Before detailing my own experiences of the lamented "Bully," I must
mention some other incidents in his career which will give a fair
illustration of the notoriety he had acquired, and of his keen sense of
humour. Long before these two gentlemen (Bully Hayes and Ben Peese)
had commenced to exploit the Ellice, Gilbert, Kingsmill, Marshall and
Caroline Groups, Bully, then owner of a small, fast-sailing schooner,
had made unto himself a name--particularly as a connoisseur of Island
beauty--among the Marquesas, Society, Hervey and Paumotu Groups, from
Nuka-hiva to Rapa-nui (Easter Island), that ethnographical mystery of
the Southern Seas, whose gentle and amiable people, thirty years ago,
met with so dreadful a fate at the murderous hands of the Peruvian
slavers.
*****
Soon after the slavers had gone from the South Seas a story was current
in Eastern Polynesia that Bully had landed armed boats' crews at Aana,
in the Paumotu Archipelago, and seized a number of girls whom he sold
to Chilian and Peruvian buyers. But, as a matter of fact, Hayes never
_sold_ a native girl, though he was always willing to barter for a
new charmer any member of his harem who had palled upon his fastidious
tastes. And if the other man in these little matters evinced the
slightest want of trade-reciprocity, he generally regretted it, for
he would lose the household chattel, and getting nothing for her, save
perhaps lumps and excoriations, or perhaps a sarcastic note informing
him that the writer could not afford to waste time haggling over so
trifling a matter as the price of a native Venus.
While two of the fleet of Peruvian slavers appeared among the Ellice
Group, the other two remained to "work" Easter Island, the which they
did successfully, carrying away all the able-bodied men and comely women
they could seize (three hundred), to die miserably in guano-pits of
the Chincha Islands. The vessels which "worked" the Ellice Group were a
barque and a brig. The brig was commanded by a big Irishman, and simply
because he was a big man and spoke in English to the natives, it was
reported in the Hawaiian missionary press that the slaver captain was
Bully. The natives of Nukulaelae, an island which suffered severely from
the slavers' visit, always maintained for long afterward that it was
Hayes (whom they had never actually seen), because the _ihi vaka_
(captain) was a tall, bearded man, who kept knocking his sailors down
every minute if they were not quick in their movements; and this was the
commonly accepted description of Bully and one of his habits.
But at the time the two Peruvians were cruising through the Ellices,
Bully was exploiting the Paumotu Archipelago, and arousing the anger of
the French authorities, by his irregular business methods. For instance,
he would "buy" pearl-shell from the traders and kick them over the side
if they had the audacity to ask for payment. In accordance with his
custom, Bully, on this cruise, devoted a good deal of time to studying
the soft-eyed Paumotuan _vahine_; and after filling his schooner with
a fair amount of plunder, he did, it is stated, take away some ten or
fourteen young Paumotu women--not to Chili or Peru, but merely on an
extended and indefinite pleasure trip. Most of these young ladies were
desirous of getting to Tahiti, where they believed their charms would be
better appreciated than in their own island homes. In his characteristic
way _Il capitano galantuomo_ offered them free passages. Passing through
the Society Group and not entering Papeite Harbour (possibly on account
of his strained relations with the French naval authorities) he made
his way to the Marquesas. Here some four or five of his lady passengers
elected to remain with newly-found lovers, either white or native; and
Bully always blessed the union of two happy hearts by recording the
affair in his humorously-kept log and giving a spree. If the bridegroom
was a white man, Bully would also "buy" his oil, fungus and cotton, make
him very drunk, place his laughing and blushing bride in his arms, and
then, in his absent-minded way, see him over the side into his boat and
sail away without paying. Bully used to say that his defective memory
was the cause of all the malignant slanders set afloat about him. And,
as regarded women, he used to remark he also suffered from the curious
complaint of "moral astigmatism." The rest of the girls reached home
somehow, after undergoing a pleasant and varied experience, each being
the happy possessor of one of his peculiar and characteristically
written testimonials.
It was Bully's humour to give these precious documents to the
time-expired members of his harem, in the same manner as an English
mistress would give a certificate of character and efficiency to a
departing maid. Some of these papers are still extant in Tahiti and
Mangareva. Many years ago when buying turtle at the little island of
Rurutu, I saw one pasted on a doorpost in a native house. In the Western
Carolines and the Pelew Group, when whale ships were plentiful and
prosperous, the native girls preserved these "characters" by gumming
the paper (often upside down) on a piece of pandanus leaf bordered with
devices in bead-work. When a fresh ship arrived, the damsels would
bind these around their pretty little foreheads after the manner of
phylacteries--and they were always read with deep interest by the
blubber-hunting skippers and mates and the after-guard generally.
Bully's "characters" ran somewhat in this wise:--