LIFE AT LOOHOOLOO
Finding the society at Loohooloo very pleasant, the young ladies, in
particular, being extremely sociable; and, moreover, in love with the
famous good cheer of old Marharvai, we acquiesced in an invitation of
his to tarry a few days longer. We might then, he said, join a small
canoe party which was going to a place a league or two distant. So
averse to all exertion are these people that they really thought the
prospect of thus getting rid of a few miles’ walking would prevail with
us, even if there were no other inducement.
The people of the hamlet, as we soon discovered, formed a snug little
community of cousins; of which our host seemed the head. Marharvai, in
truth, was a petty chief who owned the neighbouring lands. And as the
wealthy, in most cases, rejoice in a numerous kindred, the family
footing upon which everybody visited him was, perhaps, ascribable to
the fact of his being the lord of the manor. Like Captain Bob, he was,
in some things, a gentleman of the old school—a stickler for the
customs of a past and pagan age.
Nowhere else, except in Tamai, did we find the manners of the natives
less vitiated by recent changes. The old-fashioned Tahitian dinner they
gave us on the day of our arrival was a fair sample of their general
mode of living.
Our time passed delightfully. The doctor went his way, and I mine. With
a pleasant companion, he was forever strolling inland, ostensibly to
collect botanical specimens; while I, for the most part, kept near the
sea; sometimes taking the girls on an aquatic excursion in a canoe.
Often we went fishing; not dozing over stupid hooks and lines, but
leaping right into the water, and chasing our prey over the coral
rocks, spear in hand.
Spearing fish is glorious sport. The Imeeose, all round the island,
catch them in no other way. The smooth shallows between the reef and
the shore, and, at low water, the reef itself, being admirably adapted
to this mode of capturing them. At almost any time of the day—save ever
the sacred hour of noon—you may see the fish-hunters pursuing their
sport; with loud halloos, brandishing their spears, and splashing
through the water in all directions. Sometimes a solitary native is
seen, far out upon a lonely shallow, wading slowly along, with eye
intent and poised spear.
But the best sport of all is going out upon the great reef itself by
torch-light. The natives follow this recreation with as much spirit as
a gentleman of England does the chase; and take full as much delight in
it.
The torch is nothing more than a bunch of dry reeds, bound firmly
together: the spear, a long, light pole, with an iron head, on one side
barbed.
I shall never forget the night that old Marharvai and the rest of us,
paddling off to the reef, leaped at midnight upon the coral ledges with
waving torches and spears. We were more than a mile from the land; the
sullen ocean, thundering upon the outside of the rocks, dashed the
spray in our faces, almost extinguishing the flambeaux; and, far as the
eye could reach, the darkness of sky and water was streaked with a
long, misty line of foam, marking the course of the coral barrier. The
wild fishermen, flourishing their weapons, and yelling like so many
demons to scare their prey, sprang from ledge to ledge, and sometimes
darted their spears in the very midst of the breakers.
But fish-spearing was not the only sport we had at Loohooloo. Right on
the beach was a mighty old cocoa-nut tree, the roots of which had been
underwashed by the waves so that the trunk inclined far over its base.
From the tuft of the tree a stout cord of bark depended, the end of
which swept the water several yards from the shore. This was a Tahitian
swing. A native lad seizes hold of the cord, and, after swinging to and
fro quite leisurely, all at once sends himself fifty or sixty feet from
the water, rushing through the air like a rocket. I doubt whether any
of our rope-dancers would attempt the feat. For my own part, I had
neither head nor heart for it; so, after sending a lad aloft with an
additional cord, by way of security, I constructed a large basket of
green boughs, in which I and some particular friends of mine used to
swing over sea and land by the hour.