The after-dinner speeches disposed of, Peter, in a confessedly comatose
condition owing to a super-abundance of heat and food, yet with her own
particular brand of smile securely in place, came in for special
attention. The ladies of Niue do not speak; they act. The paramount
Chieftainess advanced upon her with a beautifully woven hat in one hand,
and with the other attempted to rid her of her existing headgear.
Unfortunately, and amidst general consternation, it failed to come
adrift on account of the pins, but this was soon remedied, and the gift
securely wedged into place amidst loud applause.
Time was when the Niueans were the best hat-makers in the South Seas,
but with the introduction of the Panama their product has fallen into
disrepute. It is hoped by acclimatizing the Panama plant to revive the
industry.
[Illustration: _In the Old Days of the "Floating Station" Schooner_]
But Peter's adventures that day were not over. To quote from her
invaluable diary:
"On our way back to Government House we met an aged and bent woman who
stood still in the middle of the road and literally gibbered at us.
When I tried to pass, she caught hold of my hand and shook it with
astonishing vigour for one of her decrepit appearance.
"I asked 'Doc' what it was all about, and he told me the poor old thing
had walked fifteen miles to see the woman in man's clothing! But she
thought she had been deceived because I was wearing unmistakable skirts,
and looked too weak to do all the wonderful things she had heard about
me.
"The 'Doc' told me further that she must have started before daylight in
order to walk that distance, for she was very feeble. I felt terribly
embarrassed, as I had neither money nor any trinket with me that I could
give her. But, feeling in my pocket, I discovered a little comb I
always carry, and also a tube of lip-salve, as my lips dry and crack in
a hot climate, and these I handed to her, the latter because it was
bright and shiny.
"She evidently realized what the comb was for, but twisted the cosmetic
in her poor old fingers and looked puzzled until the top fell off and
the creamy-white substance protruded. This she instantly bit off and
chewed with evident relish. I do so _hope_ I gave satisfaction."
So, aboard the dream ship and away, carrying with us grateful memories
of many kindnesses from Niue and its government. May they both prosper
as they deserve!
The last farewell we received from this Island called Savage was a
fearsome-looking inhabitant on the top-most peak of the reef--I should
say terrace--waving a scarlet _si-si_, and yelling blue murder. But we
of the dream ship knew better.
*THE FRIENDLY ISLANDS AND THE END
OF THE DREAM*
_The island that_ was _savage--Dream's end, and a few
realities_
[Illustration: Chapter XV headpiece]
*CHAPTER XV*
_The island that_ was _savage--Dream's end, and a few
realities_
South, and still south, the dream ship sailed, until the neighbourhood
of the "southerly-buster" began to make itself felt in a league-long
swell.
We were heading for Tonga Tabu, the southern-most island of the Friendly
group where we might turn and sail almost due west for Australia in open
sea, instead of picking a precarious and anxious way through the
close-meshed network of islets, rocks, and submerged reefs that littered
the more direct route.
Even so, we came nearer to disaster amongst these alleged Friendly
Islands than we had throughout the entire voyage. Cook so christened
them on account of the contrast of his reception here compared with
Niue, but we of the dream ship suffered a reversed order of things, and
consequently beg to differ with the great navigator.
On the fourth day out from Niue we sighted the group, but decided not to
proceed as there are no lights on these outlying reefs, and we had been
warned by every island skipper of consequence that a vessel "sights" and
"hits" one of them as near simultaneously as no matter. So we hove-to
on the tail-end, the very mildly wagging tail-end, of a
"southerly-buster," and turned in.
Throughout the night we took it in turns to go on deck at intervals and
see that we were not drifting on to anything, and, save for the eternal
dirge of the sea that fills the night in the vicinity of any group of
South Pacific Islands, all was well. Yet with the sudden sunlight of
dawn in these latitudes, we stood aghast at the scene confronting us: on
all sides waves, an apparently complete circle of breaking combers,
their emerald-green bodies and white-capped heads flashing in the sun.
To all appearances we were as effectually trapped as a rat in a cage.
Yet how was the thing possible? If there were an inlet into this
inferno of reefs there must assuredly be an outlet.
The engine was called upon, and responded nobly. During that day we
systematically searched for a loophole of escape, and found none, until
toward evening we glided through a passage no more than fifty yards
wide, and to our intense relief found that it led to the open sea.
While hove-to the previous night the dream ship must have executed a
miracle by drifting into a narrow-necked horseshoe of coral; that was
all. And to some it may appear that we were an unconscionable time in
finding a way out, but for the benefit of such I would point out that
the inside of the horseshoe, as is often the case, was littered with
broken reefs, each forming an apparent outlet which on closer inspection
proved to be nothing of the sort. In short, I would commend those with
a taste for maze-solving to visit the Friendly Islands.
I was not surprised to learn later that local trading craft, equipped
with a band of lynx-eyed Kanakas, never sail at night in these waters.
Apart from the constant danger of known reefs, others have a knack of
appearing and receding in the most uncanny way, so that no chart issued
can keep track of them.
In this connection a most enthralling theory engages the attention of
the South Sea student. It is his firm belief that what is now the
"milky way" of the Pacific was at one time a vast coral and volcanic
continent; that it has subsided here, and been upheaved or erupted
there, until broken into a myriad fragments, and that the day may still
come when Nature will elect to raise them from the deep, welded once
more into a mighty whole.
As has been said before (if it were not sufficiently evident without
saying at all), I am not a scientist, but the existing indications in
support of this theory meet even the casual observer at every turn in
the Pacific Ocean to-day. There is a wall on Easter Island, not unlike
the great wall of China, but which runs for a short distance and then
plunges aimlessly into the sea. Where did it begin? Where did it end?
What mighty city did it embrace? On Pitcairn there are the remains of a
former and highly advanced civilization. On Lord Howe Island, a mere
rock sprouting three thousand feet out of the sea four hundred and
eighty miles from the Australian coast, there are sixty different
species of land shell, 50 per cent. of which are not to be found
anywhere else in the world. How do they come to be on Lord Howe? Land
shell cannot swim. In the Carolines, you may look down into the water
of lagoons and see the remains--mosaic floors and broken walls--of a
submerged city.
So, from east to west, and from north to south, this mighty ocean of the
Pacific holds its secrets of forgotten lands and peoples.
As for the dream ship, not content with escape from a coral death-trap,
we sailed out, and still out to the open sea, until nothing short of a
gale could carry us into danger, and there hove-to again for the night.
There was nothing else to be done. What was more, and owing to an
oversight attributable to no one but myself, we had no large-scale chart
of Tonga Tabu, so that it took us three days of searching and three
nights of heaving to before we found the eastern pass through the reef
and waited with international code flag flying for the pilot.
[Illustration: Natives in canoe]
We could see his station and flagstaff on a sandspit, but no flag in
answer to our own. We waited, and continued to wait, while a three-knot
current carried us up the ever-narrowing channel to within fifty feet of
the coral bar at its end. And then it was that the motor auxiliary that
I have so consistently reviled throughout these pages vindicated itself
by saving us from certain destruction. It went! Literally inch by inch
it fought the current for the hour or more we were obliged to wait on
that pilot's pleasure.
I can hear the "expert's" wail of enquiry: "Why not have anchored?" My
answer is that I should like to see him try. Is he aware that coral
alters all one's preconceived ideas of seamanship? Does he know that
although the passage walls were not more than fifty feet from either
side of us, the water between was unfathomable; that to put out a kedge
was equally hopeless because exposed coral is nothing more than a
brittle honeycomb that breaks like pie-crust; that---- But I refuse
further enlightenment. Let my imagined critic learn from experience as I
was forced to do.
At long last the pilot came, in an outrigger canoe that was swept from
under his feet by the current as he clambered aboard. He did not
know... He thought our code flag was a burgee, that we were a local
trading cutter, that we were almost anything but what we were. There
are moments too full for words, and this was one.
The Friendly Islands have a real queen and a consort, and I reported
that pilot to both of them, though my plaint merely elicited a charming
smile from the one and the suggestion of a whisky-and-soda from the
other. It's a way they have in the Islands.
I fear this account of Tonga Tabu will be unsympathetic, and for that
reason I would suggest the perusal of several excellent books on the
subject. For me it was a place of tragedy, and as such remains with me
to this day. My views are jaundiced; let them lie! All I know is that
in the island capital of Nukualofa there is a club, and from that club
emerged a genial gentleman who, had I known what I know now, would never
have set foot aboard the dream ship. He came, he saw, and we repaired
to the club.
"Do you want to sell that boat of yours?" he asked me.
"No," said I.
"_Will_ you sell her?" he corrected himself.
"Not for what any sane man would care to pay," I told him.
"And what is that, may I ask?"
I named a figure sufficiently preposterous to raise a laugh from most
people. But the genial gentleman did not laugh.
"You would take no less?" he suggested bravely.
"Not a cent," said I. "As a matter of fact----"
"I suppose a draft on ---- will satisfy you?"
"What's that?" I stammered.
"I'll take her," said the genial gentleman. "I was saying that...."
But I heard no more. I had sold the dream ship!
Confession is said to be good for the soul, but I have not noticed much
improvement in the state of my own since making the above statement.
Imagine parting for pelf with a home that has conveyed you across twelve
thousand miles of ocean. Or, better, try to imagine selling your best
friend, and you have some idea of my feelings since the transaction.
And there was no going back on it. I have not the moral courage of such
deeds. The draft lay on the table before me, I had a pocket full of
money, and no ship. I have never been so miserable in my life.
It took me the best part of an hour's aimless wandering over the
powdered coral roads of Nukualofa to summon the necessary courage to
break the news to the crew of the dream ship, but by the end of that
time I had some sort of scheme evolved. Between the Friendlies and
Australia there were no islands of particular interest, anyway. We
would continue our journey by steamer--it would be a pleasant
change--and in New Zealand or Australia I would invest my ill-gotten
gains in a far more magnificent vessel than the dream ship.
On this "more magnificent" craft, we would carry out our original
programme of cruising up the Queensland coast to the islands of the
northwest Pacific, and so home via Java, Colombo, and the Suez Canal,
thereby avoiding the monotonous passage between the Friendlies and
Australia. Rather clever, I thought. Nevertheless, I prefer to draw a
veil over the communication of this brilliant scheme to the rest of the
crew. Peter did not speak to me for the rest of the day. I verily
believe she hates me, but not a tithe more than I hate myself. It is
enough that we took our departure by steamer according to schedule, and
without daring to look back on the good ship we had left behind. The
heart had gone out of things; the dream was ended.
Or rather it had merged into a nightmare. We proceeded to rub shoulders
with a horde of fellow-passengers who no doubt regarded us as
unattractive as we regarded them; to consume beef-tea or ice-cream at
eleven o'clock, and push lumps of wood about the deck with a stick for
want of something better to do.
Is there anything more wearisome than a steamer voyage--after sailing
your own ship? You sleep throughout the night instead of breaking the
twenty-four hours into the sensible segments of four "on" and eight
"off." You are called by a smug-faced steward instead of being gently
squeezed or roughly shaken into life by the previous "watch"; and
instead of commanding your own destinies at the tiller under the stars,
you watch others doing it in brass buttons and electric light from a
bridge. You begin to wonder if your tie is straight, if it would be
permissible to rid your chafing neck of the unholy contrivance
encircling it.
As for your fellow-passengers, they are--to a man, and to a woman--gross
from over-indulgence of one form or another--mostly food and drink, and
their interests are as far removed from yours as the stars. You begin to
see how the average sailor-man feels in "polite society," and your heart
goes out to him.
"How's the wind?" Ah, of course, it makes no difference to this
smoke-belching machine that bears you at thirteen knots, and according
to schedule, toward civilization. See that wave? The big fellow with
the curling top! Isn't he twin brother to the one you met in the
Caribbean when...
No, no. Give us the "sleepy" twelve-to-four watch, and even a "cooking
week" aboard the dream ship that we may be content once more.
Already, we were changed to each other's eye. Oftentimes I stood with
Steve on the promenade deck, and his well-known figure, camouflaged at
the moment under a natty blue suit and collar and tie complete, would
fade and merge like a dissolving view into a brown-skinned, happy savage
in towel and sola topi. And as for Peter--she was no longer the Peter
we had known for a happy ten-month, but a female slave to every twist
and quiff of convention. And it was my doing ... all my doing. Or can I
thrust the blame on other shoulders after the fashion of brother Adam?
Is it not our women-folk who make convention necessary at all to men
who, if they followed natural instincts, would revert to the enviable
savage?
At Apia, Samoa, Steve was so heartily tired of his environment that he
left the ship. He said he could scent civilization afar, and would have
none of it. He had met a military official ashore who had offered him a
post in the Government on the strength of his war services, and he had
accepted. He would stay there in Samoa until I had found another dream
ship, when he would join her on receipt of a cable, and continue with us
over the remaining half of the world.
He made this promise with an ironical twinkle of the eye that puzzled me
at the time, but which has since been abundantly and painfully accounted
for.
He left in a native outrigger canoe, hugging his knees on a pyramid of
bananas, while the remainder of "the crew" waved him farewell from the
steamer's rail, and turned sadly away. A better mate for any venture
calling on the best qualities of a man never breathed. Here's to him,
"down under," and may that cable not be long delayed!
*THURSDAY ISLAND*
_Concerning a wild-goose chase, and where it led_
[Illustration: Chapter XVI headpiece]
*CHAPTER XVI*
_Concerning a wild-goose chase, and where it led_
Life for the sad remnants of the dream ship's crew resolved itself into
the pursuit of a will-o'-the-wisp.
It was a strange craft that we were after: sufficiently staunch to stand
any weather, yet small enough to be handled by a crew of three. The New
Zealand seaboard had neither heard of nor seen such a thing. At Auckland
and Wellington we were hustled off in launch or car with high hope in
our hearts, and shown every manner of contrivance that floats, but there
was no choice between hundred-ton schooners and harbour racing machines.
New Zealand is a beautiful, over-legislated, intensely earnest little
country, but for us it held no dream ship, and we passed on.
Australia was little better. Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney were visited
in turn, and scoured from end to end without producing anything within
coo-ee of what we sought. With an "I-told-you-so" glint in her eye,
Peter departed on a jaunt to New Guinea, and I continued the search
alone, after the fashion of the "last little nigger boy."
Hearing that the Torres Straits pearling luggers were likely craft, I
set my teeth and journeyed on a Chinese liner--incidentally one of the
most comfortable and well-managed ships it has been my good fortune to
encounter--up through the myriad islets of the Queensland barrier reef
to Thursday Island.
It is a strange thing on a ten-thousand-ton liner to awake at night to a
silence unbroken even by the familiar throbbing of the engines, and to
feel the great ship rising and falling on the swell like any
cockleshell; to go on deck and find her lying at anchor under a panoply
of stars, and apparently in mid-ocean, for there is no sign of land.
Yet this is a frequent experience of any passenger traversing the
barrier reef. Whether liner or dream ship, it makes no difference to
the infinite care necessary in navigating these reef-infested seas.
A young navy of pilots performs the miracle--for miracle it is. After
long apprenticeship they learn the exact dimensions of every open
stretch of water, and if they leave one side at nightfall, they can tell
by the vessel's speed, and to a yard, when they have reached the other,
when they anchor until dawn. The farther we progressed up the
magnificently rugged coast of Queensland, the more varied became the
nature of our passenger list. There were sun-baked pastoralists from
the cattle and sheep stations "out back" who owned herds and acreages
that would cause the largest Western American rancher to open his eyes.
One of them at a recent cattle "muster" had tallied up to half a million
head, and he had not finished yet. The possibilities of the "Northern
Territory," as it is called, are infinite--if it were not for the
bugbear of labour troubles that stalks Australia with a heavier tread
than any other country of the world.
Then, there were commercial travellers--not the sleek variety that
boards a "flyer" and is on its battle-ground in a matter of hours, but
lean, hard-bitten men who take a launch or trading cutter and traverse
vast stretches of ocean to the farthermost corners of the Gulf of
Carpentaria, sleeping, eating, and having their being for weeks together
in a stifling, evil-smelling deck house with native "boys" and their own
sample cases for sole company.
Wireless operators, engineers, pearlers, teachers of aboriginal schools,
Chinamen, Japanese, all were on their way to this mysterious equatorial
land of vast, unexplored spaces.
A great deal has been written about Thursday Island, otherwise known as
"T.I.", but, without exception, accounts refer to a more picturesque
past when this sun-baked tile on the roof of Australia was the busy
headquarters of a pearling fleet manned by "whites" and native "boys";
when hefty schooners were employed as floating stations, where shell was
opened and treated at sea under the lynx-eyed supervision of a skipper
or mate who claimed the hidden treasure it might contain. To-day, the
pearling fleet is manned entirely by Japanese, who work on a prosaic
fifty-per-cent. basis, and are entitled to every pearl they find.
But of this, later. There were luggers in the bay, likely-looking
craft, the most likely I had seen in all my weary pilgrimage. Was it
possible that I was on the verge of being able to look Peter in the eye
once more--and send a cable to Samoa?
[Illustration: _High Holiday on a "T.I." Beach_]
Not five minutes after landing in the corrugated-iron and goat-infested
landscape of Thursday Island I was in the shipyards watching an army of
Japanese workmen putting the finishing touches to a pearling lugger.
Yes, I was told by the manager of the Pearling Company that had
commissioned her, I could have a similar craft built for ---- (a sum
nearly double the seemingly preposterous figure I had received for the
dream ship)--and she could be delivered in about a year! Labour, you
know, prices of material--everything! Things were not as they used to be
on 'T.I.'. Or yes; there were second-hand craft to be picked up, but it
stood to reason they would have passed their day, or they would not be
sold.
[Illustration: _Festival Headdress of Torres Straits Islanders;
The Japanese Club_]
I boarded twelve in all, and examined them from truck to keelson. In
some cases one could scoop the dry-rot out of their timbers in handfuls;
in others---- But why continue? In all of them the head-room was
practically nil because of their light draught for negotiating reefs and
sand-bars, and because the Japanese have no manner of use for head-room.
When below, they live, move, and have their being on their
heel-supported haunches. It would be necessary for the average
Anglo-Saxon to crawl on all fours to escape a permanent crick in the
neck and stooped shoulders aboard a pearling lugger.
It was in that hour that I realized my final defeat. Peter and Steve
were right--there never would be another dream ship. I resigned myself
to the inevitable, and settled down on Thursday Island to await the next
southern-bound steamer in two weeks' time. I wandered amidst sweltering
corrugated iron and herds of cavorting goats, thinking my own sad and
secret thoughts, until taken under the wing of two as bright lads as one
could wish to meet. We "batched it," if you please, and I am
consequently in a position to state precisely how one may live on T.I.
in this year of grace.
Taking it in turns to leave your sagging camp bed a trifle before dawn,
you steal forth into the iron-bound forest of the settlement, and stalk
your prey. It is a simple process. You offer the most
appetizing-looking kid in sight a lump of sugar with one hand, and,
seizing its hind leg with the other, smother its cries with a towel.
Half an hour later it has been converted over a Primus into something
that looks like shoe-leather and tastes like kerosene.
In the alleged "cool" of the evening, you may play lawn tennis. We did,
in shorts and a vest, and with diver's-suit rubber an inch thick glued
to the soles of our shoes by way of protection against the heat and
hardness of the court. In five minutes you are a dripping rag of
perspiration, but no matter, it is tennis, and the bright lads could
play, though argument across the net seemed their strongest point. One
of these resolved itself into a bet as to who would win a game played in
diver's helmet and boots respectively. It was put to the test with the
utmost gravity, and resulted in a dead heat, the man in the helmet being
unable to see through his three glass windows quickly enough to take the
ball, and the booted competitor being unable to move.
Such were some of the social amenities of T.I., interspersed with
delightful evenings spent with the _haute monde_, consisting of military
authorities and owners of pearling fleets, in their charming bungalows
situated behind and above the settlement. But for the most part we kept
to the beach. It was more interesting--and kids were more plentiful.