been our latitude and longitude at any particular time, or
how many leagues we voyaged on our passage to Tahiti, are matters about
which, I am sorry to say, I cannot with any accuracy enlighten the
reader. Jermin, as navigator, kept our reckoning; and, as hinted
before, kept it all to himself. At noon, he brought out his quadrant, a
rusty old thing, so odd-looking that it might have belonged to an
astrologer.
Sometimes, when rather flustered from his potations, he went staggering
about deck, instrument to eye, looking all over for the sun—a
phenomenon which any sober observer might have seen right overhead. How
upon earth he contrived, on some occasions, to settle his latitude, is
more than I can tell. The longitude he must either have obtained by the
Rule of Three, or else by special revelation. Not that the chronometer
in the cabin was seldom to be relied on, or was any ways fidgety; quite
the contrary; it stood stock-still; and by that means, no doubt, the
true Greenwich time—at the period of stopping, at least—was preserved
to a second.
The mate, however, in addition to his “Dead Reckoning,” pretended to
ascertain his meridian distance from Bow Bells by an occasional lunar
observation. This, I believe, consists in obtaining with the proper
instruments the angular distance between the moon and some one of the
stars. The operation generally requires two observers to take sights,
and at one and the same time.
Now, though the mate alone might have been thought well calculated for
this, inasmuch as he generally saw things double, the doctor was
usually called upon to play a sort of second quadrant to Jermin’s
first; and what with the capers of both, they used to furnish a good
deal of diversion. The mate’s tremulous attempts to level his
instrument at the star he was after, were comical enough. For my own
part, when he did catch sight of it, I hardly knew how he managed to
separate it from the astral host revolving in his own brain.
However, by hook or by crook, he piloted us along; and before many
days, a fellow sent aloft to darn a rent in the fore-top-sail, threw
his hat into the air, and bawled out “Land, ho!”
Land it was; but in what part of the South Seas, Jermin alone knew, and
some doubted whether even he did. But no sooner was the announcement
made, than he came running on deck, spy-glass in hand, and clapping it
to his eye, turned round with the air of a man receiving indubitable
assurance of something he was quite certain of before. The land was
precisely that for which he had been steering; and, with a wind, in
less than twenty-four hours we would sight Tahiti. What he said was
verified.
The island turned out to be one of the Pomotu or Low Group—sometimes
called the Coral Islands—perhaps the most remarkable and interesting in
the Pacific. Lying to the east of Tahiti, the nearest are within a
day’s sail of that place.
They are very numerous; mostly small, low, and level; sometimes wooded,
but always covered with verdure. Many are crescent-shaped; others
resemble a horse-shoe in figure. These last are nothing more than
narrow circles of land surrounding a smooth lagoon, connected by a
single opening with the sea. Some of the lagoons, said to have
subterranean outlets, have no visible ones; the inclosing island, in
such cases, being a complete zone of emerald. Other lagoons still, are
girdled by numbers of small, green islets, very near to each other.
The origin of the entire group is generally ascribed to the coral
insect.
According to some naturalists, this wonderful little creature,
commencing its erections at the bottom of the sea, after the lapse of
centuries, carries them up to the surface, where its labours cease.
Here, the inequalities of the coral collect all floating bodies;
forming, after a time, a soil, in which the seeds carried thither by
birds germinate, and cover the whole with vegetation. Here and there,
all over this archipelago, numberless naked, detached coral formations
are seen, just emerging, as it were from the ocean. These would appear
to be islands in the very process of creation—at any rate, one
involuntarily concludes so, on beholding them.
As far as I know, there are but few bread-fruit trees in any part of
the Pomotu group. In many places the cocoa-nut even does not grow;
though, in others, it largely flourishes. Consequently, some of the
islands are altogether uninhabited; others support but a single family;
and in no place is the population very large. In some respects the
natives resemble the Tahitians: their language, too, is very similar.
The people of the southeasterly clusters—concerning whom, however, but
little is known—have a bad name as cannibals; and for that reason their
hospitality is seldom taxed by the mariner.
Within a few years past, missionaries from the Society group have
settled among the Leeward Islands, where the natives have treated them
kindly. Indeed, nominally, many of these people are now Christians;
and, through the political influence of their instructors, no doubt, a
short time since came tinder the allegiance of Pomaree, the Queen of
Tahiti; with which island they always carried on considerable
intercourse.
The Coral Islands are principally visited by the pearl-shell fishermen,
who arrive in small schooners, carrying not more than five or six men.
For a long while the business was engrossed by Merenhout, the French
Consul at Tahiti, but a Dutchman by birth, who, in one year, is said to
have sent to France fifty thousand dollars’ worth of shells. The
oysters are found in the lagoons, and about the reefs; and, for
half-a-dozen nails a day, or a compensation still less, the natives are
hired to dive after them.
A great deal of cocoa-nut oil is also obtained in various places. Some
of the uninhabited islands are covered with dense groves; and the
ungathered nuts which have fallen year after year, lie upon the ground
in incredible quantities. Two or three men, provided with the necessary
apparatus for trying out the oil, will, in the course of a week or two,
obtain enough to load one of the large sea-canoes.
Cocoa-nut oil is now manufactured in different parts of the South Seas,
and forms no small part of the traffic carried on with trading vessels.
A considerable quantity is annually exported from the Society Islands
to Sydney. It is used in lamps and for machinery, being much cheaper
than the sperm, and, for both purposes, better than the right-whale
oil. They bottle it up in large bamboos, six or eight feet long; and
these form part of the circulating medium of Tahiti.
To return to the ship. The wind dying away, evening came on before we
drew near the island. But we had it in view during the whole afternoon.
It was small and round, presenting one enamelled level, free from
trees, and did not seem four feet above the water. Beyond it was
another and larger island, about which a tropical sunset was throwing
its glories; flushing all that part of the heavens, and making it flame
like a vast dyed oriel illuminated.
The Trades scarce filled our swooning sails; the air was languid with
the aroma of a thousand strange, flowering shrubs. Upon inhaling it,
one of the sick, who had recently shown symptoms of scurvy, cried out
in pain, and was carried below. This is no unusual effect in such
instances.
On we glided, within less than a cable’s length of the shore which was
margined with foam that sparkled all round. Within, nestled the still,
blue lagoon. No living thing was seen, and, for aught we knew, we might
have been the first mortals who had ever beheld the spot. The thought
was quickening to the fancy; nor could I help dreaming of the endless
grottoes and galleries, far below the reach of the mariner’s lead.
And what strange shapes were lurking there! Think of those arch
creatures, the mermaids, chasing each other in and out of the coral
cells, and catching their long hair in the coral twigs!
CHAPTER XVIII.
TAHITI
At early dawn of the following morning we saw the Peaks of Tahiti. In
clear weather they may be seen at the distance of ninety miles.
“Hivarhoo!” shouted Wymontoo, overjoyed, and running out upon the
bowsprit when the land was first faintly descried in the distance. But
when the clouds floated away, and showed the three peaks standing like
obelisks against the sky; and the bold shore undulating along the
horizon, the tears gushed from his eyes. Poor fellow! It was not
Hivarhoo. Green Hivarhoo was many a long league off.
Tahiti is by far the most famous island in the South Seas; indeed, a
variety of causes has made it almost classic. Its natural features
alone distinguish it from the surrounding groups. Two round and lofty
promontories, whose mountains rise nine thousand feet above the level
of the ocean, are connected by a low, narrow isthmus; the whole being
some one hundred miles in circuit. From the great central peaks of the
larger peninsula—Orohena, Aorai, and Pirohitee—the land radiates on all
sides to the sea in sloping green ridges. Between these are broad and
shadowy valleys—in aspect, each a Tempe—watered with fine streams, and
thickly wooded. Unlike many of the other islands, there extends nearly
all round Tahiti a belt of low, alluvial soil, teeming with the richest
vegetation. Here, chiefly, the natives dwell.
Seen from the sea, the prospect is magnificent. It is one mass of
shaded tints of green, from beach to mountain top; endlessly
diversified with valleys, ridges, glens, and cascades. Over the ridges,
here and there, the loftier peaks fling their shadows, and far down the
valleys. At the head of these, the waterfalls flash out into the
sunlight, as if pouring through vertical bowers of verdure. Such
enchantment, too, breathes over the whole, that it seems a fairy world,
all fresh and blooming from the hand of the Creator.
Upon a near approach, the picture loses not its attractions. It is no
exaggeration to say that, to a European of any sensibility, who, for
the first time, wanders back into these valleys—away from the haunts of
the natives—the ineffable repose and beauty of the landscape is such,
that every object strikes him like something seen in a dream; and for a
time he almost refuses to believe that scenes like these should have a
commonplace existence. No wonder that the French bestowed upon the
island the appellation of the New Cytherea. “Often,” says De
Bourgainville, “I thought I was walking in the Garden of Eden.”
Nor, when first discovered, did the inhabitants of this charming
country at all diminish the wonder and admiration of the voyager. Their
physical beauty and amiable dispositions harmonized completely with the
softness of their clime. In truth, everything about them was calculated
to awaken the liveliest interest. Glance at their civil and religious
institutions. To their king, divine rights were paid; while for poetry,
their mythology rivalled that of ancient Greece.
Of Tahiti, earlier and more full accounts were given, than of any other
island in Polynesia; and this is the reason why it still retains so
strong a hold on the sympathies of all readers of South Sea voyages.
The journals of its first visitors, containing, as they did, such
romantic descriptions of a country and people before unheard of,
produced a marked sensation throughout Europe; and when the first
Tahitiana were carried thither, Omai in London, and Aotooroo in Paris,
were caressed by nobles, scholars, and ladies.
In addition to all this, several eventful occurrences, more or less
connected with Tahiti, have tended to increase its celebrity. Over two
centuries ago, Quiros, the Spaniard, is supposed to have touched at the
island; and at intervals, Wallis, Byron, Cook, De Bourgainville,
Vancouver, Le Perouse, and other illustrious navigators refitted their
vessels in its harbours. Here the famous Transit of Venus was observed,
in 1769. Here the memorable mutiny of the Bounty afterwards had its
origin. It was to the pagans of Tahiti that the first regularly
constituted Protestant missionaries were sent; and from their shores
also, have sailed successive missions to the neighbouring islands.
These, with other events which might be mentioned, have united in
keeping up the first interest which the place awakened; and the recent
proceedings of the French have more than ever called forth the
sympathies of the public.
CHAPTER XIX.
A SURPRISE—MORE ABOUT BEMBO
The sight of the island was right welcome. Going into harbour after a
cruise is always joyous enough, and the sailor is apt to indulge in all
sorts of pleasant anticipations. But to us, the occasion was heightened
by many things peculiar to our situation.
Since steering for the land, our prospects had been much talked over.
By many it was supposed that, should the captain leave the ship, the
crew were no longer bound by her articles. This was the opinion of our
forecastle Cokes; though, probably, it would not have been sanctioned
by the Marine Courts of Law. At any rate, such was the state of both
vessel and crew that, whatever might be the event, a long stay, and
many holidays in Tahiti, were confidently predicted.
Everybody was in high spirits. The sick, who had been improving day by
day since the change in our destination, were on deck, and leaning over
the bulwarks; some all animation, and others silently admiring an
object unrivalled for its stately beauty—Tahiti from the sea.
The quarter-deck, however, furnished a marked contrast to what was
going on at the other end of the ship. The Mowree was there, as usual,
scowling by himself; and Jermin walked to and fro in deep thought,
every now and then looking to windward, or darting into the cabin and
quickly returning.
With all our light sails wooingly spread, we held on our way, until,
with the doctor’s glass, Papeetee, the village metropolis of Tahiti,
came into view. Several ships were descried lying in the harbour, and
among them, one which loomed up black and large; her two rows of teeth
proclaiming a frigate. This was the Reine Blanche, last from the
Marquesas, and carrying at the fore the flag of Rear-Admiral Du Petit
Thouars. Hardly had we made her out, when the booming of her guns came
over the water. She was firing a salute, which afterwards turned out to
be in honour of a treaty; or rather—as far as the natives were
concerned—a forced cession of Tahiti to the French, that morning
concluded.
The cannonading had hardly died away, when Jermin’s voice was heard
giving an order so unexpected that everyone started. “Stand by to haul
back the main-yard!”
“What’s that mean?” shouted the men, “are we not going into port?”
“Tumble after here, and no words!” cried the mate; and in a moment the
main-yard swung round, when, with her jib-boom pointing out to sea, the
Julia lay as quiet as a duck. We all looked blank—what was to come
next?
Presently the steward made his appearance, carrying a mattress, which
he spread out in the stern-sheets of the captain’s boat; two or three
chests, and other things belonging to his master, were similarly
disposed of.
This was enough. A slight hint suffices for a sailor.
Still adhering to his resolution to keep the ship at sea in spite of
everything, the captain, doubtless, intended to set himself ashore,
leaving the vessel, under the mate, to resume her voyage at once; but
after a certain period agreed upon, to touch at the island, and take
him off. All this, of course, could easily be done without approaching
any nearer the land with the Julia than we now were. Invalid whaling
captains often adopt a plan like this; but, in the present instance, it
was wholly unwarranted; and, everything considered, at war with the
commonest principles of prudence and humanity. And, although, on Guy’s
part, this resolution showed more hardihood than he had ever been given
credit for, it, at the same time, argued an unaccountable simplicity,
in supposing that such a crew would, in any way, submit to the outrage.
It was soon made plain that we were right in our suspicions; and the
men became furious. The cooper and carpenter volunteered to head a
mutiny forthwith; and while Jermin was below, four or five rushed aft
to fasten down the cabin scuttle; others, throwing down the
main-braces, called out to the rest to lend a hand, and fill away for
the land. All this was done in an instant; and things were looking
critical, when Doctor Long Ghost and myself prevailed upon them to wait
a while, and do nothing hastily; there was plenty of time, and the ship
was completely in our power.
While the preparations were still going on in the cabin, we mustered
the men together, and went into counsel upon the forecastle.
It was with much difficulty that we could bring these rash spirits to a
calm consideration of the case. But the doctor’s influence at last
began to tell; and, with a few exceptions, they agreed to be guided by
him; assured that, if they did so, the ship would eventually be brought
to her anchors without anyone getting into trouble. Still they told us,
up and down, that if peaceable means failed, they would seize Little
Jule, and carry her into Papeetee, if they all swung for it; but, for
the present, the captain should have his own way.
By this time everything was ready; the boat was lowered and brought to
the gangway; and the captain was helped on deck by the mate and
steward. It was the first time we had seen him in more than two weeks,
and he was greatly altered. As if anxious to elude every eye, a
broad-brimmed Payata hat was pulled down over his brow; so that his
face was only visible when the brim flapped aside. By a sling, rigged
from the main-yard, the cook and Bembo now assisted in lowering him
into the boat. As he went moaning over the side, he must have heard the
whispered maledictions of his crew.
While the steward was busy adjusting matters in the boat, the mate,
after a private interview with the Mowree, turned round abruptly, and
told us that he was going ashore with the captain, to return as soon as
possible. In his absence, Bembo, as next in rank, would command; there
being nothing to do but keep the ship at a safe distance from the land.
He then sprang into the boat, and, with only the cook and steward as
oarsmen, steered for the shore.
Guy’s thus leaving the ship in the men’s hands, contrary to the mate’s
advice, was another evidence of his simplicity; for at this particular
juncture, had neither the doctor nor myself been aboard, there is no
telling what they might have done.
For the nonce, Bembo was captain; and, so far as mere seamanship was
concerned, he was as competent to command as anyone. In truth, a better
seaman never swore. This accomplishment, by the bye, together with a
surprising familiarity with most nautical names and phrases, comprised
about all the English he knew.
Being a harpooner, and, as such, having access to the cabin, this man,
though not yet civilized, was, according to sea usages, which know no
exceptions, held superior to the sailors; and therefore nothing was
said against his being left in charge of the ship; nor did it occasion
any surprise.
Some additional account must be given of Bembo. In the first place, he
was far from being liked. A dark, moody savage, everybody but the mate
more or less distrusted or feared him. Nor were these feelings
unreciprocated. Unless duty called, he seldom went among the crew. Hard
stories too were told about him; something, in particular, concerning
an hereditary propensity to kill men and eat them. True, he came from a
race of cannibals; but that was all that was known to a certainty.
Whatever unpleasant ideas were connected with the Mowree, his personal
appearance no way lessened them. Unlike most of his countrymen, he was,
if anything, below the ordinary height; but then, he was all compact,
and under his swart, tattooed skin, the muscles worked like steel rods.
Hair, crisp and coal-black, curled over shaggy brows, and ambushed
small, intense eyes, always on the glare. In short, he was none of your
effeminate barbarians.
Previous to this, he had been two or three voyages in Sydney whalemen;
always, however, as in the present instance, shipping at the Bay of
Islands, and receiving his discharge there on the homeward-bound
passage. In this way, his countrymen frequently enter on board the
colonial whaling vessels.
There was a man among us who had sailed with the Mowree on his first
voyage, and he told me that he had not changed a particle since then.
Some queer things this fellow told me. The following is one of his
stories. I give it for what it is worth; premising, however, that from
what I know of Bembo, and the foolhardy, dare-devil feats sometimes
performed in the sperm-whale fishery, I believe in its substantial
truth.
As may be believed, Bembo was a wild one after a fish; indeed, all New
Zealanders engaged in this business are; it seems to harmonize sweetly
with their blood-thirsty propensities. At sea, the best English they
speak is the South Seaman’s slogan in lowering away, “A dead whale, or
a stove boat!” Game to the marrow, these fellows are generally selected
for harpooners; a post in which a nervous, timid man would be rather
out of his element.
In darting, the harpooner, of course, stands erect in the head of the
boat, one knee braced against a support. But Bembo disdained this; and
was always pulled up to his fish, balancing himself right on the
gunwale.
But to my story. One morning, at daybreak, they brought him up to a
large, long whale. He darted his harpoon, and missed; and the fish
sounded. After a while, the monster rose again, about a mile off, and
they made after him. But he was frightened, or “gallied,” as they call
it; and noon came, and the boat was still chasing him. In whaling, as
long as the fish is in sight, and no matter what may have been
previously undergone, there is no giving up, except when night comes;
and nowadays, when whales are so hard to be got, frequently not even
then. At last, Bembo’s whale was alongside for the second time. He
darted both harpoons; but, as sometimes happens to the best men, by
some unaccountable chance, once more missed. Though it is well known
that such failures will happen at times, they, nevertheless, occasion
the bitterest disappointment to a boat’s crew, generally expressed in
curses both loud and deep. And no wonder. Let any man pull with might
and main for hours and hours together, under a burning sun; and if it
do not make him a little peevish, he is no sailor.
The taunts of the seamen may have maddened the Mowree; however it was,
no sooner was he brought up again, than, harpoon in hand, he bounded
upon the whale’s back, and for one dizzy second was seen there. The
next, all was foam and fury, and both were out of sight. The men
sheered off, flinging overboard the line as fast as they could; while
ahead, nothing was seen but a red whirlpool of blood and brine.
Presently, a dark object swam out; the line began to straighten; then
smoked round the loggerhead, and, quick as thought, the boat sped like
an arrow through the water. They were “fast,” and the whale was
running.
Where was the Mowree? His brown hand was on the boat’s gunwale; and he
was hauled aboard in the very midst of the mad bubbles that burst under
the bows.
Such a man, or devil, if you will, was Bembo.
CHAPTER XX.
THE ROUND ROBIN—VISITORS FROM SHORE
After the captain left, the land-breeze died away; and, as is usual
about these islands, toward noon it fell a dead calm. There was nothing
to do but haul up the courses, run down the jib, and lay and roll upon
the swells. The repose of the elements seemed to communicate itself to
the men; and for a time there was a lull.
Early in the afternoon, the mate, having left the captain at Papeetee,
returned to the ship. According to the steward, they were to go ashore
again right after dinner with the remainder of Guy’s effects.
On gaining the deck, Jermin purposely avoided us and went below without
saying a word. Meanwhile, Long Ghost and I laboured hard to diffuse the
right spirit among the crew; impressing upon them that a little
patience and management would, in the end, accomplish all that their
violence could; and that, too, without making a serious matter of it.
For my own part, I felt that I was under a foreign flag; that an
English consul was close at hand, and that sailors seldom obtain
justice. It was best to be prudent. Still, so much did I sympathize
with the men, so far, at least, as their real grievances were
concerned; and so convinced was I of the cruelty and injustice of what
Captain Guy seemed bent upon, that if need were, I stood ready to raise
a hand.
In spite of all we could do, some of them again became most refractory,
breathing nothing but downright mutiny. When we went below to dinner
these fellows stirred up such a prodigious tumult that the old hull
fairly echoed. Many, and fierce too, were the speeches delivered, and
uproarious the comments of the sailors. Among others Long Jim, or—as
the doctor afterwards called him—Lacedaemonian Jim, rose in his place,
and addressed the forecastle parliament in the following strain:
“Look ye, Britons! if after what’s happened, this here craft goes to
sea with us, we are no men; and that’s the way to say it. Speak the
word, my livelies, and I’ll pilot her in. I’ve been to Tahiti before
and I can do it.” Whereupon, he sat down amid a universal pounding of
chest-lids, and cymbaling of tin pans; the few invalids, who, as yet,
had not been actively engaged with the rest, now taking part in the
applause, creaking their bunk-boards and swinging their hammocks. Cries
also were heard, of “Handspikes and a shindy!” “Out stun-sails!”
“Hurrah!”
Several now ran on deck, and, for the moment, I thought it was all over
with us; but we finally succeeded in restoring some degree of quiet.
At last, by way of diverting their thoughts, I proposed that a “Round
Robin” should be prepared and sent ashore to the consul by Baltimore,
the cook. The idea took mightily, and I was told to set about it at
once. On turning to the doctor for the requisite materials, he told me
he had none; there was not a fly-leaf, even in any of his books. So,
after great search, a damp, musty volume, entitled “A History of the
most Atrocious and Bloody Piracies,” was produced, and its two
remaining blank leaves being torn out, were by help of a little pitch
lengthened into one sheet. For ink, some of the soot over the lamp was
then mixed with water, by a fellow of a literary turn; and an immense
quill, plucked from a distended albatross’ wing, which, nailed against
the bowsprit bitts, had long formed an ornament of the forecastle,
supplied a pen.
Making use of the stationery thus provided, I indited, upon a
chest-lid, a concise statement of our grievances; concluding with the
earnest hope that the consul would at once come off, and see how
matters stood for himself. Eight beneath the note was described the
circle about which the names were to be written; the great object of a
Round Robin being to arrange the signatures in such a way that,
although they are all found in a ring, no man can be picked out as the
leader of it.
Few among them had any regular names; many answering to some familiar
title, expressive of a personal trait; or oftener still, to the name of
the place from which they hailed; and in one or two cases were known by
a handy syllable or two, significant of nothing in particular but the
men who bore them. Some, to be sure, had, for the sake of formality,
shipped under a feigned cognomen, or “Purser’s name”; these, however,
were almost forgotten by themselves; and so, to give the document an
air of genuineness, it was decided that every man’s name should be put
down as it went among the crew.
It is due to the doctor to say that the circumscribed device was his.
Folded, and sealed with a drop of tar, the Round Robin was directed to
“The English Consul, Tahiti”; and, handed to the cook, was by him
delivered into that gentleman’s hands as soon as the mate went ashore.
On the return of the boat, sometime after dark, we learned a good deal
from old Baltimore, who, having been allowed to run about as much as he
pleased, had spent his time gossiping.
Owing to the proceedings of the French, everything in Tahiti was in an
uproar. Pritchard, the missionary consul, was absent in England; but
his place was temporarily filled by one Wilson, an educated white man,
born on the island, and the son of an old missionary of that name still
living.
With natives and foreigners alike, Wilson the younger was exceedingly
unpopular, being held an unprincipled and dissipated man, a character
verified by his subsequent conduct. Pritchard’s selecting a man like
this to attend to the duties of his office, had occasioned general
dissatisfaction ashore.
Though never in Europe or America, the acting consul had been several
voyages to Sydney in a schooner belonging to the mission; and therefore
our surprise was lessened, when Baltimore told us, that he and Captain
Guy were as sociable as could be—old acquaintances, in fact; and that
the latter had taken up his quarters at Wilson’s house. For us this
boded ill.
The mate was now assailed by a hundred questions as to what was going
to be done with us. His only reply was, that in the morning the consul
would pay us a visit, and settle everything.
After holding our ground off the harbour during the night, in the
morning a shore boat, manned by natives, was seen coming off. In it
were Wilson and another white man, who proved to be a Doctor Johnson,
an Englishman, and a resident physician of Papeetee.
Stopping our headway as they approached, Jermin advanced to the gangway
to receive them. No sooner did the consul touch the deck, than he gave
us a specimen of what he was.
“Mr. Jermin,” he cried loftily, and not deigning to notice the
respectful salutation of the person addressed, “Mr. Jermin, tack ship,
and stand off from the land.”
Upon this, the men looked hard at him, anxious to see what sort of a
looking “cove” he was. Upon inspection, he turned out to be an
exceedingly minute “cove,” with a viciously pugged nose, and a
decidedly thin pair of legs. There was nothing else noticeable about
him. Jermin, with ill-assumed suavity, at once obeyed the order, and
the ship’s head soon pointed out to sea.
Now, contempt is as frequently produced at first sight as love; and
thus was it with respect to Wilson. No one could look at him without
conceiving a strong dislike, or a cordial desire to entertain such a
feeling the first favourable opportunity. There was such an intolerable
air of conceit about this man that it was almost as much as one could
do to refrain from running up and affronting him.
“So the counsellor is come,” exclaimed Navy Bob, who, like all the
rest, invariably styled him thus, much to mine and the doctor’s
diversion. “Ay,” said another, “and for no good, I’ll be bound.”
Such were some of the observations made, as Wilson and the mate went
below conversing.
But no one exceeded the cooper in the violence with which he inveighed
against the ship and everything connected with her. Swearing like a
trooper, he called the main-mast to witness that, if he (Bungs) ever
again went out of sight of land in the Julia, he prayed Heaven that a
fate might be his—altogether too remarkable to be here related.
Much had he to say also concerning the vileness of what we had to
eat—not fit for a dog; besides enlarging upon the imprudence of
intrusting the vessel longer to a man of the mate’s intemperate habits.
With so many sick, too, what could we expect to do in the fishery? It
was no use talking; come what come might, the ship must let go her
anchor.
Now, as Bungs, besides being an able seaman, a “Cod” in the forecastle,
and about the oldest man in it, was, moreover, thus deeply imbued with
feelings so warmly responded to by the rest, he was all at once
selected to officiate as spokesman, as soon as the consul should see
fit to address us. The selection was made contrary to mine and the
doctor’s advice; however, all assured us they would keep quiet, and
hear everything Wilson had to say, before doing anything decisive.
We were not kept long in suspense; for very soon he was seen standing
in the cabin gangway, with the tarnished tin case containing the ship’s
papers; and Jermin at once sung out for the ship’s company to muster on
the quarter-deck.
CHAPTER XXI.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONSUL
The order was instantly obeyed, and the sailors ranged themselves,
facing the consul.
They were a wild company; men of many climes—not at all precise in
their toilet arrangements, but picturesque in their very tatters. My
friend, the Long Doctor, was there too; and with a view, perhaps, of
enlisting the sympathies of the consul for a gentleman in distress, had
taken more than ordinary pains with his appearance. But among the
sailors, he looked like a land-crane blown off to sea, and consorting
with petrels.
The forlorn Rope Yarn, however, was by far the most remarkable figure.
Land-lubber that he was, his outfit of sea-clothing had long since been
confiscated; and he was now fain to go about in whatever he could pick
up. His upper garment—an unsailor-like article of dress which he
persisted in wearing, though torn from his back twenty times in the
day—was an old “claw-hammer jacket,” or swallow-tail coat, formerly
belonging to Captain Guy, and which had formed one of his perquisites
when steward.
By the side of Wilson was the mate, bareheaded, his gray locks lying in
rings upon his bronzed brow, and his keen eye scanning the crowd as if
he knew their every thought. His frock hung loosely, exposing his round
throat, mossy chest, and short and nervous arm embossed with pugilistic
bruises, and quaint with many a device in India ink.
In the midst of a portentous silence, the consul unrolled his papers,
evidently intending to produce an effect by the exceeding bigness of
his looks.
“Mr. Jermin, call off their names;” and he handed him a list of the
ship’s company.
All answered but the deserters and the two mariners at the bottom of
the sea.
It was now supposed that the Round Robin would be produced, and
something said about it. But not so. Among the consul’s papers that
unique document was thought to be perceived; but, if there, it was too
much despised to be made a subject of comment. Some present, very
justly regarding it as an uncommon literary production, had been
anticipating all sorts of miracles therefrom; and were, therefore, much
touched at this neglect.
“Well, men,” began Wilson again after a short pause, “although you all
look hearty enough, I’m told there are some sick among you. Now then,
Mr. Jermin, call off the names on that sick-list of yours, and let them
go over to the other side of the deck—I should like to see who they
are.”
“So, then,” said he, after we had all passed over, “you are the sick
fellows, are you? Very good: I shall have you seen to. You will go down
into the cabin one by one, to Doctor Johnson, who will report your
respective cases to me. Such as he pronounces in a dying state I shall
have sent ashore; the rest will be provided with everything needful,
and remain aboard.”
At this announcement, we gazed strangely at each other, anxious to see
who it was that looked like dying, and pretty nearly deciding to stay
aboard and get well, rather than go ashore and be buried. There were
some, nevertheless, who saw very plainly what Wilson was at, and they
acted accordingly. For my own part, I resolved to assume as dying an
expression as possible; hoping that, on the strength of it, I might be
sent ashore, and so get rid of the ship without any further trouble.
With this intention, I determined to take no part in anything that
might happen until my case was decided upon. As for the doctor, he had
all along pretended to be more or less unwell; and by a significant
look now given me, it was plain that he was becoming decidedly worse.
The invalids disposed of for the present, and one of them having gone
below to be examined, the consul turned round to the rest, and
addressed them as follows:—
“Men, I’m going to ask you two or three questions—let one of you answer
yes or no, and the rest keep silent. Now then: Have you anything to say
against your mate, Mr. Jermin?” And he looked sharply among the
sailors, and, at last, right into the eye of the cooper, whom everybody
was eyeing.
“Well, sir,” faltered Bungs, “we can’t say anything against Mr.
Jermin’s seamanship, but—”
“I want no buts,” cried the consul, breaking in: “answer me yes or
no—have you anything to say against Mr. Jermin?”
“I was going on to say, sir; Mr. Jermin’s a very good man; but then—”
Here the mate looked marlinespikes at Bungs; and Bungs, after
stammering out something, looked straight down to a seam in the deck,
and stopped short.
A rather assuming fellow heretofore, the cooper had sported many
feathers in his cap; he was now showing the white one.
“So much then for that part of the business,” exclaimed Wilson,
smartly; “you have nothing to say against him, I see.”
Upon this, several seemed to be on the point of saying a good deal; but
disconcerted by the cooper’s conduct, checked themselves, and the
consul proceeded.
“Have you enough to eat, aboard? answer me, you man who spoke before.”
“Well, I don’t know as to that,” said the cooper, looking excessively
uneasy, and trying to edge back, but pushed forward again. “Some of
that salt horse ain’t as sweet as it might be.”
“That’s not what I asked you,” shouted the consul, growing brave quite
fast; “answer my questions as I put them, or I’ll find a way to make
you.”
This was going a little too far. The ferment, into which the cooper’s
poltroonery had thrown the sailors, now brooked no restraint; and one
of them—a young American who went by the name of Salem—dashed out from
among the rest, and fetching the cooper a blow that sent him humming
over toward the consul, flourished a naked sheath-knife in the air, and
burst forth with “I’m the little fellow that can answer your questions;
just put them to me once, counsellor.” But the “counsellor” had no more
questions to ask just then; for at the alarming apparition of Salem’s
knife, and the extraordinary effect produced upon Bungs, he had popped
his head down the companion-way, and was holding it there.
Upon the mate’s assuring him, however, that it was all over, he looked
up, quite flustered, if not frightened, but evidently determined to put
as fierce a face on the matter as practicable. Speaking sharply, he
warned all present to “look out”; and then repeated the question,
whether there was enough to eat aboard. Everyone now turned spokesman;
and he was assailed by a perfect hurricane of yells, in which the oaths
fell like hailstones.
“How’s this! what d’ye mean?” he cried, upon the first lull; “who told
you all to speak at once? Here, you man with the knife, you’ll be
putting someone’s eyes out yet; d’ye hear, you sir? You seem to have a
good deal to say, who are you, pray; where did you ship?”
“I’m nothing more nor a bloody beach-comber,” retorted Salem, stepping
forward piratically and eyeing him; “and if you want to know, I shipped
at the Islands about four months ago.”
“Only four months ago? And here you have more to say than men who have
been aboard the whole voyage;” and the consul made a dash at looking
furious, but failed. “Let me hear no more from you, sir. Where’s that
respectable, gray-headed man, the cooper? he’s the one to answer my
questions.”
“There’s no ’spectable, gray-headed men aboard,” returned Salem; “we’re
all a parcel of mutineers and pirates!”
All this time, the mate was holding his peace; and Wilson, now
completely abashed, and at a loss what to do, took him by the arm, and
walked across the deck. Returning to the cabin-scuttle, after a close
conversation, he abruptly addressed the sailors, without taking any
further notice of what had just happened.
“For reasons you all know, men, this ship has been placed in my hands.
As Captain Guy will remain ashore for the present, your mate, Mr.
Jermin, will command until his recovery. According to my judgment,
there is no reason why the voyage should not be at once resumed;
especially, as I shall see that you have two more harpooners, and
enough good men to man three boats. As for the sick, neither you nor I
have anything to do with them; they will be attended to by Doctor
Johnson; but I’ve explained that matter before. As soon as things can
be arranged—in a day or two, at farthest—you will go to sea for a three
months’ cruise, touching here, at the end of it, for your captain. Let
me hear a good report of you, now, when you come back. At present, you
will continue lying off and on the harbour. I will send you fresh
provisions as soon as I can get them. There: I’ve nothing more to say;
go forward to your stations.”
And, without another word, he wheeled round to descend into the cabin.
But hardly had he concluded before the incensed men were dancing about
him on every side, and calling upon him to lend an ear. Each one for
himself denied the legality of what he proposed to do; insisted upon
the necessity for taking the ship in; and finally gave him to
understand, roughly and roundly, that go to sea in her they would not.
In the midst of this mutinous uproar, the alarmed consul stood fast by
the scuttle. His tactics had been decided upon beforehand; indeed, they
must have been concerted ashore, between him and the captain; for all
he said, as he now hurried below, was, “Go forward, men; I’m through
with you: you should have mentioned these matters before: my
arrangements are concluded: go forward, I say; I’ve nothing more to say
to you.” And, drawing over the slide of the scuttle, he disappeared.
Upon the very point of following him down, the attention of the
exasperated seamen was called off to a party who had just then taken
the recreant Bungs in hand. Amid a shower of kicks and cuffs, the
traitor was borne along to the forecastle, where—I forbear to relate
what followed.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE CONSUL’S DEPARTURE
During the scenes just described, Doctor Johnson was engaged in
examining the sick, of whom, as it turned out, all but two were to
remain in the ship. He had evidently received his cue from Wilson.
One of the last called below into the cabin, just as the quarter-deck
gathering dispersed, I came on deck quite incensed. My lameness, which,
to tell the truth, was now much better, was put down as, in a great
measure, affected; and my name was on the list of those who would be
fit for any duty in a day or two. This was enough. As for Doctor Long
Ghost, the shore physician, instead of extending to him any
professional sympathy, had treated him very cavalierly. To a certain
extent, therefore, we were now both bent on making common cause with
the sailors.
I must explain myself here. All we wanted was to have the ship snugly
anchored in Papeetee Bay; entertaining no doubt that, could this be
done, it would in some way or other peaceably lead to our emancipation.
Without a downright mutiny, there was but one way to accomplish this:
to induce the men to refuse all further duty, unless it were to work
the vessel in. The only difficulty lay in restraining them within
proper bounds. Nor was it without certain misgivings, that I found
myself so situated, that I must necessarily link myself, however
guardedly, with such a desperate company; and in an enterprise, too, of
which it was hard to conjecture what might be the result. But anything
like neutrality was out of the question; and unconditional submission
was equally so.
On going forward, we found them ten times more tumultuous than ever.
After again restoring some degree of tranquillity, we once more urged
our plan of quietly refusing duty, and awaiting the result. At first,
few would hear of it; but in the end, a good number were convinced by
our representations. Others held out. Nor were those who thought with
us in all things to be controlled.
Upon Wilson’s coming on deck to enter his boat, he was beset on all
sides; and, for a moment, I thought the ship would be seized before his
very eyes.
“Nothing more to say to you, men: my arrangements are made. Go forward,
where you belong. I’ll take no insolence;” and, in a tremor, Wilson
hurried over the side in the midst of a volley of execrations.
Shortly after his departure, the mate ordered the cook and steward into
his boat; and saying that he was going to see how the captain did, left
us, as before, under the charge of Bembo.
At this time we were lying becalmed, pretty close in with the land
(having gone about again), our main-topsail flapping against the mast
with every roll.
The departure of the consul and Jermin was followed by a scene
absolutely indescribable. The sailors ran about deck like madmen;
Bembo, all the while leaning against the taff-rail by himself, smoking
his heathenish stone pipe, and never interfering.
The cooper, who that morning had got himself into a fluid of an
exceedingly high temperature, now did his best to regain the favour of
the crew. “Without distinction of party,” he called upon all hands to
step up, and partake of the contents of his bucket.
But it was quite plain that, before offering to intoxicate others, he
had taken the wise precaution of getting well tipsy himself. He was now
once more happy in the affection of his shipmates, who, one and all,
pronounced him sound to the kelson.
The Pisco soon told; and, with great difficulty, we restrained a party
in the very act of breaking into the after-hold in pursuit of more. All
manner of pranks were now played.
“Mast-head, there! what d’ye see?” bawled Beauty, hailing the
main-truck through an enormous copper funnel. “Stand by for stays,”
roared Flash Jack, bawling off with the cook’s axe, at the fastening of
the main-stay. “Looky out for ’quails!” shrieked the Portuguese,
Antone, darting a handspike through the cabin skylight. And “Heave
round cheerly, men,” sung out Navy Bob, dancing a hornpipe on the
forecastle.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE SECOND NIGHT OFF PAPEETEE
Toward sunset, the mate came off, singing merrily, in the stern of his
boat; and in attempting to climb up the side, succeeded in going plump
into the water. He was rescued by the steward, and carried across the
deck with many moving expressions of love for his bearer. Tumbled into
the quarter-boat, he soon fell asleep, and waking about midnight,
somewhat sobered, went forward among the men. Here, to prepare for what
follows, we must leave him for a moment.
It was now plain enough that Jermin was by no means unwilling to take
the Julia to sea; indeed, there was nothing he so much desired; though
what his reasons were, seeing our situation, we could only conjecture.
Nevertheless, so it was; and having counted much upon his rough
popularity with the men to reconcile them to a short cruise under him,
he had consequently been disappointed in their behaviour. Still,
thinking that they would take a different view of the matter, when they
came to know what fine times he had in store for them, he resolved upon
trying a little persuasion.
So on going forward, he put his head down the forecastle scuttle, and
hailed us quite cordially, inviting us down into the cabin; where, he
said, he had something to make merry withal. Nothing loth, we went; and
throwing ourselves along the transom, waited for the steward to serve
us.
As the can circulated, Jermin, leaning on the table and occupying the
captain’s arm-chair secured to the deck, opened his mind as bluntly and
freely as ever. He was by no means yet sober.
He told us we were acting very foolishly; that if we only stuck to the
ship, he would lead us all a jovial life of it; enumerating the casks
still remaining untapped in the Julia’s wooden cellar. It was even
hinted vaguely that such a thing might happen as our not coming back
for the captain; whom he spoke of but lightly; asserting, what he had
often said before, that he was no sailor.
Moreover, and perhaps with special reference to Doctor Long Ghost and
myself, he assured us generally that, if there were any among us
studiously inclined, he would take great pleasure in teaching such the
whole art and mystery of navigation, including the gratuitous use of
his quadrant.
I should have mentioned that, previous to this, he had taken the doctor
aside, and said something about reinstating him in the cabin with
augmented dignity; beside throwing out a hint that I myself was in some
way or other to be promoted. But it was all to no purpose; bent the men
were upon going ashore, and there was no moving them.
At last he flew into a rage—much increased by the frequency of his
potations—and with many imprecations, concluded by driving everybody
out of the cabin. We tumbled up the gangway in high good-humour.
Upon deck everything looked so quiet that some of the most pugnacious
spirits actually lamented that there was so little prospect of an
exhilarating disturbance before morning. It was not five minutes,
however, ere these fellows were gratified.
Sydney Ben—said to be a runaway Ticket-of-Leave-Man, and for reasons of
his own, one of the few who still remained on duty—had, for the sake of
the fun, gone down with the rest into the cabin; where Bembo, who
meanwhile was left in charge of the deck, had frequently called out for
him. At first, Ben pretended not to hear; but on being sung out for
again and again, bluntly refused; at the same time, casting some
illiberal reflections on the Mowree’s maternal origin, which the latter
had been long enough among the sailors to understand as in the highest
degree offensive. So just after the men came up from below, Bembo
singled him out, and gave him such a cursing in his broken lingo that
it was enough to frighten one. The convict was the worse for liquor;
indeed the Mowree had been tippling also, and before we knew it, a blow
was struck by Ben, and the two men came together like magnets.
The Ticket-of-Leave-Man was a practised bruiser; but the savage knew
nothing of the art pugilistic: and so they were even. It was clear
hugging and wrenching till both came to the deck. Here they rolled over
and over in the middle of a ring which seemed to form of itself. At
last the white man’s head fell back, and his face grew purple. Bembo’s
teeth were at his throat. Rushing in all round, they hauled the savage
off, but not until repeatedly struck on the head would he let go.
His rage was now absolutely demoniac; he lay glaring and writhing on
the deck, without attempting to rise. Cowed, as they supposed he was,
from his attitude, the men, rejoiced at seeing him thus humbled, left
him; after rating him, in sailor style, for a cannibal and a coward.
Ben was attended to, and led below.
Soon after this, the rest also, with but few exceptions, retired into
the forecastle; and having been up nearly all the previous night, they
quickly dropped about the chests and rolled into the hammocks. In an
hour’s time, not a sound could be heard in that part of the ship.
Before Bembo was dragged away, the mate had in vain endeavoured to
separate the combatants, repeatedly striking the Mowree; but the seamen
interposing, at last kept him off.
And intoxicated as he was, when they dispersed, he knew enough to
charge the steward—a steady seaman be it remembered—with the present
safety of the ship; and then went below, when he fell directly into
another drunken sleep.
Having remained upon deck with the doctor some time after the rest had
gone below, I was just on the point of following him down, when I saw
the Mowree rise, draw a bucket of water, and holding it high above his
head, pour its contents right over him. This he repeated several times.
There was nothing very peculiar in the act, but something else about
him struck me. However, I thought no more of it, but descended the
scuttle.
After a restless nap, I found the atmosphere of the forecastle so
close, from nearly all the men being down at the same time, that I
hunted up an old pea-jacket and went on deck; intending to sleep it out
there till morning. Here I found the cook and steward, Wymontoo, Rope
Yarn, and the Dane; who, being all quiet, manageable fellows, and
holding aloof from the rest since the captain’s departure, had been
ordered by the mate not to go below until sunrise. They were lying
under the lee of the bulwarks; two or three fast asleep, and the others
smoking their pipes, and conversing.
To my surprise, Bembo was at the helm; but there being so few to stand
there now, they told me, he had offered to take his turn with the rest,
at the same time heading the watch; and to this, of course, they made
no objection.
It was a fine, bright night; all moon and stars, and white crests of
waves. The breeze was light, but freshening; and close-hauled, poor
little Jule, as if nothing had happened, was heading in for the land,
which rose high and hazy in the distance.
After the day’s uproar, the tranquillity of the scene was soothing, and
I leaned over the side to enjoy it.
More than ever did I now lament my situation—but it was useless to
repine, and I could not upbraid myself. So at last, becoming drowsy, I
made a bed with my jacket under the windlass, and tried to forget
myself.
How long I lay there, I cannot tell; but as I rose, the first object
that met my eye was Bembo at the helm; his dark figure slowly rising
and falling with the ship’s motion against the spangled heavens behind.
He seemed all impatience and expectation; standing at arm’s length from
the spokes, with one foot advanced, and his bare head thrust forward.
Where I was, the watch were out of sight; and no one else was stirring;
the deserted decks and broad white sails were gleaming in the
moonlight.
Presently, a swelling, dashing sound came upon my ear, and I had a sort
of vague consciousness that I had been hearing it before. The next
instant I was broad awake and on my feet. Eight ahead, and so near that
my heart stood still, was a long line of breakers, heaving and
frothing. It was the coral reef girdling the island. Behind it, and
almost casting their shadows upon the deck, were the sleeping
mountains, about whose hazy peaks the gray dawn was just breaking. The
breeze had freshened, and with a steady, gliding motion, we were
running straight for the reef.
All was taken in at a glance; the fell purpose of Bembo was obvious,
and with a frenzied shout to wake the watch, I rushed aft. They sprang
to their feet bewildered; and after a short, but desperate scuffle, we
tore him from the helm. In wrestling with him, the wheel—left for a
moment unguarded—flew to leeward, thus, fortunately, bringing the
ship’s head to the wind, and so retarding her progress. Previous to
this, she had been kept three or four points free, so as to close with
the breakers. Her headway now shortened, I steadied the helm, keeping
the sails just lifting, while we glided obliquely toward the land. To
have run off before the wind—an easy thing—would have been almost
instant destruction, owing to a curve of the reef in that direction. At
this time, the Dane and the steward were still struggling with the
furious Mowree, and the others were running about irresolute and
shouting.
But darting forward the instant I had the helm, the old cook thundered
on the forecastle with a handspike, “Breakers! breakers close
aboard!—’bout ship! ’bout ship!”
Up came the sailors, staring about them in stupid horror.
“Haul back the head-yards!” “Let go the lee fore-brace!” “Ready about!
about!” were now shouted on all sides; while distracted by a thousand
orders, they ran hither and thither, fairly panic-stricken.
It seemed all over with us; and I was just upon the point of throwing
the ship full into the wind (a step, which, saving us for the instant,
would have sealed our fate in the end), when a sharp cry shot by my ear
like the flight of an arrow.
It was Salem: “All ready for’ard; hard down!”
Round and round went the spokes—the Julia, with her short keel,
spinning to windward like a top. Soon, the jib-sheets lashed the stays,
and the men, more self-possessed, flew to the braces.
“Main-sail haul!” was now heard, as the fresh breeze streamed fore and
aft the deck; and directly the after-yards were whirled round.
In a half-a-minute more, we were sailing away from the land on the
other tack, with every sail distended.
Turning on her heel within little more than a biscuit’s toss of the
reef, no earthly power could have saved us, were it not that, up to the
very brink of the coral rampart, there are no soundings.
CHAPTER XXIV.
OUTBREAK OF THE CREW
The purpose of Bembo had been made known to the men generally by the
watch; and now that our salvation was certain, by an instinctive
impulse they raised a cry, and rushed toward him.
Just before liberated by Dunk and the steward, he was standing doggedly
by the mizzen-mast; and, as the infuriated sailors came on, his
bloodshot eye rolled, and his sheath-knife glittered over his head.
“Down with him!” “Strike him down!” “Hang him at the main-yard!” such
were the shouts now raised. But he stood unmoved, and, for a single
instant, they absolutely faltered.
“Cowards!” cried Salem, and he flung himself upon him. The steel
descended like a ray of light; but did no harm; for the sailor’s heart
was beating against the Mowree’s before he was aware.
They both fell to the deck, when the knife was instantly seized, and
Bembo secured.
“For’ard! for’ard with him!” was again the cry; “give him a sea-toss!”
“Overboard with him!” and he was dragged along the deck, struggling and
fighting with tooth and nail.
All this uproar immediately over the mate’s head at last roused him
from his drunken nap, and he came staggering on deck.
“What’s this?” he shouted, running right in among them.
“It’s the Mowree, zur; they are going to murder him, zur,” here sobbed
poor Rope Yarn, crawling close up to him.
“Avast! avast!” roared Jermin, making a spring toward Bembo, and
dashing two or three of the sailors aside. At this moment the wretch
was partly flung over the bulwarks, which shook with his frantic
struggles. In vain the doctor and others tried to save him: the men
listened to nothing.
“Murder and mutiny, by the salt sea!” shouted the mate; and dashing his
arms right and left, he planted his iron hand upon the Mowree’s
shoulder.
“There are two of us now; and as you serve him, you serve me,” he
cried, turning fiercely round.
“Over with them together, then,” exclaimed the carpenter, springing
forward; but the rest fell back before the courageous front of Jermin,
and, with the speed of thought, Bembo, unharmed, stood upon deck.
“Aft with ye!” cried his deliverer; and he pushed him right among the
men, taking care to follow him up close. Giving the sailors no time to
recover, he pushed the Mowree before him, till they came to the cabin
scuttle, when he drew the slide over him, and stood still. Throughout,
Bembo never spoke one word.
“Now for’ard where ye belong!” cried the mate, addressing the seamen,
who by this time, rallying again, had no idea of losing their victim.
“The Mowree! the Mowree!” they shouted.
Here the doctor, in answer to the mate’s repeated questions, stepped
forward, and related what Bembo had been doing; a matter which the mate
but dimly understood from the violent threatenings he had been hearing.
For a moment he seemed to waver; but at last, turning the key of the
padlock of the slide, he breathed through his set teeth—“Ye can’t have
him; I’ll hand him over to the consul; so for’ard with ye, I say: when
there’s any drowning to be done, I’ll pass the word; so away with ye,
ye blood-thirsty pirates.”
It was to no purpose that they begged or threatened: Jermin, although
by no means sober, stood his ground manfully, and before long they
dispersed, soon to forget everything that had happened.
Though we had no opportunity to hear him confess it, Bembo’s intention
to destroy us was beyond all question. His only motive could have been
a desire to revenge the contumely heaped upon him the night previous,
operating upon a heart irreclaimably savage, and at no time fraternally
disposed toward the crew.
During the whole of this scene the doctor did his best to save him. But
well knowing that all I could do would have been equally useless, I
maintained my place at the wheel. Indeed, no one but Jermin could have
prevented this murder.
CHAPTER XXV.
JERMIN ENCOUNTERS AN OLD SHIPMATE
During the morning of the day which dawned upon the events just
recounted, we remained a little to leeward of the harbour, waiting the
appearance of the consul, who had promised the mate to come off in a
shore boat for the purpose of seeing him.
By this time the men had forced his secret from the cooper, and the
consequence was that they kept him continually coming and going from
the after-hold. The mate must have known this; but he said nothing,
notwithstanding all the dancing and singing, and occasional fighting
which announced the flow of the Pisco.
The peaceable influence which the doctor and myself had heretofore been
exerting, was now very nearly at an end.
Confident, from the aspect of matters, that the ship, after all, would
be obliged to go in; and learning, moreover, that the mate had said so,
the sailors, for the present, seemed in no hurry about it; especially
as the bucket of Bungs gave such generous cheer.
As for Bembo, we were told that, after putting him in double irons, the
mate had locked him up in the captain’s state-room, taking the
additional precaution of keeping the cabin scuttle secured. From this
time forward we never saw the Mowree again, a circumstance which will
explain itself as the narrative proceeds.
Noon came, and no consul; and as the afternoon advanced without any
word even from the shore, the mate was justly incensed; more especially
as he had taken great pains to keep perfectly sober against Wilson’s
arrival.
Two or three hours before sundown, a small schooner came out of the
harbour, and headed over for the adjoining island of Imeeo, or Moreea,
in plain sight, about fifteen miles distant. The wind failing, the
current swept her down under our bows, where we had a fair glimpse of
the natives on her decks.
There were a score of them, perhaps, lounging upon spread mats, and
smoking their pipes. On floating so near, and hearing the maudlin cries
of our crew, and beholding their antics, they must have taken us for a
pirate; at any rate, they got out their sweeps, and pulled away as fast
as they could; the sight of our two six-pounders, which, by way of a
joke, were now run out of the side-ports, giving a fresh impetus to
their efforts. But they had not gone far, when a white man, with a red
sash about his waist, made his appearance on deck, the natives
immediately desisting.
Hailing us loudly, he said he was coming aboard; and after some
confusion on the schooner’s decks, a small canoe was launched
over-board, and, in a minute or two, he was with us. He turned out to
be an old shipmate of Jermin’s, one Viner, long supposed dead, but now
resident on the island.
The meeting of these men, under the circumstances, is one of a thousand
occurrences appearing exaggerated in fiction; but, nevertheless,
frequently realized in actual lives of adventure.
Some fifteen years previous, they had sailed together as officers of
the barque Jane, of London, a South Seaman. Somewhere near the New
Hebrides, they struck one night upon an unknown reef; and, in a few
hours, the Jane went to pieces. The boats, however, were saved; some
provisions also, a quadrant, and a few other articles. But several of
the men were lost before they got clear of the wreck.
The three boats, commanded respectively by the captain, Jermin, and the
third mate, then set sail for a small English settlement at the Bay of
Islands in New Zealand. Of course they kept together as much as
possible. After being at sea about a week, a Lascar in the captain’s
boat went crazy; and, it being dangerous to keep him, they tried to
throw him overboard. In the confusion that ensued the boat capsized
from the sail’s “jibing”; and a considerable sea running at the time,
and the other boats being separated more than usual, only one man was
picked up. The very next night it blew a heavy gale; and the remaining
boats taking in all sail, made bundles of their oars, flung them
overboard, and rode to them with plenty of line. When morning broke,
Jermin and his men were alone upon the ocean: the third mate’s boat, in
all probability, having gone down.
After great hardships, the survivors caught sight of a brig, which took
them on board, and eventually landed them at Sydney.
Ever since then our mate had sailed from that port, never once hearing
of his lost shipmates, whom, by this time, of course, he had long given
up. Judge, then, his feelings when Viner, the lost third mate, the
instant he touched the deck, rushed up and wrung him by the hand.
During the gale his line had parted; so that the boat, drifting fast to
leeward, was out of sight by morning. Reduced, after this, to great
extremities, the boat touched, for fruit, at an island of which they
knew nothing. The natives, at first, received them kindly; but one of
the men getting into a quarrel on account of a woman, and the rest
taking his part, they were all massacred but Viner, who, at the time,
was in an adjoining village. After staying on the island more than two
years, he finally escaped in the boat of an American whaler, which
landed him at Valparaiso. From this period he had continued to follow
the seas, as a man before the mast, until about eighteen months
previous, when he went ashore at Tahiti, where he now owned the
schooner we saw, in which he traded among the neighbouring islands.
The breeze springing up again just after nightfall, Viner left us,
promising his old shipmate to see him again, three days hence, in
Papeetee harbour.
CHAPTER XXVI.
WE ENTER THE HARBOUR—JIM THE PILOT
Exhausted by the day’s wassail, most of the men went below at an early
hour, leaving the deck to the steward and two of the men remaining on
duty; the mate, with Baltimore and the Dane, engaging to relieve them
at midnight. At that hour, the ship—now standing off shore, under short
sail—was to be tacked.
It was not long after midnight, when we were wakened in the forecastle
by the lion roar of Jermin’s voice, ordering a pull at the
jib-halyards; and soon afterwards, a handspike struck the scuttle, and
all hands were called to take the ship into port.
This was wholly unexpected; but we learned directly that the mate, no
longer relying upon the consul, and renouncing all thought of inducing
the men to change their minds, had suddenly made up his own. He was
going to beat up to the entrance of the harbour, so as to show a signal
for a pilot before sunrise.
Notwithstanding this, the sailors absolutely refused to assist in
working the ship under any circumstances whatever: to all mine and the
doctor’s entreaties lending a deaf ear. Sink or strike, they swore they
would have nothing more to do with her. This perverseness was to be
attributed, in a great measure, to the effects of their late debauch.
With a strong breeze, all sail set, and the ship in the hands of four
or five men, exhausted by two nights’ watching, our situation was bad
enough; especially as the mate seemed more reckless than ever, and we
were now to tack ship several times close under the land.
Well knowing that if anything untoward happened to the vessel before
morning, it would be imputed to the conduct of the crew, and so lead to
serious results, should they ever be brought to trial; I called
together those on deck to witness my declaration;—that now that the
Julia was destined for the harbour (the only object for which I, at
least, had been struggling), I was willing to do what I could toward
carrying her in safely. In this step I was followed by the doctor.
The hours passed anxiously until morning; when, being well to windward
of the mouth of the harbour, we bore up for it, with the union-jack at
the fore. No sign, however, of boat or pilot was seen; and after
running close in several times, the ensign was set at the mizzen-peak,
union down in distress. But it was of no avail.
Attributing to Wilson this unaccountable remissness on the part of
those ashore, Jermin, quite enraged, now determined to stand boldly in
upon his own responsibility; trusting solely to what he remembered of
the harbour on a visit there many years previous.
This resolution was characteristic. Even with a competent pilot,
Papeetee Bay, is considered a ticklish, one to enter. Formed by a bold
sweep of the shore, it is protected seaward by the coral reef, upon
which the rollers break with great violence. After stretching across
the bay, the barrier extends on toward Point Venus, in the district of
Matavia, eight or nine miles distant. Here there is an opening, by
which ships enter, and glide down the smooth, deep canal, between the
reef and the shore, to the harbour. But, by seamen generally, the
leeward entrance is preferred, as the wind is extremely variable inside
the reef. This latter entrance is a break in the barrier directly
facing the bay and village of Papeetee. It is very narrow; and from the
baffling winds, currents, and sunken rocks, ships now and then grate
their keels against the coral.
But the mate was not to be daunted; so, stationing what men he had at
the braces, he sprang upon the bulwarks, and, bidding everybody keep
wide awake, ordered the helm up. In a few moments, we were running in.
Being toward noon, the wind was fast leaving us, and, by the time the
breakers were roaring on either hand, little more than steerage-way was
left. But on we glided—smoothly and deftly; avoiding the green,
darkling objects here and there strewn in our path; Jermin occasionally
looking down in the water, and then about him, with the utmost
calmness, and not a word spoken. Just fanned along thus, it was not
many minutes ere we were past all danger, and floated into the placid
basin within. This was the cleverest specimen of his seamanship that he
ever gave us.
As we held on toward the frigate and shipping, a canoe, coming out from
among them, approached. In it were a boy and an old man—both islanders;
the former nearly naked, and the latter dressed in an old naval
frock-coat. Both were paddling with might and main; the old man, once
in a while, tearing his paddle out of the water; and, after rapping his
companion over the head, both fell to with fresh vigour. As they came
within hail, the old fellow, springing to his feet and flourishing his
paddle, cut some of the queerest capers; all the while jabbering
something which at first we could not understand.
Presently we made out the following:—“Ah! you pemi, ah!—you come!—What
for you come?—You be fine for come no pilot.—I say, you hear?—I say,
you ita maitui (no good).—You hear?—You no pilot.—Yes, you d—— me, you
no pilot ’t all; I d—— you; you hear?”
This tirade, which showed plainly that, whatever the profane old rascal
was at, he was in right good earnest, produced peals of laughter from
the ship. Upon which, he seemed to get beside himself; and the boy,
who, with suspended paddle, was staring about him, received a sound box
over the head, which set him to work in a twinkling, and brought the
canoe quite near. The orator now opening afresh, it turned out that his
vehement rhetoric was all addressed to the mate, still standing
conspicuously on the bulwarks.
But Jermin was in no humour for nonsense; so, with a sailor’s blessing,
he ordered him off. The old fellow then flew into a regular frenzy,
cursing and swearing worse than any civilized being I ever heard.
“You sabbee me?” he shouted. “You know me, ah? Well; me Jim, me
pilot—been pilot now long time.”
“Ay,” cried Jermin, quite surprised, as indeed we all were, “you are
the pilot, then, you old pagan. Why didn’t you come off before this?”
“Ah! me scibbee,—me know—you piratee (pirate)—see you long time, but no
me come—I sabbee you—you ita maitai nuee (superlatively bad).”
“Paddle away with ye,” roared Jermin, in a rage; “be off! or I’ll dart
a harpoon at ye!”
But, instead of obeying the order, Jim, seizing his paddle, darted the
canoe right up to the gangway, and, in two bounds, stood on deck.
Pulling a greasy silk handkerchief still lower over his brow, and
improving the sit of his frock-coat with a vigorous jerk, he then
strode up to the mate; and, in a more flowery style than ever, gave him
to understand that the redoubtable “Jim,” himself, was before him; that
the ship was his until the anchor was down; and he should like to hear
what anyone had to say to it.
As there now seemed little doubt that he was all he claimed to be, the
Julia was at last surrendered.
Our gentleman now proceeded to bring us to an anchor, jumping up
between the knight-heads, and bawling out “Luff! luff! keepy off!
leeepy off!” and insisting upon each time being respectfully responded
to by the man at the helm. At this time our steerage-way was almost
gone; and yet, in giving his orders, the passionate old man made as
much fuss as a white squall aboard the Flying Dutchman.
Jim turned out to be the regular pilot of the harbour; a post, be it
known, of no small profit; and, in his eyes, at least, invested with
immense importance. Our unceremonious entrance, therefore, was regarded
as highly insulting, and tending to depreciate both the dignity and
lucrativeness of his office.
The old man is something of a wizard. Having an understanding with the
elements, certain phenomena of theirs are exhibited for his particular
benefit. Unusually clear weather, with a fine steady breeze, is a
certain sign that a merchantman is at hand; whale-spouts seen from the
harbour are tokens of a whaling vessel’s approach; and thunder and
lightning, happening so seldom as they do, are proof positive that a
man-of-war is drawing near.
In short, Jim, the pilot, is quite a character in his way; and no one
visits Tahiti without hearing some curious story about him.
CHAPTER XXVII.
A GLANCE AT PAPEETEE—WE ARE SENT ABOARD THE FRIGATE
The village of Papeetee struck us all very pleasantly. Lying in a
semicircle round the bay, the tasteful mansions of the chiefs and
foreign residents impart an air of tropical elegance, heightened by the
palm-trees waving here and there, and the deep-green groves of the
Bread-Fruit in the background. The squalid huts of the common people
are out of sight, and there is nothing to mar the prospect.
All round the water extends a wide, smooth beach of mixed pebbles and
fragments of coral. This forms the thoroughfare of the village; the
handsomest houses all facing it—the fluctuation of the tides being so
inconsiderable that they cause no inconvenience.
The Pritchard residence—a fine large building—occupies a site on one
side of the bay: a green lawn slopes off to the sea: and in front waves
the English flag. Across the water, the tricolour also, and the stars
and stripes, distinguish the residences of the other consuls.
What greatly added to the picturesqueness of the bay at this time was
the condemned hull of a large ship, which, at the farther end of the
harbour, lay bilged upon the beach, its stern settled low in the water,
and the other end high and dry. From where we lay, the trees behind
seemed to lock their leafy boughs over its bowsprit; which, from its
position, looked nearly upright.
She was an American whaler, a very old craft. Having sprung a leak at
sea, she had made all sail for the island, to heave down for repairs.
Found utterly unseaworthy, however, her oil was taken out and sent home
in another vessel; the hull was then stripped and sold for a trifle.
Before leaving Tahiti, I had the curiosity to go over this poor old
ship, thus stranded on a strange shore. What were my emotions, when I
saw upon her stern the name of a small town on the river Hudson! She
was from the noble stream on whose banks I was born; in whose waters I
had a hundred times bathed. In an instant, palm-trees and elms—canoes
and skiffs—church spires and bamboos—all mingled in one vision of the
present and the past.
But we must not leave little Jule.
At last the wishes of many were gratified; and like an aeronaut’s
grapnel, her rusty little anchor was caught in the coral groves at the
bottom of Papeetee Bay. This must have been more than forty days after
leaving the Marquesas.
The sails were yet unfurled, when a boat came alongside with our
esteemed friend Wilson, the consul.
“How’s this, how’s this, Mr. Jermin?” he began, looking very savage as
he touched the deck. “What brings you in without orders?”
“You did not come off to us, as you promised, sir; and there was no
hanging on longer with nobody to work the ship,” was the blunt reply.
“So the infernal scoundrels held out—did they? Very good; I’ll make
them sweat for it,” and he eyed the scowling men with unwonted
intrepidity. The truth was, he felt safer now, than when outside the
reef.
“Muster the mutineers on the quarter-deck,” he continued. “Drive them
aft, sir, sick and well: I have a word to say to them.”
“Now, men,” said he, “you think it’s all well with you, I suppose. You
wished the ship in, and here she is. Captain Guy’s ashore, and you
think you must go too: but we’ll see about that—I’ll miserably
disappoint you.” (These last were his very words.) “Mr. Jermin, call
off the names of those who did not refuse duty, and let them go over to
the starboard side.”
This done, a list was made out of the “mutineers,” as he was pleased to
call the rest. Among these, the doctor and myself were included; though
the former stepped forward, and boldly pleaded the office held by him
when the vessel left Sydney. The mate also—who had always been
friendly—stated the service rendered by myself two nights previous, as
well as my conduct when he announced his intention to enter the
harbour. For myself, I stoutly maintained that, according to the tenor
of the agreement made with Captain Guy, my time aboard the ship had
expired—the cruise being virtually at an end, however it had been
brought about—and I claimed my discharge.
But Wilson would hear nothing. Marking something in my manner,
nevertheless, he asked my name and country; and then observed with a
sneer, “Ah, you are the lad, I see, that wrote the Round Robin; I’ll
take good care of you, my fine fellow—step back, sir.”
As for poor Long Ghost, he denounced him as a “Sydney Flash-Gorger”;
though what under heaven he meant by that euphonious title is more than
I can tell. Upon this, the doctor gave him such a piece of his mind
that the consul furiously commanded him to hold his peace, or he would
instantly have him seized into the rigging and flogged. There was no
help for either of us—we were judged by the company we kept.
All were now sent forward; not a word being said as to what he intended
doing with us.
After a talk with the mate, the consul withdrew, going aboard the
French frigate, which lay within a cable’s length. We now suspected his
object; and since matters had come to this pass, were rejoiced at it.
In a day or two the Frenchman was to sail for Valparaiso, the usual
place of rendezvous for the English squadron in the Pacific; and
doubtless, Wilson meant to put us on board, and send us thither to be
delivered up. Should our conjecture prove correct, all we had to
expect, according to our most experienced shipmates, was the fag end of
a cruise in one of her majesty’s ships, and a discharge before long at
Portsmouth.
We now proceeded to put on all the clothes we could—frock over frock,
and trousers over trousers—so as to be in readiness for removal at a
moment’s warning. Armed ships allow nothing superfluous to litter up
the deck; and therefore, should we go aboard the frigate, our chests
and their contents would have to be left behind.
In an hour’s time, the first cutter of the Reine Blanche came
alongside, manned by eighteen or twenty sailors, armed with cutlasses
and boarding pistols—the officers, of course, wearing their side-arms,
and the consul in an official cocked hat borrowed for the occasion. The
boat was painted a “pirate black,” its crew were a dark, grim-looking
set, and the officers uncommonly fierce-looking little Frenchmen. On
the whole they were calculated to intimidate—the consul’s object,
doubtless, in bringing them.
Summoned aft again, everyone’s name was called separately; and being
solemnly reminded that it was his last chance to escape punishment, was
asked if he still refused duty. The response was instantaneous: “Ay,
sir, I do.” In some cases followed up by divers explanatory
observations, cut short by Wilson’s ordering the delinquent to the
cutter. As a general thing, the order was promptly obeyed—some taking a
sequence of hops, skips, and jumps, by way of showing not only their
unimpaired activity of body, but their alacrity in complying with all
reasonable requests.
Having avowed their resolution not to pull another rope of the
Julia’s—even if at once restored to perfect health—all the invalids,
with the exception of the two to be set ashore, accompanied us into the
cutter: They were in high spirits; so much so that something was
insinuated about their not having been quite as ill as pretended.
The cooper’s name was the last called; we did not hear what he
answered, but he stayed behind. Nothing was done about the Mowree.
Shoving clear from the ship, three loud cheers were raised; Flash Jack
and others receiving a sharp reprimand for it from the consul.
“Good-bye, Little Jule,” cried Navy Bob, as we swept under the bows.
“Don’t fall overboard, Ropey,” said another to the poor landlubber,
who, with Wymontoo, the Dane, and others left behind, was looking over
at us from the forecastle.
“Give her three more!” cried Salem, springing to his feet and whirling
his hat round. “You sacre dam raakeel,” shouted the lieutenant of the
party, bringing the flat of his sabre across his shoulders, “you now
keepy steel.”
The doctor and myself, more discreet, sat quietly in the bow of the
cutter; and for my own part, though I did not repent what I had done,
my reflections were far from being enviable.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
RECEPTION FROM THE FRENCHMAN
In a few moments, we were paraded in the frigate’s gangway; the first
lieutenant—an elderly yellow-faced officer, in an ill-cut coat and
tarnished gold lace—coming up, and frowning upon us.
This gentleman’s head was a mere bald spot; his legs, sticks; in short,
his whole physical vigour seemed exhausted in the production of one
enormous moustache. Old Gamboge, as he was forthwith christened, now
received a paper from the consul; and, opening it, proceeded to compare
the goods delivered with the invoice.
After being thoroughly counted, a meek little midshipman was called,
and we were soon after given in custody to half-a-dozen
sailor-soldiers—fellows with tarpaulins and muskets. Preceded by a
pompous functionary (whom we took for one of the ship’s corporals, from
his ratan and the gold lace on his sleeve), we were now escorted down
the ladders to the berth-deck.
Here we were politely handcuffed, all round; the man with the bamboo
evincing the utmost solicitude in giving us a good fit from a large
basket of the articles of assorted sizes.
Taken by surprise at such an uncivil reception, a few of the party
demurred; but all coyness was, at last, overcome; and finally our feet
were inserted into heavy anklets of iron, running along a great bar
bolted down to the deck. After this, we considered ourselves
permanently established in our new quarters.
“The deuce take their old iron!” exclaimed the doctor; “if I’d known
this, I’d stayed behind.”
“Ha, ha!” cried Flash Jack, “you’re in for it, Doctor Long Ghost.”
“My hands and feet are, any way,” was the reply.
They placed a sentry over us; a great lubber of a fellow, who marched
up and down with a dilapidated old cutlass of most extraordinary
dimensions. From its length, we had some idea that it was expressly
intended to keep a crowd in order—reaching over the heads of
half-a-dozen, say, so as to get a cut at somebody behind.
“Mercy!” ejaculated the doctor with a shudder, “what a sensation it
must be to be killed by such a tool.”
We fasted till night, when one of the boys came along with a couple of
“kids” containing a thin, saffron-coloured fluid, with oily particles
floating on top. The young wag told us this was soup: it turned out to
be nothing more than oleaginous warm water. Such as it was,
nevertheless, we were fain to make a meal of it, our sentry being
attentive enough to undo our bracelets. The “kids” passed from mouth to
mouth, and were soon emptied.
The next morning, when the sentry’s back was turned, someone, whom we
took for an English sailor, tossed over a few oranges, the rinds of
which we afterward used for cups.
On the second day nothing happened worthy of record. On the third, we
were amused by the following scene.
A man, whom we supposed a boatswain’s mate, from the silver whistle
hanging from his neck, came below, driving before him a couple of
blubbering boys, and followed by a whole troop of youngsters in tears.
The pair, it seemed, were sent down to be punished by command of an
officer; the rest had accompanied them out of sympathy.
The boatswain’s mate went to work without delay, seizing the poor
little culprits by their loose frocks, and using a ratan without mercy.
The other boys wept, clasped their hands, and fell on their knees; but
in vain; the boatswain’s mate only hit out at them; once in a while
making them yell ten times louder than ever.
In the midst of the tumult, down comes a midshipman, who, with a great
air, orders the man on deck, and running in among the boys, sets them
to scampering in all directions.
The whole of this proceeding was regarded with infinite scorn by Navy
Bob, who, years before, had been captain of the foretop on board a
line-of-battle ship. In his estimation, it was a lubberly piece of
business throughout: they did things differently in the English navy.
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE REINE BLANCHE
I cannot forbear a brief reflection upon the scene ending the last
chapter.
The ratanning of the young culprits, although significant of the
imperfect discipline of a French man-of-war, may also be considered as
in some measure characteristic of the nation.
In an American or English ship, a boy when flogged is either lashed to
the breech of a gun, or brought right up to the gratings, the same way
the men are. But as a general rule, he is never punished beyond his
strength. You seldom or never draw a cry from the young rogue. He bites
his tongue and stands up to it like a hero. If practicable (which is
not always the case), he makes a point of smiling under the operation.
And so far from his companions taking any compassion on him, they
always make merry over his misfortunes. Should he turn baby and cry,
they are pretty sure to give him afterward a sly pounding in some dark
corner.
This tough training produces its legitimate results. The boy becomes,
in time, a thoroughbred tar, equally ready to strip and take a dozen on
board his own ship, or, cutlass in hand, dash pell-mell on board the
enemy’s. Whereas the young Frenchman, as all the world knows, makes but
an indifferent seaman; and though, for the most part, he fights well
enough, somehow or other he seldom fights well enough to beat.
How few sea-battles have the French ever won! But more: how few ships
have they ever carried by the board—that true criterion of naval
courage! But not a word against French bravery—there is plenty of it;
but not of the right sort. A Yankee’s, or an Englishman’s, is the
downright Waterloo “game.” The French fight better on land; and not
being essentially a maritime people, they ought to stay there. The best
of shipwrights, they are no sailors.
And this carries me back to the Reine Blanche, as noble a specimen of
what wood and iron can make as ever floated.
She was a new ship: the present her maiden cruise. The greatest pains
having been taken in her construction, she was accounted the “crack”
craft in the French navy. She is one of the heavy sixty-gun frigates
now in vogue all over the world, and which we Yankees were the first to
introduce. In action these are the most murderous vessels ever
launched.
The model of the Reine Blanche has all that warlike comeliness only to
be seen in a fine fighting ship. Still, there is a good deal of French
flummery about her—brass plates and other gewgaws stuck on all over,
like baubles on a handsome woman.
Among other things, she carries a stern gallery resting on the uplifted
hands of two Caryatides, larger than life. You step out upon this from
the commodore’s cabin. To behold the rich hangings, and mirrors, and
mahogany within, one is almost prepared to see a bevy of ladies trip
forth on the balcony for an airing.
But come to tread the gun-deck, and all thoughts like these are put to
flight. Such batteries of thunderbolt hurlers! with a
sixty-eight-pounder or two thrown in as make-weights. On the spar-deck,
also, are carronades of enormous calibre.
Recently built, this vessel, of course, had the benefit of the latest
improvements. I was quite amazed to see on what high principles of art
some exceedingly simple things were done. But your Gaul is scientific
about everything; what other people accomplish by a few hard knocks, he
delights in achieving by a complex arrangement of the pulley, lever,
and screw.
What demi-semi-quavers in a French air! In exchanging naval courtesies,
I have known a French band play “Yankee Doodle” with such a string of
variations that no one but a “pretty ’cute” Yankee could tell what they
were at.
In the French navy they have no marines; their men, taking turns at
carrying the musket, are sailors one moment, and soldiers the next; a
fellow running aloft in his line frock to-day, to-morrow stands sentry
at the admiral’s cabin door. This is fatal to anything like proper
sailor pride. To make a man a seaman, he should be put to no other
duty. Indeed, a thorough tar is unfit for anything else; and what is
more, this fact is the best evidence of his being a true sailor.
On board the Reine Blanche, they did not have enough to eat; and what
they did have was not of the right sort. Instead of letting the sailors
file their teeth against the rim of a hard sea-biscuit, they baked
their bread daily in pitiful little rolls. Then they had no “grog”; as
a substitute, they drugged the poor fellows with a thin, sour wine—the
juice of a few grapes, perhaps, to a pint of the juice of
water-faucets. Moreover, the sailors asked for meat, and they gave them
soup; a rascally substitute, as they well knew.
Ever since leaving home, they had been on “short allowance.” At the
present time, those belonging to the boats—and thus getting an
occasional opportunity to run ashore—frequently sold their rations of
bread to some less fortunate shipmate for sixfold its real value.
Another thing tending to promote dissatisfaction among the crew was
their having such a devil of a fellow for a captain. He was one of
those horrid naval bores—a great disciplinarian. In port, he kept them
constantly exercising yards and sails, and maneuvering with the boats;
and at sea, they were forever at quarters; running in and out the
enormous guns, as if their arms were made for nothing else. Then there
was the admiral aboard, also; and, no doubt, he too had a paternal eye
over them.
In the ordinary routine of duty, we could not but be struck with the
listless, slovenly behaviour of these men; there was nothing of the
national vivacity in their movements; nothing of the quick precision
perceptible on the deck of a thoroughly-disciplined armed vessel.
All this, however, when we came to know the reason, was no matter of
surprise; three-fourths of them were pressed men. Some old merchant
sailors had been seized the very day they landed from distant voyages;
while the landsmen, of whom there were many, had been driven down from
the country in herds, and so sent to sea.
At the time, I was quite amazed to hear of press-gangs in a day of
comparative peace; but the anomaly is accounted for by the fact that,
of late, the French have been building up a great military marine, to
take the place of that which Nelson gave to the waves of the sea at
Trafalgar. But it is to be hoped that they are not building their ships
for the people across the channel to take. In case of a war, what a
fluttering of French ensigns there would be!
Though I say the French are no sailors, I am far from seeking to
underrate them as a people. They are an ingenious and right gallant
nation. And, as an American, I take pride in asserting it.
CHAPTER XXX.
THEY TAKE US ASHORE—WHAT HAPPENED THERE
Five days and nights, if I remember right, we were aboard the frigate.
On the afternoon of the fifth, we were told that the next morning she
sailed for Valparaiso. Rejoiced at this, we prayed for a speedy
passage. But, as it turned out, the consul had no idea of letting us
off so easily. To our no small surprise, an officer came along toward
night, and ordered us out of irons. Being then mustered in the gangway,
we were escorted into a cutter alongside, and pulled ashore.
Accosted by Wilson as we struck the beach, he delivered us up to a
numerous guard of natives, who at once conducted us to a house near by.
Here we were made to sit down under a shade without; and the consul and
two elderly European residents passed by us, and entered.
After some delay, during which we were much diverted by the hilarious
good-nature of our guard—one of our number was called out for, followed
by an order for him to enter the house alone.
On returning a moment after, he told us we had little to encounter. It
had simply been asked whether he still continued of the same mind; on
replying yes, something was put down upon a piece of paper, and he was
waved outside. All being summoned in rotation, my own turn came at
last.
Within, Wilson and his two friends were seated magisterially at a
table—an inkstand, a pen, and a sheet of paper lending quite a
business-like air to the apartment. These three gentlemen, being
arrayed in coats and pantaloons, looked respectable, at least in a
country where complete suits of garments are so seldom met with. One
present essayed a solemn aspect; but having a short neck and full face,
only made out to look stupid.
It was this individual who condescended to take a paternal interest in
myself. After declaring my resolution with respect to the ship
unalterable, I was proceeding to withdraw, in compliance with a sign
from the consul, when the stranger turned round to him, saying, “Wait a
minute, if you please, Mr. Wilson; let me talk to that youth. Come
here, my young friend: I’m extremely sorry to see you associated with
these bad men; do you know what it will end in?”
“Oh, that’s the lad that wrote the Round Robin,” interposed the consul.
“He and that rascally doctor are at the bottom of the whole affair—go
outside, sir.”
I retired as from the presence of royalty; backing out with many bows.
The evident prejudice of Wilson against both the doctor and myself was
by no means inexplicable. A man of any education before the mast is
always looked upon with dislike by his captain; and, never mind how
peaceable he may be, should any disturbance arise, from his
intellectual superiority, he is deemed to exert an underhand influence
against the officers.
Little as I had seen of Captain Guy, the few glances cast upon me after
being on board a week or so were sufficient to reveal his enmity—a
feeling quickened by my undisguised companionship with Long Ghost, whom
he both feared and cordially hated. Guy’s relations with the consul
readily explains the latter’s hostility.
The examination over, Wilson and his friends advanced to the doorway;
when the former, assuming a severe expression, pronounced our
perverseness infatuation in the extreme. Nor was there any hope left:
our last chance for pardon was gone. Even were we to become contrite
and crave permission to return to duty, it would not now be permitted.
“Oh! get along with your gammon, counsellor,” exclaimed Black Dan,
absolutely indignant that his understanding should be thus insulted.
Quite enraged, Wilson bade him hold his peace; and then, summoning a
fat old native to his side, addressed him in Tahitian, giving
directions for leading us away to a place of safe keeping.
Hereupon, being marshalled in order, with the old man at our head, we
were put in motion, with loud shouts, along a fine pathway, running far
on through wide groves of the cocoa-nut and bread-fruit.
The rest of our escort trotted on beside us in high good-humour;
jabbering broken English, and in a hundred ways giving us to understand
that Wilson was no favourite of theirs, and that we were prime, good
fellows for holding out as we did. They seemed to know our whole
history.
The scenery around was delightful. The tropical day was fast drawing to
a close; and from where we were, the sun looked like a vast red fire
burning in the woodlands—its rays falling aslant through the endless
ranks of trees, and every leaf fringed with flame. Escaped from the
confined decks of the frigate, the air breathed spices to us; streams
were heard flowing; green boughs were rocking; and far inland, all
sunset flushed, rose the still, steep peaks of the island.
As we proceeded, I was more and more struck by the picturesqueness of
the wide, shaded road. In several places, durable bridges of wood were
thrown over large water-courses; others were spanned by a single arch
of stone. In any part of the road, three horsemen might have ridden
abreast.
This beautiful avenue—by far the best thing which civilization has done
for the island—is called by foreigners “the Broom Road,” though for
what reason I do not know. Originally planned for the convenience of
the missionaries journeying from one station to another, it almost
completely encompasses the larger peninsula; skirting for a distance of
at least sixty miles along the low, fertile lands bordering the sea.
But on the side next Taiarboo, or the lesser peninsula, it sweeps
through a narrow, secluded valley, and thus crosses the island in that
direction.
The uninhabited interior, being almost impenetrable from the
densely-wooded glens, frightful precipices, and sharp mountain ridges
absolutely inaccessible, is but little known, even to the natives
themselves; and so, instead of striking directly across from one
village to another, they follow the Broom Road round and round.
It is by no means, however, altogether travelled on foot; horses being
now quite plentiful. They were introduced from Chili; and possessing
all the gaiety, fleetness, and docility of the Spanish breed, are
admirably adapted to the tastes of the higher classes, who as
equestrians have become very expert. The missionaries and chiefs never
think of journeying except in the saddle; and at all hours of the day
you see the latter galloping along at full speed. Like the Sandwich
Islanders, they ride like Pawnee-Loups.
For miles and miles I have travelled the Broom Road, and never wearied
of the continual change of scenery. But wherever it leads you—whether
through level woods, across grassy glens, or over hills waving with
palms—the bright blue sea on one side, and the green mountain pinnacles
on the other, are always in sight.
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE CALABOOZA BERETANEE
About a mile from the village we came to a halt.
It was a beautiful spot. A mountain stream here flowed at the foot of a
verdant slope; on one hand, it murmured along until the waters,
spreading themselves upon a beach of small, sparkling shells, trickled
into the sea; on the other was a long defile, where the eye pursued a
gleaming, sinuous thread, lost in shade and verdure.
The ground next the road was walled in by a low, rude parapet of
stones; and, upon the summit of the slope beyond, was a large, native
house, the thatch dazzling white, and in shape an oval.
“Calabooza! Calabooza Beretanee!” (the English Jail), cried our
conductor, pointing to the building.
For a few months past, having been used by the consul as a house of
confinement for his refractory sailors, it was thus styled to
distinguish it from similar places in and about Papeetee.
Though extremely romantic in appearance, on a near approach it proved
hut ill adapted to domestic comfort. In short, it was a mere shell,
recently built, and still unfinished. It was open all round, and tufts
of grass were growing here and there under the very roof. The only
piece of furniture was the “stocks,” a clumsy machine for keeping
people in one place, which, I believe, is pretty much out of date in
most countries. It is still in use, however, among the Spaniards in
South America; from whom, it seems, the Tahitians have borrowed the
contrivance, as well as the name by which all places of confinement are
known among them.
The stocks were nothing more than two stout timbers, about twenty feet
in length, and precisely alike. One was placed edgeways on the ground,
and the other, resting on top, left, at regular intervals along the
seam, several round holes, the object of which was evident at a glance.
By this time, our guide had informed us that he went by the name of
“Capin Bob” (Captain Bob); and a hearty old Bob he proved. It was just
the name for him. From the first, so pleased were we with the old man
that we cheerfully acquiesced in his authority.
Entering the building, he set us about fetching heaps of dry leaves to
spread behind the stocks for a couch. A trunk of a small cocoa-nut tree
was then placed for a bolster—rather a hard one, but the natives are
used to it. For a pillow, they use a little billet of wood, scooped
out, and standing on four short legs—a sort of head-stool.
These arrangements completed, Captain Bob proceeded to “hanna-par,” or
secure us, for the night. The upper timber of the machine being lifted
at one end, and our ankles placed in the semicircular spaces of the
lower one, the other beam was then, dropped; both being finally secured
together by an old iron hoop at either extremity. This initiation was
performed to the boisterous mirth of the natives, and diverted
ourselves not a little.
Captain Bob now bustled about, like an old woman seeing the children to
bed. A basket of baked “taro,” or Indian turnip, was brought in, and we
were given a piece all round. Then a great counterpane of coarse, brown
“tappa,” was stretched over the whole party; and, after sundry
injunctions to “moee-moee,” and be “maitai”—in other words, to go to
sleep, and be good boys—we were left to ourselves, fairly put to bed
and tucked in.
Much talk was now had concerning our prospects in life; but the doctor
and I, who lay side by side, thinking the occasion better adapted to
meditation, kept pretty silent; and, before long, the rest ceased
conversing, and, wearied with loss of rest on board the frigate, were
soon sound asleep.
After sliding from one reverie into another, I started, and gave the
doctor a pinch. He was dreaming, however; and, resolved to follow his
example, I troubled him no more.
How the rest managed, I know not; but for my own part, I found it very
hard to get to sleep. The consciousness of having one’s foot pinned;
and the impossibility of getting it anywhere else than just where it
was, was most distressing.
But this was not all: there was no way of lying but straight on your
back; unless, to be sure, one’s limb went round and round in the ankle,
like a swivel. Upon getting into a sort of doze, it was no wonder this
uneasy posture gave me the nightmare. Under the delusion that I was
about some gymnastics or other, I gave my unfortunate member such a
twitch that I started up with the idea that someone was dragging the
stocks away.
Captain Bob and his friends lived in a little hamlet hard by; and when
morning showed in the East, the old gentleman came forth from that
direction likewise, emerging from a grove, and saluting us loudly as he
approached.
Finding everybody awake, he set us at liberty; and, leading us down to
the stream, ordered every man to strip and bathe.
“All han’s, my boy, hanna-hanna, wash!” he cried. Bob was a linguist,
and had been to sea in his day, as he many a time afterwards told us.
At this moment, we were all alone with him; and it would have been the
easiest thing in the world to have given him the slip; but he seemed to
have no idea of such a thing; treating us so frankly and cordially,
indeed, that even had we thought of running, we should have been
ashamed of attempting it. He very well knew, nevertheless (as we
ourselves were not slow in finding out), that, for various reasons, any
attempt of the kind, without some previously arranged plan for leaving
the island, would be certain to fail.
As Bob was a rare one every way, I must give some account of him. There
was a good deal of “personal appearance” about him; in short, he was a
corpulent giant, over six feet in height, and literally as big round as
a hogshead. The enormous bulk of some of the Tahitians has been
frequently spoken of by voyagers.
Beside being the English consul’s jailer, as it were, he carried on a
little Tahitian farming; that is to say, he owned several groves of the
bread-fruit and palm, and never hindered their growing. Close by was a
“taro” patch of his which he occasionally visited.
Bob seldom disposed of the produce of his lands; it was all needed for
domestic consumption. Indeed, for gormandizing, I would have matched
him against any three common-council men at a civic feast.
A friend of Bob’s told me that, owing to his voraciousness, his visits
to other parts of the island were much dreaded; for, according to
Tahitian customs, hospitality without charge is enjoined upon everyone;
and though it is reciprocal in most cases, in Bob’s it was almost out
of the question. The damage done to a native larder in one of his
morning calls was more than could be made good by his entertainer’s
spending the holidays with them.
The old man, as I have hinted, had, once upon a time, been a cruise or
two in a whaling-vessel; and, therefore, he prided himself upon his
English. Having acquired what he knew of it in the forecastle, he
talked little else than sailor phrases, which sounded whimsically
enough.
I asked him one day how old he was. “Olee?” he exclaimed, looking very
profound in consequence of thoroughly understanding so subtile a
question—“Oh! very olee—’tousand ’ear—more—big man when Capin Tootee
(Captain Cook) heavey in sight.” (In sea parlance, came into view.)
This was a thing impossible; but adapting my discourse to the man, I
rejoined—“Ah! you see Capin Tootee—well, how you like him?”
“Oh! he maitai: (good) friend of me, and know my wife.”
On my assuring him strongly that he could not have been born at the
time, he explained himself by saying that he was speaking of his
father, all the while. This, indeed, might very well have been.
It is a curious fact that all these people, young and old, will tell
you that they have enjoyed the honour of a personal acquaintance with
the great navigator; and if you listen to them, they will go on and
tell anecdotes without end. This springs from nothing but their great
desire to please; well knowing that a more agreeable topic for a white
man could not be selected. As for the anachronism of the thing, they
seem to have no idea of it: days and years are all the same to them.
After our sunrise bath, Bob once more placed us in the stocks, almost
moved to tears at subjecting us to so great a hardship; but he could
not treat us otherwise, he said, on pain of the consul’s displeasure.
How long we were to be confined, he did not know; nor what was to be
done with us in the end.
As noon advanced, and no signs of a meal were visible, someone inquired
whether we were to be boarded, as well as lodged, at the Hotel de
Calabooza?
“Vast heavey” (avast heaving, or wait a bit)—said Bob—“kow-kow” (food)
“come ship by by.”
And, sure enough, along comes Rope Yarn with a wooden bucket of the
Julia’s villainous biscuit. With a grin, he said it was a present from
Wilson: it was all we were to get that day. A great cry was now raised;
and well was it for the land-lubber that lie had a pair of legs, and
the men could not use theirs. One and all, we resolved not to touch the
bread, come what come might; and so we told the natives.
Being extravagantly fond of ship-biscuit—the harder the better—they
were quite overjoyed; and offered to give us, every day, a small
quantity of baked bread-fruit and Indian turnip in exchange for the
bread. This we agreed to; and every morning afterward, when the bucket
came, its contents were at once handed over to Bob and his friends, who
never ceased munching until nightfall.
Our exceedingly frugal meal of bread-fruit over, Captain Bob waddled up
to us with a couple of long poles hooked at one end, and several large
baskets of woven cocoa-nut branches.
Not far off was an extensive grove of orange-trees in full bearing; and
myself and another were selected to go with him, and gather a supply
for the party. When we went in among the trees, the sumptuousness of
the orchard was unlike anything I had ever seen; while the fragrance
shaken from the gently waving boughs regaled our senses most
delightfully.
In many places the trees formed a dense shade, spreading overhead a
dark, rustling vault, groined with boughs, and studded here and there
with the ripened spheres, like gilded balls. In several places, the
overladen branches were borne to the earth, hiding the trunk in a tent
of foliage. Once fairly in the grove, we could see nothing else; it was
oranges all round.
To preserve the fruit from bruising, Bob, hooking the twigs with his
pole, let them fall into his basket. But this would not do for us.
Seizing hold of a bough, we brought such a shower to the ground that
our old friend was fain to run from under. Heedless of remonstrance, we
then reclined in the shade, and feasted to our heart’s content. Heaping
up the baskets afterwards, we returned to our comrades, by whom our
arrival was hailed with loud plaudits; and in a marvellously short
time, nothing was left of the oranges we brought but the rinds.
While inmates of the Calabooza, we had as much of the fruit as we
wanted; and to this cause, and others that might be mentioned, may be
ascribed the speedy restoration of our sick to comparative health.
The orange of Tahiti is delicious—small and sweet, with a thin, dry
rind. Though now abounding, it was unknown before Cook’s time, to whom
the natives are indebted for so great a blessing. He likewise
introduced several other kinds of fruit; among these were the fig,
pineapple, and lemon, now seldom met with. The lime still grows, and
some of the poorer natives express the juice to sell to the shipping.
It is highly valued as an anti-scorbutic. Nor was the variety of
foreign fruits and vegetables which were introduced the only benefit
conferred by the first visitors to the Society group. Cattle and sheep
were left at various places. More of them anon.
Thus, after all that of late years has been done for these islanders,
Cook and Vancouver may, in one sense at least, be considered their
greatest benefactors.
CHAPTER XXXII.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE FRENCH AT TAHITI
As I happened to arrive at the island at a very interesting period in
its political affairs, it may be well to give some little account here
of the proceedings of the French, by way of episode to the narrative.
My information was obtained at the time from the general reports then
rife among the natives, as well as from what I learned upon a
subsequent visit, and reliable accounts which I have seen since
reaching home.
It seems that for some time back the French had been making repeated
ineffectual attempts to plant a Roman Catholic mission here. But,
invariably treated with contumely, they sometimes met with open
violence; and, in every case, those directly concerned in the
enterprise were ultimately forced to depart. In one instance, two
priests, Laval and Caset, after enduring a series of persecutions, were
set upon by the natives, maltreated, and finally carried aboard a small
trading schooner, which eventually put them ashore at Wallis’ island—a
savage place—some two thousand miles to the westward.
Now, that the resident English missionaries authorized the banishment
of these priests is a fact undenied by themselves. I was also
repeatedly informed that by their inflammatory harangues they
instigated the riots which preceded the sailing of the schooner. At all
events, it is certain that their unbounded influence with the natives
would easily have enabled them to prevent everything that took place on
this occasion, had they felt so inclined.
Melancholy as such an example of intolerance on the part of Protestant
missionaries must appear, it is not the only one, and by no means the
most flagrant, which might be presented. But I forbear to mention any
others; since they have been more than hinted at by recent voyagers,
and their repetition here would perhaps be attended with no good
effect. Besides, the conduct of the Sandwich Island missionaries in
particular has latterly much amended in this respect.
The treatment of the two priests formed the principal ground (and the
only justifiable one) upon which Du Petit Thouars demanded
satisfaction; and which subsequently led to his seizure of the island.
In addition to other things, he also charged that the flag of
Merenhout, the consul, had been repeatedly insulted, and the property
of a certain French resident violently appropriated by the government.
In the latter instance, the natives were perfectly in the right. At
that time, the law against the traffic in ardent spirits (every now and
then suspended and revived) happened to be in force; and finding a
large quantity on the premises of Victor, a low, knavish adventurer
from Marseilles, the Tahitians pronounced it forfeit.
For these, and similar alleged outrages, a large pecuniary restitution
was demanded (10,000 dollars), which there being no exchequer to
supply, the island was forthwith seized, under cover of a mock treaty,
dictated to the chiefs on the gun-deck of Du Petit Thouars’ frigate.
But, notwithstanding this formality, there seems now little doubt that
the downfall of the Pomarees was decided upon at the Tuilleries.
After establishing the Protectorate, so called, the rear-admiral
sailed; leaving M. Bruat governor, assisted by Reine and Carpegne,
civilians, named members of the Council of Government, and Merenhout,
the consul, now made Commissioner Royal. No soldiers, however, were
landed until several months afterward. As men, Reine and Carpegne were
not disliked by the natives; but Bruat and Merenhout they bitterly
detested. In several interviews with the poor queen, the unfeeling
governor sought to terrify her into compliance with his demands;
clapping his hand upon his sword, shaking his fist in her face, and
swearing violently. “Oh, king of a great nation,” said Pomaree, in her
letter to Louis Philippe, “fetch away this man; I and my people cannot
endure his evil doings. He is a shameless man.”
Although the excitement among the natives did not wholly subside upon
the rear-admiral’s departure, no overt act of violence immediately
followed. The queen had fled to Imeeo; and the dissensions among the
chiefs, together with the ill-advised conduct of the missionaries,
prevented a union upon some common plan of resistance. But the great
body of the people, as well as their queen, confidently relied upon the
speedy interposition of England—a nation bound to them by many ties,
and which, more than once, had solemnly guaranteed their independence.
As for the missionaries, they openly defied the French governor,
childishly predicting fleets and armies from Britain. But what is the
welfare of a spot like Tahiti to the mighty interests of France and
England! There was a remonstrance on one side, and a reply on the
other; and there the matter rested. For once in their brawling lives,
St. George and St. Denis were hand and glove; and they were not going
to cross sabres about Tahiti.
During my stay upon the island, so far as I could see, there was little
to denote that any change had taken place in the government.
Such laws as they had were administered the same as ever; the
missionaries went about unmolested, and comparative tranquillity
everywhere prevailed. Nevertheless, I sometimes heard the natives
inveighing against the French (no favourites, by the bye, throughout
Polynesia), and bitterly regretting that the queen had not, at the
outset, made a stand.
In the house of the chief Adeea, frequent discussions took place
concerning the ability of the island to cope with the French: the
number of fighting men and muskets among the natives were talked of, as
well as the propriety of fortifying several heights overlooking
Papeetee. Imputing these symptoms to the mere resentment of a recent
outrage, and not to any determined spirit of resistance, I little
anticipated the gallant, though useless warfare, so soon to follow my
departure.
At a period subsequent to my first visit, the island, which before was
divided into nineteen districts, with a native chief over each, in
capacity of governor and judge, was, by Bruat, divided into four. Over
these he set as many recreant chiefs, Kitoti, Tati, Utamai, and
Paraita; to whom he paid 1000 dollars each, to secure their assistance
in carrying out his evil designs.
The first blood shed, in any regular conflict, was at Mahanar, upon the
peninsula of Taraiboo. The fight originated in the seizure of a number
of women from the shore by men belonging to one of the French vessels
of war. In this affair, the islanders fought desperately, killing about
fifty of the enemy, and losing ninety of their own number. The French
sailors and marines, who, at the time, were reported to be infuriated
with liquor, gave no quarter; and the survivors only saved themselves
by fleeing to the mountains. Subsequently, the battles of Hararparpi
and Fararar were fought, in which the invaders met with indifferent
success.
Shortly after the engagement at Hararparpi, three Frenchmen were
waylaid in a pass of the valleys, and murdered by the incensed natives.
One was Lefevre, a notorious scoundrel, and a spy, whom Bruat had sent
to conduct a certain Major Fergus (said to be a Pole) to the
hiding-place of four chiefs, whom the governor wished to seize and
execute. This circumstance violently inflamed the hostility of both
parties.
About this time, Kitoti, a depraved chief, and the pliant tool of
Bruat, was induced by him to give a great feast in the Vale of Paree,
to which all his countrymen were invited. The governor’s object was to
gain over all he could to his interests; he supplied an abundance of
wine and brandy, and a scene of bestial intoxication was the natural
consequence. Before it came to this, however, several speeches were
made by the islanders. One of these, delivered by an aged warrior, who
had formerly been at the head of the celebrated Aeorai Society, was
characteristic. “This is a very good feast,” said the reeling old man,
“and the wine also is very good; but you evil-minded Wee-Wees (French),
and you false-hearted men of Tahiti, are all very bad.”
By the latest accounts, most of the islanders still refuse to submit to
the French; and what turn events may hereafter take, it is hard to
predict. At any rate, these disorders must accelerate the final
extinction of their race.
Along with the few officers left by Du Petit Thouars were several
French priests, for whose unobstructed exertions in the dissemination
of their faith, the strongest guarantees were provided by an article of
the treaty. But no one was bound to offer them facilities; much less a
luncheon, the first day they went ashore. True, they had plenty of
gold; but to the natives it was anathema—taboo—and, for several hours
and some odd minutes, they would not touch it. Emissaries of the Pope
and the devil, as the strangers were considered—the smell of sulphur
hardly yet shaken out of their canonicals—what islander would venture
to jeopardize his soul, and call down a blight on his breadfruit, by
holding any intercourse with them! That morning the priests actually
picknicked in grove of cocoa-nut trees; but, before night, Christian
hospitality—in exchange for a commercial equivalent of hard dollars—was
given them in an adjoining house.
Wanting in civility, as the conduct of the English missionaries may be
thought, in withholding a decent reception to these persons, the latter
were certainly to blame in needlessly placing themselves in so
unpleasant a predicament. Under far better auspices, they might have
settled upon some one of the thousand unconverted isles of the Pacific,
rather than have forced themselves thus upon a people already
professedly Christians.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
WE RECEIVE CALLS AT THE HOTEL DE CALABOOZA
Our place of confinement being open all round, and so near the Broom
Road, of course we were in plain sight of everybody passing; and,
therefore, we had no lack of visitors among such an idle, inquisitive
set as the Tahitians. For a few days, they were coming and going
continually; while, thus ignobly fast by the foot, we were fain to give
passive audience.
During this period, we were the lions of the neighbourhood; and, no
doubt, strangers from the distant villages were taken to see the
“Karhowrees” (white men), in the same way that countrymen, in a city,
are gallanted to the Zoological Gardens.
All this gave us a fine opportunity of making observations. I was
painfully struck by the considerable number of sickly or deformed
persons; undoubtedly made so by a virulent complaint, which, under
native treatment, almost invariably affects, in the end, the muscles
and bones of the body. In particular, there is a distortion of the
back, most unsightly to behold, originating in a horrible form of the
malady.
Although this, and other bodily afflictions, were unknown before the
discovery of the islands by the whites, there are several cases found
of the Fa-Fa, or Elephantiasis—a native disease, which seems to have
prevailed among them from the earliest antiquity. Affecting the legs
and feet alone, it swells them, in some instances, to the girth of a
man’s body, covering the skin with scales. It might be supposed that
one, thus afflicted, would be incapable of walking; but, to all
appearance, they seem to be nearly as active as anybody; apparently
suffering no pain, and bearing the calamity with a degree of
cheerfulness truly marvellous.
The Fa-Fa is very gradual in its approaches, and years elapse before
the limb is fully swollen. Its origin is ascribed by the natives to
various causes; but the general impression seems to be that it arises,
in most cases, from the eating of unripe bread-fruit and Indian turnip.
So far as I could find out, it is not hereditary. In no stage do they
attempt a cure; the complaint being held incurable.
Speaking of the Fa-Fa reminds me of a poor fellow, a sailor, whom I
afterward saw at Roorootoo, a lone island, some two days’ sail from
Tahiti.
The island is very small, and its inhabitants nearly extinct. We sent a
boat off to see whether any yams were to be had, as, formerly, the yams
of Roorootoo were as famous among the islands round about, as Sicily
oranges in the Mediterranean. Going ashore, to my surprise, I was
accosted, near a little shanty of a church, by a white man, who limped
forth from a wretched hut. His hair and beard were unshorn, his face
deadly pale and haggard, and one limb swelled with the Fa-Fa to an
incredible bigness. This was the first instance of a foreigner
suffering from it that I had ever seen, or heard of; and the spectacle
shocked me accordingly.
He had been there for years. From the first symptoms, he could not
believe his complaint to be what it really was, and trusted it would
soon disappear. But when it became plain that his only chance for
recovery was a speedy change of climate, no ship would receive him as a
sailor: to think of being taken as a passenger was idle. This speaks
little for the humanity of sea captains; but the truth is that those in
the Pacific have little enough of the virtue; and, nowadays, when so
many charitable appeals are made to them, they have become callous.
I pitied the poor fellow from the bottom of my heart; but nothing could
I do, as our captain was inexorable. “Why,” said he, “here we
are—started on a six months’ cruise—I can’t put back; and he is better
off on the island than at sea. So on Roorootoo he must die.” And
probably he did.
I afterwards heard of this melancholy object, from two seamen. His
attempts to leave were still unavailing, and his hard fate was fast
closing in.
Notwithstanding the physical degeneracy of the Tahitians as a people,
among the chiefs, individuals of personable figures are still
frequently met with; and, occasionally, majestic-looking men, and
diminutive women as lovely as the nymphs who, nearly a century ago,
swam round the ships of Wallis. In these instances, Tahitian beauty is
quite as seducing as it proved to the crew of the Bounty; the young
girls being just such creatures as a poet would picture in the
tropics—soft, plump, and dreamy-eyed.
The natural complexion of both sexes is quite light; but the males
appear much darker, from their exposure to the sun. A dark complexion,
however, in a man, is highly esteemed, as indicating strength of both
body and soul. Hence there is a saying, of great antiquity among them.
“If dark the cheek of the mother, The son will sound the war-conch; If
strong her frame, he will give laws.”
With this idea of manliness, no wonder the Tahitians regarded all pale
and tepid-looking Europeans as weak and feminine; whereas, a sailor,
with a cheek like the breast of a roast turkey, is held a lad of brawn:
to use their own phrase, a “taata tona,” or man of bones.
Speaking of bones recalls an ugly custom of theirs, now obsolete—that
of making fish-hooks and gimlets out of those of their enemies. This
beats the Scandinavians turning people’s skulls into cups and saucers.
But to return to the Calabooza Beretanee. Immense was the interest we
excited among the throngs that called there; they would stand talking
about us by the hour, growing most unnecessarily excited too, and
dancing up and down with all the vivacity of their race. They
invariably sided with us; flying out against the consul, and denouncing
him as “Ita maitai nuee,” or very bad exceedingly. They must have borne
him some grudge or other.
Nor were the women, sweet souls, at all backward in visiting. Indeed,
they manifested even more interest than the men; gazing at us with eyes
full of a thousand meanings, and conversing with marvellous rapidity.
But, alas! inquisitive though they were, and, doubtless, taking some
passing compassion on us, there was little real feeling in them after
all, and still less sentimental sympathy. Many of them laughed outright
at us, noting only what was ridiculous in our plight.
I think it was the second day of our confinement that a wild, beautiful
girl burst into the Calabooza, and, throwing herself into an arch
attitude, stood afar off, and gazed at us. She was a heartless
one:—tickled to death with Black Dan’s nursing his chafed ankle, and
indulging in certain moral reflections on the consul and Captain Guy.
After laughing her fill at him, she condescended to notice the rest;
glancing from one to another in the most methodical and provoking
manner imaginable. Whenever anything struck her comically, you saw it
like a flash—her finger levelled instantaneously, and, flinging herself
back, she gave loose to strange, hollow little notes of laughter, that
sounded like the bass of a music-box, playing a lively air with the lid
down.
Now, I knew not that there was anything in my own appearance calculated
to disarm ridicule; and indeed, to have looked at all heroic, under the
circumstances, would have been rather difficult. Still, I could not but
feel exceedingly annoyed at the prospect of being screamed at, in turn,
by this mischievous young witch, even though she were but an islander.
And, to tell a secret, her beauty had something to do with this sort of
feeling; and, pinioned as I was to a log, and clad most unbecomingly, I
began to grow sentimental.
Ere her glance fell upon me, I had, unconsciously, thrown myself into
the most graceful attitude I could assume, leaned my head upon my hand,
and summoned up as abstracted an expression as possible. Though my face
was averted, I soon felt it flush, and knew that the glance was on me;
deeper and deeper grew the flush, and not a sound of laughter.
Delicious thought! she was moved at the sight of me. I could stand it
no longer, but started up. Lo! there she was; her great hazel eyes
rounding and rounding in her head, like two stars, her whole frame in a
merry quiver, and an expression about the mouth that was sudden and
violent death to anything like sentiment.
The next moment she spun round, and, bursting from peal to peal of
laughter, went racing out of the Calabooza; and, in mercy to me, never
returned.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
LIFE AT THE CALABOOZA
A few days passed; and, at last, our docility was rewarded by some
indulgence on the part of Captain Bob.
He allowed the entire party to be at large during the day; only
enjoining upon us always to keep within hail. This, to be sure, was in
positive disobedience to Wilson’s orders; and so, care had to be taken
that he should not hear of it. There was little fear of the natives
telling him; but strangers travelling the Broom Road might. By way of
precaution, boys were stationed as scouts along the road. At sight of a
white man, they sounded the alarm! when we all made for our respective
holes (the stocks being purposely left open): the beam then descended,
and we were prisoners. As soon as the traveller was out of sight, of
course, we were liberated.
Notwithstanding the regular supply of food which we obtained from
Captain Bob and his friends, it was so small that we often felt most
intolerably hungry. We could not blame them for not bringing us more,
for we soon became aware that they had to pinch themselves in order to
give us what they did; besides, they received nothing for their
kindness but the daily bucket of bread.
Among a people like the Tahitians, what we call “hard times” can only
be experienced in the scarcity of edibles; yet, so destitute are many
of the common people that this most distressing consequence of
civilization may be said, with them, to be ever present. To be sure,
the natives about the Calabooza had abundance of limes and oranges; but
what were these good for, except to impart a still keener edge to
appetites which there was so little else to gratify? During the height
of the bread-fruit season, they fare better; but, at other times, the
demands of the shipping exhaust the uncultivated resources of the
island; and the lands being mostly owned by the chiefs, the inferior
orders have to suffer for their cupidity. Deprived of their nets, many
of them would starve.
As Captain Bob insensibly remitted his watchfulness, and we began to
stroll farther and farther from the Calabooza, we managed, by a
systematic foraging upon the country round about, to make up some of
our deficiencies. And fortunate it was that the houses of the wealthier
natives were just as open to us as those of the most destitute; we were
treated as kindly in one as the other.
Once in a while, we came in at the death of a chief's pig; the noise of
whose slaughtering was generally to be heard at a great distance. An
occasion like this gathers the neighbours together, and they have a bit
of a feast, where a stranger is always welcome. A good loud squeal,
therefore, was music in our ears. It showed something going on in that
direction.
Breaking in upon the party tumultuously, as we did, we always created a
sensation. Sometimes, we found the animal still alive and struggling;
in which case, it was generally dropped at our approach.
To provide for these emergencies, Flash Jack generally repaired to the
scene of operations with a sheath-knife between his teeth, and a club
in his hand. Others were exceedingly officious in singeing off the
bristles, and disembowelling. Doctor Long Ghost and myself, however,
never meddled with these preliminaries, but came to the feast itself
with unimpaired energies.
Like all lank men, my long friend had an appetite of his own. Others
occasionally went about seeking what they might devour, but he was
always on the alert.
He had an ingenious way of obviating an inconvenience which we all
experienced at times. The islanders seldom use salt with their food; so
he begged Rope Yarn to bring him some from the ship; also a little
pepper, if he could; which, accordingly, was done. This he placed in a
small leather wallet—a “monkey bag” (so called by sailors)—usually worn
as a purse about the neck.
“In my opinion,” said Long Ghost, as he tucked the wallet out of sight,
“it behooves a stranger, in Tahiti, to have his knife in readiness, and
his castor slung.”
CHAPTER XXXV.
VISIT FROM AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE
We had not been many days ashore, when Doctor Johnson was espied coming
along the Broom Road.
We had heard that he meditated a visit, and suspected what he was
after. Being upon the consul’s hands, all our expenses were of course
payable by him in his official capacity; and, therefore, as a friend of
Wilson, and sure of good pay, the shore doctor had some idea of
allowing us to run up a bill with him. True, it was rather awkward to
ask us to take medicines which, on board the ship, he told us were not
needed. However, he resolved to put a bold face on the matter, and give
us a call.
His approach was announced by one of the scouts, upon which someone
suggested that we should let him enter, and then put him in the stocks.
But Long Ghost proposed better sport. What it was, we shall presently
see.
Very bland and amiable, Doctor Johnson advanced, and, resting his cane
on the stocks, glanced to right and left, as we lay before him. “Well,
my lads”—he began—“how do you find yourselves to-day?”
Looking very demure, the men made some rejoinder; and he went on.
“Those poor fellows I saw the other day—the sick, I mean—how are they?”
and he scrutinized the company. At last, he singled out one who was
assuming a most unearthly appearance, and remarked that he looked as if
he were extremely ill. “Yes,” said the sailor dolefully, “I’m afeard,
doctor, I’ll soon be losing the number of my mess!” (a sea phrase, for
departing this life) and he closed his eyes, and moaned.
“What does he say?” said Johnson, turning round eagerly.
“Why,” exclaimed Flash Jack, who volunteered as interpreter, “he means
he’s going to croak” (die).
“Croak! and what does that mean, applied to a patient?”
“Oh! I understand,” said he, when the word was explained; and he
stepped over the stocks, and felt the man’s pulse.
“What’s his name?” he asked, turning this time to old Navy Bob.
“We calls him Jingling Joe,” replied that worthy.
“Well then, men, you must take good care of poor Joseph; and I will
send him a powder, which must be taken according to the directions.
Some of you know how to read, I presume?”
“That ere young cove does,” replied Bob, pointing toward the place
where I lay, as if he were directing attention to a sail at sea.
After examining the rest—some of whom were really invalids, but
convalescent, and others only pretending to be labouring under divers
maladies, Johnson turned round, and addressed the party.
“Men,” said he, “if any more of you are ailing, speak up, and let me
know. By order of the consul, I’m to call every day; so if any of you
are at all sick, it’s my duty to prescribe for you. This sudden change
from ship fare to shore living plays the deuce with you sailors, so be
cautious about eating fruit. Good-day! I’ll send you the medicines the
first thing in the morning.”
Now, I am inclined to suspect that with all his want of understanding,
Johnson must have had some idea that we were quizzing him. Still, that
was nothing, so long as it answered his purpose; and therefore, if he
did see through us, he never showed it.
Sure enough, at the time appointed, along came a native lad with a
small basket of cocoa-nut stalks, filled with powders, pill-boxes,
and-vials, each with names and directions written in a large, round
hand. The sailors, one and all, made a snatch at the collection, under
the strange impression that some of the vials were seasoned with
spirits. But, asserting his privilege as physician to the first reading
of the labels, Doctor Long Ghost was at last permitted to take
possession of the basket.
The first thing lighted upon was a large vial, labelled—“For
William—rub well in.”
This vial certainly had a spirituous smell; and upon handing it to the
patient, he made a summary internal application of its contents. The
doctor looked aghast.
There was now a mighty commotion. Powders and pills were voted mere
drugs in the market, and the holders of vials were pronounced lucky
dogs. Johnson must have known enough of sailors to make some of his
medicines palatable—this, at least, Long Ghost suspected. Certain it
was, everyone took to the vials; if at all spicy, directions were
unheeded, their contents all going one road.
The largest one of all, quite a bottle indeed, and having a sort of
burnt brandy odour, was labelled—“For Daniel, drink freely, and until
relieved.” This Black Dan proceeded to do; and would have made an end
of it at once, had not the bottle, after a hard struggle, been snatched
from his hands, and passed round, like a jovial decanter. The old tar
had complained of the effects of an immoderate eating of fruit.
Upon calling the following morning, our physician found his precious
row of patients reclining behind the stocks, and doing “as well as
could be expected.”
But the pills and powders were found to have been perfectly inactive:
probably because none had been taken. To make them efficacious, it was
suggested that, for the future, a bottle of Pisco should be sent along
with them. According to Flash Jack’s notions, unmitigated medical
compounds were but dry stuff at the best, and needed something good to
wash them down.
Thus far, our own M.D., Doctor Long Ghost, after starting the frolic,
had taken no further part in it; but on the physician’s third visit, he
took him to one side, and had a private confabulation. What it was,
exactly, we could not tell; but from certain illustrative signs and
gestures, I fancied that he was describing the symptoms of some
mysterious disorganization of the vitals, which must have come on
within the hour. Assisted by his familiarity with medical terms, he
seemed to produce a marked impression. At last, Johnson went his way,
promising aloud that he would send Long Ghost what he desired.
When the medicine boy came along the following morning, the doctor was
the first to accost him, walking off with a small purple vial. This
time, there was little else in the basket but a case-bottle of the
burnt brandy cordial, which, after much debate, was finally disposed of
by someone pouring the contents, little by little, into the half of a
cocoa-nut shell, and so giving all who desired a glass. No further
medicinal cheer remaining, the men dispersed.
An hour or two passed, when Flash Jack directed attention to my long
friend, who, since the medicine boy left, had not been noticed till
now. With eyes closed, he was lying behind the stocks, and Jack was
lifting his arm and letting it fall as if life were extinct. On running
up with the rest, I at once connected the phenomenon with the
mysterious vial. Searching his pocket, I found it, and holding it up,
it proved to be laudanum. Flash Jack, snatching it from my hand in a
rapture, quickly informed all present what it was; and with much glee,
proposed a nap for the company. Some of them not comprehending him
exactly, the apparently defunct Long Ghost—who lay so still that I a
little suspected the genuineness of his sleep—was rolled about as an
illustration of the virtues of the vial’s contents. The idea tickled
everybody mightily; and throwing themselves down, the magic draught was
passed from hand to hand. Thinking that, as a matter of course, they
must at once become insensible, each man, upon taking his sip, fell
back, and closed his eyes.
There was little fear of the result, since the narcotic was equally
distributed. But, curious to see how it would operate, I raised myself
gently after a while, and looked around. It was about noon, and
perfectly still; and as we all daily took the siesta, I was not much
surprised to find everyone quiet. Still, in one or two instances, I
thought I detected a little peeping.
Presently, I heard a footstep, and saw Doctor Johnson approaching.
And perplexed enough did he look at the sight of his prostrate file of
patients, plunged, apparently, in such unaccountable slumbers.
“Daniel,” he cried, at last, punching in the side with his cane the
individual thus designated—“Daniel, my good fellow, get up! do you
hear?”
But Black Dan was immovable; and he poked the next sleeper.
“Joseph, Joseph! come, wake up! it’s me, Doctor Johnson.”
But Jingling Joe, with mouth open, and eyes shut, was not to be
started.
“Bless my soul!” he exclaimed, with uplifted hands and cane, “what’s
got into ’em? I say, men”—he shouted, running up and down—“come to
life, men! what under the sun’s the matter with you?” and he struck the
stocks, and bawled with increased vigour.
At last he paused, folded his hands over the head of his cane, and
steadfastly gazed upon us. The notes of the nasal orchestra were rising
and falling upon his ear, and a new idea suggested itself.
“Yes, yes; the rascals must have been getting boozy. Well, it’s none of
my business—I’ll be off;” and off he went.
No sooner was he out of sight, than nearly all started to their feet,
and a hearty laugh ensued.
Like myself, most of them had been watching the event from under a sly
eyelid. By this time, too, Doctor Long Ghost was as wide awake as
anybody. What were his reasons for taking laudanum,—if, indeed, he took
any whatever,—is best known to himself; and, as it is neither mine nor
the reader’s business, we will say no more about it.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
WE ARE CARRIED BEFORE THE CONSUL AND CAPTAIN
We had been inmates of the Calabooza Beretanee about two weeks, when,
one morning, Captain Bob, coming from the bath, in a state of utter
nudity, brought into the building an armful of old tappa, and began to
dress to go out.
The operation was quite simple. The tappa—of the coarsest kind—was in
one long, heavy piece; and, fastening one end to a column of Habiscus
wood supporting the Calabooza, he went off a few paces, and putting the
other about his waist, wound himself right up to the post. This unique
costume, in rotundity something like a farthingale, added immensely to
his large hulk; so much so that he fairly waddled in his gait. But he
was only adhering to the fashion of his fathers; for, in the olden
time, the “Kihee,” or big girdle, was quite the mode for both sexes.
Bob, despising recent innovations, still clung to it. He was a
gentleman of the old school—one of the last of the Kihees.
He now told us that he had orders to take us before the consul. Nothing
loth, we formed in procession; and, with the old man at our head,
sighing and labouring like an engine, and flanked by a guard of some
twenty natives, we started for the village.
Arrived at the consular office, we found Wilson there, and four or five
Europeans, seated in a row facing us; probably with the view of
presenting as judicial an appearance as possible.
On one side was a couch, where Captain Guy reclined. He looked
convalescent; and, as we found out, intended soon to go aboard his
ship. He said nothing, but left everything to the consul.
The latter now rose, and, drawing forth a paper from a large roll tied
with red tape, commenced reading aloud.
It purported to be, “the affidavit of John Jermin, first officer of the
British Colonial Barque Julia; Guy, Master;” and proved to be a long
statement of matters, from the time of leaving Sydney, down to our
arrival in the harbour. Though artfully drawn up so as to bear hard
against every one of us, it was pretty correct in the details;
excepting that it was wholly silent as to the manifold derelictions of
the mate himself—a fact which imparted unusual significance to the
concluding sentence, “And furthermore, this deponent sayeth not.”
No comments were made, although we all looked round for the mate to see
whether it was possible that he could have authorized this use of his
name. But he was not present.
The next document produced was the deposition of the captain himself.
As on all other occasions, however, he had very little to say for
himself, and it was soon set aside.
The third affidavit was that of the seamen remaining aboard the vessel,
including the traitor Bungs, who, it seemed, had turned ship’s
evidence. It was an atrocious piece of exaggeration, from beginning to
end; and those who signed it could not have known what they were about.
Certainly Wymontoo did not, though his mark was there. In vain the
consul commanded silence during the reading of this paper; comments
were shouted out upon every paragraph.
The affidavits read, Wilson, who, all the while, looked as stiff as a
poker, solemnly drew forth the ship’s articles from their tin case.
This document was a discoloured, musty, bilious-looking affair, and
hard to read. When finished, the consul held it up; and, pointing to
the marks of the ship’s company, at the bottom, asked us, one by one,
whether we acknowledged the same for our own.
“What’s the use of asking that?” said Black Dan; “Captain Guy there
knows as well as we they are.”
“Silence, sir!” said Wilson, who, intending to produce a suitable
impression by this ridiculous parade, was not a little mortified by the
old sailor’s bluntness.
A pause of a few moments now ensued; during which the bench of judges
communed with Captain Guy, in a low tone, and the sailors canvassed the
motives of the consul in having the affidavits taken.
The general idea seemed to be that it was done with a view of
“bouncing,” or frightening us into submission. Such proved to be the
case; for Wilson, rising to his feet again, addressed us as follows:—
“You see, men, that every preparation has been made to send you to
Sydney for trial. The Rosa (a small Australian schooner, lying in the
harbour) will sail for that place in the course of ten days, at
farthest. The Julia sails on a cruise this day week. Do you still
refuse duty?”
We did.
Hereupon the consul and captain exchanged glances; and the latter
looked bitterly disappointed.
Presently I noticed Guy’s eye upon me; and, for the first time, he
spoke, and told me to come near. I stepped forward.
“Was it not you that was taken off the island?”
“It was.”
“It was you then who owe your life to my humanity. Yet this is the
gratitude of a sailor, Mr. Wilson!”
“Not so, sir.” And I at once gave him to understand that I was
perfectly acquainted with his motives in sending a boat into the bay;
his crew was reduced, and he merely wished to procure the sailor whom
he expected to find there. The ship was the means of my deliverance,
and no thanks to the benevolence of its captain.
Doctor Long Ghost also had a word to say. In two masterly sentences he
summed up Captain Guy’s character, to the complete satisfaction of
every seaman present.
Matters were now growing serious; especially as the sailors became
riotous, and talked about taking the consul and the captain back to the
Calabooza with them.
The other judges fidgeted, and loudly commanded silence. It was at
length restored; when Wilson, for the last time addressing us, said
something more about the Rose and Sydney, and concluded by reminding us
that a week would elapse ere the Julia sailed.
Leaving these hints to operate for themselves, he dismissed the party,
ordering Captain Bob and his friends to escort us back whence we came.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE FRENCH PRIESTS PAY THEIR RESPECTS
A day or two after the events just related, we were lounging in the
Calabooza Beretanee, when we were honoured by a visit from three of the
French Priests; and as about the only notice ever taken of us by the
English missionaries was their leaving their cards for us, in the shape
of a package of tracts, we could not help thinking that the Frenchmen,
in making a personal call, were at least much better bred.
By this time they had settled themselves down quite near our
habitation. A pleasant little stroll down the Broom Road, and a rustic
cross peeped through the trees; and soon you came to as charming a
place as one would wish to see: a soft knoll, planted with old
breadfruit trees; in front, a savannah, sloping to a grove of palms,
and, between these, glimpses of blue, sunny waves.
On the summit of the knoll was a rude chapel, of bamboos; quite small,
and surmounted by the cross. Between the canes, at nightfall, the
natives stole peeps at a small portable altar; a crucifix to
correspond, and gilded candlesticks and censers. Their curiosity
carried them no further; nothing could induce them to worship there.
Such queer ideas as they entertained of the hated strangers. Masses and
chants were nothing more than evil spells. As for the priests
themselves, they were no better than diabolical sorcerers; like those
who, in old times, terrified their fathers.
Close by the chapel was a range of native houses; rented from a chief,
and handsomely furnished. Here lived the priests; and very comfortably,
too. They looked sanctimonious enough abroad; but that went for
nothing; since, at home, in their retreat, they were a club of Friar
Tucks; holding priestly wassail over many a good cup of red brandy, and
rising late in the morning.
Pity it was they couldn’t marry—pity for the ladies of the island, I
mean, and the cause of morality; for what business had the
ecclesiastical old bachelors with such a set of trim little native
handmaidens? These damsels were their first converts; and devoted ones
they were.
The priests, as I have said before, were accounted necromancers: the
appearance of two of our three visitors might have justified the
conceit.
They were little, dried-up Frenchmen, in long, straight gowns of black
cloth, and unsightly three-cornered hats—so preposterously big that, in
putting them on, the reverend fathers seemed to extinguish themselves.
Their companion was dressed differently. He wore a sort of yellow,
flannel morning gown, and a broad-brimmed Manilla hat. Large and
portly, he was also hale and fifty; with a complexion like an autumnal
leaf—handsome blue eyes—fine teeth, and a racy Milesian brogue. In
short, he was an Irishman; Father Murphy, by name; and, as such, pretty
well known, and very thoroughly disliked, throughout all the Protestant
missionary settlements in Polynesia. In early youth, he had been sent
to a religious seminary in France; and, taking orders there, had but
once or twice afterwards revisited his native land.
Father Murphy marched up to us briskly; and the first words he uttered
were, to ask whether there were any of his countrymen among us. There
were two of them; one, a lad of sixteen—a bright, curly-headed
rascal—and, being a young Irishman, of course, his name was Pat. The
other was an ugly, and rather melancholy-looking scamp; one M’Gee,
whose prospects in life had been blasted by a premature transportation
to Sydney. This was the report, at least, though it might have been
scandal.
In most of my shipmates were some redeeming qualities; but about M’Gee,
there was nothing of the kind; and forced to consort with him, I could
not help regretting, a thousand times, that the gallows had been so
tardy. As if impelled, against her will, to send him into the world,
Nature had done all she could to insure his being taken for what he
was. About the eyes there was no mistaking him; with a villainous cast
in one, they seemed suspicious of each other.
Glancing away from him at once, the bluff priest rested his gaze on the
good-humoured face of Pat, who, with a pleasant roguishness, was
“twigging” the enormous hats (or “Hytee Belteezers,” as land beavers
are called by sailors), from under which, like a couple of snails,
peeped the two little Frenchmen.
Pat and the priest were both from the same town in Meath; and, when
this was found out, there was no end to the questions of the latter. To
him, Pat seemed a letter from home, and said a hundred times as much.
After a long talk between these two, and a little broken English from
the Frenchmen, our visitors took leave; but Father Murphy had hardly
gone a dozen rods when back he came, inquiring whether we were in want
of anything.
“Yes,” cried one, “something to eat.” Upon this he promised to send us
some fresh wheat bread, of his own baking; a great luxury in Tahiti.
We all felicitated Pat upon picking up such a friend, and told him his
fortune was made.
The next morning, a French servant of the priest’s made his appearance
with a small bundle of clothing for our young Hibernian; and the
promised bread for the party. Pat being out at the knees and elbows,
and, like the rest of us, not full inside, the present was acceptable
all round.
In the afternoon, Father Murphy himself came along; and, in addition to
his previous gifts, gave Pat a good deal of advice: said he was sorry
to see him in limbo, and that he would have a talk with the consul
about having him set free.
We saw nothing more of him for two or three days; at the end of which
time he paid us another call, telling Pat that Wilson was inexorable,
having refused to set him at liberty, unless to go aboard the ship.
This, the priest now besought him to do forthwith; and so escape the
punishment which, it seems, Wilson had been hinting at to his
intercessor. Pat, however, was staunch against entreaties; and, with
all the ardour of a sophomorean sailor, protested his intention to hold
out to the last. With none of the meekness of a good little boy about
him, the blunt youngster stormed away at such a rate that it was hard
to pacify him; and the priest said no more.
How it came to pass—whether from Murphy’s speaking to the consul, or
otherwise, we could not tell—but the next day, Pat was sent for by
Wilson, and being escorted to the village by our good old keeper, three
days elapsed before he returned.
Bent upon reclaiming him, they had taken him on board the ship; feasted
him in the cabin; and, finding that of no avail, down they thrust him
into the hold, in double irons, and on bread and water. All would not
do; and so he was sent back to the Calabooza. Boy that he was, they
must have counted upon his being more susceptible to discipline than
the rest.
The interest felt in Pat’s welfare, by his benevolent countryman, was
very serviceable to the rest of us; especially as we all turned
Catholics, and went to mass every morning, much to Captain Bob’s
consternation. Upon finding it out, he threatened to keep us in the
stocks if we did not desist. He went no farther than this, though; and
so, every few days, we strolled down to the priest’s residence, and had
a mouthful to eat, and something generous to drink. In particular, Dr.
Long Ghost and myself became huge favourites with Pat’s friend; and
many a time he regaled us from a quaint-looking travelling case for
spirits, stowed away in one corner of his dwelling. It held four square
flasks, which, somehow or other, always contained just enough to need
emptying. In truth, the fine old Irishman was a rosy fellow in
canonicals. His countenance and his soul were always in a glow. It may
be ungenerous to reveal his failings, but he often talked thick, and
sometimes was perceptibly eccentric in his gait.
I never drink French brandy but I pledge Father Murphy. His health
again! And many jolly proselytes may he make in Polynesia!
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
LITTLE JULIA SAILS WITHOUT US
To make good the hint thrown out by the consul upon the conclusion of
the Farce of the Affidavits, we were again brought before him within
the time specified.
It was the same thing over again: he got nothing out of us, and we were
remanded; our resolute behaviour annoying him prodigiously.
What we observed led us to form the idea that, on first learning the
state of affairs on board the Julia, Wilson must have addressed his
invalid friend, the captain, something in the following style:
“Guy, my poor fellow, don’t worry yourself now about those rascally
sailors of yours. I’ll dress them out for you—just leave it all to me,
and set your mind at rest.”
But handcuffs and stocks, big looks, threats, dark hints, and
depositions, had all gone for nought.
Conscious that, as matters now stood, nothing serious could grow out of
what had happened; and never dreaming that our being sent home for
trial had ever been really thought of, we thoroughly understood Wilson,
and laughed at him accordingly.
Since leaving the Julia, we had caught no glimpse of the mate; but we
often heard of him.
It seemed that he remained on board, keeping house in the cabin for
himself and Viner; who, going to see him according to promise, was
induced to remain a guest. These two cronies now had fine times;
tapping the captain’s quarter-casks, playing cards on the transom, and
giving balls of an evening to the ladies ashore. In short, they cut up
so many queer capers that the missionaries complained of them to the
consul; and Jermin received a sharp reprimand.
This so affected him that he still drank more freely than before; and
one afternoon, when mellow as a grape, he took umbrage at a canoe full
of natives, who, on being hailed from the deck to come aboard and show
their papers, got frightened, and paddled for the shore.
Lowering a boat instantly, he equipped Wymontoo and the Dane with a
cutlass apiece, and seizing another himself, off they started in
pursuit, the ship’s ensign flying in the boat’s stern. The alarmed
islanders, beaching their canoe, with loud cries fled through the
village, the mate after them, slashing his naked weapon to right and
left. A crowd soon collected; and the “Karhowree toonee,” or crazy
stranger, was quickly taken before Wilson.
Now, it so chanced that, in a native house hard by, the consul and
Captain Guy were having a quiet game at cribbage by themselves, a
decanter on the table standing sentry. The obstreperous Jermin was
brought in; and finding the two thus pleasantly occupied, it had a
soothing effect upon him; and he insisted upon taking a hand at the
cards, and a drink of the brandy. As the consul was nearly as tipsy as
himself, and the captain dared not object for fear of giving offence,
at it they went—all three of them—and made a night of it; the mate’s
delinquencies being summarily passed over, and his captors sent away.
An incident worth relating grew out of this freak.
There wandered about Papeetee, at this time, a shrivelled little fright
of an Englishwoman, known among sailors as “Old Mother Tot.” From New
Zealand to the Sandwich Islands, she had been all over the South Seas;
keeping a rude hut of entertainment for mariners, and supplying them
with rum and dice. Upon the missionary islands, of course, such conduct
was severely punishable; and at various places, Mother Tot’s
establishment had been shut up, and its proprietor made to quit in the
first vessel that could be hired to land her elsewhere. But, with a
perseverance invincible, wherever she went she always started afresh;
and so became notorious everywhere.
By some wicked spell of hers, a patient, one-eyed little cobbler
followed her about, mending shoes for white men, doing the old woman’s
cooking, and bearing all her abuse without grumbling. Strange to
relate, a battered Bible was seldom out of his sight; and whenever he
had leisure, and his mistress’ back was turned, he was forever poring
over it. This pious propensity used to enrage the old crone past
belief; and oftentimes she boxed his ears with the book, and tried to
burn it. Mother Tot and her man Josy were, indeed, a curious pair.
But to my story.
A week or so after our arrival in the harbour, the old lady had once
again been hunted down, and forced for the time to abandon her
nefarious calling. This was brought about chiefly by Wilson, who, for
some reason unknown, had contracted the most violent hatred for her;
which, on her part, was more than reciprocated.
Well: passing, in the evening, where the consul and his party were
making merry, she peeped through the bamboos of the house; and
straightway resolved to gratify her spite.
The night was very dark; and providing herself with a huge ship’s
lantern, which usually swung in her hut, she waited till they came
forth. This happened about midnight; Wilson making his appearance,
supported by two natives, holding him up by the arms. These three went
first; and just as they got under a deep shade, a bright light was
thrust within an inch of Wilson’s nose. The old hag was kneeling before
him, holding the lantern with uplifted hands.
“Ha, ha! my fine counsellor,” she shrieked; “ye persecute a lone old
body like me for selling rum—do ye? And here ye are, carried home
drunk—Hoot! ye villain, I scorn ye!” And she spat upon him.
Terrified at the apparition, the poor natives—arrant believers in
ghosts—dropped the trembling consul, and fled in all directions. After
giving full vent to her rage, Mother Tot hobbled away, and left the
three revellers to stagger home the best way they could.
The day following our last interview with Wilson, we learned that
Captain Guy had gone on board his vessel for the purpose of shipping a
new crew. There was a round bounty offered; and a heavy bag of Spanish
dollars, with the Julia’s articles ready for signing, were laid on the
capstan-head.
Now, there was no lack of idle sailors ashore, mostly “Beachcombers,”
who had formed themselves into an organized gang, headed by one Mack, a
Scotchman, whom they styled the Commodore. By the laws of the
fraternity, no member was allowed to ship on board a vessel unless
granted permission by the rest. In this way the gang controlled the
port, all discharged seamen being forced to join them.
To Mack and his men our story was well known; indeed, they had several
times called to see us; and of course, as sailors and congenial
spirits, they were hard against Captain Guy.
Deeming the matter important, they came in a body to the Calabooza, and
wished to know whether, all things considered, we thought it best for
any of them to join the Julia.
Anxious to pack the ship off as soon as possible, we answered, by all
means. Some went so far as to laud the Julia to the skies as the best
and fastest of ships. Jermin too, as a good fellow, and a sailor every
inch, came in for his share of praise; and as for the captain—quiet
man, he would never trouble anyone. In short, every inducement we could
think of was presented; and Flash Jack ended by assuring the
beachcombers solemnly that, now we were all well and hearty, nothing
but a regard to principle prevented us from returning on board
ourselves.
The result was that a new crew was finally obtained, together with a
steady New Englander for second mate, and three good whalemen for
harpooners. In part, what was wanting for the ship’s larder was also
supplied; and as far as could be done in a place like Tahiti, the
damages the vessel had sustained were repaired. As for the Mowree, the
authorities refusing to let him be put ashore, he was carried to sea in
irons, down in the hold. What eventually became of him we never heard.
Ropey, poor poor Ropey, who a few days previous had fallen sick, was
left ashore at the sailor hospital at Townor, a small place upon the
beach between Papeetee and Matavai. Here, some time after, he breathed
his last. No one knew his complaint: he must have died of hard times.
Several of us saw him interred in the sand, and I planted a rude post
to mark his resting-place.
The cooper, and the rest who had remained aboard from the first, of
course, composed part of the Julia’s new crew.
To account for the conduct, all along, of the consul and captain, in
trying so hard to alter our purpose with respect to the ship, the
following statement is all that is requisite. Beside an advance of from
fifteen to twenty-five dollars demanded by every sailor shipping at
Tahiti, an additional sum for each man so shipped has to be paid into
the hands of the government, as a charge of the port. Beside this, the
men—with here and there an exception—will only ship for one cruise,
thus becoming entitled to a discharge before the vessel reaches home;
which, in time, creates the necessity of obtaining other men, at a
similar cost. Now, the Julia’s exchequer was at low-water mark, or
rather, it was quite empty; and to meet these expenses, a good part of
what little oil there was aboard had to be sold for a song to a
merchant of Papeetee.
It was Sunday in Tahiti and a glorious morning, when Captain Bob,
waddling into the Calabooza, startled us by announcing “Ah—my
boy—shippy you, harre—maky sail!” In other words, the Julia was off.
The beach was quite near, and in this quarter altogether uninhabited;
so down we ran, and, at cable’s length, saw little Jule gliding
past—top-gallant-sails hoisting, and a boy aloft with one leg thrown
over the yard, loosing the fore-royal. The decks were all life and
commotion; the sailors on the forecastle singing “Ho, cheerly men!” as
they catted the anchor; and the gallant Jermin, bare-headed as his
wont, standing up on the bowsprit, and issuing his orders. By the man
at the helm stood Captain Guy, very quiet and gentlemanly, and smoking
a cigar.
Soon the ship drew near the reef, and, altering her course, glided out
through the break, and went on her way.
Thus disappeared little Jule, about three weeks after entering the
harbour: and nothing more have I ever heard of her.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
JERMIN SERVES US A GOOD TURN—FRIENDSHIPS IN POLYNESIA
The ship out of the way, we were quite anxious to know what was going
to be done with us. On this head, Captain Bob could tell us nothing; no
further, at least, than that he still considered himself responsible
for our safe-keeping. However, he never put us to bed any more; and we
had everything our own way.
The day after the Julia left, the old man came up to us in great
tribulation, saying that the bucket of bread was no longer forthcoming,
and that Wilson had refused to send anything in its place. One and all,
we took this for a hint to disperse quietly, and go about our business.
Nevertheless, we were not to be shaken off so easily; and taking a
malicious pleasure in annoying our old enemy, we resolved, for the
present, to stay where we were. For the part he had been acting, we
learned that the consul was the laughing-stock of all the foreigners
ashore, who frequently twitted him upon his hopeful proteges of the
Calabooza Beretanee.
As we were wholly without resources, so long as we remained on the
island no better place than Captain Bob’s could be selected for an
abiding-place. Beside, we heartily loved the old gentleman, and could
not think of leaving him; so, telling him to give no thought as to
wherewithal we should be clothed and fed, we resolved, by extending and
systematizing our foraging operations, to provide for ourselves.
We were greatly assisted by a parting legacy of Jermin’s. To him we
were indebted for having all our chests sent ashore, and everything
left therein. They were placed in the custody of a petty chief living
near by, who was instructed by the consul not to allow them to be taken
away; but we might call and make our toilets whenever we pleased.
We went to see Mahinee, the old chief; Captain Bob going along, and
stoutly insisting upon having the chattels delivered up. At last this
was done; and in solemn procession the chests were borne by the natives
to the Calabooza. Here, we disposed them about quite tastefully; and
made such a figure that, in the eyes of old Bob and his friends, the
Calabooza Beretanee was by far the most sumptuously furnished saloon in
Tahiti.
Indeed, so long as it remained thus furnished, the native courts of the
district were held there; the judge, Mahinee, and his associates,
sitting upon one of the chests, and the culprits and spectators thrown
at full length upon the ground, both inside of the building and under
the shade of the trees without; while, leaning over the stocks as from
a gallery, the worshipful crew of the Julia looked on, and canvassed
the proceedings.
I should have mentioned before that, previous to the vessel’s
departure, the men had bartered away all the clothing they could
possibly spare; but now, it was resolved to be more provident.
The contents of the chests were of the most miscellaneous
description:—sewing utensils, marling-spikes, strips of calico, bits of
rope, jack-knives; nearly everything, in short, that a seaman could
think of. But of wearing apparel, there was little but old frocks,
remnants of jackets, and legs of trousers, with now and then the foot
of a stocking.
These, however, were far from being valueless; for, among the poorer
Tahitians, everything European is highly esteemed. They come from
“Beretanee, Fenooa Pararee” (Britain, Land of Wonders), and that is
enough.
The chests themselves were deemed exceedingly precious, especially
those with unfractured looks, which would absolutely click, and enable
the owner to walk off with the key. Scars, however, and bruises, were
considered great blemishes. One old fellow, smitten with the doctor’s
large mahogany chest (a well-filled one, by the bye), and finding
infinite satisfaction in merely sitting thereon, was detected in the
act of applying a healing ointment to a shocking scratch which impaired
the beauty of the lid.
There is no telling the love of a Tahitian for a sailor’s trunk. So
ornamental is it held as an article of furniture in the hut, that the
women are incessantly tormenting their husbands to bestir themselves
and make them a present of one. When obtained, no pier-table just
placed in a drawing-room is regarded with half the delight. For these
reasons, then, our coming into possession of our estate at this time
was an important event.
The islanders are much like the rest of the world; and the news of our
good fortune brought us troops of “tayos,” or friends, eager to form an
alliance after the national custom, and do our slightest bidding.
The really curious way in which all the Polynesians are in the habit of
making bosom friends at the shortest possible notice is deserving of
remark. Although, among a people like the Tahitians, vitiated as they
are by sophisticating influences, this custom has in most cases
degenerated into a mere mercenary relation, it nevertheless had its
origin in a fine, and in some instances, heroic sentiment, formerly
entertained by their fathers.
In the annals of the island are examples of extravagant friendships,
unsurpassed by the story of Damon and Pythias: in truth, much more
wonderful; for, notwithstanding the devotion—even of life in some
cases—to which they led, they were frequently entertained at first
sight for some stranger from another island.
Filled with love and admiration for the first whites who came among
them, the Polynesians could not testify the warmth of their emotions
more strongly than by instantaneously making their abrupt proffer of
friendship. Hence, in old voyages we read of chiefs coming off from the
shore in their canoes, and going through with strange antics,
expressive of the desire. In the same way, their inferiors accosted the
seamen; and thus the practice has continued in some islands down to the
present day.
There is a small place, not many days’ sail from Tahiti, and seldom
visited by shipping, where the vessel touched to which I then happened
to belong.
Of course, among the simple-hearted natives, We had a friend all round.
Mine was Poky, a handsome youth, who never could do enough for me.
Every morning at sunrise, his canoe came alongside loaded with fruits
of all kinds; upon being emptied, it was secured by a line to the
bowsprit, under which it lay all day long, ready at any time to carry
its owner ashore on an errand.
Seeing him so indefatigable, I told Poky one day that I was a virtuoso
in shells and curiosities of all kinds. That was enough; away he
paddled for the head of the bay, and I never saw him again for
twenty-four hours. The next morning, his canoe came gliding slowly
along the shore with the full-leaved bough of a tree for a sail. For
the purpose of keeping the things dry, he had also built a sort of
platform just behind the prow, railed in with green wicker-work; and
here was a heap of yellow bananas and cowree shells; young cocoa-nuts
and antlers of red coral; two or three pieces of carved wood; a little
pocket-idol, black as jet, and rolls of printed tappa.
We were given a holiday; and upon going ashore, Poky, of course, was my
companion and guide. For this, no mortal could be better qualified; his
native country was not large, and he knew every inch of it. Gallanting
me about, everyone was stopped and ceremoniously introduced to Poky’s
“tayo karhowree nuee” or his particular white friend.
He showed me all the lions; but more than all, he took me to see a
charming lioness—a young damsel—the daughter of a chief—the reputation
of whose charms had spread to the neighbouring islands, and even
brought suitors therefrom. Among these was Tooboi, the heir of
Tamatory, King of Eaiatair, one of the Society Isles. The girl was
certainly fair to look upon. Many heavens were in her sunny eyes; and
the outline of that arm of hers, peeping forth from a capricious tappa
robe, was the very curve of beauty.
Though there was no end to Poky’s attentions, not a syllable did he
ever breathe of reward; but sometimes he looked very knowing. At last
the day came for sailing, and with it, also, his canoe, loaded down to
the gunwale with a sea stock of fruits. Giving him all I could spare
from my chest, I went on deck to take my place at the windlass; for the
anchor was weighing. Poky followed, and heaved with me at the same
handspike.
The anchor was soon up; and away we went out of the bay with more than
twenty shallops towing astern. At last they left us; but long as I
could see him at all, there was Poky, standing alone and motionless in
the bow of his canoe.
PART II