HATIHEU
The bays of Anaho and Hatiheu are divided at their roots by the
knife-edge of a single hill--the pass so often mentioned; but this
isthmus expands to the seaward in a considerable peninsula: very bare
and grassy; haunted by sheep, and, at night and morning, by the piercing
cries of the shepherds; wandered over by a few wild goats; and on its
sea-front indented with long, clamorous caves, and faced with cliffs of
the colour and ruinous outline of an old peat-stack. In one of these
echoing and sunless gullies we saw, clustered like sea-birds on a
splashing ledge, shrill as sea-birds in their salutation to the passing
boat, a group of fisherwomen, stripped to their gaudy underclothes. (The
clash of the surf and the thin female voices echo in my memory.) We had
that day a native crew and steersman, Kauanui; it was our first
experience of Polynesian seamanship, which consists in hugging every
point of land. There is no thought in this of saving time, for they will
pull a long way in to skirt a point that is embayed. It seems that, as
they can never get their houses near enough the surf upon the one side,
so they can never get their boats near enough upon the other. The
practice in bold water is not so dangerous as it looks--the reflex from
the rocks sending the boat off. Near beaches with a heavy run of sea, I
continue to think it very hazardous, and find the composure of the
natives annoying to behold. We took unmingled pleasure, on the way out,
to see so near at hand the beach and the wonderful colours of the surf.
On the way back, when the sea had risen and was running strong against
us, the fineness of the steersman's aim grew more embarrassing. As we
came abreast of the sea-front, where the surf broke highest, Kauanui
embraced the occasion to light his pipe, which then made the circuit of
the boat--each man taking a whiff or two, and, ere he passed it on,
filling his lungs and cheeks with smoke. Their faces were all puffed out
like apples as we came abreast of the cliff foot, and the bursting surge
fell back into the boat in showers. At the next point "cocanetti" was
the word, and the stroke borrowed my knife, and desisted from his
labours to open nuts. These untimely indulgences may be compared to the
tot of grog served out before a ship goes into action.
My purpose in this visit led me first to the boys' school, for Hatiheu
is the university of the north islands. The hum of the lesson came out
to meet us. Close by the door, where the draught blew coolest, sat the
lay brother; around him, in a packed half-circle, some sixty
high-coloured faces set with staring eyes; and in the background of the
barn-like room benches were to be seen, and blackboards with sums on
them in chalk. The brother rose to greet us, sensibly humble. Thirty
years he had been there, he said, and fingered his white locks as a
bashful child pulls out his pinafore. "_Et point de resultats, monsieur,
presque pas de resultats._" He pointed to the scholars: "You see, sir,
all the youth of Nuka-hiva and Ua-pu. Between the ages of six and
fifteen this is all that remains; and it is but a few years since we had
a hundred and twenty from Nuka-hiva alone. _Oui, monsieur, cela se
deperit._" Prayers, and reading and writing, prayers again and
arithmetic, and more prayers to conclude: such appeared to be the dreary
nature of the course. For arithmetic all island people have a natural
taste. In Hawaii they make good progress in mathematics. In one of the
villages on Majuro, and generally in the Marshall group, the whole
population sit about the trader when he is weighing copra, and each on
his own slate takes down the figures and computes the total. The
trader, finding them so apt, introduced fractions, for which they had
been taught no rule. At first they were quite gravelled, but ultimately,
by sheer hard thinking, reasoned out the result, and came one after
another to assure the trader he was right. Not many people in Europe
could have done the like. The course at Hatiheu is therefore less
dispiriting to Polynesians than a stranger might have guessed; and yet
how bald it is at best! I asked the brother if he did not tell them
stories, and he stared at me; if he did not teach them history, and he
said, "O yes, they had a little Scripture history--from the New
Testament"; and repeated his lamentations over the lack of results. I
had not the heart to put more questions; I could but say it must be very
discouraging, and resist the impulse to add that it seemed also very
natural. He looked up--"My days are far spent," he said; "heaven awaits
me." May that heaven forgive me, but I was angry with the old man and
his simple consolation. For think of his opportunity! The youth, from
six to fifteen, are taken from their homes by Government, centralised at
Hatiheu, where they are supported by a weekly tax of food; and, with the
exception of one month in every year, surrendered wholly to the
direction of the priests. Since the escapade already mentioned the
holiday occurs at a different period for the girls and for the boys; so
that a Marquesan brother and sister meet again, after their education is
complete, a pair of strangers. It is a harsh law, and highly unpopular;
but what a power it places in the hands of the instructors, and how
languidly and dully is that power employed by the mission! Too much
concern to make the natives pious, a design in which they all confess
defeat, is, I suppose, the explanation of their miserable system. But
they might see in the girls' school at Tai-o-hae, under the brisk,
housewifely sisters, a different picture of efficiency, and a scene of
neatness, airiness, and spirited and mirthful occupation that should
shame them into cheerier methods. The sisters themselves lament their
failure. They complain the annual holiday undoes the whole year's work;
they complain particularly of the heartless indifference of the girls.
Out of so many pretty and apparently affectionate pupils whom they have
taught and reared, only two have ever returned to pay a visit of
remembrance to their teachers. These, indeed, come regularly, but the
rest, so soon as their school-days are over, disappear into the woods
like captive insects. It is hard to imagine anything more discouraging;
and yet I do not believe these ladies need despair. For a certain
interval they keep the girls alive and innocently busy; and if it be at
all possible to save the race, this would be the means. No such praise
can be given to the boys' school at Hatiheu. The day is numbered already
for them all; alike for the teacher and the scholars death is girt; he
is afoot upon the march; and in the frequent interval they sit and yawn.
But in life there seems a thread of purpose through the least
significant; the drowsiest endeavour is not lost, and even the school at
Hatiheu may be more useful than it seems.
Hatiheu is a place of some pretensions. The end of the bay towards Anaho
may be called the civil compound, for it boasts the house of Kooamua,
and close on the beach, under a great tree, that of the gendarme, M.
Armand Aussel, with his garden, his pictures, his books, and his
excellent table, to which strangers are made welcome. No more singular
contrast is possible than between the gendarmerie and the priesthood,
who are besides in smouldering opposition and full of mutual complaints.
A priest's kitchen in the eastern islands is a depressing spot to see;
and many, or most of them, make no attempt to keep a garden, sparsely
subsisting on their rations. But you will never dine with a gendarme
without smacking your lips; and M. Aussel's home-made sausage and the
salad from his garden are unforgotten delicacies. Pierre Loti may like
to know that he is M. Aussel's favourite author, and that his books are
read in the fit scenery of Hatiheu Bay.
The other end is all religious. It is here that an overhanging and
tip-tilted horn, a good sea-mark for Hatiheu, bursts naked from the
verdure of the climbing forest, and breaks down shoreward in steep
taluses and cliffs. From the edge of one of the highest, perhaps seven
hundred or a thousand feet above the beach, a Virgin looks
insignificantly down, like a poor lost doll, forgotten there by a giant
child. This laborious symbol of the Catholics is always strange to
Protestants; we conceive with wonder that men should think it worth
while to toil so many days, and clamber so much about the face of
precipices, for an end that makes us smile; and yet I believe it was the
wise Bishop Dordillon who chose the place, and I know that those who had
a hand in the enterprise look back with pride upon its vanquished
dangers. The boys' school is a recent importation; it was at first in
Tai-o-hae, beside the girls'; and it was only of late, after their joint
escapade, that the width of the island was interposed between the sexes.
But Hatiheu must have been a place of missionary importance from before.
About midway of the beach no less than three churches stand grouped in a
patch of bananas, intermingled with some pine-apples. Two are of wood:
the original church, now in disuse; and a second that, for some
mysterious reason, has never been used. The new church is of stone, with
twin towers, walls flangeing into buttresses, and sculptured front. The
design itself is good, simple, and shapely; but the character is all in
the detail, where the architect has bloomed into the sculptor. It is
impossible to tell in words of the angels (although they are more like
winged archbishops) that stand guard upon the door, of the cherubs in
the corners, of the scapegoat gargoyles, or the quaint and spirited
relief, where St. Michael (the artist's patron) makes short work of a
protesting Lucifer. We were never weary of viewing the imagery, so
innocent, sometimes so funny, and yet in the best sense--in the sense of
inventive gusto and expression--so artistic. I know not whether it was
more strange to find a building of such merit in a corner of a
barbarous isle, or to see a building so antique still bright with
novelty. The architect, a French lay brother, still alive and well, and
meditating fresh foundations, must have surely drawn his descent from a
master-builder in the age of the cathedrals; and it was in looking on
the church of Hatiheu that I seemed to perceive the secret charm of
mediaeval sculpture; that combination of the childish courage of the
amateur, attempting all things, like the schoolboy on his slate, with
the manly perseverance of the artist who does not know when he is
conquered.
I had always afterwards a strong wish to meet the architect, Brother
Michel; and one day, when I was talking with the Resident in Tai-o-hae
(the chief port of the island), there were shown in to us an old, worn,
purblind, ascetic-looking priest, and a lay brother, a type of all that
is most sound in France, with a broad, clever, honest, humorous
countenance, an eye very large and bright, and a strong and healthy body
inclining to obesity. But that his blouse was black and his face shaven
clean, you might pick such a man to-day, toiling cheerfully in his own
patch of vines, from half a dozen provinces of France; and yet he had
always for me a haunting resemblance to an old kind friend of my
boyhood, whom I name in case any of my readers should share with me that
memory--Dr. Paul, of the West Kirk. Almost at the first word I was sure
it was my architect, and in a moment we were deep in a discussion of
Hatiheu church. Brother Michel spoke always of his labours with a
twinkle of humour, underlying which it was possible to spy a serious
pride, and the change from one to another was often very human and
diverting. "_Et vos gargouilles moyen-age_," cried I; "_comme elles sont
originales!_" "_N'est-ce pas? Elles sont bien droles!_" he said, smiling
broadly; and the next moment, with a sudden gravity: "_Cependant il y en
a une qui a une patte de casse; il faut que je voie cela_." I asked if
he had any model--a point we much discussed. "_Non_," said he simply;
"_c'est une eglise ideale_." The relievo was his favourite performance,
and very justly so. The angels at the door, he owned, he would like to
destroy and replace. "_Ils n'ont pas de vie, ils manquent de vie. Vous
devriez voir mon eglise a la Dominique; j'ai la une Vierge qui est
vraiment gentille_." "Ah," I cried, "they told me you had said you would
never build another church, and I wrote in my journal I could not
believe it." "_Oui, j'aimerais bien en faire une autre,_" he confessed,
and smiled at the confession. An artist will understand how much I was
attracted by this conversation. There is no bond so near as a community
in that unaffected interest and slightly shamefaced pride which mark the
intelligent man enamoured of an art. He sees the limitations of his aim,
the defects of his practice; he smiles to be so employed upon the shores
of death, yet sees in his own devotion something worthy. Artists, if
they had the same sense of humour with the Augurs, would smile like them
on meeting, but the smile would not be scornful.
I had occasion to see much of this excellent man. He sailed with us from
Tai-o-hae to Hiva-oa, a dead beat of ninety miles against a heavy sea.
It was what is called a good passage, and a feather in the _Casco's_
cap; but among the most miserable forty hours that any one of us had
ever passed. We were swung and tossed together all that time like shot
in a stage thunder-box. The mate was thrown down and had his head cut
open; the captain was sick on deck; the cook sick in the galley. Of all
our party only two sat down to dinner. I was one. I own that I felt
wretchedly; and I can only say of the other, who professed to feel quite
well, that she fled at an early moment from the table. It was in these
circumstances that we skirted the windward shore of that indescribable
island of Ua-pu; viewing with dizzy eyes the coves, the capes, the
breakers, the climbing forests, and the inaccessible stone needles that
surmount the mountains. The place persists, in a dark corner of our
memories, like a piece of the scenery of nightmares. The end of this
distressful passage, where we were to land our passengers, was in a
similar vein of roughness. The surf ran high on the beach at Taahauku;
the boat broached-to and capsized; and all hands were submerged. Only
the brother himself, who was well used to the experience, skipped
ashore, by some miracle of agility, with scarce a sprinkling.
Thenceforward, during our stay at Hiva-oa, he was our cicerone and
patron; introducing us, taking us excursions, serving us in every way,
and making himself daily more beloved.
Michel Blanc had been a carpenter by trade; had made money and retired,
supposing his active days quite over: and it was only when he found
idleness dangerous that he placed his capital and acquirements at the
service of the mission. He became their carpenter, mason, architect, and
engineer; added sculpture to his accomplishments, and was famous for his
skill in gardening. He wore an enviable air of having found a port from
life's contentions and lying there strongly anchored; went about his
business with a jolly simplicity; complained of no lack of
results--perhaps shyly thinking his own statuary result enough; and was
altogether a pattern of the missionary layman.