the works of robert louis stevenson swanston edition volume xviii _of this swanston edition in twenty-five volumes of the works of robert louis stevenson two thousand and sixty copies have been printed, of which only two thousand copies are for sale._ _this is no._ ....... [illustration: a map to illustrate r. l. stevenson's life in the south seas] the works of robert louis stevenson volume eighteen london: published by chatto and windus: in association with cassell and company limited: william heinemann: and longmans green and company mdccccxii all rights reserved contents in the south seas page editorial note ix part i.--the marquesas chapter i. an island landfall ii. making friends iii. the maroon iv. death v. depopulation vi. chiefs and tapus vii. hatiheu viii. the port of entry ix. the house of temoana x. a portrait and a story xi. long-pig--a cannibal high place xii. the story of a plantation xiii. characters xiv. in a cannibal valley xv. the two chiefs of atuona part ii.--the paumotus i. the dangerous archipelago--atolls at a distance ii. fakarava: an atoll at hand iii. a house to let in a low island iv. traits and sects in the paumotus v. a paumotuan funeral vi. graveyard stories part iii.--the eight islands i. the kona coast ii. a ride in the forest iii. the city of refuge iv. kaahumanu v. the lepers of kona part iv.--the gilberts i. butaritari ii. the four brothers iii. around our house iv. a tale of a tapu v. a tale of a tapu (_continued_) vi. the five days' festival vii. husband and wife part v.--the gilberts--apemama i. the king of apemama: the royal trader ii. the king of apemama: foundation of equator town iii. the king of apemama: the palace of many women iv. the king of apemama: equator town and the palace v. king and commons vi. the king of apemama: devil-work vii. the king of apemama letters from samoa editorial note _the following chapters are selected from a series which was first published partially in 'black and white' (february to december ), and fully in the new york 'sun' during the same period. the voyages which supplied the occasion and the material for the work were three in number, viz. one of seven months (june to january ) in the yacht 'casco' from san francisco to the marquesas, the paumotus, tahiti, and thence northward to hawaii; a second (june to december ) in the trading schooner 'equator,' from honolulu, the hawaiian capital, where the author had stayed in the intervening five months, to the gilberts and thence to samoa; and a third (april to september ) in the trading steamer 'janet nicoll,' which set out from sydney and followed a very devious course, extending as far as penrhyn in the eastern to the marshall islands in the western pacific._ _before setting out on the first of these voyages, the author had contracted to write an account of his adventures in the form of letters for serial publication. the plan by and by changed in his mind into that of a book partly of travel and partly of research, which should combine the results of much careful observation and enquiry upon matters of island history, custom, belief, and tradition, with some account of his own experiences and those of his travelling companions. under the nominal title of 'letters' he began to compose the chapters of such a book on board the 'janet nicoll,' and continued the task during the first ten months of his residence in samoa (october to july ). before the serial publication had gone very far, he realised that the personal and impersonal elements in his work were not very successfully_ _ combined, nor in proportions that contented his readers. accordingly he abandoned for the time being the idea of republishing the chapters in book form. but when the scheme of the edinburgh edition was maturing, he desired that a selection should be made from them and should form one volume of that edition. that desire was carried out. the same selection is here republished, with the addition of a half-section then omitted, describing a visit to the kona coast of hawaii and the lepers' port of embarkation for molokai._ _it must be understood that a considerable portion of the author's voyages above mentioned is not recorded at all in the following pages. of one of its most attractive episodes, the visit to tahiti, no account was written; while of his experiences in hawaii only the visit to the kona coast is included. several chapters which did not come out to the writer's satisfaction have been omitted. of the five sections here given, each is complete in itself, with the exception of part iii. the first deals with the marquesas, the second with the paumolus--the former a volcanic and mountainous group, the latter a low group of atolls or coral islands, both in the eastern pacific and both under the protectorate of france. the third section is fragmentary, and deals, as has been said, with only one portion of the writer's experiences in hawaii. the last two describe his residence in the gilberts, a remote and little-known coral group in the western pacific, which at the time of his visit was under independent native government, but has since been annexed by great britain. this is the part of his work with which the author himself was best satisfied, and it derives additional interest from describing a state of manners and government which has now passed away._ in the south seas being an account of experiences and observations in the marquesas, paumotus and gilbert islands in the course of two cruises, on the yacht _casco_ ( ) and the schooner _equator_ ( ) part i the marquesas in the south seas chapter i an island landfall for nearly ten years my health had been declining; and for some while before i set forth upon my voyage, i believed i was come to the afterpiece of life, and had only the nurse and undertaker to expect. it was suggested that i should try the south seas; and i was not unwilling to visit like a ghost, and be carried like a bale, among scenes that had attracted me in youth and health. i chartered accordingly dr. merrit's schooner yacht, the _casco_, seventy-four tons register; sailed from san francisco towards the end of june , visited the eastern islands, and was left early the next year at honolulu. hence, lacking courage to return to my old life of the house and sick-room, i set forth to leeward in a trading schooner, the _equator_, of a little over seventy tons, spent four months among the atolls (low coral islands) of the gilbert group, and reached samoa towards the close of ' . by that time gratitude and habit were beginning to attach me to the islands; i had gained a competency of strength; i had made friends; i had learned new interests; the time of my voyages had passed like days in fairyland; and i decided to remain. i began to prepare these pages at sea, on a third cruise, in the trading steamer _janet nicoll_. if more days are granted me, they shall be passed where i have found life most pleasant and man most interesting; the axes of my black boys are already clearing the foundations of my future house; and i must learn to address readers from the uttermost parts of the sea. that i should thus have reversed the verdict of lord tennyson's hero is less eccentric than appears. few men who come to the islands leave them; they grow grey where they alighted; the palm shades and the trade-wind fans them till they die, perhaps cherishing to the last the fancy of a visit home, which is rarely made, more rarely enjoyed, and yet more rarely repeated. no part of the world exerts the same attractive power upon the visitor, and the task before me is to communicate to fireside travellers some sense of its seduction, and to describe the life, at sea and ashore, of many hundred thousand persons, some of our own blood and language, all our contemporaries, and yet as remote in thought and habit as rob roy or barbarossa, the apostles or the cæsars. the first experience can never be repeated. the first love, the first sunrise, the first south sea island, are memories apart and touched a virginity of sense. on the th of july the moon was an hour down by four in the morning. in the east a radiating centre of brightness told of the day; and beneath, on the skyline, the morning bank was already building, black as ink. we have all read of the swiftness of the day's coming and departure in low latitudes; it is a point on which the scientific and sentimental tourist are at one, and has inspired some tasteful poetry. the period certainly varies with the season; but here is one case exactly noted. although the dawn was thus preparing by four, the sun was not up till six; and it was half-past five before we could distinguish our expected islands from the clouds on the horizon. eight degrees south, and the day two hours a-coming. the interval was passed on deck in the silence of expectation, the customary thrill of landfall heightened by the strangeness of the shores that we were then approaching. slowly they took shape in the attenuating darkness. ua-huna, piling up to a truncated summit, appeared the first upon the starboard bow; almost abeam arose our destination, nuka-hiva, whelmed in cloud; and betwixt and to the southward, the first rays of the sun displayed the needles of ua-pu. these pricked about the line of the horizon; like the pinnacles of some ornate and monstrous church, they stood there, in the sparkling brightness of the morning, the fit signboard of a world of wonders. not one soul aboard the _casco_ had set foot upon the islands, or knew, except by accident, one word of any of the island tongues; and it was with something perhaps of the same anxious pleasure as thrilled the bosom of discoverers that we drew near these problematic shores. the land heaved up in peaks and rising vales; it fell in cliffs and buttresses; its colour ran through fifty modulations in a scale of pearl and rose and olive; and it was crowned above by opalescent clouds. the suffusion of vague hues deceived the eye; the shadows of clouds were confounded with the articulations of the mountain; and the isle and its unsubstantial canopy rose and shimmered before us like a single mass. there was no beacon, no smoke of towns to be expected, no plying pilot. somewhere, in that pale phantasmagoria of cliff and cloud, our haven lay concealed; and somewhere to the east of it--the only sea-mark given--a certain headland, known indifferently as cape adam and eve, or cape jack and jane, and distinguished by two colossal figures, the gross statuary of nature. these we were to find; for these we craned and stared, focussed glasses, and wrangled over charts; and the sun was overhead and the land close ahead before we found them. to a ship approaching, like the _casco_, from the north, they proved indeed the least conspicuous features of a striking coast; the surf flying high above its base; strange, austere, and feathered mountains rising behind; and jack and jane, or adam and eve, impending like a pair of warts above the breakers. thence we bore away along shore. on our port beam we might hear the explosions of the surf; a few birds flew fishing under the prow; there was no other sound or mark of life, whether of man or beast, in all that quarter of the island. winged by her own impetus and the dying breeze, the _casco_ skimmed under cliffs, opened out a cove, showed us a beach and some green trees, and flitted by again, bowing to the swell. the trees, from our distance, might have been hazel; the beach might have been in europe; the mountain forms behind modelled in little from the alps, and the forest which clustered on their ramparts a growth no more considerable than our scottish heath. again the cliff yawned, but now with a deeper entry; and the _casco_, hauling her wind, began to slide into the bay of anaho. the coco-palm, that giraffe of vegetables, so graceful, so ungainly, to the european eye so foreign, was to be seen crowding on the beach, and climbing and fringing the steep sides of mountains. rude and bare hills embraced the inlet upon either hand; it was enclosed to the landward by a bulk of shattered mountains. in every crevice of that barrier the forest harboured, roosting and nesting there like birds about a ruin; and far above, it greened and roughened the razor edges of the summit. under the eastern shore, our schooner, now bereft of any breeze, continued to creep in: the smart creature, when once under way, appearing motive in herself. from close aboard arose the bleating of young lambs; a bird sang in the hillside; the scent of the land and of a hundred fruits or flowers flowed forth to meet us; and, presently, a house or two appeared, standing high upon the ankles of the hills, and one of these surrounded with what seemed a garden. these conspicuous habitations, that patch of culture, had we but known it, were a mark of the passage of whites; and we might have approached a hundred islands and not found their parallel. it was longer ere we spied the native village, standing (in the universal fashion) close upon a curve of beach, close under a grove of palms; the sea in front growling and whitening on a concave arc of reef. for the coco-tree and the island man are both lovers and neighbours of the surf. "the coral waxes, the palm grows, but man departs," says the sad tahitian proverb; but they are all three, so long as they endure, co-haunters of the beach. the mark of anchorage was a blow-hole in the rocks, near the south-easterly corner of the bay. punctually to our use, the blow-hole spouted; the schooner turned upon her heel; the anchor plunged. it was a small sound, a great event; my soul went down with these moorings whence no windlass may extract nor any diver fish it up; and i, and some part of my ship's company, were from that hour the bondslaves of the isles of vivien. before yet the anchor plunged a canoe was already paddling from the hamlet. it contained two men: one white, one brown and tattooed across the face with bands of blue, both in immaculate white european clothes: the resident trader, mr. regler, and the native chief, taipi-kikino. "captain, is it permitted to come on board?" were the first words we heard among the islands. canoe followed canoe, till the ship swarmed with stalwart, six-foot men in every stage of undress; some in a shirt, some in a loin-cloth, one in a handkerchief imperfectly adjusted; some, and these the more considerable, tattooed from head to foot in awful patterns; some barbarous and knived; one, who sticks in my memory as something bestial, squatting on his hams in a canoe, sucking an orange and spitting it out again to alternate sides with ape-like vivacity--all talking, and we could not understand one word; all trying to trade with us who had no thought of trading, or offering us island curios at prices palpably absurd. there was no word of welcome; no show of civility; no hand extended save that of the chief and mr. regler. as we still continued to refuse the proffered articles, complaint ran high and rude; and one, the jester of the party, railed upon our meanness amid jeering laughter. amongst other angry pleasantries--"here is a mighty fine ship," said he, "to have no money on board!" i own i was inspired with sensible repugnance; even with alarm. the ship was manifestly in their power; we had women on board; i knew nothing of my guests beyond the fact that they were cannibals; the directory (my only guide) was full of timid cautions; and as for the trader, whose presence might else have reassured me, were not whites in the pacific the usual instigators and accomplices of native outrage? when he reads this confession, our kind friend, mr. regler, can afford to smile. later in the day, as i sat writing up my journal, the cabin was filled from end to end with marquesans: three brown-skinned generations, squatted cross-legged upon the floor, and regarding me in silence with embarrassing eyes. the eyes of all polynesians are large, luminous, and melting; they are like the eyes of animals and some italians. a kind of despair came over me, to sit there helpless under all these staring orbs, and be thus blocked in a corner of my cabin by this speechless crowd: and a kind of rage to think they were beyond the reach of articulate communication, like furred animals, or folk born deaf, or the dwellers of some alien planet. to cross the channel is, for a boy of twelve, to change heavens; to cross the atlantic, for a man of twenty-four, is hardly to modify his diet. but i was now escaped out of the shadow of the roman empire, under whose toppling monuments we were all cradled, whose laws and letters are on every hand of us, constraining and preventing. i was now to see what men might be whose fathers had never studied virgil, had never been conquered by cæsar, and never been ruled by the wisdom of gaius or papinian. by the same step i had journeyed forth out of that comfortable zone of kindred languages, where the curse of babel is so easy to be remedied; and my new fellow-creatures sat before me dumb like images. methought, in my travels, all human relation was to be excluded; and when i returned home (for in those days i still projected my return) i should have but dipped into a picture-book without a text. nay, and i even questioned if my travels should be much prolonged; perhaps they were destined to a speedy end; perhaps my subsequent friend, kauanui, whom i remarked there, sitting silent with the rest, for a man of some authority, might leap from his hams with an ear-splitting signal, the ship be carried at a rush, and the ship's company butchered for the table. there could be nothing more natural than these apprehensions, nor anything more groundless. in my experience of the islands, i had never again so menacing a reception; were i to meet with such to-day, i should be more alarmed and tenfold more surprised. the majority of polynesians are easy folk to get in touch with, frank, fond of notice, greedy of the least affection, like amiable, fawning dogs; and even with the marquesans, so recently and so imperfectly redeemed from a blood-boltered barbarism, all were to become our intimates, and one, at least, was to mourn sincerely our departure. chapter ii making friends the impediment of tongues was one that i particularly over-estimated. the languages of polynesia are easy to smatter, though hard to speak with elegance. and they are extremely similar, so that a person who has a tincture of one or two may risk, not without hope, an attempt upon the others. and again, not only is polynesian easy to smatter, but interpreters abound. missionaries, traders, and broken white folk living on the bounty of the natives, are to be found in almost every isle and hamlet; and even where these are unserviceable, the natives themselves have often scraped up a little english, and in the french zone (though far less commonly) a little french-english, or an efficient pidgin, what is called to the westward "beach-la-mar," comes easy to the polynesian; it is now taught, besides, in the schools of hawaii; and from the multiplicity of british ships, and the nearness of the states on the one hand and the colonies on the other, it may be called, and will almost certainly become, the tongue of the pacific. i will instance a few examples. i met in majuro a marshall island boy who spoke excellent english; this he had learned in the german firm in jaluit, yet did not speak one word of german. i heard from a gendarme who had taught school in rapa-iti that while the children had the utmost difficulty or reluctance to learn french, they picked up english on the wayside, and as if by accident. on one of the most out-of-the-way atolls in the carolines, my friend mr. benjamin hird was amazed to find the lads playing cricket on the beach and talking english; and it was in english that the crew of the _janet nicoll_, a set of black boys from different melanesian islands, communicated with other natives throughout the cruise, transmitted orders, and sometimes jested together on the fore-hatch. but what struck me perhaps most of all was a word i heard on the verandah of the tribunal at noumea. a case had just been heard--a trial for infanticide against an ape-like native woman; and the audience were smoking cigarettes as they awaited the verdict. an anxious, amiable french lady, not far from tears, was eager for acquittal, and declared she would engage the prisoner to be her children's nurse. the bystanders exclaimed at the proposal; the woman was a savage, said they, and spoke no language. "_mais vous savez_," objected the fair sentimentalist; "_ils apprennent si vite l'anglais_!" but to be able to speak to people is not all. and in the first stage of my relations with natives i was helped by two things. to begin with, i was the showman of the _casco_. she, her fine lines, tall spars, and snowy decks, the crimson fittings of the saloon, and the white, the gilt, and the repeating mirrors of the tiny cabin, brought us a hundred visitors. the men fathomed out her dimensions with their arms, as their fathers fathomed out the ships of cook; the women declared the cabins more lovely than a church; bouncing junos were never weary of sitting in the chairs and contemplating in the glass their own bland images; and i have seen one lady strip up her dress, and, with cries of wonder and delight, rub herself bare-breeched upon the velvet cushions. biscuit, jam, and syrup was the entertainment; and, as in european parlours, the photograph album went the round. this sober gallery, their everyday costumes and physiognomies, had been transformed, in three weeks' sailing, into things wonderful and rich and foreign; alien faces, barbaric dresses, they were now beheld and fingered, in the swerving cabin, with innocent excitement and surprise. her majesty was often recognised, and i have seen french subjects kiss her photograph; captain speedy--in an abyssinian war-dress, supposed to be the uniform of the british army--met with much acceptance; and the effigies of mr. andrew lang were admired in the marquesas. there is the place for him to go when he shall be weary of middlesex and homer. it was perhaps yet more important that i had enjoyed in my youth some knowledge of our scots folk of the highlands and the islands. not much beyond a century has passed since these were in the same convulsive and transitionary state as the marquesans of to-day. in both cases an alien authority enforced, the clans disarmed, the chiefs deposed, new customs introduced, and chiefly that fashion of regarding money as the means and object of existence. the commercial age, in each, succeeding at a bound to an age of war abroad and patriarchal communism at home. in one the cherished practice of tattooing, in the other a cherished costume, proscribed. in each a main luxury cut off: beef, driven under cloud of night from lowland pastures, denied to the meat-loving highlander; long-pig, pirated from the next village, to the man-eating kanaka. the grumbling, the secret ferment, the fears and resentments, the alarms and sudden councils of marquesan chiefs, reminded me continually of the days of lovat and struan. hospitality, tact, natural fine manners, and a touchy punctilio, are common to both races: common to both tongues the trick of dropping medial consonants. here is a table of two widespread polynesian words:-- house. love.[ ] tahitian fare aroha new zealand whare samoan fale talofa manihiki fale aloha hawaiian hale aloha marquesan ha'e kaoha the elision of medial consonants, so marked in these marquesan instances, is no less common both in gaelic and the lowland scots. stranger still, that prevalent polynesian sound, the so-called catch, written with an apostrophe, and often or always the gravestone of a perished consonant, is to be heard in scotland to this day. when a scot pronounces water, better, or bottle--_wa'er, be'er_, or _bo'le_--the sound is precisely that of the catch; and i think we may go beyond, and say, that if such a population could be isolated, and this mispronunciation should become the rule, it might prove the first stage of transition from _t_ to _k_, which is the disease of polynesian languages. the tendency of the marquesans, however, is to urge against consonants, or at least on the very common letter _l_, a war of mere extermination. a hiatus is agreeable to any polynesian ear; the ear even of the stranger soon grows used to these barbaric voids; but only in the marquesan will you find such names as _haaii_ and _paaaeua_, when each individual vowel must be separately uttered. these points of similarity between a south sea people and some of my own folk at home ran much in my head in the islands; and not only inclined me to view my fresh acquaintances with favour, but continually modified my judgment. a polite englishman comes to-day to the marquesans and is amazed to find the men tattooed; polite italians came not long ago to england and found our fathers stained with woad; and when i paid the return visit as a little boy, i was highly diverted with the backwardness of italy: so insecure, so much a matter of the day and hour, is the pre-eminence of race. it was so that i hit upon a means of communication which i recommend to travellers. when i desired any detail of savage custom, or of superstitious belief, i cast back in the story of my fathers, and fished for what i wanted with some trait of equal barbarism: michael scott, lord derwentwater's head, the second-sight, the water kelpie--each of these i have found to be a killing bait; the black bull's head of stirling procured me the legend of _rahero_; and what i knew of the cluny macphersons, or the appin stewarts, enabled me to learn, and helped me to understand, about the _tevas_ of tahiti. the native was no longer ashamed, his sense of kinship grew warmer, and his lips were opened. it is this sense of kinship that the traveller must rouse and share; or he had better content himself with travels from the blue bed to the brown. and the presence of one cockney titterer will cause a whole party to walk in clouds of darkness. the hamlet of anaho stands on a margin of flat land between the west of the beach and the spring of the impending mountains. a grove of palms, perpetually ruffling its green fans, carpets it (as for a triumph) with fallen branches, and shades it like an arbour. a road runs from end to end of the covert among beds of flowers, the milliner's shop of the community; and here and there, in the grateful twilight, in an air filled with a diversity of scents, and still within hearing of the surf upon the reef, the native houses stand in scattered neighbourhood. the same word, as we have seen, represents in many tongues of polynesia, with scarce a shade of difference, the abode of man. but although the word be the same, the structure itself continually varies; and the marquesan, among the most backward and barbarous of islanders, is yet the most commodiously lodged. the grass huts of hawaii, the birdcage houses of tahiti, or the open shed, with the crazy venetian blinds, of the polite samoan--none of these can be compared with the marquesan _paepae-hae_, or dwelling platform. the paepae is an oblong terrace built without cement of black volcanic stone, from twenty to fifty feet in length, raised from four to eight feet from the earth, and accessible by a broad stair. along the back of this, and coming to about half its width, runs the open front of the house, like a covered gallery: the interior sometimes neat and almost elegant in its bareness, the sleeping space divided off by an endlong coaming, some bright raiment perhaps hanging from a nail, and a lamp and one of white's sewing-machines, the only marks of civilisation. on the outside, at one end of the terrace, burns the cooking-fire under a shed; at the other there is perhaps a pen for pigs; the remainder is the evening lounge and _al fresco_ banquet-hall of the inhabitants. to some houses water is brought down the mountain in bamboo pipes, perforated for the sake of sweetness. with the highland comparison in my mind, i was struck to remember the sluttish mounds of turf and stone in which i have sat and been entertained in the hebrides and the north islands. two things, i suppose, explain the contrast. in scotland wood is rare, and with materials so rude as turf and stone the very hope of neatness is excluded. and in scotland it is cold. shelter and a hearth are needs so pressing that a man looks not beyond; he is out all day after a bare bellyful, and at night when he saith, "aha, it is warm!" he has not appetite for more. or if for something else, then something higher; a fine school of poetry and song arose in these rough shelters, and an air like "lochaber no more" is an evidence of refinement more convincing, as well as more imperishable, than a palace. to one such dwelling platform a considerable troop of relatives and dependants resort. in the hour of the dusk, when the fire blazes, and the scent of the cooked breadfruit fills the air, and perhaps the lamp glints already between the pillars of the house, you shall behold them silently assemble to this meal, men, women, and children; and the dogs and pigs frisk together up the terrace stairway, switching rival tails. the strangers from the ship were soon equally welcome: welcome to dip their fingers in the wooden dish, to drink cocoa-nuts, to share the circulating pipe, and to hear and hold high debate about the misdeeds of the french, the panama canal, or the geographical position of san francisco and new yo'ko. in a highland hamlet, quite out of reach of any tourist, i have met the same plain and dignified hospitality. i have mentioned two facts--the distasteful behaviour of our earliest visitors, and the case of the lady who rubbed herself upon the cushions--which would give a very false opinion of marquesan manners. the great majority of polynesians are excellently mannered; but the marquesan stands apart, annoying and attractive, wild, shy, and refined. if you make him a present he affects to forget it, and it must be offered him again at his going: a pretty formality i have found nowhere else. a hint will get rid of any one or any number; they are so fiercely proud and modest; while many of the more lovable but blunter islanders crowd upon a stranger, and can be no more driven off than flies. a slight or an insult the marquesan seems never to forget. i was one day talking by the wayside with my friend hoka, when i perceived his eyes suddenly to flash and his stature to swell. a white horseman was coming down the mountain, and as he passed, and while he paused to exchange salutations with myself, hoka was still staring and ruffling like a gamecock. it was a corsican who had years before called him _cochon sauvage_--_coçon chauvage_, as hoka mispronounced it. with people so nice and so touchy, it was scarce to be supposed that our company of greenhorns should not blunder into offences. hoka, on one of his visits, fell suddenly in a brooding silence, and presently after left the ship with cold formality. when he took me back into favour, he adroitly and pointedly explained the nature of my offence: i had asked him to sell cocoa-nuts; and in hoka's view articles of food were things that a gentleman should give, not sell; or at least that he should not sell to any friend. on another occasion i gave my boat's crew a luncheon of chocolate and biscuits. i had sinned, i could never learn how, against some point of observance; and though i was drily thanked, my offerings were left upon the beach. but our worst mistake was a slight we put on toma, hoka's adoptive father, and in his own eyes the rightful chief of anaho. in the first place, we did not call upon him, as perhaps we should, in his fine new european house, the only one in the hamlet. in the second, when we came ashore upon a visit to his rival, taipi-kikino, it was toma whom we saw standing at the head of the beach, a magnificent figure of a man, magnificently tattooed; and it was of toma that we asked our question: "where is the chief?" "what chief?" cried toma, and turned his back on the blasphemers. nor did he forgive us. hoka came and went with us daily; but, alone i believe of all the countryside, neither toma nor his wife set foot on board the _casco_. the temptation resisted it is hard for a european to compute. the flying city of laputa moored for a fortnight in st. james's park affords but a pale figure of the _casco_ anchored before anaho; for the londoner has still his change of pleasures, but the marquesan passes to his grave through an unbroken uniformity of days. on the afternoon before it was intended we should sail, a valedictory party came on board: nine of our particular friends equipped with gifts and dressed as for a festival. hoka, the chief dancer and singer, the greatest dandy of anaho, and one of the handsomest young fellows in the world--sullen, showy, dramatic, light as a feather and strong as an ox--it would have been hard, on that occasion, to recognise, as he sat there stooped and silent, his face heavy and grey. it was strange to see the lad so much affected; stranger still to recognise in his last gift one of the curios we had refused on the first day, and to know our friend, so gaily dressed, so plainly moved at our departure, for one of the half-naked crew that had besieged and insulted us on our arrival: strangest of all, perhaps, to find, in that carved handle of a fan, the last of those curiosities of the first day which had now all been given to us by their possessors--their chief merchandise, for which they had sought to ransom us as long as we were strangers, which they pressed on us for nothing as soon as we were friends. the last visit was not long protracted. one after another they shook hands and got down into their canoe; when hoka turned his back immediately upon the ship, so that we saw his face no more. taipi, on the other hand, remained standing and facing us with gracious valedictory gestures; and when captain otis dipped the ensign, the whole party saluted with their hats. this was the farewell; the episode of our visit to anaho was held concluded; and though the _casco_ remained nearly forty hours at her moorings, not one returned on board, and i am inclined to think they avoided appearing on the beach. this reserve and dignity is the finest trait of the marquesan. footnote: [ ] where that word is used as a salutation i give that form. chapter iii the maroon of the beauties of anaho books might be written. i remember waking about three, to find the air temperate and scented. the long swell brimmed into the bay, and seemed to fill it full and then subside. gently, deeply, and silently the _casco_ rolled; only at times a block piped like a bird. oceanward, the heaven was bright with stars and the sea with their reflections. if i looked to that side, i might have sung with the hawaiian poet: _ua maomao ka lani, ua kahaea luna_, _ua pipi ka maka o ka hoku_. (the heavens were fair, they stretched above, many were the eyes of the stars.) and then i turned shoreward, and high squalls were overhead; the mountains loomed up black; and i could have fancied i had slipped ten thousand miles away and was anchored in a highland loch; that when the day came, it would show pine, and heather, and green fern, and roofs of turf sending up the smoke of peats; and the alien speech that should next greet my ears must be gaelic, not kanaka. and day, when it came, brought other sights and thoughts. i have watched the morning break in many quarters of the world--it has been certainly one of the chief joys of my existence; and the dawn that i saw with most emotion shone upon the bay of anaho. the mountains abruptly overhang the port with every variety of surface and of inclination, lawn, and cliff, and forest. not one of these but wore its proper tint of saffron, of sulphur, of the clove, and of the rose. the lustre was like that of satin; on the lighter hues there seemed to float an efflorescence; a solemn bloom appeared on the more dark. the light itself was the ordinary light of morning, colourless and clean; and on this ground of jewels, pencilled out the least detail of drawing. meanwhile, around the hamlet, under the palms, where the blue shadow lingered, the red coals of cocoa husk and the light trails of smoke betrayed the awakening business of the day; along the beach men and women, lads and lasses, were returning from the bath in bright raiment, red and blue and green, such as we delighted to see in the coloured little pictures of our childhood; and presently the sun had cleared the eastern hill, and the glow of the day was over all. the glow continued and increased, the business, from the main part, ceased before it had begun. twice in the day there was a certain stir of shepherding along the seaward hills. at times a canoe went out to fish. at times a woman or two languidly filled a basket in the cotton patch. at times a pipe would sound out of the shadow of a house, ringing the changes on its three notes, with an effect like _que le jour me dure_ repeated endlessly. or at times, across a corner of the bay, two natives might communicate in the marquesan manner with conventional whistlings. all else was sleep and silence. the surf broke and shone around the shores; a species of black crane fished in the broken water; the black pigs were continually galloping by on some affair; but the people might never have awaked, or they might all be dead. my favourite haunt was opposite the hamlet, where was a landing in a cove under a lianaed cliff. the beach was lined with palms and a tree called the purao, something between the fig and mulberry in growth, and bearing a flower like a great yellow poppy with a maroon heart. in places rocks encroached upon the sand; the beach would be all submerged; and the surf would bubble warmly as high as to my knees, and play with cocoa-nut husks as our more homely ocean plays with wreck and wrack and bottles. as the reflux drew down, marvels of colour and design streamed between my feet; which i would grasp at, miss, or seize: now to find them what they promised, shells to grace a cabinet or be set in gold upon a lady's finger; now to catch only _maya_ of coloured sand, pounded fragments and pebbles, that, as soon as they were dry, became as dull and homely as the flints upon a garden path. i have toiled at this childish pleasure for hours in the strong sun, conscious of my incurable ignorance; but too keenly pleased to be ashamed. meanwhile, the blackbird (or his tropical understudy) would be fluting in the thickets overhead. a little further, in the turn of the bay, a streamlet trickled in the bottom of a den, thence spilling down a stair of rock into the sea. the draught of air drew down under the foliage in the very bottom of the den, which was a perfect arbour for coolness. in front it stood open on the blue bay and the _casco_ lying there under her awning and her cheerful colours. overhead was a thatch of puraos, and over these again palms brandished their bright fans, as i have seen a conjurer make himself a halo out of naked swords. for in this spot, over a neck of low land at the foot of the mountains, the trade-wind streams into anaho bay in a flood of almost constant volume and velocity, and of a heavenly coolness. it chanced one day that i was ashore in the cove with mrs. stevenson and the ship's cook. except for the _casco_ lying outside, and a crane or two, and the ever-busy wind and sea, the face of the world was of a prehistoric emptiness; life appeared to stand stock-still, and the sense of isolation was profound and refreshing. on a sudden, the trade wind, coming in a gust over the isthmus, struck and scattered the fans of the palms above the den; and, behold! in two of the tops there sat a native, motionless as an idol and watching us, you would have said, without a wink. the next moment the tree closed, and the glimpse was gone. this discovery of human presences latent overhead in a place where we had supposed ourselves alone, the immobility of our tree-top spies, and the thought that perhaps at all hours we were similarly supervised, struck us with a chill. talk languished on the beach. as for the cook (whose conscience was not clear), he never afterwards set foot on shore, and twice, when the _casco_ appeared to be driving on the rocks, it was amusing to observe that man's alacrity; death, he was persuaded, awaiting him upon the beach. it was more than a year later, in the gilberts, that the explanation dawned upon myself. the natives were drawing palm-tree wine, a thing forbidden by law; and when the wind thus suddenly revealed them, they were doubtless more troubled than ourselves. at the top of the den there dwelt an old, melancholy, grizzled man of the name of tari (charlie) coffin. he was a native of oahu, in the sandwich islands; and had gone to sea in his youth in the american whalers; a circumstance to which he owed his name, his english, his down-east twang, and the misfortune of his innocent life. for one captain, sailing out of new bedford, carried him to nuka-hiva and marooned him there among the cannibals. the motive for this act was inconceivably small; poor tari's wages, which were thus economised, would scarce have shook the credit of the new bedford owners. and the act itself was simply murder. tari's life must have hung in the beginning by a hair. in the grief and terror of that time, it is not unlikely he went mad, an infirmity to which he was still liable; or perhaps a child may have taken a fancy to him and ordained him to be spared. he escaped at least alive, married in the island, and when i knew him was a widower with a married son and a granddaughter. but the thought of oahu haunted him; its praise was for ever on his lips; he beheld it, looking back, as a place of ceaseless feasting, song, and dance; and in his dreams i dare say he revisits it with joy. i wonder what he would think if he could be carried there indeed, and see the modern town of honolulu brisk with traffic, and the palace with its guards, and the great hotel, and mr. berger's band with their uniforms and outlandish instruments; or what he would think to see the brown faces grown so few and the white so many; and his father's land sold for planting sugar, and his father's house quite perished, or perhaps the last of them struck leprous and immured between the surf and the cliffs on molokai? so simply, even in south sea islands, and so sadly, the changes come. tari was poor, and poorly lodged. his house was a wooden frame, run up by europeans; it was indeed his official residence, for tari was the shepherd of the promontory sheep. i can give a perfect inventory of its contents: three kegs, a tin biscuit-box, an iron sauce-pan, several cocoa-shell cups, a lantern, and three bottles, probably containing oil; while the clothes of the family and a few mats were thrown across the open rafters. upon my first meeting with this exile he had conceived for me one of the baseless island friendships, had given me nuts to drink, and carried me up the den "to see my house"--the only entertainment that he had to offer. he liked the "amelican," he said, and the "inglisman," but the "flessman" was his abhorrence; and he was careful to explain that if he had thought us "fless," we should have had none of his nuts, and never a sight of his house. his distaste for the french i can partly understand, but not at all his toleration of the anglo-saxon. the next day he brought me a pig, and some days later one of our party going ashore found him in act to bring a second. we were still strange to the islands; we were pained by the poor man's generosity, which he could ill afford, and, by a natural enough but quite unpardonable blunder, we refused the pig. had tari been a marquesan we should have seen him no more; being what he was, the most mild, long-suffering, melancholy man, he took a revenge a hundred times more painful. scarce had the canoe with the nine villagers put off from their farewell before the _casco_ was boarded from the other side. it was tari; coming thus late because he had no canoe of his own, and had found it hard to borrow one; coming thus solitary (as indeed we always saw him), because he was a stranger in the land, and the dreariest of company. the rest of my family basely fled from the encounter. i must receive our injured friend alone; and the interview must have lasted hard upon an hour, for he was loath to tear himself away. "you go 'way. i see you no more--no, sir!" he lamented; and then, looking about him with rueful admiration, "this goodee ship--no, sir!--goodee ship!" he would exclaim; the "no, sir," thrown out sharply through the nose upon a rising inflection, an echo from new bedford and the fallacious whaler. from these expressions of grief and praise, he would return continually to the case of the rejected pig. "i like give plesent all 'e same you," he complained; "only got pig: you no take him!" he was a poor man; he had no choice of gifts; he had only a pig, he repeated; and i had refused it. i have rarely been more wretched than to see him sitting there, so old, so grey, so poor, so hardly fortuned, of so rueful a countenance, and to appreciate, with growing keenness, the affront which i had so innocently dealt him; but it was one of those cases in which speech is vain. tari's son was smiling and inert; his daughter-in-law, a girl of sixteen, pretty, gentle, and grave, more intelligent than most anaho-women, and with a fair share of french; his grandchild, a mite of a creature at the breast. i went up the den one day when tari was from home, and found the son making a cotton sack, and madame suckling mademoiselle. when i had sat down with them on the floor, the girl began to question me about england; which i tried to describe, piling the pan and the cocoa shells one upon another to represent the houses and explaining, as best i was able, and by word and gesture, the over-population, the hunger, and the perpetual toil. "_pas de cocotiers? pas de popoi?_" she asked. i told her it was too cold, and went through an elaborate performance, shutting out draughts, and crouching over an imaginary fire, to make sure she understood. but she understood right well; remarked it must be bad for the health, and sat a while gravely reflecting on that picture of unwonted sorrows. i am sure it roused her pity, for it struck in her another thought always uppermost in the marquesan bosom; and she began with a smiling sadness, and looking on me out of melancholy eyes, to lament the decease of her own people. "_ici pas de kanaques_," said she; and taking the baby from her breast, she held it out to me with both her hands. "_tenez_--a little baby like this; then dead. all the kanaques die. then no more." the smile, and this instancing by the girl-mother of her own tiny flesh and blood affected me strangely; they spoke of so tranquil a despair. meanwhile the husband smilingly made his sack; and the unconscious babe struggled to reach a pot of raspberry jam, friendship's offering, which i had just brought up the den; and in a perspective of centuries i saw their case as ours, death coming in like a tide, and the day already numbered when there should be no more beretani, and no more of any race whatever, and (what oddly touched me) no more literary works and no more readers. chapter iv death the thought of death, i have said, is uppermost in the mind of the marquesan. it would be strange if it were otherwise. the race is perhaps the handsomest extant. six feet is about the middle height of males; they are strongly muscled, free from fat, swift in action, graceful in repose; and the women, though fatter and duller, are still comely animals. to judge by the eye, there is no race more viable; and yet death reaps them with both hands. when bishop dordillon first came to tai-o-hae, he reckoned the inhabitants at many thousands; he was but newly dead, and in the same bay stanislao moanatini counted on his fingers eight residual natives. or take the valley of hapaa, known to readers of herman melville under the grotesque mis-spelling of hapar. there are but two writers who have touched the south seas with any genius, both americans: melville and charles warren stoddard; and at the christening of the first and greatest, some influential fairy must have been neglected: "he shall be able to see," "he shall be able to tell," "he shall be able to charm," said the friendly godmothers; "but he shall not be able to hear," exclaimed the last. the tribe of hapaa is said to have numbered some four hundred when the small-pox came and reduced them by one fourth. six months later a woman developed tubercular consumption; the disease spread like a fire about the valley, and in less than a year two survivors, a man and a woman, fled from that new-created solitude. a similar adam and eve may some day wither among new races, the tragic residue of britain. when i first heard this story the date staggered me; but i am now inclined to think it possible. early in the year of my visit, for example, or late the year before, a first case of phthisis appeared in a household of seventeen persons, and by the month of august, when the tale was told me, one soul survived, and that was a boy who had been absent at his schooling. and depopulation works both ways, the doors of death being set wide open, and the door of birth almost closed. thus, in the half-year ending july there were twelve deaths and but one birth in the district of the hatiheu. seven or eight more deaths were to be looked for in the ordinary course; and m. aussel, the observant gendarme, knew of but one likely birth. at this rate it is no matter of surprise if the population in that part should have declined in forty years from six thousand to less than four hundred; which are, once more on the authority of m. aussel, the estimated figures. and the rate of decline must have even accelerated towards the end. a good way to appreciate the depopulation is to go by land from anaho to hatiheu on the adjacent bay. the road is good travelling, but cruelly steep. we seemed scarce to have passed the deserted house which stands highest in anaho before we were looking dizzily down upon its roof; the _casco_ well out in the bay, and rolling for a wager, shrank visibly; and presently through the gap of tari's isthmus, ua-huna was seen to hang cloudlike on the horizon. over the summit, where the wind blew really chill, and whistled in the reed-like grass, and tossed the grassy fell of the pandanus, we stepped suddenly, as through a door, into the next vale and bay of hatiheu. a bowl of mountains encloses it upon three sides. on the fourth this rampart has been bombarded into ruins, runs down to seaward in imminent and shattered crags, and presents the one practicable breach of the blue bay. the interior of this vessel is crowded with lovely and valuable trees,--orange, breadfruit, mummy-apple, coco, the island chestnut, and for weeds, the pine and the banana. four perennial streams water and keep it green; and along the dell, first of one, then of another, of these, the road, for a considerable distance, descends into this fortunate valley. the song of the waters and the familiar disarray of boulders gave us a strong sense of home, which the exotic foliage, the daft-like growth of the pandanus, the buttressed trunk of the banyan, the black pigs galloping in the bush, and the architecture of the native houses dissipated ere it could be enjoyed. the houses on the hatiheu side begin high up; higher yet, the more melancholy spectacle of empty paepaes. when a native habitation is deserted, the superstructure--pandanus thatch, wattle, unstable tropical timber--speedily rots, and is speedily scattered by the wind. only the stones of the terrace endure; nor can any ruin, cairn, or standing stone, or vitrified fort present a more stern appearance of antiquity. we must have passed from six to eight of these now houseless platforms. on the main road of the island, where it crosses the valley of taipi, mr. osbourne tells me they are to be reckoned by the dozen; and as the roads have been made long posterior to their erection, perhaps to their desertion, and must simply be regarded as lines drawn at random through the bush, the forest on either hand must be equally filled with these survivals: the grave-stones of whole families. such ruins are tapu[ ] in the strictest sense; no native must approach them; they have become outposts of the kingdom of the grave. it might appear a natural and pious custom in the hundreds who are left, the rearguard of perished thousands, that their feet should leave untrod these hearthstones of their fathers. i believe, in fact, the custom rests on different and more grim conceptions. but the house, the grave, and even the body of the dead, have been always particularly honoured by marquesans. until recently the corpse was sometimes kept in the family and daily oiled and sunned, until, by gradual and revolting stages, it dried into a kind of mummy. offerings are still laid upon the grave. in traitor's bay, mr. osbourne saw a man buy a looking-glass to lay upon his son's. and the sentiment against the desecration of tombs, thoughtlessly ruffled in the laying down of the new roads, is a chief ingredient in the native hatred for the french. the marquesan beholds with dismay the approaching extinction of his race. the thought of death sits down with him to meat, and rises with him from his bed; he lives and breathes under a shadow of mortality awful to support; and he is so inured to the apprehension that he greets the reality with relief. he does not even seek to support a disappointment; at an affront, at a breach of one of his fleeting and communistic love-affairs, he seeks an instant refuge in the grave. hanging is now the fashion. i heard of three who had hanged themselves in the west end of hiva-oa during the first half of ; but though this be a common form of suicide in other parts of the south seas, i cannot think it will continue popular in the marquesas. far more suitable to marquesan sentiment is the old form of poisoning with the fruit of the eva, which offers to the native suicide a cruel but deliberate death, and gives time for those decencies of the last hour, to which he attaches such remarkable importance. the coffin can thus be at hand, the pigs killed, the cry of the mourners sounding already through the house; and then it is, and not before, that the marquesan is conscious of achievement, his life all rounded in, his robes (like cæsar's) adjusted for the final act. praise not any man till he is dead, said the ancients; envy not any man till you hear the mourners, might be the marquesan parody. the coffin, though of late introduction, strangely engages their attention. it is to the mature marquesan what a watch is to the european schoolboy. for ten years queen vaekehu had dunned the fathers; at last, but the other day, they let her have her will, gave her her coffin, and the woman's soul is at rest. i was told a droll instance of the force of this preoccupation. the polynesians are subject to a disease seemingly rather of the will than of the body. i was told the tahitians have a word for it, _erimatua_, but cannot find it in my dictionary. a gendarme, m. nouveau, has seen men beginning to succumb to this insubstantial malady, has routed them from their houses, turned them on to do their trick upon the roads, and in two days has seen them cured. but this other remedy is more original: a marquesan, dying of this discouragement--perhaps i should rather say this acquiescence--has been known, at the fulfilment of his crowning wish, on the mere sight of that desired hermitage, his coffin--to revive, recover, shake off the hand of death, and be restored for years to his occupations--carving tikis (idols), let us say, or braiding old men's beards. from all this it may be conceived how easily they meet death when it approaches naturally. i heard one example, grim and picturesque. in the time of the small-pox in hapaa, an old man was seized with the disease; he had no thought of recovery; had his grave dug by a wayside, and lived in it for near a fortnight, eating, drinking, and smoking with the passers-by, talking mostly of his end, and equally unconcerned for himself and careless of the friends whom he infected. this proneness to suicide, and loose seat in life, is not peculiar to the marquesan. what is peculiar is the widespread depression and acceptance of the national end. pleasures are neglected, the dance languishes, the songs are forgotten. it is true that some, and perhaps too many, of them are proscribed; but many remain, if there were spirit to support or to revive them. at the last feast of the bastille, stanislao moanatini shed tears when he beheld the inanimate performance of the dancers. when the people sang for us in anaho, they must apologise for the smallness of their repertory. they were only young folk present, they said, and it was only the old that knew the songs. the whole body of marquesan poetry and music was being suffered to die out with a single dispirited generation. the full import is apparent only to one acquainted with other polynesian races; who knows how the samoan coins a fresh song for every trifling incident, or who has heard (on penrhyn, for instance) a band of little stripling maids from eight to twelve keep up their minstrelsy for hours upon a stretch, one song following another without pause. in like manner, the marquesan, never industrious, begins now to cease altogether from production. the exports of the group decline out of all proportion even with the death-rate of the islanders. "the coral waxes, the palm grows, and man departs," says the marquesan; and he folds his hands. and surely this is nature. fond as it may appear, we labour and refrain, not for the reward of any single life, but with a timid eye upon the lives and memories of our successors; and where no one is to succeed, of his own family, or his own tongue, i doubt whether rothschilds would make money or cato practise virtue. it is natural, also, that a temporary stimulus should sometimes rouse the marquesan from his lethargy. over all the landward shore of anaho cotton runs like a wild weed; man or woman, whoever comes to pick it, may earn a dollar in the day; yet when we arrived, the trader's store-house was entirely empty; and before we left it was nearly full. so long as the circus was there, so long as the _casco_ was yet anchored in the bay, it behoved every one to make his visit; and to this end every woman must have a new dress, and every man a shirt and trousers. never before, in mr. regler's experience, had they displayed so much activity. in their despondency there is an element of dread. the fear of ghosts and of the dark is very deeply written in the mind of the polynesian; not least of the marquesan. poor taipi, the chief of anaho, was condemned to ride to hatiheu on a moonless night. he borrowed a lantern, sat a long while nerving himself for the adventure, and when he at last departed, wrung the _cascos_ by the hand as for a final separation. certain presences, called vehinehae, frequent and make terrible the nocturnal roadside; i was told by one they were like so much mist, and as the traveller walked into them dispersed and dissipated; another described them as being shaped like men and having eyes like cats; from none could i obtain the smallest clearness as to what they did, or wherefore they were dreaded. we may be sure at least they represent the dead; for the dead, in the minds of the islanders, are all-pervasive. "when a native says that he is a man," writes dr. codrington, "he means that he is a man and not a ghost; not that he is a man and not a beast. the intelligent agents of this world are to his mind the men who are alive, and the ghosts the men who are dead." dr. codrington speaks of melanesia; from what i have learned his words are equally true of the polynesian. and yet more. among cannibal polynesians a dreadful suspicion rests generally on the dead; and the marquesans, the greatest cannibals of all, are scarce likely to be free from similar beliefs. i hazard the guess that the vehinehae are the hungry spirits of the dead, continuing their life's business of the cannibal ambuscade, and lying everywhere unseen, and eager to devour the living. another superstition i picked up through the troubled medium of tari coffin's english. the dead, he told me, came and danced by night around the paepae of their former family; the family were thereupon overcome by some emotion (but whether of pious sorrow or of fear i could not gather), and must "make a feast," of which fish, pig, and popoi were indispensable ingredients. so far this is clear enough. but here tari went on to instance the new house of toma and the house-warming feast which was just then in preparation as instances in point. dare we indeed string them together, and add the case of the deserted ruin, as though the dead continually besieged the paepaes of the living; were kept at arm's-length, even from the first foundation, only by propitiatory feasts, and, so soon as the fire of life went out upon the hearth, swarmed back into possession of their ancient seat? i speak by guess of these marquesan superstitions. on the cannibal ghost i shall return elsewhere with certainty. and it is enough, for the present purpose, to remark that the men of the marquesas, from whatever reason, fear and shrink from the presence of ghosts. conceive how this must tell upon the nerves in islands where the number of the dead already so far exceeds that of the living, and the dead multiply and the living dwindle at so swift a rate. conceive how the remnant huddles about the embers of the fire of life; even as old red indians, deserted on the march and in the snow, the kindly tribe all gone, the last flame expiring, and the night around populous with wolves. footnote: [ ] in english usually written "taboo": "tapu" is the correct tahitian form.--[ed.] chapter v depopulation over the whole extent of the south seas, from one tropic to another, we find traces of a bygone state of over-population, when the resources of even a tropical soil were taxed, and even the improvident polynesian trembled for the future. we may accept some of the ideas of mr. darwin's theory of coral islands, and suppose a rise of the sea, or the subsidence of some former continental area, to have driven into the tops of the mountains multitudes of refugees. or we may suppose, more soberly, a people of sea-rovers, emigrants from a crowded country, to strike upon and settle island after island, and as time went on to multiply exceedingly in their new seats. in either case the end must be the same; soon or late it must grow apparent that the crew are too numerous, and that famine is at hand. the polynesians met this emergent danger with various expedients of activity and prevention. a way was found to preserve breadfruit by packing it in artificial pits; pits forty feet in depth and of proportionate bore are still to be seen, i am told, in the marquesas; and yet even these were insufficient for the teeming people, and the annals of the past are gloomy with famine and cannibalism. among the hawaiians--a hardier people, in a more exacting climate--agriculture was carried far; the land was irrigated with canals; and the fish-ponds of molokai prove the number and diligence of the old inhabitants. meanwhile, over all the island world, abortion and infanticide prevailed. on coral atolls, where the danger was most plainly obvious, these were enforced by law and sanctioned by punishment. on vaitupu, in the ellices, only two children were allowed to a couple; on nukufetau, but one. on the latter the punishment was by fine; and it is related that the fine was sometimes paid, and the child spared. this is characteristic. for no people in the world are so fond or so long-suffering with children--children make the mirth and the adornment of their homes, serving them for playthings and for picture-galleries. "happy is the man that has his quiver full of them." the stray bastard is contended for by rival families; and the natural and the adopted children play and grow up together undistinguished. the spoiling, and i may almost say the deification, of the child, is nowhere carried so far as in the eastern islands; and furthest, according to my opportunities of observation, in the paumotu group, the so-called low or dangerous archipelago. i have seen a paumotuan native turn from me with embarrassment and disaffection because i suggested that a brat would be the better for a beating. it is a daily matter in some eastern islands to see a child strike or even stone its mother, and the mother, so far from punishing, scarce ventures to resist. in some, when his child was born, a chief was superseded and resigned his name; as though, like a drone, he had then fulfilled the occasion of his being. and in some the lightest words of children had the weight of oracles. only the other day, in the marquesas, if a child conceived a distaste to any stranger, i am assured the stranger would be slain. and i shall have to tell in another place an instance of the opposite: how a child in manihiki having taken a fancy to myself, her adoptive parents at once accepted the situation and loaded me with gifts. with such sentiments the necessity for child destruction would not fail to clash, and i believe we find the trace of divided feeling in the tahitian brotherhood of oro. at a certain date a new god was added to the society-island olympus, or an old one refurbished and made popular. oro was his name, and he may be compared with the bacchus of the ancients. his zealots sailed from bay to bay, and from island to island; they were everywhere received with feasting; wore fine clothes, sang, danced, acted; gave exhibitions of dexterity and strength; and were the artists, the acrobats, the bards, and the harlots of the group. their life was public and epicurean; their initiation a mystery; and the highest in the land aspired to join the brotherhood. if a couple stood next in line to a high-chieftaincy, they were suffered, on grounds of policy, to spare one child; all other children, who had a father or a mother in the company of oro, stood condemned from the moment of conception. a freemasonry, an agnostic sect, a company of artists, its members all under oath to spread unchastity, and all forbidden to leave offspring--i do not know how it may appear to others, but to me the design seems obvious. famine menacing the islands, and the needful remedy repulsive, it was recommended to the native mind by these trappings of mystery, pleasure, and parade. this is the more probable, and the secret, serious purpose of the institution appears the more plainly, if it be true, that after a certain period of life, the obligation of the votary was changed; at first, bound to be profligate; afterwards, expected to be chaste. here, then, we have one side of the case. man-eating among kindly men, child-murder among child-lovers, industry in a race the most idle, invention in a race the least progressive, this grim, pagan salvation-army of the brotherhood of oro, the report of early voyagers, the widespread vestiges of former habitation, and the universal tradition of the islands, all point to the same fact of former crowding and alarm. and to-day we are face to face with the reverse. to-day in the marquesas, in the eight islands of hawaii, in mangareva, in easter island, we find the same race perishing like flies. why this change? or, grant that the coming of the whites, the change of habits, and the introduction of new maladies and vices, fully explain the depopulation, why is that depopulation not universal? the population of tahiti, after a period of alarming decrease, has again become stationary. i hear of a similar result among some maori tribes; in many of the paumotus a slight increase is to be observed; and the samoans are to-day as healthy and at least as fruitful as before the change. grant that the tahitians, the maoris, and the paumotuans have become inured to the new conditions; and what are we to make of the samoans, who have never suffered? those who are acquainted only with a single group are apt to be ready with solutions. thus i have heard the mortality of the maoris attributed to their change of residence--from fortified hill-tops to the low, marshy vicinity of their plantations. how plausible! and yet the marquesans are dying out in the same houses where their fathers multiplied. or take opium. the marquesas and hawaii are the two groups the most infected with this vice; the population of the one is the most civilised, that of the other by far the most barbarous, of polynesians; and they are two of those that perish the most rapidly. here is a strong case against opium. but let us take unchastity, and we shall find the marquesas and hawaii figuring again upon another count. thus, samoans are the most chaste of polynesians, and they are to this day entirely fertile; marquesans are the most debauched: we have seen how they are perishing; hawaiians are notoriously lax, and they begin to be dotted among deserts. so here is a case stronger still against chastity; and here also we have a correction to apply. whatever the virtues of the tahitian, neither friend nor enemy dares call him chaste; and yet he seems to have outlived the time of danger. one last example: syphilis has been plausibly credited with much of the sterility. but the samoans are, by all accounts, as fruitful as at first; by some accounts more so; and it is not seriously to be argued that the samoans have escaped syphilis. these examples show how dangerous it is to reason from any particular cause, or even from many in a single group. i have in my eye an able and amiable pamphlet by the rev. s.e. bishop: "why are the hawaiians dying out?" any one interested in the subject ought to read this tract, which contains real information; and yet mr. bishop's views would have been changed by an acquaintance with other groups. samoa is, for the moment, the main and the most instructive exception to the rule. the people are the most chaste, and one of the most temperate of island peoples. they have never been tried and depressed with any grave pestilence. their clothing has scarce been tampered with; at the simple and becoming tabard of the girls, tartuffe, in many another island, would have cried out; for the cool, healthy, and modest lavalava or kilt, tartuffe has managed in many another island to substitute stifling and inconvenient trousers. lastly, and perhaps chiefly, so far from their amusements having been curtailed, i think they have been, upon the whole, extended. the polynesian falls easily into despondency: bereavement, disappointment, the fear of novel visitations, the decay or proscription of ancient pleasures, easily incline him to be sad; and sadness detaches him from life. the melancholy of the hawaiian and the emptiness of his new life are striking; and the remark is yet more apposite to the marquesas. in samoa, on the other hand, perpetual song and dance, perpetual games, journeys, and pleasures, make an animated and a smiling picture of the island life. and the samoans are to-day the gayest and the best entertained inhabitants of our planet. the importance of this can scarcely be exaggerated. in a climate and upon a soil where a livelihood can be had for the stooping, entertainment is a prime necessity. it is otherwise with us, where life presents us with a daily problem, and there is a serious interest, and some of the heat of conflict, in the mere continuing to be. so, in certain atolls, where there is no great gaiety, but man must bestir himself with some vigour for his daily bread, public health and the population are maintained; but in the lotos islands, with the decay of pleasures, life itself decays. it is from this point of view that we may instance, among other causes of depression, the decay of war. we have been so long used in europe to that dreary business of war on the great scale, trailing epidemics and leaving pestilential corpses in its train, that we have almost forgotten its original, the most healthful, if not the most humane, of all field sports--hedge-warfare. from this, as well as from the rest of his amusements and interests, the islander, upon a hundred islands, has been recently cut off. and to this, as well as to so many others, the samoan still makes good a special title. upon the whole, the problem seems to me to stand thus:--where there have been fewest changes, important or unimportant, salutary or hurtful, there the race survives. where there have been most, important or unimportant, salutary or hurtful, there it perishes. each change, however small, augments the sum of new conditions to which the race has to become inured. there may seem, _a priori_, no comparison between the change from "sour toddy" to bad gin, and that from the island kilt to a pair of european trousers. yet i am far from persuaded that the one is any more hurtful than the other; and the unaccustomed race will sometimes die of pin-pricks. we are here face to face with one of the difficulties of the missionary. in polynesian islands he easily obtains pre-eminent authority; the king becomes his _maire du palais_; he can proscribe, he can command; and the temptation is ever towards too much. thus (by all accounts) the catholics in mangareva, and thus (to my own knowledge) the protestants in hawaii, have rendered life in a more or less degree unliveable to their converts. and the mild, uncomplaining creatures (like children in a prison) yawn and await death. it is easy to blame the missionary. but it is his business to make changes. it is surely his business, for example, to prevent war; and yet i have instanced war itself as one of the elements of health. on the other hand, it were perhaps, easy for the missionary to proceed more gently, and to regard every change as an affair of weight. i take the average missionary; i am sure i do him no more than justice when i suppose that he would hesitate to bombard a village, even in order to convert an archipelago. experience begins to show us (at least in polynesian islands) that change of habit is bloodier than a bombardment. there is one point, ere i have done, where i may go to meet criticism. i have said nothing of faulty hygiene, bathing during fevers, mistaken treatment of children, native doctoring, or abortion--all causes frequently adduced. and i have said nothing of them because they are conditions common to both epochs, and even more efficient in the past than in the present. was it not the same with unchastity, it may be asked? was not the polynesian always unchaste? doubtless he was so always: doubtless he is more so since the coming of his remarkably chaste visitors from europe. take the hawaiian account of cook: i have no doubt it is entirely fair. take krusenstern's candid, almost innocent, description of a russian man-of-war at the marquesas; consider the disgraceful history of missions in hawaii itself, where (in the war of lust) the american missionaries were once shelled by an english adventurer, and once raided and mishandled by the crew of an american warship; add the practice of whaling fleets to call at the marquesas, and carry off a complement of women for the cruise; consider, besides, how the whites were at first regarded in the light of demi-gods, as appears plainly in the reception of cook upon hawaii; and again, in the story of the discovery of tutuila, when the really decent women of samoa prostituted themselves in public to the french; and bear in mind how it was the custom of the adventurers, and we may almost say the business of the missionaries, to deride and infract even the most salutary tapus. here we see every engine of dissolution directed at once against a virtue never and nowhere very strong or popular; and the result, even in the most degraded islands, has been further degradation. mr. lawes, the missionary of savage island, told me the standard of female chastity had declined there since the coming of the whites. in heathen time, if a girl gave birth to a bastard, her father or brother would dash the infant down the cliffs; and to-day the scandal would be small. or take the marquesas. stanislao moanatini told me that in his own recollection the young were strictly guarded; they were not suffered so much as to look upon one another in the street, but passed (so my informant put it) like dogs; and the other day the whole school-children of nuka-hiva and ua-pu escaped in a body to the woods, and lived there for a fortnight in promiscuous liberty. readers of travels may perhaps exclaim at my authority, and declare themselves better informed. i should prefer the statement of an intelligent native like stanislao (even if it stood alone, which it is far from doing) to the report of the most honest traveller. a ship of war comes to a haven, anchors, lands a party, receives and returns a visit, and the captain writes a chapter on the manners of the island. it is not considered what class is mostly seen. yet we should not be pleased if a lascar foremast hand were to judge england by the ladies who parade ratcliffe highway, and the gentlemen who share with them their hire. stanislao's opinion of a decay of virtue even in these unvirtuous islands has been supported to me by others; his very example, the progress of dissolution amongst the young, is adduced by mr. bishop in hawaii. and so far as marquesans are concerned, we might have hazarded a guess of some decline in manners. i do not think that any race could ever have prospered or multiplied with such as now obtain; i am sure they would have been never at the pains to count paternal kinship. it is not possible to give details; suffice it that their manners appear to be imitated from the dreams of ignorant and vicious children, and their debauches persevered in until energy, reason, and almost life itself are in abeyance. chapter vi chiefs and tapus we used to admire exceedingly the bland and gallant manners of the chief called taipi-kikino. an elegant guest at table, skilled in the use of knife and fork, a brave figure when he shouldered a gun and started for the woods after wild chickens, always serviceable, always ingratiating and gay, i would sometimes wonder where he found his cheerfulness. he had enough to sober him, i thought, in his official budget. his expenses--for he was always seen attired in virgin white--must have by far exceeded his income of six dollars in the year, or say two shillings a month. and he was himself a man of no substance; his house the poorest in the village. it was currently supposed that his elder brother, kauanui, must have helped him out. but how comes it that the elder brother should succeed to the family estate, and be a wealthy commoner, and the younger be a poor man, and yet rule as chief in anaho? that the one should be wealthy and the other almost indigent is probably to be explained by some adoption; for comparatively few children are brought up in the house or succeed to the estates of their natural begetters. that the one should be chief instead of the other must be explained (in a very irish fashion) on the ground that neither of them is a chief at all. since the return and the wars of the french, many chiefs have been deposed, and many so-called chiefs appointed. we have seen, in the same house, one such upstart drinking in the company of two such extruded island bourbons, men, whose word a few years ago was life and death, now sunk to be peasants like their neighbours. so when the french overthrew hereditary tyrants, dubbed the commons of the marquesas freeborn citizens of the republic, and endowed them with a vote for a _conseiller-général_ at tahiti, they probably conceived themselves upon the path to popularity; and so far from that, they were revolting public sentiment. the deposition of the chiefs was perhaps sometimes needful; the appointment of others may have been needful also; it was at least a delicate business. the government of george ii. exiled many highland magnates. it never occurred to them to manufacture substitutes; and if the french have been more bold, we have yet to see with what success. our chief at anaho was always called, he always called himself, taipi-kikino; and yet that was not his name, but only the wand of his false position. as soon as he was appointed chief, his name--which signified, if i remember exactly, _prince born among flowers_--fell in abeyance, and he was dubbed instead by the expressive byword, taipi-kikino--_highwater man-of-no-account_--or, englishing more boldly, _beggar on horseback_--a witty and a wicked cut. a nickname in polynesia destroys almost the memory of the original name. to-day, if we were polynesians, gladstone would be no more heard of. we should speak of and address our nestor as the grand old man, and it is so that himself would sign his correspondence. not the prevalence, then, but the significancy of the nickname is to be noted here. the new authority began with small prestige. taipi has now been some time in office; from all i saw he seemed a person very fit. he is not the least unpopular, and yet his power is nothing. he is a chief to the french, and goes to breakfast with the resident; but for any practical end of chieftaincy a rag doll were equally efficient. we had been but three days in anaho when we received the visit of the chief of hatiheu, a man of weight and fame, late leader of a war upon the french, late prisoner in tahiti, and the last eater of long-pig in nuka-hiva. not many years have elapsed since he was seen striding on the beach of anaho, a dead man's arm across his shoulder. "so does kooamua to his enemies!" he roared to the passers-by, and took a bite from the raw flesh. and now behold this gentleman, very wisely replaced in office by the french, paying us a morning visit in european clothes. he was the man of the most character we had yet seen: his manners genial and decisive, his person tall, his face rugged, astute, formidable, and with a certain similarity to mr. gladstone's only for the brownness of the skin, and the high-chief's tattooing, all one side and much of the other being of an even blue. further acquaintance increased our opinion of his sense. he viewed the _casco_ in a manner then quite new to us, examining her lines and the running of the gear; to a piece of knitting on which one of the party was engaged, he must have devoted ten minutes' patient study; nor did he desist before he had divined the principles; and he was interested even to excitement by a type-writer, which he learned to work. when he departed he carried away with him a list of his family, with his own name printed by his own hand at the bottom. i should add that he was plainly much of a humorist, and not a little of a humbug. he told us, for instance, that he was a person of exact sobriety; such being the obligation of his high estate: the commons might be sots, but the chief could not stoop so low. and not many days after he was to be observed in a state of smiling and lop-sided imbecility, the _casco_ ribbon upside down on his dishonoured hat. but his business that morning in anaho is what concerns us here. the devil-fish, it seems, were growing scarce upon the reef; it was judged fit to interpose what we should call a close season; for that end, in polynesia, a tapu (vulgarly spelt "taboo") has to be declared, and who was to declare it? taipi might; he ought; it was a chief part of his duty; but would any one regard the inhibition of a beggar on horseback? he might plant palm branches: it did not in the least follow that the spot was sacred. he might recite the spell: it was shrewdly supposed the spirits would not hearken. and so the old, legitimate cannibal must ride over the mountains to do it for him; and the respectable official in white clothes could but look on and envy. at about the same time, though in a different manner, kooamua established a forest law. it was observed the coco-palms were suffering, for the plucking of green nuts impoverishes and at last endangers the tree. now kooamua could tapu the reef, which was public property, but he could not tapu other people's palms; and the expedient adopted was interesting. he tapu'd his own trees, and his example was imitated over all hatiueu and anaho. i fear taipi might have tapu'd all that he possessed and found none to follow him. so much for the esteem in which the dignity of an appointed chief is held by others; a single circumstance will show what he thinks of it himself. i never met one, but he took an early opportunity to explain his situation. true, he was only an appointed chief when i beheld him; but somewhere else, perhaps upon some other isle, he was a chieftain by descent: upon which ground, he asked me (so to say it) to excuse his mushroom honours. it will be observed with surprise that both these tapus are for thoroughly sensible ends. with surprise, i say, because the nature of that institution is much misunderstood in europe. it is taken usually in the sense of a meaningless or wanton prohibition, such as that which to-day prevents women in some countries from smoking, or yesterday prevented any one in scotland from taking a walk on sunday. the error is no less natural than it is unjust. the polynesians have not been trained in the bracing, practical thought of ancient rome; with them the idea of law has not been disengaged from that of morals or propriety; so that tapu has to cover the whole field, and implies indifferently that an act is criminal, immoral, against sound public policy, unbecoming or (as we say) "not in good form." many tapus were in consequence absurd enough, such as those which deleted words out of the language, and particularly those which related to women, tapu encircled women upon all hands. many things were forbidden to men; to women we may say that few were permitted. they must not sit on the paepae; they must not go up to it by the stair; they must not eat pork; they must not approach a boat; they must not cook at a fire which any male had kindled. the other day, after the roads were made, it was observed the women plunged along the margin through the bush, and when they came to a bridge waded through the water: roads and bridges were the work of men's hands, and tapu for the foot of women. even a man's saddle, if the man be native, is a thing no self-respecting lady dares to use. thus on the anaho side of the island, only two white men, mr. regler and the gendarme, m. aussel, possess saddles: and when a woman has a journey to make she must borrow from one or other. it will be noticed that these prohibitions tend, most of them, to an increased reserve between the sexes. regard for female chastity is the usual excuse for these disabilities that men delight to lay upon their wives and mothers. here the regard is absent; and behold the women still bound hand and foot with meaningless proprieties! the women themselves, who are survivors of the old regimen, admit that in those days life was not worth living. and yet even then there were exceptions. there were female chiefs and (i am assured) priestesses besides; nice customs curtseyed to great dames, and in the most sacred enclosure of a high place, father siméon delmar was shown a stone, and told it was the throne of some well-descended lady. how exactly parallel is this with european practice, when princesses were suffered to penetrate the strictest cloister, and women could rule over a land in which they were denied the control of their own children. but the tapu is more often the instrument of wise and needful restrictions. we have seen it as the organ of paternal government. it serves besides to enforce, in the rare case of some one wishing to enforce them, rights of private property. thus a man, weary of the coming and going of marquesan visitors, tapu's his door; and to this day you may see the palm-branch signal, even as our great-grandfathers saw the peeled wand before a highland inn. or take another case. anaho is known as "the country without popoi." the word popoi serves in different islands to indicate the main food of the people; thus, in hawaii, it implies a preparation of taro; in the marquesas, of breadfruit. and a marquesan does not readily conceive life possible without his favourite diet. a few years ago a drought killed the breadfruit trees and the bananas in the district of anaho; and from this calamity, and the open-handed customs of the island, a singular state of things arose. well-watered hatiheu had escaped the drought; every householder of anaho accordingly crossed the pass, chose some one in hatiheu, "gave him his name"--an onerous gift, but one not to be rejected--and from this improvised relative proceeded to draw his supplies, for all the world as though he had paid for them. hence a continued traffic on the road. some stalwart fellow, in a loin-cloth, and glistening with sweat, may be seen at all hours of the day, a stick across his bare shoulders, tripping nervously under a double burthen of green fruits. and on the far side of the gap a dozen stone posts on the wayside in the shadow of a grove mark the breathing-place of the popoi-carriers. a little back from the breach, and not half a mile from anaho, i was the more amazed to find a cluster of well-doing breadfruits heavy with their harvest. "why do you not take these?" i asked. "tapu," said hoka; and i thought to myself (after the manner of dull travellers) what children and fools these people were to toil over the mountain and despoil innocent neighbours when the staff of life was thus growing at their door. i was the more in error. in the general destruction these surviving trees were enough only for the family of the proprietor, and by the simple expedient of declaring a tapu he enforced his right. the sanction of the tapu is superstitious; and the punishment of infraction either a wasting or a deadly sickness. a slow disease follows on the eating of tapu fish, and can only be cured with the bones of the same fish burned with the due mysteries. the cocoa-nut and breadfruit tapu works more swiftly. suppose you have eaten tapu fruit at the evening meal, at night your sleep will be uneasy; in the morning, swelling and a dark discoloration will have attacked your neck, whence they spread upward to the face; and in two days, unless the cure be interjected, you must die. this cure is prepared from the rubbed leaves of the tree from which the patient stole; so that he cannot be saved without confessing to the tahuku the person whom he wronged. in the experience of my informant, almost no tapu had been put in use, except the two described: he had thus no opportunity to learn the nature and operation of the others; and, as the art of making them was jealously guarded amongst the old men, he believed the mystery would soon die out. i should add that he was no marquesan, but a chinaman, a resident in the group from boyhood, and a reverent believer in the spells which he described. white men, amongst whom ah fu included himself, were exempt; but he had a tale of a tahitian woman, who had come to the marquesas, eaten tapu fish, and, although uninformed of her offence and danger, had been afflicted and cured exactly like a native. doubtless the belief is strong; doubtless, with this weakly and fanciful race, it is in many cases strong enough to kill; it should be strong indeed in those who tapu their trees secretly, so that they may detect a depredator by his sickness. or, perhaps, we should understand the idea of the hidden tapu otherwise, as a politic device to spread uneasiness and extort confessions: so that, when a man is ailing, he shall ransack his brain for any possible offence, and send at once for any proprietor whose rights he has invaded. "had you hidden a tapu?" we may conceive him asking: and i cannot imagine the proprietor gainsaying it; and that is perhaps the strangest feature of the system--that it should be regarded from without with such a mental and implicit awe, and, when examined from within, should present so many apparent evidences of design. we read in dr. campbell's "poenamo" of a new zealand girl, who was foolishly told that she had eaten a tapu yam, and who instantly sickened, and died in the two days of simple terror. the period is the same as in the marquesas; doubtless the symptoms were so too. how singular to consider that a superstition of such sway is possibly a manufactured article; and that, even if it were not originally invented, its details have plainly been arranged by the authorities of some polynesian scotland yard. fitly enough, the belief is to-day--and was probably always--far from universal. hell at home is a strong deterrent with some; a passing thought with others; with others, again, a theme of public mockery, not always well assured; and so in the marquesas with the tapu. mr. regler has seen the two extremes of scepticism and implicit fear. in the tapu grove he found one fellow stealing breadfruit, cheerful and impudent as a street arab; and it was only on a menace of exposure that he showed himself the least discountenanced. the other case was opposed in every point. mr. regler asked a native to accompany him upon a voyage; the man went gladly enough, but suddenly perceiving a dead tapu fish in the bottom of the boat, leaped back with a scream; nor could the promise of a dollar prevail upon him to advance. the marquesan, it will be observed, adheres to the old idea of the local circumscription of beliefs and duties. not only are the whites exempt from consequences; but their transgressions seem to be viewed without horror. it was mr. regler who had killed the fish; yet the devout native was not shocked at mr. regler--only refused to join him in his boat. a white is a white: the servant (so to speak) of other and more liberal gods; and not to be blamed if he profit by his liberty. the jews were perhaps the first to interrupt this ancient comity of faiths; and the jewish virus is still strong in christianity. all the world must respect our tapus, or we gnash our teeth. chapter vii 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 résultats, monsieur, presque pas de résultats._" 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 dépérit._" 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 mediæval 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-âge_," cried i; "_comme elles sont originales!_" "_n'est-ce pas? elles sont bien drôles!_" he said, smiling broadly; and the next moment, with a sudden gravity: "_cependant il y en a une qui a une patte de cassé; 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 église idéale_." 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 église à la dominique; j'ai là 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. chapter viii the port of entry the port--the mart, the civil and religious capital of these rude islands--is called tai-o-hae, and lies strung along the beach of a precipitous green bay in nuka-hiva. it was midwinter when we came thither, and the weather was sultry, boisterous, and inconstant. now the wind blew squally from the land down gaps of splintered precipice; now, between the sentinel islets of the entry, it came in gusts from seaward. heavy and dark clouds impended on the summits; the rain roared and ceased; the scuppers of the mountain gushed; and the next day we would see the sides of the amphitheatre bearded with white falls. along the beach the town shows a thin file of houses, mostly white, and all ensconced in the foliage of an avenue of green puraos; a pier gives access from the sea across the belt of breakers; to the eastward there stands, on a projecting bushy hill, the old fort which is now the calaboose, or prison; eastward still, alone in a garden, the residency flies the colours of france. just off calaboose hill, the tiny government schooner rides almost permanently at anchor, marks eight bells in the morning (there or thereabout) with the unfurling of her flag, and salutes the setting sun with the report of a musket. here dwell together, and share the comforts of a club (which may be enumerated as a billiard-board, absinthe, a map of the world on mercator's projection, and one of the most agreeable verandahs in the tropics), a handful of whites of varying nationality, mostly french officials, german and scottish merchant clerks, and the agents of the opium monopoly. there are besides three tavern-keepers, the shrewd scot who runs the cotton gin-mill, two white ladies, and a sprinkling of people "on the beach"--a south sea expression for which there is no exact equivalent. it is a pleasant society, and a hospitable. but one man, who was often to be seen seated on the logs at the pier-head, merits a word for the singularity of his history and appearance. long ago, it seems, he fell in love with a native lady, a high chiefess in ua-pu. she, on being approached, declared she could never marry a man who was untattooed; it looked so naked; whereupon, with some greatness of soul, our hero put himself in the hands of the tahukus, and, with still greater, persevered until the process was complete. he had certainly to bear a great expense, for the tahuku will not work without reward; and certainly exquisite pain. kooamua, high chief as he was, and one of the old school, was only part tattooed; he could not, he told us with lively pantomime, endure the torture to an end. our enamoured countryman was more resolved; he was tattooed from head to foot in the most approved methods of the art: and at last presented himself before his mistress a new man. the fickle fair one could never behold him from that day except with laughter. for my part, i could never see the man without a kind of admiration; of him it might be said, if ever of any, that he had loved not wisely, but too well. the residency stands by itself, calaboose hill screening it from the fringe of town along the further bay. the house is commodious, with wide verandahs; all day it stands open, back and front, and the trade blows copiously over its bare floors. on a week-day the garden offers a scene of most untropical animation, half a dozen convicts toiling there cheerfully with spade and barrow, and touching hats and smiling to the visitor like old attached family servants. on sunday these are gone, and nothing to be seen but dogs of all ranks and sizes peacefully slumbering in the shady grounds; for the dogs of tai-o-hae are very courtly-minded, and make the seat of government their promenade and place of siesta. in front and beyond, a strip of green down loses itself in a low wood of many species of acacia; and deep in the wood a ruinous wall encloses the cemetery of the europeans. english and scottish sleep there, and scandinavians, and french _maîtres de manoeuvres_ and _maîtres ouvriers;_ mingling alien dust. back in the woods perhaps, the blackbird, or (as they call him there) the island nightingale, will be singing home strains; and the ceaseless requiem of the surf hangs on the ear. i have never seen a resting-place more quiet; but it was a long thought how far these sleepers had all travelled, and from what diverse homes they had set forth, to lie here in the end together. on the summit of its promontory hill, the calaboose stands all day with doors and window shutters open to the trade. on my first visit a dog was the only guardian visible. he, indeed, rose with an attitude so menacing that i was glad to lay hands on an old barrel-hoop; and i think the weapon must have been familiar, for the champion instantly retreated, and as i wandered round the court and through the building, i could see him, with a couple of companions, humbly dodging me about the corners. the prisoners' dormitory was a spacious, airy room, devoid of any furniture; its whitewashed walls covered with inscriptions in marquesan and rude drawings: one of the pier, not badly done; one of a murder; several of french soldiers in uniform. there was one legend in french: "_je n'est_" (sic) "_pas le sou_." from this noontide quietude it must not be supposed the prison was untenanted; the calaboose at tai-o-hae does a good business. but some of its occupants were gardening at the residency, and the rest were probably at work upon the streets, as free as our scavengers at home, although not so industrious. on the approach of evening they would be called in like children from play; and the harbour-master (who is also the gaoler) would go through the form of locking them up until six the next morning. should a prisoner have any call in town, whether of pleasure or affairs, he has but to unhook the window-shutter; and if he is back again, and the shutter decently replaced, by the hour of call on the morrow, he may have met the harbour-master in the avenue, and there will be no complaint, far less any punishment. but this is not all. the charming french resident, m. delaruelle, carried me one day to the calaboose on an official visit. in the green court, a very ragged gentleman, his legs deformed with the island elephantiasis, saluted us smiling. "one of our political prisoners--an insurgent from raiatea," said the resident; and then to the gaoler: "i thought i had ordered him a new pair of trousers." meanwhile no other convict was to be seen--"_eh bien,_" said the resident, "_où sont vos prisonniers?_" "_monsieur le résident,_" replied the gaoler, saluting with soldierly formality, "_comme c'est jour de fête, je les ai laissé aller à la chasse._" they were all upon the mountains hunting goats! presently we came to the quarters of the women, likewise deserted--"_où sont vos bonnes femmes?_" asked the resident; and the gaoler cheerfully responded: "_je crois, monsieur le résident, qu'elles sont allées quelquepart faire une visite._" it had been the design of m. delaruelle, who was much in love with the whimsicalities of his small realm, to elicit something comical; but not even he expected anything so perfect as the last. to complete the picture of convict life in tai-o-hae, it remains to be added that these criminals draw a salary as regularly as the president of the republic. ten sous a day is their hire. thus they have money, food, shelter, clothing, and, i was about to write, their liberty. the french are certainly a good-natured people, and make easy masters. they are besides inclined to view the marquesans with an eye of humorous indulgence. "they are dying, poor devils!" said m. delaruelle: "the main thing is to let them die in peace." and it was not only well said, but i believe expressed the general thought. yet there is another element to be considered; for these convicts are not merely useful, they are almost essential to the french existence. with a people incurably idle, dispirited by what can only be called endemic pestilence, and inflamed with ill-feeling against their new masters, crime and convict labour are a godsend to the government. theft is practically the sole crime. originally petty pilferers, the men of tai-o-hae now begin to force locks and attack strong-boxes. hundreds of dollars have been taken at a time; though, with that redeeming moderation so common in polynesian theft, the marquesan burglar will always take a part and leave a part, sharing (so to speak) with the proprietor. if it be chilian coin--the island currency--he will escape; if the sum is in gold, french silver, or bank-notes, the police wait until the money begins to come in circulation, and then easily pick out their man. and now comes the shameful part. in plain english, the prisoner is tortured until he confesses and (if that be possible) restores the money. to keep him alone, day and night, in the black hole, is to inflict on the marquesan torture inexpressible. even his robberies are carried on in the plain daylight, under the open sky, with the stimulus of enterprise, and the countenance of an accomplice; his terror of the dark is still insurmountable; conceive, then, what he endures in his solitary dungeon; conceive how he longs to confess, become a full-fledged convict, and be allowed to sleep beside his comrades. while we were in tai-o-hae a thief was under prevention. he had entered a house about eight in the morning, forced a trunk, and stolen eleven hundred francs; and now, under the horrors of darkness, solitude, and a bedevilled cannibal imagination, he was reluctantly confessing and giving up his spoil. from one cache, which he had already pointed out, three hundred francs had been recovered, and it was expected that he would presently disgorge the rest. this would be ugly enough if it were all; but i am bound to say, because it is a matter the french should set at rest, that worse is continually hinted. i heard that one man was kept six days with his arms bound backward round a barrel; and it is the universal report that every gendarme in the south seas is equipped with something in the nature of a thumb-screw. i do not know this. i never had the face to ask any of the gendarmes--pleasant, intelligent, and kindly fellows--with whom i have been intimate, and whose hospitality i have enjoyed; and perhaps the tale reposes (as i hope it does) on a misconstruction of that ingenious cat's-cradle with which the french agent of police so readily secures a prisoner. but whether physical or moral, torture is certainly employed; and by a barbarous injustice, the state of accusation (in which a man may very well be innocently placed) is positively painful; the state of conviction (in which all are supposed guilty) is comparatively free, and positively pleasant. perhaps worse still,--not only the accused, but sometimes his wife, his mistress, or his friend, is subjected to the same hardships. i was admiring, in the tapu system, the ingenuity of native methods of detection; there is not much to admire in those of the french, and to lock up a timid child in a dark room, and, if he prove obstinate, lock up his sister in the next, is neither novel nor humane. the main occasion of these thefts is the new vice of opium-eating. "here nobody ever works, and all eat opium," said a gendarme; and ah fu knew a woman who ate a dollar's worth in a day. the successful thief will give a handful of money to each of his friends, a dress to a woman, pass an evening in one of the taverns of tai-o-hae, during which he treats all comers, produce a big lump of opium, and retire to the bush to eat and sleep it off. a trader, who did not sell opium, confessed to me that he was at his wit's end. "i do not sell it, but others do," said he. "the natives only work to buy it; if they walk over to me to sell their cotton, they have just to walk over to some one else to buy their opium with my money. and why should they be at the bother of two walks? there is no use talking," he added--"opium is the currency of this country." the man under prevention during my stay at tai-o-hae lost patience while the chinese opium-seller was being examined in his presence. "of course he sold me opium!" he broke out; "all the chinese here sell opium. it was only to buy opium that i stole; it is only to buy opium that anybody steals. and what you ought to do is to let no opium come here, and no chinamen." this is precisely what is done in samoa by a native government; but the french have bound their own hands, and for forty thousand francs sold native subjects to crime and death. this horrid traffic may be said to have sprung up by accident. it was captain hart who had the misfortune to be the means of beginning it, at a time when his plantations flourished in the marquesas, and he found a difficulty in keeping chinese coolies. to-day the plantations are practically deserted and the chinese gone; but in the meanwhile the natives have learned the vice, the patent brings in a round sum, and the needy government at papeete shut their eyes and open their pockets. of course the patentee is supposed to sell to chinamen alone; equally of course, no one could afford to pay forty thousand francs for the privilege of supplying a scattered handful of chinese; and every one knows the truth, and all are ashamed of it. french officials shake their heads when opium is mentioned; and the agents of the farmer blush for their employment. those that live in glass houses should not throw stones; as a subject of the british crown, i am an unwilling shareholder in the largest opium business under heaven. but the british case is highly complicated; it implies the livelihood of millions; and must be reformed, when it can be reformed at all, with prudence. this french business, on the other hand, is a nostrum and a mere excrescence. no native industry was to be encouraged: the poison is solemnly imported. no native habit was to be considered: the vice has been gratuitously introduced. and no creature profits, save the government at papeete--the not very enviable gentlemen who pay them, and the chinese underlings who do the dirty work. chapter ix the house of temoana the history of the marquesas is, of late years, much confused by the coming and going of the french. at least twice they have seized the archipelago, at least once deserted it; and in the meanwhile the natives pursued almost without interruption their desultory cannibal wars. through these events and changing dynasties, a single considerable figure may be seen to move: that of the high chief, a king, temoana. odds and ends of his history came to my ears: how he was at first a convert of the protestant mission; how he was kidnapped or exiled from his native land, served as cook aboard a whaler, and was shown, for small charge, in english seaports; how he returned at last to the marquesas, fell under the strong and benign influence of the late bishop, extended his influence in the group, was for a while joint ruler with the prelate, and died at last the chief supporter of catholicism and the french. his widow remains in receipt of two pounds a month from the french government. queen she is usually called, but in the official almanac she figures as "_madame vaekehu, grande chefesse_." his son (natural or adoptive, i know not which), stanislao moanatini, chief of akaui, serves in tai-o-hae as a kind of minister of public works; and the daughter of stanislao is high chiefess of the southern island of tauata. these, then, are the greatest folk of the archipelago; we thought them also the most estimable. this is the rule in polynesia, with few exceptions; the higher the family, the better the man--better in sense, better in manners, and usually taller and stronger in body. a stranger advances blindfold. he scrapes acquaintance as he can. save the tattoo in the marquesas, nothing indicates the difference of rank; and yet almost invariably we found, after we had made them, that our friends were persons of station. i have said "usually taller and stronger." i might have been more absolute,--over all polynesia, and a part of micronesia, the rule holds good; the great ones of the isle, and even of the village, are greater of bone and muscle, and often heavier of flesh, than any commoner. the usual explanation--that the high-born child is more industriously shampooed--is probably the true one. in new caledonia, at least, where the difference does not exist, or has never been remarked, the practice of shampooing seems to be itself unknown. doctors would be well employed in a study of the point. vaekehu lives at the other end of the town from the residency, beyond the buildings of the mission. her house is on the european plan: a table in the midst of the chief room: photographs and religious pictures on the wall. it commands to either hand a charming vista: through the front door, a peep of green lawn, scurrying pigs, the pendent fans of the coco-palm and the splendour of the bursting surf: through the back, mounting forest glades and coronals of precipice. here, in the strong thorough-draught, her majesty received us in a simple gown of print, and with no mark of royalty but the exquisite finish of her tattooed mittens, the elaboration of her manners, and the gentle falsetto in which all the highly refined among marquesan ladies (and vaekehu above all others) delight to sing their language. an adopted daughter interpreted, while we gave the news, and rehearsed by name our friends of anaho. as we talked, we could see, through the landward door, another lady of the household at her toilet under the green trees; who, presently, when her hair was arranged, and her hat wreathed with flowers, appeared upon the back verandah with gracious salutations. vaekehu is very deaf; _"merci"_ is her only word of french; and i do not know that she seemed clever. an exquisite, kind refinement, with a shade of quietism, gathered perhaps from the nuns, was what chiefly struck us. or rather, upon that first occasion, we were conscious of a sense as of district-visiting on our part, and reduced evangelical gentility on the part of our hostess. the other impression followed after she was more at ease, and came with stanislao and his little girl to dine on board the casco. she had dressed for the occasion: wore white, which very well became her strong brown face; and sat among us, eating or smoking her cigarette, quite cut off from all society, or only now and then included through the intermediary of her son. it was a position that might have been ridiculous, and she made it ornamental; making believe to hear and to be entertained; her face, whenever she met our eyes, lighting with the smile of good society; her contributions to the talk, when she made any, and that was seldom, always complimentary and pleasing. no attention was paid to the child, for instance, but what she remarked and thanked us for. her parting with each, when she came to leave, was gracious and pretty, as had been every step of her behaviour. when mrs. stevenson held out her hand to say good-bye, vaekehu took it, held it, and a moment smiled upon her; dropped it, and then, as upon a kindly afterthought, and with a sort of warmth of condescension, held out both hands and kissed my wife upon both cheeks. given the same relation of years and of rank, the thing would have been so done on the boards of the comédie française; just so might madame brohan have warmed and condescended to madame broisat in the _marquis de villemer_. it was my part to accompany our guests ashore: when i kissed the little girl good-bye at the pier steps, vaekehu gave a cry of gratification--reached down her hand into the boat, took mine, and pressed it with that flattering softness which seems the coquetry of the old lady in every quarter of the earth. the next moment she had taken stanislao's arm, and they moved off along the pier in the moonlight, leaving me bewildered. this was a queen of cannibals; she was tattooed from hand to foot, and perhaps the greatest masterpiece of that art now extant, so that a while ago, before she was grown prim, her leg was one of the sights of tai-o-hae; she had been passed from chief to chief; she had been fought for and taken in war; perhaps, being so great a lady, she had sat on the high place, and throned it there, alone of her sex, while the drums were going twenty strong and the priests carried up the blood-stained baskets of long-pig. and now behold her, out of that past of violence and sickening feasts, step forth, in her age, a quiet, smooth, elaborate old lady, such as you might find at home (mittened also, but not often so well-mannered) in a score of country houses. only vaekehu's mittens were of dye, not of silk; and they had been paid for, not in money, but the cooked flesh of men. it came in my mind with a clap, what she could think of it herself, and whether at heart, perhaps, she might not regret and aspire after the barbarous and stirring past. but when i asked stanislao--"ah!" said he, "she is content; she is religious, she passes all her days with the sisters." stanislao (stanislaos, with the final consonant evaded after the polynesian habit) was sent by bishop dordillon to south america, and there educated by the fathers. his french is fluent, his talk sensible and spirited, and in his capacity of ganger-in-chief, he is of excellent service to the french. with the prestige of his name and family, and with the stick when needful, he keeps the natives working and the roads passable. without stanislao and the convicts, i am in doubt what would become of the present regimen in nuka-hiva; whether the highways might not be suffered to close up, the pier to wash away, and the residency to fall piecemeal about the ears of impotent officials. and yet, though the hereditary favourer, and one of the chief props of french authority, he has always an eye upon the past. he showed me where the old public place had stood, still to be traced by random piles of stone; told me how great and fine it was, and surrounded on all sides by populous houses, whence, at the beating of the drums, the folk crowded to make holiday. the drumbeat of the polynesian has a strange and gloomy stimulation for the nerves of all. white persons feel it--at these precipitate sounds their hearts beat faster; and, according to old residents, its effect on the natives was extreme. bishop dordillon might entreat; temoana himself command and threaten; at the note of the drum wild instincts triumphed. and now it might beat upon these ruins, and who should assemble? the houses are down, the people dead, their lineage extinct; and the sweepings and fugitives of distant bays and islands encamp upon their graves. the decline of the dance stanislao especially laments. "_chaque pays a ses coutumes_," said he; but in the report of any gendarme, perhaps corruptly eager to increase the number of délits and the instruments of his own power, custom after custom is placed on the expurgatorial index. "_tenez, une danse qui n'est pas permise_," said stanislao: "_je ne sais pas pourquoi, elle est très jolie, elle va comme ça_," and sticking his umbrella upright in the road, he sketched the steps and gestures. all his criticisms of the present, all his regrets for the past, struck me as temperate and sensible. the short term of office of the resident he thought the chief defect of the administration; that officer having scarce begun to be efficient ere he was recalled. i thought i gathered, too, that he regarded with some fear the coming change from a naval to a civil governor. i am sure at least that i regard it so myself; for the civil servants of france have never appeared to any foreigner as at all the flower of their country, while her naval officers may challenge competition with the world. in all his talk, stanislao was particular to speak of his own country as a land of savages; and when he stated an opinion of his own, it was with some apologetic preface, alleging that he was "a savage who had travelled." there was a deal, in this elaborate modesty, of honest pride. yet there was something in the precaution that saddened me; and i could not but fear he was only forestalling a taunt that he had heard too often. i recall with interest two interviews with stanislao. the first was a certain afternoon of tropic rain, which we passed together in the verandah of the club; talking at times with heightened voices as the showers redoubled overhead, passing at times into the billiard-room, to consult, in the dim, cloudy daylight, that map of the world which forms its chief adornment. he was naturally ignorant of english history, so that i had much of news to communicate. the story of gordon i told him in full, and many episodes of the indian mutiny, lucknow, the second battle of cawnpore, the relief of arrah, the death of poor spottiswoode, and sir hugh rose's hotspur, midland campaign. he was intent to hear; his brown face, strongly marked with small-pox, kindled and changed with each vicissitude. his eyes glowed with the reflected light of battle; his questions were many and intelligent, and it was chiefly these that sent us so often to the map. but it is of our parting that i keep the strongest sense. we were to sail on the morrow, and the night had fallen, dark, gusty, and rainy, when we stumbled up the hill to bid farewell to stanislao. he had already loaded us with gifts; but more were waiting. we sat about the table over cigars and green cocoa-nuts; claps of wind blew through the house and extinguished the lamp, which was always instantly relighted with a single match; and these recurrent intervals of darkness were felt as a relief. for there was something painful and embarrassing in the kindness of that separation. "_ah, vous devriez rester ici, mon cher ami!_" cried stanislao. "_vous êtes les gens qu'il faut pour les kanaques; vous êtes doux, vous et votre famille; vous seriez obéis dans toutes les îles._" we had been civil; not always that, my conscience told me, and never anything beyond; and all this to-do is a measure, not of our considerateness, but of the want of it in others. the rest of the evening, on to vaekehu's and back as far as to the pier, stanislao walked with my arm and sheltered me with his umbrella; and after the boat had put off, we could still distinguish, in the murky darkness, his gestures of farewell. his words, if there were any, were drowned by the rain and the loud surf. i have mentioned presents, a vexed question in the south seas; and one which well illustrates the common, ignorant habit of regarding races in a lump. in many quarters the polynesian gives only to receive. i have visited islands where the population mobbed me for all the world like dogs after the waggon of cat's-meat; and where the frequent proposition, "you my pleni (friend)," or (with more of pathos) "you all 'e same my father," must be received with hearty laughter and a shout. and perhaps everywhere, among the greedy and rapacious, a gift is regarded as a sprat to catch a whale. it is the habit to give gifts and to receive returns, and such characters, complying with the custom, will look to it nearly that they do not lose. but for persons of a different stamp the statement must be reversed. the shabby polynesian is anxious till he has received the return gift; the generous is uneasy until he has made it. the first is disappointed if you have not given more than he; the second is miserable if he thinks he has given less than you. this is my experience; if it clash with that of others, i pity their fortune, and praise mine: the circumstance cannot change what i have seen, nor lessen what i have received. and indeed i find that those who oppose me often argue from a ground of singular presumptions; comparing polynesians with an ideal person, compact of generosity and gratitude, whom i never had the pleasure of encountering; and forgetting that what is almost poverty to us is wealth almost unthinkable to them. i will give one instance: i chanced to speak with consideration of these gifts of stanislao's with a certain clever man, a great hater and contemner of kanakas. "well! what were they!" he cried. "a pack of old men's beards. trash!" and the same gentleman, some half an hour later, being upon a different train of thought, dwelt at length on the esteem in which the marquesans held that sort of property, how they preferred it to all others except land, and what fancy prices it would fetch. using his own figures, i computed that, in this commodity alone, the gifts of vaekehu and stanislao represented between two and three hundred dollars; and the queen's official salary is of two hundred and forty in the year. but generosity on the one hand, and conspicuous meanness on the other, are in the south seas, as at home, the exception. it is neither with any hope of gain, nor with any lively wish to please, that the ordinary polynesian chooses and presents his gifts. a plain social duty lies before him, which he performs correctly, but without the least enthusiasm. and we shall best understand his attitude of mind, if we examine our own to the cognate absurdity of marriage presents. there we give without any special thought of a return; yet if the circumstance arise, and the return be withheld, we shall judge ourselves insulted. we give them usually without affection, and almost never with a genuine desire to please; and our gift is rather a mark of our own status than a measure of our love to the recipients. so in a great measure and with the common run of the polynesians: their gifts are formal; they imply no more than social recognition; and they are made and reciprocated, as we pay and return our morning visits. and the practice of marking and measuring events and sentiments by presents is universal in the island world. a gift plays with them the part of stamp and seal; and has entered profoundly into the mind of islanders. peace and war, marriage, adoption and naturalisation are celebrated or declared by the acceptance or the refusal of gifts; and it is as natural for the islander to bring a gift as for us to carry a card-case. chapter x a portrait and a story i have had occasion several times to name the late bishop, father dordillon, "monseigneur," as he is still almost universally called, vicar-apostolic of the marquesas and bishop of cambysopolis _in partibus_. everywhere in the islands, among all classes and races, this fine, old, kindly, cheerful fellow is remembered with affection and respect. his influence with the natives was paramount. they reckoned him the highest of men--higher than an admiral; brought him their money to keep; took his advice upon their purchases; nor would they plant trees upon their own land till they had the approval of the father of the islands. during the time of the french exodus he singly represented europe, living in the residency, and ruling by the hand of temoana. the first roads were made under his auspices and by his persuasion. the old road between hatiheu and anaho was got under way from either side on the ground that it would be pleasant for an evening promenade, and brought to completion by working on the rivalry of the two villages. the priest would boast in hatiheu of the progress made in anaho, and he would tell the folk of anaho, "if you don't take care, your neighbours will be over the hill before you are at the top." it could not be so done to-day; it could then; death, opium, and depopulation had not gone so far; and the people of hatiheu, i was told, still vied with each other in fine attire, and used to go out by families, in the cool of the evening, boat-sailing and racing in the bay. there seems some truth at least in the common view, that this joint reign of temoana and the bishop was the last and brief golden age of the marquesas. but the civil power returned, the mission was packed out of the residency at twenty-four hours' notice, new methods supervened, and the golden age (whatever it quite was) came to an end. it is the strongest proof of father dordillon's prestige that it survived, seemingly without loss, this hasty deposition. his method with the natives was extremely mild. among these barbarous children he still played the part of the smiling father; and he was careful to observe, in all indifferent matters, the marquesan etiquette. thus, in the singular system of artificial kinship, the bishop had been adopted by vaekehu as a grandson; miss fisher, of hatiheu, as a daughter. from that day, monseigneur never addressed the young lady except as his mother, and closed his letters with the formalities of a dutiful son. with europeans he could be strict, even to the extent of harshness. he made no distinction against heretics, with whom he was on friendly terms; but the rules of his own church he would see observed; and once at least he had a white man clapped in gaol for the desecration of a saint's day. but even this rigour, so intolerable to laymen, so irritating to protestants, could not shake his popularity. we shall best conceive him by examples nearer home; we may all have known some divine of the old school in scotland, a literal sabbatarian, a stickler for the letter of the law, who was yet in private modest, innocent, genial, and mirthful. much such a man, it seems, was father dordillon. and his popularity bore a test yet stronger. he had the name, and probably deserved it, of a shrewd man in business and one that made the mission pay. nothing so much stirs up resentment as the inmixture in commerce of religious bodies; but even rival traders spoke well of monseigneur. his character is best portrayed in the story of the days of his decline. a time came when, from the failure of sight, he must desist from his literary labours: his marquesan hymns, grammars, and dictionaries; his scientific papers, lives of saints, and devotional poetry. he cast about for a new interest: pitched on gardening, and was to be seen all day, with spade and water-pot, in his childlike eagerness, actually running between the borders. another step of decay and he must leave his garden also. instantly a new occupation was devised, and he sat in the mission cutting paper flowers and wreaths. his diocese was not great enough for his activity; the churches of the marquesas were papered with his handiwork, and still he must be making more. "ah," said he, smiling, "when i am dead what a fine time you will have clearing out my trash!" he had been dead about six months; but i was pleased to see some of his trophies still exposed, and looked upon them with a smile: the tribute (if i have read this cheerful character aright) which he would have preferred to any useless tears. disease continued progressively to disable him; he who had clambered so stalwartly over the rude rocks of the marquesas, bringing peace to warfaring clans, was for some time carried in a chair between the mission and the church, and at last confined to bed, impotent with dropsy, and tormented with bed-sores and sciatica. here he lay two months without complaint; and on the th january , in the seventy-ninth year of his life, and the thirty-fourth of his labours in the marquesas, passed away. those who have a taste for hearing missions, protestant or catholic, decried, must seek their pleasure elsewhere than in my pages. whether catholic or protestant, with all their gross blots, with all their deficiency of candour, of humour, and of common sense, the missionaries are the best and the most useful whites in the pacific. this is a subject which will follow us throughout; but there is one part of it that may conveniently be treated here. the married and the celibate missionary, each has his particular advantage and defect. the married missionary, taking him at the best, may offer to the native what he is much in want of--a higher picture of domestic life; but the woman at his elbow tends to keep him in touch with europe and out of touch with polynesia, and to perpetuate, and even to ingrain, parochial decencies far best forgotten. the mind of the female missionary tends, for instance, to be continually busied about dress. she can be taught with extreme difficulty to think any costume decent but that to which she grew accustomed on clapham common; and to gratify this prejudice, the native is put to useless expense, his mind is tainted with the morbidities of europe, and his health is set in danger. the celibate missionary, on the other hand, and whether at best or worst, falls readily into native ways of life; to which he adds too commonly what is either a mark of celibate man at large, or an inheritance from mediæval saints--i mean slovenly habits and an unclean person. there are, of course, degrees in this; and the sister (of course, and all honour to her) is as fresh as a lady at a ball. for the diet there is nothing to be said--it must amaze and shock the polynesian--but for the adoption of native habits there is much. "_chaque pays a ses coutumes_," said stanislao; these it is the missionary's delicate task to modify; and the more he can do so from within, and from a native standpoint, the better he will do his work; and here i think the catholics have sometimes the advantage; in the vicariate of dordillon, i am sure they had it. i have heard the bishop blamed for his indulgence to the natives, and above all because he did not rage with sufficient energy against cannibalism. it was a part of his policy to live among the natives like an elder brother; to follow where he could; to lead where it was necessary; never to drive; and to encourage the growth of new habits, instead of violently rooting up the old. and it might be better, in the long-run, if this policy were always followed. it might be supposed that native missionaries would prove more indulgent, but the reverse is found to be the case. the new broom sweeps clean; and the white missionary of to-day is often embarrassed by the bigotry of his native coadjutor. what else should we expect? on some islands, sorcery, polygamy, human sacrifice, and tobacco-smoking have been prohibited, the dress of the native has been modified, and himself warned in strong terms against rival sects of christianity; all by the same man, at the same period of time, and with the like authority. by what criterion is the convert to distinguish the essential from the unessential? he swallows the nostrum whole; there has been no play of mind, no instruction, and, except for some brute utility in the prohibitions, no advance. to call things by their proper names, this is teaching superstition. it is unfortunate to use the word; so few people have read history, and so many have dipped into little atheistic manuals, that the majority will rush to a conclusion, and suppose the labour lost. and far from that: these semi-spontaneous superstitions, varying with the sect of the original evangelist and the customs of the island, are found in practice to be highly fructifying; and in particular those who have learned and who go forth again to teach them offer an example to the world. the best specimen of the christian hero that i ever met was one of these native missionaries. he had saved two lives at the risk of his own; like nathan, he had bearded a tyrant in his hour of blood; when a whole white population fled, he alone stood to his duty; and his behaviour under domestic sorrow with which the public has no concern filled the beholder with sympathy and admiration. a poor little smiling laborious man he looked; and you would have thought he had nothing in him but that of which indeed he had too much--facile good-nature.[ ] it chances that the only rivals of monseigneur and his mission in the marquesas were certain of these brown-skinned evangelists, natives from hawaii. i know not what they thought of father dordillon: they are the only class i did not question; but i suspect the prelate to have regarded them askance, for he was eminently human. during my stay at tai-o-hae, the time of the yearly holiday came round at the girls' school; and a whole fleet of whale-boats came from ua-pu to take the daughters of that island home. on board of these was kauwealoha, one of the pastors, a fine, rugged old gentleman, of that leonine type so common in hawaii. he paid me a visit in the _casco_, and there entertained me with a tale of one of his colleagues, kekela, a missionary in the great cannibal isle of hiva-oa. it appears that shortly after a kidnapping visit from a peruvian slaver, the boats of an american whaler put into a bay upon that island, were attacked, and made their escape with difficulty, leaving their mate, a mr. whalon, in the hands of the natives. the captive, with his arms bound behind his back, was cast into a house; and the chief announced the capture to kekela. and here i begin to follow the version of kauwealoha; it is a good specimen of kanaka english; and the reader is to conceive it delivered with violent emphasis and speaking pantomime. "'i got 'melican mate,' the chief he say. 'what you go do 'melican mate?' kekela he say.' i go make fire, i go kill, i go eat him,' he say; 'you come to-mollow eat piece.' 'i no _want_ eat 'melican mate!' kekela he say; 'why you want?' 'this bad shippee, this slave shippee,' the chief he say. 'one time a shippee he come from pelu, he take away plenty kanaka, he take away my son. 'melican mate he bad man. i go eat him; you eat piece.' 'i no _want_ eat 'melican mate!' kekela he say; and he _cly_--all night he cly! to-mollow kekela he get up, he put on blackee coat, he go see chief; he see missa whela, him hand tie' like this. (_pantomime_). kekela he cly. he say chief:--'chief, you like things of mine? you like whaleboat?' 'yes,' he say. 'you like file-a'm?' (fire-arms). 'yes,' he say. 'you like blackee coat?' 'yes,' he say. kekela he take missa whela by he shoul'a' (shoulder), he take him light out house; he give chief he whaleboat, he file-a'm, he blackee coat. he take missa whela he house, make him sit down with he wife and chil'en. missa whela all-the-same pelison (prison); he wife, he chil'en in america; he cly--o, he cly. kekela he solly. one day kekela he see ship. (_pantomime._) he say missa whela, 'ma' whala?' missa whela he say, 'yes.' kanaka they begin go down beach. kekela he get eleven kanaka, get oa' (oars), get evely thing. he say missa whela, 'now, you go quick.' they jump in whale-boat. 'now you low!' kekela he say: 'you low quick, quick!' (_violent pantomime, and a change indicating that the narrator has left the boat and returned to the beach._) all the kanaka they say, 'how! 'melican mate he go away?'--jump in boat; low afta. (_violent pantomime and change again to boat._) kekela he say, 'low quick!'" here i think kauwealoha's pantomime had confused me; i have no more of his _ipsissima verba_; and can but add, in my own less spirited manner, that the ship was reached, mr. whalon taken aboard, and kekela returned to his charge among the cannibals. but how unjust it is to repeat the stumblings of a foreigner in a language only partly acquired! a thoughtless reader might conceive kauwealoha and his colleague to be a species of amicable baboon; but i have here the antidote. in return for his act of gallant charity, kekela was presented by the american government with a sum of money, and by president lincoln personally with a gold watch. from his letter of thanks, written in his own tongue, i give the following extract. i do not envy the man who can read it without emotion. "when i saw one of your countrymen, a citizen of your great nation, ill-treated, and about to be baked and eaten, as a pig is eaten, i ran to save him, full of pity and grief at the evil deed of these benighted people. i gave my boat for the stranger's life this boat came from james hunnewell, a gift of friendship. it became the ransom of this countryman of yours, that he might not be eaten by the savages who knew not jehovah. this was mr. whalon, and the date, jan. , . "as to this friendly deed of mine in saving mr. whalon, its seed came from your great land, and was brought by certain of your countrymen, who had received the love of god. it was planted in hawaii, and i brought it to plant in this land and in these dark regions, that they might receive the root of all that is good and true, which is _love_. " . love to jehovah. " . love to self. " . love to our neighbour. "if a man have a sufficiency of these three, he is good and holy, like his god, jehovah, in his triune character (father, son, and holy ghost), one-three, three-one. if he have two and wants one, it is not well; and if he have one and wants two, this, indeed, is not well; but if he cherishes all three, then is he holy, indeed, after the manner of the bible. "this is a great thing for your great nation to boast of before all the nations of the earth. from your great land a most precious seed was brought to the land of darkness. it was planted here, not by means of guns and men-of-war and threatenings. it was planted by means of the ignorant, the neglected, the despised. such was the introduction of the word of the almighty god into this group of nuuhiwa. great is my debt to americans, who have taught me all things pertaining to this life and to that which is to come. "how shall i repay your great kindness to me? thus david asked of jehovah, and thus i ask of you, the president of the united states. this is my only payment--that which i have received of the lord, love--(aloha)." footnote: [ ] the reference is to maka, the hawaiian missionary, at butaritari, in the gilberts. chapter xi long-pig--a cannibal high place nothing more strongly arouses our disgust than cannibalism, nothing so surely unmortars a society; nothing, we might plausibly argue, will so harden and degrade the minds of those that practise it. and yet we ourselves make much the same appearance in the eyes of the buddhist and the vegetarian. we consume the carcases of creatures of like appetites, passions, and organs with ourselves; we feed on babes, though not our own; and the slaughter-house resounds daily with screams of pain and fear. we distinguish, indeed; but the unwillingness of many nations to eat the dog, an animal with whom we live on terms of the next intimacy, shows how precariously the distinction is grounded. the pig is the main element of animal food among the islands; and i had many occasions, my mind being quickened by my cannibal surroundings, to observe his character and the manner of his death. many islanders live with their pigs as we do with our dogs; both crowd around the hearth with equal freedom; and the island pig is a fellow of activity, enterprise, and sense. he husks his own cocoa-nuts, and (i am told) rolls them into the sun to burst; he is the terror of the shepherd. mrs. stevenson, senior, has seen one fleeing to the woods with a lamb in his mouth; and i saw another come rapidly (and erroneously) to the conclusion that the _casco_ was going down, and swim through the flush water to the rail in search of an escape. it was told us in childhood that pigs cannot swim; i have known one to leap overboard, swim five hundred yards to shore, and return to the house of his original owner. i was once, at tautira, a pig-master on a considerable scale; at first, in my pen, the utmost good feeling prevailed; a little sow with a belly-ache came and appealed to us for help in the manner of a child; and there was one shapely black boar, whom we called catholicus, for he was a particular present from the catholics of the village, and who early displayed the marks of courage and friendliness; no other animal, whether dog or pig, was suffered to approach him at his food, and for human beings he showed a full measure of that toadying fondness, so common in the lower animals, and possibly their chief title to the name. one day, on visiting my piggery, i was amazed to see catholicus draw back from my approach with cries of terror; and if i was amazed at the change, i was truly embarrassed when i learnt its reason. one of the pigs had been that morning killed; catholicus had seen the murder, he had discovered he was dwelling in the shambles, and from that time his confidence and his delight in life were ended. we still reserved him a long while, but he could not endure the sight of any two-legged creature, nor could we, under the circumstances, encounter his eye without confusion. i have assisted besides, by the ear, at the act of butchery itself; the victim's cries of pain i think i could have borne, but the execution was mismanaged, and his expression of terror was contagious: that small heart moved to the same tune with ours. upon such "dread foundations" the life of the european reposes, and yet the european is among the less cruel of races. the paraphernalia of murder, the preparatory brutalities of his existence, are all hid away; an extreme sensibility reigns upon the surface; and ladies will faint at the recital of one tithe of what they daily expect of their butchers. some will be even crying out upon me in their hearts for the coarseness of this paragraph. and so with the island cannibals. they were not cruel; apart from this custom, they are a race of the most kindly; rightly speaking, to cut a man's flesh after he is dead is far less hateful than to oppress him whilst he lives; and even the victims of their appetite were gently used in life and suddenly and painlessly despatched at last. in island circles of refinement it was doubtless thought bad taste to expatiate on what was ugly in the practice. cannibalism is traced from end to end of the pacific, from the marquesas to new guinea, from new zealand to hawaii, here in the lively haunt of its exercise, there by scanty but significant survivals. hawaii is the most doubtful. we find cannibalism chronicled in hawaii, only in the history of a single war, where it seems to have been thought exceptional, as in the case of mountain outlaws, such as fell by the hand of theseus. in tahiti, a single circumstance survived, but that appears conclusive. in historic times, when human oblation was made in the marae, the eyes of the victim were formally offered to the chief: a delicacy to the leading guest. all melanesia appears tainted. in micronesia, in the marshalls, with which my acquaintance is no more than that of a tourist, i could find no trace at all; and even in the gilbert zone i long looked and asked in vain. i was told tales indeed of men who had been eaten in a famine; but these were nothing to my purpose, for the same thing is done under the same stress by all kindreds and generations of men. at last, in some manuscript notes of dr. turner's, which i was allowed to consult at malua, i came on one damning evidence: on the island of onoatoa the punishment for theft was to be killed and eaten. how shall we account for the universality of the practice over so vast an area, among people of such varying civilisation, and, with whatever intermixture, of such different blood? what circumstance is common to them all, but that they lived on islands destitute, or very nearly so, of animal food? i can never find it in my appetite that man was meant to live on vegetables only. when our stores ran low among the islands, i grew to weary for the recurrent day when economy allowed us to open another tin of miserable mutton. and in at least one ocean language, a particular word denotes that a man is "hungry for fish," having reached that stage when vegetables can no longer satisfy, and his soul, like those of the hebrews in the desert, begins to lust after flesh-pots. add to this the evidences of over-population and imminent famine already adduced, and i think we see some ground of indulgence for the island cannibal. it is right to look at both sides of any question; but i am far from making the apology of this worse than bestial vice. the higher polynesian races, such as the tahitians, hawaiians, and samoans, had one and all outgrown, and some of them had in part forgot, the practice, before cook or bougainville had shown a topsail in their waters. it lingered only in some low islands where life was difficult to maintain, and among inveterate savages like the new zealanders or the marquesans. the marquesans intertwined man-eating with the whole texture of their lives; long-pig was in a sense their currency and sacrament; it formed the hire of the artist, illustrated public events, and was the occasion and attraction of a feast. to-day they are paying the penalty of this bloody commixture. the civil power, in its crusade against man-eating, has had to examine one after another all marquesan arts and pleasures, has found them one after another tainted with a cannibal element, and one after another has placed them on the proscript list. their art of tattooing stood by itself, the execution exquisite, the designs most beautiful and intricate; nothing more handsomely sets off a handsome man; it may cost some pain in the beginning, but i doubt if it be near so painful in the long-run, and i am sure it is far more becoming than the ignoble european practice of tight-lacing among women. and now it has been found needful to forbid the art. their songs and dances were numerous (and the law has had to abolish them by the dozen). they now face empty-handed the tedium of their uneventful days; and who shall pity them? the least rigorous will say that they were justly served. death alone could not satisfy marquesan vengeance; the flesh must be eaten. the chief who seized mr. whalon preferred to eat him; and he thought he had justified the wish when he explained it was a vengeance. two or three years ago, the people of a valley seized and slew a wretch who had offended them. his offence, it is to be supposed, was dire; they could not bear to leave their vengeance incomplete, and, under the eyes of the french, they did not dare to hold a public festival. the body was accordingly divided; and every man retired to his own house to consummate the rite in secret, carrying his proportion of the dreadful meat in a swedish match-box. the barbarous substance of the drama and the european properties employed offer a seizing contrast to the imagination. yet more striking is another incident of the very year when i was there myself, . in the spring, a man and woman skulked about the school-house in hiva-oa till they found a particular child alone. him they approached with honeyed words and carneying manners--"you are so-and-so, son of so-and-so?" they asked; and caressed and beguiled him deeper in the woods. some instinct woke in the child's bosom, or some look betrayed the horrid purpose of his deceivers. he sought to break from them; he screamed; and they, casting off the mask, seized him the more strongly and began to run. his cries were heard; his schoolmates, playing not far off, came running to the rescue; and the sinister couple fled and vanished in the woods. they were never identified; no prosecution followed; but it was currently supposed they had some grudge against the boy's father, and designed to eat him in revenge. all over the islands, as at home among our own ancestors, it will be observed that the avenger takes no particular heed to strike an individual. a family, a class, a village, a whole valley or island, a whole race of mankind, share equally the guilt of any member. so, in the above story, the son was to pay the penalty for his father; so mr. whalon, the mate of an american whaler, was to bleed and be eaten for the misdeeds of a peruvian slaver. i am reminded of an incident in jaluit in the marshall group, which was told me by an eye-witness, and which i tell here again for the strangeness of the scene. two men had awakened the animosity of the jaluit chiefs; and it was their wives who were selected to be punished. a single native served as executioner. early in the morning, in the face of a large concourse of spectators, he waded out upon the reef between his victims. these neither complained nor resisted; accompanied their destroyer patiently; stooped down, when they had waded deep enough, at his command; and he (laying one hand upon the shoulders of each) held them under water till they drowned. doubtless, although my informant did not tell me so, their families would be lamenting aloud upon the beach. it was from hatiheu that i paid my first visit to a cannibal high place. the day was sultry and clouded. drenching tropical showers succeeded bursts of sweltering sunshine. the green pathway of the road wound steeply upward. as we went, our little schoolboy guide a little ahead of us, father simeon had his portfolio in his hand, and named the trees for me, and read aloud from his notes the abstract of their virtues. presently the road, mounting, showed us the vale of hatiheu on a larger scale; and the priest, with occasional reference to our guide, pointed out the boundaries and told me the names of the larger tribes that lived at perpetual war in the old days: one on the north-east, one along the beach, one behind upon the mountain. with a survivor of this latter clan father simeon had spoken; until the pacification he had never been to the sea's edge, nor, if i remember exactly, eaten of sea-fish. each in its own district, the septs lived cantoned and beleaguered. one step without the boundaries was to affront death. if famine came, the men must out to the woods to gather chestnuts and small fruits; even as to this day, if the parents are backward in their weekly doles, school must be broken up and the scholars sent foraging. but in the old days, when there was trouble in one clan, there would be activity in all its neighbours; the woods would be laid full of ambushes; and he who went after vegetables for himself might remain to be a joint for his hereditary foes. nor was the pointed occasion needful. a dozen different natural signs and social junctures called this people to the war-path and the cannibal hunt. let one of chiefly rank have finished his tattooing, the wife of one be near upon her time, two of the debouching streams have deviated nearer on the beach of hatiheu, a certain bird have been heard to sing, a certain ominous formation of cloud observed above the northern sea; and instantly the arms were oiled, and the man-hunters swarmed into the wood to lay their fratricidal ambuscades. it appears besides that occasionally, perhaps in famine, the priest would shut himself in his house, where he lay for a stated period like a person dead. when he came forth it was to run for three days through the territory of the clan, naked and starving, and to sleep at night alone in the high place. it was now the turn of the others to keep the house, for to encounter the priest upon his rounds was death. on the eve of the fourth day the time of the running was over; the priest returned to his roof, the laymen came forth, and in the morning the number of the victims was announced. i have this tale of the priest on one authority--i think a good one,--but i set it down with diffidence. the particulars are so striking that, had they been true, i almost think i must have heard them oftener referred to. upon one point there seems to be no question: that the feast was sometimes furnished from within the clan. in times of scarcity, all who were not protected by their family connections--in the highland expression, all the commons of the clan--had cause to tremble. it was vain to resist, it was useless to flee. they were begirt upon all hands by cannibals; and the oven was ready to smoke for them abroad in the country of their foes, or at home in the valley of their fathers. at a certain corner of the road our scholar-guide struck off to his left into the twilight of the forest. we were now on one of the ancient native roads, plunged in a high vault of wood, and clambering, it seemed, at random over boulders and dead trees; but the lad wound in and out and up and down without a check, for these paths are to the natives as marked as the king's highway is to us; insomuch that, in the days of the man-hunt, it was their labour rather to block and deface than to improve them. in the crypt of the wood the air was clammy and hot and cold; overhead, upon the leaves, the tropical rain uproariously poured, but only here and there, as through holes in a leaky roof, a single drop would fall, and make a spot upon my mackintosh. presently the huge trunk of a banyan hove in sight, standing upon what seemed the ruins of an ancient fort; and our guide, halting and holding forth his arm, announced that we had reached the _paepae tapu_. _paepae_ signifies a floor or platform such as a native house is built on; and even such a paepae--a paepae hae--may be called a paepae tapu in a lesser sense when it is deserted and becomes the haunt of spirits; but the public high place, such as i was now treading, was a thing on a great scale. as far as my eyes could pierce through the dark undergrowth, the floor of the forest was all paved. three tiers of terrace ran on the slope of the hill; in front, a crumbling parapet contained the main arena; and the pavement of that was pierced and parcelled out with several wells and small enclosures. no trace remained of any superstructure, and the scheme of the amphitheatre was difficult to seize. i visited another in hiva-oa, smaller but more perfect, where it was easy to follow rows of benches, and to distinguish isolated seats of honour for eminent persons; and where, on the upper platform, a single joist of the temple or dead-house still remained, its uprights richly carved. in the old days the high place was sedulously tended. no tree except the sacred banyan was suffered to encroach upon its grades, no dead leaf to rot upon the pavement. the stones were smoothly set, and i am told they were kept bright with oil. on all sides the guardians lay encamped in their subsidiary huts to watch and cleanse it. no other foot of man was suffered to draw near; only the priest, in the days of his running, came there to sleep--perhaps to dream of his ungodly errand; but in the time of the feast, the clan trooped to the high place in a body, and each had his appointed seat. there were places for the chiefs, the drummers, the dancers, the women, and the priests. the drums--perhaps twenty strong, and some of them twelve feet high--continuously throbbed in time. in time the singers kept up their long-drawn, lugubrious, ululating song; in time, too, the dancers, tricked out in singular finery, stepped, leaped, swayed, and gesticulated--their plumed fingers fluttering in the air like butterflies. the sense of time, in all these ocean races, is extremely perfect; and i conceive in such a festival that almost every sound and movement fell in one. so much the more unanimously must have grown the agitation of the feasters; so much the more wild must have been the scene to any european who could have beheld them there, in the strong sun and the strong shadow of the banyan, rubbed with saffron to throw in a more high relief the arabesque of the tattoo; the women bleached by days of confinement to a complexion almost european; the chiefs crowned with silver plumes of old men's beards and girt with kirtles of the hair of dead women. all manner of island food was meanwhile spread for the women and the commons; and, for those who were privileged to eat of it, there were carried up to the dead-house the baskets of long-pig. it is told that the feasts were long kept up; the people came from them brutishly exhausted with debauchery, and the chiefs heavy with their beastly food. there are certain sentiments which we call emphatically human--denying the honour of that name to those who lack them. in such feasts--particularly where the victim had been slain at home, and men banqueting on the poor clay of a comrade with whom they played in infancy, or a woman whose favours they had shared--the whole body of these sentiments is outraged. to consider it too closely is to understand, if not to excuse, these fervours of self-righteous old ship-captains, who would man their guns, and open fire in passing, on a cannibal island. and yet it was strange. there, upon the spot, as i stood under the high, dripping vault of the forest, with the young priest on the one hand, in his kilted gown, and the bright-eyed marquesan schoolboy on the other, the whole business appeared infinitely distant, and fallen in the cold perspective and dry light of history. the bearing of the priest, perhaps, affected me. he smiled; he jested with the boy, the heir both of these feasters and their meat; he clapped his hands, and gave me a stave of one of the old, ill-omened choruses. centuries might have come and gone since this slimy theatre was last in operation; and i beheld the place with no more emotion than i might have felt in visiting stonehenge. in hiva-oa, as i began to appreciate that the thing was still living and latent about my footsteps, and that it was still within the bounds of possibility that i might hear the cry of the trapped victim, my historic attitude entirely failed, and i was sensible of some repugnance for the natives. but here, too, the priests maintained their jocular attitude: rallying the cannibals as upon an eccentricity rather absurd than horrible; seeking, i should say, to shame them from the practice by good-natured ridicule, as we shame a child from stealing sugar. we may here recognise the temperate and sagacious mind of bishop dordillon. chapter xii the story of a plantation taahauku, on the south-westerly coast of the island of hiva-oa--tahuku, say the slovenly whites--may be called the port of atuona. it is a narrow and small anchorage, set between low cliffy points, and opening above upon a woody valley: a little french fort, now disused and deserted, overhangs the valley and the inlet. atuona itself, at the head of the next bay, is framed in a theatre of mountains, which dominate the more immediate settling of taahauku and give the salient character of the scene. they are reckoned at no higher than four thousand feet; but tahiti with eight thousand, and hawaii with fifteen, can offer no such picture of abrupt, melancholy alps. in the morning, when the sun falls directly on their front, they stand like a vast wall: green to the summit, if by any chance the summit should be clear--water-courses here and there delineated on their face, as narrow as cracks. towards afternoon, the light falls more obliquely, and the sculpture of the range comes in relief, huge gorges sinking into shadow, huge, tortuous buttresses standing edged with sun. at all hours of the day they strike the eye with some new beauty, and the mind with the same menacing gloom. the mountains, dividing and deflecting the endless airy deluge of the trade, are doubtless answerable for the climate. a strong draught of wind blew day and night over the anchorage. day and night the same fantastic and attenuated clouds fled across the heavens, the same dusky cap of rain and vapour fell and rose on the mountain. the land-breezes came very strong and chill, and the sea, like the air, was in perpetual bustle. the swell crowded into the narrow anchorage like sheep into a fold; broke all along both sides, high on the one, low on the other; kept a certain blowhole sounding and smoking like a cannon; and spent itself at last upon the beach. on the side away from atuona, the sheltering promontory was a nursery of coco-trees. some were mere infants, none had attained to any size, none had yet begun to shoot skyward with that whip-like shaft of the mature palm. in the young trees the colour alters with the age and growth. now all is of a grass-like hue, infinitely dainty; next the rib grows golden, the fronds remaining green as ferns; and then, as the trunk continues to mount and to assume its final hue of grey, the fans put on manlier and more decided depths of verdure, stand out dark upon the distance, glisten against the sun, and flash like silver fountains in the assault of the wind. in this young wood of taahauku all these hues and combinations were exampled and repeated by the score. the trees grew pleasantly spaced upon a hilly sward, here and there interspersed with a rack for drying copra, or a tumble-down hut for storing it. every here and there the stroller had a glimpse of the _casco_ tossing in the narrow anchorage below; and beyond he had ever before him the dark amphitheatre of the atuona mountains and the cliffy bluff that closes it to seaward. the trade-wind moving in the fans made a ceaseless noise of summer rain; and from time to time, with the sound of a sudden and distant drum-beat, the surf would burst in a sea-cave. at the upper end of the inlet, its low, cliffy lining sinks, at both sides, into a beach. a copra warehouse stands in the shadow of the shoreside trees, flitted about for ever by a clan of dwarfish swallows; and a line of rails on a high wooden staging bends back into the mouth of the valley. walking on this, the new-landed traveller becomes aware of a broad fresh-water lagoon (one arm of which he crosses), and beyond, of a grove of noble palms, sheltering the house of the trader, mr. keane. overhead, the cocos join in a continuous and lofty roof; blackbirds are heard lustily singing; the island cock springs his jubilant rattle and airs his golden plumage; cow-bells sound far and near in the grove; and when you sit in the broad verandah, lulled by this symphony, you may say to yourself, if you are able: "better fifty years of europe..." farther on, the floor of the valley is flat and green, and dotted here and there with stripling coco-palms. through the midst, with many changes of music, the river trots and brawls; and along its course, where we should look for willows, puraos grow in clusters, and make shadowy pools after an angler's heart. a vale more rich and peaceful, sweeter air, a sweeter voice of rural sounds, i have found nowhere. one circumstance alone might strike the experienced: here is a convenient beach, deep soil, good water, and yet nowhere any paepaes, nowhere any trace of island habitation. it is but a few years since this valley was a place choked with jungle, the debatable land and battle-ground of cannibals. two clans laid claim to it--neither could substantiate the claim, and the roads lay desert, or were only visited by men in arms. it is for this very reason that it wears now so smiling an appearance: cleared, planted, built upon, supplied with railways, boat-houses, and bath-houses. for, being no man's land, it was the more readily ceded to a stranger. the stranger was captain john hart: ima hati, "broken-arm," the natives call him, because when he first visited the islands his arm was in a sling. captain hart, a man of english birth but an american subject, had conceived the idea of cotton culture in the marquesas during the american war, and was at first rewarded with success. his plantation at anaho was highly productive; island cotton fetched a high price, and the natives used to debate which was the stronger power, ima hati or the french: deciding in favour of the captain, because, though the french had the most ships, he had the more money. he marked taahauku for a suitable site, acquired it, and offered the superintendence to mr. robert stewart, a fifeshire man, already some time in the islands, who had just been ruined by a war on tauata. mr. stewart was somewhat averse to the adventure, having some acquaintance with atuona and its notorious chieftain, moipu. he had once landed there, he told me, about dusk, and found the remains of a man and woman partly eaten. on his starting and sickening at the sight, one of moipu's young men picked up a human foot, and provocatively staring at the stranger, grinned and nibbled at the heel. none need be surprised if mr. stewart fled incontinently to the bush, lay there all night in a great horror of mind, and got off to sea again by daylight on the morrow. "it was always a bad place, atuona," commented mr. stewart, in his homely fifeshire voice. in spite of this dire introduction, he accepted the captain's offer, was landed at taahauku with three chinamen, and proceeded to clear the jungle. war was pursued at that time, almost without interval, between the men of atuona and the men of haamau; and one day, from the opposite sides of the valley, battle--or i should rather say the noise of battle--raged all the afternoon: the shots and insults of the opposing clans passing from hill to hill over the heads of mr. stewart and his chinamen. there was no genuine fighting; it was like a bicker of schoolboys, only some fool had given the children guns. one man died of his exertions in running, the only casualty. with night the shots and insults ceased; the men of haamau withdrew, and victory, on some occult principle, was scored to moipu. perhaps in consequence, there came a day when moipu made a feast, and a party from haamau came under safe-conduct to eat of it. these passed early by taahauku, and some of moipu's young men were there to be a guard of honour. they were not long gone before there came down from haamau a man, his wife, and a girl of twelve, their daughter, bringing fungus. several atuona lads were hanging round the store; but the day being one of truce none apprehended danger. the fungus was weighed and paid for; the man of haamau proposed he should have his axe ground in the bargain; and mr. stewart demurring at the trouble, some of the atuona lads offered to grind it for him, and set it on the wheel. while the axe was grinding, a friendly native whispered mr. stewart to have a care of himself, for there was trouble in hand; and, all at once, the man of haamau was seized, and his head and arm stricken from his body, the head at one sweep of his own newly sharpened axe. in the first alert, the girl escaped among the cotton; and mr. stewart, having thrust the wife into the house and locked her in from the outside, supposed the affair was over. but the business had not passed without noise, and it reached the ears of an older girl who had loitered by the way, and who now came hastily down the valley, crying as she came for her father. her, too, they seized and beheaded; i know not what they had done with the axe, it was a blunt knife that served their butcherly turn upon the girl; and the blood spurted in fountains and painted them from head to foot. thus horrible from crime, the party returned to atuona, carrying the heads to moipu. it may be fancied how the feast broke up; but it is notable that the guests were honourably suffered to retire. these passed back through taahauku in extreme disorder; a little after the valley began to be overrun with shouting and triumphing braves; and a letter of warning coming at the same time to mr. stewart, he and his chinamen took refuge with the protestant missionary in atuona. that night the store was gutted, and the bodies cast in a pit and covered with leaves. three days later the schooner had come in; and things appearing quieter, mr. stewart and the captain landed in taahauku to compute the damage and to view the grave, which was already indicated by the stench. while they were so employed, a party of moipu's young men, decked with red flannel to indicate martial sentiments, came over the hills from atuona, dug up the bodies, washed them in the river, and carried them away on sticks. that night the feast began. those who knew mr. stewart before this experience declare the man to be quite altered. he stuck, however, to his post; and somewhat later, when the plantation was already well established, and gave employment to sixty chinamen and seventy natives, he found himself once more in dangerous times. the men of haamau, it was reported, had sworn to plunder and erase the settlement; letters came continually from the hawaiian missionary, who acted as intelligence department; and for six weeks mr. stewart and three other whites slept in the cotton-house at night in a rampart of bales, and (what was their best defence) ostentatiously practised rifle-shooting by day upon the beach. natives were often there to watch them; the practice was excellent; and the assault was never delivered--if it ever was intended, which i doubt, for the natives are more famous for false rumours than for deeds of energy. i was told the late french war was a case in point; the tribes on the beach accusing those in the mountains of designs which they had never the hardihood to entertain. and the same testimony to their backwardness in open battle reached me from all sides. captain hart once landed after an engagement in a certain bay; one man had his hand hurt, an old woman and two children had been slain; and the captain improved the occasion by poulticing the hand, and taunting both sides upon so wretched an affair. it is true these wars were often merely formal--comparable with duels to the first blood. captain hart visited a bay where such a war was being carried on between two brothers, one of whom had been thought wanting in civility to the guests of the other. about one-half of the population served day about upon alternate sides, so as to be well with each when the inevitable peace should follow. the forts of the belligerents were over against each other, and close by. pigs were cooking. well-oiled braves, with well-oiled muskets, strutted on the paepae or sat down to feast. no business, however needful, could be done, and all thoughts were supposed to be centred in this mockery of war. a few days later, by a regrettable accident, a man was killed; it was felt at once the thing had gone too far, and the quarrel was instantly patched up. but the more serious wars were prosecuted in a similar spirit; a gift of pigs and a feast made their inevitable end; the killing of a single man was a great victory, and the murder of defenceless solitaries counted a heroic deed. the foot of the cliffs about all these islands is the place of fishing. between taahauku and atuona we saw men, but chiefly women, some nearly naked, some in thin white or crimson dresses, perched in little surf-beat promontories--the brown precipice overhanging them, and the convolvulus overhanging that, as if to cut them off the more completely from assistance. there they would angle much of the morning; and as fast as they caught any fish, eat them, raw and living, where they stood. it was such helpless ones that the warriors from the opposite island of tauata slew, and carried home and ate, and were thereupon accounted mighty men of valour. of one such exploit i can give the account of an eye-witness. "portuguese joe," mr. keane's cook, was once pulling an oar in an atuona boat, when they spied a stranger in a canoe with some fish and a piece of tapu. the atuona men cried upon him to draw near and have a smoke. he complied, because, i suppose, he had no choice; but he knew, poor devil, what he was coming to, and (as joe said) "he didn't seem to care about the smoke." a few questions followed, as to where he came from, and what was his business. these he must needs answer, as he must needs draw at the unwelcome pipe, his heart the while drying in his bosom. and then, of a sudden, a big fellow in joe's boat leaned over, plucked the stranger from his canoe, struck him with a knife in the neck--inward and downward, as joe showed in pantomime more expressive than his words--and held him under water, like a fowl, until his struggles ceased. whereupon the long-pig was hauled on board, the boat's head turned about for atuona, and these marquesan braves pulled home rejoicing. moipu was on the beach and rejoiced with them on their arrival. poor joe toiled at his oar that day with a white face, yet he had no fear for himself. "they were very good to me--gave me plenty grub: never wished to eat white man," said he. if the most horrible experience was mr. stewart's, it was captain hart himself who ran the nearest danger. he had bought a piece of land from timau, chief of a neighbouring bay, and put some chinese there to work. visiting the station with one of the godeffroys, he found his chinamen trooping to the beach in terror; timau had driven them out, seized their effects, and was in war attire with his young men. a boat was despatched to taahauku for reinforcement; as they awaited her return, they could see, from the deck of the schooner, timau and his young men dancing the war-dance on the hill-top till past twelve at night; and so soon as the boat came (bringing three gendarmes, armed with chassepots, two white men from taahauku station, and some native warriors) the party set out to seize the chief before he should awake. day was not come, and it was a very bright moonlight morning, when they reached the hill-top where (in a house of palm-leaves) timau was sleeping off his debauch. the assailants were fully exposed, the interior of the hut quite dark; the position far from sound. the gendarmes knelt with their pieces ready, and captain hart advanced alone. as he drew near the door he heard the snap of a gun cocking from within, and in sheer self-defence--there being no other escape--sprang into the house and grappled timau. "timau, come with me!" he cried. but timau--a great fellow, his eyes blood-red with the abuse of kava, six foot three in stature--cast him on one side; and the captain, instantly expecting to be either shot or brained, discharged his pistol in the dark. when they carried timau out at the door into the moonlight, he was already dead, and, upon this unlooked-for termination of their sally, the whites appeared to have lost all conduct, and retreated to the boats, fired upon by the natives as they went. captain hart, who almost rivals bishop dordillon in popularity, shared with him the policy of extreme indulgence to the natives, regarding them as children, making light of their defects, and constantly in favour of mild measures. the death of timau has thus somewhat weighed upon his mind; the more so, as the chieftain's musket was found in the house unloaded. to a less delicate conscience the matter will seem light. if a drunken savage elects to cock a fire-arm, a gentleman advancing towards him in the open cannot wait to make sure if it be charged. i have touched on the captain's popularity. it is one of the things that most strikes a stranger in the marquesas. he comes instantly on two names, both new to him, both locally famous, both mentioned by all with affection and respect--the bishop's and the captain's. it gave me a strong desire to meet with the survivor, which was subsequently gratified--to the enrichment of these pages. long after that again, in the place dolorous--molokai--i came once more on the traces of that affectionate popularity. there was a blind white leper there, an old sailor--an "old tough," he called himself--who had long sailed among the eastern islands. him i used to visit, and, being fresh from the scenes of his activity, gave him the news. this (in the true island style) was largely a chronicle of wrecks; and it chanced i mentioned the case of one not very successful captain, and how he had lost a vessel for mr. hart; thereupon the blind leper broke forth in lamentation. "did he lose a ship of john hart's?" he cried; "poor john hart! well, i'm sorry it was hart's," with needless force of epithet, which i neglect to reproduce. perhaps, if captain hart's affairs had continued to prosper, his popularity might have been different. success wins glory, but it kills affection, which misfortune fosters. and the misfortune which overtook the captain's enterprise was truly singular. he was at the top of his career. ile masse belonged to him, given by the french as an indemnity for the robberies at taahauku. but the ile masse was only suitable for cattle; and his two chief stations were anaho, in nuka-hiva, facing the north-east, and taahauku in hiva-oa, some hundred miles to the southward, and facing the south-west. both these were on the same day swept by a tidal wave, which was not felt in any other bay or island of the group. the south coast of hiva-oa was bestrewn with building timber and camphor-wood chests, containing goods; which, on the promise of a reasonable salvage, the natives very honestly brought back, the chests apparently not opened, and some of the wood after it had been built into their houses. but the recovery of jetsam could not affect the result. it was impossible the captain should withstand this partiality of fortune; and with his fall the prosperity of the marquesas ended. anaho is truly extinct, taahauku but a shadow of itself; nor has any new plantation arisen in their stead. chapter xiii characters there was a certain traffic in our anchorage at atuona; different indeed from the dead inertia and quiescence of the sister-island, nuka-hiva. sails were seen steering from its mouth; now it would be a whale-boat manned with native rowdies, and heavy with copra for sale; now perhaps a single canoe come after commodities to buy. the anchorage was besides frequented by fishers; not only the lone females perched in niches of the cliff, but whole parties, who would sometimes camp and build a fire upon the beach, and sometimes lie in their canoes in the midst of the haven and jump by turns in the water; which they would cast eight or nine feet high, to drive, as we supposed, the fish into their nets. the goods the purchasers came to buy were sometimes quaint. i remarked one outrigger returning with a single ham swung from a pole in the stern. and one day there came into mr. keane's store a charming lad, excellently mannered, speaking french correctly though with a babyish accent; very handsome too, and much of a dandy, as was shown not only in his shining raiment, but by the nature of his purchases. these were five ship-biscuits, a bottle of scent, and two balls of washing blue. he was from tauata, whither he returned the same night in an outrigger, daring the deep with these young-ladyish treasures. the gross of the native passengers were more ill-favoured: tall, powerful fellows, well tattooed, and with disquieting manners. something coarse and jeering distinguished them, and i was often reminded of the slums of some great city. one night, as dusk was falling, a whale-boat put in on that part of the beach where i chanced to be alone. six or seven ruffianly fellows scrambled out; all had enough english to give me "good-bye," which was the ordinary salutation; or "good-morning," which they seemed to regard as an intensitive; jests followed, they surrounded me with harsh laughter and rude looks, and i was glad to move away. i had not yet encountered mr. stewart, or i should have been reminded of his first landing at atuona and the humorist who nibbled at the heel. but their neighbourhood depressed me; and i felt, if i had been there a castaway and out of reach of help, my heart would have been sick. nor was the traffic altogether native. while we lay in the anchorage there befell a strange coincidence. a schooner was observed at sea and aiming to enter. we knew all the schooners in the group, but this appeared larger than any; she was rigged, besides, after the english manner; and, coming to an anchor some way outside the _casco_, showed at last the blue ensign. there were at that time, according to rumour, no fewer than four yachts in the pacific; but it was strange that any two of them should thus lie side by side in that outlandish inlet: stranger still that in the owner of the _nyanza_, captain dewar, i should find a man of the same country and the same county with myself, and one whom i had seen walking as a boy on the shores of the alpes maritimes. we had besides a white visitor from shore who came and departed in a crowded whale-boat manned by natives; having read of yachts in the sunday papers, and being fired with the desire to see one. captain chase, as they called him, an old whaler-man, thickset and white-bearded, with a strong indiana drawl; years old in the country, a good backer in battle, and one of those dead shots whose practice at the target struck terror in the braves of haamau. captain chase dwelt farther east in a bay called hanamate, with a mr. m'callum; or rather they had dwelt together once, and were now amicably separated. the captain is to be found near one end of the bay, in a wreck of a house, and waited on by a chinese. at the point of the opposing corner another habitation stands on a tall paepae. the surf runs there exceeding heavy, seas of seven and eight feet high bursting under the walls of the house, which is thus continually filled with their clamour, and rendered fit only for solitary, or at least for silent, inmates. here it is that mr. m'callum, with a shakespeare and a burns, enjoys the society of the breakers. his name and his burns testify to scottish blood; but he is an american born, somewhere far east; followed the trade of a ship-carpenter; and was long employed, the captain of a hundred indians, breaking up wrecks about cape flattery. many of the whites who are to be found scattered in the south seas represent the more artistic portion of their class; and not only enjoy the poetry of that new life, but came there on purpose to enjoy it. i have been shipmates with a man, no longer young, who sailed upon that voyage, his first time to sea, for the mere love of samoa; and it was a few letters in a newspaper that sent him on that pilgrimage. mr. m'callum was another instance of the same. he had read of the south seas; loved to read of them; and let their image fasten in his heart; till at length he could refrain no longer--must set forth, a new rudel, for that unseen homeland--and has now dwelt for years in hiva-oa, and will lay his bones there in the end with full content; having no desire to behold again the places of his boyhood, only, perhaps--once, before he dies--the rude and wintry landscape of cape flattery. yet he is an active man, full of schemes; has bought land of the natives; has planted five thousand coco-palms; has a desert island in his eye, which he desires to lease, and a schooner in the stocks, which he has laid and built himself, and even hopes to finish. mr. m'callum and i did not meet, but, like gallant troubadours, corresponded in verse. i hope he will not consider it a breach of copyright if i give here a specimen of his muse. he and bishop dordillon are the two european bards of the marquesas. "sail, ho! ahoy! _casco_, first among the pleasure fleet that came around to greet these isles from san francisco. and first, too; only one among the literary men that this way has ever been-- welcome, then, to stevenson. please not offended be at this little notice of the _casco_, captain otis with the novelist's family. _avoir une voyage magnifical_ is our wish sincere, that you'll have from here _allant sur la grande pacifical_." but our chief visitor was one mapiao, a great tahuku--which seems to mean priest, wizard, tattooer, practiser of any art, or, in a word, esoteric person--and a man famed for his eloquence on public occasions and witty talk in private. his first appearance was typical of the man. he came down clamorous to the eastern landing, where the surf was running very high; scorned all our signals to go round the bay; carried his point, was brought aboard at some hazard to our skiff, and set down in one corner of the cockpit to his appointed task. he had been hired, as one cunning in the art, to make my old men's beards into a wreath: what a wreath for celia's arbour! his own beard (which he carried, for greater safety, in a sailor's knot) was not merely the adornment of his age, but a substantial piece of property. one hundred dollars was the estimated value; and as brother michel never knew a native to deposit a greater sum with bishop dordillon, our friend was a rich man in virtue of his chin. he had something of an east indian cast, but taller and stronger; his nose hooked, his face narrow, his forehead very high, the whole elaborately tattooed. i may say i have never entertained a guest so trying. in the least particular he must be waited on; he would not go to the scuttle-butt for water; it must be given him in his hand; if aid were denied him, he would fold his arms, bow his head, and go without; only the work would suffer. early the first forenoon he called aloud for biscuit and salmon; biscuit and ham were brought; he looked on them inscrutably, and signed they should be set aside. a number of considerations crowded on my mind; how the sort of work on which he was engaged was probably tapu in a higher degree; should by rights, perhaps, be transacted on a tapu platform which no female might approach; and it was possible that fish might be the essential diet. some salted fish i therefore brought him, and along with that a glass of rum: at sight of which mapiao displayed extraordinary animation, pointed to the zenith, made a long speech in which i picked up _umati_--the word for the sun--and signed to me once more to place these dainties out of reach. at last i had understood, and every day the programme was the same. at an early period of the morning his dinner must be set forth on the roof of the house and at a proper distance, full in view but just out of reach; and not until the fit hour, which was the point of noon, would the artificer partake. this solemnity was the cause of an absurd misadventure. he was seated plaiting, as usual, at the beards, his dinner arrayed on the roof, and not far off a glass of water standing. it appears he desired to drink; was of course far too great a gentleman to rise and get the water for himself; and spying mrs. stevenson, imperiously signed to her to hand it. the signal was misunderstood; mrs. stevenson was, by this time, prepared for any eccentricity on the part of our guest; and instead of passing him the water, flung his dinner overboard. i must do mapiao justice: all laughed, but his laughter rang the loudest. these troubles of service were at worst occasional; the embarrassment of the man's talk incessant. he was plainly a practised conversationalist; the nicety of his inflections, the elegance of his gestures, and the fine play of his expression, told us that. we, meanwhile, sat like aliens in a playhouse; we could see the actors were upon some material business and performing well, but the plot of the drama remained undiscoverable. names of places, the name of captain hart, occasional disconnected words, tantalised without enlightening us; and the less we understood, the more gallantly, the more copiously, and with still the more explanatory gestures, mapiao returned to the assault. we could see his vanity was on the rack; being come to a place where that fine jewel of his conversational talent could earn him no respect; and he had times of despair when he desisted from the endeavour, and instants of irritation when he regarded us with unconcealed contempt. yet for me, as the practitioner of some kindred mystery to his own, he manifested to the last a measure of respect. as we sat under the awning in opposite corners of the cockpit, he braiding hairs from dead men's chins, i forming runes upon a sheet of folio paper, he would nod across to me as one tahuku to another, or, crossing the cockpit, study for a while my shapeless scrawl and encourage me with a heartfelt "_mitai_!--good!" so might a deaf painter sympathise far off with a musician, as the slave and master of some uncomprehended and yet kindred art. a silly trade he doubtless considered it; but a man must make an allowance for barbarians, _chaque pays a ses coutumes_--and he felt the principle was there. the time came at last when his labours, which resembled those rather of penelope than hercules, could be no more spun out, and nothing remained but to pay him and say farewell. after a long, learned argument in marquesan, i gathered that his mind was set on fish-hooks; with three of which, and a brace of dollars, i thought he was not ill rewarded for passing his forenoons in our cockpit, eating, drinking, delivering his opinions, and pressing the ship's company into his menial service. for all that, he was a man of so high a bearing and so like an uncle of my own who should have gone mad and got tattooed, that i applied to him, when we were both on shore, to know if he were satisfied. "_mitai ehipe?_" i asked. and he, with rich unction, offering at the same time his hand--"_mitai ehipe, mitai kaekae; kaoha nui!_"--or, to translate freely: "the ship is good, the victuals are up to the mark, and we part in friendship." which testimonial uttered, he set off along the beach with his head bowed and the air of one deeply injured. i saw him go, on my side, with relief. it would be more interesting to learn how our relation seemed to mapiao. his exigence, we may suppose, was merely loyal. he had been hired by the ignorant to do a piece of work; and he was bound that he would do it the right way. countless obstacles, continual ignorant ridicule, availed not to dissuade him. he had his dinner laid out; watched it, as was fit, the while he worked; ate it at the fit hour; was in all things served and waited on; and could take his hire in the end with a clear conscience, telling himself the mystery was performed duly, the beards rightfully braided, and we (in spite of ourselves) correctly served. his view of our stupidity, even he, the mighty talker, must have lacked language to express. he never interfered with my tahuku work; civilly praised it, idle as it seemed; civilly supposed that i was competent in my own mystery: such being the attitude of the intelligent and the polite. and we, on the other hand--who had yet the most to gain or lose, since the product was to be ours--who had professed our disability by the very act of hiring him to do it--were never weary of impeding his own more important labours, and sometimes lacked the sense and the civility to refrain from laughter. chapter xiv in a cannibal valley the road from taahauku to atuona skirted the north-westerly side of the anchorage, somewhat high up, edged, and sometimes shaded, by the splendid flowers of the _flamboyant_--its english name i do not know. at the turn of the land, atuona came in view: a long beach, a heavy and loud breach of surf, a shore-side village scattered among trees, and the guttered mountains drawing near on both sides above a narrow and rich ravine. its infamous repute perhaps affected me; but i thought it the loveliest, and by far the most ominous and gloomy, spot on earth. beautiful it surely was; and even more salubrious. the healthfulness of the whole group is amazing; that of atuona almost in the nature of a miracle. in atuona, a village planted in a shore-side marsh, the houses standing everywhere intermingled with the pools of a taro-garden, we find every condition of tropical danger and discomfort; and yet there are not even mosquitoes--not even the hateful day-fly of nuka-hiva--and fever, and its concomitant, the island fe'efe'e,[ ] are unknown. this is the chief station of the french on the man-eating isle of hiva-oa. the sergeant of gendarmerie enjoys the style of the vice-resident, and hoists the french colours over a quite extensive compound. a chinaman, a waif from the plantation, keeps a restaurant in the rear quarters of the village; and the mission is well represented by the sisters' school and brother michel's church. father orens, a wonderful octogenarian, his frame scarce bowed, the fire of his eye undimmed, has lived, and trembled, and suffered in this place since . again and again, when moipu had made coco-brandy, he has been driven from his house into the woods. "a mouse that dwelt in a cat's ear" had a more easy resting-place; and yet i have never seen a man that bore less mark of years. he must show us the church, still decorated with the bishop's artless ornaments of paper--the last work of industrious old hands, and the last earthly amusement of a man that was much of a hero. in the sacristy we must see his sacred vessels, and, in particular, a vestment which was a "_vraie curiosité_," because it had been given by a gendarme. to the protestant there is always something embarrassing in the eagerness with which grown and holy men regard these trifles; but it was touching and pretty to see orens, his aged eyes shining in his head, display his sacred treasures. _august ._--the vale behind the village, narrowing swiftly to a mere ravine, was choked with profitable trees. a river gushed in the midst. overhead, the tall coco-palms made a primary covering; above that, from one wall of the mountain to another, the ravine was roofed with cloud; so that we moved below, amid teeming vegetation, in a covered house of heat. on either hand, at every hundred yards, instead of the houseless, disembowelling paepaes of nuka-hiva, populous houses turned out their inhabitants to cry "kaoha!" to the passers-by. the road, too, was busy: strings of girls, fair and foul, as in less favoured countries; men bearing breadfruit; the sisters, with a little guard of pupils; a fellow bestriding a horse--passed and greeted us continually; and now it was a chinaman who came to the gate of his flower-yard, and gave us "good-day" in excellent english; and a little farther on it would be some natives who set us down by the wayside, made us a feast of mummy-apple, and entertained us as we ate with drumming on a tin case. with all this fine plenty of men and fruit, death is at work here also. the population, according to the highest estimate, does not exceed six hundred in the whole vale of atuona; and yet, when i once chanced to put the question, brother michel counted up ten whom he knew to be sick beyond recovery. it was here, too, that i could at last gratify my curiosity with the sight of a native house in the very article of dissolution. it had fallen flat along the paepae, its poles sprawling ungainly; the rains and the mites contended against it; what remained seemed sound enough, but much was gone already; and it was easy to see how the insects consumed the walls as if they had been bread, and the air and the rain ate into them like vitriol. a little ahead of us, a young gentleman, very well tattooed, and dressed in a pair of white trousers and a flannel shirt, had been marching unconcernedly. of a sudden, without apparent cause, he turned back, took us in possession and led us undissuadably along a by-path to the river's edge. there, in a nook of the most attractive amenity, he bade us to sit down: the stream splashing at our elbow, a shock of nondescript greenery enshrining us from above; and thither, after a brief absence, he brought us a cocoa-nut, a lump of sandal-wood, and a stick he had begun to carve: the nut for present refreshment, the sandal-wood for a precious gift, and the stick--in the simplicity of his vanity--to harvest premature praise. only one section was yet carved, although the whole was pencil-marked in lengths; and when i proposed to buy it, poni (for that was the artist's name) recoiled in horror. but i was not to be moved, and simply refused restitution, for i had long wondered why a people who displayed, in their tattooing, so great a gift of arabesque invention, should display it nowhere else. here, at last, i had found something of the same talent in another medium; and i held the incompleteness, in these days of world-wide brummagem, for a happy mark of authenticity. neither my reasons nor my purpose had i the means of making clear to poni; i could only hold on to the stick, and bid the artist follow me to the gendarmerie, where i should find interpreters and money; but we gave him, in the meanwhile, a boat-call in return for his sandal-wood. as he came behind us down the vale he sounded upon this continually. and continually, from the wayside houses, there poured forth little groups of girls in crimson, or of men in white. and to these must poni pass the news of who the strangers were, of what they had been doing, of why it was that poni had a boat-whistle; and of why he was now being haled to the vice-residency, uncertain whether to be punished or rewarded, uncertain whether he had lost a stick or made a bargain, but hopeful on the whole, and in the meanwhile highly consoled by the boat-whistle. whereupon he would tear himself away from this particular group of inquirers, and once more we would hear the shrill call in our wake. _august ._--i made a more extended circuit in the vale with brother michel. we were mounted on a pair of sober nags, suitable to these rude paths; the weather was exquisite, and the company in which i found myself no less agreeable than the scenes through which i passed. we mounted at first by a steep grade along the summit of one of those twisted spurs that, from a distance, mark out provinces of sun and shade upon the mountain-side. the ground fell away on either hand with an extreme declivity. from either hand, out of profound ravines, mounted the song of falling water and the smoke of household fires. here and there the hills of foliage would divide, and our eye would plunge down upon one of these deep-nested habitations. and still, high in front, arose the precipitous barrier of the mountain, greened over where it seemed that scarce a harebell could find root, barred with the zigzags of a human road where it seemed that not a goat could scramble. and in truth, for all the labour that it cost, the road is regarded even by the marquesans as impassable; they will not risk a horse on that, ascent; and those who lie to the westward come and go in their canoes. i never knew a hill to lose so little on a near approach: a consequence, i must suppose, of its surprising steepness. when we turned about, i was amazed to behold so deep a view behind, and so high a shoulder of blue sea, crowned by the whale-like island of motane. and yet the wall of mountain had not visibly dwindled, and i could even have fancied, as i raised my eyes to measure it, that it loomed higher than before. we struck now into covert paths, crossed and heard more near at hand the bickering of the streams, and tasted the coolness of those recesses where the houses stood. the birds sang about us as we descended. all along our path my guide was being hailed by voices: "mikaël--kaoha, mikaël!" from the doorstep, from the cotton-patch, or out of the deep grove of island-chestnuts, these friendly cries arose, and were cheerily answered as we passed. in a sharp angle of a glen, on a rushing brook and under fathoms of cool foliage, we struck a house upon a well-built paepae, the fire brightly burning under the popoi-shed against the evening meal; and here the cries became a chorus, and the house folk, running out, obliged us to dismount and breathe. it seemed a numerous family: we saw eight at least; and one of these honoured me with a particular attention. this was the mother, a woman naked to the waist, of an aged countenance, but with hair still copious and black, and breasts still erect and youthful. on our arrival i could see she remarked me, but, instead of offering any greeting, disappeared at once into the bush. thence she returned with two crimson flowers. "good-bye!" was her salutation, uttered not without coquetry; and as she said it she pressed the flowers into my hand--"good-bye! i speak inglis." it was from a whaler-man, who (she informed me) was "a plenty good chap," that she had learned my language; and i could not but think how handsome she must have been in these times of her youth, and could not but guess that some memories of the dandy whaler-man prompted her attentions to myself. nor could i refrain from wondering what had befallen her lover; in the rain and mire of what sea-ports he had tramped since then; in what close and garish drinking-dens had found his pleasure; and in the ward of what infirmary dreamed his last of the marquesas. but she, the more fortunate, lived on in her green island. the talk, in this lost house upon the mountains, ran chiefly upon mapiao and his visits to the _casco_: the news of which had probably gone abroad by then to all the island, so that there was no paepae in hiva-oa where they did not make the subject of excited comment. not much beyond we came upon a high place in the foot of the ravine. two roads divided it, and met in the midst. save for this intersection the amphitheatre was strangely perfect, and had a certain ruder air of things roman. depths of foliage and the bulk of the mountain kept it in a grateful shadow. on the benches several young folk sat clustered or apart. one of these, a girl perhaps fourteen years of age, buxom and comely, caught the eye of brother michel. why was she not at school?--she was done with school now. what was she doing here?--she lived here now. why so?--no answer but a deepening blush. there was no severity in brother michel's manner; the girl's own confusion told her story. "_elle a honte_," was the missionary's comment, as we rode away. near by in the stream, a grown girl was bathing naked in a goyle between two stepping-stones; and it amused me to see with what alacrity and real alarm she bounded on her many-coloured under-clothes. even in these daughters of cannibals shame was eloquent. it is in hiva-oa, owing to the inveterate cannibalism of the natives, that local beliefs have been most rudely trodden underfoot. it was here that three religious chiefs were set under a bridge, and the women of the valley made to defile over their heads upon the roadway: the poor, dishonoured fellows sitting there (all observers agree) with streaming tears. not only was one road driven across the high place, but two roads intersected in its midst. there is no reason to suppose that the last was done of purpose, and perhaps it was impossible entirely to avoid the numerous sacred places of the islands. but these things are not done without result. i have spoken already of the regard of marquesans for the dead, making (as it does) so strange a contrast with their unconcern for death. early on this day's ride, for instance, we encountered a petty chief, who inquired (of course) where we were going, and suggested by way of amendment: "why do you not rather show him the cemetery?" i saw it; it was but newly opened, the third within eight years. they are great builders here in hiva-oa; i saw in my ride paepaes that no european dry-stone mason could have equalled, the black volcanic stones were laid so justly, the corners were so precise, the levels so true; but the retaining-wall of the new graveyard stood apart, and seemed to be a work of love. the sentiment of honour for the dead is therefore not extinct. and yet observe the consequence of violently countering men's opinions. of the four prisoners in atuona gaol, three were of course thieves; the fourth was there for sacrilege. he had levelled up a piece of the graveyard--to give a feast upon, as he informed the court--and declared he had no thought of doing wrong. why should he? he had been forced at the point of the bayonet to destroy the sacred places of his own piety; when he had recoiled from the task, he had been jeered at for a superstitious fool. and now it is supposed he will respect our european superstitions as by second nature. footnote: [ ] elephantiasis. chapter xv the two chiefs of atuona it had chanced (as the _casco_ beat through the bordelais straits for taahauku) she approached on one board very near the land in the opposite isle of tauata, where houses were to be seen in a grove of tall coco-palms. brother michel pointed out the spot. "i am at home now," said he. "i believe i have a large share in these cocoa-nuts; and in that house madame my mother lives with her two husbands!" "with two husbands?" somebody inquired. "_c'est ma honte_," replied the brother drily. a word in passing on the two husbands. i conceive the brother to have expressed himself loosely. it seems common enough to find a native lady with two consorts; but these are not two husbands. the first is still the husband; the wife continues to be referred to by his name; and the position of the coadjutor, or _pikio_, although quite regular, appears undoubtedly subordinate. we had opportunities to observe one household of the sort. the _pikio_ was recognised; appeared openly along with the husband when the lady was thought to be insulted, and the pair made common cause like brothers. at home the inequality was more apparent. the husband sat to receive and entertain visitors; the _pikio_ was running the while to fetch cocoa-nuts like a hired servant, and i remarked he was sent on these errands in preference even to the son. plainly we have here no second husband; plainly we have the tolerated lover. only, in the marquesas, instead of carrying his lady's fan and mantle, he must turn his hand to do the husband's housework. the sight of brother michel's family estate led the conversation for some while upon the method and consequence of artificial kinship. our curiosity became extremely whetted; the brother offered to have the whole of us adopted, and some two days later we became accordingly the children of paaaeua, appointed chief of atuona. i was unable to be present at the ceremony, which was primitively simple. the two mrs. stevensons and mr. osbourne, along with paaaeua, his wife, and an adopted child of theirs, son of a shipwrecked austrian, sat down to an excellent island meal, of which the principal and the only necessary dish was pig. a concourse watched them through the apertures of the house; but none, not even brother michel, might partake; for the meal was sacramental, and either creative or declaratory of the new relationship. in tahiti things are not so strictly ordered; when ori and i "made brothers," both our families sat with us at table, yet only he and i, who had eaten with intention, were supposed to be affected by the ceremony. for the adoption of an infant i believe no formality to be required; the child is handed over by the natural parents, and grows up to inherit the estates of the adoptive. presents are doubtless exchanged, as at all junctures of island life, social or international; but i never heard of any banquet--the child's presence at the daily board perhaps sufficing. we may find the rationale in the ancient arabian idea that a common diet makes a common blood, with its derivative axiom that "he is the father who gives the child its morning draught." in the marquesan practice, the sense would thus be evanescent; from the tahitian, a mere survival, it will have entirely fled. an interesting parallel will probably occur to many of my readers. what is the nature of the obligation assumed at such a festival? it will vary with the characters of those engaged, and with the circumstances of the case. thus it would be absurd to take too seriously our adoption at atuona. on the part of paaaeua it was an affair of social ambition; when he agreed to receive us in his family the man had not so much as seen us, and knew only that we were inestimably rich and travelled in a floating palace. we, upon our side, ate of his baked meats with no true _animus affiliandi_, but moved by the single sentiment of curiosity. the affair was formal, and a matter of parade, as when in europe sovereigns call each other cousin. yet, had we stayed at atuona, paaaeua would have held himself bound to establish us upon his land, and to set apart young men for our service, and trees for our support. i have mentioned the austrian. he sailed in one of two sister ships, which left the clyde in coal; both rounded the horn, and both, at several hundred miles of distance, though close on the same point of time, took fire at sea on the pacific. one was destroyed; the derelict iron frame of the second, after long, aimless cruising, was at length recovered, refitted, and hails to-day from san francisco. a boat's crew from one of these disasters reached, after great hardships, the isle of hiva-oa. some of these men vowed they would never again confront the chances of the sea; but alone of them all the austrian has been exactly true to his engagement, remains where he landed, and designs to die where he has lived. now, with such a man, falling and taking root among islanders, the processes described may be compared to a gardener's graft. he passes bodily into the native stock; ceases wholly to be alien; has entered the commune of the blood, shares the prosperity and consideration of his new family, and is expected to impart with the same generosity the fruits of his european skill and knowledge. it is this implied engagement that so frequently offends the ingrafted white. to snatch an immediate advantage--to get (let us say) a station for his store--he will play upon the native custom and become a son or a brother for the day, promising himself to cast down the ladder by which he shall have ascended, and repudiate the kinship so soon as it shall grow burdensome. and he finds there are two parties to the bargain. perhaps his polynesian relative is simple, and conceived the blood-bond literally; perhaps he is shrewd, and himself entered the covenant with a view to gain. and either way the store is ravaged, the house littered with lazy natives; and the richer the man grows, the more numerous, the more idle, and the more affectionate he finds his native relatives. most men thus circumstanced contrive to buy or brutally manage to enforce their independence; but many vegetate without hope, strangled by parasites. we had no cause to blush with brother michel. our new parents were kind, gentle, well-mannered, and generous in gifts; the wife was a most motherly woman, the husband a man who stood justly high with his employers. enough has been said to show why moipu should be deposed; and in paaaeua the french had found a reputable substitute. he went always scrupulously dressed, and looked the picture of propriety, like a dark, handsome, stupid, and probably religious young man hot from a european funeral. in character he seemed the ideal of what is known as the good citizen. he wore gravity like an ornament. none could more nicely represent the desired character as an appointed chief, the outpost of civilisation and reform. and yet, were the french to go and native manners to revive, fancy beholds him crowned with old men's beards and crowding with the first to a man-eating festival. but i must not seem to be unjust to paaaeua. his respectability went deeper than the skin; his sense of the becoming sometimes nerved him for unexpected rigours. one evening captain otis and mr. osbourne were on shore in the village. all was agog; dancing had begun; it was plain it was to be a night of festival, and our adventurers were overjoyed at their good fortune. a strong fall of rain drove them for shelter to the house of paaaeua, where they were made welcome, wiled into a chamber, and shut in. presently the rain took off, the fun was to begin in earnest, and the young bloods of atuona came round the house and called to my fellow-travellers through the interstices of the wall. late into the night the calls were continued and resumed, and sometimes mingled with taunts; late into the night the prisoners, tantalised by the noises of the festival, renewed their efforts to escape. but all was vain; right across the door lay that god-fearing householder, paaaeua, feigning sleep; and my friends had to forego their junketing. in this incident, so delightfully european, we thought we could detect three strands of sentiment. in the first place, paaaeua had a charge of souls: these were young men, and he judged it right to withhold them from the primrose path. secondly, he was a public character, and it was not fitting that his guests should countenance a festival of which he disapproved. so might some strict clergyman at home address a worldly visitor: "go to the theatre if you like, but, by your leave, not from my house!" thirdly, paaaeua was a man jealous and with some cause (as shall be shown) for jealousy; and the feasters were the satellites of his immediate rival, moipu. for the adoption had caused much excitement in the village; it made the strangers popular. paaaeua, in his difficult posture of appointed chief, drew strength and dignity from their alliance, and only moipu and his followers were malcontent. for some reason, nobody (except myself) appears to dislike moipu. captain hart, who has been robbed and threatened by him; father orens, whom he has fired at, and repeatedly driven to the woods; my own family, and even the french officials--all seemed smitten with an irrepressible affection for the man. his fall had been made soft; his son, upon his death, was to succeed paaaeua in the chieftaincy; and he lived, at the time of our visit, in the shoreward part of the village in a good house, and with a strong following of young men, his late braves and pot-hunters. in this society, the coming of the _casco_, the adoption, the return feast on board, and the presents exchanged between the whites and their new parents, were doubtless eagerly and bitterly canvassed. it was felt that a few years ago the honours would have gone elsewhere. in this unwonted business, in this reception of some hitherto undreamed-of and outlandish potentate--some prester john or old assaracus--a few years back it would have been the part of moipu to play the hero and the host, and his young men would have accompanied and adorned the various celebrations as the acknowledged leaders of society. and now, by a malign vicissitude of fortune, moipu must sit in his house quite unobserved; and his young men could but look in at the door while their rivals feasted. perhaps m. grévy felt a touch of bitterness towards his successor when he beheld him figure on the broad stage of the centenary of eighty-nine; the visit of the _casco_ which moipu had missed by so few years was a more unusual occasion in atuona than a centenary in france; and the dethroned chief determined to reassert himself in the public eye. mr. osbourne had gone into atuona photographing; the population of the village had gathered together for the occasion on the place before the church, and paaaeua, highly delighted with this new appearance of his family, played the master of ceremonies. the church had been taken, with its jolly architect before the door; the nuns with their pupils; sundry damsels in the ancient and singularly unbecoming robes of tapa; and father orens in the midst of a group of his parishioners. i know not what else was in hand, when the photographer became aware of a sensation in the crowd, and, looking around, beheld a very noble figure of a man appear upon the margin of a thicket and stroll nonchalantly near. the nonchalance was visibly affected; it was plain that he came there to arouse attention, and his success was instant. he was introduced; he was civil, he was obliging, he was always ineffably superior and certain of himself; a well-graced actor. it was presently suggested that he should appear in his war costume; he gracefully consented; and returned in that strange, inappropriate, and ill-omened array (which very well became his handsome person) to strut in a circle of admirers, and be thenceforth the centre of photography. thus had moipu effected his introduction, as by accident, to the white strangers, made it a favour to display his finery, and reduced his rival to a secondary _rôle_ on the theatre of the disputed village. paaaeua felt the blow; and, with a spirit we never dreamed he could possess, asserted his priority. it was found impossible that day to get a photograph of moipu alone; for whenever he stood up before the camera his successor placed himself unbidden by his side, and gently but firmly held to his position. the portraits of the pair, jacob and esau, standing shoulder to shoulder, one in his careful european dress, one in his barbaric trappings, figure the past and present of their island. a graveyard with its humble crosses would be the aptest symbol of the future. we are all impressed with the belief that moipu had planned his campaign from the beginning to the end. it is certain that he lost no time in pushing his advantage. mr. osbourne was inveigled to his house; various gifts were fished out of an old sea-chest; father orens was called into service as interpreter, and moipu formally proposed to "make brothers" with mata-galahi--glass-eyes,--the not very euphonious name under which mr. osbourne passed in the marquesas. the feast of brotherhood took place on board the _casco_. paaaeua had arrived with his family, like a plain man; and his presents, which had been numerous, had followed one another, at intervals through several days. moipu, as if to mark at every point the opposition, came with a certain feudal pomp, attended by retainers bearing gifts of all descriptions, from plumes of old men's beard to little, pious, catholic engravings. i had met the man before this in the village, and detested him on sight; there was something indescribably raffish in his looks and ways that raised my gorge; and when man-eating was referred to, and he laughed a low, cruel laugh, part boastful, part bashful, like one reminded of some dashing peccadillo, my repugnance was mingled with nausea. this is no very human attitude, nor one at all becoming in a traveller. and, seen more privately, the man improved. something negroid in character and face was still displeasing; but his ugly mouth became attractive when he smiled, his figure and bearing were certainly noble, and his eyes superb. in his appreciation of jams and pickles, in his delight in the reverberating mirrors of the dining cabin, and consequent endless repetition of moipus and mata-galahis, he showed himself engagingly a child. and yet i am not sure; and what seemed childishness may have been rather courtly art. his manners struck me as beyond the mark; they were refined and caressing to the point of grossness, and when i think of the serene absent-mindedness with which he first strolled in upon our party, and then recall him running on hands and knees along the cabin sofas, pawing the velvet, dipping into the beds, and bleating commendatory "_mitais_" with exaggerated emphasis, like some enormous over-mannered ape, i feel the more sure that both must have been calculated. and i sometimes wonder next, if moipu were quite alone in this polite duplicity, and ask myself whether the _casco_ were quite so much admired in the marquesas as our visitors desired us to suppose. i will complete this sketch of an incurable cannibal grandee with two incongruous traits. his favourite morsel was the human hand, of which he speaks to-day with an ill-favoured lustfulness. and when he said good-bye to mrs. stevenson, holding her hand, viewing her with tearful eyes, and chanting his farewell improvisation in the falsetto of marquesan high society, he wrote upon her mind a sentimental impression which i try in vain to share. part ii the paumotus chapter i the dangerous archipelago--atolls at a distance in the early morning of th september a whale-boat manned by natives dragged us down the green lane of the anchorage and round the spouting promontory. on the shore level it was a hot, breathless, and yet crystal morning; but high overhead the hills of atuona were all cowled in cloud, and the ocean-river of the trades streamed without pause. as we crawled from under the immediate shelter of the land, we reached at last the limit of their influence. the wind fell upon our sails in puffs, which strengthened and grew more continuous; presently the _casco_ heeled down to her day's work; the whale-boat, quite outstripped, clung for a noisy moment to her quarter; the stipulated bread, rum, and tobacco were passed in; a moment more and the boat was in our wake, and our late pilots were cheering our departure. this was the more inspiriting as we were bound for scenes so different, and though on a brief voyage, yet for a new province of creation. that wide field of ocean, called loosely the south seas, extends from tropic to tropic, and from perhaps degrees w. to degrees e., a parallelogram of one hundred degrees by forty-seven, where degrees are the most spacious. much of it lies vacant, much is closely sown with isles, and the isles are of two sorts. no distinction is so continually dwelt upon in south sea talk as that between the "low" and the "high" island, and there is none more broadly marked in nature. the himalayas are not more different from the sahara. on the one hand, and chiefly in groups of from eight to a dozen, volcanic islands rise above the sea; few reach an altitude of less than , feet; one exceeds , ; their tops are often obscured in cloud, they are all clothed with various forests, all abound in food, and are all remarkable for picturesque and solemn scenery. on the other hand, we have the atoll; a thing of problematic origin and history, the reputed creature of an insect apparently unidentified; rudely annular in shape; enclosing a lagoon; rarely extending beyond a quarter of a mile at its chief width; often rising at its highest point to less than the stature of a man--man himself, the rat and the land crab, its chief inhabitants; not more variously supplied with plants; and offering to the eye, even when perfect, only a ring of glittering beach and verdant foliage, enclosing and enclosed by the blue sea. in no quarter are the atolls so thickly congregated, in none are they so varied in size from the greatest to the least, and in none is navigation so beset with perils, as in that archipelago that we were now to thread. the huge system of the trades is, for some reason, quite confounded by this multiplicity of reefs; the wind intermits, squalls are frequent from the west and south-west, hurricanes are known. the currents are, besides, inextricably intermixed; dead reckoning becomes a farce; the charts are not to be trusted; and such is the number and similarity of these islands that, even when you have picked one up, you may be none the wiser. the reputation of the place is consequently infamous; insurance offices exclude it from their field, and it was not without misgiving that my captain risked the _casco_ in such waters. i believe, indeed, it is almost understood that yachts are to avoid this baffling archipelago; and it required all my instances--and all mr. otis's private taste for adventure--to deflect our course across its midst. for a few days we sailed with a steady trade, and a steady westerly current setting us to leeward; and toward sundown of the seventh it was supposed we should have sighted takaroa, one of cook's so-called king george islands. the sun set; yet a while longer the old moon--semi-brilliant herself, and with a silver belly, which was her successor--sailed among gathering clouds; she, too, deserted us; stars of every degree of sheen, and clouds of every variety of form, disputed the sub-lustrous night; and still we gazed in vain for takaroa. the mate stood on the bowsprit, his tall grey figure slashing up and down against the stars, and still "nihil astra præter vidit et undas." the rest of us were grouped at the port anchor davit, staring with no less assiduity, but with far less hope on the obscure horizon. islands we beheld in plenty, but they were of "such stuff as dreams are made on," and vanished at a wink, only to appear in other places; and by and by not only islands, but refulgent and revolving lights began to stud the darkness; light-houses of the mind or of the wearied optic nerve, solemnly shining and winking as we passed. at length the mate himself despaired, scrambled on board again from his unrestful perch, and announced that we had missed our destination. he was the only man of practice in these waters, our sole pilot, shipped for that end at tai-o-hae. if he declared we had missed takaroa, it was not for us to quarrel with the fact, but, if we could, to explain it. we had certainly run down our southing. our canted wake upon the sea and our somewhat drunken-looking course upon the chart both testified with no less certainty to an impetuous westward current. we had no choice but to conclude we were again set down to leeward; and the best we could do was to bring the _casco_ to the wind, keep a good watch, and expect morning. i slept that night, as was then my somewhat dangerous practice, on deck upon the cockpit bench. a stir at last awoke me, to see all the eastern heaven dyed with faint orange, the binnacle lamp already dulled against the brightness of the day, and the steersman leaning eagerly across the wheel. "there it is, sir!" he cried, and pointed in the very eyeball of the dawn. for a while i could see nothing but the bluish ruins of the morning bank, which lay far along the horizon, like melting icebergs. then the sun rose, pierced a gap in these _débris_ of vapours, and displayed an inconsiderable islet, flat as a plate upon the sea, and spiked with palms of disproportioned altitude. so far, so good. here was certainly an atoll, and we were certainly got among the archipelago. but which? and where? the isle was too small for either takaroa: in all our neighbourhood, indeed, there was none so inconsiderable, save only tikei; and tikei, one of roggewein's so-called pernicious islands, seemed beside the question. at that rate, instead of drifting to the west, we must have fetched up thirty miles to windward. and how about the current? it had been setting us down, by observation, all these days: by the deflection of our wake, it should be setting us down that moment. when had it stopped? when had it begun again? and what kind of torrent was that which had swept us eastward in the interval? to these questions, so typical of navigation in that range of isles, i have no answer. such were at least the facts; tikei our island turned out to be; and it was our first experience of the dangerous archipelago, to make our landfall thirty miles out. the sight of tikei, thrown direct against the splendour of the morning, robbed of all its colour, and deformed with disproportioned trees like bristles on a broom, had scarce prepared us to be much in love with atolls. later the same day we saw under more fit conditions the island of taiaro. "lost in the sea" is possibly the meaning of the name. and it was so we saw it; lost in blue sea and sky: a ring of white beach, green underwood, and tossing palms, gem-like in colour; of a fairy, of a heavenly prettiness. the surf ran all around it, white as snow, and broke at one point, far to seaward, on what seemed an uncharted reef. there was no smoke, no sign of man; indeed, the isle is not inhabited, only visited at intervals. and yet a trader (mr. narii salmon) was watching from the shore and wondering at the unexpected ship. i have spent since then long months upon low islands; i know the tedium of their undistinguished days; i know the burden of their diet. with whatever envy we may have looked from the deck on these green coverts, it was with a tenfold greater that mr. salmon and his comrades saw us steer, in our trim ship, to seaward. the night fell lovely in the extreme. after the moon went down, the heaven was a thing to wonder at for stars. and as i lay in the cockpit and looked upon the steersman i was haunted by emerson's verses: "and the lone seaman all the night sails astonished among stars." by this glittering and imperfect brightness, about four bells in the first watch we made our third atoll, raraka. the low line of the isle lay straight along the sky; so that i was at first reminded of a towpath, and we seemed to be mounting some engineered and navigable stream. presently a red star appeared, about the height and brightness of a danger signal, and with that my simile was changed; we seemed rather to skirt the embankment of a railway, and the eye began to look instinctively for the telegraph-posts, and the ear to expect the coming of a train. here and there, but rarely, faint tree-tops broke the level. and the sound of the surf accompanied us, now in a drowsy monotone, now with a menacing swing. the isle lay nearly east and west, barring our advance on fakarava. we must, therefore, hug the coast until we gained the western end, where, through a passage eight miles wide, we might sail southward between raraka and the next isle, kauehi. we had the wind free, a lightish air; but clouds of an inky blackness were beginning to arise, and at times it lightened--without thunder. something, i know not what, continually set us up upon the island. we lay more and more to the nor'ard; and you would have thought the shore copied our manoeuvre and outsailed us. once and twice raraka headed us again--again, in the sea fashion, the quite innocent steersman was abused--and again the _casco_ kept away. had i been called on, with no more light than that of our experience, to draw the configuration of that island, i should have shown a series of bow-window promontories, each overlapping the other to the nor'ard, and the trend of the land from the south-east to the north-west, and behold, on the chart it lay near east and west in a straight line. we had but just repeated our manoeuvre and kept away--for not more than five minutes the railway embankment had been lost to view and the surf to hearing--when i was aware of land again, not only on the weather bow, but dead ahead. i played the part of the judicious landsman, holding my peace till the last moment; and presently my mariners perceived it for themselves. "land ahead!" said the steersman. "by god, it's kauehi!" cried the mate. and so it was. and with that i began to be sorry for cartographers. we were scarce doing three and a half; and they asked me to believe that (in five minutes) we had dropped an island, passed eight miles of open water, and run almost high and dry upon the next. but my captain was more sorry for himself to be afloat in such a labyrinth; laid the _casco_ to, with the log line up and down, and sat on the stern rail and watched it till the morning. he had enough of night in the paumotus. by daylight on the th we began to skirt kauehi, and had now an opportunity to see near at hand the geography of atolls. here and there, where it was high, the farther side loomed up; here and there the near side dipped entirely and showed a broad path of water into the lagoon; here and there both sides were equally abased, and we could look right through the discontinuous ring to the sea horizon on the south. conceive, on a vast scale, the submerged hoop of the duck-hunter, trimmed with green rushes to conceal his head--water within, water without--you have the image of the perfect atoll. conceive one that has been partly plucked of its rush fringe; you have the atoll of kauehi. and for either shore of it at closer quarters, conceive the line of some old roman highway traversing a wet morass, and here sunk out of view and there re-arising, crowned with a green tuft of thicket; only instead of the stagnant waters of a marsh, the live ocean now boiled against, now buried the frail barrier. last night's impression in the dark was thus confirmed by day, and not corrected. we sailed indeed by a mere causeway in the sea, of nature's handiwork, yet of no greater magnitude than many of the works of man. the isle was uninhabited; it was all green brush and white sand, set in transcendently blue water; even the coco-palms were rare, though some of these completed the bright harmony of colour by hanging out a fan of golden yellow. for long there was no sign of life beyond the vegetable, and no sound but the continuous grumble of the surf. in silence and desertion these fair shores slipped past, and were submerged and rose again with clumps of thicket from the sea. and then a bird or two appeared, hovering and crying; swiftly these became more numerous, and presently, looking ahead, we were aware of a vast effervescence of winged life. in this place the annular isle was mostly under water, carrying here and there on its submerged line a wooded islet. over one of these the birds hung and flew with an incredible density like that of gnats or hiving bees; the mass flashed white and black, and heaved and quivered, and the screaming of the creatures rose over the voice of the surf in a shrill clattering whirr. as you descend some inland valley, a not dissimilar sound announces the nearness of a mill and pouring river. some stragglers, as i said, came to meet our approach; a few still hung about the ship as we departed. the crying died away, the last pair of wings was left behind, and once more the low shores of kauehi streamed past our eyes in silence like a picture. i supposed at the time that the birds lived, like ants or citizens, concentred where we saw them. i have been told since (i know not if correctly) that the whole isle, or much of it, is similarly peopled; and that the effervescence at a single spot would be the mark of a boat's crew of egg-hunters from one of the neighbouring inhabited atolls. so that here at kauehi, as the day before at taiaro, the _casco_ sailed by under the fire of unsuspected eyes. and one thing is surely true, that even on these ribbons of land an army might lie hid and no passing mariner divine its presence. chapter ii fakarava: an atoll at hand by a little before noon we were running down the coast of our destination, fakarava: the air very light, the sea near smooth; though still we were accompanied by a continuous murmur from the beach, like the sound of a distant train. the isle is of a huge longitude, the enclosed lagoon thirty miles by ten or twelve, and the coral tow-path, which they call the land, some eighty or ninety miles by (possibly) one furlong. that part by which we sailed was all raised; the underwood excellently green, the topping wood of coco-palms continuous--a mark, if i had known it, of man's intervention. for once more, and once more unconsciously, we were within hail of fellow-creatures, and that vacant beach was but a pistol-shot from the capital city of the archipelago. but the life of an atoll, unless it be enclosed, passes wholly on the shores of the lagoon; it is there the villages are seated, there the canoes ply and are drawn up; and the beach of the ocean is a place accursed and deserted, the fit scene only for wizardry and shipwreck, and in the native belief a haunting ground of murderous spectres. by and by we might perceive a breach in the low barrier; the woods ceased; a glittering point ran into the sea, tipped with an emerald shoal, the mark of entrance. as we drew near we met a little run of sea--the private sea of the lagoon having there its origin and end, and here, in the jaws of the gateway, trying vain conclusions with the more majestic heave of the pacific. the _casco_ scarce avowed a shock; but there are times and circumstances when these harbour mouths of inland basins vomit floods, deflecting, burying, and dismasting ships. for, conceive a lagoon perfectly sealed but in the one point, and that of merely navigable width; conceive the tide and wind to have heaped for hours together in that coral fold a superfluity of waters, and the tide to change and the wind fall--the open sluice of some great reservoirs at home will give an image of the unstemmable effluxion. we were scarce well headed for the pass before all heads were craned over the rail. for the water, shoaling under our board, became changed in a moment to surprising hues of blue and grey; and in its transparency the coral branched and blossomed, and the fish of the inland sea cruised visibly below us, stained and stripped, and even beaked like parrots. i have paid in my time to view many curiosities; never one so curious as that first sight over the ship's rail in the lagoon of fakarava. but let not the reader be deceived with hope. i have since entered, i suppose, some dozen atolls in different parts of the pacific, and the experience has never been repeated. that exquisite hue and transparency of submarine day, and these shoals of rainbow fish have not enraptured me again. before we could raise our eyes from that engaging spectacle the schooner had slipped betwixt the pier-heads of the reef, and was already quite committed to the sea within. the containing shores are so little erected, and the lagoon itself is so great, that, for the more part, it seemed to extend without a check to the horizon. here and there, indeed, where the reef carried an inlet, like a signet-ring upon a finger, there would be a pencilling of palms; here and there, the green wall of wood ran solid for a length of miles; and on the port hand, under the highest grove of trees, a few houses sparkled white--rotoava, the metropolitan settlement of the paumotus. hither we beat in three tacks, and came to an anchor close in shore, in the first smooth water since we had left san francisco, five fathoms deep, where a man might look overboard all day at the vanishing cable, the coral patches, and the many-coloured fish. fakarava was chosen to be the seat of government from nautical considerations only. it is eccentrically situate; the productions, even for a low island, poor; the population neither many nor--for low islanders--industrious. but the lagoon has two good passages, one to leeward, one to windward, so that in all states of the wind it can be left and entered, and this advantage, for a government of scattered islands, was decisive. a pier of coral, landing-stairs, a harbour light upon a staff and pillar, and two spacious government bungalows in a handsome fence, give to the northern end of rotoava a great air of consequence. this is confirmed on the one hand by an empty prison, on the other by a gendarmerie pasted over with handbills in tahitian, land-law notices from papeete, and republican sentiments from paris, signed (a little after date) "jules grévy, _perihidente_." quite at the far end a belfried catholic chapel concludes the town; and between, on a smooth floor of white coral sand and under the breezy canopy of coco-palms, the houses of the natives stand irregularly scattered, now close on the lagoon for the sake of the breeze, now back under the palms for love of shadow. not a soul was to be seen. but for the thunder of the surf on the far side, it seemed you might have heard a pin drop anywhere about that capital city. there was something thrilling in the unexpected silence, something yet more so in the unexpected sound. here before us a sea reached to the horizon, rippling like an inland mere; and, behold! close at our back another sea assaulted with assiduous fury the reverse of the position. at night the lantern was run up and lit a vacant pier. in one house lights were seen and voices heard, where the population (i was told) sat playing cards. a little beyond, from deep in the darkness of the palm grove, we saw the glow and smelt the aromatic odour of a coal of cocoa-nut husk, a relic of the evening kitchen. crickets sang; some shrill thing whistled in a tuft of weeds; and the mosquito hummed and stung. there was no other trace that night of man, bird, or insect in the isle. the moon, now three days old, and as yet but a silver crescent on a still visible sphere, shone through the palm canopy with vigorous and scattered lights. the alleys where we walked were smoothed and weeded like a boulevard; here and there were plants set out; here and there dusky cottages clustered in the shadow, some with verandahs. a public garden by night, a rich and fashionable watering-place in a by-season, offer sights and vistas not dissimilar. and still, on the one side, stretched the lapping mere, and from the other the deep sea still growled in the night. but it was most of all on board, in the dead hours, when i had been better sleeping, that the spell of fakarava seized and held me. the moon was down. the harbour lantern and two of the greater planets drew vari-coloured wakes on the lagoon. from shore the cheerful watch-cry of cocks rang out at intervals above the organ-point of surf. and the thought of this depopulated capital, this protracted thread of annular island with its crest of coco-palms and fringe of breakers, and that tranquil inland sea that stretched before me till it touched the stars, ran in my head for hours with delight. so long as i stayed upon that isle these thoughts were constant. i lay down to sleep, and woke again with an unblunted sense of my surroundings. i was never weary of calling up the image of that narrow causeway, on which i had my dwelling, lying coiled like a serpent, tail to mouth, in the outrageous ocean, and i was never weary of passing--a mere quarter-deck parade--from the one side to the other, from the shady, habitable shores of the lagoon to the blinding desert and uproarious breakers of the opposite beach. the sense of insecurity in such a thread of residence is more than fanciful. hurricanes and tidal waves over-leap these humble obstacles; oceanus remembers his strength, and, where houses stood and palms flourished, shakes his white beard again over the barren coral. fakarava itself has suffered; the trees immediately beyond my house were all of recent replantation; and anaa is only now recovered from a heavier stroke. i knew one who was then dwelling in the isle. he told me that he and two ship captains walked to the sea beach. there for a while they viewed the on-coming breakers, till one of the captains clapped suddenly his hand before his eyes and cried aloud that he could endure no longer to behold them. this was in the afternoon; in the dark hours of the night the sea burst upon the island like a flood; the settlement was razed, all but the church and presbytery; and, when day returned, the survivors saw themselves clinging in an abattis of uprooted coco-palms and ruined houses. danger is but a small consideration. but men are more nicely sensible of a discomfort; and the atoll is a discomfortable home. there are some, and these probably ancient, where a deep soil has formed and the most valuable fruit-trees prosper. i have walked in one, with equal admiration and surprise, through a forest of huge breadfruits, eating bananas and stumbling among taro as i went. this was in the atoll of namorik in the marshall group, and stands alone in my experience. to give the opposite extreme, which is yet far more near the average, i will describe the soil and productions of fakarava. the surface of that narrow strip is for the more part of broken coral limestone, like volcanic clinkers, and excruciating to the naked foot; in some atolls, i believe, not in fakarava, it gives a fine metallic ring when struck. here and there you come upon a bank of sand, exceeding fine and white, and these parts are the least productive. the plants (such as they are) spring from and love the broken coral, whence they grow with that wonderful verdancy that makes the beauty of the atoll from the sea. the coco-palm in particular luxuriates in that stern _solum_, striking down his roots to the brackish, percolated water, and bearing his green head in the wind with every evidence of health and pleasure. and yet even the coco-palm must be helped in infancy with some extraneous nutriment, and through much of the low archipelago there is planted with each nut a piece of ship's biscuit and a rusty nail. the pandanus comes next in importance, being also a food tree; and he, too, does bravely. a green bush called _miki_ runs everywhere; occasionally a purao is seen; and there are several useless weeds. according to m. cuzent, the whole number of plants on an atoll such as fakarava will scarce exceed, even if it reaches to, one score. not a blade of grass appears; not a grain of humus, save when a sack or two has been imported to make the semblance of a garden; such gardens as bloom in cities on the window-sill. insect life is sometimes dense; a cloud of mosquitoes, and, what is far worse, a plague of flies blackening our food, have sometimes driven us from a meal on apemama; and even in fakarava the mosquitoes were a pest. the land crab may be seen scuttling to his hole, and at night the rats besiege the houses and the artificial gardens. the crab is good eating; possibly so is the rat; i have not tried. pandanus fruit is made, in the gilberts, into an agreeable sweetmeat, such as a man may trifle with at the end of a long dinner; for a substantial meal i have no use for it. the rest of the food-supply, in a destitute atoll such as fakarava, can be summed up in the favourite jest of the archipelago--cocoa-nut beefsteak. cocoa-nut green, cocoa-nut ripe, cocoa-nut germinated; cocoa-nut to eat and cocoa-nut to drink; cocoa-nut raw and cooked, cocoa-nut hot and cold--such is the bill of fare. and some of the entrees are no doubt delicious. the germinated nut, cooked in the shell and eaten with a spoon, forms a good pudding; cocoa-nut milk--the expressed juice of a ripe nut, not the water of a green one--goes well in coffee, and is a valuable adjunct in cookery through the south seas; and cocoa-nut salad, if you be a millionaire, and can afford to eat the value of a field of corn for your dessert, is a dish to be remembered with affection. but when all is done there is a sameness, and the israelites of the low islands murmur at their manna. the reader may think i have forgot the sea. the two beaches do certainly abound in life, and they are strangely different. in the lagoon the water shallows slowly on a bottom of fine slimy sand, dotted with clumps of growing coral. then comes a strip of tidal beach on which the ripples lap. in the coral clumps the great holy-water clam (_tridacna_) grows plentifully; a little deeper lie the beds of the pearl-oyster and sail the resplendent fish that charmed us at our entrance; and these are all more or less vigorously coloured. but the other shells are white like lime, or faintly tinted with a little pink, the palest possible display; many of them dead besides, and badly rolled. on the ocean side, on the mounds of the steep beach, over all the width of the reef right out to where the surf is bursting, in every cranny, under every scattered fragment of the coral, an incredible plenty of marine life displays the most wonderful variety and brilliancy of hues. the reef itself has no passage of colour but is imitated by some shell. purple and red and white, and green and yellow, pied and striped and clouded, the living shells wear in every combination the livery of the dead reef--if the reef be dead--so that the eye is continually baffled and the collector continually deceived. i have taken shells for stones and stones for shells, the one as often as the other. a prevailing character of the coral is to be dotted with small spots of red, and it is wonderful how many varieties of shell have adopted the same fashion and donned the disguise of the red spot. a shell i had found in plenty in the marquesas i found here also unchanged in all things else, but there were the red spots. a lively little crab wore the same marking. the case of the hermit or soldier crab was more conclusive, being the result of conscious choice. this nasty little wrecker, scavenger, and squatter has learned the value of a spotted house; so it be of the right colour he will choose the smallest shard, tuck himself in a mere corner of a broken whorl, and go about the world half naked; but i never found him in this imperfect armour unless it was marked with the red spot. some two hundred yards distant is the beach of the lagoon. collect the shells from each, set them side by side, and you would suppose they came from different hemispheres; the one so pale, the other so brilliant; the one prevalently white, the other of a score of hues, and infected with the scarlet spot like a disease. this seems the more strange, since the hermit crabs pass and repass the island, and i have met them by the residency well, which is about central, journeying either way. without doubt many of the shells in the lagoon are dead. but why are they dead? without doubt the living shells have a very different background set for imitation. but why are these so different? we are only on the threshold of the mysteries. either beach, i have said, abounds with life. on the sea-side and in certain atolls this profusion of vitality is even shocking: the rock under foot is mined with it. i have broken oft--notably in funafuti and arorai[ ]--great lumps of ancient weathered rock that rang under my blows like iron, and the fracture has been full of pendent worms as long as my hand, as thick as a child's finger, of a slightly pinkish white, and set as close as three or even four to the square inch. even in the lagoon, where certain shell-fish seem to sicken, others (it is notorious) prosper exceedingly and make the riches of these islands. fish, too, abound; the lagoon is a closed fish-pond, such as might rejoice the fancy of an abbot; sharks swarm there, and chiefly round the passages, to feast upon this plenty, and you would suppose that man had only to prepare his angle. alas! it is not so. of these painted fish that came in hordes about the entering _casco_, some bore poisonous spines, and others were poisonous if eaten. the stranger must refrain, or take his chance of painful and dangerous sickness. the native, on his own isle, is a safe guide; transplant him to the next, and he is as helpless as yourself. for it is a question both of time and place. a fish caught in a lagoon may be deadly; the same fish caught the same day at sea, and only a few hundred yards without the passage, will be wholesome eating: in a neighbouring isle perhaps the case will be reversed; and perhaps a fortnight later you shall be able to eat of them indifferently from within and from without. according to the natives, these bewildering vicissitudes are ruled by the movement of the heavenly bodies. the beautiful planet venus plays a great part in all island tales and customs; and among other functions, some of them more awful, she regulates the season of good fish. with venus in one phase, as we had her, certain fish were poisonous in the lagoon: with venus in another, the same fish was harmless and a valued article of diet. white men explain these changes by the phases of the coral. it adds a last touch of horror to the thought of this precarious annular gangway in the sea, that even what there is of it is not of honest rock, but organic, part alive, part putrescent; even the clean sea and the bright fish about it poisoned, the most stubborn boulder burrowed in by worms, the lightest dust venomous as an apothecary's drugs. footnote: [ ] arorai is in the gilberts, funafuti in the ellice islands.--ed. chapter iii a house to let in a low island never populous, it was yet by a chapter of accidents that i found the island so deserted that no sound of human life diversified the hours; that we walked in the trim public garden of a town, among closed houses, without even a lodging-bill in a window to prove some tenancy in the back quarters; and, when we visited the government bungalow, that mr. donat, acting vice-resident, greeted us alone, and entertained us with cocoa-nut punches in the sessions hall and seat of judgment of that widespread archipelago, our glasses standing arrayed with summonses and census returns. the unpopularity of the late vice-resident had begun the movement of exodus, his native employés resigning court appointments and retiring each to his own coco-patch in the remoter districts of the isle. upon the back of that, the governor in papeete issued a decree: all land in the paumotus must be defined and registered by a certain date. now, the folk of the archipelago are half nomadic; a man can scarce be said to belong to a particular atoll; he belongs to several, perhaps holds a stake and counts cousinship in half a score; and the inhabitants of rotoava in particular, man, woman, and child, and from the gendarme to the mormon prophet and the schoolmaster, owned--i was going to say land--owned at least coral blocks and growing coco-palms in some adjacent isle. thither--from the gendarme to the babe in arms, the pastor followed by his flock, the schoolmaster carrying along with him his scholars, and the scholars with their books and slates--they had taken ship some two days previous to our arrival, and were all now engaged disputing boundaries. fancy overhears the shrillness of their disputation mingle with the surf and scatter sea-fowl. it was admirable to observe the completeness of their flight, like that of hibernating birds; nothing left but empty houses, like old nests to be reoccupied in spring; and even the harmless necessary dominie borne with them in their transmigration. fifty odd set out, and only seven, i was informed, remained. but when i made a feast on board the _casco_, more than seven, and nearer seven times seven, appeared to be my guests. whence they appeared, how they were summoned, whither they vanished when the feast was eaten, i have no guess. in view of low island tales, and that awful frequentation which makes men avoid the seaward beaches of an atoll, some two score of those that ate with us may have returned, for the occasion, from the kingdom of the dead. it was this solitude that put it in our minds to hire a house, and become, for the time being, indwellers of the isle--a practice i have ever since, when it was possible, adhered to. mr. donat placed us, with that intent, under the convoy of one taniera mahinui, who combined the incongruous characters of catechist and convict. the reader may smile, but i affirm he was well qualified for either part. for that of convict, first of all, by a good substantial felony, such as in all lands casts the perpetrator in chains and dungeons. taniera was a man of birth--the chief a while ago, as he loved to tell, of a district in anaa of souls. in an evil hour it occurred to the authorities in papeete to charge the chiefs with the collection of the taxes. it is a question if much were collected; it is certain that nothing was handed on; and taniera, who had distinguished himself by a visit to papeete and some high living in restaurants, was chosen for the scapegoat. the reader must understand that not taniera but the authorities in papeete were first in fault. the charge imposed was disproportioned. i have not yet heard of any polynesian capable of such a burden; honest and upright hawaiians--one in particular, who was admired even by the whites as an inflexible magistrate--have stumbled in the narrow path of the trustee. and taniera, when the pinch came, scorned to denounce accomplices; others had shared the spoil, he bore the penalty alone. he was condemned in five years. the period, when i had the pleasure of his friendship, was not yet expired; he still drew prison rations, the sole and not unwelcome reminder of his chains, and, i believe, looked forward to the date of his enfranchisement with mere alarm. for he had no sense of shame in the position; complained of nothing but the defective table of his place of exile; regretted nothing but the fowls and eggs and fish of his own more favoured island. and as for his parishioners, they did not think one hair the less of him. a schoolboy, mulcted in ten thousand lines of greek and dwelling sequestered in the dormitories, enjoys unabated consideration from his fellows. so with taniera: a marked man, not a dishonoured; having fallen under the lash of the unthinkable gods; a job, perhaps, or say a taniera in the den of lions. songs are likely made and sung about this saintly robin hood. on the other hand, he was even highly qualified for his office in the church; being by nature a grave, considerate, and kindly man; his face rugged and serious, his smile bright; the master of several trades, a builder both of boats and houses; endowed with a fine pulpit voice; endowed besides with such a gift of eloquence that at the grave of the late chief of fakarava he set all the assistants weeping. i never met a man of a mind more ecclesiastical; he loved to dispute and to inform himself of doctrine and the history of sects; and when i showed him the cuts in a volume of chambers's "encyclopædia"--except for one of an ape--reserved his whole enthusiasm for cardinals' hats, censers, candlesticks, and cathedrals. methought when he looked upon the cardinal's hat a voice said low in his ear: "your foot is on the ladder." under the guidance of taniera we were soon installed in what i believe to have been the best-appointed private house in fakarava. it stood just beyond the church in an oblong patch of cultivation. more than three hundred sacks of soil were imported from tahiti for the residency garden; and this must shortly be renewed, for the earth blows away, sinks in crevices of the coral, and is sought for at last in vain. i know not how much earth had gone to the garden of my villa; some at least, for an alley of prosperous bananas ran to the gate, and over the rest of the enclosure, which was covered with the usual clinker-like fragments of smashed coral, not only coco-palms and mikis but also fig-trees flourished, all of a delicious greenness. of course there was no blade of grass. in front a picket fence divided us from the white road, the palm-fringed margin of the lagoon, and the lagoon itself, reflecting clouds by day and stars by night. at the back, a bulwark of uncemented coral enclosed us from the narrow belt of bush and the nigh ocean beach where the seas thundered, the roar and wash of them still humming in the chambers of the house. this itself was of one story, verandahed front and back. it contained three rooms, three sewing-machines, three sea-chests, chairs, tables, a pair of beds, a cradle, a double-barrelled gun, a pair of enlarged coloured photographs, a pair of coloured prints after wilkie and mulready, and a french lithograph with the legend: "_le brigade du général lepasset brûlant son drapeau devant metz._" under the stilts of the house a stove was rusting, till we drew it forth and put it in commission. not far off was the burrow in the coral whence we supplied ourselves with brackish water. there was live stock, besides, on the estate--cocks and hens and a brace of ill-regulated cats, whom taniera came every morning with the sun to feed on grated cocoa-nut. his voice was our regular réveille, ringing pleasantly about the garden: "pooty--pooty--poo--poo--poo!" far as we were from the public offices, the nearness of the chapel made our situation what is called eligible in advertisements, and gave us a side look on some native life. every morning, as soon as he had fed the fowls, taniera set the bell agoing in the small belfry; and the faithful, who were not very numerous, gathered to prayers. i was once present: it was the lord's day, and seven females and eight males composed the congregation. a woman played precentor, starting with a longish note; the catechist joined in upon the second bar; and then the faithful in a body. some had printed hymn-books which they followed; some of the rest filled up with "eh--eh--eh," the paumotuan tol-de-rol. after the hymn, we had an antiphonal prayer or two; and then taniera rose from the front bench, where he had been sitting in his catechist's robes, passed within the altar-rails, opened his tahitian bible, and began to preach from notes. i understood one word--the name of god; but the preacher managed his voice with taste, used rare and expressive gestures, and made a strong impression of sincerity. the plain service, the vernacular bible, the hymn-tunes mostly on an english pattern--"god save the queen," i was informed, a special favourite,--all, save some paper flowers upon the altar, seemed not merely but austerely protestant. it is thus the catholics have met their low island proselytes half-way. taniera had the keys of our house; it was with him i made my bargain, if that could be called a bargain in which all was remitted to my generosity; it was he who fed the cats and poultry, he who came to call and pick a meal with us like an acknowledged friend; and we long fondly supposed he was our landlord. this belief was not to bear the test of experience; and, as my chapter has to relate, no certainty succeeded it. we passed some days of airless quiet and great heat; shell-gatherers were warned from the ocean beach, where sunstroke waited them from ten till four; the highest palm hung motionless, there was no voice audible but that of the sea on the far side. at last, about four of a certain afternoon, long cat's-paws flawed the face of the lagoon; and presently in the tree-tops there awoke the grateful bustle of the trades, and all the houses and alleys of the island were fanned out. to more than one enchanted ship, that had lain long becalmed in view of the green shore, the wind brought deliverance; and by daylight on the morrow a schooner and two cutters lay moored in the port of rotoava. not only in the outer sea, but in the lagoon itself, a certain traffic woke with the reviving breeze; and among the rest one françois, a half-blood, set sail with the first light in his own half-decked cutter. he had held before a court appointment; being, i believe, the residency sweeper-out. trouble arising with the unpopular vice-resident, he had thrown his honours down, and fled to the far parts of the atoll to plant cabbages--or at least coco-palms. thence he was now driven by such need as even a cincinnatus must acknowledge, and fared for the capital city, the seat of his late functions, to exchange half a ton of copra for necessary flour. and here, for a while, the story leaves to tell of his voyaging. it must tell, instead, of our house, where, toward seven at night, the catechist came suddenly in with his pleased air of being welcome; armed besides with a considerable bunch of keys. these he proceeded to try on the sea-chests, drawing each in turn from its place against the wall. heads of strangers appeared in the doorway and volunteered suggestions. all in vain. either they were the wrong keys or the wrong boxes, or the wrong man was trying them. for a little taniera fumed and fretted; then had recourse to the more summary method of the hatchet; one of the chests was broken open, and an armful of clothing, male and female, baled out and handed to the strangers on the verandah. these were françois, his wife, and their child. about eight a.m., in the midst of the lagoon, their cutter had capsized in jibbing. they got her righted, and though she was still full of water put the child on board. the mainsail had been carried away, but the jib still drew her sluggishly along, and françois and the woman swam astern and worked the rudder with their hands. the cold was cruel; the fatigue, as time went on, became excessive; and in that preserve of sharks, fear haunted them. again and again, françois, the half-breed, would have desisted and gone down; but the woman, whole blood of an amphibious race, still supported him with cheerful words. i am reminded of a woman of hawaii who swam with her husband, i dare not say how many miles, in a high sea, and came ashore at last with his dead body in her arms. it was about five in the evening, after nine hours' swimming, that françois and his wife reached land at rotoava. the gallant fight was won, and instantly the more childish side of native character appears. they had supped, and told and retold their story, dripping as they came; the flesh of the woman, whom mrs. stevenson helped to shift, was cold as stone; and françois, having changed to a dry cotton shirt and trousers, passed the remainder of the evening on my floor and between open doorways, in a thorough draught. yet françois, the son of a french father, speaks excellent french himself and seems intelligent. it was our first idea that the catechist, true to his evangelical vocation, was clothing the naked from his superfluity. then it came out that françois was but dealing with his own. the clothes were his, so was the chest, so was the house. françois was in fact the landlord. yet you observe he had hung back on the verandah while taniera tried his 'prentice hand upon the locks; and even now, when his true character appeared, the only use he made of the estate was to leave the clothes of his family drying on the fence. taniera was still the friend of the house, still fed the poultry, still came about us on his daily visits; françois, during the remainder of his stay, holding bashfully aloof. and there was stranger matter. since françois had lost the whole load of his cutter, the half ton of copra, an axe, bowls, knives, and clothes--since he had in a manner to begin the world again, and his necessary flour was not yet bought or paid for--i proposed to advance him what he needed on the rent. to my enduring amazement he refused, and the reason he gave--if that can be called a reason which but darkens counsel--was that taniera was his friend. his friend, you observe, not his creditor. i inquired into that, and was assured that taniera, an exile in a strange isle, might possibly be in debt himself, but certainly was no man's creditor. very early one morning we were awakened by a bustling presence in the yard, and found our camp had been surprised by a tall, lean, old native lady, dressed in what were obviously widow's weeds. you could see at a glance she was a notable woman, a housewife, sternly practical, alive with energy, and with fine possibilities of temper. indeed there was nothing native about her but the skin; and the type abounds, and is everywhere respected nearer home. it did us good to see her scour the grounds, examining the plants and chickens; watering, feeding, trimming them; taking angry, purpose-like possession. when she neared the house our sympathy abated; when she came to the broken chest i wished i were elsewhere. we had scarce a word in common; but her whole lean body spoke for her with indignant eloquence. "my chest!" it cried, with a stress on the possessive. "my chest--broken open! this is a fine state of things!" i hastened to lay the blame where it belonged--on françois and his wife--and found i had made things worse instead of better. she repeated the names at first with incredulity, then with despair. a while she seemed stunned, next fell to disembowelling the box, piling the goods on the floor, and visibly computing the extent of françois's ravages; and presently after she was observed in high speech with taniera, who seemed to hang an ear like one reproved. here, then, by all known marks, should be my landlady at last; here was every character of the proprietor fully developed. should i not approach her on the still depending question of my rent? i carried the point to an adviser. "nonsense!" he cried. "that's the old woman, the mother. it doesn't belong to her. i believe that's the man the house belongs to," and he pointed to one of the coloured photographs on the wall. on this i gave up all desire of understanding; and when the time came for me to leave, in the judgment-hall of the archipelago, and with the awful countenance of the acting governor, i duly paid my rent to taniera. he was satisfied, and so was i. but what had he to do with it? mr. donat, acting magistrate and a man of kindred blood, could throw no light upon the mystery; a plain private person, with a taste for letters, cannot be expected to do more. chapter iv traits and sects in the paumotus the most careless reader must have remarked a change of air since the marquesas. the house, crowded with effects, the bustling housewife counting her possessions, the serious, indoctrinated island pastor, the long fight for life in a lagoon: here are traits of a new world. i read in a pamphlet (i will not give the author's name) that the marquesan especially resembles the paumotuan. i should take the two races, though so near in neighbourhood, to be extremes of polynesian diversity. the marquesan is certainly the most beautiful of human races, and one of the tallest--the paumotuan averaging a good inch shorter, and not even handsome; the marquesan open-handed, inert, insensible to religion, childishly self-indulgent--the paumotuan greedy, hardy, enterprising, a religious disputant, and with a trace of the ascetic character. yet a few years ago, and the people of the archipelago were crafty savages. their isles might be called sirens' isles, not merely from the attraction they exerted on the passing mariner, but from the perils that awaited him on shore. even to this day, in certain outlying islands, danger lingers: and the civilised paumotuan dreads to land and hesitates to accost his backward brother. but, except in these, to-day the peril is a memory. when our generation were yet in the cradle and playroom it was still a living fact. between and , hao, for instance, was a place of the most dangerous approach, where ships were seized and crews kidnapped. as late as , the schooner _sarah ann_ sailed from papeete and was seen no more. she had women on board, and children, the captain's wife, a nursemaid, a baby, and the two young sons of a captain steven on their way to the mainland for schooling. all were supposed to have perished in a squall. a year later, the captain of the _julia_, coasting along the island variously called bligh, lagoon, and tematangi, saw armed natives follow the course of his schooner, clad in many coloured stuffs. suspicion was at once aroused; the mother of the lost children was profuse of money; and one expedition having found the place deserted and returned content with firing a few shots, she raised and herself accompanied another. none appeared to greet or to oppose them; they roamed a while among abandoned huts and empty thickets; then formed two parties and set forth to beat, from end to end, the pandanus jungle of the island. one man remained alone by the landing-place--teina, a chief of anaa, leader of the armed natives who made the strength of the expedition. now that his comrades were departed this way and that, on their laborious exploration, the silence fell profound; and this silence was the ruin of the islanders. a sound of stones rattling caught the ear of teina. he looked, thinking to perceive a crab, and saw instead the brown hand of a human being issue from a fissure in the ground. a shout recalled the search parties and announced their doom to the buried caitiffs. in the cave below, sixteen were found crouching among human bones and singular and horrid curiosities. one was a head of golden hair, supposed to be a relic of the captain's wife, another was half of the body of a european child, sun-dried and stuck upon a stick, doubtless with some design of wizardry. the paumotuan is eager to be rich. he saves, grudges, buries money, fears not work. for a dollar each, two natives passed the hours of daylight cleaning our ship's copper. it was strange to see them so indefatigable and so much at ease in the water--working at times with their pipes lighted, the smoker at times submerged and only the glowing bowl above the surface; it was stranger still to think they were next congeners to the incapable marquesan. but the paumotuan not only saves, grudges, and works, he steals besides; or, to be more precise, he swindles. he will never deny a debt, he only flees his creditor. he is always keen for an advance; so soon as he has fingered it he disappears. he knows your ship; so soon as it nears one island, he is off to another. you may think you know his name; he has already changed it. pursuit in that infinity of isles were fruitless. the result can be given in a nutshell. it has been actually proposed in a government report to secure debts by taking a photograph of the debtor; and the other day in papeete credits on the paumotus to the amount of sixteen thousand pounds were sold for less than forty--_quatre cent mille francs pour moins de mille francs_. even so, the purchase was thought hazardous; and only the man who made it and who had special opportunities could have dared to give so much. the paumotuan is sincerely attached to those of his own blood and household. a touching affection sometimes unites wife and husband. their children, while they are alive, completely rule them; after they are dead, their bones or their mummies are often jealously preserved and carried from atoll to atoll in the wanderings of the family. i was told there were many houses in fakarava with the mummy of a child locked in a sea-chest; after i heard it, i would glance a little jealously at those by my own bed; in that cupboard, also, it was possible there was a tiny skeleton. the race seems in a fair way to survive. from fifteen islands, whose rolls i had occasion to consult, i found a proportion of births to deaths for . dropping three out of the fifteen, there remained for the other twelve the comfortable ratio of births to deaths. long habits of hardship and activity doubtless explain the contrast with marquesan figures. but the paumotuan displays, besides, a certain concern for health and the rudiments of a sanitary discipline. public talk with these free-spoken people plays the part of the contagious diseases act; incomers to fresh islands anxiously inquire if all be well; and syphilis, when contracted, is successfully treated with indigenous herbs. like their neighbours of tahiti, from whom they have perhaps imbibed the error, they regard leprosy with comparative indifference, elephantiasis with disproportionate fear. but, unlike indeed to the tahitian, their alarm puts on the guise of self-defence. any one stricken with this painful and ugly malady is confined to the ends of villages, denied the use of paths and highways, and condemned to transport himself between his house and coco-patch by water only, his very footprint being held infectious. fe'efe'e, being a creature of marshes and the sequel of malarial fever, is not original in atolls. on the single isle of makatea, where the lagoon is now a marsh, the disease has made a home. many suffer: they are excluded (if mr. wilmot be right) from much of the comfort of society; and it is believed they take a secret vengeance. the dejections of the sick are considered highly poisonous. early in the morning, it is narrated, aged and malicious persons creep into the sleeping village, and stealthily make water at the doors of the houses of young men. thus they propagate disease; thus they breathe on and obliterate comeliness and health, the objects of their envy. whether horrid fact or more abominable legend, it equally depicts that something bitter and energetic which distinguishes paumotuan man. the archipelago is divided between two main religions, catholic and mormon. they front each other proudly with a false air of permanence; yet are but shapes, their membership in a perpetual flux. the mormon attends mass with devotion; the catholic sits attentive at a mormon sermon, and to-morrow each may have transferred allegiance. one man had been a pillar of the church of rome for fifteen years; his wife dying, he decided that must be a poor religion that could not save a man his wife, and turned mormon. according to one informant, catholicism was the more fashionable in health, but on the approach of sickness it was judged prudent to secede. as a mormon, there were five chances out of six you might recover; as a catholic, your hopes were small; and this opinion is perhaps founded on the comfortable rite of unction. we all know what catholics are, whether in the paumotus or at home. but the paumotuan mormon seemed a phenomenon apart. he marries but the one wife, uses the protestant bible, observes protestant forms of worship, forbids the use of liquor and tobacco, practises adult baptism by immersion, and after every public sin, rechristens the backslider. i advised with mahinui, whom i found well informed in the history of the american mormons, and he declared against the least connection. "_pour moi_," said he, with a fine charity, "_les mormons ici un petit catholiques_." some months later i had an opportunity to consult an orthodox fellow-countryman, an old dissenting highlander, long settled in tahiti, but still breathing of the heather of tiree. "why do they call themselves mormons?" i asked. "my dear, and that is my question!" he exclaimed. "for by all that i can hear of their doctrine, i have nothing to say against it, and their life, it is above reproach." and for all that, mormons they are, but of the earlier sowing: the so-called josephites, the followers of joseph smith, the opponents of brigham young. grant, then, the mormons to be mormons. fresh points at once arise: "what are the israelites? and what the kanitus?" for a long while back the sect had been divided into mormons proper and so-called israelites, i never could hear why. a few years since there came a visiting missionary of the name of williams, who made an excellent collection, and retired, leaving fresh disruption imminent. something irregular (as i was told) in his way of "opening the service" had raised partisans and enemies; the church was once more rent asunder; and a new sect, the kanitu, issued from the division. since then kanitus and israelites, like the cameronians and the united presbyterians, have made common cause; and the ecclesiastical history of the paumotus is, for the moment, uneventful. there will be more doing before long, and these isles bid fair to be the scotland of the south. two things i could never learn. the nature of the innovations of the rev. mr. williams none would tell me, and of the meaning of the name kanitu none had a guess. it was not tahitian, it was not marquesan; it formed no part of that ancient speech of the paumotus, now passing swiftly into obsolescence. one man, a priest, god bless him! said it was the latin for a little dog. i have found it since as the name of a god in new guinea; it must be a bolder man than i who should hint at a connection. here, then, is a singular thing: a brand-new sect, arising by popular acclamation, and a nonsense word invented for its name. the design of mystery seems obvious, and according to a very intelligent observer, mr. magee of mangareva, this element of the mysterious is a chief attraction of the mormon church. it enjoys some of the status of freemasonry at home, and there is for the convert some of the exhilaration of adventure. other attractions are certainly conjoined. perpetual rebaptism, leading to a succession of baptismal feasts, is found, both from the social and the spiritual side, a pleasing feature. more important is the fact that all the faithful enjoy office; perhaps more important still, the strictness of the discipline. "the veto on liquor," said mr. magee, "brings them plenty members." there is no doubt these islanders are fond of drink, and no doubt they refrain from the indulgence; a bout on a feast-day, for instance, may be followed by a week or a month of rigorous sobriety. mr. wilmot attributes this to paumotuan frugality and the love of hoarding; it goes far deeper. i have mentioned that i made a feast on board the _casco_. to wash down ship's bread and jam, each guest was given the choice of rum or syrup, and out of the whole number only one man voted--in a defiant tone, and amid shouts of mirth--for "trum"! this was in public. i had the meanness to repeat the experiment, whenever i had a chance, within the four walls of my house; and three at least, who had refused at the festival, greedily drank rum behind a door. but there were others thoroughly consistent. i said the virtues of the race were bourgeois and puritan; and how bourgeois is this! how puritanic! how scottish! and how yankee!--the temptation, the resistance, the public hypocritical conformity, the pharisees, the holy willies, and the true disciples. with such a people the popularity of an ascetic church appears legitimate; in these strict rules, in this perpetual supervision, the weak find their advantage, the strong a certain pleasure; and the doctrine of rebaptism, a clean bill and a fresh start, will comfort many staggering professors. there is yet another sect, or what is called a sect--no doubt improperly--that of the whistlers. duncan cameron, so clear in favour of the mormons, was no less loud in condemnation of the whistlers. yet i do not know; i still fancy there is some connection, perhaps fortuitous, probably disavowed. here at least are some doings in the house of an israelite clergyman (or prophet) in the island anaa, of which i am equally sure that duncan would disclaim and the whistlers hail them for an imitation of their own. my informant, a tahitian and a catholic, occupied one part of the house; the prophet and his family lived in the other. night after night the mormons, in the one end, held their evening sacrifice of song; night after night, in the other, the wife of the tahitian lay awake and listened to their singing with amazement. at length she could contain herself no longer, woke her husband, and asked him what he heard. "i hear several persons singing hymns," said he. "yes," she returned, "but listen again! do you not hear something supernatural?" his attention thus directed, he was aware of a strange buzzing voice--and yet he declared it was beautiful--which justly accompanied the singers. the next day he made inquiries. "it is a spirit," said the prophet, with entire simplicity, "which has lately made a practice of joining us at family worship." it did not appear the thing was visible, and, like other spirits raised nearer home in these degenerate days, it was rudely ignorant, at first could only buzz, and had only learned of late to bear a part correctly in the music. the performances of the whistlers are more business-like. their meetings are held publicly with open doors, all being "cordially invited to attend." the faithful sit about the room--according to one informant, singing hymns; according to another, now singing and now whistling; the leader, the wizard--let me rather say, the medium--sits in the midst, enveloped in a sheet and silent; and presently, from just above his head, or sometimes from the midst of the roof, an aerial whistling proceeds, appalling to the inexperienced. this, it appears, is the language of the dead; its purport is taken down progressively by one of the expert, writing, i was told, "as fast as a telegraph operator"; and the communications are at last made public. they are of the baldest triviality; a schooner is perhaps announced, some idle gossip reported of a neighbour, or if the spirit shall have been called to consultation on a case of sickness, a remedy may be suggested. one of these, immersion in scalding water, not long ago proved fatal to the patient. the whole business is very dreary, very silly, and very european; it has none of the picturesque qualities of similar conjurations in new zealand; it seems to possess no kernel of possible sense, like some that i shall describe among the gilbert islanders. yet i was told that many hardy, intelligent natives were inveterate whistlers. "like mahinui?" i asked, willing to have a standard; and i was told "yes." why should i wonder? men more enlightened than my convict catechist sit down at home to follies equally sterile and dull. the medium is sometimes female. it was a woman, for instance, who introduced these practices on the north coast of taiarapu, to the scandal of her own connections, her brother-in-law in particular declaring she was drunk. but what shocked tahiti might seem fit enough in the paumotus, the more so as certain women there possess, by the gift of nature, singular and useful powers. they say they are honest, well-intentioned ladies, some of them embarrassed by their weird inheritance. and indeed the trouble caused by this endowment is so great, and the protection afforded so infinitesimally small, that i hesitate whether to call it a gift or a hereditary curse. you may rob this lady's coco-patch, steal her canoes, burn down her house, and slay her family scatheless; but one thing you must not do: you must not lay a hand upon her sleeping-mat, or your belly will swell, and you can only be cured by the lady or her husband. here is the report of an eyewitness, tasmanian born, educated, a man who has made money--certainly no fool. in he was present in a house on makatea, where two lads began to skylark on the mats, and were (i think) ejected. instantly after, their bellies began to swell; pains took hold on them; all manner of island remedies were exhibited in vain, and rubbing only magnified their sufferings. the man of the house was called, explained the nature of the visitation, and prepared the cure. a cocoa-nut was husked, filled with herbs, and with all the ceremonies of a launch, and the utterance of spells in the paumotuan language, committed to the sea. from that moment the pains began to grow more easy and the swelling to subside. the reader may stare. i can assure him, if he moved much among old residents of the archipelago, he would be driven to admit one thing of two--either that there is something in the swollen bellies or nothing in the evidence of man. i have not met these gifted ladies; but i had an experience of my own, for i have played, for one night only, the part of the whistling spirit. it had been blowing wearily all day, but with the fall of night the wind abated, and the moon, which was then full, rolled in a clear sky. we went southward down the island on the side of the lagoon, walking through long-drawn forest aisles of palm, and on a floor of snowy sand. no life was abroad, nor sound of life; till in a clear part of the isle we spied the embers of a fire, and not far off, in a dark house, heard natives talking softly. to sit without a light, even in company, and under cover, is for a paumotuan a somewhat hazardous extreme. the whole scene--the strong moonlight and crude shadows on the sand, the scattered coals, the sound of the low voices from the house, and the lap of the lagoon along the beach--put me (i know not how) on thoughts of superstition. i was barefoot, i observed my steps were noiseless, and drawing near to the dark house, but keeping well in shadow, began to whistle. "the heaving of the lead" was my air--no very tragic piece. with the first note the conversation and all movement ceased; silence accompanied me while i continued; and when i passed that way on my return, i found the lamp was lighted in the house, but the tongues were still mute. all night, as i now think, the wretches shivered and were silent. for indeed, i had no guess at the time at the nature and magnitude of the terrors i inflicted, or with what grisly images the notes of that old song had peopled the dark house. chapter v a paumotuan funeral no, i had no guess of these men's terrors. yet i had received ere that a hint, if i had understood; and the occasion was a funeral. a little apart in the main avenue of rotoava, in a low hut of leaves that opened on a small enclosure, like a pigsty on a pen, an old man dwelt solitary with his aged wife. perhaps they were too old to migrate with the others; perhaps they were too poor, and had no possessions to dispute. at least they had remained behind; and it thus befell that they were invited to my feast. i dare say it was quite a piece of politics in the pigsty whether to come or not to come, and the husband long swithered between curiosity and age, till curiosity conquered, and they came, and in the midst of that last merry-making death tapped him on the shoulder. for some days, when the sky was bright and the wind cool, his mat would be spread in the main highway of the village, and he was to be seen lying there inert, a mere handful of man, his wife inertly seated by his head. they seemed to have outgrown alike our needs and faculties; they neither spoke nor listened; they suffered us to pass without a glance; the wife did not fan, she seemed not to attend upon her husband, and the two poor antiques sat juxtaposed under the high canopy of palms, the human tragedy reduced to its bare elements, a sight beyond pathos, stirring a thrill of curiosity. and yet there was one touch of the pathetic haunted me: that so much youth and expectation should have run in these starved veins, and the man should have squandered all his lees of life on a pleasure party. on the morning of th september the sufferer died, and, time pressing, he was buried the same day at four. the cemetery lies to seaward behind government house; broken coral, like so much road-metal, forms the surface; a few wooden crosses, a few inconsiderable upright stones, designate graves; a mortared wall, high enough to lean on, rings it about; a clustering shrub surrounds it with pale leaves. here was the grave dug that morning, doubtless by uneasy diggers, to the sound of the nigh sea and the cries of sea-birds; meanwhile the dead man waited in his house, and the widow and another aged woman leaned on the fence before the door, no speech upon their lips, no speculation in their eyes. sharp at the hour the procession was in march, the coffin wrapped in white and carried by four bearers; mourners behind--not many, for not many remained in rotoava, and not many in black, for these were poor; the men in straw hats, white coats, and blue trousers or the gorgeous parti-coloured pariu, the tahitian kilt; the women, with a few exceptions, brightly habited. far in the rear came the widow, painfully carrying the dead man's mat; a creature aged beyond humanity, to the likeness of some missing link. the dead man had been a mormon; but the mormon clergyman was gone with the rest to wrangle over boundaries in the adjacent isle, and a layman took his office. standing at the head of the open grave, in a white coat and blue pariu, his tahitian bible in his hand and one eye bound with a red handkerchief, he read solemnly that chapter in job which has been read and heard over the bones of so many of our fathers, and with a good voice offered up two prayers. the wind and the surf bore a burthen. by the cemetery gate a mother in crimson suckled an infant rolled in blue. in the midst the widow sat upon the ground and polished one of the coffin-stretchers with a piece of coral; a little later she had turned her back to the grave and was playing with a leaf. did she understand? god knows. the officiant paused a moment, stooped, and gathered and threw reverently on the coffin a handful of rattling coral. dust to dust: but the grains of this dust were gross like cherries, and the true dust that was to follow sat near by, still cohering (as by a miracle) in the tragic resemblance of a female ape. so far, mormon or not, it was a christian funeral. the well-known passage had been read from job, the prayers had been rehearsed, the grave was filled, the mourners straggled homeward. with a little coarser grain of covering earth, a little nearer outcry of the sea, a stronger glare of sunlight on the rude enclosure, and some incongruous colours of attire, the well-remembered form had been observed. by rights it should have been otherwise. the mat should have been buried with its owner; but, the family being poor, it was thriftily reserved for a fresh service. the widow should have flung herself upon the grave and raised the voice of official grief, the neighbours have chimed in, and the narrow isle rung for a space with lamentation. but the widow was old; perhaps she had forgotten, perhaps never understood, and she played like a child with leaves and coffin-stretchers. in all ways my guest was buried with maimed rites. strange to think that his last conscious pleasure was the _casco_ and my feast; strange to think that he had limped there, an old child, looking for some new good. and the good thing, rest, had been allotted him. but though the widow had neglected much, there was one part she must not utterly neglect. she came away with the dispersing funeral; but the dead man's mat was left behind upon the grave, and i learned that by set of sun she must return to sleep there. this vigil is imperative. from sundown till the rising of the morning star the paumotuan must hold his watch above the ashes of his kindred. many friends, if the dead have been a man of mark, will keep the watchers company; they will be well supplied with coverings against the weather; i believe they bring food, and the rite is persevered in for two weeks. our poor survivor, if, indeed, she properly survived, had little to cover, and few to sit with her; on the night of the funeral a strong squall chased her from her place of watch; for days the weather held uncertain and outrageous; and ere seven nights were up she had desisted, and returned to sleep in her low roof. that she should be at the pains of returning for so short a visit to a solitary house, that this borderer of the grave should fear a little wind and a wet blanket, filled me at the time with musings. i could not say she was indifferent; she was so far beyond me in experience that the court of my criticism waived jurisdiction; but i forged excuses, telling myself she had perhaps little to lament, perhaps suffered much, perhaps understood nothing. and lo! in the whole affair there was no question whether of tenderness or piety, and the sturdy return of this old remnant was a mark either of uncommon sense or of uncommon fortitude. yet one thing had occurred that partly set me on the trail. i have said the funeral passed much as at home. but when all was over, when we were trooping in decent silence from the graveyard gate and down the path to the settlement, a sudden inbreak of a different spirit startled and perhaps dismayed us. two people walked not far apart in our procession: my friend mr. donat--donat-rimarau--"donat the much-handed"--acting vice-resident, present ruler of the archipelago, by far the man of chief importance on the scene, but known besides for one of an unshakable good temper; and a certain comely, strapping young paumotuan woman, the comeliest on the isle, not (let us hope) the bravest or the most polite. of a sudden, ere yet the grave silence of the funeral was broken, she made a leap at the resident, with pointed finger shrieked a few words and fell back again with a laughter, not a natural mirth. "what did she say to you?" i asked. "she did not speak to _me_," said donat, a shade perturbed; "she spoke to the ghost of the dead man." and the purport of her speech was this: "see there! donat will be a fine feast for you to-night." "m. donat called it a jest," i wrote at the time in my diary. "it seemed to me more in the nature of a terrified conjuration, as though she would divert the ghost's attention from herself. a cannibal race may well have cannibal phantoms." the guesses of the traveller appear foredoomed to be erroneous; yet in these i was precisely right. the woman had stood by in terror at the funeral, being then in a dread spot, the graveyard. she looked on in terror to the coming night, with that ogre, a new spirit, loosed upon the isle. and the words she had cried in donat's face were indeed a terrified conjuration, basely to shield herself, basely to dedicate another in her stead. one thing is to be said in her excuse. doubtless she partly chose donat because he was a man of great good-nature, but partly, too, because he was a man of the half-caste. for i believe all natives regard white blood as a kind of talisman against the powers of hell. in no other way can they explain the unpunished recklessness of europeans. chapter vi graveyard stories with my superstitious friend, the islander, i fear i am not wholly frank, often leading the way with stories of my own, and being always a grave and sometimes an excited hearer. but the deceit is scarce mortal, since i am as pleased to hear as he to tell, as pleased with the story as he with the belief; and besides, it is entirely needful. for it is scarce possible to exaggerate the extent and empire of his superstitions; they mould his life, they colour his thinking; and when he does not speak to me of ghosts, and gods, and devils, he is playing the dissembler and talking only with his lips. with thoughts so different, one must indulge the other; and i would rather that i should indulge his superstition than he my incredulity. of one thing, besides, i may be sure: let me indulge it as i please, i shall not hear the whole; for he is already on his guard with me, and the amount of the lore is boundless. i will give but a few instances at random, chiefly from my own doorstep in upolu, during the past month (october ). one of my workmen was sent the other day to the banana patch, there to dig; this is a hollow of the mountain, buried in woods, out of all sight and cry of mankind; and long before dusk lafaele was back again beside the cook-house with embarrassed looks; he dared not longer stay alone, he was afraid of "spilits in the bush." it seems these are the souls of the unburied dead, haunting where they fell, and wearing woodland shapes of pig, or bird, or insect; the bush is full of them, they seem to eat nothing, slay solitary wanderers apparently in spite, and at times, in human form, go down the villages and consort with the inhabitants undetected. so much i learned a day or so after, walking in the bush with a very intelligent youth, a native. it was a little before noon; a grey day and squally; and perhaps i had spoken lightly. a dark squall burst on the side of the mountain; the woods shook and cried; the dead leaves rose from the ground in clouds, like butterflies; and my companion came suddenly to a full stop. he was afraid, he said, of the trees falling; but as soon as i had changed the subject of our talk he proceeded with alacrity. a day or two before, a messenger came up the mountain from apia with a letter; i was in the bush, he must await my return, then wait till i had answered: and before i was done his voice sounded shrill with terror of the coming night and the long forest road. these are the commons. take the chiefs. there has been a great coming and going of signs and omens in our group. one river ran down blood; red eels were captured in another; an unknown fish was thrown upon the coast, an ominous word found written on its scales. so far we might be reading in a monkish chronicle; now we come on a fresh note, at once modern and polynesian. the gods of upolu and savaii, our two chief islands, contended recently at cricket. since then they are at war. sounds of battle are heard to roll along the coast. a woman saw a man swim from the high seas and plunge direct into the bush; he was no man of that neighbourhood; and it was known he was one of the gods, speeding to a council. most perspicuous of all, a missionary on savaii, who is also a medical man, was disturbed late in the night by knocking; it was no hour for the dispensary, but at length he woke his servant and sent him to inquire; the servant, looking from a window, beheld crowds of persons, all with grievous wounds, lopped limbs, broken heads, and bleeding bulletholes; but when the door was opened all had disappeared. they were gods from the field of battle. now, these reports have certainly significance; it is not hard to trace them to political grumblers or to read in them a threat of coming trouble; from that merely human side i found them ominous myself. but it was the spiritual side of their significance that was discussed in secret council by my rulers. i shall best depict this mingled habit of the polynesian mind by two connected instances. i once lived in a village, the name of which i do not mean to tell. the chief and his sister were persons perfectly intelligent: gentlefolk, apt of speech. the sister was very religious, a great church-goer, one that used to reprove me if i stayed away; i found afterwards that she privately worshipped a shark. the chief himself was somewhat of a freethinker; at the least a latitudinarian: he was a man, besides, filled with european knowledge and accomplishments; of an impassive, ironical habit; and i should as soon have expected superstition in mr. herbert spencer. hear the sequel. i had discovered by unmistakable signs that they buried too shallow in the village graveyard, and i took my friend, as the responsible authority, to task. "there is something wrong about your graveyard," said i, "which you must attend to, or it may have very bad results." something wrong? "what is it?" he asked, with an emotion that surprised me. "if you care to go along there any evening about nine o'clock you can see for yourself," said i. he stepped backward. "a ghost!" he cried. in short, in the whole field of the south seas, there is not one to blame another. half blood and whole, pious and debauched, intelligent and dull, all men believe in ghosts, all men combine with their recent christianity fear of and a lingering faith in the old island deities. so, in europe, the gods of olympus slowly dwindled into village bogies; so to-day, the theological highlander sneaks from under the eye of the free church divine to lay an offering by a sacred well. i try to deal with the whole matter here because of a particular quality in paumotuan superstitions. it is true i heard them told by a man with a genius for such narrations. close about our evening lamp, within sound of the island surf, we hung on his words, thrilling. the reader, in far other scenes, must listen close for the faint echo. this bundle of weird stories sprang from the burial and the woman's selfish conjuration. i was dissatisfied with what i heard, harped upon questions, and struck at last this vein of metal. it is from sundown to about four in the morning that the kinsfolk camp upon the grave; and these are the hours of the spirits' wanderings. at any time of the night--it may be earlier, it may be later--a sound is to be heard below, which is the noise of his liberation; at four sharp, another and louder marks the instant of the re-imprisonment; between-whiles, he goes his malignant rounds. "did you ever see an evil spirit?" was once asked of a paumotuan. "once." "under what form?" "it was in the form of a crane." "and how did you know that crane to be a spirit?" was asked. "i will tell you," he answered; and this was the purport of his inconclusive narrative. his father had been dead nearly a fortnight; others had wearied of the watch; and as the sun was setting, he found himself by the grave alone. it was not yet dark, rather the hour of the afterglow, when he was aware of a snow-white crane upon the coral mound; presently more cranes came, some white, some black; then the cranes vanished, and he saw in their place a white cat, to which there was silently joined a great company of cats of every hue conceivable; then these also disappeared, and he was left astonished. this was an anodyne appearance. take instead the experience of rua-a-mariterangi on the isle of katiu. he had a need for some pandanus, and crossed the isle to the sea-beach, where it chiefly flourishes. the day was still, and rua was surprised to hear a crashing sound among the thickets, and then the fall of a considerable tree. here must be some one building a canoe; and he entered the margin of the wood to find and pass the time of day with this chance neighbour. the crashing sounded more at hand; and then he was aware of something drawing swiftly near among the tree-tops. it swung by its heels downward, like an ape, so that its hands were free for murder; it depended safely by the slightest twigs; the speed of its coming was incredible; and soon rua recognised it for a corpse, horrible with age, its bowels hanging as it came. prayer was the weapon of christian in the valley of the shadow, and it is to prayer that rua-a-mariterangi attributes his escape. no merely human expedition had availed. this demon was plainly from the grave; yet you will observe he was abroad by day. and inconsistent as it may seem with the hours of the night watch and the many references to the rising of the morning star, it is no singular exception. i could never find a case of another who had seen this ghost, diurnal and arboreal in its habits; but others have heard the fall of the tree, which seems the signal of its coming. mr. donat was once pearling on the uninhabited isle of haraiki. it was a day without a breath of wind, such as alternate in the archipelago with days of contumelious breezes. the divers were in the midst of the lagoon upon their employment; the cook, a boy of ten, was over his pots in the camp. thus were all souls accounted for except a single native who accompanied donat into the woods in quest of sea-fowls' eggs. in a moment, out of the stillness, came the sound of the fall of a great tree. donat would have passed on to find the cause. "no," cried his companion, "that was no tree. it was something _not right_. let us go back to camp." next sunday the divers were turned on, all that part of the isle was thoroughly examined, and sure enough no tree had fallen. a little later mr. donat saw one of his divers flee from a similar sound, in similar unaffected panic, on the same isle. but neither would explain, and it was not till afterwards, when he met with rua, that he learned the occasion of their terrors. but whether by day or night, the purpose of the dead in these abhorred activities is still the same. in samoa, my informant had no idea of the food of the bush spirits; no such ambiguity would exist in the mind of a paumotuan. in that hungry archipelago, living and dead must alike toil for nutriment; and the race having been cannibal in the past, the spirits are so still. when the living ate the dead, horrified nocturnal imagination drew the shocking inference that the dead might eat the living. doubtless they slay men, doubtless even mutilate them, in mere malice. marquesan spirits sometimes tear out the eyes of travellers; but even that may be more practical than appears, for the eye is a cannibal dainty. and certainly the root-idea of the dead, at least in the far eastern islands, is to prowl for food. it was as a dainty morsel for a meal that the woman denounced donat at the funeral. there are spirits besides who prey in particular not on the bodies but on the souls of the dead. the point is clearly made in a tahitian story. a child fell sick, grew swiftly worse, and at last showed signs of death. the mother hastened to the house of a sorcerer, who lived hard by. "you are yet in time," said he; "a spirit has just run past my door carrying the soul of your child wrapped in the leaf of a purao; but i have a spirit stronger and swifter who will run him down ere he has time to eat it." wrapped in a leaf: like other things edible and corruptible. or take an experience of mr. donat's on the island of anaa. it was a night of a high wind, with violent squalls; his child was very sick, and the father, though he had gone to bed, lay wakeful, hearkening to the gale. all at once a fowl was violently dashed on the house wall. supposing he had forgot to put it in shelter with the rest, donat arose, found the bird (a cock) lying on the verandah, and put it in the hen-house, the door of which he securely fastened. fifteen minutes later the business was repeated, only this time, as it was being dashed against the wall, the bird crew. again donat replaced it, examining the hen-house thoroughly and finding it quite perfect; as he was so engaged the wind puffed out his light, and he must grope back to the door a good deal shaken. yet a third time the bird was dashed upon the wall; a third time donat set it, now near dead, beside its mates; and he was scarce returned before there came a rush, like that of a furious strong man, against the door, and a whistle as loud as that of a railway engine rang about the house. the sceptical reader may here detect the finger of the tempest; but the women gave up all for lost and clustered on the beds lamenting. nothing followed, and i must suppose the gale somewhat abated, for presently after a chief came visiting. he was a bold man to be abroad so late, but doubtless carried a bright lantern. and he was certainly a man of counsel, for as soon as he heard the details of these disturbances he was in a position to explain their nature. "your child," said he, "must certainly die. this is the evil spirit of our island who lies in wait to eat the spirits of the newly dead." and then he went on to expatiate on the strangeness of the spirit's conduct. he was not usually, he explained, so open of assault, but sat silent on the house-top, waiting, in the guise of a bird, while within the people tended the dying and bewailed the dead, and had no thought of peril. but when the day came and the doors were opened and men began to go abroad, blood-stains on the wall betrayed the tragedy. this is the quality i admire in paumotuan legend. in tahiti the spirit-eater is said to assume a vesture which has much more of pomp, but how much less of horror. it has been seen by all sorts and conditions, native and foreign; only the last insists it is a meteor. my authority was not so sure. he was riding with his wife about two in the morning; both were near asleep, and the horses not much better. it was a brilliant and still night, and the road wound over a mountain, near by a deserted marae (old tahitian temple). all at once the appearance passed above them: a form of light; the head round and greenish; the body long, red, and with a focus of yet redder brilliancy about the midst. a buzzing hoot accompanied its passage; it flew direct out of one marae, and direct for another down the mountain-side. and this, as my informant argued, is suggestive. for why should a mere meteor frequent the altars of abominable gods? the horses, i should say, were equally dismayed with their riders. now i am not dismayed at all--not even agreeably. give me rather the bird upon the house-top and the morning blood-gouts on the wall. but the dead are not exclusive in their diet. they carry with them to the grave, in particular, the polynesian taste for fish, and enter at times with the living into a partnership in fishery. rua-a-mariterangi is again my authority; i feel it diminishes the credit of the fact, but how it builds up the image of this inveterate ghost-seer! he belongs to the miserably poor island of taenga, yet his father's house was always well supplied. as rua grew up he was called at last to go a-fishing with this fortunate parent. they rowed into the lagoon at dusk, to an unlikely place, and the boy lay down in the stern, and the father began vainly to cast his line over the bows. it is to be supposed that rua slept; and when he awoke there was the figure of another beside his father, and his father was pulling in the fish hand over hand. "who is that man, father?" rua asked. "it is none of your business," said the father; and rua supposed the stranger had swum off to them from shore. night after night they fared into the lagoon, often to the most unlikely places; night after night the stranger would suddenly be seen on board, and as suddenly be missed; and morning after morning the canoe returned laden with fish. "my father is a very lucky man," thought rua. at last, one fine day, there came first one boat party and then another who must be entertained; father and son put off later than usual into the lagoon; and before the canoe was landed it was four o'clock, and the morning star was close on the horizon. then the stranger appeared seized with some distress; turned about, showing for the first time his face, which was that of one long dead, with shining eyes; stared into the east, set the tips of his fingers to his mouth like one a-cold, uttered a strange, shuddering sound between a whistle and a moan--a thing to freeze the blood; and, the daystar just rising from the sea, he suddenly was not. then rua understood why his father prospered, why his fishes rotted early in the day, and why some were always carried to the cemetery and laid upon the graves. my informant is a man not certainly averse to superstition, but he keeps his head, and takes a certain superior interest, which i may be allowed to call scientific. the last point reminding him of some parallel practice in tahiti, he asked rua if the fish were left, or carried home again after a formal dedication. it appears old mariterangi practised both methods; sometimes treating his shadowy partner to a mere oblation, sometimes honestly leaving his fish to rot upon the grave. it is plain we have in europe stories of a similar complexion; and the polynesian _varua ino_ or _aitu o le vao_ is clearly the near kinsman of the transylvanian vampire. here is a tale in which the kinship appears broadly marked. on the atoll of penrhyn, then still partly savage, a certain chief was long the salutary terror of the natives. he died, he was buried; and his late neighbours had scarce tasted the delights of licence ere his ghost appeared about the village. fear seized upon all; a council was held of the chief men and sorcerers; and with the approval of the rarotongan missionary, who was as frightened as the rest, and in the presence of several whites--my friend mr. ben hird being one--the grave was opened, deepened until water came, and the body re-interred face down. the still recent staking of suicides in england and the decapitation of vampires in the east of europe form close parallels. so in samoa only the spirits of the unburied awake fear. during the late war many fell in the bush; their bodies, sometimes headless, were brought back by native pastors and interred; but this (i know not why) was insufficient, and the spirit still lingered on the theatre of death. when peace returned a singular scene was enacted in many places, and chiefly round the high gorges of lotoanuu, where the struggle was long centred and the loss had been severe. kinswomen of the dead came carrying a mat or sheet and guided by survivors of the fight. the place of death was earnestly sought out; the sheet was spread upon the ground; and the women, moved with pious anxiety, sat about and watched it. if any living thing alighted it was twice brushed away; upon the third coming it was known to be the spirit of the dead, was folded in, carried home and buried beside the body; and the aitu rested. the rite was practised beyond doubt in simple piety; the repose of the soul was its object: its motive, reverent affection. the present king disowns indeed all knowledge of a dangerous aitu; he declares the souls of the unburied were only wanderers in limbo, lacking an entrance to the proper country of the dead, unhappy, nowise hurtful. and this severely classic opinion doubtless represents the views of the enlightened. but the flight of my lafaele marks the grosser terrors of the ignorant. this belief in the exorcising efficacy of funeral rites perhaps explains a fact, otherwise amazing, that no polynesian seems at all to share our european horror of human bones and mummies. of the first they made their cherished ornaments; they preserved them in houses or in mortuary caves; and the watchers of royal sepulchres dwelt with their children among the bones of generations. the mummy, even in the making, was as little feared. in the marquesas, on the extreme coast, it was made by the household with continual unction and exposure to the sun; in the carolines, upon the farthest west, it is still cured in the smoke of the family hearth. head-hunting, besides, still lives around my doorstep in samoa. and not ten years ago, in the gilberts, the widow must disinter, cleanse, polish, and thenceforth carry about her, by day and night, the head of her dead husband. in all these cases we may suppose the process, whether of cleansing or drying, to have fully exorcised the aitu. but the paumotuan belief is more obscure. here the man is duly buried, and he has to be watched. he is duly watched, and the spirit goes abroad in spite of watches. indeed, it is not the purpose of the vigils to prevent these wanderings; only to mollify by polite attention the inveterate malignity of the dead. neglect (it is supposed) may irritate and thus invite his visits, and the aged and weakly sometimes balance risks and stay at home. observe, it is the dead man's kindred and next friends who thus deprecate his fury with nocturnal watchings. even the placatory vigil is held perilous, except in company, and a boy was pointed out to me in rotoava, because he had watched alone by his own father. not the ties of the dead, nor yet their proved character, affect the issue. a late resident, who died in fakarava of sunstroke, was beloved in life and is still remembered with affection; none the less his spirit went about the island clothed with terrors, and the neighbourhood of government house was still avoided after dark. we may sum up the cheerful doctrine thus: all men become vampires, and the vampire spares none. and here we come face to face with a tempting inconsistency. for the whistling spirits are notoriously clannish; i understood them to wait upon and to enlighten kinsfolk only, and that the medium was always of the race of the communicating spirit. here, then, we have the bonds of the family, on the one hand, severed at the hour of death; on the other, helpfully persisting. the child's soul in the tahitian tale was wrapped in leaves. it is the spirits of the newly dead that are the dainty. when they are slain, the house is stained with blood. rua's dead fisherman was decomposed; so--and horribly--was his arboreal demon. the spirit, then, is a thing material; and it is by the material ensigns of corruption that he is distinguished from the living man. this opinion is widespread, adds a gross terror to the more ugly polynesian tales, and sometimes defaces the more engaging with a painful and incongruous touch. i will give two examples sufficiently wide apart, one from tahiti, one from samoa. and first from tahiti. a man went to visit the husband of his sister, then some time dead. in her life the sister had been dainty in the island fashion, and went always adorned with a coronet of flowers. in the midst of the night the brother awoke and was aware of a heavenly fragrance going to and fro in the dark house. the lamp i must suppose to have burned out; no tahitian would have lain down without one lighted. a while he lay wondering and delighted; then called upon the rest. "do none of you smell flowers?" he asked. "o," said his brother-in-law, "we are used to that here." the next morning these two men went walking, and the widower confessed that his dead wife came about the house continually, and that he had even seen her. she was shaped and dressed and crowned with flowers as in her lifetime; only she moved a few inches above the earth with a very easy progress, and flitted dryshod above the surface of the river. and now comes my point: it was always in a back view that she appeared; and these brothers-in-law, debating the affair, agreed that this was to conceal the inroads of corruption. now for the samoan story. i owe it to the kindness of dr. f. otto sierich, whose collection of folk-tales i expect with a high degree of interest. a man in manu'a was married to two wives and had no issue. he went to savaii, married there a third, and was more fortunate. when his wife was near her time he remembered he was in a strange island, like a poor man; and when his child was born he must be shamed for lack of gifts. it was in vain his wife dissuaded him. he returned to his father in manu'a seeking help; and with what he could get he set off in the night to re-embark. now his wives heard of his coming; they were incensed he did not stay to visit them; and on the beach, by his canoe, intercepted and slew him. now the third wife lay asleep in savaii; her babe was born and slept by her side; and she was awakened by the spirit of her husband. "get up," he said, "my father is sick in manu'a and we must go to visit him." "it is well," said she; "take you the child, while i carry its mats." "i cannot carry the child," said the spirit; "i am too cold from the sea." when they were got on board the canoe the wife smelt carrion. "how is this?" she said. "what have you in the canoe that i should smell carrion?" "it is nothing in the canoe," said the spirit. "it is the land-wind blowing down the mountains, where some beast lies dead." it appears it was still night when they reached manu'a--the swiftest passage on record--and as they entered the reef the bale-fires burned in the village. again she asked him to carry the child; but now he need no more dissemble. "i cannot carry your child," said he, "for i am dead, and the fires you see are burning for my funeral." the curious may learn in dr. sierich's book the unexpected sequel of the tale. here is enough for my purpose. though the man was but new dead, the ghost was already putrefied, as though putrefaction were the mark and of the essence of a spirit. the vigil on the paumotuan grave does not extend beyond two weeks, and they told me this period was thought to coincide with that of the resolution of the body. the ghost always marked with decay--the danger seemingly ending with the process of dissolution--here is tempting matter for the theorist. but it will not do. the lady of the flowers had been long dead, and her spirit was still supposed to bear the brand of perishability. the resident had been more than a fortnight buried, and his vampire was still supposed to go the rounds. of the lost state of the dead, from the lurid mangaian legend, in which infernal deities hocus and destroy the souls of all, to the various submarine and aerial limbos where the dead feast, float idle, or resume the occupations of their life on earth, it would be wearisome to tell. one story i give, for it is singular in itself, is well known in tahiti, and has this of interest, that it is post-christian, dating indeed from but a few years back. a princess of the reigning house died; was transported to the neighbouring isle of raiatea; fell there under the empire of a spirit who condemned her to climb coco-palms all day and bring him the nuts; was found after some time in this miserable servitude by a second spirit, one of her own house; and by him, upon her lamentations, reconveyed to tahiti, where she found her body still waked, but already swollen with the approaches of corruption. it is a lively point in the tale that, on the sight of this dishonoured tabernacle, the princess prayed she might continue to be numbered with the dead. but it seems it was too late, her spirit was replaced by the least dignified of entrances, and her startled family beheld the body move. the seemingly purgatorial labours, the helpful kindred spirit, and the horror of the princess at the sight of her tainted body, are all points to be remarked. the truth is, the tales are not necessarily consistent in themselves; and they are further darkened for the stranger by an ambiguity of language. ghosts, vampires, spirits, and gods are all confounded. and yet i seem to perceive that (with exceptions) those whom we would count gods were less maleficent. permanent spirits haunt and do murder in corners of samoa; but those legitimate gods of upolu and savaii, whose wars and cricketings of late convulsed society, i did not gather to be dreaded, or not with a like fear. the spirit of anaa that ate souls is certainly a fearsome inmate; but the high gods, even of the archipelago, seem helpful. mahinui--from whom our convict-catechist had been named--the spirit of the sea, like a proteus endowed with endless avatars, came to the assistance of the shipwrecked and carried them ashore in the guise of a ray-fish. the same divinity bore priests from isle to isle about the archipelago, and by his aid, within the century, persons have been seen to fly. the tutelar deity of each isle is likewise helpful, and by a particular form of wedge-shaped cloud on the horizon announces the coming of a ship. to one who conceives of these atolls, so narrow, so barren, so beset with sea, here would seem a superfluity of ghostly denizens. and yet there are more. in the various brackish pools and ponds, beautiful women with long red hair are seen to rise and bathe; only (timid as mice) on the first sound of feet upon the coral they dive again for ever. they are known to be healthy and harmless living people, dwellers of an underworld; and the same fancy is current in tahiti, where also they have the hair red. _tetea_ is the tahitian name; the paumotuan, _mokurea_. part iii the eight islands chapter i the kona coast of the island of hawaii, though i have passed days becalmed under its lee, and spent a week upon its shores, i have never yet beheld the profile. dense clouds continued to enshroud it far below its midst; not only the zone of snow and fire, but a great part of the forest region, covered or at least veiled by a perpetual rain. and yet even on my first sight, beholding so little and that through a glass from the deck of the _casco_, the rude plutonic structure of the isle was conspicuous. here was none of the accustomed glitter of the beach, none of the close shoreside forests of the typical high island. all seemed black and barren, and to slope sheer into the sea. unexpected movements of the land caught the attention, folds that glittered with a certain vitreosity; black mouths of caves; ranges of low cliffs, vigorously designed awhile in sun and shadow, and that sank again into the general declivity of the island glacis. under its gigantic cowl of cloud, the coast frowned upon us with a face of desolation. on my return i passed from a humming city, with shops and palaces and busy wharves, plying cabs and tramcars, telephones in operation and a railway in the building; mounted a strong and comfortable local steamer; sailed under desolate shores indeed, but guided in the night by sea and harbour lights; and was set down at last in a village uninhabited by any white, the creature of pure native taste--of which, what am i to say but that i know no such village in europe? a well-to-do western hamlet in the states would be the closest parallel; and it is a moderate prophecy to call it so already. hookena is its name. it stands on the same coast which i had wondered at before from the tossing _casco_; the same coast on which the far voyager cook ended a noble career not very nobly. that district of kona where he fell is one illustrious in the history of hawaii. it was at first the centre of the dominion of the great kamehameha. there, in an unknown sepulchre, his bones are still hidden; there, too, his reputed treasures, spoils of a buccaneer, lie, and are still vainly sought for, in one of the thousand caverns of the lava. there the tabus were first broken, there the missionaries first received; and but for the new use of ships and the new need of harbours, here might be still the chief city and the organs of the kingdom. yet a nearer approach confirmed the impression of the distance. it presents to the seaward one immense decline. streams of lava have followed and submerged each other down this slope, and overflowed into the sea. these cooled and shrank, and were buried under fresh inundations, or dislocated by fresh tremors of the mountain. a multiplicity of caves is the result. the mouths of caves are everywhere; the lava is tunnelled with corridors and halls; under houses high on the mountain, the sea can be heard throbbing in the bowels of the land; and there is one gallery of miles, which has been used by armies as a pass. streams are thus unknown. the rain falls continually in the highlands: an isle that rises nearly fourteen thousand feet sheer from the sea could never fail of rain; but the treasure is squandered on a sieve; and by sunless conduits returns unseen into the ocean. corrugated slopes of lava, bristling lava cliffs, spouts of metallic clinkers, miles of coast without a well or rivulet; scarce anywhere a beach, nowhere a harbour: here seems a singular land to be contended for in battle as a seat for courts and princes. yet it possessed in the eyes of the natives one more than countervailing advantage. the windward shores of the isle are beaten by a monstrous surf; there are places where goods and passengers must be hauled up and lowered by a rope, there are coves which even the daring boatmen of hamakua dread to enter; and men live isolated in their hamlets or communicate by giddy footpaths in the cliff. upon the side of kona, the table-like margin of the lava affords almost everywhere a passage by land; and the waves, reduced by the vast breakwater of the island, allow an almost continual communication by way of sea. yet even here the surf of the pacific appears formidable to the stranger as he lands, and daily delights him with its beauty as he walks the shore. it was on a saturday afternoon that the steamer _hall_ conveyed me to hookena. she was charged with tourists on their way to the volcano; and i found it hard to justify my choice of a week in an unheard-of hamlet, rather than a visit to one of the admitted marvels of the world. i do not know that i can justify it now and to a larger audience. i should prefer, indeed, to have seen both; but i was at the time embarrassed with arrears of work; it was imperative that i should choose; and i chose one week in a kona village and another in the lazaretto, and renounced the craters of maunaloa and haleakala. for there are some so constituted as to find a man or a society more curious than the highest mountain; some, in whom the lava foreshores of kona and kaú will move as deep a wonder as the fiery vents that made them what they are. the land and sea breezes alternate on the kona coast with regularity; and the veil of rain draws up and down the talus of the mountain, now retiring to the zone of forests, now descending to the margin of the sea. it was in one of the latter and rarer moments that i was set on board a whale boat full of intermingled barrels, passengers, and oarsmen. the rain fell and blotted the crude and sombre colours of the scene. the coast rose but a little way; it was then intercepted by the cloud: and for all that appeared, we might have been landing on an isle of some two hundred feet of elevation. on the immediate foreshore, under a low cliff, there stood some score of houses, trellised and verandahed, set in narrow gardens, and painted gaudily in green and white; the whole surrounded and shaded by a grove of cocoa-palms and fruit trees, springing (as by miracle) from the bare lava. in front, the population of the neighbourhood were gathered for the weekly incident, the passage of the steamer; sixty to eighty strong, and attended by a disproportionate allowance of horses, mules, and donkeys; for this land of rock is, singular to say, a land of breeding. the green trees, the painted houses, the gay dresses of the women, were everywhere relieved on the uncompromising blackness of the lava; and the rain, which fell unheeded by the sightseers, blended and beautified the contrast. the boat was run in upon a breaker, and we passengers ejected on a flat rock where the next wave submerged us to the knees. there we continued to stand, the rain drenching us from above, the sea from below, like people mesmerised; and as we were all (being travellers) tricked out with the green garlands of departure, we must have offered somewhat the same appearance as a shipwrecked picnic. the purser spied and introduced me to my host, ex-judge nahinu, who was then deep in business, despatching and receiving goods. he was dressed in pearl-grey tweed like any self-respecting englishman; only the band of his wide-awake was made of peacock's feather.--"house by and by," said he, his english being limited, and carried me to the shelter of a rather lofty shed. on three sides it was open, on the fourth closed by a house; it was reached from without by five or six wooden steps; on the fourth side, a farther flight of ten conducted to the balcony of the house; a table spread with goods divided it across, so that i knew it for the village store and (according to the laws that rule in country life) the village lounging-place. people sat with dangling feet along the house verandah, they sat on benches on the level of the shed or among the goods upon the counter; they came and went, they talked and waited; they opened, skimmed, and pocketed half-read, their letters; they opened the journal, and found a moment, not for the news, but for the current number of the story: methought, i might have been in france, and the paper the _petit journal_ instead of the _nupepa eleele_. on other islands i had been the centre of attention; here none observed my presence. one hundred and ten years before, the ancestors of these indifferents had looked in the faces of cook and his seamen with admiration and alarm, called them gods, called them volcanoes; took their clothes for a loose skin, confounded their hats and their heads, and described their pockets as a "treasure door, through which they plunge their hands into their bodies and bring forth cutlery and necklaces and cloth and nails," and to-day the coming of the most attractive stranger failed (it would appear) to divert them from miss porter's _scottish chiefs_: for that was the novel of the day. my host returned, and led me round the shore among the mules and donkeys to his house. like all the houses of the hamlet, it was on the european or, to be more descriptive, on the american plan. the parlour was fitted with the usual furniture and ornamented with the portraits of kamehameha the third, lunalilo, kalakaua, the queen consort of the isles, and queen victoria. there was a bible on the table, other books stood on a shelf. a comfortable bedroom was placed at my service, the welcome afforded me was cordial and unembarrassed, the food good and plentiful. my host, my hostess; his grown daughters, strapping lassies; his young hopefuls, misbehaving at a meal or perfunctorily employed upon their school-books: all that i found in that house, beyond the speech and a few exotic dishes on the table, would have been familiar and exemplary in europe. i walked that night beside the sea. the steamer with its lights and crowd of tourists was gone by; it had left me alone among these aliens, and i felt no touch of strangeness. the trim, lamp-lit houses shining quietly, like villas, each in its narrow garden; the gentle sound of speech from within; the room that awaited my return, with the lamp, and the books, and the spectacled householder studying his bible:--there was nothing changed; it was in such conditions i had myself grown up, and played, a child, beside the borders of another sea. and some ten miles from where i walked, cook was adored as a deity; his bones, when he was dead, were cleansed for worship; his entrails devoured in a mistake by rambling children. a day of session in the hookena court-house equally surprised me. the judge, a very intelligent, serious hawaiian, sat behind a table, taking careful notes; two policemen, with their bright metal badges, standing attention at his back or bustling forth on errands. the plaintiff was a portuguese. for years, he had kept store and raised cattle in the district, without trouble or dispute. his store stood always open, it was standing so seven miles away at the moment of the case; and when his cattle strayed, they were duly impounded and restored to him on payment of one shilling. but recently a gentleman of great acuteness and a thousand imperfect talents had married into the family of a neighbouring proprietor; consecutively on which event the store-keeper's cattle began to be detained and starved, the fine rose to half a dollar, and lastly a cow had disappeared. the portuguese may have been right or wrong: he was convinced the new-comer was the main-spring of the change; called a suit in consequence against the father-in-law;--and it was the son-in-law who appeared for the defence. i saw him there, seated at his ease, with spectacles on brow; still young, much of a gentleman in looks, and dressed in faultless european clothes; and presently, for my good fortune, he rose to address the court. it appears he has already stood for the hawaiian parliament; but the people (i was told) "did not think him honest," and he was defeated. honesty, to our ways of thought, appears a trifle in a candidate; and i think we have few constituencies to refuse so great a charmer. i understood but a few dozen words, yet i heard the man with delight, followed the junctures of his argument, knew when he was enumerating points in his own favour, when he was admitting those against him, when he was putting a question _per absurdum_, when (after the due pause) he smilingly replied to it. there was no haste, no heat, no prejudice; with a hinted gesture, with a semitone of intonation, the speaker lightly set forth and underlined the processes of reason; he could not shift a foot nor touch his spectacles, but what persuasion radiated in the court--it is impossible to conceive a style of oratory more rational or civilised. the point to which he spoke was pretty in itself. the people, as i had been told, did not think the orator honest; some judge, on a particular occasion, had inclined to the same view, and the man of talent was disbarred. by a clause in a statute, a layman or a disbarred lawyer might conduct a case for himself or for one of "his own family." is a father-in-law one of a man's own family? "yes," argued the orator: "no," with less grace and perspicuity, nahinu, retained by the portuguese. the laws of the tight little kingdom are conceived in duplicate for the hawaiian hare and his many white friends. the native text appearing inconclusive, an appeal was made to the english, and i (as _amicus curiæ_) was led out, installed upon the court-house steps, and painfully examined as to its precise significance. the judge heard the orator; he heard nahinu; he received by the mouth of the schoolmaster my report, for which he thanked me with a bow; and ruled the claimant out. this skirmish decided the fate of the engagement; fortune was faithful to the portuguese; and late in the afternoon, the capable judge rode off homeward with his portfolio under his arm. no court could have been more equally and decently conducted; judge, parties, lawyers, and police were all decorous and competent; and but for the plaintiff, the business was entirely native. the portuguese had come seven miles to hookena, sure of substantial justice, and he left his store open, fearless of being robbed. another white man, of strong sense and much frugality and choler, thus reckoned up what he had lost by theft in thirty-nine years among the different islands of hawaii: a pair of shoes, an umbrella, some feet of hose-pipe, and one batch of chickens. it is his continual practice to send hawaiians by a perilous, solitary path with sums in specie; at any moment the messenger might slip, the money-bag roll down a thousand feet of precipice, and lodge in fissures inaccessible to man: and consider how easy it were to invent such misadventures!--"i should have to know a white man well before i trusted him," he said; "i trust hawaiians without fear. it would be villainous of me to say less." it should be remembered the hawaiians of yore were not particular; they were eager to steal from cook, whom they believed to be a god, and it was a theft that led to the tragedy at kealakekua bay; and it must not be forgotten that the hawaiians of to-day are many of them poor. one residual trait of savage incompetence i have already referred to; they cannot administer a trust--i was told there had never yet been a case known. even a judge, skilled in the knowledge of the law and upright in its administration, was found insusceptible of those duties and distinctions which appear so natural and come so easy to the european. but the disability stands alone, a single survival in the midst of change; and the faults of the modern hawaiian incline to the other side. my orator of hookena court-room may be a gentleman much maligned; i may have received his character from the lips of his political opponents; but the type described is common. the islands begin to fill with lawyers; many of whom, justly or unjustly, are disbarred; and to the age of kamehameha, the age of glossin has succeeded. thus none would rob the store of the portuguese, but the law was wrested to oppress him. it was of old a warlike and industrious race. they were diggers and builders; the isles are still full of their deserted monuments; the modern word for law, kanawai, "water rights," still serves to remind us of their ancient irrigation. and the island story is compact of battles. their courage and goodwill to labour seems now confined to the sea, where they are active sailors and fearless boatmen, pursue the shark in his own element, and make a pastime of their incomparable surf. on shore they flee equally from toil and peril, and are all turned to carpet occupations and to parlous frauds. nahinu, an ex-judge, was paid but two dollars for a hard day in court, and he is paying a dollar a day to the labourers among his coffee. all hawaiians envy and are ready to compete with him for this odd chance of an occasional fee for some hours' talking; he cannot find one to earn a certain hire under the sun in his plantation, and the work is all transacted by immigrant chinese. one cannot but be reminded of the love of the french middle class for office work; but in hawaii, it is the race in bulk that shrinks from manly occupation. during a late revolution, a lady found a powerful young hawaiian crouching among the grass in her garden. "what are you doing here?" she cried, for she was a strong partisan. "do you not know they are murdering your king?" "i know," said the skulker. "why do you not go to help him?" she asked. "aflaid," said the poor craven, and crouched again among the grass. here was a strange grandchild for the warriors that followed or faced kamehameha. i give the singular instance as the more explicit; but the whole race must have been stricken at the moment with a similar weakness. no man dare say of this revolution that it was unprovoked; but its means were treachery and violence; the numbers and position of those engaged made the design one of the most insolent in history; and a mere modicum of native boldness and cohesion must have brought it to the dust. "my race had one virtue, they were brave," said a typical hawaiian: "and now they have taken that away." i have named a french example: but the thought that haunts the stranger in hawaii is that of italy. the ruggedness of feature which marks out the race among polynesians is the italian ruggedness. countenances of the same eloquent harshness, manners of the same vivacious cordiality, are to be found in hawaii and amongst italian fisher-folk or whose people, in the midst of life, retain more charm. i recall faces, both of men and women, with a certain leonine stamp, trusty, sagacious, brave, beautiful in plainness: faces that take the heart captive. the tougher struggle of the race in these hard isles has written history there; energy enlivens the hawaiian strength--or did so once, and the faces are still eloquent of the lost possession. the stock that has produced a cæsar, a kamehameha, a káa-humanu, retains their signature. chapter ii a ride in the forest by the hawaiian tongue, the slope of these steep islands is parcelled out in zones. as we mount from the seaboard, we pass by the region of ilima, named for a flowering shrub, and the region of apaa, named for a wind, to mau, the place of mist. this has a secondary name, the au- or wao-kanaka, "the place of men" by exclusion, man not dwelling higher. the next, accordingly, is called the waoakua, region of gods and goblins; other names, some apparently involving thoughts of solitude and danger, follow till the top is reached. the mountain itself might be a god or the seat of a god; it might be a volcano, the home of the dread pele; and into desert places few would venture but such as were adroit to snare the whispering spirits of the dead. to-day, from the waoakua or the waomaukele, the gods have perhaps fled; the descendants of vancouver's cattle fill them with less questionable terrors. as we mounted the glacis of the island, the horses clattering on the lava, we saw far above us the curtain of the rain exclude the view. the sky was clear, the sun strong overhead; around us, a thin growth of bushes and creepers glittered green in their black setting, like plants upon a ruinous pavement; all else was lava--wastes of lava, some of them enclosed (it seemed in wantonness) with dry-stone walls. but the bushes, when the rain descends often enough from its residential altitudes, flourish extremely; and cattle and asses, walking on these resonant slabs, collect a livelihood. here and there, a prickly-pear came to the bigness of a standard tree and made a space of shade; under one i saw a donkey--under another no less than three cows huddled from the sun. thus we had before our eyes the rationale of two of the native distinctions; traversed the zone of flowering shrubs; and saw above us the mist hang perennial in mau. as we continued to draw nearer to the rain, trees began to be mingled with the shrubs; and we came at last to where a house stood in an orchard of papaias, with their palm-like growth and collar of green gourds. in an out-house stood the water-barrel, that necessity of kona life. for all the water comes from heaven, and must be caught and stored; and the name of hookena itself may very well imply a cistern and a cup of water for the traveller along the coast. the house belonged to nahinu, but was in occupation by an american, seeking to make butter there (if i understood) without success. the butterman was gone, to muse perhaps on fresh expedients; his house was closed; and i was able to observe his three chambers only through the windows. in the first were milk pans and remains of breakfast, in the second a bed; in the third a scanty wardrobe hung from pegs, and two pirated novels lay on the floor. one was reversed and could not be identified; the name of the other i made out. it was _little loo_. happy mr. clark russell, making life pleasant for the exile in his garden of papaias, high over sea, upon the forest edge, and where the breeze comes freely. a little way beyond, we plunged into the forest. it grew at first very sparse and park-like, the trees of a pale verdure, but healthy, the parasites, per contra, often dead. underfoot, the ground was still a rockery of fractured lava; but now the interstices were filled with soil. a sedge-like grass (buffalo grass?) grew everywhere, and the horses munched it by the way with relish. candle-nut trees with their white foliage stood in groves. bread-fruits were here and there, but never well-to-do; hawaii is no true mother for the bread-fruit or the cocoa-palm. mangoes, on the other hand, attained a splendid bigness, many of them discoloured on one side with a purplish hue which struck the note of autumn. the same note was repeated by a certain aerial creeper, which drops (you might suppose) from heaven like the wreck of an old kite, and roosts on tree-tops with a pendent raffle of air-roots, the whole of a colour like a wintry beech's. these are clannish plants; five or six may be quartered on a single tree, thirty or forty on a grove; the wood dies under them to skeletons; and they swing there, like things hung out from washing, over the death they have provoked. we had now turned southward towards kaa, following a shapeless bridle-track which is the high road of hawaii. the sea was on one hand. our way was across--the woods we threaded did but cling upon--the vast declivity of the island front. for long, as we still skirted the margin of the forest, we kept an open view of the whole falling seaboard, the white edge of surf now soundless to our ears, and the high blue sea marbled by tide rips, and showing under the clouds of an opalescent milky white. the height, the breeze, the giddy gradient of the isle, delighted me. i observed a spider plant its abhorred st. andrew's cross against the sea and sky, certainly fifty yards from where i rode, and five feet at least from either tree: so wide was its death-gossamer spread, so huge the ugly vermin. presently the sea was lost, the forest swallowed us. ferns joined their fronds above a horseman's head. high over these, the dead and the living rose and were hung with tattered parasites. the breeze no longer reached us; it was steaming hot; and the way went up and down so abruptly, that in one place my saddle-girth was burst and we must halt for repairs. in the midst of this rough wilderness, i was reminded of the aim of our excursion. the schoolmaster and certain others of hookena had recently bought a tract of land for some four thousand dollars; set out coffee; and hired a chinaman to mind it. the thing was notable in itself; natives selling land is a thing of daily custom; of natives buying, i have heard no other instance; and it was civil to show interest. "but when," i asked, "shall we come to your coffee plantation?" "this is it," said he, and pointed down. their bushes grew on the path-side; our horses breasted them as they went by; and the gray wood on every hand enclosed and over-arched that thread of cultivation. a little farther, we strung in single file through the hot crypt, our horses munching grass, their riders chewing unpalatable gum collected from a tree. next the wood opened, and we issued forth again into the day on the precipitous broadside of the isle. a village was before us: a catholic church and perhaps a dozen scattered houses, some of grass in the old island fashion, others spick-and-span with outside stair and balcony and trellis, and white paint and green, in the more modern taste. one arrested my attention; it stood on the immediate verge of a deep precipice: two stories high, with double balconies, painted white, and showing by my count fifteen windows. "there is a fine house," said i. "outside," returned the schoolmaster drily. "that is the way with natives; they spend money on the outside. let us go there: you will find they live in the verandah and have no furniture." we were made welcome, sure enough, on the verandah; and in the lower room, which i entered, there was not a chair or table; only mats on the floor, and photographs and lithographs upon the wall. the house was an eidolon, designed to gladden the eye and enlarge the heart of the proprietor returning from hookena; and its fifteen windows were only to be numbered from without. doubtless that owner had attained his end; for i observed, when we were home again at hookena, and nahinu was describing our itinerary to his wife, he mentioned we had baited at ka-hale-nui--"the great house." the photographs were of the royal family; that goes without saying in hawaii; of the two lithographs, made in san francisco, one i knew at the first sight for general garfield: the second tempted and tantalised me; it could not be, i thought--and yet it must; it was this dubiety which carried me across the threshold; and behold! it was indeed the duke of thunder, his name printed under his effigies in the hawaiianised form of _nelesona_. i thought it a fine instance of fame that his features and his empty sleeve should have been drawn on stone in san fransisco, which was a lone mexican mission while he lived; and lettered for a market in those islands, which were not yet united under kamehameha when he died. and then i had a cold fit, and wondered after all if these good folk knew anything of the man's world-shaking deeds and gunpowder weaknesses, or if he was to them a "bare appellation" and a face on stone; and turning to the schoolmaster, i asked of him the question. yes, the hawaiians knew of nelesona; there had been a story in the papers where he figured, and the portrait had been given for a supplement. so he was known as a character of romance! brave men since agamemnon, like the brave before, must patiently expect the "inspired author." and nowhere has fiction deeper roots than in the world of polynesia. they are all tellers and hearers of tales; and the first requisite of any native paper is a story from the english or the french. these are of all sorts, and range from the works of good miss porter to _the lightning detective_. miss porter, i was told, was "drawing" in hawaii; and dumas and the _arabian nights_ were named as having pleased extremely. our homeward way was down the hill and by the sea in the black open. we traversed a waste of shattered lava; spires, ravines, well-holes showing the entrance to vast subterranean vaults in whose profundities our horse-hooves doubtless echoed. the whole was clothed with stone _fiorituri_ fantastically fashioned, like débris from the workshop of some brutal sculptor: dog's heads, devils, stone trees, and gargoyles broken in the making. from a distance, so intricate was the detail, the side of a hummock wore the appearance of some coarse and dingy sort of coral, or a scorched growth of heather. amid this jumbled wreck, naked itself, and the evidence of old disaster, frequent plants found root: rose-apples bore their rosy flowers; and a bush between a cypress and a juniper attained at times a height of twenty feet. the breakneck path had descended almost to the sea, and we were already within sound of its reverberations, when a cliff hove up suddenly on the landward hand, very rugged and broken, streaked with white lichen, laddered with green lianas, and pierced with the apertures of half a hundred caves. two of these were piously sealed with doors, the wood scarce weathered. for the hawaiian remembers the repository of the bones of old, and is still jealous of the safety of ancestral relics. nor without cause. for the white man comes and goes upon the hunt for curiosities; and one (it is rumoured) consults soothsayers and explores the caves of kona after the fabled treasures of kamehameha. chapter iii the city of refuge our way was northward on the naked lava of the coast. the schoolmaster led the march on a trumpeting black stallion; not without anxious thought, i followed after on a mare. the sun smote us fair and full; the air streamed from the hot rock, the distant landscape gleamed and trembled through its vortices. on the left, the coast heaved bodily upward to mau, the zone of mists and forests, where it rains all day, and the clouds creep up and down, and the groves loom and vanish in the margin. the land was still a crust of lava, here and there ramparted with cliffs, and which here and there breaks down and shows the mouths of branching galleries, mines and tombs of nature's making, endlessly vaulted, and ramified below our passage. wherever a house is, cocoa-palms spring sheer out of the rock; a little shabby in this northern latitude, not visibly the worse for their inclement rooting. hookena had shone out green under the black lip of the overhanging crag, green as a may orchard; the lava might have been some rich black loam. everywhere, in the fissures of the rock, green herbs and flowering bushes prospered; donkeys and cattle were everywhere; everywhere, too, their whitened bones, telling of drought. no sound but of the sea pervades this region; and it smells strong of the open water and of aromatic plants. we skirted one cliffy cove, full of bursting surges; and if it had not been for the palms, and the houses, and the canoes that were putting out to fish, and the colour of the cliffs and the bright dresses (lilac, red, and green) of the women that sat about the doors at work, i might have thought myself in devonshire. a little further, we passed a garden enclosed in dry stone walls from the surrounding blackness; it seemed a wonder of fertility; hard by was the owner, a white man, waiting the turn of the tide by the margin of his well; so soon as the sea flowed, he might begin to irrigate with brackish water. the children hailed my companion from wayside houses. with one little maid, knotting her gown about her in embarrassment so as to define her little person like a suit of tights, we held a conversation more prolonged. "will you be at school to-morrow?" "yes, sir." "do you like school?" "yes, sir." "do you like bathing?" "no, ma'am," with a staggering change of sex. another maiden, of more tender growth and wholly naked, fled into the house at our approach, and appeared again with a corner of a towel. leaning one hand on the post, and applying her raiment with the other, she stood in the door and watched us haughtily. the white flag of a surveyor and a pound-master's notice on a board told of the reign of law. at length we turned the corner of a point and debouched on a flat of lava. on the landward hand, cliffs made a quadrant of an amphitheatre, melting on either side into the general mountain of the isle. over these, rivers of living lava had once flowed, had frozen as they fell, and now depended like a sculptured drapery. here and there the mouth of a cave was seen half blocked, some green lianas beckoning in the entrance. in front, the fissured pavement of the lava stretched into the sea and made a surfy point. a scattered village, two white churches, one catholic, one protestant, a grove of tall and scraggy palms, and a long bulk of ruin, occupy the end. off the point, not a cable's length beyond the breaching surf, a schooner rode; come to discharge house-boards, and presently due at hookena to load lepers. the village is honaunau; the ruin, the hale keawe, temple and city of refuge. the ruin made a massive figure, rising from the flat lava in ramparts twelve to fifteen feet high, of an equal thickness, and enclosing an area of several acres. the unmortared stones were justly set; in places, the bulwark was still true to the plummet, in places ruinous from the shock of earthquakes. the enclosure was divided in unequal parts--the greater, the city of refuge; the smaller, the _heiau_, or temple, the so-called house of keawe, or reliquary of his royal bones. not his alone, but those of many monarchs of hawaii were treasured here; but whether as the founder of the shrine, or because he had been more renowned in life, keawe was the reigning and the hallowing saint. and keawe can produce at least one claim to figure on the canon, for since his death he has wrought miracles. as late as , kaahumanu sent messengers to bring the relics of the kings from their long repose at honaunau. first to the keeper's wife, and then to the keeper, the spirit of keawe appeared in a dream, bidding them prevent the desecration. upon the second summons, they rose trembling; hasted with a torch into the crypt; exchanged the bones of keawe with those of some less holy chieftains; and were back in bed but not yet asleep, and the day had not yet dawned, before the messengers arrived. so it comes that to this hour the bones of keawe, like those of his great descendant, sleep in some unknown crevice of that caverned isle. when ellis passed in , six years before this intervention of the dead, the temple still preserved some shadow of its ancient credit and presented much of its original appearance. he has sketched it, rudely in a drawing, more effectively in words. "several rudely carved male and female images of wood were placed on the outside of the enclosure, some on low pedestals under the shade of an adjacent tree, others on high posts on the jutting rocks that hung over the edge of the water. a number stood on the fence at unequal distances all around; but the principal assemblage of these frightful representatives of their former deities was at the south-east end of the enclosed space, where, forming a semi-circle, twelve of them stood in grim array, as if perpetual guardians of 'the mighty dead' reposing in the house adjoining.... once they had evidently been clothed, but now they appeared in the most indigent nakedness.... the horrid stare of these idols, the tattered garments upon some of them, and the heaps of rotting offerings before them, seemed to us no improper emblems of the system they were designed to support; distinguished alike by its cruelty, folly, and wretchedness. we endeavoured to gain admission to the inside of the house, but were told it was strictly prohibited.... however, by pushing one of the boards across the doorway a little on one side, we looked in and saw many large images, with distended mouths, large rows of sharks' teeth, and pearl-shell eyes. we also saw several bundles, apparently of human bones, cleaned, carefully tied up with sinnet made of cocoa-nut fibre, and placed in different parts of the house, together with some rich shawls and other valuable articles, probably worn by those to whom the bones belonged." thus the careless eyes of ellis viewed and passed over the bones of sacrosanct keawe, in his house which he had builded. cities of refuge are found not only in hawaii but in the gilberts: where their name is now invariably used for a mosquito-net. but the refuge of the gilberts was only a house in a village, and only offered, like european churches, a sanctuary for the time. the hunted man might harbour there, and live on charity: woe to him if he stepped without. the city of refuge of honaunau possessed a larger efficacy. its gate once passed, an appearance made before the priest on duty, a hasty prayer addressed to the chief idol, and the guilty man was free to go again, relieved from all the consequences of his crime or his misfortune. in time of war, its bulwarks were advertised by pennons of white tapa; and the aged, the children, and the poorer-hearted of the women of the district awaited there the issue of the battle. but the true wives followed their lords into the field, and shared with them their toil and danger. the city had yet another function. there was in hawaii a class apart, comparable to the doomed families of tahiti, whose special mission was to supply the altar. it seems the victim fell usually on the holy day, of which there were four in the month; between these, the man was not only safe, but enjoyed, in virtue of his destiny, a singular licence of behaviour. his immunities exceeded those of the mediæval priest and jester rolled in one; he might have donned the king's girdle (the height of sacrilege and treason), and gone abroad with it, unpunished and apparently unblamed; and with a little care and some acquaintance in priests' families, he might prolong this life of licence to old age. but the laws of human nature are implacable; their destiny of privilege and peril turned the men's heads; even at dangerous seasons, they went recklessly abroad upon their pleasures; were often sighted in the open, and must run for the city of refuge with the priestly murderers at their heels. it is strange to think it was a priest also who stood in the door to welcome and protect them. the enclosure of the sanctuary was all paved with the lava; scattered blocks encumbered it in places; everywhere tall cocoa-palms jutted from the fissures and drew shadows on the floor; a loud continuous sound of the near sea burthened the ear. these rude monumental ruins, and the thought of that life and faith of which they stood memorial, threw me in a muse. there are times and places where the past becomes more vivid than the present, and the memory dominates the ear and eye. i have found it so in the presence of the vestiges of rome; i found it so again in the city of refuge at honaunau; and the strange, busy, and perilous existence of the old hawaiian, the grinning idols of the heiau, the priestly murderers and the fleeing victim, rose before and mastered my imagination. some dozen natives of honaunau followed me about to show the boundaries; and i was recalled from these scattering thoughts by one of my guides laying his hand on a big block of lava. "this stone is called kaahumanu," said he. "it is here she lay hid with her dog from kamehameha." and he told me an anecdote which would not interest the reader as it interested me, till he has learned what manner of woman kaahumanu was. chapter iv kaahumanu kamehameha the first, founder of the realm of the eight islands, was a man properly entitled to the style of great. all chiefs in polynesia are tall and portly; and kamehameha owed his life in the battle with the puna fishers to the vigour of his body. he was skilled in single combat; as a general, he was almost invariably the victor. yet it is not as a soldier that he remains fixed upon the memory; rather as a kindly and wise monarch, full of sense and shrewdness, like an old plain country farmer. when he had a mind to make a present of fish, he went to the fishing himself. when famine fell on the land, he remitted the tributes, cultivated a garden for his own support with his own hands, and set all his friends to do the like. their patches of land, each still known by the name of its high-born gardener, were shown to ellis on his tour. he passed laws against cutting down young sandal-wood trees, and against the killing of the bird from which the feather mantles of the archipelago were made. the yellow feathers were to be plucked, he directed, and the bird dismissed again to freedom. his people were astonished. "you are old," they argued; "soon you will die; what use will it be to you?" "let the bird go," said the king. "it will be for my children afterwards." alas, that his laws had not prevailed! sandal-wood and yellow feathers are now things of yesterday in his dominions. the attitude of this brave old fellow to the native religion was, for some while before his death, ambiguous. a white man (tradition says) had come to hawaii upon a visit; king kalakaua assures me he was an englishman, and a missionary; if that be so, he should be easy to identify. it was this missionary's habit to go walking in the morning ere the sun was up, and before doing so, to kindle a light and make tea. the king, who rose early himself to watch the behaviour of his people, observed the light, made inquiries, learned of and grew curious about these morning walks, threw himself at last in the missionary's path, and drew him into talk. the meeting was repeated; and the missionary began to press the king with christianity. "if you will throw yourself from that cliff," said kamehameha, "and come down uninjured, i will accept your religion: not unless." but the missionary was a man of parts; he wrote a deep impression on his hearer's mind, and after he had left for home, kamehameha called his chief priest, and announced he was about to break the tabus and to change his faith. the kahuna replied that he was the king's servant, but the step was grave, and it would be wiser to proceed by divination. kamehameha consented. each built a new heiau over against the other's; and when both were finished, a game of what we call _french and english_ or _the tug of war_ was played upon the intervening space. the party of the priest prevailed; the king's men were dragged in a body into the opposite temple; and the tabus were maintained. none employed in this momentous foolery were informed of its significance; the king's misgivings were studiously concealed; but there is little doubt he continued to cherish them in secret. at his death, he had another memorable word, testifying to his old preoccupation for his son's estate: implying besides a weakened confidence in the island deities. his sickness was heavy upon him; the time had manifestly come to offer sacrifice; the people had fled already from the then dangerous vicinity, and lay hid; none but priests and chiefs remained about the king. "a man to your god!" they urged--"a man to your god, that you may recover!" "the man is sacred to (my son) the king," replied kamehameha. so much appeared in public; but it is believed that he left secret commands upon the high chief kalanimoku, and on kaahumanu, the most beautiful and energetic of his wives, to do (as soon as he was dead) that which he had spared to do while living. no time was lost. the very day of his death, may th, , the women of the court ate of forbidden food, and some of the men sat down with them to meat. infidelity must have been deep-seated in the circle of kamehameha; for no portent followed this defiance of the gods, and none of the transgressors died. but the priests were doubtless informed of what was doing; the blame lay clearly on the shoulders of kaahumanu, the most conspicuous person in the land, named by the dying kamehameha for a conditional successor: "if liholiho do amiss, let kaahumanu take the kingdom and preserve it." the priests met in council of diviners; and by a natural retort, it was upon kaahumanu that they laid the fault of the king's death. this conspiracy appears to have been quite in vain. kaahumanu sat secure. on the day of the coronation, when the young king came forth from the heiau, clad in a red robe and crowned with his english diadem, it was almost as an equal that she met and spoke to him. "(son of) heaven, i name to you the possessions of your father; here are the chiefs, there are the people of your father; there are your guns, here is your land. but let you and me enjoy that land together." he must have known already she was a free-eater, and there is no doubt he trembled at the thought of that impiety and of its punishment; yet he consented to what seems her bold proposal. the same day he met his own mother, who signed to him privately that he should eat free. but liholiho (the poor drunkard who died in london) was incapable of so much daring: he hung long apart from the court circle with a clique of the more superstitious; and it was not till five months later, after a drinking bout in a canoe at sea, that he was decoyed to land by stronger spirits, and was seen (perhaps scarce conscious of his acts) to eat of a dog, drink rum, and smoke tobacco, with his servant women. thus the food tabu fell finally at court. ere it could be stamped out upon hawaii, a war must be fought; wherein the chief of the old party fell in battle; his brave wife manono by his side, mourned even by the missionary ellis. the fall of one tabu involved the fall of others; the land was plunged in dissolution; morals ceased. when the missionaries came (april ), all the wisdom in the kingdom was prepared to embrace the succour of some new idea. kaahumanu early ranged upon that side, perhaps at first upon a ground of politics. but gradually she fell more and more under the influence of the new teachers; loved them, served them; valorously defended them in dangers, which she shared; and put away at their command her second husband. to the end of a long life, she played an almost sovereign part, so that in the ephemerides of hawaii, the progresses of kaahumanu are chronicled along with the deaths and the accessions of kings. for two successive sovereigns and in troublous periods, she held the reins of regency with a fortitude that has not been called in question, with a loyalty beyond reproach; and at last, on th june , this duke of wellington of a woman made the end of a saint, fifty-seven years after her marriage with the conqueror. the date of her birth, it seems, is lost; we may call her seventy. kaahumanu was a woman of the chiefly stature and of celebrated beauty; bingham admits she was "_beautiful for a polynesian_"; and her husband cherished her exceedingly. he had the indelicacy to frame and publish an especial law declaring death against the man who should approach her, and yet no penalty against herself. and in , after thirty-four years of marriage, and when she must have been nearing fifty, an island chastelard, of the name of kanihonui, was found to be her lover, and paid the penalty of life; she cynically surviving. some twenty years later, one of the missionaries had written home denouncing the misconduct of an english whaler. the whaler got word of the denunciation and, with the complicity of the english consul, sought to make a crime of it against the mission. party spirit ran very violent in the islands; tears were shed, threats flying; and kaahumanu called a council of the chiefs. in that day stood forth the native historian, david malo (though his name should rather have been nathan), and pressed the regent with historic instances. who was to be punished?--the whaler guilty of the act, the missionary whose denunciation had provoked the scandal? "o you, the wife of kamehameha," said he, "kanihonui came and slept with you luheluhe declared to kamehameha the sleeping together of you two. i ask you, which of these two persons was slain by kamehameha? was it luheluhe?" and she answered: "it was kanihonui!" shakespeare never imagined such a character; and it would require none less than he to represent her sublimities and contradictions. after this heroine, the stone in the precinct of honaunau had been named. here is the reason, and the tale completes her portrait. kamehameha was, of course, polygamous; the number of his wives rose at last to twenty-five; and out of these no less than two were the sisters of kaahumanu. the favourite was of a jealous habit; and when it came to a sister for a rival, her jealousy overflowed. she fled by night, plunged in the sea, came swimming to honaunau, entered the precinct by the sea-gate, and hid herself behind the stone. there she lay naked and refused food. the flight was discovered; as she had come swimming, none had seen her pass; the priests of the temple were bound, it seems, to silence; and kona was filled with the messengers of the dismayed kamehameha, vainly seeking the favourite. now, kaahumanu had a dog who was much attached to her, who had accompanied her in her long swim, and lay by her side behind the stone; and it chanced, as the messengers ran past the city of refuge, that the dog (perhaps recognising them) began to bark. "ah, there is the dog of kaahumanu!" said the messengers, and returned and told the king she was at the hale o keawe. thence kamehameha fetched or sent for her, and the breach in their relations was restored. a king preferred this woman out of a kingdom; kanihonui died for her, when she was fifty; even her dog adored her; even bingham, who did not see her until , thought her "_beautiful for a polynesian_," and while she was thus in person an emblem of womanly charm, she made her life illustrious with the manly virtues. there are some who give to mary queen of scots the place of saint and muse in their historic meditations; i recommend to them instead the wife and widow of the island conqueror. the hawaiian was the nobler woman, with the nobler story; and no disenchanting portrait will be found to shatter an ideal. chapter v the lepers of kona a step beyond hookena, a wooden house with two doors stands isolated in a field of broken lava, like ploughed land. i had approached it on the night of my arrival, and found it black and silent; yet even then it had inmates. a man and a woman sat there captive, and the man had a knife, brought to him in secret by his family. not long, perhaps, after i was by, the man, silencing by threats his fellow-prisoner, cut through the floor and escaped to the mountain. it was known he had a comrade there, hunted on the same account; and their friends kept them supplied with food and ammunition. upon the mountains, in most islands of the group, similar outlaws rove in bands or dwell alone, unsightly hermits; and but the other day an officer was wounded while attempting an arrest. some are desperate fellows; some mournful women--mothers and wives; some stripling girls. a day or two, for instance, after the man had escaped, the police got word of another old offender, made a forced march, and took the quarry sitting: this time with little peril to themselves. for the outlaw was a girl of nineteen, who had been two years under the rains in the high forest, with her mother for comrade and accomplice. how does their own poet sing? in the land of distress my dwelling was on the mountain height, my talking companions were the birds, the decaying leaves of the ki my clothing. it is for no crime this law-abiding race flee to the woods; it is no fear of the gallows or the dungeon that nerves themselves to resist and their friends to aid and to applaud them. their liability is for disease; they are lepers; and what they combine to combat is not punishment but segregation. while china, and england, and france, in their tropical possessions, either attempt nothing or effect little, hawaii has honourably faced the problem of this ancient and apparently reviving malady. her small extent is an advantage; but the ruggedness of the physical characters, the desert woods and mountains, and the habit of the native mind, oppose success. to the native mind, our medical opinions seem unfounded. we smile to hear of ghosts and gods; they, when they are told to keep warm in fevers or to avoid contagion. leprosy in particular they cannot be persuaded to avoid. but no mere opinion would exalt them to resist the law and lie in forests did not a question of the family bond embitter and exasperate the opposition. their family affection is strong, but unerect; it is luxuriously self-indulgent, circumscribed within the passing moment, without providence, without nobility, incapable of healthful rigour. the presence and the approval of the loved one, it matters not how purchased, there is the single demand of the polynesian. by a natural consequence, when death intervenes, he is consoled the more easily. against this undignified fervour of attachment, marital and parental, the law of segregation often beats in vain. it is no fear of the lazaretto; they know the dwellers are well used in molokai; they receive letters from friends already there who praise the place; and could the family be taken in a body, they would go with glee, overjoyed to draw rations from government. but all cannot become pensioners at once; a proportion of rate-payers must be kept; and the leper must go alone or with a single relative; and the native instinctively resists the separation as a weasel bites. a similar reluctance can be shown in molokai itself. by a recent law, clean children born within the precinct are taken from their leper parents, sent to an intermediate hospital, and given a chance of life and health and liberty. i have stood by while mr. meyer and mr. hutchinson, the luna and the sub-luna of the lazaretto, opened the petitions of the settlement. as they sat together on the steps of the guest-house at kalawao, letter after letter was passed between them with a sneer, and flung upon the ground; till i was at last struck with this cavalier procedure, and inquired the nature of the appeals. they were all the same; all from leper parents, all pleading to have their clean children retained in that abode of sorrow, and all alleging the same reason--_aloha nuinui_--an extreme affection. such was the extreme affection of kaahumanu for kanihonui; by which she indulged her wantonness in safety and he died. but love has a countenance more severe. the scenes i am about to describe, moving as they were to witness, have thus an element of something weak and false. sympathy may flow freely for the leper girl; it may flow for her mother with reserve; it must not betray us into a shadow of injustice for the government whose laws they had attempted to evade. that which is pathetic is not needfully wrong. i walked in a bright sun, after a grateful rain, upon the shore beyond hookena. the breeze was of heavenly freshness, the surf was jubilant in all the caves; it was a morning to put a man in thought of the antiquity, the health and cleanness of the earth. and behold! when i came abreast of the little pest-house on the lava, both the doors were open. in front, a circle of some half-a-dozen women and children sat conspicuous in the usual bright raiment; in their midst was a crouching and bowed figure, swathed in a black shawl and motionless; and as i drew more near, i was aware of a continuous and high-pitched drone of song. the figure in the midst was the leper girl; the song was the improvisation of the mother, pouring out her sorrow in the island way. "that was not singing," explained the schoolmaster's wife on my return, "that was crying." and she sketched for me the probable tenor of the lament: "o my daughter, o my child, now you are going away from me, now you are taken away from me at last," and so on without end. the thought of the girl so early separated from her fellows--the look of her lying there covered from eyesight, like an untimely birth--perhaps more than all, the penetrating note of the lament--subdued my courage utterly. with the natural impulse, i began to seek some outlet for my pain. it occurred to me that, after two years in the woods, the family affairs might well have suffered, and in view of the transplantation, clothes, furniture, or money might be needful. i believe it was not done wisely, since it was gone about in ignorance; i dare say it flowed from a sentiment no more erect than that of polynesians; i am sure there were many in england to whom my superfluity had proved more useful; but the next morning saw me at the pest-house, under convoy of the schoolmaster and the policeman. the doors were again open. a fire was burning and a pot cooking on the lava, under the supervision of an old woman in a grass-green sacque. this dame, who seemed more merry than refined, hailed me, seized me, and tried to seat me in her lap; a jolly and coarse old girl from whom, in my hour of sentiment, i fled with craven shrinking: to whom, upon a retrospect, i do more justice. the two lepers (both women) sat in the midst of their visitors, even the children (to my grief) touching them freely; the elder chatting at intervals--the girl in the same black weed and bowed in the same attitude as yesterday. it was painfully plain she would conceal, if possible, her face. perhaps she had been beautiful: certainly, poor soul, she had been vain--a gift of equal value. some consultation followed; i was told that nothing was required for outfit, but a gift in money would be gratefully received; and this (forgetting i was in the south seas) i was about to make in silence. the confounded expression of the schoolmaster reminded me of where i was. we stood up, accordingly, side by side before the lepers; i made the necessary speech, which the schoolmaster translated sentence by sentence; the money (thus hallowed by oratory) was handed over and received; and the two women each returned a dry "mahalo," the girl not even then exhibiting her face. between nine and ten of the same morning, the schooner lay-to off hookena and a whaleboat came ashore. the village clustered on the rocks for the farewell: a grief perhaps--a performance certainly. we miss in our modern life these operatic consolations of the past. the lepers came singly and unattended; the elder first; the girl a little after, tricked out in a red dress and with a fine red feather in her hat. in this bravery, it was the more affecting to see her move apart on the rocks and crouch in her accustomed attitude. but this time i had seen her face; it was scarce horribly affected, but had a haunting look of an unfinished wooden doll, at once expressionless and disproportioned; doubtless a sore spectacle in the mirror of youth. next there appeared a woman of the middle life, of a swaggering gait, a gallant figure, and a bold, handsome face. she came, swinging her hat, rolling her eyes and shoulders, visibly working herself up; the crowd stirred and murmured on her passage; and i knew, without being told, this was the mother and protagonist. close by the sea, in the midst of the spectators, she sat down, and raised immediately the notes of the lament. one after another of her friends approached her. to one after the other she reached out an arm, embraced them down, rocked awhile with them embraced, and passionately kissed them in the island fashion, with the pressed face. the leper girl at last, as at some signal, rose from her seat apart, drew near, was inarmed like the rest, and with a small knot (i suppose of the most intimate) held some while in a general clasp. through all, the wail continued, rising into words and a sort of passionate declamatory recitation as each friend approached, sinking again, as the pair rocked together, into the tremolo drone. at length the scene was over; the performers rose; the lepers and the mother were helped in silence to their places; the whaleboat was urged between the reefs into a bursting surge, and swung next moment without on the smooth swell. almost every countenance about me streamed with tears. it was odd, but perhaps natural amongst a ceremonious, oratorical race, that the boat should have waited while a passenger publicly lamented on the beach. it was more odd still that the mother should have been the chief, rather the only, actor. she was leaving indeed; she hoped to be taken as a kokua, or clean assistant, and thus accompany her daughter to the settlement; but she was far from sure; and it was highly possible she might return to kona in a month. the lepers, on the other hand, took leave for ever. in so far as regarded their own isle and birthplace, and for their friends and families, it was their day of death. the soldier from the war returns, the sailor from the main: but not the sick from the gray island. yet they went unheeded; and the chief part, and the whole stage and sympathy, was for their travelling companion. at the time, i was too deeply moved to criticise; mere sympathy oppressed my spirit. it had always been a point with me to visit the station, if i could: on the rocks of hookena the design was fixed. i had seen the departure of lepers for the place of exile; i must see their arrival, and that place itself.[ ] footnote: [ ] for an account of the writer's visit to the leper settlement, see _letters_, section x. part iv the gilberts chapter i butaritari at honolulu we had said farewell to the _casco_ and to captain otis, and our next adventure was made in changed conditions. passage was taken for myself, my wife, mr. osbourne, and my china boy, ah fu, on a pigmy trading schooner, the _equator_, captain dennis reid; and on a certain bright june day in , adorned in the hawaiian fashion with the garlands of departure, we drew out of port and bore with a fair wind for micronesia. the whole extent of the south seas is desert of ships, more especially that part where we were now to sail. no post runs in these islands; communication is by accident; where you may have designed to go is one thing, where you shall be able to arrive another. it was my hope, for instance, to have reached the carolines, and returned to the light of day by way of manila and the china ports; and it was in samoa that we were destined to re-appear and be once more refreshed with the sight of mountains. since the sunset faded from the peaks of oahu six months had intervened, and we had seen no spot of earth so high as an ordinary cottage. our path had been still on the flat sea, our dwellings upon unerected coral, our diet from the pickle-tub or out of tins; i had learned to welcome shark' flesh for a variety; and a mountain, an onion, an irish potato or a beef-steak, had been long lost to sense and dear to aspiration. the two chief places of our stay, butaritari and apemama, lie near the line; the latter within thirty miles. both enjoy a superb ocean climate, days of blinding sun and bracing wind, nights of a heavenly brightness. both are somewhat wider than fakarava, measuring perhaps (at the widest) a quarter of a mile from beach to beach. in both, a coarse kind of _taro_ thrives; its culture is a chief business of the natives, and the consequent mounds and ditches make miniature scenery and amuse the eye. in all else they show the customary features of an atoll: the low horizon, the expanse of the lagoon, the sedge-like rim of palm-tops, the sameness and smallness of the land, the hugely superior size and interest of sea and sky. life on such islands is in many points like life on shipboard. the atoll, like the ship, is soon taken for granted; and the islanders, like the ship's crew, become soon the centre of attention. the isles are populous, independent, seats of kinglets, recently civilised, little visited. in the last decade many changes have crept in: women no longer go unclothed till marriage; the widow no longer sleeps at night and goes abroad by day with the skull of her dead husband; and, fire-arms being introduced, the spear and the shark-tooth sword are sold for curiosities. ten years ago all these things and practices were to be seen in use; yet ten years more, and the old society will have entirely vanished. we came in a happy moment to see its institutions still erect and (in apemama) scarce decayed. populous and independent--warrens of men, ruled over with some rustic pomp--such was the first and still the recurring impression of these tiny lands. as we stood across the lagoon for the town of butaritari, a stretch of the low shore was seen to be crowded with the brown roofs of houses; those of the palace and king's summer parlour (which are of corrugated iron) glittered near one end conspicuously bright; the royal colours flew hard by on a tall flagstaff; in front, on an artificial islet, the gaol played the part of a martello. even upon this first and distant view, the place had scarce the air of what it truly was, a village; rather of that which it was also, a petty metropolis, a city rustic and yet royal. the lagoon is shoal. the tide being out, we waded for some quarter of a mile in tepid shallows, and stepped ashore at last into a flagrant stagnancy of sun and heat. the lee side of a line island after noon is indeed a breathless place; on the ocean beach the trade will be still blowing, boisterous and cool; out in the lagoon it will be blowing also, speeding the canoes; but the screen of bush completely intercepts it from the shore, and sleep and silence and companies of mosquitoes brood upon the towns. we may thus be said to have taken butaritari by surprise. a few inhabitants were still abroad in the north end, at which we landed. as we advanced, we were soon done with encounter, and seemed to explore a city of the dead. only, between the posts of open houses, we could see the townsfolk stretched in the siesta, sometimes a family together veiled in a mosquito net, sometimes a single sleeper on a platform like a corpse on a bier. the houses were of all dimensions, from those of toys to those of churches. some might hold a battalion, some were so minute they could scarce receive a pair of lovers; only in the playroom, when the toys are mingled, do we meet such incongruities of scale. many were open sheds; some took the form of roofed stages; others were walled and the walls pierced with little windows. a few were perched on piles in the lagoon; the rest stood at random on a green, through which the roadway made a ribbon of sand, or along the embankments of a sheet of water like a shallow dock. one and all were the creatures of a single tree; palm-tree wood and palm-tree leaf their materials; no nail had been driven, no hammer sounded, in their building, and they were held together by lashings of palm-tree sinnet. in the midst of the thoroughfare, the church stands like an island, a lofty and dim house with rows of windows; a rich tracery of framing sustains the roof; and through the door at either end the street shows in a vista. the proportions of the place, in such surroundings, and built of such materials, appeared august; and we threaded the nave with a sentiment befitting visitors in a cathedral. benches run along either side. in the midst, on a crazy dais, two chairs stand ready for the king and queen when they shall choose to worship; over their heads a hoop, apparently from a hogshead, depends by a strip of red cotton; and the hoop (which hangs askew) is dressed with streamers of the same material, red and white. this was our first advertisement of the royal dignity, and presently we stood before its seat and centre. the palace is built of imported wood upon a european plan; the roof of corrugated iron, the yard enclosed with walls, the gate surmounted by a sort of lych-house. it cannot be called spacious; a labourer in the states is sometimes more commodiously lodged; but when we had the chance to see it within, we found it was enriched (beyond all island expectation) with coloured advertisements and cuts from the illustrated papers. even before the gate some of the treasures of the crown stand public: a bell of a good magnitude, two pieces of cannon, and a single shell. the bell cannot be rung nor the guns fired; they are curiosities, proofs of wealth, a part of the parade of the royalty, and stand to be admired like statues in a square. a straight gut of water like a canal runs almost to the palace door; the containing quay-walls excellently built of coral; over against the mouth, by what seems an effect of landscape art, the martello-like islet of the gaol breaks the lagoon. vassal chiefs with tribute, neighbour monarchs come a-roving, might here sail in, view with surprise these extensive public works, and be awed by these mouths of silent cannon. it was impossible to see the place and not to fancy it designed for pageantry. but the elaborate theatre then stood empty; the royal house deserted, its doors and windows gaping; the whole quarter of the town immersed in silence. on the opposite bank of the canal, on a roofed stage, an ancient gentleman slept publicly, sole visible inhabitant; and beyond on the lagoon a canoe spread a striped lateen, the sole thing moving. the canal is formed on the south by a pier or causeway with a parapet. at the far end the parapet stops, and the quay expands into an oblong peninsula in the lagoon, the breathing-place and summer parlour of the king. the midst is occupied by an open house or permanent marquee--called here a maniapa, or, as the word is now pronounced, a maniap'--at the lowest estimation forty feet by sixty. the iron roof, lofty but exceedingly low-browed, so that a woman must stoop to enter, is supported externally on pillars of coral, within by a frame of wood. the floor is of broken coral, divided in aisles by the uprights of the frame; the house far enough from shore to catch the breeze, which enters freely and disperses the mosquitoes; and under the low eaves the sun is seen to glitter and the waves to dance on the lagoon. it was now some while since we had met any but slumberers; and when we had wandered down the pier and stumbled at last into this bright shed, we were surprised to find it occupied by a society of wakeful people, some twenty souls in all, the court and guardsmen of butaritari. the court ladies were busy making mats; the guardsmen yawned and sprawled. half a dozen rifles lay on a rock and a cutlass was leaned against a pillar: the armoury of these drowsy musketeers. at the far end, a little closed house of wood displayed some tinsel curtains, and proved upon examination to be a privy on the european model. in front of this, upon some mats, lolled teburcimoa, the king; behind him, on the panels of the house, two crossed rifles represented fasces. he wore pyjamas which sorrowfully misbecame his bulk; his nose was hooked and cruel, his body overcome with sodden corpulence, his eye timorous and dull; he seemed at once oppressed with drowsiness and held awake by apprehension: a pepper rajah muddled with opium, and listening for the march of the dutch army, looks perhaps not otherwise. we were to grow better acquainted, and first and last i had the same impression; he seemed always drowsy, yet always to hearken and start; and, whether from remorse or fear, there is no doubt he seeks a refuge in the abuse of drugs. the rajah displayed no sign of interest in our coming. but the queen, who sat beside him in a purple sacque, was more accessible; and there was present an interpreter so willing that his volubility became at last the cause of our departure. he had greeted us upon our entrance:--"that is the honourable king, and i am his interpreter," he had said, with more stateliness than truth. for he held no appointment in the court, seemed extremely ill-acquainted with the island language, and was present, like ourselves, upon a visit of civility. mr. williams was his name: an american darkey, runaway ship's cook, and bar-keeper at "the land we live in" tavern, butaritari. i never knew a man who had more words in his command or less truth to communicate; neither the gloom of the monarch, nor my own efforts to be distant, could in the least abash him; and when the scene closed, the darkey was left talking. the town still slumbered, or had but just begun to turn and stretch itself; it was still plunged in heat and silence. so much the more vivid was the impression that we carried away of the house upon the islet, the micronesian saul wakeful amid his guards, and his unmelodious david, mr. williams, chattering through the drowsy hours. chapter ii the four brothers the kingdom of tebureimoa includes two islands, great and little makin; some two thousand subjects pay him tribute, and two semi-independent chieftains do him qualified homage. the importance of the office is measured by the man; he may be a nobody, he may be absolute; and both extremes have been exemplified within the memory of residents. on the death of king tetimararoa, tebureimoa's father, nakaeia, the eldest son, succeeded. he was a fellow of huge physical strength, masterful, violent, with a certain barbaric thrift and some intelligence of men and business. alone in his islands it was he who dealt and profited; he was the planter and the merchant; and his subjects toiled for his behoof in servitude. when they wrought long and well their task-master declared a holiday, and supplied and shared a general debauch. the scale of his providing was at times magnificent; six hundred dollars' worth of gin and brandy was set forth at once; the narrow land resounded with the noise of revelry; and it was a common thing to see the subjects (staggering themselves) parade their drunken sovereign on the forehatch of a wrecked vessel, king and commons howling and singing as they went. at a word from nakaeia's mouth the revel ended; makin became once more an isle of slaves and of teetotalers; and on the morrow all the population must be on the roads or in the taro-patches toiling under his bloodshot eye. the fear of nakaeia filled the land. no regularity of justice was affected; there was no trial, there were no officers of the law; it seems there was but one penalty, the capital; and daylight assault and midnight murder were the forms of process. the king himself would play the executioner; and his blows were dealt by stealth, and with the help and countenance of none but his own wives. these were his oarswomen; one that caught a crab, he slew incontinently with the tiller; thus disciplined, they pulled him by night to the scene of his vengeance, which he would then execute alone and return well pleased with his connubial crew. the inmates of the harem held a station hard for us to conceive. beasts of draught, and driven by the fear of death, they were yet implicitly trusted with their sovereign's life; they were still wives and queens, and it was supposed that no man should behold their faces. they killed by the sight like basilisks; a chance view of one of those boatwomen was a crime to be wiped out with blood. in the days of nakaeia the palace was beset with some tall coco-palms, which commanded the enclosure. it chanced one evening, while nakaeia sat below at supper with his wives, that the owner of the grove was in a tree-top drawing palm-tree wine; it chanced that he looked down, and the king at the same moment looking up, their eyes encountered. instant flight preserved the involuntary criminal. but during the remainder of that reign he must lurk and be hid by friends in remote parts of the isle; nakaeia hunted him without remission, although still in vain; and the palms, accessories to the fact, were ruthlessly cut down. such was the ideal of wifely purity in an isle where nubile virgins went naked as in paradise. and yet scandal found its way into nakaeia's well-guarded harem. he was at that time the owner of a schooner, which he used for a pleasure-house, lodging on board as she lay anchored; and thither one day he summoned a new wife. she was one that had been sealed to him; that is to say (i presume), that he was married to her sister, for the husband of an elder sister has the call of the cadets. she would be arrayed for the occasion; she would come scented, garlanded, decked with fine mats and family jewels, for marriage, as her friends supposed; for death, as she well knew. "tell me the man's name, and i will spare you," said nakaeia. but the girl was staunch; she held her peace, saved her lover; and the queens strangled her between the mats. nakaeia was feared; it does not appear that he was hated. deeds that smell to us of murder wore to his subjects the reverend face of justice; his orgies made him popular; natives to this day recall with respect the firmness of his government; and even the whites, whom he long opposed and kept at arm's-length, give him the name (in the canonical south sea phrase) of "a perfect gentleman when sober." when he came to lie, without issue, on the bed of death, he summoned his next brother, nanteitei, made him a discourse on royal policy, and warned him he was too weak to reign. the warning was taken to heart, and for some while the government moved on the model of nakaeia's. nanteitei dispensed with guards, and walked abroad alone with a revolver in a leather mail-bag. to conceal his weakness he affected a rude silence; you might talk to him all day; advice, reproof, appeal, and menace alike remained unanswered. the number of his wives was seventeen, many of them heiresses; for the royal house is poor, and marriage was in these days a chief means of buttressing the throne. nakaeia kept his harem busy for himself; nanteitei hired it out to others. in his days, for instance, messrs. wightman built a pier with a verandah at the north end of the town. the masonry was the work of the seventeen queens, who toiled and waded there like fisher lasses; but the man who was to do the roofing durst not begin till they had finished, lest by chance he should look down and see them. it was perhaps the last appearance of the harem gang. for some time already hawaiian missionaries had been seated at butaritari--maka and kanoa, two brave child-like men. nakaeia would none of their doctrine; he was perhaps jealous of their presence; being human, he had some affection for their persons. in the house, before the eyes of kanoa, he slew with his own hand three sailors of oahu, crouching on their backs to knife them, and menacing the missionary if he interfered; yet he not only spared him at the moment, but recalled him afterwards (when he had fled) with some expressions of respect. nanteitei, the weaker man, fell more completely under the spell. maka, a light-hearted, lovable, yet in his own trade very rigorous man, gained and improved an influence on the king which soon grew paramount. nanteitei, with the royal house, was publicly converted; and, with a severity which liberal missionaries disavow, the harem was at once reduced. it was a compendious act. the throne was thus impoverished, its influence shaken, the queen's relatives mortified, and sixteen chief women (some of great possessions) cast in a body on the market. i have been shipmates with a hawaiian sailor who was successively married to two of these _impromptu_ widows, and successively divorced by both for misconduct. that two great and rich ladies (for both of these were rich) should have married "a man from another island" marks the dissolution of society. the laws besides were wholly remodelled, not always for the better. i love maka as a man; as a legislator he has two defects: weak in the punishment of crime, stern to repress innocent pleasures. war and revolution are the common successors of reform; yet nanteitei died (of an overdose of chloroform), in quiet possession of the throne, and it was in the reign of the third brother, nabakatokia, a man brave in body and feeble of character, that the storm burst. the rule of the high chiefs and notables seems to have always underlain and perhaps alternated with monarchy. the old men (as they were called) have a right to sit with the king in the speak house and debate: and the king's chief superiority is a form of closure--"the speaking is over." after the long monocracy of nakaeia and the changes of nanteitei, the old men were doubtless grown impatient of obscurity, and they were beyond question jealous of the influence of maka. calumny, or rather caricature, was called in use; a spoken cartoon ran round society; maka was reported to have said in church that the king was the first man in the island and himself the second; and, stung by the supposed affront, the chiefs broke into rebellion and armed gatherings. in the space of one forenoon the throne of nakaeia was humbled in the dust. the king sat in the maniap' before the palace gate expecting his recruits; maka by his side, both anxious men; and meanwhile, in the door of a house at the north entry of the town, a chief had taken post and diverted the succours as they came. they came singly or in groups, each with his gun or pistol slung about his neck. "where are you going?" asked the chief. "the king called us," they would reply. "here is your place. sit down," returned the chief. with incredible disloyalty, all obeyed; and sufficient force being thus got together from both sides, nabakatokia was summoned and surrendered. about this period, in almost every part of the group, the kings were murdered; and on tapituea, the skeleton of the last hangs to this day in the chief speak house of the isle, a menace to ambition. nabakatokia was more fortunate; his life and the royal style were spared to him, but he was stripped of power. the old men enjoyed a festival of public speaking; the laws were continually changed, never enforced; the commons had an opportunity to regret the merits of nakaeia, and the king, denied the resource of rich marriages and the service of a troop of wives, fell not only in disconsideration but in debt. he died some months before my arrival in the islands, and no one regretted him; rather all looked hopefully to his successor. this was by repute the hero of the family. alone of the four brothers, he had issue, a grown son, natiata, and a daughter three years old; it was to him, in the hour of the revolution, that nabakatokia turned too late for help; and in earlier days he had been the right hand of the vigorous nakaeia. nantemat', _mr. corpse_, was his appalling nickname, and he had earned it well. again and again, at the command of nakaeia, he had surrounded houses in the dead of night, cut down the mosquito bars and butchered families. here was the hand of iron; here was nakaeia _redux_. he came, summoned from the tributary rule of little makin: he was installed, he proved a puppet and a trembler, the unwieldy shuttlecock of orators; and the reader has seen the remains of him in his summer parlour under the name of tebureimoa. the change in the man's character was much commented on in the island, and variously explained by opium and christianity. to my eyes, there seemed no change at all, rather an extreme consistency. mr. corpse was afraid of his brother: king tebureimoa is afraid of the old men. terror of the first nerved him for deeds of desperation; fear of the second disables him for the least act of government. he played his part of bravo in the past, following the line of least resistance, butchering others in his own defence: to-day, grown elderly and heavy, a convert, a reader of the bible, perhaps a penitent, conscious at least of accumulated hatreds, and his memory charged with images of violence and blood, he capitulates to the old men, fuddles himself with opium, and sits among his guards in dreadful expectation. the same cowardice that put into his hand the knife of the assassin deprives him of the sceptre of a king. a tale that i was told, a trifling incident that fell in my observation, depict him in his two capacities. a chief in little makin asked, in an hour of lightness, "who is kaeia?" a bird carried the saying; and nakaeia placed the matter in the hands of a committee of three. mr. corpse was chairman; the second commissioner died before my arrival; the third was yet alive and green, and presented so venerable an appearance that we gave him the name of abou ben adhem. mr. corpse was troubled with a scruple; the man from little makin was his adopted brother; in such a case it was not very delicate to appear at all, to strike the blow (which it seems was otherwise expected of him) would be worse than awkward. "i will strike the blow," said the venerable abou; and mr. corpse (surely with a sigh) accepted the compromise. the quarry was decoyed into the bush; he was set carrying a log; and while his arms were raised abou ripped up his belly at a blow. justice being thus done, the commission, in a childish horror, turned to flee. but their victim recalled them to his side. "you need not run away now," he said. "you have done this thing to me. stay." he was some twenty minutes dying, and his murderers sat with him the while: a scene for shakespeare. all the stages of a violent death, the blood, the failing voice, the decomposing features, the changed hue, are thus present in the memory of mr. corpse; and since he studied them in the brother he betrayed, he has some reason to reflect on the possibilities of treachery. i was never more sure of anything than the tragic quality of the king's thoughts; and yet i had but the one sight of him at unawares. i had once an errand for his ear. it was once more the hour of the siesta; but there were loiterers abroad, and these directed us to a closed house on the bank of the canal where tebureimoa lay unguarded. we entered without ceremony, being in some haste. he lay on the floor upon a bed of mats, reading in his gilbert island bible with compunction. on our sudden entrance the unwieldy man reared himself half-sitting so that the bible rolled on the floor, stared on us a moment with blank eyes, and, having recognised his visitors, sank again upon the mats. so eglon looked on ehud. the justice of facts is strange, and strangely just: nakaeia, the author of these deeds, died at peace discoursing on the craft of kings; his tool suffers daily death for his enforced complicity. not the nature, but the congruity of men's deeds and circumstances damn and save them; and tebureimoa from the first has been incongruously placed. at home, in a quiet by-street of a village, the man had been a worthy carpenter, and, even bedevilled as he is, he shows some private virtues. he has no lands, only the use of such as are impignorate for fines; he cannot enrich himself in the old way by marriages; thrift is the chief pillar of his future, and he knows and uses it. eleven foreign traders pay him a patent of a hundred dollars, some two thousand subjects pay capitation at the rate of a dollar for a man, half a dollar for a woman, and a shilling for a child: allowing for the exchange, perhaps a total of three hundred pounds a year. he had been some nine months on the throne: had bought his wife a silk dress and hat, figure unknown, and himself a uniform at three hundred dollars; had sent his brother's photograph to be enlarged in san francisco at two hundred and fifty dollars; had greatly reduced that brother's legacy of debt; and had still sovereigns in his pocket. an affectionate brother, a good economist; he was besides a handy carpenter, and cobbled occasionally on the woodwork of the palace. it is not wonderful that mr. corpse has virtues: that tebureimoa should have a diversion filled me with surprise. chapter iii around our house when we left the palace we were still but seafarers ashore; and within the hour we had installed our goods in one of the six foreign houses of butaritari, namely, that usually occupied by maka, the hawaiian missionary. two san francisco firms are here established, messrs. crawford and messrs. wightman brothers; the first hard by the palace of the mid town, the second at the north entry; each with a store and bar-room. our house was in the wightman compound, betwixt the store and bar, within a fenced enclosure. across the road a few native houses nestled in the margin of the bush, and the green wall of palms rose solid, shutting out the breeze. a little sandy cove of the lagoon ran in behind, sheltered by a verandah pier, the labour of queens' hands. here, when the tide was high, sailed boats lay to be loaded; when the tide was low, the boats took ground some half a mile away, and an endless series of natives descended the pier stair, tailed across the sand in strings and clusters, waded to the waist with the bags of copra, and loitered backward to renew their charge. the mystery of the copra trade tormented me, as i sat and watched the profits drip on the stair and the sands. in front, from shortly after four in the morning until nine at night, the folk of the town streamed by us intermittingly along the road: families going up the island to make copra on their lands; women bound for the bush to gather flowers against the evening toilet; and, twice a day, the toddy-cutters, each with his knife and shell. in the first grey of the morning, and again late in the afternoon, these would straggle past about their tree-top business, strike off here and there into the bush, and vanish from the face of the earth. at about the same hour, if the tide be low in the lagoon, you are likely to be bound yourself across the island for a bath, and may enter close at their heels alleys of the palm wood. right in front, although the sun is not yet risen, the east is already lighted with preparatory fires, and the huge accumulations of the trade-wind cloud glow with and heliograph the coming day. the breeze is in your face; overhead in the tops of the palms, its playthings, it maintains a lively bustle; look where you will, above or below, there is no human presence, only the earth and shaken forest. and right overhead the song of an invisible singer breaks from the thick leaves; from farther on a second tree-top answers; and beyond again, in the bosom of the woods, a still more distant minstrel perches and sways and sings. so, all round the isle, the toddy-cutters sit on high, and are rocked by the trade, and have a view far to seaward, where they keep watch for sails and like huge birds utter their songs in the morning. they sing with a certain lustiness and bacchic glee; the volume of sound and the articulate melody fall unexpected from the tree-top, whence we anticipate the chattering of fowls. and yet in a sense these songs also are but chatter; the words are ancient, obsolete, and sacred; few comprehend them, perhaps no one perfectly; but it was understood the cutters "prayed to have good toddy, and sang of their old wars." the prayer is at least answered; and when the foaming shell is brought to your door, you have a beverage well "worthy of a grace." all forenoon you may return and taste; it only sparkles, and sharpens, and grows to be a new drink, not less delicious; but with the progress of the day the fermentation quickens and grows acid; in twelve hours it will be yeast for bread, in two days more a devilish intoxicant, the counsellor of crime. the men are of a marked arabian cast of features, often bearded and moustached, often gaily dressed, some with bracelets and anklets, all stalking hidalgo-like, and accepting salutations with a haughty lip. the hair (with the dandies of either sex) is worn turban-wise in a frizzled bush; and like the daggers of the japanese, a pointed stick (used for a comb) is thrust gallantly among the curls. the women from this bush of hair look forth enticingly: the race cannot be compared with the tahitian for female beauty; i doubt even if the average be high, but some of the prettiest girls, and one of the handsomest women i ever saw, were gilbertines. butaritari, being the commercial centre of the group, is europeanised; the coloured sacque or the white shift are common wear, the latter for the evening; the trade hat, loaded with flowers, fruit, and ribbons, is unfortunately not unknown; and the characteristic female dress of the gilberts no longer universal. the _ridi_ is its name: a cutty petticoat or fringe of the smoked fibre of cocoa-nut leaf, not unlike tarry string; the lower edge not reaching the mid-thigh, the upper adjusted so low upon the haunches that it seems to cling by accident. a sneeze, you think, and the lady must surely be left destitute. "the perilous, hairbreadth ridi" was our word for it; and in the conflict that rages over women's dress it has the misfortune to please neither side, the prudish condemning it as insufficient, the more frivolous finding it unlovely in itself. yet if a pretty gilbertine would look her best, that must be her costume. in that, and naked otherwise, she moves with an incomparable liberty and grace and life, that marks the poetry of micronesia. bundle her in a gown, the charm is fled, and she wriggles like an englishwoman. towards dusk the passers-by became more gorgeous. the men broke out in all the colours of the rainbow--or at least of the trade-room,--and both men and women began to be adorned and scented with new flowers. a small white blossom is the favourite, sometimes sown singly in a woman's hair like little stars, now composed in a thick wreath. with the night, the crowd sometimes thickened in the road, and the padding and brushing of bare feet became continuous; the promenades mostly grave, the silence only interrupted by some giggling and scampering of girls; even the children quiet. at nine, bed-time struck on a bell from the cathedral, and the life of the town ceased. at four the next morning the signal is repeated in the darkness, and the innocent prisoners set free; but for seven hours all must lie--i was about to say within doors, of a place where doors, and even walls, are an exception--housed, at least, under their airy roofs and clustered in the tents of the mosquito-nets. suppose a necessary errand to occur, suppose it imperative to send abroad, the messenger must then go openly, advertising himself to the police with a huge brand of cocoa-nut, which flares from house to house like a moving bonfire. only the police themselves go darkling, and grope in the night for misdemeanants. i used to hate their treacherous presence; their captain in particular, a crafty old man in white, lurked nightly about my premises till i could have found it in my heart to beat him. but the rogue was privileged. not one of the eleven resident traders came to town, no captain cast anchor in the lagoon, but we saw him ere the hour was out. this was owing to our position between the store and the bar--the "sans souci," as the last was called. mr. rick was not only messrs. wightman's manager, but consular agent for the states. mrs. rick was the only white woman on the island, and one of the only two in the archipelago; their house besides, with its cool verandahs, its bookshelves, its comfortable furniture, could not be rivalled nearer than jaluit or honolulu. every one called in consequence, save such as might be prosecuting a south sea quarrel, hingeing on the price of copra and the odd cent, or perhaps a difference about poultry. even these, if they did not appear upon the north, would be presently visible to the southward, the "sans souci" drawing them as with cords. in an island with a total population of twelve white persons, one of the two drinking-shops might seem superfluous; but every bullet has its billet, and the double accommodation of butaritari is found in practice highly convenient by the captains and the crews of ships: "the land we live in" being tacitly resigned to the forecastle, the "sans souci" tacitly reserved for the afterguard. so aristocratic were my habits, so commanding was my fear of mr. williams, that i have never visited the first; but in the other, which was the club or rather the casino of the island, i regularly passed my evenings. it was small, but neatly fitted, and at night (when the lamp was lit) sparkled with glass and glowed with coloured pictures like a theatre at christmas. the pictures were advertisements, the glass coarse enough, the carpentry amateur; but the effect, in that incongruous isle, was of unbridled luxury and inestimable expense. here songs were sung, tales told, tricks performed, games played. the ricks, ourselves, norwegian tom the bar-keeper, a captain or two from the ships, and perhaps three or four traders come down the island in their boats or by the road on foot, made up the usual company. the traders, all bred to the sea, take a humorous pride in their new business; "south sea merchants" is the title they prefer. "we are all sailors here"--"merchants, if you please"--"_south sea_ merchants,"--was a piece of conversation endlessly repeated, that never seemed to lose in savour. we found them at all times simple, genial, gay, gallant, and obliging; and, across some interval of time, recall with pleasure the traders of butaritari. there was one black sheep indeed. i tell of him here where he lived, against my rule; for in this case i have no measure to preserve, and the man is typical of a class of ruffians that once disgraced the whole field of the south seas, and still linger in the rarely visited isles of micronesia. he had the name on the beach of "a perfect gentleman when sober," but i never saw him otherwise than drunk. the few shocking and savage traits of the micronesian he has singled out with the skill of a collector, and planted in the soil of his original baseness. he has been accused and acquitted of a treacherous murder; and has since boastfully owned it, which inclines me to suppose him innocent. his daughter is defaced by his erroneous cruelty, for it was his wife he had intended to disfigure, and, in the darkness of the night and the frenzy of coco-brandy, fastened on the wrong victim. the wife has since fled and harbours in the bush with natives; and the husband still demands from deaf ears her forcible restoration. the best of his business is to make natives drink, and then advance the money for the fine upon a lucrative mortgage. "respect for whites" is the man's word: "what is the matter with this island is the want of respect for whites." on his way to butaritari, while i was there, he spied his wife in the bush with certain natives and made a dash to capture her; whereupon one of her companions drew a knife and the husband retreated: "do you call that proper respect for whites?" he cried. at an early stage of the acquaintance we proved our respect for his kind of white by forbidding him our enclosure under pain of death. thenceforth he lingered often in the neighbourhood with i knew not what sense of envy or design of mischief; his white, handsome face (which i beheld with loathing) looked in upon us at all hours across the fence; and once, from a safe distance, he avenged himself by shouting a recondite island insult, to us quite inoffensive, on his english lips incredibly incongruous. our enclosure, round which this composite of degradations wandered, was of some extent. in one corner was a trellis with a long table of rough boards. here the fourth of july feast had been held not long before with memorable consequences, yet to be set forth; here we took our meals; here entertained to a dinner the king and notables of makin. in the midst was the house, with a verandah front and back, and three rooms within. in the verandah we slung our man-of-war hammocks, worked there by day, and slept at night. within were beds, chairs, a round table, a fine hanging lamp, and portraits of the royal family of hawaii. queen victoria proves nothing; kalakaua and mrs. bishop are diagnostic; and the truth is we were the stealthy tenants of the parsonage. on the day of our arrival maka was away; faithless trustees unlocked his doors; and the dear rigorous man, the sworn foe of liquor and tobacco, returned to find his verandah littered with cigarettes and his parlour horrible with bottles. he made but one condition--on the round table, which he used in the celebration of the sacraments, he begged us to refrain from setting liquor; in all else he bowed to the accomplished fact, refused rent, retired across the way into a native house, and, plying in his boat, beat the remotest quarters of the isle for provender. he found us pigs--i could not fancy where--no other pigs were visible; he brought us fowls and taro; when we gave our feast to the monarch and gentry, it was he who supplied the wherewithal, he who superintended the cooking, he who asked grace at table, and when the king's health was proposed, he also started the cheering with an english hip-hip-hip. there was never a more fortunate conception; the heart of the fatted king exulted in his bosom at the sound. take him for all in all, i have never known a more engaging creature than this parson of butaritari: his mirth, his kindness, his noble, friendly feelings, brimmed from the man in speech and gesture. he loved to exaggerate, to act and overact the momentary part, to exercise his lungs and muscles, and to speak and laugh with his whole body. he had the morning cheerfulness of birds and healthy children; and his humour was infectious. we were next neighbours and met daily, yet our salutations lasted minutes at a stretch--shaking hands, slapping shoulders, capering like a pair of merry-andrews, laughing to split our sides upon some pleasantry that would scarce raise a titter in an infant school. it might be five in the morning, the toddy-cutters just gone by, the road empty, the shade of the island lying far on the lagoon: and the ebullition cheered me for the day. yet i always suspected maka of a secret melancholy; these jubilant extremes could scarce be constantly maintained. he was besides long, and lean, and lined, and corded, and a trifle grizzled; and his sabbath countenance was even saturnine. on that day we made a procession to the church, or (as i must always call it) the cathedral: maka (a blot on the hot landscape) in tall hat, black frock-coat, black trousers; under his arm the hymn-book and the bible; in his face, a reverent gravity:--beside him mary his wife, a quiet, wise, and handsome elderly lady, seriously attired:--myself following with singular and moving thoughts. long before, to the sound of bells and streams and birds, through a green lothian glen, i had accompanied sunday by sunday a minister in whose house i lodged; and the likeness, and the difference, and the series of years and deaths, profoundly touched me. in the great, dusky, palm-tree cathedral the congregation rarely numbered thirty: the men on one side, the women on the other, myself posted (for a privilege) amongst the women, and the small missionary contingent gathered close around the platform, we were lost in that round vault. the lessons were read antiphonally, the flock was catechised, a blind youth repeated weekly a long string of psalms, hymns were sung--i never heard worse singing,--and the sermon followed. to say i understood nothing were untrue; there were points that i learned to expect with certainty; the name of honolulu, that of kalakaua, the word cap'n-man-o'-wa', the word ship, and a description of a storm at sea, infallibly occurred; and i was not seldom rewarded with the name of my own sovereign in the bargain. the rest was but sound to the ears, silence for the mind; a plain expanse of tedium, rendered unbearable by heat, a hard chair, and the sight through the wide doors of the more happy heathen on the green. sleep breathed on my joints and eyelids, sleep hummed in my ears; it reigned in the dim cathedral. the congregation stirred and stretched; they moaned, they groaned aloud; they yawned upon a singing note, as you may sometimes hear a dog when he has reached the tragic bitterest of boredom. in vain the preacher thumped the table; in vain he singled and addressed by name particular hearers. i was myself perhaps a more effective excitant; and at least to one old gentleman the spectacle of my successful struggles against sleep--and i hope they were successful--cheered the flight of time. he, when he was not catching flies or playing tricks upon his neighbours, gloated with a fixed, translucent eye upon the stages of my agony; and once when the service was drawing towards a close he winked at me across the church. i write of the service with a smile; yet i was always there--always with respect for maka, always with admiration for his deep seriousness, his burning energy, the fire of his roused eye, the sincere and various accents of his voice. to see him weekly flogging a dead horse and blowing a cold fire was a lesson in fortitude and constancy. it may be a question whether if the mission were fully supported, and he was set free from business avocations, more might not result; i think otherwise myself; i think not neglect but rigour has reduced his flock, that rigour which has once provoked a revolution, and which to-day, in a man so lively and engaging, amazes the beholder. no song, no dance, no tobacco, no liquor, no alleviative of life--only toil and church-going; so says a voice from his face; and the face is the face of the polynesian esau, but the voice is the voice of a jacob from a different world. and a polynesian at the best makes a singular missionary in the gilberts, coming from a country recklessly unchaste to one conspicuously strict; from a race hag-ridden with bogies to one comparatively bold against the terrors of the dark. the thought was stamped one morning in my mind, when i chanced to be abroad by moonlight, and saw all the town lightless, but the lamp faithfully burning by the missionary's bed. it requires no law, no fire, and no scouting police, to withhold maka and his countrymen from wandering in the night unlighted. chapter iv a tale of a tapu on the morrow of our arrival (sunday, th july ) our photographers were early stirring. once more we traversed a silent town; many were yet abed and asleep; some sat drowsily in their open houses; there was no sound of intercourse or business. in that hour before the shadows, the quarter of the palace and canal seemed like a landing-place in the "arabian nights" or from the classic poets; here were the fit destination of some "faery frigot," here some adventurous prince might step ashore among new characters and incidents; and the island prison, where it floated on the luminous face of the lagoon, might have passed for the repository of the grail. in such a scene, and at such an hour, the impression received was not so much of foreign travel--rather of past ages; it seemed not so much degrees of latitude that we had crossed, as centuries of time that we had re-ascended; leaving, by the same steps, home and to-day. a few children followed us, mostly nude, all silent; in the clear, weedy waters of the canal some silent damsels waded, baring their brown thighs; and to one of the maniap's before the palace gate we were attracted by a low but stirring hum of speech. the oval shed was full of men sitting cross-legged. the king was there in striped pyjamas, his rear protected by four guards with winchesters, his air and bearing marked by unwonted spirit and decision; tumblers and black bottles went the round; and the talk, throughout loud, was general and animated. i was inclined at first to view this scene with suspicion. but the hour appeared unsuitable for a carouse; drink was besides forbidden equally by the law of the land and the canons of the church; and while i was yet hesitating, the king's rigorous attitude disposed of my last doubt. we had come, thinking to photograph him surrounded by his guards, and at the first word of the design his piety revolted. we were reminded of the day--the sabbath, in which thou shalt take no photographs--and returned with a flea in our ear, bearing the rejected camera. at church, a little later, i was struck to find the throne unoccupied. so nice a sabbatarian might have found the means to be present; perhaps my doubts revived; and before i got home they were transformed to certainties. tom, the bar-keeper of the "sans souci," was in conversation with two emissaries from the court. the "keen," they said, wanted "din," failing which "perandi."[ ] no din, was tom's reply, and no perandi; but "pira" if they pleased. it seems they had no use for beer, and departed sorrowing. "why, what is the meaning of all this?" i asked. "is the island on the spree?" such was the fact. on the th of july a feast had been made, and the king, at the suggestion of the whites, had raised the tapu against liquor. there is a proverb about horses; it scarce applies to the superior animal, of whom it may be rather said, that any one can start him drinking, not any twenty can prevail on him to stop. the tapu, raised ten days before, was not yet re-imposed; for ten days the town had been passing the bottle or lying (as we had seen it the afternoon before) in hoggish sleep; and the king, moved by the old men and his own appetites, continued to maintain the liberty, to squander his savings on liquor, and to join in and lead the debauch. the whites were the authors of this crisis; it was upon their own proposal that the freedom had been granted at the first; and for a while, in the interests of trade, they were doubtless pleased it should continue. that pleasure had now sometime ceased; the bout had been prolonged (it was conceded) unduly; and it now began to be a question how it might conclude. hence tom's refusal. yet that refusal was avowedly only for the moment, and it was avowedly unavailing; the king's foragers, denied by tom at the "sans souci," would be supplied at "the land we live in" by the gobbling mr. williams. the degree of the peril was not easy to measure at the time, and i am inclined to think now it was easy to exaggerate. yet the conduct of drunkards even at home is always matter for anxiety; and at home our populations are not armed from the highest to the lowest with revolvers and repeating rifles, neither do we go on a debauch by the whole townful--and i might rather say, by the whole polity--king, magistrates, police, and army joining in one common scene of drunkenness. it must be thought besides that we were here in barbarous islands, rarely visited, lately and partly civilised. first and last, a really considerable number of whites have perished in the gilberts, chiefly through their own misconduct; and the natives have displayed in at least one instance a disposition to conceal an accident under a butchery, and leave nothing but dumb bones. this last was the chief consideration against a sudden closing of the bars; the bar-keepers stood in the immediate breach and dealt direct with madmen; too surly a refusal might at any moment precipitate a blow, and the blow might prove the signal for a massacre. _monday, th_.--at the same hour we returned to the same maniap'. kümmel (of all drinks) was served in tumblers; in the midst sat the crown prince, a fatted youth, surrounded by fresh bottles and busily plying the corkscrew; and king, chief, and commons showed the loose mouth, the uncertain joints, and the blurred and animated eye of the early drinker. it was plain we were impatiently expected; the king retired with alacrity to dress, the guards were despatched after their uniforms; and we were left to await the issue of these preparations with a shedful of tipsy natives. the orgie had proceeded further than on sunday. the day promised to be of great heat; it was already sultry, the courtiers were already fuddled; and still the kümmel continued to go round, and the crown prince to play butler. flemish freedom followed upon flemish excess; and a funny dog, a handsome fellow, gaily dressed, and with a full turban of frizzed hair, delighted the company with a humorous courtship of a lady in a manner not to be described. it was our diversion, in this time of waiting, to observe the gathering of the guards. they have european arms, european uniforms, and (to their sorrow) european shoes. we saw one warrior (like mars) in the article of being armed; two men and a stalwart woman were scarce strong enough to boot him; and after a single appearance on parade the army is crippled for a week. at last, the gates under the king's house opened; the army issued, one behind another, with guns and epaulettes; the colours stooped under the gateway; majesty followed in his uniform bedizened with gold lace; majesty's wife came next in a hat and feathers, and an ample trained silk gown; the royal imps succeeded; there stood the pageantry of makin marshalled on its chosen theatre. dickens might have told how serious they were; how tipsy; how the king melted and streamed under his cocked hat; how he took station by the larger of his two cannons--austere, majestic, but not truly vertical; how the troops huddled, and were straightened out, and clubbed again; how they and their firelocks raked at various inclinations like the masts of ships; and how an amateur photographer reviewed, arrayed, and adjusted them, to see his dispositions change before he reached the camera. the business was funny to see; i do not know that it is graceful to laugh at; and our report of these transactions was received on our return with the shaking of grave heads. the day had begun ill; eleven hours divided us from sunset; and at any moment, on the most trifling chance, the trouble might begin. the wightman compound was in a military sense untenable, commanded on three sides by houses and thick bush; the town was computed to contain over a thousand stand of excellent new arms; and retreat to the ships, in the case of an alert, was a recourse not to be thought of. our talk that morning must have closely reproduced the talk in english garrisons before the sepoy mutiny; the sturdy doubt that any mischief was in prospect, the sure belief that (should any come) there was nothing left but to go down fighting, the half-amused, half-anxious attitude of mind in which we were awaiting fresh developments. the kümmel soon ran out; we were scarce returned before the king had followed us in quest of more. mr. corpse was now divested of his more awful attitude, the lawless bulk of him again encased in striped pyjamas; a guardsman brought up the rear with his rifle at the trail; and his majesty was further accompanied by a rarotongan whalerman and the playful courtier with the turban of frizzed hair. there was never a more lively deputation. the whalerman was gapingly, tearfully tipsy; the courtier walked on air; the king himself was even sportive. seated in a chair in the ricks' sitting-room, he bore the brunt of our prayers and menaces unmoved. he was even rated, plied with historic instances, threatened with the men-of-war, ordered to restore the tapu on the spot--and nothing in the least affected him. it should be done to-morrow, he said; to-day it was beyond his power, to-day he durst not. "is that royal?" cried indignant mr. rick. no, it was not royal; had the king been of a royal character we should ourselves have held a different language; and royal or not, he had the best of the dispute. the terms indeed were hardly equal; for the king was the only man who could restore the tapu, but the ricks were not the only people who sold drink. he had but to hold his ground on the first question, and they were sure to weaken on the second. a little struggle they still made for the fashion's sake; and then one exceedingly tipsy deputation departed, greatly rejoicing, a case of brandy wheeling beside them in a barrow. the rarotongan (whom i had never seen before) wrung me by the hand like a man bound on a far voyage. "my dear frien'!" he cried, "good-bye, my dear frien'!"--tears of kümmel standing in his eyes; the king lurched as he went, the courtier ambled--a strange party of intoxicated children to be entrusted with that barrowful of madness. you could never say the town was quiet; all morning there was a ferment in the air, an aimless movement and congregation of natives in the street. but it was not before half-past one that a sudden hubbub of voices called us from the house, to find the whole white colony already gathered on the spot as by concerted signal. the "sans souci" was overrun with rabble, the stair and verandah thronged. from all these throats an inarticulate babbling cry went up incessantly; it sounded like the bleating of young lambs, but angrier. in the road his royal highness (whom i had seen so lately in the part of butler) stood crying upon tom; on the top step, tossed in the hurly-burly, tom was shouting to the prince. yet a while the pack swayed about the bar, vociferous. then came a brutal impulse; the mob reeled, and returned and was rejected; the stair showed a stream of heads; and there shot into view, through the disbanding ranks, three men violently dragging in their midst a fourth. by his hair and his hands, his head forced as low as his knees, his face concealed, he was wrenched from the verandah and whisked along the road into the village, howling as he disappeared. had his face been raised, we should have seen it bloodied, and the blood was not his own. the courtier with the turban of frizzed hair had paid the costs of this disturbance with the lower part of one ear. so the brawl passed with no other casualty than might seem comic to the inhumane. yet we looked round on serious faces, and--a fact that spoke volumes--tom was putting up the shutters on the bar. custom might go elsewhither, mr. williams might profit as he pleased, but tom had had enough of bar-keeping for that day. indeed, the event had hung on a hair. a man had sought to draw a revolver--on what quarrel i could never learn, and perhaps he himself could not have told; one shot, when the room was so crowded, could scarce have failed to take effect; where many were armed and all tipsy, it could scarce have failed to draw others; and the woman who spied the weapon and the man who seized it may very well have saved the white community. the mob insensibly melted from the scene; and for the rest of the day our neighbourhood was left in peace and a good deal in solitude. but the tranquillity was only local; _din_ and _perandi_ still flowed in other quarters: and we had one more sight of gilbert island violence. in the church, where we had wandered photographing, we were startled by a sudden piercing outcry. the scene, looking forth from the doors of that great hall of shadow, was unforgettable. the palms, the quaint and scattered houses, the flag of the island streaming from its tall staff, glowed with intolerable sunshine. in the midst two women rolled fighting on the grass. the combatants were the more easy to be distinguished, because the one was stripped to the _ridi_ and the other wore a holoku (sacque) of some lively colour. the first was uppermost, her teeth locked in her adversary's face, shaking her like a dog; the other impotently fought and scratched. so for a moment we saw them wallow and grapple there like vermin; then the mob closed and shut them in. it was a serious question that night if we should sleep ashore. but we were travellers, folk that had come far in quest of the adventurous; on the first sign of an adventure it would have been a singular inconsistency to have withdrawn; and we sent on board instead for our revolvers. mindful of taahauku, mr. rick, mr. osbourne, and mrs. stevenson held an assault of arms on the public highway, and fired at bottles to the admiration of the natives. captain reid, of the _equator_, stayed on shore with us to be at hand in case of trouble, and we retired to bed at the accustomed hour, agreeably excited by the day's events. the night was exquisite, the silence enchanting; yet as i lay in my hammock looking on the strong moonshine and the quiescent palms, one ugly picture haunted me of the two women, the naked and the clad, locked in that hostile embrace. the harm done was probably not much, yet i could have looked on death and massacre with less revolt. the return to these primeval weapons, the vision of man's beastliness, of his ferality, shocked in me a deeper sense than that with which we count the cost of battles. there are elements in our state and history which it is a pleasure to forget, which it is perhaps the better wisdom not to dwell on. crime, pestilence, and death are in the day's work; the imagination readily accepts them. it instinctively rejects, on the contrary, whatever shall call up the image of our race upon its lowest terms, as the partner of beasts, beastly itself, dwelling pell-mell and huggermugger, hairy man with hairy woman, in the caves of old. and yet to be just to barbarous islanders we must not forget the slums and dens of our cities: i must not forget that i have passed dinnerward through soho, and seen that which cured me of my dinner. footnote: [ ] gin and brandy. chapter v a tale of a tapu--_continued_ _tuesday, july _.--it rained in the night, sudden and loud, in gilbert island fashion. before the day, the crowing of a cock aroused me and i wandered in the compound and along the street. the squall was blown by, the moon shone with incomparable lustre, the air lay dead as in a room, and yet all the isle sounded as under a strong shower, the eaves thickly pattering, the lofty palms dripping at larger intervals and with a louder note. in this bold nocturnal light the interior of the houses lay inscrutable, one lump of blackness, save when the moon glinted under the roof, and made a belt of silver, and drew the slanting shadows of the pillars on the floor. nowhere in all the town was any lamp or ember; not a creature stirred; i thought i was alone to be awake; but the police were faithful to their duty; secretly vigilant, keeping account of time; and a little later, the watchman struck slowly and repeatedly on the cathedral bell; four o'clock, the warning signal. it seemed strange that, in a town resigned to drunkenness and tumult, curfew and réveille should still be sounded and still obeyed. the day came, and brought little change. the place still lay silent; the people slept, the town slept. even the few who were awake, mostly women and children, held their peace and kept within under the strong shadow of the thatch, where you must stop and peer to see them. through the deserted streets, and past sleeping houses, a deputation took its way at an early hour to the palace; the king was suddenly awakened, and must listen (probably with a headache) to unpalatable truths. mrs. rick, being a sufficient mistress of that difficult tongue, was spokeswoman; she explained to the sick monarch that i was an intimate personal friend of queen victoria's; that immediately on my return i should make her a report upon butaritari; and that if my house should have been again invaded by natives, a man-of-war would be despatched to make reprisals. it was scarce the fact--rather a just and necessary parable of the fact, corrected for latitude; and it certainly told upon the king. he was much affected; he had conceived the notion (he said) that i was a man of some importance, but not dreamed it was as bad as this; and the missionary house was tapu'd under a fine of fifty dollars. so much was announced on the return of the deputation; not any more; and i gathered subsequently that much more had passed. the protection gained was welcome. it had been the most annoying and not the least alarming feature of the day before, that our house was periodically filled with tipsy natives, twenty or thirty at a time, begging drink, fingering our goods, hard to be dislodged, awkward to quarrel with. queen victoria's friend (who was soon promoted to be her son) was free from these intrusions. not only my house, but my neighbourhood as well, was left in peace; even on our walks abroad we were guarded and prepared for; and, like great persons visiting a hospital, saw only the fair side. for the matter of a week we were thus suffered to go out and in and live in a fool's paradise, supposing the king to have kept his word, the tapu to be revived, and the island once more sober. _tuesday, july _.--we dined under a bare trellis erected for the fourth of july; and here we used to linger by lamplight over coffee and tobacco. in that climate evening approaches without sensible chill; the wind dies out before sunset; heaven glows a while and fades, and darkens into the blueness of the tropical night; swiftly and insensibly the shadows thicken, the stars multiply their number; you look around you and the day is gone. it was then that we would see our chinaman draw near across the compound in a lurching sphere of light, divided by his shadows; and with the coming of the lamp the night closed about the table. the faces of the company, the spars of the trellis, stood out suddenly bright on a ground of blue and silver, faintly designed with palm-tops and the peaked roofs of houses. here and there the gloss upon a leaf, or the fracture of a stone, returned an isolated sparkle. all else had vanished. we hung there, illuminated like a galaxy of stars _in vacuo_; we sat, manifest and blind, amid the general ambush of the darkness; and the islanders, passing with light footfalls and low voices in the sand of the road, lingered to observe us, unseen. on tuesday the dusk had fallen, the lamp had just been brought, when a missile struck the table with a rattling smack and rebounded past my ear. three inches to one side and this page had never been written; for the thing travelled like a cannon ball. it was supposed at the time to be a nut, though even at the time i thought it seemed a small one and fell strangely. _wednesday, july _.--the dusk had fallen once more, and the lamp been just brought out, when the same business was repeated. and again the missile whistled past my ear. one nut i had been willing to accept; a second, i rejected utterly. a cocoa-nut does not come slinging along on a windless evening, making an angle of about fifteen degrees with the horizon; cocoa-nuts do not fall on successive nights at the same hour and spot; in both cases, besides, a specific moment seemed to have been chosen, that when the lamp was just carried out, a specific person threatened, and that the head of the family. i may have been right or wrong, but i believed i was the mark of some intimidation; believed the missile was a stone, aimed not to hit, but to frighten. no idea makes a man more angry. i ran into the road, where the natives were as usual promenading in the dark; maka joined me with a lantern; and i ran from one to another, glared in quite innocent faces, put useless questions, and proffered idle threats. thence i carried my wrath (which was worthy the son of any queen in history) to the ricks. they heard me with depression, assured me this trick of throwing a stone into a family dinner was not new; that it meant mischief, and was of a piece with the alarming disposition of the natives. and then the truth, so long concealed from us, came out. the king had broken his promise, he had defied the deputation; the tapu was still dormant, "the land we live in" still selling drink, and that quarter of the town disturbed and menaced by perpetual broils. but there was worse ahead: a feast was now preparing for the birthday of the little princess; and the tributary chiefs of kuma and little makin were expected daily. strong in a following of numerous and somewhat savage clansmen, each of these was believed, like a douglas of old, to be of doubtful loyalty. kuma (a little pot-bellied fellow) never visited the palace, never entered the town, but sat on the beach on a mat, his gun across his knees, parading his mistrust and scorn; karaiti of makin, although he was more bold, was not supposed to be more friendly; and not only were these vassals jealous of the throne, but the followers on either side shared in the animosity. brawls had already taken place; blows had passed which might at any moment be repaid in blood. some of the strangers were already here and already drinking; if the debauch continued after the bulk of them had come, a collision, perhaps a revolution, was to be expected. the sale of drink is in this group a measure of the jealousy of traders; one begins, the others are constrained to follow; and to him who has the most gin, and sells it the most recklessly, the lion's share of copra is assured. it is felt by all to be an extreme expedient, neither safe, decent, nor dignified. a trader on tarawa, heated by an eager rivalry, brought many cases of gin. he told me he sat afterwards day and night in his house till it was finished, not daring to arrest the sale, not venturing to go forth, the bush all round him filled with howling drunkards. at night, above all, when he was afraid to sleep, and heard shots and voices about him in the darkness, his remorse was black. "my god!" he reflected, "if i was to lose my life on such a wretched business!" often and often, in the story of the gilberts, this scene has been repeated; and the remorseful trader sat beside his lamp, longing for the day, listening with agony for the sound of murder, registering resolutions for the future. for the business is easy to begin, but hazardous to stop. the natives are in their way a just and law-abiding people, mindful of their debts, docile to the voice of their own institutions; when the tapu is re-enforced they will cease drinking; but the white who seeks to antedate the movement by refusing liquor does so at his peril. hence, in some degree, the anxiety and helplessness of mr. rick. he and tom, alarmed by the rabblement of the "sans souci," had stopped the sale; they had done so without danger, because "the land we live in" still continued selling; it was claimed, besides, that they had been the first to begin. what step could be taken? could mr. rick visit mr. muller (with whom he was not on terms) and address him thus: "i was getting ahead of you, now you are getting ahead of me, and i ask you to forgo your profit. i got my place closed in safety, thanks to your continuing; but now i think you have continued long enough. i begin to be alarmed; and because i am afraid i ask you to confront a certain danger"? it was not to be thought of. something else had to be found; and there was one person at one end of the town who was at least not interested in copra. there was little else to be said in favour of myself as an ambassador. i had arrived in the wightman schooner, i was living in the wightman compound, i was the daily associate of the wightman coterie. it was egregious enough that i should now intrude unasked in the private affairs of crawford's agent, and press upon him the sacrifice of his interests and the venture of his life. but bad as i might be, there was none better; since the affair of the stone i was, besides, sharp-set to be doing, the idea of a delicate interview attracted me, and i thought it policy to show myself abroad. the night was very dark. there was service in the church, and the building glimmered through all its crevices like a dim kirk allowa'. i saw few other lights, but was indistinctly aware of many people stirring in the darkness, and a hum and sputter of low talk that sounded stealthy. i believe (in the old phrase) my beard was sometimes on my shoulder as i went. muller's was but partly lighted, and quite silent, and the gate was fastened. i could by no means manage to undo the latch. no wonder, since i found it afterwards to be four or five feet long--a fortification in itself. as i still fumbled, a dog came on the inside and snuffed suspiciously at my hands, so that i was reduced to calling "house ahoy!" mr. muller came down and put his chin across the paling in the dark. "who is that?" said he, like one who has no mind to welcome strangers. "my name is stevenson," said i. "o, mr. stevens! i didn't know you. come inside." we stepped into the dark store, when i leaned upon the counter and he against the wall. all the light came from the sleeping-room, where i saw his family being put to bed; it struck full in my face, but mr. muller stood in shadow. no doubt he expected what was coming, and sought the advantage of position; but for a man who wished to persuade and had nothing to conceal, mine was the preferable. "look here," i began, "i hear you are selling to the natives." "others have done that before me," he returned pointedly. "no doubt," said i, "and i have nothing to do with the past, but the future. i want you to promise you will handle these spirits carefully." "now what is your motive in this?" he asked, and then, with a sneer, "are you afraid of your life?" "that is nothing to the purpose," i replied. "i know, and you know, these spirits ought not to be used at all." "tom and mr. rick have sold them before." "i have nothing to do with tom and mr. rick. all i know is i have heard them both refuse." "no, i suppose you have nothing to do with them. then you are just afraid of your life." "come now," i cried, being perhaps a little stung, "you know in your heart i am asking a reasonable thing. i don't ask you to lose your profit--though i would prefer to see no spirits brought here, as you would----" "i don't say i wouldn't. i didn't begin this," he interjected. "no, i don't suppose you did," said i. "and i don't ask you to lose; i ask you to give me your word, man to man, that you will make no native drunk." up to now mr. muller had maintained an attitude very trying to my temper; but he had maintained it with difficulty, his sentiment being all upon my side; and here he changed ground for the worse. "it isn't me that sells," said he. "no, it's that nigger," i agreed. "but he's yours to buy and sell; you have your hand on the nape of his neck; and i ask you--i have my wife here--to use the authority you have." he hastily returned to his old word. "i don't deny i could if i wanted," said he. "but there's no danger, the natives are all quiet. you're just afraid of your life." i do not like to be called a coward, even by implication; and here i lost my temper and propounded an untimely ultimatum. "you had better put it plain," i cried. "do you mean to refuse me what i ask?" "i don't want either to refuse it or grant it," he replied. "you'll find you have to do the one thing or the other, and right now!" i cried, and then, striking into a happier vein, "come," said i, "you're a better sort than that. i see what's wrong with you--you think i came from the opposite camp. i see the sort of man you are, and you know that what i ask is right." again he changed ground. "if the natives get any drink, it isn't safe to stop them," he objected. "i'll be answerable for the bar," i said. "we are three men and four revolvers; we'll come at a word, and hold the place against the village." "you don't know what you're talking about; it's too dangerous!" he cried. "look here," said i, "i don't mind much about losing that life you talk so much of; but i mean to lose it the way i want to, and that is, putting a stop to all this beastliness." he talked a while about his duty to the firm; i minded not at all, i was secure of victory. he was but waiting to capitulate, and looked about for any potent to relieve the strain. in the gush of light from the bedroom door i spied a cigar-holder on the desk. "that is well coloured," said i. "will you take a cigar?" said he. i took it and held it up unlighted. "now," said i, "you promise me." "i promise you you won't have any trouble from natives that have drunk at my place," he replied. "that is all i ask," said i, and showed it was not by immediately offering to try his stock. so far as it was anyway critical our interview here ended. mr. muller had thenceforth ceased to regard me as an emissary from his rivals, dropped his defensive attitude, and spoke as he believed. i could make out that he would already, had he dared, have stopped the sale himself. not quite daring, it may be imagined how he resented the idea of interference from those who had (by his own statement) first led him on, then deserted him in the breach, and now (sitting themselves in safety) egged him on to a new peril, which was all gain to them, all loss to him. i asked him what he thought of the danger from the feast. "i think worse of it than any of you," he answered. "they were shooting around here last night, and i heard the balls too. i said to myself, 'that's bad.' what gets me is why you should be making this row up at your end. i should be the first to go." it was a thoughtless wonder. the consolation of being second is not great: the fact, not the order of going--there was our concern. scott talks moderately of looking forward to a time of fighting "with a feeling that resembled pleasure." the resemblance seems rather an identity. in modern life, contact is ended; man grows impatient of endless manoeuvres; and to approach the fact, to find ourselves where we can push our advantage home, and stand a fair risk, and see at last what we are made of, stirs the blood. it was so at least with all my family, who bubbled with delight at the approach of trouble; and we sat deep into the night like a pack of schoolboys, preparing the revolvers and arranging plans against the morrow. it promised certainly to be a busy and eventful day. the old men were to be summoned to confront me on the question of the tapu; muller might call us at any moment to garrison his bar; and suppose muller to fail, we decided in a family council to take that matter into our own hands, "the land we live in" at the pistol's mouth, and, with the polysyllabic williams, dance to a new tune. as i recall our humour i think it would have gone hard with the mulatto. _wednesday, july _.--it was as well, and yet it was disappointing that these thunder-clouds rolled off in silence. whether the old men recoiled from an interview with queen victoria's son, whether muller had secretly intervened, or whether the step flowed naturally from the fears of the king and the nearness of the feast, the tapu was early that morning re-enforced; not a day too soon, from the manner the boats began to arrive thickly, and the town was filled with the big rowdy vassals of karaiti. the effect lingered for some time on the minds of the traders; it was with the approval of all present that i helped to draw up a petition to the united states, praying for a law against the liquor trade in the gilberts; and it was at this request that i added, under my own name, a brief testimony of what had passed;--useless pains, since the whole repose, probably unread and possibly unopened, in a pigeon-hole at washington. _sunday, july _.--this day we had the afterpiece of the debauch. the king and queen, in european clothes, and followed by armed guards, attended church for the first time, and sat perched aloft in a precarious dignity under the barrel-hoops. before sermon his majesty clambered from the dais, stood lopsidedly upon the gravel floor, and in a few words abjured drinking. the queen followed suit with a yet briefer allocution. all the men in church were next addressed in turn; each held up his right hand, and the affair was over--throne and church were reconciled. chapter vi the five days' festival _thursday, july _.--the street was this day much enlivened by the presence of the men from little makin; they average taller than butaritarians, and, being on a holiday, went wreathed with yellow leaves and gorgeous in vivid colours. they are said to be more savage, and to be proud of the distinction. indeed, it seemed to us they swaggered in the town, like plaided highlanders upon the streets of inverness, conscious of barbaric virtues. in the afternoon the summer parlour was observed to be packed with people; others standing outside and stooping to peer under the eaves, like children at home about a circus. it was the makin company, rehearsing for the day of competition. karaiti sat in the front row close to the singers, where we were summoned (i suppose in honour of queen victoria) to join him. a strong breathless heat reigned under the iron roof, and the air was heavy with the scent of wreaths. the singers, with fine mats about their loins, cocoa-nut feathers set in rings upon their fingers, and their heads crowned with yellow leaves, sat on the floor by companies. a varying number of soloists stood up for different songs; and these bore the chief part in the music. but the full force of the companies, even when not singing, contributed continuously to the effect, and marked the ictus of the measure, mimicking, grimacing, casting up their heads and eyes, fluttering the feathers on their fingers, clapping hands, or beating (loud as a kettledrum) on the left breast; the time was exquisite, the music barbarous, but full of conscious art. i noted some devices constantly employed. a sudden change would be introduced (i think of key) with no break of the measure, but emphasised by a sudden heightening of the voice and a swinging, general gesticulation. the voices of the soloists would begin far apart in a rude discord, and gradually draw together to a unison; which, when they had reached, they were joined and drowned by the full chorus. the ordinary, hurried, barking, unmelodious movement of the voices would at times be broken and glorified by a psalm-like strain of melody, often well constructed, or seeming so by contrast. there was much variety of measure, and towards the end of each piece, when the fun became fast and furious, a recourse to this figure-- [illustration] it is difficult to conceive what fire and devilry they get into these hammering finales; all go together, voices, hands, eyes, leaves, and fluttering finger-rings; the chorus swings to the eye, the song throbs on the ear; the faces are convulsed with enthusiasm and effort. presently the troop stood up in a body, the drums forming a half-circle for the soloists, who were sometimes five or even more in number. the songs that followed were highly dramatic; though i had none to give me any explanation, i would at times make out some shadowy but decisive outline of a plot; and i was continually reminded of certain quarrelsome concerted scenes in grand operas at home; just so the single voices issue from and fall again into the general volume; just so do the performers separate and crowd together, brandish the raised hand, and roll the eye to heaven--or the gallery. already this is beyond the thespian model; the art of this people is already past the embryo; song, dance, drums, quartette and solo--it is the drama full developed although still in miniature. of all so-called dancing in the south seas, that which i saw in butaritari stands easily the first. the _hula_, as it may be viewed by the speedy globe-trotter in honolulu, is surely the most dull of man's inventions, and the spectator yawns under its length as at a college lecture or a parliamentary debate. but the gilbert island dance leads on the mind; it thrills, rouses, subjugates; it has the essence of all art, an unexplored imminent significance. where so many are engaged, and where all must make (at a given moment) the same swift, elaborate, and often arbitrary movement, the toil of rehearsal is of course extreme. but they begin as children. a child and a man may often be seen together in a maniap'; the man sings and gesticulates, the child stands before him with streaming tears and tremulously copies him in act and sound; it is the gilbert island artist learning (as all artists must) his art in sorrow. i may seem to praise too much; here is a passage from my wife's diary, which proves that i was not alone in being moved, and completes the picture:--"the conductor gave the cue, and all the dancers, waving their arms, swaying their bodies, and clapping their breasts in perfect time, opened with an introductory. the performers remained seated, except two, and once three, and twice a single soloist. these stood in the group, making a slight movement with the feet and rhythmical quiver of the body as they sang. there was a pause after the introductory, and then the real business of the opera--for it was no less--began; an opera where every singer was an accomplished actor. the leading man, in an impassioned ecstasy which possessed him from head to foot, seemed transfigured; once it was as though a strong wind had swept over the stage--their arms, their feathered fingers thrilling with an emotion that shook my nerves as well: heads and bodies followed like a field of grain before a gust. my blood came hot and cold, tears pricked my eyes, my head whirled, i felt an almost irresistible impulse to join the dancers. one drama, i think, i very nearly understood. a fierce and savage old man took the solo part. he sang of the birth of a prince, and how he was tenderly rocked in his mother's arms; of his boyhood, when he excelled his fellows in swimming, climbing, and all athletic sports; of his youth, when he went out to sea in his boat and fished; of his manhood, when he married a wife who cradled a son of his own in her arms. then came the alarm of war, and a great battle, of which for a time the issue was doubtful; but the hero conquered, as he always does, and with a tremendous burst of the victors the piece closed. there were also comic pieces, which caused great amusement. during one, an old man behind me clutched me by the arm, shook his finger in my face with a roguish smile, and said something with a chuckle, which i took to be the equivalent of 'o, you women, you women; it is true of you all!' i fear it was not complimentary. at no time was there the least sign of the ugly indecency of the eastern islands. all was poetry pure and simple. the music itself was as complex as our own, though constructed on an entirely different basis; once or twice i was startled by a bit of something very like the best english sacred music, but it was only for an instant. at last there was a longer pause, and this time the dancers were all on their feet. as the drama went on the interest grew. the performers appealed to each other, to the audience, to the heaven above; they took counsel with each other, the conspirators drew together in a knot; it was just an opera, the drums coming in at proper intervals, the tenor, baritone, and bass all where they should be--except that the voices were all of the same calibre. a woman once sang from the back row with a very fine contralto voice spoilt by being made artificially nasal; i notice all the women affect that unpleasantness. at one time a boy of angelic beauty was the soloist; and at another a child of six or eight, doubtless an infant phenomenon being trained, was placed in the centre. the little fellow was desperately frightened and embarrassed at first, but towards the close warmed up to his work and showed much dramatic talent. the changing expressions on the faces of the dancers were so speaking that it seemed a great stupidity not to understand them." our neighbour at this performance, karaiti, somewhat favours his butaritarian majesty in shape and feature, being like him portly, bearded, and oriental. in character he seems the reverse: alert, smiling, jovial, jocular, industrious. at home in his own island, he labours himself like a slave, and makes his people labour like a slave-driver. he takes an interest in ideas. george the trader told him about flying-machines. "is that true, george?" he asked. "it is in the papers," replied george. "well," said karaiti, "if that man can do it with machinery, i can do it without"; and he designed and made a pair of wings, strapped them on his shoulders, went to the end of a pier, launched himself into space, and fell bulkily into the sea. his wives fished him out, for his wings hindered him in swimming. "george," said he, pausing as he went up to change, "george, you lie." he had eight wives, for his small realm still follows ancient customs; but he showed embarrassment when this was mentioned to my wife. "tell her i have only brought one here," he said anxiously. altogether the black douglas pleased us much; and as we heard fresh details of the king's uneasiness, and saw for ourselves that all the weapons in the summer parlour had been hid, we watched with the more admiration the cause of all this anxiety rolling on his big legs, with his big smiling face, apparently unarmed, and certainly unattended, through the hostile town. the red douglas, pot-bellied kuma, having perhaps heard word of the debauch, remained upon his fief; his vassals thus came uncommanded to the feast, and swelled the following of karaiti. _friday, july _.--at night in the dark, the singers of makin paraded in the road before our house and sang the song of the princess. "this is the day; she was born to-day; nei kamaunave was born to-day--a beautiful princess, queen of butaritari." so i was told it went in endless iteration. the song was of course out of season, and the performance only a rehearsal. but it was a serenade besides; a delicate attention to ourselves from our new friend, karaiti. _saturday, july _.--we had announced a performance of the magic lantern to-night in church; and this brought the king to visit us. in honour of the black douglas (i suppose) his usual two guardsmen were now increased to four; and the squad made an outlandish figure as they straggled after him, in straw hats, kilts and jackets. three carried their arms reversed, the butts over their shoulders, the muzzles menacing the king's plump back; the fourth had passed his weapon behind his neck, and held it there with arms extended like a backboard. the visit was extraordinarily long. the king, no longer galvanised with gin, said and did nothing. he sat collapsed in a chair and let a cigar go out. it was hot, it was sleepy, it was cruel dull; there was no resource but to spy in the countenance of tebureimoa for some remaining trait of _mr. corpse_ the butcher. his hawk nose, crudely depressed and flattened at the point, did truly seem to us to smell of midnight murder. when he took his leave, maka bade me observe him going down the stair (or rather ladder) from the verandah. "old man," said maka. "yes," said i, "and yet i suppose not old man." "young man," returned maka, "perhaps fo'ty." and i have heard since he is most likely younger. while the magic lantern was showing, i skulked without in the dark. the voice of maka, excitedly explaining the scripture slides, seemed to fill not the church only, but the neighbourhood. all else was silent. presently a distant sound of singing arose and approached; and a procession drew near along the road, the hot clean smell of the men and women striking in my face delightfully. at the corner, arrested by the voice of maka and the lightening and darkening of the church, they paused. they had no mind to go nearer, that was plain. they were makin people, i believe, probably staunch heathens, contemners of the missionary and his works. of a sudden, however, a man broke from their company, took to his heels, and fled into the church; next moment three had followed him; the next it was a covey of near upon a score, all pelting for their lives. so the little band of the heathen paused irresolute at the corner, and melted before the attractions of a magic lantern, like a glacier in spring. the more staunch vainly taunted the deserters; three fled in a guilty silence, but still fled; and when at length the leader found the wit or the authority to get his troop in motion and revive the singing, it was with much diminished forces that they passed musically on up the dark road. meanwhile inside the luminous pictures brightened and faded. i stood for some while unobserved in the rear of the spectators, when i could hear just in front of me a pair of lovers following the show with interest, the male playing the part of interpreter and (like adam) mingling caresses with his lecture. the wild animals, a tiger in particular, and that old school-treat favourite, the sleeper and the mouse, were hailed with joy; but the chief marvel and delight was in the gospel series. maka, in the opinion of his aggrieved wife, did not properly rise to the occasion. "what is the matter with the man? why can't he talk?" she cried. the matter with the man, i think, was the greatness of the opportunity; he reeled under his good fortune; and whether he did ill or well, the exposure of these pious "phantoms" did as a matter of fact silence in all that part of the island the voice of the scoffer. "why then," the word went round, "why then, the bible is true!" and on our return afterwards we were told the impression was yet lively, and those who had seen might be heard telling those who had not, "o yes, it is all true; these things all happened, we have seen the pictures." the argument is not so childish as it seems; for i doubt if these islanders are acquainted with any other mode of representation but photography; so that the picture of an event (on the old melodrama principle that "the camera cannot lie, joseph"), would appear strong proof of its occurrence. the fact amused us the more because our slides were some of them ludicrously silly, and one (christ before pilate) was received with shouts of merriment, in which even maka was constrained to join. _sunday, july _.--karaiti came to ask for a repetition of the "phantoms"--this was the accepted word--and, having received a promise, turned and left my humble roof without the shadow of a salutation. i felt it impolite to have the least appearance of pocketing a slight; the times had been too difficult, and were still too doubtful; and queen victoria's son was bound to maintain the honour of his house. karaiti was accordingly summoned that evening to the ricks, where mrs. rick fell foul of him in words, and queen victoria's son assailed him with indignant looks. i was the ass with the lion's skin; i could not roar in the language of the gilbert islands; but i could stare. karaiti declared he had meant no offence; apologised in a sound, hearty, gentlemanly manner; and became at once at his ease. he had in a dagger to examine, and announced he would come to price it on the morrow, to-day being sunday; this nicety in a heathen with eight wives surprised me. the dagger was "good for killing fish," he said roguishly; and was supposed to have his eye upon fish upon two legs. it is at least odd that in eastern polynesia fish was the accepted euphemism for the human sacrifice. asked as to the population of his island, karaiti called out to his vassals who sat waiting him outside the door, and they put it at four hundred and fifty; but (added karaiti jovially) there will soon be plenty more, for all the women are in the family way. long before we separated i had quite forgotten his offence. he, however, still bore it in mind; and with a very courteous inspiration returned early on the next day, paid us a long visit, and punctiliously said farewell when he departed. _monday, july _.--the great day came round at last. in the first hours the night was startled by the sound of clapping hands and the chant of nei kamaunava; its melancholy, slow, and somewhat menacing measures broken at intervals by a formidable shout. the little morsel of humanity thus celebrated in the dark hours was observed at midday playing on the green entirely naked, and equally unobserved and unconcerned. the summer parlour on its artificial islet, relieved against the shimmering lagoon, and shimmering itself with sun and tinned iron, was all day crowded about by eager men and women. within, it was boxed full of islanders, of any age and size, and in every degree of nudity and finery. so close we squatted, that at one time i had a mighty handsome woman on my knees, two little naked urchins having their feet against my back. there might be a dame in full attire of _holoku_ and hat and flowers; and her next neighbour might the next moment strip some little rag of a shift from her fat shoulders and come out a monument of flesh, painted rather than covered by the hairbreadth _ridi_. little ladies who thought themselves too great to appear undraped upon so high a festival were seen to pause outside in the broad sunshine, their miniature _ridis_ in their hand; a moment more and they were full-dressed and entered the concert-room. at either end stood up to sing, or sat down to rest, the alternate companies of singers; kuma and little makin on the north, butaritari and its conjunct hamlets to the south; both groups conspicuous in barbaric bravery. in the midst, between these rival camps of troubadours, a bench was placed; and here the king and queen throned it, some two or three feet above the crowded audience on the floor--tebureimoa as usual in his striped pyjamas with a satchel strapped across one shoulder, doubtless (in the island fashion) to contain his pistols; the queen in a purple _holoku_, her abundant hair let down, a fan in her hand. the bench was turned facing to the strangers, a piece of well-considered civility; and when it was the turn of butaritari to sing, the pair must twist round on the bench, lean their elbows on the rail, and turn to us the spectacle of their broad backs. the royal couple occasionally solaced themselves with a clay pipe; and the pomp of state was further heightened by the rifles of a picket of the guard. with this kingly countenance, and ourselves squatted on the ground, we heard several songs from one side or the other. then royalty and its guards withdrew, and queen victoria's son and daughter-in-law were summoned by acclamation to the vacant throne. our pride was perhaps a little modified when we were joined on our high places by a certain thriftless loafer of a white; and yet i was glad too, for the man had a smattering of native, and could give me some idea of the subject of the songs. one was patriotic, and dared tembinok' of apemama, the terror of the group, to an invasion. one mixed the planting of taro and the harvest-home. some were historical, and commemorated kings and the illustrious chances of their time, such as a bout of drinking or a war. one, at least, was a drama of domestic interest, excellently played by the troop from makin. it told the story of a man who has lost his wife, at first bewails her loss, then seeks another: the earlier strains (or acts) are played exclusively by men; but towards the end a woman appears, who has just lost her husband; and i suppose the pair console each other, for the finale seemed of happy omen. of some of the songs my informant told me briefly they were "like about the _weemen_"; this i could have guessed myself. each side (i should have said) was strengthened by one or two women. they were all soloists, did not very often join in the performance, but stood disengaged at the back part of the stage, and looked (in _ridi_, necklace, and dressed hair) for all the world like european ballet-dancers. when the song was anyway broad these ladies came particularly to the front; and it was singular to see that, after each entry, the _première danseuse_ pretended to be overcome by shame, as though led on beyond what she had meant, and her male assistants made a feint of driving her away like one who had disgraced herself. similar affectations accompany certain truly obscene dances of samoa, where they are very well in place. here it was different. the words, perhaps, in this free-spoken world, were gross enough to make a carter blush; and the most suggestive feature was this feint of shame. for such parts the women showed some disposition; they were pert, they were neat, they were acrobatic, they were at times really amusing, and some of them were pretty. but this is not the artist's field; there is the whole width of heaven between such capering and ogling, and the strange rhythmic gestures, and strange, rapturous, frenzied faces with which the best of the male dancers held us spellbound through a gilbert island ballet. almost from the first it was apparent that the people of the city were defeated. i might have thought them even good, only i had the other troop before my eyes to correct my standard, and remind me continually of "the little more, and how much it is." perceiving themselves worsted, the choir of butaritari grew confused, blundered, and broke down; amid this hubbub of unfamiliar intervals i should not myself have recognised the slip, but the audience were quick to catch it, and to jeer. to crown all, the makin company began a dance of truly superlative merit. i know not what it was about, i was too much absorbed to ask. in one act a part of the chorus, squealing in some strange falsetto, produced very much the effect of our orchestra; in another, the dancers, leaping like jumping-jacks, with arms extended, passed through and through each other's ranks with extraordinary speed, neatness, and humour. a more laughable effect i never saw; in any european theatre it would have brought the house down, and the island audience roared with laughter and applause. this filled up the measure for the rival company, and they forgot themselves and decency. after each act or figure of the ballet, the performers pause a moment standing, and the next is introduced by the clapping of hands in triplets. not until the end of the whole ballet do they sit down, which is the signal for the rivals to stand up. but now all rules were to be broken. during the interval following on this great applause, the company of butaritari leaped suddenly to their feet and most unhandsomely began a performance of their own. it was strange to see the men of makin staring; i have seen a tenor in europe stare with the same blank dignity into a hissing theatre; but presently, to my surprise, they sobered down, gave up the unsung remainder of their ballet, resumed their seats, and suffered their ungallant adversaries to go on and finish. nothing would suffice. again, at the first interval, butaritari unhandsomely cut in; makin, irritated in turn, followed the example; and the two companies of dancers remained permanently standing, continuously clapping hands, and regularly cutting across each other at each pause. i expected blows to begin with any moment; and our position in the midst was highly unstrategical. but the makin people had a better thought; and upon a fresh interruption turned and trooped out of the house. we followed them, first because these were the artists, second because they were guests and had been scurvily ill-used. a large population of our neighbours did the same, so that the causeway was filled from end to end by the procession of deserters; and the butaritari choir was left to sing for its own pleasure in an empty house, having gained the point and lost the audience. it was surely fortunate that there was no one drunk; but, drunk or sober, where else would a scene so irritating have concluded without blows? the last stage and glory of this auspicious day was of our own providing--the second and positively the last appearance of the phantoms. all round the church, groups sat outside, in the night, where they could see nothing; perhaps ashamed to enter, certainly finding some shadowy pleasure in the mere proximity. within, about one-half of the great shed was densely packed with people. in the midst, on the royal dais, the lantern luminously smoked; chance rays of light struck out the earnest countenance of our chinaman grinding the hand-organ; a fainter glimmer showed off the rafters and their shadows in the hollow of the roof; the pictures shone and vanished on the screen; and as each appeared, there would run a hush, a whisper, a strong shuddering rustle, and a chorus of small cries among the crowd. there sat by me the mate of a wrecked schooner. "they would think this a strange sight in europe or the states," said he, "going on in a building like this, all tied with bits of string." chapter vii husband and wife the trader accustomed to the manners of eastern polynesia has a lesson to learn among the gilberts. the _ridi_ is but a spare attire; as late as thirty years back the women went naked until marriage; within ten years the custom lingered; and these facts, above all when heard in description, conveyed a very false idea of the manners of the group. a very intelligent missionary described it (in its former state) as a "paradise of naked women" for the resident whites. it was at least a platonic paradise, where lothario ventured at his peril. since , fourteen whites have perished on a single island, all for the same cause, all found where they had no business, and speared by some indignant father of a family; the figure was given me by one of their contemporaries who had been more prudent and survived. the strange persistence of these fourteen martyrs might seem to point to monomania or a series of romantic passions; gin is the more likely key. the poor buzzards sat alone in their houses by an open case; they drank; their brain was fired; they stumbled towards the nearest houses on chance; and the dart went through their liver. in place of a paradise the trader found an archipelago of fierce husbands and of virtuous women. "of course if you wish to make love to them, it's the same as anywhere else," observed a trader innocently; but he and his companions rarely so choose. the trader must be credited with a virtue: he often makes a kind and loyal husband. some of the worst beachcombers in the pacific, some of the last of the old school, have fallen in my path, and some of them were admirable to their native wives, and one made a despairing widower. the position of a trader's wife in the gilberts is, besides, unusually enviable. she shares the immunities of her husband. curfew in butaritari sounds for her in vain. long after the bell is rung and the great island ladies are confined for the night to their own roof, this chartered libertine may scamper and giggle through the deserted streets or go down to bathe in the dark. the resources of the store are at her hand; she goes arrayed like a queen, and feasts delicately every day upon tinned meats. and she who was perhaps of no regard or station among natives sits with captains, and is entertained on board of schooners. five of these privileged dames were some time our neighbours. four were handsome skittish lasses, gamesome like children, and like children liable to fits of pouting. they wore dresses by day, but there was a tendency after dark to strip these lendings and to career and squall about the compound in the aboriginal _ridi_. games of cards were continually played, with shells for counters; their course was much marred by cheating; and the end of a round (above all if a man was of the party) resolved itself into a scrimmage for the counters. the fifth was a matron. it was a picture to see her sail to church on a sunday, a parasol in hand, a nursemaid following, and the baby buried in a trade hat and armed with a patent feeding-bottle. the service was enlivened by her continual supervision and correction of the maid. it was impossible not to fancy the baby was a doll, and the church some european playroom. all these women were legitimately married. it is true that the certificate of one, when she proudly showed it, proved to run thus, that she was "married for one night," and her gracious partner was at liberty to "send her to hell" the next morning; but she was none the wiser or the worse for the dastardly trick. another, i heard, was married on a work of mine in a pirated edition; it answered the purpose as well as a hall bible. notwithstanding all these allurements of social distinction, rare food and raiment, a comparative vacation from toil, and legitimate marriage contracted on a pirated edition, the trader must sometimes seek long before he can be mated. while i was in the group one had been eight months on the quest, and he was still a bachelor. within strictly native society the old laws and practices were harsh, but not without a certain stamp of high-mindedness. stealthy adultery was punished with death; open elopement was properly considered virtue in comparison, and compounded for a fine in land. the male adulterer alone seems to have been punished. it is correct manners for a jealous man to hang himself; a jealous woman has a different remedy--she bites her rival. ten or twenty years ago it was a capital offence to raise a woman's _ridi_; to this day it is still punished with a heavy fine; and the garment itself is still symbolically sacred. suppose a piece of land to be disputed in butaritari, the claimant who shall first hang a _ridi_ on the tapu-post has gained his cause, since no one can remove or touch it but himself. the _ridi_ was the badge not of the woman but the wife, the mark not of her sex but of her station. it was the collar on the slave's neck, the brand on merchandise. the adulterous woman seems to have been spared; were the husband offended, it would be a poor consolation to send his draught cattle to the shambles. karaiti, to this day, calls his eight wives "his horses," some trader having explained to him the employment of these animals on farms; and nanteitei hired out his wives to do mason-work. husbands, at least when of high rank, had the power of life and death; even whites seem to have possessed it; and their wives, when they had transgressed beyond forgiveness, made haste to pronounce the formula of deprecation--_i kana kim_. this form of words had so much virtue that a condemned criminal, repeating it on a particular day to the king who had condemned him, must be instantly released. it is an offer of abasement, and, strangely enough, the reverse--the imitation--is a common vulgar insult in great britain to this day. i give a scene between a trader and his gilbert island wife, as it was told me by the husband, now one of the oldest residents, but then a freshman in the group. "go and light a fire," said the trader, "and when i have brought this oil i will cook some fish." the woman grunted at him, island fashion. "i am not a pig that you should grunt at me," said he. "i know you are not a pig," said the woman, "neither am i your slave." "to be sure you are not my slave, and if you do not care to stop with me, you had better go home to your people," said he. "but in the meantime go and light the fire; and when i have brought this oil i will cook some fish." she went as if to obey; and presently when the trader looked she had built a fire so big that the cook-house was catching in flames. "_i kana kim!_" she cried, as she saw him coming; but he recked not, and hit her with a cooking-pot. the leg pierced her skull, blood spouted, it was thought she was a dead woman, and the natives surrounded the house in a menacing expectation. another white was present, a man of older experience. "you will have us both killed if you go on like this," he cried. "she had said, _i kana kim_!" if she had not said _i kana kim_ he might have struck her with a caldron. it was not the blow that made the crime, but the disregard of an accepted formula. polygamy, the particular sacredness of wives, their semi-servile state, their seclusion in kings' harems, even their privilege of biting, all would seem to indicate a mohammedan society and the opinion of the soullessness of woman. and not so in the least. it is a mere appearance. after you have studied these extremes in one house, you may go to the next and find all reversed, the woman the mistress, the man only the first of her thralls. the authority is not with the husband as such, nor the wife as such. it resides in the chief or the chief-woman; in him or her who has inherited the lands of the clan, and stands to the clansman in the place of parent, exacting their service, answerable for their fines. there is but the one source of power and the one ground of dignity--rank. the king married a chief-woman; she became his menial, and must work with her hands on messrs. wightman's pier. the king divorced her; she regained at once her former state and power. she married the hawaiian sailor, and behold the man is her flunkey and can be shown the door at pleasure. nay, and such low-born lords are even corrected physically, and, like grown but dutiful children, must endure the discipline. we were intimate in one such household, that of nei takauti and nan tok'; i put the lady first of necessity. during one week of fool's paradise, mrs. stevenson had gone alone to the sea-side of the island after shells. i am very sure the proceeding was unsafe; and she soon perceived a man and woman watching her. do what she would, her guardians held her steadily in view; and when the afternoon began to fall, and they thought she had stayed long enough, took her in charge, and by signs and broken english ordered her home. on the way the lady drew from her earring-hole a clay pipe, the husband lighted it, and it was handed to my unfortunate wife, who knew not how to refuse the incommodious favour; and when they were all come to our house, the pair sat down beside her on the floor, and improved the occasion with prayer. from that day they were our family friends; bringing thrice a day the beautiful island garlands of white flowers, visiting us any evening, and frequently carrying us down to their own maniap' in return, the woman leading mrs. stevenson by the hand like one child with another. nan tok', the husband, was young, extremely handsome, of the most approved good humour, and suffering in his precarious station from suppressed high spirits. nei takauti, the wife, was getting old; her grown son by a former marriage had just hanged himself before his mother's eyes in despair at a well-merited rebuke. perhaps she had never been beautiful, but her face was full of character, her eye of sombre fire. she was a high chief-woman, but by a strange exception for a person of her rank, was small, spare and sinewy, with lean small hands and corded neck. her full dress of an evening was invariably a white chemise--and for adornment, green leaves (or sometimes white blossoms) stuck in her hair and thrust through her huge earring-holes. the husband on the contrary changed to view like a kaleidoscope. whatever pretty thing my wife might have given to nei takauti--a string of beads, a ribbon, a piece of bright fabric--appeared the next evening on the person of nan tok'. it was plain he was a clothes-horse; that he wore livery; that, in a word, he was his wife's wife. they reversed the parts, indeed, down to the least particular; it was the husband who showed himself the ministering angel in the hour of pain, while the wife displayed the apathy and heartlessness of the proverbial man. when nei takauti had a headache nan tok' was full of attention and concern. when the husband had a cold and a racking toothache the wife heeded not, except to jeer. it is always the woman's part to fill and light the pipe; nei takauti handed hers in silence to the wedded page; but she carried it herself, as though the page were not entirely trusted. thus she kept the money, but it was he who ran the errands, anxiously sedulous. a cloud on her face dimmed instantly his beaming looks; on an early visit to their maniap' my wife saw he had cause to be wary. nan tok' had a friend with him, a giddy young thing, of his own age and sex; and they had worked themselves into that stage of jocularity when consequences are too often disregarded. nei takauti mentioned her own name. instantly nan tok' held up two fingers, his friend did likewise, both in an ecstasy of slyness. it was plain the lady had two names; and from the nature of their merriment, and the wrath that gathered on her brow, there must be something ticklish in the second. the husband pronounced it; a well-directed cocoa-nut from the hand of his wife caught him on the side of the head, and the voices and the mirth of these indiscreet young gentlemen ceased for the day. the people of eastern polynesia are never at a loss; their etiquette is absolute and plenary; in every circumstance it tells them what to do and how to do it. the gilbertines are seemingly more free, and pay for their freedom (like ourselves) in frequent perplexity. this was often the case with the topsy-turvy couple. we had once supplied them during a visit with a pipe and tobacco; and when they had smoked and were about to leave, they found themselves confronted with a problem: should they take or leave what remained of the tobacco? the piece of plug was taken up, it was laid down again, it was handed back and forth, and argued over, till the wife began to look haggard and the husband elderly. they ended by taking it, and i wager were not yet clear of the compound before they were sure they had decided wrong. another time they had been given each a liberal cup of coffee, and nan tok' with difficulty and disaffection made an end of his. nei takauti had taken some, she had no mind for more, plainly conceived it would be a breach of manners to set down the cup unfinished, and ordered her wedded retainer to dispose of what was left. "i have swallowed all i can, i cannot swallow more, it is a physical impossibility," he seemed to say; and his stern officer reiterated her commands with secret imperative signals. luckless dog! but in mere humanity we came to the rescue and removed the cup. i cannot but smile over this funny household; yet i remember the good souls with affection and respect. their attention to ourselves was surprising. the garlands are much esteemed, the blossoms must be sought far and wide; and though they had many retainers to call to their aid, we often saw themselves passing afield after the blossoms, and the wife engaged with her own hands in putting them together. it was no want of heart, only that disregard so incident to husbands, that made nei takauti despise the sufferings of nan tok'. when my wife was unwell she proved a diligent and kindly nurse; and the pair, to the extreme embarrassment of the sufferer, became fixtures in the sick-room. this rugged, capable, imperious old dame, with the wild eyes, had deep and tender qualities; her pride in her young husband it seemed that she dissembled, fearing possibly to spoil him; and when she spoke of her dead son there came something tragic in her face. but i seemed to trace in the gilbertines a virility of sense and sentiment which distinguishes them (like their harsh and uncouth language) from their brother islanders in the east. part v the gilberts--apemama chapter i the king of apemama: the royal trader there is one great personage in the gilberts: tembinok' of apemama: solely conspicuous, the hero of song, the butt of gossip. through the rest of the group the kings are slain or fallen in tutelage: tembinok' alone remains, the last tyrant, the last erect vestige of a dead society. the white man is everywhere else, building his houses, drinking his gin, getting in and out of trouble with the weak native governments. there is only one white on apemama, and he on sufferance, living far from court, and hearkening and watching his conduct like a mouse in a cat's ear. through all the other islands a stream of native visitors comes and goes, travelling by families, spending years on the grand tour. apemama alone is left upon one side, the tourist dreading to risk himself within the clutch of tembinok'. and fear of the same gorgon follows and troubles them at home. maiana once paid him tribute; he once fell upon and seized nonuti: first steps to the empire of the archipelago. a british warship coming on the scene, the conqueror was driven to disgorge, his career checked in the outset, his dear-bought armoury sunk in his own lagoon. but the impression had been made: periodical fear of him still shakes the islands; rumour depicts him mustering his canoes for a fresh onfall; rumour can name his destination; and tembinok' figures in the patriotic war-songs of the gilberts like napoleon in those of our grandfathers. we were at sea, bound from mariki to nonuti and tapituea, when the wind came suddenly fair for apemama. the course was at once changed; all hands were turned-to to clean ship, the decks holy-stoned, the cabin washed, the trade-room overhauled. in all our cruising we never saw the _equator_ so smart as she was made for tembinok'. nor was captain reid alone in these coquetries; for, another schooner chancing to arrive during my stay in apemama, i found that she also was dandified for the occasion. and the two cases stand alone in my experience of south sea traders. we had on board a family of native tourists, from the grandsire to the babe in arms, trying (against an extraordinary series of ill-luck) to regain their native island of peru.[ ] five times already they had paid their fare and taken ship; five times they had been disappointed, dropped penniless upon strange islands, or carried back to butaritari, whence they sailed. this last attempt had been no better-starred; their provisions were exhausted. peru was beyond hope, and they had cheerfully made up their minds to a fresh stage of exile in tapituea or nonuti. with this slant of wind their random destination became once more changed; and like the calendar's pilot, when the "black mountains" hove in view, they changed colour and beat upon their breasts. their camp, which was on deck in the ship's waist, resounded with complaint. they would be set to work, they must become slaves, escape was hopeless, they must live and toil and die in apemama, in the tyrant's den. with this sort of talk they so greatly terrified their children, that one (a big hulking boy) must at last be torn screaming from the schooner's side. and their fears were wholly groundless. i have little doubt they were not suffered to be idle; but i can vouch for it that they were kindly and generously used. for, the matter of a year later, i was once more shipmate with these inconsistent wanderers on board the _janet nicoll_. their fare was paid by tembinok'; they who had gone ashore from the _equator_ destitute, reappeared upon the _janet_ with new clothes, laden with mats and presents, and bringing with them a magazine of food, on which they lived like fighting-cocks throughout the voyage; i saw them at length repatriated, and i must say they showed more concern on quitting apemama than delight at reaching home. we entered by the north passage (sunday, september st), dodging among shoals. it was a day of fierce equatorial sunshine; but the breeze was strong and chill; and the mate, who conned the schooner from the cross-trees, returned shivering to the deck. the lagoon was thick with many-tinted wavelets; a continuous roaring of the outer sea overhung the anchorage; and the long, hollow crescent of palm ruffled and sparkled in the wind. opposite our berth the beach was seen to be surmounted for some distance by a terrace of white coral, seven or eight feet high and crowned in turn by the scattered and incongruous buildings of the palace. the village adjoins on the south, a cluster of high-roofed maniap's. and village and palace seemed deserted. we were scarce yet moored, however, before distant and busy figures appeared upon the beach, a boat was launched, and a crew pulled out to us bringing the king's ladder. tembinok' had once an accident; has feared ever since to intrust his person to the rotten chandlery of south sea traders; and devised in consequence a frame of wood, which is brought on board a ship as soon as she appears, and remains lashed to her side until she leave. the boat's crew, having applied this engine, returned at once to shore. they might not come on board; neither might we land, or not without danger of offence; the king giving pratique in person. an interval followed, during which dinner was delayed for the great man; the prelude of the ladder giving us some notion of his weighty body and sensible, ingenious character, had highly whetted our curiosity; and it was with something like excitement that we saw the beach and terrace suddenly blacken with attendant vassals, the king and party embark, the boat (a man-of-war gig) come flying towards us dead before the wind, and the royal coxswain lay us cleverly aboard, mount the ladder with a jealous diffidence, and descend heavily on deck. not long ago he was overgrown with fat, obscured to view, and a burthen to himself. captains visiting the island advised him to walk; and though it broke the habits of a life and the traditions of his rank, he practised the remedy with benefit. his corpulence is now portable; you would call him lusty rather than fat; but his gait is still dull, stumbling, and elephantine. he neither stops nor hastens, but goes about his business with an implacable deliberation. we could never see him and not be struck with his extraordinary natural means for the theatre: a beaked profile like dante's in the mask, a mane of long black hair, the eye brilliant, imperious, and inquiring: for certain parts, and to one who could have used it, the face was a fortune. his voice matched it well, being shrill, powerful, and uncanny, with a note like a sea-bird's. where there are no fashions, none to set them, few to follow them if they were set, and none to criticise, he dresses--as sir charles grandison lived--"to his own heart." now he wears a woman's frock, now a naval uniform; now (and more usually) figures in a masquerade costume of his own design: trousers and a singular jacket with shirt tails, the cut and fit wonderful for island workmanship, the material always handsome, sometimes green velvet, sometimes cardinal red silk. this masquerade becomes him admirably. in the woman's frock he looks ominous and weird beyond belief. i see him now come pacing towards me in the cruel sun, solitary, a figure out of hoffmann. a visit on board ship, such as that at which we now assisted, makes a chief part and by far the chief diversion of the life of tembinok'. he is not only the sole ruler, he is the sole merchant of his triple kingdom, apemama, aranuka, and kuria, well-planted islands. the taro goes to the chiefs, who divide as they please among their immediate adherents; but certain fish, turtles--which abound in kuria,--and the whole produce of the coco-palm, belong exclusively to tembinok'. "a' cobra[ ] berong me," observed his majesty with, a wave of his hand; and he counts and sells it by the houseful. "you got copra, king?" i have heard a trader ask. "i got two, three outches,"[ ] his majesty replied: "i think three." hence the commercial importance of apemama, the trade of three islands being centred there in a single hand; hence it is that so many whites have tried in vain to gain or to preserve a footing; hence ships are adorned, cooks have special orders, and captains array themselves in smiles, to greet the king. if he be pleased with his welcome and the fare he may pass days on board, and every day, and sometimes every hour, will be of profit to the ship. he oscillates between the cabin, where he is entertained with strange meats, and the trade-room, where he enjoys the pleasures of shopping on a scale to match his person. a few obsequious attendants squat by the house door, awaiting his least signal. in the boat, which has been suffered to drop astern, one or two of his wives lie covered from the sun under mats, tossed by the short sea of the lagoon, and enduring agonies of heat and tedium. this severity is now and then relaxed and the wives allowed on board. three or four were thus favoured on the day of our arrival: substantial ladies airily attired in _ridis_. each had a share of copra, her _peculium_, to dispose of for herself. the display in the trade-room--hats, ribbons, dresses, scents, tins of salmon--the pride of the eye and the lust of the flesh--tempted them in vain. they had but the one idea--tobacco, the island currency, tantamount to minted gold; returned to shore with it, burthened but rejoicing; and late into the night, on the royal terrace, were to be seen counting the sticks by lamplight in the open air. the king is no such economist. he is greedy of things new and foreign. house after house, chest after chest, in the palace precinct, is already crammed with clocks, musical boxes, blue spectacles, umbrellas, knitted waistcoats, bolts of stuff, tools, rifles, fowling-pieces, medicines, european foods, sewing-machines, and, what is more extraordinary, stoves: all that ever caught his eye, tickled his appetite, pleased him for its use, or puzzled him with its apparent inutility. and still his lust is unabated. he is possessed by the seven devils of the collector. he hears a thing spoken of, and a shadow comes on his face. "i think i no got him," he will say; and the treasures he has seem worthless in comparison. if a ship be bound for apemama, the merchant racks his brain to hit upon some novelty. this he leaves carelessly in the main cabin or partly conceals in his own berth, so that the king shall spy it for himself. "how much you want?" inquires tembinok', passing and pointing. "no, king; that too dear," returns the trader. "i think i like him," says the king. this was a bowl of gold-fish. on another occasion it was scented soap. "no, king; that cost too much," said the trader; "too good for a kanaka." "how much you got? i take him all," replied his majesty, and became the lord of seventeen boxes at two dollars a cake. or again, the merchant feigns the article is not for sale, is private property, an heirloom or a gift; and the trick infallibly succeeds. thwart the king and you hold him. his autocratic nature rears at the affront of opposition. he accepts it for a challenge; sets his teeth like a hunter going at a fence; and with no mark of emotion, scarce even of interest, stolidly piles up the price. thus, for our sins, he took a fancy to my wife's dressing-bag, a thing entirely useless to the man, and sadly battered by years of service. early one forenoon he came to our house, sat down, and abruptly offered to purchase it. i told him i sold nothing, and the bag at any rate was a present from a friend; but he was acquainted with these pretexts from of old, and knew what they were worth and how to meet them. adopting what i believe is called "the object method," he drew out a bag of english gold, sovereigns and half-sovereigns, and began to lay them one by one in silence on the table; at each fresh piece reading our faces with a look. in vain i continued to protest i was no trader; he deigned not to reply. there must have been twenty pounds on the table, he was still going on, and irritation had begun to mingle with our embarrassment, when a happy idea came to our delivery. since his majesty thought so much of the bag, we said, we must beg him to accept it as a present. it was the most surprising turn in tembinok's experience. he perceived too late that his persistence was unmannerly; hung his head a while in silence: then, lifting up a sheepish countenance, "i 'shamed," said the tyrant. it was the first and the last time we heard him own to a flaw in his behaviour. half an hour after he sent us a camphor-wood chest, worth only a few dollars--but then heaven knows what tembinok' had paid for it. cunning by nature, and versed for forty years in the government of men, it must not be supposed that he is cheated blindly, or has resigned himself without resistance to be the milch-cow of the passing trader. his efforts have been even heroic. like nakaeia of makin, he has owned schooners. more fortunate than nakaeia, he has found captains. ships of his have sailed as far as to the colonies. he has trafficked direct, in his own bottoms, with new zealand. and even so, even there, the world-enveloping dishonesty of the white man prevented him; his profit melted, his ship returned in debt, the money for the insurance was embezzled, and when the _coronet_ came to be lost, he was astonished to find he had lost all. at this he dropped his weapons; owned he might as hopefully wrestle with the winds of heaven; and like an experienced sheep, submitted his fleece thenceforward to the shearers. he is the last man in the world to waste anger on the incurable; accepts it with cynical composure; asks no more in those he deals with than a certain decency of moderation; drives as good a bargain as he can; and when he considers he is more than usually swindled, writes it in his memory against the merchant's name. he once ran over to me a list of captains and supercargoes with whom he had done business, classing them under three heads: "he cheat a litty"--"he cheat plenty"--and "i think he cheat too much." for the first two classes he expressed perfect toleration; sometimes, but not always, for the third. i was present when a certain merchant was turned about his business, and was the means (having a considerable influence ever since the bag) of patching up the dispute. even on the day of our arrival there was like to have been a hitch with captain reid: the ground of which is perhaps worth recital. among goods exported specially for tembinok' there is a beverage known (and labelled) as hennessy's brandy. it is neither hennessy, nor even brandy; it is about the colour of sherry, but is not sherry; tastes of kirsch, and yet neither is it kirsch. the king, at least, has grown used to this amazing brand, and rather prides himself upon the taste; and any substitution is a double offence, being at once to cheat him and to cast a doubt upon his palate. a similar weakness is to be observed in all connoisseurs. now, the last case sold by the _equator_ was found to contain a different and i would fondly fancy a superior distillation; and the conversation opened very black for captain reid. but tembinok' is a moderate man. he was reminded and admitted that all men were liable to error, even himself; accepted the principle that a fault handsomely acknowledged should be condoned; and wound the matter up with this proposal: "tuppoti[ ] i mi'take, you 'peakee me. tuppoti you mi'take, i 'peakee you. mo' betta." after dinner and supper in the cabin, a glass or two of "hennetti"--the genuine article this time, with the kirsch bouquet,--and five hours' lounging on the trade-room counter, royalty embarked for home. three tacks grounded the boat before the palace; the wives were carried ashore on the backs of vassals; tembinok' stepped on a railed platform like a steamer's gangway, and was borne shoulder-high through the shallows, up the beach, and by an inclined plane, paved with pebbles, to the glaring terrace where he dwells. footnotes: [ ] in the gilbert group. [ ] copra: the dried kernel of the cocoa-nut, the chief article of commerce throughout the pacific islands. [ ] houses. [ ] suppose. chapter ii the king of apemama: foundation of equator town our first sight of tembinok' was a matter of concern, almost alarm, to my whole party. we had a favour to seek; we must approach in the proper courtly attitude of a suitor; and must either please him or fail in the main purpose of our voyage. it was our wish to land and live in apemama, and see more near at hand the odd character of the man and the odd (or rather ancient) condition of his island. in all other isles of the south seas a white man may land with his chest, and set up house for a lifetime, if he choose, and if he have the money or the trade; no hindrance is conceivable. but apemama is a close island, lying there in the sea with closed doors; the king himself, like a vigilant officer, ready at the wicket to scrutinise and reject intrenching visitors. hence the attraction of our enterprise; not merely because it was a little difficult, but because this social quarantine, a curiosity in itself, has been the preservative of others. tembinok', like most tyrants, is a conservative; like many conservatives, he eagerly welcomes new ideas, and, except in the field of politics, leans to practical reform. when the missionaries came, professing a knowledge of the truth, he readily received them; attended their worship, acquired the accomplishment of public prayer, and made himself a student at their feet. it is thus--it is by the cultivation of similar passing chances--that he has learned to read, to write, to cipher, and to speak his queer, personal english, so different from ordinary "beach de mar," so much more obscure, expressive, and condensed. his education attended to, he found time to become critical of the new inmates. like nakaeia of makin, he is an admirer of silence in the island; broods over it like a great ear; has spies who report daily; and had rather his subjects sang than talked. the service, and in particular the sermon, were thus sure to become offences: "here, in my island, _i_ 'peak," he once observed to me. "my chieps no 'peak--do what i talk." he looked at the missionary, and what did he see? "see kanaka 'peak in a big outch!" he cried, with a strong ring of sarcasm. yet he endured the subversive spectacle, and might even have continued to endure it, had not a fresh point arisen. he looked again, to employ his own figure; and the kanaka was no longer speaking, he was doing worse--he was building a copra-house. the king was touched in his chief interests; revenue and prerogative were threatened. he considered besides (and some think with him) that trade is incompatible with the missionary claims. "tuppoti mitonary think 'good man': very good. tuppoti he think 'cobra': no good. i send him away ship." such was his abrupt history of the evangelist in apemama. similar deportations are common: "i send him away ship" is the epitaph of not a few, his majesty paying the exile's fare to the next place of call. for instance, being passionately fond of european food, he has several times added to his household a white cook, and one after another these have been deported. they, on their side, swear they were not paid their wages; he, on his, that they robbed and swindled him beyond endurance: both perhaps justly. a more important case was that of an agent despatched (as i heard the story) by a firm of merchants to worm his way into the king's good graces, become, if possible, premier, and handle the copra in the interests of his employers. he obtained authority to land, practised his fascinations, was patiently listened to by tembinok', supposed himself on the highway to success; and behold! when the next ship touched at apemama, the would-be premier was flung into a boat--had on board--his fare paid, and so good-bye. but it is needless to multiply examples; the proof of the pudding is in the eating. when we came to apemama, of so many white men who have scrambled for a place in that rich market, one remained--a silent, sober, solitary, niggardly recluse, of whom the king remarks, "i think he good; he no 'peak." i was warned at the outset we might very well fail in our design; yet never dreamed of what proved to be the fact, that we should be left four-and-twenty hours in suspense and come within an ace of ultimate rejection. captain reid had primed himself; no sooner was the king on board, and the hennetti question amicably settled, than he proceeded to express my request and give an abstract of my claims and virtues. the gammon about queen victoria's son might do for butaritari; it was out of the question here; and i now figured as "one of the old men of england," a person of deep knowledge, come expressly to visit tembinok's dominion, and eager to report upon it to the no less eager queen victoria. the king made no shadow of an answer, and presently began upon a different subject. we might have thought he had not heard, or not understood; only that we found ourselves the subject of a constant study. as we sat at meals, he took us in series and fixed upon each, for near a minute at a time, the same hard and thoughtful stare. as he thus looked he seemed to forget himself, the subject and the company, and to become absorbed in the process of his thought; the look was wholly impersonal: i have seen the same in the eyes of portrait-painters. the counts upon which whites have been deported are mainly four: cheating tembinok', meddling overmuch with copra, which is the source of his wealth and one of the sinews of his power, _'peaking_, and political intrigue. i felt guiltless upon all; but how to show it? i would not have taken copra in a gift: how to express that quality by my dinner-table bearing? the rest of the party shared my innocence and my embarrassment. they shared also in my mortification when after two whole meal-times and the odd moments of an afternoon devoted to this reconnoitring, tembinok' took his leave in silence. next morning, the same undisguised study, the same silence, was resumed; and the second day had come to its maturity before i was informed abruptly that i had stood the ordeal. "i look your eye. you good man. you no lie," said the king: a doubtful compliment to a writer of romance. later he explained he did not quite judge by the eye only, but the mouth as well. "tuppoti i see man," he explained. "i no tavvy good man, bad man. i look eye, look mouth. then i tavvy. look _eye_, look mouth," he repeated. and indeed in our case the mouth had the most to do with it, and it was by our talk that we gained admission to the island; the king promising himself (and i believe really amassing) a vast amount of useful knowledge ere we left. the terms of our admission were as follows: we were to choose a site, and the king should there build us a town. his people should work for us, but the king only was to give them orders. one of his cooks should come daily to help mine, and to learn of him. in case our stores ran out, he would supply us, and be repaid on the return of the _equator_. on the other hand, he was to come to meals with us when so inclined; when he stayed at home, a dish was to be sent him from our table; and i solemnly engaged to give his subjects no liquor or money (both of which they are forbidden to possess) and no tobacco, which they were to receive only from the royal hand. i think i remember to have protested against the stringency of this last article; at least, it was relaxed, and when a man worked for me i was allowed to give him a pipe of tobacco on the premises, but none to take away. the site of equator city--we named our city for the schooner--was soon chosen. the immediate shores of the lagoon are windy and blinding; tembinok' himself is glad to grope blue-spectacled on his terrace; and we fled the neighbourhood of the red _conjunctiva_, the suppurating eyeball, and the beggar who pursues and beseeches the passing foreigner for eyewash. behind the town the country is diversified; here open, sandy, uneven, and dotted with dwarfish palms; here cut up with taro trenches, deep and shallow, and, according to the growth of the plants, presenting now the appearance of a sandy tannery, now of an alleyed and green garden. a path leads towards the sea, mounting abruptly to the main level of the island--twenty or even thirty feet, although findlay gives five; and just hard by the top of the rise, where the coco-palms begin to be well grown, we found a grove of pandanus, and a piece of soil pleasantly covered with green underbush. a well was not far off under a rustic well-house; nearer still, in a sandy cup of the land, a pond where we might wash our clothes. the place was out of the wind, out of the sun, and out of sight of the village. it was shown to the king, and the town promised for the morrow. the morrow came. mr. osbourne landed, found nothing done, and carried his complaint to tembinok'. he heard it, rose, called for a winchester, stepped without the royal palisade, and fired two shots in the air. a shot in the air is the first apemama warning; it has the force of a proclamation in more loquacious countries; and his majesty remarked agreeably that it would make his labourers "mo' bright." in less than thirty minutes, accordingly, the men had mustered, the work was begun, and we were told that we might bring our baggage when we pleased. it was two in the afternoon ere the first boat was beached, and the long procession of chests and crates and sacks began to straggle through the sandy desert towards equator town. the grove of pandanus was practically a thing of the past. fire surrounded and smoke rose in the green underbush. in a wide circuit the axes were still crashing. those very advantages for which the place was chosen, it had been the king's first idea to abolish; and in the midst of this devastation there stood already a good-sized maniap' and a small closed house. a mat was spread near by for tembinok'; here he sat superintending, in cardinal red, a pith helmet on his head, a meerschaum pipe in his mouth, a wife stretched at his back with custody of the matches and tobacco. twenty or thirty feet in front of him the bulk of the workers squatted on the ground; some of the bush here survived; and in this the commons sat nearly to their shoulders, and presented only an arc of brown faces, black heads, and attentive eyes fixed on his majesty. long pauses reigned, during which the subjects stared and the king smoked. then tembinok' would raise his voice and speak shrilly and briefly. there was never a response in words; but if the speech were jesting, there came by way of answer discreet, obsequious laughter--such laughter as we hear in schoolrooms; and if it were practical, the sudden uprising and departure of the squad. twice they so disappeared, and returned with further elements of the city; a second house and a second maniap'. it was singular to spy, far off through the coco-stems, the silent oncoming of the maniap', at first (it seemed) swimming spontaneously in the air--but on a nearer view betraying under the eaves many score of moving naked legs. in all the affair servile obedience was no less remarkable than servile deliberation. the gang had here mustered by the note of a deadly weapon; the man who looked on was the unquestioned master of their lives; and except for civility, they bestirred themselves like so many american hotel clerks. the spectator was aware of an unobtrusive yet invincible inertia, at which the skipper of a trading dandy might have torn his hair. yet the work was accomplished. by dusk, when his majesty withdrew, the town was founded and complete, a new and ruder amphion having called it from nothing with three cracks of a rifle. and the next morning the same conjurer obliged us with a further miracle: a mystic rampart fencing us, so that the path which ran by our doors became suddenly impassable, the inhabitants who had business across the isle must fetch a wide circuit, and we sat in the midst in a transparent privacy, seeing, seen, but unapproachable, like bees in a glass hive. the outward and visible sign of this glamour was no more than a few ragged coco-leaf garlands round the stems of the outlying palms; but its significance reposed on the tremendous sanction of the tapu and the guns of tembinok'. we made our first meal that night in the improvised city, where we were to stay two months, and which--so soon as we had done with it--was to vanish in a day as it appeared, its elements returning whence they came, the tapu raised, the traffic on the path resumed, the sun and the moon peering in vain between the palm-trees for the bygone work, the wind blowing over an empty site. yet the place, which is now only an episode in some memories, seemed to have been built, and to be destined to endure, for years. it was a busy hamlet. one of the maniap's we made our dining-room, one the kitchen. the houses we reserved for sleeping. they were on the admirable apemama plan: out and away the best house in the south seas; standing some three feet above the ground on posts; the sides of woven flaps, which can be raised to admit light and air, or lowered to shut out the wind and the rain: airy, healthy, clean, and watertight. we had a hen of a remarkable kind: almost unique in my experience; being a hen that occasionally laid eggs. not far off, mrs. stevenson tended a garden of salad and shalots. the salad was devoured by the hen--which was her bane. the shalots were served out a leaf at a time, and welcomed and relished like peaches. toddy and green cocoa-nuts were brought us daily. we once had a present of fish from the king, and once of a turtle. sometimes we shot so-called plover along on the shore, sometimes wild chicken in the bush. the rest of our diet was from tins. our occupations were very various. while some of the party would be away sketching, mr. osbourne and i hammered away at a novel. we read gibbon and carlyle aloud; we blew on flageolets, we strummed on guitars; we took photographs by the light of the sun, the moon, and flash-powder; sometimes we played cards. pot-hunting engaged a part of our leisure. i have myself passed afternoons in the exciting but innocuous pursuit of winged animals with a revolver; and it was fortunate there were better shots of the party, and fortunate the king could lend us a more suitable weapon, in the form of an excellent fowling-piece, or our spare diet had been sparer still. night was the time to see our city, after the moon was up, after the lamps were lighted, and so long as the fire sparkled in the cook-house. we suffered from a plague of flies and mosquitoes, comparable to that of egypt; our dinner-table (lent, like all our furniture, by the king) must be enclosed in a tent of netting, our citadel and refuge; and this became all luminous, and bulged and beaconed under the eaves, like the globe of some monstrous lamp under the margin of its shade. our cabins, the sides being propped at a variety of inclinations, spelled out strange, angular patterns of brightness. in his roofed and open kitchen, ah fu was to be seen by lamp and firelight, dabbling among pots. over all, there fell in the season an extraordinary splendour of mellow moonshine. the sand sparkled as with the dust of diamonds; the stars had vanished. at intervals, a dusky night-bird, slow and low flying, passed in the colonnade of the tree stems and uttered a hoarse croaking cry. chapter iii the king of apemama: the palace of many women the palace, or rather the ground which it includes, is several acres in extent. a terrace encloses it toward the lagoon; on the side of the land, a palisade with several gates. these are scarce intended for defence; a man, if he were strong, might easily pluck down the palisade; he need not be specially active to leap from the beach upon the terrace. there is no parade of guards, soldiers, or weapons; the armoury is under lock and key; and the only sentinels are certain inconspicuous old women lurking day and night before the gates. by day, these crones were often engaged in boiling syrup or the like household occupation; by night, they lay ambushed in the shadow or crouched along the palisade, filling the office of eunuchs to this harem, sole guards upon a tyrant life. female wardens made a fit outpost for this palace of many women. of the number of the king's wives i have no guess; and but a loose idea of their function. he himself displayed embarrassment when they were referred to as his wives, called them himself "my pamily," and explained they were his "cutcheons"--cousins. we distinguished four of the crowd: the king's mother; his sister, a grave, trenchant woman, with much of her brother's intelligence; the queen proper, to whom (and to whom alone) my wife was formally presented; and the favourite of the hour, a pretty, graceful girl, who sat with the king daily, and once (when he shed tears) consoled him with caresses. i am assured that even with her his relations are platonic. in the background figured a multitude of ladies, the lean, the plump, and the elephantine, some in sacque frocks, some in the hairbreadth _ridi_; high-born and low, slave and mistress; from the queen to the scullion, from the favourite to the scraggy sentries at the palisade. not all of these of course are of "my pamily,"--many are mere attendants; yet a surprising number shared the responsibility of the king's trust. these were key-bearers, treasurers, wardens of the armoury, the napery, and the stores. each knew and did her part to admiration. should anything be required--a particular gun, perhaps, or a particular bolt of stuff,--the right queen was summoned; she came bringing the right chest, opened it in the king's presence, and displayed her charge in perfect preservation--the gun cleaned and oiled, the goods duly folded. without delay or haste, and with the minimum of speech, the whole great establishment turned on wheels like a machine. nowhere have i seen order more complete and pervasive. and yet i was always reminded of norse tales of trolls and ogres who kept their hearts buried in the ground for the mere safety, and must confide the secret to their wives. for these weapons are the life of tembinok'. he does not aim at popularity; but drives and braves his subjects, with a simplicity of domination which it is impossible not to admire, hard not to sympathise with. should one out of so many prove faithless, should the armoury be secretly unlocked, should the crones have dozed by the palisade and the weapons find their way unseen into the village, revolution would be nearly certain, death the most probable result, and the spirit of the tyrant of apemama flit to rejoin his predecessors of mariki and tapituea. yet those whom he so trusts are all women, and all rivals. there is indeed a ministry and staff of males: cook, steward, carpenter, and supercargoes: the hierarchy of a schooner. the spies, "his majesty's daily papers," as we called them, come every morning to report, and go again. the cook and steward are concerned with the table only. the supercargoes, whose business it is to keep tally of the copra at three pounds a month and a percentage, are rarely in the palace; and two at least are in the other islands. the carpenter, indeed, shrewd and jolly old rubam--query, reuben?--promoted on my last visit to the greater dignity of governor, is daily present, altering, extending, embellishing, pursuing the endless series of the king's inventions; and his majesty will sometimes pass an afternoon watching and talking with rubam at his work. but the males are still outsiders; none seems to be armed, none is intrusted with a key; by dusk they are all usually departed from the palace; and the weight of the monarchy and of the monarch's life reposes unshared on the women. here is a household unlike, indeed, to one of ours; more unlike still to the oriental harem: that of an elderly childless man, his days menaced, dwelling alone amid a bevy of women of all ages, ranks, and relationships,--the mother, the sister, the cousin, the legitimate wife, the concubine, the favourite, the eldest born, and she of yesterday; he, in their midst, the only master, the only male, the sole dispenser of honours, clothes, and luxuries, the sole mark of multitudinous ambitions and desires. i doubt if you could find a man in europe so bold as to attempt this piece of tact and government. and seemingly tembinok' himself had trouble in the beginning. i hear of him shooting at a wife for some levity on board a schooner. another, on some more serious offence, he slew outright; he exposed her body in an open box, and (to make the warning more memorable) suffered it to putrefy before the palace gate. doubtless his growing years have come to his assistance; for upon so large a scale it is more easy to play the father than the husband. and to-day, at least to the eye of a stranger, all seems to go smoothly, and the wives to be proud of their trust, proud of their rank, and proud of their cunning lord. i conceived they made rather a hero of the man. a popular master in a girls' school might, perhaps, offer a figure of his preponderating station. but then the master does not eat, sleep, live, and wash his dirty linen in the midst of his admirers; he escapes, he has a room of his own, he leads a private life; if he had nothing else, he has the holidays, and the more unhappy tembinok' is always on the stage and on the stretch. in all my coming and going, i never heard him speak harshly or express the least displeasure. an extreme, rather heavy, benignity--the benignity of one sure to be obeyed--marked his demeanour; so that i was at times reminded of samuel richardson in his circle of admiring women. the wives spoke up and seemed to volunteer opinions, like our wives at home--or, say, like doting but respectable aunts. altogether, i conclude that he rules his seraglio much more by art than terror; and those who give a different account (and who have none of them enjoyed my opportunities of observation) perhaps failed to distinguish between degrees of rank, between "my pamily" and the hangers-on, laundresses, and prostitutes. a notable feature is the evening game of cards; when lamps are set forth upon the terrace, and "i and my pamily" play for tobacco by the hour. it is highly characteristic of tembinok' that he must invent a game for himself; highly characteristic of his worshipping household that they should swear by the absurd invention. it is founded on poker, played with the honours out of many packs, and inconceivably dreary. but i have a passion for all games, studied it, and am supposed to be the only white who ever fairly grasped its principle: a fact for which the wives (with whom i was not otherwise popular) admired me with acclamation. it was impossible to be deceived; this was a genuine feeling: they were proud of their private game, had been cut to the quick by the want of interest shown in it by others, and expanded under the flattery of my attention. tembinok' puts up a double stake, and receives in return two hands to choose from: a shallow artifice which the wives (in all these years) have not yet fathomed. he himself, when talking with me privately, made not the least secret that he was secure of winning; and it was thus he explained his recent liberality on board the _equator_. he let the wives buy their own tobacco, which pleased them at the moment. he won it back at cards, which made him once more, and without fresh expense, that which he ought to be,--the sole fount of all indulgences. and he summed the matter up in that phrase with which he almost always concludes any account of his policy: "mo' betta." the palace compound is laid with broken coral, excruciating to the eyes and the bare feet, but exquisitely raked and weeded. a score or more of buildings lie in a sort of street along the palisade and scattered on the margin of the terrace; dwelling-houses for the wives and the attendants, storehouses for the king's curios and treasures, spacious maniap's for feast or council, some on pillars of wood, some on piers of masonry. one was still in hand, a new invention, the king's latest born: a european frame-house built for coolness inside a lofty maniap': its roof planked like a ship's deck to be a raised, shady, and yet private promenade. it was here the king spent hours with rubam; here i would sometimes join them; the place had a most singular appearance; and i must say i was greatly taken with the fancy, and joined with relish in the counsels of the architects. suppose we had business with his majesty by day: we strolled over the sand and by the dwarfish palms, exchanged a "_konamaori_" with the crone on duty, and entered the compound. the wide sheet of coral glared before us deserted; all having stowed themselves in dark canvas from the excess of room. i have gone to and fro in that labyrinth of a place, seeking the king; and the only breathing creature i could find was when i peered under the eaves of a maniap', and saw the brawny body of one of the wives stretched on the floor, a naked amazon plunged in noiseless slumber. if it were still the hour of the "morning papers" the quest would be more easy, the half-dozen obsequious, sly dogs squatting on the ground outside a house, crammed as far as possible in its narrow shadow, and turning to the king a row of leering faces. tembinok' would be within, the flaps of the cabin raised, the trade blowing through, hearing their report. like journalists nearer home, when the day's news were scanty, these would make the more of it in words; and i have known one to fill up a barren morning with an imaginary conversation of two dogs. sometimes the king deigns to laugh, sometimes to question or jest with them, his voice sounding shrilly from the cabin. by his side he may have the heir-apparent, paul, his nephew and adopted son, six years old, stark naked, and a model of young human beauty. and there will always be the favourite and perhaps two other wives awake; four more lying supine under mats and whelmed in slumber. or perhaps we came later, fell on a more private hour, and found tembinok' retired in the house with the favourite, an earthenware spittoon, a leaden inkpot, and a commercial ledger. in the last, lying on his belly, he writes from day to day the uneventful history of his reign; and when thus employed he betrayed a touch of fretfulness on interruption with which i was well able to sympathise. the royal annalist once read me a page or so, translating as he went; but the passage being genealogical, and the author boggling extremely in his version, i own i have been sometimes better entertained. nor does he confine himself to prose, but touches the lyre too, in his leisure moments, and passes for the chief bard of his kingdom, as he is its sole public character, leading architect, and only merchant. his competence, however, does not reach to music; and his verses, when they are ready, are taught to a professional musician, who sets them and instructs the chorus. asked what his songs were about, tembinok' replied, "sweethearts and trees and the sea. not all the same true, all the same lie." for a condensed view of lyrical poetry (except that he seems to have forgot the stars and flowers) this would be hard to mend. these multifarious occupations bespeak (in a native and an absolute prince) unusual activity of mind. the palace court at noon is a spot to be remembered with awe, the visitor scrambling there, on the loose stones, through a splendid nightmare of light and heat; but the sweep of the wind delivers it from flies and mosquitoes; and with the set of sun it became heavenly. i remember it best on moonless nights. the air was like a bath of milk. countless shining stars were overhead, the lagoon paved with them. herds of wives squatted by companies on the gravel, softly chatting. tembinok' would doff his jacket, and sit bare and silent, perhaps meditating songs; the favourite usually by him, silent also. meanwhile in the midst of the court, the palace lanterns were being lit and marshalled in rank upon the ground--six or eight square yards of them; a sight that gave one strange ideas of the number of "my pamily"; such a sight as may be seen about dusk in a corner of some great terminus at home. presently these fared off into all corners of the precinct, lighting the last labours of the day, lighting one after another to their rest that prodigious company of women. a few lingered in the middle of the court for the card-party, and saw the honours shuffled and dealt, and tembinok' deliberating between his two hands, and the queens losing their tobacco. then these also were scattered and extinguished; and their place was taken by a great bonfire, the night-light of the palace. when this was no more, smaller fires burned likewise at the gates. these were tended by the crones, unseen, unsleeping--not always unheard. should any approach in the dark hours, a guarded alert made the circuit of the palisade; each sentry signalled her neighbour with a stone; the rattle of falling pebbles passed and died away; and the wardens of tembinok' crouched in their places silent as before. chapter iv the king of apemama: equator town and the palace five persons were detailed to wait upon us. uncle parker, who brought us toddy and green nuts, was an elderly, almost an old man, with the spirits, the industry, and the morals of a boy of ten. his face was ancient, droll, and diabolical, the skin stretched over taut sinews, like a sail on the guide-rope; and he smiled with every muscle of his head. his nuts must be counted every day, or he would deceive us in the tale; they must be daily examined, or some would prove to be unhusked; nothing but the king's name, and scarcely that, would hold him to his duty. after his toils were over, he was given a pipe, matches, and tobacco, and sat on the floor in the maniap' to smoke. he would not seem to move from his position, and yet every day, when the things fell to be returned, the plug had disappeared; he had found the means to conceal it in the roof, whence he could radiantly produce it on the morrow. although this piece of legerdemain was performed regularly before three or four pairs of eyes, we could never catch him in the fact; although we searched after he was gone, we could never find the tobacco. such were the diversions of uncle parker, a man nearing sixty. but he was punished according unto his deeds: mrs. stevenson took a fancy to paint him, and the sufferings of the sitter were beyond description. three lasses came from the palace to do our washing and racket with ah fu. they were of the lowest class, hangers-on kept for the convenience of merchant skippers, probably low-born, perhaps out-islanders, with little refinement whether of manner or appearance, but likely and jolly enough wenches in their way. we called one "guttersnipe," for you may find her image in the slums of any city; the same lean, dark-eyed, eager, vulgar face, the same sudden, hoarse guffaws, the same forward and yet anxious manner, as with a tail of an eye on the policeman: only the policeman here was a live king, and his truncheon a rifle. i doubt if you could find anywhere out of the islands, or often there, the parallel of "fatty," a mountain of a girl, who must have weighed near as many stones as she counted summers, could have given a good account of a life-guardsman, had the face of a baby, and applied her vast mechanical forces almost exclusively to play. but they were all three of the same merry spirit. our washing was conducted in a game of romps; and they fled and pursued, and splashed, and pelted, and rolled each other in the sand, and kept up a continuous noise of cries and laughter like holiday children. indeed, and however strange their own function in that austere establishment, were they not escaped for the day from the largest and strictest ladies' school in the south seas? our fifth attendant was no less a person than the royal cook. he was strikingly handsome both in face and body, lazy as a slave, and insolent as a butcher's boy. he slept and smoked on our premises in various graceful attitudes; but so far from helping ah fu, he was not at the pains to watch him. it may be said of him that he came to learn, and remained to teach; and his lessons were at times difficult to stomach. for example, he was sent to fill a bucket from the well. about half-way he found my wife watering her onions, changed buckets with her, and leaving her the empty, returned to the kitchen with the full. on another occasion he was given a dish of dumplings for the king, was told they must be eaten hot, and that he should carry them as fast as possible. the wretch set oft at the rate of about a mile in the hour, head in air, toes turned out. my patience, after a month of trial, failed me at the sight. i pursued, caught him by his two big shoulders, and thrusting him before me, ran with him down the hill, over the sands, and through the applauding village, to the speak house, where the king was then holding a pow-wow. he had the impudence to pretend he was internally injured by my violence, and to profess serious apprehensions for his life. all this we endured; for the ways of tembinok' are summary, and i was not yet ripe to take a hand in the man's death. but in the meanwhile, here was my unfortunate china boy slaving for the pair, and presently he fell sick. i was now in the position of cimondain lantenac, and indeed all the characters in _quatre-vingt-treize_: to continue to spare the guilty, i must sacrifice the innocent. i took the usual course and tried to save both, with the usual consequence of failure. well rehearsed, i went down to the palace, found the king alone, and obliged him with a vast amount of rigmarole. the cook was too old to learn; i feared he was not making progress; how if we had a boy instead?--boys were more teachable. it was all in vain; the king pierced through my disguises to the root of the fact; saw that the cook had desperately misbehaved; and sat a while glooming. "i think he tavvy too much," he said at last, with grim concision; and immediately turned the talk to other subjects. the same day another high officer, the steward, appeared in the cook's place, and, i am bound to say, proved civil and industrious. as soon as i left, it seems the king called for a winchester and strolled outside the palisade, awaiting the defaulter. that day tembinok' wore the woman's frock; as like as not, his make-up was completed by a pith helmet and blue spectacles. conceive the glaring stretch of sand-hills, the dwarf palms with their noon-day shadows, the line of the palisade, the crone sentries (each by a small clear fire) cooking syrup on their posts--and this chimæra waiting with his deadly engine. to him, enter at last the cook, strolling down the sandhill from equator town, listless, vain and graceful; with no thought of alarm. as soon as he was well within range, the travestied monarch fired the six shots over his head, at his feet, and on either hand of him: the second apemama warning, startling in itself, fatal in significance, for the next time his majesty will aim to hit. i am told the king is a crack shot; that when he aims to kill, the grave may be got ready; and when he aims misses by so near a margin that the culprit tastes six times the bitterness of death. the effect upon the cook i had an opportunity of seeing for myself. my wife and i were returning from the sea-side of the island, when we spied one coming to meet us at a very quick, disordered pace, between a walk and a run. as we drew nearer we saw it was the cook, beside himself with some emotion, his usual warm, mulatto colour declined into a bluish pallor. he passed us without word or gesture, staring on us with the face of a satan, and plunged on across the wood for the unpeopled quarter of the island and the long, desert beach, where he might rage to and fro unseen, and froth out the vials of his wrath, fear, and humiliation. doubtless in the curses that he there uttered to the bursting surf and the tropic birds, the name of the _kaupoi_--the rich man--was frequently repeated. i had made him the laughing-stock of the village in the affair of the king's dumplings; i had brought him by my machinations into disgrace and the immediate jeopardy of his days; last, and perhaps bitterest, he had found me there by the way to spy upon him in the hour of his disorder. time passed, and we saw no more of him. the season of the full moon came round, when a man thinks shame to lie sleeping; and i continued until late--perhaps till twelve or one in the morning--to walk on the bright sand and in the tossing shadow of the palms. i played, as i wandered, on a flageolet, which occupied much of my attention; the fans overhead rattled in the wind with a metallic chatter; and a bare foot falls at any rate almost noiseless on that shifting soil. yet when i got back to equator town, where all the lights were out, and my wife (who was still awake, and had been looking forth) asked me who it was that followed me, i thought she spoke in jest. "not at all," she said. "i saw him twice as you passed, walking close at your heels. he only left you at the corner of the maniap'; he must be still behind the cook-house." thither i ran--like a fool, without any weapon--and came face to face with the cook. he was within my tapu-line, which was death in itself; he could have no business there at such an hour but either to steal or to kill; guilt made him timorous; and he turned and fled before me in the night in silence. as he went i kicked him in that place where honour lies, and he gave tongue faintly like an injured mouse. at the moment i dare say he supposed it was a deadly instrument that touched him. what had the man been after? i have found my music better qualified to scatter than to collect an audience. amateur as i was, i could not suppose him interested in my reading of the "carnival of venice," or that he would deny himself his natural rest to follow my variations on "the ploughboy." and whatever his design, it was impossible i should suffer him to prowl by night among the houses. a word to the king, and the man were not, his case being far beyond pardon. but it is one thing to kill a man yourself; quite another to bear tales behind his back and have him shot by a third party; and i determined to deal with the fellow in some method of my own. i told ah fu the story, and bade him fetch me the cook whenever he should find him. i had supposed this would be a matter of difficulty; and far from that, he came of his own accord: an act really of desperation, since his life hung by my silence, and the best he could hope was to be forgotten. yet he came with an assured countenance, volunteered no apology or explanation, complained of injuries received, and pretended he was unable to sit down. i suppose i am the weakest man god made; i had kicked him in the least vulnerable part of his big carcase; my foot was bare, and i had not even hurt my foot. ah fu could not control his merriment. on my side, knowing what must be the nature of his apprehensions, i found in so much impudence a kind of gallantry, and secretly admired the man. i told him i should say nothing of his night's adventure to the king; that i should still allow him, when he had an errand, to come within my tapu-line by day; but if ever i found him there after the set of the sun i would shoot him on the spot; and to the proof showed him a revolver. he must have been incredibly relieved; but he showed no sign of it, took himself off with his usual dandy nonchalance, and was scarce seen by us again. these five, then, with the substitution of the steward for the cook, came and went, and were our only visitors. the circle of the tapu held at arm's-length the inhabitants of the village. as for "my pamily," they dwelt like nuns in their enclosure; only once have i met one of them abroad, and she was the king's sister, and the place in which i found her (the island infirmary) was very likely privileged. there remains only the king to be accounted for. he would come strolling over, always alone, a little before a meal-time, take a chair, and talk and eat with us like an old family friend. gilbertine etiquette appears defective on the point of leave-taking. it may be remembered we had trouble in the matter with karaiti; and there was something childish and disconcerting in tembinok's abrupt "i want go home now," accompanied by a kind of ducking rise, and followed by an unadorned retreat. it was the only blot upon his manners, which were otherwise plain, decent, sensible, and dignified. he never stayed long nor drank much, and copied our behaviour where he perceived it to differ from his own. very early in the day, for instance, he ceased eating with his knife. it was plain he was determined in all things to wring profit from our visit, and chiefly upon etiquette. the quality of his white visitors puzzled and concerned him; he would bring up name after name, and ask if its bearer were a "big chiep," or even a "chiep" at all--which, as some were my excellent good friends, and none were actually born in the purple, became at times embarrassing. he was struck to learn that our classes were distinguishable by their speech, and that certain words (for instance) were tapu on the quarter-deck of a man-of-war; and he begged in consequence that we should watch and correct him on the point. we were able to assure him that he was beyond correction. his vocabulary is apt and ample to an extraordinary degree. god knows where he collected it, but by some instinct or some accident he has avoided all profane or gross expressions. "obliged," "stabbed," "gnaw," "lodge," "power," "company," "slender," "smooth," and "wonderful," are a few of the unexpected words that enrich his dialect. perhaps what pleased him most was to hear about saluting the quarter-deck of a man-of-war. in his gratitude for this hint he became fulsome. "schooner cap'n no tell me," he cried; "i think no tavvy! you tavvy too much; tavvy 'teama', tavvy man-a-wa'. i think you tavvy everything." yet he gravelled me often enough with his perpetual questions; and the false mr. barlow stood frequently exposed before the royal sandford. i remember once in particular. we were showing the magic-lantern; a slide of windsor castle was put in, and i told him there was the "outch" of victoreea. "how many pathom he high?" he asked, and i was dumb before him. it was the builder, the indefatigable architect of palaces, that spoke; collector though he was, he did not collect useless information; and all his questions had a purpose. after etiquette, government, law, the police, money, and medicine were his chief interests--things vitally important to himself as a king and the father of his people. it was my part not only to supply new information, but to correct the old. "my patha he tell me," or "white man he tell me," would be his constant beginning; "you think he lie?" sometimes i thought he did. tembinok' once brought me a difficulty of this kind, which i was long of comprehending. a schooner captain had told him of captain cook; the king was much interested in the story; and turned for more information--not to mr. stephen's dictionary, not to the "britannica," but to the bible in the gilbert island version (which consists chiefly of the new testament and the psalms). here he sought long and earnestly; paul he found, and festus, and alexander the coppersmith: no word of cook. the inference was obvious: the explorer was a myth. so hard it is, even for a man of great natural parts like tembinok', to grasp the ideas of a new society and culture. chapter v king and commons we saw but little of the commons of the isle. at first we met them at the well, where they washed their linen and we drew water for the table. the combination was distasteful; and, having a tyrant at command, we applied to the king and had the place enclosed in our tapu. it was one of the few favours which tembinok' visibly boggled about granting, and it may be conceived how little popular it made the strangers. many villagers passed us daily going afield; but they fetched a wide circuit round our tapu, and seemed to avert their looks. at times we went ourselves into the village--a strange place. dutch by its canals, oriental by the height and steepness of the roofs, which looked at dusk like temples; but we were rarely called into a house: no welcome, no friendship, was offered us; and of home life we had but the one view: the waking of a corpse, a frigid, painful scene: the widow holding on her lap the cold, bluish body of her husband, and now partaking of the refreshments which made the round of the company, now weeping and kissing the pale mouth. ("i fear you feel this affliction deeply," said the scottish minister. "eh, sir, and that i do!" replied the widow. "i've been greetin' a' nicht; an' noo i'm just gaun to sup this bit parritch, and then i'll begin an' greet again.") in our walks abroad i have always supposed the islanders avoided us, perhaps from distaste, perhaps by order; and those whom we met we took generally by surprise. the surface of the isle is diversified with palm groves, thickets, and romantic dingles four feet deep, relics of old taro plantations, and it is thus possible to stumble unawares on folk resting or hiding from their work. about pistol-shot from our township there lay a pond in the bottom of a jungle; here the maids of the isle came to bathe, and were several times alarmed by our intrusion. not for them are the bright cold rivers of tahiti or upolu, not for them to splash and laugh in the hour of the dusk with a villageful of gay companions; but to steal here solitary, to crouch in a place like a cow-wallow, and wash (if that can be called washing) in lukewarm mud, brown as their own skins. other, but still rare, encounters occur to my memory. i was several times arrested by a tender sound in the bush of voices talking, soft as flutes and with quiet intonations. hope told a flattering tale: i put aside the leaves; and behold! in place of the expected dryads, a pair of all too solid ladies squatting over a clay pipe in the ungraceful _ridi_. the beauty of the voice and the eye was all that remained to these vast dames; but that of the voice was exquisite indeed. it is strange i should have never heard a more winning sound of speech, yet the dialect should be one remarkable for violent, ugly, and outlandish vocables; so that tembinok' himself declared it made him weary, and professed to find repose in talking english. the state of this folk, of whom i saw so little, i can merely guess at. the king himself explains the situation with some art. "no; i no pay them," he once said. "i give them tobacco. they work for me _all the same brothers_." it is true there was a brother once in arden! but we prefer the shorter word. they bear every servile mark,--levity like a child's, incurable idleness, incurious content. the insolence of the cook was a trait of his own; not so his levity, which he shared with the innocent uncle parker. with equal unconcern both gambolled under the shadow of the gallows, and took liberties with death that might have surprised a careless student of man's nature. i wrote of parker that he behaved like a boy of ten: what was he else, being a slave of sixty? he had passed all his years in school, fed, clad, thought for, commanded; and had grown familiar and coquetted with the fear of punishment. by terror you may drive men long, but not far. here, in apemama, they work at the constant and the instant peril of their lives; and are plunged in a kind of lethargy of laziness. it is common to see one go afield in his stiff mat ungirt, so that he walks elbows-in like a trussed fowl; and whatsoever his right hand findeth to do, the other must be off duty holding on his clothes. it is common to see two men carrying between them on a pole a single bucket of water. to make two bites of a cherry is good enough: to make two burthens of a soldier's kit, for a distance of perhaps half a furlong, passes measure. woman, being the less childish animal, is less relaxed by servile conditions. even in the king's absence, even when they were alone, i have seen apemama women work with constancy. but the outside to be hoped for in a man is that he may attack his task in little languid fits, and lounge between-whiles. so i have seen a painter, with his pipe going, and a friend by the studio fireside. you might suppose the race to lack civility, even vitality, until you saw them in the dance. night after night, and sometimes day after day, they rolled out their choruses in the great speak house--solemn andantes and adagios, led by the clapped hand, and delivered with an energy that shook the roof. the time was not so slow, though it was slow for the islands; but i have chosen rather to indicate the effect upon the hearer. their music had a church-like character from near at hand, and seemed to european ears more regular than the run of island music. twice i have heard a discord regularly solved. from farther off, heard at equator town for instance, the measures rose and fell and crepitated like the barking of hounds in a distant kennel. the slaves are certainly not overworked--children of ten do more without fatigue--and the apemama labourers have holidays, when the singing begins early in the afternoon. the diet is hard; copra and a sweetmeat of pounded pandanus are the only dishes i observed outside the palace; but there seems no defect in quantity, and the king shares with them his turtles. three came in a boat from kuria during our stay; one was kept for the palace, one sent to us, one presented to the village. it is the habit of the islanders to cook the turtle in its carapace; we had been promised the shells, and we asked a tapu on this foolish practice. the face of tembinok' darkened and he answered nothing. hesitation in the question of the well i could understand, for water is scarce on a low island; that he should refuse to interfere upon a point of cookery was more than i had dreamed of; and i gathered (rightly or wrongly) that he was scrupulous of touching in the least degree the private life and habits of his slaves. so that even here, in full despotism, public opinion has weight; even here, in the midst of slavery, freedom has a corner. orderly, sober, and innocent, life flows in the isle from day to day as in a model plantation under a model planter. it is impossible to doubt the beneficence of that stern rule. a curious politeness, a soft and gracious manner, something effeminate and courtly, distinguishes the islanders of apemama; it is talked of by all the traders, it was felt even by residents so little beloved as ourselves, and noticeable even in the cook, and even in that scoundrel's hours of insolence. the king, with his manly and plain bearing, stood out alone; you might say he was the only gilbert islander in apemama. violence, so common in butaritari, seems unknown. so are theft and drunkenness. i am assured the experiment has been made of leaving sovereigns on the beach before the village: they lay there untouched. in all our time on the island i was but once asked for drink. this was by a mighty plausible fellow, wearing european clothes and speaking excellent english--tamaiti his name, or, as the whites have now corrupted it, "tom white": one of the king's supercargoes at three pounds a month and a percentage, a medical man besides, and in his private hours a wizard. he found me one day in the outskirts of the village, in a secluded place, hot and private, where the taro-pits are deep and the plants high. here he buttonholed me, and, looking about him like a conspirator, inquired if i had gin. i told him i had. he remarked that gin was forbidden, lauded the prohibition a while, and then went on to explain that he was a doctor, or "dogstar" as he pronounced the word, that gin was necessary to him for his medical infusions, that he was quite out of it, and that he would be obliged to me for some in a bottle. i told him i had passed the king my word on landing; but since his case was so exceptional, i would go down to the palace at once, and had no doubt that tembinok' would set me free. tom white was immediately overwhelmed with embarrassment and terror, besought me in the most moving terms not to betray him, and fled my neighbourhood. he had none of the cook's valour; it was weeks before he dared to meet my eye; and then only by the order of the king and on particular business. the more i viewed and admired this triumph of firm rule, the more i was haunted and troubled by a problem, the problem (perhaps) of to-morrow for ourselves. here was a people protected from all serious misfortune, relieved of all serious anxieties, and deprived of what we call our liberty. did they like it? and what was their sentiment towards the ruler? the first question i could not of course ask, nor perhaps the natives answer. even the second was delicate; yet at last, and under charming and strange circumstances, i found my opportunity to put it and a man to reply. it was near the full of the moon, with a delicious breeze; the isle was bright as day--to sleep would have been sacrilege; and i walked in the bush, playing my pipe. it must have been the sound of what i am pleased to call my music that attracted in my direction another wanderer of the night. this was a young man attired in a fine mat, and with a garland on his hair, for he was new come from dancing and singing in the public hall; and his body, his face, and his eyes were all of an enchanting beauty. every here and there in the gilberts youth are to be found of this absurd perfection; i have seen five of us pass half an hour in admiration of a boy at mariki; and te kop (my friend in the fine mat and garland) i had already several times remarked, and long ago set down as the loveliest animal in apemama. the philtre of admiration must be very strong, or these natives specially susceptible to its effects, for i have scarce ever admired a person in the islands but what he has sought my particular acquaintance. so it was with te kop. he led me to the ocean side; and for an hour or two we sat smoking and talking on the resplendent sand and under the ineffable brightness of the moon. my friend showed himself very sensible of the beauty and amenity of the hour. "good night! good wind!" he kept exclaiming, and as he said the words he seemed to hug myself. i had long before invented such reiterated expressions of delight for a character (felipe, in the story of "olalla") intended to be partly bestial. but there was nothing bestial in te kop: only a childish pleasure in the moment. he was no less pleased with his companion, or was good enough to say so; honoured me, before he left, by calling me te kop; apostrophised me as "my name!" with an intonation exquisitely tender, laying his hand at the same time swiftly on my knee; and after we had risen, and our paths began to separate in the bush, twice cried to me with a sort of gentle ecstasy, "i like you too much!" from the beginning he had made no secret of his terror of the king; would not sit down or speak above a whisper till he had put the whole breadth of the isle between himself and his monarch, then harmlessly asleep; and even there, even within a stone-cast of the outer sea, our talk covered by the sound of the surf and the rattle of the wind among the palms, continued to speak guardedly, softening his silver voice (which rang loud enough in the chorus) and looking about him like a man in fear of spies. the strange thing is that i should have beheld him no more. in any other island in the whole south seas, if i had advanced half as far with any native, he would have been at my door next morning, bringing and expecting gifts. but te kop vanished in the bush for ever. my house, of course, was unapproachable; but he knew where to find me on the open beach, where i went daily. i was the _kaupoi_, the rich man; my tobacco and trade were known to be endless: he was sure of a present. i am at a loss how to explain his behaviour, unless it be supposed that he recalled with terror and regret a passage in our interview. here it is: "the king, he good man?" i asked. "suppose he like you, he good man," replied te kop: "no like, no good." that is one way of putting it, of course. te kop himself was probably no favourite, for he scarce appealed to my judgment as a type of industry. and there must be many others whom the king (to adhere to the formula) does not like. do these unfortunates like the king? or is not rather the repulsion mutual? and the conscientious tembinok', like the conscientious braxfield before him, and many other conscientious rulers and judges before either, surrounded by a considerable body of "grumbletonians"? take the cook, for instance, when he passed us by, blue with rage and terror. he was very wroth with me; i think by all the old principles of human nature he was not very well pleased with his sovereign. it was the rich man he sought to waylay: i think it must have been by the turn of a hair that it was not the king he waylaid instead. and the king gives, or seems to give, plenty of opportunities; day and night he goes abroad alone, whether armed or not i can but guess; and the taro-patches, where his business must so often carry him, seem designed for assassination. the case of the cook was heavy indeed to my conscience. i did not like to kill my enemy at second-hand; but had i a right to conceal from the king, who had trusted me, the dangerous secret character of his attendant? and suppose the king should fall, what would be the fate of the king's friends? it was our opinion at the time that we should pay dear for the closing of the well; that our breath was in the king's nostrils; that if the king should by any chance be bludgeoned in a taro-patch, the philosophical and musical inhabitants of equator town might lay aside their pleasant instruments, and betake themselves to what defence they had, with a very dim prospect of success. these speculations were forced upon us by an incident which i am ashamed to betray. the schooner _h.l. haseltine_ (since capsized at sea, with the loss of eleven lives) put in to apemama in a good hour for us, who had near exhausted our supplies. the king, after his habit, spent day after day on board; the gin proved unhappily to his taste; he brought a store of it ashore with him; and for some time the sole tyrant of the isle was half-seas-over. he was not drunk--the man is not a drunkard, he has always stores of liquor at hand, which he uses with moderation,--but he was muzzy, dull, and confused. he came one day to lunch with us, and while the cloth was being laid fell asleep in his chair. his confusion, when he awoke and found he had been detected, was equalled by our uneasiness. when he was gone we sat and spoke of his peril, which we thought to be in some degree our own; of how easily the man might be surprised in such a state by _grumbletonians_; of the strange scenes that would follow--the royal treasures and stores at the mercy of the rabble, the palace over-run, the garrison of women turned adrift. and as we talked we were startled by a gun-shot and a sudden, barbaric outcry. i believe we all changed colour; but it was only the king firing at a dog and the chorus striking up in the speak house. a day or two later i learned the king was very sick; went down, diagnosed the case; and took at once the highest medical degree by the exhibition of bicarbonate of soda. within the hour richard was himself again; and i found him at the unfinished house, enjoying the double pleasure of directing rubam and making a dinner off cocoa-nut dumplings, and all eagerness to have the formula of this new sort of _pain-killer_--for _pain-killer_ in the islands is the generic name of medicine. so ended the king's modest spree and our anxiety. on the face of things, i ought to say, loyalty appeared unshaken. when the schooner at last returned for us, after much experience of baffling winds, she brought a rumour that tebureimoa had declared war on apemama. tembinok' became a new man; his face radiant; his attitude, as i saw him preside over a council of chiefs in one of the palace maniap's, eager as a boy's; his voice sounding abroad shrill and jubilant, over half the compound. war is what he wants, and here was his chance. the english captain, when he flung his arms in the lagoon, had forbidden him (except in one case) all military adventures in the future: here was the case arrived. all morning the council sat; men were drilled, arms were bought, the sound of firing disturbed the afternoon; the king devised and communicated to me his plan of campaign, which was highly elaborate and ingenious, but perhaps a trifle fine-spun for the rough and random vicissitudes of war. and in all this bustle the temper of the people appeared excellent, an unwonted animation in every face, and even uncle parker burning with military zeal. of course it was a false alarm. tebureimoa had other fish to fry. the ambassador who accompanied us on our return to butaritari found him retired to a small island on the reef, in a huff with the old men, a tiff with the traders, and more fear of insurrection at home than appetite for wars abroad. the plenipotentiary had been placed under my protection; and we solemnly saluted when we met. he proved an excellent fisherman, and caught bonito over the ship's side. he pulled a good oar, and made himself useful for a whole fiery afternoon, towing the becalmed _equator_ off mariki. he went to his post and did no good. he returned home again, having done no harm. _o si sic omnes!_ chapter vi the king of apemama: devil-work the ocean beach of apemama was our daily resort. the coast is broken by shallow bays. the reef is detached, elevated, and includes a lagoon about knee-deep, the unrestful spending-basin of the surf. the beach is now of fine sand, now of broken coral. the trend of the coast being convex, scarce a quarter of a mile of it is to be seen at once; the land being so low, the horizon appears within a stone-cast; and the narrow prospect enhances the sense of privacy. man avoids the place--even his footprints are uncommon; but a great number of birds hover and pipe there fishing, and leave crooked tracks upon the sand. apart from these, the only sound (and i was going to say the only society) is that of the breakers on the reef. on each projection of the coast, the bank of coral clinkers immediately above the beach has been levelled, and a pillar built, perhaps breast-high. these are not sepulchral; all the dead being buried on the inhabited side of the island, close to men's houses, and (what is worse) to their wells. i was told they were to protect the isle against inroads from the sea--divine or diabolical martellos, probably sacred to taburik, god of thunder. the bay immediately opposite equator town, which we called fu bay, in honour of our cook, was thus fortified on either horn. it was well sheltered by the reef, the enclosed water clear and tranquil, the enclosing beach curved like a horseshoe, and both steep and broad. the path debouched about the midst of the re-entrant angle, the woods stopping some distance inland. in front, between the fringe of the wood and the crown of the beach, there had been designed a regular figure, like the court for some new variety of tennis, with borders of round stones imbedded, and pointed at the angles with low posts, likewise of stone. this was the king's pray place. when he prayed, what he prayed for, and to whom he addressed his supplications, i could never learn. the ground was tapu. in the angle, by the mouth of the path, stood a deserted maniap'. near by there had been a house before our coming, which was now transported and figured for the moment in equator town. it had been, and it would be again when we departed, the residence of the guardian and wizard of the spot--tamaiti. here, in this lone place, within sound of the sea, he had his dwelling and uncanny duties. i cannot call to mind another case of a man living on the ocean side of any open atoll; and tamaiti must have had strong nerves, the greater confidence in his own spells, or, what i believe to be the truth, an enviable scepticism. whether tamaiti had any guardianship of the pray place i never heard. but his own particular chapel stood farther back in the fringe of the wood. it was a tree of respectable growth. around it there was drawn a circle of stones like those that enclosed the pray place; in front, facing towards the sea, a stone of a much greater size, and somewhat hollowed, like a piscina, stood close against the trunk; in front of that again a conical pile of gravel. in the hollow of what i have called the piscina (though it proved to be a magic seat) lay an offering of green cocoa-nuts; and when you looked up you found the boughs of the tree to be laden with strange fruit: palm-branches elaborately plaited, and beautiful models of canoes, finished and rigged to the least detail. the whole had the appearance of a midsummer and sylvan christmas-tree _al fresco_. yet we were already well enough acquainted in the gilberts to recognise it, at the first sight, for a piece of wizardry, or, as they say in the group, of devil-work. the plaited palms were what we recognised. we had seen them before on apaiang, the most christianised of all these islands; where excellent mr. bingham lived and laboured and has left golden memories; whence all the education in the northern gilberts traces its descent; and where we were boarded by little native sunday-school misses in clean frocks, with demure faces, and singing hymns as to the manner born. our experience of devil-work at apaiang had been as follows:--it chanced we were benighted at the house of captain tierney. my wife and i lodged with a chinaman some half a mile away; and thither captain reid and a native boy escorted us by torchlight. on the way the torch went out, and we took shelter in a small and lonely christian chapel to rekindle it. stuck in the rafters of the chapel was a branch of knotted palm. "what is that?" i asked. "o, that's devil-work," said the captain. "and what is devil-work?" i inquired. "if you like, i'll show you some when we get to johnnie's," he replied. "johnnie's" was a quaint little house upon the crest of the beach, raised some three feet on posts, approached by stairs; part walled, part trellised. trophies of advertisement-photographs were hung up within for decoration. there was a table and a recess-bed, in which mrs. stevenson slept; while i camped on the matted floor with johnnie, mrs. johnnie, her sister, and the devil's own regiment of cockroaches. hither was summoned an old witch, who looked the part to horror. the lamp was set on the floor; the crone squatted on the threshold, a green palm-branch in her hand, the light striking full on her aged features and picking out behind her, from the black night, timorous faces of spectators. our sorceress began with a chanted incantation; it was in the old tongue, for which i had no interpreter; but ever and again there ran along the crowd outside that laugh which every traveller in the islands learns so soon to recognise,--the laugh of terror. doubtless these half-christian folk were shocked, these half-heathen folk alarmed. chench or taburik thus invoked, we put our questions; the witch knotted the leaves, here a leaf and there a leaf, plainly on some arithmetical system; studied the result with great apparent contention of mind; and gave the answers. sidney colvin was in robust health and gone a journey; and we should have a fair wind upon the morrow: that was the result of our consultation, for which we paid a dollar. the next day dawned cloudless and breathless; but i think captain reid placed a secret reliance on the sibyl, for the schooner was got ready for sea. by eight the lagoon was flawed with long cat's-paws, and the palms tossed and rustled; before ten we were clear of the passage and skimming under all plain sail, with bubbling scuppers. so we had the breeze, which was well worth a dollar in itself; but the bulletin about my friend in england proved, some six months later, when i got my mail, to have been groundless. perhaps london lies beyond the horizon of the island gods. tembinok', in his first dealings, showed himself sternly averse from superstition: and had not the _equator_ delayed, we might have left the island and still supposed him to be an agnostic. it chanced one day, however, that he came to our maniap', and found mrs. stevenson in the midst of a game of patience. she explained the game as well as she was able, and wound up jocularly by telling him this was her devil-work, and if she won, the _equator_ would arrive next day. tembinok' must have drawn a long breath; we were not so high-and-dry after all; he need no longer dissemble, and he plunged at once into confessions. he made devil-work every day, he told us, to know if ships were coming in; and thereafter brought us regular reports of the results. it was surprising how regularly he was wrong; but he had always an explanation ready. there had been some schooner in the offing out of view; but either she was not bound for apemama, or had changed her course, or lay becalmed. i used to regard the king with veneration as he thus publicly deceived himself. i saw behind him all the fathers of the church, all the philosophers and men of science of the past; before him, all those that are to come; himself in the midst; the whole visionary series bowed over the same task of welding incongruities. to the end tembinok' spoke reluctantly of the island gods and their worship, and i learned but little. taburik is the god of thunder, and deals in wind and weather. a while since there were wizards who could call him down in the form of lightning. "my patha he tell me he see: you think he lie?" tienti--pronounced something like "chench," and identified by his majesty with the devil--sends and removes bodily sickness. he is whistled for in the paumotuan manner, and is said to appear; but the king has never seen him. the doctors treat disease by the aid of chench: eclectic tembinok' at the same time administering "pain-killer" from his medicine-chest, so as to give the sufferer both chances. "i think mo' betta," observed his majesty, with more than his usual self-approval. apparently the gods are not jealous, and placidly enjoy both shrine and priest in common. on tamaiti's medicine-tree, for instance, the model canoes are hung up _ex voto_ for a prosperous voyage, and must therefore be dedicated to taburik, god of the weather; but the stone in front is the place of sick folk come to pacify chench. it chanced, by great good luck, that even as we spoke of these affairs, i found myself threatened with a cold. i do not suppose i was ever glad of a cold before, or shall ever be again; but the opportunity to see the sorcerers at work was priceless, and i called in the faculty of apemama. they came in a body, all in their sunday's best and hung with wreaths and shells, the insignia of the devil-worker. tamaiti i knew already: terutak' i saw for the first time, a tall, lank, raw-boned, serious north-sea fisherman turned brown; and there was a third in their company whose name i never heard, and who played to tamaiti the part of _famulus_. tamaiti took me in hand first, and led me, conversing agreeably, to the shores of fu bay. the _famulus_ climbed a tree for some green cocoa-nuts. tamaiti himself disappeared a while in the bush and returned with coco tinder, dry leaves, and a spray of waxberry. i was placed on the stone, with my back to the tree and my face to windward; between me and the gravel-heap one of the green nuts was set; and then tamaiti (having previously bared his feet, for he had come in canvas shoes, which tortured him) joined me within the magic circle, hollowed out the top of the gravel-heap, built his fire in the bottom, and applied a match: it was one of bryant and may's. the flame was slow to catch, and the irreverent sorcerer filled in the time with talk of foreign places--of london, and "companies," and how much money they had; of san francisco, and the nefarious fogs, "all the same smoke," which had been so nearly the occasion of his death. i tried vainly to lead him to the matter in hand. "everybody make medicine," he said lightly. and when i asked him if he were himself a good practitioner--"no savvy," he replied, more lightly still. at length the leaves burst in a flame, which he continued to feed; a thick, light smoke blew in my face, and the flames streamed against and scorched my clothes. he in the meanwhile addressed, or affected to address, the evil spirit, his lips moving fast, but without sound; at the same time he waved in the air and twice struck me on the breast with his green spray. so soon as the leaves were consumed the ashes were buried, the green spray was imbedded in the gravel, and the ceremony was at an end. a reader of the "arabian nights" felt quite at home. here was the suffumigation; here was the muttering wizard; here was the desert place to which aladdin was decoyed by the false uncle. but they manage these things better in fiction. the effect was marred by the levity of the magician, entertaining his patient with small talk like an affable dentist, and by the incongruous presence of mr. osbourne with a camera. as for my cold, it was neither better nor worse. i was now handed over to terutak', the leading practitioner or medical baronet of apemama. his place is on the lagoon side of the island, hard by the palace. a rail of light wood, some two feet high, encloses an oblong piece of gravel like the king's pray place; in the midst is a green tree: below, a stone table bears a pair of boxes covered with a fine mat; and in front of these an offering of food, a cocoa-nut, a piece of taro or a fish, is placed daily. on two sides the enclosure is lined with maniap's; and one of our party, who had been there to sketch, had remarked a daily concourse of people and an extraordinary number of sick children; for this is in fact the infirmary of apemama. the doctor and myself entered the sacred place alone; the boxes and the mat were displaced; and i was enthroned in their stead upon the stone, facing once more to the east. for a while the sorcerer remained unseen behind me, making passes in the air with a branch of palm. then he struck lightly on the brim of my straw hat; and this blow he continued to repeat at intervals, sometimes brushing instead my arm and shoulder. i have had people try to mesmerise me a dozen times, and never with the least result. but at the first tap--on a quarter no more vital than my hat-brim, and from nothing more virtuous than a switch of palm wielded by a man i could not even see--sleep rushed upon me like an armed man. my sinews fainted, my eyes closed, my brain hummed, with drowsiness. i resisted--at first instinctively, then with a certain flurry of despair, in the end successfully; if that were indeed success which enabled me to scramble to my feet, to stumble home somnambulous, to cast myself at once upon my bed, and sink at once into a dreamless stupor. when i awoke my cold was gone. so i leave a matter that i do not understand. meanwhile my appetite for curiosities (not usually very keen) had been strangely whetted by the sacred boxes. they were of pandanus wood, oblong in shape, with an effect of pillaring along the sides like straw work, lightly fringed with hair or fibre and standing on four legs. the outside was neat as a toy; the inside a mystery i was resolved to penetrate. but there was a lion in the path. i might not approach terutak', since i had promised to buy nothing in the island; i dared not have recourse to the king, for i had already received from him more gifts than i knew how to repay. in this dilemma (the schooner being at last returned) we hit on a device. captain reid came forward in my stead, professed an unbridled passion for the boxes, and asked and obtained leave to bargain for them with the wizard. that same afternoon the captain and i made haste to the infirmary, entered the enclosure, raised the mat, and had begun to examine the boxes at our leisure, when terutak's wife bounced out of one of the nigh houses, fell upon us, swept up the treasures, and was gone. there was never a more absolute surprise. she came, she took, she vanished, we had not a guess whither; and we remained, with foolish looks and laughter, on the empty field. such was the fit prologue of our memorable bargaining. presently terutak' came, bringing tamaiti along with him, both smiling; and we four squatted without the rail. in the three maniap's of the infirmary a certain audience was gathered: the family of a sick child under treatment, the king's sister playing cards, a pretty girl, who swore i was the image of her father; in all perhaps a score. terutak's wife had returned (even as she had vanished) unseen, and now sat, breathless and watchful, by her husband's side. perhaps some rumour of our quest had gone abroad, or perhaps we had given the alert by our unseemly freedom: certain, at least, that in the faces of all present expectation and alarm were mingled. captain reid announced, without preface or disguise, that i was come to purchase; terutak', with sudden gravity, refused to sell. he was pressed; he persisted. it was explained we only wanted one: no matter, two were necessary for the healing of the sick. he was rallied, he was reasoned with: in vain. he sat there, serious and still, and refused. all this was only a preliminary skirmish; hitherto no sum of money had been mentioned; but now the captain brought his great guns to bear. he named a pound, then two, then three. out of the maniap's one person after another came to join the group, some with mere excitement, others with consternation in their faces. the pretty girl crept to my side; it was then that--surely with the most artless flattery--she informed me of my likeness to her father. tamaiti the infidel sat with hanging head and every mark of dejection. terutak' streamed with sweat, his eye was glazed, his face wore a painful rictus, his chest heaved like that of one spent with running. the man must have been by nature covetous; and i doubt if ever i saw moral agony more tragically displayed. his wife by his side passionately encouraged his resistance. and now came the charge of the old guard. the captain, making a skip, named the surprising figure of five pounds. at the word the maniap's were emptied. the king's sister flung down her cards and came to the front to listen, a cloud on her brow. the pretty girl beat her breast and cried with wearisome iteration that if the box were hers i should have it. terutak's wife was beside herself with pious fear, her face discomposed, her voice (which scarce ceased from warning and encouragement) shrill as a whistle. even terutak' lost that image-like immobility which he had hitherto maintained. he rocked on his mat, threw up his closed knees alternately, and struck himself on the breast after the manner of dancers. but he came gold out of the furnace; and with what voice was left him continued to reject the bribe. and now came a timely interjection. "money will not heal the sick," observed the king's sister sententiously; and as soon as i heard the remark translated my eyes were unsealed, and i began to blush for my employment. here was a sick child, and i sought, in the view of its parents, to remove the medicine-box. here was the priest of a religion, and i (a heathen millionaire) was corrupting him to sacrilege. here was a greedy man, torn in twain betwixt greed and conscience; and i sat by and relished, and lustfully renewed his torments. _ave, cæsar_! smothered in a corner, dormant but not dead, we have all the one touch of nature: an infant passion for the sand and blood of the arena. so i brought to an end my first and last experience of the joys of the millionaire, and departed amid silent awe. nowhere else can i expect to stir the depths of human nature by an offer of five pounds; nowhere else, even at the expense of millions, could i hope to see the evil of riches stand so legibly exposed. of all the bystanders, none but the king's sister retained any memory of the gravity and danger of the thing in hand. their eyes glowed, the girl beat her breast, in senseless animal excitement. nothing was offered them; they stood neither to gain nor to lose; at the mere name and wind of these great sums satan possessed them. from this singular interview i went straight to the palace; found the king; confessed what i had been doing; begged him, in my name, to compliment terutak' on his virtue, and to have a similar box made for me against the return of the schooner. tembinok', rubam, and one of the daily papers--him we used to call "the facetiæ column"--laboured for a while of some idea, which was at last intelligibly delivered. they feared i thought the box would cure me; whereas, without the wizard, it was useless; and when i was threatened with another cold i should do better to rely on pain-killer. i explained i merely wished to keep it in my "outch" as a thing made in apemama; and these honest men were much relieved. late the same evening, my wife, crossing the isle to windward, was aware of singing in the bush. nothing is more common in that hour and place than the jubilant carol of the toddy-cutter swinging high overhead, beholding below him the narrow ribbon of the isle, the surrounding field of ocean, and the fires of the sunset. but this was of a graver character, and seemed to proceed from the ground-level. advancing a little in the thicket, mrs. stevenson saw a clear space, a fine mat spread in the midst, and on the mat a wreath of white flowers and one of the devil-work boxes. a woman--whom we guess to have been mrs. terutak'--sat in front, now drooping over the box like a mother over a cradle, now lifting her face and directing her song to heaven. a passing toddy-cutter told my wife that she was praying. probably she did not so much pray as deprecate; and perhaps even the ceremony was one of disenchantment. for the box was already doomed; it was to pass from its green medicine-tree, reverend precinct, and devout attendants; to be handled by the profane; to cross three seas; to come to land under the foolscap of st. paul's; to be domesticated within hail of lillie bridge; there to be dusted by the british housemaid, and to take perhaps the roar of london for the voice of the outer sea along the reef. before even we had finished dinner chench had begun his journey, and one of the newspapers had already placed the box upon my table as the gift of tembinok'. i made haste to the palace, thanked the king, but offered to restore the box, for i could not bear that the sick of the island should be made to suffer. i was amazed by his reply. terutak', it appeared, had still three or four in reserve against an accident; and his reluctance, and the dread painted at first on every face, was not in the least occasioned by the prospect of medical destitution, but by the immediate divinity of chench. how much more did i respect the king's command, which had been able to extort in a moment and for nothing a sacrilegious favour that i had in vain solicited with millions! but now i had a difficult task in front of me; it was not in my view that terutak' should suffer by his virtue; and i must persuade the king to share my opinion, to let me enrich one of his subjects, and (what was yet more delicate) to pay for my present. nothing shows the king in a more becoming light than the fact that i succeeded. he demurred at the principle; he exclaimed, when he heard it, at the sum. "plenty money!" cried he, with contemptuous displeasure. but his resistance was never serious; and when he had blown off his ill-humour--"a' right," said he. "you give him. mo' betta." armed with this permission, i made straight for the infirmary. the night was now come, cool, dark, and starry. on a mat, hard by a clear fire of wood and coco-shell, terutak' lay beside his wife. both were smiling; the agony was over, the king's command had reconciled (i must suppose) their agitating scruples; and i was bidden to sit by them and share the circulating pipe. i was a little moved myself when i placed five gold sovereigns in the wizard's hand; but there was no sign of emotion in terutak' as he returned them, pointed to the palace, and named tembinok'. it was a changed scene when i had managed to explain. terutak', long, dour scots fisherman as he was, expressed his satisfaction within bounds; but the wife beamed; and there was an old gentleman present--her father, i suppose--who seemed nigh translated. his eyes stood out of his head; "_kaupoi, kaupoi_--rich, rich!" ran on his lips like a refrain; and he could not meet my eye but what he gurgled into foolish laughter. i might now go home, leaving that fire-lit family party gloating over their new millions, and consider my strange day. i had tried and rewarded the virtue of terutak'. i had played the millionaire, had behaved abominably, and then in some degree repaired my thoughtlessness. and now i had my box, and could open it and look within. it contained a miniature sleeping-mat and a white shell. tamaiti, interrogated next day as to the shell, explained it was not exactly chench, but a cell, or body, which he would at times inhabit. asked why there was a sleeping-mat, he retorted indignantly, "why have you mats?" and this was the sceptical tamaiti! but island scepticism is never deeper than the lips. chapter vii the king of apemama thus all things on the island, even the priests of the gods, obey the word of tembinok'. he can give and take, and slay, and allay the scruples of the conscientious, and do all things (apparently) but interfere in the cookery of a turtle. "i got power" is his favourite word; it interlards his conversation; the thought haunts him and is ever fresh; and when he has asked and meditates of foreign countries, he looks up with a smile and reminds you, "_i got power_." nor is his delight only in the possession, but in the exercise. he rejoices in the crooked and violent paths of kingship like a strong man to run a race, or like an artist in his art. to feel, to use his power, to embellish his island and the picture of the island life after a private ideal, to milk the island vigorously, to extend his singular museum--these employ delightfully the sum of his abilities. i never saw a man more patently in the right trade. it would be natural to suppose this monarchy inherited intact through generations. and so far from that, it is a thing of yesterday. i was already a boy at school while apemama was yet republican, ruled by a noisy council of old men, and torn with incurable feuds. and tembinok' is no bourbon; rather the son of a napoleon. of course he is well-born. no man need aspire high in the isles of the pacific unless his pedigree be long and in the upper regions mythical. and our king counts cousinship with most of the high families in the archipelago, and traces his descent to a shark and a heroic woman. directed by an oracle, she swam beyond sight of land to meet her revolting paramour, and received at sea the seed of a predestined family. "i think lie," is the king's emphatic commentary; yet he is proud of the legend. from this illustrious beginning the fortunes of the race must have declined; and teñkoruti, the grandfather of tembinok', was the chief of a village at the north end of the island. kuria and aranuka were yet independent; apemama itself the arena of devastating feuds. through this perturbed period of history the figure of teñkoruti stalks memorable. in war he was swift and bloody; several towns fell to his spear, and the inhabitants were butchered to a man. in civil life his arrogance was unheard of. when the council of old men was summoned, he went to the speak house, delivered his mind, and left without waiting to be answered. wisdom had spoken: let others opine according to their folly. he was feared and hated, and this was his pleasure. he was no poet; he cared not for arts or knowledge. "my gran'patha one thing savvy, savvy pight," observed the king. in some lull of their own disputes the old men of apemama adventured on the conquest of apemama; and this unlicked caius marcius was elected general of the united troops. success attended him; the islands were reduced, and teñkoruti returned to his own government, glorious and detested. he died about , in the seventieth year of his age and the full odour of unpopularity. he was tall and lean, says his grandson, looked extremely old, and "walked all the same young man." the same observer gave me a significant detail. the survivors of that rough epoch were all defaced with spearmarks; there was none on the body of this skilful fighter. "i see old man, no got a spear," said the king. teñkoruti left two sons, tembaitake and tembinatake. tembaitake, our king's father, was short, middling stout, a poet, a good genealogist, and something of a fighter; it seems he took himself seriously, and was perhaps scarce conscious that he was in all things the creature and nursling of his brother. there was no shadow of dispute between the pair: the greater man filled with alacrity and content the second place: held the breach in war, and all the portfolios in the time of peace: and, when his brother rated him, listened in silence, looking on the ground. like teñkoruti, he was tall and lean and a swift walker--a rare trait in the islands. he possessed every accomplishment. he knew sorcery, he was the best genealogist of his day, he was a poet, he could dance and make canoes and armour; and the famous mast of apemama, which ran one joint higher than the mainmast of a full-rigged ship, was of his conception and design. but these were avocations, and the man's trade was war. "when my uncle go make wa', he laugh," said tembinok'. he forbade the use of field fortification, that protractor of native hostilities; his men must fight in the open, and win or be beaten out of hand; his own activity inspired his followers; and the swiftness of his blows beat down, in one lifetime, the resistance of three islands. he made his brother sovereign, he left his nephew absolute. "my uncle make all smooth," said tembinok'. "i mo' king than my patha: i got power," he said, with formidable relish. such is the portrait of the uncle drawn by the nephew. i can set beside it another by a different artist, who has often--i may say always--delighted me with his romantic taste in narrative, but not always--and i may say not often--persuaded me of his exactitude. i have already denied myself the use of so much excellent matter from the same source, that i begin to think it time to reward good resolution; and his account of tembinatake agrees so well with the king's, that it may very well be (what i hope it is) the record of a fact, and not (what i suspect) the pleasing exercise of an imagination more than sailorly. a., for so i had perhaps better call him, was walking up the island after dusk, when he came on a lighted village of some size, was directed to the chief's house, and asked leave to rest and smoke a pipe. "you will sit down, and smoke a pipe, and wash, and eat, and sleep," replied the chief, "and to-morrow you will go again." food was brought, prayers were held (for this was in the brief day of christianity), and the chief himself prayed with eloquence and seeming sincerity. all evening a. sat and admired the man by the firelight. he was six feet high, lean, with the appearance of many years, and an extraordinary air of breeding and command. "he looked like a man who would kill you laughing," said a., in singular echo of one of the king's expressions. and again: "i had been reading the musketeer books, and he reminded me of aramis." such is the portrait of tembinatake, drawn by an expert romancer. we had heard many tales of "my patha"; never a word of my uncle till two days before we left. as the time approached for our departure tembinok' became greatly changed; a softer, a more melancholy, and, in particular, a more confidential man appeared in his stead. to my wife he contrived laboriously to explain that though he knew he must lose his father in the course of nature, he had not minded nor realised it till the moment came; and that now he was to lose us he repeated the experience. we showed fireworks one evening on the terrace. it was a heavy business; the sense of separation was in all our minds, and the talk languished. the king was specially affected, sat disconsolate on his mat, and often sighed. of a sudden one of the wives stepped forth from a cluster, came and kissed him in silence, and silently went again. it was just such a caress as we might give to a disconsolate child, and the king received it with a child's simplicity. presently after we said good-night and withdrew; but tembinok' detained mr. osbourne, patting the mat by his side and saying: "sit down. i feel bad, i like talk." osbourne sat down by him. "you like some beer?" said he; and one of the wives produced a bottle. the king did not partake, but sat sighing and smoking a meerschaum pipe. "i very sorry you go," he said at last. "miss stlevens he good man, woman he good man, boy he good man; all good man. woman he smart all the same man. my woman" (glancing towards his wives) "he good woman, no very smart. i think miss stlevens he big chiep all the same cap'n man-o'-wa'. i think miss stlevens he rich man all the same me. all go schoona. i very sorry. my patha he go, my uncle he go, my cutcheons he go, miss stlevens he go: all go. you no see king cry before. king all the same man: feel bad, he cry. i very sorry." in the morning it was the common topic in the village that the king had wept. to me he said: "last night i no can 'peak: too much here," laying his hand upon his bosom. "now you go away all the same my pamily. my brothers, my uncle go away. all the same." this was said with a dejection almost passionate. and it was the first time i had heard him name his uncle, or indeed employ the word. the same day he sent me a present of two corselets, made in the island fashion of plaited fibre, heavy and strong. one had been worn by teñkoruti, one by tembaitake; and the gift being gratefully received, he sent me, on the return of his messengers--a third--that of tembinatake. my curiosity was roused; i begged for information as to the three wearers; and the king entered with gusto into the details already given. here was a strange thing, that he should have talked so much of his family, and not once mentioned that relative of whom he was plainly the most proud. nay, more: he had hitherto boasted of his father; thenceforth he had little to say of him; and the qualities for which he had praised him in the past were now attributed where they were due,--to the uncle. a confusion might be natural enough among islanders, who call all the sons of their grandfather by the common name of father. but this was not the case with tembinok'. now the ice was broken the word uncle was perpetually in his mouth; he who had been so ready to confound was now careful to distinguish; and the father sank gradually into a self-complacent ordinary man, while the uncle rose to his true stature as the hero and founder of the race. the more i heard and the more i considered, the more this mystery of tembinok's behaviour puzzled and attracted me. and the explanation, when it came, was one to strike the imagination of a dramatist. tembinok' had two brothers. one, detected in private trading, was banished, then forgiven, lives to this day in the island, and is the father of the heir-apparent, paul. the other fell beyond forgiveness. i have heard it was a love-affair with one of the king's wives, and the thing is highly possible in that romantic archipelago. war was attempted to be levied; but tembinok' was too swift for the rebels, and the guilty brother escaped in a canoe. he did not go alone. tembinatake had a hand in the rebellion, and the man who had gained a kingdom for a weakling brother was banished by that brother's son. the fugitives came to shore in other islands, but tembinok' remains to this day ignorant of their fate. so far history. and now a moment for conjecture. tembinok' confused habitually, not only the attributes and merits of his father and his uncle, but their diverse personal appearance. before he had even spoken, or thought to speak, of tembinatake, he had told me often of a tall, lean father, skilled in war, and his own schoolmaster in genealogy and island arts. how if both were fathers, one natural, one adoptive? how if the heir of tembaitake, like the heir of tembinok' himself, were not a son, but an adopted nephew? how if the founder of the monarchy, while he worked for his brother, worked at the same time for the child of his loins? how if on the death of tembaitake, the two stronger natures, father and son, king and kingmaker, clashed, and tembinok', when he drove out his uncle, drove out the author of his days? here is at least a tragedy four-square. the king took us on board in his own gig, dressed for the occasion in the naval uniform. he had little to say, he refused refreshments, shook us briefly by the hand, and went ashore again. that night the palm-tops of apemama had dipped behind the sea, and the schooner sailed solitary under the stars. letters from samoa letters to the "times," "pall mall gazette," etc. i to the editor of the "times" _yacht "casco," hawaiian islands, feb. , ._ sir,--news from polynesia is apt to come piecemeal, and thus fail of its effect, the first step being forgotten before the second comes to hand. for this reason i should like to be allowed to recapitulate a little of the past before i go on to illustrate the present extraordinary state of affairs in the samoan islands. it is quite true that this group was largely opened up by german enterprise, and that the port of apia is much the creation of the godeffroys. so far the german case extends; no farther. apia was governed till lately by a tripartite municipality, the american, english, and german consuls, and one other representative of each of the three nations making up the body. to both america and germany a harbour had been ceded. england, i believe, had no harbour, but that her position was quite equal to that of her neighbours one fact eloquently displays. malietoa--then king of samoa, now a prisoner on the marshall islands--offered to accept the supremacy of england. unhappily for himself, his offer was refused, her majesty's government declaring, i am told, that they would prefer to see him independent. as he now wanders the territory of his island prison, under the guns of an imperial war-ship, his independence (if it still exist) must be confined entirely to his bosom. such was the former equal and pacific state of the three nations at apia. it would be curious to tell at length by what steps of encroachment on the one side and weakness on the other the present reign of terror has been brought about; but my time before the mail departs is very short, your space is limited, and in such a history much must be only matter of conjecture. briefly and roughly, then, there came a sudden change in the attitude of germany. another treaty was proposed to malietoa and refused; the cause of the rebel tamasese was invented or espoused; malietoa was seized and deported, tamasese installed, the tripartite municipality dissolved, the german consul seated autocratically in its place, and the hawaiian embassy (sent by a power of the same race to moderate among samoans) dismissed with threats and insults. in the course of these events villages have been shelled, the german flag has been at least once substituted for the english, and the stars and stripes (only the other day) were burned at matafatatele. on the day of the chase after malietoa the houses of both english and americans were violently entered by the germans. since the dissolution of the municipality english and americans have paid their taxes into the hands of their own consuls, where they accumulate, and the german representative, unrecognised and unsupported, rules single in apia. i have had through my hands a file of consular proclamations, the most singular reading--a state of war declared, all other authority but that of the german representative suspended, punishment (and the punishment of death in particular) liberally threatened. it is enough to make a man rub his eyes when he reads colonel de coetlogon's protest and the high-handed rejoinder posted alongside of it the next day by dr. knappe. who is dr. knappe, thus to make peace and war, deal in life and death, and close with a buffet the mouth of english consuls? by what process known to diplomacy has he risen from his one-sixth part of municipal authority to be the bismarck of a polynesian island? and what spell has been cast on the cabinets of washington and st. james's, that mr. blacklock should have been so long left unsupported, and that colonel de coetlogon must bow his head under a public buffet? i have not said much of the samoans. i despair, in so short a space, to interest english readers in their wrongs; with the mass of people at home they will pass for some sort of cannibal islanders, with whom faith were superfluous, upon whom kindness might be partly thrown away. and, indeed, i recognise with gladness that (except as regards the captivity of malietoa) the samoans have had throughout the honours of the game. tamasese, the german puppet, has had everywhere the under hand; almost none, except those of his own clan, have ever supported his cause, and even these begin now to desert him. "this is no samoan war," said one of them, as he transferred his followers and services to the new malietoa--mataafa; "this is a german war." mataafa, if he be cut off from apia and the sea, lies inexpugnable in the foot-hills immediately behind with , warriors at his back. and beyond titles to a great deal of land, which they extorted in exchange for rifles and ammunition from the partisans of tamasese, of all this bloodshed and bullying the germans behold no profit. i have it by last advices that dr. knappe has approached the king privately with fair speeches, assuring him that the state of war, bombardments, and other evils of the day, are not at all directed at samoans, but against the english and americans; and that, when these are extruded, peace shall again smile on a german island. it can never be proved, but it is highly possible he may have said so; and, whether he said it or not, there is a sense in which the thing is true. violence has not been found to succeed with the samoans; with the two anglo-saxon powers it has been found to work like a charm. i conclude with two instances, one american, one english:-- _first_.--mr. klein, an american journalist, was on the beach with malietoa's men on the night of the recent german defeat. seeing the boats approach in the darkness, mr. klein hailed them and warned them of the samoan ambush, and, by this innocent and humane step, made public the fact of his presence. where much else is contested so much appears to be admitted (and, indeed, claimed) upon both sides. mr. klein is now accused of firing on the germans and of advising the samoans to fire, both of which he denies. he is accused, after the fight, of succouring only the wounded of malietoa's party; he himself declares that he helped both; and, at any rate, the offence appears a novel one, and the accusation threatens to introduce fresh dangers into red cross work. he was on the beach that night in the exercise of his profession. if he was with malietoa's men, which is the real gist of his offence, we who are not germans may surely ask, why not? on what ground is malietoa a rebel? the germans have not conquered samoa that i ever heard of; they are there on treaty like their neighbours, and dr. knappe himself (in the eyes of justice) is no more than the one-sixth part of the town council of apia. lastly, mr. klein's innocence stands very clearly proven by the openness with which he declared his presence. for all that, this gentleman lay for a considerable time, watched day and night by german sailors, a prisoner in the american consulate; even after he had succeeded in running the gauntlet of the german guards, and making his escape in a canoe to the american warship _nipsic_, he was imperiously redemanded from under his own flag, and it is probable his extradition is being already called for at washington. _secondly_.--an english artist had gone into the bush sketching. i believe he had been to malietoa's camp, so that his guilt stands on somewhat the same ground as mr. klein's. he was forcibly seized on board the british packet _richmond_, carried half-dressed on board the _adler_, and detained there, in spite of all protest, until an english war-ship had been cleared for action. this is of notoriety, and only one case (although a strong one) of many. is it what the english people understand by the sovereignty of the seas?--i am, etc., robert louis stevenson. ii to the editor of the "times" _vailima, upolu, samoa, oct. , ._ sir,--i beg leave to lay before your readers a copy of a correspondence, or (should that have reached you by another channel) to offer a few words of narrative and comment. on saturday, september , mr. cedercrantz, the chief justice of samoa, sailed on a visit to fiji, leaving behind him certain prisoners in the gaol, and baron senfft von pilsach, president of the municipal council, master of the field. the prisoners were five chiefs of manono who had surrendered of their own accord, or at the desire of mataafa, had been tried by a native magistrate, and received sentence of six months' confinement under "gentlemanly" (_sic_) conditions. as they were marched to prison, certain of their country-folk of manono ran beside and offered an immediate rescue; but lieutenant ulfsparre ordered the men of the escort to load, and the disturbance blew by. how little weight was attached to this incident by the chief justice is sufficiently indicated by the fact of his departure. it was unhappily otherwise with those whom he left behind. panic seems to have marked them for her own; they despaired at once of all lawful defence; and, on sunday, the day after the chief justice's departure, apia was in consequence startled with strange news. dynamite bought from the wrecker ship, an electrical machine and a mechanic hired, the prison mined, and a letter despatched to the people of manono advising them of the fact, and announcing that if any rescue were attempted prison and prisoners should be blown up--such were the voices of rumour; and the design appearing equally feeble, reckless, and wicked, considerable agitation was aroused. perhaps it had some effect. our government at least, which had rushed so hastily to one extreme, now dashed with the same speed into another. sunday was the day of dynamite, tuesday dawned the day of deportation. a cutter was hurriedly prepared for sea, and the prisoners, whom the chief justice had left three days before under a sentence of "gentlemanly" detention, found themselves under way to exile in the tokelaus. a government of this agility escapes criticism: by multiplying surprises it obliterates the very memory of past mistakes. some, perhaps, forgot the dynamite; some, hearing no more of it, set it down to be a trick of rumour such as we are well used to in the islands. but others were not so sure. others considered that the rumour (even if unfounded) was of an ill example, might bear deplorable fruit, and, from all points of view of morality and policy, required a public contradiction. eleven of these last entered accordingly into the annexed correspondence with the president. it will be seen in the crevice of what quibble that gentleman sought refuge and sits inexpugnable. in a question affecting his humanity, his honour, and the wellbeing of the kingdom which he serves, he has preferred to maintain what i can only call a voluble silence. the public must judge of the result; but there is one point to which i may be allowed to draw attention--that passage in the fourth of the appended documents in which he confesses that he was already acquainted with the rumours in question, and that he has been present (and apparently not protesting) when the scandal was discussed and the proposed enormity commended. the correspondence was still passing when the president surprised apia with a fresh gambado. he has been a long while in trouble as to his disposition of the funds. his intention to build a house for himself--to all appearance with native money--his sending the taxes out of the islands and locking them up in deposits, and his noisy squabbles with the king and native parliament as to the currency, had all aroused unfavourable comment. on saturday, the rd of october, a correspondence on the last point appeared in the local paper. by this it appeared that our not too resolute king and parliament had at last and in one particular defied his advice and maintained their own opinion. if vengeance were to be the order of the day, it might have been expected to fall on the king and parliament; but this would have been too direct a course, and the blow was turned instead against an innocent municipal council. on the th the president appeared before that body, informed them that his authority was lessened by the publication, that he had applied to the king for a month's leave of (theatrical) absence, and must now refuse to fulfil his duties. with this he retired to his own house, which is under the same roof, leaving the councillors and the municipality to do what they pleased and drift where they could without him. it is reported he has since declared his life to be in danger, and even applied to his consul for protection. this seems to pass the bounds of credibility; but the movements of baron senfft von pilsach have been throughout so agitated and so unexpected that we know not what to look for; and the signatories of the annexed addresses, if they were accused to-morrow of a design on the man's days, would scarce have spirit left to be surprised. it must be clearly pointed out that this is no quarrel of german and anti-german. the german officials, consular and naval, have behaved with perfect loyalty. a german wrote the letter to the paper which unchained this thunderbolt; and it was a german who took the chair which the president had just vacated at the table of the municipal board. and though the baron is himself of german race, his conduct presents no appearance of design, how much less of conspiracy! doubtless certain journals will so attempt to twist it; but to the candid it will seem no more than the distracted evolutions of a weak man in a series of panics. such is a rough outline of the events to which i would fain direct the attention of the public at home, in the states, and still more in germany. it has for me but one essential point. budgets have been called in question, and officials publicly taken the pet before now. but the dynamite scandal is unique. if it be unfounded, our complaint is already grave. it was the president's duty, as a man and as a responsible official, to have given it instant and direct denial: and since he neither did so of his own motion, nor consented to do so on our repeated instances, he has shown that he neither understands nor yet is willing to be taught the condition of this country. from what i have been able to collect, samoans are indignant because the thing was decided between the king and president without consultation with the native parliament. the thing itself, it does not enter in their thoughts to call in question; they receive gratefully a fresh lesson in civilised methods and civilised justice; a day may come when they shall put that lesson in practice for themselves; and if they are then decried for their barbarity--as they will surely be--and punished for it, as is highly probable, i will ask candid people what they are to think? "how?" they will say. "your own white people intended to do this, and you said nothing. we do it, and you call us treacherous savages!" this is to suppose the story false. suppose it true, however; still more, suppose the plan had been carried out. suppose these chiefs to have surrendered to the white man's justice, administered or not by a brown judge; suppose them tried, condemned, confined in that snare of a gaol, and some fine night their mangled limbs cast in the faces of their countrymen: i leave others to predict the consequences of such an object-lesson in the arts of peace and the administration of the law. the samoans are a mild race, but their patience is in some points limited. under captain brandeis a single skirmish and the death of a few youths sufficed to kindle an enduring war and bring on the ruin of the government. the residents have no desire for war, and they deprecate altogether a war embittered from the beginning by atrocities. nor can they think the stakes at all equal between themselves and baron senfft. he has nothing to lose but a situation; he is here in what he stands in; he can swarm to-morrow on board a war-ship and be off. but the residents have some of them sunk capital on these shores; some of them are involved in extended affairs; they are tied to the stake, and they protest against being plunged into war by the violence, and having that war rendered more implacable by the preliminary cruelties, of a white official. i leave entirely upon one side all questions of morality; but there is still one point of expediency on which i must touch. the old native government (which was at least cheap) failed to enforce the law, and fell, in consequence, into the manifold troubles which have made the name of samoa famous. the enforcement of the law--that was what was required, that was the salvation looked for. and here we have a government at a high figure, and it cannot defend its own gaol, and can find no better remedy than to assassinate its prisoners. what we have bought at this enormous increase of expenditure is the change from king log to king stork--from the man who failed to punish petty theft to the man who plots the destruction of his own gaol and the death of his own prisoners. on the return of the chief justice, the matter will be brought to his attention; but the cure of our troubles must come from home; it is from the great powers that we look for deliverance. they sent us the president. let them either remove the man, or see that he is stringently instructed--instructed to respect public decency, so we be no longer menaced with doings worthy of a revolutionary committee; and instructed to respect the administration of the law, so if i be fined a dollar to-morrow for fast riding in apia street, i may not awake next morning to find my sentence increased to one of banishment or death by dynamite.--i am, sir, your obedient servant, robert louis stevenson. _p.s._--_october _.--i little expected fresh developments before the mail left. but the unresting president still mars the quiet of his neighbours. even while i was writing the above lines, apia was looking on in mere amazement on the continuation of his gambols. a white man had written to the king, and the king had answered the letter--crimes against baron senfft von pilsach and (his private reading of) the berlin treaty. he offered to resign--i was about to say "accordingly," for the unexpected is here the normal--from the presidency of the municipal board, and to retain his position as the king's adviser. he was instructed that he must resign both, or neither; resigned both; fell out with the consuls on details; and is now, as we are advised, seeking to resile from his resignations. such an official i never remember to have read of, though i have seen the like, from across the footlights and the orchestra, evolving in similar figures to the strains of offenbach. r.l.s. copies of a correspondence between certain residents of apia and baron senfft von pilsach. i _september , _. baron senfft von pilsach. sir,--we are requested to lay the enclosed appeal before you, and to express the desire of the signatories to meet your views as to the manner of the answer. should you prefer to reply by word of mouth, a deputation will be ready to wait upon you on thursday, at any hour you may please to appoint. should you prefer to reply in writing, we are asked only to impress upon you the extreme desire of the signatories that no time should be unnecessarily lost. should you condescend in either of the ways suggested to set at rest our anxiety, we need scarce assure you that the step will be received with gratitude.--we have the honour to be, sir, your obedient servants, robert louis stevenson. e. w. gurr. ii (_enclosed in no. i_.) the attention of the president of the municipal council is respectfully directed to the following rumours:-- . that at his suggestion, or with his authority, dynamite was purchased, or efforts were made to procure dynamite, and the use of an electrical machine was secured, or attempted to be obtained. . that this was for the purpose of undermining, or pretending to undermine, the gaol in which the manono prisoners were confined. . that notification of this design was sent to the friends of the prisoners. . that a threat of blowing up the gaol and the prisoners, in the event of an attempted rescue, was made. upon all and upon each of these points severally the white residents anxiously expect and respectfully beg information. it is suggested for the president's consideration that rumours unconnected or unexplained acquire almost the force of admitted truth. that any want of confidence between the governed and the government must be fruitful in loss to both. that the rumours in their present form tend to damage the white races in the native mind, and to influence for the worse the manners of the samoans. and that the president alone is in a position to deny, to explain, or to correct these rumours. upon these grounds the undersigned ask to be excused for any informality in their address, and they hope and humbly pray that the president will accept the occasion here presented, and take early and effectual means to inform and reassure the whites, and to relieve them from possible misjudgment on the part of the samoans. robert louis stevenson. e.w. gurr. [_and nine other signatures_.] iii _apia, sept. , ._ robert louis stevenson, esq., e.w. gurr, esq. dear sirs,--thanking you for your kind letter dated th inst., which i received yesterday, together with the address in question, i beg to inform you that i am going to answer the address in writing as soon as possible.--i have the honour to be, dear sirs, your obedient servant, senfft. iv _apia, oct. , ._ robert louis stevenson, esq., e. w. gurr, esq. gentlemen,--i have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of an address without date which has been signed by you and some other foreign residents and handed to me on the th of september. in this address my attention is directed to some rumours, specified therein, concerning which i am informed that "upon all and upon each of these points severally the white residents anxiously expect and respectfully beg information." generally, i beg to state that, with a view of successfully performing my official duties, i believe it is advisable for me to pay no attention to any anonymous rumour. further, i cannot forbear expressing my astonishment that in speaking to me so seriously in the name of "the white residents" the subscribers of the address have deemed it unnecessary to acquaint me with their authorisation for doing so. this omission is by no means a mere informality. there are white residents who in my presence have commented upon the rumours in question in a manner directly opposed to the meaning of the address. this fact alone will justify me in objecting to the truth of the above-quoted statement so prominently set forth and so positively affirmed in the address. it will also justify me in abstaining from a reply to the further assertions of gentlemen who, in apostrophising me, care so little for the correctness of the facts they deal with. if, in consequence, according to the apprehensions laid down in the address, those unexplained rumours will "damage the white races in the native mind," i think the signing parties will then remember that there are public authorities in samoa officially and especially charged with the protection of "the white residents." if they present to them their complaints and their wishes i have no doubt by so doing they will get all information they may require. i ask you, gentlemen, to communicate this answer to the parties having signed the address in question.--i have the honour to be, gentlemen, your obedient servant, frhr. senfft von pilsach. v _oct. , _. the signatories of the address are in receipt of the president's favour under date october . much of his answer is occupied in dealing with a point foreign to the matter in hand, and in itself surprising to the signatories. their address was an appeal for information on specific points and an appeal from specific persons, who correctly described themselves as "white residents," "the undersigned," and in the accompanying letter as the "signatories." they were so far from seeking to collect evidence in private that they applied frankly and directly to the person accused for explanation; and so far from seeking to multiply signatures or promote scandal that they kept the paper strictly to themselves. they see with regret that the president has failed to appreciate this delicacy. they see with sorrow and surprise that, in answer to a communication which they believe to have been temperately and courteously worded, the president has thought fit to make an imputation on their honesty. the trick of which he would seem to accuse them would have been useless, and even silly, if attempted; and on a candid re-examination of the address and the accompanying letter, the president will doubtless see fit to recall the imputation. by way of answer to the questions asked the signatories can find nothing but what seems to be a recommendation to them to apply to their consuls for "protection." it was not protection they asked, but information. it was not a sense of fear that moved them, but a sense of shame. it is their misfortune that they cannot address the president in his own language, or they would not now require to explain that the words "tend to damage the white races in the native mind," quoted and misapplied by the president, do not express any fear of suffering by the hands of the samoans, but in their good opinion, and were not the expression of any concern for the duration of peace, but of a sense of shame under what they conceived to be disgraceful imputations. while agreeing generally with the president's expressed sentiment as to "anonymous rumours," they feel that a line has to be drawn. certain rumours they would not suffer to remain uncontradicted for an hour. it was natural, therefore, that when they heard a man of their own white race accused of conspiring to blow up the gaol and the prisoners who were there under the safeguard of his honour, they should attribute to the accused a similar impatience to be justified; and it is with a sense of painful surprise that they find themselves to have been mistaken. (_signatures as to number ii_.) vi _apia, october , _. gentlemen,--being in receipt of your communication under to-day's date, i have the honour to inform you that i have undertaken the re-examination of your first address, which you believe would induce me to recall the answer i have given on the nd inst. from this re-examination i have learned again that your appeal begins with the following statement:-- "upon all and upon each of these points severally the white residents anxiously expect and respectfully beg information." i have called this statement a seriously speaking to me in the name of the white residents, and i have objected to the truth of that statement. if after a "candid re-examination" of the matter from your part you may refute me in either or both points, i shall be glad, indeed, in recalling my answer. at present i beg to say that i see no reason for your supposing i misunderstood your expression of damaging the white races in the native mind, unless you have no other notion of protection than that applying to the body. concerning the assertion contained in the last clause of your second address, that five samoan prisoners having been sentenced by a samoan judge for destroying houses were in the gaol of the samoan government "under the safeguard of my honour," i ask for your permission to recommend this statement also and especially to your re-examination.--i have the honour to be, gentlemen, your obedient servant, frhr. senfft von pilsach. iii to the editor of the "times" _samoa, april , ._ sir,--a sketch of our latest difficulty in samoa will be interesting, at least to lawyers. in the berlin general act there is one point on which, from the earliest moment, volunteer interpreters have been divided. the revenue arising from the customs was held by one party to belong to the samoan government, by another to the municipality; and the dispute was at last decided in favour of the municipality by mr. cedercrantz, chief justice. the decision was not given in writing; but it was reported by at least one of the consuls to his government, it was of public notoriety, it is not denied, and it was at once implicitly acted on by the parties. before that decision, the revenue from customs was suffered to accumulate; ever since, to the knowledge of the chief justice, and with the daily countenance of the president, it has been received, administered, and spent by the municipality. it is the function of the chief justice to interpret the berlin act; its sense was thus supposed to be established beyond cavil; those who were dissatisfied with the result conceived their only recourse lay in a prayer to the powers to have the treaty altered; and such a prayer was, but the other day, proposed, supported, and finally negatived, in a public meeting. about a year has gone by since the decision, and the state of the samoan government has been daily growing more precarious. taxes have not been paid, and the government has not ventured to enforce them. fresh taxes have fallen due, and the government has not ventured to call for them. salaries were running on, and that of the chief justice alone amounts to a considerable figure for these islands; the coffers had fallen low, at last it is believed they were quite empty, no resource seemed left, and bystanders waited with a smiling curiosity for the wheels to stop. i should add, to explain the epithet "smiling," that the government has proved a still-born child; and except for some spasmodic movements which i have already made the subject of remark in your columns, it may be said to have done nothing but pay salaries. in this state of matters, on march , the president of the council, baron senfft von pilsach, was suddenly and privately supplied by mr. cedercrantz with a written judgment, reversing the verbal and public decision of a year before. by what powers of law was this result attained? and how was the point brought again before his honour? i feel i shall here strain the credulity of your readers, but our authority is the president in person. the suit was brought by himself in his capacity (perhaps an imaginary one) of king's adviser; it was defended by himself in his capacity of president of the council, no notice had been given, the parties were not summoned, they were advised neither of the trial nor the judgment; so far as can be learned two persons only met and parted--the first was the plaintiff and defendant rolled in one, the other was a judge who had decided black a year ago, and had now intimated a modest willingness to decide white. but it is possible to follow more closely these original proceedings. baron von pilsach sat down (he told us) in his capacity of adviser to the king, and wrote to himself, in his capacity of president of the council, an eloquent letter of reprimand three pages long; an unknown english artist clothed it for him in good language; and nothing remained but to have it signed by king malietoa, to whom it was attributed. "so long as he knows how to sign!"--a white official is said thus to have summed up, with a shrug, the qualifications necessary in a samoan king. it was signed accordingly, though whether the king knew what he was signing is matter of debate; and thus regularised, it was forwarded to the chief justice enclosed in a letter of adhesion from the president. such as they were, these letters appear to have been the pleadings on which the chief justice proceeded; such as they were, they seem to have been the documents in this unusual case. suppose an unfortunate error to have been made, suppose a reversal of the court's finding and the year's policy to have become immediately needful, wisdom would indicate an extreme frankness of demeanour. and our two officials preferred a policy of irritating dissimulation. while the revolution was being prepared behind the curtain, the president was holding night sessions of the municipal council. what was the business? no other than to prepare an ordinance regulating those very customs which he was secretly conspiring to withdraw from their control. and it was a piece of duplicity of a similar nature which first awoke the echoes of apia by its miscarriage. the council had sent up for the approval of the consular board a project of several bridges, one of which, that of the vaisingano, was of chief importance to the town. to sanction so much fresh expense, at the very moment when, to his secret knowledge, the municipality was to be left bare of funds, appeared to one of the consuls an unworthy act; and the proposal was accordingly disallowed. the people of apia are extremely swift to guess. no sooner was the vaisingano bridge denied them than they leaped within a measurable distance of the truth. it was remembered that the chief justice had but recently (this time by a decision regularly obtained) placed the municipal funds at the president's mercy; talk ran high of collusion between the two officials; it was rumoured the safe had been already secretly drawn upon; the newspaper being at this juncture suddenly and rather mysteriously sold, it was rumoured it had been bought for the officials with municipal money, and the apians crowded in consequence to the municipal meeting on april , with minds already heated. the president came on his side armed with the secret judgment; and the hour being now come, he unveiled his work of art to the municipal councillors. on the strength of the chief justice's decision, to his knowledge, and with the daily countenance of the president, they had for twelve months received and expended the revenue from customs. they learned now that this was wrong; they learned not only that they were to receive no more, but that they must refund what they had already spent; and the total sum amounting to about $ , , and there being less than $ , in the treasury, they learned that they were bankrupt. and with the next breath the president reassured them; time was to be given to these miserable debtors, and the king in his clemency would even advance them from their own safe--now theirs no longer--a loan of $ , against current expenses. if the municipal council of apia be far from an ideal body, at least it makes roads and builds bridges, at least it does something to justify its existence and reconcile the ratepayer to the rates. this was to cease: all the funds husbanded for this end were to be transferred to the government at mulinuu, which has never done anything to mention but pay salaries, and of which men have long ceased to expect anything else but that it shall continue to pay salaries till it die of inanition. let us suppose this raid on the municipal treasury to have been just and needful. it is plain, even if introduced in the most conciliatory manner, it could never have been welcome. and, as it was, the sting was in the manner--in the secrecy and the surprise, in the dissimulation, the dissonant decisions, the appearance of collusion between the officials, and the offer of a loan too small to help. bitter words were spoken at the council-table; the public joined with shouts; it was openly proposed to overpower the president and seize the treasury key. baron von pilsach possesses the redeeming rudimentary virtue of courage. it required courage to come at all on such an errand to those he had deceived; and amidst violent voices and menacing hands he displayed a constancy worthy of a better cause. the council broke tumultuously up; the inhabitants crowded to a public meeting; the consuls, acquainted with the alarming effervescency of feeling, communicated their willingness to meet the municipal councillors and arrange a compromise; and the inhabitants renewed by acclamation the mandate of their representatives. the same night these sat in council with the consular board, and a _modus vivendi_ was agreed upon, which was rejected the next morning by the president. the representations of the consuls had, however, their effect; and when the council met again on april , baron von pilsach was found to have entirely modified his attitude. the bridge over the vaisingano was conceded, the sum of $ , offered to the council was increased to $ , , about one-half of the existing funds; the samoan government, which was to profit by the customs, now agreed to bear the expenses of collection; the president, while refusing to be limited to a specific figure, promised an anxious parsimony in the government expenditure, admitted his recent conduct had been of a nature to irritate the councillors, and frankly proposed it should be brought under the notice of the powers. i should not be a fair reporter if i did not praise his bearing. in the midst of men whom he had grossly deceived, and who had recently insulted him in return, he behaved himself with tact and temper. and largely in consequence his _modus vivendi_ was accepted under protest, and the matter in dispute referred without discussion to the powers. i would like to refer for one moment to my former letter. the manono prisoners were solemnly sentenced to six months' imprisonment; and, by some unexplained and secret process, the sentence was increased to one of banishment. the fact seems to have rather amused the governments at home. it did not at all amuse us here on the spot. but we sought consolation by remembering that the president was a layman, and the chief justice had left the islands but the day before. let mr. cedercrantz return, we thought, and arthur would be come again. well, arthur is come. and now we begin to think he was perhaps an approving, if an absent, party to the scandal. for do we not find, in the case of the municipal treasury, the same disquieting features? a decision is publicly delivered, it is acted on for a year, and by some secret and inexplicable process we find it suddenly reversed. we are supposed to be governed by english law. is this english law? is it a law at all? does it permit a state of society in which a citizen can live and act with confidence? and when we are asked by natives to explain these peculiarities of white man's government and white man's justice, in what form of words are we to answer? _april_ . fresh news reaches me; i have once again to admire the accuracy of rumour in apia, and that which i had passed over with a reference becomes the head and front of our contention. the _samoa times_ was nominally purchased by a gentleman who, whatever be his other recommendations, was notoriously ill off. there was paid down for it £ in gold, a huge sum of ready money for apia, above all in gold, and all men wondered where it came from. it is this which has been discovered. the wrapper of each rouleau was found to be signed by mr. martin, collector for the municipality as well as for the samoan government, and countersigned by mr. savile, his assistant. in other words, the money had left either the municipal or the government safe. the position of the president is thus extremely exposed. his accounts up to january are in the hands of auditors. the next term of march is already past, and although the natural course has been repeatedly suggested to him, he has never yet permitted the verification of the balance in his safe. the case would appear less strong against the chief justice. yet a month has not elapsed since he placed the funds at the disposal of the president, on the avowed ground that the population of apia was unfit to be intrusted with its own affairs. and the very week of the purchase he reversed his own previous decision and liberated his colleague from the last remaining vestige of control. beyond the extent of these judgments, i doubt if this astute personage will be found to have committed himself in black and white; and the more foolhardy president may thus be left in the top of the breach alone. let it be explained or apportioned as it may, this additional scandal is felt to have overfilled the measure. it may be argued that the president has great tact and the chief justice a fund of philosophy. give us instead a judge who shall proceed according to the forms of justice, and a treasurer who shall permit the verification of his balances. surely there can be found among the millions of europe two frank and honest men, one of whom shall be acquainted with english law, and the other possess the ordinary virtues of a clerk, over whose heads, in the exercise of their duties, six months may occasionally pass without painful disclosures and dangerous scandals; who shall not weary us with their surprises and intrigues; who shall not amaze us with their lack of penetration; who shall not, in the hour of their destitution, seem to have diverted £ of public money for the purchase of an inconsiderable sheet, or at a time when eight provinces of discontented natives threaten at any moment to sweep their ineffective government into the sea to have sought safety and strength in gagging the local press of apia. if it be otherwise--if we cannot be relieved, if the powers are satisfied with the conduct of mr. cedercrantz and baron senfft von pilsach; if these were sent here with the understanding that they should secretly purchase, perhaps privately edit, a little sheet of two pages, issued from a crazy wooden building at the mission gate; if it were, indeed, intended that, for this important end, they should divert (as it seems they have done) public funds and affront all the forms of law--we whites can only bow the head. we are here quite helpless. if we would complain of baron pilsach, it can only be to mr. cedercrantz; if we would complain of mr. cedercrantz, and the powers will not hear us, the circle is complete. a nightly guard surrounds and protects their place of residence, while the house of the king is cynically left without the pickets. secure from interference, one utters the voice of the law, the other moves the hands of authority; and now they seem to have sequestered in the course of a single week the only available funds and the only existing paper in the islands. but there is one thing they forget. it is not the whites who menace the duration of their government, and it is only the whites who read the newspaper. mataafa sits hard by in his armed camp and sees. he sees the weakness, he counts the scandals of their government. he sees his rival and "brother" sitting disconsidered at their doors, like lazarus before the house of dives, and, if he is not very fond of his "brother," he is very scrupulous of native dignities. he has seen his friends menaced with midnight destruction in the government gaol, and deported without form of law. he is not himself a talker, and his thoughts are hid from us; but what is said by his more hasty partisans we know. on march , the day after the chief justice signed the secret judgment, three days before it was made public, and while the purchase of the newspaper was yet in treaty, a native orator stood up in an assembly. "who asked the great powers to make laws for us; to bring strangers here to rule us?" he cried. "we want no white officials to bind us in the bondage of taxation." here is the changed spirit which these gentlemen have produced by a misgovernment of fifteen months. here is their peril, which no purchase of newspapers and no subsequent editorial suppressions can avert. it may be asked if it be still time to do anything. it is, indeed, already late; and these gentlemen, arriving in a golden moment, have fatally squandered opportunity and perhaps fatally damaged white prestige. even the whites themselves they have not only embittered, but corrupted. we were pained the other day when our municipal councillors refused, by a majority, to make the production of invoices obligatory at the custom-house. yet who shall blame them, when the chief justice, with a smallness of rapacity at which all men wondered, refused to pay, and i believe, still withholds the duties on his imports? he was above the law, being the head of it; and this was how he preached by example. he refused to pay his customs; the white councillors, following in his wake, refuse to take measures to enforce them against others; and the natives, following in his wake, refuse to pay their taxes. these taxes it may, perhaps, be never possible to raise again directly. taxes have never been popular in samoa; yet in the golden moment when this government began its course, a majority of the samoans paid them. every province should have seen some part of that money expended in its bounds; every nerve should have been strained to interest and gratify the natives in the manner of its expenditure. it has been spent instead on mulinuu, to pay four white officials, two of whom came in the suite of the chief justice, and to build a so-called government house, in which the president resides, and the very name of taxes is become abhorrent. what can still be done, and what must be done immediately, is to give us a new chief justice--a lawyer, a man of honour, a man who will not commit himself to one side, whether in politics or in private causes, and who shall not have the appearance of trying to coin money at every joint of our affairs. so much the better if he be a man of talent, but we do not ask so much. with an ordinary appreciation of law, an ordinary discretion and ordinary generosity, he may still, in the course of time, and with good fortune, restore confidence and repair the breaches in the prestige of the whites. as for the president there is much discussion. some think the office is superfluous, still more the salary to be excessive; some regard the present man, who is young and personally pleasing, as a tool and scapegoat for another, and these are tempted to suppose that, with a new and firm chief justice, he might yet redeem his character. he would require at least to clear himself of the affair of the rouleaux, or all would be against him.--i am. sir, your obedient servant, robert louis stevenson. iv to the editor of the "times" _samoa, june_ , . sir,--i read in a new zealand paper that you published my last with misgiving. the writer then goes on to remind me that i am a novelist, and to bid me return to my romances and leave the affairs of samoa to sub-editors in distant quarters of the world. "we, in common with other journals, have correspondents in samoa," he complains, "and yet we have no news from them of the curious conspiracy which mr. stevenson appears to have unearthed, and which, if it had any real existence, would be known to everybody on the island." as this is the only voice which has yet reached me from beyond the seas, i am constrained to make some answer. but it must not be supposed that, though you may perhaps have been alone to publish, i have been alone to write. the same story is now in the hands of the three governments from their respective consuls. not only so, but the complaint of the municipal council, drawn by two able solicitors, has been likewise laid before them. this at least is public, and i may say notorious. the solicitors were authorised to proceed with their task at a public meeting. the president (for i was there and heard him) approved the step, though he refrained from voting. but he seems to have entertained a hope of burking, or, at least, indefinitely postponing, the whole business, and, when the meeting was over, and its proceedings had been approved (as is necessary) by the consular board, he neglected to notify the two gentlemen appointed of that approval. in a large city the trick might have succeeded for a time; in a village like apia, where all news leaks out and the king meets the cobbler daily, it did no more than to advertise his own artfulness. and the next he learned, the case for the municipal council had been prepared, approved by the consuls, and despatched to the great powers. i am accustomed to have my word doubted in this matter, and must here look to have it doubted once again. but the fact is certain. the two solicitors (messrs. carruthers and cooper) were actually cited to appear before the chief justice in the supreme court. i have seen the summons, and the summons was the first and last of this state trial. the proceeding, instituted in an hour of temper, was, in a moment of reaction, allowed to drop. about the same date a final blow befell the government of mulinuu. let me remind you, sir, of the situation. the funds of the municipality had been suddenly seized, on what appeared a collusive judgment, by the bankrupt government of mulinuu. the paper, the organ of opposition, was bought by a man of straw; and it was found the purchase-money had been paid in rouleaux from the government safes. the government consisted of two men. one, the president and treasurer, had a ready means to clear himself and dispose for ever of the scandal--that means, apart from any scandal, was his mere, immediate duty,--viz., to have his balance verified. and he has refused to do so, and he still refuses. but the other, though he sits abstruse, must not think to escape his share of blame. he holds a high situation; he is our chief magistrate, he has heard this miserable tale of the rouleaux, at which the consuls looked so black, and why has he done nothing? when he found that the case against himself and his colleague had gone to the three powers a little of the suddenest, he could launch summonses (which it seems he was afterwards glad to disavow) against messrs. cooper and carruthers. but then, when the whole island murmured--then, when a large sum which could be traced to the government treasuries was found figuring in the hands of a man of straw--where were his thunderbolts then? for more than a month the scandal has hung black about his colleague; for more than a month he has sat inert and silent; for more than a month, in consequence, the last spark of trust in him has quite died out. in was in these circumstances that the government of mulinuu approached the municipal council with a proposal to levy fresh taxes from the whites. it was in these circumstances that the municipal council answered, no. public works have ceased, the destination of public moneys is kept secret, and the municipal council resolved to stop supplies. at this, it seems, the government awoke to a sense of their position. the natives had long ceased to pay them; now the whites had followed suit. destitution had succeeded to embarrassment. and they made haste to join with themselves another who did not share in their unpopularity. this gentleman, mr. thomas maben, government surveyor, is himself deservedly popular, and the office created for him, that of secretary of state, is one in which, under happier auspices, he might accomplish much. he is promised a free hand; he has succeeded to, and is to exercise entirely, those vague functions claimed by the president under his style of adviser to the king. it will be well if it is found to be so in the field of practice. it will be well if mr. maben find any funds left for his not exorbitant salary. it would doubtless have been better, in this day of their destitution and in the midst of growing samoan murmurs against the high salaries of whites, if the government could have fallen on some expedient which did not imply another. and there is a question one would fain have answered. the president claims to hold two offices--that of adviser to the king, that of president of the municipal council. a year ago, in the time of the dynamite affair, he proposed to resign the second and retain his whole emoluments as adviser to the king. he has now practically resigned the first; and we wish to know if he now proposes to retain his entire salary as president of the council.--i am, etc., robert louis stevenson. v to the editor of the "times" _apia, july_ , . sir,--i am at last in receipt of your article upon my letter. it was as i supposed; you had a difficulty in believing the events recorded; and, to my great satisfaction, you suggest an inquiry. you observe the marks of passion in my letter, or so it seems to you. but your summary shows me that i have not failed to communicate with a sufficient clearness the facts alleged. passion may have seemed to burn in my words: it has not at least impaired my ability to record with precision a plain tale. the "cold language" of consular reports (which you say you would prefer) is doubtless to be had upon inquiry in the proper quarter; i make bold to say it will be found to bear me out. of the law case for the municipality i can speak with more assurance; for, since it was sent, i have been shown a copy. its language is admirably cold, yet it tells (it is possible in a much better dialect) the same remarkable story. but all these corroborations sleep in official keeping; and, thanks to the generosity with which you have admitted me to your columns, i stand alone before the public. it is my prayer that this may cease as soon as possible. there is other evidence gone home; let that be produced. or let us have (as you propose) an inquiry; give to the chief justice and the president an opportunity to clear their characters, and to myself that liberty (which i am so often requested to take) of returning to my private business.--i am, sir, your obedient servant, robert louis stevenson. vi to the editor of the "times" _apia, september_ , . sir,--the peninsula of mulinuu was claimed by the german firm; and in case their claim should be found good, they had granted to the samoan government an option to buy at a certain figure. hereon stand the houses of our officials, in particular that of the chief justice. it has long been a problem here whether this gentleman paid any rent, and the problem is now solved; the chief justice of samoa was a squatter. on the ground that the government was about to purchase the peninsula, he occupied a house; on the ground that the germans were about to sell it, he refused to pay them any rent. the firm seemed to have no remedy but to summon the squatter before himself, and hear over again from the official what they had heard already from the disastrous tenant. but even in samoa an ingenious man, inspired by annoyance, may find means of self-protection. the house was no part of the land, nor included in the option; the firm put it up for sale; and the government, under pain of seeing the chief justice houseless, was obliged to buy it. in the meanwhile the german claim to mulinuu was passed by the land commission and sent on to the chief justice on the th of may. he ended by confirming the report; but though his judgment bears date the th of august, it was not made public till the th. so far as we are aware, and certainly so far as samoa has profited by his labours, his honour may be said to have had nothing else to do but to attend to this one piece of business; he was being paid to do so at the rate of £ a month; and it took him ninety days, or about as long as it took napoleon to recapture and to lose again his empire. but better late than never; and the germans, rejoicing in the decision, summoned the government to complete the purchase or to waive their option. there was again a delay in answering, for the policy of all parts of this extraordinary government is on one model; and when the answer came it was only to announce a fresh deception. the german claim had passed the land commission and the supreme court, it was good against objections, but it appeared it was not yet good for registration, and must still be resurveyed by a "government surveyor." the option thus continues to brood over the land of mulinuu, the government to squat there without payment, and the german firm to stand helpless and dispossessed. what can they do? their adversary is their only judge. i hear it calculated that the present state of matters may be yet spun out for months, at the end of which period there must come at last a day of reckoning; and the purchase-money will have to be found or the option to be waived and the government to flit elsewhere. as for the question of arrears of rent, it will be in judicious hands, and his honour may be trusted to deal with it in a manner suitable to the previous history of the case. but why (it will be asked) spin out by these excessive methods a thread of such tenuity? why go to such lengths for four months longer of fallacious solvency? i expect not to be believed, but i think the government still hopes. a war-ship, under a hot-headed captain, might be decoyed into hostilities; the taxes might begin to come in again; the three powers might become otherwise engaged and the little stage of samoa escape observation--indeed, i know not what they hope, but they hope something. there lives on in their breasts a remainder coal of ambition still unquenched. or it is only so that i can explain a late astonishing sally of his honour's. in a long and elaborate judgment he has pared the nails, and indeed removed the fingers, of his only rival, the municipal magistrate. for eighteen months he has seen the lower court crowded with affairs, the while his own stood unfrequented like an obsolete churchyard. he may have remarked with envy many hundred cases passing through his rival's hands, cases of assault, cases of larceny, ranging in the last four months from s. up to £ s.; or he may have viewed with displeasure that despatch of business which was characteristic of the magistrate, mr. cooper. an end, at least, has been made of these abuses. mr. cooper is henceforth to draw his salary for the _minimum_ of public service; and all larcenies and assaults, however trivial, must go, according to the nationality of those concerned, before the consular or the supreme courts. to this portentous judgment there are two sides--a practical and legal. and first as to the practical. for every blow struck or shilling stolen the parties must now march out to mulinuu and place themselves at the mercy of a court, which if hamlet had known, he would have referred with more emotion to the law's delays. it is feared they will not do so, and that crime will go on in consequence unpunished, and increase by indulgence. but this is nothing. the court of the municipal magistrate was a convenient common-ground and clearing-house for our manifold nationalities. it has now been, for all purpose of serious utility, abolished, and the result is distraction. there was a recent trumpery case, heard by mr. cooper amid shouts of mirth. it resolved itself (if i remember rightly) into three charges of assault with counter-charges, and three of abusive language with the same; and the parties represented only two nationalities--a small allowance for apia. yet in our new world, since the chief justice's decision, this vulgar shindy would have split up into six several suits before three different courts; the charges must have been heard by one judge, the counter-charges by another; the whole nauseous evidence six times repeated, and the lawyers six times fee'd. remains the legal argument. his honour admits the municipality to be invested "with such legislative powers as generally constitute a police jurisdiction"; he does not deny the municipality is empowered to take steps for the protection of the person, and it was argued this implied a jurisdiction in cases of assault. but this argument (observes his honour) "proves too much, and consequently nothing. for like reasons the municipal council should have power to provide for the punishment of all felonies against the person, and i suppose the property as well." and, filled with a just sense that a merely police jurisdiction should be limited, he limits it with a vengeance by the exclusion of all assaults and all larcenies. a pity he had not looked into the berlin act! he would have found it already limited there by the same power which called it into being--limited to fines not exceeding $ and imprisonment not extending beyond days. nay, and i think he might have even reasoned from this discovery that he was himself somewhat in error. for, assaults and larcenies being excluded, what kind of enormity is that which is to be visited with a fine of £ or an imprisonment of half a year? it is perhaps childish to pursue further this childish controversialist. but there is one passage, if he had dipped into the berlin act, that well might have arrested his attention: that in which he is himself empowered to deal with "crimes and offences,... subject, however, to the provisions defining the jurisdiction of the municipal magistrate of apia." i trust, sir, this is the last time i shall have to trouble you with these twopenny concerns. but until some step is taken by the three powers, or until i have quite exhausted your indulgence, i shall continue to report our scandals as they arise. once more, one thing or other: either what i write is false, and i should be chastised as a calumniator; or else it is true, and these officials are unfit for their position.--i am, etc., robert louis stevenson. _p.s._--the mail is already closed when i receive at last decisive confirmation of the purchase of the _samoa times_ by the samoan government. it has never been denied; it is now admitted. the paper which they bought so recently, they are already trying to sell; and have received and refused an offer of £ for what they bought for upwards of £ . surely we may now demand the attention of the three powers. vii to the editor of the "pall mall gazette" i _september_ , . in june it became clear that the king's government was weary of waiting upon europe, as it had been clear long before that europe would do nothing. the last commentary on the berlin act was read. malietoa laupepa had been put in _ex auctoritate_ by the powers; the powers would not support him even by a show of strength, and there was nothing left but to fall back on an "election according to the laws and customs of samoa"--by arbitrament of rifle-bullets and blackened faces. instantly heaven was darkened by a brood of rumours, random calumnies, and idle tales. as we rode, late at night, through the hamlet near my house, we saw the fires lighted in the houses, and eager talkers discussing the last report. the king was sick; he was dying; he was perfectly well; he was seen riding furiously by night in the back parts of apia, and covering his face as he rode. mataafa was in favour with the germans; he was to be made a german king; he was secure of the support of all samoa; he had no following whatsoever. the name of every chief and village (with many that were new to the hearer) came up in turn, to be dubbed laupepa, or mataafa, or both at the same time, or neither. dr. george brown, the missionary, had just completed a tour of the islands. there are few men in the world with a more mature knowledge of native character, and i applied to him eagerly for an estimate of the relative forces. "when the first shot is fired, and not before," said he, "you will know who is who." the event has shown that he might have gone yet further; for even after shots were fired and men slain, an important province was still hesitating and trimming. mataafa lay in malie. he had an armed picket at a ford some two miles from apia, where they sat in a prodigious state of vigilance and glee; and his whole troop, although not above five hundred strong, appeared animated with the most warlike spirit. for himself, he waited, as he had waited for two years; wrote eloquent letters, the time to answer which was quite gone by; and looked on while his enemies painfully collected their forces. doubtless to the last he was assured and deceived by vain promises of help. the process of gathering a royal army in samoa is cumbrous and dilatory in the extreme. there is here none of the expedition of the fiery cross and the bale-fire; but every step is diplomatic. each village, with a great expense of eloquence, has to be wiled with promises and spurred by threats, and the greater chieftains make stipulations ere they will march. tamasese, son to the late german puppet, and heir of his ambitions, demanded the vice-kingship as the price of his accession, though i am assured that he demanded it in vain. the various provinces returned various and unsatisfactory answers. atua was off and on; tuamasaga was divided; tutuila recalcitrant; and for long the king sat almost solitary under the windy palms of mulinuu. it seemed indeed as if the war was off, and the whole archipelago unanimous (in the native phrase) to sit still and plant taro. but at last, in the first days of july, atua began to come in. boats arrived, thirty and fifty strong, a drum and a very ill-played bugle giving time to the oarsmen, the whole crew uttering at intervals a savage howl; and on the decked fore-sheets of the boat the village champion, frantically capering and dancing. parties were to be seen encamped in palm-groves with their rifles stacked. the shops were emptied of red handkerchiefs, the rallying sign, or (as a man might say) the uniform of the royal army. there was spirit shown; troops of handsome lads marched in a right manly fashion, with their guns on their shoulders, to the music of the drum and the bugle or the tin-whistle. from a hamlet close to my own doors a contingent of six men marched out. their leader's kit contained one stick of tobacco, four boxes of matches, and the inevitable red handkerchief; in his case it was of silk, for he had come late to the purchasing, and the commoner materials were exhausted. this childish band of braves marched one afternoon to a neighbouring hill, and the same night returned to their houses, on the ground that it was "uncomfortable" in the bush. an excellent old fellow, who had had enough of war in many campaigns, took refuge in my service from the conscription, but in vain. the village had decided no warrior might hang back. one summoner arrived; and then followed some negotiations--i have no authority to say what: enough that the messenger departed and our friend remained. but, alas! a second envoy followed and proved to be of sterner composition; and with a basket full of food, kava, and tobacco, the reluctant hero proceeded to the wars. i am sure they had few handsomer soldiers, if, perhaps, some that were more willing. and he would have been better to be armed. his gun--but in mr. kipling's pleasant catchword, that is another story. war, to the samoan of mature years, is often an unpleasant necessity. to the young boy it is a heaven of immediate pleasures, as well as an opportunity of ultimate glory. women march with the troops--even the taupo-sa, or sacred maid of the village, accompanies her father in the field to carry cartridges, and bring him water to drink,--and their bright eyes are ready to "rain influence" and reward valour. to what grim deeds this practice may conduct i shall have to say later on. in the rally of their arms, it is at least wholly pretty; and i have one pleasant picture of a war-party marching out; the men armed and boastful, their heads bound with the red handkerchief, their faces blacked--and two girls marching in their midst under european parasols. on saturday, july th, by the early morning, the troops began to file westward from apia, and about noon found found themselves face to face with the lines of mataafa in the german plantation of vaitele. the armies immediately fraternised; kava was made by the ladies, as who should say tea, at home, and partaken of by the braves with many truculent expressions. one chief on the king's side, revolted by the extent of these familiarities, began to beat his followers with a staff. but both parties were still intermingled between the lines, and the chiefs on either side were conversing, and even embracing, at the moment, when an accidental, or perhaps a treacherous, shot precipitated the engagement. i cannot find there was any decisive difference in the numbers actually under fire; but the mataafas appear to have been ill posted and ill led. twice their flank was turned, their line enfiladed, and themselves driven with the loss of about thirty, from two successive cattle walls. a third wall afforded them a more effectual shelter, and night closed on the field of battle without further advantage. all night the royal troops hailed volleys of bullets at this obstacle. with the earliest light, a charge proved it to be quite deserted, and from further down the coast smoke was seen rising from the houses of malie. mataafa had precipitately fled, destroying behind him the village, which, for two years, he had been raising and beautifying. so much was accomplished: what was to follow? mataafa took refuge in manono, and cast up forts. his enemies, far from following up this advantage, held _fonos_ and made speeches and found fault. i believe the majority of the king's army had marched in a state of continuous indecision, and maintaining an attitude of impartiality more to be admired in the cabinet of the philosopher than in the field of war. it is certain at least that only one province has as yet fired a shot for malietoa laupepa. the valour of the tuamasaga was sufficient and prevailed. but atua was in the rear, and has as yet done nothing. as for the men of crana, so far from carrying out the plan agreed upon, and blocking the men of malie, on the morning of the th, they were entertaining an embassy from mataafa, and they suffered his fleet of boats to escape without a shot through certain dangerous narrows of the lagoon, and the chief himself to pass on foot and unmolested along the whole foreshore of their province. no adequate excuse has been made for this half-heartedness--or treachery. it was a piece of the whole which was a specimen. there are too many strings in a samoan intrigue for the merely european mind to follow, and the desire to serve upon both sides, and keep a door open for reconciliation, was manifest almost throughout. a week passed in these divided counsels. savaii had refused to receive mataafa--it is said they now hesitated to rise for the king, and demanded instead a _fono_ (or council) of both sides. and it seemed at least possible that the royal army might proceed no further, and the unstable alliance be dissolved. on sunday, the th, her british majesty's ship _katoomba_, captain bickford, c.m.g., arrived in apia with fresh orders. had she but come ten days earlier the whole of this miserable business would have been prevented, for the three powers were determined to maintain malietoa laupepa by arms, and had declared finally against mataafa. right or wrong, it was at least a decision, and therefore welcome. it may not be best--it was something. no honest friend to samoa can pretend anything but relief that the three powers should at last break their vacillating silence. it is of a piece with their whole policy in the islands that they should have hung in stays for upwards of two years--of a piece with their almost uniform ill-fortune that, eight days before their purpose was declared, war should have marked the country with burned houses and severed heads. ii there is another side to the medal of samoan warfare. so soon as an advantage is obtained, a new and (to us) horrible animal appears upon the scene--the head hunter. again and again we have reasoned with our boys against this bestial practice; but reason and (upon this one point) even ridicule are vain. they admit it to be indefensible; they allege its imperative necessity. one young man, who had seen his father take a head in the late war, spoke of the scene with shuddering revolt, and yet said he must go and do likewise himself in the war which was to come. how else could a man prove he was brave? and had not every country its own customs? accordingly, as occasion offered, these same pleasing children, who had just been drinking kava with their opponents, fell incontinently on the dead and dying, and secured their grisly trophies. it should be said, in fairness, that the mataafas had no opportunity to take heads, but that their chief, taught by the lesson of fangalii, had forbidden the practice. it is doubtful if he would have been obeyed, and yet his power over his people was so great that the german plantation, where they lay some time, and were at last defeated, had not to complain of the theft of a single cocoa-nut. hateful as it must always be to mutilate and murder the disabled, there were in this day's affray in vaitele circumstances yet more detestable. fifteen heads were brought in all to mulinuu. they were carried with parade in front of the fine house which our late president built for himself before he was removed. here, on the verandah, the king sat to receive them, and utter words of course and compliment to each successful warrior. they were _spolia opima_ in the number. leaupepe, mataafa's nephew--or, as samoans say, his son--had fallen by the first wall, and whether from those sentiments of kindred and friendship that so often unite the combatants in civil strife, or to mark by an unusual formality the importance of the conquest, not only his head but his mutilated body also was brought in. from the mat in which the corpse was enveloped a bloody hand protruded, and struck a chill in white eye-witnesses. it were to attribute to [malietoa] laupepa sentiments entirely foreign to his race and training, if we were to suppose him otherwise than gratified. but it was not so throughout. every country has its customs, say native apologists, and one of the most decisive customs of samoa ensures the immunity of women. they go to the front, as our women of yore went to a tournament. bullets are blind; and they must take their risk of bullets, but of nothing else. they serve out cartridges and water; they jeer the faltering and defend the wounded. even in this skirmish of vaitele they distinguished themselves on either side. one dragged her skulking husband from a hole, and drove him to the front. another, seeing her lover fall, snatched up his gun, kept the head-hunters at bay, and drew him unmutilated from the field. such services they have been accustomed to pay for centuries; and often, in the course of centuries, a bullet or a spear must have despatched one of these warlike angels. often enough, too, the head-hunter, springing ghoul-like on fallen bodies, must have decapitated a woman for a man. but, the case arising, there was an established etiquette. so soon as the error was discovered the head was buried, and the exploit forgotten. there had never yet, in the history of samoa, occurred an instance in which a man had taken a woman's head and kept it and laid it at his monarch's feet. such was the strange and horrid spectacle, which must have immediately shaken the heart of laupepa, and has since covered the faces of his party with confusion. it is not quite certain if there were three, or only two: a recent attempt to reduce the number to one must be received with caution as an afterthought; the admissions in the beginning were too explicit, the panic of shame and fear had been too sweeping. there is scarce a woman of our native friends in apia who can speak upon the subject without terror; scarce any man without humiliation. and the shock was increased out of measure by the fact that the head--or one of the heads--was recognised; recognised for the niece of one of the greatest of court ladies; recognised for a taupo-sa, or sacred maid of a village from savaii. it seemed incredible that she--who had been chosen for virtue and beauty, who went everywhere attended by the fairest maidens, and watched over by vigilant duennas, whose part it was, in holiday costume, to receive guests, to make kava, and to be the leader of the revels, should become the victim of a brutal rally in a cow-park, and have her face exposed for a trophy to the victorious king. in all this muttering of aversion and alarm, no word has been openly said. no punishment, no disgrace, has been inflicted on the perpetrators of the outrage. king, consuls, and mission appear to have held their peace alike. i can understand a certain apathy in whites. head-hunting, they say, is a horrid practice: and will not stop to investigate its finer shades. but the samoan himself does not hesitate; for him the act is portentous; and if it go unpunished, and set a fashion, its consequences must be damnable. this is not a breach of a christian virtue, of something half-learned by rote, and from foreigners, in the last thirty years. it is a flying in the face of their own native, instinctive, and traditional standard: tenfold more ominous and degrading. and, taking the matter for all in all, it seems to me that head-hunting itself should be firmly and immediately suppressed. "how else can a man prove himself to be brave?" my friend asked. but often enough these are but fraudulent trophies. on the morrow of the fight at vaitele, an atua man discovered a body lying in the bush: he took the head. a day or two ago a party was allowed to visit manono. the king's troops on shore, observing them put off from the rebel island, leaped to the conclusion that this must be the wounded going to apia, launched off at once two armed boats and overhauled the others--after heads. the glory of such exploits is not apparent; their power for degradation strikes the eyes. lieutenant ulfsparre, our late swedish chief of police and commander of the forces, told his men that if any of them took a head his own hand should avenge it. that was talking; i should like to see all in the same story--king, consuls, and missionaries--included. iii the three powers have at last taken hold here in apia. but they came the day after the fair; and the immediate business on hand is very delicate. this morning, th, captain bickford, followed by two germans, sailed for manono. if he shall succeed in persuading mataafa to surrender, all may be well. if he cannot, this long train of blunders may end in--what is so often the result of blundering in the field of politics--a horrid massacre. those of us who remember the services of mataafa, his unfailing generosity and moderation in the past, and his bereavement in the present--as well as those who are only interested in a mass of men and women, many of them our familiar friends, now pent up on an island, and beleaguered by three warships and a samoan army--await the issue with dreadful expectation. viii to the editor of the "times" _vailima, apia, april_ , . sir,--i last addressed you on the misconduct of certain officials here, and i was so far happy as to have had my facts confirmed in every particular with but one exception. that exception, the affair of the dynamite, has been secretly smuggled away; you shall look in vain in either blue-book or white-book for any mention even of the charge; it is gone like the conjurer's orange. i might have been tempted to inquire into the reason of this conspiracy of silence, whether the idea was conceived in the bosoms of the three powers themselves, or whether in the breasts of the three consuls, because one of their number was directly implicated. and i might have gone on to consider the moral effect of such suppressions, and to show how very idle they were, and how very undignified, in the face of a small and compact population, where everybody sees and hears, where everybody knows, and talks, and laughs. but only a personal question remained, which i judged of no interest to the public. the essential was accomplished. baron senfft was gone already. mr. cedercrantz still lingered among us in the character (i may say) of a private citizen, his court at last closed, only his pocket open for the receipt of his salary, representing the dignity of the berlin act by sitting in the wind on mulinuu point for several consecutive months--a curious phantom or survival of a past age. the new officials were not as yet, because they had not been created. and we fell into our old estate of government by the three consuls, as it was in the beginning before the berlin act existed; as it seems it will be till the end, after the berlin act has been swept away. it was during the time of this triumvirate, and wholly at their instigation and under their conduct, that mataafa was defeated, driven to manono, and (three warships coming opportunely to hand) forced to surrender. i have been called a partisan of this chief's, and i accept the term. i thought him, on the whole, the most honest man in samoa, not excepting white officials. i ventured to think he had been hardly used by the treaty powers; i venture to think so still. it was my opinion that he should have been conjoined with malietoa as vice-king; and i have seen no reason to change that opinion, except that the time for it is past. mataafa has played and lost; an exile, and stripped of his titles, he walks the exiguous beach of jaluit, sees the german flag over his head, and yearns for the land wind of upolu. in the politics of samoa he is no longer a factor; and it only remains to speak of the manner in which his rebellion was suppressed and punished. deportation is, to the samoan mind, the punishment next to death, and thirteen of the chiefs engaged were deported with their leader. twenty-seven others were cast into the gaol. there they lie still; the government makes almost no attempt to feed them, and they must depend on the activity of their families and the charity of pitying whites. in the meantime, these very families are overloaded with fines, the exorbitant sum of more than £ , having been laid on the chiefs and villages that took part with mataafa. so far we can only complain that the punishments have been severe and the prison commissariat absent. but we have, besides, to regret the repeated scandals in connection with the conduct of the war, and we look in vain for any sign of punishment. the consuls had to employ barbarous hands; we might expect outrages; we did expect them to be punished, or at least disowned. thus, certain mataafa chiefs were landed, and landed from a british man-of-war, to be shamefully abused, beaten, and struck with whips along the main street of mulinuu. there was no punishment, there was even no inquiry; the three consuls winked. only one man was found honest and bold enough to open his mouth, and that was my old enemy, mr. cedercrantz. walking in mulinuu, in his character of disinterested spectator, gracefully desipient, he came across the throng of these rabblers and their victims. he had forgotten that he was an official, he remembered that he was a man. it was his last public appearance in samoa to interfere; it was certainly his best. again, the government troops in the field took the heads of girls, a detestable felony even in samoan eyes. they carried them in procession to mulinuu, and made of them an oblation to that melancholy effigy the king, who (sore against his will) sat on the verandah of the government building, publicly to receive this affront, publicly to utter the words of compliment and thanks which constitute the highest reward known to samoan bravery, and crowned as heroes those who should have been hanged like dogs. and again the three consuls unanimously winked. there was no punishment, there was even no inquiry. lastly, there is the story of manono. three hours were given to mataafa to accept the terms of the ultimatum, and the time had almost elapsed when his boats put forth, and more than elapsed before he came alongside the _katoomba_ and surrendered formally to captain bickford. in the dusk of the evening, when all the ships had sailed, flames were observed to rise from the island. mataafa flung himself on his knees before captain bickford, and implored protection for his women and children left behind, and the captain put back the ship and despatched one of the consuls to inquire. the _katoomba_ had been about seventy hours in the islands. captain bickford was a stranger; he had to rely on the consuls implicitly. at the same time, he knew that the government troops had been suffered to land for the purpose of restoring order, and with the understanding that no reprisals should be committed on the adherents of mataafa; and he charged the emissary with his emphatic disapproval, threats of punishment on the offenders, and reminders that the war had now passed under the responsibility of the three powers. i cannot condescend on what this consul saw during his visit; i can only say what he reported on his return. he reported all well, and the chiefs on the government side fraternising and making _ava_ with those on mataafa's. it may have been; at least it is strange. the burning of the island proceeded, fruit-trees were cut down, women stripped naked; a scene of brutal disorder reigned all night, and left behind it, over a quarter of the island, ruin. if they fraternised with mataafa's chieftains they must have been singularly inconsistent, for, the next we learn of the two parties, they were beating, spitting upon, and insulting them along the highway. the next morning in apia i asked the same consul if there had not been some houses burned. he told me no. i repeated the question, alleging the evidence of officers on board the _katoomba_ who had seen the flames increase and multiply as they steamed away; whereupon he had this remarkable reply--"o! huts, huts, huts! there isn't a house, a frame house, on the island." the case to plain men stands thus:--the people of manono were insulted, their food-trees cut down, themselves left houseless; not more than ten houses--i beg the consul's pardon, huts--escaped the rancour of their enemies; and to this day they may be seen to dwell in shanties on the site of their former residences, the pride of the samoan heart. the ejaculation of the consul was thus at least prophetic; and the traveller who revisits to-day the shores of the "garden island" may well exclaim in his turn, "huts, huts, huts!" the same measure was served out, in the mere wantonness of clan hatred, to apolima, a nearly inaccessible islet in the straits of the same name; almost the only property saved there (it is amusing to remember) being a framed portrait of lady jersey, which its custodian escaped with into the bush, as it were the palladium and chief treasure of the inhabitants. the solemn promise passed by consuls and captains in the name of the three powers was thus broken; the troops employed were allowed their bellyful of barbarous outrage. and again there was no punishment, there was no inquiry, there was no protest, there was not a word said to disown the act or disengage the honour of the three powers. i do not say the consuls desired to be disobeyed, though the case looks black against one gentleman, and even he is perhaps only to be accused of levity and divided interest; it was doubtless important for him to be early in apia, where he combines with his diplomatic functions the management of a thriving business as commission agent and auctioneer. i do say of all of them that they took a very nonchalant view of their duty. i told myself that this was the government of the consular triumvirate. when the new officials came it would cease; it would pass away like a dream in the night; and the solid _pax romana_, of the berlin general act would succeed. after all, what was there to complain of? the consuls had shown themselves no slovens and no sentimentalists. they had shown themselves not very particular, but in one sense very thorough. rebellion was to be put down swiftly and rigorously, if need were with the hand of cromwell; at least it was to be put down. and in these unruly islands i was prepared almost to welcome the face of rhadamanthine severity. and now it appears it was all a mistake. the government by the berlin general act is no more than a mask, and a very expensive one, for government by the consular triumvirate. samoa pays (or tries to pay) £ , a year to a couple of helpers; and they dare not call their souls their own. they take their walks abroad with an anxious eye on the three consuls, like two well-behaved children with three nurses; and the consuls, smiling superior, allow them to amuse themselves with the routine of business. but let trouble come, and the farce is suspended. at the whistle of a squall these heaven-born mariners seize the tiller, and the £ , amateurs are knocked sprawling on the bilge. at the first beat of the drum, the treaty officials are sent below, gently protesting, like a pair of old ladies, and behold! the indomitable consuls ready to clear the wreck and make the deadly cutlass shine. and their method, studied under the light of a new example, wears another air. they are not so rhadamanthine as we thought. something that we can only call a dignified panic presides over their deliberations. they have one idea to lighten the ship. "overboard with the ballast, the main-mast, and the chronometer!" is the cry. in the last war they got rid (first) of the honour of their respective countries, and (second) of all idea that samoa was to be governed in a manner consistent with civilisation, or government troops punished for any conceivable misconduct. in the present war they have sacrificed (first) the prestige of the new chief justice, and (second) the very principle for which they had contended so vigorously and so successfully in the war before--that rebellion was a thing to be punished. about the end of last year, that war, a war of the tupuas under tamasese the younger, which was a necessary pendant to the crushing of mataafa, began to make itself heard of in obscure grumblings. it was but a timid business. one half of the tupua party, the whole province of atua, never joined the rebellion, but sulked in their villages and spent the time in indecisive eloquence and barren embassies. tamasese, by a trick eminently samoan, "went in the high bush and the mountains," carrying a gun like a private soldier--served, in fact, with his own troops _incognito_--and thus, to samoan eyes, waived his dynastic pretensions. and the war, which was announced in the beginning with a long catalogue of complaints against the king and a distinct and ugly threat to the white population of apia, degenerated into a war of defence by the province of aána against the eminently brutal troops of savaii, in which sympathy was generally and justly with the rebels. savaii, raging with private clan hatred and the lust of destruction, was put at free quarters in the disaffected province, repeated on a wider scale the outrages of manono and apolima, cut down the food-trees, stripped and insulted the women, robbed the children of their little possessions, burned the houses, killed the horses, the pigs, the dogs, the cats, along one half of the seaboard of aána, and in the prosecution of these manly exploits managed (to the joy of all) to lose some sixty men killed, wounded, and drowned. government by the treaty of berlin was still erect when, one fine morning, in walked the three consuls, totally uninvited, with a proclamation prepared and signed by themselves, without any mention of anybody else. they had awoke to a sense of the danger of the situation and their own indispensable merits. the two children knew their day was over; the nurses had come for them. who can blame them for their timidity? the consuls have the ears of the governments; they are the authors of those despatches of which, in the ripeness of time, blue-books and white-books are made up; they had dismissed (with some little assistance from yourself) mm. cedercrantz and senfft von pilsach, and they had strangled, like an illegitimate child, the scandal of the dynamite. the chief justice and the president made haste to disappear between decks, and left the ship of the state to the three volunteers. there was no lack of activity. the consuls went up to atua, they went down to aána; the oarsmen toiled, the talking men pleaded; they are said to have met with threats in atua, and to have yielded to them--at least, in but a few days' time they came home to us with a new treaty of pacification. of course, and as before, the government troops were whitewashed; the savaii ruffians had been stripping women and killing cats in the interests of the berlin treaty; there was to be no punishment and no inquiry; let them retire to savaii with their booty and their dead. offensive as this cannot fail to be, there is still some slight excuse for it. the king is no more than one out of several chiefs of clans. his strength resides in the willing obedience of the tuamasaga, and a portion--i have to hope a bad portion--of the island of savaii. to punish any of these supporters must always be to accept a risk; and the golden opportunity had been allowed to slip at the moment of the mataafa war. what was more original was the treatment of the rebels. they were under arms that moment against the government; they had fought and sometimes vanquished; they had taken heads and carried them to tamasese. and the terms granted were to surrender fifty rifles, to make some twenty miles of road, to pay some old fines--and to be forgiven! the loss of fifty rifles to people destitute of any shadow of a gunsmith to repair them when they are broken, and already notoriously short of ammunition, is a trifle; the number is easy to be made up of those that are out of commission; for there is not the least stipulation as to their value; any synthesis of old iron and smashed wood that can be called a gun is to be taken from its force. the road, as likely as not, will never be made. the fines have nothing to say to this war; in any reasonably governed country they should never have figured in the treaty; they had been inflicted before, and were due before. before the rebellion began, the beach had rung with i know not what indiscreet bluster; the natives were to be read a lesson; tamasese (by name) was to be hanged; and after what had been done to mataafa, i was so innocent as to listen with awe. and now the rebellion has come, and this was the punishment! there might well have been a doubt in the mind of any chief who should have been tempted to follow the example of mataafa; but who is it that would not dare to follow tamasese? for some reason--i know not what, unless it be fear--there is a strong prejudice amongst whites against any interference with the bestial practice of head-hunting. they say it would be impossible to identify the criminals--a thing notoriously contrary to fact. a man does not take a head, as he steals an apple, for secret degustation; the essence of the thing is its publicity. after the girls' heads were brought into mulinuu i pressed mr. cusack-smith to take some action. he proposed a paper of protest, to be signed by the english residents. we made rival drafts; his was preferred, and i have heard no more of it. it has not been offered me to sign; it has not been published; under a paper-weight in the british consulate i suppose it may yet be found! meanwhile, his honour mr. ide, the new chief justice, came to samoa and took spirited action. he engineered an ordinance through the house of faipule, inflicting serious penalties on any who took heads, and the papers at the time applauded his success. the rebellion followed, the troops were passing to the front, and with excellent resolution mr. ide harangued the chiefs, reiterated the terms of the new law, and promised unfailing vengeance on offenders. it was boldly done, and he stood committed beyond possibility of retreat to enforce this his first important edict. great was the commotion, great the division, in the samoan mind. "o! we have had chief justices before," said a visitor to my house; "we know what they are; i will take a head if i can get one." others were more doubtful, but thought none could be so bold as lay a hand on the peculiar institution of these islands. yet others were convinced. savaii took heads; but when they sent one to mulinuu a messenger met them by the convent gates from the king; he would none of it, and the trophy must be ingloriously buried, savaii took heads also, and tamasese accepted the presentation. tuamasaga, on the other hand, obeyed the chief justice and (the occasion being thrust upon them) contented themselves with taking the dead man's ears. on the whole, about one-third of the troops engaged, and our not very firm monarch himself, kept the letter of the ordinance. and it was upon this scene of partial, but really cheering, success that the consuls returned with their general pardon! the chief justice was not six months old in the islands. he had succeeded to a position complicated by the failure of his predecessor. personally, speaking face to face with the chiefs, he had put his authority in pledge that the ordinance should be enforced. and he found himself either forgotten or betrayed by the three consuls. these volunteers had made a liar of him; they had administered to him, before all samoa, a triple buffet. i must not wonder, though i may still deplore, that mr. ide accepted the position thus made for him. there was a deal of alarm in apia. to refuse the treaty thus hastily and shamefully cobbled up would have increased it tenfold. already, since the declaration of war and the imminence of the results, one of the papers had ratted, and the white population were girding at the new ordinance. it was feared besides that the native government, though they had voted, were secretly opposed to it. it was almost certain they would try to prevent its application to the loyalist offenders of savaii. the three consuls in the negotiations of the treaty had fully illustrated both their want of sympathy with the ordinance and their want of regard for the position of the chief justice. "in short, i am to look for no support, whether physical or moral?" asked mr. ide; and i could make but the one answer--"neither physical nor moral." it was a hard choice; and he elected to accept the terms of the treaty without protest. and the next war (if we are to continue to enjoy the benefits of the berlin act) will probably show us the result in an enlarged assortment of heads, and the next difficulty perhaps prove to us the diminished prestige of the chief justice. mr. ide announces his intention of applying the law in the case of another war; but i very much fear the golden opportunity has again been lost. about one-third of the troops believed him this time; how many will believe him the next? it will doubtless be answered that the consuls were affected by the alarm in apia and actuated by the desire to save white lives. i am far from denying that there may be danger; and i believe that the way we are going is the best way to bring it on. in the progressive decivilisation of these islands--evidenced by the female heads taken in the last war and the treatment of white missionaries in this--our methods of pull devil, pull baker, general indecision, and frequent (though always dignified) panic are the best calculated in the world to bring on a massacre of whites. a consistent dignity, a consistent and independent figure of a chief justice, the enforcement of the laws, and above all, of the laws against barbarity, a consular board the same in the presence as in the absence of warships, will be found our best defence. much as i have already occupied of your space, i would yet ask leave to draw two conclusions. and first, mataafa and tamasese both made war. both wars were presumably dynastic in character, though the tupua not rallying to tamasese as he had expected led him to cover his design. that he carried a gun himself, and himself fired, will not seem to european ears a very important alleviation. tamasese received heads, sitting as a king, under whatever name; mataafa had forbidden the taking of heads--of his own accord, and before mr. ide had taken office. tamasese began with threats against the white population; mataafa never ceased to reassure them and to extend an effectual protection to their property. what is the difference between their cases? that mataafa was an old man, already famous, who had served his country well, had been appointed king of samoa, had served in the office, and had been set aside--not, indeed, in the text, but in the protocols of the berlin act, by name? i do not grudge his good fortune to tamasese, who is an amiable, spirited, and handsome young man; and who made a barbarous war, indeed, since heads were taken after the old samoan practice, but who made it without any of the savagery which we have had reason to comment upon in the camp of his adversaries. i do not grudge the invidious fate that has befallen my old friend and his followers. at first i believed these judgments to be the expression of a severe but equal justice. i find them, on further experience, to be mere measures of the degree of panic in the consuls, varying directly as the distance of the nearest war-ship. the judgments under which they fell have now no sanctity; they form no longer a precedent; they may perfectly well be followed by a pardon, or a partial pardon, as the authorities shall please. the crime of mataafa is to have read strictly the first article of the berlin act, and not to have read at all (as how should he when it has never been translated?) the insidious protocol which contains its significance; the crime of his followers is to have practised clan fidelity, and to have in consequence raised an _imperium in imperio_, and fought against the government. their punishment is to be sent to a coral atoll and detained there prisoners. it does not sound much; it is a great deal. taken from a mountain island, they must inhabit a narrow strip of reef sunk to the gunwale in the ocean. sand, stone, and cocoa-nuts, stone, sand, and pandanus, make the scenery. there is no grass. here these men, used to the cool, bright mountain rivers of samoa, must drink with loathing the brackish water of the coral. the food upon such islands is distressing even to the omnivorous white. to the samoan, who has that shivering delicacy and ready disgust of the child or the rustic mountaineer, it is intolerable. i remember what our present king looked like, what a phantom he was, when he returned from captivity in the same place. lastly, these fourteen have been divorced from their families. the daughter of mataafa somehow broke the _consigne_ and accompanied her father; but she only. to this day one of them, palepa, the wife of faamuina, is dunning the authorities in vain to be allowed to join her husband--she a young and handsome woman, he an old man and infirm. i cannot speak with certainty, but i believe they are allowed no communication with the prisoners, nor the prisoners with them. my own open experience is brief and conclusive--i have not been suffered to send my friends one stick of tobacco or one pound of _ava_. so much to show the hardships are genuine. i have to ask a pardon for these unhappy victims of untranslated protocols and inconsistent justice. after the case of tamasese, i ask it almost as of right. as for the other twenty-seven in the gaol, let the doors be opened at once. they have showed their patience, they have proved their loyalty long enough. on two occasions, when the guards deserted in a body, and again when the aána prisoners fled, they remained--one may truly say--voluntary prisoners. and at least let them be fed! i have paid taxes to the samoan government for some four years, and the most sensible benefit i have received in return has been to be allowed to feed their prisoners. second, if the farce of the berlin act is to be gone on with, it will be really necessary to moderate among our five sovereigns--six if we are to count poor malietoa, who represents to the life the character of the hare and many friends. it is to be presumed that mr. ide and herr schmidt were chosen for their qualities; it is little good we are likely to get by them if, at every wind of rumour, the three consuls are to intervene. the three consuls are paid far smaller salaries, they have no right under the treaty to interfere with the government of autonomous samoa, and they have contrived to make themselves all in all. the king and a majority of the faipule fear them and look to them alone, while the legitimate adviser occupies a second place, if that. the misconduct of mm. cedercrantz and senfft von pilsach was so extreme that the consuls were obliged to encroach; and now when these are gone the authority acquired in the contest remains with the encroachers. on their side they have no rights, but a tradition of victory, the ear of the governments at home, and the _vis viva_ of the war-ships. for the poor treaty officials, what have they but rights very obscurely expressed and very weakly defended by their predecessors? thus it comes about that people who are scarcely mentioned in the text of the treaty are, to all intents and purposes, our only rulers. robert louis stevenson. ix to the editor of the "times" _vailima, samoa, may_ , . sir,--i told you in my last that the consuls had tinkered up a treaty of peace with the rebels of aána. a month has gone by, and i would not weary readers your with a story so intricate and purposeless. the consuls seem to have gone backward and forward, to and fro. to periods of agitated activity, comparable to that of three ants about a broken nest, there succeeded seasons in which they rested from their labours and ruefully considered the result. i believe i am not overstating the case when i say that this treaty was at least twice rehandled, and the date of submission changed, in the interval. and yesterday at length we beheld the first-fruits of the consular diplomacy. a boat came in from aána bearing the promised fifty stand of arms--in other words, a talking man, a young chief, and some boatmen in charge of a boat-load of broken ironmongery. the government (well advised for once) had placed the embassy under an escort of german blue-jackets, or i think it must have gone ill with the ambassadors. so much for aána and the treaty. with atua, the other disaffected province, we have been and are on the brink of war. the woods have been patrolled, the army sent to the front, blood has been shed. it consists with my knowledge that the loyalist troops marched against the enemy under a hallucination. one and all believed, a majority of them still believe, that the war-ships were to follow and assist them. who told them so? if i am to credit the rumours of the natives, as well as the gossip of official circles, a promise had been given to this effect by the consuls, or at least by one of the consuls. and when i say that a promise had been given, i mean that it had been sold. i mean that the natives had to buy it by submissions. let me take an example of these submissions. the native government increased the salary of mr. gurr, the natives' advocate. it was not a largesse; it was rather an act of tardy justice, by which mr. gurr received at last the same emoluments as his predecessor in the office. at the same time, with a bankrupt treasury, all fresh expenses are and must be regarded askance. the president, acting under a so-called treasury regulation, refused to honour the king's order. and a friendly suit was brought, which turned on the validity of this treasury regulation. this was more than doubtful. the president was a treaty official; hence bound by the treaty. the three consuls had been acting for him in his absence, using his powers and no other powers whatever under the treaty; and the three consuls so acting had framed a regulation by which the powers of the president were greatly extended. this was a vicious circle with a vengeance. but the consuls, with the ordinary partiality of parents for reformed offspring, regarded the regulation as the apple of their eye. they made themselves busy in its defence, they held interviews, it is reported they drew pleas; and it seemed to all that the chief justice hesitated. it is certain at least that he long delayed sentence. and during this delay the consuls showed their power. the native government was repeatedly called together, and at last forced to rescind the order in favour of mr. gurr. it was not done voluntarily, for the government resisted. it was not done by conviction, for the government had taken the first opportunity to restore it. if the consuls did not appear personally in the affair--and i do not know that they did not--they made use of the president as a mouthpiece; and the president delayed the deliberations of the government until he should receive further instructions from the consuls. ten pounds is doubtless a considerable affair to a bankrupt government. but what were the consuls doing in this matter of inland administration? what was their right to interfere? what were the arguments with which they overcame the resistance of the government? i am either very much misinformed, or these gentlemen were trafficking in a merchandise which they did not possess, and selling at a high price the assistance of the war-ships over which (as now appears) they have no control. remark the irony of fate. this affair had no sooner been settled, mr. gurr's claims cut at the very root, and the treasury regulation apparently set beyond cavil, than the chief justice pulled himself together, and, taking his life in his right hand, delivered sentence in the case. great was the surprise. because the chief justice had balked so long, it was supposed he would never have taken the leap. and here, upon a sudden, he came down with a decision flat against the consuls and their treasury regulation. the government have, i understand, restored mr. gurr's salary in consequence. the chief justice, after giving us all a very severe fright, has reinstated himself in public opinion by this tardy boldness; and the consuls find their conduct judicially condemned. it was on a personal affront that the consuls turned on mr. cedercrantz. here is another affront, far more galling and public! i suppose it is but a coincidence that i should find at the same time the clouds beginning to gather about mr. ide's head. in a telegram, dated from auckland, march , and copyrighted by the associated press, i find the whole blame of the late troubles set down to his account. it is the work of a person worthy of no trust. in one of his charges, and in one only, he is right. the chief justice fined and imprisoned certain chiefs of aána under circumstances far from clear; the act was, to say the least of it, susceptible of misconstruction, and by natives will always be thought of as an act of treachery. but, even for this, it is not possible for me to split the blame justly between mr. ide and the three consuls. in these early days, as now, the three consuls were always too eager to interfere where they had no business, and the chief justice was always too patient or too timid to set them in their place. for the rest of the telegram no qualification is needed. "the chief justice was compelled to take steps to disarm the natives." he took no such steps; he never spoke of disarmament except publicly and officially to disown the idea; it was during the days of the consular triumvirate that the cry began. "the chief justice called upon malietoa to send a strong force," etc.; the chief justice "disregarded the menacing attitude assumed by the samoans," etc.--these are but the delusions of a fever. the chief justice has played no such part; he never called for forces; he never disregarded menacing attitudes, not even those of the consuls. what we have to complain of in mr. ide and mr. schmidt is strangely different. we complain that they have been here since november, and the three consuls are still allowed, when they are not invited, to interfere in the least and the greatest; that they have been here for upwards of six months, and government under the berlin treaty is still overridden--and i may say overlaid--by the government of the consular triumvirate. this is the main fountain of our present discontents. this it is that we pray to be relieved from. out of six sovereigns, exercising incongruous rights or usurpations on this unhappy island, we pray to be relieved of three. the berlin treaty was not our choice; but if we are to have it at all, let us have it plain. let us have the text, and nothing but the text. let the three consuls who have no position under the treaty cease from troubling, cease from raising war and making peace, from passing illegal regulations in the face of day, and from secretly blackmailing the samoan government into renunciations of its independence. afterwards, when we have once seen it in operation, we shall be able to judge whether government under the berlin treaty suits or does not suit our case.--i am, sir, etc., robert louis stevenson. x from the "daily chronicle," _march_ , . [subjoined is the full text of the late robert louis stevenson's last letter to mr. j. f. hogan, m.p. apart from its pathetic interest as one of the final compositions of the distinguished novelist, its eloquent terms of pleading for his exiled friend mataafa, and the light it sheds on samoan affairs, make it a very noteworthy and instructive document.--ed. _d.c._] _vailima, oct._ , . j. f. hogan, esq., m.p. dear sir,--my attention was attracted the other day by the thoroughly pertinent questions which you put in the house of commons, and which the government failed to answer. it put an idea in my head that you were perhaps the man who might take up a task which i am almost ready to give up. mataafa is now known to be my hobby. people laugh when they see any mention of his name over my signature, and the _times_, while it still grants me hospitality, begins to lead the chorus. i know that nothing can be more fatal to mataafa's cause than that he should be made ridiculous, and i cannot help feeling that a man who makes his bread by writing fiction labours under the disadvantage of suspicion when he touches on matters of fact. if i were even backed up before the world by one other voice, people might continue to listen, and in the end something might be done. but so long as i stand quite alone, telling the same story, which becomes, apparently, not only more tedious, but less credible by repetition, i feel that i am doing nothing good, possibly even some evil. now, sir, you have shown by your questions in the house, not only that you remember mataafa, but that you are instructed in his case, and this exposes you to the trouble of reading this letter. mataafa was made the prisoner of the three powers. he had been guilty of rebellion; but surely rather formally than really. he was the appointed king of samoa. the treaty set him aside, and he obeyed the three powers. his successor--or i should rather say his successor's advisers and surroundings--fell out with him. he was disgusted by the spectacle of their misgovernment. in this humour he fell to the study of the berlin act, and was misled by the famous passage, "his successor shall be duly elected according to the laws and customs of samoa." it is to be noted that what i will venture to call the infamous protocol--a measure equally of german vanity, english cowardice, and american _incuria_--had not been and _has never yet been_ translated into the samoan language. they feared light because their works were darkness. for what he did during what i can only call his candidature, i must refer you to the last chapter of my book. it was rebellion to the three powers; to him it was not rebellion. the troops of the king attacked him first. the sudden arrival and sudden action of captain bickford concluded the affair in the very beginning. mataafa surrendered. he surrendered to captain bickford. he was brought back to apia on captain bickford's ship. i shall never forget the captain pointing to the british ensign and saying, "tell them they are safe under that." and the next thing we learned, mataafa and his chiefs were transferred to a german war-ship and carried to the marshalls. who was responsible for this? who is responsible now for the care and good treatment of these political prisoners? i am far from hinting that the germans actually maltreat him. i know even that many of the germans regard him with respect. but i can only speak of what i know here. it is impossible to send him or any of his chiefs either a present or a letter. i believe the mission (catholic) has been allowed some form of communication. on the same occasion i sent down letters and presents. they were refused; and the officer of the deck on the german war-ship had so little reticence as to pass the remark, "o, you see, you like mataafa; we don't." in short, communication is so completely sundered that for anything we can hear in samoa, they may all have been hanged at the yard-arm two days out. to take another instance. the high chief faamoina was recently married to a young and pleasing wife. she desired to follow her husband, an old man, in bad health, and so deservedly popular that he had been given the by-name of "_papalagi mativa_," or "poor white man," on account of his charities to our countrymen. she was refused. again and again she has renewed her applications to be allowed to rejoin him, and without the least success. it has been decreed by some one, i know not whom, that faamoina must have no one to nurse him, and that his wife must be left in the anomalous and dangerous position which the treaty powers have made for her. i have wearied myself, and i fear others, by my attempts to get a passage for her or to have her letters sent. every one sympathises. the german ships now in port are loud in expressions of disapproval and professions of readiness to help her. but to whom can we address ourselves? who is responsible? who is the unknown power that sent mataafa in a german ship to the marshalls, instead of in an english ship to fiji? that has decreed since that he shall receive not even inconsiderable gifts and open letters? and that keeps separated faamoina and his wife? now, dear sir, these are the facts, and i think that i may be excused for being angry. at the same time, i am well aware that an angry man is a bore. i am a man with a grievance, and my grievance has the misfortune to be very small and very far away. it is very small, for it is only the case of under a score of brown-skinned men who have been dealt with in the dark by i know not whom. and i want to know. i want to know by whose authority mataafa was given over into german hands. i want to know by whose authority, and for how long a term of years, he is condemned to the miserable exile of a low island. and i want to know how it happens that what is sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander in samoa?--that the german enemy mataafa has been indefinitely exiled for what is after all scarce more than constructive rebellion, and the german friend tamasese, for a rebellion which has lasted long enough to threaten us with famine, and was disgraced in its beginning by ominous threats against the whites, has been punished by a fine of fifty rifles? true, i could sympathise with the german officers in their embarrassment. here was the son of the old king whom they had raised, and whom they had deserted. what an unenviable office was theirs when they must make war upon, suppress, and make a feint of punishing, this man to whom they stood bound by a hereditary alliance, and to whose father they had already failed so egregiously! they were loyal all round. they were loyal to their tamasese, and got him off with his fine. and shall i not be a little loyal to mataafa? and will you not help me? he is now an old man, very piously inclined, and i believe he would enter at least the lesser orders of the church if he were suffered to come back. but i do not even ask so much as this, though i hope it. it would be enough if he were brought back to fiji, back to the food and fresh water of his childhood, back into the daylight from the darkness of the marshalls, where some of us could see him, where we could write to him and receive answers, where he might pass a tolerable old age. if you can help me to get this done, i am sure that you will never regret it. in its small way, this is another case of toussaint l'ouverture, not so monstrous if you like, not on so large a scale, but with circumstances of small perfidy that make it almost as odious. i may tell you in conclusion that, circumstances co-operating with my tedious insistence, the last of the mataafa chiefs here in apia has been liberated from gaol. all this time they stayed of their own free will, thinking it might injure mataafa if they escaped when others did. and you will see by the enclosed paper how these poor fellows spent the first hours of their liberty.[ ] you will see also that i am not the firebrand that i am sometimes painted, and that in helping me, if you shall decide to do so, you will be doing nothing against the peace and prosperity of samoa. with many excuses for having occupied so much of your valuable time, i remain, yours truly, robert louis stevenson. _p.s._--on revisal, i observe some points: in the first place, i do not believe captain bickford was to blame; i suspect him to have been a victim. i have been told, but it seems incredible, that he underwent an examination about mataafa's daughter having been allowed to accompany him. certainly he liked his job little, and some of his colleagues less. r. l. s. _oct._ . latest intelligence. we have received at last a letter from mataafa. he is well treated and has good food; only complains of not hearing from samoa. this has very much relieved our minds. but why were they previously left in the dark? r. l. s. footnote: [ ] _i.e._ in building a section of a new road to mr. stevenson's house. the paper referred to is a copy of the _samoa times_, containing a report of the dinner given by mr. stevenson at vailima to inaugurate this new road. letters to young people i to miss b... _vailima plantation [spring_, ]. dear friend,[ ]--please salute your pupils in my name, and tell them that a long, lean, elderly man who lives right through on the underside of the world, so that down in your cellar you are nearer him than the people in the street, desires his compliments. this man lives on an island which is not very long and is extremely narrow. the sea beats round it very hard, so that it is difficult to get to shore. there is only one harbour where ships come, and even that is very wild and dangerous; four ships of war were broken there a little while ago, and one of them is still lying on its side on a rock clean above water, where the sea threw it as you might throw your fiddle-bow upon the table. all round the harbour the town is strung out: it is nothing but wooden houses, only there are some churches built of stone. they are not very large, but the people have never seen such fine buildings. almost all the houses are of one story. away at one end of the village lives the king of the whole country. his palace has a thatched roof which rests upon posts; there are no walls, but when it blows and rains, they have venetian blinds which they let down between the posts, making all very snug. there is no furniture, and the king and the queen and the courtiers sit and eat on the floor, which is of gravel: the lamp stands there too, and every now and then it is upset. these good folk wear nothing but a kilt about their waists, unless to go to church or for a dance on the new year or some great occasion. the children play marbles all along the street; and though they are generally very jolly, yet they get awfully cross over their marbles, and cry and fight just as boys and girls do at home. another amusement in country places is to shoot fish with a little bow and arrow. all round the beach there is bright shallow water, where the fishes can be seen darting or lying in shoals. the child trots round the shore, and whenever he sees a fish, lets fly an arrow, and misses, and then wades in after his arrow. it is great fun (i have tried it) for the child, and i never heard of it doing any harm to the fishes, so what could be more jolly? the road to this lean man's house is uphill all the way, and through forests; the trees are not so much unlike those at home, only here and there some very queer ones are mixed with them--cocoa-nut palms, and great trees that are covered with bloom like red hawthorn but not near so bright; and from them all thick creepers hang down like ropes, and ugly-looking weeds that they call orchids grow in the forks of the branches; and on the ground many prickly things are dotted, which they call pine-apples. i suppose every one has eaten pine-apple drops. on the way up to the lean man's house you pass a little village, all of houses like the king's house, so that as you ride by you can see everybody sitting at dinner, or, if it is night, lying in their beds by lamplight; because all the people are terribly afraid of ghosts, and would not lie in the dark for anything. after the village, there is only one more house, and that is the lean man's. for the people are not very many, and live all by the sea, and the whole inside of the island is desert woods and mountains. when the lean man goes into the forest, he is very much ashamed to own it, but he is always in a terrible fright. the wood is so great, and empty, and hot, and it is always filled with curious noises: birds cry like children, and bark like dogs; and he can hear people laughing and felling trees; and the other day (when he was far in the woods) he heard a sound like the biggest mill-wheel possible, going with a kind of dot-and-carry-one movement like a dance. that was the noise of an earthquake away down below him in the bowels of the earth; and that is the same thing as to say away up toward you in your cellar in kilburn. all these noises make him feel lonely and scared, and he doesn't quite know what he is scared of. once when he was just about to cross a river, a blow struck him on the top of his head, and knocked him head-foremost down the bank and splash into the water. it was a nut, i fancy, that had fallen from a tree, by which accident people are sometimes killed. but at the time he thought it was a black boy. "aha," say you, "and what is a black boy?" well, there are here a lot of poor people who are brought to samoa from distant islands to labour for the germans. they are not at all like the king and his people, who are brown and very pretty: for these are black as negroes and as ugly as sin, poor souls, and in their own land they live all the time at war, and cook and eat men's flesh. the germans make them work; and every now and then some run away into the bush, as the forest is called, and build little sheds of leaves, and eat nuts and roots and fruits, and dwell there by themselves. sometimes they are bad, and wild, and people whisper to each other that some of them have gone back to their horrid old habits, and catch men and women in order to eat them. but it is very likely not true; and the most of them are poor, half-starved, pitiful creatures, like frightened dogs. their life is all very well when the sun shines, as it does eight or nine months in the year. but it is very different the rest of the time. the wind rages then most violently. the great trees thrash about like whips; the air is filled with leaves and branches flying like birds; and the sound of the trees falling shakes the earth. it rains, too, as it never rains at home. you can hear a shower while it is yet half a mile away, hissing like a shower-bath in the forest; and when it comes to you, the water blinds your eyes, and the cold drenching takes your breath away as though some one had struck you. in that kind of weather it must be dreadful indeed to live in the woods, one man alone by himself. and you must know that if the lean man feels afraid to be in the forest, the people of the island and the black boys are much more afraid than he; for they believe the woods to be quite filled with spirits; some like pigs, and some like flying things; but others (and these are thought the most dangerous) in the shape of beautiful young women and young men, beautifully dressed in the island manner with fine kilts and fine necklaces, and crosses of scarlet seeds and flowers. woe betide him or her who gets to speak with one of these! they will be charmed out of their wits, and come home again quite silly, and go mad and die. so that the poor runaway black boy must be always trembling, and looking about for the coming of the demons. sometimes the women-demons go down out of the woods into the villages; and here is a tale the lean man heard last year: one of the islanders was sitting in his house, and he had cooked fish. there came along the road two beautiful young women, dressed as i told you, who came into his house, and asked for some of his fish. it is the fashion in the islands always to give what is asked, and never to ask folks' names. so the man gave them fish, and talked to them in the island jesting way. presently he asked one of the women for her red necklace; which is good manners and their way: he had given the fish, and he had a right to ask for something back. "i will give it you by and by," said the woman, and she and her companion went away; but he thought they were gone very suddenly, and the truth is they had vanished. the night was nearly come, when the man heard the voice of the woman crying that he should come to her, and she would give the necklace. he looked out, and behold! she was standing calling him from the top of the sea, on which she stood as you might stand on the table. at that, fear came on the man; he fell on his knees and prayed, and the woman disappeared. it was said afterward that this was once a woman, indeed, but she should have died a thousand years ago, and has lived all that while as an evil spirit in the woods beside the spring of a river. sau-mai-afe[ ] is her name, in case you want to write to her. ever your friend (for whom i thank the stars), tusitala (tale-writer). ii to miss b... _vailima plantation, aug._ . ... the lean man is exceedingly ashamed of himself, and offers his apologies to the little girls in the cellar just above. if they will be so good as to knock three times upon the floor, he will hear it on the other side of his floor, and will understand that he is forgiven. i left you and the children still on the road to the lean man's house, where a great part of the forest has now been cleared away. it comes back again pretty quick, though not quite so high; but everywhere, except where the weeders have been kept busy, young trees have sprouted up, and the cattle and the horses cannot be seen as they feed. in this clearing there are two or three houses scattered about, and between the two biggest i think the little girls in the cellar would first notice a sort of thing like a gridiron on legs, made of logs of wood. sometimes it has a flag flying on it, made of rags of old clothes. it is a fort (as i am told) built by the person here who would be much the most interesting to the girls in the cellar. this is a young gentleman of eleven years of age, answering to the name of austin. it was after reading a book about the red indians that he thought it more prudent to create this place of strength. as the red indians are in north america, and this fort seems to me a very useless kind of building, i anxiously hope that the two may never be brought together. when austin is not engaged in building forts, nor on his lessons, which are just as annoying to him as other children's lessons are to them, he walks sometimes in the bush, and if anybody is with him, talks all the time. when he is alone i don't think he says anything, and i dare say he feels very lonely and frightened, just as the samoan does, at the queer noises and the endless lines of the trees. he finds the strangest kinds of seeds, some of them bright-coloured like lollipops, or really like precious stones; some of them in odd cases like tobacco-pouches. he finds and collects all kinds of little shells, with which the whole ground is scattered, and that, though they are the shells of land creatures like our snails, are of nearly as many shapes and colours as the shells on our sea-beaches. in the streams that come running down out of our mountains, all as clear and bright as mirror-glass, he sees eels and little bright fish that sometimes jump together out of the surface of the brook in a spray of silver, and fresh-water prawns which lie close under the stones, looking up at him through the water with eyes the colour of a jewel. he sees all kinds of beautiful birds, some of them blue and white, and some of them coloured like our pigeons at home; and these last, the little girls in the cellar may like to know, live almost entirely on wild nutmegs as they fall ripe off the trees. another little bird he may sometimes see, as the lean man saw him only this morning: a little fellow not so big as a man's hand, exquisitely neat, of a pretty bronzy black like ladies' shoes, who sticks up behind him (much as a peacock does) his little tail, shaped and fluted like a scallop-shell. here there are a lot of curious and interesting things that austin sees all round him every day; and when i was a child at home in the old country i used to play and pretend to myself that i saw things of the same kind--that the rooms were full of orange and nutmeg trees, and the cold town gardens outside the windows were alive with parrots and with lions. what do the little girls in the cellar think that austin does? he makes believe just the other way; he pretends that the strange great trees with their broad leaves and slab-sided roots are european oaks; and the places on the road up (where you and i and the little girls in the cellar have already gone) he calls old-fashioned, far-away european names, just as if you were to call the cellar-stairs and the corner of the next street--if you could only manage to pronounce their names--upolu and savaii. and so it is with all of us, with austin, and the lean man, and the little girls in the cellar; wherever we are, it is but a stage on the way to somewhere else, and whatever we do, however well we do it, it is only a preparation to do something else that shall be different. but you must not suppose that austin does nothing but build forts, and walk among the woods, and swim in the rivers. on the contrary, he is sometimes a very busy and useful fellow; and i think the little girls in the cellar would have admired him very nearly as much as he admired himself, if they had seen him setting off on horseback, with his hand on his hip, and his pocket full of letters and orders, at the head of quite a procession of huge white cart-horses with pack-saddles, and big, brown native men with nothing on but gaudy kilts. mighty well he managed all his commissions; and those who saw him ordering and eating his single-handed luncheon in the queer little chinese restaurant on the beach, declare he looked as if the place, and the town, and the whole archipelago belonged to him. but i am not going to let you suppose that this great gentleman at the head of all his horses and his men, like the king of france in the old rhyme, would be thought much of a dandy on the streets of london. on the contrary, if he could be seen with his dirty white cap and his faded purple shirt, and his little brown breeks that do not reach his knees, and the bare shanks below, and the bare feet stuck in the stirrup-leathers--for he is not quite long enough to reach the irons--i am afraid the little girls and boys in your part of the town might be very much inclined to give him a penny in charity. so you see that a very big man in one place might seem very small potatoes in another, just as the king's palace here (of which i told you in my last) would be thought rather a poor place of residence by a surrey gipsy. and if you come to that, even the lean man himself, who is no end of an important person, if he were picked up from the chair where he is now sitting, and slung down, feet foremost, in the neighbourhood of charing cross, would probably have to escape into the nearest shop, or take the risk of being mobbed. and the ladies of his family, who are very pretty ladies, and think themselves uncommon well-dressed for samoa, would (if the same thing were to be done to them) be extremely glad to get into a cab.... tusitala. iii under cover to miss b... _vailima, th sept. ._ dear children in the cellar,--i told you before something of the black boys who come here to work on the plantations, and some of whom run away and live a wild life in the forests of the island.[ ] now i want to tell you of one who lived in the house of the lean man. like the rest of them here, he is a little fellow, and when he goes about in old battered cheap european clothes, looks very small and shabby. when first he came he was as lean as a tobacco-pipe, and his smile (like that of almost all the others) was the sort that half makes you wish to smile yourself, and half wish to cry. however, the boys in the kitchen took him in hand and fed him up. they would set him down alone to table, and wait upon him till he had his fill, which was a good long time to wait. the first thing we noticed was that his little stomach began to stick out like a pigeon's breast; and then the food got a little wider spread, and he started little calves to his legs; and last of all, he began to get quite saucy and impudent. he is really what you ought to call a young man, though i suppose nobody in the whole wide world has any idea of his age; and as far as his behaviour goes, you can only think of him as a big little child with a good deal of sense. when austin built his fort against the indians, arick (for that is the black boy's name) liked nothing so much as to help him. and this is very funny, when you think that of all the dangerous savages in this island arick is one of the most dangerous. the other day, besides, he made austin a musical instrument of the sort they use in his own country--a harp with only one string. he took a stick about three feet long and perhaps four inches round. the under side he hollowed out in a deep trench to serve as sounding-box; the two ends of the upper side he made to curve upward like the ends of a canoe, and between these he stretched the single string. he plays upon it with a match or a little piece of stick, and sings to it songs of his own country, of which no person here can understand a single word, and which are, very likely, all about fighting with his enemies in battle, and killing them, and, i am sorry to say, cooking them in a ground-oven, and eating them for supper when the fight is over. for arick is really what you call a savage, though a savage is a very different sort of a person, and very much nicer than he is made to appear in little books. he is the kind of person that everybody smiles to, or makes faces at, or gives a smack as he goes by; the sort of person that all the girls on the plantation give the best seat to and help first, and love to decorate with flowers and ribbons, and yet all the while are laughing at him; the sort of person who likes best to play with austin, and whom austin, perhaps (when he is allowed), likes best to play with. he is all grins and giggles and little steps out of dances, and little droll ways to attract people's attention and set them laughing. and yet, when you come to look at him closely, you will find that his body is all covered with _scars_! this happened when he was a child. there was war, as is the way in these wild islands, between his village and the next, much as if there were war in london between one street and another; and all the children ran about playing in the middle of the trouble, and, i dare say, took no more notice of the war than you children in london do of a general election. but sometimes, at general elections, english children may get run over by processions in the street; and it chanced that as little arick was running about in the bush, and very busy about his playing, he ran into the midst of the warriors on the other side. these speared him with a poisoned spear; and his own people, when they had found him, in order to cure him of the poison scored him with knives that were probably made of fish-bone. this is a very savage piece of child-life; and arick, for all his good nature, is still a very savage person. i have told you how the black boys sometimes run away from the plantations, and live alone in the forest, building little sheds to protect them from the rain, and sometimes planting little gardens for food; but for the most part living the best they can upon the nuts of the trees and the yams that they dig with their hands out of the earth. i do not think there can be anywhere in the world people more wretched than these runaways. they cannot return, for they would only return to be punished; they can never hope to see again their own people--indeed, i do not know what they can hope, but just to find enough yams every day to keep them from starvation. and in the wet season of the year, which is our summer and your winter, when the rain falls day after day far harder and louder than the loudest thunder-plump that ever fell in england, and the room is so dark that the lean man is sometimes glad to light his lamp to write by, i can think of nothing so dreary as the state of these poor runaways in the houseless bush. you are to remember, besides, that the people of the island hate and fear them because they are cannibals; sit and tell tales of them about their lamps at night in their own comfortable houses, and are sometimes afraid to lie down to sleep if they think there is a lurking black boy in the neighbourhood. well, now, arick is of their own race and language, only he is a little more lucky because he has not run away; and how do you think that he proposed to help them? he asked if he might not have a gun. "what do you want with a gun, arick?" was asked. he answered quite simply, and with his nice, good-natured smile, that if he had a gun he would go up into the high bush and shoot black boys as men shoot pigeons. he said nothing about eating them, nor do i think he really meant to; i think all he wanted was to clear the plantation of vermin, as gamekeepers at home kill weasels or rats. the other day he was sent on an errand to the german company where many of the black boys live. it was very late when he came home. he had a white bandage round his head, his eyes shone, and he could scarcely speak for excitement. it seems some of the black boys who were his enemies at home had attacked him, one with a knife. by his own account, he had fought very well; but the odds were heavy. the man with the knife had cut him both in the head and back; he had been struck down; and if some black boys of his own side had not come to the rescue, he must certainly have been killed. i am sure no christmas-box could make any of you children so happy as this fight made arick. a great part of the next day he neglected his work to play upon the one-stringed harp and sing songs about his great victory. to-day, when he is gone upon his holiday, he has announced that he is going back to the german firm to have another battle and another triumph. i do not think he will go, all the same, or i should be uneasy; for i do not want to have my arick killed; and there is no doubt that if he begins this fight again, he will be likely to go on with it very far. for i have seen him once when he saw, or thought he saw, an enemy. it was one of those dreadful days of rain, the sound of it like a great waterfall, or like a tempest of wind blowing in the forest; and there came to our door two runaway black boys seeking refuge. in such weather as that my enemy's dog (as shakespeare says) should have had a right to shelter. but when arick saw the two poor rogues coming with their empty stomachs and drenched clothes, one of them with a stolen cutlass in his hand, through that world of falling water, he had no thought of any pity in his heart. crouching behind one of the pillars of the verandah, to which he clung with his two hands, his mouth drew back into a strange sort of smile, his eyes grew bigger and bigger, and his whole face was just like the one word murder in big capitals. but i have told you a great deal too much about poor arick's savage nature, and now i must tell you of a great amusement he had the other day. there came an english ship of war into the harbour, and the officers good-naturedly gave an entertainment of songs and dances and a magic lantern, to which arick and austin were allowed to go. at the door of the hall there were crowds of black boys waiting and trying to peep in, as children at home lie about and peep under the tent of a circus; and you may be sure arick was a very proud person when he passed them all by, and entered the hall with his ticket. i wish i knew what he thought of the whole performance; but a friend of the lean man, who sat just in front of arick, tells me what seemed to startle him most. the first thing was when two of the officers came out with blackened faces, like minstrels, and began to dance. arick was sure that they were really black, and his own people, and he was wonderfully surprised to see them dance in this new european style. but the great affair was the magic lantern. the hall was made quite dark, which was very little to arick's taste. he sat there behind my friend, nothing to be seen of him but eyes and teeth, and his heart was beating finely in his little scarred breast. and presently there came out of the white sheet that great big eye of light that i am sure all you children must have often seen. it was quite new to arick; he had no idea what would happen next, and in his fear and excitement he laid hold with his little slim black fingers like a bird's claw on the neck of the friend in front of him. all through the rest of the show, as one picture followed another on the white sheet, he sat there grasping and clutching, and goodness knows whether he were more pleased or frightened. doubtless it was a very fine thing to see all those bright pictures coming out and dying away again, one after another; but doubtless it was rather alarming also, for how was it done? at last when there appeared upon the screen the head of a black woman (as it might be his own mother or sister), and this black woman of a sudden began to roll her eyes, the fear or the excitement, whichever it was, rung out of him a loud, shuddering sob. i think we all ought to admire his courage when, after an evening spent in looking at such wonderful miracles, he and austin set out alone through the forest to the lean man's house. it was late at night and pitch dark when some of the party overtook the little white boy and the big black boy, marching among the trees with their lantern. i have told you this wood has an ill name, and all the people of the island believe it to be full of evil spirits; it is a pretty dreadful place to walk in by the moving light of a lantern, with nothing about you but a curious whirl of shadows, and the black night above and beyond. but arick kept his courage up, and i dare say austin's too, with a perpetual chatter, so that the people coming after heard his voice long before they saw the shining of the lantern. tusitala. iv to austin strong _vailima, november_ , . my dear austin,--first and foremost i think you will be sorry to hear that our poor friend arick has gone back to the german firm. he had not been working very well, and we had talked of sending him off before; but remembering how thin he was when he came here, and seeing what fat little legs and what a comfortable little stomach he had laid on in the meanwhile, we found we had not the heart. the other day, however, he set up chat to henry, the samoan overseer, asking him who he was and where he came from, and refusing to obey his orders. i was in bed in the workmen's house, having a fever. uncle lloyd came over to me, told me of it, and i had arick sent up. i told him i would give him another chance. he was taken out and asked to apologise to henry, but he would do no such thing. he preferred to go back to the german firm. so we hired a couple of samoans who were up here on a visit to the boys and packed him off in their charge to the firm, where he arrived safely, and a receipt was given for him like a parcel.[ ] sunday last the _alameda_ returned. your mother was off bright and early with palema, for it is a very curious thing, but is certainly the case, that she was very impatient to get news of a young person by the name of austin. mr. gurr lent a horse for the captain--it was a pretty big horse, but our handsome captain, as you know, is a very big captain indeed. now, do you remember misifolo--a tall, thin hovea boy that came shortly before you left? he had been riding up this same horse of gurr's just the day before, and the horse threw him off at motootua corner, and cut his hip. so misifolo called out to the captain as he rode by that that was a very bad horse, that it ran away and threw people off, and that he had best be careful; and the funny thing is, that the captain did not like it at all. the foal might as well have tried to run away with vailima as that horse with captain morse, which is poetry, as you see, into the bargain; but the captain was not at all in that way of thinking, and was never really happy until he had got his foot on ground again. it was just then that the horse began to be happy too, so they parted in one mind. but the horse is still wondering what kind of piece of artillery he had brought up to vailima last sunday morning. so far it was all right. the captain was got safe off the wicked horse, but how was he to get back again to apia and the _alameda_? happy thought--there was donald, the big pack-horse! the last time donald was ridden he had upon him a hair-pin and a pea--by which i mean--(once again to drop into poetry) you and me. now he was to have a rider more suited to his size. he was brought up to the door--he looked a mountain. a step-ladder was put alongside of him. the captain approached the step-ladder, and he looked an alp. i wasn't as much afraid for the horse as i was for the step-ladder, but it bore the strain, and with a kind of sickening smash that you might have heard at monterey, the captain descended to the saddle. now don't think that i am exaggerating, but at the moment when that enormous captain settled down upon donald, the horse's hind-legs gave visibly under the strain. what the couple looked like, one on top of t'other, no words can tell you, and your mother must here draw a picture. --your respected uncle, o tusitala. v to austin strong _vailima, november_ , . my dear austin,--the new house is begun. it stands out nearly half way over towards pineapple cottage--the lower floor is laid and the uprights of the wall are set up; so that the big lower room wants nothing but a roof over its head. when it rains (as it does mostly all the time) you never saw anything look so sorry for itself as that room left outside. beyond the house there is a work-shed roofed with sheets of iron, and in front, over about half the lawn, the lumber for the house lies piled. it is about the bringing up of this lumber that i want to tell you. for about a fortnight there were at work upon the job two german overseers, about a hundred black boys, and from twelve to twenty-four draught-oxen. it rained about half the time, and the road was like lather for shaving. the black boys seemed to have had a new rig-out. they had almost all shirts of scarlet flannel, and lavalavas, the samoan kilt, either of scarlet or light blue. as the day got warm they took off the shirts; and it was a very curious thing, as you went down to apia on a bright day, to come upon one tree after another in the empty forest with these shirts stuck among the branches like vermilion birds. i observed that many of the boys had a very queer substitute for a pocket. this was nothing more than a string which some of them tied about their upper arms and some about their necks, and in which they stuck their clay pipes; and as i don't suppose they had anything else to carry, it did very well. some had feathers in their hair, and some long stalks of grass through the holes in their noses. i suppose this was intended to make them look pretty, poor dears; but you know what a black boy looks like, and these black boys, for all their blue, and their scarlet, and their grass, looked just as shabby, and small, and sad, and sorry for themselves, and like sick monkeys as any of the rest. as you went down the road you came upon them first working in squads of two. each squad shouldered a couple of planks and carried them up about two hundred feet, gave them to two others, and walked back empty-handed to the places they had started from. it wasn't very hard work, and they didn't go about it at all lively; but of course, when it rained, and the mud was deep, the poor fellows were unhappy enough. this was in the upper part about trood's. below, all the way down to tanugamanono, you met the bullock-carts coming and going, each with ten or twenty men to attend upon it, and often enough with one of the overseers near. quite a far way off through the forest you could hear the noise of one of these carts approaching. the road was like a bog, and though a good deal wider than it was when you knew it, so narrow that the bullocks reached quite across it with the span of their big horns. to pass by, it was necessary to get into the bush on one side or the other. the bullocks seemed to take no interest in their business; they looked angry and stupid, and sullen beyond belief; and when it came to a heavy bit of the road, as often as not they would stop. as long as they were going, the black boys walked in the margin of the bush on each side, pushing the cart-wheels with hands and shoulders, and raising the most extraordinary outcry. it was strangely like some very big kind of bird. perhaps the great flying creatures that lived upon the earth long before man came, if we could have come near one of their meeting-places, would have given us just such a concert. when one of the bullamacows[ ] stopped altogether the fun was highest. the bullamacow stood on the road, his head fixed fast in the yoke, chewing a little, breathing very hard, and showing in his red eye that if he could get rid of the yoke he would show them what a circus was. all the black boys tailed on to the wheels and the back of the cart, stood there getting their spirits up, and then of a sudden set to shooing and singing out. it was these outbursts of shrill cries that it was so curious to hear in the distance. one such stuck cart i came up to and asked what was the worry. "old fool bullamacow stop same place," was the reply. i never saw any of the overseers near any of the stuck carts; you were a very much better overseer than either of these. while this was going on, i had to go down to apia five or six different times, and each time there were a hundred black boys to say "good-morning" to. this was rather a tedious business; and, as very few of them answered at all, and those who did, only with a grunt like a pig's, it was several times in my mind to give up this piece of politeness. the last time i went down, i was almost decided; but when i came to the first pair of black boys, and saw them looking so comic and so melancholy, i began the business over again. this time i thought more of them seemed to answer, and when i got down to the tail-end where the carts were running, i received a very pleasant surprise, for one of the boys, who was pushing at the back of a cart, lifted up his head, and called out to me in wonderfully good english, "you good man--always say 'good-morning.'" it was sad to think that these poor creatures should think so much of so small a piece of civility, and strange that (thinking so) they should be so dull as not to return it. uncle louis. vi to austin strong _june_ , . respected hopkins,[ ]--this is to inform you that the jersey cow had an elegant little cow-calf sunday last. there was a great deal of rejoicing, of course; but i don't know whether or not you remember the jersey cow. whatever else she is, the jersey cow is _not_ good-natured, and dines, who was up here on some other business, went down to the paddock to get a hood and to milk her. the hood is a little wooden board with two holes in it, by which it is hung from her horns. i don't know how he got it on, and i don't believe _he_ does. anyway, in the middle of the operation, in came bull bazett, with his head down, and roaring like the last trumpet. dines and all his merry men hid behind trees in the paddock, and skipped. dines then got upon a horse, plied his spurs, and cleared for apia. the next time he is asked to meddle with our cows, he will probably want to know the reason why. meanwhile, there was the cow, with the board over her eyes, left tied by a pretty long rope to a small tree in the paddock, and who was to milk her? she roared,--i was going to say like a bull, but it was bazett who did that, walking up and down, switching his tail, and the noise of the pair of them was perfectly dreadful. palema went up to the bush to call lloyd; and lloyd came down in one of his know-all-about-it moods. "it was perfectly simple," he said. "the cow was hooded; anybody could milk her. all you had to do was to draw her up to the tree, and get a hitch about it." so he untied the cow, and drew her up close to the tree, and got a hitch about it right enough. and then the cow brought her intellect to bear on the subject, and proceeded to walk round the tree to get the hitch off. [illustration] now, this is geometry, which you'll have to learn some day. the tree is the centre of two circles. the cow had a "radius" of about two feet, and went leisurely round a small circle; the man had a "radius" of about thirty feet, and either he must let the cow get the hitch unwound, or else he must take up his two feet to about the height of his eyes, and race round a big circle. this was racing and chasing. the cow walked quietly round and round the tree to unwind herself; and first lloyd, and then palema, and then lloyd again, scampered round the big circle, and fell, and got up again, and bounded like a deer, to keep her hitched. it was funny to see, but we couldn't laugh with a good heart; for every now and then (when the man who was running tumbled down) the cow would get a bit ahead; and i promise you there was then no sound of any laughter, but we rather edged away toward the gate, looking to see the crazy beast loose, and charging us. to add to her attractions, the board had fallen partly off, and only covered one eye, giving her the look of a crazy old woman in a sydney slum. meanwhile, the calf stood looking on, a little perplexed, and seemed to be saying: "well, now, is this life? it doesn't seem as if it was all it was cracked up to be. and this is my mamma? what a very impulsive lady!" all the time, from the lower paddock, we could hear bazett roaring like the deep seas, and if we cast our eye that way, we could see him switching his tail, as a very angry gentleman may sometimes switch his cane. and the jersey would every now and then put up her head, and low like the pu[ ] for dinner. and take it for all in all, it was a very striking scene. poor uncle lloyd had plenty of time to regret having been in such a hurry; so had poor palema, who was let into the business, and ran until he was nearly dead. afterward palema went and sat on a gate, where your mother sketched him, and she is going to send you the sketch. and the end of it? well, we got her tied again, i really don't know how; and came stringing back to the house with our tails between our legs. that night at dinner, the tamaitai[ ] bid us tell the boys to be very careful "not to frighten the cow." it was too much; the cow had frightened us in such fine style that we all broke down and laughed like mad. general hoskyns, there is no further news, your excellency, that i am aware of. but it may interest you to know that mr. christian held his twenty-fifth birthday yesterday--a quarter of a living century old; think of it, drink of it, innocent youth!--and asked down lloyd and daplyn to a feast at one o'clock, and daplyn went at seven, and got nothing to eat at all. whether they had anything to drink, i know not--no, not i; but it's to be hoped so. also, your uncle lloyd has stopped smoking, and he doesn't like it much. also, that your mother is most beautifully gotten up to-day, in a pink gown with a topaz stone in front of it; and is really looking like an angel, only that she isn't like an angel at all--only like your mother herself. also that the tamaitai has been waxing the floor of the big room, so that it shines in the most ravishing manner; and then we insisted on coming in, and she wouldn't let us, and we came anyway, and have made the vilest mess of it--but still it shines. also, that i am, your excellency's obedient servant, uncle louis. vii to austin strong my dear hutchinson,--this is not going to be much of a letter, so don't expect what can't be had. uncle lloyd and palema made a malanga[ ] to go over the island to siumu, and talolo was anxious to go also; but how could we get along without him? well, misifolo, the maypole, set off on saturday, and walked all that day down the island to beyond faleasiu with a letter for iopu; and iopu and tali and misifolo rose very early on the sunday morning, and walked all that day up the island, and came by seven at night--all pretty tired, and misifolo most of all--to tanugamanono.[ ] we at vailima knew nothing at all about the marchings of the saturday and sunday, but uncle lloyd got his boys and things together and went to bed. a little after five in the morning i awoke and took the lantern, and went out of the front door and round the verandahs. there was never a spark of dawn in the east, only the stars looked a little pale; and i expected to find them all asleep in the workhouse. but no! the stove was roaring, and talolo and fono, who was to lead the party, were standing together talking by the stove, and one of fono's young men was lying asleep on the sofa in the smoking-room, wrapped in his lavalava. i had my breakfast at half-past five that morning, and the bell rang before six, when it was just the grey of dawn. but by seven the feast was spread--there was lopu coming up, with tali at his heels, and misifolo bringing up the rear--and talolo could go the malanga. off they set, with two guns and three porters, and fono and lloyd and palema and talolo himself with best sunday-go-to-meeting lavalava rolled up under his arm, and a very sore foot; but much he cared--he was smiling from ear to ear, and would have gone to siumu over red-hot coals. off they set round the corner of the cook-house, and into the bush beside the chicken-house, and so good-bye to them. but you should see how iopu has taken possession! "never saw a place in such a state!" is written on his face. "in my time," says he, "we didn't let things go ragging along like this, and i'm going to show you fellows." the first thing he did was to apply for a bar of soap, and then he set to work washing everything (that had all been washed last friday in the regular course). then he had the grass cut all round the cook-house, and i tell you but he found scraps, and odds and ends, and grew more angry and indignant at each fresh discovery. "if a white chief came up here and smelt this, how would you feel?" he asked your mother. "it is enough to breed a sickness!" and i dare say you remember this was just what your mother had often said to himself; and did say the day she went out and cried on the kitchen steps in order to make talolo ashamed. but iopu gave it all out as little new discoveries of his own. the last thing was the cows, and i tell you he was solemn about the cows. they were all destroyed, he said, nobody knew how to milk except himself--where he is about right. then came dinner and a delightful little surprise. perhaps you remember that long ago i used not to eat mashed potatoes, but had always two or three boiled in a plate. this has not been done for months, because talolo makes such admirable mashed potatoes that i have caved in. but here came dinner, mashed potatoes for your mother and the tamaitai, and then boiled potatoes in a plate for me! and there is the end of the tale of the return of iopu, up to date. what more there may be is in the lap of the gods, and, sir, i am yours considerably, uncle louis. viii to austin strong my dear hoskyns,--i am kept away in a cupboard because everybody has the influenza; i never see anybody at all, and never do anything whatever except to put ink on paper up here in my room. so what can i find to write to you?--you, who are going to school, and getting up in the morning to go bathing, and having (it seems to me) rather a fine time of it in general? you ask if we have seen arick? yes, your mother saw him at the head of a gang of boys, and looking fat, and sleek, and well-to-do. i have an idea that he misbehaved here because he was homesick for the other black boys, and didn't know how else to get back to them. well, he has got them now, and i hope he likes it better than i should. i read the other day something that i thought would interest so great a sea-bather as yourself. you know that the fishes that we see, and catch, go only a certain way down into the sea. below a certain depth there is no life at all. the water is as empty as the air is above a certain height. even the shells of dead fishes that come down there are crushed into nothing by the huge weight of the water. lower still, in the places where the sea is profoundly deep, it appears that life begins again. people fish up in dredging-buckets loose rags and tatters of creatures that hang together all right down there with the great weight holding them in one, but come all to pieces as they are hauled up. just what they look like, just what they do or feed upon, we shall never find out. only that we have some flimsy fellow-creatures down in the very bottom of the deep seas, and cannot get them up except in tatters. it must be pretty dark where they live, and there are no plants or weeds, and no fish come down there, or drowned sailors either, from the upper parts, because these are all mashed to pieces by the great weight long before they get so far, or else come to a place where perhaps they float. but i dare say a cannon sometimes comes careering solemnly down, and circling about like a dead leaf or thistle-down; and then the ragged fellows go and play about the cannon and tell themselves all kinds of stories about the fish higher up and their iron houses, and perhaps go inside and sleep, and perhaps dream of it all like their betters. of course you know a cannon down there would be quite light. even in shallow water, where men go down with a diving-dress, they grow so light that they have to hang weights about their necks, and have their boots loaded with twenty pounds of lead--as i know to my sorrow. and with all this, and the helmet, which is heavy enough of itself to any one up here in the thin air, they are carried about like gossamers, and have to take every kind of care not to be upset and stood upon their heads. i went down once in the dress, and speak from experience. but if we could get down for a moment near where the fishes are, we should be in a tight place. suppose the water not to crush us (which it would), we should pitch about in every kind of direction; every step we took would carry us as far as if we had seven-league boots; and we should keep flying head over heels, and top over bottom, like the liveliest clowns in the world. well, sir, here is a great deal of words put down upon a piece of paper, and if you think that makes a letter, why, very well! and if you don't, i can't help it. for i have nothing under heaven to tell you. so, with kindest wishes to yourself, and louie, and aunt nellie, believe me, your affectionate uncle louis. now here is something more worth telling you. this morning at six o'clock i saw all the horses together in the front paddock, and in a terrible ado about something. presently i saw a man with two buckets on the march, and knew where the trouble was--the cow! the whole lot cleared to the gate but two--donald, the big white horse, and my jack. they stood solitary, one here, one there. i began to get interested, for i thought jack was off his feed. in came the man with the bucket and all the ruck of curious horses at his tail. right round he went to where donald stood (d) and poured out a feed, and the majestic donald ate it, and the ruck of common horses followed the man. on he went to the second station, jack's (j. in the plan), and poured out a feed, and the fools of horses went in with him to the next place (a in the plan). and behold as the train swung round, the last of them came curiously too near jack; and jack left his feed and rushed upon this fool with a kind of outcry, and the fool fled, and jack returned to his feed; and he and donald ate theirs with glory, while the others were still circling round for fresh feeds. [illustration] glory be to the name of donald and to the name of jack, for they had found out where the foods were poured, and each took his station and waited there, donald at the first of the course for his, jack at the second station, while all the impotent fools ran round and round after the man with his buckets! r. l. s. ix to austin strong vailima. my dear austin,--now when the overseer is away[ ] i think it my duty to report to him anything serious that goes on on the plantation. early the other afternoon we heard that sina's foot was very bad, and soon after that we could have heard her cries as far away as the front balcony. i think sina rather enjoys being ill, and makes as much of it as she possibly can; but all the same it was painful to hear the cries; and there is no doubt she was at least very uncomfortable. i went up twice to the little room behind the stable, and found her lying on the floor, with tali and faauma and talolo all holding on different bits of her. i gave her an opiate; but whenever she was about to go to sleep one of these silly people would be shaking her, or talking in her ear, and then she would begin to kick about again and scream. palema and aunt maggie took horse and went down to apia after the doctor. right on their heels off went mitaele on musu to fetch tauilo, talolo's mother. so here was all the island in a bustle over sina's foot. no doctor came, but he told us what to put on. when i went up at night to the little room, i found tauilo there, and the whole plantation boxed into the place like little birds in a nest. they were sitting on the bed, they were sitting on the table, the floor was full of them, and the place as close as the engine-room of a steamer. in the middle lay sina, about three parts asleep with opium; two able-bodied work-boys were pulling at her arms, and whenever she closed her eyes calling her by name, and talking in her ear. i really didn't know what would become of the girl before morning. whether or not she had been very ill before, this was the way to make her so, and when one of the work-boys woke her up again, i spoke to him very sharply, and told tauilo she must put a stop to it. now i suppose this was what put it into tauilo's head to do what she did next. you remember tauilo, and what a fine, tall, strong, madame lafarge sort of person she is? and you know how much afraid the natives are of the evil spirits in the wood, and how they think all sickness comes from them? up stood tauilo, and addressed the spirit in sina's foot, and scolded it, and the spirit answered and promised to be a good boy and go away. i do not feel so much afraid of the demons after this. it was faauma told me about it. i was going out into the pantry after soda-water, and found her with a lantern drawing water from the tank. "bad spirit he go away," she told me. "that's first-rate," said i. "do you know what the name of that spirit was? his name was _tautala_ (talking)." "o, no!" she said; "his name is _tu_." you might have knocked me down with a straw. "how on earth do you know that?" i asked. "heerd him tell tauilo," she said. as soon as i heard that i began to suspect mrs. tauilo was a little bit of a ventriloquist; and imitating as well as i could the sort of voice they make, asked her if the bad spirit did not talk like that. faauma was very much surprised, and told me that was just his voice. well, that was a very good business for the evening. the people all went away because the demon was gone away, and the circus was over, and sina was allowed to sleep. but the trouble came after. there had been an evil spirit in that room and his name was tu. no one could say when he might come back again; they all voted it was tu much; and now talolo and sina have had to be lodged in the soldier room.[ ] as for the little room by the stable, there it stands empty; it is too small to play soldiers in, and i do not see what we can do with it, except to have a nice brass name-plate engraved in sydney, or in "frisco," and stuck upon the door of it--_mr. tu._ so you see that ventriloquism has its bad side as well as its good sides; and i don't know that i want any more ventriloquists on this plantation. we shall have _tu_ in the cook-house next, and then _tu_ in lafaele's, and _tu_ in the workman's cottage; and the end of it all will be that we shall have to take the tamaitai's room for the kitchen, and my room for the boys' sleeping-house, and we shall all have to go out and camp under umbrellas. well, where you are there may be schoolmasters, but there is no such thing as mr. _tu_! now, it's all very well that these big people should be frightened out of their wits by an old wife talking with her mouth shut; that is one of the things we happen to know about. all the old women in the world might talk with their mouths shut, and not frighten you or me, but there are plenty of other things that frighten us badly. and if we only knew about them, perhaps we should find them no more worthy to be feared than an old woman talking with her mouth shut. and the names of some of these things are death, and pain, and sorrow. uncle louis. x to austin strong _jan._ , . dear general hoskyns,--i have the honour to report as usual. your giddy mother having gone planting a flower-garden, i am obliged to write with my own hand, and, of course, nobody will be able to read it. this has been a very mean kind of a month. aunt maggie left with the influenza. we have heard of her from sydney, and she is all right again; but we have inherited her influenza, and it made a poor place of vailima. we had talolo, mitaele, sosimo, iopu, sina, misifolo, and myself, all sick in bed at the same time; and was not that a pretty dish to set before the king! the big hall of the new house having no furniture, the sick pitched their tents in it,--i mean their mosquito-nets,--like a military camp. the tamaitai and your mother went about looking after them, and managed to get us something to eat. henry, the good boy! though he was getting it himself, did housework, and went round at night from one mosquito-net to another, praying with the sick. sina, too, was as good as gold, and helped us greatly. we shall always like her better. all the time--i do not know how they managed--your mother found the time to come and write for me; and for three days, as i had my old trouble on, and had to play dumb man, i dictated a novel in the deaf-and-dumb alphabet. but now we are all recovered, and getting to feel quite fit. a new paddock has been made; the wires come right up to the top of the hill, pass within twenty yards of the big clump of flowers (if you remember that) and by the end of the pineapple patch. the tamaitai and your mother and i all sleep in the upper story of the new house; uncle lloyd is alone in the workman's cottage; and there is nobody at all at night in the old house, but ants and cats and mosquitoes. the whole inside of the new house is varnished. it is a beautiful golden-brown by day, and in lamplight all black and sparkle. in the corner of the hall the new safe is built in, and looks as if it had millions of pounds in it; but i do not think there is much more than twenty dollars and a spoon or two; so the man that opens it will have a great deal of trouble for nothing. our great fear is lest we should forget how to open it; but it will look just as well if we can't. poor misifolo--you remember the thin boy, do you not?--had a desperate attack of influenza; and he was in a great taking. you would not like to be very sick in some savage place in the islands, and have only the savages to doctor you? well, that was just the way he felt. "it is all very well," he thought, "to let these childish white people doctor a sore foot or a toothache, but this is serious--i might die of this! for goodness' sake let me get away into a draughty native house, where i can lie in cold gravel, eat green bananas, and have a real grown-up, tattooed man to raise spirits and say charms over me." a day or two we kept him quiet, and got him much better. then he said he _must_ go. he had had his back broken in his own islands, he said; it had come broken again, and he must go away to a native house and have it mended. "confound your back!" said we; "lie down in your bed." at last, one day, his fever was quite gone, and he could give his mind to the broken back entirely. he lay in the hall; i was in the room alone; all morning and noon i heard him roaring like a bull calf, so that the floor shook with it. it was plainly humbug; it had the humbugging sound of a bad child crying; and about two of the afternoon we were worn out, and told him he might go. off he set. he was in some kind of a white wrapping, with a great white turban on his head, as pale as clay, and walked leaning on a stick. but, o, he was a glad boy to get away from these foolish, savage, childish white people, and get his broken back put right by somebody with some sense. he nearly died that night, and little wonder! but he has now got better again, and long may it last! all the others were quite good, trusted us wholly, and stayed to be cured where they were. but then he was quite right, if you look at it from his point of view; for, though we may be very clever, we do not set up to cure broken backs. if a man has his back broken we white people can do nothing at all but bury him. and was he not wise, since that was his complaint, to go to folks who could do more? best love to yourself, and louie, and aunt nellie, and apologies for so dull a letter from your respectful and affectionate uncle louis. footnotes: [ ] the lady to whom the first three of these letters are addressed "used to hear" (writes mr. lloyd osbourne) "so frequently of the 'boys' in vailima, that she wrote and asked mr. stevenson for news of them, as it would so much interest her little girls. in the tropics, for some reason or other that it is impossible to understand, servants and work-people are always called 'boys,' though the years of methuselah may have whitened their heads, and great-grandchildren prattle about their knees. mr. stevenson was amused to think that his 'boys,' who ranged from eighteen years of age to threescore and ten, should be mistaken for little youngsters; but he was touched to hear of the sick children his friend tried so hard to entertain, and gladly wrote a few letters to them. he would have written more but for the fact that his friend left the home, being transferred elsewhere." [ ] come-a-thousand. [ ] the german company, from which we got our black boy arick, owns and cultivates many thousands of acres in samoa, and keeps at least a thousand black people to work on its plantations. two schooners are always busy in bringing fresh batches to samoa, and in taking home to their own islands the men who have worked out their three years' term of labour. this traffic in human beings is called the "labour trade," and is the life's blood, not only of the great german company, but of all the planters in fiji, queensland, new caledonia, german new guinea, the solomon islands, and the new hebrides. the difference between the labour trade, as it is now carried on under government supervision, and the slave trade is a great one, but not great enough to please sensitive people. in samoa the missionaries are not allowed by the company to teach these poor savages religion, or to do anything to civilise them and raise them from their monkey-like ignorance. but in other respects the company is not a bad master, and treats its people pretty well. the system, however, is one that cannot be defended and must sooner or later be suppressed.--[l.o.] [ ] when arick left us and went back to the german company, he had grown so fat and strong and intelligent that they deemed he was made for better things than for cotton-picking or plantation work, and handed him over to their surveyor, who needed a man to help him. i used often to meet him after this, tripping at his master's heels with the theodolite, or scampering about with tapes and chains like a kitten with a spool of thread. he did not look then as though he were destined to die of a broken heart, though that was his end not so many months afterward. the plantation manager told me that arick and a new ireland boy went crazy with home-sickness, and died in the hospital together.--[l.o.] [ ] "bullamacow" is a word that always amuses the visitor to samoa. when the first pair of cattle was brought to the islands and the natives asked the missionaries what they must call these strange creatures, they were told that the english name was a "bull and a cow." but the samoans thought that "a bull and a cow" was the name of each of the animals, and they soon corrupted the english words into "bullamacow," which has remained the name for beef or cattle ever since.--[l.o.] [ ] in the letters that were sent to austin strong you will be surprised to see his name change from austin to hoskyns, and from hopkins to hutchinson. it was the penalty master austin had to pay for being the particular and bosom friend of each of the one hundred and eighty bluejackets that made up the crew of the british man-of-war _curaçoa_; for, whether it was due to some bitter memories of the revolutionary war, or to some rankling reminiscences of , that even friendship could not altogether stifle (for austin was a true american boy), they annoyed him by giving him, each one of them, a separate name.--[l.o.] [ ] the big conch-shell that was blown at certain hours every day.--[l.o.] [ ] mrs. r. l. s., as she is called in samoan, "the lady."--[l.o.] [ ] a visiting party. [ ] talolo was the vailima cook; sina, his wife; tauilo, his mother; mitaele and sosimo, his brothers. lafaele, who was married to faauma, was a middle-aged futuna islander, and had spent many years of his life on a whale-ship, the captain of which had kidnapped him when a boy. misifolo was one of the "house-maids." iopu and tali, man and wife, had long been in our service, but had left it after they had been married some time; but, according to samoan ideas, they were none the less members of tusitala's family, because, though they were no longer working for him, they still owed him allegiance. "aunt maggie" is mr. stevenson's mother; palema, mr. graham balfour.--[l.o.] [ ] while austin was in vailima many little duties about the plantation fell to his share, so that he was often called the "overseer"; and small as he was, he sometimes took charge of a couple of big men, and went into town with the pack-horses. it was not all play, either, for he had to see that the barrels and boxes did not chafe the horses' backs, and that they were not allowed to come home too fast up the steep road.--[l.o.] [ ] a room set apart to serve as the theatre for an elaborate war-game, which was one of mr. stevenson's favourite recreations. end of vol. xviii printed by cassel & co., ltd., la belle sauvage, london e.c. the great taboo by grant allen preface i desire to express my profound indebtedness, for the central mythological idea embodied in this tale, to mr. j.g. frazer's admirable and epoch-making work, "the golden bough," whose main contention i have endeavored incidentally to popularize in my present story. i wish also to express my obligations in other ways to mr. andrew lang's "myth, ritual, and religion," mr. h.o. forbes's "naturalist's wanderings," and mr. julian thomas's "cannibals and convicts." if i have omitted to mention any other author to whom i may have owed incidental hints, it will be some consolation to me to reflect that i shall at least have afforded an opportunity for legitimate sport to the amateurs of the new and popular british pastime of badger-baiting or plagiary-hunting. it may also save critics some moments' search if i say at once that, after careful consideration, i have been unable to discover any moral whatsoever in this humble narrative. i venture to believe that in so enlightened an age the majority of my readers will never miss it. g.a. the nook, dorking, october, . chapter i. in mid pacific. "man overboard!" it rang in felix thurstan's ears like the sound of a bell. he gazed about him in dismay, wondering what had happened. the first intimation he received of the accident was that sudden sharp cry from the bo'sun's mate. almost before he had fully taken it in, in all its meaning, another voice, farther aft, took up the cry once more in an altered form: "a lady! a lady! somebody overboard! great heavens, it is _her_! it's miss ellis! miss ellis!" next instant felix found himself, he knew not how, struggling in a wild grapple with the dark, black water. a woman was clinging to him--clinging for dear life. but he couldn't have told you himself that minute how it all took place. he was too stunned and dazzled. he looked around him on the seething sea in a sudden awakening, as it were, to life and consciousness. all about, the great water stretched dark and tumultuous. white breakers surged over him. far ahead the steamer's lights gleamed red and green in long lines upon the ocean. at first they ran fast; then they slackened somewhat. she was surely slowing now; they must be reversing engines and trying to stop her. they would put out a boat. but what hope, what chance of rescue by night, in such a wild waste of waves as that? and muriel ellis was clinging to him for dear life all the while, with the despairing clutch of a half-drowned woman! the people on the australasian, for their part, knew better what had occurred. there was bustle and confusion enough on deck and on the captain's bridge, to be sure: "man overboard!"--three sharp rings at the engine bell:--"stop her short!--reverse engines!--lower the gig!--look sharp, there, all of you!" passengers hurried up breathless at the first alarm to know what was the matter. sailors loosened and lowered the boat from the davits with extraordinary quickness. officers stood by, giving orders in monosyllables with practised calm. all was hurry and turmoil, yet with a marvellous sense of order and prompt obedience as well. but, at any rate, the people on deck hadn't the swift swirl of the boisterous water, the hampering wet clothes, the pervading consciousness of personal danger, to make their brains reel, like felix thurstan's. they could ask one another with comparative composure what had happened on board; they could listen without terror to the story of the accident. it was the thirteenth day out from sydney, and the australasian was rapidly nearing the equator. toward evening the wind had freshened, and the sea was running high against her weather side. but it was a fine starlit night, though the moon had not yet risen; and as the brief tropical twilight faded away by quick degrees in the west, the fringe of cocoanut palms on the reef that bounded the little island of boupari showed out for a minute or two in dark relief, some miles to leeward, against the pale pink horizon. in spite of the heavy sea, many passengers lingered late on deck that night to see the last of that coral-girt shore, which was to be their final glimpse of land till they reached honolulu, _en route_ for san francisco. bit by bit, however, the cocoanut palms, silhouetted with their graceful waving arms for a few brief minutes in black against the glowing background, merged slowly into the sky or sank below the horizon. all grew dark. one by one, as the trees disappeared, the passengers dropped off for whist in the saloon, or retired to the uneasy solitude of their own state-rooms. at last only two or three men were left smoking and chatting near the top of the companion ladder; while at the stern of the ship muriel ellis looked over toward the retreating island, and talked with a certain timid maidenly frankness to felix thurstan. there's nowhere on earth for getting really to know people in a very short time like the deck of a great atlantic or pacific liner. you're thrown together so much, and all day long, that you see more of your fellow-passengers' inner life and nature in a few brief weeks than you would ever be likely to see in a long twelvemonth of ordinary town or country acquaintanceship. and muriel ellis had seen a great deal in those thirteen days of felix thurstan; enough to make sure in her own heart that she really liked him--well--so much that she looked up with a pretty blush of self-consciousness every time he approached and lifted his hat to her. muriel was an english rector's daughter, from a country village in somersetshire; and she was now on her way back from a long year's visit, to recruit her health, to an aunt in paramatta. she was travelling under the escort of an amiable old chaperon whom the aunt in question had picked up for her before leaving sydney; but, as the amiable old chaperon, being but an indifferent sailor, spent most of her time in her own berth, closely attended by the obliging stewardess, muriel had found her chaperonage interfere very little with opportunities of talk with that nice mr. thurstan. and now, as the last glow of sunset died out in the western sky, and the last palm-tree faded away against the colder green darkness of the tropical night, muriel was leaning over the bulwarks in confidential mood, and watching the big waves advance or recede, and talking the sort of talk that such an hour seems to favor with the handsome young civil servant who stood on guard, as it were, beside her. for felix thurstan held a government appointment at levuka, in fiji, and was now on his way home, on leave of absence after six years' service in that new-made colony. "how delightful it would be to live on an island like that!" muriel murmured, half to herself, as she gazed out wistfully in the direction of the disappearing coral reef. "with those beautiful palms waving always over one's head, and that delicious evening air blowing cool through their branches! it looks such a paradise!" felix smiled and glanced down at her, as he steadied himself with one hand against the bulwark, while the ship rolled over into the trough of the sea heavily. "well, i don't know about that, miss ellis," he answered with a doubtful air, eying her close as he spoke with eyes of evident admiration. "one might be happy anywhere, of course--in suitable society; but if you'd lived as long among cocoanuts in fiji as i have, i dare say the poetry of these calm palm-grove islands would be a little less real to you. remember, though they look so beautiful and dreamy against the sky like that, at sunset especially (that was a heavy one, that time; i'm really afraid we must go down to the cabin soon; she'll be shipping seas before long if we stop on deck much later--and yet, it's so delightful stopping up here till the dusk comes on, isn't it?)--well, remember, i was saying, though they look so beautiful and dreamy and poetical--'summer isles of eden lying in dark purple spheres of sea,' and all that sort of thing--these islands are inhabited by the fiercest and most bloodthirsty cannibals known to travellers." "cannibals!" muriel repeated, looking up at him in surprise. "you don't mean to say that islands like these, standing right in the very track of european steamers, are still heathen and cannibal?" "oh, dear, yes," felix replied, holding his hand out as he spoke to catch his companion's arm gently, and steady her against the wave that was just going to strike the stern: "excuse me; just so; the sea's rising fast, isn't it?--oh, dear, yes; of course they are; they're all heathen and cannibals. you couldn't imagine to yourself the horrible bloodthirsty rites that may this very minute be taking place upon that idyllic-looking island, under the soft waving branches of those whispering palm-trees. why, i knew a man in the marquesas myself--a hideous old native, as ugly as you can fancy him--who was supposed to be a god, an incarnate god, and was worshipped accordingly with profound devotion by all the other islanders. you can't picture to yourself how awful their worship was. i daren't even repeat it to you; it was too, too horrible. he lived in a hut by himself among the deepest forest, and human victims used to be brought--well, there, it's too loathsome! why, see; there's a great light on the island now; a big bonfire or something; don't you make it out? you can tell it by the red glare in the sky overhead." he paused a moment; then he added more slowly, "i shouldn't be surprised if at this very moment, while we're standing here in such perfect security on the deck of a christian english vessel, some unspeakable and unthinkable heathen orgy mayn't be going on over there beside that sacrificial fire; and if some poor trembling native girl isn't being led just now, with blows and curses and awful savage ceremonies, her hands bound behind her back--oh, look out, miss ellis!" he was only just in time to utter the warning words. he was only just in time to put one hand on each side of her slender waist, and hold her tight so, when the big wave which he saw coming struck full tilt against the vessel's flank, and broke in one white drenching sheet of foam against her stern and quarter-deck. the suddenness of the assault took felix's breath away. for the first few seconds he was only aware that a heavy sea had been shipped, and had wet him through and through with its unexpected deluge. a moment later, he was dimly conscious that his companion had slipped from his grasp, and was nowhere visible. the violence of the shock, and the slimy nature of the sea water, had made him relax his hold without knowing it, in the tumult of the moment, and had at the same time caused muriel to glide imperceptibly through his fingers, as he had often known an ill-caught cricket-ball do in his school-days. then he saw he was on his hands and knees on the deck. the wave had knocked him down, and dashed him against the bulwark on the leeward side. as he picked himself up, wet, bruised, and shaken, he looked about for muriel. a terrible dread seized upon his soul at once. impossible! impossible! she couldn't have been washed overboard! and even as he gazed about, and held his bruised elbow in his hand, and wondered to himself what it could all mean, that sudden loud cry arose beside him from the quarter-deck, "man overboard! man overboard!" followed a moment later by the answering cry, from the men who were smoking under the lee of the companion, "a lady! a lady! it's miss ellis! miss ellis!" he didn't take it all in. he didn't reflect. he didn't even know he was actually doing it. but he did it, all the same, with the simple, straightforward, instinctive sense of duty which makes civilized man act aright, all unconsciously, in any moment of supreme danger and difficulty. leaping on to the taffrail without one instant's delay, and steadying himself for an indivisible fraction of time with his hand on the rope ladder, he peered out into the darkness with keen eyes for a glimpse of muriel ellis's head above the fierce black water; and espying it for one second, as she came up on a white crest, he plunged in before the vessel had time to roll back to windward, and struck boldly out in the direction where he saw that helpless object dashed about like a cork on the surface of the ocean. only those who have known such accidents at sea can possibly picture to themselves the instantaneous haste with which all that followed took place upon that bustling quarter-deck. almost at the first cry of "man overboard!" the captain's bell rang sharp and quick, as if by magic, with three peremptory little calls in the engine-room below. the australasian was going at full speed, but in a marvellously short time, as it seemed to all on board, the great ship had slowed down to a perfect standstill, and then had reversed her engines, so that she lay, just nose to the wind, awaiting further orders. in the meantime, almost as soon as the words were out of the bo'sun's lips, a sailor amidships had rushed to the safety belts hung up by the companion ladder, and had flung half a dozen of them, one after another, with hasty but well-aimed throws, far, far astern, in the direction where felix had disappeared into the black water. the belts were painted white, and they showed for a few seconds, as they fell, like bright specks on the surface of the darkling sea; then they sunk slowly behind as the big ship, still not quite stopped, ploughed her way ahead with gigantic force into the great abyss of darkness in front of her. it seemed but a minute, too, to the watchers on board, before a party of sailors, summoned by the whistle with that marvellous readiness to meet any emergency which long experience of sudden danger has rendered habitual among seafaring men, had lowered the boat, and taken their seats on the thwarts, and seized their oars, and were getting under way on their hopeless quest of search, through the dim black night, for those two belated souls alone in the midst of the angry pacific. it seemed but a minute or two, i say, to the watchers on board; but oh, what an eternity of time to felix thurstan, struggling there with his live burden in the seething water! he had dashed into the ocean, which was dark, but warm with tropical heat, and had succeeded, in spite of the heavy seas then running, in reaching muriel, who clung to him now with all the fierce clinging of despair, and impeded his movement through that swirling water. more than that, he saw the white life-belts that the sailors flung toward him; they were well and aptly flung, in the inspiration of the moment, to allow for the sea itself carrying them on the crest of its waves toward the two drowning creatures. felix saw them distinctly, and making a great lunge as they passed, in spite of muriel's struggles, which sadly hampered his movements, he managed to clutch at no less than three before the great billow, rolling on, carried them off on its top forever away from him. two of these he slipped hastily over muriel's shoulders; the other he put, as best he might, round his own waist; and then, for the first time, still clinging close to his companion's arm, and buffeted about wildly by that running sea, he was able to look about him in alarm for a moment, and realize more or less what had actually happened. by this time the australasian was a quarter of a mile away in front of them, and her lights were beginning to become stationary as she slowly slowed and reversed engines. then, from the summit of a great wave, felix was dimly aware of a boat being lowered--for he saw a separate light gleaming across the sea--a search was being made in the black night, alas, how hopelessly! the light hovered about for many, many minutes, revealed to him now here, now there, searching in vain to find him, as wave after wave raised him time and again on its irresistible summit. the men in the boat were doing their best, no doubt; but what chance of finding any one on a dark night like that, in an angry sea, and with no clue to guide them toward the two struggling castaways? current and wind had things all their own way. as a matter of fact, the light never came near the castaways at all; and after half an hour's ineffectual search, which seemed to felix a whole long lifetime, it returned slowly toward the steamer from which it came--and left those two alone on the dark pacific. "there wasn't a chance of picking 'em up," the captain said, with philosophic calm, as the men clambered on board again, and the australasian got under way once more for the port of honolulu. "i knew there wasn't a chance; but in common humanity one was bound to make some show of trying to save 'em. he was a brave fellow to go after her, though it was no good of course. he couldn't even find her, at night, and with such a sea as that running." and even as he spoke, felix thurstan, rising once more on the crest of a much smaller billow--for somehow the waves were getting incredibly smaller as he drifted on to leeward--felt his heart sink within him as he observed to his dismay that the australasian must be steaming ahead once more, by the movement of her lights, and that they two were indeed abandoned to their fate on the open surface of that vast and trackless ocean. chapter ii. the temple of the deity. while these things were happening on the sea close by, a very different scene indeed was being enacted meanwhile, beneath those waving palms, on the island of boupari. it was strange, to be sure, as felix thurstan had said, that such unspeakable heathen orgies should be taking place within sight of a passing christian english steamer. but if only he had known or reflected to what sort of land he was trying now to struggle ashore with muriel, he might well have doubted whether it were not better to let her perish where she was, in the pure clear ocean, rather than to submit an english girl to the possibility of undergoing such horrible heathen rites and ceremonies. for on the island of boupari it was high feast with the worshippers of their god that night. the sun had turned on the tropic of capricorn at noon, and was making his way northward, toward the equator once more; and his votaries, as was their wont, had all come forth to do him honor in due season, and to pay their respects, in the inmost and sacredest grove on the island, to his incarnate representative, the living spirit of trees and fruits and vegetation, the very high god, the divine tu-kila-kila! early in the evening, as soon as the sun's rim had disappeared beneath the ocean, a strange noise boomed forth from the central shrine of boupari. those who heard it clapped their hands to their ears and ran hastily forward. it was a noise like distant rumbling thunder, or the whir of some great english mill or factory; and at its sound every woman on the island threw herself on the ground prostrate, with her face in the dust, and waited there reverently till the audible voice of the god had once more subsided. for no woman knew how that sound was produced. only the grown men, initiated into the mysteries of the shrine when they came of age at the tattooing ceremony, were aware that the strange, buzzing, whirring noise was nothing more or less than the cry of the bull-roarer. a bull-roarer, as many english schoolboys know, is merely a piece of oblong wood, pointed at either end, and fastened by a leather thong at one corner. but when whirled round the head by practised priestly hands, it produces a low rumbling noise like the wheels of a distant carriage, growing gradually louder and clearer, from moment to moment, till at last it waxes itself into a frightful din, or bursts into perfect peals of imitation thunder. then it decreases again once more, as gradually as it rose, becoming fainter and ever fainter, like thunder as it recedes, till the horrible bellowing, as of supernatural bulls, dies away in the end, by slow degrees, into low and soft and imperceptible murmurs. but when the savage hears the distant humming of the bull-roarer, at whatever distance, he knows that the mysteries of his god are in full swing, and he hurries forward in haste, leaving his work or his pleasure, and running, naked as he stands, to take his share in the worship, lest the anger of heaven should burst forth in devouring flames to consume him. but the women, knowing themselves unworthy to face the dread presence of the high god in his wrath, rush wildly from the spot, and, flinging themselves down at full length, with their mouths to the dust, wait patiently till the voice of their deity is no longer audible. and as the bull-roarer on boupari rang out with wild echoes from the coral caverns in the central grove that evening, tu-kila-kila, their god, rose slowly from his place, and stood out from his hut, a deity revealed, before his reverential worshippers. as he rose, a hushed whisper ran wave-like through the dense throng of dusky forms that bent low, like corn beneath the wind, before him, "tu-kila-kila rises! he rises to speak! hush! for the voice of the mighty man-god!" the god, looking around him superciliously with a cynical air of contempt, stood forward with a firm and elastic step before his silent worshippers. he was a stalwart savage, in the very prime of life, tall, lithe, and active. his figure was that of a man well used to command; but his face, though handsome, was visibly marked by every external sign of cruelty, lust, and extreme bloodthirstiness. one might have said, merely to look at him, he was a being debased by all forms of brutal and hateful self-indulgence. a baleful light burned in his keen gray eyes. his lips were thick, full, purple, and wistful. "my people may look upon me," he said, in a strangely affable voice, standing forward and smiling with a curious half-cruel, half-compassionate smile upon his awe-struck followers. "on every day of the sun's course but this, none save the ministers dedicated to the service of tu-kila-kila dare gaze unhurt upon his sacred person. if any other did, the light from his holy eyes would wither them up, and the glow of his glorious countenance would scorch them to ashes." he raised his two hands, palm outward, in front of him. "so all the year round," he went on, "tu-kila-kila, who loves his people, and sends them the earlier and the later rain in the wet season, and makes their yams and their taro grow, and causes his sun to shine upon them freely--all the year round tu-kila-kila, your god, sits shut up in his own house among the skeletons of those whom he has killed and eaten, or walks in his walled paddock, where his bread-fruit ripens and his plantains spring--himself, and the ministers that his tribesmen have given him." at the sound of their mystic deity's voice the savages, bending lower still till their foreheads touched the ground, repeated in chorus, to the clapping of hands, like some solemn litany: "tu-kila-kila speaks true. our lord is merciful. he sends down his showers upon our crops and fields. he causes his sun to shine brightly over us. he makes our pigs and our slaves bring forth their increase. tu-kila-kila is good. his people praise him." the god took another step forward, the divine mantle of red feathers glowing in the sunset on his dusky shoulders, and smiled once more that hateful gracious smile of his. he was standing near the open door of his wattled hut, overshadowed by the huge spreading arms of a gigantic banyan-tree. through the open door of the hut it was possible to catch just a passing glimpse of an awful sight within. on the beams of the house, and on the boughs of the trees behind it, human skeletons, half covered with dry flesh, hung in ghastly array, their skulls turned downward. they were the skeletons of the victims tu-kila-kila, their prince, had slain and eaten; they were the trophies of the cannibal man-god's hateful prowess. tu-kila-kila raised his right hand erect and spoke again. "i am a great god," he said, slowly. "i am very powerful. i make the sun to shine, and the yams to grow. i am the spirit of plants. without me there would be nothing for you all to eat or drink in boupari. if i were to grow old and die, the sun would fade away in the heavens overhead; the bread-fruit trees would wither and cease to bear on earth; all fruits would come to an end and die at once; all rivers would stop forthwith from running." his worshippers bowed down in acquiescence with awestruck faces. "it is true," they answered, in the same slow sing-song of assent as before. "tu-kila-kila is the greatest of gods. we owe to him everything. we hang upon his favor." tu-kila-kila started back, laughed, and showed his pearly white teeth. they were beautiful and regular, like the teeth of a tiger, a strong young tiger. "but i need more sacrifices than all the other gods," he went on, melodiously, like one who plays with consummate skill upon some difficult instrument. "i am greedy; i am thirsty; i am a hungry god. you must not stint me. i claim more human victims than all the other gods beside. if you want your crops to grow, and your rivers to run, the fields to yield you game, and the sea fish--this is what i ask: give me victims, victims! that is our compact. tu-kila-kila calls you." the men bowed down once more and repeated humbly, "you shall have victims as you will, great god; only give us yam and taro and bread-fruit, and cause not your bright light, the sun, to grow dark in heaven over us." "cut yourselves," tu-kila-kila cried, in a peremptory voice, clapping his hands thrice. "i am thirsting for blood. i want your free-will offering." as he spoke, every man, as by a set ritual, took from a little skin wallet at his side a sharp flake of coral-stone, and, drawing it deliberately across his breast in a deep red gash, caused the blood to flow out freely over his chest and long grass waistband. then, having done so, they never strove for a moment to stanch the wound, but let the red drops fall as they would on to the dust at their feet, without seeming even to be conscious at all of the fact that they were flowing. tu-kila-kila smiled once more, a ghastly self-satisfied smile of unquestioned power. "it is well," he went on. "my people love me. they know my strength, how i can wither them up. they give me their blood to drink freely. so i will be merciful to them. i will make my sun shine and my rain drop from heaven. and instead of taking _all_, i will choose one victim." he paused, and glanced along their line significantly. "choose, tu-kila-kila," the men answered, without a moment's hesitation. "we are all your meat. choose which one you will take of us." tu-kila-kila walked with a leisurely tread down the lines and surveyed the men critically. they were all drawn up in rows, one behind the other, according to tribes and families; and the god walked along each row, examining them with a curious and interested eye, as a farmer examines sheep fit for the market. now and then, he felt a leg or an arm with his finger and thumb, and hesitated a second. it was an important matter, this choosing a victim. as he passed, a close observer might have noted that each man trembled visibly while the god's eye was upon him, and looked after him askance with a terrified sidelong gaze as he passed on to his neighbor. but not one savage gave any overt sign or token of his terror or his reluctance. on the contrary, as tu-kila-kila passed along the line with lazy, cruel deliberateness, the men kept chanting aloud without one tremor in their voices, "we are all your meat. choose which one you will take of us." on a sudden, tu-kila-kila turned sharply round, and, darting a rapid glance toward a row he had already passed several minutes before, he exclaimed, with an air of unexpected inspiration, "tu-kila-kila has chosen. he takes maloa." the man upon whose shoulder the god laid his heavy hand as he spoke stood forth from the crowd without a moment's hesitation. if anger or fear was in his heart at all, it could not be detected in his voice or his features. he bowed his head with seeming satisfaction, and answered humbly, "what tu-kila-kila says must need be done. this is a great honor. he is a mighty god. we poor men must obey him. we are proud to be taken up and made one with divinity." tu-kila-kila raised in his hand a large stone axe of some polished green material, closely resembling jade, which lay on a block by the door, and tried its edge with his finger, in an abstracted manner. "bind him!" he said, quietly, turning round to his votaries. and the men, each glad to have escaped his own fate, bound their comrade willingly with green ropes of plantain fibre. "crown him with flowers!" tu-kila-kila said; and a female attendant, absolved from the terror of the bull-roarer by the god's command, brought forward a great garland of crimson hibiscus, which she flung around the victim's neck and shoulders. "lay his head on the sacred stone block of our fathers," tu-kila-kila went on, in an easy tone of command, waving his hand gracefully. and the men, moving forward, laid their comrade, face downward, on a huge flat block of polished greenstone, which lay like an altar in front of the hut with the mouldering skeletons. "it is well," tu-kila-kila murmured once more, half aloud. "you have given me the free-will offering. now for the trespass! where is the woman who dared to approach too near the temple-home of the divine tu-kila-kila? bring the criminal forward!" the men divided, and made a lane down their middle. then one of them, a minister of the man-god's shrine, led up by the hand, all trembling and shrinking with supernatural terror in every muscle, a well-formed young girl of eighteen or twenty. her naked bronze limbs were shapely and lissome; but her eyes were swollen and red with tears, and her face strongly distorted with awe for the man-god. when she stood at last before tu-kila-kila's dreaded face, she flung herself on the ground in an agony of fear. "oh, mercy, great god!" she cried, in a feeble voice. "i have sinned, i have sinned. mercy, mercy!" tu-kila-kila smiled as before, a smile of imperial pride. no ray of pity gleamed from those steel-gray eyes. "does tu-kila-kila show mercy?" he asked, in a mocking voice. "does he pardon his suppliants? does he forgive trespasses? is he not a god, and must not his wrath be appeased? she, being a woman, and not a wife sealed to tu-kila-kila, has dared to look from afar upon his sacred home. she has spied the mysteries. therefore she must die. my people, bind her." in a second, without more ado, while the poor trembling girl writhed and groaned in her agony before their eyes, that mob of wild savages, let loose to torture and slay, fell upon her with hideous shouts, and bound her, as they had bound their comrade before, with coarse native ropes of twisted plantain fibre. "lay her head on the stone," tu-kila-kila said, grimly. and his votaries obeyed him. "now light the sacred fire to make our feast, before i slay the victims," the god said, in a gloating voice, running his finger again along the edge of his huge hatchet. as he spoke, two men, holding in their hands hollow bamboos with coals of fire concealed within, which they kept aglow meanwhile by waving them up and down rapidly in the air, laid these primitive matches to the base of a great pyramidal pile of wood and palm-leaves, ready prepared beforehand in the yard of the temple. in a second, the dry fuel, catching the sparks instantly, blazed up to heaven with a wild outburst of flame. great red tongues of fire licked up the mouldering mass of leaves and twigs, and caught at once at the trunks of palm and li wood within. a huge conflagration reddened the sky at once like lightning. the effect was magical. the glow transfigured the whole island for miles. it was, in fact, the blaze that felix thurstan had noted and remarked upon as he stood that evening on the silent deck of the australasian. tu-kila-kila gazed at it with horrid childish glee. "a fine fire!" he said, gayly. "a fire worthy of a god. it will serve me well. tu-kila-kila will have a good oven to roast his meal in." then he turned toward the sea, and held up his hand once more for silence. as he did so, an answering light upon its surface attracted his eye for a moment's space. it was a bright red light, mixed with white and green ones; in point of fact, the australasian was passing. tu-kila-kila pointed toward it solemnly with his plump, brown fore-finger. "see," he said, drawing himself up and looking preternaturally wise; "your god is great. i am sending some of this fire across the sea to where my sun has set, to aid and reinforce it. that is to keep up the fire of the sun, lest ever at any time it should fade and fail you. while tu-kila-kila lives the sun will burn bright. if tu-kila-kila were to die it would be night forever." his votaries, following their god's fore-finger as it pointed, all turned to look in the direction he indicated with blank surprise and astonishment. such a sight had never met their eyes before, for the australasian was the very first steamer to take the eastward route, through the dangerous and tortuous boupari channel. so their awe and surprise at the unwonted sight knew no bounds. fire on the ocean! miraculous light on the waves! their god must, indeed, be a mighty deity if he could send flames like that careering over the sea! surely the sun was safe in the hands of a potentate who could thus visibly reinforce it with red light, and white! in their astonishment and awe, they stood with their long hair falling down over their foreheads, and their hands held up to their eyes that they might gaze the farther across the dim, dark ocean. the borrowed light of their bonfire was moving, slowly moving over the watery sea. fire and water were mixing and mingling on friendly terms. impossible! incredible! marvellous! miraculous! they prostrated themselves in their terror at tu-kila-kila's feet. "oh, great god," they cried, in awe-struck tones, "your power is too vast! spare us, spare us, spare us!" as for tu-kila-kila himself, he was not astonished at all. strange as it sounds to us, he really believed in his heart what he said. profoundly convinced of his own godhead, and abjectly superstitious as any of his own votaries, he absolutely accepted as a fact his own suggestion, that the light he saw was the reflection of that his men had kindled. the interpretation he had put upon it seemed to him a perfectly natural and just one. his worshippers, indeed, mere men that they were, might be terrified at the sight; but why should he, a god, take any special notice of it? he accepted his own superiority as implicitly as our european nobles and rulers accept theirs. he had no doubts himself, and he considered those who had little better than criminals. by and by, a smaller light detached itself by slow degrees from the greater ones. the others stood still, and halted in mid-ocean. the lesser light made as if it would come in the direction of boupari. in point of fact, the gig had put out in search of felix and muriel. tu-kila-kila interpreted the facts at once, however, in his own way. "see," he said, pointing with his plump forefinger once more, and encouraging with his words his terrified followers, "i am sending back a light again from the sun to my island. i am doing my work well. i am taking care of my people. fear not for your future. in the light is yet another victim. a man and a woman will come to boupari from the sun, to make up for the man and woman whom we eat in our feast to-night. give me plenty of victims, and you will have plenty of yam. make haste, then; kill, eat; let us feast tu-kila-kila! to-morrow the man and woman i have sent from the sun will come ashore on the reef, and reach boupari." at the words, he stepped forward and raised that heavy tomahawk. with one blow each he brained the two bound and defenceless victims on the altar-stone of his fathers. the rest, a european hand shrinks from revealing. the orgy was too horrible even for description. and that was the land toward which, that moment, felix thurstan was struggling, with all his might, to carry muriel ellis, from the myriad clasping arms of a comparatively gentle and merciful ocean! chapter iii. land; but what land? as the last glimmering lights of the australasian died away to seaward, felix thurstan knew in his despair there was nothing for it now but to strike out boldly, if he could, for the shore of the island. by this time the breakers had subsided greatly. not, indeed, that the sea itself was really going down. on the contrary, a brisk wind was rising sharper from the east, and the waves on the open pacific were growing each moment higher and loppier. but the huge mountain of water that washed muriel ellis overboard was not a regular ordinary wave; it was that far more powerful and dangerous mass, a shoal-water breaker. the australasian had passed at that instant over a submerged coral-bar, quite deep enough, indeed, to let her cross its top without the slightest danger of grazing, but still raised so high toward the surface as to produce a considerable constant ground-swell, which broke in windy weather into huge sheets of surf, like the one that had just struck and washed over the australasian, carrying muriel with it. the very same cause that produced the breakers, however, bore felix on their summit rapidly landward; and once he had got well beyond the region of the bar that begot them, he found himself soon, to his intense relief, in comparatively calm shoal water. muriel ellis, for her part, was faint with terror and with the buffeting of the waves; but she still floated by his side, upheld by the life-belts. he had been able, by immense efforts, to keep unseparated from her amid the rending surf of the breakers. now that they found themselves in easier waters for a while, felix began to strike out vigorously through the darkness for the shore. holding up his companion with one hand, and swimming with all his might in the direction where a vague white line of surf, lit up by the red glare-of some fire far inland, made him suspect the nearest land to lie, he almost thought he had succeeded at last, after a long hour of struggle, in feeling his feet, after all, on a firm coral bottom. at the very moment he did so, and touched the ground underneath, another great wave, curling resistlessly behind him, caught him up on its crest, whirled him heavenward like a cork, and then dashed him down once more, a passive burden, on some soft and yielding substance, which he conjectured at once to be a beach of finely powdered coral fragments. as he touched this beach for an instant, the undertow of that vast dashing breaker sucked him back with its ebb again, a helpless, breathless creature; and then the succeeding wave rolled him over like a ball, upon the beach as before, in quick succession. four times the back-current sucked him under with its wild pull in the self-same way, and four times the return wave flung him up upon the beach again like a fragment of sea-weed. with frantic efforts felix tried at first to cling still to muriel--to save her from the irresistible force of that roaring surf--to snatch her from the open jaws of death by sheer struggling dint of thews and muscle. he might as well have tried to stem niagara. the great waves, curling irresistibly in huge curves landward, caught either of them up by turns on their arched summits, and twisted them about remorselessly, raising them now aloft on their foaming crest, beating them back now prone in their hollow trough, and flinging them fiercely at last with pitiless energy against the soft beach of coral. if the beach had been hard, they must infallibly have been ground to powder or beaten to jelly by the colossal force of those gigantic blows. fortunately it was yielding, smooth, and clay-like, and received them almost as a layer of moist plaster of paris might have done, or they would have stood no chance at all for their lives in that desperate battle with the blind and frantic forces of unrelenting nature. no man who has not himself seen the surf break on one of these far-southern coral shores can form any idea in his own mind of the terror and horror of the situation. the water, as it reaches the beach, rears itself aloft for a second into a huge upright wall, which, advancing slowly, curls over at last in a hollow circle, and pounds down upon the sand or reef with all the crushing force of some enormous sledge-hammer. but after the fourth assault, felix felt himself flung up high and dry by the wave, as one may sometimes see a bit of light reed or pith flung up some distance ahead by an advancing tide on the beach in england. in an instant he steadied himself and staggered to his feet. torn and bruised as he was by the pummelling of the billows, he looked eagerly into the water in search of his companion. the next wave flung up muriel, as the last had flung himself. he bent over her with a panting heart as she lay there, insensible, on the long white shore. alive or dead? that was now the question. raising her hastily in his arms, with her clothes all clinging wet and close about her, felix carried her over the narrow strip of tidal beach, above high-water level, and laid her gently down on a soft green bank of short tropical herbage, close to the edge of the coral. then he bent over her once more, and listened eagerly at her heart. it still beat with faint pulses--beat--beat--beat. felix throbbed with joy. she was alive! alive! he was not quite alone, then, on that unknown island! and strange as it seemed, it was only a little more than two short hours since they had stood and looked out across the open sea over the bulwarks of the australasian together! but felix had no time to moralize just then. the moment was clearly one for action. fortunately, he happened to carry three useful things in his pocket when he jumped overboard after muriel. the first was a pocket-knife; the second was a flask with a little whiskey in it; and the third, perhaps the most important of all, a small metal box of wax vesta matches. pouring a little whiskey into the cup of the flask, he held it eagerly to muriel's lips. the fainting girl swallowed it automatically. then felix, stooping down, tried the matches against the box. they were unfortunately wet, but half an hour's exposure, he knew, on sun-warmed stones, in that hot, tropical air, would soon restore them again. so he opened the box and laid them carefully out on a flat white slab of coral. after that, he had time to consider exactly where they were, and what their chances in life, if any, might now amount to. pitch dark as it was, he had no difficulty in deciding at once by the general look of things that they had reached a fringing reef, such as he was already familiar with in the marquesas and elsewhere. the reef was no doubt circular, and it enclosed within itself a second or central island, divided from it by a shallow lagoon of calm, still water. he walked some yards inland. from where he now stood, on the summit of the ridge, he could look either way, and by the faint reflected light of the stars, or the glare of the great pyre that burned on the central island, he could see down on one side to the ocean, with its fierce white pounding surf, and on the other to the lagoon, reflecting the stars overhead, and motionless as a mill-pond. between them lay the low raised ridge of coral, covered with tall stems of cocoanut palms, and interspersed here and there, as far as his eye could judge, with little rectangular clumps of plantain and taro. but what alarmed felix most was the fire that blazed so brightly to heaven on the central island; for he knew too well that meant--there were _men_ on the place; the land was inhabited. the cocoanuts and taro told the same doubtful tale. from the way they grew, even in that dim starlight, felix recognized at once they had all been planted. still, he didn't hesitate to do what he thought best for muriel's relief for all that. collecting a few sticks and fragments of palm-branches from the jungle about, he piled them into a heap, and waited patiently for his matches to dry. as soon as they were ready--and the warmth of the stone made them quickly inflammable--he struck a match on the box, and proceeded to light his fire by muriel's side. as her clothes grew warmer, the poor girl opened her eyes at last, and, gazing around her, exclaimed, in blank terror, "oh, mr. thurstan, where are we? what does all this mean? where have we got to? on a desert island?" "no, _not_ on a desert island," felix answered, shortly; "i'm afraid it's a great deal worse than that. to tell you the truth, i'm afraid it's inhabited." at that moment, by the hot embers of the great sacrificial pyre on the central hill, two of the savage temple-attendants, calling their god's attention to a sudden blaze of flame upon the fringing reef, pointed with their dark forefingers and called out in surprise, "see, see, a fire on the barrier! a fire! a fire! what can it mean? there are no men of our people over there to-night. have war-canoes arrived? has some enemy landed?" tu-kila-kila leaned back, drained his cocoanut cup of intoxicating kava, and surveyed the unwonted apparition on the reef long and carefully. "it is nothing," he said at last, in his most deliberate manner, stroking his cheeks and chin contentedly with that plump round hand of his. "it is only the victims; the new victims i promised you. korong! korong! they have come ashore with their light from my home in the sun. they have brought fire afresh--holy fire to boupari." three or four of the savages leaped up in fierce joy, and bowed before him as he spoke, with eager faces. "oh, tu-kila-kila!" the eldest among them said, making a profound reverence, "shall we swim across to the reef and fetch them home to your house? shall we take over our canoes and bring back your victims!" the god motioned them back with one outstretched palm. his eyes were flushed and his look lazy. "not to-night, my people," he said; readjusting the garland of flowers round his neck, and giving a careless glance at the well-picked bones that a few hours before had been two trembling fellow creatures. "tu-kila-kila has feasted his fill for this evening. your god is full; his heart is happy. i have eaten human flesh; i have drunk of the juice of the kava. am i not a great deity? can i not do as i will? i frown, and the heavens thunder; i gnash my teeth, and the earth trembles. what is it to me if fresh victims come, or if they come not? can i not make with a nod as many as i will of them?" he took up two fresh finger-bones, clean gnawed of their flesh, and knocked them together in a wild tune, carelessly. "if tu-kila-kila chooses," he went on, tapping his chest with conscious pride, "he can knock these bones together--so--and bid them live again. is it not i who cause women and beasts to bring forth their young? is it not i who give the turtles their increase? and is it not a small thing to me, therefore, whether the sea tosses up my victims from my home in the sun, or whether it does not? let us leave them alone on the reef for to-night; to-morrow we will send over our canoes to fetch them." it was all pure brag, all pure guesswork; and yet, tu-kila-kila himself profoundly believed it. as he spoke, the light from felix's fire blazed out against the dark sky, stronger and clearer still; and through that cloudless tropical air the figure of a man, standing for one moment between the flames and the lagoon, became distinctly visible to the keen and practised eyes of the savages. "i see them? i see them; i see the victims!" the foremost worshipper exclaimed, rushing forward a little at the sight, and beside himself with superstitious awe and surprise at tu-kila-kila's presence. "surely our god is great! he knows all things! he brings us meat from the setting sun, in ships of fire, in blazing canoes, across the golden road of the sun-bathed ocean!" as for tu-kila-kila himself, leaning on his elbow at ease, he gazed across at the unexpected sight with very languid interest. he was a god, and he liked to see things conducted with proper decorum. this crowing and crying over a couple of spirits--mere ordinary spirits come ashore from the sun in a fiery boat--struck his godship as little short of childish. "let them be," he answered, petulantly, crushing a blossom in his hand. "let no man disturb them. they shall rest where they are till to-morrow morning. we have eaten; we have drunk; our soul is happy. the kava within us has made us like a god indeed. i shall give my ministers charge that no harm happen to them." he drew a whistle from his side and whistled once. there was a moment's pause. then tu-kila-kila spoke in a loud voice again. "the king of fire!" he exclaimed, in tones of princely authority. from within the hut there came forth slowly a second stalwart savage, big built and burly as the great god himself, clad in a long robe or cloak of yellow feathers, which shone bright with a strange metallic gleam in the ruddy light of the huge pile of li-wood. "the king of fire is here, tu-kila-kila," the lesser god made answer, bending his head slightly. "fire," tu-kila-kila said, like a monarch giving orders to his attendant minister, "if any man touch the newcomers on the reef before i cause my sun to rise to-morrow morning, scorch up his flesh with your flame, and consume his bones to ash and cinder. if any woman go near them before tu-kila-kila bids, let her be rolled in palm-leaves, and smeared with oil, and light her up for a torch on a dark night to lighten our temple." the king of fire bent his head in assent. "it is as tu-kila-kila wills," he answered, submissively. tu-kila-kila whistled again, this time twice. "the king of water!" he exclaimed, in the same loud tone of command as before. at the words, a man of about forty, tall and sinewy, clad in a short cape of white albatross feathers, and with a girdle of nautilus shells interspersed with red coral tied around his waist, came forth to the summons. "the king of water is here," he said, bending his head, but not his knee, before the greater deity. "water," tu-kila-kila said, with half-tipsy solemnity, "you are a god too. your power is very great. but less than mine. do, then, as i bid you. if any man touch my spirits, whom i have brought from my home in the sun in a fiery ship, before i bid him to-morrow, overturn his canoe, and drown him in lagoon or spring or ocean. if any woman go near them without tu-kila-kila's leave, bind her hand and foot with ropes of porpoise hide, and cast her out into the surf, and dash her with your waves, and pummel her to pieces." the king of water bent his head a second time. "i am a great god," he answered, "before all others save you: but for you, tu-kila-kila, i haste to do your bidding. if any man disobey you, my billows shall rise and overwhelm him in the sea. i am a great god. i claim each year many drowned victims." "but not so many as me," tu-kila-kila interposed, his hand playing on his knife with a faint air of impatience. "but not so many as you," the minor god added, in haste, as if to appease his rising anger. "fire and water ever speed to do your bidding." tu-kila-kila stood up, turned toward the distant flame, and waved his hands round and round three times before him. "let this be for you all a great taboo," he said, glancing once more toward his awe-struck followers. "now the mysteries are over. tu-kila-kila will sleep. he has eaten of human flesh. he has drunk of cocoanut rum and of new kava. he has brought back his sun on its way in the heavens. he has sent it messengers of fire to reinforce its strength. he has fetched from it messengers in turn with fresh fire to boupari, fire not lighted from any earthly flame; fire new, divine, scorching, unspeakable. to-morrow we will talk with the spirits he has brought. to-night we will sleep. now all go to your homes; and tell your women of this great taboo, lest they speak to the spirits, and fall into the hands of fire or of water." the savages dropped on their faces before the eye of their god and lay quite still. they made a path as it were from the pyre to the temple door with their prostrate bodies. tu-kila-kila, walking with unsteady steps over their half-naked forms, turned to his hut in a drunken booze. he walked over them with no more compunction or feeling than over so many logs. why should he not, indeed? for he was a god, and they were his meat, his servants, his worshippers. chapter iv. the guests of heaven. all that night through--their first lonely night on the island of boupari--felix sat up by his flickering fire, wide awake, half expecting and dreading some treacherous attack of the unknown savages. from time to time he kept adding dry fuel to his smouldering pile; and he never ceased to keep a keen eye both on the lagoon and the reef, in case an assault should be made upon them suddenly by land or water. he knew the south seas quite well enough already to have all the possibilities of misfortune floating vividly before his eyes. he realized at once from his own previous experience the full loneliness and terror of their unarmed condition. for boupari was one of those rare remote islets where the very rumor of our european civilization has hardly yet penetrated. as for muriel, though she was alarmed enough, of course, and intensely shaken by the sudden shock she had received, the whole surroundings were too wholly unlike any world she had ever yet known to enable her to take in at once the utter horror of the situation. she only knew they were alone, wet, bruised, and terribly battered; and the australasian had gone on, leaving them there to their fate on an unknown island. that, for the moment, was more than enough for her of accumulated misfortune. she come to herself but slowly, and as her torn clothes dried by degrees before the fire and the heat of the tropical night, she was so far from fully realizing the dangers of their position that her first and principal fear for the moment was lest she might take cold from her wet things drying upon her. she ate a little of the plantain that felix picked for her; and at times, toward morning, she dozed off into an uneasy sleep, from pure fatigue and excess of weariness. as she slept, felix, bending over her, with the biggest blade of his knife open in case of attack, watched with profound emotion the rise and fall of her bosom, and hesitated with himself, if the worst should come to the worst, as to what he ought to do with her. it would be impossible to let a pure young english girl like that fall helplessly into the hands of such bloodthirsty wretches as he knew the islanders were almost certain to be. who could tell what nameless indignities, what incredible tortures they might wantonly inflict upon her innocent soul? was it right of him to have let her come ashore at all? ought he not rather to have allowed the more merciful sea to take her life easily, without the chance or possibility of such additional horrors? and now--as she slept--so calm and pure and maidenly--what was his duty that minute, just there to her? he felt the blade of his knife with his finger cautiously, and almost doubted. if only she could tell what things might be in store for her, would she not, herself, prefer death, an honorable death, at the friendly hands of a tenderhearted fellow-countryman, to the unspeakable insults of these man-eating polynesians? if only he had the courage to release her by one blow, as she lay there, from the coming ill! but he hadn't; he hadn't. even on board the australasian he had been vaguely aware that he was getting very fond of that pretty little miss ellis. and now that he sat there, after that desperate struggle for life with the pounding waves, mounting guard over her through the livelong night, his own heart told him plainly, in tones he could not disobey, he loved her too well to dare what he thought best in the end for her. still, even so, he was brave enough to feel he must never let the very worst of all befall her. he bethought him, in his doubt and agony, of how his uncle, major thurstan, during the great indian mutiny, had held his lonely bungalow, with his wife and daughter by his side, for three long hours against a howling mob of native insurgents; and how, when further resistance was hopeless, and that great black wave of angry humanity burst in upon them at last, the brave soldier had drawn his revolver, shot his wife and daughter with unerring aim, to prevent their falling alive into the hands of the natives, and then blown his own brains out with his last remaining cartridge. as his uncle had done at jhansi, thirty years before, so he himself would do on that nameless pacific island--for he didn't know even now on what shore he had landed. if the savages bore down upon them with hostile intent, and threatened muriel, he would plunge his knife first into that innocent woman's heart; and then bury it deep in his own, and die beside her. so the long night wore on--muriel pillowed on loose cocoanut husk, dozing now and again, and waking with a start to gaze round about her wildly, and realize once more in what plight she found herself; felix crouching by her feet, and keeping watch with eager eyes and ears on every side for the least sign of a noiseless, naked footfall through the tangled growth of that dense tropical under-bush. time after time he clapped his hand to his ear, shell-wise, and listened and peered, with knitted brow, suspecting some sudden swoop from an ambush in the jungle of creepers behind the little plantain patch. time after time he grasped his knife hard, and puckered his eyebrows resolutely, and stood still with bated breath for a fierce, wild leap upon his fancied assailant. but the night wore away by degrees, a minute at a time, and no man came; and dawn began to brighten the sea-line to eastward. as the day dawned, felix could see more clearly exactly where he was, and in what surroundings. without, the ocean broke in huge curling billows on the shallow beach of the fringing reef with such stupendous force that felix wondered how they could ever have lived through its pounding surf and its fiercely retreating undertow. within, the lagoon spread its calm lake-like surface away to the white coral shore of the central atoll. between these two waters, the greater and the less, a waving palisade of tall-stemmed palm-trees rose on a narrow ribbon of circular land that formed the fringing reef. all night through he had felt, with a strange eerie misgiving, the very foundations of the land thrill under his feet at every dull thud or boom of the surf on its restraining barrier. now that he could see that thin belt of shore in its actual shape and size, he was not astonished at this constant shock; what surprised him rather was the fact that such a speck of land could hold its own at all against the ceaseless cannonade of that seemingly irresistible ocean. he stood up, hatless, in his battered tweed suit, and surveyed the scene of their present and future adventures. it took but a glance to show him that the whole ground-plan of the island was entirely circular. in the midst of all rose the central atoll itself, a tiny mountain-peak, just projecting with its hills and gorges to a few hundred feet above the surface of the ocean. outside it came the lagoon, with its placid ring of glassy water surrounding the circular island, and separated from the sea by an equally circular belt of fringing reef, covered thick with waving stems of picturesque cocoanut. it was on the reef they had landed, and from it they now looked across the calm lagoon with doubtful eyes toward the central island. as soon as the sun rose, their doubts were quickly resolved into fears or certainties. scarcely had its rim begun to show itself distinctly above the eastern horizon, when a great bustle and confusion was noticeable at once on the opposite shore. brown-skinned savages were collecting in eager groups by a white patch of beach, and putting out rude but well-manned canoes into the calm waters of the lagoon. at sight of their naked arms and bustling gestures, muriel's heart sank suddenly within her. "oh, mr. thurstan," she cried, clinging to his arm in her terror, "what does it all mean? are they going to hurt us? are these savages coming over? are they coming to kill us?" felix grasped his trusty knife hard in his right hand, and swallowed a groan, as he looked tenderly down upon her. "muriel," he said, forgetting in the excitement of the moment the little conventionalities and courtesies of civilized life, "if they are, trust me, you never shall fall alive into their cruel hands. sooner than that--" he held up the knife significantly, with its open blade before her. the poor girl clung to him harder still, with a ghastly shudder. "oh, it's terrible, terrible," she cried, turning deadly pale. then, after a short pause, she added, "but i would rather have it so. do as you say. i could bear it from you. promise me _that_, rather than that those creatures should kill me." "i promise," felix answered, clasping her hand hard, and paused, with the knife ever ready in his right, awaiting the approach of the half-naked savages. the boats glided fast across the lagoon, propelled by the paddles of the stalwart polynesians who manned them, and crowded to the water's edge with groups of grinning and shouting warriors. they were dressed in aprons of dracæna leaves only, with necklets and armlets of sharks' teeth and cowrie shells. a dozen canoes at least were making toward the reef at full speed, all bristling with spears and alive with noisy and boisterous savages. muriel shrank back terror-stricken at the sight, as they drew nearer and nearer. but felix, holding his breath hard, grew somewhat less nervous as the men approached the reef. he had seen enough of polynesian life before now to feel sure these people were not upon the war-path. whatever their ultimate intentions toward the castaways might be, their immediate object seemed friendly and good-humored. the boats, though large, were not regular war-canoes; the men, instead of brandishing their spears, and lunging out with them over the edge in threatening attitudes, held them erect in their hands at rest, like standards; they were laughing and talking, not crying their war-cry. as they drew near the shore, one big canoe shot suddenly a length or so ahead of the rest; and its leader, standing on the grotesque carved figure that adorned its prow, held up both his hands open and empty before him, in sign of peace, while at the same time he shouted out a word or two three times in his own language, to reassure the castaways. felix's eye glanced cautiously from boat to boat. "he says, 'we are friends,'" the young man remarked in an undertone to his terrified companion. "i can understand his dialect. thank heaven, it's very close to fijian. i shall be able at least to palaver to these men. i don't think they mean just now to harm us. i believe we can trust them, at any rate for the present." the poor girl drew back, in still greater awe and alarm than ever. "oh, are they going to land here?" she cried, still clinging closer with both hands to her one friend and protector. "try not to look so frightened!" felix exclaimed, with a warning glance. "remember, much depends upon it; savages judge you greatly by what demeanor you happen to assume. if you're frightened, they know their power; if they see you're resolute, they suspect you have some supernatural means of protection. try to meet them frankly, as if you were not afraid of them." then, advancing slowly to the water's edge, he called out aloud, in a strong, clear voice, a few words which muriel didn't understand, but which were really the fijian for "we also are friendly. our medicine is good. we mean no magic. we come to you from across the great water. we desire your peace. receive us and protect us!" at the sound of words which he could readily understand, and which differed but little, indeed, from his own language, the leader on the foremost canoe, who seemed by his manner to be a great chief, turned round to his followers and cried out in tones of superstitious awe, "tu-kila-kila spoke well. these are, indeed, what he told us. korong! korong! they are spirits who have come to us from the disk of the sun, to bring us light and pure, fresh fire. stay back there, all of you. you are not holy enough to approach. i and my crew, who are sanctified by the mysteries, we alone will go forward to meet them." as he spoke, a sudden idea, suggested by his words, struck felix's mind. superstition is the great lever by which to move the savage intelligence. gathering up a few dry leaves and fragments of stick on the shore, he laid them together in a pile, and awaited in silence the arrival of the foremost islanders. the first canoe advanced slowly and cautiously, the men in it eying these proceedings with evident suspicion; the rest hung back, with their spears in array, and their hands just ready to use them with effect should occasion demand it. the leader of the first canoe, coming close to the shore, jumped out upon the reef in shallow water. half a dozen of his followers jumped after him without hesitation, and brandished their weapons round their heads as they advanced, in savage unison. but felix, pretending hardly to notice these hostile demonstrations, stepped boldly up toward his little pile with great deliberation, though trembling inwardly, and proceeded before their eyes to take a match from his box, which he displayed ostentatiously, all glittering in the sun, to the foremost savage. the leader stood by and watched him close with eyes of silent wonder. then felix, kneeling down, struck the match on the box, and applied it, as it lighted, to the dry leaves beside him. a chorus of astonishment burst unanimously from the delighted natives as the dry leaves leaped all at once into a tongue of flame, and the little pile caught quickly from the fire in the vesta. the leader looked hard at the two white faces, and then at the fire on the beach, with evident approbation. "it is as tu-kila-kila said," he exclaimed at last with profound awe. "they are spirits from the sun, and they carry with them pure fire in shining boxes." then, advancing a pace and pointing toward the canoe, he motioned felix and muriel to take their seats within it with native savage politeness. "tu-kila-kila has sent for you," he said, in his grandest aristocratic air, "for your chief is a gentleman. he wishes to receive you. he saw your message-fire on the reef last night, and he knew you had come. he has made you a very great taboo. he has put you under protection of fire and water." the people in the boats, with one accord, shouted out in wild chorus, as if to confirm his words, "taboo! taboo! tu-kila-kila has said it! taboo! taboo! ware fire! ware water!" though the dialect in which they spoke differed somewhat from that in use in fiji, felix could still make out with care almost every word of what the chief had said to him; and the universal polynesian expression, "taboo," in particular, somewhat reassured him as to their friendly intentions. among remote heathen islanders like these, he felt sure, the very word itself was far too sacred to be taken in vain. they would respect its inviolability. he turned round to muriel. "we must go with them," he said, shortly. "it's our one chance left of life now. don't be too terrified; there is still some hope. they say somebody they call tu-kila-kila has tabooed us. no one will dare to hurt us against so great a taboo; for tu-kila-kila is evidently some very important king or chief. you must step into the boat. it can't be avoided. if any harm is threatened, be sure i won't forget my promise." muriel shrank back in alarm, and clung still to his arm now as naturally as she would have clung to a brother's. "oh, mr. thurstan," she cried--"felix, i don't know what to say; i _can't_ go with them." felix put his arm gently round her girlish waist, and half lifted her into the boat in spite of her reluctance. "you must," he said, with great firmness. "you must do as i say. i will watch over you, and take care of you. if the worst comes, i have always my knife, and i won't forget. now, friend," he went on, in fijian, turning round to the chief, as he took his seat in the canoe fearlessly among all those dusky, half-clad figures, "we are ready to start. we do not fear. we wish to go. take us to tu-kila-kila." and all the savages around, shouting in their surprise and awe, exclaimed once more in concert, "tu-kila-kila is great. we will take them, as he bids us, forthwith to heaven." "what do they say?" muriel cried, clinging close to the white man's side in her speechless terror. "do you understand their language?" "well, i can't quite make it out," felix answered, much puzzled; "that is to say, not every word of it. they say they'll take us somewhere, i don't quite know where; but in fijian, the word would certainly mean to heaven." muriel shuddered visibly. "you don't think," she said, with a tremulous tongue, "they mean to kill us?" "no, i don't _think_ so," felix replied, not over-confidently. "they said we were taboo. but with savages like these, of course, one can never in any case be quite certain." chapter v. enrolled in olympus. they rowed across the lagoon, a mysterious procession, almost in silence--the canoe with the two europeans going first, the others following at a slight distance--and landed at last on the brink of the central island. several of the boupari people leaped ashore at once; then they helped felix and muriel from the frail bark with almost deferential care, and led the way before them up a steep white path, that zigzagged through the forest toward the centre of the island. as they went, a band of natives preceded them in regular line of march, shouting "taboo, taboo!" at short intervals, especially as they neared any group of fan-palm cottages. the women whom they met fell on their knees at once, till the strange procession had passed them by; the men only bowed their heads thrice, and made a rapid movement on their breasts with their fingers, which reminded muriel at once of the sign of the cross in catholic countries. so on they wended their way in silence through the deep tropical jungle, along a pathway just wide enough for three to walk abreast, till they emerged suddenly upon a large cleared space, in whose midst grew a great banyan-tree, with arms that dropped and rooted themselves like buttresses in the soil beneath. under the banyan-tree a raised platform stood upon posts of bamboo. the platform was covered with fine network in yellow and red; and two little stools occupied the middle, as if placed there on purpose and waiting for their occupants. the man who had headed the first canoe turned round to felix and motioned him forward. "this is heaven," he said glibly, in his own tongue. "spirits, ascend it!" felix, much wondering what the ceremony could mean, mounted the platform without a word, in obedience to the chief's command, closely followed by muriel, who dared not leave him for a second. "bring water!" the chief said, shortly, in a voice of authority to one of his followers. the man handed up a calabash with a little water in it. the chief took the rude vessel from his hands in a reverential manner, and poured a few drops of the contents on felix's head; the water trickled down over his hair and forehead. involuntarily, felix shook his head a little at the unexpected wetting, and scattered the drops right and left on his neck and shoulders. the chief watched this performance attentively with profound satisfaction. then he turned to his attendants. "the spirit shakes his head," he said, with a deeply convinced air. "all is well. heaven has chosen him. korong! korong! he is accepted for his purpose. it is well! it is well! let us try the other one." he raised the calabash once more, and poured a few drops in like manner on muriel's dark hair. the poor girl, trembling in every limb, shook her head also in the same unintentional fashion. the chief regarded her with still more complacent eyes. "it is well," he observed once more to his companions, smiling. "she, too, gives the sign of acceptance. korong! korong! heaven is well pleased with both. see how her body trembles!" at that moment a girl came forward with a little basket of fruits. the chief chose a banana with care from the basket, peeled it with his dusky hands, broke it slowly in two, and handed one half very solemnly to felix. "eat, king of the rain," he said, as he presented it. "the offering of heaven." felix ate it at once, thinking it best under the circumstances not to demur at all to anything his strange hosts might choose to impose upon him. the chief handed the other half just as solemnly to muriel. "eat, queen of the clouds," he said, as he placed it in her fingers. "the offering of heaven." muriel hesitated. she didn't know what his words meant, and it seemed to her rather the offering of a very dirty and unwashed savage. the chief eyed her hard. "for god's sake eat it, my child; he tells you to eat it!" felix exclaimed in haste. muriel lifted it to her lips and swallowed it down with difficulty. the man's dusky hands didn't inspire confidence. but the chief seemed relieved when he had seen her swallow it. "all is well done," he said, turning again to his followers. "we have obeyed the words of tu-kila-kila, and his orders that he gave us. we have offered the strangers, the spirits from the sun, as a free gift to heaven, and heaven has accepted them. we have given them fruits, the fruits of the earth, and they have duly eaten them. korong! korong! the king of the rain and the queen of the clouds have indeed come among us. they are truly gods. we will take them now, as he bid us, to tu-kila-kila." "what have they done to us?" muriel asked aside, in a terrified undertone of felix. "i can't quite make out," felix answered in the selfsame voice. "they call us the king of the rain and the queen of the clouds in their own language. i think they imagine we've come from the sun and that we're a sort of spirits." at the sound of these words the girl who held the basket of fruits gave a sudden start. it almost seemed to muriel as if she understood them. but when muriel looked again she gave no further sign. she merely held her peace, and tried to appear wholly undisconcerted. the chief beckoned them down from the platform with a wave of his hand. they rose and followed him. as they rose the people around them bowed low to the ground. felix could see they were bowing to muriel and himself, not merely to the chief. a doubt flitted strangely across his mind for a moment. what could it all mean? did they take the two strangers, then, for supernatural beings? had they enrolled them as gods? if so, it might serve as some little protection for them. the procession formed again, three and three, three and three, in solemn silence. then the chief walked in front of them with measured steps, and felix and muriel followed behind, wondering. as they went, the cry rose louder and louder than before, "taboo! taboo!" people who met them fell on their faces at once, as the chief cried out in a loud tone, "the king of the rain! the queen of the clouds! korong! korong! they are coming! they are coming!" at last they reached a second cleared space, standing in a large garden of manilla, loquat, poncians, and hibiscus-trees. it was entered by a gate, a tall gate of bamboo posts. at the gate all the followers fell back to right and left, awe-struck. only the chief went calmly on. he beckoned to felix and muriel to follow him. they entered, half terrified. felix still grasped his open knife in his hand, ready to strike at any moment that might be necessary. the chief led them forward toward a very large tree near the centre of the garden. at the foot of the tree stood a hut, somewhat bigger and better built than any they had yet seen; and in front of the trunk a stalwart savage, very powerfully built, but with a sinister look in his cruel and lustful eye, was pacing up and down, like a sentinel on guard, a long spear in his right hand, and a tomahawk in his left, held close by his side, all ready for action. as he prowled up and down he seemed to be peering warily about him on every side, as if each instant he expected to be set upon by an enemy. but as the chief approached, the people without set up once more the cry of "taboo! taboo!" and the stalwart savage by the tree, laying down his spear and letting his tomahawk fall free, dropped in a second the air of watchful alarm, and advanced with some courtesy to greet the new-comers. "we have found them, tu-kila-kila," the chief said, presenting them to the god with a graceful wave of his hand. "we have found the spirits that you brought from the sun, with the fire in their hands, and the light in boxes. we have taken them to heaven. heaven has accepted them. we have offered them fruit, and they have eaten the banana. the king of the rain--the queen of the clouds! korong! receive them!" tu-kila-kila glanced at them with an approving glance, strangely compounded of pleasure and terror. "they are plump," he said shortly. "they are indeed korong. my sun has sent me an acceptable present." "what is your will that we should do with them?" the chief asked in a deeply deferential tone. tu-kila-kila looked hard at muriel--such a hateful look that the knife trembled irresolute for a second in felix's hand. "give them two fresh huts," he said, in a lordly way. "give them divine platters. give them all that they need. make everything right for them." the chief bowed, and retired with an awed air from the presence. exactly as he passed a certain line on the ground, marked white with a row of coral-sand, tu-kila-kila seized his spear and his tomahawk once more, and mounted guard, as before, at the foot of the great tree where they had seen him pacing. an instantaneous change seemed to muriel to come over his demeanor at that moment. while he spoke with the chief she noticed he looked all cruelty, lust, and hateful self-indulgence. now that he paced up and down warily in front of that sacred floor, peering around him with keen suspicion, he seemed rather the personification of watchfulness, fear, and a certain slavish bodily terror. especially, she observed, he cast upon felix, as he went, a glance of angry hate; and yet he did not attempt to hurt or molest him in any way, defenceless as they both were before those numerous savages. as they emerged from the enclosure, the girl with the fruit basket stood near the gate, looking outward from the wall, her face turned away from the awful home of tu-kila-kila. at the moment when muriel passed, to her immense astonishment the girl spoke to her. "don't be afraid, missy," she said in english, in a rather low voice, without obtrusively approaching them. "boupari man not going to hurt you. me going to be your servant. me name mali. me very good girl. me take plenty care of you." the unexpected sound of her own language, in the midst of so much unmitigated savagery, took muriel fairly by surprise. she looked hard at the girl, but thought it wisest to answer nothing. this particular young woman, indeed, was just as dark, and to all appearance just as much of a savage, as any of the rest of them. but she could speak english, at any rate! and she said she was to be muriel's servant! the chief led them back to the shore, talking volubly all the way in polynesia to felix. his dialect differed so much from the fijian that when he spoke first felix could hardly follow him. but he gathered vaguely, nevertheless, that they were to be well housed and fed for the present at the public expense; and even that something which the chief clearly regarded as a very great honor was in store for them in the future. whatever these people's particular superstition might be, it seemed pretty evident at least that it told in the strangers' favor. felix almost began to hope they might manage to live there pretty tolerably for the next two or three weeks, and perhaps to signal in time to some passing australian liner. the rest of that wonderful eventful day was wholly occupied with practical details. before long, two adjacent huts were found for them, near the shore of the lagoon; and felix noticed with pleasure, not only that the huts themselves were new and clean, but also that the chief took great care to place round both of them a single circular line of white coral-sand, like the one he had noticed at tu-kila-kila's palace-temple. he felt sure this white line made the space within taboo. no native would dare without leave to cross it. when the line was well marked out round the two huts together, the chief went away for a while, leaving the europeans within their broad white circle, guarded by an angry-looking band of natives with long spears at rest, all pointed inward. the natives themselves stood well without the ring, but the points of their spears almost reached the line, and it was clear they would not for the present permit the europeans to leave the charmed circle. presently, the chief returned again, followed by two other natives in official costumes. one of them was a tall and handsome young man, dressed in a long robe or cloak of yellow feathers. the other was stouter, and perhaps forty or thereabouts; he wore a short cape of white albatross plumes, with a girdle of shells at his waist, interspersed with red coral. "the king of fire will make taboo," the chief said, solemnly. the young man with the cloak of yellow feathers stepped forward and spoke, toeing the line with his left foot, and brandishing a lighted stick in his right hand. "taboo! taboo! taboo!" he cried aloud, with emphasis. "if any man dare to transgress this line without leave, i burn him to ashes. if any woman, i scorch her to a cinder. taboo to the king of the rain and the queen of the clouds. taboo! taboo! taboo! korong! i say it." he stepped back into the ranks with an air of duty performed. the chief looked about him curiously a moment. "the king of water will make taboo," he repeated after a pause, in the same deep tone of profound conviction. the stouter man in the short white cape stepped forward in his turn. he toed the line with his naked left foot; in his brown right hand he carried a calabash of water. "taboo! taboo! taboo!" he exclaimed aloud, pouring out the water upon the ground symbolically. "if any man dare to transgress this line without leave, i drown him in his canoe. if any woman, i drag her alive into the spring as she fetches water. taboo to the king of the rain and the queen of the clouds. taboo! taboo! taboo! korong! i say it." "what does it all mean?" muriel whispered, terrified. felix explained to her, as far as he could, in a few hurried sentences. "there's only one word in it i don't understand," he added, hastily, "and that's korong. it doesn't occur in fiji. they keep saying we're korong, whatever that may mean; and evidently they attach some very great importance to it." "let the shadows come forward," the chief said, looking up with an air of dignity. a good-looking young man, and the girl who said her name was mali, stepped forth from the crowd, and fell on their knees before him. the chief laid his hand on the young man's shoulder and raised him up. "the shadow of the king of the rain," he cried, turning him three times round. "follow him in all his incomings and his outgoings, and serve him faithfully! taboo! taboo! pass within the sacred circle!" he clapped his hands. the young man crossed the line with a sort of reverent reluctance, and took his place within the ring, close up to felix. the chief laid his hand on mali's shoulder. "the shadow of the queen of the clouds," he said, turning her three times round. "follow her in all her incomings and outgoings, and serve her faithfully. taboo! taboo! pass within the sacred circle!" then he waved both hands to felix. "go where you will now," he said. "your shadow will follow you. you are free as the rain that drops where it will. you are as free as the clouds that roam through heaven. no man will hinder you." and in a moment the spearmen dropped their spears in concert, the crowd fell back, and the villagers dispersed as if by magic, to their own houses. but felix and muriel were left alone beside their huts, guarded only in silence by their two mystic shadows. chapter vi. first days in boupari. throughout that day the natives brought them, from time to time, numerous presents of yam, bananas, and bread-fruit, neatly arranged in little palm-leaf baskets. a few of them brought eggs as well, and one offering even included a live chicken. but the people who brought them, and who were mostly young girls just entering upon womanhood, did not venture to cross the white line of coral-sand that surrounded the huts; they laid down their presents, with many salaams, on the ground outside, and then waited with a half-startled, half-reverent air for one or other of the two shadows to come out and fetch them. as soon as the baskets were carried well within the marked line, the young girls exhibited every sign of pleasure, and calling aloud, "korong! korong!"--that mysterious polynesian word of whose import felix was ignorant--they retired once more by tortuous paths through the surrounding jungle. "why do they bring us presents?" felix asked at last of his shadow, after this curious pantomime had been performed some three or four times. "are they always going to keep us in such plenty?" the shadow looked back at him with an air of considerable surprise. "they bring presents, of course," he said, in his own tongue, "because they are badly in want of rain. we have had much drought of late in boupari; we need water from heaven. the banana-bushes wither; the flowers on the bread-fruit tree do not swell to breadfruit; the yams are thirsty. therefore the fathers send their daughters with presents, maidens of the villages, all marriageable girls, to ask for rainfall. but they will always provide for you, and also for the queen, however you behave; for you are both korong. tu-kila-kila has said so, and heaven has accepted you." "what do you mean by korong?" felix asked, with some trepidation. the shadow merely looked back at him with a sort of blank surprise that anybody should be ignorant of so simple a conception. "why, korong is korong," he answered, aghast. "you are korong yourself. the queen of the clouds is korong, too. you are both korong; that is why they all treat you with such respect and reverence." and that was as much as felix could elicit by his subtlest questions from his taciturn shadow. in fact, it was clear that in the open, at least, the shadow was averse to being observed in familiar conversation with felix. during the heat of the day, however, when they sat alone within the hut, he was much more communicative. then he launched forth pretty freely into talk about the island and its life, which would no doubt have largely enlightened felix, had it not been for two drawbacks to their means of inter-communication. in the first place, the boupari dialect, though agreeing in all essentials with the polynesian of fiji, nevertheless contained a great many words and colloquial expressions unknown to the fijians; this being particularly the case, as felix soon remarked, in the whole vocabulary of religious rites and ceremonies. and in the second place, the shadow was so rigidly bound by his own narrow and insular set of ideas, that he couldn't understand the difficulty felix felt in throwing himself into them. over and over again, when felix asked him to explain some word or custom, he would repeat, with naïve impatience, "why, korong is korong," or "tula is just tula; even a child must surely know what tula is; much more yourself, who are indeed korong, and who have come from the sun to bring fresh fire to us." in the adjoining hut, muriel, who was now beginning in some small degree to get rid of her most pressing fear for the immediate future, and whom the obvious reality of the taboo had reassured for the moment, sat with mali, her own particular shadow, unravelling the mystery of the girl's knowledge of english. mali, indeed, like the other shadow, showed every disposition to indulge in abundant conversation, as soon as she found herself well within the hut, alone with her mistress, and secluded from the prying eyes of all the other islanders. "don't you be afraid, missy," she said, with genuine kindliness in her tone, as soon as the gifts of yam and bread-fruit had all been duly housed and garnered. "no harm come to you. you korong, you know. you very great taboo. tu-kila-kila send king of fire and king of water to make taboo over you, so nobody hurt you." muriel burst into tears at the sound of her own language from those dusky lips, and exclaimed through her sobs, clinging to the girl's hand for comfort as she spoke, "why, how did you ever come to speak english?--tell me." mali looked up at her with a half-astonished air. "oh, i servant in queensland, of course, missy," she answered, with great composure. "labor vessel come to my island, far away, four, five years ago, steal boy, steal woman. my papa just kill my mamma, because he angry with her, so no want daughters. so my papa sell me and my sister for plenty rum, plenty tobacco, to gentlemen in labor vessel. gentlemen in labor vessel take jani and me away, away, to queensland. big sea; long voyage. we stop there three yam--three years--do service; then great chief in queensland send us back to my island. my island too faraway; gentleman on ship not find it out; so he land us in little boat on boupari. boupari people make temple slave of us." and that was all; to her quite a commonplace, everyday history. "i see," muriel cried. "then you've been for three years in australia! and there you learned english. why, what did you do there?" mali looked back at her with the same matter-of-fact air of composure as before. "oh, me nurse at first," she said, shortly. "then after, me housemaid, live three year in gentleman's house, good gentleman that buy me. take care of little girl; clean rooms; do everything. me know how to make english lady quite comfortable. me tell that to chief; that make him say, 'mali, you be queenie's shadow.'" to muriel in her loneliness even such companionship as that was indeed a consolation. "oh, i'm so glad you told him," she cried. "if we have to stop here long, before a ship takes us off, it'll be so nice to have you here all the time with me. you won't go away from me ever, will you? you'll always stop with me!" the girl's surprise showed more profoundly than ever. "me can't go away," she answered, with emphasis. "me your shadow. that great taboo. tu-kila-kila great god. if me go away, tu-kila-kila kill me and eat me." muriel started back in horror. "but, mali," she said, looking hard at the girl's pleasant brown face, "if you were three years in australia, you're a christian, surely!" the girl nodded her head in passive acquiescence. "me christian in australia," she answered. "of course me christian. all folks make christian when him go to queensland. that what for me call mali, and my sister jani. we have other names on my own island; but when we go to queensland, gentleman baptize us, call us mali and jani. me methodist in queensland. methodist very good. but methodist god no live in boupari. not any good be methodist here any longer. tu-kila-kila god here. him very powerful." "what! not that dreadful creature that they took us to see this morning!" muriel exclaimed, in horror. "oh, mali, you can't mean to say they think he's a _god_, that awful man there!" mali nodded her assent with profound conviction. "yes, yes; him god," she repeated, confidently. "him very powerful. my sister jani go too near him temple, against taboo--because her not belong-a tu-kila-kila temple; and last night, when it great feast, plenty men catch jani, and tie him up in rope; and tu-kila-kila kill him, and plenty boupari men help tu-kila-kila eat up jani." she said it in the same simple, matter-of-fact way as she had said that she was a nurse for three years in queensland. to her it was a common incident of everyday life. such accidents _will_ happen, if you break taboo and go too near forbidden temples. but muriel drew back, and let the pleasant-looking brown girl's hand drop suddenly. "you can't mean it," she cried. "you can't mean he's a god! such a wicked man as that! oh, his very look's too horrible." mali drew back in her turn with a somewhat terrified air, and peeped suspiciously around her, as if to make sure whether any one was listening. "oh, hush," she said, anxiously. "don't must talk like that. if tu-kila-kila hear, him scorch us up to ashes. him very great god! him good! him powerful!" "how can he be good if he does such awful things?" muriel exclaimed, energetically. mali peered around her once more with terrified eyes in the same uneasy way. "take care," she said again. "him god! him powerful! him can do no wrong. him king of the trees! him king of heaven! on boupari island, methodist god not much; no god so great like tu-kila-kila." "but a _man_ can't be a god!" muriel exclaimed, contemptuously. "he's nothing but a man! a savage! a cannibal!" mali looked back at her in wondering surprise. "not in queensland," she answered, calmly--to her, all the world naturally divided itself into queensland and polynesia--"no god in queensland. governor, him very great chief; but him no god like tu-kila-kila. methodist god in sky, him only god that live in queensland. but no use worship methodist god over here in boupari. him no live here. tu-kila-kila live here. all god here make out of man. live in man. korong! what for you say a man can't be a god! you god yourself! white gentleman there, god! korong, korong. chief put you in heaven, so make you a god. people pray to you now. people bring you presents." "you don't mean to say," muriel cried, "they bring me these things because they think me a goddess?" mali nodded a grave assent. "same like people give money in church in queensland," she answered, promptly. "ask you make rain, make plenty crop, make bread-fruit grow, make banana, make plantain. you korong now. while your time last, queenie, people give you plenty of present." "while my time last?" muriel repeated, with a curious sense of discomfort creeping over her slowly. the girl nodded an easy assent. "yes, while your time last," she answered, laying a small bundle of palm-leaves at muriel's back by way of a cushion. "for now you korong. by and by, korong pass to somebody else. this year, you korong. so people worship you." but nothing that muriel could say would induce the girl further to explain her meaning. she shook her head and looked very wise. "when a god come into somebody," she said, nodding toward muriel in a mysterious way, "then him god himself; him korong. when the god go away from him, him korong no longer; somebody else korong. queenie korong now; so people worship him. while him time last, people plenty kind to him." the day passed away, and night came on. as it approached, heavy clouds drifted up from eastward. mali busied herself with laying out a rough bed in the hut for muriel, and making her a pillow of soft moss and the curious lichen-like material that hangs parasitic from the trees, and is commonly known as "old man's beard." as both mali and felix assured her confidently no harm would come to her within so strict a taboo, muriel, worn out with fatigue and terror, lay down at last and slept soundly on this native substitute for a bedstead. she slept without dreaming, while mali lay at her feet, ready at a moment's call. it was all so strange; and yet she was too utterly wearied to do otherwise than sleep, in spite of her strange and terrible surroundings. felix slept, too, for some hours, but woke with a start in the night. it was raining heavily. he could hear the loud patter of a fierce tropical shower on the roof of his hut. his shadow, at his feet, slept still unmoved; but when felix rose on his elbow, the shadow rose on a sudden, too, and confronted him curiously. the young man heard the rain; then he bowed down his face with an awed air, not visible, but audible, in the still darkness. "it has come!" he said, with superstitious terror. "it has come at last! my lord has brought it!" after that, felix lay awake for some hours, hearing the rain on the roof, and puzzled in his own head by a half-uncertain memory. what was it in his school reading that that ceremony with the water indefinitely reminded him of? wasn't there some greek or roman superstition about shaking your head when water was poured upon it? what could that superstition be, and what light might it cast on that mysterious ceremony? he wished he could remember; but it was so long since he'd read it, and he never cared much at school for greek or roman antiquities. suddenly, in a lull of the rain, the whole context at once came back with a rush to him. he remembered now he had read it, some time or other, in some classical dictionary. it was a custom connected with greek sacrifices. the officiating priest poured water or wine on the head of the sheep, bullock, or other victim. if the victim shook its head and knocked off the drops, that was a sign that it was fit for the sacrifice, and that the god accepted it. if the victim trembled visibly, that was a most favorable omen. if it stood quite still and didn't move its neck, then the god rejected it as unfit for his purpose. couldn't _that_ be the meaning of the ceremony performed on muriel and himself in "heaven" that morning? were they merely intended as human sacrifices? were they to be kept meanwhile and, as it were, fed up for the slaughter? it was too horrible to believe; yet it almost looked like it. he wished he knew the meaning of that strange word, "korong." clearly, it contained the true key to the mystery. anyhow, he had always his trusty knife. if the worst came to the worst--those wretches should never harm his spotless muriel. for he loved her to-night; he would watch over and protect her. he would save her at least from the deadliest of insults. chapter vii. interchange of civilities. all night long, without intermission, the heavy tropical rain descended in torrents; at sunrise it ceased, and a bright blue vault of sky stood in a spotless dome over the island of boupari. as soon as the sun was well risen, and the rain had ceased, one shy native girl after another came straggling up timidly to the white line that marked the taboo round felix and muriel's huts. they came with more baskets of fruit and eggs. humbly saluting three times as they drew near, they laid down their gifts modestly just outside the line, with many loud ejaculations of praise and gratitude to the gods in their own language. "what do they say?" muriel asked, in a dazed and frightened way, looking out of the hut door, and turning in wonder to mali. "they say, 'thank you, queenie, for rain and fruits,'" mali answered, unconcerned, bustling about in the hut. "missy want to wash him face and hands this morning? lady always wash every day over yonder in queensland." muriel nodded assent. it was all so strange to her. but mali went to the door and beckoned carelessly to one of the native girls just outside, who drew near the line at the summons, with a somewhat frightened air, putting one finger to her mouth in coyly uncertain savage fashion. "fetch me water from the spring!" mali said, authoritatively, in polynesian. without a moment's delay the girl darted off at the top of her speed, and soon returned with a large calabash full of fresh cool water, which she lay down respectfully by the taboo line, not daring to cross it. "why didn't you get it yourself?" muriel asked of her shadow, rather relieved than otherwise that mali hadn't left her. it was something in these dire straits to have somebody always near who could at least speak a little english. mali started back in surprise. "oh, that would never do," she answered, catching a colloquial phrase she had often heard long before in queensland. "me missy's shadow. that great taboo. if me go away out of missy's sight, very big sin--very big danger. man-a-boupari catch me and kill me like jani, for no me stop and wait all the time on missy." it was clear that human life was held very cheap on the island of boupari. muriel made her scanty toilet in the hut as well as she was able, with the calabash and water, aided by a rough shell comb which mali had provided for her. then she breakfasted, not ill, off eggs and fruit, which mali cooked with some rude native skill over the open-air fire without in the precincts. after breakfast, felix came in to inquire how she had passed the night in her new quarters. already muriel felt how odd was the contrast between the quiet politeness of his manner as an english gentleman and the strange savage surroundings in which they both now found themselves. civilization is an attribute of communities; we necessarily leave it behind when we find ourselves isolated among barbarians or savages. but culture is a purely personal and individual possession; we carry it with us wherever we go; and no circumstances of life can ever deprive us of it. as they sat there talking, with a deep and abiding sense of awe at the change (muriel more conscious than ever now of how deep was her interest in felix thurstan, who represented for her all that was dearest and best in england), a curious noise, as of a discordant drum or tom-tom, beaten in a sort of recurrent tune, was heard toward the hills; and at its very first sound both the shadows, flinging themselves upon their faces with every sign of terror, endeavored to hide themselves under the native mats with which the bare little hut was roughly carpeted. "what's the matter?" felix cried, in english, to mali; for muriel had already explained to him how the girl had picked up some knowledge of our tongue in queensland. mali trembled in every limb, so that she could hardly speak. "tu-kila-kila come," she answered, all breathless. "no blackfellow look at him. burn blackfellow up. you and missy korong. all right for you. go out to meet him!" "tu-kila-kila is coming," the young man-shadow said, in polynesian, almost in the same breath, and no less tremulously. "we dare not look upon his face lest he burn us to ashes. he is a very great taboo. his face is fire. but you two are gods. step forth to receive him." felix took muriel's hand in his, somewhat trembling himself, and led her forth on to the open space in front of the huts to meet the man-god. she followed him like a child. she was woman enough for that. she had implicit trust in him. as they emerged, a strange procession met their eyes unawares, coming down the zig-zag path that led from the hills to the shore of the lagoon, where their huts were situated. at its head marched two men--tall, straight, and supple--wearing huge feather masks over their faces, and beating tom-toms, decorated with long strings of shiny cowries. after them, in order, came a sort of hollow square of chiefs or warriors, surrounding with fan-palms a central object all shrouded from the view with the utmost precaution. this central object was covered with a huge regal umbrella, from whose edge hung rows of small nautilus and other shells, so as to form a kind of screen, like the japanese portières now so common in english doorways. two supporters held it up, one on either side, in long cloaks of feathers. under the umbrella, a man seemed to move; and as he approached, the natives, to right and left, fled precipitately to their huts, snatching up their naked little ones from the ground as they went, and crying aloud, "taboo, taboo! he comes! he comes. tu-kila-kila! tu-kila-kila!" the procession wound slowly on, unheeding these common creatures, till it reached the huts. then the chiefs who formed the hollow square fell back one by one, and the man under the umbrella, with his two supporters, came forward boldly. felix noticed that they crossed without scruple the thick white line of sand which all the other natives so carefully respected. the man within the umbrella drew aside the curtain of hanging nautilus shells. his face was covered with a thin mask of paper mulberry bark; but felix knew he was the self-same person whom they had seen the day before in the central temple. tu-kila-kila's air was more insolent and arrogant than even before. he was clearly in high spirits. "you have done well, o king of the rain," he said, turning gayly to felix; "and you too, o queen of the clouds; you have done right bravely. we have all acquitted ourselves as our people would wish. we have made our showers to descend abundantly from heaven; we have caused the crops to grow; we have wetted the plantain bushes. see; tu-kila-kila, who is so great a god, has come from his own home on the hills to greet you." "it has certainly rained in the night," felix answered, dryly. but tu-kila-kila was not to be put off thus. adjusting his thin mask or veil of bark, so as to hide his face more thoroughly from the inferior god, he turned round once more to the chiefs, who even so hardly dared to look openly upon him. then he struck an attitude. the man was clearly bursting with spiritual pride. he knew himself to be a god, and was filled with the insolence of his supernatural power. "see, my people," he cried, holding up his hands, palm outward, in his accustomed god-like way; "i am indeed a great deity--lord of heaven, lord of earth, life of the world, master of time, measurer of the sun's course, spirit of growth, creator of the harvest, master of mortals, bestower of breath upon men, chief pillar of heaven!" the warriors bowed down before their bloated master with unquestioning assent. "giver of life to all the host of the gods," they cried, "you are indeed a mighty one. weigher of the equipoise of heaven and earth, we acknowledge your might; we give you thanks eternally." tu-kila-kila swelled with visible importance. "did i not tell you, my meat," he exclaimed, "i would bring you new gods, great spirits from the sun, fetchers of fire from my bright home in the heavens? and have they not come? are they not here to-day? have they not brought the precious gift of fresh fire with them?" "tu-kila-kila speaks true," the chiefs echoed, submissively, with bent heads. "did i not make one of them king of the rain?" tu-kila-kila asked once more, stretching one hand toward the sky with theatrical magnificence. "did i not declare the other queen of the clouds in heaven? and have i not caused them to bring down showers this night upon our crops? has not the dry earth drunk? am i not the great god, the saviour of boupari?" "tu-kila-kila says well," the chiefs responded, once more, in unanimous chorus. tu-kila-kila struck another attitude with childish self-satisfaction. "i go into the hut to speak with my ministers," he said, grandiloquently. "fire and water, wait you here outside while i enter and speak with my friends from the sun, whom i have brought for the salvation of the crops to boupari." the king of fire and the king of water, supporting the umbrella, bowed assent to his words. tu-kila-kila motioned felix and muriel into the nearest hut. it was the one where the two shadows lay crouching in terror among the native mats. as the god tried to enter, the two cowering wretches set up a loud shout, "taboo! taboo! mercy! mercy! mercy!" tu-kila-kila retreated with a contemptuous smile. "i want to see you alone," he said, in polynesian, to felix. "is the other hut empty? if not, go in and cut their throats who sit there, and make the place a solitude for tu-kila-kila." "there is no one in the hut," felix answered, with a nod, concealing his disgust at the command as far as he was able. "that is well," tu-kila-kila answered, and walked into it carelessly. felix followed him close and deemed it best to make muriel enter also. as soon-as they were alone, tu-kila-kila's manner altered greatly. "come, now," he said, quite genially, yet with a curious under-current of hate in his steely gray eye; "we three are all gods. we who are in heaven need have no secrets from one another. tell me the truth; did you really come to us direct from the sun, or are you sailing gods, dropped from a great canoe belonging to the warriors who seek laborers for the white men in the distant country?" felix told him briefly, in as few words as possible, the story of their arrival. tu-kila-kila listened with lively interest, then he said, very decisively, with great bravado, "it was _i_ who made the big wave wash your sister overboard. i sent it to your ship. i wanted a korong just now in boupari. it was _i_ who brought you." "you are mistaken," felix said, simply, not thinking it worth while to contradict him further. "it was a purely natural accident." "well, tell me," the savage god went on once more, eying him close and sharp, "they say you have brought fresh fire from the sun with you, and that you know how to make it burst out like lightning at will. my people have seen it. they tell me the wonder. i wish to see it too. we are all gods here; we need have no secrets. only, i didn't want to let those common people outside see i asked you to show me. make fire leap forth. i desire to behold it." felix took out the match-box from his pocket, and struck a vesta carefully. tu-kila-kila looked on with profound interest. "it is wonderful," he said, taking the vesta in his own hand as it burned, and examining it closely. "i have heard of this before, but i have never seen it. you are indeed gods, you white men, you sailors of the sea." he glanced at muriel. "and the woman, too," he said, with a horrible leer, "the woman is pretty." felix took the measure of his man at once. he opened his knife, and held it up threateningly. "see here, fellow," he said, in a low, slow tone, but with great decision, "if you dare to speak or look like that at that lady--god or no god, i'll drive this knife straight up to the handle in your heart, though your people kill me for it afterward ten thousand times over. i am not afraid of you. these savages may be afraid, and may think you are a god; but if you are, then i am a god ten thousand times stronger than you. one more word--one more look like that, i say--and i plunge this knife remorselessly into you." tu-kila-kila drew back, and smiled benignly. stalwart ruffian as he was, and absolute master of his own people's lives, he was yet afraid in a way of the strange new-comer. vague stories of the men with white faces--the "sailing gods"--had reached him from time to time; and though only twice within his memory had european boats landed on his island, he yet knew enough of the race to know that they were at least very powerful deities--more powerful with their weapons than even he was. besides, a man who could draw down fire from heaven with a piece of wax and a little metal box might surely wither him to ashes, if he would, as he stood before him. the very fact that felix bearded him thus openly to his face astonished and somewhat terrified the superstitious savage. everybody else on the island was afraid of him; then certainly a man who was not afraid must be the possessor of some most efficacious and magical medicine. his one fear now was lest his followers should hear and discover his discomfiture. he peered about him cautiously, with that careful gleam shining bright in his eye; then he said with a leer, in a very low voice, "we two need not quarrel. we are both of us gods. neither of us is the stronger. we are equal, that's all. let us live like brothers, not like enemies, on the island." "i don't want to be your brother," felix answered, unable to conceal his loathing any more. "i hate and detest you." "what does he say?" muriel asked, in an agony of fear at the savage's black looks. "is he going to kill us?" "no," felix answered, boldly. "i think he's afraid of us. he's going to do nothing. you needn't fear him." "can she not speak?" the savage asked, pointing with his finger somewhat rudely toward muriel. "has she no voice but this, the chatter of birds? does she not know the human language?" "she can speak," felix replied, placing himself like a shield between muriel and the astonished savage. "she can speak the language of the people of our distant country--a beautiful language which is as far superior to the speech of the brown men of polynesia as the sun in the heavens is superior to the light of a candlenut. but she can't speak the wretched tongue of you boupari cannibals. i thank heaven she can't, for it saves her from understanding the hateful things your people would say of her. now go! i have seen already enough of you. i am not afraid. remember, i am as powerful a god as you. i need not fear. you cannot hurt me." a baleful light gleamed in the cannibal's eye. but he thought it best to temporize. powerful as he was on his island, there was one thing yet more powerful by far than he; and that was taboo--the custom and superstition handed down from his ancestors, these strangers were korong; he dare not touch them, except in the way and manner and time appointed by custom. if he did, god as he was, his people themselves would turn and rend him. he was a god, but he was bound on every side by the strictest taboos. he dare not himself offer violence to felix. so he turned with a smile and bided his time. he knew it would come. he could afford to laugh. then, going to the door, he said, with his grand affable manner to his chiefs around, "i have spoken with the gods, my ministers, within. they have kissed my hands. my rain has fallen. all is well in the land. arise, let us go away hence to my temple." the savages put themselves in marching order at once. "it is the voice of a god," they said, reverently. "let us take back tu-kila-kila to his temple home. let us escort the lord of the divine umbrella. wherever he is, there trees and plants put forth green leaves and flourish. at his bidding flowers bloom and springs of water rise up in fountains. his presence diffuses heavenly blessings." "i think," felix said, turning to poor, terrified muriel, "i've sent the wretch away with a bee in his bonnet." chapter viii. the customs of boupari. human nature cannot always keep on the full stretch of excitement. it was wonderful to both felix and muriel how soon they settled down into a quiet routine of life on the island of boupari. a week passed away--two weeks--three weeks--and the chances of release seemed to grow slenderer and slenderer. all they could do now was to wait for the stray accident of a passing ship, and then try, if possible, to signal it, or to put out to it in a canoe, if the natives would allow them. meanwhile, their lives for the moment seemed fairly safe. though for the first few days they lived in constant alarm, this feeling, after a time, gave way to one of comparative security. the strange institution of taboo protected them more efficiently in their wattled huts than the whole police force of london could have done in a belgravian mansion. there thieves break through and steal, in spite of bolts and bars and metropolitan constables; but at boupari no native, however daring or however wicked, would ever venture to transgress the narrow line of white coral sand which protected the castaways like an intangible wall from all outer interference. within this impalpable ring-fence they were absolutely safe from all rude intrusion, save that of the two shadows, who waited upon them, day and night, with unfailing willingness. in other respects, considering the circumstances, their life was an easy one. the natives brought them freely of their simple store--yam, taro, bread-fruit, and cocoanut, with plenty of fish, crabs, and lobsters, as well as eggs by the basketful, and even sometimes chickens. they required no pay beyond a nod and a smile, and went away happy at those slender recognitions. felix discovered, in fact, that they had got into a region where the arid generalizations of political economy do not apply; where adam smith is unread, and mill neglected; where the medium of exchange is an unknown quantity, and where supply and demand readjust themselves continuously by simpler and more generous principles than the familiar european one of "the higgling of the market." the people, too, though utter savages, were not in their own way altogether unpleasing. it was their customs and superstitions, rather than themselves, that were so cruel and horrible. personally, they seemed for the most part simple-minded and good natured creatures. at first, indeed, muriel was afraid to venture for a step beyond the precincts of their own huts; and it was long before she could make up her mind to go alone through the jungle paths with mali, unaccompanied by felix. but by degrees she learned that she could walk by herself (of course, with the inevitable shadow ever by her side) over the whole island, and meet everywhere with nothing from men, women, and children but the utmost respect and gracious courtesy. the young lads, as she passed, would stand aside from the path, with downcast eyes, and let her go by with all the politeness of chivalrous english gentlemen. the old men would raise their eyes, but cross their hands on their breasts, and stand motionless for a few minutes till she got almost out of sight. the women would bring their pretty brown babies for the fair english lady to admire or to pat on the head; and when muriel now and again stooped down to caress some fat little naked child, lolling in the dust outside the hut, with true tropical laziness, the mothers would run up at the sight with delight and joy, and throw themselves down in ecstacies of gratitude for the notice she had taken of their favored little ones. "the gods of heaven," they would say, with every sign of pleasure, "have looked graciously upon our unaloa." at first felix and muriel were mainly struck with the politeness and deference which the natives displayed toward them. but after a time felix at least began to observe, behind it all, that a certain amount of affection, and even of something like commiseration as well, seemed to be mingled with the respect and reverence showered upon them by their hosts. the women, especially, were often evidently touched by muriel's innocence and beauty. as she walked past their huts with her light, girlish tread, they would come forth shyly, bowing many times as they approached, and offer her a long spray of the flowering hibiscus, or a pretty garland of crimson ti-leaves, saying at the same time, many times over, in their own tongue, "receive it, korong; receive it, queen of the clouds! you are good. you are kind. you are a daughter of the sun. we are glad you have come to us." a young girl soon makes herself at home anywhere; and muriel, protected alike by her native innocence and by the invisible cloak of polynesian taboo, quickly learned to understand and to sympathize with these poor dusky mothers. one morning, some weeks after their arrival, she passed down the main street of the village, accompanied by felix and their two attendants, and reached the _marae_--the open forum or place of public assembly--which stood in its midst; a circular platform, surrounded by bread-fruit trees, under whose broad, cool shade the people were sitting in little groups and talking together. they were dressed in the regular old-time festive costume of polynesia; for boupari, being a small and remote island, too insignificant to be visited by european ships, retained still all its aboriginal heathen manners and customs. the sight was, indeed, a curious and picturesque one. the girls, large-limbed, soft-skinned, and with delicately rounded figures, sat on the ground, laughing and talking, with their knees crossed under them; their wrists were encinctured with girdles of dark-red dracæna leaves, their swelling bosoms half concealed, half accentuated by hanging necklets of flowers. their beautiful brown arms and shoulders were bare throughout; their long, black hair was gracefully twined and knotted with bright scarlet flowers. the men, strong and stalwart, sat behind on short stools or lounged on the buttressed roots of the bread-fruit trees, clad like the women in narrow waist-belts of the long red dracæna leaves, with necklets of sharks' teeth, pendent chain of pearly shells, a warrior's cap on their well-shaped heads, and an armlet of native beans, arranged below the shoulder, around their powerful arms. altogether, it was a striking and beautiful picture. muriel, now almost released from her early sense of fear, stood still to look at it. the men and girls were laughing and chatting merrily together. most of them were engaged in holding up before them fine mats; and a row of mulberry cloth, spread along on the ground, led to a hut near one side of the _marae_. toward this the eyes of the spectators were turned. "what is it, mali?" muriel whispered, her woman's instinct leading her at once to expect that something special was going on in the way of local festivities. and mali answered at once, with many nods and smiles, "all right, missy queenie. him a wedding, a marriage." the words had hardly escaped her lips when a very pretty young girl, half smothered in flowers, and decked out in beads and fancy shells, emerged slowly from the hut, and took her way with stately tread along the path carpeted with native cloth. she was girt round the waist with rich-colored mats, which formed a long train, like a court dress, trailing on the ground five or six feet behind her. "that's the bride, i suppose," muriel whispered, now really interested--for what woman on earth, wherever she may be, can resist the seductive delights of a wedding? "yes, her a bride," mali answered; "and ladies what follow, them her bridesmaids." at the word, six other girls, similarly dressed, though without the train, and demure as nuns, emerged from the hut in slow order, two and two, behind her. muriel and felix moved forward with natural curiosity toward the scene. the natives, now ranged in a row along the path, with mats turned inward, made way for them gladly. all seem pleased that heaven should thus auspiciously honor the occasion; and the bride herself, as well as the bridegroom, who, decked in shells and teeth, advanced from the opposite side along the path to meet her, looked up with grateful smiles at the two europeans. muriel, in return, smiled her most gracious and girlish recognition. as the bride drew near, she couldn't refrain from bending forward a little to look at the girl's really graceful costume. as she did so, the skirt of her own european dress brushed for a second against the bride's train, trailed carelessly many yards on the ground behind her. almost before they could know what had happened, a wild commotion arose, as if by magic, in the crowd around them. loud cries of "taboo! taboo!" mixed with inarticulate screams, burst on every side from the assembled natives. in the twinkling of an eye they were surrounded by an angry, threatening throng, who didn't dare to draw near, but, standing a yard or two off, drew stone knives freely and shook their fists, scowling, in the strangers' faces. the change was appalling in its electric suddenness. muriel drew back horrified, in an agony of alarm. "oh, what have i done!" she cried, piteously, clinging to felix for support. "why on earth are they angry with us?" "i don't know," felix answered, taken aback himself. "i can't say exactly in what you've transgressed. but you must, unconsciously, in some way have offended their prejudices. i hope it's not much. at any rate they're clearly afraid to touch us." "missy queenie break taboo," mali explained at once, with polynesian frankness. "that make people angry. so him want to kill you. missy queenie touch bride with end of her dress. korong may smile on bride--that very good luck; but korong taboo; no must touch him." the crowd gathered around them, still very threatening in attitude, yet clearly afraid to approach within arm's-length of the strangers. muriel was much frightened at their noise and at their frantic gestures. "come away," she cried, catching felix by the arm once more. "oh, what are they going to do to us? will they kill us for this? i'm so horribly afraid! oh, why did i ever do it!" the poor little bride, meanwhile, left alone on the carpet, and unnoticed by everybody, sank suddenly down on the mats where she stood, buried her face in her hands, and began to sob as if her heart would break. evidently, something very untoward of some sort had happened to the dusky lady on her wedding morning. the final touch was too much for poor muriel's overwrought nerves. she, too, gave way in a tempest of sobs, and, subsiding on one of the native stools hard by, burst into tears herself with half-hysterical violence. instantly, as she did so, the whole assembly seemed to change its mind again as if by contagious magic. a loud shout of "she cries; the queen of the clouds cries!" went up from all the assembled mob to heaven. "it is a good omen," toko, the shadow, whispered in polynesian to felix, seeing his puzzled look. "we shall have plenty of rain now; the clouds will break; our crops will flourish." almost before she understood it, muriel was surrounded by an eager and friendly crowd, still afraid to draw near, but evidently anxious to see and to comfort and console her. many of the women eagerly held forward their native mats, which mali took from them, and, pressing them for a second against muriel's eyes, handed them back with just a suspicion of wet tears left glistening in the corner. the happy recipients leaped and shouted with joy. "no more drought!" they cried merrily, with loud shouts and gesticulations. "the queen of the clouds is good: she will weep well from heaven upon my yam and taro plots!" muriel looked up, all dazed, and saw, to her intense surprise, the crowd was now nothing but affection and sympathy. slowly they gathered in closer and closer, till they almost touched the hem of her robe; then the men stood by respectfully, laying their fingers on whatever she had wetted with her tears, while the women and girls took her hand in theirs and pressed it sympathetically. mali explained their meaning with ready interpretation. "no cry too much, them say," she observed, nodding her head sagely. "not good for missy queenie to cry too much. them say, kind lady, be comforted." there was genuine good-nature in the way they consoled her; and felix was touched by the tenderness of those savage hearts; but the additional explanation, given him in polynesian by his own shadow, tended somewhat to detract from the disinterestedness of their sympathy. "they say, 'it is good for the queen of the clouds to weep,'" toko said, with frank bluntness; "'but not too much--for fear the rain should wash away all our yam and taro plants.'" by this time the little bride had roused herself from her stupor, and, smiling away as if nothing had happened, said a few words in a very low voice to felix's shadow. the shadow turned most respectfully to his master, and, touching his sleeve-link, which was of bright gold, said, in a very doubtful voice, "she asks you, oh king, will you allow her, just for to-day, to wear this ornament?" felix unbuttoned the shining bauble at once, and was about to hand it to the bride with polite gallantry. "she may wear it forever, for the matter of that, if she likes," he said, good-humoredly. "i make her a present of it." but the bride drew back as before in speechless terror, as he held out his hand, and seemed just on the point of bursting out into tears again at this untoward incident. the shadow intervened with fortunate perception of the cause of the misunderstanding. "korong must not touch or give anything to a bride," he said, quietly; "not with his own hand. he must not lay his finger on her; that would be unlucky. but he may hand it by his shadow." then he turned to his fellow-tribesmen. "these gods," he said, in an explanatory voice, like one bespeaking forgiveness, "though they are divine, and korong, and very powerful--see, they have come from the sun, and they are but strangers in boupari--they do not yet know the ways of our island. they have not eaten of human flesh. they do not understand taboo. but they will soon be wiser. they mean very well, but they do not know. behold, he gives her this divine shining ornament from the sun as a present!" and, taking it in his hand, he held it up for a moment to public admiration. then he passed on the trinket ostentatiously to the bride, who, smiling and delighted, hung it low on her breast among her other decorations. the whole party seemed so surprised and gratified at this proof of condescension on the part of the divine stranger that they crowded round felix once more, praising and thanking him volubly. muriel, anxious to remove the bad impression she had created by touching the bride's dress, hastily withdrew her own little brooch and offered it in turn to the shadow as an additional present. but toko, shaking his head vigorously, pointed with his forefinger many times to mali. "toko say him no can take it," mali explained hastily, in her broken english. "him no your shadow; me your shadow; me do everything for you; me give it to the lady." and, taking the brooch in her hand, she passed it over in turn amid loud cries of delight and shouts of approval. thereupon, the ceremony began all over again. they seemed by their intervention to have interrupted some set formula. at its close the women crowded around muriel and took her hand in theirs, kissing it many times over, with tears in their eyes, and betraying an immense amount of genuine feeling. one phrase in polynesian they repeated again and again; a phrase that made felix's cheek turn white, as he leaned over the poor english girl with a profound emotion. "what does it mean that they say?" muriel asked at last, perceiving it was all one phrase, many times repeated. felix was about to give some evasive explanation, when mali interposed with her simple, unthinking translation. "them say, missy queenie very good and kind. make them sad to think. make them cry to see her. make them cry to see missy queenie korong. too good. too pretty." "why so?" muriel exclaimed, drawing back with some faint presentiment of unspeakable horror. felix tried to stop her; but the girl would not be stopped. "because, when korong time up," she answered, blurting it out, "korong must--" felix clapped his hand to her mouth in wild haste, and silenced her. he knew the worst now. he had divined the truth. but muriel, at least, must be spared that knowledge. chapter ix. sowing the wind. vaguely and indefinitely one terrible truth had been forced by slow degrees upon felix's mind; whatever else korong meant, it implied at least some fearful doom in store, sooner or later, for the persons who bore it. how awful that doom might be, he could hardly imagine; but he must devote himself henceforth to the task of discovering what its nature was, and, if possible, of averting it. yet how to reconcile this impending terror with the other obvious facts of the situation? the fact that they were considered divine beings and treated like gods; and the fact that the whole population seemed really to regard them with a devotion and kindliness closely bordering on religious reverence? if korongs were gods, why should the people want to kill them? if they meant to kill them, why pay them meanwhile such respect and affection? one point at least was now, however, quite clear to felix. while the natives, especially the women, displayed toward both of them in their personal aspect a sort of regretful sympathy, he could not help noticing at the same time that the men, at any rate, regarded them also largely in an impersonal light, as a sort of generalized abstraction of the powers of nature--an embodied form of the rain and the weather. the islanders were anxious to keep their white guests well supplied, well fed, and in perfect health, not so much for the strangers' sakes as for their own advantage; they evidently considered that if anything went wrong with either of their two new gods, corresponding misfortunes might happen to their crops and the produce of their bread-fruit groves. some mysterious sympathy was held to subsist between the persons of the castaways and the state of the weather. the natives effusively thanked them after welcome rain, and looked askance at them, scowling, after long dry spells. it was for this, no doubt, that they took such pains to provide them with attentive shadows, and to gird round their movements with taboos of excessive stringency. nothing that the new-comers said or did was indifferent, it seemed, to the welfare of the community; plenty and prosperity depended upon the passing state of muriel's health, and famine or drought might be brought about at any moment by the slightest imprudence in felix's diet. how stringent these taboos really were felix learned by slow degrees alone to realize. from the very beginning he had observed, to be sure, that they might only eat and drink the food provided for them; that they were supplied with a clean and fresh-built hut, as well as with brand-new cocoanut cups, spoons, and platters; that no litter of any sort was allowed to accumulate near their enclosure; and that their shadows never left them, or went out of their sight, by day or by night, for a single moment. now, however, he began to perceive also that the shadows were there for that very purpose, to watch over them, as it were, like guards, on behalf of the community; to see that they ate or drank no tabooed object; to keep them from heedlessly transgressing any unwritten law of the creed of boupari; and to be answerable for their good behavior generally. they were partly servants, it was true, and partly sureties; but they were partly also keepers, and keepers who kept a close and constant watch upon the persons of their prisoners. once or twice felix, growing tired for the moment of this continual surveillance, had tried to give toko the slip, and to stroll away from his hut, unattended, for a walk through the island, in the early morning, before his shadow had waked; but on each such occasion he found to his surprise that, as he opened the hut door, the shadow rose at once and confronted him angrily, with an inquiring eye; and in time he perceived that a thin string was fastened to the bottom of the door, the other end of which was tied to the shadow's ankle; and this string could not be cut without letting fall a sort of latch or bar which closed the door outside, only to be raised again by some external person. clearly, it was intended that the korong should have no chance of escape without the knowledge of the shadow, who, as felix afterward learned, would have paid with his own body by a cruel death for the korong's disappearance. he might as well have tried to escape his own shadow as to escape the one the islanders had tacked on to him. all felix's energies were now devoted to the arduous task of discovering what korong really meant, and what possibility he might have of saving muriel from the mysterious fate that seemed to be held in store for them. one evening, about six weeks after their arrival in the island, the young englishman was strolling by himself (after the sun sank low in heaven) along a pretty tangled hill-side path, overhung with lianas and rope-like tropical creepers, while his faithful shadow lingered a step or two behind, keeping a sharp lookout meanwhile on all his movements. near the top of a little crag of volcanic rock, in the center of the hills, he came suddenly upon a hut with a cleared space around it, somewhat neater in appearance than any of the native cottages he had yet seen, and surrounded by a broad white belt of coral sand, exactly like that which ringed round and protected their own enclosure. but what specially attracted felix's attention was the fact that the space outside this circle had been cleared into a regular flower-garden, quite european in the definiteness and orderliness of its quaint arrangement. "why, who lives here?" felix asked in polynesian, turning round in surprise to his respectful shadow. the shadow waved his hand vaguely in an expansive way toward the sky, as he answered, with a certain air of awe, often observable in his speech when taboos were in question, "the king of birds. a very great god. he speaks the bird language." "who is he?" felix inquired, taken aback, wondering vaguely to himself whether here, perchance, he might have lighted upon some stray and shipwrecked compatriot. "he comes from the sun like yourselves," the shadow answered, all deference, but with obvious reserve. "he is a very great god. i may not speak much of him. but he is not korong. he is greater than that, and less. he is tula, the same as tu-kila-kila." "is he as powerful as tu-kila-kila?" felix asked, with intense interest. "oh, no, he's not nearly so powerful as that," the shadow answered, half terrified at the bare suggestion. "no god in heaven or earth is like tu-kila-kila. this one is only king of the birds, which is a little province, while tu-kila-kila is king of heaven and earth, of plants and animals, of gods and men, of all things created. at his nod the sky shakes and the rocks tremble. but still, this god is tula, like tu-kila-kila. he is not for a year. he goes on forever, till some other supplants him." "you say he comes from the sun," felix put in, devoured with curiosity. "and he speaks the bird language? what do you mean by that? does he speak like the queen of the clouds and myself when we talk together?" "oh, dear, no," the shadow answered, in a very confident tone. "he doesn't speak the least bit in the world like that. he speaks shriller and higher, and still more bird-like. it is chatter, chatter, chatter, like the parrots in a tree; tirra, tirra, tirra; tarra, tarra, tarra; la, la, la; lo, lo, lo; lu, lu, lu; li la. and he sings to himself all the time. he sings this way--" and then the shadow, with that wonderful power of accurate mimicry which is so strong in all natural human beings, began to trill out at once, with a very good parisian accent, a few lines from a well-known song in "la fille de madame angot:" "quand on conspi-re, quand sans frayeur on pent se di-re conspirateur, pour tout le mon-de il faut avoir perruque blon-de et collet noir-- perruque blon-de et collet noir." "that's how the king of the birds sings," the shadow said, as he finished, throwing back his head, and laughing with all his might at his own imitation. "so funny, isn't it? it's exactly like the song of the pink-crested parrot." "why, toko, it's french," felix exclaimed, using the fijian word for a frenchman, which the shadow, of course, on his remote island, had never before heard. "how on earth did he come here?" "i can't tell you," toko answered, waving his arms seaward. "he came from the sun, like yourselves. but not in a sun-boat. it had no fire. he came in a canoe, all by himself. and mali says"--here the shadow lowered his voice to a most mysterious whisper--"he's a man-a-oui-oui." felix quivered with excitement. "man-a-oui-oui" is the universal name over semi-civilized polynesia for a frenchman. felix seized upon it with avidity. "a man-a-oui-oui!" he cried, delighted. "how strange! how wonderful! i must go in at once to his hut and see him!" he had lifted his foot and was just going to cross the white line of coral-sand, when his shadow, catching him suddenly and stoutly round the waist, pulled him back from the enclosure with every sign of horror, alarm, and astonishment. "no, you can't go," he cried, grappling with him with all his force, yet using him very tenderly for all that, as becomes a god. "taboo! taboo there!" "but i am a god myself," felix cried, insisting upon his privileges. if you have to submit to the disadvantages of taboo, you may as well claim its advantages as well. "the king of fire and the king of water crossed my taboo line. why shouldn't i cross equally the king of the birds', then?" "so you might--as a rule," the shadow answered with promptitude. "you are both gods. your taboos do not cross. you may visit each other. you may transgress one another's lines without danger of falling dead on the ground as common men would do if they broke taboo-lines. but this is the month of birds. the king is in retreat. no man may see him except his own shadow, the little cockatoo, who brings him his food and drink. do you see that hawk's head, stuck upon the post by the door at the side. that is his special taboo. he keeps it for this month. even gods must respect that sign, for a reason which it would be very bad medicine to mention. while the month of birds lasts, no man may look upon the king or hear him. if they did, they would die, and the carrion birds would eat them. come away. this is dangerous." scarcely were the words well out of his mouth when from the recesses of the hut a rollicking french voice was heard, trilling out merrily: "quand on con-spi-re, quand, sans frayeur--" without waiting for more, the shadow seized felix's arm in an agony of terror. "come away!" he cried, hurriedly, "come away! what will become of us? this is horrible, horrible! we have broken taboo. we have heard the god's voice. the sky will fall on us. if his shadow were to find it out and tell my people, my people would tear us limb from limb. quick, quick! hide away! let us run fast through the forest before any man discover it." the shadow's voice rang deep with alarm. felix felt he dare not trifle with this superstition. profound as was his curiosity about the mysterious frenchman, he was compelled to bottle up his eagerness and anxiety for the moment, and patiently wait till the month of birds had run its course, and taken its inconvenient taboo along with it. these limitations were terrible. yet he counted much upon the information the frenchman could give him. the man had been some time on the island, it was clear, and doubtless he understood its ways thoroughly; he might cast some light at last upon the korong mystery. so he went back through the woods with a heart somewhat lighter. not far from their own huts he met muriel and mali. as they walked home together, felix told his companion in a very few words the strange discovery about the frenchman, and the impenetrable taboo by which he was at present surrounded. muriel drew a deep sigh. "oh, felix," she said--for they were naturally by this time very much at home with one another, "did you ever know anything so dreadful as the mystery of these taboos? it seems as if we should never get really to the bottom of them. mali's always springing some new one upon me. i don't believe we shall ever be able to leave the island--we're so hedged round with taboos. even if we were to see a ship to-day, i don't believe they'd allow us to signal it." there was a red sunset; a lurid, tropical, red-and-green sunset. it boded mischief. they were passing by some huts at the moment, and over the stockade of one of them a tree was hanging with small yellow fruits, which felix knew well in fiji as wholesome and agreeable. he broke off a small branch as he passed; and offered a couple thoughtlessly to muriel. she took them in her fingers, and tasted them gingerly. "they're not so bad," she said, taking another from the bough. "they're very much like gooseberries." at the same moment, felix popped one into his own mouth, and swallowed it without thinking. almost before they knew what had happened, with the same extraordinary rapidity as in the case of the wedding, the people in the cottages ran out, with every sign of fear and apprehension, and, seizing the branch from felix's hands, began upbraiding the two shadows for their want of attention. "we couldn't help it," toko exclaimed, with every appearance of guilt and horror on his face. "they were much too sharp for us. their hearts are black. how could we two interfere? these gods are so quick! they had picked and eaten them before we ever saw them." one of the men raised his hand with a threatening air--but against the shadow, not against the sacred person of felix. "he will be ill," he said, angrily, pointing toward the white man; "and she will, too. their hearts are indeed black. they have sown the seed of the wind. they have both of them eaten of it. they will both be ill. you deserve to die! and what will come now to our trees and plantations?" the crowd gathered round them, cursing low and horribly. the two terrified europeans slunk off to their huts, unaware of their exact crime, and closely followed by a scowling but despondent mob of natives. as they crossed their sacred boundary, muriel cried, with a sudden outburst of tears, "oh, felix, what on earth shall we ever do to get rid of this terrible, unendurable godship!" the natives without set up a great shout of horror. "see, see! she cries!" they exclaimed, in indescribable panic. "she has eaten the storm-fruit, and already she cries! oh, clouds, restrain yourselves! oh, great queen, mercy! whatever will become of us and our poor huts and gardens!" and for hours they crouched around, beating their breasts and shrieking. that evening, muriel sat up late in felix's hut, with mali by her side, too frightened to go back into her own alone before those angry people. and all the time, just beyond the barrier line, they could hear, above the whistle of the wind around the hut, the droning voices of dozens of natives, cowering low on the ground; they seemed to be going through some litany or chant, as if to deprecate the result of this imprudent action. "what are they doing outside?" felix asked of his shadow at last, after a peculiarly long wail of misery. and the shadow made answer, in very solemn tones, "they are trying to propitiate your mightiness, and to avert the omen, lest the rain should fall, and the wind should blow, and the storm-cloud should burst over the island to destroy them." then felix remembered suddenly of himself that the season when this storm-fruit, or storm-apple, as they called it, was ripe in fiji, was also the season when the great pacific cyclones most often swept over the land in full fury--storms unexampled on any other sea, like that famous one which wrecked so many european men-of-war a few years since in the harbor of samoa. and without, the wail came louder and clearer still! "if you sow the bread-fruit seed, you will reap the breadfruit. if you sow the wind, you will reap the whirlwind. they have eaten the storm-fruit. oh, great king, save us!" chapter x. reaping the whirlwind. toward midnight muriel began to doze lightly from pure fatigue. "put a pillow under her head, and let her sleep," felix said in a whisper. "poor child, it would be cruel to send her alone to-night into her own quarters." and mali slipped a pillow of mulberry paper under her mistress's head, and laid it on her own lap, and bent down to watch her. but outside, beyond the line, the natives murmured loud their discontent. "the queen of the clouds stays in the king of the rain's hut to-night," they muttered, angrily. "she will not listen to us. before morning, be sure, the tempest will be born of their meeting to destroy us." about two o'clock there came a lull in the wind, which had been rising steadily ever since that lurid sunset. felix looked out of the hut door. the moon was full. it was almost as clear as day with the bright tropical moonlight, silvery in the open, pale green in the shadow. the people were still squatting in great rings round the hut, just outside the taboo line, and beating gongs, and sticks and human bones, to keep time to the lilt of their lugubrious litany. the air felt unusually heavy and oppressive. felix raised his eyes to the sky, and saw whisps of light cloud drifting in rapid flight over the scudding moon. below, an ominous fog bank gathered steadily westward. then one clap of thunder rent the sky. after it came a deadly silence. the moon was veiled. all was dark as pitch. the natives themselves fell on their faces and prayed with mute lips. three minutes later, the cyclone had burst upon them in all its frenzy. such a hurricane felix had never before experienced. its energy was awful. round the palm-trees the wind played a frantic and capricious devil's dance. it pirouetted about the atoll in the mad glee of unconsciousness. here and there it cleared lanes, hundreds of yards in length, among the forest-trees and the cocoanut plantations. the noise of snapping and falling trunks rang thick on the air. at times the cyclone would swoop down from above upon the swaying stem of some tall and stately palm that bent like grass before the wind, break it off short with a roar at the bottom, and lay it low at once upon the ground, with a crash like thunder. in other places, little playful whirlwinds seemed to descend from the sky in the very midst of the dense brushwood, where they cleared circular patches, strewn thick under foot with trunks and branches in their titanic sport, and yet left unhurt all about the surrounding forest. then again a special cyclone of gigantic proportions would advance, as it were, in a single column against one stem of a clump, whirl round it spirally like a lightning flash, and, deserting it for another, leave it still standing, but turned and twisted like a screw by the irresistible force of its invisible fingers. the storm-god, said toko, was dancing with the palm-trees. the sight was awful. such destructive energy felix had never even imagined before. no wonder the savages all round beheld in it the personal wrath of some mighty spirit. for in spite of the black clouds they could _see_ it all--both the europeans and the islanders. the intense darkness of the night was lighted up for them every minute by an almost incessant blaze of sheet and forked lightning. the roar of the thunder mingled with the roar of the tempest, each in turn overtopping and drowning the other. the hut where felix and muriel sheltered themselves shook before the storm; the very ground of the island trembled and quivered--like the timbers of a great ship before a mighty sea--at each onset of the breakers upon the surrounding fringe-reef. and side by side with it all, to crown their misery, wild torrents of rain, descending in waterspouts, as it seemed, or dashed in great sheets against the roof of their frail tenement, poured fitfully on with fierce tropical energy. in the midst of the hut muriel crouched and prayed with bloodless lips to heaven. this was too, too terrible. it seemed incredible to her that on top of all they had been called upon to suffer of fear and suspense at the hands of the savages, the very dumb forces of nature themselves should thus be stirred up to open war against them. her faith in providence was sorely tried. dumb forces, indeed! why, they roared with more terrible voices than any wild beast on earth could possibly compass. the thunder and the wind were howling each other down in emulous din, and the very hiss of the lightning could be distinctly heard, like some huge snake, at times above the creaking and snapping of the trees before the gale in the surrounding forest. muriel crouched there long, in the mute misery of utter despair. at her feet mali crouched too, as frightened as herself, but muttering aloud from time to time, in a reproachful voice, "i tell missy queenie what going to happen. i warn her not. i tell her she must not eat that very bad storm-apple. but missy queenie no listen. her take her own way, then storm come down upon us." and felix's shadow, in his own tongue, exclaimed more than once in the self-same tone, half terror, half expostulation, "see now what comes from breaking taboo? you eat the storm-fruit. the storm-fruit suits ill with the king of the rain and the queen of the clouds. the heavens have broken loose. the sea has boiled. see what wind and what flood you are bringing upon us." by and by, above even the fierce roar of the mingled thunder and cyclone, a wild orgy of noise burst upon them all from without the hut. it was a sound as of numberless drums and tom-toms, all beaten in unison with the mad energy of fear; a hideous sound, suggestive of some hateful heathen devil-worship. muriel clapped her hands to her ears in horror. "oh, what's that?" she cried to felix, at this new addition to their endless alarms. "are the savages out there rising in a body? have they come to murder us?" "perhaps," felix said, smoothing her hair with his hand, as a mother might soothe her terrified child, "perhaps they're angry with us for having caused this storm, as they think, by our foolish action. i believe they all set it down to our having unluckily eaten that unfortunate fruit. i'll go out to the door myself and speak to them." muriel clung to his arm with a passionate clinging. "oh, felix," she cried, "no! don't leave me here alone. my darling, i love you. you're all the world there is left to me now, felix. don't go out to those wretches and leave me here alone. they'll murder you! they'll murder you! don't go out, i implore you. if they mean to kill us, let them kill us both together, in one another's arms. oh, felix, i am yours, and you are mine, my darling!" it was the first time either of them had acknowledged the fact; but there, before the face of that awful convulsion of nature, all the little deceptions and veils of life seemed rent asunder forever as by a flash of lightning. they stood face to face with each other's souls, and forgot all else in the agony of the moment. felix clasped the trembling girl in his arms like a lover. the two shadows looked on and shook with silent terror. if the king of the rain thus embraced the queen of the clouds before their very eyes, amid so awful a storm, what unspeakable effects might not follow at once from it! but they had too much respect for those supernatural creatures to attempt to interfere with their action at such a moment. they accepted their masters almost as passively as they accepted the wind and the thunder, which they believed to arise from them. felix laid his poor muriel tenderly down on the mud floor again. "i _must_ go out, my child," he said. "for the very love of _you_, i must play the man, and find out what these savages mean by their drumming." he crept to the door of the hut (for no man could walk upright before that awful storm), and peered out into the darkness once more, awaiting one of the frequent flashes of lightning. he had not long to wait. in a moment the sky was all ablaze again from end to end, and continued so for many seconds consecutively. by the light of the continuous zigzags of fire, felix could see for himself that hundreds and hundreds of natives--men, women, and children, naked, or nearly so, with their hair loose and wet about their cheeks--lay flat on their faces, many courses deep, just outside the taboo line. the wind swept over them with extraordinary force, and the tropical rain descended in great floods upon their bare backs and shoulders. but the savages, as if entranced, seemed to take no heed of all these earthly things. they lay grovelling in the mud before some unseen power; and beating their tom-toms in unison, with barbaric concord, they cried aloud once more as felix appeared, in a weird litany that overtopped the tumultuous noise of the tempest, "oh, storm-god, hear us! oh, great spirit, deliver us! king of the rain and queen of the clouds, befriend us! be angry no more! hide your wrath from your people! take away your hurricane, and we will bring you many gifts. eat no longer of the storm-apple--the seed of the wind--and we will feed you with yam and turtle, and much choice bread-fruit. great king, we are yours; you shall choose which you will of our children for your meat and drink; you shall sup on our blood. but take your storm away; do not utterly drown and submerge our island!" as they spoke they crawled nearer and nearer, with gliding serpentine motion, till their heads almost touched the white line of coral. but not a man of them all went one inch beyond it. they stopped there and gazed at him. felix signed to them with his hand, and pointed vaguely to the sky, as much as to say _he_ was not responsible. at the gesture the whole assembly burst into one loud shout of gratitude. "he has heard us, he has heard us!" they exclaimed, with a perfect wail of joy. "he will not utterly destroy us. he will take away his storm. he will bring the sun and the moon back to us." felix returned into the hut, somewhat reassured so far as the attitude of the savages went. "don't be afraid of them, muriel," he cried, taking her passionately once more in a tender embrace. "they daren't cross the taboo. they won't come near; they're too frightened themselves to dream of hurting us." chapter xi. after the storm. next morning the day broke bright and calm, as if the tempest had been but an evil dream of the night, now past forever. the birds sang loud; the lizards came forth from their holes in the wall, and basked, green and gold, in the warm, dry sunshine. but though the sky overhead was blue and the air clear, as usually happen after these alarming tropical cyclones and rainstorms, the memorials of the great wind that had raged all night long among the forests of the island were neither few nor far between. everywhere the ground was strewn with leaves and branches and huge stems of cocoa-palms. all nature was draggled. many of the trees were stripped clean of their foliage, as completely as oaks in an english winter; on others, big strands of twisted fibres marked the scars and joints where mighty boughs had been torn away by main force; while, elsewhere, bare stumps alone remained to mark the former presence of some noble dracæna or some gigantic banyan. bread-fruits and cocoanuts lay tossed in the wildest confusion on the ground; the banana and plantain-patches were beaten level with the soil or buried deep in the mud; many of the huts had given way entirely; abundant wreckage strewed every corner of the island. it was an awful sight. muriel shuddered to herself to see how much the two that night had passed through. what the outer fringing reef had suffered from the storm they hardly knew as yet; but from the door of the hut felix could see for himself how even the calm waters of the inner lagoon had been lashed into wild fury by the fierce swoop of the tempest. round the entire atoll the solid conglomerate coral floor was scooped under, broken up, chewed fine by the waves, or thrown in vast fragments on the beach of the island. by the eastern shore, in particular, just opposite their hut, felix observed a regular wall of many feet in height, piled up by the waves like the familiar chesil beach near his old home in dorsetshire. it was the shelter of that temporary barrier alone, no doubt, that had preserved their huts last night from the full fury of the gale, and that had allowed the natives to congregate in such numbers prone on their faces in the mud and rain, upon the unconsecrated ground outside their taboo-line. but now not an islander was to be seen within ear-shot. all had gone away to look after their ruined huts or their beaten-down plantain-patches, leaving the cruel gods, who, as they thought, had wrought all the mischief out of pure wantonness, to repent at leisure the harm done during the night to their obedient votaries. felix was just about to cross the taboo-line and walk down to the shore to examine the barrier, when toko, his shadow, laying his hand on his shoulder with more genuine interest and affection than he had ever yet shown, exclaimed, with some horror, "oh, no! not that! don't dare to go outside! it would be very dangerous for you. if my people were to catch you on profane soil just now, there's no saying what harm they might do to you." "why so?" felix exclaimed, in surprise. "last night, surely, they were all prayers and promises and vows and entreaties." the young man nodded his head in acquiescence. "ah, yes; last night," he answered. "that was very well then. vows were sore needed. the storm was raging, and you were within your taboo. how could they dare to touch you, a mighty god of the tempest, at the very moment when you were rending their banyan-trees and snapping their cocoanut stems with your mighty arms like so many little chicken-bones? even tu-kila-kila himself, i expect, the very high god, lay frightened in his temple, cowering by his tree, annoyed at your wrath; he sent fire and water among the worshippers, no doubt, to offer up vows and to appease your anger." then felix remembered, as his shadow spoke, that, as a matter of fact, he had observed the men who usually wore the red and white feather cloaks among the motley crowd of grovelling natives who lay flat on their faces in the mud of the cleared space the night before, and prayed hard for mercy. only they were not wearing their robes of office at the moment, in accordance with a well-known savage custom; they had come naked and in disgrace, as befits all suppliants. they had left behind them the insignia of their rank in their own shaken huts, and bowed down their bare backs to the rain and the lightning. "yes, i saw them among the other islanders," felix answered, half-smiling, but prudently remaining within the taboo-line, as his shadow advised him. toko kept his hand still on his master's shoulder. "oh, king," he said, beseechingly, and with great solemnity, "i am doing wrong to warn you; i am breaking a very great taboo. i don't know what harm may come to me for telling you. perhaps tu-kila-kila will burn me to ashes with one glance of his eyes. he may know this minute what i'm saying here alone to you." it is hard for a white man to meet scruples like this; but felix was bold enough to answer outright: "tu-kila-kila knows nothing of the sort, and can never find out. take my word for it, toko, nothing that you say to me will ever reach tu-kila-kila." the shadow looked at him doubtfully, and trembled as he spoke. "i like you, korong," he said, with a genuinely truthful ring in his voice. "you seem to me so kind and good--so different from other gods, who are very cruel. you never beat me. nobody i ever served treated me as well or as kindly as you have done. and for _your_ sake i will even dare to break taboo--if you're quite, quite sure tu-kila-kila will never discover it." "i'm quite sure," felix answered, with perfect confidence. "i know it for certain. i swear a great oath to it." "you swear by tu-kila-kila himself?" the young savage asked, anxiously. "i swear by tu-kila-kila himself," felix replied at once. "i swear, without doubt. he can never know it." "that is a great taboo," the shadow went on, meditatively, stroking felix's arm. "a very great taboo indeed. a terrible medicine. and you are a god; i can trust you. well, then, you see, the secret is this: you are korong, but you are a stranger, and you don't understand the ways of boupari. if for three days after the end of this storm, which tu-kila-kila has sent fire and water to pray and vow against, you or the queen of the clouds show yourselves outside your own taboo-line--why, then, the people are clear of sin; whoever takes you may rend you alive; they will tear you limb from limb and cut you into pieces." "why so?" felix asked, aghast at this discovery. they seemed to live on a perpetual volcano in this wonderful island; and a volcano ever breaking out in fresh places. they could never get to the bottom of its horrible superstitions. "because you ate the storm-apple," the shadow answered, confidently. "that was very wrong. you brought the tempest upon us yourselves by your own trespass; therefore, by the custom of boupari, which we learn in the mysteries, you become full korong for the sacrifice at once. that makes the term for you. the people will give you all your dues; then they will say, 'we are free; we have bought you with a price; we have brought your cocoanuts. no sin attaches to us; we are righteous; we are righteous.' and then they will kill you, and fire and water will roast you and boil you." "but only if we go outside the taboo-line?" felix asked, anxiously. "only if you go outside the taboo-line," the shadow replied, nodding a hasty assent. "inside it, till your term comes, even tu-kila-kila himself, the very high god, whose meat we all are, dare never hurt you." "till our term comes?" felix inquired, once more astonished and perplexed. "what do you mean by that, my shadow?" but the shadow was either bound by some superstitious fear, or else incapable of putting himself into felix's point of view. "why, till you are full korong," he answered, like one who speaks of some familiar fact, as who should say, till you are forty years old, or, till your beard grows white. "of course, by and by, you will be full korong. i cannot help you then; but, till that time comes, i would like to do my best by you. you have been very kind to me. i tell you much. more than this, it would not be lawful for me to mention." and that was the most that, by dexterous questioning, felix could ever manage to get out of his mysterious shadow. "at the end of three days we will be safe, though?" he inquired at last, after all other questions failed to produce an answer. "oh, yes, at the end of three days the storm will have blown over," the young man answered, easily. "all will then be well. you may venture out once more. the rain will have dried over all the island. fire and water will have no more power over you." felix went back to the hut to inform muriel of this new peril thus suddenly sprung upon them. poor muriel, now almost worn out with endless terrors, received it calmly. "i'm growing accustomed to it all, felix," she answered, resignedly. "if only i know that you will keep your promise, and never let me fall alive into these wretches' hands, i shall feel quite safe. oh, felix, do you know when you took me in your arms like that last night, in spite of everything, i felt positively happy." about ten o'clock they were suddenly roused by a sound of many natives, coming in quick succession, single file, to the huts, and shouting aloud, "oh, king of the rain, oh, queen of the clouds, come forth for our vows! receive your presents!" felix went forth to the door to look. with a warning look in his eyes, his shadow followed him. the natives were now coming up by dozens at a time, bringing with them, in great arm-loads, fallen cocoanuts and breadfruits, and branches of bananas, and large draggled clusters of half-ripe plantains. "why, what are all these?" felix exclaimed in surprise. his shadow looked up at him, as if amused at the absurd simplicity of the question. "these are yours, of course," he said; "yours and the queen's; they are the windfalls you made. did you not knock them all off the trees for yourselves when you were coming down in such sheets from the sky last evening?" felix wrung his hands in positive despair. it was clear, indeed, that to the minds of the natives there was no distinguishing personally between himself and muriel, and the rain or the cyclone. "will they bring them all in?" he asked, gazing in alarm at the huge pile of fruits the natives were making outside the huts. "yes, all," the shadow answered; "they are vows; they are godsends; but if you like, you can give some of them back. if you give much back, of course it will make my people less angry with you." felix advanced near the line, holding his hand up before him to command silence. as he did so, he was absolutely appalled himself at the perfect storm of execration and abuse which his appearance excited. the foremost natives, brandishing their clubs and stone-tipped spears, or shaking their fists by the line, poured forth upon his devoted head at once all the most frightful curses of the polynesian vocabulary. "oh, evil god," they cried aloud with angry faces, "oh, wicked spirit! you have a bad heart. see what a wrong you have purposely done us. if your heart were not bad, would you treat us like this? if you are indeed a god, come out across the line, and let us try issues together. don't skulk like a coward in your hut and within your taboo, but come out and fight us. _we_ are not afraid, who are only men. why are _you_ afraid of us?" felix tried to speak once more, but the din drowned his voice. as he paused, the people set up their loud shouts again. "oh, you wicked god! you eat the storm-apple! you have wrought us much harm. you have spoiled our harvest. how you came down in great sheets last night! it was pitiful, pitiful! we would like to kill you. you might have taken our bread-fruits and our bananas, if you would; we give you them freely; they are yours; here, take them. we feed you well; we make you many offerings. but why did you wish to have our huts also? why did you beat down our young plantations and break our canoes against the beach of the island? that shows a bad heart! you are an evil god! you dare not defend yourself. come out and meet us." chapter xii. a point of theology. at last, with great difficulty, felix managed to secure a certain momentary lull of silence. the natives, clustering round the line till they almost touched it, listened with scowling brows, and brandished threatening spears, tipped with points of stone or shark's teeth or turtle-bone, while he made his speech to them. from time to time, one or another interrupted him, coaxing and wheedling him, as it were, to cross the line; but felix never heeded them. he was beginning to understand now how to treat this strange people. he took no notice of their threats or their entreaties either. by and by, partly by words and partly by gestures, he made them understand that they might take back and keep for themselves all the cocoanuts and bread-fruits they had brought as windfalls. at this the people seemed a little appeased. "his heart is not quite so bad as we thought," they murmured among themselves; "but if he didn't want them, what did he mean? why did he beat down our huts and our plantations?" then felix tried to explain to them--a somewhat dangerous task--that neither he nor muriel were really responsible for last night's storm; but at that the people, with one accord, raised a great loud shout of unmixed derision. "he is a god," they cried, "and yet he is ashamed of his own acts and deeds, afraid of what we, mere men, will do to him! ha! ha! take care! these are lies that he tells. listen to him! hear him!" meanwhile, more and more natives kept coming up with windfalls of fruit, or with objects they had vowed in their terror to dedicate during the night; and felix all the time kept explaining at the top of his voice, to all as they came, that he wanted nothing, and that they could take all back again. this curiously inconsistent action seemed to puzzle the wondering natives strangely. had he made the storm, then, they asked, and eaten the storm-apple, for no use to himself, but out of pure perverseness? if he didn't even want the windfalls and the objects vowed to him, why had he beaten down their crops and broken their houses? they looked at him meaningly; but they dared not cross that great line of taboo. it was their own superstition alone, in that moment of danger, that kept their hands off those defenceless white people. at last a happy idea seemed to strike the crowd. "what he wants is a child?" they cried, effusively. "he thirsts for blood! let us kill and roast him a proper victim!" felix's horror at this appalling proposition knew no bounds. "if you do," he cried, turning their own superstition against them in this last hour of need, "i will raise up a storm worse even than last night's! you do it at your peril! i want no victim. the people of my country eat not of human flesh. it is a thing detestable, horrible, hateful to god and man. with us, all human life alike is sacred. we spill no blood. if you dare to do as you say, i will raise such a storm over your heads to-night as will submerge and drown the whole of your island." the natives listened to him with profound interest. "we must spill no blood!" they repeated, looking aghast at one another. "hear what the king says! we must not cut the victim's throat. we must bind a child with cords and roast it alive for him!" felix hardly knew what to do or say at this atrocious proposal. "if you roast it alive," he cried, "you deserve to be all scorched up with lightning. take care what you do! spare the child's life! i will have no victim. beware how you anger me!" but the savage no sooner says than he does. with him deliberation is unknown, and impulse everything. in a moment the natives had gathered in a circle a little way off, and began drawing lots. several children, seized hurriedly up among the crowd, were huddled like so many sheep in the centre. felix looked on from his enclosure, half petrified with horror. the lot fell upon a pretty little girl of five years old. without one word of warning, without one sign of remorse, before felix's very eyes, they began to bind the struggling and terrified child just outside the circle. the white man could stand this horrid barbarity no longer. at the risk of his life--at the risk of muriel's--he must rush out to prevent them. they should never dare to kill that helpless child before his very eyes. come what might--though even muriel should suffer for it--he felt he _must_ rescue that trembling little creature. drawing his trusty knife, and opening the big blade ostentatiously before their eyes, he made a sudden dart like a wild beast across the line, and pounced down upon the party that guarded the victim. was it a ruse to make him cross the line, alone, or did they really mean it? he hardly knew; but he had no time to debate the abstract question. bursting into their midst, he seized the child with a rush in his circling arms, and tried to hurry back with it within the protecting taboo-line. quick as lightning he was surrounded and almost cut down by a furious and frantic mob of half-naked savages. "kill him! tear him to pieces!" they cried in their rage. "he has a bad heart! he destroyed our huts! he broke down our plantations! kill him, kill him, kill him!" as they closed in upon him, with spears and tomahawks and clubs, felix saw he had nothing left for it now but a hard fight for life to return to the taboo-line. holding the child in one arm, and striking wildly out with his knife with the other, he tried to hack his way back by main force to the shelter of the taboo-line in frantic lunges. the distance was but a few feet, but the savages pressed round him, half frightened still, yet gnashing their teeth and distorting their faces with anger. "he has broken the taboo," they cried in vehement tones. "he has crossed the line willingly. kill him! kill him! we are free from sin. we have bought him with a price--with many cocoanuts!" at the sound of the struggle going on so close outside, muriel rushed in frantic haste and terror from the hut. her face was pale, but her demeanor was resolute. before mali could stop her, she, too, had crossed the sacred line of the coral mark, and had flung herself madly upon felix's assailants, to cover his retreat with her own frail body. "hold off!" she cried, in her horror, in english, but in accents even those savages could read. "you shall not touch him!" with a fierce effort felix tore his way back, through the spears and clubs, toward the place of safety. the savages wounded him on the way more than once with their jagged stone spear-tips, and blood flowed from his breast and arms in profusion. but they didn't dare even so to touch muriel. the sight of that pure white woman, rushing out in her weakness to protect her lover's life from attack, seemed to strike them with some fresh access of superstitious awe. one or two of themselves were wounded by felix's knife, for they were unaccustomed to steel, though they had a few blades made out of old european barrel-hoops. for a minute or two the conflict was sharp and hotly contested. then at last felix managed to fling the child across the line, to push muriel with one hand at arm's-length before him, and to rush himself within the sacred circle. no sooner had he crossed it than the savages drew up around, undecided as yet, but in a threatening body. rank behind rank, their loose hair in their eyes, they stood like wild beasts balked of their prey, and yelled at him. some of them brandished their spears and their stone hatchets angrily in their victims' faces. others contented themselves with howling aloud as before, and piling curses afresh on the heads of the unpopular storm-gods. "look at her," they cried, in their wrath, pointing their skinny brown fingers angrily at muriel. "see, she weeps even now. she would flood us with her rain. she isn't satisfied with all the harm she has poured down upon boupari already. she wants to drown us." and then a little knot drew up close to the line of taboo itself, and began to discuss in loud and serious tones a pressing question of savage theology and religious practice. "they have crossed the line within the three days," some of the foremost warriors exclaimed, in excited voices. "they are no longer taboo. we can do as we please with them. we may cross the line now ourselves if we will, and tear them to pieces. come on! who follows? korong! korong! let us rend them! let us eat them!" but though they spoke so bravely they hung back themselves, fearful of passing that mysterious barrier. others of the crowd answered them back, warmly: "no, no; not so. be careful what you do. anger not the gods. don't ruin boupari. if the taboo is not indeed broken, then how dare we break it? they are gods. fear their vengeance. they are, indeed, terrible. see what happened to us when they merely ate of the storm-apple! what might not happen if we were to break taboo without due cause and kill them?" one old, gray-bearded warrior, in particular, held his countrymen back. "mind how you trifle with gods," the old chief said, in a tone of solemn warning. "mind how you provoke them. they are very mighty. when i was young, our people killed three sailing gods who came ashore in a small canoe, built of thin split logs; and within a month an awful earthquake devastated boupari, and fire burst forth from a mouth in the ground, and the people knew that the spirits of the sailing gods were very angry. wait, therefore, till tu-kila-kila himself comes, and then ask of him, and of fire and water. as tu-kila-kila bids you, that do you do. is he not our great god, the king of us all, and the guardian of the customs of the island of boupari?" "is tu-kila-kila coming?" some of the warriors asked, with bated breath. "how should he not come?" the old chief asked, drawing himself up very erect. "know you not the mysteries? the rain has put out all the fires in boupari. the king of fire himself, even his hearth is cold. he tried his best in the storm to keep his sacred embers still smouldering; but the king of the rain was stronger than he was, and put it out at last in spite of his endeavors. be careful, therefore, how you deal with the king of the rain, who comes down among lightnings, and is so very powerful." "and tu-kila-kila comes to fetch fresh fire?" one of the nearest savages asked, with profound awe. "he comes to fetch fresh fire, new fire from the sun," the old man answered, with awe in his voice. "these foreign gods, are they not strangers from the sun? they have brought the divine seeds of fire, growing in a shining box that reflects the sunlight. they need no rubbing-sticks and no drill to kindle fresh flame. they touch the seed on the box, and, lo, like a miracle, fire bursts forth from the wood spontaneous. tu-kila-kila comes, to behold this miracle." the warriors hung back with doubtful eyes for a moment. then they spoke with one accord, "tu-kila-kila shall decide. tu-kila-kila! tu-kila-kila! if the great god says the taboo holds good, we will not hurt or offend the strangers. but if the great god says the taboo is broken, and we are all without sin--then, korong! korong! we will kill them! we will eat them!" as the two parties thus stood glaring at one another, across that narrow imaginary wall, another cry went up to heaven at the distant sound of a peculiar tom-tom. "tu-kila-kila comes!" they shouted. "our great god approaches! women, begone! men, hide your eyes! fly, fly from the brightness of his face, which is as the sun in glory! tu-kila-kila comes! fly far, all profane ones!" and in a moment the women had disappeared into space, and the men lay flat on the moist ground with low groans of surprise, and hid their faces in their hands in abject terror. chapter xiii. as between gods. tu-kila-kila came up in his grandest panoply. the great umbrella, with the hanging cords, rose high over his head; the king of fire and the king of water, in their robes of state, marched slowly by his side; a whole group of slaves and temple attendants, clapping hands in unison, followed obedient at his sacred heels. but as soon as he reached the open space in front of the huts and began to speak, felix could easily see, in spite of his own agitation and the excitement of the moment, that the implacable god himself was profoundly frightened. last night's storm had, indeed, been terrible; but tu-kila-kila mentally coupled it with felix's attitude toward himself at their last interview, and really believed in his own heart he had met, after all, with a stronger god, more powerful than himself, who could make the clouds burst forth in fire and the earth tremble. the savage swaggered a good deal, to be sure, as is often the fashion with savages when frightened; but felix could see between the lines, that he swaggered only on the familiar principle of whistling to keep your courage up, and that in his heart of hearts he was most unspeakably terrified. "you did not do well, o king of the rain, last night," he said, after an interchange of civilities, as becomes great gods. "you have put out even the sacred flame on the holy hearth of the king of fire. you have a bad heart. why do you use us so?" "why do you let your people offer human sacrifices?" felix answered, boldly, taking advantage of his position. "they are hateful in our sight, these cannibal ways. while we remain on the island, no human life shall be unjustly taken. do you understand me?" tu-kila-kila drew back, and gazed around him suspiciously. in all his experience no one had ever dared to address him like that. assuredly, the stranger from the sun must be a very great god--how great, he hardly dared to himself to realize. he shrugged his shoulders. "when we mighty deities of the first order speak together, face to face," he said, with an uneasy air, "it is not well that the mere common herd of men should overhear our profound deliberations. let us go inside your hut. let us confer in private." they entered the hut alone, muriel still clinging to felix's arm, in speechless terror. then felix at once began to explain the situation. as he spoke, a baleful light gleamed in tu-kila-kila's eye. the great god removed his mulberry-paper mask. he was evidently delighted at the turn things had taken. if only he dared--but there; he dared not. "fire and water would never allow it," he murmured softly to himself. "they know the taboos as well as i do." it was clear to felix that the savage would gladly have sacrificed him if he dared, and that he made no bones about letting him know it; but the custom of the islanders bound him as tightly as it bound themselves, and he was afraid to transgress it. "now listen," felix said, at last, after a long palaver, looking in the savage's face with a resolute air: "tu-kila-kila, we are not afraid of you. we are not afraid of all your people. i went out alone just now to rescue that child, and, as you see, i succeeded in rescuing it. your people have wounded me--look at the blood on my arms and chest--but i don't mind for wounds. i mean you to do as i say, and to make your people do so, too. understand, the nation to which i belong is very powerful. you have heard of the sailing gods who go over the sea in canoes of fire, as swift as the wind, and whose weapons are hollow tubes, that belch forth great bolts of lightning and thunder? very well, i am one of them. if ever you harm a hair of our heads, those sailing gods will before long send one of their mighty fire-canoes, and bring to bear upon your island their thunder and lightning, and destroy your huts, and punish you for the wrong you have ventured to do us. so now you know. remember that you act exactly as i tell you." tu-kila-kila was evidently overawed by the white man's resolute voice and manner. he had heard before of the sailing gods (as the polynesians of the old school still call the europeans); and though but one or two stray individuals among them had ever reached his remote island (mostly as castaways), he was quite well enough acquainted with their might and power to be deeply impressed by felix's exhortation. so he tried to temporize. "very well," he made answer, with his jauntiest air, assuming a tone of friendly good-fellowship toward his brother-god. "i will bear it in mind. i will try to humor you. while your time lasts, no man shall hurt you. but if i promise you that, you must do a good turn for me instead. you must come out before the people and give me a new fire from the sun, that you carry in a shining box about with you. the king of fire has allowed his sacred flame to go out in deference to your flood; for last night, you know, you came down heavily. never in my life have i known you come down heavier. the king of fire acknowledges himself beaten. so give us light now before the people, that they may know we are gods, and may fear to disobey us." "only on one condition," felix answered, sternly; for he felt he had tu-kila-kila more or less in his power now, and that he could drive a bargain with him. why, he wasn't sure; but he saw tu-kila-kila attached a profound importance to having the sacred fire relighted, as he thought, direct from heaven. "what condition is that?" tu-kila-kila asked, glancing about him suspiciously. "why, that you give up in future human sacrifices." tu-kila-kila gave a start. then he reflected for a moment. evidently, the condition seemed to him a very hard one. "do you want all the victims for yourself and her, then?" he asked, with a casual nod aside toward muriel. felix drew back, with horror depicted on every line of his face. "heaven forbid!" he answered, fervently. "we want no bloodshed, no human victims. we ask you to give up these horrid practices, because they shock and revolt us. if you would have your fire lighted, you must promise us to put down cannibalism altogether henceforth in your island." tu-kila-kila hesitated. after all, it was only for a very short time that these strangers could thus beard him. their day would come soon. they were but korongs. meanwhile, it was best, no doubt, to effect a compromise. "agreed," he answered, slowly. "i will put down human sacrifices--so long as you live among us. and i will tell the people your taboo is not broken. all shall be done as you will in this matter. now, come out before the crowd and light the fire from heaven." "remember," felix repeated, "if you break your word, my people will come down upon you, sooner or later, in their mighty fire-canoes, and will take vengeance for your crime, and destroy you utterly." tu-kila-kila smiled a cunning smile. "i know all that," he answered. "i am a god myself, not a fool, don't you see? you are a very great god, too; but i am the greater. no more of words between us two. it is as between gods. the fire! the fire!" tu-kila-kila replaced his mask. they proceeded from the hut to the open space within the taboo-line. the people still lay all flat on their faces. "fire and water," tu-kila-kila said, in a commanding tone, "come forward and screen me!" the king of fire and the king of water unrolled a large square of native cloth, which they held up as a screen on two poles in front of their superior deity. tu-kila-kila sat down on the ground, hugging his knees, in the common squatting savage fashion, behind the veil thus readily formed for him. "taboo is removed," he said, in loud, clear tones. "my people may rise. the light will not burn them. they may look toward the place where tu-kila-kila's face is hidden from them." the people all rose with one accord, and gazed straight before them. "the king of fire will bring dry sticks," tu-kila-kila said, in his accustomed regal manner. the king of fire, sticking one pole of the screen into the ground securely, brought forward a bundle of sun-dried sticks and leaves from a basket beside him. "the king of the rain, who has put out all our hearths with his flood last night, will relight them again with new fire, fresh flame from the sun, rays of our disk, divine, mystic, wonderful," tu-kila-kila proclaimed, in his droning monotone. felix advanced as he spoke to the pile, and struck a match before the eyes of all the islanders. as they saw it light, and then set fire to the wood, a loud cry went up once more, "tu-kila-kila is great! his words are true! he has brought fire from the sun! his ways are wonderful!" tu-kila-kila, from his point of vantage behind the curtain, strove to improve the occasion with a theological lesson. "that is the way we have learned from our divine ancestors," he said, slowly; "the rule of the gods in our island of boupari. each god, as he grows old, reincarnates himself visibly. before he can grow feeble and die he immolates himself willingly on his own altar; and a younger and a stronger than he receives his spirit. thus the gods are always young and always with you. behold myself, tu-kila-kila! am i not from old times? am i not very ancient? have i not passed through many bodies? do i not spring ever fresh from my own ashes? do i not eat perpetually the flesh of new victims? even so with fire. the flames of our island were becoming impure. the king of fire saw his cinders flickering. so i gave my word. the king of the rain descended in floods upon them. he put them all out. and now he rekindles them. they burn up brighter and fresher than ever. they burn to cook my meat, the limbs of my victims. take heed that you do the king of the rain no harm as long as he remains within his sacred circle. he is a very great god. he is fierce; he is cruel. his taboo is not broken. beware! beware! disobey at your peril. i, tu-kila-kila, have spoken." as he spoke, it seemed to felix that these strange mystic words about each god springing fresh from his own ashes must contain the solution of that dread problem they were trying in vain to read. that, perhaps, was the secret of korong. if only they could ever manage to understand it! tu-kila-kila beat his tom-tom twice. in a second all the people fell flat on their faces again. tu-kila-kila rose; the kings of fire and water held the umbrella over him. the attendants on either side clapped hands in time to the sacred tom-tom. with proud, slow tread, the god retraced his steps to his own palace-temple; and muriel and felix were left alone at last in their dusty enclosure. "tu-kila-kila hates me," felix said, later in the day, to his attentive shadow. "of course," the young man answered, with a tone of natural assent. "to be sure he hates you. how could he do otherwise? you are korong. you may any day be his enemy." "but he's afraid of me, too," felix went on. "he would have liked to let the people tear me in pieces. yet he dared not risk it. he seems to dread offending me." "of course," the shadow replied, as readily as before. "he is very much afraid of you. you are korong. you may any day supplant him. he would like to get rid of you, if he could see his way. but till your time comes he dare not touch you." "when will my time come?" felix asked, with that dim apprehension of some horrible end coming over him yet again in all its vague weirdness. the shadow shook his head. "that," he answered, "it is not lawful for me so much as to mention. i tell you too far. you will know soon enough. wait, and be patient." chapter xiv. "mr. thurstan, i presume." naturally enough, it was some time before felix and muriel could recover from the shock of their deadly peril. yet, strange to say, the natives at the end of three days seemed positively to have forgotten all about it. their loves and their hates were as shortlived as children's. as soon as the period of seclusion was over, their attentions to the two strangers redoubled in intensity. they were evidently most anxious, after this brief disagreement, to reassure the new gods, who came from the sun, of their gratitude and devotion. the men who had wounded felix, in particular, now came daily in the morning with exceptional gifts of fish, fruit, and flowers; they would bring a crab from the sea, or a joint of turtle-meat. "forgive us, o king," they cried, prostrating themselves humbly. "we did not mean to hurt you; we thought your time had really come. you are a korong. we would not offend you. do not refuse us your showers because of our sin. we are very penitent. we will do what you ask of us. your look is poison. see, here is wood; here are leaves and fire; we are but your meat; choose and cook which you will of us!" it was useless felix's trying to explain to them that he wanted no victims, and no propitiation. the more he protested, the more they brought gifts. "he is a very great god," they exclaimed. "he wants nothing from us. what can we give him that will be an acceptable gift? shall we offer him ourselves, our wives, our children?" as for the women, when they saw how thoroughly frightened of them muriel now was, they couldn't find means to express their regret and devotion. mothers brought their little children, whom she had patted on the head, and offered them, just outside the line, as presents for her acceptance. they explained to her shadow that they never meant to hurt her, and that, if only she would venture without the line, as of old, all should be well, and they would love and adore her. mali translated to her mistress these speeches and prayers. "them say, 'you come back, queenie,'" she explained in her broken queensland english. "'boupari women love you very much. boupari women glad you come. you kind; you beautiful! all boupari men and women very much pleased with you and the gentleman, because you give back him cocoanut and fruit that you pick in the storm, and because you bring down fresh fire from heaven.'" gradually, after several days, felix's confidence was so far restored that he ventured to stroll beyond the line again; and he found himself, indeed, most popular among the people. in various ways he picked up gradually the idea that the islanders generally disliked tu-kila-kila, and liked himself; and that they somehow regarded him as tu-kila-kila's natural enemy. what it could all mean he did not yet understand, though some inklings of an explanation occasionally occurred to him. oh, how he longed now for the month of birds to end, in order that he might pay his long-deferred visit to the mysterious frenchman, from whose voice his shadow had fled on that fateful evening with such sudden precipitancy. the frenchman, he judged, must have been long on the island, and could probably give him some satisfactory solution of this abstruse problem. so he was glad, indeed, when one evening, some weeks later, his shadow, observing the sky narrowly, remarked to him in a low voice, "new moon to-morrow! the month of birds will then be up. in the morning you can go and see your brother god at the abode of birds without breaking taboo. the month of turtles begins at sunrise. my family god is a turtle, so i know the day for it." so great was felix's impatience to settle this question, that almost before the sun was up next day he had set forth from his hut, accompanied as usual by his faithful shadow. their way lay past tu-kila-kila's temple. as they went by the entrance with the bamboo posts, felix happened to glance aside through the gate to the sacred enclosure. early as it was, tu-kila-kila was afoot already; and, to felix's great surprise, was pacing up and down, with that stealthy, wary look upon his cunning face that muriel had so particularly noted on the day of their first arrival. his spear stood in his hand, and his tomahawk hung by his left side; he peered about him suspiciously, with a cautious glance, as he walked round and round the sacred tree he guarded so continually. there was something weird and awful in the sight of that savage god, thus condemned by his own superstition and the custom of his people to tramp ceaselessly up and down before the sacred banyan. at sight of felix, however, a sudden burst of frenzy seemed to possess at once all tu-kila-kila's limbs. he brandished his spear violently, and set himself spasmodically in a posture of defence. his brow grew black, and his eyes darted out eternal hate and suspicion. it was evident he expected an instant attack, and was prepared with all his might and main to resist aggression. yet he never offered to desert his post by the tree or to assume the offensive. clearly, he was guarding the sacred grove itself with jealous care, and was as eager for its safety as for his own life and honor. felix passed on, wondering what it all could mean, and turned with an inquiring glance to his trembling shadow. as for toko, he had held his face averted meanwhile, lest he should behold the great god, and be scorched to a cinder; but in answer to felix's mute inquiry he murmured low: "was tu-kila-kila there? were all things right? was he on guard at his post by the tree already?" "yes," felix replied, with that weird sense of mystery creeping over him now more profoundly than ever. "he was on guard by the tree and he looked at me angrily." "ah," the shadow remarked, with a sigh of regret, "he keeps watch well. it will be hard work to assail him. no god in boupari ever held his place so tight. who wishes to take tu-kila-kila's divinity must get up early." they went on in silence to the little volcanic knoll near the centre of the island. there, in the neat garden plot they had observed before, a man, in the last relics of a very tattered european costume, much covered with a short cape of native cloth, was tending his flowers and singing to himself merrily. his back was turned to them as they came up. felix paused a moment, unseen, and caught the words the stranger was singing: "très jolie, peu polie, possédant un gros magot; fort en gueule, pas bégueule; telle était--" the stranger looked up, and paused in the midst of his lines, open-mouthed. for a moment he stood and stared astonished. then, raising his native cap with a graceful air, and bowing low, as he would have bowed to a lady on the boulevard, he advanced to greet a brother european with the familiar words, in good educated french, "monsieur, i salute you!" to felix, the sound of a civilized voice in the midst of so much strange and primitive barbarism, was like a sudden return to some forgotten world, so deeply and profoundly did it move and impress him. he grasped the sunburnt frenchman's rugged hand in his. "who are you?" he cried, in the very best parisian he could muster up on the spur of the moment. "and how did you come here?" "monsieur," the frenchman answered, no less profoundly moved than himself, "this is, indeed, wonderful! do i hear once more that beautiful language spoken? do i find myself once more in the presence of a civilized person? what fortune! what happiness! ah, it is glorious, glorious." for some seconds they stood and looked at one another in silence, grasping their hands hard again and again with intense emotion; then felix repeated his question a second time: "who are you, monsieur? and where do you come from?" "your name, surname, age, occupation?" the frenchman repeated, bursting forth at last into national levity. "ah, monsieur, what a joy to hear those well-known inquiries in my ear once more. i hasten to gratify your legitimate curiosity. name: peyron; christian name: jules; age: forty-one; occupation: convict, escaped from new caledonia." under any other circumstances that last qualification might possibly have been held an undesirable one in a new acquaintance. but on the island of boupari, among so many heathen cannibals, prejudices pale before community of blood; even a new caledonian convict is at least a christian european. felix received the strange announcement without the faintest shock of surprise or disgust. he would gladly have shaken hands then and there with m. jules peyron, indeed, had he introduced himself in even less equivocal language as a forger, a pickpocket, or an escaped house-breaker. "and you, monsieur?" the ex-convict inquired, politely. felix told him in a few words the history of their accident and their arrival on the island. "_comment_?" the frenchman exclaimed, with surprise and delight. "a lady as well; a charming english lady! what an acquisition to the society of boupari! _quelle chance! quel bonheur!_ monsieur, you are welcome, and mademoiselle too! and in what quality do you live here? you are a god, i see; otherwise you would not have dared to transgress my taboo, nor would this young man--your shadow, i suppose--have permitted you to do so. but which sort of god, pray? korong--or tula?" "they call me korong," felix answered, all tremulous, feeling himself now on the very verge of solving this profound mystery. "and mademoiselle as well?" the frenchman exclaimed, in a tone of dismay. "and mademoiselle as well," felix replied. "at least, so i make out. we are both korong. i have many times heard the natives call us so." his new acquaintance seized his hand with every appearance of genuine alarm and regret. "my poor friend," he exclaimed, with a horrified face, "this is terrible, terrible! tu-kila-kila is a very hard man. what can we do to save your life and mademoiselle's! we are powerless! powerless! i have only that much to say. i condole with you! i commiserate you!" "why, what does korong mean?" felix asked, with blanched lips. "is it then something so very terrible?" "terrible! ah, terrible!" the frenchman answered, holding up his hands in horror and alarm. "i hardly know how we can avert your fate. step within my poor hut, or under the shade of my tree of liberty here, and i will tell you all the little i know about it." chapter xv. the secret of korong. "you have lived here long?" felix asked, with tremulous interest, as he took a seat on the bench under the big tree, toward which his new host politely motioned him. "you know the people well, and all their superstitions?" "_hélas_, yes, monsieur," the frenchman answered, with a sigh of regret. "eighteen years have i spent altogether in this beast of a pacific; nine as a convict in new caledonia, and nine more as a god here; and, believe me, i hardly know which is the harder post. yours is the first white face i have ever seen since my arrival in this cursed island." "and how did you come here?" felix asked, half breathless, for the very magnitude of the stake at issue--no less a stake than muriel's life--made him hesitate to put point-blank the question he had most at heart for the moment. "monsieur," the frenchman answered, trying to cover his rags with his native cape, "that explains itself easily. i was a medical student in paris in the days of the commune. ah! that beloved paris--how far away it seems now from boupari! like all other students i was advanced--republican, socialist--what you will--a political enthusiast. when the events took place--the events of ' --i espoused with all my heart the cause of the people. you know the rest. the bourgeoisie conquered. i was taken red-handed, as the versaillais said--my pistol in my grasp--an open revolutionist. they tried me by court-martial--br'r'r--no delay--guilty, m. le president--hard labor to perpetuity. they sent me with that brave louise michel and so many other good comrades of the cause to new caledonia. there, nine years of convict life was more than enough for me. one day i found a canoe on the shore--a little kanaka canoe--you know the type--a mere shapeless dug-out. hastily i loaded it with food--yam, taro, bread-fruit--i pushed it off into the sea--i embarked alone--i intrusted myself and all my fortunes to the bon dieu and the wide pacific. the bon dieu did not wholly justify my confidence. it is a way he has--that inscrutable one. six weeks i floated hither and thither before varying winds. at last one evening i reached this island. i floated ashore. and, _enfin, me voilà_!" "then you were a political prisoner only?" felix said, politely. m. jules peyron drew himself up with much dignity in his tattered costume. "do i look like a card-sharper, monsieur?" he asked simply, with offended honor. felix hastened to reassure him of his perfect confidence. "on the contrary, monsieur," he said, "the moment i heard you were a convict from new caledonia, i felt certain in my heart you could be nothing less than one of those unfortunate and ill-treated communards." "monsieur," the frenchman said, seizing his hand a second time, "i perceive that i have to do with a man of honor and a man of feeling. well, i landed on this island, and they made me a god. from that day to this i have been anxious only to shuffle off my unwelcome divinity, and return as a mere man to the shores of europe. better be a valet in paris, say i, than a deity of the best in polynesia. it is a monotonous existence here--no society, no life--and the _cuisine_--bah, execrable! but till the other day, when your steamer passed, i have scarcely even sighted a european ship. a boat came here once, worse luck, to put off two girls (who didn't belong to boupari), returned indentured laborers from queensland; but, unhappily, it was during my taboo--the month of birds, as my jailers call it--and though i tried to go down to it or to make signals of distress, the natives stood round my hut with their spears in line, and prevented me by main force from signalling to them or communicating with them. even the other day, i never heard of your arrival till a fortnight had elapsed, for i had been sick with fever, the fever of the country, and as soon as my shadow told me of your advent it was my taboo again, and i was obliged to defer for myself the honor of calling upon my new acquaintances. i am a god, of course, and can do what i like; but while my taboo is on, _ma foi_, monsieur, i can hardly call my life my own, i assure you." "but your taboo is up to-day," felix said, "so my shadow tells me." "your shadow is a well-informed young man," m. peyron answered, with easy french sprightliness. "as for my donkey of a valet, he never by any chance knows or tells me anything. i had just sent him out--the pig--to learn, if possible, your nationality and name, and what hours you preferred, as i proposed later in the day to pay my respects to mademoiselle, your friend, if she would deign to receive me." "miss ellis would be charmed, i'm sure," felix replied, smiling in spite of himself at so much parisian courtliness under so ragged an exterior. "it is a great pleasure to us to find we are not really alone on this barbarous island. but you were going to explain to me, i believe, the exact nature of this peril in which we both stand--the precise distinction between korong and tula?" "alas, monsieur," the frenchman replied, drawing circles in the dust with his stick with much discomposure, "i can only tell you i have been trying to make out the secret of this distinction myself ever since the first day i came to the island; but so reticent are all the natives about it, and so deep is the taboo by which the mystery is guarded, that even now i, who am myself tula, can tell you but very little with certainty on the subject. all i can say for sure is this--that gods called tula retain their godship in permanency for a very long time, although at the end some violent fate, which i do not clearly understand, is destined to befall them. that is my condition as king of the birds--for no doubt they have told you that i, jules peyron--republican, socialist, communist--have been elevated against my will to the honors of royalty. that is my condition, and it matters but little to me, for i know not when the end may come; and we can but die once; how or where, what matters? meanwhile, i have my distractions, my little _agréments_--my gardens, my music, my birds, my native friends, my coquetries, my aviary. as king of the birds, i keep a small collection of my subjects in the living form, not unworthy of a scientific eye. monsieur is no ornithologist? ah, no, i thought not. well, for me, it matters little; my time is long. but for you and mademoiselle, who are both korong--" he paused significantly. "what happens, then, to those who are korong?" felix asked, with a lump in his throat--not for himself, but for muriel. the frenchman looked at him with a doubtful look. "monsieur," he said, after a pause, "i hardly know how to break the truth to you properly. you are new to the island, and do not yet understand these savages. it is so terrible a fate. so deadly. so certain. compose your mind to hear the worst. and remember that the worst is very terrible." felix's blood froze within him; but he answered bravely all the same, "i think i have guessed it myself already. the korong are offered as human sacrifices to tu-kila-kila." "that is nearly so," his new friend replied, with a solemn nod of his head. "every korong is bound to die when his time comes. your time will depend on the particular date when you were admitted to heaven." felix reflected a moment. "it was on the th of last month," he answered, shortly. "very well," m. peyron replied, after a brief calculation. "you have just six months in all to live from that date. they will offer you up by tu-kila-kila's hut the day the sun reaches the summer solstice." "but why did they make us gods then?" felix interposed, with tremulous lips. "why treat us with such honors meanwhile, if they mean in the end to kill us?" he received his sentence of death with greater calmness than the frenchman had expected. "monsieur," the older arrival answered, with a reflective air, "there comes in the mystery. if we could solve that, we could find out also the way of escape for you. for there _is_ a way of escape for every korong: i know it well; i gather it from all the natives say; it is a part of their mysteries; but what it may be, i have hitherto, in spite of all my efforts, failed to discover. all i _do_ know is this: tu-kila-kila hates and dreads in his heart every korong that is elevated to heaven, and would do anything, if he dared, to get rid of him quietly. but he doesn't dare, because he is bound hand and foot himself, too, by taboos innumerable. taboo is the real god and king of boupari. all the island alike bows down to it and worships it." "have you ever known korongs killed?" felix asked once more, trembling. "yes, monsieur. many of them, alas! and this is what happens. when the korong's time is come, as these creatures say, either on the summer or winter solstice, he is bound with native ropes, and carried up so pinioned to tu-kila-kila's temple. in the time before this man was tu-kila-kila, i remember--" "stop," felix cried. "i don't understand. has there then been more than one tu-kila-kila?" "why, yes," the frenchman answered. "certainly, many. and there the mystery comes in again. we have always among us one tu-kila-kila or another. he is a sort of pope, or grand lama, _voyez-vous?_ no sooner is the last god dead than another god succeeds him and takes his name, or rather his title. this young man who now holds the place was known originally as lavita, the son of sami. but what is more curious still, the islanders always treat the new god as if he were precisely the self-same person as the old one. so far as i have been able to understand their theology, they believe in a sort of transmigration of souls. the soul of the tu-kila-kila who is just dead passes into and animates the body of the tu-kila-kila who succeeds to the office. thus they speak as though tu-kila-kila were a continuous existence; and the god of the moment, himself, will even often refer to events which occurred to him, as he says, a hundred years ago or more, but which he really knows, of course, only by the persistent tradition of the islanders. they are a very curious people, these bouparese. but what would you have? among savages, one expects things to be as among savages." felix drew a quiet sigh. it was certain that on the island of boupari that expectation, at least, was never doomed to disappointment. "and when a korong is taken to tu-kila-kila's temple," he asked, continuing the subject of most immediate interest, "what happens next to him?" "monsieur," the frenchman answered, "i hardly know whether i do right or not to say the truth to you. each korong is a god for one season only; when the year renews itself, as the savages believe, by a change of season, then a new korong must be chosen by heaven to fill the place of the old ones who are to be sacrificed. this they do in order that the seasons may be ever fresh and vigorous. especially is that the case with the two meteorological gods, so to speak, the king of the rain and the queen of the clouds. those, i understand, are the posts in their pantheon which you and the lady who accompanies you occupy." "you are right," felix answered, with profoundly painful interest. "and what, then, becomes of the king and queen who are sacrificed?" "i will tell you," m. peyron answered, dropping his voice still lower into a sympathetic key. "but steel your mind for the worst beforehand. it is sufficiently terrible. on the day of your arrival, this, i learn from my shadow, is just what happened. that night, tu-kila-kila made his great feast, and offered up the two chief human sacrifices of the year, the free-will offering and the scapegoat of trespass. they keep then a festival, which answers to our own new-year's day in europe. next morning, in accordance with custom, the king of the rain and the queen of the clouds were to be publicly slain, in order that a new and more vigorous king and queen should be chosen in their place, who might make the crops grow better and the sky more clement. in the midst of this horrid ceremony, you and mademoiselle, by pure chance, arrived. you were immediately selected by tu-kila-kila, for some reason of his own, which i do not sufficiently understand, but which is, nevertheless, obvious to all the initiated, as the next representatives of the rain-giving gods. you were presented to heaven on their little platform raised about the ground, and heaven accepted you. then you were envisaged with the attributes of divinity; the care of the rain and the clouds was made over to you; and immediately after, as soon as you were gone, the old king and queen were laid on an altar near tu-kila-kila's home, and slain with tomahawks. their flesh was next hacked from their bodies with knives, cooked, and eaten; their bones were thrown into the sea, the mother of all waters, as the natives call it. and that is the fate, i fear the inevitable fate, that will befall you and mademoiselle at these wretches' hands about the commencement of a fresh season." felix knew the worst now, and bent his head in silence. his worst fears were confirmed; but, after all, even this knowledge was better than so much uncertainty. and now that he knew when "his time was up," as the natives phrased it, he would know when to redeem his promise to muriel. chapter xvi. a very faint clue. "but you hinted at some hope, some chance of escape," felix cried at last, looking up from the ground and mastering his emotion. "what now is that hope? conceal nothing from me." "monsieur," the frenchman answered, shrugging his shoulders with an expression of utter impotence, "i have as good reasons for wishing to find out all that as even you can have. _your_ secret is _my_ secret; but with all my pains and astuteness i have been unable to discover it. the natives are reticent, very reticent indeed, about all these matters. they fear taboo; and they fear tu-kila-kila. the women, to be sure, in a moment of expansion, might possibly tell one; but, then, the women, unfortunately, are not admitted to the mysteries. they know no more of all these things than we do. the most i have been able to gather for certain is this--that on the discovery of the secret depend tu-kila-kila's life and power. every boupari man knows this great taboo; it is communicated to him in the assembly of adults when he gets tattooed and reaches manhood. but no boupari man ever communicates it to strangers; and for that reason, perhaps, as i believe, tu-kila-kila often chooses for korong, as far as possible, those persons who are cast by chance upon the island. it has always been the custom, so far as i can make out, to treat castaways or prisoners taken in war as gods, and then at the end of their term to kill them ruthlessly. this plan is popular with the people at large, because it saves themselves from the dangerous honors of deification; but it also serves tu-kila-kila's purpose, because it usually elevates to heaven those innocent persons who are unacquainted with that fatal secret which is, as the natives say, tu-kila-kila's death--his word of dismissal." "then if only we could find out this secret--" felix cried. his new friend interrupted him. "what hope is there of your finding it out, monsieur," he exclaimed, "you, who have only a few months to live--when i, who have spent nine long years of exile on the island, and seen two tu-kila-kilas rise and fall, have been unable, with my utmost pains, to discover it? _tenez_; you have no idea yet of the superstitions of these people, or the difficulties that lie in the way of fathoming them. come this way to my aviary; i will show you something that will help you to realize the complexities of the situation." he rose and led the way to another cleared space at the back of the hut, where several birds of gaudy plumage were fastened to perches on sticks by leathery lashes of dried shark's skin, tied just above their talons. "i am the king of the birds, monsieur, you must remember," the frenchman said, fondling one of his screaming _protégés_. "these are a few of my subjects. but i do not keep them for mere curiosity. each of them is the soul of the tribe to which it belongs. this, for example--my cluseret--is the soul of all the gray parrots; that that you see yonder--badinguet, i call him--is the soul of the hawks; this, my mimi, is the soul of the little yellow-crested kingfisher. my task as king of the birds is to keep a representative of each of these always on hand; in which endeavor i am faithfully aided by the whole population of the island, who bring me eggs and nests and young birds in abundance. if the soul of the little yellow kingfisher now were to die, without a successor being found ready at once to receive and embody it, then the whole race of little yellow kingfishers would vanish altogether; and if i myself, the king of the birds, who am, as it were, the soul and life of all of them, were to die without a successor being at hand to receive my spirit, then all the race of birds, with one accord, would become extinct forthwith and forever." he moved among his pets easily, like a king among his subjects. most of them seemed to know him and love his presence. presently, he came to one very old parrot, quite different from any felix had ever seen on any trees in the island; it was a parrot with a black crest and a red mark on its throat, half blind with age, and tottering on its pedestal. this solemn old bird sat apart from all the others, nodding its head oracularly in the sunlight, and blinking now and again with its white eyelids in a curious senile fashion. the frenchman turned to felix with an air of profound mystery. "this bird," he said, solemnly stroking its head with his hand, while the parrot turned round to him and bit at his finger with half-doddering affection--"this bird is the oldest of all my birds---is it not so, methuselah?--and illustrates well in one of its aspects the superstition of these people. yes, my friend, you are the last of a kind now otherwise extinct, are you not, _mon vieux?_ no, no, there--gently! once upon a time, the natives tell me, dozens of these parrots existed in the island; they flocked among the trees, and were held very sacred; but they were hard to catch and difficult to keep, and the kings of the birds, my predecessors, failed to secure an heir and coadjutor to this one. so as the soul of the species, which you see here before you, grew old and feeble, the whole of the race to which it belonged grew old and feeble with it. one by one they withered away and died, till at last this solitary specimen alone remained to vouch for the former existence of the race in the island. now, the islanders say, nothing but the soul itself is left; and when the soul dies, the red-throated parrots will be gone forever. one of my predecessors paid with his life in awful tortures for his remissness in not providing for the succession to the soulship. i tell you these things in order that you may see whether they cast any light for you upon your own position; and also because the oldest and wisest natives say that this parrot alone, among beasts or birds or uninitiated things, knows the secret on which depends the life of the tu-kila-kila for the time being." "can the parrot speak?" felix asked, with profound emotion. "monsieur, he can speak, and he speaks frequently. but not one word of all he says is comprehensible either to me or to any other living being. his tongue is that of a forgotten nation. the islanders understand him no more than i do. he has a very long sermon or poem, which he knows by heart, in some unknown language, and he repeats it often at full length from time to time, especially when he has eaten well and feels full and happy. the oldest natives tell a romantic legend about this strange recitation of the good methuselah--i call him methuselah because of his great age--but i do not really know whether their tale is true or purely fanciful. you never can trust these polynesian traditions." "what is the legend?" felix asked, with intense interest. "in an island where we find ourselves so girt round by mystery within mystery, and taboo within taboo, as this, every key is worth trying. it is well for us at least to learn everything we can about the ideas of the natives. who knows what clue may supply us at last with the missing link, which will enable us to break through this intolerable servitude?" "well, the story they tell us is this," the frenchman replied, "though i have gathered it only a hint at a time, from very old men, who declared at the same moment that some religious fear--of which they have many--prevented them from telling me any further about it. it seems that a long time ago--how many years ago nobody knows, only that it was in the time of the thirty-ninth tu-kila-kila, before the reign of lavita, the son of sami--a strange korong was cast up upon this island by the waves of the sea, much as you and i have been in the present generation. by accident, says the story, or else, as others aver, through the indiscretion of a native woman who fell in love with him, and who worried the taboo out of her husband, the stranger became acquainted with the secret of tu-kila-kila. as the natives themselves put it, he learned the death of the high god, and where in the world his soul was hidden. thereupon, in some mysterious way or other, he became tu-kila-kila himself, and ruled as high god for ten years or more here on this island. now, up to that time, the legend goes on, none but the men of the island knew the secret; they learned it as soon as they were initiated in the great mysteries, which occur before a boy is given a spear and admitted to the rank of complete manhood. but sometimes a woman was told the secret wrongfully by her husband or her lover; and one such woman, apparently, told the strange korong, and so enabled him to become tu-kila-kila." "but where does the parrot come in?" felix asked, with still profounder excitement than ever. something within him seemed to tell him instinctively he was now within touch of the special key that must sooner or later unlock the mystery. "well," the frenchman went on, still stroking the parrot affectionately with his hand, and smoothing down the feathers on its ruffled back, "the strange tu-kila-kila, who thus ruled in the island, though he learned to speak polynesian well, had a language of his own, a language of the birds, which no man on earth could ever talk with him. so, to beguile his time and to have someone who could converse with him in his native dialect, he taught this parrot to speak his own tongue, and spent most of his days in talking with it and fondling it. at last, after he had instructed it by slow degrees how to repeat this long sermon or poem--which i have often heard it recite in a sing-song voice from beginning to end--his time came, as they say, and he had to give way to another tu-kila-kila; for the bouparese have a proverb like our own about the king, 'the high god is dead; may the high god live forever!' but before he gave up his soul to his successor, and was eaten or buried, whichever is the custom, he handed over his pet to the king of the birds, strictly charging all future bearers of that divine office to care for the parrot as they would care for a son or a daughter. and so the natives make much of the parrot to the present day, saying he is greater than any, save a korong or a god, for he is the soul of a dead race, summing it up in himself, and he knows the secret of the death of tu-kila-kila." "but you can't tell me what language he speaks?" felix asked with a despairing gesture. it was terrible to stand thus within measurable distance of the secret which might, perhaps, save muriel's life, and yet be perpetually balked by wheel within wheel of more than egyptian mystery. "who can say?" the frenchman answered, shrugging his shoulders helplessly. "it isn't polynesian; that i know well, for i speak bouparese now like a native of boupari; and it isn't the only other language spoken at the present day in the south seas--the melanesian of new caledonia--for that i learned well from the kanakas while i was serving my time as a convict among them. all we can say for certain is that it may, perhaps, be some very ancient tongue. for parrots, we know, are immensely long-lived. some of them, it is said, exceed their century. is it not so, eh, my friend methuselah?" chapter xvii. facing the worst. muriel, meanwhile, sat alone in her hut, frightened at felix's unexpected disappearance so early in the morning, and anxiously awaiting her lover's return, for she made no pretences now to herself that she did not really love felix. though the two might never return to europe to be husband and wife, she did not doubt that before the eye of heaven they were already betrothed to one another as truly as though they had plighted their troth in solemn fashion. felix had risked his life for her, and had brought all this misery upon himself in the attempt to save her. felix was now all the world that was left her. with felix, she was happy, even on this horrible island; without him, she was miserable and terrified, no matter what happened. "mali," she cried to her faithful attendant, as soon as she found felix was missing from his tent, "what's become of mr. thurstan? where can he be gone, i wonder, this morning?" "you no fear, missy queenie," mali answered, with the childish confidence of the native polynesian. "mistah thurstan, him gone to see man-a-oui-oui, the king of the birds. month of birds finish last night; man-a-oui-oui no taboo any longer. king of the birds keep very old parrot, boupari folk tell me; and old parrot very wise, know how to make tu-kila-kila. mistah thurstan, him gone to find man-a-oui-oui. parrot tell him plenty wise thing. parrot wiser than boupari people; know very good medicine; wise like queensland lady and gentleman." and mali set herself vigorously to work to wash the wooden platter on which she served up her mistress's yam for breakfast. it was curious to muriel to see how readily mali had slipped from savagery to civilization in queensland, and how easily she had slipped back again from civilization to savagery in boupari. in waiting on her mistress she was just the ordinary trained native australian servant; in every other respect she was the simple unadulterated heathen polynesian. she recognized in muriel a white lady of the english sort, and treated her within the hut as white ladies were invariably treated in queensland; but she considered that at boupari one must do as boupari does, and it never for a moment occurred to her simple mind to doubt the omnipotence of tu-kila-kila in his island realm any more than she had doubted the omnipotence of the white man and his local religion in their proper place (as she thought it) in queensland. an hour or two passed before felix returned. at last he arrived, very white and pale, and muriel saw at once by the mere look on his face that he had learned some terrible news at the frenchman's. "well, you found him?" she cried, taking his hand in hers, but hardly daring to ask the fatal question at once. and felix, sitting down, as pale as a ghost, answered faintly, "yes, muriel, i found him!" "and he told you everything?" "everything he knew, my poor child. oh, muriel, muriel, don't ask me what it is. it's too terrible to tell you." muriel clasped her white hands together, held bloodless downward, and looked at him fixedly. "mali, you can go," she said. and the shadow, rising up with childish confidence, glided from the hut, and left them, for the first time since their arrival on the central island, alone together. muriel looked at him once more with the same deadly fixed look. "with you, felix," she said, slowly, "i can bear or dare anything. i feel as if the bitterness of death were past long ago. i know it must come. i only want to be quite sure when.... and besides, you must remember, i have your promise." felix clasped his own hands despondently in return, and gazed across at her from his seat a few feet off in unspeakable misery. "muriel," he cried, "i couldn't. i haven't the heart. i daren't." muriel rose and laid her hand solemnly on his arm. "you will!" she answered, boldly. "you can! you must! i know i can trust your promise for that. this moment, if you like. i would not shrink. but you will never let me fall alive into the hands of those wretches. felix, from _your_ hand i could stand anything. i'm not afraid to die. i love you too dearly." felix held her white little wrist in his grasp and sobbed like a child. her very bravery and confidence seemed to unman him, utterly. she looked at him once more. "when?" she asked, quietly, but with lips as pale as death. "in about four months from now," felix answered, endeavoring to be calm. "and they will kill us both?" "yes, both. i think so." "together?" "together." muriel drew a deep sigh. "will you know the day beforehand?" she asked. "yes. the frenchman told me it. he has known others killed in the self-same fashion." "then, felix---the night before it comes, you will promise me, will you?" "muriel, muriel, i could never dare to kill you." she laid her hand soothingly on his. she stroked him gently. "you are a man," she said, looking up into his eyes with confidence. "i trust you. i believe in you. i know you will never let these savages hurt me.... felix, in spite of everything, i've been happier since we came to this island together than ever i have been in my life before. i've had my wish. i didn't want to miss in life the one thing that life has best worth giving. i haven't missed it now. i know i haven't; for i love you, and you love me. after that, i can die, and die gladly. if i die with _you_, that's all i ask. these seven or eight terrible weeks have made me feel somehow unnaturally calm. when i came here first i lived all the time in an agony of terror. i've got over the agony of terror now. i'm quite resigned and happy. all i ask is to be saved--by you--from the cruel hands of these hateful cannibals." felix raised her white hand just once to his lips. it was the first time he had ever ventured to kiss her. he kissed it fervently. she let it drop as if dead by her side. "now tell me all that happened," she said. "i'm strong enough to bear it. i feel such a woman now--so wise and calm. these few weeks have made me grow from a girl into a woman all at once. there's nothing i daren't hear, if you'll tell me it, felix." felix took up her hand again and held it in his, as he narrated the whole story of his visit to the frenchman. when muriel had heard it, she said once more, slowly, "i don't think there's any hope in all these wild plans of playing off superstition against superstition. to my mind there are only two chances left for us now. one is to concoct with the frenchman some means of getting away by canoe from the island--i'd rather trust the sea than the tender mercy of these dreadful people; the other is to keep a closer lookout than ever for the merest chance of a passing steamer." felix drew a deep sigh. "i'm afraid neither's much use," he said. "if we tried to get away, dogged as we are, day and night, by our shadows, the natives would follow us with their war-canoes in battle array and hack us to pieces; for peyron says that, regarding us as gods, they think the rain would vanish from their island forever if once they allowed us to get away alive and carry the luck with us. and as to the steamers, we haven't seen a trace of one since we left the australasian. probably it was only by the purest accident that even she ever came so close in to boupari." "at any rate," muriel cried, still clasping his hand tight, and letting the tears now trickle slowly down her pale white cheeks, "we can talk it all over some day with m. peyron." "we can talk it over to-day," felix answered, "if it comes to that; for peyron means to step round, he says, a little later in the afternoon, to pay his respects to the first white lady he has ever seen since he left new caledonia." chapter xviii. tu-kila-kila plays a card. before the frenchman could carry out his plan, however, he was himself the recipient of the high honor of a visit from his superior god and chief, tu-kila-kila. every day and all day long, save on a few rare occasions when special duties absolved him, the custom and religion of the islanders prescribed that their supreme incarnate deity should keep watch and ward without cessation over the great spreading banyan-tree that overshadowed with its dark boughs his temple-palace. high god as he was held to be, and all-powerful within the limits of his own strict taboos, tu-kila-kila was yet as rigidly bound within those iron laws of custom and religious usage as the meanest and poorest of his subject worshippers. from sunrise to sunset, and far on into the night, the pillar of heaven was compelled to prowl up and down, with spear in hand and tomahawk at side, as felix had so often seen him, before the sacred trunk, of which he appeared to be in some mysterious way the appointed guardian. his very power, it seemed, was intimately bound up with the performance of that ceaseless and irksome duty; he was a god in whose hands the lives of his people were but as dust in the balance; but he remained so only on the onerous condition of pacing to and fro, like a sentry, forever before the still more holy and venerable object he was chosen to protect from attack or injury. had he failed in his task, had he slumbered at his post, all god though he might be, his people themselves would have risen in a body and torn him limb from limb before their ancestral fetich as a sacrilegious pretender. at certain times and seasons, however, as for example at all high feasts and festivals, tu-kila-kila had respite for a while from this constant treadmill of mechanical divinity. whenever the moon was at the half-quarter, or the planets were in lucky conjunctions, or a red glow lit up the sky by night, or the sacred sacrificial fires of human flesh were lighted, then tu-kila-kila could lay aside his tomahawk and spear, and become for a while as the islanders, his fellows, were. at other times, too, when he went out in state to visit the lesser deities of his court, the king of fire and the king of water made a solemn taboo before he left his home, which protected the sacred tree from aggression during its guardian's absence. then tu-kila-kila, shaded by his divine umbrella, and preceded by the noise of the holy tom-toms, could go like a monarch over all parts of his realm, giving such orders as he pleased (within the limits of custom) to his inferior officers. it was in this way that he now paid his visit to m. jules peyron, king of the birds. and he did so for what to him were amply sufficient reasons. it had not escaped tu-kila-kila's keen eye, as he paced among the skeletons in his yard that morning, that felix thurstan, the king of the rain, had taken his way openly toward the frenchman's quarters. he felt pretty sure, therefore, that felix had by this time learned another white man was living on the island; and he thought it an ominous fact that the new-comer should make his way toward his fellow-european's hut on the very first morning when the law of taboo rendered such a visit possible. the savage is always by nature suspicious; and tu-kila-kila had grounds enough of his own for suspicion in this particular instance. the two white men were surely brewing mischief together for the lord of heaven and earth, the illuminer of the glowing light of the sun; he must make haste and see what plan they were concocting against the sacred tree and the person of its representative, the king of plants and of the host of heaven. but it isn't so easy to make haste when all your movements are impeded and hampered by endless taboos and a minutely annoying ritual. before tu-kila-kila could get himself under way, sacred umbrella, tom-toms, and all, it was necessary for the king of fire and the king of water to make taboo on an elaborate scale with their respective elements; and so by the time the high god had reached m. jules peyron's garden, felix thurstan had already some time since returned to muriel's hut and his own quarters. tu-kila-kila approached the king of the birds, amid loud clapping of hands, with considerable haughtiness. to say the truth, there was no love lost between the cannibal god and his european subordinate. the savage, puffed up as he was in his own conceit, had nevertheless always an uncomfortable sense that, in his heart of hearts, the impassive frenchman had but a low opinion of him. so he invariably tried to make up by the solemnity of his manner and the loudness of his assertions for any trifling scepticism that might possibly exist in the mind of his follower. on this particular occasion, as he reached the frenchman's plot, tu-kila-kila stepped forward across the white taboo-line with a suspicious and peering eye. "the king of the rain has been here," he said, in a pompous tone, as the frenchman rose and saluted him ceremoniously. "tu-kila-kila's eyes are sharp. they never sleep. the sun is his sight. he beholds all things. you cannot hide aught in heaven or earth from the knowledge of him that dwells in heaven. i look down upon land and sea, and spy out all that takes place or is planned in them. i am very holy and very cruel. i see all earth and i drink the blood of all men. the king of the rain has come this morning to visit the king of the birds. where is he now? what has your divinity done with him?" he spoke from under the sheltering cover of his veiled umbrella. the frenchman looked back at him with as little love as tu-kila-kila himself would have displayed had his face been visible. "yes, you are a very great god," he answered, in the conventional tone of polynesian adulation, with just a faint under-current of irony running through his accent as he spoke. "you say the truth. you do, indeed, know all things. what need for me, then, to tell you, whose eye is the sun, that my brother, the king of the rain, has been here and gone again? you know it yourself. your eye has looked upon it. my brother was indeed with me. he consulted me as to the showers i should need from his clouds for the birds, my subjects." "and where is he gone now?" tu-kila-kila asked, without attempting to conceal the displeasure in his tone, for he more than half suspected the frenchman of a sacrilegious and monstrous design of chaffing him. the king of the birds bowed low once more. "tu-kila-kila's glance is keener than my hawk's," he answered, with the accustomed polynesian imagery. "he sees over the land with a glance, like my parrots, and over the sea with sharp sight, like my albatrosses. he knows where my brother, the king of the rain, has gone. for me, who am the least among all the gods, i sit here on my perch and blink like a crow. i do not know these things. they are too high and too deep for me." tu-kila-kila did not like the turn the conversation was taking. before his own attendants such hints, indeed, were almost dangerous. once let the savage begin to doubt, and the moral order goes with a crash immediately. besides, he must know what these white men had been talking about. "fire and water," he said in a loud voice, turning round to his two chief satellites, "go far down the path, and beat the tom-toms. fence off with flood and flame the airy height where the king of the birds lives; fence it off from all profane intrusion. i wish to confer in secret with this god, my brother. when we gods talk together, it is not well that others should hear our converse. make a great taboo. i, tu-kila-kila, myself have said it." fire and water, bowing low, backed down the path, beating tom-toms as they went, and left the savage and the frenchman alone together. as soon as they were gone, tu-kila-kila laid aside his umbrella with a positive sigh of relief. now his fellow-countrymen were well out of the way, his manner altered in a trice, as if by magic. barbarian as he was, he was quite astute enough to guess that europeans cared nothing in their hearts for all his mumbo-jumbo. he believed in it himself, but they did not, and their very unbelief made him respect and fear them. "now that we two are alone," he said, glancing carelessly around him, "we two who are gods, and know the world well--we two who see everything in heaven or earth--there is no need for concealment--we may talk as plainly as we will with one another. come, tell me the truth! the new white man has seen you?" "he has seen me, yes, certainly," the frenchman admitted, taking a keen look deep into the savage's cunning eyes. "does he speak your language--the language of birds?" tu-kila-kila asked once more, with insinuating cunning. "i have heard that the sailing gods are of many languages. are you and he of one speech or two? aliens, or countrymen?" "he speaks my language as he speaks polynesian," the frenchman replied, keeping his eye firmly fixed on his doubtful guest, "but it is not his own. he has a tongue apart--the tongue of an island not far from my country, which we call england." tu-kila-kila drew nearer, and dropped his voice to a confidential whisper. "has he seen the soul of all dead parrots?" he asked, with keen interest in his voice. "the parrot that knows tu-kila-kila's secret? that one over there--the old, the very sacred one?" m. peyron gazed round his aviary carelessly. "oh, that one," he answered, with a casual glance at methuselah, as though one parrot or another were much the same to him. "yes, i think he saw it. i pointed it out to him, in fact, as the oldest and strangest of all my subjects." tu-kila-kila's countenance fell. "did he hear it speak?" he asked, in evident alarm. "did it tell him the story of tu-kila-kila's secret?" "no, it didn't speak," the frenchman answered. "it seldom does now. it is very old. and if it did, i don't suppose the king of the rain would have understood one word of it. look here, great god, allay your fears. you're a terrible coward. i expect the real fact about the parrot is this: it is the last of its own race; it speaks the language of some tribe of men who once inhabited these islands, but are now extinct. no human being at present alive, most probably, knows one word of that forgotten language." "you think not?" tu-kila-kila asked, a little relieved. "i am the king of the birds, and i know the voices of my subjects by heart; i assure you it is as i say," m. peyron answered, drawing himself up solemnly. tu-kila-kila looked askance, with something very closely approaching a wink in his left eye. "we two are both gods," he said, with a tinge of irony in his tone. "we know what that means.... _i_ do not feel so certain." he stood close by the parrot with itching fingers. "it is very, very old," he went on to himself, musingly. "it can't live long. and then--none but boupari men will know the secret." as he spoke he darted a strange glance of hatred toward the unconscious bird, the innocent repository, as he firmly believed, of the secret that doomed him. the frenchman had turned his back for a moment now, to fetch out a stool. tu-kila-kila, casting a quick, suspicious eye to the right and left, took a step nearer. the parrot sat mumbling on its perch, inarticulately, putting its head on one side, and blinking its half-blinded eyes in the bright tropical sunshine. tu-kila-kila paused irresolute before its face for a second. if he only dared--one wring of the neck--one pinch of his finger and thumb almost!--and all would be over. but he dared not! he dared not! your savage is overawed by the blind terrors of taboo. his predecessor, some elder tu-kila-kila of forgotten days, had laid a great charm upon that parrot's life. whoever hurt it was to die an awful death of unspeakable torment. the king of the birds had special charge to guard it. if even the cannibal god himself wrought it harm, who could tell what judgment might fall upon him forthwith, what terrible vengeance the dead tu-kila-kila might wreak upon him in his ghostly anger? and that dead tu-kila-kila was his own soul! his own soul might flare up within him in some mystic way and burn him to ashes. and yet--suppose this hateful new-comer, the king of the rain, whom he had himself made korong on purpose to get rid of him the more easily, and so had elevated into his own worst potential enemy--suppose this new-comer, the king of the rain, were by chance to speak that other dialect of the bird-language, which the king of the birds himself knew not, but which the parrot had learned from his old master, the ancient tu-kila-kila of other days, and in which the bird still recited the secret of the sacred tree and the death of the great god--ah, then he might still have to fight hard for his divinity. he gazed angrily at the bird. methuselah blinked, and put his head on one side, and looked craftily askance at him. tu-kila-kila hated it, that insolent creature. was he not a god, and should he be thus bearded in his own island by a mere soul of dead birds, a poor, wretched parrot? but the curse! what might not that portend? ah, well, he would risk it. glancing around him once more to the right and left, to make sure that nobody was looking, the cunning savage put forth his hand stealthily, and tried with a friendly caress to seize the parrot. in a moment, before he had time to know what was happening, methuselah--sleepy old dotard as he seemed--had woke up at once to a sense of danger. turning suddenly round upon the sleek, caressing hand, he darted his beak with a vicious peck at his assailant, and bit the divine finger of the pillar of heaven as carelessly as he would have bitten any child on boupari. tu-kila-kila, thunder-struck, drew back his arm with a start of surprise and a loud cry of pain. the bird had wounded him. he shook his hand and stamped. blood was dropping on the ground from the man-god's finger. he hardly knew what strange evil this omen of harm might portend for the world. the soul of all dead parrots had carried out the curse, and had drawn red drops from the sacred veins of tu-kila-kila. one must be a savage one's self, and superstitious at that, fully to understand the awful significance of this deadly occurrence. to draw blood from a god, and, above all, to let that blood fall upon the dust of the ground, is the very worst luck--too awful for the human mind to contemplate. at the same moment, the parrot, awakened by the unexpected attack, threw back its head on its perch, and, laughing loud and long to itself in its own harsh way, began to pour forth a whole volley of oaths in a guttural language, of which neither tu-kila-kila nor the frenchman understood one syllable. and at the same moment, too, m. peyron himself, recalled from the door of his hut by tu-kila-kila's sharp cry of pain and by his liege subject's voluble flow of loud speech and laughter, ran up all agog to know what was the matter. tu-kila-kila, with an effort, tried to hide in his robe his wounded finger. but the frenchman caught at the meaning of the whole scene at once, and interposed himself hastily between the parrot and its assailant. "_hé!_ my methuselah," he cried, in french, stroking the exultant bird with his hand, and smoothing its ruffled feathers, "did he try to choke you, then? did he try to get over you? that was a brave bird! you did well, _mon ami_, to bite him!... no, no, life of the world, and measurer of the sun's course," he went on, in polynesian, "you shall not go near him. keep your distance, i beg of you. you may be a high god--though you were a scurvy wretch enough, don't you recollect, when you were only lavita, the son of sami--but i know your tricks. hands off from my birds, say i. a curse is on the head of the soul of dead parrots. you tried to hurt him, and see how the curse has worked itself out! the blood of the great god, the pillar of heaven, has stained the gray dust of the island of boupari." tu-kila-kila stood sucking his finger, and looking the very picture of the most savage sheepishness. chapter xix. domestic bliss. tu-kila-kila went home that day in a very bad humor. the portent of the bitten finger had seriously disturbed him. for, strange as it sounds to us, he really believed himself in his own divinity; and the bare thought that the holy soil of earth should be dabbled and wet with the blood of a god gave him no little uneasiness in his own mind on his way homeward. besides, what would his people think of it if they found it out? at all hazards almost, he must strive to conceal this episode of the bite from the men of boupari. a god who gets wounded, and, worse still, gets wounded in the very act of trying to break a great taboo laid on by himself in a previous incarnation--such a god undoubtedly lays himself open to the gravest misapprehensions on the part of his worshippers. indeed, it was not even certain whether his people, if they knew, would any longer regard him as a god at all. the devotion of savages is profound, but it is far from personal. when deities pass so readily from one body to another, you must always keep a sharp lookout lest the great spirit should at any minute have deserted his earthly tabernacle, and have taken up his abode in a fresh representative. honor the gods by all means; but make sure at the same time what particular house they are just then inhabiting. it was the hour of siesta in tu-kila-kila's tent. for a short space in the middle of the day, during the heat of the sun, while fire and water, with their embers and their calabash, sat on guard in a porch by the bamboo gate, tu-kila-kila, pillar of heaven and threshold of earth, had respite for a while from his daily task of guarding the sacred banyan, and could take his ease after his meal in his own quarters. while that precious hour of taboo lasted, no wandering dragon or spirit of the air could hurt the holy tree, and no human assailant dare touch or approach it. even the disease-making gods, who walk in the pestilence, could not blight or wither it. at all other times tu-kila-kila mounted guard over his tree with a jealousy that fairly astonished felix thurstan's soul; for felix thurstan only dimly understood as yet how implicitly tu-kila-kila's own life and office were bound up with the inviolability of the banyan he protected. within the hut, during that playtime of siesta, while the lizards (who are also gods) ran up and down the wall, and puffed their orange throats, tu-kila-kila lounged at his ease that afternoon, with one of his many wives--a tall and beautiful polynesian woman, lithe and supple, as is the wont of her race, and as exquisitely formed in every limb and feature as a sculptured greek goddess. a graceful wreath of crimson hibiscus adorned her shapely head, round which her long and glossy black hair was coiled in great rings with artistic profusion. a festoon of blue flowers and dark-red dracæna leaves hung like a chaplet over her olive-brown neck and swelling bust. one breadth of native cloth did duty for an apron or girdle round her waist and hips. all else was naked. her plump brown arms were set off by the green and crimson of the flowers that decked her. tu-kila-kila glanced at his slave with approving eyes. he always liked ula; she pleased him the best of all his women. and she knew his ways, too: she never contradicted him. among savages, guile is woman's best protection. the wife who knows when to give way with hypocritical obedience, and when to coax or wheedle her yielding lord, runs the best chance in the end for her life. her model is not the oak, but the willow. she must be able to watch for the rising signs of ill-humor in her master's mind, and guard against them carefully. if she is wise, she keeps out of her husband's way when his anger is aroused, but soothes and flatters him to the top of his bent when his temper is just slightly or momentarily ruffled. "the lord of heaven and earth is ill at ease," ula murmured, insinuatingly, as tu-kila-kila winced once with the pain of his swollen finger. "what has happened today to the increaser of bread-fruit? my lord is sad. his eye is downcast. who has crossed my master's will? who has dared to anger him?" tu-kila-kila kept the wounded hand wrapped up in a soft leaf, like a woolly mullein. all the way home he had been obliged to conceal it, and disguise the pain he felt, lest fire and water should discover his secret. for he dared not let his people know that the soul of all dead parrots had bitten his finger, and drawn blood from the sacred veins of the man-god. but he almost hesitated now whether or not he should confide in ula. a god may surely trust his own wedded wives. and yet--such need to be careful--women are so treacherous! he suspected ula sometimes of being a great deal too fond of that young man toko, who used to be one of the temple attendants, and whom he had given as shadow accordingly to the king of the rain, so as to get rid of him altogether from among the crowd of his followers. so he kept his own counsel for the moment, and disguised his misfortune. "i have been to see the king of the birds this morning," he said, in a grumbling voice; "and i do not like him. that god is too insolent. for my part i hate these strangers, one and all. they have no respect for tu-kila-kila like the men of boupari. they are as bad as atheists. they fear not the gods, and the customs of our fathers are not in them." ula crept nearer, with one lithe round arm laid caressingly close to her master's neck. "then why do you make them korong?" she asked, with feminine curiosity, like some wife who seeks to worm out of her husband the secret of freemasonry. "why do you not cook them and eat them at once, as soon as they arrive? they are very good food--so white and fine. that last new-comer, now--the queen of the clouds--why not eat her? she is plump and tender." "i like her," tu-kila-kila responded, in a gloating tone. "i like her every way. i would have brought her here to my temple and admitted her at once to be one of tu-kila-kila's wives--only that fire and water would not have permitted me. they have too many taboos, those awkward gods. i do not love them. but i make my strangers korong for a very wise reason. you women are fools; you understand nothing; you do not know the mysteries. these things are a great deal too high and too deep for you. you could not comprehend them. but men know well why. they are wise; they have been initiated. much more, then, do i, who am the very high god--who eat human flesh and drink blood like water--who cause the sun to shine and the fruits to grow--without whom the day in heaven would fade and die out, and the foundations of the earth would be shaken like a plantain leaf." ula laid her soft brown hand soothingly on the great god's arm just above the elbow. "tell me," she said, leaning forward toward him, and looking deep into his eyes with those great speaking gray orbs of hers; "tell me, o sustainer of the equipoise of heaven; i know you are great; i know you are mighty; i know you are holy and wise and cruel; but why must you let these sailing gods who come from unknown lands beyond the place where the sun rises or sets--why must you let them so trouble and annoy you? why do you not at once eat them up and be done with them? is not their flesh sweet? is not their blood red? are they not a dainty well fit for the banquet of tu-kila-kila?" the savage looked at her for a moment and hesitated. a very beautiful woman this ula, certainly. not one of all his wives had larger brown limbs, or whiter teeth, or a deeper respect for his divine nature. he had almost a mind--it was only ula? why not break the silence enjoined upon gods toward women, and explain this matter to her? not the great secret itself, of course--the secret on which hung the death and transmigration of tu-kila-kila--oh, no; not that one. the savage was far too cunning in his generation to intrust that final terrible taboo to the ears of a woman. but the reason why he made all strangers korong. a woman might surely be trusted with that--especially ula. she was so very handsome. and she was always so respectful to him. "well, the fact of it is," he answered, laying his hand on her neck, that plump brown neck of hers, under the garland of dracæna leaves, and stroking it voluptuously, "the sailing gods who happen upon this island from time to time are made korong--but hush! it is taboo." he gazed around the hut suspiciously. "are all the others away?" he asked, in a frightened tone. "fire and water would denounce me to all my people if once they found i had told a taboo to a woman. and as for you, they would take you, because you knew it, and would pull your flesh from your bones with hot stone pincers!" ula rose and looked about her at the door of the tent. she nodded thrice; then she glided back, serpentine, and threw herself gracefully, in a statuesque pose, on the native mat beside him. "here, drink some more kava," she cried, holding a bowl to his lips, and wheedling him with her eyes. "kava is good; it is fit for gods. it makes them royally drunk, as becomes great deities. the spirits of our ancestors dwell in the bowl; when you drink of the kava they mount by degrees into your heart and head. they inspire brave words. they give you thoughts of heaven. drink, my master, drink. the ruler of the sun in heaven is thirsty." she lay propped on one elbow, with her face close to his; and offered him, with one brown, irresistible hand, the intoxicating liquor. tu-kila-kila took the bowl, and drank a second time, for he had drunk of it once with his dinner already. it was seldom he allowed himself the luxury of a second draught of that very stupefying native intoxicant, for he knew too well the danger of insecurely guarding his sacred tree; but on this particular occasion, as on so many others in the collective life of humanity, "the woman tempted him," and he acted as she told him. he drank it off deep. "ha, ha! that is good!" he cried, smacking his lips. "that is a drink fit for a god. no woman can make kava like you, ula." he toyed with her arms and neck lazily once more. "you are the queen of my wives," he went on, in a dreamy voice. "i like you so well, that, plump as you are, i really believe, ula, i could never make up my mind to eat you." "my lord is very gracious," ula made answer, in a soft, low tone, pretending to caress him. and for some minutes more she continued to make much of him in the fulsome strain of polynesian flattery. at last the kava had clearly got into tu-kila-kila's head. then ula bent forward once more and again attacked him. "now i know you will tell me," she said, coaxingly, "why you make them korong. as long as i live, i will never speak or hint of it to anybody anywhere. and if i do--why, the remedy is near. i am your meat--take me and eat me." even cannibals are human; and at the touch of her soft hand, tu-kila-kila gave way slowly. "i made them korong," he answered, in rather thick accents, "because it is less dangerous for me to make them so than to choose for the post from among our own islanders. sooner or later, my day must come; but i can put it off best by making my enemies out of strangers who arrive upon our island, and not out of those of my own household. all boupari men who have been initiated know the terrible secret--they know where lies the death of tu-kila-kila. the strangers who come to us from the sun or the sea do not know it; and therefore my life is safest with them. so i make them korong whenever i can, to prolong my own days, and to guard my secret." "and the death of tu-kila-kila?" the woman whispered, very low, still soothing his arm with her hand and patting his cheek softly from time to time with a gentle, caressing motion. "tell me where does that live? who holds it in charge? where is tu-kila-kila's great spirit laid by in safety? i know it is in the tree; but where and in what part of it?" tu-kila-kila drew back with a little cry of surprise. "you know it is in the tree!" he cried. "you know my soul is kept there! why, ula, who told you that? and you a woman! bad medicine indeed! some man has been blabbing what he learned in the mysteries. if this should reach the ears of the king of the rain--" he paused mysteriously. "what? what?" ula cried, seizing his hand in hers, and pressing it hard to her bosom in her anxiety and eagerness. "tell me the secret! tell me!" with a sudden sharp howl of darting pain, tu-kila-kila withdrew his hand. she had squeezed the finger the parrot had bitten, and blood began once more to flow from it freely. a wild impulse of revenge came over the savage. he caught her by the neck with his other hand, pressed her throat hard, till she was black in the face, kicked her several times with ferocious rage, and then flung her away from him to the other side of the hut with a fierce and untranslatable native imprecation. ula, shaken and hurt, darted away toward the door, with a face of abject terror. for every reason on earth she was intensely alarmed. were it merely as a matter of purely earthly fear, she had ground enough for fright in having so roused the hasty anger of that powerful and implacable creature. he would kill her and eat her with far less compunction than an english farmer would kill and eat one of his own barnyard chickens. but besides that, it terrified her not a little in more mysterious ways to see the blood of a god falling upon the earth so freely. she knew not what awful results to herself and her race might follow from so terrible a desecration. but, to her utter astonishment, the great god himself, mad with rage as he was, seemed none the less almost as profoundly frightened and surprised as she herself was. "what did you do that for?" he cried, now sufficiently recovered for thought and speech, wringing his hand with pain, and then popping his finger hastily into his mouth to ease it. "you are a clumsy thing. and you want to destroy me, too, with your foolish clumsiness." he looked at her and scowled. he was very angry. but the savage woman is nothing if not quick-witted and politic. in a flash of intuition, ula saw at once he was more frightened than hurt; he was afraid of the effect of this strange revelation upon his own reputation for supreme godship. with every mark and gesture of deprecatory servility the woman sidled back to his side like a whipped dog. for a second she looked down on the floor at the drops of blood; then, without one word of warning or one instant's hesitation, she bit her own finger hard till blood flowed from it freely. "i will show this to fire and water," she said, holding it up before his eyes all red and bleeding. "i will say you were angry with me and bit me for a punishment, as you often do. they will never find out it was the blood of a god. have no fear for their eyes. let me look at your finger." tu-kila-kila, half appeased by her clever quickness, held his hand out sulkily, like a disobedient child. ula examined it close. "a bite," she said, shortly. "a bite from a bird! a peck from a parrot." tu-kila-kila jerked out a surly assent. "yes, the soul of all dead parrots," he answered, with an angry glare. "it bit me this morning at the king of the birds'. a vicious brute. but no one else saw it." ula put the finger up to her own mouth, and sucked the wound gently. her medicine stanched it. then she took a thin leaf of the paper mulberry, soft, cool, and soothing, and bound it round the place with a strip of the lace-like inner bark, as deftly as any hospital nurse in london would have done it. these savage women are capital hands in sickness. tu-kila-kila sat and sulked meanwhile, like a disappointed child. when ula had finished, she nodded her head and glided softly away. she knew her chance of learning the secret was gone for the moment, and she had too much of the guile of the savage woman to spoil her chances by loitering about unnecessarily while her lord was in his present ungracious humor. as she stole from the hut, tu-kila-kila, looking ruefully at his wounded hand, and then at that light and supple retreating figure, muttered sulkily to himself, with a very bad grace, "the woman knows too much. she nearly wormed my secret out of me. she knows that tu-kila-kila's life and soul are bound up in the tree. she knows that i bled, and that the parrot bit me. if she blabs, as women will do, mischief may come of it. i am a great god, a very great god--keen, bloodthirsty, cruel. and i like that woman. but it would be wiser and safer, perhaps, after all, to forego my affection and to make a great feast of her." and ula, looking back with a smile and a nod, and holding up her own bitten and bleeding hand with a farewell shake, as if to remind her divine husband of her promise to show it to fire and water, murmured low to herself as she went, "he is a very great god; a very great god, no doubt; but i hate him, i hate him! he would eat me to-morrow if i didn't coax him and wheedle him and keep him in a good temper. you want to be sharp, indeed, to be the wife of a god. i got off to-day with the skin of my teeth. he might have turned and killed me. if only i could find out the great taboo, i would tell it to the stranger, the king of the rain; and then, perhaps, tu-kila-kila would die. and the stranger would become tu-kila-kila in turn, and i would be one of his wives; and toko, who is his shadow, would return again to the service of tu-kila-kila's temple." but fire, as she passed, was saying to water, "we are getting tired in boupari of lavita, the son of sami. if the luck of the island is not to change, it is high time, i think, we should have a new tu-kila-kila." chapter xx. council of war. that same afternoon muriel had a visitor. m. jules peyron, formerly of the collége de france, no longer a mere polynesian god, but a french gentleman of the boulevards in voice and manner, came to pay his respects, as in duty bound, to mademoiselle ellis. m. peyron had performed his toilet under trying circumstances, to the best of his ability. the remnants of his european clothes, much patched and overhung with squares of native tappa cloth, were hidden as much as possible by a wide feather cloak, very savage in effect, but more seemly, at any rate, than the tattered garments in which felix had first found him in his own garden parterre. m. peyron, however, was fully aware of the defects of his costume, and profoundly apologetic. "it is with ten thousand regrets, mademoiselle," he said, many times over, bowing low and simpering, "that i venture to appear in a lady's _salon_--for, after all, wherever a european lady goes, there her _salon_ follows her--in such a _tenue_ as that in which i am now compelled to present myself. _mais que voulez-vous? nous ne sommes pas à paris_!" for to m. peyron, as innocent in his way as mali herself, the whole world divided itself into paris and the provinces. nevertheless, it was touching to both the new-comers to see the frenchman's delight at meeting once more with civilized beings. "figure to yourself, mademoiselle," he said, with true french effusion--"figure to yourself the joy and surprise with which i, this morning, receive monsieur, your friend, at my humble cottage! for the first time after nine years on this hateful island, i see again a european face; i hear again the sound, the beautiful sound of that charming french language. my emotion, believe me, was too profound for words. when monsieur was gone, i retired to my hut, i sat down on the floor, i gave myself over to tears, tears of joy and gratitude, to think i should once more catch a glimpse of civilization! this afternoon, i ask myself, can i venture to go out and pay my respects, thus attired, in these rags, to a european lady? for a long time i doubt, i wonder, i hesitate. in my quality of frenchman, i would have wished to call in civilized costume upon a civilized household. but what would you have? necessity knows no law. i am compelled to envelope myself in my savage robe of office as a polynesian god--a robe of office which, for the rest, is not without an interest of its own for the scientific ethnologist. it belongs to me especially as king of the birds, and in it, in effect, is represented at least one feather of each kind or color from every part of the body of every species of bird that inhabits boupari. i thus sum up, _pour ainsi dire_, in my official costume all the birds of the island, as tu-kila-kila, the very high god, sums up, in his quaint and curious dress, the land and the sea, the trees and the stones, earth and air, and fire and water." familiarity with danger begets at last a certain callous indifference. muriel was surprised in her own mind to discover how easily they could chat with m. peyron on such indifferent subjects, with that awful doom of an approaching death hanging over them so shortly. but the fact was, terrors of every kind had so encompassed them round since their arrival on the island that the mere additional certainty of a date and mode of execution was rather a relief to their minds than otherwise. it partook of the nature of a reprieve, not of a sentence. besides, this meeting with another speaker of a european tongue seemed to them so full of promise and hope that they almost forgot the terrors of their threatened end in their discussion of possible schemes for escape to freedom. even m. peyron himself, who had spent nine long years of exile in the island, felt that the arrival of two new europeans gave him some hope of effecting at last his own retreat from this unendurable position. his talk was all of passing steamers. if the australasian had come near enough once to sight the island, he argued, then the homeward-bound vessel, _en route_ for honolulu, must have begun to take a new course considerably to the eastward of the old navigable channel. if this were so, their obvious plan was to keep a watch, day and night, for another passing australian liner, and whenever one hove in sight, to steal away to the shore, seize a stray canoe, overpower, if possible, their shadows, or give them the slip, and make one bold stroke for freedom on the open ocean. none of them could conceal from their own minds, to be sure, the extreme difficulty of carrying out this programme. in the first place, it was a toss-up whether they ever sighted another steamer at all; for during the weeks they had already passed on the island, not a sign of one had appeared from any quarter. then, again, even supposing a steamer ever hove in sight, what likelihood that they could make out for her in an open canoe in time to attract attention before she had passed the island? tu-kila-kila would never willingly let them go; their shadows would watch them with unceasing care; the whole body of natives would combine together to prevent their departure. if they ran away at all, they must run for their lives; as soon as the islanders discovered they were gone, every war-canoe in the place would be manned at once with bloodthirsty savages, who would follow on their track with relentless persistence. as for muriel, less prepared for such dangerous adventures than the two men, she was rather inclined to attach a certain romantic importance (as a girl might do) to the story of the parrot and the possible disclosures which it could make if it could only communicate with them. the mysterious element in the history of that unique bird attracted her fancy. "the only one of its race now left alive," she said, with slow reflectiveness. "like dolly pentreath, the last old woman who could speak cornish! i wonder how long parrots ever live? do you know at all, monsieur? you are the king of the birds--you ought to be an authority on their habits and manners." the frenchman smiled a gallant smile. "unhappily, mademoiselle," he said, "though, as a medical student, i took up to a certain extent biological science in general at the collége de france, i never paid any special or peculiar attention in paris to birds in particular. but it is the universal opinion of the natives (if that counts for much) that parrots live to a very great age; and this one old parrot of mine, whom i call methuselah on account of his advanced years, is considered by them all to be a perfect patriarch. in effect, when the oldest men now living on the island were little boys, they tell me that methuselah was already a venerable and much-venerated parrot. he must certainly have outlived all the rest of his race by at least the best part of three-quarters of a century. for the islanders themselves not infrequently live, by unanimous consent, to be over a hundred." "i remember to have read somewhere," felix said, turning it over in his mind, "that when humboldt was travelling in the wilds of south america he found one very old parrot in an indian village, which, the indians assured him, spoke the language of an extinct tribe, incomprehensible then by any living person. if i recollect aright, humboldt believed that particular bird must have lived to be nearly a hundred and fifty." "that is so, monsieur," the frenchman answered. "i remember the case well, and have often recalled it. i recollect our professor mentioning it one day in the course of his lectures. and i have always mentally coupled that parrot of humboldt's with my own old friend and subject, methuselah. however, that only impresses upon one more fully the folly of hoping that we can learn anything worth knowing from him. i have heard him recite his story many times over, though now he repeats it less frequently than he used formerly to do; and i feel convinced it is couched in some unknown and, no doubt, forgotten language. it is a much more guttural and unpleasant tongue than any of the soft dialects now spoken in polynesia. it belonged, i am convinced, to that yet earlier and more savage race which the polynesians must have displaced; and as such it is now, i feel certain, practically irrecoverable." "if they were more savage than the polynesians," muriel said, with a profound sigh, "i'm sorry for anybody who fell into their clutches." "but what would not many philologists at home in england give," felix murmured, philosophically, "for a transcript of the words that parrot can speak--perhaps a last relic of the very earliest and most primitive form of human language!" at the very moment when these things were passing under the wattled roof of muriel's hut, it happened that on the taboo-space outside, toko, the shadow, stood talking for a moment with ula, the fourteenth wife of the great tu-kila-kila. "i never see you now, toko," the beautiful polynesian said, leaning almost across the white line of coral-sand which she dared not transgress. "times are dull at the temple since you came to be shadow to the white-faced stranger." "it was for that that tu-kila-kila sent me here," the shadow answered, with profound conviction. "he is jealous, the great god. he is bad. he is cruel. he wanted to get rid of me. so he sent me away to the king of the rain that i might not see you." ula pouted, and held up her wounded finger before his eyes coquettishly. "see what he did to me," she said, with a mute appeal for sympathy--though in that particular matter the truth was not in her. "your god was angry with me to-day because i hurt his hand, and he clutched me by the throat, and almost choked me. he has a bad heart. see how he bit me and drew blood. some of these days, i believe, he will kill me and eat me." the shadow glanced around him suspiciously with an uneasy air. then he whispered low, in a voice half grudge, half terror, "if he does, he is a great god--he can search all the world--i fear him much, but toko's heart is warm. let tu-kila-kila look out for vengeance." the woman glanced across at him open-eyed, with her enticing look. "if the king of the rain, who is korong, knew all the secret," she murmured, slowly, "he would soon be tu-kila-kila himself; and you and i could then meet together freely." the shadow started. it was a terrible suggestion. "you mean to say--" he cried; then fear overcame him, and, crouching down where he sat, he gazed around him, terrified. who could say that the wind would not report his words to tu-kila-kila? ula laughed at his fears. "pooh," she answered, smiling. "you are a man; and yet you are afraid of a little taboo. i am a woman; and yet if i knew the secret as you do, i would break taboo as easily as i would break an egg-shell. i would tell the white-faced stranger all--if only it would bring you and me together forever." "it is a great risk, a very great risk," the shadow answered, trembling. "tu-kila-kila is a mighty god. he may be listening this moment, and may pinch us to death by his spirits for our words, or burn us to ashes with a flash of his anger." the woman smiled an incredulous smile. "if you had lived as near tu-kila-kila as i have," she answered, boldly, "you would think as little, perhaps, of his divinity as i do." for even in polynesia, superstitious as it is, no hero is a god to his wives or his valets. chapter xxi. methuselah gives sign. all the hopes of the three europeans were concentrated now on the bare off-chance of a passing steamer. m. peyron in particular was fully convinced that, if the australasian had found the inner channel practicable, other ships in future would follow her example. with this idea firmly fixed in his head, he arranged with felix that one or other of them should keep watch alternately by night as far as possible; and he also undertook that a canoe should constantly be in readiness to carry them away to the supposititious ship, if occasion arose for it. muriel took counsel with mali on the question of rousing the frenchman if a steamer appeared, and they were the first to sight it; and mali, in whom renewed intercourse with white people had restored to some extent the civilized queensland attitude of mind, readily enough promised to assist in their scheme, provided she was herself taken with them, and so relieved from the terrible vengeance which would otherwise overtake her. "if boupari man catch me," she said, in her simple, graphic, polynesian way, "boupari man kill me, and lay me in leaves, and cook me very nice, and make great feast of me, like him do with jani." from that untimely end both felix and muriel promised faithfully, as far as in them lay, to protect her. to communicate with m. peyron by daytime, without arousing the ever-wakeful suspicion of the natives, felix hit upon an excellent plan. he burnished his metal matchbox to the very highest polish it was capable of taking, and then heliographed by means of sun-flashes on the morse code. he had learned the code in fiji in the course of his official duties; and he taught the frenchman now readily enough how to read and reply with the other half of the box, torn off for the purpose. it was three or four days, however, before the two english wanderers ventured to return m. peyron's visit. they didn't wish to attract too greatly the attention of the islanders. gradually, as their stay on the island went on, they learned the truth that tu-kila-kila's eyes, as he himself had boasted, were literally everywhere. for he had spies of his own, told off in every direction, who dogged the steps of his victims unseen. sometimes, as felix and muriel walked unsuspecting through the jungle paths, closely followed by their shadows, a stealthy brown figure, crouched low to the ground, would cross the road for a moment behind them, and disappear again noiselessly into the dense mass of underbrush. then mali or toko, turning round, all hushed, with a terrified look, would murmur low to themselves, or to one another, "there goes one of the eyes of tu-kila-kila!" it was only by slow degrees that this system of espionage grew clear to the strangers; but as soon as they had learned its reality and ubiquity, they felt at once how undesirable it would be for them to excite the terrible man-god's jealousy and suspicion by being observed too often in close personal intercourse with their fellow-exile and victim, the frenchman. it was this that made them have recourse to the device of the heliograph. so three or four days passed before muriel dared to approach m. peyron's cottage. when she did at last go there with felix, it was in the early morning, before the fierce tropical sun, that beat full on the island, had begun to exert its midday force and power. the path that led there lay through the thick and tangled mass of brushwood which covered the greater part of the island with its dense vegetation; it was overhung by huge tree-ferns and broad-leaved southern bushes, and abutted at last on the little wind-swept knoll where the king of the birds had his appropriate dwelling-place. the frenchman received them with studied parisian hospitality. he had decorated his arbor with fresh flowers for the occasion, and bright tropical fruits, with their own green leaves, did duty for the coffee or the absinthe of his fatherland on his homemade rustic table. yet in spite of all the rudeness of the physical surroundings, they felt themselves at home again with this one exiled european; the faint flavor of civilization pervaded and permeated the frenchman's hut after the unmixed savagery to which they had now been so long accustomed. muriel's curiosity, however, centred most about the mysterious old parrot, of whose strange legend so much had been said to her. after they had sat for a little under the shade of the spreading banyan, to cool down from their walk--for it was an oppressive morning--m. peyron led her round to his aviary at the back of the hut, and introduced her, by their native names, to all his subjects. "i am responsible for their lives," he said, gravely, "for their welfare, for their happiness. if i were to let one of them grow old without a successor in the field to follow him up and receive his soul--as in the case of my friend methuselah here, who was so neglected by my predecessors--the whole species would die out for want of a spirit, and my own life would atone for that of my people. there you have the central principle of the theology of boupari. every race, every element, every power of nature, is summed up for them in some particular person or thing; and on the life of that person or thing depends, as they believe, the entire health of the species, the sequence of events, the whole order and succession of natural phenomena." felix approached the mysterious and venerable bird with somewhat incautious fingers. "it looks very old," he said, trying to stroke its head and neck with a friendly gesture. "you do well, indeed, in calling it methuselah." as he spoke, the bird, alarmed at the vague consciousness of a hand and voice which it did not recognize and mindful of tu-kila-kila's recent attack, made a vicious peck at the fingers outstretched to caress it. "take care!" the frenchman cried, in a warning voice. "the patriarch's temper is no longer what it was sixty or seventy years ago. he grows old and peevish. his humor is soured. he will sing no longer the lively little scraps of offenbach i have taught him. he does nothing but sit still and mumble now in his own forgotten language. and he's dreadfully cross--so crabbed--_mon dieu_, what a character! why, the other day, as i told you, he bit tu-kila-kila himself, the high god of the island, with a good hard peck, when that savage tried to touch him; you'd have laughed to see his godship sent off bleeding to his hut with a wounded finger! i will confess i was by no means sorry at the sight myself. i do not love that god, nor he me; and i was glad when methuselah, on whom he is afraid to revenge himself openly, gave him a nice smart bite for trying to interfere with him." "he's very snappish, to be sure," felix said, with a smile, trying once more to push forward one hand to stroke the bird cautiously. but methuselah resented all such unauthorized intrusions. he was growing too old to put up with strangers. he made a second vicious attempt to peck at the hand held out to soothe him, and screamed, as he did so, in the usual discordant and unpleasant voice of an angry or frightened parrot. "why, felix," muriel put in, taking him by the arm with a girlish gesture--for even the terrors by which they were surrounded hadn't wholly succeeded in killing out the woman within her--"how clumsy you are! you don't understand one bit how to manage parrots. i had a parrot of my own at my aunt's in australia, and i know their ways and all about them. just let me try him." she held out her soft white hand toward the sulky bird with a fearless, caressing gesture. "pretty poll, pretty poll!" she said, in english, in the conventional tone of address to their kind. "did the naughty man go and frighten her then? was she afraid of his hand? did polly want a lump of sugar?" on a sudden the bird opened its eyes quickly with an awakened air, and looked her back in the face, half blindly, half quizzingly. it preened its wings for a second, and crooned with pleasure. then it put forward its neck, with its head on one side, took her dainty finger gently between its beak and tongue, bit it for pure love with a soft, short pressure, and at once allowed her to stroke its back and sides with a very pleased and surprised expression. the success of her skill flattered muriel. "there! it knows me!" she cried, with childish delight; "it understands i'm a friend! it takes to me at once! pretty poll! pretty poll! come, poll, come and kiss me!" the bird drew back at the words, and steadied itself for a moment knowingly on its perch. then it held up its head, gazed around it with a vacant air, as if suddenly awakened from a very long sleep, and, opening its mouth, exclaimed in loud, clear, sharp, and distinct tones--and in english--"pretty poll! pretty poll! polly wants a buss! polly wants a nice sweet bit of apple!" for a moment m. peyron couldn't imagine what had happened. felix looked at muriel. muriel looked at felix. the englishman held out both his hands to her in a wild fervor of surprise. muriel took them in her own, and looked deep into his eyes, while tears rose suddenly and dropped down her cheeks, one by one, unchecked. they couldn't say why, themselves; they didn't know wherefore; yet this unexpected echo of their own tongue, in the mouth of that strange and mysterious bird, thrilled through them instinctively with a strange, unearthly tremor. in some dim and unexplained way, they felt half unconsciously to themselves that this discovery was, perhaps, the first clue to the solution of the terrible secret whose meshes encompassed them. m. peyron looked on in mute astonishment. he had heard the bird repeat that strange jargon so often that it had ceased to have even the possibility of a meaning for him. it was the way of methuselah--just his language that he talked; so harsh! so guttural! "pretty poll! pretty poll!" he had noticed the bird harp upon those quaint words again and again. they were part, no doubt, of that old primitive and forgotten pacific language the creature had learned in other days from some earlier bearer of the name and ghastly honors of tu-kila-kila. why should these english seem so profoundly moved by them? "mademoiselle doesn't surely understand the barbarous dialect which our methuselah speaks!" he exclaimed in surprise, glancing half suspiciously from one to the other of these incomprehensible britons. like most other frenchmen, he had been brought up in total ignorance of every european language except his own; and the words the parrot pronounced, when delivered with the well-known additions of parrot harshness and parrot volubility, seemed to him so inexpressibly barbaric in their clicks and jerks that he hadn't yet arrived at the faintest inkling of the truth as he observed their emotion. felix seized his new friend's hand in his and wrung it warmly. "don't you see what it is?" he exclaimed, half beside himself with this vague hope of some unknown solution. "don't you realize how the thing stands? don't you guess the truth? this isn't a polynesian, dialect at all. it's our own mother tongue. the bird speaks english!" "english!" m. peyron replied, with incredulous scorn. "what! methuselah speak english! oh, no, monsieur, impossible. _vous vous trompez, j'en suis sûr_. i can never believe it. those harsh, inarticulate sounds to belong to the noble language of shaxper and newtowne! _ah, monsieur, incroyable! vous vous trompez; vous vous trompez!_" as he spoke, the bird put its head on one side once more, and, looking out of its half-blind old eyes with a crafty glance round the corner at muriel, observed again, in not very polite english, "pretty poll! pretty poll! polly wants some fruit! polly wants a nut! polly wants to go to bed!... god save the king! to hell with all papists!" "monsieur," felix said, a certain solemn feeling of surprise coming over him slowly at this last strange clause, "it is perfectly true. the bird speaks english. the bird that knows the secret of which we are all in search--the bird that can tell us the truth about tu-kila-kila--can tell us in the tongue which mademoiselle and i speak as our native language. and what is more--and more strange--gather from his tone and the tenor of his remarks, he was taught, long since--a century ago, or more--and by an english sailor!" muriel held out a bit of banana on a sharp stick to the bird. methuselah-polly took it gingerly off the end, like a well-behaved parrot? "god save the king!" muriel said, in a quiet voice, trying to draw him on to speak a little further. methuselah twisted his eye sideways, first this way, then that, and responded in a very clear tone, indeed, "god save the king! confound the duke of york! long live dr. oates! and to hell with all papists!" chapter xxii. tantalizing, very. they looked at one another again with a wild surmise. the voice was as the voice of some long past age. could the parrot be speaking to them in the words of seventeenth-century english? even m. peyron, who at first had received the strange discovery with incredulity, woke up before long to the importance of this sudden and unexpected revelation. the tu-kila-kila who had taught methuselah that long poem or sermon, which native tradition regarded as containing the central secret of their creed or its mysteries, and which the cruel and cunning tu-kila-kila of to-day believed to be of immense importance to his safety--that tu-kila-kila of other days was, in all probability, no other than an english sailor. cast on these shores, perhaps, as they themselves had been, by the mercy of the waves, he had managed to master the language and religion of the savages among whom he found himself thrown; he had risen to be the representative of the cannibal god; and, during long months or years of tedious exile, he had beguiled his leisure by imparting to the unconscious ears of a bird the weird secret of his success, for the benefit of any others of his own race who might be similarly treated by fortune in future. strange and romantic as it all sounded, they could hardly doubt now that this was the real explanation of the bird's command of english words. one problem alone remained to disturb their souls. was the bird really in possession of any local secret and mystery at all, or was this the whole burden of the message he had brought down across the vast abyss of time--"god save the king, and to hell with all papists?" felix turned to m. peyron in a perfect tumult of suspense. "what he recites is long?" he said, interrogatively, with profound interest. "you have heard him say much more than this at times? the words he has just uttered are not those of the sermon or poem you mentioned?" m. peyron opened his hands expansively before him. "oh, _mon dieu_, no, monsieur," he answered, with effusion. "you should hear him recite it. he's never done. it is whole chapters--whole chapters; a perfect henriade in parrot-talk. when once he begins, there's no possibility of checking or stopping him. on, on he goes. farewell to the rest; he insists on pouring it all forth to the very last sentence. gabble, gabble, gabble; chatter, chatter, chatter; pouf, pouf, pouf; boum, boum, boum; he runs ahead eternally in one long discordant sing-song monotone. the person who taught him must have taken entire months to teach him, a phrase at a time, paragraph by paragraph. it is wonderful a bird's memory could hold so much. but till now, taking it for granted he spoke only some wild south pacific dialect, i never paid much attention to methuselah's vagaries." "hush. he's going to speak," muriel cried, holding up, in alarm, one warning finger. and the bird, his tongue-strings evidently loosened by the strange recurrence after so many years of those familiar english sounds, "pretty poll! pretty poll!" opened his mouth again in a loud chuckle of delight, and cried, with persistent shrillness, "god save the king! a fig for all arrant knaves and roundheads!" a creepier feeling than ever came over the two english listeners at those astounding words. "great heavens!" felix exclaimed to the unsuspecting frenchman, "he speaks in the style of the stuarts and the commonwealth!" the frenchman started. "_Ã�poque louis quatorze_!" he murmured, translating the date mentally into his own more familiar chronology. "two centuries since! oh, incredible! incredible! methuselah is old, but not quite so much of a patriarch as that. even humboldt's parrot could hardly have lived for two hundred years in the wilds of south america." felix regarded the venerable creature with a look of almost superstitious awe. "facts are facts," he answered shortly, shutting his mouth with a little snap. "unless this bird has been deliberately taught historical details in an archaic diction--and a shipwrecked sailor is hardly likely to be antiquarian enough to conceive such an idea--he is undoubtedly a survival from the days of the commonwealth or the restoration. and you say he runs on with his tale for an hour at a time! good heavens, what a thought! i wish we could manage to start him now. does he begin it often?" "monsieur," the frenchman answered, "when i came here first, though methuselah was already very old and feeble, he was not quite a dotard, and he used to recite it all every morning regularly. that was the hour, i suppose, at which the master, who first taught him this lengthy recitation, used originally to impress it upon him. in those days his sight and his memory were far more clear than now. but by degrees, since my arrival, he has grown dull and stupid. the natives tell me that fifty years ago, while he was already old, he was still bright and lively, and would recite the whole poem whenever anybody presented him with his greatest dainty, the claw of a moora-crab. nowadays, however, when he can hardly eat, and hardly mumble, he is much less persistent and less coherent than formerly. to say the truth, i have discouraged him in his efforts, because his pertinacity annoyed me. so now he seldom gets through all his lesson at one bout, as he used to do at the beginning. the best way to get him on is for me to sing him one of my french songs. that seems to excite him, or to rouse him to rivalry. then he will put his head on one side, listen critically for a while, smile a superior smile, and finally begin--jabber, jabber, jabber--trying to talk me down, as if i were a brother parrot." "oh, do sing now!" muriel cried, with intense persuasion in her voice. "i do so want to hear it." she meant, of course, the parrot's story. but the frenchman bowed, and laid his hand on his heart. "ah, mademoiselle," he said, "your wish is almost a royal command. and yet, do you know, it is so long since i have sung, except to please myself--my music is so rusty, old pieces you have heard--i have no accompaniment, no score--_mais enfin_, we are all so far from paris!" muriel didn't dare to undeceive him as to her meaning, lest he should refuse to sing in real earnest, and the chance of learning the parrot's secret might slip by them irretrievably. "oh, monsieur," she cried, fitting herself to his humor at once, and speaking as ceremoniously as if she were assisting at a musical party in the avenue victor hugo, "don't decline, i beg of you, on those accounts. we are both most anxious to hear your song. don't disappoint us, pray. please begin immediately." "ah, mademoiselle," the frenchman said, "who could resist such an appeal? you are altogether too flattering." and then, in the same cheery voice that felix had heard on the first day he visited the king of birds' hut, m. peyron began, in very decent style, to pour forth the merry sounds of his rollicking song: "quand on conspi-re, quand sans frayeur on peut se di-re conspirateur-- pour tout le mon-de il faut avoir perruque blon-de et collet noir." he had hardly got as far as the end of the first stanza, however, when methuselah, listening, with his ear cocked up most knowingly, to the frenchman's song, raised his head in opposition, and, sitting bolt upright on his perch, began to scream forth a voluble stream of words in one unbroken flood, so fast that muriel could hardly follow them. the bird spoke in a thick and very harsh voice, and, what was more remarkable still, with a distinct and extremely peculiar north country accent. "in the nineteenth year of the reign of his most gracious majesty, king charles the second," he blurted out, viciously, with an angry look at the frenchman, "i, nathaniel cross, of the borough of sunderland, in the county of doorham, in england, an able-bodied mariner, then sailing the south seas in the good bark martyr prince, of the port of great grimsby, whereof one thomas wells, gent., under god, was master--" "oh, hush, hush!" muriel cried, unable to catch the parrot's precious words through the emulous echo of the frenchman's music. "whereof one thomas wells, gent., under god, was master--go on, polly." "perruque blonde et collet noir," the frenchman repeated, with a half-offended voice, finishing his stanza. but just as he stopped, methuselah stopped too, and, throwing back his head in the air with a triumphant look, stared hard at his vanquished and silenced opponent out of those blinking gray eyes of his. "i thought i'd be too much for you!" he seemed to say, wrathfully. "whereof one thomas wells, gent., under god, was master," muriel suggested again, all agog with excitement. "go on, good bird! go on, pretty polly." but methuselah was evidently put off the scent now by the unseasonable interruption. instead of continuing, he threw back his head a second time with a triumphant air and laughed aloud boisterously. "pretty polly," he cried. "pretty polly wants a nut. tu-kila-kila maroo! pretty poll! pretty polly!" "sing again, for heaven's sake!" felix exclaimed, in a profoundly agitated mood, explaining briefly to the frenchman the full significance of the words methuselah had just begun to utter. the frenchman struck up his tune afresh to give the bird a start; but all to no avail. methuselah was evidently in no humor for talking just then. he listened with a callous, uncritical air, bringing his white eyelids down slowly and sleepily over his bleared gray eyes. then he nodded his head slowly. "no use," the frenchman murmured, pursing his lips up gravely. "the bird won't talk. it's going off to sleep now. methuselah gets visibly older every day, monsieur and mademoiselle. you are only just in time to catch his last accents." chapter xxiii. a message from the dead. early next morning, as felix lay still in his hut, dozing, and just vaguely conscious of a buzz of a mosquito close to his ear, he was aroused by a sudden loud cry outside--a cry that called his native name three times, running: "o king of the rain, king of the rain, king of the rain, awake! high time to be up! the king of the birds sends you health and greeting!" felix rose at once; and his shadow, rising before him, and unbolting the loose wooden fastener of the door, went out in haste to see who called beyond the white taboo-line of their sacred precincts. a native woman, tall, lithe, and handsome, stood there in the full light of morning, beckoning. a strange glow of hatred gleamed in her large gray eyes. her shapely brown bosom heaved and panted heavily. big beads glistened moistly on her smooth, high brow. it was clear she had run all the way in haste. she was deeply excited and full of eager anxiety. "why, what do you want here so early, ula?" the shadow asked, in surprise--for it was indeed she. "how have you slipped away, as soon as the sun is risen, from the sacred hut of tu-kila-kila?" ula's gray eyes flashed angry fire as she answered. "he has beaten me again," she cried, in revengeful tones; "see the weals on my back! see my arms and shoulders! he has drawn blood from my wounds. he is the most hateful of gods. i should love to kill him. therefore i slipped away from him with the early dawn and came to consult with his enemy, the king of the birds, because i heard the words that the eyes of tu-kila-kila, who pervade the world, report to their master. the eyes have told him that the king of the rain, the queen of the clouds, and the king of the birds are plotting together in secret against tu-kila-kila. when i heard that, i was glad; i went to the king of the birds to warn him of his danger; and the king of the birds, concerned for your safety, has sent me in haste to ask his brother gods to go at once to him." in a minute felix was up and had called out mali from the neighboring hut. "tell missy queenie," he cried, "to come with me to see the man-a-oui-oui! the man-a-oui-oui has sent me for us to come. she must make great haste. he wants us immediately." with a word and a sign to toko, ula glided away stealthily, with the cat-like tread of the native polynesian woman, back to her hated husband. felix went out to the door and heliographed with his bright metal plate, turned on the frenchman's hill, "what is it?" in a moment the answer flashed back, word by word, "come quick, if you want to hear. methuselah is reciting!" a few seconds later muriel emerged from her hut, and the two europeans, closely followed, as always, by their inseparable shadows, took the winding side-path that led through the jungle by a devious way, avoiding the front of tu-kila-kila's temple, to the frenchman's cottage. they found m. peyron very much excited, partly by ula's news of tu-kila-kila's attitude, but more still by methuselah's agitated condition. "the whole night through, my dear friends," he cried, seizing their hands, "that bird has been chattering, chattering, chattering. _oh, mon dieu, quel oiseau!_ it seems as though the words heard yesterday from mademoiselle had struck some lost chord in the creature's memory. but he is also very feeble. i can see that well. his garrulity is the garrulity of old age in its last flickering moments. he mumbles and mutters. he chuckles to himself. if you don't hear his message now and at once, it's my solemn conviction you will never hear it." he led them out to the aviary, where methuselah, in effect, was sitting on his perch, most tremulous and woebegone. his feathers shuddered visibly; he could no longer preen himself. "listen to what he says," the frenchman exclaimed, in a very serious voice. "it is your last, last chance. if the secret is ever to be unravelled at all, by methuselah's aid, now is, without doubt, the proper moment to unravel it." muriel put out her hand and stroked the bird gently. "pretty poll," she said, soothingly, in a sympathetic voice. "pretty poll! poor poll! was he ill! was he suffering?" at the sound of those familiar words, unheard so long till yesterday, the parrot took her finger in his beak once more, and bit it with the tenderness of his kind in their softer moments. then he threw back his head with a sort of mechanical twist, and screamed out at the top of his voice, for the last time on earth, his mysterious message: "pretty poll! pretty poll! god save the king! confound the duke of york! death to all arrant knaves and roundheads! "in the nineteenth year of the reign of his most gracious majesty, king charles the second, i, nathaniel cross, of the borough of sunderland, in the county of doorham, in england, an able-bodied mariner, then sailing the south seas in the good bark martyr prince, of the port of great grimsby, whereof one thomas wells, gent., under god, was master, was, by stress of weather, wrecked and cast away on the shores of this island, called by its gentile inhabitants by the name of boo parry. in which wreck, as it befell, thomas wells, gent., and his equipment were, by divine disposition, killed and drowned, save and except three mariners, whereof i am one, who in god's good providence swam safely through an exceeding great flood of waves and landed at last on this island. there my two companions, owen williams, of swansea, in the parts of wales, and lewis le pickard, a french hewgenott refugee, were at once, by the said gentiles, cruelly entreated, and after great torture cooked and eaten at the temple of their chief god, too-keela-keela. but i, myself, having through god's grace found favor in their eyes, was promoted to the post which in their speech is called korong, the nature of which this bird, my mouthpiece, will hereafter, to your ears, more fully discover." having said so much, in a very jerky way, methuselah paused, and blinked his eyes wearily. "what does he say?" the frenchman began, eager to know the truth. but felix, fearful lest any interruption might break the thread of the bird's discourse and cheat them of the sequel, held up a warning finger, and then laid it on his lips in mute injunction. methuselah threw back his head at that and laughed aloud. "god save the king!" he cried again, in a still feebler way, "and to hell with all papists!" it was strange how they all hung on the words of that unconscious messenger from a dead and gone age, who himself knew nothing of the import of the words he was uttering. methuselah laughed at their earnestness, shook his head once or twice, and seemed to think to himself. then he remembered afresh the point he had broken off at. "more fully discover. for seven years have i now lived on this island, never having seen or h'ard christian face or voice; and at the end of that time, feeling my health feail, and being apprehensive lest any of my fellow-countrymen should hereafter suffer the same fate as i have done, i began to teach this parrot his message, a few words at a time, impressing it duly and fully on his memory. "larn, then, o wayfarer, that the people of boo parry are most arrant gentiles, heathens, and carribals. and this, as i discover, is the nature and method of their vile faith. they hold that the gods are each and several incarnate in some one particular human being. this human being they worship and reverence with all ghostly respect as his incarnation. and chiefly, above all, do they revere the great god too-keela-keela, whose representative (may the lord in heaven forgive me for the same) i myself am at this present speaking. having thus, for my sins, attained to that impious honor. "god save the king! confound the duke of york! to hell with all papists! "it is the fashion of this people to hold that their gods must always be strong and lusty. for they argue to themselves thus: that the continuance of the rain must needs depend upon the vigor and subtlety of its soul, the rain-god. so the continuance and fruitfulness of the trees and plants which yield them food must needs depend upon the health of the tree-god. and the life of the world, and the light of the sun, and the well-being of all things that in them are, must depend upon the strength and cunning of the high god of all, too-keela-keela. hence they take great care and woorship of their gods, surrounding them with many rules which they call taboo, and restricting them as to what they shall eat, and what drink, and wherewithal they shall seemly clothe themselves. for they think that if the king of the rain at' anything that might cause the colick, or like humor or distemper, the weather will thereafter be stormy and tempestuous; but so long as the king of the rain fares well and retains his health, so long will the weather over their island of boo parry be clear and prosperous. "furthermore, as i have larned from their theologians, being myself, indeed, the greatest of their gods, it is evident that they may not let any god die, lest that department of nature over which he presideth should wither away and feail, as it were, with him. but reasonably no care that mortal man can exercise will prevent the possibility of their god--seeing he is but one of themselves--growing old and feeble and dying at last. to prevent which calamity, these gentile folk have invented (as i believe by the aid and device of sathan) this horrid and most unnatural practice. the man-god must be killed so soon as he showeth in body or mind that his native powers are beginning to feail. and it is necessary that he be killed, according to their faith, in this ensuing fashion. "if the man-god were to die slowly by a death in the course of nature, the ways of the world might be stopped altogether. hence these savages catch the soul of their god, as it were, ere it grow old and feeble, and transfer it betimes, by a magic device, to a suitable successor. and surely, they say, this suitable successor can be none other than him that is able to take it from him. this, then, is their horrid counsel and device--that each one of their gods should kill his antecessor. in doing thus, he taketh the old god's life and soul, which thereupon migrates and dwells within him. and by this tenure--may heaven be merciful to me, a sinner--do i, nathaniel cross, of the county of doorham, now hold this dignity of too-keela-keela, having slain, therefor, in just quarrel, my antecessor in the high godship." as he reached these words methuselah paused, and choked in his throat slightly. the mere mechanical effort of continuing the speech he had learned by heart two hundred years before, and repeated so often since that it had become part of his being, was now almost too much for him. the frenchman was right. they were only just in time. a few days later, and the secret would have died with the bird that preserved it. chapter xxiv. an unfinished tale. for a minute or two methuselah mumbled inarticulately to himself. then, to their intense discomfiture, he began once more: "in the nineteenth year of the reign of his most gracious majesty, king charles the second, i, nathaniel cross--" "oh, this will never do," felix cried. "we haven't got yet to the secret at all. muriel, do try to set him right. he must waste no breath. we can't afford now to let him go all over it." muriel stretched out her hand and soothed the bird gently as before. "having slain, therefore, my predecessor in the high godship," she suggested, in the same singsong voice as the parrot's. to her immense relief, methuselah took the hint with charming docility. "in the high godship," he went on, mechanically, where he had stopped. "and this here is the manner whereby i obtained it. the too-keela-keela from time to time doth generally appoint any castaway stranger that comes to the island to the post of korong--that is to say, an annual god or victim. for, as the year doth renew itself at each change of seasons, so do these carribals in their gentilisme believe and hold that the gods of the seasons--to wit, the king of the rain, the queen of the clouds, the lord of green leaves, the king of fruits, and others--must needs be sleain and renewed at the diverse solstices. now, it so happened that i, on my arrival in the island, was appointed korong, and promoted to the post of king of the rain, having a native woman assigned me as queen of the clouds, with whom i might keep company. this woman being, after her kind, enamored of me, and anxious to escape her own fate, to be sleain by my side, did betray to me that secret which they call in their tongue the great taboo, and which had been betrayed to herself in turn by a native man, her former lover. for the men are instructed in these things in the mysteries when they coom of age, but not the women. "and the great taboo is this: no man can becoom a too-keela-keela unless he first sleay the man in whom the high god is incarnate for the moment. but in order that he may sleay him, he must also himself be a full korong, only those persons who are already gods being capable for the highest post in their hierarchy; even as with ourselves, none but he that is a deacon may become a priest, and none but he that is a priest may be made a bishop. for this reason, then, the too-keela-keela prefers to advance a stranger to the post of korong, seeing that such a person will not have been initiated in the mysteries of the island, and therefore will not be aware of those sundry steps which must needs be taken of him that would inherit the godship. "furthermore, even a korong can only obtain the highest rank of too-keela-keela if he order all things according to the forms and ceremonies of the taboo parfectly. for these gentiles are very careful of the levitical parts of their religion, deriving the same, as it seems to me, from the polity of the hebrews, the fame of whose tabernacle must sure have gone forth through the ends of the woorld, and the knowledge of whose temple must have been yet more wide dispersed by solomon, his ships, when they came into these parts to fetch gold from ophir. and the ceremony is, that before any man may sleay the 'arthly tenement of too-keela-keela and inherit his soul, which is in very truth, as they do think the god himself, he must needs fight with the person in whom too-keela-keela doth then dwell, and for this reason: if the holder of the soul can defend himself in fight, then it is clear that his strength is not one whit decayed, nor is his vigor feailing; nor yet has his assailant been able to take his soul from him. but if the korong in open fight do sleay the person in whom too-keela-keela dwells, he becometh at once a too-keela-keela himself--that is to say, in their tongue, the lord of lords, because he hath taken the life of him that preceded him. "yet so intricate is the theology and practice of these loathsome savages, that not even now have i explained it in full to you, o shipwrecked mariner, for your aid and protection. for a korong, though it be a part of his privilege to contend, if he will, with too-keela-keela for the high godship and princedom of this isle, may only do so at certain appointed times, places, and seasons. above all things, it is necessary that he should first find out the hiding-place of the soul of too-keela-keela. for though the too-keela-keela for the time that is, be animated by the god, yet, for greater security, he doth not keep his soul in his own body, but, being above all things the god of fruitfulness and generation, who causes women to bear children, and the plant called taro to bring forth its increase, he keepeth his soul in the great sacred tree behind his temple, which is thus the father of all trees, and the chiefest abode of the great god too-keela-keela. "nor does too-keela-keela's soul abide equally in every part of this aforesaid tree; but in a certain bough of it, resembling a mistletoe, which hath yellow leaves, and, being broken off, groweth ever green and yellow afresh; which is the central mystery of all their sathanic religion. for in this very bough--easy to be discerned by the eye among the green leaves of the tree--" the bird paused and faltered. muriel leaned forward in an agony of excitement. "among the green leaves of the tree--" she went on soothing him. her voice seemed to give the parrot a fresh impulse to speak. "--is contained, as it were," he continued, feebly, "the divine essence itself, the soul and life of too-keela-keela. whoever, then, being a full korong, breaks this off, hath thus possessed himself of the very god in person. this, however, he must do by exceeding stealth; for too-keela-keela, or rather the man that bears that name, being the guardian and defender of the great god, walks ever up and down, by day and by night, in exceeding great cunning, armed with a spear and with a hatchet of stone, around the root of the tree, watching jealously over the branch which is, as he believes, his own soul and being. i, therefore, being warned of the taboo by the woman that was my consort, did craftily, near the appointed time for my own death, creep out of my hut, and my consort, having induced one of the wives of too-keela-keela to make him drunken with too much of that intoxicating drink which they do call kava, did proceed--did proceed--did proceed--in the nineteenth year of the reign of his most gracious majesty, king charles the second--" muriel bent forward once more in an agony of suspense. "oh, go on, good poll!" she cried. "go on. remember it. did proceed to--" the single syllable helped methuselah's memory. "--did proceed to stealthily pluck the bough, and, having shown the same to fire and water, the guardians of the taboo, did boldly challenge to single combat the bodily tenement of the god, with spear and hatchet, provided for me in accordance with ancient custom by fire and water. in which combat, heaven mercifully befriending me against my enemy, i did coom out conqueror; and was thereupon proclaimed too-keela-keela myself, with ceremonies too many and barbarous to mention, lest i raise your gorge at them. but that which is most important to tell you for your own guidance and safety, o mariner, is this--that being the sole and only end i have in imparting this history to so strange a messenger--that after you have by craft plucked the sacred branch, and by force of arms over-cootn too-keela-keela, it is by all means needful, whether you will or not, that submitting to the hateful and gentile custom of this people--of this people--pretty poll! pretty poll! god save--god save the king! death to the nineteenth year of the reign of all arrant knaves and roundheads." he dropped his head on his breast, and blinked his white eyelids more feebly than ever. his strength was failing him fast. the soul of all dead parrots was wearing out. m. peyron, who had stood by all this time, not knowing in any way what might be the value of the bird's disclosures, came forward and stroked poor methuselah with his caressing hand. but methuselah was incapable now of any further effort. he opened his blind eyes sleepily for the last, last time, and stared around him with a blank stare at the fading universe. "god save the king!" he screamed aloud with a terrible gasp, true to his colors still. "god save the king, and to hell with all papists!" then he fell off his perch, stone dead, on the ground. they were never to hear the conclusion of that strange, quaint message from a forgotten age to our more sceptical century. felix looked at muriel, and muriel looked at felix. they could hardly contain themselves with awe and surprise. the parrot's words were so human, its speech was so real to them, that they felt as though the english tu-kila-kila of two hundred years back had really and truly been speaking to them from that perch; it was a human creature indeed that lay dead before them. felix raised the warm body from the ground with positive reverence. "we will bury it decently," he said in french, turning to m. peyron. "he was a plucky bird, indeed, and he has carried out his master's intentions nobly." as they spoke, a little rustling in the jungle hard by attracted their attention. felix turned to look. a stealthy brown figure glided away in silence through the tangled brushwood. m. peyron started. "we are observed, monsieur," he said. "we must look out for squalls! it is one of the eyes of tu-kila-kila!" "let him do his worst!" felix answered. "we know his secret now, and can protect ourselves against him. let us return to the shade, monsieur, and talk this all over. methuselah has indeed given us something to-day very serious to think about." chapter xxv. tu-kila-kila strikes. and yet, when all was said and done, knowledge of tu-kila-kila's secret didn't seem to bring felix and muriel much nearer a solution of their own great problems than they had been from the beginning. in spite of all methuselah had told them, they were as far off as ever from securing their escape, or even from the chance of sighting an english steamer. this last was still the main hope and expectation of all three europeans. m. peyron, who was a bit of a mathematician, had accurately calculated the time, from what felix told him, when the australasian would pass again on her next homeward voyage; and, when that time arrived, it was their united intention to watch night and day for the faintest glimmer of her lights, or the faintest wreath of her smoke on the far eastern horizon. they had ventured to confide their design to all three of their shadows; and the shadows, attached by the kindness to which they were so little accustomed among their own people, had in every case agreed to assist them with the canoe, if occasion served them. so for a time the two doomed victims subsided into their accustomed calm of mingled hope and despair, waiting patiently for the expected arrival of the much-longed-for australasian. if she took that course once, why not a second time? and if ever she hove in sight, might they not hope, after all, to signal to her with their rudely constructed heliograph, and stop her? as for methuselah's secret, there was only one way, felix thought, in which it could now prove of any use to them. when the actual day of their doom drew nigh, he might, perhaps, be tempted to try the fate which nathaniel cross, of sunderland, had successfully courted. that might gain them at least a little respite. though even so he hardly knew what good it could do him to be elevated for a while into the chief god of the island. it might not even avail him to save muriel's life; for he did not doubt that when the awful day itself had actually come the natives would do their best to kill her in spite of him, unless he anticipated them by fulfilling his own terrible, yet merciful, promise. week after week went by--month after month passed--and the date when the australasian might reasonably be expected to reappear drew nearer and nearer. they waited and trembled. at last, a few days before the time m. peyron had calculated, as felix was sitting under the big shady tree in his garden one morning, while muriel, now worn out with hope deferred, lay within her hut alone with mali, a sound of tom-toms and beaten palms was heard on the hill-path. the natives around fell on their faces or fled. it announced the speedy approach of tu-kila-kila. by this time both the castaways had grown comparatively accustomed to that hideous noise, and to the hateful presence which it preceded and heralded. a dozen temple attendants tripped on either side down the hillpath, to guard him, clapping their hands in a barbaric measure as they went; fire and water, in the midst, supported and flanked the divine umbrella. felix rose from his seat with very little ceremony, indeed, as the great god crossed the white taboo-line of his precincts, followed only beyond the limit by fire and water. tu-kila-kila was in his most insolent vein. he glanced around with a horrid light of triumph dancing visibly in his eyes. it was clear he had come, intent upon some grand theatrical _coup_. he meant to take the white-faced stranger by surprise this time. "good-morning, o king of the rain," he exclaimed, in a loud voice and with boisterous familiarity. "how do you like your outlook now? things are getting on. things are getting on. the end of your rule is drawing very near, isn't it? before long i must make the seasons change. i must make my sun turn. i must twist round my sky. and then, i shall need a new korong instead of you, o pale-faced one!" felix looked back at him without moving a muscle. "i am well," he answered shortly, restraining his anger. "the year turns round whether you will or not. you are right that the sun will soon begin to move southward on its path again. but many things may happen to all of us meanwhile. _i_ am not afraid of you." as he spoke, he drew his knife, and opened the blade, unostentatiously, but firmly. if the worst were really coming now, sooner than he expected, he would at least not forget his promise to muriel. tu-kila-kila smiled a hateful and ominous smile. "i am a great god," he said, calmly, striking an attitude as was his wont. "hear how my people clap their hands in my honor! i order all things. i dispose the course of nature in heaven and earth. if i look at a cocoa-nut tree, it dies; if i glance at a bread-fruit, it withers away. we will see before long whether or not you are afraid of me. meanwhile, o korong, i have come to claim my dues at your hands. prepare for your fate. to-morrow the queen of the clouds must be sealed my bride. fetch her out, that i may speak with her. i have come to tell her so." it was a thunderbolt from a clear sky, and it fell with terrible effect on felix. for a moment the knife trembled in his grasp with an almost irresistible impulse. he could hardly restrain himself, as he heard those horrible, incredible words, and saw the loathsome smirk on the speaker's face by which they were accompanied, from leaping then and there at the savage's throat, and plunging his blade to the haft into the vile creature's body. but by a violent effort he mastered his indignation and wrath for the present. planting himself full in front of tu-kila-kila, and blocking the way to the door of that sacred english girl's hut--oh, how horrible it was to him even to think of her purity being contaminated by the vile neighborhood, for one minute, of that loathsome monster! he looked full into the wretch's face, and answered very distinctly, in low, slow tones, "if you dare to take one step toward the place where that lady now rests, if you dare to move your foot one inch nearer, if you dare to ask to see her face again, i will plunge the knife hilt-deep into your vile heart, and kill you where you stand without one second's deliberation. now you hear my words and you know what i mean. my weapon is keener and fiercer than any you polynesians ever saw. repeat those words once more, and by all that's true and holy, before they're out of your mouth i leap upon you and stab you." tu-kila-kila drew back in sudden surprise. he was unaccustomed to be so bearded in his own sacred island. "well, i shall claim her to-morrow," he faltered out, taken aback by felix's unexpected energy. he paused for a second, then he went on more slowly: "to-morrow i will come with all my people to claim my bride. this afternoon they will bring her mats of grass and necklets of nautilus shell to deck her for her wedding, as becomes tu-kila-kila's chosen one. the young maids of boupari will adorn her for her lord, in the accustomed dress of tu-kila-kila's wives. they will clap their hands; they will sing the marriage song. then early in the morning i will come to fetch her--and woe to him who strives to prevent me!" felix looked at him long, with a fixed and dogged look. "what has made you think of this devilry?" he asked at last, still grasping his knife hard, and half undecided whether or not to use it. "you have invented all these ideas. you have no claim, even in the horrid customs of your savage country, to demand such a sacrifice." tu-kila-kila laughed loud, a laugh of triumphant and discordant merriment. "ha, ha!" he cried, "you do not understand our customs, and will you teach _me_, the very high god, the guardian of the laws and practices of boupari? you know nothing; you are as a little child. i am absolute wisdom. with every korong, this is always our rule. till the moon is full, on the last month before we offer up the sacrifice, the queen of the clouds dwells apart with her shadow in her own new temple. so our fathers decreed it. but at the full of the moon, when the day has come, the usage is that tu-kila-kila, the very high god, confers upon her the honor of making her his bride. it is a mighty honor. the feast is great. blood flows like water. for seven days and nights, then, she lives with tu-kila-kila in his sacred abode, the threshold of heaven; she eats of human flesh; she tastes human blood; she drinks abundantly of the divine kava. at the end of that time, in accordance with the custom of our fathers, those great dead gods, tu-kila-kila performs the high act of sacrifice. he puts on his mask of the face of a shark, for he is holy and cruel; he brings forth the queen of the clouds before the eyes of all his people, attired in her wedding robes, and made drunk with kava. then he gashes her with knives; he offers her up to heaven that accepted her; and the king of the rain he offers after her; and all the people eat of their flesh, korong! and drink of their blood, so that the body of gods and goddesses may dwell within all of them. and when all is done, the high god chooses a new king and queen at his will (for he is a mighty god), who rule for six moons more, and then are offered up, at the end, in like fashion." as he spoke, the ferocious light that gleamed in the savage's eye made felix positively mad with anger. but he answered nothing directly. "is this so?" he asked, turning for confirmation to fire and water. "is it the custom of boupari that tu-kila-kila should wed the queen of the clouds seven days before the date appointed for her sacrifice?" the king of fire and the king of water, tried guardians of the etiquette of tu-kila-kila's court, made answer at once with one accord, "it is so, o king of the rain. your lips have said it. tu-kila-kila speaks the solemn truth. he is a very great god. such is the custom of boupari." tu-kila-kila laughed his triumph in harsh, savage outbursts. but felix drew back for a second, irresolute. at last he stood face to face with the absolute need for immediate action. now was almost the moment when he must redeem his terrible promise to muriel. and yet, even so, there was still one chance of life, one respite left. the mystic yellow bough on the sacred banyan! the great taboo! the wager of battle with tu-kila-kila! quick as lightning it all came up in his excited brain. time after time, since he heard methuselah's strange message from the grave, had he passed tu-kila-kila's temple enclosure and looked up with vague awe at that sacred parasite that grew so conspicuously in a fork of the branches. it was easy to secure it, if no man guarded. there still remained one night. in that one short night he must do his best--and worst. if all then failed, he must die himself with muriel! for two seconds he hesitated. it was hateful even to temporize with so hideous a proposition. but for muriel's sake, for her dear life's sake, he must meet these savages with guile for guile. "if it be, indeed, the custom of boupari," he answered back, with pale and trembling lips, "and if i, one man, am powerless to prevent it, i will give your message, myself, to the queen of the clouds, and you may send, as you say, your wedding decorations. but come what will--mark this--you shall not see her yourself to-day. you shall not speak to her. there i draw a line--so, with my stick in the dust, if you try to advance one step beyond, i stab you to the heart. wait till to-morrow to take your prey. give me one more night. great god as you are, if you are wise, you will not drive an angry man to utter desperation." tu-kila-kila looked with a suspicious side glance at the gleaming steel blade felix still fingered tremulously. though boupari was one of those rare and isolated small islands unvisited as yet by european trade, he had, nevertheless, heard enough of the sailing gods to know that their skill was deep and their weapons very dangerous. it would be foolish to provoke this man to wrath too soon. to-morrow, when taboo was removed, and all was free license, he would come when he willed and take his bride, backed up by the full force of his assembled people. meanwhile, why provoke a brother god too far? after all, in a little more than a week from now the pale-faced korong would be eaten and digested! "very well," he said, sulkily, but still with the sullen light of revenge gleaming bright in his eye. "take my message to the queen. you may be my herald. tell her what honor is in store for her--to be first the wife and then the meat of tu-kila-kila! she is a very fair woman. i like her well. i have longed for her for months. tomorrow, at the early dawn, by the break of day, i will come with all my people and take her home by main force to me." he looked at felix and scowled, an angry scowl of revenge. then, as he turned and walked away, under cover of the great umbrella, with its dangling pendants on either side, the temple attendants clapped their hands in unison. fire and water marched slow and held the umbrella over him. as he disappeared in the distance, and the sound of his tom-toms grew dim on the hills, toko, the shadow, who had lain flat, trembling, on his face in the hut while the god was speaking, came out and looked anxiously and fearfully after him. "the time is ripe," he said, in a very low voice to felix. "a korong may strike. all the people of boupari murmur among themselves. they say this fellow has held the spirit of tu-kila-kila within himself too long. he waxes insolent. they think it is high time the great god of heaven should find before long some other fleshly tabernacle." chapter xxvi. a rash resolve. the rest of that day was a time of profound and intense anxiety. felix and muriel remained alone in their huts, absorbed in plans of escape, but messengers of many sorts from chiefs and gods kept continually coming to them. the natives evidently regarded it as a period of preparation. the eyes of tu-kila-kila surrounded their precinct; yet felix couldn't help noticing that they seemed in many ways less watchful than of old, and that they whispered and conferred very much in a mysterious fashion with the people of the village. more than once toko shook his head, sagely, "if only any one dared break the great taboo," he said, with some terror on his face, "our people would be glad. it would greatly please them. they are tired of this tu-kila-kila. he has held the god in his breast far, far too long. they would willingly see some other in place of him." before noon, the young girls of the village, bringing native mats and huge strings of nautilus shells, trooped up to the hut, like bridesmaids, with flowers in their hands, to deck muriel for her approaching wedding. before them they carried quantities of red and brown tappa-cloth and very fine net-work, the dowry to be presented by the royal bride to her divine husband. within the hut, they decked out the queen of the clouds with garlands of flowers and necklets of shells, in solemn native fashion, bewailing her fate all the time to a measured dirge in their own language. muriel could see that their sympathy, though partly conventional, was largely real as well. many of the young girls seized her hand convulsively from time to time, and kissed it with genuine feeling. the gentle young english woman had won their savage hearts by her purity and innocence. "poor thing, poor thing," they said, stroking her hand tenderly. "she is too good for korong! too good for tu-kila-kila! if only we knew the great taboo like the men, we would tell her everything. she is too good to die. we are sorry she is to be sacrificed!" but when all their preparations were finished, the chief among them raised a calabash with a little scented oil in it, and poured a few drops solemnly on muriel's head. "oh, great god!" she said, in her own tongue, "we offer this sacrifice, a goddess herself, to you. we obey your words. you are very holy. we will each of us eat a portion of her flesh at your feast. so give us good crops, strong health, many children!" "what does she say?" muriel asked, pale and awestruck, of mali. mali translated the words with perfect _sang-froid_. at that awful sound muriel drew back, chill and cold to the marrow. how inconceivable was the state of mind of these terrible people! they were really sorry for her; they kissed her hand with fervor; and yet they deliberately and solemnly proposed to eat her! toward evening the young girls at last retired, in regular order, to the clapping of hands, and felix was left alone with muriel and the shadows. already he had explained to muriel what he intended to do; and muriel, half dazed with terror and paralyzed by these awful preparations, consented passively. "but how if you never come back, felix?" she cried at last, clinging to him passionately. felix looked at her with a fixed look. "i have thought of that," he said. "m. peyron, to whom i sent a message by flashes, has helped me in my difficulty. this bowl has poison in it. peyron sent it to me to-day. he prepared it himself from the root of the kava bean. if by sunrise to-morrow you have heard no news, drink it off at once. it will instantly kill you. you shall _not_ fall alive into that creature's clutches." by slow degrees the evening wore on, and night approached--the last night that remained to them. felix had decided to make his attempt about one in the morning. the moon was nearly full now, and there would be plenty of light. supposing he succeeded, if they gained nothing else, they would gain at least a day or two's respite. as dusk set in, and they sat by the door of the hut, they were all surprised to see ula approach the precinct stealthily through the jungle, accompanied by two of tu-kila-kila's eyes, yet apparently on some strange and friendly message. she beckoned imperiously with one finger to toko to cross the line. the shadow rose, and without one word of explanation went out to speak to her. the woman gave her message in short, sharp sentences. "we have found out all," she said, breathing hard. "fire and water have learned it. but tu-kila-kila himself knows nothing. we have found out that the king of the rain has discovered the secret of the great taboo. he heard it from the soul of all dead parrots. tu-kila-kila's eyes saw, and learned, and understood. but they said nothing to tu-kila-kila. for my counsel was wise; i planned that they should not, with fire and water. fire and water and all the people of boupari think, with me, the time has come that there should arise among us a new tu-kila-kila. this one let his blood fall out upon the dust of the ground. his luck has gone. we have need of another." "then for what have you come?" toko asked, all awestruck. it was terrible to him for a woman to meddle in such high matters. "i have come," ula answered, laying her hand on his arm, and holding her face close to his with profound solemnity--"i have come to say to the king of the rain, 'whatever you do, that do quickly.' to-night i will engage to keep tu-kila-kila in his temple. he shall see nothing. he shall hear nothing. i know not the great taboo; but i know from him this much--that if by wile or guile i keep him alone in his temple to-night, the king of the rain may fight with him in single combat; and if the king of the rain conquers in the battle, he becomes himself the home of the great deity." she nodded thrice, with her hands on her forehead, and withdrew as stealthily as she had come through the jungle. the eyes of tu-kila-kila, falling into line, remained behind, and kept watch upon the huts with the closest apparent scrutiny. more than ever they were hemmed in by mystery on mystery. the shadow went back and reported to felix. felix, turning it over in his own mind, wondered and debated. was this true, or a trap to lure him to destruction? as the night wore on, and the hour drew nigh, muriel sat beside her friend and lover, in blank despair and agony. how could she ever allow him to leave her now? how could she venture to remain alone with mali in her hut in this last extremity? it was awful to be so girt with mysterious enemies. "i must go with you, felix! i must go, too!" she cried over and over again. "i daren't remain behind with all these awful men. and then, if he kills either of us, he will kill us at least both together." but felix knew he might do nothing of the sort. a more terrible chance was still in reserve. he might spare muriel. and against that awful possibility he felt it his duty now to guard at all hazard. "no, muriel," he said, kissing her, and holding her pale hand, "i must go alone. you can't come with me. if i return, we will have gained at least a respite, till the australasian may turn up. if i don't, you will at any rate have strength of mind left to swallow the poison, before tu-kila-kila comes to claim you." hour after hour passed by slowly, and felix and the shadow watched the stars at the door, to know when the hour for the attempt had arrived. the eyes of tu-kila-kila, peering silent from just beyond the line, saw them watching all the time, but gave no sign or token of disapproval. with heads bent low, and tangled hair about their faces, they stood like statues, watching, watching sullenly. were they only waiting till he moved, felix wondered; and would they then hasten off by short routes through the jungle to warn their master of the impending conflict? at last the hour came when felix felt sure there was the greatest chance of tu-kila-kila sleeping soundly in his hut, and forgetting the defence of the sacred bough on the holy banyan-tree. he rose from his seat with a gesture for silence, and moved forward to muriel. the poor girl flung herself, all tears, into his arms. "oh, felix, felix," she cried, "redeem your promise now! kill us both here together, and then, at least, i shall never be separated from you! it wouldn't be wrong! it can't be wrong! we would surely be forgiven if we did it only to escape falling into the hands of these terrible savages!" felix clasped her to his bosom with a faltering heart. "no, muriel," he said, slowly. "not yet. not yet. i must leave no opening on earth untried by which i can possibly or conceivably save you. it's as hard for me to leave you here alone as for you to be left. but for your own dear sake, i must steel myself. i must do it." he kissed her many times over. he wiped away her tears. then, with a gentle movement, he untwined her clasping arms. "you must let me go, my own darling," he said, "you must let me go, without crossing the border. if you pass beyond the taboo-line to-night, heaven only knows what, perhaps, may happen to you. we must give these people no handle of offence. good-night, muriel, my own heart's wife; and if i never come back, then good-by forever." she clung to his arm still. he disentangled himself, gently. the shadow rose at the same moment, and followed in silence to the open door. muriel rushed after them, wildly. "oh, felix, felix, come back," she cried, bursting into wild floods of hot, fierce tears. "come back and let me die with you! let me die! let me die with you!" felix crossed the white line without one word of reply, and went forth into the night, half unmanned by this effort. muriel sank, where she stood, into mali's arms. the girl caught her and supported her. but before she had fainted quite away, muriel had time vaguely to see and note one significant fact. the eyes of tu-kila-kila, who stood watching the huts with lynx-like care, nodded twice to toko, the shadow, as he passed between them; then they stealthily turned and dogged the two men's footsteps afar off in the jungle. muriel was left by herself in the hut, face to face with mali. "let us pray, mali," she cried, seizing her shadow's arm. and mali, moved suddenly by some half-obliterated impulse, exclaimed in concert, in a terrified voice, "let us pray to methodist god in heaven!" for her life, too, hung on the issue of that rash endeavor. chapter xxvii. a strange ally. in tu-kila-kila's temple-hut, meanwhile, the jealous, revengeful god, enshrined among his skeletons, was having in his turn an anxious and doubtful time of it. ever since his sacred blood had stained the dust of earth by the frenchman's cottage and in his own temple, tu-kila-kila, for all his bluster, had been deeply stirred and terrified in his inmost soul by that unlucky portent. a savage, even if he be a god, is always superstitious. could it be that his own time was, indeed, drawing nigh? that he, who had remorselessly killed and eaten so many hundreds of human victims, was himself to fall a prey to some more successful competitor? had the white-faced stranger, the king of the rain, really learned the secrets of the great taboo from the soul of all dead parrots? did that mysterious bird speak the tongue of these new fire-bearing korongs, whose doom was fixed for the approaching solstice? tu-kila-kila wondered and doubted. his suspicions were keen, and deeply aroused. late that night he still lurked by the sacred banyan-tree, and when at last he retired to his own inner temple, white with the grinning skulls of the victims he had devoured, it was with strict injunctions to fire and water, and to his eyes that watched there, to bring him word at once of any projected aggression on the part of the stranger. within the temple-hut, however, ula awaited him. that was a pleasant change. the beautiful, supple, satin-skinned polynesian looked more beautiful and more treacherous than ever that fateful evening. her great brown limbs, smooth and glossy as pearl, were set off by a narrow girdle or waistband of green and scarlet leaves, twined spirally around her. armlets of nautilus shell threw up the dainty plumpness of her soft, round forearm. a garland hung festooned across one shapely shoulder; her bosom was bare or but half hidden by the crimson hibiscus that nestled voluptuously upon it. as tu-kila-kila entered, she lifted her large eyes, and, smiling, showed two even rows of pearly white teeth. "my master has come!" she cried, holding up both lissome arms with a gesture to welcome him. "the great god relaxes his care of the world for a while. all goes on well. he leaves his sun to sleep and his stars to shine, and he retires to rest on the unworthy bosom of her, his mate, his meat, that is honored to love him." tu-kila-kila was scarcely just then in a mood for dalliance. "the queen of the clouds comes hither to-morrow," he answered, casting a somewhat contemptuous glance at ula's more dusky and solid charms. "i go to seek her with the wedding gifts early in the morning. for a week she shall be mine. and after that--" he lifted his tomahawk and brought it down on a huge block of wood significantly. ula smiled once more, that deep, treacherous smile of hers, and showed her white teeth even deeper than ever. "if my lord, the great god, rises so early to-morrow," she said, sidling up toward him voluptuously, "to seek one more bride for his sacred temple, all the more reason he should take his rest and sleep soundly to-night. is he not a god? are not his limbs tired? does he not need divine silence and slumber?" tu-kila-kila pouted. "i could sleep more soundly," he said, with a snort, "if i knew what my enemy, the korong, is doing. i have set my eyes to watch him, yet i do not feel secure. they are not to be trusted. i shall be happier far when i have killed and eaten him." he passed his hand across his bosom with a reflective air. you have a great sense of security toward your enemy, no doubt, when you know that he slumbers, well digested, within you. ula raised herself on her elbow, and gazed snake-like into his face, "my lord's eyes are everywhere," she said, reverently, with every mark of respect. "he sees and knows all things. who can hide anything on earth from his face? even when he is asleep, his eyes watch well for him. then why should the great god, the measurer of heaven and earth, the king of men, fear a white-faced stranger? to-morrow the queen of the clouds will be yours, and the stranger will be abased: ha, ha, he will grieve at it! to-night, fire and water keep guard and watch over you. whoever would hurt you must pass through fire and water before he reach your door. fire would burn, water would drown. this is a great taboo. no stranger dare face it." tu-kila-kila lifted himself up in his thrasonic mood. "if he did," he cried, swelling himself, "i would shrivel him to ashes with one flash of my eyes. i would scorch him to a cinder with one stroke of my lightning." ula smiled again, a well-satisfied smile. she was working her man up. "tu-kila-kila is great," she repeated, slowly. "all earth obeys him. all heaven fears him." the savage took her hand with a doubtful air. "and yet," he said, toying with it, half irresolute, "when i went to the white-faced stranger's hut this morning, he did not speak fair; he answered me insolently. his words were bold. he talked to me as one talks to a man, not to a great god. ula, i wonder if he knows my secret?" ula started back in well-affected horror. "a white-faced stranger from the sun know your secret, o great king!" she cried, hiding her face in a square of cloth. "see me beat my breast! impossible! impossible! no one of your subjects would dare to tell him so great a taboo. it would be rank blasphemy. if they did, your anger would utterly consume them!" "that is true," tu-kila-kila said, practically, "but i might not discover it. i am a very great god. my eyes are everywhere. no corner of the world is hid from my gaze. all the concerns of heaven and earth are my care, and, therefore; sometimes, i overlook some detail." "no man alive would dare to tell the great taboo!" ula repeated, confidently. "why, even i myself, who am the most favored of your wives, and who am permitted to bask in the light of your presence--even i, ula--i do not know it. how much less, then, the spirit from the sun, the sailing god, the white-faced stranger!" tu-kila-kila pursed up his brow and looked preternaturally wise, as the savage loves to do. "but the parrot," he cried, "the soul of all dead parrots! _he_ knew the secret, they say:--i taught it him myself in an ancient day, many, many years ago--when no man now living was born, save only i--in another incarnation--and _he_ may have told it. for the strangers, they say, speak the language of birds; and in the language of birds did i tell the great taboo to him." ula pooh-poohed the mighty man-god's fears. "no, no," she cried, with confidence; "he can never have told them. if he had, would not your eyes that watch ever for all that happens on heaven or earth, have straightway reported it to you? the parrot died without yielding up the tale. were it otherwise, toko, who loves and worships you, would surely have told me." the man-god puckered his brows slightly, as if he liked not the security. "well, somehow, ula," he said, feeling her soft brown arms with his divine hand, slowly, "i have always had my doubts since that day the soul of all dead parrots bit me. a vicious bird! what did he mean by his bite?" he lowered his voice and looked at her fixedly. "did not his spilling my blood portend," he asked, with a shudder of fear, "that through that ill-omened bird i, who was once lavita, should cease to be tu-kila-kila?" ula smiled contentedly again. to say the truth, that was precisely the interpretation she herself had put on that terrific omen. the parrot had spilled tu-kila-kila's sacred blood upon the soil of earth. according to her simple natural philosophy, that was a certain sign that through the parrot's instrumentality tu-kila-kila's life would be forfeited to the great eternal earth-spirit. or, rather, the earth-spirit would claim the blood of the man lavita, in whose body it dwelt, and would itself migrate to some new earthly tabernacle. but for all that, she dissembled. "great god," she cried, smiling, a benign smile, "you are tired! you are thirsty! care for heaven and earth has wearied you out. you feel the fatigue of upholding the sun in heaven. your arms must ache. your thews must give under you. drink of the soul-inspiring juice of the kava! my hands have prepared the divine cup. for tu-kila-kila did i make it--fresh, pure, invigorating!" she held the bowl to his lips with an enticing smile. tu-kila-kila hesitated and glanced around him suspiciously. "what if the white-faced stranger should come to-night?" he whispered, hoarsely. "he may have discovered the great taboo, after all. who can tell the ways of the world, how they come about? my people are so treacherous. some traitor may have betrayed it to him." "impossible," the beautiful, snake-like woman answered, with a strong gesture of natural dissent. "and even if he came, would not kava, the divine, inspiriting drink of the gods, in which dwell the embodied souls of our fathers--would not kava make you more vigorous, strong for the fight? would it not course through your limbs like fire? would it not pour into your soul the divine, abiding strength of your mighty mother, the eternal earth-spirit?" "a little," tu-kila-kila said, yielding, "but not too much. too much would stupefy me. when the spirits, that the kava-tree sucks up from the earth, are too strong within us, they overpower our own strength, so that even i, the high god--even i can do nothing." ula held the bowl to his lips, and enticed him to drink with her beautiful eyes. "a deep draught, o supporter of the sun in heaven," she cried, pressing his arm tenderly. "am i not ula? did i not brew it for you? am i not the chief and most favored among your women? i will sit at the door. i will watch all night. i will not close an eye. not a footfall on the ground but my ear shall hear it." "do." tu-kila-kila said, laconically. "i fear fire and water. those gods love me not. fain would they make me migrate into some other body. but i myself like it not. this one suits me admirably. ula, that kava is stronger than you are used to make it." "no, no," ula cried, pressing it to his lips a second time, passionately. "you are a very great god. you are tired; it overcomes you. and if you sleep, i will watch. fire and water dare not disobey your commands. are you not great? your eyes are everywhere. and i, even i, will be as one of them." the savage gulped down a few more mouthfuls of the intoxicating liquid. then he glanced up again suddenly with a quick, suspicious look. the cunning of his race gave him wisdom in spite of the deadly strength of the kava ula had brewed too deep for him. with a sudden resolve, he rose and staggered out. "you are a serpent, woman!" he cried angrily, seeing the smile that lurked upon ula's face. "to-morrow i will kill you. i will take the white woman for my bride, and she and i will feast off your carrion body. you have tried to betray me, but you are not cunning enough, not strong enough. no woman shall kill me. i am a very great god. i will not yield. i will wait by the tree. this is a trap you have set, but i do not fall into it. if the king of the rain comes, i shall be there to meet him." he seized his spear and hatchet and walked forth, erect, without one sign of drunkenness. ula trembled to herself as she saw him go. she was playing a deep game. had she given him only just enough kava to strengthen and inspire him? chapter xxviii. wager of battle. felix wound his way painfully through the deep fern-brake of the jungle, by no regular path, so as to avoid exciting the alarm of the natives, and to take tu-kila-kila's palace-temple from the rear, where the big tree, which overshadowed it with its drooping branches, was most easily approachable. as he and toko crept on, bending low, through that dense tropical scrub, in deathly silence, they were aware all the time of a low, crackling sound that rang ever some paces in the rear on their trail through the forest. it was tu-kila-kila's eyes, following them stealthily from afar, footstep for footstep, through the dense undergrowth of bush, and the crisp fallen leaves and twigs that snapped light beneath their footfall. what hope of success with those watchful spies, keen as beagles and cruel as bloodhounds, following ever on their track? what chance of escape for felix and muriel, with the cannibal man-gods toils laid round on every side to insure their destruction? silently and cautiously the two men groped their way on through the dark gloom of the woods, in spite of their mute pursuers. the moonlight flickered down athwart the trackless soil as they went; the hum of insects innumerable droned deep along the underbrush. now and then the startled scream of a night jar broke the monotony of the buzz that was worse than silence; owls boomed from the hollow trees, and fireflies darted dim through the open spaces. at last they emerged upon the cleared area of the temple. there felix, without one moment's hesitation, with a firm and resolute tread, stepped over the white coral line that marked the taboo of the great god's precincts. that was a declaration of open war; he had crossed the rubicon of tu-kila-kila's empire. toko stood trembling on the far side; none might pass that mystic line unbidden and live, save the korong alone who could succeed in breaking off the bough "with yellow leaves, resembling a mistletoe," of which methuselah, the parrot, had told felix and muriel, and so earn the right to fight for his life with the redoubted and redoubtable tu-kila-kila. as he stepped over the taboo-line, felix was aware of many native eyes fixed stonily upon him from the surrounding precinct. clearly they were awaiting him. yet not a soul gave the alarm; that in itself would have been to break taboo. every man or woman among the temple attendants within that charmed circle stood on gaze curiously. close by, ula, the favorite wife of the man-god, crouched low by the hut, with one finger on her treacherous lips, bending eagerly forward, in silent expectation of what next might happen. once, and once only, she glanced at toko with a mute sign of triumph; then she fixed her big eyes on felix in tremulous anxiety; for to her as to him, life and death now hung absolutely on the issue of his enterprise. a little farther back the king of fire and the king of water, in full sacrificial robes, stood smiling sardonically. for them it was merely a question of one master more or less, one tu-kila-kila in place of another. they had no special interest in the upshot of the contest, save in so far as they always hated most the man who for the moment held by his own strong arm the superior godship over them. around, tu-kila-kila's eyes kept watch and ward in sinister silence. taboo was stronger than even the commands of the high god himself. when once a korong had crossed that fatal line, unbidden and unwelcomed by tu-kila-kila, he came as tu-kila-kila's foe and would-be successor; the duty of every guardian of the temple was then to see fair play between the god that was and the god that might be--the tu-kila-kila of the hour and the tu-kila-kila who might possibly supplant him. "let the great spirit itself choose which body it will inhabit," the king of fire murmured in a soft, low voice, glancing toward a dark spot at the foot of the big tree. the moonlight fell dim through the branches on the place where he looked. the glibbering bones of dead victims rattled lightly in the wind. felix's eyes followed the king of fire's, and saw, lying asleep upon the ground, tu-kila-kila himself, with his spear and tomahawk. he lay there, huddled up by the very roots of the tree, breathing deep and regularly. right over his head projected the branch, in one part of whose boughs grew the fateful parasite. by the dim light of the moon, straggling through the dense foliage, felix could see its yellow leaves distinctly. beneath it hung a skeleton, suspended by invisible cords, head downward from the branches. it was the skeleton of a previous korong who had tried in vain to reach the bough, and perished. tu-kila-kila had made high feast on the victim's flesh; his bones, now collected together and cunningly fastened with native rope, served at once as a warning and as a trap or pitfall for all who might rashly venture to follow him. felix stood for one moment, alone and awe-struck, a solitary civilized man, among those hideous surroundings. above, the cold moon; all about, the grim, stolid, half-hostile natives; close by, that strange, serpentine, savage wife, guarding, cat-like, the sleep of her cannibal husband; behind, the watchful eyes of tu-kila-kila, waiting ever in the background, ready to raise a loud shout of alarm and warning the moment the fatal branch was actually broken, but mute, by their vows, till that moment was accomplished. then a sudden wild impulse urged him on to the attempt. the banyan had dropped down rooting offsets to the ground, after the fashion of its kind, from its main branches. felix seized one of these and swung himself lightly up, till he reached the very limb on which the sacred parasite itself was growing. to get to the parasite, however, he must pass directly above tu-kila-kila's head, and over the point where that ghastly grinning skeleton was suspended, as by an unseen hair, from the fork that bore it. he walked along, balancing himself, and clutching, as he went, at the neighboring boughs, while tu-kila-kila, overcome with the kava, slept stolidly and heavily on beneath him. at last he was almost within grasp of the parasite. could he lunge out and clutch it? one try--one effort! no, no; he almost lost footing and fell over in the attempt. he couldn't keep his balance so. he must try farther on. come what might, he must go past the skeleton. the grisly mass swung again, clanking its bones as it swung, and groaned in the wind ominously. the breeze whistled audibly through its hollow skull and vacant eye-sockets. tu-kila-kila turned uneasily in his sleep below. felix saw there was not one instant of time to be lost now. he passed on boldly; and as he passed, a dozen thin cords of paper mulberry, stretched every way in an invisible network among the boughs, too small to be seen in the dim moonlight, caught him with their toils and almost overthrew him. they broke with his weight, and felix himself, tumbling blindly, fell forward. at the cost of a sprained wrist and a great jerk on his bruised fingers, he caught at a bough by his side, but wrenched it away suddenly. it was touch and go. at the very same moment, the skeleton fell heavily, and rattled on the ground beside tu-kila-kila. before felix could discover what had actually happened, a very great shout went up all round below, and made him stagger with excitement. tu-kila-kila was awake, and had started up, all intent, mad with wrath and kava. glaring about him wildly, and brandishing his great spear in his stalwart hands, he screamed aloud, in a perfect frenzy of passion and despair: "where is he, the korong? bring him on, my meat! let me devour his heart! let me tear him to pieces. let me drink of his blood! let me kill him and eat him!" sick and desperate at the accident, felix, in turn, clinging hard to his bough with one hand, gazed wildly about him to look for the parasite. but it had gone as if by magic. he glanced around in despair, vaguely conscious that nothing was left for it now but to drop to the ground and let himself be killed at leisure by that frantic savage. yet even as he did so, he was aware of that great cry--a cry as of triumph--still rending the air. fire and water had rushed forward, and were holding back tu-kila-kila, now black in the face from rage, with all their might. ula was smiling a malicious joy. the eyes were all agog with interest and excitement. and from one and all that wild scream rose unanimous to the startled sky: "he has it! he has it! the soul of the tree! the spirit of the world! the great god's abode. hold off your hands, lavita, son of sami! your trial has come. he has it! he has it!" felix looked about him with a whirling brain. his eye fell suddenly. there, in his own hand, lay the fateful bough. in his efforts to steady himself, he had clutched at it by pure accident, and broken it off unawares with the force of his clutching. as fortune would have it, he grasped it still. his senses reeled. he was almost dead with excitement, suspense, and uncertainty, mingled with pain of his wrenched wrist. but for muriel's sake he pulled himself together. gazing down and trying hard to take it all in--that strange savage scene--he saw that tu-kila-kila was making frantic attempts to lunge at him with the spear, while the king of fire and the king of water, stern and relentless, were holding him off by main force, and striving their best to appease and quiet him. there was an awful pause. then a voice broke the stillness from beyond the taboo-line: "the shadow of the king of the rain speaks," it said, in very solemn, conventional accents. "korong! korong! the great taboo is broken. fire and water, hold him in whom dwells the god till my master comes. he has the soul of all the spirits of the wood in his hands. he will fight for his right. taboo! taboo! i, toko, have said it." he clapped his hands thrice. tu-kila-kila made a wild effort to break away once more. but the king of fire, standing opposite him, spoke still louder and clearer. "if you touch the korong before the line is drawn," he said, with a voice of authority, "you are no tu-kila-kila, but an outcast and a criminal. all the people will hold you with forked sticks, while the korong burns you alive slowly, limb by limb, with me, who am fire, the fierce, the consuming. i will scorch you and bake you till you are as a bamboo in the flame. taboo! taboo! taboo! i, fire, have said it." the king of water, with three attendants, forced tu-kila-kila on one side for a moment. ula stood by and smiled pleased compliance. a temple slave, trembling all over at this conflict of the gods, brought out a calabash full of white coral-sand. the king of water spat on it and blessed it. by this time a dozen natives, at least, had assembled outside the taboo-line, and stood eagerly watching the result of the combat. the temple slave made a long white mark with the coral-sand on one side of the cleared area. then he handed the calabash solemnly to toko. toko crossed the sacred precinct with a few inaudible words of muttered charm, to save the taboo, as prescribed in the mysteries. then he drew a similar line on the ground on his side, some twenty yards off. "descend, o my lord!" he cried to felix; and felix, still holding the bough tight in his hand, swung himself blindly from the tree, and took his place by toko. "toe the line!" toko cried, and felix toed it. "bring up your god!" the shadow called out aloud to the king of water. and the king of water, using no special ceremony with so great a duty, dragged tu-kila-kila helplessly along with him to the farther taboo-line. the king of water brought a spear and tomahawk. he handed them to felix. "with these weapons," he said, "fight, and merit heaven. i hold the bough meanwhile--the victor takes it." the king of fire stood out between the lists. "korongs and gods," he said, "the king of the rain has plucked the sacred bough, according to our fathers' rites, and claims trial which of you two shall henceforth hold the sacred soul of the world, the great tu-kila-kila. wager of battle decides the day. keep toe to line. at the end of my words, forth, forward, and fight for it. the great god knows his own, and will choose his abode. taboo, taboo, taboo! i, fire, have spoken it." scarcely were the words well out of his mouth, when, with a wild whoop of rage, tu-kila-kila, who had the advantage of knowing the rules of the game, so to speak, dashed madly forward, drunk with passion and kava, and gave one lunge with his spear full tilt at the breast of the startled and unprepared white man. his aim, though frantic, was not at fault. the spear struck felix high up on the left side. he felt a dull thud of pain; a faint gurgle of blood. even in the pale moonlight his eye told him at once a red stream was trickling--out over his flannel shirt. he was pricked, at least. the great god had wounded him. chapter xxix. victory--and after? the great god had wounded him. but not to the heart. felix, as good luck would have it, happened to be wearing buckled braces. he had worn them on board, and, like the rest of his costume, had, of course, never since been able to discard them. they stood him in good stead now. the buckle caught the very point of the bone-tipped spear, and broke the force of the blow, as the great god lunged forward. the wound was but a graze, and tu-kila-kila's light shaft snapped short in the middle. madder and wilder than ever, the savage pitched it away, yelling, rushed forward with a fierce curse on his angry tongue, and flung himself, tooth and nail, on his astonished opponent. the suddenness of the onslaught almost took the englishman's breath away. by this time, however, felix had pulled together his ideas and taken in the situation. tu-kila-kila was attacking him now with his heavy stone axe. he must parry those deadly blows. he must be alert, but watchful. he must put himself in a posture of defence at once. above all, he must keep cool and have his wits about him. if he could but have drawn his knife, he would have stood a better chance in that hand-to-hand conflict. but there was no time now for such tactics as those. besides, even in close fight with a bloodthirsty savage, an english gentleman's sense of fair play never for one moment deserts him. felix felt, if they were to fight it out face to face for their lives, they should fight at least on a perfect equality. steel against stone was a mean advantage. parrying tu-kila-kila's first desperate blow with the haft of his own hatchet, he leaped aside half a second to gain breath and strength. then he rushed on, and dealt one deadly downstroke with the ponderous weapon. for a minute or two they closed, in perfectly savage single combat. fire and water, observant and impartial, stood by like seconds to see the god himself decide the issue, which of the two combatants should be his living representative. the contest was brief but very hard-fought. tu-kila-kila, inspired with the last frenzy of despair, rushed wildly on his opponent with hands and fists, and teeth and nails, dealing his blows in blind fury, right and left, and seeking only to sell his life as dearly as possible. in this last extremity, his very superstitions told against him. everything seemed to show his hour had come. the parrot's bite--the omen of his own blood that stained the dust of earth--ula's treachery--the chance by which the korong had learned the great taboo--felix's accidental or providential success in breaking off the bough--the length of time he himself had held the divine honors--the probability that the god would by this time begin to prefer a new and stronger representative--all these things alike combined to fire the drunk and maddened savage with the energy of despair. he fell upon his enemy like a tiger upon an elephant. he fought with his tomahawk and his feet and his whole lithe body; he foamed at the mouth with impotent rage; he spent his force on the air in the extremity of his passion. felix, on the other hand, sobered by pain, and nerved by the fixed consciousness that muriel's safety now depended absolutely on his perfect coolness, fought with the calm skill of a practised fencer. happily he had learned the gentle art of thrust and parry years before in england; and though both weapon and opponent were here so different, the lesson of quickness and calm watchfulness he had gained in that civilized school stood him in good stead, even now, under such adverse circumstances. tu-kila-kila, getting spent, drew back for a second at last, and panted for breath. that faint breathing-space of a moment's duration sealed his fate. seizing his chance with consummate skill, felix closed upon the breathless monster, and brought down the heavy stone hammer point blank upon the centre of his crashing skull. the weapon drove home. it cleft a great red gash in the cannibal's head. tu-kila-kila reeled and fell. there was an infinitesimal pause of silence and suspense. then a great shout went up from all round to heaven, "he has killed him! he has killed him! we have a new-made god! tu-kila-kila is dead! long live tu-kila-kila!" felix drew back for a moment, panting and breathless, and wiped his wet brow with his sleeve, his brain all whirling. at his feet, the savage lay stretched, like a log. felix gazed at the blood-bespattered face remorsefully. it is an awful thing, even in a just quarrel, to feel that you have really taken a human life! the responsibility is enough to appall the bravest of us. he stooped down and examined the prostrate body with solemn reverence. blood was flowing in torrents from the wounded head. but tu-kila-kila was dead--stone-dead forever. hot tears of relief welled up into felix's eyes. he touched the body cautiously with a reverent hand. no life. no motion. just as he did so, the woman ula came forward, bare-limbed and beautiful, all triumph in her walk, a proud, insensitive savage. one second she gazed at the great corpse disdainfully. then she lifted her dainty foot, and gave it a contemptuous kick. "the body of lavita, the son of sami," she said, with a gesture of hatred. "he had a bad heart. we will cook it and eat it." next turning to felix, "oh, tu-kila-kila," she cried, clapping her hands three times and bowing low to the ground, "you are a very great god. we will serve you and salute you. am not i, ula, one of your wives, your meat? do with me as you will. toko, you are henceforth the great god's shadow!" felix gazed at the beautiful, heartless creature, all horrified. even on boupari, that cannibal island, he was hardly prepared for quite so low a depth of savage insensibility. but all the people around, now a hundred or more, standing naked before their new god, took up the shout in concert. "the body of lavita, the son of sami," they cried. "a carrion corpse! the god has deserted it. the great soul of the world has entered the heart of the white-faced stranger from the disk of the sun; the king of the rain; the great tu-kila-kila. we will cook and eat the body of lavita, the son of sami. he was a bad man. he is a worn-out shell. nothing remains of him now. the great god has left him." they clapped their hands in a set measure as they recited this hymn. the king of fire retreated into the temple. ula stood by, and whispered low with toko. there was a ceremonial pause of some fifteen minutes. presently, from the inner recesses of the temple itself, a low noise issued forth as of a rising wind. for some seconds it buzzed and hummed, droningly. but at the very first note of that holy sound ula dropped her lover's hand, as one drops a red-hot coal, and darted wildly off at full speed, like some frightened wild beast, into the thick jungle. every other woman near began to rush away with equally instantaneous signs of haste and fear. the men, on the other hand, erect and naked, with their hands on their foreheads, crossed the taboo-line at once. it was the summons to all who had been initiated at the mysteries--the sacred bull-roarer was calling the assembly of the men of boupari. for several minutes it buzzed and droned, that mystic implement, growing louder and louder, till it roared like thunder. one after another, the men of the island rushed in as if mad or in flight for their lives before some fierce beast pursuing them. they ran up, panting, and dripping with sweat; their hands clapped to their foreheads; their eyes starting wildly from their staring sockets; torn and bleeding and lacerated by the thorns and branches of the jungle, for each man ran straight across country from the spot where he lay asleep, in the direction of the sound, and never paused or drew breath, for dear life's sake, till he stood beside the corpse of the dead tu-kila-kila. and every moment the cry pealed louder and louder still. "lavita, the son of sami, is dead, praise heaven! the king of the rain has slain him, and is now the true tu-kila-kila!" felix bent irresolute over the fallen savage's bloodstained corpse. what next was expected of him he hardly knew or cared. his one desire now was to return to muriel--to muriel, whom he had rescued from something worse than death at the hateful hands of that accursed creature who lay breathless forever on the ground beside him. somebody came up just then, and seized his hand warmly. felix looked up with a start. it was their friend, the frenchman. "ah, my captain, you have done well," m. peyron cried, admiring him. "what courage! what coolness! what pluck! what soldiership! i couldn't see all. but i was in at the death! and oh, _mon dieu_, how i admired and envied you!" by this time the bull-roarer had ceased to bellow among the rocks. the king of fire stood forth. in his hands he held a length of bamboo-stick with a lighted coal in it. "bring wood and palm-leaves," he said, in a tone of command. "let me light myself up, that i may blaze before tu-kila-kila." he turned and bowed thrice very low before felix. "the accepted of heaven," he cried, holding his hands above him. "the very high god! the king of all things! he sends down his showers upon our crops and our fields. he causes his sun to shine brightly over us. he makes our pigs and our slaves bring forth their increase. all we are but his meat. we, his people, praise him." and all the men of boupari, naked and bleeding, bent low in response. "tu-kila-kila is great," they chanted, as they clapped their hands. "we thank him that he has chosen a fresh incarnation. the sun will not fade in the heavens overhead, nor the bread-fruits wither and cease to bear fruit on earth. tu-kila-kila, our god, is great. he springs ever young and fresh, like the herbs of the field. he is a most high god. we, his people, praise him." four temple attendants brought sticks and leaves, while felix stood still, half dazed with the newness of these strange preparations. the king of fire, with his torch, set light to the pile. it blazed merrily on high. "i, fire, salute you," he cried, bending over it toward felix. "now cut up the body of lavita, the son of sami," he went on, turning toward it contemptuously. "i will cook it in my flame, that tu-kila-kila the great may eat of it." felix drew back with a face all aglow with horror and disgust. "don't touch that body!" he cried, authoritatively, putting his foot down firm. "leave it alone at once. i refuse to allow you." then he turned to m. peyron. "the king of the birds and i," he said, with calm resolve, "we two will bury it." the king of fire drew back at these strange words, nonplussed. this was, indeed, an ill-omened break in the ceremony of initiation of a new tu-kila-kila, to which he had never before in his life been accustomed. he hardly knew how to comport himself under such singular circumstances. it was as though the sovereign of england, on coronation-day, should refuse to be crowned, and intimate to the archbishop, in his full canonicals, a confirmed preference for the republican form of government. it was a contingency that law and custom in boupari had neither, in their wisdom, foreseen nor provided for. the king of water whispered low in the new god's ear. "you must eat of his body, my lord," he said. "that is absolutely necessary. every one of us must eat of the flesh of the god; but you, above all, must eat his heart, his divine nature. otherwise you can never be full tu-kila-kila." "i don't care a straw for that," felix cried, now aroused to a full sense of the break in methuselah's story and trembling with apprehension. "you may kill me if you like; we can die only once; but human flesh i can never taste; nor will i, while i live, allow you to touch this dead man's body. we will bury it ourselves, the king of the birds and i. you may tell your people so. that is my last word." he raised his voice to the customary ceremonial pitch. "i, the new tu-kila-kila," he said, "have spoken it." the king of fire and the king of water, taken aback at his boldness, conferred together for some seconds privately. the people meanwhile looked on and wondered. what could this strange hitch in the divine proceedings mean? was the god himself recalcitrant? never in their lives had the oldest men among them known anything like it. and as they whispered and debated, awe-struck but discordant, a shout arose once more from the outer circle--a mighty shout of mingled surprise, alarm, and terror. "taboo! taboo! fence the mysteries. beware! oh, great god, we warn you. the mysteries are in danger! cut her down! kill her! a woman! a woman!" at the words, felix was aware of somebody bursting through the dense crowd and rushing wildly toward him. next moment, muriel hung and sobbed on his shoulder, while mali, just behind her, stood crying and moaning. felix held the poor startled girl in his arms and soothed her. and all around another great cry arose from five hundred lips: "two women have profaned the mysteries of the god. they are tu-kila-kila's trespass-offering. let us kill them and eat them!" chapter xxx. suspense. in a moment, felix's mind was fully made up. there was no time to think; it was the hour for action. he saw how he must comport himself toward this strange wild people. seating muriel gently on the ground, mali beside her, and stepping forward himself, with peyron's hand in his, he beckoned to the vast and surging crowd to bespeak respectful silence. a mighty hush fell at once upon the people. the king of fire and the king of water stood back, obedient to his nod. they waited for the upshot of this strange new development. "men of boupari," felix began, speaking with a marvellous fluency in their own tongue, for the excitement itself supplied him with eloquence; "i have killed your late god in the prescribed way; i have plucked the sacred bough, and fought in single combat by the established rules of your own religion. fire and water, you guardians of this holy island, is it not so? you saw all things done, did you not, after the precepts of your ancestors?" the king of fire bowed low and answered: "tu-kila-kila speaks, indeed, the truth. water and i, with our own eyes, have seen it." "and now," felix went on, "i am myself, by your own laws, tu-kila-kila." the king of fire made a gesture of dissent. "oh, great god, pardon me," he murmured, "if i say aught, now, to contradict you; but you are not a full tu-kila-kila yet till you have eaten of the heart of the god, your predecessor." "then where is now the spirit of tu-kila-kila, the very high god, if i am not he?" felix asked, abruptly, thus puzzling them with a hard problem in their own savage theology. the king of fire gave a start, and pondered. this was a detail of his creed that had never before so much as occurred to him. all faiths have their _cruces_. "i do not well know," he answered, "whether it is in the heart of lavita, the son of sami, or in your own body. but i feel sure it must now be certainly somewhere, though just where our fathers have never told us." felix recognized at once that he had gained a point. "then look to it well," he said, austerely. "be careful how you act. do nothing rash. for either the soul of the god is in the heart of lavita, the son of sami; and then, since i refuse to eat it, it will decay away, as lavita's body decays, and the world will shrivel up, and all things will perish, because the god is dead and crumbled to dust forever. or else it is in my body, who am god in his place; and then, if anybody does me harm or hurt, he will be an impious wretch, and will have broken taboo, and heaven knows what evils and misfortunes may not, therefore, fall on each and all of you." a very old chief rose from the ranks outside. his hair was white and his eyes bleared. "tu-kila-kila speaks well," he cried, in a loud but mumbling voice. "his words are wise. he argues to the point. he is very cunning. i advise you, my people, to be careful how you anger the white-faced stranger, for you know what he is; he is cruel; he is powerful. there was never any storm in my time--and i am an old man--so great in boupari as the storm that rose when the king of the rain ate the storm-apple. our yams and our taros even now are suffering from it. he is a mighty strong god. beware how you tamper with him!" he sat down, trembling. a younger chief rose from a nearer rank, and said his say in turn. "i do not agree with our father," he cried, pointing to the chief who had just spoken. "his word is evil; he is much mistaken. i have another thought. my thought is this. let us kill and eat the white-faced stranger at once, by wager of battle; and let whosoever fights and overcomes him receive his honors, and take to wife the fair woman, the queen of the clouds, the sun-faced korong, whom he brought from the sun with him." "but who will then be tu-kila-kila?" felix asked, turning round upon him quickly. habituation to danger had made him unnaturally alert in such utmost extremities. "why, the man who slays you," the young chief answered, pointedly, grasping his heavy tomahawk with profound expression. "i think not," felix answered. "your reasoning is bad. for if i am not tu-kila-kila, how can any man become tu-kila-kila by killing me? and if i am tu-kila-kila, how dare you, not being yourself korong, and not having broken off the sacred bough, as i did, venture to attack me? you wish to set aside all the customs of boupari. are you not ashamed of such gross impiety?" "tu-kila-kila speaks well," the king of fire put in, for he had no cause to love the aggressive young chief, and he thought better of his chances in life as felix's minister. "besides, now i think of it, he _must_ be tu-kila-kila, because he has taken the life of the last great god, whom he slew with his hands; and therefore the life is now his--he holds it." felix was emboldened by this favorable opinion to strike out a fresh line in a further direction. he stood forward once more, and beckoned again for silence. "yes, my people," he said calmly, with slow articulation, "by the custom of your race and the creed you profess i am now indeed, and in every truth, the abode of your great god, tu-kila-kila. but, furthermore, i have a new revelation to make to you. i am going to instruct you in a fresh way. this creed that you hold is full of errors. as tu-kila-kila, i mean to take my own course, no islander hindering me. if you try to depose me, what great gods have you now got left? none, save only fire and water, my ministers. king of the rain there is none; for i, who was he, am now tu-kila-kila. tu-kila-kila there is none, save only me; for the other, that was, i have fought and conquered. the queen of the clouds is with me. the king of the birds is with me. consider, then, o friends, that if you kill us all, you will have nowhere to turn; you will be left quite godless." "it is true," the people murmured, looking about them, half puzzled. "he is wise. he speaks well. he is indeed a tu-kila-kila." felix pressed his advantage home at once. "now listen," he said, lifting up one solemn forefinger. "i come from a country very far away, where the customs are better by many yams than those of boupari. and now that i am indeed tu-kila-kila--your god, your master--i will change and alter some of your customs that seem to me here and now most undesirable. in the first place--hear this!--i will put down all cannibalism. no man shall eat of human flesh on pain of death. and to begin with, no man shall cook or eat the body of lavita, the son of sami. on that i am determined--i, tu-kila-kila. the king of the birds and i, we will dig a pit, and we will bury in it the corpse of this man that was once your god, and whom his own wickedness compelled me to fight and slay, in order to prevent more cruelty and bloodshed." the young chief stood up, all red in his wrath, and interrupted him, brandishing a coral-stone hatchet. "this is blasphemy," he said. "this is sheer rank blasphemy. these are not good words. they are very bad medicine. the white-faced korong is no true tu-kila-kila. his advice is evil--and ill-luck would follow it. he wishes to change the sacred customs of boupari. now, that is not well. my counsel is this: let us eat him now, unless he changes his heart, and amends his ways, and partakes, as is right, of the body of lavita, the son of sami." the assembly swayed visibly, this way and that, some inclining to the conservative view of the rash young chief, and others to the cautious liberalism of the gray-haired warrior. felix noted their division, and spoke once more, this time still more authoritatively than ever. "furthermore," he said, "my people, hear me. as i came in a ship propelled by fire over the high waves of the sea, so i go away in one. we watch for such a ship to pass by boupari. when it comes, the queen of the clouds--upon whose life i place a great taboo; let no man dare to touch her at his peril; if he does, i will rush upon him and kill him as i killed lavita, the son of sami. when it comes, the queen of the clouds, the king of the birds, and i, we will go away back in it to the land whence we came, and be quit of boupari. but we will not leave it fireless or godless. when i return back home again to my own far land, i will send out messengers, very good men, who will tell you of a god more powerful by much than any you ever knew, and very righteous. they will teach you great things you never dreamed of. therefore, i ask you now to disperse to your own homes, while the king of birds and i bury the body of lavita, the son of sami." all this time muriel had been seated on the ground, listening with profound interest, but scarcely understanding a word, though here and there, after her six months' stay in the island, a single phrase was dimly intelligible to her. but now, at this critical moment she rose, and, standing upright by felix's side in her spotless english purity among those assembled savages, she pointed just once with her uplifted finger to the calm vault of heaven, and then across the moonlit horizon of the sea, and last of all to the clustering huts and villages of boupari. "tell them," she said to felix, with blanched lips, but without one sign of a tremor in her fearless voice, "i will pray for them to heaven, when i go across the sea, and will think of the children that i loved to pat and play with, and will send out messengers from our home beyond the waves, to make them wiser and happier and better." felix translated her simple message to them in its pure womanly goodness. even the natives were touched. they whispered and hesitated. then after a time of much murmured debate, the king of fire stood forward as a mediator. "there is an oracle, o korong," he said, "not to prejudge the matter, which decides all these things--a great conch-shell at a sacred grove in the neighboring island of aloa mauna. it is the holiest oracle of all our holy religion. we gods and men of boupari have taken counsel together, and have come to a conclusion. we will put forth a canoe and send men with blood on their faces to inquire at aloa mauna of the very great oracle. till then, you are neither tu-kila-kila, nor not tu-kila-kila. it behooves us to be very careful how we deal with gods. our people will stand round your precinct in a row, and guard you with their spears. you shall not cross the taboo line to them, nor they to you: all shall be neutral. food shall be laid by the line, as always, morn, noon, and night; and your shadows shall take it in; but you shall not come out. neither shall you bury the body of lavita, the son of sami. till the canoe comes back it shall lie in the sun and rot there." he clapped his hands twice. in a moment a tom-tom began to beat from behind, and the people all crowded without the circle. the king of fire came forward ostentatiously and made taboo. "if, any man cross this line," he said in a droning sing-song, "till the canoe return from the great oracle of our faith on aloa mauna, i, fire, will scorch him into cinder and ashes. if any woman transgress, i will pitch her with palm oil, and light her up for a lamp on a moonless night to lighten this temple." the king of water distributed shark's-tooth spears. at once a great serried wall hemmed in the europeans all round, and they sat down to wait, the three whites together, for the upshot of the mission to aloa mauna. and the dawn now gleamed red on the eastern horizon. chapter xxxi. at sea: off boupari. thirteen days out from sydney, the good ship australasian was nearing the equator. it was four of the clock in the afternoon, and the captain (off duty) paced the deck, puffing a cigar, and talking idly with a passenger on former experiences. eight bells went on the quarter-deck; time to change watches. "this is only our second trip through this channel," the captain said, gazing across with a casual glance at the palm-trees that stood dark against the blue horizon. "we used to go a hundred miles to eastward, here, to avoid the reefs. but last voyage i came through this way quite safely--though we had a nasty accident on the road--unavoidable--unavoidable! big sea was running free over the sunken shoals; caught the ship aft unawares, and stove in better than half a dozen portholes. lady passenger on deck happened to be leaning over the weather gunwale; big sea caught her up on its crest in a jiffy, lifted her like a baby, and laid her down again gently, just so, on the bed of the ocean. by george, sir, i was annoyed. it was quite a romance, poor thing; quite a romance; we all felt so put out about it the rest of that voyage. young fellow on board, nephew of sir theodore thurstan, of the colonial office, was in love with miss ellis--girl's name was ellis--father's a parson somewhere down in somersetshire--and as soon as the big sea took her up on its crest, what does thurstan go and do, but he ups on the taffrail, and, before you could say jack robinson, jumps over to save her." "but he didn't succeed?" the passenger asked, with languid interest. "succeed, my dear sir? and with a sea running twelve feet high like that? why, it was pitch dark, and such a surf on that the gig could hardly go through it." the captain smiled, and puffed away pensively. "drowned," he said, after a brief pause, with complacent composure. "drowned. drowned. drowned. went to the bottom, both of 'em. davy jones's locker. but unavoidable, quite. these accidents _will_ happen, even on the best-regulated liners. why, there was my brother tom, in the cunard service--same that boast they never lost a passenger; there was my brother tom, he was out one day off the newfoundland banks, heavy swell setting in from the nor'-nor'-east, icebergs ahead, passengers battened down--bless my soul, how that light seems to come and go, don't it?" it was a reflected light, flashing from the island straight in the captain's eyes, small and insignificant as to size, but strong for all that in the full tropical sunshine, and glittering like a diamond from a vague elevation near the centre of the island. "seems to come and go in regular order," the passenger observed, reflectively, withdrawing his cigar. "looks for all the world just like naval signalling." the captain paused, and shaded his eyes a moment. "hanged if that isn't just what it _is_," he answered, slowly. "it's a rigged-up heliograph, and they're using the morse code; dash my eyes if they aren't. well, this _is_ civilization! what the dickens can have come to the island of boupari? there isn't a darned european soul in the place, nor ever has been. anchorage unsafe; no harbor; bad reef; too small for missionaries to make a living, and natives got nothing worth speaking of to trade in." "what do they say?" the passenger asked, with suddenly quickened interest. "how the devil should i tell you yet, sir?" the captain retorted with choleric grumpiness. "don't you see i'm spelling it out, letter by letter? o, r, e, s, c, u, e, u, s, c, o, m, e, w, e, l, l, a, r, m, e, d--yes. yes, i twig it." and the captain jotted it down in his note-book for some seconds, silently. "run up the flag there," he shouted, a moment later, rushing hastily forward. "stop her at once, walker. easy, easy. get ready the gig. well, upon my soul, there _is_ a rum start anyway." "what does the message say?" the passenger inquired, with intense surprise. "say? well, there's what i make it out," the captain answered, handing him the scrap of paper on which he had jotted down the letters. "i missed the beginning, but the end's all right. look alive there, boys, will you. bring out the winchester. take cutlasses, all hands. i'll go along myself in her." the passenger took the piece of paper on which he read, "and send a boat to rescue us. come well armed. savages on guard. thurstan, ellis." in less than three minutes the boat was lowered and manned, and the captain, with the winchester six-shooter by his side, seated grim in the stern, took command of the tiller. on the island it was the first day of felix and muriel's imprisonment in the dusty precinct of tu-kila-kila's temple. all the morning through, they had sat under the shade of a smaller banyan in the outer corner; for muriel could neither enter the noisome hut nor go near the great tree with the skeletons on its branches; nor could she sit where the dead savage's body, still festering in the sun, attracted the buzzing blue flies by thousands, to drink up the blood that lay thick on the earth in a pool around it. hard by, the natives sat, keen as lynxes, in a great circle just outside the white taboo-line, where, with serried spears, they kept watch and ward over the persons of their doubtful gods or victims. m. peyron, alone preserving his equanimity under these adverse circumstances, hummed low to himself in very dubious tones; even he felt his french gayety had somewhat forsaken him; this revolution in boupari failed to excite his parisian ardor. about one o'clock in the day, however, looking casually seaward--what was this that m. peyron, to his great surprise, descried far away on the dim southern horizon? a low black line, lying close to the water? no, no; not a steamer! too prudent to excite the natives' attention unnecessarily, the cautious frenchman whispered, in the most commonplace voice on earth to felix: "don't look at once; and when you do look, mind you don't exhibit any agitation in your tone or manner. but what do you make that out to be--that long black haze on the horizon to southward?" felix looked, disregarding the friendly injunction, at once. at the same moment, muriel turned her eyes quickly in the self-same direction. neither made the faintest sign of outer emotion; but muriel clenched her white hands hard, till the nails dug into the palm, in her effort to restrain herself, as she murmured very low, in an agitated voice, "_un vapeur, un vapeur_!" "so i think," m. peyron answered, very low and calm. "it is, indeed, a steamer!" for three long hours those anxious souls waited and watched it draw nearer and nearer. slowly the natives, too, began to perceive the unaccustomed object. as it drew abreast of the island, and the decisive moment arrived for prompt action, felix rose in his place once more and cried aloud, "my people, i told you a ship, propelled by fire, would come from the far land across the sea to take us. the ship has come; you can see for yourselves the thick black smoke that issues in huge puffs from the mouth of the monster. now, listen to me, and dare not to disobey me. my word is law; let all men see to it. i am going to send a message of fire from the sun to the great canoe that walks upon the water. if any man ventures to stop me from doing it the people from the great canoe will land on this isle and take vengeance for his act, and kill with the thunder which the sailing gods carry ever about with them." by this time the island was alive with commotion. hundreds of natives, with their long hair falling unkempt about their keen brown faces, were gazing with open eyes at the big black ship that ploughed her way so fast against wind and tide over the surface of the waters. some of them shouted and gesticulated with panic fear; others seemed half inclined to waste no time on preparation or doubt, but to rush on at once, and immolate their captives before a rescue was possible. but felix, keeping ever his cool head undisturbed, stood on the dusty mound by tu-kila-kila's house, and taking in his hand the little mirror he had made from the match-box, flashed the light from the sun full in their eyes for a moment, to the astonishment and discomfiture of all those gaping savages. then he focussed it on the australasian, across the surf and the waves, and with a throbbing heart began to make his last faint bid for life and freedom. for four or five minutes he went flashing on, uncertain of the effect, whether they saw or saw not. then a cry from muriel burst at once upon his ears. she clasped her hands convulsively in an agony of joy. "they see us! they see us!" and sure enough, scarcely half a minute later, a british flag ran gayly up the mainmast, and a boat seemed to drop down over the side of the vessel. as for the natives, they watched these proceedings with considerable surprise and no little discomfiture--fire and water, in particular, whispering together, much alarmed, with many superstitious nods and taboos, in the corner of the enclosure. gradually, as the boat drew nearer and nearer, divided counsels prevailed among the savages. with no certainly recognized tu-kila-kila to marshal their movements, each man stood in doubt from whom to take his orders. at last, the king of fire, in a hesitating voice, gave the word of command. "half the warriors to the shore to repel the enemy; half to watch round the taboo-line, lest the korongs escape us! let breathless fear, our war-god, go before the face of our troops, invisible!" and, quick as thought, at his word, the warriors had paired off, two and two, in long lines; some running hastily down to the beach, to man the war-canoes, while others remained, with shark's tooth spears still set in a looser circle, round the great temple-enclosure of tu-kila-kila. for muriel, this suspense was positively terrible. to feel one was so close to the hope of rescue, and yet to know that before that help arrived, or even as it came up, those savages might any moment run their ghastly spears through them. but felix made the best of his position still. "remember," he cried, at the top of his voice, as the warriors started at a run for the water's edge, "your tu-kila-kila tells you, these new-comers are his friends. whoever hurts them, does so at his peril. this is a great taboo. i bid you receive them. beware for your lives. i, tu-kila-kila the great, have said it." chapter xxxii. the downfall of a pantheon. the australasian's gig entered the lagoon through the fringing reef by its narrow seaward mouth, and rowed steadily for the landing place on the main island. a little way out from shore, amid loud screams and yells, the natives came up with it in their laden war-canoes. shouting and gesticulating and brandishing their spears with the shark's tooth tips, they endeavored to stop its progress landward by pure noise and bravado. "we must be careful what we do, boys," the captain observed, in a quiet voice of seamanlike resolution to his armed companions. "we mustn't frighten the savages too much, or show too hostile a front, for fear they should retaliate on our friends on the island." he held up his hand, with the gold braid on the wrist, to command silence; and the natives, gazing open-mouthed, looked and wondered at the gesture. these sailing gods were certainly arrayed in most gorgeous vestments, and their canoe, though devoid of a grinning figure-head, was provided with a most admirable and well-uniformed equipment. a coral rock jutted high out of the sea to the left hard by. its summit was crowded with a basking population of sea-gulls and pelicans. the captain gave the word to "easy all." in a second the gig stopped short, as those stout arms held her. he rose in his place and lifted the six-shooter. then he pointed it ostentatiously at the rock, away from the native canoes, and held up his hand yet again for silence. "we'll give 'em a taste of what we can do, boys," he said, "just to show 'em, not to hurt 'em." at that he drew the trigger twice. his first two chambers were loaded on purpose with duck-shot cartridges. twice the big gun roared; twice the fire flashed red from its smoking mouth. as the smoke cleared away, the natives, dumb with surprise, and perfectly cowed with terror, saw ten or a dozen torn and bleeding birds float mangled upon the water. "now for the dynamite!" the captain said, cheerily, proceeding to lower a small object overboard by a single wire, while he held up his hand a third time to bespeak silence and attention. the natives looked again, with eyes starting from their heads. the captain gave a little click, and pointed with his finger to a spot on the water's top, a little way in front of him. instantly, a loud report, and a column of water spurted up into the air, some ten or twelve feet, in a boisterous fountain. as it subsided again, a hundred or so of the bright-colored fish that browse among the submerged, coral-groves of these still lagoons, rose dead or dying to the seething, boiling surface. the captain smiled. instantly the natives set up a terrified shout. "it is even as he said," they cried. "these gods are his ministers! the white-faced korong is a very great deity! he is indeed the true tu-kila-kila. these gods have come for him. they are very mighty. thunder and lightning and waterspouts are theirs. the waves do as they bid. the sea obeys them. they are here to take away our tu-kila-kila from our midst. and what will then become of the island of boupari? will it not sink in the waves of the sea and disappear? will not the sun in heaven grow dark, and the moon cease to shed its benign light on the earth, when tu-kila-kila the great returns at last to his own far country?" "that lot'll do for 'em, i expect," the captain said cheerily, with a confident smile. "now forward all, boys. i fancy we've astonished the natives a trifle." they rowed on steadily, but cautiously, toward the white bank of sand which formed the usual landing-place, the captain holding the six-shooter in readiness all the time, and keeping an eye firmly fixed on every movement of the savages. but the warriors in the canoes, thoroughly cowed and overawed by this singular exhibition of the strangers' prowess, paddled on in whispering silence, nearly abreast of the gig, but at a safe distance, as they thought, and eyed the advancing europeans with quiet looks of unmixed suspicion. at last, the adventurous young chief, who had advised killing felix off-hand on the island, mustered up courage to paddle his own canoe a little nearer, and flung his spear madly in the direction of the gig. it fell short by ten yards. he stood eying it angrily. but the captain, grimly quiet, raising his winchester to his shoulder without one second's delay, and marking his man, fired at the young chief as he stood, still half in the attitude of throwing, on the prow of his canoe, an easy aim for fire-arms. the ball went clean through the savage's breast, and then ricochetted three times on the water afar off. the young chief fell stone dead into the sea like a log, and sank instantly to the bottom. it was a critical moment. the captain felt uncertain whether the natives would close round them in force or not. it is always dangerous to fire a shot at savages. but the boupari men were too utterly awed to venture on defence. "he was tu-kila-kila's enemy," they cried, in astonished tones. "he raised his voice against the very high god. therefore, the very high god's friends have smitten him with their lightning. their thunderbolt went through him, and hit the water beyond. how strong is their hand! they can kill from afar. they are mighty gods. let no man strive to fight against the friends of tu-kila-kila." the sailors rowed on and reached the landing-place. there, half of them, headed by the captain, disembarked in good order, with drawn cutlasses, while the other half remained behind to guard the gig, under the third officer. the natives also disembarked, a little way off, and, making humble signs of submission with knee and arm, endeavored, by pantomime, to express the idea of their willingness to guide the strangers to their friends' quarters. the captain waved them on with his hand. the natives, reassured, led the way, at some distance ahead, along the paths through the jungle. the captain had his finger on his six-shooter the while; every sailor grasped his cutlass and kept his revolver ready for action. "i don't half like the look of it," the captain observed, partly to himself. "they seem to be leading us into an ambuscade or something. keep a sharp lookout against surprise from the jungle, boys; and if any native shows fight shoot him down instantly." at last they emerged upon a clear space in the front, where a great group of savages stood in a circle, with serried spears, round a large wattled hut that occupied the elevated centre of the clearing. for a minute or two the action of the savages was uncertain. half of the defenders turned round to face the invaders angrily; the other half stood irresolute, with their spears still held inward, guarding a white line of sand with inflexible devotion. the warriors who had preceded them from the shore called aloud to their friends by the temple in startled tones. the captain and sailors had no idea what their words meant. but just then, from the midst of the circle, an english voice cried out in haste, "don't fire! do nothing rash! we're safe. don't be frightened. the natives are disposed to parley and palaver. take care how you act. they're terribly afraid of you." just outside the taboo-line the captain halted. the gray-headed old chief, who had accompanied his fellows to the shore, spoke out in polynesian. "do not resist them," he said, "my people. if you do, you will be blasted by their lightning like a bare bamboo in a mighty cyclone. they carry thunder in their hands. they are mighty, mighty gods. the white-faced korong spoke no more than the truth. let them do as they will with us. we are but their meat. we are as dust beneath their sole, and as driven mulberry-leaves before the breath of the tempest." the defenders hesitated still a little. then, suddenly losing heart, they broke rank at last at a point close by where the captain of the australasian stood, one man after another falling aside slowly and shamefacedly a pace or two. the captain, unhesitatingly, overstepped the white taboo-line. next instant, felix and muriel were grasping his hand hard, and m. peyron was bowing a polite parisian reception. forthwith, the sailors crowded round them in a hollow square. muriel and felix, half faint with relief from their long and anxious suspense, staggered slowly down the seaward path between them. but there was no need now for further show of defence. the islanders, pressing near and flinging away their weapons, followed the procession close, with tears and lamentations. as they went on, the women, rushing out of their huts while the fugitives passed, tore their hair on their heads, and beat their breasts in terror. the warriors who had come from the shore recounted, with their own exaggerative additions, the miracle of the six-shooter and the dynamite cartridge. gradually they approached the landing-place on the beach. there the third officer sat waiting in the gig to receive them. the lamentations of the islanders now became positively poignant. "oh, my father," they cried aloud, "my brother, my revered one, you are indeed the true tu-kila-kila. do not go away like this and desert us! oh, our mother, great queen, mighty goddess, stop with us! take not away your sun from the heavens, nor your rain from the crops. we acknowledge we have sinned; we have done very wrong; but the chief sinner is dead; the wrong-doer has paid; spare us who remain; spare us, great deity; do not make the bright lights of heaven become dark over us. stay with your worshippers, and we will give you choice young girls to eat every day, we will sacrifice the tenderest of our children to feed you." it is an awful thing for any race or nation when its taboos fail all at once, and die out entirely. to the men of boupari, the tu-kila-kila of the moment represented both the moral order and the regular sequence of the physical universe. anarchy and chaos might rule when he was gone. the sun might be quenched, and the people run riot. no wonder they shrank from the fearful consequence that might next ensue. king and priest, god and religion, all at one fell blow were to be taken away from them! felix turned round on the shore and spoke to them again. "my people," he said, in a kindly tone--for, after all, he pitied them--"you need have no fear. when i am gone, the sun will still shine and the trees will still bear fruit every year as formerly. i will send the messengers i promised from my own land to teach you. until they come, i leave you this as a great taboo. tu-kila-kila enjoins it. shed no human blood; eat no human flesh. those who do will be punished when another fire-canoe comes from the far land to bring my messengers." the king of fire bent low at the words. "oh, tu-kila-kila," he said, "it shall be done as you say. till your messengers come, every man shall live at peace with all his neighbors." they stepped into the gig. mali and toko followed before m. peyron as naturally as they had always followed their masters on the island before. "who are these?" the captain asked, smiling. "our shadows," felix answered. "let them come. i will pay their passage when i reach san francisco. they have been very faithful to us, and they are afraid to remain, lest the islanders should kill them for letting us go or for not accompanying us." "very well," the captain answered. "forward all, there, boys! now, ahead for the ship. and thank god, we're well out of it!" but the islanders still stood on the shore and wept, stretching their hands in vain after the departing boat, and crying aloud in piteous tones, "oh, my father, return! oh, my mother, come back! oh, very great gods, do not fly and desert us!" seven weeks later mr. and mrs. felix thurstan, who had been married in the cathedral at honolulu the very morning the australasian arrived there, sat in an eminently respectable drawing-room in a london square, where mrs. ellis, muriel's aunt by marriage, was acting as their hostess. "but how dreadful it is to think, dear," mrs. ellis remarked for the twentieth time since their arrival, with a deep-drawn sigh, "how dreadful to think that you and felix should have been all those months alone on the island together without being married!" muriel looked up with a quiet smile toward felix. "i think, aunt mary," she said, dreamily, "if you'd been there yourself, and suffered all those fears, and passed through all those horrors that we did together, you'd have troubled your head very little indeed about such conventionalities, as whether or not you happened to be married.... besides," she added, after a pause, with a fine perception of the inexorable stringency of mrs. grundy's law, "we weren't quite without chaperons, either, don't you know; for our shadows, of course, were always with us." whereat felix smiled an equally quiet smile. "and terrible as it all was," he put in, "i shall never regret it, because it made muriel know how profoundly i loved her, and it made me know how brave and trustful and pure a woman could be under such awful conditions." but mrs. ellis sat still in her chair and smiled uncomfortably. it affected her spirits. taboos, after all, are much the same in england as in boupari. http://www.archive.org/details/losgringosorinsi wiseiala +--------------------------------------------------+ |transcriber's note: | | | |obvious typographical errors have been correctetd | +--------------------------------------------------+ los gringos: or, an inside view of mexico and california, with wanderings in peru, chili, and polynesia. by lieut. wise, u.s.n. new york: baker and scribner, nassau street and park row. . entered according to act of congress in the year , by baker and scribner, in the clerk's office of the district court of the united states for the southern district of new york. printed by c. w. benedict, william street. preface. the title--_los gringos_--with which this volume has been christened, is the epithet--and rather a reproachful one--used in california and mexico to designate the descendants of the anglo-saxon race; the definition of the word is somewhat similar to that of greenhorns, in modern _parlance_, or mohawks in the days of the spectator. although many of the scenes were passed in those countries, yet the narrative takes a wider range, and embraces portions of the south american continent in brazil, chili, and peru,--together with visits to some of the groups of the pacific at the sandwich, marquesas and society islands. the sketches embodied in the narrative were all written on the field of their occurrence: the characters incidentally mentioned are frequently _noms de mer_. it is not expected by the author that even the most charitable reader will wholly overlook the careless style and framing of the work, or allow it to pass without censure; nor has it been his object to deal in statistics, or any abstract reflections, but merely to compile a pleasant narrative, such as may perchance please or interest the generality of readers; and in launching the volume on its natural element--the sea of public opinion--the author only indulges in the aspiration--whether the reader be gentle or ungentle--whether the book be praised or condemned--that at least the philanthropy of the publishers may be remunerated, wherein lies all the law and the profits. new york, _october, _. contents. chapter i. page we sail from boston, and how we felt.--cure for sea-sickness.--delights of the ocean.--crossing the equator.--what the mess was composed of.--we become reconciled to our fate.--pass cape frio, and have no inclination to bivouac on the rocks. chapter ii. rio janeiro, and what is to be seen there.--life in the city.--diamonds and levites.--police.--cookery and currency.--the omnibus jehu to boto fogo. chapter iii. gloria hill.--il cateto.--architecture.--visit from a scorpion, and the habits of other reptiles.--the opera.--the emperor and court.--the brazilians think of carrying the war into africa. chapter iv. we leave rio, and march towards the horn.--man overboard and drowned.--la plata.--we take an albatross.--terra del fuego.--pitch of the cape.--a marine dies.--how the yankee corvette doubled cape horn.--what we did for pastime.--dr. faustus.--the island of chiloe. chapter v. valparaiso.--bell of quillota and tupongati.--where and how the town is built.--birlochea.--shops.--the terraces.--el almendral.--carmencita.--creole ladies.--tertulias.--the samacuéca.--climate.--dust.--the donçella who caught a flea, and how she did it.--general bulnes.--army.--government and resources.--true elements of happiness. chapter vi. weigh anchor, with some trouble and broken bones.--bid adieu to pleasures of the shore.--islands of st. ambrose and felix.--we lose some shipmates.--alta california.--monterey. chapter vii. summary of events preceding our arrival.--difficulties between fremont and castro.--operations of naval forces.--skirmish at san pascual.--battles of san gabriel and la mesa.--the volunteers disbanded. chapter viii. town of monterey.--our first impressions.--days of barricades.--sentinels.--the rocky-mountain men.--keg of whiskey, and the use it was put to.--the trapper's little anecdote concerning old ginger and the indians. chapter ix. treaty of los angeles.--the lady that had a strange taste in jewelry.--the disregard of soap in those countries.--visit to an extensive establishment.--the doña herself, with her small family and prospects. chapter x. mission of carmelo.--tramp in the mountains.--wolves and venison.--we become bewildered, but encounter a guide.--boudoirs for damsels.--the fandango.--how the gentlemen amused themselves.--we take to hunting for pastime.--climate.--juaquinito and his mama.--plains of salinas.--bill anderson, his windmill and history.--wild geese.--native entertainment. chapter xi. maritime alps of california.--entrance to bay of san francisco.--yerbabuena.--society.--pranks on horses.--saddles.--new york regiment.--the cannibal emigrants, and the dutchman's appetite; with baptiste's remarks thereon.--perils of emigration. chapter xii. sousoulito.--the belle of california.--the bears of the same, who chase us.--angel island.--deer and elk shooting. chapter xiii. monterey again.--the pioneer newspaper, with the editor, dr. semple.--we sail for the mexican coast.--island of guadalupe.--peninsular of lower california.--jesuits.--trade.--ports and resources.--we blockade mazatlan.--reconnoissance, and the ballet that ensued.--yankee bombs.--the ladies deceive us.--the chased diana. chapter xiv. cruise of the rosita.--anchorage of venados.--the oyster-boat.--we received a hostage in doctor barret, and learn his misfortunes.--change of position.--we take a prize, and afterwards nearly taken for another.--set fire to the dried grass.--a false alarm.--the fish that broke pat's nose.--our supper and attendants.--the commodore orders us home. chapter xv. period of the blockade of mazatlan.--the commandante, telles; his habits and hospitalities.--the frigate takes her departure.--the shark.--anchor in monterey the third time. chapter xvi. dispatches and equipments.--californian gamesters.--the vacuero.--don herman.--the youthful mother and her gay deceiver.--we sup on eggs.--murphy's rancho.--pretty ellen.--picturesque location.--puebla.--santa clara.--priests and indians.--ladies drying beef.--reach yerbabuena. chapter xvii. sail up the bay.--embarcadera of san josé.--we sleep at a rancho.--don ignacio proves to be a scamp.--puebla.--architecture and agriculture.--mission of santa clara.--the cannonier.--the padres.--the dandies.--we attend mass.--"the forwardest gall of the mission."--bear hunt with dan murphy.--rustic politeness.--mission of san juan.--the gascon.--crescencia is taken with fits.--empirical practice.--get back to monterey. chapter xviii. san francisco once more.--head waters.--bay of san pablo.--village of sinoma. vallejo.--captain swayback.--hunting.--we kill an antelope.--straits of carquinez.--city of benecia.--mares island.--tulares valley. chapter xix. california becomes tranquil, and the columbus sails for home.--sailors drilled on shore.--we return to monterey.--town increasing.--the reverend alcalde, and how he collected treasure.--indians hung.--diet and games of the same.--merendas. chapter xx. final adieu to monterey.--reach cape san blas, and san josé.--we visit alcaldes, and how they passed their leisure.--our first search for the enemy.--when we are offered a baby, but decline.--watering ship, and other pleasantries.--a small garrison landed to occupy san josé. chapter xxi. demonstrations before mazatlan.--summons to surrender.--we land sailor troops, and occupy the town.--positions and selections for defence.--land ordnance.--ayuntamientos.--mexican morality.--piety of the people.--climate and diseases. chapter xxii. burning launches.--skirmishing.--a reefer's idea of bullets.--the retreat.--we lose the road, and are scared.--affair at urias.--ambuscade.--escaramuza. flight.--burial of the slain.--we are presented with a black charger, and return to the port. chapter xxiii. duties of a garrison.--the garita.--we make a night march, and surprise ligueras.--the killed.--lady with them.--our trophies.--the commandante's wife.--is the innocent cause of murdering a horse.--false alarm.--another night skirmish; when the guide gets a bullet through his head, and is cursed by his family. chapter xxiv. how they marry in mazatlan.--fights with cuchillos.--the man who is divested of part of his scalp and ear.--cures effected--flying trip to urias.--where we take general urrea's orderly.--who is afterwards set free. chapter xxv. mexican troop pronounce against their leaders.--we become poverty stricken.--lancers attempt to run the gauntlet, and carry away some buckshot.--description of the casa blanca, and how we behaved.--madre maria and pretty juana.--the elite of the town, who praise us for not beating our wives. chapter xxvi. dolores and her lover; who is wounded; and who is a coward.--lola dies and is buried. chapter xxvii. el tigre del norte.--mr. bill foley.--sociedads.--circus.--monté.--golden toad.--carnival.--intercourse with foreign society.--hauson and the hern hutter. don guillermo.--while moralising one night we are nearly impaled.--our little housekeeper.--pita.--fandango de la tripa.--where a lepero abstracts our sword and pistols. chapter xxviii. news of the peace.--the outsiders become complimentary, and pay a visit to madre maria.--with the mounted patrol and captain luigi we ride to venadillo, and disturb the slumbers of señor valverde, who, with some hesitation, returns with us to the port, being the last prisoner of the war.--a man deserts, and we go to the presidio for him.--general anaya and officers.--commissioners meet and depart in dudgeon. chapter xxix. siege of san josé.--defences of garrison.--the summons and parley.--the storming party.--mijares killed with his forlorn hope.--the brave whalemen.--ambuscade and prisoners.--the guerrillas begin the second siege.--death of m'lenahan.--the garrison beleaguered.--arrival of the cyane.--battle and relief. chapter xxx. we begin a journey to the city of mexico.--disembark at san blas.--ride to tepic.--cotton mills of barron, forbes & co.--volcanic masses.--aquacatlan.--the red-hot patriot.--wake of don pancho.--plan de barrancas.--the piece of ordnance.--muchatilti.--madelena.--how horses are hired in the republic.--race with banditti. chapter xxxi. guadalajara.--señor llamas.--the lovely señora.--plaza and beauty.--the great bridge.--old cypriano's superstition regarding horses' souls.--tepetitlan.--puéblos del rincon.--the drowsy commandante.--city of leon.--knife duel.--mexican mesons, and the society therein.--illumination and supper.--we take coach and reach guanajuato.--the english mint and machinery.--gaming.--scenic views.--pat is a deserter.--don pancho.--escape from los compadres. chapter xxxii. querétaro.--aqueduct.--night ride by post.--the united states escort.--city of mexico.--we are refused a drive.--cathedral.--palace.--plaza.--museum.--sacrificial stone.--manners and customs in the hells of montezuma.--chapultepec.--the deep spring where we bathed.--moleno del rey.--paseo. chapter xxxiii. bureau of postes.--depart from the aztec capital.--exemptions of government extraordinarios.--livery stable woman at tepetitlan.--invited to a country seat, and dine with ladies.--we are afterwards kicked by a horse, but continue the journey.--american deserters.--encounter ladrons, and present our passport.--somebody killed by mistake.--excitement in querétaro.--traitors of san patricio.--official visits.--the dignitaries of the republic.--breakfast with a brilliant colonel.--the alemeda.--we run a joust.--treaty signed. chapter xxxiv. señor rosa forgets our escort, and we are scared and nearly coach-wrecked.--mine of la luz.--pass through guanajuato to lagos.--a pronunciamento.--padre jarauta, who treats us with contempt, and afterwards wishes to make an _ejemplo_.--we bid a hasty farewell.--an ambulating pulperia.--san juan de lagos.--arrieros.--puente calderon.--bathing in the rio grande.--the rayo. chapter xxxv. bull-fight at guadalajara.--what fools the beasts are, and what brutes the men are.--la comedia.--antique guide.--execution of robbers.--tequilla.--patron of the meson and his daughters.--endurance of mexican soldiers.--adaptability of western provinces for military operations.--la nubarrada.--horse jockeying.--we are made unhappy.--bathing in tepic.--rio grande and santiago.--shower of water melons.--rio san pedro.--rosa morada.--acaponeta.--high mass.--tierra caliente, and old tomas, the poet.--we return to mazatlan. chapter xxxvi. don guillermo and señor molinero.--the olas altas, and the gay scenes there enacted.--thieves and leperos.--how to learn castilian.--evacuation of mazatlan by the u. s. forces. chapter xxxvii. sailing of the squadron.--cross the gulf, and arrive in la paz.--appearance of vegetation.--how we amused ourselves.--fandangos.--ball on shipboard.--marine pic nic.--the carrera.--the uncivil vacuero and his rude cattle.--the chowder party.--perils and pearl fishing.--hunting.--game in lower california.--the cove of san antonio, and escape from boatwreck. chapter xxxviii. what the u. s. government did to induce the natives to lake up arms.--the volunteer who shot his wife.--little sam patch.--flying visit to mazatlan, and last farewell. chapter xxxix. we leave mexico.--go to the sandwich islands, and anchor in byron's bay, or hilo.--natives.--scenery.--constables.--meeting house.--dialect.--sermon.--we depart for the interior.--half-way house.--society there, and how they cook turkeys.--volcano of kilauea.--frozen sea of lava.--the great crater.--sulphur banks.--return to hilo. chapter xl. hilo.--education.--fondness for liquor.--favorite dish of roasted dog, and process of fattening them.--water nymphs.--rainbow falls.--the wailuku.--the three-decker.--mauna kea and mauna loa. chapter xli. paipolo passage.--maui.--lahaina.--cocoanut tree, and its uses.--the governor, james young.--his fortress.--surf-swimming by girls, who gave us lessons. chapter xlii. high school of lahainaluna for boys.--other institutions for girls.--character of hawaiians.--their crimes and vices.--board of presbyterian missions.--exaggerations upon moral condition of the natives.--expulsion of catholics. chapter xliii. oahu.--honolulu.--rides and drives in vicinity.--society.--the pali up the nuana.--saturnalia of kanakas.--rage for horses.--straw hamlets.--and life within them. chapter xliv. king kammehamma, or the lonely one.--ministers.--presentation at court.--furniture of the palace.--approach of royalty.--speeches.--costumes.--princes of the blood royal, who patronise us.--and what became of moses. chapter xlv. we sail from sandwich islands.--the tar of all weathers.--weather.--currents and passage to marquesas. chapter xlvi. nukeheva.--bay of anna maria.--style of head-dress in vogue.--tattooing, and other ornaments.--french garrison.--physical characteristics of these savages.--bathing.--king's residence, where we beheld a nobleman drunk with arva. chapter xlvii. visit to a distinguished chief.--his house and attendants.--babies swimming.--making fire with sticks.--an ancestor embalmed.--catholics.--vagabonds and deserters.--whaling interests. chapter xlviii. sail from marquesas--for society group.--tahiti.--port of papeetee.--the reef.--shores and batteries.--missionaries.--melville. chapter xlix. brown road.--semi-civilization.--excursion to pomàrce country house at papoa.--the queen and her hen-coop habitation.--school.--fondness for flowers.--native dinner.--jack the head waiter.--finger glasses.--we sleep in the palace, and are serenaded.--visit from a tahitian noble, and how he conducted himself.--coral groves in the harbor.--islet of motunata. chapter l. trip to the mountains.--teina.--ferry-boat, by toanni.--lofty cascade, fortress of faatoar.--losses by the french.--the diadem.--we spread a banquet, and the ladies have an appetite.--soirée by french governor.--departure. chapter li. leave polynesia.--accident to topmen.--the great pacific.--old harry greenfield's yarn.--the royal bengal tiger, who had a difficulty with the cook. chapter lii. callao.--appearance of the place.--the citadel.--rodil.--road to lima.--and what may be seen in the city.--rimac.--public edifices.--san domingo. chapter liii. the clergy mingling in every-day panoramas.--vespers.--promenades.--bull fights.--berlinas.--sayas y mantas, and speculations upon uses and abuses.--youthful lumps of gold, and attachment to their uncles. chapter liv. cathedral.--viceroy's palace.--plaza.--general castilla.--museum.--antiquities.--portraits of pizarro.--opera.--the scene not in the play. chapter lv. valparaiso again.--el dorado.--rides.--the yorkshire dame at the post house.--pic-nics.--our lovely country-women.--the terraces.--monte allegro. chapter lvi. homeward bound, and the cruise is over. chapter i. it was on the last day of summer, , that a large vessel of war lay in the stream of boston harbor; presently a dirty little steam tug, all bone and muscle, came burroughing alongside. the boatswain and his mates whistled with their silver pipes, like canary birds, and the cry went forth, to heave up the anchor. soon the ponderous grapnell was loosened from its hold, and our pigmy companion clasping the huge hull in his hempen arms, bore us away towards the ocean; by and by, the unbleached canvas fell in gloomy clouds from the wide-spread spars--the sails swelled to the breeze--friends were tumbling over the side--light jokes were made--hats waved--cheers given, whether from the heart, or not, was a problem, and then there came a short interval in the hoarse roar of steam, as the pigmy's fastenings splashed in the water--then all was silent; and the stately ship, dashing the salt tears from her eyes, turned her prow, in sadness, from her native land. there were many, no doubt, of those six hundred souls on board, who leaving home with the sweet endearments of domestic life fresh upon them, were looking forward with blanched cheeks and saddened hearts, to years of distant wanderings. and there were others, too, equally indifferent, and regardless of the future-- "with one foot on land, and one on sea, --to one thing constant never," who, perhaps, never had a home--tired of the shore--were eager for change or excitement; but i question much, if there was one on board, of all those beating hearts, who did not anticipate a safe and joyful return. alas! how many of these fragile aspirations were never realized. numbers found a liquid tomb beneath the dark blue waves, or died a sailor's death in foreign climes, far away from friends and kindred, or returned with broken constitutions, and wasted frames, enfeebled by disease, to linger out a miserable existence on the native land they still loved so well. a fortnight we sailed moderately and pleasantly in a race with the sun towards the equator. the pole star slowly but surely declined in the north; faces began to assume a more cheerful aspect; we became reconciled to our fate; to banish those hateful things called reminiscences, which, even though pleasant, only make us regret them the more, when gone forever. thus we entered the tropic, and then lay lunging and plunging in the doldrums--clouds dead and stupid, with the sun making all manner of gay transparencies, at the rising, and most particularly at the setting thereof. then came another week of _una furiosa calma_--a furious calm, as the spaniards have it--bobbing about in undulating billows, and the tough canvass beating and chafing in futile anger. it was thus we learned, those of us who had not made the discovery before, what a really animal existence one leads on shipboard; a sort of dozing nonentity, only agreeable to those who have no imaginative organizations desirous of more extended sphere of action. it does passibly well to eat and sleep away life--that is, presuming the dinners be hot and eatable, and nights cool and sleepable--in smooth seas, and under mild suns; but when the winds are piping loud and cold, the vessel diving and leaping at every possible angle of the compass, with the stomachs of the mariners occasionally pitched into their heads, as if they were dromedaries, with several internal receptacles apiece, devised purposely to withstand the thumps and concussions of salt water; when the ship is performing these sub-marine and aerial evolutions i take it, as a reasonable being, there can be found a stray nook or two, on hard ground, far more comfortable and habitable. and by way of parenthesis, i beg leave to recommend to any and all unfortunate persons given to aquatic recreation, and troubled with the disease whilom called sea-sickness, to divest the mind and body of care and clothing, tumble into a swinging cot, and on the verge of starvation sip sparingly of weak brandy and water, nibble a biscuit, and a well-roasted potato. i made this important discovery after being a sufferer ten years, and pledge a reputation upon the strength of that martyrdom, of its infallible virtues. indeed, there are but two kinds of sailing at all bearable. i allude, of course, to those who take to it _con amore_, and are not compelled to crowd all dimity to weather a lee shore and the almshouse; one where the glorious trade wind fills the bellying canvas, and the vessel slips quietly and swiftly along with the gentlest possible careening; without hauling and pulling of cordage, nor heavy seas, nor heavy rains, but the light, fleecy clouds flying gracefully overhead, the waves blue and yielding, the watch dozing lazily in the shade, and the decks clean and tidy--it is a pretty sight, to see a noble ship properly manoeuvred, come swiftly up to tie wind, the sails laid rapidly aback, with lower canvas brailed up in graceful festoons, and the buoyant hull rising and falling on the gentle swell, like the courtesies of cerito or ellsler in sir roger de coverley, with all the drapery of dimity fluttering around them. then, again, in that blue sea of seas, the mediterranean, where more than half the year one may sail over level water, with none of the ocean swell, with delightful breezes only strong enough to fan the light and lofty sails to sleep, the shores of italy or spain lifting their green-clad hills along the beam, or the ever varying islands of the grecian archipelago coming and going, as you dart rapidly through their straits. ah! in those times, and in those seas, ships are possibly endurable, but of all monotonies, that of shipboard is the dullest, most wearisome and detestable. week after week passed away, one day like another, nothing to chronicle save the birth of a sailor's pet in the shape of a tiny goat--taking a shark--the usual pious sunday homily, and on a certain occasion one jem brooks, whose residence, in company with other cherubs, was somewhere aloft in the main-top, whilst in the act of dropping a boat into the ocean, some mishap attended the descent, and he dropped overboard himself, thereby cracking the small bone of his leg, with a few other trifling abrasions of skin and flesh. iron life buoys that no one as yet ever did comprehend the mechanism of, always fizzing off the port-fires in broad day, and enshrouding themselves in utter darkness at night when only needed, were instantly sent after the aforesaid jem brooks, who imbued with the wit and tenacity of his species in extremis, seized one of them, and in a short space returned pleasantly on board. this was all that served to enliven our stupid existence. the winds coquetted with all the perverseness of a spoiled beauty, at times blowing provokingly steady, then we went reeling over the seas, with piercingly blue skies above us, and all reconcileable elements to our journeyings, excepting the breeze ever blowing so pertinaciously in the wrong direction; at others we managed to cheat eolus out of a puff, and steal a march upon him, right into his breezy eyes, but then again he gave a wink, distended his huge cheeks, and blew us far away to leeward. it was truly trying to the nerves to be crying patience continually, when there was no appeal--we could not exclaim with dryden: "the passage yet was good; the wind 'tis true was somewhat high; but that was nothing new, no more than usual equinoxes blew." there was naught new nor usual about it, wind and weather were a mass of inconsistency; a few more revolutions of the sun, and we should have found ourselves stranded in the dahomey territory, or other equally delightful regions, bordering on the bight of benin, in africa; even the good old captain of marines began to look worried and anxious, paid nightly visits to the sailing master, and with the most earnest and imploring tone, would ask--"well, master! how _does_ she head?" as if he reposed full trust in his sagacity, and for god's sake to ease his mind, and let him hear the worst at once. surgeons, pursers and secretaries, went off their feed, and from being rather over sanguine at times, burst forth with lamentable wailings in the poignancy of their despair. the captain of the ship, too, reviled creation generally, and was rather snappish with officers of the watches; hinting that the yards were not trimmed, ship steered properly, and other legal animadversions. then the lieutenants, kind souls, abused the master, taxing him with manifold crimes and delinquencies for bringing adverse breezes, did those sagacious creatures, and at other times becoming jocose, would advise him to kick the chronometers several times around the mast to accelerate or diminish their rates, and talked loudly of requesting the commodore to follow the first bark we might encounter, to the end that we should get safely into port--in fact, we were all, morally speaking, in a state of gangrene; morbid, morose and our circumstances getting more desperate hourly; but the longest night, except in the winter season off cape horn, has its dawning: the wind veered fair, whitening the ruffled water to windward, the noble frigate recovered her long lost energy, and with white sails swelling from trucks to the sea, shook the sparkling brine from her mane, and left a foaming wake behind; the thick, mucky, sticky atmosphere that clung to us upon entering the tropic, was quickly displaced, by refreshing and grateful breezes. we crossed the dividing line of the sphere, rushing and splashing down the slope on the other side, carrying the whole ocean before us: myriads of flying fish flashed their silver-tinted wings as they broke cover, and flew upward at our approach. porpoises and dolphins would dash around the bows, try our speed, and then disappear, perhaps, with a contused eye, or bruised snout from a sparring match with the cutwater; on we bounded with the cracking trade wind, tugging the straining canvas towards brazil. the mess was large, and composed of strange materials--men of gravity and men of merriment, some who relate professional anecdotes and talk knowingly of ships, and sails and blocks, and nautical trash generally, others, would be literary characters, who pour over encyclopedias, gazetteers and dictionaries, ever ready to pounce upon an indiscreet person, and bring him to book in old dates or events; then there is the mess grumbler, the mess orator, a lawgiver and politician, and always an individual, without whom no mess is properly organized, who volunteers to lick the american consul in whatsoever haven the ship may be, for any fancied grievance, but particularly if he happen to be poor, and not disposed to give a series of grand dinners upon his meagre fare of office. all these individual peculiarities we had sufficient leisure to indulge in, and although i have asserted that ship-board is the most horrible monotony in life, and hold to mine oath, yet apollo tuned his lyre, and old homer took siesta, thus by example, if anything can relieve this dulness, it is in the very contrast, where the mercury of one's blood is driven high up by cheering prospects of favoring gales, and anticipations of a speedy arrival, after a tedious passage. our amiability returned with our appetites--alas! too keenly for the doomed carcass of a solitary pig, grunting in blissful ignorance of his fate, in a spacious pen on the gun deck. juicy and succulent vegetables had long since vacated the mess table, and the talents of our _cordon-bleu_, messieurs hypolite de bontems, and françois, were constantly phrenzied with excitement, composing palatable dishes, from the privacy of tins of potted meats, and hidden delicacies of the store rooms. we all became sociable, quizzed one another good humoredly--some declared they had been dreadfully spooney with some fair girls before leaving home, but were better now, and thought the marine air wholesome for those complaints. others, again, still remained faithful, compared their watches with the chronometers, to determine the exact difference of time on certain periods designated beforehand, with may be a choice collection of stars of the first magnitude, to gaze at by night. nevertheless, there was a radical change for the better; we became more companionable, hobnobbed across the table, after dinner, heard with calm delight orchestral music from the flutes and fiddles of papa gheeks and family--an old gentleman from _faderland_, whom the sailors, in their ignorance of german, had baptized "peter the greeks," a soubriquet by which he universally went--and one of our mess had the humanity to inquire if the small french horn, or octave flute, had tumbled down the hatchway, and whether he broke his neck or was merely asphyxic. we even ceased grumbling at the servants, and to a man all agreed that the passage had been of unexampled pleasantness. nothing checked our headlong speed, and the fiftieth day from boston saw us close to the high, desolate mountains of cape frio, within plain view of the little rocky nook where the english frigate thetis made a futile attempt to batter the island over, but went down in the struggle. 'tis said the gun room mess were entertaining the captain at dinner, who somewhat oblivious to everything, save being homeward bound to merry england with a ship laden with treasure, disregarded the sailing master's wishes to alter the course, and the consequence was, after night set in, the frigate struck, going eight knots--providentially the crew were saved. the long atlantic swell was rolling heavily against the bluff promontories, and the surf lashing far up the black heights, giving many of us a nervous disinclination to making a night expedition among the rocks, going to sleep with a dirty shirt and mouthful of sand, without even the consolation of being afterwards laid out in clean linen, to make luncheon for vultures; but since it takes a complication of those diversions to compose a veritable sea life, we banished perspective danger, and indulged in speculations upon the pleasures of port. chapter ii. "the far ships lifting their sails of white like joyful hands; come up with scattered light, come gleaming up, true to the wished for day, and chase the whistling brine, and swirl into the bay." remini. of leigh hunt. the approach to rio janeiro, so far as god's fair handiwork is considered, presents a bold, natural, and striking grandeur, and is, perhaps, unsurpassed by that of any other land on earth. the mountains spring abruptly from the sea, in massive, well-defined outline, assuming at different points the most fanciful and grotesque shapes. those to the southward make in goodly proportion the figure of a man reclining on his back, even to feet and eyes, while further inland are seen the narrow tube-like cones of the organ mountains, shooting high up into the sky, and then lower down, and around, are strewn lesser hills, sweeping and undulating from vale to vale, in an endless succession of picturesque beauty. passing the strait that opens into the bay, which appears narrower than it really is, from the steep sides of adjacent heights, the river expands, and stretching away on either shore, lie graceful curves and indentations, whose snowy beaches are fringed with pretty dwellings, half hidden beneath the richest tropical foliage. to the left stands the city, built amidst a number of elevations, but like lisbon, it has neither spire nor dome to relieve the eye along the horizon. yet this drawback is in a measure lost sight of in contemplating the frowning peak of la gabia, which seems to hang over, and shade the town itself; but take all in all there are few lovelier scenes the eye can gaze upon, than rio. just ten years had passed since i sailed from this noble bay, and although i had been the wide world over, in stirring scenes, quite sufficient as i indeed supposed to drive all recollections of it out of my head, into dim obscurity and forgetfulness, yet as we approached the harbor, every point and islet, fort, tower, reef, grove, and hamlet, started vividly before me, as all appeared when i was a boy, and the long years between dwindled away into minutes, and i fancied it but yesterday since we had parted. i greeted lord hood's nose like an old acquaintance, as it reposed in gigantic outline, towering above the surrounding mountains; the small island near the shore with the white tower that was then just begun; the sugar loaf with its smooth surface of rocks, and on the other side the slaver's bay--palmettos swinging their finger-like branches to and fro; and beyond, the fortress of santa cruz, with the sickly yellow diamond of brazil, waving above; indeed, when the long speaking trumpet was shoved through an embrasure, i knew the old soldier's melancholy howl by intuition. at last the harbor's mouth was passed, we rolled up our sails and sank peacefully to rest on the quiet bosom of the bay. a mob of us tumbled into the boats; the ashen sails, plied by sinewy arms, soon bumped us against what was once to me the palace stairs, but either the water had receded, or land encroached upon the bay, for where the waves once washed the sea wall, and where many a time i have sat kicking my heels in the surf, sucking oranges the while, is now forty feet from the beach, and the wall itself stands in the silliest manner imaginable, quite in the middle of the square. to the left is a tall modern range of warehouses and the hotel pharou. swarms of cigar-smoking bipeds were lounging edgeways from the cafés and billiard rooms. i recognized many old familiar faces of the boatmen, and among other rare birds, the overgrown eunich organist, who used to be the wonder of my boyhood--there he stood as of yore, exercising his curiosity in scrutinizing the new comers. the tenth of a century makes vast strides towards changing the appearance of things in these electrical times, and although i discovered no difference in beauties of dale, hill or mountain, for the organos still shot their needle-like peaks as high up into heaven, the weather was quite as calm and hot in the mornings, and as breezy in the afternoons, the same bells were heard ringing the most confused of chimes, squares were as crowded, streets no wider, and negroes as numerous and spicy as ever; yet what i mean is, the animus of the town itself had been transmogrified. the beautiful bay was traversed by hateful little beetles of steamers, drawing long lines of sooty black smoke through the pure air, instead of multitudes of picturesque lateen craft, with the musical chants and cadences of the negro oarsmen, skimming and singing over the water. then, too, streets were filled with omnibii, cabs, gigs, gondolas, and all other conceivable inventions for locomotion, serving to make one uncomfortable from the very strivings to avoid it: i forgive the entire african races for whistling the latest polkas, or rather _sistling_ through their closed teeth, for holding to the ancient custom of affectionately interlacing little fingers, as they come dancing, chattering and jabbering along the streets. fleas, too, were as lively and vigorous as ever, and i thought i recognised one centenarian, who hopped on me with an ardor truly delightful, upon stepping on shore at the palace stairs. the shopping rua ouvidor was still the same incongruous assortment of french and german shops, with here and there an unobtrusive counter, behind which some levite displayed ebony trays of twinkling brilliants, enough to make the mouth water, eyes wink, and pocket bleed, should a purchase be thought of. black nurses still held their juvenile charges out from the lattice-work doors and windows, with little bare legs dangling outside, to favor any chance pedestrian with an eleemosynary kick, should he come within reach. then the same interminable lines of slaves, each a bag of coffee on his head, preceded by a leading chorister, with small rattle, by way of accompaniment to the harsh chorus, as they pass swiftly on with a sharp jerking trot to the shipping or warehouses of the port. all this was still the same to me, but in general it was not my rio, not the spot where my first and boyish impressions were formed, of the voluptuous, luxurious life under tropical suns. the march of invention is rapidly reducing everything to a standard of its own, and i could only sigh over the innovations constituting refinement in civilization, where it seems so little needed. a very great improvement, in all praise be it said, had taken place in the order and cleanliness of the city--we were not accosted once by mendicants, when formerly they were as thick as lazzaroni in naples. the police was large, remarkably well organized, and the riots and assassinations of former days were unheard of. the cafés and hotels have kept pace with the times, where one may satisfy his gourmanderie with a certain show of epicurianism, provided his palate be not too delicate for many kinds of fishes and vegetables, with mayhap, at rare intervals, a taste of monkey or paroquet. yankee ice is very generally used, and a philanthropic person had hung out a banner with "mint juleps" inscribed thereon, but the thirst for these cold institutions is not so much felt as in some parts of the united states; for here the weather, though hot and enervating, has not the oppressiveness and lassitude of our summers, and besides, fluids are made sufficiently cool and cooling, through the medium of unglazed water jars, swung gently in the breeze. we saw one deformed african attached to a small tray and sign, on which was legibly painted "ginger-beer," evidently meaning ginger pop. we execrated that monster on the spot, and said to ourselves, what is the necessity for leaving home, if we are to be stared out of countenance by our household gods, at the antipodes. another trifling peculiarity attracted our attention. i allude to the trumpet-shaped water pipes, sticking boldly out from below every balconied window, of all colors and sizes, reminding us of misshapen angels, with puffed out cheeks, and trombones, invariably found in the upper angles of miraculous, or scriptural paintings: fortunately there was no rain, or we might have been gratified with a douche that the great preussnitz himself would have been proud of. by no art or teaching can his imperial majesty, with "all the senate at his heels," be induced to give a respectable currency to the country. the stamped paper of the empire in rais fluctuates like quicksilver at the mart, and it is next to impossible to form any reasonable conjecture what change may take place from day to day. in lieu of this, copper coins, nearly the diameter of ship biscuits, valued from twenty to forty rais, and commonly called "dumps," are used in every day traffic, but should a person require more than one dollar at a time, it were advisable to employ a negro and basket to transport them. among the devices before touched upon, in the way of ambulation, was one which amused us excessively. nothing less than a four-mule omnibus, driven by the most remarkable jehu ever beheld--evidently one who had seen, or at least heard of, the natty style things were conducted at charing cross before rails were laid. i had the honor to be propelled by this individual a number of times, and it was well worth a "dump" to see him pull on a very dirty buskin glove, the manner he handled the rope reins, give his glazed hat a rap, and button up a huge box coat, with the sun pouring down a stream of noonday fire; then an encouraging yell to the leaders, swinging himself from side to side, away he rattled to the astonishment of every wonder-loving person in the neighborhood. the mules acted up to their natural propensities; at times dashing along the sidewalks, and against houses; again coming to a dead halt, and favoring each other with a few slapping salutes with their heels; then off they clattered once more, until about to double a sharp corner, when if they did not bolt into the pulperia opposite, like a habanese volante, the conductor, with the most imperturbable dignity, would crack his leathern whip, shout like a devil, and do his possible to run over a covey of miserable lame blackies, who would start up in great bewilderment, like boys catching trapball, without knowing precisely in which direction would be safest to dodge the eccentric vehicle. i always cheered my friend with reiterated marks of approbation, as i look with leniency upon the peculiarities of mankind, and ever make a rule to respect the absurdities of others. the jehu whose accomplishments i have so faintly portrayed, can be regarded at any hour of the day, on the road to boto fogo, and he will be found quite as interesting an object of curiosity as the falls of tejuco, to say nothing of the fatigue and expense of the journey. chapter iii. much of my time was passed with friends on the shores of the bay, a short distance beyond gloria hill, and i was in a certain degree relieved from the banging and roaring of cannon fired in compliment to distinguished personages, who appear to select rio as the place of all others, where they may smell powder to their noses' content; to say nothing of being immured on ship-board after nearly two months' passage. escaping these disagreeables, i had leisure to stretch my limbs on shore, and enjoy the perfumes of flowers and fruit from the stems that bore them. it is in the direction of the beach, or, as the portuguese have it, praya flamingo, on the road to il cateto, and the charming and secluded little bay of boto fogo, that most of the diplomatique corps, and foreign merchants reside. the houses are rarely more than two stories in height, a combination of venetian and italian orders of architecture, with heavy projecting cornice, balconies and verandas, and washed with light straw or bluish tints. the saloons are always spacious and lofty, with prettily papered walls, and floors of the beautiful, dark polished wood of the country. nearly all those residences are surrounded by extensive gardens, blooming in bright and brilliant foliage, only matured beneath the burning rays of a vertical sun. there are no springs in rio, and the grounds are irrigated by miniature aqueducts, led from mountains in the rear; sufficiently large, however, to float in their narrow channels, serpents and many other noxious reptiles, enough to make one's hair stand erect. it is by no means an uncommon occurrence to find the giracea, a venomous snake, insinuating themselves within the sunny marble pavements of steps and porticoes and i was assured by a resident, that one monster after having some four feet cut off from his tail, ran away with head and remaining half with a most cricket-like and surprising degree of celerity. indeed i was myself a witness to the intrusion of an individual of the scorpion breed, who walked uninvited into the saloon, and was on the point of stepping up a young lady's ancle, when, detecting his intention, with the assistance of a servant, he was enticed into a bottle that he might sting himself or the glass at pleasure. being somewhat unaccustomed to these little predatory incursions, i was particularly cautious during the remainder of my stay, to examine every article, from a tooth-pick to the couch, before touching the same. another approximation to the same genus is the white ant, possessing rather a literary turn, and i was told, that it is not unusual for a million or two to devour a gentleman's library--covers and all, in a single night. i have never yet been able to conquer disgust for even docile, harmless, speckled-back lizards, and indeed all the hosts of slimy, crawling reptiles i heartily fear and abhor. we found the town in a furor of enthusiasm in admiration of the song and beauty of a french operatique corps. i went thrice and was well repaid for the dollars, in sweet music of auber and donizetti--there were two primas--for serious and comique--both, too, primas in prettiness. the academy of paris music had never, perhaps, seen or heard of mesdames duval and her partner, but la sala san januario had been captivated with both, and beauty covers multitudes of faults, particularly with men, for what care we, if the notes touch the soul, whether a crystal shade higher or lower than grisi, or persiani, so long as they flow from rosy lips, that might defy those last-named donnas to rival, even with the brightest carmine of their toilets. the theatre itself is a very respectable little place, having three tiers and parquette. the royal box faces the stage, hung with damask. the whole interior of the building was quite italian--every box railed off with gilded fret work, and lighted with candles swinging in glass shades. the brazilians are fond of music, and all the world attended each representation, including the emperor, empress and court. as i had, in times past, seen a good deal of don pedro, when he was a studious, meditative boy, at the palace of boto fogo, i was somewhat curious to observe the effect of old time's cutting scythe on the lord's anointed, as well as on the rest of us clay-built mortals. his face and shape of the head had changed very little, but he had grown immensely; tall, awkward, and verging on corpulency even now, though i believe he is only twenty-eight years of age. his italian wife appeared much older. both were well and plainly dressed, attended by some half a dozen dames and dons of the court. the curtain rose as the imperial party took their seats, and there were neither vivas, nor groaning manifestations to express pleasure or disgust, from the audience. all passed quietly and orderly, like sensible persons, who came to hear sweet sounds, and not to be overawed by great people. i made the tour of the donas through a capital lorgnette, and although like mickey free, fond of tobacco and ladies, i must pledge my solemn assurances, that with the exception of something pretty, attached to the french company, there was not a loveable woman to be seen. i doubt not but there are rare jewels to be found in out of the way spots, secluded from public gaze, but it was terra incognita to me, and we saw none other than the light molasses-hued damsels, who are fully matured at thirteen, and decidedly passée at three and twenty. in the present age it is a questionable inference if saponaceous compounds might not be judiciously used in removing some few stains that nature is entirely innocent of painting; albeit, a lovely anglo-saxon of my acquaintance was vastly horrified at thoughts of a friend espousing one of these cream-colored beauties, valued at a _conto_ of rais, and shiploads of coffee; and assured the deluded swain, with tears in her eyes, that it would require more than half his fortune to keep his wife in soap--supposing she should acquire the weakness or ambition to become enamored of fresh water. chapter iv. "uptorn reluctant from its oozy cave, the ponderous anchor rises o'er the wave." falconer. on the twenty-ninth of october, the anchors were loosened from their muddy beds; a light land wind fanned us out of the harbor, and with a white silver moon, we began our dreary march towards cape horn. the following night the ship was dashing over the seas eleven miles the hour. the bell had just struck eight, watch set, and the topmen came dancing gaily down the rigging, here and there one, with a pea jacket snugly tied up and held by the teeth, preparatory to a four hours' snooze in the hammocks, when a moment after the cry, "look out, bill!--overboard!--man overboard!" was cried from the main rigging, and amid the bustle that ensued, the voice of the poor drowning wretch was heard in broken exclamations of agony, as the frigate swept swiftly by. down went the helm, and sails were taken in as she came up to the wind, but by the strangest fatality, both life buoys were with difficulty cast adrift, and even then the blue lights did not ignite. a boat was soon lowered, and sent in the vessel's wake. an hour passed in the search, without hearing or seeing ought but the rude winds and breaking waves; and this is the last ever known of poor bill de conick. he struck the channels from a fall of twenty feet up the rigging, and was probably either encumbered by heavy clothing, or too much injured to be able to reach the buoys. friday, too, the day of all others in our superstitious calendar for those "who go down to the sea in ships:" even amid a large crew, where many, if not all, are utterly reckless of life, an incident of this nature sheds a momentary gloom around, and serves to make many reflect, that the same unlucky accident might have wrapped any other in the same chilling shroud. there are few more painful sights in the world than to behold the imploring looks, with outstretched hands, of a fellow being, --"when peril has numbed the sense and will, though the hand and the foot may struggle still--" silently invoking help, when all human aid is unavailing--before the angry waves press him below the surface, to a sailor's grave. aye, there can be no more dreadful scenes to make the strong man shudder than these. yet it seems a wise ordination in our natures, that the sharp remembrance of these painful incidents is so rapidly dispelled. this very characteristic of the sailor, his heedless indifference to the future, in a great degree makes up his measure of contentment in all the toils and dangers that beset his course, unconscious that time, "like muffled drums, are beating funeral marches to the grave." a fortnight flew quickly by, the good ship going at as lively a pace. we passed the wide mouth of la plata, buttoned our jackets, and slept under blankets. as the weather became colder, mammy carey and her broods, with goneys, albatrosses, boobies and cape pigeons, swarmed around the wake, to pick up the stray crumbs. divers hooks and lines were thrown out to entice them aboard, but for a long interval all efforts proved fruitless, until one morning, an albatross abstractedly swallowed the bait, and much to his surprise was pulled on board, like to a boy's kite. he measured eleven feet four inches, with enormous quills and feathers, and such a bed of down the monster had concealed about his oily person, was never known nearer than an eider duck. he had large, fierce, black eyes, too, with a beak sharp, and hard enough to have nipped a silver dollar into bits. whales favored us occasionally with an inspection--rolled their round snouts out of water--tossed a few tons of foam in the air--threw up their enormous flukes--struck the waves one splashing blow, and then went down to examine the soundings. thus we sailed along the dull shores of patagonia, with the long taper top gallant masts replaced by stumps to stand up more obstinately against the furious tempests of the "still vexed bermoothes" of cape horn, the bugbear of all landsmen, and the place of all others, where more yarns are spun, wove, and wondered at, than from china to peru. he was a bold sailor any way, who first doubled the cape, whatever others may be who follow. at last came our turn, and on the afternoon of the sixteenth day from rio, the clouds lifting, we saw the dark, jagged, rugged bluffs and steeps of staten and terra del fuego. the next morning we rounded cape st. john, and were received by the long swelling waves of the sister ocean. if the great balboa when standing on the mountains of panama, regarding the placid waves of the equatorial ocean, could have known the tempestuous gales and giant seas of the polar regions, sporting around this snowy cape, he might possibly have been less overjoyed at his grand discovery. our pleasant weather and smooth seas clung to us, to the last, and, as if loth to leave, gave one unclouded view of staten land, like a casting in bronze, with the bleak, snow-capped heights, tinged by the rising sun. an hour after the bright sky was veiled by mist, the rising gale, from the west, brought hail and chilling rain. we lost sight of land, reefed the sails close down, and then bid defiance to the storm. nothing venture nothing gain, is as true with ships' rigging, as thimble rigging, and we staked all our hopes on a rapid passage. sorry work we made of it. the very birds were obliged to trim their pinions with great nicety in beating to windward--even then a terrible gust ruffled their plumes, and away they were driven, eddying, and screaming, to leeward. still we strove the tempests to disarm, by stout hearts, and tough canvas, with partial success, too, for even with adverse winds, we managed to get to the southward, besides making something in the voyage; blessed, also, by a cool, bracing atmosphere, and day and twilight the whole twenty-four hours. though the sun in tracking his bright career in either hemisphere is supposed to tinge the land and sea beneath his blaze, with what is generally called summer, yet an exception to the rule exists in vicinity of cape horn. the days, it is true, are longer; in fact the night is day, but the sun diffuses no pleasant, genial warmth, and is only seen peering out from behind the clouds, with a careworn, desolate, blurred face, as if he was ashamed of his company, and had marched entirely out of his beat. in all this time hardly an incident occurred to make us even wink, except, perhaps, the tumble of a topman from aloft, who was picked up with a fractured spine; and a little sauciness, reproved by our stout armorer, through the intervention of an iron rod upon the limbs of a tall negro, thereby breaking his arm in two places. one's bones are brittle in frosty weather, and young vulcan was made to submit to severe personal damages. i must chronicle also the sudden demise of a venerable sergeant of marines, who departed this life one cold night, while relieving the guard under the forecastle--the next day he was consigned to the mighty deep, divested of all his worldly accoutrements, save a hammock and a couple of round shot, to pull him into eternity. we had not exchanged nautical salutations since leaving port, and well nigh believed the ocean was deserted; however, one day there came looming through the mist and rain, a large ship, with all her flaunting muslin spread, running before the gale--the distance was too great to make out her colors, but sufficiently near to cause some of us to wonder when our bark's prow would be turned in the same direction, and the sheets eased off for home. speaking of ships, while at rio an american vessel of war arrived, and our sympathies were universally enlisted on learning that she had been two long months trying to reach valparaiso, but when off the horn, or in fact after having passed it, she experienced tremendous hurricanes and giant waves, which blew the sails to ribbons, tore away the boats, shattered the stern frame, and left her altogether in a most distressing and heart-rending condition, consequently she put back. it was worthy of remark, however, that she came buoyantly into the harbor, tricked out in a bran new suit of clothes, and when a number of officers went on board to survey her pitiable plight, they could find neither leak nor strain, and very sensibly concluded she was one of the staunchest and best corvettes in the navy, as indeed she was. john bull took back his mails and declared he would never take advantage again of a crack yankee sloop-of-war to forward important dispatches by. our pleasures were now limited, no one raised his nose above the taffrail if not compelled; our chief resource was reading, and after absorbing heaps of ephemeral trash drifting about the decks, we sought the library and poured over ponderous tomes of physics, history or travels. books find their true value a shipboard--cut off from all amusement of the land, we derive the full benefit by reading, for more than reading's sake, or for the purpose of killing time in silly abstraction, and many a stupid author is thoroughly digested, and many labored narrations of voyages are carefully studied, whose narrators have "compiled very dull books from very interesting materials," and they should be grateful to governments for purchasing, and thankful for indifferent persons to peruse them. on the advent of saturday nights, when the wind was blowing cold and dreary, we sought the lowest depths of the frigate. _facilis decensus averni_, in other words, "'tis easy to dive into the cock-pit"--there in a cozy state-room, we made a jovial little party, conducted on strictly private principles, for the purpose of seeking medical advice. we consulted a pot-bellied gentleman, with a small copper kettle on his head, illumined by a spirit lamp, whilom, termed doctor faustus--unlike the sangrado practitioners, the doctor constantly poured out instead of in. one humorsome fellow, the president of our club, who was rather stout on his pins, and _carée par la base_, poured forth wit and hot water by the hour, diversifying both occasionally, by ravishing strains on the violin, and chanting virginia melodies, which acted on the heels of one of our attendants, in a complicated series of jigs, called the double shuffle. at last the fates befriended us; a new moon appeared, and the west wind having apparently blown itself out of breath, a breeze sprang up from south-east and commenced blowing the sea and ourselves in an opposite direction; snow fell thick and fast, driving the thermometer below freezing point, and barometer running rapidly up. as the flakes fell and adhered to rigging and sails, the entire mass of ropes, spars and hampers were soon clothed in icy white jackets. the sun broke out for a moment and converted a showering cloud of snow into a magnificent bow. rainbows of sun and moon are beheld by the million, but seldom a novelty like a _snow-bow_! the ship was hurried along at great speed on the sixtieth parallel, until reaching the meridian of eighty, when we bore away to the northward. congratulating ourselves with the hope that the clerk of the weather had forgotten to announce our arrival to the court of winds in the great south pacific; faint delusion!--off the gusty isle of chiloe, we had a hug from a gale, which, however, exhausted itself in a few hours, and then left us to flounder about on the mountainous backs of waves as best we might--then there was an interval of rain and squalls from all quarters, when the breeze again came fair, and on the second of december, we anchored at valparaiso, just five weeks from rio janeiro. chapter v. there can be no greater satisfaction to a wind-buffetted rover, than sailing into a new place, and the consolation of knowing there are still others behind the curtain. it was thus we felt, and after rounding the point of angels, and casting anchor in the bay of paradise, fancied ourselves quite in altissimo spirits, if not precisely in cielo. on approaching the chilian coast, the eye of course seeks the white-robed cordilléras, and well worthy the sight they are--forty leagues inland, cutting the sky in sharp, clear outlines, with peaks of frosted silver, until the attention is fairly arrested by the stupendous peak of the bell of quillota, and tupongati, the colossus of all, tumbling as it were, from the very zenith--then nearer, diminuendoing down to the ocean, are generations of lesser heights, each, however, a giant in itself, until their bases are laved by the pacific. it is a grand _coup d'oeil_ at rise or set of sun; but there is a sameness about masses of reddish rocks, ravines and mountains of the foreground, and one is apt to doubt the immense height of those beyond, from the gradual rise around. moreover, there is nothing striking or diversified, as with their tall brothers in switzerland or asia; snowy tops without glaciers; frightful chasms, and sweeping valleys, without torrents or verdure; all this is nature's design, but the decorations have been forgotten, and bare walls of mount and deep is all that appears finished. little can be said commendatory of valparaiso; and truly i think the most rabid of limners would meet with difficulty in getting an outside view from any point; for, owing to formation of the land, furrowed into scores of ravines by the rush and wash of creation, with the town running oddly enough along the ridges, or down in the gullies, it becomes a matter of optical skill, for a single pair of eyes to compass more than a small portion at a glance. the houses are mean; streets narrow and nasty; the former are built of adobies--unbaked bricks of great thickness--or lathed, plastered and stuccoed; the latter paved with small pebbles no bigger than pigeons' eggs, and only those running with the shores of the bay, are at all walkable. a little way back in the _quebradas_, or broken ground, is like stepping over angular flemish roofs, and with a long leg and short one, to preserve an equipoise, you may walk along these inclined planes without any serious personal danger, save what consists in liquids thrown on your head, and the torture endured by your corns. there is not a single public edifice in valparaiso worthy of even passing admiration. the custom house is most conspicuous, facing the port; the theatre fronts one of two small squares, and but a few meanly built churches are to be found, packed away, out of sight, under the steep hills back of the city. improvements, however were planned, and rapidly progressing. the port for many years had been steadily rising in wealth and population, under the sure incentives of a large foreign trade, and the enterprise of foreign residents; and all that appears necessary to make the city much in advance of other commercial rivals in the pacific, is that dame nature should play excavating betty on the next earthquake, and remove a few of the obtrusive hills that encroach so abruptly upon the bay. there is an unusual bustle pervading the quay and streets, for a spanish creole town. as ships cannot approach the unprotected shores to discharge their cargoes, the port is crowded with multitudes of lighters and whale boats, constantly passing to and fro, while porters, bending under packages of goods, copper, and produce, are moving from the _duana_, or warehouses, to the mole and beach. videttes of mounted police are posted at every corner, and small guards of soldiers in the streets, supervising the exertions of gangs of convicts at work for the authorities. in emulation, also, of the means of locomotion in vogue at rio, there has been introduced a ricketty contrivance, of the cab genus, called _birloches_, to which is attached a horse within the shafts, and another to caper at the side, similar to a russian drosky, until a relay is required, when they are changed. they rattle through the town with reckless speed, urged by lash and spur of the driver mounted on the outside beast. the same system is pursued on the longest journeys, with merely the addition of a larger drove of animals to make up their own posts from the cavalcade--the only respite from labor remaining in the privilege of travelling at the same rate without the load. shops are sufficiently numerous, filled with manufactured goods from europe and the united states, with lots of gimcrackery from china. in the old _plaza_ at night, almost every inch of ground is occupied by itinerant venders of wares, toys, shoes, combs, fried fish, fruit, and _dulces_; each squatted on his own cloth counter, with paper lanterns at the sides. the proprietors of these ambulating establishments are women and children. a fine band discourses delightful music, on alternate evenings, and when one feels disposed to say pretty speeches to pretty damas, moving gracefully around, and enjoy what is in reality a touch of spanish life, it were as well to saunter an hour on the _plaza_. valparaiso is extremely disproportioned in breadth to its great length, necessarily so, from the jutting elevations that hang over it. immediately back of the heart of the city are a number of these salient spurs, on one of which is planted the campo santo--foreign and native cemeteries--while those to the right have been, by trouble and means of the foreigners, cleared away into small esplanades, having neat and pretty cottages, surrounded by shrubbery--one, the flora pondia, a very beautiful, but diminutive tree, blossoms luxuriantly, with delicate, white flowers, shaped like inverted cones, or bells, and although shedding no odor during the day, yet at night it fairly renders the air oppressive with perfume. these lofty turrets command fine views of bay, shipping, and port, fully repaying the fatigue of getting up, in the absence of dust, dirt and noise. to the left, bordering close upon the harbor, is a long curving promenade, called _el almendral_--almond grove--for no other reason possibly than that there is not a vestige of trees or verdant leaves to be seen. away at the southward, in the opposite extremity of the city, on what the sailors designate as the fore and main tops, is another succession of sharply riven ravines, filled and faced with clusters of one storied dwellings, from the summits down to the narrow gorges between. it requires some geographical knowledge to explore these regions, and though the toil of clambering about the uneven chasms and numerous lanes, be not pleasant, yet one is recompensed while mounting the steep acclivities by the most novel and striking views of the sea or city at every turn--never being able to determine where the next flight will lead--whether but a few yards from the spot just left, with a bird's eye view of the shipping, or shut up in small causeways between redly-tiled roofs, with the scene closed by barriers of whitewashed walls, and even after attaining another airy eminence, under the belief of having the broad ocean spread out at your feet, one is startled to find himself gazing quite in another direction. these tops, with the _quebradas_ between, are portions of the terrace, where we spent some pleasant hours, dancing the _samacueca_, or fandangos, to the tinkling of guitars, swept by nimble fingers of sloe-eyed chilians. we were always received courteously and sincerely, and in making ourselves particularly agreeable, have been occasionally treated to a sip of weak rum negus. once, accompanied by a friend in these exploring rambles, we had the good fortune, through the medium of cigarillos, smiles, and a smattering of castilian, to make the acquaintance of a hospitable old lady and her two pretty daughters. carmencita was my favorite--lovely carmencita! she was very pretty--large, very large black eyes, half shut with roguery, or coquetry; an adorable plump little figure, and what with a fairy touch of the guitar, a soft, plaintive voice, and a fondness for cigarillos, we thought her one of the most enchanting amourettes imaginable. poor carmen! she had just lost by the fell destroyer her lover, who was a superintendent of mines in san felipe, but who had the generosity during his last moments, to leave his tender sweetheart a handsome legacy, a letter to the french consul, and his blessing. pretty carmen! she preserved each and all of these interesting relics, with great care, and although, "souvent femme varie, bien fol est qui s'y fie," she resisted all further assaults upon her heart--confessed that i had _buen sentimientos_, but, nevertheless, she had resolved to live and die within the severest rules of platonism. i know not how or why, but there certainly is an irresistible charm, that floats like a mist around spanish creoles; indeed, creoles of all nations have a style of fascination peculiarly their own, which renders them truly bewitching, with the power of retaining their spells as long, and as strong as any. not that their features are more beautiful, eyes brighter, or manners even as refined as those in older countries, for they are not; but still they have soft, languishing eyes, rich, dark hair, and pliant, graceful forms, combined with the greatest possible charm in woman, earnest, unaffected, and amiable dispositions. it is to be wondered at, too, that in remote countries, where so few advantages are attainable in education, knowledge of the world and society, that they should be so well supplied with pretty airs and graces. it can only be attributable to that sublimated coquette nature herself, who provides those little goods the gods deny. we had the pleasure of attending a number of _tertulias_, or evening parties given in the houses of native residents, and witnessing the dances of the country. the _tertulia_ is easy and sociable, without form or ceremony. the _bayles_ are more staid affairs, where ladies are seated in silent rows by themselves--men very hairy and grummy--taking advantage of intervals in dancing to lounge on the piazzas, swallow a few mouthfuls of cigar smoke, (not a bad institution this in warm weather,) and exclaim, _dios que calor_! (how hot.) at one of these assemblies we first saw a minuet called the _samacueca_. it was undertaken by a beautiful young married lady, in company with a rather corpulent old gentleman, and danced in a very sprightly, rogueish manner. the prelude and music is similar to that of fandangos, but the movements and _motif_ are far more indelicate, and it is by no means a matter of difficulty to divine the meaning. although these innocent ballets would no doubt shockingly jar the nerves of a more refined audience, and many a performer might be considered "too fine a dancer for a virtuous woman," yet i am convinced that among these unaffected creoles, naught is seen in the least degree improper, but they are regarded from infancy as the harmless customs and amusements of their country. as an individual i am fond of a notion of cayenne to existence, and only clapped hands, or cried, _brava! buena! bonita!_ the opera was in full blast--the house large and convenient, with very pretty scenic displays, and quite a brilliant constellation of italian stars to illumine the proscenium, but on no representation did there appear evidence in the boxes that the manager's purse was filled. we had the honor of being presented to the primo basso, signor marti, who conversed pleasantly with a melodramatic voice from apparently very low down in his boots. we listened to his sweet _seguadillas_ with rapture. we found the climate truly delightful. it was the summer of the southern ocean--pure, pleasant breezes with the sun, and clear, calm, sparkling nights by moon or stars. little or no rain falls, except in the winter months, and as a consequence where the soil is fine and dry, dust covers everything in impalpable clouds, at the same time affording a desirable atmosphere for that lively individual, the flea! on the coast of syria the arabs hold to the proverb that the sultan of fleas holds his court in jaffa, and the grand vizier in cairo; but so far as our experience went in valparaiso, we could safely give the lie to the adage. as an unobtrusive person myself, i have a constitutional antipathy to the entire race, and invariably use every precaution to avoid their society--all to no purpose. they found me in crowds or solitudes--alighted on me in swarms, like the locusts of egypt, destroying enjoyment on shore, and i fully resolved never to venture abroad again, of mine own free will, until some enterprising yankee shall invent a trap for their annihilation. i remember one mild afternoon sauntering on the almendral, when my attention was drawn to a lithe, young damsel on the sidewalk, who, whilst tripping along with a dainty gait, suddenly gave her foot a backward twist, with a dexterous pinch at the pretty ancle, and again went on like a bird. she had captured a flea! but it was a style of piedermain worthy of the great adrien; a feat i was prepared to believe nearly equal to mounted cossacks picking up pins from the ground with their teeth, at full speed--in fact, something really wonderful, and although i was quite confounded, and almost speechless with amazement, yet i followed mechanically in order to see what she could or would accomplish next. nor could i repress some audible expressions of encouragement; but the fair _donçella_, unconscious of having performed anything remarkable, gave me a look, as much as to say, in the language of a touching nautical ballad-- "go away young man--my company forsake." so not wishing to appear intrusive, i returned pensively to mine inn. fashions in ladies' dress are similar to those in europe or the united states, and even among the lower orders the bonnet is worn; but to my way of thinking, a spanish girl's forte is in a black satin robe and slippers, a flowing _mantilla_, fine, smooth jetty tresses, and a waving fan to act as breakflash to sparkling eyes! of the men of chili, or at least those of them whom transient visitors encounter in the usual lounging resorts of _vaut-riens_,--theatres, cafés, tertulias, plazas, and other purlieus, they cannot be said to compare with their captivating sisters--for a more indolent, hairy, cigar-puffing race of bipeds never existed. in dress they ape the faded fashions of europe, retaining, however, the native cloak costume of the _poncho_. it is a capital garment for either the road or the saddle, leaving free play to the arms, and at the same time a protection from dust or rain. it is worn by all classes, and composed of the gaudiest colors, occasionally resembling a remarkably bright pattern of a drawing room carpet, with the head of the wearer thrust through a slit in the centre. the president of chili during our visit was general bulnes, a soldier of distinction in the civil wars of his own state, with a laurel or two won in numerous bloody blows dealt upon the neighboring peruvians. as the hero of yungai, his excellency was elevated to his present position by the bayonets of the troops, but latterly he evinced a keen sagacity in reducing to a small force this army of vagabonds, who are prone, in south american republics, in the absence of more agreeable occupation, to amuse themselves with hatching conspiracies for the purpose of slitting the throats of their former coadjutors. there was but one regiment of infantry, and a few hundred cavalry in valparaiso. the militia system, as with us, had been partially introduced throughout the provinces. it answered every purpose at much less expense than regular troops, indeed excellently well, as a police, and to the credit of señor bulnes' subalterns, good order was most strictly and promptly enforced in his sea-port. every one subscribed to the opinion that the government was firmly established, which may have been attributable, in some measure, to the decided argument suggested by the president. shooting, instead of talking, down all opposition. by these decided proceedings he has been enabled to keep turbulent spirits in check, and under fear of his displeasure, there had not been a revolution for a long time, which was, in itself, surprising. chili undoubtedly possesses resources within herself to become one of the most prosperous and flourishing of the independent states of the south american continent; and could the government be induced to take proper steps to invite a more general emigration, and make it the interest of emigrants to settle permanently in the country, by their vigor and enterprize, the true development of the mining and agricultural wealth might be easily accomplished, and this communion of interests might be the means of securing chili from the doom which seems destined to await her sister republics. but notwithstanding the rapid strides of liberality throughout the world, it appears that the rulers of all the rich soil of america, washed by the pacific, still maintain a cramped policy, actuated by religious intolerance, and an indolence unknown elsewhere. destitute of energy themselves, the voracious foreigner soon fattens on their resources, and in the end, having no ties to bind him to a country where the religion precludes his forming closer domestic relations, embarks his easily acquired fortune, to end his days under an enlightened government. it is indeed melancholy that such baneful influences do prevail, when the whole universe is subscribing to more liberal notions, but as i do not purpose preaching a capucinade for or against the chilians, or take any extraordinary measures to discover vice or follies, what might be termed the pursuit of knowledge under difficulties, and apprehensive lest any one should entertain ideas of me widely at variance to my real and confirmed opinions, i simply assure them, i have long since given over all philanthropic researches for that which does not affect my heart or digestion. i once lived with a russian, who was blessed with a stomach and organs durable as the platina of his native mines, and he ever assured me, after first finishing a flask of absinthe, that hard hearts and good digestions were the only true elements of happiness in life. becoming a convert to this doctrine, i care not for the foibles or follies of mankind, so long as people do not pick my pockets, or tread on my toes. i take more delight in seeing a child skip the rope, a monkey at his tricks, or a fish jump out of water, than all the palaces or churches on earth, and i had much rather chat an hour with a pert _dame de comptoir_, than dine with señor bulnes--nor were my spirits affected by learning the vast amount of copper exported, or the quantity of tea and tobacco smuggled; neither dispensations reduced the price of billiards, or induced laundry women to lave linen a whit the whiter; thus the truth being apparent that i am an indifferent worldly person, i make the merit of my necessities, in striving to live the space allotted me in the world, and not for it. and now, if i be forgiven for venting this egotistic digression and harangue, i promise to make my mouth a _mare clausum_ in future, for all personal grievances. chapter vi. we were aroused one morning at peep of day by the heavy, booming report of a gun from the frigate, and on tearing open our eyelids, saw the chequered cornet flying at the fore, the signal of sailing. anathematizing ships and seas, we shook fleas and dust from our heels, and repaired forthwith on board. breakfast over, the shrill whistles of boatswain and mates called up anchor; much easier said than done, that ponderous instrument being loth to leave his bed. and it was not until after a tremendous amount of cursing and heaving had been expended, that it deigned to be roused out at all; even then, the ship under topsails, with a fresh breeze, and forty fathoms water, the strain was enormous--when by a sudden surge, owing to a number of nonsensical contrivances of iron teeth biting the breathing cable, they let go their gripe, and out flew the chain, making the whole vessel tremble from its quivering jar and whirl. when its fury was a little exhausted, the brawny compresses were drawn, and the unruly gentleman brought to a stand. then great apprehensions were felt for the seamen in the chain lockers. they were pulled out alive, with only a broken leg, and a multitude of painful contusions. how they escaped being torn into atoms, in a confined box; six feet square, during the frightful contortions and vibrations of the immense iron snake, was little less than a miracle. at noon we were clear of the harbor, and as the sun went down, he gave us a last glimpse of the bell of quillota, and his tall companion, tupongati. the wind was fair, we murmured that beautiful saline sentiment, "the ship that goes, the wind that blows, and lass that loves a sailor." i sighed adieu to carmencita, ordered my valet of the bedchamber, giacomo, to arrange my four poster of a hammock, and then in dreams forgot the past. the fourth day out we passed near to a cluster of desolate, uninhabited islands--st. ambrose and felix--the first about two miles in length, and rising abruptly from the ocean, to the height of fifteen hundred feet. numbers of queer-shaped, pointed, rocky islets, white with guano, were grouped along the base of the island, and through one was cut, by some action of the water, a well-defined arch, open to the sea, like a telescope. pursuing an undeviating track, with glorious seas, skies and winds, on the last day of the year we crossed the equator, in a longitude of °. during this period there were two deaths; one a good old man from deutschland, named jerry wilson. on being asked an hour before he expired, how he felt--"first rate," said jerry, and no doubt he is now, if not then. the other was a youth named tildon, caused by a spasmodic affection of the throat, so as to prevent swallowing food, until he absolutely starved to death. he made his last plunge as the sun went down. the stately frigate, careless of all, went flying with wide-stretched pinions, towards her destination, at a speed of jack the giant-killer's boots. on the th of january, land ho! alta california! for forty-eight hours, we sailed lightly along the base of a compact ridge of mountains that rose like a sea wall, seamed into ten thousand furrows, the summits fringed with lofty forest trees, and not a cloud visible in high heaven, then appeared a green, shelving point, of waving pines and verdure, terminated by a reef of fearful, black rocks. giving this a wide birth, we shortly entered a wide, sweeping indentation of the coast, in shape of a fish hook, with the barb at the southern end, furled our sails, and moored ship in the bay of monterey, forty days from valparaiso. chapter vii. before resuming the thread of this narrative, it may be as well to give a brief summary of events that had transpired previously to our arrival. pending disturbances between the united states and mexico, when the quarrel had not reached an open rupture, much excitement prevailed in upper california, through the agency of a few foreigners, who wished to revolutionize the country. at this epoch, mr. fremont, of the u. s. topographical engineers, was in the heart of california, engaged upon scientific explorations, ostensibly in relation to the practicability of the best route for emigration to oregon. there is reason to believe, also, that he was instructed to feel the geographical pulse of the natives, as well as the mountain passes. be this as it may, mr. fremont was encamped near monterey, with sixty followers, when josé castro, a mexican officer in command of the province, issued a proclamation, ordering fremont to leave the territory immediately, and at the same time threatened to drive every foreigner away also. fremont and his party, after holding castro's bombast in contempt, and his troops at bay, at last began to march, quite leisurely, towards the northern route for oregon: these occurrences happened early in the spring of . on the th of june the first movement began, on the river sacramento, near sutler's fort, and one of the tributaries to the head waters of san francisco. this attack was composed of a few lawless vagabonds, who, carrying a banner of white, with a red border and grizzly bear, styled themselves the "bear party:" they were of all nations, though claiming citizenship in the united states. after stealing a drove of horses, belonging to the californians, their numbers were increased by other marauding gentry to forty, when moving rapidly around the northern shores of the bay of san pablo, they surprised and captured the little garrison of sonoma, under charge of general guadalupe valléjo. then they committed excesses, without the slightest recognized authority, but purely, it appears, from love of a little independent fighting and thieving on their own private accounts. meanwhile a large naval force had been hovering on the mexican coast for a year previously, awaiting the first blow to be dealt on the other side. intelligence of the battles on the rio grande reached mazatlan in june, and commodore sloat, who was there at the time, sailed for monterey with the squadron, arrived in july, and on the th hoisted the american flag, and took formal and legitimate possession of the territory. the same course was pursued at san francisco. a week afterwards the frigate congress arrived, and sloat, transferring his pennant to commodore stockton, returned home. the new commander-in-chief then sailed for san pedro, three hundred miles down the coast; where disembarking a force of three hundred seamen and marines, he marched towards the capital of upper california, pueblo de los angeles, a town some thirty miles inland. on the route, he found a body of five hundred men, under pico, and castro, the military governor of the territory. the californians broke up their camp and dispersed, before getting a glance of the sailors' bayonets. stockton occupied los angeles, received the submission of the native authorities and citizens, placed a small garrison, returned to san pedro, where he re-embarked for san francisco; in the interim the settlements of the valleys of santa clara and sonoma were occupied by american forces. fremont overtaken on his way through oregon by lieut. gillespie, retraced his steps to california, and learning the u. s. flag had been hoisted in monterey, proceeded with a battalion of settlers to the lower country, where they were duly enrolled. at san francisco news reached stockton that the natives, six hundred strong, had risen after his departure. the savannah sailed to aid the small garrison, which, however, had been obliged to capitulate, and captain mervine, with three hundred men, was beaten by a much smaller force. the commodore sailed again in the beginning of november, and landed at san diego with about men. while at this place, general kearny with dragoons arrived from a toilsome march of nearly three months from santa fé. at the pass of san pascual, he fell in with a californian force under andreas pico, and after a severe skirmish, beat them off, though with great loss to himself--eighteen of his saddles were emptied, including three officers, and as many more badly wounded. forming a junction with commodore stockton, they left san diego for san angelos. after a toilsome march of miles, through a broken and mountainous country, on the th and th of january, their passage was opposed by governor pico and castro, at the river san gabriel and plains of la mesa, heading a body of cavalry and four field guns; after an obstinate resistance, the californians were put to flight. subsequently, they fell back upon colonel fremont, who, with the volunteers, were en route to unite with the naval forces from san siego. the californian leaders again capitulated and signed an armistice. this was the position of affairs on our arrival at monterey--a few days later general kearny arrived, after his difficulties with commodore stockton and fremont, in relation to the governorship of the territory. the news we received was by no means inspiriting, nor even the perspective view of matters becoming better. among minor details, the wreck of the schooner shark, at columbia river--the drowning of a launch load of sailors and two officers, in san francisco, and a host of more trivial misfortunes. the vessels of the squadron were dispersed up and down the coast, necessarily scattering men and officers at different posts, for the purpose of retaining and subjugating the country; but of course rendering the ships generally inefficient, from the great diminution of their complements. the natives had been confounded and bewildered by speeches and proclamations--relays of fresh commanders-in-chief, who, amid their own official bickerings, never ceased forming new governments, organizing armies, appointing officers, civil and military--but what served in a great degree to urge matters to a crisis, was the banding together of a few mongrel bodies of volunteers, who enhanced the pleasure of their otherwise agreeable society, by pillaging the natives of horses, cattle, saddles, household utensils, and the like, in quite a maraudering, buccaneering, independent way; all of course under the apparent legal sanction of the united states' government, and not a doubt but demanded by the imperative necessity of their patriotic plunderers themselves. the result was easily foretold. these miserable californians, who at first were not averse to subscribe to our laws, and to come under the flag peacefully and properly, were soon screwed up to such a maze of fear, uncertainty, and excitement, as to make all future arrangements an affair of exceeding difficulty. besides, another important obstacle intervened; they were to be convinced that the americans really intended to hold permanent possession of their country, and not to make another revoke, as could be reasonably inferred from the invasion of a few years previous, when we so quickly resigned the conquest--a tergiverse proceeding, which they, as well as more enlightened nations, were somewhat at a loss to comprehend. thus judging from experience of the past, they had no desire to make themselves obnoxious to their mexican rulers, in case a like event should occur again; and consequently, in the absence of a sufficiency of those convincing arguments done up in military jackets and trousers, with muskets by their sides, to overawe even a thin population over so great an extent of territory, the natives, even those at first most favorably disposed, seized the lance, took a decided stand, and with the prospect of doing more fighting than was originally contracted for. these were the causes principally instrumental in bringing about the last outbreak. but the californians, without organization, arms, or competent leaders, though with all the elements to prolong the contest, seeing fresh arrivals of ships and troops appear on their coast, were induced to throw by the lance for the lasso, and agree to an honorable capitulation. milder influences prevailed; steps were taken to tranquilize people's minds by a spirit of conciliation dictated by good sense. useless and annoying restrictions were abolished, property of every description was returned or liberally paid for, prisoners discharged, paroles annulled, the blue jackets, playing soldiers on shore, were ordered to their respective ships, and the volunteers disbanded. all this tended in a great measure to reassure the natives of an amicable endeavor on our part to make the new yoke rest as lightly as possible on their shoulders. chapter viii. the rain came down in a steady drizzle, as we anchored in our new haven, but as the falling water thinned, and rolled partially along the land, we discerned an endless succession of green gentle slopes and valleys, with heights of just a medium between hills and mountains, rising gradually from the shores of the bay, clothed and crowned with magnificent vegetation. we did not call to mind any land naturally so picturesque and beautiful. afterwards, when our excursions had extended for many leagues in all directions, we were ever amazed to perceive on every side the loveliness of plain, hill, and valley still the same. indeed, for leagues in some directions it presented the appearance of extensive artificial parks, decked and brilliant with a carpeting of rich grasses and flowers, shaded by noble clusters of wide-spreading oaks, all entirely free from undergrowth. the town of monterey, if it could be dignified by the title, we found a mean, irregular collection of mud huts, and long, low, adobie dwellings, strewn promiscuously over an easy slope, down to the water's edge. the most conspicuous was the _duana_--custom house--a spacious frame building near the landing, which unquestionably had in times past been the means of yielding immense revenues to the mexican exchequer, but now its roomy store-houses were empty and silent. neither men nor merchandise disturbed its quiet precincts. notwithstanding the rain, numbers of us resolved to dare the moisture, and i, for one, would wade about on land, up to my neck in water, at any time to get quit of a ship after forty days aquatic recreation; but here there was no resisting the gratefully green appearance of the shores around us: we were soon stowed in a boat--the oars dipped smart and strong in the water, and we went merrily towards the land. indeed i have invariably observed that men-of-war's men are wont to use their arms with much vigor, on first pulling on shore in a strange port; a physical characteristic which i am led to attribute to a desire on their part to test the virtues of any liquid compounds to be met with in the abodes of hospitable publicans. the anchorage was barely half a mile from the shore, and in a few minutes we disembarked at a little pier, that only partially served to check the rolling swell from seaward; but what's a wet foot in a fit of enthusiasm, or a heavy shower! nothing, certainly, so we scrambled up the slimy steps, and while on the point of giving a yell of delight, to announce our arrival in california, my pedal extremities flew upwards and down i sank, making a full length _intaglio_ in the yielding mud--this was my first impression, but after getting decently scraped by jack's knives, i became less excitable, and took intense delight during the course of the afternoon, in beholding my companions going through precisely the same performances. by cautious navigation we reached the main street, then our progress was dreadfully slow and laborious. the mud--a sticky, red pigment, lay six good inches on the dryest level, and at every step our feet were disengaged by a powerful jerk, and a deep, gutteral noise from the slippy holes; occasionally, too, we were forced to climb ungainly barricades of timber, with here and there a piece of ordnance gazing ferociously out into the surrounding country. although a casual observer might naturally have supposed that the mud would have offered a sufficient barrier to all the armies ever raised, still, as trouble had been brewing, and most of the garrison withdrawn for an expedition into the interior, these precautions were quite an imposing display, which was, no doubt, all intended. at last, by dint of perseverance, we attained a firm foothold in the barracks, and then had breath and leisure to look around. monterey, before the war, contained about five hundred people, but on our advent there was scarcely a native to be seen: all the men had gone to join their belligerent friends in the southern provinces, leaving their property and dwellings to be guarded by their wives and dogs; even their ladies bore us no good will, and our salutations were returned by a surly _adios_, extorted from closed teeth and scowling faces. the dogs were more civil, and even when showing their fangs, were sagacious enough to keep beyond the chastening reach of yankee arms. there were a goodly number of sentinels on the alert, prowling about, with heavy knives in their girdles, and the locks of their rifles carefully sheltered from the rain; and at night it became a matter of some bodily danger for an indifferent person to come suddenly in view of one of these vigilant gentlemen, for with but a tolerable ear for music he might detect the sharp click of a rifle, and the hoarse caution of "look out, thar, stranger;" when if the individual addressed did not speedily shout his name and calling, he stood the merest chance of having another eyelet-hole drilled through his skull. all this at the first rapid glance gave us no very bright anticipations; everything looked triste and cheerless. upon inquiring, too we were shocked to learn there was nothing eatable to be had, nor what was yet more melancholy, naught drinkable nor smokable: everybody was so much occupied in making war, as to have entirely lost sight of their appetites. we began to indulge the faintest suspicions that somehow or other we had gotten into the wrong place, and that california was not so charming a spot as we had been led to believe; however, there was no appeal, and fortunately for our health and spirits, as we were leaning listlessly over the piazza of the barracks, staring might and main at the little church in the distance, we beheld a body of horsemen coming slowly over the verdant plains, and soon after they drew bridles, and dismounted before us. the _cavallada_ of spare horses were driven into the corral near by, and we were presented in due form to the riders. it was the most impressive little band i ever beheld; they numbered sixty, and, without exception, had gaunt bony frames like steel, dressed in skins, with heavy beards and unshorn faces, with each man his solid american rifle, and huge knife by the hip. with all their wildness and ferocious appearance they had quite simple manners, and were perfectly frank and respectful in bearing. their language and phraseology were certainly difficult for a stranger to comprehend, for many of them had passed the greater portion of their lives as trappers and hunters among the rocky mountains; but there was an air of indomitable courage hovering about them, with powers to endure any amount of toil or privation--men who wouldn't stick at scalping an indian or a dinner of mule meat;--and you felt assured in regarding them, that with a score of such staunch fellows at your side you would sleep soundly, even though the forests were alive with an atmosphere of camanche yells. they were the woodsmen of our far west, who on hearing of the disturbances in california enrolled themselves for service in the volunteer battalion--more by way of recreation, i imagine, than for glory or patriotism. in truth, the natives had good reason to regard them with terror. we soon became quite sociable, and after a hearty supper of fried beef and biscuit, by some miraculous dispensation a five-gallon keg of whiskey was uncorked, and, after a thirty days' thirst, our new-found friends slaked away unremittingly. many were the marvellous adventures narrated of huntings, fightings, freezings, snowings, and starvations; and one stalwart bronzed trapper beside me, finding an attentive listener, began,--"the last time, captin, i cleared the oregon trail, the ingens fowt us amazin' hard. pete," said he, addressing a friend smoking a clay pipe by the fire, with a half pint of corn-juice in his hand, which served to moisten his own clay at intervals between every puff,--"pete, do you notice how i dropped the red skin who pit the poisoned arrer in my moccasin! snakes, captin, the varmints lay thick as leaves behind the rocks; and bless ye, the minit i let fall old ginger from my jaw, up they springs, and lets fly their flint-headed arrers in amongst us, and one on 'em wiped me right through the leg. i tell yer what it is, hoss, i riled, i did, though we'd had tolerable luck in the forenoon--for i dropped two and a squaw and pete got his good six--barrin' that the darned villians had hamstrung our mule, and we were bound to see the thing out. well, captin, as i tell ye, i'm not weak in the jints, but it's no joke to hold the heft of twenty-three pounds on a sight for above ten minits on a stretch; so pete and me scrouched down, made a little smoke with some sticks, and then we moved off a few rods, whar we got a clar peep; for better than an hour we seed nothin', but on a suddin i seed the chap--i know'd him by his paintin'--that driv the arrer in my hide; he was peerin' around quite bold, thinkin' we'd vamosed; i jist fetched old ginger up and drawed a bee line on his cratch, and, stranger, i giv him sich a winch in the stomach that he dropped straight into his tracks; he did! in five jumps i riz his har, and pete and me warn't troubled agin for a week." with such pleasant converse we beguiled the time until the night was somewhat advanced; when, finding a vacant corner near the blazing fire, with a saddle for pillow, i sank into profound slumber, and never awoke to consciousness until the band was again astir at sunrise. chapter ix. the time passed rapidly away. the rainy season had nearly ended,--we were only favored with occasional showers, and by the latter part of february, the early spring had burst forth, and nothing could exceed the loveliness of the rich, verdant landscape around us. after the treaty and capitulation had been signed by the picos at los angeles, their partizans dispersed, and all who resided in monterey shortly returned to their homes. every day brought an addition to the place--great ox-cart caravans with hide bodies, and unwieldy wheels of hewn timber, came streaming slowly along the roads, filled with women and children, who had sought refuge in some secure retreat in the country. cattle soon were seen grazing about the hills. the town itself began to look alive--doors were unlocked and windows thrown open--a café and billiards emerged--pulperias, with shelves filled with aguadiente appeared on every corner--the barricades were torn down--guns removed--and the californians themselves rode blithely by, with heavy, jingling spurs, and smiling faces--the women, too, flashed their bright eyes less angrily upon their invaders--accepted pleasant compliments without a sneer, and even doña angustia ximénes, who took a solemn oath upon her missal a few months before, never to dance again, until she could wear a necklace of yankee ears, relented too, and not only swept gracefully through waltz and contra dança, but when afterwards one of our young officers became ill with fever, she had him carried from the tent to her dwelling, watched him with all a woman's care and tenderness, as much as though she had been the mother that bore him, until he was carried to his last home. yes, bella señora, you may swear the same wicked oaths forever, and still be forgiven by all those who witnessed your disinterested devotion to poor minor. gradually these good people became aware that the yankees were not such a vile pack of demonios as they first believed, and thus whenever guitars were tinkling at the fandangos, or meals laid upon the board, we were kindly welcomed, with the privilege of making as much love, and devouring as many _frijoles_ as may have been polite or palatable. upon visiting the residences of the townspeople, true to the old spanish character there was no attempt made in show or ostentation--that is always reserved for the street or alemeda, but a stranger is received with cordiality, and a certain ease and propriety to which they seem to the "manner born." with the denizens of monterey, even the wealthiest, cleanliness was an acquirement very little appreciated or practised, and i should presume the commodity of soap to be an article "more honored in the breach than the observance." for being given to cold water as a principle of lady-like existence i was something shocked on one occasion, to find a nice little señorita, to whom i had been playing the agreeable the night previous, with a chemisette of a chocolate hue peeping through a slit in her sleeve; her soft, dimpled hands, too, made me speculate mentally upon the appearance of her little feet, and i forthwith resolved, in the event of becoming so deeply infatuated as to induce her papa to permit a change of estate, to exact a change of raiment in the marriage contract. the occasion of inspecting the arena of this young woman's vestments was during a visit to her portly mamma, and i may as well, by way of example, describe my reception. the dwelling was a low, one story pile of adobies, retaining the color of the primitive mud, and forming a large parallelogram; it enclosed a huge pen, or corral, for cattle, over which guard was carefully mounted by crowds of _gallinazos_. there were divers collections of indian families coiled and huddled about beneath the porticoes and doorways, each member thereof rejoicing in great masses of wiry shocks of hair, quite coarse enough to weave into bird cages on an emergency; there were some bee-hive shaped ovens also, from the apertures of which i remarked a number of filthy individuals immersed neck deep, taking, no doubt, balmy slumber, with the rain doing what they never had the energy to perform themselves--washing their faces. this much for externals--men and beasts included, merely premising that the whole affair was situated in a quiet detachment by itself, a few hundred yards in rear of the village. my guide, though a good pilot, and retaining a clear perception of the road, was unable to convoy me safely to the house, without getting stalled several times in the mire; however, i reached terra firma, thankful to have escaped with my boots overflowing with mud, and then we marched boldly into the domicile. we entered a large, white-washed _sala_, when, after clapping hands, a concourse of small children approached with a lighted tallow link, and in reply to our inquiries, without further ceremony, ushered us by another apartment into the presence of the mistress of the mansion. she was sitting _a la grand turque_, on the chief ornamental structure that graced the chamber--namely, the bed, upon which, were sportively engaged three diminutive brats, with a mouse-trap--paper cigarritos--dirty feet, and other juvenile and diverting toys. the doña herself was swallowing and puffing clouds of smoke alternately--but i must paint her as she sat, through the haze. "juana," said she, calling to a short, squat indian girl, "_lumbrecita por el señor_,"--a light for the gentleman--and in a moment i was likewise pouring forth volumes of smoke. she wore her hair, which was black and glossy, in natural folds straight down the neck and shoulders, dark complexion, lighted by deep, black, intelligent eyes, well-shaped features, and brilliant, white teeth. i saw but little of her figure, as she was almost entirely enveloped in shawls and bed clothes; the arms, however, were visible, very large, round and symmetrical, which of themselves induced me to resign all pretensions to becoming her son-in-law. she excused herself on the plea of indisposition for not rising, and it being one i surmised she was a martyr to every year or so, i very readily coincided in opinion, but in truth i found the señora mariqueta sensible, good-humored, and what was far more notable, the mother of fourteen male and five female children--making nineteen the sum of boys and girls total, as she informed me herself, without putting me to the trouble of counting the brood; and yet she numbered but seven and thirty years, in the very prime of life, with the appearance of being again able to perform equally astonishing exploits for the future. she named many of her friends and relatives who had done wonders, but none who had surpassed her in these infantile races. in spain she would receive a pension, be exempted from taxes and the militia. on being told this she laughed heartily, and gave her full assent to any schemes undertaken in california for the amelioration of the sex. her husband, who chanced to be absent, was a foreigner, but the whole family were highly respectable, and universally esteemed by their fellow citizens. after an hour's pleasant chat we took leave, with the promise on my part of teaching the eldest daughter, teresa, the polka, for which i needed no incentive, as she was extremely graceful and pretty. chapter x. one morning, at break of day, i left monterey for a tramp among the hills; the natives by this time had become pacifically disposed, and there were no serious apprehensions of getting a hide necklace thrown over one's head, in shape of the unerring lasso, if perchance a yankee strayed too far from his quarters. the war was virtually ended in california: there was no further hope for gold chains or wooden legs; the glory had been reaped by the first comers; and i made the time and shot fly together, ranging about the suburbs. with a fowling-piece on my arm, and a carbine slung to the back of an attendant, we pursued a tortuous path, through a gap in the hills, to the southward, and after a four or five miles' walk we found ourselves at the mission of carmelo. it is within a mile of the sea, protected by a neck of land, close to a rapid clear stream of the same name. a quaint old church, falling to decay, with crumbling tower and belfry, broken roofs, and long lines of mud-built dwellings, all in ruins, is what remains of a once flourishing and wealthy settlement. it still presents a picturesque appearance, standing on a little rise, above a broad fertile plain of many acres, adjacent to the banks of the river, and at the base a large orchard of fruits and flowers. following up the stream for some leagues, through the same rich level, crossing and re-crossing the pure running water, with noble salmon flashing their silver sides at every fathom, we soon bagged as much game as we could stagger under: wild ducks, quail, partridges, hares of a very large size, and rabbits. not contented with this we left the valley, and struck through a narrow gorge of the adjoining hills. here i caught a glimpse of a trio of _coyotes_ and instantly blazed away with the carbine, which brought one of them tumbling down the steep, but much to my surprise his two friends followed, and actually bolstered up their wounded comrade, and assisted him out of sight before i could send another bullet. they were as large as wolves, of a light yellowish brown, with long sharp snouts, bushy hanging tails, and a gait like the trot of a dog. they are very disagreeable customers to sheep and other small fry, and, as i discovered subsequently, that when badly wounded, they have a very unpleasant way with their teeth. continuing onward, and hardly recovered from my astonishment at the rencounter with the _coyotes_, when up bounded, within thirty yards, three large deer, and with the coolest impudence stared me full in the face. _maldito!_ the carbine was again in the hands of my companion, some distance behind, but i could not resist the temptation of giving a strapping buck a hail-storm of fine shot between the eyes. even this only made the party a little frisky, kick up their heels, toss their heads, and wag their short tails. i was in hopes the carbine would reach me in time to send the lead more in a lump, but in another moment they sprang off like the wind, and the next seen of them was in company with a large herd, a mile away, with their graceful bodies and limbs standing in clear relief against the blue sky, i had not a doubt but that they were relating my chagrin as a capital buckish joke. by this time we had penetrated so far from ravine to hill as to have completely lost our bearings, and becoming quite bewildered, i began to entertain serious ideas of seeking some place of shelter for the night. my attendant, too, had fallen down two or three times from exhaustion, the sun was rapidly declining, and i was not at all pleased with the wild appearance of the hills and valleys that encircled us. throwing away the greater part of our game, we made a toilsome effort, and reached the crest of an adjacent height, in hopes of getting a glimpse of the plains of carmelo. again we were disappointed; and while on the point of making the best of our bargain, by risking a hug from grizzly bears or panthers during the night, i espied a horseman slowly winding his way beneath us in the gorge. by discharging a barrel of my piece, and continued shouts, we soon attracted attention, and thus being encouraged by the sight of a fellow-being, we sprang briskly down the steep. however, our ally evinced no violent affection for us, and in a trice wheeled his horse up the opposite face of the acclivity; there he paused, well out of gun-shot, and presently i heard a shrill voice crying, "_que es lo que quiere?_" "we are lost," i replied; "will you assist us?" with many a wary glance and movement, he at last came frankly towards us, and i then discovered an intelligent little fellow, about ten years of age, astride a powerful animal, which he guided by a single thong of hide. slipping from the saddle, and letting his lasso fall on the ground, he doffed his broad glazed _sombrero_, and stood awaiting my wishes. on learning our situation he gladly volunteered to guide us, and in return told me that he had been all day seeking stray cattle among the mountains, that the bears were very numerous, and that we had described a wide circuit around the hills, and were within a short league of the mission. this last was highly gratifying information, and mounting my worn-out attendant on the horse, our little guide took the bridle, and led the way towards the valley. it was quite dark on reaching the stream, and i felt thoroughly knocked up, but a few minutes bathe in the chill water gave me new life, and shortly after we were housed in the great hall of the mission. it chanced to be sunday evening, moreover, during carnival, and there were preparations for a more brilliant fandango than the usual weekly affair generally produced. a few horses were picketted about the great _patio_, and two or three ox-carts with hide bodies were serving for boudoirs to damsels, who had come from afar to mingle in the ball. but the company had not yet assembled in the old hall, that had once served the good _frayles_ for a refectory; and on entering i was kindly welcomed by the patrona margarita, and her handsome coquettish daughter, domatilda, who were the liege and lady hostesses of the carmelo mission. with her own hands the jolly madre soon prepared me an _olla podrida_ of tomatoes, peppers, and the remains in my game bag. then her laughing nymph patted me some _tortillas_; and after eating ravenously, and draining a cup of aguadiente, the hospitable old lady tumbled me into her own spacious couch, which stood in an angle of the hall, and giving me a hearty slap on the back, shouted, "_duerma usted bien hijo mio hasta media noche_"--sleep like a top until midnight. i needed no second bidding, and in a moment was buried in deep sleep. unconscious of fleeting hours, i was at length restored to life, but in the most disordered frame of mind; suffering under a most complicated attack of nightmare, of which bear-hugs, murders, manacles and music present but a slight idea of my agony; and indeed, when after pinching myself, and tearing my eyelids fairly open, i had still great difficulty in recalling my erring faculties. i found my own individual person deluged with a swarm of babies, who were lying athwart ships, and amid ships, fore and aft, heads and toes, every way; and one interesting infant, just teething, was sucking vigorously away on the left lobe of my ear, while another lovingly entwined its little fingers in my whiskers. nor was this half the bodily miseries i had so innocently endured. a gay youth, with a dripping link, nicely balanced against my boots, was sitting on my legs, with a level space on the bed before him, intently playing _monté_, to the great detriment of the purses of his audience. on glancing around, i beheld the lofty apartment lighted by long tallow candles melted against the walls, whose smoke clung in dense clouds around the beams of the lofty hall; the floor was nearly filled, at the lower end, with groups of swarthy indians and paisanos, sipping aguadiente, or indulging in the same exciting amusement as the gentleman sitting on my feet. on either side were double rows of men and women, moving in the most bewildering mazes of the contra danza: turning and twisting, twining and whirling with unceasing rapidity, keeping time to most inspiriting music, of harps and guitars; whilst ever and anon, some delighted youth would elevate his voice, in a shout of ecstasy, at the success of some bright-eyed señorita in the dance: _ay, mi alma! toma la bolsa! caramba!_--go it, my beauty! take my purse! beautiful!--it took me but an instant to appreciate all this; and then, being fully roused to my wrongs, i gave one vigorous spring, which sent the _monté_ man, candle, cards, and coppers, flying against the wall, and bounding to my feet i made a dash at the patrona, drank all the _licores_ on the tray, and seizing her around the waist, away we spun through the fandango. long before rosy morn i had become as merry and delighted as the rest of the company. i bought a dirty pack of cards for a rial, and opened a monte bank, for coppers and paper cigars, and although a select party of indios did their best to impose upon my youth and inexperience, yet on receiving their treasure of _centavos_, winning a hatful of cigarritos, and only paying half a one for _importas_, i comprehended by their gutteral exclamations that their _compadre_ was not so verdant a person as they at first imagined. thus i left them to their reflections, and busied myself swearing love, and sipping _dulces_ with the brunettas; vowing friendship to the men; drinking strong waters; promising to redress all grievances, to pay all claims out of my own pocket for the government; and ended by repudiating the yankees, and swearing myself a full-blooded californian. however, these ebullitions were partially attributable to the heated rooms, and _licores_ of madre mariqueta; but when the golden sun came streaming into the house, the links had formed heavy stalactites against the walls; and notwithstanding the earnest solicitations of my new made friends, i jumped up behind my little guide of the evening previous, and galloped off towards monterey. thus passed my first visit to carmelo, and scarcely a week went by that i did not enjoy a supper of one of the patrona's capital ollas, with may be a little wholesome exercise to digest it, at the evening fandango--it was the only place where could be seen a dash of native life, but even this lost its charm. during carnival, i made my homage to all who were docile enough, and i must add clean enough to receive it; but whether owing to a want of tact, fervor, or devotion, i failed to keep the mercury up to boiling point, and after presenting one slim little doña with a two shilling brooch of great magnitude and brilliancy--crushing dozens of variegated eggs on the shining tresses of others, and nearly driving a horse distracted through the agency of enormous spurs, in hopes to show my skill and win a smile from one in particular--i at last, through weariness and disgust, gave up the chase, and became a devoted lover of chasing still wilder game in the beautiful regions around. for days and weeks i did naught but ride and hunt, and became so inured to long fatiguing tramps and night bivouacs, that with the ever-varying excitement of the sport, i not only slept the sounder in the open air, but enjoyed better health than i had before known. the climate of the interior is far dryer, clearer and more salubrious than by the sea. on the coast we were frequently for many successive days, annoyed by raw, foggy weather, and on one occasion there was a light fall of snow, but every league inland gives a more genial invigorating temperature. there are very few unhealthy spots in either central or lower california. on the low banks and tributaries of the bay of san francisco, fever prevails to a great extent during the summer and fall, but elsewhere all epidemic disorders are extremely rare. the summer subsequent to our arrival in monterey, a malignant fever attacked and carried off a number of foreigners, but this, although not severe upon the natives, was regarded as something extraordinary. in these hunting excursions i was often attended by some friendly hunter, whose time hung heavy on his hands, but usually by the same little fellow who had been my pilot through the carmelo mountains; his name was juaquin luis, and by far the most intelligent, handsome boy in the place. on sundays, with his gala dress of blue velvet trowsers, red sash, glazed hat and silver rope around it, he was quite a picture. his knowledge of all the roads, most intricate paths and passes for many leagues, was remarkable, and at times i was almost confounded at his apparently instinctive sagacity--he knew the haunts and habits of game, was a capital shot, rode a horse like part of the animal, never daunted, never dismayed, never without an expedient, he was the most perfect child of the woods conceivable, and quite won my heart by his intelligence. he was always delighted to be my companion, for not being one of those wise children who knew their sires, his home was none of the pleasantest, for his dame was living with a cross-grained cobler, in _relatione_, or as the youngster expressed it, she was wedded, _detras la iglesia_--behind the church--or in other words, had cheated the priest out of his marriage dues, and being, i fancied, rather given to aguadiente, the domestic felicity of the mansion was somewhat marred; consequently the boy was left to thrive upon his own resources. sometimes the old lady endeavored to detain him from accompanying me, but i threatened to stop her grog, by reporting her conduct to the grave and reverend alcalde of the place, and thenceforth she contented herself by extorting a few rials from her child's store, at my expense. on passing the hut on the outskirts of the town and giving a shrill whistle, out sprang juaquinito, with his little black head and sparkling eyes shoved through the slit of his _serapa_, swinging the lasso in steady circles, and noosing his horse in the corral, the next moment would leap on his back, take the carbine or rifle, and off we sallied. at night we made fire, ate broiled partridges without stint, and slept under the same blanket. one of our excursions was to the river and plains of salinas, about fifteen miles in a northerly direction, along the shores of the bay. these plains vary from ten to twenty miles in width, and extend fifty or sixty into the interior, and like the great plain of santa clara, have evidently at some former period been the beds of large lakes or rivers. the salinas is walled in by compact ridges of mountains running transversely towards the ocean, from the main sierra madre of california. the river is a muddy rapid stream, subjected to heavy freshets during the melting of the upland snows, and coursing close along the southern edge of the plains. on approaching the heights above the plain, i suddenly checked the reins, perfectly transfixed with surprise; for never in my life had i beheld such a magnificent vista of its kind; one broad dead level extending far as the eye could compass, like a solid brilliant sea of grass and flowers, dotted here and there by vast flocks of sheep and cattle, with the margins of the stream marked out for many a league, with fringes of drooping willows. descending the hill, we swam the river, and after a short ride along the verge of the plain, came to the _molino_--mill--and rancho of one bill anderson, who, with his head powdered by flour, like a lord of the olden time, received me cordially, and being furnished with fresh horses, away we started to slaughter wild geese. they were congregated in myriads, both white and grey, feeding on the rich short grasses, and when disturbed, the noise of their wings and throats was truly deafening--they were excessively shy, and finding even buck-shot not efficacious in doing its work from a fowling-piece, i was obliged to throw single balls among the masses, from the carbine; by which method, in a few hours, we had collected a respectable horse load; they were quite fat, and resembled the tame goose with us in every particular, except the bill being much sharper and smaller. during the wet seasons, a great number of natural canals intersect these lovely plains, and are filled with swans, wild ducks, snipe and curlew, besides multitudes of quails and cranes, with now and then a large eagle to fatten on them. as night set in, and the wolves were beginning to cry and howl melodiously after the wounded or sleeping birds, we returned to the rancho. our host, the afore-mentioned bill anderson, was a cockney: very hospitable, very much given to the bottle, and withal a great talker and liar. his history was a simple one. leaving england as ship-boy, he deserted and drifted about the islands of the pacific, until at last he found himself stranded on the shores of california. here he shortly became a man of importance, from having been summarily carried out of the country, with the graham party, who, like our bear friends, had rendered themselves highly obnoxious to the native population. in course of time bill was released, and returned; established a mill on the plains, married a californian wife, and then got drunk at his leisure and pleasure. bill received me again most civilly, as he also did a bottle of brandy. whether attributable to my arrival, or necessity, i did not pause to inquire, but certain it is that a bullock was slain immediately thereafter; and, i presume in compliment to the carcass, an inundation of dependents of both sexes and of all hues and colors, had dropt in to share the feast. bill and i, with little juaquin retired to an inner apartment, which happened to be laid with a plank floor, and a good fire in the place; there was a very respectable preparation for supper, and being much too famished to mind the filth, i shut eyes, opened mouth, and ate away voraciously. dogs soon licked the plates clean, in readiness for breakfast, probably; and in a couple of hours my thirsty host, from a too frequent application of the brandy to his parched lips, became very gloriously tipsy; and after indulging me with a full confession of many sins, and all his grievances, moreover his utterance becoming somewhat indistinct, i bade him adios, while about relating what he would observe to the "english secretary of state, if he only had him there,"--pointing with the bottle to his dozing sposa. my shake-down was in a small receptacle for rubbish, fleas, and other lively furniture, which in getting at, i was obliged to pass a large room, laid out with about five-and-twenty of the servitors--men, women, and children--all in heaps. there were a number of limbs obstructing the passage, and i was obliged to push them aside, rather unceremoniously, i fear, for i was greeted by a volley of indian gutteral curses, sounding quite like a person who had swallowed a collection of shells, and was anxious to get them up more expeditiously than was possible. being too tired and drowsy to heed their complaints, with juaquinito i betook myself to mat and blankets, and never moved until break of day; when i arose, kicked up an indian, and sent for fresh horses, and continued shooting geese and curlew, until the morning was far advanced; then, after swearing devoted friendship to bill anderson, his bullocks, and his wife, we departed for the port. chapter xi. we remained two months at monterey; and then upon the assembling of the squadron, and the arrival of a new commodore, rather than play segundo violo, and have the blue pennant of a commander-in-chief flaunting its folds in face of our red, we were glad to lift the anchors, and sail for the waters of san francisco. steering too far from the land, a northerly gale arose, and although the distance is but eighty miles, we were a week in gaining our destination, on the th of march. the face of the coast presents the same general aspect as that to the southward of monterey--one great sea-wall of mountains, split into deep ravines, and tufted with towering pines. many of these trees that fringe what humboldt terms the maritime alps of california, are of enormous magnitude. a german naturalist, employed in scientific pursuits in the country, assured me that he had measured pines in the santa cruz mountains fifty-seven feet in girth at the base, and carrying the lofty tops upon a clear shaft for two hundred and seventy feet without a branch! i have also seen, in my californian rambles, pines of immense growth, taking root in the wild glens of rich and sheltered mountain gorges, shooting up straight and clear as javelins, with symmetrical columns that would make too taunt masts for the tallest "amiral" that ever floated. near to the mouth of san francisco the land recedes, and passing through the narrow jaws of the straits, which are framed in by bold, precipitous, and rocky cliffs, where violent currents are sweeping and foaming in eddying whirls around their base, you soon debouch into the outer bay. it is like a great lake, stretching away right and left, far into the heart of california. to the north another aperture, and still another, leads into the bays of san pablo and sosun, washing the valleys of sinoma and tulares, and fed by the rivers sacramento and san joaquin, after passing over the golden sands of the rich mines beyond. to the southward the waters are not so extended, and the bay laves the garden of california in the beautiful vale of santa clara. green islands adorn the bosom of these vast estuaries, and everywhere are found safe and commodious harbors. our anchorage was near the little village of yerbabuena, five miles from the ocean, and within a short distance from the franciscan mission and presidio of the old royalists. the site seems badly chosen, for although it reposes in partial shelter, beneath the high bluffs of the coast, yet a great portion of the year it is enveloped in chilling fogs; and invariably, during the afternoon, strong sea breezes are drawn through the straits like a funnel, and playing with fitful violence around the hills, the sand is swept in blinding clouds over the town and the adjacent shores of the bay. yet with all these drawbacks the place was rapidly thriving under the indomitable energy of our countrymen. tenements, large and small, were running up, like card-built houses, in all directions. the population was composed of mormons, backwoodsmen, and a few very respectable traders from the eastern cities of the united states. very rare it was to see a native: our brethren had played the porcupine so sharply as to oblige them to seek their homes among more congenial kindred. on sunday, however, it was not uncommon to encounter gay cavalcades of young paisanos, jingling in silver chains and finery, dashing into town, half-a-dozen abreast; having left their sweethearts at the mission, or some neighboring rancho, for the evening fandango. towards afternoon, when these frolicsome _caballeros_ became a trifle elevated with their potations, they were wont to indulge in a variety of capricious feats on horseback--leaping and wheeling--throwing the lasso over each other;--or if by chance a bullock appeared, they took delight while at full speed in the _carrara_, in catching the beasts by a dextrous twist in the tail; and the performance was never satisfactorily concluded until the bullock was thrown a complete summerset over his horns. these paisanos of california, like the guachos of buenos ayres, and guaso of chili, pass most of their existence on horseback; there the natural vigor of manhood seems all at once called into play, and horse and backer appear of the same piece. the lasso is their plaything, either for service or pastime; with it, the unruly wild horse, or bullock, is brought within reach of the knife. ferocious bruin himself gets his throat twisted and choked, and with heavy paws spread wide apart, is dragged for miles, perhaps to the bear-bait, notwithstanding his glittering jaws, and giant efforts to escape. without the horse and lasso, these gentry are helpless as infants; their horses are admirably trained, and sometimes perform under a skilful hand pranks that always cause surprise to strangers. i once saw a band of horses, at general rosa's quinta, near buenos ayres, trained to run like hares, with fore and hind legs lashed together by thongs of hide; it was undertaken to preserve the animals from being thrown by the indian bolas, and the riders, as a consequence, lanced to death. but i was far more amused one afternoon while passing a fandango, near monterey, to see a drunken _vaquero_--cattle-driver--mounted on a restive, plunging beast, hold at arms length a tray of glasses, brimming with aguadiente, which he politely offered to everybody within reach of his curvettings, without ever once spilling a drop. i thought this better than camille leroux, in the polka, or a guacho picking up a cigarritto with his teeth, at a hand gallop! it is remarkable, too, how very long the californian can urge a horse, and how lightly he rides, even when the beast appears thoroughly exhausted, tottering at every pace under a strange rider; yet the native will lift him to renewed struggles, and hold him up for leagues further. nor is it by the aid of his enormous spurs, for the punishment is by no means so severe as the sharp rowels with us; but accustomed to the horse from infancy, he appears to divine his powers, and thus a mutual and instinctive bond is established between them. the saddles here, as well as those along the southern coasts, partake in build of the old spanish high peak and croupe, and are really intended for ease and comfort to the rider. in chili the pillion is used--a soft material of rugs, smooth and thick, thrown over the saddle frame; but it distends the thighs too greatly. the californian is both hard and heavy, and murderous to the horse. the mexican is best,--less cumbersome, more elegant in construction, and a great support to the rider. the stirrups of all are similar--weighty wooden structures--and the feet rest naturally in them. there is nothing either pleasing or inviting in the landscape in the vicinity of yerbabuena. all looks bare and sterile from a distance, and on closer inspection, the deep sandy soil is covered with impervious thickets of low thorny undergrowth, with none of the rich green herbage, forests or timber as in monterey. the roads were so heavy that the horses could hardly strain, nearly knee deep, through the sand, and consequently, our rides were restricted to a league's _pasear_ to the mission, or across the narrow strip of the peninsular to the old presidio; but in the town we passed the hours pleasantly, became conversant with the mormon bible and doctrine, rolled ten-pins, and amused ourselves nightly, at the monte in the _casa de bebida de brown_; still there was a great stir and bustle going on. a number of large merchant ships had arrived, bringing the regiment of new york volunteers, and the beach was strewn with heavy guns, carriages, piles of shot, ordnance stores, wagons, tents and camp equipage, whilst the streets were filled with troops, who belonged to the true democracy, called one another mister, snubbed their officers, and did generally as they pleased, which was literally nothing. however, in due time, they were brought into the traces, and properly buckled to their duty, when their services were exerted in planting a battery of long -pounders, to command the straits, and their excitable spirits kept under control at their quarters in the presidio. this was yerbabuena as we found it on our first coming--rapidly springing into importance, and bidding fair at some future day, even without the advantages to be derived from the mines which were then unknown, to become the greatest commercial port on the pacific. previous to our arrival in the waters of francisco, a frightful incident transpired amidst the californian mountains, which goes far to surpass any event of the kind heard or seen, from the black hole of calcutta, to smoking the arabs in algeria. it relates to a party of emigrants, whose shocking inhuman cannibalisms and sufferings exceeded all belief. the news first reached us in monterey, and also that a party had been despatched to succor them. from an officer of the navy in charge of the expedition, and from one of the survivors, a spanish boy, named baptiste, i learned the following particulars: the number of emigrants were originally eighty; through a culpable combination of ignorance and folly, they loitered many weeks on the route, when, upon gaining the sierra, the snows set in, the trails became blocked up and impassable, and they were obliged to encamp for the winter; their provisions were shortly exhausted, their cattle were devoured to the last horse's hide, hunger came upon them, gaunt and terrible, starvation at last--men, women and children starved to death, and were eaten by their fellows--insanity followed. when relief arrived, the survivors were found rolling in filth, parents eating their own offspring, denizens of different cabins exchanging limbs and meat--little children tearing and devouring the livers and hearts of the dead, and a general apathy and mania pervaded all alike, so as to make them scout the idea of leaving their property in the mountains before the spring, even to save their miserable lives; and on separating those who were able to bear the fatigue of travelling, the cursings and ravings of the remainder were monstrous. one dutchman actually ate a full-grown body in thirty-six hours! another boiled and devoured a girl nine years old, in a single night. the women held on to life with greater tenacity than the men--in fact, the first intelligence was brought to sutter's fort, on the sacramento, by two young girls. one of them feasted on her good papa, but on making soup of her lover's head, she confessed to some inward qualms of conscience. the young spaniard, baptiste, was hero of the party, performing all labor and drudgery in getting fuel and water, until his strength became exhausted; he told me that he ate jake donner and the baby, "eat baby raw, stewed some of jake, and roasted his head, not good meat, taste like sheep with the rot; but, sir, very hungry, eat anything,"--these were his very words. there were thirty survivors, and a number of them without feet, either frozen or burnt off, who were placed under the care of our surgeons on shore. although nothing has ever happened more truly dreadful, and in many respects ludicrously so, yet what was surprising, the emigrants themselves perceived nothing very extraordinary in all these cannibalisms, but seemed to regard it as an every day occurrence--surely they were deranged. the party who went to their relief deserved all praise, for they, too, endured every hardship, and many were badly frostbitten. the cause of all this suffering was mainly attributable to the unmeaning delay and indolence attending their early progress on the route, but with every advantage in favor of emigration, the journey in itself must be attended with immense privation and toil. the mere fact, that by the upper route there is one vast desert to be travelled over, many hundred miles in width, affording very little vegetation or sustenance, and to crown the difficulty, terminated by the rugged chain of californian mountains, is almost sufficient in itself to deter many a good man and strong, from exposing his life and property, for an unknown home on the shores of the pacific. chapter xii. tarrying a fortnight at yerbabuena, we then crossed the bay and dropped anchor beneath the lofty hills of sousoulito, where we busied ourselves filling up with fresh water. this anchorage is a great resort for whale ships, coming from the north-west fishing grounds, for water and supplies; the procurante of which was an englishman, for many years a resident in the country, and possessing myriads of cattle, and a principality in land and mountains; among other valuables, he was the sire of the belle of california, in the person of a young girl named marianna. her mother was spanish, with the remains of great personal charms; as to the child, i never saw a more patrician style of beauty and native elegance in any clime where castillian doñas bloom. she was brunette, with an oval face, magnificent dark grey eyes, with the corners of her mouth slightly curved downward, so as to give a proud and haughty expression to the face--in person she was tall, graceful and well shaped, and although her feet were encased in deer skin shoes, and hands bare, they still might have vied with any belles of our own. i believe the lovely marianna was as amiable as beautiful, and i know her bright eye glancing along the delicate sights of her rifle, sent the leaden missive with the deadly aim of a marksman, and that she rode like an angel, and could strike a bullock dead with one quick blow of a keen blade, but notwithstanding these domestic accomplishments and anglo-saxon lineage, she held the demonios yankees in mortal abhorrence; but who could blame her, they had murdered a brace of her handsomest lovers, and this in california, where lovers were scarce, was a crime not to be forgiven. one morning i shouldered a rifle--indebted to don ricardo for horses, and his beautiful daughter for a cup of water, and being attended by a little truant ship-boy as guide, who had been left to cure hides during the absence of his vessel, we dashed inland. crossing a belt of mountains, we struck the sea shore, and turning to the northward, ascended a succession of steep hills, until we had gained a rocky table-land above--there was no timber to be seen, and except the stunted undergrowth netted together in valleys and ravines, all was one rolling scene of grass, wild oats and flowers. near by was a small sheet of fresh water, caught by the rain and held in by a narrow plateau, swarming with water fowl, and framed by broken masses of huge rocks. it was a great resort for deer, and i found them herding in large bands of thirty and forty together, but from the nature of the country, so open and free from foliage, it required the utmost caution to approach within striking distance. however, i managed to pop the death billets into the hearts of two noble bucks, and while creeping down a gully for a shot at a third, i was startled by the shouts and gestures of the boy, "here's a grizzly a-coming! here's a grizzly." gott in heimmell, i mentally ejaculated--there is going to be a race. away i clambered and ran to the nearest height--there was a huge black monster, the size of a bullock, coming from the direction of the lake, and tearing up the opposite ridge towards where the horses were picketed. the frightened beasts scenting their enemy, were plunging and snorting terrifically, until at last they broke their _riatas_, and plunged like mad down the steep--the boy was making his heels fly as if provided with a steam engine in his trowsers; then looking upon the mission as fully accomplished, i tightened my belt, and leaped in the tracks of my companion. i have no accurate means of determining the rapidity of my flight, but should any one feel disposed to test the full capacity of his lungs and legs, he can do so to the utmost, with a grizzly behind him. i little thought, the last time i saw one at the _jardin des plantes_, and took such interest in watching children feeding him with sweet buns, enclosing nice bits of tobacco, or a pinch of snuff, that i should encounter one of his brethren among the wilds of california, with the joke entirely the other way. we never halted until a good mile lay between bruin's paws and our own, then we could see him lazily walking along the crest of a hill, with a saddle of venison in his dainty jaws. one of the horses in his anxiety to be foremost in the race, leaped over the boy, inflicting an unpleasant hoof tap on the ribs--fortunately the injury was not serious, and we contrived to catch one and lasso the other; but may the devil catch that bear, i was obliged to leave my strapping bucks to his tender mercies, and return to the ship, scared and chagrined beyond measure--laughed at, of course; still i deemed it far preferable than to be hugged to death, with the only consolation left in knowing that what part of one is not devoured will be carefully buried, according to custom, for another meal. there is scarcely a resident in the mountains of upper california who has not, at one time or another, been attacked by these formidable beasts. i saw the scars, left by the claws of one, on the broad back of a fine old irishman; and he informed me, that after being torn from the saddle, he feigned death, until his friends, who were in sight, came up, and drove some balls into the beast, who never for a moment before removed his powerful jaws from within two inches of his victim's face. they are extremely hard to kill, and unless the bullets take effect in the head or heart, are only rendered the more infuriated. previous to the adventure at sousoulito, i had been in the habit of expending all my powder and prowess on angel island. it is a very picturesque little spot, about three miles in circumference, rising to the height of near eight hundred feet, and radiating in numberless ridges and ravines down to the water's edge. there are many fertile slopes luxuriating in fine trees and vegetation, and on all sides pure rills of water leaping into the bay. lying in a wide sweep of the san francisco, within a mile of the main land, the deer resort there in great numbers, to feed on the palatable herbs growing on the northern sides, and also for the close shelter afforded, beneath multitudes of the densest network of tangled thickets that ever man or quadruped has explored. angel island will for ever be a bright oasis in my hunting career, as it was the ground of my maiden prowess. nor shall i soon forget the day, when, tired as possible after a long unsuccessful tramp, i happened to glance down a gentle ravine and beheld a sturdy buck nibbling daintily at the young shoots. blazes! how the blood and excitement came dancing back through veins and wearied frame, even to the extremity of my trigger-joint! up came the heavy tube! click! crack!--and at the instant, the wounded deer sprang convulsively in the air and fell back dead;--down the gully--heels up;--the edge of a sheath-knife made a very respectable slip athwart his throat; and the same evening he was quietly reposing, among less gamey meats, under the eye of the sentinel, on the frigate's gun-deck. i have killed many a one since, but i shall never again feel the same thrill of triumph as that i experienced in this my first effort. i also had the good fortune to slay an elk on the same island, and i believe the only one ever found there. on seeing him rush past, i at first mistook him for a horse, but on perceiving the short cocked-up tail, small elegant head and branching antlers, i quickly changed my opinion; and as he paused a second on the brow of a projection below, to honor me with an inspection, i returned the compliment by laying my cheek to the rifle. crack! away he trotted--none but the does bound--apparently unhurt, and i followed in the wake; the next bullet made him squirm, and at the third i noticed a crimson stream pouring from his mouth; then feeling satisfied there was some essential injury done to his digestion, and coming again within range, about a mile from the last shot, i pitched another ball right through the spine: three or four frightful leaps, and down he went, plunging, groaning, and bleeding, to the foot of the slope. as i came up, he sprang to his feet, and with painful meanings attempted to give me a taste of his horns, so i let him have the _coup de grace_ crashing through the brains. upon examination, every shot was within four inches diameter, near the centre of the back, as i was each time compelled to fire, as he stood or ran, from below. it required the full strength of six stout men, with ropes, to drag the carcass to the beach--weighing, when dressed, over six hundred pounds, and we found him most delicious eating. this was my crowning achievement, the pleasure enhanced by entertaining no fears that the bears could rob me of the prize before getting to the boat; nevertheless, there were many speculations volunteered by malicious gentry on board, who, from the hair being somewhat rubbed off, in the transit to the beach, insisted that i had massacred a pack-mule, which was in itself mendacious slander. chapter xiii. having completed watering at sousoulito, we left san francisco and returned to monterey. even during the short period of our absence a rapid improvement was visible. many mormons had arrived, the streets were cleansed, and vehicles of a civilized build were occasionally beheld in the town. some companies of the volunteer regiment were encamped on the slopes of the hills, and the artillery were busily at work throwing up fortifications on a pretty eminence, overlooking the town and harbor. grog shops were thriving apace--handsomely patronized by jack and the soldiers,--and monté banks and gaming were following _en suite_. stone buildings were under construction; and among others, through the excellent management of the alcalde, a large school-house presented a bold front to the uneducated natives; thus we had the vices and virtues hand in hand--no existing without them. there was also a little newspaper published weekly; for, with the usual enterprise of our countrymen, and their naturally saturnine dispositions, they had pounced upon a fount of types, carefully secreted beneath the font of the church, and instead of being applied to their original purpose of disseminating the authority of mexican rulers, they were made to preach the true republican doctrine to all unbelievers among the astonished californians. the editor of this infantile journal was dr. semple, who although supposed to have been connected with the famous bear party, wielded the editorial pen with the same facility as his rifle, and merits all praise for having been the pioneer of civil and religious liberty in the country. i only trust the doctor may live to fill his ample pockets with gold dust, even though they be lengthy as his legs or editorials. remaining barely long enough to take in provisions, we left monterey on the th of april, and beating clear of piney point, with a spanking breeze, turned our prow towards the mexican coast. a few days afterwards, during the night, we discovered the island of guadalupe, laid down in the charts more than half a degree too far south,[ ] though, singularly enough, correct in longitude. fortunately we had changed the ship's course previously, for as the night was dark and cloudy we stood a chance of making a nearer acquaintance than would have been satisfactory to the noble frigate: in fact at all times we labored under great disadvantages in being destitute of maps of sufficient accuracy for the commonest purposes of navigation, and those at all useful we were obliged to compile ourselves from the rough sketches and experience of navigators frequenting the coast; still we made great speed, and the flying fish flew from before us as we entered the tropic. at midnight, on the th we doubled cape san lucas, the extreme southern point of that long finger-like peninsular of lower california. lower california embraces an extent of territory seven hundred miles in length, and varies in breadth from thirty to eighty miles; broken up into barren mountains four or five thousand feet in height, verging close upon the shores of sea and gulf. the country is very unproductive, and only serves to subsist a small population of probably not over ten thousand. there are a few narrow valleys, watered by the condensation of clouds and mist in the dry season from the naked heights, which serves for fertilizing strips of rich soil below, producing maize and fruits. the jesuits have, centuries ago, even in these sterile regions, planted the banners of their faith, and the missions and villages that sprang up around them still exist. the principal places are todos santos, on the sea coast; san antonio, in the interior; san josé, la paz, and loretta, the capital, lying on the shores of the inland gulf. there are two excellent harbors--the bay of la paz, and another higher up called escondida; both places having deep anchorage, and fresh water, for the largest vessels. there is but little trade carried on with the peninsula: a few small craft exchange country-made cheese and soap for domestic goods in san blas and mazatlan. near cape san lucas had been found by the whalers a resort for a new species of fish, producing an oil supposed to be suitable for paints. one or two ships were filled, but we heard subsequently the material did not answer the desired purpose. there is the island of carmen within the gulf, which contains vast lakes of salt, as inexhaustible as the guano beds on the peruvian coast. this salt is of excellent quality; it is cut out in large blocks, stacked, and left to be washed by the rains, when it becomes ready for shipping. these are all the known inducements for trade, of the peninsula and the adriatic of the pacific. guaymas, situated nearly at the head of the gulf, and mazatlan abreast the southern cape, though neither possess such safe havens, with so good fresh water ports, still have positions more adaptable for commerce on the main shores of mexico. at daylight we were boarded by one ritchie, who played the _rôle_ of marine postmaster for our squadron; and then steering for thirty miles along the high, barren, sterile coast, we hove-to off the little bay of san josé; communicated with one of our ships-of-war; again filled away, and lazily fanned across the sea of cortés to our destination. this occupied, at a snail's pace, three long days, and the next morning we awoke within the scorching lines of the tropics--one-half the horizon bounded by a dull monotonous ripple of sea, and hazy sky, and the other faced by the high sierras framing the grand plateau of mexico, and nearer a line of hot rugged rocks, and islets, and white sandy beaches, together with ranges of houses bordering upon the shores, and upon the hills; which was the goodly town of mazatlan. we anchored, as it were, at sea, off the bluff promontory of creston; an island itself, divided by a narrow strait from the main, and resembling a sleeping lion, with paws tossed before him. the british frigate constance, a french corvette, another of our own, with two merchant vessels, comprised the entire nautical coterie. our arrival caused some excitement in the town, and we were in hopes the authorities would either strike for independence, or declare themselves neutral, and thus open the port, as at the time we had no serious intentions of molesting them; but we were disappointed in our anticipations, and found there was naught to do save maintaining a dull, idle, passive blockade for a long month to come. the day after our arrival, two armed boats were sent to make a reconnoissance of the old harbor, for the purpose of selecting a suitable berth for the ships, in case an attack should be made. not perceiving any bustle or stir pervading the town, we pulled warily in, until, on passing out from cover of the corvette's guns, we unconsciously raised the most infernal din imaginable. drums rattled incessantly, dirty soldiers formed in companies; the governor and suite attended by a guard of cavalry galloped up and down the beach. consuls run up their national flags, women and children ran up the hills; all evidently in great consternation at the anticipation of a hostile invasion. on comprehending the true state of the case, we amused ourselves out of musket shot, by making feints to land, and by this method we kept three or four hundred filthy villains in a violent state of fatigue and perspiration, running and scampering from point to point to oppose us. no sooner did they get comfortably posted, and weapons in readiness on the cliffs, than in we would dash for the beach. at last the whole garrison turned out, and getting a field piece under way, manned by three jackasses, rather than give them the laugh against us, we thought advisable to edge out of range, and thus when they had cleverly pulled the piece into a commanding position, they could only greet us with a volley of execrations instead of grape shot. however, we completed our work by taking the requisite bearings and planting a buoy, which was cut adrift the same night for a large reward, and carried about the town in great triumph and procession, and generally believed to be a yankee bomb. indeed, these mazatlanese were extremely wroth and patriotic during the blockade, and it was only a week preceding our advent, that they had illuminated the town in honor of santa anna's victory at buena vista. the fact was, the mexican general's dispatch was not altogether so clear as the circumstances of the case demanded, and it admitted of a variety of constructions. still, after escaping the bolts of mars, we came near being sacrificed to the cestus of venus, for, on pulling towards a rocky ledge, we discovered two sunny-faced maidens, one attired in a red camisetta, and the other waiving a _manta_, in a most enticing and beguiling manner. intercourse with fashionable society impelled me, from politeness, to regard them through a glass, and a capital spy-glass it proved to be, for i was able to discern thirty or forty of their admirers temporarily ensconced behind the rocks, and each, too, adorned with a musket. we halted, made a low obeisance, and retreated rapidly on board, leaving them the opportunity of forwarding a despatch by express, to head-quarters, narrating how _los yankis eran repulsados en varios puntos_--how the yankees were put to flight. on the following morning was captured the first prize--a miserable little schooner from san blas, laden with plank and plaintains, rejoicing in the classic appellation of diana, and having given the boats a smart pull, she was christened the chased diana. the patron was italian, who wept like a pump--talked of his utter ruin, and starving _bambinos_ to such an extent, that after taking and paying liberally for his fruit and lumber, he was permitted to depart; he afterwards proved to be an arrant rogue, and turned an honest penny while the war lasted, by smuggling powder to the mexicans. he was too wily to be caught the second time. at night there were always signal fires burning on the hill tops around the town, as a warning to vessels approaching the coast; but with all their vigilance and caution, our boats after being out all night, generally returned with some indifferent prizes--at best it was but pin-hook business, for we cared not to make war upon the poor, causing us constant annoyance, and after all the trouble the little prizes were released with lightened cargoes, and heavier pockets of the owners, for which no doubt, the scamps would have been pleased to be captured daily. in a few days our consort received orders to blockade guaymas, a port of some commercial importance, nearly at the head of the gulf of california, and she accordingly sailed, leaving a small prize tender, a schooner of about forty tons, to be "turned over," in a professional sense, to the flag-ship--there being no more enterprising person than myself who cared to assume so imposing a command, i was at once installed in the skipper ship and was immediately paddled on board. footnote: [ ] the correct latitude is ° '. chapter xiv. leaping over the taffrail of the rosita, without the aid of an accommodation ladder, i found myself the monarch of a peopled deck of fifteen trusty sailors, and a small boy, to whose trust, from sad experience, i confided nothing uncorked or unlocked. there were the same number of carbines, pistols, pikes, cutlasses, fishing lines and a few other etceteras, pitched in bulk on the floor of a small cabin, just sufficiently bunkish to stow my very worthy first lieutenant, mr. earl, and my own rather unportly self. this, i believe, comprised all the equipage that was to add dignity to the flag of so tall an admiral. hoisting all sail in the afternoon, and bobbing about a number of hours, we came to anchor during the night under lee of the venados islands--piles of rugged red rocks, five hundred feet high,--steep, precipitous, parched, and arid: their situation was within a mile from the main land, and ten times that space from the frigate's anchorage; an excellent position for intercepting small craft, bound from the gulf into the old port of mazatlan. we soon had the little rosa clean and trim; got up new spars, and on their tapering stems spread loftier muslin than those she had been accustomed to carry, which, in the absence of proper materials, the sailors had quickly fashioned out of duck frocks. then we scrubbed her bottom, re-arranged the stowage, put on a new coat of paint, so that she worked like a top, sailed tolerably well, and with her yankee pennant and flag might fairly make her old masters on the shore right proud of the little craft, and indulge, as they did, in some yearnings to get hold of her again. our life was not one of quiet repose, nor were we overburthened with luxuries and comforts, but anything is better than the insufferable monotony of a ship of war, even though one loses in comfort by the exchange; for we had variety and excitement, which of itself is preferable to the tame stupidity of the quarter-deck of a big ship, or uninterrupted yawnings in the gun-room. we were boarded the first morning by three drunken englishmen, in a whale-boat, who informed us that the frigate's boats had captured a fine schooner called the correo. they also brought off what is consularly termed "a distressed american," a very sombre-hued person, who, by his own showing, gave us reason to believe him a carolina nigger, whose asperities of wool and color had been somewhat softened by being engrafted on a more distinguished stock in the city of boston. his profession was that of cook, and the most urgent cause of bidding farewell to a large and extensive assortment of friends in mazatlan, was that he became involved by some unforeseen mercantile transaction to the amount of nine dollars, over and above his comeatable assets; for this dereliction from the paths of honesty, he was offered a choice of being half starved in the _carcel_ or entirely starved out of it, with a musket in his embrace fighting the enemies of the republic. amid so serious an accumulation of horrors, not being troubled with heavy baggage, he ensconced himself within the englishman's boat, and was exhibited to us on the memorable occasion of his presentation, attired in a white beaver hat and trowsers of but one leg. a few words we caught of his opening address was to the effect that,--"bress de lord, he was wunce more under de country's flag, and if dem mexikers kotched him agin, dey'd have to fotch him dead." the following morning doctor barret appeared newly skinned, in old clothes the crew had furnished, busy as a demon in the mysteries of the caboose; hinting his capacity for the office by proclaiming that he had been "head bottle-washer of a liverpool liner, with glass nubs on de cabin doors!" the doctor soon became oracle of the schooner, and, albeit, tickled our palates with the most savory of messes. for a day or two we did nothing but cruise pleasantly around the islands, within sight of the mexican pickets, sometimes landing on the larger venado, and scooping up, from a natural bowl, a few gallons of fresh water that was distilled from the dew, and trickled down between crevices of the rocks. the climate, though excessively damp, was yet delightfully agreeable, tempered by the most regular succession of diurnal sea breezes. it never rains out of season, and were it not for the heavy night dews, the very birds would famish. until now we had made no prizes, saving quantities of excellent fish jerked out of old neptune's bosom, without going through the forms of condemnation by a court of admiralty. once we made a swoop on a small shallop, manned by a couple of frenchmen, but finding nothing for the trouble, and the patron swearing he would, under cover of night, bring us on board something green and eatable, we set him at liberty, after whispering in my ear the request that messieurs would discharge a carbine over his boat to preserve his honor; which mild compliment we promised to comply with. all this did very well, and we had begun to be quite happy in our independence. we discovered the best fishing rocks, clearest bathing beach, and purest pool of water, when the powers above us, kind souls, judged we were too far removed from the parental protection of their guns; talked about the possibility of our being cut out, and cut up, and so forth; and the little rosa was ordered to take a nearer station by the flag-ship. there we lay rolling and tumbling in the worst possible sea and humor, within a cable's length of the constance, keeping a bright look-out on the town, and a brighter still on a surf chafing rock near our counter. then again, we would run round little creston, which forms a sort of gate-post to the new port, and get in comparatively smooth water, and bathe twice a day; eat sparingly, per force, and do anything to fill up the crevices of indolence; until at last we were again ordered to resume our former position, and the rosa gladly stretched her wings, and the same day dropped her anchors at the old birth, under shelter of venados. at the faintest crack of dawn the next morning, a sail was seen creeping close along the main land; in a few seconds we were springing away in the whale-boat, most of us sans culottes. the chase was a large sloop-rigged launch, with a great big sail, swelling to the land wind, and urging the vessel rapidly towards the harbor. she had a long start, but then eight ash oars acting on a light whale boat will make it skim like a gull over the water. we were upon them before they knew it, but on becoming aware of our proximity, and finding themselves within a stone's throw of the _garita_, they raised their voices in shrill notes for assistance from the garrison. i felt quite assured, however, that mexican soldiers were not given to early rising. as a last resort the patron put the helm down, hauled aft the sail, with intention of running, what i considered to be our property, on the beach. this proceeding laid me under the necessity of attracting attention, and covering his red shirt with a carbine, i shouted, _mira!_--look out! he dropped as if actually shot, the sail caught aback, the launch fell off from the wind, and in an instant we were alongside. by this time the guard on shore were getting their eyes open, but before they comprehended the true state of the case, the distance was so wide between us, that burning powder would have been an utter waste of bullets; very possibly they consoled themselves, as did the patron and crew, with paper cigars. the prize proved to be from la paz, with a cargo of sugar, dried fruits, and cloth; but what was far more valuable in our estimation a few sacks of potatoes, upon which we levied tribute, and then sent the vessel to the flag-ship. we had very little reason to plume ourselves upon this exploit, for the same afternoon we were placed in a nearly similar predicament. whilst beating between the islands and main, with baffling light breezes, we became embayed, within a little indentation of the coast; and shortly afterwards a dozen indian girls ran along the beach, making most polite and hospitable offers of service, if we chose to disembark. at the same time we could not help remarking the heads of numbers of desultory mexicans, peeping out from the under growth that lined the banks. our position was certainly somewhat critical, for the schooner had missed stays, and was sagging slowly into the rollers; and we became painfully alive to the fact that the little rosa would inevitably return to her former masters. but, many thanks to san antonio, the breeze freshened, and getting out sweeps, and using them with a will, we got the little lady's head off shore; the sails filled, and away we danced across the straits. this lucky change in our fortunes was not so well relished by our acquaintances on the shore, for immediately a troop of thirteen dragoons, with an officer, rode down to the beach, flourishing their long spears, in what we now thought a very furious and funny style, and then galloped and pranced along the shore, to our entire satisfaction. we saluted them graciously, by hoisting the american ensign over the mexican, and thus bid them adios. from one of the lofty eminences of the islands, which commands an extensive view of the plains, and suburbs of mazatlan, we perceived, near the scene of our escape, an encampment of about two hundred soldiers; so we resolved to run no more risks in future, merely for the sake of being lanced to death for their diversion. the next day we had another sail, and anchored near the upper island, dipped the last pint of fresh water from the basin, and, with one of the sailors i took a tramp over the hills--but such a parched, burning, suffocating promenade can be found no where else: here and there were dense, impassable thickets of cactus and aloes, and the air reeked with the odor of pelicans and nests swarming with young; while the newly fledged birds bore a strong resemblance to slim old gentlemen enveloped in yellow flannel morning gowns. on reaching the beach we were glad to plunge in a tepid bath, within a clear briny pool, shaded by a straight wall of rocks. much refreshed, we rowed over to the windward _venado_, and having heard that deer had been seen, we started in pursuit. this island is less abrupt than its neighbor. on the eastern side there is a wide slope, and at the time of our visit it was covered with tall dry grass. leaving a party to haul the seine and broil our breakfast, on the beach, we commenced the ascent, and seating ourselves on a pile of rocks, about the summit, we perceived that the prairie beneath had been set on fire, and was flying towards us with the most amazing rapidity. we quickly gained a rocky acclivity thirty feet above the ground, and had the satisfaction of seeing the red flames lick the naked rocks at our feet, scorch the undergrowth to cinders, and then pass like the wind coursing towards the other end of the island, leaving us nearly suffocated with smoke, but thankful to have escaped the flames. this incident was sufficiently amusing, without indulging in the excitement of the chase; and we retraced our steps over the charred and blackened soil to the beach, even then rather wanting in appetite for breakfast. the same evening, after a delightful surfy swim, and while my pleasant confrére was getting the arms recapped, nettings triced up, and all in readiness for the night's vigil, preparatory to a sip of cold grog, incited by fumes of a cigar, we saw a rocket let off from the main, and being presently followed by a long stream of fire, terminating in a bright galaxy of stars from the frigate, we supposed it to be intended to answer a signal from us for assistance, which proved to be the case; for in a few hours a large cutter, filled with men, came dashing alongside to aid us. we were grieved to thwart their anticipations of a skrimmage, and not so grateful as we should have been for the extreme solicitude exercised for our well-being on board, for it was the means next day of telegraphing us down to the ship. "come within hail," said the bunting; "anchor where you can comfortably." so it was up helm, and in the dusk, the rosita crept stealthily under the sombre shade of creston, and let go the _killick_ at the gap beneath the signal-tower. we were neither so quiet nor secret in our movements as not to attract attention from the town, and shortly we could discern boats stealing along the shadows of the bluff, evidently reconnoitering. we had no fear of a surprise, for there was always three pair of eyes on the look-out, and a man at the mast-head. mr. earl and myself having no fancy for being overrun by mice and cockroaches, snoozed away on deck, always on the qui-vive; besides, the arms were constantly in perfect readiness, and the men to handle them as determined a set of matelots as ever grasped a cutlass; and notwithstanding we were lying within point blank distance of a contemptible three-gun battery, we took the precaution to anchor in line of the english frigate, feeling assured that our mexican friends would be exceedingly loth to pitch a round shot at us, with the probability of hitting mr. bull on the horns; consequently, so far as mere safety was concerned, it did not in the least affect our repose. the next morning, after capturing old jack's oyster-boat, which was of daily occurrence, in a friendly way, at two dollars the hundred, in company with the correo, captain luigi, we sailed thirty miles down the coast, but finding the ocean deserted, and not so much as a canoe to be seen, we beat back; the next day made our official respects to the frigate, and thence returned to venados. here again, in the absence of more agreeable excitement; we trapped crabs, shot curlew, paddled about the beach, or amused ourselves hauling the seine. one afternoon, after taking immense quantities of fine fishes, of every size, shape and color, one scaly mullet of plethoric caliber, weighing some forty pounds, leaped five feet out of the net, clearing seine and floats, and terminated the performance by running a joust full tilt at a big burly irishman, breaking the bridge of his nose, and keeling him over and over in the water like winkin'. "take him off, be jasus!" shouted paddy, accompanied by fearful struggles in the water. it was rather a ludicrous incident to all except the sufferer. the same evening we had another visit from the oystermen, and the trio were more than usually groggy. contrary to our advice, jack determined to face the town once more, brave the captain of the port, and have a lark, as he said, off the two hundred and more _pesos_ made on board the yankee frigate. away he went, but, owing to his faculties being somewhat obscured, and mistaking the channel, the boat got among heavy breakers, was capsized, and stove to atoms. one man was drowned, old jack himself water-logged, and drifted on shore without a dollar, and the next morning was consigned to the _carcel_ for trading with the enemy. the remaining companion was picked up at daylight on a reef of rocks, and taken on board our ship; but he, too, poor follow, met with a violent death eighteen months later. however, unconscious of old jack's misfortunes, it did not prevent us from feasting on his oysters; and the fires of the caboose were soon sparkling under broiling mullets, roasted potatoes, and what was to be a _chef d'oeuvre_ of doctor barret--a steaming chowder. we were about to begin a series of naval entertainments. even our little french goblin-faced valet, gashé, devoted his energies for once in his life to the matter in hand; and, by the way, if ever a being on this earth was gifted with ubiquity, this youth was he: there was no mischief dreamed of that he was not an adept in. when not attempting some unknown method of loading or priming a carbine or pistol, he was perched on the fore-truck, swinging on the main-gaff, stealing sugar in the pantry, smoking himself sick with a pipe, or playing pranks on the sailors; and on a certain occasion, when he tumbled on deck from the fore-cross-trees--a height that would nearly have killed a mere mortal--we all treated it as such a capital joke, and laughed so unmercifully, that the imp sprang to his feet, jumped overboard, and swam on shore. the little rosa was lying calmly at anchor--watch and lookouts at their stations--awnings closely tented, and veiled around the quarter-deck--arms and ammunition glittering beneath the light from a lantern swinging beneath the main boom, while the arrangement for the banquet was spread in two exact rows, along the lid of an arm-chest, with camp-stools ranged around. captain luigi and his mate brought their own spoons and white sugar. our worthy boatswain, mr. mills, who came as lord of the seine, was our common guest, and was spooned and fed from the general contribution. we fell to and did full justice to the feast, pleasantly diversified by a narrative from doctor barret of his dark true-love in boston, and a pitched battle that suddenly arose towards the close of the entertainment, between monsieur gashé and captain luigi's butler, a youthful swede, called baron stockholm, who incautiously accused the valet of surreptitiously secreting divers table-knives and crockery, belonging to the correo. thereupon the fight ensued, and when finally concluded, much to the regret of the audience, our guests withdrew to a canoe, and paddled to their vessel. soon after daylight the next morning, the report of a gun came booming from the commodore. a large ship was lying becalmed in the offing; by the aid of the glass we could see the little bright-colored flags talking to the stranger, and presently our number was displayed, and the telegraph said, "prepare to give up the schooner." alas! shorn of our honors, we slowly hove up the anchor--made all sail--spliced the main-brace--and thus ended our fortnight's cruise in the rosita. chapter xv. during the period of our blockade, which lasted but thirty-four days, there were no demonstrations made by the authorities of mazatlan, to pronounce against their government, nor any steps taken on our side to compel them to do so. finding there was no intention of molesting them, the alarm excited by our arrival soon subsided, and with the exception of exchanging a few musket shots occasionally, between the boats and shore, everything went on as quietly and peacefully as if no hostile force was at their gates. the commandante of mazatlan was colonel telles, an habanéro by birth, and withal a brave man. he had pronounced against vegas, the president of the province, and the troops of the town being devoted to him, he, of course, like all other disaffected persons in mexico, assumed supreme direction of affairs, and laid violent hands on all moneys in the custom-house. he was described as a pleasant convivial person, keeping quite a seraglio of his own, and altogether an eligible acquaintance; a character, of which at a later date, when there was better means of judging, we found no cause to change our opinion. just previous to our arrival a messenger reached mazatlan with instructions for telles to resign his authority to general bustamente, who was en route, and charged with full powers from the mexican government, to direct the province of sinaloa. colonel telles very discreetly incarcerated the emmissary in the cabildo, and begged him to inform his master, the general, that there was no necessity for disorganizing his ideas about the government of the port, as he, telles, would retain authority so long as he deemed proper. it had the desired effect, for there was nothing afterwards heard of bustamente. leaving mazatlan to be guarded by our consort, we sailed on the morning of the third of june, bound once more to upper california. long before dark, creston had disappeared below the horizon, and the ship went calmly pushing her way towards the broad ocean. at meridian of the twelfth, the sun measured an altitude nearly vertical, our shadows vanished, and we resembled that facetious dutchman, mr. peter schemmell, who, it is said, disposed of his to the devil; at the same time while throwing the log, a voracious monster snapped up the log-chip, swallowed some fathoms of line, broke it, and went on his way unconcernedly, thus verifying the old song: "a shark being on our starboard, boys! for sharks d'ye see don't stand, but grapple all they get at, boys! like sharks they do on land." without any other incident worthy of remark, we continued hugging the wind, and describing a great segment of a circle, until after passing through the prevailing north-easterly trades, we attained a latitude of thirty-six, and then being met by the west winds, we turned to the coast, and began sailing swiftly towards our destination. the twenty-fifth day from mazatlan saw us in sight of the red woods that fringe the santa cruz mountains, and that night as the moon sank glimmering down, we let run the cables in the bay of monterey. chapter xvi. being charged with dispatches for san francisco, an early breakfast and hasty preparations soon placed me astride a dragoon's saddle. attended by an artillery soldier and six horses for escort and cavallada, i drove a sombrero hard on my head, the spur yet harder in the ribs of my cavallo, and away we sallied en route. the sun had passed the meridian when we reached the salinas plains, and we stopped to change horses at the molino--a simple performance for one who can swing the lasso at any time, but for those unacquainted with the mode, it is requisite to drive the beasts into the corral, near every rancho, and catch one at leisure. i found my friend anderson as hospitable and convivial as ever, and, after a mutual exchange of greetings and drinks, we galloped off across the plains. instead of the smiling grassy deserts, gaudy flowers, and narrow canals of spring, i beheld parched earth, large patches of wild mustard, and miles of wild oats. before accomplishing many leagues, one of the best little beasts of the cavallada eluded the vigilance of my body-guard, and we were compelled to abandon him. however, i made a forcible loan of a black mare brousing by the road-side--according to the custom of the country--and which, indeed, proved an admirable ally towards the close of our journey. before entering the gorge that leads over the mountains on the opposite side of the salinas, we halted at a rancho--and peeping in at the door of an outbuilding, i discovered two industrious persons playing cards with much interest and deliberation--there was no cash up, but they assured me that each bean before them, which marked the game, was a transferable i o u for a bullock. one of the party was brother to the last mexican governor of the territory--who absconded to mazatlan, after showing a feeble and futile resistance to commodore stockton. he appeared somewhat pleased by the information i was able to communicate from his relative, don josé castro, but not sufficiently so to interrupt the constant interchange of beans between him and his grave companion. we commenced ascending the pass that bars the road to the valley of st. johns, and after winding a couple of hours slowly among the hills, gained the topmost ridge--which commands a fine triangular view of the rich slopes and plains below--and then soon accomplished the descent--passing the ruined village and dilapidated mission of san juan, we galloped briskly around. on the road i enticed a mounted indian into service by a taste from the brandy bottle, to act as _vacuero_--by no means a sinecure birth with such a lazy perverse set of brutes as we possessed--but i was grieved to find the soldier, sent as my guide and defender, had more than he was equal to in keeping himself and musket in the saddle. moreover, he was neither amiable nor companionable--a serious crime for a traveler--and i was obliged at times, to drive and catch the horses, talk for him, and in fact, do all but eat and sleep for him--which last accomplishments he enjoyed in perfection, having a constitution like refined steel. i am happy to add, out of regard for the army, that he deserted shortly afterwards; although he forgot in his hurry to return a silver cup of mine. skirting along the banks of a rapid stream, the shades of night began to fall as we drew bridles at a small rancho of one don herman. our host, as usual with the race, was making a slight repast on a paper cigar: he was very cordial, and good-looking, as was also his still handsome old sposa. like everybody i encountered before and since in the interior, they inquired when the united states government would pay for horses and cattle taken during the war. _quien sabe_--who knows--always came to my aid, and i drawled it out much to the purpose. indeed, though our californian volunteers be good men and true among their own kith and kindred, yet their mistaken ideas of what constituted civilized warfare made them the most unscrupulous of freebooters; and they could be tracked far and near in their thirst for their enemy's horses and asses. my host had no children, but, like spanish padres, lots of nephews and nieces. amid a detached group of young people, i observed a pretty little girl, as i at first supposed a child, nursing an infant, but on inquiry i learned that she was the mother at fourteen, and had been married two years and a half; a fact which beats east india jungles for the precocity of women. again on the road, with the husband of the little baby-mother for guide, who, by the way, was a most consummate scamp, incessantly urging me to make a short detour of five or six leagues, to dance all night at a fandango; and on taxing him with his gallivanting, and inconstant disposition among the softer sex, he replied, with an air of triumph,--_o! yo he engañado muchas!_--bless you, i've broken the hearts of dozens--although he did not inspire me with being so determined a lothario as he himself believed. on we spurred, and urged the jaded steeds some leagues further, when we came upon the rancho of carlos castro. i was half famished from a long day's fast, but there was neither bread nor edible matter in the hut. at last the buxom mistress asked me, _quiere huevos?_--have an egg;--_caramba! si amiga!_--why did not you tell me of this before? she was good enough to boil exactly fourteen, hard as bullets, but, what is equally incredible, i ate them all without salt; and then being in good humor with all the world, threw a peso in the kind señora's lap, and with a lively adios, turned our horses' heads again towards the north star. the moon was riding high, round, and gleaming as the silver dollar i had just thrown the good lady, flooding the whole lovely plain, with its waving fields of yellow oats, and magnificent clusters of oaks, in one continuous vista of unexampled beauty. five leagues beyond we struck off to the right, and after losing our path repeatedly, amid beds of water-courses, and bolls of trees, and when i was on the point of giving orders for a night bivouac on the sweet and yielding grain, we became aware of our proximity to a habitation by the usual barking diapason of half an hundred dogs and curs, and i was not sorry to swing my weary limbs from the saddle after a hard ride of eighty miles. in a few minutes i was stretched beside the proprietor of the rancho, mr. murphy, and as kind a specimen of the true milesian as ever took leave of the hill of hoath. i knew that by the kindly tone of his voice; but i fell sound asleep, giving the old gentleman an account of the battle of cerro gordo, and never moved until long after sunrise. on awaking, i found myself in a dwelling constructed of pickets, driven perpendicularly into the ground, the apertures filled in with mud, and all covered by a roughly-thatched roof. the enclosure was rather a primitive, and i should judge temporary affair, to serve the first year or two of an emigrant's home. the dwelling was large enough, however, to comprise capacious beds in three of its angles, a couple of tables, dresser, chairs, and a variety of useful articles scattered around the earth floor, but all presenting a far neater appearance than usually characterised the ranchos of the country. i was not left long to conjecture the cause of this tidiness, for whilst lacing my moccasins, preparatory to a yawn and shake, by way of toilette, i was saluted by a very nice young woman, with the hope that i had slept well, and at the same time presented with a large bowl of water and clean towel, by the young lady herself, who was afterwards introduced to me by her good father, as his daughter ellen. she was tall and well made, a very pleasing face, lighted by fine dark grey eyes, black hair, and beautifully white teeth. i learned from her own rosy lips that she was the first american girl that ever walked over the mighty barrier of the californian sierras, which she accomplished with one of her brothers, leaving the wagons, and her friends, to follow on a longer route. they were a large family, and most of the children born in canada, thence _locating_ in missouri, and so on to the farthest west in california. there were four stalwart sons, who had all more or less been engaged in the last troubles, and had shown the natives a choice mould of bullets from their unerring rifles. they treated me with the utmost kindness; and after partaking of a capital breakfast of new eggs, hot bread, cream and _lomo_--tenderloin--prepared by their pretty sister, i felt quite equal to a short tramp among the hills, particularly upon finding the horses well nigh knocked up, and requiring a few hours more rest. the rancho was situated on the northern verge of the broad valley, on the borders of a pure sparkling stream, surrounded in every direction, far and near, with golden lakes of wild oats, thickly studded and shaded by the oaks. in company with one of the boys, dan, we followed up the course of the stream for a mile or more, and i then had the satisfaction of sending a ball through and through the shoulders of a large doe. dragging the carcass down to the water, and divesting it of its jacket, we then did the same ourselves, and swam and plashed for an hour in the little torrent. at the same time, with an extempore rod, twine, hook, and a "devil's darning-needle" for bait, dan pulled out from a limpid pool delightful salmon-trout, full two feet in length; i ate part of one, and a charming fellow he was. leaving our deer to the varmints, we returned to the rancho at noon, dined, and again boot and saddle; struck the road, and six or eight leisurely leagues brought us to the settlement of puebla de san josé. here i was most civilly received, and entertained by an american gentleman, mr. ruckle, to whom i bore a letter. supper, good old sherry, a cigar, and four hour's sleep; up betimes, and sent the jaded animals on to the mission of santa clara for a bite of grass. i remained to break my fast at the house of an agreeable white-toothed lady named pico, and then, accompanied by mr. ruckle, we hurried along the road which traverses the plain, shaded by noble avenues of oaks and willows. the mission stands but a league from the puebla, presents a tolerably flourishing appearance, with a well-preserved church, clusters of out-buildings, and well-cultivated gardens. it is by far the most important and respectable settlement of its kind in this portion of the territory; and since the dispersion of the priests, and confiscation of church-lands, has still fortunately retained a mite of its former wealth and influence. the good padres, a score or more years ago, were pleased to live well; and their well-filled granaries, cultivated grounds, and myriads of horses and cattle--in all praise be it said--were the first to induce the native indians, who, in brutish ignorance and social degradation are even now but a remove from beasts of the field, to devote their time to some useful employment. by these means the shrewd fathers never lacked comfortable houses to shelter them, nor raiment to clothe their sleek skins.[ ] tarrying but a few minutes at santa clara, and selecting the best horses of the cavallada, i parted with mr. ruckle and continued my journey; the first fifteen miles was wearisome labor with our worn-out beasts, and we stopped for breath at a ranchito of a pretty little widow, who did the amiable most refreshingly by handing me a dish of raspberries and cream. seeing a filthy indian poke them out of a bottle with a stick, occasionally giving it a suck, did not enhance the flavor of the fruit. a short league beyond, we came to another mud-built rancho, and our horses having apparently determined to proceed no farther, accordingly tumbled down; there were half a dozen women and children about the hut busily employed in cutting beef in long strips for drying; but they continued their occupation without deigning to cast even a glance of sympathy upon our pitiable plight. indignation getting the better of my misfortunes, i kicked off the spurs and marched bravely up to the mansion; then, after dodging about under long fringes of raw beef, i was suddenly confronted by a stout dame, with a mass of meat clutched in one hand, and a dripping knife long as her arm in the other; this savage apparition rather abashed me, and i timidly inquired how she did? she merely gave a sharp upward jerk to her chin, with an ireful visage--as much as to say, "i'm in excellent preservation, don't bother yourself"--pointing to my foundered studs, i politely urged the necessity of procuring fresh horses! "_no, señor! no hay!_ the horses are all mares, the mares are wild--there is no one to catch them"--in other words--i'll see you in purgatory first. so i called up a little resolution, though far from feeling it, and letting the butt of my rifle fall heavily to the ground, i said, "hark ye, my friend, if you don't speedily furnish me with beasts i'll make a seizure of that fine animal i see saddled in the corral; besides, i'm willing to pay liberally." at the word "money" the patrona's features relaxed, _tu no eres voluntario_--she remarked!--_por dios! no! mi alma yo soy de la marina, y católico ademas!_--i'm a sailor and a good catholic to boot. at this last admission and the sight of a handful of bright pesos, the whole party surrounded me--_ah! tan malicimos son esos malditos voluntarios! ave maria! el oficial no es herége--es christiano--y pagara los caballos_--ah, what light-fingered gentry were the volunteers; but the gentleman is a christian, not a heretic, and going to pay like a trump--they exclaimed. there was still some doubts as to whether i intended to pay in _effectos_ or hard tin, and if i could make it convenient to liquidate a few outstanding claims which some of my countrymen had forgotten to adjust; but when satisfied on that point a small boy ran off to drive in the cavallada. meanwhile the señora poured me out a cup of aguadiente, touched her lips to it, and handed it to me to quaff. the drove of horses was soon brought up, and as a particular favor, the patrona selected her own nag to bear me--a small mare and natural pacer that rattled along at a great rate without whip or spur--embracing the party, we again mounted and started off in fine style. the country has the same lovely aspect as in the vicinity of san josé; great level plains teeming in wild grain, and wide-spreading foliage of oaks, chesnuts, maple and willows, enclosed between high-swelling hills. in fact the country for more than forty leagues of this broad valley is so perfectly level that a coach could be driven in any direction without serious obstruction; however, there is one annoyance to which horses are subjected, in the multitudes of holes burroughed by a species of ground squirrels, very frequently bringing horse and rider to their faces. a few leagues rapid travelling brought us in sight of the southern arm of the waters of san francisco, and skirting along its shores, by sunset we had left the low country, traversed the rugged hills of the sea-girt peninsular, floundered knee deep in the sandy road, and by nightfall i found myself comfortably housed with a generous batchelor friend, mr. frank ward, in yerbabuena. footnote: [ ] this mission, according to vancouver, was established in , by franciscans, which, with one founded three years previously at san francisco, were the northernmost settlements of any description formed by the court of spain, on the continental shores of north-west america, exclusive of nootka. although the jesuits had planted the cross on the lower territory, on the peninsula at loretto ( ), they had not explored the west coast. of all the numerous voyagers of note who have visited and written upon california--perouse, vancouver, kotzbue, belcher, wilkes, and others--there is not one whose delineations are characterized with so much truth and simplicity as vancouver,--not only in this territory, but in the groups of polynesia. he must have been truly a good man. his intercourse with the untutored savages of the pacific was ever tempered with justice and humanity. he did more than any succeeding navigator in stocking the islands with cattle, and his scientific duties were executed with exceeding accuracy for the means at his command. the english may well be proud of the renown he has shed upon the land of his birth; and his name will be for ever cherished in the pacific, when the unscrupulous deeds of his great commander shall have been forgotten. chapter xvii. remaining but a few days in yerbabuena, and when on the point of taking leave, i met with a brace of navy men, who were about to sail up the bay for a hunt among the hills; so giving orders to the brave courier to join me at puebla, i embarked with my friends one day at noon in a small launch, and a stiff sea-breeze soon wafted us forty miles; then entering a narrow creek, formed by high sedgy reeds that sprang from the shallow water, we performed a tortuous serpentine track, in a labyrinth that fairly required ariadne's clue to thread its mazy windings; actually sailing sixteen miles to gain three, as the bird flies; at last we arrived at the _embarcadera_ of san josé; and after a fatiguing walk, at dark we came upon a tenement. the house was filled with women and dogs, who chattered and cheated, dinned and dunned us to such a pitch that we were obliged to seek shelter elsewhere; and accordingly we _packed_ our saddles, blankets and rifles, and at about nine o'clock reached the estate of one don ignacio de sylva. our host received us with open arms, prepared a supper of beef and _tortillas_, and in return, we complimented him with strong rummers of punch; his fat spouse joined in the festivities, and when the evening was somewhat advanced, a shake-down was arranged for us on the floor of the _sala_, which, fortunately for fleas and ourselves, chanced to be laid with a floor of boards. my slumbers were greatly disturbed by being placed in full view of a pretty young brunette, whose light from an adjoining apartment threw her form in most distinct rays of animated beauty, amusing herself the while playing with a baby, whilst her filthy villain of a husband regaled himself for an hour or more with a _cigarrito_. my dreams were none of the pleasantest, and i was glad when day dawned to light me out of the dwelling, and breathe the pure morning air. _como les gusta á los americanos el fresco_, said our lazy host, as he sat wrapped in a blanket on a hide, observing me take a bath in a little rivulet near by; _se hace daño_--be the death of him--as he blew the cigar smoke from his lungs with a deep sigh! notwithstanding his indolence we found him a most consummate extortioner, and after throwing every impediment in our way, he hired us miserable horses at an extravagant rate; and then mounting, we took the road over a dry, salt, marshy country. passing the mission of st. josephs, we never halted until reaching puebla, where we were most kindly welcomed by mr. ruckle. the town is planted in the midst of the great plain, with small streams of water, which is much needed elsewhere, coursing on either side. the place contained some five hundred inhabitants, the dwellings all of the adobie mud-built order of architecture, with but one road between them: for ten leagues around the land is most fertile, and the country in many respects appears to possess great advantages, and has the reputation of being the garden of upper california. we saw quantities of fruits, peas, peaches, and grapes, very unripe, but the natives like them the better green. under no contingency does the natural face of upper california appear susceptible of supporting a very large population; the country is hilly and mountainous; great dryness prevails during the summers, and occasionally excessive droughts parch up the soil for periods of twelve or eighteen months. only in the plains and valleys where streams are to be found, and even those will have to be watered by artificial irrigation, does there seem the hope of being sufficient tillable land to repay the husbandman and afford subsistence to the inhabitants. sheep and cattle may be raised to any extent; as the gentle slopes, clothed in rich wild grasses, afford excellent districts for grazing. we breakfasted at the residence of a plain, sensible and industrious family of emigrants from virginia, named campbell; then strolling to the banks of a little rivulet, we took siesta beneath the shade of drooping willows, surrounded by groups of brunettas washing in the pools near by. in the afternoon my fellow travellers left me for their hunt among the mountains; and upon learning that commodore stockton was in the village, i immediately made my homage. he was by long odds the most popular person in california, and by his enthusiasm, energy, and determination, accomplished more, even with the limited means at his command, in the acquisition of this valuable territory, than any other man before or since, who has planted his foot on the soil. the following day was sunday, the fourth of july, and moreover the fast day of the patron saint of california--_nuestra señora del refugio_. meeting miss ellen murphy and brother on the road bound to high mass at the mission, i agreed to accompany them and return to their rancho in the evening. there was a large assemblage in santa clara, and we attended church. the building was oblong, painted roughly in fresco, and decorated with a number of coarse paintings, and lots of swallow-tailed, green and yellow satin pennants dangling from the ceiling. during service an indefatigable cannonier, outside, gave frequent _feux de joie_, from a graduated scale of diminutive culverins--made of brass in shape of pewter porter pots, half filled with powder, and the charge rammed down with pounded bricks--this with music of kettle-drums, cymbals and fiddles made a very respectable din; there were two gentlemanly priests of the order of saint francisco, whose acquaintance i afterwards made, who preached each a brief sermon with eloquence and force. among the congregation were all the belles and dandies of the valley; the former kneeled demurely on little rugs or bits of carpet in the nave of the church; but the latter were lounging near the doors--their gala costume is quite in keeping with andalusia--and one handsome fellow at my side took my eye, as i have no doubt he did that of many a brighter. he was dressed in a close-fitting blue cloth jacket; sky-blue velvet trowsers, slashed from the thigh down, and jingling with small filagree silver buttons; snow-white laced _calçoncillos_, terminated by nicely stamped and embroidered _botas_; around the waist was passed a heavy crimson silk sash; a gay woollen serapa hung gracefully over the shoulder; in one hand a sugar-loafed, glazed sombrero, bound with thick silver cords; and in the other, silver spurs of an enormous size, each spike of the rowels two inches long: all these bright colors--set off by dark, brilliant eyes, jetty black locks, and pliant figure--would have made him irresistible anywhere. turning towards me, he asked, smilingly, _porque no se arrodilla, vd en misa?_--why don't you kneel at the mass?--_tengo pierna de palo_, quoth i, quite gravely: glancing at my pins with much interest, to discover if they were of timber, he seemed to relish the joke, and we then sidled out of the church, and became firm friends on the spot. after service, i was introduced to many american emigrants, mostly mormons, who, in a free and easy style, had taken possession of the outbuildings and tenements belonging to the mission; and who, in their contempt for the kind and good padres, and rightful proprietors of the domain, were not only averse to request permission to remain for a season, but were hugely indignant at the military governor of california, colonel mason, for having issued a decree, requiring these lazy gentlemen to leave the lands of the church. notwithstanding their mutterings, a few weeks later they were summarily forced out by the bayonet. whilst we were at mass, a serious mishap occurred to young murphy. a juvenile damsel, whose cognomen was "sugar-plumb," and being the only eligible maiden for matrimony, i was assured by a hospitable dame, one mrs. bennett, "that she was the forwardest gall in the mission," through some silly, childish freak, frightened my friend's horse, so that the restive animal broke the halter, and made long strides over the plain. a couple of drunken indians started in pursuit, but having a quarrel on the way, one plunged his cuchillo up to the haft in his companion's thigh, which brought him, deluged in blood, from the saddle. we found this poor devil and conveyed him to town; but of the runaway horse and saddle, which was worth half-a-dozen indian lives, or horses, we could learn nor see nothing. we made but a short stay in puebla, and an hour before the sun sank for the day, we put foot in stirrup, and a long swinging gallop of seven leagues soon carried us to good mr. murphy, and a good supper. the following morning i arose with the lark, took a long pull at the milk-pail, volunteered a little surgical advice to an indian _vacuero_ who being thrown from his horse, was suffering under a badly-contused thigh; he had bound the limb tightly with strands of hide, and was doing a new principle of local bleeding by puncturing the flesh with sharp stones--a mode of treatment very much in vogue with the natives. under guidance of dan, we mounted capital horses, and sallied out for a bear-hunt. entering a gentle rise of the hill sides to the southward, we wound around the grain-covered slopes for two hours, seeing but a few stray deer, and a herd of wild horses; and although the traces of bruin were everywhere visible, we were on the point of turning our steps homeward, when my companion grasped me by the shoulder, pulled me back to the horse's flanks, and whispered, "thar's one! lie low, captin! lie low!" it was a large he bear, walking about a little bowl of a valley below us, in the laziest, hoggish manner possible, going from side to side, rooting and tearing up the earth by wagon loads, in his search for ground-rats--his course being directly towards us. we dismounted, hitched horses to the lower branches of an oak, a few yards in our rear, divested ourselves of all but knives and rifles, taking the precaution to keep a bullet in our mouths, that they might slip easily down the guns in case of emergency, then crossing to the edge of the hill, we awaited the grizzly. he came nearly within point-blank range, when changing his track, he passed over to the other side of the slope. we tightened girths, mounted again, and rode around to head him off; when going through the same operations as before, we ensconced ourselves behind a giant tree, and remained perfectly silent; presently the monster entered a knoll of bushes, within forty yards of us. "captin," said dan, with his mouth close to my ear, "when i whistle, plug him in the head." i brought my rifle down, but at the moment of springing the trigger, i must confess feeling some inward quakings, from all i had heard of their ferocity when wounded, and accordingly i intimated a request to dan that he would open the ball. giving a low whistle, to attract bruin's attention, the long barrel rested motionless for a second against the tree, and as the beast raised his head to listen, dan let the hammer fall. _maldito!_ the cap only exploded; but it startled bruin, who leaped from the shrubbery, and took to his heels. my turn came, and i sent him a bullet out of twenty to the pound; wheeling on his haunches, he showed a range of glittering jaws, and not seeing us, made off again. we once more got in the saddle, and rushed in pursuit. dan had another glimpse--snapped again--i took a long range, and blazed away. nothing done. on we galloped up the hills, and skirting around the summits, we began slowly to descend along the brow of a ravine, in which we anticipated finding the chase. we had nearly reached the base without perceiving him, when dan, who was behind, shouted, "mind your eye, captin!" i heard a sharp, rattling growl, and within thirty feet below me was bruin, licking a stream of blood flowing from his rump. he raised up, snarling with rage, with huge paws and claws distended; and when about making for me i fired right between the shoulders, and heard the lead strike _chug_. the moment after my horse plunged, took the bit in his teeth, and dashed across the valley. after getting him again under control, we tracked the bear over the crest of the hill to a small dense thicket, where we heard him groaning, and angrily snapping his jaws. dan swore it would be "rank pison" to venture after him, and we both thought him hit too hard to crawl out alive. i was extremely disappointed in not beholding the last of him, but dan consoled me by promising to pay him a visit with the dogs the following day; which he did, but the beast was half devoured by coyotes and gallinazos, so that it was impossible to save the skin. it was of a verity the most formidable beast i ever saw outside the bars of a cage: covered with long grizzly hair, dark upon the spine, and inclining to a yellowish tinge along the shoulders. he must have weighed fourteen hundred pounds. at noon, my escort and cavallada having come up, and all ready for the road, fully appreciating the honest kindness of the murphys, i threw myself in the saddle, and departed for monterey. we had but four horses--miserable beasts they were--one gave up the ghost before the spur had made a hole in his hide, and another was brutally murdered by my illustrious soldier, who being unable, in his stupidity, to noose him, brought the poor animal lifeless to the ground with two ounces of buck-shot from the musket. apart from these annoyances, we had the utmost difficulty in urging those we rode into the settlement of san juan. on the road i was favored by a specimen of native rusticity. a youthful vacuero accosted me, and walked his cavallo at my side; familiarly placing his hand on the barrel of my rifle, he frankly opened a discourse by asking if i had any tobacco; not fancying his impertinence, and thinking i detected a mischievous expression in his visage, i quickly replied, with my rifle at half-cock, _no tengo. que tienes pues?_ he added, with a sneer. _dinero_, i responded, chinking the coin in my pocket, upon which he made a jocose grasp at that receptacle of my treasure, whereupon the solid tube of the rifle came in forcible contact with his nose, with such a violent collision that the claret spirted over the mane of his steed. he reined quickly back--the water standing in his eyes--made a demonstration of taking a whirl at me with his lasso, but observing the dark hole of my rifle staring him in the face, he contented himself by yelling _puñetero!_ and galloped away. i found st. johns a detestable spot--half a score dwellings--the church, and long ranges of buildings of the mission, more than half in ruins, and rapidly crumbling to the ground. thirty years before, this abode of the frayles possessed twenty thousand head of horses, three times that number of horned cattle, and a thousand indian serfs to till their broad acres. meeting the intelligent priests who had officiated in santa clara, they directed me to a house where a lodging was procurable. crossing the deserted plaza, i entered a large ill-constructed adobie dwelling, where i was received by a filthy young gascon, who appeared to be mayor domo, in the midst of a houseful of girls and women. i lost no time in doing the amiable to my agreeable hostesses, who in turn prepared a supper of dirty junks of beef, and still worse _tortillas_. _bifstek à la god dem_--fingers before forks--_comme l'usage en californie_, said the frenchman, as he vigorously commenced operations. but the supper was so unpalatable and unclean a meal, that hungry as i was, i fain amused myself the while, puffing cigarillos, catching fleas, and drinking execrably sour country wine. the feast was barely ended, when a loud screeching, and violent commotion among the women attracted attention; and presently there came running towards me an old beldame with, _dios de mi alma, es rd medico?_--the lord preserve us, are you a doctor. _si! si! amiga! medico y cirujano bueno_--yes, jack of all trades--i replied, deeming it a fair chance of exhibiting a little irresponsible empirical practice. upon inquiring the necessity for my professional abilities being called into play, i learned that the entire household had been exerting themselves the day and night previous dancing at a fandango, and that one of the _jovencitas_ was attacked with fits, consequent upon her exertions. the poor girl was lying on the the tiled floor, her head propped up by pillows, with loose dishevelled dress, and rich masses of dark hair strewn over her bosom and shoulders, like serpents in eden. she was moaning piteously between the convulsions, and one old hecate was striving to pry her mouth open with an iron spoon, whilst another was slapping her hands and yelling all the while, _crescencia! crescencia!_ kneeling beside the pretty suffering patient, and finding her pulse throbbing like a steam-engine, in my ignorance i advised bleeding; but this was out of the question, as nothing sharper than a hatchet, jack-knife, or old steel-pen, was to be had in the place; consequently, all left to be done was the application of hot vinegar and blankets. while superintending this process, and bathing her forehead, she went off again into spasms, clasped her arms around me, and for the space of five minutes i was favored with a succession of the warmest embraces; and, although it may not be generally credited, yet i'll venture to assert, that one may be seldom placed in a more trying situation, even if a charming girl has fits. _crescencia_ became calmer after this trifling ebullition, and was put to bed. i was anxious to sit up with the party during the night, but the _rieja_ declined my services, and i retired to another dormitory, where i slept tolerably well on a table, wrapped in a blanket, with holsters for pillow. arising at daybreak, i was concerned to find my horses had disappeared from the corral, which i had reason to attribute to the kind offices of the gascon. however, i paid him a dollar to have them caught, and upon bidding adios i gave him a _souvenir_ from the thick lash of my riding-whip, which was no doubt serviceable to other travellers who have succeeded me. we reached the salinas plains at noon; half way across my horse dropped with me into a ditch, so i scrambled out, packed saddle and duds on my own back, gained the molino, procured a spanish brute from the proprietor thereof, and the same night arrived in monterey. i regret to add, this was my last interview with anderson--he was assassinated a few months later, by a person named callagan. chapter xviii. the latter part of july found the frigate again moored off yerbabuena, in the waters of san francisco. a number of us had long anticipated the pleasure of a trip to the northward; and a fine prize schooner, the julia, being unemployed, she was accordingly made ready, and, early one morning, our party, with a few trifling kits, were all snugly stowed away on board. with the broad pennant fluttering at the main, and all sails spread, we soon lost sight of the anchorage. the julia's cabin had four berths sufficiently capacious for grown people, and two others, which were, in reality, intended for minors, or any adult under three feet in length; a settee ran crosswise, and the intermediate space filled in with a cozy table. our mess amounted to seven, and the caterer had been careful to provide servants and cooks, cold hams and tongues, potted oysters and biscuits, silver-topped bottles of ale and stout, cases of pale sherry, bundles of havannas, and what with a haunch or two of venison, and lots of edibles, indiscriminately packed in huge baskets, we counted upon a sufficiency of _viveres_ to allay thirst and famine for a week to come. indeed, there's nothing answers so well as a profusion of "provender," to promote good humor and agreeable conversation. major dalgetty understood this practically and philosophically. guitars, pretty spirituelle women, babbling brooks and shady lawns, with a bowl of chicken salad, do very well when one goes a picknicking in an omnibus, or canal boat; but when it is necessary to rough it a bit in open air and unknown regions, we require something more substantial. passing through the inner straits, above angel island, we entered the bay of san pablo, or sinoma, and, with a pleasant breeze, steered for the upper shores. it is a vast, circular sheet of water, twelve miles in diameter, fenced in from the ocean, on one side, by a rim of broken hills, closely abutting upon the bay; while to the north and east, the land trends easily away, in less abrupt elevations, into the interior, leaving a base of wide, fertile plains and valleys, verging upon the shores. a noble ship channel takes the direction of the eastern coast, leading into the straits of carquinez, an opening quite similar to the outer passage from the sea. our course lay in an opposite point, and, turning to the left, we sailed over shallower depths, until late in the afternoon, when, finding there was no water to spare betwixt the keel and the bottom, we dropt anchor, two miles from the land. the barge was presently manned, and leaving our butler, mr. bill moulden, to exercise his care and corkscrew over the comestibles, we rowed to the entrance of a creek, where, after winding about in the serpentine tracks of an inlet for, at the least, ten miles, we at last jumped on shore at the _embarcadera_ of sinoma. the gentleman to whom we were bound, not being apprised of our coming, but two horses were to be procured, and the rest of us trudged along on foot. the road was perfectly level, walking good, and, with sparkling stars for lanterns, in an hour we found ourselves at the residence of general vallejo, were ushered through a spacious _porte cocher_, into a large _sala_, and graciously received by the lady of the mansion, whose husband chanced to be absent on important business. it may be as well to state here, that vallejo had been the most important personage in upper california, both from family influence, intelligence and wealth. on the commencement of the war, notwithstanding the annoyance he had experienced from the bear party, he espoused the cause of the united states; and, being blessed with a clear head and much discernment, saw at a glance the benefit derivable for california by a connection with a staunch republic, in preference to letting the territory languish under the misrule of mexico, or, perhaps, at some future period, to maintain the needy soldiery of a foreign monarchy. i believe myself within the mark, in estimating the general's landed property at one hundred square leagues, embracing much of the best agricultural and grazing districts in the country, with many of the most eligible sites for commercial ports on the waters of san francisco. the little pueblo of sinoma stands with its back resting against a ridge of high hills, shutting in, on one side, a lovely plain, near fifty miles in extent, and presenting much the same pleasing aspect of golden lakes of wild oats and luxuriant oaks, as grace the vale of santa clara. the principal dwellings and barracks form three sections of a square--all, except one edifice, owned and occupied by the relations and family of our absent host. his residence was the largest--as usual, built of adobies--two hundred feet long, of two stories, having a tier of balconies above. the apartments we occupied below were well furnished, walls papered, books and cases, prints and mirrors in profusion. we were somewhat surprised, not believing so much refinement, in that which is termed modern civilization, existed in the territory. the señora herself, assisted by a well-behaved youth, did the honors of the supper table; and after we had made a hearty meal, she retired and left us to the enjoyment of chateau margaux and cigars. during supper we were complimented by a serenade, sung by a number of russians and germans, whose harmonious chorus, and songs of "faderland," almost carried us away to the rhine. we sought the music room, shortly after, where the little daughters of our entertainers were performing on the piano. they had been properly instructed, and performed remarkably well; besides, they were pretty, becomingly attired, and, what is still more commendable, exceedingly well bred. towards midnight we said _buenas noches_, and sought our beds, where, if we had been previously a little astonished to find ourselves surrounded with elegance, we soon had reason to return to realities, by the aid of the pincer-like stings of the curse of the country, _pulgas_, who, finding us tender and palatable, hopped about us for the remainder of the night. to evade their sharp bites, i tried to smoke myself insensible, and would no doubt have succeeded in deluding myself into slumber, had not my repose been again interrupted by a loud altercation between the admiral's aid-de-camp and captain swayback, of the dragoons, who chanced to be billetted together. the former, through abstraction, had swathed himself, like to an egyptian mummy, in all the clothes, and persisted in occupying the centre of the bed; moreover, hinting a disinclination to pass the night with any gentleman perfumed with tobacco. upon this, the captain became jocosely indignant; and although admitting that, in his varied hardships and travels, he had been necessitated to bivouac many a time under worse auspices, yet he still had a mortal antipathy to share his pillow with a man; so, he betook himself to the floor, where, with blanket, an inverted chair for pillow, and a brilliant cigar illumining either corner of his month, he rendered the room dense with smoke until daylight. early on the morrow we took a pleasant ramble about the village, and were individually hugged by a tame grizzly cub, who was altogether more ardent in his affectionate embraces than our recent acquaintance required--thence to breakfast on the accustomed _olla podrida_, which is a stereotyped mess everywhere with spaniards and their descendants--though at times differently prepared--here it was flanked by _frijoles_. the meal finished, horses were standing, ready caparisoned, at the door, and whilst my friends amused themselves to their fancy, i seized a rifle, and in company with a young american, started on a hunt. we had ridden a league over the valley, when we perceived a small herd of antelopes; but they descried us, too, a long way off, and not without much trouble and hard riding, did i succeed in striking one with a bullet, flying, as i may say; for never before had i beheld such nimble heels. another was wounded, also, but, with his companions, reached the highlands and escaped. the first had his fore leg nearly severed from his shoulder, but, notwithstanding it traversed around in his flight like a wheel, he still ran good four leagues before we approached near enough to kill him. we soon packed the meat on a horse, which is done by removing the entrails, breaking the back bone, and doubling the animal, horns and tail; then it is secured to the saddle. two may be carried this way; but wo to the hunter, if the sharp, hard hoofs happen to prick his horse, the probability being that the rider will describe a summerset. highly pleased with the exploit, we sent our prize to the _embarcadera_. the antelope abounds in great numbers in the vicinity of sinoma. they pass more evenly over the ground than deer; are far swifter, and extremely shy. we all rëassembled at the puebla in good time and condition for dinner, which passed pleasantly, and then taking leave of our handsome, hospitable hostess, who expressed much regret at the absence of don guadalupe, her husband, we mounted fresh horses and turned our backs on the little village of sinoma, all highly pleased with the visit. embarking again at the head of the creek, with a strong favoring tide, we reached our floating domicile at dark. fatigue of the day made heavy eyelids, and supper was barely despatched, before sleep shrouded us in the land of dreams. weighing at sunrise the next day, with light winds, and charming weather, we bore away to the carquinez straits. this passage lies on the eastern face of san pablo; it may be a mile and a half wide, and we found a broad ship channel, ranging from twelve to five fathoms soundings, all the way to the head of the straits, where we anchored the julia, in twenty-five feet water, within a bound of the bank. our position was at the site of an embryo city, called benecia. the selection was made by doctor semple, and the land owned by vallejo, in compliment to whose wife the place was named. in point of natural advantages, i know of no more eligible situation: the country rises in gentle sweeping undulations for some miles, terminating quite around by a lofty amphitheatre of hills; the climate is equable and salubrious, with a rich and fertile soil, and plenty of timber, and it is said coal of a superior quality exists in the vicinity. at the time of our visit a mania was raging in california about lands, and lots, and although nothing had been attempted in benecia, except a very pretty plan on paper, and three miserable little board sheds, with a flat boat to ferry travellers across the straits; yet from being the highest navigable point, where large vessels can conveniently discharge or load from the main rivers of the san francisco, that pour into the shoal bay of sossun, we predicted that eventually yerbabuena might play a relative sandy hook to a new york; _then_, nothing was known of the el dorado fifty miles above: had we been aware of it we might have taken the little city off the doctor's hands; for now, with its manifest advantages, and enormous influx of emigration flowing towards california, there can be no bounds placed upon its progress. we made a hunting trio during the day, crossed to the opposite shore, but not being acquainted with the haunts of game, and being a little timid about the prospect of meeting a grizzly, we did not venture into the interior; and after a long and arduous tramp over the steep spurs of heights that entrenched boldly upon the straits, we saw no opportunity for firing our rifles, being only repaid by a treat of delicious melons found at an isolated rancho. at nine the following morning we bid adieu to benecia, with the credit of having been the largest vessel, and only one of war, that had ever floated so far on the broad bosom of san francisco. with this plume in our castors we were obliged to be content, as the admiral could not spare time to explore further. with an ebb tide, and prevalent west wind, we tacked boldly from side to side; before noon had cleared the straits, and entering a narrow channel that borders on the tulares valley, we ran between mares island and the main, and again came to anchor. here we tarried all day, in hopes of filling the julia with elk; but although the low banks and extensive fields of reeds are famed as the resort of immense bands, yet, for a wonder, there was not a four-legged animal to be seen. fowling-pieces, however, came into requisition, and we filled our bags with mallard, curlew, and plover; these tit bits came in seasonably, for the antelope, which by the way proved most excellent, was literally on his last leg. when the ebb tide again made, at night, we lifted the anchor once more, homeward bound, and the next afternoon were again comfortably kicking heels under the mess mahogany of the frigate. chapter xix. on the th of july, , the columbus, seventy-four, bearing the pennant of commodore biddle, sailed from san francisco for the united states, leaving the flag of the commander-in-chief, flying on board the razee independence. by this time most of the ships composing the squadron had either rendezvouzed in monterey or yerbabuena. central and upper california had become perfectly tranquil, with the exception of some trifling difficulties which had arisen in san diego, between the new york volunteers and the natives. but these were speedily settled; and a sufficient force being now ready for service, the preparations, which had already been too long delayed, were actively begun for the purpose of attacking the mexican coast. the crews of the different vessels were constantly exercised in companies and battalions for service on land: they were taught to march and counter-march, in line, platoons, and column; to throw themselves into squares; were thoroughly instructed in the manual drill; and although they occasionally knocked their broad-brimmed tarpaulins off at "shoulder arms," yet upon the whole they did extremely well for sailors, and on the weekly field-days on shore, went through the evolutions in a very creditable manner. early in september we returned to monterey. the bright green verdure that clothed the hill sides, the beautiful mantle of green and flowers of spring, had long since paled beneath the blaze of summer. no rain had fallen; the clear rills that murmured in every gully were absorbed by the parched earth. the broad lagoons near the beach were rapidly receding, and mud had been converted into dust. and although vandals were making the axe resound in murderous blows upon the picturesque bolls of fine trees that decked the slopes, there was still sufficient delight for the eye to rest upon in the lovely undulating landscape encircling the shores of the bay. monterey was rapidly increasing, and houses of a more substantial build than the paper-like structures of yerbabuena, were rising in the streets. the fort on the hill was nearly completed, mounting a numerous battery of long twenty-fours; and in the rear were stone magazines, barracks, and quarters; so that the natives, if they entertained doubts before, were now convinced that their invaders had resolved to remain. a salutary system of police had also been established in the town--the reverend alcalde was a terror to evil doers. woe betide the pockets of those who slaughtered cattle at their door-steps, or the rollicking gentry vaulting at full speed through the streets, or drunken indians, or quiet persons in back rooms, amusing themselves at monté--for down came that ivory-headed cane--"alcalde de monterey"--like a talisman; and with a pleasant smile he would sweep the white and yellow dross into his capacious pockets. others were mulcted in damages, or made to quarry stone for the school-house; but, whether native or foreigner, the rod fell impartially on their pockets, and all, more or less, contributed towards the new californian college. these measures were not relished at first by the natives, but in the end they discerned the wisdom of a prompt and just administration of the laws, and became devoted admirers of the indefatigable alcalde. about this time a more serious event occurred. two indians were charged with the murder of a foreigner; a woman, who was their accomplice, betrayed them; they were tried by jury, selected equally from natives and strangers; the crime was clearly and indubitably proved--the offenders were condemned to be hung. the punishment was unknown in california, and a large concourse of persons assembled around the gallows, which was erected within sight of the town. attended by two priests, the criminals, who seemed perfectly indifferent to their fate--in fact many thought rather pleased at being the observed of all observers--were placed beneath the beam, and the cords finally adjusted by the pious fathers. at the signal, down came the platform, and with it the murderers; but, by some unaccountable fatality, both knots slipped, and with the exception of being a little "choky" in the face, they sustained no injury. in a moment one of the priests mounted a horse, and galloped to the governor's, urging a reprieve on the plea of a special dispensation of providence--that the criminals had been hung once, and were consequently entitled to pardon. the philanthropic padre might better have saved his ride and breath, for colonel mason informed him, that in case these villains were not executed, providence might interfere with the ropes for ever after, and moreover the sentence was to hang them until dead. meanwhile the sheriff on the ground had replaced the halters with unslippable hitches, as he observed that they would receive "particular fits;" and soon after they were properly worked off, and swung, dangling, lifeless figures, within their timber frame. this event generated a feeling of bitter hostility on the part of the catholic clergy towards the local government, although generally conceded by the catholics themselves to be entirely uncalled for and unreasonable. on saturday evenings, crowds of these degraded indians, of both sexes, after laboring during the week, and feeding on locusts or grasshoppers, were accustomed to congregate on the outskirts of the town, where, with gaming and arguadiente, they were enabled to remain torpid all the following day. their favorite amusement was a game called _escondido_--hide and seek--played with little sticks; and their skill was exerted by trying to discover in whose hands they were: seating themselves on the ground, around a huge blazing fire, separate parties were ranged on opposite sides; then beginning a low, wild chaunt, moving their bodies to and fro, groping with their hands within the serapas before them, until the perspiration starts in streams down their naked sides, after a strange succession of deep, harsh, gutteral grunts and aspirations, they suddenly terminate their exertions by giving a sharp yell, and pointing to one of the opposite party, who, if rightly detected, pays forfeit. when one set of players becomes exhausted, others supply their places, and thus they keep it up the live-long night. among the californians an agreeable pastime, much in vogue, is the _merendar_--angliee, pie-nie. they are usually given, on the patron saint's day of some favorite señora or señorita, by their admirers. a secluded, pleasant spot is selected a few miles away from the presidio, where provisions, wine and music are collected beforehand; then each cavalier, with arm thrown affectionately around his sweetheart, on the saddle before him, seeks the rendezvous. guitars and choral accompaniments soon are heard, and the _merenda_ begins, and is kept up with the greatest possible fun and spirit: dancing, frolicking, drinking and love-making. there are two or three singular dances of the country: one, called the _son_, where a gentleman commences, by going through a solo part, to quick, rattling music, then waving a handkerchief to a damsel, who either pays the same compliment to another favored swain, or merely goes through a few steps, without relieving the first comer, who, in turn, is obliged to continue the performance until a lady takes pity for him. it not unfrequently happens, that when a particularly graceful girl is on the floor, making her little feet rapidly pat the ground, like castanets, to the inspiriting music, that some enthusiastic _novio_ will place his sombrero on her head, which can never be reclaimed without a handsome present in exchange. but, heaven help us! the pranks and mischief indulged in on the return home; the tricks and tumbles, laughter and merriment; even the horses appear to enter into the play, and when a cluster of gay lads and lassies have jostled one another from the saddles, the waggish, animals, fully appreciating the joke, stop of their own accord. the last affair of this kind i attended, was given by the best-hearted little fellow in the territory; and i am prepared to prove it--señor verde--he was an universal favorite, as well with old as young; for he was at different times taking a short _pasear_ on every horse, laughing with the madres, and kissing the shy donçellas--_valgame dios_--but i had work in getting him into monterey that night, for my cavallo carried weight--besides a big overgrown dame and myself, verde hung on to the tail. we were many weeks in monterey, and i passed a large portion of leisure time either hunting with juaquinito, or chatting and smoking during the afternoons with our excellent friends, the army men, at the fort. but at last we began to tire of foggy mornings, damp nights, tough beef, lounging under the consul's piazza, sweltering dust, catching fleas, playing monté, and fandangos at carmelo. the time was drawing near for our departure. the ships were provisioned and ready for service. jack had become quite a soldier, and we consoled ourselves with the prospective excitement of a descent upon the mexican coast. chapter xx. we sailed from monterey on the th of october--rounded point piños, and, bidding a final adieu to upper california, bore away to the southward. on the th, we found ourselves near cape san lucas, where, for three blessed days, we lay becalmed, all hands existing, as it were, in a warm bath of their own providing. the morning of the fourth, there came a breeze, and with it, under a cloud of canvas, one of our frigates, with the intelligence that she had bombarded guaymas, and blown up the fortifications. no resistance had been made, and a corvette was left to guard a deserted town. it was certainly a severe instance of patriotism, where the mexicans left their homes and property, choosing a precarious existence among the sterile mountains, rather than cry _peccavi!_ to the yankee banner. anchoring at san josé, we learned that trouble was brewing on the peninsula, and that some hundreds of men in arms were assembled at todos santos, a place on the seaside of lower california, fifty miles distant. nothing, certainly, was more preposterous than the forgetful policy of our government, in expecting to hold two thousand miles of coast with a handful of men. the principal points on the peninsula had already been occupied transiently by our forces; but notwithstanding proclamations had been issued, declaring the "californias unalterably" annexed to the united states, and that very many of the natives had warmly espoused our protection; yet the very moment the ships or force were withdrawn from a place, the disaffected patriots--and they were patriots--immediately sprang up, issued _pronunciamentos_, threatened foreign residents, and their own countrymen, who had befriended the invaders. as a consequence, the whole lower portion of the territory and the peninsula were kept in a constant state of excitement and inquietude. nor could we have reasonably expected aught else, without a respectable force to overawe them. the second evening after our arrival, a small mounted party, of thirty muskets, from the flag ship, was ordered into the interior, to disperse the insurrectionists at todos santos. they had not been absent half a dozen hours, when a report was circulated, that a body of the enemy were lying in ambuscade on the route, to attack them. a great commotion ensued, and i was selected to proceed to the mission and inquire into the truth of the rumor. attended by our marine postmaster richie, we procured horses on the beach, and after sliding over loose stones, winding around precipices, until quite dizzy at the narrow bridle paths, running full as much risk in losing our eyes by thorns of aloe or cactus, as our necks, in the darkness, by the precarious foothold of the beasts, we reached san josé at midnight, and presented ourselves before the alcaldes. we found these worthies and their wives deeply immersed in monté and cigarillos. they were ignorant, as alcaldes universally are, of any treasonable rumors; but, on citing an old indian woman and her son, who were the divining magicians of the place, we learned that, in truth, a number of evil-minded persons had been in town, tampering with those more peaceably disposed, in hopes of raising a sufficient force to cut our little band to pieces. upon concluding our inquisitorial proceedings, we returned to the ship. the next morning, news was brought from la paz, a post some distance up the gulf, and recently occupied by a company of the new york regiment under lt. col. burton, that the disaffection had extended in every direction, and the mexicans were resolved to make a last struggle for lost ground on the peninsula. the same night we received more _violente extraordinarios_--break-neck expresses--stating that the little town near us was about to be invaded by the insurgents. there was so much truth in this, that a number of officers from the ships took to the road, "accoutred as they were," and a very flimsy toilet some of them appeared in, on their five mile flight to the watering beach. boats were armed, and companies detailed for service; but another violent extraordinary arrived, and for the time we remained passive. the next evening, a detachment of five-and-twenty marines left the ship for shore. we were a long time disembarking, as the surf was breaking ten feet high upon the open beach. skirting along thickets around the town, we marched up a valley, through a deep sandy road, for more than two leagues, before reaching our destination. it was a little hamlet, called _cerrillos_, of miserable ranchos, lying upon the side of a hill, where we had hopes of meeting a party of _guerrillas_. our arrangements were quickly made--men posted--pieces cocked--the houses summoned successively--but, alas! for our anticipations of a skrimmage, the birds had flown some hours before, leaving but a few old people and children in the place. i was sadly disappointed, for i had an extremely perilous path to explore in getting to my station--no more nor less than charging, full leap, through a large corral of sheep and cattle--with half a dozen fixed bayonets close at my heels--the bullocks jumping right and left, in great affright, and i expecting every instant some rampant bull ahead to toss me into the air, or a sharp bayonet to stick me in the rear; nor did i feel relieved, until the muzzle of my carbine struck the door of the rancho, and i found breath to cry, halt! to the party. after a deal of praying and screeching, from the shrill throats of women and children, the door fell, and, by the glare of a flickering torch, an old lady tremblingly approached, with a baby in each arm, crying, _somas pobres, señor, ave purissima! no hay mas que esos! tome ad un niño, por el amor de dios?_--we are poor, but take a baby, for the love of god. we generously declined the good woman's kindness, and succeeded in allaying her alarm, by the assurance that we were in search of men, and not infants. truly, it has a tendency to jar one's nerves, this storming a person's house with armed men in the dead of the night. we had a dreadfully fatiguing march back, and had there not been many rivulets to quench thirst, some of us would have been thoroughly exhausted. entering the town at eight o'clock, we learned with surprise, that the friends whom we went in search of had been making night hideous in the village itself, and only decamped towards daylight on our approach. a few days succeeding our arrival, the ships were busily employed watering. in the southern arm of the bay is a small cove, partially sheltered from heavy surf by a jutting reef of rocks, where, during the rainy season, is the mouth of a mountain-torrent; then, the stream was not visible, but on digging a little way below the sandy bed, pure delightful water bubbled up, filtered through miles of coarse gravel. the large boats anchored a few yards from the strand, and the men amused themselves by swimming the casks off when filled. nearly the whole population of the mission assembled there at daylight, offering fruit, vegetables, and other articles for traffic. lots of girls and women were there, all far better dressed, and more comely than those we had been gazing upon so long in upper california. i devoted my time to an old lady and two daughters, who had pitched a tent near by, and opened a shop for the sale of milk and eggs. of the two damsels my adoration was the younger--eugenia--a charming little brunette, who shared my dinner, and, by way of a frolic, cunningly squeezed lime-juice in my month when asleep. this style of existence quite enchanted us; and what with sucking oranges, dozing in the welcome shade, and bathing half the time in the water,--we fancied it somewhat resembled the pleasant life in the south sea islands. one of the roads, from the watering ravine to san josé, had much the appearance of an alley through a flower-garden: the foliage blazing in bloom, with a plentiful display of blossoming aloes and cactus, shooting up into the air like grecian columns; many of the latter twenty inches in diameter. the town stands in a pretty valley, with red, sterile mountains toppling around it. one broad street courses between two rows of cane and mud-built dwellings, thatched with straw, having shady verandahs in front, constructed of frameworks of canes and leaves, answering very well to screen the burning rays of the sun, which sheds light and heat, with the force of a compound blow-pipe. at the upper end of the avenue, standing on a slight, though abrupt, elevation from the valley behind, was the _cuartel_, a small building, which at a later period was the scene of a gallant stand and siege, where a mere handful of our sailors and marines bravely repulsed twenty times their number of mexicans. within sight of the village is a shallow, rapid brook, which serves to irrigate many well-tilled plantations about the suburbs. the people were kind, and particularly hospitable, always welcoming us with the utmost cordiality. we usually dined at the house of an old chinaman, who was a miracle of a cook, and dished us up beneath the shade--plover, curlew, wild ducks, and olives without stint--with which, and chatting, smoking, lounging from house to house, and _siesta_, we got through the hours pleasantly. on one afternoon, having somewhat soiled my outer man, in leaping into a puddle instead of over it, my newly-discovered sweetheart washed my trowsers and shirt, whilst i dozed away on a low cot frame, upon which was tightly drawn a tanned sheet of leather--and a capital, cool, comfortable apparatus it is in warm weather. we generally returned to the ships by night, as the unsettled state of the neighboring country rendered it impossible to remain; so, after rewarding pretty eugenia with my handkerchief for her trouble, i turned my steps for the last time on san josé. the expedition that started for todos santos on our arrival, and for which serious uneasiness was beginning to be entertained, got safely back on the seventh day. they found a dull, barren region to traverse, and were not repaid by a sight of the guerrillas, who had all decamped for a rallying point near la paz. in consequence of the earnest solicitations made by the simple inhabitants of san josé, for a small force to protect them from their brethren in arms, who were not so favorably disposed towards the north americans, it was deemed advisable to comply with the request, and a detachment of twenty marines, a nine-pounder carronade, with four officers, under command of lieut. charles heywood, u.s.n., were detailed for the service, and the next day occupied the town. chapter xxi. mazatlan lies in latitude ° ' n. verging on the tropic, flanked by a broad belt, ten leagues wide, of the _tierra caliente_, with the lofty mountains that support the elevated terraces and grand plateau of the interior plainly visible in the background. the town is built upon a triangular space formed by three hills at the angles, the apex a bluff promontory, extending seaward, and beyond two small islets, barely divided from the frowning helmet of creston. these salient points form together a bold, rocky partition, which with another parallel barrier to the eastward, breaks off the ocean swell, sufficiently to admit of a secure anchorage from all but southerly winds. this is called the new port. right and left of the town are curving sandy beaches; the one abreast the new port, protected by a sand-bar, that incloses a safe haven for small vessels; then further, a wide _estero_, or inlet, runs inland, following the bend of the coast for sixty miles to the southward; while one channel branches away to the west, encircles mazatlan, and passing some miles in a line with the sea, is only prevented from again meeting the ocean by a narrow strip of marsh and sand. to the right of the town commences a small patch of sand called _olas altas_, whereon some of the best buildings are situated; beyond is an abrupt dome-like elevation; and then farther still, is a narrow indentation, formerly used as the puerto viejo; when the beach continues in a gentle curve, as far as the eye can reach, up the gulf, to the northward. in the year , mazatlan was a miserable indian fishing village; but owing to its advantageous position in affording a better harbor, and fresh water, than existed for large vessels north of acapulco--its facilities for communication with the rich mining districts of zacatécas, durango and culiacan, besides the market opened in the populous provinces bordering upon the pacific, it soon increased in magnitude to a fine thriving little city of ten thousand inhabitants, and became the most important commercial point on the continent north of the equator. sailing from the bay of san josé, in company with the frigate congress, and corvette cyane, we crossed the californian gulf, and made the land on the afternoon of november th. the sea breeze set in late, and the sun was down upon arriving at the venados islands. the ships were together, and having each a position assigned, the independence passed ahead, and standing boldly in, anchored abreast the olas altas beach, within half musket-shot of the shore. the congress came to anchor in the old port, commanding the old road and garita, while the cyane brought her guns to bear upon the eastern face of the town, from the new anchorage. all remained quiet during the night on shore; the boats of the squadron were gotten in the water; batteries in fighting order; guns cast loose and trained; besides whole hail-storms of round shot, shells, grape, and divers other sorts of deadly pyrotechny, piled in stacks and racks, around the decks, all ready at a moment's warning to knock the town to dust. at sunrise a flag of truce was sent to summon the authorities. the commandante telles, in consequence of fatigue caused by galloping about the place, and brandy, did not appear, but delegated his officials to inform the american cartel, that he could not reconcile with it his honor to receive our officers, and to inform el señor commodore that he saw no necessity for surrendering mazatlan, but the same time he should retire to his camp at the palos prietos, beyond the environs, where he would await the ruthless invaders. four hours were given for deliberation; we were told subsequently, that they anticipated four weeks, with the privilege of breaking off negociations at the end of that period. before the time had expired, the companies for landing were ready in the boats, and the artillery awaiting the stroke of the bell to begin the ball; but presently there came alongside a dapper little personage, with intelligence that the mexican troops had entirely deserted the town, and no resistance would be offered by the inhabitants. after all the trouble we were a little disappointed, and even uncle ben bunker, our worthy gunner, was quite exasperated, being obliged to stow away his fire-works, and secure the guns, for a more remote occasion. the flotilla of twenty-nine boats had assembled around the flag ship, and, headed by the commodore, we pulled between creston and the main, and made for the mole. not a bayonet was visible. a concourse of persons lined the beach, who merely gratified their curiosity by scowling upon us, as the boats came to land and emptied their loads. in ten minutes our flag was flying over the town, and twenty-one guns saluted it from the independence. field-pieces were then disembarked, placed in position, the men wheeled into column, the band struck up, and away we marched through mazatlan. the house-tops were crowded with veiled faces; but upon so slight an acquaintance we found difficulty in putting in even a wink, except at rare intervals. we reached the cuartel, a large square building for barracks and citadel, situated on a slight eminence in rear of the town, and commanding the main roads to the interior. the sailors and marines were soon quartered, guns planted, and all preparations made to resist an attack. three hundred were detailed for garrison, and the remainder sent on board. from appearances, the mexicans had departed with great precipitation, leaving many of their accoutrements, some hundred stand of rifles and muskets, saddles, and a few pieces of artillery. their whole force was about eight hundred, more than half regulars, and had they chosen to stand their ground, we should have suffered severely, although not perhaps repulsed. telles and his troops were posted a league up the road, near the forest of palos prietos, and it was stated that his intention was to assault us; but we experienced no alarm on that score, feeling assured that, after relinquishing all their advantages in position, they could have no further wish to retake them. the first few days we were occupied making reconnoissances in the neighborhood. two positions were selected for fortifications: the one, a steep hill, overlooking the estero; and the other, a lower eminence, entirely guarding the main and only approach for cavalry by land to the port. this was the garita. between these two points, in former times, a line had been marked out, faced by a broad and deep ditch, intended to connect the western branch of the inlet with the sea, thus cutting the town entirely off from the main land; but the excavation had only been completed as far as the garita road, leaving, however, but a narrow causeway open. heavy ordnance, long twenty-four pounders, with carriages and wheels, mortars, and lighter guns, were brought ashore from the ships; and as they were drawn through the streets, by the stout arms and shouts of hundreds of sailors, the inhabitants fairly looked astounded. in a short time these heavy monsters were staring, with their dark cavernous mouths, from the esplanade of the cuartel. picks, shovels and barrows went briskly to work; ditches, walls and parapets were commenced, and went on unceasingly for many months. previous to our coming, a great number of the more respectable residents had retired to their estates, or the towns in the vicinity; but upon finding that the north americans were not such outrageous invaders as they had been led to believe, gradually these families returned to their homes in mazatlan. meanwhile, a military and civil governor and lieutenant governor[ ] had been appointed, and an _ayuntamiento_ called from among the citizens, with commissioners on our side, to arrange preliminaries for the municipal administration of the town. this proved to be a matter of very difficult adjustment. the _junta_ were averse to removing the _alcobala_--a tax levied upon provisions and produce entering the gates--at all times a burdensome and unequal extortion, falling upon the poor: this was at last yielded, and it, of course, became a very popular measure, although with little real benefit; for the producers themselves were compelled to suffer severely from the rapacity of their own troops outside. the president of the council was señor créspo, a very respectable, honest person; and could he have been induced to fill the post, saving a few illiberal ideas and fears of compromising himself with his former friends outside, all would have gone on smoothly; but he refused to serve, and señores pelaiz and leon were appointed to preside over the civil tribunals. this caused dissatisfaction, as neither had a surplus of moral character to boast of; but as the commodity was scarce, the judgeships would have remained vacant a long while, before more suitable selections could have been found among the mexicans. nevertheless, the policy pursued by us became popular with all classes, and there were but few exceptions to the general wish, that our flag might float over them forever. what tended in a great measure to revive confidence among the wealthier inhabitants, was our manner of conducting business at the custom house. the scale of duties, as exhibited by the secretary of the treasury, was modified to suit this market, and, in the absence of all bribery and corruption, it restored a certain harmony of association among the merchants, which, necessarily, was interrupted by the mexican policy of holding out inducements for every trader to undersell his neighbor; when all were constantly intriguing with the government _empleados_ to get their cargoes through the customs, at a lower mark than usual. this system was done away with, trade was thrown upon an assured basis, and it consequently encouraged a more friendly intercourse. as a single instance of the rapacity and extortion practiced by the mazatlanese authorities displaced by us, there were five-and-twenty officials employed within the custom house; and of a yearly revenue averaging nearly a million of dollars, not a rial ever went to the general government. in the first place, the mexican tariff was frequently so heavy as to amount to prohibition, and to save time and the risk of smuggling, it was only necessary to throw a third or fourth of the duties into the commandante's or collector's hands, who, in turn, made a smaller distribution to the cormorants beneath them. telles had it in his power to have laid by half a million of money, but it all went like water through his fingers, and he fled as poor as he began. there were no restrictions placed upon the liberties or pleasures of the people. they had justice by their own laws. we preserved order. patrols and police parties perambulated the town night and day. after _oracion_ had tolled, no person was permitted to enter or leave the garita until sunrise, without the risk of a bullet in his body! for sentinels were doubled at night, and mounted pickets guarded the great ditch towards the _estero_. no arms were permitted to be carried by citizens, and both gentlemen and _paisanos_ were obliged to leave them, upon entering the town, at the garita. there was but one church in mazatlan, for the people are not piously inclined, and one padre was all we ever saw; and him the girls called father windmill. the only good public edifice is the _duana_. the houses generally are of one story, built of bricks, or adobies, and plastered over; but all the wealthy residents have fine, cool and spacious dwellings, with flat roofs, which command pleasant views of the sea and environs. the streets are wide, having trottoirs, tolerably well paved and lighted. there are two small plazas, many very handsome shops, cafés and _sociedads_. altogether, we found ourselves in a modern little city, and much nearer civilisation than in the mushroom settlements of california. the climate is very warm in the morning, though tempered by cooling breezes from the ocean towards afternoon. after the summer rains have passed, much sickness prevails, owing to the malaria that is generated from the wet, marshy plains and lagoons around the town. congestive fevers and agues are then quite common, and the wealthier orders retire to the high lands of the interior. footnote: [ ] the last named appointment was ably filled by lieut. halleck, of u. s. engineers, who, from his military and scientific knowledge, was of the greatest assistance to the expedition. chapter xxii. the mexicans remained encamped but three days at palos prietos, when, leaving strong posts of cavalry to blockade the roads, and intercept communication with the town, they retired to the presidio of mazatlan--a place eight leagues beyond--where they went into quarters. as yet they had committed no hostile acts, except making a bonfire of a number of their own launches, and small craft, that had been carried for safety up the estero, to prevent them falling into yankee hands. we could see the gay pennons of their lances constantly with the spy-glasses; and by this time having acquired a slight idea of the topography of the immediate suburbs, we began to extend our scouts further beyond the lines. the skirmishing commenced on the th. with fifty men, we left the cuartel at midnight; pursued a path parallel with the beach, and after resting some hours in ditches, and nearly devoured by musquitos, at break of day found ourselves a league from the garrison. soon after, we discovered a body of forty horsemen moving along the road in direction of the town. we were obliged to break cover, and run smartly to a hedge that fringed the road, in hopes of intercepting their retreat, and were of necessity soon exposed to view. the lancers wheeled to reconnoiter, and then came on at a trot. we blazed away with the muskets, when they increased their speed, until on reaching a thicket, they halted and returned the fire from their escopetas. this continued some time, the balls knocking the dust up in little puffs, but too far distant to do any damage, when hearing the sharp pinging song of a bullet, i turned my head and beheld a verdant reefer, with a cutlass strapped around his waist, one hand in his pocket, and the other scratching his cheek. "hillo!" quoth i; "what's the matter?"--"nothing but these musquitos," he replied, and continued attentively regarding the flashes from the bushes. while this little fusilade was going on, we espied two officers, who had probably ventured too far in advance of their troop, and were entirely cut off from the main body; we hailed them to surrender, but, without heeding the summons, they behaved quite coolly; moved slowly towards where a dozen muskets were gazing at them, and where they were obliged to pass an angle of the road, when having availed themselves of the last chance of even a leaf of shelter, with one arm clasping the horses' necks, they half swung from the saddles, and made a desperate rush to pass us. a hail-storm of balls and buck-shot rained around them; the horses plunged, evidently hit, and the hindmost rider fell from his seat, still clinging to the saddle, but the speed of the animals soon bore them to their companions and shelter. we afterwards learned that they had lost one killed and five wounded. pursuit was useless, our heels being less nimble than horses, so we formed and returned to the barracks. the night following this adventure we were out again, about three hours past midnight, with a single attendant, i became separated from my party, and after getting bewildered among swamps and thickets, just as day was breaking we reached the beach. all right now, we thought, and trudging stoutly over the sand, we suddenly came full upon a mexican picket. we dropped as if shot. it was early dawn, and we were not discovered. they were sitting on their horses, behind a little hillock, with the butts of their long lances resting on the ground; and for my part i already, in imagination, felt one, half through me; they were anxiously peering about, and we were certain that the first movement on our side would be attended with inevitable capture, with melancholy thoughts of perspective dinners on frijoles and paper cigars. so we remained quietly lying on the sand, until presently one exclaimed, with much emphasis, _compadre, no hay yankis! corramos_--there are no yankees, let us be off. a moment later, there was heard a sharp rattle of musketry, soon followed by a volley; uttering loud curses, they gave spur, covered us with dust as they galloped by, and disappeared in the woods. regaining our feet once more, we plunged waist deep through a lagoon, crossed fields and fences, and reaching the main road, devoted all our energies to our legs. a mile of this healthful exercise exhausted our powers, and we paused for breath; but the troubles apparently were not ended. a party of horsemen came dashing along the road in our wake; running was out of the question, there was no more run left in us, so with a cocked carbine and pistol we stood the result. our fears were groundless, however; and, upon seeing ladies in the troop, we took courage, and advanced to meet them. it was a spanish family, returning from rosario, who falling accidentally between the firing of the skirmishing parties, were nearly frightened out of their wits; indeed, one of the ladies had fainted, and been left at a rancho by the roadside, until a litter could be sent from town. they were not more rejoiced at having us for an escort than we were to avail ourselves of their protection, and we all jogged bravely into mazatlan. our fellows returned soon after, having made a few prizes of arms, saddles, and camp equipage, but did no bodily harm to the enemy, who, as before, had fled. on the night of the th, a plan was matured for surprising a body of infantry under command of a swiss, the former captain of the port, named carlos horn; our spies reported his position in the small hamlet of urias, about seven miles up estero. a hundred men, with a small field-piece, took the main road, while half this number were to embark in boats, pass beyond the mexican post, land, and march down to meet the shore party. we left the ships at midnight, and with muffled oars pulled silently up the river. on passing the hamlet, we saw the gleam of camp fires, and the cry of their sentinels arose, shrill and clear in the still night, _alerto! alerto!_ the oars dipped noiselessly in the water, and, continuing up the estuary, we soon came to the spot indicated by our guides. scarcely had the men formed on the beach, when we heard, first a few dropping shots, and then volley upon volley, from our friends to the left. after groping about some time to find the road, the guide discovered that he had mistaken the landing, and we accordingly rëembarked. by this time, the firing from the shore party had ceased, and all was again quiet. beneath the deep shade of overhanging foliage that fringed the banks of the estero, the boats were carefully pushed down the stream, until a narrow opening in the bushes gave a clear view of the broad level _marisma_, and we found ourselves directly in front of the village itself, with fires and lights flashing in all directions. without attracting attention, the boats were cautiously drawn within the thickets, the sailors forming, and lying down upon the sand. we were close to the mexicans--their sentinels not twenty yards distant, and every word they uttered distinctly audible. presently a body of horsemen came clattering over the hard beach. _quien es!_ sang out the guard. _carlos!_ said the watchword, and then began an angry altercation: "why did you fly from those cursed yankees, when you knew they were approaching?" _porque mi coronel, los americanos rompieron el fuego contre la advanzda--y habia balazos aqui, y alla, y que podia hacer yo?_ rejoined the speaker--they fired upon our advance, and the bullets were flying so thick, that, what could i do? "where are they now?" said the colonel. "oh! they have retreated to mazatlan again." _loco!_--you're a fool--said the colonel, with much disgust; "they're only awaiting daylight, to be upon us--is all quiet at the water?" _si señor_, not a soul has passed. "then let the men fall in, and go through their exercise." it was about three o'clock; their men formed in ranks; horses were led out, and the troopers mounted; officers began drilling their companies, encouraging them to stand firm, and the yankees would certainly be cut to pieces. nothing was heard or seen, for an hour, but the heavy thud! thud! of the ramrods in loading, and glancing of sabres and small arms. during all their proceedings we remained motionless. by-and-bye the first grey streaks of dawn came slowly over the eastern hills--still we did not stir--the men, however, were becoming a little nervous, from resting so long in one position; and occasionally, the clink of a bayonet or noise of accoutrements striking together were audible; and just as the day was bursting forth, like a flash, as it does only in the tropics, a mexican soldier, on duty nearly at our elbows--and who, by the way, disturbed our repose during the night by a bad cough, and talking to himself--discovered us, and sung out, _aqui está hombres!_--these were the last words he spoke--the signal was given along our ranks, "rise!--take aim--fire low." as the smoke rolled upward, we saw a number of saddles emptied, and the _marisma_ strewn with dead and wounded; although taken completely by surprise, the mexicans were not as yet intimidated, and, shouting _viva mexico!_ they immediately gave us a heavy fire from carbines and escopetas; but our sailors had kneeled to load, and the leaden shower passed over. the firing lasted for some minutes, when the word was given to charge! away we splashed over the _marisma_--their horsemen broke and fled, dragging off dead and wounded--the infantry did not make up their minds until the bayonets were nearly upon them, when they, too, dropped their muskets and plunged into the chapparal. meanwhile the shore party was approaching, and had commenced a fusilade upon the advance post of the mexicans, and very much to our relief, after putting them to flight, the cheers of our friends greeted us, for the field-piece was pitching shot far beyond the enemy, and a few stand of grape had already fallen about our heels. sending small bodies into the thickets, we drove the discomfited troops to the hills, and then finding their cavalry had rallied up the road, pursued them a mile, exchanged a few shots, when, the field-piece coming up, they finally made good their retreat. returning to the hamlet, we collected a few articles of camp equipage--mules, horses, and arms; then digging a pit in the sand, we laid the corpses of the slain within, covered them decently over, and erecting a rude cross, put on our hats and retired. there was a vile old virago standing in the door of a rude rancho, who, during the whole skirmish, never for a moment ceased to curse _los demonios yankees_; and although the walls of the house were thickly spattered with bullets, she escaped unhurt; not so her comely daughter, who was grazed on the cheek. our own force suffered pretty severely: one killed and twenty-two wounded, of whom two afterwards died. the mexicans we learned had lost nine killed and eighteen badly wounded. these little affairs are capital sport during the flurry and excitement of action, amid the cheering and firing, noise and confusion; but when the fun is over, and the surgeons are busied with bandages and blood--pallid faces, splintered bones, streaming gun-shot wounds around--and, perhaps, a pair of lifeless legs dangling outside the carts near by--the scene presents a more gloomy aspect. placing the disabled in boats we began our march towards the port. through the kindness of mr. canova, who filled the office of first lieutenant to our company, i transformed myself into a dragoon, my friend having stumbled upon a black charger, ready equipped, which he placed at my disposal: moreover, i was somewhat bruised from the blow of a spent escopeta ball, that during the melée had struck me under the arm, knocking me over into the water, as if--as was strongly surmised by my friends--a jackass had kicked me. however, this was scandal, industriously circulated by the lieutenant-governor, who was himself sorely disappointed in not getting hit, after untiring exertions amid the thickest of the skirmish. nevertheless, i lost a cutlass by the operation, and thought it no robbery to draw a long toledo-like weapon from the belt of a dead mexican, which, with the image of his patron saint, and a bundle of cigarillos, amply repaid me for my bruises. some months later, in a conversation with the officer who commanded at urias, he informed us that he had been aware of our coming from the merchants in town, and had requested reinforcements from telles, which, however, was not attended to; and a body of eighty cavalry, who had been detailed to charge the shore party, fled without discharging a carbine. he spared no abuse on the cowardice of his officers, but very highly praised the conduct of the soldiers. we reached mazatlan at noon. the day after, telles marched to urias, with his whole force and artillery; but, hearing a report that the americans were coming to attack him with _bombas_, retreated the same day to castillo, where he again encamped. chapter xxiii. a month had elapsed since the occupation of mazatlan, and we had all been busily employed upon the fortifications, and in acquiring a little knowledge of our new duties on shore: we dropped the sailor and assumed the soldier; forgot all about rigging and ships; talked of roll-calls, reveillés, parades, countersigns, drills, sections, ditches, and parapets; the officers of the day, too, appeared in red silk sashes round the waist, with swords at their sides--sat in guard-rooms--sung out, "sergeant, let that man pass," or, "corporal, let the fatigue parties fall in"--quite like generals of division. i had only been a week in barracks, at the cuartel, and getting initiated in the mysteries of soldiership, when, the fever making sad havoc among our ranks, i was ordered to relieve the company stationed at the garita, where the illness had been unusually severe. the position was a conical eminence, within three hundred yards of the sea beach, nearly surrounded by lagoons, and entirely commanding the main road to the port. the hill was originally owned by a gentleman, who, after building a decent little balconied dwelling thereon, for a summer retreat, eventually had the satisfaction of removing his family thence, in carts, to the more wholesome air of the town. in consequence of its unhealthy situation, caused by miasma that arose from the stagnant pools below, it was not considered a desirable post, notwithstanding its pretty location; and i may as well add, that out of one hundred and seven officers and men who had been stationed there, i was the sole individual that was not taken ill with fever during the six months of our stay. previous to my occupation, an energetic brother officer had already raised a breast-high stone wall, and three guns had been planted in battery. it was a place of much importance, and an equal degree of annoyance; for we were obliged, with a small force of thirty men, to be extremely vigilant, and were kept chattering, from morn until night, in examining hundreds who were passing to and from the port. the house was filled with fleas, too, whose attacks were far more troublesome than the mexicans; however, after a hard war of six weeks, constantly deluging the floors with salt water, they migrated in a body, and we were never again molested. workmen came, re-plastered and washed the walls, repaired windows and doors, restored cook-house and stable, so that in the end we found ourselves more pleasantly quartered than in any other position in town, and had no wish to leave. at the same time large working parties were detailed daily from the main barracks, who were employed digging a deep, wide ditch, throwing up an embankment, and raising a heavy stone wall immediately around what the peasantry designated our _casa blanca_--white house. during this period the military force outside committed robberies unceasingly. a few miles beyond our lines the roads were strongly guarded during the day, but at night were left open--the lancers and cavalry retiring beyond our reach. our force was too small to occupy the roads permanently, without imprudently weakening the garrison of the town; consequently, those thieving gentry, under the name of _alcobala_, levied tribute in the most impartial manner, upon all their poor countrymen alike. we had frequently gone out in small ambuscading parties in hopes of picking off a few of the ladrons, but without any success. scarcely a single individual out of hundreds who passed the garita but had some bitter curses to lavish upon the _lanceros_; even the poor women occasionally were muleted in their petticoats, until at last they all became exasperated, and many volunteered to conduct us to the retreats of their tormentors. the services of one brave paisano were called into requisition, who had been robbed of his hogs, which being valuable property among the peasantry, and his revenge being warm, we thought he could be trusted, and indeed a staunch and valuable ally he ever afterwards proved. the expedition was under command of captain luigi, and with fifty-five men we left the cuartel, without beat of drum, at nine in the evening. leaving the main road at the marisma, we entered a pathway, closely sheltered by trees and foliage, and after two hours rapid marching, halted at a cluster of ranchos by the roadside. here we could only learn that the mexican cavalry had passed by at sunset; but during an examination of one of the huts, we laid violent hands upon a rude squint-eyed youth, who though half naked, and apparently stupid, had a bag of dollars tied up in the tail of his shirt; him we interrogated with a bayonet at his throat, and there were sufficient symptoms of intelligence in him left to assure us that if he himself were not attached to the party we sought, he knew the bivouac. with a _riata_ around his neck, and carefully guarded, we again advanced. four miles beyond, we reached the encampment; it was situated in a flat little meadow, a few feet lower than the road, and girdled nearly around by the gully of a water-course that hemmed it in on all sides. our march had been so silent as not to create alarm, and strange to say there was not a sentinel awake. embers of the watch-fires gave sufficient light to distinguish the sleeping figures of the troops, with horses picketted near. we divided our forces into two parties, one commanding the pathway to the meadow, whilst the other poured in a deadly fire, and immediately charged across the ravine. taken completely by surprise, they jumped up in great consternation, and in their flight received the bullets from our remaining muskets; before we could reload they were flying, like so many ghosts, across the field, leaving everything behind. on gaining the bivouac, we found it quite a picturesque little glade, shaded by lofty forest-trees, and beneath, were a number of bough-built huts, verging on the rivulet that crossed the road. we counted eight dead bodies: one poor youth was breathing his last. by the fitful light of a torch i tore open a bale of linen at hand, passed some thick folds over the welling blood of his wounds, placed a drop of brandy to his lips, and left him to die. they were sixty in number, and we captured all they had--carbines, lances, ammunition, horses, saddles, and clothing, besides their private correspondence. there was one incident connected with this _escaramuza_, which was a source of deep regret to us. the wife and daughter of the commanding officer had, very imprudently, been on a visit to the encampment. when the attack commenced, they were sleeping in a hut, and immediately fled; but the child, a little girl of ten years, had been grazed by a ball in the foot, and told her mother the pebbles hurt her feet; the kind but unfortunate woman ran back, in the thickest of the fire, for the child's shoes, and, upon returning, received a mortal wound in the throat. she was found by her friends, and died the following day-- "o! femme c'est a tort qu'on vous nomme timide, a la voix de vos coeurs vous etes intrepide." loading our men with such articles as could be conveniently transported, we burned or destroyed a large quantity of arms, munitions and merchandize, and then began our march towards the port. such a motley throng as we presented! some were laden, from the muzzles of their muskets down to their heels, with every possible variety of trumpery--bridles, sabres, flags, serapas, and even women's clothing; others, mounted on several saddles, one a-top the other, with bundles of lances and fluttering pennons secured to their horses. our trusty guide, in lieu of the purloined swine, had heaped bale upon bale on his horse and individual person, until he appeared, in the midst of his plunder, as if seated on a camel: our gallant captain had contented himself with a key bugle, and a capacious uniform frock-coat, some sizes too large for him: i did better--for, coming upon the dead body of an officer, i removed a silver-bound saddle from his head, which, with silver-mounted bridle, handsome sabre, and a few other articles, i appropriated to myself. indeed, i have never since wondered at the rage one feels for abstracting an enemies' goods and chattels on similar occasions--such an itching, too, beyond mere curiosity, to search people's pockets, that, in a few more guerrilla excursions, i felt confident of becoming as good a freebooter as ever drew a sword. three months after this affair, i became great friends with a mexican officer to whom some of these equipments belonged. he assured me there had been six golden ounces concealed in the saddle, which i readily believed; for the leather-man, who renovated it in the port, remained oblivious six weeks after completing his task. love-letters, miniature, and commission, i returned to my friend; but the handsome sabre--on the blade of which is engraved, _no me saques sin ras' á, no me embañes sin honor_--draw me not without cause, nor sheathe without honor--and saddle, i have retained, trusting that el teniente lira will acquit me of any other motive than that of possessing some trifling souvenir of our first meeting at sigueras. we reached mazatlan at daylight, and after arresting two members of the municipal junta, who were occupying a seat in the council, and who, while expressing much sympathy for the yankees, had written detailed accounts of the distribution and strength of the garrison, i retired to my cool cot at the garita, and indulged in sleep. donning habiliments again towards evening, i mounted my horse, and in riding to the plaza, had the happiness to make the acquaintance of the fair wife of telles, who was _en route_ for the presidio. agreeably to request, i accompanied herself and suite beyond the garita, when she informed me that her liege lord was highly indebted for allowing his weekly supply of cogniac to pass--because good liquids were rarely met with at head-quarters--but that i would be doing him a service by retaining a large amount of dunning billets, that passed through my hands to his address. promising to comply with the colonel's wishes, i bid his lady adieu; but i am sorry to add, that politeness to the graceful señora was the innocent cause of my losing a beautiful horse; for it was quite dark on reaching the port, and instead of going where i originally intended, i paused a moment at the bowling alley, where, meeting some officers of a british frigate, i gave the bridle to a _lepero_ to hold, and passed into the building; but scarcely had we crossed the threshold, when, startled by the report of fire-arms, we all rushed out, and found the poor animal raining blood from a bullet in the throat. the villain of a _lepero_ had shot him with a pistol from the holsters. a group of kind-hearted young reefers did their best to staunch the blood, and one little fellow even tied his trowsers around the wound; but all was unavailing, and in ten minutes my spirited blooded bay was dead. oh! mr. smithers! you keep, a good ten-pin alley, sing a good song, and your wife prepares good chocolate; you are, together, good fellows; but you should never, o! smithers! transform your establishment into a knacker's yard. and you, my cruel _lepero_! had i ever got a sight of you along that weapon you handled so well--ah! i well nigh wept for sorrow that night, and did not recover my spirits for a fortnight. the _escaramuza_ at sigueros was the means of keeping the roads free for a few days; but in a fortnight the mexicans had again taken position, and though falling back some distance, were yet enabled to cut off all communication with mazatlan. the paisanos, as usual, complained sadly, and asked protection. accordingly, an expedition was planned, under the guidance of a diminutive ranchero, who, after tracing paths and diagrams on paper without end, in hopes his individual services could be dispensed with, at last determined, with many misgivings, to lead the way to his habitation, where a troop of lancers were wont to enjoy themselves upon his bounty. early in the evening a battalion of an hundred marines left the garrison, but had barely been gone an hour, when a lot of frightened old women rushed to the cuartel, and swore that a large body of troops were landing from the estero, for the purpose of sacking the town. rub-a-dub, rolled the drums--the walls were manned--and rockets went fizzing and bursting in the air, for assistance from the ships. meanwhile, i was despatched, with a small party, to inquire into the truth of the rumor. after making a thorough examination along the river, and scaring the last breath out of a poor fisherman, dying with fever, we were convinced the report was merely a ruse, a sort of counter-irritant, attempted by the town's people to alarm the troops outside, and call back our men. the marines had marched by the beach; and at midnight, with thirty muskets, i took the main route, and lay in ambush at the cross of the culiacan and presidio roads, for the purpose of intercepting the enemy's retreat, in case they fled towards headquarters at san sebastian. for nine hours we were nearly flayed alive by muskitoes, and only recompensed for the torture by detaining some hundreds of people and their beasts. it was quite diverting to observe a simple pedestrian, stepping jauntily along, whistling blithely away--as the natives always do when travelling alone by night--when a look-out, perched high upon an overhanging branch, would utter a sharp _hist!_ the traveller would falter, and perhaps thinking his fears had misled him, again pass on, and while faintly resuming his chirrup, another energetic summons would quite startle him, and ten to one but down he would fall, crossing his breast, and ejaculating a pious _ave purisima_! a tap on the shoulder would direct them in the thickets, where, squatting on the ground, they never thought of moving until permission was granted. just at daylight, a stout brown _muchacha_ came tripping by, and unconscious of our close proximity, seated herself on a rock, and unfolding a little bundle, began to comb her locks and attire in a gala dress, either for the sunday mass, or to create a sensation upon entering the port. after carefully arranging the _camiseta_, and whilst in the act of throwing, as a woman only can do, her _basquina_,--a worsted petticoat--over the shoulders, one of my ungallant scamps hit her a smart rap with a pebble. giving one terrified scream, and uttering a prayer to the virgin, she dashed up the road; but, encumbered by loose drapery, soon measured her length, in the most ludicrous plight, upon the sand. we assisted her to rise, and perceiving our lurking-place, she laughed heartily, after indulging the gay sailor fellow who threw the stone with a specimen of the sinews in her stout arms. the women were, almost invariably, the vehicles for transmitting information concerning our designs in town, to their friends outside; among our multiform duties at the garita was that of opening all correspondence and perusing the contents. it was surprising how shrewd and accurate were many of their surmises, and the tender regard they still evinced for their forlorn lovers--at least on paper; and such imploring billets, too, from the banished _caballeros_, for their faithless _amantes_ to join their fortunes in the camp, to rid themselves of the hateful yankees. yet with all their coquetry they still did their best to shield their former friends from danger, and so cunningly, too, as to be difficult of detection. on a certain night, while visiting the sentinels at the road, a negress came from the town, and in reply to the hail, as was customary with the natives, replied, _norte americano_! on being told no one could pass before sunrise, she retraced her steps, and in attempting to steal past by another path, came near being shot, notwithstanding her cries of _norte americano_! upon making a third effort some hours later, my suspicions were aroused, and as we were desirous of preventing all egress at the time, to my shame be it said, i ordered her searched. nothing was discovered, and to repay her for the indignity she had experienced, i gave her a kindly and paternal pat on the wool--there was the object of our search! a little crumpled bit of paper, on which was scrawled, _a la carrera, entre dos luces, los gringos!_--be off: the yankees will be upon you at daylight! but neither threats nor entreaties could induce the black courier to betray the writer. finding no signs of the mexicans, we marched back to mazatlan at noon. the marines shortly followed, having surprised the _lanceros_, and taken a number of horses, arms and prisoners. but a damp was thrown over the affair, by their bringing in the body of our little ranchero friend, madariaga, who was accidentally killed during the fray. poor fellow! he was intelligent, and we drank out of the same cup. the day after, while riding through the town, i saw tapers burning in a house, and upon entering, there was stretched the corpse--still in his bloody vestments--a bullet had entered behind one ear, and passed out at the other. a crucifix reposed upon the breast, whilst a common flat-iron lay on the stomach. near by, his sister was gazing mournfully at the blue, pinched face, while close behind her stood an inhuman virago, anathematizing him from all the saints in the calendar, for having been a _traidor y espia de los compatriotas_--spy upon his countrymen. the mexicans asserted that he had been deliberately assassinated, and rejoiced that he had received a worthy recompense for his traitorous conduct. chapter xxiv. towards the close of the year we had become quite domesticated in the town, and habituated to our new duties: the dullness that ensued upon the occupation had changed into animation, business, and bustle; the port was thickening with merchant-ships and coasters, and duties were rapidly rolling into the yankee treasury; the merchants themselves had entered into arrangements with the mexican officials outside, and the staple export of the province--logwood--came in on the backs of hundreds of mules daily, to fill the homeward-bound vessels for europe. the laborious task of the garrison still went on, much to the disgust of jack, who swore ditching and hod carrying was no part of a sailor's duty. the fever still continued, in a milder form; but few new cases ensued, although those who convalesced almost invariably relapsed, and were never entirely cured until going again upon salt water. the townspeople began to look less gloomily upon their invaders, and the men were not averse to finger uncle sam's cash; and the women, bless their sweet, forgiving souls, sought the main plaza in the afternoons, arrayed in tastefully flowing robes, and graceful _ribosas_, whilst their surprisingly diminutive feet beat time to the music from our bands. nor were they chary of flashing glances, or murmured salutations; and in the calm nights, when pianos and harps were disturbing the still air, it was not regarded as a novelty to behold a few blue-jackets, spinning around in dance and waltz at the fandangos, or, as the more tonnish were termed, _bayles_. the native society of mazatlan cannot certainly boast of a very elevated tone of morality. indeed i have good authority for asserting that there were not fifty legitimately married couples in the town--rather a small proportion for ten thousand inhabitants: perhaps the marriage formula is considered a bore, and since even the rite within pale of the church is not so religiously respected as elsewhere, it appears unreasonable that they should place any legal check upon their domestic felicity. still this system of _relatione_, as so generally practised in mazatlan, appeared to work well, and we never heard of lawsuits for children. occasionally, it is true, a jealous master would thrust a _cuchillo_ into the tender bosom of his spouse; but what of that--it was _costumbre del pais_; however, these were the exceptions. among the lower orders, the women were invariably gifted with amiable dispositions, natural in manner, never peevish or petulant, requiring but little, and never happier than when moving night after night in the slow measure of their national dances. even the men were not bad-tempered, though beyond comparison the laziest and most ignorant set of vagabonds the world produces. they were a quiet people also, never so far forgetting their natal sloth, as to go through the exertion of making a noise. even their knife encounters were conducted with a certain show of dignity and decorum. for example, at the _esquina_ of some street is a group of _leperos_--gentlemen throughout the republic of mexico, enjoying the same moral attributes as neapolitan lazzaroni;--their property at all times on their backs, and residences precarious; they are playing monté on a coarse blanket or _serapa_ laid upon the ground; one accuses another of cheating, and at the same time twits him with the most deadly insult a spaniard can offer, possibly because it is so near the truth: _tu eres cornudo_; true or false, his antagonist calls on all the saints to bear witness to his innocence, springs to his feet, twists a serapa around the left arm, and, before one can say jack robinson, their keen blades are playing in quick, rapid passes, seldom giving over until deep and sometimes fatal stabs are interchanged; but if not seriously hurt they drink a cup of aguadiente together, light cigarillos, and continue the game until another quarrel arises. these little passages of arms were of hourly occurrence, and the severest regulations were not sufficient to repress the evil, although there never was a solitary instance, during our stay, where a quarrel had arisen between the townspeople and the garrison. i chanced to be an eye-witness to one of these street skirmishes one evening, near the _sociedad_. a fellow received a perpendicular cut, which severed nearly half the scalp, and the entire ear, leaving the mass hanging down the neck, like a flap to a pocket-book; it was properly dressed by a skilful surgeon, and the man was about again in six days. indeed the climate was most efficacious for wounds, and remarkable and most extraordinary cures were said to be effected; two of a serious nature came under our observation. the first, a sailor-sergeant, who, while returning from his rounds, and walking up the carita hill, not replying to the sentinel's hail from above, in a sufficiently loud tone of voice, received a musket-ball in his right breast, which wounded the lung, and passed out of the back, below the shoulder-blade: the case was aggravated by a severe and lengthened attack of fever, but the man eventually recovered, and was entirely restored to health and strength. the second instance was a young mexican officer, named soriano, who was shot by a rifle-bullet at urias, transversely through the breast, beneath the ribs. after suffering some months, under a quack, he was brought to mazatlan, where he was successfully treated by one of our surgeons, with every prospect of speedy recovery. of late, we had had no guerrillas worth mentioning, and were amusing ourselves by drilling a troop of sailors into dragoons; and truly it was a matter of as much satisfaction as mirth, to see how well the seamen accomplished their task; of course, it was great sport for them, but naturally fearless, and all well mounted, they soon were taught to dash recklessly at anything, from a stone wall to the fire from a battery, and in due course of time, became, for a sudden burst, quite equal to any mexican emergency that chose to stand the brunt of a charge. we never had the opportunity of testing their cavalryship, but i think they would have made a creditable report of themselves. they were commanded by captain luigi, and at intervals i had the satisfaction of accompanying his troop on short excursions into the interior. one night we took a flying gallop down to urias. on the way thither, over the level marismas, the captain's charger plunged into a hole and the whole left file vaulted, or trampled, over him, but, as usual, he escaped with the loss of a little parchment from the visage, while the horse had a broken shoulder. on nearing the vicinity of our former _escaramuza_, i passed ahead with four men, and found the prize we sought, in a mexican soldier, who proved to be the orderly-sergeant of general urrea, the governor of durango. our prisoner was quite taciturn at first, but on the assurance that he would certainly be hung the following morning, and after profuse libations of _muscal_--a country liquor--he opened his mouth and confidence, informing us that he had left an escort at the presidio, and when taken was awaiting some effects belonging to his master, from the port, to be carried to durango. at daylight, the articles were seized; but, owing to the fact that some innocent persons were drawn into the transaction, the governor good-naturedly signed passports for the whole party, including the soldier; although his master, the general, bore no enviable reputation, for the cruelties he had perpetrated upon american prisoners on the other side of the continent. chapter xxv. the new year dawned upon us, and january and february passed rapidly away. the popularity of the mexican commandante, telles, was waning fast. a number of his own officers had pronounced against him--but this, with a few effective followers, was speedily put down, and the leader shot. however, a strong force from culiacan was raised by the powerful family of vegas, the legitimate governor of sonora--and from whom telles had wrested the command of mazatlan--in conjunction with a body of three hundred troops, under one romero, from the opposite extreme of the province tepic, and resolved to gain the ascendancy by destroying our blockaders. upon the approach of these bodies, telles' troops refused to fight against their countrymen, and nothing was left for their old captain but to succumb to circumstances; these ups and downs, however, being not uncommon in mexico, the chagrin attending the disgrace is not taken seriously to heart. after a week's intrigue and negociations, finding his enemies implacable, he resigned his authority, was then betrayed, arrested, sent to guadalajara under a guard, where he shortly afterwards expired. his case excited much sympathy, for he bore the reputation of being brave and generous, lavishing all he received upon the treacherous friends about him, who flattered and cheated, until adversity stalked in, when away flew the gay birds who had made him their prey. one of these gentry did me the honor to present himself late one night at the carita, claiming parole as a deserter from the mexicans. he had been chief of the staff and cavalry, bore the name of _compadre_,--adviser and rascal-in-general to telles--but having had the sagacity to cram his filthy pockets with fifty thousand wheels of fortune, of course had no further wish to remain. he pointed out all the weak positions, avenues of attack, and general information concerning the force of the outsiders--more, i was convinced, to vent his spite on those whom he had already betrayed, than from regard to us. on parting, the gallant major favored me with a note of introduction to one of his lady-loves, coming from the interior, and remarked, with a pecuniary sigh, that when commanding my little post he never made less than a thousand pesos a month. it was upon the mexican system--where the strong steal from the weak: but here was my captain of battalion, mr. mitch and myself--with all the trouble of guarding, examining, quarrelling, and at times beating, hundreds of paisanos daily, and devil the _centavo_ could we ever extort; on the contrary, our exchequer was at a deplorably low ebb, so much so that we were scandalously accused of playing monté for _quartillos_--fippennybits;--and we discussed the alternative of taking to the road, robbing a _conducta_ of mules laden with money, or remaining in the port until peace should be declared, inciting a pronunciamento, and declaring ourselves commandantes of the province. the united force of the mexicans who had assembled in rosario, amounted to one thousand, three hundred of which were cavalry, and seven pieces of artillery. they talked bravely of driving the yankees on board the ships, and were constantly drilling and exercising their troops and guns. vegas' proclamations were clear and business-like; he established an internal _duana_, or custom house; declared a specified and moderate scale of duties--having the sense to perceive that soldiers must be fed, and although rich himself, he had no inclination for playing commissary at his own expense--and besought the merchants of the port to send their merchandize to the interior. all these warlike preparations caused us neither alarm nor trepidation. our works were near completion, and we had twenty-six guns mounted, besides the additional security of some small hulks, moored at a ford of the estero, mounting a battery of paixhans. the garrison had been slightly increased, and, altogether, we felt confident of holding the port against any odds. the merchants, however, were as yet shy of trusting their valuable property within reach of mexican rapacity, and consequently, the troops were beginning to find themselves somewhat embarrassed. the commanders quarrelled, and végas himself, being heartily disgusted, forthwith fell back, with troops and artillery, towards culiacan, leaving a fourth part of his force, under charge of romero--a miscreant, who had the reputation of assassinating his own colonel, at the storming of chapultepec, for a beltfull of doubloons. being thus left without the means of doing us any injury, they pursued the same annoying process as their brethren before them, by robbing their own countrymen, under the odious alcobala. during all this time we never for a moment ceased keeping up a rigid discipline, and exercising the utmost vigilance; the severest punishment was impartially meted to all offenders; and our knowledge of the topography of the country, for some miles round, being quite equal to the mexicans', they had good reason to keep beyond our limits. at rare intervals, indiscreet persons would try to run the gauntlet into town, and one dark night, three troopers, not seeing our guard, attempted to steal in by the beach: one was astounded, on not halting at the hail, at receiving a bullet through the shoulder, and they then turned bridles, leaving us a brass-bound hat and lance, as keepsakes. indeed, once we came nigh peppering our own patrol; fortunately, but one ball only flew over captain luigi's head. it may have been a peculiarity of some of our sailor sentinels, that, at night, they immersed themselves breast deep in little pits, resting their muskets upon mounds of sand in front, at a dead aim upon whoever advanced along the roads. i do not know if this kind of tactics be tolerated by regulation; but jack, in his ignorance of minute detail, had to place reliance on his eyes. once, after hearing the report of a musket, i inquired of the sentry the cause. "sir," said he, "the chap wouldn't stop, so i hailed him in the very best spanish, and then fired; there he lies kickin', up the road, sir!" it turned out to be an innocent stray jackass, a bad linguist, who could only converse in his mother tongue. however, these little incidents convinced our neighbors that security did not throw us off our guard. we still worked hard at the garita--deepening the ditch--filling up embrasures, and raising the walls. it was fatiguing labor, for the heavy stone had to be wheeled from the base of the hill. already strong frames of timber had been erected at angles in the walls, where three twelve-pounder short guns moved on quadrants, overlooking the parapet, and sweeping the hill in every part, while, near the centre of the little fortress, a beautiful long brass nine traversed on a circle, that could throw the iron messengers two miles over the plains below. the sides of the building facing the lagoons were planked up, enclosing spacious piazzas, and sheltering the men from nightly malaria borne along by the land winds. the men were obliged to keep their quarters perfectly clean, and they slept comfortably in hammocks suspended from beams above. everything went on regularly--they had long since given up bad habits of drunkenness--and out of the entire company, but two drew their allowance of spirits. four old dames came with the early dawn, bringing coffee and chocolate, which they exchanged for surplus rations and the privilege of washing jack's clothes. liberty was occasionally granted to visit the port, and every day two or more were gunning around the lagoons, keeping the post supplied with quantities of delicious wild ducks and curlew, and, when the moon was full, numbers of terrapins. we had strict inspection, morning and evening. at nightfall, sentries were doubled on the hill and roads--the guard set--guns primed--matches lighted--and everything ready at a moment's notice. i am thus minute in describing these unimportant details about the garita, for it was my first, and most probably, will be my last attempt at soldiership. besides being a great source of pride and pleasure, it was the spot where i have passed many happy hours. indeed, it was the only decent or habitable post pertaining to the garrison; and i deem it not amiss to state, that, had a twentieth portion of the quarter million of dollars collected by us through the customs, been judiciously expended in restoring the old cuartel, and providing a few necessary comforts the sailors required, it would in a measure have repaid them for toils and hardships on ship and shore, where they were necessarily obliged to undergo many expenses, in a service apart from the line of their duty. and furthermore, a due regard to their personal comfort might have been the means of reducing the medical estimates, and at the same time, of saving many a poor fellow, whose bones now moulder beneath the sod. but notwithstanding these drawbacks, it was gratifying to the officers who commanded them, to know, that, even amid the novelty of their position, they reflected credit on their country, and left an excellent impression behind them, among the mexicans themselves. many of the officers who had been detailed for service at the garita, were eventually obliged, on the score of health, to leave for more healthy posts; and in the end, mr. mitch and myself were the only ones left. our quarters were immediately over the men, in a large square apartment, the ceiling taking the angle of the roof; two balconied windows faced the sea; another overlooked the port and estero, while a large, roomy piazza commanded a wide and extensive view of the surrounding plains, dotted by fields and ranches, with a high wall of mountains in the back ground. when in the town the heat was almost insupportable; in our _casa blanca_ it was never in the least degree oppressive. we always slept under a blanket, in white canvas cots, swinging from the rafters, curtained off by bunting. bathing was our chief delight, and the green waves well nigh broke at the base of the hill, where we played in the foaming surf for hours each day. we had breakfast brought from the french hotel in the town, which incident happened about eleven o'clock, on a table screened off in the piazza. coffee we sipped, with a spoonful of cogniac, before the morning's bath, to drive away the malaria. so we drank light bordeaux with the meal, and when nice fruit passed the garita, made a selection, in lieu of the abolished alcobala. ah, dear mitch, those were pleasant days! and do you ever recall our pleasant little suppers by night--our cosy confabs--our sage reflections--quiet moralizings and speculations upon the reverses of fortune, after an interview with don manuel--and our schemes for reform. ah, my boy, those bright days have vanished. then came the afternoon's _pasear_, with a troop of officers, or the good hospitable merchants of the port--showy horses, jingling trappings, coursing and capering along the sea-road;--to the plaza again in time for music, with a bow, or smile, as the case might be, to some gracefully-robed, tiny-footed doña; then a few prancing _vueltitas_ to show off, around the square, when we gave spur for dinner. just without the range of our guns was a ranchito, owning for its mistress a jolly dame, named madre maria; it was not for her that we occasionally extended our evening's ride, but for a half-uttered _adios! capitan!_ from the pearly teeth of little juanita. i believe there never was so much dirt and beauty combined. she was the sweetest mite imaginable, and of a style to have destroyed murillo's slumbers. then pretty juana suffered from _calenturas_--fever and ague,--and i at times carried a little phial of quinine, and felt juana's pulse and temples, but the jolly patrona would shake her head roguishly, and exclaim, jestingly,--_no es possible, señor chato, sin matrimonio_--you can't make love without marriage. _ah! pico largo_, i would reply, _con razon, pero llama vd el padre molino_--certainly, so send for father windmill. we had a private code of signals with maria, to hang a "banner on the outward walls," in shape of a white petticoat, whenever the mexican troops came within hail. she mortally detested them, for they made too free with her hen-roost, and muscal bottles; and on her weekly pilgrimages to the port, seated on a quiet mule, with pretty juana behind, attired in her holiday dress, and jesusita, the youngest and most diminutive piece of womanhood, tripping along the road beside them, they would pay us a visit at the _casa blanca_, with some little present, of eggs or fruit; and the brave old lady would invariably beseech us for a loaded carbine _para fusilar los ladrones_--to shoot the scamps. once i saw the signal with the spyglass, and attended by a friend rode out to the rancho; but it was a false alarm, caused by an old white horse standing lazily behind the pickets. we found the group of maria and daughters washing in the lagoon, nearly all in dishabille: juanita with naught but a flimsy _chemisetta_, not a ceinture around the little waist, revealing the most adorable juste-milieu form--between the bud and the rose--with rich masses of dark hair covering her shoulders, and rivalling in beauty the splendor of her eyes. i drove the old lady into the pond, for which indecorous behavior she launched a calibash of wet clothes at my head, then snatching up little jesusa, just four years old, i bore her to the beach for a dip in the surf. "how rich you are," said the little creature, as i commenced disrobing. "why?"--"because you wear stockings." and this, indeed, is one of the distinctive marks of wealth among the lower orders throughout mexico. it not unfrequently happened, that reports were circulated, without much foundation, that the troops outside were about to attack the post, and as a consequence the timid farmers living in the environs became alarmed, and would send their families to seek shelter within the fort. at times we would be gratified with fifty or sixty women and children visitors, huddled together quite contented and merry about the piazzas. they had learned to place full reliance upon their invaders, and whatever course we adopted was looked upon as the only correct and proper mode of acting. while testing the range of our guns one morning, a carronade was accidentally discharged, and a stand of grape-shot struck the lagoon below, dashing a shower of spray over a group of old crones washing on the banks. i immediately ran down to see if they were wounded, but i found them quite cool, and even surprised that i should have surmised such a thing. "why?" said i. _porque, capitan, usted es capaz para qualquiera cosa_--because you yankees have sense for everything. on sundays our receptions were more select; then the élite of mazatlan extended their promenades around the works of the garrison, and would be induced to ascend the hill, and sip dulces or _italia_ at our quarters in the casa blanca. the gentlemen would glance over the newspapers detailing revolutions or pronunciamentos in the interior, when casting up their eyes, with a simultaneous puff of cigar smoke, would exclaim--_ay! pobre mexico!_ and one had the sense to observe, that the war was death to mexicans, but life to mexico. but of one fact no logic could convince them--that our worthy collector of the duana returned all he received to the government--so wonderful a dispensation, that an honest _administrador_ could be found in any position was entirely beyond their comprehension. the ladies were generally very curious and inquisitive, and after affording all the information we possessed, relating to domestic economy and dress, once a pair of lovely señoras, after mature reflection, apparently having made up their minds, favored me in this strain: "without doubt, you north americans are very good people, and you don't beat your wives; but then you don't know how to lavish money on ladies like our own countrymen!" but i interposed--"we feel obliged to pay our debts, and then pleasure afterwards." "_bah que importa_," said they; "all we know is, that where you yankees give a dollar, our people shower gold." chapter xxvi. soon after the occupation of mazatlan, i made the acquaintance of a young mexican girl, of a respectable family in guadalajara, who had eloped with her lover, an officer stationed in this province. she was better educated, far more intelligent than the generality of her countrywomen, and with all the graceful, winning ways, peculiar to creoles. she was living with an old relative, in a cottage near the skirts of the town, and i frequently sought her society, listened to the low, sweet _cançioncitas_ of her native land, or, seated beneath the shade of a spreading tree in the inner _patio_, she would recite by the hour old legendary redondillas and ballads of mexico, while her servant played with the sweeping masses of her jet-black hair: she was very proud of it, and often told me, that when she became poor, it would serve her for a _mantilla_. she had soft feminine features, pale complexion, lighted by large, languid, dark eyes. she was a tall and slender girl, but with the smallest feet i ever beheld. this was dolores. her mind appeared to partake of the mournful signification of her name, and, even during her gayest moments, she was always tinged with sadness. poor lola! she was thinking of her lover, who had left with the troops on our coming. returning one morning from a fatiguing night skirmish, the servant tomasa met me on the road, and placed a note in my hand from her mistress. it was simply a desire to see me. without going to the quarters, i turned my horse's head towards the town, and soon dismounted at the house. the old aunt received me with some agitation, and i could see the shadow of dolores reflected from an inner room. _que hay señor? nada, una escaramuza, no mas! y muertos? quien sabe! puede ser un oficial de ustedes._--what's the news? nothing but a skirmish. any killed? yes, perhaps one of your officers. at this reply, dolores entered the chamber, and with a quick low voice, asked, "and the color of his horse, señor? white!" she burst into tears, and sank to the floor. i afterwards learned that it was her lover, who, however, had only been slightly wounded. he had been in the habit of entering the port disguised as an _arriero_, and was expected on the morning alluded to. had i known what he was capable of doing at a later day, he might have lost the number of his mess, instead of receiving a buckshot in the leg. from this period, poor dolores became more and more triste and depressed. she never was seen again in the plaza--the music had lost its charm--her books were thrown aside, and she would hardly mingle in conversation. some weeks went by, and duty claiming all my time, i had not called for many days. late one night, tomasa came running to the garita, and with breathless haste, told me that her mistress was very ill, and wished to see me. a few minutes' gallop took me to the door. the old lady was weeping, and poor lola was lying upon a low couch, with blood slowly frothing from her lips--but i thought there was a gleam of pleasure in her eyes. she had burst a bloodvessel--at least i imagined so at the time, and i instantly despatched a boy on my horse for a surgeon. in the sequel i discovered the cause tomasa informed me, she had heard the señora scream, and upon entering the room, found her lying insensible on the ground, deluged in blood, and on coming to, she had begged her to say nothing, but send for me. the fact was, that her lover had again stolen into town, and whether from idle jealousy, or natural brutality of disposition, had the dastardly cruelty to beat the poor unresisting girl, with the hilt of a pistol, until she fell lifeless from heavy blows showered upon her breast and shoulders. this was fully shown by the post-mortem examination. the miscreant fled, and many an hour of sound sleep he cost me, in hopes of getting a glimpse of him along the tube of a rifle. at the time, there was a chance of recovery; and daily, after the hemorrhage ceased, i sat by her bed-side, and tried to encourage her with anticipations of returning health. _no! no! me voy á morir_--it is all useless, i am going to die!--counting with her thin fingers--"in three weeks! _ay de mi!_ for one last sight of my native land." sometimes i would read to her a spanish translation of sue's mysteries of paris, and she never tired of saying of fleur de marie, _pobrecita! que dolor!_--poor thing! what sufferings! she was gradually sinking, but still her spirits rose, and her big black eyes became more and more luminous. it was sorrowful, indeed, to see a young girl, so beautiful and bright, just bidding adieu to life. she had the best medical attendance, but another hemorrhage ensued, and the lamp of life was fading fast. at last, tomasa came for me: _dios de mi alma! la señora se está moriendo_--my mistress is dying. i found the sick chamber filled with women, and a priest, while a number of tapers threw a strong light upon the nearly breathless sufferer. the padre soon accomplished his drawling work--a crucifix was pressed to her pallid lips--the bed and floor sprinkled with holy water--a hasty _avé_ was muttered, and they then withdrew. fortunately, a sister had arrived a few days previously, and it was a great consolation to the dying girl. i drew near, and seated myself at the couch. she placed her limp little hand in mine--told her sister to sever a tress from her hair when she was dead--and drawing a ring from her finger, smiled faintly, saying, _acuerdese de mi amistad_--remember me kindly. an hour passed, and i was forced to leave--indeed, while every breath came fluttering to the lips, weaker and weaker--i could not bear to see the last--i whispered _adios_, kissed her pale forehead, and went away. she expired just at midnight. during the whole period of her illness, she never once murmured a reproach against her lover, but left him a blessing when she died. if such beautiful devotion has not heaped coals of fire on his head, he is less than man. the night following her decease, i was seated on a tombstone in the little cemetery near the port, when my eye was attracted by a flickering torch, and advancing, i met the corpse. we made five in all. the grave was open, and we lowered her gently down. all was still, save the convulsive sobs of mañuela, and the rolling earth falling upon the coffin--the dew sparkled by the reflection of the blazing torch--the work was done--light extinguished, and mourners gone. alas! poor dolores! i have preserved your tress and ring, and time has not yet erased the remembrance of your love and sufferings from a stranger's breast. chapter xxvii. we could not boast of an opera, or any grand theatrical displays in mazatlan; but yet our sailor-troops, as sailors always do when unemployed, had contrived a thespian corps, and weekly representations were given, by stout tars in whiskers and petticoats--and once a grand tableau in commemoration of stockton's victories at la mesa. there was a pretty theatre in town, where a little ranting was done, and there was the usual sunday resort in the cock-pit, where a deal of dollars changed hands, but the greatest spectacle of any was in the arena, where we were favored by brilliant feats of horsemanship, by mr. bill foley, of circo olimpico notoriety, in conjunction with his "ingin-rubber boy." he was a useful, amusing vagabond, who had passed more than half his life in mexico, and went by the savage title of _el tigre del norté_. the tiger, upon the claims of national relationship, applied for the office of collector to the port, but not being successful, he deigned to accept the high position of forage master to the troop, but whether owing to his prompt method of settling accounts, or the sphere not being sufficiently enlarged for his abilities, he threw up the commission in disgust, declaring his countrymen were the "ungratefullest people in the world," and again devoted his talents to dress, love, monté, and the arena. the last accounts of bill, he was starring it away like a planet in the interior of chili. may bright dollars attend thee, bill, in whatsoever portion of the globe thy destiny directs thee. added to these public _divertmientos_, there were the _sociedads_, where the necessary aliment of mexican existence was in constant operation. this was monté--our usual resort was that of the gran sociedad, conducted by don manuel carbia;--he was a diminutive old spaniard, very shrewd and intelligent, and among his numerous occupations was that of a proprietor of launches, keeper of an almacen of ship chandlery on the mole, divers pulperias, billiard-tables, restaurateur, and pawnbroker in general. señor carbo, as our beloved colonel jacobus called him, was never seen without a cigar between his teeth; it acted as a kind of safety valve to his vital organs, and it was strongly surmised that if he ever discontinued, for an interval of five minutes, he would inevitably choke to death. seated behind the long green baize-covered table, with his implements of cards and dollars around him, the very chink of the coin lighted up his dark visage, like to a fresh cigar. he merely played for amusement--so he said--and although he amused himself considerably at our expense, yet we had no grounds for just complaint; he played, _bueno como caballero_--fair and above board,--and if we lost our cash, it was in striving to win his. once if my memory serves me aright, when mounted on the _caballo_--the picture of a horse on spanish cards--i kicked don manuel so severely, that his teeth chattered like a pair of castanets--but this did not often occur. there was another odd character, who kept a _casa de bebida_, near the cuartel, where the officers sometimes touched in passing. no one knew what nation claimed him as a subject--he was a fat mottled-visaged boniface, whom the mexicans--as they always nick-name every one--had christened the "golden toad." the toad played melodiously on the flute, supposed to be a mild restorative to soothe the sorrows consequent upon the unfortunate state of his domestic relations. the carnival was not carried on with much spirit, nor was lent regarded with the same pious severity as in other catholic countries. the mazatlanese are not a pious people; there were, to be sure, a few processions, and fire-works, accompanied by a wooden piece of artillery, discharging salvos of sugar-plums, with nightly fandangos, but this was all. our intercourse and diversions were not restricted to native society, for we also enjoyed a pleasant association with foreign residents. the circle of our own countrymen was limited--the consul, good doctor bevans--who gave us a grand feast on leaving,--and the anglo-american house of mott & talbot. from all of these gentlemen we experienced the utmost civility; but to mr. mott and his amiable lady we stand indebted for many and repeated acts of kindness and hospitality, that never can be too gratefully remembered. not only in mazatlan but all over the world, the great firm of "mynheer and company" chase the dollars with as keen a scent as the yankees; and there is not a nook, however remote, where these thriving germans are not filling their sacks, but still their thirst for gold does not prevent the pleasures of "faderland" from being re-enacted in their far-away homes. there was one jolly belgian there--a large, handsome, jovial blade, ever on the vivo for fun or punch,--his house, like himself, was lofty and capacious, with a cellar over the way, where one might wish to live until it became dry. and the hern hutter, too. will eye of thine, my pleasant friends, ever glance at this tribute to your virtues? let us recall those delightful evenings. old jack's oysters, and, mein gott! that delicious arrack--when shall we ever taste the like again?--with the piano tinkling, and the rich sonorous voice of portly hausen chanting the solemn _avé purissima_ until the very paving-stones rattled, and the lovely lips of his pretty wife were held in a painful state of wide-mouthed laughter. where art thou, o! hern hutter! dost remember piny and luigi, even until the matins were tolling, when we mounted our steeds--your own the famous piebald charger--and never checked rein, until tumbling in the sparkling surf upon the sands? besides these warm-hearted fellows, there was another to whom my heart still yearns, and no time can ever banish the love i bear him. he was the beau-ideal of a john bull--burly, surly, brave, obstinate, and strong in his likings or dislikings. we met at first, neither in a pleasant mood; i was the aggrieved person, for he permitted me to mistake him for a mexican, and talk bad spanish half an hour, when he coolly broke ground in anglo-saxon. but time removed first impressions, and in his little cottage by the shore, at his generous board, and in fact in very many ways he loaded me with favors and hospitalities, which i shall always recur to as among my brightest recollections of the past. and truly it is not in great cities, or teeming ports, where merchants are seen to social advantage; it is in out-of-the-way spots--far, far away--when least expected, that the traveller finds warm hearts and firm friends--and none more so than in mazatlan. i was a daily guest of don guillermo's, at the cottage. dinner over, and a rubber at whist, i usually strolled about the town--peeped in at the fandangos--perhaps a shy at monté--thence to arrack--music, jolly hausen, and so home to my quarters. though a sort of vaut-rien existence, still it was one quite in consonance with my tastes, and since i am not at all competent for a clerkship, if any of my former friends can employ me as a smuggler, or in any other nautical and honest pursuit, i shall be most happy to comply with their terms. for a short period, these my amusements were unpleasantly interrupted, and came within an ace of being finally closed in eternity. sitting one night, in a moralizing mood, by my friend, mr. mitch, during a pause in conversation, we were startled by the long rolling sound of the drums, beating the alarm from the cuartel. the sentries shouted from the walls, for the men to get under arms, and snatching up hat and pistols, we rushed out. the night was quite dark, with thick fog; besides, i was nearly blinded from a lighted room; and mistaking the stairs by a few inches, i walked off the piazza--a height of fourteen feet--falling, most fortunately, between three men coming out from below, with fixed bayonets, and escaped being impaled, by a slight wound in the wrist. i was picked up insensible, and my companion thought even burnt brandy would prove unavailing. however, on coming to, and being duly jerked about the legs and arms, no bones being fractured, i was found whole, with the exception of some severe contusions in legs, back and head. after all the row, the _generale_ was only beaten by way of precaution. for some days i was confined to my cot, without being able to move, consoled, however, by lots of agreeable visitors--bottles of liniment--good cigars--alleviated by the sympathies of an admirable young nurse. there i was, reposing "in ordinary," swinging backwards and forwards. from one window i could see green plains and lagoons stretching away to the distant hills; and from the balconies, long strings of mules, with their cargoes, and could hear the shrill whistles and cries of the arrieros, urging the perverse brutes in either direction. the borders, too, of the lagoons were dotted with groups of women and children washing; and whenever i took a too long glance through the telescope, at some brown half nude figure, i was sure to attract the attention of my black-eyed nurse, who cunningly would place her finger before the lens. i always chose the mornings to study or write, when the clear, cool sea-breeze was beginning to fan the polished surface of the water, as the swell rolled rippling on in gentle undulations towards the beach--while swarms of pelicans sailed sluggishly along, until sighting their prey, when, with a dart like a flash, they parted the waves in concentric circles around, and rested contentedly on the water, packing away the little fishes in their capacious pouches. then, if our little house-keeper was docile, and not mimicking the colonel, for she detested the sight of a book, i would draw the table to my cot, and enjoy an hour's tranquillity. but when, later in the day, the breeze began to roughen the sea into light caps of foam, causing the waves to break heavily upon the shore, then the windows began to struggle and slam, books and papers to whirl across the room, until i was glad to put by everything, and say, _amigita canta_--sing, my little friend. she would purse up her roguish lips in mimic affectation, and then, in a lively strain, begin some provincial ditty-- "en la esquina de casa, un oficial mi habló." yet there are no alleviations that can recompense a person of active habits for being laid up, even in lavender. in a few days i was able to sit a horse, and soon after, perfectly restored. thieving and pilfering were practised among the lower orders, in an almost equal degree to knife combats. leperos are thieves and liars by profession, and their coarse serapas serves to conceal all their peccadillos. the spectator tells us, that in the days of charles ii, a rascal of any eminence could not be found under forty. in mazatlan they were more precocious. eating, sleeping and drinking, they could easily dispense with, for a handful of beans and the open air was an economical mode of life, and cost little or nothing: but a few rials were absolutely indispensable to game with on feast days; and as the leperos, as a body, are not fond of work, they exercised their ingenuity in appropriating property of others. i had escaped their depredations so long, that i fancied there was nothing worth filching in my possession, or innocently supposed there was some kind of freemasonry established between us. however, i was soon undeceived. one morning, according to custom, miss rita made her usual call, attended by some gay friends, and all attired in their prettiest robes and ribosas:--"would i read an anonymous billet in verse?" _si señorita_. "you are appointed _teniente de la tripa_,"--a ball given annually by the butchers. "then, would i meet her at the grand fandango in the marisma?" of course. "_pues hasta la noche amigo mio!_" and away they tripped down the hill in high glee. in the evening after dinner at the cottage, in company with señor molinero, we strolled to the fields. a large marquée had been erected in the middle of the open space, and around were smaller affairs, with numerous booths, sparkling with lights, music and merriment. it was not a very select affair, and i took the precaution to loosen my sword in its sheath. presently we entered into the spirit of the frolic, and were soon hand in hand with leperos and their sweethearts--sipping from every cup--whirling away in waltzes--dancing to the quick _jarabie_, and making ourselves particularly ridiculous when, presto! some expert thief snatched my sword blade from the scabbard. search was instantly made, but the successful lepero made good his prize, and escaped. the girls sympathized with me, and poor rita cried, and, regardless of being vice-queen of the ball, insisted upon leaving--so bounding up before me on horseback, i landed her at her little cottage. the night was not half spent, so turning rein, i indulged my friend señor carbia with a hasty visit--not at all to his satisfaction, for the fickle goddess smiled upon me; but as a slight check to this good fortune, another watchful person had stolen a valuable pistol from my holsters while the horse was standing in the patio, with a man to guard him. at the time i would certainly have presented the ladron with my winnings for the pleasure of giving him the contents from the remaining weapon; but eventually i became more of a philosopher--was robbed at all times unmercifully, and looked upon it as a destiny. one of our good commissaries was also a sufferer. being lodged in a small dwelling by himself, every few days he was regularly cleaned out of his wardrobe, and frequently obliged to fly trowserless to a neighbor's for a change of raiment. i once had the happiness to detect a youth in a petty act of larceny. him i had carefully conveyed to the garita, when the sailors made what they call a "spread eagle" of him, over the long gun. it was a summary process, and i sincerely believe, had a tendency to repress his rising predilections for the future. chapter xxviii. in the month of march the first positive information relating to rumors of peace reached mazatlan. it was agreeable news to a few former _empleados_ of the customs and courts, all idle and disaffected vagabonds, but the majority of peaceably-disposed citizens and foreign residents were averse to our departure; they had so long been oppressed by mexican misrule, intrigue, and extortion, that the law, order, and tolerant state of things existing under our sway, presented a too pleasing contrast not to sigh for a continuance of it. one of the brothers, vaso vil vaso--gentlemen who stood deservedly high in public estimation--had been appointed governor of the province, and in defence of the conduct of his fellow-citizens who had remained, and accepted office in mazatlan, he published a pamphlet in guadalajara, giving a narrative of former grievances, with a truthful account of our proceedings; also speaking in high terms of commendation of the legality and justice that had characterised our policy since the occupation of the port. the mexican force outside evinced no disposition to molest us, and ere this we had discovered that it was time thrown away to pursue them: there was no fighting to be had, petty skirmishing was all that had been accomplished; want and desertion were rapidly thinning their ranks; the commanders were at swords' points, and their only resources were derived from the miserable pittance extorted by the alcobala--in fact, they were fast devouring one another. at this juncture, vegas having withdrawn his guns and disbanded the troops in culiacan, was threatened by romero with an attack, in case the artillery was not sent back. for this piece of mutiny romero was dismissed the army, and the military command of the province devolved on a respectable officer named don juan pablo anaya, who made his headquarters at the presidio, with, however, but a mere handful of soldiers. on the last day of march the official notification of the armistice was promulgated in the port. a few days previous, late in the afternoon, some arrieros informed me that a number of mexican soldiers were collecting a little revenue, a short distance up the road, and then i perceived a signal flying from the rancho of madre maria. this was a heinous offence, to come within long range of our guns; so sending a small party by the beach, i rode out myself. we arrived a minute too late--the dust from their horses was just subsiding. the patrona was in a towering passion, said there had been a brace of officers, and four dragoons, making merry in the house; knocking the necks off poultry and bottles, and demanding toll from the paisanos. juanita added, that one of the gentlemen had desired his _memorias_ left at the garita! a piece of politeness i was quite unprepared for. returning to town, i forthwith went in quest of the governor. he was afloat, nor was the captain of the cuartel to be found. what to do i knew not; it would have been a great breach of decorum not to repay the courtesies of my afternoon visitors, so i concluded to consult with a _compadre_. towards midnight i met captain luigi, who being in want of exercise, agreed to take the relief-patrol, and accompany me; the officers on duty, mr. baldwig and earl, made up the party. ten was our number, and the horses half wild with spirits. we had an inkling of the whereabouts of our _amigos_, as there was to be a grand fiésta on the morrow, some leagues up the culiacan road, at the village of venadillo; and as there was to be dancing and frolicking, it did not seem improbable that the mexican advance-guard should bivouac in the neighborhood. there was a round white moon to light us, and away we leaped at a slapping pace towards the hamlet. a league this side we fell in with a couple of paisanos, one of whom not replying to our questions, with any due regard to truth, concerning the locale of the troops, was speedily forced to mount behind one of the patrol. in three bounds, he allowed himself to tumble to the ground, but having his intellect sharpened by a sound kick from the horse in the head, he then thought it advisable to cling on like wax; moreover, his fears induced him to tell a straight story, and we soon came in sight of the village. the entire place was filled with mules and jackasses, their loads of fruit, vegetables, and drinkables lying beside them, awaiting the great jollification of the succeeding day. in front of a large house, were seated on the ground some fifty or sixty curious persons, who, to save time, were attentively playing monté, on their serapas, lighted by paper lanterns. dismounting a few rods in the rear, and leaving the horses in charge of two men, we silently approached the assembly, and taking position, i stepped up, and tapped a swarthy fellow on the shoulder; he turned around, and upon recognizing me, exclaimed with much astonishment, _aqui están los gringos_--holy moses, here's the yankees! the whole audience began leaping to their feet, but merely pointing to the levelled weapons behind, we besought them to resume their seats, and not utter a syllable, or a carbine might accidentally explode, and drive a bullet through some one's head. thereupon they again took up the cards; when clapping a pistol to an intelligent person's ear, we gave him five seconds to point out the stopping place of the commandante. "here," said he, jerking his thumb over his shoulder, "here, in the big rancho." _y los soldados? mas por alla en la arboléda! quantos? habra cosa de cincuenta dragones!_--where are the troops? up yonder in the grove!--about fifty. this was no joke, we thought, to be within musket-shot of five times our number; but since no alarm had yet been made, we resolved to seize the _administrador_, we walked to the door, and struck a few heavy blows. "_quien es?_" said a gruff voice. another blow from the hilt of a sabre. _soldados! fuégo!_--fire!--was the reply. aha! so you have a guard, señor, and we instantly placed a thick wall between our persons, that the balls might circulate through the door, and meet with no resistance or obstruction on the outside; but no report or explosion following the command, we detected the ruse, and assured the individual within, that if he did not make himself visible; we would return the compliment in earnest. this threat unbolted the door, and in a moment i slapped el señor valverde--that was his cognomen--on the shoulder; and after apologising for disturbing his slumbers, at so unreasonable an hour, through anxiety to return his visit in the earliest possible time, desired him to equip in all haste for a little excursion to the port. he could not forbear laughing, notwithstanding his fright. we gave him leisure to drink half a bottle of brandy, and put on a clean shirt; when he gave up his papers, and assured us, with a gratified smile, that he had that very day sent all the cash to headquarters. and now we said, "amigo, where's your horse?" "ah," he replied, "there is one here, but let me send to the corral for another." the next instant, we found him whispering to a small boy cruising around our legs; but pointing a naked sabre to el señor's throat, we gave both him and the juvenile to understand, that whispering was not allowable in polite society, and he would oblige us by mounting the _cavallo_ that stood ready at the door, without further ceremony. while this was going on, our friends, baldwig and earl, were inspecting the outbuildings, and came upon the captain of the troop in a very ambiguous position. he jumped up in his shirt, and flew away like the wind. there was now no time to be lost: collecting a lot of handsome arms and equipments, our horses were brought up, we leaped into the saddle, tossed two dollars to the patrona, who swore some one had stolen a sheet; said adios! to the monté men, who gave us shouts of viva! and appeared quite as well pleased as ourselves. "then ho! ho! hurry; hopp, hopp, hopp. rode off the troop, with never a stop, until all gasped together." we came bounding back the twelve miles within the hour, and after giving mr. valverde a supper, were safely housed and asleep before daylight. but now it came the prisoner's turn to laugh at us. i had hardly opened my eyes the next morning, when an orderly came from the governor! what's to pay now? thought i, and off i rode to the cuartel. on the way i met captain luigi, with a most serio-quizzico expression of visage, just from an interview. after being announced, in i walked. "good morning, sir." "so, sir"--a pause--"you had the presumption to detach a force from the garrison last night, and go many miles into the interior?--i arrest you, sir--consider yourself arrested, sir--you and mr. luigi both, sir." "but, governor," i ventured to remark, "let me explain; i thought you would be pleased, and a--" "no explanation, sir--pleased indeed!--when you knew the armistice had been signed!" however, in the end, the governor, who was a good amiable gentleman, consented to believe that no disrespect was intended, and received our apologies. whereupon we wrote a letter that brought tears to his eyes; he asked us to dinner, and so the affair terminated. mr. valverde had all his arms and chattels restored--very much to the chagrin of mr. baldwig, who had already apportioned a saddle unto his own keeping--got a good breakfast, and was escorted beyond our lines with _muchos cumplimientos_. the red-headed wretch never passed me afterwards without a face full of sardonic winks and grins. but from that moment, we resolved never to be again patriotic on our own responsibility; and our only consolation was in knowing that we had made the last prisoner during the war. some days after, one of our men deserted. he was intercepted by the mexicans, and since the armistice had been declared, a message was sent to the governor, expressing a willingness to give him up. i attended the flag of truce, as interpreter. not finding the escort at the place designated, we were requested by a mexican officer to proceed along the presidio road. passing urias, we gallopped on, league after league, until within a mile of headquarters, where we were politely received by a guard and an officer, sent to conduct us to the general. the old town of mazatlan, or presidio, is situated on a broad plain, with a rapid, shallow, limpid stream, coursing beside it. in times past, it was a place of some importance; and the ruins of large _almacens_, a dilapidated church, spacious dwellings, barracks and plazas, still keep up the belief. yet, as the port was found to possess such manifest advantages for all commercial purposes, the old town was nearly depopulated for the new, and the residents were even induced to leave their pure stream of water, for the brackish element nearer the sea. the road is excellent, and adapted for artillery, but every road presents capital spots for ambuscades, and it would have required much caution to have approached and surprised the presidio, as we had originally intended. as we forded the stream, and entered the town, the whole population turned out to behold _los yankees_--dogs barked--mothers held up their children--and dirty troops tried to stare us out of countenance. we were conducted to a range of buildings facing the plaza, and presented to the commander-in-chief, general anaya. he had a pleasant european visage--tall, well-made, dignified and gentleman-like in his bearing and address--numbering, may be, some sixty years. we stated the business which brought us to his notice, and after some few inquiries from his officers, he informed us, that the officer who had apprised the governor was unauthorized to do so; that the deserter had already escaped--which was, indeed, the politest possible, and at the same time sensible way of telling us that we could not have him. he then cooled us off with a cup of claret and cigars; hoped all national difficulties were about to cease; regarded the united states as the mother of republics; boasted that he had been present, and wounded at the battle of new orleans, as aid to jackson; and finally, turned us over to the kind offices of his staff. our horses, meanwhile, had been well cared for, and three hours after noon we were escorted outside the lines, and reached the port at night. the next day i was ordered to proceed again to the presidio, with a flag of truce, to communicate an official copy of our armistice, and request a conference, to arrange certain articles pertaining thereto. as we did not get there until late in the afternoon, the escort and myself were billeted for the night upon the commissary general, don isidro beruben, who did the honors of his house with great liberality and attention, to say nothing of the sweet smiles of his charming little daughter chonita. we slept soundly and rose early, walked around the town, saw the graves of eight long bronze cannon, about three hundred troops exercised, and were introduced to scores of officers. they were all delighted at the armistice, and on tiptoe to get leave once more to visit the port, which they somehow regarded as a little paris. they overwhelmed me with interrogatories about their friends and sweethearts: where were the manuélas, madelinas, antonias, josephas--_pobrecitas_! how they must have suffered! and were they all true to their old lovers? of course they were--and i vouched for the truth of the statement. as the general had not a reply prepared, we remained to a breakfast given by our host. there were some thirty officers at table--a number of generals, and all, i believe, colonels: the mexican army is well manned in the higher grades. the breakfast passed off well, with no absurd toast-making, and an hour after its termination, don pablo requested many _memorias_ to the american commodore and governor, adding that he would be pleased to meet our commissioners, as soon as he was able to mount his horse, being at the time somewhat troubled with a complaint of the _barrica_. then entrusted with a despatch, i had the honor of making my congé--_adios señores! adios amigo! hasta luego!_ and so we parted. there were one or two articles of the armistice that had been signed in mexico, which could not have been intended to meet the exigencies of ports on the pacific, and at the conference which ensued, the mexicans, in return for relinquishing the alcobala, demanded the privilege of collecting duties levied upon the coasting trade--it seemed a bagatelle that we might easily have conceded, for it was absolutely necessary that some means should be granted for their support. the commissioners, however, were not able to arrange the matter, and both parties separated in dudgeon. anaya retired to the presidio, the alcobala continued, and the merchants were extremely disappointed at the rupture; for having a large amount of goods destined for durango and the adjoining provinces, which had already passed our customs, they were unwilling to risk the transit before some positive arrangement had been established between the two parties. these official misunderstandings, however, did not prevent constant visits of the mexican officers and their families to the port--a few of them were pleasant, conversible, intelligent gentlemen, but generally speaking, they were dirty, ill-bred persons, without moral principle, and the greatest liars in existence, and they invariably taxed one another with being cowards. on entering mazatlan, they were obliged to register their names and report the time of departure. we were occasionally amused when they assured us they found great difficulty in the search for their _amantes_, and had not been received with the same ardor of affection that so long an absence would have justified. chapter xxix. during the period of our occupation of mazatlan, the remaining ships of the squadron had not been idle along the neighboring shores of the gulf. the port of guaymas, on the main, had been closely guarded by a sloop of war; and notwithstanding the immense superiority of force, under the mexican general, campuzano--of five hundred regular troops--he had been at all times beaten, whenever attempting any demonstrations upon the town--on one occasion with the loss of twenty killed and forty wounded;--affairs which sufficiently damped their ardor, and warned them to keep beyond the reach of their invaders. the peninsula, also, had been the theatre of more serious struggles; and as the events attending their history were in themselves characterised by the utmost gallantry, reflecting the highest degree of praise upon the actors, who bore their plumes most bravely; and as they were, in fact, the only affairs of importance, which may be considered as shedding a ray of glory upon our arms, during the naval operations on the mexican coast, i may be excused for relating them more in detail. it may be recollected, that prior to the departure of the squadron from lower california, through urgent solicitations made by the respectable inhabitants, a small detachment of marines, under command of lieut. charles heywood, u.s.n., had been deputed to occupy the little town of san josé. as i have before mentioned, the settlement is situated in a narrow valley, about a league at its greatest width on the gulf, and is rapidly wedged in, as it falls back into the interior, by converging walls of lofty barren mountains. it is fertilized by a swift little stream of pure water, which, in pleasing contrast to the parched arid hills around, brightens the landscape with many green patches of cultivated fields, fruits, and foliage. in the bosom of this little vale, upon a slight eminence, two miles from the bay, reposes the mission--a village of some five hundred inhabitants--having a broad avenue running entirely through it, in a parallel line with the stream. at the upper end was a square adobie building, protected in the rear, by an abrupt descent to the base of the plain, and the front facing and looking down upon the whole length of the main street. this was designated as the cuartel. on the right, and opposite angle, stood another commodious dwelling, behind which a high wall enclosed a small court-yard: it was owned by an american, mr. mott, of mazatlan, and occupied by his agent, mr. eugene gillespie--who as an amateur in the trying events that ensued, well won the guerdon of a brave and loyal gentleman. immediately upon landing, on the th november, , these two buildings were taken possession of, and the american flag was displayed. the cuartel was found to be in a very dilapidated condition, and to prevent the walls and roof from falling, crossbeams and pillars were used to prop the decayed timbers, while numbers of useless windows and doorways were closed up with masonry, leaving the main entrance and another portal in the rear, where a platform was laid for more convenient traversings of a cannon. the low parapet which invariably surmounts the flat roofs or _azoteas_ of spanish houses, was raised sufficiently to afford a breast-high protection, and the walls were pierced at the commanding points, with loop-holes for musketry: this, with a trench between the two buildings, constituted the defences. the garrison numbered twenty-five, including the commander and his four subordinates. this force, however, was swelled, in a numerical sense, by about twenty friendly natives, who, in seeking protection under the pledges conveyed in our proclamations, had timidly volunteered their services, in case of assault. still, they were of but little effective aid, and, with their families, only served to reduce the provisions and uselessly waste the limited supply of ammunition with which the garrison had been furnished. the gun, too, was an unwieldy nine-pounder ship's carronade, mounted upon a clumsy slide, without wheels for easy transportation, or any of the conveniences necessary for manoeuvering on land. it was planted in front of the cuartel, to sweep the avenue with its fire. the force was divided between the two positions, and with but forty rounds of ball cartridges in the cartouche boxes, the little band calmly held their ground. the californian partisans who had enrolled themselves for guerrilla warfare on the peninsula, were composed of mongrel bodies of deserters and disbanded soldiers from the main, together with divers yachi indians, and other disaffected vagabonds, who, having nothing to lose, and anxious for plunder, either from their own countrymen or their enemies, were indifferent by what means it was to be obtained. this force amounted in the aggregate to more than six hundred mounted men, tolerably well equipped with weapons, and commanded by pineda, mexia, moreno, angulo, and mejares. the last-named individual had been former captain of the port of mazatlan. he was a man of activity and desperate courage, for which last quality, at a later day, he paid the penalty with his life. the passions of these guerrillas had been violently inflamed by the persuasions and advice administered by a shrewd mexican priest, named gabriel gonzales, who, fearing probably a loss of clerical influence among the native population, and inheriting, with all his race, a natural antipathy to the march of the anglo-saxon, consequent upon the secession of the territory, made unceasing efforts by every means in his power to have a strong blow struck for its salvation. he partially succeeded. the original scheme of the mexican leaders was, in the first instance, to have made a concentrated attack upon the town of la paz, at the time in possession of a company of the new york regiment, under lt. colonel burton; but perceiving the weakness of the force to contend against, in the small garrison of san josé, and deeming it an easy prey, they divided their force, and with the moiety resolved upon its destruction. hardly had the squadron disappeared below the horizon from san josé, before reports came flying thick and fast, that a serious attack was contemplated. these rumors only infused renewed energy in the preparations for defence and resistance, nor was the garrison kept long in suspense. on the morning of the th, ten days after the sailing of the ships of war, a small cavalcade, bearing a banner of truce, entered the village, and by a blast of trumpets demanded a parley. possibly, to give additional weight to the summons, clouds of dust were beheld rolling down the valley, and strong squadrons of cavalry scouring the roads and underwood, in advance of their main body. the effect was not realized. the flag of truce was met by an equal number from the cuartel, and a missive received, demanding, under the high appeal of _dios patria y libertad_, an immediate surrender, under penalty of the horrors of annihilation by a greatly superior force. the reply was prompt and decisive: the american commander regretting his inability to comply with the summons, and declaring his intention to defend his flag against all odds. negotiations being thus courteously terminated, the guerrillas, nearly two hundred strong, skirted the suburbs, and took up a position on the right of the american quarters, behind the church, on an elevation, three hundred and fifty yards distant, laterally commanding the town; it was called la lomita. during the afternoon the mexican eagle and tricolor was unfurled, and with cheers and pealing bugles, they opened a fire from a six-pounder and musketry, continuing the work until dark. the shot, however, did but little damage to the soft adobie walls, save fracturing cornices or boring fresh apertures for loop holes; nor was it judged prudent to return their salutes but rarely, inasmuch as the carronade of the cuartel could not, without much difficulty, be brought to bear upon the enemies' hill, and the limited supply of ammunition rendered it advisable to await closer quarters with the small arms. as night closed around the valley, there was a cessation of firing; the garrison remaining under arms momentarily anticipating a more vigorous attack; nor were they disappointed. by ten o'clock the besiegers had cautiously crept within close proximity to the occupied buildings, and with a field piece in the main street, began a simultaneous assault from all directions, front and rear. showers of bullets flew into every hole and aperture of the cuartel, whilst determined efforts were made to gain a lodgment in the opposite house: but they were severally repulsed with loss, and not an ounce of lead was thrown away, or powder idly burned without a definite object. three of the garrison only, were wounded. a hot but ineffective fire was kept up by the assailants during the night, but at daylight the force was withdrawn again to the camp at la lomita. all the following day the garrison were encircled by the guerrillas, who maintained a brisk fire of musketry from behind the walls and parapets of adjoining dwellings. the disparity of numbers was too great to risk the chances of dislodging them at the point of the bayonet. with the night the garrison were still under arms at their posts the plan of the guerrillas was to have stormed the front of the cuartel with forty picked men, under cover of three field pieces, receive the discharge from the nine-pounder, rush in, and capture it, whilst other bodies, provided with bars and ladders, were to scale the _azoteas_, and then pour in a destructive fire on the occupants below. in the end, these matured calculations were defeated: nevertheless, the positions were well chosen, and the mexicans in readiness for the assault. just before midnight the garrison sentinels challenged: the hail was immediately answered by trumpets sounding a charge, and a heavy fire from guns and small arms; at the same instant, mejares, the commandant of artillery, with four of his followers, in leading the forlorn hope, were riddled by rifle balls from the besieged, whilst another in striving to bear away the body of his comrade, fell mortally wounded on the same bloody heap. deprived of the animating example of their leader, the storming parties faltered, thus disconcerting the entire movement, and they returned to their encampment without attempting further demonstrations that night. eight newly made graves was the sole glory reaped in this abortive struggle. meanwhile a series of vigorous attacks had already been commenced upon the command at la paz, but was repulsed by a stouter resistance than was anticipated; equally unprepared for the gallant conduct of the little band at san josé, and depressed by the loss of their leader, the guerrilla chiefs ordered their partisans to again unite in the north, for a combined movement upon la paz--as had been originally intended. this course of action was considerably hastened, on the morning of the st, by the appearance of two large vessels in the offing; eventually proving to be the whale ships "magnolia" and "edward," of new bedford--captains simmons and barker--who learning from a launch, near cape san lucas, the state of affairs in san josé, without a thought to their own interests, resolved to do the utmost for the garrison. standing boldly into the bay, dropping anchor, discharging a cannon, and taking in sails together, they succeeded completely in deceiving the guerrillas, who were posted in strength on the beach to oppose a landing; and who, under the belief that the ships were either men-of-war or transports, fell back to their camp, and shortly after retreated up the valley; not, however, without giving a parting volley to the cuartel, which was courteously returned by mr. gillespie, who knocked a trooper from his saddle by a rifle-bullet. on being informed of the straightened situation of their countrymen, these bold captains, with their brave crews, armed themselves with muskets, lances, spades, and harpoons from their ships, and sixty in number at once landed, and marched to the cuartel. the provisions and ammunition of the garrison had been nearly exhausted, and these resolute whale-men instantly brought on shore a quantity of bread--all the powder they possessed, and even parted with hand and deep sea leads to mould into bullets! not contented with this, they formed into companies--were drilled--and evinced an enthusiasm to do good battle for those they had so generously and disinterestedly succored. not only were these gallant deeds undertaken without solicitation, but they nobly gave food and raiment to many of the timid peasantry received on board their ships. if any more admirable patriotism can be shown than this, let it be inscribed in grateful remembrance, with the names of simmons and barker! a few days later a government transport and corvette arrived: the garrison was supplied with two more carronade guns, and an abundance of ammunition and provisions. the quarters were considerably strengthened, and an adobie bastion, with four embrasures raised in front of the cuartel. the force was also increased by ten marines, and sixteen men whose terms of service had not quite expired; many of whom were invalids, and were thus merely a make-weight upon those they had been detailed to assist. for a month all remained quiet in the vicinity--the guerrillas had fallen back upon la paz. reports, however, gave every indication that another and more serious attack was contemplated upon san josé; but, notwithstanding this state of affairs, and the events which had transpired, the commander of the corvette saw no further cause for alarm, and being homeward-bound, sailed for the united states. the bold whalers had also long since departed--although not until their services had been no more required--and at length the bay was once more deserted. no longer deterred by the men-of-war, the guerrillas, having been baffled in their demonstrations upon la paz, again resolved to attempt the reduction of san josé, with such an overwhelming force as to place the result beyond a doubt. accordingly, breaking up their camp, with three hundred cavalry, they entered the lower valley on the th of january. for a week they were posted within a league of the village, whilst detached portions were employed driving off cattle and horses, destroying the crops, and intercepting all communication with the interior. on the st, a small schooner anchored in the bay, having some articles for the garrison. the following morning, the sea road appearing free from the enemy, two officers and five men, well armed and mounted, started to communicate with the vessel. on gaining the beach, they were surrounded by an ambuscade of one hundred and fifty guerrillas, and taken prisoners. shortly afterwards, they were carried up the valley: with pain and anxiety, their friends saw them from the cuartel, without the means of affording them relief. emboldened by this success, which was indeed a bitter loss to the little garrison, the guerrillas contracted their lines, and each day found them nearer the town. again the besieged and the native residents, with their families, were obliged to keep closely within their quarters. step by step the enemy after gaining the main avenue, pierced the buildings on either hand, and cutting trenches across the transverse lanes, they succeeded in forcing a passage, entirely concealed from view, until they gained complete possession of the town. and in an adobie house, within fifty yards of the american battery, the walls, already three feet in thickness, were increased by planting stakes inside, which were filled up with hard timber and sand; and such was its strength, that twelve-pound shot, fired at forty yards, made no perceptible impression: from the azotea of this entrenchment the mexican flag floated in defiance. besides these annoyances, almost every dwelling in the street was loopholed, occupied and protected by heavy angular barricades of pickets and earth, making safe points for the use of musketry, while the church and surrounding eminences were strongly guarded. during these operations the garrison had not been merely spectators. they made a number of sorties, with the loss of but one man killed, and succeeded in saving a small quantity of rice. but by the th of february, the guerrillas had entire possession of the town, and from front, sides and rear of the cuartel, they were enabled to throw a raking fire. from that time forth, the fusillade was incessant; the least exposure of person being made the target for a simultaneous discharge of fifty bullets; and from long practice they were found well skilled in handling their weapons--pouring the lead in at every aperture. on the afternoon of the th, the garrison had to lament the death of the second in command, passed midshipman tenant mclenahan. while engaged at his duties on the azotea, amid a shower of deadly missiles, he was struck down by a bullet in the throat, and fell with one hand clasping the flagstaff that upheld the colors he had so intrepidly defended. he was a young officer of undaunted resolution, courageous and energetic. he expired two hours after being wounded, and was buried in rear of the cuartel, while the sharp whistling of bullets and reports of cannon echoed over his untimely grave--a fitting requiem for the noble spirit that had taken its flight.[ ] the commander and a single officer were now all that remained. the whole garrison numbered but sixty, including sick, wounded, and twenty of the enrolled natives; the buildings were crowded to excess with women and children; they were to be fed; provisions were becoming scarce; bread was entirely gone, and naught remained, save a few days' salt meat on half an allowance. in addition to the want of these necessaries, the assailants had cut off the access to the stream in rear of the cuartel, or at least so enveloped the outlets and approaches to the pools--by screens of sand and barricades of pickets--as to make it a matter of almost certain death to seek water, either by day or night. there was no other course to pursue than the arduous task of digging a well within the walls. this, by the most untiring exertions, was finally accomplished, by boring thirty feet through the solid rock. in such an emergency, surrounded by nearly ten times their numbers, less undaunted spirits might reasonably have succumbed to the perils of a siege that was hourly becoming more straitened. but the beleaguered little garrison, though a small band, were true to themselves. there were neither murmurs nor thoughts of surrender--they still vigilantly guarded the defences--with but limited rest or food--while the bullets and shot of the besiegers flew in by the loop-holes, or plunged through the walls. yet there was no flinching--ever on the alert--for hours and hours they watched the enemy, and wo betide the adventurous guerrilla, who, becoming rash from fancied security, exposed an inch of flesh! the leaden messenger from some deadly carbine gave sad warning to his comrades. it was evidently the intention of the guerrillas to starve the garrison into submission, who had already sustained a close siege of more than four weeks, resisted many determined assaults, and made a number of successful sorties. yet their position had become eminently critical, and without speedy relief, their well-defended flag would have to be hauled down. it did not hang upon the simple results devolving upon capture. they felt no greater uneasiness on that score than commonly falls to the lot of the vanquished in civilized warfare. but the innocent inhabitants, who had sought refuge under the inducements held forth by our proclamations, and who trustingly relied upon american arms to shield them from the inevitable fate to which they were to be devoted by those whose vindictive hate and malice they had provoked--and whose _gritos_--cries--resounded from every housetop, singling out by name, with bitter taunts and revilings, those most obnoxious, and the doom in store for their apostacy--were the causes that still nerved the hearts of their defenders. joyfully, on the evening of the th of february, the garrison beheld a ship of war sail into the bay, and though apprehensive that the opposition would be too great to admit of a landing, yet at daylight the following morning an hundred of the crew disembarked, and soon after, the musketry from the mexicans opened upon them. the odds were four to one; but steadily the seamen rushed on, pouring in their fire, and fighting their way, pace by pace, until met by a party from the cuartel, when the guerrillas retreated, with a loss of fifteen killed and thirty-five wounded. thus was the little band relieved, their wants attended to, and the sick and wounded cared for. the enemy, baffled in their enterprise, and deterred by the presence of the corvette, deserted the valley for the interior. a month later, captain steele, of the new york volunteers, with thirty mounted men, left la paz, and after a flying march of sixty miles, reached san antonio, when, dashing into the plaza, they put the garrison to flight; rescued the party captured at san josé, and returned to their post, with the loss of but one man killed--having performed the entire distance of one hundred and thirty miles within thirty hours! such gallant little forays need no comment. the prisoners had been treated with extreme kindness, and although moved from place to place, never experienced the slightest insult or injury. early in april, lt. col. burton's command being reinforced by another company from the upper territory, with one hundred and fifty of the volunteers, moved towards the interior; while seventy-five seamen and marines left san josé to form a junction at san antonio. before the bodies united, lt. col. burton, with his troops, came up with the guerrillas, three hundred and fifty strong, at todos santos, and after a severe action, totally defeated them, taking many prisoners and their leaders. by the close of the month, the town of san josé was occupied by captain naglee, of the volunteers, and the naval force was withdrawn. thus ended the war on the peninsula of california. footnote: [ ] on an eminence overlooking the bay, a small white railing and tablet mark the spot where the remains of poor mclenahan were subsequently buried, with the honors of war. chapter xxx. early in the month of may, the ohio, , arrived at mazatlan. on the th, i was ordered to prepare for a journey to the city of mexico--my preparations were made in five minutes; merely a saddle, sabre, spurs, pistols, undress jacket, riding trowsers and serapa. the same night i rode to the presidio, where general anaya politely furnished me with a special passport, and afforded every facility to expedite the journey through his immediate command. returning to the port at daylight, a letter of credit awaited me, which, with a dispatch enclosed in oiled silk and concealed in the lining of my jacket, completed my arrangements. a ship of war had been ordered to land me at san blas, a port some one hundred and thirty miles down the coast, and considered the nearest practicable route to mexico. i was to be accompanied by a mexican officer, a dark pop-eyed little man, of a quiet and gentlemanly demeanor, who was bound on a mission to his own government, and took passage with us in the frigate. attended by light flyaway airs and calms, we were nearly three days in accomplishing the short distance of the voyage, and it was not until nightfall of the th, that the good ship lay becalmed a few miles from the shore. with my fellow traveller, i was tossed into a boat, and after a smart pull of two hours, we were safely landed up a narrow estero, on the banks of which was placed the little town of san blas, apparently overstocked with musquitos. a letter to a chinaman, named passio, made him yell for his servants; before midnight had struck, after embracing a number of officers from two of our ships at anchor there, we went pacing away through the thick foliage, answering to the echo the loud shouts of the friends left behind--it was thus began my rough notes and jolts on a mexican saddle. we were accompanied by a guide, and a pack-mule for my companion's portmanteau. my wardrobe did not require one--consisting of two shirts and a tooth-brush. the horse i bestrode was not very beautiful to behold, certainly--being what is technically termed in animal structure--a singed cat; but nevertheless he rattled along bravely, without a jolt, plunge, or stumble, and we got on famously together. we contrived to while away miles and hours, coursing along the _marismas_ of the sea, with a clear bright moon to light us; or winding through magnificent forests of sycamore and pine, beneath dense thickets, arched with vines, cactus and acacia;--grouped here and there with palmettos, or cocoanuts, crackling in the breeze--and looking for all the world like long-legged trowserless turbaned turks. the scene was quite exhilarating, and even my comrade allowed his huge moustache to be parted; but whether owing to the pure air, and excitement of the ride, or the yet purer brandy from his _alforgas_, his hitherto taciturn tongue was let loose, and we became bosom friends on the spot. he had put sufficient in his mouth to steel away his brains, and not a little to my surprise--though i expressed none--he shortly proposed to me a capital plan of cheating the government: that by keeping together--he being empowered to take horses for nothing--we might charge the full amount, and halve the proceeds. i readily assented, sealed the bargain by a squeeze that nearly wrenched him from the saddle, and resolved to cut his fascinating society at the first convenient opportunity. this gentleman bore the reputation of being one out of a few honest officers in the mexican army. however, it is but justice to state that these little sins of commission are not regarded in so serious a light as with us; although i could not help speculating on the beautiful moral attributes possessed by the remainder of the army. they have a very trite saying, which hits their case precisely: _primero jo, pues mi padre_--me first, then daddy. at about three o'clock we had left the grounds bordering upon the ocean, for the first step to the temperate terrace. alighting at a large rancho, we unceremoniously aroused some sleeping figures--had a mess of scrambled eggs--thence to horse again. we soon gained the highland, by bridle-paths skirting along crests of hills and ravines, until daylight found us ambling from one to the other, in an everlasting up-and-down route, both tiresome and monotonous. eight leagues of this work brought us to the more elevated region of the plateau--a more open country, with now and then a rancho--cultivated fields--broader roads, and all the signs of approaching a large town; then in a moment the view opened upon a broad, lovely plain, framed in by three noble swells of sierras, and before us lay long lines of buildings and gardens, with a thin stream winding down the slopes, like a white thread--and this was tepic. leaving my compañero at a meson, i swung myself from the saddle, after a twenty-eight leagues ride, within the spacious _patio_ of an american gentleman's house, to whom i was regularly endorsed--mr. bissell. he received me in the kindest manner possible--washed, shaved and breakfasted me, and put all in train for a renewed start by night. we called on the commandante aristi, who declared the inexpressible pleasure he experienced at the sight of me, signed my passport, and bowed us most politely out of the house, even to the furthermost door-step. this state visit over, i took a sound nap, and was aroused in season for a bath. we rode to the green suburbs of the town, where were nice thatched sheds stretching half way over a rapid stream. after a refreshing swim, and a sip of lemonade filled with caraway seeds, we returned to dine on delightful brook trout, and pleasant vinous accompaniments. the horses were again equipped, and making a tour of the city, we stopped at the cotton mills belonging to the wealthy english house of barron, forbes & co. the _fabrica_ stands at the base of a steep hillete--composed of large white buildings, encircled by high walls on three sides, and the fourth facing an impetuous torrent, from which a strong body of water is diverted to drive the machinery. the banks were handsomely walled up, and laid out in parterres, prettily planted with shrubbery, all bearing the impress of great care and beauty. further down the stream was an extensive garden, with broad alleys, arbors and spacious tanks, teeming with fruits, flowers and exotics of the rarest kinds. the senior owner of the manufactory, mr. forbes, did the honor to play cicerone, and take me over the works. there were about five thousand spindles in operation; then working day and night. the machinery was a beautiful specimen of american ingenuity; nearly all the overseers, and the intelligent superintendent, mr. whiting, boasted of the same origin. none but coarser fabrics, suitable for the mexican market, were milled; but the profits were enormous, having netted the previous year a fraction less than two hundred thousand dollars. the operatives were all natives; and although, i was told, without the wish or energy to rise, still they did very well in the work required. i never saw out of europe or the united states, or continental america, or in even the british colonies, such extensive improvements keeping so close a wake to the rushing march of the age; all, however, begun and matured by the indomitable skill and enterprise of the intelligent owners. i left tepic two hours before midnight, and made all sail under a heavy press of spurs and stirrups. i said adios to the _capitan_, who assured me his frame was deplorably jolted, and that he felt unable to proceed. the fact was, the don carried too much weight for anything beyond a quarter stretch. i was recompensed for the loss of his society by the attendance of two dark _mozos_ as guides, and three spare horses; but with the beasts i must confess having been decidedly duped: i booked them to guadalajara, but they were neither swift nor well gaited. my attendants expressed great regret, as a matter of course, which did not prevent the avalanche of blessings with which they were indulged. at sunrise we dismounted a minute, for coffee, at a small village, with an unpronouncable jaw-cracking indian name. it was a very pretty spot, shrubby and treesy, with a noisy rivulet washing the door-steps of an old ruined chapel. a barefooted damsel was quite attentive to my pencilling occupations, and with an inquisitive frown and nod, as much as to inquire--"what on earth is he about?"--handed me a little glazed pot of wheat-coffee; but being a courier of the grand route, and having no time to satisfy the muchachita'a curiosity, i swallowed the beverage, threw her a peseta, and while she was hunting for the change, we were in the saddle and off. at ten of the clock we halted at the hamlet of ocultilti, in front of a little mud-built _fonda_, where, for a mexican miracle, was laid a tolerably clean cloth upon a table. the road thus far had been hilly and rugged, and the last five miles a tedious clamber over a mountain-pass. my horses had given out, and i felt a strong inclination to shoot the lying guides for imposing on me; but the patrona of the inn sent every boy in the place scampering in search of fresh horses, while she busied herself at the fire getting a breakfast of everlasting _frijoles_. in reply to my anxiety for more beasts, she continually repeated--_quien sabe! hay muchos! si señor!_--in this part of mexico the oft-repeated exclamation--who knows! there are thousands! presently appeared two ragged, filthy indians. they approached each other, tipped their broad sombreros, at an angle like to the rings of saturn. _como está vd? muy bueno! me allegro, y la familia? para servir vd!_ they kept up this strain of compliment for ten minutes, neither letting go hands nor hats--until my patience becoming exhausted at such fatiguing politeness--i let the lash of my whip fall lovingly around their legs. "i say, my fine fellows, are there any horses to be had?" _quién sabe! señor, hay muchos!_ they both replied in a breath; but nothing more satisfactory could i learn. the boys never came back! the mistress became less civil after getting paid for her breakfasts; and after vainly waiting an hour, i felt convinced there was not a four-legged brute in the hamlet, or that the two-legged ones were too lazy to find them. selecting the best of our spavined jades, we stumped slowly on, and a league beyond came to a post-house; here a good-natured dame, in the absence of her helpmate, mounted a mule, and soon drove up a cavallada. transferring the saddles to better beasts, and followed by a diminutive elf, to bring them back, we continued our journey. the roads became smoother, and less broken; the country presented a more smiling aspect: green fields of grain, and cultivated plantations of the argave, covered the sides of hills and valleys. pursuing a course through a well-watered district, without any evidences visible of volcanic origin, our road was suddenly closed by a very curious lava formation--an elevation not in the highest parts more than eighty feet--springing strangely and abruptly from the table land of the vale. there were acres upon acres of black volcanic masses thrown up into the most fantastic shapes; there were churches and altars, castles and coaches, figures of men and monkeys--with clusters of straight, slender cactus, in full flower, shooting far above all--rearing their white and red torch-like heads, as if to light up the black congregation below; which from a distance struck me as bearing a miniature resemblance to the giant's causeway. we passed this barrier, over a deep cut of slippery aqueous lava, when we again debouched into the _vega_, took a lave in a cool, clear torrent, and then came on at a great pace to the town of aguacatlan. from a hasty glance it appeared a nice place, and we drew up at a spacious meson, facing a pretty plaza, lined by magnificent rows of elms, with a handsome church in front. all looked gay withal: troops of vagabonds and girls were passing and repassing the portals. in a lofty hall of the fonda, i had an excellent supper, washed down by a flask of capital bordeaux, which, the maestro informed me, had lain an unsaleable drug on his hands for eleven years. passing from the sala to a shop in the building, i found a crowd of idlers, absorbing cigarillos and hearkening to the harangue of a stout fellow, shrouded in a seedy serapa: he was striving to awaken their patriotism by violently declaiming against the policy, of the mexican government, for tolerating an idea of peace, and lavishing a fair share of abuse upon the yankees. _christo! señores!_ said he, "why didn't general _skote_ attack piñon, where all was prepared for him, instead of creeping around the valley to churubusco? answer me that! _porque señores los yankis son cobardes! todos! toditos!_"--because every mother's son of the americans were cowards. upon the conclusion of this speech, he honored me with a close inspection, and apparently not being satisfied, touched his castor by way of formal introduction. "capitan," he suggested, "you belong to the cavalry." i nodded. "ay, he knew that by my _divisas_--shoulder-straps--but he mistook me at first for one of the san patricios. where was i bound?" i shrugged my shoulders. "did i know mazatlan?" i had been there. this last admission quite won his confidence; so, grasping me by the elbow, he drew me aside, and informed me that he was on a mission to that port for the purchase of arms to put in the hands of flaming red-hot patriots in guadalajara; and that any intelligence to further his designs would be highly acceptable. i, of course, gave him all necessary information, and at the same time dropt a line by the post, which was the means of giving him an opportunity to inspect vacant apartments in the _carcel_, for some weeks after his arrival. having no more time to waste, i left the good people to pump my _mozos_, whilst i took a short nap. before midnight, nerved by a cup of strong coffee, we mounted, and six leagues of rapid riding carried us to the post-house of istlan. there was just light enough by the moon to reveal all the quiet beauty of the little town. the square was deserted; not a dog bayed; the noble trees with drooping branches reposed motionless in the air; not a sound was heard but the uneasy plashing of the sparkling fountain in the centre; and there was not a vestige of life, save a solitary twinkling taper that shone through the open door of the post-house. our shouts echoed back from the tall walls of the church on the opposite side of the plaza, and soon brought a gruff personage to the street. it was the _administrador_ himself. he inquired, what _demonios_ dared to raise such a din, when his venerable sire, don pancho, was stretched upon the bier, and masses to be said for his soul as soon as day dawned? i have ever remarked, that the safest mode of treating perverse, obstinate persons, who are resolved to quarrel, is to approach close to them, in a moral sense, and--like to dealing with a fierce ram by patting him on the tail--they have no space to rear and pitch into one. it is time enough to bid defiance when this system fails. bowing to the saddle-bow, hat in hand, i thus began: "pardon me, my good friend! had we known of your bereavement, be assured we should have torn our teeth out, rather than have disturbed your grief: we are bound _extraordinario_! if there be no horses, at least oblige us with a cup of water to wash down a measure of this oily _licor_ from the grand meson of aguacatlan, and oblige us by touching it first to your own lips!" i saw by the moon's silver beams athwart his rubicund visage, that he relented; whereupon, paying him some sorrowful compliments upon the demise of his aged parent, i quite conquered his anger. leaving me in charge of the defunct old gentleman, i puffed a cigarillo, while he went to get beasts for the guides, and his own mule for my use, as he assured me, _bueno y muy vivo_--lively as a cricket. in a few minutes we were again upon the road. skirting along the banks of a small river for a couple of leagues, we then crossed to the opposite side, where hills arose in endless succession, soaring to the clouds in the distance, and where we were destined to pass. it was the _plan de barrancas_. i had for the past hour been venting maledictions on the administrador and his _vivo_ mule, for i never saw any but monks and muleteers who properly understand their peculiar management. to one, like myself, ignorant of the habits of these quadrupeds--never mind how expert a horseman he may be--if they ever be urged out of their usual amble on a level space, their gallop is such a jerking short pace, that the inexperienced rider will be kept alternately shifting his position from withers to rump, at every stride. but commend me to a good mule; over a broken country, where their delicate little hoofs find a secure foothold over shelving rocks, or upon the brink of a yawning precipice, where you drop the bridle, close your eyes and offer up an orison for your blessed mule to bear you safely. and with what sagacity they feel their way, and how often an imprudent rider will find cause to bless his stars that the wilful little beast takes the bit in the mouth, and obstinately pursues his own path! however, as i said before, they are not pleasant animals when the danger is passed; then they become at times unreasonably perverse, and persuasions, punchings, or spurrings, only serve to exhaust strength and temper, without any avail. our speed became necessarily slow, the country more and more barren, and the paths stony and uneven; still we passed from height to height, gradually ascending, until we came to the base of the great _barrancas_. here, much to my surprise, commenced a well-constructed military road, very broad, and coped in by a wall of loose stones, winding around the eastern brow of the _sierra_. in some places near the summit, i am confident, a dollar could be thrown four thousand feet before striking the base of the gorge that splits the great chain, asunder. the view was bird-eyish, and rather good--with the bright green dells below, in pretty contrast to the red basaltic rocks above--but limited by peaks of the surrounding heights. the road itself is a far more substantial work than the traveller is prepared to meet with in this part of mexico, where everything relative to easy locomotion appears to have been left as nature and the mules will it. still, but little reputation is lost in the way of consistency; for the moment the mountain is passed, the route again becomes little better than a sheep path. although crossing this fine road caused me some astonishment; yet a little before, i was thrown into a stupor of amazement, to behold lying in the pathway a long iron thirty-two pounder gun, of the heaviest ship's calibre and weight! my _mozos_ informed me, that this was the only one out of six that did not reach guadalajara from san blas--a distance of more than three hundred miles! they were intended for service in battery, during the revolt of . each was under the guidance of one hundred and fifty indians with animals, and it occupied many months in accomplishing the transit; but notwithstanding these ample means, i'll venture to affirm that no one in his natural senses, after making the journey, could be induced to believe that anything greater than a mule-pack--to say nothing of an enormous piece of ordnance--could be transported over such numbers of streams, ravines, paths and mountains! the thing seems nearly impossible. we toiled over the barrancas--threaded the valleys below, when taking another ascent, we attained a level, barren uncultivated region, and shortly drew bridles at the great meson of _muchatilta_. from an outside view of the spacious inn--its fanciful frescos, and highly brilliant exterior--we reasonably inferred that something even more delectable might be found within. yet although the patrona was neither ill-looking nor ill-natured, she _siento 'd muchissimo_, and still declared there was naught more palatable than _frijoles_. however, our appetites were keen, and we made a good deal go a little way, for we had ridden nineteen leagues since midnight. bidding adieu to my _vivo_ mule, by patting his sleek neck--not the least the worse for his work, while the horses were well nigh done up,--i gave him a loaf of bread, in gratitude for bearing me safely. with a fresh relay of horses, and the sun on the meridian, we left the brightly-painted meson, and continued our journey. ever since mounting up to the _tierra templada_, near tepic, the climate had been delightful--neither uncomfortably warm during the day, nor too cool to travel with a serapa at night. by urging our cattle we made ten leagues, and reached the town of madalena at twilight, where a stubborn old administrador refused to give me a change of horses. the fact was i deceived myself, in supposing the journey could be made as quickly by taking a cavallada from one city to another, as by the government post; and through ignorance of the formalities, i had omitted to take out a license. it is a very simple process, and consists in merely paying exorbitantly, at about the rate of a third of a dollar per league for the privilege of demanding beasts from agents on the roads--that is supposing they are to be had, and generally they are not; but if there chance to be found any beasts in the corral, they are such horrid brutes, as not to be worth, even to a cunning cabman, the rial you are to pay per league. these are the animals pertaining to the republic. after a mournful inspection of their raw hides and protruding ribs, the administrador may possibly hint that if the traveller requires a good horse there are two or three belonging to a neighbor that might be procured by paying over and over the legal charge. this system of corruption is the chief cause of the heavy expense of travelling in mexico: honesty in its lightest sense is unknown, and the principle throughout nearly all classes is one of fraud and extortion. indeed if the rage for foreign travel ever leads our rising generations to extend their tours to these lands, their respectable governors will deserve much sympathy on cashing the bills, and perhaps be induced to believe that their progeny have fallen among the philistines. finding nothing was to be gained from the madelena proprietor of horse-flesh, i betook myself to the alcalde; my special passport making it imperative on all military and civil authorities to afford me succor, sustenance, and all sorts of _ausilios_--that is if they deemed advisable;--but i depended more upon the yellow onças in my trowsers-pocket, which gave a zest to their exertions, and did not render them lukewarm in complying with the orders conveyed in the passport. the townspeople were under arms, and a guard of some thirty paisanos were assembled outside the courtroom. they received me with a "present arms," and one adept in soldiership let his musket fall to the stone floor, exploding the piece, and driving a mass of paper wads, and a quantity of slugs, over the gateway; whereupon they all put by their weapons, and whacked the unfortunate victim over the head with sabres. my terror subsiding, i presented myself to the alcalde, whom i found--_mirabile dictu_--quite a civil, intelligent young man. he informed me that a strong body of highwaymen had occupied a hill within a league of the town, and every evening succeeded in carrying off what they required, by breaking into houses, maltreating the residents, and robbing every man, woman, and child on the road. he strongly urged me to defer my journey until troops which were expected, could arrive, and in this he was seconded by a number of travellers, who were also awaiting safe convoy. the advice, though well intended, was far from changing my purpose to proceed, and after receipting for the value of the horses in case of capture, i prepared for a start. there being no regular soldiers in the place, no money could induce the timid paisanos to act as escort; and then i began to discover the true value of my guides. they had been under the ban of my displeasure for cheating me with their beasts; but they had determined faces, and in reply to my question if they intended to fight, both exclaimed, _hasta muerto! señor_--until death!--this restored them to favor. entrusting each with a sum of money, i drew the loads from their carbines, carefully recharged them with balls and buck-shot, looked to my own pistols, and mounted. moving quietly through the back streets of the town, we struck the main road, where we encountered a poor padre who had been robbed of seventeen dollars, relieved of his mule, and stripped of all his raiment, save gown and cravat. _santa maria!_ said my _mozos_--"no respect for the church!" the good priest gave us his blessing, and the exact position of the villains. _adios, mi padre!_ it was eleven at night, the moon was rising, and we kept the horses nearly as possible in the shade of the roadside foliage--going very leisurely--until on the slope of a hill to the right, we saw a number of fires casting a lurid blaze around, and figures moving before them. approaching nearer, a din of shouts, chaunts, and laughter, saluted our ears, for the rogues were evidently making merry over their potations. the road sounded hollow over the hard clay, and on descending a narrow canal-like passage, that just left our heads visible above, we unslung carbines, and with cocked weapons, i gave the word--_vamanos_--let us fly. the noise of horses' hoofs thundering over the hard ground instantly attracted attention; we were greeted by loud yells of _quien es? halta! halta!_--and plainly saw a score or more running to intercept us, with the barrels of their arms glancing in the moonlight; but deuce the syllable did we utter, but driving the spur yet deeper into our steeds, we went flying along, single file; in thirty seconds we were shielded by a high wall of rocks, and in a short time had lost sight and sound of our pursuers. i think they were quite unprepared for travellers at so late an hour, or our flight could easily have been barred. yet it is anything else than a joke, to be encircled by a legion of these scamps--stripped stark naked--certainly beaten and robbed--or perhaps shot. besides there are so many nice secluded spots, where, like fra diavolo, "on a rock reclining," behind a jutting ledge, or precipice, these rascals could insinuate the dark barrel of a carbine in one's ear, and cry _entregarse, o no la vida!_--surrender, or your life!--not pleasant, surely, and i was delighted to escape scot free--clothed in my breeks. at full gallop we rode into the town of tequilla: considerably fatigued, for i had not slept in forty hours, excepting perhaps now and then a brief cat-nap in the saddle--of a second or two duration--wherein one may dream of years of adventure. however, i determined to hold on twelve leagues beyond, to guadalajara. it was daylight, and i found tequilla quite a large place: with picturesque church, clusters of fine trees, all snugly posed in a bowl-like valley--fertile and well watered, with extensive plantations of the _argave_ extending far as the eye could compass, over the neighboring country. whilst a relay of horses were being sent for, the landlord of the meson accompanied me to a running brook, where i cooled my jolted frame--swallowed a bowl of coffee, lit a cigar, and learned that we were the first travellers who had passed in five days, and that a detachment of cavalry was hourly looked for, to dislodge the rogues near madelena. feeling now indifferent about the matter, we got into the saddle, and once more gave spur towards our destination. the road was tolerable, the horses were better, and the country became more populous. once the grateful steam of fried fish involuntarily caused me to halt for a hasty breakfast; but it was only for a moment--when on we rushed, up hill and down slope, splashing over water-courses--passing huge, ungainly carts, with hewn timber wheels, creaking and groaning to market, while vehicles also of a more modern build lumbered slowly along, with six or eight mules ahead. then i doffed my sombrero to a gay young officer in advance of a well-appointed troop of cavalry, and, with horses white with foam, we dismounted at the outer garita of guadalajara. it was a small village and military post, seven leagues from the city, having a great stone arch and gateway commanding the road. another relay, and an hour's gallop brought the spires and towers of the goodly town in sight--standing in the midst of an immense plain, and watered by a branch of the rio grande. passing through a town, with a noble church and convent, we crossed the river by a substantial stone bridge, where stood statues of santa anna and other patriots, with their noses knocked off, and faces otherwise scarified. after being detained for inspection at a guardhouse, we entered the city proper, through long lines of paved streets, until we pulled up in front of the palace, at the house of don domingo llamas, to whom i had letters. chapter xxxi. guadalajara is a beautiful city, of an hundred thousand people, laid out in broad, regular streets, with solid and imposing houses, painted outside gaily in frescoes--and plazas, fountains, shady alamedas, richly adorned churches, and fine public buildings. it is the capital of the populous province of jalisco, famed for its wealth, and only second in importance to the city of mexico itself. the crowds of well-dressed pedestrians that thronged the streets and squares, the well-appointed troops, elegance of the buildings, and smart appearance of equipages and dashing horsemen, all gave the air, even at a rapid glance, of great ease and opulence. the gentleman to whom i was endorsed, señor llamas, had been in early life an _arriero_, but by the force of merit and ability he had urged himself to his level, and became a person of immense wealth, universally respected, and occupying a place of high judicial trust under the state. he possessed more energy, quickness and enthusiasm, than any mexican i met with, before or since. after arranging in the minutest details everything for my comfort and speed on the road, i went to a very good stopping-place, the _fonda de diligencia_. here i bathed, and slept until the streets became noisy with vehicles and horses passing for the afternoon's drive. facing my balcony, in an opposite dwelling, there appeared a lady of exceeding beauty, or, as the porter of the hotel told me in reply to my exclamation, _si señor! bonita como un peso_--lovely as a dollar. she first appeared at the gilt-railed balcony in the dishabille of the country, that is, with only skirts of the dress--the sleeves and bodice hanging down in front; leaving the person from waist up only slightly concealed by the camisetta, which half reveals and half hides the shoulders and bosom. one must be blind, indeed, not to become something of a connoisseur in female beauty, after residing any length of time in mexico; for the flimsy veil, which is usually worn in the day by all classes of women, only serves, by the pliant grace of their movements, to render their forms more defined and attractive. but to return to my vis-a-vis. at a second visit to the balcony, the bodice was laced, and superb masses of hair fell like a dark cloud over neck and arms. at a later period the toilette was completed, with a lace mantilla, and her tresses braided in two long plaits. a dear little baby was crowing upon her breast, and the beautiful señora amused herself by entwining and knotting the braids of her hair under the infant's arms, when she swung the little fellow to and fro, in the most graceful manner conceivable. i never beheld so charming a duet. the bell sounded for dinner--there was a well-set table, and among a number of pleasant conversible persons, i made the acquaintance of a particularly intelligent and amiable priest, who very kindly acted as cicerone in my after rambles. we rose from the table d'hôte as the military band began the night's performance in the plaza. the marble-paved paths and the benches were filled before we got there, and we found some difficulty in getting places; but when my cigar got fairly under way, and eyes widely open, i did and do still take it upon me to affirm, that no town in the universe can boast of so much female beauty. not only were they in fives, but fifties. my friend, the little padre, appeared to be very generally beloved. nearly all paused a moment to say a kind word or greeting, and thus i had a clear chance of observing the pretty throngs that swept by. they were so tastefully attired in full flowing and becoming skirts, with no awkward stays or corsets to cramp the grace of motion--the coquettish _ribosa_, never quiet an instant, but changing its silken folds, and half revealing the glancing neck and arm!--the hair, too; such hair! _ay de mi!_ no odious bonnets to conceal god's fair handiwork!--then their arched tiny feet, kissing the marble pavement, with so firm, so light, yet dignified a tread--and then the elders, sailing majestically astern of their lovely convoys--like ships of the line--regarding with wary eyes privateers in disguise of gay young cavaliers, crossing their track. _hola!_ what blockade could intercept those softly audible murmurs! or the light downy touch of dimpled fingers, quick as a swallow's kiss to his mate! or, more than all, withstand the languid, lightning glances flashed from their upper deck of eyes! _avé purissima!_ the waking hours by day, and sleepless ones by night, that spanish maidens have caused me! "i'm not a lover now," but still, i derived great consolation in admiring these sweet donçellas; and fearing a relapse to former maladies, i shook hands with the padre, buckled on spurs and sabre, and as the cathedral bell was tolling ten, i was leaving guadalajara, with its blaze of lights and beauty, behind me. taking the main road for three hours, we crossed the great bridge, and turning to the north, struck the route of the haciendas, which in lieu of smooth travelling and robbers, possessed the advantages of safety, and a more direct communication to the interior. at daylight, we had ridden nineteen leagues, on capital animals, who never once slackened the reins in their mouths. i was not only indebted to don domingo for these excellent adjuncts to my journey, but for a few written lines also, to divers persons along the road, which seemed to infuse them with a portion of their master's energy; besides, he had sent his own trusty courier with me as guide. this was an old man of sixty, strong, active, and honest: in youth he had proved himself a brave soldier; in virtue of which he was permitted to carry--besides his carbine--a long lance, and pennon that fluttered in the breeze. he frequently went without sleep, for three days and nights successively, when riding express for his patron. i made old cypriano my commissary, and he always became frightfully incensed, when called upon to pay more than he deemed the service demanded; but again he would laugh heartily, when urging a beast that had been overcharged, with a lash and a kick at every leap--which he called taking a medios worth. indeed cypriano, from long riding, had become a little callous, in thus visiting the sins of the masters upon the beasts, and believed in the superstition, that hired horses had no souls. the face of the country was fast losing its abruptness; mountains were verging into hills with table tops, and long sweeping undulations stretching away in the hazy distance. it was very open, fertile, and well-tilled, but neither wooded, nor so profusely watered as the lands seaward of guadalajara. early in the afternoon we entered the little town of tepantitlan, where a huge wheezing gentleman gave me a brute troubled with his own complaint, but transferring him to the treatment of doctor cypriano, we then got on in fine style. the night was far advanced when we reached a round, portly mountain, called cerro gordo; where tarrying at a small settlement, the keeper of a rancho surlily resisted opening his gateway, until he heard the talismanic name of don domingo--then the door nearly flew off the hinges. a relay was, with some delay and trouble, procured, when again in the saddle. the road was stony and tortuous, so that we had thirteen tedious leagues to crawl and stumble over. gladly we threw ourselves from the fagged-out beasts, and sought the residence of a good-natured paisano, owning a large rancho, a large wife, and two large daughters. giving orders to be called in an hour, my spurs were no sooner unclasped than i fell into heavy slumber, on a low bed beneath an image of the virgin. when the time had expired, i was aroused by my faithful guide. one of the girls was seated on the ground, near the fire, with a stone trough and roller before her, busily employed with a batch of unleavened dough, of which, when consistently kneaded, she would catch up a dab, press it between the palms, and as the mass enlarged she began patting and tossing it from hand to hand until it spread into round, thin cakes; they were then laid upon a flat piece of sheet-iron, and browned over the fire; these were _tortillas_: they have a taste like the oaten-cakes in scotland, and are not particularly palatable to a young practitioner. a chicken had also been grilled on sticks, which, with a mixture they called coffee, served me for breakfast. horses were ready in the corral, and saying adios to the fat family, we galloped, away. a bathe in a roadside brook, and two changes of beasts, and at three in the afternoon we toiled slowly over some dry, chalky hills, and looked down upon los pueblos del rincon. it was a very pretty, verdant spot, almost hidden in foliage, and reposing in an angle of wide and extended plateau. having a note to the commandante, i went straight to his quarters: but being a merchant as well as soldier, i was told he could be found at his shop, in the plaza. on going thither he was indulging in siesta, and notwithstanding the urgency of my requests, no one could be found foolhardy enough to disturb his slumbers; nor was i permitted to do so myself. i then trotted across the square, and presented my passports to the alcalde, who having already been mollified by repose, consented to find some brave individual to awaken the sleeping rajah opposite. "_señor_," said i, hat in hand, "very sorry to incommode you, but necessity of the case," and so forth. he continued scowling quite ferociously while buttoning his trowsers, and as he pulled over his suspenders, and arranged them to his satisfaction, demanded what was wanted. "oh, nothing!" said i, "merely an order from general yañes in guadalajara," throwing the missive towards him. it acted as a charm: "_jésu, señor_, excuse me--those rascals never told me you were waiting!" good animals were soon provided; and amid all don manuel garcia's generosity, he was pleased to sell me a bottle of sour wine from the _tienda_; for which we ran his beasts, with a heavy thunder-storm of wind and rain close upon our heels for a long six leagues. the road had led through a rich, level district, covered with forests of fine timber, and abounding in cultivated fields of grain. presently clusters of spires and towers sprang from the plain, and coursing through suburbs of walled gardens, convents, and country dwellings--all gratefully reposing beneath the shade of overhanging trees--we entered the city of leon. it includes, with the environs, a thriving population of near sixty thousand souls; delightfully situated in the heart of one of the most salubrious table-lands of the higher terraces of mexico. the town, though inferior to guadalajara in elegance, can still boast of much manufacturing wealth, with fine churches, spacious squares, and great uniformity in the general construction of the houses, while streams of pure water traverse it in every street, and irrigate the extensive suburbs around. indeed, let a spaniard alone for choosing a pleasant site, near good water; not that these their descendants have any cleanly predilections that way, for, on the contrary--except for the commonest purposes of drinking--their general filthiness of habit induces the belief that they are universally imbued with a hydrophobial aversion thereto. we rode through one of the main avenues of the city, and entered the grand plaza as the great bell of the cathedral was slowly tolling for _oraçion_, and unconsciously we checked the horses, to behold a vast concourse of many thousands silently kneel--with uncovered heads, and faces turned towards the church--whilst all was hushed to perfect stillness. i never was more deeply impressed with an emotion of awe and solemnity. three sides of the large square were lined with _portales_, or arcades; with every archway and open space filled with venders of glass, cigars, cutlery, saddlery, bridlery, and every kind of horse equipment; all, however, destitute of workmanlike finish. the plaza itself was crowded with itinerant traders, screaming in every possible intonation of voice, their different wares. stalls and booths were also doing a large business in _licores_ and fried bits of meat, _frijoles_ and _tortillas_, but what carried away the commercial palm by long odds, were the _dulce_ women. there were a number of these popular saleswomen, squatted beneath huge umbrellas, full ten feet in diameter--surrounded by crowds of buyers--to whom they were dispensing papers of colored sugars, candies, and sweetmeats unceasingly. i passed them again the next morning, when they appeared busy as ever; and i was an eye-witness to a little incident, wherein a centavo's worth of sugar was the cause of a fatal stab. a lepero was purchasing a bit of chocolate--it fell in the dirt, when another, probably thinking it a lawful prize, seized it, and took a large bite; whereupon the lawful owner swung a mass of heavy steel spurs attached to his wrist, jingling with some force, on the offender's head. in a second down dropped the spurs, and serapas were wound round the left arms. with low, deep curses and flashing eyes, their knives gleamed in the light; the spectators cleared a ring, and to work they went. i sprang upon a stone pillar, to be out of harm's way, and thus had a clear view of the fray. their blades were very unequally matched: one was at least eight inches, and the other not half that measurement; but both appeared adepts at the game,--watching each other like wild cats, ready for a spring--moving cautiously to and fro, making feints by the shielded arm, or stamp of the foot, for a minute or two; when, quick as a flash, i saw two rapid passes made by both: blood spirted from an ugly wound in the spur-vender's throat, but at the same moment his short weapon scaled the doom of his antagonist, and he lay stretched upon the ground, as lifeless as the bloody steel that struck him. i glanced at the wounds after the affair had terminated, and found the knife had been plunged twice directly in the region of the heart. there was no effort or attempt made by the beholders to arrest the parties; and the survivor caught up his spurs--a bystander quickly folded a handsome kerchief to his neck--and threading the crowd he was soon out of sight. the corpse was laid upon a liquor-stand, with a delf platter upon the breast. my letter was to apparently the mercantile nabob of leon, don miguel obregon. he had a long range of _tiendas_, with a handsome dwelling filling a large space, facing the square. he received me civilly--had places taken in the diligence, which fortunately left the following morning--and leaving my horse-trappings in his charge, i engaged a jaunty young valet, who looked far more respectable than his new master. he was dressed in blue velvet slashed trowsers, silver buttons thick as peas, embroidered shirt, with a glazed sombrero and silver band. juan conducted me to a meson, which, like all other native inns in the republic of mexico, has two large enclosures, or court yards: the inner ones with stalls for beasts, and the other for bipeds--the only difference is, that the accommodations for the latter animals are closer and the apartments more confined, having as a luxury a chair, and solid brick structures raised a little way from the ground, whereon one may sleep, if he can endure the filth and fleas. this is all the furniture they rejoice in. each lodger has a key to his own quarters, and the main gateway is guarded continually--not, however, sufficiently vigilant as to the society admitted; for the patios are crowded with improper persons, who every few minutes make flying trips around the inn, knocking at the doors; then, droves of beasts coming or going--clattering over the paved yards, mingled with the whistles and shouts of the _arrieros_--are not altogether provocative of repose. at the _caravanserai_ where i lodged, there was a hump-backed ganymede, of the most hideous kind. i have thought since, he would have been a mine of wealth to an enterprising showman; or, in the dark ages, have made an acceptable present to some bold baron. although not more than five feet in height, his thin lucifer-match-like legs, being split up to the hump, gave him the stride of a giant! and what with keen, glittering, beady eyes, and the footfall of a cat, he made my flesh creep whenever he came near me. every body is his own cook and housekeeper in mexican mesons; and old cypriano having procured me a wool mattrass that fairly danced with _pulgas_, and some long tallow links, which we stuck around the walls--having no fears of a conflagration--i despatched juan for the best supper to be found. this amounted to red wine, beans and sausages. however, we made merry, and treated some gay damsels outside to the remains of our bottle. cypriano then extinguished our illumination, and stretching himself on the threshold, covered by his serapa, with a weapon beside him, he left me to repose. it was my first night's rest since leaving san blas, that is, if the pile of bricks and mortar which upheld my frame could reasonably be supposed to afford it. yet the fleas, for once, caused me no sensible annoyance, and i regained my feet at sunrise, in readiness for further journeyings. i was pleased, too, at the prospect of quitting the saddle for a coach, although with good beasts i preferred the former: but to be subjected to the misery of a racker--then a pacer--then a trot or gallop--and by way of change, a horrible combination of all, with rapid travelling, is not only enough to jar one's nerves and aid his digestion, but to give a disinclination for a continuance of it. parting with old cypriano, who gave me some sensible advice about entrusting juan with too much change, i sought the diligence fonda--swallowed a hasty breakfast, and with no heavier baggage than a spare shirt and tooth-brush, took my place. contrary to expectation, and agreeably disappointed, i found the coach a thorough modern-built yankee vehicle--comfortable and strong, with noble teams of five and six horses, that tugged us along quite ten miles the hour. the road was good, and a heavy shower had slaked the dust. the country was again broken into rocky hills and ravines. at two o'clock we reached the richest mining district of mexico, in the neighborhood of guanajuato. within a league of the city proper the route leads through a valley into a deep split gorge, with rugged, arid hills running high up on all sides. passing a number of mining _haciendas_ of great extent, the city, bit by bit, begins to unfold itself. it presents a most extraordinary and picturesque appearance. the houses seem toppling one upon the other--built in zig-zags, up and down sharp corners and defiles--with the spire or towers of some church perched away in mid-heaven, all brightly frescoed--the bases and gorges below being filled in with thick mist--leaving the loftier portions in distinct outline--closely resembling a city suspended in the sky. no scene of the theatre could be painted more singularly novel. it fairly made me giddy, as we came whirling through the outer defiles--turning hither and thither--catching a panoramic view of the town, like a glimpse in a prism, or revolutions of a kaleidoscope--when every moment one might expect the whole fabric thrown into a sparkling succession of bright colors--and what with the continual booming of reports from blastings in the distant mines, i felt quite relieved when the diligence dashed down a little pit of a plaza, and drove through a _porte cocher_ into the court-yard of our fonda. my coach companions were pleasant fellows--there was a padre, two mining agents, a gentlemanly young mexican officer who had been adjutant to valencia, at the battle of churubusco, and beside me sat a gentleman possessing a remarkably handsome face and person, with the loss of his right arm. he was french, mons. ribaud; he had been many years in the country--was intimately associated with the leading chiefs and revolutions of mexico--had fought desperately, bore the marks of honorable wounds, and was a man of much military experience and acknowledged bravery; but latterly, owing to strong personal hostility existing between him and santa anna, he had not been employed in battles of the north or valley of mexico. i found monsieur ribaud delightful in conversation, and he related to me many adventures that had befallen him during his long residence in the republic. on alighting from the coach, i attended him to the commandante's, where my passport was properly considered and countersigned, and an aide-de-camp kindly volunteered to be my guide to the mint of the english directory. here i was presented to the superintendent, mr. jones, an american, from connecticut, who appeared pleased to meet a countryman, and showed me over the establishment. the machinery was of the most primitive kind--the stamping process worked by hand, with a lateral wooden beam acting upon a perpendicular screw; at each end of the beam there was attached a small rope, pulled by four men, with an aperture in the floor sufficiently large to admit a man, just within arm's length of the stamp, who was employed placing smooth coins beneath the dies--one would naturally suppose at the imminent risk of having his finger and thumb nipped off at every half revolution of the lever; but practice renders the operative skilful at the manipulation, and the screw descends, makes the impression, which is as regularly displaced by the smooth dollar and ready fingers of the man below. there were two of these apparatus, and they were only able to coin about thirty thousand pieces in twenty-four hours. the contrivance is surely a bad one, very tedious and expensive. the coiners received seven-eighths of a dollar per thousand, and instances of dishonesty were rarely known. the dies were of english manufacture, but the reason why mexican money presents such a rough and unfinished appearance, is purely owing to their government, who insist upon the impressions being facsimiles of those heretofore coined at their own mints. the smelting process, the rolling, nipping, and milling machines, were all much behind the age, and although the silver mines were producing more than ever before known, and more than, at the period of my visit, could by any possibility be coined, yet the directory have taken no measures to introduce the valuable and beautiful labor-saving improvements now in operation in europe and the united states, where the same work could be accomplished by fewer persons, executed certainly at infinitely less expense, and with far greater facility and despatch. i saw vast piles of pure metal in the vaults, and uncountable masses of dollars. before leaving, i was introduced to mr. bruff, treasurer to the institution, who, with mr. jones, treated me with every attention and civility. our _fonda de la diligencia_ was well kept, commodious and respectable; we sat down to the ordinary as a multitude of sweet-sounding bells were ringing and chiming away with their brazen throats for evening vespers, and after partaking of a frenchified mexican dinner, i sallied out for a walk. my companion knew the town, but in wandering about the steep angular elevations, i never dared to look up without catching hold of a balcony or leaning against a wall, fearful of becoming dizzy, and tumbling down somewhere. entering the _gran sociedad_, we passed through a long suite of bright saloons--nearly suffocated by cigar smoke, or deafened by the incessant clicking of billiard balls--when we came to the monté and loto rooms. here were grouped around a dozen different tables hundreds of players, from the plumed hats and shining lace of officers, to the mean dirty serapas of soldiers and leperos; all, however, earnestly intent marking with grains of corn the numbers on the cards, as they were yelled forth by the loto man, who was seated on a raised platform at one end of the hall, watching the little ivory spheres as they dropped one by one out of a cylindrical box revolving before him. further on were the monteros at work--with heaps of gold and silver piled around--with eager faces, compressed lips, and glittering eyes absorbed in the intense interest of the game--not a word or gesture save the dull monotonous voice of the dealers, like to the tolling of a bell--_juégo señores! se va!_ with eyes that never winked and lids rigid as sheet-iron. the cards were pulled slowly and carefully one from the other, until the game was decided, when took place the rattling chink of coins, with maybe the deep uttered _carajo!_ of some unlucky wight who has lost a last stake; yet even he pursues the easy dignity of his race, rolls and lights a cigarrillo, draws his cloak around him, raises his sombrero gracefully, and with a polite _hasta mañana señores!_ disappears from the table. while moving about the apartments, my comrade pointed out two young men in the mexican uniform of captains, who were deserters from the american army; one had been a lieutenant, named sullivan; both bore the marks of dissipation in unmistakable lines around their faces. we again touched our hats, an invariable sign of courtesy, religiously practised by all civilized beings on entering or leaving a public assemblage, and walked into the street. we took a sort of corkscrew promenade for a little space, when, by some strange flight of footsteps, we found ourselves on the pavement of a triangular platform. like to the frame of a convex mirror, encasing a sheet of blue moonlit sky--lay before, and as it were, trembling and tottering above us--one of the many remarkable and scenic views of guanajuato. full in front against the vaulted sky stood a double towered church, with dome, spires and windows glistening like a transparency, then circling around were bright, gay-colored dwellings, with lights dancing from casement to casement, while each separate cornice, balcony and window, threw back to the silver moon a thousand sparkling reflections--all admirably contrasted with the sombre shadows of the deep gorge below. the scene was truly beautiful, and when within a few feet of our position, the full soft tones of a piano came thrilling through the still night, and a female voice rose high and sweetly, "ah!" cried my friend, "there's a deal to live for yet;" and we retraced our windings to the inn. we were aroused at the first cock-crow, to take our seats in the diligence; and rattling out of the city by the road we came, mounted a steep eminence, when, gaining a flat sandy region, we soon lost sight of guanajuato. during the forenoon we passed through a number of fine populous towns. at irapuato, m. ribaud and his friend left us. in salamanca, where we stopped to bait and change horses, a number of beggars surrounded the coach, and in one i at once detected the pure milesian brogue and visage. he was whining and limping about, with a tattered bat and stick, imploring alms in the most ludicrous attempts at the castilian tongue. "why, pat, you're a deserter," said i, from the top of the vehicle. "who siz that?" quoth he, evidently startled. forgetting his infirmities, clapping on his sombrero, and clenching the stick in readiness for a fight, or flight, as he peered among the crowd; and stepping up to a miserable leper, whose face had been painfully stereotyped into a broad grin, he poked him sharply in the ribs, and roared out, "ye lie, ye baste! i was sick in the hospital, and the gineral tuk me aff in his own carridge." here, pat, i'm your man! "ah' is it there ye are, liftinint? you're a pacock ov a boy! will ye give us a rial?" no! but if you chance to be caught by the yankees, you'll get a rial's worth of "hearty-chokes and caper-sauce," i replied, going through a little pantomime with heels and neck, for his especial benefit. "no, be jasus! thim harney blaggards will niver choke me while the dons is so ginerous." this was the last i saw or heard from pat. we rolled rapidly along all day, in great trepidation concerning robbers, since the same diligence had been plundered for the eight successive days previous. there were four inside, besides my boy and myself. early in the morning, a small, fierce-looking yucatanese was savagely bent upon slaying whoever should cross our path, and, by the way, this don pancho was a perfect specimen of an ambulating armory--having no less than two brace of holster pistols, a revolver, sword, _cuchillo_, and his coat pockets filled with enough ammunition to have resisted a siege. the two last and critical posts were at hand, and together we mounted the box, with weapons in readiness. whilst changing horses for the last time, the stout _cochero_--and a very expert whip he was--evinced some curiosity to know whether we intended shooting _los compadres_--this is polite slang for highwaymen--in case of attack. being satisfied on that point, he declared he would not draw a rein until we again got inside. the warlike yucatanese seconded him, protesting, in his cowardice, that he was solely actuated by fears of compromising the good driver; he accordingly entered the vehicle, hinting that his plan would be, on the first onslaught, to ensconce himself under the body of the coach, and rapidly discharge a broadside at the enemy--a mode of tactics i by no means subscribed to. it convinced me, however, that there was collusion between robbers and _cochero_, to make the most out of their prey, and i unequivocally assured the stout driver, that if he did not lash the beasts upon the first signs of danger, he should go halves with his _compadres_ from the contents of my pistols; moreover, i still persisted in retaining a position on top, in which i was ably seconded by a delicate young french artiste, who volunteered to do his _possible_, if he could be supplied with arms: thereupon we made a forcible seizure from the stock of the brave don pancho. there were but two other passengers, who, not having a dollar in their purses, or a stealable garment on their persons, expressed utter indifference as to the course of events, lit cigars, and crouched beneath the seats. at last the long thong of hide was jerked from the leaders' heads, and away they plunged like demons. we sped on for a league or more, over a smooth broad road, lined with dense foliage of cactus and vines; keeping a wary look-out, and occasionally cautioning the driver, at the risk of his brains, to give his horses the rein, at the first appearance of our expected visitors. indeed i was on the point of congratulating myself upon escaping their clutches altogether, when, as we whirled quickly towards a slight declivity, the progress of the vehicle was necessarily impeded by a few roods of rocky, uneven road; and at the same moment--_voila!_ said my companion, _voila! les voleurs!_ like magic sprang up on either side, behind and ahead, a dozen villanous-looking scoundrels; whilst to the right, upon a gentle knoll, were as many more mounted, holding the animals of their brethren, and calmly regarding the sport before them. i instantly levelled a pistol at a gentleman with a raised carbine in one hand, and sombrero coolly doffed in the other, who was courteously observing to the cochero, _como estámos, don pepe?_--how are we?--he was directly ahead of the leaders, and as my finger sought the trigger, don pepe knocked the barrel up with his whip, and shouted,--"we are good people!" becoming conscious of the folly of contending against such odds, i sank back to await my fate. i noticed one swarthy old villain on horseback, who appeared chief of the gang, and was withal rather uneasy, urging his _hijos_--children--_presto! de priesa! hombre!_--hurry! make haste!--and with good reason too, for hardly had the villains opened the coach-doors, and commenced rifling the gallant pancho, whilst two more had clambered up the wheels, to have an overhaul of the french painter and myself, when a voice cried out--_los dragones! los dragones!_--and the clash of sabres greeted our ears: _los dragones! los dragones!_ cried we all. away hopped the agile _compadres_ from the horses' heads, down jumped others from boot and wheels, off they scampered right and left, and in a few seconds they were seen galloping off in direction of the adjacent hills. the old bandit who directed their movements was delayed a moment behind the bushes in tightening his saddle girth. my fingers itched to have a crack at him; but although, _de los enemigos los menos_--of enemies the fewer the better--be a sage maxim, yet upon reflecting that we might have been favored by the whole retreating troop with a volley from their carbines--and that a coach full of passengers was not a small target--i very sensibly left the weapon beneath the cushions. all this transpired so rapidly that when the green jackets of the troopers became visible a long way up the road, we were entirely relieved of our besiegers. my companion counted twenty-six, but they got absolutely nothing for their trouble; much to my regret, however, for i was in hopes the yucatanese would have been handsomely plucked, instead of only having his coat well nigh rent in tatters! the dragoons were an escort sent to guard a member of the mexican deputies, who was expected by the coach. they answered our purpose quite as well. nothing further occurred, except arresting a couple of suspicious individuals on the road, and attended by the cavalry, we soon arrived at the garita of querétaro. here the brave don pancho had recovered his wits, and wished to play collector for our escort, crying out _afloja la bolsa, señor_,--milk the purse;--but dispensing with his services, i gave the sergeant the only ounce i had; much better pleased to give it voluntarily, even to be devoted to monté, than to have it squeezed out by the ladrons. chapter xxxii. i arrived in querétaro on the th of may--seven and a-half days from san blas. it is an antiquated city, built when rich mines were yielding their treasures in the vicinity, and as a consequence, there is no lack of handsome private edifices, and numbers of splendid churches. it stands nearly seven thousand feet above the sea, and enjoys a most delightful temperature. a noble aqueduct of two miles in length, with arches ninety feet high--spanning a plain of meadow-land--joins a tunnel from the opposite hills, and leads an abundance of excellent water, from ten miles beyond, to the city. it is a solid and enduring structure, built by the munificence of an old spaniard, the marquis de villadil, previous to the revolution. of late years querétaro had lost a large portion of its population; the mines have become nearly exhausted, and it is without manufactures, or inland trade. after the occupation by the american troops of the city of mexico, it became the headquarters of the government, and seat of the general congress; and again all the world had flocked thither, and not a tenantless house or spare nook was to be found. crowds were thronging the wide, well-paved streets, and mounted troops and foot-soldiers, with ear-aching music of cornets, trumpets and drums, were moving in all directions about the city as we entered. i had letters to an hanoverian gentleman--mr. george best--who very hospitably lodged me at his dwelling. from him i learned that the treaty had already passed the chamber of deputies, and only awaited the action of the senate to become a law, and that the united states commissioners had been apprised of it by the minister of foreign relations, sent express, the day of my arrival. i determined to continue my journey, and made all preparations for leaving on the morrow. during the night there arose a terrible crashing thunder-storm, and a large church near us was struck by the _rayo_, shattering the great clock, and "temple and tower came to the ground," with much jingle and confusion. i slept in happy ignorance of the whole affair. i was unavoidably detained until late in the afternoon. with post-horses, and a single guide, we toiled over an elevated sierra at the back of the city, and taking the bridle route, rode like jehus all night; only interrupted by changing animals, every seven or eight leagues. once the post-boy's nag gave up the ghost, which was the cause of an hour's detention to procure another; and again, at a break-neck pace i rode full tilt into a sleeping drove of swine, when my horse floundered on his face, and i was shot like a battering ram into a puddle of mire. with these trifling mishaps, we gave rein and spur, trusting to the beasts' guidance in the dark night--over bad roads, hills, and streams--until day dawned, when tarrying for a bath and bowl of coffee, we again hurried onward. at noon we struck the main route, and i was gratified to learn the commissioners had not passed. without pausing, we arrived within five leagues of mexico, where, from a slight elevation, my guide exclaimed--_señor! mire vd la escolta!_ some distance below us wound a large cavalcade, with four-in-hand coaches, and trains, attended by squadrons of cavalry, magnificently mounted on dark bay horses, with sabres and housings flashing in the sun. i knew it at a glance to be the american escort. saluting the officer leading the advance, and stating my mission from the pacific, i was immediately presented to the ministers, and, much to my own relief, delivered the despatches. there were a large number of officers in the escort; some old friends, too, with whom i had parted in as many different portions of the globe. retracing my steps in company to the village i had just previously left, the cavalcade halted, and i was instructed to proceed, and report myself to the general-in-chief in mexico. once more i galloped away, while the splendid squadrons of dragoons moved slowly along by the opposite road. in two hours' quick riding, we turned short round a bluff promontory, and entered the great valley; then for the first time i saw--far, far beyond--arise, in alpine grandeur, the snowy peaks of popocatepetl and iztaecehuatl, and nearer, the clustering towers that sprang up from the famed city of the aztecs. our course traversed luxuriantly fertile plains, over one of the broad causewayed roads radiating from the city--beautifully shaded by noble trees, with canals of running water on either side--until at last we passed the unguarded garitas, and entered what cortez called _la mas hermosa cosa en el mundo_--the prettiest thing in the world--mexico! trotting through a long, straight street, that appeared interminable, i stopped at a sign of _bains français_, where, alighting and getting quit of the horses, i plunged into a warm bath: then being shampooed with spirits--much to the horror of an attendant, who at first imagined it was my intention to apply the whole bottle inwardly--and feeling much refreshed, i ventured out on a voyage of discovery. the streets were filled with soldiers, and i had no difficulty in finding the quarters of the commander-in-chief, not, however, until becoming sufficiently wearied, wandering about the city in quest of acquaintances, of whose address i had been advised. but they were all abroad, and the rain coming on with darkness, i succeeded in making my way to the residence of general butler. he was alone, and after an hour's conversation, he politely sent an orderly with me to hunt up my friends. we stopped at a coach-stand, but the instant the soldier requested a vehicle, the whole worshipful company of coachmen seized their reins and drove off like magic. the reason of this ballet appeared to be, as the orderly hinted, that they were "done" so frequently by the volunteers! nevertheless, coming suddenly upon one fellow, who, by dint of a dollar beforehand, opened his door and agreed to enter our service for the time being, we drove to the clubs, cafés, sociedads, and other places of public resort, until near midnight, without finding those we were in search of, when my friend, the orderly, suggested a visit to the grand ball in the grand sociedad. in a few minutes i had gained admission, and making a run through the mazes of a contra danza, came plump upon the friends i sought. though tired as possible after a fifty-six leagues ride, i could not resist the fascination of a whirl, and catching a trim little damsel around the waist, off we stamped and pirouetted through the large saloon. accompanying an old friend to his quarters, i soon fell into heavy sleep, and never awoke until the sun was blazing in mid-day. my visit to mexico lasted five days. on the whole, i was not highly impressed with the city. like all other spanish-american built towns, the streets are laid out with great regularity and, excepting near the suburbs, are well paved; the houses are of two stories--solid and imposing--without any attempt at architectural beauty--the shops particularly mean and insignificant for so large a town, and not remarkable for either novelty or cleanliness. the city does not cover a large space proportionate to its inhabitants, but it is seldom you meet with streets so densely crowded. in some quarters, towards evening, when leperos, vagabonds and population generally, left their dens for the open air, the main avenues were so closely packed as to make it a matter of the utmost difficulty to pass--far more people than are seen in the lazzaroni haunts at the same hour in naples, or the great thoroughfares of london. the cathedral in the plaza is a fine building, standing on the site of the ancient aztec teocallis, but not comparable to the meanest of its kind in europe. the outside was very much pock-marked with musket balls. i was more pleased with the palace than any other brick-and-mortar structure that came under my observation. it occupies the eastern face of the square--is of two stories, and painted a light-pink tinge--with immense gateways opening into the plaza, where were two brass guns, gleaming like gold. apart from its historical associations, and having been the scene of many bloody struggles in the oft-repeated internal revolutions of the republic, it has little to recommend it. the council and state chambers face the square; they are decorated with handsome furniture and crimson hangings to correspond; lighted by noble windows, from floor to the lofty ceilings, with heavy stone balconies outside. in the adjoining building is the national museum, where, in a court-yard, surrounded by quantities of feathers, belts, cloaks, and other indian ornaments, was the famous sacrificial stone, that once graced the ancient temple of the aztec monarchs. it is a horizontal convex wheel of granite, curiously carved in hieroglyphics on the perimeter, and having a hole and gutter on top, that received the victim's head and carried off the blood. in the _patio_ of the same edifice, was a huge, ungainly colossal statue in bronze, of philip of spain--not worthy a second glance. undoubtedly i saw mexico at disadvantage; and indeed i took more pleasure in leaning over the stone balustrades of the palace, regarding the different regiments going through their evolutions--particularly the seventh infantry--who impressed me so deeply with their soldierly bearing, and national pride for the hard battles they had fought and gallantly won, as to leave no room for admiration of the curiosities to be seen of a conquered city. indeed mexico was almost entirely americanized. the great fondas and sociedads were all under the dominion of yankees--with yankee ice, yankee drinks, signs, manners, habits, and customs, as if the city had been from time immemorial yankeefied all over, instead of being only occupied a short twelvemonth by the troops. i usually dined in one of these large establishments, and excepting the hall of the eating saloon--from patios to attics--on every angle of the broad flights of stairs, crowded one beside the other, were gaming-tables of every kind and description. such a condensed essence of worldly hell, in all its glaring, disgusting frightfulness, never existed. and there never were lack of players either--no! not one but was closely surrounded by officers and soldiers--blacklegs and villains of all sorts--betting uncommonly high, too--many of the banks having sixty and eighty thousand dollars in gold alone on the tables--and once i saw a common soldier stake and win two hundred ounces at a single bet. other saloons were filled with mexican girls, with music and dancing, attended by every species of vice, all going on unceasingly, day and night together. my friends called these pandemoniums the hells of montezuma. whether such scenes will be of future benefit to the thousands of young men whom the war had called to mexico will be a matter for future speculation. one afternoon, accompanied by a navy friend, we rode to chapultepec. i had already visited the battle-grounds of the valley, but the last presented claims of greater interest. the indian definition of the height is grasshopper hill. it rises very strangely from the heart of the great plain, within half a league of the city--on all sides steep and precipitous, to the elevation of about two hundred feet--and with molino del rey, forms a long parallelogram, completely walled around. the former position is nearest the city, the king's windmill occupying the opposite space, with a noble grove of giant cypresses between the two points. the road runs parallel with the arches of the aqueduct, and terminates at the base of chapultepec. a gateway opens upon a broad causeway, leading with but one angle to the esplanade of the castle. it had been occupied of late years as a military college; and, though strongly manned by artillery and infantry, was still not susceptible of using cannon to advantage, when the assailing parties had approached the base of the hill. the walls and defences were of no great strength, and not capable of resisting round shot. i had the pleasure of being made known to the colonel commanding the fortress, who went with me over the works, and courteously explained the nature of the different battles in the neighborhood. the flat roof of the castle commands a fine and extensive view of the valley, city, and sierras. there were many marks of the bloody business still visible--shot holes, broken balconies, fractured butments, shattered casements, and a precipice near the western angle, from which, when the castle had been stormed and taken, numbers of the mexican garrison had thrown themselves, and were crushed to death. the grand aqueduct draws its aliment at the foot of the hill, from a large, square tank of spring water--so pure, so very pure, that in looking down its almost unfathomable depths, one is apt to mistake the calm, clear fluid for the very air he breathes. it was near this spot where is shown a noble cypress "that circles in the grain five hundred rings of years," beneath whose "giant hole" "the slight she slips of loyal blood" were wont to gambol before the aztec sybarite, montezuma; where "malinche's shade" is still seen to flit amid the grove, seeking her gallant lover, cortez; and where, at a less remote period, yankee linemen strewed the ground with mexican corpses, until the spreading trees were covered to the knees with blood-stained clay. while gazing down the crystal reservoir, we resolved, in emulation of the indian monarch, to test its virtues, and, in a moment, we were plunging and splashing in the icy water. it was, apart from the associations connected with brown indian divinities, the very seventh heaven of a bath; but whether we sullied the pellucid clearness of the aqueduct's tribute, or detracted from the cooling fragrance of the celestial mint-juleps drained in town, we never had leisure to enquire; and indeed without caring a drop about the matter, we mounted our tall steeds, broke branches from the legendary tree, and passing through the kingly forest and meadow beyond, entered the deserted walls of molino del rey. as i have heretofore observed, this building fills the south side of the square--a sort of irregular barrack of two stories, and some eight hundred feet in length. directly fronting this structure, at the distance of a few hundred yards, standing upon a very slight swell of the plain, is what was termed the _casa mata_--a small redoubt--ditched and flanked by trenches, standing angularly in the direction of the windmill. it was the spot where our troops suffered severely, where many undaunted soldiers fell, under a murderous fire of artillery and musketry; and where, after being repulsed, the mexicans left their entrenchments, and put the wounded and dying to death in cold blood. this was the reason why so small a number of prisoners were taken at the storming of chapultepec! leaving molino del rey, we made a short tour of the environs, and returned again by the main paseo! it was the hour when most frequented. there were but few ladies, and they not of the handsomest. lots of queer antique coaches went rumbling along, and vastly neat cabs and stylish barouches whirling past them--while showy, spirited mexican barbs, covered with gold and silver trappings were capering and prancing, five hundred steps to the minute--then an american general and staff would sweep by, elegantly mounted on high-mettled chargers, the small horses of the natives appearing like pigmies in comparison--and again along the grassy roadside paths were little children astride large sheep, completely caparisoned with saddles, housings, and bridles, trotting away quite gaily with their innocent young burthens. we took a glance at all this, and giving spur, rode into the city. chapter xxxiii. the day previous to my departure from mexico, i called at the bureau of postes for a license, and made a report of what i considered collusion betwixt the ladrons and cochero, near querétaro. the office was conducted by mexicans; and the administrador, quite a gentleman,--who excused his servants at some length, by stating that the causes which prevented them from disobeying the orders of the highwaymen were fears of subsequent punishment, in case of escape at the time. moreover, in the present unsettled state of the country, crime had never been so prevalent, in consequence of the few troops at the disposal of the authorities, for the purpose of keeping the roads open, from the hordes of deserters who mostly composed these lawless bands; and even in the immediate vicinity of mexico itself, highway robberies and murder were of daily occurrence. i was not convinced, although silenced, by the plausible courtesy of the administrador. early on the morning of the th of may, i shook hands with my kind army friends, newly capped pistols, and vaulted into the saddle. _estámos listos_--all right--said the post guide, as he succeeded in tightening the circingles, by kicking the beasts under the belly--_vamanos_. pulperias and tiendas were being opened; lepéros taking their morning's dram of _pulqae_; closely veiled faces and sombre gowns were moving to mass; patrols of horse and foot, returning drowsily to barracks; markets thronged; jackasses trumpetting their morning's note of thanksgiving, and the great city awaking again into hum and bustle; while, as the sun was climbing over the white-robed volcanoes that looked down upon the beautiful valley, we passed the long lines of streets and garita, gained the main road, when our pace quickened, and on we hurried along the branching shade of the avenues. pell mell we went through droves of mules, at times driving a group of perverse donkeys right and left with the impetus of a catapult--maybe, one or more over, in a smoke from their own cargoes of charcoal, wood, or vegetables;--and long before the arrieros could right the little brutes on their legs, with _arrés_ and blows--in readiness to treat us with curses--we had swept by in our heedless flight, unmindful of all; my guide scrupulously consoling himself by asserting that a government _extraordinario_ had the the privilege to knock over everybody that intercepted the path. in an hour we had left canals, streams, bridges, causeways, and fertile fields of the lovely _vega_, and turning to the right the bluff hill closed upon the scene--and this was my latest glimpse of mexico. soon leaving the main road, we branched off by narrow bridle paths, and cross cuts of the post route: four relays, and as many fresh guides, carried me to a place called tepetitlan. here the horse purveyor was a woman, who declared, with an ireful voice and gesture, as i drew up before her tenement, "that the blessed virgin might send her to purgatory if she had a horse with a hoof to stand on--that i might report her to the alcalde or the devil, or both, or go there myself, just as i pleased." _que mi importa_?--what do i care? and the director had no right to send three expresses in one week, when she had nothing but the old grey and the mare! _ave maria! pues!_--so help yourself! cracking my whip a little savagely, i crossed the verdant slope of a hill, and dismounted at the gate of a walled garden, having, a dilapidated and venerable habitation within. i was decoyed thither by a brace of buxom damsels--mother and daughter--who, perceiving my distress, despatched an old cripple in search of beasts. the little town had much to recommend it; the houses were very quaint and antiquated, strewn, as they might be, upon the sides of a grassy slope--with a crumbling stone bridge and rapid brawling river coursing at the base. midway between was a large old church, ivy-grown from the ruined towers and belfry to the decayed buttresses and lintels of the doorway; all around the front were broad flights of stone steps, leading from the declivities of the hill, down to a level amphitheatre-like space, which was filled with glorious old trees, creeping vines, bright green grasses, ranges of marble benches beneath the shade, and in the midst, a thread of a rill, plashing about the ruins of what once had been the bowl of a large fountain. besides the picturesque charms of the village, i was recompensed for two hours delay, by the frolicsome señoras, at whose estate i had tarried. they very obligingly prepared me a nice little repast of frijoles--fried eggs and tortillas--assisted me to drink a flask of bordeaux, and entertained me the while with a narrative of how the horrible yankees had entered their great city--for they were cockneys, these ladies, and merely rusticating at their retreat--and their dreadful fears, and the horror they would undergo in case the invasion extended to tepetiltan. my guide, who had been industriously eating a bowl of beans, using an original spoon like to a diminutive scoop--made in a jiffy from his tortillas--and swallowing beans and spoon at every mouthful, thereby putting himself to the trouble of reconstructing another at each succeeding bite--he, i say, informed my good hostesses that i was one of those _demonios yankees_. _ay! dios!_ said the elder; _es possible que vd es gringo?_--can it be true that you are a green-horn? _si amiga_, i responded. then their curiosity was interested to know my destination, religious impressions, and so forth--if i was a _herege_? and being assured that i was a christian catholic, could make the cross, and name more saints than they could, their good humor returned, and we made the old trees merry with laughter, chatting away the hours, seated upon the velvet sward. still there appeared no indication of horses, and when beginning to despair, an individual saluted us, and i noticed him privately telegraphing my guide as to the probable amount the _gringo_ could be cheated! when turning to me, with a resolute air, he exclaimed, _tengo caballos hasta tida a ocha pesos cada uno!_ this was a triple extortion, but, very much to his astonishment, i immediately closed the bargain: upon which, he darted a disappointed look upon his coadjutor, in not having been signalized to charge more, and then drew forth his beasts from behind the garden wall. i had to be cheated, and there was no necessity of losing one's temper. i kissed the ladies--i say it with modest pride--and pursued my route. i came on smoothly and peaceably the remainder of the day and during the night, until towards daybreak, when, to keep my eyes open, i took a refreshing dip in the little river tula. on attempting to mount again, accidentally placing a hand on the horse's rump, he very unceremoniously struck me with both heels on the thigh. i was hurled some yards, and fell senseless. my guide dragged me again to the stream, and i suppose his novel mode of treatment had the happy effect of restoring me to animation; for i partly recovered consciousness with my head beneath the water, in what i thought the last struggles of strangulation. it was meant, however; in kindness; and fortunately having a flask of strong muscal in the _alforgas_, he bathed me, inside and out, to my great relief, although i was obliged to lay on a serapa by the road side, in sharp pain, for two hours. then exchanging my vicious brute with the guide, he assisted me into the saddle again, and we walked quietly into the town of san juan del rio--not, however, without passing a body of sixteen deserters from our own army, in full uniform--who seemed to wish to be more sociable than i judged civil--and i was right glad to hear the last of their reiterated _adios_. at san juan, a large _donceur_ procured magnificent horses for myself and a small urchin, who was sent as post-boy; after being again chafed with spirits, i mounted, and with a swollen, painful leg, left the town. the animal i bestrode moved with a spirited though easy gait, and nothing transpired for some miles. for easier travelling we had taken the main road, which traversed a level, well-cultivated country, hedged on either side with close plantations of the cactus and argave. it was about nine o'clock, when my little companion called attention to three horsemen, who, most unaccountably, had started up within an hundred yards of our rear: _hay mala gente_--they are bad fellows--he softly exclaimed. they were well mounted, and like most other mexicans on the road, had the lower portions of the face bound around with colored handkerchiefs, and notwithstanding the extreme mildness, not to say warmth of the morning, were closely wrapped in serapas. i must confess seeing naught remarkable in all this; for the country was open; apparently well travelled; shortly before, we had passed a large drove of pack mules, and a _hacienda_ was visible in the distance. still i did not neglect the hint of my sharp young guide, and bade him make sail ahead. he needed no second bidding--gave a terrified look back, and struck spurs to his beast. waiting a little while, i, too, increased my speed, but had not made a dozen bounds, when a loud voice called me to halt! what for? said i, without pausing. _su passaporta_, was shouted. pulling a heavy rifle-pistol from the holster, and bringing my horse to a stand, i replied, "here's my passport!" they instantly checked their animals, within twenty yards, threw off serapas, and whilst the individual nearest me was rapidly unrolling a cloth from the lock of his short carbine, believing hostilities to have commenced, i took deliberate aim, and fired. he was sitting diagonally towards me, and the ball, of nearly an ounce in weight, struck him high up the chest; and i venture to assert, upon the well-known virtues of mons. devisme's weapons, on the boulevarde poissonierre, that it went through and through him, i saw his carbine fall to the ground, and heard him exclaim, with both hands pressing the breast, _madre de dios!_ i myself was of the opinion, that the sooner he said his prayers the better, and although i felt a twinge of regret at what had taken place, it was speedily dissipated; for at the same moment there were three or four reports--two of them from persons on foot, inside the hedge; but not hearing even the whistling of the bullets, i judged their aim had been somewhat inaccurate. giving my horse the rein and spur, i went flying along the road. one of the mounted gentlemen alone followed in pursuit, and finding i had the heels of him, i held my nag well in, until i had disengaged the remaining weapon, when, halting suddenly, i cried, _venga mi compadre, para el cambio_--come and take your revenge. the instant of perceiving the movement, he fired a pistol at random, shouted _puñetero!_--wheeled rapidly into the thickets, and was out of sight. he was at too great a distance to make sure of him, or i certainly should have saved the _garotte_ a wrench. the old adage preserved him: _el diablo siempre cuida por los suyos_--the devil regards his darlings. once more giving my willing beast the bit, i never ceased running for five leagues; as for my leg, i had forgotten all about it. overtaking the little guide, we slackened our pace. but the trouble was not ended, for presently the diligence came in sight, and as we approached, what was my surprise and dismay, to observe an individual on the box deliberately level a blunderbuss at my head, and never remove his aim until the coach was lost to view! _bueno!_ thought i; this is diverting--first to shoot a thief, and then be mistaken for one! dismounting at a small pulperia, near an extensive _hacienda_, i bathed my lame limb in muscal, and reloaded the pistol; during which last operation, the patron of the grog-shop, who looked something villanous in the visage, interrogated the boy, who afterwards informed me that the wounded rogue on the black horse was one señor felipe, an intimate friend of the pulperia man, and greatly respected by the community at large. i was not again molested, and experienced no further interruption. three posts carried us to querétaro late in the afternoon. meeting mons. ribaud in the streets, i related the adventure, and he strongly advised me not to make it known, as there was no calculating the number of don felipe's associates, or the annoyance one might suffer from the sharp thrust of a knife, unexpectedly dealt by noon or midnight. subsequently i was introduced to an english gentleman, who had been robbed the day previous in the diligence--who stated, that, as there chanced to be a german mechanic in the coach, the _compadres_ mistook him for a yankee, and very promptly blew his brains out--which little incident made me feel highly gratified that a like interesting episode had not been enacted with mine own. i reported my arrival to the american commissioners, and took quarters with the officers attached to the escort. they entered the city on the th, as the vote upon the treaty was being taken in the mexican senate: very possibly it may have hastened it. the division stood but four in opposition--much excitement prevailed in querétaro, as the measure was decidedly unpopular among all classes of military men; there being no less than twenty-seven hundred officers of the army, besides immense swarms of empleados and every species of government people, awaiting the action of congress. it was universally conceded by liberal-minded persons, that the old army should be completely disbanded, and regenerated on a smaller scale; but still they kept up the cry of war! war! without the slightest means in men, money, or material, to carry it on; merely as a watchword to frown down reform, without the merest hope or wish to do any more fighting or running--idle words and wind, and thus the _gritos_ of _viva la guerra! abajo la paz!_ were yelled in every street and plaza. the battalion of traitors, under the banner of san patricio, who amounted to some hundreds, had very judiciously been withdrawn from the city before the coming of the american troops. strong guards of mexican cavalry were posted throughout the town to prevent any disturbance, since the entrance of the escort had been strenuously opposed by the ministry, but with the exception of a few stones thrown at the commissioners' empty coaches, on driving to the stables, and a corporal's guard of our riflemen charging and clearing a street--for some real or fancied insult--no collision took place. our soldiers were quartered in a large, commodious church on the skirts of the city, and strong guards daily detailed for duty at the residences of their officers. they were a splendid body of cavalry, and deservedly elicited a deal of admiration from natives and foreigners. we were lodged in two spacious houses facing the principal street--the ministers with their numerous attachés in one, and the officers adjoining. each edifice was big enough for a regiment. our receiving and sleeping saloon was all in one, and a fine lofty hall it was, with capital balconies in front. we passed the time very pleasantly. there were nice baths in the vicinity, where we laved before breakfast. we devoted the mornings to walking, or lounging over the wide balconies, where, from dawn till dark, an audience of near a thousand leperos and vagabonds, were thickly seated on the opposite sides of the street, regarding with marked attention our minutest proceedings. within a few minutes walk was a circular promenade, closely planted with undergrowth and towering foliage, where in the afternoons all the world assembled to behold their enemies, _los gringos_. one morning i had the pleasure of accompanying the commanding officer of the escort and his officers on an official visit to the military governor of the town. he entered the saloon, very like harlequin, after we all were seated. he was a little man; and as the doors swung open, in he bounded with open arms, and bowing most gracefully to his visitors. he was not in uniform; and his only military insignia were a number of ribbons and decorations on the breast of his coat. he had received a ball through the cheek at the battle of buena vista, which was carefully concealed beneath a luxuriant growth of whiskers. the conversation was not very general, and remaining but a brief sitting, we made our salaams; upon which i could not resist complimenting the major at his excessive grace whilst outbowing the general, and he assured me that he had even injured the king of naples' spine, who attempted to surpass him in the business! from here we repaired, to attend one of our commissioners on another official visit, to the mexican president and ministers. the reception-room was rather a mean apartment, hung with crimson curtains, and at the upper end was a chair of state, with others ranged around. the president, peña y peña, pleased me more than his advisers, having a mild, benignant expression, and evidently appeared worn down with care and anxiety. anaya was a tall, bony person, with high cheek-bones--denoting his indian origin--and a stolid striped face. rosa, the secretary of war, was short in stature, of swarthy complexion, with full, dark, intelligent eyes. but of all the public characters, who held office under the mexican government, whom i had the opportunity of seeing, there was none who struck me so forcibly as one of the deputies--señor cauto. at the conclusion of the presentation, a number of polite speeches were interchanged, all of which impressed me as being very gracefully done, though destitute of a particle of sincerity, as these empty-headed formalities usually are. but indeed i felt for the pitiable position of those poor mexicans, who were having bitter pills crammed down their throats, though gilded by so many sweet, courteous compliments; and i was glad when the audience terminated, and we had turned our backs on the miserable, cowed-looking sentinel at the gate. the officers of the escort received many civilities from the mexicans, and extended others in return. the governor had obligingly furnished a full colonel, who was an excellent cicerone about the city, who ordered dinners, assisted in eating them, and made himself generally useful: he bore a surprising resemblance to the portraits of don quixote. on one occasion we had a call from a colonel of cavalry: a large, fine-looking fellow, flashing resplendent in gold, from the glittering plates of his fur shako, to the richly-chased scabbard of his sabre, and rowels of his bright spurs;--he must have been worth a fortune as he stood! it was his wish that all the american officers would honor him at a breakfast preparing for the occasion. the invitation was cheerfully accepted, as much, possibly, in compliment to the dashing colonel, as to the fact that our own board was not so well supplied as was altogether palatable and proper. it was quite a grand affair--was the breakfast--laid out in the billiard-saloon of a fonda, having the bar and cooking convenient, as it were, in the same apartment; there were some twenty mexican officers at table, besides ourselves; to say nothing of as many more casual observers, who aided vociferously in drinking all the toasts in succession, and afterwards carefully secreted the glasses--which were limited--in readiness for another toast. the first course consisted simply of a wine-glass of pure cogniac--intended for an appetizer no doubt--but it was probably subversive of the desired effect, for i noticed, immediately afterwards, a number with watery eyes, and great difficulty of articulation. this was followed by a pilaus of rice and chickens, beefsteaks, soups, frijoles, fruit, and viands in the most indiscriminate confusion. bordeaux and sherry circulated freely, and we had speeches, toasts, and sentiments: we drank the memory of every general, living or dead, of both armies, beginning with washington and hidalgo, and gave, i should imagine, upon a rough calculation, as many as eighty or ninety cheers for santa anna, and "skote!" i had the happiness of translating--rather freely i must confess--these different effusions, and also the sense of a long harangue delivered by an advocate, who came late, and for that reason got comfortably _boracho_ at once. our gallant host, in a few disjointed observations, assured us that he was not only brave himself, and loved bravery in others, but that his horse was brave, and had been wounded in divers battles. _yo soy valiente!_ said the fierce colonel, pounding the orders on his capacious breast, and forthwith proclaimed to the audience his intention to pay for everything that anybody could possibly eat or drink for a fortnight to come, and seizing me by the arms, he impressively remarked that i was the most intimate friend he ever had except his wife, and requested me to throw his huge shako up to the ceiling--solely for _amistad_, and good fellowship of the thing--which i instantly did, and made the bearskin and golden plates ring against the rafters. thereupon he called for more wine, and desired all who loved him to break a few glasses, commencing himself with a couple of decanters. at this stage of the action the landlord interfered, and very sensibly cut off the supplies of liquor, which reduced the party, who were "merry in the halls," to consistent behavior; when, embracing one another frequently, horses were ordered for a turn in the alameda. they treated us with the greatest kindness and hospitality, only the manner of doing it was different from our own. all were decorated; and one handsome young officer of the lancers had four emblems of defeated battles. the pasco was thronged by all the élite of querétaro: richly-caparisoned barbs were jingling musically with multitudes of little steel or silver drops attached to the housings; pacing, and fretting, and foaming, full of fire and spirit, but curbed and trained to short steps. then came the well-appointed carriages of the president or governor, drawn by sleek fat mules, and close behind cumbrous masses of timber--hewn wheels and axles lashed together with hides--all hitched by ropes to half a dozen, or more, dirty beasts; the vehicles themselves filled with rare specimens of fat old women, decked off in gay haberdashery, each holding an armful of children, all bent upon a good sight of the north americans. and there were youthful faces too--bright glances from brighter eyes--emulating those aged matrons in curiosity, peering from behind waving fans, within long lines of carriages drawn up at the sides of the promenade. nor had the _gringos_ aught to fear from the investigation, for there were handsome young dragoons and riflemen, attended by their orderlies, mounted on noble chargers with arched necks and shining coats, moving with a high, proud bearing, as if regarding with great contempt the capering graces of their little brethren beside them. after a number of turns around the park--the last at a thundering gallop, with a stride that made the natives shudder--we dashed out of the gates. on our way through the city, one of our mexican friends espied me, and in true californian style, shook his bridle, gave spur, and came leaping like a flash towards us. i was not a novice at the sport, and touching one of the finest horses in the army with my heel, the gallant sorrel sprang forward to greet him. we met in full career, my charger stood like the great pyramid, but the shock rolled my antagonist into the street. i should in courtesy have got down from the saddle to his assistance, but reflecting that without a ladder i never should be able to get on my high steed again, i accordingly remained quiet. however, my friend quickly remounted, and made an earnest attempt to laugh; but as there chanced to be hundreds of spectators, i hardly thought the mirth reached his heart: he may have been somewhat allegro from the good cheer at breakfast, or have eaten something indigestible, yet under either dispensation, it will caution him not to run another joust at a kentucky-bred charger, or he may, as in this instance, get tilted from the saddle. being a sailor, i gained a great reputation for this feat, and gave an entertainment on the strength of it. some days elapsed after the treaty had finally been acted upon in the mexican senate, before the ratifications were exchanged. mexican diplomacy is proverbial, and they chose the most tortuous track to gain the goal. the delay was in some degree attributable, so said the government, to the absence of the official seal, and certain time required to make proper copies and translations; but it was with equal reason surmised, that it arose from causes relative to a division of the first instalment of the indemnity, as a new ministry was to be elected, and the old cared not to assume the odium of signing the peace, without being fortified with the assurances of their successors that they should receive the reward of their services. but here subterfuge was unavailing--the armistice expired on the d of june, and time was flying. at length, after refusing permission for the american cavalry and artillery to take up their line of march by land to the northern frontier, on the night of the th of may, the final signatures were affixed to the treaty, and an hour later, herrera was chosen president of the republic. soon after midnight, with a copy of this document in my jacket, and a promise, from the secretary of war, of an escort for ten leagues, i once more began my journey towards the pacific ocean. chapter xxxiv. it was quite dark on taking my place in the diligence, but getting comfortably seated, i heard one of the passengers inquire if there was to be an escort; so putting my head out of the window, i asked my man juan if he had any idea where the troops were concealed? _no señor, no hay!_--not a soul to be seen. _bueno!_ i consoled myself by being sure of meeting them at the garita--and then we came to the gate, but never a sabre visible! malditos were of no avail. señor rosa, in a multiplicity of _negocios_ had forgotten me! truly, i was scared out of sleep the first few posts, but at last my eyelids gained the day--i sailed away in the land of dreams, and never awoke until reaching salamanca--much refreshed and decidedly happy not to have been rifled by ladrons. it was four o'clock and raining heavily as we drove into the cellar, as it were, of the sky-built city of guanajuato. the water was bounding and leaping down the naked sides of the hills, converting every narrow gully into a boiling torrent, until cascades and rivulets all poured into the deep valley beneath, and went roaring and foaming away, increasing in bulk and impetuosity at every gorge, to feed some rapid river in the plains beyond. i was intently occupied speculating upon the chances whether the diligence would be swept along with other floating matter, or ultimately stranded on dry land; for not long before, one of these same vehicles had been caught in a freshet--carried some distance, drowning three insides. but fortunately, we steered clear of these dangers by flood and coach--with saturated garments--and were soon safely housed in the comfortable fonda. much to my chagrin, the rain prevented a visit to the great mines of la luz. they are said to be the largest in the world, and well worthy of a sight, employing no less than fifteen thousand workmen, including their families. the owner died in querétero the day previous to my departure, bequeathing a fortune of twenty millions of dollars to his heirs. i left guanajuato before daylight--the heavens were dropping tears, although not sufficiently lacrymose to keep the gorges surcharged, and thus we again escaped coach-wreck. we reached leon to a late breakfast--there i exchanged the youthful valet juan for my horse equipments, and having but a single companion in the person of an englishman bound to zacatecas, we continued the route: the cocheros swore there were none other than virtuous people in that vicinity and we had no fears of being molested: the road became rocky and uneven--occasionally no beaten track at all--and had not the coach and our bones been constructed of the toughest materials, i imagine neither could have reached lagos--but we got there at three o'clock, with no more serious mishap than being jolted asleep and awake, at least four or five times in as many minutes. our stopping place was a decent little fonda, administered by an old spaniard. while standing in the gateway i observed two persons, and, from something indescribable in their appearance, immediately accosted them in anglo-saxon: they were north americans, and had resided many years in mexico: they treated me kindly, and extended every assistance in their power. i visited one and saw as pretty a wife and family as any batchelor might envy. the town itself is extremely pretty--a remarkably handsome church faces the plaza--the houses elegantly adorned externally in fanciful frescoes, with designs of flowers, wreaths, gardens, and mythological figures, while a branch of the rio grande rushes swiftly through the heart of the town, fringed with a profusion of verdant foliage. during my visit the river coursed in two separate channels, divided by a narrow strip of pebbly sand, whereon were hundreds of little nude boys and girls, and women nearly so, bathing and washing in the pools along the shores. returning from the walk, we had hardly entered the inn, which looked into the plaza, when some fifty ragamuffins, armed with many varieties of weapons, but principally broken muskets and naked sabres, passed by; they had music, too, an undeniable drum, which never for a moment ceased being thumped and pounded, during all the proceedings that afterwards transpired. there was to be a mexican pronunciamento! the band marched straight to the quartel near the upper end of the square by the church, where, after much shouting, expostulation, bluster, and reading of proclamations, they induced about five and twenty meagre soldiers, who composed the garrison, to declare in favor of the rebellion; then a number of bottles of strong waters circulated briskly, the mob mingled with the fraternised soldiery, possessed themselves of their muskets, broke up into groups, and filled the air with cries of "_abajo los yankees! viva paredes! viva la guerra! viva el padre jarauta!_" the pronunciamento was completed. my friends prepared me for this ebullition by stating it to be part of a combined movement, fomented by paredes, who was at aguas calientes, seven leagues beyond, awaiting the action of guadalajara and the western provinces. it had been my intention to take the route to mazatlan by way of zacatecas and durango, but i was earnestly urged not to attempt it in the present unsettled state of that district, and as the advice was based on sensible grounds--not without a deal of regret--i at once ordered horses for guadalajara. whilst dinner was preparing i took a stroll with the innkeeper, around the plaza to get a glimpse, if possible, of the sanctified assassin padre jarauta. i had heard much of the villain's atrocities, both from the papers and individuals. the young adjutant whom i met in guanajuato related of him, that he boasted of having killed fifty-three americans with his own cuchillo, and though styling himself priest was nothing but a student who had taken to arms "con amore." to say the least of this good padre, he possessed unparalleled courage and audacity, had done immense mischief to small corps and trains of our army, and he was, in fact, the boldest, bloodiest guerrilla chief in all mexico. i was gratified for my exertions, and passed twice beside him; he was striking in expression, perhaps thirty years old, with fine fierce dark eyes, and little beard: he was about the middle height, dressed in a round jacket and cloak, with a short straight sword on his hip. he appeared absorbed with great events, regarding the sky and other celestial bodies, never deigning to honor me with a glance. one of my countrymen dined with me, and we had an excellent repast, but it was most unseasonably interrupted by the entrance of the host, who after a short consultation with my friend, informed me that the good padre jarauta had learned the arrival of an american officer, and had expressed a determination to make an _ejemplo_ of him in the square! i reposed full faith in his pious regard, and did not doubt for an instant that he would be at all loth in executing his virtuous designs--and as for my passport and papers, they might possibly have given additional zest to his holy orders, and been considered just long enough to cock half a dozen carbines, and--_fuego!_ however, there was no time to deliberate, and but one course to avoid the dilemma--_gracios a dios_--the horses were fortunately in the corral of the meson, and in a very few seconds the guide had clasped on my spurs, and i jumped into the saddle. with warmest thanks to my friends, and a trifle, more solid, to the true biscayno for his good offices, in the darkness, the animals were led down a stone flight of steps, through some outbuildings, where, gaining a back street, we made the dust whirl in clouds around us, as we gave lash and steel to the beasts. at early dawn we halted at a place called encarnacion for change of horses, and losing no time, mounted and struck a bypath to shorten the distance. at sunrise we observed a group of travellers ahead, and pushed on to overtake them. perceiving, however, a wish to avoid us, and warlike demonstrations begun by two individuals unslinging carbines in the rear, i sent the guide in advance to relieve their anxiety; they proved to be the family of the commandant of lagos, flying bag and baggage to a more safe retreat; there were two ladies in the party, and we remained in company for some miles: they had lost a valise in their flight, and, on parting, i was under the belief that they regarded me as the lucky finder thereof. further on we passed a remarkable elevation called _la mesa_, a table hill of a perfect oval, rising like the palisades of hudson river; some three hundred feet, with a dead flat surface, and but one gateway-like aperture leading to the summit--making altogether a most regular and inaccessible natural fortress. my guide assured me, there was a deep, clear lake on top, and many acres of good soil. the sun was getting high up, when we drew bridles at a fork of the road, beneath a wide-spreading tree, and in fact the only one to be seen. here, squatted on a stone, was a jolly old gentleman, with a great earthen jar of pulque, and platter filled with the same sour fermentation, on the grass before him; the guide, as in honor bound, swallowed a centavo's worth, but i was contented with a little diluted museal, which is far more palatable, and has much the taste of scotch whiskey. both preparations are made from the same species of plant--the american argave--and to see the immense extent of land under cultivation--the great droves of beasts carrying the juice to market, one might readily believe enough was made to keep the whole mexican nation in one continued state of intoxication. the keeper of the small ambulating pulperia informed us that a pronunciamento had taken place that very morning at san juan de lagos, and that large bands of armed men had entered the town at daylight. padre jarauta had destroyed my appetite the night previous, and this news equally perplexed me--for there was but one route directly through the town, and i had no inclination to run a muck; so following the advice of my guide josé maria, to lay by a few hours, and learn the state of affairs from some one passing along the road, we descended a small ravine entirely sheltered from view, where the horses were unsaddled, and a temporary screen made with the serapas, to shield us from the noontide sun. here i stretched myself upon the grass, and before many minutes elapsed had cut buttons and straps from my jacket: the uniform i wore was generally taken for that of a mexican cavalry officer, but in this instance i was resolved to make assurance doubly sure, and not be mistaken for a gringo: and accordingly hurled buttons and lace far down the gully. two hours past meridian i was awakened by josé, who reported having heard firing in the town, and that he had learned from a paisano, in hot haste from lagos, that señor jarauta, after making a forcible razzia of all animals to be found, marched with over a hundred compatriots for aguas calientes: whether he put himself to any inconvenience or not in regard to my movements, i did not hear or care, so true is the adage, "sacabo il pericolo, adio il santo." all i ever learned of his after history, was that a month later he was made prisoner by the troops of general bustamente, and immediately shot. thus being relieved of the good father, i gathered courage to proceed, and mounting, we gave spur for san juan de lagos; we had but a league's travel, and i was soon put out of suspense, for on descending a steep hill, which led down to the town, we encountered a number of arrieros, who gave the pleasing intelligence, that the place had declared in favor of the existing government, and the towns people had driven the agents of paredes outside, and thus we rode to a meson without molestation. i noticed about eighty citizen soldiers drawn up in front of the church, listening to the harangue of a clerical gentleman, attired in a stove-pipe hat and flowing gown. there was not a _remuda_--change--to be had for love or money in san juan de lagos; all the horses having been secured and carried into the country during the pronunciamentos; after a bowl of frijoles and tortillas, we were obliged to remount our wearied beasts, and toil slowly onward. the same evening we reached the town of san miguel, when another of these infernal pronunciamentos was brewing, but a polite old gentleman procured me a relay, and away we rattled over a dry undulating champaigne country to mirondillo, where finding another remuda, and leaving cerro gordo on the left, the full moon lighted us safely into tepetitlan. here i proposed tarrying, but the meson was so filthy and detestable--so full of fleas and uncomfortable, that wearied as i was, after vainly trying to sleep on a table, i ordered fresh horses, and departed at midnight. in two hours, becoming too sleepy to keep the saddle, notwithstanding josé made his _macarte_ fast to my steed's neck and towed us some distance, we fell in with an encampment of arrieros and their mules, who, after a strict sance, very kindly allowed us to bivouac near their fires. in no other part of the world do i believe there can be found such a worthy, brave, hardworking, and industrious class of persons as the arrieros of mexico; they are proverbial for honesty, and there is scarcely an instance known where they have proved unfaithful; trusted for weeks and months with the most valuable cargoes, from silks to gold, in a country, too, where crime in its worst forms is rife, and where detection is vain, they still appear a distinct race from their thievish countrymen, and preserve an integrity seldom met with. at the first blush of morn, the encampment was astir. calling and whistling to the mules, the sagacious brutes came regularly to the spot where their pack was deposited, were in turn loaded, and sent on after the bell mules in advance. meanwhile, the drivers prepared a hasty breakfast, which was hastily eaten--the cigarillo lighted, and off they trotted after their beasts. a good day's journey is six leagues--resting during the heat of the day. i stood gazing at them until they disappeared in the dim light of morning; then, by the embers of their fires, my guide boiled a small measure of coffee in a broken earthen pot found near by, when we put foot in stirrup, and came on in the opposite direction. we rode rapidly to puente calderon, a small village at the foot of an abrupt elevation, with a noisy torrent dashing its turbid waters against the stone arches of the bridge. it was the spot where was fought one of the bloodiest revolutionary battles between the republican and royalist forces. dismounting at a rude dwelling fronting the shelving, rocky street, with _meson de la patria_ chalked over the entrance, we entered the patio, where was standing a huge, ungainly vehicle--a kind of family van, drawn by nine stout mules--while beneath the portals of the inn-yard were half a dozen juveniles and a couple of staid, portly parents. _para servir ustedes_, quoth i, _pasé vd bien_, murmured the party; _vamonos almorzar!_ and accordingly i sat down on a saddle and partook of their hospitality. the family were destined to guadalajara from a two months sojourn on their plantations, and were as ignorant of what was going on in the world as a fish under water. indeed, in this particular, they were not singular examples; and the ignorance of the peasantry was almost incredible. i frequently met individuals in the western provinces, who, though they had heard of the war, had not the slightest conception with whom--_unos gringos_--some foreigners, they would say--and as for the simple information regarding short distances from place to place, or the nature of the road, and such trifling matters, it defied the most acute cross-examinations. the conversation at our breakfast ran upon the war, and revolutions of the country. "and where are you from, señor?" asked the old lady, as she chucked a hot tortilla towards me. "from mexico, and the peace is declared!" _valgame dios!_--is it possible! exclaimed they all in a breath; "and will those horrible yankees ever leave the city?" _si! si!_ "but, señor, we are wondering who you are?" oh! i'm one of those demonios yankees! _jésu maria! dispense mi amigo!_ screamed the señora. the old gentleman offered his apologies, and we all laughed heartily; but still i remarked the younger shoots of the family observing me with furtive glances, as if i might have been a wild animal lately uncaged. my hunger was soon appeased, and fresh horses carried us to puente grande. the river was much swollen and flowing over its rocky bed with turgid violence. before crossing, i turned up the stream, selected a clean grassy bank, threw off my clothes, and plunged in. it afforded me great relief, in its icy coldness, for my leg was still painful with the hoof-prints of the vicious brute near san juan del rio. my ablutions seemed to create much surprise and amusement to a group of brown damsels washing on a green islet near by, who, on swimming towards them, changed their tune and retreated to the willowy thickets. my guide, josé maria, was vastly horrified and shocked, not so much at the conduct of the girls, as my own regardlessness of life and health, in having the temerity to lave in cold water. _se hace daño_--be the death of you--he continually repeated, and related many direful incidents where persons had contracted diseases thereby, and had lived but a very few minutes after coming out; perceiving that i was not affected to that extent, he at last discovered me to be a _gringo_, who could endure anything. we again mounted--changed horses in the town--were exempted from paying the rial toll at the bridge, on account of being an _extraordinario del gobierno_--ate a melon--purchased a new whip with a lash like the thongs of a knout, and thence proceeded towards guadalajara. half way, we overtook two ladies with servants, mounted on fast mules, and we accompanied them to the city. as we rode through the suburban town of san juan--where is the residence of the bishop of jalisco, with many fine houses and beautiful gardens, the rain began to fall, and by the time we reached the long paseo, it was descending in cataracts, with thunder and lightning resounding and flashing around us. i halted for shelter under the close-leafed protection of the trees that fringed the promenade; but no arguments could induce my lady companions to do the same, and they were drenched with a torrent of waters, while standing in the middle of the road, fearing a shock of the _rayo_, beneath the foliage. i was the first to bring confirmed intelligence of the peace, to guadalajara. the news of its passage through the mexican congress had already been received, and had caused some demonstrations in one of the regiments, instigated by agents of paredes: more was anticipated upon the confirmation of the treaty, but nothing of importance occurred. there existed, as in querétaro, a violent party among the military, opposed to the new government under herrera. all moderate and reflecting _ciudadanos_ were for peace: it was the policy of the state of jalisco, though as patriotic as any. it was the wealthiest district of the whole republic, and had much to lose and naught to gain, should the waves of invasion have rolled towards the pacific. they had drawn a sage moral from the misfortunes of the neighboring provinces: they had beheld the largest and best appointed army mexico ever put in the field, vanquished at buena vista; they had seen a compact body of six thousand troops cleave their way through six times that force into the garitas of the capital, and they felt convinced that even half that veteran band of north americans could sweep over the grand plateau, and as easily conquer the fair city of guadalajara. at the time of my arrival, the state government felt assured of support, and besides having means at hand to prevent any insurrection, had dispatched a battalion of three hundred soldiers, with two pieces of artillery, to oppose paredes. nevertheless, preparations had been made to guard against any attempt nearer home, and on passing through a private apartment of an official residence, i observed a number of persons busily employed making ball-cartridges, but, as usual, they were too greatly disproportioned with powder, and as a consequence the mexicans generally overshoot the mark. chapter xxxv. i was duly installed in my former lodgings at the french fonda, and in the afternoon, being a holiday, went to the plaza de toros. the arena was spacious, but without the wooden screens within the circle to protect the tauridors and bandilleros, as is seen in the bull-rings of old spain. the amphitheatre was well arranged, and capable of containing many thousands, with a separate enclosure, at a more elevated stand, filled with troops, with fixed bayonets, and commanding a good sweep around the audience. the exhibition was more of a cow-combat than an old-fashioned bull-fight; they are miserable, disgusting scenes at best, and the stranger ever takes sides with the tortured beasts against their brutal tormentors. here the horns were sawed partly off, or blunted with leaden beads; in other respects the affair was conducted as elsewhere. as the military governor, yañes, appeared beneath his crimson canopy, the music ceased; the gayly-dressed bands of picadores, bandilleros, tauridors, on foot and horse, headed by the matador, with long toledo in his hands, bowed reverently before the general and judges; then crossing themselves, a pause ensued; the dulce men, and cigar venders, old beldames with chairs, and boys with _sombra_--shade tickets--held their peace. the arena was cleared of all but the mounted prickers and scarfmen; a bugle sounded, low, heavy panels within the barricade of the circus swung back, and in rushed the bulls. it is always to me the finest sight, when the fierce beast--before becoming blinded with rage--lightly stirs the ground bark with his fore foot, moves his head slowly from side to side--the eyes flaming in a sparkle of lambent jet--when with breath short and quick, with a wary glance around, he selects--poor fool--some light, fluttering object, instead of the arms that wave it, gives one deep angry bellow, and dashes forward. then begin the leaping antics of his active enemies: they tease him to insanity, fire-work him, until the sulphurous flames blister his tough hide; hood him, prick him, stab him--he is killed; and the two white steeds, decorated with streaming red ribbons, bound in, and the slaughtered beast, with glassy eyes and lolling tongue, is dragged out. sometimes, though rarely, the animal is terrified by his novel position, and no coaxing will make him show fight; then boys and vagabonds generally are permitted to leap the barricades, and chase the scared brute about the circus, with shouts and hisses, when he is driven out to feed the dogs. then there are cheering _gritos_ for particularly dextrous picadors, who, with long poles, and a short spike at the end, afoot, withstand the lunge of the bull, until the hide in the terrible exertion is nearly entirely loosened from the frame; or when the daring matador, with a single vigorous plunge, drives the long blade to the very hilt, through a bloody sheath, into the tired beast. again at _longo intervallo_, a few coins are flung into the circle, to reward the favored gladiators. all this, with plenty of dust, oceans of orchata, and a fair show of lovely faces, made up the bull fight. later in the evening i attended the kind padre to the _comedia_. the theatre was small, prettily painted, gilded, carved, and particularly well-stocked with fleas. the audience was highly respectable, and the female portion still preserved my appreciation of their beauty on the former visit--there was less youth, but an equal degree of matronly comeliness. unlike the saffron-hued damsels generally seen throughout mexico, these doñas had rounded forms, rosy complexions, and such soft, languid eyes, and hair so smoothly banded or braided, that i often felt tempted to pass my hand over the satin tresses of a lovely woman seated before me. the play was a most horrible tragedy--all about moors, guzmans and granada. the actors magnificently dressed, heaving unnecessarily long respirations at every word--in fact a gasping species of elocution. the prompter, too, within his covered trap behind the foot-lights, wheezed like one far gone in the asthma, with a voice louder than the performers. the audience puffed paper cigars--men, women and children--until the smoke became so dense, that nothing was perceptible on the stage, save alone the shining armor that encased the legs of a moor. the curtain fell at midnight; and after an hour passed in a brilliant café, sipping ices and punch, i returned to mine inn. it was with unfeigned regret i parted with the gentlemen who had been civil to me at guadalajara--particularly señor llamas and the excellent padre--may they abide _muchos años_--in health and prosperity in their beautiful city. on the th of june, escorted by my former antique guide, cypriano, who quite reminded me of a knight of the dark ages, with lance and pennon, we got in the saddle, at nine by the evening clock, and pursued our path through the silent lanes and suburbs of the city. without the moon to light our footsteps, we were four weary hours at a snail's pace in reaching the porton, or garita, when, after much parleying from house-tops and gratings, the lazy, sleepy sentinels were persuaded to let down the chains, that barred the gateway, and we passed out upon the main road. the officer on guard informed us that the troops had, some weeks before, surprised and captured a number of the ladrons, near tequilla, and sixteen had already been executed, with a choice reserve of nine more that were to be shot on the morrow; all of which impressed me as extremely wise and judicious measures. we went jogging along, having no change of beasts, for i had bought a stout spotted roadster, called by the natives _pinto_--painted--but by me circo, because of his resemblance to those variegated quadrupeds commonly exhibited in the olympic sports of north america. towards daylight i took a nap beside a rivulet, and with the sun arose, and had a delicious dip in the pure water--all the reasoning powers of my ancient mozo to the contrary. and here i feel, in gratitude, called upon to say a feeble word in praise of mexican guides. they, indeed, should be classed with _arrieros_! their attentions are unceasing. i found them honest, obliging, good-tempered, and possessing a certain share of local and traditionary intelligence. they appeared to exist without sleep, too; for whenever i laid down, i pointed to sun or stars, as a celestial clock, to mark the hours and true to the dial--was always awakened at the proper time, finding all ready for mounting, even to the spurs attached to my feet. _ha dornudo vd bien? quiere vd tantito de pan? una capita de licor, pues!_ says your guide, producing the morsel of bread or wine from the pouches of the saddle; but if neither be required, he will roll, and light you a cigarillo, and if he sees you enjoying its soothing flavor, he throws up his hand and exclaims, '_ay! mi alma! está bueno!_ i've hit your fancy now;' and continues the route with renewed good humor, apparently amply happy that he has effected something to please you. such a one was old cypriano; besides having a fund of marvellous legends--upon every stone cross or mountain pass in mexico--that very much relieved the occasional monotony and fatigue of the journey. the ride was dreadfully oppressive with heat and dust, besides fear of robbers, which, after a by-no-means hearty breakfast on a water-melon i had no stomach for. an hour past noon we drew up near the environs of tequilla, and remained sleeping by the side of the stream, until the declining sun warned us to be off. the horses and myself had been washed and fed, and with a cooler atmosphere, we toiled over bad roads, hilly, rocky and dusty, when soon after nightfall the twinkling lights of madelena were visible, and we trotted into the meson. the neighborhood had become quiet since my departure; the compadres dispersed, and the paisanos had thrown aside the weapons they dared not use. it was too late for a call upon the alcalde, and my venerable guide ordered supper. the patron of the inn was not an obliging person--not anxious to add to the comforts of his guests. he had a pair of daughters flitting about the yard in loose undress, who busied themselves for an hour in the attempt to boil eggs to my liking; but after the fifteenth trial, some as hard as brickbats, and others hardly warmed, the effort was relinquished, and i contented myself with the national dish of frijoles, which is ever an excellent preparation, and invariably well cooked. meanwhile, the surly patron kept a lynx-eyed supervision upon the erratic damsels; and they never came near the bench, laid for our supper, without he would snatch the dish from their fair hands, and, with a rough push, cry "_basta! basta! muchacha! anda!_ be off with you." old cypriano lost patience at last; and seizing his lance, swore by the holy virgin if he did not know how to treat a cavallero, who spent his cash like a king, he'd teach him--he would! these threats had the desired effect; and calling off his handmaidens, he sent them to the _cocina_, sat down before the door, and left us in peace. i remained at the meson until daylight, reclining on a large rough-built settee in the patio, with no other covering than a comfortable serapa between my body and a canopy of stars: certainly preferable to the close, damp holes within the building, where fleas and vermin parade in battalions on the look-out for wayworn travellers. moreover, nothing can exceed the delicious atmosphere of the nights, in the _tierra templada_ of mexico, soft, yet invigorating--clear, calm and refreshing. i speak, of course, of the dry season--with the rains one must seek a more modern habitation. my venerable soldier had the _pinto_, grinding his last mouthful of grain beside me, ready for a start. i arose, as the sailors say, wide awake as a black fish, and swung into the saddle. _vayase con dios_--go to heaven, or the other place, just as the intonation implies--said the grum inn keeper. _hasta nunca_--hope never to see your ugly phiz again--retorted cypriano, as he gripingly counted out the rials for our entertainment; i threw something more weighty to the _muchachas_, who repaid me with kindly wishes. with the fresh air of morning we left madelena, and kept for some miles along the borders of a broad, shallow lake, of the same name, until the road diverged to the right, when we were obliged to forsake the good ground, and level country, for tedious labor, over mule paths and rugged mountains. at muchatilti we passed some ninety soldiers, horse and foot, barefoot, conveying a pack of rascally-looking thieves, and a small field piece. they were attended by twice this number of women and children, who at times relieved their liege lords of muskets or equipments, with the weight of camp utensils on their heads. on questioning a sergeant belonging to the detachment, he told me they generally marched four leagues a day, and in many places were obliged to throw the gun from its carriage, and transport each part separately for leagues at a time. this person also assured me, that he had served at the battle of buena vista, and with his company of infantry had marched twenty-eight leagues in forty-eight hours, with but a pint of parched indian corn, and a quart of water per man! so far as marching, and powers of enduring privation go, i presume the mexicans can do as much, if not more, than other nations. they are not deficient in courage either, when well officered and led--some of their bloody internal struggles attest it--but with us they proved sadly deficient in both. i have but little knowledge of what constitutes the proper field for extended military operations; but from a few indifferent ideas picked up in other countries, as well as in this trip through mexico, i think i may hazard the belief that in the line of march from guadalajara towards the pacific, there are seldom met with positions adapted to the operations of large bodies of troops, and save in the vicinity of large towns, an army of any magnitude would find difficulty in procuring subsistence; for the country is thinly populated, and but little land under cultivation, and though i should judge not totally impassible for artillery, it certainly seems an impracticable route for a numerous train, or heavy guns. making no longer stay at the brightly-stained inn of muchatilti than was requisite to swallow a cup of coffee, and thrash a filthy indian for being caught _flagrante delictu_--stealing a bit of silver from my bridle--we traversed the table-land beyond, and began zigzaging through defiles of mountains on the approach to the plan de barrancas. the sky became overcast--thunder was growling angrily in the distance, when we overtook a drove of mules, the arrieros urging them at speed down a valley to escape the fury of the impending storm. descending to the base of a gorge, we crossed the rocky bed of a rippling brook, and removing the saddles from our horses, led them above, and secured them to a tree, whilst we ascended still higher, and sought refuge under the lee of a great shelving crag that had once formed part of the stupendous wall, five thousand feet above us. rain began to fall in large heavy drops, lightning to glare, and thunder came nearer. the air was perfectly still; and the sharp whistles and cries of the drivers echoed and re-echoed from side to side of the chasm, as they hurried their beasts across the stream. by-and-by a strong gust of wind went rushing overhead, the thunder came crashing yet closer, the dark slate-colored clouds poured down in torrents, and lightning forked, flashing and vivid, made the narrow valley tremulous with noise and fire. the rain descended in unbroken sheets, and in an inconceivably short space of time, the bubbling brook had become a boiling torrent, swelling and leaping from rock to rock, until, at last, joining in the uproar of rain, wind, flame and thunder, the rocks themselves were loosened, and came rumbling and crashing down the steep gorges, and were swept away in the whirlpool of foaming waters. he who has never beheld a quickly-raised storm amid wild mountain passes, and the amazing power of the elements, can have but a vague idea of nature when clothed in all her angry grandeur and sublimity. the _nubarrada_ was soon over, but the whole face of the valley was changed: trees and undergrowth had been torn up by the roots or washed down--deep fissures had been cut wherever the red clayey soil gave play to the impetuous currents--masses of basaltic granite had been dislodged, thrown from their foundations, hurled some distance below, and either served to block up some open channel, or enlarge others; and the point where the path crossed the stream had been burrowed out into a deep, raging pool, which would in future be impassible. one of the poor mules belonging to the drove, with his cargo of sugar, had been caught and carried away in the contending water; the arrieros cursed like infidels, and wickedly declared they had long before wished a like fate might befall him for his stupidity. as the thunder went muttering to the adjacent mountains, and the flood was still deluging our devoted heads, i yelled into the ear of cypriano, who all the while kept his cigarillo alight, that it was _una cosa rica_--a fine display--_tiene ud rason_--"there's sense in that," said the old man, "but wouldn't you rather have a dry serapa and calconcillos?" so forthwith he wrung the moisture from my garments, and we prepared the horses for service. leading them by a dangerous foothold down the course of the stream, we came to an enlarged basin, and halted on a smooth belt of rocks. here the sun shown again warm and cheerily--we dried our reeking raiment, and i amused myself the while under a light cascade of turbid water. at midday we had toiled slowly up the steep sides of the barrancas, and four hours later, left the last link of the sierra, and drew bridles at istlan. having no further need of the post administrador, or the services of his _vivo_ mule, i sought the public meson. here were seated under the portals a select group of politicians, listening to, and commenting upon an article in an old newspaper, read with much emphasis by a dirty jacketless person, with a head so large, and buried so deeply between his shoulders, as to bear a close resemblance to a turtle. _señor_, said he, as i dismounted, rising with a graceful gesture, "the good patron of the inn is away; the caballero who addresses you is the well known _licenciado_ don augustin jarano--_criado de vd_: what can be done for you? that is a noble animal you bestride; he is tired! beat out--dead! you will profit by an exchange--my friend, here," winking to one of his auditors, "has an angel of a beast--_tienes sobre pasos_--has a gait like a lady--paces! and has refused two ounces--_eh! no! quarante douros_--forty hard dollars!" _buéno_, i replied, much to the horror of my guide, who began to think the sharp advocate was going to become the owner of the pinto. after a world of tugging and struggling a miserable spavined nag was pulled from a corral to the patio, and secured to a post. waiting until the praises of this _muy bueno cavallo_--this fine steed--had been fully sounded, i made them a prompt offer of six rials for him as he stood!--when, finding the gringo was not to be so easily jockeyed, they declared he was not worth half the money, and we became warm friends at once. i tarried an hour, discussing the right of church taxation; when cypriano, having had a fowl grilled, a bowl of frijoles, bread, and country wine, snugly stowed in the _alforgas_, i informed my acute acquaintances that i was bound to guadalajara, bid them adios, and after skirting the pretty town, turned to the opposite direction. it is always advisable in mexico while travelling, to avoid if possible public places, and keep the destination secret; for the _compadres_--highwaymen--are often in collusion with people about mesons and derive information of the guests from those sources. striking a path on the banks of a pretty stream, we shortly found a secluded nook, beneath a scrub olive-tree, where the beasts were bathed, fed, and picketted in the rich grasses, when we did much the same, and took a comfortable siesta beside them. towards evening resuming the journey, a few leagues carried us to aguacatlan; to preserve the strength of our animals for a thirty leagues travel on the morrow, i concluded to remain until daylight. the spacious fonda was filled with guests, and i made the acquaintance of an agreeable young irishman, from tepic. in an adjoining room there was a large family of señoritas, convoyed by a venerable matron and servants. they were very chatty and amiable while sitting in the patio in front of their domicile; so much so, in fact, that the señora became suspicious, and, as my milesian companion remarked, "_corral'd_ the donçellas too early in the evening." the duenna had no compassion for bachelors, and we saw no more of their fluttering white dresses and ribosas; though we could hear them frolicking and shouting in great glee, which was very provoking, as windows there were none, and spanish bolts and portals being famous for strength and solidity, we were obliged to relinquish any further hope of their charming society. it was getting late, old cypriano was sitting at my door, enveloped in a serapa, giving no signs of life, save the occasional reluming of the cigarillo, like a dim glow-worm, betwixt his teeth. the honest fellow needed rest, and saying _buénos noches_ i threw myself upon the brick bedstead, with saddle for pillow, and was soon asleep. before sunset on the following afternoon, my gallant little beast galloped bravely into tepic, and i was again made quite at home with mr. bissell. a vessel was awaiting me at san blas, but the passage being a tedious one to mazatlan by sea, i concluded to pursue the land route along the coast to the latter port, on the following night, and accordingly called on general aristi, who endorsed my passport, and i then took a post license. i was sorry to discharge my faithful old guide, cypriano, but a liberal donation, and present of the _pinto_ served to lessen our mutual grief. he still hung about the court-yard, jealous of the attentions shown me by others, and buckling on my spurs, affectionately pressed my legs at parting. i rode about tepic, with a young englishman, who was handsome enough to drive all the women in town distracted. the city has not the air of stir and bustle, like other places of note in the interior, nor is it so well built; it has charms, however, in quietude, in verdant fields, the fertility of its lovely plain, its swift streams, long lines of gardens, all looking as if calmly cradled in the arms of the giant sierras that encircle it. the rainy season was approaching, and whilst we were bathing in the little rush and mat-built cabins by the river, the first shower fell--there were numbers of ladies and children beneath the leafy frames, which only served for shelter a moment, and at last, in desperation, groups of them sallied out for a run to the town; the effort was ineffectual, the gusts of wind and rain drove them back, with light dresses completely saturated, and clinging to round pretty limbs only more exposed in efforts to conceal them. our gallant offers of assistance were all in vain, they only screamed and laughed the louder the nearer we advanced; thus on the wet grass they reclined, and remained in the heavy rains until servants returned with shawls and wrappers, when, with many a light laugh and flashing glance, they ran across the plain. although prepared to leave tepic at midnight, the rain was violent and darkness too black to begin the journey. towards daylight, with guide and postboy, and closely buttoned _armas_, of skin leggings, with faces turned from the tempest, we made the attempt. we had not proceeded much beyond the city, when the roads became so exceedingly slippery over a clayey soil, and our progress so tedious and dangerous, that we dismounted at a rancho, and were compelled to remain until near noon. by this time the heaviest clouds had apparently squeezed themselves dry, and under light droppings we again pushed on and commenced descending very gradually from the grand plateau towards the tierra caliente below. this i did not accomplish without having my steed to fall with me, but luckily escaped injury, the saddle bearing the brunt of the shock, and a broken stirrup saving my leg and foot from a like mishap. we reached the low lands within eight leagues of san blas, and found a disagreeable contrast in the dry heat, from the salubrious atmosphere above. changing horses and rapid riding brought us to the main trunk of the rio grande, when embarking with our saddles and geer, in broad canoes, we were ferried to the opposite bank at santiago. the river is wide, rapid and muddy. small houses of rushes extended from the banks, and hundreds of people were washing or bathing within them. the town appeared to have been visited with a heavy shower of water-melons; i had never before seen such quantities. in front of every house there were pyramids five feet high, like racks of shot in an ordnance yard; every man, woman and child had their heads immersed to the ears in huge fragments; even cattle, swine and dogs were at work, and the river, too, was covered with seeds and rinds. it was not surprising, that under such a novel dispensation, there was delay in procuring horses; to pass my time i supplied myself with a huge green monster of its species, engaged a little shed of rushes, and cooled my limbs in the tepid waters, which last feat did not in the least shock the modesty of an ancient _planchadora_--washerwoman--who carried on her occupation quite unconcernedly beside me. under lash and spur away we went in great good humor, but had not gone a league, when i waxed exceeding wroth on discovering that some watchful thief had stolen three ounces from my hat while bathing--it was too late to return, and we consigned him to his just deserts. the roads were perfectly level, dry and sandy; at times we scented the ocean air, borne along by the regular sea breeze, and the atmosphere was filled with knats and musquitoes, that by no means enlivened the journey. the vegetation had changed, and we passed for leagues through groves of tapering palm trees, broad-leafed bananas, rank vines and vegetation. fording the rio san pedro, we traversed the little towns of rosa morada and buena vista, thence over the rio caña to acaponeta. the river was a clear, shallow stream, and had not yet been swollen or turbid by the freshets near its source above. we had ridden all night, and sending my mozo to the town, with the post boy who had suffered severely from the sting of an _alacran_, a venomous scorpion, i remained to bathe and put on my other shirt. during the entire trip to and from mexico, i found that by eating sparingly of light food, smoking less, and laving constantly, i could endure almost any amount of fatigue, with but an hour or two of sleep in the twenty-four; a few paper cigarillos was all the extraneous stimulant i indulged in while on the road. acaponeta is a hot little town, half built of mud, with a spacious rural-like square, shaded by fine trees, and boasting of a quaint old church. it is but a few leagues from the ocean, surrounded by a sandy soil, which however, under the sun's fierce rays, over all the tierra caliente, produces quantities of tropical plants: the cassava for meal, bananas and guavas, with melons and many kinds of fruit. the inhabitants of these secluded districts, living in little worlds of their own, free from care or war, regardless of the political revolutions so continually agitating the mother country, seem to enjoy the _dolce far niente_ in its truest sense. they are too poor to excite the rapacity of the government; their land yields almost spontaneously all means of subsistence; they live in mud cabins or bamboo huts, through whose light lattice-work of reeds or trellis, the sea breeze cools them during the languid siesta; then at the fiesta or fandango, the women, in white muslin camizettas and gaily striped basquinas, with gilt baubles, perhaps, thrust through their black locks, attended by the men, whose only wealth consists of horse, saddle, spurs and serapa--dance, game and drink until the fiesta is ended, with no fears of interruption save what lies in the sharp steel of their mercurial cuchillos--ignorant and unenvious of all around them. i found my guide in the plaza, and walked into a white building on a corner, purporting to be a _fonda y billar_. it was sunday morning, besides some notable feast day; a little old spider-legged uneven billiard table was thronged by rakish blades, with little miniature nine pins stuck in the centre of the cloth, which were being rapidly knocked down by the players; a pulperia was close at hand, and the chink of _copitas_, filled with aguadiente or muscal, was keeping a musical accompaniment to the click of the billiard balls. the patron was an active, portly person, and from his clean, natty attire and huge beard, with a certain sea roll to his gait, i correctly surmised that he had "sailed the broad ocean," or that he might have been a retired pirate. he received me very hospitably, ordered a lithe black-eyed little girl of ten years not to go to the iglesia until _el capitan_ had made a breakfast, and pointing to a bedstead in the sala, upon which was tightly stretched a side of dressed leather, desired me to repose until he could procure horses. from my position i had a clear view around the plaza--crowds of gaily-dressed paisanos were moving from house to house, or thronging the bough-built booths and little shops, all strewed beneath the lofty trees, sipping dulces, making purchases, eating fruit, smoking or gaming. presently the large bell began tolling for high mass; like magic, at the first stroke of the iron tongue, traffic ceased, the monté was discontinued, the dealer putting by money and cards; half eaten fruit was thrown upon the ground, children ceased squalling, caracolling steeds were reined sharply back by riders crossing the square, the noise of balls and glasses in the billar and tienda was silenced, hats were reverently doffed, cigarillos dropped, and the hum and murmur of many voices had passed away. then, as the little chimes with noisy throats were bursting forth in clanging peals, the whole concourse of persons that filled the plaza went moving with uncovered heads, sombreros in hand, toward the church, and now the organ rose in solemn strains, embers were swinging, multitudes of tapers were twinkling within the nave, like stars in the firmament, while hundreds were kneeling in piety and awe before the shrines they worshipped. in no portion of the world can there be found more true respect for religion or real reverence, than in some parts of mexico, and the truthfulness and simplicity with which they conduct the beautiful ceremonials of the catholic church, is not a flattering commentary upon the indifferent professions of more enlightened countries. in witnessing this impressive scene, i sighed to become a convert, and indeed i felt convinced that if i had had the persuasive lips exerted for my conversion, that pertained to the penserosa face and murillo eyes of my host's graceful little daughter, i should have thrown away the sword for the cross on the spot. she was standing with half raised eyes, and an impatient expression, wondering very naturally, no doubt, why the gringo did not swallow the eggs and milk she had prepared by her sire's commands--_quiere usted mas señor?_--want anything else--she murmured, with a pretty, petulant frown; "no! no! _amigita! mil gracias_, forgive me for detaining you from the mass;" her face brightened joyously, and readjusting her little flowing ribosa, she tripped away to her devotions. horses were soon at the door, and passing beside the now-deserted booths and shade, we once more became exposed to the burning glare of the tropical sun. during the afternoon, light showers of rain chased us along the road--a great relief from breathing the light sandy dust of the parched soil; but as night came on, and our track led through interminable forests of sycamores, closely woven with thousands of creeping vines and parasitical plants, the very light and air were shut out, and what with myriads of stinging insects, heat and dust, i thought of never surviving. two tours past midnight we emerged from these sultry groves, and reached the village of esquinapa, where, changing steeds, i was attended by an old post boy, named tomas; and from the moment i unceremoniously disturbed his slumbers until we parted, he never ceased singing and rhyming. he would have made a character for cervantes. awaking with a couplet on his tongue, he followed it up by a trite spanish proverb, hit off scores of doggerel, like an improvisatore, on my name, and, indeed, with his joyous, hearty old laughter, that acted like an epidemic in every scar and wrinkle of his fine bronzed face--with generous bonhommie and good humor, he kept me full of merriment the nine leagues we travelled; and i have only to regret, for my own satisfaction, not having noted some of his poetical sallies. we gained the rio rosario before dawn, and halted between two channels, on a dry pebbly spot, where, throwing myself from the saddle, i plunged into the running water, and then, with a little mound of sand for a pillow, took the first half-hours sleep since leaving tepic. at sunrise, old tomas aroused me with a verse and song, and fording the remaining fork of the river, we entered rosario. it is a place of some importance, with a number of substantial public buildings--internal custom house, a tobacco monopoly, and barracks for a military commandancia; in fact less provincial, more modernized with cafés, shops, sociedads, and well-constructed houses than any town of the tierra caliente, save mazatlan. while awaiting a relay, i was regaled by the gentlemanly administrador of the duana with a cup of delicious chocolate, and in turn favored him with late news from the capital. departing from rosario, which is nearly thirty leagues from the port, i came on at a flying gallop to the old presidio; then tarrying for breakfast with general anaya, i again continued with all speed to urias, where my horse's heels, and my own anxiety, outstripped the broken wind of the guide's, and i never drew rein before reaching the marismas of mazatlan. the tide was very high, and i was almost forced to swim; but encouraged by a cavalcade of gentlemen on the opposite shore, i straggled through, and was greeted by hosts of acquaintances, who, by mere accident and fun, had proposed to meet me on the road. i feel assured that i never shall be so handsomely escorted again; and what added to the éclat of my arrival was, that upon entering the crowded plaza a polite commissary ordered the band to play "hail columbia!" and i was nothing loth to hide my blushes, travel-stained garments, and jaded horse, from the admiring populace, and seek refuge within the residence of the governor. thus terminated my rough notes and jolts in a mexican saddle, after a journey of near twenty-five hundred miles, mostly on horseback; and the last one hundred and twelve leagues from tepic performed in fifty-three hours, which was said to be the quickest trip on record. i was happy that the journey was finished; and although i experienced no subsequent fatigue, and my frame was much stronger, yet it is an undertaking that i should not be anxious to attempt again. when a gentleman travels in mexico, he goes provided with beds and baggage on pack mules, and half a dozen attendants at least, armed to the teeth, and ready to do battle when occasion requires. in my case it was different: at all times hurried, with at best but indifferent beasts--riding night and day together--never meeting a person on the roads without a mutual fumbling in the holsters for pistols, not knowing whether in raising the hand to the _sombrero_, it is intended to salute or shoot you, as friend or foe; yet, the provinces of the republic that i traversed were out of the beaten track of tourists, with portfolios and poodles--a country where one is _per force_ obliged to rough it a little; and where in the first essay, as in my case, the novelty and excitement attending fresh scenes, varied scenery, strange forms, manners and habits, more than balanced the fatigue, insecurity and annoyances of the journey. chapter xxxvi. my arrival happened on the th of june. the garrison had been very much strengthened, and a block-house was under construction near the estero, with the expectation of holding the town during the rainy season and bad weather, in the absence of force afloat. the news of the peace changed these plans, and preparations were commenced for evacuating the town. my little post at the garita had been relieved of its old garrison, and fallen into strange hands, so i took quarters with my good friend don guillermo and señor molinero, where we lounged all day in the cool patios, under the awnings, smoking away like turks. muzatlan was extremely gay, owing to the yearly festival that takes place on the olas atlas--a curving beach between two bluff promontories facing the ocean. i am ignorant if there be in the calendar a patron saint devoted to gamblers, or i should certainly believe that this jubilee was expressly dedicated to him. there were a great number of bough and cane-built booths raised on the sandy promenade, all prettily draped with muslin and other light fabrics, each having a tasteful display of liquors and fruits, with little saloons screened off, and facing the sea, for either eating or gaming: further on were stout upright poles, firmly planted in the ground, supporting circularly swinging coaches or wooden horses, some revolving perpendicularly, while others described the horizontal circuit: beyond were meaner _barracas_ for the lower orders--gaming, mountebanks, juggling, eating, and maybe a little fighting. towards nightfall the population assembled on the olas altas, and the scene became very gay and animated--the monté tables were thronged--dollars and ounces of gold chinking incessantly--loto banks playing for prizes of dulces or licores--indians with figured boards and dice, making more noise than their _confréres_ in the trade, betting coppers or fried fish. the cars and horses were filled with delighted paisanos, who were enjoying the pleasures of city life. at the fandangos, too! were girls in their gayest dresses, dancing to the enlivening music of harps and guitars, bursting forth at intervals with some shrill chaunt or ballad, to relieve their nimble feet, perhaps, from exertions attending the _jarabie_ or _jota_. it is altogether quite an attractive spot; and when one is tired of the monté, bowling at smithers', or dancing at the fandangos, there is the sparkling surf at your feet, where the energies may be revived for a cosy supper with some fascinating little mexicanas who are never known to decline a cup of chocolate and sweetmeats. the influx of so many strangers from the surrounding country was not particularly advantageous to the morals of the mazatlanese community: petty thieving and pilfering were all the rage. one evening some expert practitioner contrived to entice a valuable pair of pistols, clothing, and other articles from my table in the centre of a large apartment, by introducing a pole and hook through the iron grille of the window; and the same night my friend molinero was robbed of his bed-clothes, while sleeping, by the same enterprising method. indeed i incline to the belief that one may have the gold from his molars picked out, if the mouth chances to be opened, in a crowd of these cunning leperos. my consolation was, in being aware that they had filched all worth stealing, and in being indifferent to future depredations. the first night of my arrival i met our former little housekeeper at the olas altas, surrounded by a group of merry friends: "_ah! dios!_" she exclaimed, "but they told me you were never to return--what _diablitos_ those yankees for telling such fibs. you have been gone just five _domingos_"--they count by sundays,--"and that _loco gringo amigo_ of yours nearly ruined your horse, and came near breaking his own neck in the plaza--_gracias a dios_!" her breath being by this time exhausted, we made up a little purse, or _vaca_, and fortune befriending it at the monté, we sent her home, with enough silver to keep her cuartel going for a twelvemonth. early the next morning she was at my bedside, saying, _digame de sus viajes_--tell me your adventures. to be relieved of her inquisitiveness, and get more sleep, i threw around her pretty throat a silver image and chain of our lady of guadalupe which saved me any more exercises in the spanish idiom until breakfast. and, by the way, ignorant people may indulge the idea that the castilian tongue may easily be acquired "without a master," but, so far as my individual experience goes, no study is comparable to its acquisition with a tutoress, who, with the charms of bright eyes, rosy lips, and clear natal enunciation, renders the task not only facile, but pleasurable. i would advise any person who wishes to become proficient in this beautiful language to pay his homage to some artless, unaffected señorita, who, although she may not be ultra-enthusiastic, will still seem pleased, and interested at all your blunders, correct you with a tap of her fan; and if you be devoted, though stupid, will forgive all but flirtation with her _cuñada_--confidant;--guide your bungling feet in the dance, walk with you in the plaza, receive your little devotions of laces, gloves and flowers, and sing her sweetest low cançioncitas for your especial admiration. the regret of the townspeople was universal at our approaching departure; and even the few who were at first opposed to the north americans had become the warmest in our favor. the sailors had all embarked, and the marines remained to perform the concluding honors. on the th of june, in the afternoon, general negrete, escorted by a number of officers and a small squadron of cavalry, entered the plaza. drums rolled, the soldiers presented arms, the american flag came down, the mexican eagle flew up over the quartel, and amid the thundering of artillery from ships and shore, bowing of officers, and waving of chapeaus, the ceremony ended. arraya remained at the presidio, having delegated his authority to the second in command. i mounted my horse for the last time, rode through the deserted garita, and around the town. many a kind adios was said, and although mine were laughed in return, i felt quite sad, for i had made happy acquaintances and friends, amid a class of people of all others, the wide world over, whose society and manners i have ever fancied, besides being relieved of the detestable monotony of shipboard; and i regard the half-year passed there as among the most contented of my existence, and shall ever refer with many a yearning to those pleasant days in mazatlan. however, repinings are unavailing when a man's course in life is clearly defined, and he has no alternative but the almshouse on a dead lee-shore, and carrying a press of canvas to weather it; or else i might have taken the law in mine own hands, and settled down comfortably in mexico. "ay de mi! un año felice parece un soplo ligero, pero sin dicha, un instante. es un siglo de tormento." farewell mazatlan! adieu, ye black-eyed girls, who so detested the yankees, and shed such pearly tears at their departure! adieu to fandangos, bayles, and tiny feet! good-bye, ye jovial, hospitable traders, and your ruby wine! alas!--in one sad sigh!--farewell! chapter xxxvii. the squadron sailed, and i was ordered to embark in a fine old store-ship, to cross the sea of cortez. the lumbering craft went urging her lazy length through the water, her sails now and then giving a gentle flapping, as if to convince herself they were not asleep, but napping, unlike the indolent sailors beneath their shade. "blessed be he who first invented sleep, for it covereth a man all over like a mantle." when eyelids have fallen with very grief or weariness, how we may retire within a shell, to live a new peaceful existence, shut out from all the toils and cares of everyday life. we arrived in the broad bay of la paz. circling hills and mountains arose red, parched and arid, enclosing on three sides a vast sheet of water--like an inland gulf--thirty miles in length and fifteen wide. vegetation appears to have forgotten this portion of the peninsula entirely, at least to deck it in that delightful greenish hue that attracts the gaze when beheld from a distance--creeping up narrow valleys, or reposing, like an emerald carpet, on the sloping plains. here nature looks as if baked in an oven, until she had been thoroughly done too! a mile from the anchorage, at the head of the bay, another large lake extends beyond, and near by is the little town of la paz--the ancient santa cruz of cortez. the place has nothing to recommend it, except the fig-groves and vineyards of a portuguese, named manuel, and a tank of fresh water, where one may have a morning dip, before the vines are irrigated. there were a score or more señoritas, who danced with us all night, and washed our clothes all day, and very well they performed both accomplishments, being withal intelligent, and, to a certain degree educated; also two or three billiard-tables; a monté bank, of course; millions of cat-fish; plenty of fleas, dust, and heat; and about an hundred of yankee volunteers--charming follows they were, as was remarked, "for a small tea-party without spoons." i think this is a correct summary of all the diversions and societies of la paz, in the which we soon became contented and domesticated. no civilized beings excepting those unkillable gentry, yclept salamanders, could by any chance endure the noontide heat on shore; no one ever had energy to consult the mercury, but we presumed it was very high--say three or four hundred. we never left the ship until after the land wind came from the lofty heights to apprize us, perhaps, that we might risk a visit, without becoming sublimed in perspiration. then the vine-clad arbors of the portuguese were our favorite resort, where we killed time, devouring figs and grapes, or puffing cigarillos; the evenings came cool and temperate, with never a cloud in the heavens; the lassitude and languor of the sultry day gave place to more invigorating influences, and we sauntered from casa to casa, wherever lights were twinkling. the doñcellas were seated on low stools beneath the leafy awnings, whilst careful _amas_--house-keepers--were plying the needle or tambour work within. "kiss your hands, señoritas." "shall we dance this evening?" _con mucho gusto!_ cry they all in a breath. aye! the graces doubt them! who ever knew a lithe young creole to turn her pretty toes away from whirling waltz or contra-danza. "where shall we dance?" at lola's, or mariana's, or ampara's--it matters not. "but the music?" pshaw, you _gringo_! as if those well-fingered old harps and guitars were not ready tuned for the occasion, and the old night owls of musicians ever watchful, playing around the girls, like pilot fishes about the sharks. _vamanos pues!_ the well-known faces are shortly assembled in a neighbor's dwelling; the listless, indolent air of morning has gone--at the first tinkle of the harp, eyes are sparkling with rapture, and feet patting the floor, like prisoned birds, only awaiting the harmonising crash of the little orchestra to be in motion. _contra-danza!_ shrieks the old leader. two lines are formed--swinging gracefully to and fro, figures are changing, hands clasping and thrilling, arms are twining and winding, until the different bands are wound into beautiful and panting groups, when the music pauses a moment--hands fall, and to be convinced that our angelic partners have not wings, each seizes his fair companion around the waist, and away we spin in the waltz. in return for the nightly _tertulias_ on shore, we gave them a little ball on board the frigate--the quarter-deck was gaily dressed and bedizzened with parti-colored bunting, flags, chandeliers of bayonets and other nautical ornaments; but in the absence of any marketable matter, the supper-table below presented more variegated hues than the ball room itself; being all lights, glass, fancifully carved melons and dulces. however, they had capital music by the german confederation, led by peter the greek--dancing until midnight--the old ladies were allowed to puff cigarillos on the quarter-deck, and all went away apparently highly delighted. when becoming a little ennuied with these light pleasures, we made boating expeditions, and afterwards returned to them with renewed zest. once on the glorious anniversary of yankee independence, we made the lease of a jolly boat. it was a capacious, portly and staunch receptacle of marine locomotion, generally used for big market baskets, beef, vegetables, and at times to transport drunken sailors. our party was select and companionable; the general, luigi, canova, speckles, magarrabin, earl and myself--a tambourine and fiddle, with each a nigger accompaniment, both combining with music a taste for cooking. we had fishing lines and fowling pieces, which last were voted bores and forthwith ordered to be discharged, and kept so during the cruise; then there was plenty of malt and sherry, a huge jug of punch after the ancient romans, a comfortable chowder kettle and bag of biscuits. we were up betimes, and as the first ruffle of the sea breeze disturbed the quiet surface of the bay, we pushed off from the ship. here let me apostrophise! i hate ships, i hate boats, i hate everything that floats! even more than i detest poor people; but at times they are all endurable, and marine misanthropic as i am, once in a great while i become reconciled; but should i ever have a son, and should ships exist and not merge into balloons, and he wish to become notorious for filial piety by reading the book his sire wrote--and be thus imbued with that parent's ideas and prejudices--i beseech him never to trust his precious toes with only half an inch of plank betwixt them and the briny deep. but providing he should be so fortunate as to fall into a roomy bowl of a boat, like to our jolly, then after selecting the smoothest, shallowest of water, the gentlest of breezes, and flimsiest of sails, that will fly out of their bindings at the first puff of wind--armed with a broad sombrero, summerly jacket and trowsers, let him recline pleasantly on the seats, with a leg and arm thrown over the side, trailing in the rippling current--if there be the slightest suspicion of a shark, don't do it--then i say, let him lounge and doze as we did, as our richly freighted argosie calmly turned the native element from her prow, and proceeded majestically up the inner bay. we had a ten miles voyage, pausing occasionally to cast out the lines, temptingly baited by choice bits of meat, whereby were hooked great numbers of horned fishes of the feline species, commonly called cats, which served to divert our leisure moments until the cooks pronounced the market glutted, and we accordingly drew in the hooks, and again steered lazily towards our destination. it may have been an hour past meridian when the keel grated softly on the strand. we had chosen a little jutting sandy point, where the wind made a cat's paw of us, and came fawning and eddying around in the coolest manner imaginable. days are ever the same in la paz--there had not been a sprinkle of rain for a century, so we had naught to fear but the clear bright glare of the sun, which poured down light and heat on the arid mountains and glassy sheet of water, from which, like a polished mirror of silver, it was reflected back again. on the little promontory there chanced to be a stunted olive, and it was but a minute's labor to cut away the lower branches, clothe the umbrella-shaped top with a boat's sail, spread mats and awnings beneath, build a temporary fire-place near by, and then repose happily in the shade, with cigars in full blast, and supervise the interesting process of cleaning fish, by the sailors, whilst the negro minstrels charmed us with falsetto ballads, or highly-complicated jigs. we had narratives of adventure, accounts of previous fourths of july, and anecdotes of distinguished naval heroes, which last, i am sorry to say, as a general rule, are not complimentary--a pint of ale and a bite of luncheon. then after multitudes of speculations upon the merits of the embryo chowder, and many direful threats and disrespectful allusions to the shins and pedigree of our sable cooks, in case the mess should prove a failure--gradually one by one we fell off into siesta. san antonio, or that great fisherman, sam jones himself, only knows how long we remained in this happy state of insensibility, or how long the fishes, potatoes and _chillis_ had been bubbling in the cauldron, or how often the jolly's crew had applied their lips to the punch jug--if i might be allowed to conjecture, possibly very often; nevertheless, we were all startled by a doleful yell from mr. speckles, who at the same time expressed his opinion in emphatic language, that the larger portion of the infernal regions "had broke loose." appearances certainly favored the conviction, for within a few yards there came tearing along the beach a drove of bullocks, scattering the sand in clouds, besides having a very unpleasant expression about their horns. we immediately vacated the front seats, and rolled away into the interior of the branch-built castle, leaving no impediment in the path of our enraged visitors. we emerged again as they went by, and in the words of the archbishop of granada to gil blas, wished them "all manner of prosperity and a little more taste." the cause of this stampede was soon explained by the advent of a youthful _vacuero_, who stopped to observe us. the general very dextrously hitched a boat hook on to the waistband of his leather breeks, whilst some one else with equal skill, applied a like implement to the bit ringbolt of his bridle, and thus, as it were, brought him up all standing: _señor_ quoth we, "you behold the _rightful conquistadores_ of california, the enormity of your crime, in driving wild beasts through a cavalier's house and furniture, renders you liable to fine and imprisonment, therefore we desire you to dismount," whereupon, making vigorous resistance, we assisted him to alight by the aid of the boat hook. now, being supplied with a horse, we instantly made up a purse for a _carrera_--sweepstakes for all runners. but two competitors entered--canova and earl. the rest of the party held the bets and bottles, and constituted themselves judges. mr. earl took the nag, and canova to his heels. the course was stepped fifty yards, the day being warm. they got away cleverly together, although the first twenty yards the former tried to jockey by crowding his antagonist into the water! at the turning-stone the cavallo was ahead, and if he could have been turned at that precise moment, the game would have been up; but every one knows how difficult it is for one unaccustomed to the business to pull a horse short up at his speed, and, consequently, the animal went still farther ahead, and when suddenly checked, pitched the rider to the ears several times before he could be made to gather fresh way on the other tack. at this period of the action, canova was making long strides, and came in winner, after a hotly-contested race of two minutes. rewarding the _vacuero_ with a ship's biscuit, we graciously permitted him to depart on his steed. the chowder was done to a charm--smelled and tasted nicely--neither over done nor underdone, nor too much _chilli_, nor too dry, nor too cold; and not being afflicted with indigestion, we did full justice to the feast, and attacked the big pot unceasingly, whose capacious interior did not shrink from the encounter. still there is an end to all things, and there was, after a great while, to our appetites; so we sighed deeply, and drained the cups to the memory of ' , and other republican sentiments of patriotic tendency. as the shades of evening began to fall, we walked into the water and had a delicious bath. the old jolly was then gotten ready, and as the last rays of the setting sun flashed behind the western hills, we pushed from the strand, and gave three cheers in commemoration of our marine pic-nic. the light land wind wafted our bark slowly down the bay--the large lug sail swelled sluggishly over the gunwale, sound asleep. the crew were doubled up on the thawts, sound asleep also; and our own coterie, while listening to a narrative by magarrabin, one by one dropt into slumber, and there was no one awake save the helmsman. i was comfortably esconced on the low grating, and on awaking the "pale night stars in millions bespangled heaven's pavilions." the breeze had freshened, and the water was seething and hissing under the cut-water. "hillo! coxswain, where are we? near the ship, eh?" "sir," said fagan solemnly, "we have not budged an inch these two hours--it's strong flood." true enough we had been sailing in an aquatic treadmill, going through all the motions, without getting ahead. pending these reflections luigi came forward, and peering through the gloom to have a glimpse at the surrounding scenery--for he was near-sighted--accidentaly lost his foothold, and popped overboard. i caught him by the toe of his boot, and assisted by the brawny arms of a stout dutchlander, who, reaching down, seized our friend luigi by the head, and letting go his heels, he righted, and was hauled on board. the oars were now called to account, and without any further episode, sometime during the night we crept sedately up the frigate's side, descended to our several dormitories, and sank peacefully to rest. this was the way we passed the glorious anniversary, thousands of leagues away from our homes and country. a few days afterwards, in one of the frigate's large cutters we departed on an excursion of longer duration, for the pearl fisheries. we sailed late in the afternoon for the island of san josé. it stands like a sentinel at the mouth of the great bay, almost forty miles from the usual anchorage of la paz. with a fresh and fair wind, just as day was dawning, we rounded an elbow-shaped reef, and let run the little anchor, near the shore. at sunrise a portion of the crew were landed on the beach, and under the shady lee of a rocky bluff, tents were pitched, and all the necessary arrangements for an encampment promptly made. from the first discovery of the peninsula, in the sixteenth century, by hernando de grijalva, the shores of the gulf have been famous for their valuable pearls. many of the inlets and bays were then resorted to, and continued to yield large quantities for more than two hundred years; but from the beginning of the present century the trade has gradually fallen off, and at the breaking out of the war with the united states, there were but two small craft employed in the fisheries. still there is no doubt that the pearl oyster abounds in immense quantities, and were the ground properly explored, the labor would be attended with profit; but the natural indolence of the natives throws a wet blanket upon everything like industry or enterprise, and as a consequence these submarine mines hide their beautiful treasures from view. in the harbor we visited there were a number of squalid indians, farmed out by some more sagacious _armador_, or patron, who provided them with jerked beef and paper cigars, in exchange for rare shells or pearls. the season is chosen during the prevalence of calms and light winds, so that the water be not disturbed during the operations; for they "dare not dive for pearls, but when the sea's at rest." we had three _buzos_, or divers of great celebrity, but in the end we were not so highly impressed with their skill. the manner of conducting the performance is a very simple one. the boat is slowly urged over the calm water--perfectly clear and transparent it is, owing to the white sandy bottom. the _buzos_ stand in succession on the prow, each provided with a short sharp stick to dislodge the shells, whilst another with shaded eyes close to the surface, peers down into the pure blue depths, and marks the object of their search, or warns them of the appearance of the _tintero_--a ravenous species of shark. _mira!_ says the look-out man, pointing with his stick. splash! down plunges the swarthy figure. you see him squirming and groping on the bottom, reflected in the mirage-like fluid, when presently he shoots to the surface, in one hand holding the prize, which is tossed into the boat. _hay mas!_--there's more!--he exclaims, takes a long respiration, and again sinks--this time reversing his heels, after getting under water. two or three feats of the kind, and he gives place to a fresh _buzo_. the depth ranged from twenty to thirty-five feet, and they remained below about a minute. one would naturally suppose that the oldest oysters, like heads of families, out of the sea would adorn themselves with the costliest jewels, but the system is quite the reverse. the venerable shells are contented with little, valueless seeds, and the princely peas of pearls are distributed among the juveniles. this is invariably the case, and the rarest gems are always found in the smallest and youngest oysters; nor are they worn, as with mortals, in the ears, for we ever discovered them, after much scrutiny, carefully secreted in their beards! after shelling and fishing until the sea breeze agitated the inlet, and put an end to the morning's sport, we disembarked, and did full justice to the excellent fare of one señor eloi, who had kindly attended the party in capacity of major domo, keeping a watchful eye, moreover, on vicious persons inclined to filch an over allowance of grapes, or unconsciously to swallow an entire bottle of porter, which, by the way, is an unpardonable crime on aquatic recreations like the present. towards evening, refreshed by _siesta_ and bath, we shouldered rifles for the chase. i returned very soon, satisfied with stumping along the beach, where were strewn hundreds of thousands of polypii, or squids, with large black eyes like human beings, their putrefying jelly-like carcasses filling the air with a horrible stench; after a sweltering tramp over the dry, parched ravines and hills of the island, which were thickly covered with scrub cactus, having thorns nearly as long as bayonets, and very much sharper, as i found to the damage of my legs and trousers. i saw nothing within range of a bullet, and was altogether tolerably disgusted, and glad to get once more within shelter of the tents. my companions were more fortunate--they started numbers of deer--were far more fatigued from their tramp, and returned quite as empty handed. game is said to be very abundant on the peninsula, but i can hardly believe the nature of the country admits of it. we had venison occasionally, of indifferent quality, flavored with the flowers and shoots of the aloes, upon which the deer can only find nourishment. on the opposite shores of the gulf, in the tierra caliente, between san blas and mazatlan, i occasionally saw a few deer, stray coveys of quails, chichilacas, wild ducks and turkeys; but even on the upper terraces of the interior, i met with only a large species of hares; and i am confident the whole country can bear no comparison to the worst regions for game in upper california. my friend, don guillermo, in mazatlan, who was a great hunter, told me a curious fact relating to the coyote, who, on spying a wild turkey on the lofty branch of a tree--after a wary approach--fixes his eye upon the bird, and commences a revolving promenade, never for an instant removing his fascinating gaze from the devoted prey. the poor turkey, anxious to observe the perambulations of his friend below, follows him with eye and neck, until becoming too dizzy to maintain the perch, when down he falls into the cunning wolf's clutches! we made a hearty supper, and then sat down to an old fashioned rubber of whist--the bets were glasses of toddy. "steward," shouts monsieur borodino, who had won a stake, and nearly drank half of it, "steward, it's too strong!" _si señor_, said the attentive domestic, and forthwith gave it a dash from a dark-colored liquid, which was not water. "ah! eloi," murmurs, _sotto voce_, another young gentleman in delicate health, "have my flask filled, eh? want it for stimulant, in case we should fall short!" this caused a _pronunciamento_, and being somewhat fatigued with our day's work, we made a smoke to drive away mosquitoes, rolled ourselves up in blankets, and sought repose on the yielding sand. the following morning we were early astir--diving, fishing, and hunting. being unsuccessful, however, after breakfast it was decided to leave our haven in san josé, and try the fortune elsewhere. at noon the tents were again metamorphosed into sails, and away we steered, in an easterly direction, across the broad strait which opens into the bay. the first hours of the voyage were fair and tranquil, but with the declining sun the wind arose from the gulf and began blowing with great violence. the straining canvas was reefed down, and curtailed of its fair proportions, and by the assistance of the _buzos'_ eyes we were piloted into a narrow, alcove-like nook, of the island of san antonio. then the dimity was all furled, and with the ashen sails we strove might and main to get beneath the high cliffs of the little port. _dios!_ how furiously the gusts came sweeping down the steep gorge, brushing the stout oars like feathers alongside the boat; then a renewed struggle, only to be blown from the course, and the water torn into foam, and dashed over us. we began to despair of getting on shore, although the strand was nearly within arm's length, for the gale blew with such unremitting violence as to defy our efforts. however, thanks to san antonio, there came a transient lull, and the pilots were enabled to fasten a strong cable to the rocks. it was somewhere in this bay where the great cortes became tossed about in his crazy bark--perchance it may have been the haven we had sought--and in gratitude for our escape, we voted a candle to the virgin. we found ourselves shut up in a slender canal, walled by precipitous masses of granitic rooks, hundreds of feet above us, and the channel terminated by fifty yards of smooth, pebbly beach. the fires were soon blazing merrily, and after a hasty supper, we stretched ourselves on the clean sand, and in sleep, forgot our escape from boatwreck. the morning came bright and cheerful, with not enough wind to roughen the quiet surface of the little haven. we were amused paddling among caverns and grottos of the cliffs for an hour, and then once more stepping on board the cutter, we soon lost sight of our harbor of refuge. coasting along the island we passed a number of these narrow indentations, protected like spaces between one's fingers. at one of them we threw out a grapnell, and the divers collected upwards of an hundred pearl oysters within the hour; beyond we selected a cool retreat, beneath overhanging ledges of rock, where we proposed dining. our position was exceedingly novel and curious. the finger-like promontory lifted its crest perpendicularly from the bay; the base of the cliff was composed of a thick and variegated strata of black pudding-stone, worn into lateral curves and arches, upon which rested the great body of the cliff, which appeared formed of red sand-stone, having one side scooped and scolloped into profiles upon profiles--hideous caricatures and contortions, letters and numerals, while on the face, looking towards the inlet, and immediately over our dining-hall, was cut a well-defined gallery, leading from turret to turret, the whole closed by a most artificial-looking tower and battlement! we had to gaze a long while, before convinced that the elements themselves had been the sole architects. the same evening we sailed over to the mainland, took another night bivouac on the sandy shore, arose with the sun, beat through the harbor of pichilingue, and in the afternoon reached our floating home in the frigate. chapter xxxviii. long before the arrival of the squadron in la paz, the natives of lower california had been awaiting with the extremest solicitude the negociations prior to the final ratification of peace. the treaty arrived--their anxiety and doubts were soon over. they learned with amazement, that notwithstanding the positive assurances held out by the united states government, that "the flag of the united states would for ever wave, and be unalterably planted over the californias," and that under no possible contingency could the u. s. ever give up or abandon the possession of the californias, as conveyed through the official proclamations of the naval commanders on the coast, they had been duped, with these texts for their support--to defend our citizens and to fight under our colors, at the loss of standing, property, and life itself, and afterwards were to be taught a commentary upon the good faith of our government. in the treaty of peace, lower california was not alluded to, nor even protection of the peninsula glanced at. thus they reaped the fruits of their too easy credulity, and were about to pay the penalty in again becoming shuffled off to mexican authority, and suffer the endless private and political persecutions attending their apostacy from the parent stock. it was assuredly a hard case--for our government had been solely to blame. instead of leaving the peninsula in a state of neutrality, as it was, in effect, so far removed from the mother country as to be thought unworthy of notice, we busied ourselves fomenting disturbances and planting military posts until the major part of the respectable inhabitants of the territory became compromised, by espousing our quarrel. all were eager to leave for the upper territory, but an entire emigration was out of the question. many of the poorer classes, with numerous families, could not forsake their land, or little property, without any certain means for future subsistence; but those who could leave were quickly preparing to avail themselves of the opportunities afforded by our ships of war and transports for a new and distant home. we remained nearly a month at la paz. the only incidents worth noticing had been the trivial affair of a volunteer on shore very coolly shooting his wife to death; and a piece of sam patchism of one of the ship's boys, who, while climbing up the fore royal-mast head, and within grasp of the truck, became exhausted and fell, pitching heels over head through the air, tossing from brace to brace, until he finally struck the awning, bounded up, and fell again motionless--the stout canvas of the main deck awning having saved him. i was an eye witness to this performance; the next day he was again on his feet, mischievous as ever; but a plunge of near two hundred feet, without serious injury, would not be generally credited. one morning, the boatswains whistled, the cables rattled, ship unmoored, sails spread; and as we slowly took the direction of the sea, and left the "ohio" astern, down came, for the third time, our red pennant and up went the blue. we had bid adieu to commodores, squadrons, and signals, and were henceforth to cruize in a little fleet of our own. we were bound on a flying visit to mazatlan, and, after a tedious passage, on the fifth day, cresten reared his castor above the sea, and the white town and red mountains of the interior became again visible. the hills and plains were looking fresh and green from recent rains, but the town was nearly deserted, and not a vestige of life or bustle was to be seen. negrete with his officials were no sooner warm in their nests, when one palacios collected a number of discontented followers, entered the city, occupied the cuartel, and summarily ejected anaya's friends. they declared a more liberal policy than the government party, abolished the alcobola, reduced duties, and agitated a measure of forming cinaloa as part of a republic, in conjunction with the states of jalisco and sonora. these fragile schemes did not meet the sanction of the reflecting portion of the community, and the foreign merchants were particularly disgusted, fearing, as usual during these pronunciamentos, some forcible extortion from the palacios, upon refusing to advance money. anaya himself, with a small force, and means insufficient to put down the opposing faction, occupied the presidio. our old friends welcomed us kindly, and many believed we had returned to re-occupy the town; and even though the different consuls and foreign residents tried their utmost to detain us, it was unavailing, and the day succeeding our arrival the canvas overshadowed the frigate, and we said adieu, for the last time, to mazatlan. chapter xxxix. for twenty days after sailing from the mexican coast, the steady trade-wind drove the frigate merrily over the blue water, until one evening we found ourselves, with wings furled and anchors down, within shelter of the reefs and hills of the bay of hilo. near us nestled an enchanting little village, with straw huts and cottages, half hidden beneath a perfect forest of flowers, banana, bread fruit, and coffee trees, with here and there thick clusters of cocoanuts shooting high in the air, like petals from the brilliant parterres at their feet, waving rattling leaves and trunks in a very indolent and graceful style peculiarly their own. then the deep, velvety verdure around gradually rose in green slopes, and receded far away in the distance, until the scene was closed by the "twin giants of the pacific," mauna kea and mauna loa. nearer, along the fertile shores were white rills leaping into the sea, groups of natives upon the beach, and the little bay alive with slender and reed-like canoes, skimming like a breath over the water, the broad paddles flashing in the sun, tempting tropical fruits, reposing dewily in leafy baskets, the natives themselves gesticulating and chattering with amazing volubility, which added to the bright, fresh, novel, and glorious scenery of the island, made a pleasing contrast to the parched sierras and tierra caliente of mexico. the day subsequent to our arrival chanced to be sunday, and, soon after breakfast, we pulled on shore. there was no reason for disappointment in a closer view of the village. the richest and densest tropical foliage shaded, and almost impeded the pathways. native huts, with bleached thatching, and pretty cottages of the missionaries, were peeping from amid the groves. streams of pure water were murmuring in every direction, and the cool trade-wind was blowing breezily through the branches of the trees. altogether, the effect was quite exhilarating. large numbers of copper-hued natives, dressed in their gayest colors, were waiting to receive us, and, stepping on shore, i resigned myself with great docility to the guidance of a stout person, who, tapping an embroidered crown on the sleeve of his coat, with a short baton, informed me, with an expressive nod, that he was _kaiko_--king's man--in other words, a guardian of the peace. a few minutes' walk brought us to an immense thatched building, which was the native church. on entering, we were politely shown places, and i was fortunate in getting a seat immediately fronting the preacher, and facing the congregation. there were, at the lowest, a thousand present, ranged on plain wooden benches, all over the vast earth floor of the meeting-house, and crowds more were pouring in from the different doorways: ancient matrons, in dazzling calico frocks, cut very high in the neck, and very low at the heels, unconfined by belt or bodice, wearing coal-scuttle bonnets--sometimes two--toppling very much in front--giving a general idea of having been put on wrong end foremost: young damsels attired in gaily-colored shawls and ribbons, their nether limbs encased in a superabundance of hose, and strong brogan shoes: venerable, gentlemanly _kanakas_, in tightly-fitting trousers, unconscionably short-waisted coats, with swallow-tails: others again saved from appearing in _puris naturalibis_ by the aid of a _tappa_, or flimsy shirt, about the loins. but they were a sober, orderly congregation, and with the exception of a little restlessness amid the juveniles, all listened with marked attention to the discourse of their pastor. the reverend mr. cohen preached to them, and seemed to adapt the sermon to their comprehension; occasionally, however, interrupted by some elderly person, when any obscure passage was not rendered sufficiently clear, whereupon an explanation always followed, in the most urbane, kindly manner. the dialect is exquisitely soft and vowelly; and then the frequent repetition of many words, from the want of copiousness, renders it susceptible of being delivered with the most inconceivable rapidity. we had singing at intervals during service by some fifty youths from the reverend mr. lyman's school. i judged it rather discordant, and although the voices were not harsh, nor unmusical, there was yet neither taste nor harmony in their efforts. after church, we visited the comfortable, pleasant residences of the missionaries--they were surrounded by well-cultivated gardens of taro, vegetables, and fruits. the inmates we found pious, sensible, and excellent persons, who had devoted many years among their heathen neighbors in philanthropic diffusions of the gospel. we had but a day or two to ramble about the village before an expedition was planned to visit the volcano of kilauea. we were indebted to the good offices of mr. pitman for making all preparations for the journey. each was provided with a _kanaka_ as a sort of body-servant to take charge of extra luggage and wardrobe, stowed in two huge calabashes, with the half of other shells laid over the round orifices on top, which effectually shielded their contents from the weather: they were then slung by a net work of bark braid to each end of a short pole, like a pair of scales, over the swarthy shoulders of our valets. there were full half-a-dozen more fitted with the like contrivances filled with edibles. all were sent off at daylight, while we remained to a delightful breakfast of fresh water fatted mullets, new eggs, and butter. horses were then brought forward, and attended by a guide, we moved in direction of the south end of the island. in an hour we had lost sight of the ocean, left the pretty, "dim o'er arching groves" of hilo, and struck a narrow pathway over smooth undulating masses of vitreous lava, just as it lay cooled from the lips of some remote boiling crater, whose overlapping iron waves had flowed from the regions above, whilst the rankest ferns and vegetation blocked the route, creeping and extending as far as the eye could span up the gradual slopes of the mountains. it was certainly a dull, uninteresting landscape. we pushed our way through these green fibrous barriers, with nothing to diversify the monotony, save the course through a dismal forest of ragged trees, laced and covered with impenetrable thickets of vines and parasitical plants, only relieved by the pale green of the candle nut and mighty leaves of an occasional banana tree; meeting, perhaps, at every dreary league with a filthy, ill-constructed native hut, filled with yet filthier occupants. from nearly every habitation we had a volunteer or two in our train, so that, in the afternoon, when we reached what is called the half-way house, there were enough followers for an indian army. our halting place was a well-built thatched dwelling, planted on a little mound of lava, and fenced in by a living hedge of _ti_, whose bare stems rose four feet from the ground, and then branched out in spreading leaves, like plumes. inside the building was a raised platform, running the entire length of the room, resembling the pleasant structures used as beds by soldiers in guard-rooms. clean mats and pillows were strewn upon it, and the remaining space of the apartment was plentifully provided with tables, chairs, and crockery; the whole being especially _tabooed_, and guarded by a native chief for the accommodation of tourists. it was situated in the midst of a little hamlet of huts, and on leaving the precincts of our domicile, to take a general survey of the country, we found ourselves stormed, as it were, by troops of tawny kanakas, and loosely-attired _wyheenees_--young ladies,--who had called to have a chat with the _houri-man-a-wars_. they were quite sociable, squatted beside us on lava ridges, laughed and chatted, took the cigars from our teeth, blew a whiff themselves, passed them around the circle, returning them again to the original puffers, which being interspersed with pokes and pinches, they made themselves very friendly and at home. our staid chaplain, too, became well-nigh captivated, before they were made to comprehend that he was a _mikonaree_! then these dusky nymphs became mute as mice, and very demure in his presence. the rain came on presently, and we sought shelter, took a nap, and at sunset sat down to dinner. apart from sundry palatable dishes prepared by our own major-domo, there was a _luau_ turkey, after the sandwich mode of cooking, which, as i witnessed, i shall here take the liberty of describing the process. it was a large gobbler, who, upon being knocked down by a billet of wood, was stripped of his plumes, cleaned, dressed, and stuffed with a green, cabbage-looking vegetable, called _luau_; then carefully swathed like a mummy in damp banana leaves, he was laid on a native oven of red-hot stones, all covered thickly over with more leaves, until there was not a chink or cranny for the escape of heat or steam. how long he remained undergoing this operation i do not exactly remember, but on sitting down to table, he was ushered in, on a huge platter, in his green winding-sheets, and after removing the outer coatings, he presented a whitish, parboiled appearance, half-drowned in a pulpy mass of _luau_; and fell to pieces at the first touch: he was steamed to death. i experimented on him, and truthfully declare he had not a taste of the turkey flavor, and we thought it the worst possible use he could have been put to; albeit the vegetable was delicious, and made amends for the tasteless gobbler. early the next morning we arose, breakfasted and mounted; the route was over the same swelling hillocks and mounds of lava, the view bounded far and near by the same dense growth of ferns, and a dull, unbroken solitude reigned around--uninterrupted by chirping of birds, or even the wheetling of lizards or crickets. slowly we ambled along--the weather was lowering and gloomy; there was not a trickling rill of water, nothing but dull sky above, and lava, always lava below! my horse, too, was a monster of his species--never shall i forget that brute; had he been provided with a cocoanut column on each leg, by way of stilts, he could not have come down harder--ugh! at every other step on coming to some narrow crevice of the rocks, he would raise his fore hoofs, and let himself fall, at it were, with a jar that made my jaws rattle like cracking walnuts with my teeth; it makes me shudder even at this late day to think of it. i tried to coax him into a gallop with lash, spur and pen-knife, that he might break his neck, and gratify my revenge! but no! it was his maiden visit to the crater, and so far as a letter of future recommendation, he was resolved never to go again. we journeyed on during seven tedious hours--the great dome-like mountain of mauna loa appearing even to recede as we approached--its smooth, oval base and sides sloping so easily from the frosted summit as to induce the belief of the practicability of a coach and horses going up, without let or hindrance. almost imperceptibly we had attained an elevation of four thousand feet, when we came upon a broad plain, extending nearly twenty miles to the base and flanks of mauna loa. shortly after, a few light wreaths of steam were blown from the rocky crevices around, and in a moment we stood on the brink of kilauea! "for certain on the brink i found me of the lamentable vale the dread abyss that joins a thundrous sound." we were on the rim of a mighty, depressed circus, walled about without a break, by precipitous masses of brown and reddish basaltic rocks, and looking down hundreds of feet, aye, more than a thousand! we beheld with a bird's-eye glance, a vast frozen black lake, once a huge sea of fire--now a congealed surface of lava, where you may place paris, reserve a nook for new york, and not be pushed for space either! after infinite toil and peril, we clambered down the steep face of the wall by a broken pathway, and with some misgivings, planted our feet on the crunched, crowded and broken slabs of lava, with the ashes _crickling_ beneath the tread, very like crisp snow, and all closely resembling a frozen estuary, where the tide had fallen and left the ice very much shattered and uneven. yet there was no danger--walk miles and miles in every direction--take care you don't step into those unfathomable cracks and splits, for the longest and strongest arm ever moulded could not save you from this the pit of pluto! three miles from the point of descent, near the opposite shore of the gulf, is still another large and deep crater, which probably plays the safety-valve to the whole island. it is generally in a state of great bubble and contention, but now was quiet, and only favored us occasionally with a few uneasy sputterings, as if the vestal devil below wished to have it understood, that he had not entirely gone out or shut up the shop, but was more busily occupied poking the fires of hecla or stromboli. my companions were hunting over the broken slabs of vitreous lava for bits of specimens, of a sort of glassy fibre, called pele's hair, after the heathenish superintendent of the realms: i was seated on a frowning black ledge, near unto what resembled a long range of four story granite warehouses, the day following a conflagration--resting my wearied limbs and determining mentally in which direction i should run to escape, in case the black, frothy cauldron should happen to boil over, or how i should feel boiling in it; when my reverie was disturbed by a caliban of the calibashes, the color of a burnt brick, who was capering around in a pair of primitive pattens, formed of rushes bound to his feet, as if the lava was warmer and sharper than agreeable: pointing with his chin to the mouth of the breathing crater, _aramai_, said he,--come here--beckoning me to approach nearer, to make an impression with a dollar in the molten mass, at the risk of my coins and singed fingers. "_aramai_ yourself, with that kettle of cold water," quoth i, quaffing a sip to his infernal majesty's health and spirits. "i didn't come all the way here to see simmering lava, and get my nose and toes scorched for the trouble; believe me, fiery pluto! those pleasurable sensations i've enjoyed many a time and oft, years ago; but could you give us a downright good ague with an earthquake, by way of a novelty, i should consider my education completed, and make no further call upon your generosity." notwithstanding my invocation, the mountain remained firm and apathetic, and becoming heartily disgusted, i forthwith turned my back on kilauea. our guide on this volcanic excursion rejoiced in the epithet of barnes, and i beg leave to endorse him for any other tourist. mr. b., in our ignorance, assured us that gentlemen ever indulged in strong waters before descending, after inspecting the crater, "sweetening the very edge of doom," as it were, and also upon mounting upward; suggesting that the guide was treated in like manner, and as an invariable rule, all ullages were confided to his care. mr. b. also gratified us with many remarkable narratives concerning the native population. we had a dreadfully fatiguing ascent to the upper regions, somewhat alleviated by the kind services of the calibash men, who butted us up the most difficult steeps with their heads, when, after gasping an hour from exhaustion, our appetites returned with renewed vigor, and we made another meal on _luau_ turkeys. we were, moreover, comfortably housed, and fortunately, for towards nightfall, the wind arose from the great mauna loa and drove the light chilling rain in loud gusts and meanings over the plain. during the night we heard the muttering throes of the volcano, and at intervals in the darkness, a bright sheet of fire would leap up from the black abyss, so intensely vivid as to paint a brilliant _flame-bow_ in the thick mist that crept along the crater's sides. there was a perfume of sulphur and nitre, that seemed to spring from the very floor of our habitation, but far too fagged out to heed it, we were soon wrapt in forgetfulness, or what was better, good warm cloaks and serapas. the day broke cold and stormy, so we huddled on flannel shirts, and paid a hasty visit to some enormous sulphur banks that were steaming actively near the verge of the crater. beautifully colored crystals were profusely found on the fissures of wide steam cracks and yawning chasms; then there were fearful dark holes, like chimneys, as indeed they were, evolving strong puffs of sulphur, that kept flurrying and eddying around, and when a whiff chanced to take one in the nose or mouth, it quite gave a choking taste of uncle nicholas's abode. we regarded the whole affair as a special providence intended for the hawaiians, who are all, more or less--men, women and children--afflicted with the itch, and if they could only be induced to give the steam a fair trial, there could be no skepticism upon the beneficial results that would ensue. this was all there was to be seen or wondered at--returning to the straw hut, we ate more _luau_ turkeys--sent _kanakas_ and calibashes ahead, and then got on the beasts once more on our return route. we shortly bid adieu to the drizzling rain hanging above kilauea, for a clearer atmosphere. the same night we had more turkeys and more sleep at the half-way house, and the following evening reached hilo. chapter xl. during the fortnight of our stay in the bay of hilo, we had opportunities of observing a fair sample of island life. it is a place less visited than others of the hawaiian group, and as a consequence, the natives have lost nothing from a less constant association with more civilized nations. they still preserve, in a certain degree, old habits and heathenish customs, though very much modified by the benevolent efforts of their missionary pastors; yet there are many deeply rooted and immoral practices, which the good teachers find a herculean labor to eradicate. nevertheless, it must strike a stranger with surprise to find all those demi-barbarians have been taught to read and write--exceedingly well too--indeed the clean, well-defined caligraphy of the hilo nymphs will compare with that of the most fashionable style of the art in young ladies' seminaries at home--they pay a strict outward observance to the sabbath, have a general knowledge of the scriptures, and many of the youth, a tolerable share of education. the huts in the vicinity of towns and settlements are more comfortable and habitable than in the days of cook and vancouver, partaking somewhat in build, to the steep angular dutch roof, but constructed of poles and thatch, without windows, and with only a single entrance. great quantities of clean, well-made mats are piled about the floors, which are couches for eating or sleeping; the bedstead is not used, and since a deal of rain falls upon the windward side of the island, the health of the population is seriously affected by the dampness of the ground. the natives are amiable, good-natured, indolent beings, and approach nearer to the _toujours gai_ than any people in existence. but let no one, judging from their simplicity of manners, be so verdant as to suppose he can win their hearts or produce with glass beads, jack-knives, or any other species of baubles! per-adventure he will discover they have as correct an appreciation of silver, and can drive as sharp a bargain, as ever the jew out of jerusalem. still they were obliging, and would attend us all day in our tramps and excursions, apparently well satisfied with a trifling present of stumps of cigars. one great detriment to health is removed, in the article of spirits. like all the indian races, they are extravagantly fond of it but in hawaii there is not a drop to be had, and in the other islands of the cluster, a heavy penalty is rigidly inflicted for disposing of it to a native. among their favorite dishes is that of raw fish, and as a great rarity a _luau_ dog! under the most solemn pledges of secrecy, i was permitted to witness the exhuming of one of these animals, with the privilege of making a meal, in case he was found to be palatable. these solecisms on modern cookery and viands are severely frowned upon by the missionaries; and with much caution, we were taken to a small hut, back of the village, and when a venerable kanaka had been placed on guard in a cane brake, to prevent surprise from _kaikos_, we entered the tenement. a huge calibash was placed on the ground, filled with the national preparation of _poee-poee_. it was a white mixture, made of smashed and fermented taro, of the consistency of a stiff paste, and it is not considered the mode to eat it with aught else but fingers--one, two, three, or the whole hand, according to its liquidity. the hawaiians heat the neapolitan lazzaroni in dextrous use of their digits and digestions! whereas the latter beggars can only suck down several continuous leagues of maccaroni without a bite, and be satisfied, the native will make a cone of hand and fingers, and with the whirling velocity of a water-spout, he takes up enough of the plaster of paris like liquid to make a thorough cast of mouth and jaws, with the energy to repeat the impression every minute! where it all goes to is a mystery. it has been suggested that they are hollow, like bamboos, down to their heels; but it is a mooted point. i tasted this _poee-poee_, by way of an appetizer--found it not unlike sour starch, and felt no further inclination to make a hearty meal. by this time stones and leaves were taken from a sunken oven in the corner of the hut, and lo! the barker was exposed to view! the warning of _cave canem_, which i had seen in former years at pompeii, never struck me forcibly until now! i had heard, too, a metaphor about "the hair of a dog being good for a bite," but the moment i beheld the entire animal, with his white jaws and tongue lolling out, i felt no inclination for even a bite--lost my appetite, and came quickly away, with the intention of turning informer, and sending the _kaikos_ in among the party. the manner of fattening these interesting and delicate animals is not dissimilar to the process of cramming turkeys with walnuts. they are a peculiar kind--short-legged and domestic. the feeder takes a mouthful of _poee-poee_ and raw fish; after masticating it to a proper consistency and shape, he seizes his victim by the throat, chokes the jaws wide open, then drops the contents of his own mouth into that of the brute. we were told that it is only necessary to use this violence with puppies, on becoming older and docile they take to the food more kindly. among other novel sights, i saw with calm pleasure the native boys climb cocoanut-trees, by tying the big toes together by a wythe of bark, then aided by hands and knees they run up the tall, waving columns. down come bounding the nuts; a small dusky imp at your elbow whisks off the husks with his teeth! cracks a hole in the skull--up! up! gurgle! gurgle!--and down your throat glides the cooling and delicious draught. pine-apples, too!--large, perfumed, luscious fellows!--thirty for sixpence, and considered exorbitantly dear at that price! then there is the spreading bread-fruit, with the greenest of dark green leaves; but my juvenile impressions of the fruit i discovered were entirely erroneous; for instead of being like bakers' loaves, or even french rolls, they were different as possible; the fruit being enveloped in a coarse, thick rind, tinged with yellow, with white meat, about twice the bulk of pippins; and when properly roasted has the taste of an insipid potato. i have been perfectly sheltered, too, in a pelting, pitiless shower, by an extempore umbrella, constructed of two big banana leaves; and sipped water from native cups, made in a trice from a goblet-shaped leaf snatched at the road side; and on a certain occasion, when wearied by a long walk, i threw myself beneath the heavy shade of a fan-leafed pandanmus, and submitted to the _loammi-loammi_. it is a more delicate operation than the turkish mode of shampooing, and when the operators are laughing native girls the sensations are far pleasanter. they commence a running succession of pinches from heels to shoulders, accompanied by kneadings, and pokings with the tips of their fingers; then selecting a clear space, they begin a diapason of light thumps and blows, interspersed by a gentle trip-hammer movement with outer edges of the hands; now slow, now fast, faster--like flashes of light--until the cadence dies languidly away, in soft, melodious tappings, leaving the patient in a quiet frame of mind, and the body very much refreshed. the high chiefs, who are all immensely corpulent, and said to be rather given to overfeeding themselves, use the _loammi-loammi_ to make them comfortable after repletion, so that they may go on again, without personal inconvenience--always keeping a number of expert practitioners in their trains. all classes at hilo evince an enthusiastic admiration for flowers, and the maidens particularly are never without natural wreaths, or necklaces of woodbine and jessamine, prettily woven for the occasion. there is a yellow bud of the candle-nut, which is not so pleasant to eye or nose, though more generally worn. but in all the tastes and diversions of the natives, there was not one that charmed us so much, and in which the natives indulged with such wild delight, as bathing in the river wailuku. along the whole eastern face of the island of hawaii there are numberless rills and streams that come bounding from the lofty sides of the giant mountains, in cataracts and cascades, until at last they jump from the green-clad shores into the salt foam of the ocean. one of the largest of them is the wailuku. no farther than a league from the harbor inland is a miniature niagara, of more than a hundred feet, which dashes a mass of broken water into a bowl-like basin, flashing upon, either side brilliant rainbows, from which the fall takes its name. retracing our steps towards the village, the banks of the little river become less abrupt, and within a few hundred yards of the bay the water is diverted into a multitude of channels--here, a torrent boiling over scattered rocks, with a clear, sleeping pool beyond--there, the white cataract plunging swiftly through narrow straits, and leaping gaily down below, like a liquid portcullis to some massive gateway--again, whirling eddies playing around rocky islets, until at last by one sparkling effort the waters re-unite, and go roaring and struggling down a steep chasm into the noisy surf of the bay. it is here the young of both sexes pass most of their time. troops of boys and girls, and even little ones scarcely able to walk, are seen in all directions, perched on broad shelving crags and grassy mounds, or, still higher up, clinging from the steep sides and peeping out from amid the foliage. on every side they come leaping joyously into the rushing waters! there on a bluff--thirty, forty--ay! seventy feet high--a score of native maidens are following each other in quick succession into the limpid pools beneath. the moment before their flight through the air they are poised upon the rocky pedestals, like the medicean venus. one buoyant bound--the right arm is thrown aloft, knees brought up, and at the instant of striking the water the head falls back, feet dashed straight out--when they enter the pools with the velocity and clearness of a javelin, shooting far away, just beneath the surface, like a salmon. others, again, are diving in foaming torrents--plashing and skirling--laughing, always laughing--plunging--swimming, half-revealing their pretty forms before sinking again beneath the stream. others, still more daring and expert, go whirling through narrow passages, thrown from side to side in the white waters--now completely hidden in the cataracts--anon rising up in a recumbent attitude, when away they are hurled over a cataract of twenty feet, emerging far below, with long tresses streaming behind, and with graceful limbs cleaving the river, like naught else in nature more charming than themselves. it is a sight to make a lover forget his mistress, or a parson his prayers. i know it would have been my case, had i been so fortunate as to be either! here i passed all my leisure hours, never tired of beholding the beautiful panorama of life and water moving before me; and there were others, on these occasions, who were wont to mingle bravely in the sport--portly post-captains--husbandly lieutenants--mad-cap reefers, of course--staid chaplains, too!--but all declared it was pleasant, exceeding pleasant! although mingled with a few indifferent remarks as to what the good missionaries might think of it. many of the _wyheenees_ have pretty faces, expressive black eyes, and long, jet-black hair; then there are others, who make good imitations of blenheim spaniels in the visage; but nearly all have rounded, voluptuous forms, perfectly natural and beautiful when young, with small hands and feet: but such larks they are for fun and laughter! with a certain air of sly demureness that renders them quite bewitching. in the cool of the afternoons, a number of us in company with half a dozen of these attractive naiads, would amuse ourselves sliding over a gentle water-fall that poured into a secluded basin stretching calmly away below: hand in hand--and very soft, pretty hands they were!--or, forming a long link, one after another, in a sitting posture, we threw ourselves upon the mercy of the lively foam above, and like lightning dashed over the brink of the falls, and were drawn with magical celerity for a great depth beneath the surface; until our ears tingled and senses reeled with the rushing noise, when we would again be swept swiftly by a counter-current up to the air of heaven, and carefully stranded on a sand bank near by, wondering very much how we got there, and always greeted by the gay laughter of the water nymphs around us. nor is it the safest sport imaginable, for in some of these submarine excursions an inexperienced person is sometimes given to beat his head or body against rocks, or be carried to the wrong eddies and floated among dangerous straits, to the great detriment of his breath and digestion. however, no one need entertain the slightest fears when attended by the natives. they may, when saving you in the last gasp of drowning, hold you up in the combing breakers, and ask, "how much? tree monee?" with a prospective glance at a reward. but when diverting yourself with these nut-brown naiads, they guide you in safety through perilous labyrinths, and shield you from all harm. on one occasion, a laughing, good-humored damsel, whom we christened the three-decker, in compliment to a double row of ports tatooed around her waist, was seated beside me on a flat ledge, and opened the conversation by asking, "watee namee you?" "bill," said i. "liee namee harree," she archly replied, and shoved me into the torrent for laughing at her curiosity. but on gaining my lost position, she broached another theme, which was so appallingly ludicrous, that, losing all command of soul and body, i rolled off the rocks, and had it not been for the stout arms of a nimble _wyheenee_, who gallantly came to the rescue, i should in all probability, as the three-decker jocosely remarked, have been _muckee moi_--defunct; for the water had so nearly filled me up, that there was not the faintest vestige of a laugh left in my body. i rewarded her with a plug of tobacco, which is occasionally used as a currency. we experienced much rain during our sojourn, and when prepared to leave, were detained some days by the wind. the harbor is protected by a sweeping sunken reef, that forms a _cul de sac_ of the port, with an entrance like the neck of a bottle. on the th of august, by the assistance of our pilot, mr. kit baker, who played corkscrew on the occasion, we were safely drawn out--shook the wet canvas from the yards, and away we coasted along the island. it was a beautiful sight, indeed! the smooth, green freshness of the slopes--the distant village, with its groves and fields of coffee and sugar--native huts and plantations fast coming and going, as we went sailing by--white cascades--and intensity of verdure everywhere--spread like a glowing mantle from the mighty shoulders of mauna kea and mauna loa--made me doubt if, in all our future "polynesian researches," we should behold any scenery so surpassingly lovely as owyhee, with sweet little hilo, and its foaming wailuku. chapter xli. before dusk the green shores had faded from our sight, although the snow-capped head of mauna kea arose as plainly and proudly as if we were within a mile of his feet. sometime during the night we entered the paipolo passage, and the next morning were becalmed, in a triangular sea, between the islands of maui, molokai and lanai. we were bound to the former; towards meridian the breeze again filled the sails, and in a few hours we were at anchor in the roads of laihaina, securely sheltered by the high hills of the island. the general appearance of this group is not unlike clusters of the grecian archipelago: the same reddish hues to the heights, the same basking verdure in the valleys, with perhaps a far grander outline and boldness of scenery. in maui there is no comparison to the universal greenness and fertility of the east side of hawaii. the lofty mountains, attaining an altitude of ten thousand feet, arrest the trade clouds in their westward flight, and the contents are condensed on the opposite side of the island. yet, although the background shows for a great extent barren and sterile, there is still much to relieve the eye in the deep green reposing between the sharp split gorges, where vegetation creeps in thick profusion to the topmost peaks. and then the town itself--larger than hilo--built along the sea-shore, radiant with noble groves of cocoanut, and bread-fruit, and pretty houses half buried in shrubbery. there is also a great red-roofed new england meeting-house--a two-storied square stone edifice, which is the king's country palace, having a double range of verandas in front, and a little lake of black mud in the rear, not in the best possible state of order or cleanliness, but more conspicuous than all, placed a league up the hills, is the large white buildings of the the native high school of lahainaluna. maui is becoming a great resort for whale-ships to recruit from their long cruisings; it has been the means of infusing energy and industry into the native population in the cultivation of the rich soil, and thus for miles around the town the lands are planted with irish and sweet potatoes, taro, yams, and many kinds of excellent vegetables and grains, which grow all seasons, whenever sown. the markets were well supplied besides with meats and fruits; and nothing can exceed the clean, tasteful manner in which the lighter produce of the island is put up in native baskets. with the fresh leaf of the cocoanut they are woven or braided in a trice--oval, round or square,--with a pliable green handle all ready for transportation. the cocoanut is to these simple islanders what prayers are to the turks--meat, drink, and pantaloons; or rather, as i have been told by others professing a deeper knowledge of the mahommedan lingo than myself, when listening to the muezzins shouting their signals from minarets of mosques. however, here is better authority:-- "the indian's nut alone, is clothing, meat and trencher drink and can, boat, cable, sail, and needle--all in one." they catch fish, too, with nets, and lash their huts together by braid of the husk. their couches are mats of the leaves. the milk makes a delicious beverage, and is kept cool, no matter how burning the sun, in the lofty husky reservoirs. the tree itself never ceases bearing while there is a drop of sap in the body, and i have counted more than a hundred of these nutty tanks on a single shaft. if i remember aright, when a boy i was extravagantly fond of a penny's worth of the fruit fished out of glass jars. i never touch it now, for experience has taught me to confine myself to the milk alone. indeed, i know of no thin potation more truly refreshing before breakfast, than a cooling draught of cocoanut _wai_. the nut must be neither in its infancy, nor yet matured, but just on the verge of manhood; then commend me to it, and they will be rosy lips to draw one from its mouth. we found everything more advanced than at hilo--the bread-fruit particularly--but not only in the vegetable kingdom--for civilization was far ahead, also; or at least so far as creature comforts extend--aided by a good hotel, dinners, and pleasant rides in the vicinity. the lanes and avenues were so clouded with fine red dust, that walking any distance was out of the question. foreigners have many cool, matted-straw-built dwellings on the sea beach, and there are numbers of pleasant cottages near the suburbs; but prettier than all, is one secluded country house, a little way from lahaina, closely embowered in foliage, with a trickling rivulet at the door-way, that would make a retreat for a princess. the governor of maui was james young, a half-breed, or _happa houri_, and descended from the english seaman mentioned by vancouver. he had visited england, and spoke the language perfectly, although with the tone and expression of a common sailor. in person he was large--with a pleasant face--much lighter than the natives generally, and from his conversation he appeared to be a man of excellent practical sense. his residence was within the fort--a large square enclosure--constructed of rough red coral rocks, banked up fifteen feet with earth, and mounting an oddly assorted battery of some thirty pieces of artillery, of all sorts of carriages and calibre--long, short, and mediums; they command the usual anchorage, and no doubt do very well to prevent any acts of violence from merchant ships; but it is a question, if at the second discharge of shot they do not tumble to pieces. there were a company of hawaiian troops to man this fortress, who were well uniformed, and looked as well as kanakas, or any other savages who have been accustomed half their lives to go naked can look, when their natural ease of motion is cramped by european clothing. governor young very sagaciously removed all restrictions from the pleasures of our crew, who had liberty on shore--leaving it a matter of supererogation to bribe the kaikos, whose integrity is never above suspicion. however, there was no liquor to be bought, but jack got very comfortably drunk on cologne water: completely exhausting the large stocks of a long-tailed chinaman, in whose possession it had for a lengthened period lain an unsaleable drug. even after it had been all sold, so great was the demand, that an old salt threatened to take the chinese by the heels and snap him like a coach-whip, in case he did not produce another bottle of "tooloone" water, without more palaver. one evening, during our visit at lahaina, i was entertained by a hospitable countryman, at his cool, airy residence, which stood on a little raised embankment of the sea beach. a group of native maidens also favored us with their fascinating society, and without further invitation seated themselves at table, and seizing a pack of cards, soon became deeply engaged in the game. it was like most other games: those who held certain cards, certainly won; but although it was to me incomprehensible, i observed that they cheated in the most expert manner, at the same time slapping the bits of pasteboard on the table with the energy of inveterate whisters; occasionally muttering, when losing or winning, such exclamations as _ka! ka!--maitai!_--meaning "oh! i'm ruined!" "disgusting!" or "i'm in luck!" and the like. becoming ennuied with these proceedings, after much entreaty and a glass of wine, they consented to give me an idea of surf-swimming. the moon was high and full, throwing a white, bright light athwart the rippling water, like a quivering sea of silver coins. a kanaka attendant speedily produced slabs of light cotton wood, about a foot longer than the person, and two feet and a half wide. each provided with one of these boards, they swam, or paddled out to the farthest roller. it may be as well to remark here, that there is no reef, as at hilo, within whose coral walls shipping can anchor; only a ledge near the shore, that serves to break the force of the waves upon the beach. boats, however, land without inconvenience, through the agency of a small canal cut from the ledge to the heart of the town, in shape of a letter l. the girls are at the outermost roller, when awaiting the moment before it breaks, they come flying in on the very crest of the wave, at the speed of a race-horse, the great art being to preserve so nice a poise on the back-bone, as it were, of the breaker, as not to be left behind, nor yet, as i found at the cost of several abrasions, launched too far ahead, and thus have the whole crash of the roller pitching you over and over in a series of hydropathic revolutions by no means safe or pleasant: but to understand the thing properly, it is excessively exciting sport. one of the girls, daughter of a chief, possessed the knack in great perfection, and while dashing in with astonishing velocity--at least the rate of twenty miles the hour--she would spring buoyantly upon the board, and then maintain a _pose_ on one leg, either kneeling or standing, with an _à plomb_-like security of balance, that would have ruined the reputation of ducrow! during the day every little idle imp and lounger about the town devote the time sporting in the surf; i have watched them for hours, a dozen of them perhaps in a group: their black heads set in a liquid frame of sparkling foam, half lost to view, as the wave subsides, then taken up by another, and borne on the unbroken ridge of a green roller, crossing and recrossing each other's tracks, shouting and laughing, until the moment before striking the coral strand, the boards are turned aside, and off they paddle again for another ride. i was not successful at the first lesson, although carefully instructed by my amiable companions in boards; and after an hour's practice, finding i had swallowed as much salt water as i could conveniently, we returned to the house. never having witnessed a legitimate native dance, all our persuasive eloquence was exerted to induce the young ladies to delight us with a _hexar_, but they proved obdurate; and one assured me, with great indignity, that she was _mikonaree all ovar_; at the same time making a graceful manipulation with her hands, from head to foot, to add strength to her assertion. thus finding myself associated with so pious and virtuous a coterie, who, however, did not deem it incompatible with their morality to sit down, with renewed zest, to cards, i desisted from further efforts, and betook myself to a cigar. in this, as with all my later experience and intercourse with island beauties, i became convinced that i should never fall in love with them out of the water. there is their native element for grace and witchery, whilst cleaving the yielding fluid with rounded limbs and streaming tresses, when one's nice sense of perfume is not offended by rank odors of cocoanut oils, and other villanous cosmetics, which in themselves are enough to transform a hebe into a hecate. chapter xlii. the large native seminary at lahainaluna, upon which the missions place great hopes of future usefulness, was under the superintendence of messrs. andrews and alexander, gentlemen attached to the presbyterian board, who impressed us very forcibly with their intelligence, by the liberal views they entertained in relation to their charge, and fitness for the office. it is intended as the high school for the sons of chiefs of the group, and such other youth whose aptness for instruction make them worthy of being educated. the buildings belonging to the institution are capable of accommodating more than one hundred pupils. six hours are devoted to study and recitation: they cook their own food, and a portion of time intended for relaxation is occupied in practical utility--chiefly agricultural pursuits, or as the mission report of the young ladies' school under miss ogden, at the east end of maui, states, "the time from four to five they devote to exercise with the hoe." about eighty of the pupils visited the frigate, by special invitation--they appeared between the ages of twelve and twenty--attired in curiously devised european garments, but clean in their apparel, orderly and well-behaved, although awkward and uncouth in movements. i was not struck with many intelligent faces, and their instructors gave no very flattering ideas of their aptitude for the acquisition of learning. not more than one in twenty could be termed a bright boy; they experience the greatest difficulty in gaining a knowledge of the english language, and it is a question if it would not be advisable, even at this late day, to do away entirely with the native dialect, pen up the children, and substitute some other idiom having fewer words to express vice, and more, the higher attributes of morality and virtue. physically speaking, the students were well formed, robust, and active, but all more or less tinged with scurfy, cutaneous disorders, transmitted to them through their progenitors as an indelible mark of esteem by the first discoverers of the islands. our visitors remained on board an hour, and everything was done to make it a happy one: they climbed the rigging, went all through the ship, fired cannons shotted, and were loud in their admiration of the band. upon leaving, they seemed highly delighted, kindly greeted us with the usual expression of good-will--_aloha!_--and very generally offered to shake hands, but we pleasantly declined, i trust without wounding their feelings, for we were ungloved, and a long way from the sulphur banks of kilauea. institutions for female scholars are numerous in the group, but there is not one on the same scale of magnitude as that of lahainaluna, nor are the girls themselves worthy of the benevolence and solicitude extended to them by their excellent teachers. a school at hilo, under the direction of a missionary lady, highly distinguished for ability and perseverance, had lately been relinquished on account of the abandoned character of the pupils. these instances must indeed dampen the ardor of the most sanguine philanthropists, who have been so many years striving to emancipate these indian races from the depths of vice and ignorance. the whites themselves, to their shame, be it said, are far from lessening the evil, and i heard mr. cohen feelingly and truthfully remark, in connection with the difficulties encountered in their labors, that the missionaries' voices were but a breath in stemming the torrent of bad examples, caused by hundreds of loud voices from every merchant vessel and ship-of-war touching at the group. assuredly much has been accomplished in the outer crust of civilization, by an association for so long a period with the whites, but notwithstanding the almost unparalleled efforts of the missions, they have gained little in true morality, though everything, perhaps, in decency, contrasted with the native state in former times. the hawaiians are naturally indolent, voluptuous and deceitful, more imbecile than vicious, destitute of morality, preserving of late years, the form, not from principle, but fear of exposure, and subsequent punishment. infanticide, always prevalent in the polynesian tribes, is here more alarmingly frequent than even during their darkest days of sacrifice and idolatry, caused, no doubt, in a great degree, by unnecessarily severe laws against illegitimacy. there are no government hospitals, and the disease brought by cook is sweeping still, with the deadly strides of a pestilence. these causes serve to check and diminish the population to an extent hitherto unprecedented, and not unless their very existence as a nation becomes obliterated, does there appear to be any reasonable prospect of reform.[ ] and now, it can be asked, if, with all these evils entailed upon them by strangers, does it not seem problematical, if in their days of superstition and ignorance they were not morally better? happier they certainly were! then, their very indolence, induced by an equable and delicious climate, where nature so bountifully scatters her fruits in their path, produced an enervating languor, where neither cares nor sorrows surrounded them! now, their natural sense and experience teach, that they cannot cope with the skill or energy of the foreigner, and hopelessly and inevitably they must look forward to the rapid future, when their lands will be in strange hands, and the few remnants of their race the slaves or puppets of their white masters. although sad the picture, the results bear no comparison to the world at large, in the benefits accruing to civilization by acquiring a foothold on these islands, which, from their position and resources, are shortly destined to become of vast importance to commercial enterprise in the pacific. the board of presbyterian missions, first in the grand work of redemption, have done all that philanthropy could suggest, in earnest and unceasing efforts towards reclaiming the race from barbarism--in a spirit of the greatest liberality, expending nearly a million of dollars, distributed through a period of thirty years--wherein, if naught else had been adduced than the beneficial results resting upon the simple fact, that out of a population of about a hundred thousand, which compose the hawaiian cluster, more than half have been taught to read and write, instructed in the rudiments of education, and generally conversant with the scriptures--this is of itself sufficient to claim the lasting gratitude of all who have the progress of civilization at heart. but what is still more surprising, this has been begun and completed within the space of but thirty years--a point of time inconceivably brief in the history of a nation, even in the age of rapid advancement in which we live. the groundwork of christianity has also been firmly planted, and so long as the hawaiians do exist, it will go on slowly but steadily to increase. yet the reports from the board, detailing such immense numbers of conversions made so miraculously of late years, under missionary auspices, should be received _cum grano salis_. surely they cannot be intended purposely to mislead--but still it has the semblance of a sort of paid-up imaginary capital, to swell and exaggerate the amount of their labors. on all sides it was universally believed, that there are not five hundred true converts in the group, instead of over thirty thousand, as these reports would make out! then why these incorrect statements? and again, a retired missionary quoting the honorable j. p. judd, another gentleman formerly attached to the board and now at the head of the hawaiian government, says: "the moral condition of the islands may compare favorably with that of any other country."[ ] such glaring mendacity is beneath the contempt of any visitor to the group blessed with eyes; and as a slight proof of the estimate, at this late day, in which this morality is held, the missionaries, themselves, who have young families, never permit them to acquire the native dialect, and most carefully guard them from any intercourse with the natives, fearing probably the contaminating influences of an association, so deplorably exhibited in the children of the english mission in one of the groups of southern polynesia. furthermore, the violent ravings of the retired missionary i have already quoted, against what he terms "papacy, prelacy, papists, abomination of the church of rome," and the like balderdash, are enough to induce the belief, that were it not for the great conservative law and order party, which now rules the world--wherein the virtues of hemp are duly set forth--these deluded enthusiasts, so blinded by their fanatical zeal, would be cutting one another's throats, with the same malignant ferocity as in the bitter wars of the huguenots. the missionaries fully deserve all the love and influence they possess with the native population, for the toil and labor of very many weary years, passed away from homes and kindred; and so long as they sedulously abstain from secular affairs, and resolutely confine themselves to the field of their good work, the very piety and blameless purity of their lives will shield them from the smallest reproach. but human passions are ever the same. this very influence induces them to take part in the political contentions of the government; and whatever may be said to the contrary, it is evidently by their direct means, or connivance, that almost every public measure emanates. nor is this the most innocent charge laid at their doors. behold the illiberality and want of true christian charity, evinced not only here, but with equal hostility by english missionaries in the society islands, in unremitting persecutions and expulsion of the catholics. whether directly urged by the protestants, or at their instigation through the native chiefs, matters not--they were driven like dogs from these inhospitable shores, and never dared to return until backed by the cannon of their king. it may well be doubted, if the catholics had been the first to have raised the banner of the cross on the islands of polynesia, whether they would quietly have submitted to any foreign innovations upon their creed or forms. history gives no instances where an acquisition has been relinquished without a deadly struggle; but in these days of enlightenment, when the field is so ample, why not throw wide open the gate to all laborers in the cause of philanthropy, where no harm can arise, and great good may follow? the catholics lead as pure and irreproachable lives as their protestant brethren--without perhaps the comforts--and are rapidly making proselytes; their religion teaching forgiveness and absolution, being more in accordance with the backsliding sins of the natives, who meet with no appeal from the more austere puritanism of the protestants. footnotes: [ ] vide report to the hawaiian legislature of , by r. c. wyllie, minister of foreign relations. [ ] bingham, page . chapter xliii. after a delightful visit spent at lahaina, late one afternoon, we bade adieu to maui, and steering between lanai and molokai, by daylight the following morning we had passed diamond point, and let run our anchor at a great depth of water, a mile or more outside the oahu reef, the frigate's draught being too large to allow her to enter within the smooth and well-protected arms of the port. we were in honolulu--the ismir of polynesia--a little thriving city of nearly eight thousand people, and its situation one of the prettiest in the world. it lies spread about at the base of the beautiful valley of nuaana, upon a very gentle slope down to the verge of the harbor. on either hand the shores are fringed with cocoanuts, and all around, up hill and vale, save the burnt sides of the devil's punch-bowl and point diamond, is laid the deepest, densest verdure, as if it had been actually poured down from the heights above, in liquid floods of foliage, until there was not a spot on the leafy waves where another green branch could find a lurking place! honolulu is a town of strangers, with shops, stores, and warehouses; handsome dwellings with verandas and piazzas; pleasantly shaded cottages of elegant modern build, with grass and flowers; and nice little straw huts, in clusters by themselves, for bachelors, all very cool; then the unpaved streets are filled with dust, and natives wander about, in bright-colored, loosely-fitting garments, looking forlorn, diseased, and miserable, living, no one cares how or where; sleeping in the most loathsome abodes of wretchedness, and vilest dens of vice; in all save absolute want or destitution, far below, in the moral scale, the worst hovels of iniquity in the great cities of the old world! but we have no time to waste upon morals. presently a low four-wheeled vehicle rattles along--there are many of them--drawn by kanaka cab-horses; very kind and humanizing it is too, for the beasts are tame, never kick, not given to prove restive, or run away, at least with the coach! i often speculated mentally if the fair women when taking an airing ever blushed for their cattle; and when i saw a pious missionary lady trotting gaily by, i wondered if she had ever seen or read a "high-heeled shoe for a limping sinner"--most probably not. and then within those charming cottages i spoke of, there are lovely women from far, far over the seas--oh, beautiful was one!--who make music and dancing, and most agreeable society, and hand around delicious tea fresh from the celestials, and piquant lemonade--eschewing vinous compounds--while the sweet perfume of the lime-trees is present to eye and sense, and all pleasantly commingled with innocent sips of scandal. again the quays are crowded with more miserable natives, with sprigs of coral, shells, calibashes, or island ornaments in their hands, looking wistfully, and silently towards you; for they never use importunities, they are too indolent by half. and there is a market shed near by, where a fat woman will swallow a full gallon of _poee-poee_, to show how the thing is done, provided it be paid for! and then, as a relief from these diseased beings, there is the white reef seaward, vainly chafing and lashing the coral barrier; and the calm harbor, clustering with fine ships, chiefly of the oleaginous order, while whale-boats, and graceful koawood canoes--with light frameworks of sticks, and outriggers to bear them upright--are dancing over the blue wavelets. there are agreeable rides in every direction diverging from the city. the most fashionable is up the nuana valley. the road is broad and straight, lined on either side by well-tilled plantations of fruits, and patches of vegetables, with elegant country-houses, placed back from the causeway, half visible through the rich and sombre foliage. five minutes' gallop takes you, by an easy ascent, away from the heat and dust of town. the atmosphere is purer and cooler, the blue sea, shipping, reef, town, groves and fields, are lying in miniature at your feet! go on--pass the king's villa--up, up, for six or seven miles, and suddenly the trade wind sweeps with heavy gusts, around a sharp turn of the craggy verdant peaks, and you stand on a lofty terrace, and gaze through a great balconied window, cut like an embrasure, and formed by piles of rocks at the sides and base, while below is a frightful precipice, and beyond a glorious undulating landscape is breathing in verdure and beauty, dotted here and there by native hamlets, whose bleached white thatching is glistening in the sun, with herds of cattle upon the hill sides, chequered by bright patches under cultivation; while further still, the island is girdled about by high waves, breaking upon the rock-bound coast with the full force of the trades. this is the _pali_, concerning which, among other heathenish legends, which have neither romance nor chivalric merit to recommend them, it is said that a certain island king once hurled from thence a number of his rebellious subjects. returning, we can take a glance at scores of poor squalid wretches, with closely-shaven heads, living in filthy kennels that a decent dog would despise; but they have been guilty of breaking one of the commandments, and to reform their morals are herded together, and made to labor upon the public roads! saturday is the saturnalia of the kanakas! they revel on horseback; the streets, roads and plains are filled with them. it is surprising where they all spring from; for although they are an ambulating population, without local attachments, and go in schooner-loads from island to island of the group, particularly upon the advent of a large ship of war, and no doubt are packed very closely in their hovels in and around honolulu, yet it still is a matter for wonderment where all come from. hundreds of both sexes throng the pathways; and those more fortunate, who can hire horses, are riding, and racing, leaping, and kicking up all the noise and dust possible. the women bestride their steeds like men, with petticoats tucked snugly around them, and sometimes wearing for head gear as many as three bonnets of different colors, one within the other, like nests of pill boxes. the young princes of the blood, too, attended by the copper-colored nobility of the kingdom, ride with headlong speed, and are not remarkable for taking less than three-fourths of the highway, to the great peril and inconvenience of more soberly-mounted passengers. on one pleasant evening an aristocratic sprig rode rudely against an anglo-saxon demoiselle, in whose train i had the pleasure of being, and without pausing to apologise for his brutality, continued on, causing me to indulge in certain pious aspirations for my mexican whip that i might inflict a few mild exhortations, in spite of his long line of kanaka ancestry. neither men nor women sit the horse gracefully or firmly, and it is a matter of hourly occurrence to see them take an aërial toss from the saddle. a certain kind of equestrian intoxication--possibly caused by brandy--appears to possess them, and they gallop and prance about as long as the beasts have a leg to stand on. it is customary for strangers visiting honolulu, in the absence of requisite hotel accommodation, to hire a small tenement expressly appropriated for that purpose; many of them are pleasant little domiciles, built of straw, and kept by their proprietors tolerably clean, free from fleas, and habitable. they are in clusters by themselves, and surrounded by adobie walls, enclosing a few trees, and shrubbery, and generally take their designation from the last ship of war whose officers may have occupied them. the alsatia we affected was named in compliment to an english flag-ship--collingwood _row_! our hamlet was tabooed, and none others than those especially licensed, were permitted to darken those sanctuaries. we arose early for a bathe on the coral flats or shoals of the reef, then took gallop before breakfast; and when the trade began its diurnal breeze, and the streets were impassible from dust, we reclined within our thatched castles, enjoying the cooling gusts blowing down the nuana, or were seated with segars beneath the shelving eaves, regarding the natives grouped near the doorways! they were mostly girls--poor, miserable shameless objects, with diseased, unhealthy complexions, lounging all day in the glaring sun, or clustered, two and three together, sucking _poee-poee_, smoking pipes, and chatting their soft idiom, low and laughingly; but they had not the grace, nor coy witchery of the charming rustics of hilo: they were city ladies--in honolulu, where there is more population, more want, and far more vice! before the sun sinks for the day, there is but little wind, and walking or riding is then a pleasureable excitement. there is a circle of agreeable society, too; not alone with foreign merchants and consuls, but with a higher order of diplomatic agents, who, although severed from their homes by thousands of leagues of water, still surround themselves with all the elegancies and enjoyments of social existence which they have known in their native lands. indeed oahu, though without the salubrious, agreeable climate of maui, is still a place of much interest; and from its delightful position, and fine scenery, well worthy of all the commendation that voyagers bestow upon it. chapter xliv. king kammehamma, or kamme, as he is familiarly called, is the third of his race: his ancestors were fierce, ungovernable gentlemen, who, in the good old times, clubbed and killed--perhaps ate, too--nobody knows--a great number of their enemies; but without tracing the historic truth of these remote events, it is only necessary to state, that his present majesty has been invested with the purple, and is, to all formal appearances, the chief potentate of the islands. the government is a complicated piece of political machinery, with a constitution, and masses of subtle laws, equal in magnitude to the huge proportions of a chinese dictionary. there is a legislative assembly of kanakas, ministers of state, war, finance, solicitors-general, an army, a navy, and a court! this is not half, but it makes one dizzy to think of it all at once: however, on due reflection, it is not quite so complicated an affair after all! the government is simplified by two bosom friends of the king--mr. robert crichton wyllie, minister of foreign relations; and mr. g. p. judd, minister of finance. the former is a very clever scotch gentleman, somewhat inflated with the royal trust reposed in him, and has, moreover, the _cathoethes scribendi_ to a most melancholy and voluminous extent; yet he is an agreeable person, and gives good dinners, and i have not the heart to say a syllable to his disparagement, although i have not had the felicity of testing his cuisine! but mr. judd is the magnus apollo of the island. kamme, or the lonely one--as the word signifies--is his puppet, and most particularly lonely he keeps him! the king is punch, and judd is judy, and the lonely one is jumped about and thumped, and the wires are pulled unremittingly. judd is his prime counsellor, his parliament, father confessor and ghostly adviser--his temperance lecturer, purse-bearer, and factotum generally. there was a rumor, too, in courtly circles, that an order of nobility was to be established, and then we shall have, probably, baron judd, peer of the realm and regent of the kingdom. one would naturally suppose that a staunch democrat from the model republic could not bear the tainted air of a monarchical court in his republican nostrils, but it is wonderful how soon we learn to estimate patriotism at so much per annum, and with what suppleness we can kneel before a throne, if there be dollars hidden beneath the dais. what boots it whether the chair be filled with african or white? we want dollars! the king was universally liked by the foreigners; for he has, indeed, for a modernized savage, much bonhommie; is a good-hearted, well-meaning person; rather given to conviviality, like all his race, and when permitted to throw off the restraints of the court, he "allows his more austere faculties to become pleasingly relaxed by a little gentle and innocent indulgence." however, these backslidings are of rare occurrence, and when under the argus eyes of his financial adviser, he is never seen to exceed the limits of propriety--eschews ten-pins and tobacco.--sips malt, and devotes his leisure to billiards. we were to be presented at court! it occupied a number of days to arrange certain punctilio, and finally, without any decided misunderstanding, an hour was fixed for a royal audience. one day, precisely as the clock tolled twelve, we sallied out into the dusty streets--chapeau'd, sworded, belted, and laced up to the chin. the weather was warm, too. a few minutes walk, guided by our obliging cicerone, mr. wyllie, carried us to the palace. it is a large, square-built villa, spaciously piazzaed and windowed, surrounded by pretty plantations of shrubbery and fruit-trees. at the gateway a guard of kanaka infantry presented arms, the royal standard was unfurled from the flag-staff and floated to the breeze. passing up a broad, gravelled alley, we ascended a flight of steps to the piazza, and were again saluted by a double line of officers, who were supposed to be the black rods in waiting. entering the villa, we found ourselves in a wide hall traversing the centre of the building, with saloons to the right and left. the king not having arrived, we had leisure to inspect the reception room. it was a spacious apartment, with windows on three sides, having green venetian blinds opening to the piazzas, and two doors leading to the hall. it was handsomely carpeted, and the furniture consisted of a few plain mahogany chairs, with another of state, surmounted by a crown. a round table stood in the centre, supporting alabaster ornaments, volumes of wilkes' exploring expedition, and a richly-bound bible in the native dialect, presented by that estimable philanthropist, elizabeth fry. the walls were hung with portraits of the lonely one's family--dingy chiefs and their ladies, smiling intensely, with round saucer eyes and thick lips--a painting of blucher--two of the kings of prussia--and facing the throne, in a gorgeously gilt and carved frame, the king of the french; which two last, by a singular coincidence, had lately been presented in great state and procession by the respective consuls, on the very days their several majesties had been dethroned! time was only allowed us to take a rapid glance around the saloon, when the approach of majesty was announced, and we hurried back to the hall. from the opposite side of the terrace appeared the regal cortêge--brilliant in embroidery, gold lace, nodding plumes, and swords at their sides: on they came, two abreast--foremost, the king with the minister of finance--then a brace of chamberlains, followed by the high chiefs and officers of state, and the procession closed by the two young princes, alexander and lot. in a few moments, his excellency the minister of foreign relations imparted the august intelligence of all being prepared for our reception. forming in line--the admiral leading, under pilotage of mr. wyllie--we entered the saloon, and approached the throne. the king was standing, and the courtiers ranged on either side. our admiral backed his topsails and let go an anchor on the lonely one's port beam: we were then telegraphed by name--shot ahead--hove to abreast his majesty--exchanged signals--filled away and took position by order of sailing on the starboard bow! his excellency the minister of finance--who, by the way, was not an ill-looking nobleman--in full court costume, and a field-marshal's chapeau tucked under his arm--announced to the admiral that his majesty would deign to lend a willing ear to any observations upon religion, war, politics, or any other topics most agreeable. whereupon, the admiral having a few remarks all ready prepared in his pocket, proceeded to dilate on the happiness he felt in being thus honored--spoke of the extraordinary beauty of the islands--touched upon usefulness of missionaries, and ended by expressing solicitude for his majesty's welfare and dynasty. this speech, was immediately translated by the courtly judd, who, with admirable foresight, had provided himself beforehand with a copy. thereupon he handed the king a reply, who began in much the same strain as the admiral, and concluded by hinting that he hoped his dynasty _would_ last a long time! the business being now happily arranged, his majesty and the admiral became seated, and the rest of us were permitted to mingle freely with the kanaka court. kammehamma, and all his native attendants, had handsome, agreeable faces, and were extremely well made. the premier, john young, a half-breed, would be recognized for an elegant person in any part of the world. two were of just and colossal proportions--one, the high chief parkee, the greatest chamberlain probably in the world--for he weighs nearly four hundred pounds: i forget the precise number of chairs he crashes annually, but it is something enormous, and he is the terror of all housekeepers. the king, premier and judd, had broad red ribbons thrown baldric fashion over breast and shoulders, of such extreme breadth as to give the idea of the wearers having burst their jugular arteries. whilst intently occupied regarding this brilliant throng, i happened to attract the attention of an intelligent copper youth, some twenty years old, who spoke english perfectly well, and who in fact patronised me with great politeness and suavity of demeanor; and well he might, for he was prince of the blood royal, and could afford it. there chanced to be a fine engraving of queen victoria and infant family, in the hall. "this," said his highness, pointing with marked emphasis to the little prince of wales, "this is the heir to the british throne!" ah! thought i, forgive me, but you occupy the same elevated position in the hawaiian dynasty! my conjecture was well founded. by some means the succession of late had been changed. and, by the way, it is a wise institution they have, of continuing the descent from the female branch. the war-club, feathers, and other regalia, were to have fallen upon the brows of one prince moses; but moses was suspected of being too pointed in his attentions to the queen consort herself--scandal perhaps--although there could be no question about the sad havoc he committed in the hearts of the youthful _wyheenees_ of the royal academy! ah! wicked moses! his excellency the financial minister, fearing future inroads upon the peace of families, had the gay lothario banished to a remote and desolate district of the island, and the succession transferred to a brother--the youth who evinced so much complaisance towards me. we remained a full hour, and then made our adieus, "the interview having passed," according to the court journal, "much to the satisfaction of all parties." for my own part i was excessively diverted with the rarce-show, and thought it highly ridiculous. what greater folly can exist than aping the forms and etiquette of an european court? if, as is contended, the natives are not sufficiently advanced in civilization for free government, it is by no means imperative to set up a tinsel puppet, to dazzle the eyes of a few half-naked savages; for surely no intelligent person can be so blind an owl as not to detect and despise the cheat. these vain-glorious ceremonies and pretensions are also, in a certain degree, the cause of embroiling the hawaiian government with other nations, whose consuls or diplomatic agents complain of bad treatment; but in all the bullying or advice volunteered, incident upon their indiscretions, there has been none so sensible, and so plainly given, as the letter of an english admiral to the king, consequent upon outrages committed upon a british subject in . outcries are raised, too, in these cases, by individuals who have renounced their own country and sworn allegiance to a new native master, about the oppression of american citizens. one may forgive the absurdity attending these proceedings in a scotchman, but it is inexcusable in a yankee. still many measures emanating from these sagacious councillors are characterised by a careful regard to the interests of the native population. but then there are other laws, which have not the ground of expediency to uphold them, wherein strangers are incapacitated from becoming owners of landed property without swearing fealty to the hawaiian king! as a consequence, the greater portion of tillable ground is held by the chief, who has neither the sense nor energy to direct the steps for a proper development of the soil. the lower order are the occupants, who themselves are not eligible to a free tenure, and at least one-half, or two-thirds the benefits of their labor is taken in some way by the proprietors. thus, without an incentive to greater efforts the country languishes under the same species of feudal tyranny and extortion, as in the days of their cannibal forefathers! the islands are rich and fertile; sugar, coffee, and tobacco flourish luxuriantly; and under any other system than the present, there could be no bounds placed upon the advantages and wealth that would follow. yet, although this policy, which destroys the energies and resources of the group, is in the greatest degree narrow-minded and illiberal, still it is the only course that will sustain the wise statesman who framed it; for their excellencies are much too shrewd not to perceive, with prophetic vision, that the very moment the lands are thrown open to foreign enterprise and competition, a preponderating influence will be acquired by the wealth and intelligence of foreigners themselves, the lands will slip like water through the hands of the chiefs; and not only will the lonely one be called upon to throw off the imperial tappa, but the royal ministers, also, will be required to resign the purse-strings and portfolios, and betake themselves to the retirements of simple citizenship. it is blameable, too, to pamper these semi-tutored island potentates with such highly-seasoned dainties, when in a few years, or may be months, they may be obliged to descend to native life, and without the interest attached to martyrs or eastern princes we read of, be made a laughing-stock to their former subjects. as things remain, the entire institution of puppet-king, complex government, and scheming advisers, is at best but an indifferent piece of charlatanism and deception. nevertheless we were distressed at the thoughts of leaving these lovely islands, for we had become deeply imbued with the rage for realizing rapid fortunes, in the culture of sugar and coffee. indeed, some of our party were so thoroughly bitten, as to enter into negociations with prime ministers, and other great people, wherein special royal ordinances were to grant certain titles, with many advantageous exemptions; and we spoke seriously of importing machinery, malays, chinese, and of other operations; until at last we began to fancy ourselves doomed to pass the remainder of our lives among the kanakas. chapter xlv. we were forty days at the sandwich islands, and on the st of september weighed anchor, and sailed away from the fertile vales of oahu. passing along the western shores of the group, we steered to the southward, until the trade winds carried us within a few hundred miles of the equator; where meeting, between the parallels of seven and ten, a strong easterly current, reacting from the north-eastern trades, we were swept three hundred miles to the eastward. during this period we had light, variable winds, attended by a confused, uneasy sea, and one continual series of rains. the like was never seen; it poured in torrents for seventeen days; the tar of the standing rigging appeared white-washed; sails wet, chafed, and torn; decks sodden and spongy, and the heat below oppressive. one night, as usual, the windows of heaven were opened, and the rain came down, beyond all ancient similes. i was wet to the bones, and am convinced they too were damp; the heavy canvas was slamming and beating against the masts and tops, with a noise like the report of cannon, whenever the ship gave a quick lurch, giving the idea, of flying out of the bolt ropes; indeed i wished they would, for the yards had been braced every way to woo the fitful breezes, which only for a moment would fill the leaden sails, and then hop around to another quarter. the night was black as erebus! except when the lightning flashed out in a blinding glare, with a pale, blueish dazzle, like to the flash of a gun, or a burning blue light; illuminating the mazes of rigging, lofty spars, and clusters of the watch, crouching under partial shelter of the hammock-nettings;--then all was dark again. i was standing on the poop, up to my ancles in water, although feeling as if swimming; a little old quarter-master directing the helmsman was at my elbow--i could not see, but i felt him,--he too was at times trying to feel the white feathery dog vane, to know where the wind was! it was old harry greenfield! none of your low-crowned, flowing-ribbon'd, wide-trouser'd dandy jacks, pricked all over with china-ink, like a savage; but a short, stout, wholesome little "tar of all weathers," with a pleasant, rosy, good-humored visage, bronzed and wilted to be sure, and rather mouldy about the head, for he had "served his full time in a man-of-war ship"--nearly half a century--and no doubt had taught many a sucking reefer, and given excellent advice to lots of sapient lieutenants--i know he has to me often; in a word, to complete his portrait, he was the image of durand's santa claus! "well," said i, "old gentleman, how are you to-night?" "dry as dust, sir." "what! i thought you wet!" "fat!" said he, misunderstanding me, "what on--salt junk? you might carry a lump of it from here to jerusalem, and not get enough fat to grease the pint of a sail-needle." "no! wet i say." "ah! yes, sir! you're right, my hands and feet are shrunk up like a washerwoman's thumb, but i meant _inside_, sir." "well, here's the key of the locker, go down and take a glass of grog, but mind you allow for variation." "aye, aye, sir--no higher nor nor-west." presently he came splashing back to his old stand. "mr. blank, i don't see any shells, tappa, and them sorts of curiosities stowed away in your state-room." "what of that?" "presents to your friends, sir?" "oh, no, i heard of a witty lady, who had a nautical lover constantly sending her navy trash, that she had it all packed in the attic to prevent the drawing-rooms being taken for a sailor boarding-house." "sensible woman, that," chuckled old harry; "you may buy the same things for half the money in water-street, besides hubble hubbles made in hamburgh." the rain came down with renewed violence, if possible, and i became so completely saturated, and water-logged, as to be on the point of requesting a couple of stout top-men to take me by head and heels and wring me comparatively dry, when our confab was interrupted by a sharp squall; but just as as the frigate began to move lively through the water, the wind died quietly away, the topsails flapped against the masts, and all became dark and rainy as before. could a saint help anathematising such weather? "it's unpleasant business this going to sea," chimed in old santa claus, deprecating my wrath against the unfeeling elements; "you ought to try a smoker, i did once." "you did?" said i, incredulously. "yes, sir, i was paid off from a merchantman in orleans, and took passage in one of them smokers, bigger than a three-decker." "but tell me, my old sea dog, why don't you leave the broad ocean, and settle down quietly on shore?" "why; sir, i can't afford it!" "no! well, let me hear your ideas of life!" moving close to my side, while the light from the binnacle flashed upon his pleasant face and dripping garments, he took a reflecting glance at the compass and then began: "d'ye see, sir, i want a country seat--with a nice sail-boat. i'd get up early, and take a good sniffler of brandy, with a dash of peppermint; then i'd go somewhere or another and take breakfast--call for me horse, and ride away eight or ten miles in the country--(he looked like a horseman!)--when i'd get half slewed, and come to town and visit the ladies--." here he appeared palled. "go on," i said "then, sir, i'd take a glass of old madeira--with an egg in it--every half hour--until bed-time, mind ye--when, with another sniffler"-- "eight bells!" sung out the orderly at the cabin doors. the watch was called to take their accustomed drenching, and i went below, without-hearing the conclusion of old greenfield's yarn. this weather, caused probably by the equinox, lasted until the th of october, when the winds sprang from the south, blew away the wet clouds, and carried the ship to a longitude of ° in ° north latitude, when the breeze gradually veered to the eastward, and we crossed the equator. on the morning of the th we discovered the easternmost islands of the marquesas--passed hood's island, and the following day anchored in nukeheva--the anna maria bay of mr. gouch--surveyor of the daedalus, one of vancouver's squadron--who, in ignorance of the previous discovery by the spaniards under alvaro de mendaña, had named the group after his commander, hergest. chapter xlvi. the bay and harbor of anna maria is scooped out of the island in shape of a horse-shoe; hemmed in on three sides by steep mountains, whose sharp, well-defined acclivities spring boldly from the water--dense with foliage--where the brightest verdure closely clasps and kisses the perpendicular faces of the lofty barriers around. at the head of the harbor, along a white, shelly beach, are multitudes of cocoanuts, hibiscus, and bread-fruit trees, screening within their leafy groves thatched huts and villages of the natives. to the right is a rocky projection, frowning with a heavy battery of cannon; while near by are the pretty villa and grounds of the governor--barracks--store-houses--buildings and plantations pertaining to the french garrison. i viewed this scene soon after daylight, as the first rays of morning came glancing in horizontal gleams over the eastern heights, tinging the opposite peaks with the rich, warm glow of sunlight, peering and prying into many a green-clad precipice and grassy dell, step by step, until it fairly illumined the dark alcove-like bay and shores below. the anchors had hardly struck bottom before the frigate was surrounded by canoes, of a rough, clumsy structure, filled with natives of the most hideous and frightful descriptions. the men were nearly naked. many had large, frizzled wigs of human hair, thrown down the back of the neck, and confined to the throat by cords or wire--a style of peruke not intended to be used, but merely as a decoration. others had fresh green leaves entwined around the brows, with concave flaps in front, like visors to caps--their ears perforated with misshapen holes, in which were thrust carved ivory horns, or small bunches of flowers. the hair, from constant bleachings in salt water, dews and tropical suns, had a brown, sandy hue, or the color of tow--brushed straight back, somewhat resembling the head costume of ladies of the court of louis quatorze! but what rendered them preëminently hideous, was the tatooing. it, indeed, bordered on the infernal! not only were their bodies covered with these dark stains, of every pattern, figure and device, but large numbers had angular stripes, two inches broad, beginning at the temple, crossing the eyelid, part of the nose, traversing the mouth and lips, and then going out of sight around the face. i judged it to be a dim idea of the facial angle. others had the entire upper or lower part of the visage stained like masques in domino. isosceles triangles were common, leaving the noses clear, and from a distance they appeared the only feature of their faces. there was one demon who claimed a large share of our attention: not a square inch of him, excepting the tongue and eye-balls, was free from this hieroglyphical human "picture printing," and he took immense delight in pointing out many high touches of art, that might from their position have eluded our observation, and dilated with, to us, unintelligible gibberish, upon certain other indescribable arabesques. we thought him intended as a pattern card; an ambulating advertisement, or sign board, sent abroad, as knowing tailors send dandies at home, to give an idea of the higher and more correct delineations of the tatoo: but this individual was altogether so very interesting a specimen of goblin tapestry, that champollion himself might have studied him with much benefit and gusto. they all looked like consummate rascals, and not in the physiognomony of a single individual could we detect the slightest approach to benevolence, or any of the milder virtues. on the contrary, they are famed for cruelty, selfish apathy, and cunning, and are among the worst of the polynesian tribes. there have been two or three praiseworthy attempts to reform them, by different missionary boards, but they signally failed. the nukehevans were found too vicious to even suffer, without great privation and danger, their teachers to reside on the islands, and they now remain in the same shocking state of barbarism as before the discovery of the group, in sad contrast, so far as the humanizing influences of christianity and civilization extend, to the benefits the pioneers of religion have shed upon the other islands of these indian archipelagoes. during the few years the french, in their rage for colonization in the pacific, have occupied nukeheva, they have encountered great difficulties in keeping these unruly natives within the bounds of moderation. for a length of time they were continually on the _qui vive_ to guard against treachery and attack; of late, the islanders had been quiet, understanding that the french, who held the harbor under what was termed a forcible proprietorship, were shortly to depart; and, indeed, as a preparatory step, some of the government buildings had already been taken down and sent to tahiti. still there seems no reason why the marquesans should have evinced this bitter hostility, for it was conceded that they have been treated with great lenience and forbearance. as a harbor of refuge, in time of war, anna maria is perfectly safe--accessible and defensible; but from the natural indolence of the natives, it is destitute of supplies in sufficient quantities to feed even the few whale-ships touching here during the year. the garrison was composed of two hundred and fifty _infanterie de la marine_, maintained, no doubt, at considerable expense, and for what present or perspective benefit it would be difficult to surmise. the governor was m. fournier, the commander, also, of a fine corvette, the galathée, moored near the shore battery. he was all prepared to give us a warm reception, in case our ship had worn the cross of st. george at her peak, instead of a yankee gridiron, for they were hourly anticipating a rupture with england, consequent upon the french revolution. going on shore, i made the acquaintance of a number of polite officers belonging to the garrison, and had also the pleasure of meeting an old friend, a handsome young enseigne de vaisseau. "ah!" said he, "would you believe, i've been here amid these beasts of savages eighteen months. _mon dieu!_ such a _monotone diablement horrible_! and do you remember all france was talking of du petit thours and this paradise of polynesia, and i, like a fool, was dazzled, too! _sacré! voila!_"--pointing to a group of copper-tinted and tatooed imps reclining under a banana tree devouring raw fish, and sucking _poee_ with their filthy fingers--"and regard me in a flannel jacket, smoking pipes, and reading, for the hundredth time, old revues des deux mondes! perpetually sighing for those ravishing scenes we passed together--those dinners in the bois de bologne--the races in the alleys by moonlight--evenings at ranelagh, when i used to dance the _cancan_ with poor _reine pomarée_, and, behold, i've a lock of her hair," running to an escrutoire; "and is it not droll we should meet again five thousand leagues away, and so near the veritable dominions of the great pomarée herself!" my young friend had cause truly to be disgusted. we took a long stroll around the beaches and valleys at the head of the harbor, made a number of visits, then bathed in a shallow, discolored stream of mineral water. the district is not populous, and, during our sojourn, the king and many of the natives had gone to a high heathenish festival in an adjacent valley, on the opposite side of the island. since the occupation by the french, perfect amity had existed between the different clans of nukeheva, where each petty chief and people are independent sovereigns in their romantic and secluded valleys: not so much for mutual friendship existing between them, as in hatred to their white visitors. the french seldom wandered to any great distance from their quarters, fearing, possibly, the "anthropopagian tastes of their cannibalistic brethren." the women were tall and well shaped, with very much brighter complexions than the hawaiians, and, with exceptions of young girls, were all more or less disfigured by the indigo hues of tatoo; the faces escaping with a few delicate blue lines, or dots, on lips or cheeks. they all seemed complimented, and gave us every assistance in deciphering different designs engraved upon their persons, and one buxom dame, who had a large painting similar to the tail of a peacock spread upon her shoulders, insisted upon doffing her drapery and preceding us, that we might study its beauties with every facility possible! many were decorated with bracelets and necklaces of leaves or flowers, and some with anklets of human hair, toe nails, and other valuable relics. all were perfumed with cocoanut oil, and smeared with another equally odoriferous ointment, which dyed arms and faces a deep saffron--neither cosmetic was i able to acquire a taste for, after repeated trials; and, indeed, i may admit, that i have never conquered a disgust, perhaps engendered by too nice a sense of perfume. from a number of unmistakable signs and expressions, i presumed the _franees_ were not entirely beloved, even by the women, although the men deigned ludicrous attempts in mode of beard, moustache, shrug of shoulders, and other little grimace, to copy french dress and manner. after bathing, we reclined on the thwarts of an immense war-canoe that was hauled upon the beach, capable of holding, at least, fifty paddles, and amused ourselves watching a score of young girls swimming in the bay: they swam like fishes, but, as there were no surf or rocks, i had no means of determining what novel or extraordinary feats they were able to perform: they were quite skilful little fisherwomen, and procured for us a cocoanut-shell full of delicious oysters--no bigger than shilling pieces--which served to pass the time until we adjourned to the king's house. it was rather a modern structure--of roughly-laid stones and boards--built by the french, though falling to decay. there was but a single apartment of tolerable size--floor and walls were strewn with mats, stools, a couple of bedsteads, spyglasses, fowling-pieces covered with rust, spears, nets, calibashes, rolls of _tappa_, war conches, whales' teeth, circular crowns of cocks' feathers, besides an infinite variety of serviceable and useless trumpery, scattered indiscriminately around. coiled up on a low, beastly collection of mats and _tappa_, was a repulsive object, half dead with some loathsome disease, and drunk with _arva_--he was the chief's brother, and was expected to die shortly, or be killed on the return of his sovereign--a custom strictly observed with invalids and old, decrepid persons. within a stone's throw of this habitation, was another nearly completed, in native design. the foundation was raised two feet by a platform of large, round, smooth stones. the building itself was in shape of an irregular inverted acute angle, or trapezoid, at the ends, with the legs slightly inclined outwardly, and resting on the foundation. large upright shafts of polished red wood supported roof and sides, which were nicely formed of frames of white poles, lashed securely and neatly together by braids of parti-colored sennit, and thatched evenly and tastefully over by the spear-shaped leaves of the pandannus, leaving the front of the dwelling open for light and air. it presented a deal of ingenuity and nice mechanism in the design and construction. the french allow the king sixty dollars a-month, and i should say, from the careless appearance of his household, that he made a bad use of it--besides, he was addicted to _arva_, which my friend assured me was a shade worse for the stomach than prussic acid. i returned to the frigate in the evening, with a party planned to visit the happar valley, whose beauties we had heard much extolled, on the following day. chapter xlvii. early the next morning i went on shore, but duties of the garrison prevented the officers from leaving until the morning was somewhat advanced--too late to cross the dividing ridges to the adjacent glens, and we accordingly changed the destination, for an excursion up the valley at the head of the harbor. a pair of native boys preceded us, with baskets. walking briskly through paths lined with thick, wild undergrowth of tobacco, arrow-root, ginger and guavas, we mounted a number of acclivities, and then striking the bed of a water-course, in two hours reached a comparatively level space, which, my friend informed me, was _la cour de l'ancienne noblesse_, and the spot where high festivals of the nukehevans were held. the court was a parallelogram, paved with smooth, round stones, and on three sides surrounded by native-built houses, unoccupied, but very large and commodious, all in good repair, and ready for a perspective feast. at the lower ends of the square coursed a little stream, and the place was dark with shade of lofty cocoanuts, bread-fruit, iron-wood, maple and gigantic hibiscus. all was silent, gloomy and deserted, the imperative decrees of taboo preserved it sacred from native footsteps, during the intervals between their sacrifices and feasts--even our _cumulees_--boys, made a wide circuit, with bowed heads and averted faces. closely scrutinizing this field of heathenish revels, we continued on up the ravine, and in a few minutes familiarly paid our respects to the king's father, by unceremoniously bobbing through his doorway, and slapping him smartly on the back. the hut was large, in accordance with the position, rank and wealth of the owner. a trickling rivulet in front filled a scooped-out bowl in the rocks, some yards in diameter, and then flowed over a little natural channel, worn at the side, like the gutter to a fountain. around and above, the cocoanuts were rustling in the sea-breeze. we were cordially greeted by the host, who was seated on his hams and heels, with no other apparel than a _maro_ wound around the loins, and a necklace of straggling, snow-white hairs hanging on his meagre breast; it was the honored beard of his ancestors, which was, i suppose, retained merely to swear by, as it did not appear either valuable or ornamental. he was a remarkable and venerable goblin, and he informed us that his existence comprised nine hundred moons. this would have made him somewhere verging on eighty years; but he appeared as aged as saturn. he was tatooed all over the body and limbs, face alone exempted. it must have occupied as much time to delineate him as it did rafael to fresco the galleries of the vatican! but his hide was so ancient and worm-eaten, that many fine touches were almost illegible. around his knees were playing two little dusky imps, scarcely a year old! god knows where they came from--may have been a present, as it is all the fashion among the marquesas. nevertheless, he regarded them with the most affectionate interest, and watched their every movement, even to sucking his mouldering toes and pulling his grizzly top-knot, with the tenderest solicitude. presently they crawled in front of the dwelling, and actually toddled into the pool. i instantly started up to fish them out, but the old goblin only chuckled, and the little elfs kept bobbing about the surface of the water with the buoyancy of corks--like junk bottles in a lea-way--crowing and smiling bravely. i never was more amazed, and taking a dip myself afterwards, found the basin up to my neck. native attendants soon produced clusters of cocoanuts, with the crowns of their heads knocked off, ready for consumption. we made cocoanut-milk punch--every man his own punch-bowl; with a sprinkle of lime-juice, and syrup of powdered sugar-cane--gently agitated within the milky shells--which made as delicious a beverage as ever a regent brewed: it is worth a trip to polynesia alone to enjoy it. then exploring the resources of the baskets, we discovered a case of sardines, bread, bananas, and oranges; made luncheon, and fed the children on the crumbs. pipes were filled, and a native boy quickly brought forth two sticks, and cutting the hardest to a point, and holding the other firmly fixed against a stone, began to wear a groove with the pointed stick in the softest by a measured movement along the surface. presently a fine dust was deposited at the lower end; the white wood turned dark; quicker and quicker, stronger and stronger traversed the pointed stick; the dust began to smoke, some dry fibres and leaves were laid across, and in an instant burst into a blaze. the operation lasted three or four minutes, and was skilfully performed. i had plenty of lucifers in my pocket, but not having witnessed the native process of striking fire, and thinking a little wholesome exertion would not injure the young _cumulee_, i did not produce them. throwing ourselves at full length on the mats, we devoted the time to conversation and tobacco. the old goblin fascinated me, i could not remove my gaze from his lineaments, but by and by i opined that there was a singular odor pervading the habitation; and upon reflection, i experienced something unpleasant upon first entering; but then there are so many villanous compounds surrounding native dwellings, and being moreover deeply engaged brewing punch, eating luncheon, smoking, and surveying the goblin, i forgot other matters for the time being, until a pause in the conversation induced me to enquire the cause of the annoyance. ah! said a frenchman, giving a few agonizing sniffs, and looking around: _ah! le voici!_ casting my eyes upward, i beheld a long object, enveloped in native cloth and tappa, hanging slantingly across a beam, like a _fantoccino_, just before throwing a summerset on the slack-wire! it was a near relative, lately deceased, who from an elevated and unchristian notion of respect, had been suspended under the paternal roof, until dry enough to be deposited in a raised native tomb of stones and thatch. dropping the pipe, i gained my feet, and bidding our antique host a hasty farewell, rushed into the open air; where, after swallowing a modicum of eau de vie neat, i swore a mental vow never more to visit nukehevan nobility! returning towards the harbor, we tarried to exchange a kind word with the catholic priest attached to the garrison. it is needless to add that he had made no proselytes among the natives, and when, from idle curiosity or merriment, they attended mass, and were under no apprehensions from _franee_ bayonets, they delighted themselves by mimicking every word and gesture of the good father. during the jaunt we encountered two or three american or english vagabonds, residing permanently on the island, subsisting on _poee poee_ and raw fish, lost to all the tastes and habits of civilized society, making a livelihood by trading with ships touching at the group, or idolized by the islanders for their skill in the distillation of deleterious intoxicating drinks from the dragon-tree, kava, or sugar-cane. they are a class of persons, who, if not naturally unprincipled, are driven by harsh usage to desert from the whalers, and the contrast of the indolent voluptuous life of the islands, with the hardships and disease of shipboard, is more than sufficient to reconcile them to the change. the whaling interests of the united states have now attained so vast a magnitude, that it is high time our government should take measures exclusively for their protection in these seas. the enterprise of our hardy fishermen has driven the ships of all other nations almost entirely off the ground of competition. in the pacific, and its continental seas alone, we have a mighty fleet of more than five hundred whale ships, manned in the aggregate by twenty thousand seamen. the larger portion of these vessels are fitted for the right whale, and seek their prey on the northern coasts of america or asia, in high southern latitudes, and latterly, with extraordinary success, on the shores of japan and sea of okokts. the sperm fishermen cruise near the equator, and not only are frequently surrounded by dangerous navigation, amidst islands or reefs little known, but have also to guard against surprise, and the treachery of savages of the uncounted groups of polynesia; unavailingly at times, for, in addition to the long catalogue of crimes committed in this ocean, was that of the capture of the ship triton, in december of ' , by the natives of sydenham island--one of the king's mill cluster--a number of whose crew were inhumanly massacred. it does not necessarily follow that the natives are always to blame--gross outrages sometimes demand prompt vengeance;--but yet a small squadron of double-decked corvettes, of light draught, and ample stowage, constantly cruising, and touching among these groups, would tend in a great degree to shield our whalers from harm, and the natives themselves from the imposition and injustice so commonly practised upon them. again, if there were stringent laws for the internal government of this branch of our marine--were masters not allowed under any circumstances to keep the sea beyond the usual period comprised in a fishing season, before visiting port, and the scurvy considered a capital offense, we should meet with fewer instances of desertions or mutiny, and fewer diseased, vicious vagabonds drifting about these islands at the mercy of the natives. chapter xlviii. on the th of september, the well-used chains and anchors were raised from their beds, and with a light wind we drifted slowly from the lonely bay of anna maria. the sun arose the next morning, and a dim blue haze alone pointed to the spot on the ocean where lie the marquesas. the fifth day after sailing from nukeheva, we approached the north-western clusters of the society group, and passed a number of low coralline islands, appearing like a raft of upright spars adrift upon the sea. one was kruzenstein's--named by kotzbue, in compliment to his old commander. at sunrise of the following day, we were before tahiti. the land rises, grand and imposing, to the elevation of seven thousand feet. one core-like ridge runs along the summit, branching off into numberless steep valleys and acclivities, down to the water's edge. the peaks pierce the sky bold and strikingly--thrown up into the most fantastic and grotesque shapes--while more singular than all, cradled between a great gap of the heights, is the diadem of faatoar, having a dozen pointed elevations circling around a crown, like the serrated teeth of a saw. nearer towards the bases of these ridges are low points jutting into the ocean, crowded with cocoanut trees--then a narrow belt of lagoon, and the whole girdled by a snow-white wreath of foam, embroidered on the coral reefs. the morning was cloudless. to the southward, rising clearly and bright, tinged by the glorious sun, undraped by a single atom of mist or vapor, was the island of aimeo, equally varied and novel in its strange formations; and when at a later day we sailed around it, while the different phases were brought in clear relief against the heavens--we discovered battlements, embrasures, pyramids--ruined towers with terraces and buttresses--a cathedral with domes and spire--all so fantastically blended in one beautifully verdant picture, as to leave the imagination in doubt as to its reality! we hove to in sight of the harbor of papeetee. the french ships of war, with chequered rows of ports, were lying with drooping flags and not a breath of air, whilst with us the loud trade-wind was tearing crests from the waves, and the frigate trembling under her top-sails. a gun, and jack at the fore, and shortly there came dancing over the waves, in a whale-boat, an officer, monsieur le pilot! two hours we remained outside, awaiting the breeze to fill the port--and then wearing round, the ship leaped, replete with life and vigor--every seam of the stout canvas straining--towards an entrance through a coral gateway. the sea was light green on either side of the aperture, barely wide enough to admit us, when, at the turning point, the helm was put down, and the strong wind bore the huge hull through the blue channel into the smooth water within. sails were brailed up, and at the proper moment down fell the ponderous anchor--splash--with its unfettered cable rumbling to the coral beds of papeetee! what if there chanced to be a group of mermaids, parting their wet locks, in the emerald villas below? nothing! crashing through the snowy groves and shelly mansions, goes the ruthless anchor, alike indifferent to all! we were locked in by the reef--no ungainly ledge of black, jagged rocks--no frightful barrier to make tempest-tost mariners shudder--but a smooth parapet of coral, just beneath the surface, with the outer face like a bulwark of adamant, where the swelling billows vainly expend their rage, and then bubble rippling over in a liquid fringe of creamy foam. skirting along the semi-circular shores of the harbor, is the town of papeetee. lines of houses and cottages half smothered in glossy green foliage--pretty, square-built, veranda'd, straw-colored dwellings and barracks of the french--and midway between reef and shore, a little bouquet of an islet, teeming with cocoanut, banian, bread-fruit and the iron-wood tree, with its filmy, feathery, delicate tissue of leaves and branches--all drooping over a few cane-thatched sheds and a _demi-lune_ battery of open-mouthed cannon. night came, and the breeze was done. not a sigh disturbed the tranquil water--the towering ships were mirrored and reflected by the moonlight--red fires were shedding twinkling glooms from fishing canoes, through the moon's silver flame, athwart the sparkling phosphorescent surf--the sharp peaks of tahiti were hanging high above, with aimeo dimly visible in the distance! presently bugles from the ships of war rang out clear and shrill in the calm night--drums rattled--tap--tap--tap--flash--flash--the nine o'clock guns, and as the reverberating echoes from the reports went dying away from valley to valley, there came the clash of cymbals from the shore, and then the full crash of a brass band, pouring forth the most delightful melody from norma; whilst the low "shaling" roar on the reef beat time in a deep musical base. we thought papeetee by far the loveliest spot that we had seen, not excepting charming little hilo! pomàree's flag and the french tricolor floated side by side. the queen was handsomely pensioned, as were also the chiefs, the french having kindly taken possession of their heritage, under a forcible protectorate. people may prate an ocean of nonsense about the injustice of the thing, but the fact is, france wished colonies in the pacific--tahiti was one selected, and the english themselves afforded an excellent pretext to make the acquisition. suppose, for example--catholics had been first in the field, and, by their instigation, protestant or puseyite missionaries had been kicked into the sea, would john bull in his lion's mantle have calmly beheld his subjects maltreated for heresy, in striving to preach the gospel among the heathen? no! not without baring his claws, and making them felt in the tawny hides of every savage in polynesia! ay! and, if need be, in white skins, also, though they had been french! then what sickly sympathy it is to talk of the wrongs and aggressions, or the rights and laws of european nations as having a bearing upon a handful of barbarians, subjected to the savage sway of tyrannical native masters, when contrasted with the benefits conferred upon the world at large, by their being under the enlightened rule of a civilized government! the french experienced hard fighting and much difficulty in subduing tahiti; and, even after all the trouble, loss of blood and money, it seems highly probable that they are dissatisfied with their conquest, and may shortly resign it: at any rate, the expenditure attending the occupation must be very great, and it appears a mistaken policy in retaining so large a garrison. there were thirteen hundred troops, exclusive of ships of war always in port, posted in tahiti--far more than needed to overawe the natives, and too few to withstand a land attack from a foreign foe. trade is a mere bagatelle--the french have no commerce--and whale-ships have deserted papeetee, since most of the produce is consumed by the garrison. the population, as in all polynesia, are constitutionally opposed to labor--they cannot bend their energies to any steady employment, and, when compelled to work, they pine away like unhappy monkeys--thus the soil, though rich and tillable, is only made to produce a small quantity of arrow root, sugar, and cocoanut oil. fortifications were progressing rapidly, and the harbor is very susceptible of defence. two heavy batteries, _en cavalier_, which, when completed, were to mount sixteen traversing guns, mostly eighty-pounder shells, will rake the entrance through the reef, at point-blank range; twelve more cannon on pomàree's little islet of motunata, cross the fire from the shore battery, and sweep in every direction over the reef-seaward. there are besides, four small block houses, perched on the salient spurs of the mountains in rear of the town, with each a long gun which can be brought to bear on the harbor. all the world bear witness with what skill the french use artillery on land, and it must be an intrepid commander who attempts a demonstration on the island by the harbor of papeetee. the governorship was placed in the hands of m. lavaud, to whom, with the officers of the garrison, and officers afloat of the fine frigate, syréne, and steamer, gassendi, we were indebted for many acts of courtesy. they were all extremely republican, under their reversed tricolor. since the occupation of the society and marquesas groups, tahiti has been made the see of a bishop. but although the catholics have prosecuted their labors with laudable and philanthropic zeal, yet, strange as it may be, they have not met with the same success as their fellow missionaries in the hawaiian islands. nor have the tahitians, together with the inhabitants of many of these southern groups, forgotten the early truths taught them by their kind protestant teachers, and they still lament the untimely fate of john williams: a man of the noblest piety, possessed of the undaunted resolution and industry of the apostles of old, who fell a martyr to his faith and labors, among the very savages he went to reform. there were two excellent gentlemen, stationed at papeetee from the london board of protestant missions--messrs. howe and thompson--who, if sound sense, unbiassed by narrow-minded sectarian prejudice, combined with great practical information, and knowledge of the native character, can be of service in their mission, they have indeed the true elements of success. from the opportunities we had of judging in papeetee and the vicinity, there certainly was exhibited a more modest and correct deportment among the natives than we observed elsewhere; and although morality, strictly speaking, is unknown, there was still less outward licentiousness visible than was a matter of hourly occurrence in the other groups. _note._--in all the lighter sketches upon polynesia, i cannot resist paying the faint tribute of my own individual admiration to mr. melville. apart from the innate beauty and charming tone of his narratives, the delineations of island life and scenery, from, my own personal observation, are most correctly and faithfully drawn. at nukeheva and tahiti i made inquiry about his former associates, and without in the least designing to sully the enchanting romance of his fair typee love, i may mention having seen a "nut-brown" damsel, named fayaway, from that valley, who apparently was maid of all work to a french commissary of the garrison. she was attired in a gaudy yellow robe de chambre, ironing the crapeau's trowsers! _credat judeus!_ there was also a diminutive young _oui oui_ tumbling about the mats, so it is presumable she had become childish of late; yet the proof is not strong, for it is quite as much in vogue among these southern groups to change names and give away infants, as the fashion in the sandwich islands of knocking out a couple of front teeth to evince grief at the decease of near friends or relatives, and the nymph alluded to may not be the original fayaway after all. mr. melville's friend, dr. johnstone, whom he has immortalized in omoo, was excessive wroth, and refused to be pacified, resolving shortly to prosecute the english publishers for libel. he politely permitted me to transcribe some items from his dose book, declaring however, that the "embrocation" so relished by the long ghost, was a villanous preparation, having the least taste of gin in the world, and made up from laudanum, turpentine, and soap linament! here is the memorandum:-- "ship, lucy ann, captain vinton. october th, . melvil herman. stocks. embrocation th. do ---- $ " i felt no inclination to task it, since i found the doctor's other prescriptions unexceptionable. the ghost must have been seriously indisposed; he had a large quantity: was supposed at the period of our visit to be in sydney, or after gold in california, but, with his ubiquitous propensities, may have been in both places. captain bob, of the calaboosa, was "muckee-moi," so was father murphy, all under the sod. charming mrs. bell had taken to hard drink, _before_ mr. melville's rencontre, and may have been slightly elevated on that occasion. h. m. _ci-devant_ consul, mr. wilson, was in the like vinous state, and occupied his leisure in the pursuit of shells at the navigator islands. shorty was still devoting his talents to the culture of potatoes at aimeo, and strongly suspected of shooting his neighbor's cattle. chapter xlix. the rain fell in torrents the day succeeding our arrival, and it was not until sunday that i had courage to set foot on shore: then i went solus, and jumping on the beach, two minutes' walk found me in the broom road, a broad lane running nearly the entire circuit of tahiti, within a stone's throw of the surf-locked lagoons, shaded like a bower by magnificent trees and undergrowth, that hang their drooping, green arms in grateful coolness, to shield the traveller from the heat of tropical suns. notwithstanding mud from recent rains, the roads and lateral paths were thronged with natives: i was surprised to find them so much superior in physical mould and beauty to those of other islands we had visited. the men were well proportioned, and some with a noble bearing; the women were very tall, scarcely one less than five feet eight; many of the young girls were exquisitely shaped, with small hands and feet. moreover, they had borrowed a nicer taste in dress from the french, and their gowns and bonnets were very becomingly worn. i splashed and trudged about the broom road until evening, and then, following the tide of population, entered the well laid out grounds of the gubernatorial mansion. the lawns and alleys were crowded with natives, officers and soldiers, listening to the evening music; this over, i devoted the evening wandering from café to café, and wondering if i were in france or tahiti. lights were gleaming from every little auberge and cabaret of the town--the tables within covered with pipes and bottles of red wine--soldiers were drinking and chanting favorite songs of beranger; and one inebriated sapper, meeting me in the road, placed both hands on my shoulders, and roared out, with but an indifferent appreciation of music: "j'ai connu moreau--victor--argerau-- et murat--et massen--a--a-- vash a fling a flong--tra a long, a long--!" the streets were filled with groups of gaily-attired native girls, who, with low, musically laughing voices, were chattering their soft, vowelly dialect, unceasingly, interrupted occasionally by some gallant frenchman, who would perhaps give a stray damsel a chuck under the chin, or a hasty clasp around the waist, and pass on, regardless of their lively sallies. then overgrown gend'armes would be perceptible in the distance, by their white cotton aguillettes and clashing sabres, when the nymphs would disappear like frightened partridges amid the adjacent groves, and all were hushed in an instant, until the dreadful police had passed by, when they would again emerge and occupy their former ground. then, too, the light yellowish tinge of plastered houses, so often seen in france--the thatched cane huts of the natives--sentinels pacing the ramparts--near by, a brass field-piece gazing up the road--and beneath the spreading bread fruit, or under the stately trunk of a cocoanut, a soldier in red breeches, resting on the shining barrel of his musket. all this, with the profusion of tropical foliage, the grand scenery of the island, and a thousand other novel scenes, so strangely contrasted with _demi-bar-bare_ life, that i became quite bewildered, and was glad to make the acquaintance of an agreeable french officer, who, with a bottle of bourdeaux, soon brought me to my senses. i passed the night on shore, in the warehouse of an american merchant, and should probably have slept well, in defiance of musquitoes, had not a choice coterie of _sous-officers_, in an adjoining cabaret, within-arm's length of my window, made vociferous music, by screaming republican airs until daylight, very much incited, no doubt, by continual cries of _encore du vin, mon cher_, and the usual ringing accompaniment of bottles and glasses. rising betimes, i donned walking dress, and after breakfast, in company with my friend larry and an officer of the french marine, who spoke the tahitian dialect perfectly well, we left papeetee for an excursion up the broom road towards point venus. the rain had quenched the dust, and there was a grateful freshness clinging around the lime and orange groves. the sun had not yet drank the sparkling diamond-drops of dew trembling upon the guava thickets, nor had the breeze shaken a leaf of the towering cocoanuts, nor vibrated a single sphere of bread-fruit that hung like pendulums from amid the glossy leaves. the air, too, was heavy with perfume of orange and jessamine--and we went larking along the quiet road--kicking up our heels and whooping joyously--pausing a moment to catch a gleaming view of the slender peaks above us--the conspicuous diadem of faatoar--the green savannahs sloping up the valleys, or the blue sea and reef as yet undazzled by the rising sun. we dallied frequently with young cocoanuts, and said _aroha_--love to you--to any lithe _vahinees_ we encountered in our path. once we tarried for repose and beer at a french auberge, and then, without further break to our voyage, we continued on along the curves of the reef-locked shores for some miles, when a lane branched away to the left, and we came to the new country house of pomàrce at papoa. it stands on a narrow coralline embankment, within a bound of the smooth, pebbly beach--surrounded by noble trees, and overhanging clusters of the richest tropical foliage. the building is an oblong oval, one hundred feet by thirty. through the centre runs a range of square, polished columns of light koa wood, eighteen feet high, supporting a cross-sleeper the whole length of the roof: from this beam, drooping down at an angle of about fifty degrees, were a great number of white, glistening poles, radiating with perfect evenness and regularity to within six feet of the ground, where they were notched and tied securely with braids of variegated sennit to ridge-pieces fitted in posts around the circuit of the building. the roof was thatched with the long, dried, tapering leaves of pandannus, folded on slim wands, and plaited in regular lines, down to the eaves, where, just within, fell a few inches of plain fringed matting nicely stitched to the roof. inside this curtain, again, were the perpendicular sides of the dwelling, constructed of the same white poles of hibiscus as those upholding the roof, and all lashed by braid to cross sections between the posts--leaving narrow spaces between each pole, and but two arches for doorways on the side opposite the sea. the house was quite new, and indeed hardly completed, but with the breeze blowing through the open trellis-worked walls, and the great lofty roof hanging lightly above, it presented the most airy, fanciful structure conceivable, and was admirably adapted to the climate and habits of the islanders. the floor was carpeted with dried grass and rushes, six inches deep; mats were scattered around, groups of swarthy natives were lounging listlessly on the grass, and bands of girls and women engaged weaving mats, scraping cocoanut shells to transparent thinness, playing cards, or sleeping on the laps of others. the queen was absent on a visit to the island of aimeo. she was described as a brave, temperate, fat old lady of about forty years, who has never yet been able to overcome youthful prejudices against european style of living--and although the french have built and furnished her a pleasant residence in papeetee, she is still happy to kick off etiquette, with her shoes, and fly to native pleasures and kindred. she was blessed with a large family, and six were being educated in aimeo by the english mission, who with great liberality would voluntarily defray the expenses of their education, as well as of the children of the high chiefs; but the governor very properly sets aside portions of their pensions for that purpose, which is undoubtedly the best use the money can be put to. as pomàree detests the french, and cannot be persuaded to assume, except for a moment, european manners and customs, she neither assumes any of their virtues, but leads a rollicking, sportive life, surrounded by gay troupes of frolicsome attendants--spending the remainder of her five thousand dollar stipend in decking her dark-eyed favorites with pretty dresses and trinkets. mr. ellis has written an interesting poem, filled with virtuous indignation in relation to the poor queen's wrongs, and there is one couplet which is unfortunately too true-- "who would believe that england would have left that _trusting_ queen thus suffering and bereft?" the fact is, the beautiful, princess aimata that was, is now by her own imprudence low in purse, and having acquired the habit of coquetting too extensively with tradesmen and merchants of papeetee, she finds difficulty in getting trusted before her pension falls due. still, with all her foibles, she was universally acknowledged to be a woman of strong sense and character, adored by her subjects, and respected by foreigners. after idling an hour with a few of the young ladies of the court, who were making preparations for their sovereign's reception, we left the palace, and keeping along the shelly strand, passed through a sacred grove of iron-wood, whose gauze-like branches waved over the tombs of the ancient kings of tahiti. there was naught to be seen, save heaps of mouldering coral ruins--thence crossing a point of the reef, which closed upon the beach, we reached one of many indentations of the island, matavai bay, and shortly afterwards came upon a native school-house. the building was large and dilapidated--the rush-laid floor was occupied with forms for the scholars, who were seated about in rows. some of the girls had very pretty, attractive faces, and nearly all of both sexes wore around the brow and hair, chaplets of braid entwined with red and white flowers--orange or jessamine--having tasteful tassels of fresh blossoms hanging down behind the ear. they were not the most quiet school in the world, but applied to their tasks with great spirit and quickness. the teacher was an odd fish in his way--of the dwarf species--scarcely five feet in altitude--but from his peculiar build, he looked to me growing larger and larger every instant. the head was immense--hair white and cropped--the face expressed firmness, benevolence and intelligence. his body and arms were those of a giant, while the lower limbs tapered away to nothing, half shrouded in blue tappa, and over all he wore a flowing, yellow shirt. the roll was called, and i noticed a few urchins, who were tardy in arriving, whimpering, from which i surmised they were at times indulged with the bamboo. a hymn was sung in good time; and although the girls had soft clear voices, there was little musical taste. in conclusion, an extemporaneous prayer was made--all kneeling--by a venerable native, who was afflicted, like many of his race, with _elephantiasis_. at the word "amen," the little pupils gave a joyous whoop, and leaped pell-mell through the doorways. returning by the broom road, which is never beyond a few yards from the sea, we paid a visit to another hencoop habitation, owning for its lord, arupeii, brother to the queen's last husband, and his wife a cousin to pomàree herself. they were a fine-looking couple, and the chieftainess, with her pretty baby, struck me as particularly handsome. dinner was preparing, and we passed the time pleasantly, lounging on mats, and smoking pipes. the first preparation for the feast was made by a plump girl, in an extremely brief petticoat, who ascended a tree above our heads, and picked an armful of broad round leaves, which afterwards were used for a tablecloth. they were carefully lapped one upon the other in rows on the ground, and mats and low stools placed near them. the girl, whom we christened jack, from a peculiar roll in her gait, assisted by two more attendants, ranged a close platoon of youthful cocoanuts, with mouths open like lids, along the centre of the board; on either side were laid transparent shell goblets--the dark filled with sea-water and the light with fresh. thus much for the table-service. now came in on a huge wooden platter a baked pig, his dear little trotters, tail, and even to the extremity of his snout, crisped and browned most invitingly. in a trice jack twisted a brace of leaves around her fingers, seized the tempting grunter, and hey! presto! no articulator of anatomical celebrity, no, not even the professional carver mentioned by sir walter, who dissected becaficos into such multitudes of morsels, could have more cunningly divided the dish, giving each of the company an equal share. now came a stack of roasted bread-fruit. jack, with gloves of more fresh leaves on her hands, peeled, halved, tore out the seeds, and tossed them from platter to table, with the dexterity of a juggler at his tricks. then there came piles of taro, and snow-white yams; heaps of oranges, and golden pineapples, with bunches of bananas in the offing. we were six at table, seated, _à la turque_, on mats. the servants first handed shells of fresh water; and, by the way, every one knows who invented steam-engines, playing-cards, and pin-making; yet in the absence of positive information, i claim the finger-glass as of tahitian origin, and wish it to be generally understood. then falling to, and with a fragment of bread-fruit crushed within the hand, and a delicate bit of crisped pig dipped in salt-water, by way of castors, we munched and sucked our digits alternately, until the heavy edibles were well nigh consumed; when laving again, dessert of fruits were distributed, the goblets once more went round, we rinsed our throats with cocoanut milk, and thus ended the feast. we had a _chasse_ of pipes and brandy; but this last was purely an innovation on a native dinner. our comely hostess was treated with great deference and respect, none of the attendants presuming to sit in her presence; indeed, we were entertained by distinguished nobs of the true tahitian nobility, and all was _maitai_. previous to the repast, we had dispatched a courier on horseback to the port for wine, and, before dark, he returned, with but the breakage of a single bottle, and somewhat inebriated--so we judged he had broken the vessel after tasting the contents; but the matter was not satisfactorily proven; there was still abundance, and the cups circulated freely. the pretty chieftainess smiled, the baby took a sip and crowed like a chicken. arupeii facing me, cross-legged, laughed outright, and related by signs, and a few words i could comprehend, many reminiscences of war and battles--ships of war and their commanders, with unpronounceable names--all of whom, i assured him, were my intimate friends and near relations. later in the evening, we walked to a running stream hard by, and, with the full moon above us, and while "hesper, the star with amorous eye, shot his fine sparkle from the deep blue sky," twinkling over the grotesque heights of aimeo, the air laden with the odor of orange and jessamine, we waded into the brook, and diverted ourselves by plashing water upon a group of maids of honor who had followed us. before we knew it, a heavy black cloud had stolen from the shade of the high mountains, and we had barely time to snatch our garments from the grass and scamper through the grove, before the rain was upon us: it passed as quickly--the wine was exhausted--the chieftainess presented me with a shell goblet, and bidding good night to our noble entertainers we were escorted to the palace of pomàree, where the chief in waiting had large fine mats laid for couches, curtained by rolls of tappa, and with the moonlight glancing on the foaming reef, visible through the cage-built house, and the water rippling on the sandy shore, we betook ourselves to rest. our repose was shortly disturbed by a regiment of juveniles who marched before the palace, chaunting, with great vociferation, the marseilles hymn, giving the word "battalion" in full chorus; then, much to our astonishment, they struck up "jim along, josey," and concluded the opera with "dan tucker," set to native words. at this stage of the concert, our host, by request, made a few remarks, and the performers vanished. fleas were excessively troublesome, and, during the night, to get rid of the annoyance, we had several dips in the lagoon, which was an easy matter, since the water was nearly at the foot of our couches. once i was on the point of shifting my bed of mats to the beach, under a clump of cocoanuts, but our host would not hear of it--declaring it was _ita maitai! ita maitai!_--impossible! not good! indeed i afterwards found the practice was never indulged in by the natives--for should one of these heavy nuts--and they are very large--many containing a full quart of milk, to say nothing of the weight of shell and husk--falling from an elevation of nigh an hundred feet, chance to alight on the cocoanut of the sleeper, it is reasonable to suppose it would damage his ideas or slumber: besides, large rats ascend the trees, and sometimes detach the fruit, while knawing into the tender nut: crabs, too, the sagacious creatures, crawl up the trunks whose branches incline over the rocky shores, cut the stem with their claws, and the concussion attending the fall splits them wide open, or cracks them ready for eating. i never saw them at these pranks, but have the information from reliable authority. as the daylight guns from the port of papeetee came booming and echoing among the mountains, we sprang to our feet, swallowed a cooling draught of cocoanut milk, enjoyed another bathe in the stream, and then trudged gaily back to town. a few days later, we were visited by our hospitable friend, arupeii! he was shown every attention, and, at the usual hour, placed his heels under the gun-room mahogany. he dispensed with forks, and ate indiscriminately of viands, vegetables, and other dainties; occasionally storing away bits of bread and ham in the flowing bosom of his shirt, for, no doubt, a more convenient season. he never let a bottle pass him, either of port, sherry, or malt, appreciating brandy most, and having a fancy for drinking all from tumblers. with these little solecisms, he got on famously, and, at the termination of the dinner, patted his portly person and shouted _maitai_. i do not know whether it be considered with the tahitian aristocracy complimentary to covet a neighbor's goods, but certainly my stout chieftain was the most shameless beggar i ever remembered to have any dealings with. he volunteered to accept hatbands, plugs of tobacco, sealing wax, pistols, newspapers, anything and everything he saw, until, at the end of the third glass of strong waters after dinner, he requested, as a particular favor, the mess candlesticks, when, losing all patience, i told him his boat was waiting, so he hitched up his trousers, offered to rub noses, and with a present for his handsome wife stowed in the capacious shirt, we shook hands, and away he paddled on shore. this was the last we saw of arupeii. the frigate was always, sundays excepted, surrounded by canoes filled with the natives, and they must have made a golden harvest, to judge from the immense quantities of fruits constantly coming over the gangways--so great was the demand for cocoanuts, that they were rafted off from the shore in strings, like water-casks. the canoes were awkwardly hewn out of rough logs, with ill-arranged, misshapen outriggers; quite unlike the buoyant, swift little water vehicles of the sandwich islanders. one day, attended by a tidy little reefer, we hired a clumsy, crazy equipage, with a copper and indigo-colored monster in the stern to paddle us about the reef and harbor. it was low water, and as our canoe drew but an inch or two of water outside--she was half-full inside--we were able to skim over the shallowest parts; and, by the by, there is a strange anomaly in the tides of papeetee, which are not in the least influenced by the moon--there are many ways of accounting for it--i only speak of the fact--we ever found a full sea at twelve, and low water at six. in many places, a few feet below the surface, we glided over what seemed the most exquisite submarine flower-gardens, corals of all colors, and of every imaginable shape--plant, sprig, and branching antlers--of purple, blue, white, and yellow--variegated star and shell fish, and narrow clear blue chasms and fissures of unfathomable depths between; but what was equally beautiful to behold, schools of superbly-colored fishes swimming and darting about in the high blue rollers as raising their snowy crests just before breaking upon the outer wall of the reef, the finny tribes were held in a transparent medium, like that seen through a crystal vase. a heavy shower interrupted our aquatic researches, and we sought shelter on pomàree's diminutive island of motuuata. it hardly covers an acre, but is a most charming retreat beneath the drooping foliage, and i did not wonder at the jolly queen's taste. she never goes there now: the _franees_ were busy with pick and barrow on parapet and bastion; blacksmiths and artizans were hammering away at the forges, and, beneath the trees and sheds, soldiers and sailors were munching long rolls of bread and drinking red wine. who can wonder that the poor queen has forsaken her former haunts, when her cane-built villas are polluted by foreign tread, and the weeping groves that sheltered her troops of languishing revellers, the "cushions of whose palms" had clasped the smooth trunks of all--where merriment, games, feast, and wassail went on unceasingly, in all the native abandonment of island life and pleasure; now to have those scenes so changed by red-breeched _franees_--the shelly shores tossed with stone and mortar into embankments for dreaded cannon, and the grove resounding with stunning sound of hammer and anvil. alas! poor pomàree! recall the bright days of your girlhood, and curse the hour when you invited the stranger to your kingdom. chapter l. early one morning the governor and myself left the ship at gunfire, for a pic-nic among the mountains. we met with no more serious adventure in our transit from the frigate to the beach, than the capsizing a barrel of bread, by our stupid italian valet, belonging to the baker's bumboat, in which we had been kindly offered a passage to the shore. the loaves went floating all about the harbor, and we were some minutes rescuing the manna from neptune's pocket. without further mishap we went straight to the domicile of an english gentleman, who had politely planned the party. all was prepared, and we set off as the troops of the garrison were filing into the parade ground for weekly review, and a very creditable and soldierly appearance they presented. we made quite a respectable battalion ourselves, so far as numerical force went. in advance trotted a vigorous _taata_, with a couple of large, native baskets slung by a pole over his shoulders, loaded with bottles and provender; at his heels, our own unfortunate esquire, giacomo. the governor, our english friend and myself, constituted the main body, and the rear guard was composed of three laughter-loving damsels--straight and tall--with an easy grace of motion, like willows. one was housekeeper to our friend, and the most beautiful woman in face and form we had seen in all the islands. her figure was lithe and clear as an antelope--hands and feet small, with arms that would have made canova start in his dreams. the face was full of sweetness and expression--eyes soft, full and dark--the mouth and chin large and rounded--with even, white teeth, and long, glossy-black tresses. her name was teina, and it, had as pretty a sound as the euphonious _ita ita_, the tahitians pronounce so melodiously. the other maidens were teina's companions, who, having no engagements on hand, accompanied us as volunteers, or light troops. we tramped blithely along the broom road, whilst the delicious strains from the brass band went sailing up hill and grove. between the radiating mountain-ridges of tahiti, which diverge from the longitudinal core of the summit, there are many frightful precipices--awful splits in the bosom of the earth--narrow, gloomy and deep, that hang frowningly over the sombre, turbulent torrents of waters that spring from the misty faces of the upper heights. our route led up one of them. turning up a broad valley, we followed the course of a rapid stream, crossing and re-crossing where rocks of the adjacent heights became too precipitous to admit a pathway; and to save time and unnecessary trouble, we were either ferried over on the shoulders of our _taata_ convoy, breasting the foaming surge, or once or twice i was mounted on one of the native damsels--miss toanni--who kindly offered her services. i blush for my want of gallantry, but trust it was in a measure redeemed by holding her drapery from the water during the several wadings. she wore for head-dress a broad straw hat with fluttering ribbons--a figured gingham sac, plaited and buttoned to the throat, fell loosely over a white under-tunic--and demi-pantaletts reached below the knees, where the costume terminated by open-worked, indigo stockings, that would bear washing--while her fingers were covered with indelible blue rings, of the same material as the hose. there is very little tatooing among the tahitians--a few leggings--blue devices about the neck--rings on fingers or toes, but never a mark on the face. as civilization advances, they acquire a distaste for these heathenish skin-paintings. however, i must not lose sight of toanni. she had a firm, well-knit frame--wide mouth, fine, brilliant teeth, intended for service--such as cracking flinty ship-biscuits, or wrenching husks from cocoanuts--large, mirthsome, dark eyes, with but one flaw to their beauty, which she enjoyed alike with all the pacific islanders--the whites of the eyes were yellow! such was toanni. occasionally, when resting within the close shade of the valley, if the bright eyes of the girls detected the sunny bulbs of _papao_ gleaming through the surrounding foliage, off they sprang for the fruit, or climbed the _vai_ for apples, or pretty flowers clustering about the lower branches, which were soon turned into wreaths or necklaces. advancing inland, the lateral valleys converged into one deep gorge, closing perpendicularly on either hand; and further on, the stream itself was cut off by a bold, transverse acclivity between the two sides, like a wall of masonry, more than half way up the lofty shafts that framed the gorge. from this shelf, more than a thousand feet above us, there came leaping a thin thread of water--but long before reaching the base of the grassy barrier, it was diffused in showers of spray, and poured its sparkling tribute into the deep chasms of the valley. leaving the lower bed of the stream, we began mounting upward by a zig-zag pathway, cut lately by the french on the flat, sheer face of the mountain. it was at this point, where at an immense height above, the tahitians had poised vast masses of rocks, with levers ready pointed, to hurl death and destruction on the adventurous soldiers who should dare to attack their stronghold. the natives were posted at the head of the pass, upon an acclivity, with no other approach from below than a crumbling goat-path, where the road now leads. they were well provided with arms and ammunition, cartridges charged at both ends, to prevent mistakes, and kindly furnished, it is said, by foreign ships of war in port at the time. indeed, the french during the last year of the war, were harrassed night and day. alarm-fires were blazing on every hill, feints were made upon the town, and the neighboring posts, until the troops became worn out, and more than half ill in hospital. nor were the french so successful in their different engagements as the superior arms and discipline of trained soldiers would imply; for in one affair at ta-a-a-a, they had fifty slain. thus the tahitians, believing themselves invincible, after a thirteen month's siege, were at last dislodged through the connivance of a traitor, who guided their enemies up a narrow ravine, when, after surmounting almost inaccessible precipices, by the aid of scaling-ladders and ropes, they succeeded in attaining a foothold on a sharp spur of the peaks above the pass, and then rushing down completely surprised and captured the native camp. to the humanity of the french be it said, every soul was spared. this was the last struggle: tired of subsisting on roots and berries, enveloped in mists and rain, the natives sighing once more for their smiling homes by the sea-side, surrendered in december, . in the great losses sustained by the french in this warfare, it struck us very forcibly that there must have been great ignorance and inexperience in the knowledge of what we call bush-fighting. the tahitians do not compare with the north american indian in either courage, hardihood, or sagacity; and without any disparagement to french valor or gallantry, in our innocence we sincerely believed that two hundred of our back-woods men would have hunted every copper-colored warrior into the ocean. after a toilsome struggle we gained the lateral ridge that joined the two acclivities, and entered an artificial aperture, cut through the rocks, which was the portal to the native fortress. the well-defined diadem of fatoar rose in clear relief against the blue sky above our heads, and looking around we were in the midst of a multitude of gullies and ravines, with the bed of the same rivulet we had left below rolling rapidly at our feet towards its fearful plunge in a gap of the precipice. a number of wicker-basket osier-built huts for soldiers were perched about the elevations; the vegetation was rich and beautiful, wherever a foot of soil gave nourishment; and there were little gardens, too, with many kinds of vegetables, irrigated by narrow aqueducts, formed by gutters of canes or bamboos, and fed from adjacent springs. the scenery was quite swiss, could we change tropical suns, running streams, and unceasing verdure into frosts, glaciers, and avalanches. but yet it was a romantic solitude, despite the remark of the french officer in command, who assured me, with a most expressive gesture, that it was _terriblement mauvais_. we continued our walk some distance beyond the fort, and coming to a shaded, smooth tier of rocks, where the stream was bubbling noisily along, with little sleeping pools half hidden amid the crags, and opposite a pointed slender peak like a fishing-rod--well nigh punching a hole in the blue expanse of heaven--we spread our rural banquet on the rocky table, plunged the bottles in the icy water, and then reclined luxuriously around, with full resolve to do justice to the feast, incited by our long tramp and fast. "flow of wine, and flight of cork, stroke of knife, and thrust of fork; but, where'er the board was spread, grace, i ween, was never said." wings of chickens, slices of ham, roasted bananas, huge loaves of bread, preserved fish, and cups of wine disappeared with marvellous rapidity. we did all rational beings could be expected to perform under the circumstances, but at last were obliged to cry _peccavi!_ not so our lady guests--the war of maids and viands had only begun; my friend, toanni, thought a trifle of taking five or six of these oily little sardines at a mouthful, pushing them down with half a banana, and violent thrust of bread. she devoured ham and fowls with great apparent relish, wagging her lower jaw, to detach any stray masses of unmasticated matter that chanced to have escaped the ivory hopper, and fallen between her capacious cheeks; every few seconds giving her round fingers a sharp suck, like popping a cork. truely toanni's head room was enormous. once or twice, when thinking her rage entirely appeased, she relapsed again, and performed prodigies with rashers of baked pig. i believe it was voltaire who designated the illustrious shakspeare as a "sublime barbarian;" could he have seen these island maidens, he certainly would have awarded the palm to toanni; and i'll wager a flask of bordeaux--a peculiar weakness of mine--that these tahitian belles can eat more, laugh longer, talk faster, all at once or separately, than any others of their adorable sex the wide world over. i speak advisedly, and am prepared by documentary evidence to prove it. rescuing a small cruse of cogniac from the melée, i reclined upon a rocky bed, with my heels in the water, for a doze, induced by the soothing fumes of a pipe! but, alas! hardly were my eyes closed, before i was startled by the cries of our frolicksome light-hearted companions, who with a lizard-like facility of grasp, were running up the perpendicular surface of the peak, clinging and climbing by fibres and roots, that crept and laced themselves about the crevices of the rocks. plucking a quantity of bright flowers, the girls bounded into the stream, and then commenced weaving never-ending wreaths and chaplets. this universal fondness for these spontaneous jewels of the earth, with their love for bathing, are the most innocent and beautiful natural tastes possessed by the savages of polynesia. we were three hours getting back to papeetee, only pausing for a last cooling swim in the lower stream. the evening previous to our departure from tahiti we attended the usual soirée of the french governor. important despatches had just been received from france, and the saloons were filled at an early hour with officers of the ships and garrison, consuls, and merchants, with a number of foreign ladies, all in _grand tenu_. it was a pleasant gay little court, with écarté tables and conversation, vivacious punch handed round at intervals, and maybe a little flirting and love-making, with "music to fill up the pauses," from the regimental orchestras stationed near the verandas, while the lawns and grounds were crowded by laughing groups of natives, talking scandal, perhaps, of the _oui-oui's_. the next morning, before day had dawned, our frigate was crowded with canvas, and assisted by a flotilla of boats from the french squadron, we were quietly towed outside the coral reef, then taking the trade on the quarter, we went off with a spanking breeze towards aimeo. chapter li. with easterly winds we sailed away to the southward. in a fortnight the sky became dull and gloomy--the rain fell, chill and cold--we tumbled from our warm beds with a shock into the cold air, for we had been a long time beneath the clear skies and warm suns of the tropics, and rather magnified our hardships, in a thermometrical sense. still we were bound once more to the realms of civilization, which was in itself consoling--we buttoned our jackets--declared it was fine dumb-bell weather, and exercised those implements constantly. doctor faustus, too, lighted his jovial lamp when the night closed around us, and we blew the steam from a tumbler of _italia_ punch with much thankfulness and gusto; and those of us who had watches, forthwith bent our steps to the upper regions. one cold november night, in a hard squall, whilst the topmen were furling the lofty sails, two men were hurled from the main-top-gallant yard, and falling through the lubber's hole of the top, were caught at the junction of the futtock shrouds. one escaped with severe injuries, but his unfortunate companion died in thirty minutes. he was a handsome, active, young fellow, who made my acquaintance during the blockade of mazatlan, in old jack's oyster-boat. in speaking of the accident, the day after, to an old swedish quarter-gunner, called borlan--"vy, sir," said he, pulling aside his huge whiskers and disclosing a broad, jagged seam, the whole length of the face--"vy, sir, see here! i vonce toombled vrom a brig's mast-head--top-gallant yard and all--lying to in a gale of vind. vell, sir, i broke mine jaws and leg, but managed to get alongside again, and was hauled on bort. vell, sir--vat you dink?--the gott tarn skipper vanted to lick me for not bringing der yard too!" after making a latitude of ° south, the east winds departed, and taking a gale from the opposite direction, we flew before it for eleven days at ten miles the hour towards the chilian coast. oh! what a "melancholy main" is this wide expanse of the pacific! there is, may be, in the feeling of being near continents or islands in less illimitable seas, something a little pleasurable; but to be pursuing the same wearisome, liquid track, for weeks and weeks, with nothing to relieve the monotony of sky and water, is desolate, indeed! in the long night-watches, when strong gusts of hail or rain were whistling by our ears--the top-sails reefed down, though quivering and struggling, like great birds with cramped pinions, to burst from the stout cordage and fly away in flakes of snow--the gallant ship would, like a mettled charger feeling the whip and spur, at times run lightly and swiftly on the back of a mighty wave, almost as silently, too, as if gliding on a lake--when, the instant after, heeling from side to side, she would dash down impetuously amid the tumult of waters, cleaving a wide road before her! mutter your last _avé_, jack! if you leave the strong ship in nights like these! think of the keen-sighted albatross that will pick your eyes out next morning, if the keener-scented shark has not already rasped and grated your bones into white splinters within his merciless jaws! keep close under shelter of the solid bulwarks, jack! cling to your life-lines! feel a rope twice aloft before you swing your full weight upon it! but hold on, jack! hold on! think of it, ye rich traders, when your big ships come gallantly into port. think of the hands that have strained and grasped upon those lofty spars that now so motionless lift their taper heads, like needle-points, to the sky. think of the cold sleet and chilling rain--but above all, think of poor jack--take pity on his faults, and extend the helping hand in his distress. there was my old marine oracle, harry greenfield, muffled in his pea-coat, braced firmly against the fife-rail, over the wheel, every now and then slowly twisting his rosy face around the stern, taking a glance through half-closed eyelids at the angry scud flying overhead, or during a rapid succession of heavy lurches, when the high masts appeared to describe three-fourths of a circle against the gloomy sky, he would pleasantly hint to the briny forecastle-man who grasped the steering spokes, or the old quartermaster at the compass, "steady, old tom scofield! not so much, boys! touch her lightly, charley! don't you see she's flying off?"--and again relapse within the folds of his pea-jacket. "well, old gentleman, what are you pondering on?" "why, mr. blank, i'm thinking how pleasant it must be to have a menagerie on board ship in a breeze like this; in case the animals should break loose, the tigers, bears, hyenas, and the elephant, and the monkeys flying around the decks in heaps, yelling, howling, and fighting together! ah! it must be a fine sight on a dark night, with a lantern up the main rigging. i never sailed with any of them chaps, 'cept once--he was a royal bengal tiger--ah! i made a good bit of money out of him--he had a difficulty with the cook--." here the old salt went into a series of chuckles, and i was forced to beg him to proceed. emptying his mouth of the grateful weed, and wringing the sleet from his weather-beaten beard, he continued: "you remember jim hughes, mr. blank, the captain of the old ship's foretop." i nodded. "well, i fell in with jim one day in greenock; he was just from orleans, with a pouch full of cash, for he had been there in the height of the cholera season, and bagged twenty dollars a day for driving the dead cart." here old harry chuckled again. "well, sir, jim was scotch, and among his people, and very decent they were; they treated me all the same for being his shipmate. well, after a time a brig was ready for sea; jim was taken as second mate, and me as bo'sun. we were bound to calcutta; off java head the first mate kicked the bucket, was tossed overboard, jim was promoted, for he had larnin', and i stepped into his shoes." another chuckle. "we staid in calcutta five months, taking in rice, cotton, indigo, and other products of them countries, when, just before sailing, there came on board the tiger, a present for the king of england! a noble beast he was: a big strong iron front cage was built for him abaft the mainmast, and he never once stopped licking his white tusks, gaping, walking, and lashing his rope of a tail, for weeks and weeks after leaving the river. we all began to take a fancy to him, and i believe he did for us, 'cept the cook, who was a nubian nigger, and black all the way down his throat. i never see such an intense darkey! his royal tigership never could bear the sight of him, probably because he had been trepanned by some of the nigger race; and whenever 'lamp black,' that was his name, came near, his eyes kindled like live coals, and he growled from the bottom of his belly. we often cautioned cookey to be careful, and so he was. well, we touched at saint helena, and right glad old bengal was, no doubt, for we had got short of chickens--the only delicacies he seemed to relish--and he couldn't be coaxed to touch salt junk. a few days after, the nubian was handing him his breakfast, with the galley tormentors, a pair of tongs like, through the small trap door on top of the cage, and, like a fool, he just took one little peep, to see how tenderly the tiger could suck the last drop of blood from a chicken's body, when, by one rapid blow of his paw, he sunk his sinewy claws into the darkey's neck, tore the head from the trunk, and in a second was crunching the reeking mass between his grinders. he scoffed bones, wool, and flesh, and there lay the remains of poor 'lamp black' quivering on the rod decks. after this little difficulty, he became quite civil and civilized, and never caused us more trouble. by and by, we arrived in london docks, and as they were a good while preparing a birth for him in the zoological gardens, jim and me exhibited him from a ha'penny to half-a-crown, to men, women, and children. so you see, sir, we made nigh forty pounds a piece, and had a capital spree, i tell ye." old harry nearly choked, and did not thoroughly recover until his throat had been cleared with a glass of grog. thirty-six days from tahiti, and we arrived in valparaiso. remaining in port nearly a month, the anchor was again weighed, and our prow again turned seaward. passing the point of angels, the burnished keel bravely ploughed the open ocean, the blue waves following in snowy crests, and, in a few minutes, shores, town and hills had faded from sight. chapter lii. the th of january, , found us on the peruvian coast, abreast the island of san lorenzo, a mountain of sand, where not a blade of grass can vegetate; and rounding galera cape, we were shortly moored in the port of callao. the bay is a wide, sweeping indentation, with lorenzo, fronton, and a narrow spit of land jutting from the main, serving to keep the harbor smooth from prevailing southerly winds. to the north, the spurs of the andes approach layer upon layer to the brink of the coast, while nearer the land trends away, towards the interior, nearly plain-like--green, fertile, and pleasant to gaze upon--with the clustering towers, and spires of lima abutting on the distant hills. there is no difference of opinion about callao: for it is a filthy, bustling little port, reeking in garlic and drunken mariners, alive with fleas, miserable, dirty soldiers, and their yet more slovenly wives. the place is thriving, for steam frequents it; and on the curving quay are piled mountains of english coals, enormous heaps of wheat, great stacks of _pisco_, and _italia_ jars, where haserac, the celebrated captain, might have concealed an army of thieves with impunity. merchandise moves backwards and forwards on railway trucks, and lazy villains in pale yellow jackets, with iron chains and anklets attached to the legs, are at work after a fashion of their own. the houses of the port are mean and irregular, built anywhere and any how, either of adobies, boards, and on the outskirts, pleasant cottage residences, built of bullocks' hides and poles. streets and lanes run hither and thither, and glaring english signs stare you in the face, such as the "jibboom house," "the lively pig," "jackknife corner," and "house of blazes." along the beach are ranges of wicker, reed, and mat-made sheds for bathing, which are thronged during the season. but the most prominent features of callao that attract the eye, are the round, flat turrets of the castle, flanked on either side by long lines of curtains, bastions, embrasures, and batteries. it covers a great space, enclosing within its thick and massive case-mated walls, ranges of barracks--now happily converted into warehouses for the customs--magazines, and a large square, with a fountain in the centre. the fortification, from the nature of its position, is somewhat irregular, constructed partly on a ridge of sand, leading towards the southern arm of the bay, where in former times was the site of old callao, before its destruction by the memorable earthquake of . there is a wide, deep moat, like to the bed of a river, encircling the fortress, with narrow channels cut on either side to the sea. this is now dry and partially filled in nearest the town. the redoubts and detached outworks are also in ruins, but yet enough remains to make us reflect, that what the old spanish engineers left incomplete in this work would hardly be worth attempting in our day. it was here where the last stand of the royalists was made in new spain--where the bloodiest foot-prints were left since the days of the incas and pizarro--and it was in this same castle, where the brave rodil, with a handful of devoted followers, clung to the soil of their royal master with a tenacity and determination amounting to heroism--where horse meat sold for a gold ounce the pound, and a chicken for its weight in the same precious metal: when, hemmed in on all sides, by sea and land--surrounded but not dismayed--they still kept their assailants at bay, until gaunt famine stalked before them, and they were forced to furl the well-worn colors of their king![ ] a score of rodils, and another century might have intervened before south american patriots could have wrested the continent from the old spaniards. if tired of contemplating these bloody reminiscences--or bathing under the sheds and awnings, where all resemble, in their saturated black frocks and trowsers, watery nuns; or if your temper is destroyed by the fleas, you can fly to the harbor, where are sturdy merchantmen reeking in guano, smoking steamers, and heavy ships of war--and thick fogs at night--or, what is more diverting, you may watch the motions of swarms of gulls that frequent the port. our good surgeon, who professed to be an ornithologist, called them platoon birds. they fly in regular battalions and divisions, in strict military apportionments--led and apparently commanded by their chieftains. the reviews generally began with fishing. at some understood, feathery signal, while sailing over the bay, they wheel like a flash, and strike the water simultaneously like a shower of bullets, and not with the eyes of argus is it possible to detect the smallest irregularity in movement, nor a stray winged soldier out of the ranks. however, all these amusements are, at best, dull recreation, and it is a great relief to get quit of callao. omnibii encumber the uttermost ends of the earth--so we go to the office, when the smiling administrador behind a railing exclaims, "_ah! capitan!_ you want _ascientos_! ah! you give me one spanish dollar--ah! _buéno!_" "any thieves?" we timidly ask. "_ah, si_, yes; but you give him gold ounce--no kill you, ah!" "charming fellows, certainly; but suppose we give him an ounce of some other metal!" _ah! cuidado amigo!_--have a care, my friend! with five horses ahead, crack! crack! goes the thong of the negro jehu--over the paved street, into the dusty road, where the plunging steeds are brought up floundering, tugging and straining the heavy vehicle axle, through the finely powdered soil--now firmly stalled, we get out per force, curse the roads, and threaten to whip the driver--then we come on harder ground, until imperceptibly there comes a rocky strata--loose stones, remains of adobie walls and ditches--but all equally execrable: then, for a mile or more, fine trees bend their towering arms over the road, and shortly after, we rattle through a huge gateway--have travelled eight miles, and we are in the city of kings--lima! "see it and die," said the old land pirates of the days of its founder, pizarro, and their descendants. whatever it may have been two centuries ago, in these days it requires no very strong effort of will to survive the sight. the city is compact and populous, the buildings are very low, and quite resemble the old moriscan towns along the northern shores of africa, with close overhanging _jalousies_ and balconies, finely railed and latticed. the streets are wide and straight, paved with small pebbles--dreadfully torturing to the pedestrian--the side-walks beneath the portals or arcades of the plazas, and in the gateways and patios of dwellings are figured in coarse mosaic, formed by the white knuckle-bones of sheep and pebbles. handsome shops fringe the fashionable avenues, glittering with costly fabrics and toys; then again packed side by side, in nooks, alcoves, and niches, are small merchants, who from their numbers, one would suppose to be all sellers and no buyers. the little river rimac flows noisily through the city, fed from far away by the silvered pinnacles of snows and ice in the lofty andes. it is spanned by a substantial and lofty bridge, whose every stone has been loosened by the earthquake. lima might be made one of the cleanest cities in the world; for through all the main arteries runs a narrow rivulet diverted from the rimac. nevertheless, it is excessively filthy, and the _gallianzos_, or vultures, tame, and pampered by a profusion of nastiness and offal, take their morning's meal in the streets and squares, and afterwards hobble to the house-tops, where, with blood-red eyes, and gorged bodies, they calmly endure repletion. the most striking features upon approaching the city are the vast clusters of domes, towers, and spires, that arise in such thick profusion from the convents and churches, as to favor the belief that every house has something of the kind attached thereto. from the neighboring valley of almencaes i have counted sixty. in the distance they present a solid, imposing aspect, but on a nearer view, they will generally be found mere paper structures of reeds and plaster. many of the grand edifices, the cathedral, convents, and parochial churches, are partly of bricks, stone, or the most enormous adobies, up to the belfreys, but above, all are similar to the pasteboard decorations of the theatre; and although it seems reasonable to suppose they would topple down at the first summons of the _tremblor_, yet it is the only style of lofty work that will bear the frequent shocks, totter like a tree, and still stand erect. externally these buildings are elaborately carved, painted, and imaged, without any consistent order of architecture; and within they are profusely decorated with rich gildings, paintings, and statues; all, however, destitute of taste; and only when brilliantly illuminated, with the myriads of silken parti-colored streamers pendant and fluttering from the lofty aisles, swinging censers, organs pealing, with all the pomp and imposing ceremony of the catholic church, is the effect worthy of admiration. the best position for viewing lima--asmodeus-like--is from the high tower of san domingo, that is, if, after mounting above the bells, you can reconcile the flimsy quaking fabric you stand upon to any extreme ideas of personal safety. the devil on this pair of sticks could not have chosen a more eligible spot for inspecting the arcana of people's dwellings. the city is spread like a map at your feet; composed of long lines of crumbling walls, miles of flat roofs, and little patios, the former loosely tiled, and sprinkled over with dirt, where even dead cats, and tattered rags quietly repose for ages. there is not in the universe to be seen such a large area of mud walls, reed, and rush-built houses, all appearing so unfinished and incomplete. but in a climate where it never rains, where it never blows, where even the thick coatings of dust are hardly absorbed by the _dry rain_ of winter fogs, it is not surprising that all these masses of reeds and plaster are preserved for centuries without perceptible decay. still there can be no scepticism on one point, that if ever there chance to fall a heavy tropical shower, the city of pizarro will be swept, a heap of mud and sticks, into the ocean. allowing the eyes to wander around and beyond the city, the discolored rimac is seen hurrying from the melting bosom of its alpine mother down between the distant hills, diffusing its fertilizing freshness over the sloping valley--the margins encircled by verdant fields of cane, like bright patches of emeralds, and the banks fringed by weeping willows, that dip their bending branches to kiss the rapid torrent. on it comes, over the stony bed, dashing its strength in fierce anger against the arches of the sturdy bridge, and then glancing by the flowering meads and slopes of almencaes, flies rapidly to the placid waves of the pacific. footnote: [ ] in february, . chapter liii. lima is fast losing its singular originality, although there is still much to be seen, which, in these days of universal journeyings, has the merit of being extremely novel. there are interminable strings of mules and donkeys constantly passing and repassing to the bubbling fountains of plazas or churches, each with twin reservoirs of water-barrels balanced on the brute's shoulders; others with huge milk jugs, baker's boxes of hides, and the drivers in the midst. again, matronly dames jog along astride their cattle, commonly nursing infants; then gilded _volantes_ and _berlinas_ whirl by, occupied by _damas_ in full dress, looking as if entombed within crystal shades; then priests in "cope and stole" in processions--white and black gowned ones--tottering bishops in lawn and mitre, and very shaky on their swollen ancles, with beads vibrating like uneasy pendulums; others in stove-pipe hats, sleek, fat, and slovenly--or meek friars--not of eggs and bacon, from their meagre, famished appearance--lank and dirty, with robes of coarse serge and girdles of ropes--all darkening the side walks, with flickering torch and taper flaring in the mid-day sun, and solemn chaunt, as they move unceasingly towards church or convent. then, again, stupid, stunted native indians strut along with bow legs and parrot step; beside them, stout negresses, zambos, and cholos, with brief frocks, and the most gossamer of flesh-colored silk stockings encasing their ebony shins; there are _portales_ thronged with shops and stalls--artizans in gold and silver embroidery carrying on their avocations, regardless of noise and bustle. equestrians, too, are caracolling through streets and squares, clothed in bright ponchos, and their small, spirited steeds decked in shining trappings, with heavy gothic-shaped spurs, half the weight of the riders. it is a curious scene to contemplate all this motley crowd, as the first sweet tone of the great bell of the cathedral--and the sweetest sound from brass and silver ever heard--gives forth its prolonged and melancholy cadence for _oracion_. as if touched by the wand of a magician, the busy hum of life is hushed--mules and donkeys halt of their own accord, and with drooping ears and bended necks, appear absorbed in prayer. the man who is yelling _fresquita_! with all his might, stops miraculously short at the half-uttered word in the highest note--venders and the disciples of abraham cease barter--horsemen draw bridle--these gay _berlinas_ pause, and their fair inmates with jewelled fingers tell their beads, and rosy lips arrest the dimpling smiles--lovers silence the soft whispers to blushing _amantes_--the whirr of loom and spindle weaving the golden threads is checked--hats and heads are borne low, and every vestige of animation is suspended--all is beautifully impressive. a minute! the _avé_ is uttered--the heavy bell sounds twice--thrice--then the deafening and rejoicing peals ring from towers far and near. crack! falls the cruel lash on the devout donkey's hide--_arré!_ shouts the arrieros--_quita!_ screams the dulce-man--_tres pesos el menor!_ wheedles the jew--off glide the gilded vehicles--away gallop capering barbs--the artisans resume the mazy windings of the reel or shuttle--the lover and his mistress again become smiling and pathetic--and again goes on the roar and turmoil of a populous town. on the right bank of the rimac are two promenades, neither particularly well shaded, but the alemeda nearest the river is most frequented and pleasant. during feast days, or after the sunday bull-fights in the arena near at hand, it is customary for the élite of lima to appear in full dress, enshrined within the glass panels of their pretty _berlinas_, and take a stand along the drive, beneath the drooping willows. nor is it considered indecorous, if you have friends or acquaintances among those lovely dames, to doff your castor and touch the tips of their ungloved, rosy fingers, and may be, hear the number of their _palco_ at the evening opera--or, where the _tertulia_ is given, and what a charming bouquet it was you sent--and other agreeable pleasantries. have a care, my gringo! button your coat tight, or you may lose your heart! on these occasions, also, the stone benches on either side the promenade are thronged with _sayas y mantas_--the most bewitching satin envelope that ever woman, be she youthful or aged, was ever wrapped in. there is no resisting the large, brilliant, languishing eye--laughing with all its might--nor the round, white arm, that so pertinaciously keeps the jealous folds of the _manta_ over the face. exhaust the whole castilian vocabulary of compliments--and it is copious--beseeching and imploring to be vouchsafed one little word! _ah señorita! haceme el favor de una palabrita!_--do speak one little word. but no! never a syllable from the silent veil, while the roguish eye twinkles and laughs like a planet! they may know you--but the sharpest dueña that ever cheated or was bribed by a lover could not detect her charge within these closely-fitting dominoes--nor husband the wife, nor mother her daughter--they are alike enshrouded in the same graceful but impenetrable black masque. they are so cunning and coquettish, too! fancy you discover one. strive to awaken her jealousy, or pique her vanity by encomiums or scandal upon a sister or cousin--ten to one it comes back to you in protean shapes from the one you least dreamed of. yet i cannot but think the institution was originally invented by ugly women; and it appears, many of the fairest portions are of the same opinion, being generally quite willing to exhibit their charms of face as nature intended. except on feast days, or in carnival, the dress is now rarely worn; but in former years no woman appeared in street or mass without the _saya y manta_. in those days, intrigue was so rife that a prudent young bachelor was forced to keep a strict watch upon his morals, or have his heart forcibly abducted by these warm-blooded liméneans--those were the times to hold wicked husbands in consternation, and set watchful dueñas at defiance! for a wonder, french taste and dress are rapidly reforming all. some distance up the rimac, near the alemeda, is to be found the pleasantest place for bathing. water is turned by narrow canals, and pours through a long range of enclosed and covered tanks, nicely cemented and tiled, sufficiently large for swimming. they are not very private places at all hours of the day, but one's delicacy is seldom shocked, for the swimmers are the politest people possible: as an instance, whilst bathing one morning, two youths accidentally intruded on my quarters, but recovering their equanimity, very civilly removed their head-gear and made a polite bow to me, while in the water! drives there are none at all pleasurable for any extent around the city; nor are the rides more so. the environs, in all directions, are intersected by heavy and high mud walls, shutting out air and vision, leaving only heat and stifling clouds of dust to repay one's trouble. lima itself should not be too narrowly criticised from the streets; although without, naught is beheld save dingy, adobie walls, dusty cobwebbed lattices and balconies, half decayed, yet once pass the wide and lofty portals, and many of the best houses have noble suites of apartments, furnished with great taste and even splendor; besides, that which gives, in a certain degree, an air of elegance, is the elaborate mazes of glass doors, gaily papered or frescoed walls, and a profusion of gilding. light is usually thrown from the roof, and the houses are cool and properly ventilated. after a few _tertulias_, and a pretty ball given by the american chargé, we had no other opportunities of mingling in liménean society. there were quite a number of pretty women, with very fair complexions and winning manners, who danced like sylphs, as what creole does not? two youthful señoritas, of some sixteen and seventeen years, were pointed out as little lumps of gold, of "purest ray serene," who were _fiancée_ to their uncles, fine old gentlemen of sixty! it was suggestive of a post-chaise and bandboxes to any successful aspirant to the ownership of a lovely pair of eyes. however, these out of the way alliances are quite common in lima, and perhaps the fair ones, at a later era, begin to discover they have hearts of their own not to be sold to the highest bidder, like bills of exchange at the mart! very few of these deluded damsels, it may be reasonably presumed, when fully aware of their tender wrongs, can exclaim, in the words of the spanish lady's ballad: "i will not falsify my vows for gold nor gain, nor yet for all the _fondest swains_ that ever lived in spain." chapter liv. the public edifices of lima, which are so closely connected with the history of the conquest, and the bloody revolutionary struggles of peru, have no other attributes, either in architectural beauty or position to recommend them. the cathedral occupies nearly one side of the grand plaza; the exterior is painfully decorated, without taste or system; within is a solid silver altar, paintings of archbishops, and their earthly remains also, mummified in leather, and reposing in open coffins. the viceroy's palace fills the northern face of the square--a low, irregular collection of buildings--the lower parts, fronting the plaza and streets, occupied by small shopmen, similar to the hosts of tinkers, fringemen, hatters, and cooks beneath the opposite ranges of the _portales_. opening into the inner courtyard are the public offices and the private residence of the president, general castilla. he was a soldier of fortune, had risen from the ranks, and passed through many vicissitudes of life before being chosen the supreme governor of peru; not more surprising probably even to himself, than the extraordinary anomaly, that he has held his position the four years since the election, without a revolution having arisen to disturb his tranquillity. this security he owed, in a measure, to his individual bravery and soldiership displayed in times past, and the belief generally entertained by dissatisfied persons of his upright character, and his indifference to execute summary vengeance on whomsoever should incur his displeasure, by again involving the country in the turmoils of civil discord. the general and staff visited our frigate at callao, and were received with manned yards and the usual artillery. in person he was about the middle stature, with a frank, bronzed face, and agreeable address. many curious objects are pointed out within, or in the vicinity of the palace, rich in reminiscences of the pizarros, and the tragic drama connected with the life and death of the conqueror--the room wherein he was assassinated, and the balcony from whence he was afterwards hurled by the almagros. the main patio was thronged with troops of eager and expectant cormorants, who, my informant stated, were gentlemen in waiting upon the treasury--officers and _empleados_ with large salaries in perspective--but, strange to say, the vaults were invariably empty; or, in case there should be a surplus on hand, it is a description of money composed of so base a metal that it will not pass for one-fifth the nominal value out of lima. a national museum has lately been established--a small enterprise thus far,--containing a few cacique antiquities, island weapons and ornaments, a coat worn by salaverry when he was murdered--bedabbled with mud and blood--and the walls are hung with portraits of the forty-seven viceroys of peru, but placed in so bad a light that, with few exceptions, the features and expression of the different rulers were indistinctly visible. they begin with francisco pizarro,[ ] and are all miserably executed specimens of painting, without grace or harmony, and it would seem that the artists, in their anxiety to have them of a uniform length, in the absence of correct notions of drawing, have jammed heads and heels close up or down to the frames, leaving the intermediate portions of the person harsh and ungainly. the theatre is a mean edifice, and the immense rafters that uphold the flat roof are apt to keep a nervous person in the pit somewhat anxious and uneasy, anticipating a shock of the _tremblor_. it is sufficiently commodious, but badly ventilated, dimly lighted, and without decorations or scenic display. the first representation we attended was mediocrily performed by an italian troupe--there were three prima donnas--who, apart from being ugly, which, of course, was no fault of theirs, were regardless of taste or execution, and all strove to outshout the other. indeed, a fifth-rate artiste, coming so far abroad in these climes, deems it imperative to take a tip-top part; besides, i have remarked among opera people, that there is always a cruel empressario, who tyrannically will have something to say in the management of his theatre--very much to the disgust of the performers, and who is, moreover, expected to pay handsomely, even when the troupe cannot half fill the house. on the occasion referred to there were myriads of fleas, and what with beatrice di tenda--a donna in red--we were fain to quit the opera. subsequently the performances were very creditable, and living in the same house with the contralto and handsome barrytone, we became enlisted in their clique, and did battle against the unreasonable manager. one evening, whilst assisting at linda di charmouni, between the acts i was sitting behind the scenes, in a temporarily-constructed saloon, condoling with the interesting contralto, sympathising with her griefs, and admiring her open-worked clocked stockings--for she was costumed as a swiss peasant--and when nearly wound up to a pitch of desperate frenzy, against the barbarous empressario, the lady's tire woman tripped in. _signorina_, said she, _la scéna_! the call-keeper's pipe chirped musically. i flew to the front, and getting comfortably ensconced beside a lovely liménean, with a little mouth like a slit in a rose-leaf, up flew the curtain. the scene was similar to one in fra diavolo, where antonio returns down the mountain-steep after an unsuccessful search for the devil's brother; lots of peasants, flower-girls, and a horde of attendants, had already ascended, together with the contralto, and linda herself, who weighed fourteen stone. tap! tap! led the orchestral baton. now began the _cavatina_. i was half entranced in melody, cigar-smoke, and the smiles of her with the rose-leaf mouth, doña margarita, when, as the sweet notes came trilling forth, in wreaths of exquisite harmony--crash! scream! crash!--the platforms gave way! the prima donna made a demi-volte, threw an involuntary summerset, and vanished head-foremost through mont blanc, severely damaging the picturesque village of chamouni; our friend the cantatrice, and the little slashed trowsers and silk stockings, were seen plunging and struggling in an alpine torrent of pasteboard. all was tottering scenery, shrieking supes, clouds of dust, terror, and confusion. some villain had cut the cords that upheld the mountain-pass. our contralto warbler escaped without a blemish, but the unfortunate prima was pulled out from beneath the treacherous planks in hysterics, and borne off kicking violently in the arms of stout peasants. of course the play was ended: but there nearly arose a revolution in lima that night, for it was strongly urged that the murderous empressario had conspired against his troupe, although, poor man, he swore until black in the visage, that he never dreamed of so heinous a crime; and if he might be allowed a conjecture he should say, that it had been a little ballet got up among the _cantatrici_ themselves, to get rid of performing for a week or two! but no one believed him. our hotel was the _fonda de los baños_, the best in lima--faint praise this. it faces the cathedral in the plaza, and is a capital point of view for strangers desirous of seeing the motley panorama of the city from the balconies without mingling in the dust and fleas below. our host was an old, frowsy-wigged frenchman, pleasant and conversible, who made out the accounts with a crotchety style of caligraphy--fives and nines hardly to be distinguished apart--although with never an error in your favor in the arithmetical _calcule_ at bottom. the lady of the mansion was a fine-looking, although _passée_ person, who presided at table d'hôte in _grand tenu_, and served coffee and _italia_ for _chasse_, with a little dessert of _monté_, if called for in the evening, at a side-table. underneath the fonda were billiard saloons and cafés, with warm baths adjoining. this establishment was cared for by a vivacious gentleman, extremely popular with navy men, named señor zuderel. i would advise all homeless wanderers journeying towards lima to seek lodgings at this caravanserai. i was pleased myself, and shall ever bear monsieur and madame morin in agreeable recollection, for a correct knowledge of the world, tolerably well-served dinners, expensive wines, and a just appreciation of the _sous entendu_. it was my intention to have made a hasty visit to churillos, a small fishing village on the sea coast, where, at certain seasons, all the world resort for bathing and gaming--both amusements carried on day and night without cessation; but finding the time approaching for our departure, after spending eight days at lima, one afternoon i buried my shoulders within a glaring red poncho--and was warned by zuderel "not to carry much money, for fear of the ladrones," which i considered purely a supererogatory piece of advice, as any economical person may convince himself after a few days visit only!--_el que bebe de las pilas se queda en lima_--he who drinks of the fountains will never leave lima, is a favorite proverb. inasmuch as i had only sparingly indulged in the delicious waters of the city, save when mingled with bordeaux and pure blocks of ice brought from the andes, i cannot be said to have entirely destroyed the truth of the adage; so, trotting leisurely through plaza and streets--invoking a blessing from our lady--i pursued my ride beyond the gates, steering for callao. it was thus i departed from the "paradise of women, the purgatory of men, and hell of jackasses!" we sailed for valparaiso. footnote: [ ] this is the same portrait from which the engraving in prescott's peru is taken, but the latter bears but a faint resemblance to the original. chapter lv. we found valparaiso very much improved since our first visit, more so, in fact, than would be generally believed for a creole town. streets had been newly paved and extended, whole squares of fine warehouses, and long rows of dwellings completed; all tending, with a rapid increase of population, to make the port most flourishing. as in the islands and callao, the discovery of the el dorado of california had thrown the entire community into a state of feverish excitement, which was augmented by every fresh arrival. ships touching here, no matter whither bound, or for what intent, were either bought before their anchors were down, or chartered for passengers or freight. day by day vessels sailed, loaded high up the shrouds with any articles of merchandise that could hastily be thrown on board. the city was drained of wares and goods of every description; merchants, clerks, artisans and mechanics were hurrying, as fast as sails could bear them, to the swamps and sands of the sacramento. fortunes were made in a minute, and it only appeared necessary to purchase a ship and cargo at any price, and the day or hour after be offered twice the money for the bargain. one merchant actually paid twenty thousand hard dollars for the information contained in a letter from san francisco--a more valuable missive was probably never penned. the mania was equally violent throughout all classes of the community--natives, foreigners, men, women, and children. we mariners were merely lookers on, having neither cash nor commodities. some of us talked of deserting, and scratching a little fortune of gold dust with our several digits; others of resigning, and seeking employ in the merchant service; but in the end we bore the good fortune of mankind around us, with philosophical equanimity, and remained contented with our lot. notwithstanding this _auri sacra fames_, the same generous hospitality awaited us, at the hands of our countrymen, as of old, and we passed the time delightfully. the rides around valparaiso are almost destitute of interest; for many leagues the main roads lead over dry and hilly ground, with no relief from their dullness, except an occasional glimpse from some more elevated ridge, of the broad pacific or the shining snow-capped cordilleras far in the interior. there are neither forests nor grasses, nor yet running water. even in the most secluded valleys, the herbage is pale and withered, and vegetation stunted. excellent horses are easily found; and after passing over the paved streets at a slow gait, to escape lynx-eyed _serénos_, ever on the watch to recover a two-dollar fine from strangers for fast riding, you may then, at early morn, before the breeze stirs the fine, choking dust, or in the evening, when the high winds have expended their rage over the plaiancha and point of angels, take a lively gallop with some degree of enjoyment. our rides were usually along the santiago road towards the post-house, where a nice breakfast was always procurable, through the kindness of a motherly yorkshire dame, whose husband was at all times particularly vinous; the breakfast, however, never suffered on that score. the chilians, men and women, ride admirably; but there are none who indulge in this healthful exercise to a greater extent, and who sit the horse more gracefully and securely than our own fair countrywomen residing in valparaiso; and with all their manifold charms, they are accomplished in the proper understanding of a pic-nic. i am ignorant of the correct etymology of the word, but have heard it expounded as "all ham, and no punch;" be this as it may, these agreeable ladies comprehend the thing thoroughly; they know the most sequestered little glens for leagues around, when and where, and how to go; they have their own spirited steeds, too, like their mistress's riding robes, always ready. the excursion is arranged in five minutes, so, cavaliers, you have only to send for horses and borrow a whip, and if you know of any troupe of more charming doñas, pray don't keep it a secret. out of the hot city, with veiled faces--up ravines and down dales--leave the dusty road--clear the hedges, and scamper over the upland downs, until we have lost sight of towns, suburbs, shipping, and harbor; perhaps a pair of bright eyes looks back to the nice matrons who play propriety--pointing with a little gauntleted hand--"there! in that shady glade, this side the rancho"--winding about the declivities, we reach the base of a sheltered valley--we dismount, tie the animals, and then breaking through interlaced thickets of undergrowth and herbage, a little trickling rill will possibly be found, bubbling deep down the cleft of a ravine, on whose margin is a plot of grass, where we clear away the brushwood, spread saddle-cloths for the ladies, and make ourselves happy. some one must go to the neighboring farm-house in search of fruit--not everybody, for there are two country belles there, who keep a guitar, and put on airs of rustic coquetry--besides, it is not complimentary to the lovely ladies we attend, to be gallivanting or straying elsewhere--they demand, by laws of chivalry, our homage, and they well deserve it. by and by, there appears a brown dame, with a huge tray of biscuits, peaches, "and a dish of ripe strawberries, all smothered in cream!" what a perfume! "hand over the _alforgas_, those pockets attached to saddle housings. oblige me, sir, by guarding this plethoric napkin of sandwiches! stop! here's another; don't let anybody take even a bite until the señora gives the word! what is this; a bottle of xeres, as i'm a sinner--claret, too! _ave maria!_ get water somebody, and let me show you the art, acquired by long practice, of pulling a cork without a screw. there! click! click! crack! cleverly done, eh? don't cut your delicate fingers, señorita! are we ready?--we are, and almost frantic." the time flits on pleasure's wings--the shadows from the crests of the surrounding heights are darkening the glen--the strawberries and sandwiches are all gone, and the bottles are dying marines. "come, girls," say the señoras, "we must be in time for dinner. caballeros you will dine with us?--they never forget that--we shall dance in the evening, but not too late--to-morrow is sunday." now hurrah for the _carrera_--race. be under no apprehensions, my friends, when you see those slight forms, with streaming tresses and dresses, flying by leap and bound over the narrow pathways, rocky descents and water-courses!--have a care to your own horse, never mind your fair companions--their sure-footed steeds would race blindfolded, and, i doubt not, snap their legs short off, rather than injure the gentle beings who so easily guide them! we soon reach the environs of the city, and with horses all in a foam, pace sedately through the streets, towards the terraced residences. the society of natives and foreigners is quite distinct in valparaiso, and general re-unions only take place at the monthly philharmonic balls. those we attended were very elegant and select assemblies, with a large proportion of beautiful women: all danced with charming grace, and were most becomingly attired with all the exquisite taste and refinement of french fashions; and with a fine, brilliantly-lighted saloon, excellent orchestra, the white fluttering dresses of the women, gayly contrasting with the gleaming lace and bullion of hosts of officers from foreign ships of war, it made altogether as inspiriting and magnificent a display as can be found in any part of the world. the natives are seen with even more attractions in their social circles. the _tertulia_ is ever an impromptu affair, and nothing is more calculated to preserve a happy current of friendly feeling among the youth of both sexes. there is no staid form or ceremony: people meet for pleasure in the dance or love-making--'tis all the same--everything is frank and companionable. once get the entrée and make friends with the kind señora--sip scalding _maté_, and never forget her at supper at the balls, or _dulces_ for the _niñas_--you have the game in your own hands, and on velvet with the dear young _doncellas_, may whisper all the pretty speeches imaginable to downcast eyes at the piano or guitar, or blushing cheeks in waltz or polka! i do not believe spanish girls often break their hearts--they ache sometimes, perhaps, but are easily consoled--and i advise all who set up graven images, and who wish to be in good repute with dark-eyed creole maidens, to send anonymous bouquets unceasingly, and of course divulge the donors' names afterwards--'tis a sure passport to the smiles of fair ladies everywhere, but these dear, little chilians will positively adore you. in a former sketch of valparaiso, i touched upon the quiet, cool retreats perched on the salient crests of the adjacent hills. one of these terraces, monte allegro, is the beauty-spot of valparaiso. ah! the agreeable dinners, tea-parties, promenades and dances, given there by the charming residents, from the little balconied house in the rear, to the entire cottage-range in front! heaven help us! we owe them many a debt of gratitude we may never be able to repay, save in kindly remembrance to all. there was one, too-- "of all that sets young hearts romancing, she was our queen--our rose--our star; and when she danced--o! heaven! her dancing!"-- ah! doña pepe! i may never forgive the malicious delight you exhibited at the filharmonica, where the thin lady took a first lesson in the polka--may terpsichore and all the graces of the light fantastic toe befriend her!--but yet, although a few months have borne me thousands of leagues away, i still preserve your little flower, and shall ever remember our parting among the brightest of lingering things in valparaiso. aside from the lovely living attractions of this little _cielo_, it has much else to recommend it. in the calm nights you can stand on its lofty esplanade, towering above the heart of the city, and look down upon the world below. the faces of the tops, with the steep sides of the _quebradas_, are twinkling with myriads on myriads of bright lights--long streets and avenues are seen coursing in the opposite direction along the almendral, dotted and sparkling with cab and lantern hurrying to and fro, until far away, all is blended in one even line of perspective; and perhaps there is seen a procession of flickering torches winding up the campo santo, bearing some unconscious clay to a last home; then, when the guns from forts and ships have ceased their everlasting peals among the hills, music from different vessels of war arises in delicious strains, clearly and distinctly, from the port--while their black hulls, illumined sides, spars and rigging, are reposing motionless, with mazy shadows mingling with the starry reflections upon the polished surface of the bay from the blue vault above. the whole scene is framed by the crowning heights circling around the city, and the base is girdled by the glittering waters of the ocean. i was never tired of musing over this bright and varied picture, or inhaling the sweet perfume of the _florapondia_ blooming on the terrace. it is a spot to which the innocent children, who now sport there in unconscious gayety, will one day turn from all the toil and strife of future years, and smother many a sigh for the joyful reminiscences of their childhood. adieu to thee, monte allegro! may the dread earthquake never blanch the cheeks of those who tread thy brow, or rend thy firm feet from their foundation. chapter lvi. homeward bound! a loud report from the frigate's bow gun, and before the smoke had vanished, the cornet was fluttering at the mast-head--a signal for sailing. the brave boatswain and his lusty mates blew ear-splitting notes from deck to deck--the roar of hoarse voices resounded deep within the bowels of the ship, "all hands, up anchor for home!" the capstans spun around like tops--the fifers played their merriest jigs--the crew danced with glee--"pall the capstan!" the well-worn sails again fell from the yards, and as the puffs of wind came stealthily over the point of angels, the noble frigate turned slowly on her keel, in gladness sprang away, and bade adieu to valparaiso. in a few days the batteries of heavy guns were drawn in, their frowning muzzles lashed to the staunch bulwarks, and the windows of the ship closed to the buffettings of the sea. we passed in sight of juan fernandez, and, soon after, the wind befriended us, and with broad wings we flew towards cape horn. one dark night, another of the unfortunate maintop men was lost overboard: he had been born and bred upon the ocean, and thus singularly met his watery grave. rain, snows, and storms came over us, but on the seventeenth day we doubled the tempestuous cape horn, where we saw a dozen ships, with gold! gold! painted in perspective, on every seam of their broad topsails. leaving the falkland islands, we steered boldly into the atlantic, and went on our swift course joyfully. the strong favoring gales seemed never to tire in efforts to urge us onward. the very sea-birds gave over chasing us, all save a venerable couple of grey-backed albatross, who with indefatigable energy followed us for three thousand miles. again we crossed the tropics--the southern cross paled below the horizon--the pole-star, gleaming dimly at first, rose and rose until sparkling high in the heavens. again we splashed through the haunts of flying-fish and nautilus, until, on the sixty-third day, there came the loud cry of "land, ho!" shortly after, our noble ship--that had borne us in safety fifty-five thousand miles--let fall her anchors, for the last time, within the waters of the chesapeake. omoo: adventures in the south seas by herman melville 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 , 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 jennin 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 jennin, 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 tarn; 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 . 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 jennin 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 tarn 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 ( , 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 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 chiefs 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 jennin, 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 jennin, 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 chapter xl. we take unto ourselves friends the arrival of the chests made my friend, the doctor, by far the wealthiest man of the party. so much the better for me, seeing that i had little or nothing myself; though, from our intimacy, the natives courted my favour almost as much as his. among others, kooloo was a candidate for my friendship; and being a comely youth, quite a buck in his way, i accepted his overtures. by this, i escaped the importunities of the rest; for be it known that, though little inclined to jealousy in love matters, the tahitian will hear of no rivals in his friendship. kooloo, running over his qualifications as a friend, first of all informed me that he was a "mickonaree," thus declaring his communion with the church. the way this "tayo" of mine expressed his regard was by assuring me over and over again that the love he bore me was "nuee, nuee, nuee," or infinitesimally extensive. all over these seas, the word "nuee" is significant of quantity. its repetition is like placing ciphers at the right hand of a numeral; the more places you carry it out to, the greater the sum. judge, then, of kooloo's esteem. nor is the allusion to the ciphers at all inappropriate, seeing that, in themselves, kooloo's profession turned out to be worthless. he was, alas! as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal; one of those who make no music unless the clapper be silver. in the course of a few days, the sailors, like the doctor and myself, were cajoled out of everything, and our "tayos," all round, began to cool off quite sensibly. so remiss did they become in their attentions that we could no longer rely upon their bringing us the daily supply of food, which all of them had faithfully promised. as for kooloo, after sponging me well, he one morning played the part of a retrograde lover; informing me that his affections had undergone a change; he had fallen in love at first sight with a smart sailor, who had just stepped ashore quite flush from a lucky whaling-cruise. it was a touching interview, and with it, our connection dissolved. but the sadness which ensued would soon have been dissipated, had not my sensibilities been wounded by his indelicately sporting some of my gifts very soon after this transfer of his affections. hardly a day passed that i did not meet him on the broom road, airing himself in a regatta shirt which i had given him in happier hours. he went by with such an easy saunter too, looking me pleasantly in the eye, and merely exchanging the cold salute of the road:--"yar onor, boyoee," a mere sidewalk how d'ye do. after several experiences like this, i began to entertain a sort of respect for kooloo, as quite a man of the world. in good sooth, he turned out to be one; in one week's time giving me the cut direct, and lounging by without even nodding. he must have taken me for part of the landscape. before the chests were quite empty, we had a grand washing in the stream of our best raiment, for the purpose of looking tidy, and visiting the european chapel in the village. every sunday morning it is open for divine service, some member of the mission officiating. this was the first time we ever entered papeetee unattended by an escort. in the chapel there were about forty people present, including the officers of several ships in harbour. it was an energetic discourse, and the pulpit cushion was well pounded. occupying a high seat in the synagogue, and stiff as a flagstaff, was our beloved guardian, wilson. i shall never forget his look of wonder when his interesting wards filed in at the doorway, and took up a seat directly facing him. service over, we waited outside in hopes of seeing more of him; but sorely annoyed at the sight of us, he reconnoitred from the window, and never came forth until we had started for home. chapter xli. we levy contributions on the shipping scarcely a week went by after the julia's sailing, when, with the proverbial restlessness of sailors, some of the men began to grow weary of the calabooza beretanee, and resolved to go boldly among the vessels in the bay, and offer to ship. the thing was tried; but though strongly recommended by the commodore of the beachcombers, in the end they were invariably told by the captains to whom they applied that they bore an equivocal character ashore, and would not answer. so often were they repulsed that we pretty nearly gave up all thoughts of leaving the island in this way; and growing domestic again, settled down quietly at captain bob's. it was about this time that the whaling-ships, which have their regular seasons for cruising, began to arrive at papeetee; and of course their crews frequently visited us. this is customary all over the pacific. no sailor steps ashore, but he straightway goes to the "calabooza," where he is almost sure to find some poor fellow or other in confinement for desertion, or alleged mutiny, or something of that sort. sympathy is proffered, and if need be, tobacco. the latter, however, is most in request; as a solace to the captive, it is invaluable. having fairly carried the day against both consul and captain, we were objects of even more than ordinary interest to these philanthropists; and they always cordially applauded our conduct. besides, they invariably brought along something in the way of refreshments; occasionally smuggling in a little pisco. upon one occasion, when there was quite a number present, a calabash was passed round, and a pecuniary collection taken up for our benefit. one day a newcomer proposed that two or three of us should pay him a sly, nocturnal visit aboard his ship; engaging to send us away well freighted with provisions. this was not a bad idea; nor were we at all backward in acting upon it. right after night every vessel in the harbour was visited in rotation, the foragers borrowing captain bob's canoe for the purpose. as we all took turns at this--two by two--in due course it came to long ghost and myself, for the sailors invariably linked us together. in such an enterprise, i somewhat distrusted the doctor, for he was no sailor, and very tall; and a canoe is the most ticklish of navigable things. however, it could not be helped; and so we went. but a word about the canoes before we go any further. among the society islands, the art of building them, like all native accomplishments, has greatly deteriorated; and they are now the most inelegant, as well as the most insecure of any in the south seas. in cook's time, according to his account, there was at tahiti a royal fleet of seventeen hundred and twenty large war canoes, handsomely carved, and otherwise adorned. at present, those used are quite small; nothing more than logs hollowed out, sharpened at one end, and then launched into the water. to obviate a certain rolling propensity, the tahitians, like all polynesians, attach to them what sailors call an "outrigger." it consists of a pole floating alongside, parallel to the canoe, and connected with it by a couple of cross sticks, a yard or more in length. thus equipped, the canoe cannot be overturned, unless you overcome the buoyancy of the pole, or lift it entirely out of the water. now, captain bob's "gig" was exceedingly small; so small, and of such a grotesque shape, that the sailors christened it the pill box; and by this appellation it always went. in fact, it was a sort of "sulky," meant for a solitary paddler, but, on an emergency, capable of floating two or three. the outrigger was a mere switch, alternately rising in air, and then depressed in the water. assuming the command of the expedition, upon the strength of my being a sailor, i packed the long doctor with a paddle in the bow, and then shoving off, leaped into the stern; thus leaving him to do all the work, and reserving to myself the dignified sinecure of steering. all would have gone on well, were it not that my paddler made such clumsy work that the water spattered, and showered down upon us without ceasing. continuing to ply his tool, however, quite energetically, i thought he would improve after a while, and so let him alone. but by and bye, getting wet through with this little storm we were raising, and seeing no signs of its clearing off, i conjured him, in mercy's name, to stop short, and let me wring myself out. upon this, he suddenly turned round, when the canoe gave a roll, the outrigger flew overhead, and the next moment came rap on the doctor's skull, and we were both in the water. fortunately, we were just over a ledge of coral, not half-a-fathom under the surface. depressing one end of the filled canoe, and letting go of it quickly, it bounced up, and discharged a great part of its contents; so that we easily baled out the remainder, and again embarked. this time, my comrade coiled himself away in a very small space; and enjoining upon him not to draw a single unnecessary breath, i proceeded to urge the canoe along by myself. i was astonished at his docility, never speaking a word, and stirring neither hand nor foot; but the secret was, he was unable to swim, and in case we met with a second mishap, there were no more ledges beneath to stand upon. "crowning's but a shabby way of going out of the world," he exclaimed, upon my rallying him; "and i'm not going to be guilty of it." at last, the ship was at hand, and we approached with much caution, wishing to avoid being hailed by anyone from the quarter-deck. dropping silently under her bows, we heard a low whistle--the signal agreed upon--and presently a goodly-sized bag was lowered over to us. we cut the line, and then paddled away as fast as we could, and made the best of our way home. here, we found the rest waiting impatiently. the bag turned out to be well filled with sweet potatoes boiled, cubes of salt beef and pork, and a famous sailors' pudding, what they call "duff," made of flour and water, and of about the consistence of an underdone brick. with these delicacies, and keen appetites, we went out into the moonlight, and had a nocturnal picnic. chapter xlii. motoo-otoo a tahitian casuist the pill box was sometimes employed for other purposes than that described in the last chapter. we sometimes went a-pleasuring in it. right in the middle of papeetee harbour is a bright, green island, one circular grove of waving palms, and scarcely a hundred yards across. it is of coral formation; and all round, for many rods out, the bay is so shallow that you might wade anywhere. down in these waters, as transparent as air, you see coral plants of every hue and shape imaginable:--antlers, tufts of azure, waving reeds like stalks of grain, and pale green buds and mosses. in some places, you look through prickly branches down to a snow-white floor of sand, sprouting with flinty bulbs; and crawling among these are strange shapes:--some bristling with spikes, others clad in shining coats of mail, and here and there, round forms all spangled with eyes. the island is called hotoo-otoo; and around hotoo-otoo have i often paddled of a white moonlight night, pausing now and then to admire the marine gardens beneath. the place is the private property of the queen, who has a residence there--a melancholy-looking range of bamboo houses--neglected and falling to decay among the trees. commanding the harbour as it does, her majesty has done all she could to make a fortress of the island. the margin has been raised and levelled, and built up with a low parapet of hewn hocks of coral. behind the parapet are ranged, at wide intervals, a number of rusty old cannon, of all fashions and calibres. they are mounted upon lame, decrepit-looking carriages, ready to sink under the useless burden of bearing them up. indeed, two or three have given up the ghost altogether, and the pieces they sustained lie half buried among their bleaching bones. several of the cannon are spiked; probably with a view of making them more formidable; as they certainly must be to anyone undertaking to fire them off. presented to pomaree at various times by captains of british armed ships, these poor old "dogs of war," thus toothless and turned out to die, formerly bayed in full pack as the battle-hounds of old england. there was something about hotoo-otoo that struck my fancy; and i registered a vow to plant my foot upon its soil, notwithstanding an old bareheaded sentry menaced me in the moonlight with an unsightly musket. as my canoe drew scarcely three inches of water, i could paddle close up to the parapet without grounding; but every time i came near, the old man ran toward me, pushing his piece forward, but never clapping it to his shoulder. thinking he only meant to frighten me, i at last dashed the canoe right up to the wall, purposing a leap. it was the rashest act of my life; for never did cocoa-nut come nearer getting demolished than mine did then. with the stock of his gun, the old warder fetched a tremendous blow, which i managed to dodge; and then falling back, succeeded in paddling out of harm's reach. he must have been dumb; for never a word did he utter; but grinning from ear to ear, and with his white cotton robe streaming in the moonlight, he looked more like the spook of the island than anything mortal. i tried to effect my object by attacking him in the rear--but he was all front; running about the place as i paddled, and presenting his confounded musket wherever i went. at last i was obliged to retreat; and to this day my vow remains unfulfilled. it was a few days after my repulse from before the walls of hotoo-otoo that i heard a curious case of casuistry argued between one of the most clever and intelligent natives i ever saw in tahiti, a man by the name of arheetoo, and our learned theban of a doctor. it was this:--whether it was right and lawful for anyone, being a native, to keep the european sabbath, in preference to the day set apart as such by the missionaries, and so considered by the islanders in general. it must be known that the missionaries of the good ship duff, who more than half-a-century ago established the tahitian reckoning, came hither by the way of the cape of good hope; and by thus sailing to the eastward, lost one precious day of their lives all round, getting about that much in advance of greenwich time. for this reason, vessels coming round cape horn--as they most all do nowadays--find it sunday in tahiti, when, according to their own view of the matter, it ought to be saturday. but as it won't do to alter the log, the sailors keep their sabbath, and the islanders theirs. this confusion perplexes the poor natives mightily; and it is to no purpose that you endeavour to explain so incomprehensible a phenomenon. i once saw a worthy old missionary essay to shed some light on the subject; and though i understood but a few of the words employed, i could easily get at the meaning of his illustrations. they were something like the following: "here," says he, "you see this circle" (describing a large one on the ground with a stick); "very good; now you see this spot here" (marking a point in the perimeter): "well; this is beretanee (england), and i'm going to sail round to tahiti. here i go, then (following the circle round), and there goes the sun (snatching up another stick, and commissioning a bandy-legged native to travel round with it in a contrary direction). now then, we are both off, and both going away from each other; and here you see i have arrived at tahiti (making a sudden stop); and look now where bandy legs is!" but the crowd strenuously maintained that bandy legs ought to be somewhere above them in the atmosphere; for it was a traditionary fact that the people from the duff came ashore when the sun was high overhead. and here the old gentleman, being a very good sort of man, doubtless, but no astronomer, was obliged to give up. arheetoo, the casuist alluded to, though a member of the church, and extremely conscientious about what sabbath he kept, was more liberal in other matters. learning that i was something of a "mick-onaree" (in this sense, a man able to read, and cunning in the use of the pen), he desired the slight favour of my forging for him a set of papers; for which, he said, he would be much obliged, and give me a good dinner of roast pig and indian turnip in the bargain. now, arheetoo was one of those who board the shipping for their washing; and the competition being very great (the proudest chiefs not disdaining to solicit custom in person, though the work is done by their dependants), he had decided upon a course suggested by a knowing sailor, a friend of his. he wished to have manufactured a set of certificates, purporting to come from certain man-of-war and merchant captains, known to have visited the island; recommending him as one of the best getters up of fine linen in all polynesia. at this time, arheetoo had known me but two hours; and, as he made the proposition very coolly, i thought it rather presumptuous, and told him so. but as it was quite impossible to convey a hint, and there was a slight impropriety in the thing, i did not resent the insult, but simply declined. chapter xliii. one is judged by the company he keeps although, from its novelty, life at captain bob's was pleasant enough, for the time; there were some few annoyances connected with it anything but agreeable to a "soul of sensibility." prejudiced against us by the malevolent representations of the consul and others, many worthy foreigners ashore regarded us as a set of lawless vagabonds; though, truth to speak, better behaved sailors never stepped on the island, nor any who gave less trouble to the natives. but, for all this, whenever we met a respectably-dressed european, ten to one he shunned us by going over to the other side of the road. this was very unpleasant, at least to myself; though, certes, it did not prey upon the minds of the others. to give an instance. of a fine evening in tahiti--but they are all fine evenings there--you may see a bevy of silk bonnets and parasols passing along the broom road: perhaps a band of pale, little white urchins--sickly exotics--and, oftener still, sedate, elderly gentlemen, with canes; at whose appearance the natives, here and there, slink into their huts. these are the missionaries, their wives, and children, taking a family airing. sometimes, by the bye, they take horse, and ride down to point venus and back; a distance of several miles. at this place is settled the only survivor of the first missionaries that landed--an old, white-headed, saint-like man, by the name of wilson, the father of our friend, the consul. the little parties on foot were frequently encountered; and, recalling, as they did, so many pleasant recollections of home and the ladies, i really longed for a dress coat and beaver that i might step up and pay my respects. but, situated as i was, this was out of the question. on one occasion, however, i received a kind, inquisitive glance from a matron in gingham. sweet lady! i have not forgotten her: her gown was a plaid. but a glance, like hers, was not always bestowed. one evening, passing the verandah of a missionary's dwelling, the dame, his wife, and a pretty, blonde young girl, with ringlets, were sitting there, enjoying the sea-breeze, then coming in, all cool and refreshing, from the spray of the reef. as i approached, the old lady peered hard at me; and her very cap seemed to convey a prim rebuke. the blue, english eyes, by her side, were also bent on me. but, oh heavens! what a glance to receive from such a beautiful creature! as for the mob cap, not a fig did i care for it; but, to be taken for anything but a cavalier, by the ringleted one, was absolutely unendurable. i resolved on a courteous salute, to show my good-breeding, if nothing more. but, happening to wear a sort of turban--hereafter to be particularly alluded to--there was no taking it off and putting it on again with anything like dignity. at any rate, then, here goes a how. but, another difficulty presented itself; my loose frock was so voluminous that i doubted whether any spinal curvature would be perceptible. "good evening, ladies," exclaimed i, at last, advancing winningly; "a delightful air from the sea, ladies." hysterics and hartshorn! who would have thought it? the young lady screamed, and the old one came near fainting. as for myself, i retreated in double-quick time; and scarcely drew breath until safely housed in the calabooza. chapter xliv. cathedral of papoar--the church of the cocoa-nuts on sundays i always attended the principal native church, on the outskirts of the village of papeetee, and not far from the calabooza beretanee. it was esteemed the best specimen of architecture in tahiti. of late, they have built their places of worship with more reference to durability than formerly. at one time, there were no less than thirty-six on the island--mere barns, tied together with thongs, which went to destruction in a very few years. one, built many years ago in this style, was a most remarkable structure. it was erected by pomaree ii., who, on this occasion, showed all the zeal of a royal proselyte. the building was over seven hundred feet in length, and of a proportionate width; the vast ridge-pole was at intervals supported by a row of thirty-six cylindrical trunks of the bread-fruit tree; and, all round, the wall-plates rested on shafts of the palm. the roof--steeply inclining to within a man's height of the ground--was thatched with leaves, and the sides of the edifice were open. thus spacious was the royal mission chapel of papoar. at its dedication, three distinct sermons were, from different pulpits, preached to an immense concourse gathered from all parts of the island. as the chapel was built by the king's command, nearly as great a multitude was employed in its construction as swarmed over the scaffolding of the great temple of the jews. much less time, however, was expended. in less than three weeks from planting the first post, the last tier of palmetto-leaves drooped from the eaves, and the work was done. apportioned to the several chiefs and their dependants, the labour, though immense, was greatly facilitated by everyone's bringing his post, or his rafter, or his pole strung with thatching, ready for instant use. the materials thus prepared being afterwards secured together by thongs, there was literally "neither hammer, nor axe, nor any tool of iron heard in the house while it was building." but the most singular circumstance connected with this south sea cathedral remains to be related. as well for the beauty as the advantages of such a site, the islanders love to dwell near the mountain streams; and so, a considerable brook, after descending from the hills and watering the valley, was bridged over in three places, and swept clean through the chapel. flowing waters! what an accompaniment to the songs of the sanctuary; mingling with them the praises and thanksgivings of the green solitudes inland. but the chapel of the polynesian solomon has long since been deserted. its thousand rafters of habiscus have decayed, and fallen to the ground; and now, the stream murmurs over them in its bed. the present metropolitan church of tahiti is very unlike the one just described. it is of moderate dimensions, boarded over, and painted white. it is furnished also with blinds, but no sashes; indeed, were it not for the rustic thatch, it would remind one of a plain chapel at home. the woodwork was all done by foreign carpenters, of whom there are always several about papeetee. within, its aspect is unique, and cannot fail to interest a stranger. the rafters overhead are bound round with fine matting of variegated dyes; and all along the ridge-pole these trappings hang pendent, in alternate bunches of tassels and deep fringes of stained grass. the floor is composed of rude planks. regular aisles run between ranges of native settees, bottomed with crossed braids of the cocoa-nut fibre, and furnished with backs. but the pulpit, made of a dark, lustrous wood, and standing at one end, is by far the most striking object. it is preposterously lofty; indeed, a capital bird's-eye view of the congregation ought to be had from its summit. nor does the church lack a gallery, which runs round on three sides, and is supported by columns of the cocoa-nut tree. its facings are here and there daubed over with a tawdry blue; and in other places (without the slightest regard to uniformity), patches of the same colour may be seen. in their ardour to decorate the sanctuary, the converts must have borrowed each a brush full of paint, and zealously daubed away at the first surface that offered. as hinted, the general impression is extremely curious. little light being admitted, and everything being of a dark colour, there is an indefinable indian aspect of duskiness throughout. a strange, woody smell, also--more or less pervading every considerable edifice in polynesia--is at once perceptible. it suggests the idea of worm-eaten idols packed away in some old lumber-room at hand. for the most part, the congregation attending this church is composed of the better and wealthier orders--the chiefs and their retainers; in short, the rank and fashion of the island. this class is infinitely superior in personal beauty and general healthfulness to the "marenhoar," or common people; the latter having been more exposed to the worst and most debasing evils of foreign intercourse. on sundays, the former are invariably arrayed in their finery; and thus appear to the best advantage. nor are they driven to the chapel, as some of their inferiors are to other places of worship; on the contrary, capable of maintaining a handsome exterior, and possessing greater intelligence, they go voluntarily. in respect of the woodland colonnade supporting its galleries, i called this chapel the church of the cocoa-nuts. it was the first place for christian worship in polynesia that i had seen; and the impression upon entering during service was all the stronger. majestic-looking chiefs whose fathers had hurled the battle-club, and old men who had seen sacrifices smoking upon the altars of oro, were there. and hark! hanging from the bough of a bread-fruit tree without, a bell is being struck with a bar of iron by a native lad. in the same spot, the blast of the war-conch had often resounded. but to the proceedings within. the place is well filled. everywhere meets the eye the gay calico draperies worn on great occasions by the higher classes, and forming a strange contrast of patterns and colours. in some instances, these are so fashioned as to resemble as much as possible european garments. this is in excessively bad taste. coats and pantaloons, too, are here and there seen; but they look awkwardly enough, and take away from the general effect. but it is the array of countenances that most strikes you. each is suffused with the peculiar animation of the polynesians, when thus collected in large numbers. every robe is rustling, every limb in motion, and an incessant buzzing going on throughout the assembly. the tumult is so great that the voice of the placid old missionary, who now rises, is almost inaudible. some degree of silence is at length obtained through the exertions of half-a-dozen strapping fellows, in white shirts and no pantaloons. running in among the settees, they are at great pains to inculcate the impropriety of making a noise by creating a most unnecessary racket themselves. this part of the service was quite comical. there is a most interesting sabbath school connected with the church; and the scholars, a vivacious, mischievous set, were in one part of the gallery. i was amused by a party in a corner. the teacher sat at one end of the bench, with a meek little fellow by his side. when the others were disorderly, this young martyr received a rap; intended, probably, as a sample of what the rest might expect, if they didn't amend. standing in the body of the church, and leaning against a pillar, was an old man, in appearance very different from others of his countrymen. he wore nothing but a coarse, scant mantle of faded tappa; and from his staring, bewildered manner, i set him down as an aged bumpkin from the interior, unaccustomed to the strange sights and sounds of the metropolis. this old worthy was sharply reprimanded for standing up, and thus intercepting the view of those behind; but not comprehending exactly what was said to him, one of the white-liveried gentry made no ceremony of grasping him by the shoulders, and fairly crushing him down into a seat. during all this, the old missionary in the pulpit--as well as his associates beneath, never ventured to interfere--leaving everything to native management. with south sea islanders, assembled in any numbers, there is no other way of getting along. chapter xlv. missionary's sermon; with some reflections some degree of order at length restored, the service was continued, by singing. the choir was composed of twelve or fifteen ladies of the mission, occupying a long bench to the left of the pulpit. almost the entire congregation joined in. the first air fairly startled me; it was the brave tune of old hundred, adapted to a tahitian psalm. after the graceless scenes i had recently passed through, this circumstance, with all its accessories, moved me forcibly. many voices around were of great sweetness and compass. the singers, also, seemed to enjoy themselves mightily; some of them pausing, now and then, and looking round, as if to realize the scene more fully. in truth, they sang right joyously, despite the solemnity of the tune. the tahitians have much natural talent for singing; and, on all occasions, are exceedingly fond of it. i have often heard a stave or two of psalmody, hummed over by rakish young fellows, like a snatch from an opera. with respect to singing, as in most other matters, the tahitians widely differ from the people of the sandwich islands; where the parochial flocks may be said rather to heat than sing. the psalm concluded, a prayer followed. very considerately, the good old missionary made it short; for the congregation became fidgety and inattentive as soon as it commenced. a chapter of the tahitian bible was now read; a text selected; and the sermon began. it was listened to with more attention than i had anticipated. having been informed, from various sources, that the discourses of the missionaries, being calculated to engage the attention of their simple auditors, were, naturally enough, of a rather amusing description to strangers; in short, that they had much to say about steamboats, lord mayor's coaches, and the way fires are put out in london, i had taken care to provide myself with a good interpreter, in the person of an intelligent hawaiian sailor, whose acquaintance i had made. "now, jack," said i, before entering, "hear every word, and tell me what you can as the missionary goes on." jack's was not, perhaps, a critical version of the discourse; and at the time, i took no notes of what he said. nevertheless, i will here venture to give what i remember of it; and, as far as possible, in jack's phraseology, so as to lose nothing by a double translation. "good friends, i glad to see you; and i very well like to have some talk with you to-day. good friends, very bad times in tahiti; it make me weep. pomaree is gone--the island no more yours, but the wee-wees' (french). wicked priests here, too; and wicked idols in woman's clothes, and brass chains. "good friends, no you speak, or look at them--but i know you won't--they belong to a set of robbers--the wicked wee-wees. soon these bad men be made to go very quick. beretanee ships of thunder come and away they go. but no more 'bout this now. i speak more by by. "good friends, many whale-ships here now; and many bad men come in 'em. no good sailors living--that you know very well. they come here, 'cause so bad they no keep 'em home. "my good little girls, no run after sailors--no go where they go; they harm you. where they come from, no good people talk to 'em--just like dogs. here, they talk to pomaree, and drink arva with great poofai. "good friends, this very small island, but very wicked, and very poor; these two go together. why beretanee so great? because that island good island, and send mickonaree to poor kannaka in beretanee, every man rich: plenty things to buy; and plenty things to sell. houses bigger than pomaree's, and more grand. everybody, too, ride about in coaches, bigger than hers; and wear fine tappa every day. (several luxurious appliances of civilization were here enumerated, and described.) "good friends, little to eat left at my house. schooner from sydney no bring bag of flour: and kannaka no bring pig and fruit enough. mickonaree do great deal for kannaka; kannaka do little for mickonaree. so, good friends, weave plenty of cocoa-nut baskets, fill 'em, and bring 'em to-morrow." such was the substance of great part of this discourse; and, whatever may be thought of it, it was specially adapted to the minds of the islanders: who are susceptible to no impressions, except from things palpable, or novel and striking. to them, a dry sermon would be dry indeed. the tahitians can hardly ever be said to reflect: they are all impulse; and so, instead of expounding dogmas, the missionaries give them the large type, pleasing cuts, and short and easy lessons of the primer. hence, anything like a permanent religious impression is seldom or never produced. in fact, there is, perhaps, no race upon earth, less disposed, by nature, to the monitions of christianity, than the people of the south seas. and this assertion is made with full knowledge of what is called the "great revival at the sandwich islands," about the year ; when several thousands were, in the course of a few weeks, admitted into the bosom of the church. but this result was brought about by no sober moral convictions; as an almost instantaneous relapse into every kind of licentiousness soon after testified. it was the legitimate effect of a morbid feeling, engendered by the sense of severe physical wants, preying upon minds excessively prone to superstition; and, by fanatical preaching, inflamed into the belief that the gods of the missionaries were taking vengeance upon the wickedness of the land. it is a noteworthy fact that those very traits in the tahitians, which induced the london missionary society to regard them as the most promising subjects for conversion, and which led, moreover, to the selection of their island as the very first field for missionary labour, eventually proved the most serious obstruction. an air of softness in their manners, great apparent ingenuousness and docility, at first misled; but these were the mere accompaniments of an indolence, bodily and mental; a constitutional voluptuousness; and an aversion to the least restraint; which, however fitted for the luxurious state of nature, in the tropics, are the greatest possible hindrances to the strict moralities of christianity. added to all this is a quality inherent in polynesians; and more akin to hypocrisy than anything else. it leads them to assume the most passionate interest in matters for which they really feel little or none whatever; but in which, those whose power they dread, or whose favour they court, they believe to be at all affected. thus, in their heathen state, the sandwich islanders actually knocked out their teeth, tore their hair, and mangled their bodies with shells, to testify their inconsolable grief at the demise of a high chief, or member of the royal family. and yet, vancouver relates that, on such an occasion, upon which he happened to be present, those apparently the most abandoned to their feelings, immediately assumed the utmost light-heartedness on receiving the present of a penny whistle, or a dutch looking-glass. similar instances, also, have come under my own observation. the following is an illustration of the trait alluded to, as occasionally manifested among the converted polynesians. at one of the society islands--baiatair, i believe--the natives, for special reasons, desired to commend themselves particularly to the favour of the missionaries. accordingly, during divine service, many of them behaved in a manner, otherwise unaccountable, and precisely similar to their behaviour as heathens. they pretended to be wrought up to madness by the preaching which they heard. they rolled their eyes; foamed at the mouth; fell down in fits; and so were carried home. yet, strange to relate, all this was deemed the evidence of the power of the most high; and, as such, was heralded abroad. but, to return to the church of the cocoa-nuts. the blessing pronounced, the congregation disperse; enlivening the broom road with their waving mantles. on either hand, they disappear down the shaded pathways, which lead off from the main route, conducting to hamlets in the groves, or to the little marine villas upon the beach. there is considerable hilarity; and you would suppose them just from an old-fashioned "hevar," or jolly heathen dance. those who carry bibles swing them carelessly from their arms by cords of sinnate. the sabbath is no ordinary day with the tahitians. so far as doing any work is concerned, it is scrupulously observed. the canoes are hauled up on the beach; the nets are spread to dry. passing by the hen-coop huts on the roadside, you find their occupants idle, as usual; but less disposed to gossip. after service, repose broods over the whole island; the valleys reaching inland look stiller than ever. in short, it is sunday--their "taboo day"; the very word formerly expressing the sacredness of their pagan observances now proclaiming the sanctity of the christian sabbath. chapter xlvi. something about the kannakippers a worthy young man, formerly a friend of mine (i speak of kooloo with all possible courtesy, since after our intimacy there would be an impropriety in doing otherwise)--this worthy youth, having some genteel notions of retirement, dwelt in a "maroo boro," or bread-fruit shade, a pretty nook in a wood, midway between the calabooza beretanee and the church of cocoa-nuts. hence, at the latter place, he was one of the most regular worshippers. kooloo was a blade. standing up in the congregation in all the bravery of a striped calico shirt, with the skirts rakishly adjusted over a pair of white sailor trousers, and hair well anointed with cocoa-nut oil, he ogled the ladies with an air of supreme satisfaction. nor were his glances unreturned. but such looks as the tahitian belles cast at each other: frequently turning up their noses at the advent of a new cotton mantle recently imported in the chest of some amorous sailor. upon one occasion, i observed a group of young girls, in tunics of course, soiled sheeting, disdainfully pointing at a damsel in a flaming red one. "oee tootai owree!" said they with ineffable scorn, "itai maitai!" (you are a good-for-nothing huzzy, no better than you should be). now, kooloo communed with the church; so did all these censorious young ladies. yet after eating bread-fruit at the eucharist, i knew several of them, the same night, to be guilty of some sad derelictions. puzzled by these things, i resolved to find out, if possible, what ideas, if any, they entertained of religion; but as one's spiritual concerns are rather delicate for a stranger to meddle with, i went to work as adroitly as i could. farnow, an old native who had recently retired from active pursuits, having thrown up the business of being a sort of running footman to the queen, had settled down in a snug little retreat, not fifty rods from captain bob's. his selecting our vicinity for his residence may have been with some view to the advantages it afforded for introducing his three daughters into polite circles. at any rate, not averse to receiving the attentions of so devoted a gallant as the doctor, the sisters (communicants, be it remembered) kindly extended to him free permission to visit them sociably whenever he pleased. we dropped in one evening, and found the ladies at home. my long friend engaged his favourites, the two younger girls, at the game of "now," or hunting a stone under three piles of tappa. for myself, i lounged on a mat with ideea the eldest, dallying with her grass fan, and improving my knowledge of tahitian. the occasion was well adapted to my purpose, and i began. "ah, ideea, mickonaree oee?" the same as drawling out--"by the bye, miss ideea, do you belong to the church?" "yes, me mickonaree," was the reply. but the assertion was at once qualified by certain, reservations; so curious that i cannot forbear their relation. "mickonaree ena" (church member here), exclaimed she, laying her hand upon her mouth, and a strong emphasis on the adverb. in the same way, and with similar exclamations, she touched her eyes and hands. this done, her whole air changed in an instant; and she gave me to understand, by unmistakable gestures, that in certain other respects she was not exactly a "mickonaree." in short, ideea was "a sad good christian at the heart--a very heathen in the carnal part." the explanation terminated in a burst of laughter, in which all three sisters joined; and for fear of looking silly, the doctor and myself. as soon as good-breeding would permit, we took leave. the hypocrisy in matters of religion, so apparent in all polynesian converts, is most injudiciously nourished in tahiti by a zealous and in many cases, a coercive superintendence over their spiritual well-being. but it is only manifested with respect to the common people, their superiors being exempted. on sunday mornings, when the prospect is rather small for a full house in the minor churches, a parcel of fellows are actually sent out with ratans into the highways and byways as whippers-in of the congregation. this is a sober fact. these worthies constitute a religious police; and you always know them by the great white diapers they wear. on week days they are quite as busy as on sundays; to the great terror of the inhabitants, going all over the island, and spying out the wickedness thereof. moreover, they are the collectors of fines--levied generally in grass mats--for obstinate non-attendance upon divine worship, and other offences amenable to the ecclesiastical judicature of the missionaries. old bob called these fellows "kannakippers" a corruption, i fancy, of our word constable. he bore them a bitter grudge; and one day, drawing near home, and learning that two of them were just then making a domiciliary visit at his house, he ran behind a bush; and as they came forth, two green bread-fruit from a hand unseen took them each between the shoulders. the sailors in the calabooza were witnesses to this, as well as several natives; who, when the intruders were out of sight, applauded captain bob's spirit in no measured terms; the ladies present vehemently joining in. indeed, the kannakippers have no greater enemies than the latter. and no wonder: the impertinent varlets, popping into their houses at all hours, are forever prying into their peccadilloes. kooloo, who at times was patriotic and pensive, and mourned the evils under which his country was groaning, frequently inveighed against the statute which thus authorized an utter stranger to interfere with domestic arrangements. he himself--quite a ladies' man--had often been annoyed thereby. he considered the kannakippers a bore. beside their confounded inquisitiveness, they add insult to injury, by making a point of dining out every day at some hut within the limits of their jurisdiction. as for the gentleman of the house, his meek endurance of these things is amazing. but "good easy man," there is nothing for him but to be as hospitable as possible. these gentry are indefatigable. at the dead of night prowling round the houses, and in the daytime hunting amorous couples in the groves. yet in one instance the chase completely baffled them. it was thus. several weeks previous to our arrival at the island, someone's husband and another person's wife, having taken a mutual fancy for each other, went out for a walk. the alarm was raised, and with hue and cry they were pursued; but nothing was seen of them again until the lapse of some ninety days; when we were called out from the calabooza to behold a great mob inclosing the lovers, and escorting them for trial to the village. their appearance was most singular. the girdle excepted, they were quite naked; their hair was long, burned yellow at the ends, and entangled with burrs; and their bodies scratched and scarred in all directions. it seems that, acting upon the "love in a cottage" principle, they had gone right into the interior; and throwing up a hut in an uninhabited valley, had lived there, until in an unlucky stroll they were observed and captured. they were subsequently condemned to make one hundred fathoms of broom road--a six months' work, if not more. often, when seated in a house, conversing quietly with its inmates, i have known them betray the greatest confusion at the sudden announcement of a kannakipper's being in sight. to be reported by one of these officials as a "tootai owree" (in general, signifying a bad person or disbeliever in christianity), is as much dreaded as the forefinger of titus gates was, levelled at an alleged papist. but the islanders take a sly revenge upon them. upon entering a dwelling, the kannakippers oftentimes volunteer a pharisaical prayer-meeting: hence, they go in secret by the name of "boora-artuas," literally, "pray-to-gods." chapter xlvii. how they dress in tahiti except where the employment of making "tappa" is inflicted as a punishment, the echoes of the cloth-mallet have long since died away in the listless valleys of tahiti. formerly, the girls spent their mornings like ladies at their tambour frames; now, they are lounged away in almost utter indolence. true, most of them make their own garments; but this comprises but a stitch or two; the ladies of the mission, by the bye, being entitled to the credit of teaching them to sew. the "kihee whihenee," or petticoat, is a mere breadth of white cotton, or calico; loosely enveloping the person, from the waist to the feet. fastened simply by a single tuck, or by twisting the upper corners together, this garment frequently becomes disordered; thus affording an opportunity of being coquettishly adjusted. over the "kihee," they wear a sort of gown, open in front, very loose, and as negligent as you please. the ladies here never dress for dinner. but what shall be said of those horrid hats! fancy a bunch of straw, plaited into the shape of a coal-scuttle, and stuck, bolt upright, on the crown; with a yard or two of red ribbon flying about like kite-strings. milliners of paris, what would ye say to them! though made by the natives, they are said to have been first contrived and recommended by the missionaries' wives; a report which, i really trust, is nothing but scandal. curious to relate, these things for the head are esteemed exceedingly becoming. the braiding of the straw is one of the few employments of the higher classes; all of which but minister to the silliest vanity. the young girls, however, wholly eschew the hats; leaving those dowdy old souls, their mothers, to make frights of themselves. as for the men, those who aspire to european garments seem to have no perception of the relation subsisting between the various parts of a gentleman's costume. to the wearer of a coat, for instance, pantaloons are by no means indispensable; and a bell-crowned hat and a girdle are full dress. the young sailor, for whom kooloo deserted me, presented him with a shaggy old pea-jacket; and with this buttoned up to his chin, under a tropical sun, he promenaded the broom road, quite elated. doctor long ghost, who saw him thus, ran away with the idea that he was under medical treatment at the time--in the act of taking, what the quacks call, a "sweat." a bachelor friend of captain bob rejoiced in the possession of a full european suit; in which he often stormed the ladies' hearts. having a military leaning, he ornamented the coat with a great scarlet patch on the breast; and mounted it also, here and there, with several regimental buttons, slyly cut from the uniform of a parcel of drunken marines sent ashore on a holiday from a man-of-war. but, in spite of the ornaments, the dress was not exactly the thing. from the tightness of the cloth across the shoulders, his elbows projected from his sides, like an ungainly rider's; and his ponderous legs were jammed so hard into his slim, nether garments that the threads of every seam showed; and, at every step, you looked for a catastrophe. in general, there seems to be no settled style of dressing among the males; they wear anything they can get; in some cases, awkwardly modifying the fashions of their fathers so as to accord with their own altered views of what is becoming. but ridiculous as many of them now appear, in foreign habiliments, the tahitians presented a far different appearance in the original national costume; which was graceful in the extreme, modest to all but the prudish, and peculiarly adapted to the climate. but the short kilts of dyed tappa, the tasselled maroes, and other articles formerly worn, are, at the present day, prohibited by law as indecorous. for what reason necklaces and garlands of flowers, among the women, are also forbidden, i never could learn; but, it is said, that they were associated, in some way, with a forgotten heathen observance. many pleasant, and, seemingly, innocent sports and pastimes, are likewise interdicted. in old times, there were several athletic games practised, such as wrestling, foot-racing, throwing the javelin, and archery. in all these they greatly excelled; and, for some, splendid festivals were instituted. among their everyday amusements were dancing, tossing the football, kite-flying, flute-playing, and singing traditional ballads; now, all punishable offences; though most of them have been so long in disuse that they are nearly forgotten. in the same way, the "opio," or festive harvest-home of the breadfruit, has been suppressed; though, as described to me by captain bob, it seemed wholly free from any immoral tendency. against tattooing, of any kind, there is a severe law. that this abolition of their national amusements and customs was not willingly acquiesced in, is shown in the frequent violation of many of the statutes inhibiting them; and, especially, in the frequency with which their "hevars," or dances, are practised in secret. doubtless, in thus denationalizing the tahitians, as it were, the missionaries were prompted by a sincere desire for good; but the effect has been lamentable. supplied with no amusements in place of those forbidden, the tahitians, who require more recreation than other people, have sunk into a listlessness, or indulge in sensualities, a hundred times more pernicious than all the games ever celebrated in the temple of tanee. chapter xlviii. tahiti as it is as in the last few chapters, several matters connected with the general condition of the natives have been incidentally touched upon, it may be well not to leave so important a subject in a state calculated to convey erroneous impressions. let us bestow upon it, therefore, something more than a mere cursory glance. but in the first place, let it be distinctly understood that, in all i have to say upon this subject, both here and elsewhere, i mean no harm to the missionaries nor their cause; i merely desire to set forth things as they actually exist. of the results which have flowed from the intercourse of foreigners with the polynesians, including the attempts to civilize and christianize them by the missionaries, tahiti, on many accounts, is obviously the fairest practical example. indeed, it may now be asserted that the experiment of christianizing the tahitians, and improving their social condition by the introduction of foreign customs, has been fully tried. the present generation have grown up under the auspices of their religious instructors. and although it may be urged that the labours of the latter have at times been more or less obstructed by unprincipled foreigners, still, this in no wise renders tahiti any the less a fair illustration; for, with obstacles like these, the missionaries in polynesia must always, and everywhere struggle. nearly sixty years have elapsed since the tahitian mission was started; and, during this period, it has received the unceasing prayers and contributions of its friends abroad. nor has any enterprise of the kind called forth more devotion on the part of those directly employed in it. it matters not that the earlier labourers in the work, although strictly conscientious, were, as a class, ignorant, and, in many cases, deplorably bigoted: such traits have, in some degree, characterized the pioneers of all faiths. and although in zeal and disinterestedness the missionaries now on the island are, perhaps, inferior to their predecessors, they have, nevertheless, in their own way at least, laboured hard to make a christian people of their charge. let us now glance at the most obvious changes wrought in their condition. the entire system of idolatry has been done away; together with several barbarous practices engrafted thereon. but this result is not so much to be ascribed to the missionaries, as to the civilizing effects of a long and constant intercourse with whites of all nations; to whom, for many years, tahiti has been one of the principal places of resort in the south seas. at the sandwich islands, the potent institution of the taboo, together with the entire paganism of the land, was utterly abolished by a voluntary act of the natives some time previous to the arrival of the first missionaries among them. the next most striking change in the tahitians is this. from the permanent residence among them of influential and respectable foreigners, as well as from the frequent visits of ships-of-war, recognizing the nationality of the island, its inhabitants are no longer deemed fit subjects for the atrocities practised upon mere savages; and hence, secure from retaliation, vessels of all kinds now enter their harbours with perfect safety. but let us consider what results are directly ascribable to the missionaries alone. in all cases, they have striven hard to mitigate the evils resulting from the commerce with the whites in general. such attempts, however, have been rather injudicious, and often ineffectual: in truth, a barrier almost insurmountable is presented in the dispositions of the people themselves. still, in this respect, the morality of the islanders is, upon the whole, improved by the presence of the missionaries. but the greatest achievement of the latter, and one which in itself is most hopeful and gratifying, is that they have translated the entire bible into the language of the island; and i have myself known several who were able to read it with facility. they have also established churches, and schools for both children and adults; the latter, i regret to say, are now much neglected: which must be ascribed, in a great measure, to the disorders growing out of the proceedings of the french. it were unnecessary here to enter diffusely into matters connected with the internal government of the tahitian churches and schools. nor, upon this head, is my information copious enough to warrant me in presenting details. but we do not need them. we are merely considering general results, as made apparent in the moral and religious condition of the island at large. upon a subject like this, however, it would be altogether too assuming for a single individual to decide; and so, in place of my own random observations, which may be found elsewhere, i will here present those of several known authors, made under various circumstances, at different periods, and down to a comparative late date. a few very brief extracts will enable the reader to mark for himself what progressive improvement, if any, has taken place. nor must it be overlooked that, of these authorities, the two first in order are largely quoted by the right reverend m. kussell, in a work composed for the express purpose of imparting information on the subject of christian missions in polynesia. and he frankly acknowledges, moreover, that they are such as "cannot fail to have great weight with the public." after alluding to the manifold evils entailed upon the natives by foreigners, and their singularly inert condition; and after somewhat too severely denouncing the undeniable errors of the mission, kotzebue, the russian navigator, says, "a religion like this, which forbids every innocent pleasure, and cramps or annihilates every mental power, is a libel on the divine founder of christianity. it is true that the religion of the missionaries has, with a great deal of evil, effected some good. it has restrained the vices of theft and incontinence; but it has given birth to ignorance, hypocrisy, and a hatred of all other modes of faith, which was once foreign to the open and benevolent character of the tahitian." captain beechy says that, while at tahiti, he saw scenes "which must have convinced the great sceptic of the thoroughly immoral condition of the people, and which would force him to conclude, as turnbull did, many years previous, that their intercourse with the europeans had tended to debase, rather than exalt their condition." about the year , daniel wheeler, an honest-hearted quaker, prompted by motives of the purest philanthropy, visited, in a vessel of his own, most of the missionary settlements in the south seas. he remained some time at tahiti; receiving the hospitalities of the missionaries there, and, from time to time, exhorting the natives. after bewailing their social condition, he frankly says of their religious state, "certainly, appearances are unpromising; and however unwilling to adopt such a conclusion, there is reason to apprehend that christian principle is a great rarity." such, then, is the testimony of good and unbiassed men, who have been upon the spot; but, how comes it to differ so widely from impressions of others at home? simply thus: instead of estimating the result of missionary labours by the number of heathens who have actually been made to understand and practise (in some measure at least) the precepts of christianity, this result has been unwarrantably inferred from the number of those who, without any understanding of these things, have in any way been induced to abandon idolatry and conform to certain outward observances. by authority of some kind or other, exerted upon the natives through their chiefs, and prompted by the hope of some worldly benefit to the latter, and not by appeals to the reason, have conversions in polynesia been in most cases brought about. even in one or two instances--so often held up as wonderful examples of divine power--where the natives have impulsively burned their idols, and rushed to the waters of baptism, the very suddenness of the change has but indicated its unsoundness. williams, the martyr of erromanga, relates an instance where the inhabitants of an island professing christianity voluntarily assembled, and solemnly revived all their heathen customs. all the world over, facts are more eloquent than words; the following will show in what estimation the missionaries themselves hold the present state of christianity and morals among the converted polynesians. on the island of imeeo (attached to the tahitian mission) is a seminary under the charge of the rev. mr. simpson and wife, for the education of the children of the missionaries, exclusively. sent home--in many cases, at a very early age--to finish their education, the pupils here are taught nothing but the rudiments of knowledge; nothing more than may be learned in the native schools. notwithstanding this, the two races are kept as far as possible from associating; the avowed reason being to preserve the young whites from moral contamination. the better to insure this end, every effort is made to prevent them from acquiring the native language. they went even further at the sandwich islands; where, a few years ago, a playground for the children of the missionaries was inclosed with a fence many feet high, the more effectually to exclude the wicked little hawaiians. and yet, strange as it may seem, the depravity among the polynesians, which renders precautions like these necessary, was in a measure unknown before their intercourse with the whites. the excellent captain wilson, who took the first missionaries out to tahiti, affirms that the people of that island had, in many things, "more refined ideas of decency than ourselves." vancouver, also, has some noteworthy ideas on this subject, respecting the sandwich islanders. that the immorality alluded to is continually increasing is plainly shown in the numerous, severe, and perpetually violated laws against licentiousness of all kinds in both groups of islands. it is hardly to be expected that the missionaries would send home accounts of this state of things. hence, captain beechy, in alluding to the "polynesian researches" of ellis, says that the author has impressed his readers with a far more elevated idea of the moral condition of the tahitians, and the degree of civilization to which they have attained, than they deserve; or, at least, than the facts which came under his observation authorized. he then goes on to say that, in his intercourse with the islanders, "they had no fear of him, and consequently acted from the impulse of their natural feeling; so that he was the better enabled to obtain a correct knowledge of their real disposition and habits." prom my own familiar intercourse with the natives, this last reflection still more forcibly applies to myself. chapter xlix. same subject continued we have glanced at their moral and religious condition; let us see how it is with them socially, and in other respects. it has been said that the only way to civilize a people is to form in them habits of industry. judged by this principle, the tahitians are less civilized now than formerly. true, their constitutional indolence is excessive; but surely, if the spirit of christianity is among them, so unchristian a vice ought to be, at least, partially remedied. but the reverse is the fact. instead of acquiring new occupations, old ones have been discontinued. as previously remarked, the manufacture of tappa is nearly obsolete in many parts of the island. so, too, with that of the native tools and domestic utensils; very few of which are now fabricated, since the superiority of european wares has been made so evident. this, however, would be all very well were the natives to apply themselves to such occupations as would enable them to supply the few articles they need. but they are far from doing so; and the majority being unable to obtain european substitutes for many things before made by themselves, the inevitable consequence is seen in the present wretched and destitute mode of life among the common people. to me so recently from a primitive valley of the marquesas, the aspect of most of the dwellings of the poorer tahitians, and their general habits, seemed anything but tidy; nor could i avoid a comparison, immeasurably to the disadvantage of these partially civilized islanders. in tahiti, the people have nothing to do; and idleness, everywhere, is the parent of vice. "there is scarcely anything," says the good old quaker wheeler, "so striking, or pitiable, as their aimless, nerveless mode of spending life." attempts have repeatedly been made to rouse them from their sluggishness; but in vain. several years ago, the cultivation of cotton was introduced; and, with their usual love of novelty, they went to work with great alacrity; but the interest excited quickly subsided, and now, not a pound of the article is raised. about the same time, machinery for weaving was sent out from london; and a factory was started at afrehitoo, in imeeo. the whiz of the wheels and spindles brought in volunteers from all quarters, who deemed it a privilege to be admitted to work: yet, in six months, not a boy could be hired; and the machinery was knocked down, and packed off to sydney. it was the same way with the cultivation of the sugar-cane, a plant indigenous to the island; peculiarly fitted to the soil and climate, and of so excellent a quality that bligh took slips of it to the west indies. all the plantations went on famously for a while; the natives swarming in the fields like ants, and making a prodigious stir. what few plantations now remain are owned and worked by whites; who would rather pay a drunken sailor eighteen or twenty spanish dollars a month, than hire a sober native for his "fish and tarro." it is well worthy remark here, that every evidence of civilization among the south sea islands directly pertains to foreigners; though the fact of such evidence existing at all is usually urged as a proof of the elevated condition of the natives. thus, at honolulu, the capital of the sandwich islands, there are fine dwelling-houses, several hotels, and barber-shops, ay, even billiard-rooms; but all these are owned and used, be it observed, by whites. there are tailors, and blacksmiths, and carpenters also; but not one of them is a native. the fact is, that the mechanical and agricultural employment of civilized life require a kind of exertion altogether too steady and sustained to agree with an indolent people like the polynesians. calculated for a state of nature, in a climate providentially adapted to it, they are unfit for any other. nay, as a race, they cannot otherwise long exist. the following statement speaks for itself. about the year , captain cook estimated the population of tahiti at about two hundred thousand. by a regular census, taken some four or five years ago, it was found to be only nine thousand. this amazing decrease not only shows the malignancy of the evils necessary to produce it; but, from the fact, the inference unavoidably follows that all the wars, child murders, and other depopulating causes, alleged to have existed in former times, were nothing in comparison to them. these evils, of course, are solely of foreign origin. to say nothing of the effects of drunkenness, the occasional inroads of the small-pox, and other things which might be mentioned, it is sufficient to allude to a virulent disease which now taints the blood of at least two-thirds of the common people of the island; and, in some form or other, is transmitted from father to son. their first horror and consternation at the earlier ravages of this scourge were pitiable in the extreme. the very name bestowed upon it is a combination of all that is horrid and unmentionable to a civilized being. distracted with their sufferings, they brought forth their sick before the missionaries, when they were preaching, and cried out, "lies, lies! you tell us of salvation; and, behold, we are dying. we want no other salvation than to live in this world. where are there any saved through your speech? pomaree is dead; and we are all dying with your cursed diseases. when will you give over?" at present, the virulence of the disorder, in individual cases, has somewhat abated; but the poison is only the more widely diffused. "how dreadful and appalling," breaks forth old wheeler, "the consideration that the intercourse of distant nations should have entailed upon these poor, untutored islanders a curse unprecedented, and unheard of, in the annals of history." in view of these things, who can remain blind to the fact that, so far as mere temporal felicity is concerned, the tahitians are far worse off now, than formerly; and although their circumstances, upon the whole, are bettered by the presence of the missionaries, the benefits conferred by the latter become utterly insignificant when confronted with the vast preponderance of evil brought about by other means. their prospects are hopeless. nor can the most devoted efforts now exempt them from furnishing a marked illustration of a principle which history has always exemplified. years ago brought to a stand, where all that is corrupt in barbarism and civilization unite, to the exclusion of the virtues of either state; like other uncivilized beings, brought into contact with europeans, they must here remain stationary until utterly extinct. the islanders themselves are mournfully watching their doom. several years since, pomaree ii. said to tyreman and bennet, the deputies of the london missionary society, "you have come to see me at a very bad time. your ancestors came in the time of men, when tahiti was inhabited: you are come to behold just the remnant of my people." of like import was the prediction of teearmoar, the high-priest of paree; who lived over a hundred years ago. i have frequently heard it chanted, in a low, sad tone, by aged tahitiana:-- "a harree ta fow, a toro ta farraro, a now ta tararta." "the palm-tree shall grow, the coral shall spread, but man shall cease." chapter l. something happens to long ghost we will now return to the narrative. the day before the julia sailed, dr. johnson paid his last call. he was not quite so bland as usual. all he wanted was the men's names to a paper, certifying to their having received from him sundry medicaments therein mentioned. this voucher, endorsed by captain guy, secured his pay. but he would not have obtained for it the sailors' signs manual, had either the doctor or myself been present at the time. now, my long friend wasted no love upon johnson; but, for reasons of his own, hated him heartily: all the same thing in one sense; for either passion argues an object deserving thereof. and so, to be hated cordially, is only a left-handed compliment; which shows how foolish it is to be bitter against anyone. for my own part, i merely felt a cool, purely incidental, and passive contempt for johnson, as a selfish, mercenary apothecary, and hence, i often remonstrated with long ghost when he flew out against him, and heaped upon him all manner of scurrilous epithets. in his professional brother's presence, however, he never acted thus; maintaining an amiable exterior, to help along the jokes which were played. i am now going to tell another story in which my long friend figures with the physician: i do not wish to bring one or the other of them too often upon the stage; but as the thing actually happened, i must relate it. a few days after johnson presented his bill, as above mentioned, the doctor expressed to me his regret that, although he (johnson) 'had apparently been played off for our entertainment, yet, nevertheless, he had made money out of the transaction. and i wonder, added the doctor, if that now he cannot expect to receive any further pay, he could be induced to call again. by a curious coincidence, not five minutes after making this observation, doctor long ghost himself fell down in an unaccountable fit; and without asking anybody's leave, captain bob, who was by, at once dispatched a boy, hot foot, for johnson. meanwhile, we carried him into the calabooza; and the natives, who assembled in numbers, suggested various modes of treatment. one rather energetic practitioner was for holding the patient by the shoulders, while somebody tugged at his feet. this resuscitatory operation was called the "potata"; but thinking our long comrade sufficiently lengthy without additional stretching, we declined potataing him. presently the physician was spied coming along the broom road at a great rate, and so absorbed in the business of locomotion, that he heeded not the imprudence of being in a hurry in a tropical climate. he was in a profuse perspiration; which must have been owing to the warmth of his feelings, notwithstanding we had supposed him a man of no heart. but his benevolent haste upon this occasion was subsequently accounted for: it merely arose from professional curiosity to behold a case most unusual in his polynesian practice. now, under certain circumstances, sailors, generally so frolicsome, are exceedingly particular in having everything conducted with the strictest propriety. accordingly, they deputed me, as his intimate friend, to sit at long ghost's head, so as to be ready to officiate as "spokesman" and answer all questions propounded, the rest to keep silent. "what's the matter?" exclaimed johnson, out of breath, and bursting into the calabooza: "how did it happen?--speak quick!" and he looked at long ghost. i told him how the fit came on. "singular"--he observed--"very: good enough pulse;" and he let go of it, and placed his hand upon the heart. "but what's all that frothing at the mouth?" he continued; "and bless me! look at the abdomen!" the region thus denominated exhibited the most unaccountable symptoms. a low, rumbling sound was heard; and a sort of undulation was discernible beneath the thin cotton frock. "colic, sir?" suggested a bystander. "colic be hanged!" shouted the physician; "who ever heard of anybody in a trance of the colic?" during this, the patient lay upon his back, stark and straight, giving no signs of life except those above mentioned. "i'll bleed him!" cried johnson at last--"run for a calabash, one of you!" "life ho!" here sung out navy bob, as if he had just spied a sail. "what under the sun's the matter with him!" cried the physician, starting at the appearance of the mouth, which had jerked to one side, and there remained fixed. "pr'aps it's st. witus's hornpipe," suggested bob. "hold the calabash!"--and the lancet was out in a moment. but before the deed could be done, the face became natural;--a sigh was heaved;--the eyelids quivered, opened, closed; and long ghost, twitching all over, rolled on his side, and breathed audibly. by degrees, he became sufficiently recovered to speak. after trying to get something coherent out of him, johnson withdrew; evidently disappointed in the scientific interest of the case. soon after his departure, the doctor sat up; and upon being asked what upon earth ailed him, shook his head mysteriously. he then deplored the hardship of being an invalid in such a place, where there was not the slightest provision for his comfort. this awakened the compassion of our good old keeper, who offered to send him to a place where he would be better cared for. long ghost acquiesced; and being at once mounted upon the shoulders of four of captain bob's men, was marched off in state, like the grand lama of thibet. now, i do not pretend to account for his remarkable swoon; but his reason for suffering himself to be thus removed from the calabooza was strongly suspected to be nothing more than a desire to insure more regularity in his dinner-hour; hoping that the benevolent native to whom he was going would set a good table. the next morning, we were all envying his fortune; when, of a sudden, he bolted in upon us, looking decidedly out of humour. "hang it!" he cried; "i'm worse off than ever; let me have some breakfast!" we lowered our slender bag of ship-stores from a rafter, and handed him a biscuit. while this was being munched, he went on and told us his story. "after leaving here, they trotted me back into a valley, and left me in a hut, where an old woman lived by herself. this must be the nurse, thought i; and so i asked her to kill a pig, and bake it; for i felt my appetite returning. 'ha! hal--oee mattee--mattee nuee'--(no, no; you too sick). 'the devil mattee ye,' said i--'give me something to eat!' but nothing could be had. night coming on, i had to stay. creeping into a corner, i tried to sleep; but it was to no purpose;--the old crone must have had the quinsy, or something else; and she kept up such a wheezing and choking that at last i sprang up, and groped after her; but she hobbled away like a goblin; and that was the last of her. as soon as the sun rose, i made the best of my way back; and here i am." he never left us more, nor ever had a second fit. chapter li. wilson gives us the cut--departure for imeeo about three weeks after the julia's sailing, our conditions began to be a little precarious. we were without any regular supply of food; the arrival of ships was growing less frequent; and, what was worse yet, all the natives but good old captain bob began to tire of us. nor was this to be wondered at; we were obliged to live upon their benevolence, when they had little enough for themselves. besides, we were sometimes driven to acts of marauding; such as kidnapping pigs, and cooking them in the groves; at which their proprietors were by no means pleased. in this state of affairs, we determined to march off to the consul in a body; and, as he had brought us to these straits, demand an adequate maintenance. on the point of starting, captain bob's men raised the most outrageous cries, and tried to prevent us. though hitherto we had strolled about wherever we pleased, this grand conjunction of our whole force, upon one particular expedition, seemed to alarm them. but we assured them that we were not going to assault the village; and so, after a good deal of gibberish, they permitted us to leave. we went straight to the pritchard residence, where the consul dwelt. this house--to which i have before referred--is quite commodious. it has a wide verandah, glazed windows, and other appurtenances of a civilized mansion. upon the lawn in front are palm-trees standing erect here and there, like sentinels. the consular office, a small building by itself, is inclosed by the same picket which fences in the lawn. we found the office closed; but, in the verandah of the dwelling-house, was a lady performing a tonsorial operation on the head of a prim-looking, elderly european, in a low, white cravat;--the most domestic little scene i had witnessed since leaving home. bent upon an interview with wilson, the sailors now deputed the doctor to step forward as a polite inquirer after his health. the pair stared very hard as he advanced; but no ways disconcerted, he saluted them gravely, and inquired for the consul. upon being informed that he had gone down to the beach, we proceeded in that direction; and soon met a native, who told us that, apprised of our vicinity, wilson was keeping out of the way. we resolved to meet him; and passing through the village, he suddenly came walking toward us; having apparently made up his mind that any attempt to elude us would be useless. "what do you want of me, you rascals?" he cried--a greeting which provoked a retort in no measured terms. at this juncture, the natives began to crowd round, and several foreigners strolled along. caught in the very act of speaking to such disreputable acquaintances, wilson now fidgeted, and moved rapidly toward his office; the men following. turning upon them incensed, he bade them be off--he would have nothing more to say to us; and then, hurriedly addressing captain bob in tahitian, he hastened on, and never stopped till the postern of pritchard's wicket was closed behind him. our good old keeper was now highly excited, bustling about in his huge petticoats, and conjuring us to return to the calabooza. after a little debate, we acquiesced. this interview was decisive. sensible that none of the charges brought against us would stand, yet unwilling formally to withdraw them, the consul now wished to get rid of us altogether; but without being suspected of encouraging our escape. thus only could we account for his conduct. some of the party, however, with a devotion to principle truly heroic, swore they would never leave him, happen what might. for my own part, i began to long for a change; and as there seemed to be no getting away in a ship, i resolved to hit upon some other expedient. but first, i cast about for a comrade; and of course the long doctor was chosen. we at once laid our heads together; and for the present, resolved to disclose nothing to the rest. a few days previous, i had fallen in with a couple of yankee lads, twins, who, originally deserting their ship at tanning's island (an uninhabited spot, but exceedingly prolific in fruit of all kinds), had, after a long residence there, roved about among the society group. they were last from imeeo--the island immediately adjoining--where they had been in the employ of two foreigners who had recently started a plantation there. these persons, they said, had charged them to send over from papeetee, if they could, two white men for field-labourers. now, all but the prospect of digging and delving suited us exactly; but the opportunity for leaving the island was not to be slighted; and so we held ourselves in readiness to return with the planters; who, in a day or two, were expected to visit papeetee in their boat. at the interview which ensued, we were introduced to them as peter and paul; and they agreed to give peter and paul fifteen silver dollars a month, promising something more should we remain with them permanently. what they wanted was men who would stay. to elude the natives--many of whom, not exactly understanding our relations with the consul, might arrest us, were they to see us departing--the coming midnight was appointed for that purpose. when the hour drew nigh, we disclosed our intention to the rest. some upbraided us for deserting them; others applauded, and said that, on the first opportunity, they would follow our example. at last, we bade them farewell. and there would now be a serene sadness in thinking over the scene--since we never saw them again--had not all been dashed by m'gee's picking the doctor's pocket of a jack-knife, in the very act of embracing him. we stole down to the beach, where, under the shadow of a grove, the boat was waiting. after some delay, we shipped the oars, and pulling outside of the reef, set the sail; and with a fair wind, glided away for imeeo. it was a pleasant trip. the moon was up--the air, warm--the waves, musical--and all above was the tropical night, one purple vault hung round with soft, trembling stars. the channel is some five leagues wide. on one hand, you have the three great peaks of tahiti lording it over ranges of mountains and valleys; and on the other, the equally romantic elevations of imeeo, high above which a lone peak, called by our companions, "the marling-pike," shot up its verdant spire. the planters were quite sociable. they had been sea-faring men, and this, of course, was a bond between us. to strengthen it, a flask of wine was produced, one of several which had been procured in person from the french admiral's steward; for whom the planters, when on a former visit to papeetee, had done a good turn, by introducing the amorous frenchman to the ladies ashore. besides this, they had a calabash filled with wild boar's meat, baked yams, bread-fruit, and tombez potatoes. pipes and tobacco also were produced; and while regaling ourselves, plenty of stories were told about the neighbouring islands. at last we heard the roar of the imeeo reef; and gliding through a break, floated over the expanse within, which was smooth as a young girl's brow, and beached the boat. chapter lii. the valley of martair we went up through groves to an open space, where we heard voices, and a light was seen glimmering from out a bamboo dwelling. it was the planters' retreat; and in their absence, several girls were keeping house, assisted by an old native, who, wrapped up in tappa, lay in the corner, smoking. a hasty meal was prepared, and after it we essayed a nap; but, alas! a plague, little anticipated, prevented. unknown in tahiti, the mosquitoes here fairly eddied round us. but more of them anon. we were up betimes, and strolled out to view the country. we were in the valley of martair; shut in, on both sides, by lofty hills. here and there were steep cliffs, gay with flowering shrubs, or hung with pendulous vines, swinging blossoms in the air. of considerable width at the sea, the vale contracts as it runs inland; terminating, at the distance of several miles, in a range of the most grotesque elevations, which seem embattled with turrets and towers, grown over with verdure, and waving with trees. the valley itself is a wilderness of woodland; with links of streams flashing through, and narrow pathways fairly tunnelled through masses of foliage. all alone, in this wild place, was the abode of the planters; the only one back from the beach--their sole neighbours, the few fishermen and their families, dwelling in a small grove of cocoa-nut trees whose roots were washed by the sea. the cleared tract which they occupied comprised some thirty acres, level as a prairie, part of which was under cultivation; the whole being fenced in by a stout palisade of trunks and boughs of trees staked firmly in the ground. this was necessary as a defence against the wild cattle and hogs overrunning the island. thus far, tombez potatoes were the principal crop raised; a ready sale for them being obtained among the shipping touching at papeetee. there was a small patch of the taro, or indian turnip, also; another of yams; and in one corner, a thrifty growth of the sugar-cane, just ripening. on the side of the inclosure next the sea was the house; newly built of bamboos, in the native style. the furniture consisted of a couple of sea-chests, an old box, a few cooking utensils, and agricultural tools; together with three fowling-pieces, hanging from a rafter; and two enormous hammocks swinging in opposite corners, and composed of dried bullocks' hides, stretched out with poles. the whole plantation was shut in by a dense forest; and, close by the house, a dwarfed "aoa," or species of banian-tree, had purposely been left twisting over the palisade, in the most grotesque manner, and thus made a pleasant shade. the branches of this curious tree afforded low perches, upon which the natives frequently squatted, after the fashion of their race, and smoked and gossiped by the hour. we had a good breakfast of fish--speared by the natives, before sunrise, on the reef--pudding of indian turnip, fried bananas, and roasted bread-fruit. during the repast, our new friends were quite sociable and communicative. it seems that, like nearly all uneducated foreigners, residing in polynesia, they had, some time previous, deserted from a ship; and, having heard a good deal about the money to be made by raising supplies for whaling-vessels, they determined upon embarking in the business. strolling about, with this intention, they, at last, came to martair; and, thinking the soil would suit, set themselves to work. they began by finding out the owner of the particular spot coveted, and then making a "tayo" of him. he turned out to be tonoi, the chief of the fishermen: who, one day, when exhilarated with brandy, tore his meagre tappa from his loins, and gave me to know that he was allied by blood with pomaree herself; and that his mother came from the illustrious race of pontiffs, who, in old times, swayed their bamboo crosier over all the pagans of imeeo. a regal, and right reverend lineage! but, at the time i speak of, the dusky noble was in decayed circumstances, and, therefore, by no means unwilling to alienate a few useless acres. as an equivalent, he received from the strangers two or three rheumatic old muskets, several red woollen shirts, and a promise to be provided for in his old age: he was always to find a home with the planters. desirous of living on the cosy footing of a father-in-law, he frankly offered his two daughters for wives; but as such, they were politely declined; the adventurers, though not averse to courting, being unwilling to entangle themselves in a matrimonial alliance, however splendid in point of family. tonoi's men, the fishermen of the grove, were a sad set. secluded, in a great measure, from the ministrations of the missionaries, they gave themselves up to all manner of lazy wickedness. strolling among the trees of a morning, you came upon them napping on the shady side of a canoe hauled up among the bushes; lying on a tree smoking; or, more frequently still, gambling with pebbles; though, a little tobacco excepted, what they gambled for at their outlandish games, it would be hard to tell. other idle diversions they had also, in which they seemed to take great delight. as for fishing, it employed but a small part of their time. upon the whole, they were a merry, indigent, godless race. tonoi, the old sinner, leaning against the fallen trunk of a cocoa-nut tree, invariably squandered his mornings at pebbles; a gray-headed rook of a native regularly plucking him of every other stick of tobacco obtained from his friends, the planters. toward afternoon, he strolled back to their abode; where he tarried till the next morning, smoking and snoozing, and, at times, prating about the hapless fortunes of the house of tonoi. but like any other easy-going old dotard, he seemed for the most part perfectly content with cheerful board and lodging. on the whole, the valley of martair was the quietest place imaginable. could the mosquitoes be induced to emigrate, one might spend the month of august there quite pleasantly. but this was not the case with the luckless long ghost and myself; as will presently be seen. chapter liii. farming in polynesia the planters were both whole-souled fellows; but, in other respects, as unlike as possible. one was a tall, robust yankee, born in the backwoods of maine, sallow, and with a long face;--the other was a short little cockney, who had first clapped his eyes on the monument. the voice of zeke, the yankee, had a twang like a cracked viol; and shorty (as his comrade called him), clipped the aspirate from every word beginning with one. the latter, though not the tallest man in the world, was a good-looking young fellow of twenty-five. his cheeks were dyed with the fine saxon red, burned deeper from his roving life: his blue eye opened well, and a profusion of fair hair curled over a well-shaped head. but zeke was no beauty. a strong, ugly man, he was well adapted for manual labour; and that was all. his eyes were made to see with, and not for ogling. compared with the cockney, he was grave, and rather taciturn; but there was a deal of good old humour bottled up in him, after all. for the rest, he was frank, good-hearted, shrewd, and resolute; and like shorty, quite illiterate. though a curious conjunction, the pair got along together famously. but, as no two men were ever united in any enterprise without one getting the upper hand of the other, so in most matters zeke had his own way. shorty, too, had imbibed from him a spirit of invincible industry; and heaven only knows what ideas of making a fortune on their plantation. we were much concerned at this; for the prospect of their setting us, in their own persons, an example of downright hard labour, was anything but agreeable. but it was now too late to repent what we had done. the first day--thank fortune--we did nothing. having treated us as guests thus far, they no doubt thought it would be wanting in delicacy to set us to work before the compliments of the occasion were well over. the next morning, however, they both looked business-like, and we were put to. "wall, b'ys" (boys), said zeke, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, after breakfast--"we must get at it. shorty, give peter there (the doctor), the big hoe, and paul the other, and let's be off." going to a corner, shorty brought forth three of the implements; and distributing them impartially, trudged on after his partner, who took the lead with something in the shape of an axe. for a moment left alone in the house, we looked at each other, quaking. we were each equipped with a great, clumsy piece of a tree, armed at one end with a heavy, flat mass of iron. the cutlery part--especially adapted to a primitive soil--was an importation from sydney; the handles must have been of domestic manufacture. "hoes"--so called--we had heard of, and seen; but they were harmless in comparison with the tools in our hands. "what's to be done with them?" inquired i of peter. "lift them up and down," he replied; "or put them in motion some way or other. paul, we are in a scrape--but hark! they are calling;" and shouldering the hoes, off we marched.' our destination was the farther side of the plantation, where the ground, cleared in part, had not yet been broken up; but they were now setting about it. upon halting, i asked why a plough was not used; some of the young wild steers might be caught and trained for draught. zeke replied that, for such a purpose, no cattle, to his knowledge, had ever been used in any part of polynesia. as for the soil of martair, so obstructed was it with roots, crossing and recrossing each other at all points, that no kind of a plough could be used to advantage. the heavy sydney hoes were the only thing for such land. our work was now before us; but, previous to commencing operations, i endeavoured to engage the yankee in a little further friendly chat concerning the nature of virgin soils in general, and that of the valley of martair in particular. so masterly a stratagem made long ghost brighten up; and he stood by ready to join in. but what our friend had to say about agriculture all referred to the particular part of his plantation upon which we stood; and having communicated enough on this head to enable us to set to work to the best advantage, he fell to, himself; and shorty, who had been looking on, followed suit. the surface, here and there, presented closely amputated branches of what had once been a dense thicket. they seemed purposely left projecting, as if to furnish a handle whereby to drag out the roots beneath. after loosening the hard soil, by dint of much thumping and pounding, the yankee jerked one of the roots this way and that, twisting it round and round, and then tugging at it horizontally. "come! lend us a hand!" he cried, at last; and running up, we all four strained away in concert. the tough obstacle convulsed the surface with throes and spasms; but stuck fast, notwithstanding. "dumn it!" cried zeke, "we'll have to get a rope; run to the house, shorty, and fetch one." the end of this being attached, we took plenty of room, and strained away once more. "give us a song, shorty," said the doctor; who was rather sociable, on a short acquaintance. where the work to be accomplished is any way difficult, this mode of enlivening toil is quite efficacious among sailors. so willing to make everything as cheerful as possible, shorty struck up, "were you ever in dumbarton?" a marvellously inspiring, but somewhat indecorous windlass chorus. at last, the yankee cast a damper on his enthusiasm by exclaiming, in a pet, "oh! dumn your singing! keep quiet, and pull away!" this we now did, in the most uninteresting silence; until, with a jerk that made every elbow hum, the root dragged out; and most inelegantly, we all landed upon the ground. the doctor, quite exhausted, stayed there; and, deluded into believing that, after so doughty a performance, we would be allowed a cessation of toil, took off his hat, and fanned himself. "rayther a hard customer, that, peter," observed the yankee, going up to him: "but it's no use for any on 'em to hang back; for i'm dumned if they hain't got to come out, whether or no. hurrah! let's get at it agin!" "mercy!" ejaculated the doctor, rising slowly, and turning round. "he'll be the death of us!" falling to with our hoes again, we worked singly, or together, as occasion required, until "nooning time" came. the period, so called by the planters, embraced about three hours in the middle of the day; during which it was so excessively hot, in this still, brooding valley, shut out from the trades, and only open toward the leeward side of the island, that labour in the sun was out of the question. to use a hyperbolical phrase of shorty's, "it was 'ot enough to melt the nose h'off a brass monkey." returning to the house, shorty, assisted by old tonoi, cooked the dinner; and, after we had all partaken thereof, both the cockney and zeke threw themselves into one of the hammocks, inviting us to occupy the other. thinking it no bad idea, we did so; and, after skirmishing with the mosquitoes, managed to fall into a doze. as for the planters, more accustomed to "nooning," they, at once, presented a nuptial back to each other; and were soon snoring away at a great rate. tonoi snoozed on a mat, in one corner. at last, we were roused by zeke's crying out, "up b'ys; up! rise, and shine; time to get at it agin!" looking at the doctor, i perceived, very plainly, that he had decided upon something. in a languid voice, he told zeke that he was not very well: indeed, that he had not been himself for some time past; though a little rest, no doubt, would recruit him. the yankee thinking, from this, that our valuable services might be lost to him altogether, were he too hard upon us at the outset, at once begged us both to consult our own feelings, and not exert ourselves for the present, unless we felt like it. then--without recognizing the fact that my comrade claimed to be actually unwell--he simply suggested that, since he was so tired, he had better, perhaps, swing in his hammock for the rest of the day. if agreeable, however, i myself might accompany him upon a little bullock-hunting excursion in the neighbouring hills. in this proposition, i gladly acquiesced; though peter, who was a great sportsman, put on a long face. the muskets and ammunition were forthwith got from overhead; and, everything being then ready, zeke cried out, "tonoi! come; aramai! (get up) we want you for pilot. shorty, my lad, look arter things, you know; and if you likes, why, there's them roots in the field yonder." having thus arranged his domestic affairs to please himself, though little to shorty's satisfaction, i thought, he slung his powder-horn over his shoulder, and we started. tonoi was, at once, sent on in advance; and leaving the plantation, he struck into a path which led toward the mountains. after hurrying through the thickets for some time, we came out into the sunlight, in an open glade, just under the shadow of the hills. here, zeke pointed aloft to a beetling crag far distant, where a bullock, with horns thrown back, stood like a statue. chapter liv. some account of the wild cattle in polynesia before we proceed further, a word or two concerning these wild cattle, and the way they came on the island. some fifty years ago, vancouver left several bullocks, sheep and goats, at various places in the society group. he instructed the natives to look after the animals carefully; and by no means to slaughter any until a considerable stock had accumulated. the sheep must have died off: for i never saw a solitary fleece in any part of polynesia. the pair left were an ill-assorted couple, perhaps; separated in disgust, and died without issue. as for the goats, occasionally you come across a black, misanthropic ram, nibbling the scant herbage of some height inaccessible to man, in preference to the sweet grasses of the valley below. the goats are not very numerous. the bullocks, coming of a prolific ancestry, are a hearty set, racing over the island of imeeo in considerable numbers, though in tahiti but few of them are seen. at the former place, the original pair must have scampered off to the interior since it is now so thickly populated by their wild progeny. the herds are the private property of queen pomaree; from whom the planters had obtained permission to shoot for their own use as many as they pleased. the natives stand in great awe of these cattle; and for this reason are excessively timid in crossing the island, preferring rather to sail round to an opposite village in their canoes. tonoi abounded in bullock stories; most of which, by the bye, had a spice of the marvellous. the following is one of these. once upon a time, he was going over the hills with a brother--now no more--when a great bull came bellowing out of a wood, and both took to their heels. the old chief sprang into a tree; his companion, flying in an opposite direction, was pursued, and, in the very act of reaching up to a bough, trampled underfoot. the unhappy man was then gored--tossed in the air--and finally run away with on the bull's horns. more dead than alive, tonoi waited till all was over, and then made the best of his way home. the neighbours, armed with two or three muskets, at once started to recover, if possible, his unfortunate brother's remains. at nightfall, they returned without discovering any trace of him; but the next morning, tonoi himself caught a glimpse of the bullock, marching across the mountain's brow, with a long dark object borne aloft on his horns. having referred to vancouver's attempts to colonize the islands with useful quadrupeds, we may as well say something concerning his success upon hawaii, one of the largest islands in the whole polynesian archipelago; and which gives the native name to the well-known cluster named by cook in honour of lord sandwich. hawaii is some one hundred leagues in circuit, and covers an area of over four thousand miles. until within a few years past, its interior was almost unknown, even to the inhabitants themselves, who, for ages, had been prevented from wandering thither by certain strange superstitions. pelee, the terrific goddess of the volcanoes mount eoa and mount kea, was supposed to guard all the passes to the extensive valleys lying round their base. there are legends of her having chased with streams of fire several impious adventurers. near hilo, a jet-black cliff is shown, with the vitreous torrent apparently pouring over into the sea: just as it cooled after one of these supernatural eruptions. to these inland valleys, and the adjoining hillsides, which are clothed in the most luxuriant vegetation, vancouver's bullocks soon wandered; and unmolested for a long period, multiplied in vast herds. some twelve or fifteen years ago, the natives lost sight of their superstitions, and learning the value of the hides in commerce, began hunting the creatures that wore them; but being very fearful and awkward in a business so novel, their success was small; and it was not until the arrival of a party of spanish hunters, men regularly trained to their calling upon the plains of california, that the work of slaughter was fairly begun. the spaniards were showy fellows, tricked out in gay blankets, leggings worked with porcupine quills, and jingling spurs. mounted upon trained indian mares, these heroes pursued their prey up to the very base of the burning mountains; making the profoundest solitudes ring with their shouts, and flinging the lasso under the very nose of the vixen goddess pelee. hilo, a village upon the coast, was their place of resort; and thither flocked roving whites from all the islands of the group. as pupils of the dashing spaniards, many of these dissipated fellows, quaffing too freely of the stirrup-cup, and riding headlong after the herds, when they reeled in the saddle, were unhorsed and killed. this was about the year , when the present king, tammahamaha iii., was a lad. with royal impudence laying claim to the sole property of the cattle, he was delighted with the idea of receiving one of every two silver dollars paid down for their hides; so, with no thought for the future, the work of extermination went madly on. in three years' time, eighteen thousand bullocks were slain, almost entirely upon the single island of hawaii. the herds being thus nearly destroyed, the sagacious young prince imposed a rigorous "taboo" upon the few surviving cattle, which was to remain in force for ten years. during this period--not yet expired--all hunting is forbidden, unless directly authorized by the king. the massacre of the cattle extended to the hapless goats. in one year, three thousand of their skins were sold to the merchants of honolulu, fetching a quartila, or a shilling sterling apiece. after this digression, it is time to run on after tonoi and the yankee. chapter lv. a hunting ramble with zeke at the foot of the mountain, a steep path went up among rocks and clefts mantled with verdure. here and there were green gulfs, down which it made one giddy to peep. at last we gained an overhanging, wooded shelf of land which crowned the heights; and along this, the path, well shaded, ran like a gallery. in every direction the scenery was enchanting. there was a low, rustling breeze; and below, in the vale, the leaves were quivering; the sea lay, blue and serene, in the distance; and inland the surface swelled up, ridge after ridge, and peak upon peak, all bathed in the indian haze of the tropics, and dreamy to look upon. still valleys, leagues away, reposed in the deep shadows of the mountains; and here and there, waterfalls lifted up their voices in the solitude. high above all, and central, the "marling-spike" lifted its finger. upon the hillsides, small groups of bullocks were seen; some quietly browsing; others slowly winding into the valleys. we went on, directing our course for a slope of these hills, a mile or two further, where the nearest bullocks were seen. we were cautious in keeping to the windward of them; their sense of smell and hearing being, like those of all wild creatures, exceedingly acute. as there was no knowing that we might not surprise some other kind of game in the coverts through which we were passing, we crept along warily. the wild hogs of the island are uncommonly fierce; and as they often attack the natives, i could not help following tonoi's example of once in a while peeping in under the foliage. frequent retrospective glances also served to assure me that our retreat was not cut off. as we rounded a clump of bushes, a noise behind them, like the crackling of dry branches, broke the stillness. in an instant, tonoi's hand was on a bough, ready for a spring, and zeke's finger touched the trigger of his piece. again the stillness was broken; and thinking it high time to get ready, i brought my musket to my shoulder. "look sharp!" cried the yankee; and dropping on one knee, he brushed the twigs aside. presently, off went his piece; and with a wild snort, a black, bristling boar--his cherry red lip curled up by two glittering tusks--dashed, unharmed, across the path, and crashed through the opposite thicket. i saluted him with a charge as he disappeared; but not the slightest notice was taken of the civility. by this time, tonoi, the illustrious descendant of the bishops of imeeo, was twenty feet from the ground. "aramai! come down, you old fool!" cried the yankee; "the pesky critter's on t'other side of the island afore this." "i rayther guess," he continued, as we began reloading, "that we've spoiled sport by firing at that 'ere tarnal hog. them bullocks heard the racket, and are flinging their tails about now on the keen jump. quick, paul, and let's climb that rock yonder, and see if so be there's any in sight." but none were to be seen, except at such a distance that they looked like ants. as evening was now at hand, my companion proposed our returning home forthwith; and then, after a sound night's rest, starting in the morning upon a good day's hunt with the whole force of the plantation. following another pass in descending into the valley, we passed through some nobly wooded land on the face of the mountain. one variety of tree particularly attracted my attention. the dark mossy stem, over seventy feet high, was perfectly branchless for many feet above the ground, when it shot out in broad boughs laden with lustrous leaves of the deepest green. and all round the lower part of the trunk, thin, slab-like buttresses of bark, perfectly smooth, and radiating from a common centre, projected along the ground for at least two yards. from below, these natural props tapered upward until gradually blended with the trunk itself. there were signs of the wild cattle having sheltered themselves behind them. zeke called this the canoe tree; as in old times it supplied the navies of the kings of tahiti. for canoe building, the woods is still used. being extremely dense, and impervious to worms, it is very durable. emerging from the forest, when half-way down the hillside, we came upon an open space, covered with ferns and grass, over which a few lonely trees were casting long shadows in the setting sun. here, a piece of ground some hundred feet square, covered with weeds and brambles, and sounding hollow to the tread, was inclosed by a ruinous wall of stones. tonoi said it was an almost forgotten burial-place, of great antiquity, where no one had been interred since the islanders had been christians. sealed up in dry, deep vaults, many a dead heathen was lying here. curious to prove the old man's statement, i was anxious to get a peep at the catacombs; but hermetically overgrown with vegetation as they were, no aperture was visible. before gaining the level of the valley, we passed by the site of a village, near a watercourse, long since deserted. there was nothing but stone walls, and rude dismantled foundations of houses, constructed of the same material. large trees and brushwood were growing rankly among them. i asked tonoi how long it was since anyone had lived here. "me, tammaree (boy)--plenty kannaker (men) martair," he replied. "now, only poor pehe kannaka (fishermen) left--me born here." going down the valley, vegetation of every kind presented a different aspect from that of the high land. chief among the trees of the plain on this island is the "ati," large and lofty, with a massive trunk, and broad, laurel-shaped leaves. the wood is splendid. in tahiti, i was shown a narrow, polished plank fit to make a cabinet for a king. taken from the heart of the tree, it was of a deep, rich scarlet, traced with yellow veins, and in some places clouded with hazel. in the same grove with the regal "ah" you may see the beautiful flowering "hotoo"; its pyramid of shining leaves diversified with numberless small, white blossoms. planted with trees as the valley is almost throughout its entire length, i was astonished to observe so very few which were useful to the natives: not one in a hundred was a cocoa-nut or bread-fruit tree. but here tonoi again enlightened me. in the sanguinary religious hostilities which ensued upon the conversion of christianity of the first pomaree, a war-party from tahiti destroyed (by "girdling" the bark) entire groves of these invaluable trees. for some time afterwards they stood stark and leafless in the sun; sad monuments of the fate which befell the inhabitants of the valley. chapter lvi. mosquitoes the night following the hunting trip, long ghost and myself, after a valiant defence, had to fly the house on account of the mosquitoes. and here i cannot avoid relating a story, rife among the natives, concerning the manner in which these insects were introduced upon the island. some years previous, a whaling captain, touching at an adjoining bay, got into difficulty with its inhabitants, and at last carried his complaint before one of the native tribunals; but receiving no satisfaction, and deeming himself aggrieved, he resolved upon taking signal revenge. one night, he towed a rotten old water-cask ashore, and left it in a neglected taro patch where the ground was warm and moist. hence the mosquitoes. i tried my best to learn the name of this man; and hereby do what i can to hand it down to posterity. it was coleman--nathan cole-man. the ship belonged to nantucket. when tormented by the mosquitoes, i found much relief in coupling the word "coleman" with another of one syllable, and pronouncing them together energetically. the doctor suggested a walk to the beach, where there was a long, low shed tumbling to pieces, but open lengthwise to a current of air which he thought might keep off the mosquitoes. so thither we went. the ruin partially sheltered a relic of times gone by, which, a few days after, we examined with much curiosity. it was an old war-canoe, crumbling to dust. being supported by the same rude blocks upon which, apparently, it had years before been hollowed out, in all probability it had never been afloat. outside, it seemed originally stained of a green colour, which, here and there, was now changed into a dingy purple. the prow terminated in a high, blunt beak; both sides were covered with carving; and upon the stern, was something which long ghost maintained to be the arms of the royal house of pomaree. the device had an heraldic look, certainly--being two sharks with the talons of hawks clawing a knot left projecting from the wood. the canoe was at least forty feet long, about two wide, and four deep. the upper part--consisting of narrow planks laced together with cords of sinnate--had in many places fallen off, and lay decaying upon the ground. still, there were ample accommodations left for sleeping; and in we sprang--the doctor into the bow, and i into the stern. i soon fell asleep; but waking suddenly, cramped in every joint from my constrained posture, i thought, for an instant, that i must have been prematurely screwed down in my coffin. presenting my compliments to long ghost, i asked how it fared with him. "bad enough," he replied, as he tossed about in the outlandish rubbish lying in the bottom of our couch. "pah! how these old mats smell!" as he continued talking in this exciting strain for some time, i at last made no reply, having resumed certain mathematical reveries to induce repose. but finding the multiplication table of no avail, i summoned up a grayish image of chaos in a sort of sliding fluidity, and was just falling into a nap on the strength of it, when i heard a solitary and distinct buzz. the hour of my calamity was at hand. one blended hum, the creature darted into the canoe like a small swordfish; and i out of it. upon getting into the open air, to my surprise, there was long ghost, fanning himself wildly with an old paddle. he had just made a noiseless escape from a swarm which had attacked his own end of the canoe. it was now proposed to try the water; so a small fishing canoe, hauled up near by, was quickly launched; and paddling a good distance off, we dropped overboard the native contrivance for an anchor--a heavy stone, attached to a cable of braided bark. at this part of the island the encircling reef was close to the shore, leaving the water within smooth, and extremely shallow. it was a blessed thought! we knew nothing till sunrise, when the motion of our aquatic cot awakened us. i looked up, and beheld zeke wading toward the shore, and towing us after him by the bark cable. pointing to the reef, he told us we had had a narrow escape. it was true enough; the water-sprites had rolled our stone out of its noose, and we had floated away. chapter lvii. the second hunt in the mountains fair dawned, over the hills of martair, the jocund morning of our hunt. everything had been prepared for it overnight; and, when we arrived at the house, a good breakfast was spread by shorty: and old tonoi was bustling about like an innkeeper. several of his men, also, were in attendance to accompany us with calabashes of food; and, in case we met with any success, to officiate as bearers of burdens on our return. apprised, the evening previous, of the meditated sport, the doctor had announced his willingness to take part therein. now, subsequent events made us regard this expedition as a shrewd device of the yankee's. once get us off on a pleasure trip, and with what face could we afterward refuse to work? beside, he enjoyed all the credit of giving us a holiday. nor did he omit assuring us that, work or play, our wages were all the while running on. a dilapidated old musket of tonoi's was borrowed for the doctor. it was exceedingly short and heavy, with a clumsy lock, which required a strong finger to pull the trigger. on trying the piece by firing at a mark, long ghost was satisfied that it could not fail of doing execution: the charge went one way, and he the other. upon this, he endeavoured to negotiate an exchange of muskets with shorty; but the cockney was proof against his blandishments; at last, he intrusted his weapon to one of the natives to carry for him. marshalling our forces, we started for the head of the valley; near which a path ascended to a range of high land, said to be a favourite resort of the cattle. shortly after gaining the heights, a small herd, some way off, was perceived entering a wood. we hurried on; and, dividing our party, went in after them at four different points; each white man followed by several natives. i soon found myself in a dense covert; and, after looking round, was just emerging into a clear space, when i heard a report, and a bullet knocked the bark from a tree near by. the same instant there was a trampling and crashing; and five bullocks, nearly abreast, broke into view across the opening, and plunged right toward the spot where myself and three of the islanders were standing. they were small, black, vicious-looking creatures; with short, sharp horns, red nostrils, and eyes like coals of fire. on they came--their dark woolly heads hanging down. by this time my island backers were roosting among the trees. glancing round, for an instant, to discover a retreat in case of emergency, i raised my piece, when a voice cried out, from the wood, "right between the 'orns, paul! right between the 'orns!" down went my barrel in range with a small white tuft on the forehead of the headmost one; and, letting him have it, i darted to one side. as i turned again, the five bullocks shot by like a blast, making the air eddy in their wake. the yankee now burst into view, and saluted them in flank. whereupon, the fierce little bull with the tufted forehead flirted his long tail over his buttocks; kicked out with his hind feet, and shot forward a full length. it was nothing but a graze; and, in an instant, they were out of sight, the thicket into which they broke rocking overhead, and marking their progress. the action over, the heavy artillery came up, in the person of the long doctor with the blunderbuss. "where are they?" he cried, out of breath. "a mile or two h'off, by this time," replied the cockney. "lord, paul i you ought to've sent an 'ailstone into that little black 'un." while excusing my want of skill, as well as i could, zeke, rushing forward, suddenly exclaimed, "creation! what are you 'bout there, peter?" peter, incensed at our ill luck, and ignorantly imputing it to the cowardice of our native auxiliaries, was bringing his piece to bear upon his trembling squire--the musket-carrier--now descending a tree. pulling trigger, the bullet went high over his head; and, hopping to the ground, bellowing like a calf, the fellow ran away as fast as his heels could carry him. the rest followed us, after this, with fear and trembling. after forming our line of march anew, we went on for several hours without catching a glimpse of the game; the reports of the muskets having been heard at a great distance. at last, we mounted a craggy height, to obtain a wide view of the country. prom this place, we beheld three cattle quietly browsing in a green opening of a wood below; the trees shutting them in all round. a general re-examination of the muskets now took place, followed by a hasty lunch from the calabashes: we then started. as we descended the mountainside the cattle were in plain sight until we entered the forest, when we lost sight of them for a moment; but only to see them again, as we crept close up to the spot where they grazed. they were a bull, a cow, and a calf. the cow was lying down in the shade, by the edge of the wood; the calf, sprawling out before her in the grass, licking her lips; while old taurus himself stood close by, casting a paternal glance at this domestic little scene, and conjugally elevating his nose in the air. "now then," said zeke, in a whisper, "let's take the poor creeturs while they are huddled together. crawl along, b'ys; crawl along. fire together, mind; and not till i say the word." we crept up to the very edge of the open ground, and knelt behind a clump of bushes; resting our levelled barrels among the branches. the slight rustling was heard. taurus turned round, dropped his head to the ground, and sent forth a low, sullen bellow; then snuffed the air. the cow rose on her foreknees, pitched forward alarmedly, and stood upon her legs; while the calf, with ears pricked, got right underneath her. all three were now grouped, and in an instant would be off. "i take the bull," cried our leader; "fire!" the calf fell like a clod; its dam uttered a cry, and thrust her head into the thicket; but she turned, and came moaning up to the lifeless calf, going round and round it, snuffing fiercely with her bleeding nostrils. a crashing in the wood, and a loud roar, announced the flying bull. soon, another shot was fired, and the cow fell. leaving some of the natives to look after the dead cattle, the rest of us hurried on after the bull; his dreadful bellowing guiding us to the spot where he lay. wounded in the shoulder, in his fright and agony he had bounded into the wood; but when we came up to him, he had sunk to the earth in a green hollow, thrusting his black muzzle into a pool of his own blood, and tossing it over his hide in clots. the yankee brought his piece to a rest; and, the next instant, the wild brute sprang into the air, and with his forelegs crouching under him, fell dead. our island friends were now in high spirits; all courage and alacrity. old tonoi thought nothing of taking poor taurus himself by the horns, and peering into his glazed eyes. our ship knives were at once in request; and, skinning the cattle, we hung them high up by cords of bark from the boughs of a tree. withdrawing into a covert, we there waited for the wild hogs; which, according to zeke, would soon make their appearance, lured by the smell of blood. presently we heard them coming, in two or three different directions; and, in a moment, they were tearing the offal to pieces. as only one shot at these creatures could be relied on, we intended firing simultaneously; but, somehow or other, the doctor's piece went off by itself, and one of the hogs dropped. the others then breaking into the thicket, the rest of us sprang after them; resolved to have another shot at all hazards. the cockney darted among some bushes; and, a few moments after, we heard the report of his musket, followed by a quick cry. on running up, we saw our comrade doing battle with a young devil of a boar, as black as night, whose snout had been partly torn away. firing when the game was in full career, and coming directly toward him, shorty had been assailed by the enraged brute; it was now crunching the breech of the musket, with which he had tried to club it; shorty holding fast to the barrel, and fingering his waist for a knife. being in advance of the others, i clapped my gun to the boar's head, and so put an end to the contest. evening now coming on, we set to work loading our carriers. the cattle were so small that a stout native could walk off with an entire quarter; brushing through thickets, and descending rocks without an apparent effort; though, to tell the truth, no white man present could have done the thing with any ease. as for the wild hogs, none of the islanders could be induced to carry shorty's; some invincible superstition being connected with its black colour. we were, therefore, obliged to leave it. the other, a spotted one, being slung by green thongs to a pole, was marched off with by two young natives. with our bearers of burdens ahead, we then commenced our return down the valley. half-way home, darkness overtook us in the woods; and torches became necessary. we stopped, and made them of dry palm branches; and then, sending two lads on in advance for the purpose of gathering fuel to feed the flambeaux, we continued our journey. it was a wild sight. the torches, waved aloft, flashed through the forest; and, where the ground admitted, the islanders went along on a brisk trot, notwithstanding they bent forward under their loads. their naked backs were stained with blood; and occasionally, running by each other, they raised wild cries which startled the hillsides. chapter lviii. the hunting-feast; and a visit to afrehitoo two bullocks and a boar! no bad trophies of our day's sport. so by torchlight we marched into the plantation, the wild hog rocking from its pole, and the doctor singing an old hunting-song--tally-ho! the chorus of which swelled high above the yells of the natives. we resolved to make a night of it. kindling a great fire just outside the dwelling, and hanging one of the heifer's quarters from a limb of the banian-tree, everyone was at liberty to cut and broil for himself. baskets of roasted bread-fruit, and plenty of taro pudding; bunches of bananas, and young cocoa-nuts, had also been provided by the natives against our return. the fire burned bravely, keeping off the mosquitoes, and making every man's face glow like a beaker of port. the meat had the true wild-game flavour, not at all impaired by our famous appetites, and a couple of flasks of white brandy, which zeke, producing from his secret store, circulated freely. there was no end to my long comrade's spirits. after telling his stories, and singing his songs, he sprang to his feet, clasped a young damsel of the grove round the waist, and waltzed over the grass with her. but there's no telling all the pranks he played that night. the natives, who delight in a wag, emphatically pronounced him "maitai." it was long after midnight ere we broke up; but when the rest had retired, zeke, with the true thrift of a yankee, salted down what was left of the meat. the next day was sunday; and at my request, shorty accompanied me to afrehitoo--a neighbouring bay, and the seat of a mission, almost directly opposite papeetee. in afrehitoo is a large church and school-house, both quite dilapidated; and planted amid shrubbery on a fine knoll, stands a very tasteful cottage, commanding a view across the channel. in passing, i caught sight of a graceful calico skirt disappearing from the piazza through a doorway. the place was the residence of the missionary. a trim little sail-boat was dancing out at her moorings, a few yards from the beach. straggling over the low lands in the vicinity were several native huts--untidy enough--but much better every way than most of those in tahiti. we attended service at the church, where we found but a small congregation; and after what i had seen in papeetee, nothing very interesting took place. but the audience had a curious, fidgety look, which i knew not how to account for until we ascertained that a sermon with the eighth commandment for a text was being preached. it seemed that there lived an englishman in the district, who, like our friends, the planters, was cultivating tombez potatoes for the papeetee market. in spite of all his precautions, the natives were in the habit of making nocturnal forays into his inclosure, and carrying off the potatoes. one night he fired a fowling-piece, charged with pepper and salt, at several shadows which he discovered stealing across his premises. they fled. but it was like seasoning anything else; the knaves stole again with a greater relish than ever; and the very next night, he caught a party in the act of roasting a basketful of potatoes under his own cooking-shed. at last, he stated his grievances to the missionary; who, for the benefit of his congregation, preached the sermon we heard. now, there were no thieves in martair; but then, the people of the valley were bribed to be honest. it was a regular business transaction between them and the planters. in consideration of so many potatoes "to them in hand, duly paid," they were to abstain from all depredations upon the plantation. another security against roguery was the permanent residence upon the premises of their chief, tonoi. on our return to martair in the afternoon, we found the doctor and zeke making themselves comfortable. the latter was reclining on the ground, pipe in mouth, watching the doctor, who, sitting like a turk, before a large iron kettle, was slicing potatoes and indian turnip, and now and then shattering splinters from a bone; all of which, by turns, were thrown into the pot. he was making what he called "bullock broth." in gastronomic affairs, my friend was something of an artist; and by way of improving his knowledge, did nothing the rest of the day but practise in what might be called experimental cookery: broiling and grilling, and deviling slices of meat, and subjecting them to all sorts of igneous operations. it was the first fresh beef that either of us had tasted in more than a year. "oh, ye'll pick up arter a while, peter," observed zeke toward night, as long ghost was turning a great rib over the coals--"what d'ye think, paul?" "he'll get along, i dare say," replied i; "he only wants to get those cheeks of his tanned." to tell the truth, i was not a little pleased to see the doctor's reputation as an invalid fading away so fast; especially as, on the strength of his being one, he had promised to have such easy times of it, and very likely, too, at my expense. chapter lix. the murphies dozing in our canoe the next morning about daybreak, we were awakened by zeke's hailing us loudly from the beach. upon paddling up, he told us that a canoe had arrived overnight, from papeetee, with an order from a ship lying there for a supply of his potatoes; and as they must be on board the vessel by noon, he wanted us to assist in bringing them down to his sail-boat. my long comrade was one of those who, from always thrusting forth the wrong foot foremost when they rise, or committing some other indiscretion of the limbs, are more or less crabbed or sullen before breakfast. it was in vain, therefore, that the yankee deplored the urgency of the case which obliged him to call us up thus early:--the doctor only looked the more glum, and said nothing in reply. at last, by way of getting up a little enthusiasm for the occasion, the yankee exclaimed quite spiritedly, "what d'ye say, then, b'ys, shall we get at it?" "yes, in the devil's name!" replied the doctor, like a snapping turtle; and we moved on to the house. notwithstanding his ungracious answer, he probably thought that, after the gastronomic performance of the day previous, it would hardly do to hang back. at the house, we found shorty ready with the hoes; and we at once repaired to the farther side of the inclosure, where the potatoes had yet to be taken out of the ground. the rich, tawny soil seemed specially adapted to the crop; the great yellow murphies rolling out of the hills like eggs from a nest. my comrade really surprised me by the zeal with which he applied himself to his hoe. for my own part, exhilarated by the cool breath of the morning, i worked away like a good fellow. as for zeke and the cockney, they seemed mightily pleased at this evidence of our willingness to exert ourselves. it was not long ere all the potatoes were turned out; and then came the worst of it: they were to be lugged down to the beach, a distance of at least a quarter of a mile. and there being no such thing as a barrow, or cart, on the island, there was nothing for it but spinal-marrows and broad shoulders. well knowing that this part of the business would be anything but agreeable, zeke did his best to put as encouraging a face upon it as possible; and giving us no time to indulge in desponding thoughts, gleefully directed our attention to a pile of rude baskets--made of stout stalks--which had been provided for the occasion. so, without more ado, we helped ourselves from the heap: and soon we were all four staggering along under our loads. the first trip down, we arrived at the beach together: zeke's enthusiastic cries proving irresistible. a trip or two more, however, and my shoulders began to grate in their sockets; while the doctor's tall figure acquired an obvious stoop. presently, we both threw down our baskets, protesting we could stand it no longer. but our employers, bent, as it were, upon getting the work out of us by a silent appeal to our moral sense, toiled away without pretending to notice us. it was as much as to say, "there, men, we've been boarding and lodging ye for the last three days; and yesterday ye did nothing earthly but eat; so stand by now, and look at us working, if ye dare." thus driven to it, then, we resumed our employment. yet, in spite of all we could do, we lagged behind zeke and shorty, who, breathing hard, and perspiring at every pore, toiled away without pause or cessation. i almost wickedly wished that they would load themselves down with one potato too many. gasping as i was with my own hamper, i could not, for the life of me, help laughing at long ghost. there he went:--his long neck thrust forward, his arms twisted behind him to form a shelf for his basket to rest on; and his stilts of legs every once in a while giving way under him, as if his knee-joints slipped either way. "there! i carry no more!" he exclaimed all at once, flinging his potatoes into the boat, where the yankee was just then stowing them away. "oh, then," said zeke, quite briskly, "i guess you and paul had better try the 'barrel-machine'--come along, i'll fix ye out in no time"; and, so saying, he waded ashore, and hurried back to the house, bidding us follow. wondering what upon earth the "barrel-machine" could be, and rather suspicious of it, we limped after. on arriving at the house, we found him getting ready a sort of sedan-chair. it was nothing more than an old barrel suspended by a rope from the middle of a stout oar. quite an ingenious contrivance of the yankee's; and his proposed arrangement with regard to mine and the doctor's shoulders was equally so. "there now!" said he, when everything was ready, "there's no back-breaking about this; you can stand right up under it, you see: jist try it once"; and he politely rested the blade of the oar on my comrade's right shoulder, and the other end on mine, leaving the barrel between us. "jist the thing!" he added, standing off admiringly, while we remained in this interesting attitude. there was no help for us; with broken hearts and backs we trudged back to the field; the doctor all the while saying masses. upon starting with the loaded barrel, for a few paces we got along pretty well, and were constrained to think the idea not a bad one. but we did not long think so. in less than five minutes we came to a dead halt, the springing and buckling of the clumsy oar being almost unendurable. "let's shift ends," cried the doctor, who did not relish the blade of the stick, which was cutting into the blade of his shoulder. at last, by stages short and frequent, we managed to shamble down the beach, where we again dumped our cargo, in something of a pet. "why not make the natives help?" asked long ghost, rubbing his shoulder. "natives be dumned!" said the yankee, "twenty on 'em ain't worth one white man. they never was meant to work any, them chaps; and they knows it, too, for dumned little work any on 'em ever does." but, notwithstanding this abuse, zeke was at last obliged to press a few of the bipeds into service. "aramai!" (come here) he shouted to several, who, reclining on a bank, had hitherto been critical observers of our proceedings; and, among other things, had been particularly amused by the performance with the sedan-chair. after making these fellows load their baskets together, the yankee filled his own, and then drove them before him down to the beach. probably he had seen the herds of panniered mules driven in this way by mounted indians along the great callao to lima. the boat at last loaded, the yankee, taking with him a couple of natives, at once hoisted sail, and stood across the channel for papeetee. the next morning at breakfast, old tonoi ran in, and told us that the voyagers were returning. we hurried down to the beach, and saw the boat gliding toward us, with a dozing islander at the helm, and zeke standing up in the bows, jingling a small bag of silver, the proceeds of his cargo. chapter lx. what they thought of us in martair several quiet days now passed away, during which we just worked sufficiently to sharpen our appetites; the planters leniently exempting us from any severe toil. their desire to retain us became more and more evident; which was not to be wondered at; for, beside esteeming us from the beginning a couple of civil, good-natured fellows, who would soon become quite at-home with them, they were not slow in perceiving that we were far different from the common run of rovers; and that our society was both entertaining and instructive to a couple of solitary, illiterate men like themselves. in a literary point of view, indeed, they soon regarded us with emotions of envy and wonder; and the doctor was considered nothing short of a prodigy. the cockney found out that he (the doctor) could read a book upside down, without even so much as spelling the big words beforehand; and the yankee, in the twinkling of an eye, received from him the sum total of several arithmetical items, stated aloud, with the view of testing the extent of his mathematical lore. then, frequently, in discoursing upon men and things, my long comrade employed such imposing phrases that, upon one occasion, they actually remained uncovered while he talked. in short, their favourable opinion of long ghost in particular rose higher and higher every day; and they began to indulge in all manner of dreams concerning the advantages to be derived from employing so learned a labourer. among other projects revealed was that of building a small craft of some forty tons for the purpose of trading among the neighbouring islands. with a native crew, we would then take turns cruising over the tranquil pacific; touching here and there, as caprice suggested, and collecting romantic articles of commerce;--beach-de-mer, the pearl-oyster, arrow-root, ambergris, sandal-wood, cocoa-nut oil, and edible birdnests. this south sea yachting was delightful to think of; and straightway, the doctor announced his willingness to navigate the future schooner clear of all shoals and reefs whatsoever. his impudence was audacious. he enlarged upon the science of navigation; treated us to a dissertation on mercator's sailing and the azimuth compass; and went into an inexplicable explanation of the lord only knows what plan of his for infallibly settling the longitude. whenever my comrade thus gave the reins to his fine fancy, it was a treat to listen, and therefore i never interfered; but, with the planters, sat in mute admiration before him. this apparent self-abasement on my part must have been considered as truly indicative of our respective merits; for, to my no small concern, i quickly perceived that, in the estimate formed of us, long ghost began to be rated far above myself. for aught i knew, indeed, he might have privately thrown out a hint concerning the difference in our respective stations aboard the julia; or else the planters must have considered him some illustrious individual, for certain inscrutable reasons, going incog. with this idea of him, his undisguised disinclination for work became venial; and entertaining such views of extending their business, they counted more upon his ultimate value to them as a man of science than as a mere ditcher. nor did the humorous doctor forbear to foster an opinion every way so advantageous to himself; at times, for the sake of the joke, assuming airs of superiority over myself, which, though laughable enough, were sometimes annoying. to tell the plain truth, things at last came to such a pass that i told him, up and down, that i had no notion to put up with his pretensions; if he were going to play the gentleman, i was going to follow suit; and then there would quickly be an explosion. at this he laughed heartily; and after some mirthful chat, we resolved upon leaving the valley as soon as we could do so with a proper regard to politeness. at supper, therefore, the same evening, the doctor hinted at our intention. though much surprised, and vexed, zeke moved not a muscle. "peter," said he at last--very gravely--and after mature deliberation, "would you like to do the cooking? it's easy work; and you needn't do anything else. paul's heartier; he can work in the field when it suits him; and before long, we'll have ye at something more agreeable:--won't we, shorty?" shorty assented. doubtless, the proposed arrangement was a snug one; especially the sinecure for the doctor; but i by no means relished the functions allotted to myself--they were too indefinite. nothing final, however, was agreed upon;--our intention to leave was revealed, and that was enough for the present. but, as we said nothing further about going, the yankee must have concluded that we might yet be induced to remain. he redoubled his endeavours to make us contented. it was during this state of affairs that, one morning, before breakfast, we were set to weeding in a potato-patch; and the planters being engaged at the house, we were left to ourselves. now, though the pulling of weeds was considered by our employers an easy occupation (for which reason they had assigned it to us), and although as a garden recreation it may be pleasant enough, for those who like it--still, long persisted in, the business becomes excessively irksome. nevertheless, we toiled away for some time, until the doctor, who, from his height, was obliged to stoop at a very acute angle, suddenly sprang upright; and with one hand propping his spinal column, exclaimed, "oh, that one's joints were but provided with holes to drop a little oil through!" vain as the aspiration was for this proposed improvement upon our species, i cordially responded thereto; for every vertebra in my spine was articulating in sympathy. presently, the sun rose over the mountains, inducing that deadly morning languor so fatal to early exertion in a warm climate. we could stand it no longer; but, shouldering our hoes, moved on to the house, resolved to impose no more upon the good-nature of the planters by continuing one moment longer in an occupation so extremely uncongenial. we freely told them so. zeke was exceedingly hurt, and said everything he could think of to alter our determination; but, finding all unavailing, he very hospitably urged us not to be in any hurry about leaving; for we might stay with him as guests until we had time to decide upon our future movements. we thanked him sincerely; but replied that, the following morning, we must turn our backs upon the hills of martair. chapter lxi. preparing for the journey during the remainder of the day we loitered about, talking over our plans. the doctor was all eagerness to visit tamai, a solitary inland village, standing upon the banks of a considerable lake of the same name, and embosomed among groves. from afrehitoo you went to this place by a lonely pathway leading through the wildest scenery in the world. much, too, we had heard concerning the lake itself, which abounded in such delicious fish that, in former times, angling parties occasionally came over to it from papeetee. upon its banks, moreover, grew the finest fruit of the islands, and in their greatest perfection. the "ve," or brazilian plum, here attained the size of an orange; and the gorgeous "arheea," or red apple of tahiti, blushed with deeper dyes than in any of the seaward valleys. beside all this, in tamai dwelt the most beautiful and unsophisticated women in the entire society group. in short, the village was so remote from the coast, and had been so much less affected by recent changes than other places that, in most things, tahitian life was here seen as formerly existing in the days of young otoo, the boy-king, in cook's time. after obtaining from the planters all the information which was needed, we decided upon penetrating to the village; and after a temporary sojourn there, to strike the beach again, and journey round to taloo, a harbour on the opposite side of the island. we at once put ourselves in travelling trim. just previous to leaving tahiti, having found my wardrobe reduced to two suits (frock and trousers, both much the worse for wear), i had quilted them together for mutual preservation (after a fashion peculiar to sailors); engrafting a red frock upon a blue one, and producing thereby a choice variety in the way of clothing. this was the extent of my wardrobe. nor was the doctor by any means better off. his improvidence had at last driven him to don the nautical garb; but by this time his frock--a light cotton one--had almost given out, and he had nothing to replace it. shorty very generously offered him one which was a little less ragged; but the alms were proudly refused; long ghost preferring to assume the ancient costume of tahiti--the "roora." this garment, once worn as a festival dress, is now seldom met with; but captain bob had often shown us one which he kept as an heirloom. it was a cloak, or mantle, of yellow tappa, precisely similar to the "poncho" worn by the south-american spaniards. the head being slipped through a slit in the middle, the robe hangs about the person in ample drapery. tonoi obtained sufficient coarse brown tappa to make a short mantle of this description; and in five minutes the doctor was equipped. zeke, eyeing his toga critically, reminded its proprietor that there were many streams to ford, and precipices to scale, between martair and tamai; and if he travelled in petticoats, he had better hold them up. besides other deficiencies, we were utterly shoeless. in the free and easy pacific, sailors seldom wear shoes; mine had been tossed overboard the day we met the trades; and except in one or two tramps ashore, i had never worn any since. in martair, they would have been desirable: but none were to be had. for the expedition we meditated, however, they were indispensable. zeke, being the owner of a pair of huge, dilapidated boots, hanging from a rafter like saddlebags, the doctor succeeded in exchanging for them a case-knife, the last valuable article in his possession. for myself, i made sandals from a bullock's hide, such as are worn by the indians in california. they are made in a minute; the sole, rudely fashioned to the foot, being confined across the instep by three straps of leather. our headgear deserves a passing word. my comrade's was a brave old panama hat, made of grass, almost as fine as threads of silk; and so elastic that, upon rolling it up, it sprang into perfect shape again. set off by the jaunty slouch of this spanish sombrero, doctor long ghost, in this and his eoora, looked like a mendicant grandee. nor was my own appearance in an eastern turban less distinguished. the way i came to wear it was this. my hat having been knocked overboard a few days before reaching papeetee, i was obliged to mount an abominable wad of parti-coloured worsted--what sailors call a scotch cap. everyone knows the elasticity of knit wool; and this caledonian head-dress crowned my temples so effectually that the confined atmosphere engendered was prejudicial to my curls. in vain i tried to ventilate the cap: every gash made seemed to heal whole in no time. then such a continual chafing as it kept up in a hot sun. seeing my dislike to the thing, kooloo, my worthy friend, prevailed upon me to bestow it upon him. i did so; hinting that a good boiling might restore the original brilliancy of the colours. it was then that i mounted the turban. taking a new regatta frock of the doctor's, which was of a gay calico, and winding it round my head in folds, i allowed the sleeves to droop behind--thus forming a good defence against the sun, though in a shower it was best off. the pendent sleeves adding much to the effect, the doctor called me the bashaw with two tails. thus arrayed, we were ready for tamai; in whose green saloons we counted upon creating no small sensation. chapter lxii. tamai long before sunrise the next morning my sandals were laced on, and the doctor had vaulted into zeke's boots. expecting to see us again before we went to taloo, the planters wished us a pleasant journey; and, on parting, very generously presented us with a pound or two of what sailors call "plug" tobacco; telling us to cut it up into small change; the virginian weed being the principal circulating medium on the island. tamai, we were told, was not more than three or four leagues distant; so making allowances for a wild road, a few hours to rest at noon, and our determination to take the journey leisurely, we counted upon reaching the shores of the lake some time in the flush of the evening. for several hours we went on slowly through wood and ravine, and over hill and precipice, seeing nothing but occasional herds of wild cattle, and often resting; until we found ourselves, about noon, in the very heart of the island. it was a green, cool hollow among the mountains, into which we at last descended with a bound. the place was gushing with a hundred springs, and shaded over with great solemn trees, on whose mossy boles the moisture stood in beads. strange to say, no traces of the bullocks ever having been here were revealed. nor was there a sound to be heard, nor a bird to be seen, nor any breath of wind stirring the leaves. the utter solitude and silence were oppressive; and after peering about under the shades, and seeing nothing but ranks of dark, motionless trunks, we hurried across the hollow, and ascended a steep mountain opposite. midway up, we rested where the earth had gathered about the roots of three palms, and thus formed a pleasant lounge, from which we looked down upon the hollow, now one dark green tuft of woodland at our feet. here we brought forth a small calabash of "poee" a parting present from tonoi. after eating heartily, we obtained fire by two sticks, and throwing ourselves back, puffed forth our fatigue in wreaths of smoke. at last we fell asleep; nor did we waken till the sun had sunk so low that its rays darted in upon us under the foliage. starting up, we then continued our journey; and as we gained the mountain top--there, to our surprise, lay the lake and village of tamai. we had thought it a good league off. where we stood, the yellow sunset was still lingering; but over the valley below long shadows were stealing--the rippling green lake reflecting the houses and trees just as they stood along its banks. several small canoes, moored here and there to posts in the water, were dancing upon the waves; and one solitary fisherman was paddling over to a grassy point. in front of the houses, groups of natives were seen; some thrown at full length upon the ground, and others indolently leaning against the bamboos. with whoop and halloo, we ran down the hills, the villagers soon hurrying forth to see who were coming. as we drew near, they gathered round, all curiosity to know what brought the "karhowrees" into their quiet country. the doctor contriving to make them understand the purely social object of our visit, they gave us a true tahitian welcome; pointing into their dwellings, and saying they were ours as long as we chose to remain. we were struck by the appearance of these people, both men and women; so much more healthful than the inhabitants of the bays. as for the young girls, they were more retiring and modest, more tidy in their dress, and far fresher and more beautiful than the damsels of the coast. a thousand pities, thought i, that they should bury their charms in this nook of a valley. that night we abode in the house of rartoo, a hospitable old chief. it was right on the shore of the lake; and at supper we looked out through a rustling screen of foliage upon the surface of the starlit water. the next day we rambled about, and found a happy little community, comparatively free from many deplorable evils to which the rest of their countrymen are subject. their time, too, was more occupied. to my surprise, the manufacture of tappa was going on in several buildings. european calicoes were seldom seen, and not many articles of foreign origin of any description. the people of tamai were nominally christians; but being so remote from ecclesiastical jurisdiction, their religion sat lightly upon them. we had been told, even, that many heathenish games and dances still secretly lingered in their valley. now the prospect of seeing an old-fashioned "hevar," or tahitian reel, was one of the inducements which brought us here; and so, finding rartoo rather liberal in his religious ideas, we disclosed our desire. at first he demurred; and shrugging his shoulders like a frenchman, declared it could not be brought about--was a dangerous matter to attempt, and might bring all concerned into trouble. but we overcame all this, convinced him that the thing could be done, and a "hevar," a genuine pagan fandango, was arranged for that very night. chapter lxiii. a dance in the valley there were some ill-natured people--tell-tales--it seemed, in tamai; and hence there was a deal of mystery about getting up the dance. an hour or two before midnight, rartoo entered the house, and, throwing robes of tappa over us, bade us follow at a distance behind him; and, until out of the village, hood our faces. keenly alive to the adventure, we obeyed. at last, after taking a wide circuit, we came out upon the farthest shore of the lake. it was a wide, dewy, space; lighted up by a full moon, and carpeted with a minute species of fern growing closely together. it swept right down to the water, showing the village opposite, glistening among the groves. near the trees, on one side of the clear space, was a ruinous pile of stones many rods in extent; upon which had formerly stood a temple of oro. at present, there was nothing but a rude hut, planted on the lowermost terrace. it seemed to have been used as a "tappa herree," or house for making the native cloth. here we saw lights gleaming from between the bamboos, and casting long, rod-like shadows upon the ground without. voices also were heard. we went up, and had a peep at the dancers who were getting ready for the ballet. they were some twenty in number;-waited upon by hideous old crones, who might have been duennas. long ghost proposed to send the latter packing; but rartoo said it would never do, and so they were permitted to remain. we tried to effect an entrance at the door, which was fastened; but, after a noisy discussion with one of the old witches within, our guide became fidgety, and, at last, told us to desist, or we would spoil all. he then led us off to a distance to await the performance; as the girls, he said, did not wish to be recognized. he, furthermore, made us promise to remain where we were until all was over, and the dancers had retired. we waited impatiently; and, at last, they came forth. they were arrayed in short tunics of white tappa; with garlands of flowers on their heads. following them were the duennas, who remained clustering about the house, while the girls advanced a few paces; and, in an instant, two of them, taller than their companions, were standing, side by side, in the middle of a ring formed by the clasped hands of the rest. this movement was made in perfect silence. presently the two girls join hands overhead; and, crying out, "ahloo! ahloo!" wave them to and fro. upon which the ring begins to circle slowly; the dancers moving sideways, with their arms a little drooping. soon they quicken their pace; and, at last, fly round and round: bosoms heaving, hair streaming, flowers dropping, and every sparkling eye circling in what seemed a line of light. meanwhile, the pair within are passing and repassing each other incessantly. inclining sideways, so that their long hair falls far over, they glide this way and that; one foot continually in the air, and their fingers thrown forth, and twirling in the moonbeams. "ahloo! ahloo!" again cry the dance queens; and coming together in the middle of the ring, they once more lift up the arch, and stand motionless. "ahloo! ahloo!" every link of the circle is broken; and the girls, deeply breathing, stand perfectly still. they pant hard and fast a moment or two; and then, just as the deep flush is dying away from their faces, slowly recede, all round; thus enlarging the ring. again the two leaders wave their hands, when the rest pause; and now, far apart, stand in the still moonlight like a circle of fairies. presently, raising a strange chant, they softly sway themselves, gradually quickening the movement, until, at length, for a few passionate moments, with throbbing bosoms and glowing cheeks, they abandon themselves to all the spirit of the dance, apparently lost to everything around. but soon subsiding again into the same languid measure as before, they become motionless; and then, reeling forward on all sides, their eyes swimming in their heads, join in one wild chorus, and sink into each other's arms. such is the lory-lory, i think they call it; the dance of the backsliding girls of tamai. while it was going on, we had as much as we could do to keep the doctor from rushing forward and seizing a partner. they would give us no more "hevars" that night; and rartoo fairly dragged us away to a canoe, hauled up on the lake shore; when we reluctantly embarked, and paddling over to the village, arrived there in time for a good nap before sunrise. the next day, the doctor went about trying to hunt up the overnight dancers. he thought to detect them by their late rising; but never was man more mistaken; for, on first sallying out, the whole village was asleep, waking up in concert about an hour after. but, in the course of the day, he came across several whom he at once charged with taking part in the "hevar." there were some prim-looking fellows standing by (visiting elders from afrehitoo, perhaps), and the girls looked embarrassed; but parried the charge most skilfully. though soft as doves, in general, the ladies of tamai are, nevertheless, flavoured with a slight tincture of what we queerly enough call the "devil"; and they showed it on the present occasion. for when the doctor pressed one rather hard, she all at once turned round upon him, and, giving him a box on the ear, told him to "hanree perrar!" (be off with himself.) chapter lxiv. mysterious there was a little old man of a most hideous aspect living in tamai, who, in a coarse mantle of tappa, went about the village, dancing, and singing, and making faces. he followed us about wherever we went; and, when unobserved by others, plucked at our garments, making frightful signs for us to go along with him somewhere, and see something. it was in vain that we tried to get rid of him. kicks and cuffs, even, were at last resorted to; but, though he howled like one possessed, he would not go away, but still haunted us. at last, we conjured the natives to rid us of him; but they only laughed; so we were forced to endure the dispensation as well as we could. on the fourth night of our visit, returning home late from paying a few calls through the village, we turned a dark corner of trees, and came full upon our goblin friend: as usual, chattering, and motioning with his hands. the doctor, venting a curse, hurried forward; but, from some impulse or other, i stood my ground, resolved to find out what this unaccountable object wanted of us. seeing me pause, he crept close up to me, peered into my face, and then retreated, beckoning me to follow; which i did. in a few moments the village was behind us; and with my guide in advance, i found myself in the shadow of the heights overlooking the farther side of the valley. here my guide paused until i came up with him; when, side by side, and without speaking, we ascended the hill. presently, we came to a wretched hut, barely distinguishable in the shade cast by the neighbouring trees. pushing aside a rude sliding door, held together with thongs, the goblin signed me to enter. within, it looked dark as pitch; so i gave him to understand that he must strike a light, and go in before me. without replying, he disappeared in the darkness; and, after groping about, i heard two sticks rubbing together, and directly saw a spark. a native taper was then lighted, and i stooped, and entered. it was a mere kennel. foul old mats, and broken cocoa-nut shells, and calabashes were strewn about the floor of earth; and overhead i caught glimpses of the stars through chinks in the roof. here and there the thatch had fallen through, and hung down in wisps. i now told him to set about what he was going to do, or produce whatever he had to show without delay. looking round fearfully, as if dreading a surprise, he commenced turning over and over the rubbish in one corner. at last, he clutched a calabash, stained black, and with the neck broken off; on one side of it was a large hole. something seemed to be stuffed away in the vessel; and after a deal of poking at the aperture, a musty old pair of sailor trousers was drawn forth; and, holding them up eagerly, he inquired how many pieces of tobacco i would give for them. without replying, i hurried away; the old man chasing me, and shouting as i ran, until i gained the village. here i dodged him, and made my way home, resolved never to disclose so inglorious an adventure. to no purpose, the next morning, my comrade besought me to enlighten him; i preserved a mysterious silence. the occurrence served me a good turn, however, so long as we abode in tamai; for the old clothesman never afterwards troubled me; but forever haunted the doctor, who, in vain, supplicated heaven to be delivered from him. chapter lxv. the hegira, or flight "i say, doctor," cried i, a few days after my adventure with the goblin, as, in the absence of our host, we were one morning lounging upon the matting in his dwelling, smoking our reed pipes, "tamai's a thriving place; why not settle down?" "faith!" said he, "not a bad idea, paul. but do you fancy they'll let us stay, though?" "why, certainly; they would be overjoyed to have a couple of karhowrees for townsmen." "gad! you're right, my pleasant fellow. ha! ha! i'll put up a banana-leaf as a physician from london--deliver lectures on polynesian antiquities--teach english in five lessons, of one hour each--establish power-looms for the manufacture of tappa--lay out a public park in the middle of the village, and found a festival in honour of captain cook!" "but, surely, not without stopping to take breath," observed i. the doctor's projects, to be sure, were of a rather visionary cast; but we seriously thought, nevertheless, of prolonging our stay in the valley for an indefinite period; and, with this understanding, we were turning over various plans for spending our time pleasantly, when several women came running into the house, and hurriedly besought us to heree! heree! (make our escape), crying out something about the mickonarees. thinking that we were about to be taken up under the act for the suppression of vagrancy, we flew out of the house, sprang into a canoe before the door, and paddled with might and main over to the opposite side of the lake. approaching rartoo's dwelling was a great crowd, among which we perceived several natives, who, from their partly european dress, we were certain did not reside in tamai. plunging into the groves, we thanked our stars that we had thus narrowly escaped being apprehended as runaway seamen, and marched off to the beach. this, at least, was what we thought we had escaped. having fled the village, we could not think of prowling about its vicinity, and then returning; in doing so we might be risking our liberty again. we therefore determined upon journeying back to martair; and setting our faces thitherward, we reached the planters' house about nightfall. they gave us a cordial reception, and a hearty supper; and we sat up talking until a late hour. we now prepared to go round to taloo, a place from which we were not far off when at tamai; but wishing to see as much of the island as we could, we preferred returning to martair, and then going round by way of the beach. taloo, the only frequented harbour of imeeo, lies on the western side of the island, almost directly over against martair. upon one shore of the bay stands the village of partoowye, a missionary station. in its vicinity is an extensive sugar plantation--the best in the south seas, perhaps--worked by a person from sydney. the patrimonial property of the husband of pomaree, and every way a delightful retreat, partoowye was one of the occasional residences of the court. but at the time i write of it was permanently fixed there, the queen having fled thither from tahiti. partoowye, they told us, was by no means the place papeetee was. ships seldom touched, and very few foreigners were living ashore. a solitary whaler, however, was reported to be lying in the harbour, wooding and watering, and to be in want of men. all things considered, i could not help looking upon taloo as offering "a splendid opening" for us adventurers. to say nothing of the facilities presented for going to sea in the whaler, or hiring ourselves out as day labourers in the sugar plantation, there were hopes to be entertained of being promoted to some office of high trust and emolument about the person of her majesty, the queen. nor was this expectation altogether quixotic. in the train of many polynesian princes roving whites are frequently found: gentleman pensioners of state, basking in the tropical sunshine of the court, and leading the pleasantest lives in the world. upon islands little visited by foreigners the first seaman that settles down is generally domesticated in the family of the head chief or king; where he frequently discharges the functions of various offices, elsewhere filled by as many different individuals. as historiographer, for instance, he gives the natives some account of distant countries; as commissioner of the arts and sciences, he instructs them in the use of the jack-knife, and the best way of shaping bits of iron hoop into spear-heads; and as interpreter to his majesty, he facilitates intercourse with strangers; besides instructing the people generally in the uses of the most common english phrases, civil and profane; but oftener the latter. these men generally marry well; often--like hardy of hannamanoo--into the wood royal. sometimes they officiate as personal attendant, or first lord in waiting, to the king. at amboi, one of the tonga islands, a vagabond welshman bends his knee as cupbearer to his cannibal majesty. he mixes his morning cup of "arva," and, with profound genuflections, presents it in a cocoa-nut bowl, richly carved. upon another island of the same group, where it is customary to bestow no small pains in dressing the hair--frizzing it out by a curious process into an enormous pope's head--an old man-of-war's-man fills the post of barber to the king. and as his majesty is not very neat, his mop is exceedingly populous; so that, when jack is not engaged in dressing the head intrusted to his charge, he busies himself in gently titillating it--a sort of skewer being actually worn about in the patient's hair for that special purpose. even upon the sandwich islands a low rabble of foreigners is kept about the person of tammahammaha for the purpose of ministering to his ease or enjoyment. billy loon, a jolly little negro, tricked out in a soiled blue jacket, studded all over with rusty bell buttons, and garnished with shabby gold lace, is the royal drummer and pounder of the tambourine. joe, a wooden-legged portuguese who lost his leg by a whale, is violinist; and mordecai, as he is called, a villainous-looking scamp, going about with his cups and balls in a side pocket, diverts the court with his jugglery. these idle rascals receive no fixed salary, being altogether dependent upon the casual bounty of their master. now and then they run up a score at the dance houses in honolulu, where the illustrious tammahammaha iii afterwards calls and settles the bill. a few years since an auctioneer to his majesty came near being added to the retinue of state. it seems that he was the first man who had practised his vocation in the sandwich islands; and delighted with the sport of bidding upon his wares, the king was one of his best customers. at last he besought the man to leave all and follow him, and he should be handsomely provided for at court. but the auctioneer refused; and so the ivory hammer lost the chance of being borne before him on a velvet cushion when the next king went to be crowned. but it was not as strolling players, nor as footmen out of employ, that the doctor and myself looked forward to our approaching introduction to the court of the queen of tahiti. on the contrary, as before hinted, we expected to swell the appropriations of bread-fruit and cocoa-nuts on the civil list by filling some honourable office in her gift. we were told that, to resist the usurpation of the french, the queen was rallying about her person all the foreigners she could. her partiality for the english and americans was well known; and this was an additional ground for our anticipating a favourable reception. zeke had informed us, moreover, that by the queen's counsellors at partoowye, a war of aggression against the invaders of papeetee had been seriously thought of. should this prove true, a surgeon's commission for the doctor, and a lieutenancy for myself, were certainly counted upon in our sanguine expectations. such, then, were our views, and such our hopes in projecting a trip to taloo. but in our most lofty aspirations we by no means lost sight of any minor matters which might help us to promotion. the doctor had informed me that he excelled in playing the fiddle. i now suggested that, as soon as we arrived at partoowye, we should endeavour to borrow a violin for him; or if this could not be done, that he should manufacture some kind of a substitute, and, thus equipped, apply for an audience of the queen. her well-known passion for music would at once secure his admittance; and so, under the most favourable auspices, bring about our introduction to her notice. "and who knows," said my waggish comrade, throwing his head back and performing an imaginary air by briskly drawing one arm across the other, "who knows that i may not fiddle myself into her majesty's good graces so as to became a sort of rizzio to the tahitian princess." chapter lxvi. how we were to get to taloo the inglorious circumstances of our somewhat premature departure from tamai filled the sagacious doctor, and myself, with sundry misgivings for the future. under zeke's protection, we were secure from all impertinent interference in our concerns on the part of the natives. but as friendless wanderers over the island, we ran the risk of being apprehended as runaways, and, as such, sent back to tahiti. the truth is that the rewards constantly offered for the apprehension of deserters from ships induce some of the natives to eye all strangers suspiciously. a passport was therefore desirable; but such a thing had never been heard of in imeeo. at last, long ghost suggested that, as the yankee was well known and much respected all over the island, we should endeavour to obtain from him some sort of paper, not only certifying to our having been in his employ, but also to our not being highwaymen, kidnappers, nor yet runaway seamen. even written in english, a paper like this would answer every purpose; for the unlettered natives, standing in great awe of the document, would not dare to molest us until acquainted with its purport. then, if it came to the worst, we might repair to the nearest missionary, and have the passport explained. upon informing zeke of these matters, he seemed highly flattered with the opinion we entertained of his reputation abroad; and he agreed to oblige us. the doctor at once offered to furnish him with a draught of the paper; but he refused, saying he would write it himself. with a rooster's quill, therefore, a bit of soiled paper, and a stout heart, he set to work. evidently he was not accustomed to composition; for his literary throes were so violent that the doctor suggested that some sort of a caesarian operation might be necessary. the precious paper was at last finished; and a great curiosity it was. we were much diverted with his reasons for not dating it. "in this here dummed eliminate," he observed, "a feller can't keep the run of the months, nohow; cause there's no seasons; no summer and winter, to go by. one's etarnally thinkin' it's always july, it's so pesky hot." a passport provided, we cast about for some means of getting to taloo. the island of imeeo is very nearly surrounded by a regular breakwater of coral extending within a mile or less of the shore. the smooth canal within furnishes the best means of communication with the different settlements; all of which, with the exception of tamai, are right upon the water. and so indolent are the imeeose that they think nothing of going twenty or thirty miles round the island in a canoe in order to reach a place not a quarter of that distance by land. but as hinted before, the fear of the bullocks has something to do with this. the idea of journeying in a canoe struck our fancy quite pleasantly; and we at once set about chartering one, if possible. but none could we obtain. for not only did we have nothing to pay for hiring one, but we could not expect to have it loaned; inasmuch as the good-natured owner would, in all probability, have to walk along the beach as we paddled in order to bring back his property when we had no further use for it. at last, it was decided to commence our journey on foot; trusting that we would soon fall in with a canoe going our way, in which we might take passage. the planters said we would find no beaten path: all we had to do was to follow the beach; and however inviting it might look inland, on no account must we stray from it. in short, the longest way round was the nearest way to taloo. at intervals, there were little hamlets along the shore, besides lonely fishermen's huts here and there, where we could get plenty to eat without pay; so there was no necessity to lay in any store. intending to be off before sunrise the next morning, so as to have the benefit of the coolest part of the day, we bade our kind hosts farewell overnight; and then, repairing to the beach, we launched our floating pallet, and slept away merrily till dawn. chapter lxvii. the journey round the beach it was on the fourth day of the first month of the hegira, or flight from tamai (we now reckoned our time thus), that, rising bright and early, we were up and away out of the valley of martair before the fishermen even were stirring. it was the earliest dawn. the morning only showed itself along the lower edge of a bank of purple clouds pierced by the misty peaks of tahiti. the tropical day seemed too languid to rise. sometimes, starting fitfully, it decked the clouds with faint edgings of pink and gray, which, fading away, left all dim again. anon, it threw out thin, pale rays, growing lighter and lighter, until at last, the golden morning sprang out of the east with a bound--darting its bright beams hither and thither, higher and higher, and sending them, broadcast, over the face of the heavens. all balmy from the groves of tahiti came an indolent air, cooled by its transit over the waters; and grateful underfoot was the damp and slightly yielding beach, from which the waves seemed just retired. the doctor was in famous spirits; removing his koora, he went splashing into the sea; and, after swimming a few yards, waded ashore, hopping, skipping, and jumping along the beach; but very careful to cut all his capers in the direction of our journey. say what they will of the glowing independence one feels in the saddle, give me the first morning flush of your cheery pedestrian! thus exhilarated, we went on, as light-hearted and care-free as we could wish. and here i cannot refrain from lauding the very superior inducements which most intertropical countries afford, not only to mere rovers like ourselves, but to penniless people generally. in these genial regions one's wants are naturally diminished; and those which remain are easily gratified; fuel, house-shelter, and, if you please, clothing, may be entirely dispensed with. how different our hard northern latitudes! alas! the lot of a "poor devil," twenty degrees north of the tropic of cancer, is indeed pitiable. at last, the beach contracted to hardly a yard's width, and the dense thicket almost dipped into the sea. in place of the smooth sand, too, we had sharp fragments of broken coral, which made travelling exceedingly unpleasant. "lord! my foot!" roared the doctor, fetching it up for inspection, with a galvanic fling of the limb. a sharp splinter had thrust itself into the flesh through a hole in his boot. my sandals were worse yet; their soles taking a sort of fossil impression of everything trod upon. turning round a bold sweep of the beach, we came upon a piece of fine, open ground, with a fisherman's dwelling in the distance, crowning a knoll which rolled off into the water. the hut proved to be a low, rude erection, very recently thrown up; for the bamboos were still green as grass, and the thatching fresh and fragrant as meadow hay. it was open upon three sides; so that, upon drawing near, the domestic arrangements within were in plain sight. no one was stirring; and nothing was to be seen but a clumsy old chest of native workmanship, a few calabashes, and bundles of tappa hanging against a post; and a heap of something, we knew not what, in a dark corner. upon close inspection, the doctor discovered it to be a loving old couple, locked in each other's arms, and rolled together in a tappa mantle. "halloa! darby!" he cried, shaking the one with a beard. but darby heeded him not; though joan, a wrinkled old body, started up in affright, and yelled aloud. neither of us attempting to gag her, she presently became quiet; and, after staring hard and asking some unintelligible questions, she proceeded to rouse her still slumbering mate. what ailed him we could not tell; but there was no waking him. equally in vain were all his dear spouse's cuffs, pinches, and other endearments; he lay like a log, face up, snoring away like a cavalry trumpeter. "here, my good woman," said long ghost, "just let me try"; and, taking the patient right by his nose, he so lifted him bodily into a sitting position, and held him there until his eyes opened. when this event came to pass, darby looked round like one stupefied; and then, springing to his feet, backed away into a corner, from which place we became the objects of his earnest and respectful attention. "permit me, my dear darby, to introduce to you my esteemed friend and comrade, paul," said the doctor, gallanting me up with all the grimace and flourish imaginable. upon this, darby began to recover his faculties, and surprised us not a little by talking a few words of english. so far as could be understood, they were expressive of his having been aware that there were two "karhowrees" in the neighbourhood; that he was glad to see us, and would have something for us to eat in no time. how he came by his english was explained to us before we left. some time previous, he had been a denizen of papeetee, where the native language is broidered over with the most classic sailor phrases. he seemed to be quite proud of his residence there; and alluded to it in the same significant way in which a provincial informs you that in his time he has resided in the capital. the old fellow was disposed to be garrulous; but being sharp-set, we told him to get breakfast; after which we would hear his anecdotes. while employed among the calabashes, the strange, antiquated fondness between these old semi-savages was really amusing. i made no doubt that they were saying to each other, "yes, my love"--"no, my life," just in the same way that some young couples do, at home. they gave us a hearty meal; and while we were discussing its merits, they assured us, over and over again, that they expected nothing in return for their attentions; more: we were at liberty to stay as long as we pleased; and as long as we did stay, their house and everything they had was no longer theirs, but ours; still more: they themselves were our slaves--the old lady, to a degree that was altogether superfluous. this, now, is tahitian hospitality! self-immolation upon one's own hearthstone for the benefit of the guest. the polynesians carry their hospitality to an amazing extent. let a native of waiurar, the westernmost part of tahiti, make his appearance as a traveller at partoowye, the most easterly village of imeeo; though a perfect stranger, the inhabitants on all sides accost him at their doorways, inviting him to enter, and make himself at home. but the traveller passes on, examining every house attentively; until, at last, he pauses before one which suits him, and then exclaiming, "ah, eda maitai" (this one will do, i think), he steps in, and makes himself perfectly at ease; flinging himself upon the mats, and very probably calling for a nice young cocoa-nut, and a piece of toasted breadfruit, sliced thin, and done brown. curious to relate, however, should a stranger carrying it thus bravely be afterwards discovered to be without a house of his own, why, he may thenceforth go a-begging for his lodgings. the "karhowrees," or white men, are exceptions to this rule. thus it is precisely as in civilized countries, where those who have houses and lands are incessantly bored to death with invitations to come and live in other people's houses; while many a poor gentleman who inks the seams of his coat, and to whom the like invitation would be really acceptable, may go and sue for it. but to the credit of the ancient tahitians, it should here be observed that this blemish upon their hospitality is only of recent origin, and was wholly unknown in old times. so told me, captain bob. in polynesia it is esteemed "a great hit" if a man succeed in marrying into a family to which the best part of the community is related (heaven knows it is otherwise with us). the reason is that, when he goes a-travelling, the greater number of houses are the more completely at his service. receiving a paternal benediction from old darby and joan, we continued our journey; resolved to stop at the very next place of attraction which offered. nor did we long stroll for it. a fine walk along a beach of shells, and we came to a spot where, trees here and there, the land was all meadow, sloping away to the water, which stirred a sedgy growth of reeds bordering its margin. close by was a little cove, walled in with coral, where a fleet of canoes was dancing up and down. a few paces distant, on a natural terrace overlooking the sea, were several native dwellings, newly thatched, and peeping into view out of the foliage like summer-houses. as we drew near, forth came a burst of voices, and, presently, three gay girls, overflowing with life, health, and youth, and full of spirits and mischief. one was arrayed in a flaunting robe of calico; and her long black hair was braided behind in two immense tresses, joined together at the ends, and wreathed with the green tendrils of a vine. from her self-possessed and forward air, i fancied she might be some young lady from papeetee on a visit to her country relations. her companions wore mere slips of cotton cloth; their hair was dishevelled; and though very pretty, they betrayed the reserve and embarrassment characteristic of the provinces. the little gipsy first mentioned ran up to me with great cordiality; and, giving the tahitian salutation, opened upon me such a fire of questions that there was no understanding, much less answering them. but our hearty welcome to loohooloo, as she called the hamlet, was made plain enough. meanwhile, doctor long ghost gallantly presented an arm to each of the other young ladies; which, at first, they knew not what to make of; but at last, taking it for some kind of joke, accepted the civility. the names of these three damsels were at once made known by themselves: and being so exceedingly romantic, i cannot forbear particularizing them. upon my comrade's arms, then, were hanging night and morning, in the persons of farnowar, or the day-born, and earnoopoo, or the night-born. she with the tresses was very appropriately styled marhar-rarrar, the wakeful, or bright-eyed. by this time, the houses were emptied of the rest of their inmates--a few old men and women, and several strapping young fellows rubbing their eyes and yawning. all crowded round, putting questions as to whence we came. upon being informed of our acquaintance with zeke, they were delighted; and one of them recognized the boots worn by the doctor. "keekee (zeke) maitai," they cried, "nuee nuee hanna hanna portarto"--(makes plenty of potatoes). there was now a little friendly altercation as to who should have the honour of entertaining the strangers. at last, a tall old gentleman, by name marharvai, with a bald head and white beard, took us each by the hand, and led us into his dwelling. once inside, marharvai, pointing about with his staff, was so obsequious in assuring us that his house was ours that long ghost suggested he might as well hand over the deed. it was drawing near noon; so after a light lunch of roasted breadfruit, a few whiffs of a pipe, and some lively chatting, our host admonished the company to lie down, and take the everlasting siesta. we complied; and had a social nap all round. chapter lxviii. a dinner-party in imeeo it was just in the middle of the merry, mellow afternoon that they ushered us to dinner, underneath a green shelter of palm boughs; open all round, and so low at the eaves that we stooped to enter. within, the ground was strewn over with aromatic ferns--called "nahee"--freshly gathered; which, stirred underfoot, diffused the sweetest odour. on one side was a row of yellow mats, inwrought with fibres of bark stained a bright red. here, seated after the fashion of the turk, we looked out, over a verdant bank, upon the mild, blue, endless pacific. so far round had we skirted the island that the view of tahiti was now intercepted. upon the ferns before us were laid several layers of broad, thick "pooroo" leaves; lapping over, one upon the other. and upon these were placed, side by side, newly-plucked banana leaves, at least two yards in length, and very wide; the stalks were withdrawn so as to make them lie flat. this green cloth was set out and garnished in the manner following:-- first, a number of "pooroo" leaves, by way of plates, were ranged along on one side; and by each was a rustic nut-bowl, half-filled with sea-water, and a tahitian roll, or small bread-fruit, roasted brown. an immense flat calabash, placed in the centre, was heaped up with numberless small packages of moist, steaming leaves: in each was a small fish, baked in the earth, and done to a turn. this pyramid of a dish was flanked on either side by an ornamental calabash. one was brimming with the golden-hued "poee," or pudding, made from the red plantain of the mountains: the other was stacked up with cakes of the indian turnip, previously macerated in a mortar, kneaded with the milk of the cocoa-nut, and then baked. in the spaces between the three dishes were piled young cocoa-nuts, stripped of their husks. their eyes had been opened and enlarged; so that each was a ready-charged goblet. there was a sort of side-cloth in one corner, upon which, in bright, buff jackets, lay the fattest of bananas; "avees," red-ripe: guavas with the shadows of their crimson pulp flushing through a transparent skin, and almost coming and going there like blushes; oranges, tinged, here and there, berry-brown; and great, jolly melons, which rolled about in very portliness. such a heap! all ruddy, ripe, and round--bursting with the good cheer of the tropical soil from which they sprang! "a land of orchards!" cried the doctor, in a rapture; and he snatched a morsel from a sort of fruit of which gentlemen of the sanguine temperament are remarkably fond; namely, the ripe cherry lips of misa day-born, who stood looking on. marharvai allotted seats to his guests; and the meal began. thinking that his hospitality needed some acknowledgment, i rose, and pledged him in the vegetable wine of the cocoa-nut; merely repeating the ordinary salutation, "yar onor boyoee." sensible that some compliment, after the fashion of white men, was paid him, with a smile, and a courteous flourish of the hand, he bade me be seated. no people, however refined, are more easy and graceful in their manners than the imeeose. the doctor, sitting next our host, now came under his special protection. laying before his guest one of the packages of fish, marharvai opened it; and commended its contents to his particular regards. but my comrade was one of those who, on convivial occasions, can always take care of themselves. he ate an indefinite number of "pee-hee lee lees" (small fish), his own and next neighbour's bread-fruit; and helped himself, to right and left, with all the ease of an accomplished diner-out. "paul," said he, at last, "you don't seem to be getting along; why don't you try the pepper sauce?" and, by way of example, he steeped a morsel of food into his nutful of sea-water. on following suit, i found it quite piquant, though rather bitter; but, on the whole, a capital substitute for salt. the imeeose invariably use sea-water in this way, deeming it quite a treat; and considering that their country is surrounded by an ocean of catsup, the luxury cannot be deemed an expensive one. the fish were delicious; the manner of cooking them in the ground preserving all the juices, and rendering them exceedingly sweet and tender. the plantain pudding was almost cloying; the cakes of indian turnip, quite palatable; and the roasted bread-fruit, crisp as toast. during the meal, a native lad walked round and round the party, carrying a long staff of bamboo. this he occasionally tapped upon the cloth, before each guest; when a white clotted substance dropped forth, with a savour not unlike that of a curd. this proved to be "lownee," an excellent relish, prepared from the grated meat of ripe cocoa-nuts, moistened with cocoa-nut milk and salt water, and kept perfectly tight until a little past the saccharine stage of fermentation. throughout the repast there was much lively chatting among the islanders, in which their conversational powers quite exceeded ours. the young ladies, too, showed themselves very expert in the use of their tongues, and contributed much to the gaiety which prevailed. nor did these lively nymphs suffer the meal to languish; for upon the doctor's throwing himself back, with an air of much satisfaction, they sprang to their feet, and pelted him with oranges and guavas. this, at last, put an end to the entertainment. by a hundred whimsical oddities, my long friend became a great favourite with these people; and they bestowed upon him a long, comical title, expressive of his lank figure and koora combined. the latter, by the bye, never failed to excite the remark of everybody we encountered. the giving of nicknames is quite a passion with the people of tahiti and imeeo. no one with any peculiarity, whether of person or temper, is exempt; not even strangers. a pompous captain of a man-of-war, visiting tahiti for the second time, discovered that, among the natives, he went by the dignified title of "atee poee"--literally, poee head, or pudding head. nor is the highest rank among themselves any protection. the first husband of the present queen was commonly known in the court circles as "pot belly." he carried the greater part of his person before him, to be sure; and so did the gentlemanly george iv.--but what a title for a king consort! even "pomaree" itself, the royal patronymic, was, originally, a mere nickname; and literally signifies, one talking through his nose. the first monarch of that name, being on a war party, and sleeping overnight among the mountains, awoke one morning with a cold in his head; and some wag of a courtier had no more manners than to vulgarize him thus. how different from the volatile polynesian in this, as in all other respects, is our grave and decorous north american indian. while the former bestows a name in accordance with some humorous or ignoble trait, the latter seizes upon what is deemed the most exalted or warlike: and hence, among the red tribes, we have the truly patrician appellations of "white eagles," "young oaks," "fiery eyes," and "bended bows." chapter lxix. the cocoa-palm while the doctor and the natives were taking a digestive nap after dinner, i strolled forth to have a peep at the country which could produce so generous a meal. to my surprise, a fine strip of land in the vicinity of the hamlet, and protected seaward by a grove of cocoa-nut and bread-fruit trees, was under high cultivation. sweet potatoes, indian turnips, and yams were growing; also melons, a few pine-apples, and other fruits. still more pleasing was the sight of young bread-fruit and cocoa-nut trees set out with great care, as if, for once, the improvident polynesian had thought of his posterity. but this was the only instance of native thrift which ever came under my observation. for, in all my rambles over tahiti and imeeo, nothing so much struck me as the comparative scarcity of these trees in many places where they ought to abound. entire valleys, like martair, of inexhaustible fertility are abandoned to all the rankness of untamed vegetation. alluvial flats bordering the sea, and watered by streams from the mountains, are over-grown with a wild, scrub guava-bush, introduced by foreigners, and which spreads with such fatal rapidity that the natives, standing still while it grows, anticipate its covering the entire island. even tracts of clear land, which, with so little pains, might be made to wave with orchards, lie wholly neglected. when i considered their unequalled soil and climate, thus unaccountably slighted, i often turned in amazement upon the natives about papeetee; some of whom all but starve in their gardens run to waste. upon other islands which i have visited, of similar fertility, and wholly unreclaimed from their first-discovered condition, no spectacle of this sort was presented. the high estimation in which many of their fruit-trees are held by the tahitians and imeeose--their beauty in the landscape--their manifold uses, and the facility with which they are propagated, are considerations which render the remissness alluded to still more unaccountable. the cocoa-palm is as an example; a tree by far the most important production of nature in the tropics. to the polynesians it is emphatically the tree of life; transcending even the bread-fruit in the multifarious uses to which it is applied. its very aspect is imposing. asserting its supremacy by an erect and lofty bearing, it may be said to compare with other trees as man with inferior creatures. the blessings it confers are incalculable. year after year, the islander reposes beneath its shade, both eating and drinking of its fruit; he thatches his hut with its boughs, and weaves them into baskets to carry his food; he cools himself with a fan platted from the young leaflets, and shields his head from the sun by a bonnet of the leaves; sometimes he clothes himself with the cloth-like substance which wraps round the base of the stalks, whose elastic rods, strung with filberts, are used as a taper; the larger nuts, thinned and polished, furnish him with a beautiful goblet: the smaller ones, with bowls for his pipes; the dry husks kindle his fires; their fibres are twisted into fishing-lines and cords for his canoes; he heals his wounds with a balsam compounded from the juice of the nut; and with the oil extracted from its meat embalms the bodies of the dead. the noble trunk itself is far from being valueless. sawn into posts, it upholds the islander's dwelling; converted into charcoal, it cooks his food; and supported on blocks of stone, rails in his lands. he impels his canoe through the water with a paddle of the wood, and goes to battle with clubs and spears of the same hard material. in pagan tahiti a cocoa-nut branch was the symbol of regal authority. laid upon the sacrifice in the temple, it made the offering sacred; and with it the priests chastised and put to flight the evil spirits which assailed them. the supreme majesty of oro, the great god of their mythology, was declared in the cocoa-nut log from which his image was rudely carved. upon one of the tonga islands, there stands a living tree revered itself as a deity. even upon the sandwich islands, the cocoa-palm retains all its ancient reputation; the people there having thought of adopting it as the national emblem. the cocoa-nut is planted as follows: selecting a suitable place, you drop into the ground a fully ripe nut, and leave it. in a few days, a thin, lance-like shoot forces itself through a minute hole in the shell, pierces the husk, and soon unfolds three pale-green leaves in the air; while originating, in the same soft white sponge which now completely fills the nut, a pair of fibrous roots, pushing away the stoppers which close two holes in an opposite direction, penetrate the shell, and strike vertically into the ground. a day or two more, and the shell and husk, which, in the last and germinating stage of the nut, are so hard that a knife will scarcely make any impression, spontaneously burst by some force within; and, henceforth, the hardy young plant thrives apace; and needing no culture, pruning, or attention of any sort, rapidly advances to maturity. in four or five years it bears; in twice as many more, it begins to lift its head among the groves, where, waxing strong, it flourishes for near a century. thus, as some voyager has said, the man who but drops one of these nuts into the ground may be said to confer a greater and more certain benefit upon himself and posterity than many a life's toil in less genial climes. the fruitfulness of the tree is remarkable. as long as it lives it bears, and without intermission. two hundred nuts, besides innumerable white blossoms of others, may be seen upon it at one time; and though a whole year is required to bring any one of them to the germinating point, no two, perhaps, are at one time in precisely the same stage of growth. the tree delights in a maritime situation. in its greatest perfection, it is perhaps found right on the seashore, where its roots are actually washed. but such instances are only met with upon islands where the swell of the sea is prevented from breaking on the beach by an encircling reef. no saline flavour is perceptible in the nut produced in such a place. although it bears in any soil, whether upland or bottom, it does not flourish vigorously inland; and i have frequently observed that, when met with far up the valley, its tall stem inclines seaward, as if pining after a more genial region. it is a curious fact that if you deprive the cocoa-nut tree of the verdant tuft at its head, it dies at once; and if allowed to stand thus, the trunk, which, when alive, is encased in so hard a bark as to be almost impervious to a bullet, moulders away, and, in an incredibly short period, becomes dust. this is, perhaps, partly owing to the peculiar constitution of the trunk, a mere cylinder of minute hollow reeds, closely packed, and very hard; but, when exposed at top, peculiarly fitted to convey moisture and decay through the entire stem. the finest orchard of cocoa-palms i know, and the only plantation of them i ever saw at the islands, is one that stands right upon the southern shore of papeetee bay. they were set out by the first pomaree, almost half a century ago; and the soil being especially adapted to their growth, the noble trees now form a magnificent grove, nearly a mile in extent. no other plant, scarcely a bush, is to be seen within its precincts. the broom road passes through its entire length. at noonday, this grove is one of the most beautiful, serene, witching places that ever was seen. high overhead are ranges of green rustling arches; through which the sun's rays come down to you in sparkles. you seem to be wandering through illimitable halls of pillars; everywhere you catch glimpses of stately aisles, intersecting each other at all points. a strange silence, too, reigns far and near; the air flushed with the mellow stillness of a sunset. but after the long morning calms, the sea-breeze comes in; and creeping over the tops of these thousand trees, they nod their plumes. soon the breeze freshens; and you hear the branches brushing against each other; and the flexible trunks begin to sway. toward evening the whole grove is rocking to and fro; and the traveller on the broom road is startled by the frequent falling of the nuts, snapped from their brittle stems. they come flying through the air, ringing like jugglers' balls; and often bound along the ground for many rods. chapter lxx. 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. chapter lxxi. we start for taloo bright was the morning, and brighter still the smiles of the young ladies who accompanied us, when we sprang into a sort of family canoe--wide and roomy--and bade adieu to the hospitable marharvai and his tenantry. as we paddled away, they stood upon the beach, waving their hands, and crying out, "aroha! aroha!" (farewell! farewell!) as long as we were within hearing. very sad at parting with them, we endeavoured, nevertheless, to console ourselves in the society of our fellow-passengers. among these were two old ladies; but as they said nothing to us, we will say nothing about them; nor anything about the old men who managed the canoe. but of the three mischievous, dark-eyed young witches who lounged in the stern of that comfortable old island gondola, i have a great deal to say. in the first place, one of them was marhar-rarrar, the bright-eyed; and, in the second place, neither she nor the romps, her companions, ever dreamed of taking the voyage until the doctor and myself announced our intention; their going along was nothing more than a madcap frolic; in short, they were a parcel of wicked hoydens, bent on mischief, who laughed in your face when you looked sentimental, and only tolerated your company when making merry at your expense. something or other about us was perpetually awaking their mirth. attributing this to his own remarkable figure, the doctor increased their enjoyment by assuming the part of a merry andrew. yet his cap and bells never jingled but to some tune; and while playing the tom-fool, i more than suspected that he was trying to play the rake. at home, it is deemed auspicious to go a-wooing in epaulets; but among the polynesians, your best dress in courting is motley. a fresh breeze springing up, we set our sail of matting, and glided along as tranquilly as if floating upon an inland stream; the white reef on one hand, and the green shore on the other. soon, as we turned a headland, we encountered another canoe, paddling with might and main in an opposite direction; the strangers shouting to each other, and a tall fellow in the bow dancing up and down like a crazy man. they shot by us like an arrow, though our fellow-voyagers shouted again and again for them to cease paddling. according to the natives, this was a kind of royal mail-canoe, carrying a message from the queen to her friends in a distant part of the island. passing several shady bowers which looked quite inviting, we proposed touching, and diversifying the monotony of a sea-voyage by a stroll ashore. so, forcing our canoe among the bushes, behind a decayed palm lying partly in the water, we left the old folks to take a nap in the shade, and gallanted the others among the trees, which were here trellised with vines and creeping shrubs. in the early part of the afternoon, we drew near the place to which the party were going. it was a solitary house inhabited by four or five old women, who, when we entered, were gathered in a circle about the mats, eating poee from a cracked calabash. they seemed delighted at seeing our companions, but rather drew up when introduced to ourselves. eyeing us distrustfully, they whispered to know who we were. the answers they received were not satisfactory; for they treated us with marked coolness and reserve, and seemed desirous of breaking off our acquaintance with the girls. unwilling, therefore, to stay where our company was disagreeable, we resolved to depart without even eating a meal. informed of this, marhar-rarrar and her companions evinced the most lively concern; and equally unmindful of their former spirits, and the remonstrances of the old ladies, broke forth into sobs and lamentations which were not to be withstood. we agreed, therefore, to tarry until they left for home; which would be at the "aheharar," or falling of the sun; in other words, at sunset. when the hour arrived, after much leave-taking, we saw them safely embarked. as the canoe turned a bluff, they seized the paddles from the hands of the old men, and waved them silently in the air. this was meant for a touching farewell, as the paddle is only waved thus when the parties separating never more expect to meet. we now continued our journey; and, following the beach, soon came to a level and lofty overhanging bank, which, planted here and there with trees, took a broad sweep round a considerable part of the island. a fine pathway skirted the edge of the bank; and often we paused to admire the scenery. the evening was still and fair, even for so heavenly a climate; and all round, as far as the eye could reach, was the blending blue sky and ocean. as we went on, the reef-belt still accompanied us; turning as we turned, and thundering its distant bass upon the ear, like the unbroken roar of a cataract. dashing forever against their coral rampart, the breakers looked, in the distance, like a line of rearing white chargers, reined in, tossing their white manes, and bridling with foam. these great natural breakwaters are admirably designed for the protection of the land. nearly all the society islands are defended by them. were the vast swells of the pacific to break against the soft alluvial bottoms which in many places border the sea, the soil would soon be washed away, and the natives be thus deprived of their most productive lands. as it is, the banks of no rivulet are firmer. but the coral barriers answer another purpose. they form all the harbours of this group, including the twenty-four round about the shores of tahiti. curiously enough, the openings in the reefs, by which alone vessels enter to their anchorage, are invariably opposite the mouths of running streams: an advantage fully appreciated by the mariner who touches for the purpose of watering his ship. it is said that the fresh water of the land, mixing with the salts held in solution by the sea, so acts upon the latter as to resist the formation of the coral; and hence the breaks. here and there, these openings are sentinelled, as it were, by little fairy islets, green as emerald, and waving with palms. strangely and beautifully diversifying the long line of breakers, no objects can strike the fancy more vividly. pomaree ii., with a taste in watering-places truly tahitian, selected one of them as a royal retreat. we passed it on our journey. omitting several further adventures which befell us after leaving the party from loohooloo, we must now hurry on to relate what happened just before reaching the place of our destination. chapter lxxii. a dealer in the contraband it must have been at least the tenth day, reckoning from the hegira, that we found ourselves the guests of varvy, an old hermit of an islander who kept house by himself perhaps a couple of leagues from taloo. a stone's-cast from the beach there was a fantastic rock, moss-grown and deep in a dell. it was insulated by a shallow brook, which, dividing its waters, flowed on both sides until united below. twisting its roots round the rock, a gnarled "aoa" spread itself overhead in a wilderness of foliage; the elastic branch-roots depending from the larger boughs insinuating themselves into every cleft, thus forming supports to the parent stem. in some places these pendulous branches, half-grown, had not yet reached the rock; swinging their loose fibrous ends in the air like whiplashes. varvy's hut, a mere coop of bamboos, was perched upon a level part of the rock, the ridge-pole resting at one end in a crotch of the "aoa," and the other propped by a forked bough planted in a fissure. notwithstanding our cries as we drew near, the first hint the old hermit received of our approach was the doctor's stepping up and touching his shoulder, as he was kneeling over on a stone cleaning fish in the brook. he leaped up, and stared at us. but with a variety of uncouth gestures, he soon made us welcome; informing us, by the same means, that he was both deaf and dumb; he then motioned us into his dwelling. going in, we threw ourselves upon an old mat, and peered round. the soiled bamboos and calabashes looked so uninviting that the doctor was for pushing on to taloo that night, notwithstanding it was near sunset. but at length we concluded to stay where we were. after a good deal of bustling outside under a decrepit shed, the old man made his appearance with our supper. in one hand he held a flickering taper, and in the other, a huge, flat calabash, scantily filled with viands. his eyes were dancing in his head, and he looked from the calabash to us, and from us to the calabash, as much as to say, "ah, my lads, what do ye think of this, eh? pretty good cheer, eh?" but the fish and indian turnip being none of the best, we made but a sorry meal. while discussing it, the old man tried hard to make himself understood by signs; most of which were so excessively ludicrous that we made no doubt he was perpetrating a series of pantomimic jokes. the remnants of the feast removed, our host left us for a moment, returning with a calabash of portly dimensions and furnished with a long, hooked neck, the mouth of which was stopped with a wooden plug. it was covered with particles of earth, and looked as if just taken from some place underground. with sundry winks and horrible giggles peculiar to the dumb, the vegetable demijohn was now tapped; the old fellow looking round cautiously, and pointing at it; as much as to intimate that it contained something which was "taboo," or forbidden. aware that intoxicating liquors were strictly prohibited to the natives, we now watched our entertainer with much interest. charging a cocoa-nut shell, he tossed it off, and then filling up again, presented the goblet to me. disliking the smell, i made faces at it; upon which he became highly excited; so much so that a miracle was wrought upon the spot. snatching the cup from my hands, he shouted out, "ah, karhowree sabbee lee-lee ena arva tee maitai!" in other words, what a blockhead of a white man! this is the real stuff! we could not have been more startled had a frog leaped from his mouth. for an instant, he looked confused enough himself; and then placing a finger mysteriously upon his mouth, he contrived to make us understand that at times he was subject to a suspension of the powers of speech. deeming the phenomenon a remarkable one, every way, the doctor desired him to open his mouth so that he might have a look down. but he refused. this occurrence made us rather suspicious of our host; nor could we afterward account for his conduct, except by supposing that his feigning dumbness might in some way or other assist him in the nefarious pursuits in which it afterwards turned out that he was engaged. this conclusion, however, was not altogether satisfactory. to oblige him, we at last took a sip of his "arva tee," and found it very crude, and strong as lucifer. curious to know whence it was obtained, we questioned him; when, lighting up with pleasure, he seized the taper, and led us outside the hut, bidding us follow. after going some distance through the woods, we came to a dismantled old shed of boughs, apparently abandoned to decay. underneath, nothing was to be seen but heaps of decaying leaves and an immense, clumsy jar, wide-mouthed, and by some means, rudely hollowed out from a ponderous stone. here, for a while, we were left to ourselves; the old man placing the light in the jar, and then disappearing. he returned, carrying a long, large bamboo, and a crotched stick. throwing these down, he poked under a pile of rubbish, and brought out a rough block of wood, pierced through and through with a hole, which was immediately clapped on the top of the jar. then planting the crotched stick upright about two yards distant, and making it sustain one end of the bamboo, he inserted the other end of the latter into the hole in the block: concluding these arrangements by placing an old calabash under the farther end of the bamboo. coming up to us now with a sly, significant look, and pointing admiringly at his apparatus, he exclaimed, "ah, karhowree, ena hannahanna arva tee!" as much as to say, "this, you see, is the way it's done." his contrivance was nothing less than a native still, where he manufactured his island "poteen." the disarray in which we found it was probably intentional, as a security against detection. before we left the shed, the old fellow toppled the whole concern over, and dragged it away piecemeal. his disclosing his secret to us thus was characteristic of the "tootai owrees," or contemners of the missionaries among the natives; who, presuming that all foreigners are opposed to the ascendancy of the missionaries, take pleasure in making them confidants, whenever the enactments of their rulers are secretly set at nought. the substance from which the liquor is produced is called "tee," which is a large, fibrous root, something like yam, but smaller. in its green state, it is exceedingly acrid; but boiled or baked, has the sweetness of the sugar-cane. after being subjected to the fire, macerated and reduced to a certain stage of fermentation, the "tee" is stirred up with water, and is then ready for distillation. on returning to the hut, pipes were introduced; and, after a while, long ghost, who, at first, had relished the "arva tee" as little as myself, to my surprise, began to wax sociable over it, with varvy; and, before long, absolutely got mellow, the old toper keeping him company. it was a curious sight. everyone knows that, so long as the occasion lasts, there is no stronger bond of sympathy and good feeling among men than getting tipsy together. and how earnestly, nay, movingly, a brace of worthies, thus employed, will endeavour to shed light upon, and elucidate their mystical ideas! fancy varvy and the doctor, then, lovingly tippling, and brimming over with a desire to become better acquainted; the doctor politely bent upon carrying on the conversation in the language of his host, and the old hermit persisting in trying to talk english. the result was that, between the two, they made such a fricassee of vowels and consonants that it was enough to turn one's brain. the next morning, on waking, i heard a voice from the tombs. it was the doctor solemnly pronouncing himself a dead man. he was sitting up, with both hands clasped over his forehead, and his pale face a thousand times paler than ever. "that infernal stuff has murdered me!" he cried. "heavens! my head's all wheels and springs, like the automaton chess-player! what's to be done, paul? i'm poisoned." but, after drinking a herbal draught concocted by our host, and eating a light meal, at noon, he felt much better; so much so that he declared himself ready to continue our journey. when we came to start, the yankee's boots were missing; and, after a diligent search, were not to be found. enraged beyond measure, their proprietor said that varvy must have stolen them; but, considering his hospitality, i thought this extremely improbable; though to whom else to impute the theft i knew not. the doctor maintained, however, that one who was capable of drugging an innocent traveller with "arva tee" was capable of anything. but it was in vain that he stormed, and varvy and i searched; the boots were gone. were it not for this mysterious occurrence, and varvy's detestable liquors, i would here recommend all travellers going round by the beach to partoowye to stop at the rock, and patronize the old gentleman--the more especially as he entertains gratis. chapter lxxiii. our reception in partoowye upon starting, at last, i flung away my sandals--by this time quite worn out--with the view of keeping company with the doctor, now forced to go barefooted. recovering his spirits in good time, he protested that boots were a bore after all, and going without them decidedly manly. this was said, be it observed, while strolling along over a soft carpet of grass; a little moist, even at midday, from the shade of the wood through which we were passing. emerging from this we entered upon a blank, sandy tract, upon which the sun's rays fairly flashed; making the loose gravel under foot well nigh as hot as the floor of an oven. such yelling and leaping as there was in getting over this ground would be hard to surpass. we could not have crossed at all--until toward sunset--had it not been for a few small, wiry bushes growing here and there, into which we every now and then thrust our feet to cool. there was no little judgment necessary in selecting your bush; for if not chosen judiciously, the chances were that, on springing forward again, and finding the next bush so far off that an intermediate cooling was indispensable, you would have to run back to your old place again. safely passing the sahara, or fiery desert, we soothed our half-blistered feet by a pleasant walk through a meadow of long grass, which soon brought us in sight of a few straggling houses, sheltered by a grove on the outskirts of the village of partoowye. my comrade was for entering the first one we came to; but, on drawing near, they had so much of an air of pretension, at least for native dwellings, that i hesitated; thinking they might be the residences of the higher chiefs, from whom no very extravagant welcome was to be anticipated. while standing irresolute, a voice from the nearest house hailed us: "aramai! aramai, karhowree!" (come in! come in, strangers!) we at once entered, and were warmly greeted. the master of the house was an aristocratic-looking islander, dressed in loose linen drawers, a fine white shirt, and a sash of red silk tied about the waist, after the fashion of the spaniards in chili. he came up to us with a free, frank air, and, striking his chest with his hand, introduced himself as ereemear po-po; or, to render the christian name back again into english--jeremiah po-po. these curious combinations of names among the people of the society islands originate in the following way. when a native is baptized, his patronymic often gives offence to the missionaries, and they insist upon changing to something else whatever is objectionable therein. so, when jeremiah came to the font, and gave his name as narmo-nana po-po (something equivalent to the-darer-of-devils-by-night), the reverend gentleman officiating told him that such a heathenish appellation would never do, and a substitute must be had; at least for the devil part of it. some highly respectable christian appellations were then submitted, from which the candidate for admission into the church was at liberty to choose. there was adamo (adam), nooar (noah), daveedar (david), earcobar (james), eorna (john), patoora (peter), ereemear (jeremiah), etc. and thus did he come to be named jeremiah po-po; or, jeremiah-in-the-dark--which he certainly was, i fancy, as to the ridiculousness of his new cognomen. we gave our names in return; upon which he bade us be seated; and, sitting down himself, asked us a great many questions, in mixed english and tahitian. after giving some directions to an old man to prepare food, our host's wife, a large, benevolent-looking woman, upwards of forty, also sat down by us. in our soiled and travel-stained appearance, the good lady seemed to find abundant matter for commiseration; and all the while kept looking at us piteously, and making mournful exclamations. but jeremiah and his spouse were not the only inmates of the mansion. in one corner, upon a large native couch, elevated upon posts, reclined a nymph; who, half-veiled in her own long hair, had yet to make her toilet for the day. she was the daughter of po-po; and a very beautiful little daughter she was; not more than fourteen; with the most delightful shape--like a bud just blown; and large hazel eyes. they called her loo; a name rather pretty and genteel, and therefore quite appropriate; for a more genteel and lady-like little damsel there was not in all imeeo. she was a cold and haughty young beauty though, this same little loo, and never deigned to notice us; further than now and then to let her eyes float over our persons, with an expression of indolent indifference. with the tears of the loohooloo girls hardly dry from their sobbing upon our shoulders, this contemptuous treatment stung us not a little. when we first entered, po-po was raking smooth the carpet of dried ferns which had that morning been newly laid; and now that our meal was ready, it was spread on a banana leaf, right upon this fragrant floor. here we lounged at our ease, eating baked pig and breadfruit off earthen plates, and using, for the first time in many a long month, real knives and forks. these, as well as other symptoms of refinement, somewhat abated our surprise at the reserve of the little loo; her parents, doubtless, were magnates in partoowye, and she herself was an heiress. after being informed of our stay in the vale of martair, they were very curious to know on what errand we came to taloo. we merely hinted that the ship lying in the harbour was the reason of our coming. arfretee, po-po's wife, was a right motherly body. the meal over, she recommended a nap; and upon our waking much refreshed, she led us to the doorway, and pointed down among the trees; through which we saw the gleam of water. taking the hint, we repaired thither; and finding a deep shaded pool, bathed, and returned to the house. our hostess now sat down by us; and after looking with great interest at the doctor's cloak, felt of my own soiled and tattered garments for the hundredth time, and exclaimed plaintively--"ah nuee nuee olee manee! olee manee!" (alas! they are very, very old! very old!) when arfretee, good soul, thus addressed us, she thought she was talking very respectable english. the word "nuee" is so familiar to foreigners throughout polynesia, and is so often used by them in their intercourse with the natives, that the latter suppose it to be common to all mankind. "olee manee" is the native pronunciation of "old man," which, by society islanders talking saxon, is applied indiscriminately to all aged things and persons whatsoever. going to a chest filled with various european articles, she took out two suits of new sailor frocks and trousers; and presenting them with a gracious smile, pushed us behind a calico screen, and left us. without any fastidious scruples, we donned the garments; and what with the meal, the nap, and the bath, we now came forth like a couple of bridegrooms. evening drawing on, lamps were lighted. they were very simple; the half of a green melon, about one third full of cocoa-nut oil, and a wick of twisted tappa floating on the surface. as a night lamp, this contrivance cannot be excelled; a soft dreamy light being shed through the transparent rind. as the evening advanced, other members of the household, whom as yet we had not seen, began to drop in. there was a slender young dandy in a gay striped shirt, and whole fathoms of bright figured calico tucked about his waist, and falling to the ground. he wore a new straw hat also with three distinct ribbons tied about the crown; one black, one green, and one pink. shoes or stockings, however, he had none. there were a couple of delicate, olive-cheeked little girls--twins--with mild eyes and beautiful hair, who ran about the house, half-naked, like a couple of gazelles. they had a brother, somewhat younger--a fine dark boy, with an eye like a woman's. all these were the children of po-po, begotten in lawful wedlock. then there were two or three queer-looking old ladies, who wore shabby mantles of soiled sheeting, which fitted so badly, and withal had such a second-hand look that i at once put their wearers down as domestic paupers--poor relations, supported by the bounty of my lady arfretee. they were sad, meek old bodies; said little and ate less; and either kept their eyes on the ground, or lifted them up deferentially. the semi-civilization of the island must have had something to do with making them what they were. i had almost forgotten monee, the grinning old man who prepared our meal. his head was a shining, bald globe. he had a round little paunch, and legs like a cat. he was po-po's factotum--cook, butler, and climber of the bread-fruit and cocoa-nut trees; and, added to all else, a mighty favourite with his mistress; with whom he would sit smoking and gossiping by the hour. often you saw the indefatigable monee working away at a great rate; then dropping his employment all at once--never mind what--run off to a little distance, and after rolling himself away in a corner and taking a nap, jump up again, and fall to with fresh vigour. from a certain something in the behaviour of po-po and his household, i was led to believe that he was a pillar of the church; though, from what i had seen in tahiti, i could hardly reconcile such a supposition with his frank, cordial, unembarrassed air. but i was not wrong in my conjecture: po-po turned out to be a sort of elder, or deacon; he was also accounted a man of wealth, and was nearly related to a high chief. before retiring, the entire household gathered upon the floor; and in their midst, he read aloud a chapter from a tahitian bible. then kneeling with the rest of us, he offered up a prayer. upon its conclusion, all separated without speaking. these devotions took place regularly, every night and morning. grace too was invariably said, by this family, both before and after eating. after becoming familiarized with the almost utter destitution of anything like practical piety upon these islands, what i observed in our host's house astonished me much. but whatever others might have been, po-po was, in truth, a christian: the only one, arfretee excepted, whom i personally knew to be such, among all the natives of polynesia. chapter lxxiv. retiring for the night--the doctor grows devout they put us to bed very pleasantly. lying across the foot of po-po's nuptial couch was a smaller one made of koar-wood; a thin, strong cord, twisted from the fibres of the husk of the cocoa-nut, and woven into an exceedingly light sort of network, forming its elastic body. spread upon this was a single, fine mat, with a roll of dried ferns for a pillow, and a strip of white tappa for a sheet. this couch was mine. the doctor was provided for in another corner. loo reposed alone on a little settee with a taper burning by her side; the dandy, her brother, swinging overhead in a sailor's hammock the two gazelles frisked upon a mat near by; and the indigent relations borrowed a scant corner of the old butler's pallet, who snored away by the open door. after all had retired, po-po placed the illuminated melon in the middle of the apartment; and so, we all slumbered till morning. upon awaking, the sun was streaming brightly through the open bamboos, but no one was stirring. after surveying the fine attitudes into which forgetfulness had thrown at least one of the sleepers, my attention was called off to the general aspect of the dwelling, which was quite significant of the superior circumstances of our host. the house itself was built in the simple, but tasteful native style. it was a long, regular oval, some fifty feet in length, with low sides of cane-work, and a roof thatched with palmetto-leaves. the ridgepole was, perhaps, twenty feet from the ground. there was no foundation whatever; the bare earth being merely covered with ferns; a kind of carpeting which serves very well, if frequently renewed; otherwise, it becomes dusty, and the haunt of vermin, as in the huts of the poorer natives. besides the couches, the furniture consisted of three or four sailor chests; in which were stored the fine wearing-apparel of the household--the ruffled linen shirts of po-po, the calico dresses of his wife and children, and divers odds and ends of european articles--strings of beads, ribbons, dutch looking-glasses, knives, coarse prints, bunches of keys, bits of crockery, and metal buttons. one of these chests--used as a bandbox by arfretee--contained several of the native hats (coal-scuttles), all of the same pattern, but trimmed with variously-coloured ribbons. of nothing was our good hostess more proud than of these hats, and her dresses. on sundays, she went abroad a dozen times; and every time, like queen elizabeth, in a different robe. po-po, for some reason or other, always gave us our meals before the rest of the family were served; and the doctor, who was very discerning in such matters, declared that we fared much better than they. certain it was that, had ereemear's guests travelled with purses, portmanteau, and letters of introduction to the queen, they could not have been better cared for. the day after our arrival, monee, the old butler, brought us in for dinner a small pig, baked in the ground. all savoury, it lay in a wooden trencher, surrounded by roasted hemispheres of the breadfruit. a large calabash, filled with taro pudding, or poee, followed; and the young dandy, overcoming his customary languor, threw down our cocoa-nuts from an adjoining tree. when all was ready, and the household looking on, long ghost, devoutly clasping his hands over the fated pig, implored a blessing. hereupon, everybody present looked exceedingly pleased; po-po coming up and addressing the doctor with much warmth; and arfretee, regarding him with almost maternal affection, exclaimed delightedly, "ah! mickonaree tata matai!" in other words, "what a pious young man!" it was just after this meal that she brought me a roll of grass sinnate (of the kind which sailors sew into the frame of their tarpaulins), and then, handing me needle and thread, bade me begin at once, and make myself the hat which i so much needed. an accomplished hand at the business, i finished it that day--merely stitching the braid together; and arfretee, by way of rewarding my industry, with her own olive hands ornamented the crown with a band of flame-coloured ribbon; the two long ends of which streaming behind, sailor-fashion, still preserved for me the eastern title bestowed by long ghost. chapter lxxv. a ramble through the settlement the following morning, making our toilets carefully, we donned our sombreros, and sallied out on a tour. without meaning to reveal our designs upon the court, our principal object was, to learn what chances there were for white men to obtain employment under the queen. on this head, it is true, we had questioned po-po; but his answers had been very discouraging; so we determined to obtain further information elsewhere. but, first, to give some little description of the village. the settlement of partoowye is nothing more than some eighty houses, scattered here and there, in the midst of an immense grove, where the trees have been thinned out and the underbrush cleared away. through the grove flows a stream; and the principal avenue crosses it, over an elastic bridge of cocoa-nut trunks, laid together side by side. the avenue is broad, and serpentine; well shaded from one end to the other, and as pretty a place for a morning promenade as any lounger could wish. the houses, constructed without the slightest regard to the road, peep into view from among the trees on either side: some looking you right in the face as you pass, and others, without any manners, turning their backs. occasionally you observe a rural retreat, inclosed by a picket of bamboos, or with a solitary pane of glass massively framed in the broadside of the dwelling, or with a rude, strange-looking door, swinging upon dislocated wooden hinges. otherwise, the dwellings are built in the original style of the natives; and never mind how mean and filthy some of them may appear within, they all look picturesque enough without. as we sauntered along the people we met saluted us pleasantly, and invited us into their houses; and in this way we made a good many brief morning calls. but the hour could not have been the fashionable one in partoowye, since the ladies were invariably in dishabille. but they always gave us a cordial reception, and were particularly polite to the doctor; caressing him, and amorously hanging about his neck; wonderfully taken up, in short, with a gay handkerchief he wore there. arfretee had that morning bestowed it upon the pious youth. with some exceptions, the general appearance of the natives of partoowye was far better than that of the inhabitants of papeetee: a circumstance only to be imputed to their restricted intercourse with foreigners. strolling on, we turned a sweep of the road, when the doctor gave a start; and no wonder. right before us, in the grove, was a block of houses: regular square frames, boarded over, furnished with windows and doorways, and two stories high. we ran up and found them fast going to decay: very dingy, and here and there covered with moss; no sashes, no doors; and on one side, the entire block had settled down nearly a foot. on going into the basement we looked clean up through the unbearded timbers to the roof; where rays of light, glimmering through many a chink, illuminated the cobwebs which swung all round. the whole interior was dark and close. burrowing among some old mats in one corner, like a parcel of gipsies in a ruin, were a few vagabond natives. they had their dwelling here. curious to know who on earth could have been thus trying to improve the value of real estate in partoowye, we made inquiries; and learned that some years previous the block had been thrown up by a veritable yankee (one might have known that), a house-carpenter by trade, and a bold, enterprising fellow by nature. put ashore from his ship, sick, he first went to work and got well; then sallied out with chisel and plane, and made himself generally useful. a sober, steady man, it seems, he at last obtained the confidence of several chiefs, and soon filled them with all sorts of ideas concerning the alarming want of public spirit in the people of imeeo. more especially did he dwell upon the humiliating fact of their living in paltry huts of bamboo, when magnificent palaces of boards might so easily be mortised together. in the end, these representations so far prevailed with one old chief that the carpenter was engaged to build a batch of these wonderful palaces. provided with plenty of men, he at once set to work: built a saw-mill among the mountains, felled trees, and sent over to papeetee for nails. presto! the castle rose; but alas, the roof was hardly on, when the yankee's patron, having speculated beyond his means, broke all to pieces, and was absolutely unable to pay one "plug" of tobacco in the pound. his failure involved the carpenter, who sailed away from his creditors in the very next ship that touched at the harbour. the natives despised the rickety palace of boards; and often lounged by, wagging their heads, and jeering. we were told that the queen's residence was at the extreme end of the village; so, without waiting for the doctor to procure a fiddle, we suddenly resolved upon going thither at once, and learning whether any privy counsellorships were vacant. now, although there was a good deal of my waggish comrade's nonsense about what has been said concerning our expectations of court preferment, we, nevertheless, really thought that something to our advantage might turn up in that quarter. on approaching the palace grounds, we found them rather peculiar. a broad pier of hewn coral rocks was built right out into the water; and upon this, and extending into a grove adjoining, were some eight or ten very large native houses, constructed in the handsomest style and inclosed together by a low picket of bamboos, which embraced a considerable area. throughout the society islands, the residences of the chiefs are mostly found in the immediate vicinity of the sea; a site which gives them the full benefit of a cooling breeze; nor are they so liable to the annoyance of insects; besides enjoying, when they please, the fine shade afforded by the neighbouring groves, always most luxuriant near the water. lounging about the grounds were some sixty or eighty handsomely-dressed natives, men and women; some reclining on the shady side of the houses, others under the trees, and a small group conversing close by the railing facing us. we went up to the latter; and giving the usual salutation, were on the point of vaulting over the bamboos, when they turned upon us angrily, and said we could not enter. we stated our earnest desire to see the queen; hinting that we were bearers of important dispatches. but it was to no purpose; and not a little vexed, we were obliged to return to po-po's without effecting anything. chapter lxxvi. an island jilt--we visit the ship upon arriving home we fully laid open to po-po our motives in visiting taloo, and begged his friendly advice. in his broken english he cheerfully gave us all the information we needed. it was true, he said, that the queen entertained some idea of making a stand against the french; and it was currently reported also that several chiefs from borabora, huwyenee, raiatair, and tahar, the leeward islands of the group, were at that very time taking counsel with her as to the expediency of organizing a general movement throughout the entire cluster, with a view of anticipating any further encroachments on the part of the invaders. should warlike measures be actually decided upon, it was quite certain that pomaree would be glad to enlist all the foreigners she could; but as to her making officers of either the doctor or me, that was out of the question; because, already, a number of europeans, well known to her, had volunteered as such. concerning our getting immediate access to the queen, po-po told us it was rather doubtful; she living at that time very retired, in poor health, and spirits, and averse to receiving calls. previous to her misfortunes, however, no one, however humble, was denied admittance to her presence; sailors, even, attended her levees. not at all disheartened by these things, we concluded to kill time in partoowye until some event turned up more favourable to our projects. so that very day we sallied out on an excursion to the ship which, lying land-locked far up the bay, yet remained to be visited. passing on our route a long, low shed, a voice hailed us--"white men ahoy!" turning round, who should we see but a rosy-cheeked englishman (you could tell his country at a glance), up to his knees in shavings, and planing away at a bench. he turned out to be a runaway ship's carpenter, recently from tahiti, and now doing a profitable business in imeeo, by fitting up the dwellings of opulent chiefs with cupboards and other conveniences, and once in a while trying his hand at a lady's work-box. he had been in the settlement but a few months, and already possessed houses and lands. but though blessed with prosperity and high health, there was one thing wanting--a wife. and when he came to speak of the matter, his countenance fell, and he leaned dejectedly upon his plane. "it's too bad!" he sighed, "to wait three long years; and all the while, dear little lullee living in the same house with that infernal chief from tahar!" our curiosity was piqued; the poor carpenter, then, had been falling in love with some island coquette, who was going to jilt him. but such was not the case. there was a law prohibiting, under a heavy penalty, the marriage of a native with a foreigner, unless the latter, after being three years a resident on the island, was willing to affirm his settled intention of remaining for life. william was therefore in a sad way. he told us that he might have married the girl half-a-dozen times, had it not been for this odious law: but, latterly, she had become less loving and more giddy, particularly with the strangers from tahar. desperately smitten, and desirous of securing her at all hazards, he had proposed to the damsel's friends a nice little arrangement, introductory to marriage; but they would not hear of it; besides, if the pair were discovered living together upon such a footing, they would be liable to a degrading punishment:--sent to work making stone walls and opening roads for the queen. doctor long ghost was all sympathy. "bill, my good fellow," said he, tremulously, "let me go and talk to her." but bill, declining the offer, would not even inform us where his charmer lived. leaving the disconsolate willie planing a plank of new zealand pine (an importation from the bay of islands), and thinking the while of lullee, we went on our way. how his suit prospered in the end we never learned. going from po-po's house toward the anchorage of the harbour of taloo, you catch no glimpse of the water until, coming out from deep groves, you all at once find yourself upon the beach. a bay, considered by many voyagers the most beautiful in the south seas, then lies before you. you stand upon one side of what seems a deep green river, flowing through mountain passes to the sea. right opposite a majestic promontory divides the inlet from another, called after its discoverer, captain cook. the face of this promontory toward taloo is one verdant wall; and at its base the waters lie still and fathomless. on the left hand, you just catch a peep of the widening mouth of the bay, the break in the reef by which ships enter, and, beyond, the sea. to the right, the inlet, sweeping boldly round the promontory, runs far away into the land; where, save in one direction, the hills close in on every side, knee-deep in verdure and shooting aloft in grotesque peaks. the open space lies at the head of the bay; in the distance it extends into a broad hazy plain lying at the foot of an amphitheatre of hills. here is the large sugar plantation previously alluded to. beyond the first range of hills, you descry the sharp pinnacles of the interior; and among these, the same silent marling-spike which we so often admired from the other side of the island. all alone in the harbour lay the good ship leviathan. we jumped into the canoe, and paddled off to her. though early in the afternoon, everything was quiet; but upon mounting the side we found four or five sailors lounging about the forecastle, under an awning. they gave us no very cordial reception; and though otherwise quite hearty in appearance, seemed to assume a look of ill-humour on purpose to honour our arrival. there was much eagerness to learn whether we wanted to "ship"; and by the unpleasant accounts they gave of the vessel, they seemed desirous to prevent such a thing if possible. we asked where the rest of the ship's company were; a gruff old fellow made answer, "one boat's crew of 'em is gone to davy jones's locker:--went off after a whale, last cruise, and never come back agin. all the starboard watch ran away last night, and the skipper's ashore kitching 'em." "and it's shipping yer after, my jewels, is it?" cried a curly-pated little belfast sailor, coming up to us, "thin arrah! my livelies, jist be after sailing ashore in a jiffy:--the divil of a skipper will carry yees both to sea, whether or no. be off wid ye thin, darlints, and steer clear of the likes of this ballyhoo of blazes as long as ye live. they murther us here every day, and starve us into the bargain. here, dick, lad, har! the poor divil's canow alongside; and paddle away wid yees for dear life." but we loitered awhile, listening to more inducements to ship; and at last concluded to stay to supper. my sheath-knife never cut into better sea-beef than that which we found lying in the kid in the forecastle. the bread, too, was hard, dry, and brittle as glass; and there was plenty of both. while we were below, the mate of the vessel called out for someone to come on deck. i liked his voice. hearing it was as good as a look at his face. it betokened a true sailor, and no taskmaster. the appearance of the leviathan herself was quite pleasing. like all large, comfortable old whalers, she had a sort of motherly look:--broad in the beam, flush decks, and four chubby boats hanging at the breast. her sails were furled loosely upon the yards, as if they had been worn long, and fitted easy; her shrouds swung negligently slack; and as for the "running rigging," it never worked hard as it does in some of your "dandy ships," jamming in the sheaves of blocks, like chinese slippers, too small to be useful: on the contrary, the ropes ran glibly through, as if they had many a time travelled the same road, and were used to it. when evening came, we dropped into our canoe, and paddled ashore; fully convinced that the good ship never deserved the name which they gave her. chapter lxxvii. a party of rovers--little loo and the doctor while in partoowye, we fell in with a band of six veteran rovers, prowling about the village and harbour, who had just come overland from another part of the island. a few weeks previous, they had been paid off, at papeetee, from a whaling vessel, on board of which they had, six months before, shipped for a single cruise; that is to say, to be discharged at the next port. their cruise was a famous one; and each man stepped upon the beach at tahiti jingling his dollars in a sock. weary at last of the shore, and having some money left, they clubbed, and purchased a sail-boat; proposing a visit to a certain uninhabited island, concerning which they had heard strange and golden stories. of course, they never could think of going to sea without a medicine-chest filled with flasks of spirits, and a small cask of the same in the hold in case the chest should give out. away they sailed; hoisted a flag of their own, and gave three times three, as they staggered out of the bay of papeetee with a strong breeze, and under all the "muslin" they could carry. evening coming on, and feeling in high spirits and no ways disposed to sleep, they concluded to make a night of it; which they did; all hands getting tipsy, and the two masts going over the side about midnight, to the tune of "sailing down, sailing down, on the coast of barbaree." fortunately, one worthy could stand by holding on to the tiller; and the rest managed to crawl about, and hack away the lanyards of the rigging, so as to break clear from the fallen spars. while thus employed, two sailors got tranquilly over the side, and went plumb to the bottom, under the erroneous impression that they were stepping upon an imaginary wharf to get at their work better. after this, it blew quite a gale; and the commodore, at the helm, instinctively kept the boat before the wind; and by so doing, ran over for the opposite island of imeeo. crossing the channel, by almost a miracle they went straight through an opening in the reef, and shot upon a ledge of coral, where the waters were tolerably smooth. here they lay until morning, when the natives came off to them in their canoes. by the help of the islanders, the schooner was hove over on her beam-ends; when, finding the bottom knocked to pieces, the adventurers sold the boat for a trifle to the chief of the district, and went ashore, rolling before them their precious cask of spirits. its contents soon evaporated, and they came to partoowye. the day after encountering these fellows, we were strolling among the groves in the neighbourhood, when we came across several parties of natives armed with clumsy muskets, rusty cutlasses, and outlandish clubs. they were beating the bushes, shouting aloud, and apparently trying to scare somebody. they were in pursuit of the strangers, who, having in a single night set at nought all the laws of the place, had thought best to decamp. in the daytime, po-po's house was as pleasant a lounge as one could wish. so, after strolling about, and seeing all there was to be seen, we spent the greater part of our mornings there; breakfasting late, and dining about two hours after noon. sometimes we lounged on the floor of ferns, smoking, and telling stories; of which the doctor had as many as a half-pay captain in the army. sometimes we chatted, as well as we could, with the natives; and, one day--joy to us!--po-po brought in three volumes of smollett's novels, which had been found in the chest of a sailor, who some time previous had died on the island. amelia!--peregrine!--you hero of rogues, count fathom!--what a debt do we owe you! i know not whether it was the reading of these romances, or the want of some sentimental pastime, which led the doctor, about this period, to lay siege to the heart of the little loo. now, as i have said before, the daughter of po-po was most cruelly reserved, and never deigned to notice us. frequently i addressed her with a long face and an air of the profoundest and most distant respect--but in vain; she wouldn't even turn up her pretty olive nose. ah! it's quite plain, thought i; she knows very well what graceless dogs sailors are, and won't have anything to do with us. but thus thought not my comrade. bent he was upon firing the cold glitter of loo's passionless eyes. he opened the campaign with admirable tact: making cautious approaches, and content, for three days, with ogling the nymph for about five minutes after every meal. on the fourth day, he asked her a question; on the fifth, she dropped a nut of ointment, and he picked it up and gave it to her; on the sixth, he went over and sat down within three yards of the couch where she lay; and, on the memorable morn of the seventh, he proceeded to open his batteries in form. the damsel was reclining on the ferns; one hand supporting her cheek, and the other listlessly turning over the leaves of a tahitian bible. the doctor approached. now the chief disadvantage under which he laboured was his almost complete ignorance of the love vocabulary of the island. but french counts, they say, make love delightfully in broken english; and what hindered the doctor from doing the same in dulcet tahitian. so at it he went. "ah!" said he, smiling bewitchingly, "oee mickonaree; oee ready biblee?" no answer; not even a look. "ah i matai! very goody ready biblee mickonaree." loo, without stirring, began reading, in a low tone, to herself. "mickonaree biblee ready goody maitai," once more observed the doctor, ingeniously transposing his words for the third time. but all to no purpose; loo gave no sign. he paused, despairingly; but it would never do to give up; so he threw himself at full length beside her, and audaciously commenced turning over the leaves. loo gave a start, just one little start, barely perceptible, and then, fumbling something in her hand, lay perfectly motionless; the doctor rather frightened at his own temerity, and knowing not what to do next. at last, he placed one arm cautiously about her waist; almost in the same instant he bounded to his feet, with a cry; the little witch had pierced him with a thorn. but there she lay, just as quietly as ever, turning over the leaves, and reading to herself. my long friend raised the siege incontinently, and made a disorderly retreat to the place where i reclined, looking on. i am pretty sure that loo must have related this occurrence to her father, who came in shortly afterward; for he looked queerly at the doctor. but he said nothing; and, in ten minutes, was quite as affable as ever. as for loo, there was not the slightest change in her; and the doctor, of course, for ever afterwards held his peace. chapter lxxviii. mrs. bell one day, taking a pensive afternoon stroll along one of the many bridle-paths which wind among the shady groves in the neighbourhood of taloo, i was startled by a sunny apparition. it was that of a beautiful young englishwoman, charmingly dressed, and mounted upon a spirited little white pony. switching a green branch, she came cantering toward me. i looked round to see whether i could possibly be in polynesia. there were the palm-trees; but how to account for the lady? stepping to one side as the apparition drew near, i made a polite obeisance. it gave me a bold, rosy look; and then, with a gay air, patted its palfrey, crying out, "fly away, willie!" and galloped among the trees. i would have followed; but willie's heels were making such a pattering among the dry leaves that pursuit would have been useless. so i went straight home to po-po's, and related my adventure to the doctor. the next day, our inquiries resulted in finding out that the stranger had been on the island about two years; that she came from sydney; and was the wife of mr. bell (happy dog!), the proprietor of the sugar plantation to which i have previously referred. to the sugar plantation we went, the same day. the country round about was very beautiful: a level basin of verdure, surrounded by sloping hillsides. the sugar-cane--of which there was about one hundred acres, in various stages of cultivation--looked thrifty. a considerable tract of land, however, which seemed to have been formerly tilled, was now abandoned. the place where they extracted the saccharine matter was under an immense shed of bamboos. here we saw several clumsy pieces of machinery for breaking the cane; also great kettles for boiling the sugar. but, at present, nothing was going on. two or three natives were lounging in one of the kettles, smoking; the other was occupied by three sailors from the leviathan, playing cards. while we were conversing with these worthies, a stranger approached. he was a sun-burnt, romantic-looking european, dressed in a loose suit of nankeen; his fine throat and chest were exposed, and he sported a guayaquil hat with a brim like a chinese umbrella. this was mr. bell. he was very civil; showed us the grounds, and, taking us into a sort of arbour, to our surprise, offered to treat us to some wine. people often do the like; but mr. bell did more: he produced the bottle. it was spicy sherry; and we drank out of the halves of fresh citron melons. delectable goblets! the wine was a purchase from, the french in tahiti. now all this was extremely polite in mr. bell; still, we came to see mrs. bell. but she proved to be a phantom, indeed; having left the same morning for papeetee, on a visit to one of the missionaries' wives there. i went home, much chagrined. to be frank, my curiosity had been wonderfully piqued concerning the lady. in the first place, she was the most beautiful white woman i ever saw in polynesia. but this is saying nothing. she had such eyes, such moss-roses in her cheeks, such a divine air in the saddle, that, to my dying day, i shall never forget mrs. bell. the sugar-planter himself was young, robust, and handsome. so, merrily may the little bells increase, and multiply, and make music in the land of imeeo. chapter lxxix. taloo chapel--holding court in polynesia in partoowye is to be seen one of the best-constructed and handsomest chapels in the south seas. like the buildings of the palace, it stands upon an artificial pier, presenting a semicircular sweep to the bay. the chapel is built of hewn blocks of coral; a substance which, although extremely friable, is said to harden by exposure to the atmosphere. to a stranger, these blocks look extremely curious. their surface is covered with strange fossil-like impressions, the seal of which must have been set before the flood. very nearly white when hewn from the reefs, the coral darkens with age; so that several churches in polynesia now look almost as sooty and venerable as famed st. paul's. in shape, the chapel is an octagon, with galleries all round. it will seat, perhaps, four hundred people. everything within is stained a tawny red; and there being but few windows, or rather embrasures, the dusky benches and galleries, and the tall spectre of a pulpit look anything but cheerful. on sundays we always went to worship here. going in the family suite of po-po, we, of course, maintained a most decorous exterior; and hence, by all the elderly people of the village, were doubtless regarded as pattern young men. po-po's seat was in a snug corner; and it being particularly snug, in the immediate vicinity of one of the palm pillars supporting the gallery, i invariably leaned against it: po-po and his lady on one side, the doctor and the dandy on the other, and the children and poor relations seated behind. as for loo, instead of sitting (as she ought to have done) by her good father and mother, she must needs run up into the gallery, and sit with a parcel of giddy creatures of her own age; who, all through the sermon, did nothing but look down on the congregation; pointing out, and giggling at the queer-looking old ladies in dowdy bonnets and scant tunics. but loo, herself, was never guilty of these improprieties. occasionally during the week they have afternoon service in the chapel, when the natives themselves have something to say; although their auditors are but few. an introductory prayer being offered by the missionary, and a hymn sung, communicants rise in their places, and exhort in pure tahitian, and with wonderful tone and gesture. and among them all, deacon po-po, though he talked most, was the one whom you would have liked best to hear. much would i have given to have understood some of his impassioned bursts; when he tossed his arms overhead, stamped, scowled, and glared, till he looked like the very angel of vengeance. "deluded man!" sighed the doctor, on one of these occasions, "i fear he takes the fanatical view of the subject." one thing was certain: when po-po spoke, all listened; a great deal more than could be said for the rest; for under the discipline of two or three i could mention, some of the audience napped; others fidgeted; a few yawned; and one irritable old gentleman, in a nightcap of cocoa-nut leaves, used to clutch his long staff in a state of excessive nervousness, and stride out of the church, making all the noise he could, to emphasize his disgust. right adjoining the chapel is an immense, rickety building, with windows and shutters, and a half-decayed board flooring laid upon trunks of palm-trees. they called it a school-house; but as such we never saw it occupied. it was often used as a court-room, however; and here we attended several trials; among others, that of a decayed naval officer, and a young girl of fourteen; the latter charged with having been very naughty on a particular occasion set forth in the pleadings; and the former with having aided and abetted her in her naughtiness, and with other misdemeanours. the foreigner was a tall, military-looking fellow, with a dark cheek and black whiskers. according to his own account, he had lost a colonial armed brig on the coast of new zealand; and since then, had been leading the life of a man about town among the islands of the pacific. the doctor wanted to know why he did not go home and report the loss of his brig; but captain crash, as they called him, had some incomprehensible reasons for not doing so, about which he could talk by the hour, and no one be any the wiser. probably he was a discreet man, and thought it best to waive an interview with the lords of the admiralty. for some time past, this extremely suspicious character had been carrying on the illicit trade in french wines and brandies, smuggled over from the men-of-war lately touching at tahiti. in a grove near the anchorage he had a rustic shanty and arbour, where, in quiet times, when no ships were in taloo, a stray native once in a while got boozy, and staggered home, catching at the cocoa-nut trees as he went. the captain himself lounged under a tree during the warm afternoons, pipe in mouth; thinking, perhaps, over old times, and occasionally feeling his shoulders for his lost epaulets. but, sail ho! a ship is descried coming into the bay. soon she drops her anchor in its waters; and the next day captain crash entertains the sailors in his grove. and rare times they have of it:--drinking and quarrelling together as sociably as you please. upon one of these occasions, the crew of the leviathan made so prodigious a tumult that the natives, indignant at the insult offered their laws, plucked up a heart, and made a dash at the rioters, one hundred strong. the sailors fought like tigers; but were at last overcome, and carried before a native tribunal; which, after a mighty clamour, dismissed everybody but captain crash, who was asserted to be the author of the disorders. upon this charge, then, he had been placed in confinement against the coming on of the assizes; the judge being expected to lounge along in the course of the afternoon. while waiting his honour's arrival, numerous additional offences were preferred against the culprit (mostly by the old women); among others was the bit of a slip in which he stood implicated along with the young lady. thus, in polynesia as elsewhere;--charge a man with one misdemeanour, and all his peccadilloes are raked up and assorted before him. going to the school-house for the purpose of witnessing the trial, the din of it assailed our ears a long way off; and upon entering the building, we were almost stunned. about five hundred natives were present; each apparently having something to say and determined to say it. his honour--a handsome, benevolent-looking old man--sat cross-legged on a little platform, seemingly resigned, with all christian submission, to the uproar. he was an hereditary chief in this quarter of the island, and judge for life in the district of partoowye. there were several cases coming on; but the captain and girl were first tried together. they were mixing freely with the crowd; and as it afterwards turned out that everyone--no matter who--had a right to address the court, for aught we knew they might have been arguing their own case. at what precise moment the trial began it would be hard to say. there was no swearing of witnesses, and no regular jury. now and then somebody leaped up and shouted out something which might have been evidence; the rest, meanwhile, keeping up an incessant jabbering. presently the old judge himself began to get excited; and springing to his feet, ran in among the crowd, wagging his tongue as hard as anybody. the tumult lasted about twenty minutes; and toward the end of it, captain crash might have been seen, tranquilly regarding, from his honour's platform, the judicial uproar, in which his fate was about being decided. the result of all this was that both he and the girl were found guilty. the latter was adjudged to make six mats for the queen; and the former, in consideration of his manifold offences, being deemed incorrigible, was sentenced to eternal banishment from the island. both these decrees seemed to originate in the general hubbub. his honour, however, appeared to have considerable authority, and it was quite plain that the decision received his approval. the above penalties were by no means indiscriminately inflicted. the missionaries have prepared a sort of penal tariff to facilitate judicial proceedings. it costs so many days' labour on the broom road to indulge in the pleasures of the calabash; so many fathoms of stone wall to steal a musket; and so on to the end of the catalogue. the judge being provided with a book in which all these matters are cunningly arranged, the thing is vastly convenient. for instance: a crime is proved,--say bigamy; turn to letter b--and there you have it. bigamy:--forty days on the broom road, and twenty mats for the queen. read the passage aloud, and sentence is pronounced. after taking part in the first trial, the other delinquents present were put upon their own; in which, also, the convicted culprits seemed to have quite as much to say as the rest. a rather strange proceeding; but strictly in accordance with the glorious english principle, that every man should be tried by his peers. they were all found guilty. chapter lxxx. queen pomaree it is well to learn something about people before being introduced to them, and so we will here give some account of pomaree and her family. every reader of cook's voyages must remember "otto," who, in that navigator's time, was king of the larger peninsula of tahiti. subsequently, assisted by the muskets of the bounty's men, he extended his rule over the entire island. this otto, before his death, had his name changed into pomaree, which has ever since been the royal patronymic. he was succeeded by his son, pomaree ii., the most famous prince in the annals of tahiti. though a sad debauchee and drunkard, and even charged with unnatural crimes, he was a great friend of the missionaries, and one of their very first proselytes. during the religious wars into which he was hurried by his zeal for the new faith, he was defeated and expelled from the island. after a short exile he returned from imeeo, with an army of eight hundred warriors, and in the battle of narii routed the rebellious pagans with great slaughter, and reestablished himself upon the throne. thus, by force of arms, was christianity finally triumphant in tahiti. pomaree ii., dying in , was succeeded by his infant son, under the title of pomaree iii. this young prince survived his father but six years; and the government then descended to his elder sister, aimata, the present queen, who is commonly called pomaree vahinee i., or the first female pomaree. her majesty must be now upwards of thirty years of age. she has been twice married. her first husband was a son of the old king of tahar, an island about one hundred miles from tahiti. this proving an unhappy alliance, the pair were soon afterwards divorced. the present husband of the queen is a chief of imeeo. the reputation of pomaree is not what it ought to be. she, and also her mother, were, for a long time, excommunicated members of the church; and the former, i believe, still is. among other things, her conjugal fidelity is far from being unquestioned. indeed, it was upon this ground chiefly that she was excluded from the communion of the church. previous to her misfortunes she spent the greater portion of her time sailing about from one island to another, attended by a licentious court; and wherever she went all manner of games and festivities celebrated her arrival. she was always given to display. for several years the maintenance of a regiment of household troops drew largely upon the royal exchequer. they were trouserless fellows, in a uniform of calico shirts and pasteboard hats; armed with muskets of all shapes and calibres, and commanded by a great noisy chief, strutting it in a coat of fiery red. these heroes escorted their mistress whenever she went abroad. some time ago, the queen received from her english sister, victoria, a very showy, though uneasy, head-dress--a crown; probably made to order at some tinman's in london. having no idea of reserving so pretty a bauble for coronation days, which come so seldom, her majesty sported it whenever she appeared in public; and, to show her familiarity with european customs, politely touched it to all foreigners of distinction--whaling captains, and the like--whom she happened to meet in her evening walk on the broom road. the arrival and departure of royalty were always announced at the palace by the court artilleryman--a fat old gentleman who, in a prodigious hurry and perspiration, discharged minute fowling-pieces as fast as he could load and fire the same. the tahitian princess leads her husband a hard life. poor fellow! he not only caught a queen, but a tartar, when he married her. the style by which he is addressed is rather significant--"pomaree-tanee" (pomaree's man). all things considered, as appropriate a title for a king-consort as could be hit upon. if ever there were a henpecked husband, that man is the prince. one day, his carasposa giving audience to a deputation from the captains of the vessels lying in papeetee, he ventured to make a suggestion which was very displeasing to her. she turned round and, boxing his ears, told him to go over to his beggarly island of imeeo if he wanted to give himself airs. cuffed and contemned, poor tanee flies to the bottle, or rather to the calabash, for solace. like his wife and mistress, he drinks more than he ought. six or seven years ago, when an american man-of-war was lying at papeetee, the town was thrown into the greatest commotion by a conjugal assault and battery made upon the sacred person of pomaree by her intoxicated tanee. captain bob once told me the story. and by way of throwing more spirit into the description, as well as to make up for his oral deficiencies, the old man went through the accompanying action: myself being proxy for the queen of tahiti. it seems that, on a sunday morning, being dismissed contemptuously from the royal presence, tanee was accosted by certain good fellows, friends and boon companions, who condoled with him on his misfortunes--railed against the queen, and finally dragged him away to an illicit vendor of spirits, in whose house the party got gloriously mellow. in this state, pomaree vahinee i. was the topic upon which all dilated--"a vixen of a queen," probably suggested one. "it's infamous," said another; "and i'd have satisfaction," cried a third. "and so i will!"--tanee must have hiccoughed; for off he went; and ascertaining that his royal half was out riding, he mounted his horse and galloped after her. near the outskirts of the town, a cavalcade of women came cantering toward him, in the centre of which was the object of his fury. smiting his beast right and left, he dashed in among them, completely overturning one of the party, leaving her on the field, and dispersing everybody else except pomaree. backing her horse dexterously, the incensed queen heaped upon him every scandalous epithet she could think of; until at last the enraged tanee leaped out of his saddle, caught pomaree by her dress, and dragging her to the earth struck her repeatedly in the face, holding on meanwhile by the hair of her head. he was proceeding to strangle her on the spot, when the cries of the frightened attendants brought a crowd of natives to the rescue, who bore the nearly insensible queen away. but his frantic rage was not yet sated. he ran to the palace; and before it could be prevented, demolished a valuable supply of crockery, a recent present from abroad. in the act of perpetrating some other atrocity, he was seized from behind, and carried off with rolling eyes and foaming at the mouth. this is a fair example of a tahitian in a passion. though the mildest of mortals in general, and hard to be roused, when once fairly up, he is possessed with a thousand devils. the day following, tanee was privately paddled over to imeeo in a canoe; where, after remaining in banishment for a couple of weeks, he was allowed to return, and once more give in his domestic adhesion. though pomaree vahinee i. be something of a jezebel in private life, in her public rule she is said to have been quite lenient and forbearing. this was her true policy; for an hereditary hostility to her family had always lurked in the hearts of many powerful chiefs, the descendants of the old kings of taiarboo, dethroned by her grandfather otoo. chief among these, and in fact the leader of his party, was poofai; a bold, able man, who made no secret of his enmity to the missionaries, and the government which they controlled. but while events were occurring calculated to favour the hopes of the disaffected and turbulent, the arrival of the french gave a most unexpected turn to affairs. during my sojourn in tahiti, a report was rife--which i knew to originate with what is generally called the "missionary party"--that poofai and some other chiefs of note had actually agreed, for a stipulated bribe, to acquiesce in the appropriation of their country. but subsequent events have rebutted the calumny. several of these very men have recently died in battle against the french. under the sovereignty of the pomarees, the great chiefs of tahiti were something like the barons of king john. holding feudal sway over their patrimonial valleys, and on account of their descent, warmly beloved by the people, they frequently cut off the royal revenues by refusing to pay the customary tribute due from them as vassals. the truth is, that with the ascendancy of the missionaries, the regal office in tahiti lost much of its dignity and influence. in the days of paganism, it was supported by all the power of a numerous priesthood, and was solemnly connected with the entire superstitious idolatry of the land. the monarch claimed to be a sort of bye-blow of tararroa, the saturn of the polynesian mythology, and cousin-german to inferior deities. his person was thrice holy; if he entered an ordinary dwelling, never mind for how short a time, it was demolished when he left; no common mortal being thought worthy to inhabit it afterward. "i'm a greater man than king george," said the incorrigible young otoo to the first missionaries; "he rides on a horse, and i on a man." such was the case. he travelled post through his dominions on the shoulders of his subjects; and relays of mortal beings were provided in all the valleys. but alas! how times have changed; how transient human greatness. some years since, pomaree vahinee i., the granddaughter of the proud otoo, went into the laundry business; publicly soliciting, by her agents, the washing of the linen belonging to the officers of ships touching in her harbours. it is a significant fact, and one worthy of record, that while the influence of the english missionaries at tahiti has tended to so great a diminution of the regal dignity there, that of the american missionaries at the sandwich islands has been purposely exerted to bring about a contrary result. chapter lxxxi. we visit the court it was about the middle of the second month of the hegira, and therefore some five weeks after our arrival in partoowye, that we at last obtained admittance to the residence of the queen. it happened thus. there was a marquesan in the train of pomaree who officiated as nurse to her children. according to the tahitian custom, the royal youngsters are carried about until it requires no small degree of strength to stand up under them. but marbonna was just the man for this--large and muscular, well made as a statue, and with an arm like a degenerate tahitian's thigh. embarking at his native island as a sailor on board of a french whaler, he afterward ran away from the ship at tahiti; where, being seen and admired by pomaree, he had been prevailed upon to enlist in her service. often, when visiting the grounds, we saw him walking about in the shade, carrying two handsome boys, who encircled his neck with their arms. marbonna's face, tattooed as it was in the ornate style of his tribe, was as good as a picture-book to these young pomarees. they delighted to trace with their fingers the outlines of the strange shapes there delineated. the first time my eyes lighted upon the marquesan, i knew his country in a moment; and hailing him in his own language, he turned round, surprised that a person so speaking should be a stranger. he proved to be a native of tior, a glen of nukuheva. i had visited the place more than once; and so, on the island of imeeo, we met like old friends. in my frequent conversations with him over the bamboo picket, i found this islander a philosopher of nature--a wild heathen, moralizing upon the vices and follies of the christian court of tahiti--a savage, scorning the degeneracy of the people among whom fortune had thrown him. i was amazed at the national feelings of the man. no european, when abroad, could speak of his country with more pride than marbonna. he assured me, again and again, that so soon as he had obtained sufficient money to purchase twenty muskets, and as many bags of powder, he was going to return to a place with which imeeo was not worthy to be compared. it was marbonna who, after one or two unsuccessful attempts, at last brought about our admission into the queen's grounds. through a considerable crowd he conducted us along the pier to where an old man was sitting, to whom he introduced us as a couple of "karhowrees" of his acquaintance, anxious to see the sights of the palace. the venerable chamberlain stared at us, and shook his head: the doctor, thinking he wanted a fee, placed a plug of tobacco in his hand. this was ingratiating, and we were permitted to pass on. upon the point of entering one of the houses, marbonna's name was shouted in half-a-dozen different directions, and he was obliged to withdraw. thus left at the very threshold to shift for ourselves, my companion's assurance stood us in good stead. he stalked right in, and i followed. the place was full of women, who, instead of exhibiting the surprise we expected, accosted us as cordially as if we had called to take our souchong with them by express invitation. in the first place, nothing would do but we must each devour a calabash of "poee," and several roasted bananas. pipes were then lighted, and a brisk conversation ensued. these ladies of the court, if not very polished, were surprisingly free and easy in their manners; quite as much so as king charles's beauties. there was one of them--an arch little miss, who could converse with us pretty fluently--to whom we strove to make ourselves particularly agreeable, with the view of engaging her services as cicerone. as such, she turned out to be everything we could desire. no one disputing her will, every place was entered without ceremony, curtains brushed aside, mats lifted, and each nook and corner explored. whether the little damsel carried her mistress' signet, that everything opened to her thus, i know not; but marbonna himself, the bearer of infants, could not have been half so serviceable. among other houses which we visited, was one of large size and fine exterior; the special residence of a european--formerly the mate of a merchant vessel,--who had done himself the honour of marrying into the pomaree family. the lady he wedded being a near kinswoman of the queen, he became a permanent member of her majesty's household. this adventurer rose late, dressed theatrically in calico and trinkets, assumed a dictatorial tone in conversation, and was evidently upon excellent terms with himself. we found him reclining on a mat, smoking a reed-pipe of tobacco, in the midst of an admiring circle of chiefs and ladies. he must have noticed our approach; but instead of rising and offering civilities, he went on talking and smoking, without even condescending to look at us. "his highness feels his 'poee,'" carelessly observed the doctor. the rest of the company gave us the ordinary salutation, our guide announcing us beforehand. in answer to our earnest requests to see the queen, we were now conducted to an edifice, by far the most spacious, in the inclosure. it was at least one hundred and fifty feet in length, very wide, with low eaves, and an exceedingly steep roof of pandannas leaves. there were neither doors nor windows--nothing along the sides but the slight posts supporting the rafters. between these posts, curtains of fine matting and tappa were rustling, all round; some of them were festooned, or partly withdrawn, so as to admit light and air, and afford a glimpse now and then of what was going on within. pushing aside one of the screens, we entered. the apartment was one immense hall; the long and lofty ridge-pole fluttering with fringed matting and tassels, full forty feet from the ground. lounges of mats, piled one upon another, extended on either side: while here and there were slight screens, forming as many recesses, where groups of natives--all females--were reclining at their evening meal. as we advanced, these various parties ceased their buzzing, and in explanation of our appearance among them, listened to a few cabalistic words from our guide. the whole scene was a strange one; but what most excited our surprise was the incongruous assemblage of the most costly objects from all quarters of the globe. cheek by jowl, they lay beside the rudest native articles, without the slightest attempt at order. superb writing-desks of rosewood, inlaid with silver and mother-of-pearl; decanters and goblets of cut glass; embossed volumes of plates; gilded candelabra; sets of globes and mathematical instruments; the finest porcelain; richly-mounted sabres and fowling-pieces; laced hats and sumptuous garments of all sorts, with numerous other matters of european manufacture, were strewn about among greasy calabashes half-filled with "poee," rolls of old tappa and matting, paddles and fish-spears, and the ordinary furniture of a tahitian dwelling. all the articles first mentioned were, doubtless, presents from foreign powers. they were more or less injured: the fowling-pieces and swords were rusted; the finest woods were scratched; and a folio volume of hogarth lay open, with a cocoa-nut shell of some musty preparation capsized among the miscellaneous furniture of the rake's apartment, where that inconsiderate young gentleman is being measured for a coat. while we were amusing ourselves in this museum of curiosities, our conductor plucked us by the sleeve, and whispered, "pomaree! pomaree! armai kow kow." "she is coming to sup, then," said the doctor, staring in the direction indicated. "what say you, paul, suppose we step up?" just then a curtain near by lifted, and from a private building a few yards distant the queen entered, unattended. she wore a loose gown of blue silk, with two rich shawls, one red and the other yellow, tied about her neck. her royal majesty was barefooted. she was about the ordinary size, rather matronly; her features not very handsome; her mouth, voluptuous; but there was a care-worn expression in her face, probably attributable to her late misfortunes. from her appearance, one would judge her about forty; but she is not so old. as the queen approached one of the recesses, her attendants hurried up, escorted her in, and smoothed the mats on which she at last reclined. two girls soon appeared, carrying their mistress' repast; and then, surrounded by cut-glass and porcelain, and jars of sweetmeats and confections, pomaree vahinee i., the titular queen of tahiti, ate fish and "poee" out of her native calabashes, disdaining either knife or spoon. "come on," whispered long ghost, "let's have an audience at once;" and he was on the point of introducing himself, when our guide, quite alarmed, held him back and implored silence. the other natives also interfered, and, as he was pressing forward, raised such an outcry that pomaree lifted her eyes and saw us for the first. she seemed surprised and offended, and, issuing an order in a commanding tone to several of her women, waved us out of the house. summary as the dismissal was, court etiquette, no doubt, required our compliance. we withdrew; making a profound inclination as we disappeared behind the tappa arras. we departed the ground without seeing marbonna; and previous to vaulting over the picket, feed our pretty guide after a fashion of our own. looking round a few moments after, we saw the damsel escorted back by two men, who seemed to have been sent after her. i trust she received nothing more than a reprimand. the next day po-po informed us that strict orders had been issued to admit no strangers within the palace precincts. chapter lxxxii. which ends the book disappointed in going to court, we determined upon going to sea. it would never do, longer to trespass on po-po's hospitality; and then, weary somewhat of life in imeeo, like all sailors ashore, i at last pined for the billows. now, if her crew were to be credited, the leviathan was not the craft to our mind. but i had seen the captain, and liked him. he was an uncommonly tall, robust, fine-looking man, in the prime of life. there was a deep crimson spot in the middle of each sunburnt cheek, doubtless the effect of his sea-potations. he was a vineyarder, or native of the island of martha's vineyard (adjoining nantucket), and--i would have sworn it--a sailor, and no tyrant. previous to this, we had rather avoided the leviathan's men, when they came ashore; but now, we purposely threw ourselves in their way, in order to learn more of the vessel. we became acquainted with the third mate, a prussian, and an old merchant-seaman--a right jolly fellow, with a face like a ruby. we took him to po-po's, and gave him a dinner of baked pig and breadfruit; with pipes and tobacco for dessert. the account he gave us of the ship agreed with my own surmises. a cosier old craft never floated; and the captain was the finest man in the world. there was plenty to eat, too; and, at sea, nothing to do but sit on the windlass and sail. the only bad trait about the vessel was this: she had been launched under some baleful star; and so was a luckless ship in the fishery. she dropped her boats into the brine often enough, and they frequently got fast to the whales; but lance and harpoon almost invariably "drew" when darted by the men of the leviathan. but what of that? we would have all the sport of chasing the monsters, with none of the detestable work which follows their capture. so, hurrah for the coast of japan! thither the ship was bound. a word now about the hard stories we heard the first time we visited the ship. they were nothing but idle fictions, got up by the sailors for the purpose of frightening us away, so as to oblige the captain, who was in want of more hands, to lie the longer in a pleasant harbour. the next time the vineyarder came ashore, we flung ourselves in his path. when informed of our desire to sail with him, he wanted to know our history; and, above all, what countrymen we were. we said that we had left a whaler in tahiti, some time previous; and, since then, had been--in the most praiseworthy manner--employed upon a plantation. as for our country, sailors belong to no nation in particular; we were, on this occasion, both yankees. upon this he looked decidedly incredulous; and freely told us that he verily believed we were both from sydney. be it known here that american sea captains, in the pacific, are mortally afraid of these sydney gentry; who, to tell the truth, wherever known, are in excessively bad odour. is there a mutiny on board a ship in the south seas, ten to one a sydney man is the ringleader. ashore, these fellows are equally riotous. it was on this account that we were anxious to conceal the fact of our having belonged to the julia, though it annoyed me much, thus to deny the dashing little craft. for the same reason, also, the doctor fibbed about his birthplace. unfortunately, one part of our raiment--arfretee's blue frocks--we deemed a sort of collateral evidence against us. for, curiously enough, an american sailor is generally distinguished by his red frock; and an english tar by his blue one: thus reversing the national colours. the circumstance was pointed out by the captain; and we quickly explained the anomaly. but, in vain: he seemed inveterately prejudiced against us; and, in particular, eyed the doctor most distrustfully. by way of propping the tatter's pretensions, i was throwing out a hint concerning kentucky, as a land of tall men, when our vine-yarder turned away abruptly, and desired to hear nothing more. it was evident that he took long ghost for an exceedingly problematical character. perceiving this, i resolved to see what a private interview would do. so, one afternoon, i found the captain smoking a pipe in the dwelling of a portly old native--one mai-mai--who, for a reasonable compensation, did the honours of partoowye to illustrious strangers. his guest had just risen from a sumptuous meal of baked pig and taro pudding; and the remnants of the repast were still visible. two reeking bottles, also, with their necks wrenched off, lay upon the mat. all this was encouraging; for, after a good dinner, one feels affluent and amiable, and peculiarly open to conviction. so, at all events, i found the noble vineyarder. i began by saying that i called for the purpose of setting him right touching certain opinions of his concerning the place of my nativity:--i was an american--thank heaven!--and wanted to convince him of the fact. after looking me in the eye for some time, and, by so doing, revealing an obvious unsteadiness in his own visual organs, he begged me to reach forth my arm. i did so; wondering what upon earth that useful member had to do with the matter in hand. he placed his fingers upon my wrist; and holding them there for a moment, sprang to his feet, and, with much enthusiasm, pronounced me a yankee, every beat of my pulse! "here, mai-mai!" he cried, "another bottle!" and, when it came, with one stroke of a knife, he summarily beheaded it, and commanded me to drain it to the bottom. he then told me that if i would come on board his vessel the following morning, i would find the ship's articles on the cabin transom. this was getting along famously. but what was to become of the doctor? i forthwith made an adroit allusion to my long friend. but it was worse than useless. the vineyarder swore he would have nothing to do with him--he (my long friend) was a "bird" from sydney, and nothing would make him (the man of little faith) believe otherwise. i could not help loving the free-hearted captain; but indignant at this most unaccountable prejudice against my comrade, i abruptly took leave. upon informing the doctor of the result of the interview, he was greatly amused; and laughingly declared that the vineyarder must be a penetrating fellow. he then insisted upon my going to sea in the ship, since he well knew how anxious i was to leave. as for himself, on second thoughts, he was no sailor; and although "lands--' men" very often compose part of a whaler's crew, he did not quite relish the idea of occupying a position so humble. in short, he had made up his mind to tarry awhile in imeeo. i turned the matter over: and at last decided upon quitting the island. the impulse urging me to sea once more, and the prospect of eventually reaching home, were too much to be resisted; especially as the leviathan, so comfortable a craft, was now bound on her last whaling cruise, and, in little more than a year's time, would be going round cape horn. i did not, however, covenant to remain in the vessel for the residue of the voyage; which would have been needlessly binding myself. i merely stipulated for the coming cruise, leaving my subsequent movements unrestrained; for there was no knowing that i might not change my mind, and prefer journeying home by short and easy stages. the next day i paddled off to the ship, signed and sealed, and stepped ashore with my "advance"--fifteen spanish dollars--tasseling the ends of my neck-handkerchief. i forced half of the silver on long ghost; and having little use for the remainder, would have given it to po-po as some small return for his kindness; but, although he well knew the value of the coin, not a dollar would he accept. in three days' time the prussian came to po-po's, and told us that the captain, having made good the number of his crew by shipping several islanders, had determined upon sailing with the land breeze at dawn the following morning. these tidings were received in the afternoon. the doctor immediately disappeared, returning soon after with a couple of flasks of wine concealed in the folds of his frock. through the agency of the marquesan, he had purchased them from an understrapper of the court. i prevailed upon po-po to drink a parting shell; and even little loo, actually looking conscious that one of her hopeless admirers was about leaving partoowye for ever, sipped a few drops from a folded leaf. as for the warm-hearted arfretee, her grief was unbounded. she even besought me to spend my last night under her own palm-thatch; and then, in the morning, she would herself paddle me off to the ship. but this i would not consent to; and so, as something to remember her by, she presented me with a roll of fine matting, and another of tappa. these gifts placed in my hammock, i afterward found very agreeable in the warm latitudes to which we were bound; nor did they fail to awaken most grateful remembrances. about nightfall, we broke away from this generous-hearted household, and hurried down to the water. it was a mad, merry night among the sailors; they had on tap a small cask of wine, procured in the same way as the doctor's flasks. an hour or two after midnight, everything was noiseless; but when the first streak of the dawn showed itself over the mountains, a sharp voice hailed the forecastle, and ordered the ship unmoored. the anchors came up cheerily; the sails were soon set; and with the early breath of the tropical morning, fresh and fragrant from the hillsides, we slowly glided down the bay, and were swept through the opening in the reef. presently we "hove to," and the canoes came alongside to take off the islanders who had accompanied us thus far. as he stepped over the side, i shook the doctor long and heartily by the hand. i have never seen or heard of him since. crowding all sail, we braced the yards square; and, the breeze freshening, bowled straight away from the land. once more the sailor's cradle rocked under me, and i found myself rolling in my gait. by noon, the island had gone down in the horizon; and all before us was the wide pacific. [illustration: a quiet inlet on the coast of samoa] in the tracks of the trades the account of a fourteen thousand mile yachting cruise to the hawaiis, marquesas, societies, samoas and fijis by lewis r. freeman author of "many fronts," "stories of the ships," "sea-hounds," "to kiel in the 'hercules.'" with illustrations from photographs by the author [illustration] new york dodd, mead and company copyright, , by dodd, mead and company, inc. vail-ballou company binghamton and new york to the memory of 'the commodore' the late h. h. sinclair "the tracks of the trades" take me back, take me back to the tracks of the trade! let me wander again in the coco palms' shade, where the drums of the ocean, in pulsating roar, beat time for the waltz of the waves on the shore; where sunlight and starlight and moonlight conspire to speed the gay hours on the wings of desire; let me clamber again through the orchid-bright glade-- take me back, take me back to the tracks of the trade! oh, the hot flame of sunset, the tremulous light when the afterglow fades to the velvet of night! the star-stencilled headland in blank silhouette where the moonbeams are meshed in the flamboyant's net! oh, the purple of midnight, the grey mists of dawn, and the amber flood after the darkness has gone! the slow-heaving ocean of gold-spangled jade, when the sun wakes the day in the tracks of the trade! let my heart thrill again as the tom-tom's dull boom floats out from the bush in the flower-fragrant gloom, and the shriek of the conches, the _hi-mi-ne's_ swell, brings word of the feast in the depths of the dell. lead my footsteps again to that forest crypt dim, where firelight throws shadows on bosom and limb of the billowing forms of the trim tropic maids, when the song wakes the dance in the tracks of the trades! let my hands close again on the hard-kicking wheel, as the schooner romps off on a rollicking reel, to the humming of back-stay and sharp-slatting sail, and the hiss of the comber that smothers the rail. oh, the cadenced lament of the chorusing shroud, as the spindrift sweeps aft in a feathery cloud! oh, the storm-tumbled sea-ways traversed unafraid, as the squalls spin the spume down the tracks of the trade! take me back, take me back to the tracks of the trade! for 'tis weary i am of the city's parade, of the dust of the traffic, the grey cheerless skies, and the long lines of people with spiritless eyes. take me back to my green sunny islands again, away from this treadmill of sorrow and pain, away from this tinsel and gilt masquerade-- let me live, let me die in the tracks of the trade! l. r. f. pasadena, july, . contents chapter page i san pedro to hilo and honolulu ii honolulu to taio-haie iii the marquesas today iv hunting in the marquesas v the passion play at uahuka vi taio-haie to papeete vii circling tahiti viii society in the societies ix the song and dance in tahiti x by the absinthe route xi papeete to pago pago xii in pago pago bay xiii samoan cricket: fauga-sa v. pago pago xiv a visit to apia xv kava and the siva xvi pago pago to suva xvii in suva and mbau xviii "sharks" xix "his wonders to perform" xx suva to honolulu xxi honolulu to san pedro illustrations a quiet inlet on the coast of samoa _frontispiece_ page _lurline_ in drydock before sailing "the commodore laboriously squinted out his first sights" "full-and-by" waiohae beach, island of hawaii hula dancer with eukalele "all of the images were covered with moss" "a hardened old offender who preferred white man to native meat" the best surviving example of marquesan tattooing "into it were thrown the bones of the victims after the feast was over" "the part of christ is taken by a native called lurau" marquesan mother and child "pontius pilate has been played for twenty years by an old chief--a quondam cannibal" "just in time to respond to his 'cue' in the john the baptist tableau" "hatiheu, the most sublime combination of mountain, vale and sea that my eyes have ever rested on" a marquesan fisherman of hatiheu native woman washing on the beach, tahiti a mission bathing suit. before the bath--and after the inevitable end of every south sea trading schooner a tahitian couple "a naval station at pago pago has placed the united states, strategically, in the strongest position in western polynesia" chief tufeli in the uniform of a sergeant of _fita-fitas_ faa-oo-pea, chieftainess of pago pago, making _kava_ seuka, _taupo_ of pago pago, illustrating a movement in the _siva_ a samoan house in the course of construction "chief tufeli came over for the express purpose of buying the yacht" "chief mauga squared away to face the bowling of chief malatoba" to-a, who made the best score for pago pago, facing the bowler "whirling and yelling like dervishes they made a circuit of the ground" "a sinewy brown figure starts clambering up the tree" _lurline_ at anchor in bay of apia, samoa "the london missionary society steamer, _john williams_, lay near us" maid of honour to the _taupo_ of apia a samoan sunset the sitting _sivas_ are essentially dances of the arms "never were seen such arms as in samoa" fanua, who danced the swimming _siva_ by the light of the phosphorescent waves dancer with head knife forty years ago the fijis were in a complete state of savagery a fijian head hunting canoe "_lurline's_ cutter finished a poor second" "thakambau's great war canoe, over a hundred feet in length, formerly launched over human bodies" shark on the beach at mbau fijian boys boxing weaving the walls of a fijian house interior of a fijian house, showing how it is bound together with coco fibre a fijian warrior reefing the mainsail untying a reef in the mainsail in the tracks of the trades in the tracks of the trades chapter i san pedro to hilo and honolulu the weather bureau, which for several weeks had been issuing bulletins of the "possibly showers" order, came out unequivocally with "rain" on the morning of february th, and this, no less than the lead-coloured curtain that veiled the sierra madres and the windy shimmers in the tails of the clouds that went rushing across the zenith before the gushing east wind, made it plain that the elements, not to be outdone by our amiable friends, were getting together for a special demonstration on their own account in honour of _lurline's_ departure. the nature of this elemental diversion developed in good time. personal good-byes began at the pasadena station and continued down through los angeles to the san pedro quay. from there, out through the inner harbour, bon voyages became general, and from the engineer of the government dredge, who blew his whistle off with the force of his farewell toots, to the deck hand on a collier who, in lieu of a handkerchief, waved the shirt he was washing, everybody took a hand in the parting demonstration. rounding the jetty opposite deadman's island, _lurline_ was sighted lying a half mile to the westward in the backsweep of the outer bay. the crew stood at attention as the commodore, with a score or more of friends who had come off for a final farewell, stepped aboard, immediately to turn to stowing the small mountain of hand luggage which had come off with the launch. soon visitors began arriving from the other yachts of the south coast fleet, and these, reinforced by several press representatives and a number of shore visitors from san pedro, swelled the farewell party to a size that taxed the standing room capacity of quarter deck and cabin to the utmost. just before the sailing hour arrived presentation was made to the commodore of a large silver loving cup, and this being filled, each visitor, ere he stepped down the gangway, proposed some appropriate toast and drank to a prosperous voyage and safe return. meanwhile the sail covers had been removed and the stops cast off, and as the last of the visitors stepped back aboard their waiting launches, all hands tailed on to the main throat and peak halyards and the big sail was smartly hoisted and swayed to place. foresail, forestay-sail and jib followed. finally the anchor, clinging tenaciously to the last california mud it was destined to hook its flukes into for many months, was broken out, and, close-hauled on the starboard tack to a light breeze, _lurline_ swung off past the breakwater and out of the harbour. at four o'clock point firmin light, distant five miles, bore n.w. by w., and at the same hour the barometer, which had risen rapidly since noon, registered . , about the normal for the southern california coast. the gentle southerly breeze cleared the western sky toward evening and a warm hued sunset blazed out in defiance of the threatening signs of the morning. the yacht slipped easily through the light swell of the channel, her regular curtesies serving only to spangle her glossy sides with sparkling drops of brine and to punctuate her wake at even intervals with swelling knots of foam like the marks on a trailed sounding line. "fairweather sunset," said the mate; "but--" and he finished by shaking his head dubiously and proceeding to give orders for swinging the boats inboard and adding extra lashings to the spare spars and water-butts on the forward deck. early in the first watch, and not long after the thin wisp of a new moon had slipped down behind the jagged peaks of catalina, the wind hauled suddenly to the southeast. blowing with steadily increasing force, it drove a heavy pall of sooty clouds before it. this, quickly spreading out across the sky, rendered the night so dark that, beyond the ghostly reflections from the binnacle lamps, nothing was visible save the phosphorescent crests of the rapidly rising seas. with this slant of wind the best that we could do on the starboard tack was dead east, and this direction was held until the imminent loom of point san juan, and a not-overly-distant roar of breakers, warned us to put about and head off southwesterly between san clemente and catalina. at midnight the barometer was well below , and the wind and sea were still rising. the mainsail and foresail were single reefed when the watch came on deck, and while sail was being shortened a heavy sea came aboard just forward of the beam and crashed through the galley skylight. the water rushed in with the roar of a miniature niagara, but beyond washing the japanese cook off the transom on which he had composed himself for sleep and bouncing him against the stove, no serious harm was done. at two in the morning, with no abatement of force, the wind went back to s.s.w., and with clemente rising darkly ahead the yacht was again put about. the barometer was down to . , and the half-gale that met us as we came out from under the lee of the island quickly made it evident that further shortening of sail was imperative. the watch was called, and with no little difficulty two more reefs were tied in the mainsail, bringing it down almost to the proportions of a storm trysail. the foreboom was being hauled amidships preparatory to close-reefing the foresail, when a solid wall of green water came combing over the port bow and swept the deck like an avalanche. one of the sailors--gus, a big swede--who had been bracing a foot against the lee rail, lost his balance in the sudden lurch and, missing a frantic clutch at a shroud, went over the side. a rush was made for the life-buoys, but, before one could be thrown over, the lost man reappeared, coolly drawing himself in, hand over hand, on the foresheet, a bight of which he had carried with him in his fall. "_mein gott_, der rain he stop not yet, _hein_!" was his only comment as he returned to the interrupted attack on the flopping foreboom. one would have thought that he had been gone ten hours instead of ten seconds. after subduing and triple-reefing the threshing foresail the watch went below, but only to be called again almost immediately to take the bonnet out of the staysail, a measure made necessary by the fierce southwesterly squalls which kept winding into the now fully developed "sou'easter." finally, as the storm showed no signs of abating, the forestay-sail was hauled to windward and, head-reaching, the yacht made good weather of the last hours of the night. day broke, cold and cloudy, and showed the bare, brown, rounded hills of clemente ten miles distant on the starboard quarter. towering, weighty seas, unbroken now by the islands, came charging up out of the southwest in billowing ranks, but so buoyant was the schooner under her shortened sail that the grey light of the morning showed the brine of the last wave that had swept her decks before she was put to head-reaching spangled in frost-like _repouseé_ along the lee scuppers. toward midday the wind shifted suddenly to northwest, and though still blowing a gale it was deemed best to risk a little more sail in an endeavour to get away from the islands before night closed down again. accordingly, the reefs were shaken out of foresail and forestay-sail, and under these and a close-reefed mainsail twenty-four miles were run off in the afternoon watch. at four o'clock, when the barometer touched its minimum of . , a nasty swell from the northeast, due to another shifting of the wind, began to make itself felt, and, though nothing carried away, the vicious twist of the cross surges made so bad a seaway that we were forced to reef down again and ride out the night head-reaching in a southwesterly direction. by morning of the th the gale had blown itself out, and at the change of watch all the reefs were untied and the yacht appeared under all plain lower sail for the first time since the evening of departure. toward noon the clouds began to break up and let filter through streaks of pale sunlight to dapple the olive-green hollows of the sea with vagrant patches of golden yellow. the chill of the air gradually melted away as the day advanced, and the opportunity to open skylights and portholes was warmly welcomed by the mater and claribel who had been kept to the cabin for nearly two days. a couple of the light sails were set at noon and carried until a heavy squall, working around from the northwest just before dark, was responsible for sending them down by the run. the runs to noon of the th and th, respectively, were sixty-three and ninety miles, in a course that approximated w.s.w. fair weather and light breezes were taken advantage of on the morning of the th to install a much-needed safety device in the form of a wire rail run all the way round the yacht at a height of eighteen inches above the main rail, a precaution the imperative necessity of which had been shown when one of the sailors had been thrown overboard during the storm. the yacht's rail, only two feet in height, while of some protection at the bows and stern, was almost useless amidships, where the deckhouse, separated from it by only a narrow passage, rose to an equal height. three-quarter inch steel stanchions were set at intervals of eight feet along the rail, and through these a quarter-inch wire cable was run. the stanchions were fastened by a bolt on the under side of the rail in such a manner as to be easily removed, thus permitting the whole affair to be expeditiously taken down and stowed while in port. this simple and inexpensive precaution proved of incalculable value in insuring the safety of the decks on stormy nights, a usefulness which was put to the test many times in the course of the months that followed. clearing skies and a smoothing sea on the third day out brought the mater and claribel--two pathetic bundles of rugs--up on deck, where the sun and fresh air began the slow task of reviving in them an interest in life. all day they drooped in hollow-eyed wretchedness with their white faces turned toward the paradise of a terra firma beyond the eastern horizon which every moment was receding farther away. through all of the bright noontide and the sparkling afternoon they kept their ceaseless vigil, and even when twilight came, with a freshening wind and heavier seas, they still refused to go below. day and night were all the same to them now, they said. an hour later a black-visaged squall came boring down out of the night ahead, and the raindrops and the driving spray began to drum a duet to the accompaniment of the rising blasts of the wind. "you'll be shivering with cold before long if you stay here," admonished the commodore gently; "best get up and go below now." "there is no heat or cold any more," one muttered listlessly, and they both drew their rugs closer and curled the tighter into the curve of the transoms. a high-headed maverick of a comber came crashing over the weather rail and swept the muffled figures into a vortex of spinning foam where a ton of green water washed about the cockpit. we sprang to help them, but they only shuddered resignedly back into the wash of the clearing scuppers and disdained to move. "you're both soaking wet," protested the commodore; "please go below now and get into some dry clothes." "there is no wet nor dry any more," bubbled the starboard bundle; "let us alone." "a wave like that last one has been known to kill a strong man," ventured the commodore weakly, at his wit's end for an argument that would have some effect. "here's another coming now. please--" "there is no life nor death any more," broke in a sputter from the port bundle; "and even if there was we wouldn't--" we picked up the two dripping bundles and bore them gently below just as a second comber, running wildly amuck, banged its head off against the rail and turned the cockpit into another maelstrom. save for shortening periods of introspective languor induced by whiffs from the galley or the clink of dishes, matters were better the next day, and the day following the sufferers were sufficiently revived to begin unpacking and--as they called it--"putting things trig and shipshape below." after that things began falling into the even routine which, save for its occasional disturbance in stormy weather, characterized our life at sea to the end of the voyage. but there never came a time when, for the mater and claribel, the first three or four days out of port did not hold the menace of that chaotic state in which there was no night or day, heat or cold, wetness or dryness, and in which if there was to have been a choosing between life and death the latter would have been the less bitter portion. a pacific yachting cruise is not all an idyllic pleasaunce to the _mal-de-mer_ subject, for the ocean which has not been pacific for many hours at a time since the day it was discovered and christened does not temper its moods for the small craft. [illustration: _lurline_ in drydock before sailing] [illustration: "the commodore laboriously squinted out his first sights"] [illustration: "full-and-by"] in spite of restricted quarters, the days which followed seemed never long enough to do all we laid out for them. the commodore was the busiest of us. to him it became evident before we were fairly out of sight of land that his pleasure cruise was going to have to be enjoyed to the accompaniment of a lot of hard work, for _lurline's_ former sailing master--whom he had shipped as mate and whom he subsequently let go in honolulu--was absolutely incompetent as a navigator and only fairly so in the actual sailing of the yacht. this came as a very disconcerting surprise, for the man had been well recommended, and his incompetence meant that all of the work--to say nothing of the responsibility--of navigating the yacht through some of the stormiest and worst charted latitudes of the seven seas was to be thrown on the commodore, whose deep-sea sailoring had been confined to a voyage around the horn on a clipper when he was in his teens. i have still a vivid mind picture of the commodore when, after he had laboriously squinted out his first sights and was ready to try to figure the position of the yacht, he disappeared into his cabin behind an armful of tables and books on navigation and slammed and locked the door. the iterated luncheon call elicited only a grunt of impatience from the depths of the sanctum, and likewise the summons to tea and dinner. the mater's timid knocking at bedtime brought no answer at all, and we were gathered in perplexed colloquy on deck as to what the next move would be, when a booming "got it!" thundered out from the locked cabin, and a moment later the door was burst open by a pajama-clad figure, waving a slip of paper above its towel-bound head. "observation checks dead-reckoning at last," cried the commodore. "give me some dinner." between mouthfuls he explained to us that the first time he worked out the sights they showed the yacht to be somewhere in tibet. all the rest of the morning she kept turning up in various parts of asia, africa, australia and europe, the only time she was in the water being after a reckoning which gave the latitude and longitude of victoria nyanza. shortly after noon the figuring in of some allowances hitherto neglected jumped the elusive craft into the western hemisphere, but as near as might be to a perch on the summit of aconcagua. tea time had her in the klondike, and several other canadian points were visited before nebraska was reached at the call for dinner. an hour later she was actually in the pacific, but floundering helplessly off the coast of peru, from where she worked north in an encouraging fashion until a sudden jump landed her in the colorado desert. she was perilously near being stranded on catalina at the end of the second dog-watch, and it was the reckoning after this one--magnetic variation and a few other essentials being finally included--that checked with the dead-reckoning and put the poor wanderer where she belonged. day by day, navigation became simpler work after that titanic struggle, until, the morning we sighted the island of hawaii, i saw the commodore take and work out in ten minutes an observation which told him in which direction the harbour of hilo was located. besides navigating and directing the sailing of the yacht, the commodore always stood one of the night watches and at other times held himself ready to appear on deck at any emergency. it was a stiff undertaking, having suddenly to face the prospect of eight or ten months of day and night work on a small schooner in the treacherous south pacific; but the commodore buckled down to it with the enthusiasm of a youngster and carried it through with flying colours, as will be seen. my own work was confined to the nominal duties of volunteer weather observer for the u. s. hydrographic office,--a branch of the bureau of equipment of the navy--occasional tricks at the wheel, and falling into line now and then at the tail of a sheet or halyard when "all hands and the cook" failed to muster sufficient power amongst them. as weather observer i became for eight months a small cog in the very comprehensive system by which the hydrographic office is gathering data on currents, winds, clouds, waves, storms, temperatures, etc., from all of the sailed-in sea-ways of the world to assist in perfecting its monthly weather charts on which--as the result of the accumulated observations of many years--the probable meteorological conditions likely to prevail at any given point are recorded. twice a day i took the temperature of the air and water, recorded the direction and force of the wind--the latter on a scale of to , from a calm to a full gale--the set and height of the seas, and on a circular chart of the heavens indicated which of the various kinds of clouds--nimbus, cirrus, cumulus, etc.--prevailed at the time in each of the twelve divisions into which it was divided. the difference between the position of the yacht by dead-reckoning--that is, figured by the log and compass--and the position by observation gave the direction and speed of the ocean current at that point. these data were set down in a little booklet, containing a page for each day of the month, which, when filled, was mailed to the san francisco branch of the hydrographic office. (the monthly weather charts for the pacific, with which we had been supplied through the courtesy of this office, proved most valuable for those latitudes which were crossed by regular trade routes, and in which, as a consequence, comprehensive observations extending over some years had been taken; but in the little-sailed latitudes of the south pacific--many stretches of which are still unploughed by a keel for years at a time--they were, naturally, fragmentary and of little practical use.) we often have been asked if time did not hang very heavily on our hands in the long, unbroken fifteen, twenty and even thirty day intervals between ports. perhaps this will be as good a place as any to answer that question. for the commodore and myself i will register an emphatic "no," while a partial list of the activities of the ladies, will, i think, answer for the balance of the passengers. in comparison with claribel, once those dreadful spells of post-departure indisposition had trailed away into bad memories, every one on the yacht--not excepting the cook and the commodore--was a drone and loafer. her quenchless energy found expression in musical, linguistic, literary, culinary and manual activities throughout the voyage. a guitar and a banjo held the boards to hawaii, where a _eukelele_ was annexed and mastered, after which, group by group and island by island, every form of native musical instrument from hollow-tree tom-toms and war conches to coco shell rattles and shark's hide tambourines was taken up in turn and blown, beaten, shaken or twanged into yielding its full capacity of soul-stirring harmony. most of these instruments she even rebuilt or imitated with good success. vocally (claribel has a really fine voice) simple ballads of the "tenderness-and-pathos, pull-at-the-heart-strings" type were favoured until our arrival at hilo, where "aloha-oe" and various swinging _hulas_ had their turn; these giving way to plaintive marquesan sonatas, rollicking tahitian _himines,_ lilting samoan serenades and booming fijian war-chants, as, one after another, these various isles of enchantment were put behind us. her terpsichorean achievements were equally varied and multitudinous, for there were few poses in the primer postures of the _hula-hula_ and the _siva-siva_ that she did not imitate and embroider upon in a manner to awaken the envy of the nimble fof-iti, the _première danseuse_ of the court of king pomare, or even of the sinuous seuka, the peerless _taupo_ who led the dance in the thatch palace of chief mauga at pago-pago. when i mention that in addition to these things the indefatigable claribel also set up a "native crafts" shop in the starboard lifeboat, where she produced wooden gods, shark-tooth necklaces, tortoise-shell combs (genuine shell), war clubs and axes, carved coco shells, tappa cloth and similar "tourist" curios of a character to defy detection (by us) and at a cost (figuring her time as worth nothing) effectively to defy native competition; that she read goethe and heine (complete) in german, and all of the or more volumes in the yacht's library, including several works on navigation, ship-building and astronomy, as well; that she made herself a dozen or more tropical dresses (not native, but full-sized garments); that she mastered the technique of my typewriter and wrote a voluminous journal upon it, manifolding some scores of copies to send to friends at home; that she played the gramophone for us whenever the yacht was steady enough to allow that sensitive instrument to keep an even keel;--when i mention all of these various spheres of activity in which claribel circulated, and then admit that i have still left the list incomplete for want of space, it will readily be seen that time had little chance to hang heavily on her nimble hands and that she had scant opportunity to learn the meaning of that hackneyed term, "the monotony of the voyage." the mater, when she was not being whirled in the back-wash of the comet-like wake of claribel's multudinous activities, spent her time in quiet dignity with knitting or embroidery, reading and solitaire; but when the demon of _ennui_ threatened to raise its gorgon head in the form of an interval of idleness, the both of them would turn to and write "items of interest" for the "ladies' log," a diurnal record of feminine _impressions de voyage_ which spared no one in the cabin, galley or fo'c'sl'--not even the editors themselves--in its trenchant columns of comment. i shall have occasion, doubtless, not infrequently to quote from its scintillant pages. on the run from san pedro to hawaii our course was at first directed somewhat more southerly than the straight one to hilo in the hope of the sooner intercepting the northeast trades, which, according to the government weather charts, should ordinarily be met with somewhere in the vicinity of the th parallel. during the morning watch of the th our expectations appeared to be realized. just as the rising sun broke through a shoal of silver clouds a crackling breeze from the e.n.e. came humming over the taffrail, and, heeling the yacht over until the hissing brine curled off by her forefoot kissed the starboard rail, sent her spinning through the water at a good ten-knot gait. "northeast trades!" chuckled the starboard watch to the port watch as the latter came on deck; "northeast trades--cheer up, the hilo girls have got the tow-line!" "northeast trades--now for a big day's run!" bellowed the mate to the commodore, as he ordered the kites run up and the backstays set and tautened; and "northeast trades!" mused the cook to the bacon; and "northeast trades" chirped the ladies to their mirrors; and "northeast trades" hummed the sails to the sheets and the halyards to the shrouds. the air was vibrant with the good news, the sea was a-dance because of it, and the sun, when he awoke to a full realization of the import of what was on, broke into a smile so expansive and warm that the hovering mists of the morning took up their tents and hurried away. this felicitous state of affairs lasted until eight o'clock, when the wind veered around through east and south, finally to settle itself comfortably so near s.s.w. that it kept the headsails flapping and the mainsails a-shiver at the mast to hold the yacht's head up to w.s.w., a good two points north of a course which, normally, we should have sailed "wing-and-wing." and that was the last we saw of the much-vaunted northeast trades until, five months afterwards on the run back to hawaii from fiji, they met us at the equator and headed us all the way to honolulu. for the remainder of the run the breeze, except in occasional squalls, blew steadily and with moderate force from all points between southeast and southwest. several times, for a few hours at a stretch, it hauled around as far as w.s.w., and even west, on which occasions the booms were jibed to port and a few miles of the much-needed southing run off. a half dozen times we ran free for an hour or two when a favourable slant of wind offered, but oftener it was "full-and-by," or "by-the-wind," with the booms almost amidships in an endeavour to steal the last fraction of a point from the obstinate turncoat of a wind. most of the time the yacht was too close to the wind to admit of the advantageous use of the main topmast staysail, but either our large or small sail of that class, as well as the club and jib topsails, were used whenever opportunity offered. runs of close to miles were made on the th, th and th, and on the th the best run of the passage, miles, was logged. on the th and st frequent squalls and light baffling airs were responsible for the shortest runs, fifty-seven and seventy-seven miles respectively. the average for the other days was in the vicinity of miles. the general direction of the currents encountered was unfavourable, the prevailing one, which had a northeasterly set of about ten miles a day, having apparently hooked up with the contrary winds to cut down our southing and westing. long before entering the torrid zone, which was done on the night of the th, the weather in its fitful uncertainty as well as in its mildness, savoured strongly of the tropics. there was no fog nor even the shortest periods in which the sky was completely overcast. there was only one occasion when the zenith was sufficiently obscured to make a latitude sight impossible at noonday, and no day whose morning was too cloudy for a longitude observation but which made amends with a clear afternoon. no heavy seas were encountered after the storm of the first two days had been left astern. this was principally due to the fact that the constantly shifting wind never blew up a sea from one direction before it veered off to another and beat it down again. the resulting succession of cross swells was annoying, but never heavy enough really to be troublesome. the temperature of the water increased slowly but with almost absolute regularity as we approached the lower latitudes, while that of the air, though likewise increasing, was more variable, tending to jump up and down incessantly in the intervals of sunshine and squalls. on the morning of the th a striking and unusual arrangement of clouds on the western horizon was responsible for no small excitement. a dull, dark line of stratus, hanging low above the water, was topped by a vivid, clean-lined triangle of frosty-white cirro-cumulus, producing an effect so wonderfully like a snow-capped mountain that the mate, without stopping to reflect that our position at noon of the previous day left us still almost a thousand miles from hawaii, the nearest charted point where even so much as a rock pushed above the bosom of the pacific, burst forth with a lusty cry of "land on the starboard bow!" the look the commodore gave the mate when, aroused from one of his short spells of sleep, he rushed on deck to discover this nebulous "landfall," was more eloquent than vocal expression. it was my impression that nothing was said, but i find that the "ladies' log" records that "some words passed between the officers, most of them going in one direction." so it is just possible that the commodore was not able to restrain his pent-up feelings after all. the next day claribel set to music a verse of henry lawson, the new zealand poet, which goes something like this: for the southeast lands are dread lands to the sailor in the shrouds, when the low clouds loom like headlands, and the headlands blur like clouds; choosing the time of the mate's watch to come out upon the quarter deck and practise it. wolfe, blushing furiously, retreated to the lee of the foresail for shelter, not to reappear until the watch was called at noon. he could never see a white cloud near the horizon after that without looking ashamed, which was very awkward in the tropics where it was cloudy all the time; yet our real landfall came in form so similar to the cloud island which had so completely deceived that functionary a week previously that every one--including the commodore--gazed, silent and mistrustful, and waited for some one else to shout the news. our dead-reckoning showed us to be a hundred miles off shore at daybreak, and it seemed impossible that even the mountain tops could show so clearly at so great a distance. but as the morning sun gained strength the opaque sheets of strati along the horizon began to thin, and gradually out of the dissolving mists, clear as cut alabaster against the brilliant turquoise of the tropic sky, the funicular cone of a great snow-capped volcano took unmistakable shape, and we knew it for the mighty mauna kea, famous as one of the loftiest island mountain peaks in the world. "could we make hilo by dark?" was now the question. the mate answered in the negative and advised proceeding under half sail and standing off-and-on till daybreak. but the commodore, noting the strengthening breeze which since midnight had been working back into the east where it belonged, deemed the effort worth making, and accordingly ordered the sheets slacked off and more sail set. up fluttered the big main topmast staysail, up the jib topsail and the flying jib, and up the main and fore gaff-topsails, every one of them drawing beautifully in the steady breeze that came gushing over the starboard quarter, and each after the other, as it was hoisted and filled, doing its full measure of work in forcing the yacht's lee rail deeper into the yeasty run of foam churned up by her lunging bows and driving her faster toward her goal. when the great turtle-backed mauna loa, lying to the south of and beyond mauna kea, was sighted at noon we had been bowling along for three hours at a gait that had brought the black lava belts under the snowline above the horizon, and below these, still dim and indistinct as the figures on ancient tapestry, the perspectives of the gently undulating lower reaches of the windward slope of the largest of the hawaiian islands. all through the afternoon watch the wind freshened until, from an average of ten knots in the morning, we increased to eleven in each of the hours from twelve to two, ran just over twelve knots from two to three, and but slightly under thirteen from three to four. fortunately such sea as was running was with us, and though there was a constant smoke of spray about the bows, and though the sails, filled hard as sand bags, strained on the masts till the backstays sang like over-strung fiddles, no green water came aboard and nothing carried away. at four-thirty the masts of ships were sighted a couple of points off the port bow, and taking in the light sails we headed up for what we knew must be hilo harbour. ten minutes after the course was altered a black squall which had been chasing the yacht passed astern of her and broke upon the land, its course being as clearly traceable across the velvet verdance of the rippling cane fields as across the heavens. down the coast it raced us, gradually passing inland and leaving behind it a wake of freshness that glistened like a green satin ribbon in the last rays of the sun that was setting behind a shoulder of the towering mauna kea. there are several experiences in life that mark with indelible impression the pages of memory, but none to compare with the sensations that throng upon one at his first close-in sight of a tropical island. [illustration: waiohae beach, island of hawaii] [illustration: hula dancer with eukalele] as the yacht stood into the entrance of hilo harbour, which is little more than an open roadstead partially protected by the submerged broom reef, the wind hauled to the south and several short tacks were necessary to make a favourable anchorage that offered a couple of cables' length to the landward of a big , -ton steamer of the american-hawaiian fleet which was loading sugar. the anchor was let go in seven fathoms of water at a few minutes before six o'clock, the log, which had been taken in at the entrance of the harbour, registering , miles from san pedro breakwater. * * * * * the praises of hilo itself, of its kind and hospitable people, its unique and picturesque japanese quarter, its avenues of palms and mangoes and its streams and waterfalls, have been sung so often and so well that i reluctantly forego more than the briefest mention here. further along on the cruise there were occasions when we met with more sumptuous entertainment, saw harbours more picturesque and better protected, and mountains clothed in an even more reckless riot of tropical vegetation; but we found no place that ever seriously rivalled hilo for first place in our hearts. it was our first love; our first tropical experience; the gateway to those mystical latitudes of enchantment, the south pacific. during the ten days which _lurline_ lay in hilo bay visits were made to kilauea, the largest active volcano in the world, to the peerless onomea gulch and to several interesting sugar mills and plantations. our stay was a continuous round of _luaus_ or native feasts, luncheons, dinners, teas and drives. on the yacht we evening of fireworks and music, and an afternoon sail, the latter event being recorded in the irreverent "ladies' log" as a "mal de mer party." early in the afternoon of the th two of the sailors, pulling ashore to bring off some visitors, ran into a nasty combination of surf and tide rip at the bar of the wiluki river and upset. one of the men was caught under the boat, and but for the timely assistance of a japanese who had been fishing from his sampan nearby, would undoubtedly have been drowned. while the plucky jap was endeavouring to secure the painter of the overturned boat, his sampan drifted inside the breakers and was on the verge of being itself upset when rescued by a tug sent out from the landing stage. at four a. m. of march nd anchor was tripped and sail made for the run to honolulu. the wind at first was light and baffling, as a result of which but twenty-one miles up the coast of the island were run off by noon. after passing alea point, however, the change of course made it possible to slack off the sheets, and under all plain lower sail the yacht bowled along at a nine-knot gait until well after dark. for the next three or four hours heavy squalls were encountered, but midnight showed a clear sky, with the opaque mass of maui, looming darkly, abeam to starboard. this big island, the second in size of the hawaiian group, is famous for its extinct volcano of haleakala, the crater of which, ten miles in diameter and with rims that rise in places to an altitude of , feet, is believed to be the largest that has existed in any era of the world's geological history. morning of the rd showed the gaunt, forbidding cliffs of molokai on the port beam, and our glasses readily located the spot where, shut in by unscalable rock walls behind and cut off by cordons of breakers in front, the unfortunate inhabitants of the leper settlement of kalaupapa drag out their sad existences. the island of oahu was sighted at nine, and shortly afterward we headed into molokai channel, said to be one of the deepest places in the pacific ocean, and, in the matter of baffling winds and waves and currents, undoubtedly one of the most treacherous and uncertain, as we were to learn on the return voyage. a strong breeze increased to a half gale by noon, and under double-reefed main and foresails the yacht made not any too good weather of it in the vicious cross tumble of waters that assailed her. about noon the smooth, round summit of coco head began to peer above the foam-tipped crests of the in-racing seas, and an hour later the sharp, incisive outline of diamond head showed clear against the northeastern skyline. as we brought its tall lighthouse abeam the beach and reef of waikiki, with rows of white hotels and bungalows, and the odd looking crater of the punchbowl tilted above honolulu in the background, began to open up beyond. the jack at the fore brought the pilot boat, rowed by a crew of stalwart, bare-chested kanakas, out from the head through a tortuous passage in the reef, and, watching his chance, the pilot leapt to a footing on the ladder and clambered aboard without absorbing so much as a drop of the swinging comber which at the same instant swept and half swamped his plunging cutter. our next three miles to the entrance of honolulu harbour was over the regular track of the transpacific liners, and the unfolding panorama, like the unrolling of an ever-changing piece of rich oriental brocade, has furnished the inspiration for descriptions,--good, bad and indifferent,--by every traveller not abashed by its beauty and grandeur who has sailed that way since the time of cook. i throw up my hands and admit the futility of adequate description at the outset; but none the less eagerly love to turn back the pages of memory to a picture--blurred and impressionistic in detail, but unfading in the brilliancy of its colours--of that leeward stretch of oahu between diamond head and honolulu as it appeared on that gusty afternoon of our first arrival, a harmony in blues and greens--the sombre indigo of the cloud-shadowed sea, the lapis-lazuli above the coils of the hidden reefs, the sheeny verdancy of the palms and bananas along the foreshore, the _verte emaraude_ of the slope up to where tantalus and the pali were lost in their crowns of cumulus and nimbus; and above all the transparent azure of the tropic sky. the pilot took _lurline_ in through the narrow reef which constitutes the entrance to honolulu harbour under foresail and jib, handling her with consummate skill in the maze of cross currents and eddies which make the passage a dangerous one even for steamers. immediately on gaining still water we were boarded by the harbour-master, who moored us neatly and expeditiously in a natural slip in the reef called "rotten row," scarce a cable's length from the docks of the pacific mail and the australian liners. here the yacht lay for three weeks, provisioning and refitting for the arduous months ahead in some of the almost unsailed corners of the south pacific, while we--the mater, claribel, the commodore and myself--lived ashore, enjoying to our utmost the hospitality of the gayest, richest, loveliest and most fascinating of all the pacific island capitals. chapter ii honolulu to taio-haie with , miles of salt water stretching between its windward shores and the western coast of north america, with twice that distance separating it from asia, and with more or less open water rolling limitlessly away to the arctic and the antarctic, it is only natural that hawaii should harbour a race of sea-loving people. a hundred years ago the hawaiians, bred true to their samoan progenitors, fearlessly embarked in their sliver-like, cinnet-sewed canoes on voyages that today would be deemed hazardous for hundred-ton schooners; and a half century or more back they were hailed throughout the seven seas as the most daring whalers that ever drove lances or hurled harpoons. so in assuming at the beginning of this century the title of "the yachting centre of the pacific," hawaii is not attaining to a new distinction, but merely claiming in a modernized form a heritage of ancient days. honolulu, judged by the "timber and lines" of the men behind the sport there, is the peer of any yachting centre in the world, and the royal hawaiian yacht club is composed of as clean-cut, whole-souled a lot of gentlemen and sportsmen as one will meet east or west, north or south, in whatever country or under whatever burgee. kaleakaua, last king of the hawaiians, was the first commodore of the yacht club, and at the time of our visit the late prince cupid, the territory's representative in washington and once in line of succession to the throne, was an active member. and only in the yacht club, of all hawaiian organizations, have royalist and reactionary met on terms of frank and open friendship. the memories of the stirring days of the revolution are dimmed by the mists of more than a score of years, but still clear and distinct in island society is drawn the line of demarcation between the ever-loyal one-time adherents of kaleakaua and those who were active in, or in sympathy with, his overthrow. yet with the yachtsmen, even in the days of the by-no-means bloodless revolution, animosities, political, social and personal, were ever left ashore, and one saw leaders of the rival factions bending their backs and chorusing together as they broke out the same anchor, or, shoulder to shoulder and foot to foot, swayed up the same mainsail. one of the stock stories they tell you at the yacht club is of an incident which occurred back in the days immediately preceding the revolution, a time when rumours of plots flew thick and fast and royalist and republican passed each other in highway and byway with distrustful sidelong glances, each with the fingers of his left hand raised to his hat in courteous salutation and the fingers of his right hand twitching on the butt of the stubby "forty-four" in his hip pocket. it chanced at this time that sanford b. dole, prominent from boyhood in island affairs and then at the head of the conspiracy to overthrow the monarchy, and clarence mcfarlane, brother of the king's master of ceremonies and a staunch upholder of the throne, were sailing mates on the old _aloha_, a trim forty-foot sloop designed and built by fife and brought out to the islands on the deck of a sailing ship by way of the horn. on the occasion in question _aloha_ had just cleared the passage and sheets were being slacked away for the run before the blustering northeast trade down to maui. a sudden lurch of the boat caused dole to lose his hitch on the bit, the sheet was jerked from his hand, and in lunging forward to regain his hold his patriarchal beard--nearly two feet in length and then, as now, his most distinguishing feature--whisked into the block and started to wind upon the whirling sheave. slammed to the deck and in imminent danger of serious injury the moment his chin met the block, dole's most frantic efforts had hardly more than checked the run of the sheet, when mcfarlane leaped forward, jammed his limp fingers in above the sheave, and at the expense of a badly lacerated hand stopped its deadly rotation until lorrin thurston, at the wheel, brought the yacht's head to the wind and put an end to the danger. two days later the revolution began which made dole president, thurston minister to washington, and left mcfarlane and the rest of the royalists, politically, in obscurity. yet these three still sail together now and then, and during our stay in honolulu we of _lurline_, both ashore and afloat, enjoyed their joint yachting reminiscences on many memorable occasions. to read over a membership list of the royal hawaiian yacht club from its early days is to con a roster of the men who have made hawaii what it is; and not a man who has held the tiller of the insular ship of state and guided it through the storms that have threatened to engulf it so often during the last three decades but has owed something of the steadiness of his head and hand to the training of his yachting days. _gentlemen of the royal hawaiian yacht club, i salute you! here's to your summer seas, and your summer winds, and your summer skies, and the summer in your hearts. may you always have_--i was going to say fair weather and other things to match, but i pause in time. yours are the natures that make fair weather out of any storm that blows. so--_here's to a sail above you, a plank beneath you, the blue-green pacific about you, and the boisterous trade wind blowing you on_. * * * * * honolulu hospitality is of so wide a fame that i will not lay myself open to the charge of trying to "gild refined gold or paint the rainbow" by telling here of the details of our sojourn in what is so happily called the "pearl of the pacific"; and yet--there was one incident that is so characteristic of the innate courtesy and gentility of the hawaiian host that i may be pardoned for setting it down. it was but a few days after our arrival in honolulu that we were invited to attend a _luau_ or native feast at the home of col. sam parker, a prominent planter of the islands and a relative of the late king kaleakaua. the affair was to be informal, we were told, and the feast was to be spread on the _lanai_ or open veranda. on the strength of these assurances, and because the night was a hot and sultry one, the commodore and i thought that our duck yachting uniforms would fulfil all the requirements of the occasion, and proceeded to attend thus accoutred. imagine our feelings, then, on finding the genial colonel parker waiting to receive us in full evening dress, and observing that every one of the hundred and fifty other guests were likewise impeccably garbed. two white doves in a flock of ravens could not have been more conspicuous or out of place, and our discomfiture was no whit lessened on being led to the head of the long table and placed in the seats of honour beside colonel parker's step-daughters, the lovely princess kawanakoa and the no less beautiful alice campbell. not till we were seated did i notice that our host's place was vacant. for ten minutes the commodore and i munched shamedly at our _poi_ and boiled seaweed and avoided the i-told-you-so glances of the mater and claribel who, resplendent in "full racing rig," seemed palpably endeavouring to impress the assembled company with the fact that they had no connection whatever with the two ill-at-ease nautical-looking gentlemen in the duck jackets. the princess and her sister were the souls of wit, tact and amiability, but we continued droopy and unresponsive even under the stimuli of their spirited sallies. there was only one thing that could happen to restore our shattered equanimity, and that--thanks to the inspiration which had doubtless seized upon our genial host the moment our mis-garbed figures had hove above his horizon--was the very thing that did happen. we were just passing from _poi_ in calabashes to mullet boiled in _ti_ leaves, when in breezed the colonel, with only a quickened heaving of his ample chest indicating the lightning change he had been making, garbed in the undress uniform of a commodore of the royal hawaiian yacht club, a position which he had held during the reign of the late king kaleakaua. it was a most gracious act of kindly courtesy, and i was not in the least surprised to hear the commodore spent most of the rest of the evening trying to persuade all the parkers, root and branch, to get their things together and join us for our cruise in the south pacific. in my own thankfulness, i distinctly remember offering several times to make a present of the yacht to both the princess kawanakoa and her sister before i pulled myself together sufficiently to realize that it was not mine to give. * * * * * the only unpleasant feature about letting go anchor in honolulu harbour is having to break it out again. after our week of scheduled stop had stretched out to two weeks, and finally to three, the realization that our reluctance to leave was but growing with every day that the inevitable moment was deferred brought us at length to the arbitrary setting of a sailing hour. toward this we inflexibly directed the current of our resolutions, with the result that we really did get away in the end. on the morning of sailing we were pleasantly surprised to receive word from the spreckels company--john d. spreckels was the original owner of _lurline_--that it was sending its big tug, _fearless_, to tow us out of the passage and beyond the lee of the island to the breeze-swept channel. a little later a note came out from governor carter informing us that he was sending the royal hawaiian band on the _fearless_ to pipe paeans of farewell. we were not sailing until three o'clock on the afternoon of the th of march, but soon after daybreak boats commenced coming off laden with boxes and bags and parcels, remembrances from our kindly island friends, and toward noon the tide of flowers set in--these mostly in the form of _leis_ or garlands to be worn about the neck. by two o'clock the cabin was like the shipping room of a department store at the climax of the christmas rush, and the deck a cross between a fruitstand and a conservatory. nor was the forecastle unremembered. the sailors, too, appeared to have formed attachments. as the bluff bow of the _fearless_ came nosing out into the stream from under the stern of the big _siberia_ and all hands turned to on the anchor, we were treated to the spectacle of four brawny seamen, garlanded and festooned in trailing _leis_ from head to heel, bending and swaying in unison and heaving up the chain to a chantey that was nothing more or less than an improvisation from a rollicking native _hula_. the line from _fearless_ was passed aboard and made fast, and as the anchor was broken out the white-coated band, grouped picturesquely on the forward deck of the tug, struck up the opening bars of a familiar air, and puilani molina, the sweetest singer in all of the hawaiias, advanced to the rail, tossed a bright-hued _lei_ upon the water and began singing that most plaintive and tenderly sweet of all the world's songs of farewell, "aloha-oe." "ha-a-heo ka-u-a-ina pa--li--." liquid silver, the full, clear notes floated out to us across the unrippling water, and from reef to shore the whole bay fell silent as she sang through the first verse. at the opening words of the chorus a score or more of friends clustered on the hurricane deck of the tug joined in. instantly the air was taken up by the deep-voiced bandsmen; then by the deckhands and grimy stokers gathered at the door of the engine room, and then by the boatmen as they lay on their oars in the offing, until finally it reached the shore, to come back to us in broken snatches from the throats of the crowd that lined the quays and landings. "aloha-oe, aloha-oe, e-ke o-na-o-na no-ho i-ka li--po, a fond embrace--a ho-i a-e-au, until we meet again." then the screw of the _fearless_ began revolving, her tautening hawser swung _lurline_ into line astern, and out through the narrow passage in the reef we were trailed in the bubbling wake of the tug. an hour later, with coco head abeam and diamond head bearing n.e. by n., five miles distant, sail was hoisted, the tow-line cast off, and _lurline_, wing-and-wing to a light northwest breeze, curtesied gracefully to the rising swells of the channel and took her first mincing steps in the long dance to the marquesas. as we filled away, dipping our flag in a farewell salute, we saw the band, which since leaving the harbour had been doing its bravest to lift the sodden pall of parting with rollicking kanaka airs and stirring patriotic selections, again stiffen to attention, and down the wind, despairingly, appealingly, soothingly by turns, as though wafted by the tug's broadside of fluttering handkerchiefs, came for the last time the strains of "aloha-oe." there are many forms and fashions of the sweet sorrow of parting of which the poet sings, but for a long, long pull, with a yo-heave-ho, at the heart strings, nothing like that which steals over you as you listen to "aloha-oe" with the tow-line in the water, the odor of _ilima leis_ heavy in the nostrils, and the skyline of fair hawaii blurring dim through a mist of tears. the course from honolulu to the marquesan island of nukahiva is about s.e. by e., but in order to run as little chance as possible of being headed by the southeast trades after crossing the line, it was deemed best to lay our course a couple of points to the east of this until the latitudes of this southern wind were reached and its prevailing direction at that season more accurately determined. this course we found we had managed to approximate at the end of two weeks' sailing, but only at the expense of being constantly on the wind; then to discover that the trades in the south pacific blow steadily between e.s.e. and east for nearly all of the year. this meant that we had put ourselves to a good deal of unnecessary trouble and made but a moderately good run where we might have made a very speedy one by heading directly for our destination. that from hawaii to the marquesas is one of the few long traverses in the pacific where the most direct course is also the fastest. the bleak rock of lanaii loomed abeam to windward for several hours on the night of the th, and morning showed the dim blur of maui's great crater, haleakala, blotting out the eastern sky. at noon the snowy peaks of mauna kea and mauna loa detached themselves from the fleecy cloud-racks down to e.s.e., and steadily loomed higher as the sun declined. in the first watch the wind began falling lighter, by midnight it was only coming in fluky puffs, and at daybreak _lurline_ found herself in the most windlessly somnolent patch of salt water in all the length and breadth of the pacific, the lee of the two great , -foot volcanoes that form the backbone of the island of hawaii. probably no other place in the world presents such striking contrasts of meteorological conditions between almost contiguous points as those furnished by the windward and leeward sides of hawaii. the lofty summits of its volcanoes tower so far above the raincloud line that practically no moisture whatever is able to pass to a large belt of country on the southwest side of the island, and where the annual precipitation in the vicinity of hilo is occasionally in excess of two, and even three hundred inches, that of the kona or leeward coast ranges from absolutely nothing to five or six. the rank tropical verdure of the windward slopes is unknown in this windless and rainless belt, and save in places where streams from the perpetual snows form thread-like oases, this leeward region is largely desert. the windless area behind the volcanic barrier of hawaii may be roughly defined as a triangle, sixty miles wide at its base, tapering off to an apex a hundred miles or more to leeward. it was well down toward the base of this triangle that we were trying to cross in an ill-advised effort to avoid the alternative of sailing the longer course to the windward of the island. morning of the th found us in a clear, mirror-like, unrippling sea, the surface of which, in its absence of motion, might have passed for that of a great freshwater lake. scarcely a suggestion of a swell underran the satiny sheen of the level sea, and for all the motion of her decks the yacht might have been chocked up in a dry dock for repairs. the booms, hauled in amidship, lay as though spiked to the deck; and even the drowsy slatting of the lazy-lines and the brisk tattoo of the reef points--twin lullabies of the so-called calms of livelier seas--were unheard. the log, as though in emulation of a sounding lead, hung perpendicularly from the taffrail, its brass blades showing no less clearly in the lucent, unwinking depths than the feathery weed that fringed the motionless rudder. toward noon a few faint leakings of wind came edging in around the north shoulder of mauna kea, and for some time we had steerage way enough to allow the yacht to drift along at a mile or so an hour, the booms out now on one side and now on the other in an effort to intercept the elusive airs. at six o'clock even these vagrant puffs had ceased, and as twilight followed the sinking of the sun behind a ruled-line horizon calm succeeded to calmer, until the sails were finally taken in and we floated, lazily waiting, on the heavily breathing bosom of the deep; for now the shadow of a swell was running and imparting just enough motion to the yacht to set her decks rocking drowsily to and fro in accord with the somnolent peacefulness of the tropic night. the afterglow kindled and faded in pale tints of amber and amethyst and dusky olive, and almost up to the zenith a filmy mass of cirrus cloud, torn by conflicting air currents too high to make themselves at sea level, flamed up in the reflected light for an instant and then broke and scattered into bits, like paper rose-leaves showered into a shaft of red calcium. across the still expanse of the sea east nodded to west, north nodded to south, the sky stars blinked at the sea stars, and the sea stars blinked crookedly back; and under all ran the indolent ebony swells, gently rolling the yacht till she rocked like a sleepy old beldame, drowsing and catching herself and drowsing again. early in the middle watch a light breeze stole out again from landward--this time apparently coming from the mauna loa slope of the island--and by daylight we were twenty miles nearer the southerly deadline of the windless triangle. then the puffs began falling light again, and for an hour or two we drifted without steerage way ten or a dozen miles off the entrance of the beautiful little bay of kealakekua. with eyes straining through our glasses some of us fancied that we discerned the outlines of a tall shaft of white shining through the brown boles of the coconut palms, and told each other that we were gazing on the monument that marked the spot where captain cook, after innumerable hair-breadth escapes in every important island group of the pacific, fell under the clubs of the warlike hawaiians, fighting no less desperately to save the lives of his comrades than for his own. one would have to cruise the pacific for a lifetime to begin to come to an adequate appreciation of what the great navigator did, for the more one sees the more stupendous seems the sum of his achievement. from where the sub-arctic waters wash the shores of cook's inlet, alaska, to cooktown in the lap of the antipodean tropics, and mount cook raising its glacier-seamed sides above the bleak bluffs of new zealand, there is hardly an important island whose strand his tireless foot did not press, and scarce a lump of coral rearing its head above the restless pacific surges that his keen eye did not sweep. nasty sailing, you think it, in these days of charts and steamers, when the lifeboats are swept from the hurricane deck off cook's inlet on your run to nome; and "a frightful hole!" you say, when your "n.y.k." steamer anchors every night as she feels her way along down the great barrier reef; and every minute is your last, perhaps you think, when your "a and a" steamer is hove to in a fijian hurricane, or you're locked in the cabin of your "a.u.s.n." packet in a spell of "southeast" weather between dunedin and sydney. distinctly bad, you think all this; you on your , -ton steamer that is equipped with every precautionary and emergency device known to science, with a powerful beacon on every headland and the bottom of the sea mapped out like a block of lower broadway. just try and imagine, then, if you please, what these same places must have been to cook, who spent years among them in crazy old wooden ships, scarcely a one of which but ended by piling up on some rocky shore or coral beach. columbus, vespucci, and the rest of the deep-water navigators, simply turned the noses of their ships west and sailed till they got to somewhere--and then sailed back again. cook spent years with a man at the masthead looking for hidden reefs, and with the sounding lead going every hour of the twenty-four. in my own mind there are grave doubts as to whether any of us really saw the cook monument during that long forenoon in which we lay becalmed off the leeward coast of hawaii--in fact, i have since been told that it is not visible from the sea at all; but the sight of kealakekua--yes, even at a distance of a dozen miles or more--is ample excuse for this slight tribute to one to whom no man that has ever sailed the pacific will deny the title of "the greatest navigator of history." _captain james cook, sailor, diplomat and gentlemen:--here's long and unbroken rest for your watch below in that quiet haven where you let go life's anchor in the shadow of the towering mauna loa and within sound of the lap of the waves of that pacific, so many of whose tracks you were the first to sail. sleep sound, master mariner, for your work is done; and may your dreams bring you the messages of gratitude that arise from the hearts of those whose ways have been made easier and safer because of the dangers you braved and the sacrifices you made. accept this acknowledgment of the obligation of one of those to whom you showed the way, james cook._ * * * * * a fluky three to five-knot breeze drew in from the e.s.e. about mid-day, every puff of which was taken advantage of to struggle on out of the lee of the blanketing island. freshening slightly after nightfall, it carried us along at a little better than a four-mile gait during each hour of the first watch, near the end of which it hauled ahead and forced the yacht off to southwest until enough southing had been run to allow her to be put about on the other tack without danger of butting her nose into the volcanic bluffs of hawaii. shortly after midnight the mate awakened the commodore to report a reflection on the sky off to the northeast, an announcement which brought every one tumbling out on deck in short order. there was the reflection, surely enough; a dull red glare on our port quarter that shone and dulled and shone again like a blowed-on ember. the light was on a line with the point where the opaque mass of hawaii blotted out the tail of the great bear, and because there was no sign of fire on the water we had about arrived at the conclusion that the glare might come from a ship or sugar mill burning on the windward side of the island, when the reflection suddenly flared from a dull cherry to a vivid flame-red, immediately to be quenched in tumbling masses of smoke or steam which went shooting into the air as though driven by the force of a mighty explosion. "she's a steamer!" yelled the mate. "them's her boilers a-bustin'!" whereupon we all fell to speculating as to what particular steamer it might be. and it was not until six or seven minutes later when a great, deep-toned reverberation reached us--a sound so mighty that all of the steamers in the pacific blowing up together would have passed unnoticed beside it--that light finally burst in upon us and we broke out in chorus with "kilauea! in eruption again." the actuality of this eruption--only a slight one as it chanced--we verified six weeks later when our file of san francisco papers was received in tahiti. in referring since to this most spectacular piece of volcanic pyrotechnics, we have always done so in the words of claribel, then a recently emancipated prisoner from the grip of _mal de mer_. in the sentiently suffusing light the sea rolled a dark pit of ox-blood and the heavens arched a vault of purple-black studded with pale emeralds, the stars. the half-filled sails were hangings of amethyst silk, and the masts lances of fire grounded in patches of living flame where the polished brass work threw back the rosy glow of the northeast. "look! look!" cried the sufferer, clapping her hands with excitement as the twisting pillar on the eastern flank of mauna loa took the momentary seeming of a colossal figure in the throes of a serpentine. "isn't it worth being sea-sick all the way around the world to see? there's madame pelée dancing a _hula_! it's kilauea's 'aloha' to the _lurline_!" and "kilauea's 'aloha' to the _lurline_" it has always been to us since. light and baffling southerly breezes made progress slow for the first two days after clearing the calm patch in the lee of hawaii, and when on the th these suddenly straightened out into a blustering easterly blow the immediate necessity of proceeding under shortened canvas offset the advantage of the long-desired wind. for two days the yacht was close-hauled on a course which approximated southeast, bobbing up and down to the seas and making only moderately good weather under double-reefed mainsail and foresail. sea and wind were still heavy at noon of the st, but the latter had by then come up to northeast, allowing us to sail a point or two free on a course of s.e. by e. under all plain lower sail we pounded into the hard-heaving seas all afternoon and through the night of the st, the decks constantly smothered in volleys of spray and more than a little green water finding its way aboard in some of the heavier plunges, yet averaging close to eight miles an hour all the time. day broke on a sea of wind-tossed pampas plumes, the onslaughts of waves beneath which were responsible for a substantial shortening of sail when the morning watch was called. at ten o'clock, with the glass down to . and the wind increased to half a gale, the canvas was still further reduced, leaving the yacht doing a comfortable six knots under double-reefed mainsail and foresail, and with the jib taken in and the bonnet out of the foresail. for two days, with the glass hovering about . and the wind blowing fiercely but steadily from e.n.e., we jolted along, full-and-by, at from five to seven knots an hour, logging miles on the nd of april and miles on the rd. by this time the torn, fussy seas of the first day of the gale had lengthened out to viciously-running combers, with a resistless power under their swinging upheaves and a decided sting in the blows of their hissing crests. the big third reef was tied into the mainsail at dawn of the th, after a top-heavy wall of reeling water had bumped its head on the starboard boat in an apparent endeavour to salute the rising sun, leaving that indispensable adjunct to our life-saving service wallowing in its slackened lashing with a started plank. this, with a stove-in galley sky-light, made up about the sum total of the damage inflicted by what would have been a really troublesome storm if there had been any land about to look out for. in the open waters of the pacific the hardest kind of a straight blow is of little moment to a staunch schooner, even though--like the _lurline_--it may have been built as much for racing as cruising. where the real danger lurks for any kind of a craft is in the twisting hurricanes and the sudden and terrific squalls which attack unexpectedly among the islands. at sea, as on land, most of the menace is in the unforeseen, striking instances of which truth we had ample opportunity to observe before the voyage was over. the wind began abating in strength shortly after daybreak of the th, and during the day the yacht was gradually restored to all plain sail. we must have passed under the sun at about ° n. late in the forenoon of this day, for it inclined to the north when the noon sight showed our latitude to be ° '. the air and water which had been showing a diurnal increase of temperature of about half a degree, fahrenheit, registered ° and °, respectively. there was no suggestion of oppressiveness in the air and a windsail was not necessary to keep the cabin fresh and cool. in the early morning of the th the wind began to fall light and fluky, finally resolving itself into a tumultuous series of squalls, the last of which, though it drove the yacht off to the west of south at a terrific pace, fortunately abated before anything carried away. when it had passed the wind settled itself contentedly into e.s.e., from which point it continued amiably to purr--except on three notable occasions--through most of the four months which we spent south of the line. we had literally run from the northeast to the southeast trades in a single squall. as we neared the line the only indication of equatorial weather was in the ever-livelier butterfly chases of the sunshine and showers. the winds, except for increasingly fierce squalls which we began experiencing regularly in the early watches, were fresh and steady from e.s.e., and so far as any signs of being in the hated "horse-latitudes" were concerned, we might have been sailing through a week-long september afternoon off the golden gate. considering the freshness of the wind, the sea was very light indeed, and we were able to carry most of the kites to good advantage as long as there was sufficient daylight to permit watching the approach of the ever-imminent squalls. on the th, at three o'clock, in longitude ° ', we crossed the equator, just two weeks to an hour after weighing anchor in honolulu. air and water were slightly cooler than for some days--each registering °, fahrenheit--and so fresh was the steady breeze from the southeast that we stood uncovered in the sun at noonday and in the shade of the sails felt no discomfort in a rug. by this time we had made easting sufficient to place us well to the windward of our destination in any probable shift of wind. sheets were slacked off, therefore, and freed from the griping luff under which she had chafed almost incessantly for the last fortnight, _lurline_ slipped away on a course of due south at a gait which ran up close to miles on the log for the day ending at noon of the th. at this time, with miles--part of it down a narrow island channel beset with swift currents and variable winds--remaining to be covered before we would begin to open up the bay of taiohaie, nukahiva, all practicable canvas was crowded on in an endeavour to make port the following day. eight and nine knots we made all afternoon; good speed considering the force of the wind, yet hardly what might have been desired under the circumstances. but the breeze was stiffening as twilight came on, and realizing that failure to make anchorage before another evening would mean a night of standing off-and-on in a scant sea-way and uncertain winds, the commodore, for the first time since entering those capricious latitudes, allowed the light sails to be carried into the darkness. sailing like a witch in the freshening breeze, _lurline_ reeled off a shade under twenty miles in the second dog watch, and . , . , . and . were successively run up on the log as the hours of the first watch slipped away. the night was balmy soft, the breeze a stream of warm milk, and in the air was discernible that faint, indefinable odour of something which heralds the presence of land to nostrils grown sensitive from inhaling for weeks the untainted atmosphere of the open sea. the heavens, save for a few hurriedly marching squads of the ever-shifting cirro-cumulus, were clear and unobscured, and the easy-running swells were as gentle as the night itself. the yacht continued to reel off the miles like a liner during the early hours of the middle watch, but toward morning the appearance of several menacing turrets of cloud up to windward was the signal for the hurried taking in of the light sails and an easing off of the sheets. for a while it appeared that all of the three rapidly advancing squalls were going to pass astern of us, and so, in fact, two of them did. the third one took an unexpected spin at the last moment and came charging up after the yacht like a mad bull. there was just time hastily to furl the jib and station men at the fore and mainsail halyards before it broke upon the yacht with the explosive roar of a bursting bomb, and the timely letting go of those halyards as she hove down before the terrific force of the wind undoubtedly saved some canvas if nothing more. the mainsail was checked half way in its run and the very considerable portion of it that fell overside went hopping and skipping along on the water like a great wounded bird as the yacht smoked away before the squall. for ten minutes, perhaps, we ran thus, half smothered in air and water; then the rain began falling, the wind fell lighter, and the squall, so far as we were concerned, had spent itself. five minutes later the main boom had been hauled inboard, the sail hoisted, and _lurline_ was gliding off down to south'ard no whit worse for her rough raking. the main topmast staysail was run up when the morning watch was called, and dawn found her doing a comfortable nine knots an hour with the situation well in hand. as the sun rose the somewhat vague land smell which we had noted during the night increased to a delicate but unmistakable odour of flowers, a perfume which we later learned is due to the presence in the air of the blown pollen of the _cassi_, a low bush-like plant which carpets the islands of the marquesas and blooms perennially. so pungent and far-reaching is this odour that it has become a common saying with trading captains who sail these latitudes that you can smell the marquesas farther than you can see them, a statement which is certainly literally true anywhere to the leeward of the group. shortly after eight o'clock the shattered peaks of the island of uahuka were sighted dead ahead, and at nine the course was altered to s.w. by w. after an hour or so the dim outline of nukahiva began taking shape in the dissolving mist, and when the scarped and buttressed summit of cape maartens came edging out from behind the abrupt heads to north'ard, we had something definite to go by, and promptly trimmed in sheets and headed up to clear a forbidding point of black basalt which our directions told us jutted out into the sea to cut off the surges from the inner loop of the bay of taio-haie. along the rugged coast we slipped, now close in to a sinister dirk-like point which reached out to divide and scatter the onrushing seas, and again standing across the opening of a bay or inlet which receded to a snowy beach backed by a lucent lagoon and a chasm full of unfathomable verdure. beyond the furrowed brow of cape maartens a narrow bay, well protected and smooth as a mirror, ran inland beyond eye-scope, piercing the island like a sliver of silver. from where it disappeared in a dense mass of palms and pandanus a high-walled valley wound back among the serried ribs of the mountains, apparently to end abruptly against a lofty cliff, the sheer side of the towering backbone range of the island. here and there up the valley patches of dancing light, shining through the sombre green of the riot of trees and creepers, told of a swiftly-running stream, and down the face of the great cliff, literally leaping from the clouds to the earth in a single bound, was a waterfall. lucent, glittering green it must have been up where it began its dizzy plunge in the heart of the murky mass of drifting nimbus which veiled its source, but white--snow-white--it gleamed where it appeared under the dark cloud line to fall in a brocade of shimmering satin into the misty depth below. we did not learn about it until the next day; but this fall was typee fall, the stream was typee river, and the valley was typee valley, the scene of that most idyllic of all south sea idylls, herman melville's "typee." we never attained nearer than five miles to the great fall during our stay in the marquesas, and accurate figures regarding its height were not obtainable. findlay's directory gives it at , feet, which is probably too much; but the fact remains that it is one of the highest waterfalls in the world, and without a rival on any island whatever. at four in the afternoon we doubled the gaunt black point toward which we had been steering for some hours, suddenly to find the panorama of the beautiful bay of taio-haie unfolding before us. pursuant to the instructions in the sailing directory, we ran up the jack to the fore and stood off across the entrance waiting for the pilot, without whom, so we read, there was a heavy penalty for endeavouring to enter. then we went about and ran back past the little island at the end of the point, all without awakening a sign of life along the drowsy shore where nestled the village. after repeating this manoeuvre twice more, the commodore ordered the sheets slacked off and gave the man at the wheel his bearing for the first leg of the run in. "perhaps the pilot has overslept on his _siesta_ today," he remarked dryly; "and if that's the case our anchor gun may wake him up." we went in neatly and expeditiously. "keep the eastern outer bluff on the starboard," read the directions, "rounding the island off it within a cable's length. all the eastern shores of the bay are steep-to and free from danger, and the wind will always lead off." and that was about all there was to it. we let go the anchor a few minutes after five, a quarter mile off the rickety wharf, in seven fathoms. our time from honolulu was just over seventeen days, the quickest passage of which there was any record. had we sailed a course to avoid the windless area in the lee of hawaii, and then headed directly for nukahiva it is probable that the run would have been made in the vicinity of twelve or thirteen days. the firing of our little signal cannon might have been the setting off of a mine under the village, so electric was the effect. dark forms sprang up from nowhere and began darting hither and thither and yon, and following the appearance of a corpulent figure in pajamas at the door of what seemed to be the official residence, the tri-colour of france went jerking up to its flag-pole. down the front street shortly came lumbering a ponderous figure in a brass-bound helmet and white uniform, followed by a trailing sword and a half dozen natives carrying oars on their shoulders. two other white men, also white-clad and sun-helmeted, joined the procession as it passed what appeared to be a trading store, and the three proceeded together down to the wharf and put off in a big whaleboat. driven by the erratic but powerful strokes of the big natives, the boat was quickly alongside the yacht, and the official-looking gentleman came puffing up the ladder which had been hastily lowered for him. he was brigadier bouillard, the harbour master, warden of the prison and chief of police, he announced between gasps in broken english, and the other gentlemen following him over the rail were, respectively, mr. cramer, a german trader, and mr. mcgrath, a canadian trader. of the latter, one of the most interesting characters we met in the course of our whole cruise, we were destined to see much during our stay in nukahiva. "by the way," monsieur le capitaine, "where's your pilot?" asked the commodore after the large official had examined our papers and admitted the yacht to practique. "hasn't he overslept this afternoon?" "zee pilate! _mon dieu_, he ees no"--and at this point, with wild rollings of the eyes and swift gestures of uncertain import, the brigadier relapsed into french so voluble and excited as to prove quite unintelligible to our untrained ears. "the brigadier," explained the blond cramer in his exact teutonic english, as the excited frenchman paused for breath, "is trying to tell you, in effect, that the last pilot but one was killed and eaten by relatives of a trading schooner's crew who were drowned when that boat was piled up on the beach because the pilot had taken too much absinthe and mistook a firefly on the bowsprit for the light on the wharf. a similar fate also overtook his successor, apparently for no other reason than that the office had become an unpopular one with the natives. since then," he added, "the government has been unable to find any one willing to accept the position under any inducements." "hardly to be wondered at," mused the commodore. "but, i say, can any of you gentlemen tell me if this--er--antipathy of the marquesan natives toward pilots extends to skippers who bring in their own ships? it's a little late for working out of the harbour before dark but the wind's fair most of the way and, anyhow, i'd rather be drowned than eaten." the natives had always respected visiting yachts, they asseverated earnestly, and--as we learned later--truthfully. the commodore took courage on hearing this and decided to chance it for a day or two. it was not until our arrival in tahiti, a fortnight later, that we learned that perhaps the forbearance of the natives in the matter of visiting yachts may have been partly due to the fact that, previously to _lurline's_ coming, only three craft of that class had ever been to the marquesas. in the "ladies log" of this date i find the following entry: "we sailed in ourselves and fired off our signal gun to wake up the pilot. found out shortly that nothing of less calibre than gabriel's trumpet would have been equal to that task." chapter iii the marquesas today it is a strange anomaly that the marquesan, by long odds the fastest disappearing of the polynesian races, is made up of individuals of incomparably finer physique than those of any other of the islands of the south pacific. of a dozen natives picked at random from the beach of taio-haie, there would probably be not over three or four who would not show more or less of his dark head above the end of a six-foot tape, and the breadth and muscling of each would be in proportion. the women are likewise of good size and figure, and, when undisfigured with tattooing, of considerable beauty as well. both sexes accomplish prodigious feats of walking, swimming and rowing, and both invariably bear up remarkably under hardship and privation such as that incident to being cast away to sea for weeks in an open boat. as a matter of fact, the startling decrease in the population of the marquesan group, except for occasional epidemics, is due to scarcity of births and a lack of vitality in the children rather than to an abnormal number of deaths among the adults. this condition is largely traceable to the existence of a number of more or less active forms of blood disease introduced by the whites of the pacific whaling fleet of half a century ago, and to certain vicious practices in connection with the prevention of child-bearing prevalent in the over-populous days of the group. cannibalism and intertribal wars have frequently been assigned as potent factors in the decimation, but it is notable that neither has had such effect in the solomon or new hebridean groups, where both are prevalent today. the early explorers estimated the population of the island of nukahiva at from , to , . in there was believed to be not over , on the island, and in but , . a french census in enumerated but , , which number had fallen to by . in +stevenson found taio-haie a lively village with a club, barracks, hotel, numerous stores and a considerable colony of french officials; hatiheu and anaho were villages of upwards of a hundred natives each. at the time of our visit in the _lurline_ there remained in taio-haie but three french officials, a single german trader, three or four missionaries and a native population just short of ninety. the villages of hatiheu and anaho had but a few over a hundred inhabitants between them. in the veins of the nukahivan of today course two strains of foreign blood of widely diverse origin. during the latter part of the th, and for most of the th century, the island was a rendezvous for a large colony of buccaneers who had chosen that location for the advantages it gave them in preying upon the spanish galleons plying between peru and the isthmus of panama, as well as in raiding settlements on the intervening coast of south america. these pirates, after some years of fighting, brought the natives of the taio-haie and hatiheu districts into a state of complete subjection, while their relations with the tribes of the interior appeared to have been in the nature of an armed neutrality. the subject natives were employed at sea as sailors and boatmen, and on land as gardeners and herdsmen. the cattle, pigs and goats brought to the island by the freebooters must have been the progenitors of the wild animals of these species which abound there today. with the natives of the interior some trading for food was carried on at times when the drought on the coast made short crops of coconuts, breadfruit and bananas. when the streams of incan gold from peru began to run low and buccaneering became unprofitable as a consequence, the nukahivan pirate colonies gradually changed back to native villages. after the last of the strangers had died, their descendants, through intermarriage with pure-blooded natives, reverted little by little to the predominating type, until the evidences of the blood of white men in their veins survived only in straighter hair and features, harder eyes, a sharper and more uncertain temper and an increased arrogance. they were a handsomer people physically, and a keener one mentally than the original marquesan, but withal a race whose morals were in rags and tatters. for some decades in the middle of the last century nukahiva was the main base of a large portion of the pacific whaling fleet. ships spent months at a time at taio-haie, refitting and reprovisioning, and the island gained many new and undesirable inhabitants through desertions from their crews. the worst epidemic of smallpox ever recorded in the south pacific was started in nukahiva by a maroon from a whaler, and the present-day prevalence of blood and skin disease is directly traceable to similar sources. the women were carried off to the ends of the earth on the whalers and few indeed of them ever found their way back; for the good of future generations it would have been better had none of them done so. the moral laxity of the marquesan of the present day is undoubtedly a legacy of these two occupations of the principal island by the lowest of the sea's riff-raff, pirates and whalers. in nukahiva chastity is quite unknown to any class, and a century of work on the part of the french missionaries has left little mark upon the morals of the people. they are prone to throw themselves at every opportunity into the most unlicensed debauchery, and they know no law save that of the appetites. the feasts of the present generation of nukahivans--aside from cannibalism, which is still practised whenever the chances for escaping detection are favourable--are howling orgies of two and three days' duration, their riotous excesses uninterrupted even by intervals of singing and dancing, as in samoa, tahiti and fiji. the song and the dance, which represent to the polynesian about all that religion, music and the drama combined do to us, have died out in the marquesas even faster than the people. the marquesans of a century ago were the most completely and artistically tattooed people in the pacific, and the practice is carried on among them to a certain extent even today. the really fine pieces of work, however, such as the famous right leg of the late queen vaekehu over which stevenson waxed so enthusiastic, are confined entirely to the very old, and, what with wrinkles, deformities and the wear and tear of time, these have lost most of their original sharpness of colour and outline. none of the new generation appears to have the fortitude to endure the exquisite pain incident to having a whole limb picked out in a network of geometric design or the face barred and circled like a coarse spider's web. women are rarely tattooed at all now, and most of the young men are satisfied with a broad band of solid black--not unlike a highwayman's mask in effect--which reaches across the face from ear to ear, giving to their never overly-mild countenances an expression of amazing ferocity. that the art, and a certain pride connected with it, are not yet lost to the marquesans, however, was amusingly shown by an incident which occurred the day after _lurline's_ arrival in taio-haie. on this occasion, in testing some newly-opened shells, we fired ten or a dozen shots in rapid succession from the yacht's brass signal cannon. at the first report a bevy of marquesan damsels, who had come off to sell sandalwood and shark-tooth necklaces, stampeded to their canoes and could not be induced to return until all activity in the firing line had ceased. then they all clambered gleefully aboard again, and one of them so far forgot herself as to sit down on the deck and lean languidly back with her plump brown shoulder against the sizzling hot breech of the signal gun. that was the last languid movement she made for some time. came the sharp hiss of singed flesh and then, with the scream of a frightened wildcat, the girl cleared the low rail as though thrown from a catapult, swam half a hundred feet under water, to go lunging straight off for the shore the instant her head rose above the surface. now it chanced that across the breech of our little cannon was engraved the name "lurline," picked out in ornamental scrolleries, and beneath it, in rich reposé, the figure of a puffy dolphin in the act of gulping down a buxom mermaid. such of this bas-relief as had come in contact with the fair marquesienne's shoulder left its mark, which striking design was no sooner seen by the tribal tattooist than he needs must perpetuate what he feared, no doubt, was but an ephemeral impression. so fishbone needles and black gum were hastily brought into play, and several days later, when the inflammation had subsided sufficiently to enable her to be about, the proud and grateful young beauty brought the decoration off for us to see. "rline" we read in wobbly reversed letters, and beneath, floundering desperately across a shoulder blade, a stub-tailed mermaid could be discerned in the act of disappearing into the impressionistic but unmistakable head of a dolphin. a half dozen of the now distinguished young person's girl friends accompanied her, and every one of the envious minxes persisted in embracing, leaning against and sitting upon that now cool but still ornamental signal-gun breech in anxious endeavours to get patterns of their own to take back to the village tattooist. but the cunningest picture ever executed upon the body of any marquesan, living or dead, pales to insignificance when compared to the amazing hieroglyphic record depicted upon the skin of a living marqueso-american, john hilyard. readers of stevenson may recall the tattooed man, who was the first resident of taio-haie to discover the appearance of the strange schooner in the introductory chapter of "the wreckers." a bit of the history of that strange character is also hinted at, i believe, but, according to the present-day gossip of the "beach" of taio-haie, it is all wrong. for the real story i am indebted to our friend, mcgrath, the trader of hatiheu, who once nursed hilyard through a spell of fever and attained to more of that queer outcast's confidence than any one else on the island. from hilyard himself--now a man of about seventy, with his grotesquely figured body fully clothed and as much as possible of his face obscured with a bushy beard,--absolutely nothing can be learned, and i was considered to have done remarkably well in holding him during a ten-minute discussion of shark baits. i will outline here in a single paragraph a story which, measured in pangs of soul and body, would tax the compass of a modern novel adequately to depict. deserting from the american whaler, _nancy dawson_, when that ship was careened at anaho in the 's for calking, was a raw youth of twenty, who had run away from his home in a california mining camp and signed on in san francisco. white men were scarce in the marquesas, and after working for a while in a trading store in taio-haie, he shortly became supercargo on a trading schooner, and at length the owner of a concession and boats of his own. it was at the height of his prosperity that he met and fell captive to the charms of mariva, who was reputed beautiful and undoubtedly was coquettish, as the sequel shows. she accepted hilyard's presents, but told him that, while she liked his personality well enough, she detested the sight of his white skin. let the village tattooer remedy that and perhaps--the love lorn wretch was off to put himself under the needle before she had finished. mariva dropped in occasionally upon the session of torture which followed and, now by criticism, now by approval, urged on the flagging artists to renewed effort. when geometric whorls and bands and parallelograms were exhausted, mariva herself dipped a dainty forefinger in the black _kuki_-soot gum and began improvising designs. "that broad chest was made by nature to support a clump of bananas." "what could be daintier than some fat pigs gorging on mangoes in the hollow of that back?" she and an invited bevy of friends sang _himines_ to drown hilyard's groans while he was conscious, and when he fainted with the pain and lay in a stupor they seized spare needles and tried their own hands at tattooing. at the end of the second day, with designs two and three deep all over the body of the unconscious trader, they desisted, less from exhaustion than from a lack of further skin that would take an impression. hilyard lay in a swoon all night, and in the morning was carried to the mission house with a raging fever. that night the faithless mariva eloped with a half-caste missionary preacher, took possession of one of hilyard's schooners, sailed it to the paumotos, where they ultimately set up in trading on their own account and, as far as any one knows, lived happily ever afterwards. that hilyard did not die from blood-poisoning was miraculous. as it was he hovered between life and death for a month, finally to pass from the kindly care of the missionaries so broken in mind and body that he was never again able to return to his trading business. the honest french residente disposed of hilyard's interests for a sum sufficient, when placed in a bank at tahiti, to give the unlucky victim of love's madness enough to live comfortably upon, and for the last forty years he has done just that and nothing more, just existed--an object of scorn to the natives and of pity to the whites--upon the "beach" of taio-haie. scenically the marquesas are incomparably more beautiful than any of the other island groups of the pacific, hawaii not excepted. it is usual to hear the traveller who has covered polynesia by the steamer route speak in similar terms of the society islands--especially moorea and tahiti--samoa and fiji, whichever may have chanced to tickle his fancy, quite losing sight of the fact that the route of his boat has been laid out along the lines of commerce irrespective of scenery. not one steamer--save an occasional gunboat--goes to the marquesas in a decade, the mail of the islands being carried to and from tahiti every three or four months in a trading schooner. in the last twenty years scarce that number of strangers have visited the group, and a dozen or more of these came on the only three yachts that have ever found their way there. how little, therefore, the average south sea tourist really knows of these islands may readily be seen. the rock walls and cliffs of moorea would be lost in the shadows of the great , -foot spires that tower above the bay of hatiheu; the -foot fall of faatua, in tahiti, might be shut from sight in the spray of the , -foot fall of the typee in nukahiva; and the great cliff of bora-bora, the creeper-tapestried walls of the bay of pago-pago and the great gorge of the upper rewa, in fiji, could be hidden away in corners of the stupendous atouna valley of hiva-oa so effectually that they would pass unnoticed. in the matter of riotous tropical growth, the marquesas, being nearer the line than any other of the south sea islands that may lay claim to scenic beauty, have also all the best of the comparison. nukahiva is an almost impenetrable jungle of lantana, burao, acacia, banana, guava and scores of other trees and bushes, nearly all of them flowering and fruit bearing. indigenous to the island is the _cassi_ plant, a thick shrub which covers patches of the lower hills in dense masses and which blossoms out in tiny yellow balls of almost solid pollen. the latter has a perfume of most penetrating sweetness, and in flowering time is blown by the trades many leagues to the leeward of the island. this is the odour which i mentioned that we noted in the air while the yacht was still a hundred miles or more from land. beating into the incomparable bay of hatiheu at night with this perfumed breeze sweeping the deck, the wake a comet of golden-green light and the surf bursting in vivid spurts of phosphorescence along the silver-bright band of the beach, is to anticipate the approach to the mystical islands of the blest. at a number of widely-separated points in the south pacific--notably at easter island, tahiti and kusaie, of the caroline group--are to be found great images of stone, the ruins of huge temples and other evidences of the existence of prehistoric races who, at least as builders, were far in advance of the polynesian of today. french scientists had noted that in the marquesas some of the abandoned house-foundations or _pai-pais_, contained far larger blocks of stone than any of those of later construction, but not until very recently was it known that there were works in the group not unworthy of comparison with the stone gods of easter island. just previous to our visit to nukahiva, our friend mcgrath, the trader of hatiheu, while following up a wounded boar in the typee valley, chanced on an ancient marquesan "olympus," containing nine large stone images in a comparatively good state of preservation. though this most interesting discovery lies within yards of the main trail up the typee valley, no native on the island, either by actual knowledge or through tradition, has been able to shed light on its origin, purpose or probable age. mcgrath conducted our party to his "goddery," as he facetiously called it, when we were crossing the island to pay a visit to the queen of hatiheu, and the several films which i exposed in a driving rainstorm resulted in what are undoubtedly the first photographs of these strange marquesan images. the ancient shrine--for such it must have been--is situated on a terrace in the steeply-sloping side hill, and though the underbrush thins out somewhat in its immediate vicinity, the overarching bows of _maupé_ and _hau_ trees form so dense a screen that the heavens are completely obscured. though it was full noonday when we visited the place, the light--partly, no doubt, on account of the rain--was as dim as that of an old cathedral, and my films, which were exposed four minutes each, would have turned out much better with ten. the images, which had been set at regular intervals around an open stone-paved court, were from six to eight feet in height and averaged about three feet in thickness. we estimated each to contain from forty to sixty cubic feet of hard basaltic stone, the weight of which must have been several tons. as raising so great a weight up the sixty or seventy per cent. incline from the valley would have been almost impossible, and as no outcroppings of stone of similar nature appeared nearby, we were forced to the conclusion that the material for the images must have been quarried out at some point higher up the mountain and laboriously lowered to the terrace prepared for them. [illustration: "all of the images were covered with moss"] [illustration: "a hardened old offender who preferred white man to native meat"] all of the images were covered with an inch or more of solid moss, and on one which i photographed it was necessary to scrape some of this away to bring out the features. the figures were much alike in design, and, in a general way, of a not unremote resemblance to the buddhas of the ancient javan temples. eleven of them were still in their original positions; one was blocked half way in its fall by the trunk of a _hau_ tree, and one was prostrate and overgrown with moss and creepers. a search will undoubtedly reveal others now entirely covered with earth and undergrowth, as there are several unoccupied niches still remaining. that this shrine is of considerable age is evidenced by the fact that a _hau_ tree, three feet in diameter, has forced apart the heavy paving stones and is growing in the middle of the court. trees of even greater size are growing out of the ruins of a small nearby building, which might once have been the foundation of the domicile of the attendant priests. some of the roughly squared rocks in the foundation of the shrine are approximately three by three by ten feet in dimension, and must have taken a small army of men to move and set in place. the marquesas are the only islands of the eastern groups of the south pacific where cannibalism has not long since ceased. this does not mean that one is likely to be pounced on and eaten as soon as he sets foot ashore--as i must frankly admit we all feared when we first heard of the fate of the late pilots of taio-haie--but only that under certain favourable conditions, when there is small chance of its being brought to the attention of the french authorities, this barbarity is still resorted to. the french and the missionaries have been active in suppressing cannibalism and its attendant rites, but, principally on account of certain religious significances which appear to attach to it, the practice persists in bobbing up perennially. the dead in their tribal fights are still eaten when the opportunity offers, but only one white man and a chinaman (the two pilots were half-castes) are known to have been eaten in the last decade. accuse a marquesan of being a cannibal, and he will ordinarily deny the soft impeachment much after the manner of a school girl taxed with being a flirt. some will brazen it out, however, and of such was a hardened old offender who explained to the _lurline_ forecastle one night that, of the various classes of "long-pig," he preferred white man to native because the meat of the latter was saltier and of a more pronounced flavour. chinaman he had never eaten, he said, but--and here he cast an appraising look to where our recently shipped cook was shuddering at the door of the galley--he was going to try one at his first opportunity. the terrified si-ah would not even go ashore to do the marketing during the remainder of our stay in taio-haie. the practice of cannibalism undoubtedly originated in the over-populated days of the island when, in the seasons of famine, the bodies of those killed in the intertribal raids were eaten by the survivors to escape starvation. its survival into a period when the islands produce food a thousand-fold in excess of consumption, and in the face of the active opposition of the french, can be due only to certain superstitious attributes, such as the belief that the strength of a dead foe enters into the body of him who eats the flesh. human flesh is eaten in the marquesas today only when the conditions are such that the chances of detection are the slightest, and never under any circumstances with the ceremonies which attended the rites of three or four decades ago. the "long-pig"--the polite euphemism by which man-meat is designated--may be quietly cut up and distributed among a hundred families in a half dozen different villages, each of which will partake of its precious tidbit in private and strictest secrecy. again, the body may be buried after only a small portion has been reserved for eating. just previous to our arrival in nukahiva a body from which only the hands were missing was washed ashore at anaho during a heavy southwester. investigation showed it to be that of one teona, a resident of hatiheu, a native who, three days previously, had, according to the story of his companions, fallen from their canoe and been drowned. the latter, after four days' confinement in a dark cell at taio-haie--the extremest torture to which the superstitious marquesan may be subjected--confessed that they had killed teona during a coconut wine debauch, and after cutting off his hands and eating them, had weighted the body with stones and dropped it out to sea. they were given the extreme penalty--two weeks' confinement in the dark, to be followed by a year of weed-cutting on the village street. one died of hysteria before the first week was out, and the ther, at the end of ten days, killed himself by gashing his wrist on a jagged corner of the sheet iron wall of his prison. the marquesan's terror of the dark is so extreme that it is not a rare thing for men, women and children to die of fright during eclipses. in view of this, there seems some ground for the contention that the french practice of confining convicted, and occasionally suspected, murderers and cannibals in windowless sheet iron cells is scarcely less barbarous than the crimes for which punishment is being meted out. the great cannibal feast grounds of nukahiva and hiva-oa are not only not used at the present time, but are even so strictly _tabu_ that no native can be found who will venture within their forbidden confines. stevenson writes of visiting the hatiheu "high-place" in company with a french priest and a native boy; but on the occasion of our visit we held out every conceivable inducement in an endeavour to secure native guides to the same feast-ground, and quite in vain. not even among the converts of the catholic fathers could be found one who held the _tabu_ lightly enough to dare to violate it. the best we could do was to persuade several of them to accompany us to the line of the _tabu_, and there to await our return, while we went over the ruins with mcgrath. the following description is from notes taken by claribel on this occasion, and subsequently amplified under the direction of mcgrath, who, in the fifteen years he has maintained a trading store at hatiheu, has missed no opportunity to push enquiries amongst the older natives regarding what is unquestionably the most interesting ruin of its kind in the south pacific: "on the seaward side of a spur of the mountain a level space, oval in general shape, had been partly excavated, partly built up, so that there was a smooth floor about feet long by feet wide. in a semi-circle, with the chief's house in the centre, were the little 'feast-houses' of the court dignitaries and the special guests. beneath the posts of each house excavations have disclosed a number of human bones which bear witness to the sacrifice which accompanied the setting of every pillar. in these little booths the guests remained during the feasts, some of which, when food was plenty or some especially great event was to be celebrated, lasted over a week. each guest brought some contribution to the feast, and when it was over he was privileged to gather up and carry home any fragments that he liked. "the 'dining-room' was the space in front of the houses, and there, spread on the huge leaves of the banana and taro, the feast was laid. meat was handled with big four-tined forks of wood; poi and other soft dishes in calabashes of coco shell and shallow wooden platters. the drinking cups, in which were served a fiery wine made from the juice of the tender shoots of the coconut, were the hollow shells of nuts. the food, in addition to human flesh or 'long-pig,' included the meat of the wild cattle, goats and pigs, roasted, boiled, fried and salted raw, and served with _miti-hari_, a most piquant sauce still in use and which is composed of a mixture of lime juice and the pressed-out milk of grated coconuts. bananas and plantains, cooked and uncooked, were served; also taro in balls which looked like mud and tasted like sago and brown sugar; breadfruit, avocados, seaweed, squid, prawns and shrimps and an endless variety of indigenous tropical fruits. "the general plan of the place was, roughly, as follows: beginning at the right and running in a seaward direction, there was first the private stairway for an official who might be designated as the captain of the guard, a curving four-foot passage, the steps of which were cut into the earth and faced with stones. this stairway led up to the box where the captain presided during the festivities, and was for his private use. next came the main approach to the feast level, a stairway two paces in width, terminating between two round towers in which soldiers with clubs were stationed to welcome bona fide guests and intercept intruders. a functionary who stood at the head of the stairs greeted each guest on his arrival with a loud shout of welcome and a blast from a _pao_ or conch trumpet, announcing him immediately afterwards to the company with a flowery recital of his personal career. "farther on was the stairway for the cooks, provision bearers and the human victims. this led to the 'kitchen,' where the firestones and chopping blocks were located. the firestones lined a circular depression in the earth, and after this had been thoroughly heated, the meat and fruit, all wrapped in _ti_ leaves, were laid sociably together to cook. the blackened stones of this old cannibal oven are still in place, and a half-hour's work with an ax and cutlass would put it in shape for service. [illustration: the best surviving example of marquesan tattooing] [illustration: "into it were thrown the bones of the victims after the feast was over"] "back of the kitchen was the 'larder,' a round, deep hole where the 'long-pig' was kept until ready for the oven. directly over the mouth of this hole, and about forty feet above it, was the horizontally projecting limb of the sacred banyan, the only tree, by the way, which was permitted to grow within the walls. over this limb hung a stout rope braided of the fibrous bark of the _hau_ tree. when the call for more meat came from the 'kitchen,' the noosed end of this rope was lowered over the head of the victim next in order, and he was pushed over the brink of the hole, the fall usually breaking his neck. dismemberment, according to prescribed rules, followed, the choice bits, such as the hands and eyes and ears, being laid aside for the chiefs. "beyond the oven, and not far from the chief's house, was what might be called the 'bone-hole,' a rock-lined, well-like sort of an affair about nine feet in diameter and twenty feet deep. into it were thrown the bones of the victims after the feast was over, and above these gruesome remnants the priests performed certain ceremonies calculated to protect the living from the spirits of the outraged dead. cutting around the rim of this hole with our cutlasses, we managed, after an hour of tugging and hauling, to dislodge and remove a great mass of creepers, disclosing a huge pile of human bones. a couple of pieces of mahogany, which must have been taken from some ship, were lying near the top of the heap, and led us to wonder how many of the bones mouldering in the pile beneath were those of white men. "after the keen edges of their appetites had worn off, the feasters adjourned to the 'dance hall,' a rectangular subterranean chamber of about thirty by fifty feet. the most of this great room was a natural cave which pierced the mountain immediately under the feast ground, but to seaward a considerable extension of masonry had been added to give more space. the latter had been destroyed in a freshet and hurricane which occurred about two years previous to our visit, but the cave portion was still in a fair state of preservation. this had been roughly squared with walls of fitted boulders, and off from it opened numerous little retiring rooms which connected with private stairways with the group of guest-houses above. the floor of this chamber was covered with a cement made of coral lime and a puttylike clay, and still remains as smooth and hard as concrete. "the hall was lighted with torches of _kukui_ nuts, the sooty stains of which on the walls the seepages of years have not entirely effaced. fantastic indeed must have been the barbaric assemblage as revealed in their flickering light: the hideously tattooed dancers in head-dresses fashioned in imitation of the forms of birds and animals and fishes; the musicians drumming on the hollow trunks of _burao_ and _hau_, shaking shell and bone rattles, tooting conches and blowing shrill cane whistles; the packed ranks of the spectators, shouting and clapping encouragement and tossing off _epu_ after _epu_ of the fiery coconut wine. hour after hour the dancers reeled in the delirious abandon of the marquesan _hula_; now gliding, with a sinuous, snaky motion, their oil-glistening bodies bent almost to the floor; now leaping wildly into the air, with shouts and shrill screams, lunging with their war clubs at imaginary foes; now seated on long woven mats of pandanus fibre before the dais where royalty reclined, bending and swaying their supple forms in a series of graceful, rhythmic motions, accompanied only by a song, the clappings of hands or the beating of the wooden drums. the boom of the drums, the shrilling of the whistles, the shouts of the spectators, the shrieks of the dancers and the swishings of their bare feet upon the floor--how it all must have stirred and amazed even those roistering old pirate and whaling captains when it struck upon their ears for the first time!" chapter iv hunting in the marquesas the french have never actually prohibited the carrying of arms in the marquesas, as have the british in the solomons; but the possession and use of guns has been so hedged about with restrictions as practically to accomplish the same purpose. this is about the way it goes: coming to the islands with a gun, a permit must first be secured before it may be landed. this allows you to take it to your domicile but not to take it out again. if you would carry it with you on the street, a "port des armes" is required, which allows you, however, to fire it only in your own backyard, and when that sanctum is enclosed with a metre-high stone wall. if you desire to fire it anywhere else, a "permit de chasse" must be obtained. finally, if you come to the conclusion that the possession of a gun in the marquesas imposes too many burdens, and decide to dispose of it, a permit to sell is required; and if, later, you regret your action and want to get it back again, a permit to purchase will have to be taken out before the deal can be consummated. each of these permits costs a good, stiff fee, and it is largely this which is responsible for the fact that the marquesan native hunts today much after the fashion of ancient times--with his wits and his hands. a hunt of this kind comes nearer being real sport--that is, of giving the quarry as good a chance to take the hunter's life as the latter has to take that of the quarry--than any form of the chase since the days of the troglodytes, and lucky indeed may the white man esteem himself who is allowed to join one of them. i eliminated a good deal of the sporting element on both the occasions on which i went out by carrying, and using, a rifle or revolver, but as neither of these weapons--through no fault of mine, however--figured seriously in the final dénouements, i shall always tell myself that for once in my life at least, i have seen real hunting--hunting in which the hunter has a legitimate right to be proud of the game he brings to earth. but first something of a form of marquesan hunting which--largely because the white man with his modern weapons enters into it--is as shameless as the old native "cave-man" method is admirable. one may hunt wild cattle, wild boar and wild goats in the marquesas, but the pursuit of the latter, however one goes at it, is not worthy of the name of sport. unlike the mountain goat of the cascades and the canadian rockies, the marquesan animal of that name is neither hard to find nor hard to kill; so that if one goes out after him with an intelligent guide it is usually a matter of doing a lot of shooting at easy range and letting the natives gather up and bring in the meat. it is about comparable on the score of excitement to shooting seals in their rookeries or starving cariboo in the arctic. goat-hunting with beaters, as it is done in nukahiva, cannot be complained of on the score of lacking excitement, but, on account of the unspeakable barbarity of its inevitable sequel, is not to be contemplated without a shudder, even when the drive is undertaken--as it often is--to exterminate animals that have been ravaging the village gardens. i had heard in hawaii that a goat-drive, next to a cannibal feast, was the greatest attraction the marquesas had to offer, and one of the first inquiries i made after my "battery" had run the gauntlet of french officialdom was regarding the chances for arranging one. the residente promised at once to lend aid in the form of all the prisoners in the island jail to act as beaters, saying that the goats had become very numerous and troublesome since the last drive and that he would be glad indeed of a chance to get rid of a few of them; but when i broached the subject to the trader, mcgrath, who had already become our court of first and last instance in the filling up of the program for our marquesan stay, he frowned and shook his head dubiously. "if you're half the sportsman i take you for you would be sorry for it," he said. "you wouldn't engage in one of your california rabbit drives for sport, would you? no. well, a marquesan goat drive is just about like one of those--and then some. i'll have to tell you about the first one i took part in, i think, and then if you still feel that you want to go ahead we will see what can be done." we drew out a couple of canvas deck chairs to a breeze-swept corner of the front veranda of cramer's trading store, where mcgrath, sipping now and then at the long glass of absinthe and water which is the approved drink in that corner of the pacific, told his story. "up at the top of that cliff--it's a thousand feet in the sheer"--he began, pointing to a towering basaltic buttress that reared its black bulk abruptly from the northern loop of the bay, "there is a narrow but fairly level and open table-land. the opposite side drops down to typee inlet in the same way, and you will remember how it tapers off to a knife-edge at the outer point. the objective of every goat-drive is the open space upon that point, for from it there is no escape save across the narrow landward neck which is held by the beaters and hunters. there is another escape, if you want to call it that. imagine an almost solid stream of white furry patches, five hundred feet wide, rushing out over the edge of that table-land there and falling down the face of the cliff like a cataract in flood; and then imagine--but i anticipate. "the goats were particularly active when i first came to nukahiva--i was a missionary then, and lived here in taio-haie--and one night they brought their depredations to a climax by tramping down the thorn fence of the residency garden and making a clean sweep of all the vegetables. how much of a luxury truck garden stuff is upon a tropical island unserved by steamers and totally lacking in cold storage facilities, only one who has lived under such conditions can appreciate. probably you're beginning to come to some appreciation of it already. the residente was, naturally, furious over his loss, and plans were set afoot that afternoon for a big drive to rid the immediate vicinity of as many as possible of the obnoxious animals. i didn't know what a marquesan goat-drive was then, and readily consented to take part. "on the morrow at daybreak, mustering between officials, soldiers, trading store employés and officers from schooners in the harbour, ten or a dozen mounted men, and between the "trusties" from the prison and other natives drawn in by the opportunity of obtaining fresh meat, fifty or sixty beaters, we set out in a long line that reached from sea to sea across the landward end of the peninsula. "all morning we scared up the frightened animals and drove them on before us until, at noon, we had a herd that must have numbered some thousands cornered upon the open table-land at the extremity of the point. on three sides of the heaving mass of white the cliffs fell sheer to the sea for a thousand feet, while to landward escape was cut off by the hunt, its armed riders drawn up in front, and the beaters, now shoulder to shoulder, bringing up the rear in a solid double line. "twice the terrified band, led by a squad of patriarchal old 'billies,' charged down upon us in a wild break for freedom, only to fall back each time before the rain of bullets and the deafening roar from the hard-pumped repeaters and automatics. even once more they massed and, blindly, desperately, madly, made their last rush to break our lines. falling by scores, they still braved the rifle fire until the last gun was empty, broke through between the horsemen and, but for the close-packed ranks of the beaters, would have gained their freedom in thousands instead of a few scattered twos and threes. "but the heavily-swung war clubs and the ear-splitting yells of the natives checked the force of the rush, and suddenly, as though simultaneously possessed of a common impulse, every one of the survivors turned, rushed to the edge of that great black cliff yonder, and went lunging off into space. for a few moments, rising above the dull roar of the surf against the base of the cliff, we heard the thud and splash of the bodies striking rocks and water, and then, save for the bleating of the wounded at our feet, all was quiet. not a goat had faltered; not an unhurt animal remained on the plateau. "for several long moments no one moved or spoke, but each, with his horse reined sharply in, glanced guiltily at the man on his left and on his right, and then let his eyes fall shamedly to the ground. even the natives were awed and silent. finally the residente, shaking his heavy shoulders like one who would rid himself of the effects of a bad dream, dismounted, gave his horse to a native, and picked his way out to the edge of the cliff, the rest of us following suit. and then it was that we were given to see the full enormity of the thing which we had done, for the horror that had already befallen was only the preliminary of a still grimmer tragedy, for the final act of which the curtain was just being rung up. "lucky indeed--as luck went that day--were the goats that had been killed on the plateau or had mercifully plunged to instant death on the rocks. many of the animals, due to their falls having been broken by striking the yielding mass formed by the bodies of their mates, were still alive, and for the hundreds of these that were floundering in the water a worse fate was reserved. the reek of blood which welled up from below, and the piteous bleats that assailed our ears, smote also on keener senses than our own, and at even our first glance there were revealed to us the black dorsals of countless lurking tiger sharks, cutting the water from every direction and converging in a deadly focus on the spot where the helpless little wisps of white were floating at their mercy. they came and came, and still kept coming, until it seemed that the whole pacific was giving up the sharks of the ages gone by to join in the bloody carnival. the sea along the foreshore for hundreds of yards was literally alive with great brown-black forms that slashed and fought and piled upon one another in frantic fury, while the water, five minutes before us limpid as a woodland pool, was dyed to a deep crimson, and its foam-lines in the eddies frothed up a ghastly pink. i have surveyed the remains of several cannibal feasts since that sickening noontide at the brink of that great cliff, but never again have i known anything to approach the overpowering feeling of mingled horror, awe, disgust and regret that i then experienced." mcgrath straightened up with a long breath and gulped the last of his glass of absinthe and water. "thus my first goat-drive," he concluded; "and thus are the goat-drives of today. it's just as well you should know what they are beforehand, for, if you're anything like me, you would never forgive yourself for getting drawn into one. however, goat-driving doesn't exhaust the possibilities of nukahiva by any means. i shall be able to arrange a pig hunt for tomorrow or next day without any trouble, i think, and, if there is any way of getting the natives keyed up to it, i will get them to take you out after a wild bull before you go. you'll see something you never saw before in either case." * * * * * it may be largely coincidence, but it is a fact at any rate, that in nearly every place in the world where the wild pig is found it is not considered quite the sporting thing to hunt it with guns. there is no hard and fast rule against it, of course, but in these places shooting a wild boar, except as a _dernier ressort_, is considered about on a par with potting ducks or pheasant. thus, in germany, austria and the balkans it is customary for the keenest sportsman still to take his chance with a boar on foot, and armed only with a spear; in india the british army officers ride that animal down in the jungle and dispatch it with a short lance, and in africa the sporting thing to do is for the hunter to endeavour to give the _coup de grace_ with a native _assegai_. in north america, for some reason, this custom is honoured only in the breach, and the texas peccary and the mexican _javelin_--neither of which is much more than an oversized razor-back hog--are dispatched on sight with rifle and shotgun. boar-hunting with a spear or _assegai_,--or even according to the indian practice of killing from the saddle, which requires the greatest steadiness of seat, hand and nerve,--are certainly not open to criticism on the ground of being un-sporting; but the marquesan native, in attacking the boar of his islands with a two-foot cutlass or _macheté_, which has been made for slashing underbrush and opening coconuts--for cutting, not thrusting--unquestionably goes all of them one better on the score of taking chances, for he works literally at arm's length and with his body unprotected even by the lightest of clothes. a marquesan boar hunt, with no other weapons than knives or cutlasses, is as exciting and hazardous an undertaking as the most adventurous can desire. the pigs are scared up in the bush by dogs and men, headed off in their flight along the narrow run-ways in the guava scrub, and dispatched by a knife-thrust between the base of the neck and the shoulder. killing a large boar in this manner is an extremely nice piece of work, as a difference of an inch to the right or the left in plunging the knife means that the thrust will be almost harmless and leaves the hunter open to the deadly sweep of one of the scimitar-like tusks of the powerful animal. the commonest scar one sees on the body of a marquesan is a long diagonal welt of white where the flesh of calf or thigh has been laid open to the bone by the tusk of a charging boar. if, as occasionally happens when the boar is a large one, the slash is across the abdomen, the hunter rarely survives to bear the scar. mcgrath was as good as his word in the matter of arranging the pig hunt he had promised, but unfortunately, through being called to hatiheu to look after the loading of one of his schooners, was unable to go along himself. "be content to remain a spectator," was his parting injunction; "and don't think because it looks easy for a native to drop a charging boar with a cutlass and a twist of the wrist that you can do it yourself. that was the way i got this limp of mine--it comes from a tendon that was cut by a side-swipe from a tusk of the first--and the last--boar i ever tried to stick. best take your six-shooter along, but don't use it unless you have to. it might serve to turn a boar that was charging you; but it also might make one that was running away swing around and come back. there are only two or three small spots on a wild pig in which a pistol bullet--or a half dozen of them, for that matter--will prove fatal, and these you would hardly be able to locate with the animal at a run." mcgrath laid special stress on my adhering to the spectator rôle, and i set out with that injunction firmly impressed on my mind. but the sticking trick looked so ridiculously easy after i had seen it performed once or twice that it was not long before i began to tell myself that it was a case of "once bitten, twice shy" with my trader friend, and that he had probably lost his nerve on account of his unpropitious initial experience. and so it chanced--but i had best tell something of the way of a marquesan with a pig before obtruding my own troubles. we set out from taio-haie on foot in the first flush of a heliotrope and daffodil sunrise--a dozen or more natives, about twice that number of dogs, and myself--followed the typee trail for a mile up the mountain through the endless ruins of the old marquesan villages, finally to branch off by a barely discernible foot path into the veritable carpet of low scrub which belts the island at the -foot level. guava and lantana it was for the most part, the former heavy with lucious yellow-red fruit and the latter bright with tiny golden flowers. as we fared farther from the main travelled trail, dim runways through the bush began to appear, and these, gradually converging as they led down toward the neck of a rolling little valley which opened up beyond a sharp ridge we had crossed, formed a narrow but well marked path. four of the natives and i headed for a point where two jutting walls of rock formed a natural gateway, which was scarcely a dozen feet wide between the cliffs and choked with several giant trees and a maze of lianas and brush. through this opening ran the runway we were following, the only path by which pigs going back and forth between the upper and lower valley could pass. the others, with the dogs still held in leash by strands of light liana, circled to the upper hills preliminary to swinging around and beating back down the valley. i was led, gently but firmly, up to a natural "grandstand" in the angle of the buttressed roots of a big _maupé_ tree, one of the natives--a servant of mcgrath's who was evidently acting under orders--stopping alongside in case i showed a disposition to "stray." my three other companions--strapping bronze giants with the muscles of gladiators--took their stands in the centre of the runway. one behind the other, at ten or twelve-foot intervals, they lined up--there was no chance in the narrow, bush-walled passage for anything in the nature of a three-abreast, horatius-at-the-bridge formation--each with his cutlass hand resting lightly on his hip, like a fencer standing at ease. cool, alert, ready, they waited, three living, breathing incarnations of deadly efficiency. so had i seen a puma waiting, patiently tense, upon the limb of a tree above a path where deer were wont to come on their way to water; so have i since seen sharks lurking in quivering readiness among the coral spines where ventured the divers for pearls. ten minutes passed, in which occasional stifled yelps, now from this side, now from that, told that the dogs, still in leash, were being spread out as quietly as possible across the upper valley. only occasional sharp crashes in the scrub gave evidence of an increasing current of uneasiness among the pigs. tebu, who stood at "number ," broke into a low crooning chant, with a throaty kluck and a queer chesty roll to it, which my "guard" translated as an invitation to the pigs to come down and join our party. presently the other two natives took up the air, the three of them swaying gently to the rhythm of the barbaric chant. the dogs appeared to have been released upon a preconcerted signal, for their choruses of baying broke out all the way across the valley at the same time, accompanied by the ringing shouts of the men and the shrill ululations of a bevy of women and girls who had trailed along after us and had now joined the hunt. tebu hushed his singing and froze to attention as the underbrush began to crackle, and i knew by the flash of blood-lust in his eyes the instant he sighted the first pig. this animal, which was startled but not aroused, lunged back into the scrub before he reached the "gateway," and two or three other half-hearted mavericks did likewise before one arrived on the scene who really had his mind made up about going through to the lower valley. singleness of purpose showed in every line of the flying black mass that came dashing down the runway and headed straight for the "gate." possibly the fear of the dogs was in his heart, but he looked more mad than frightened as, without a pause or a side-glance of indecision, he hurled himself upon the motionless bronze figure that blocked the way. on he came, like a bull at a gate, and even as i gasped to myself that a regiment of soldiers couldn't block his flight, he dashed against the lone human barrier and the miracle was enacted. the impassive giant hardly seemed to move. there was sharp tensing of the powerful frame, a flash of sunlight glinting across the golden muscles, a quick movement of the wrist that might almost have been a caress--and the flying mass of bone and sinew was quivering at the gladiator's feet. there was not a squeal or a kick. it was almost as though the bronze titan had waved his hand and muttered "alive! dead! presto! change!" and that thus it had come to pass. the swift transition from life to death reminded me of the wilting of a steer under the touch of the "killer" in an uruguayan _matadero_, where they slay by severing the spinal cord at the base of the horns with a knife thrust. but there the twinkle of the wrist snuffed the life spark in the body of a passive animal, while here the same easy, effortless movement had smothered it while it flared at full power in a quarter of a ton of flying flesh and bone that was itself a bolt of death. another and yet another charging monster was crumpled to earth while i was still lost in speculation respecting the manner of the passing of the first, and it was not until the fourth or fifth fugitive appeared that i gathered my wits together for a dispassionate study of the way the wonder was wrought. then i quickly came to the conclusion that it was the almost absolute "evenness" of the charge that made the thing possible at all. the surface of the runway was smooth and sloped but slightly, while its narrowness and straightness at the "gate" held the pig to an undeviating course whether he wished it or not. though he came at a great speed, the huge body advanced almost as evenly as though running on a track, making it possible for a man with a steady hand and nerve to locate to a nicety that little three-inch-wide spot between the neck and shoulder where the point of knife must enter to be effective. that vulnerable point would be covered by the upward toss of the head that the boar has timed to make at the moment of impact, and the whole success of the thrust depends upon a quick forward step and a lunge that anticipates that toss by the hundredth part of a second. while he is waiting the native receiving the charge scrapes a shallow depression in the path--something similar to a sprinter's starting holes--into which the toes of his left foot are set for a firm grip on the earth. at the psychologic moment the right foot is advanced half a pace, the left leg straightened into a brace, the right arm, with its extended cutlass, stiffened to a bar of steel--and the thing is done. the keen two-foot blade, slipping between the shoulder blade and the first rib, shores its way through heart and lungs, and its point may even penetrate to the abdominal cavity. if the stroke is true the blade and handle of the knife are buried to the wrist of the arm that drives it and the charging animal crumples up into an inert mass without uttering a sound. if the vital spot is missed, what happens depends largely upon the extent of the error. if the point of the knife meets a bone squarely--as rarely happens, however--the man behind it may be thrown backward or to one side by the impact, and escape unscathed. the usual miss, however, comes through having the point of the knife deflected by the toss of the boar's head, and the result is a glancing thrust which will probably leave the hunter still in the path of the charge and exposed to the deadly side-swipe of the great back-curving tusks. it is not often that there is more than one wound--a charging boar rarely returns to the attack once his impetus has carried him clear of his enemies--and the consequences of this depend largely upon its location. if a thigh is cut deeply enough the wounded man will bleed to death; and if the slash is across the abdomen, though he may linger, it is rarely indeed that blood-poisoning fails ultimately to claim him for a victim. because the wild pig is so foul a feeder, there is also grave danger of blood-poisoning from the superficial wounds on the arms and legs, but most of these, it is said, are recovered from. tebu dropped another pig or two with the same easy nonchalance that had marked his manner from the outset, and then, reluctantly, gave place to the man next in line. this one was called maro, and he was reputed the champion pig-sticker of the leeward side of the island. as first "backer-up," he had been chafing under the enforced inactivity for some minutes and complaining that tebu was taking the cream of the sport for himself. the new "number " was less massive of build than his predecessor, but was muscled with the fluent undulations of swift-running water--a man compact of watchsprings, a human tiger-cat. deftly and easily he dropped his first pig--a rangy boar--slapped a flying half-grown shote contemptuously with the flat of his cutlass as beneath his notice, and had just got well "set" on his toes again, when that bane of the marquesan pigsticker, a "double"--two boars running close together--came charging down. by all the rules of the game this twin terror should have been allowed to go by unmolested, for successfully to stick a "double" is a feat as rare as a triple play in baseball or the "hat trick" in cricket--a thing to be talked about for years after it has happened. but it chanced to come at the moment when the shifty maro was just "on edge"--nicely warmed up and steadied by his first pig and yet not wearied by successive efforts--and then there was the beretani--the white man--who had to be shown what a marquesan could really do in a pinch. probably the latter was the more powerful incentive. at any rate, without a gesture or a glance of hesitation, he settled the toes of his left foot firmly into their hole, poised for an instant in quivering readiness, and then, with the swiftness of a striking cobra, lurched forward in two lightning passes. the first thrust, which was delivered at the full extension of his reach, appeared barely to brush the neck of the foremost boar, but the next--driven home with a short-arm jab like a pugilist's close-in hook at an opponent's solar plexus--buried the full length of the knife in the shoulder of the second boar, and brought it down in a heap, maro himself being tripped and half-buried under the inert body. that the first boar had been more than scratched seemed impossible; yet there he lay, almost at my feet, giving what appeared to be his dying kicks. tebu and his mate were extricating maro from under the body of the second boar, and it struck me that the humane thing to do would be to put the wounded beast out of his agony. accordingly, without taking especial care to aim accurately, i directed a couple of bullets from my ". " automatic at a spot behind one of the ears which appeared to be vulnerable. just where the bullets struck i never found out, for the well-meant shots awakened something besides the echoes of the rock-girt gorge. at the touch of the lead the apparently dying boar scrambled to his feet and made a dive for the lower end of the "gate." tebu struck viciously as the animal passed him, but only landed a harmless slash, and the cutlass of the other native, flung on the chance of severing a rear tendon, went wide of its mark. the fugitive, running blind but strong, disappeared among the mazes of trails that led into the lower valley, followed by the wails of maro, who saw the feat of a lifetime marred by the interference of a meddlesome outsider who had been too cowardly to take a hand in the dangerous part of the game himself. shouting something in voluble marquesan in my direction, he leapt back into the runway as a renewed crashing broke out above, and stood savagely on guard. "what did he say?" i asked mcgrath's boy, tavu, who had stuck closely to my side through all the excitement. "he say he kill pig dead. you shoot gun, wake him up. maro damn mad. he say now he kill three pigs, all one time. maybe he mean 'long-pig.' maro bad fella b'long anaho," and he touched his eye with a finger as a sign that it would be well to be on guard. the good fellow probably did maro an injustice in charging him with harbouring the intention of converting my anatomy into that most recherché of marquesan delicacies, "long-pig"; but if there was any doubt of his willingness, in his anger and disappointment, to tackle three pigs at once it was effectually dispelled by the events of the next few moments. the shouts of the beaters and the barking of the dogs had been growing louder all the time, and the crashings in the underbrush told that the pigs were now coming in increasing numbers. three or four of them shortly came tearing into view, and then--all of a sudden--the path was packed with bristling black figures, the first few running hard and free and the rest crowding and stumbling. the rush of pigs as the beaters closed in was always to be expected in this particular _cul de sac_, and mcgrath had warned me regarding it. "get out of the way and sit tight," he had said; "and don't worry about the boys. they'll take care of themselves." i appeared to be sufficiently out of the way already, and tebu and the third native, as soon as they had caught sight of the impending avalanche, came over and joined me on the roots of the big tree. i watched them clamber up to safety and then turned to see the river of pigs sweep by--and there was that sullen, scowling tiger-cat of a maro standing his ground in the middle of the runway. of course, the proper thing to have done would have been for some self-sacrificing soul to leap down and snatch the would-be suicide from "under the wheels," a task for which the powerful tebu was admirably fitted by nature. i'm not sure that the duty of indulging in this form of self-sacrifice is included in the marquesan ethical code, but even if it had been, there was no time to put it into practice. maro dropped his first pig and made a pass at the second even as i looked. the two animals were running almost neck-and-neck, so that the second thrust was hardly more than a slight slash upon the flying brute's shoulder. it served to turn maro in his tracks, however, and not all of his super-feline quickness could bring him around again in time to meet the rush. the shoulder of the next pig sent him tottering sidewise as the animal passed, and in another moment he had fallen fairly across the upraising head of a huge boar in the van of the ruck. for an instant the shining bronze body ceased to flash against the heaving black background, and then, as a rat is tossed by a terrier, it was flung cleanly into the air, to come slamming down against the gnarled roots of our _maupê_ tree and collapse into a lifeless heap. the body seemed to have struck the tree hard enough to break half of its bones; yet the worst injury, i told myself, must have come from the terrific toss that had sent it catapulting through the air. after the rush was over we lost no time in clambering down to "view the remains." tebu was smiling sardonically, apparently not greatly shocked by the tragedy and perhaps secretly pleased at having the only man in the island who was held his equal in pig-sticking prowess put out of the running. the other two natives seemed a little more upset, and tavu was muttering to himself the ancient marquesan proverb which translates literally as "wild pig--'long-pig.'" this has lost its meaning since cannibalism became practically extinct, but in the old days it signified that when the men went out to get the meat of the wild pig, there was likely also to be man meat to eat at the feast that was held when the hunt was over. the body lay on its back, inert as the carcasses of the pigs that littered the sides of the runway. tebu and i picked it up and turned it over to reveal the wound which we knew must have been inflicted when it was tossed into the air--and lo, beyond some bluing bruises, there was no wound! we could only guess how so seemingly impossible a thing as a man's being tossed ten feet by a wild boar without being slashed to ribbons could have happened; but the most probable explanation seemed to be that maro had fallen sidewise across the head of the animal, behind the tusks, so that the upward thrust of the powerful neck had only resulted in a mighty push. no bones appeared to be broken. a welt on the back of the head where it had struck the tree accounted for the senseless condition of the scrappy pig-sticker, and this, as far as we could discover, was the extent of the injuries. a dash of water from the nearby stream brought maro back to life again, but too dazed, for the time being at least, to recall the resentment he had harboured against me on the score of the pig i had "waked up" with my pistol shots. the natives now cleared a space of brush with their cutlasses and we prepared to rest and lunch in the shadow of the big tree. a fire was started to heat stones for roasting a young pig that had been captured, breadfruit and plantain were put to cooking, coconuts were opened and guavas, mangoes and a lucious array of other tropical fruits were laid out on the broad leaves of the _taro_ plant. and then came the women to our eden, and with them the serpent. mcgrath had given the strictest orders that nothing in the form of toddy should be brought along on the hunt, and this injunction had apparently been heeded as far as the hunters themselves were concerned. but the dozen or more girls who had come on later to help as beaters and share in the division of the meat, claimed to have heard nothing of the prohibition. possibly it was a "frame-up" on the part of the men, or perhaps it just happened. at any rate, when the beating brigade began to straggle in, it became apparent at once that tippling had been going on, and shortly i saw the bruised and battered maro taking a long draught from a calabash that was being held to his lips by a star-eyed minx with a red hibiscus blossom behind her ear and a rakish chaplet of fern frond tilted across her comely brow. "coco toddy," muttered tavu, half in alarm, half in anticipative ecstasy. "plenty coco toddy b'long _vahine_." it would be churlish, i told myself, to attempt to forbid the ambrosia to any of the tired gladiators when the common herd of the beaters had already been cheering themselves with it. then--fatal mistake--i nodded my head in acquiescence when an _epu_ was held up for tavu, my guardian, to quaff, and--but i had already taken a gulp of the liquid fire from a calabash that a bronze, flower-crowned hebe, with arms that were symphonies of rippling loveliness and eyes that were twin wells of limpid light, had brought and hung about my neck. another brought a wreath for my brow and a flower for my ear, and thus crowned the king of the bacchic revel it became all the more difficult to inaugurate a temperance program among my festive subjects. there wasn't enough of the toddy to put them in a cannibalistic mood, i argued; and, anyhow, they were bound to have all they wanted, and at my expense, as soon as they got back to taio-haie. at any rate, the "women did offer us of the wine to drink, and we did drink," and it was all a very merry little "hunting breakfast." it is not my purpose to write here of the imp who lurks in the depths of the coco toddy calabash to spring out upon the unwary one who uncovers him, as i shall have more to say of him later on in tahiti. on this occasion such mischief as was wrought was only indirectly traceable to him, and it is by no means impossible that it might not have occurred anyway. this was how it came about: from time to time some of the dogs that had strayed would come straggling in, and in nearly every case driving a pig or two ahead of them. as the animals appeared, now one and now another of the natives would jump up, intercept the fugitive in the runway and bring him to earth with that easy, effortless neck-thrust that, to the beholder, was more like a caress than a stab. but because they had drunken of the insidious toddy and there were many spectators, the stickers were more than ordinarily nonchalant in their motions, and--possibly because i, also, had partaken of the toddy--the trick kept looking easier and easier every time it was done. and probably it was because maro had been stimulating his dazed faculties with the toddy that the recollection of the "double" i had spoiled for him reawakened, and he began to tell the party how it happened. i didn't need to know marquesan to understand the fluent gestures which pictured me resting comfortably in the tree while the killing was going on, and showed how i didn't even dare to shoot off my pistol at anything but a dead pig; and as for having the courage to stand before one with a knife--the scorn of his "let-me-forget-it" expression was positively effacive. in my own action i have always told myself that toddy played no part; but that delectable beverage certainly _was_ responsible for the fact that tavu, who was under the strictest orders from mcgrath to keep me out of mischief, only nodded approbatively when i picked up tebu's big cutlass from the grass and strode out into the runway to "make my honour white." tebu, with a roar of delight, seized another cutlass and came out to "back up" for me, but i waved him indignantly aside, resolved to do the trick alone. the good fellow stepped aside obediently, but, unluckily for himself, "stood by" against an emergency. flower-crowned and sword in hand! i have called up that incongruous picture in memory many times since, and always to caption it with some classic title. of these, "bacchus in the rôle of ajax defying the lightning" has seemed to me rather the most appropriate. the crowd fell silent as a crashing and the barking of dogs in the bush above told that another fugitive was approaching, for they scented trouble with the residente in case anything happened to the beretani who had been put into their charge. (i learned later that the natives hunting with a french official who had been killed trying to shoot a wild bull the year before had been seriously punished.) thanks again to the toddy, however, no one made a move to interfere. it was an uncommonly unkind trick of fate to have held up the only really large boar that appeared in the course of that hunt until i, the greenest of green novices, had set myself so defiantly in the middle of his path that there was no graceful way of getting out of it. also, it was harshly ordered that, whereas the other animals had come charging down as evenly as though strung on trolleys, this monster, with two dogs nipping his heels, should be plunging and reeling like a ship in a gale. i had clearly in mind everything that needed to be done, even to kicking the toe-hole for my left foot, and i kept repeating to myself the words of my old 'varsity baseball coach to his batters--"step out and meet it." these words had been recalled to me repeatedly during the morning as tebu or maro delivered his deadly thrust with a quick forward step, and that, with keeping the eye on the vulnerable spot between the neck and shoulder, seemed to me to be the crucial points upon which the turning of the trick depended. i have since been told that this is quite correct. but this procedure was calculated to be followed in the case of the regulation direct-charging boar; what to do in the case of a brute that was tossing his head in spirals, as now this flank, and now that, was nipped by a pursuing dog, i didn't--and i still don't--know just what to do. because i felt that i knew just what to do, and just how to do it, i had myself perfectly in hand until, sudden as a lightning flash, came the realization that the spot that i must strike between the neck and the shoulder was not keeping on an even plane. i had experienced some fairly exciting close-in work with grizzly and silver tip on a couple of occasions previous to that morning, and since then i have stopped the charge of a south american jaguar with a revolver and known what it is to see a bengal tiger clawing the howdah of an elephant i was riding; but never have i known anything to approach the "all gone" feeling which accompanied the realization that i was not going to be able to locate the spot which _had_ to be located if i was to avoid a collision that would make that of maro's a friendly jostle in comparison. the instant the message "you can't do it!" was flashed to my brain, the charging pig ceased to be a pig, so far as i was concerned, and became a car of juggernaut, a bolt of wrath, the incarnation of everything that was swift, terrible and inevitable. before i knew it i had dropped the useless cutlass, snatched out my automatic pistol and was discharging it wildly at the approaching monster. the rattle of shots was answered by a burst of savage snarls mingled with quick yelps of pain, and then, as the hammer snapped down on unresponding steel after the last cartridge was fired, i sprang blindly to one side and plunged headlong into the brush. that i dove into the unsympathetic depths of some kind of a fishhook thorn bush, which took ample toll for the intrusion when i was dragged out by the heels a minute later, was only an incident in the light of the fact that--thanks to an instinct for preservation that not even coco toddy had drugged to sleep--i had avoided so much as a brush from the charging boar. a roar of agony and shouts of consternation told me, even before i was released from the tentacles of the thorn bush, that some one else had got in the way of the charge that i had declined to meet; then the noise of the pursuit passed on and died out beyond the "gate." my pigskin puttees were about the only things i had on that did not remain, wholly or in part, in the embrace of the thorns, but my own scratches were quickly forgotten at the sight of the other victim of the charge. there were two other victims, in fact--one a dog that had been raked by a soft-nosed bullet from my pistol, and the other the stout-hearted old gladiator, tebu, who, leaping to take up the challenge i had side-stepped, had fallen afoul of the boar itself. his bulldog courage--or the toddy--had impelled him to undertake on short notice the job the beretani had shirked, and, with no chance to locate the vital spot for his thrust, had lunged wildly and taken the consequences. the dog was dead, and it looked for a while as though tebu, with a foot-long gash across his thigh and bleeding like one of the pigs that lay beside him, would follow suit. it transpired presently, however, that no arteries were severed; so after staunching the flow as effectually as possible with a torniquet and bandages that left several members of the party nearly in a state of nature after giving up their _pareos_ for the wherewithal, they rigged up a rough litter of boughs and lianas and set off, not untenderly, to bear the wounded warrior back to taio-haie. there, thanks to the skilful and kind care of the sisters at the mission, he was soon on his way to recovery. a month later, in tahiti, i received a letter from cramer, the german trader of taio-haie. after going on to tell how our friend mcgrath had been blown away in his cutter during a hurricane and was given up for lost, he wrote: "i saw tebu today. he is still very lame, and probably always will be, but he has been going out every day since he left the mission hospital to hunt the big boar that cut him up so the time he was out with you. he says he is going to keep on hunting it until he kills the boar or the boar kills him." to this letter was added a postscript, written several days later, which read: "tebu brought in the big boar last night. he says he knows it by the cut he gave it on the shoulder. as we found no bullet marks on the body we have thought he is probably mistaken." to this i replied: "probably tebu is right. i cannot swear that i was looking down the sights of my pistol when i fired those shots." * * * * * thus pig-sticking in the marquesas. it is bloody and cruel, as is the killing of all animals; but, because the quarry is nearly always dropped in its tracks, it is far less open to criticism on that score than most other forms of hunting. but the finest thing--i may well say, the grandest thing--about it is the fact that it is a strictly man-to-beast, give-and-take affair, with the hunter meeting his quarry more nearly on equal terms than in any other form of hunting practised since the days of the cave men. of the wild cattle hunt which mcgrath, after infinite trouble, arranged for one of the final days of our stay in nukahiva, i have written elsewhere. chapter v the passion play at uahuka the decennial passion play at oberammergau is, perhaps, the most written and talked about theatrical performance that has ever been staged, and even the annual pageants put on during holy week in certain of the italian, spanish and south american theatres have attained to considerable publicity in other parts of the world; the passion play of the french mission at uahuka, an island of the marquesan group, has been witnessed by less than half a dozen non-resident white men, and as a consequence the fame of it, except such hazy versions as have found their way to france through the channels of the missionary society records, scarcely reaches beyond the coral reefs that fringe the rocky uahukan shores. vague rumours of a strange marquesan passion play had come to us before we sailed from hawaii, and on the arrival of the yacht in taio-haie, the capital of that group, we were assured that such a performance was "staged" annually. the interest of this announcement was tempered by the news that the last performance had taken place a fortnight previously and that another would not be put on until holy week of the following year. we did not make our projected visit to uahuka, therefore, and i was consequently unable to secure firsthand data regarding this unique event. the somewhat fragmentary and frivolous account i am writing smacks strongly, i fear, of the sources from which my information was gathered, this or that trader and skipper of the "beaches" of taio-haie and tahiti, and especially a fascinating renegade by the name of bruce manners, who came off to the yacht one night in papeete and smoked a half dozen of the commodore's perfectos while spinning us yarns of his lurid career in the marquesas and paumotos. * * * * * all through the south pacific missionary work follows closely the lines of nationality, with the london missionary society dominant in the british possessions, and french organizations, both protestant and catholic, monopolizing the field in the islands over which the jaunty tri-colour of france whips itself to tatters in the whistling southeast trades. as the united states holds only a naval station at pago pago, samoa, and germany is now out of the pacific altogether, missionaries of american and teutonic extraction are a negligible quantity. this alignment gives the aggressive british society most of the reclamation work west of the th meridian, and the french the territory to the east. the headquarters of the french missionary system is that country's capital in the south seas, papeete, tahiti, in the society group; but the active zone, the "firing line," so to speak, is in the barbaric and cannibalistic marquesas, and centres in the big island of the north group, uahuka. the passion play at uahuka has been presented, it is said, every easter for the last fifty years. it was inaugurated by the catholic mission, and in its initial presentation all the rôles were taken by french missionaries, these being gathered from various parts of the paumotos, societies and marquesas and brought to the scene of the performance in a specially chartered fleet of trading schooners. the following year numerous minor parts were given to natives as rewards for becoming converts to catholicism--the competition between romanist and protestant was very keen at this time--and before many seasons had gone by even the leading rôles came to be filled by the savages, the missionaries contenting themselves with such positions as stage manager, musical director, mistress of the wardrobe and the like. this passion play serves admirably the purpose for which it was originally designed, that of bringing home by tableaux to the simple natives a more graphic realization of the dramatic events surrounding the life and death of christ than would be possible by mere words and pictures, and while its tone would scarcely be characterized as "dignified" by a dispassioned white man from the outside world, its moral effect upon the natives,--temporarily, at least--is most favourable. the passion play is still presented in the same place that the first performance by the missionaries was put on, a sort of natural ampitheatre in the very heart of the catholic reserve on the outskirts of the village of uahuka. the mission buildings, low rambling structures of coral and galvanized iron, flank two sides of the pentagonal enclosure. two other sides are shut in by close-set rows of banyans of such size that their roots and down-reaching branches mingle to form almost solid lines of irregular wooden terraces upon which hundreds of spectators may find seats without crowding. the stage is a hard-packed piece of ground sloping gently down to a crystal clear stream of water which meanders past, sparkling in the sunbeams like a row of footlights, the position of which it approximately occupies. behind the stage is a creeper-covered wall of rock, with a face so unbroken and sheer that the direction "exit rear" must necessarily be eliminated from all performances. to the left is spoken of as "down ta-roo-la,"--the name of the little stream--and to the right is "up ta-roo-la." actors waiting in either wings are screened from the sight of the audience by the last of the rows of banyans which run down close to the stream on either side. the music is furnished by a slightly wheezy organ, a clarionet and a lot of hollow-tree tom-toms, and to the stirring strains of the marseillaise played by this orchestra the opening curtain is rung up upon the tableau of "christ and the children." of course there is no curtain and no ringing up; christ simply strolls in from "up ta-roo-la," and the children troop in from "down ta-roo-la," and they meet in the middle of the stage. then christ pats them all on the head, and they all file off behind him as he exits "down ta-roo-la." there is no stage setting, and little is attempted in the way of make-ups. the children are simply children and the part of christ is taken by a native called lurau. lurau is the greatest pearl diver and shark fisher in all the marquesas. with his hair and beard neatly oiled and combed, and dressed in a trailing robe of snowy muslin, lurau makes a far more acceptable-looking christus than one sees in many of the south american presentations of the passion play. there is little in his disposition off the stage to fit him for his exalted rôle, and before he became a fixture in the leading part of the passion play he was a veritable rubber ball in the way in which he bounced back and forth between the protestants and catholics. he owes the distinguished honour that has come to him to his beard rather than to his histrionic abilities; he is the only native in the marquesas--and, as far as is known, in all the south pacific as well--with a growth of hair on his face. [illustration: "the part of christ is taken by a native called lurau"] [illustration: marquesan mother and child] the simple white robe worn by lurau is in good keeping with his part, but this can hardly be said of a very tangible halo that has apparently been cut from a square of shiny biscuit tin, a piece of literalness, however, in which the simple islanders seem to see no trace of incongruity. in fact, this item of make-up was added, it is said, at the suggestion of a native who, after one of the early performances of the play, led the stage-manager to a coloured print in the mission chapel and pointed out that the stage christ had no such "fire-face" as distinguished the one in the lithograph. he suggested obtaining the halo effect by having the actor wear a lot of little _kukui_ nut torches in his hair, but the cautious fathers, while acknowledging the realistic possibilities of this expedient, decided on the jagged rim of bright biscuit tin as safer. during the week of the play, both on and off the stage, lurau is quiet, dignified and a general paragon of virtue in every particular; afterwards--he is just like all the rest of his brothers and sisters of the marquesas, prone to excesses. lurau's post-passion play spree is listed with the hurricane season as one of the regular annual disturbances in those latitudes. the second scene of the play is that of the "redemption of the magdalen." the latter, dressed in a bright red _holakau_ or wrapper--the symbol of her sinfulness--comes strolling in from the upstream side and discovers christ resting on a niche of the rock which forms the back wall. her repentance and forgiveness follow, after which christ presents her with a pure white _holakau_ which he chances to have tucked under his arm. she receives a blessing, trips off down stream, changes _holakaus_ in the wink of an eye behind the friendly trunk of a bread-fruit tree, and the "curtain" follows her disappearance upstream in the trailing robe of white. the magdalen has been played by a different person almost every year. the one who took that part in the last presentation was, so bruce manners assured us, far better in the "red _holakau_" than in the "white _holakau_" part of her rôle, her work as a repentant sinner having been decidedly marred through a persistent tendency to ogle a group of young trading schooner officers who occupied a proscenium banyan. for the "supper" scene, no endeavour is made to reproduce a tableau patterned on the famous painting of leonardo da vinci. historic truthfulness is not attempted even to the extent of a table. a bountiful repast of bread-fruit, plantains, yams and coconuts is spread out upon a cover of banana leaves, and everybody sits down cross-legged and eats for fully ten minutes before a word is spoken. supper over, the remnants are gathered up and thrown into the convenient ta-roo-la, the waters of which carry them away in a jiffy. then follows the washing of the feet of the disciples. lurau wades over into the stream, seats himself on a convenient boulder, and as each of the disciples comes out in turn, gives both of the latter's feet a vigorous scrubbing with a brush of coco husk and a piece of soap. after receiving a blessing, the disciple heads for the bank, and as each lifts the skirt of his robe to clear the stream a well-defined "high-water mark," running in graceful undulations around his lower calf, is usually disclosed to the eyes of the audience. the scene of "christ healing the lepers" as presented at uahuka is, perhaps, the most realistic tableau, in one particular at least, that is staged in any of the passion plays. real lepers appear on the stage. in the early days of the play these parts were taken by entirely whole and healthy people, but the missionaries were never able to persuade the natives that, with so many real lepers ready to hand, any make-believe in this particular need be indulged in. finally several of the lepers themselves--christian converts--came to the fathers and asked what was the use of curing a lot of well people in the play when there were so many sick ones about that really needed curing. this was hard to answer--to the satisfaction of the questioners--and the upshot of the matter was that a half dozen of the cases least liable to spread the dread disease were allowed upon the stage at the next performance. following the week of the play it is said that a very marked improvement was evident for several months in the condition of every one of the unfortunates that appeared during its continuance. since that occasion the good missionaries have not had the heart to refuse the prayers of any of those who have come to them at eastertide, until now it is necessary to divide them off into squads of a score or so each, and allow a different squad to appear each night. the government doctor at uahuka claims that there has been a marked decrease in the leper mortality of the island since this strange practice has been inaugurated, and that no serious consequences have followed the extraordinary mixing of the sick and the well at this season. no unnecessary chances are taken, however, and the good lurau who, in his rôle of christ, is more exposed than any of the others, receives special attention after each performance in the shape of a formaldehyde fumigation at the hands of the doctor. one of the most interesting characters in the play is judas. from the first it has been the aim of the fathers to impress the natives as strongly as possible with the real goodness or badness of the various characters, and to this end, in the case of judas, the natives who have played the rôle have been repeatedly taken, on a temporary reprieve, from the convict settlement. judas has always been a bad man, actually as well as artistically, and it is recorded that no less than half a dozen of him have endeavoured to steal the thirty pieces of silver--in this case mexican or chilean dollars, which pass current in the island--with which he has been bribed. of late years the thoughtful fathers have removed this temptation by binding the bargain with a tinkling bagful of broken crockery. the judas of five or six years ago--one john bascard, the half-caste son of an australian trader and a native wife, who was serving a term for robbing a pearler--turned out almost as badly as his notorious original, for he looted the mission on the second night of the play, rowed off with the magdalen to a trading cutter anchored in the bay, surprised the solitary watchman, threw him overboard, and sailed the little boat off single-handed for the paumotos, leaving the play to limp on to a finish with half-trained understudies in two of the leading parts. the part of pontius pilate has been played for nearly twenty years by an old chief--a quondam cannibal--named rauga. his costume is a frogged military coat and a silk hat, the idea of the fathers being to effect a combination that will make the deepest impression on the natives as symbolical of constituted power. the missionary and the french soldier are the two most august personages which their simple minds can conceive of, and the two most striking features of the costume of each, united upon one person, make an impression incomparably more profound than would a roman toga topped off with an eagle-crowned helmet, or any of the other combinations that are worn by pilate in the more pretentious passion plays. rauga is inordinately proud of his part, and the honour of appearing in it has held him steadfastly catholic in the face of active efforts by the protestants to swing him, temporarily at least, over to their side. the costume of john the baptist is, as might be expected, that of a native novitiate--a black robe and a shovel hat. if manners is to be believed, the unfortunate individual who was cast for that part a half dozen years back made a transient appearance in a somewhat modified garb. this was a "brand-from-the-burning" called ma-woo, who had been converted a few months previously when the fathers secured his parole from prison, where he had been serving a five-year sentence for illicit pearling. his most salient characteristic was an inordinate fondness for coco toddy, a circumstance which was taken advantage of by a couple of local traders to play a practical joke upon the missionaries, with whom their kind, in the marquesas as elsewhere, have always been at open warfare. the present of a calabash of toddy to ma-woo, with the promise of another later, putting him in a cheerfully obliging mood, he was rigged out in a ribbon-wide breech-clout, an old dress coat and a battered silk hat, and with a bulky volume of sailing directions under his arm was quietly conducted to the "stage entrance" of the banyan theatre just in time to respond to his "cue" in the john the baptist tableau. manners gave me a photograph of unlucky ma-woo, taken by one of the traders before they "sent him on his mission," and if it is really true, as is claimed, that john the baptist appeared thus accoutred in his tableau in the passion play, one can easily believe our friend's assertion that two of the sisters fainted and that the fathers caused the culprit to be thrown back into prison to serve the remainder of his sentence. ruth ingalls, who has played the part of mary, the mother, for the last three years, is a half-white girl of unknown parentage. she is said to have a junoesque figure, a face of rare beauty and a manner of real charm. she is about twenty-five years of age--fifteen years younger than lurau, whose mother she is supposed to be in the play--and has been directly under the care of the missionaries since the time when, a child of five, she was cast up on the beach of one of the paumotos with the wreckage of a tahitian trading schooner. she is supposed to be the illegitimate daughter of a french count--a fugitive from justice in tahiti a quarter of a century ago--and the queen of the neighbouring island of bora-bora, a lady whose marital responsibilities appear to have rested as lightly upon her as blown foam upon the bosom of the southeast trade. but whatever her origin, ruth ingalls is, according to all accounts, a young person of unlimited balance and poise, has a good education, both as to languages and music, and is possessed of a quiet and modest disposition. she is, moreover, a good christian in the highest sense of the name, and her work in the mission school has been of incalculable value to the fathers. her interpretation of the character of the madonna is doubtless somewhat naïve, but is said, withal, to be surprisingly effective; her work in this part, indeed, being generally rated as the only thing in the play worthy of the name of acting. mlle. ingalls, it is claimed, is heart whole and fancy free, though they tell you in papeete and taio-haie that she has received offers of marriage from every bachelor missionary, sailor, official and trader that has ever come to uahuka. [illustration: "pontius pilate has been played for twenty years by an old chief--a quondam cannibal"] [illustration: "just in time to respond to his 'cue' in the john the baptist tableau"] chapter vi taio-haie to papeete before leaving nukahiva the four of us from the _lurline_, under the guidance of our good friend mcgrath, journeyed on pony-back across the island to visit queen mareu of hatiheu. the road led over two , -foot mountain passes and along the whole length of the incomparable typee valley, immortalized by herman melville, and though something like eight inches of rain fell during the nine hours we were in the saddle, there were ample intervals between cataclysms in which to glimpse the beauties by the way. lovely as we had found taio-haie and typee, however, the glamour of their charms paled before the supreme grandeur of the bay of hatiheu, the most sublime combination of mountain, vale, and sea that my eyes have ever rested on. the cliff-girt bay of hatiheu, like those others of nature's superlatives, the grand cañon of the colorado, the victoria falls of the zambesi and the himalayas from darjeeling, is one of the kind of things that makes a man feel foolish to attempt to describe, and i pay my silent tribute in the thrill which never fails to stir my heart at the mention of the name. my photograph gives a suggestion--just a suggestion--of what a single _coup d'oeil_ reveals. hatiheu was mcgrath's headquarters where, in addition to conducting a trading business with the natives, he appeared to act as a sort of "lord chamberlain" to the queen. her highness seemed very fond of the attractive young canadian, and told us that she never took action in important "affairs of state" without first securing his advice. his word appeared to be law in the village, and i never heard him give an order that was not instantly carried out. he told off a body servant to look after each of us during our visit to hatiheu, the one allotted to claribel being a grizzled old cannibal, with a black band like a highwayman's mask tattooed across his face, who gave her a stone knife which he swore he had himself used in carving "long-pig," and who wept disconsolately on her departure. one morning mcgrath took us down to the beach and showed us with justifiable pride a half-completed cutter--an open boat of about thirty feet in length designed to be rigged as a sloop--which he was building to use in picking up copra from other villages along the coast of the island. all of the wood used had been hewed from trees felled within a hundred feet of the beach, he told us, and all of the work was being done with his own hands. the commodore discoursed learnedly on the lines and construction of the little craft, and the rest of us commended its builder for his industry and ingenuity. no one of us dreamed that we were looking at the frame of a boat which was destined shortly to make a voyage that must be rated for all time as one of the miracles of deep sea sailing. our intercourse with queen mareu was somewhat restricted as a result of having to be carried on through the medium of an interpreter. we found her a most personable young lady of about twenty-five, with a striking face and figure and a glint of sombre fire slumbering in the depths of her dark eyes that indicated temper or temperament, and probably both. she had ascended the "throne" a year previously, after her father, the late king, had slipped on a ripe mango in endeavouring to elude the charge of a wild bull he was hunting. her manifest determination to rule her home as well as her people was responsible, it was said, for the flight to tahiti of her husband--a young half-caste of little account--a month or two later. since then she had ruled alone. of what mind she was in the matter of taking a "prince consort," we were unable to learn; but a tender light in the sloe eyes when "lord chamberlain" mcgrath was about might have furnished a clue to the trend of her intentions. whatever these might have been, however, fate, as far as the near future was concerned, had other plans incubating for the slender, blue-eyed trader to whom every one that came in contact with him seemed to become so much attached. the print _holakau_ or mother hubbard wrapper--which descended upon the south seas with the missionaries--would ordinarily hardly be rated as a regal garment; but mareu, with the sweeping lines of her dianesque figure softly outlined by the clinging calico, carried hers as if it was a grecian robe, and was distinctly--well, i noted that even the commodore was keeping his weather eye lifting whenever she hove above the horizon. but she was at her best when, in a bathing suit improvised from a _pareo_, she sported with the gay abandon of a porpoise in a natural pool of pink and blue coral where the beach curved up to the base of the great cliff, or, perched cross-legged in the stern of her little out-rigger canoe, sent that slender craft, a sliver of shining silver, speeding through the surf-swept mazes of the outer reef. she was indeed a consummate canoeist--quite the best i have ever seen--and in the light of subsequent events i have often recalled the words with which mcgrath once referred to her skill with the paddle. [illustration: "hatiheu, the most sublime combination of mountain, vale and sea that my eyes have ever rested upon"] [illustration: a marquesan fisherman of hatiheu] we watched from the thatched roofed veranda of mcgrath's quarters one dewy-fresh morning when the whistling trade had whipped up a more than usually stiff sea outside, the course of mareu's canoe where, with claribel as a passenger, she was shooting the breakers as they came booming in across the reef. suddenly the even line of the horizon was blotted out by the loom of a roller of huge bulk and weight--"the seventh son of a seventh son," as the sailors call it when they don't use a stronger term. "she'll hardly try that one," muttered mcgrath decisively; "it's big enough to founder a war canoe." and then, as the helio flashes from the blade of a swiftly plied paddle told him his surmise was wrong, "good god, there she goes!" the canoe gathered momentum, hung for a few moments on the back of the mounting comber, and then "caught on" and commenced to race. slowly the wave gathered itself together and, as the water shallowed above the edge of the reef, curled over and broke with a roar that rattled the glasses on the arms of our chairs. for an instant nothing was visible but foam and spray and tossing waters; then, clinging tenaciously to the comber's flying mane--as a panther, teeth in neck and safe from the animal's horns, rides the stag he has tackled--appeared the little canoe. on it darted like the flash of a sunbeam, a smoke of spray rising from its bows and the floundering out-rigger trailing like a broken wing. twice or thrice, as the tossing waters gave way beneath the prow and the slender craft seemed on the point of "somersaulting" over the breaker's brink, there came the flash of a steadying paddle and the equilibrium was restored. now the roughest of the ride was over and a swift dash of a hundred yards remained before still water was reached. claribel, game but chastened, still lay low in an instinctive endeavour to keep the centre of gravity down near the keel where it belonged; but mareu, mad with the ecstasy of swift motion, leapt up to a hair-poised balance and, swathed in sheets of flying spray, finished the run after the fashion of that other venus who was born of the sea-foam where the breakers travailed on the cyprean coast. i saw the commodore lower his glass with a gesture of relief where he had watched with the mater from the veranda of the queen's "palace," but mcgrath was only smiling. "if there was a reef and a surf hedging in the jaws of hell, that girl would try and shoot the passage with never a thought for what she was going into beyond," he said evenly as he watched her beach the canoe and help claribel to alight. absorbed in his thoughts, but still with his eye on the girl, mcgrath poured himself another glass of absinthe. disdaining the aid of a couple of her boat-pullers, she dumped the water from the canoe and hauled it up to its shelter of thatch above high-tide mark; then, like a spaniel that has finished its swim, she gave herself a vigorous shake, so that her wealth of glistening blue-black hair came tumbling down and swathed her spray-wet body to the knees. "and by god!--" mcgrath gave vocal expression to the thoughts that were in his eyes--"with mareu at the paddle i'd run the jaws of hell myself!" i had no inkling at the time of the struggle that was going on in the man's heart, but later events, coupled with a recollection of those sudden passionate words, brought me to something of an understanding. on the last day of our visit to hatiheu the queen gave a great feast to all of her subjects, the members of our party being the guests of honour. the food consisted of the usual run of marquesan delicacies, but the _piece de resistance_ was the great bull secured on the wild cattle hunt which mcgrath finally succeeded in arranging at the last moment. it was cooked whole in a huge underground oven lined with stones, from which it was drawn in a condition to suit the taste of an epicure. like the mexican _barbecue_, this method of cooking results in meat that is delicious enough to counteract the dis-appetizing effects of the disgusting methods of handling it. mcgrath kept a careful eye on the toddy calabashes, so that the feast, as marquesan feasts go, was a very prim and proper affair. claribel, who was in splendid voice, sang several english and hawaiian songs, and finally, the marseillaise, from the "palace" veranda. the latter, with which many of the natives appeared to be familiar, was received with tumultuous applause. at the queen's command a bevy of very comely misses from the mission school started a _himine_ or hymn, to the tune of a couple of tom-toms and a concertina. others joined in, and by imperceptible degrees the air was changed until, almost before we knew what had happened, it had become a rollicking _hula_. the frantic protests of the mother superior passed unnoticed in the excitement, and not until that outraged individual had seized one of the recalcitrants (who, yielding to the delirious abandon of the seductive air, had begun to dance), and led her off by the ear was she able to re-establish her authority. the indignant mareu, who had no love for the missionaries and who said she was just getting in a mood to dance herself, promptly declared in favour of bringing the spirited little singers back by force and letting the festivities go on; but the diplomatic mcgrath, scenting "civil war" in the kingdom of hatiheu, suggested that, as we all were to start at daybreak for the long ride back to taio-haie, it might be well to turn in and get a few hours' sleep. the queen continued obdurate and would probably have carried her point had not a heavy squall come roaring in from the ocean and driven the whole company to shelter. my opportunities for studying the _hula_ in nukahiva, which was once famous as the home of the greatest dancers in the south pacific, were so limited that it would be presumptuous of me to dogmatise. i might record the impression, however, that it is a spirited and soul-stirring performance, and has this in common with modern "ragging" and "jazzing" and "shimmy-ing," that it leaves nothing to the imagination on the points to which it is endeavouring to give expression. for this reason, if for no other, it may be worth preserving against the time when the pampas, the sahara and the barbary coast of california are incapable longer of giving a wriggle or a "writhe" sufficiently suggestive to stir the jaded soul of society. pulses that have long refused to throb a beat faster in the tangle of the "tango," may yet have the life to quicken in the sensuous abandon of the marquesan _hula_. and in fancy cannot one hear it all over again? "the 'hatiheu hug' and the 'taio-haie throttle'--who says they're disgusting? if one _wants_ to dance them disgustingly, of course--" how long will it be, i wonder? * * * * * queen mareu and her retinue, her highness in a flowing habit of print and tapa and sitting an imported french side-saddle, accompanied us back to taio-haie, and on the evening preceding our departure came off to the yacht for dinner and fireworks. queen taone of anaho, who chanced to be visiting in taio-haie, was another of the distinguished guests on this occasion. besides royalty, invitations had been sent to every one of foreign blood on the island, and all, with the exception of john hilyard, the tattooed man, had responded. french officialdom, brave in gold lace and with straggles of orders across its breasts, was out en masse; three of the genial fathers from the catholic mission, one of whom entertained us with several selections from "faust," "carmen" and "trovatore," sung in a magnificent tenor, also honoured us with their presence, as did four officers from trading schooners in the harbour, two of whom were in pajamas and barefooted. cramer, the german trader, was choking till his eyes bulged in the uniform of an officer of a prussian cavalry regiment which he had worn as a slender youth, ten years before. mcgrath put us all to shame by appearing in a dress suit, the fine cut of which puzzled me not a little until, later in the evening when he had thrown it aside in my cabin, i noticed a tab with "poole" upon it on the inside of the collar. entertaining royalty is ordinarily a thing not lightly to be courted, but one has to get used to it in the south pacific and after a while comes to take it quite as a matter of course. the principal accessories required are a phonograph or a music box, a cabin-ful of plate glass mirrors, plenty of cool drinks, a few cases of fireworks, unlimited bolts of print and an inexhaustible supply of barrels of salt beef and boxes of canned salmon. these items, properly used, will insure social success to the veriest tyro. in those calid latitudes, where everything else appears more or less _en deshabille_, court etiquette is also stripped of its surplus frills and, save for occasional disconcerting surprises, contains little to baffle the uninitiated. queen mareu had dined with foreigners many times before and her manners were impeccable. her highness, teona, had enjoyed fewer advantages than her sister sovereign of hatiheu, but even she--except for a little bad luck in inhaling some champagne which she was endeavouring to make run down her throat and thereby inducing coughing fits which nothing but rolling on the carpet seemed to have any efficacy in checking--deported herself most creditably. she was, to be sure, irresistibly attracted by the agreeable salty taste of a long lock of her foretop which got into the soup in the opening round, so that she returned to it in all of the intervals between the courses which followed, and the careless informality of her action in emptying the contents of the bowl of lump sugar into the bosom of her _holakau_ might have been greeted with raised eyebrows at newport, or cowes, or cannes, but the quiet, unconscious dignity of it all proved that she was at least "to the manor born" in the south pacific and quite disarmed criticism. dinner over, queen mareu retired to a reclining chair by the taffrail and sat apart, moody and distrait, all of the evening, not any too pleased, apparently, to have her handsome "lord chamberlain" so much monopolized by the visitors. queen teona, on the other hand, glad of the chance to become the centre of interest, was all smiles and animation. seated at ease on the rail of the cockpit, with one dainty brown foot thrust through the spokes of the wheel and the other polishing the brass binnacle, she related--through cramer as interpreter--stories which she had heard from her grandfather of the time when nukahiva was the rendezvous of the pacific whaling fleet, tales only less terrible than those of the days when the buccaneers held high revel in the old cannibal feast ground at hatiheu; recitals, in fact, which i rather fancy the shrewd teuton toned down considerably in translation. at little tables on the quarter deck the french officers mixed cool green drinks from specially-provided bottles of absinthe, and in the cabin, bowed over a chart, the trading captains gave the commodore careful directions for threading the passages of the treacherous paumotos. on the forward deck their highnesses' retinues fraternized with the _lurline's_ crew over a case of yankee beer, now the sailors raising their voices in a chantey, now the natives in a _himine_, and now both together in indiscriminate "chantey-himines" and "himine-chanteys." in the whole cruise's necklace of tropical nights that one shines forth with a sparkle all its own. as the afterglow faded above the opaque mass of cliffs behind the village, the trade-wind shifted slightly and came to us across the blossom-clothed spurs to the southeast, suffusing, as with a draught of incense from the open door of an eastern temple, the whole hollow of the bay in the drowsy perfume of the yellow _cassi_. as the purple shadows banked deeper on the ebony water and night crept out from the black valleys of the mountains lights began twinkling here and there in the bush, and presently the lines of the verandas of the official residence were picked out in rows of coloured lanterns. the surf broke uproariously along the shore in bursts of phosphorescent flame, and in its pauses the barbaric cadences of _himines_ and _hulas_ floated out to us across the star-paved surface of the bay. on this, though they seemed to tickle the royal fancies, the fireworks broke somewhat in the nature of an anti-climax. to the good teona's passion for "seeing the wheels go round" was due the fact that the fireworks tickled something besides her royal fancy. she had been permitted to pull the lanyard of the signal gun for half a dozen salutes, to put the match to several kicking rockets, and had just touched off her second fistful of roman candles when the trouble occurred. the paper tubes were popping forth their multi-coloured contents in blazing showers when her highness, her face ashine with perspiration and pleasure, reversed them in an ill-advised attempt to see where the bright little balls came from. in an instant a good half dozen or more of the purple pellets had popped into the neck of the unlucky queen's voluminous _holakau_, seeking extinguishment somewhere in the oil-glistening reaches of her highness' plump shoulders. that the sufferer raked, as with a gatling gun, the rest of the party with her sputtering candles in the pain and consternation of the first touch of the burning balls of calcium is hardly to be wondered at under the circumstances; and it only made the more admirable the manner in which she pulled herself together and tossed the spitting fire-sticks overboard before dignifiedly retiring down the gangway to bathe her burns in salt water. later in the evening she rose to another trying emergency with equal aplomb in seizing an erupting ginger ale bottle from one of her befuddled hand-maidens and smothering it in the latter's flowered _pareo_ in order to save the dignity and the gold-laced uniform of the residente who, being corpulent, had become temporarily wedged in his deck chair and was unable to dodge the sizzling amber jet. this, i may mention, was only the forerunner of many trying experiences that were in store for us as the result of the violent unrest that enters into the contents of a bottle of champagne or mineral water that is carried in imperfectly protected lockers on tropical seas. * * * * * at noon, on the th of april, the _nukahiva_, a french schooner of about seventy tons--the "greyhound" of the marquesan trading fleet--hove up anchor and got under weigh for the entrance with the courteously avowed intention of showing us the way to tahiti. "_venez nous voir en arrivant a papeete!_" her captain shouted as she came up past us and went about; and "_merci--avec plasir!_" we faltered back as we waved him a vigorous _au revoir_ with our napkins from the companionway. at one o'clock we were under weigh ourselves, beating out against such baffling puffs of the trade-wind as found their way to the inner bay. sailing within four points of the wind in the smooth water of the narrow passage, by two o'clock _lurline_ had overcome the hour's lead of the _nukahiva_, and a few minutes later passed ahead and well to the windward of her through the "sentinels." a number of our newly-made friends had come down to the beach to wave us bon voyage, but the one to whom our glasses turned the oftenest was a white clad figure that had stood immovable under the shade of a coco palm while the yacht was in sight and which, as the southerly "sentinel" began to blot our tower of sail, had sunk down into a dejected heap upon the coral clinkers. the memories and the thoughts of the "outside world" which our coming had conjured up for mcgrath, the man who was trying to forget the "outside world," had proved almost too much for him. that pathetic little white heap on the beach of taio-haie was the last we ever saw of the young trader who had done so much to make our visit to nukahiva a memorable one, and whom we had all come to like so well. some weeks later, in tahiti, i received a letter from cramer telling how mcgrath, accompanied by a single native boy and with a pitifully small stock of provisions, had been blown off to sea during a storm in the little cutter he was building when we were at hatiheu, and had been given up for lost. and it was as lost that we mourned our good friend during all the rest of the cruise and for many months afterward until, one day, came the following letter, written from tahiti: (i give the essential parts of it verbatim for the especial benefit of those yachtsmen who are prone to feel themselves the victims of hard luck at having to spend a summer night out of port in a snug, decked-over forty-footer.) "i have had a rather exciting time of it for the last six months, having been blown away from the marquesas group in the little boat which i was building when you called at the islands. it was owing to the unshipping of the rudder, and as the boat had an overhanging stern it was impossible for us to re-ship it for four days, owing to the heavy sea. we had no oars with which to guide the boat, otherwise i might have fetched the lee of nukahiva. we were more than two hundred miles west of the group when we finally succeeded in getting the rudder repaired, and had but a gallon of water left. as it then fell calm i decided to run for caroline, with the breeze and strong current in our favour, and made the island o.k. within an hour of the time i calculated. to say that i had a hell of a time is putting it mildly. after trying twice to make tahiti, and running into a southeast gale each time, i ran for samoa, and the last five days of the run had the full force of the hurricane which swept the whole of the south pacific from june th to th. it was so fierce that the _sierra_--a , -ton steamer of the american-australian line--was blown away from the samoas and could not effect an entrance. several vessels were piled up in the neighbourhood of samoa, and many dismasted; yet my boy and i lived it out in a perfectly open boat. "we were blown away on the th of may, and made tutuila on the th of june, after having sailed more than , miles. the boat filled once, twelve miles from pago pago, and almost sank, but we threw everything overboard to lighten her, baled her out, and then slashed her through it with reefed foresail. she was the finest sea boat that ever split a wave, and at samoa beat a twenty-tone schooner seventeen hours in a gale of wind from savaii to apia--a dead beat of sixty miles." mcgrath's letter went on to tell of how he had sold his little cutter in samoa, journeyed to sydney by steamer, travelled for some months in australasia, and was finally in tahiti en voyage to his old post in the marquesas. subsequent letters received by the commodore from tahiti were calculated to cast considerable doubt on mcgrath's story of having been blown away from nukahiva in a storm, and hinted at shortages of accounts and other things. it is quite possible these charges are true--it will make no difference with our memory of the man if they are--but if they are, the question that suggests itself is, "why did mcgrath, after successfully reaching australia, come back again to the marquesas?" at last accounts he was back under the shadow of the great cliffs of hatiheu where, i sincerely hope, his high-strung spirit has ceased to be troubled by the conflicting impulses to which he was a prey during the final days of our visit to nukahiva. the story of mcgrath cannot be told yet, for the reason that one of the strangest of its drama is still unplayed; when it is written, if ever, i have gleaned just enough of what has gone before to know that the record will be one of the most remarkable that has ever been given to the world. of mcgrath's voyage in an open boat from the marquesas to samoa, i will comment here no more than to say that, whether he was cast away or deliberately embarked upon it, it has gone on record as one of the most remarkable achievements of its kind in marine history. the _lurline_ encountered, between samoa and fiji, the same hurricane which mcgrath refers to in his letter, and when i describe that stupendous disturbance as it appeared to us on one of the staunchest ninety-footers ever built, i will also call attention to the fact that, five hundred miles to the northeast, a white man and a marquesan boy, half dead from lack of food and sleep, were pointing up the prow of a pitiful little thirty-foot open cutter to the same mountainous seas and roaring winds. * * * * * clearing the harbour of taio-haie, sheets were slacked off and, with a strong beam wind, we bowled away on a s.w. / s. course at a gait which presaged a lively passage if it could be kept up. at : we took our departure with the conspicuous cape maartens bearing n.e. and an unnamed point on the west end of the island n. by w. at this time the _nukahiva_ was already hull down astern. encouraged by the first prospect of a steady and favourable slant of wind since we left san pedro, a good spread of sail was hoisted, which, as the barometer was high and the sky unthreatening, it was hoped could be carried all night. the sea was light, and in a gushingly fresh wind the yacht reeled off ten and eleven knots an hour all through the first watch. the breeze fell lighter after midnight, however, and squalls in the morning and early forenoon made it impossible to carry the light sails, considering which the run of miles for the twenty-two hours ending at noon of the th was very creditable work. by the afternoon of the th we were clear of the treacherous squall belt around the islands, and the strong, steady trade from the e.s.e. drove the yacht along at an almost undeviating speed, the log varying scarcely two-tenths from ten knots for any hour. toward evening the benefit of a strengthening wind was offset by a rising sea, and through the latter hours of the night we proceeded under shortened sail. at daybreak the light sails were clapped on again and for several hours of the forenoon but a shade under eleven knots was averaged. at noon the dead-reckoning showed close to miles logged in the last twenty-four hours, and when the position by observation was figured it appeared that a favourable set of current had added enough to this to bring the day's run up to an even miles. the temperature of the air was ° this day--the highest recorded during the voyage--and that of the water was °. at four o'clock on the afternoon of the th a ragtag of fringe was reported off to the s.s.w., and word went around that we were sighting the first of the dread paumotos. this group--often down on the charts as the tuamotu, low or dangerous archipelago,--is a cluster of a hundred or more coral atolls covering several degrees of both latitude and longitude of the extreme southwest corner of polynesia. they are noted for their treacherous currents and terrific hurricanes, and are reputed to have had more schooners piled up on their white coral beaches than any other half dozen groups in the south pacific. the name is a byword for all that is bad with every skipper who has sailed among them, and "_aussi sâle que dans ces maudits paumotos_" is the last degree of superlative in describing desperate navigating conditions. of harbours there is none save the lagoons of the atolls themselves, and the entrances to these are so narrow and so beset by currents that the passage of them is almost impossible except at the turn of the tide, and is highly dangerous even then. once inside the lagoon, however, the protection from everything but hurricanes is perfect. the average life of a trading or pearling schooner in the paumotos is but four or five years, and so notoriously world-wide is their reputation as a marine graveyard that neither in europe, australia nor america can a ship be insured that is plying in their trade. it is even the custom to insert in the policy of a vessel running to adjacent islands a clause declaring that no insurance will be paid should the ship, by any chance, be lost in the paumotos. the island we had sighted turned out to be ahii, one of the largest of the group, and by five o'clock it had grown from a colourless horizontal blur to a solid wall of white and brown and green, where the snowy beach ran up to the dark boles of the coco palms, and these in turn ran out in fringes of lacquered verdancy. at a distance of half a mile our course was altered slightly to parallel that of the shore line, and in a rapidly smoothing sea, but with an unabated breeze, we began running down the low, even leeward coast of the strange island. from the deck only the coco palm barrier, a tossing mass of up-ended feather dusters, met the eye to windward, but from the shrouds, through rifts in the line, could be seen great green gashes of the smooth lagoon. farther still, in blended brown and olive, the windward rim of the island stood out sharply against a vivid turquoise ribbon of open sea, itself defined against a dusky mass of cumulo-nimbus that was rolling in before the trade from the southeast. here followed a spell of the prettiest sailing that the good _lurline_, sapient of the seas of many latitudes, ever did, or probably ever will do. we were sufficiently close to the steep-to lee shore of the great atoll to be sailing in a sea as smooth as the land-locked lagoon itself, yet at the same time were far enough beyond the barrier of the coco palms still to enjoy the full force of a moderately strong and remarkably steady breeze. we were anxious not to get too far in among the islands during the night, and for this reason no light sails were set; yet under mainsail, foresail, forestay-sail and jib the log was shortly spinning up mile after mile with six minutes and less of interval between each bell. the wind was on the port beam, and blowing so smoothly that the yacht, unshaken by the lift or slap of waves, held to her even heel as though chocked over in the ways. of pitch or roll or shiver there was no sign, and for all the motion but that swift, undeviating forward glide, she might have been frozen up in a fresh water lake. she simply shore her way through the water as a draper's clerk runs his unworked scissors down a length of silk. at dinner in the cabin the unprecedented stillness was almost oppressive. the familiar creaking of the inlaying on the mainmast at the head of the table was no longer heard, nor the crash of waves and the rattle of spray to windward, nor the shrill of spinning sheaves and the rat-a-tat of the foresheet block on the deck. the only sounds were unwonted ones--the tick of the cabin clock, the rattle of pans in the galley, the not over-elegant flow of post-prandial conversation in the forecastle, and running through all, the hissing rush of the water along the sides. the sun had set while we were at dinner, and the afterglow, in swift tropic transitions, had flamed and faded and flamed again, and was fading out for the last time as we came on deck. the sea to the west still glimmered here and there in patches of dull rose from the reflections of a few still-lighted tufts of cirrus cloud. north and south it was darkly purple, shading to a misty slatiness where water and sky merged in banks of low-hanging strati, and east to the island it lay dead and opaque, save for the spots where it was pricked into life by the images of the brightening stars. overhead the pleiades and orion's belt and sirius, the dog star, were turning from pale yellow to orange, and from orange to lambent gold; to the north the big dipper, half submerged in the sea, was tipping up slowly to pour out its nocturnal libation to its stately _vis-à-vis_, the southern cross. and under it all, swiftly, silently, mysteriously as the flying dutchman, her track marked for a mile astern by a comet-like wake of vivid gold, _lurline_ went slipping down the lee of the long atoll at an easy, even, effortless ten knots an hour. presently, just as twilight was giving way to full darkness, a red light was reported crossing our bows, and we shortly made out a two-masted schooner beating in toward the entrance to the lagoon, nearly opposite to which we were then sailing. several times across the still water came the strangely mixed jumble of french and kanaka and english orders, mingling with the creak of booms as she was put about, and finally the voice of the skipper cursing fluently because the tide was running faster in the passage than was to his apparent taste. then a great yellow moon got up and sat upon the farther fringe of the lagoon, and back and forth across the face of it we watched the little schooner beat in safely through the narrow passage. as she left the moon path a bonfire sprang into life somewhere upon the inner beach, and through the serried ranks of the coco palms we saw her pink sails crumple up as halyards were let go, while the sharp staccato of a chain running through a hawse pipe floating down the wind told that she had won her anchorage. at nine o'clock it was decided to pass to the west of the island of rangaroa, instead of to the east as had been our intention, and to this end the course was altered to w. by s. to minimize the chance of overrunning our reckoning in the treacherous currents and thereby piling up the yacht on the beach of tikehau which lay beyond rangaroa, foresail and jib were furled, only the mainsail and forestay-sail remaining set. even under this greatly reduced sail seven knots an hour were averaged all night, daybreak finding us off the northwest corner of rangaroa. down the lee of this island--under sailing conditions only less perfect than those of the previous evening--we ran all the forenoon of the th, sinking its southwest corner early in the afternoon, just as we raised a peak of the combined coral and volcanic island of makatea. makatea is famous as having been the rendezvous of the notorious marquesan half-caste, boraki, quite the most picturesque pirate who ever operated in that corner of the south pacific. the story of the retributive justice which overtook boraki while endeavouring to cut out and capture a missionary schooner sent to conciliate and convert him is one of the most amazing yarns ever told, and the antithetic variations of it that come from the opposite poles of "traderdom" and "missiondom" are alone worth journeying to the south seas to listen to. i shall endeavour, later, to set down the account we heard--from the lips of one of the principal actors in the remarkable drama--on a memorable evening when the yacht lay at anchor in suva bay, fiji. as day broke on the th the mist-wreathed peak of orohena, the backbone of tahiti, took form a point or two off the port bow, and a little later the jumbled skyline of moorea began to appear in a similar position to starboard. the sun rose gorgeously behind a flank of the larger island, the blazing southeast setting off in marvellous silhouette the matchless "diadem," the crown jewel of all tahiti's beauty. "the diadem" is the name given to a row of little peaks occupying the divide between the two great volcanoes that dominate the east and west ends of the island. they are so symmetrically and evenly set that the most unimaginative cannot fail to see their resemblance to the points of a king's crown, a likeness all the more striking when each point is tipped with gold and the whole surmounted with a halo of light from the rising sun. at seven o'clock the tall, white pillar of the point venus light--so called because captain cook took his observations of the transit of the planet venus from this promontory on june rd, --could be discerned towering above the coco palms that engulfed its base, and an hour later it was abeam, with the bay of papeete opening up beyond. this name, meaning "basket of water," gives a comprehensive description of tahiti's chief harbour. the bay itself is but half land-locked by the mainland, but across what would otherwise be a comparatively open roadstead runs a partially submerged reef, which, except for the narrowest of passages, completely cuts it off from the sea. inside is a mile of deep water and a shore so bold-to that the trading schooners tie up to the trees and load from and discharge to the bank. at : we were off the entrance, and, as the sailing directions were plain and the marks unmistakable, the commodore decided to go in without a pilot. the wind, which we had carried on our port quarter since daybreak, was brought up abeam as we altered our course and headed into the passage. it blew strongly and steadily, and to the nine or ten-knot gait at which it was driving us was added the four or five-knot run of a flood tide. the yacht raced through the passage, as the port captain shortly tried to tell us in broken english, "like ze diable try catch her," and during all of our stay in the island we were constantly called upon to deny the persistent rumour that she was equipped with power. several who witnessed our entrance from the shore even went so far as to aver that they distinctly saw blue smoke trailing off astern, a phenomenon which never came nearer to explanation than when gus, a big swede of the mate's watch who was at the wheel on the occasion in question, admitted that he did "sware a leetle when she go joost lak hell" out of sheer excitement. we anchored a couple of cable's lengths off the british consulate, having made the miles from nukahiva in a little over three and three-quarters days, eleven hours of which were run under mainsail and forestay-sail only in the lee of rangaroa. the best previous record was between four and five days. chapter vii circling tahiti the island of tahiti has been the best known, or rather the most talked-about, point in the south pacific since those latitudes were added to the mapped sections of the world. from the time that the much-maundered-over mutiny of the _bounty_ furnished the theme for byron's "island," and later events conspired to produce hermann melville's charming "omoo" and pierre loti's idyllic "rarahue," down to the more numerous but less finished efforts of recent years, tahiti has been the inspiration for more literary endeavour, good and bad, than all the rest of polynesia, melanesia and micronesia combined. undoubtedly it has had more than its share of publicity--latterly, largely because it is so easily and comfortably reached from both america and australia--but the fact remains that it is uniquely--if not quite unmixedly--charming, and that it is perhaps better fitted to minister to the creature comforts of the visitor than any other of its sister islands of the south pacific. civilization in the form of the galvanized iron roof, the glass window, the missionary, the _holakau_ or mother hubbard wrapper and the whisky bottle has thrown its coldly corrective influence over the native life of tahiti; but if it is the kanaka in his pristine purity that one is seeking, moorea and bora-bora--both in the society group--and the paumotos and marquesas are close at hand, and any of these the venturesome may reach by trading schooner, even if he is not so fortunate as to have a yacht at his disposal. chief item in the visitor's program in tahiti--after he has called on the governor, appeared at the club and spent a small sack of chilean _pesos_ to see a _hula_ which has been so completely "expurgated and legalized" as to make a maypole dance on the green in his old home appear bacchanalian by comparison--is the hundred-mile drive around the island. the roads are bad over half the way and the vehicles all the way, but the ride unfolds such an unending panorama of sea, surf and lagoon; of beach and reef; of mountain, cliff and crag; of torrent, cascade and waterfall, and of reckless, riotous, onrushing tropical vegetation as can be found along few, if any, similar stretches of road elsewhere in the world. our drive, in the company of the american consul, william doty, and his sister, on which we were entertained each day by a different district chief with specially-arranged surf-rides, feasts, dances and _himines_, was one unbroken succession of new and delightful sensations. at tautira, the village second in importance to papeete, we were the guest for three days of the suave and dignified old ori, a chief who was once the host of the stevensons for many weeks, and who, on occasion, fairly bubbled with piquant anecdotes of the great novelist. returning down the leeward side of the island, we spent a day and a night with the wealthy teta-nui in a big, comfortable two-story house which might have passed for a southern plantation home of the ante-bellum days, and also found time to accept a luncheon invitation from the scholarly tau-te salmon, relation of the late king pomare, university man and, on the occasion of his visits abroad, the fêted guest of washington, london and paris. tahitian driving comes pretty near to being the most reckless thing of the kind in my experience. it really isn't driving at all; "herding" is a more appropriate term. if your vehicle has more than one seat there will be three or four horses to haul it, driven "spike" in the former case, by twos in the latter. these animals are attached to the rig by traces that run to their collars, which, with the reins, constitute all there is to the harness. there is nothing in the nature of breeching for holding back, and, as the vehicle never has a brake, there is no way the wheel horses can save their heels but by beating it down the hills. a good driver will handle two horses unaided; beyond that number a boy is required upon the back of each additional one. with your driver and post boys wearing each a gaudy hibiscus or _tiaré_ behind his ear, with their braided whips cracking merrily at everything from stray dogs and blossoms to the horses' ears and each other, and with all of them raising their voices in _himine_ after _himine_ with the indefatigability of a frog-pond chorus, your progress, on the score of picturesqueness at least, has no odds to ask of a roman triumph. we decided to make the circuit by starting to windward and taking the roughest part of the road first. in a mile or two the last straggling papeetan suburb had been left behind, the tall pillar of the point venus lighthouse was passed, and the road, plunging into the half-light of the jungle, became a grassy track. here and there were breaks in the encompassing walls of verdure, and through them we had transient glimpses of the landscape--"that smiling tahitian landscape where the weeds laugh at the idea of road boundaries; where the sea, disdaining regular shoreline, straggles aimlessly among its hundred islets; where the mountains flaunt all known laws of natural architecture and the wind disdains regular blasts; where the sun, as careless as the rest, shines one moment above the palm fronds as clear as frosted silver, and the next hides completely behind the lowering mask of a black cloud--a kingdom of _laissez-faire_." in the seventy-five miles from papeete to tautira by the windward route there is an average of more than one stream for every mile, and not a single bridge in the whole distance. as this side of the island has an inch or more of rain daily for most of the year, it may be understood that many of the streams are formidable torrents and by no means easily forded. the approved way of crossing, especially if you have a spirited driver and horses and are not without spirit yourself, is to join your jehu and the postillions in their cannibal war-whoops and endeavour to take the obstacle like a water-jump in a steeple-chase. now and then--just often enough to keep you from becoming discouraged and adopting more conservative tactics--your outfit, smothered in flying gravel and sun-kissed spray, reaches the farther bank and goes reeling on its course; usually a wheel hits a boulder and you stop short; and here is where the synthetically constructed harnesses--bits of old straps, wire, tough strands of liana and vegetable fibre--vindicate their existence. nothing short of a charge of dynamite will move the boulder against which the near wheel is securely jammed. with the horses going berserk at thirty miles an hour, therefore, something has to give way, and the tahitian has wisely figured that it is easier to patch a harness than a wagon. so it happens that when the latter is brought up short in midstream, the harnesses dissolve like webs of gossamer and the horses pop out of them and go on ahead. the driver, and any one who chances to be on the front seat with him, usually follows the horses for a few yards; those upon the back seats telescope upon one another. the assistance of wayfaring natives is almost imperative at this juncture and, strange to tell, with the infallibility of st. bernard dogs in children's alpine stories, they always seem to turn up at the psychologic moment. from one such predicament our party was rescued by a bevy of girls on their way to market. these, after a short spell of not unpardonable mirth had subsided, manfully tucked up their _pareos_, put their sturdy brown shoulders to the wheels and literally lifted the whole outfit through to the bank. an hour later, after a similar mishap, we were all carried ashore on the broad coconut-oiled backs of the half-intoxicated members of a party of revellers, who left a _hula_ unfinished to rush to the rescue. they were all real "mitinaire boys," they said, and were "ver' glad to help chris'yun white vis'tor." and to show that these were not idle words, they offered to carry us all across the stream and back again in pure good fellowship. one of them, in fact, a six-foot apollo with his matted hair rakishly topped with a coronal of white _tiare_, had claribel over his shoulder and half way down the bank before we could convince him that we were fully assured of his good will without further demonstration. the imperturbable claribel, having been "cannibal broke" in the marquesas, accepted the impetuous gallantry with the philosophical passivity of the sack of copra she might have been for all the kanaka lochinvar's care in keeping her right side up. this was our only experience of anything approaching a lack of courtesy in a tahitian, and the victim's charitable interpretation of the act as a mistaken kindness saved the offender from even being denied participation in the division of a handful of coppers. hiteaea, a village situated half way down the windward side of the island from papeete, is as lovely as a steamship company's folder description; the kind of a place you have always suspected never existed outside the imagination of a drop-curtain painter. half of the settlement is smothered in giant bamboos, curving and feather-tipped, and the remainder in flamboyant, frangipani and _burao_ trees, which carpet the ground inches deep with blossoms of scarlet, waxy cream and pale gold. nothing less strong than the persistent southeast trade-wind could furnish the place with air; nothing less bright than the equatorial sun could pierce the dense curtains with shafts of light. toward the sea the jungle thins and in a palm-dotted clearing, walled in with flowering stephanosis and _tiare_, are the brown thatched houses of the chief. a rolling natural lawn leads down to the beach of shining coral clinkers, which curves about a lagoon reflecting the blended shades of lapis lazuli, chrysoprase and pale jade. a froth-white lace collar of surf reveals the outer reef, and across the cloud-mottled indigo sea loom the fantastic heights of the mountains and cliffs behind tautira. the squealing of chased pigs and the squawk of captured chickens welled up to our ears as we topped the last divide and saw the blue smoke of the hiteaea flesh-pots filtering through the green curtain which still hid the village from our sight, sounds which, to the trained ears of our island friends, the dotys, told that their messenger had carried the news of our coming and that fitting preparations were being made for our reception. the wayfarer in colder, greyer climes sings of the emotions awakened in his breast by the "watch-dog's deep-mouthed welcome" as he draws near home, or of the "lamp in the window" which is waiting for him; to the tahitian traveller all that the dog and the lamp express, and a deal more besides, is carried in the dying wails of pigs and chickens, the inevitable signal of rushed preparations for expected visitors. our driver and post-boys answered the signal with a glad chorus of yells, and the jaded horses, a moment before drooping from the stiff climb to the summit of the divide, galvanized into life and dashed off down the serpentine trough of roots and tussocks which answered for a road at a rate which kept the tugs connecting them to the madly pursuing chariot straightened all the way to the beach. some of us were shouting with excitement, some with fright, and some of the less stoical--at the buffets dealt them by the half-padded cushions and the swaying sides--even with pain. most of the unsecured baggage--cameras, suitcases, hand-bags, phonograph records and the like--went flying off like nebulæ in our comet-like wake; a man with a load of plantain was knocked sprawling, a litter of pigs ground under foot, a flock of ducks parted down the middle and a bevy of babies just avoided, before we brought up in a shower of tinkling coral at the door of the chief's house. it was as spectacular an entry as even our postboys could have desired, but our garrulous gratulation was checked an instant later when two grave faced young women in black _holakaus_ came out to tell us that their father, the chief, had died the night before. the good souls, in spite of their sorrow and the endless amount of ceremony and preparation incident to the funeral of a tahitian chief, had made all the arrangements to accommodate us for the night, and would neither permit us to take the road again for terevao, nor to put up with anything less than the best that hiteaea had to offer. so the evening of feasting which would ordinarily have been our portion, was dispensed with, and we spent the night quietly and comfortably in the house of mourning. beyond hiteaea the road dips into the vanilla bean zone, and from there to the taiarapu isthmus the gushing trade-wind smites the nostrils like a blast from a pastry cook's oven. vanilla is one of tahiti's budding industries, and like everything else industrial in the societies, seems likely not to get far beyond the budding stage. the vanilla vine requires little but heat, moisture, a tree to climb upon and a little care. the natural conditions are near ideal in the jungle sections of tahiti, but the hitch has come on the score of care. a number of chinamen, with plantations small enough to allow them to do their own work, are making a considerable success of vanilla, but where kanakas have had to be employed there has been nothing but failure. a native set to pollenize a lot of vines--this has to be done artificially in tahiti on account of the absence of the insects which perform that service in other countries--is more likely than not to pick the orchidlike flowers to chew or stick behind his ear, or to weave the new tendrils into garlands for his olympian brow. they tell you in papeete that the vanilla industry is not flourishing because of the increasing use of artificial flavouring extracts in america; the real reason for its backwardness is the non-use of an artificial--or any other kind of--labour extractor on the kanaka. at the isthmus of terevao the girdling highway swings back down the leeward side of the island to papeete. tautira is reached by a spur which is, however, much better maintained than portions of the main road. the bush is not so dense in this part of the island as along the road we had just traversed, but the mountains, especially in the vicinity of tautira, assume an even wilder aspect than any down to windward. knife-pointed pinnacles of every conceivable shade of blue, green and purple are tossed together in an aimless jumble, showing the skyline of a battered saw. here a mountain has been rent by some titan to let a river through; there a mountain has refused to rend and a river closes its eyes and launches itself over a thousand-foot cliff, paling with terror as it realizes the magnitude of its leap and changing from a bar of green jade to a fluttering scarf of grey satin, finally to collapse into a rumple of white gossamer where the jungle riots in shimmering verdancy against the foot of the cliff. unfathomable gorges with overhanging sides tunnel into the hearts of unclimbable mountains; sheer precipices drop curtains of creepers that dangle their be-tasselled skirts in the quiet river reaches hundreds of feet below; ghostly castles, scarped and buttressed and battlemented, now of mist-wreathed rock, now of rockpierced mist, fade and reappear with the shifting of the curtains of the clouds; and above is the flaming, sun-shot sky, below the wind-tossed, diamond-sprinkled ocean. very pertinent was claribel's observation in point. "what does the frenchman want of absinthe and the chinaman of opium when they both have a place like this to look upon?" she ejaculated between jolts as we bounded along between the mountains and the sea on this last lap of the outward journey; "it is a dream that nothing but a flying tahitian chariot brought up short by a four-foot mid-river boulder can bring you out of." an instant later the very thing which claribel had defined as alone being equal to waking one from his dream of the mountains had eventuated, and because the left fore wheel had been called upon to stand more than its share of such jolts, it dished up like a closed umbrella, collapsed, and precipitated every one and everything in the long-suffering old vehicle into the water. luckily, tautira, our destination, lay just beyond the farther bank and, salvaging a couple of bags containing changes of only slightly wet clothes, we waded out and proceeded on foot to the house which chief ori had prepared for us, leaving the driver to bring on the wreckage at leisure. tautira, though the second town of the island, is almost entirely a native settlement, the "foreign colony" consisting of but one missionary, one trader and one french official. this does not mean that the town is backward or decadent, but rather to the contrary. missionaries, as a pretty general rule, will always be found thickest on the "firing line," and where operations are in the hands of a single white or native preacher it may be taken to indicate that the people, professedly at least, are well within the fold. there is but one trader in tautira because the natives are shrewd enough to own their own cutters and trade directly with papeete. the official is there to collect taxes, not because he is needed to keep order. as far as morals are concerned, consul doty expressed it very well when he said that "there is more mischief to the square foot--or should i say the rounded ankle?--in papeete than in all of tautira." except for its scenery, tautira's chief claim to distinction is ori, and ori's chief claim to distinction is the fact that he was the host for a month or more of robert louis stevenson's party on the novelist's first cruise to the south seas in the _casco_. stevenson, still weak from overwork and hardly yet beginning to feel the beneficial effects of the cruise, was ill during nearly all of his stay in tautira. no account of this visit appears in his south sea book, but in the published letters of his mother it is written of at length, and most entertainingly. from mrs. stevenson's account it would appear that the party was tendered the usual round of feasts, dances and gifts, and countered with feasts and gift-givings of its own. they tell you in papeete that stevenson's illness during this visit made him see their island through dark glasses, and that this was the reason that he ultimately settled in samoa instead of tahiti. from the standpoint of picturesque and tropical loveliness tautira, and even papeete, is distinctly ahead of apia, so that it is more likely that the greater attractiveness of the incomparable samoan native who, then as now, was much less touched by white influence than the tahitian, turned the scale in favour of the more westerly group for the novelist's home. ori--a wily old hypocrite whose six-feet-four of stature, unlike that of most tahitians, is not cumbered with an ounce of superfluous flesh--made a great point of assuring us that the whole plan of entertainment provided for our party was patterned on that which he had dispensed to the stevensons. we were quartered in one of the houses the stevensons had occupied; quite as many pigs and chickens were slaughtered for our "native" feasts as for those of the stevensons; full as many singers were mustered for our _himines_ as turned out for the stevensons; he would lavish quite as rich gifts upon us as he did upon the stevensons, and--the stevensons had given him such and such and such things, ad infinitum. inasmuch as we were paying for our entertainment at a rate which we knew to be about a hundred per cent. above the normal, there was little of base ingratitude in the remark of the commodore who, when his knife blade turned on the rubberoid leg of one of ori's broilers, asked that venerable rascal if the drumstick in question came from one of the chickens left over by the stevensons. for some reason chickens, like wine, refuse to age properly in the south pacific. it may be the heat, it may be the humidity; at any rate a chicken of greater age than two months, however cooked, makes a _piece de resistance_ in a most painfully literal sense. luckily, the tahitian pig, cooked in island fashion, is as much above the average porker of temperate latitudes as the tahitian broiler falls below the standard in his class. any kind of a cut from a six-months-old coconut-fed pig, cooked on hot stones and served with the inimitable _miti-hari_ sauce, will awaken an ecstasy in the palate the memory of which cannot be eradicated by a lifetime of gastronomic experience with the most vaunted viands of other climes. the recipe for preparing this incomparable delicacy would be about as follows: dig a hole in the ground big enough comfortably to bury a pig in and fill it with smooth, round river-bottom stones. collect half a cord or so of dry wood and start a fire on the stones. leaving a boy to stoke the fire, take the eight or ten hours in which the stones are coming to a dull cherry red to find just the right sort of a pig. from three to six months is the best age, and, if possible, get an animal that has been penned and fed upon nothing but young coconuts. if there has been a few odd bread-fruits, bananas, mangoes, papayas, avocados, star-apples and the like thrown in to him occasionally it will not make much difference, but avoid the young porker that has rustled for himself about the copra shacks and along the beach. kill the pig and dress in the usual manner, but without cutting off the head and feet or removing the skin. wrap the body several inches deep in banana or plantain leaves and plaster the whole thickly with sticky mud. then, if the stones are red, remove them with a pole, throw in the wrapped pig and push them back again. best to let a native watch the progress of the cooking, as a great deal depends upon taking out the pig at the right time, and a lifetime of experience is required to forecast the precise condition to which it is roasted from a whiff of the steam. you might try your hand with _miti-hari_ before leaving the rest of the feast for the natives to prepare. this is the sauce par excellence of the south pacific, and, as far as my own experience goes, quite without a peer in any other part of the world. send for a quart of grated coconut meat (most of the native houses keep it on hand), and after soaking it for a few minutes in sea water, pour out on a square of stout muslin, twist the corners of the latter together and bring all the pressure possible to bear on the contents. the result is a cupful of thick, rich milk which, on the addition of the juice of a couple of limes and a red pepper or two, becomes the marvellous and transmutative _miti-hari_. i recall hearing in papeete a story concerning the amazing things that tourists have eaten under the gastronomic intoxication incident to tasting the wonderful miti sauce with which they--the things--were dressed. i believe a piece of rubber blanket was on the list. i don't exactly recall what else, though i do remember hearing claribel say that a dash of _miti-hari_ on the story itself might make it easier to swallow. but claribel, unduly proud of her own salad dressings, was somewhat prejudiced against the incomparable tahitian sauce. the tahitian "native" feast does not differ in any salient particulars from the often-described hawaiian _luau_. the guests sit on the ground and eat the various "dishes," which are spread before them on banana leaves, from their fingers. in addition to pig, chicken and the inevitable breadfruit, the menu always includes a liberal supply of fish, both cooked in _ti_ leaves and pickled raw in lime juice; taro, boiled and mashed; bananas and plantain of a dozen different varieties; fillet of squid, very exquisite prawns and your choice of a score of varieties of strange and delicious tropical fruits with unwritable names. if the feast is given you by a person of wealth and importance, or if you are paying a chief like the canny ori a sum sufficient to make it an inducement, you may get a taste of coconut sprout salad. the raw fish is far from unpalatable and the prawns are exquisite, but the coco sprout salad is the only dish of the lot worthy to be mentioned in the same breath with the _miti-hari_-ed pig. unfortunately, as every tiny sprout in the salad means the death of a young coco palm, the dish is more often discussed than digested. a substitute made of the tender fronds of young ferns is itself pretty near a high-water mark until you have tasted that from coco sprouts. as for the coco-fed pig and the _miti-hari_ dressing, if it doesn't prepare your face for a look of distant superiority whenever again you hear men extolling this or that culinary achievement as worthy of place on the top-most pinnacle of gastronomic excellence, it is because you are suffering from atrophy of the palate. _kava_, so popular in the samoas and fiji, was not--byron to the contrary notwithstanding--and is not, drunk in tahiti. feasting with natives outside of missionary circles, you will probably have a chance to "experience" orange wine. this is a harmless-looking beverage of insinuating ways, in the lucent depths of the first three or four coco shell cups of which lurks no hint of the devil who is curled up in the bottom of the fifth or sixth, and all thereafter. the proverbial ungentlemanliness of the onslaught of a "battleship" punch upon a débutante at her first dance on board is nothing to the "assault from ambush" of orange wine upon the unwary stranger who dallies overlong above its cup. coco wine--not the coco toddy that figured in my marquesan pig hunt, which is a baser concoction--fermented from a juice drawn from the heart of the trunk of that palm, is expensive and hard to obtain at any cost. it is a gentleman's drink, however, and scorns to practise any of the "behind-the-back" tactics of the soft-footed orange thunderbolt. it romps down the throat like a torch-light procession and promptly starts a conflagration that spreads like wild-fire from the head to the heels. an american indian after a couple of _epus_ of coco wine would commence murdering his fellows, as he does under the influence of the fiery _mescal_; the gentle tahitian in like instance, though quite as much uplifted, both mentally and physically, as the redskin, is content to murder sleep--his own and every one's else. he enters upon a period of song and dance which lasts as long as the supply of wine, and there is no peace within a quarter-mile radius of the centre of disturbance. in america or europe a man showing the same symptoms as does a kanaka under the influence of coco wine would be gagged, strait-jacketed and thrust into a padded cell. in tahiti the smiling policeman, if the offender becomes too boisterously obstreperous, accomplishes a similar result by pitching him into the sea. at first blush this strikes one as being a somewhat drastic proceeding, but the tahitian, being amphibious, rarely comes to harm in the water. indeed, i have the assurance of a prominent merchant of papeete that "you would be surprised how few of these ducked natives are really drowned!" i will return to the tahitian in his "lighter moments" in another chapter. * * * * * ori's resources of entertainment, by a strange coincidence, came to an end at the same time as did our big sack of chilean _pesos_, and we returned by the smooth, well-metalled leeward road to papeete, where we were planning two or three affairs on the yacht in an endeavour to make a small return of the hospitality we had enjoyed from the day of our arrival. we still had something to learn about "society in the societies," however, and we were on our way to the initiation. chapter viii society in the societies the society islands took their name from the royal geographical society, which sent an expedition there in to observe the transit of venus, not, as might be supposed, from any predilection of the early or latter-day inhabitants to afternoon teas, dinners, dances, masques, routs and the like. there were, to be sure, functions which might freely be classed under some of these heads, but as the foreign visitor who was bidden usually finished up much after the fashion of the lady who went out to ride on the tiger, except in the literal interpretation of a social gathering as a "polite intermixing of people," they could hardly be called social from his standpoint. yet today, socially, papeete--at least so far as red tape and ceremony go--is the most finished capital of the south pacific. these things are, in fact, rather overdone for so remote a tropical outpost, and the intricate system of precedence set up by french officialdom, and the constant danger incident to the inadvertent bringing together of those within and without the pale, made one long at times for the bluff informality of apia and the whole-hearted hospitality of suva or honolulu. there is no lack of kindness on tahiti's part to the stranger within her gates; if any complaint is to be made on that score, in fact, it is that there is too much of it. the trouble lies in the fact that there are, as elsewhere in the south pacific, two broadly defined cliques--the missionary and trader--between which there is war to the knife. french officialdom constitutes a third clique which, while keeping itself pretty well aloof from the other two, still complicates their relations considerably. this alignment does not seem so impossible on the face of it, for there are cliques in all climes, and a world of unsegregated human elements would be unthinkable. you will choose your friends from the best in both camps, you may tell yourself, but how soon do you find that in the guelph-and-ghibelline warfare of the missionary and trader no sort of "run-with-the-hare-and-hunt-with-the-hounds" position is possible. if you are going to stay in the island you may just as well enlist under the banner of one force or the other at the outset, for there is no such thing as a recognized noncombatant and you are just as likely to go down between the contending forces in trying to keep out of the combat as in fighting in their ranks. but under which banner will you enlist? there, indeed, comes the rub. you think it will be easy to decide, do you? perhaps so; but suppose you take a few days to hear what the contenders have to say for themselves. you will find some very plausible chaps on both sides. "upon what meat has this our missionary fed?" paraphrases one of your trader acquaintances, who claims to have been a university man before his "pater" paid his debts and cut him off without a farthing. he always comes out with shakespeare after about the fourth glass of rum, you learn shortly, and as inevitably lapses into the vernacular of the "beach" with something of the nature of "why, blyme me, them swaller-tailed blokes would have been butchered an' eaten a hundred years ago if it wasn't fer us traders an' our shootin' irons to hold down the blacks." after an evening of this you feel that the traders are a much misunderstood lot until, in the missionary's sunday sermon, you hear them sorrowfully referred to as "our sinful brethren whose very existence here would have been impossible had not our teachings shown the savage the error of his blood-thirsty ways." then you realize that it is the trader who, after all, is in the wrong, until, on the following day, you drop in at a copra shack on the broom road for a drink of coco water, and learn that it was missionary denunciation that was responsible for the massacre of boyle and wells at rangaroa in , and that the captain of the missionary schooner, _croix de sud_, was severely censured by the governor for abandoning the trader, wilkes, to his fate during an uprising in the tongas in . at heart, of course, you are in sympathy with the missionaries, so that it is with a secret satisfaction that you hear the ascetic, frock-coated gentleman, whom you fall in with a couple of miles farther along, nail these last stories as "unmitigated and devil-inspired lies," and go on to cite "unimpeachable authorities" to prove that traders instigated the "cutting out" of the missionary schooner, _morning star_, in the hervey group in , and that traders were guilty of having incited the natives who killed chalmers in new guinea a year or two later. in spite of your sympathies, however, your confidence in the missionaries is badly shaken when, in the pauses of the _hula_ which has been arranged for your especial benefit, you get "the real straight of it" from "kangaroo pete" the same evening, but how ashamed you are of your doubts when you meet the "board of conversion of the affiliated missionary societies of the south pacific at the consulate" the following afternoon and hear the members "lay bare the mainspring of every action" of its representatives since the days of the "blessed john williams." vacillating between the scylla and charybdis of "missionarydom" and "traderdom," and torn by the conflicting currents of doubt and belief, you end by soundly rating yourself as an invertebrate weakling incapable of forming a fixed opinion on any subject, and decide to take the advice of a sagacious australian traveller who said that he had found the best course to pursue in the south pacific was to "trade with the traders and 'mish' with the missionaries." but, as i have already pointed out, that you are quite as likely to come to grief as a non-combatant as in carrying a pike, the experience of our party in endeavouring to discharge its social indebtedness in tahiti goes to prove. the best characterization i have heard of social papeete was that of a visiting englishman who applied to it what some other englishman once said about hammersmith--"a lot of variegated grievances, each unit of which believes himself a little tin providence on wheels." the truth of this astute observation will hardly be brought home to the run of visitors to tahiti who, stopping over but the few days between boats, have more opportunity to receive than to dispense entertainment. by us of the _lurline_ it was never suspected until, in a devil-inspired moment, we decided to wipe out our accumulated obligations in a single day by giving a tea and a sail in the afternoon and a buffet deck supper, with fireworks, in the evening. what an excellent idea, that of the two functions, we told ourselves--one for the "earth-earthy" set and the other for the "church-churchy" set. how lucky it was that the line of cleavage between them was so clearly demarked! we called in the suave, diplomatic young consul, with his intricate knowledge of the most recondite of the cogs of the wheels within the wheels of the machine of tahitian society, and started on the list for the afternoon affair, to which the "missionary set" was to be invited. "father le p----," we began. "yes," acquiesced the consul. "the reverend d---- and family." "ye-es." "the reverend b---- and wife." "um-well, hardly. he's anglican, you know, and there's been some trouble with father le p---- over converts. better not put them down." "the r----'s, who had us to tea when we drove around the island. they're of the missionary set, aren't they?" "yes, but they're presbyterians. they have a suit on now for some of the catholic land which adjoins them; so they wouldn't do with father le p----. but they're friends of the b----'s, though. you might put the b----'s down and scratch father le p---- off." the next two families mentioned were at odds with both of the sub-factions, the lines of which we were plotting, and so were not put down at all for the moment. then came three that were friendly to father le p----, which resulted in his name being added again, while those of the b----'s and the r----'s were scratched off. and so it went on for a couple of hours. the missionary set ultimately resolved itself into five irreconcilable factions, and to these we discharged our obligations separately with the two teas and a dinner on board and a tea and a dinner at the hotel. the list of the trader and official set was more complicated still. his excellency, the governor, we started with, of course. monsieur le secretaire was also passed, but captaine g---- could not be included because he had recently come to blows with the secretary over cards at the cercle militaire. the dashing major l---- was passed, but not lieutenant p----, of the gunboat, who was in the black books of government house because he had once violated official etiquette by bringing a jag to dinner instead of acquiring it during the evening. le compte de r---- it was also necessary to leave off from our number one list because he and the truculent secretary had recently quarrelled over the question of precedence at an official reception. without a "trial balance" we quickly came to the conclusion that the anglo-saxons and the germans--except the consuls--would not do with the french; so an evening of green drinks was planned for the latter by themselves. the anglo-saxon list was the hardest task of the lot, and before it was completed we learned that a---- had another wife living in auckland and that the children of the two families visited back and forth; that the present mrs. b---- was the first mrs. c----, and before that was a barmaid in d----'s saloon; that the e----'s, f----'s, g----'s and h----'s were involved in a four-cornered lawsuit and were not on speaking terms; that the misses i---- travelled to sydney and back unchaperoned and carried on something scandalous; that j----'s son eloped with k----'s daughter and deserted her in san francisco for a vaudeville actress; that--but these samples will, perhaps, prove sufficient to give an idea of the nature of the tasks which confronted us. even under the coaching of the sympathetic and almost omniscient consul, feuds which had smouldered unsuspected or differences which had cropped up over night supervened to cast palls of frigidity over even the gayest of our gatherings, and the most fervently thankful moment we knew in the course of the whole cruise was the one in which the last boatload of the guests from the last of our half score or more of "duty" parties cleared the gangway and we told ourselves that all was over without a single shooting affray, fist fight or even a hair-pulling. how much simpler entertaining had been in the marquesas, where the common run of social feuds were along the line of that of "chewer-of-thumbs," who was reluctant about coming aboard with "masticator-of-boys'-ears" on the ground that the latter's grandfather had eaten his--the "chewer's"--grandmother, and afterwards was said to have complained of indigestion. "fancy--indigestion from one of the 'chewer-of-thumbs' lineage!" and all we had to say was that the idea was so preposterous that it must have been meant as a joke; upon which they both swarmed gleefully aboard the yacht, where the reconciliation was completed and made permanent by "masticator's" magnanimous action in smuggling one of our cases of canned salmon into "chewer's" canoe and helping him get away with it. tahitian--i mean "missionary" tahitian--ideas of modesty were amusingly illustrated by a warning we received from a well educated and intentioned young half-caste, zealous in the enthusiasm of recent conversion, to the effect that our bathing costumes--regulation american bathing suits--were the occasion of no small amount of unfavourable comment among the "better class of papeetans." "but what's the matter of our bathing suits?" asked the commodore in the amazement of perfect innocence. "oh--perhaps the sailors have been a little informal in the costumes they have worn for their morning plunges." "no, it isn't the sailors," was the reply. "the people are saying that the gentlemen's suits have no sleeves and legs and that--that the skirts of the ladies come only to their knees, and--" "of course," cut in the commodore impatiently; "what's wrong with that? women wear trains on ball gowns, not on bathing suits. besides, the yacht is a good cable's length off shore, and it takes keen eyes to tell a bathing suit from pajamas at that distance." "i know, sir," was the naïve reply; "but you would be surprised, sir, to learn how many of the better class of people living along the beach have telescopes." "oh!" we chorused--and again "oh!" before showing our solicitous young friend to his canoe, we were at pains to enquire what was the orthodox bathing costume worn by the ladies of the "better class"--brown and white--calling his attention first to some girls from the public wash-house who, not far up the beach, were disporting themselves in the shallows in nothing but their _pareos_, short pieces of gaudy print which fell from the waist to the knees. he replied that the "real ladies," white and brown, never entered the water in public unless modestly draped from neck to heel. [illustration: native woman washing on the beach, tahiti] [illustration: a mission bathing suit.] [illustration: before the bath--and after] this turned out to be the truth. a couple of days later, in the course of a ride, i came upon some mission girls about to take a dip in one of the big pools of the faa-tua. for ten centimes one of them allowed me to take her photograph in the "orthodox" costume before entering the water. when the bath was over it cost me two francs to get her to come out into the sunshine and stand for another snap. i paid it willingly, however, rightly judging that the second photograph would be worth double the price asked in bolstering up the faltering confidence of the mater and claribel in the comparative propriety of their american bathing suits. i submit the two photographs without comment. chapter ix the song and dance in tahiti the tahitian word for song, _himine_, is a kanakazation of the english word hymn. before the days of the missions there must have been some other term, for singing was quite as prominent an occupation of the native then as now, but it was discarded as a superfluity long ago. the south sea islander does not cumber his memory with more than one name at a time for any given thing, and when new words were forced upon him, as was inevitable with the coming of the whites, the old ones quickly disappeared through disuse. thus _himine_ was at first applied to nothing but the hymns which the missionaries taught. then the term expanded to include the rowing and working chanteys of the natives, and finally to the folk and dance songs. today a tahitian will speak of the _himine_ to which a _hula_ is danced. shades of john williams and james chalmers! a _hula_ to a _himine_! a native _danse du ventre_ to a missionary hymn! "you sinful hussies are as full of airs as a music box," said a missionary to the bevy of frolicksome _vahines_ who had replied with a rollicking _himine_ to his invitation to come inside of the church and listen to his sunday sermon. "that may be," answered one of the flower-crowned damsels, "but we can't be turned by a crank, at any rate." they tell you this story at the club in papeete, and you, politely, laugh--just as you did when you heard the original of that variation ten years before in america. however, the local adaptation is a good one--a tahitian nymph is indeed as full of airs as a music box, and a vast deal easier to start up and keep going. the tahitian is received into the world with a song, he is sped forth from it with a song, and the only time in the interval when there is not a song issuing from his lips is when he is asleep. the beat of the sea is in his blood and a sense of time and an ear for tone are instincts with him. it is as natural for him to hold a tune as it is to walk, and it would be as remarkable for him to sing flat as to fall flat. in fact, be it orange wine or coco toddy, sugar cane rum or simple fatigue that starts his senses or his body reeling, he will commence falling flat long before he starts to sing flat. as often as not he dies with a song on his lips, and even his parting gasp is pretty sure to be in the right key. in the beginning the south seas had no musical instruments beyond the hollow-tree drum and the conch. the _eukelele_, so often spoken of as the native hawaiian guitar, was originally an importation from portugal, though it is now made in the islands; the concertina, mouth-organ and jew's harp of the rest of the mid-pacific latitudes bear their foreign marks upon them. the kanaka makes music on any one of them the first time he takes it up; but so also does he with two sticks and a coal oil can, or a piece of rolled-up floor mat--he cannot help it. but the tahitian's heart is in his singing, not his playing, and in choral rather than solo expression. he sings for the same reason that the rational drinker drinks--sociability. he is, to be sure, usually singing when he is on the road or working alone, but only because there is no one else to sing with him. a native who sings alone by preference is looked upon by his fellows much as we regard a man who is known to be a solitary drinker. i have never heard the point brought up, but it has struck me on more than one occasion that much of the phenomenal success of the early missionaries in the south pacific was due to their rare judgment in turning their first meetings into big song-fests. even a meeting of today is three quarters _himine_, and in the short intervals of prayer and preaching the congregation is in a continual fidget in its eagerness for the opening notes of the next song. many a one slips down from his seat, reclines at length on the floor and lights a banana-leaf cigarette. the children run about, not over quietly, and amuse themselves with pranks upon their elders. but at the first long-drawn note of the _himine_ leader--the trumpet call to action--all leap to the seats, throw away their cigarettes and sit at stiff attention, and from then on to the end of the song have no eyes or ears for anything but the business in hand. all of the missionary hymns, and especially those which have come down from the early days, are translations of old songs of the camp meeting and revival order, and every one of them has the beat and swing of a sailor's chantey. these lively new tunes tickled the natives' fancy as soon as they were introduced, and the fact that the first meetings consisted of even more singing and less preaching than those of today must have done much toward winning the missionary tolerance and even popularity, where the trader and the planter were ever suspended by hair-fine threads above the cooking pots. the natives, won and held through their love of hearing themselves sing, have thereby also been rendered more plastic for spiritual moulding. what could not have been done with them if their passion for dancing could have been similarly played upon? the two dominant sounds of island life, the boom of the breakers and the hum of the wind in the trees, may be traced through all of the native music, and, through improvisation, in much that one hears in the churches. the sonorous chesty notes of the men's lower registers echo faithfully the thunder of the sea upon the reef, and a high, closed-mouth humming of the women is admirably imitative of the rise and fall of the wind, the rubbing of branches and the lisp of split palm fronds. the resonant over-tones of the bass in a men's chorus is not unsuggestive of the dying rumble of a big hollow-log drum. "the swing and entrain of the whole performance are intoxicating," writes an english woman who made a study of the island music; "the chorus, be it ten or a thousand voices, sweeps onward as resistlessly as a cataract, and the beat of the measure is like the pulse of father time himself. there are several parts as a rule, but they wander in and out of one another at will, and every now and then a single voice will break away and embroider a little improvisation of its own upon the melody that is like a sudden scatter of spray from the crest of a rolling breaker. then the chorus takes it up and answers it, and the whole mass of the voices hurls itself upon the tune like the breaker falling and bursting upon the shore." dancing is the natural concomitant of singing in all of the south sea islands, and the only occasion on which one is enjoyed without the other is at church service. as for dancing, singing is a _sine qua non_. not only can a native not dance without a singing accompaniment, but his own voice must also be a part of that accompaniment. to bind a tahitian's dancer's mouth is equivalent to tying his feet quite as much as tying a latin's hands is tantamount to binding his mouth. the first tahitian dancers of whom there is any authentic record were the members of the "areo," a secret intertribal organization of the old days, which would undoubtedly be credited to bacchic inspiration were there any way of tracing a possible connection. the "areos" were a roystering lot of madcaps, hardly comparable to anything else in history, but partaking something of the character of a modern choral society, a fancy dancing class and a band of brigands, with the avowed encouragement of human sacrifice, murder, cannibalism and general immorality thrown in. the "areo" was made up of the elite of each tribe, and the members were carefully tutored in the fine points of singing and dancing, much after the fashion of the _geishas_ of japan and the _nautch_ girls of india. they travelled from valley to valley and village to village like a college glee-club, and the fact that their shows were open to all-comers free of charge brought them unbounded popularity and made them welcome guests in the palace of the king at the capital, or in the huts of the meanest fishing hamlet on the island. what they desired they took, and so powerful and popular were they that there was none to gainsay them. what wonder that the budding youth of tahiti centred his ambition on growing up to become an "areo" with an intensity that the american youth, tossed on the horns of the inevitable pirate-captain-or-president dilemma, can never know? and then came the missionary ("before the missionary came," in the mouth of an old tahitian, is fraught with all the wildness of regret of "before the gringo came" on the lips of an old spanish don of california) and the "areo" grew less and less and finally was no more. what of its legacies? we have seen how the missionaries adopted and turned the song to their own good ends. has the dance also had the vitality to survive without the patronage of the real arbiters of island destiny? hardly in its pristine purity--or impurity. the _hula_ in tahiti today is in about the same state as "the harp that once through tara's halls"; the only evidence of its existence is when some overstrung string of _vahines_ breaks (out) to show that still it lives. if the "breaking" is in public you will probably see the frayed ends of the string being chivvied down to the city bastile by a couple of motherly gendarmes. and yet the ancient dance is not quite dead; there are a few strings that will yet give back a responsive chord if one knows how to twang them. but don't think it will be you, mr. tourist. i never heard of but one man who chanced to strike the "lost chord," and his fingers had been wandering over the worn strings for a year or more before they twanged the right combination. i will write of how this befell presently. the usual _hula_ that is arranged for those of the "personally-conducted-limited-to-fifty-all-expenses-paid" party who are in search of something deliciously naughty is about as devilish as a quadrille at a sunday school picnic--a squad of portly _vahines_ marching soberly through a half dozen simple figures to the music of a couple of accordions and an old drum. but at every one of these performances a darkly mysterious kanaka is sure to slip quietly around among the men of the party and hint vaguely of the "real thing" that has been arranged for that very evening, and to which admission may be gained for, say, ten chilean _pesos_ apiece. like half-starved trout to the first grasshopper of the season they rise, and, with felicitous mutterings of "a chance of a lifetime to see a _hula_--last one ever to be pulled off; fancy it occurring during our visit"--a party of a dozen or more, leaving its distractedly envious ladies behind, is steered off from the hotel into the scented twilight. the "subscriptions" are collected en route to a deserted shack on the outskirts of the town, where, by the light of a couple of battered ship side-lamps, the searchers for local colour see a dozen anaemic frailties from the "beach"--dull-eyed, sad-looking _vahines_, flotsam and jetsam from half the island groups of the south pacific, with strong hints of elephantiasis in their heavy ankles and blotchy skin--writhe and wriggle for half an hour in action more suggestive of the popular vaudeville imitation of a portly dame trying to make the hooks of her evening gown meet than a terpsichorean performance. the girls are a shameless lot of hussies of the class--you met them what times you whiled away the tedium of your steamer stop in singapore, colombo and port said with those swift but illuminating studies of "native life"--that dextrously appropriates your scarf pin under pretence of putting a flower in your button hole, and when you discover the loss boldly challenges you to tell the police. and yet--what an indescribable lure there is in the "real thing" bait any time after you have been bitten by the "search-for-local colour" bug! it would hardly be fair for me to hold the glass on the researches of other tahitian visitors without confessing that i, also, was once an eager follower of the "real thing" will-o'-the wisp, and under circumstances particularly aggravating. so here's for a clean breast of it. i had noticed with increasing curiosity as our tahitian visit wore on that the sailors from the yacht had been returning for several days from shore leave with new hats and new neckties, and with wreaths of flowers about their shoulders--sure signs that they were basking in female favour in some part of the island capital--so that when the mate came to me with a story of how he and his fellows had been adopted (a not unusual kanaka custom) by families of an outlying papeetan suburb, i accepted the truth of the yarn without question. "as a special favour, sir, a lot of the _vahines_ are going to give us the 'real thing' in the way of a _hula_ tomorrow night," he confided to me, "and we thought that as you was saying that you didn't think much of them tourist _hulas_ they get up for the steamer people that you might like to see the genuine article." "thanks, victor," i said eagerly. "write down the directions for reaching the place and i will pick up w---- and be there." it isn't the custom to go sight-seeing with the sailors of one's friend's yacht in tahiti any more than elsewhere, but i told myself that the role of patron would excuse it in this instance. and who in his first year in "the islands" ever failed to rise for the "real thing" bait under any circumstances? w----, who joined me for the evening, was a british ornithologist of considerable reputation, and himself an earnest searcher after the fabled native of pristine purity. we found the place without difficulty by locating it approximately and then running down the bang of a beaten oil can and the whine of an accordion. it is quite possible that the sailors had been taken to the bosoms of some native families, as they claimed; it is even possible that there may have been a right merry breakdown of a sort going on before we came. but certain it is that it was nothing bordering on that elusive will-o'-the-wisp, the "real thing," and more certain still that our coming--perhaps through suspicions aroused by the official cut of w----'s ducks--came pretty near to putting an end to even such activity as had been in progress up to that moment. the double line of capering _vahines_ broke for the unlighted corners and in a trice had hidden their graceful flower-wreathed limbs under flowing _holakaus_. they were a likely enough looking lot of girls, but not even the dozen bottles of claret which we had brought as good-will offering served to stir them to further action. in vain the chagrined sailors implored and swore and pushed and pulled; the distrustful nymphs only hung their flower-crowned heads and shrunk deeper into the dark corners. there was only one of the lot that did not seem paralysed with bashfulness, and this one, a long, rangy rack of bones with close-cropped hair--the only uncomely member of the party--started a lively whirling-dervish sort of a dance that threatened to break through the rickety floor. "not an orthodox _hula_, but quite the best bit of quick stepping i've seen in tahiti," cried w---- enthusiastically. "go it, girl! _vite! vite!_" thus encouraged, the lengthy dancer let out another link and at the same time lowered her song from a high falsetto humming to a booming of chesty bass notes. "my word!" gasped w----, "she's a man!" and a man "she" proved to be, a light-stepping young kanaka, called in at the last moment to take the place of a girl who had fallen ill. "let's take a flash of that bunch of icebergs and get out of here," suggested w---- wearily; "i've had about enough of your 'real thing' for one evening." so while w---- and the sailors chivvied the reluctant dancers together and grouped them in frozen poses, i set up my camera and put out the flashlight powder. a sufficient quantity of the latter was poured from a two-ounce tin box into its cover and set on a rickety table, the mate being directed to light it at the click of my opening shutter. he lit the powder at the proper moment, but confused the order to the extent of putting his match to the contents of the nearly full box instead of the small portion in its cover. there came an explosive "whish," a blinding flash, and under a dense smoke-cloud the mate, his eyelashes gone and his drooping norwegian moustache burned to a few singed stubs, was writhing on the floor and groaning with agony. an instant later the light bamboo wall behind the table was observed to be afire, and forthwith bedlam broke loose on all sides. the sailors bellowed for water and w---- shouted for a quilt, while the natives screamed back to the effect that, as the house was deserted and isolated, neither could be had. there seemed nothing to do but to get out and let the old shack burn, and through my mind flashed pictures of an interminable series of complications incident to the red-tape of the inevitable french official investigations. w---- and a sailor, with the apparently stone-blind mate between them, were making for the door and i was endeavouring to save the trampled fragments of my photographic apparatus, when my eye caught a flash of red in one corner, and my ear the twice or thrice repeated crash of breaking glass. in a quarter of a minute more a vigorously swished wet rag had whipped out the darting flame-tongues just before they reached the pendant frizzles of the pandanus thatch. a resourceful _vahine_, while all the rest of us were wasting our breaths calling for water and quilts, and bewailing the absence of hand grenades and chemical engines, had calmly whisked off her _pareo_, broken all of the unopened claret bottles over it and slapped out the fire. wasn't it moll pitcher who won the day and a monument by swabbing out the cannon with some of her surplus lingerie? they don't erect monuments to heroic fire-lassies in tahiti, so w---- and i did the best thing possible under the circumstances in subscribing the price of a dozen new _pareos_. it was a week or so after the incident just sketched had taken place that w---- and i were at luncheon at the cercle militaire with a distinguished german ethnologist who had spent many years in the study of the fascinating problem of a prehistoric polynesian civilization. w----, after amusingly narrating several of the experiences incident to his own study of native life in the south seas, made the statement that a genuine tahitas _hula_ could not be seen on the island for "love or money," an assertion in which i stoutly supported him. the learned teuton listened indulgently. "dat's a priddy zweeping stadement, chentlemen," he ventured. "you haf tried money, no doubt, but haf you der oder alternative, der gindness tried?" we were compelled to admit that nothing systematic in the way of kindness had been attempted, upon which the doctor launched into an extended dissertation on the futility of trying to do anything with south sea natives on a "buy-and-sell" basis. early in his sojourn in tahiti, he said, he had come to a realization of the banality of anything not freely given by the islanders. accordingly, he had taken up his residence in hiteaea, the least "civilized" village of the island, and first by judicious presents, later by incessant intercourse with them in the affairs of their daily life, succeeded in winning the confidence and affection of the simple inhabitants. as a consequence many privileges which other foreigners had vainly endeavoured to win by purchase had been extended to him as a brother, among them being attendance at the village's not infrequent festivals at its semi-secret "sing-sing" grounds in an extinct crater far in the interior. an evening of singing and dancing was scheduled for the following week, at the full of the moon, and to this the good doctor, conditional on the consent of his native friends, invited us to come. the invitation was seconded in good time, and on the appointed day we pushed through on horseback to hiteaea--twenty-five miles down the rough windward side of the island--reaching there in time for a light mid-afternoon lunch which the doctor had waiting for us. the beautiful hamlet was nearly deserted, the villagers having gone on earlier in the day to enjoy a twilight feast before the dance. our horses carried us four or five miles back into the interior where, at an elevation of feet, the roughness and steepness of the trail and the thickness of the creepers overhead made it necessary to abandon them and do the rest of the climb through the sweat-box of the jungle on foot. we arrived at our destination in time for a plunge in a hyacinth-fringed pool of the coolest water we had known for months, a change of clothes and the enjoyment of a number of thoughtfully saved dainties from the feast. the latter had evidently been a jolly and somewhat convivial affair, but nothing of an orgy. the dancers, with laughter and snatches of song, were assisting each other with their toilets in the shelter of a wing of rustling _feis_. the "sing-sing" ground (this is a term of the "beach" vernacular used in all parts of the south pacific to designate a native ceremonial meeting place) had once been a tiny blow-hole of the great parent volcano, orohena, and in its present condition it is not unlike the "punch bowl" at honolulu with a ten-degree segment cut cleanly out of one side. the smooth floor is half rock, half turf, and the towering sides of lava, curtained thickly with an impenetrable tangle of giant fern, lantana and guava scrub and woven together with miles of endless creepers. by a strange chance the slice of the crater's side which, undermined by the river below, fell away to the valley, left a clean-cut chasm of great depth and scant width opening toward the east-southeast. through this chasm the full moon, from the moment it shows its glowing disc above a saddle in the rocks to the east, throws a sharp beam across the flower-strewn sward which, in its brilliant contrast to the almost solid blackness of the unlighted sides, shines as clearly as a shaft of calcium. in this lunar spot-light, in air almost sentiently sweet with the perfumes of gardenia and fern, the magic of these terpsichorean necromancers is practised. stretched at our ease on a patch of mat-carpeted greensward in the depths of the shadow, we puffed lazily at our native cigarettes, sipped tiny _epus_ of fiery coco wine and waited for the dance to commence. the chatter in the depths of the plantain-screened dressing room had ceased, and only the liquid tinkle of the drip from the surrounding walls, the distant mutter of the surf along the shore and the throaty calls of waking wood pigeons broke the stillness. overhead the stars were blurring and blotting and twinkling again, as the disordered ranks of the trade-clouds shuffled on in their endless flight before the scourges of the southeast wind; but to the east, where the flickering silhouettes of flying-foxes showed with increasing brightness against the moon-glow, the sky was clear. the leap of the moon to its seat in the saddle of the eastern hills was as startling in its suddenness as that of its glass bulb stage-property prototype to the gauze heaven above the grand canal. as the shadow-mottled shaft of light impinged upon the crater floor a single drum note boomed out suddenly on the stillness and a blur of motion was faintly distinguishable about the "green room" entrances. presently, as the shadows dissolved in the strengthening light, scores of prone figures, motionless save for a gentle waving of the _riva-riva_ plumes of the heads, could be dimly guessed, and the doctor whispered that the opening number was evidently to be the "dance of the coconuts." the plumes continued to nod for a few moments and then, representing the sprouting and growth of the young trees, the prostrate dancers, to the accompaniment of a low chanting, rose inch by inch to their full heights. now the trade-wind was blowing through their tops, and they bowed and swayed and bent and recovered, while the muffled nasal chanting rose and fell undulatingly like the gusty southeast breeze. now it was harvest time, and new figures wove in and out among the swaying trees gathering the ripe fruit, and chesty "boom-booms" in the bass told of the cast-down nuts striking the ground underneath. after a few minutes of indistinguishable pantomime which had to do with the husking and drying of the nuts for copra, a change came over the spirit of the quiet mimetic dance. the hum of the wind rose to a shrill whistle, the low monotone of the surf on the reef changed to the deep-mouthed roars of crashing combers as hard-smitten drum-logs sent forth throbbing peals of heavy thunder. a hurricane was bursting upon the coconut grove. no longer the trees bent to the caressing touch of the gentle trade. torn by conflicting gusts, they jerked now this way and now that, thrashing limbs striking each other in the pantomime of bare arms and hands banging with resounding thwacks upon bare backs and breasts. the wind and surf and thunder blend in a raucous roar as the storm grows more furious, and now the trees are snapping and falling before the terrific onslaught. down they go, now falling alone, now striking others and going to the earth together. in a few moments all but two firmly rooted giants in the heart of the grove are tossing on the ground, and these--represented by two magnificently muscled men--lean together for support and defy the hurricane for a brief space longer. then they, too, give way, falling to the ground interlocked, and the "dance of the coconuts" is over. "my word!" gasped w----, as the roar of the storm gave way to laughter and chatter, "what wouldn't it be worth to the man who could put that on at covent garden or the hippodrome?" "_himmel!_" snorted the doctor impatiently. "you'd haf der whole island to london to move also und der ferdamte british glimate would right away der whole thing kill." while the dancers rested and slaked their thirsts with orange wine, our host gave us a graphic description of the "volcano dance," which is performed in the dark of the moon by the light of a huge bonfire. an imitation crater of long creepers is built at a point where there is a smooth grass chute of thirty or forty yards in length ending in the jungle below. on the side opposite the spectators the dancers, swathed in wreaths of red hibiscus, enter the crater through a small opening, leap high in the air like erupting lava and go rolling off down the chute to the thunder of drums and the subterranean growls of the male chorus. from the lower end of the chute a back trail leads up to the "stage-entrance" of the artificial crater, so that fifty or more dancers, with a sufficiency of orange wine on tap at the crater door, have no difficulty in keeping up a continuous eruption. w---- asked how long the red hibiscus trimmings stood the rolling down part of the eruption, but before the doctor could reply the opening drum-beat of the next dance sounded and this weighty question was never answered. with short, sharp yells, a compact body of girls came charging out of the "green room" like a "flying wedge" in the good old days of mass play in football, and went scurrying straight across into the shadows of the opposite side of the crater. this was the "launching of the ship" for the "pearling schooner dance." directly canoefuls of stout paddlers came towing her back into the moonlight with liana hawsers, and all in an instant, as each of the dancers threw aloft a square of white _tapa_, she was under sail and off to sea. now she threaded, in short tacks, the passage through the reef, and now, to low, sweet crooning like a lullaby, she bowed and curtesied and pitched and rolled in the swift-running ocean swells. presently she threaded another passage, anchored and took in her sails in a still lagoon. here, with the barely perceptible motion of the schooner showing in the rhythmic rocking of the dancers, divers went over the side and brought up pearl shell. one lusty diver lent colour to his pantomime by bringing up a huge coconut, the incalculable value of so sizable a "pearl" being told with a facility of gesture that would have put to shame a moving picture "heavy." but the comedy hit of this dance was the hooking and landing of a shark on a strand of liana. baited with the coconut pearl, the creeper line was thrown over the rail, to attract the instant attention of a school of glistening man-eaters, which, with crooked-elbow dorsals, went wriggling about the grass under the schooner's bows. after an amazingly clever bit of "shark-play" about the bait, one of the "monsters" rolled over on his back and "swallowed" it, the crew promptly "tailing on" to the liana to bring it aboard. the "shark," as was explained to us afterwards, had drunk considerably more orange wine than should have fallen to his share, and the fight he put up before being landed and "cut to pieces" came pretty near to sinking the graceful pearler then and there. floundering and snapping his teeth in a manner that would have done credit to a monster of twice his size, and roaring as no shark of any size ever roared, the gamy leviathan was no sooner laid alongside than, with a vigorous swish of his tail (both feet planted squarely in the pit of the stomach of the trim _vahine_ who chanced to be representing the adjacent piece of taffrail) he stove a gaping hole in the schooner's hull. an instant later his "triple row of barbéd teeth" had closed on the arm of the slender miss who, sitting on the shoulders of a lengthy kanaka, was dancing the part of the mainmast, and brought her crashing to the deck, squealing like a roped pig. the "cutting up" of the shark, owing to this obstreperousness, must have been a bit more realistic than usual, for he still bore marks of it when i encountered him in papeete a week later. after being "careened" for repairs the schooner, her hold bulging with pearls, got up sail again and started for home, only to encounter the inevitable hurricane and go to pieces on the rocks to the same unleashed fury of wind and waves and thunder that had uprooted the coconuts. for some minutes spars, planks and other bits of wreckage, imploring help at the tops of their lungs, eddied and swirled about the greensward; then a resistless current bore them relentlessly toward the wine calabashes in the "green room" and the "pearling schooner dance" was over. in the good doctor's original plan of the evening's entertainment several more dances of the nature of those just described were called for, but the carelessness of the commissariat in dealing out the orange wine too rapidly ordained otherwise. the sounds of revelry from the "green room" were keying higher every moment, and our host's apprehensiveness showed in the quick glowings and palings of his nervously puffed cigarette. when, instead of the sober _himine_ which opens up the burlesque "missionary dance," there sounded the wail of accordions, the roll of shark-hide drums and the clear, deep-throated voices of the girls in the preliminary strains of the "nuptial _hula_," he sprang to his feet to explode into excited anglo-german-tahitian with "_nein! nein!_ das ist nichts was i tells them. _hare! hare! go back mit you, you teufels!_" but he might as well have tried to stem the tide of the pacific as that swirling onrush from the "green room." by this time the shaft of lunar calcium, broadening slightly as the moon rose, had moved across the dancing floor till its outer side was just beginning to encroach upon our mat-covered dais, so that instead of "back row, left," as at first, our seats now occupied approximately the position of "first row, orchestra, centre." we were in the "bald-headed row" with a vengeance, and just at the right time. like a pack of hungry wolves charging down upon a fold of lambs, the bacchic throng swarmed out of the shadows into the spot-light about our dais, and threw itself with the reckless abandon born of three hours of steady tippling at the wine calabashes into the sinuous writhing of a dance rarely performed in the past except at the wedding feasts of royalty, and now, as it is strictly against the french law, almost never under any circumstances. to a spectator watching from a distance some suggestion of rhythm and unity might have been apparent in the movement of the dance; from our advanced position, as to a man in the thick of a battle, the general action was lost sight of in the wealth of local interest. there was nothing to do but to fix your attention on the nearest dancer and hope, as at a multi-ringed circus, that nothing of greater interest was going on anywhere else. once your attention was fixed it was not likely to go wandering far afield in search of a new centre of interest. as an exhibition of eccentric muscular action alone, this dance is worth making a journey to the south pacific to see. in the slow opening movements, to a seductive half-crooning, half-chirping air, it is as though every square inch of the oil-glistening form before you is trying to move in a different direction. there is something of the suggestion of a coiling and uncoiling snake in it; something of that of the twisting green stream of water where it shoots between two mid-stream boulders; something of that of the whirling columns of the "dust-devils" of the desert. but what comparison can you find for the wild thing that springs into life as the music quickens and the intoxication of the sensuous dance enters into the blood of the dancers? there is still a suggestion of the former undulating sinuousity of motion, but at a trip-hammer speed which defies the eye to follow it; a double-action, reciprocating, triple-expansion shiver, beginning at the plume-tips and ending at the toes, that would make a newfoundland dog shaking himself after a bath look like a stuffed museum specimen in comparison. for a minute, or two, or three--one loses count of time when elemental forces like these are loosed--this rapid-fire action continues; then they all sink into quivering heaps on the grass, with just enough breath left to raise feeble cries for the wine calabashes, a circumstance which led w---- to remark that their enthusiasm for the dance had probably been due to the fact that they were "shaking for the drinks." that which was just finished was the first of the three climacteric "movements" of the "nuptial _hula_," explained the doctor in the short rest interval. he had not expected that it would be danced, but now that it was started it would be an unpardonable breach of etiquette to try to stop it. "bezides," he added, chuckling, "you chentlemen haf bewail der decadence of der hula in tahiti, und said der white man can not der 'real thing' see. in one leetle minute you der 'real thing' shall see, yes." and we did! but my most earnest efforts would fall so far short of doing it justice that i have thought it best not to court certain failure by attempting description. chapter x by the absinthe route the french islands of the south pacific perform satisfactorily the regulation duty of all the other of that republic's tropical colonies--that of furnishing a retreat for a governor, secretary, judge and three or four other high officials during such time as they may require to accumulate fortunes sufficient to permit them to return to paris and ease for a good portion, if not all the rest, of their lives; also for a small army of minor officials who have no chance to accumulate enough to take them to paris. these latter young gentlemen work--or rather sit at desks--six hours a day, drink absinthe six hours, and dream absinthe dreams the remainder of the twenty-four. besides a regiment of soldiers and a gunboat or two, it takes something over half a thousand officials to administer the affairs of dreamy tahiti. departments which in india, java or even the philippines would be handled by two or three men, with enough time over for morning horseback rides and tennis or cricket in the evenings, are here in the hands of a substantial mob. there are about a half dozen cases of petty larceny, and the same number of battery, a year, but the bench is occupied by close to half a score of august judges. the annual value of the shipping of all the --more or less--french islands in the southeastern pacific--the marquesas, paumotos and societies--is not equal to a season's output of a single large hawaiian sugar mill, yet the financial and commercial officials are numbered in three figures. what do they all do? probably no one really knows; but come into the gentlest of contacts with the government, even as a passing tourist, and you will begin to get an inkling. you are not likely soon to forget those two days in which you cooled your heels in fourteen different corners of pomare's old palace in endeavouring to make your honour white in the matter of that box of havanas you forgot to declare when you landed. that cost you forty francs in all, didn't it? and then there was that day and a half that you and the consul spent in trying to find out to whom you should apologize because your boatmen tied up for ten minutes to the butt of an old cannon that was sacred to the mooring lines of that majestic gunboat, _zelee_. you conferred with twenty-one underlings and eight overlings--most of them through interpreters--before you found that it was the capitaine de gendarmes you must tell you were sorry. and then there was that mess you got into the time you inadvertently strolled down the path to a leper's gardenia-wreathed doorway and asked for a drink of coconut water. you were perfectly willing to go and take a formaldehyde shower-bath, but was it really necessary to be marched about by a squad of gendarmes to eight different departments in order to have that auspicious event officially recorded? yes, while tahiti continues to harbour law-breaking visitors like yourself there is going to be ample work for all of those five hundred officials. but at your worst, you are only going to be able to claim their attention during six hours of the day, leaving them eighteen hours for their own affairs. what is it occupies them in their "lighter hours"? men are more readily judged at play than at work. you have seen them at work; now let us watch them at play. the cercle colonial, it is said, will show us what we want to see. the cercle is a low, rambling structure of aching white, cooled by green trees, green blinds and green drinks. you have seen in the great republic's tropical outposts these little clubs which have not been shaded by green trees; one or two may even be recalled which have not had the green blinds; but a cercle colonial--or militaire--without the green drinks--never. "where flaps the tri-colour, there flows the absinthe." you are not certain who first enunciated this great truth, nor where you first heard it; sufficient that it has become a law as inflexible as that of gravity. haul down the one, and the other will cease to flow. stop the flow of the other, and the one will cease to flap. certain french patriots who are strangers to the french tropics may indignantly question the truth of the latter statement; these you may respectfully request to cite you a single instance where those respective symbols of their republic are flapping and flowing independently. certain of the best paid tahitian officials straggle home to france every other year or so by suez or america, others send intermittent letters to their loved ones by the irregular post; but when all is said and done the only really well established line of communication between the island paradise and paris is the "absinthe route." "i'd envy these poor devils their nocturnal trips from 'hell to home,'" one of the foreign consuls in papeete is quoted as saying, "if it wasn't for the fact that they are always doomed to sail with return tickets. coming out of any old kind of a dream is more or less of a shock; but coming out of the mussulman paradise of an absinthe dream is staggering. just about one a month of these young chaps decides that twelve hours is too long to wait for the inauguration of another dream, and in the pale of the dawn launches himself off on the journey for which no return ticket can be foisted onto him. the suicide rate in noumea, the prison colony, is higher than here, and, i am told, saigon, martinique, guadeloupe and cayenne are worse still. funny thing, too, they all do it at the same time--sunrise--probably because it's the hour when the dream shapes begin to grow thin and intangible, and day, with its galling grind of realities, looms blankly in pitiless imminence." "a poor lot," you say. perhaps. but before judging let us watch them for awhile at the cercle colonial. it is there that they are to be seen embarking, and in transit on, and returning by, "the absinthe route." it is four o'clock of a may afternoon in papeete, and the stream of the southeast trade, clogged and obstructed by the suffocating puffs of humid air that have rolled in since morning from the oily sea which stretches in unheaving indolence to the equator, has ceased to flow. the glaring coral streets throw back the blazing sunlight like rivers of molten tin; the distended blossoms of hau and hibiscus fall heavily in the puddly air, to break and scatter like glass on striking the ground. everything of the earth glows, everything of the air gasps in the swimming waves of the clinging heat. the shaded walls of the cercle colonial hold still a modicum of last night's coolness, and the closely-drawn green blinds of the lounging room check the onrush of the calid flood from without. the man with the gold lace on his ripped-open collar, sitting on the corner toward the silent billiard room, is an officer from the barracks; he with the tanned face and the imperial in the opposite corner is the commander of the gunboat in the harbour; the youth with the opera bouffé moustache and the eyes of a roué at the table by the palm is the disgraced son of a rich marseilles merchant, whose quarterly remittances are payable only in papeete. they all know each other, but by an unspoken mutual understanding have separated as widely as possible. men do not drink for sociability on a day like this, for he who lives in the tropics realizes what the inhabitant of cooler latitudes knows but hazily, that the mental consciousness of human propinquity, even without the effort of conversation, raises temperature. the government offices across the way have just brought their short day of perfunctory work to a close, and such of the officials as have membership in the cercle colonial come hurrying--the first unlistless movement they have made since morning--up the blossom-strewn walk. they slip through the green spring doors like thieves in jealous efforts to shut out the furnace-like blast which pursues them into the tepid interior, and a low growl of disapproval from all sides greets the man who is so thoughtless as to enter leisurely. each goes to a separate table, and when there are no unoccupied tables left the newcomer drags his chair to a window ledge or up to the encircling wall-shelf at the top of the wainscoting. the waiters work noiselessly and expeditiously. there are no orders taken. each man is noted by the watchful _garçon_, and to him is instantly brought a large glass of cracked ice and a green bottle. after that, except for occasional replenishings of the ice, he needs no attention. before long a change comes over the spirit of the place, a revivification like that which comes to a field of drought-parched wild flowers at the first touch of long-awaited raindrops. watch it working in that yellow-skinned youth by the darkened window. plainly a "transfer" from the prison colony at noumea, he, with the dregs of the pernicious new caledonian fever still clogging his blood. by the ink on his forefinger you put him down as in some kind of a departmental billet. he slipped through the door but a moment ago and the _garçon_ had his glass of ice and bottle ready on the window ledge almost before he was seated. he spilled the absinthe over the sides of the glass in his eagerness to fill it, and in spite of the cracked ice it still must have been far from the delectable frappé of the conoisseur when he gulped it down. a second pouring of the warm liqueur took up the remaining ice and he has called for more. but now note him as he waits for his glass to be replenished. has a spirit hand passed across his brow and smoothed out those lines of weariness and ill-health? perhaps not, but they are gone nevertheless, and a tinge of colour is creeping into the sallow cheeks. now he gathers his relaxed muscles and pulls his slender frame together. the thin shoulders are thrown back, the sunken chest expanded, and with open mouth and distended nostrils, like a man who comes from a hot, stuffy hall out into the cool air of the open street, he takes several deep, quick breaths. you, who know the futility of drinking anything alcoholic or narcotic in endeavouring to keep cool and have, therefore, only sipped your glass of lime juice and soda, can swear that the air of the place, far from growing fresher, is getting closer and hotter every moment. but don't waste your time trying to convince the young man by the window to that effect. it's cooler air to him--yes, and to every one else in the room but yourself with your foolish lime juice and soda. see them sitting up and inhaling it all around you. you have seen the stolid britisher thaw out and wax sociable after his first or second brandy-and-soda, and perhaps you expect something of the kind is going to happen here. but no--the brandy-and-soda and the absinthe routes start from the same place, but their directions are diametrically opposite. the brandy-and-soda addictee expands externally, the absinthe drinker expands internally; the one drink strikes out, the other strikes in. the britisher cannot forget himself until he has had a couple of brandy-and-sodas; with two glasses of absinthe the frenchman only commences to realize himself. don't look for any flow of the soul to accompany the flow of the bowl, then; these exiles are only going the absinthe route; they are off for home. turn your attention again to the youth by the darkened window. a fresh glass of cracked ice is before him and he is pouring himself another drink. ah! there is your real absinthe artist now. see with how steady a hand he pours that unvarying thread of a trickle; not faster than that must it go, not slower. see him turn the glass to the light to mark the progress of the green stain in the white body of the cracked ice. as it touches the bottom the pouring stops, the glass is twirled once or twice and then lifted to the lips and drained. just as much water as a thread-sized trickle of warm absinthe will melt from the ice in finding its way to the bottom of the glass and back to the rim; offer it to him any other way, after those first mad gulps, and he would probably refuse it. thus absinthe à la cercle colonial de papeete. at five or half past, an army officer looks at his watch, stretches himself, yawns, pours a final hasty glass and picks his reluctant way to the door and out into the still, stifling air. two officers of the gunboat follow suit, and from then on till seven o'clock dinner-time, by occasional twos and threes, but for the most part singly, a half, perhaps, of the strange company--at the call of family, military or social duties--takes its departure. the residue--unmarried officers, departmental officials and a few unclassified--is made up of the regular voyageurs; you will find them still in their places when you look in again after dinner. as you saunter down to the hotel in the gathering twilight, you note that the hot, humid air-body of the afternoon is cut here and there with strata of coolness which, descending from above, are creating numerous erratic little whirlwinds that dodge hither and thither at every turn. in the west hangs the remains of an ugly copper-and-sulphur sunset, in the north is an unbroken line of olive-and-coal-dust clouds, and, even in your inexperience, you hardly need to note the . reading on the hotel _lanai_ barometer to tell you that there is going to be wind before midnight. the air is vibrant with the thrill of "something coming," and from the waterfront, where they have known what to expect since morning, rises the rattle of winches, the growl of hurried orders and the mellow, rhythmic chanting of natives swaying on anchor chains and mooring lines as the trading schooners are "snugged up" in their berths along the sea-wall. nine o'clock at the cercle colonial. the jalousies have been opened during your absence and are now being closed again, this time to keep out the scurrying vanguards of the rising wind. the air is cooler now, and you give the waiter the recipe for an american gin fizz, to receive something in return which refuses to fizz and is built, apparently, on a bayrum base. you solace yourself with the thought that you didn't come for a drink, anyway, and turn your attention to your friends of the afternoon, the voyageurs by the absinthe route. most of them seem to have "arrived" by this time, and if they are aware at all of the relief of the cooling atmosphere, it is only to tell themselves that it is good to breathe again the air of la belle france after those accursed tropics. each sits solitary, as when you left two hours ago, but where they were then separated by a few scant yards at the most, they are now scattered from paris to the riviera, from chamonix to trouville. but it is plain that it is paris with the most of them. the youth with the yellow face is still in his chair by the window, but his eyes are now fixed admiringly on a coloured lithograph of a ballet dancer--an _illustracion_ supplement--in its black frame upon the wall. maybe he's doing the louvre, you think, and looking at the pictures. but no--look at his eyes. that picture is flesh and blood for him. she's the headliner at the _folies bergere_, and she's coming down to drink with him as soon as the crowd stops those accursed encores and lets her leave the stage. and don't those eyes tell you how well worth waiting for he knows she is? that dapper young chap with the "spike" moustache and the lieutenant's epaulettes who sits so straight in his chair, where is he? the champs elysées, without a doubt. riding? no, walking. don't you see the swagger of his shoulders; and that twitching movement of the fingers is the twirling of his cane? didn't you see him stiffen up and twist his moustaches as he looked your way just now? no, he didn't care a rap about impressing the yankee visitor to tahiti; you were a carriage or a motor car with the latest opera favourite in it pulled up against the curb. that tall civilian there, with the grey hair at the temples and the dissipated but high bred face--you recognize him now as one of the highest officials on the island, who, they told you at the hotel, had been "reduced" to tahiti as punishment for his peculations while occupying an important place in algeria--is at maxim's. that chair across the top of which he is gazing so intently is not as empty to him as it looks to you. there--didn't you see his lips move? you wonder who she is and what he is telling her. that other civilian with the clear cut profile and the concentrated gaze of the professional man and thinker--ah, he is the learned parisian doctor from whom the medical world has awaited for two years the announcement of the discovery of a cure for the dreaded _elephantiasis_. he had his goal and deathless renown in sight months ago, you have been told, when, in a spell of homesickness, he began drinking and "seeing green," and since that time, through the demoralization of his special hospital and the loss of certain cultures of incalculable value, has slipped back almost to where he began. that must be a clinic for which he is drawing those intricate sketches with his cigarette holder on the marble table top. but what of that portly old gentleman with the benevolent smile and the beaming eyes? that's a colonel's uniform, is it not? how well he looks the part! but do you think he is with the others in the cafés chantant or on the boulevards? look again, you world dried dog. didn't you note the tenderness in that smile? the old colonel has--or has had--a wife and children. a look like that for a concert hall girl! not ever. he is in the bosom of his family. may he be the last of them all to wake from his dream. ah, you know that bronzed giant with the shoulders and brow of a viking and the eyes that pierce like rapiers of steel with their eagle glance. he was shipped off to the "islands," a "ticket-of-leavester," from sydney five years ago, and since then he has gained the reputation of being the most daring "black-birder," smuggler and illicit pearler in the south pacific. he's rolling in money and lives like a prince, with "establishments" in every group between the marquesas and new zealand. last night you were inclined to scoff when he came off to the yacht and told how he had won his "triple blue" at cambridge, played in interregimental polo at hurlingham and raced his own string at newmarket. you had heard his type of "bounder" rattle on before, you said. but now look at him. there's more manhood and less depravity in the devil-may-care face than there was last night. and note the set of his shoulders, the tenseness of his hands. pulling an oar? no. you don't know cricket, do you? well, ten to one yon "ticket-of-leavestser" thinks he is at lord's, and batting to save his county. what an incongruous figure he is amongst the rapt boulevardiers! but listen to the noise outside! the hurricane is sweeping in from the sea and the outer reef is roaring like an avalanche. but why no sign of excitement from the silent dreamers? is it because they are telling themselves that it is only the roar of the traffic on the parisian pavements? listen to those clanging bells and the frantic choruses of yells which sound above the threshing of the trees and the grind of the surf! only a fire--fires are common in montmartre--they tell themselves, and go on with their dreams. now the batteries of the storm have got their ranges and the shot begins to fly. snap! bang! hear those coco trunks cracking, and right around the club, too. ah! this will rouse somebody. with a heavy crash the top of a broken palm is thrown against a shuttered window and the glass and bottle of the sallow-faced youth smash to pieces upon the floor. that will fetch him surely. but still no. pouf! broken glass is as common as diamonds at the folies. he beckons for the waiter to bring him more absinthe and ice and turns again his eager eyes to his picture lady, where she is still pirouetting through another interminable encore. but hark again! there is a fresh tumult outside, this time a shrill whistling and the tramp of feet on the veranda, followed by a banging at the door. a moment more and a captain of gendarmes appears and shouts something in excited, gesticulative french. you fail to catch the drift of it and ask a waiter. a half dozen schooners are pounding to pieces on the sea wall, screams the _garçon_ as he is hustled off by a gendarme, and the police are impressing all the men they can lay hands on for rescue work--the "law of the beach" through all the south pacific. dazed and speechless with consternation, the unlucky dreamers are hustled to their feet by the not any too gentle officers and shoved out into the night, where half a minute of rain and wind and driving spindrift punch the return portions of their round-trip tickets to paris and leave them on the papeete water front with an incipient hurricane ahead of them and the rough-handed gendarmes behind. the awakening is not always so violent as this, but there is no such thing as a peaceful disembarkation at the end of the return trip by the absinthe route, whoever puts up the gangway. chapter xi papeete to pago pago situated well around on the leeward side of the island of tahiti, with the great -foot peak of orohena cutting off all but stray gusts of the trade wind, papeete harbour is ordinarily as placid a bit of looped-in water as ever mirrored in its depths the silver disc of the tropic moon. seaward the reef intercepts the surf as completely as does the volcano the wind from the opposite direction, and with the latter blowing from the southeast, where it belongs, the inner bay is safe for even the slenderest of outrigger canoes when the state of the weather outside is such as to keep the mail steamer at its dock. the trading schooners, each with a couple of frizzled mooring lines run out to convenient _buraos_ or banyans, lie right against the tottering sea-wall, and even the dock of the san francisco and auckland boats is hardly more than a raised platform on the bank. no one seems to dream that there is ever going to be other than southeast weather, and no one makes provision against anything else. then some fine day a hurricane comes boring in from the north or west, and when it is over the survivors salve pieces of ship out of the tops of the coco palms, and perhaps some of them living a quarter of a mile inland, finding a schooner lodged in their _taro_ patch, prop it up on an even keel and use it in place of the house of thatch which has been resolved into its component parts by the storm. in a few weeks every one but the missionaries--who, by the way, are much given to picturing hell for the natives, not as a hot place, but as an island where the lost souls are endlessly tossed by æon-long hurricanes--has forgotten all about the storm, and is as liable as ever to be caught napping when the next one comes along. we reached tahiti somewhat too early for hurricanes, but a very good imitation one in the form of a northwest squall was brought off for our benefit, which left very little to the imagination regarding what a real blow from that direction might mean. it is only the unexpected that is a serious menace to the careful skipper, as i have mentioned before, and it is in this respect that one of these sudden twisters, coming with a fierceness beyond description from an unlikely quarter, may work irreparable harm in spite of all precautions, where a hurricane, heralded for hours, perhaps days, by a falling barometer, may, in a large measure, be prepared for or avoided. the thing occurred one evening shortly following our arrival in papeete, just after three days of hard work had obliterated all traces of the internal and external wear and tear incident to the miles of sailing the yacht had done since leaving hawaii. she had received a fresh coat of white paint, decks had been scoured, hardwood newly oiled and the brass work rubbed to the highest degree of resplendency. sails were in covers, awnings up fore-and-aft, deck cushions out of their sea jackets, and, in short, everything made ready to receive official calls. she was lying to her port anchor with twenty-five fathoms of chain out. a kedge astern held her head to the prevailing southeast wind and kept her from swinging with the tide. so empty of threat was the evening that the crew, with the exception of the single sailor whose turn it was to stand the anchor watch, had been given shore leave. the rest of us, tired from an afternoon of the ceremonious calling exigent upon the newcomers who would break the ice of officialdom in any french colony, were lounging on the quarterdeck and in the cockpit, glad of the chance to unstiffen and be quiet. it was a night drowsy with soporific suggestiveness. seaward the air was pulsing to the drowsing monotone of the surf upon the reef, rising and falling at regular intervals like the heavy breathing of a tired sleeper. landward, a league of liquid lullaby, the tiny wavelets of the bay tinkled on beach and sea-wall, and through the rondure of blue-black foliage which masked the village, lights blinked sleepily, with here and there the tracery of a palm or banana frond showing in dark outline against the warm yellow rectangle of an open doorway. the yacht, rocking gently as a cradle, set the japanese lanterns around the awnings nodding in languorous lines, and, above and beyond, clouds and stars rubbed lazily against each other in somnolent jumble. the spirit hand of the land breeze in the rigging was sounding the "stand-by" call for the watch of morpheus. the arms of the sleep god must have enfolded with especial tenderness the hulking frame of heinrich, the husky teuton who was standing anchor watch, for an inky splotch of cloud had grown from a speck on the northeastern horizon to a bituminous blur that blotted out everything in that quarter from the zenith down, before he raised his head from where he had pillowed it in his arms upon the forecastle ice chest and roused the ship with an explosive "_gott in himmel!_" simultaneously with that of heinrich there was another explosion, like the bursting of a vial of wrath, and forthwith the gathering squall came charging in across the motu iti quarantine station on the reef and began systematically scooping dry the bottom of the bay. spreading like an inverted fan, it blotted out the stars to east and west, and, with the roar of a battery of quick-firers, swept down upon us in a solid wall of air and water, only a few short, nervous puffs of wind scurrying uneasily in advance. the squall was swooping down to strike the yacht on her port quarter, realizing which, we hurriedly buoyed the line to the now useless kedge and cast it loose. so quiet was the water and air in the half-minute-long interval before the wind came that the yacht lay motionless, half-broadside to the squall's advance, just as she had been stretched to the kedge, and when it struck her inertia was so great that the lee rail was hove well under before she began swinging. the lines of japanese lanterns snapped in a half dozen places and went streaming off to leeward like the tails of kites. the awnings bellied monstrously and began splitting under the terrific uplift of the wind; and here and there lashings gave way and left corners threshing desperately for freer play. there were no waves at first; only sheets of water torn from the top of the sea and thrown on ahead. the air was fairly clogged with spray, and the yacht was deluged with water, fore and aft, as though she had no more freeboard than a plank. the boats, which were made fast to booms run out on either side amidships, worked like the arms of dutch windmills, and one of them, as the yacht reached the end of her cable, was tossed bodily over its boom, to land bottom up and fill. the yacht was driven across the arc of her cable-sweep as a frightened broncho rushes to the end of his picket rope, and with a somewhat similar result. the anchor fouled and began dragging. so swiftly were we carried down the bay that it seemed inconceivable that there was any anchor at all at the end of the cable, and it was not until later that we ascertained definitely that the chain had not parted. we were heading--or rather backing--at an angle toward the sea-wall, and in a direction which allowed the yacht something over a quarter of a mile to go before she would crash into the line of schooners moored beyond the american consulate, the grinding and pounding among which became distinctly audible as the interval decreased. the port anchor was our only hope, and on the getting over and letting go of this the commodore and heinrich began furiously working, while to me, with the assistance of a press-gang composed of the mater, claribel and the chinese cook, was delegated the task of reducing the awnings, the great spreads of which were acting as sails in driving the yacht the quicker to an apparently inevitable doom. that there would be ample chance to get ashore in safety, no one had much doubt; but more indubitable still appeared the fact that we were scheduled to have a graphic illustration of the meaning of that commonest of south sea expressions, "piling up on the beach." the port anchor was let go and the awnings brought to a fashion of a furl at about the same time, and six white faces, peering anxiously shoreward for results, only paled the more as the foam-white belt that marked the line of the submerged sea-wall continued to grow perceptibly nearer. stars were appearing under the lower line of the squall along the northern horizon, but the centre of the disturbance was now overhead, and the wind had increased to a force before which the coco palms along the bank were bending to the ground and snapping with sharp, explosive detonations. a piece of steel cable, used as a "hurricane guy" to hold down a corner of the consulate in just such an emergency as the present, had parted under the strain and was swiftly flailing the galvanized iron roof of the veranda to pieces. the clang of bells resounded through the town, summoning aid for the pounding schooners along the sea-wall, and in sheltered corners ashore could be seen black knots of men gesticulating wildly in the light of lanterns. we were now a scant fifty feet from the wall in front of the consulate, and perhaps twice that distance from the first of the jumble of pounding schooners, the big _eimoo_, the largest and fastest trader that sailed from tahiti. the seas were streaming over her as though she was a surf-beaten rock on a stretch of iron-bound coast, but in the smother on her forward deck some of her crew could be seen surging round the capstan in a frantic effort to haul her off the deadly wall. from the ships beyond came a babel of shoutings that rose above the grind and pound of keels, and presently these keyed higher into yells of excitement and dismay as one of the schooners--luckily the last in line--broke loose and began battering to pieces against the barrier of stone. [illustration: the inevitable end of every south sea trading schooner] [illustration: a tahitian couple] for us on the _lurline_ there was nothing more to be done. jewelry and other portable valuables had been tossed into a canvas sack, and the mater and claribel, swathed in life-preservers, hurriedly coached as to the proper manner of jumping ashore from the taffrail of a grounded yacht. white figures had appeared, clinging to the pillars of the consulate veranda, ready--as we afterwards learned--to rush to our aid when the schooner struck. there was still some question as to whether it was the _eimoo_ we were going to bump first, or the wall; or first the former, and then, in company with her, the latter. the commodore was just grimly opining that salvage operations would be simpler if _lurline_ and _eimoo_ struck separately, when the squall gave up its rain, the wind and sea fell sufficiently to allow the anchors to hold, and the worst was all over in a minute. the squall had blown itself out not a moment too soon, for when the anchors finally stopped dragging one could have stood in the cockpit and skimmed a biscuit over the port quarter to the veranda of the consulate, while flung to starboard at a similar angle it would have sailed to the deck of the _eimoo_. for the present we were safe until another squall blew up, in which event, especially if it came from anywhere to the east of north, the twenty-five fathoms of chain out to each of the anchors would be enough to allow us to swing around onto the sea-wall. plainly it was imperative that the yacht be worked into a safer position without delay. the sky was darkening again to the north as the commodore sent me ashore with orders not to return without the crew, or a working equivalent. the town was in an uproar, and the impracticability of rounding up a "working equivalent" of the crew was at once apparent. two schooners and a sloop were loose and pounding to pieces upon the wall, and these had first claim to volunteer or "pressed" aid. the gendarmerie, assisted by soldiers from the barracks, were going about the streets and into the clubs and hotels requisitioning relief forces, and i was at my wit's end for half an hour dodging the minions of the law and avoiding service with one of these press gangs. at last the crew was run to cover at the end of a fragrant tunnel of blossoming _burao_ and flamboyant, where the wail of concertinas and the throb of hard-hit drum logs told me that a _hula_ was in progress, even before i had pushed aside a cluster of hibiscus and peered in at a window. bill, the light-footed dane of the port watch, the axis of a vortex of capering _vahines_, was leaping in the maddest of hornpipes to the music of an accordion, with bugle obligato by perkins, who had mastered that instrument while in the navy. big, blond gus, surrounded by another nimbus of tropic loveliness, was draining a newly-cracked coconut as he would have tossed off a _seidel_ of lager, and victor, the mate, a white _tiare_ blossom behind each ear, was shifting a cat's cradle from his rack of stubby, red fingers to a frame of slender brown ones. it was a shame to put an end to their innocent fun, but the north was blackening again, and--well, a sailor must learn to take his pleasure as a patron of a railway lunch counter does his food, in hasty gulps. besides, there would probably be other evenings ashore, and the way of a stranger in tahiti to a session of song and dance is the turning to the first open door. how thoroughly engrossing these little parties are may be judged from the fact that the crew came along only under protest, swearing, jointly and severally, that they had heard nothing whatever of a storm which, as was afterwards estimated, did a hundred thousand francs' damage on the water front of papeete and destroyed the season's crop of bananas and plantains! there was a sinister tower of cloud piled up beyond the reef by the time i had brought my reluctant charges back aboard the yacht, but its east side was showing blacker than its west, and before long we had the satisfaction of seeing it bear off in the former direction and disappear, roaring mightily, behind point venus. the rest of the night we were left in peace to haul off out of danger. for the last two or three hundred yards the yacht had backed in a course which lacked but a few degrees of being parallel to the sea-wall, so that the anchors were but little further from the shore than the schooner herself. "hauling off," therefore, was a tedious and not entirely simple proceeding. we first hove short on the starboard anchor, broke it out and brought it just awash. several lashings were then passed through its ring and round and round the port life-boat, just aft of the beam, after which a line from the yacht was made fast to the anchor and the shackle knocked off. this left it suspended in the water in a manner best calculated to trim the boat and not hamper the rowers. while the boat pulled offshore and dropped the starboard anchor the port was broken out and catted. then the line from the former was put on the winch and the yacht hauled offshore as far as possible. here the port anchor was let go, following which the starboard was hove up, re-shackled and dropped again. the next morning, taking advantage of a favourable slant of wind, we dropped back to within a hundred feet of the sea-wall and ran mooring lines to a couple of cannon which projected from the coral, a berth which proved both safe and convenient. * * * * * friday, the th of may, was set for our day of departure for samoa, but the unlucky coincidence of the day of the week and the month evoked such a storm of protest from the sailors that the commodore postponed sailing for another twenty-fours and thereby lost a fair wind out of the harbour. on the morning of the th a fitful n.w. wind blowing directly down the passage made it impossible to get under weigh without running a strong chance of piling the yacht up on the beach. after a bootless wait of a couple of hours for a shift of wind, a line was finally carried to the mail-boat's buoy, out to which the yacht was laboriously hauled by winding in on the winches. letting go here at noon, we sailed down the bay with a beam wind, dipping in turn to the flags of the american and british consulates and the gunboat _zelee_. as we hauled up to thread the entrance the wind was brought dead ahead, and for the next fifteen minutes the yacht was put about so often in the scant working room of the narrow passage that the sails were hardly filled on one tack before, with shoaling water and an imminent surf, it was necessary to go off on the other. the trading schooners make it a rule never to attempt the passage with a head wind, but _lurline's_ superiority in pointing up, as well as the greater ease with which she handled, made comparatively simple a performance that for the others would have been really hazardous. at . p. m. we were clear of the harbour, and at two o'clock took departure, point venus light bearing s.e. by s., distant eight miles. close-hauled to a baffling n.w. wind, a course of due n. was sailed until ten o'clock, when the yacht was put about to a westerly course for the rest of the night, her speed averaging less than six miles an hour. tahiti was still visible under a dense cloud rack at daybreak, while the northern side of moorea presented a crazy skyline of sharp pinnacles. toward noon neahau was sighted, raiatea almost immediately appearing beyond. at sunset all the leeward islands were in sight, tahaa and bora bora showing up beyond raiatea. between the two former a sharp sail-like rock appeared, the tips of the pinnacles of moorea were still visible to the south, while above and beyond them a heavy cloudbank betrayed the position of the veiled orohena. the north line of bora bora showed forward of the starboard beam at daylight of the th, our course then being due west. at eight o'clock tubai raised a fogged outline to the south, and just across its leeward end the hazy form of marua, the most westerly of the societies, was dimly visible. marua and the skyline of the great cliff of bora bora held places on the horizon till sunset, and with darkness we saw the last of the french islands. the wind, which had been light for the last two days, had fallen away entirely by the morning of the th, the calm for the next eighteen hours being so complete that the yacht had not enough way to straighten out the log-line. from midnight of the th to that of the th but twenty-six miles were covered, most of the distance being made in one watch. by morning of the th, however, the renegade trade-wind again began asserting itself, to stand faithfully by nearly all the rest of the way to the samoas. the coming of the trade-wind was coincident with another happening which served graphically to illustrate the dangers that little-navigated seas hold for the most careful skippers. from the observations of the th it appeared that bellinghausen island, a low uninhabited reef of considerable extent, lay directly upon our course to tutuila, and at a distance which made it probable that we would come up to it toward the end of the night. findlay's "directory" gave warning of a southerly setting current of a mile an hour, allowing for which our course was so altered as to give the dangerous reef an amply wide berth. that course, we figured, would carry us from ten to twenty miles north of the island in spite of the current, but at midnight, to make assurance doubly sure, it was decided to edge still farther to the north, and the course was altered to n.w. by w. this we were to hold until daybreak and then, the danger being past, head off due west for tutuila again. of course we would pass out of sight and sound of the reef, we thought; but that was the safest way, and there wouldn't be much to see anyhow. just before daybreak, as the yacht, driven by the newfound trade-wind, was settling contentedly down to an easy eight knots, the excited hail of "breakers on the lee bow!" brought every one rushing on deck, and presently, out of the dissolving mist ahead, we saw long lines of surf tumbling over a submerged reef, and beyond low drifts of sand scantily covered with scrubby coconuts and pandanus. there was no need of altering our course. still heading in a direction which we had figured would carry us twenty miles to the _north_ of bellinghausen island, we slipped quietly by, a mile off its sinister _southern_ line, before hauling up again for tutuila. every point we had altered our course had only brought us nearer to the danger we had sought to avoid, and the chances are, if we had made assurance a bit surer, that, with the added speed of the incidental slant of wind, the yacht would have sailed into the breakers before daylight. there was nothing wrong with our reckoning on this occasion except the allowance made for the current, and this was figured according to the only authority available. probably not an average of one ship a year makes the voyage from the societies to the samoas, and only the occasional government vessel keeps a record that is likely to be reflected on the charts. the southerly set of the current past the western end of the societies is, at least in the fall months, certainly much greater than findlay estimates it. with mainsail and foresail wing-and-wing and both gaff topsails set, good speed was made all day of the th. morning of the th found the wind dead astern, however, and this, in combination with an exasperating swell which set in from the south for no apparent reason whatever and made it impossible to run wing-and-wing, compelled us to steer a point wide of our course of due west. it was our original intention to rig up a square foresail for this run before the trade from tahiti to samoa, but the baffling headwinds of the first few days made the use of such a sail impossible, and the advantage was deemed hardly worth the trouble for the few days that remained. we learned later that the heavy seas from the south were the result of a tremendous gale which swept the pacific beyond the tropic of capricorn a few days previously. beam seas and a strong following wind make about the most uncomfortable combination a fore-and-after can encounter, and the next four days were lively ones aboard _lurline_. a sea would come rolling up out of the south in a great sky-scraping ridge of pea green and heel the yacht to starboard until the mainboom dipped into the water and buckled under the strain like a rod before the first rush of a ten-pound salmon. then it would pass on, leaving the yacht to tumble off its back and roll her port rail under just in time to dip a deckful out of the next wave. much of the time the foresail was lowered with the boom hauled amidships, and the mainsail, double-reefed, carried to starboard. the jib and forestay-sail were usually set but rendered little service, most of such wind as they caught being shaken out in the roll. under these circumstances very creditable speed was made. the run to noon of the th was miles, and for the three following days , and miles, respectively. the wear and tear on sails and sheets and halyards was very great, however. on the st the fore peak halyard chafed through at noon, and at ten p. m. of the same day the forestay-sail sheet came to similar grief. nothing else carried away before we reached port, but the steady banging of these four days made a general overhauling of the rigging necessary before we were in shape to put to sea again from pago pago. the several small islands which constitute the manua division of the samoan group were sighted to the n.e. at daybreak of the rd. the peaks of tutuila, distant forty miles, came above the horizon at four in the afternoon of the same day, but as there was no hope of reaching pago pago before dark in the light airs then prevailing, canvas was shortened to mainsail and forestay-sail and the night was spent in standing off and on. morning of the th found us twenty miles off shore, and for several hours the yacht scarcely made steerageway in an almost dead calm. toward noon a light easterly breeze sprang up, and taking advantage of every puff we managed to worry in through the cliff-walled entrance of the remarkable bay of pago pago by three o'clock. the port doctor met us as we came abreast of the quarantine station and piloted the yacht up the bay to an anchorage, but through a faulty diagnosis of the lay of the bottom, combined with a faulty prescription when his original mistake was discovered, missed only by the narrowest of margins leaving his patient a subject for the marine hospital. a few of the details may be worth recording in their bearing on the much-mooted question of the advisability of placing surgeons in command of the government hospital ships. the doctor boarded the yacht as she came gliding up before the gentle evening breeze, and after satisfying himself that she bore no evidences of plague or yellow fever in cabin or forecastle, kindly volunteered, in the absence of a harbour master (which functionary the port did not boast), to show us the way to the safest and most convenient anchorage available for a visiting craft. we accepted his well-meant offer without misgivings, and the quarantine boat, its gaily-turbaned _fita-fitas_ leaning lazily on their oars, was soon trailing astern, while the doctor, clearing his throat, began "piloting." "straight down the middle," was his first order; and "straight down middl', sir," muttered perkins at the wheel, holding the yacht to her even course up the bay in apparently correct interpretation of the direction as meaning something akin to the regulation "steady as she goes." "now in past the _wheeling_," was the next command; and when we had swept smartly in past the u. s. s. _wheeling_, "now edge in a bit toward the shore," carried the yacht under the shadow of the towering southwestern harbour walls. at this juncture the doctor went forward to reconnoiter, and while we still slipped at no mean speed through the water--quite without apprehension because of the considerable distance still intervening between the yacht and the apparently steep-to-shore--the excited order came booming back to "keep her off! keep her off!" here was a properly phrased nautical order at last, and perkins grinned appreciatively as he spun the wheel up, mechanically muttering "keep 'er off, sir." an instant later the commodore, dashing wildly aft, cleared the cockpit rail at a bound, and, knocking the surprised perkins backward with his shoulder, began climbing up the spokes of the wheel like a monkey as he threw it hard down. the yacht wavered for an instant, as though confused by the unwonted treatment, and then, with a slatting of canvas and banging of blocks, came up into the wind and paid off on the other tack just in time to avoid the thrust of a jutting point of coral. we felt fully justified in setting aside our volunteer pilot and finding our own anchorage after that. regarding which it might be in order to explain that the shores of pago pago bay, though the volcanic walls themselves shelve off abruptly to a great depth, are fringed with a hundred-yard-wide table of coral which rises to within three or four feet of its surface all the way around. the outer edge of the latter drops off sheer to deep water, and anywhere beyond is good anchorage. the doctor, of course, knew of this coral bank but had miscalculated its position. when its jagged brown rim suddenly leered up at him through the green water, quite correctly anticipating that if the yacht drove in upon it she might do herself harm, he very naturally shouted to "keep her off!" which order the man at the wheel, quite as naturally, interpreted to mean "keep her off the wind." this he did, with the result that he was heading her more directly than ever onto the reef, when the commodore, catching the lay of things and realizing the danger of complicating an already hopelessly mixed situation by giving orders, sprang to the wheel himself, threw the yacht up into the wind and avoided by a scant dozen feet the jagged edge of the coral bank. chapter xii in pago pago bay in the settlement of the samoan imbroglio in the late nineties by the partition of the group between germany and the united states--great britain, the third party to the controversy having been granted compensatory rights in the tongas and solomons--america, for all practical purposes, had much the best of the bargain. germany entered into actual possession of the two largest islands of the group, upolou and savaii, leaving the united states to do the same with tutuila and the manuas. the american government, however, contented itself with a naval station at pago pago, tutuila, and the exercise of a mild protectorate over the natives of the rest of that island. germany's rich and beautiful islands, after proving little more than a costly colonial experiment, passed out of her hands forever at the end of the late war. the establishment of a naval station at pago pago has placed the united states, strategically, in the strongest position in western polynesia. the bay of pago pago is unquestionably the finest harbour in the whole of the pacific. in form it is not unlike a fat letter "l," of which the shorter line is the entrance and the longer, inclining slightly inward, the bay proper. ages ago what is now the harbour was undoubtedly a huge crater occupying the centre of the island of tutuila. one day the water must have broken through into the lava, causing an explosion which, in addition to settling the island a thousand feet or so, blew out a slice of the crater's rim and dropped it out of sight somewhere in the deep sea. the place where the slice blew out is the present entrance to the harbour, and it is wide and deep enough to hold the capitol at washington without seriously interfering with navigation. so completely landlocked is the harbour, and so smooth are its waters in all weathers, that from anywhere in the inner bay--except for the tropical vegetation which clothes the mountain sides--it might pass for a swiss lake. the high walls of the ancient crater cut off the rays of the morning and evening sun, and the velvety green of the wonderful tropic tapestry which covers them, reflecting scarcely any light and heat, makes the harbour several degrees cooler than any other pacific island of similar latitude, either north or south of the equator. at noon of the warmest day of the month which the _lurline_ remained in the harbour the temperature was °, fahrenheit. the coolest day was ° at noon and ° at midnight, while the water held around an even ° all of the time. the naval reservation, with its dock, coal pile, ice plant and warehouses, occupies the only extensive piece of level land on the bay. above, on a jutting promontory which commands the entrance and every foot of the harbour line, is the residence of the commander of the station and the governor of the island, occupied at the time of our visit by captain e. b. underwood, u.s.n. at the end of the bay, half submerged in a forest of coconuts, bread-fruit, bananas and mangoes, is the samoan village of pago pago, the most important native settlement on the island. several other small villages form breaks in the solid colour of the verdant rondure with occasional isolated circular roofs of brown thatch dotting the grey ribbon of the trail which binds them together. ever a splendid physical specimen and ever possessed of the kindliest and happiest of dispositions, the samoan has undergone less change in his contact with the white man than any other native of the south pacific. this is particularly true of those of tutuila, for the mailed fist of the german war lord had rested heavily on upolou and savaii for over a decade at the time of our visit, and one detected traces of sullenness and discontent among their peoples which he would search for in vain among the care-free natives of the american island. in many ways, in fact, tutuila is deserving of being called a model tropical colony. the government, except for a gently exercised judicial supervision, is practically autonomous, and the natives, left to the enjoyment of the customs and institutions of their fathers, have retained a self-respect, dignity and amiability without parallel in any of the other island groups of polynesia. the american protectorate over tutuila is proving a happy medium between the paternalism of the british and the repressiveness of the germans and french, the result being an island where intercourse with the natives is unmixedly edifying and pleasant. the samoan islands are rightly called the navigator group, for both in their achievements of the past along that line, as well as in the seamanship they display today, their natives are in a class by themselves. the superiority of line of a samoan "out-rigger" canoe over that of those of any other south pacific group is apparent to the veriest novice, as is also the ability with which it is handled. the following description of a samoan "out-rigger," which was written by an expert, will convey to the initiated an idea of the technical construction of this remarkable little craft. [illustration: "a naval station at pago pago has placed the united states, strategically, in the strongest position in western polynesia"] [illustration: "chief tufeli in the uniform of a sergeant of _fita-fitas_"] "although the samoan canoe is a 'dugout,' it is far from being the clumsy affair that the name indicates. though the hull is indeed dug out of a single log, it is none the less moulded along lines of grace as well as utility. the hull is well sheered and tapered toward the slightly elevated prow, perpendicular and bladelike in its thinness. it is moulded with reference to fluid resistance and cut so as to minimize the drag of the water, and yet gain every advantage from a following sea. they do not spread or widen the hull amidships, even in the very small canoes, nor, on the other hand, are the lines of the out-rigger (left) side at all flattened; the hulls are all symmetrical with respect to the longitudinal axis." one used to handling a peterboro will find a samoan canoe very cranky at first, owing to the fact that the outrigger causes a drag which must be overcome by dipping first on one side and then on the other. the size of the canoe is limited only by the size of the trunk from which it is hewn. occasionally one is seen carrying seven or eight adults, but the capacity of the ordinary canoe is not over two or three. in the old days the samoans, like all the other south sea islanders, made their long voyages in big double canoes or catamarans driven by huge sails of matting. this type, though still common in fiji, has practically disappeared from samoa, its place being taken by the _malaga_, a modified whaleboat. this stoutly-built double-ender is generally acknowledged to be the most seaworthy type of open boat known, and instances are on record of its having ridden out storms in which sailing vessels, and even steamers, came to grief. the samoan started with the orthodox whaleboat and kept building larger and larger until the limit of practical construction was reached. in fact, construction went somewhat beyond the limit of practicability, for a huge _malaga_ built ten years ago in apia--a veritable roman galley of an affair, with seats for a hundred rowers--broke its back on its trial trip. nothing of so colossal proportions has been tried since, though fifty-oar _malagas_ are occasionally seen conveying all of the able-bodied males of a village off to a cricket match. the _malaga_ most in use is but little larger than the regulation whaleboat. it is stepped for two masts, and, with a big leg-o'-mutton sail hoisted on each, makes good speed if the wind is anywhere abaft the beam. within eight points of the wind, if any sea is running, too much water comes aboard to make sailing practicable. at such times the canvas is taken in and the oars resorted to until a shift of wind or a change of course makes sailing again possible. the samoan invariably sings when he rows, and stopping his mouth would interfere quite as much with the progress of the boat as binding his arms. they pull one man to the oar and take their stroke from the rhythm of the song of the leader. ask your samoan boatman how far the next point is, or how long it will take to reach it, and he will tell you "three songs," or four or five songs, as he happens to judge it. on a hot day a crew will stop oftener to rest its throats than its backs. entering a tortuous, surf-beset passage through a reef, such as leads into all the bays of tutuila except pago pago, a man takes his station on the prow of the _malaga_ and, signalling with his hands, now on one side and now on the other, keeps the helmsman advised of the lay of the channel. * * * * * captain and mrs. underwood came off to the yacht the afternoon following our arrival at pago pago, their call proving most opportune in chancing to coincide with that of seuka, the _taupo_ of the village. the latter, in company with her hand-maidens, a dozen or more in all, bearing presents of _tapa_ and fruit, came off in the official _malaga_, and through neglecting to bring an interpreter with her narrowly missed being taken for a curio vendor and being put off until another day. the underwoods came to the rescue, however, and prolonged their call until everybody was acquainted. the _taupo_ or "village maiden" is a functionary as indispensable to a samoan village as a chief, or even a missionary. she is, in fact, usually the daughter of the chief; or, if that dignitary has no girl in his family, the most attractive maiden chosen from among his near relations. her duties are the traditional ones of making the official _kava_, leading the official dances called _siva-sivas_, and looking after the entertainment and personal comfort of distinguished visitors. formerly she acted as a sort of _vivandiere_ in time of tribal wars, encouraging her chief's forces by singing in the forefront of the battle. this latter, strange as it may seem, is not an ancient custom by any means. the still young and beautiful wife of judge e. w. gurr of pago pago, who was _taupo_ of apia at the time of the now historic war between maletoa and mataafa for supremacy in samoa, went through that sanguinary struggle at the side of her adopted father, the distinguished chief, seumana-tafa, and her delightful accounts of her experiences in those stirring days we were privileged to enjoy on a number of occasions during our visit. the _taupo_ lives in a house of her own, attended by eight or ten handmaidens and a stern--a very stern--duenna. the handmaidens are the most attractive unmarried girls in the village after the _taupo_, and are chosen for their faces and figures and their ability to dance. beyond following the _taupo_ in the mazes of the _siva-siva_ and accompanying her on official calls, they have no duties to speak of, but as each one lives in hope of being chosen as a successor when their leader passes from them by marriage or for any other cause, their life is largely a schooling toward that felicitous end. the _kava_ and _siva-siva_ ceremonies are so numerous and intricate that nothing short of many years of instruction and practice can fit a girl properly to perform them, and in this respect the training of a _taupo_ is not unlike that of the court _geishas_ of japan or certain of the temple _nautch_ girls of india. the duenna is the guardian of the _taupo's_ morals. to her is delegated the important duty of seeing that the feet of that often temperamental and wilful young personage do not stray from the path of rectitude. escort, watcher, protector, she is supposed never to let her charge stray beyond the sweep of her eye by day nor the reach of her arm at night. in the old days, in the event of a contretemps, the life of the duenna as well as that of the _taupo_ was forfeit, whether she was guilty of "contributory negligence" or not. today, although virginity is still the _sine qua non_ of a _taupo_, the punishment for obliquities is somewhat less drastic, both for guard and guarded. seuka had come off to the yacht to invite us to a _talolo_ or official reception to be given in our honour the following evening by chief mauga of pago pago. after the _talolo_ she and her girls would dance the _siva-siva_ for us, and there would also be some dancing by the men. of course we accepted the invitation with alacrity. to this function we went in state, convoyed by a flotilla of canoes sent down by mauga, the occupants of which enlivened the progress by singing swinging choruses extemporized in our praise. the tide was out when we reached our destination at the end of the bay, as a result of which our cutter grounded upon the edge of the reef. instantly the members of our escort jumped out of their canoes and swarmed alongside to carry us in across the fifty yards of intervening shallows to the beach. the commodore and i saw the mater and claribel borne unresistingly off in the arms of two bronze, flower-crowned giants, and then, judging it more compatible with our dignity, made the fatal mistake of electing to take the journey "pick-a-back." before my "mount" had splashed a dozen yards i came to a realization of the fact that it was going to be out of the question to retain my hold on his coco-oiled shoulders while he traversed the whole distance; so, rather than prolong the agony, i dropped off into the water and trudged ashore alone. the air was warm, my ducks were soiled already, and most of the guests would be barefoot anyway, i told myself philosophically. but the commodore, who, as the official head of the party was out in his nattiest uniform and did not, as he explained later, desire to make his first appearance before the highest chief on the island of tutuila looking like a ship-wrecked sailor, would not give up without a struggle. unfortunately for the commodore's hopes, the vigorous strangle hold with which he endeavoured to maintain himself on his precarious perch shut off the wind, and with it the song, of the man who was trying to carry him; and because a samoan cannot perform any kind of labour--and especially a labour of love like the lift in question--without singing, this one came to a quick stop. the jolt started the commodore slipping, and i was just congratulating myself on the probability that he was going to appear at the party more mussed up than i was, when there came a quick rush from behind and another of the canoeists scooped up the suspended bundle of white in his arms and, carrying it as a mother carries a babe--even as the mater and claribel had been borne off--splashed through to the beach. "_lelei!_ thank you! good boy!" cried the relieved commodore heartily as he found himself set right side up upon the coral clinkers. and again he cried "_lelei!_" (the extent of his samoan at that time) and "good boy!" when the cap which he supposed had fallen off in the water was set jauntily back upon his head by his dusky preserver. another "good boy!" greeted the discovery of the fact that his feet were dry, and still another boomed forth when the flickering light of the torches showed the white uniform to be still immaculate. the last one was emphasized with a ringing slap of gratitude bestowed upon the oil-glistening shoulder where his head had lately rested. there came a ripple of low-silvery laughter, and the commodore's preserver had slipped away among the shadows of the coco trees. the ruddy glow that suffused the sun-tanned face of the commodore as i splashed out alongside him was not due entirely to the glare of the torches. "did you hear that? did you see that?" he gasped excitedly, staring off into the moon-mottled shadows. "_he_ was a girl! i've been carried ashore by a girl! you don't suppose that--" "don't worry," i said gently; "they were too busy thanking their own preservers to notice you." mauga, the fine old gladiator who was giving the _talolo_, met us at the door of his huge thatched-roofed "palace" and led us to the "seats" of honour--stacks of mats upon which we sat cross-legged--between himself and his handsome chiefess, faa-oo-pea. after a speech of welcome by the _tulafale_ or "talking chief," there were two or three spirited sword and club-juggling exhibitions by a dozen or so men, magnificent physical specimens who twirled and tossed ancient samoan weapons as they reeled and lunged in the sinuous movements of the strange dances. in the interval of these claribel was led away by one of seuka's handmaidens to have a glimpse of the dressing of that important young personage for the _siva-siva_ that was shortly to follow. when, on her return, we asked her what the _taupo_ was going to wear, she appeared distinctly embarrassed and launched at once into a detailed description of seuka's marvellous _tuiga_ or headdress, which she had witnessed the assembling and adjustment of. as a matter of fact, as became apparent shortly, that was about all there was to describe. for that reason, and because it is so marvellous an affair intrinsically, i have thought it worth while to set down what the observant claribel has to say about it in her journal. "the _taupo's_ badge of office is a three-feet-high headdress called a _tuiga_. it is a composite affair, part wig, part frontlet of nautilis shell and part a scaffolding of three flower-decked sticks. it is not an easy thing to put on, for it must be assembled piece by piece each time it is wanted. it is producive of constant pain while it is worn and is taken off with a feeling of relief, yet the custom of wearing it on official occasions is so old and rigid that the _taupo_ would scarcely feel properly clad without it. the foundation is a strip of black cloth which is wound around the head at the roots of the hair, drawing all of the latter up into a bunch at the crown. upon this one stubby lock is tied the wig of natural hair, which is set in a frame of cloth or fibre netting. when this is attached so securely that there is no chance of its becoming dislodged, the scaffolding of slender sticks and a cross piece is tied in front and made fast to the cloth covering over the forehead. the cross piece is usually ornamented with two or three round mirrors and some bright feathers, while a band consisting of several rows of the partition plates of the nautilus shell is often tied across the forehead. with these decorations the _taupo_ wears a neck pendant of a curled boar's tusk and a wreath or two of _ula_, a few of the bright red fruits of the pandanus occasionally appearing among the latter." [illustration: faa-oo-pea, chieftainess of pago pago, making _kava_] [illustration: seuka, _taupo_ of pago pago, illustrating a movement in the _siva_] since claribel had not seen fit to prepare us for it, the coming of seuka wearing, besides her _tuiga_, only a cincture of bright _ti_ leaves on each ankle and an almost negligible bit of ancestral _tappa_ wreathed in a precarious twist about her waist, created something of a stir in a portion of our party. was it really the same seuka, she of the downcast eye and the blushing cheek and the long, trailing _holakau_ of the previous afternoon? we asked ourselves. there was the same liquid eye and the same rounded cheek, but now the one was flashing and the other flushing with the surging "dance passion," and as for the _holakau_, the commodore avers that his falling out of sympathy with the missionary--the introducer of that atrocious hider-of-charms--dates from that moon-lit evening by the bay of pago pago when seuka danced the _siva_ to the throb of the drum-logs and the music of the ripple of the wavelets on the beach. on the samoan _siva-siva_ and its concomitant, the _kava_ ceremony, i will write in another chapter; of this particular _siva_--our first one--i note here only the high lights of the mental picture which the mention of it always conjures up--the half-lighted interior of the thatch-roofed, mat-floored _faletele_, with slices of the blue moonlight diverging to mountain and grove and bay through rifts in the woven blinds; the lap of the waves on the coral strand and the lisp of the wind in the bananas running through the boom of the tom-toms and the guttural chants of the spectators, and, in the flickering light of the candlenut torches, those glistening limbs of mahogany, rippling, swaying, flashing, in the infinitely alluring movements of the native dances. this dance was one of a dozen or more entertainments arranged by the hospitable natives during the time the yacht remained in pago pago bay. one day it was a picnic and swim at a mountain waterfall; again a canoeing party, and another time an evening of samoan singing. a ten-day-long cricket game between the teams of pago pago and fuaga-sa furnished so much excitement that i am reserving the account of it for a special chapter. the chiefs of nearly every village on the island came and paid us visits of ceremony and brought presents, some of them journeying two days and more by land and water. our most distinguished visitor was chief--formerly king--tufeli, of manua, a group of small islands which is included with tutuila in the american protectorate. tufeli, a man of heroic stature and a most pleasing personality, came over for the express purpose of buying the yacht and sailing her back to manua. he was not a little disappointed to learn that the commodore would not find it convenient to turn her over to him in exchange for his season's copra output, but appeared considerably consoled by the barrel of salt beef we gave him as a compromise. most pleasant, too, were our relations with the officers of the naval station. shortly after our arrival the _adams_ came to relieve the _wheeling_ and the fortnight during which the two american warships were in the harbour was a continual round of festivities. the residency kept open house, as did also judge e. w. gurr, chief secretary of naval affairs, in his beautiful half-samoan, half-foreign home on the mountainside. judge gurr, whose wife i have mentioned as having been at one time the _taupo_ of apia, was for many years stevenson's attorney and intimate friend in upolou, and since taking charge of native affairs in tutuila his thorough knowledge of samoan character and his sympathetic interest in the welfare of the people have made his services invaluable to the american government. judge gurr arranged a voyage around the island for the _lurline_, with visits to the principal villages along the coast, a fascinating excursion which was finally given up on account of uncertain harbour facilities. this trip was undertaken, however, by judge gurr and myself in the former's whaleboat, and, thanks to my sponsor's prestige, turned out most interestingly. in no one particular does the lightness with which the samoan has been touched by outside influence show more clearly than in his architecture. he builds and lives in the same style of house today that was used by his ancestor of a hundred--perhaps a thousand--years ago. unlike the hawaiian, tahitian and fijian, he has not taken kindly to sawn timber, galvanized iron, nails and glass, and nowhere is his conservatism in this respect more in evidence than in the villages of tutuila. for this reason a brief description of the construction and furnishing of a typical pago pago dwelling may be of interest, and for this i am indebted to claribel, who spent a whole afternoon, with pencil and notebook, jotting down the details at first hand. "although not a nail or dressed board is used in the samoan house, the finished structure is exceedingly strong and especially attractive to look at. the uprights that support the roofs are the peeled trunks of young breadfruit trees. they are about six inches in diameter, and are set something like a yard apart around a raised oval floor-space that is paved with small smooth stones from the beach. upon these posts rests the set of beams that support the rafters. the rafters run from the top of the posts to the roof-tree, which is supported by four or five uprights set in the centre of the floor-space. these beams are all laced together with braided coconut fibre, sometimes gaily coloured. the neatest joinery is in the roof, the ceiling being the under side of the thatching, which is laced between small, smoothly dressed branches. these beams are not long, curved tree-trunks as they appear, but comparatively short sections of coconut wood, fitted and dressed and lashed together with fibre so neatly that the joints are not readily discovered. "usually the thatch is of sugar cane leaves, though occasionally coco fronds or pandanus blades are used. the walls are made by letting down the 'venetian blinds' of braided coco palm leaves which hang from the roof beams about four feet above the ground. although there is no indicated door, the customary entrance is through the opening between the posts to the right of a line drawn through the house between the centre supports of the roof-tree. this is the 'front door'; the 'back door' is any opening between the posts behind a line at right angles to the one just mentioned, and dividing the house between the first two of the central posts. before these centre posts the host and hostess sit when receiving their guests, and here the _taupo_ sits when she makes the _kava_. it is the seat of honour for the inmates of the house. [illustration: a samoan house in the course of construction] [illustration: "chief tufeli came over for the express purpose of buying the yacht"] "the furniture of the samoan house consists mainly of mats woven from coconut and pandanus leaves, some large chests containing the family wardrobe, dishes, arms and trinkets. most of the food is served on the leaves of the bread-fruit tree or the _fau_. the fine mats and tappa, which constitute the family heirlooms, are kept in rolls upon the rafters. the beds are piles of mats, six or eight deep, above which are suspended regulation mosquito nets." an interesting feature of this description is the extent to which it shows the coconut as figuring as a building material in the samoan house, and now that the utility of that remarkable tree has been mentioned, this will be an appropriate place to outline a few of the indispensable functions it fulfils in the life of all south sea islanders. there are several articles of food and general utility, both animal and vegetable, which are of almost vital importance to the peoples by whom they are used, and prominent among these may be noted the seal of the esquimaux, the salmon of the british columbian and alaskan indians, and the rice and bamboo of the japanese, chinese and east indians. yet none of these to their respective users occupies anything near so important a place as does the coconut to the south sea islander. copra, the dried kernel of the coconut, is the leading, and almost the only, article of commerce in every island of the south pacific, and as such is the principal contributor to the income of the natives from which everything else they use is bought. the copra of the south pacific islands is incomparably finer than that of the south american, west indian or african tropics, and the plantations of samoa, fiji and tahiti are the largest and most productive in the world. practically all of the copra goes to london or san francisco to be elaborated into a great variety of products, ranging from railroad grease to high class toilet soap and confectionery. a large and rapidly increasing trade has also sprung up in the outer husk of the coconut which is used in the manufacture of a very durable floor matting. it is through its direct utility to the south sea native, however, rather than for its commercial value, that the coconut attains its real importance, for it furnishes him with food, drink and shelter, and figures in some form or other as an almost indispensable adjunct to every pursuit, occupation and recreation in which he indulges. cuts from the long, tough trunk of the tree are used for fence posts and in bridge construction, while on those islands where no other suitable trees are found a complete and adequate dwelling may be built from the coco palm alone. the trunks serve for uprights, rafters and cross-braces, while the leaves make a durable and waterproof thatch and a light but strong siding. these may also be woven into a dozen different kinds of baskets, bags and trays, and, braided end to end, make an excellent drag-net for catching fish. the water of the half-ripe nuts is the standard drink of the islands. a good-sized nut will furnish close to a quart of liquid which, no matter how high the temperature of the air, is always cool, sweet and slightly effervescent. the milk of the nut, which is extracted from the kernel by grating and pressing, is used as a flavouring for various dishes, and with coffee makes an excellent substitute for cream. boiled and pressed, the kernel yields an oil which is of considerable value as a lubricant, and as a stimulator of the growth of the hair is without a peer. it is to their free use of coconut oil, in fact, that the remarkable hirsute growth of the fijians and other south sea islanders is directly attributed. the refuse left after making oil is fed to pigs and poultry, a purpose to which it is admirably suited. on the delights of eating coconut-fattened pig, roasted on hot stones and served with _miti-hari_ sauce--itself a mixture of coco milk and lime juice--i have rhapsodized in one of the tahiti chapters. the husk of the coconut is woven up into cinnet, lines and ropes, and as such employed in house and boat construction, for fishing, and for every other purpose in which strands of manila, sisal or cotton ordinarily serve. the flint-like shell of the coconut makes a useful grater and scraper, and when heated with the air excluded is reduced to a splendid quality of charcoal. the shells are also used for drinking cups, water-bottles, scoops, catch-alls and bailers for canoes. tapped at its heart, the trunk yields a liquid which makes an excellent substitute for yeast, while chunks cut from the same portion of the tree forms the base of a salad which is the delight of epicures, both native and white. a still more delectable salad is made from the crisp meat of the budding nuts. i pause with the list still incomplete, but enough uses have been enumerated, i trust, to make it comprehensible that the most drastic punishment that can be meted out to a south sea village--one that is still resorted to in the solomons and new hebrides when a missionary is murdered or a labour schooner "cut out"--is to destroy its coconut trees. our samoan laundryman was the source of considerable amusement during our stay in pago pago. several of those indispensable functionaries came alongside on the day of the yacht's arrival, all bearing credentials of the highest order. one maritomi, however, with a testimonial on the crested note paper of the earl of crawford affirming that the bearer had done the washing for his yacht, _valhalla_, during her visit to pago pago, and had performed the work with neatness and dispatch, made the most favourable impression and was given a trial bundle. among the things was a number of white duck uniforms, from the coats of which, in the hurry of arrival, the brass buttons had not been removed. the coats came back in time, neatly laundered, but unaccompanied either by the buttons or an explanation. when maritomi came round for the washing the following week he at first denied all knowledge of the missing buttons, asseverating that he was a "mitinary" boy and therefore could not steal even if he wanted to. this failing to make an impression, he finally admitted that he had the buttons, but claimed that buttons were his rightful perquisites, adding that he had kept the buttons of the earl of crawford every wash and had still been given a good character by his lordship's steward. what was more, he said he was going to keep all of our buttons he could lay his hands on, and was going to feel very hurt if we, too, didn't give him a good character on our departure. we didn't think we were better than the earl of crawford, did we? that would be too absurd when the _valhalla_ was three times as big as the _lurline_ and had steam-power besides. of course there was no upsetting a precedent established by so illustrious a personage as the earl of crawford, and therefore it was that all that our good laundryman threatened came to pass. on the morning of our departure when he came off with farewell presents of _tappa_ and war clubs, the grateful maritomi showed his appreciation of the testimonial we had given him by appearing in one of the commodore's white duck uniforms, with _lurline_ buttons drawing the jacket together across his brawny chest, while the delivery boy who accompanied him perspired in the unwonted grip of a dress coat of an officer of the _valhalla_. we forgave maritomi much for the delicacy of feeling he displayed in putting the _valhalla_ coat on the delivery boy. chapter xiii samoan cricket: fauga-sa v. pago pago the captain of fauga-sa drank deep from his _epu_ of _kava_, tossed the heel-taps over his shoulder as etiquette required, and sent the shining coconut cup spinning back across the mat to the feet of the _taupo_, who, in festal regalia of dancing skirt and _tuiga_, presided at the kava bowl. then he nodded gravely to the pago pago captain opposite, and each leaned forward and laid a honey-hearted hibiscus blossom in the palm of his outstretched hand. instantly every voice within and without the council house was hushed, and in the waiting silence the buzzing of a huge blue-bottle fly sounded insistently above the lap of the wavelets on the beach and the lisp of the leaves of the palms. suddenly the buzzing ceased, and with a great shout of triumph the fauga-sa captain sprang to his feet and waved a hand from the doorway, on which action his shout was immediately taken up by the other eight and sixty members of his team, who fairly set the hillsides ringing with their ululating cries. and why should they not cheer? had not the fly alighted upon the hand of their chief and captain, malatoba, thus giving him the "choice," and would he not send the pago pagos in to bat during the storm which every sign said was due for the next morning, leaving fauga-sa the cool, dry days that always follow a storm to finish in? what matter if pago pago had eighty-five men to their sixty-nine?--the mud would soon wear down the opposing runners and more than make up for so slight a handicap. they arrive at the decision somewhat differently on the beach of pago pago than at lord's, but the winning of the toss is of no less importance in samoan cricket than in english. samoan cricket is not quite so primitive as that of the esquimau tribe in which the batsman, with a thigh bone, defends a wicket made of ribs of the animal whose skull the bowler launches at it; but it has sufficient points of divergence from its original model to make some prefatory explanation essential to an understanding of it. in the first place, then, a contest between two localities is a far more representative one in the island game than in real cricket, for a team consists of every able-bodied man in the village--every male not in his first or second childhood--and if one village chances to be larger than another it is all in the fortunes of war. the overwhelming advantage this scheme might give to a large village over a small one is, to a certain extent, minimized by the custom of having a relay of four men to do the running for all of the batsmen of each team; and if its runners are not men of great endurance as well as speed, a big team may beat itself by wearing them out by heavy scoring in the earlier stages of the contest. the ball is "regulation," but the bat, in size and shape, is more like that used in baseball than in cricket. it is made of light-coloured native wood of medium weight, is of about three feet in length, and has its large end slightly flattened for striking the ball. the handle is bound with cinnet to insure a grip. the wicket consists of one stick instead of three, the difficulty of hitting which, even undefended, makes anything of the nature of "stone-walling" tactics quite superfluous. the batsman, having no running to do, simply stands up and drives the ball about until he is out, the latter event, except for special ground rules that vary even between village and village, occurring under practically the same conditions as in the orthodox game. bowling, both as regards "overs" and the distance from which, and the manner in which, the ball is delivered, does not differ materially from ordinary cricket. a game consists of but a single inning, and is never "drawn" unless the score chances to be tied. it is finished when every man playing has had his turn with the bat, a consummation which may be reached in anything from four to twelve days. time is not of the essence of the contest, and as no one ever has any business or other engagements to call him away, the game is always fought out to the bitter end. the visiting team proceeds in boats to the village with which it is to play, and remains there, the guest of the resident chief, during the period of the match. play on the first day usually commences in the afternoon, but on the days following, except for short intermissions taken by the fielding team for a triumphal dance after each "out," lasts from daylight to dark. the nights are spent in _kava_ drinking and _siva-sivas_, and a samoan village after a week of cricket is over always relapses into an equal period of almost absolute somnolence while it takes the rest cure. the exhibition cricket which is occasionally arranged for the benefit of visitors in samoa is usually played on a comparatively smooth and level open space, bearing some slight resemblance to a regular field, but when the natives are playing for their own amusement the pitch is more likely than not to be located in the midst of a coconut grove, and in the closest-built part of the village. twelve successive hours of fielding with a grilling tropical sun on the naked back has its terrors even for a samoan. he likes the shade of the coconuts and the overhanging eaves of thatch, and there is something in the uncertainty of handling the elusive caroms from ridge poles and palm fronds that appeals to his simple native mind. the game in question was between the teams of the villages of fauga-sa--the falesá of stevenson's story, "the beach of falesá"--and pago pago, respectively the champions of the leeward and windward sides of the island of tutuila. the winning of the "toss" by malatoba of fauga-sa was considered of great importance, for all the signs were for a southwest gale during the first days of the match, and as no game is ever called on account of inclement weather, it was figured that pago pago's runners would soon tire in the rain and wind, making heavy scoring impossible, while the batsmen could be retired just as fast in rain as in sunshine. and, to a certain degree, thus it happened; but the handicap to pago pago was only sufficient to cut down that team's excess of batsmen and bring the game to the most spectacular finish in the history of samoan cricket. the custom of having special men to do the running for the batsmen originated, it is said, in the early days of the game, when a chief who had been lamed in battle, and whose presence in the game was strictly necessary from a social standpoint, was allowed the privilege of a running substitute. the effect of the practice is the centring of this work upon men specially chosen and trained for swiftness and endurance, while any man able to stand erect qualifies as a batsman. the best bat of the apia team for many years was a grizzled old warrior with an aromatic piece of sandal wood in place of a left leg that had been snapped off by a shark in his younger days. pago pago's main reliance in this game was not upon the number and prowess of its batsmen, nor upon the skill and quickness of its fielders, nor yet upon the speed and accuracy of its bowlers, but rather upon two phenomenally swift runners imported for the occasion from the crack apia team of the island of upolou. these men, motu and roboki, were reputed so speedy that they could exchange places while the ball was being passed from the wicket-keeper to the bowler, and on good clean drives into the ocean it was said that they had often piled up a dozen, and even a score, of runs. a samoan cricket field has no "boundaries," and running is kept up until the ball is returned or declared "officially lost" by the umpire, a maximum of twenty runs being allowed in the latter event. with a great beating of drums, tooting of conches and blowing of horns, the fauga-sa men scattered out to their places, while chief mauga of pago pago squared away to face the bowling of chief malatoba. motu and roboki, the runners, crouched in readiness for a lightning start, the umpires waved their insignias of office, folded umbrellas, and the big game had begun! the first ball struck a lump of coral, broke sharply to leg, and mauga ducked just in time to save his ribs, while the spheroid, spinning off the wicket-keeper's fingers, struck a coconut trunk and ricocheted into a bunch of bananas, motu and roboki completing four swift dashes up and down their coral path before it was returned. the second ball came straight for the wicket, and though it fell dead from mauga's bat almost at his feet, the nimble runners, like two dark spectres, again changed ends. eight more times they passed each other for the next three balls, only one of which was touched by the batsman, and when, on the last ball of the "over," mauga stepped forward and laced out a screaming drive high above the council house and into the bay, the pago pago sympathizers fairly went wild with excitement. while a lithe-limbed fauga-sa fielder went darting like a seal through the water after the ball, motu and roboki, their every nerve and muscle strained to its utmost, were piling up the runs for pago pago. [illustration: "chief mauga squared away to face the bowling of chief malatoba"] [illustration: to-a, who made the best score for pago pago, facing the bowler (note his runner waiting, stick in hand, with foot raised)] seven times they had passed each other and turned and passed again, and the swimmer had only reached the ball and thrown it awkwardly to a team-mate close behind him. twice more the runners flashed by each other, and the ball was only at the shore. motu signalled for still another effort, and with canes outstretched the game fellows went racing, each toward his goal. half way up from the shore a fauga-sa fielder fumbled the ball, and all looked safe for the runners, when a fragment of coco husk caused roboki to turn his ankle just at the instant he was about to pass his partner, sending him plunging, head-on, into motu, both of them collapsing into a jumbled heap. the ball came on an instant later and both batsmen, through the failure of their runners, were declared out. motu and roboki recovered consciousness in the course of the next hour, but were of no further use to their team until the following day. out of deference to the feelings of their opponents, the fauga-sas omitted the dance customarily indulged in each time a batsman is put out, but when the next man to face the bowling popped up an easy ball and was caught in the slips, they made up for lost time. whirling and yelling like dervishes, they rushed into a solid phalanx formation, and then, with rhythmic clappings of hands and stampings of feet, made a circuit of the ground, finally to end up in front of the squatting ranks of the waiting batsmen of pago pago. here they continued their antics for a minute or two more, jocosely pointing out the fate of the man just disposed of as the fate which awaited the rest of his team. then they broke up and went to playing again. not in the least disheartened by so unpropitious a start, the pago pago batsmen began slamming the ball about at this juncture, and by dark, though only fifteen wickets had fallen, a total of runs had been put up, the largest half-day's score ever made in samoa. most of these runs were the result of long drives, which, though high in the air, were almost impossible to catch on account of the trees. only one man was clean bowled, most of the outs being due to balls which flew up from the bat and were caught by one of the horde that clustered at point. a local ground rule which held that a ball was fairly caught when intercepted rolling from a roof or dropping from a tree was responsible for the finish of several good batsmen. almost in the middle of the field was a large thatch-roofed house, oval in form, temporarily occupied by the scorers, the _taupo_ and her handmaidens, and the distinguished visitors. a solid circle of fielders ringed this house, and several men were retired on balls smartly caught as they cannoned from the springy thatch. perhaps the most amusing event of the afternoon was the disgrace brought upon himself by samau, son of chief malatoba, and the crack bat and fielder of the fauga-sas. samau was a dandified young blade with a great opinion of himself as a lady's man, who, because of his rather clever handling of a couple of long drives early in the game, had been giving himself airs and doing a deal of noisy boasting. just as the setting sun dipped behind the towering backbone of the island and a grateful coolness came creeping down with the shadows from the bosky hillsides, seuka, the pretty _taupo_ of pago pago, strolled out through the coconuts, and when near samau, threw up her lovely arms and hands in the expressive samoan gesture signifying a complete surrender of heart and soul. apparently no whit moved, the haughty youth only tossed his turkish towel-beturbaned head and proceeded to knock down with one hand a sizzling hot drive that came toward him headed for the beach. thus spurned, the artful seuka sank down for a space upon a nearby mat in an attitude suggestive of the profoundest grief, shortly, however, to return to the attack from a perch on the veranda of the little white mission church which stood in the middle of samau's territory. the proud youth tried valiantly for a while to stem the tide of his ebbing interest in the game, but the little lady seemed so palpably smitten with his charms that, out of the very softness of his heart, he finally edged over and, still keeping his eye fixed on the batsman, began to talk to her. soon seuka was observed holding something playfully behind her back and tantalizing the scornful samau by denying him a look. at last the unlucky fellow's curiosity got the better of him, and for one fatal moment he was seen to turn his back and begin to scuffle with the laughing coquette for the possession of the keepsake she was withholding. at the same instant the batsman smote the ball a ringing crack and sent it flying into the top of a tall coco palm above the church. from the palm the ball dropped to the roof of the mission, rolled to the veranda, and finally fell off almost upon the head of the frightened samau, who was standing gaping foolishly at the wildly gesticulating horde of his team mates who came bearing down upon him. it would have been an easy catch had he been attending to business, and as the full enormity of the crushed dandy's offence dawned upon him, he turned tail and ran for the bush, closely followed by a dozen irate fauga-sa men and a black and white cur. being the fastest man on his team, samau easily outdistanced the pursuit, but it was said that he stayed in the bush all night, and that he was only allowed to enter the game next day upon the solemn promise not to speak to another woman until his return to the home village. the second day the expected storm came on, and on that and the two following days there was a gale of wind and almost incessant rain. through it all the game went merrily on, and despite unfavourable conditions pago pago continued to add to its score until, when the last batsman was out on the fifth day, a total of , runs had been chalked up to its credit. by this time fine weather had set in again, but even with this in their favour it did not seem possible for the fauga-sas to equal the tremendous score that faced them. when twenty-three wickets went down the first day for a paltry three hundred runs the situation looked more hopeless than ever. things brightened up for a while on the second day when samau, the disgraced one, batted up a rattling eighty-two, fifteen of which were put up by his speedy runners during a diversion among the fielders caused by a nest of hornets which one of the batsman's swift drives had unexpectedly dislodged from a bread-fruit tree. after this the fauga-sa batting slumped off again, and the day closed with something in excess of seven hundred runs to the team's credit, and thirty-nine wickets down. the third day seventeen more wickets fell for fewer than three hundred runs, so that on the morning of the fourth day--the ninth of the match--the fag end of the fauga-sa batting faced a shortage of nearly four hundred runs. the first man to encounter the bowling on what proved to be the final day of the match was a youth called "johnny," a nickname which took its origin from the fact that its bearer had once been employed as a dishwasher in the galley of the american gunboat stationed in the harbour. he had been playing baseball with the yankee marines, and that this was his first game of cricket was evident when he squared away with his bat over his shoulder as though facing pitching instead of bowling. heedless of the redicule heaped upon him for his lack of "form," "johnny" calmly stepped out and slammed the first ball--which chanced to be a full pitch--over the tops of the highest palms and down into a running stream in the bottom of a little gully. down the stream it went, bobbing merrily on the way to the beach, and before it was recovered the swift-footed runners had traversed the course a dozen times. the second ball came at the batsman's feet, and the hockey-like sweep he made of it narrowly missed being caught by the bowler. the third ball struck away in front of him, and, stepping back, "johnny" smote it hard and true, straight into the house where sat the scorers, the visitors and the members of chief mauga's household. all scattered as they saw it coming, and the whizzing sphere had traversed nearly the whole distance to the further side of the house before it landed, dull and heavy, in the ribs of little oo-hee, the misshapen dwarf kept by mauga in the capacity of mascot and jester. oo-hee was stretched bawling on the mat, but the question of how hard he was hit was entirely lost sight of in the excitement surrounding the momentous import attaching to the fact that he had been hit at all. a dwarf is regarded with the same superstitious awe in samoa as in other parts of the world, and there, too, no better method is known of deflecting a current of bad luck than by touching the hump of a hunchback. but actually to bring down a hunchback with a cricket ball was a thing unprecedented. pago pago looked serious about it and fauga-sa began to take heart--surely something was going to happen! and something did happen, too, and that right speedily. "johnny" missed his fourth ball, and the fifth, just touching the butt of his bat, went hopping and spinning off along the ground like a wounded duck. some idea of such a resemblance must have been awakened in the active mind of the little black and white village cur, who, cocked up in the shade of a palm had been conducting a punitive expedition against a particularly aggravating flea, for he pounced on the ball with a glad yelp and began shaking it like a thing alive. no whit dampened in ardour by the failure of the object of his attack to fight back, the frisky canine kept valiantly at his task, and when the onrush of fielders seemed to threaten him with total annihilation, he began to dodge and skip about among them as though proud to be the centre of so much attention. but when he saw mauga, roaring with rage at the thought of the fauga-sa runners adding to their team's score at the rate of a run every three or four seconds, seize a cutlass and come charging down upon him, he realized that he had made a mistake. whereupon, therefore, he tucked his wisp of a tail between his legs and flew as the bee flies, straight for the bush, even forgetting, in his terror, to drop the ball. when mauga and the rest of his braves came back from a bootless chase, it was to be met with the disconcerting news that not another ball was to be found in the village. anxiously renewed inquiry, however, met with better reward, for one of the missionary's boys was found to have an old ball, still quite hard and round and in good condition in every respect, save for the fact that one side of it, in lieu of anything better to hand, had been patched with a piece of shark's hide. under ordinary conditions the pago pagos would not have thought of consenting to use such a ball, for the surface of dry shark's hide has all the roughness of a rasp combined with the sharpness of the nettle; but the game seemed nearly won, and it is not in the samoan nature to brook the postponement of a certain triumph if it can possibly be helped. fauga-sa was chalked up with twenty runs for the lost ball, and the game was started up again. gingerly settling the prickly sphere back in his fingers, the bowler delivered the sixth ball of "johnny's" over, and this the latter, swinging wildly, missed and was clean bowled. this lucky beginning filled the pago pagos with great elation, from which state they were rudely jostled a moment later when the next batsman drove a hot line ball which scoured out the palm of the hand of one of the swarm of cover-points and set him howling home to bind the wound with ti leaves. after that the fielders handled the dreaded ball as if it was a live coal, and though wickets kept falling from time to time, runs came fast between until, when the last fauga-sa man but one was out, the total of the team's runs was but four behind the aggregate of pago pago. the final batsman was an old man with weak eyes, who, after missing three balls, caught the fourth on the edge of his bat and shot it high up into the top of a towering coconut palm. like a swarm of wolves the pago pago fielders, with outstretched hands, crowded beneath the preciously-freighted fronds, and like the shuttles of a madly-driven loom the runners of fauga-sa darted back and forth. once, twice, thrice, four times--and finally--five times they go, and then one of the umpires waves his umbrella and announces that fauga-sa has won the game. [illustration: "whirling and yelling like dervishes they made a circuit of the ground"] [illustration: "a sinewy brown figure starts clambering up the tree"] but stay! a sinewy brown figure starts clambering up the tree. now he has reached the top, now grasped the ball with eager hand, and now he is back among his team-mates on the ground. and listen! what was that? the second umpire is speaking--he announces that pago pago wins the game. and which team really won the contest is a moot question to this day; but if ever you chance to go to the island of tutuila and desire to start a samoan "donnybrook," just mention, on an occasion when one or more stalwarts from both of these villages are within hearing of your voice, the last championship game that was ever played between the pago pago and fauga-sa teams. chapter xiv a visit to apia on the th of june we sailed from pago pago for apia, planning to return at the end of a week in order to be present at an official flag-raising which our patriotic friend, chief mauga, was preparing for. we found the breeze veering and uncertain as we beat out of the harbour late in the afternoon, but ample working room and the absence of strong currents in the entrance to this splendid bay made the direction of the wind of little moment. beyond the shelter of the harbour walls the waves, driven by an unusually heavy trade, were running tumultuously from the southeast in frothy hummocks of cotton wool. for a couple of miles, close-hauled, we stood straight out from the land, the yacht one moment burying her nose in a malignant curl of green, and the next tossing it skyward while a ton or two of solid water went bounding back along the deck and gurgled hoarsely out through the overworked scuppers. when the offing was sufficient sheets were slacked off and we headed down the coast on a broad reach, making good speed in spite of heavy rollings in the wrench of the quartering seas. the west blazed for a few moments as the sun went down, to be quickly quenched by a curtain of black cloud that was thrown across the heavens in a final shifting of the scenery for the most spectacular exhibition of marine pyrotechnics that is to be seen in the whole length and breadth of the seven seas--a june night assault by the pacific upon the "iron bound coast" of tutuila. the "iron bound coast" opens up beyond the first point west of the entrance to pago pago bay and runs up the island for a half-dozen miles or more, squarely across the path of advancing lines of seas that have been charging to the attack and gathering weight, impetus and arrogance in a thousand miles of unbroken rush before the scourges of the southeast trade. their repulse is sudden, sharp and decisive, and the beetle-browed, black-ribbed cliffs accomplish it without a change of expression. the waves have been beating their heads to pieces against these same frowning, impassive barriers for a million years, more or less, and yet they are never able to overcome their surprise, never stoical enough to hide their resentment, never capable of restraining their expostulations. and what floods of supplications, what varieties of protests they pour out! if you approach near enough, following the thundering crash against the cliff, they appeal to you from where they fall with sobs of anguish and groans of pain; if you gaze from afar they beckon you with high-flung distress flags of white foam, and if you pass in the darkness they signal their despair with ghostly bonfires of glowing spume and phantom rockets of phosphorescent spray. it was such a display that we were treated to on the night of the th of june, and under a fortunate combination of circumstances that made it especially impressive. the seas about the samoas are extraordinarily prolific of the animalculæ whose presence makes sea water phosphorescent, and in may and june occur their periods of greatest activity. that this night was moonless and heavily overcast made the conditions especially favourable. daylight and twilight had passed in swift transition, and the yacht was sailing in inky darkness as she rounded the point and opened up the iron bound coast. for a moment the darkness held, and through it the imminent loom of the island was only a blur of darker opacity against the starless void above. then a great splash of flame burst forth, and in an instant more the coast was picked out in lines of liquid fire, the reflections from which bathed the whole mountainside in fluttering waves of ghostly blue light. here a great sea struck and erupted like a volcano set-piece, spreading out fan-wise and falling back in lines of vivid light; there a big blow-hole exploded in thunderous geysers of flame, and close by a smaller vent projected, as from the nozzle of a hose, a slender, gleaming stream of liquid fire. in places, where the rock ribs of the cliff broke evenly, the flashes burst out in regular spurts of pale flame like those from the broadside of a warship, and again, where submerged rocks and crooked elbows threw one wave back upon another, there appeared great welters of green light that churned and bubbled and swirled like liquid lava. like the film of a biograph the vivid panorama of flame slipped past, and by nine o'clock the ridge of sail rock point had interposed and blotted out the last of it. beyond, the island broke into hollow, smooth-beached bays, where submerged reefs clipped the claws of the breakers and dissolved them in broad patches of faint luminosity before they reached the shore. at ten o'clock, in order not to reach apia before morning, jib and mainsail were taken in and the night run out under foresail and forestay-sail. the smooth, green hills of upolou were close at hand to the southwest at daybreak, and at seven o'clock, with jack hoisted for a pilot, we were off the entrance of apia harbour. the passage to the bay is broad and straight, but, as that port was german at the time, the taking of a pilot was compulsory. that functionary came out promptly in response to our signal, and a half hour later left the yacht at anchor a quarter of a mile off the beach and a hundred yards from where, a broken-backed frame of rusting steel, the wreck of the ill-fated german warship, _adler_, lay high up on the coral reef, just as it had been left by the waves in the great hurricane of . we heard from eye-witnesses the story of that hurricane when we went ashore in the afternoon; of how the powerful british _calliope_, cheered by the doomed sailors in the shrouds of the american ships, forced her way in the teeth of the storm out through the passage to safety; of the destruction of the _olga_ and _adler_ and _eber_, and _trenton_ and _vandalia_ and _nipsic_; of the frightful loss of life; of the heroism of the natives in risking their lives in the mountainous surf and treacherous back-wash to save their late enemies, and a hundred other things closely or remotely bearing on that remarkable disaster. told by men to whom the memory of the storm was still fresh and clear, with the theatre of the great tragedy opening before us, and countless souvenirs of one kind or another at hand to crystallize interest, the recitals were graphic in the extreme and made deep impression upon us of the _lurline_, who had also had some experience of the way of the sea in its harsher moods. at evening as we came down to the landing for our boat the commodore's gaze wandered from the great pile of riven steel on the reef to where the yacht, a slender sliver of silver, swung slowly to her anchor in the ebbing tide. at that moment the last rays of the setting sun, striking through the gaunt ribs of the _adler's_ sinister skeleton, threw a frame of black shadows across the water to rest for an instant in dark blotches on _lurline's_ snowy side and break the gleaming lines of her standing rigging into rows of detached bars floating in space. then the sun dipped behind the mountain and the outlines of reef and wreck and schooner began dimming under a veil of purple mist. "i don't go much on signs myself," said the commodore musingly as he seated himself in the stern-sheets of the waiting boat and took the yoke lines, "but i suppose there are a good many sailors who would worry about a coincidence like that. funny thing, too, that just as it happened i was trying to figure out what kind of a chance our poor little _lurline_, without steam or power of any description, would stand in a storm that could throw a ship like the _adler_ high and dry out of the water. and--hurricane season is coming on, you know--i'm still wondering a little, that's all." strangely enough, it was written that the question should, in a measure, be answered within the fortnight, though the demonstration, fortunately, was not to take place in a reef-encompassed harbour. the bay of apia, like that of papeete, is a typical south pacific harbour; an open roadstead on the leeward side of the island, with a reef cutting it off from the sea and giving good protection in ordinary weathers. the only reason that there have not been other great disasters like that of is because there has never again chanced to be so many large ships in the harbour when a hurricane came along. the hurricanes still blow up every now and then, and, just as in that historic storm, all the shipping that cannot go to sea goes ashore. the bottom of apia bay is almost as thickly littered with trading schooner wreckage as with pink coral. [illustration: _lurline_ at anchor in bay of apia, samoa (at the summit of the mountain in the background robert louis stevenson is buried)] [illustration: "the london missionary society steamer _john williams_ lay near us"] the town of apia, though picturesque--what south pacific village is not so?--has scarcely the fascinating charm of papeete with its crumbling sea-wall, its avenues of giant trees and its wealth of traditions. the business section of the town consists of a half mile straggle of galvanized iron stores following the line of the beach road, with numerous copra warehouses and several stubby piers breaking the sweep of the foreshore. the houses of the natives are scattered about through the cocotrees on the flat, while the european residences, bright blocks of white, dot the lower slopes of the mountain beyond. government house, cool, spacious, inviting, stands apart from the others in the midst of its well-kept grounds, and higher still, through rifts of the encompassing verdure, glimpses may be had of the broad porticos of villa vailima, the old home of robert louis stevenson, the loved _tusitala_ of the samoans. towering above vailima to the north is an abrupt-sided mountain, running up the slopes of which your glass reveals the scars of a roughly-graded path. straight up it goes, without zigzag or spiral, until it disappears in the mists about the cloud-wreathed summit. if there were poles, it might be the clearing for a telegraph line to a signal station; if it was broader, a firebreak. it is neither of these utilitarian things, however, but the pathway to a shrine. up that precarious flood-torn and creeper-hung foot-way was borne with tender care the man who understood and loved samoa and the samoans as no other has understood and loved them. you have discovered the path to stevenson's tomb, for up there where the shifting draperies of the clouds have blown back to show a dull blur of grey through the wall of green that fronts the skyline, is where the "sailor home from the sea" is lying on the spot that he chose for his final resting place. it is fitting that the way to a shrine should be a hard one, for to the man filled with the true passion of pilgrimage the pangs of the journey are a part of the reward for making it. the one who loves his stevenson and his south seas, will also love every stone upon which he stumbles, every creeper that rasps his cheek, every throb of his overworked heart, every ache in his racked muscles in that soul and body-trying climb to the summit of the mountain where the master sleeps. i had seen pilgrims of one kind or another stumbling on their way many times previous to that stormy afternoon that i climbed the heights behind vailima, but always without comprehending what it was that urged them forward. that day knowledge came, and when, in the year that followed, i met nepalese and burman plodding the dusty river road to buddh-gaya, or turk and arab trudging south from damascus on the last leg of the mecca hadj, it was to greet them with the sympathetic smile that said, "i, too, know why." of the great ones of the earth, only cecil john rhodes, looking forth "across the world he won-- the granite of the ancient north-- great spaces washed with sun," sleeps as appropriately surrounded as does stevenson. but _tusitala_--i have seen the tears start to the eyes of the great chiefs, mataafa and seumanu, at the mention of that name--has also the world he won at his feet, while on his tomb are words unparalleled in fitness by any epitaph ever graven, a verse as deathless as the fame of the gentle soul that sleeps beneath. stevenson's self-composed epitaph, read from a printed page, is an unblemished jewel of verse, no more; read from the bronze tablet of the tomb by the climber of the heights, to the requiems of the trade-wind in the trees and the mutter of the distant surf, it is as though breathed by the spirit of the master himself. "under the wide and starry sky dig the grave and let me lie. glad did i live and glad did i die, and i laid me down with a will. this be the verse you grave for me: 'here he lies where he longed to be-- home is the sailor, home from the sea, and the hunter home from the hill.'" as a colonial experiment german samoa--the islands of upolou, savaii, manono and apolima--was not a startling success. during the first four years of the militant teutonic government disaffection became rife among the natives, agricultural production fell off and trade languished. realizing that a change of policy was imperative, emperor william sent out to apia one of the most distinguished statesmen and scholars in the fatherland, dr. solf, a former member of the reichstag, and under his wise régime much of the lost ground was regained. as far as might be in a german colony, the new governor endeavoured to follow the plan so successfully adopted by the americans in tutuila, that of exercising a gentle supervision over the natives, directing them in matters of insular importance and leaving the chiefs supreme in village affairs. this policy--the only one that can ever be successful with the high-spirited, liberty-loving samoans--will be good as long as it lasts, but unfortunately it will take a man of no less breadth of character, humanity and imagination than dr. solf to maintain it, and such a governor is hardly likely to be forthcoming. as the administrator of actual colonies, germany's problem in her samoan possessions is a more difficult one than that of the united states, which only exercises a protectorate over tutuila and manua. with extensive copra and cacao plantations under exploitation, german subjects in samoa will never cease to chafe under the necessity of importing practically all of their labour from the solomons, new hebrides and other islands to the west, when there are thirty or forty thousand samoans close at hand who spend their days in dreaming and their nights in singing and dancing. of course, the samoans never have performed regular labour, and can never be brought to do so, a fact, however, which the energetic and industrious teuton finds it hard to understand. a governor of less force and breadth of vision than dr. solf will find it difficult to withstand the pressure of the planting interests for the inauguration of a policy that will, in some manner, make the samoan more productive. one does not need a lifetime of acquaintance with the samoan to know that the first step in this direction will mark the beginning of an era of discontent that nothing but a re-establishment of the broad, human régime of dr. solf can bring to an end. dr. solf was the governor of german samoa at the time of our visit to apia, and our meetings with him were among the pleasantest features of our stay. we found him all that our naval friends in tutuila had claimed, quite the biggest figure among south pacific executives, and it was with no surprise and much pleasure that we heard of his subsequent elevation to the post of colonial secretary, next to that of prime minister the most important portfolio in the gift of emperor william.[ ] outside of his political activities, dr. solf had long been prominent in german yachting circles, and on one of his calls aboard _lurline_ he appeared in the uniform of an officer of the kiel yacht club. an especially pleasing coincidence of our visit to apia was the arrival there, on the day following our own, of the auxiliary schooner yacht, _la carabine_, of melbourne, with her owner, sir rupert clark, and his brother, lieutenant ralph clark, r.n., aboard. sir rupert is the eldest son of the famous philanthropist, the late sir william clark, and in addition to being the richest man in the commonwealth and its most prominent racing figure, is also distinguished as being one of the only two australian baronets. his brother, lieutenant clark, for some years the navigating officer of the flagship of the british australian squadron, resigned his commission to sail _la carabine_ on the cruise on which she was then embarked. _la carabine_ we found to be a stoutly built schooner of fifty tons' register constructed in auckland especially for sailing in polynesia and micronesia. her heavy channels and running bowsprit marked her at once as british, while her stubby foremasts and huge lifeboats suggested the trader rather than the yacht. she was equipped with gasoline engines capable of driving her five knots an hour in a smooth sea. the yacht took her name from sir rupert's famous racer, _la carabine_, winner of the classic melbourne cup of a year or two previously. the clarks had already visited several ports in the tongan group, and from samoa were planning to cruise for some months among the wild and little-known islands of the new hebrides, solomons and new britain archipelagos. in many of these islands money has no value whatever, a contingency which had been provided against by stocking a barter room on _la carabine_ similar to those of the regular traders. here were carried prints, knives, guns, jewelry, tinned meats and tobacco, which were to be exchanged for pigs, fish, fowls and curios. nor was the matter of defence neglected. just forward of the house a swivel had been set in the deck and the installation completed to greet the first "cutting-out" party with a hail of bullets from a vicious-looking little maxim set thereon. the gun was served by an old man-of-war's man shipped with the crew for that purpose. we never heard whether or not occasion ever arose for its serious use. at any rate, as clark put it, the fact that so many labour schooners had been attacked recently made its presence "a comfort if not a necessity." a number of very pleasant affairs were arranged for the joint pleasure of the two yachting parties, especially enjoyable proving picnics at vailima and papa-seea, the sliding rock, teas on several of the large plantations and at the consulates, a dinner at government house, and a couple of _siva-sivas_ at chief seamanu-tafu's. the latter were directed by the chief's daughter, vau, the _taupo_ of apia, a young woman of fine face and figure and of considerable quickness of wit as well, if the manner in which she put our good friend clark to the blush one afternoon may be taken as a criterion. vau and her handmaidens were off to tea on _la carabine_, preliminary to a swimming party at papa-seea. governor solf, dr. clarence fahnstock, of the new york yacht club, on his way home from the tongas, and a couple of us from the _lurline_ were also present. the talk turned to the reforms, political, economic and industrial, lately instituted in new zealand. clark, in expatiating on the stringent prohibition laws in force in that colony, made the statement that a man once convicted of drunkenness in a new zealand hotel forfeited his right to register at any other hostelry in the country. upon hearing which vau looked up from the fashion supplement of a sydney illustrated weekly in which she had been engrossed and, with just enough twinkle in her dark eyes to belie the innocence of expression that sat upon the rest of her face, cooed sweetly, "so you have now to stay with frens, sir ruper', when you go nu-zelan?" and clark, the suave, the debonair, the cool-headed; clark, for years the endlessly-angled-for catch of two hemispheres; clark, who took the coveted melbourne cup without the flicker of an eyelash, blushed and stammered like a débutante in an effort to explain. finally, judging the temper of the company unpropitious, he gave up his ill-advised effort to save his reputation and took his revenge an hour later by pushing vau, with all her finery, over the brink of papa-seea. [illustration: maid of honour to the _taupo_ of apia] [illustration: a samoan sunset] the london missionary society steamer, _john williams_, came in and lay near us for a few days before we left apia. john williams was the pioneer missionary of the famous london society in the south pacific, and since his death in the early years of the last century at the hands of new hebridean natives every ship of that organization has borne his name. for more than fifty years these were schooners, and as each was piled up on a reef in turn, its name, with the number next in line affixed, was passed on to its successor. this continued until steamers finally supplanted schooners, when the serial system of nomenclature was dropped. the present _john williams_, the thirtieth or thereabouts, of the name, is a clyde-built steamer of something over , tons. it has unusually graceful lines and is able to do better than sixteen knots an hour if required. its principal duties are the provisioning of the mission stations scattered throughout the southwest pacific and the carrying on of a most lucrative trading business which the society--fighting the devil with fire--carries on in opposition to its arch enemies, the real traders. _john williams_ proved a most unsociable craft, sullenly refusing to meet any of the timidly tentative advances of either of the visiting yachts. the solemn, black-coated figures in the stern sheets of its boats would pass _la carabine_ and _lurline_ with averted eyes, evidently classifying us, with all the rest of the whites, as instruments of the world, the flesh and the devil sent to demoralize their work with the simple native. before leaving apia we discharged our chino-malayan cook, harrick siah, whom we had signed on at honolulu, shipping in his place one andrew clark, a jamaican mulatto. clark had married a samoan girl the week previously, only to have her elope the next day with the native missionary who performed the ceremony, taking with her the accumulated savings of the unlucky cook's last year of voyaging. being thus cast "on the beach," as they put it in the south seas, nothing was left for him but to ship again. now it chanced that siah, who was but five feet two in height, had been able to walk erect in the galley's five feet three of headroom, as had also his diminutive japanese predecessor; clark's five feet nine required something more than six inches of reefing to swing in the clear, and even then his head ran afoul of occasional hooks and pipes and other projections. the poor fellow stuck manfully to his job, but within a fortnight the reef-points of his neck became so firmly tied that, even after he had been an hour or two ashore, we would see him on the streets or in the market with hunched shoulders, drawn-in neck and a furtive look of fear in his shifting eyes. on june th we received word that chief mauga's flag-raising at pago pago, a function at which we had promised to endeavour to be present, had been scheduled for one o'clock of the th, in order that the officers and men of the _wheeling_, which was to sail that afternoon for bremerton, might participate. this necessitated our leaving on the th, just as we were getting comfortably settled down to a full enjoyment of hospitable apia. a whistling east wind on the starboard beam carried us out of the passage at a rattling gait, but only to come squarely ahead as we trimmed in for tutuila. all afternoon, against a rising wind and sea, we sailed in short tacks up the coast of upolou, and by nine p. m., with double reefs in mainsail and foresail, just managed to clear albatross rock, five miles east of the windward end of the island. at daybreak tutuila showed dimly, a point forward of the port beam. reefs were shaken out at eight o'clock, but the tiresome beating continued until we had doubled sail rock point at one-thirty. from there we made fair wind of it down the coast and into the harbour. when the anchor was let go at four o'clock mauga's "stars and stripes" had been flapping in the breeze for close to three hours, and the _wheeling_, with a -foot "homeward bound" pennant streaming from her main, had just cast off her mooring lines and was backing into the stream. [ ] i have left the three preceding paragraphs as originally written. the presence of a man of dr. solf's outstanding ability in such comparatively unimportant possessions as the german samoas has always been a good deal of a puzzle to me, though a possible reason for it was suggested by a remark dropped by frederick william, the late crown prince, whom i met in the course of his visit to india in the autumn of . "perhaps apia is not so unimportant to us as you may think," he blurted out impatiently when i told him it had always seemed strange to me that germany had kept a man of cabinet calibre (solf had recently been recalled to berlin to become colonial secretary) for a decade in a colony which appeared to have but the slightest of political and commercial prospects. "or, at least, we are hopeful of developing a considerable trade there in time," he added somewhat confusedly, as though his first hasty words might have implied more than he intended. but there is little doubt that that inadvertent implication pointed to the truth. the samoas, at the crossroads of the southern seas, may well have been intended to become the seat of the german pacific insular empire when _deutschland ueber alles_ had become an accomplished fact in the rest of the world. it is easy to understand how the junkers of the pan-german party may have deemed the blazing the way for such a consummation a task not too small for the powers of the suave and diplomatic solf. the latter's broad humanitarianism (in which i have never ceased to believe) can have had nothing to do with his appointment. he was the only german colonial official i ever met who appeared to have anything approaching the interest in the welfare of the native population under him which one expects as a matter of course in the briton or american occupying a similar position. dr. solf's later record will be readily recalled. holding one or another cabinet portfolios during all of the war, he was foreign minister at the time of the signing of the armistice. at the present moment he is being prominently mentioned as the first after-the-war ambassador to washington. i can think of no one of his countrymen so likely to fill acceptably what at best must be an incalculably trying post. l. r. f. chapter xv kava and the siva the principal difference between the dance in samoa and in the other island groups of the south pacific is that in the former it is an institution and in the latter--in recent times--an incidental. in years gone by the dance was an integral part of the life of every south sea people, but through missionary and governmental influence it has practically been killed everywhere but in the samoas. that the missionary alone could never have accomplished this the instance of these islands shows, for while the missionary's influence is no less potent there than in a number of other groups, the dance has survived his active opposition through the fact that the american government has not put its official bans upon it, as have the british in fiji and the french in the societies and marquesas. the _siva_ is as much a part of samoan life today as it was in the time of la perouse and the first missionaries, and as one of the few unaltered survivals of ancient times it is sincerely to be hoped that it will remain so. as i have pointed out in writing of the dance in tahiti, it is only on the rarest of occasions that one may see anything approaching the "real" _hula_ in that island, and this is also true of the ancient dances of hawaii, the marquesas, tongas, fijis and all of the other south sea islands. this is partly due to their having been repressed as immoral, and partly to the fact that, as the years go by, there are fewer and fewer natives who can perform the intricate movements of the old dances. in samoa, however, there is no evidence of the decadence of this traditional adjunct of native expression, though certain of the grosser features of the _siva_ are no longer seen except in out-of-the-way interior villages. this is just as well, perhaps, for it is these particular features of the dance that have brought it into disrepute in other south sea groups and ultimately resulted in governmental interference. it is these so-called indecent movements of the _siva_ upon which the samoan missionaries have based their opposition to their dance, and through their gradual elimination at a time that a gradual broadening of the missionary mind is also apparent, it is not impossible that a still beautiful and uncommercialized siva may yet exist peacefully in the islands by the side of those who have hitherto steadfastly endeavoured to extirpate it as a thing accursed. the interesting thing about the _siva_--and this is also true of the samoan himself--is that it is as it always was. certain movements may not be danced in certain villages out of deference to the feelings of the missionary or because the native himself has modified his ideas respecting their propriety, but, by and large through the islands, the _siva-siva_ remains as it has ever been, perhaps the most beautiful and perfect interpretative dance given to the world by any race in history. the visitor who is entertained by a chief of tutuila, upolou or savaii with _kava_ drinking and a _siva-siva_ may know that it was not in materially different fashion that, a century and a quarter ago, the samoans of that time received the officers of the _astrolabe_ and _boussle_ in the great round of feasting which preceded the unfortunate events leading up to the tragedy of massacre bay. the public offering of the women to the god-like visitors on this occasion was a thing without parallel, perhaps, in modern history, but except in that one particular the samoan _kava_ and dancing ceremonies for distinguished visitors has probably undergone no change whatever. it is impossible to write of the _siva_ without mentioning _kava_, and as the drinking of this almost distinctively samoan beverage is an invariable prelude to every dance, reception, parley or any native gathering of whatever character, it may be in order here to tell something of what it is and of how it is prepared and partaken. the _kava_ plant belongs to the pepper family. it is bushy in appearance, and the leaves, dark green and heart-shaped, are about the size of one's two hands. the stems are knotted and crooked, with joints every two or three inches. the plant is useful only between its third and fifth years, the wood being too pulpy before that time, and afterwards, too pithy and tasteless. both stems and root are used in the preparation of the beverage, these being cut into lengths of three or four inches and split longitudinally to secure even drying in the sun. properly prepared, it is light and pithy and of a whitish colour. the _kava_ plant grows in nearly every island of the south pacific, and two or three generations ago the beverage from it was in universal use throughout those latitudes. today it is only drunk by the samoans and here and there in fiji. why it should have fallen into disuse elsewhere is not entirely clear, for except in endeavouring to discourage the preparation of the root by the old method of chewing, neither officials nor missionaries have actively opposed _kava_ drinking. the fact that the use of _kava_ has ceased most completely in those groups in which, like the marquesas, societies and hawaiias, the natives have become strongly addicted to the use of alcoholic stimulants, either of their own or foreign manufacture, would point to the growing use of the latter as the probable reason for the loss of taste for the former. although the fijian native is far from being a teetotaler, the unusual power of the missionary in that group has undoubtedly prevented him from giving himself up to the toddy habit as completely as have his cousins of the marquesas and societies. the samoan drinks less, and seems to care less for alcoholic stimulants than any other south sea native, but whether this is due to the universal use of _kava_, or whether the universal use of _kava_ is due to the fact that the toddy habit has never attained a foothold in his island, would be hard to say. the fact remains that the samoan is a keen, clean liver, and that his _kava_, if it has not been an actual factor in developing his splendid physical powers, at least has been responsible for nothing comparable to the mental and moral havoc wrought by the insidious toddy in the other islands. although the samoan drinks _kava_ on any and all occasions that he can get some one to make it for him, yet the special function of that beverage is ceremonial. it figures in all formal gatherings, but is, perhaps, most indispensable to the reception of guests, on which occasions the prescribed ceremonial procedure varies no whit in the houses of the highest and the lowest. the moment the visitors to a native house are seated, the guest of highest rank, or the one whom it is desired especially to honour, is presented with three or four pieces of dried kava. these he perfunctorily inspects, pronounces prime, and tosses to the _taupo_--the official virgin of the village whose duty it is to look after the entertainment of strangers--who forthwith commences the preparation of the drink. it is at this point in the original _kava_ ceremony that the _taupo_ proceeded to masticate the bits of root and stem to a proper consistency to be dissolved in water, but this part of the "recipe" is no longer followed amongst the enlightened natives of the coastal villages, to whom the risks of spreading infection by such a practice have been thoroughly brought home. it is customary now to grind the root to a powder between two flat stones, although on two or three occasions i have seen ordinary perforated graters used. when thoroughly reduced, the pulverized root is thrown into the _kava_ bowl and covered with cold water from a calabash which is held ready by one of the handmaidens. the _kava_ bowl is an important factor in the ceremony. it is hewn from a single piece of wood, and is usually between eighteen inches and three feet in diameter and from three to five inches deep. it preserves its equilibrium with the aid of a periphery of legs running around the outside, these varying in number from four on a small bowl belonging to a person of no especial consequence to ten on the bowl of a chief. they are made on the island of savaii, there being no trees of a suitable nature on any of the other islands of the group. just as a pipe gathers "colour" from smoking, so does a _kava_ bowl accumulate a rich layer of golden enamel through frequent use. a deeply enameled bowl, on account of the traditions associated with it, is almost priceless. the true _kava_ bowl is severely plain and unornamented; a carved or "beaded" border is a sure sign of manufacture for the tourist trade. when there is sufficient water in the bowl to make enough drink for all present, the _taupo_ dips in with both hands and begins squeezing the ground _kava_ through her fingers in order that all of the strength will pass into solution. this operation continues until the floating particles are tasteless when dabbed on the tip of the tongue of the _taupo_, who then proceeds with the straining. this is accomplished with the aid of a sheaf of fibre from the inner bark of the hibiscus tree, called a _fau_. this contrivance, which is very similar in form to that invaluable aid-to-beauty called a "switch," though somewhat complicated to manipulate, seems to accomplish its purpose very thoroughly. the fibres are swept around the surface of the liquid in the bowl and brought down from all sides at once to a bunch at the deepest point, where it is folded over onto itself in such a manner as to gather and hold all of the root particles with which it comes in contact. after the liquid is squeezed back into the bowl, the _fau_ is passed by the _taupo_ to an attendant who shakes out the fibre with a single quick flirt under a raised coco-leaf curtain. three or four repetitions of this operation clear the liquid in the bowl, and after giving the _fau_ a final shake--a sinuous spiral swish above her head--the _taupo_ casts it aside and informs the host that the _kava_ is ready. upon this announcement the host passes the news on to the guests by striking the palms of his hands together with a long stiff-armed swing. this is at once taken up by every one in the house, and for a few moments there is a round of dignified and somewhat perfunctory clapping. then the _tulafele_ or "talking chief," who acts as a sort of toast-master, launches into a flowery speech extolling the virtues of the guests, which he concludes by calling for an _epu_ of _kava_ for the visitor first in rank. the _epu_, a cup made of the half of a coconut shell, is then held over the bowl by the head handmaiden, whose duty it is to act as cup-bearer. the _taupo_ takes up the _fau_ with another flourish, sops it into the _kava_ and squeezes out the saturated fibres over the waiting _epu_. holding this head high, the bearer advances across the mats to the personage designated by the _tulafele_ and puts it, with a scooping gesture, into his hand. as the proffered cup is accepted, she steps backward to her original station beside the _taupo_. the guest, on receiving the _kava_, bows to the chief and other dignitaries, and, with the word "_man'uia_,"--the equivalent of "to your health"--drinks it at a single draught. the _epu_ is then returned to the bearer by spinning it across the mat to her feet. the _tulafele_ now calls the name of the guest next in rank, and the ceremony is repeated, this continuing until all have been served. there are no "second helpings." the genealogy and rank of all samoans are so well known that, amongst themselves, there is no question in determining the order of precedence in drinking. with foreigners present, however, the matter of rank is a complicated one. unless a native of supreme rank, like maatafa of apia, who was nearer our idea of a king than any other samoan, is to be served, it is customary to offer the first drink of _kava_ to the most distinguished of the visitors, the next to the highest chief, the next to the second most important visitor, and so by alternation. when the almost sacred mataafa was present, however, etiquette required that he be served first, and always from his own special _epu_, out of which no other was ever allowed to drink. the hitting off of the correct order of foreign visitors, especially where several different nationalities are present, is a trying task for the _tulafale_, and, except on very formal occasions where inquiry is made beforehand, many amusing "reversals" occur. several times, probably because i happened to bulk somewhat more largely against the sky-line--the samoan, unless he stops to think, is almost sure to place brawn before brain--i was presented with the initial _epu_ of _kava_ in advance of the commodore, and at one informal little party the both of us were passed over in favour of our gigantic bo'sun, gus, who, with the easy, indolent assurance of the viking from whom he was descended, was leaning against the post of the house, a passive spectator. on this, as on all other occasions, however, the commodore and i had the consolation of being served before the mater and claribel. the samoan is not exactly a turk in the matter of women, but he takes care that they never stand in his own light. the _tulafale_ never calls a guest by his name in designating him for a drink of _kava_, but by some euphemistic appellation that is intended to be, and usually is, complimentary. the commodore was always some variation of "the great one who comes in his own ship." the mater was usually something akin to "the bright new moon of the great one," but once, when we brought her in to a _talolo_ at apia after a stormy passage from tutuila, she displayed so much individuality as to inspire the observant _tulafale_ to bestow a title all her own. "take the _kava_ to 'the beautiful one who is sad because of the rocking of the boat,'" ordered that autocrat of the _epu_, the translation of which so tickled the risibilities of the ever-resilient mater that the look of sadness passed and the title lost its point forthwith. claribel drew down an assorted lot of titles, among them being "the watchful one," "the white _taupo_" and, one day when she was wearing her _pince nez_, "the four-eyed one." whenever the commodore was present--except on the two or three occasions when they mixed us up and served me first--i was always hailed as some kind of satellite of the "great one." when appearing independently i was served under a number of nondescript titles, the most notable among which was one bestowed at a small village on the leeward side of tutuila which i visited with my friend, judge gurr. the first cup on this occasion was presented to the judge, the second to the village chief, and as the third was filled the single magic word, "tusitala!" fell from the lips of the "master of ceremonies." "a cup to the memory of the beloved stevenson!" i told myself, a possible explanation of which flashed to my mind with the dawning recollection that the village, fauga-sa, under a slightly altered name, had figured as the scene of one of the novelist's best stories. athrill with interest, i waited expectantly, keen on missing no detail of the pretty observance, when, lo!--the brown hebe of the _kava_ cup came mincing across the mat and, with a sweep and flourish of her graceful arm, held the _epu_ poised in front of my vacantly grinning face. '"what's this for? do they take me for a reincarnation of stevenson?" i cried excitedly to the judge, quite forgetting in the excitement of the moment what the etiquette of the occasion demanded. "drink the _kava_!" he admonished in an anxious undertone, not a little embarrassed by so flagrant a _faux pas_ on the part of one for whom he was standing sponsor; "i'll explain in a moment." i drained the coco shell of its spicy contents at a gulp, twirled it back to the _taupo_, and, as the latter began filling it for the next drink, turned inquiringly to my companion. "no, they didn't confuse you with stevenson," said the judge dryly. "i merely explained to the _tulafale_, when he asked, that you were a scribbler of sorts, and because the nearest equivalent to that in the samoan language is a 'teller of tales,' he hailed you as _tusitala_ when your turn for the _kava_ arrived." * * * * * every samoan child begins to practise some of the simpler _sivas_ as soon as it is old enough to notice what is going on about it, and although only the _taupos_ and their maids are schooled in the more intricate movements of the dance, the girls of almost any household can furnish a very diverting evening's entertainment on a moment's notice. for these to refuse to dance for a stranger, even a passing wayfarer who has dropped in for an hour's rest, would be as bad as refusing him a drink of _kava_, and that is unthinkable. _kava_ and the _siva_ are the samoans' symbols of hospitality, from the lowest to the highest. the beautiful symmetry of development which characterizes all samoan girls--and especially the _taupos_--is due to the fact that their only exercises are dancing, walking, swimming and paddling, in all of which the muscles are used in long, easy, sweeping movements. in no samoan dance is there anything comparable to the stiff-muscled toe-work and the frozen posturing of the modern french ballet, nor yet anything similar to the frenzied acrobatics of the russian. there is abandon at times--reeling, rollicking, riotous abandon--but the motion of it flows and undulates and ripples in fluent rhythm like the current of a swift but unbroken river rapid. who has not seen the _siva_ has not realized the full meaning of the expressions "poetry of motion" and "enchantment of gesture." the grace of it is so complete, so perfect, so satisfying, that one cannot but feel that the samoan, having failed to develop the arts of painting and sculpture, has concentrated all of his being in expressing his soul through his body. the _siva_ is natural because it expresses things that are natural. the heave of the sea, the rush of the surf, the rocking of a canoe, the swaying of the trees, the ripple of a stream, the movements of swimming and paddling and the ecstasies of love, all of which are reflected in the _siva_, are things of the dancers' daily life. the gyrations of the _première danseuse_ on the tips of her toes suggests nothing of heaven or earth, but because the samoan has taken his inspiration from himself and his surroundings, his dances are beautiful and normal. and as the dance, so the dancer. because the movements of the _siva_ are natural, the body of the _taupo_ is natural. she is one fluent ripple of lithe flexibility from toe-tip to finger-tip, with no suggestions of the knotted muscles which disfigure the back and legs of a ballet dancer. on the occasion of great feasts or celebrations, where large crowds are present, it is customary to dance the _siva_ out-of-doors and in the daytime. the performers at such times are usually numerous and as spectacles the dances are, perhaps, more striking than the in-door _sivas_. this does not compensate, however, for the fact that most of the seductive charm of movement is lost in the glare of the sunlight, for what in the flickering torch or lamp-light is subtle allurement, in the daytime becomes bald suggestion. to catch the spirit of the _siva_, then, one should see it by torchlight or moonlight, or in a blending of them both. on formal occasions the _siva_ is danced at the conclusion of the _kava_ ceremony. at these times there is usually a battery of deep-toned wooden drums provided, and to the pulsing throb of these and the sounding slaps of open palms upon bare thighs, the _siva_ begins. the opening number is almost invariably a "sitting-down" dance, which is led by the _taupo_ with a flanking of three or four of her maids on either side. for the first few moments it strikes you only as queer, the odd posturing of the garlanded, cross-legged figures, with their weavings and inter-weavings of arms and the rhythmic writhings of the glistening brown bodies. but presently it is as though the pulse of your being is beginning to beat to the throb of the drumming, and there comes a feeling of having breathed the seductive atmosphere of oil-steeped gardenia blossoms since the dawn of time. unconsciously your hands begin striking upon your not unresponsive duck-clad thighs in unison with the blows of your neighbours, instinctively you try to blend your tremulous hum with their chesty chanting, and presently you have caught the spirit of the _siva_, and begin to yield yourself to, then to delight in, and finally to exult in its subtle seductions. then you realize that every muscle, every fibre, every nerve, every drop of blood in the gleaming red-bronze figure in the penumbra of the lamp glow is dancing. then you know that the pirouette of that shapely chorus lady who entranced you so that last night at the winter garden was only a kick, a thrusting out of a snugly-stockinged, well-turned calf. but here where a member is moved it is dancing on its own account as it goes; there is motion within motion, and still more motion within that motion. those gently swaying knees are only beating time to the throb of the drums, but in that rippling run of plastic muscles beneath the glistening skin there is a message that not the sprightliest and plumpest of broadway favourites could kick across the foot-lights in a whole evening. but the "sitting" _sivas_ are essentially dances of the arms; and never were seen such arms as in samoa. plump without being fat, muscled without being muscular, all contour, softness and dimples, no fitter or fairer instruments of physical expression were ever fashioned. the _taupo_ takes the lead and her motions are followed by the others as though reflected in mirrors. now the arms are fluttering out to one side like twin streamers whipping in the wind, now they are pressed close together along the side as though wielding a paddle, now they are upraised as in supplication, now opened in invitation, now thrown out in rebuff. the firmly-moulded breasts twinkle out and disappear again behind the swishing flower garlands and the froth of flying arms. [illustration: the sitting _sivas_ are essentially dances of the arms] [illustration: "never were seen such arms as in samoa"] the lamp glow flashes on the glistening undulant bodies, high-light and shadow playing hide-and-seek in the dimples of cheek and shoulder and bosom as they bend and sway to the drone of the drums. swift lances of light dart across thigh and shoulder, fluttering pennons of light streak down the tremulous arms, coruscant streamers of light shimmer along the lacquered leaves of the garlands. it is a poem of light and motion, the incarnation of a transcript from a volume of ancient verse. describe the _siva_! not till i've proved my right to attempt it by painting the lily and gilding refinéd gold. it is a perfect thing of its kind, and that is enough to know. so far as i know the samoans do not attempt anything in the way of mimetic dances on the elaborate scale of those i have described as "staged" in the ancient crater in tahiti. they do, however, have dances descriptive of harvesting coconuts, canoe races and swimming, while "duel" dances, in which the performers go through the motions of combat with native war knives, are features of nearly every _siva_. the samoan is no less ready than the tahitian to take advantage of the theatric effects at his disposal, and in the "standing" dances no _taupo_ ever fails to make the most of the allurement of flitting in and out of patches of moonlight or torchlight and piquing the interest of the audience by pretending to reveal more of her charms when sheltered by the translucent curtain of the shadows. my one most haunting memory of south sea dancing is of the "swimming" _siva_ as performed by a tantalizing minx of a _taupo_ in the ghostly half-light of a grotto on the leeward shore of tutuila. with a single native boy to act as guide and interpreter, i was proceeding by canoe and on foot from judge gurr's plantation at mala-toa to leone, on the opposite side of the island, to witness a game of native cricket. wet, cramped and tired from three hours of steady bailing with my camera case in a dilapidated "outrigger" which had threatened to disintegrate at every lurch, we landed late in the afternoon at a tiny hamlet near the west end of the island and sought the chief's house for rest and refreshment. adept in the art of reviving flagging warriors, an elderly dame--the duenna of the _taupo_--took my tired head in her motherly lap after the native custom, made a few passes along neck and shoulder muscles with her soft magnetic fingers, and i dropped off into a deep sleep which was not broken till a round of clapping announced that _kava_ was ready. i had heard of the magic of _loma-loma_ in hawaii, but this was my first opportunity to verify the claim that an hour of sleep induced by it was equal to an ordinary night's rest. feeling refreshed and fit but still drowsy, i called to tofa to put my things together and get ready to take the road to leone as soon as the _kava_ drinking was over, hoping by a prompt start to avoid being caught in the bush after nightfall. the boy heard, but did not move from his buddha-like pose against the rose-violet flare of the sunset. "fanua say that she will make swimmin' _siva-siva_ on beach by'n'by if you stop tonight," he remarked inconsequentially, with his eyes fixed dreamily where the distant peaks of upolou were thinning in the evening haze. "fanua ver' fine gal." "who's fanua?" i queried sleepily, beginning to drowse again as the magic fingers renewed their caressing pressure on my brow. "fanua _taupo_ this villige. ver' fine gal," tofa replied, with the suspicion of a smile lurking at the corners of his handsome month. my sleepy gaze wandered across to the mistress of the _kava_ bowl. surely that was not a "ver' fine gal," i told myself. i blinked and looked again. she was middle-aged and fat. then i rubbed my eyes hard and tried to recall where i had seen that broad, good-natured face before. ah--the duenna whose lap held my head when i dropped off to sleep! but how could that be when her lap was still under my head and her fingers stroking my temples? perhaps she had a twin. i gave my eyes a final dig and turned them upwards. a lady's lap is not the point of vantage that a connoisseur would choose from which to get the most favourable view of her face, but--yes, tofa undoubtedly was right. fanua was certainly a "ver' fine gal," quite the finest i had seen in all these "isles of fair women." "we will start for leone at sunrise," i directed tofa, and sat up and emptied the proffered _kava_ cup according to the dictates of samoan etiquette. it seems that the duty of _loma-loma_-ing the brows of tired wayfarers is a duty of the _taupo_ which takes precedence even of _kava_-making, so that on the arrival of the hastily-summoned fanua--i being then asleep--the transfer of laps was made, the duenna substituting as drink-mixer. we pooled the contents of my knapsack and the chiefly larder and dined sumptuously on canned salmon, breadfruit-_pate-de-foie-gras_ sandwiches, boiled taro, shrimps and bananas. this over, we smoked cigarettes--mine, all of a three-day supply--and when darkness had fallen, guided by a hunchback with a torch, set out for the dancing place by the sea. we did not stop on the smooth crescent of beach, as i had anticipated, but continued along to where it joined a cliffy promontory and gave way to a jumble of crags and rocks, against which dashed the full force of a tumultuous surf. the night was starry but moonless. by the light of the sputtering candle-nut brand in the hand of the dwarf and an occasional spurt of phosphorescence from a shattering wave, we followed the well-worn path up among the crags to where it seemed to come to an end at an opening in the rock scarcely larger than the man-hole of an underground conduit. the hollow mutter of the sea welled up from the cavernous depths, but without pausing the hunchback dropped confidently in, showering his knotted bronze shoulders with sparks in the quick descent. just long enough for me to clamber down beside him he held the torch, then sent it spinning, trailed by a comet-like wake of embers, over a ledge to be doused in the water which plashed below. in stygian darkness, i was listening to the soft thuds of the feet of my companions as, one by one, they dropped down from above, when suddenly there came a crash against the seaward side of the grotto, a swirling rush of phosphorescent water rushed in and, against the fluttering waves of blue-green light that played upon the rocky walls, appeared the lithe brown body of fanua weaving in the undulating sinuosities of the "swimming" _siva_. i had just time to note that the lovely little _taupo_, unadorned by official head-dress or garlands, was dancing only in a scant _lava-lava_ of _tappa_ which encircled her waist in a precarious fringe, when the light died down and the swimming _siva_ became for the moment a dusky silhouette against the jagged patch of star-studded purple which marked the seaward opening of the grotto. then a soft hand sought mine and i was led through the darkness to where a thick stack of smooth mats had been piled, upon which the members of our little party were beginning to settle at their ease. as i lounged back luxuriously upon the springy pandanus, tofa came wriggling in on one side to "make talk" for me, as he explained, while on the other gentle fingers--the mates of the guiding ones that still held my right hand in their unrelinquishing clasp--patted my cheek to soft and iterated murmurs of "_alofa oi_," "i like you." "tell the young lady on my right," i began to tofa--and then, all unheralded, the wonder befell. fanua was still swimming in graceful pantomime across the purple star-patch, when a crash louder than the previous one sounded against the outer wall and the mouth of the opening was blotted by the advancing wave. again came the flutters of tremulous light upon the dark walls, quickly to be followed by a deep-mouthed gurgling growl from immediately beneath the ledge on which we reclined. then there was a quick rush of damp air in the grotto, and, with a great "whouf!" a bright fountain of phosphorescent spray was projected from a small hole in the rocky floor immediately in front of the swaying _taupo_. evidently this phenomenon, which occurred only with the largest waves, had been awaited by both audience and dancer. rhythmic smiting of thighs began as the growls broke out below, and to this, and the beating of a drum improvised from a rolled mat, fanua leapt into the jet of spouting golden mist and, for the four or five seconds during which it played, lashed out in that climacteric movement of the swimming _siva_ in which the dancer is supposed to be riding the crest of a rushing comber. flailing arms and flying hair represented the eddying foam, while quick, jerking forward movements of the shoulders gave the suggestion of impulse to a body that never moved from the heart of the floating cloud of luminous mist. one supreme flutter of tremulous movement, rippling up from the toes and running out at the finger tips as a series of waves of motion pulse down a shaken rope, told that the swimmer had slid from her wave-crest to the waters of the still lagoon. the jet died down as the pressure from below was released by the receding wave, but the swaying body, lined with glittering runlets of pale phosphorescence, continued to vibrate in silhouette across the star-gleams shot from the patch of heavens beyond the grotto's seaward mouth. the jet of spray was due to the presence of a "blow-hole" in the grotto. under the ledge which we occupied was another cave--a cavern within a cavern--and when the latter was filled by the wash from a wave the compressed air forced a jet of spume up through the small vent opening into the main grotto. the unusual brightness of the luminous fountain was due, doubtless, partly to the darkness and partly to the fact that a heavy scum of phosphorescence had accumulated in the lower cavern. [illustration: fanua, who danced the swimming _siva_ by the light of the phosphorescent waves] [illustration: dancer with head knife] fanua reeled on through some of the quieter movements of the swimming _siva_ in the weird blue-green glow of the half-dozen waves that came before another one big enough to start the "blow-hole" spouting arrived again. as the latter gave its premonitory growl, the shadow of a second figure appeared beside her and tofa announced that "fanua now dance 'shark-he-chase-her' _siva-siva_." into the jet of golden mist launched "shark" and "swimmer" as the fountain began to play, weaving about each other in the movements of flight and pursuit. the "shark" darted and dashed and strove to seize, and the "swimmer" ducked and doubled and eluded, all within the circle of the drifting particles of glowing spray. under, over and around each other they floated like frightened gold-fish in a globe, arms, legs and bodies weaving evanescent webs of shimmering brightness but never seeming to touch. till the last luminous puff from the "blow-hole" they danced thus, and then, as the flickering jet died low, there came a ringing shriek, the lambent light streaks of the reeling bodies seemed to meet and mingle, and--whether by accident or intent i could not tell--went plunging over the ledge into the receding welter of light below. my gasp of consternation was not echoed by the rest of the company. most of them were laughing and chattering as though the "plunge to the depths" was the regular finale, and tofa seemed to think that his laconic comment of "he shark he take her," was all that the occasion called for. and so it proved. before another jet had spouted there came two soft thuds on the floor of the ledge, while a ripple of silvery laughter and a shower of dewy drops from a couple of vigorously shaken heads told that "shark" and "swimmer," having circled around through the surf to the beach and dropped down to the grotto through the back entrance, were waiting for the cavernous growl from beneath to sound the cue for the next number. * * * * * as in its sister dance, the _hula_, there always comes a stage in the _siva_ which is not subject to the restraining influence of the presence of dignitaries, where even impressionistic description must cease, so on this occasion i have deemed it meet that the "dead-line" should be drawn at the finale of the "shark-he-chase-her" number. i trust i have recorded enough, however, to make it clear that tofa's suggestion to stay over and see that "ver' fine gal," fanua, dance the swimming _siva_ was not an unwarranted one. chapter xvi pago pago to suva we sailed from pago pago for fiji on the afternoon of june th. just as the anchor had been catted and the yacht was filling away on her first tack a madly paddled canoe shot alongside and a letter was thrown aboard. it was addressed only to the "yotta," no individual being specified, and ran as follows: "_talofa. my love to you. please send me one bicycle._" it was signed by one of the handmaidens of seuka, the _taupo_ of pago pago. for a simple, direct appeal this struck me as coming pretty near the record, and it is a pleasure to relate that, six months later, it met with a deserved reward. there are several ways to reach it, but no smoother road to the south sea maiden's heart than the "bicycle path." as we stood in past the _adams_ a crowd of our native friends on the dock began singing the plaintive half samoan, half english farewell song, "_tuta-pai, mai feleni_"--("good-bye, my friend") and the oft repeated refrain, "o ai neppa will fa-get you," followed us till the yacht passed out of hearing around the point. the kindliest, handsomest and most amiable people in all the south pacific, these samoans. it was our hope to put up a new record for the samoa-fiji run, as we had done for that from the marquesas to tahiti, but the flukiness of the wind, which became apparent as soon as we were clear of the harbour, held out little promise of success. the air was abnormally clear and the sky, unusually deep and rich in colour, hardly flecked by a cloud. the sea, owing to the veering tendency of the wind, was light and even. the wind was blowing fitfully from its regular quarter, e.s.e., when we came out in the early afternoon, but shortly began coming in puffs from due east. then it blew slightly more southerly for a half hour, before hauling up to e.n.e., and so all afternoon, as a tide creeps foot by foot up a beach, it kept chopping around to the north. by dark it had worked on to n.n.w., and was blowing, not steadily, but in jerky puffs of ominous import. the sunset that evening was a sinister thing of red and black. the sun, glowing like a huge coal, dropped down behind the southwest end of tutuila just as the veering wind drove up a bank of sooty clouds from the lee of the island and began blowing it to pieces. the clouds tore up into inky strips, darkly opaque, like the bars of a grate, and between the bars, sullenly, murkily, hotly red, the unobscured sky glowed like the inside of a furnace. for the space of a minute, or two, or three, this held, with its magnified reflection upon the indolently heaving sea showing in alternate welts of glimmering purple and _sang du boeuf_; then a new flight of cloud hove up from the lee of the island and, as a closed door quenches the light of a furnace, hid the fire of the west behind its impenetrable pall. the mate characterized it politely to the ladies as an "angry sunset," and then went forward and alluded to it in mixed but forceful metaphor as "bloody murder swingin' on the hinges o' hell." an insufferably hot and stuffy night gave way to an equally unpleasant day. the sea was oily smooth, the sky overcast with a dull, translucent film of cloud, and the sun, heavily ringed, grew increasingly dimmer as the greyness thickened overhead. the run to noon from three p. m. of the th was an even hundred miles. the wind, still from the northwest, increased steadily as the afternoon lengthened, the yacht, under all-plain sail, driving along at close to nine knots an hour. about four o'clock, while still making fast time, she struck a large floating log--apparently a bread-fruit trunk--which gouged a long gash on her starboard side as she sped past it. the blow was a glancing one and nothing but the paint was damaged, though the consequences might have been really serious had the point of impact been twenty feet farther forward. the sun went out behind a horizon of dull, black mud, and through the greasy dusk that was settling over the sea the wind came pouring out of the west with constantly accelerating force. overhead, the clouds--mostly detached blotches of cumulo-nimbus--surged about in seeming aimlessness, those of the lower air scurrying away before the northwest wind that drove the yacht along, while, a couple of thousand feet or so higher, a counter current of great force from the southwest was ripping to pieces the vaporous masses of the upper heavens and stringing them out in long lines like the wake of a fleet of ferryboats. in the intermediate levels stray mavericks of cloud were pivoting about like prairie cattle milling in a blizzard. the sea, owing to the tendency of the wind to continue hauling westerly, was not running heavily as yet, but a barometer at . -- points drop in hours--and the ominous aspect of the heavens gave fair warning that it was not the explosive broadside of a passing squall that was to be encountered this time, but the sustained bombardment of a real storm. we were still a couple of months away from the so-called hurricane season, but hurricanes--like nuggets in the prospector's proverb--are where you find them, and it was on record that they had occurred in the southwest pacific every month of the year. at any rate, the time for preparation for weather of some kind was plainly at hand, beginning with an immediate and expeditious shortening of canvas. no halfway measures to tide over a few hours' blow were resorted to. the maintopmast staysail was taken in and the lower sail reduced to double-reefed foresail, triple-reefed mainsail and reefed and unbonneted forestay-sail. extra lashings were thrown on boats, water-butts, spars and other movables, and the skylights were closed and battened with planks to protect from waves that might break inboard. things were snugged up just in time, for at eight o'clock, to the accompaniment of a tenth more drop in the barometer, the storm broke fiercely in a heavy squall of rain; the next thirty-six hours were crowded full of education in the ways of a south pacific gale. the after leach of the foresail carried away at nine o'clock and for some minutes the flogging canvas played a lively game of crack-the-whip with the sailors who were trying to smother it. soon the effect of the wind began to show upon the sea, and all through the night the increasing force of the staggering blows upon the weather bow and the maxim-like rattle of driven spray upon the sails told of steadily mounting waves. rain kept pouring in heavy squalls, the fierce blasts serving to beat flat for brief spaces the rising swells, but only to release them to more furious onslaughts the moment the compressed-air buffers of the wind rolled on ahead. at midnight the barometer was down to . , after reading which the mate came on deck complaining that some one had knocked the bottom out of it. the yacht was behaving splendidly, and, except for the threat in the rapid falling of the barometer, our only serious worry was on account of the uncomfortable proximity of the extensive curacao reef and shoals. we were chopping along on a w.s.w. course, which, allowing for a reasonable leeway, we reckoned would carry us a good ten miles to the windward of the danger point. nevertheless, remembering our experience with bellinghausen island, a sharp watch was kept to leeward until morning. daylight broke from the southeast through an infernal cloud-shoal of copper and sulphur and tallow and olive upon a desolation of wallowing snow-capped mountain peaks. the wind, which the previous afternoon had been blowing with a force of less than " " in the beaufort scale, had held from the same quarter all night and was now hurtling down on us at near " ." seas, confounding in height, steep and sharp-crested, with hollow green sides and black, swollen bases, came charging down from the west in broken-ranked stampede. the yacht, under the scanty canvas still on her, was wonderfully buoyant, rising and falling to the waves like an empty biscuit tin, her comparatively short length giving her an advantage in recovering from a dive into the depths in time to meet the lift of the coming wave that would not have been shared by a larger ship. the decks were repeatedly swept by the last yard or two of a sharp crest that she could not quite surmount, but not once did she put her bowsprit into green water when she had not pulled up to an angle that allowed her to shake free from the ensuing deluge in time to meet the next wave. the leaps from hollows to crests, and from crests back to hollows, were positively appalling in the contrasts of the sudden transitions. up out of the fog of foam in the trough the yacht would stagger, and not until she stabbed the curling crest and began teetering undecidedly on the ridge would the wind that had been shrieking in the upper rigging have a chance to strike the hull. then it came all at once, a palpably solid block of air, and no man could stand against it on the open deck. an instant more, and it was as though the world was falling away beneath her, and down, down, down she would go until one stirred and glanced at his neighbour and set himself for the jar of the keel against the bottom of the sea. it was those age-long moments in the hollows, with half the weather sky and all the wind cut off, with the eyes blinded and the throat choked with spume, with the ears deafened with the thunderous volleys of the flapping sails, and in the heart the vague and ever-haunting dread that the next wave would be the one to break, the one against which the yacht's seaworthiness and the helmsman's cunning would alike be of no avail, that were the hardest to endure. the trough of the sea in a big storm is the nearest thing to primal chaos that can be experienced in this age of the world; only one must be in a small craft to get the full benefit of it. apropos of which it may be of interest to note here that at this very time, miles to the northeast, our friend mcgrath, the trader of nukahiva, who had been cast away from the marquesas some weeks previously, was fighting through this same storm in a thirty-foot open boat in a desperate effort to make the harbour of pago pago. the commodore had just come on deck at seven o'clock with the disconcerting news that the barometer was down to . and still falling, when the lookout threw a bombshell on his own account into the cockpit by a half-articulate, wind-choked hail to the effect that he had sighted land abeam to lee. no one said anything as the yacht began to climb the next wave, but "drifting on curacao reef" was written plain on every face; the angling slant of our quickly-quenched wake told only too plainly of the fearful leeway we were making. each clawing the salt dust from his eyes with one hand, clutching a shroud or halyard with the other, and bracing mightily against the wind, we waited for the view to open up to leeward as the schooner reached the ridge of the soaring sea up which she struggled, to behold with untold relief, not the imminent and unending line of great breakers on a coral reef which we had expected, but a black triangle of rock, fully twenty miles distant, standing sharp and clear as the cheop's pyramid against the grey sky. "boscawen island; barren rock, , feet high," quoted the commodore from the directory; to add, with renewed excitement, "but if that's boscawen island, then where in the name of--neptune--is the curacao reef and shoals?" then, his eyes turning to the windward horizon in a puzzled search as the yacht topped the next wave, "we must have drifted right across them if the chart is right!" we watched for an hour for the phantom reef with no result. there was little left to worry about on the score of danger, as we were well to the lee of the points dotted out as shoal on the chart, while in our own lee the sea stretched clear and open to boscawen and beyond; but the manner of the mystery of this piece of marine legerdemain was--or would have been at a time when there was less to think about--an absorbing problem. certain it was that our leeway was proving greater than our headway; also that, irrespective of the correctness of our reckoning of the day before, the yacht could not have reached the position she was in without drifting squarely across some portion of either the reef or shoal as they were charted. as sailing over the reef was impossible, and over the shoal, at least unknowingly, improbable, we were left to the conclusion that, notwithstanding the fact that neither is marked "p.d.," ("position doubtful,") both are incorrectly located on the chart. outside of the half-dozen archipelagoes most navigated, chart errors in the south pacific are by no means uncommon. at eleven o'clock in the forenoon, with the barometer at . , the wind, blowing more furiously than ever, hauled suddenly to s.s.w. at . the forestay-sail carried away, and, with every fresh blast threatening to strip off the remaining canvas, it did not take long to arrive at the conclusion that we were approaching, rather than getting away from, the centre of disturbance. whether we had a fully developed hurricane to contend with, or, as was quite possible, a "southwester" of unusual violence, we could not definitely determine. the sinister sky, the low barometer, and the action of the wind up to that time all said "hurricane"; the season, and the fact that the wind showed a tendency to continue from the fiji quarter, indicated the "southwester." assuming at the time, therefore, that we were boring into a hurricane whose centre was to the s.s.w., the commodore made up his mind to hurry away from that centre as expeditiously as possible. accordingly, after a new forestay-sail had, with considerable difficulty, been bent in the place of the one carried away, all the rest of the canvas was taken off the yacht and, under that sail alone, she was put on the port tack before the wind. all that afternoon _lurline_ ran like a frightened deer, with the waves, like hounds, coming up on her trail and snapping viciously at her flanks as they rushed by. time and again the helmsman, grinding the wheel hard up to keep her before the wind, would glance with the tail of his eye at a foam-splotched wall of green that blotted out the sky astern, to hunch his shoulders and grip his spokes the tighter, waiting with tensed muscles and set face the blow that menaced from above; time and again, yawing desperately as the tail of a galloping sea gave her nose a tweak, the yacht would seem on the point of broaching right under the hollow wall of the comber next in line; time and again--to lee on the windswept crests and to weather in the cross-gusts of the hollows--she would roll a rail deep under and dip up a deckful of solid water from which she could never quite clear herself before another came sousing aboard from the other side: and through it all nothing of serious moment happened. meanwhile active preparations for meeting the "worse to come" were underway. a storm trysail was dug out from the obscurity of a musty corner of the lazarette, spars were lashed up for a sea-anchor, bags of oakum were soaked with oil and the life-boats provisioned and watered. when there was nothing more to get ready some one looked at the barometer to find--this was about four in the afternoon--that it had risen twelve points since noon and was still displaying optimistic tendencies. as it was our intention to run only until the barometer began to rise, all hands were promptly set to bending a new foresail in the place of the one carried away the night before. when this was accomplished we hove her to on the port tack under foresail, close-reefed, and the forestay-sail that was already on her. after that, though the sea continued to increase for some hours, she rode out the night with her deck unswept by anything heavier than the driving spray. all night the barometer mounted until, at daybreak of the st, . was passed, a juncture at which it was deemed safe to resolve the unused sea-anchor into its component parts and stow the storm trysail and oil bags against another storm. the wind blew fiercely from the southwest all day, and not until midnight, when it began chopping around toward the east, did the sea show any signs of falling. then it began smoothing rapidly, and by daybreak the yacht very comfortably stood the addition of the close-reefed mainsail and jib. at noon of the nd reefs were shaken out and all-plain sail carried for the first time in four days. the barometer was by then up to . , while the wind, blowing steadily from the southeast, enabled us finally to get back on the fiji course of s.w. by w. the unclouded sky was a dome of cobalt again, and the sea, coldly green and laced with streaks of foam, a rolling plain of furrowed jade; but in spite of fair weather, the temperature of the air was away down to °, and the water but four degrees warmer. the sea, under the influence of the veering wind, continued to fall rapidly all afternoon. at six o'clock the lone rock of niuafou, the most northwesterly outpost of the fijis, appeared on the southern horizon, almost immediately to be swallowed up in the gathering dusk. by morning of the rd the wind was back in its regular quarter, e.s.e., but blowing so gently that the yacht, though carrying most of her light sails, could average no better than six or seven knots an hour. the run to noon was miles. the lookout caught the flash of the weilangilali light at three o'clock in the morning of the th, and by daylight we were well down the naniku passage into the fijis. the wind was light but steady, and the scores of small, low islands to windward, cutting the swell almost completely off, made splendid sailing. the flat horizon, unbroken save by the blur of an occasional island, was a welcome relief from the wave-crumpled skyline we had left behind in the open sea. the fijian archipelago is a veritable nest of reefs, large and small, and islands, both coral and volcanic, of every degree of magnitude. we picked up island after island during the day, and at night they still continued to push up ahead, grey banks of enchantment in the silver sea of the moonlight. two of the curious rocks that we passed in the course of the day, on account of their peculiar and distinctive outlines, are down on the chart as hat and cap island, respectively. this circumstance was responsible for the following laconic entry in the frivolous "ladies' log": "june th.--passing hat and cap islands caused quite a flutter in the bonnet of the forestay-sail." the th meridian was passed early in the afternoon of the th, upon which that day became immediately saturday, the th. this made the next day sunday, which fact poor clark, the cook, learned so tardily that it was by only the maddest of efforts that the indispensable "duff" was prepared in time for dinner. the trade-wind gave way to the cool land breeze from the big island of viti levu in the early morning of the th. this, fresh with a welcome earthy smell, coaxed the yacht gingerly along for several hours, only to die out toward noon and leave her becalmed fifteen miles off suva entrance. with every foot of sail spread to take advantage of the vagrant puffs of wind that were coming occasionally from the north, the yacht had shouldered along with the swells to within ten miles of the harbour, when the pilot, coming off in answer to our signal, boarded us to say that we might as well lower our sails and prepare to spend the night where we were. promising, in case the wind was blowing, to come off in the morning and take us in, he bade us an officious good-bye, clambered down into his boat and set his crew of convict rowers pulling back to the land. five minutes later the breeze freshened and the yacht, slipping swiftly through the smooth water, passed the pilot's boat and left it half a mile astern before we luffed up and waited for that thoroughly discomfited functionary to come alongside and climb aboard. an hour and a half later we had threaded the tortuous, buoy-marked passage through the reef and come to anchor a cable's length off the end of suva pier. chapter xvii in suva and mbau generally speaking, the islands, both coral and volcanic, lying east of the th meridian in the pacific are almost perfectly healthy, while those to the west of it incline to the breeding of a number of more or less virulent forms of malarial fevers, a circumstance principally due to the fact that the eastern islands, as a rule, have better natural drainage and are more exposed to the full sweep of the trade-wind. the big island of viti levu, the seat of british government in fiji, is not an exception to this rule. it is beautiful in spots, even attaining to real scenic grandeur among the high mountains of the interior; but its coast is a monotonous succession of intricate barrier reefs and mangrove swamps. suva is, perhaps, the best location available for a capital under the circumstances, but the town in the hands of almost any other nation than the british would be a fearful pest-hole. as it is, strict attention to drainage and sanitation has made it comparatively healthy, though to no such degree as any of the capitals east of the dividing meridian. fiji is the meeting and mingling point--the melting-pot--of the two diverse races of the eastern and western islands of the south pacific. while probably of the same ethnic origin, the race which inhabits the hawaiian, marquesan, society, tonga, friendly, samoan, and other groups of the eastern division of the south seas--the pure polynesian--is as different, mentally and physically, from the melanesian or papuan type of the new hebrides, solomons, new britains and new guinea as the mongolian is from the ethiopian. each race seems to reflect the physical environment in which it has been cradled. the polynesian--especially where he has been little subject to caucasian influence, as in samoa--is as bright, attractive and as fair to look upon as the islands of enchantment that give him birth. the melanesian--kinky-haired, black of skin, sullen and fierce of disposition--is the incarnation of the fever-haunted mangrove glades through which he leads his murderous forays. the fijian, in whose veins courses the blood of the two races, has certain of the physical and mental qualities of both. generally speaking, however, he seems to have bred truer to his sinister papuan forbears than to the lightsome polynesian. magnificent physical specimen, clever builder and brave warrior that he is, there is little in the fijian of the frank, kindly, open-heartedness which draws one so irresistibly under the spell of the pure polynesian. the enchantment and the glamour of the south seas--how often those words are on one's tongue in samoa and tahiti!--like their salubrity, are confined to the east of the "line of night and day." absorbingly interesting are the islands and the natives of the western groups, but their appeal is to the head, not to the heart. forty years ago the fijis were in a completer state of savagery than are the new hebrides and solomons today. every village was at war with its neighbour, the victims falling in the tribal fights invariably being eaten; war canoes were launched over human bodies as rollers, a man's skull was placed at the base of every post of a new temple, while a custom--not unlike the east indian one of _suttee_--was responsible for the strangling of all of a dead chief's widows to set their spirits free to accompany him on his journey. every party landing from foreign ships had been attacked from the time of the early navigators. among those thus set upon were a number of american sailors who were killed and eaten early in the last century, this incident being responsible for the visit of the first fijian to the united states, the hardened old cannibal, vendovi, who was brought by the corvette, _vincennes_, to hampton roads to stand trial for inciting the offence. most of the first missionaries who ventured into fiji also went into the cooking pots, and it was not until the early o's that the wesleyans, whose nerve must have equalled their faith, became sufficiently well established to get the ear of king thakambau. the conversion of this powerful ruler soon followed, the first and most important result of which being the ceding of the group--he had offered it to the united states in --to great britain. as a token of his fealty thakambau sent to queen victoria his favourite war club, hitherto, as he naïvely put it, "the only law in fiji." this club, with the monarch's great _kava_ bowl, is preserved in the british museum. the christianization and pacification of the fijis went on side by side, and within two decades there was a mission and a missionary in every village of the group, while a white man's life was as safe in the wilds of vita levu or taviuni as in sydney or london. for the last twenty years the end of the missionaries' endeavour has been to bring the somewhat precariously converted natives to a fuller comprehension of the meaning of christianity, while the government has built roads, established a large and efficient native police force and encouraged agriculture to such good effect that fiji ranks second only to hawaii among the pacific islands as a sugar producer and also figures extensively as an exporter of copra and fruit. [illustration: forty years ago the fijis were in a complete state of savagery] [illustration: a fijian head hunting canoe] the transformation of the fijis from cannibalism to a condition of peacefulness and prosperity has been one of the most striking achievements of its kind in the history of colonial endeavour. just how much of the credit is due to the missionary and how much to that other quiet, unassuming bearer of the "white man's burden," the british official, it would be hard to determine. popularly, on account of the spectacular nature of his early campaigns which culminated in the conversion of the terrible thakambau, the honours are given to the missionary, which, like most popular verdicts, is not quite fair. to the british colonial official--to any colonial official of the right stamp--the patient coaxing of the "new-caught sullen peoples, half-devil and half-child" out of the darkness of their "loved egyptian night" is all in the day's work. his maintenance in the field, however, is not dependent upon funds raised by subscription, as in the case of the missionary, and an appeal to popular sympathy is, therefore, unnecessary. for the missionary, to whom the awakening of interest in his successes means more money to carry on his work, publicity is only good business. it is for this reason that the missionary, rather than the no less deserving official, is associated in the popular mind with the reclamation of fiji. there is honour enough, and to spare, for both workers of the wonder which has been wrought; but it is meet that the quiet, earnest, intelligent efforts of the government official should not be overlooked. the fijian is too much of a polynesian to take kindly to work under the new régime, so that, with , or more of him sitting idly about in the shade of the coco palms, it has been necessary to bring the plantation labour from the new hebrides, solomons, new guinea and even british india. at first the blacks of the westerly islands, recruited by more or less responsible agents who induced them to contract to work for a term of years at so much a month, were the mainstay of the plantations, but for the last twenty years the industrious hindu coolie, indentured at a wage equivalent to from four to seven dollars a month, has been employed almost exclusively. the passing of the melanesian black on the plantations of fiji and australia marks the finish of one of the most picturesque, if also one of the cruelest, traffics in the history of the south pacific, that of "black-birding" or labour-recruiting. although the insular government makes a great point of maintaining all the ancient tribal observances in its relations with the fijians, not many of the old customs and ceremonies have survived. internecine wars are, of course, things of the past, and even when a fight is started up between a couple of mountain villages, it is the musket and not the war club that decides with which party the honours shall rest. the _meke-meke_ or dance--especially that of the women--has not had the vitality to survive the hostility of the missionaries, white and black, though on great occasions, such as the wedding of a chief or a reception to the governor, some of the ancient war measures are trod by a squad of men. it is a good deal as i heard the captain of a british cruiser on the australian station put it--"the fijian has altered scarcely less than the tahitian under his contact with the white man; only with the latter it has been a case of 'too much french official,' and with the former 'too much missionary.'" however, the fijian stood in need of a good deal of making over before his islands were safe for a white man to live in, and even if most of his picturesqueness departed with his deviltry, the balance is still on the right side of the ledger and in favour of the missionary. the fijian woman has neither the good looks, the good manners nor the good nature of her samoan or tahitian sister. her lack of amenity is largely due to the fact that her lord and master, in his treatment of her, is more of a papuan or african than a polynesian. such work as is done in the village--mostly fishing and a little crude cultivation--falls to the lot of the women, probably as a survival of the days when the men spent all of their waking hours engaging in or repelling forays. she is always kept in the background when visitors are present and, probably as a consequence of generations of restraint, has none of the natural graces of the woman of pure polynesian stock. the suppression of the fijian woman is especially remarkable in the light of the fact that, through some caprice of nature, males considerably outnumber females in the group, a condition which, in almost every other similar instance on record, has enhanced the power and prestige of the latter sex. why it has failed to do so in fiji is as unexplicable as the condition itself--the predominance in numbers of men in a group of islands which has been one of the worst hot-beds of internecine warfare the world has ever known. this excess of men in fiji--the fact that there are not enough women to "go round"--proved one of the most troublesome factors in the pacification of the islands, and in keeping them quiet once that pacification was accomplished. a young warrior without a wife, and with no prospect of getting one save in a foray, is the equal as an inciter of trouble of a deposed latin american president. such a one had no wife to lose in an intertribal war, while there was always a chance that he might emerge from such a struggle in full, if transient, possession of that supreme desideratum. the enlistment of many of these restless "left-overs" in the "a. n. c.," the armed native constabulary, has been the best expedient possible under the circumstances. a gun and uniform do not take the place of a wife, however (though, as has been proven, they often are the short cuts to getting one at the expense of some one else), and the problem is going to be a troublesome one until nature equalizes the disparity of sexes by increasing the birth rate of girls, or an interval of intertribal wars supervenes to cut down the excess of men. the fijians are less expert in the building and handling of boats than the samoans, the craft most favoured is of the catamaran type, consisting of two canoes joined by a platform, or occasionally, a single canoe with a platform built on the outrigger. these affairs, while comparatively seaworthy, are of little use for sailing and very difficult to paddle with any speed. the whaleboat, so common in samoa, is rarely seen in fiji. most of the interisland voyages are undertaken in clumsy sloops, though occasional runs with the wind are made with the primitive mat-sailed catamarans. * * * * * there is not much to please the eye about suva harbour, but it is deep and safe, and the loss of shipping there in hurricanes rarely proves so complete as in tahiti or samoa. the storm through which _lurline_ passed en voyage from samoa destroyed several houses in the town and wrought great damage on the outlying plantations, but the loss in the harbour was limited to a few carelessly-moored native sloops which were piled up on the beach. suva, both on land and water, is far better prepared than the island ports to the east to meet these heavy blows, nearly all of the houses being strongly guyed with steel cables, while numerous securely anchored buoys in the bay give shipping a fair chance to ride out the storms in safety. socially, suva is more developed than the french or other south pacific island capitals, and one dropping in for afternoon tea at the fiji club or government house might easily imagine himself in cape town, hongkong, colombo, or one of a dozen other outposts of the british empire. the briton's first move in colonization is to make his seat of government a bit of old england; to say that he has succeeded in suva means much, both as to the magnitude of the work accomplished as well as to the attractiveness of the life there. sir h. m. jackson, k.c.m.g., the governor of fiji, had left for his new post in trinidad shortly before our arrival in suva, the place being temporarily filled by the chief justice, sir charles major, by whom we were pleasantly entertained. colonel leslie brown, the american consular agent, proved a most agreeable gentleman, as did also his business partner, the honourable arthur joske, to both of whom we were indebted for much kindness. h.m.s. _clio_, captain wilkins, arrived in suva during our stay and proved good company for _lurline_. this smart little gunboat was in the south pacific on what appeared to be a sort of roving commission, the principal object of which seemed to be the blowing up of a troublesome rock that was somewhat indefinitely located off to the northeast. at one of our dinner parties captain wilkins challenged us to sail a cutter from _lurline_ against that of the _clio's_. the commodore promptly accepted, and the race was contested on the first of july. well handled by victor and gus, our boat secured a good lead on the run to the buoy at the outer reef, but in the beat home, owing to the faulty adjustment of a detachable keel borrowed from _clio_ for the occasion, made heavy leeway, lost all she had gained, and finished a poor second. i spent most of our stay in fiji on a visit to mbau, the ancient native capital, a guest of the distinguished roku kandavu levu. the trip by launch, horseback and canoe is a somewhat arduous one, but well worth the trouble, as this little island is one of the most picturesque and historic spots in the south pacific. it was here that the great king thakambau, who ceded the group to the british, made his headquarters, and the beautiful village still contains many evidences of its former greatness. thakambau's great war canoe, a huge double dugout over a hundred feet in length, its shattered sides carefully protected from the ravages of the elements by a regularly-renewed shed of palm leaves, is still religiously preserved on the leeward beach. it is this canoe which history records was, whenever possible, launched over live human bodies as rollers, one division of the king's army being kept continually on the foray to provide the wherewithal. the body of the king, who died in after enjoying an annual pension of fifteen hundred pounds for a decade or more, rests under a tall shaft of marble on the top of a hill in the centre of the little island and, not unfittingly, in the shade of the wesleyan mission church. [illustration: "_lurline's_ cutter finished a poor second"] [illustration: "thakambau's great war canoe, over a hundred feet in length, formerly launched over human bodies"] the roku kandavu levu, a most attractive young man whom i saw more of later in suva, left on a journey up the rewa on the evening of my arrival, but not, however, before telling the mbuli or headman to give me the "freedom of the city" and turning me over to a couple of young british madcaps, who had been his guests for a fortnight, with instructions to "keep the ball rolling." i could not have fallen into better hands. the honourable bertie w----, whom i have since learned has only one invalid brother between himself and the succession to a baronetcy, had been sent to the antipodes by his noble father because he had allowed the charms of a young lady of the gaiety chorus to interfere with his pursuit of knowledge at cambridge. a month of good behaviour in sydney was being rewarded by a tour of fiji, on which was officiating as cicerone young mr. tom b----, the son of a prominent attorney of suva, and a lad after the honourable bertie's own heart. these two spirited youngsters--both were under twenty--had started out from suva to "study native life at first hand" in the wilds of the interior of vita levu, but the roku kandavu levu, who could not let himself miss the chance for practice with two crack cricketers go by--he had been the best bat on the university of sydney eleven a few years previously--contrived to make his capital so pleasant for them that they had lost interest in the savages of the mountain country and settled down to pursue their investigations at mbau. everybody, it appeared, had been pleased with the arrangement but the missionary, who, because a large part of his congregation had stayed away from service to watch the honourable bertie illustrating the principles of ranjitsinji's famous "leg glance" for the benefit of the roku on the village green, had closed up the church and posted a notice in fijian upon the door that it would not be opened until the sabbath-breakers had left the island. the roku who, from his australian education, is a fairly open minded cynic himself, still hardly felt it desirable politically, as the ranking chief in fiji, to stir up trouble with the all-powerful missionaries. accordingly, torn between the exigencies of hospitality and his duty as the chief of a christianized people, the roku, dodging responsibility in flight, had departed on an "urgent" mission up the river, telling his guests to continue their "studies" as long as they desired and leaving word for the villagers not to let their love of sport interfere with their devotions. it was at the beginning of this "interregnum" that i arrived. the natives of mbau, probably as a result of the example set by their distinguished chief, are very fond of all kinds of outdoor sports, which fact inspired my young friends with the idea of holding a field day in which the white race should compete against the brown. the honour of the caucasian was to be upheld by bertie, tom and myself, while that of the polynesian would be maintained by a selection from all of the fijians on the island. most of the first day was spent arranging the program. the natives wanted a tug-of-war, but our captain, bertie, realizing that we lacked the "beef" for such a contest, agreed to its inclusion only in the event that the missionary--with whom south sea life had agreed so well that he weighed in the vicinity of pounds--could be induced to pull with us for the honour of his race. needless to say the event was not scheduled. we did the sporting thing, however, by offering to oppose an eleven made up of the island's best cricketers with a "team" composed of bertie, tom and myself. the other events decided upon were two swimming races, two sprints, one canoe race, shot-put, throwing the cricket ball, broad and high jumps, a "modified marathon" and three boxing contests. the second day we spent in practice and "elimination trials" to decide in which particular events each of us was best fitted to compete, as, except for the cricket, the finals were to be strictly "man-to-man" affairs. luckily, our respective abilities dove-tailed perfectly. tom was an adept at swimming and no novice in handling the outrigger canoe, while his splendid endurance made him a natural if inexperienced distance runner; bertie had given promise of developing into one of the fastest amateur sprinters in england before the gaiety girl supervened, and had recently bested some of the speediest men in australia at the "hundred" and "two-twenty"; my old varsity events, the shot-put and broad jump, and the remnants of a fair throwing arm, made me our logical representative in the remaining contests we had scheduled. each of us was slated to box in his respective class--bertie in the light-weight, tom in middle-weight, and i--because i weighed a "good fourteen stone and looked jolly fit"--in the heavy-weight. the elimination trials of the fijians were not so simple a matter. they fought and wrangled from morn till dewy eve and on into the moonlight in an earnest endeavour to pick the likeliest representatives to uphold the honour of their race. the final list was not handed to bertie till near midnight, and even then, as became apparent next day, was not quite complete. every soul on the island except the immediate members of the missionary's household was on the beach in the morning when the canoe race was started, and, what with beaten war drums and coal oil cans, gave an exhibition that would have made a varsity rooting section look like a quaker meeting when their man paddled across the line an easy winner. tom made a good fight but his opponent had too many generations of training behind him. bertie evened up things by sprinting the length of the village green a house-length ahead of his dusky opponent, and my victory in the broad jump gave us a temporary lead. in the high jump we were weak, and bertie, who had never essayed the event before, was no match for a slender fijian youth who had been to school in auckland. tom, who was really a marvel at the australian "crawl," had his revenge in the swimming race for his defeat in the outrigger contest, beating his man almost two to one in a dash of about a hundred yards across a bight in the sea-wall. the vanquished fijian, who had also been picked to swim in the race of half a mile or more to the mainland and back, was so crushed by the completeness of his defeat that he refused to compete again, the event being called off. in the shot-putting contest we used an old rust-eaten twenty-pound cannon ball which had been thrown into the village away back in the 's by a british gunboat on a punitive mission against the natives for killing and eating a family of missionaries. my opponent made up in strength what he lacked in "form," and by dint of following the shot out of the "ring" put up a mark which i was able to beat only by resorting to the same unorthodox expedient. bertie added to our score by romping to another easy victory in the sprint around an approximate -yard circle which had been marked with coconuts along the outside of the village green. the last event of the forenoon was the "modified marathon," to be run over a course once around the island, across the causeway to the mainland and back, and then around the island again to a finish in front of the council house, a distance of about three miles. we had counted on tom to win this event handily, but the fijians sprung a "ringer" on us by entering one lal singh, a lanky east indian coolie who was employed by the roku to carry messages back and forth between mbau and rewa. this human greyhound sprang away at the report of the pistol as though running a quarter, and had loped around the island and half way to the mainland before poor tom, winded already, staggered out upon the leeward beach. here bertie and i headed him off and took him out of the race to save his strength for the trials of the afternoon. the natives, appearing to figure the importance of a race in direct proportion to its length, beat their hollow-log drums and sang chesty, sonorous war chants all through the rest hour in celebration of this victory. while bertie was winning the cricket ball-throwing contest--a competition in which he substituted for me who had originally qualified for it--i essayed to give the fijians an exhibition of hammer-throwing, an event with which they were still unfamiliar. in the absence of a regulation hammer, a network of fibre was woven around the twenty-pound cannon ball, and into this mesh the end of a three-foot strand of coco-husk rope was fixed. this contrivance looked decidedly flimsy and, as presently transpired, did not belie its appearance. it held together for a couple of tentative tosses and even through the preliminary swings of a real throw; but when i whirled into the first circle of what was to have been a triple turn the fibrous mesh gave way and, while i did a double back somersault, the ponderous old missile went hurtling through the air and banged against the side of the great council house. the stout wall was not breached, but a muffled crash told of havoc among the tribal relics which adorned the interior. a few minutes later the mbuli, who with several of the elders had hurried to investigate, emerged with a baleful look on his face to announce that the great _yanggona_ bowl, out of the sacred depths of which _kava_ had been served even to the great thakambau himself, was split across the middle from a fall to the floor. the fijians appeared rather awed at the magnitude of the catastrophe, but the unquenchable bertie, after placing his "field" for the cricket match, called out to the mbuli to ask if it did not seem like old times to have the walls of mbau battered down by cannon balls. the one-inning cricket game was a caucasian walk-over. the dazzling work of tom and bertie, who alternated between bowling and wicket-keeping, retired man after man with a "goose-egg," and, in spite of the scant and inexperienced "field,"--myself--had the bewildered fijians all out for less than two score of runs. this total the versatile pair, batting in partnership, exceeded in less than a quarter of an hour. acknowledging that they were outclassed in cricket, the fijians now demanded that a game of soccer football be played upon the same terms--a full team of them to the three of us--and to this proposal the game bertie, displaying better sportsmanship than judgment, consented. of course, after a severe buffeting which left us all rather groggy and winded for the boxing contests, the fijians won. on any kind of a system of scoring we had a lead of three victories at this juncture, and should, therefore, only been liable to a tie by losing all of the three boxing contests. the natives, however, contending that the winning of the marathon was equal to a half-dozen ordinary events, insisted that they were at least on even terms with us. again our complaisant captain, pulling on his gloves for the first bout--the lightweight--waived the point and agreed to let the three boxing contests decide the day. five seconds later, guarding carelessly in backing away from a clinch, bertie left a wide opening, driving into which with a well-timed short-arm jolt, his stocky opponent landed on the point of the lad's chin and stretched him limp--a clean knockout--on the turf of the village green. tom, who boxed almost as well as he swam, rushed his man--the shifty youth who had defeated the honourable bertie in the high-jump--from the beat of the war-drum which was doing service as a gong, and had him so groggy at the end of a couple of minutes that the bewildered fellow started to slug one of his own fuzzy-headed seconds. he was led off to escape further useless punishment, leaving the issue of the day up to the heavyweight bout, with me as the "white hope." the ponderously-limbed goliath, whom the fijians led out like a blue-ribbon bull at a stock show at this juncture, had been kept out of sight all day, evidently through fear of awakening a protest on our part. he was one mass of hair and rolling muscles from head to heel and needed only a knotted war-club to complete the illusion of having stepped out of the stone age upon the green of mbau. "just such a cannibal as old thakambau must have had for a lord high executioner," i told myself, and shuddered at the thought. of course, i knew that he could not box; but it was also equally plain that nothing less than a charge of dynamite could have any effect upon his iron-ribbed frame. i stood regarding him with dismay as tom--they were still fanning the prostrate bertie with a taro leaf--began to tie on my gloves. "they've put up a game on us," he said quietly, trying to knead the padding away from over the knuckles of my left hand. "that chap's a hard nut, and they've brought him over from rewa just because bertie was telling them that you were the champion of america. it's a dirty trick, but it'll only start a row if we try to call the turn. go ahead as if nothing was wrong, but be sure and not try any in-fighting. then we'll at least get a draw out of it. i'll tell you about him later. now don't forget. _keep clear!_" it was with that sound injunction well in mind that i stepped out to where the glowering gorilla was waiting in the middle of the circle. for a few seconds we stared stupidly at each other, and then, because i was too nervous to stand still, i began dancing around my stolid opponent. he followed me with his eyes, owl fashion, not moving his huge, flat feet until i was almost behind him. "he's slower even than i thought," i told myself, and began to feel better. after prancing in a couple of circles without making my burly antagonist do more than mark time to keep me in eye-sweep, i plucked up courage and, stepping in quickly, drove for his prognathous jaw. without the flicker of an eyelash, he bent his great neck and took the blow in the depths of his woolly hair. hardly did he seem to need to brace himself, so completely was the force taken up in this natural shock-absorber. to sharp hooks in the ribs and upper abdomen he replied in the same passive way, ducking his head whether i led for the face or not. with a chest like the bulge of a steam boiler and three inches of corrugated iron muscles armouring his solar plexus, there was no need of guarding anything but his face, and this he did by the simple expedient of putting out his foot-deep shock of matted hair every time i made a feint in that direction. "the dolt is no more than a human punching-bag," i told myself; "but even a punching-bag has been known to break if hammered long enough," forthwith beginning to try the effect of persistent hammering. scored as a sparring contest, i would have won the decision by a hundred points to nil, for the stolid monster seemed perfectly content to let me circle around him and hit almost when and where i pleased. but we were fighting under fijian rules, which hold that the contest, undivided by rounds, shall continue until one of the parties is unwilling, or unable, to go on. now and then, when i would hook a stiff jolt in under the fringe of his mop to the side of the neck, he would wince a bit, but most of the time he simply stood with bowed head and set muscles and let me pound away. it may be that my blows lacked steam after my long day of unwonted exertion under the tropical sun, or it may be that the hulking frame, with its armour of knotted muscles, was damage-proof as long as the jaw was protected. one thing was certain, at any rate,--the only effect of my frenzied hammering was to tire myself out without discomfiting, or even, apparently, annoying my burly opponent in the least. "take it easy to sunset and we'll call it off for a draw," muttered tom behind me as i stepped back to get my breath after beating a sounding tattoo of right and left hooks in a vain effort to jar the armoured solar plexus of the cave man. it was sound advice and i should probably have followed it had not the honourable bertie--he had been brought to a few minutes previously and was just awakening to an interest in his surroundings--cut in with "don't quit. step in close and uppercut straight up for his face. remember you're the 'white hope.'" there certainly did seem room to slip one up between the dome of the swelling chest and the fringes of the hair-mop that would do some damage, provided one only went in close enough, and, without stopping to ponder the possible consequences, i stepped forward and drove a hard right uppercut, just as bertie had suggested. smash! my glove landed squarely in the middle of cave man's face, straightening him up with a jerk and offering the very opening for the jaw that i had awaited ever since the bout began. i was just starting a left hook of which i entertained high hopes, when, closely following the roar of pain and rage which signalized the landing of my right, something swift and terrific as a bolt of wrath came hurtling against my jaw, an explosion like the crack of doom rang in my ears, and--i came to some hours later to find a sedate-looking fijian lady in sombre black--the mbuli's wife--massaging my bruised face with one hand and holding a bible from which she was reading in the other. an austere-faced white woman, whom i thought i recognized as the missionary's wife, was renewing a turtle-steak poultice upon one of the honourable bertie's rainbow-coloured optics, while a fijian in a long coat and black _sulu_ was kneading out the cramp-knotted muscles in tom's overworked calves. the three of us were in the little mission hospital. "the reverend b---- and his wife have been working over you since sundown," said bertie thickly through a bandage. "in fact, they've been very kind to all of us in the matter of lending 'first aid.' we've apologized for stirring up all this jolly rumpus here, and tom and i have promised to leave with you for suva as soon as you're able to travel. it may comfort you a bit, old chap, to know that the reverend b---- has just gone over to set the nose of your late opponent. perhaps you don't remember that you landed a tap just before he hit you." "oh, that was what it was," i said with a sigh of comprehension, sinking back upon the pillows. "i thought some one had been practising with the twenty-pound hammer again." the last thing i recall before dropping off to sleep was the sound of singing and beaten war-drums welling up from the village green. "the fijians celebrate the triumph of the polynesian," explained bertie in answer to my look of inquiry. "that chant is one they used to sing on returning from a successful foray laden with the heads of many enemies. they seem to trace some similarity between the two occasions." on the way back to suva tom told me about the cave man. "the chap is probably the strongest man in fiji," he said, "and as stupid as he is powerful. several years ago one of the australian overseers at the rewa sugar plantation took him in hand and taught him that trick of protecting his face by turning down his hair-mop, and since then he has stood up against the champion heavyweight of every warship that has come to suva without being knocked out. several of the careless ones have fared quite as badly as you did, and one of them, who had floored him with a lucky poke, he later got hold of, threw down and started to chew to pieces. that broken nose you gave him was the worst damage he ever received, and he would probably have started a cannibal feast off your limp anatomy if the mbuli and the rest of us hadn't crowded him off." * * * * * the roku kandavu levu came to suva shortly before our departure and paid us several visits on the yacht. we found him a most engaging and likable fellow and an especial enthusiast on yachting. he is a graduate of the university of sydney, and in speech, manners, tastes--in everything, in fact, but colour, hair and dress--is thoroughly british. his yacht, a fine -footer which he sails himself, is the fastest craft in the islands. he displayed great interest in our cruise, and expressed himself as determined to build a staunch schooner and embark on a similar one as soon as opportunity offered. the roku's dress is a unique compromise between the native and the foreign. he wears the shirt, collar, tie and coat, and carries the inevitable stick, of the britisher, but goes bare-footed and covers his legs with nothing but the common native _sulu_, a yard and a half of print which is tucked in at the waist and falls to the knees. from the waist up he is apparelled faultlessly enough to parade piccadilly or broadway; from the waist down carelessly enough to suit the laziest kanaka that ever lolled away a noonday under a coconut tree. it was the latter portion of his "combination suit" which came near to causing serious trouble on the occasion of his first visit to _lurline_. from the hour of our arrival in suva harbour the sailors had been much bothered in their work by an endless succession of fruit peddlers and curio venders who made the sale of their stocks an excuse for loafing about the yacht. the commodore was finally forced to order that there should be no more visiting by unaccredited natives except during the noon hour and early in the evening, the enforcement of which ruling was being looked after by the mate with great enthusiasm. by the free use of his glass and megaphone and his rapidly expanding vocabulary of "beche-de-mer" english he had, to his great pride and satisfaction, succeeded in keeping intruders at a distance for several days, so that it was with no ordinary rush of indignation that he greeted, one busy afternoon, the sight of a pair of muscular brown legs moving leisurely by a port--the mate was below at the time--as they carried their owner up the brass-railed starboard gangway, which, incidentally, was especially _tabu_ for natives. at the same moment that a deep-chested roar of "_hare_, you dam'd kanaka!" came booming out upon the still afternoon air, the commodore was beaming welcome from the head of the gangway to the stately head and shoulders of the handsome and dignified roku kandavu levu who, escorted by several prominent british officials, had come off in the governor's launch for his initial call. we managed to check the rush of the infuriated mate at the foot of the cabin companionway and sober him with some forceful pantomime and a peep at the governor's launch through a convenient port, but the echo of that "_hare, you dam'd kanaka!_" kept ringing in our ears through the whole fifteen minutes of an unusually stiff call. we never learned whether or not the roku comprehended for whom the mate's forcible orders were intended, but if he failed to discern that they were aimed at his royal self it was largely due to the resourceful claribel's cheerful chirrup of "the worthy chief seems to be having more trouble than usual with curio venders today. speaking of curios--won't your highness please tell me if this shark's tooth necklace which i bought yesterday is really genuine?" chapter xviii "sharks" "man-eaters on land, man-eaters in the water; for god's sake steer clear of the fijis!" was the way in which trading captains of forty years ago epitomized their warnings to those who expressed a desire to visit taviuni or levuka. though man-eating on land has become a languishing if not a lost art in this neck of the tropics, that the practice by the denizens of the deep is still carried on is attested by the number of stump-armed and stump-legged natives that one meets in all parts of the fijis. yet in spite of the swarms of sharks that exist there--"you can throw a stuck pig over in the bay and five minutes later walk ashore dry shod on black dorsal fins," the mate of a trader at suva told me--they are exceedingly whimsical in their appetites and keep one at his wit's end devising baits that will tempt them. they had told us in samoa that suva bay was a sharks' nest, and graphic verification was furnished on the morning following our arrival. it had been the practice of the commodore and myself, in all the harbours we had visited up to this point, both in the north and south pacific, to begin the day with a morning plunge over the rail, a practice which, though not recommended by the old residents, we had never deemed sufficiently hazardous to warrant denying ourselves the refreshing pleasure of. neither of us had been threatened by a shark, and only three or four lurking black fins had been seen around any of the yacht's anchorages. so it was with no misgivings that i, drowsy with sleep, pulled on my bathing suit the first morning in suva and plunged over the rail in a deep-eye-opening dive. i will let the commodore's journal tell what followed, my own recollections being somewhat confused. "three or four seconds after the weather observer dived, i saw him come sputtering up through the water, gain the starboard gangway in a succession of wild lunges, come clambering aboard and collapse, speechless with consternation, on a cockpit transom. simultaneously, a great shaft of greenish white shot like a meteor under the stern, and an instant later a chorus of excited yells broke out on the deck of the _wanaka_, the australian mailboat which had come in during the night and anchored half a cable's length beyond us. the commotion was caused by the hooking on a line dangling from the steamer's stern of a huge 'tiger' shark, a monster so heavy that it required lines from two steam winches to land its floundering twenty feet of length upon the deck. "the weather observer could never explain anything beyond the fact that, on approaching the surface, he suddenly became aware of a round, greenish blur, lighter in colour than the water, increasing in size at a prodigious rate, and forthwith, being seized with terror, got back on the yacht with the loss of as little time as possible. we have always supposed that the shark, balked in its rush for a bite of man, sought solace in bolting the hunk of salt beef on the end of the _wanaka's_ line, as not five seconds elapsed between one event and the other. a sailor on the poop of the _wanaka_, who was about to shout a warning to us regarding the danger of bathing overside, followed the course of the shark from where it shot under the stern of the yacht to the hook which brought it to grief." the rest of our bathing in suva bay was done with the aid of a sailor and a water bucket. it was in a spirit of revenge for the fright given me on this occasion that i spent a good portion of our stay in fiji on punitive expeditions against sharks, incident to which i learned a good deal regarding the ways of the "tiger of the sea" that otherwise would not have come under my observation. _de gustibus non est disputandum_ is a truth of wide application, holding good no less generally in the animal kingdom than in that of man, and in neither more forcibly than in sharkdom. what is one shark's meat is quite likely to be another shark's poison, and because a certain bait is sauce for the voracious "man-eater" of suva bay, it does not follow that it is sauce for his epicurean cousin of pago pago. regarding the tastes of sharks of any one locality, it is usually possible to speak more definitely, but still with no degree of certainty, and even the likes and dislikes of a single known individual cannot be pinned down and charted as with square and compass. this latter fact was well borne out by the action of a grizzly old fifteen-footer--identified by the rusty stump of a harpoon planted just aft his dorsal--which i chanced to observe one day while fishing on one of the reefs that hem in suva bay. the natives pointed him out to me as he nosed his way about among the other sharks that were nibbling gingerly at the outside corners of tempting hunks of salt beef lowered for their delectation, and said that this was the seventh year that they had fished for him, using everything from "charmed" coconuts and shiny tomato cans to plucked gulls and live sucking-pigs, without ever coming near to landing him. "no one has ever seen him so much as smell the bait," said one of my fuzzy-headed companions, "and from that we know that he must be _tabu_. now we no longer give him notice, for we understand that he must be fed and protected by the evil ones." hardly were these words spoken before the great harpooned tail of the wily monster in question gave a vigorous swish, a smooth, mouse-coloured body shot up through the water, and two triple rows of gleaming ivory opened and closed upon--nothing more or less than a bare hook that its owner was pulling up for rebaiting after it had been dextrously stripped by the "sleight-of-mouth" performance of some member of the ruck down among the pink coral. yet the general trend of the gastronomic preferences of the sharks of any single bay, or island, or even group of islands, is usually understood sufficiently well for all practical purposes, and if the natives or old european residents advise against bathing in certain localities, it is best not to take the chance. in few parts of the south pacific are sharks more plentiful than around mbau, the old native capital of fiji, but in spite of the fact that the natives, whether engaged in fishing or turtle-catching, or merely swimming for pleasure, expose themselves constantly in the waters infested by these monsters, loss of life from that source is rarely heard of. it was while i was "convalescing" from the effects of the field-day with the natives of mbau, of which i wrote in the last chapter, that i was sitting in the shade of the veranda of the roku's bungalow, watching with no little enjoyment the antics of a big band of supremely happy youngsters who were disporting themselves in the limpid waters that lapped the sea-wall at that point. presently a number of men came down to the wall, straightened out the coils of some heavy lines, baited up a lot of big chain-leadered hooks, and began hurling them into the sea but a few yards from where the boys were swimming. "wake up!" i shouted to my young friend, tom b----, giving his hammock a vigorous shake. "isn't it rather a risky business throwing shark-hooks in where a lot of naked boys are swimming? what if they should snag one of the youngsters?" "boys'r' all right," came in a muffled yawn from under b----'s palm-leaf hat. "those chaps aren't fishing for boys; only fishing for sharks." "sharks!" i scoffed. "sharks in there where those boys are swimming! wake up, young man; you're talking in your sleep!" thus admonished, b---- sat up, yawned, stretched himself, cracked a coconut, took several long draughts of its cool contents, and finally explained that, as a rule, sharks along the windward shore of vita levu did not care much for boys, especially near those localities, like mbau, where it was the custom to fish for them daily with succulent hunks of salt pork. sharks are fairly numerous in all of the ports visited by the ships which carry the mail from new zealand and australia to the islands of the southwestern pacific, and it is rarely that one of these steamers is seen at anchor without from one to half a dozen lines dangling from its stern. watching a shark line is a tedious business, but it is strictly necessary in order that the fisherman may know when the monster is hooked. otherwise, its frantic rushes, if allowed to go unchecked, are pretty sure to cause some part of the line, leader, or even a portion of its own anatomy to give way, resulting in its escape. the school-boy's scheme of tying the line around the big toe and going to sleep would probably work all right as far as rousing the fisherman was concerned, but the sequel might not leave him in a condition to give undivided attention to landing his prize. to this end the sailors of the mail-boats have hit on an ingenious plan. instead of taking in their lines when the dinner gong sounds or when, for any reason, they are on duty elsewhere, they run a stout piece of marlin twine from the shark-line up to the steam whistle, leaving it for the "man-eater" himself to announce the event of his being hooked by sounding a toot. [illustration: shark on the beach at mbau] [illustration: fijian boys boxing] i regret to have to tell that the inventor of this clever time-saving expedient, a purser of the steamship _taviuni_, came near to losing his position as the result of his first experimental trial. this came about through his faulty judgment in running the main line--instead of the comparatively light twine now employed for that connection--up to the whistle. the latter gave forth a brave toot in response to the jerk of the big "tiger" at the other end of the line, but the blast was in the nature of a swan-song. an instant later, with a parting shriek of agony, the whole of the whistling mechanism was wrenched from the funnel, and, carrying a string of hammocks and the binnacle-stand along with it, vanished overboard, spinning like a taffrail log in the wake of the flying shark. the _taviuni_ did most of her whistling with a fog-horn during the remainder of that voyage. the natives seem to swim about in comparative safety in the shoal waters of suva bay, but the europeans prefer to keep on the safe side by taking their dips in "bathing pens." an amusing story is told at the fiji club of a certain visiting naval officer who took a dive into one of the bathing enclosures at a time that it was occupied by a fourteen-foot "man-eater." the "pen" was a thirty-by-thirty railed-in space on the shore of the bay near where a small river came down, and was built with the ostensible purpose, not of keeping sharks in, but of keeping them out. the combination of a flood and an unusually high tide, however, covered the top rail to a depth of a couple of feet or more, and during the period of submergence the big shark in some manner nosed his way in, to be left a captive when the water subsided. the water of the pen was murky from the flood discharge of the river, but there was nothing in its dull translucence to awaken suspicion in the minds of the half-dozen officers of a visiting gunboat who, hot and tired from a ride into the interior, were preparing for a dip. the officer in question--a man noted for his nervous haste in doing things--was well ahead of the others in stripping for his plunge, a circumstance that was entirely responsible for his having to bear alone the shock of the discovery that the pen was already occupied. with a snort of contempt for the slowness of his companions, he sprang from the rocks and disappeared under the cool water in a long, deep dive. an instant later the pen was a vortex of foam, in the midst of which whirled the white shoulders of the commander, and through which cut with lightning flashes the black dorsal and tail fins of the threshing shark. yelling like a fijian war-dancer, the frightened swimmer reached the outer palings at the end of half a dozen desperate overhand strokes, clambered over the barrier, tumbled into the water beyond, and, wide-eyed with terror, started lunging right off toward the open sea. when he was finally recalled to shore, he declared that the pen was literally alive with sharks, and not even after the luckless "man-eater," riddled with bullets and bristling with the wooden harpoons of some fijian fishermen, was hauled out on the beach, could he be made to believe that the score or more of its fellows among which he imagined he had plunged had not escaped. inasmuch as a frightened shark has never been known to touch even a piece of raw beef, the impetuous officer was hardly in real danger of anything but heart failure and a slap or two from the monster's tail. the fact that the popular observations of the ways of sharks are largely limited to their dilly-dallyings around baited hooks is responsible for the very general belief that it is necessary for them to turn on their backs before taking food into their mouths. eating from pieces of meat suspended on a line does not represent the normal condition under which the shark feeds, and to regard as characteristic the attitude he assumes in such circumstances is as unreasonable as similarly to class the antics of a man trying to take a bite from an apple on a string at a hallowe'en party. even when a piece of meat is free from the hook, and the shark is satiated or suspicious, he will often roll over and let it settle down gently in his mouth, but this is not because he is physically unable to do the trick otherwise. throw a piece of red beef between three or four hungry "tigers," and you will be pretty sure to see the quickest of them snap it out of sight with only the slightest listing of his body to one side or the other. sharks turn slightly in feeding for exactly the same reason that people turn their head slightly in kissing--because their noses would get in the way if they didn't--but to claim that the one must turn on its back to eat is as absurd as to maintain that the other must stand on his head to kiss. shark skin, shark teeth, shark oil, shark meat, and several other by-products of the dead shark are articles of greater or lesser utility, but i heard an old trader in fiji tell of where the living shark was once put to a practical use. this was when they used him as a prison guard in the old days when british convicts were transported to australia, the monsters serving this purpose for many years at the port arthur settlement, ten miles south of hobart, the present capital of tasmania. the prisons at this point, some of which may still be seen, were situated upon a peninsula whose only connection with the mainland was by a long, narrow strip of sand called, from its configuration, the "eaglehawk's neck." the convicts were allowed considerable liberty upon the peninsula, but to prevent their escape to the mainland half-starved bloodhounds were chained all the way across the narrowest portion of the "neck." several prisoners having avoided the "bloodhound zone" by swimming, the prison authorities adopted the gruesome but effective expedient of feeding the sharks at that point several times a day. in a few weeks the place became literally alive with the voracious "man-eaters," and from that time on the only convict who ever escaped accomplished his purpose by rolling himself up in kelp and working along, inch by inch, timing his movements to correspond with those of the other heaps of seaweed that were being rolled by the surf. like all other leviathans of the deep, animate and inanimate, the shark occasionally suffers from barnacles and similar marine parasites which attach themselves to his hide, and during my stay in fiji i witnessed the phenomenon of a number of these monsters, like so many warships, going into "drydock," as it were, to have their bottoms scraped. on one of the outer reefs of suva bay there is a broad, flat ledge of coral, washed at low tide by only a foot or two of water. to this place the sharks that are troubled with barnacles are wont to resort, and, after picking out a spot where their bodies are just awash, lie for hours while the gently-moving waves rock and rub them backwards and forwards against the rough coral of the reef. this "nature treatment" is said to be most efficacious, and the spectacle of a dozen or more big "man-eaters" dozing contentedly as the warm waters sway them lazily to and fro--every now and then squirming in a pleased sort of way, as a dog does when his spine is rubbed--is something calculated to awaken, for the moment, at least, a feeling almost akin to sympathy for these most universally dreaded and detested of all god's creatures. speaking of sympathy for sharks, it may be interesting to note that there does exist one such monster that may fairly be characterized as popular. this is the famous "pelorus jack," who lives in one of the great southern sounds of new zealand, and who has not failed to come out to meet a single steamer visiting that locality in the last twenty years. he invariably joins the ship at the same point in the passage, follows in its wake during the trip about the sound, taking leave of it again at the identical spot where he picked it up. his regular habits have made him the subject of no small amount of preferential treatment, not the least remarkable of which is the greeting and taking leave of him by the passengers with such hearty old british choruses as "we all love jack," and "when jack comes home again." tourists always refer to him as "good old pelorus," but his "goodness" is a thing which none of them ever appears to try to cultivate at closer quarters than from behind the rail of the poop. the story of the officer who jumped into the bathing pen while it was occupied by a shark is equalled by another, which i also heard in suva, but which occurred at port darwin, northern australia. the bathing enclosure at the latter point was supposed to be shark and alligator-proof. a tremendous spring tide, however, had raised the water for several feet above the tops of the piles of which the enclosure was constructed, and during this period two "man-eaters" and a huge alligator were carried inside. there were no witnesses to the hostilities that followed, but the next morning early bathers found several sections of shark floating about the surface of their plunge, together with a slightly scared, but apparently uninjured, sixteen-foot alligator. mark twain's story of the shark that swallowed a newspaper in the thames and carried it to australia in advance of the steamer--this was supposed to have happened in the days before the cable--there to be caught and opened by cecil rhodes, who promptly made his start in life as the result of an advance tip on the stock market that he culled from the journal, may be, like the newspaper itself, a little "far-fetched"; nevertheless those monsters have been known to perform gastronomic feats quite as remarkable as "swallowing" everything contained in a london daily. "nobody knows what the knife will bring forth" is an old sailor's expression often heard when one of these explorative operations is about to be performed, for a shark's stomach is as full of surprises as a "grab-bag," and as uncertain as a lottery. the most remarkable instance i recall in this connection is that of an enormous "man-eater" that the sailors of _lurline_ hooked the day before we sailed from suva. besides a very considerable assortment of other "indigestibles," they took from the stomach of this leviathan the skull, still bearing the stubs of horns several inches in length, of a full-grown steer. the grisly object had undoubtedly come from the slaughter-house dump farther up the bay, but how the act of swallowing was accomplished was more than we could figure out. the sailors even went so far as to cut away the jaws of the monster and carry them along when we sailed, and during the first week of our voyage to honolulu they spent most of their time "off watch" in vain endeavours to force the skull between the shining rows of back-curving teeth. the jaws broke and fell to pieces at the joint without the puzzle being solved, but the consensus of opinion, in the forecastle, at least, appeared to be expressed by the yacht's negro cook when he said "dat blessed head must ha' done bin swallered when it wuz a littl' ca'f, an' then growed up inside!" in the samoan islands the natives have a legend about a man and a maid who eloped from savaii, fled to tutuila, and were there turned respectively into a shark and a turtle by the god or devil into whose hands they chanced to fall. as a proof of this story, the natives claim that if you go out and sing on a moonlight night at the end of a point near the village of leone, tutuila, the shark and the turtle will appear to you. when they told this story to a young american naval officer and myself, the former said that he was quite ready to believe the transformation part of it because his outrigger canoe had "turned turtle" that very morning, while a native dealer who had sold us curios was nothing if not a "shark." in the matter of the power of music being able to call up the loving pair, however, we were both agreed that we would like a demonstration. that night, therefore, a party of a score or more of the villagers escorted us out to the point, and started up a good lively samoan _himine_. they had finished a swinging native rowing song, and were just getting under way with their beloved "tuta-pai, mai feleni," when the unmistakable dorsal of a "man-eater" began to cut backwards and forward across the glittering moon-path. simultaneously a black hump began to show above the water immediately in front of us, and presently the natives called our attention to the fact that it was slowly rising, adding that the turtle was getting ready to swim over and meet the shark. it was at this juncture that my observant companion noted that the tide was rapidly falling, and after ricochetting a round of bullets from our revolvers off the back of the quondam maiden without stirring her up to the point of keeping her tryst, we went back to the village fully convinced that the story was a fabrication, the shark a coincidence, and the turtle a black rock. chapter xix "his wonders to perform" we had heard of the honourable "slope" carew--pearler, "black-birder," yachtsman and scion of a noble british family--at every port we had touched in the south pacific, but it was not our fortune to meet him until after our arrival at suva. there he was one of our first callers, and it chanced that he, with the captain of h.m.s. _clio_ and two or three other englishmen, was off to the yacht for dinner the night a bottle of champagne exploded prematurely in the hands of our chinese steward and kicked him backwards down the cabin stairs. "makes it seem like the old days on the _aphrodite_," said carew, pausing in his stirring narrative of the way in which bell, a renegade american naval officer, had saved the plague ship, _cora andrews_. "you heard of the _aphrodite_ in tahiti, didn't you, and of how her cargo of 'hum's extra spry' helped my old pal, the reverend horatio loveworth, to convert boraki and his nest of cut-throats on makatea?" we had indeed heard the story of the conversion of boraki and his fellow pirates of makatea, but never at better than third or fourth hand, and in versions so diametrically at variance that the chance to enjoy the account of one who had actually figured in that famous coup was too good to let slip. we begged carew, therefore, to let the _cora andrews_ yarn go over to another time and to give us the "champagne and missionary" story then and there. we were dining on deck, and the story, begun over _avocados_, was continued after we adjourned with coffee and liqueurs to sofa-cushions or lounging chairs in the cockpit. the tropic moon was dropping plummets of gold through the rigging, and, as he talked, carew punctuated his well-turned sentences with frequent sips from the oft-replenished glass of cracked ice and absinthe on his chair arm. just how much of the golden floss of the streaming moonlight and the verdant thread of the trickling absinthe were twisted into the yarn he spun, probably carew himself could not have told. "it is a long story if i go back to the beginning, as i shall have to if you are to understand all that happened," said carew musingly; "for from first to last the yarn revolves, not around myself or the _aphrodite_ or boraki, but around a special consignment of champagne to which we always referred from the moment its true character began to be revealed as 'hum's extra spry.' "it was shortly after the pater cut me off with a beggarly five hundred pounds a year at the end of a series of escapades which had culminated with my wrecking his yacht on the coast of morocco that i found myself in san francisco. i had sailed my own ninety-footer at cowes on more than one occasion, so that i was only following the line of least resistance in applying for the billet of first mate when i learned that colonel jack spencer, the mining magnate, had converted a smart sealing schooner into a private yacht and was preparing to sail with a party of friends for the south pacific. spencer was rather taken with the idea of having a sprig of british nobility along, and from the first insisted on treating me more as a guest than an under officer. this was how i chanced to be included with the skipper in an invitation to a farewell dinner given by spencer to a number of san francisco friends on the eve of our departure. here i met the members of the yachting party, and, what is of more importance to my story, had my first experience of the potentialities of 'hum's extra spry.' "perhaps it will serve to make the strange things which came to pass afterwards more intelligible if i explain here what spencer only became apprised of six months later through offering his new york wine agent a liberal reward for the information, namely, what put the power in the fancy-priced consignment of champagne he had ordered especially for the south pacific cruise. "it appeared that one of the chemists of the great hum winery at rheims, in experimenting with a newly-invented aerating powder, had used that mixture instead of the decolourizing solution in tapering off a twelve dozen case order of california champagne that was being hurriedly prepared for re-export to america. now normal champagne, in the making, exerts so strong a pressure upon the glass which confines it that an average of fully twenty per cent. of the bottles used are burst before the final stage is reached, while the aerating powder which was being tried out as a substitute for carbon-dioxide gas in making sparkling burgundies and sauternes was calculated to develop a ten-pounds-to-the-square-inch pressure on its own account. so it happened that every unit of the order in question, having in addition to its normal stock of bubbles those generated as a result of the accidental aeration, was more like a hand grenade than a bottle of wine. nine-tenths of the lot suffered total disintegration before it was ready to be shipped, and the remainder was only saved by being transferred to rubber-corked bottles of quarter-inch glass, all of the outsides of which were reinforced with a closely-woven mesh of gilded wire. red enamel grape leaves were grilled into the gold foil of the cap, and the label, in addition to several lines of french attesting the purity of the contents, bore the english words 'liquid sunshine--special,' in raised ivory letters. "the two or three dozen surviving cases of this remarkable vintage were snapped up the moment they were clear of the customs by spencer's new york agent, who rushed them on to san francisco. all but two cases, which were kept out to serve at the spencers' farewell dinner, were sent aboard the yacht and stowed. "i saw at once that the old chap was worried when i arrived the evening of the dinner, and before we went in he took me aside to ask if i knew anything regarding the handling of 'high-power' wine, as he termed it. it appeared that in the afternoon, while several bottles of the new wine were in the refrigerator undergoing a preliminary cooling, some one had dropped an ice pick in amongst them and they had all gone off together. the frame of the box held, but the partitions gave way, wrecking, beyond possibility of salvage, two dozen ice cream models of the _aphrodite_ floating in a sea of green jelly. the _aphrodites_ were replaced by some ready-made anchors which the caterer chanced to have on hand, but the endeavour to hasten the chilling of more champagne by the use of a whirligig freezer only resulted in the annihilation of that useful contrivance and the loss of another bottle of wine. "the contents of the first two bottles which the butler opened for dinner got away to the ceiling almost as fast as did the gilt-capped corks, and that worthy was about ready to give up in despair when one of the caterer's men pointed the way to a solution of the immediate problem by setting the next bottle in a punchbowl and capping it with an inverted soup plate. the latter was smashed to smithereens at the first trial, but the aluminum stew pan which replaced it at the next attempt stood the shock and deflected the cork, cap and a considerable quantity of a restless yellow liquid to the bottom of the punchbowl. this liquid, by means of a funnel, was restored to its bottle, hastily muffling which in a napkin to restrain a persistent catarrhal tendency of its nose, the flurried butler, fifteen minutes late, dashed into the dining room with the first installment of the anxiously-awaited 'sunshine.' "now it is just possible that had the butler moved with his wonted glide of easy dignity nothing very much out of the ordinary would have happened; but the stiff, broken-kneed trot with which he tried to make up for lost time aroused the dormant energies of the hard-won contents of the bottle, with the result that it gathered itself together and made a fresh break for the open just as its warder was edging in for a gingerly pour at the glass of a pearly-shouldered dowager who was sitting on spencer's right. there was no inverted aluminum stew pan to deflect the erupting 'sunshine' this time, and, as a consequence, it expended itself with one joyous 'whouf' upon the well-kept surfaces of the stately dame's right cheek and shoulder. some little of it, tinged with rose and pearl, caromed off to extinguish a circle of pink candles on the table, but the most of it remained behind to trickle in little rose and pearl rivulets down the lady's neck. the unfortunate victim screamed lustily several times, dabbed wildly at the parts affected with a little yellow rag which suddenly appeared from nowhere, and then ran, sobbing, from the room. "in the meantime the butler's assistants had rounded him up another bottle of the elusive fluid, and when that functionary appeared again in the dining room he might have been planting dynamite bombs, so carefully did he pick his way about and so great was the expression of terror in his staring eyes. but he stuck gamely to his task and finally poured out the last of the 'sunshine' that his improvised distillery was able to deliver without again interfering with the toilet of any of the guests. "in all of this time not a soul was able to get a sip of the phantom liquid. the moment a trickle of it touched a glass it hissed like a moistened seidlitz powder, threw spray in the air and piled up a heap of bubbles which, quickly subsiding, left nothing behind but a drug-store smell and a damp circle of table cloth. the sprightly brunette in her first season whom i had taken in came nearest to getting a drink, and her experience had a dampening effect upon the enthusiasm of the others. this maid was rash and impulsive, and, partly by quickness of hand, partly by inhalation, she managed to deflect laterally a lungful of the pungent spray which was ascending perpendicularly to bespangle with dewy drops what some one had just characterized in nautical parlance as her 'natty gaff topsail pompadour.' her behaviour for the next minute or two made the efforts of the plump dowager to staunch the flow of her complexion seem dignified in comparison. the dinner was finished up with a more manageable vintage, and next day the _aphrodite_ sailed without further requisition having been made upon her stores of 'extra spry.' "all through the three weeks' cruise to tahiti the restless bubbles in the thick, green bottles in the _aphrodite's_ starboard lockers elbowed each other as they swelled in the tropic heat, but it was not until the yacht was safely anchored in papeete harbour that another opportunity came for any of them to get beyond control. a call had been made on the french governor in the morning, and that dignitary, according to official etiquette, was returning the visit in company with his stately wife the afternoon of the same day. doubtless you had to go through the same thing. the trouble came while the hospitable spencer was mixing a punch. cold tea, maraschino, curacao, burnt sugar and a lot of other stuff had already gone in as a base, quite enough, so the mixer thought, to dilute a bottle of his 'extra spry' to an exhilarant innocuousness. all might have gone well had the diluting been done upon scientific principles, but spencer, whose knowledge of hydraulics appeared very rudimentary for a man who had made a fortune in placer mining, directed the japanese steward to poke the nose of the bottle into the punch as soon as he started the cork. that obedient functionary approached the bowl from the side opposite to the one on which the governor and his wife were seated and did exactly as directed. "although the time was but five in the afternoon, his excellency was in the full evening dress prescribed for official calls--cock-hat, claw-hammer coat and two feet of shirt front crossed with a strip of red, white and blue bunting and a row and a half of medals. a hundredth of a second after the asthmatically-wheezing nose of the bottle of 'extra spry' went over the edge of the bowl this regalia was absorbing a good half of spencer's partially mixed punch, while the remainder bubbled and creamed over the expensive parisian creation of his stately wife. "a sailor, who had taken in the incident from the forward deck, lost control of himself and broke into a loud guffaw, in which he was promptly joined by several of his mates. this set two or three of the more irreverent of the members of spencer's party going, and when the spasm of laughter had passed it was found that their excellencies, in high dudgeon, had melted over the side and departed in their waiting cutter. the jap was found at the foot of the cabin stairs with a bruise in the pit of his stomach which bade fair to confine him to the little french hospital for a fortnight. tropical heat and the agitation of the tossing bosom of the south pacific were conspiring to set on hair-trigger edge the latent energies of the 'extra spry,' and, though none suspected it, the insistent throb of the imprisoned bubbles were the pulse beats in the hand of fate. "the coldness of tahiti officialdom after this incident, a squabble with his skipper, as well as incipient internal dissensions among the members of his too-closely-confined party, all conspired to make spencer forego the remainder of the cruise he had planned, and within the next week or so they had all left for san francisco or auckland, leaving the _aphrodite_ in my hands to be sold to the highest bidder. at the end of a month i sold her to the amalgamated missionary, bible and tract society, which eagerly embraced the opportunity to replace at a bargain figure its schooner, _morning star_, which the last hurricane had piled up, a hopeless wreck, upon the beach of moorea. i was retained as skipper. "the society had long been anxious to undertake some reclamation work in the paumotos, and the possession of the _aphrodite_--a vessel that, on account of the ease with which she handled, could venture with comparative safety where the ordinary type of south sea schooner dared not go--made it possible to attempt to realize this ambition for the first time. after a week of busy preparation we made ready to sail for makatea, and when the missionary schooner, _southern cross_, glided out of the narrow crack in the reef which constitutes the entrance to papeete harbour and headed off for the north-east, there was little to differentiate her from the saucy _aphrodite_ which had come bowling in over an almost identical course a month or so previously. a new set of gold letters across her stern, a crown and anchor flag at the main truck, and a plain set of table covers and bedspreads included about all the changes in sight, and even a search of the lazarette and lockers would have disclosed little (except some bales of bibles and hymn books and some cases of salmon and barrels of salt beef) which had not been there before. [illustration: weaving the walls of a fijian house] [illustration: interior of fijian house, showing how it is bound together with coco fibre] "fewer still were the old things that had been dispensed with. the name and the house-flag had to be altered, of course, to suit the new character of the vessel, while embroidered silk peacocks and sun-flowers on the coverlets were rather beyond the simple tastes of the reverend horatio loveworth who was in charge of the work in hand. but the punchbowl had been retained as a baptismal fount, the wines--including the 'extra spry'--for medicinal purposes, the fancy stores to be presented as a goodwill offering to king boraki of makatea, and a gramophone, fortified with a big stack of new bass drum and trombone records of popular hymns, as a music teacher to the expected converts. loveworth's keen practicality had been the principal factor in his rapid rise to the most important position in the south pacific missionary service. "my mate was an australian of long experience among the islands, and the crew a well-picked lot of half-castes and kanakas. we worked well together, and i doubt if the little schooner, even in her sealing days, was ever better handled. after two days of admirable behaviour in baffling winds and treacherous currents, she penetrated to the very heart of the stormy paumotan archipelago. ahead loomed the black mass of makatea, the half-coral, half-volcanic island of sinister reputation which was our destination, and between stretched ten miles of submerged reefs which the chart made no pretence of outlining. "ordering sail to be shortened and a man sent aloft, i was just preparing to begin 'feeling' our way in toward the darker blur that marked the probable entrance to the lagoon, when the mate's keen eye descried a lone sail bearing rapidly down on us from landward. my glass revealed a large out-rigger canoe which, driven by a fair wind and urged by the flashing paddles of its dozen or more occupants, was throwing the foam over its bow so swiftly was it sliding through the water. in less than half an hour it had grated against the side of the schooner and the leader of the party, a magnificently proportioned fellow dressed only in a red _pareo_ and a necklace of sharks' teeth, disdaining the ladder that was lowered for him, leapt lightly over the rail and, saluting the reverend horatio with a bow and a sweep of his _koui_ fibre hat, announced himself to be king boraki. "speaking in the marquesan dialect, he said that makatea had learned of the great missionary's intended visit from word that had come by rangaroa; that makatea was transported with joy at the honour that was being done it; that preparations for a fitting reception had been in progress for a week and were now complete; and, finally, that he had come to pilot the ship of his distinguished visitor by a safe channel to the harbour and to be the first of his people to receive a christian blessing. "'god bless you, my brother; ask the rest of our brothers to come aboard for prayer and refreshment,' ejaculated the reverend horatio fervently, and no sooner was the invitation issued than fifteen more red _pareos_ and shark tooth necklaces flashed over the rail, their wearers promptly ranging themselves in an orderly row behind their leader. an instant later, like puppets controlled by a single string, every man of them plumped down on his knees, crossed his arms on his breast and, with eyes devoutly raised at an angle that directed their gaze somewhere in the vicinity of the third row of reef points on the idly flapping mainsail, remained motionless. "'rehearsed, by gawd!' muttered the mate, whose quick eye had caught boraki's backhand signal. 'oh, for a maxim on the deckhouse!' "'oh for words to express my thanks for all that has happened and is going to happen this day!' prayed the reverend horatio, heeding naught but the fact that he was on the eve of the apparent fulfilment of a lifelong ambition. his prayer was brief but full of feeling, and when it was over he asked all hands to come below and have something to eat. "boraki brought his men to their feet with a wave of his hand, picked two of his chiefs to accompany him to the cabin with the missionary, and sent the others forward to feed and fraternize with the crew. carried away by loveworth's enthusiasm and confidence--the man was, and is, a born leader--the mate and i followed him and the guest of honour below. "_who_ this boraki was, beyond being the greatest rascal that ever terrorized the south-eastern pacific, nobody knew. _what_ he was, everybody could tell you, but those who asked usually tried to save time by telling you what he wasn't. by process of elimination you might then learn that he was a pirate, cut-throat, murderer, cannibal, robber and other things too numerous to mention; also, that each of his four hundred men in makatea was all of these things to a greater or lesser degree, and that few of them had ever been apprehended or punished. boraki himself was supposed to have a good deal of european blood in his veins, but of what nationality no one was sure. the traders said that his father was a missionary, and pointed to traits in his character to prove it; the missionaries said that his father was a trader, and pointed to traits in his character to prove it; boraki was silent on the subject, but indirectly gave both parties the lie by robbing and killing--and some said eating--traders and missionaries alike. "all that boraki had said in his little speech when he boarded the _southern cross_ was quite true, but not quite the whole truth. he did not state, for example, that the preparations for entertainment he referred to were to be in the form of endurance tests of walking on red-hot stones--the walking to be done by the visitors--and that possibly the red-hot stones might serve for another purpose by the time the supper hour came around. nor did he state that the end of his volunteer piloting was to run the nose of the schooner into a soft sand bank in the middle of the passage, where canoe-loads of his men, coming from the lagoon ostensibly as life-savers, could take advantage of the confusion that was bound to follow the accident to enter into possession with a minimum of difficulty and risk. the schooner was to be left till the shifting of the sands at the turn of the tide would release her without injury. all of which, of course, we did not learn until later. "this plan, good enough to have succeeded against a gunboat, had been evolved by the resourceful pirate in the expectation that the _southern cross_ was coming with nothing less than a battery of rapid-fire guns and a detachment of french marines to see her through. when boraki saw no quick-firers on the deck, no rifles or cutlasses in the cabin, and not even a revolver or knife in the belts of the officers and crew, he perceived at once that there was no use risking the loss of the schooner by running her aground. his action was characteristic. "the swift happenings of the next hour or so, as i was witness of them only 'in spots,' i shall describe as the subsequent testimony of the participants--principally boraki himself--showed them to have transpired. "the distinctly mixed assemblage--boraki, his two fellow cut-throats, loveworth, the australian first mate, the half-caste second mate and myself--were seated round the cabin table. the steward had finished setting out a substantial little lunch and the reverend horatio, having put one of his favourite records into the gramophone, was just winding it up, when boraki, without a word even to his companions, sprang lightly to the top of the cabin stairs and shouted to his men in marquesan--a language that was understood by every one on the boat but myself--to tie up the sailors. regaining the cabin floor at a single bound, he swung quickly with a mineral water bottle on the heads of the first and second mates before either of those unfortunates was clear of his chair. my own head struck the cabin lamp a sharp blow as i lurched up out of my swivel seat, and i was already half dazed when boraki's hard-swung bludgeon landed on my temple and dropped me like a log across the second mate. my last recollection was of one of the chiefs, muffled in loveworth's long black coat-tails, trying to pinion the missionary's powerful legs, while the other brown rascal tore at the clerical stock in an effort to find an effective place to choke. i am indebted to boraki for most of what followed. "giving each of our prostrate bodies a prod with his toe to assure himself that they were really as limp as they looked, boraki perched on the corner of the table and divided his time between eating chocolate wafers and giving his henchmen gratuitous tips on the way to hold down a struggling missionary. it was an even thing for a while, boraki avers; the prettiest kind of a fight. but when the man who had stroked oxford for three consecutive years finally threw off his assailants and made a break for the deck and fighting room, the wily pirate felt that it was time to take a hand himself. without descending from his comfortable cross-legged perch on the snowy table-cloth, he leaned forward as the fugitive dashed by and coolly planted his water bottle just aft loveworth's right ear, sending the stout-hearted missionary down alongside his officers in the shambles on the floor. "leaving his companions to tie up the prisoners, boraki, munching at a mixed fistful of eclairs and canned salmon, sauntered forward to see all made snug in that part of the ship. five minutes later, his head crowned with loveworth's waste-basket--a cast iron imitation of a top hat--and puffing contentedly at a perfecto, he had taken his station at the wheel and with the skill of a born sailor was guiding the _southern cross_ in through the maze of shoals that surrounded his island. "the run in was a dead beat to windward, the sun was pitilessly hot, and by the time the schooner's anchor went rattling down into the rose coral floor of makatea lagoon boraki's kingly head, under its sixteen-pound iron crown, was buzzing like the trade-wind in the palm fronds. his blood seemed turned to boiling water and the words of the final orders that he tried to speak rattled together in his throat like the rustle of dead banana leaves, so that he had to make his meaning clear by signs. what wonder, then, that not even a hundred-yards-square of close-packed canoes, from each of which issued shouts of acclamation, could hold him when, from the cool, dark depth of the cabin, came the ringing marquesan equivalent of 'rum ho!' "boraki crossed the cockpit in one bound, negotiated the companionway in another, and with a third hurdled the prostrate forms of the prisoners and landed between his two faithful lieutenants who, after bootlessly ransacking the schooner from stem to stern, had at last discovered the wine lockers underneath the starboard transoms in the cabin. "boraki was vaguely aware that each of his men was holding up a cool-looking green bottle, through the wonderful gold network of which could be seen a beautiful golden liquid that bubbled and flashed and jumped up and down and seemed quite as impatient to get out and run down his burning throat as he was to have it do so. in the lockers below stretched endless lines of similar flashing bottles, and each line, to the chief's inflamed imagination, seemed long enough to link the lagoon of makatea to the moon with a golden chain. he wondered how long it would take him to drink them all dry. "but why this terrible delay? wouldn't these fools ever set the nectar free and extinguish the flames that were licking up his insides? they were letting him die while they sought for a white man's 'pull-pull' to loosen the plugs with! what need was there for a 'pull-pull' anyhow? he would show them how the thing should be done, and, suiting the action to the word, the impatient chief seized a bottle in each hand and deftly opened the two at once by knocking their heads together. "what else he opened at the same time boraki probably never thoroughly understood, and so he was the readier to believe loveworth when that keen opportunist told him solemnly that it was the gate of hell. after that point had been impressed upon him, his alarmed query as to whether or not all the devils who had come out when the gate opened had returned was a perfectly natural one. he said that the only thing he clearly remembered was a feeling of wonder that the heads of the beautiful bottles should knock off so easily, and that his first recollection after that was of crying out because he thought some one was raking off his face with a comb made of shark-hooks. as a matter of fact the incidents alluded to were separated by more than an hour of time, and the shark-hook comb sensation was caused by the well-meant efforts of the first and second mates to remove the cast iron hat from boraki's head with the aid of a hammer, file and cold chisel. "when the roughly opened bottles of 'extra spry' kicked downward and set off the whole mine in the lockers the henchmen were only slammed across to the opposite side of the cabin and deposited, senseless, against the china closet; but the king himself, caught bending over, received the full force of the explosion upon the chest and was shot like a rocket against the ceiling. by the impact, his iron hat, while it probably saved him from a fractured skull, was driven through flesh and cartilage squarely down upon his shoulders, fitting so closely that only a rust hole in the crown saved its wearer from a speedy smothering. surely no other king in history, so securely crowned, ever furnished so graphic an illustration of the 'uneasy lies the head' adage. "ten seconds after the explosion, out of all the horde that had swarmed over her, not a makatean who could help himself remained aboard the _southern cross_, and in less than that many minutes not a canoe cut the waters of the lagoon and no man, woman or child was stirring in the village. huddled in their houses, the whole population was awaiting in fear and trembling the moment when the devil ship would reopen with its invisible cannon. "the terror of the people was increased a hundredfold when a man who, watching at the sky-light of the cabin, had been stunned by the explosion, came floundering madly ashore a half hour later and ran from house to house telling in broken speech how he had seen the white men--whom they had all beheld lying bound and lifeless on the cabin floor--rise up and begin driving spikes through king boraki's head. never was clay laid ready to the hand of the moulder more plastic than was the outlaw community of makatea at this moment; nor was ever man better qualified to make the most of the situation than the reverend horatio loveworth. "lying on the floor, as we had been, the explosion, far from doing us injury, in the stiff jolt it gave our battered frames only hastened our return to consciousness. loveworth was the first to slip the napkins which bound his wrists. dazed as he was, the good chap yet had the presence of mind to make the three of us who were still tied promise to refrain from murdering boraki and his fellows before he would assist us in freeing our bonds. to hold the mates to their promises, once their hands were free to rove over the swelling mounds that marked the spots where the pirate's hard-swung water bottle had fallen, was a more difficult matter. they helped me truss up the henchmen and release the sailors, but enlisting them in actual relief work was a task so well nigh hopeless that loveworth gave it up in despair after a few minutes of entreaty and began alone. it was the muffled gurglings and convulsive wrigglings set going by his first tug at the iron plug that finally brought the belligerents into line, they scenting in the vigorous application of 'first aid' measures a possible means of accomplishing their end without bringing about an open rupture with the missionary, to whom they were greatly devoted. considering the zeal with which they set about their errand of mercy, and their manner of wielding the tools in the delicate operation of chipping boraki's head out of the iron hat, there was no difficulty in locating the source of the fugitive makatean's spike-driving story. "one of the king's first questions after he had been informed that it was the gate of hell that had swung on him was, not unnaturally, as to whether or not the gate swung very often like that, and, if it did, when the next swinging was likely to occur. when he was told that this was only a special swinging directly occasioned by his shameless treachery, and that, anyhow, the danger was one that never threatened good christians, he was silent for a space, and then asked, with apparent irrelevance, what had become of the green bottles. "'gone to----' began the mate in an angry roar, the realization of an almost personal loss suddenly assailing him--'the other side of the gate,' gently concluded the reverend horatio after checking the obstreperous australian's threatened outburst of profanity with an upraised hand. "'then teach me and my people how to remain on this side of the gate,' gasped boraki hoarsely, as he sank back with a shiver among the silk sofa cushions which supported his battered frame. "so it came to pass that when the king had rested for a while we put the crown and anchor banner of the missionary society in his hands, propped him up in the stern sheets of the starboard lifeboat with one of his faithful henchmen on either side, and sent him ashore, rowed by a volunteer crew of the least hurt of the sailors. "'tell your people,' shouted loveworth as the boat gained headway under a lengthening stroke, 'that you have come back from the gate of hell to help me guide them out of the darkness into the light and to life everlasting. if they are ready to accept the teaching, hoist the flag in front of your council house.' "boraki heard and nodded vigorously with the gory cylinder that served him as a head. "the referendum was accomplished in record time, for in less than five minutes from the moment the boat touched the beach we saw a man dart out of a side portal of boraki's palm-leaf palace and run like mad to the foot of the lopped-off coconut tree that stood before the long turtle-backed council house. with straining eyes, we saw him clamber, monkey-like, up the lofty stump, caught the flashes of a furiously-swung hammer, and then, snapping exultantly in the whistling south-east trade, the flag of the golden crown and anchor streamed out from the official flag-pole of makatea. the people had made their choice. "no sooner was his beloved banner out to the breeze than loveworth, taking with him the disgusted second mate, put off for the beach in the whaleboat to catch at its flood the tide of fortune which had at last begun to set so strongly in his favour. the mate and i went below to take stock of the wreck in the cabin. "'s'elp me father neptune, i'd give a month's pay to the new mission to know what it was that knocked them bloomin' pirates into the shape we woke up to find 'em in,' said the mate musingly, sinking down with a sigh of relief upon the undisturbed cushions of a port transom. 'p'raps they took liberties with a bunch o' rockets or a keg o' powder; only there ain't no fire marks nowhere. all the booze smashed up, too. wonder who's at the bottom of it, anyhow. eh! what? who spoke? you, capt'n? no. oh, you, old tinhorn. my word, but you gave me a turn. "_god_," you sez. that's what pilot loveworth sez, too, and p'raps it's true; but what gets me is how he done it. you wasn't laid out with a crack on the nut, old tinhorn; tell us how it happened.' "'_brrr--in a mysterious way--brrr_,' came the droning answer, leaving us no wiser than before. "the jolt of the mate's weary body had thrown over the half-shifted lever of the already wound-up gramophone, which had been abandoned on the transom by loveworth when he turned to receive the first onslaught of boraki's henchmen, and the record had commenced to spin. the sounding-box floundered like a squirrel on its wheel as the black disc, scarred and littered from the explosion, whirled beneath the needle, and it chanced that the only intelligible words that came from the horn in the first few moments were those which the astonished mate had, for an instant, taken as answers to his conjectures. "after learning that the deed had been done in a mysterious way, all we could make out between the '_zrrrs_' and '_bzzzs_' which followed was that whoever had done the deed had performed wonders, to which the mate naïvely replied that he had perceived as much at the outset, but that now he was seeking enlightenment as to how the wonders had been performed. "the needle steeple-chased for a couple of circuits after that without communicating anything relevant, following which, suddenly and without warning, it came out of the woods onto a stretch of smooth, undamaged going. then, in the clear, flute-like tenor of 'harry mcmurtry, columbophone record,' came the words of loveworth's favourite hymn-- 'god moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform.' "the missionary, who was kneeling on the beach invoking a blessing on the heads of the terrified wretches who had come pouring from their houses to grovel at his feet, told me afterwards that the words came floating down to him across the still waters of the lagoon like a voice from the other world. "that was all the comment that the only english-speaking witness of the miracle wrought by 'hum's extra spry' was destined ever to make, for at the beginning of the next lap the needle went into an incipient crack and split the record down the middle. the two pieces, together with the scarred fragments of a cast iron top hat, are still preserved by loveworth in the little coral mission at makatea." * * * * * the green bottle on carew's chair arm had been tilted with increasing frequency as his story approached its climax, and for the last fifteen or twenty minutes, save for short spells when he had rallied to explain this or that phenomenon, he had talked with a far-away expression in his eyes, as one who visualizes and describes what he sees. he roused somewhat at the ripple of applause which greeted the end of the yarn, but he made his adieux like a man in a dream, and his gaze was blank and vacant as he lurched unsteadily down the gangway to the _clio's_ launch. that was the last we ever saw of the honourable "slope" carew. he sailed next day in the _clio_ to pilot that gunboat to an unmarked rock somewhere to the north-west which was to be blown up or charted. a year later, while in australia, i read in a noumea dispatch to the sydney _morning herald_ that he had shot himself on the lawn of the cercle militaire in a fit of melancholia following a night of absinthe drinking. chapter xx suva to honolulu at five o'clock in the afternoon of the nd of july we weighed anchor and slipped from the quietness of suva harbour out into a roystering east wind that was playing all manner of strange pranks with the placid sea we had come in through a week previously. for steep, short seas and uncomfortable small-schooner weather, nothing quite equals one of these reef-locked stretches of the south-west pacific with a stiff blow on. the ever-imminent bottom, constantly dragging on the waves, retards them below and lets them keep going above, producing seas something between ocean swells and lines of surf. sailing with seas of this description coming anywhere forward of the beam is like tobogganing on an uncleared mountainside. hardly was the yacht clear of the harbour before we were forced to begin shortening canvas, and by eight o'clock double reefs had been tied in the mainsail and foresail and the bonnet taken out of the forestay-sail. even then she made bad weather of it. she would make a terrific leap skyward, almost standing on her rudder in an effort to clear an advancing wave, and then crash thunderingly down and bore her nose deep into the green water of the next sea before her bows began lifting again. there was not a great deal of weight behind the seas and they did little damage; but all night long they shook the yacht as a terrier does a rat, carried away a couple of boat-loads of fresh fruit contributed by our suva friends, and made sleeping an impossibility. by morning a falling wind and sea made it possible to shake the reefs out of the foresail and put the bonnet back into the forestay-sail, but the mainsail languished all day with the most of its length along the boom. early in the morning of the th the yacht crossed the th meridian, carrying us back to west longitude. regarding the unusual sequence of days on this occasion the "ladies' log" has the following entry under date of july rd: "yesterday it was sunday, the rd; today, from twelve p. m. to four a. m., it was the fourth of july. then we crossed the th meridian, and it was again sunday, the rd. tomorrow we will have a continuation of the fourth which we started this morning. this figures out at one and five-sixths sundays and one and one-sixth fourths of july, making a total of three complete and consecutive holidays on which, according to nautical custom, the cook must provide us with 'duff.'" levity of the "ladies' log" aside, the coincidence was a most remarkable one. it was possibly the first fragment of the fourth struggling to join forces with the unbroken one that followed which caused an hour's diversion on the morning of the latter which was quite sufficient in itself to stand for an independence day celebration. the wind had been light but steady from e.s.e. all day, and when darkness fell there was nothing in the smooth sea, clear sky and high barometer to point any reason for not carrying the light sails all night. an easy nine miles an hour was averaged all through the first watch, and a freshening of the breeze shortly after the sounding of midnight had ushered in the fourth was responsible for better than ten miles being run in the hour immediately following. shortly after one o'clock the breeze, quite without warning, suddenly fell light, and all in a minute the celebration was on. what it was we managed to agree upon the next morning, and as to why it was the coming day also brought considerable enlightenment; how it was depended largely upon one's viewpoint, and no two of us appear to have seen it quite in the same way. i, sleeping on a cabin transom when the thing happened, can merely set down my own impressions. with the startling distinctness with which the slightest sound above makes itself heard in the quiet spaces between decks, i noted how the rustle of the seas along the sides died down as the breeze fell light, heard the banging of blocks, the flap of sails, the slatting of lines, and presently the buzz of voices in puzzled conjecture. then a low, grinding roar, like the distant sound of a dry-snow avalanche, began filling the air, and instantly the sharp, incisive voice of the commodore cut in, shouting an interminable string of orders. suddenly the sound of the voices changed to gasping snarls, the boom of boots on the deck to far-away rat-a-tats, and the whole of the outside universe seemed to resolve itself into one huge roar. then a great, big, solid something struck the yacht and all of the staterooms lay down on their sides, the lamps swung up and lay down against the ceiling, and everything movable jumped out and lay down on the port berths and transoms. a trunk broke loose from its lashings under the cabin table and slid down to mingle with a typewriter, a phonograph, a couple of hundred of the latter's loose records, and, incidentally, myself. shortly a starboard bookcase vomited its contents into the shambles, and a big bunch of flags-of-all-nations, unrolling as it came, leaped out to lend a festal touch to the glad occasion. and over all, through open skylight and companionway, poured floods of brine to keep down the dust. time and again the yacht struggled to sit up, and as often settled shudderingly back on her side. finally, the muffled snarl of orders forced from a wind-stopped throat cut down through the roar, to be followed by a scurrying on deck--tiny and distant like the scrambling of mice over paper--and the cabin leaped suddenly halfway up and hung there quivering as though balanced on its corner. then, as some one ran forward the slide and jammed together the doors of the companionway, came the tense voice of the commodore, gasping above the wind: "tumble up lively, you there below! come a-runnin' an' len' a hand 'fore the sticks go out o' 'er!" then, more indistinctly as his face was turned, "le' go, there forrard; le' go!" a moment later the cabin gave another jump back toward the normal, this time straightening up enough to give me a chance to burrow out from under a stack of phonograph records and crawl along the side of the port transom to the stairs. i have a distinct memory of how my head was bumped twice in gaining the deck--once against the storm doors of the companionway and once against the wind. the air, which was rushing by as though all the atmosphere of the universe was trying to crowd itself along the deck of the yacht, felt as tangible as a solid stream of water, and so mixed was it with water, in fact, that there was no telling where the surface of the sea left off and the air commenced. the hard-driven drops stung like sleet, and the act of breathing with the face turned to windward was a sheer impossibility. still heeling heavily, and with mainsail dragging over her port side like the trailing wing of a wounded bird, the yacht scudded off before the wind. withal she was making good weather of it, and even before the coming of the rain marked the passing of the centre of the squall we had the main-boom amidships and the troublesome mainsail hauled aboard. the deck was a fathom deep in flapping sails and up forward a water-butt and a salt beef barrel were having a lively game of tag, but neither of the boats had started its lashings and none of the skylights was smashed. most of the damage was done to the storm-tossed contents of the cabin. by daybreak the deck was cleared and the yacht, under all-plain sail, headed again on her north-westerly course. our "independence day celebration," as we afterwards had explained to us in honolulu, was what is commonly referred to in the south pacific as a "leeward squall." this phenomenon is met with only among volcanic islands high enough to allow the wind to draw around them and meet again in "twisters" a few miles to leeward. if the wind holds steady from one direction this ordinarily makes little trouble, but if it chances to haul two or three points ahead when a ship is passing a high island the squall which comes boring in from leeward may take her aback with disastrous results. trading captains passing under the lee of islands of this description always go under shortened sail. light sails of all kinds are unpopular in the south pacific--one never sees a trading schooner with a topmast on the fore, and not all carry them on the main. it was a "leeward squall" of unusual force that _lurline_ encountered on the morning of the fourth of july, and considering the fact that, with the exception of her foretopsail, she was carrying all the sail she had, the commodore's work in bringing her through unharmed was creditable in the extreme. from so unexpected a quarter did the squall appear that only the briefest space was allowed for preparation; yet in these two or three minutes all hands were called, the maintopmast staysail and maingafftopsail were lowered to the deck, the jib-topsail and flying jib hauled down and furled, the ship put about on the other tack, the jib furled, and men stationed at the halyards fore and aft. all of this was accomplished before the squall struck, which then left nothing to do but let go the halyards when it became apparent that the force of the wind was too great for the yacht to stand up under. with the wind coming as it was, it was impossible to prevent the mainsail's falling in the water. by the afternoon of the fourth we were out of sight of the last of the fijis and again dependent on observations for our position. it was our intention to call in at fanning island on our way to hawaii, to which end the yacht was kept headed north-east whenever possible, a course two points more easterly than the direct one to honolulu. with a light south-east wind miles were run up to noon of the th, soon after which a shift to n.n.e. forced us to go about and head nearly due east all afternoon. toward dark it fell calm and but three miles were run between six o'clock and midnight. by the th the wind was back to south-east, but blowing with little force, the run to noon of that day being but forty-five miles. [illustration: a fijian warrior] [illustration: reefing the mainsail] [illustration: untying a reef in the mainsail] a strong westerly current began making itself felt about this time--lat. ° ' south, and long. ° ' west--which gradually worked more to the north as we approached the line. on the th it set us eighteen miles to the west; on the th, twenty miles to w.n.w.; on the th, eighteen miles to n.w.; and on the next four days from twenty-four to thirty miles to n.n.w. this was considerably more of a current than the sailing directions indicate for those latitudes. in the forenoon of the th the wind hauled to the north-east, blowing strong from that direction until four in the afternoon, when, without abating in strength, it went back to east. toward midnight a heavy squall struck the yacht, and while furling the jib a foot rope gave way under bill, a big dane of the mate's watch, and only a lucky grab at the bobstay saved him from being swept away. the yacht put her nose under a couple of feet of green water at the same instant bill went down, giving him a fearful ducking, but the plucky fellow swung up to the bowsprit the moment it arose from the sea and finished his work without a murmur. on the th, th and th the wind continued fresh but persisted in shifting back and forth in heavy rain-squalls between east and north-east, making it impossible to hold one course for more than an hour or two at a time. the runs for these days were , and miles, respectively. on the th and th we passed straight through the middle of the union group, but so far from any of the islands that their presence was indicated only by the sight of an occasional land bird. this group is composed only of low atolls which are but sparsely wateredand thinly inhabited. on the th the sky was completely overcast, making observations impossible, and the day was one long succession of baffling winds and fierce rain-squalls. this succeeded to a dead calm, the yacht lying all night with the booms hauled amidships and the sails furled. in the middle of the forenoon of the th the yacht sailed under a black cornucopia-shaped cloud which we had been watching for some time as it lay in wait across our path. as we ran into the misty tail, which hung so low as to seem almost dragging in the sea, a veritable deluge of water broke upon us. the downpour was so fierce as to threaten for a while to break in the skylights and flood the cabins. the water accumulated so fast on the deck that the scuppers would not carry it off, and when the rain was falling heaviest the cockpit was flooded a foot deep. the cataclysm ceased as quickly as it had commenced, not by passing on like an ordinary squall, but simply by exhausting its fount. by the time the air was clear of water the black cloud had drawn up into itself and disappeared. after four more days of variable winds, at four in the morning of the th, we crossed the equator in long. ° '. the wind was fresh from e.n.e. and the air ( °) and the water ( °) were each a degree cooler than for several days. the evening was marked by an unusually brilliant sunset. neither our rate of progress to this point, nor the course we had travelled, were all that might have been desired. on the th we made but forty miles and on the three following days an average of about miles each. the course approximated n.n.e., all of two points to the leeward of the direct track to fanning island. to noon of the th there was a run of miles, which placed us due east of fanning island and at a distance of about miles. the next twenty-four hours were spent in beating in short tacks against a wind which had settled itself contentedly to blow straight down our course. by noon of the th, having gained but sixty-two miles in the day's run, we gave up trying to make fanning island and slacked off sheets for honolulu. twelve hours later the wind, blowing half a gale, had hauled up to north-east, forcing us to close-reef mainsail and foresail and head off to n. by w. washington island, lying in about lat. ° north, and long. ° west, the only land we sighted between fiji and hawaii, was on the horizon for several hours of the th. the wind continued as fitful as south of the equator. by keeping the yacht close-hauled all the time we usually managed to hold her on the right side of n. by e., the course to honolulu, but it was a rough, slap-bang, ding-dong task. of this period the "ladies' log," under date of july th, records as follows: "_lurline_ might have been mistaken for a coral island last night, so thick were the reefs upon her. 'the sea is going down,' cries the commodore cheerily early in the evening. 'ay,' answers the mate; 'most of it is going down through the galley skylight.' and sure enough it was. contrary winds are forcing us to make considerable westing and the heavy sea cuts down our speed, the main element in linear progression. reefs were shaken out at eight this morning and tied in again at seven this evening, the constant succession of one to the other during the last few days eliciting the suggestion from the mate that the reefs had best be padlocked in and the key thrown away." most of the following week was spent in reefing and unreefing and tacking this way and that at the caprice of the wind. the sea was heavy most of the time and the progress slow, the best days' runs being those of the rd and th, when and miles, respectively, were made. on none of the other days was there a run of over miles, and on the st only fifty-one was marked up. on the th, though miles west of the high island of hawaii, we cut into the tip of the windless triangle which lies under the lee of its , -foot peaks and for several hours floated without steerageway. when we got the wind again in the afternoon it was noticed at once that the log was acting in an eccentric manner, and on investigation its blades were found to be bent and twisted and heavily scarred, apparently by the teeth of some large fish. at four o'clock in the afternoon of the th the green peaks of oahu were sighted on the weather bow, distant sixty-five miles. with a light east wind the yacht averaged between four and five knots during the night and at four a. m. was six miles off the barber point light, which bore n. by w. this was some miles to the leeward of honolulu, and four hours of beating were necessary to bring us opposite the entrance. here we were boarded by the pilot at eight o'clock, and a few minutes later the tug, _fearless_, dispatched through the courtesy of the spreckels company, passed a line to the yacht and towed her in. we anchored in rotten row, with mooring lines made fast to the identical old man-of-war boilers from which they had been cast loose on our departure for the marquesas, four months previously. from the sailing standpoint this run was the most unsatisfactory of the voyage. twenty-seven days were required to cover miles, an average of but little over a hundred miles a day. practically all of this time the yacht was close-hauled, and a total of at least three days was spent in tiresome beating against a wind which blew straight from our destination. it is possible that two or three days might have been saved had we made a fair wind of the south-east trades instead of keeping close-hauled in an endeavour to make fanning island; but this is by no means certain, as the easting gained at this time stood us in good stead when the north-east trades were encountered. chapter xxi honolulu to san pedro the two weeks spent ashore during _lurline's_ return visit to honolulu were a welcome respite from the four months of unbroken life on shipboard that had preceded them. the absence of the passengers was taken advantage of to give the yacht a thorough overhauling in preparation for the long, hard beat back to san pedro, especial care being taken in the renewal of the running rigging. moreover, as we were scheduled for a short stop at hilo and confidently expected to run down with a fair wind and arrive there all ready to receive calls, unusual attention was given to brasswork and hardwood. thus our plans; how they worked out will appear presently. on the evening of august th the royal hawaiian yacht club gave a banquet for the _lurline_ party, among other amenities of the occasion being the election of the commodore to an honorary life membership in that organization. in his speech of acceptance the commodore dwelt at some length on the ideal sailing conditions existent in the trades latitudes of both north and south pacific, and suggested as a means of bringing those waters more closely to the attention of coast yachtsmen, the inauguration of an annual race, in one direction or other, between honolulu and a california port. the idea was not entirely a new one to hawaiian yachtsmen, but the commodore's assurance of the hearty co-operation of the south coast yacht club of san pedro gave the movement an impetus which resulted in the establishment of the trans-pacific yacht race as a regular biennial fixture. too much credit cannot be given to the people of hawaii, both in and out of yachting circles, for the enthusiastic sportsmanship which has made this, the only regular deep-sea yacht race that is sailed in any part of the world, an accomplished fact. at this banquet, also, were arranged the details for a match race between two old rivals, tom hobron's sloop, _gladys_, and clarence mcfarlane's schooner, _la paloma_. it was decided that the yachts should run down to lahina, on the island of maui, remain there for a day or two and then race back to honolulu. as the date of the start, august th, about coincided with that on which we were planning to sail for hilo, and as lahina was but little off our course, the opportunity of following the race seemed too good to neglect. accordingly a party of our friends was asked to accompany us, and preparations made to start the ball rolling with a musical send-off in honolulu and stop it, at the disembarkation of our guests in lahina, with fireworks. on the arrival of the racers at lahina--of course _lurline_ would arrive first--our friends were to go ashore and await the steamer, while we proceeded on to hilo. never was a schedule more carefully elaborated--even the gastronomical preferences of each individual guest were consulted--and never did a party of pleasure-seekers board a yacht with such firm intentions--expressed and implied--of enjoying, unmixedly and uninterruptedly, a really good time. the water-front was gay with flags and black with people when, early in the afternoon of the th, we hove up anchor and filled away for the passage, following in the wakes of _gladys_ and _la paloma_. it was "_aloha, aloha nui_," from every pier and dock and bulkhead, that we passed as we stood down the bay, and "_aloha, aloha_," from every tug and schooner. at the landing of the boat club, at the inner end of the passage, was a big crowd of friends with the band, and from there the "_alohas_" again burst forth as we sailed smartly by, running at an easy five or six-knot gait before a light but steady breeze. as the yacht entered the passage and made her first curtesy to the ocean swell, the band struck up _aloha-oe_, and the crowd, falling silent for the moment, vented its feelings in a flood of waving handkerchiefs. simultaneously, a similar muslin broadside flashed forth in reply from the port side of the speeding yacht, and then, with friends looking in the eyes of friends and the whole affair--even to the music--going off as smoothly and dramatically as lohengrin's farewell in an end-of-the-season performance, the lashing of the fishing-tackle block on the forestay parted and let the anchor and thirty-five fathoms of chain slide back into the sea. an atmosphere histrionic gave way to one profanely sulphurous, for in addition to spoiling the dramatic effect of our departure, the contretemps left the yacht in a really awkward position. the wheel was thrown hard down and mainsail and foresail sheets let go with all possible dispatch, but not in time to prevent her from rollicking on to the limit of her cable and bringing up short like a colt at the end of its tether. then she swung round, head to the wind, and began tugging at her anchor as a colt tugs at its halter in trying to slip it over its ears. while the sailors wound away on the winch in the thin, blue smoke that still hovered forward--the mate had lost a good deal of cuticle from the inside of his hand in trying to check the run of the cable--our amiable guests brought up sofa pillows on the quarter deck and, making megaphones of their hands, held long and animated conversations with their friends on the landing of the boat club. getting under way in the narrow passage was by no means a simple operation, but, thanks largely to a favourable set of current, it was accomplished without accident. _gladys_ and _la paloma_ were something more than hull down to the south by the time _lurline_ was clear of the reef, but with a fair wind, which was increasing steadily as we worked from under the lee of the land, it was hoped to overcome their lead in time to give our guests a good view of the race. _lurline_ gained rapidly while daylight lasted, and by the time the banners of a brilliant sunset fluttered low in the west and tantalus disappeared behind the dusky pall of the coming night we seemed in a fair way to accomplish our purpose. never was there such a night; never so jolly a yachting party. the slow-heaving sea, bathed in a flood of moonlight, was a-dazzle in dimples of liquid, lucent gold; the sky was a star-set vault of purple, and the breeze, milk-warm and redolent of the smell of some distant, flower-clothed valley, a caress from heaven. the temper of the party matched the night. dinner was a huge success. there were a few negligible incidentals of the soup, fish, roast and salad order, preliminary to a huge feast of preserves made of every known variety of hawaiian fruit from mangoes to mummy-apples, sugared down in jars at all known stages of ripeness and unripeness. these, with countless boxes of candy and fresh fruit, were the contributions of our guests and their friends. and how we did eat, and drink each other's healths, and with what acclamation agree that, never since the voyage of the argonauts, had cruise been so auspiciously begun. banjos and _ukuleles_ were a-twang and a-tinkle on the after deck, accordions and a bugle wailed and brayed from the forecastle, and through it all ran a fog-horn obligato played by a festive hawaiian miss who had unearthed that instrument of torture from the lazarette. about ten o'clock the wind died down and the yacht, deprived of its steadying influence, fell more and more under the disturbing sway of the swinging swells from the channel. before long a decided current became apparent, running with the seas and setting us rapidly toward the rocks of makapu-u point. at midnight diamond head light, which is arranged so as to change colour to the ship passing shoreward of the danger line, showed ominously in a solid beam of warning red. and still the yacht continued to drift, with the land looming higher and the threatening roar of the surf on the reef growing louder every minute. from rolling but gently when she first dropped the wind, the yacht, in the wrench of the steeper seas nearer shore, was shortly executing a _pas seul_ of singular intricacy and animation; so that our guests--frankly, openly and unfeignedly seasick, every one of them--from a half hour of fear that they were going to be cast on the reef and drowned, relapsed into an indefinite period in which they were afraid that perhaps nothing of so felicitous a nature was going to befall after all. bundling the sufferers below as gently as the exigency permitted, the boats were cleared and swung out ready for launching. towing off, in the face of swells and current so persistent, held scant promise of success, but we were about to try it as a last expedient when the sails began filling with vagrant puffs from an awakening trade-wind, and we slacked off sheets and got away without putting it to the test. the rest of the night we spent in crabbing across the lumpy channel, to come out in the grey dawn upon a windless patch of swell and current-churned water in the lee of molokai which, of all the fiend-infested corners of the seven seas, is the spot most accursed. steep, viciously-heaving humps of water, wallowing without rhythm or reason, wrangled angrily to see which could pitch or roll the yacht farthest in its own particular direction. she was like a kitten thrown to a pack of hungry hounds. they pulled her, hauled her, rolled her, dragged her, tossed her on high and trampled her underfoot. not all the other rough-and-rowdy intervals of the whole cruise crowded into a single day could have compared with it for the sheer discomfort it imposed. all but two of the sailors, and the cook as well, were violently seasick. only a couple of us of the regular guard of _lurline_ were holding up our heads, and the guests were a unit of prostrate despair. not a bed or a bunk on the yacht was tenantable in the fearful rollings; no bed or bunk less than a covered box could have been. everything not screwed or lashed into place--and even many objects which had been thus secured--sought the lowest level, and a survey of the cabin, looking forward from the foot of the companionway, suggested something between a tableau of the aftermath of belshazzar's feast and the kishneff massacres staged in a secondhand store. banjos, ukuleles, fog-horn, no longer thrilling to the touch of the revellers, complained intermittently with muffled chords of protest as they rolled drunkenly to port and starboard with the lurches of the yacht. and as for the revellers themselves--but the hand of charity throws the helm of description hard-a-lee and sends me off before the wind of pity on another tack. we have since estimated that this slap-banging ten hours of "devil and the deep sea" in the lee of molokai did more damage to the yacht's rigging than all of the four months of cruising south of the line. most of this became apparent in subsequent overhaulings; at the time the principal trouble arose through the repeated carrying away of the boom-tackle. this happened four times: once through the splitting of the block, a flying fragment of which narrowly missed decapitating the man at the wheel; once through the tearing loose of the cleat on the boom; twice through the breaking of the wire lashing on the boom. how the yacht escaped being racked to pieces in the crazy tug-of-war between the keel, on the one side, trying to hold her to the normal, and on the other the waves, savagely bent on throwing her on her beam's ends or standing her on bowsprit or rudder, has always remained a mystery to us. at four in the afternoon a light breeze sprang up from the south. we were still somewhat nearer to honolulu than lahina, which, with the fact that the wind was fair to the former port and dead ahead to the latter, quickly decided us as to what our course would be. under all-plain lower sail we made the thirty-two miles to diamond head in three hours and a half, only to fail--probably on account of the hour--in our endeavour to attract a pilot. finally we were forced to lower a boat, which, with some difficulty, got through the reef at waikiki and landed a man to telephone for a tug. the _waterwitch_ came out in due time and towed the yacht to her old anchorage in rotten row. our guests, as fast as they revived, went eagerly ashore. _gladys_ and _la paloma_, as we subsequently learned, after nearly going on the rocks of rabbit island the same night that _lurline_ was threatened with similar disaster on makapu-u point, continued the race to lahina, _gladys_, as usual, winning. on the forenoon of the th, after a day spent in effecting such renewals and repairs as were absolutely necessary, we again set sail for the island of hawaii. we left with the intention of proceeding to kawahaie, on the leeward side of the island, to pick up our friend, eben low, who had a ranch in that district, and carry him on to hilo. a glance at the chart, however, revealed the fact that the course to this point would expose us to possible calms in the lees of molokai and maui, and the idea was promptly given up. so we sailed the windward course, and even by that met weather which dragged out to over three days a run which we had hoped to make in a little more than one. at four o'clock in the afternoon of the th we were off hilo harbour, but unable to enter for lack of wind. an anchorage was finally reached at the end of a tow-line kindly passed us by the freighter, _charles councelman_. we remained in hilo five days, renewing old acquaintances and allowing the crew opportunity still further to repair the ravages of that night of accursed memory in the lee of molokai. the bay, with its mile or more of exposure to the north-east--the quarter of the prevailing wind--was as uncomfortable as ever to lie in, the yacht, without sails to steady her, rolling and pitching much of the time more violently than in the open sea. fortunately there was no heavy weather of the kind that throws up a line of surf across the river entrance and makes it impossible to land in boats for days at a time. hilo harbour is badly in need of extensive protective works. shortly before noon of the st of august, _lurline_ left anchorage in hilo homeward bound for san pedro. close-hauled on the starboard tack to a light northeast wind, we stood out of the harbour, dipping to several steamers and sailing vessels whose crews lined up to give us good-bye cheers as we passed. outside the wind was coming in weighty gusts, and a rumpled, squally-looking northeast seemed to give the lie to a barometer that was soaring optimistically around . . the instrument had its way, however, for the squalls worked off inland in a couple of hours, leaving us with a steady e.n.e. wind and a brilliant fair-weather sky full of cottony trade-clouds. at three o'clock, when we took departure with alia point bearing s.w. / w., distant six miles, a course of n.n.e. was set, to be held with scarcely a quarter of a point's deviation for four days. on the rd two steamers were sighted heading s.s. w., probably for honolulu. these were the first ships seen in the open sea since the sails of a bark, hull down on the horizon, were sighted a few days after leaving san pedro, seven months previously. these three confused blurs against the skyline, all of them too distant to signal, were the nearest approach to company that _lurline_ knew during the entire cruise. probably no other circumstance could so strikingly illustrate the utter loneliness of the mid-pacific. anywhere south of hawaii, off the tracks of the two australian-american steamship lines, the crew of a disabled ship might float for ten years--or ten times ten years--without smoke or sail breaking the smooth line of the horizon. early in the morning of the th the watch reported a lunar rainbow, and all hands, fore and aft, tumbled out on deck to view the unusual phenomenon. the full moon was shining brightly from a clear sky to the southwest, having sunk to about thirty degrees from the horizon. up to the northeast a fluffy bank of dove-grey clouds were heaped half-way to the zenith, and against this, an unbroken arch of mother-of-pearl, the rainbow stood clearly forth. from red to violet, all the colours of the spectrum were there just as in a solar rainbow, yet shining with a light elusive and unearthly where the spectral hands that fashioned it had woven a warp of moonshine into the woof of the blended iridesence. twice it faded and reappeared before dissolving for the last time in the first flush of a sparkling daisy and daffodil sunrise. for some days after leaving hilo the wind held steadily from the northeast, forcing us several points to the north of a direct course to san pedro. crowded close on the wind all the time, the yacht made slow headway, averaging but little better than miles a day. on the th, however, the wind veered to southeast, and on the three days that it remained in that quarter runs of , and miles, respectively, were registered. this was followed by a spell of calm, and that by a succession of days of varying, uncertain weather and head-winds, which held all the way to san pedro. most of this latter period the wind was moderate and the sea light, as is evidenced by the fact that both fore and main gafftopsails were carried, day and night, from the afternoon of august th to the morning of september th, ten and a half days. in the evening of september rd, at about lat. ° north, long. ° west, we encountered our first fog, and from that time on were hampered more or less by thick weather all the way to port, which we reached a week later. the brilliant tropical days of sunshine and squalls succeeded to dull temperate days of much cloudiness and little wind and rain. some days the fog was high and troublesome only in making observations impossible; on others it settled down close to the sea in banks so dense that the main truck was not visible from the deck. on these latter occasions, though it was not likely that there was another ship within miles, prudence had the call and our little hand-cranked fog-horn--the same that had figured in the revels of our guests the night that the yacht nearly went on the rocks of oahu--was kept incessantly at work. between fogs and light and baffling winds, our progress for the latter half of this traverse was slower than for any other similar period of the voyage. on but three of the last nine days did the yacht log over miles, these being the th of september, miles, and the th, miles. the runs for the other five days were twenty-six, forty-six, forty-seven, eighty-seven, and sixty-seven miles, respectively. the winds, for the most part, were northeasterly, but the comparatively good run of the th was made with a very light but steady breeze from the west. several land birds came aboard on the morning of the th, and not long afterward the brown slopes of santa rosa island took shape through the lifting fog. the heavens were overcast all day, but for a brief space in the afternoon a long strip of cloud ran back across the east like a sliding door, and through the rift we had a brief glimpse of the rugged sierra madres, a hundred miles distant, standing sharp and distinct in a flood of sunshine against a vivid background of california sky. doing the best we could with puffs of wind that came by turn from all points of the compass, we crept along at three or four miles an hour until midnight. then it fell dead calm, and during the next eight hours the log recorded but a single mile. this was broken by a light westerly breeze and before it, wing-and-wing, we went groping in through the fog, watching for a land-fall that would give us our position. this appeared at noon, when the familiar cliffs of point vicente began showing in dark brown patches through the thinning mist off the port bow, distant about five miles. three hours later the commodore was able to close the log of _lurline_ with the following entry: _september th, three p. m.--"anchored near our old mooring in san pedro outer harbour, having been away seven months and seven days, travelling , miles without accident or serious trouble."_ the end transcriber's note: inconsistencies in the author's use of hyphens have been left unchanged, as in the original text. obvious printer errors have been corrected without comment. otherwise, the author's original spelling, punctuation, and hyphenation have been left intact. mardi: and a voyage thither by herman melville in two volumes vol. i dedicated to my brother, allan melville. preface not long ago, having published two narratives of voyages in the pacific, which, in many quarters, were received with incredulity, the thought occurred to me, of indeed writing a romance of polynesian adventure, and publishing it as such; to see whether, the fiction might not, possibly, be received for a verity: in some degree the reverse of my previous experience. this thought was the germ of others, which have resulted in mardi. new york, january, . mardi. contents vol. i chapter . foot in stirrup . a calm . a king for a comrade . a chat in the clouds . seats secured and portmanteaus packed . eight bells . a pause . they push off, velis et bemis . the watery world is all before them . they arrange their canopies and lounges, and try to make things comfortable . jarl afflicted with the lockjaw . more about being in an open boat . of the chondropterygii, and other uncouth hordes infesting the south seas . jarl's misgivings . a stitch in time saves nine . they are becalmed . in high spirits they push on for the terra incognita . my lord shark and his pages . who goes there? . noises and portents . man ho! . what befel the brigantine at the pearl shell islands . sailing from the island they pillage the cabin . dedicated to the college of physicians and surgeons . peril a peace-maker . containing a pennyweight of philosophy . in which the past history of the parki is concluded . suspicions laid, and something about the calmuc . what they lighted upon in further searching the craft, and the resolution they came to . hints for a full length of samoa . rovings alow and aloft . xiphius platypterus . otard . how they steered on their way . ah, annatoo! . the parki gives up the ghost . once more they take to the chamois . the sea on fire . they fall in with strangers . sire and sons . a fray . remorse . the tent entered . away! . reminiscences . the chamois with a roving commission . yillah, jarl, and samoa . something under the surface . yillah . yillah in ardair . the dream begins to fade . world ho! . the chamois ashore . a gentleman from the sun . tiffin in a temple . king media a host . taji takes counsel with himself . mardi by night and yillah by day . their morning meal . belshazzar on the bench . an incognito . taji retires from the world . odo and its lord . yillah a phantom . taji makes three acquaintances . with a fair wind at sunrise they sail . little king peepi . how teeth were regarded in valapee . the company discourse, and braid-beard rehearses a legend . the minstrel leads of with a paddle-song; and a message is received from abroad . they land upon the island of juam . a book from the chronicles of mohi . something more of the prince . advancing deeper into the vale, they encounter donjalolo . time and temples . a pleasant place for a lounge . the house of the afternoon . babbalanja solus . the center of many circumferences . donjalolo in the bosom of his family . wherein babbalanja relates the adventure of one karkeke in the land of shades . how donjalolo, sent agents to the surrounding isles; with the result . they visit the tributary islets . taji sits down to dinner with five-and-twenty kings, and a royal time they have . after dinner . of those scamps the plujii . nora-bamma . in a calm, hautia's heralds approach . braid-beard rehearses the origin of the isle of rogues . rare sport at ohonoo . of king uhia and his subjects . the god keevi and the precipice of mondo . babbalanja steps in between mohi and yoomy; and yoomy relates a legend . of that jolly old lord, borabolla; and that jolly island of his, mondoldo; and of the fish-ponds, and the hereafters of fish . that jolly old lord borabolla laughs on both sides of his face . samoa a surgeon . faith and knowledge . the tale of a traveler . "marnee ora, ora marnee." . the pursuer himself is pursued . the iris . they depart from mondoldo . as they sail . wherein babbalanja broaches a diabolical theory, and in his own person proves it mardi chapter i foot in stirrup we are off! the courses and topsails are set: the coral-hung anchor swings from the bow: and together, the three royals are given to the breeze, that follows us out to sea like the baying of a hound. out spreads the canvas--alow, aloft-boom-stretched, on both sides, with many a stun' sail; till like a hawk, with pinions poised, we shadow the sea with our sails, and reelingly cleave the brine. but whence, and whither wend ye, mariners? we sail from ravavai, an isle in the sea, not very far northward from the tropic of capricorn, nor very far westward from pitcairn's island, where the mutineers of the bounty settled. at ravavai i had stepped ashore some few months previous; and now was embarked on a cruise for the whale, whose brain enlightens the world. and from ravavai we sail for the gallipagos, otherwise called the enchanted islands, by reason of the many wild currents and eddies there met. now, round about those isles, which dampier once trod, where the spanish bucaniers once hived their gold moidores, the cachalot, or sperm whale, at certain seasons abounds. but thither, from ravavai, your craft may not fly, as flies the sea-gull, straight to her nest. for, owing to the prevalence of the trade winds, ships bound to the northeast from the vicinity of ravavai are fain to take something of a circuit; a few thousand miles or so. first, in pursuit of the variable winds, they make all haste to the south; and there, at length picking up a stray breeze, they stand for the main: then, making their easting, up helm, and away down the coast, toward the line. this round-about way did the arcturion take; and in all conscience a weary one it was. never before had the ocean appeared so monotonous; thank fate, never since. but bravo! in two weeks' time, an event. out of the gray of the morning, and right ahead, as we sailed along, a dark object rose out of the sea; standing dimly before us, mists wreathing and curling aloft, and creamy breakers frothing round its base.--we turned aside, and, at length, when day dawned, passed massafuero. with a glass, we spied two or three hermit goats winding down to the sea, in a ravine; and presently, a signal: a tattered flag upon a summit beyond. well knowing, however, that there was nobody on the island but two or three noose-fulls of runaway convicts from chili, our captain had no mind to comply with their invitation to land. though, haply, he may have erred in not sending a boat off with his card. a few days more and we "took the trades." like favors snappishly conferred, they came to us, as is often the case, in a very sharp squall; the shock of which carried away one of our spars; also our fat old cook off his legs; depositing him plump in the scuppers to leeward. in good time making the desired longitude upon the equator, a few leagues west of the gallipagos, we spent several weeks chassezing across the line, to and fro, in unavailing search for our prey. for some of their hunters believe, that whales, like the silver ore in peru, run in veins through the ocean. so, day after day, daily; and week after week, weekly, we traversed the self-same longitudinal intersection of the self-same line; till we were almost ready to swear that we felt the ship strike every time her keel crossed that imaginary locality. at length, dead before the equatorial breeze, we threaded our way straight along the very line itself. westward sailing; peering right, and peering left, but seeing naught. it was during this weary time, that i experienced the first symptoms of that bitter impatience of our monotonous craft, which ultimately led to the adventures herein recounted. but hold you! not a word against that rare old ship, nor its crew. the sailors were good fellows all, the half, score of pagans we had shipped at the islands included. nevertheless, they were not precisely to my mind. there was no soul a magnet to mine; none with whom to mingle sympathies; save in deploring the calms with which we were now and then overtaken; or in hailing the breeze when it came. under other and livelier auspices the tarry knaves might have developed qualities more attractive. had we sprung a leak, been "stove" by a whale, or been blessed with some despot of a captain against whom to stir up some spirited revolt, these shipmates of mine might have proved limber lads, and men of mettle. but as it was, there was naught to strike fire from their steel. there were other things, also, tending to make my lot on ship-board very hard to be borne. true, the skipper himself was a trump; stood upon no quarter-deck dignity; and had a tongue for a sailor. let me do him justice, furthermore: he took a sort of fancy for me in particular; was sociable, nay, loquacious, when i happened to stand at the helm. but what of that? could he talk sentiment or philosophy? not a bit. his library was eight inches by four: bowditch, and hamilton moore. and what to me, thus pining for some one who could page me a quotation from burton on blue devils; what to me, indeed, were flat repetitions of long-drawn yarns, and the everlasting stanzas of black-eyed susan sung by our full forecastle choir? staler than stale ale. ay, ay, arcturion! i say it in no malice, but thou wast exceedingly dull. not only at sailing: hard though it was, that i could have borne; but in every other respect. the days went slowly round and round, endless and uneventful as cycles in space. time, and time-pieces; how many centuries did my hammock tell, as pendulum-like it swung to the ship's dull roll, and ticked the hours and ages. sacred forever be the arcturion's fore-hatch--alas! sea-moss is over it now--and rusty forever the bolts that held together that old sea hearth-stone, about which we so often lounged. nevertheless, ye lost and leaden hours, i will rail at ye while life lasts. well: weeks, chronologically speaking, went by. bill marvel's stories were told over and over again, till the beginning and end dovetailed into each other, and were united for aye. ned ballad's songs were sung till the echoes lurked in the very tops, and nested in the bunts of the sails. my poor patience was clean gone. but, at last after some time sailing due westward we quitted the line in high disgust; having seen there, no sign of a whale. but whither now? to the broiling coast of papua? that region of sun-strokes, typhoons, and bitter pulls after whales unattainable. far worse. we were going, it seemed, to illustrate the whistonian theory concerning the damned and the comets;--hurried from equinoctial heats to arctic frosts. to be short, with the true fickleness of his tribe, our skipper had abandoned all thought of the cachalot. in desperation, he was bent upon bobbing for the right whale on the nor'-west coast and in the bay of kamschatska. to the uninitiated in the business of whaling, my feelings at this juncture may perhaps be hard to understand. but this much let me say: that right whaling on the nor'-west coast, in chill and dismal fogs, the sullen inert monsters rafting the sea all round like hartz forest logs on the rhine, and submitting to the harpoon like half-stunned bullocks to the knife; this horrid and indecent right whaling, i say, compared to a spirited hunt for the gentlemanly cachalot in southern and more genial seas, is as the butchery of white bears upon blank greenland icebergs to zebra hunting in caffraria, where the lively quarry bounds before you through leafy glades. now, this most unforeseen determination on the part of my captain to measure the arctic circle was nothing more nor less than a tacit contravention of the agreement between us. that agreement needs not to be detailed. and having shipped but for a single cruise, i had embarked aboard his craft as one might put foot in stirrup for a day's following of the hounds. and here, heaven help me, he was going to carry me off to the pole! and on such a vile errand too! for there was something degrading in it. your true whaleman glories in keeping his harpoon unspotted by blood of aught but cachalot. by my halidome, it touched the knighthood of a tar. sperm and spermaceti! it was unendurable. "captain," said i, touching my sombrero to him as i stood at the wheel one day, "it's very hard to carry me off this way to purgatory. i shipped to go elsewhere." "yes, and so did i," was his reply. "but it can't be helped. sperm whales are not to be had. we've been out now three years, and something or other must be got; for the ship is hungry for oil, and her hold a gulf to look into. but cheer up my boy; once in the bay of kamschatka, and we'll be all afloat with what we want, though it be none of the best." worse and worse! the oleaginous prospect extended into an immensity of macassar. "sir," said i, "i did not ship for it; put me ashore somewhere, i beseech." he stared, but no answer vouchsafed; and for a moment i thought i had roused the domineering spirit of the sea-captain, to the prejudice of the more kindly nature of the man. but not so. taking three turns on the deck, he placed his hand on the wheel, and said, "right or wrong, my lad, go with us you must. putting you ashore is now out of the question. i make no port till this ship is full to the combings of her hatchways. however, you may leave her if you can." and so saying he entered his cabin, like julius caesar into his tent. he may have meant little by it, but that last sentence rung in my ear like a bravado. it savored of the turnkey's compliments to the prisoner in newgate, when he shoots to the bolt on him. "leave the ship if i can!" leave the ship when neither sail nor shore was in sight! ay, my fine captain, stranger things have been done. for on board that very craft, the old arcturion, were four tall fellows, whom two years previous our skipper himself had picked up in an open boat, far from the farthest shoal. to be sure, they spun a long yarn about being the only survivors of an indiaman burnt down to the water's edge. but who credited their tale? like many others, they were keepers of a secret: had doubtless contracted a disgust for some ugly craft still afloat and hearty, and stolen away from her, off soundings. among seamen in the pacific such adventures not seldom occur. nor are they accounted great wonders. they are but incidents, not events, in the career of the brethren of the order of south sea rovers. for what matters it, though hundreds of miles from land, if a good whale-boat be under foot, the trades behind, and mild, warm seas before? and herein lies the difference between the atlantic and pacific:--that once within the tropics, the bold sailor who has a mind to quit his ship round cape horn, waits not for port. he regards that ocean as one mighty harbor. nevertheless, the enterprise hinted at was no light one; and i resolved to weigh well the chances. it's worth noticing, this way we all have of pondering for ourselves the enterprise, which, for others, we hold a bagatelle. my first thoughts were of the boat to be obtained, and the right or wrong of abstracting it, under the circumstances. but to split no hairs on this point, let me say, that were i placed in the same situation again, i would repeat the thing i did then. the captain well knew that he was going to detain me unlawfully: against our agreement; and it was he himself who threw out the very hint, which i merely adopted, with many thanks to him. in some such willful mood as this, i went aloft one day, to stand my allotted two hours at the mast-head. it was toward the close of a day, serene and beautiful. there i stood, high upon the mast, and away, away, illimitably rolled the ocean beneath. where we then were was perhaps the most unfrequented and least known portion of these seas. westward, however, lay numerous groups of islands, loosely laid down upon the charts, and invested with all the charms of dream-land. but soon these regions would be past; the mild equatorial breeze exchanged for cold, fierce squalls, and all the horrors of northern voyaging. i cast my eyes downward to the brown planks of the dull, plodding ship, silent from stem to stern; then abroad. in the distance what visions were spread! the entire western horizon high piled with gold and crimson clouds; airy arches, domes, and minarets; as if the yellow, moorish sun were setting behind some vast alhambra. vistas seemed leading to worlds beyond. to and fro, and all over the towers of this nineveh in the sky, flew troops of birds. watching them long, one crossed my sight, flew through a low arch, and was lost to view. my spirit must have sailed in with it; for directly, as in a trance, came upon me the cadence of mild billows laving a beach of shells, the waving of boughs, and the voices of maidens, and the lulled beatings of my own dissolved heart, all blended together. now, all this, to be plain, was but one of the many visions one has up aloft. but coming upon me at this time, it wrought upon me so, that thenceforth my desire to quit the arcturion became little short of a frenzy. chapter ii a calm next day there was a calm, which added not a little to my impatience of the ship. and, furthermore, by certain nameless associations revived in me my old impressions upon first witnessing as a landsman this phenomenon of the sea. those impressions may merit a page. to a landsman a calm is no joke. it not only revolutionizes his abdomen, but unsettles his mind; tempts him to recant his belief in the eternal fitness of things; in short, almost makes an infidel of him. at first he is taken by surprise, never having dreamt of a state of existence where existence itself seems suspended. he shakes himself in his coat, to see whether it be empty or no. he closes his eyes, to test the reality of the glassy expanse. he fetches a deep breath, by way of experiment, and for the sake of witnessing the effect. if a reader of books, priestley on necessity occurs to him; and he believes in that old sir anthony absolute to the very last chapter. his faith in malte brun, however, begins to fail; for the geography, which from boyhood he had implicitly confided in, always assured him, that though expatiating all over the globe, the sea was at least margined by land. that over against america, for example, was asia. but it is a calm, and he grows madly skeptical. to his alarmed fancy, parallels and meridians become emphatically what they are merely designated as being: imaginary lines drawn round the earth's surface. the log assures him that he is in such a place; but the log is a liar; for no place, nor any thing possessed of a local angularity, is to be lighted upon in the watery waste. at length horrible doubts overtake him as to the captain's competency to navigate his ship. the ignoramus must have lost his way, and drifted into the outer confines of creation, the region of the everlasting lull, introductory to a positive vacuity. thoughts of eternity thicken. he begins to feel anxious concerning his soul. the stillness of the calm is awful. his voice begins to grow strange and portentous. he feels it in him like something swallowed too big for the esophagus. it keeps up a sort of involuntary interior humming in him, like a live beetle. his cranium is a dome full of reverberations. the hollows of his very bones are as whispering galleries. he is afraid to speak loud, lest he be stunned; like the man in the bass drum. but more than all else is the consciousness of his utter helplessness. succor or sympathy there is none. penitence for embarking avails not. the final satisfaction of despairing may not be his with a relish. vain the idea of idling out the calm. he may sleep if he can, or purposely delude himself into a crazy fancy, that he is merely at leisure. all this he may compass; but he may not lounge; for to lounge is to be idle; to be idle implies an absence of any thing to do; whereas there is a calm to be endured: enough to attend to, heaven knows. his physical organization, obviously intended for locomotion, becomes a fixture; for where the calm leaves him, there he remains. even his undoubted vested rights, comprised in his glorious liberty of volition, become as naught. for of what use? he wills to go: to get away from the calm: as ashore he would avoid the plague. but he can not; and how foolish to revolve expedients. it is more hopeless than a bad marriage in a land where there is no doctors' commons. he has taken the ship to wife, for better or for worse, for calm or for gale; and she is not to be shuffled off. with yards akimbo, she says unto him scornfully, as the old beldam said to the little dwarf:--"help yourself" and all this, and more than this, is a calm. chapter iii a king for a comrade at the time i now write of, we must have been something more than sixty degrees to the west of the gallipagos. and having attained a desirable longitude, we were standing northward for our arctic destination: around us one wide sea. but due west, though distant a thousand miles, stretched north and south an almost endless archipelago, here and there inhabited, but little known; and mostly unfrequented, even by whalemen, who go almost every where. beginning at the southerly termination of this great chain, it comprises the islands loosely known as ellice's group; then, the kingsmill isles; then, the radack and mulgrave clusters. these islands had been represented to me as mostly of coral formation, low and fertile, and abounding in a variety of fruits. the language of the people was said to be very similar to that or the navigator's islands, from which, their ancestors are supposed to have emigrated. and thus much being said, all has been related that i then knew of the islands in question. enough, however, that they existed at all; and that our path thereto lay over a pleasant sea, and before a reliable trade-wind. the distance, though great, was merely an extension of water; so much blankness to be sailed over; and in a craft, too, that properly managed has been known to outlive great ships in a gale. for this much is true of a whale-boat, the cunningest thing in its way ever fabricated by man. upon one of the kingsmill islands, then, i determined to plant my foot, come what come would. and i was equally determined that one of the ship's boats should float me thither. but i had no idea of being without a companion. it would be a weary watch to keep all by myself, with naught but the horizon in sight. now, among the crew was a fine old seaman, one jarl; how old, no one could tell, not even himself. forecastle chronology is ever vague and defective. "man and boy," said honest jarl, "i have lived ever since i can remember." and truly, who may call to mind when he was not? to ourselves, we all seem coeval with creation. whence it comes, that it is so hard to die, ere the world itself is departed. jarl hailed from the isle of skye, one of the constellated hebrides. hence, they often called him the skyeman. and though he was far from being piratical of soul, he was yet an old norseman to behold. his hands were brawny as the paws of a bear; his voice hoarse as a storm roaring round the old peak of mull; and his long yellow hair waved round his head like a sunset. my life for it, jarl, thy ancestors were vikings, who many a time sailed over the salt german sea and the baltic; who wedded their brynhildas in jutland; and are now quaffing mead in the halls of valhalla, and beating time with their cans to the hymns of the scalds. ah! how the old sagas run through me! yet jarl, the descendant of heroes and kings, was a lone, friendless mariner on the main, only true to his origin in the sea-life that he led. but so it has been, and forever will be. what yeoman shall swear that he is not descended from alfred? what dunce, that he is not sprung of old homer? king noah, god bless him! fathered us all. then hold up your heads, oh ye helots, blood potential flows through your veins. all of us have monarchs and sages for kinsmen; nay, angels and archangels for cousins; since in antediluvian days, the sons of god did verily wed with our mothers, the irresistible daughters of eve. thus all generations are blended: and heaven and earth of one kin: the hierarchies of seraphs in the uttermost skies; the thrones and principalities in the zodiac; the shades that roam throughout space; the nations and families, flocks and folds of the earth; one and all, brothers in essence--oh, be we then brothers indeed! all things form but one whole; the universe a judea, and god jehovah its head. then no more let us start with affright. in a theocracy, what is to fear? let us compose ourselves to death as fagged horsemen sleep in the saddle. let us welcome even ghosts when they rise. away with our stares and grimaces. the new zealander's tattooing is not a prodigy; nor the chinaman's ways an enigma. no custom is strange; no creed is absurd; no foe, but who will in the end prove a friend. in heaven, at last, our good, old, white-haired father adam will greet all alike, and sociality forever prevail. christian shall join hands between gentile and jew; grim dante forget his infernos, and shake sides with fat rabelais; and monk luther, over a flagon of old nectar, talk over old times with pope leo. then, shall we sit by the sages, who of yore gave laws to the medes and persians in the sun; by the cavalry captains in perseus, who cried, "to horse!" when waked by their last trump sounding to the charge; by the old hunters, who eternities ago, hunted the moose in orion; by the minstrels, who sang in the milky way when jesus our saviour was born. then shall we list to no shallow gossip of magellans and drakes; but give ear to the voyagers who have circumnavigated the ecliptic; who rounded the polar star as cape horn. then shall the stagirite and kant be forgotten, and another folio than theirs be turned over for wisdom; even the folio now spread with horoscopes as yet undeciphered, the heaven of heavens on high. now, in old jarl's lingo there was never an idiom. your aboriginal tar is too much of a cosmopolitan for that. long companionship with seamen of all tribes: manilla-men, anglo-saxons, cholos, lascars, and danes, wear away in good time all mother-tongue stammerings. you sink your clan; down goes your nation; you speak a world's language, jovially jabbering in the lingua-franca of the forecastle. true to his calling, the skyeman was very illiterate; witless of salamanca, heidelberg, or brazen-nose; in delhi, had never turned over the books of the brahmins. for geography, in which sailors should be adepts, since they are forever turning over and over the great globe of globes, poor jarl was deplorably lacking. according to his view of the matter, this terraqueous world had been formed in the manner of a tart; the land being a mere marginal crust, within which rolled the watery world proper. such seemed my good viking's theory of cosmography. as for other worlds, he weened not of them; yet full as much as chrysostom. ah, jarl! an honest, earnest wight; so true and simple, that the secret operations of thy soul were more inscrutable than the subtle workings of spinoza's. thus much be said of the skyeman; for he was exceedingly taciturn, and but seldom will speak for himself. now, higher sympathies apart, for jarl i had a wonderful liking; for he loved me; from the first had cleaved to me. it is sometimes the case, that an old mariner like him will conceive a very strong attachment for some young sailor, his shipmate; an attachment so devoted, as to be wholly inexplicable, unless originating in that heart-loneliness which overtakes most seamen as they grow aged; impelling them to fasten upon some chance object of regard. but however it was, my viking, thy unbidden affection was the noblest homage ever paid me. and frankly, i am more inclined to think well of myself, as in some way deserving thy devotion, than from the rounded compliments of more cultivated minds. now, at sea, and in the fellowship of sailors, all men appear as they are. no school like a ship for studying human nature. the contact of one man with another is too near and constant to favor deceit. you wear your character as loosely as your flowing trowsers. vain all endeavors to assume qualities not yours; or to conceal those you possess. incognitos, however desirable, are out of the question. and thus aboard of all ships in which i have sailed, i have invariably been known by a sort of thawing-room title. not,--let me hurry to say,--that i put hand in tar bucket with a squeamish air, or ascended the rigging with a chesterfieldian mince. no, no, i was never better than my vocation; and mine have been many. i showed as brown a chest, and as hard a hand, as the tarriest tar of them all. and never did shipmate of mine upbraid me with a genteel disinclination to duty, though it carried me to truck of main-mast, or jib-boom-end, in the most wolfish blast that ever howled. whence then, this annoying appellation? for annoying it most assuredly was. it was because of something in me that could not be hidden; stealing out in an occasional polysyllable; an otherwise incomprehensible deliberation in dining; remote, unguarded allusions to belles-lettres affairs; and other trifles superfluous to mention. but suffice it to say, that it had gone abroad among the arcturion's crew, that at some indefinite period of my career, i had been a "nob." but jarl seemed to go further. he must have taken me for one of the house of hanover in disguise; or, haply, for bonneted charles edward the pretender, who, like the wandering jew, may yet be a vagrant. at any rate, his loyalty was extreme. unsolicited, he was my laundress and tailor; a most expert one, too; and when at meal-times my turn came round to look out at the mast-head, or stand at the wheel, he catered for me among the "kids" in the forecastle with unwearied assiduity. many's the good lump of "duff" for which i was indebted to my good viking's good care of me. and like sesostris i was served by a monarch. yet in some degree the obligation was mutual. for be it known that, in sea-parlance, we were _chummies._ now this _chummying_ among sailors is like the brotherhood subsisting between a brace of collegians (chums) rooming together. it is a fidus-achates-ship, a league of offense and defense, a copartnership of chests and toilets, a bond of love and good feeling, and a mutual championship of the absent one. true, my nautical reminiscenses remind me of sundry lazy, ne'er-do-well, unprofitable, and abominable chummies; chummies, who at meal times were last at the "kids," when their unfortunate partners were high upon the spars; chummies, who affected awkwardness at the needle, and conscientious scruples about dabbling in the suds; so that chummy the simple was made to do all the work of the firm, while chummy the cunning played the sleeping partner in his hammock. out upon such chummies! but i appeal to thee, honest jarl, if i was ever chummy the cunning. never mind if thou didst fabricate my tarpaulins; and with samaritan charity bind up the rents, and pour needle and thread into the frightful gashes that agonized my hapless nether integuments, which thou calledst "ducks;"--didst thou not expressly declare, that all these things, and more, thou wouldst do for me, despite my own quaint thimble, fashioned from the ivory tusk of a whale? nay; could i even wrest from thy willful hands my very shirt, when once thou hadst it steaming in an unsavory pickle in thy capacious vat, a decapitated cask? full well thou knowest, jarl, that these things are true; and i am bound to say it, to disclaim any lurking desire to reap advantage from thy great good nature. now my viking for me, thought i, when i cast about for a comrade; and my viking alone. chapter iv a chat in the clouds the skyeman seemed so earnest and upright a seaman, that to tell the plain truth, in spite of his love for me, i had many misgivings as to his readiness to unite in an undertaking which apparently savored of a moral dereliction. but all things considered, i deemed my own resolution quite venial; and as for inducing another to join me, it seemed a precaution so indispensable, as to outweigh all other considerations. therefore i resolved freely to open my heart to him; for that special purpose paying him a visit, when, like some old albatross in the air, he happened to be perched at the foremast-head, all by himself, on the lookout for whales never seen. now this standing upon a bit of stick feet aloft for hours at a time, swiftly sailing over the sea, is very much like crossing the channel in a balloon. manfred-like, you talk to the clouds: you have a fellow feeling for the sun. and when jarl and i got conversing up there, smoking our dwarfish "dudeens," any sea-gull passing by might have taken us for messrs. blanchard and jeffries, socially puffing their after-dinner bagdads, bound to calais, via heaven, from dover. honest jarl, i acquainted with all: my conversation with the captain, the hint implied in his last words, my firm resolve to quit the ship in one of her boats, and the facility with which i thought the thing could be done. then i threw out many inducements, in the shape of pleasant anticipations of bearing right down before the wind upon the sunny isles under our lee. he listened attentively; but so long remained silent that i almost fancied there was something in jarl which would prove too much for me and my eloquence. at last he very bluntly declared that the scheme was a crazy one; he had never known of such a thing but thrice before; and in every case the runaways had never afterwards been heard of. he entreated me to renounce my determination, not be a boy, pause and reflect, stick to the ship, and go home in her like a man. verily, my viking talked to me like my uncle. but to all this i turned a deaf ear; affirming that my mind was made up; and that as he refused to accompany me, and i fancied no one else for a comrade, i would go stark alone rather than not at all. upon this, seeing my resolution immovable, he bluntly swore that he would follow me through thick and thin. thanks, jarl! thou wert one of those devoted fellows who will wrestle hard to convince one loved of error; but failing, forthwith change their wrestling to a sympathetic hug. but now his elderly prudence came into play. casting his eye over the boundless expanse below, he inquired how far off were the islands in question. "a thousand miles and no less." "with a fair trade breeze, then, and a boat sail, that is a good twelve days' passage, but calms and currents may make it a month, perhaps more." so saying, he shook his old head, and his yellow hair streamed. but trying my best to chase away these misgivings, he at last gave them over. he assured me i might count upon him to his uttermost keel. my viking secured, i felt more at ease; and thoughtfully considered how the enterprise might best be accomplished. there was no time to be lost. every hour was carrying us farther and farther from the parallel most desirable for us to follow in our route to the westward. so, with all possible dispatch, i matured my plans, and communicated them to jarl, who gave several old hints--having ulterior probabilities in view--which were not neglected. strange to relate, it was not till my viking, with a rueful face, reminded me of the fact, that i bethought me of a circumstance somewhat alarming at the first blush. we must push off without chart or quadrant; though, as will shortly be seen, a compass was by no means out of the question. the chart, to be sure, i did not so much lay to heart; but a quadrant was more than desirable. still, it was by no means indispensable. for this reason. when we started, our latitude would be exactly known; and whether, on our voyage westward, we drifted north or south therefrom, we could not, by any possibility, get so far out of our reckoning, as to fail in striking some one of a long chain of islands, which, for many degrees, on both sides of the equator, stretched right across our track. for much the same reason, it mattered little, whether on our passage we daily knew our longitude; for no known land lay between us and the place we desired to reach. so what could be plainer than this: that if westward we patiently held on our way, we must eventually achieve our destination? as for intervening shoals or reefs, if any there were, they intimidated us not. in a boat that drew but a few inches of water, but an indifferent look-out would preclude all danger on that score. at all events, the thing seemed feasible enough, notwithstanding old jarl's superstitious reverence for nautical instruments, and the philosophical objections which might have been urged by a pedantic disciple of mercator. very often, as the old maxim goes, the simplest things are the most startling, and that, too, from their very simplicity. so cherish no alarms, if thus we addressed the setting sun--"be thou, old pilot, our guide!" chapter v seats secured and portmanteaus packed but thoughts of sextants and quadrants were the least of our cares. right from under the very arches of the eyebrows of thirty men--captain, mates, and crew--a boat was to be abstracted; they knowing nothing of the event, until all knowledge would prove unavailing. hark ye: at sea, the boats of a south sea-man (generally four in number, spare ones omitted,) are suspended by tackles, hooked above, to curved timbers called "davits," vertically fixed to the ship's sides. now, no fair one with golden locks is more assiduously waited upon, or more delicately handled by her tire-women, than the slender whale-boat by her crew. and out of its element, it seems fragile enough to justify the utmost solicitude. for truly, like a fine lady, the fine whale-boat is most delicate when idle, though little coy at a pinch. besides the "davits," the following supports are provided two small cranes are swung under the keel, on which the latter rests, preventing the settling of the boat's middle, while hanging suspended by the bow and stern. a broad, braided, hempen band, usually worked in a tasteful pattern, is also passed round both gunwales; and secured to the ship's bulwarks, firmly lashes the craft to its place. being elevated above the ship's rail, the boats are in plain sight from all parts of the deck. now, one of these boats was to be made way with. no facile matter, truly. harder than for any dashing young janizary to run off with a sultana from the grand turk's seraglio. still, the thing could be done, for, by jove, it had been. what say you to slyly loosing every thing by day; and when night comes, cast off the band and swing in the cranes? but how lower the tackles, even in the darkest night, without a creaking more fearful than the death rattle? easily avoided. anoint the ropes, and they will travel deftly through the subtle windings of the blocks. but though i had heard of this plan being pursued, there was a degree of risk in it, after all, which i was far from fancying. another plan was hit upon; still bolder; and hence more safe. what it was, in the right place will be seen. in selecting my craft for this good voyage, i would fain have traversed the deck, and eyed the boats like a cornet choosing his steed from out a goodly stud. but this was denied me. and the "bow boat" was, perforce, singled out, as the most remote from the quarter-deck, that region of sharp eyes and relentless purposes. then, our larder was to be thought of; also, an abundant supply of water; concerning which last i determined to take good heed. there were but two to be taken care of; but i resolved to lay in sufficient store of both meat and drink for four; at the same time that the supplemental twain thus provided for were but imaginary. and if it came to the last dead pinch, of which we had no fear, however, i was food for no man but jarl. little time was lost in catering for our mess. biscuit and salt beef were our sole resource; and, thanks to the generosity of the arcturion's owners, our ship's company had a plentiful supply. casks of both, with heads knocked out, were at the service of all. in bags which we made for the purpose, a sufficiency of the biscuit was readily stored away, and secreted in a corner of easy access. the salt beef was more difficult to obtain; but, little by little, we managed to smuggle out of the cask enough to answer our purpose. as for water, most luckily a day or two previous several "breakers" of it had been hoisted from below for the present use of the ship's company. these "breakers" are casks, long and slender, but very strong. of various diameters, they are made on purpose to stow into spaces intervening between the immense butts in a ship's hold. the largest we could find was selected, first carefully examining it to detect any leak. on some pretense or other, we then rolled them all over to that side of the vessel where our boat was suspended, the selected breaker being placed in their middle. our compendious wardrobes were snugly packed into bundles and laid aside for the present. and at last, by due caution, we had every thing arranged preliminary to the final start. let me say, though, perhaps to the credit of jarl, that whenever the most strategy was necessary, he seemed ill at ease, and for the most part left the matter to me. it was well that he did; for as it was, by his untimely straight-forwardness, he once or twice came near spoiling every thing. indeed, on one occasion he was so unseasonably blunt, that curiously enough, i had almost suspected him of taking that odd sort of interest in one's welfare, which leads a philanthropist, all other methods failing, to frustrate a project deemed bad; by pretending clumsily to favor it. but no inuendoes; jarl was a viking, frank as his fathers; though not so much of a bucanier. chapter vi eight bells the moon must be monstrous coy, or some things fall out opportunely, or else almanacs are consulted by nocturnal adventurers; but so it is, that when cynthia shows a round and chubby disk, few daring deeds are done. though true it may be, that of moonlight nights, jewelers' caskets and maidens' hearts have been burglariously broken into--and rifled, for aught copernicus can tell. the gentle planet was in her final quarter, and upon her slender horn i hung my hopes of withdrawing from the ship undetected. now, making a tranquil passage across the ocean, we kept at this time what are called among whalemen "boatscrew-watches." that is, instead of the sailors being divided at night into two bands, alternately on deck every four hours, there were four watches, each composed of a boat's crew, the "headsman" (always one of the mates) excepted. to the officers, this plan gives uninterrupted repose--"all-night-in," as they call it, and of course greatly lightens the duties of the crew. the harpooneers head the boats' crews, and are responsible for the ship during the continuance of their watches. now, my viking being a stalwart seaman, pulled the midship oar of the boat of which i was bowsman. hence, we were in the same watch; to which, also, three others belonged, including mark, the harpooner. one of these seamen, however, being an invalid, there were only two left for us to manage. voyaging in these seas, you may glide along for weeks without starting tack or sheet, hardly moving the helm a spoke, so mild and constant are the trades. at night, the watch seldom trouble themselves with keeping much of a look-out; especially, as a strange sail is almost a prodigy in these lonely waters. in some ships, for weeks in and weeks out, you are puzzled to tell when your nightly turn on deck really comes round; so little heed is given to the standing of watches, where in the license of presumed safety, nearly every one nods without fear. but remiss as you may be in the boats-crew-watch of a heedless whaleman, the man who heads it is bound to maintain his post on the quarter-deck until regularly relieved. yet drowsiness being incidental to all natures, even to napoleon, beside his own sentry napping in the snowy bivouac; so, often, in snowy moonlight, or ebon eclipse, dozed mark, our harpooneer. lethe be his portion this blessed night, thought i, as during the morning which preceded our enterprise, i eyed the man who might possibly cross my plans. but let me come closer to this part of my story. during what are called at sea the "dog-watches" (between four o'clock and eight in the evening), sailors are quite lively and frolicsome; their spirits even flow far into the first of the long "night-watches;" but upon its expiration at "eight bells" (midnight), silence begins to reign; if you hear a voice it is no cherub's: all exclamations are oaths. at eight bells, the mariners on deck, now relieved from their cares, crawl out from their sleepy retreats in old monkey jackets, or coils of rigging, and hie to their hammocks, almost without interrupting their dreams: while the sluggards below lazily drag themselves up the ladder to resume their slumbers in the open air. for these reasons then, the moonless sea midnight was just the time to escape. hence, we suffered a whole day to pass unemployed; waiting for the night, when the star board-quarter-boats'-watch, to which we belonged, would be summoned on deck at the eventful eight of the bell. but twenty-four hours soon glide away; and "starboleens ahoy; eight bells there below;" at last started me from a troubled doze. i sprang from my hammock, and would have lighted my pipe. but the forecastle lamp had gone out. an old sea-dog was talking about sharks in his sleep. jarl and our solitary watch-mate were groping their way into their trowsers. and little was heard but the humming of the still sails aloft; the dash of the waves against the bow; and the deep breathing of the dreaming sailors around. chapter vii a pause good old arcturion! maternal craft; that rocked me so often in thy heart of oak, i grieve to tell how i deserted thee on the broad deep. so far from home, with such a motley crew, so many islanders, whose heathen babble echoing through thy christian hull, must have grated harshly on every carline. old ship! where sails thy lone ghost now? for of the stout arcturion no word was ever heard, from the dark hour we pushed from her fated planks. in what time of tempest, to what seagull's scream, the drowning eddies did their work, knows no mortal man. sunk she silently, helplessly, into the calm depths of that summer sea, assassinated by the ruthless blade of the swordfish? such things have been. or was hers a better fate? stricken down while gallantly battling with the blast; her storm-sails set; helm manned; and every sailor at his post; as sunk the hornet, her men at quarters, in some distant gale. but surmises are idle. a very old craft, she may have foundered; or laid her bones upon some treacherous reef; but as with many a far rover, her fate is a mystery. pray heaven, the spirit of that lost vessel roaming abroad through the troubled mists of midnight gales--as old mariners believe of missing ships--may never haunt my future path upon the waves. peacefully may she rest at the bottom of the sea; and sweetly sleep my shipmates in the lowest watery zone, where prowling sharks come not, nor billows roll. by quitting the arcturion when we did, jarl and i unconsciously eluded a sailor's grave. we hear of providential deliverances. was this one? but life is sweet to all, death comes as hard. and for myself i am almost tempted to hang my head, that i escaped the fate of my shipmates; something like him who blushed to have escaped the fell carnage at thermopylae. though i can not repress a shudder when i think of that old ship's end, it is impossible for me so much as to imagine, that our deserting her could have been in any way instrumental in her loss. nevertheless, i would to heaven the arcturion still floated; that it was given me once more to tread her familiar decks. chapter viii they push off, velis et remis and now to tell how, tempted by devil or good angel, and a thousand miles from land, we embarked upon this western voyage. it was midnight, mark you, when our watch began; and my turn at the helm now coming on was of course to be avoided. on some plausible pretense, i induced our solitary watchmate to assume it; thus leaving myself untrammeled, and at the same time satisfactorily disposing of him. for being a rather fat fellow, an enormous consumer of "duff," and with good reason supposed to be the son of a farmer, i made no doubt, he would pursue his old course and fall to nodding over the wheel. as for the leader of the watch--our harpooner--he fell heir to the nest of old jackets, under the lee of the mizzen-mast, left nice and warm by his predecessor. the night was even blacker than we had anticipated; there was no trace of a moon; and the dark purple haze, sometimes encountered at night near the line, half shrouded the stars from view. waiting about twenty minutes after the last man of the previous watch had gone below, i motioned to jarl, and we slipped our shoes from our feet. he then descended into the forecastle, and i sauntered aft toward the quarter-deck. all was still. thrice did i pass my hand full before the face of the slumbering lubber at the helm, and right between him and the light of the binnacle. mark, the harpooneer, was not so easily sounded. i feared to approach him. he lay quietly, though; but asleep or awake, no more delay. risks must be run, when time presses. and our ears were a pointer's to catch a sound. to work we went, without hurry, but swiftly and silently. our various stores were dragged from their lurking-places, and placed in the boat, which hung from the ship's lee side, the side depressed in the water, an indispensable requisite to an attempt at escape. and though at sundown the boat was to windward, yet, as we had foreseen, the vessel having been tacked during the first watch, brought it to leeward. endeavoring to manhandle our clumsy breaker, and lift it into the boat, we found, that by reason of the intervention of the shrouds, it could not be done without, risking a jar; besides straining the craft in lowering. an expedient, however, though at the eleventh hour, was hit upon. fastening a long rope to the breaker, which was perfectly tight, we cautiously dropped it overboard; paying out enough line, to insure its towing astern of the ship, so as not to strike against the copper. the other end of the line we then secured to the boat's stern. fortunately, this was the last thing to be done; for the breaker, acting as a clog to the vessel's way in the water, so affected her steering as to fling her perceptibly into the wind. and by causing the helm to work, this must soon rouse the lubber there stationed, if not already awake. but our dropping overboard the breaker greatly aided us in this respect: it diminished the ship's headway; which owing to the light breeze had not been very great at any time during the night. had it been so, all hope of escaping without first arresting the vessel's progress, would have been little short of madness. as it was, the sole daring of the deed that night achieved, consisted in our lowering away while the ship yet clove the brine, though but moderately. all was now ready: the cranes swung in, the lashings adrift, and the boat fairly suspended; when, seizing the ends of the tackle ropes, we silently stepped into it, one at each end. the dead weight of the breaker astern now dragged the craft horizontally through the air, so that her tackle ropes strained hard. she quivered like a dolphin. nevertheless, had we not feared her loud splash upon striking the wave, we might have quitted the ship almost as silently as the breath the body. but this was out of the question, and our plans were laid accordingly. "all ready, jarl?" "ready." "a man overboard!" i shouted at the top of my compass; and like lightning the cords slid through our blistering hands, and with a tremendous shock the boat bounded on the sea's back. one mad sheer and plunge, one terrible strain on the tackles as we sunk in the trough of the waves, tugged upon by the towing breaker, and our knives severed the tackle ropes--we hazarded not unhooking the blocks--our oars were out, and the good boat headed round, with prow to leeward. "man overboard!" was now shouted from stem to stern. and directly we heard the confused tramping and shouting of the sailors, as they rushed from their dreams into the almost inscrutable darkness. "man overboard! man overboard!" my heart smote me as the human cry of horror came out of the black vaulted night. "down helm!" was soon heard from the chief mate. "back the main-yard! quick to the boats! how's this? one down already? well done! hold on, then, those other boats!" meanwhile several seamen were shouting as they strained at the braces. "cut! cut all! lower away! lower away!" impatiently cried the sailors, who already had leaped into the boats. "heave the ship to, and hold fast every thing," cried the captain, apparently just springing to the deck. "one boat's enough. steward; show a light there from the mizzen-top. boat ahoy!--have you got that man?" no reply. the voice came out of a cloud; the ship dimly showing like a ghost. we had desisted from rowing, and hand over hand were now hauling in upon the rope attached to the breaker, which we soon lifted into the boat, instantly resuming our oars. "pull! pull, men! and save him!" again shouted the captain. "ay, ay, sir," answered jarl instinctively, "pulling as hard as ever we can, sir." and pull we did, till nothing could be heard from the ship but a confused tumult; and, ever and anon, the hoarse shout of the captain, too distant to be understood. we now set our sail to a light air; and right into the darkness, and dead to leeward, we rowed and sailed till morning dawned. chapter ix the watery world is all before them at sea in an open boat, and a thousand miles from land! shortly after the break of day, in the gray transparent light, a speck to windward broke the even line of the horizon. it was the ship wending her way north-eastward. had i not known the final indifference of sailors to such disasters as that which the arcturion's crew must have imputed to the night past (did not the skipper suspect the truth) i would have regarded that little speck with many compunctions of conscience. nor, as it was, did i feel in any very serene humor. for the consciousness of being deemed dead, is next to the presumable unpleasantness of being so in reality. one feels like his own ghost unlawfully tenanting a defunct carcass. even jarl's glance seemed so queer, that i begged him to look another way. secure now from all efforts of the captain to recover those whom he most probably supposed lost; and equally cut off from all hope of returning to the ship even had we felt so inclined; the resolution that had thus far nerved me, began to succumb in a measure to the awful loneliness of the scene. ere this, i had regarded the ocean as a slave, the steed that bore me whither i listed, and whose vicious propensities, mighty though they were, often proved harmless, when opposed to the genius of man. but now, how changed! in our frail boat, i would fain have built an altar to neptune. what a mere toy we were to the billows, that jeeringly shouldered us from crest to crest, as from hand to hand lost souls may be tossed along by the chain of shades which enfilade the route to tartarus. but drown or swim, here's overboard with care! cheer up, jarl! ha! ha! how merrily, yet terribly, we sail! up, up--slowly up--toiling up the long, calm wave; then balanced on its summit a while, like a plank on a rail; and down, we plunge headlong into the seething abyss, till arrested, we glide upward again. and thus did we go. now buried in watery hollows--our sail idly flapping; then lifted aloft--canvas bellying; and beholding the furthest horizon. had not our familiarity with the business of whaling divested our craft's wild motions of its first novel horrors, we had been but a rueful pair. but day-long pulls after whales, the ship left miles astern; and entire dark nights passed moored to the monsters, killed too late to be towed to the ship far to leeward:--all this, and much more, accustoms one to strange things. death, to be sure, has a mouth as black as a wolf's, and to be thrust into his jaws is a serious thing. but true it most certainly is--and i speak from no hearsay--that to sailors, as a class, the grisly king seems not half so hideous as he appears to those who have only regarded him on shore, and at a deferential distance. like many ugly mortals, his features grow less frightful upon acquaintance; and met over often and sociably, the old adage holds true, about familiarity breeding contempt. thus too with soldiers. of the quaking recruit, three pitched battles make a grim grenadier; and he who shrank from the muzzle of a cannon, is now ready to yield his mustache for a sponge. and truly, since death is the last enemy of all, valiant souls will taunt him while they may. yet rather, should the wise regard him as the inflexible friend, who, even against our own wills, from life's evils triumphantly relieves us. and there is but little difference in the manner of dying. to die, is all. and death has been gallantly encountered by those who never beheld blood that was red, only its light azure seen through the veins. and to yield the ghost proudly, and march out of your fortress with all the honors of war, is not a thing of sinew and bone. though in prison, geoffry hudson, the dwarf, died more bravely than goliah, the giant; and the last end of a butterfly shames us all. some women have lived nobler lives, and died nobler deaths, than men. threatened with the stake, mitred cranmer recanted; but through her fortitude, the lorn widow of edessa stayed the tide of valens' persecutions. 'tis no great valor to perish sword in hand, and bravado on lip; cased all in panoply complete. for even the alligator dies in his mail, and the swordfish never surrenders. to expire, mild-eyed, in one's bed, transcends the death of epaminondas. chapter x they arrange their canopies and lounges, and try to make things comfortable our little craft was soon in good order. from the spare rigging brought along, we made shrouds to the mast, and converted the boat-hook into a handy boom for the jib. going large before the wind, we set this sail wing-and-wing with the main-sail. the latter, in accordance with the customary rig of whale-boats, was worked with a sprit and sheet. it could be furled or set in an instant. the bags of bread we stowed away in the covered space about the loggerhead, a useless appurtenance now, and therefore removed. at night, jarl used it for a pillow; saying, that when the boat rolled it gave easy play to his head. the precious breaker we lashed firmly amidships; thereby much improving our sailing. now, previous to leaving the ship, we had seen to it well, that our craft was supplied with all those equipments, with which, by the regulations of the fishery, a whale-boat is constantly provided: night and day, afloat or suspended. hanging along our gunwales inside, were six harpoons, three lances, and a blubber-spade; all keen as razors, and sheathed with leather. besides these, we had three waifs, a couple of two-gallon water-kegs, several bailers, the boat-hatchet for cutting the whale-line, two auxiliary knives for the like purpose, and several minor articles, also employed in hunting the leviathan. the line and line-tub, however, were on ship-board. and here it may be mentioned, that to prevent the strain upon the boat when suspended to the ship's side, the heavy whale-line, over two hundred fathoms in length, and something more than an inch in diameter, when not in use is kept on ship-board, coiled away like an endless snake in its tub. but this tub is always in readiness to be launched into the boat. now, having no use for the line belonging to our craft, we had purposely left it behind. but well had we marked that by far the most important item of a whale-boat's furniture was snugly secured in its place. this was the water-tight keg, at both ends firmly headed, containing a small compass, tinder-box and flint, candles, and a score or two of biscuit. this keg is an invariable precaution against what so frequently occurs in pursuing the sperm whale--prolonged absence from the ship, losing sight of her, or never seeing her more, till years after you reach home again. in this same keg of ours seemed coopered up life and death, at least so seemed it to honest jarl. no sooner had we got clear from the arcturion, than dropping his oar for an instant, he clutched at it in the dark. and when day at last came, we knocked out the head of the keg with the little hammer and chisel, always attached to it for that purpose, and removed the compass, that glistened to us like a human eye. then filling up the vacancy with biscuit, we again made all tight, driving down the hoops till they would budge no more. at first we were puzzled to fix our compass. but at last the skyeman out knife, and cutting a round hole in the after-most thwart, or seat of the boat, there inserted the little brass case containing the needle. over the stern of the boat, with some old canvas which my viking's forethought had provided, we spread a rude sort of awning, or rather counterpane. this, however, proved but little or no protection from the glare of the sun; for the management of the main-sail forbade any considerable elevation of the shelter. and when the breeze was fresh, we were fain to strike it altogether; for the wind being from aft, and getting underneath the canvas, almost lifted the light boat's stem into the air, vexing the counterpane as if it were a petticoat turning a gusty corner. but when a mere breath rippled the sea, and the sun was fiery hot, it was most pleasant to lounge in this shady asylum. it was like being transferred from the roast to cool in the cupboard. and jarl, much the toughest fowl of the two, out of an abundant kindness for his comrade, during the day voluntarily remained exposed at the helm, almost two hours to my one. no lady-like scruples had he, the old viking, about marring his complexion, which already was more than bronzed. over the ordinary tanning of the sailor, he seemed masked by a visor of japanning, dotted all over with freckles, so intensely yellow, and symmetrically circular, that they seemed scorched there by a burning glass. in the tragico-comico moods which at times overtook me, i used to look upon the brown skyeman with humorous complacency. if we fall in with cannibals, thought i, then, ready-roasted norseman that thou art, shall i survive to mourn thee; at least, during the period i revolve upon the spit. but of such a fate, it needs hardly be said, we had no apprehension. chapter xi jarl afflicted with the lockjaw if ever again i launch whale-boat from sheer-plank of ship at sea, i shall take good heed, that my comrade be a sprightly fellow, with a rattle-box head. be he never so silly, his very silliness, so long as he be lively at it, shall be its own excuse. upon occasion, who likes not a lively loon, one of your giggling, gamesome oafs, whose mouth is a grin? are not such, well-ordered dispensations of providence? filling up vacuums, in intervals of social stagnation relieving the tedium of existing? besides keeping up, here and there, in very many quarters indeed, sundry people's good opinion of themselves? what, if at times their speech is insipid as water after wine? what, if to ungenial and irascible souls, their very "mug" is an exasperation to behold, their clack an inducement to suicide? let us not be hard upon them for this; but let them live on for the good they may do. but jarl, dear, dumb jarl, thou wert none of these. thou didst carry a phiz like an excommunicated deacon's. and no matter what happened, it was ever the same. quietly, in thyself, thou didst revolve upon thine own sober axis, like a wheel in a machine which forever goes round, whether you look at it or no. ay, jarl! wast thou not forever intent upon minding that which so many neglect--thine own especial business? wast thou not forever at it, too, with no likelihood of ever winding up thy moody affairs, and striking a balance sheet? but at times how wearisome to me these everlasting reveries in my one solitary companion. i longed for something enlivening; a burst of words; human vivacity of one kind or other. after in vain essaying to get something of this sort out of jarl, i tried it all by myself; playing upon my body as upon an instrument; singing, halloing, and making empty gestures, till my viking stared hard; and i myself paused to consider whether i had run crazy or no. but how account for the skyeman's gravity? surely, it was based upon no philosophic taciturnity; he was nothing of an idealist; an aerial architect; a constructor of flying buttresses. it was inconceivable, that his reveries were manfred-like and exalted, reminiscent of unutterable deeds, too mysterious even to be indicated by the remotest of hints. suppositions all out of the question. his ruminations were a riddle. i asked him anxiously, whether, in any part of the world, savannah, surat, or archangel, he had ever a wife to think of; or children, that he carried so lengthy a phiz. nowhere neither. therefore, as by his own confession he had nothing to think of but himself, and there was little but honesty in him (having which, by the way, he may be thought full to the brim), what could i fall back upon but my original theory: namely, that in repose, his intellects stepped out, and left his body to itself. chapter xii more about being in an open boat on the third morning, at break of day, i sat at the steering oar, an hour or two previous having relieved jarl, now fast asleep. somehow, and suddenly, a sense of peril so intense, came over me, that it could hardly have been aggravated by the completest solitude. on a ship's deck, the mere feeling of elevation above the water, and the reach of prospect you command, impart a degree of confidence which disposes you to exult in your fancied security. but in an open boat, brought down to the very plane of the sea, this feeling almost wholly deserts you. unless the waves, in their gambols, toss you and your chip upon one of their lordly crests, your sphere of vision is little larger than it would be at the bottom of a well. at best, your most extended view in any one direction, at least, is in a high, slow-rolling sea; when you descend into the dark, misty spaces, between long and uniform swells. then, for the moment, it is like looking up and down in a twilight glade, interminable; where two dawns, one on each hand, seem struggling through the semi-transparent tops of the fluid mountains. but, lingering not long in those silent vales, from watery cliff to cliff, a sea-chamois, sprang our solitary craft,--a goat among the alps! how undulated the horizon; like a vast serpent with ten thousand folds coiled all round the globe; yet so nigh, apparently, that it seemed as if one's hand might touch it. what loneliness; when the sun rose, and spurred up the heavens, we hailed him as a wayfarer in sahara the sight of a distant horseman. save ourselves, the sun and the chamois seemed all that was left of life in the universe. we yearned toward its jocund disk, as in strange lands the traveler joyfully greets a face from home, which there had passed unheeded. and was not the sun a fellow-voyager? were we not both wending westward? but how soon he daily overtook and passed us; hurrying to his journey's end. when a week had gone by, sailing steadily on, by day and by night, and nothing in sight but this self-same sea, what wonder if disquieting thoughts at last entered our hearts? if unknowingly we should pass the spot where, according to our reckoning, our islands lay, upon what shoreless sea would we launch? at times, these forebodings bewildered my idea of the positions of the groups beyond. all became vague and confused; so that westward of the kingsmil isles and the radack chain, i fancied there could be naught but an endless sea. chapter xiii of the chondropterygii, and other uncouth hordes infesting the south seas at intervals in our lonely voyage, there were sights which diversified the scene; especially when the constellation pisces was in the ascendant. it's famous botanizing, they say, in arkansas' boundless prairies; i commend the student of ichthyology to an open boat, and the ocean moors of the pacific. as your craft glides along, what strange monsters float by. elsewhere, was never seen their like. and nowhere are they found in the books of the naturalists. though america be discovered, the cathays of the deep are unknown. and whoso crosses the pacific might have read lessons to buffon. the sea-serpent is not a fable; and in the sea, that snake is but a garden worm. there are more wonders than the wonders rejected, and more sights unrevealed than you or i ever ever dreamt of. moles and bats alone should be skeptics; and the only true infidelity is for a live man to vote himself dead. be sir thomas brown our ensample; who, while exploding "vulgar errors," heartily hugged all the mysteries in the pentateuch. but look! fathoms down in the sea; where ever saw you a phantom like that? an enormous crescent with antlers like a reindeer, and a delta of mouths. slowly it sinks, and is seen no more. doctor faust saw the devil; but you have seen the "devil fish." look again! here comes another. jarl calls it a bone shark. full as large as a whale, it is spotted like a leopard; and tusk-like teeth overlap its jaws like those of the walrus. to seamen, nothing strikes more terror than the near vicinity of a creature like this. great ships steer out of its path. and well they may; since the good craft essex, and others, have been sunk by sea-monsters, as the alligator thrusts his horny snout through a carribean canoe. ever present to us, was the apprehension of some sudden disaster from the extraordinary zoological specimens we almost hourly passed. for the sharks, we saw them, not by units, nor by tens, nor by hundreds; but by thousands and by myriads. trust me, there are more sharks in the sea than mortals on land. and of these prolific fish there are full as many species as of dogs. but by the german naturalists muller and henle, who, in christening the sharks, have bestowed upon them the most heathenish names, they are classed under one family; which family, according to muller, king-at-arms, is an undoubted branch of the ancient and famous tribe of the chondropterygii. to begin. there is the ordinary brown shark, or sea attorney, so called by sailors; a grasping, rapacious varlet, that in spite of the hard knocks received from it, often snapped viciously at our steering oar. at times, these gentry swim in herds; especially about the remains of a slaughtered whale. they are the vultures of the deep. then we often encountered the dandy blue shark, a long, taper and mighty genteel looking fellow, with a slender waist, like a bond-street beau, and the whitest tiers of teeth imaginable. this dainty spark invariably lounged by with a careless fin and an indolent tail. but he looked infernally heartless. how his cold-blooded, gentlemanly air, contrasted with the rude, savage swagger of the tiger shark; a round, portly gourmand; with distended mouth and collapsed conscience, swimming about seeking whom he might devour. these gluttons are the scavengers of navies, following ships in the south seas, picking up odds and ends of garbage, and sometimes a tit-bit, a stray sailor. no wonder, then, that sailors denounce them. in substance, jarl once assured me, that under any temporary misfortune, it was one of his sweetest consolations to remember, that in his day, he had murdered, not killed, shoals of tiger sharks. yet this is all wrong. as well hate a seraph, as a shark. both were made by the same hand. and that sharks are lovable, witness their domestic endearments. no fury so ferocious, as not to have some amiable side. in the wild wilderness, a leopard-mother caresses her cub, as hagar did ishmael; or a queen of france the dauphin. we know not what we do when we hate. and i have the word of my gentlemanly friend stanhope, for it; that he who declared he loved a good hater was but a respectable sort of hottentot, at best. no very genteel epithet this, though coming from the genteelest of men. but when the digger of dictionaries said that saying of his, he was assuredly not much of a christian. however, it is hard for one given up to constitutional hypos like him; to be filled with the milk and meekness of the gospels. yet, with deference, i deny that my old uncle johnson really believed in the sentiment ascribed to him. love a hater, indeed! who smacks his lips over gall? now hate is a thankless thing. so, let us only hate hatred; and once give love play, we will fall in love with a unicorn. ah! the easiest way is the best; and to hate, a man must work hard. love is a delight; but hate a torment. and haters are thumbscrews, scotch boots, and spanish inquisitions to themselves. in five words--would they were a siamese diphthong--he who hates is a fool. for several days our chamois was followed by two of these aforesaid tiger sharks. a brace of confidential inseparables, jogging along in our wake, side by side, like a couple of highwaymen, biding their time till you come to the cross-roads. but giving it up at last, for a bootless errand, they dropped farther and farther astern, until completely out of sight. much to the skyeman's chagrin; who long stood in the stern, lance poised for a dart. but of all sharks, save me from the ghastly white shark. for though we should hate naught, yet some dislikes are spontaneous; and disliking is not hating. and never yet could i bring myself to be loving, or even sociable, with a white shark. he is not the sort of creature to enlist young affections. this ghost of a fish is not often encountered, and shows plainer by night than by day. timon-like, he always swims by himself; gliding along just under the surface, revealing a long, vague shape, of a milky hue; with glimpses now and then of his bottomless white pit of teeth. no need of a dentist hath he. seen at night, stealing along like a spirit in the water, with horrific serenity of aspect, the white shark sent many a thrill to us twain in the chamois. by day, and in the profoundest calms, oft were we startled by the ponderous sigh of the grampus, as lazily rising to the surface, he fetched a long breath after napping below. and time and again we watched the darting albicore, the fish with the chain-plate armor and golden scales; the nimrod of the seas, to whom so many flying fish fall a prey. flying from their pursuers, many of them flew into our boat. but invariably they died from the shock. no nursing could restore them. one of their wings i removed, spreading it out to dry under a weight. in two days' time the thin membrane, all over tracings like those of a leaf, was transparent as isinglass, and tinted with brilliant hues, like those of a changing silk. almost every day, we spied black fish; coal-black and glossy. they seemed to swim by revolving round and round in the water, like a wheel; their dorsal fins, every now and then shooting into view, like spokes. of a somewhat similar species, but smaller, and clipper-built about the nose, were the algerines; so called, probably, from their corsair propensities; waylaying peaceful fish on the high seas, and plundering them of body and soul at a gulp. atrocious turks! a crusade should be preached against them. besides all these, we encountered killers and thrashers, by far the most spirited and "spunky" of the finny tribes. though little larger than a porpoise, a band of them think nothing of assailing leviathan himself. they bait the monster, as dogs a bull. the killers seizing the right whale by his immense, sulky lower lip, and the thrashers fastening on to his back, and beating him with their sinewy tails. often they come off conquerors, worrying the enemy to death. though, sooth to say, if leviathan gets but one sweep al them with his terrible tail, they go flying into the air, as if tossed from taurus' horn. this sight we beheld. had old wouvermans, who once painted a bull bait, been along with us, a rare chance, that, for his pencil. and gudin or isabey might have thrown the blue rolling sea into the picture. lastly, one of claude's setting summer suns would have glorified the whole. oh, believe me, god's creatures fighting, fin for fin, a thousand miles from land, and with the round horizon for an arena; is no ignoble subject for a masterpiece. such are a few of the sights of the great south sea. but there is no telling all. the pacific is populous as china. chapter xiv jarl's misgivings about this time an event took place. my good viking opened his mouth, and spoke. the prodigy occurred, as, jacknife in hand, he was bending over the midship oar; on the loom, or handle, of which he kept our almanac; making a notch for every set sun. for some forty-eight hours past, the wind had been light and variable. it was more than suspected that a current was sweeping us northward. now, marking these things, jarl threw out the thought, that the more wind, and the less current, the better; and if a long calm came on, of which there was some prospect, we had better take to our oars. take to our oars! as if we were crossing a ferry, and no ocean leagues to traverse. the idea indirectly suggested all possible horrors. to be rid of them forthwith, i proceeded to dole out our morning meal. for to make away with such things, there is nothing better than bolting something down on top of them; albeit, oft repeated, the plan is very apt to beget dyspepsia; and the dyspepsia the blues. but what of our store of provisions? so far as enough to eat was concerned, we felt not the slightest apprehension; our supplies proving more abundant than we had anticipated. but, curious to tell, we felt but little inclination for food. it was water, bright water, cool, sparkling water, alone, that we craved. and of this, also, our store at first seemed ample. but as our voyage lengthened, and breezes blew faint, and calms fell fast, the idea of being deprived of the precious fluid grew into something little short of a mono-mania; especially with jarl. every hour or two with the hammer and chisel belonging to the tinder box keg, he tinkered away at the invaluable breaker; driving down the hoops, till in his over solicitude, i thought he would burst them outright. now the breaker lay on its bilge, in the middle of the boat, where more or less sea-water always collected. and ever and anon, dipping his finger therein, my viking was troubled with the thought, that this sea-water tasted less brackish than that alongside. of course the breaker must be leaking. so, he would turn it over, till its wet side came uppermost; when it would quickly become dry as a bone. but now, with his knife, he would gently probe the joints of the staves; shake his head; look up; look down; taste of the water in the bottom of the boat; then that of the sea; then lift one end of the breaker; going through with every test of leakage he could dream of. nor was he ever fully satisfied, that the breaker was in all respects sound. but in reality it was tight as the drum-heads that beat at cerro-gordo. oh! jarl, jarl: to me in the boat's quiet stern, steering and philosophizing at one time and the same, thou and thy breaker were a study. besides the breaker, we had, full of water, the two boat-kegs, previously alluded to. these were first used. we drank from them by their leaden spouts; so many swallows three times in the day; having no other means of measuring an allowance. but when we came to the breaker, which had only a bung-hole, though a very large one, dog-like, it was so many laps apiece; jealously counted by the observer. this plan, however, was only good for a single day; the water then getting beyond the reach of the tongue. we therefore daily poured from the breaker into one of the kegs; and drank from its spout. but to obviate the absorption inseparable from decanting, we at last hit upon something better,--my comrade's shoe, which, deprived of its quarters, narrowed at the heel, and diligently rinsed out in the sea, was converted into a handy but rather limber ladle. this we kept suspended in the bung-hole of the breaker, that it might never twice absorb the water. now pewter imparts flavor to ale; a meerschaum bowl, the same to the tobacco of smyrna; and goggle green glasses are deemed indispensable to the bibbing of hock. what then shall be said of a leathern goblet for water? try it, ye mariners who list. one morning, taking his wonted draught, jarl fished up in his ladle a deceased insect; something like a daddy-long-legs, only more corpulent. its fate? a sea-toss? believe it not; with all those precious drops clinging to its lengthy legs. it was held over the ladle till the last globule dribbled; and even then, being moist, honest jarl was but loth to drop it overboard. for our larder, we could not endure the salt beef; it was raw as a live abyssinian steak, and salt as cracow. besides, the feegee simile would not have held good with respect to it. it was far from being "tender as a dead man." the biscuit only could we eat; not to be wondered at; for even on shipboard, seamen in the tropics are but sparing feeders. and here let not, a suggestion be omitted, most valuable to any future castaway or sailaway as the case may be. eat not your biscuit dry; but dip it in the sea: which makes it more bulky and palatable. during meal times it was soak and sip with jarl and me: one on each side of the chamois dipping our biscuit in the brine. this plan obviated finger-glasses at the conclusion of our repast. upon the whole, dwelling upon the water is not so bad after all. the chinese are no fools. in the operation of making your toilet, how handy to float in your ewer! chapter xv a stitch in time saves nine like most silent earnest sort of people, my good viking was a pattern of industry. when in the boats after whales, i have known him carry along a roll of sinnate to stitch into a hat. and the boats lying motionless for half an hour or so, waiting the rising of the chase, his fingers would be plying at their task, like an old lady knitting. like an experienced old-wife too, his digits had become so expert and conscientious, that his eyes left them alone; deeming optic supervision unnecessary. and on this trip of ours, when not otherwise engaged, he was quite as busy with his fingers as ever: unraveling old cape horn hose, for yarn wherewith to darn our woolen frocks; with great patches from the skirts of a condemned reefing jacket, panneling the seats of our "ducks;" in short, veneering our broken garments with all manner of choice old broadcloths. with the true forethought of an old tar, he had brought along with him nearly the whole contents of his chest. his precious "ditty bag," containing his sewing utensils, had been carefully packed away in the bottom of one of his bundles; of which he had as many as an old maid on her travels. in truth, an old salt is very much of an old maid, though, strictly speaking, far from deserving that misdeemed appellative. better be an old maid, a woman with herself for a husband, than the wife of a fool; and solomon more than hints that all men are fools; and every wise man knows himself to be one. when playing the sempstress, jarl's favorite perch was the triangular little platform in the bow; which being the driest and most elevated part of the boat, was best adapted to his purpose. here for hours and hours together the honest old tailor would sit darning and sewing away, heedless of the wide ocean around; while forever, his slouched guayaquil hat kept bobbing up and down against the horizon before us. it was a most solemn avocation with him. silently he nodded like the still statue in the opera of don juan. indeed he never spoke, unless to give pithy utterance to the wisdom of keeping one's wardrobe in repair. but herein my viking at times waxed oracular. and many's the hour we glided along, myself deeply pondering in the stem, hand upon helm; while crosslegged at the other end of the boat jarl laid down patch upon patch, and at long intervals precept upon precept; here several saws, and there innumerable stitches. chapter xvi they are becalmed on the eighth day there was a calm. it came on by night: so that waking at daybreak, and folding my arms over the gunwale, i looked out upon a scene very hard to describe. the sun was still beneath the horizon; perhaps not yet out of sight from the plains of paraguay. but the dawn was too strong for the stars; which, one by one, had gone out, like waning lamps after a ball. now, as the face of a mirror is a blank, only borrowing character from what it reflects; so in a calm in the tropics, a colorless sky overhead, the ocean, upon its surface, hardly presents a sign of existence. the deep blue is gone; and the glassy element lies tranced; almost viewless as the air. but that morning, the two gray firmaments of sky and water seemed collapsed into a vague ellipsis. and alike, the chamois seemed drifting in the atmosphere as in the sea. every thing was fused into the calm: sky, air, water, and all. not a fish was to be seen. the silence was that of a vacuum. no vitality lurked in the air. and this inert blending and brooding of all things seemed gray chaos in conception. this calm lasted four days and four nights; during which, but a few cat's-paws of wind varied the scene. they were faint as the breath of one dying. at times the heat was intense. the heavens, at midday, glowing like an ignited coal mine. our skin curled up like lint; our vision became dim; the brain dizzy. to our consternation, the water in the breaker became lukewarm, brackish, and slightly putrescent; notwithstanding we kept our spare clothing piled upon the breaker, to shield it from the sun. at last, jarl enlarged the vent, carefully keeping it exposed. to this precaution, doubtless, we owed more than we then thought. it was now deemed wise to reduce our allowance of water to the smallest modicum consistent with the present preservation of life; strangling all desire for more. nor was this all. the upper planking of the boat began to warp; here and there, cracking and splintering. but though we kept it moistened with brine, one of the plank-ends started from its place; and the sharp, sudden sound, breaking the scorching silence, caused us both to spring to our feet. instantly the sea burst in; but we made shift to secure the rebellious plank with a cord, not having a nail; we then bailed out the boat, nearly half full of water. on the second day of the calm, we unshipped the mast, to prevent its being pitched out by the occasional rolling of the vast smooth swells now overtaking us. leagues and leagues away, after its fierce raging, some tempest must have been sending to us its last dying waves. for as a pebble dropped into a pond ruffles it to its marge; so, on all sides, a sea-gale operates as if an asteroid had fallen into the brine; making ringed mountain billows, interminably expanding, instead of ripples. the great september waves breaking at the base of the neversink highlands, far in advance of the swiftest pilot-boat, carry tidings. and full often, they know the last secret of many a stout ship, never heard of from the day she left port. every wave in my eyes seems a soul. as there was no steering to be done, jarl and i sheltered ourselves as well as we could under the awning. and for the first two days, one at a time, and every three or four hours, we dropped overboard for a bath, clinging to the gun-wale; a sharp look-out being kept for prowling sharks. a foot or two below the surface, the water felt cool and refreshing. on the third day a change came over us. we relinquished bathing, the exertion taxing us too much. sullenly we laid ourselves down; turned our backs to each other; and were impatient of the slightest casual touch of our persons. what sort of expression my own countenance wore, i know not; but i hated to look at jarl's. when i did it was a glare, not a glance. i became more taciturn than he. i can not tell what it was that came over me, but i wished i was alone. i felt that so long as the calm lasted, we were without help; that neither could assist the other; and above all, that for one, the water would hold out longer than for two. i felt no remorse, not the slightest, for these thoughts. it was instinct. like a desperado giving up the ghost, i desired to gasp by myself. from being cast away with a brother, good god deliver me! the four days passed. and on the morning of the fifth, thanks be to heaven, there came a breeze. dancingly, mincingly it came, just rippling the sea, until it struck our sails, previously set at the very first token of its advance. at length it slightly freshened; and our poor chamois seemed raised from the dead. beyond expression delightful! once more we heard the low humming of the sea under our bow, as our boat, like a bird, went singing on its way. how changed the scene! overhead, a sweet blue haze, distilling sunlight in drops. and flung abroad over the visible creation was the sun-spangled, azure, rustling robe of the ocean, ermined with wave crests; all else, infinitely blue. such a cadence of musical sounds! waves chasing each other, and sporting and frothing in frolicsome foam: painted fish rippling past; and anon the noise of wings as sea-fowls flew by. oh, ocean, when thou choosest to smile, more beautiful thou art than flowery mead or plain! chapter xvii in high spirits, they push on for the terra incognita there were now fourteen notches on the loom of the skyeman's oar:--so many days since we had pushed from the fore-chains of the arcturion. but as yet, no floating bough, no tern, noddy, nor reef-bird, to denote our proximity to land. in that long calm, whither might not the currents have swept us? where we were precisely, we knew not; but according to our reckoning, the loose estimation of the knots run every hour, we must have sailed due west but little more than one hundred and fifty leagues; for the most part having encountered but light winds, and frequent intermitting calms, besides that prolonged one described. but spite of past calms and currents, land there must be to the westward. sun, compass, stout hearts, and steady breezes, pointed our prow thereto. so courage! my viking, and never say drown! at this time, our hearts were much lightened by discovering that our water was improving in taste. it seemed to have been undergoing anew that sort of fermentation, or working, occasionally incident to ship water shortly after being taken on board. sometimes, for a period, it is more or less offensive to taste and smell; again, however, becoming comparatively limpid. but as our water improved, we grew more and more miserly of so priceless a treasure. and here it may be well to make mention of another little circumstance, however unsentimental. thorough-paced tar that he was, my viking was an inordinate consumer of the indian weed. from the arcturion, he had brought along with him a small half-keg, at bottom impacted with a solitary layer of sable negrohead, fossil-marked, like the primary stratum of the geologists. it was the last tier of his abundant supply for the long whaling voyage upon which he had embarked upwards of three years previous. now during the calm, and for some days after, poor jarl's accustomed quid was no longer agreeable company. to pun: he eschewed his chew. i asked him wherefore. he replied that it puckered up his mouth, above all provoked thirst, and had somehow grown every way distasteful. i was sorry; for the absence of his before ever present wad impaired what little fullness there was left in his cheek; though, sooth to say, i no longer called upon him as of yore to shift over the enormous morsel to starboard or larboard, and so trim our craft. the calm gone by, once again my sea-tailor plied needle and thread; or turning laundress, hung our raiment to dry on oars peaked obliquely in the thole-pins. all of which tattered pennons, the wind being astern, helped us gayly on our way; as jolly poor devils, with rags flying in the breeze, sail blithely through life; and are merry although they are poor! chapter xviii my lord shark and his pages there is a fish in the sea that evermore, like a surly lord, only goes abroad attended by his suite. it is the shovel-nosed shark. a clumsy lethargic monster, unshapely as his name, and the last species of his kind, one would think, to be so bravely waited upon, as he is. his suite is composed of those dainty little creatures called pilot fish by sailors. but by night his retinue is frequently increased by the presence of several small luminous fish, running in advance, and flourishing their flambeaux like link-boys lighting the monster's way. pity there were no ray-fish in rear, page-like, to carry his caudal train. now the relation subsisting between the pilot fish above mentioned and their huge ungainly lord, seems one of the most inscrutable things in nature. at any rate, it poses poor me to comprehend. that a monster so ferocious, should suffer five or six little sparks, hardly fourteen inches long, to gambol about his grim hull with the utmost impunity, is of itself something strange. but when it is considered, that by a reciprocal understanding, the pilot fish seem to act as scouts to the shark, warning him of danger, and apprising him of the vicinity of prey; and moreover, in case of his being killed, evincing their anguish by certain agitations, otherwise inexplicable; the whole thing becomes a mystery unfathomable. truly marvels abound. it needs no dead man to be raised, to convince us of some things. even my viking marveled full as much at those pilot fish as he would have marveled at the pentecost. but perhaps a little incident, occurring about this period, will best illustrate the matter in hand. we were gliding along, hardly three knots an hour, when my comrade, who had been dozing over the gunwale, suddenly started to his feet, and pointed out an immense shovel-nosed shark, less than a boat's length distant, and about half a fathom beneath the surface. a lance was at once snatched from its place; and true to his calling, jarl was about to dart it at the fish, when, interested by the sight of its radiant little scouts, i begged him to desist. one of them was right under the shark, nibbling at his ventral fin; another above, hovering about his dorsal appurtenance; one on each flank; and a frisking fifth pranking about his nose, seemingly having something to say of a confidential nature. they were of a bright, steel-blue color, alternated with jet black stripes; with glistening bellies of a silver-white. clinging to the back of the shark, were four or five remoras, or sucking-fish; snaky parasites, impossible to remove from whatever they adhere to, without destroying their lives. the remora has little power in swimming; hence its sole locomotion is on the backs of larger fish. leech-like, it sticketh closer than a false brother in prosperity; closer than a beggar to the benevolent; closer than webster to the constitution. but it feeds upon what it clings to; its feelers having a direct communication with the esophagus. the shark swam sluggishly; creating no sign of a ripple, but ever and, anon shaking his medusa locks, writhing and curling with horrible life. now and then, the nimble pilot fish darted from his side--this way and that--mostly toward our boat; but previous to taking a fresh start ever returning to their liege lord to report progress. a thought struck me. baiting a rope's end with a morsel of our almost useless salt beef, i suffered it to trail in the sea. instantly the foremost scout swam toward it; hesitated; paused; but at last advancing, briskly snuffed at the line, and taking one finical little nibble, retreated toward the shark. another moment, and the great tamerlane himself turned heavily about; pointing his black, cannon-like nose directly toward our broadside. meanwhile, the little pilot fish darted hither and thither; keeping up a mighty fidgeting, like men of small minds in a state of nervous agitation. presently, tamerlane swam nearer and nearer, all the while lazily eyeing the chamois, as a wild boar a kid. suddenly making a rush for it, in the foam he made away with the bait. but the next instant, the uplifted lance sped at his skull; and thrashing his requiem with his sinewy tail, he sunk slowly, through his own blood, out of sight. down with him swam the terrified pilot fish; but soon after, three of them were observed close to the boat, gliding along at a uniform pace; one an each side, and one in advance; even as they had attended their lord. doubtless, one was under our keel. "a good omen," said jarl; "no harm will befall us so long as they stay." but however that might be, follow us they did, for many days after: until an event occurred, which necessitated their withdrawal. chapter xix who goes there? jarl's oar showed sixteen notches on the loom, when one evening, as the expanded sun touched the horizon's rim, a ship's uppermost spars were observed, traced like a spider's web against its crimson disk. it looked like a far-off craft on fire. in bright weather at sea, a sail, invisible in the full flood of noon, becomes perceptible toward sunset. it is the reverse in the morning. in sight at gray dawn, the distant vessel, though in reality approaching, recedes from view, as the sun rises higher and higher. this holds true, till its vicinity makes it readily fall within the ordinary scope of vision. and thus, too, here and there, with other distant things: the more light you throw on them, the more you obscure. some revelations show best in a twilight. the sight of the stranger not a little surprised us. but brightening up, as if the encounter were welcome, jarl looked happy and expectant. he quickly changed his demeanor, however, upon perceiving that i was bent upon shunning a meeting. instantly our sails were struck; and calling upon jarl, who was somewhat backward to obey, i shipped the oars; and, both rowing, we stood away obliquely from our former course. i divined that the vessel was a whaler; and hence, that by help of the glass, with which her look-outs must be momentarily sweeping the horizon, they might possibly have descried us; especially, as we were due east from the ship; a direction, which at sunset is the one most favorable for perceiving a far-off object at sea. furthermore, our canvas was snow-white and conspicuous. to be sure, we could not be certain what kind of a vessel it was; but whatever it might be, i, for one, had no mind to risk an encounter; for it was quite plain, that if the stranger came within hailing distance, there would be no resource but to link our fortunes with hers; whereas i desired to pursue none but the chamois'. as for the skyeman, he kept looking wistfully over his shoulder; doubtless, praying heaven, that we might not escape what i sought to avoid. now, upon a closer scrutiny, being pretty well convinced that the stranger, after all, was steering a nearly westerly course--right away from us--we reset our sail; and as night fell, my viking's entreaties, seconded by my own curiosity, induced me to resume our original course; and so follow after the vessel, with a view of obtaining a nearer glimpse, without danger of detection. so, boldly we steered for the sail. but not gaining much upon her, spite of the lightness of the breeze (a circumstance in our favor: the chase being a ship, and we but a boat), at my comrade's instigation, we added oars to sails, readily guiding our way by the former, though the helm was left to itself. as we came nearer, it was plain that the vessel was no whaler; but a small, two-masted craft; in short, a brigantine. her sails were in a state of unaccountable disarray, only the foresail, mainsail, and jib being set. the first was much tattered; and the jib was hoisted but half way up the stay, where it idly flapped, the breeze coming from over the taffrail. she continually yawed in her course; now almost presenting her broadside, then showing her stern. striking our sails once more, we lay on our oars, and watched her in the starlight. still she swung from side to side, and still sailed on. not a little terrified at the sight, superstitious jarl more than insinuated that the craft must be a gold-huntress, haunted. but i told him, that if such were the case, we must board her, come gold or goblins. in reality, however, i began to think that she must have been abandoned by her crew; or else, that from sickness, those on board were incapable of managing her. after a long and anxious reconnoiter, we came still nearer, using our oars, but very reluctantly on jarl's part; who, while rowing, kept his eyes over his shoulder, as if about to beach the little chamois on the back of a whale as of yore. indeed, he seemed full as impatient to quit the vicinity of the vessel, as before he had been anxiously courting it. now, as the silent brigantine again swung round her broadside, i hailed her loudly. no return. again. but all was silent. with a few vigorous strokes, we closed with her, giving yet another unanswered hail; when, laying the chamois right alongside, i clutched at the main-chains. instantly we felt her dragging us along. securing our craft by its painter, i sprang over the rail, followed by jarl, who had snatched his harpoon, his favorite arms. long used with that weapon to overcome the monsters of the deep, he doubted not it would prove equally serviceable in any other encounter. the deck was a complete litter. tossed about were pearl oyster shells, husks of cocoa-nuts, empty casks, and cases. the deserted tiller was lashed; which accounted for the vessel's yawing. but we could not conceive, how going large before the wind; the craft could, for any considerable time, at least, have guided herself without the help of a hand. still, the breeze was light and steady. now, seeing the helm thus lashed, i could not but distrust the silence that prevailed. it conjured up the idea of miscreants concealed below, and meditating treachery; unscrupulous mutineers--lascars, or manilla-men; who, having murdered the europeans of the crew, might not be willing to let strangers depart unmolested. or yet worse, the entire ship's company might have been swept away by a fever, its infection still lurking in the poisoned hull. and though the first conceit, as the last, was a mere surmise, it was nevertheless deemed prudent to secure the hatches, which for the present we accordingly barred down with the oars of our boat. this done, we went about the deck in search of water. and finding some in a clumsy cask, drank long and freely, and to our thirsty souls' content. the wind now freshening, and the rent sails like to blow from the yards, we brought the brigantine to the wind, and brailed up the canvas. this left us at liberty to examine the craft, though, unfortunately, the night was growing hazy. all this while our boat was still towing alongside; and i was about to drop it astern, when jarl, ever cautious, declared it safer where it was; since, if there were people on board, they would most likely be down in the cabin, from the dead-lights of which, mischief might be done to the chamois. it was then, that my comrade observed, that the brigantine had no boats, a circumstance most unusual in any sort of a vessel at sea. but marking this, i was exceedingly gratified. it seemed to indicate, as i had opined, that from some cause or other, she must have been abandoned of her crew. and in a good measure this dispelled my fears of foul play, and the apprehension of contagion. encouraged by these reflections, i now resolved to descend, and explore the cabin, though sorely against jarl's counsel. to be sure, as he earnestly said, this step might have been deferred till daylight; but it seemed too wearisome to wait. so bethinking me of our tinder-box and candles, i sent him into the boat for them. presently, two candles were lit; one of which the skyeman tied up and down the barbed end of his harpoon; so that upon going below, the keen steel might not be far off, should the light be blown out by a dastard. unfastening the cabin scuttle, we stepped downward into the smallest and murkiest den in the world. the altar-like transom, surmounted by the closed dead-lights in the stem, together with the dim little sky-light overhead, and the somber aspect of every thing around, gave the place the air of some subterranean oratory, say a prayer room of peter the hermit. but coils of rigging, bolts of canvas, articles of clothing, and disorderly heaps of rubbish, harmonized not with this impression. two doors, one on each side, led into wee little state-rooms, the berths of which also were littered. among other things, was a large box, sheathed with iron and stoutly clamped, containing a keg partly filled with powder, the half of an old cutlass, a pouch of bullets, and a case for a sextant--a brass plate on the lid, with the maker's name. london. the broken blade of the cutlass was very rusty and stained; and the iron hilt bent in. it looked so tragical that i thrust it out of sight. removing a small trap-door, opening into the space beneath, called the "run," we lighted upon sundry cutlasses and muskets, lying together at sixes and sevens, as if pitched down in a hurry. casting round a hasty glance, and satisfying ourselves, that through the bulkhead of the cabin, there was no passage to the forward part of the hold, we caught up the muskets and cutlasses, the powder keg and the pouch of bullets, and bundling them on deck, prepared to visit the other end of the vessel. previous to so doing, however, i loaded a musket, and belted a cutlass to my side. but my viking preferred his harpoon. in the forecastle reigned similar confusion. but there was a snug little lair, cleared away in one corner, and furnished with a grass mat and bolster, like those used among the islanders of these seas. this little lair looked to us as if some leopard had crouched there. and as it turned out, we were not far from right. forming one side of this retreat, was a sailor's chest, stoutly secured by a lock, and monstrous heavy withal. regardless of jarl's entreaties, i managed to burst the lid; thereby revealing a motley assemblage of millinery, and outlandish knick-knacks of all sorts; together with sundry rude calico contrivances, which though of unaccountable cut, nevertheless possessed a certain petticoatish air, and latitude of skirt, betokening them the habiliments of some feminine creature; most probably of the human species. in this strong box, also, was a canvas bag, jingling with rusty old bell-buttons, gangrened copper bolts, and sheathing nails; damp, greenish carolus dollars (true coin all), besides divers iron screws, and battered, chisels, and belaying-pins. sounded on the chest lid, the dollars rang clear as convent bells. these were put aside by jarl the sight of substantial dollars doing away, for the nonce, with his superstitious misgivings. true to his kingship, he loved true coin; though abroad on the sea, and no land but dollarless dominions ground, all this silver was worthless as charcoal or diamonds. nearly one and the same thing, say the chemists; but tell that to the marines, say the illiterate jews and the jewelers. go, buy a house, or a ship, if you can, with your charcoal! yea, all the woods in canada charred down to cinders would not be worth the one famed brazilian diamond, though no bigger than the egg of a carrier pigeon. ah! but these chemists are liars, and sir humphrey davy a cheat. many's the poor devil they've deluded into the charcoal business, who otherwise might have made his fortune with a mattock. groping again into the chest, we brought to light a queer little hair trunk, very bald and rickety. at every corner was a mighty clamp, the weight of which had no doubt debilitated the box. it was jealously secured with a padlock, almost as big as itself; so that it was almost a question, which was meant to be security to the other. prying at it hard, we at length effected an entrance; but saw no golden moidores, no ruddy doubloons; nothing under heaven but three pewter mugs, such as are used in a ship's cabin, several brass screws, and brass plates, which must have belonged to a quadrant; together with a famous lot of glass beads, and brass rings; while, pasted on the inside of the cover, was a little colored print, representing the harlots, the shameless hussies, having a fine time with the prodigal son. it should have been mentioned ere now, that while we were busy in the forecastle, we were several times startled by strange sounds aloft. and just after, crashing into the little hair trunk, down came a great top-block, right through the scuttle, narrowly missing my viking's crown; a much stronger article, by the way, than your goldsmiths turn out in these days. this startled us much; particularly jarl, as one might suppose; but accustomed to the strange creakings and wheezings of the masts and yards of old vessels at sea, and having many a time dodged stray blocks accidentally falling from aloft, i thought little more of the matter; though my comrade seemed to think the noises somewhat different from any thing of that kind he had even heard before. after a little more turning over of the rubbish in the forecastle, and much marveling thereat, we ascended to the deck; where we found every thing so silent, that, as we moved toward the taffrail, the skyeman unconsciously addressed me in a whisper. chapter xx noises and portents i longed for day. for however now inclined to believe that the brigantine was untenanted, i desired the light of the sun to place that fact beyond a misgiving. now, having observed, previous to boarding the vessel, that she lay rather low in the water, i thought proper to sound the well. but there being no line-and-sinker at hand, i sent jarl to hunt them up in the arm-chest on the quarter-deck, where doubtless they must be kept. meanwhile i searched for the "breaks," or pump-handles, which, as it turned out, could not have been very recently used; for they were found lashed up and down to the main-mast. suddenly jarl came running toward me, whispering that all doubt was dispelled;--there were spirits on board, to a dead certainty. he had overheard a supernatural sneeze. but by this time i was all but convinced, that we were alone in the brigantine. since, if otherwise, i could assign no earthly reason for the crew's hiding away from a couple of sailors, whom, were they so minded, they might easily have mastered. and furthermore, this alleged disturbance of the atmosphere aloft by a sneeze, jarl averred to have taken place in the main-top; directly underneath which i was all this time standing, and had heard nothing. so complimenting my good viking upon the exceeding delicacy of his auriculars, i bade him trouble himself no more with his piratical ghosts and goblins, which existed nowhere but in his own imagination. not finding the line-and-sinker, with the spare end of a bowline we rigged a substitute; and sounding the well, found nothing to excite our alarm. under certain circumstances, however, this sounding a ship's well is a nervous sort of business enough. 'tis like feeling your own pulse in the last stage of a fever. at the skyeman's suggestion, we now proceeded to throw round the brigantine's head on the other tack. for until daylight we desired to alter the vessel's position as little as possible, fearful of coming unawares upon reefs. and here be it said, that for all his superstitious misgivings about the brigantine; his imputing to her something equivalent to a purely phantom-like nature, honest jarl was nevertheless exceedingly downright and practical in all hints and proceedings concerning her. wherein, he resembled my right reverend friend, bishop berkeley--truly, one of your lords spiritual--who, metaphysically speaking, holding all objects to be mere optical delusions, was, notwith-standing, extremely matter-of-fact in all matters touching matter itself. besides being pervious to the points of pins, and possessing a palate capable of appreciating plum-puddings:--which sentence reads off like a pattering of hailstones. now, while we were employed bracing round the yards, whispering jarl must needs pester me again with his confounded suspicions of goblins on board. he swore by the main-mast, that when the fore-yard swung round, he had heard a half-stifled groan from that quarter; as if one of his bugbears had been getting its aerial legs jammed. i laughed:--hinting that goblins were incorporeal. whereupon he besought me to ascend the fore-rigging and test the matter for myself but here my mature judgment got the better of my first crude opinion. i civilly declined. for assuredly, there was still a possibility, that the fore-top might be tenanted, and that too by living miscreants; and a pretty hap would be mine, if, with hands full of rigging, and legs dangling in air, while surmounting the oblique futtock-shrouds, some unseen arm should all at once tumble me overboard. therefore i held my peace; while jarl went on to declare, that with regard to the character of the brigantine, his mind was now pretty fully made up;--she was an arrant impostor, a shade of a ship, full of sailors' ghosts, and before we knew where we were, would dissolve in a supernatural squall, and leave us twain in the water. in short, jarl, the descendant of the superstitious old norsemen, was full of old norse conceits, and all manner of valhalla marvels concerning the land of goblins and goblets. no wonder then, that with this catastrophe in prospect, he again entreated me to quit the ill-starred craft, carrying off nothing from her ghostly hull. but i refused. one can not relate every thing at once. while in the cabin, we came across a "barge" of biscuit, and finding its contents of a quality much superior to our own, we had filled our pockets and occasionally regaled ourselves in the intervals of rummaging. now this sea cake-basket we had brought on deck. and for the first time since bidding adieu to the arcturion having fully quenched our thirst, our appetite returned with a rush; and having nothing better to do till day dawned, we planted the bread-barge in the middle of the quarter-deck; and crossing our legs before it, laid close seige thereto, like the grand turk and his vizier mustapha sitting down before vienna. our castle, the bread-barge was of the common sort; an oblong oaken box, much battered and bruised, and like the elgin marbles, all over inscriptions and carving:--foul anchors, skewered hearts, almanacs, burton-blocks, love verses, links of cable, kings of clubs; and divers mystic diagrams in chalk, drawn by old finnish mariners; in casting horoscopes and prophecies. your old tars are all daniels. there was a round hole in one side, through which, in getting at the bread, invited guests thrust their hands. and mighty was the thrusting of hands that night; also, many and earnest the glances of mustapha at every sudden creaking of the spars or rigging. like belshazzar, my royal viking ate with great fear and trembling; ever and anon pausing to watch the wild shadows flitting along the bulwarks. chapter xxi man ho! slowly, fitfully, broke the morning in the east, showing the desolate brig forging heavily through the water, which sluggishly thumped under her bows. while leaping from sea to sea, our faithful chamois, like a faithful dog, still gamboled alongside, confined to the main-chains by its painter. at times, it would long lag behind; then, pushed by a wave like lightning dash forward; till bridled by its leash, it again fell in rear. as the gray light came on, anxiously we scrutinized the features of the craft, as one by one they became more plainly revealed. every thing seemed stranger now, than when partially visible in the dingy night. the stanchions, or posts of the bulwarks, were of rough stakes, still incased in the bark. the unpainted sides were of a dark-colored, heathenish looking wood. the tiller was a wry-necked, elbowed bough, thrusting itself through the deck, as if the tree itself was fast rooted in the hold. the binnacle, containing the compass, was defended at the sides by yellow matting. the rigging--shrouds, halyards and all--was of "kaiar," or cocoa-nut fibres; and here and there the sails were patched with plaited rushes. but this was not all. whoso will pry, must needs light upon matters for suspicion. glancing over the side, in the wake of every scupper-hole, we beheld a faded, crimson stain, which jarl averred to be blood. though now he betrayed not the slightest trepidation; for what he saw pertained not to ghosts; and all his fears hitherto had been of the super-natural. indeed, plucking up a heart, with the dawn of the day my viking looked bold as a lion; and soon, with the instinct of an old seaman cast his eyes up aloft. directly, he touched my arm,--"look: what stirs in the main-top?" sure enough, something alive was there. fingering our arms, we watched it; till as the day came on, a crouching stranger was beheld. presenting my piece, i hailed him to descend or be shot. there was silence for a space, when the black barrel of a musket was thrust forth, leveled at my head. instantly, jarl's harpoon was presented at a dart;--two to one;--and my hail was repeated. but no reply. "who are you?" "samoa," at length said a clear, firm voice. "come down from the rigging. we are friends." another pause; when, rising to his feet, the stranger slowly descended, holding on by one hand to the rigging, for but one did he have; his musket partly slung from his back, and partly griped under the stump of his mutilated arm. he alighted about six paces from where we stood; and balancing his weapon, eyed us bravely as the cid. he was a tall, dark islander, a very devil to behold, theatrically arrayed in kilt and turban; the kilt of a gay calico print, the turban of a red china silk. his neck was jingling with strings of beads. "who else is on board?" i asked; while jarl, thus far covering the stranger with his weapon, now dropped it to the deck. "look there:--annatoo!" was his reply in broken english, pointing aloft to the fore-top. and lo! a woman, also an islander; and barring her skirts, dressed very much like samoa, was beheld descending. "any more?" "no more." "who are _you_ then; and what craft is this?" "ah, ah--you are no ghost;--but are you my friend?" he cried, advancing nearer as he spoke; while the woman having gained the deck, also approached, eagerly glancing. we said we were friends; that we meant no harm; but desired to know what craft this was; and what disaster had befallen her; for that something untoward had occurred, we were certain. whereto, samoa made answer, that it was true that something dreadful had happened; and that he would gladly tell us all, and tell us the truth. and about it he went. now, this story of his was related in the mixed phraseology of a polynesian sailor. with a few random reflections, in substance, it will be found in the six following chapters. chapter xxii what befel the brigantine at the pearl shell islands the vessel was the parki, of lahina, a village and harbor on the coast of mowee, one of the hawaian isles, where she had been miserably cobbled together with planks of native wood, and fragments of a wreck, there drifted ashore. her appellative had been bestowed in honor of a high chief, the tallest and goodliest looking gentleman in all the sandwich islands. with a mixed european and native crew, about thirty in number (but only four whites in all, captain included), the parki, some four months previous, had sailed from her port on a voyage southward, in quest of pearls, and pearl oyster shells, sea-slugs, and other matters of that sort. samoa, a native of the navigator islands, had long followed the sea, and was well versed in the business of oyster diving and its submarine mysteries. the native lahineese on board were immediately subordinate to him; the captain having bargained with samoa for their services as divers. the woman, annatoo, was a native of a far-off, anonymous island to the westward: whence, when quite young, she had been carried by the commander of a ship, touching there on a passage from macao to valparaiso. at valparaiso her protector put her ashore; most probably, as i afterward had reason to think, for a nuisance. by chance it came to pass that when annatoo's first virgin bloom had departed, leaving nothing but a lusty frame and a lustier soul, samoa, the navigator, had fallen desperately in love with her. and thinking the lady to his mind, being brave like himself, and doubtless well adapted to the vicissitudes of matrimony at sea, he meditated suicide--i would have said, wedlock--and the twain became one. and some time after, in capacity of wife, annatoo the dame, accompanied in the brigantine, samoa her lord. now, as antony flew to the refuse embraces of caesar, so samoa solaced himself in the arms of this discarded fair one. and the sequel was the same. for not harder the life cleopatra led my fine frank friend, poor mark, than queen annatoo did lead this captive of her bow and her spear. but all in good time. they left their port; and crossing the tropic and the line, fell in with a cluster of islands, where the shells they sought were found in round numbers. and here--not at all strange to tell besides the natives, they encountered a couple of cholos, or half-breed spaniards, from the main; one half spanish, the other half quartered between the wild indian and the devil; a race, that from baldivia to panama are notorious for their unscrupulous villainy. now, the half-breeds having long since deserted a ship at these islands, had risen to high authority among the natives. this hearing, the parki's captain was much gratified; he, poor ignorant, never before having fallen in with any of their treacherous race. and, no doubt, he imagined that their influence over the islanders would tend to his advantage. at all events, he made presents to the cholos; who, in turn, provided him with additional divers from among the natives. very kindly, also, they pointed out the best places for seeking the oysters. in a word, they were exceedingly friendly; often coming off to the brigantine, and sociably dining with the captain in the cabin; placing the salt between them and him. all things went on very pleasantly until, one morning, the half-breeds prevailed upon the captain to go with them, in his whale-boat, to a shoal on the thither side of the island, some distance from the spot where lay the brigantine. they so managed it, moreover, that none but the lahineese under samoa, in whom the captain much confided, were left in custody of the parki; the three white men going along to row; for there happened to be little or no wind for a sail. now, the fated brig lay anchored within a deep, smooth, circular lagoon, margined on all sides but one by the most beautiful groves. on that side, was the outlet to the sea; perhaps a cable's length or more from where the brigantine had been moored. an hour or two after the party were gone, and when the boat was completely out of sight, the natives in shoals were perceived coming off from the shore; some in canoes, and some swimming. the former brought bread fruit and bananas, ostentatiously piled up in their proas; the latter dragged after them long strings of cocoanuts; for all of which, on nearing the vessel, they clamorously demanded knives and hatchets in barter. from their actions, suspecting some treachery, samoa stood in the gangway, and warned them off; saying that no barter could take place until the captain's return. but presently one of the savages stealthily climbed up from the water, and nimbly springing from the bob-stays to the bow-sprit, darted a javelin full at the foremast, where it vibrated. the signal of blood! with terrible outcries, the rest, pulling forth their weapons, hitherto concealed in the canoes, or under the floating cocoanuts, leaped into the low chains of the brigantine; sprang over the bulwarks; and, with clubs and spears, attacked the aghast crew with the utmost ferocity. after one faint rally, the lahineese scrambled for the rigging; but to a man were overtaken and slain. at the first alarm, annatoo, however, had escaped to the fore-top-gallant-yard, higher than which she could not climb, and whither the savages durst not venture. for though after their nuts these polynesians will climb palm trees like squirrels; yet, at the first blush, they decline a ship's mast like kennebec farmers. upon the first token of an onslaught, samoa, having rushed toward the cabin scuttle for arms, was there fallen upon by two young savages. but after a desperate momentary fray, in which his arm was mangled, he made shift to spring below, instantly securing overhead the slide of the scuttle. in the cabin, while yet the uproar of butchery prevailed, he quietly bound up his arm; then laying on the transom the captain's three loaded muskets, undauntedly awaited an assault. the object of the natives, it seems, was to wreck the brigantine upon the sharp coral beach of the lagoon. and with this intent, one of their number had plunged into the water, and cut the cable, which was of hemp. but the tide ebbing, cast the parki's head seaward--toward the outlet; and the savages, perceiving this, clumsily boarded the fore-tack, and hauled aft the sheet; thus setting, after a fashion, the fore-sail, previously loosed to dry. meanwhile, a gray-headed old chief stood calmly at the tiller, endeavoring to steer the vessel shoreward. but not managing the helm aright, the brigantine, now gliding apace through the water, only made more way toward the outlet. seeing which, the ringleaders, six or eight in number, ran to help the old graybeard at the helm. but it was a black hour for them. of a sudden, while they were handling the tiller, three muskets were rapidly discharged upon them from the cabin skylight. two of the savages dropped dead. the old steersman, clutching wildly at the helm, fell over it, mortally wounded; and in a wild panic at seeing their leaders thus unaccountably slain, the rest of the natives leaped overboard and made for the shore. hearing the slashing, samoa flew on deck; and beholding the foresail set, and the brigantine heading right out to sea, he cried out to annatoo, still aloft, to descend to the topsail-yard, and loose the canvas there. his command was obeyed. annatoo deserved a gold medal for what she did that day. hastening down the rigging, after loosing the topsail, she strained away at the sheets; in which operation she was assisted by samoa, who snatched an instant from the helm. the foresail and fore-topsail were now tolerably well set; and as the craft drew seaward, the breeze freshened. and well that it did; for, recovered from their alarm, the savages were now in hot pursuit; some in canoes, and some swimming as before. but soon the main-topsail was given to the breeze, which still freshening, came from over the quarter. and with this brave show of canvas, the parki made gallantly for the outlet; and loud shouted samoa as she shot by the reef, and parted the long swells without. against these, the savages could not swim. and at that turn of the tide, paddling a canoe therein was almost equally difficult. but the fugitives were not yet safe. in full chase now came in sight the whale-boat manned by the cholos, and four or five islanders. whereat, making no doubt, that all the whites who left the vessel that morning had been massacred through the treachery of the half-breeds; and that the capture of the brigantine had been premeditated; samoa now saw no other resource than to point his craft dead away from the land. now on came the devils buckling to their oars. meantime annatoo was still busy aloft, loosing the smaller sails--t'gallants and royals, which she managed partially to set. the strong breeze from astern now filling the ill-set sails, they bellied, and rocked in the air, like balloons, while, from the novel strain upon it, every spar quivered and sprung. and thus, like a frightened gull fleeing from sea-hawks, the little parki swooped along, and bravely breasted the brine. his shattered arm in a hempen sling, samoa stood at the helm, the muskets reloaded, and planted full before him on the binnacle. for a time, so badly did the brigantine steer, by reason of her ill-adjusted sails, made still more unmanageable by the strength of the breeze,--that it was doubtful, after all, notwithstanding her start, whether the fugitives would not yet fall a prey to their hunters. the craft wildly yawed, and the boat drew nearer and nearer. maddened by the sight, and perhaps thinking more of revenge for the past, than of security for the future, samoa, yielding the helm to annatoo, rested his muskets on the bulwarks, and taking long, sure aim, discharged them, one by one at the advancing foe. the three reports were answered by loud jeers from the savages, who brandished their spears, and made gestures of derision; while with might and main the cholos tugged at their oars. the boat still gaining on the brigantine, the muskets were again reloaded. and as the next shot sped, there was a pause; when, like lightning, the headmost cholo bounded upwards from his seat, and oar in hand, fell into the sea. a fierce yell; and one of the natives springing into the water, caught the sinking body by its long hair; and the dead and the living were dragged into the boat. taking heart from this fatal shot, samoa fired yet again; but not with the like sure result; merely grazing the remaining half-breed, who, crouching behind his comrades, besought them to turn the boat round, and make for the shore. alarmed at the fate of his brother, and seemingly distrustful of the impartiality of samoa's fire, the pusillanimous villain refused to expose a limb above the gunwale. fain now would the pursuers have made good their escape; but an accident forbade. in the careening of the boat, when the stricken cholo sprung overboard, two of their oars had slid into the water; and together with that death-griped by the half-breed, were now floating off; occasionally lost to view, as they sunk in the trough of the sea. two of the islanders swam to recover them; but frightened by the whirring of a shot over their heads, as they unavoidably struck out towards the parki, they turned quickly about; just in time to see one of their comrades smite his body with his hand, as he received a bullet from samoa. enough: darting past the ill-fated boat, they swam rapidly for land, followed by the rest; who plunged overboard, leaving in the boat the surviving cholo--who it seems could not swim--the wounded savage, and the dead man. "load away now, and take thy revenge, my fine fellow," said samoa to himself. but not yet. seeing all at his mercy, and having none, he quickly laid his fore-topsail to the mast; "hove to" the brigantine; and opened fire anew upon the boat; every swell of the sea heaving it nearer and nearer. vain all efforts to escape. the wounded man paddled wildly with his hands the dead one rolled from side to side; and the cholo, seizing the solitary oar, in his frenzied heedlessness, spun the boat round and round; while all the while shot followed shot, samoa firing as fast as annatoo could load. at length both cholo and savage fell dead upon their comrades, canting the boat over sideways, till well nigh awash; in which manner she drifted off. chapter xxiii sailing from the island they pillage the cabin there was a small carronade on the forecastle, unshipped from its carriage, and lashed down to ringbolts on the deck. this samoa now loaded; and with an ax knocking off the round knob upon the breech, rammed it home in the tube. when, running the cannon out at one of the ports, and studying well his aim, he let fly, sunk the boat, and buried his dead. it was now late in the afternoon; and for the present bent upon avoiding land, and gaining the shoreless sea, never mind where, samoa again forced round his craft before the wind, leaving the island astern. the decks were still cumbered with the bodies of the lahineese, which heel to point and crosswise, had, log-like, been piled up on the main-hatch. these, one by one, were committed to the sea; after which, the decks were washed down. at sunrise next morning, finding themselves out of sight of land, with little or no wind, they stopped their headway, and lashed the tiller alee, the better to enable them to overhaul the brigantine; especially the recesses of the cabin. for there, were stores of goods adapted for barter among the islanders; also several bags of dollars. now, nothing can exceed the cupidity of the polynesian, when, through partial commerce with the whites, his eyes are opened to his nakedness, and he perceives that in some things they are richer than himself. the poor skipper's wardrobe was first explored; his chests of clothes being capsized, and their contents strown about the cabin floor. then took place the costuming. samoa and annatoo trying on coats and pantaloons, shirts and drawers, and admiring themselves in the little mirror panneled in the bulk-head. then, were broken open boxes and bales; rolls of printed cotton were inspected, and vastly admired; insomuch, that the trumpery found in the captain's chests was disdainfully doffed: and donned were loose folds of calico, more congénial to their tastes. as case after case was opened and overturned, slippery grew the cabin deck with torrents of glass beads; and heavy the necks of samoa and annatoo with goodly bunches thereof. among other things, came to light brass jewelry,--rag fair gewgaws and baubles a plenty, more admired than all; annatoo, bedecking herself like, a tragedy queen: one blaze of brass. much mourned the married dame, that thus arrayed, there was none to admire but samoa her husband; but he was all the while admiring himself, and not her. and here must needs be related, what has hitherto remained unsaid. very often this husband and wife were no darby and joan. their married life was one long campaign, whereof the truces were only by night. they billed and they cooed on their arms, rising fresh in the morning to battle, and often samoa got more than a hen-pecking. to be short, annatoo was a tartar, a regular calmuc, and samoa--heaven help him--her husband. yet awhile, joined together by a sense of common danger, and long engrossed in turning over their tinsel acquisitions without present thought of proprietorship, the pair refrained from all squabbles. but soon burst the storm. having given every bale and every case a good shaking, annatoo, making an estimate of the whole, very coolly proceeded to set apart for herself whatever she fancied. to this, samoa objected; to which objection annatoo objected; and then they went at it. the lady vowed that the things were no more samoa's than hers; nay, not so much; and that whatever she wanted, that same would she have. and furthermore, by way of codicil, she declared that she was slave to nobody. now, samoa, sad to tell, stood in no little awe of his bellicose spouse. what, though a hero in other respects; what, though he had slain his savages, and gallantly carried his craft from their clutches:--like the valiant captains marlborough and belisarius, he was a poltroon to his wife. and annatoo was worse than either sarah or antonina. however, like every thing partaking of the nature of a scratch, most conjugal squabbles are quickly healed; for if they healed not, they would never anew break out: which is the beauty of the thing. so at length they made up but the treaty stipulations of annatoo told much against the interests of samoa. nevertheless, ostensibly, it was agreed upon, that they should strictly go halves; the lady, however, laying special claim to certain valuables, more particularly fancied. but as a set-off to this, she generously renounced all claims upon the spare rigging; all claims upon the fore-mast and mainmast; and all claims upon the captain's arms and ammunition. of the latter, by the way, dame antonina stood in no need. her voice was a park of artillery; her talons a charge of bayonets. chapter xxiv dedicated to the college of physicians and surgeons by this time samoa's wounded arm was in such a state, that amputation became necessary. among savages, severe personal injuries are, for the most part, accounted but trifles. when a european would be taking to his couch in despair, the savage would disdain to recline. more yet. in polynesia, every man is his own barber and surgeon, cutting off his beard or arm, as occasion demands. no unusual thing, for the warriors of varvoo to saw off their own limbs, desperately wounded in battle. but owing to the clumsiness of the instrument employed--a flinty, serrated shell--the operation has been known to last several days. nor will they suffer any friend to help them; maintaining, that a matter so nearly concerning a warrior is far better attended to by himself. hence it may be said, that they amputate themselves at their leisure, and hang up their tools when tired. but, though thus beholden to no one for aught connected with the practice of surgery, they never cut off their own heads, that ever i heard; a species of amputation to which, metaphorically speaking, many would-be independent sort of people in civilized lands are addicted. samoa's operation was very summary. a fire was kindled in the little caboose, or cook-house, and so made as to produce much smoke. he then placed his arm upon one of the windlass bitts (a short upright timber, breast-high), and seizing the blunt cook's ax would have struck the blow; but for some reason distrusting the precision of his aim, annatoo was assigned to the task. three strokes, and the limb, from just above the elbow, was no longer samoa's; and he saw his own bones; which many a centenarian can not say. the very clumsiness of the operation was safety to the subject. the weight and bluntness of the instrument both deadened the pain and lessened the hemorrhage. the wound was then scorched, and held over the smoke of the fire, till all signs of blood vanished. from that day forward it healed, and troubled samoa but little. but shall the sequel be told? how that, superstitiously averse to burying in the sea the dead limb of a body yet living; since in that case samoa held, that he must very soon drown and follow it; and how, that equally dreading to keep the thing near him, he at last hung it aloft from the topmast-stay; where yet it was suspended, bandaged over and over in cerements. the hand that must have locked many others in friendly clasp, or smote a foe, was no food, thought samoa, for fowls of the air nor fishes of the sea. now, which was samoa? the dead arm swinging high as haman? or the living trunk below? was the arm severed from the body, or the body from the arm? the residual part of samoa was alive, and therefore we say it was he. but which of the writhing sections of a ten times severed worm, is the worm proper? for myself, i ever regarded samoa as but a large fragment of a man, not a man complete. for was he not an entire limb out of pocket? and the action at teneriffe over, great nelson himself--physiologically speaking--was but three-quarters of a man. and the smoke of waterloo blown by, what was anglesea but the like? after saratoga, what arnold? to say nothing of mutius scaevola minus a hand, general knox a thumb, and hannibal an eye; and that old roman grenadier, dentatus, nothing more than a bruised and battered trunk, a knotty sort of hemlock of a warrior, hard to hack and hew into chips, though much marred in symmetry by battle-ax blows. ah! but these warriors, like anvils, will stand a deal of hard hammering. especially in the old knight-errant times. for at the battle of brevieux in flanders, my glorious old gossiping ancestor, froissart, informs me, that ten good knights, being suddenly unhorsed, fell stiff and powerless to the plain, fatally encumbered by their armor. whereupon, the rascally burglarious peasants, their foes, fell to picking their visors; as burglars, locks; or oystermen, oysters; to get at their lives. but all to no purpose. and at last they were fain to ask aid of a blacksmith; and not till then, were the inmates of the armor dispatched. now it was deemed very hard, that the mysterious state-prisoner of france should be riveted in an iron mask; but these knight-errants did voluntarily prison themselves in their own iron bastiles; and thus helpless were murdered there-in. days of chivalry these, when gallant chevaliers died chivalric deaths! and this was the epic age, over whose departure my late eloquent and prophetic friend and correspondent, edmund burke, so movingly mourned. yes, they were glorious times. but no sensible man, given to quiet domestic delights, would exchange his warm fireside and muffins, for a heroic bivouac, in a wild beechen wood, of a raw gusty morning in normandy; every knight blowing his steel-gloved fingers, and vainly striving to cook his cold coffee in his helmet. chapter xxv peril a peace-maker a few days passed: the brigantine drifting hither and thither, and nothing in sight but the sea, when forth again on its stillness rung annatoo's domestic alarum. the truce was up. most egregiously had the lady infringed it; appropriating to herself various objects previously disclaimed in favor of samoa. besides, forever on the prowl, she was perpetually going up and down; with untiring energy, exploring every nook and cranny; carrying off her spoils and diligently secreting them. having little idea of feminine adaptations, she pilfered whatever came handy:--iron hooks, dollars, bolts, hatchets, and stopping not at balls of marline and sheets of copper. all this, poor samoa would have borne with what patience he might, rather than again renew the war, were it not, that the audacious dame charged him with peculations upon her own private stores; though of any such thing he was innocent as the bowsprit. this insulting impeachment got the better of the poor islander's philosophy. he keenly resented it. and the consequence was, that seeing all domineering useless, annatoo flew off at a tangent; declaring that, for the future, samoa might stay by himself; she would have nothing more to do with him. save when unavoidable in managing the brigantine, she would not even speak to him, that she wouldn't, the monster! she then boldly demanded the forecastle--in the brig's case, by far the pleasantest end of the ship--for her own independent suite of apartments. as for hapless belisarius, he might do what he pleased in his dark little den of a cabin. concerning the division of the spoils, the termagant succeeded in carrying the day; also, to her quarters, bale after bale of goods, together with numerous odds and ends, sundry and divers. moreover, she laid in a fine stock of edibles, so as, in all respects possible, to live independent of her spouse. unlovely annatoo! unfortunate samoa! thus did the pair make a divorce of it; the lady going upon a separate maintenance,--and belisarius resuming his bachelor loneliness. in the captain's state room, all cold and comfortless, he slept; his lady whilome retiring to her forecastle boudoir; beguiling the hours in saying her pater-nosters, and tossing over and assorting her ill-gotten trinkets and finery; like madame de maintenon dedicating her last days and nights to continence and calicoes. but think you this was the quiet end of their conjugal quarrels? ah, no! no end to those feuds, till one or t'other gives up the ghost. now, exiled from the nuptial couch, belisarius bore the hardship without a murmur. and hero that he was, who knows that he felt not like a soldier on a furlough? but as for antonina, she could neither get along with belisarius, nor without him. she made advances. but of what sort? why, breaking into the cabin and purloining sundry goods therefrom; in artful hopes of breeding a final reconciliation out of the temporary outburst that might ensue. then followed a sad scene of altercation; interrupted at last by a sudden loud roaring of the sea. rushing to the deck, they beheld themselves sweeping head-foremost toward a shoal making out from a cluster of low islands, hitherto, by banks of clouds, shrouded from view. the helm was instantly shifted; and the yards braced about. but for several hours, owing to the freshness of the breeze, the set of the currents, and the irregularity and extent of the shoal, it seemed doubtful whether they would escape a catastrophe. but samoa's seamanship, united to annatoo's industry, at last prevailed; and the brigantine was saved. of the land where they came so near being wrecked, they knew nothing; and for that reason, they at once steered away. for after the fatal events which had overtaken the parki at the pearl shell islands, so fearful were they of encountering any islanders, that from the first they had resolved to keep open sea, shunning every appearance of land; relying upon being eventually picked up by some passing sail. doubtless this resolution proved their salvation. for to the navigator in these seas, no risk so great, as in approaching the isles; which mostly are so guarded by outpost reefs, and far out from their margins environed by perils, that the green flowery field within, lies like a rose among thorns; and hard to be reached as the heart of proud maiden. though once attained, all three--red rose, bright shore, and soft heart--are full of love, bloom, and all manner of delights. the pearl shell islands excepted. besides, in those generally tranquil waters, samoa's little craft, though hundreds of miles from land, was very readily managed by himself and annatoo. so small was the parki, that one hand could brace the main-yard; and a very easy thing it was, even to hoist the small top-sails; for after their first clumsy attempt to perform that operation by hand, they invariably led the halyards to the windlass, and so managed it, with the utmost facility. chapter xxvi containing a pennyweight of philosophy still many days passed and the parki yet floated. the little flying-fish got used to her familiar, loitering hull; and like swallows building their nests in quiet old trees, they spawned in the great green barnacles that clung to her sides. the calmer the sea, the more the barnacles grow. in the tropical pacific, but a few weeks suffice thus to encase your craft in shell armor. vast bunches adhere to the very cutwater, and if not stricken off, much impede the ship's sailing. and, at intervals, this clearing away of barnacles was one of annatoo's occupations. for be it known, that, like most termagants, the dame was tidy at times, though capriciously; loving cleanliness by fits and starts. wherefore, these barnacles oftentimes troubled her; and with a long pole she would go about, brushing them aside. it beguiled the weary hours, if nothing more; and then she would return to her beads and her trinkets; telling them all over again; murmuring forth her devotions, and marking whether samoa had been pilfering from her store. now, the escape from the shoal did much once again to heal the differences of the good lady and her spouse. and keeping house, as they did, all alone by themselves, in that lonely craft, a marvel it is, that they should ever have quarreled. and then to divorce, and yet dwell in the same tenement, was only aggravating the evil. so belisarius and antonina again came together. but now, grown wise by experience, they neither loved over-keenly, nor hated; but took things as they were; found themselves joined, without hope of a sundering, and did what they could to make a match of the mate. annatoo concluded that samoa was not wholly to be enslaved; and samoa thought best to wink at annatoo's foibles, and let her purloin when she pleased. but as in many cases, all this philosophy about wedlock is not proof against the perpetual contact of the parties concerned; and as it is far better to revive the old days of courtship, when men's mouths are honey-combs: and, to make them still sweeter, the ladies the bees which there store their sweets; when fathomless raptures glimmer far down in the lover's fond eye; and best of all, when visits are alternated by absence: so, like my dignified lord duke and his duchess, samoa and annatoo, man and wife, dwelling in the same house, still kept up their separate quarters. marlborough visiting sarah; and sarah, marlborough, whenever the humor suggested. chapter xxvii in which the past history op the parki is concluded still days, days, days sped by; and steering now this way, now that, to avoid the green treacherous shores, which frequently rose into view, the parki went to and fro in the sea; till at last, it seemed hard to tell, in what watery world she floated. well knowing the risks they ran, samoa desponded. but blessed be ignorance. for in the day of his despondency, the lively old lass his wife bade him be of stout heart, cheer up, and steer away manfully for the setting sun; following which, they must inevitably arrive at her own dear native island, where all their cares would be over. so squaring their yards, away they glided; far sloping down the liquid sphere. upon the afternoon of the day we caught sight of them in our boat, they had sighted a cluster of low islands, which put them in no small panic, because of their resemblance to those where the massacre had taken place. whereas, they must have been full five hundred leagues from that fearful vicinity. however, they altered their course to avoid it; and a little before sunset, dropping the islands astern, resumed their previous track. but very soon after, they espied our little sea-goat, bounding over the billows from afar. this they took for a canoe giving chase to them. it renewed and augmented their alarm. and when at last they perceived that the strange object was a boat, their fears, instead of being allayed, only so much the more increased. for their wild superstitions led them to conclude, that a white man's craft coming upon them so suddenly, upon the open sea, and by night, could be naught but a phantom. furthermore, marking two of us in the chamois, they fancied us the ghosts of the cholos. a conceit which effectually damped samoa's courage, like my viking's, only proof against things tangible. so seeing us bent upon boarding the brigantine; after a hurried over-turning of their chattels, with a view of carrying the most valuable aloft for safe keeping, they secreted what they could; and together made for the fore-top; the man with a musket, the woman with a bag of beads. their endeavoring to secure these treasures against ghostly appropriation originated in no real fear, that otherwise they would be stolen: it was simply incidental to the vacant panic into which they were thrown. no reproach this, to belisarius' heart of game; for the most intrepid feegee warrior, he who has slain his hecatombs, will not go ten yards in the dark alone, for fear of ghosts. their purpose was to remain in the top until daylight; by which time, they counted upon the withdrawal of their visitants; who, sure enough, at last sprang on board, thus verifying their worst apprehensions. they watched us long and earnestly. but curious to tell, in that very strait of theirs, perched together in that airy top, their domestic differences again broke forth; most probably, from their being suddenly forced into such very close contact. however that might be, taking advantage of our descent into the cabin, samoa, in desperation fled from his wife, and one-armed as he was, sailor-like, shifted himself over by the fore and aft-stays to the main-top, his musket being slung to his back. and thus divided, though but a few yards intervened, the pair were as much asunder as if at the opposite poles. during the live-long night they were both in great perplexity as to the extraordinary goblins on board. such inquisitive, meddlesome spirits, had never before been encountered. so cool and systematic; sagaciously stopping the vessel's headway the better to rummage;--the very plan they themselves had adopted. but what most surprised them, was our striking a light, a thing of which no true ghost would be guilty. then, our eating and drinking on the quarter-deck including the deliberate investment of vienna; and many other actions equally strange, almost led samoa to fancy that we were no shades, after all, but a couple of men from the moon. yet they had dimly caught sight of the frocks and trowsers we wore, similar to those which the captain of the parki had bestowed upon the two cholos, and in which those villains had been killed. this, with the presence of the whale boat, united to chase away the conceit of our lunar origin. but these considerations renewed their first superstitious impressions of our being the ghosts of the murderous half-breeds. nevertheless, while during the latter part of the night we were reclining beneath him, munching our biscuit, samoa eyeing us intently, was half a mind to open fire upon us by way of testing our corporeality. but most luckily, he concluded to defer so doing till sunlight; if by that time we should not have evaporated. for dame annatoo, almost from our first boarding the brigantine, something in our manner had bred in her a lurking doubt as to the genuineness of our atmospheric organization; and abandoned to her speculations when samoa fled from her side, her incredulity waxed stronger and stronger. whence we came she knew not; enough, that we seemed bent upon pillaging her own precious purloinings. alas! thought she, my buttons, my nails, my tappa, my dollars, my beads, and my boxes! wrought up to desperation by these dismal forebodings, she at length shook the ropes leading from her own perch to samoa's; adopting this method of arousing his attention to the heinousness of what was in all probability going on in the cabin, a prelude most probably to the invasion of her own end of the vessel. had she dared raise her voice, no doubt she would have suggested the expediency of shooting us so soon as we emerged from the cabin. but failing to shake samoa into an understanding of her views on the subject, her malice proved futile. when her worst fears were confirmed, however, and we actually descended into the forecastle; there ensued such a reckless shaking of the ropes, that samoa was fain to hold on hard, for fear of being tossed out of the rigging. and it was this violent rocking that caused the loud creaking of the yards, so often heard by us while below in annatoo's apartment. and the fore-top being just over the open forecastle scuttle, the dame could look right down upon us; hence our proceedings were plainly revealed by the lights that we carried. upon our breaking open her strong-box, her indignation almost completely overmastered her fears. unhooking a top-block, down it came into the forecastle, charitably commissioned with the demolition of jarl's cocoa-nut, then more exposed to the view of an aerial observer than my own. but of it turned out, no harm was done to our porcelain. at last, morning dawned; when ensued jarl's discovery as the occupant of the main-top; which event, with what followed, has been duly recounted. and such, in substance, was the first, second, third and fourth acts of the parki drama. the fifth and last, including several scenes, now follows. chapter xxviii suspicions laid, and something about the calmuc though abounding in details full of the savor of reality, samoa's narrative did not at first appear altogether satisfactory. not that it was so strange; for stranger recitals i had heard. but one reason, perhaps, was that i had anticipated a narrative quite different; something agreeing with my previous surmises. not a little puzzling, also, was his account of having seen islands the day preceding; though, upon reflection, that might have been the case, and yet, from his immediately altering the parki's course, the chamois, unknowingly might have sailed by their vicinity. still, those islands could form no part of the chain we were seeking. they must have been some region hitherto undiscovered. but seems it likely, thought i, that one, who, according to his own account, has conducted himself so heroically in rescuing the brigantine, should be the victim of such childish terror at the mere glimpse of a couple of sailors in an open boat, so well supplied, too, with arms, as he was, to resist their capturing his craft, if such proved their intention? on the contrary, would it not have been more natural, in his dreary situation, to have hailed our approach with the utmost delight? but then again, we were taken for phantoms, not flesh and blood. upon the whole, i regarded the narrator of these things somewhat distrustfully. but he met my gaze like a man. while annatoo, standing by, looked so expressively the amazonian character imputed to her, that my doubts began to waver. and recalling all the little incidents of their story, so hard to be conjured up on the spur of a presumed necessity to lie; nay, so hard to be conjured up at all; my suspicions at last gave way. and i could no longer harbor any misgivings. for, to be downright, what object could samoa have, in fabricating such a narrative of horrors--those of the massacre, i mean--unless to conceal some tragedy, still more atrocious, in which he himself had been criminally concerned? a supposition, which, for obvious reasons, seemed out of the question. true, instances were known to me of half-civilized beings, like samoa, forming part of the crews of ships in these seas, rising suddenly upon their white ship-mates, and murdering them, for the sake of wrecking the ship on the shore of some island near by, and plundering her hull, when stranded. but had this been purposed with regard to the parki, where the rest of the mutineers? there was no end to my conjectures; the more i indulged in them, the more they multiplied. so, unwilling to torment myself, when nothing could be learned, but what samoa related, and stuck to like a hero; i gave over conjecturing at all; striving hard to repose full faith in the islander. jarl, however, was skeptical to the last; and never could be brought completely to credit the tale. he stoutly maintained that the hobgoblins must have had something or other to do with the parki. my own curiosity satisfied with respect to the brigantine, samoa himself turned inquisitor. he desired to know who we were; and whence we came in our marvelous boat. but on these heads i thought best to withhold from him the truth; among other things, fancying that if disclosed, it would lessen his deference for us, as men superior to himself. i therefore spoke vaguely of our adventures, and assumed the decided air of a master; which i perceived was not lost upon the rude islander. as for jarl, and what he might reveal, i embraced the first opportunity to impress upon him the importance of never divulging our flight from the arcturion; nor in any way to commit himself on that head: injunctions which he faithfully promised to observe. if not wholly displeased with the fine form of samoa, despite his savage lineaments, and mutilated member, i was much less conciliated by the person of annatoo; who, being sinewy of limb, and neither young, comely, nor amiable, was exceedingly distasteful in my eyes. besides, she was a tigress. yet how avoid admiring those penthesilian qualities which so signally had aided samoa, in wresting the parki from its treacherous captors. nevertheless, it was indispensable that she should at once be brought under prudent subjection; and made to know, once for all, that though conjugally a rebel, she must be nautically submissive. for to keep the sea with a calmuc on board, seemed next to impossible. in most military marines, they are prohibited by law; no officer may take his pandora and her bandbox off soundings. by the way, this self-same appellative, pandora, has been bestowed upon vessels. there was a british ship by that name, dispatched in quest of the mutineers of the bounty. but any old tar might have prophesied her fate. bound home she was wrecked on a reef off new south wales. pandora, indeed! a pretty name for a ship: fairly smiting fate in the face. but in this matter of christening ships of war, christian nations are but too apt to be dare-devils. witness the following: british names all--the conqueror, the defiance, the revenge, the spitfire, the dreadnaught, the thunderer, and the tremendous; not omitting the etna, which, in the roads of corfu, was struck by lightning, coming nigh being consumed by fire from above. but almost potent as moses' rod, franklin's proved her salvation. with the above catalogue, compare we the frenchman's; quite characteristic of the aspirations of monsieur:--the destiny, the glorious, the magnanimous, the magnificent, the conqueror, the triumphant, the indomitable, the intrepid, the mont-blanc. lastly, the dons; who have ransacked the theology of the religion of peace for fine names for their fighting ships; stopping not at designating one of their three-deckers, the most holy trinity. but though, at trafalgar, the santissima trinidada thundered like sinai, her thunders were silenced by the victorious cannonade of the victory. and without being blown into splinters by artillery, how many of these redoubtables and invincibles have succumbed to the waves, and like braggarts gone down before hurricanes, with their bravadoes broad on their bows. much better the american names (barring scorpions, hornets, and wasps;) ohio, virginia, carolina, vermont. and if ever these yankees fight great sea engagements--which heaven forefend!--how glorious, poetically speaking, to range up the whole federated fleet, and pour forth a broadside from florida to maine. ay, ay, very glorious indeed! yet in that proud crowing of cannon, how shall the shade of peace-loving penn be astounded, to see the mightiest murderer of them all, the great pennsylvania, a very namesake of his. truly, the pennsylvania's guns should be the wooden ones, called by men-of-war's-men, quakers. but all this is an episode, made up of digressions. time to tack ship, and return. now, in its proper place, i omitted to mention, that shortly after descending from the rigging, and while samoa was rehearsing his adventures, dame annatoo had stolen below into the forecastle, intent upon her chattels. and finding them all in mighty disarray, she returned to the deck prodigiously, excited, and glancing angrily toward jarl and me, showered a whole torrent of objurgations into both ears of samoa. this contempt of my presence surprised me at first; but perhaps women are less apt to be impressed by a pretentious demeanor, than men. now, to use a fighting phrase, there is nothing like boarding an enemy in the smoke. and therefore, upon this first token of annatoo's termagant qualities, i gave her to understand--craving her pardon--that neither the vessel nor aught therein was hers; but that every thing belonged to the owners in lahina. i added, that at all hazards, a stop must be put to her pilferings. rude language for feminine ears; but how to be avoided? here was an infatuated woman, who, according to samoa's account, had been repeatedly detected in the act of essaying to draw out the screw-bolts which held together the planks. tell me; was she not worse than the load-stone rock, sailing by which a stout ship fell to pieces? during this scene, samoa said little. perhaps he was secretly pleased that his matrimonial authority was reinforced by myself and my viking, whose views of the proper position of wives at sea, so fully corresponded with his own; however difficult to practice, those purely theoretical ideas of his had hitherto proved. once more turning to annatoo, now looking any thing but amiable, i observed, that all her clamors would be useless; and that if it came to the worst, the parki had a hull that would hold her. in the end she went off in a fit of the sulks; sitting down on the windlass and glaring; her arms akimbo, and swaying from side to side; while ever and anon she gave utterance to a dismal chant. it sounded like an invocation to the cholos to rise and dispatch us. chapter xxix what they lighted upon in further searching the craft, and the resolution they came to descending into the cabin with samoa, i bade him hunt up the brigantine's log, the captain's writing-desk, and nautical instruments; in a word, aught that could throw light on the previous history of the craft, or aid in navigating her homeward. but nearly every thing of the kind had disappeared: log, quadrant, and ship's papers. nothing was left but the sextant-case, which jarl and i had lighted upon in the state-room. upon this, vague though they were, my suspicions returned; and i closely questioned the islander concerning the disappearance of these important articles. in reply, he gave me to understand, that the nautical instruments had been clandestinely carried down into the forecastle by annatoo; and by that indefatigable and inquisitive dame they had been summarily taken apart for scientific inspection. it was impossible to restore them; for many of the fixtures were lost, including the colored glasses, sights, and little mirrors; and many parts still recoverable, were so battered and broken as to be entirely useless. for several days afterward, we now and then came across bits of the quadrant or sextant; but it was only to mourn over their fate. however, though sextant and quadrant were both unattainable, i did not so quickly renounce all hope of discovering a chronometer, which, if in good order, though at present not ticking, might still be made in some degree serviceable. but no such instrument was to be seen. no: nor to be heard of; samoa himself professing utter ignorance. annatoo, i threatened and coaxed; describing the chronometer--a live, round creature like a toad, that made a strange noise, which i imitated; but she knew nothing about it. whether she had lighted upon it unbeknown to samoa, and dissected it as usual, there was now no way to determine. indeed, upon this one point, she maintained an air of such inflexible stupidity, that if she were really fibbing, her dead-wall countenance superseded the necessity for verbal deceit. it may be, however, that in this particular she was wronged; for, as with many small vessels, the parki might never have possessed the instrument in question. all thought, therefore, of feeling our way, as we should penetrate farther and farther into the watery wilderness, was necessarily abandoned. the log book had also formed a portion of annatoo's pilferings. it seems she had taken it into her studio to ponder over. but after amusing herself by again and again counting over the leaves, and wondering how so many distinct surfaces could be compacted together in so small a compass, she had very suddenly conceived an aversion to literature, and dropped the book overboard as worthless. doubtless, it met the fate of many other ponderous tomes; sinking quickly and profoundly. what camden or stowe hereafter will dive for it? one evening samoa brought me a quarto half-sheet of yellowish, ribbed paper, much soiled and tarry, which he had discovered in a dark hole of the forecastle. it had plainly formed part of the lost log; but all the writing thereon, at present decipherable, conveyed no information upon the subject then nearest my heart. but one could not but be struck by a tragical occurrence, which the page very briefly recounted; as well, as by a noteworthy pictorial illustration of the event in the margin of the text. save the cut, there was no further allusion to the matter than the following:--"this day, being calm, tooboi, one of the lahina men, went overboard for a bath, and was eaten up by a shark. immediately sent forward for his bag." now, this last sentence was susceptible of two meanings. it is truth, that immediately upon the decease of a friendless sailor at sea, his shipmates oftentimes seize upon his effects, and divide them; though the dead man's clothes are seldom worn till a subsequent voyage. this proceeding seems heartless. but sailors reason thus: better we, than the captain. for by law, either scribbled or unscribbled, the effects of a mariner, dying on shipboard, should be held in trust by that officer. but as sailors are mostly foundlings and castaways, and carry all their kith and kin in their arms and their legs, there hardly ever appears any heir-at-law to claim their estate; seldom worth inheriting, like esterhazy's. wherefore, the withdrawal of a dead man's "kit" from the forecastle to the cabin, is often held tantamount to its virtual appropriation by the captain. at any rate, in small ships on long voyages, such things have been done. thus much being said, then, the sentence above quoted from the parki's log, may be deemed somewhat ambiguous. at the time it struck me as singular; for the poor diver's grass bag could not have contained much of any thing valuable unless, peradventure, he had concealed therein some cleopatra pearls, feloniously abstracted from the shells brought up from the sea. aside of the paragraph, copied above, was a pen-and-ink sketch of the casualty, most cruelly executed; the poor fellow's legs being represented half way in the process of deglutition; his arms firmly grasping the monster's teeth, as if heroically bent upon making as tough a morsel of himself as possible. but no doubt the honest captain sketched this cenotaph to the departed in all sincerity of heart; perhaps, during the melancholy leisure which followed the catastrophe. half obliterated were several stains upon the page; seemingly, lingering traces of a salt tear or two. from this unwonted embellishment of the text, i was led to infer, that the designer, at one time or other, must have been engaged in the vocation of whaling. for, in india ink, the logs of certain whalemen are decorated by somewhat similar illustrations. when whales are seen, but not captured, the fact is denoted by an outline figure representing the creature's flukes, the broad, curving lobes of his tail. but in those cases where the monster is both chased and killed, this outline is filled up jet black; one for every whale slain; presenting striking objects in turning over the log; and so facilitating reference. hence, it is quite imposing to behold, all in a row, three or four, sometime five or six, of these drawings; showing that so many monsters that day jetted their last spout. and the chief mate, whose duty it is to keep the ship's record, generally prides himself upon the beauty, and flushy likeness to life, of his flukes; though, sooth to say, many of these artists are no landseers. after vainly searching the cabin for those articles we most needed, we proceeded to explore the hold, into which as yet we had not penetrated. here, we found a considerable quantity of pearl shells; cocoanuts; an abundance of fresh water in casks; spare sails and rigging; and some fifty barrels or more of salt beef and biscuit. unromantic as these last mentioned objects were, i lingered over them long, and in a revery. branded upon each barrel head was the name of a place in america, with which i was very familiar. it is from america chiefly, that ship's stores are originally procured for the few vessels sailing out of the hawaiian islands. having now acquainted myself with all things respecting the parki, which could in any way be learned, i repaired to the quarter-deck, and summoning round me samoa, annatoo, and jarl, gravely addressed them. i said, that nothing would give me greater satisfaction than forthwith to return to the scene of the massacre, and chastise its surviving authors. but as there were only four of us in all; and the place of those islands was wholly unknown to me; and even if known, would be altogether out of our reach, since we possessed no instruments of navigation; it was quite plain that all thought of returning thither was entirely useless. the last mentioned reason, also, prevented our voyaging to the hawaiian group, where the vessel belonged; though that would have been the most advisable step, resulting, as it would, if successful, in restoring the ill-fated craft to her owners. but all things considered, it seemed best, i added, cautiously to hold on our way to the westward. it was our easiest course; for we would ever have the wind from astern; and though we could not so much as hope to arrive at any one spot previously designated, there was still a positive certainty, if we floated long enough, of falling in with islands whereat to refresh ourselves; and whence, if we thought fit, we might afterward embark for more agreeable climes. i then reminded them of the fact, that so long as we kept the sea, there was always some prospect of encountering a friendly sail; in which event, our solicitude would be over. all this i said in the mild, firm tone of a superior; being anxious, at once to assume the unquestioned supremacy. for, otherwise, jarl and i might better quit the vessel forthwith, than remain on board subject to the outlandish caprices of annatoo, who through samoa would then have the sway. but i was sure of my viking; and if samoa proved docile, had no fear of his dame. and therefore during my address, i steadfastly eyed him; thereby learning enough to persuade me, that though he deferred to me at present, he was, notwithstanding, a man who, without precisely meditating mischief, could upon occasion act an ugly part. but of his courage, and savage honor, such as it was, i had little doubt. then, wild buffalo that he was, tamed down in the yoke matrimonial, i could not but fancy, that if upon no other account, our society must please him, as rendering less afflictive the tyranny of his spouse. for a hen-pecked husband, by the way, samoa was a most terrible fellow to behold. and though, after all, i liked him; it was as you fancy a fiery steed with mane disheveled, as young alexander fancied bucephalus; which wild horse, when he patted, he preferred holding by the bridle. but more of samoa anon. our course determined, and the command of the vessel tacitly yielded up to myself, the next thing done was to put every thing in order. the tattered sails were replaced by others, dragged up from the sail-room below; in several places, new running-rigging was rove; blocks restrapped; and the slackened stays and shrouds set taught. for all of which, we were mostly indebted to my viking's unwearied and skillful marling-spike, which he swayed like a scepter. the little parki's toilet being thus thoroughly made for the first time since the massacre, we gave her new raiment to the breeze, and daintily squaring her yards, she gracefully glided away; honest old jarl at the helm, watchfully guiding her path, like some devoted old foster-father. as i stood by his side like a captain, or walked up and down on the quarter-deck, i felt no little importance upon thus assuming for the first time in my life, the command of a vessel at sea. the novel circumstances of the case only augmented this feeling; the wild and remote seas where we were; the character of my crew, and the consideration, that to all purposes, i was owner, as well as commander of the craft i sailed. chapter xxx hints for a full length of samoa my original intention to touch at the kingsmill chain, or the countries adjacent, was greatly strengthened by thus encountering samoa; and the more i had to do with my belisarius, the more i was pleased with him. nor could i avoid congratulating myself, upon having fallen in with a hero, who in various ways, could not fail of proving exceedingly useful. like any man of mark, samoa best speaks for himself; but we may as well convey some idea of his person. though manly enough, nay, an obelisk in stature, the savage was far from being sentimentally prepossessing. be not alarmed; but he wore his knife in the lobe of his dexter ear, which, by constant elongation almost drooped upon his shoulder. a mode of sheathing it exceedingly handy, and far less brigandish than the highlander's dagger concealed in his leggins. but it was the mother of samoa, who at a still earlier day had punctured him through and through in still another direction. the middle cartilage of his nose was slightly pendent, peaked, and gothic, and perforated with a hole; in which, like a newfoundland dog carrying a cane, samoa sported a trinket: a well polished nail. in other respects he was equally a coxcomb. in his style of tattooing, for instance, which seemed rather incomplete; his marks embracing but a vertical half of his person, from crown to sole; the other side being free from the slightest stain. thus clapped together, as it were, he looked like a union of the unmatched moieties of two distinct beings; and your fancy was lost in conjecturing, where roamed the absent ones. when he turned round upon you suddenly, you thought you saw some one else, not him whom you had been regarding before. but there was one feature in samoa beyond the reach of the innovations of art:--his eye; which in civilized man or savage, ever shines in the head, just as it shone at birth. truly, our eyes are miraculous things. but alas, that in so many instances, these divine organs should be mere lenses inserted into the socket, as glasses in spectacle rims. but my islander had a soul in his eye; looking out upon you there, like somebody in him. what an eye, to be sure! at times, brilliantly changeful as opal; in anger, glowing like steel at white heat. belisarius, be it remembered, had but very recently lost an arm. but you would have thought he had been born without it; so lord nelson-like and cavalierly did he sport the honorable stump. but no more of samoa; only this: that his name had been given him by a sea-captain; to whom it had been suggested by the native designation of the islands to which he belonged; the saviian or samoan group, otherwise known as the navigator islands. the island of upolua, one of that cluster, claiming the special honor of his birth, as corsica does napoleon's, we shall occasionally hereafter speak of samoa as the upoluan; by which title he most loved to be called. it is ever ungallant to pass over a lady. but what shall be said of annatoo? as i live, i can make no pleasing portrait of the dame; for as in most ugly subjects, flattering would but make the matter worse. furthermore, unalleviated ugliness should ever go unpainted, as something unnecessary to duplicate. but the only ugliness is that of the heart, seen through the face. and though beauty be obvious, the only loveliness is invisible. chapter xxxi rovings alow and aloft every one knows what a fascination there is in wandering up and down in a deserted old tenement in some warm, dreamy country; where the vacant halls seem echoing of silence, and the doors creak open like the footsteps of strangers; and into every window the old garden trees thrust their dark boughs, like the arms of night-burglars; and ever and anon the nails start from the wainscot; while behind it the mice rattle like dice. up and down in such old specter houses one loves to wander; and so much the more, if the place be haunted by some marvelous story. and during the drowsy stillness of the tropical sea-day, very much such a fancy had i, for prying about our little brigantine, whose tragic hull was haunted by the memory of the massacre, of which it still bore innumerable traces. and so far as the indulgence of quiet strolling and reverie was concerned, it was well nigh the same as if i were all by myself. for samoa, for a time, was rather reserved, being occupied with thoughts of his own. and annatoo seldom troubled me with her presence. she was taken up with her calicoes and jewelry; which i had permitted her to retain, to keep her in good humor if possible. and as for my royal old viking, he was one of those individuals who seldom speak, unless personally addressed. besides, all that by day was necessary to navigating the parki was, that--somebody should stand at the helm; the craft being so small, and the grating, whereon the steersman stood, so elevated, that he commanded a view far beyond the bowsprit; thus keeping argus eyes on the sea, as he steered us along. in all other respects we left the brigantine to the guardianship of the gentle winds. my own turn at the helm--for though commander, i felt constrained to do duty with the rest--came but once in the twenty-four hours. and not only did jarl and samoa, officiate as helmsmen, but also dame annatoo, who had become quite expert at the business. though jarl always maintained that there was a slight drawback upon her usefulness in this vocation. too much taken up by her lovely image partially reflected in the glass of the binnacle before her, annatoo now and then neglected her duty, and led us some devious dances. nor was she, i ween, the first woman that ever led men into zigzags. for the reasons above stated, i had many spare hours to myself. at times, i mounted aloft, and lounging in the slings of the topsail yard--one of the many snug nooks in a ship's rigging--i gazed broad off upon the blue boundless sea, and wondered what they were doing in that unknown land, toward which we were fated to be borne. or feeling less meditative, i roved about hither and thither; slipping over, by the stays, from one mast to the other; climbing up to the truck; or lounging out to the ends of the yards; exploring wherever there was a foothold. it was like climbing about in some mighty old oak, and resting in the crotches. to a sailor, a ship's ropes are a study. and to me, every rope-yarn of the parki's was invested with interest. the outlandish fashion of her shrouds, the collars of her stays, the stirrups, seizings, flemish-horses, gaskets,--all the wilderness of her rigging, bore unequivocal traces of her origin. but, perhaps, my pleasantest hours were those which i spent, stretched out on a pile of old sails, in the fore-top; lazily dozing to the craft's light roll. frequently, i descended to the cabin: for the fiftieth time, exploring the lockers and state-rooms for some new object of curiosity. and often, with a glimmering light, i went into the midnight hold, as into old vaults and catacombs; and creeping between damp ranges of casks, penetrated into its farthest recesses. sometimes, in these under-ground burrowings, i lighted upon sundry out-of-the-way hiding places of annatoo's; where were snugly secreted divers articles, with which she had been smitten. in truth, no small portion of the hull seemed a mine of stolen goods, stolen out of its own bowels. i found a jaunty shore-cap of the captain's, hidden away in the hollow heart of a coil of rigging; covered over in a manner most touchingly natural, with a heap of old ropes; and near by, in a breaker, discovered several entire pieces of calico, heroically tied together with cords almost strong enough to sustain the mainmast. near the stray light, which, when the hatch was removed, gleamed down into this part of the hold, was a huge ground-tier butt, headless as charles the first. and herein was a mat nicely spread for repose; a discovery which accounted for what had often proved an enigma. not seldom annatoo had been among the missing; and though, from stem to stern, loudly invoked to come forth and relieve the poignant distress of her anxious friends, the dame remained perdu; silent and invisible as a spirit. but in her own good time, she would mysteriously emerge; or be suddenly espied lounging quietly in the forecastle, as if she had been there from all eternity. useless to inquire, "where hast thou been, sweet annatoo?" for no sweet rejoinder would she give. but now the problem was solved. here, in this silent cask in the hold, annatoo was wont to coil herself away, like a garter-snake under a stone. whether-she-thus stood sentry over her goods secreted round about: whether she here performed penance like a nun in her cell; or was moved to this unaccountable freak by the powers of the air; no one could tell. can you? verily, her ways were as the ways of the inscrutable penguins in building their inscrutable nests, which baffle all science, and make a fool of a sage. marvelous annatoo! who shall expound thee? chapter xxxii xiphius platypterus about this time, the loneliness of our voyage was relieved by an event worth relating. ever since leaving the pearl shell islands, the parki had been followed by shoals of small fish, pleasantly enlivening the sea, and socially swimming by her side. but in vain did jarl and i search among their ranks for the little, steel-blue pilot fish, so long outriders of the chamois. but perhaps since the chamois was now high and dry on the parki's deck, our bright little avant-couriers were lurking out of sight, far down in the brine; racing along close to the keel. but it is not with the pilot fish that we now have to do. one morning our attention was attracted to a mighty commotion in the water. the shoals of fish were darting hither and thither, and leaping into the air in the utmost affright. samoa declared, that their deadly foe the sword fish must be after them. and here let me say, that, since of all the bullies, and braggarts, and bravoes, and free-booters, and hectors, and fish-at-arms, and knight-errants, and moss-troopers, and assassins, and foot-pads, and gallant soldiers, and immortal heroes that swim the seas, the indian sword fish is by far the most remarkable, i propose to dedicate this chapter to a special description of the warrior. in doing which, i but follow the example of all chroniclers and historians, my peloponnesian friend thucydides and others, who are ever mindful of devoting much space to accounts of eminent destroyers; for the purpose, no doubt, of holding them up as ensamples to the world. now, the fish here treated of is a very different creature from the sword fish frequenting the northern atlantic; being much larger every way, and a more dashing varlet to boot. furthermore, he is denominated the indian sword fish, in contradistinction from his namesake above mentioned. but by seamen in the pacific, he is more commonly known as the bill fish; while for those who love science and hard names, be it known, that among the erudite naturalists he goeth by the outlandish appellation of "_xiphius platypterus_." but i waive for my hero all these his cognomens, and substitute a much better one of my own: namely, the chevalier. and a chevalier he is, by good right and title. a true gentleman of black prince edward's bright day, when all gentlemen were known by their swords; whereas, in times present, the sword fish excepted, they are mostly known by their high polished boots and rattans. a right valiant and jaunty chevalier is our hero; going about with his long toledo perpetually drawn. rely upon it, he will fight you to the hilt, for his bony blade has never a scabbard. he himself sprang from it at birth; yea, at the very moment he leaped into the battle of life; as we mortals ourselves spring all naked and scabbardless into the world. yet, rather, are we scabbards to our souls. and the drawn soul of genius is more glittering than the drawn cimeter of saladin. but how many let their steel sleep, till it eat up the scabbard itself, and both corrode to rust-chips. saw you ever the hillocks of old spanish anchors, and anchor-stocks of ancient galleons, at the bottom of callao bay? the world is full of old tower armories, and dilapidated venetian arsenals, and rusty old rapiers. but true warriors polish their good blades by the bright beams of the morning; and gird them on to their brave sirloins; and watch for rust spots as for foes; and by many stout thrusts and stoccadoes keep their metal lustrous and keen, as the spears of the northern lights charging over greenland. fire from the flint is our chevalier enraged. he takes umbrage at the cut of some ship's keel crossing his road; and straightway runs a tilt at it; with one mad lounge thrusting his andrea ferrara clean through and through; not seldom breaking it short off at the haft, like a bravo leaving his poignard in the vitals of his foe. in the case of the english ship foxhound, the blade penetrated through the most solid part of her hull, the bow; going completely through the copper plates and timbers, and showing for several inches in the hold. on the return of the ship to london, it was carefully sawn out; and, imbedded in the original wood, like a fossil, is still preserved. but this was a comparatively harmless onslaught of the valiant chevalier. with the rousseau, of nantucket, it fared worse. she was almost mortally stabbed; her assailant withdrawing his blade. and it was only by keeping the pumps clanging, that she managed to swim into a tahitian harbor, "heave down," and have her wound dressed by a ship-surgeon with tar and oakum. this ship i met with at sea, shortly after the disaster. at what armory our chevalier equips himself after one of his spiteful tilting-matches, it would not be easy to say. but very hard for him, if ever after he goes about in the lists, swordless and disarmed, at the mercy of any caitiff shark he may meet. now, seeing that our fellow-voyagers, the little fish along-side, were sorely tormented and thinned out by the incursions of a pertinacious chevalier, bent upon making a hearty breakfast out of them, i determined to interfere in their behalf, and capture the enemy. with shark-hook and line i succeeded, and brought my brave gentleman to the deck. he made an emphatic landing; lashing the planks with his sinewy tail; while a yard and a half in advance of his eyes, reached forth his terrible blade. as victor, i was entitled to the arms of the vanquished; so, quickly dispatching him, and sawing off his toledo, i bore it away for a trophy. it was three-sided, slightly concave on each, like a bayonet; and some three inches through at the base, it tapered from thence to a point. and though tempered not in tagus or guadalquiver, it yet revealed upon its surface that wavy grain and watery fleckiness peculiar to tried blades of spain. it was an aromatic sword; like the ancient caliph's, giving out a peculiar musky odor by friction. but far different from steel of tagus or damascus, it was inflexible as crocket's rifle tube; no doubt, as deadly. long hung that rapier over the head of my hammock. was it not storied as the good trenchant blade of brave bayard, that other chevalier? the knight's may have slain its scores, or fifties; but the weapon i preserved had, doubtless, run through and riddled its thousands. chapter xxxiii otard and here is another little incident. one afternoon while all by myself curiously penetrating into the hold, i most unexpectedly obtained proof, that the ill-fated captain of the parki had been a man of sound judgment and most excellent taste. in brief, i lighted upon an aromatic cask of prime old otard. now, i mean not to speak lightly of any thing immediately connected with the unfortunate captain. nor, on the other hand, would i resemble the inconsolable mourner, who among other tokens of affliction, bound in funereal crape his deceased friend's copy of joe miller. is there not a fitness in things? but let that pass. i found the otard, and drank there-of; finding it, moreover, most pleasant to the palate, and right cheering to the soul. my next impulse was to share my prize with my shipmates. but here a judicious reflection obtruded. from the sea-monarchs, his ancestors, my viking had inherited one of their cardinal virtues, a detestation and abhorrence of all vinous and spirituous beverages; insomuch, that he never could see any, but he instantly quaffed it out of sight. to be short, like alexander the great and other royalties, jarl was prone to overmuch bibing. and though at sea more sober than a fifth monarchy elder, it was only because he was then removed from temptation. but having thus divulged my viking's weak; side, i earnestly entreat, that it may not disparage him in any charitable man's estimation. only think, how many more there are like him to say nothing further of alexander the great--especially among his own class; and consider, i beseech, that the most capacious-souled fellows, for that very reason, are the most apt to be too liberal in their libations; since, being so large-hearted, they hold so much more good cheer than others. for samoa, from his utter silence hitherto as to aught inebriating on board, i concluded, that, along with his other secrets, the departed captain had very wisely kept his otard to himself. nor did i doubt, but that the upoluan, like all polynesians, much loved getting high of head; and in that state, would be more intractable than a black forest boar. and concerning annatoo, i shuddered to think, how that otard might inflame her into a fury more fierce than the foremost of those that pursued orestes. in good time, then, bethinking me of the peril of publishing my discovery;--bethinking me of the quiet, lazy, ever-present perils of the voyage, of all circumstances, the very worst under which to introduce an intoxicating beverage to my companions, i resolved to withhold it from them altogether. so impressed was i with all this, that for a moment, i was almost tempted to roll over the cask on its bilge, remove the stopper, and suffer its contents to mix with the foul water at the bottom of the hold. but no, no: what: dilute the brine with the double distilled soul of the precious grape? haft himself would have haunted me! then again, it might come into play medicinally; and paracelsus himself stands sponsor for every cup drunk for the good of the abdomen. so at last, i determined to let it remain where it was: visiting it occasionally, by myself, for inspection. but by way of advice to all ship-masters, let me say, that if your otard magazine be exposed to view--then, in the evil hour of wreck, stave in your spirit-casks, ere rigging the life-boat. chapter xxxiv how they steered on their way when we quitted the chamois for the brigantine, we must have been at least two hundred leagues to the westward of the spot, where we had abandoned the arcturion. though how far we might then have been, north or south of the equator, i could not with any certainty divine. but that we were not removed any considerable distance from the line, seemed obvious. for in the starriest night no sign of the extreme polar constellations was visible; though often we scanned the northern and southern horizon in search of them. so far as regards the aspect of the skies near the ocean's rim, the difference of several degrees in one's latitude at sea, is readily perceived by a person long accustomed to surveying the heavens. if correct in my supposition, concerning our longitude at the time here alluded to, and allowing for what little progress we had been making in the parki, there now remained some one hundred leagues to sail, ere the country we sought would be found. but for obvious reasons, how long precisely we might continue to float out of sight of land, it was impossible to say. calms, light breezes, and currents made every thing uncertain. nor had we any method of estimating our due westward progress, except by what is called dead reckoning,--the computation of the knots run hourly; allowances' being made for the supposed deviations from our course, by reason of the ocean streams; which at times in this quarter of the pacific run with very great velocity. now, in many respects we could not but feel safer aboard the parki than in the chamois. the sense of danger is less vivid, the greater the number of lives involved. he who is ready to despair in solitary peril, plucks up a heart in the presence of another. in a plurality of comrades is much countenance and consolation. still, in the brigantine there were many sources of uneasiness and anxiety unknown to me in the whale-boat. true, we had now between us and the deep, five hundred good planks to one lath in our buoyant little chip. but the parki required more care and attention; especially by night, when a vigilant look-out was indispensable. with impunity, in our whale-boat, we might have run close to shoal or reef; whereas, similar carelessness or temerity now, might prove fatal to all concerned. though in the joyous sunlight, sailing through the sparkling sea, i was little troubled with serious misgivings; in the hours of darkness it was quite another thing. and the apprehensions, nay terrors i felt, were much augmented by the remissness of both jarl and samoa, in keeping their night-watches. several times i was seized with a deadly panic, and earnestly scanned the murky horizon, when rising from slumber i found the steersman, in whose hands for the time being were life and death, sleeping upright against the tiller, as much of a fixture there, as the open-mouthed dragon rudely carved on our prow. were it not, that on board of other vessels, i myself had many a time dozed at the helm, spite of all struggles, i would have been almost at a loss to account for this heedlessness in my comrades. but it seemed as if the mere sense of our situation, should have been sufficient to prevent the like conduct in all on board our craft. samoa's aspect, sleeping at the tiller, was almost appalling. his large opal eyes were half open; and turned toward the light of the binnacle, gleamed between the lids like bars of flame. and added to all, was his giant stature and savage lineaments. it was in vain, that i remonstrated, begged, or threatened: the occasional drowsiness of my fellow-voyagers proved incurable. to no purpose, i reminded my viking that sleeping in the night-watch in a craft like ours, was far different from similar heedlessness on board the arcturion. for there, our place upon the ocean was always known, and our distance from land; so that when by night the seamen were permitted to be drowsy, it was mostly, because the captain well knew that strict watchfulness could be dispensed with. though in all else, the skyeman proved a most faithful ally, in this one thing he was either perversely obtuse, or infatuated. or, perhaps, finding himself once more in a double-decked craft, which rocked him as of yore, he was lulled into a deceitful security. for samoa, his drowsiness was the drowsiness of one beat on sleep, come dreams or death. he seemed insensible to the peril we ran. often i sent the sleepy savage below, sad, steered myself till morning. at last i made a point of slumbering much by day, the better to stand watch by night; though i made samoa and jarl regularly go through with their allotted four hours each. it has been mentioned, that annatoo took her turn at the helm; but it was only by day. and in justice to the lady, i must affirm, that upon the whole she acquitted herself well. for notwithstanding the syren face in the binnacle, which dimly allured her glances, annatoo after all was tolerably heedful of her steering. indeed she took much pride therein; always ready for her turn; with marvelous exactitude calculating the approaching hour, as it came on in regular rotation. her time-piece was ours, the sun. by night it must have been her guardian star; for frequently she gazed up at a particular section of the heavens, like one regarding the dial in a tower. by some odd reasoning or other, she had cajoled herself into the notion, that whoever steered the brigantine, for that period was captain. wherefore, she gave herself mighty airs at the tiller; with extravagant gestures issuing unintelligible orders about trimming the sails, or pitching overboard something to see how fast we were going. all this much diverted my viking, who several times was delivered of a laugh; a loud and healthy one to boot: a phenomenon worthy the chronicling. and thus much for annatoo, preliminary to what is further to be said. seeing the drowsiness of jarl and samoa, which so often kept me from my hammock at night, forcing me to repose by day, when i far preferred being broad awake, i decided to let annatoo take her turn at the night watches; which several times she had solicited me to do; railing at the sleepiness of her spouse; though abstaining from all reflections upon jarl, toward whom she had of late grown exceedingly friendly. now the calmuc stood her first night watch to admiration; if any thing, was altogether too wakeful. the mere steering of the craft employed not sufficiently her active mind. ever and anon she must needs rush from the tiller to take a parenthetical pull at the fore-brace, the end of which led down to the bulwarks near by; then refreshing herself with a draught or two of water and a biscuit, she would continue to steer away, full of the importance of her office. at any unusual flapping of the sails, a violent stamping on deck announced the fact to the startled crew. finding her thus indefatigable, i readily induced her to stand two watches to jarl's and samoa's one; and when she was at the helm, i permitted myself to doze on a pile of old sails, spread every evening on the quarter-deck. it was the skyeman, who often admonished me to "heave the ship to" every night, thus stopping her headway till morning; a plan which, under other circumstances, might have perhaps warranted the slumbers of all. but as it was, such a course would have been highly imprudent. for while making no onward progress through the water, the rapid currents we encountered would continually be drifting us eastward; since, contrary to our previous experience, they seemed latterly to have reversed their flow, a phenomenon by no means unusual in the vicinity of the line in the pacific. and this it was that so prolonged our passage to the westward. even in a moderate breeze, i sometimes fancied, that the impulse of the wind little more than counteracted the glide of the currents; so that with much show of sailing, we were in reality almost a fixture on the sea. the equatorial currents of the south seas may be regarded as among the most mysterious of the mysteries of the deep. whence they come, whither go, who knows? tell us, what hidden law regulates their flow. regardless of the theory which ascribes to them a nearly uniform course from east to west, induced by the eastwardly winds of the line, and the collateral action of the polar streams; these currents are forever shifting. nor can the period of their revolutions be at all relied upon or predicted. but however difficult it may be to assign a specific cause for the ocean streams, in any part of the world, one of the wholesome effects thereby produced would seem obvious enough. and though the circumstance here alluded to is perhaps known to every body, it may be questioned, whether it is generally invested with the importance it deserves. reference is here made to the constant commingling and purification of the sea-water by reason of the currents. for, that the ocean, according to the popular theory, possesses a special purifying agent in its salts, is somewhat to be doubted. nor can it be explicitly denied, that those very salts might corrupt it, were it not for the brisk circulation of its particles consequent upon the flow of the streams. it is well known to seamen, that a bucket of sea-water, left standing in a tropical climate, very soon becomes highly offensive; which is not the case with rainwater. but i build no theories. and by way of obstructing the one, which might possibly be evolved from the statement above, let me add, that the offensiveness of sea-water left standing, may arise in no small degree from the presence of decomposed animal matter. chapter xxxv ah, annatoo! in order to a complete revelation, i must needs once again discourse of annatoo and her pilferings; and to what those pilferings led. in the simplicity of my soul, i fancied that the dame, so much flattered as she needs must have been, by the confidence i began to repose in her, would now mend her ways, and abstain from her larcenies. but not so. she was possessed by some scores of devils, perpetually her to mischief on their own separate behoof, and not less for many of her pranks were of no earthly advantage to her, present or prospective. one day the log-reel was missing. summon annatoo. she came; but knew nothing about it. jarl spent a whole morning in contriving a substitute; and a few days after, pop, we came upon the lost: article hidden away in the main-top. another time, discovering the little vessel to "gripe" hard in steering, as if some one under water were jerking her backward, we instituted a diligent examination, to see what was the matter. when lo; what should we find but a rope, cunningly attached to one of the chain-plates under the starboard main-channel. it towed heavily in the water. upon dragging it up--much as you would the cord of a ponderous bucket far down in a well--a stout wooden box was discovered at the end; which opened, disclosed sundry knives, hatchets, and ax-heads. called to the stand, the upoluan deposed, that thrice he had rescued that identical box from annatoo's all-appropriating clutches. now, here were four human beings shut up in this little oaken craft, and, for the time being, their interests the same. what sane mortal, then, would forever be committing thefts, without rhyme or reason. it was like stealing silver from one pocket and decanting it into the other. and what might it not lead to in the end? why, ere long, in good sooth, it led to the abstraction of the compass from the binnacle; so that we were fain to substitute for it, the one brought along in the chamois. it was jarl that first published this last and alarming theft. annatoo being at the helm at dawn, he had gone to relieve her; and looking to see how we headed, was horror-struck at the emptiness of the binnacle. i started to my feet; sought out the woman, and ferociously demanded the compass. but her face was a blank; every word a denial. further lenity was madness. i summoned samoa, told him what had happened, and affirmed that there was no safety for us except in the nightly incarceration of his spouse. to this he privily assented; and that very evening, when annatoo descended into the forecastle, we barred over her the scuttle-slide. long she clamored, but unavailingly. and every night this was repeated; the dame saying her vespers most energetically. it has somewhere been hinted, that annatoo occasionally cast sheep's eyes at jarl. so i was not a little surprised when her manner toward him decidedly changed. pulling at the ropes with us, she would give him sly pinches, and then look another way, innocent as a lamb. then again, she would refuse to handle the same piece of rigging with him; with wry faces, rinsed out the wooden can at the water cask, if it so chanced that my viking had previously been drinking therefrom. at other times, when the honest skyeman came up from below, she would set up a shout of derision, and loll out her tongue; accompanying all this by certain indecorous and exceedingly unladylike gestures, significant of the profound contempt in which she held him. yet, never did jarl heed her ill-breeding; but patiently overlooked and forgave it. inquiring the reason of the dame's singular conduct, i learned, that with eye averted, she had very lately crept close to my viking, and met with no tender reception. doubtless, jarl, who was much of a philosopher, innocently imagined that ere long the lady would forgive and forget him. but what knows a philosopher about women? ere long, so outrageous became annatoo's detestation of him, that the honest old tar could stand it no longer, and like most good-natured men when once fairly roused, he was swept through and through with a terrible typhoon of passion. he proposed, that forthwith the woman should be sacked and committed to the deep; he could stand it no longer. murder is catching. at first i almost jumped at the proposition; but as quickly rejected it. ah! annatoo: woman unendurable: deliver me, ye gods, from being shut up in a ship with such a hornet again. but are we yet through with her? not yet. hitherto she had continued to perform the duties of the office assigned her since the commencement of the voyage: namely, those of the culinary department. from this she was now deposed. her skewer was broken. my viking solemnly averring, that he would eat nothing more of her concocting, for fear of being poisoned. for myself, i almost believed, that there was malice enough in the minx to give us our henbane broth. but what said samoa to all this? passing over the matter of the cookery, will it be credited, that living right among us as he did, he was yet blind to the premeditated though unachieved peccadilloes of his spouse? yet so it was. and thus blind was belisarius himself, concerning the intrigues of antonina. witness that noble dame's affair with the youth theodosius; when her deluded lord charged upon the scandal-mongers with the very horns she had bestowed upon him. upon one occasion, seized with a sudden desire to palliate annatoo's thievings, samoa proudly intimated, that the lady was the most virtuous of her sex. but alas, poor annatoo, why say more? and bethinking me of the hard fate that so soon overtook thee, i almost repent what has already and too faithfully been portrayed. chapter xxxvi the parki gives up the ghost a long calm in the boat, and now, god help us, another in the brigantine. it was airless and profound. in that hot calm, we lay fixed and frozen in like parry at the pole. the sun played upon the glassy sea like the sun upon the glaciers. at the end of two days we lifted up our eyes and beheld a low, creeping, hungry cloud expanding like an army, wing and wing, along the eastern horizon. instantly jarl bode me take heed. here be it said, that though for weeks and weeks reign over the equatorial latitudes of the pacific, the mildest and sunniest of days; that nevertheless, when storms do come, they come in their strength: spending in a few, brief blasts their concentrated rage. they come like the mamelukes: they charge, and away. it wanted full an hour to sunset; but the sun was well nigh obscured. it seemed toiling among bleak scythian steeps in the hazy background. above the storm-cloud flitted ominous patches of scud, rapidly advancing and receding: attila's skirmishers, thrown forward in the van of his huns. beneath, a fitful shadow slid along the surface. as we gazed, the cloud came nearer; accelerating its approach. with all haste we proceeded to furl the sails, which, owing to the calm, had been hanging loose in the brails. and by help of a spare boom, used on the forecastle-deck sit a sweep or great oar, we endeavored to cast the brigantine's head toward the foe. the storm seemed about to overtake us; but we felt no breeze. the noiseless cloud stole on; its advancing shadow lowering over a distinct and prominent milk-white crest upon the surface of the ocean. but now this line of surging foam came rolling down upon us like a white charge of cavalry: mad hotspur and plumed murat at its head; pouring right forward in a continuous frothy cascade, which curled over, and fell upon the glassy sea before it. still, no breath of air. but of a sudden, like a blow from a man's hand, and before our canvas could be secured, the stunned craft, giving one lurch to port, was stricken down on her beam-ends; the roaring tide dashed high up against her windward side, and drops of brine fell upon the deck, heavy as drops of gore. it was all a din and a mist; a crashing of spars and of ropes; a horrible blending of sights and of sounds; as for an instant we seemed in the hot heart of the gale; our cordage, like harp-strings, shrieking above the fury of the blast. the masts rose, and swayed, and dipped their trucks in the sea. and like unto some stricken buffalo brought low to the plain, the brigantine's black hull, shaggy with sea-weed, lay panting on its flank in the foam. frantically we clung to the uppermost bulwarks. and now, loud above the roar of the sea, was suddenly heard a sharp, splintering sound, as of a norway woodman felling a pine in the forest. it was brave jarl, who foremost of all had snatched from its rack against the mainmast, the ax, always there kept. "cut the lanyards to windward!" he cried; and again buried his ax into the mast. he was quickly obeyed. and upon cutting the third lanyard of the five, he shouted for us to pause. dropping his ax, he climbed up to windward. as he clutched the rail, the wounded mast snapped in twain with a report like a cannon. a slight smoke was perceptible where it broke. the remaining lanyards parted. from the violent strain upon them, the two shrouds flew madly into the air, and one of the great blocks at their ends, striking annatoo upon the forehead, she let go her hold upon a stanchion, and sliding across the aslant deck, was swallowed up in the whirlpool under our lea. samoa shrieked. but there was no time to mourn; no hand could reach to save. by the connecting stays, the mainmast carried over with it the foremast; when we instantly righted, and for the time were saved; my own royal viking our saviour. the first fury of the gale was gone. but far to leeward was seen the even, white line of its onset, pawing the ocean into foam. all round us, the sea boiled like ten thousand caldrons; and through eddy, wave, and surge, our almost water-logged craft waded heavily; every dead clash ringing hollow against her hull, like blows upon a coffin. we floated a wreck. with every pitch we lifted our dangling jib-boom into the air; and beating against the side, were the shattered fragments of the masts. from these we made all haste to be free, by cutting the rigging that held them. soon, the worst of the gale was blown over. but the sea ran high. yet the rack and scud of the tempest, its mad, tearing foam, was subdued into immense, long-extended, and long-rolling billows; the white cream on their crests like snow on the andes. ever and anon we hung poised on their brows; when the furrowed ocean all round looked like a panorama from chimborazo. a few hours more, and the surges went down. there was a moderate sea, a steady breeze, and a clear, starry sky. such was the storm that came after our calm. chapter xxxvii once more they take to the chamois try the pumps. we dropped the sinker, and found the parki bleeding at every pore. up from her well, the water, spring-like, came bubbling, pure and limpid as the water of saratoga. her time had come. but by keeping two hands at the pumps, we had no doubt she would float till daylight; previous to which we liked not to abandon her. the interval was employed in clanging at the pump-breaks, and preparing the chamois for our reception. so soon as the sea permitted, we lowered it over the side; and letting it float under the stern, stowed it with water and provisions, together with various other things, including muskets and cutlasses. shortly after daylight, a violent jostling and thumping under foot showed that the water, gaining rapidly in the, hold, spite of all pumping, had floated the lighter casks up-ward to the deck, against which they were striking. now, owing to the number of empty butts in the hold, there would have been, perhaps, but small danger of the vessel's sinking outright--all awash as her decks would soon be--were it not, that many of her timbers were of a native wood, which, like the teak of india, is specifically heavier than water. this, with the pearl shells on board, counteracted the buoyancy of the casks. at last, the sun--long waited for--arose; the parki meantime sinking lower and lower. all things being in readiness, we proceeded to embark from the wreck, as from a wharf. but not without some show of love for our poor brigantine. to a seaman, a ship is no piece of mechanism merely; but a creature of thoughts and fancies, instinct with life. standing at her vibrating helm, you feel her beating pulse. i have loved ships, as i have loved men. to abandon the poor parki was like leaving to its fate something that could feel. it was meet that she should die decently and bravely. all this thought the skyeman. samoa and i were in the boat, calling upon him to enter quickly, lest the vessel should sink, and carry us down in the eddies; for already she had gone round twice. but cutting adrift the last fragments of her broken shrouds, and putting her decks in order, jarl buried his ax in the splintered stump of the mainmast, and not till then did he join us. we slowly cheered, and sailed away. not ten minutes after, the hull rolled convulsively in the sea; went round once more; lifted its sharp prow as a man with arms pointed for a dive; gave a long seething plunge; and went down. many of her old planks were twice wrecked; once strown upon ocean's beach; now dropped into its lowermost vaults, with the bones of drowned ships and drowned men. once more afloat in our shell! but not with the intrepid spirit that shoved off with us from the deck of the arcturion. a bold deed done from impulse, for the time carries few or no misgivings along with it. but forced upon you, its terrors stare you in the face. so now. i had pushed from the arcturion with a stout heart; but quitting the sinking parki, my heart sunk with her. with a fair wind, we held on our way westward, hoping to see land before many days. chapter xxxviii the sea on fire the night following our abandonment of the parki, was made memorable by a remarkable spectacle. slumbering in the bottom of the boat, jarl and i were suddenly awakened by samoa. starting, we beheld the ocean of a pallid white color, corruscating all over with tiny golden sparkles. but the pervading hue of the water cast a cadaverous gleam upon the boat, so that we looked to each other like ghosts. for many rods astern our wake was revealed in a line of rushing illuminated foam; while here and there beneath the surface, the tracks of sharks were denoted by vivid, greenish trails, crossing and recrossing each other in every direction. farther away, and distributed in clusters, floated on the sea, like constellations in the heavens, innumerable medusae, a species of small, round, refulgent fish, only to be met with in the south seas and the indian ocean. suddenly, as we gazed, there shot high into the air a bushy jet of flashes, accompanied by the unmistakable deep breathing sound of a sperm whale. soon, the sea all round us spouted in fountains of fire; and vast forms, emitting a glare from their flanks, and ever and anon raising their heads above water, and shaking off the sparkles, showed where an immense shoal of cachalots had risen from below to sport in these phosphorescent billows. the vapor jetted forth was far more radiant than any portion of the sea; ascribable perhaps to the originally luminous fluid contracting still more brilliancy from its passage through the spouting canal of the whales. we were in great fear, lest without any vicious intention the leviathans might destroy us, by coming into close contact with our boat. we would have shunned them; but they were all round and round us. nevertheless we were safe; for as we parted the pallid brine, the peculiar irradiation which shot from about our keel seemed to deter them. apparently discovering us of a sudden, many of them plunged headlong down into the water, tossing their fiery tails high into the air, and leaving the sea still more sparkling from the violent surging of their descent. their general course seemed the same as our own; to the westward. to remove from them, we at last out oars, and pulled toward the north. so doing, we were steadily pursued by a solitary whale, that must have taken our chamois for a kindred fish. spite of all our efforts, he drew nearer and nearer; at length rubbing his fiery flank against the chamois' gunwale, here and there leaving long strips of the glossy transparent substance which thin as gossamer invests the body of the cachalot. in terror at a sight so new, samoa shrank. but jarl and i, more used to the intimate companionship of the whales, pushed the boat away from it with our oars: a thing often done in the fishery. the close vicinity of the whale revived in the so long astute skyeman all the enthusiasm of his daring vocation. however quiet by nature, a thorough-bred whaleman betrays no little excitement in sight of his game. and it required some persuasion to prevent jarl from darting his harpoon: insanity under present circumstances; and of course without object. but "oh! for a dart," cried my viking. and "where's now our old ship?" he added reminiscently. but to my great joy the monster at last departed; rejoining the shoal, whose lofty spoutings of flame were still visible upon the distant line of the horizon; showing there, like the fitful starts of the aurora borealis. the sea retained its luminosity for about three hours; at the expiration of half that period beginning to fade; and excepting occasional faint illuminations consequent upon the rapid darting of fish under water, the phenomenon at last wholly disappeared. heretofore, i had beheld several exhibitions of marine phosphorescence, both in the atlantic and pacific. but nothing in comparison with what was seen that night. in the atlantic, there is very seldom any portion of the ocean luminous, except the crests of the waves; and these mostly appear so during wet, murky weather. whereas, in the pacific, all instances of the sort, previously corning under my notice, had been marked by patches of greenish light, unattended with any pallidness of sea. save twice on the coast of peru, where i was summoned from my hammock to the alarming midnight cry of "all hands ahoy! tack ship!" and rushing on deck, beheld the sea white as a shroud; for which reason it was feared we were on soundings. now, sailors love marvels, and love to repeat them. and from many an old shipmate i have heard various sage opinings, concerning the phenomenon in question. dismissing, as destitute of sound philosophic probability, the extravagant notion of one of my nautical friends--no less a philosopher than my viking himself--namely: that the phosphoresence of the sea is caused by a commotion among the mermaids, whose golden locks, all torn and disheveled, do irradiate the waters at such times; i proceed to record more reliable theories. faraday might, perhaps, impute the phenomenon to a peculiarly electrical condition of the atmosphere; and to that solely. but herein, my scientific friend would be stoutly contradicted by many intelligent seamen, who, in part, impute it to the presence of large quantities of putrescent animal matter; with which the sea is well known to abound. and it would seem not unreasonable to suppose, that it is by this means that the fluid itself becomes charged with the luminous principle. draw a bucket of water from the phosphorescent ocean, and it still retains traces of fire; but, standing awhile, this soon subsides. now pour it along the deck, and it is a stream of flame; caused by its renewed agitation. empty the bucket, and for a space sparkles cling to it tenaciously; and every stave seems ignited. but after all, this seeming ignition of the sea can not be wholly produced by dead matter therein. there are many living fish, phosphorescent; and, under certain conditions, by a rapid throwing off of luminous particles must largely contribute to the result. not to particularize this circumstance as true of divers species of sharks, cuttle-fish, and many others of the larger varieties of the finny tribes; the myriads of microscopic mollusca, well known to swarm off soundings, might alone be deemed almost sufficient to kindle a fire in the brine. but these are only surmises; likely, but uncertain. after science comes sentiment. a french naturalist maintains, that the nocturnal radiance of the fire-fly is purposely intended as an attraction to the opposite sex; that the artful insect illuminates its body for a beacon to love. thus: perched upon the edge of a leaf, and waiting the approach of her leander, who comes buffeting with his wings the aroma of the flowers, some insect hero may show a torch to her gossamer gallant. but alas, thrice alas, for the poor little fire-fish of the sea, whose radiance but reveals them to their foes, and lights the way to their destruction. chapter xxxix they fall in with strangers after quitting the parki, we had much calm weather, varied by light breezes. and sailing smoothly over a sea, so recently one sheet of foam, i could not avoid bethinking me, how fortunate it was, that the gale had overtaken us in the brigantine, and not in the chamois. for deservedly high as the whale-shallop ranks as a sea boat; still, in a severe storm, the larger your craft the greater your sense of security. wherefore, the thousand reckless souls tenanting a line-of-battle ship scoff at the most awful hurricanes; though, in reality, they may be less safe in their wooden-walled troy, than those who contend with the gale in a clipper. but not only did i congratulate myself upon salvation from the past, but upon the prospect for the future. for storms happening so seldom in these seas, one just blown over is almost a sure guarantee of very many weeks' calm weather to come. now sun followed sun; and no land. and at length it almost seemed as if we must have sailed past the remotest presumable westerly limit of the chain of islands we sought; a lurking suspicion which i sedulously kept to myself however, i could not but nourish a latent faith that all would yet be well. on the ninth day my forebodings were over. in the gray of the dawn, perched upon the peak of our sail, a noddy was seen fast asleep. this freak was true to the nature of that curious fowl, whose name is significant of its drowsiness. its plumage was snow-white, its bill and legs blood-red; the latter looking like little pantalettes. in a sly attempt at catching the bird, samoa captured three tail-feathers; the alarmed creature flying away with a scream, and leaving its quills in his hand. sailing on, we gradually broke in upon immense low-sailing flights of other aquatic fowls, mostly of those species which are seldom found far from land: terns, frigate-birds, mollymeaux, reef-pigeons, boobies, gulls, and the like. they darkened the air; their wings making overhead an incessant rustling like the simultaneous turning over of ten thousand leaves. the smaller sort skimmed the sea like pebbles sent skipping from the shore. over these, flew myriads of birds of broader wing. while high above all, soared in air the daring "diver," or sea-kite, the power of whose vision is truly wonderful. it perceives the little flying-fish in the water, at a height which can not be less than four hundred feet. spirally wheeling and screaming as it goes, the sea-kite, bill foremost, darts downward, swoops into the water, and for a moment altogether disappearing, emerges at last; its prey firmly trussed in its claws. but bearing it aloft, the bold bandit is quickly assailed by other birds of prey, that strive to wrest from him his booty. and snatched from his talons, you see the fish falling through the air, till again caught up in the very act of descent, by the fleetest of its pursuers. leaving these sights astern, we presently picked up the slimy husk of a cocoanut, all over green barnacles. and shortly after, passed two or three limbs of trees, and the solitary trunk of a palm; which, upon sailing nearer, seemed but very recently started on its endless voyage. as noon came on; the dark purple land-haze, which had been dimly descried resting upon the western horizon, was very nearly obscured. nevertheless, behind that dim drapery we doubted not bright boughs were waving. we were now in high spirits. samoa between times humming to himself some heathenish ditty, and jarl ten times more intent on his silence than ever; yet his eye full of expectation and gazing broad off from our bow. of a sudden, shading his face with his hand, he gazed fixedly for an instant, and then springing to his feet, uttered the long-drawn sound--"sail ho!" just tipping the furthest edge of the sky was a little speck, dancing into view every time we rose upon the swells. it looked like one of many birds; for half intercepting our view, fell showers of plumage: a flight of milk-white noddies flying downward to the sea. but soon the birds are seen no more. yet there remains the speck; plainly a sail; but too small for a ship. was it a boat after a whale? the vessel to which it belonged far astern, and shrouded by the haze? so it seemed. quietly, however, we waited the stranger's nearer approach; confident, that for some time he would not be able to perceive us, owing to our being in what mariners denominate the "sun-glade," or that part of the ocean upon which the sun's rays flash with peculiar intensity. as the sail drew nigh, its failing to glisten white led us to doubt whether it was indeed a whale-boat. presently, it showed yellow; and samoa declared, that it must be the sail of some island craft. true. the stranger proving a large double-canoe, like those used by the polynesians in making passages between distant islands. the upoluan was now clamorous for a meeting, to which jarl was averse. deliberating a moment, i directed the muskets to be loaded; then setting the sail the wind on our quarter--we headed away for the canoe, now sailing at right angles with our previous course. here it must be mentioned, that from the various gay cloths and other things provided for barter by the captain of the parki, i had very strikingly improved my costume; making it free, flowing, and eastern. i looked like an emir. nor had my viking neglected to follow my example; though with some few modifications of his own. with his long tangled hair and harpoon, he looked like the sea-god, that boards ships, for the first time crossing the equator. for tatooed samoa, he yet sported both kilt and turban, reminding one of a tawny leopard, though his spots were all in one place. besides this raiment of ours, against emergencies we had provided our boat with divers nankeens and silks. but now into full view comes a yoke of huge clumsy prows, shaggy with carving, and driving through the water with considerable velocity; the immense sprawling sail holding the wind like a bag. she seemed full of men; and from the dissonant cries borne over to us, and the canoe's widely yawing, it was plain that we had occasioned no small sensation. they seemed undetermined what course to pursue: whether to court a meeting, or avoid it; whether to regard us as friends or foes. as we came still nearer, distinctly beholding their faces, we loudly hailed them, inviting them to furl their sails, and allow us to board them. but no answer was returned; their confusion increasing. and now, within less than two ships'-lengths, they swept right across our bow, gazing at us with blended curiosity and fear. their craft was about thirty feet long, consisting of a pair of parallel canoes, very narrow, and at the distance of a yard or so, lengthwise, united by stout cross-timbers, lashed across the four gunwales. upon these timbers was a raised platform or dais, quite dry; and astern an arched cabin or tent; behind which, were two broad-bladed paddles terminating in rude shark-tails, by which the craft was steered. the yard, spreading a yellow sail, was a crooked bough, supported obliquely in the crotch of a mast, to which the green bark was still clinging. here and there were little tufts of moss. the high, beaked prow of that canoe in which the mast was placed, resembled a rude altar; and all round it was suspended a great variety of fruits, including scores of cocoanuts, unhusked. this prow was railed off, forming a sort of chancel within. the foremost beam, crossing the gunwales, extended some twelve feet beyond the side of the dais; and at regular intervals hereupon, stout cords were fastened, which, leading up to the head of the mast, answered the purpose of shrouds. the breeze was now streaming fresh; and, as if to force down into the water the windward side of the craft, five men stood upon this long beam, grasping five shrouds. yet they failed to counterbalance the pressure of the sail; and owing to the opposite inclination of the twin canoes, these living statues were elevated high above the water; their appearance rendered still more striking by their eager attitudes, and the apparent peril of their position, as the mad spray from the bow dashed over them. suddenly, the islanders threw their craft into the wind; while, for ourselves, we lay on our oars, fearful of alarming them by now coming nearer. but hailing them again, we said we were friends; and had friendly gifts for them, if they would peaceably permit us to approach. this understood, there ensued a mighty clamor; insomuch, that i bade jarl and samoa out oars, and row very gently toward the strangers. whereupon, amid a storm of vociferations, some of them hurried to the furthest side of their dais; standing with arms arched over their heads, as if for a dive; others menacing us with clubs and spears; and one, an old man with a bamboo trellis on his head forming a sort of arbor for his hair, planted himself full before the tent, stretching behind him a wide plaited sling. upon this hostile display, samoa dropped his oar, and brought his piece to bear upon the old man, who, by his attitude, seemed to menace us with the fate of the great braggart of gath. but i quickly knocked down the muzzle of his musket, and forbade the slightest token of hostility; enjoining it upon my companions, nevertheless, to keep well on their guard. we now ceased rowing, and after a few minutes' uproar in the canoe, they ran to the steering-paddles, and forcing round their craft before the wind, rapidly ran away from us. with all haste we set our sail, and pulling also at our oars, soon overtook them, determined upon coming into closer communion. chapter xl sire and sons seeing flight was useless, the islanders again stopped their canoe, and once more we cautiously drew nearer; myself crying out to them not to be fearful; and samoa, with the odd humor of his race, averring that he had known every soul of them from his infancy. we approached within two or three yards; when we paused, which somewhat allayed their alarm. fastening a red china handkerchief to the blade of our long mid-ship oar, i waved it in the air. a lively clapping of hands, and many wild exclamations. while yet waving the flag, i whispered to jarl to give the boat a sheer toward the canoe, which being adroitly done, brought the bow, where i stood, still nearer to the islanders. i then dropped the silk among them; and the islander, who caught it, at once handed it to the warlike old man with the sling; who, on seating himself, spread it before him; while the rest crowding round, glanced rapidly from the wonderful gift, to the more wonderful donors. this old man was the superior of the party. and samoa asserted, that he must be a priest of the country to which the islanders belonged; that the craft could be no other than one of their sacred canoes, bound on some priestly voyage. all this he inferred from the altar-like prow, and there being no women on board. bent upon conciliating the old priest, i dropped into the canoe another silk handkerchief; while samoa loudly exclaimed, that we were only three men, and were peaceably inclined. meantime, old aaron, fastening the two silks crosswise over his shoulders, like a brace of highland plaids, crosslegged sat, and eyed us. it was a curious sight. the old priest, like a scroll of old parchment, covered all over with hieroglyphical devices, harder to interpret, i'll warrant, than any old sanscrit manuscript. and upon his broad brow, deep-graven in wrinkles, were characters still more mysterious, which no champollion nor gipsy could have deciphered. he looked old as the elderly hills; eyes sunken, though bright; and head white as the summit of mont blanc. the rest were a youthful and comely set: their complexion that of gold sherry, and all tattooed after this pattern: two broad cross-stripes on the chest and back; reaching down to the waist, like a foot-soldier's harness. their faces were full of expression; and their mouths were full of fine teeth; so that the parting of their lips, was as the opening of pearl oysters. marked, here and there, after the style of tahiti, with little round figures in blue, dotted in the middle with a spot of vermilion, their brawny brown thighs looked not unlike the gallant hams of westphalia, spotted with the red dust of cayenne. but what a marvelous resemblance in the features of all. were they born at one birth? this resemblance was heightened by their uniform marks. but it was subsequently ascertained, that they were the children of one sire; and that sire, old aaron; who, no doubt, reposed upon his sons, as an old general upon the trophies of his youth. they were the children of as many mothers; and he was training them up for the priesthood. chapter xli a fray so bent were the strangers upon concealing who they were, and the object of their voyage, that it was some time ere we could obtain the information we desired. they pointed toward the tent, as if it contained their eleusinian mysteries. and the old priest gave us to know, that it would be profanation to enter it. but all this only roused my curiosity to unravel the wonder. at last i succeeded. in that mysterious tent was concealed a beautiful maiden. and, in pursuance of a barbarous custom, by aleema, the priest, she was being borne an offering from the island of amma to the gods of tedaidee. now, hearing of the maiden, i waited for no more. need i add, how stirred was my soul toward this invisible victim; and how hotly i swore, that precious blood of hers should never smoke upon an altar. if we drowned for it, i was bent upon rescuing the captive. but as yet, no gentle signal of distress had been waved to us from the tent. thence, no sound could be heard, but an occasional rustle of the matting. was it possible, that one about to be immolated could proceed thus tranquilly to her fate? but desperately as i resolved to accomplish the deliverance of the maiden, it was best to set heedfully about it. i desired no shedding of blood; though the odds were against us. the old priest seemed determined to prevent us from boarding his craft. but being equally determined the other way, i cautiously laid the bow of the chamois against the canoe's quarter, so as to present the smallest possible chance for a hostile entrance into our boat. then, samoa, knife in ear, and myself with a cutlass, stepped upon the dais, leaving jarl in the boat's head, equipped with his harpoon; three loaded muskets lying by his side. he was strictly enjoined to resist the slightest demonstration toward our craft. as we boarded the canoe, the islanders slowly retreated; meantime earnestly conferring in whispers; all but the old priest, who, still seated, presented an undaunted though troubled front. to our surprise, he motioned us to sit down by him; which we did; taking care, however, not to cut off our communication with jarl. with the hope of inspiring good will, i now unfolded a roll of printed cotton, and spreading it before the priest, directed his attention to the pictorial embellishments thereon, representing some hundreds of sailor boys simultaneously ascending some hundreds of uniform sections of a ship's rigging. glancing at them a moment, by a significant sign, he gave me to know, that long previous he himself had ascended the shrouds of a ship. making this allusion, his countenance was overcast with a ferocious expression, as if something terrific was connected with the reminiscence. but it soon passed away, and somewhat abruptly he assumed an air of much merriment. while we were thus sitting together, and my whole soul full of the thoughts of the captive, and how best to accomplish my purpose, and often gazing toward the tent; i all at once noticed a movement among the strangers. almost in the same instant, samoa, right across the face of aleema, and in his ordinary tones, bade me take heed to myself, for mischief was brewing. hardly was this warning uttered, when, with carved clubs in their hands, the islanders completely surrounded us. then up rose the old priest, and gave us to know, that we were wholly in his power, and if we did not swear to depart in our boat forthwith, and molest him no more, the peril be ours. "depart and you live; stay and you die." fifteen to three. madness to gainsay his mandate. yet a beautiful maiden was at stake. the knife before dangling in samoa's ear was now in his hand. jarl cried out for us to regain the boat, several of the islanders making a rush for it. no time to think. all passed quicker than it can be said. they closed in upon us, to push us from the canoe: rudely the old priest flung me from his side, menacing me with his dagger, the sharp spine of a fish. a thrust and a threat! ere i knew it, my cutlass made a quick lunge. a curse from the priest's mouth; red blood from his side; he tottered, stared about him, and fell over like a brown hemlock into the sea. a yell of maledictions rose on the air. a wild cry was heard from the tent. making a dead breach among the crowd, we now dashed side by side for the boat. springing into it, we found jarl battling with two islanders; while the rest were still howling upon the dais. rage and grief had almost disabled them. with one stroke of my cutlass, i now parted the line that held us to the canoe, and with samoa falling upon the two islanders, by jarl's help, we quickly mastered them; forcing them down into the bottom of the boat. the skyeman and samoa holding passive the captives, i quickly set our sail, and snatching the sheet at the cavil, we rapidly shot from the canoe. the strangers defying us with their spears; several couching them as if to dart; while others held back their hands, as if to prevent them from jeopardizing the lives of their countrymen in the chamois. seemingly untoward events oftentimes lead to successful results: far from destroying all chance of rescuing the captive, our temporary flight, indispensable for the safety of jarl, only made the success of our enterprise more probable. for having made prisoners two of the strangers, i determined to retain them as hostages, through whom to effect my plans without further bloodshed. and here it must needs be related, that some of the natives were wounded in the fray: while all three of their assailants had received several bruises. chapter xlii remorse during the skirmish not a single musket had been discharged. the first snatched by jarl had missed fire, and ere he could seize another, it was close quarters with him, and no gestures to spare. his harpoon was his all. and truly, there is nothing like steel in a fray. it comes and it goes with a will, and is never a-weary. your sword is your life, and that of your foe; to keep or to take as it happens. closer home does it go than a rammer; and fighting with steel is a play without ever an interlude. there are points more deadly than bullets; and stocks packed full of subtle tubes, whence comes an impulse more reliable than powder. binding our prisoners lengthwise across the boat's seats, we rowed for the canoe, making signs of amity. now, if there be any thing fitted to make a high tide ebb in the veins, it is the sight of a vanquished foe, inferior to yourself in powers of destruction; but whom some necessity has forced you to subdue. all victories are not triumphs, nor all who conquer, heroes. as we drew near the canoe, it was plain, that the loss of their sire had again for the instant overcome the survivors. raising hands, they cursed us; and at intervals sent forth a low, piercing wail, peculiar to their race. as before, faint cries were heard from the tent. and all the while rose and fell on the sea, the ill-fated canoe. as i gazed at this sight, what iron mace fell on my soul; what curse rang sharp in my ear! it was i, who was the author of the deed that caused the shrill wails that i heard. by this hand, the dead man had died. remorse smote me hard; and like lightning i asked myself, whether the death-deed i had done was sprung of a virtuous motive, the rescuing a captive from thrall; or whether beneath that pretense, i had engaged in this fatal affray for some other, and selfish purpose; the companionship of a beautiful maid. but throttling the thought, i swore to be gay. am i not rescuing the maiden? let them go down who withstand me. at the dismal spectacle before him, jarl, hitherto menacing our prisoners with his weapon, in order to intimidate their countrymen, honest jarl dropped his harpoon. but shaking his knife in the air, samoa yet defied the strangers; nor could we prevent him. his heathenish blood was up. standing foremost in the boat, i now assured the strangers, that all we sought at their hands was the maiden in the tent. that captive surrendered, our own, unharmed, should be restored. if not, they must die. with a cry, they started to their feet, and brandished their clubs; but, seeing jarl's harpoon quivering over the hearts of our prisoners, they quickly retreated; at last signifying their acquiescence in my demand. upon this, i sprang to the dais, and across it indicating a line near the bow, signed the islanders to retire beyond it. then, calling upon them one by one to deliver their weapons, they were passed into the boat. the chamois was now brought round to the canoe's stern; and leaving jarl to defend it as before, the upoluan rejoined me on the dais. by these precautions--the hostages still remaining bound hand and foot in the boat--we deemed ourselves entirely secure. attended by samoa, i stood before the tent, now still as the grave. chapter xliii the tent entered by means of thin spaces between the braids of matting, the place was open to the air, but not to view. there was also a round opening on one side, only large enough, however, to admit the arm; but this aperture was partially closed from within. in front, a deep-dyed rug of osiers, covering the entrance way, was intricately laced to the standing part of the tent. as i divided this lacing with my cutlass, there arose an outburst of voices from the islanders. and they covered their faces, as the interior was revealed to my gaze. before me crouched a beautiful girl. her hands were drooping. and, like a saint from a shrine, she looked sadly out from her long, fair hair. a low wail issued from her lips, and she trembled like a sound. there were tears on her cheek, and a rose-colored pearl on her bosom. did i dream?--a snow-white skin: blue, firmament eyes: golconda locks. for an instant spell-bound i stood; while with a slow, apprehensive movement, and still gazing fixedly, the captive gathered more closely about her a gauze-like robe. taking one step within, and partially dropping the curtain of the tent, i so stood, as to have both sight and speech of samoa, who tarried without; while the maiden, crouching in the farther corner of the retreat, was wholly screened from all eyes but mine. crossing my hands before me, i now stood without speaking. for the soul of me, i could not link this mysterious creature with the tawny strangers. she seemed of another race. so powerful was this impression, that unconsciously, i addressed her in my own tongue. she started, and bending over, listened intently, as if to the first faint echo of something dimly remembered. again i spoke, when throwing back her hair, the maiden looked up with a piercing, bewildered gaze. but her eyes soon fell, and bending over once more, she resumed her former attitude. at length she slowly chanted to herself several musical words, unlike those of the islanders; but though i knew not what they meant, they vaguely seemed familiar. impatient to learn her story, i now questioned her in polynesian. but with much earnestness, she signed me to address her as before. soon perceiving, however, that without comprehending the meaning of the words i employed, she seemed merely touched by something pleasing in their sound, i once more addressed her in polynesian; saying that i was all eagerness to hear her history. after much hesitation she complied; starting with alarm at every sound from without; yet all the while deeply regarding me. broken as these disclosures were at the time, they are here presented in the form in which they were afterward more fully narrated. so unearthly was the story, that at first i little comprehended it; and was almost persuaded that the luckless maiden was some beautiful maniac. she declared herself more than mortal, a maiden from oroolia, the island of delights, somewhere in the paradisiacal archipelago of the polynesians. to this isle, while yet an infant, by some mystical power, she had been spirited from amma, the place of her nativity. her name was yillah. and hardly had the waters of oroolia washed white her olive skin, and tinged her hair with gold, when one day strolling in the woodlands, she was snared in the tendrils of a vine. drawing her into its bowers, it gently transformed her into one of its blossoms, leaving her conscious soul folded up in the transparent petals. here hung yillah in a trance, the world without all tinged with the rosy hue of her prison. at length when her spirit was about to burst forth in the opening flower, the blossom was snapped from its stem; and borne by a soft wind to the sea; where it fell into the opening valve of a shell; which in good time was cast upon the beach of the island of amma. in a dream, these events were revealed to aleema the priest; who by a spell unlocking its pearly casket, took forth the bud, which now showed signs of opening in the reviving air, and bore faint shadowy revealings, as of the dawn behind crimson clouds. suddenly expanding, the blossom exhaled away in perfumes; floating a rosy mist in the air. condensing at last, there emerged from this mist the same radiant young yillah as before; her locks all moist, and a rose-colored pearl on her bosom. enshrined as a goddess, the wonderful child now tarried in the sacred temple of apo, buried in a dell; never beheld of mortal eyes save aleema's. moon after moon passed away, and at last, only four days gone by, aleema came to her with a dream; that the spirits in oroolia had recalled her home by the way of tedaidee, on whose coast gurgled up in the sea an enchanted spring; which streaming over upon the brine, flowed on between blue watery banks; and, plunging into a vortex, went round and round, descending into depths unknown. into this whirlpool yillah was to descend in a canoe, at last to well up in an inland fountain of oroolia. chapter xliv away though clothed in language of my own, the maiden's story is in substance the same as she related. yet were not these things narrated as past events; she merely recounted them as impressions of her childhood, and of her destiny yet unaccomplished. and mystical as the tale most assuredly was, my knowledge of the strange arts of the island priesthood, and the rapt fancies indulged in by many of their victims, deprived it in good part of the effect it otherwise would have produced. for ulterior purposes connected with their sacerdotal supremacy, the priests of these climes oftentimes secrete mere infants in their temples; and jealously secluding them from all intercourse with the world, craftily delude them, as they grow up, into the wildest conceits. thus wrought upon, their pupils almost lose their humanity in the constant indulgence of seraphic imaginings. in many cases becoming inspired as oracles; and as such, they are sometimes resorted to by devotees; always screened from view, however, in the recesses of the temples. but in every instance, their end is certain. beguiled with some fairy tale about revisiting the islands of paradise, they are led to the secret sacrifice, and perish unknown to their kindred. but, would that all this had been hidden from me at the time. for yillah was lovely enough to be really divine; and so i might have been tranced into a belief of her mystical legends. but with what passionate exultation did i find myself the deliverer of this beautiful maiden; who, thinking no harm, and rapt in a dream, was being borne to her fate on the coast of tedaidee. nor now, for a moment, did the death of aleema her guardian seem to hang heavy upon my heart. i rejoiced that i had sent him to his gods; that in place of the sea moss growing over sweet yillah drowned in the sea, the vile priest himself had sunk to the bottom. but though he had sunk in the deep, his ghost sunk not in the deep waters of my soul. however in exultations its surface foamed up, at bottom guilt brooded. sifted out, my motives to this enterprise justified not the mad deed, which, in a moment of rage, i had done: though, those motives had been covered with a gracious pretense; concealing myself from myself. but i beat down the thought. in relating her story, the maiden frequently interrupted it with questions concerning myself:--whence i came: being white, from oroolia? whither i was going: to amma? and what had happened to aleema? for she had been dismayed at the fray, though knowing not what it could mean; and she had heard the priest's name called upon in lamentations. these questions for the time i endeavored to evade; only inducing her to fancy me some gentle demigod, that had come over the sea from her own fabulous oroolia. and all this she must verily have believed. for whom, like me, ere this could she have beheld? still fixed she her eyes upon me strangely, and hung upon the accents of my voice. while this scene was passing, the strangers began to show signs of impatience, and a voice from the chamois repeatedly hailed us to accelerate our movements. my course was quickly decided. the only obstacle to be encountered was the possibility of yillah's alarm at being suddenly borne into my prow. for this event i now sought to prepare her. i informed the damsel that aleema had been dispatched on a long errand to oroolia; leaving to my care, for the present, the guardianship of the lovely yillah; and that therefore, it was necessary to carry her tent into my own canoe, then waiting to receive it. this intelligence she received with the utmost concern; and not knowing to what her perplexity might lead, i thought fit to transport her into the chamois, while yet overwhelmed by the announcement of my intention. quitting her retreat, i apprised jarl of my design; and then, no more delay! at bottom, the tent was attached to a light framework of bamboos; and from its upper corners, four cords, like those of a marquee, confined it to the dais. these, samoa's knife soon parted; when lifting the light tent, we speedily transferred it to the chamois; a wild yell going up from the islanders, which drowned the faint cries of the maiden. but we heeded not the din. toss in the fruit, hanging from the altar-prow! it was done; and then running up our sail, we glided away;--chamois, tent, hostages, and all. rushing to the now vacant stern of their canoe, the islanders once more lifted up their hands and their voices in curses. a suitable distance gained, we paused to fling overboard the arms we had taken; and jarl proceeded to liberate the hostages. meanwhile, i entered the tent, and by many tokens, sought to allay the maiden's alarm. thus engaged, violent plunges were heard: our prisoners taking to the sea to regain their canoe. all dripping, they were received by their brethren with wild caresses. from something now said by the captives, the rest seemed suddenly inspirited with hopes of revenge; again wildly shaking their spears, just before picked up from the sea. with great clamor and confusion they soon set their mat-sail; and instead of sailing southward for tedaidee, or northward for amma their home, they steered straight after us, in our wake. foremost in the prow stood three; javelins poised for a dart; at intervals, raising a yell. did they mean to pursue me? full in my rear they came on, baying like hounds on their game. yillah trembled at their cries. my own heart beat hard with undefinable dread. the corpse of aleema seemed floating before: its avengers were raging behind. but soon these phantoms departed. for very soon it appeared that in vain the pagans pursued. their craft, our fleet chamois outleaped. and farther and farther astern dropped the evil-boding canoe, till at last but a speck; when a great swell of the sea surged up before it, and it was seen no more. samoa swore that it must have swamped, and gone down. but however it was, my heart lightened apace. i saw none but ourselves on the sea: i remembered that our keel left no track as it sailed. let the oregon indian through brush, bramble, and brier, hunt his enemy's trail, far over the mountains and down in the vales; comes he to the water, he snuffs idly in air. chapter xlv reminiscences in resecuing the gentle yillah from the hands of the islanders, a design seemed accomplished. but what was now to be done? here, in our adventurous chamois, was a damsel more lovely than the flushes of morning; and for companions, whom had she but me and my comrades? besides, her bosom still throbbed with alarms, her fancies all roving through mazes. how subdue these dangerous imaginings? how gently dispel them? but one way there was: to lead her thoughts toward me, as her friend and preserver; and a better and wiser than aleema the priest. yet could not this be effected but by still maintaining my assumption of a divine origin in the blessed isle of oroolia; and thus fostering in her heart the mysterious interest, with which from the first she had regarded me. but if punctilious reserve on the part of her deliverer should teach her to regard him as some frigid stranger from the arctic zone, what sympathy could she have for him? and hence, what peace of mind, having no one else to cling to? now re-entering the tent, she again inquired where tarried aleema. "think not of him, sweet yillah," i cried. "look on me. am i not white like yourself? behold, though since quitting oroolia the sun has dyed my cheek, am i not even as you? am i brown like the dusky aleema? they snatched you away from your isle in the sea, too early for you to remember me there. but you have not been forgotten by me, sweetest yillah. ha! ha! shook we not the palm-trees together, and chased we not the rolling nuts down the glen? did we not dive into the grotto on the sea-shore, and come up together in the cool cavern in the hill? in my home in oroolia, dear yillah, i have a lock of your hair, ere yet it was golden: a little dark tress like a ring. how your cheeks were then changing from olive to white. and when shall i forget the hour, that i came upon you sleeping among the flowers, with roses and lilies for cheeks. still forgetful? know you not my voice? those little spirits in your eyes have seen me before. they mimic me now as they sport in their lakes. all the past a dim blank? think of the time when we ran up and down in our arbor, where the green vines grew over the great ribs of the stranded whale. oh yillah, little yillah, has it all come to this? am i forever forgotten? yet over the wide watery world have i sought thee: from isle to isle, from sea to sea. and now we part not. aleema is gone. my prow shall keep kissing the waves, till it kisses the beach at oroolia. yillah, look up." sunk the ghost of aleema: sweet yillah was mine! chapter xlvi the chamois with a roving commission through the assiduity of my viking, ere nightfall our chamois was again in good order. and with many subtle and seamanlike splices the light tent was lashed in its place; the sail taken up by a reef. my comrades now questioned me, as to my purposes; whether they had been modified by the events of the day. i replied that our destination was still the islands to the westward. but from these we had steadily been drifting all the morning long; so that now no loom of the land was visible. but our prow was kept pointing as before. as evening came on, my comrades fell fast asleep, leaving me at the helm. how soft and how dreamy the light of the hour. the rays of the sun, setting behind golden-barred clouds, came to me like the gleaming of a shaded light behind a lattice. and the low breeze, pervaded with the peculiar balm of the mid-pacific near land, was fragrant as the breath of a bride. such was the scene; so still and witching that the hand of yillah in mine seemed no hand, but a touch. visions flitted before me and in me; something hummed in my ear; all the air was a lay. and now entered a thought into my heart. i reflected how serenely we might thus glide along, far removed from all care and anxiety. and then, what different scenes might await us upon any of the shores roundabout. but there seemed no danger in the balmy sea; the assured vicinity of land imparting a sense of security. we had ample supplies for several days more, and thanks to the pagan canoe, an abundance of fruit. besides, what cared i now for the green groves and bright shore? was not yillah my shore and my grove? my meadow, my mead, my soft shady vine, and my arbor? of all things desirable and delightful, the full-plumed sheaf, and my own right arm the band? enough: no shore for me yet. one sweep of the helm, and our light prow headed round toward the vague land of song, sun, and vine: the fabled south. as we glided along, strange yillah gazed down in the sea, and would fain have had me plunge into it with her, to rove through its depths. but i started dismayed; in fancy, i saw the stark body of the priest drifting by. again that phantom obtruded; again guilt laid his red hand on my soul. but i laughed. was not yillah my own? by my arm rescued from ill? to do her a good, i had periled myself. so down, down, aleema. when next morning, starting from slumber, my comrades beheld the sun on our beam, instead of astern as before at that hour, they eagerly inquired, "whither now?" but very briefly i gave them to know, that after devoting the night to the due consideration of a matter so important, i had determined upon voyaging for the island tedaidee, in place of the land to the westward. at this, they were not displeased. but to tell the plain truth, i harbored some shadowy purpose of merely hovering about for a while, till i felt more landwardly inclined. but had i not declared to yillah, that our destination was the fairy isle she spoke of, even oroolia? yet that shore was so exceedingly remote, and the folly of endeavoring to reach it in a craft built with hands, so very apparent, that what wonder i really nourished no thought of it? so away floated the chamois, like a vagrant cloud in the heavens: bound, no one knew whither. chapter xlvii yillah, jarl, and samoa but time to tell, how samoa and jarl regarded this mystical yillah; and how yillah regarded them. as beauty from the beast, so at first shrank the damsel from my one-armed companion. but seeing my confidence in the savage, a reaction soon followed. and in accordance with that curious law, by which, under certain conditions, the ugliest mortals become only amiably hideous, yillah at length came to look upon samoa as a sort of harmless and good-natured goblin. whence came he, she cared not; or what was his history; or in what manner his fortunes were united to mine. may be, she held him a being of spontaneous origin. now, as every where women are the tamers of the menageries of men; so yillah in good time tamed down samoa to the relinquishment of that horrible thing in his ear, and persuaded him to substitute a vacancy for the bauble in his nose. on his part, however, all this was conditional. he stipulated for the privilege of restoring both trinkets upon suitable occasions. but if thus gayly the damsel sported with samoa; how different his emotions toward her? the fate to which she had been destined, and every nameless thing about her, appealed to all his native superstitions, which ascribed to beings of her complexion a more than terrestrial origin. when permitted to approach her, he looked timid and awkwardly strange; suggesting the likeness of some clumsy satyr, drawing in his horns; slowly wagging his tail; crouching abashed before some radiant spirit. and this reverence of his was most pleasing to me, bravo! thought i; be a pagan forever. no more than myself; for, after a different fashion, yillah was an idol to both. but what of my viking? why, of good jarl i grieve to say, that the old-fashioned interest he took in my affairs led him to look upon yillah as a sort of intruder, an ammonite syren, who might lead me astray. this would now and then provoke a phillipic; but he would only turn toward my resentment his devotion; and then i was silent. unsophisticated as a wild flower in the germ, yillah seemed incapable of perceiving the contrasted lights in which she was regarded by our companions. and like a true beauty seemed to cherish the presumption, that it was quite impossible for such a person as hers to prove otherwise than irresistible to all. she betrayed much surprise at my vikings appearance. but most of all was she struck by a characteristic device upon the arm of the wonderful mariner--our saviour on the cross, in blue; with the crown of thorns, and three drops of blood in vermilion, falling one by one from each hand and foot. now, honest jarl did vastly pride himself upon this ornament. it was the only piece of vanity about him. and like a lady keeping gloveless her hand to show off a fine turquoise ring, he invariably wore that sleeve of his frock rolled up, the better to display the embellishment. and round and round would yillah turn jarl's arm, till jarl was fain to stand firm, for fear of revolving all over. how such untutored homage would have thrilled the heart of the ingenious artist! eventually, through the upoluan, she made overtures to the skyeman, concerning the possession of his picture in her own proper right. in her very simplicity, little heeding, that like a landscape in fresco, it could not be removed. chapter xlviii something under the surface not to omit an occurrence of considerable interest, we must needs here present some account of a curious retinue of fish which overtook our chamois, a day or two after parting with the canoe. a violent creaming and frothing in our rear announced their approach. soon we found ourselves the nucleus of an incredible multitude of finny creatures, mostly anonymous. first, far in advance of our prow, swam the helmeted silver-heads; side by side, in uniform ranks, like an army. then came the boneetas, with their flashing blue flanks. then, like a third distinct regiment, wormed and twisted through the water like archimedean screws, the quivering wriggle-tails; followed in turn by the rank and file of the trigger-fish--so called from their quaint dorsal fins being set in their backs with a comical curve, as if at half-cock. far astern the rear was brought up by endless battalions of yellow-backs, right martially vested in buff. and slow sailing overhead were flights of birds; a wing in the air for every fin in the sea. but let the sea-fowls fly on: turn we to the fish. their numbers were amazing; countless as the tears shed for perfidious lovers. far abroad on both flanks, they swam in long lines, tier above tier; the water alive with their hosts. locusts of the sea, peradventure, going to fall with a blight upon some green, mossy province of neptune. and tame and fearless they were, as the first fish that swam in euphrates; hardly evading the hand; insomuch that samoa caught many without lure or line. they formed a decorous escort; paddling along by our barnacled sides, as if they had been with us from the very beginning; neither scared by our craft's surging in the water; nor in the least sympathetic at losing a comrade by the hand of samoa. they closed in their ranks and swam on. how innocent, yet heartless they looked! had a plank dropped out of our boat, we had sunk to the bottom; and belike, our cheerful retinue would have paid the last rites to our remains. but still we kept company; as sociably as you please; samoa helping himself when he listed, and yillah clapping her hands as the radiant creatures, by a simultaneous turning round on their silvery bellies, caused the whole sea to glow like a burnished shield. but what has befallen this poor little boneeta astern, that he swims so toilingly on, with gills showing purple? what has he there, towing behind? it is tangled sea-kelp clinging to its fins. but the clogged thing strains to keep up with its fellows. yet little they heed. away they go; every fish for itself, and any fish for samoa. at last the poor boneeta is seen no more. the myriad fins swim on; a lonely waste, where the lost one drops behind. strange fish! all the live-long day, they were there by our side; and at night still tarried and shone; more crystal and scaly in the pale moonbeams, than in the golden glare of the sun. how prettily they swim; all silver life; darting hither and thither between their long ranks, and touching their noses, and scraping acquaintance. no mourning they wear for the boneeta left far astern; nor for those so cruelly killed by samoa. no, no; all is glee, fishy glee, and frolicking fun; light hearts and light fins; gay backs and gay spirits.--swim away, swim away! my merry fins all. let us roam the flood; let us follow this monster fish with the barnacled sides; this strange-looking fish, so high out of water; that goes without fins. what fish can it be? what rippling is that? dost hear the great monster breathe? why, 'tis sharp at both ends; a tail either way; nor eyes has it any, nor mouth. what a curious fish! what a comical fish! but more comical far, those creatures above, on its hollow back, clinging thereto like the snaky eels, that cling and slide on the back of the sword fish, our terrible foe. but what curious eels these are! do they deem themselves pretty as we? no, no; for sure, they behold our limber fins, our speckled and beautiful scales. poor, powerless things! how they must wish they were we, that roam the flood, and scour the seas with a wish. swim away; merry fins, swim away! let him drop, that fellow that halts; make a lane; close in, and fill up. let him drown, if he can not keep pace. no laggards for us:--we fish, we fish, we merrily swim, we care not for friend nor for foe: our fins are stout, our tails are out, as through the seas we go. fish, fish, we are fish with red gills; naught disturbs us, our blood is at zero: we are buoyant because of our bags, being many, each fish is a hero. we care not what is it, this life that we follow, this phantom unknown: to swim, it's exceedingly pleasant,-- so swim away, making a foam. this strange looking thing by our side, not for safety, around it we flee:-- its shadow's so shady, that's all,-- we only swim under its lee. and as for the eels there above, and as for the fowls in the air, we care not for them nor their ways, as we cheerily glide afar! we fish, we fish, we merrily swim, we care not for friend nor for foe: our fins are stout, our tails are out, as through the seas we go. but how now, my fine fish! what alarms your long ranks, and tosses them all into a hubbub of scales and of foam? never mind that long knave with the spear there, astern. pipe away, merry fish, and give us a stave or two more, keeping time with your doggerel tails. but no, no! their singing was over. grim death, in the shape of a chevalier, was after them. how they changed their boastful tune! how they hugged the vilified boat! how they wished they were in it, the braggarts! and how they all tingled with fear! for, now here, now there, is heard a terrific rushing sound under water, betokening the onslaught of the dread fish of prey, that with spear ever in rest, charges in upon the out-skirts of the shoal, transfixing the fish on his weapon. re-treating and shaking them off, the chevalier devours them; then returns to the charge. hugging the boat to desperation, the poor fish fairly crowded themselves up to the surface, and floundered upon each other, as men are lifted off their feet in a mob. they clung to us thus, out of a fancied security in our presence. knowing this, we felt no little alarm for ourselves, dreading lest the chevalier might despise our boat, full as much as his prey; and in pursuing the fish, run through the poor chamois with a lunge. a jacket, rolled up, was kept in readiness to be thrust into the first opening made; while as the thousand fins audibly patted against our slender planks, we felt nervously enough; as if treading upon thin, crackling ice. at length, to our no small delight, the enemy swam away; and again by our side merrily paddled our escort; ten times merrier than ever. chapter xlix yillah while for a few days, now this way, now that, as our craft glides along, surrounded by these locusts of the deep, let the story of yillah flow on. of her beauty say i nothing. it was that of a crystal lake in a fathomless wood: all light and shade; full of fleeting revealings; now shadowed in depths; now sunny in dimples; but all sparkling and shifting, and blending together. but her wild beauty was a vail to things still more strange. as often she gazed so earnestly into my eyes, like some pure spirit looking far down into my soul, and seeing therein some upturned faces, i started in amaze, and asked what spell was on me, that thus she gazed. often she entreated me to repeat over and over again certain syllables of my language. these she would chant to herself, pausing now and then, as if striving to discover wherein lay their charm. in her accent, there was something very different from that of the people of the canoe. wherein lay the difference. i knew not; but it enabled her to pronounce with readiness all the words which i taught her; even as if recalling sounds long forgotten. if all this filled me with wonder, how much was that wonder increased, and yet baffled again, by considering her complexion, and the cast of her features. after endeavoring in various ways to account for these things, i was led to imagine, that the damsel must be an albino (tulla) occasionally to be met with among the people of the pacific. these persons are of an exceedingly delicate white skin, tinted with a faint rose hue, like the lips of a shell. their hair is golden. but, unlike the albinos of other climes, their eyes are invariably blue, and no way intolerant of light. as a race, the tullas die early. and hence the belief, that they pertain to some distant sphere, and only through irregularities in the providence of the gods, come to make their appearance upon earth: whence, the oversight discovered, they are hastily snatched. and it is chiefly on this account, that in those islands where human sacrifices are offered, the tullas are deemed the most suitable oblations for the altar, to which from their birth many are prospectively devoted. it was these considerations, united to others, which at times induced me to fancy, that by the priest, yillah was regarded as one of these beings. so mystical, however, her revelations concerning her past history, that often i knew not what to divine. but plainly they showed that she had not the remotest conception of her real origin. but these conceits of a state of being anterior to an earthly existence may have originated in one of those celestial visions seen transparently stealing over the face of a slumbering child. and craftily drawn forth and re-echoed by another, and at times repeated over to her with many additions, these imaginings must at length have assumed in her mind a hue of reality, heightened into conviction by the dreamy seclusion of her life. but now, let her subsequent and more credible history be related, as from time to time she rehearsed it. chapter l yillah in ardair in the verdant glen of ardair, far in the silent interior of amma, shut in by hoar old cliffs, yillah the maiden abode. so small and so deep was this glen, so surrounded on all sides by steep acclivities, and so vividly green its verdure, and deceptive the shadows that played there; that, from above, it seemed more like a lake of cool, balmy air, than a glen: its woodlands and grasses gleaming shadowy all, like sea groves and mosses beneath the calm sea. here, none came but aleema the priest, who at times was absent for days together. but at certain seasons, an unseen multitude with loud chants stood upon the verge of the neighboring precipices, and traversing those shaded wilds, slowly retreated; their voices lessening and lessening, as they wended their way through the more distant groves. at other times, yillah being immured in the temple of apo, a band of men entering the vale, surrounded her retreat, dancing there till evening came. meanwhile, heaps of fruit, garlands of flowers, and baskets of fish, were laid upon an altar without, where stood aleema, arrayed in white tappa, and muttering to himself, as the offerings were laid at his feet. when aleema was gone, yillah went forth into the glen, and wandered among the trees, and reposed by the banks of the stream. and ever as she strolled, looked down upon her the grim old cliffs, bearded with trailing moss. toward the lower end of the vale, its lofty walls advancing and overhanging their base, almost met in mid air. and a great rock, hurled from an adjacent height, and falling into the space intercepted, there remained fixed. aerial trees shot up from its surface; birds nested in its clefts; and strange vines roved abroad, overrunning the tops of the trees, lying thereon in coils and undulations, like anacondas basking in the light. beneath this rock, was a lofty wall of ponderous stones. between its crevices, peeps were had of a long and leafy arcade, quivering far away to where the sea rolled in the sun. lower down, these crevices gave an outlet to the waters of the brook, which, in a long cascade, poured over sloping green ledges near the foot of the wall, into a deep shady pool; whose rocky sides, by the perpetual eddying of the water, had been worn into a grotesque resemblance to a group of giants, with heads submerged, indolently reclining about the basin. in this pool, yillah would bathe. and once, emerging, she heard the echoes of a voice, and called aloud. but the only reply, was the rustling of branches, as some one, invisible, fled down the valley beyond. soon after, a stone rolled inward, and aleema the priest stood before her; saying that the voice she had heard was his. but it was not. at last the weary days grew, longer and longer, and the maiden pined for companionship. when the breeze blew not, but slept in the caves of the mountains, and all the leaves of the trees stood motionless as tears in the eye, yillah would sadden, and call upon the spirits in her soul to awaken. she sang low airs, she thought she had heard in oroolia; but started affrighted, as from dingles and dells, came back to her strains more wild than hers. and ever, when sad, aleema would seek to cheer her soul, by calling to mind the bright scenes of oroolia the blest, to which place, he averred, she was shortly to return, never more to depart. now, at the head of the vale of ardair, rose a tall, dark peak, presenting at the top the grim profile of a human face; whose shadow, every afternoon, crept down the verdant side of the mountain: a silent phantom, stealing all over the bosom of the glen. at times, when the phantom drew near, aleema would take yillah forth, and waiting its approach, lay her down by the shadow, disposing her arms in a caress; saying, "oh, apo! dost accept thy bride?" and at last, when it crept beyond the place where he stood, and buried the whole valley in gloom; aleema would say, "arise yillah; apo hath stretched himself to sleep in ardair. go, slumber where thou wilt; for thou wilt slumber in his arms." and so, every night, slept the maiden in the arms of grim apo. one day when yillah had come to love the wild shadow, as something that every day moved before her eyes, where all was so deathfully still; she went forth alone to watch it, as softly it slid down from the peak. of a sudden, when its face was just edging a chasm, that made it to look as if parting its lips, she heard a loud voice, and thought it was apo calling "yillah! yillah!" but now it seemed like the voice she had heard while bathing in the pool. glancing upward, she beheld a beautiful open-armed youth, gazing down upon her from an inaccessible crag. but presently, there was a rustling in the groves behind, and swift as thought, something darted through the air. the youth bounded forward. yillah opened her arms to receive him; but he fell upon the cliff, and was seen no more. as alarmed, and in tears, she fled from the scene, some one out of sight ran before her through the wood. upon recounting this adventure to aleema, he said, that the being she had seen, must have been a bad spirit come to molest her; and that apo had slain him. the sight of this youth, filled yillah with wild yearnings to escape from her lonely retreat; for a glimpse of some one beside the priest and the phantom, suggested vague thoughts of worlds of fair beings, in regions beyond ardair. but aleema sought to put away these conceits; saying, that ere long she would be journeying to oroolia, there to rejoin the spirits she dimly remembered. soon after, he came to her with a shell--one of those ever moaning of ocean--and placing it to her ear, bade her list to the being within, which in that little shell had voyaged from oroolia to bear her company in amma. now, the maiden oft held it to her ear, and closing her eyes, listened and listened to its soft inner breathings, till visions were born of the sound, and her soul lay for hours in a trance of delight. and again the priest came, and brought her a milk-white bird, with a bill jet-black, and eyes like stars. "in this, lurks the soul of a maiden; it hath flown from oroolia to greet you." the soft stranger willingly nestled in her bosom; turning its bright eyes upon hers, and softly warbling. many days passed; and yillah, the bird, and the shell were inseparable. the bird grew familiar; pecked seeds from her mouth; perched upon her shoulder, and sang in her ear; and at night, folded its wings in her bosom, and, like a sea-fowl, went softly to sleep: rising and falling upon the maiden's heart. and every morning it flew from its nest, and fluttered and chirped; and sailed to and fro; and blithely sang; and brushed yillah's cheek till she woke. then came to her hand: and yillah, looking earnestly in its eyes, saw strange faces there; and said to herself as she gazed--"these are two souls, not one." but at last, going forth into the groves with the bird, it suddenly flew from her side, and perched in a bough; and throwing back its white downy throat, there gushed from its bill a clear warbling jet, like a little fountain in air. now the song ceased; when up and away toward the head of the vale, flew the bird. "lil! lil! come back, leave me not, blest souls of the maidens." but on flew the bird, far up a defile, winging its way till a speck. it was shortly after this, and upon the evening of a day which had been tumultuous with sounds of warfare beyond the lower wall of the glen; that aleema came to yillah in alarm; saying--"yillah, the time has come to follow thy bird; come, return to thy home in oroolia." and he told her the way she would voyage there: by the vortex on the coast of tedaidee. that night, being veiled and placed in the tent, the maiden was borne to the sea-side, where the canoe was in waiting. and setting sail quickly, by next morning the island of amma was no longer in sight. and this was the voyage, whose sequel has already been recounted. chapter li the dream begins to fade stripped of the strange associations, with which a mind like yillah's must have invested every incident of her life, the story of her abode in ardair seemed not incredible. but so etherealized had she become from the wild conceits she nourished, that she verily believed herself a being of the lands of dreams. her fabulous past was her present. yet as our intimacy grew closer and closer, these fancies seemed to be losing their hold. and often she questioned me concerning my own reminiscences of her shadowy isle. and cautiously i sought to produce the impression, that whatever i had said of that clime, had been revealed to me in dreams; but that in these dreams, her own lineaments had smiled upon me; and hence the impulse which had sent me roving after the substance of this spiritual image. and true it was to say so; and right it was to swear it, upon her white arms crossed. for oh, yillah; were you not the earthly semblance of that sweet vision, that haunted my earliest thoughts? at first she had wildly believed, that the nameless affinities between us, were owing to our having in times gone by dwelt together in the same ethereal region. but thoughts like these were fast dying out. yet not without many strange scrutinies. more intently than ever she gazed into my eyes; rested her ear against my heart, and listened to its beatings. and love, which in the eye of its object ever seeks to invest itself with some rare superiority, love, sometimes induced me to prop my failing divinity; though it was i myself who had undermined it. but if it was with many regrets, that in the sight of yillah, i perceived myself thus dwarfing down to a mortal; it was with quite contrary emotions, that i contemplated the extinguishment in her heart of the notion of her own spirituality. for as such thoughts were chased away, she clung the more closely to me, as unto one without whom she would be desolate indeed. and now, at intervals, she was sad, and often gazed long and fixedly into the sea. nor would she say why it was, that she did so; until at length she yielded; and replied, that whatever false things aleema might have instilled into her mind; of this much she was certain: that the whirlpool on the coast of tedaidee prefigured her fate; that in the waters she saw lustrous eyes, and beckoning phantoms, and strange shapes smoothing her a couch among the mosses. her dreams seemed mine. many visions i had of the green corse of the priest, outstretching its arms in the water, to receive pale yillah, as she sunk in the sea. but these forebodings departed, no happiness in the universe like ours. we lived and we loved; life and love were united; in gladness glided our days. chapter lii world ho! five suns rose and set. and yillah pining for the shore, we turned our prow due west, and next morning came in sight of land. it was innumerable islands; lifting themselves bluely through the azure air, and looking upon the distant sea, like haycocks in a hazy field. towering above all, and mid-most, rose a mighty peak; one fleecy cloud sloping against its summit; a column wreathed. beyond, like purple steeps in heaven at set of sun, stretched far away, what seemed lands on lands, in infinite perspective. gliding on, the islands grew more distinct; rising up from the billows to greet us; revealing hills, vales, and peaks, grouped within a milk-white zone of reef, so vast, that in the distance all was dim. the jeweled vapors, ere-while hovering over these violet shores, now seemed to be shedding their gems; and as the almost level rays of the sun, shooting through the air like a variegated prism, touched the verdant land, it trembled all over with dewy sparkles. still nearer we came: our sail faintly distended as the breeze died away from our vicinity to the isles. the billows rolled listlessly by, as if conscious that their long task was nigh done; while gleamed the white reef, like the trail of a great fish in a calm. but as yet, no sign of paddle or canoe; no distant smoke; no shining thatch. bravo! good comrades, we've discovered some new constellation in the sea. sweet yillah, no more of oroolia; see you not this flowery land? nevermore shall we desire to roam. voyaging along the zone, we came to an opening; and quitting the firmament blue of the open sea, we glided in upon the still, green waters of the wide lagoon. mapped out in the broad shadows of the isles, and tinted here and there with the reflected hues of the sun clouds, the mild waters stretched all around us like another sky. near by the break in the reef, was a little island, with palm trees harping in the breeze; an aviary of alluring sounds, that seemed calling upon us to land. and here, yillah, whom the sight of the verdure had made glad, threw out a merry suggestion. nothing less, than to plant our mast, sail-set, upon the highest hill; and fly away, island and all; trees rocking, birds caroling, flowers springing; away, away, across the wide waters, to oroolia! but alas! how weigh the isle's coral anchor, leagues down in the fathomless sea? we glanced around; but all the islands seemed slumbering in the flooding light. "a canoe! a canoe!" cried samoa, as three proas showed themselves rounding a neighboring shore. instantly we sailed for them; but after shooting to and fro for a time, and standing up and gazing at us, the islanders retreated behind the headland. hardly were they out of sight, when from many a shore roundabout, other proas pushed off. soon the water all round us was enlivened by fleets of canoes, darting hither and thither like frighted water-fowls. presently they all made for one island. from their actions we argued that these people could have had but little or no intercourse with whites; and most probably knew not how to account for our appearance among them. desirous, therefore, of a friendly meeting, ere any hostile suspicions might arise, we pointed our craft for the island, whither all the canoes were now hastening. whereupon, those which had not yet reached their destination, turned and fled; while the occupants of the proas that had landed, ran into the groves, and were lost to view. crossing the distinct outer line of the isle's shadow on the water, we gained the shore; and gliding along its margin, passing canoe after canoe, hauled up on the silent beach, which otherwise seemed entirely innocent of man. a dilemma. but i decided at last upon disembarking jarl and samoa, to seek out and conciliate the natives. so, landing them upon a jutting buttress of coral, whence they waded to the shore; i pushed off with yillah into the water beyond, to await the event. full an hour must have elapsed; when, to our great joy, loud shouts were heard; and there burst into view a tumultuous crowd, in the midst of which my viking was descried, mounted upon the shoulders of two brawny natives; while the upoluan, striding on in advance, seemed resisting a similar attempt to elevate him in the world. good omens both. "come ashore!" cried jarl. "aramai!" cried samoa; while storms of interjections went up from the islanders who with extravagant gestures danced about the beach. further caution seemed needless: i pointed our prow for the shore. no sooner was this perceived, than, raising an applauding shout, the islanders ran up to their waists in the sea. and skimming like a gull over the smooth lagoon, the light shallop darted in among them. quick as thought, fifty hands were on the gunwale: and, with all its contents, lifted bodily into the air, the little chamois, upon many a dripping shoulder, was borne deep into the groves. yillah shrieked at the rocking motion, and when the boughs of the trees brushed against the tent. with his staff, an old man now pointed to a couple of twin-like trees, some four paces apart; and a little way from the ground conveniently crotched. and here, eftsoons, they deposited their burden; lowering the chamois gently between the forks of the trees, whose willow-like foliage fringed the tent and its inmate. chapter liii the chamois ashore until now, enveloped in her robe, and crouching like a fawn, yillah had been well nigh hidden from view. but presently she withdrew her hood. what saw the islanders, that they so gazed and adored in silence: some retreating, some creeping nearer, and the women all in a flutter? long they gazed; and following samoa's example, stretched forth their arms in reverence. the adoration of the maiden was extended to myself. indeed, from the singular gestures employed, i had all along suspected, that we were being received with unwonted honors. i now sought to get speech of my comrades. but so obstreperous was the crowd, that it was next to impossible. jarl was still in his perch in the air; his enthusiastic bearers not yet suffering him to alight. samoa, however, who had managed to keep out of the saddle, by-and-by contrived to draw nearer to the chamois. he advised me, by no means to descend for the present; since in any event we were sure of remaining unmolested therein; the islanders regarding it as sacred. the upoluan attracted a great deal of attention; chiefly from his style of tattooing, which, together with other peculiarities, so interested the natives, that they were perpetually hanging about him, putting eager questions, and all the time keeping up a violent clamor. but despite the large demand upon his lungs, samoa made out to inform me, that notwithstanding the multitude assembled, there was no high chief, or person of consequence present; the king of the place, also those of the islands adjacent, being absent at a festival in another quarter of the archipelago. but upon the first distant glimpse of the chamois, fleet canoes had been dispatched to announce the surprising event that had happened. in good time, the crowd becoming less tumultuous, and abandoning the siege of samoa, i availed myself of this welcome lull, and called upon him and my viking to enter the chamois; desirous of condensing our forces against all emergencies. samoa now gave me to understand, that from all he could learn, the islanders regarded me as a superior being. they had inquired of him, whether i was not white taji, a sort of half-and-half deity, now and then an avatar among them, and ranking among their inferior ex-officio demi-gods. to this, samoa had said ay; adding, moreover, all he could to encourage the idea. he now entreated me, at the first opportunity, to announce myself as taji: declaring that if once received under that title, the unbounded hospitality of our final reception would be certain; and our persons fenced about from all harm. encouraging this. but it was best to be wary. for although among some barbarians the first strangers landing upon their shores, are frequently hailed as divine; and in more than one wild land have been actually styled gods, as a familiar designation; yet this has not exempted the celestial visitants from peril, when too much presuming upon the reception extended to them. in sudden tumults they have been slain outright, and while full faith in their divinity had in no wise abated. the sad fate of an eminent navigator is a well-known illustration of this unaccountable waywardness. with no small anxiety, therefore, we awaited the approach of some of the dignitaries of mardi; for by this collective appellation, the people informed us, their islands were known. we waited not long. of a sudden, from the sea-side, a single shrill cry was heard. a moment more, and the blast of numerous conch shells startled the air; a confused clamor drew nearer and nearer; and flying our eyes in the direction of these sounds, we impatiently awaited what was to follow. chapter liv a gentleman from the sun never before had i seen the deep foliage of woodlands navigated by canoes. but on they came sailing through the leaves; two abreast; borne on men's shoulders; in each a chief, carried along to the measured march of his bearers; paddle blades reversed under arms. as they emerged, the multitude made gestures of homage. at the distance of some eight or ten paces the procession halted; when the kings alighted to the ground. they were fine-looking men, arrayed in various garbs. rare the show of stained feathers, and jewels, and other adornments. brave the floating of dyed mantles. the regal bearing of these personages, the deference paid them, and their entire self-possession, not a little surprised me. and it seemed preposterous, to assume a divine dignity in the presence of these undoubted potentates of _terra firma_. taji seemed oozing from my fingers' ends. but courage! and erecting my crest, i strove to look every inch the character i had determined to assume. for a time, it was almost impossible to tell with what emotions precisely the chiefs were regarding me. they said not a word. but plucking up heart of grace, i crossed my cutlass on my chest, and reposing my hand on the hilt, addressed their high mightinesses thus. "men of mardi, i come from the sun. when this morning it rose and touched the wave, i pushed my shallop from its golden beach, and hither sailed before its level rays. i am taji." more would have been added, but i paused for the effect of my exordium. stepping back a pace or two, the chiefs eagerly conversed. emboldened, i returned to the charge, and labored hard to impress them with just such impressions of me and mine, as i deemed desirable. the gentle yillah was a seraph from the sun; samoa i had picked off a reef in my route from that orb; and as for the skyeman, why, as his name imported, he came from above. in a word, we were all strolling divinities. advancing toward the chamois, one of the kings, a calm old man, now addressed me as follows:--"is this indeed taji? he, who according to a tradition, was to return to us after five thousand moons? but that period is yet unexpired. what bring'st thou hither then, taji, before thy time? thou wast but a quarrelsome demi-god, say the legends, when thou dwelt among our sires. but wherefore comest thou, taji? truly, thou wilt interfere with the worship of thy images, and we have plenty of gods besides thee. but comest thou to fight?--we have plenty of spears, and desire not thine. comest thou to dwell?--small are the houses of mardi. or comest thou to fish in the sea? tell us, taji." now, all this was a series of posers hard to be answered; furnishing a curious example, moreover, of the reception given to strange demi-gods when they travel without their portmanteaus; and also of the familiar manner in which these kings address the immortals. much i mourned that i had not previously studied better my part, and learned the precise nature of my previous existence in the land. but nothing like carrying it bravely. "attend. taji comes, old man, because it pleases him to come. and taji will depart when it suits him. ask the shades of your sires whether taji thus scurvily greeted them, when they came stalking into his presence in the land of spirits. no. taji spread the banquet. he removed their mantles. he kindled a fire to drive away the damp. he said not, 'come you to fight, you fogs and vapors? come you to dwell? or come you to fish in the sea?' go to, then, kings of mardi!" upon this, the old king fell back; and his place was supplied by a noble chief, of a free, frank bearing. advancing quickly toward the boat, he exclaimed--"i am media, the son of media. thrice welcome, taji. on my island of odo hast thou an altar. i claim thee for my guest." he then reminded the rest, that the strangers had voyaged far, and needed repose. and, furthermore, that he proposed escorting them forthwith to his own dominions; where, next day, he would be happy to welcome all visitants. and good as his word, he commanded his followers to range themselves under the chamois. springing out of our prow, the upoluan was followed by jarl; leaving yillah and taji to be borne therein toward the sea. soon, we were once more afloat; by our side, media sociably seated; six of his paddlers, perched upon the gunwale, swiftly urging us over the lagoon. the transition from the grove to the sea was instantaneous. all seemed a dream. the place to which we were hastening, being some distance away, as we rounded isle after isle, the extent of the archipelago grew upon us greatly. chapter lv tiffin in a temple upon at last drawing nigh to odo, its appearance somewhat disappointed me. a small island, of moderate elevation. but plumb not the height of the house that feasts you. the beach was lined with expectant natives, who, lifting the chamois, carried us up the beach. alighting, as they were bearing us along, king media, designating a canoe-house hard by, ordered our craft to be deposited therein. this being done, we stepped upon the soil. it was the first we had pressed in very many days. it sent a sympathetic thrill through our frames. turning his steps inland, media signed us to follow. soon we came to a rude sort of inclosure, fenced in by an imposing wall. here a halt was sounded, and in great haste the natives proceeded to throw down a portion of the stones. this accomplished, we were signed to enter the fortress thus carried by storm. upon an artificial mound, opposite the breach, stood a small structure of bamboo, open in front. within, was a long pedestal, like a settee, supporting three images, also of wood, and about the size of men; bearing, likewise, a remote resemblance to that species of animated nature. before these idols was an altar, and at its base many fine mats. entering the temple, as if he felt very much at home, media disposed these mats so as to form a very pleasant lounge; where he deferentially entreated yillah to recline. then deliberately removing the first idol, he motioned me to seat myself in its place. setting aside the middle one, he quietly established himself in its stead. the displaced ciphers, meanwhile, standing upright before us, and their blank faces looking upon this occasion unusually expressive. as yet, not a syllable as to the meaning of this cavalier treatment of their wooden godships. we now tranquilly awaited what next might happen, and i earnestly prayed, that if sacrilege was being committed, the vengeance of the gods might be averted from an ignoramus like me; notwithstanding the petitioner himself hailed from the other world. perfect silence was preserved: jarl and samoa standing a little without the temple; the first looking quite composed, but his comrade casting wondering glances at my sociable apotheosis with media. now happening to glance upon the image last removed, i was not long in detecting a certain resemblance between it and our host. both were decorated in the same manner; the carving on the idol exactly corresponding with the tattooing of the king. presently, the silence was relieved by a commotion without: and a butler approached, staggering under an immense wooden trencher; which, with profound genuflexions, he deposited upon the altar before us. the tray was loaded like any harvest wain; heaped up with good things sundry and divers: bread-fruit, and cocoanuts, and plantains, and guavas; all pleasant to the eye, and furnishing good earnest of something equally pleasant to the palate. transported at the sight of these viands, after so long an estrangement from full indulgence in things green, i was forthwith proceeding to help yillah and myself, when, like lightning, a most unwelcome query obtruded. did deities dine? then also recurred what media had declared about my shrine in odo. was this it? self-sacrilegious demigod that i was, was i going to gluttonize on the very offerings, laid before me in my own sacred fane? give heed to thy ways, oh taji, lest thou stumble and be lost. but hereupon, what saw we, but his cool majesty of odo tranquilly proceeding to lunch in the temple? how now? was media too a god? egad, it must be so. else, why his image here in the fane, and the original so entirely at his ease, with legs full cosily tucked away under the very altar itself. this put to flight all appalling apprehensions of the necessity of starving to keep up the assumption of my divinity. so without more ado i helped myself right and left; taking the best care of yillah; who over fed her flushed beauty with juicy fruits, thereby transferring to her cheek the sweet glow of the guava. our hunger appeased, and media in token thereof celestially laying his hand upon the appropriate region, we proceeded to quit the inclosure. but coming to the wall where the breach had been made, lo, and behold, no breach was to be seen. but down it came tumbling again, and forth we issued. this overthrowing of walls, be it known, is an incidental compliment paid distinguished personages in this part of mardi. it would seem to signify, that such gentry can go nowhere without creating an impression; even upon the most obdurate substances. but to return to our ambrosial lunch. sublimate, as you will, the idea of our ethereality as intellectual beings; no sensible man can harbor a doubt, but that there is a vast deal of satisfaction in dining. more: there is a savor of life and immortality in substantial fare. like balloons, we are nothing till filled. and well knowing this, nature has provided this jolly round board, our globe, which in an endless sequence of courses and crops, spreads a perpetual feast. though, as with most public banquets, there is no small crowding, and many go away famished from plenty. chapter lvi king media a host striking into a grove, about sunset we emerged upon a fine, clear space, and spied a city in the woods. in the middle of all, like a generalissimo's marquee among tents, was a structure more imposing than the rest. here, abode king media. disposed round a space some fifty yards square, were many palm posts staked firmly in the earth. a man's height from the ground, these supported numerous horizontal trunks, upon which lay a flooring of habiscus. high over this dais, but resting upon independent supports beyond, a gable-ended roof sloped away to within a short distance of the ground. such was the palace. we entered it by an arched, arbored entrance, at one of its palmetto-thatched ends. but not through this exclusive portal entered the islanders. humbly stooping, they found ingress under the drooping eaves. a custom immemorial, and well calculated to remind all contumacious subjects of the dignity of the habitation thus entered. three steps led to the summit of the dais, where piles of soft mats, and light pillows of woven grass, stuffed with the golden down of a wild thistle, invited all loiterers to lounge. how pleasant the twilight that welled up from under the low eaves, above which we were seated. and how obvious now the design of the roof. no shade more grateful and complete; the garish sun lingering without like some lackey in waiting. but who is this in the corner, gaping at us like a butler in a quandary? media's household deity, in the guise of a plethoric monster, his enormous head lolling back, and wide, gaping mouth stuffed full of fresh fruits and green leaves. truly, had the idol possessed a soul under his knotty ribs, how tantalizing to hold so glorious a mouthful without the power of deglutition. far worse than the inexorable lock-jaw, which will not admit of the step preliminary to a swallow. this jolly josh image was that of an inferior deity, the god of good cheer, and often after, we met with his merry round mouth in many other abodes in mardi. daily, his jaws are replenished, as a flower vase in summer. but did the demi-divine media thus brook the perpetual presence of a subaltern divinity? still more; did he render it homage? but ere long the mardian mythology will be discussed, thereby making plain what may now seem anomalous. politely escorting us into his palace, media did the honors by inviting his guests to recline. he then seemed very anxious to impress us with the fact, that, by bringing us to his home, and thereby charging the royal larder with our maintenance, he had taken no hasty or imprudent step. his merry butlers kept piling round us viands, till we were well nigh walled in. at every fresh deposit, media directing our attention to the same, as yet additional evidence of his ample resources as a host. the evidence was finally closed by dragging under the eaves a felled plantain tree, the spike of red ripe fruit, sprouting therefrom, blushing all over, at so rude an introduction to the notice of strangers. during this scene, jarl was privily nudging samoa, in wonderment, to know what upon earth it all meant. but samoa, scarcely deigning to notice interrogatories propounded through the elbow, only let drop a vague hint or two. it was quite amusing, what airs samoa now gave himself, at least toward my viking. among the mardians he was at home. and who, when there, stretches not out his legs, and says unto himself, "who is greater than i?" to be plain: concerning himself and the skyeman, the tables were turned. at sea, jarl had been the oracle: an old sea-sage, learned in hemp and helm. but our craft high and dry, the upoluan lifted his crest as the erudite pagan; master of gog and magog, expounder of all things heathenish and obscure. an hour or two was now laughed away in very charming conversation with media; when i hinted, that a couch and solitude would be acceptable. whereupon, seizing a taper, our host escorted us without the palace. and ushering us into a handsome unoccupied mansion, gave me to understand that the same was mine. mounting to the dais, he then instituted a vigorous investigation, to discern whether every thing was in order. not fancying something about the mats, he rolled them up into bundles, and one by one sent them flying at the heads of his servitors; who, upon that gentle hint made off with them, soon after returning with fresh ones. these, with mathematical precision, media in person now spread on the dais; looking carefully to the fringes or ruffles with which they were bordered, as if striving to impart to them a sentimental expression. this done, he withdrew. chapter lvii taji takes counsel with himself my brief intercourse with our host, had by this time enabled me to form a pretty good notion of the light, in which i was held by him and his more intelligent subjects. his free and easy carriage evinced, that though acknowledging my assumptions, he was no way overawed by them; treating me as familiarly, indeed, as if i were a mere mortal, one of the abject generation of mushrooms. the scene in the temple, however, had done much toward explaining this demeanor of his. a demi-god in his own proper person, my claims to a similar dignity neither struck him with wonder, nor lessened his good opinion of himself. as for any thing foreign in my aspect, and my ignorance of mardian customs---all this, instead of begetting a doubt unfavorable to my pretensions, but strengthened the conviction of them as verities. thus has it been in similar instances; but to a much greater extent. the celebrated navigator referred to in a preceding chapter, was hailed by the hawaiians as one of their demi-gods, returned to earth, after a wide tour of the universe. and they worshiped him as such, though incessantly he was interrogating them, as to who under the sun his worshipers were; how their ancestors came on the island; and whether they would have the kindness to provide his followers with plenty of pork during his stay. but a word or two concerning the idols in the shrine at odo. superadded to the homage rendered him as a temporal prince, media was there worshiped as a spiritual being. in his corporeal absence, his effigy receiving all oblations intended for him. and in the days of his boyhood, listening to the old legends of the mardian mythology, media had conceived a strong liking for the fabulous taji; a deity whom he had often declared was worthy a niche in any temple extant. hence he had honored my image with a place in his own special shrine; placing it side by side with his worshipful likeness. i appreciated the compliment. but of the close companionship of the other image there, i was heartily ashamed. and with reason. the nuisance in question being the image of a deified maker of plantain-pudding, lately deceased; who had been famed far and wide as the most notable fellow of his profession in the whole archipelago. during his sublunary career, having been attached to the household of media, his grateful master had afterward seen fit to crown his celebrity by this posthumous distinction: a circumstance sadly subtracting from the dignity of an apotheosis. nor must it here be omitted, that in this part of mardi culinary artists are accounted worthy of high consideration. for among these people of odo, the matter of eating and drinking is held a matter of life and of death. "drag away my queen from my arms," said old tyty when overcome of adommo, "but leave me my cook." now, among the mardians there were plenty of incarnated deities to keep me in countenance. most of the kings of the archipelago, besides media, claiming homage as demi-gods; and that, too, by virtue of hereditary descent, the divine spark being transmissable from father to son. in illustration of this, was the fact, that in several instances the people of the land addressed the supreme god oro, in the very same terms employed in the political adoration of their sublunary rulers. ay: there were deities in mardi far greater and taller than i: right royal monarchs to boot, living in jolly round tabernacles of jolly brown clay; and feasting, and roystering, and lording it in yellow tabernacles of bamboo. these demi-gods had wherewithal to sustain their lofty pretensions. if need were, could crush out of him the infidelity of a non-conformist. and by this immaculate union of church and state, god and king, in their own proper persons reigned supreme caesars over the souls and bodies of their subjects. beside these mighty magnates, i and my divinity shrank into nothing. in their woodland ante-chambers plebeian deities were kept lingering. for be it known, that in due time we met with several decayed, broken down demi-gods: magnificos of no mark in mardi; having no temples wherein to feast personal admirers, or spiritual devotees. they wandered about forlorn and friendless. and oftentimes in their dinnerless despair hugely gluttonized, and would fain have grown fat, by reflecting upon the magnificence of their genealogies. but poor fellows! like shabby scotch lords in london in king james's time, the very multitude of them confounded distinction. and since they could show no rent-roll, they were permitted to fume unheeded. upon the whole, so numerous were living and breathing gods in mardi, that i held my divinity but cheaply. and seeing such a host of immortals, and hearing of multitudes more, purely spiritual in their nature, haunting woodlands and streams; my views of theology grew strangely confused; i began to bethink me of the jew that rejected the talmud, and his all-permeating principle, to which goethe and others have subscribed. instead, then, of being struck with the audacity of endeavoring to palm myself off as a god--the way in which the thing first impressed me--i now perceived that i might be a god as much as i pleased, and yet not whisk a lion's tail after all at least on that special account. as for media's reception, its graciousness was not wholly owing to the divine character imputed to me. his, he believed to be the same. but to a whim, a freakishness in his soul, which led him to fancy me as one among many, not as one with no peer. but the apparent unconcern of king media with respect to my godship, by no means so much surprised me, as his unaffected indifference to my amazing voyage from the sun; his indifference to the sun itself; and all the wonderful circumstances that must have attended my departure. whether he had ever been there himself, that he regarded a solar trip with so much unconcern, almost became a question in my mind. certain it is, that as a mere traveler he must have deemed me no very great prodigy. my surprise at these things was enhanced by reflecting, that to the people of the archipelago the map of mardi was the map of the world. with the exception of certain islands out of sight and at an indefinite distance, they had no certain knowledge of any isles but their own. and, no long time elapsed ere i had still additional reasons to cease wondering at the easy faith accorded to the story which i had given of myself. for these mardians were familiar with still greater marvels than mine; verily believing in prodigies of all sorts. any one of them put my exploits to the blush. look to thy ways then, taji, thought i, and carry not thy crest too high. of a surety, thou hast more peers than inferiors. thou art overtopped all round. bear thyself discreetly and not haughtily, taji. it will not answer to give thyself airs. abstain from all consequential allusions to the other world, and the genteel deities among whom thou hast circled. sport not too jauntily thy raiment, because it is novel in mardi; nor boast of the fleetness of thy chamois, because it is unlike a canoe. vaunt not of thy pedigree, taji; for media himself will measure it with thee there by the furlong. be not a "snob," taji. so then, weighing all things well, and myself severely, i resolved to follow my mentor's wise counsel; neither arrogating aught, nor abating of just dues; but circulating freely, sociably, and frankly, among the gods, heroes, high_ priests, kings, and gentlemen, that made up the principalities of mardi. chapter lviii mardi by night and yillah by day during the night following our arrival, many dreams were no doubt dreamt in odo. but my thoughts were wakeful. and while all others slept, obeying a restless impulse, i stole without into the magical starlight. there are those who in a strange land ever love to view it by night. it has been said, that the opening in the groves where was situated media's city, was elevated above the surrounding plains. hence was commanded a broad reach of prospect. far and wide was deep low-sobbing repose of man and nature. the groves were motionless; and in the meadows, like goblins, the shadows advanced and retreated. full before me, lay the mardian fleet of isles, profoundly at anchor within their coral harbor. near by was one belted round by a frothy luminous reef, wherein it lay, like saturn in its ring. from all their summits, went up a milk-white smoke, as from indian wigwams in the hazy harvest-moon. and floating away, these vapors blended with the faint mist, as of a cataract, hovering over the circumvallating reef. far beyond all, and far into the infinite night, surged the jet-black ocean. but how tranquil the wide lagoon, which mirrored the burning spots in heaven! deep down into its innermost heart penetrated the slanting rays of hesperus like a shaft of light, sunk far into mysterious golcondas, where myriad gnomes seemed toiling. soon a light breeze rippled the water, and the shaft was seen no more. but the moon's bright wake was still revealed: a silver track, tipping every wave-crest in its course, till each seemed a pearly, scroll-prowed nautilus, buoyant with some elfin crew. from earth to heaven! high above me was night's shadowy bower, traversed, vine-like, by the milky way, and heavy with golden clusterings. oh stars! oh eyes, that see me, wheresoe'er i roam: serene, intent, inscrutable for aye, tell me sybils, what i am.--wondrous worlds on worlds! lo, round and round me, shining, awful spells: all glorious, vivid constellations, god's diadem ye are! to you, ye stars, man owes his subtlest raptures, thoughts unspeakable, yet full of faith. but how your mild effulgence stings the boding heart. am i a murderer, stars? hours pass. the starry trance is departed. long waited for, the dawn now comes. first, breaking along the waking face; peeping from out the languid lids; then shining forth in longer glances; till, like the sun, up comes the soul, and sheds its rays abroad. when thus my yillah did daily dawn, how she lit up my world; tinging more rosily the roseate clouds, that in her summer cheek played to and fro, like clouds in italian air. chapter lix their morning meal not wholly is our world made up of bright stars and bright eyes: so now to our story. a conscientious host should ever be up betimes, to look after the welfare of his guests, and see to it that their day begin auspiciously. king media announced the advent of the sun, by rustling at my bower's eaves in person. a repast was spread in an adjoining arbor, which media's pages had smoothed for our reception, and where his subordinate chiefs were in attendance. here we reclined upon mats. balmy and fresh blew the breath of the morning; golden vapors were upon the mountains, silver sheen upon the grass; and the birds were at matins in the groves; their bright plumage flashing into view, here and there, as if some rainbow were crouching in the foliage. spread before us were viands, served in quaint-shaped, curiously-dyed gourds, not sevres, but almost as tasteful; and like true porcelain, fire had tempered them. green and yielding, they are plucked from the tree; and emptied of their pulp, are scratched over with minute marks, like those of a line engraving. the ground prepared, the various figures are carefully etched. and the outlines filled up with delicate punctures, certain vegetable oils are poured over them, for coloring. filled with a peculiar species of earth, the gourd is now placed in an oven in the ground. and in due time exhumed, emptied of its contents, and washed in the stream, it presents a deep-dyed exterior; every figure distinctly traced and opaque, but the ground semi-transparent. in some cases, owing to the variety of dyes employed, each figure is of a different hue. more glorious goblets than these for the drinking of wine, went never from hand to mouth. capacious as pitchers, they almost superseded decanters. now, in a tropical climate, fruit, with light wines, forms the only fit meal of a morning. and with orchards and vineyards forever in sight, who but the hetman of the cossacs would desire more? we had plenty of the juice of the grape. but of this hereafter; there are some fine old cellars, and plenty of good cheer in store. during the repast, media, for a time, was much taken up with our raiment. he begged me to examine for a moment the texture of his right royal robe, and observe how much superior it was to my own. it put my mantle to the blush; being tastefully stained with rare devices in red and black; and bordered with dyed fringes of feathers, and tassels of red birds' claws. next came under observation the skyeman's guayaquil hat; at whose preposterous shape, our host laughed in derision; clapping a great conical calabash upon the head of an attendant, and saying that now he was jarl. at this, and all similar sallies, samoa was sure to roar louder than any; though mirth was no constitutional thing with him. but he seemed rejoiced at the opportunity of turning upon us the ridicule, which as a barbarian among whites, he himself had so often experienced. these pleasantries over, king media very slightly drew himself up, as if to make amends for his previous unbending. he discoursed imperially with his chiefs; nodded his sovereign will to his pages; called for another gourd of wine; in all respects carrying his royalty bravely. the repast concluded, we journeyed to the canoe-house, where we found the little chamois stabled like a steed. one solitary depredation had been committed. its sides and bottom had been completely denuded of the minute green barnacles, and short sea-grass, which, like so many leeches, had fastened to our planks during our long, lazy voyage. by the people they had been devoured as dainties. chapter lx belshazzar on the bench now, media was king of odo. and from the simplicity of his manners hitherto, and his easy, frank demeanor toward ourselves, had we foolishly doubted that fact, no skepticism could have survived an illustration of it, which this very day we witnessed at noon. for at high noon, media was wont to don his dignity with his symbols of state; and sit on his judgment divan or throne, to hear and try all causes brought before him, and fulminate his royal decrees. this divan was elevated at one end of a spacious arbor, formed by an avenue of regal palms, which in brave state, held aloft their majestical canopy. the crown of the island prince was of the primitive old eastern style; in shape, similar, perhaps, to that jauntily sported as a foraging cap by his sacred majesty king nimrod, who so lustily followed the hounds. it was a plaited turban of red tappa, radiated by the pointed and polished white bones of the ray-fish. these diverged from a bandeau or fillet of the most precious pearls; brought up from the sea by the deepest diving mermen of mardi. from the middle of the crown rose a tri-foiled spear-head. and a spear-headed scepter graced the right hand of the king. now, for all the rant of your democrats, a fine king on a throne is a very fine sight to behold. he looks very much like a god. no wonder that his more dutiful subjects so swore, that their good lord and master king media was demi-divine. a king on his throne! ah, believe me, ye gracchi, ye acephali, ye levelers, it is something worth seeing, be sure; whether beheld at babylon the tremendous, when nebuchadnezzar was crowned; at old scone in the days of macbeth; at rheims, among oriflammes, at the coronation of louis le grand; at westminster abbey, when the gentlemanly george doffed his beaver for a diadem; or under the soft shade of palm trees on an isle in the sea. man lording it over man, man kneeling to man, is a spectacle that gabriel might well travel hitherward to behold; for never did he behold it in heaven. but darius giving laws to the medes and the persians, or the conqueror of bactria with king-cattle yoked to his car, was not a whit more sublime, than beau brummel magnificently ringing for his valet. a king on his throne! it is jupiter nodding in the councils of olympus; satan, seen among the coronets in hell. a king on his throne! it is the sun over a mountain; the sun over law-giving sinai; the sun in our system: planets, duke-like, dancing attendance, and baronial satellites in waiting. a king on his throne! after all, but a gentleman seated. and thus sat the good lord, king media. time passed. and after trying and dismissing several minor affairs, media called for certain witnesses to testify concerning one jiromo, a foolhardy wight, who had been silly enough to plot against the majesty now sitting judge and jury upon him. his guilt was clear. and the witnesses being heard, from a bunch of palm plumes media taking a leaf, placed it in the hand of a runner or pursuivant, saying, "this to jiromo, where he is prisoned; with his king's compliments; say we here wait for his head." it was doffed like a turban before a dey, and brought back on the instant. now came certain lean-visaged, poverty-stricken, and hence suspicious-looking varlets, grumbling and growling, and amiable as bruin. they came muttering some wild jargon about "bulwarks," "bulkheads," "cofferdams," "safeguards," "noble charters," "shields," and "paladiums," "great and glorious birthrights," and other unintelligible gibberish. of the pursuivants, these worthies asked audience of media. "go, kneel at the throne," was the answer. "our knee-pans are stiff with sciatics," was the rheumatic reply. "an artifice to keep on your legs," said the pursuivants. and advancing they salamed, and told media the excuse of those sour-looking varlets. whereupon my lord commanded them to down on their marrow-bones instanter, either before him or the headsman, whichsoever they pleased. they preferred the former. and as they there kneeled, in vain did men with sharp ears (who abound in all courts) prick their auriculars, to list to that strange crackling and firing off of bone balls and sockets, ever incident to the genuflections of rheumatic courtiers. in a row, then, these selfsame knee-pans did kneel before the king; who eyed them as eagles in air do goslings on dunghills; or hunters, hounds crouching round their calves. "your prayer?" said media. it was a petition, that thereafter all differences between man and man in ode, together with all alleged offenses against the state, might be tried by twelve good men and true. these twelve to be unobnoxious to the party or parties concerned; their peers; and previously unbiased touching the matter at issue. furthermore, that unanimity in these twelve should be indispensable to a verdict; and no dinner be vouchsafed till unanimity came. loud and long laughed king media in scorn. "this be your judge," he cried, swaying his scepter. "what! are twelve wise men more wise than one? or will twelve fools, put together, make one sage? are twelve honest men more honest than one? or twelve knaves less knavish than one? and if, of twelve men, three be fools, and three wise, three knaves, and three upright, how obtain real unanimity from such? "but if twelve judges be better than one, then are twelve hundred better than twelve. but take the whole populace for a judge, and you will long wait for a unanimous verdict. "if upon a thing dubious, there be little unanimity in the conflicting opinions of one man's mind, how expect it in the uproar of twelve puzzled brains? though much unanimity be found in twelve hungry stomachs. "judges unobnoxious to the accused! apply it to a criminal case. ha! ha! if peradventure a cacti be rejected, because he had seen the accused commit the crime for which he is arraigned. then, his mind would be biased: no impartiality from him! or your testy accused might object to another, because of his tomahawk nose, or a cruel squint of the eye. "of all follies the most foolish! know ye from me, that true peers render not true verdicts. jiromo was a rebel. had i tried him by his peers, i had tried him by rebels; and the rebel had rebelled to some purpose. "away! as unerring justice dwells in a unity, and as one judge will at last judge the world beyond all appeal; so--though often here below justice be hard to attain--does man come nearest the mark, when he imitates that model divine. hence, one judge is better than twelve." "and as justice, in ideal, is ever painted high lifted above the crowd; so, from the exaltation of his rank, an honest king is the best of those unical judges, which individually are better than twelve. and therefore am i, king media, the best judge in this land." "subjects! so long as i live, i will rule you and judge you alone. and though you here kneeled before me till you grew into the ground, and there took root, no yea to your petition will you get from this throne. i am king: ye are slaves. mine to command: yours to obey. and this hour i decree, that henceforth no gibberish of bulwarks and bulkheads be heard in this land. for a dead bulwark and a bulkhead, to dam off sedition, will i make of that man, who again but breathes those bulky words. ho! spears! see that these knee-pans here kneel till set of sun." high noon was now passed; and removing his crown, and placing it on the dais for the kneelers to look at during their devotions, king media departed from that place, and once more played the agreeable host. chapter lxi an incognito for the rest of that day, and several that followed, we were continually receiving visits from the neighboring islands; whose inhabitants in fleets and flotillas flocked round odo to behold the guests of its lord. among them came many messengers from the neighboring kings with soft speeches and gifts. but it were needless to detail our various interviews, or relate in what manifold ways, the royal strangers gave token of their interest concerning us. upon the third day, however, there was noticed a mysterious figure, like the inscrutable incognitos sometimes encountered, crossing the tower-shadowed plaza of assignations at lima. it was enveloped in a dark robe of tappa, so drawn and plaited about the limbs; and with one hand, so wimpled about the face, as only to expose a solitary eye. but that eye was a world. now it was fixed upon yillah with a sinister glance, and now upon me, but with a different expression. however great the crowd, however tumultuous, that fathomless eye gazed on; till at last it seemed no eye, but a spirit, forever prying into my soul. often i strove to approach it, but it would evade me, soon reappearing. pointing out the apparition to media, i intreated him to take means to fix it, that my suspicions might be dispelled, as to its being incorporeal. he replied that, by courtesy, incognitos were sacred. insomuch that the close-plaited robe and the wimple were secure as a castle. at last, to my relief, the phantom disappeared, and was seen no more. numerous and fervent the invitations received to return the calls wherewith we were honored. but for the present we declined them; preferring to establish ourselves firmly in the heart of media, ere encountering the vicissitudes of roaming. in a multitude of acquaintances is less security, than in one faithful friend. now, while these civilities were being received, and on the fourth morning after our arrival, there landed on the beach three black-eyed damsels, deep brunettes, habited in long variegated robes, and with gay blossoms on their heads. with many salams, the strangers were ushered into my presence by an old white-haired servitor of media's, who with a parting congé murmured, "from queen hautia," then departed. surprised, i stood mute, and welcomed them. the first, with many smiles and blandishments, waved before me a many-tinted iris: the flag-flower streaming with pennons. advancing, the second then presented three rose-hued purple-veined circea flowers, the dew still clinging to them. the third placed in my hand a moss-rose bud; then, a venus-car. "thanks for your favors! now your message." starting at this reception, graciously intended, they conferred a moment; when the iris-bearer said in winning phrase, "we come from hautia, whose moss-rose you hold." "all thanks to hautia then; the bud is very fragrant." then she pointed to the venus-car. "this too is sweet; thanks to hautia for her flowers. pray, bring me more." "he mocks our mistress," and gliding from me, they waved witch-hazels, leaving me alone and wondering. informing media of this scene, he smiled; threw out queer hints of hautia; but knew not what her message meant. at first this affair occasioned me no little uneasiness, with much matter for marveling; but in the novel pleasure of our sojourn in odo, it soon slipped from my mind; nor for some time, did i again hear aught of queen hautia. chapter lxii taji retires from the world after a while, when the strangers came not in shoals as before, i proposed to our host, a stroll over his dominions; desirous of beholding the same, and secretly induced by the hope of selecting an abode, more agreeable to my fastidious taste, than the one already assigned me. the ramble over--a pleasant one it was--it resulted in a determination on my part to quit odo. yet not to go very far; only ten or twelve yards, to a little green tuft of an islet; one of many, which here and there, all round the island, nestled like birds' nests in the branching boughs of the coral grove, whose roots laid hold of the foundations of the deep. between these islets and the shore, extended shelving ledges, with shallows above, just sufficient to float a canoe. one of these islets was wooded and wined; an arbor in the sea. and here, media permitting, i decided to dwell. not long was media in complying; nor long, ere my retreat was in readiness. laced together, the twisting boughs were closely thatched. and thatched were the sides also, with deep crimson pandannus leaves; whose long, forked spears, lifted by the breeze, caused the whole place to blaze, as with flames. canes, laid on palm trunks, formed the floor. how elastic! in vogue all over odo, among the chiefs, it imparted such a buoyancy to the person, that to this special cause may be imputed in good part the famous fine spirits of the nobles. hypochondriac! essay the elastic flooring! it shall so pleasantly and gently jolt thee, as to shake up, and pack off the stagnant humors mantling thy pool-like soul. such was my dwelling. but i make no mention of sundry little appurtenances of tropical housekeeping: calabashes, cocoanut shells, and rolls of fine tappa; till with yillah seated at last in my arbor, i looked round, and wanted for naught. but what of jarl and samoa? why jarl must needs be fanciful, as well as myself. like a bachelor in chambers, he settled down right opposite to me, on the main land, in a little wigwam in the grove. but samoa, following not his comrade's example, still tarried in the camp of the hittites and jebusites of odo. beguiling men of their leisure by his marvelous stories: and maidens of their hearts by his marvelous wiles. when i chose, i was completely undisturbed in my arbor; an ukase of media's forbidding indiscriminate intrusion. but thrice in the day came a garrulous old man with my viands. thus sequestered, however, i could not entirely elude the pryings of the people of the neighboring islands; who often passed by, slowly paddling, and earnestly regarding my retreat. but gliding along at a distance, and never essaying a landing, their occasional vicinity troubled me but little. but now and then of an evening, when thick and fleet the shadows were falling, dim glimpses of a canoe would be spied; hovering about the place like a ghost. and once, in the stillness of the night, hearing the near ripple of a prow, i sallied forth, but the phantom quickly departed. that night, yillah shuddered as she slept. "the whirl-pool," she murmured, "sweet mosses." next day she was lost in reveries, plucking pensive hyacinths, or gazing intently into the lagoon. chapter lxiii odo and its lord time now to enter upon some further description of the island and its lord. and first for media: a gallant gentleman and king. from a goodly stock he came. in his endless pedigree, reckoning deities by decimals, innumerable kings, and scores of great heroes, chiefs, and priests. nor in person, did he belie his origin. no far-descended dwarf was he, the least of a receding race. he stood like a palm tree; about whose acanthus capital droops not more gracefully the silken fringes, than media's locks upon his noble brow. strong was his arm to wield the club, or hurl the javelin; and potent, i ween, round a maiden's waist. thus much here for media. now comes his isle. our pleasant ramble found it a little round world by itself; full of beauties as a garden; chequered by charming groves; watered by roving brooks; and fringed all round by a border of palm trees, whose roots drew nourishment from the water. but though abounding in other quarters of the archipelago, not a solitary bread-fruit grew in odo. a noteworthy circumstance, observable in these regions, where islands close adjoining, so differ in their soil, that certain fruits growing genially in one, are foreign to another. but odo was famed for its guavas, whose flavor was likened to the flavor of new-blown lips; and for its grapes, whose juices prompted many a laugh and many a groan. beside the city where media dwelt, there were few other clusters of habitations in odo. the higher classes living, here and there, in separate households; but not as eremites. some buried themselves in the cool, quivering bosoms of the groves. others, fancying a marine vicinity, dwelt hard by the beach in little cages of bamboo; whence of mornings they sallied out with jocund cries, and went plunging into the refreshing bath, whose frothy margin was the threshold of their dwellings. others still, like birds, built their nests among the sylvan nooks of the elevated interior; whence all below, and hazy green, lay steeped in languor the island's throbbing heart. thus dwelt the chiefs and merry men of mark. the common sort, including serfs, and helots, war-captives held in bondage, lived in secret places, hard to find. whence it came, that, to a stranger, the whole isle looked care-free and beautiful. deep among the ravines and the rocks, these beings lived in noisome caves, lairs for beasts, not human homes; or built them coops of rotten boughs--living trees were banned them--whose mouldy hearts hatched vermin. fearing infection of some plague, born of this filth, the chiefs of odo seldom passed that way and looking round within their green retreats, and pouring out their wine, and plucking from orchards of the best, marveled how these swine could grovel in the mire, and wear such sallow cheeks. but they offered no sweet homes; from that mire they never sought to drag them out; they open threw no orchard; and intermitted not the mandates that condemned their drudges to a life of deaths. sad sight! to see those round-shouldered helots, stooping in their trenches: artificial, three in number, and concentric: the isle well nigh surrounding. and herein, fed by oozy loam, and kindly dew from heaven, and bitter sweat from men, grew as in hot-beds the nutritious taro. toil is man's allotment; toil of brain, or toil of hands, or a grief that's more than either, the grief and sin of idleness. but when man toils and slays himself for masters who withhold the life he gives to them--then, then, the soul screams out, and every sinew cracks. so with these poor serfs. and few of them could choose but be the brutes they seemed. now needs it to be said, that odo was no land of pleasure unalloyed, and plenty without a pause?--odo, in whose lurking-places infants turned from breasts, whence flowed no nourishment.--odo, in whose inmost haunts, dark groves were brooding, passing which you heard most dismal cries, and voices cursing media. there, men were scourged; their crime, a heresy; the heresy, that media was no demigod. for this they shrieked. their fathers shrieked before; their fathers, who, tormented, said, "happy we to groan, that our children's children may be glad." but their children's children howled. yet these, too, echoed previous generations, and loudly swore, "the pit that's dug for us may prove another's grave." but let all pass. to look at, and to roam about of holidays, odo seemed a happy land. the palm-trees waved--though here and there you marked one sear and palsy-smitten; the flowers bloomed--though dead ones moldered in decay; the waves ran up the strand in glee--though, receding, they sometimes left behind bones mixed with shells. but else than these, no sign of death was seen throughout the isle. did men in odo live for aye? was ponce de leon's fountain there? for near and far, you saw no ranks and files of graves, no generations harvested in winrows. in odo, no hard-hearted nabob slept beneath a gentle epitaph; no _requiescat-in-pace_ mocked a sinner damned; no _memento-mori_ admonished men to live while yet they might. here death hid his skull; and hid it in the sea, the common sepulcher of odo. not dust to dust, but dust to brine; not hearses but canoes. for all who died upon that isle were carried out beyond the outer reef, and there were buried with their sires' sires. hence came the thought, that of gusty nights, when round the isles, and high toward heaven, flew the white reef's rack and foam, that then and there, kept chattering watch and ward, the myriads that were ocean-tombed. but why these watery obsequies? odo was but a little isle, and must the living make way for the dead, and life's small colony be dislodged by death's grim hosts; as the gaunt tribes of tamerlane o'erspread the tented pastures of the khan? and now, what follows, said these islanders: "why sow corruption in the soil which yields us life? we would not pluck our grapes from over graves. this earth's an urn for flowers, not for ashes." they said that oro, the supreme, had made a cemetery of the sea. and what more glorious grave? was mausolus more sublimely urned? or do the minster-lamps that burn before the tomb of charlemagne, show more of pomp, than all the stars, that blaze above the shipwrecked mariner? but no more of the dead; men shrug their shoulders, and love not their company; though full soon we shall all have them for fellows. chapter lxiv yillah a phantom for a time we were happy in odo: yillah and i in our islet. nor did the pearl on her bosom glow more rosily than the roses in her cheeks; though at intervals they waned and departed; and deadly pale was her glance, when she murmured of the whirlpool and mosses. as pale my soul, bethinking me of aleema the priest. but day by day, did her spell weave round me its magic, and all the hidden things of her being grew more lovely and strange. did i commune with a spirit? often i thought that paradise had overtaken me on earth, and that yillah was verily an angel, and hence the mysteries that hallowed her. but how fleeting our joys. storms follow bright dawnings.--long memories of short-lived scenes, sad thoughts of joyous hours--how common are ye to all mankind. when happy, do we pause and say--"lo, thy felicity, my soul?" no: happiness seldom seems happiness, except when looked back upon from woes. a flowery landscape, you must come out of, to behold. sped the hours, the days, the one brief moment of our joys. fairy bower in the fair lagoon, scene of sylvan ease and heart's repose,--oh, yillah, yillah! all the woods repeat the sound, the wild, wild woods of my wild soul. yillah! yillah! cry the small strange voices in me, and evermore, and far and deep, they echo on. days passed. when one morning i found the arbor vacant. gone! a dream. i closed my eyes, and would have dreamed her back. in vain. starting, i called upon her name; but none replied. fleeing from the islet, i gained the neighboring shore, and searched among the woods; and my comrades meeting, besought their aid. but idle all. no glimpse of aught, save trees and flowers. then media was sought out; the event made known; and quickly, bands were summoned to range the isle. noon came; but no yillah. when media averred she was no longer in odo. whither she was gone, or how, he knew not; nor could any imagine. at this juncture, there chanced to arrive certain messengers from abroad; who, presuming that all was well with taji, came with renewed invitations to visit various pleasant places round about. among these, came queen hautia's heralds, with their iris flag, once more bringing flowers. but they came and went unheeded. setting out to return, these envoys were accompanied by numerous followers of media, dispatched to the neighboring islands, to seek out the missing yillah. but three days passed; and, one by one, they all returned; and stood before me silently. for a time i raved. then, falling into outer repose, lived for a space in moods and reveries, with eyes that knew no closing, one glance forever fixed. they strove to rouse me. girls danced and sang; and tales of fairy times were told; of monstrous imps, and youths enchanted; of groves and gardens in the sea. yet still i moved not, hearing all, yet noting naught. media cried, "for shame, oh taji; thou, a god?" and placed a spear in my nerveless hand. and jarl loud called upon me to awake. samoa marveled. still sped the days. and at length, my memory was restored. the thoughts of things broke over me like returning billows on a beach long bared. a rush, a foam of recollections!--sweet yillah gone, and i bereaved. another interval, and that mood was past. misery became a memory. the keen pang a deep vibration. the remembrance seemed the thing remembered; though bowed with sadness. there are thoughts that lie and glitter deep: tearful pearls beneath life's sea, that surges still, and rolls sunlit, whatever it may hide. common woes, like fluids, mix all round. not so with that other grief. some mourners load the air with lamentations; but the loudest notes are struck from hollows. their tears flow fast: but the deep spring only wells. at last i turned to media, saying i must hie from odo, and rove throughout all mardi; for yillah might yet be found. but hereafter, in words, little more of the maiden, till perchance her fate be learned. chapter lxv taji makes three acquaintances down to this period, i had restrained samoa from wandering to the neighboring islands, though he had much desired it, in compliance with the invitations continually received. but now i informed both him, and his comrade, of the tour i purposed; desiring their company. upon the announcement of my intention to depart, to my no small surprise media also proposed to accompany me: a proposition gladly embraced. it seems, that for some reason, he had not as yet extended his travels to the more distant islands. hence the voyage in prospect was particularly agreeable to him. nor did he forbear any pains to insure its prosperity; assuring me, furthermore, that its object must eventually be crowned with success. "i myself am interested in this pursuit," said he; "and trust me, yillah will be found." for the tour of the lagoon, the docile chamois was proposed; but media dissented; saying, that it befitted not the lord of odo to voyage in the equipage of his guest. therefore, three canoes were selected from his own royal fleet. one for ourselves, and a trio of companions whom he purposed introducing to my notice; the rest were reserved for attendants. thanks to media's taste and heedfulness, the strangers above mentioned proved truly acceptable. the first was mohi, or braid-beard, so called from the manner in which he wore that appendage, exceedingly long and gray. he was a venerable teller of stories and legends, one of the keepers of the chronicles of the kings of mardi. the second was babbalanja, a man of a mystical aspect, habited in a voluminous robe. he was learned in mardian lore; much given to quotations from ancient and obsolete authorities: the ponderings of old bardianna: the pandects of alla-malolla. third and last, was yoomy, or the warbler. a youthful, long-haired, blue-eyed minstrel; all fits and starts; at times, absent of mind, and wan of cheek; but always very neat and pretty in his apparel; wearing the most becoming of turbans, a bird of paradise feather its plume, and sporting the gayest of sashes. most given was yoomy to amorous melodies, and rondos, and roundelays, very witching to hear. but at times disdaining the oaten reed, like a clarion he burst forth with lusty lays of arms and battle; or, in mournful strains, sounded elegies for departed bards and heroes. thus much for yoomy as a minstrel. in other respects, it would be hard to depict him. he was so capricious a mortal; so swayed by contrary moods; so lofty, so humble, so sad, so merry; so made up of a thousand contradictions, that we must e'en let him depict himself as our story progresses. and herein it is hoped he will succeed; since no one in mardi comprehended him. now the trio, thus destined for companions on our voyage, had for some time been anxious to take the tour of the archipelago. in particular, babbalanja had often expressed the most ardent desire to visit every one of the isles, in quest of some object, mysteriously hinted. he murmured deep concern for my loss, the sincerest sympathy; and pressing my hand more than once, said lowly, "your pursuit is mine, noble taji. where'er you search, i follow." so, too, yoomy addressed me; but with still more feeling. and something like this, also, braid-beard repeated. but to my sorrow, i marked that both mohi and babbalanja, especially the last, seemed not so buoyant of hope, concerning lost yillah, as the youthful yoomy, and his high-spirited lord, king media. as our voyage would embrace no small period of time, it behoved king media to appoint some trustworthy regent, to rule during his absence. this regent was found in almanni, a stem-eyed, resolute warrior, a kinsman of the king. all things at last in readiness, and the ensuing morning appointed for a start, media, on the beach, at eventide, when both light and water waned, drew a rude map of the lagoon, to compensate for the obstructions in the way of a comprehensive glance at it from odo. and thus was sketched the plan of our voyage; which islands first to visit; and which to touch at, when we should be homeward bound. chapter lxvi with a fair wind, at sunrise they sail true each to his word, up came the sun, and round to my isle came media. how glorious a morning! the new-born clouds all dappled with gold, and streaked with violet; the sun in high spirits; and the pleasant air cooled overnight by the blending circumambient fountains, forever playing all round the reef; the lagoon within, the coral-rimmed basin, into which they poured, subsiding, hereabouts, into green tranquillity. but what monsters of canoes! would they devour an innocent voyager? their great black prows curling aloft, and thrown back like trunks of elephants; a dark, snaky length behind, like the sea-serpent's train. the prow of the foremost terminated in a large, open, shark's mouth, garnished with ten rows of pearly human teeth, curiously inserted into the sculptured wood. the gunwale was ornamented with rows of rich spotted leopard and tiger-shells; here and there, varied by others, flat and round, and spirally traced; gay serpents petrified in coils. these were imbedded in a grooved margin, by means of a resinous compound, exhaling such spices, that the canoes were odoriferous as the indian chests of the maldives. the likeness of the foremost canoe to an elephant, was helped by a sort of canopied howdah in its stern, of heavy, russet-dyed tappa, tasselled at the corners with long bunches of cocoanut fibres, stained red. these swayed to and fro, like the fox-tails on a tuscarora robe. but what is this, in the head of the canoe, just under the shark's mouth? a grinning little imp of an image; a ring in its nose; cowrie shells jingling at its ears; with an abominable leer, like that of silenus reeling on his ass. it was taking its ease; cosily smoking a pipe; its bowl, a duodecimo edition of the face of the smoker. this image looked sternward; everlastingly mocking us. of these canoes, it may be well to state, that although during our stay in odo, so many barges and shallops had touched there, nothing similar to media's had been seen. but inquiring whence his sea-equipage came, we were thereupon taught to reverence the same as antiquities and heir-looms; claw-keeled, dragon-prowed crafts of a bygone generation; at present, superseded in general use by the more swan-like canoes, significant of the advanced stage of marine architecture in mardi. no sooner was this known, than what had seemed almost hideous in my eyes, became merely grotesque. nor could i help being greatly delighted with the good old family pride of our host. the upper corners of our sails displayed the family crest of media; three upright boars' tusks, in an heraldic field argent. a fierce device: whom rends he? all things in readiness, we glided away: the multitude waving adieu; and our flotilla disposed in the following order. first went the royal elephant, carrying media, myself, jarl, and samoa; mohi the teller of legends, babbalanja, and yoomy, and six vivacious paddlers; their broad paddle-blades carved with the royal boars' tusks, the same tattooed on their chests for a livery. and thus, as media had promised, we voyaged in state. to crown all, seated sideways in the high, open shark's-mouth of our prow was a little dwarf of a boy, one of media's pages, a red conch-shell, bugle-wise suspended at his side. among various other offices, it was the duty of little vee-vee to announce the advent of his master, upon drawing near to the islands in our route. two short bars, projecting from one side of the prow, furnished him the means of ascent to his perch. as we gained the open lagoon with bellied sails, and paddles playing, a sheaf of foam borne upright at our prow; yoomy, standing where the spicy spray flew over him, stretched forth his hand and cried--"the dawn of day is passed, and mardi lies all before us: all her isles, and all her lakes; all her stores of good and evil. storms may come, our barks may drown. but blow before us, all ye winds; give us a lively blast, good clarion; rally round us all our wits; and be this voyage full gayly sailed, for yillah will yet be found." chapter lxvii little king peepi valapee, or the isle of yams, being within plain sight of media's dominions, we were not very long in drawing nigh to its shores. two long parallel elevations, rising some three arrow-flights into the air, double-ridge the island's entire length, lapping between, a widening vale, so level withal, that at either extremity, the green of its groves blends with the green of the lagoon; and the isle seems divided by a strait. within several paces of the beach, our canoes keeled the bottom, and camel-like mutely hinted that we voyagers must dismount. hereupon, the assembled islanders ran into the water, and with bent shoulders obsequiously desired the honor of transporting us to land. the beach gained, all present wearing robes instantly stripped them to the waist; a naked chest being their salute to kings. very convenient for the common people, this; their half-clad forms presenting a perpetual and profound salutation. presently, peepi, the ruler of valapee drew near: a boy, hardly ten years old, striding the neck of a burly mute, bearing a long spear erect before him, to which was attached a canopy of five broad banana leaves, new plucked. thus shaded, little peepi advanced, steadying himself by the forelock of his bearer. besides his bright red robe, the young prince wore nothing but the symbol of valapeean royalty; a string of small, close-fitting, concave shells, coiled and ambushed in his profuse, curly hair; one end falling over his ear, revealing a serpent's head, curiously carved from a nutmeg. quite proverbial, the unembarrassed air of young slips of royalty. but there was something so surprisingly precocious in this young peepi, that at first one hardly knew what to conclude. the first compliments over, the company were invited inland to a shady retreat. as we pursued the path, walking between old mohi the keeper of chronicles and samoa the upoluan, babbalanja besought the former to enlighten a stranger concerning the history of this curious peepi. whereupon the chronicler gave us the following account; for all of which he alone is responsible. peepi, it seems, had been proclaimed king before he was born; his sire dying some few weeks previous to that event; and vacating his divan, declared that he left a monarch behind. marvels were told of peepi. along with the royal dignity, and superadded to the soul possessed in his own proper person, the infant monarch was supposed to have inherited the valiant spirits of some twenty heroes, sages, simpletons, and demi-gods, previously lodged in his sire. most opulent in spiritual gifts was this lord of valapee; the legatee, moreover, of numerous anonymous souls, bequeathed to him by their late loyal proprietors. by a slavish act of his convocation of chiefs, he also possessed the reversion of all and singular the immortal spirits, whose first grantees might die intestate in valapee. servile, yet audacious senators! thus prospectively to administrate away the inalienable rights of posterity. but while yet unborn, the people of valapee had been deprived of more than they now sought to wrest from their descendants. and former peepies, infant and adult, had received homage more profound, than peepi the present. witness the demeanor of the chieftains of old, upon every new investiture of the royal serpent. in a fever of loyalty, they were wont to present themselves before the heir to the isle, to go through with the court ceremony of the pupera; a curious proceeding, so called: inverted endeavors to assume an erect posture: the nasal organ the base. it was to the frequent practice of this ceremony, that most intelligent observers imputed the flattened noses of the elderly chiefs of the island; who, nevertheless, much gloried therein. it was these chiefs, also, who still observed the old-fashioned custom of retiring from the presence of royalty with their heads between their thighs; so that while advancing in the contrary direction, their faces might be still deferentially turned toward their lord and master. a fine view of him did they obtain. all objects look well through an arch. but to return to peepi, the inheritor of souls and subjects. it was an article of faith with the people of valapee, that peepi not only actually possessed the souls bequeathed to him; but that his own was enriched by their peculiar qualities: the headlong valor of the late tongatona; the pusillanimous discretion of blandoo; the cunning of voyo; the simplicity of raymonda; the prodigality of zonoree; the thrift of titonti. but had all these, and similar opposite qualities, simultaneously acted as motives upon peepi, certes, he would have been a most pitiable mortal, in a ceaseless eddy of resolves, incapable of a solitary act. but blessed be the gods, it was otherwise. though it fared little better for his subjects as it was. his assorted souls were uppermost and active in him, one by one. today, valiant tongatona ruled the isle, meditating wars and invasions; tomorrow, thrice discreet blandoo, who, disbanding the levies, turned his attention to the terraces of yams. and so on in rotation to the end. whence, though capable of action, peepi, by reason of these revolving souls in him, was one of the most unreliable of beings. what the open-handed zonoree promised freely to-day, the parsimonious titonti withheld to-morrow; and forever raymonda was annulling the doings of voyo; and voyo the doings of raymonda. what marvel then, that in valapee all was legislative uproar and confusion; advance and retreat; abrogations and revivals; foundations without superstructures; nothing permanent but the island itself. nor were there those in the neighboring countries, who failed to reap profit from this everlasting transition state of the affairs of the kingdom. all boons from peepi were entreated when the prodigal zonoree was lord of the ascendant. and audacious claims were urged upon the state when the pusillanimous blandoo shrank from the thought of resisting them. thus subject to contrary impulses, over which he had not the faintest control, peepi was plainly denuded of all moral obligation to virtue. he was no more a free agent, than the heart which beat in his bosom. wherefore, his complaisant parliament had passed a law, recognizing that curious, but alarming fact; solemnly proclaiming, that king peepi was minus a conscience. agreeable to truth. but when they went further, and vowed by statute, that peepi could do no wrong, they assuredly did violence to the truth; besides, making a sad blunder in their logic. for far from possessing an absolute aversion to evil, by his very nature it was the hardest thing in the world for peepi to do right. taking all these things into consideration, then, no wonder that this wholly irresponsible young prince should be a lad of considerable assurance, and the easiest manners imaginable. chapter lxviii how teeth were regarded in valapee coiling through the thickets, like the track of a serpent, wound along the path we pursued. and ere long we came to a spacious grove, embowering an oval arbor. here, we reclined at our ease, and refreshments were served. little worthy of mention occurred, save this. happening to catch a glimpse of the white even teeth of hohora one of our attendants, king peepi coolly begged of media the favor, to have those same dentals drawn on the spot, and presented to him. now human teeth, extracted, are reckoned among the most valuable ornaments in mardi. so open wide thy strong box, hohora, and show thy treasures. what a gallant array! standing shoulder to shoulder, without a hiatus between. a complete set of jewelry, indeed, thought peepi. but, it seems, not destined for him; media leaving it to the present proprietor, whether his dentals should change owners or not. and here, to prepare the way for certain things hereafter to be narrated, something farther needs be said concerning the light in which men's molars are regarded in mardi. strung together, they are sported for necklaces, or hung in drops from the ear; they are wrought into dice; in lieu of silken locks, are exchanged for love tokens. as in all lands, men smite their breasts, and tear their hair, when transported with grief; so, in some countries, teeth are stricken out under the sway of similar emotions. to a very great extent, this was once practiced in the hawaiian islands, ere idol and altar went down. still living in oahu, are many old chiefs, who were present at the famous obsequies of their royal old generalissimo, tammahammaha, when there is no telling how many pounds of ivory were cast upon his grave. ah! had the regal white elephants of siam been there, doubtless they had offered up their long, hooked tusks, whereon they impale the leopards, their foes; and the unicorn had surrendered that fixed bayonet in his forehead; and the imperial cachalot-whale, the long chain of white towers in his jaw; yea, over that grim warrior's grave, the mooses, and elks, and stags, and fallow-deer had stacked their antlers, as soldiers their arms on the field. terrific shade of tattooed tammahammaha! if, from a vile dragon's molars, rose mailed men, what heroes shall spring from the cannibal canines once pertaining to warriors themselves!--am i the witch of endor, that i conjure up this ghost? or, king saul, that i so quake at the sight? for, lo! roundabout me tammahammaha's tattooing expands, till all the sky seems a tiger's skin. but now, the spotted phantom sweeps by; as a man-of-war's main-sail, cloud-like, blown far to leeward in a gale. banquo down, we return. in valapee, prevails not the barbarous hindoo custom of offering up widows to the shades of their lords; for, bereaved, the widows there marry again. nor yet prevails the savage hawaiian custom of offering up teeth to the manes of the dead; for, at the decease of a friend, the people rob not their own mouths to testify their woe. on the contrary, they extract the teeth from the departed, distributing them among the mourners for memorial legacies; as elsewhere, silver spoons are bestowed. from the high value ascribed to dentals throughout the archipelago of mardi, and also from their convenient size, they are circulated as money; strings of teeth being regarded by these people very much as belts of wampum among the winnebagoes of the north; or cowries, among the bengalese. so, that in valapee the very beggars are born with a snug investment in their mouths; too soon, however, to be appropriated by their lords; leaving them toothless for the rest of their days, and forcing them to diet on poee-pudding and banana blanc-mange. as a currency, teeth are far less clumsy than cocoanuts; which, among certain remote barbarians, circulate for coin; one nut being equivalent, perhaps, to a penny. the voyager who records the fact, chuckles over it hugely; as evincing the simplicity of those heathens; not knowing that he himself was the simpleton; since that currency of theirs was purposely devised by the men, to check the extravagance of their women; cocoanuts, for spending money, being such a burden to carry. it only remains to be added, that the most solemn oath of a native of valapee is that sworn by his tooth. "by this tooth," said bondo to noojoomo, "by this tooth i swear to be avenged upon thee, oh noojoomo!" chapter lxix the company discourse, and braid-beard rehearses a legend finding in valapee no trace of her whom we sought, and but little pleased with the cringing demeanor of the people, and the wayward follies of peepi their lord, we early withdrew from the isle. as we glided away, king media issued a sociable decree. he declared it his royal pleasure, that throughout the voyage, all stiffness and state etiquette should be suspended: nothing must occur to mar the freedom of the party. to further this charming plan, he doffed his symbols of royalty, put off his crown, laid aside his scepter, and assured us that he would not wear them again, except when we landed; and not invariably, then. "are we not all now friends and companions?" he said. "so companions and friends let us be. i unbend my bow; do ye likewise." "but are we not to be dignified?" asked babbalanja. "if dignity be free and natural, be as dignified as you please; but away with rigidities." "away they go," said babbalanja; "and, my lord, now that you mind me of it, i have often thought, that it is all folly and vanity for any man to attempt a dignified carriage. why, my lord,"--frankly crossing his legs where he lay--"the king, who receives his ambassadors with a majestic toss of the head, may have just recovered from the tooth-ache. that thought should cant over the spine he bears so bravely." "have a care, sir! there is a king within hearing." "pardon, my lord; i was merely availing myself of the immunity bestowed upon the company. hereafter, permit a subject to rebel against your sociable decrees. i will not be so frank any more." "well put, babbalanja; come nearer; here, cross your legs by mine; you have risen a cubit in my regard. vee-vee, bring us that gourd of wine; so, pass it round with the cups. now, yoomy, a song!" and a song was sung. and thus did we sail; pleasantly reclining on the mats stretched out beneath the canopied howdah. at length, we drew nigh to a rock, called pella, or the theft. a high, green crag, toppling over its base, and flinging a cavernous shadow upon the lagoon beneath, bubbling with the moisture that dropped. passing under this cliff was like finding yourself, as some sea-hunters unexpectedly have, beneath the open, upper jaw of a whale; which, descending, infallibly entombs you. but familiar with the rock, our paddlers only threw back their heads, to catch the cool, pleasant tricklings from the mosses above. wiping away several glittering beads from his beard, old mohi turning round where he sat, just outside the canopy, solemnly affirmed, that the drinking of that water had cured many a man of ambition. "how so, old man?" demanded media. "because of its passing through the ashes of ten kings, of yore buried in a sepulcher, hewn in the heart of the rock." "mighty kings, and famous, doubtless," said babbalanja, "whose bones were thought worthy of so noble and enduring as urn. pray, mohi, their names and terrible deeds." "alas! their sepulcher only remains." "and, no doubt, like many others, they made that sepul for themselves. they sleep sound, my word for it, old man. but i very much question, if, were the rock rent, any ashes would be found. mohi, i deny that those kings ever had any bones to bury." "why, babbalanja," said media, "since you intimate that they never had ghosts to give up, you ignore them in toto; denying the very fact of their being even defunct." "ten thousand pardons, my lord, no such discourtesy would i do the anonymous memory of the illustrious dead. but whether they ever lived or not, it is all the same with them now. yet, grant that they lived; then, if death be a deaf-and-dumb death, a triumphal procession over their graves would concern them not. if a birth into brightness, then mardi must seem to them the most trivial of reminiscences. or, perhaps, theirs may be an utter lapse of memory concerning sublunary things; and they themselves be not themselves, as the butterfly is not the larva." said yoomy, "then, babbalanja, you account that a fit illustration of the miraculous change to be wrought in man after death?" "no; for the analogy has an unsatisfactory end. from its chrysalis state, the silkworm but becomes a moth, that very quickly expires. its longest existence is as a worm. all vanity, vanity, yoomy, to seek in nature for positive warranty to these aspirations of ours. through all her provinces, nature seems to promise immortality to life, but destruction to beings. or, as old bardianna has it, if not against us, nature is not for us." said media, rising, "babbalanja, you have indeed put aside the courtier; talking of worms and caterpillars to me, a king and a demi-god! to renown, for your theme: a more agreeable topic." "pardon, once again, my lord. and since you will, let us discourse of that subject. first, i lay it down for an indubitable maxim, that in itself all posthumous renown, which is the only renown, is valueless. be not offended, my lord. to the nobly ambitious, renown hereafter may be something to anticipate. but analyzed, that feverish typhoid feeling of theirs may be nothing more than a flickering fancy, that now, while living, they are recognized as those who will be as famous in their shrouds, as in their girdles." said yoomy, "but those great and good deeds, babbalanja, of which the philosophers so often discourse: must it not be sweet to believe that their memory will long survive us; and we ourselves in them?" "i speak now," said babbalanja, "of the ravening for fame which even appeased, like thirst slaked in the desert, yields no felicity, but only relief; and which discriminates not in aught that will satisfy its cravings. but let me resume. not an hour ago, braid-beard was telling us that story of prince ottimo, who inodorous while living, expressed much delight at the prospect of being perfumed and embalmed, when dead. but was not ottimo the most eccentric of mortals? for few men issue orders for their shrouds, to inspect their quality beforehand. far more anxious are they about the texture of the sheets in which their living limbs lie. and, my lord, with some rare exceptions, does not all mardi, by its actions, declare, that it is far better to be notorious now, than famous hereafter?" "a base sentiment, my lord," said yoomy. "did not poor bonja, the unappreciated poet, console himself for the neglect of his contemporaries, by inspiriting thoughts of the future?" "in plain words by bethinking him of the glorious harvest of bravos his ghost would reap for him," said babbalanja; "but banjo,--bonjo,--binjo,--i never heard of him." "nor i," said mohi. "nor i," said media. "poor fellow!" cried babbalanja; "i fear me his harvest is not yet ripe." "alas!" cried yoomy; "he died more than a century ago." "but now that you speak of unappreciated poets, yoomy," said babbalanja, "shall i give you a piece of my mind?" "do," said mohi, stroking his beard. "he, who on all hands passes for a cypher to-day, if at all remembered hereafter, will be sure to pass for the same. for there is more likelihood of being overrated while living, than of being underrated when dead. and to insure your fame, you must die." "a rather discouraging thought for your race. but answer: i assume that king media is but a mortal like you; now, how may i best perpetuate my name?" long pondered babbalanja; then said, "carve it, my lord, deep into a ponderous stone, and sink it, face downward, into the sea; for the unseen foundations of the deep are more enduring than the palpable tops of the mountains." sailing past pella, we gained a view of its farther side; and seated in a lofty cleft, beheld a lonely fisherman; solitary as a seal on an iceberg; his motionless line in the water. "what recks he of the ten kings," said babbalanja. "mohi," said media, "methinks there is another tradition concerning that rock: let us have it." "in old times of genii and giants, there dwelt in barren lands, not very remote from our outer reef, but since submerged, a band of evil-minded, envious goblins, furlongs in stature, and with immeasurable arms; who from time to time cast covetous glances upon our blooming isles. long they lusted; till at last, they waded through the sea, strode over the reef, and seizing the nearest islet, rolled it over and over, toward an adjoining outlet. "but the task was hard; and day-break surprised them in the midst of their audacious thieving; while in the very act of giving the devoted land another doughty surge and somerset. leaving it bottom upward and midway poised, gardens under water, its foundations in air, they precipitately fled; in their great haste, deserting a comrade, vainly struggling to liberate his foot caught beneath the overturned land." "this poor fellow now raised such an outcry, as to awaken the god upi, or the archer, stretched out on a long cloud in the east; who forthwith resolved to make an example of the unwilling lingerer. snatching his bow, he let fly an arrow. but overshooting its mark, it pierced through and through, the lofty promontory of a neighboring island; making an arch in it, which remaineth even unto this day. a second arrow, however, accomplished its errand: the slain giant sinking prone to the bottom." "and now," added mohi, "glance over the gunwale, and you will see his remains petrified into white ribs of coral." "ay, there they are," said yoomy, looking down into the water where they gleamed. "a fanciful legend, braid-beard." "very entertaining," said media. "even so," said babbalanja. "but perhaps we lost time in listening to it; for though we know it, we are none the wiser." "be not a cynic," said media. "no pastime is lost time." musing a moment, babbalanja replied, "my lord, that maxim may be good as it stands; but had you made six words of it, instead of six syllables, you had uttered a better and a deeper." chapter lxx the minstrel leads off with a paddle-song; and a message is received from abroad from seaward now came a breeze so blithesome and fresh, that it made us impatient of babbalanja's philosophy, and mohi's incredible legends. one and all, we called upon the minstrel yoomy to give us something in unison with the spirited waves wide-foaming around us. "if my lord will permit, we will give taji the paddle-chant of the warriors of king bello." "by all means," said media. so the three canoes were brought side to side; their sails rolled up; and paddles in hand, our paddlers seated themselves sideways on the gunwales; yoomy, as leader, occupying the place of the foremast, or bow-paddler of the royal barge. whereupon the six rows of paddle-blades being uplifted, and every eye on the minstrel, this song was sung, with actions corresponding; the canoes at last shooting through the water, with a violent roll. (_all._) thrice waved on high, our paddles fly: thrice round the head, thrice dropt to feet: and then well timed, of one stout mind, all fall, and back the waters heap! (_bow-paddler._) who lifts this chant? who sounds this vaunt? (_all._) the wild sea song, to the billows' throng, rising, falling, hoarsely calling, now high, now low, as fast we go, fast on our flying foe! (_bow-paddler._) who lifts this chant? who sounds this vaunt? (_all._) dip, dip, in the brine our paddles dip, dip, dip, the fins of our swimming ship! how the waters part, as on we dart; our sharp prows fly, and curl on high, as the upright fin of the rushing shark, rushing fast and far on his flying mark! like him we prey; like him we slay; swim on the fog, our prow a blow! (_bow-paddler._) who lifts this chant? who sounds this vaunt? (_all._) heap back; heap back; the waters back! pile them high astern, in billows black; till we leave our wake, in the slope we make; and rush and ride, on the torrent's tide! here we were overtaken by a swift gliding canoe, which, bearing down upon us before the wind, lowered its sail when close by: its occupants signing our paddlers to desist. i started. the strangers were three hooded damsels the enigmatical queen hautia's heralds. their pursuit surprised and perplexed me. nor was there wanting a vague feeling of alarm to heighten these emotions. but perhaps i was mistaken, and this time they meant not me. seated in the prow, the foremost waved her iris flag. cried yoomy, "some message! taji, that iris points to you." it was then, i first divined, that some meaning must have lurked in those flowers they had twice brought me before. the second damsel now flung over to me circe flowers; then, a faded jonquil, buried in a tuft of wormwood leaves. the third sat in the shallop's stern, and as it glided from us, thrice waved oleanders. "what dumb show is this?" cried media. "but it looks like poetry: minstrel, you should know." "interpret then," said i. "shall i, then, be your flora's flute, and hautia's dragoman? held aloft, the iris signified a message. these purple-woven circe flowers mean that some spell is weaving. that golden, pining jonquil, which you hold, buried in those wormwood leaves, says plainly to you--bitter love in absence." said media, "well done, taji, you have killed a queen." "yet no queen hautia have these eyes beheld." said babbalanja, "the thrice waved oleanders, yoomy; what meant they?" "beware--beware--beware." "then that, at least, seems kindly meant," said babbalanja; "taji, beware of hautia." chapter lxxi they land upon the island of juam crossing the lagoon, our course now lay along the reef to juam; a name bestowed upon one of the largest islands hereabout; and also, collectively, upon several wooded isles engulfing it, which together were known as the dominions of one monarch. that monarch was donjalolo. just turned of twenty-five, he was accounted not only the handsomest man in his dominions, but throughout the lagoon. his comeliness, however, was so feminine, that he was sometimes called "fonoo," or the girl. our first view of juam was imposing. a dark green pile of cliffs, towering some one hundred toises; at top, presenting a range of steep, gable-pointed projections; as if some titanic hammer and chisel had shaped the mass. sailing nearer, we perceived an extraordinary rolling of the sea; which bursting into the lagoon through an adjoining breach in the reef, surged toward juam in enormous billows. at last, dashing against the wall of the cliff; they played there in unceasing fountains. but under the brow of a beetling crag, the spray came and went unequally. there, the blue billows seemed swallowed up, and lost. right regally was juam guarded. for, at this point, the rock was pierced by a cave, into which the great waves chased each other like lions; after a hollow, subterraneous roaring issuing forth with manes disheveled. cautiously evading the dangerous currents here ruffling the lagoon, we rounded the wall of cliff; and shot upon a smooth expanse; on one side, hemmed in by the long, verdent, northern shore of juam; and across the water, sentineled by its tributary islets. with sonorous vee-vee in the shark's mouth, we swept toward the beach, tumultuous with a throng. our canoes were secured. and surrounded by eager glances, we passed the lower ends of several populous valleys; and crossing a wide, open meadow, gradually ascending, came to a range of light-green bluffs. here, we wended our way down a narrow defile, almost cleaving this quarter of the island to its base. black crags frowned overhead: among them the shouts of the islanders reverberated. yet steeper grew the defile, and more overhanging the crags till at last, the keystone of the arch seemed dropped into its place. we found ourselves in a subterranean tunnel, dimly lighted by a span of white day at the end. emerging, what a scene was revealed! all round, embracing a circuit of some three leagues, stood heights inaccessible, here and there, forming buttresses, sheltering deep recesses between. the bosom of the place was vivid with verdure. shining aslant into this wild hollow, the afternoon sun lighted up its eastern side with tints of gold. but opposite, brooded a somber shadow, double-shading the secret places between the salient spurs of the mountains. thus cut in twain by masses of day and night, it seemed as if some last judgment had been enacted in the glen. no sooner did we emerge from the defile, than we became sensible of a dull, jarring sound; and yoomy was almost tempted to turn and flee, when informed that the sea-cavern, whose mouth we had passed, was believed to penetrate deep into the opposite hills; and that the surface of the amphitheater was depressed beneath that of the lagoon. but all over the lowermost hillsides, and sloping into the glen, stood grand old groves; still and stately, as if no insolent waves were throbbing in the mountain's heart. such was willamilla, the hereditary abode of the young monarch of juam. was yillah immured in this strange retreat? but from those around us naught could we learn. our attention was now directed to the habitations of the glen; comprised in two handsome villages; one to the west, the other to the east; both stretching along the base of the cliffs. said media, "had we arrived at willamilla in the morning, we had found donjalolo and his court in the eastern village; but being afternoon, we must travel farther, and seek him in his western retreat; for that is now in the shade." wending our way, media added, that aside from his elevated station as a monarch, donjalolo was famed for many uncommon traits; but more especially for certain peculiar deprivations, under which he labored. whereupon braid-beard unrolled his old chronicles; and regaled us with the history, which will be found in the following chapter. chapter lxxii a book from the chronicles of mohi many ages ago, there reigned in juam a king called teei. this teei's succession to the sovereignty was long disputed by his brother marjora; who at last rallying round him an army, after many vicissitudes, defeated the unfortunate monarch in a stout fight of clubs on the beach. in those days, willamilla during a certain period of the year was a place set apart for royal games and diversions; and was furnished with suitable accommodations for king and court. from its peculiar position, moreover, it was regarded as the last stronghold of the juam monarchy: in remote times having twice withstood the most desperate assaults from without. and when roonoonoo, a famous upstart, sought to subdue all the isles in this part of the archipelago, it was to willamilla that the banded kings had repaired to take counsel together; and while there conferring, were surprised at the sudden onslaught of roonoonoo in person. but in the end, the rebel was captured, he and all his army, and impaled on the tops of the hills. now, defeated and fleeing for his life, teei with his surviving followers was driven across the plain toward the mountains. but to cut him off from all escape to inland willamilla, marjora dispatched a fleet band of warriors to occupy the entrance of the defile. nevertheless, teei the pursued ran faster than his pursuers; first gained the spot; and with his chiefs, fled swiftly down the gorge, closely hunted by marjora's men. but arriving at the further end, they in vain sought to defend it. and after much desperate fighting, the main body of the foe corning up with great slaughter the fugitives were driven into the glen. they ran to the opposite wall of cliff; where turning, they fought at bay, blood for blood, and life for life, till at last, overwhelmed by numbers, they were all put to the point of the spear. with fratricidal hate, singled out by the ferocious marjora, teei fell by that brother's hand. when stripping from the body the regal girdle, the victor wound it round his own loins; thus proclaiming himself king over juam. long torn by this intestine war, the island acquiesced in the new sovereignty. but at length a sacred oracle declared, that since the conqueror had slain his brother in deep willamilla, so that teei never more issued from that refuge of death; therefore, the same fate should be marjora's; for never, thenceforth, from that glen, should he go forth; neither marjora; nor any son of his girdled loins; nor his son's sons; nor the uttermost scion of his race. but except this denunciation, naught was denounced against the usurper; who, mindful of the tenure by which he reigned, ruled over the island for many moons; at his death bequeathing the girdle to his son. in those days, the wildest superstitions concerning the interference of the gods in things temporal, prevailed to a much greater extent than at present. hence marjora himself, called sometimes in the traditions of the island, the-heart-of-black-coral, even unscrupulous marjora had quailed before the oracle. "he bowed his head," say the legends. nor was it then questioned, by his most devoted adherents, that had he dared to act counter to that edict, he had dropped dead, the very instant he went under the shadow of the defile. this persuasion also guided the conduct of the son of marjora, and that of his grandson. but there at last came to pass a change in the popular fancies concerning this ancient anathema. the penalty denounced against the posterity of the usurper should they issue from the glen, came to be regarded as only applicable to an invested monarch, not to his relatives, or heirs. a most favorable construction of the ban; for all those related to the king, freely passed in and out of willamilla. from the time of the usurpation, there had always been observed a certain ceremony upon investing the heir to the sovereignty with the girdle of teei. upon these occasions, the chief priests of the island were present, acting an important part. for the space of as many days, as there had reigned kings of marjora's dynasty, the inner mouth of the defile remained sealed; the new monarch placing the last stone in the gap. this symbolized his relinquishment forever of all purpose of passing out of the glen. and without this observance, was no king girdled in juam. it was likewise an invariable custom, for the heir to receive the regal investiture immediately upon the decease of his sire. no delay was permitted. and instantly upon being girdled, he proceeded to take part in the ceremony of closing the cave; his predecessor yet remaining uninterred on the purple mat where he died. in the history of the island, three instances were recorded; wherein, upon the vacation of the sovereignty, the immediate heir had voluntarily renounced all claim to the succession, rather than surrender the privilege of roving, to which he had been entitled, as a prince of the blood. said rani, one of these young princes, in reply to the remonstrances of his friends, "what! shall i be a king, only to be a slave? teei's girdle would clasp my waist less tightly, than my soul would be banded by the mountains of willamilla. a subject, i am free. no slave in juam but its king; for all the tassels round his loins." to guard against a similar resolution in the mind of his only son, the wise sire of donjalolo, ardently desirous of perpetuating his dignities in a child so well beloved, had from his earliest infancy, restrained the boy from passing out of the glen, to contract in the free air of the archipelago, tastes and predilections fatal to the inheritance of the girdle. but as he grew in years, so impatient became young donjalolo of the king his father's watchfulness over him, though hitherto a most dutiful son, that at last he was prevailed upon by his youthful companions to appoint a day, on which to go abroad, and visit mardi. hearing this determination, the old king sought to vanquish it. but in vain. and early on the morning of the day, that donjalolo was to set out, he swallowed poison, and died; in order to force his son into the instant assumption of the honors thus suddenly inherited. the event, but not its dreadful circumstances, was communicated to the prince; as with a gay party of young chiefs, he was about to enter the mouth of the defile. "my sire dead!" cried donjalolo. "so sudden, it seems a bolt from heaven." and bursting into exclamations of grief, he wept upon the bosom of talara his friend. but starting from his side:--"my fate converges to a point. if i but cross that shadow, my kingdom is lost. one lifting of my foot, and the girdle goes to my proud uncle darfi, who would so joy to be my master. haughty dwarf! oh oro! would that i had ere this passed thee, fatal cavern; and seen for myself, what outer mardi is. say ye true, comrades, that willamilla is less lovely than the valleys without? that there is bright light in the eyes of the maidens of mina? and wisdom in the hearts of the old priests of maramma; that it is pleasant to tread the green earth where you will; and breathe the free ocean air? would, oh would, that i were but the least of yonder sun-clouds, that look down alike on willamilla and all places besides, that i might determine aright. yet why do i pause? did not rani, and atama, and mardonna, my ancestors, each see for himself, free mardi; and did they not fly the proffered girdle; choosing rather to be free to come and go, than bury themselves forever in this fatal glen? oh mardi! mardi! art thou then so fair to see? is liberty a thing so glorious? yet can i be no king, and behold thee! too late, too late, to view thy charms and then return. my sire! my sire! thou hast wrung my heart with this agony of doubt. tell me, comrades,--for ye have seen it,--is mardi sweeter to behold, than it is royal to reign over juam? silent, are ye? knowing what ye do, were ye me, would ye be kings? tell me, talara.--no king: no king:--that were to obey, and not command. and none hath donjalolo ere obeyed but the king his father. a king, and my voice may be heard in farthest mardi, though i abide in narrow willamilla. my sire! my sire! ye flying clouds, what look ye down upon? tell me, what ye see abroad? methinks sweet spices breathe from out the cave." "hail, donjalolo, king of juam," now sounded with acclamations from the groves. starting, the young prince beheld a multitude approaching: warriors with spears, and maidens with flowers; and kubla, a priest, lifting on high the tasseled girdle of teei, and waving it toward him. the young chiefs fell back. kubla, advancing, came close to the prince, and unclasping the badge of royalty, exclaimed, "donjalolo, this instant it is king or subject with thee: wilt thou be girdled monarch?" gazing one moment up the dark defile, then staring vacantly, donjalolo turned and met the eager gaze of darfi. stripping off his mantle, the next instant he was a king. loud shouted the multitude, and exulted; but after mutely assisting at the closing of the cavern, the new-girdled monarch retired sadly to his dwelling, and was not seen again for many days. chapter lxxiii something more of the prince previous to recording our stay in his dominions, it only remains to be related of donjalolo, that after assuming the girdle, a change came over him. during the lifetime of his father, he had been famed for his temperance and discretion. but when mardi was forever shut out; and he remembered the law of his isle, interdicting abdication to its kings; he gradually fell into desperate courses, to drown the emotions at times distracting him. his generous spirit thirsting after some energetic career, found itself narrowed down within the little glen of willamilla, where ardent impulses seemed idle. but these are hard to die; and repulsed all round, recoil upon themselves. so with donjalolo; who, in many a riotous scene, wasted the powers which might have compassed the noblest designs. not many years had elapsed since the death of the king, his father. but the still youthful prince was no longer the bright-eyed and elastic boy who at the dawn of day had sallied out to behold the landscapes of the neighboring isles. not more effeminate sardanapalus, than he. and, at intervals, he was the victim of unaccountable vagaries; haunted by specters, and beckoned to by the ghosts of his sires. at times, loathing his vicious pursuits, which brought him no solid satisfaction, but ever filled him with final disgust, he would resolve to amend his ways; solacing himself for his bitter captivity, by the society of the wise and discreet. but brief the interval of repentance. anew, he burst into excesses, a hundred fold more insane than ever. thus vacillating between virtue and vice; to neither constant, and upbraided by both; his mind, like his person in the glen, was continually passing and repassing between opposite extremes. chapter lxxiv advancing deeper into the vale, they encounter donjalolo from the mouth of the cavern, a broad shaded way over-arched by fraternal trees embracing in mid-air, conducted us to a cross-path, on either hand leading to the opposite cliffs, shading the twin villages before mentioned. level as a meadow, was the bosom of the glen. here, nodding with green orchards of the bread-fruit and the palm; there, flashing with golden plantations of the banana. emerging from these, we came out upon a grassy mead, skirting a projection of the mountain. and soon we crossed a bridge of boughs, spanning a trench, thickly planted with roots of the tara, like alligators, or hollanders, reveling in the soft alluvial. strolling on, the wild beauty of the mountains excited our attention. the topmost crags poured over with vines; which, undulating in the air, seemed leafy cascades; their sources the upland groves. midway up the precipice, along a shelf of rock, sprouted the multitudinous roots of an apparently trunkless tree. shooting from under the shallow soil, they spread all over the rocks below, covering them with an intricate net-work. while far aloft, great boughs--each a copse--clambered to the very summit of the mountain; then bending over, struck anew into the soil; forming along the verge an interminable colonnade; all manner of antic architecture standing against the sky. according to mohi, this tree was truly wonderful; its seed having been dropped from the moon; where were plenty more similar forests, causing the dark spots on its surface. here and there, the cool fluid in the veins of the mountains gushed forth in living springs; their waters received in green mossy tanks, half buried in grasses. in one place, a considerable stream, bounding far out from a wooded height, ere reaching the ground was dispersed in a wide misty shower, falling so far from the base of the cliff; that walking close underneath, you felt little moisture. passing this fall of vapors, we spied many islanders taking a bath. but what is yonder swaying of the foliage? and what now issues forth, like a habitation astir? donjalolo drawing nigh to his guests. he came in a fair sedan; a bower, resting upon three long, parallel poles, borne by thirty men, gayly attired; five at each pole-end. decked with dyed tappas, and looped with garlands of newly-plucked flowers, from which, at every step, the fragrant petals were blown; with a sumptuous, elastic motion the gay sedan came on; leaving behind it a long, rosy wake of fluttering leaves and odors. drawing near, it revealed a slender, enervate youth, of pallid beauty, reclining upon a crimson mat, near the festooned arch of the bower. his anointed head was resting against the bosom of a girl; another stirred the air, with a fan of pintado plumes. the pupils of his eyes were as floating isles in the sea. in a soft low tone he murmured "media!" the bearers paused; and media advancing; the island kings bowed their foreheads together. through tubes ignited at the end, donjaloln's reclining attendants now blew an aromatic incense around him. these were composed of the stimulating leaves of the "aina," mixed with the long yellow blades of a sweet-scented upland grass; forming a hollow stem. in general, the agreeable fumes of the "aina" were created by one's own inhalations; but donjalolo deeming the solace too dearly purchased by any exertion of the royal lungs, regaled himself through those of his attendants, whose lips were as moss-rose buds after a shower. in silence the young prince now eyed us attentively; meanwhile gently waving his hand, to obtain a better view through the wreaths of vapor. he was about to address us, when chancing to catch a glimpse of samoa, he suddenly started; averted his glance; and wildly commanded the warrior out of sight. upon this, his attendants would have soothed him; and media desired the upoluan to withdraw. while we were yet lost in wonder at this scene, donjalolo, with eyes closed, fell back into the arms of his damsels. recovering, he fetched a deep sigh, and gazed vacantly around. it seems, that he had fancied samoa the noon-day specter of his ancestor marjora; the usurper having been deprived of an arm in the battle which gained him the girdle. poor prince: this was one of those crazy conceits, so puzzling to his subjects. media now hastened to assure donjalolo, that samoa, though no cherub to behold, was good flesh and blood, nevertheless. and soon the king unconcernedly gazed; his monomania having departed as a dream. but still suffering from the effects of an overnight feast, he presently murmured forth a desire to be left to his women; adding that his people would not fail to provide for the entertainment of his guests. the curtains of the sedan were now drawn; and soon it disappeared in the groves. journeying on, ere long we arrived at the western side of the glen; where one of the many little arbors scattered among the trees, was assigned for our abode. here, we reclined to an agreeable repast. after which, we strolled forth to view the valley at large; more especially the far-famed palaces of the prince. chapter lxxv time and temples in the oriental pilgrimage of the pious old purchas, and in the fine old folio voyages of hakluyt, thevenot, ramusio, and de bry, we read of many glorious old asiatic temples, very long in erecting. and veracious gaudentia di lucca hath a wondrous narration of the time consumed in rearing that mighty three-hundred-and-seventy-five-pillared temple of the year, somewhere beyond libya; whereof, the columns did signify days, and all round fronted upon concentric zones of palaces, cross-cut by twelve grand avenues symbolizing the signs of the zodiac, all radiating from the sun-dome in their midst. and in that wild eastern tale of his, marco polo tells us, how the great mogul began him a pleasure-palace on so imperial a scale, that his grandson had much ado to complete it. but no matter for marveling all this: great towers take time to construct. and so of all else. and that which long endures full-fledged, must have long lain in the germ. and duration is not of the future, but of the past; and eternity is eternal, because it has been, and though a strong new monument be builded to-day, it only is lasting because its blocks are old as the sun. it is not the pyramids that are ancient, but the eternal granite whereof they are made; which had been equally ancient though yet in the quarry. for to make an eternity, we must build with eternities; whence, the vanity of the cry for any thing alike durable and new; and the folly of the reproach--your granite hath come from the old-fashioned hills. for we are not gods and creators; and the controversialists have debated, whether indeed the all-plastic power itself can do more than mold. in all the universe is but one original; and the very suns must to their source for their fire; and we prometheuses must to them for ours; which, when had, only perpetual vestal tending will keep alive. but let us back from fire to store. no fine firm fabric ever yet grew like a gourd. nero's house of gold was not raised in a day; nor the mexican house of the sun; nor the alhambra; nor the escurial; nor titus's amphitheater; nor the illinois mounds; nor diana's great columns at ephesus; nor pompey's proud pillar; nor the parthenon; nor the altar of belus; nor stonehenge; nor solomon's temple; nor tadmor's towers; nor susa's bastions; nor persepolis' pediments. round and round, the moorish turret at seville was not wound heavenward in the revolution of a day; and from its first founding, five hundred years did circle, ere strasbourg's great spire lifted its five hundred feet into the air. no: nor were the great grottos of elephanta hewn out in an hour; nor did the troglodytes dig kentucky's mammoth cave in a sun; nor that of trophonius, nor antiparos; nor the giant's causeway. nor were the subterranean arched sewers of etruria channeled in a trice; nor the airy arched aqueducts of nerva thrown over their values in the ides of a month. nor was virginia's natural bridge worn under in a year; nor, in geology, were the eternal grampians upheaved in an age. and who shall count the cycles that revolved ere earth's interior sedimentary strata were crystalized into stone. nor peak of piko, nor teneriffe, were chiseled into obelisks in a decade; nor had mount athos been turned into alexander's statue so soon. and the bower of artaxerxes took a whole persian summer to grow; and the czar's ice palace a long muscovite winter to congéal. no, no: nor was the pyramid of cheops masoned in a month; though, once built, the sands left by the deluge might not have submerged such a pile. nor were the broad boughs of charles' oak grown in a spring; though they outlived the royal dynasties of tudor and stuart. nor were the parts of the great iliad put together in haste; though old homer's temple shall lift up its dome, when st. peter's is a legend. even man himself lives months ere his maker deems him fit to be born; and ere his proud shaft gains its full stature, twenty-one long julian years must elapse. and his whole mortal life brings not his immortal soul to maturity; nor will all eternity perfect him. yea, with uttermost reverence, as to human understanding, increase of dominion seems increase of power; and day by day new planets are being added to elder-born saturn, even as six thousand years ago our own earth made one more in this system; so, in incident, not in essence, may the infinite himself be not less than more infinite now, than when old aldebaran rolled forth from his hand. and if time was, when this round earth, which to innumerable mortals has seemed an empire never to be wholly explored; which, in its seas, concealed all the indies over four thousand five hundred years; if time was, when this great quarry of assyrias and romes was not extant; then, time may have been, when the whole material universe lived its dark ages; yea, when the ineffable silence, proceeding from its unimaginable remoteness, espied it as an isle in the sea. and herein is no derogation. for the immeasurable's altitude is not heightened by the arches of mahomet's heavens; and were all space a vacuum, yet would it be a fullness; for to himself his own universe is he. thus deeper and deeper into time's endless tunnel, does the winged soul, like a night-hawk, wend her wild way; and finds eternities before and behind; and her last limit is her everlasting beginning. but sent over the broad flooded sphere, even noah's dove came back, and perched on his hand. so comes back my spirit to me, and folds up her wings. thus, then, though time be the mightiest of alarics, yet is he the mightiest mason of all. and a tutor, and a counselor, and a physician, and a scribe, and a poet, and a sage, and a king. yea, and a gardener, as ere long will be shown. but first must we return to the glen. chapter lxxvi a pleasant place for a lounge whether the hard condition of their kingly state, very naturally demanding some luxurious requital, prevailed upon the monarchs of juam to house themselves so delightfully as they did; whether buried alive in their glen, they sought to center therein a secret world of enjoyment; however it may have been, throughout the archipelago this saying was a proverb--"you are lodged like the king in willamilla." hereby was expressed the utmost sumptuousness of a palace. a well warranted saying; for of all the bright places, where my soul loves to linger, the haunts of donjalolo are most delicious. in the eastern quarter of the glen was the house of the morning. this fanciful palace was raised upon a natural mound, many rods square, almost completely filling up a deep recess between deep-green and projecting cliffs, overlooking many abodes distributed in the shadows of the groves beyond. now, if it indeed be, that from the time employed in its construction, any just notion may be formed of the stateliness of an edifice, it must needs be determined, that this retreat of donjalolo could not be otherwise than imposing. full five hundred moons was the palace in completing; for by some architectural arborist, its quadrangular foundations had been laid in seed-cocoanuts, requiring that period to sprout up into pillars. in front, these were horizontally connected, by elaborately carved beams, of a scarlet hue, inserted into the vital wood; which, swelling out, and over lapping, firmly secured them. the beams supported the rafters, inclining from the rear; while over the aromatic grasses covering the roof, waved the tufted tops of the palms, green capitals to their dusky shafts. through and through this vibrating verdure, bright birds flitted and sang; the scented and variegated thatch seemed a hanging-garden; and between it and the palm tops, was leaf-hung an arbor in the air. without these columns, stood a second and third colonnade, forming the most beautiful bowers; advancing through which, you fancied that the palace beyond must be chambered in a fountain, or frozen in a crystal. three sparkling rivulets flowing from the heights were led across its summit, through great trunks half buried in the thatch; and emptying into a sculptured channel, running along the eaves, poured over in one wide sheet, plaited and transparent. received into a basin beneath, they were thence conducted down the vale. the sides of the palace were hedged by diomi bushes bearing a flower, from its perfume, called lenora, or sweet breath; and within these odorous hedges, were heavy piles of mats, richly dyed and embroidered. here lounging of a glowing noon, the plaited cascade playing, the verdure waving, and the birds melodious, it was hard to say, whether you were an inmate of a garden in the glen, or a grotto in the sea. but enough for the nonce, of the house of the morning. cross we the hollow, to the house of the afternoon. chapter lxxvii the house of the afternoon for the most part, the house of the afternoon was but a wing built against a mansion wrought by the hand of nature herself; a grotto running into the side of the mountain. from high over the mouth of this grotto, sloped a long arbor, supported by great blocks of stone, rudely chiseled into the likeness of idols, each bearing a carved lizard on its chest: a sergeant's guard of the gods condescendingly doing duty as posts. from the grotto thus vestibuled, issued hilariously forth the most considerable stream of the glen; which, seemingly overjoyed to find daylight in willamilla, sprang into the arbor with a cheery, white bound. but its youthful enthusiasm was soon repressed; its waters being caught in a large stone basin, scooped out of the natural rock; whence, staid and decorous, they traversed sundry moats; at last meandering away, to join floods with the streams trained to do service at the other end of the vale. truant streams: the livelong day wending their loitering path to the subterraneous outlet, flowing into which, they disappeared. but no wonder they loitered; passing such ravishing landscapes. thus with life: man bounds out of night; runs and babbles in the sun; then returns to his darkness again; though, peradventure, once more to emerge. but the grotto was not a mere outlet to the stream. flowing through a dark flume in the rock, on both sides it left a dry, elevated shelf, to which you ascend from the arbor by three artificially-wrought steps, sideways disposed, to avoid the spray of the rejoicing cataract. mounting these, and pursuing the edge of the flume, the grotto gradually expands and heightens; your way lighted by rays in the inner distance. at last you come to a lofty subterraneous dome, lit from above by a cleft in the mountain; while full before you, in the opposite wall, from a low, black arch, midway up, and inaccessible, the stream, with a hollow ring and a dash, falls in a long, snowy column into a bottomless pool, whence, after many an eddy and whirl, it entered the flume, and away with a rush. half hidden from view by an overhanging brow of the rock, the white fall looked like the sheeted ghost of the grotto. yet gallantly bedecked was the cave, as any old armorial hall hung round with banners and arras. streaming from the cleft, vines swung in the air; or crawled along the rocks, wherever a tendril could be fixed. high up, their leaves were green; but lower down, they were shriveled; and dyed of many colors; and tattered and torn with much rustling; as old banners again; sore raveled with much triumphing. in the middle of this hall in the hill was incarcerated the stone image of one demi, the tutelar deity of willamina. all green and oozy like a stone under water, poor demi looked as if sore harassed with sciatics and lumbagos. but he was cheered from aloft, by the promise of receiving a garland all blooming on his crown; the dryads sporting in the woodlands above, forever peeping down the cleft, and essaying to drop him a coronal. now, the still, panting glen of willamilla, nested so close by the mountains, and a goodly green mark for the archer in the sun, would have been almost untenable were it not for the grotto. hereby, it breathed the blessed breezes of omi; a mountain promontory buttressing the island to the east, receiving the cool stream of the upland trades; much pleasanter than the currents beneath. at all times, even in the brooding noon-day, a gush of cool air came hand-in-hand with the cool waters, that burst with a shout into the palace of donjalolo. and as, after first refreshing the king, as in loyalty bound, the stream flowed at large through the glen, and bathed its verdure; so, the blessed breezes of omi, not only made pleasant the house of the afternoon; but finding ample outlet in its wide, open front, blew forth upon the bosom of all willamilla. "come let us take the air of omi," was a very common saying in the glen. and the speaker would hie with his comrade toward the grotto; and flinging himself on the turf, pass his hand through his locks, and recline; making a joy and a business of breathing; for truly the breezes of omi were as air-wine to the lungs. yet was not this breeze over-cool; though at times the zephyrs grew boisterous. especially at the season of high sea, when the strong trades drawn down the cleft in the mountain, rushed forth from the grotto with wonderful force. crossing it then, you had much ado to keep your robe on your back. thus much for the house of the afternoon. whither--after spending the shady morning under the eastern cliffs of the glen--daily, at a certain hour, donjalolo in his palanquin was borne; there, finding new shades; and there tarrying till evening; when again he was transported whence he came: thereby anticipating the revolution of the sun. thus dodging day's luminary through life, the prince hied to and fro in his dominions; on his smooth, spotless brow sol's rays never shining. chapter lxxviii babbalanja solus of the house of the afternoon something yet remains to be said. it was chiefly distinguished by its pavement, where, according to the strange customs of the isle, were inlaid the reputed skeletons of donjalolo's sires; each surrounded by a mosaic of corals,--red, white, and black, intermixed with vitreous stones fallen from the skies in a meteoric shower. these delineated the tattooing of the departed. near by, were imbedded their arms: mace, bow, and spear, in similar marquetry; and over each skull was the likeness of a scepter. first and conspicuous lay the half-decayed remains of marjora, the father of these coral kings; by his side, the storied, sickle-shaped weapon, wherewith he slew his brother teei. "line of kings and row of scepters," said babbalanja as he gazed. "donjalolo, come forth and ponder on thy sires. here they lie, from dread marjora down to him who fathered thee. here are their bones, their spears, and their javelins; their scepters, and the very fashion of their tattooing: all that can be got together of what they were. tell me, oh king, what are thy thoughts? dotest thou on these thy sires? art thou more truly royal, that they were kings? or more a man, that they were men? is it a fable, or a verity about marjora and the murdered teei? but here is the mighty conqueror,--ask him. speak to him: son to sire: king to king. prick him; beg; buffet; entreat; spurn; split the globe, he will not budge. walk over and over thy whole ancestral line, and they will not start. they are not here. ay, the dead are not to be found, even in their graves. nor have they simply departed; for they willed not to go; they died not by choice; whithersoever they have gone, thither have they been dragged; and if so be, they are extinct, their nihilities went not more against their grain, than their forced quitting of mardi. either way, something has become of them that they sought not. truly, had stout-hearted marjora sworn to live here in willamilla for ay, and kept the vow, _that_ would have been royalty indeed; but here he lies. marjora! rise! juam revolteth! lo, i stamp upon thy scepter; base menials tread upon thee where thou hest! up, king, up! what? no reply? are not these bones thine? oh, how the living triumph over the dead! marjora! answer. art thou? or art thou not? i see thee not; i hear thee not; i feel thee not; eyes, ears, hands, are worthless to test thy being; and if thou art, thou art something beyond all human thought to compass. we must have other faculties to know thee by. why, thou art not even a sightless sound; not the echo of an echo; here are thy bones. donjalolo, methinks i see thee fallen upon by assassins:--which of thy fathers riseth to the rescue? i see thee dying:--which of them telleth thee what cheer beyond the grave? but they have gone to the land unknown. meet phrase. where is it? not one of oro's priests telleth a straight story concerning it; 'twill be hard finding their paradises. touching the life of alma, in mohi's chronicles, 'tis related, that a man was once raised from the tomb. but rubbed he not his eyes, and stared he not most vacantly? not one revelation did he make. ye gods! to have been a bystander there! "at best, 'tis but a hope. but will a longing bring the thing desired? doth dread avert its object? an instinct is no preservative. the fire i shrink from, may consume me.--but dead, and yet alive; alive, yet dead;--thus say the sages of maramma. but die we then living? yet if our dead fathers somewhere and somehow live, why not our unborn sons? for backward or forward, eternity is the same; already have we been the nothing we dread to be. icy thought! but bring it home,--it will not stay. what ho, hot heart of mine: to beat thus lustily awhile, to feel in the red rushing blood, and then be ashes,--can this be so? but peace, peace, thou liar in me, telling me i am immortal--shall i not be as these bones? to come to this! but the balsam-dropping palms, whose boles run milk, whose plumes wave boastful in the air, they perish in their prime, and bow their blasted trunks. nothing abideth; the river of yesterday floweth not to-day; the sun's rising is a setting; living is dying; the very mountains melt; and all revolve:--systems and asteroids; the sun wheels through the zodiac, and the zodiac is a revolution. ah gods! in all this universal stir, am _i_ to prove one stable thing? "grim chiefs in skeletons, avaunt! ye are but dust; belike the dust of beggars; for on this bed, paupers may lie down with kings, and filch their skulls. _this_, great marjora's arm? no, some old paralytic's. _ye_, kings? _ye_, men? where are your vouchers? i do reject your brother-hood, ye libelous remains. but no, no; despise them not, oh babbalanja! thy own skeleton, thou thyself dost carry with thee, through this mortal life; and aye would view it, but for kind nature's screen; thou art death alive; and e'en to what's before thee wilt thou come. ay, thy children's children will walk over thee: thou, voiceless as a calm." and over the coral kings, babbalanja paced in profound meditation. chapter lxxix the center of many circumferences like donjalolo himself, we hie to and fro; for back now must we pace to the house of the morning. in its rear, there diverged three separate arbors, leading to less public apartments. traversing the central arbor, and fancying it will soon lead you to open ground, you suddenly come upon the most private retreat of the prince: a square structure; plain as a pyramid; and without, as inscrutable. down to the very ground, its walls are thatched; but on the farther side a passage-way opens, which you enter. but not yet are you within. scarce a yard distant, stands an inner thatched wall, blank as the first. passing along the intervening corridor, lighted by narrow apertures, you reach the opposite side, and a second opening is revealed. this entering, another corridor; lighted as the first, but more dim, and a third blank wall. and thus, three times three, you worm round and round, the twilight lessening as you proceed; until at last, you enter the citadel itself: the innermost arbor of a nest; whereof, each has its roof, distinct from the rest. the heart of the place is but small; illuminated by a range of open sky-lights, downward contracting. innumerable as the leaves of an endless folio, multitudinous mats cover the floor; whereon reclining by night, like pharaoh on the top of his patrimonial pile, the inmate looks heavenward, and heavenward only; gazing at the torchlight processions in the skies, when, in state, the suns march to be crowned. and here, in this impenetrable retreat, centrally slumbered the universe-rounded, zodiac-belted, horizon-zoned, sea-girt, reef-sashed, mountain-locked, arbor-nested, royalty-girdled, arm-clasped, self-hugged, indivisible donjalolo, absolute monarch of juam:--the husk-inhusked meat in a nut; the innermost spark in a ruby; the juice-nested seed in a goldenrinded orange; the red royal stone in an effeminate peach; the insphered sphere of spheres. chapter lxxx donjalolo in the bosom of his family to pretend to relate the manner in which juam's ruler passed his captive days, without making suitable mention of his harem, would be to paint one's full-length likeness and omit the face. for it was his harem that did much to stamp the character of donjalolo. and had he possessed but a single spouse, most discourteous, surely, to have overlooked the princess; much more, then, as it is; and by how-much the more, a plurality exceeds a unit. exclusive of the female attendants, by day waiting upon the person of the king, he had wives thirty in number, corresponding in name to the nights of the moon. for, in juam, time is not reckoned by days, but by nights; each night of the lunar month having its own designation; which, relatively only, is extended to the day. in uniform succession, the thirty wives ruled queen of the king's heart. an arrangement most wise and judicious; precluding much of that jealousy and confusion prevalent in ill-regulated seraglios. for as thirty spouses must be either more desirable, or less desirable than one; so is a harem thirty times more difficult to manage than an establishment with one solitary mistress. but donjalolo's wives were so nicely drilled, that for the most part, things went on very smoothly. nor were his brows much furrowed with wrinkles referable to domestic cares and tribulations. although, as in due time will be seen, from these he was not altogether exempt. now, according to braid-beard, who, among other abstruse political researches, had accurately informed himself concerning the internal administration of donjalolo's harem, the following was the method pursued therein. on the aquella, or first night of the month, the queen of that name assumes her diadem, and reigns. so too with azzolino the second, and velluvi the third night of the moon; and so on, even unto the utter eclipse thereof; through calends, nones, and ides. for convenience, the king is furnished with a card, whereon are copied the various ciphers upon the arms of his queens; and parallel thereto, the hieroglyphics significant of the corresponding nights of the month. glancing over this, donjalolo predicts the true time of the rising and setting of all his stars. this moon of wives was lodged in two spacious seraglios, which few mortals beheld. for, so deeply were they buried in a grove; so overpowered with verdure; so overrun with vines; and so hazy with the incense of flowers; that they were almost invisible, unless closely approached. certain it was, that it demanded no small enterprise, diligence, and sagacity, to explore the mysterious wood in search of them. though a strange, sweet, humming sound, as of the clustering and swarming of warm bees among roses, at last hinted the royal honey at hand. high in air, toward the summit of the cliff, overlooking this side of the glen, a narrow ledge of rocks might have been seen, from which, rumor whispered, was to be caught an angular peep at the tip of the apex of the roof of the nearest seraglio. but this wild report had never been established. nor, indeed, was it susceptible of a test. for was not that rock inaccessible as the eyrie of young eagles? but to guard against the possibility of any visual profanation, donjalolo had authorized an edict, forever tabooing that rock to foot of man or pinion of fowl. birds and bipeds both trembled and obeyed; taking a wide circuit to avoid the spot. access to the seraglios was had by corresponding arbors leading from the palace. the seraglio to the right was denominated "ravi" (before), that to the left "zono" (after). the meaning of which was, that upon the termination of her reign the queen wended her way to the zono; there tarrying with her predecessors till the ravi was emptied; when the entire moon of wives, swallow-like, migrated back whence they came; and the procession was gone over again. in due order, the queens reposed upon mats inwoven with their respective ciphers. in the ravi, the mat of the queen-apparent, or next in succession, was spread by the portal. in the zono, the newly-widowed queen reposed furthest from it. but alas for all method where thirty wives are concerned. notwithstanding these excellent arrangements, the mature result of ages of progressive improvement in the economy of the royal seraglios in willamilla, it must needs be related, that at times the order of precedence became confused, and was very hard to restore. at intervals, some one of the wives was weeded out, to the no small delight of the remainder; but to their equal vexation her place would soon after be supplied by some beautiful stranger; who assuming the denomination of the vacated night of the moon, thenceforth commenced her monthly revolutions in the king's infallible calendar. in constant attendance, was a band of old men; woe-begone, thin of leg, and puny of frame; whose grateful task it was, to tarry in the garden of donjalolo's delights, without ever touching the roses. along with innumerable other duties, they were perpetually kept coming and going upon ten thousand errands; for they had it in strict charge to obey the slightest behests of the damsels; and with all imaginable expedition to run, fly, swim, or dissolve into impalpable air, at the shortest possible notice. so laborious their avocations, that none could discharge them for more than a twelvemonth, at the end of that period giving up the ghost out of pure exhaustion of the locomotive apparatus. it was this constant drain upon the stock of masculine old age in the glen, that so bethinned its small population of gray-beards and hoary-heads. and any old man hitherto exempted, who happened to receive a summons to repair to the palace, and there wait the pleasure of the king: this unfortunate, at once suspecting his doom, put his arbor in order; oiled and suppled his joints; took a long farewell of his friends; selected his burial-place; and going resigned to his fate, in due time expired like the rest. had any one of them cast about for some alleviating circumstance, he might possibly have derived some little consolation from the thought, that though a slave to the whims of thirty princesses, he was nevertheless one of their guardians, and as such, he might ingeniously have concluded, their superior. but small consolation this. for the damsels were as blithe as larks, more playful than kittens; never looking sad and sentimental, projecting clandestine escapes. but supplied with the thirtieth part of all that aspasia could desire; glorying in being the spouses of a king; nor in the remotest degree anxious about eventual dowers; they were care-free, content, and rejoicing, as the rays of the morning. poor old men, then; it would be hard to distill out of your fate, one drop of the balm of consolation. for, commissioned to watch over those who forever kept you on the trot, affording you no time to hunt up peccadilloes; was not this circumstance an aggravation of hard times? a sharpening and edge-giving to the steel in your souls? but much yet remains unsaid. to dwell no more upon the eternal wear-and-tear incident to these attenuated old warders, they were intensely hated by the damsels. inasmuch, as it was archly opined, for what ulterior purposes they were retained. nightly couching, on guard, round the seraglio, like fangless old bronze dragons round a fountain enchanted, the old men ever and anon cried out mightily, by reason of sore pinches and scratches received in the dark: and tri-trebly-tri-triply girt about as he was, donjalolo himself started from his slumbers, raced round and round through his ten thousand corridors; at last bursting all dizzy among his twenty-nine queens, to see what under the seventh-heavens was the matter. when, lo and behold! there lay the innocents all sound asleep; the dragons moaning over their mysterious bruises. ah me! his harem, like all large families, was the delight and the torment of the days and nights of donjalolo. and in one special matter was he either eminently miserable, or otherwise: for all his multiplicity of wives, he had never an heir. not his, the proud paternal glance of the grand turk solyman, looking round upon a hundred sons, all bone of his bone, and squinting with his squint. chapter lxxxi wherein babbalanja relates the adventure of one karkeke in the land of shades at our morning repast on the second day of our stay in the hollow, our party indulged in much lively discourse. "samoa," said i, "those isles of yours, of whose beauty you so often make vauntful mention, can those isles, good samoa, furnish a valley in all respects equal to willamilla?" disdainful answer was made, that willamilla might be endurable enough for a sojourn, but as a permanent abode, any glen of his own natal isle was unspeakably superior. "in the great valley of savaii," cried samoa, "for every leaf grown here in willamilla, grows a stately tree; and for every tree here waving, in savaii flourishes a goodly warrior." immeasurable was the disgust of the upoluan for the enervated subjects of donjalolo; and for donjalolo himself; though it was shrewdly divined, that his annoying reception at the hands of the royalty of juam, had something to do with his disdain. to jarl, no similar question was put; for he was sadly deficient in a taste for the picturesque. but he cursorily observed, that in his blue-water opinion, willamilla was next to uninhabitable, all view of the sea being intercepted. and here it may be well to relate a comical blunder on the part of honest jarl; concerning which, samoa, the savage, often afterward twitted him; as indicating a rusticity, and want of polish in his breeding. it rather originated, however, in his not heeding the conventionalities of the strange people among whom he was thrown. the anecdote is not an epic; but here it is. reclining in our arbor, we breakfasted upon a marble slab; so frost-white, and flowingly traced with blue veins, that it seemed a little lake sheeted over with ice: diana's virgin bosom congéaled. before each guest was a richly carved bowl and gourd, fruit and wine freighted also the empty hemisphere of a small nut, the purpose of which was a problem. now, king jarl scorned to admit the slightest degree of under-breeding in the matter of polite feeding. so nothing was a problem to him. at once reminded of the morsel of arvaroot in his mouth, a substitute for another sort of sedative then unattainable, he was instantly illuminated concerning the purpose of the nut; and very complacently introduced each to the other; in the innocence of his ignorance making no doubt that he had acquitted himself with discretion; the little hemisphere plainly being intended as a place of temporary deposit for the arva of the guests. the company were astounded: samoa more than all. king jarl, meanwhile, looking at all present with the utmost serenity. at length, one of the horrified attendants, using two sticks for a forceps, disappeared with the obnoxious nut, upon which, the meal proceeded. this attendant was not seen again for many days; which gave rise to the supposition, that journeying to the sea-side, he had embarked for some distant strand; there, to bury out of sight the abomination with which he was freighted. upon this, his egregious misadventure, calculated to do discredit to our party, and bring media himself into contempt, babbalanja had no scruples in taking jarl roundly to task. he assured him, that it argued but little brains to evince a desire to be thought familiar with all things; that however desirable as incidental attainments, conventionalities, in themselves, were the very least of arbitrary trifles; the knowledge of them, innate with no man. "moreover jarl," he added, "in essence, conventionalities are but mimickings, at which monkeys succeed best. hence, when you find yourself at a loss in these matters, wait patiently, and mark what the other monkeys do: and then follow suit. and by so doing, you will gain a vast reputation as an accomplished ape. above all things, follow not the silly example of the young spark karkeke, of whom mohi was telling me. dying, and entering the other world with a mincing gait, and there finding certain customs quite strange and new; such as friendly shades passing through each other by way of a salutation;--karkeke, nevertheless, resolved to show no sign of embarrassment. accosted by a phantom, with wings folded pensively, plumes interlocked across its chest, he off head; and stood obsequiously before it. staring at him for an instant, the spirit cut him dead; murmuring to itself, 'ah, some terrestrial bumpkin, i fancy,' and passed on with its celestial nose in the highly rarified air. but silly karkeke undertaking to replace his head, found that it would no more stay on; but forever tumbled off; even in the act of nodding a salute; which calamity kept putting him out of countenance. and thus through all eternity is he punished for his folly, in having pretended to be wise, wherein he was ignorant. head under arm, he wanders about, the scorn and ridicule of the other world." our repast concluded, messengers arrived from the prince, courteously inviting our presence at the house of the morning. thither we went; journeying in sedans, sent across the hollow, for that purpose, by donjalolo. chapter lxxxii how donjalolo, sent agents to the surrounding isles; with the result ere recounting what was beheld on entering the house of the morning, some previous information is needful. though so many of donjalolo's days were consumed by sloth and luxury, there came to him certain intervals of thoughtfulness, when all his curiosity concerning the things of outer mardi revived with augmented intensity. in these moods, he would send abroad deputations, inviting to willamilla the kings of the neighboring islands; together with the most celebrated priests, bards, story-tellers, magicians, and wise men; that he might hear them converse of those things, which he could not behold for himself. but at last, he bethought him, that the various narrations he had heard, could not have been otherwise than unavoidably faulty; by reason that they had been principally obtained from the inhabitants of the countries described; who, very naturally, must have been inclined to partiality or uncandidness in their statements. wherefore he had very lately dispatched to the isles special agents of his own; honest of heart, keen of eye, and shrewd of understanding; to seek out every thing that promised to illuminate him concerning the places they visited, and also to collect various specimens of interesting objects; so that at last he might avail himself of the researches of others, and see with their eyes. but though two observers were sent to every one of the neighboring lands; yet each was to act independently; make his own inquiries; form his own conclusions; and return with his own specimens; wholly regardless of the proceedings of the other. it so came to pass, that on the very day of our arrival in the glen, these pilgrims returned from their travels. and donjalolo had set apart the following morning to giving them a grand public reception. and it was to this, that our party had been invited, as related in the chapter preceding. in the great palm-hall of the house of the morning, we were assigned distinguished mats, to the right of the prince; his chiefs, attendants, and subjects assembled in the open colonnades without. when all was in readiness, in marched the company of savans and travelers; and humbly standing in a semi-circle before the king, their numerous hampers were deposited at their feet. donjalolo was now in high spirits, thinking of the rich store of reliable information about to be furnished. "zuma," said he, addressing the foremost of the company, "you and varnopi were directed to explore the island of rafona. proceed now, and relate all you know of that place. your narration heard, we will list to varnopi." with a profound inclination the traveler obeyed. but soon donjalolo interrupted him. "what say you, zuma, about the secret cavern, and the treasures therein? a very different account, this, from all i have heard hitherto; but perhaps yours is the true version. go on." but very soon, poor zuma was again interrupted by exclamations of surprise. nay, even to the very end of his mountings. but when he had done, donjalolo observed, that if from any cause zuma was in error or obscure, varnopi would not fail to set him right. so varnopi was called upon. but not long had varnopi proceeded, when donjalolo changed color. "what!" he exclaimed, "will ye contradict each other before our very face. oh oro! how hard is truth to be come at by proxy! fifty accounts have i had of rafona; none of which wholly agreed; and here, these two varlets, sent expressly to behold and report, these two lying knaves, speak crookedly both. how is it? are the lenses in their eyes diverse-hued, that objects seem different to both; for undeniable is it, that the things they thus clashingly speak of are to be known for the same; though represented with unlike colors and qualities. but dumb things can not lie nor err. unpack thy hampers, zuma. here, bring them close: now: what is this?" "that," tremblingly replied zuma, "is a specimen of the famous reef-bar on the west side of the island of rafona; your highness perceives its deep red dyes." said donjalolo, "varnopi, hast thou a piece of this coral, also?" "i have, your highness," said varnopi; "here it is." taking it from his hand, donjalolo gazed at its bleached, white hue; then dashing it to the pavement, "oh mighty oro! truth dwells in her fountains; where every one must drink for himself. for me, vain all hope of ever knowing mardi! away! better know nothing, than be deceived. break up!" and donjalolo rose, and retired. all present now broke out in a storm of vociferation; some siding with zuma; others with varnopi; each of whom, in turn, was declared the man to be relied upon. marking all this, babbalanja, who had been silently looking on, leaning against one of the palm pillars, quietly observed to media:--"my lord, i have seen this same reef at rafona. in various places, it is of various hues. as for zuma and varnopi, both are wrong, and both are right." chapter lxxxiii they visit the tributary islets in willamilla, no yillah being found, on the third day we took leave of donjalolo; who lavished upon us many caresses and, somewhat reluctantly on media's part, we quitted the vale. one by one, we now visited the outer villages of juam; and crossing the waters, wandered several days among its tributary isles. there we saw the viceroys of him who reigned in the hollow: chieftains of whom donjalolo was proud; so honest, humble, and faithful; so bent upon ameliorating the condition of those under their rule. for, be it said, donjalolo was a charitable prince; in his serious intervals, ever seeking the welfare of his subjects, though after an imperial view of his own. but alas, in that sunny donjon among the mountains, where he dwelt, how could donjalolo be sure, that the things he decreed were executed in regions forever remote from his view. ah! very bland, very innocent, very pious, the faces his viceroys presented during their monthly visits to willamilla. but as cruel their visage, when, returned to their islets, they abandoned themselves to all the license of tyrants; like verres reveling down the rights of the sicilians. like carmelites, they came to donjalolo, barefooted; but in their homes, their proud latchets were tied by their slaves. before their king-belted prince, they stood rope-girdled like self-abased monks of st. francis; but with those ropes, before their palaces, they hung innocence and truth. as still seeking yillah, and still disappointed, we roved through the lands which these chieftains ruled, babbalanja exclaimed--"let us depart; idle our search, in isles that have viceroys for kings." at early dawn, about embarking for a distant land, there came to us certain messengers of donjalolo, saying that their lord the king, repenting of so soon parting company with media and taji, besought them to return with all haste; for that very morning, in willamilla, a regal banquet was preparing; to which many neighboring kings had been invited, most of whom had already arrived. declaring that there was no alternative but compliance, media acceded; and with the king's messengers we returned to the glen. chapter lxxxiv taji sits down to dinner with five-and-twenty kings, and a royal time they have it was afternoon when we emerged from the defile. and informed that our host was receiving his guests in the house of the afternoon, thither we directed our steps. soft in our face, blew the blessed breezes of omi, stirring the leaves overhead; while, here and there, through the trees, showed the idol-bearers of the royal retreat, hand in hand, linked with festoons of flowers. still beyond, on a level, sparkled the nodding crowns of the kings, like the constellation corona-borealis, the horizon just gained. close by his noon-tide friend, the cascade at the mouth of the grotto, reposed on his crimson mat, donjalolo:--arrayed in a vestment of the finest white tappa of mardi, figured all over with bright yellow lizards, so curiously stained in the gauze, that he seemed overrun, as with golden mice. marjora's girdle girdled his loins, tasseled with the congregated teeth of his sires. a jeweled turban-tiara, milk-white, surmounted his brow, over which waved a copse of pintado plumes. but what sways in his hand? a scepter, similar to those likenesses of scepters, imbedded among the corals at his feet. a polished thigh-bone; by braid-beard declared once teei's the murdered. for to emphasize his intention utterly to rule, marjora himself had selected this emblem of dominion over mankind. but even this last despite done to dead teei had once been transcended. in the usurper's time, prevailed the belief, that the saliva of kings must never touch ground; and mohi's chronicles made mention, that during the life time of marjora, teei's skull had been devoted to the basest of purposes: marjora's, the hate no turf could bury. yet, traditions like these ever seem dubious. there be many who deny the hump, moral and physical, of gloster richard. still advancing unperceived, in social hilarity we descried their highnesses, chatting together like the most plebeian of mortals; full as merry as the monks of old. but marking our approach, all changed. a pair of potentates, who had been playfully trifling, hurriedly adjusted their diadems, threw themselves into attitudes, looking stately as statues. phidias turned not out his jupiter so soon. in various-dyed robes the five-and-twenty kings were arrayed; and various their features, as the rows of lips, eyes and ears in john caspar lavater's physiognomical charts. nevertheless, to a king, all their noses were aquiline. there were long fox-tail beards of silver gray, and enameled chins, like those of girls; bald pates and merovingian locks; smooth brows and wrinkles: forms erect and stooping; an eye that squinted; one king was deaf; by his side, another that was halt; and not far off, a dotard. they were old and young, tall and short, handsome and ugly, fat and lean, cunning and simple. with animated courtesy our host received us; assigning a neighboring bower for babbalanja and the rest; and among so many right-royal, demi-divine guests, how could the demi-gods media and taji be otherwise than at home? the unwonted sprightliness of donjalolo surprised us. but he was in one of those relapses of desperate gayety in-variably following his failures in efforts to amend his life. and the bootless issue of his late mission to outer mardi had thrown him into a mood for revelry. nor had he lately shunned a wild wine, called morando. a slave now appearing with a bowl of this beverage, it circulated freely. not to gainsay the truth, we fancied the morando much. a nutty, pungent flavor it had; like some kinds of arrack distilled in the philippine isles. and a marvelous effect did it have, in dissolving the crystalization of the brain; leaving nothing but precious little drops of good humor, beading round the bowl of the cranium. meanwhile, garlanded boys, climbing the limbs of the idol-pillars, and stirruping their feet in their most holy mouths, suspended hangings of crimson tappa all round the hall; so that sweeping the pavement they rustled in the breeze from the grot. presently, stalwart slaves advanced; bearing a mighty basin of a porphyry hue, deep-hollowed out of a tree. outside, were innumerable grotesque conceits; conspicuous among which, for a border, was an endless string of the royal lizards circumnavigating the basin in inverted chase of their tails. peculiar to the groves of willamilla, the yellow lizard formed part of the arms of juam. and when donjalolo's messenger went abroad, they carried its effigy, as the emblem of their royal master; themselves being known, as the gentlemen of the golden lizard. the porphyry-hued basin planted full in our midst, the attendants forthwith filled the same with the living waters from the cascade; a proceeding, for which some of the company were at a loss to account, unless his highness, our host, with all the coolness of royalty, purposed cooling himself still further, by taking a bath in presence of his guests. a conjecture, most premature; for directly, the basin being filled to within a few inches of the lizards, the attendants fell to launching therein divers goodly sized trenchers, all laden with choice viands:--wild boar meat; humps of grampuses; embrowned bread-fruit, roasted in odoriferous fires of sandal wood, but suffered to cool; gold fish, dressed with the fragrant juices of berries; citron sauce; rolls of the baked paste of yams; juicy bananas, steeped in a saccharine oil; marmalade of plantains; jellies of guava; confections of the treacle of palm sap; and many other dainties; besides numerous stained calabashes of morando, and other beverages, fixed in carved floats to make them buoyant. the guests assigned seats, by the woven handles attached to his purple mat, the prince, our host, was now gently moved by his servitors to the head of the porphyry-hued basin. where, flanked by lofty crowned-heads, white-tiaraed, and radiant with royalty, he sat; like snow-turbaned mont blanc, at sunrise presiding over the head waters of the rhone; to right and left, looming the gilded summits of the simplon, the gothard, the jungfrau, the great st. bernard, and the grand glockner. yet turbid from the launching of its freight, lake como tossed to and fro its navies of good cheer, the shadows of the king-peaks wildly flitting thereupon. but no frigid wine and fruit cooler, lake como; as at first it did seem; but a tropical dining table, its surface a slab of light blue st. pons marble in a state of fluidity. now, many a crown was doffed; scepters laid aside; girdles slackened; and among those verdant viands the bearded kings like goats did browse; or tusking their wild boar's meat, like mastiffs ate. and like unto some well-fought fight, beginning calmly, but pressing forward to a fiery rush, this well-fought feast did now wax warm. a few royal epicures, however, there were: epicures intent upon concoctions, admixtures, and masterly compoundings; who comported themselves with all due deliberation and dignity; hurrying themselves into no reckless deglutition of the dainties. ah! admirable conceit, lake como: superseding attendants. for, from hand to hand the trenchers sailed; no sooner gaining one port, than dispatched over sea to another. well suited they were for the occasion; sailing high out of water, to resist the convivial swell at times ruffling the sociable sea; and sharp at both ends, still better adapting them to easy navigation. but soon, the morando, in triumphant decanters, went round, reeling like barks before a breeze. but their voyages were brief; and ere long, in certain havens, the accumulation of empty vessels threatened to bridge the lake with pontoons. in those directions, trade winds were setting. but full soon, cut out were all unladen and unprofitable gourds; and replaced by jolly-bellied calabashes, for a time sailing deep, yawing heavily to the push. at last, the whole flotilla of trenchers--wrecks and all--were sent swimming to the further end of lake como; and thence removed, gave place to ruddy hillocks of fruit, and floating islands of flowers. chief among the former, a quince-like, golden sphere, that filled the air with such fragrance, you thought you were tasting its flavor. nor did the wine cease flowing. that day the juam grape did bleed; that day the tendril ringlets of the vines, did all uncurl and grape by grape, in sheer dismay, the sun ripe clusters dropped. grape-glad were five-and-twenty kings: five-and-twenty kings were merry. morando's vintage had no end; nor other liquids, in the royal cellar stored, somewhere secret in the grot. oh! where's the endless niger's source? search ye here, or search ye there; on, on, through ravine, vega, vale--no head waters will ye find. but why need gain the hidden spring, when its lavish stream flows by? at three-fold mouths that delta-grot discharged; rivers golden, white, and red. but who may sing for aye? down i come, and light upon the old and prosy plain. among other decanters set afloat, was a pompous, lordly-looking demijohn, but old and reverend withal, that sailed about, consequential as an autocrat going to be crowned, or a treasure-freighted argosie bound home before the wind. it looked solemn, however, though it reeled; peradventure, far gone with its own potent contents. oh! russet shores of rhine and rhone! oh, mellow memories of ripe old vintages! oh, cobwebs in the pyramids! oh, dust on pharaoh's tomb!--all, all recur, as i bethink me of that glorious gourd, its contents cogent as tokay, itself as old as mohi's legends; more venerable to look at than his beard. whence came it? buried in vases, so saith the label, with the heart of old marjora, now dead one hundred thousand moons. exhumed at last, it looked no wine, but was shrunk into a subtile syrup. this special calabash was distinguished by numerous trappings, caparisoned like the sacred bay steed led before the great khan of tartary. a most curious and betasseled network encased it; and the royal lizard was jealously twisted about its neck, like a hand on a throat containing some invaluable secret. all hail, marzilla! king's own royal particular! a vinous percy! dating back to the conquest! distilled of yore from purple berries growing in the purple valley of ardair! thrice hail. but the imperial marzilla was not for all; gods only could partake; the kings and demigods of the isles; excluding left-handed descendants of sad rakes of immortals, in old times breaking heads and hearts in mardi, bequeathing bars-sinister to many mortals, who now in vain might urge a claim to a cup-full of right regal marzilla. the royal particular was pressed upon me, by the now jovial donjalolo. with his own sceptered hand charging my flagon to the brim, he declared his despotic pleasure, that i should quaff it off to the last lingering globule. no hard calamity, truly; for the drinking of this wine was as the singing of a mighty ode, or frenzied lyric to the soul. "drink, taji," cried donjalolo, "drink deep. in this wine a king's heart is dissolved. drink long; in this wine lurk the seeds of the life everlasting. drink deep; drink long: thou drinkest wisdom and valor at every draught. drink forever, oh taji, for thou drinkest that which will enable thee to stand up and speak out before mighty oro himself." "borabolla," he added, turning round upon a domed old king at his left, "was it not the god xipho, who begged of my great-great-grandsire a draught of this same wine, saying he was about to beget a hero?" "even so. and thy glorious marzilla produced thrice valiant ononna, who slew the giants of the reef." "ha, ha, hear'st that, oh taji?" and donjalolo drained another cup. amazing! the flexibility of the royal elbow, and the rigidity of the royal spine! more especially as we had been impressed with a notion of their debility. but, sometimes these seemingly enervated young blades approve themselves steadier of limb, than veteran revelers of very long standing. "discharge the basin, and refill it with wine," cried donjalolo. "break all empty gourds! drink, kings, and dash your cups at every draught." so saying, he started from his purple mat; and with one foot planted unknowingly upon the skull of marjora; while all the skeletons grinned at him from the pavement; donjalolo, holding on high his blood-red goblet, burst forth with the following invocation:--ha, ha, gods and kings; fill high, one and all; drink, drink! shout and drink! mad respond to the call! fill fast, and fill frill; 'gainst the goblet ne'er sin; quaff there, at high tide, to the uttermost rim:-- flood-tide, and soul-tide to the brim! who with wine in him fears? who thinks of his cares? who sighs to be wise, when wine in him flares? water sinks down below, in currents full slow; but wine mounts on high with its genial glow:-- welling up, till the brain overflow! as the spheres, with a roll, some fiery of soul, others golden, with music, revolve round the pole; so let our cups, radiant with many hued wines, round and round in groups circle, our zodiac's signs:-- round reeling, and ringing their chimes! then drink, gods and kings; wine merriment brings; it bounds through the veins; there, jubilant sings. let it ebb, then, and flow; wine never grows dim; drain down that bright tide at the foam beaded rim:--fill up, every cup, to the brim! caught by all present, the chorus resounded again and again. the beaded wine danced on many a beard; the cataract lifted higher its voice; the grotto sent back a shout; the ghosts of the coral monarchs seemed starting from their insulted bones. but ha, ha, ha, roared forth the five-and-twenty kings--alive, not dead--holding both hands to their girdles, and baying out their laughter from abysses; like nimrod's hounds over some fallen elk. mad and crazy revelers, how ye drank and roared! but kings no more: vestures loosed; and scepters rolling on the ground. glorious agrarian, thou wine! bringing all hearts on a level, and at last all legs to the earth; even those of kings, who, to do them justice, have been much maligned for imputed qualities not theirs. for whoso has touched flagons with monarchs, bear they their back bones never so stiffly on the throne, well know the rascals, to be at bottom royal good fellows; capable of a vinous frankness exceeding that of base-born men. was not alexander a boon companion? and daft cambyses? and what of old rowley, as good a judge of wine and other matters, as ever sipped claret or kisses. if ever taji joins a club, be it a beef-steak club of kings! donjalolo emptied yet another cup. the mirth now blew a gale; like a ship's shrouds in a typhoon, every tendon vibrated; the breezes of omi came forth with a rush; the hangings shook; the goblets danced fandangos; and donjalolo, clapping his hands, called before him his dancing women. forth came from the grotto a reed-like burst of song, making all start, and look that way to behold such enchanting strains. sounds heralding sights! swimming in the air, emerged the nymphs, lustrous arms interlocked like indian jugglers' glittering snakes. round the cascade they thronged; then paused in its spray. of a sudden, seemed to spring from its midst, a young form of foam, that danced into the soul like a thought. at last, sideways floating off, it subsided into the grotto, a wave. evening drawing on apace, the crimson draperies were lifted, and festooned to the arms of the idol-pillars, admitting the rosy light of the even. yielding to the re-action of the banquet, the kings now reclined; and two mute damsels entered: one with a gourd of scented waters; the other with napkins. bending over donjalolo's steaming head, the first let fall a shower of aromatic drops, slowly aborbed by her companion. thus, in turn, all were served; nothing heard but deep breathing. in a marble vase they now kindled some incense: a handful of spices. shortly after, came three of the king's beautiful smokers; who, lighting their tubes at this odorous fire, blew over the company the sedative fumes of the aina. steeped in languor, i strove against it long; essayed to struggle out of the enchanted mist. but a syren hand seemed ever upon me, pressing me back. half-revealed, as in a dream, and the last sight that i saw, was donjalolo:--eyes closed, face pale, locks moist, borne slowly to his sedan, to cross the hollow, and wake in the seclusion of his harem. chapter lxxxv after dinner as in dreams i behold thee again, willamila! as in dreams, once again i stroll through thy cool shady groves, oh fairest of the vallies of mardi! the thought of that mad merry feasting steals over my soul till i faint. prostrate here and there over the bones of donjalolo's sires, the royal bacchanals lay slumbering till noon. "which are the deadest?" said babbalanja, peeping in, "the live kings, or the dead ones?" but the former were drooping flowers sought to be revived by watering. at intervals the sedulous attendants went to and fro, besprinkling their heads with the scented contents of their vases. at length, one by one, the five-and-twenty kings lifted their ambrosial curls; and shaking the dew therefrom, like eagles opened their right royal eyes, and dilated their aquiline nostrils, full upon the golden rays of the sun. but why absented himself, donjalolo? had he cavalierly left them to survive the banquet by themselves? but this apparent incivility was soon explained by heralds, announcing to their prone majesties, that through the over solicitude of his slaves, their lord the king had been borne to his harem, without being a party to the act. but to make amends, in his sedan, donjalolo was even now drawing nigh. not, however, again to make merry; but socially to sleep in company with his guests; for, together they had all got high, and together they must all lie low. so at it they went: each king to his bones, and slumbered like heroes till evening; when, availing themselves of the cool moonlight approaching, the royal guests bade adieu to their host; and summoning their followers, quitted the glen. early next day, having determined to depart for our canoes, we proceeded to the house of the morning, to take leave of donjalolo. an amazing change, one night of solitude had wrought! pale and languid, we found him reclining: one hand on his throbbing temples. near an overturned vessel of wine, the royal girdle lay tossed at his feet. he had waved off his frightened attendants, who crouched out of sight. we advanced. "do ye too leave me? ready enough are ye to partake of my banquetings, which, to such as ye, are but mad incidents in one round of more tranquil diversions. but heed me not, media;--i am mad. oh, ye gods! am i forever a captive?--ay, free king of odo, when you list, condescend to visit the poor slave in willamilla. i account them but charity, your visits; would fain allure ye by sumptuous fare. go, leave me; go, and be rovers again throughout blooming mardi. for, me, i am here for aye.--bring me wine, slaves! quick! that i may pledge my guests fitly. alas, media, at the bottom of this cup are no sparkles as at top. oh, treacherous, treacherous friend! full of smiles and daggers. yet for such as me, oh wine, thou art e'en a prop, though it pierce the side; for man must lean. thou wine art the friend of the friendless, though a foe to all. king media, let us drink. more cups!--and now, farewell." falling back, he averted his face; and silently we quitted the palace. chapter lxxxvi of those scamps the plujii the beach gained, we embarked. in good time our party recovered from the seriousness into which we had been thrown; and a rather long passage being now before us, we whiled away the hours as best we might. among many entertaining, narrations, old braid-beard, crossing his calves, and peaking his beard, regaled us with some account of certain invisible spirits, ycleped the plujii, arrant little knaves as ever gulped moonshine. they were spoken of as inhabiting the island of quelquo, in a remote corner of the lagoon; the innocent people of which island were sadly fretted and put out by their diabolical proceedings. not to be wondered at; since, dwelling as they did in the air, and completely inaccessible, these spirits were peculiarly provocative of ire. detestable plujii! with malice aforethought, they brought about high winds that destroyed the banana plantations, and tumbled over the heads of its occupants many a bamboo dwelling. they cracked the calabashes; soured the "poee;" induced the colic; begat the spleen; and almost rent people in twain with stitches in the side. in short, from whatever evil, the cause of which the islanders could not directly impute to their gods, or in their own opinion was not referable to themselves,--of that very thing must the invisible plujii be guilty. with horrible dreams, and blood-thirsty gnats, they invaded the most innocent slumbers. all things they bedeviled. a man with a wry neck ascribed it to the plujii; he with a bad memory railed against the plujii; and the boy, bruising his finger, also cursed those abominable spirits. nor, to some minds, at least, was there wanting strong presumptive evidence, that at times, with invisible fingers, the above mentioned plujii did leave direct and tangible traces of their presence; pinching and pounding the unfortunate islanders; pulling their hair; plucking their ears, and tweaking their beards and their noses. and thus perpetually vexing, incensing, tormenting, and exasperating their helpless victims, the atrocious plujii reveled in their malicious dominion over the souls and bodies of the people of quelquo. what it was, that induced them to enact such a part, oro only knew; and never but once, it seems, did old mohi endeavor to find out. once upon a time, visiting quelquo, he chanced to encounter an old woman almost doubled together, both hands upon her abdomen; in that manner running about distracted. "my good woman," said he, "what under the firmament is the matter?" "the plujii! the plujii!" affectionately caressing the field of their operations. "but why do they torment you?" he soothingly inquired. "how should i know? and what good would it do me if i did?" and on she ran. at this part of his narration, mohi was interrupted by media; who, much to the surprise of all present, observed, that, unbeknown to him (braid-beard), he happened to have been on that very island, at that very time, and saw that identical old lady in the very midst of those abdominal tribulations. "that she was really in great distress," he went on to say, "was plainly to be seen; but that in that particular instance, your plujii had any hand in tormenting her, i had some boisterous doubts. for, hearing that an hour or two previous she had been partaking of some twenty unripe bananas, i rather fancied that that circumstance might have had something to do with her sufferings. but however it was, all the herb-leeches on the island would not have altered her own opinions on the subject." "no," said braid-beard; "a post-mortem examination would not have satisfied her ghost." "curious to relate," he continued, "the people of that island never abuse the plujii, notwithstanding all they suffer at their hands, unless under direct provocation; and a settled matter of faith is it, that at such times all bitter words and hasty objurgations are entirely overlooked, nay, pardoned on the spot, by the unseen genii against whom they are directed." "magnanimous plujii!" cried media. "but, babbalanja, do you, who run a tilt at all things, suffer this silly conceit to be uttered with impunity in your presence? why so silent?" "i have been thinking, my lord," said babbalanja, "that though the people of that island may at times err, in imputing their calamities to the plujii, that, nevertheless, upon the whole, they indulge in a reasonable belief. for, plujii or no plujii, it is undeniable, that in ten thousand ways, as if by a malicious agency, we mortals are woefully put out and tormented; and that, too, by things in themselves so exceedingly trivial, that it would seem almost impiety to ascribe them to the august gods. no; there must exist some greatly inferior spirits; so insignificant, comparatively, as to be overlooked by the supernal powers; and through them it must be, that we are thus grievously annoyed. at any rate; such a theory would supply a hiatus in my system of meta-physics." "well, peace to the plujii," said media; "they trouble not me." chapter lxxxvii nora-bamma still onward gliding, the lagoon a calm. hours pass; and full before us, round and green, a moslem turban by us floats--nora-bamma, isle of nods. noon-tide rolls its flood. vibrates the air, and trembles. and by illusion optical, thin-draped in azure haze, drift here and there the brilliant lands: swans, peacock-plumaged, sailing through the sky. down to earth hath heaven come; hard telling sun-clouds from the isles. and high in air nods nora-bamma. nid-nods its tufted summit like three ostrich plumes; its beetling crags, bent poppies, shadows, willowy shores, all nod; its streams are murmuring down the hills; its wavelets hush the shore. who dwells in nora-bamma? dreamers, hypochondriacs, somnambulists; who, from the cark and care of outer mardi fleeing, in the poppy's jaded odors, seek oblivion for the past, and ecstasies to come. open-eyed, they sleep and dream; on their roof-trees, grapes unheeded drop. in nora-bamma, whispers are as shouts; and at a zephyr's breath, from the woodlands shake the leaves, as of humming-birds, a flight. all this spake braid-beard, of the isle. how that none ere touched its strand, without rendering instant tribute of a nap; how that those who thither voyaged, in golden quest of golden gourds, fast dropped asleep, ere one was plucked; waking not till night; how that you must needs rub hard your eyes, would you wander through the isle; and how that silent specters would be met, haunting twilight groves, and dreamy meads; hither gliding, thither fading, end or purpose none. true or false, so much for mohi's nora bamma. but as we floated on, it looked the place described. we yawned, and yawned, as crews of vessels may; as in warm indian seas, their winnowing sails all swoon, when by them glides some opium argosie. chapter lxxxviii in a calm, hautia's heralds approach "how still!" cried babbalanja. "this calm is like unto oro's everlasting serenity, and like unto man's last despair." but now the silence was broken by a strange, distant, intermitted melody in the water. gazing over the side, we saw naught but a far-darting ray in its depths. then yoomy, before buried in a reverie, burst forth with a verse, sudden as a jet from a geyser. like the fish of the bright and twittering fin, bright fish! diving deep as high soars the lark, so, far, far, far, doth the maiden swim, wild song, wild light, in still ocean's dark. "what maiden, minstrel?" cried media. "none of these," answered yoomy, pointing out a shallop gliding near. "the damsels three:--taji, they pursue you yet." that still canoe drew nigh, the iris in its prow. gliding slowly by, one damsel flung a venus-car, the leaves yet fresh. said yoomy--"fly to love." the second maiden flung a pallid blossom, buried in hemlock leaves. said yoomy, starting--"i have wrought a death." then came showering venus-cars, and glorious moss-roses numberless, and odorous handfuls of verbena. said yoomy--"yet fly, oh fly to me: all rosy joys and sweets are mine." then the damsels floated on. "was ever queen more enigmatical?" cried media--"love,--death,--joy, --fly to me? but what says taji?" "that i turn not back for hautia; whoe'er she be, that wild witch i contemn." "then spread our pinions wide! a breeze! up sails! ply paddles all! come, flora's flute, float forth a song." to pieces picking the thorny roses culled from hautia's gifts, and holding up their blighted cores, thus plumed and turbaned yoomy sang, leaning against the mast:--oh! royal is the rose, but barbed with many a dart; beware, beware the rose, 'tis cankered at the heart. sweet, sweet the sunny down, oh! lily, lily, lily down! sweet, sweet, verbena's bloom! oh! pleasant, gentle, musky bloom! dread, dread the sunny down; lo! lily-hooded asp; blooms, blooms no more verbena; white-withered in your clasp. chapter lxxxix braid-beard rehearses the origin of the isle of rogues judge not things by their names. this, the maxim illustrated respecting the isle toward which we were sailing. ohonoo was its designation, in other words the land of rogues. so what but a nest of villains and pirates could one fancy it to be: a downright tortuga, swarming with "brethren of the coast,"--such as montbars, l'ollonais, bartolomeo, peter of dieppe, and desperadoes of that kidney. but not so. the men of ohonoo were as honest as any in mardi. they had a suspicious appellative for their island, true; but not thus seemed it to them. for, upon nothing did they so much plume themselves as upon this very name. why? its origin went back to old times; and being venerable they gloried therein; though they disclaimed its present applicability to any of their race; showing, that words are but algebraic signs, conveying no meaning except what you please. and to be called one thing, is oftentimes to be another. but how came the ohonoose by their name? listen, and braid-beard, our herodotus, will tell. long and long ago, there were banished to ohonoo all the bucaniers, flibustiers, thieves, and malefactors of the neighboring islands; who, becoming at last quite a numerous community, resolved to make a stand for their dignity, and number one among the nations of mardi. and even as before they had been weeded out of the surrounding countries; so now, they went to weeding out themselves; banishing all objectionable persons to still another island. these events happened at a period so remote, that at present it was uncertain whether those twice banished, were thrust into their second exile by reason of their superlative knavery, or because of their comparative honesty. if the latter, then must the residue have been a precious enough set of scoundrels. however it was, the commonwealth of knaves now mustered together their gray-beards, and wise-pates, and knowing-ones, of which last there was a plenty, chose a king to rule over them, and went to political housekeeping for themselves. and in the fullness of time, this people became numerous and mighty. and the more numerous and mighty they waxed, by so much the more did they take pride and glory in their origin, frequently reverting to it with manifold boastings. the proud device of their monarch was a hand with the forefinger crooked, emblematic of the peculatory propensities of his ancestors. and all this, at greater length, said mohi. "it would seem, then, my lord," said babbalanja, reclining, "as if these men of ohonoo had canonized the derelictions of their progenitors, though the same traits are deemed scandalous among themselves. but it is time that makes the difference. the knave of a thousand years ago seems a fine old fellow full of spirit and fun, little malice in his soul; whereas, the knave of to-day seems a sour-visaged wight, with nothing to redeem him. many great scoundrels of our chronicler's chronicles are heroes to us:--witness, marjora the usurper. ay, time truly works wonders. it sublimates wine; it sublimates fame; nay, is the creator thereof; it enriches and darkens our spears of the palm; enriches and enlightens the mind; it ripens cherries and young lips; festoons old ruins, and ivies old heads; imparts a relish to old yams, and a pungency to the ponderings of old bardianna; of fables distills truths; and finally, smooths, levels, glosses, softens, melts, and meliorates all things. why, my lord, round mardi itself is all the better for its antiquity, and the more to be revered; to the cozy-minded, more comfortable to dwell in. ah! if ever it lay in embryo like a green seed in the pod, what a damp, shapeless thing it must have been, and how unpleasant from the traces of its recent creation. the first man, quoth old bardianna, must have felt like one going into a new habitation, where the bamboos are green. is there not a legend in maramma, that his family were long troubled with influenzas and catarrhs?" "oh time, time, time!" cried yoomy--"it is time, old midsummer time, that has made the old world what it is. time hoared the old mountains, and balded their old summits, and spread the old prairies, and built the old forests, and molded the old vales. it is time that has worn glorious old channels for the glorious old rivers, and rounded the old lakes, and deepened the old sea! it is time--" "ay, full time to cease," cried media. "what have you to do with cogitations not in verse, minstrel? leave prose to babbalanja, who is prosy enough." "even so," said babbalanja, "yoomy, you have overstepped your province. my lord media well knows, that your business is to make the metal in you jingle in tags, not ring in the ingot." chapter xc rare sport at ohonoo approached from the northward, ohonoo, midway cloven down to the sea, one half a level plain; the other, three mountain terraces--ohonoo looks like the first steps of a gigantic way to the sun. and such, if braid-beard spoke truth, it had formerly been. "ere mardi was made," said that true old chronicler, "vivo, one of the genii, built a ladder of mountains whereby to go up and go down. and of this ladder, the island of ohonoo was the base. but wandering here and there, incognito in a vapor, so much wickedness did vivo spy out, that in high dudgeon he hurried up his ladder, knocking the mountains from under him as he went. these here and there fell into the lagoon, forming many isles, now green and luxuriant; which, with those sprouting from seeds dropped by a bird from the moon, comprise all the groups in the reef." surely, oh, surely, if i live till mardi be forgotten by mardi, i shall not forget the sight that greeted us, as we drew nigh the shores of this same island of ohonoo; for was not all ohonoo bathing in the surf of the sea? but let the picture be painted. where eastward the ocean rolls surging against the outer reef of mardi, there, facing a flood-gate in the barrier, stands cloven ohonoo; her plains sloping outward to the sea, her mountains a bulwark behind. as at juam, where the wild billows from seaward roll in upon its cliffs; much more at ohonoo, in billowy battalions charge they hotly into the lagoon, and fall on the isle like an army from the deep. but charge they never so boldly, and charge they forever, old ohonoo gallantly throws them back till all before her is one scud and rack. so charged the bright billows of cuirassiers at waterloo: so hurled them off the long line of living walls, whose base was as the sea-beach, wreck-strown, in a gale. without the break in the reef wide banks of coral shelve off, creating the bar, where the waves muster for the onset, thundering in water-bolts, that shake the whole reef, till its very spray trembles. and then is it, that the swimmers of ohonoo most delight to gambol in the surf. for this sport, a surf-board is indispensable: some five feet in length; the width of a man's body; convex on both sides; highly polished; and rounded at the ends. it is held in high estimation; invariably oiled after use; and hung up conspicuously in the dwelling of the owner. ranged on the beach, the bathers, by hundreds dash in; and diving under the swells, make straight for the outer sea, pausing not till the comparatively smooth expanse beyond has been gained. here, throwing themselves upon their boards, tranquilly they wait for a billow that suits. snatching them up, it hurries them landward, volume and speed both increasing, till it races along a watery wall, like the smooth, awful verge of niagara. hanging over this scroll, looking down from it as from a precipice, the bathers halloo; every limb in motion to preserve their place on the very crest of the wave. should they fall behind, the squadrons that follow would whelm them; dismounted, and thrown forward, as certainly would they be run over by the steed they ride. 'tis like charging at the head of cavalry: you must on. an expert swimmer shifts his position on his plank; now half striding it; and anon, like a rider in the ring, poising himself upright in the scud, coming on like a man in the air. at last all is lost in scud and vapor, as the overgrown billow bursts like a bomb. adroitly emerging, the swimmers thread their way out; and like seals at the orkneys, stand dripping upon the shore. landing in smooth water, some distance from the scene, we strolled forward; and meeting a group resting, inquired for uhia, their king. he was pointed out in the foam. but presently drawing nigh, he embraced media, bidding all welcome. the bathing over, and evening at hand, uhia and his subjects repaired to their canoes; and we to ours. landing at another quarter of the island, we journeyed up a valley called monlova, and were soon housed in a very pleasant retreat of our host. soon supper was spread. but though the viands were rare, and the red wine went round and round like a foaming bay horse in the ring; yet we marked, that despite the stimulus of his day's good sport, and the stimulus of his brave good cheer, uhia our host was moody and still. said babbalanja "my lord, he fills wine cups for others to quaff." but whispered king media, "though uhia be sad, be we merry, merry men." and merry some were, and merrily went to their mats. chapter xci of king uhia and his subjects as beseemed him, uhia was royally lodged. ample his roof. beneath it a hundred attendants nightly laying their heads. but long since, he had disbanded his damsels. springing from syren embrace--"they shall sap and mine me no more" he cried "my destiny commands me. i will don my manhood. by keevi! no more will i clasp a waist." "from that time forth," said braid-beard, "young uhia spread like the tufted top of the palm; his thigh grew brawny as the limb of the banian; his arm waxed strong as the back bone of the shark; yea, his voice grew sonorous as a conch." "and now he bent his whole soul to the accomplishment of the destiny believed to be his. nothing less than bodily to remove ohonoo to the center of the lagoon, in fulfillment of an old prophecy running thus--when a certain island shall stir from its foundations and stand in the middle of the still water, then shall the ruler of that island be ruler of all mardi." the task was hard, but how glorious the reward! so at it he went, and all ohonoo helped him. not by hands, but by calling in the magicians. thus far, nevertheless, in vain. but uhia had hopes. now, informed of all this, said babbalanja to media, "my lord, if the continual looking-forward to something greater, be better than an acquiescence in things present; then, wild as it is, this belief of uhia's he should hug to his heart, as erewhile his wives. but my lord, this faith it is, that robs his days of peace; his nights of sweet unconsciousness. for holding himself foreordained to the dominion of the entire archipelago, he upbraids the gods for laggards, and curses himself as deprived of his rights; nay, as having had wrested from him, what he never possessed. discontent dwarfs his horizon till he spans it with his hand. 'most miserable of demi-gods,' he cries, 'here am i cooped up in this insignificant islet, only one hundred leagues by fifty, when scores of broad empires own me not for their lord.' yet uhia himself is envied. 'ah!' cries karrolono, one of his chieftains, master of a snug little glen, 'here am i cabined in this paltry cell among the mountains, when that great king uhia is lord of the whole island, and every cubic mile of matter therein.' but this same karrolono is envied. 'hard, oh beggarly lot is mine,' cries donno, one of his retainers. 'here am i fixed and screwed down to this paltry plantation, when my lord karrolono owns the whole glen, ten long parasangs from cliff to sea.' but donno too is envied. 'alas, cursed fate!' cries his servitor flavona. 'here am i made to trudge, sweat, and labor all day, when donno my master does nothing but command.' but others envy flavona; and those who envy him are envied in turn; even down to poor bed-ridden manta, who dying of want, groans forth, 'abandoned wretch that i am! here i miserably perish, while so many beggars gad about and live!' but surely; none envy manta! yes; great uhia himself. 'ah!' cries the king. 'here am i vexed and tormented by ambition; no peace night nor day; my temples chafed sore by this cursed crown that i wear; while that ignoble wight manta, gives up the ghost with none to molest him.'" in vain we wandered up and down in this isle, and peered into its innermost recesses: no yillah was there. chapter xcii the god keevi and the precipice op mondo one object of interest in ohonoo was the original image of keevi the god of thieves; hence, from time immemorial, the tutelar deity of the isle. his shrine was a natural niche in a cliff, walling in the valley of monlova and here stood keevi, with his five eyes, ten hands, and three pair of legs, equipped at all points for the vocation over which he presided. of mighty girth, his arms terminated in hands, every finger a limb, spreading in multiplied digits: palms twice five, and fifty fingers. according to the legend, keevi fell from a golden cloud, burying himself to the thighs in the earth, tearing up the soil all round. three meditative mortals, strolling by at the time, had a narrow escape. a wonderful recital; but none of us voyagers durst flout it. did they not show us the identical spot where the idol fell? we descended into the hollow, now verdant. questionless, keevi himself would have vouched for the truth of the miracle, had he not been unfortunately dumb. but by far the most cogent, and pointed argument advanced in support of this story, is a spear which the priests of keevi brought forth, for babbalanja to view. "let me look at it closer," said babbalanja. and turning it over and over and curiously inspecting it, "wonderful spear," he cried. "doubtless, my reverends, this self-same spear must have persuaded many recusants!" "nay, the most stubborn," they answered. "and all afterward quoted as additional authority for the truth of the legend?" "assuredly." from the sea to the shrine of this god, the fine valley of monlova ascends with a gentle gradation, hardly perceptible; but upon turning round toward the water, one is surprised to find himself high elevated above its surface. pass on, and the same silent ascent deceives you; and the valley contracts; and on both sides the cliffs advance; till at last you come to a narrow space, shouldered by buttresses of rock. beyond, through this cleft, all is blue sky. if the trades blow high, and you came unawares upon the spot, you would think keevi himself pushing you forward with all his hands; so powerful is the current of air rushing through this elevated defile. but expostulate not with the tornado that blows you along; sail on; but soft; look down; the land breaks off in one sheer descent of a thousand feet, right down to the wide plain below. so sudden and profound this precipice, that you seem to look off from one world to another. in a dreamy, sunny day, the spangled plain beneath assumes an uncertain fleeting aspect. had you a deep-sea-lead you would almost be tempted to sound the ocean-haze at your feet. this, mortal! is the precipice of mondo. from this brink, spear in hand, sprang fifty rebel warriors, driven back into the vale by a superior force. finding no spot to stand at bay, with a fierce shout they took the fatal leap. said mohi, "their souls ascended, ere their bodies touched." this tragical event took place many generations gone by, and now a dizzy, devious way conducts one, firm of foot, from the verge to the plain. but none ever ascended. so perilous, indeed, is the descent itself, that the islanders venture not the feat, without invoking supernatural aid. flanking the precipice beneath beetling rocks, stand the guardian deities of mondo; and on altars before them, are placed the propitiatory offerings of the traveler. to the right of the brink of the precipice, and far over it, projects a narrow ledge. the test of legitimacy in the ohonoo monarchs is to stand hereon, arms folded, and javelins darting by. and there in his youth uhia stood. "how felt you, cousin?" asked media. "like the king of ohonoo," he replied. "as i _shall_ again feel; when king of all mardi." chapter xciii babbalanja steps in between mohi and yoomy; and yoomy relates a legend embarking from ohonoo, we at length found ourselves gliding by the pleasant shores of tupia, an islet which according to braid-beard had for ages remained uninhabited by man. much curiosity being expressed to know more of the isle, mohi was about to turn over his chronicles, when, with modesty, the minstrel yoomy interposed; saying, that if my lord media permitted, he himself would relate the legend. from its nature, deeming the same pertaining to his province as poet; though, as yet, it had not been versified. but he added, that true pearl shells rang musically, though not strung upon a cord. upon this presumptuous interference, mohi looked highly offended; and nervously twitching his beard, uttered something invidious about frippery young poetasters being too full of silly imaginings to tell a plain tale. said yoomy, in reply, adjusting his turban, "old mohi, let us not clash. i honor your calling; but, with submission, your chronicles are more wild than my cantos. i deal in pure conceits of my own; which have a shapeliness and a unity, however unsubstantial; but you, braid-beard, deal in mangled realities. in all your chapters, you yourself grope in the dark. much truth is not in thee, historian. besides, mohi: my songs perpetuate many things which you sage scribes entirely overlook. have you not oftentimes come to me, and my ever dewy ballads for information, in which you and your musty old chronicles were deficient?" "in much that is precious, mohi, we poets are the true historians; we embalm; you corrode." to this mohi, with some ire, was about to make answer, when, flinging over his shoulder a new fold of his mantle, babbalanja spoke thus: "peace, rivals. as bardianna has it, like all who dispute upon pretensions of their own, you are each nearest the right, when you speak of the other; and furthest therefrom, when you speak of yourselves." said mohi and yoomy in a breath, "who sought your opinion, philosopher? you filcher from old bardianna, and monger of maxims!" "you, who have so long marked the vices of mardi, that you flatter yourself you have none of your own," added braid-beard. "you, who only seem wise, because of the contrasting follies of others, and not of any great wisdom in yourself," continued the minstrel, with unwonted asperity." "now here," said babballanja, "am i charged upon by a bearded old ram, and a lamb. one butting with his carious and brittle old frontlet; the other pushing with its silly head before its horns are sprouted. but this comes of being impartial. had i espoused the cause of yoomy versus mohi, or that of mohi versus yoomy, i had been sure to have had at least one voice in my favor. the impartialist insulteth all sides, saith old bardianna; but smite with but one hand, and the other shall be kissed.--oh incomparable bardianna!" "will no one lay that troubled old ghost," exclaimed media, devoutly. "proceed with thy legend, yoomy; and see to it, that it be brief; for i mistrust me, these legends do but test the patience of the hearers. but draw a long breath, and begin." "a long bow," muttered mohi. and yoomy began. "it is now about ten hundred thousand moons--" "great oro! how long since, say you?" cried mohi, making gothic arches of his brows. looking at him disdainfully, but vouchsafing no reply, yoomy began over again. "it is now above ten hundred thousand moons, since there died the last of a marvelous race, once inhabiting the very shores by which we are sailing. they were a very diminutive people, only a few inches high--" "stop, minstrel," cried mohi; "how many pennyweights did they weigh?" continued yoomy, unheedingly, "they were covered all over with a soft, silky down, like that on the rind of the avee; and there grew upon their heads a green, lance-leaved vine, of a most delicate texture. for convenience, the manikins reduced their tendrils, sporting, nothing but coronals. whereas, priding themselves upon the redundancy of their tresses, the little maidens assiduously watered them with the early dew of the morning; so that all wreathed and festooned with verdure, they moved about in arbors, trailing after them trains." "i can hear no more," exclaimed mohi, stopping his ears. continued yoomy, "the damsels lured to their bowers, certain red-plumaged insect-birds, and taught them to nestle therein, and warble; which, with the pleasant vibrating of the leaves, when the little maidens moved, produced a strange blending of sweet, singing sounds. the little maidens embraced not with their arms, but with their viny locks; whose tendrils instinctively twined about their lovers, till both were lost in the bower." "and what then?" asked mohi, who, notwithstanding the fingers in his ears, somehow contrived to listen; "what then?" vouchsafing no reply, yoomy went on. "at a certain age, but while yet the maidens were very young, their vines bore blossoms. ah! fatal symptoms. for soon as they burst, the maidens died in their arbors; and were buried in the valleys; and their vines spread forth; and the flowers bloomed; but the maidens themselves were no more. and now disdaining the earth, the vines shot upward: climbing to the topmost boughs of the trees; and flowering in the sunshine forever and aye." yoomy here paused for a space; but presently continued: "the little eyes of the people of tupia were very strange to behold: full of stars, that shone from within, like the pleiades, deep-bosomed in blue. and like the stars, they were intolerant of sunlight; and slumbering through the day, the people of tupia only went abroad by night. but it was chiefly when the moon was at full, that they were mostly in spirits. "then the little manikins would dive down into the sea, and rove about in the coral groves, making love to the mermaids. or, racing round, make a mad merry night of it with the sea-urchins:--plucking the reverend mullets by the beard; serenading the turtles in their cells; worrying the sea-nettles; or tormenting with their antics the touchy torpedos. sometimes they went prying about with the starfish, that have an eye at the end of each ray; and often with coral files in their hands stole upon slumbering swordfish, slyly blunting their weapons. in short, these stout little manikins were passionately fond of the sea, and swore by wave and billow, that sooner or later they would embark thereon in nautilus shells, and spend the rest of their roving days thousands of inches from tupia. too true, they were shameless little rakes. oft would they return to their sweethearts, sporting musky girdles of sea-kelp, tasseled with green little pouches of grass, brimful of seed-pearls; and jingling their coin in the ears of the damsels, throw out inuendoes about the beautiful and bountiful mermaids: how wealthy and amorous they were, and how they delighted in the company of the brave gallants of tupia. ah! at such heartless bravadoes, how mourned the poor little nymphs. deep into their arbors they went; and their little hearts burst like rose-buds, and filled the whole air with an odorous grief. but when their lovers were gentle and true, no happier maidens haunted the lilies than they. by some mystical process they wrought minute balls of light: touchy, mercurial globules, very hard to handle; and with these, at pitch and toss, they played in the groves. or mischievously inclined, they toiled all night long at braiding the moon-beams together, and entangling the plaited end to a bough; so that at night, the poor planet had much ado to set." here yoomy once more was mute. "pause you to invent as you go on?" said old mohi, elevating his chin, till his beard was horizontal. yoomy resumed. "little or nothing more, my masters, is extant of the legend; only it must be mentioned, that these little people were very tasteful in their personal adornings; the manikins wearing girdles of fragrant leaves, and necklaces of aromatic seeds; and the little damsels, not content with their vines, and their verdure, sporting pearls in their ears; bracelets of wee little porpoise teeth; and oftentimes dancing with their mates in the moonlit glades, coquettishly fanned themselves with the transparent wings of the flying fish." "now, i appeal to you, royal media; to you, noble taji; to you, babbalanja;" said the chronicler, with an impressive gesture, "whether this seems a credible history: yoomy has invented." "but perhaps he has entertained, old mohi," said babbalanja. "he has not spoken the truth," persisted the chronicler. "mohi," said babbalanja, "truth is in things, and not in words: truth is voiceless; so at least saith old bardianna. and i, babbalanja, assert, that what are vulgarly called fictions are as much realities as the gross mattock of dididi, the digger of trenches; for things visible are but conceits of the eye: things imaginative, conceits of the fancy. if duped by one, we are equally duped by the other." "clear as this water," said yoomy. "opaque as this paddle," said mohi, "but, come now, thou oracle, if all things are deceptive, tell us what is truth?" "the old interrogatory; did they not ask it when the world began? but ask it no more. as old bardianna hath it, that question is more final than any answer." chapter xciv of that jolly old lord, borabolla; and that jolly island of his, mondoldo; and of the fish-ponds, and the hereafters of fish drawing near mondoldo, our next place of destination, we were greeted by six fine canoes, gayly tricked out with streamers, and all alive with the gestures of their occupants. king borabolla and court were hastening to welcome our approach; media, unbeknown to all, having notified him at the banquet of the five-and-twenty kings, of our intention to visit his dominions. soon, side by side, these canoes floated with ours; each barge of odo courteously flanked by those of mondoldo. not long were we in identifying borabolla: the portly, pleasant old monarch, seated cross-legged upon a dais, projecting over the bow of the largest canoe of the six, close-grappling to the side of the sea elephant. was he not a goodly round sight to behold? round all over; round of eye and of head; and like the jolly round earth, roundest and biggest about the equator. a girdle of red was his equinoctial line, giving a compactness to his plumpness. this old borabolla permitted naught to come between his head and the sun; not even gray hairs. bald as a gourd, right down on his brazen skull, the rays of the luminary converged. he was all hilarity; full of allusions to the feast at willamilla, where he had done royal execution. rare old borabolla! thou wert made for dining out; thy ample mouth an inlet for good cheer, and a sally-port for good humor. bustling about on his dais, he now gave orders for the occupants of our canoes to be summarily emptied into his own; saying, that in that manner only did he allow guests to touch the beach of mondoldo. so, with no little trouble--for the waves were grown somewhat riotous--we proceeded to comply; bethinking ourselves all the while, how annoying is sometimes an over-strained act of hospitality. we were now but little less than a mile from the shore. but what of that? there was plenty of time, thought borabolla, for a hasty lunch, and the getting of a subsequent appetite ere we effected a landing. so viands were produced; to which the guests were invited to pay heedful attention; or take the consequences, and famish till the long voyage in prospect was ended. soon the water shoaled (approaching land is like nearing truth in metaphysics), and ere we yet touched the beach, borabolla declared, that we were already landed. which paradoxical assertion implied, that the hospitality of mondoldo was such, that in all directions it radiated far out upon the lagoon, embracing a great circle; so that no canoe could sail by the island, without its occupants being so long its guests. in most hospitable vicinity to the water, was a fine large structure, inclosed by a stockade; both rather dilapidated; as if the cost of entertaining its guests, prevented outlays for repairing the place. but it was one of borabolla's maxims, that generally your tumble-down old homesteads yield the most entertainment; their very dilapidation betokening their having seen good service in hospitality; whereas, spruce-looking, finical portals, have a phiz full of meaning; for niggards are oftentimes neat. now, after what has been said, who so silly as to fancy, that because borabolla's mansion was inclosed by a stockade, that the same was intended as a defense against guests? by no means. in the palisade was a mighty breach, not an entrance-way, wide enough to admit six daniel lamberts abreast. "look," cried borabolla, as landing we stepped toward the place. "look media! look all. these gates, you here see, lashed back with osiers, have been so lashed during my life-time; and just where they stand, shall they rot; ay, they shall perish wide open." "but why have them at all?" inquired media. "ah! there you have old borabolla," cried the other. "no," said babbalanja, "a fence whose gate is ever kept open, seems unnecessary, i grant; nevertheless, it gives a notable hint, otherwise not so aptly conveyed; for is not the open gate the sign of the open heart?" "right, right," cried borabolla; "so enter both, cousin media;" and with one hand smiting his chest, with the other he waved us on. but if the stockade seemed all open gate, the structure within seemed only a roof; for nothing but a slender pillar here and there, supported it. "this is my mode of building," said borabolla; "i will have no outside to my palaces. walls are superfluous. and to a high-minded guest, the entering a narrow doorway is like passing under a yoke; every time he goes in, or comes out, it reminds him, that he is being entertained at the cost of another. so storm in all round." within, was one wide field-bed; where reclining, we looked up to endless rows of brown calabashes, and trenchers suspended along the rafters; promissory of ample cheer as regiments of old hams in a baronial refectory. they were replenished with both meat and drink; the trenchers readily accessible by means of cords; but the gourds containing arrack, suspended neck downward, were within easy reach where they swung. seeing all these indications of hard roystering; like a cautious young bridegroom at his own marriage merry-making, taji stood on his guard. and when borabolla urged him to empty a gourd or two, by way of making room in him for the incidental repast about to be served, taji civilly declined; not wishing to cumber the floor, before the cloth was laid. jarl, however, yielding to importunity, and unmindful of the unities of time and place, went freely about, from gourd to gourd, concocting in him a punch. at which, samoa expressed much surprise, that he should be so unobservant as not to know, that in mardi, guests might be pressed to demean themselves, without its being expected that so they would do. a true toss-pot himself, he bode his time. the second lunch over, borabolla placed both hands to the ground, and giving the sigh of the fat man, after three vigorous efforts, succeeded in gaining his pins; which pins of his, were but small for his body; insomuch that they hugely staggered about, under the fine old load they carried. the specific object of his thus striving after an erect posture, was to put himself in motion, and conduct us to his fish-ponds, famous throughout the archipelago as the hobby of the king of mondoldo. furthermore, as the great repast of the day, yet to take place, was to be a grand piscatory one, our host was all anxiety, that we should have a glimpse of our fish, while yet alive and hearty. we were alarmed at perceiving, that certain servitors were preparing to accompany us with trenchers of edibles. it begat the notion, that our trip to the fish-ponds was to prove a long journey. but they were not three hundred yards distant; though borabolla being a veteran traveler, never stirred from his abode without his battalion of butlers. the ponds were four in number, close bordering the water, embracing about an acre each, and situated in a low fen, draining several valleys. the excavated soil was thrown up in dykes, made tight by being beaten all over, while in a soft state, with the heavy, flat ends of palm stalks. lying side by side, by three connecting trenches, these ponds could be made to communicate at pleasure; while two additional canals afforded means of letting in upon them the salt waters of the lagoon on one hand, or those of an inland stream on the other. and by a third canal with four branches, together or separately, they could be partially drained. thus, the waters could be mixed to suit any gills; and the young fish taken from the sea, passed through a stated process of freshening; so that by the time they graduated, the salt was well out of them, like the brains out of some diplomaed collegians. fresh-water fish are only to be obtained in mondoldo by the artificial process above mentioned; as the streams and brooks abound not in trout or other waltonian prey. taken all floundering from the sea, borabolla's fish, passing through their regular training for the table, and daily tended by their keepers, in course of time became quite tame and communicative. to prove which, calling his head ranger, the king bade him administer the customary supply of edibles. accordingly, mouthfuls were thrown into the ponds. whereupon, the fish darted in a shoal toward the margin; some leaping out of the water in their eagerness. crouching on the bank, the ranger now called several by name, patted their scales, carrying on some heathenish nursery-talk, like st. anthony, in ancient coptic, instilling virtuous principles into his finny flock on the sea shore. but alas, for the hair-shirted old dominie's backsliding disciples. for, of all nature's animated kingdoms, fish are the most unchristian, inhospitable, heartless, and cold-blooded of creatures. at least, so seem they to strangers; though at bottom, somehow, they must be all right. and truly it is not to be wondered at, that the very reverend anthony strove after the conversion of fish. for, whoso shall christianize, and by so doing, humanize the sharks, will do a greater good, by the saving of human life in all time to come, than though he made catechumens of the head-hunting dyaks of borneo, or the blood-bibbing battas of sumatra. and are these dyaks and battas one whit better than tiger-sharks? nay, are they so good? were a batta your intimate friend, you would often mistake an orang-outang for him; and have orang-outangs immortal souls? true, the battas believe in a hereafter; but of what sort? full of blue-beards and bloody bones. so, also, the sharks; who hold that paradise is one vast pacific, ploughed by navies of mortals, whom an endless gale forever drops into their maws. not wholly a surmise. for, does it not appear a little unreasonable to imagine, that there is any creature, fish, flesh, or fowl, so little in love with life, as not to cherish hopes of a future state? why does man believe in it? one reason, reckoned cogent, is, that he desires it. who shall say, then, that the leviathan this day harpooned on the coast of japan, goes not straight to his ancestor, who rolled all jonah, as a sweet morsel, under his tongue? though herein, some sailors are slow believers, or at best hold themselves in a state of philosophical suspense. say they--"that catastrophe took place in the mediterranean; and the only whales frequenting the mediterranean, are of a sort having not a swallow large enough to pass a man entire; for those mediterranean whales feed upon small things, as horses upon oats." but hence, the sailors draw a rash inference. are not the straits of gibralter wide enough to admit a sperm-whale, even though none have sailed through, since nineveh and the gourd in its suburbs dried up? as for the possible hereafter of the whales; a creature eighty feet long without stockings, and thirty feet round the waist before dinner, is not inconsiderately to be consigned to annihilation. chapter xcv that jolly old lord borabolla laughs on both sides of his face "a very good palace, this, coz, for you and me," said waddling old borabolla to media, as, returned from our excursion, he slowly lowered himself down to his mat, sighing like a grampus. by this, he again made known the vastness of his hospitality, which led him for the nonce to parcel out his kingdom with his guests. but apart from these extravagant expressions of good feeling, borabolla was the prince of good fellows. his great tun of a person was indispensable to the housing of his bullock-heart; under which, any lean wight would have sunk. but alas! unlike media and taji, borabolla, though a crowned king, was accounted no demi-god; his obesity excluding him from that honor. indeed, in some quarters of mardi, certain pagans maintain, that no fat man can be even immortal. a dogma! truly, which should be thrown to the dogs. for fat men are the salt and savor of the earth; full of good humor, high spirits, fun, and all manner of jollity. their breath clears the atmosphere: their exhalations air the world. of men, they are the good measures; brimmed, heaped, pressed down, piled up, and running over. they are as ships from teneriffe; swimming deep, full of old wine, and twenty steps down into their holds. soft and susceptible, all round they are easy of entreaty. wherefore, for all their rotundity, they are too often circumnavigated by hatchet-faced knaves. ah! a fat uncle, with a fat paunch, and a fat purse, is a joy and a delight to all nephews; to philosophers, a subject of endless speculation, as to how many droves of oxen and lake eries of wine might have run through his great mill during the full term of his mortal career. fat men not immortal! this very instant, old lambert is rubbing his jolly abdomen in paradise. now, to the fact of his not being rated a demi-god, was perhaps ascribable the circumstance, that borabolla comported himself with less dignity, than was the wont of their mardian majesties. and truth to say, to have seen him regaling himself with one of his favorite cuttle-fish, its long snaky arms and feelers instinctively twining round his head as he ate; few intelligent observers would have opined that the individual before them was the sovereign lord of mondoldo. but what of the banquet of fish? shall we tell how the old king ungirdled himself thereto; how as the feast waxed toward its close, with one sad exception, he still remained sunny-sided all round; his disc of a face joyous as the south side of madeira in the hilarious season of grapes? shall we tell how we all grew glad and frank; and how the din of the dinner was heard far into night? we will. when media ate slowly, borabolla took him to task, bidding him dispatch his viands more speedily. whereupon said media "but borabolla, my round fellow, that would abridge the pleasure." "not at all, my dear demi-god; do like me: eat fast and eat long." in the middle of the feast, a huge skin of wine was brought in. the portly peltry of a goat; its horns embattling its effigy head; its mouth the nozzle; and its long beard flowed to its jet-black hoofs. with many ceremonial salams, the attendants bore it along, placing it at one end of the convivial mats, full in front of borabolla; where seated upon its haunches it made one of the party. brimming a ram's horn, the mellowest of bugles, borabolla bowed to his silent guest, and thus spoke--"in this wine, which yet smells of the grape, i pledge you my reverend old toper, my lord capricornus; you alone have enough; and here's full skins to the rest!" "how jolly he is," whispered media to babbalanja. "ay, his lungs laugh loud; but is laughing, rejoicing?" "help! help!" cried borabolla "lay me down! lay me down! good gods, what a twinge!" the goblet fell from his hand; the purple flew from his wine to his face; and borabolla fell back into the arms of his servitors. "that gout! that gout!" he groaned. "lord! lord! no more cursed wine will i drink!" then at ten paces distant, a clumsy attendant let fall a trencher--"take it off my foot, you knave!" afar off another entered gallanting a calabash--"look out for my toe, you hound!" during all this, the attendants tenderly nursed him. and in good time, with its thousand fangs, the gout-fiend departed for a while. reprieved, the old king brightened up; by degrees becoming jolly as ever. "come! let us be merry again," he cried, "what shall we eat? and what shall we drink? that infernal gout is gone; come, what will your worships have?" so at it once more we went. but of our feast, little more remains to be related than this;--that out of it, grew a wondrous kindness between borabolla and jarl. strange to tell, from the first our fat host had regarded my viking with a most friendly eye. still stranger to add, this feeling was returned. but though they thus fancied each other, they were very unlike; borabolla and jarl. nevertheless, thus is it ever. and as the convex fits not into the convex, but into the concave; so do men fit into their opposites; and so fitted borabolla's arched paunch into jarl's, hollowed out to receive it. but how now? borabolla was jolly and loud: jarl demure and silent; borabolla a king: jarl only a viking;--how came they together? very plain, to repeat:--because they were heterogeneous; and hence the affinity. but as the affinity between those chemical opposites chlorine and hydrogen, is promoted by caloric; so the affinity between borabolla and jarl was promoted by the warmth of the wine that they drank at this feast. for of all blessed fluids, the juice of the grape is the greatest foe to cohesion. true, it tightens the girdle; but then it loosens the tongue, and opens the heart. in sum, borabolla loved jarl; and jarl, pleased with this sociable monarch, for all his garrulity, esteemed him the most sensible old gentleman and king he had as yet seen in mardi. for this reason, perhaps; that his talkativeness favored that silence in listeners, which was my viking's delight in himself. repeatedly during the banquet, our host besought taji to allow his henchman to remain on the island, after the rest of our party should depart; and he faithfully promised to surrender jarl, whenever we should return to claim him. but though i harbored no distrust of borabolla's friendly intentions, i could not so readily consent to his request; for with jarl for my one only companion, had i not both famished and feasted? was he not my only link to things past? things past!--ah yillah! for all its mirth, and though we hunted wide, we found thee not in mondoldo. chapter xcvi samoa a surgeon the second day of our stay in mondoldo was signalized by a noteworthy exhibition of the surgical skill of samoa; who had often boasted, that though well versed in the science of breaking men's heads, he was equally an adept in mending their crockery. overnight, borabolla had directed his corps of sea-divers to repair early on the morrow, to a noted section of the great mardian reef, for the purpose of procuring for our regalement some of the fine hawk's-bill turtle, whose secret retreats were among the cells and galleries of that submerged wall of coral, from whose foamy coping no plummet dropped ever yet touched bottom. these turtles were only to be obtained by diving far down under the surface; and then swimming along horizontally, and peering into the coral honeycomb; snatching at a flipper when seen, as at a pinion in a range of billing dove-cotes. as the king's divers were thus employed, one of them, karhownoo by name, perceived a devil-shark, so called, swimming wistfully toward him from out his summer grotto in the reef. no way petrified by the sight, and pursuing the usual method adopted by these divers in such emergencies, karhownoo, splashing the water, instantly swam toward the stranger. but the shark, undaunted, advanced: a thing so unusual, and fearful, that, in an agony of fright, the diver shot up for the surface. heedless, he looked not up as he went; and when within a few inches of the open air, dashed his head against a projection of the reef. he would have sank into the live tomb beneath, were it not that three of his companions, standing on the brink, perceived his peril, and dragged him into safety. seeing the poor fellow was insensible, they endeavored, ineffectually, to revive him; and at last, placing him in their canoe, made all haste for the shore. here a crowd soon gathered, and the diver was borne to a habitation, close adjoining borabolla's; whence, hearing of the disaster, we sallied out to render assistance. upon entering the hut, the benevolent old king commanded it to be cleared; and then proceeded to examine the sufferer. the skull proved to be very badly fractured; in one place, splintered. "let me mend it," said samoa, with ardor. and being told of his experience in such matters, borabolla surrendered the patient. with a gourd of water, and a tappa cloth, the one-armed upoluan carefully washed the wound; and then calling for a sharp splinter of bamboo, and a thin, semi-transparent cup of cocoa-nut shell, he went about the operation: nothing less than the "tomoti" (head-mending), in other words the trepan. the patient still continuing insensible, the fragments were disengaged by help of a bamboo scalpel; when a piece of the drinking cup--previously dipped in the milk of a cocoanut--was nicely fitted into the vacancy, the skin as nicely adjusted over it, and the operation was complete. and now, while all present were crying out in admiration of samoa's artistic skill, and samoa himself stood complacently regarding his workmanship, babbalanja suggested, that it might be well to ascertain whether the patient survived. when, upon sounding his heart, the diver was found to be dead. the bystanders loudly lamented; but declared the surgeon a man of marvelous science. returning to borabolla's, much conversation ensued, concerning the sad scene we had witnessed, which presently branched into a learned discussion upon matters of surgery at large. at length, samoa regaled the company with a story; for the truth of which no one but him can vouch, for no one but him was by, at the time; though there is testimony to show that it involves nothing at variance with the customs of certain barbarous tribes. read on. chapter xcvii faith and knowledge a thing incredible is about to be related; but a thing may be incredible and still be true; sometimes it is incredible because it is true. and many infidels but disbelieve the least incredible things; and many bigots reject the most obvious. but let us hold fast to all we have; and stop all leaks in our faith; lest an opening, but of a hand's breadth, should sink our seventy-fours. the wide atlantic can rush in at one port-hole; and if we surrender a plank, we surrender the fleet. panoplied in all the armor of st. paul, morion, hauberk, and greaves, let us fight the turks inch by inch, and yield them naught but our corpse. but let us not turn round upon friends, confounding them with foes. for dissenters only assent to more than we. though milton was a heretic to the creed of athanasius, his faith exceeded that of athanasius himself; and the faith of athanasius that of thomas, the disciple, who with his own eyes beheld the mark of the nails. whence it comes that though we be all christians now, the best of us had perhaps been otherwise in the days of thomas. the higher the intelligence, the more faith, and the less credulity: gabriel rejects more than we, but out-believes us all. the greatest marvels are first truths; and first truths the last unto which we attain. things nearest are furthest off. though your ear be next-door to your brain, it is forever removed from your sight. man has a more comprehensive view of the moon, than the man in the moon himself. we know the moon is round; he only infers it. it is because we ourselves are in ourselves, that we know ourselves not. and it is only of our easy faith, that we are not infidels throughout; and only of our lack of faith, that we believe what we do. in some universe-old truths, all mankind are disbelievers. do you believe that you lived three thousand years ago? that you were at the taking of tyre, were overwhelmed in gomorrah? no. but for me, i was at the subsiding of the deluge, and helped swab the ground, and build the first house. with the israelites, i fainted in the wilderness; was in court, when solomon outdid all the judges before him. i, it was, who suppressed the lost work of manetho, on the egyptian theology, as containing mysteries not to be revealed to posterity, and things at war with the canonical scriptures; i, who originated the conspiracy against that purple murderer, domitian; i, who in the senate moved, that great and good aurelian be emperor. i instigated the abdication of diocletian, and charles the fifth; i touched isabella's heart, that she hearkened to columbus. i am he, that from the king's minions hid the charter in the old oak at hartford; i harbored goffe and whalley: i am the leader of the mohawk masks, who in the old commonwealth's harbor, overboard threw the east india company's souchong; i am the vailed persian prophet; i, the man in the iron mask; i, junius. chapter xcviii the tale of a traveler it was samoa, who told the incredible tale; and he told it as a traveler. but stay-at-homes say travelers lie. yet a voyage to ethiopia would cure them of that; for few skeptics are travelers; fewer travelers liars, though the proverb respecting them lies. it is false, as some say, that bruce was cousin-german to baron munchausen; but true, as bruce said, that the abysinnians cut live steaks from their cattle. it was, in good part, his villainous transcribers, who made monstrosities of mandeville's travels. and though all liars go to gehenna; yet, assuming that mandeville died before dante; still, though dante took the census of hell, we find not sir john, under the likeness of a roasted neat's tongue, in that infernalest of infernos, the inferno. but let not the truth be postponed. to the stand, samoa, and through your interpreter, speak. once upon a time, during his endless sea-rovings, the upoluan was called upon to cobble the head of a friend, grievously hurt in a desperate fight of slings. upon examination, that part of the brain proving as much injured as the cranium itself, a young pig was obtained; and preliminaries being over, part of its live brain was placed in the cavity, the trepan accomplished with cocoanut shell, and the scalp drawn over and secured. this man died not, but lived. but from being a warrior of great sense and spirit, he became a perverse-minded and piggish fellow, showing many of the characteristics of his swinish grafting. he survived the operation more than a year; at the end of that period, however, going mad, and dying in his delirium. stoutly backed by the narrator, this anecdote was credited by some present. but babbalanja held out to the last. "yet, if this story be true," said he, "and since it is well settled, that our brains are somehow the organs of sense; then, i see not why human reason could not be put into a pig, by letting into its cranium the contents of a man's. i have long thought, that men, pigs, and plants, are but curious physiological experiments; and that science would at last enable philosophers to produce new species of beings, by somehow mixing, and concocting the essential ingredients of various creatures; and so forming new combinations. my friend atahalpa, the astrologer and alchymist, has long had a jar, in which he has been endeavoring to hatch a fairy, the ingredients being compounded according to a receipt of his own." but little they heeded babbalanja. it was the traveler's tale that most arrested attention. tough the thews, and tough the tales of samoa. chapter xcix "marnee ora, ora marnee" during the afternoon of the day of the diver's decease, preparations were making for paying the last rites to his remains, and carrying them by torch-light to their sepulcher, the sea; for, as in odo, so was the custom here. meanwhile, all over the isle, to and fro went heralds, dismally arrayed, beating shark-skin drums; and, at intervals, crying--"a man is dead; let no fires be kindled; have mercy, oh oro!--let no canoes put to sea till the burial. this night, oh oro!--let no food be cooked." and ever and anon, passed and repassed these, others in brave attire; with castanets of pearl shells, making gay music; and these sang--be merry, oh men of mondoldo, a maiden this night is to wed: be merry, oh damsels of mardi,-- flowers, flowers for the bridal bed. informed that the preliminary rites were about being rendered, we repaired to the arbor, whither the body had been removed. arrayed in white, it was laid out on a mat; its arms mutely crossed, between its lips an asphodel; at the feet, a withered hawthorn bough. the relatives were wailing, and cutting themselves with shells, so that blood flowed, and spotted their vesture. upon remonstrating with the most abandoned of these mourners, the wife of the diver, she exclaimed, "yes; great is the pain, but greater my affliction." another, the deaf sire of the dead, went staggering about, and groping; saying, that he was now quite blind; for some months previous he had lost one eye in the death of his eldest son and now the other was gone. "i am childless," he cried; "henceforth call me roi mori," that is, twice-blind. while the relatives were thus violently lamenting, the rest of the company occasionally scratched themselves with their shells; but very slightly, and mostly on the soles of their feet; from long exposure, quite callous. this was interrupted, however, when the real mourners averted their eyes; though at no time was there any deviation in the length of their faces. but on all sides, lamentations afresh broke forth, upon the appearance of a person who had been called in to assist in solemnizing the obsequies, and also to console the afflicted. in rotundity, he was another borabolla. he puffed and panted. as he approached the corpse, a sobbing silence ensued; when holding the hand of the dead, between his, the stranger thus spoke:--"mourn not, oh friends of karhownoo, that this your brother lives not. his wounded head pains him no more; he would not feel it, did a javelin pierce him. yea; karhownoo is exempt from all the ills and evils of this miserable mardi!" hereupon, the twice-blind, who being deaf, heard not what was said, tore his gray hair, and cried, "alas! alas! my boy; thou wert the merriest man in mardi, and now thy pranks are over!" but the other proceeded--"mourn not, i say, oh friends of karhownoo; the dead whom ye deplore is happier than the living; is not his spirit in the aerial isles?" "true! true!" responded the raving wife, mingling her blood with her tears, "my own poor hapless karhownoo is thrice happy in paradise!" and anew she wailed, and lacerated her cheeks. "rave not, i say." but she only raved the more. and now the good stranger departed; saying, he must hie to a wedding, waiting his presence in an arbor adjoining. understanding that the removal of the body would not take place till midnight, we thought to behold the mode of marrying in mondoldo. drawing near the place, we were greeted by merry voices, and much singing, which greatly increased when the good stranger was perceived. gayly arrayed in fine robes, with plumes on their heads, the bride and groom stood in the middle of a joyous throng, in readiness for the nuptial bond to be tied. standing before them, the stranger was given a cord, so bedecked with flowers, as to disguise its stout fibers; and taking: the bride's hands, he bound them together to a ritual chant; about her neck, in festoons, disposing the flowery ends of the cord. then turning to the groom, he was given another, also beflowered; but attached thereto was a great stone, very much carved, and stained; indeed, so every way disguised, that a person not knowing what it was, and lifting it, would be greatly amazed at its weight. this cord being attached to the waist of the groom, he leaned over toward the bride, by reason of the burden of the drop. all present now united in a chant, and danced about the happy pair, who meanwhile looked ill at ease; the one being so bound by the hands, and the other solely weighed down by his stone. a pause ensuing, the good stranger, turning them back to back, thus spoke:--"by thy flowery gyves, oh bride, i make thee a wife; and by thy burdensome stone, oh groom, i make thee a husband. live and be happy, both; for the wise and good oro hath placed us in mardi to be glad. doth not all nature rejoice in her green groves and her flowers? and woo and wed not the fowls of the air, trilling their bliss in their bowers? live then, and be happy, oh bride and groom; for oro is offended with the unhappy, since he meant them to be gay." and the ceremony ended with a joyful feast. but not all nuptials in mardi were like these. others were wedded with different rites; without the stone and flowery gyves. these were they who plighted their troth with tears not smiles, and made responses in the heart. returning from the house of the merry to the house of the mournful, we lingered till midnight to witness the issuing forth of the body. by torch light, numerous canoes, with paddlers standing by, were drawn up on the beach, to accommodate those who purposed following the poor diver to his home. the remains embarked, some confusion ensued concerning the occupancy of the rest of the shallops. at last the procession glided off, our party included. two by two, forming a long line of torches trailing round the isle, the canoes all headed toward the opening in the reef. for a time, a decorous silence was preserved; but presently, some whispering was heard; perhaps melancholy discoursing touching the close of the diver's career. but we were shocked to discover, that poor karhownoo was not much in their thoughts; they were conversing about the next bread-fruit harvest, and the recent arrival of king media and party at mondoldo. from far in advance, however, were heard the lamentations of the true mourners, the relatives of the diver. passing the reef, and sailing a little distance therefrom, the canoes were disposed in a circle; the one bearing the corpse in the center. certain ceremonies over, the body was committed to the waves; the white foam lighting up the last, long plunge of the diver, to see sights more strange than ever he saw in the brooding cells of the turtle reef. and now, while in the still midnight, all present were gazing down into the ocean, watching the white wake of the corpse, ever and anon illuminated by sparkles, an unknown voice was heard, and all started and vacantly stared, as this wild song was sung:--we drop our dead in the sea, the bottomless, bottomless sea; each bubble a hollow sigh, as it sinks forever and aye. we drop our dead in the sea,-- the dead reek not of aught; we drop our dead in the sea,-- the sea ne'er gives it a thought. sink, sink, oh corpse, still sink, far down in the bottomless sea, where the unknown forms do prowl, down, down in the bottomless sea. 'tis night above, and night all round, and night will it be with thee; as thou sinkest, and sinkest for aye, deeper down in the bottomless sea. the mysterious voice died away; no sign of the corpse was now seen; and mute with amaze, the company long listed to the low moan of the billows and the sad sough of the breeze. at last, without speaking, the obsequies were concluded by sliding into the ocean a carved tablet of palmetto, to mark the place of the burial. but a wave-crest received it, and fast it floated away. returning to the isle, long silence prevailed. but at length, as if the scene in which they had just taken part, afresh reminded them of the mournful event which had called them together, the company again recurred to it; some present, sadly and incidentally alluding to borabolla's banquet of turtle, thereby postponed. chapter c the pursuer himself is pursued next morning, when much to the chagrin of borabolla we were preparing to quit his isle, came tidings to the palace, of a wonderful event, occurring in one of the "motoos," or little islets of the great reef; which "motoo" was included in the dominions of the king. the men who brought these tidings were highly excited; and no sooner did they make known what they knew, than all mondoldo was in a tumult of marveling. their story was this. going at day break to the motoo to fish, they perceived a strange proa beached on its seaward shore; and presently were hailed by voices; and saw among the palm trees, three specter-like men, who were not of mardi. the first amazement of the fishermen over, in reply to their eager questions, the strangers related, that they were the survivors of a company of men, natives of some unknown island to the northeast; whence they had embarked for another country, distant three days' sail to the southward of theirs. but falling in with a terrible adventure, in which their sire had been slain, they altered their course to pursue the fugitive who murdered him; one and all vowing, never more to see home, until their father's fate was avenged. the murderer's proa outsailing theirs, soon ran out of sight; yet after him they blindly steered by day and by night: steering by the blood-red star in bootes. soon, a violent gale overtook them; driving them to and fro; leaving them they knew not where. but still struggling against strange currents, at times counteracting their sailing, they drifted on their way; nigh to famishing for water; and no shore in sight. in long calms, in vain they held up their dry gourds to heaven, and cried "send us a breeze, sweet gods!" the calm still brooded; and ere it was gone, all but three gasped; and dead from thirst, were plunged into the sea. the breeze which followed the calm, soon brought them in sight of a low, uninhabited isle; where tarrying many days, they laid in good store of cocoanuts and water, and again embarked. the next land they saw was mardi; and they landed on the motoo, still intent on revenge. this recital filled taji with horror. who could these avengers be, but the sons of him i had slain. i had thought them far hence, and myself forgotten; and now, like adders, they started up in my path, as i hunted for yillah. but i dissembled my thoughts. without waiting to hear more, borabolla, all curiosity to behold the strangers, instantly dispatched to the motoo one of his fleetest canoes, with orders to return with the voyagers. ere long they came in sight; and perceiving that strange pros in tow of the king's, samoa cried out: "lo! taji, the canoe that was going to tedaidee!" too true; the same double-keeled craft, now sorely broken, the fatal dais in wild disarray: the canoe, the canoe of aleema! and with it came the spearmen three, who, when the chamois was fleeing from their bow, had poised their javelins. but so wan their aspect now, their faces looked like skulls. then came over me the wild dream of yillah; and, for a space, like a madman, i raved. it seemed as if the mysterious damsel must still be there; the rescue yet to be achieved. in my delirium i rushed upon the skeletons, as they landed--"hide not the maiden!" but interposing, media led me aside; when my transports abated. now, instantly, the strangers knew who i was; and, brandishing their javelins, they rushed upon me, as i had on them, with a yell. but deeming us all mad, the crowd held us apart; when, writhing in the arms that restrained them, the pale specters foamed out their curses again and again: "oh murderer! white curses upon thee! bleached be thy soul with our hate! living, our brethren cursed thee; and dying, dry-lipped, they cursed thee again. they died not through famishing for water, but for revenge upon thee! thy blood, their thirst would have slaked!" i lay fainting against the hard-throbbing heart of samoa, while they showered their yells through the air. once more, in my thoughts, the green corpse of the priest drifted by. among the people of mondoldo, a violent commotion now raged. they were amazed at taji's recognition by the strangers, and at the deadly ferocity they betrayed. rallying upon this, and perceiving that by divulging all they knew, these sons of aleema might stir up the islanders against me, i resolved to anticipate their story; and, turning to borabolla, said--"in these strangers, oh, king! you behold the survivors of a band we encountered on our voyage. from them i rescued a maiden, called yillah, whom they were carrying captive. little more of their history do i know." "their maledictions?" exclaimed borabolla. "are they not delirious with suffering?" i cried. "they know not what they say." so, moved by all this, he commanded them to be guarded, and conducted within his palisade; and having supplied them with cheer, entered into earnest discourse. yet all the while, the pale strangers on me fixed their eyes; deep, dry, crater-like hollows, lurid with flames, reflected from the fear-frozen glacier, my soul. but though their hatred appalled, spite of that spell, again the sweet dream of yillah stole over me, with all the mysterious things by her narrated, but left unexplained. and now, before me were those who might reveal the lost maiden's whole history, previous to the fatal affray. thus impelled, i besought them to disclose what they knew. but, "where now is your yillah?" they cried. "is the murderer wedded and merry? bring forth the maiden!" yet, though they tore out my heart's core, i told them not of my loss. then, anxious, to learn the history of yillah, all present commanded them to divulge it; and breathlessly i heard what follows. "of yillah, we know only this:--that many moons ago, a mighty canoe, full of beings, white, like this murderer taji, touched at our island of amma. received with wonder, they were worshiped as gods; were feasted all over the land. their chief was a tower to behold; and with him, was a being, whose cheeks were of the color of the red coral; her eye, tender as the blue of the sky. every day our people brought her offerings of fruit and flowers; which last she would not retain for herself; but hung them round the neck of her child, yillah; then only an infant in her mother's arms; a bud, nestling close to a flower, full-blown. all went well between our people and the gods, till at last they slew three of our countrymen, charged with stealing from their great canoe. our warriors retired to the hills, brooding over revenge. three days went by; when by night, descending to the plain, in silence they embarked; gained the great vessel, and slaughtered every soul but yillah. the bud was torn from the flower; and, by our father aleema, was carried to the valley of ardair; there set apart as a sacred offering for apo, our deity. many moons passed; and there arose a tumult, hostile to our sire's longer holding custody of yillah; when, foreseeing that the holy glen would ere long be burst open, he embarked the maiden in yonder canoe, to accelerate her sacrifice at the great shrine of apo, in tedaidee.--the rest thou knowest, murderer!" "yillah! yillah!" now hunted again that sound through my soul. "oh, yillah! too late, too late have i learned what thou art!" apprised of the disappearance of their former captive, the meager strangers exulted; declaring that apo had taken her to himself. for me, ere long, my blood they would quaff from my skull. but though i shrunk from their horrible threats, i dissembled anew; and turning, again swore that they raved. "ay!" they retorted, "we rave and raven for you; and your white heart will we have!" perceiving the violence of their rage, and persuaded from what i said, that much suffering at sea must have maddened them; borabolla thought fit to confine them for the present; so that they could not molest me. chapter ci the iris that evening, in the groves, came to me three gliding forms:--hautia's heralds: the iris mixed with nettles. said yoomy, "a cruel message!" with the right hand, the second syren presented glossy, green wax-myrtle berries, those that burn like tapers; the third, a lily of the valley, crushed in its own broad leaf. this done, they earnestly eyed yoomy; who, after much pondering, said--"i speak for hautia; who by these berries says, i will enlighten you." "oh, give me then that light! say, where is yillah?" and i rushed upon the heralds. but eluding me, they looked reproachfully at yoomy; and seemed offended. "then, i am wrong," said yoomy. "it is thus:--taji, you have been enlightened, but the lily you seek is crushed." then fell my heart, and the phantoms nodded; flinging upon me bilberries, like rose pearls, which bruised against my skin, left stains. waving oleanders, they retreated. "harm! treachery! beware!" cried yoomy. then they glided through the wood: one showering dead leaves along the path i trod, the others gayly waving bunches of spring-crocuses, yellow, white, and purple; and thus they vanished. said yoomy, "sad your path, but merry hautia's." "then merry may she be, whoe'er she is; and though woe be mine, i turn not from that to hautia; nor ever will i woo her, though she woo me till i die;--though yillah never bless my eyes." chapter cii they depart from mondoldo night passed; and next morning we made preparations for leaving mondoldo that day. but fearing anew, lest after our departure, the men of amma might stir up against me the people of the isle, i determined to yield to the earnest solicitations of borabolla, and leave jarl behind, for a remembrance of taji; if necessary, to vindicate his name. apprised hereof, my follower was loth to acquiesce. his guiltless spirit feared not the strangers: less selfish considerations prevailed. he was willing to remain on the island for a time, but not without me. yet, setting forth my reasons; and assuring him, that our tour would not be long in completing, when we would not fail to return, previous to sailing for odo, he at last, but reluctantly, assented. at mondoldo, we also parted with samoa. whether it was, that he feared the avengers, whom he may have thought would follow on my track; or whether the islands of mardi answered not in attractiveness to the picture his fancy had painted; or whether the restraint put upon him by the domineering presence of king media, was too irksome withal; or whether, indeed, he relished not those disquisitions with which babbalanja regaled us: however it may have been, certain it was, that samoa was impatient of the voyage. he besought permission to return to odo, there to await my return; and a canoe of mondoldo being about to proceed in that direction, permission was granted; and departing for the other side of the island, from thence he embarked. long after, dark tidings came, that at early dawn he had been found dead in the canoe: three arrows in his side. yoomy was at a loss to account for the departure of samoa; who, while ashore, had expressed much desire to roam. media, however, declared that he must be returning to some inamorata. but babbalanja averred, that the upoluan was not the first man, who had turned back, after beginning a voyage like our own. to this, after musing, yoomy assented. indeed, i had noticed, that already the warbler had abated those sanguine assurances of success, with which he had departed from odo. the futility of our search thus far, seemed ominous to him, of the end. on the eve of embarking, we were accompanied to the beach by borabolla; who, with his own hand, suspended from the shark's mouth of media's canoe, three red-ripe bunches of plantains, a farewell gift to his guests. though he spoke not a word, jarl was long in taking leave. his eyes seemed to say, i will see you no more. at length we pushed from the strand; borabolla waving his adieus with a green leaf of banana; our comrade ruefully eyeing the receding canoes; and the multitude loudly invoking for us a prosperous voyage. but to my horror, there suddenly dashed through the crowd, the three specter sons of aleema, escaped from their prison. with clenched hands, they stood in the water, and cursed me anew. and with that curse in our sails, we swept off. chapter ciii as they sail as the canoes now glided across the lagoon, i gave myself up to reverie; and revolving over all that the men of amma had rehearsed of the history of yillah, i one by one unriddled the mysteries, before so baffling. now, all was made plain: no secret remaining, but the subsequent event of her disappearance. yes, hautia! enlightened i had been but where was yillah? then i recalled that last interview with hautia's messengers, so full of enigmas; and wondered, whether yoomy had interpreted aright. unseen, and unsolicited; still pursuing me with omens, with taunts, and with wooings, mysterious hautia appalled me. vaguely i began to fear her. and the thought, that perhaps again and again, her heralds would haunt me, filled me with a nameless dread, which i almost shrank from acknowledging. inwardly i prayed, that never more they might appear. while full of these thoughts, media interrupted them by saying, that the minstrel was about to begin one of his chants, a thing of his own composing; and therefore, as he himself said, all critics must be lenient; for yoomy, at times, not always, was a timid youth, distrustful of his own sweet genius for poesy. the words were about a curious hereafter, believed in by some people in mardi: a sort of nocturnal paradise, where the sun and its heat are excluded: one long, lunar day, with twinkling stars to keep company. the song far off in the sea is marlena, a land of shades and streams, a land of many delights. dark and bold, thy shores, marlena; but green, and timorous, thy soft knolls, crouching behind the woodlands. all shady thy hills; all gleaming thy springs, like eyes in the earth looking at you. how charming thy haunts marlena!-- oh, the waters that flow through onimoo: oh, the leaves that rustle through ponoo: oh, the roses that blossom in tarma: come, and see the valley of vina: how sweet, how sweet, the isles from hind: 'tis aye afternoon of the full, full moon, and ever the season of fruit, and ever the hour of flowers, and never the time of rains and gales, all in and about marlena. soft sigh the boughs in the stilly air, soft lap the beach the billows there; and in the woods or by the streams, you needs must nod in the land of dreams. "yoomy," said old mohi with a yawn, "you composed that song, then, did you?" "i did," said yoomy, placing his turban a little to one side. "then, minstrel, you shall sing me to sleep every night, especially with that song of marlena; it is soporific as the airs of nora-bamma." "mean you, old man, that my lines, setting forth the luxurious repose to be enjoyed hereafter, are composed with such skill, that the description begets the reality; or would you ironically suggest, that the song is a sleepy thing itself?" "an important discrimination," said media; "which mean you, mohi?" "now, are you not a silly boy," said babbalanja, "when from the ambiguity of his speech, you could so easily have derived something flattering, thus to seek to extract unpleasantness from it? be wise, yoomy; and hereafter, whenever a remark like that seems equivocal, be sure to wrest commendation from it, though you torture it to the quick." "and most sure am i, that i would ever do so; but often i so incline to a distrust of my powers, that i am far more keenly alive to censure, than to praise; and always deem it the more sincere of the two; and no praise so much elates me, as censure depresses." chapter civ wherein babbalanja broaches a diabolical theory, and, in his own person, proves it "a truce!" cried media, "here comes a gallant before the wind.--look, taji!" turning, we descried a sharp-prowed canoe, dashing on, under the pressure of an immense triangular sail, whose outer edges were streaming with long, crimson pennons. flying before it, were several small craft, belonging to the poorer sort of islanders. "out of his way there, ye laggards," cried media, "or that mad prince, tribonnora, will ride over ye with a rush!" "and who is tribonnora," said babbalanja, "that he thus bravely diverts himself, running down innocent paddlers?" "a harum-scarum young chief," replied media, "heir to three islands; he likes nothing better than the sport you now see see him at." "he must be possessed by a devil," said mohi. said babbalanja, "then he is only like all of us." "what say you?" cried media. "i say, as old bardianna in the nine hundred and ninety ninth book of his immortal ponderings saith, that all men--" "as i live, my lord, he has swamped three canoes," cried mohi, pointing off the beam. but just then a fiery fin-back whale, having broken into the paddock of the lagoon, threw up a high fountain of foam, almost under tribonnora's nose; who, quickly turning about his canoe, cur-like slunk off; his steering-paddle between his legs. comments over; "babbalanja, you were going to quote," said media. "proceed." "thank you, my lord. says old bardianna, 'all men are possessed by devils; but as these devils are sent into men, and kept in them, for an additional punishment; not garrisoning a fortress, but limboed in a bridewell; so, it may be more just to say, that the devils themselves are possessed by men, not men by them.'" "faith!" cried media, "though sometimes a bore, your old bardianna is a trump." "i have long been of that mind, my lord. but let me go on. says bardianna, 'devils are divers;--strong devils, and weak devils; knowing devils, and silly devils; mad devils, and mild devils; devils, merely devils; devils, themselves bedeviled; devils, doubly bedeviled." "and in the devil's name, what sort of a devil is yours?" cried mohi. "of him anon; interrupt me not, old man. thus, then, my lord, as devils are divers, divers are the devils in men. whence, the wide difference we see. but after all, the main difference is this:--that one man's devil is only more of a devil than another's; and be bedeviled as much as you will; yet, may you perform the most bedeviled of actions with impunity, so long as you only bedevil yourself. for it is only when your deviltry injures another, that the other devils conspire to confine yours for a mad one. that is to say, if you be easily handled. for there are many bedeviled bedlamites in mardi, doing an infinity of mischief, who are too brawny in the arms to be tied." "a very devilish doctrine that," cried mohi. "i don't believe it." "my lord," said babbalanja, "here's collateral proof;--the sage lawgiver yamjamma, who flourished long before bardianna, roundly asserts, that all men who knowingly do evil are bedeviled; for good is happiness; happiness the object of living; and evil is not good." "if the sage yamjamma said that," said old mohi, "the sage yamjamma might have bettered the saying; it's not quite so plain as it might be." "yamjamma disdained to be plain; he scorned to be fully comprehended by mortals. like all oracles, he dealt in dark sayings. but old bardianna was of another sort; he spoke right out, going straight to the point like a javelin; especially when he laid it down for a universal maxim, that minus exceptions, all men are bedeviled." "of course, then," said media, "you include yourself among the number." "most assuredly; and so did old bardianna; who somewhere says, that being thoroughly bedeviled himself, he was so much the better qualified to discourse upon the deviltries of his neighbors. but in another place he seems to contradict himself, by asserting, that he is not so sensible of his own deviltry as of other people's." "hold!" cried media, "who have we here?" and he pointed ahead of our prow to three men in the water, urging themselves along, each with a paddle. we made haste to overtake them. "who are you?" said media, "where from, and where bound?" "from variora," they answered, "and bound to mondoldo." "and did that devil tribonnora swamp your canoe?" asked media, offering to help them into ours. "we had no such useless incumbrance to lose," they replied, resting on their backs, and panting with their exertions. "if we had had a canoe, we would have had to paddle it along with us; whereas we have only our bodies to paddle." "you are a parcel of loons," exclaimed media. "but go your ways, if you are satisfied with your locomotion, well and good." "now, it is an extreme case, i grant," said babbalanja, "but those poor devils there, help to establish old bardianna's position. they belong to that species of our bedeviled race, called simpletons; but their devils harming none but themselves, are permitted to be at large with the fish. whereas, tribonnora's devil, who daily runs down canoes, drowning their occupants, belongs to the species of out and out devils; but being high in station, and strongly backed by kith and kin, tribonnora can not be mastered, and put in a strait jacket. for myself, i think my devil is some where between these two extremes; at any rate, he belongs to that class of devils who harm not other devils." "i am not so sure of that," retorted media. "methinks this doctrine of yours, about all mankind being bedeviled, will work a deal of mischief; seeing that by implication it absolves you mortals from moral accountability. further-more; as your doctrine is exceedingly evil, by yamjamma's theory it follows, that you must be proportionably bedeviled; and since it harms others, your devil is of the number of those whom it is best to limbo; and since he is one of those that can be limboed, limboed he shall be in you." and so saying, he humorously commanded his attendants to lay hands upon the bedeviled philosopher, and place a bandage upon his mouth, that he might no more disseminate his devilish doctrine. against this, babbalanja demurred, protesting that he was no orang-outang, to be so rudely handled. "better and better," said media, "you but illustrate bardianna's theory; that men are not sensible of their being bedeviled." thus tantalized, babbalanja displayed few signs of philosophy. whereupon, said media, "assuredly his devil is foaming; behold his mouth!" and he commanded him to be bound hand and foot. at length, seeing all resistance ineffectual, babbalanja submitted; but not without many objurgations. presently, however, they released him; when media inquired, how he relished the application of his theory; and whether he was still' of old bardianna's mind? to which, haughtily adjusting his robe, babbalanja replied, "the strong arm, my lord, is no argument, though it overcomes all logic." end of vol. i. generously made available by the internet archive/american libraries.) [illustration: hale-a-ka-la crater, the house of the sun.] legends of ma-ui--a demi god of polynesia and of his mother hina. by w. d. westervelt. honolulu: the hawaiian gazette co., ltd. contents chapter page i. maui's home ii. maui the fisherman iii. maui lifting the sky iv. maui snaring the sun v. maui finding fire vi. maui the skillful vii. maui and tuna viii. maui and his brother-in-law ix. maui's kite-flying x. oahu legends of maui xi. maui seeking immortality xii. hina of hilo xiii. hina and the wailuku river xiv. the ghosts of the hilo hills xv. hina, the woman in the moon list of illustrations opposite page frontispiece--haleakala crater "rugged lava of wailuku river" leaping to swim to coral reefs sea of sacred caves spearing fish here are the canoes iao mountain from the sea haleakala hawaiian vines and bushes bathing pool coconut grove boiling pots--wailuku river outside were other worlds hilo coast--home of the winds bay of waipio valley the ieie vine rainbow falls wailuku river--the home of kuna on lava beds helps to pronunciation there are three simple rules which practically control hawaiian pronunciation: ( ) give each vowel the german sound. ( ) pronounce each vowel. ( ) never allow a consonant to close a syllable. interchangeable consonants are many. the following are the most common: h=s; l=r; k=t; n=ng; v=w. preface maui is a demi god whose name should probably be pronounced ma-u-i, _i. e._, ma-oo-e. the meaning of the word is by no means clear. it may mean "to live," "to subsist." it may refer to beauty and strength, or it may have the idea of "the left hand" or "turning aside." the word is recognized as belonging to remote polynesian antiquity. macdonald, a writer of the new hebrides islands, gives the derivation of the name maui primarily from the arabic word "mohyi," which means "causing to live" or "life," applied sometimes to the gods and sometimes to chiefs as "preservers and sustainers" of their followers. the maui story probably contains a larger number of unique and ancient myths than that of any other legendary character in the mythology of any nation. there are three centers for these legends, new zealand in the south, hawaii in the north, and the tahitian group including the hervey islands in the east. in each of these groups of islands, separated by thousands of miles, there are the same legends, told in almost the same way, and with very little variation in names. the intermediate groups of islands of even as great importance as tonga, fiji or samoa, possess the same legends in more or less of a fragmentary condition, as if the three centers had been settled first when the polynesians were driven away from the asiatic coasts by their enemies, the malays. from these centers voyagers sailing away in search of adventures would carry fragments rather than complete legends. this is exactly what has been done and there are as a result a large number of hints of wonderful deeds. the really long legends as told about the demi god ma-u-i and his mother hina number about twenty. it is remarkable that these legends have kept their individuality. the polynesians are not a very clannish people. for some centuries they have not been in the habit of frequently visiting each other. they have had no written language, and picture writing of any kind is exceedingly rare throughout polynesia and yet in physical traits, national customs, domestic habits, and language, as well as in traditions and myths, the different inhabitants of the islands of polynesia are as near of kin as the cousins of the united states and great britain. the maui legends form one of the strongest links in the mythological chain of evidence which binds the scattered inhabitants of the pacific into one nation. an incomplete list aids in making clear the fact that groups of islands hundreds and even thousands of miles apart have been peopled centuries past by the same organic race. either complete or fragmentary maui legends are found in the single islands and island groups of aneityum, bowditch or fakaofa, efate, fiji, fotuna, gilbert, hawaii, hervey, huahine, mangaia, manihiki, marquesas, marshall, nauru, new hebrides, new zealand, samoa, savage, tahiti or society, tauna, tokelau and tonga. s. percy smith of new zealand in his book hawaiki mentions a legend according to which maui made a voyage after overcoming a sea monster, visiting the tongas, the tahitian group, vai-i or hawaii, and the paumotu islands. then maui went on to u-peru, which mr. smith says "may be peru." it was said that maui named some of the islands of the hawaiian group, calling the island maui "maui-ui in remembrance of his efforts in lifting up the heavens." hawaii was named vai-i, and lanai was called ngangai--as if maui had found the three most southerly islands of the group. the maui legends possess remarkable antiquity. of course, it is impossible to give any definite historical date, but there can scarcely be any question of their origin among the ancestors of the polynesians before they scattered over the pacific ocean. they belong to the prehistoric polynesians. the new zealanders claim maui as an ancestor of their most ancient tribes and sometimes class him among the most ancient of their gods, calling him "creator of land" and "creator of man." tregear, in a paper before the new zealand institute, said that maui was sometimes thought to be "the sun himself," "the solar fire," "the sun god," while his mother hina was called "the moon goddess." the noted greenstone god of the maoris of new zealand, potiki, may well be considered a representation of maui-tiki-tiki, who was sometimes called maui-po-tiki. whether these legends came to the people in their sojourn in india before they migrated to the straits of sunda is not certain; but it may well be assumed that these stories had taken firm root in the memories of the priests who transmitted the most important traditions from generation to generation, and that this must have been done before they were driven away from the asiatic coasts by the malays. several hints of hindoo connection is found in the maui legends. the polynesians not only ascribed human attributes to all animal life with which they were acquainted, but also carried the idea of an alligator or dragon with them, wherever they went, as in the mo-o of the story tuna-roa. the polynesians also had the idea of a double soul inhabiting the body. this is carried out in the ghost legends more fully than in the maui stories, and yet "the spirit separate from the spirit which never forsakes man" according to polynesian ideas, was a part of the maui birth legends. this spirit, which can be separated or charmed away from the body by incantations was called the "hau." when maui's father performed the religious ceremonies over him which would protect him and cause him to be successful, he forgot a part of his incantation to the "hau," therefore maui lost his protection from death when he sought immortality for himself and all mankind. how much these things aid in proving a hindoo or rather indian origin for the polynesians is uncertain, but at least they are of interest along the lines of race origin. the maui group of legends is preëminently peculiar. they are not only different from the myths of other nations, but they are unique in the character of the actions recorded. maui's deeds rank in a higher class than most of the mighty efforts of the demi gods of other nations and races, and are usually of more utility. hercules accomplished nothing to compare with "lifting the sky," "snaring the sun," "fishing for islands," "finding fire in his grandmother's finger nails," or "learning from birds how to make fire by rubbing dry sticks," or "getting a magic bone" from the jaw of an ancestor who was half dead, that is dead on one side and therefore could well afford to let the bone on that side go for the benefit of a descendant. the maui legends are full of helpful imaginations, which are distinctly polynesian. the phrase "maui of the malo" is used among the hawaiians in connection with the name maui a kalana, "maui the son of akalana." it may be well to note the origin of the name. it was said that hina usually sent her retainers to gather sea moss for her, but one morning she went down to the sea by herself. there she found a beautiful red malo, which she wrapped around her as a pa-u or skirt. when she showed it to akalana, her husband, he spoke of it as a gift of the gods, thinking that it meant the gift of mana or spiritual power to their child when he should be born. in this way the hawaiians explain the superior talent and miraculous ability of maui which placed him above his brothers. these stories were originally printed as magazine articles, chiefly in the paradise of the pacific, honolulu; therefore there are sometimes repetitions which it seemed best to leave, even when reprinted in the present form. i. maui's home "akalana was the man; hina-a-ke-ahi was the wife; maui first was born; then maui-waena; maui kiikii was born; then maui of the malo." --queen liliuokalani's family chant. four brothers, each bearing the name of maui, belong to hawaiian legend. they accomplished little as a family, except on special occasions when the youngest of the household awakened his brothers by some unexpected trick which drew them into unwonted action. the legends of hawaii, tonga, tahiti, new zealand and the hervey group make this youngest maui "the discoverer of fire" or "the ensnarer of the sun" or "the fisherman who pulls up islands" or "the man endowed with magic," or "maui with spirit power." the legends vary somewhat, of course, but not as much as might be expected when the thousands of miles between various groups of islands are taken into consideration. maui was one of the polynesian demi-gods. his parents belonged to the family of supernatural beings. he himself was possessed of supernatural powers and was supposed to make use of all manner of enchantments. in new zealand antiquity a maui was said to have assisted other gods in the creation of man. nevertheless maui was very human. he lived in thatched houses, had wives and children, and was scolded by the women for not properly supporting his household. the time of his sojourn among men is very indefinite. in hawaiian genealogies maui and his brothers were placed among the descendants of ulu and "the sons of kii," and maui was one of the ancestors of kamehameha, the first king of the united hawaiian islands. this would place him in the seventh or eighth century of the christian era. but it is more probable that maui belongs to the mist-land of time. his mischievous pranks with the various gods would make him another mercury living in any age from the creation to the beginning of the christian era. the hervey island legends state that maui's father was "the supporter of the heavens" and his mother "the guardian of the road to the invisible world." in the hawaiian chant, akalana was the name of his father. in other groups this was the name by which his mother was known. kanaloa, the god, is sometimes known as the father of maui. in hawaii hina was his mother. elsewhere ina, or hina, was the grandmother, from whom he secured fire. the hervey island legends say that four mighty ones lived in the old world from which their ancestors came. this old world bore the name ava-iki, which is the same as hawa-ii, or hawaii. the four gods were mauike, ra, ru, and bua-taranga. it is interesting to trace the connection of these four names with polynesian mythology. mauike is the same as the demi-god of new zealand, mafuike. on other islands the name is spelled mauika, mafuika, mafuia, mafuie, and mahuika. ra, the sun god of egypt, is the same as ra in new zealand and la (sun) in hawaii. ru, the supporter of the heavens, is probably the ku of hawaii, and the tu of new zealand and other islands, one of the greatest of the gods worshiped by the ancient hawaiians. the fourth mighty one from ava-ika was a woman, bua-taranga, who guarded the path to the underworld. talanga in samoa, and akalana in hawaii were the same as taranga. pua-kalana (the kalana flower) would probably be the same in hawaiian as bua-taranga in the language of the society islands. ru, the supporter of the heavens, married bua-taranga, the guardian of the lower world. their one child was maui. the legends of raro-tonga state that maui's father and mother were the children of tangaroa (kanaloa in hawaiian), the great god worshiped throughout polynesia. there were three maui brothers and one sister, ina-ika (ina, the fish). the new zealand legends relate the incidents of the babyhood of maui. maui was prematurely born, and his mother, not caring to be troubled with him, cut off a lock of her hair, tied it around him and cast him into the sea. in this way the name came to him, maui-tiki-tiki, or "maui formed in the topknot." the waters bore him safely. the jelly fish enwrapped and mothered him. the god of the seas cared for and protected him. he was carried to the god's house and hung up in the roof that he might feel the warm air of the fire, and be cherished into life. when he was old enough, he came to his relations while they were all gathered in the great house of assembly, dancing and making merry. little maui crept in and sat down behind his brothers. soon his mother called the children and found a strange child, who proved that he was her son, and was taken in as one of the family. some of the brothers were jealous, but the eldest addressed the others as follows: "never mind; let him be our dear brother. in the days of peace remember the proverb, 'when you are on friendly terms, settle your disputes in a friendly way; when you are at war, you must redress your injuries by violence.' it is better for us, brothers, to be kind to other people. these are the ways by which men gain influence--by laboring for abundance of food to feed others, by collecting property to give to others, and by similar means by which you promote the good of others." [illustration: rugged lava of wailuku river.] thus, according to the new zealand story related by sir george grey, maui was received in his home. maui's home was placed by some of the hawaiian myths at kauiki, a foothill of the great extinct crater haleakala, on the island of maui. it was here he lived when the sky was raised to its present position. here was located the famous fort around which many battles were fought during the years immediately preceding the coming of captain cook. this fort was held by warriors of the island of hawaii a number of years. it was from this home that maui was supposed to have journeyed when he climbed mt. haleakala to ensnare the sun. and yet most of the hawaiian legends place maui's home by the rugged black lava beds of the wailuku river near hilo on the island hawaii. here he lived when he found the way to make fire by rubbing sticks together, and when he killed kuna, the great eel, and performed other feats of valor. he was supposed to cultivate the land on the north side of the river. his mother, usually known as hina, had her home in a lava cave under the beautiful rainbow falls, one of the fine scenic attractions of hilo. an ancient demigod, wishing to destroy this home, threw a great mass of lava across the stream below the falls. the rising water was fast filling the cave. hina called loudly to her powerful son maui. he came quickly and found that a large and strong ridge of lava lay across the stream. one end rested against a small hill. maui struck the rock on the other side of the hill and thus broke a new pathway for the river. the water swiftly flowed away and the cave remained as the home of the maui family. according to the king kalakaua family legend, translated by queen liliuokalani, maui and his brothers also made this place their home. here he aroused the anger of two uncles, his mother's brothers, who were called "tall post" and "short post," because they guarded the entrance to a cave in which the maui family probably had its home. "they fought hard with maui, and were thrown, and red water flowed freely from maui's forehead. this was the first shower by maui." perhaps some family discipline followed this knocking down of door posts, for it is said: "they fetched the sacred awa bush, then came the second shower by maui; the third shower was when the elbow of awa was broken; the fourth shower came with the sacred bamboo." maui's mother, so says a new zealand legend, had her home in the under-world as well as with her children. maui determined to find the hidden dwelling place. his mother would meet the children in the evening and lie down to sleep with them and then disappear with the first appearance of dawn. maui remained awake one night, and when all were asleep, arose quietly and stopped up every crevice by which a ray of light could enter. the morning came and the sun mounted up--far up in the sky. at last his mother leaped up and tore away the things which shut out the light. "oh, dear; oh, dear! she saw the sun high in the heavens; so she hurried away, crying at the thought of having been so badly treated by her own children." maui watched her as she pulled up a tuft of grass and disappeared in the earth, pulling the grass back to its place. thus maui found the path to the under-world. soon he transformed himself into a pigeon and flew down, through the cave, until he saw a party of people under a sacred tree, like those growing in the ancient first hawaii. he flew to the tree and threw down berries upon the people. they threw back stones. at last he permitted a stone from his father to strike him, and he fell to the ground. "they ran to catch him, but lo! the pigeon had turned into a man." then his father "took him to the water to be baptized" (possibly a modern addition to the legend). prayers were offered and ceremonies passed through. but the prayers were incomplete and maui's father knew that the gods would be angry and cause maui's death, and all because in the hurried baptism a part of the prayers had been left unsaid. then maui returned to the upper world and lived again with his brothers. maui commenced his mischievous life early, for hervey islanders say that one day the children were playing a game dearly loved by polynesians--hide-and-seek. here a sister enters into the game and hides little maui under a pile of dry sticks. his brothers could not find him, and the sister told them where to look. the sticks were carefully handled, but the child could not be found. he had shrunk himself so small that he was like an insect under some sticks and leaves. thus early he began to use enchantments. maui's home, at the best, was only a sorry affair. gods and demigods lived in caves and small grass houses. the thatch rapidly rotted and required continual renewal. in a very short time the heavy rains beat through the decaying roof. the home was without windows or doors, save as low openings in the ends or sides allowed entrance to those willing to crawl through. off on one side would be the rude shelter, in the shadow of which hina pounded the bark of certain trees into wood pulp and then into strips of thin, soft wood-paper, which bore the name of "tapa cloth." this cloth hina prepared for the clothing of maui and his brothers. tapa cloth was often treated to a coat of cocoa-nut, or candle-nut oil, making it somewhat waterproof and also more durable. here maui lived on edible roots and fruits and raw fish, knowing little about cooked food, for the art of fire making was not yet known. in later years maui was supposed to live on the eastern end of the island maui, and also in another home on the large island hawaii, on which he discovered how to make fire by rubbing dry sticks together. maui was the polynesian mercury. as a little fellow he was endowed with peculiar powers, permitting him to become invisible or to change his human form into that of an animal. he was ready to take anything from any one by craft or force. nevertheless, like the thefts of mercury, his pranks usually benefited mankind. it is a little curious that around the different homes of maui, there is so little record of temples and priests and altars. he lived too far back for priestly customs. his story is the rude, mythical survival of the days when of church and civil government there was none and worship of the gods was practically unknown, but every man was a law unto himself, and also to the other man, and quick retaliation followed any injury received. ii. maui the fisherman "oh the great fish hook of maui! manai-i-ka-lani 'made fast to the heavens'--its name; an earth-twisted cord ties the hook. engulfed from the lofty kauiki. its bait the red billed alae, the bird made sacred to hina. it sinks far down to hawaii, struggling and painfully dying. caught is the land under the water, floated up, up to the surface, but hina hid a wing of the bird and broke the land under the water. below, was the bait snatched away and eaten at once by the fishes, the ulua of the deep muddy places." --chant of kualii, about a. d. . one of maui's homes was near kauiki, a place well known throughout the hawaiian islands because of its strategic importance. for many years it was the site of a fort around which fierce battles were fought by the natives of the island maui, repelling the invasions of their neighbors from hawaii. [illustration: leaping to swim to coral reefs.] haleakala (the house of the sun), the mountain from which maui the demi-god snared the sun, looks down ten thousand feet upon the kauiki headland. across the channel from haleakala rises mauna kea, "the white mountain"--the snow-capped--which almost all the year round rears its white head in majesty among the clouds. in the snowy breakers of the surf which washes the beach below these mountains, are broken coral reefs--the fishing grounds of the hawaiians. here near kauiki, according to some hawaiian legends, maui's mother hina had her grass house and made and dried her kapa cloth. even to the present day it is one of the few places in the islands where the kapa is still pounded into sheets from the bark of the hibiscus and kindred trees. here is a small bay partially reef-protected, over which year after year the moist clouds float and by day and by night crown the waters with rainbows--the legendary sign of the home of the deified ones. here when the tide is out the natives wade and swim, as they have done for centuries, from coral block to coral block, shunning the deep resting places of their dread enemy, the shark, sometimes esteemed divine. out on the edge of the outermost reef they seek the shellfish which cling to the coral, or spear the large fish which have been left in the beautiful little lakes of the reef. coral land is a region of the sea coast abounding in miniature lakes and rugged valleys and steep mountains. clear waters with every motion of the tide surge in and out through sheltered caves and submarine tunnels, according to an ancient hawaiian song-- "never quiet, never failing, never sleeping, never very noisy is the sea of the sacred caves." sea mosses of many hues are the forests which drape the hillsides of coral land and reflect the colored rays of light which pierce the ceaselessly moving waves. down in the beautiful little lakes, under overhanging coral cliffs, darting in and out through the fringes of seaweed, the purple mullet and royal red fish flash before the eyes of the fisherman. sometimes the many-tinted glorious fish of paradise reveal their beauties, and then again a school of black and gold citizens of the reef follow the tidal waves around projecting crags and through the hidden tunnels from lake to lake, while above the fisherman follows spearing or snaring as best he can. maui's brothers were better fishermen than he. they sought the deep sea beyond the reef and the larger fish. they made hooks of bone or of mother of pearl, with a straight, slender, sharp-pointed piece leaning backward at a sharp angle. this was usually a consecrated bit of bone or mother of pearl, and was supposed to have peculiar power to hold fast any fish which had taken the bait. [illustration: in the sea of sacred caves.] these bones were usually taken from the body of some one who while living had been noted for great power or high rank. this sharp piece was tightly tied to the larger bone or shell, which formed the shank of the hook. the sacred barb of maui's hook was a part of the magic bone he had secured from his ancestors in the under-world--the bone with which he struck the sun while lassooing him and compelling him to move more slowly through the heavens. "earth-twisted"--fibres of vines--twisted while growing, was the cord used by maui in tying the parts of his magic hook together. long and strong were the fish lines made from the olona fibre, holding the great fish caught from the depths of the ocean. the fibres of the olona vine were among the longest and strongest threads found in the hawaiian islands. such a hook could easily be cast loose by the struggling fish, if the least opportunity were given. therefore it was absolutely necessary to keep the line taut, and pull strongly and steadily, to land the fish in the canoe. maui did not use his magic hook for a long time. he seemed to understand that it would not answer ordinary needs. possibly the idea of making the supernatural hook did not occur to him until he had exhausted his lower wit and magic upon his brothers. it is said that maui was not a very good fisherman. sometimes his end of the canoe contained fish which his brothers had thought were on their hooks until they were landed in the canoe. many times they laughed at him for his poor success, and he retaliated with his mischievous tricks. "e!" he would cry, when one of his brothers began to pull in, while the other brothers swiftly paddled the canoe forward. "e!" see we both have caught great fish at the same moment. be careful now. your line is loose. "look out! look out!" all the time he would be pulling his own line in as rapidly as possible. onward rushed the canoe. each fisherman shouting to encourage the others. soon the lines by the tricky manipulation of maui would be crossed. then as the great fish was brought near the side of the boat maui the little, the mischievous one, would slip his hook toward the head of the fish and flip it over into the canoe--causing his brother's line to slacken for a moment. then his mournful cry rang out: "oh, my brother, your fish is gone. why did you not pull more steadily? it was a fine fish, and now it is down deep in the waters." then maui held up his splendid catch (from his brother's hook) and received somewhat suspicious congratulations. but what could they do, maui was the smart one of the family. their father and mother were both members of the household of the gods. the father was "the supporter of the heavens" and the mother was "the guardian of the way to the invisible world," but pitifully small and very few were the gifts bestowed upon their children. maui's brothers knew nothing beyond the average home life of the ordinary hawaiian, and maui alone was endowed with the power to work miracles. nevertheless the student of polynesian legends learns that maui is more widely known than almost all the demi-gods of all nations as a discoverer of benefits for his fellows, and these physical rather than spiritual. after many fishing excursions maui's brothers seemed to have wit enough to understand his tricks, and thenceforth they refused to take him in their canoe when they paddled out to the deep-sea fishing grounds. then those who depended upon maui to supply their daily needs murmured against his poor success. his mother scolded him and his brothers ridiculed him. in some of the polynesian legends it is said that his wives and children complained because of his laziness and at last goaded him into a new effort. the ex-queen liliuokalani, in a translation of what is called "the family chant," says that maui's mother sent him to his father for a hook with which to supply her need. "go hence to your father, 'tis there you find line and hook. this is the hook--'made fast to the heavens--' 'manaia-ka-lani'--'tis called. when the hook catches land it brings the old seas together. bring hither the large alae, the bird of hina." when maui had obtained his hook, he tried to go fishing with his brothers. he leaped on the end of their canoe as they pushed out into deep water. they were angry and cried out: "this boat is too small for another maui." so they threw him off and made him swim back to the beach. when they returned from their day's work, they brought back only a shark. maui told them if he had been with them better fish would have been upon their hooks--the ulua, for instance, or, possibly, the pimoe--the king of fish. at last they let him go far out outside the harbor of kipahula to a place opposite ka iwi o pele, "the bone of pele," a peculiar piece of lava lying near the beach at hana on the eastern side of the island maui. there they fished, but only sharks were caught. the brothers ridiculed maui, saying: "where are the ulua, and where is pimoe?" then maui threw his magic hook into the sea, baited with one of the alae birds, sacred to his mother hina. he used the incantation, "when i let go my hook with divine power, then i get the great ulua." the bottom of the sea began to move. great waves arose, trying to carry the canoe away. the fish pulled the canoe two days, drawing the line to its fullest extent. when the slack began to come in the line, because of the tired fish, maui called for the brothers to pull hard against the coming fish. soon land rose out of the water. maui told them not to look back or the fish would be lost. one brother did look back--the line slacked, snapped, and broke, and the land lay behind them in islands. one of the hawaiian legends also says that while the brothers were paddling in full strength, maui saw a calabash floating in the water. he lifted it into the canoe, and behold! his beautiful sister hina of the sea. the brothers looked, and the separated islands lay behind them, free from the hook, while cocoanut island--the dainty spot of beauty in hilo harbor--was drawn up--a little ledge of lava--in later years the home of a cocoanut grove. the better, the more complete, legend comes from new zealand, which makes maui so mischievous that his brothers refuse his companionship--and therefore, thrown on his own resources, he studies how to make a hook which shall catch something worth while. in this legend maui is represented as making his own hook and then pleading with his brothers to let him go with them once more. but they hardened their hearts against him, and refused again and again. maui possessed the power of changing himself into different forms. at one time while playing with his brothers he had concealed himself for them to find. they heard his voice in a corner of the house--but could not find him. then under the mats on the floor, but again they could not find him. there was only an insect creeping on the floor. suddenly they saw their little brother where the insect had been. then they knew he had been tricky with them. so in these fishing days he resolved to go back to his old ways and cheat his brothers into carrying him with them to the great fishing grounds. sir george gray says that the new zealand maui went out to the canoe and concealed himself as an insect in the bottom of the boat so that when the early morning light crept over the waters and his brothers pushed the canoe into the surf they could not see him. they rejoiced that maui did not appear, and paddled away over the waters. they fished all day and all night and on the morning of the next day, out from among the fish in the bottom of the boat came their troublesome brother. they had caught many fine fish and were satisfied, so thought to paddle homeward; but their younger brother plead with them to go out, far out, to the deeper seas and permit him to cast his hook. he said he wanted larger and better fish than any they had captured. [illustration: spearing fish.] so they paddled to their outermost fishing grounds--but this did not satisfy maui-- "farther out on the waters, o! my brothers, i seek the great fish of the sea." it was evidently easier to work for him than to argue with him--therefore far out in the sea they went. the home land disappeared from view; they could see only the outstretching waste of waters. maui urged them out still farther. then he drew his magic hook from under his malo or loin-cloth. the brothers wondered what he would do for bait. the new zealand legend says that he struck his nose a mighty blow until the blood gushed forth. when this blood became clotted, he fastened it upon his hook and let it down into the deep sea. down it went to the very bottom and caught the under world. it was a mighty fish--but the brothers paddled with all their might and main and maui pulled in the line. it was hard rowing against the power which held the hook down in the sea depths--but the brothers became enthusiastic over maui's large fish, and were generous in their strenuous endeavors. every muscle was strained and every paddle held strongly against the sea that not an inch should be lost. there was no sudden leaping and darting to and fro, no "give" to the line; no "tremble" as when a great fish would shake itself in impotent wrath when held captive by a hook. it was simply a struggle of tense muscle against an immensely heavy dead weight. to the brothers there came slowly the feeling that maui was in one of his strange moods and that something beyond their former experiences with their tricky brother was coming to pass. at last one of the brothers glanced backward. with a scream of intense terror he dropped his paddle. the others also looked. then each caught his paddle and with frantic exertion tried to force their canoe onward. deep down in the heavy waters they pushed their paddles. out of the great seas the black, ragged head of a large island was rising like a fish--it seemed to be chasing them through the boiling surf. in a little while the water became shallow around them, and their canoe finally rested on a black beach. maui for some reason left his brothers, charging them not to attempt to cut up this great fish. but the unwise brothers thought they would fill the canoe with part of this strange thing which they had caught. they began to cut up the back and put huge slices into their canoe. but the great fish--the island--shook under the blows and with mighty earthquake shocks tossed the boat of the brothers, and their canoe was destroyed. as they were struggling in the waters, the great fish devoured them. the island came up more and more from the waters--but the deep gashes made by maui's brothers did not heal--they became the mountains and valleys stretching from sea to sea. white of new zealand says that maui went down into the underworld to meet his great ancestress, who was one side dead and one side alive. from the dead side he took the jaw bone, made a magic hook, and went fishing. when he let the hook down into the sea, he called: "take my bait. o depths! confused you are. o depths! and coming upward." thus he pulled up ao-tea-roa--one of the large islands of new zealand. on it were houses, with people around them. fires were burning. maui walked over the island, saw with wonder the strange men and the mysterious fire. he took fire in his hands and was burned. he leaped into the sea, dived deep, came up with the other large island on his shoulders. this island he set on fire and left it always burning. it is said that the name for new zealand given to captain cook was te ika o maui, "the fish of maui." some new zealand natives say that he fished up the island on which dwelt "great hina of the night," who finally destroyed maui while he was seeking immortality. one legend says that maui fished up apparently from new zealand the large island of the tongas. he used this chant: "o tonga-nui! why art thou sulkily biting, biting below? beneath the earth the power is felt, the foam is seen, coming. o thou loved grandchild of tangaroa-meha." this is an excellent poetical description of the great fish delaying the quick hard bite. then the island comes to the surface and maui, the beloved grandchild of the polynesian god kanaloa, is praised. it was part of one of the legends that maui changed himself into a bird and from the heavens let down a line with which he drew up land, but the line broke, leaving islands rather than a mainland. about two hundred lesser gods went to the new islands in a large canoe. the greater gods punished them by making them mortal. turner, in his book on samoa, says there were three mauis, all brothers. they went out fishing from rarotonga. one of the brothers begged the "goddess of the deep rocks" to let his hooks catch land. then the island manahiki was drawn up. a great wave washed two of the mauis away. the other maui found a great house in which eight hundred gods lived. here he made his home until a chief from rarotonga drove him away. he fled into the sky, but as he leaped he separated the land into two islands. other legends of samoa say that tangaroa, the great god, rolled stones from heaven. one became the island savaii, the other became upolu. a god is sometimes represented as passing over the ocean with a bag of sand. wherever he dropped a little sand islands sprang up. payton, the earnest and honored missionary of the new hebrides islands, evidently did not know the name mauitikitiki, so he spells the name of the fisherman ma-tshi-ktshi-ki, and gives the myth of the fishing up of the various islands. the natives said that maui left footprints on the coral reefs of each island where he stood straining and lifting in his endeavors to pull up each other island. he threw his line around a large island intending to draw it up and unite it with the one on which he stood, but his line broke. then he became angry and divided into two parts the island on which he stood. this same maui is recorded by mr. payton as being in a flood which put out one volcano--maui seized another, sailed across to a neighboring island and piled it upon the top of the volcano there, so the fire was placed out of reach of the flood. in the hervey group of the tahitian or society islands the same story prevails and the natives point out the place where the hook caught and a print was made by the foot in the coral reef. but they add some very mythical details. maui's magic fish hook is thrown into the skies, where it continuously hangs, the curved tail of the constellation which we call scorpio. then one of the gods becoming angry with maui seized him and threw him also among the stars. there he stays looking down upon his people. he has become a fixed part of the scorpion itself. the hawaiian myths sometimes represent maui as trying to draw the islands together while fishing them out of the sea. when they had pulled up the island of kauai they looked back and were frightened. they evidently tried to rush away from the new monster and thus broke the line. maui tore a side out of the small crater kaula when trying to draw it to one of the other islands. three aumakuas, three fishes supposed to be spirit-gods, guarded kaula and defeated his purpose. at hawaii cocoanut island broke off because maui pulled too hard. another place near hilo on the large island of hawaii where the hook was said to have caught is in the wailuku river below rainbow falls. maui went out from his home at kauiki, fishing with his brothers. after they had caught some fine fish the brothers desired to return, but maui persuaded them to go out farther. then when they became tired and determined to go back, he made the seas stretch out and the shores recede until they could see no land. then drawing the magic hook, he baited it with the alae or sacred mud hen belonging to his mother hina. queen liliuokalani's family chant has the following reference to this myth: "maui longed for fish for hina-akeahi (hina of the fire, his mother), go hence to your father, there you will find line and hook. manaiakalani is the hook. where the islands are caught, the ancient seas are connected. the great bird alae is taken, the sister bird, of that one of the hidden fire of maui." maui evidently had no scruples against using anything which would help him carry out his schemes. he indiscriminately robbed his friends and the gods alike. down in the deep sea sank the hook with its struggling bait, until it was seized by "the land under the water." but hina the mother saw the struggle of her sacred bird and hastened to the rescue. she caught a wing of the bird, but could not pull the alae from the sacred hook. the wing was torn off. then the fish gathered around the bait and tore it in pieces. if the bait could have been kept entire, then the land would have come up in a continent rather than as an island. then the hawaiian group would have been unbroken. but the bait broke--and the islands came as fragments from the under world. maui's hook and canoe are frequently mentioned in the legends. the hawaiians have a long rock in the wailuku river at hilo which they call maui's canoe. different names were given to maui's canoe by the maoris of new zealand. "vine of heaven," "prepare for the north," "land of the receding sea." his fish hook bore the name "plume of beauty." on the southern end of hawke's bay, new zealand, there is a curved ledge of rocks extending out from the coast. this is still called by the maoris "maui's fish-hook," as if the magic hook had been so firmly caught in the jaws of the island that maui could not disentangle it, but had been compelled to cut it off from his line. there is a large stone on the sea coast of north kohala on the island of hawaii which the hawaiians point out as the place where maui's magic hook caught the island and pulled it through the sea. in the tonga islands, a place known as hounga is pointed out by the natives as the spot where the magic hook caught in the rocks. the hook itself was said to have been in the possession of a chief-family for many generations. [illustration: here are the canoes.] another group of hawaiian legends, very incomplete, probably referring to maui, but ascribed to other names, relates that a fisherman caught a large block of coral. he took it to his priest. after sacrificing, and consulting the gods, the priest advised the fisherman to throw the coral back into the sea with incantations. while so doing this block became hawaii-loa. the fishing continued and blocks of coral were caught and thrown back into the sea until all the islands appeared. hints of this legend cling to other island groups as well as to the hawaiian islands. fornander credits a fisherman from foreign lands as thus bringing forth the hawaiian islands from the deep seas. the reference occurs in part of a chant known as that of a friend of paao--the priest who is supposed to have come from samoa to hawaii in the eleventh century. this priest calls for his companions: "here are the canoes. get aboard. come along, and dwell on hawaii with the green back. a land which was found in the ocean, a land thrown up from the sea-- from the very depths of kanaloa, the white coral, in the watery caves, that was caught on the hook of the fisherman." the god kanaloa is sometimes known as a ruler of the under-world, whose land was caught by maui's hook and brought up in islands. thus in the legends the thought has been perpetuated that some one of the ancestors of the polynesians made voyages and discovered islands. in the time of umi, king of hawaii, there is the following record of an immense bone fish-hook, which was called the "fish-hook of maui:" "in the night of muku (the last night of the month), a priest and his servants took a man, killed him, and fastened his body to the hook, which bore the name manai-a-ka-lani, and dragged it to the heiau (temple) as a 'fish,' and placed it on the altar." this hook was kept until the time of kamehameha i. from time to time he tried to break it, and pulled until he perspired. peapea, a brother of kaahumanu, took the hook and broke it. he was afraid that kamehameha would kill him. kaahumanu, however, soothed the king, and he passed the matter over. the broken bone was probably thrown away. iii. maui lifting the sky. maui's home was for a long time enveloped by darkness. the heavens had fallen down, or, rather, had not been separated from the earth. according to some legends, the skies pressed so closely and so heavily upon the earth that when the plants began to grow, all the leaves were necessarily flat. according to other legends, the plants had to push up the clouds a little, and thus caused the leaves to flatten out into larger surface, so that they could better drive the skies back and hold them in place. thus the leaves became flat at first, and have so remained through all the days of mankind. the plants lifted the sky inch by inch until men were able to crawl about between the heavens and the earth, and thus pass from place to place and visit one another. after a long time, according to the hawaiian legends, a man, supposed to be maui, came to a woman and said: "give me a drink from your gourd calabash, and i will push the heavens higher." the woman handed the gourd to him. when he had taken a deep draught, he braced himself against the clouds and lifted them to the height of the trees. again he hoisted the sky and carried it to the tops of the mountains; then with great exertion he thrust it upwards once more, and pressed it to the place it now occupies. nevertheless dark clouds many times hang low along the eastern slope of maui's great mountain--haleakala--and descend in heavy rains upon the hill kauwiki; but they dare not stay, lest maui the strong come and hurl them so far away that they cannot come back again. a man who had been watching the process of lifting the sky ridiculed maui for attempting such a difficult task. when the clouds rested on the tops of the mountains, maui turned to punish his critic. the man had fled to the other side of the island. maui rapidly pursued and finally caught him on the sea coast, not many miles north of the town now known as lahaina. after a brief struggle the man was changed, according to the story, into a great black rock, which can be seen by any traveler who desires to localize the legends of hawaii. in samoa tiitii, the latter part of the full name of mauikiikii, is used as the name of the one who braced his feet against the rocks and pushed the sky up. the foot-prints, some six feet long, are said to be shown by the natives. another samoan story is almost like the hawaiian legend. the heavens had fallen, people crawled, but the leaves pushed up a little; but the sky was uneven. men tried to walk, but hit their heads, and in this confined space it was very hot. a woman rewarded a man who lifted the sky to its proper place by giving him a drink of water from her cocoanut shell. a number of small groups of islands in the pacific have legends of their skies being lifted, but they attribute the labor to the great eels and serpents of the sea. one of the ellice group, niu island, says that as the serpent began to lift the sky the people clapped their hands and shouted "lift up!" "high!" "higher!" but the body of the serpent finally broke into pieces which became islands, and the blood sprinkled its drops on the sky and became stars. one of the samoan legends says that a plant called daiga, which had one large umbrella-like leaf, pushed up the sky and gave it its shape. the vatupu, or tracey islanders, said at one time the sky and rocks were united. then steam or clouds of smoke rose from the rocks, and, pouring out in volumes, forced the sky away from the earth. man appeared in these clouds of steam or smoke. perspiration burst forth as this man forced his way through the heated atmosphere. from this perspiration woman was formed. then were born three sons, two of whom pushed up the sky. one, in the north, pushed as far as his arms would reach. the one in the south was short and climbed a hill, pushing as he went up, until the sky was in its proper place. the gilbert islanders say the sky was pushed up by men with long poles. the ancient new zealanders understood incantations by which they could draw up or discover. they found a land where the sky and the earth were united. they prayed over their stone axe and cut the sky and land apart. "hau-hau-tu" was the name of the great stone axe by which the sinews of the great heaven above were severed, and langi (sky) was separated from papa (earth). the new zealand maoris were accustomed to say that at first the sky rested close upon the earth and therefore there was utter darkness for ages. then the six sons of heaven and earth, born during this period of darkness, felt the need of light and discussed the necessity of separating their parents--the sky from the earth--and decided to attempt the work. rongo (hawaiian god lono) the "father of food plants," attempted to lift the sky, but could not tear it from the earth. then tangaroa (kanaloa), the "father of fish and reptiles," failed. haumia tiki-tiki (maui kiikii), the "father of wild food plants," could not raise the clouds. then tu (hawaiian ku), the "father of fierce men," struggled in vain. but tane (hawaiian kane), the "father of giant forests," pushed and lifted until he thrust the sky far up above him. then they discovered their descendants--the multitude of human beings who had been living on the earth concealed and crushed by the clouds. afterwards the last son, tawhiri (father of storms), was angry and waged war against his brothers. he hid in the sheltered hollows of the great skies. there he begot his vast brood of winds and storms with which he finally drove all his brothers and their descendants into hiding places on land and sea. the new zealanders mention the names of the canoes in which their ancestors fled from the old home hawaiki. tu (father of fierce men) and his descendants, however, conquered wind and storm and have ever since held supremacy. the new zealand legends also say that heaven and earth have never lost their love for each other. "the warm sighs of earth ever ascend from the wooded mountains and valleys, and men call them mists. the sky also lets fall frequent tears which men term dew drops." the manihiki islanders say that maui desired to separate the sky from the earth. his father, ru, was the supporter of the heavens. maui persuaded him to assist in lifting the burden. maui went to the north and crept into a place, where, lying prostrate under the sky, he could brace himself against it and push with great power. in the same way ru went to the south and braced himself against the southern skies. then they made the signal, and both pressed "with their backs against the solid blue mass." it gave way before the great strength of the father and son. then they lifted again, bracing themselves with hands and knees against the earth. they crowded it and bent it upward. they were able to stand with the sky resting on their shoulders. they heaved against the bending mass, and it receded rapidly. they quickly put the palms of their hands under it; then the tips of their fingers, and it retreated farther and farther. at last, "drawing themselves out to gigantic proportions, they pushed the entire heavens up to the very lofty position which they have ever since occupied." but maui and ru had not worked perfectly together; therefore the sky was twisted and its surface was very irregular. they determined to smooth the sky before they finished their task, so they took large stone adzes and chipped off the rough protuberances and ridges, until by and by the great arch was cut out and smoothed off. they then took finer tools and chipped and polished until the sky became the beautifully finished blue dome which now bends around the earth. the hervey island myth, as related by w. w. gill, states that ru, the father of maui, came from avaiki (hawa-iki), the underworld or abode of the spirits of the dead. he found men crowded down by the sky, which was a mass of solid blue stone. he was very sorry when he saw the condition of the inhabitants of the earth, and planned to raise the sky a little. so he planted stakes of different kinds of trees. these were strong enough to hold the sky so far above the earth "that men could stand erect and walk about without inconvenience." this was celebrated in one of the hervey island songs: "force up the heavens, o, ru! and let the space be clear." for this helpful deed ru received the name "the supporter of the heavens." he was rather proud of his achievement and was gratified because of the praise received. so he came sometimes and looked at the stakes and the beautiful blue sky resting on them. maui, the son, came along and ridiculed his father for thinking so much of his work. maui is not represented, in the legends, as possessing a great deal of love and reverence for his relatives provided his affection interfered with his mischief; so it was not at all strange that he laughed at his father. ru became angry and said to maui: "who told youngsters to talk? take care of yourself, or i will hurl you out of existence." maui dared him to try it. ru quickly seized him and "threw him to a great height." but maui changed himself to a bird and sank back to earth unharmed. then he changed himself back into the form of a man, and, making himself very large, ran and thrust his head between the old man's legs. he pried and lifted until ru and the sky around him began to give. another lift and he hurled them both to such a height that the sky could not come back. ru himself was entangled among the stars. his head and shoulders stuck fast, and he could not free himself. how he struggled, until the skies shook, while maui went away. maui was proud of his achievement in having moved the sky so far away. in this self-rejoicing he quickly forgot his father. ru died after a time. "his body rotted away and his bones, of vast proportions, came tumbling down from time to time, and were shivered on the earth into countless fragments. these shattered bones of ru are scattered over every hill and valley of one of the islands, to the very edge of the sea." thus the natives of the hervey islands account for the many pieces of porous lava and the small pieces of pumice stone found occasionally in their islands. the "bones" were very light and greatly resembled fragments of real bone. if the fragments were large enough they were sometimes taken and worshiped as gods. one of these pieces, of extraordinary size, was given to mr. gill when the natives were bringing in a large collection of idols. "this one was known as 'the light stone,' and was worshiped as the god of the wind and the waves. upon occasions of a hurricane, incantations and offerings of food would be made to it." thus, according to different polynesian legends, maui raised the sky and made the earth inhabitable for his fellow-men. iv. maui snaring the sun. "maui became restless and fought the sun with a noose that he laid. and winter won the sun, and summer was won by maui." --queen liliuokalani's family chant. a very unique legend is found among the widely-scattered polynesians. the story of maui's "snaring the sun" was told among the maoris of new zealand, the kanakas of the hervey and society islands, and the ancient natives of hawaii. the samoans tell the same story without mentioning the name of maui. they say that the snare was cast by a child of the sun itself. the polynesian stories of the origin of the sun are worthy of note before the legend of the change from short to long days is given. the tongan islanders, according to w. w. gill, tell the story of the origin of the sun and moon. they say that vatea (wakea) and their ancestor tongaiti quarreled concerning a child--each claiming it as his own. in the struggle the child was cut in two. vatea squeezed and rolled the part he secured into a ball and threw it away, far up into the heavens, where it became the sun. it shone brightly as it rolled along the heavens, and sank down to avaiki (hawaii), the nether world. but the ball came back again and once more rolled across the sky. tongaiti had let his half of the child fall on the ground and lie there, until made envious by the beautiful ball vatea made. at last he took the flesh which lay on the ground and made it into a ball. as the sun sank he threw his ball up into the darkness, and it rolled along the heavens, but the blood had drained out of the flesh while it lay upon the ground, therefore it could not become so red and burning as the sun, and had not life to move so swiftly. it was as white as a dead body, because its blood was all gone; and it could not make the darkness flee away as the sun had done. thus day and night and the sun and moon always remain with the earth. the legends of the society islands say that a demon in the west became angry with the sun and in his rage ate it up, causing night. in the same way a demon from the east would devour the moon, but for some reason these angry ones could not destroy their captives and were compelled to open their mouths and let the bright balls come forth once more. in some places a sacrifice of some one of distinction was needed to placate the wrath of the devourers and free the balls of light in times of eclipse. the moon, pale and dead in appearance, moved slowly; while the sun, full of life and strength, moved quickly. thus days were very short and nights were very long. mankind suffered from the fierceness of the heat of the sun and also from its prolonged absence. day and night were alike a burden to men. the darkness was so great and lasted so long that fruits would not ripen. after maui had succeeded in throwing the heavens into their place, and fastening them so that they could not fall, he learned that he had opened a way for the sun-god to come up from the lower world and rapidly run across the blue vault. this made two troubles for men--the heat of the sun was very great and the journey too quickly over. maui planned to capture the sun and punish him for thinking so little about the welfare of mankind. [illustration: iao mountain from the sea.] as rev. a. o. forbes, a missionary among the hawaiians, relates, maui's mother was troubled very much by the heedless haste of the sun. she had many kapa-cloths to make, for this was the only kind of clothing known in hawaii, except sometimes a woven mat or a long grass fringe worn as a skirt. this native cloth was made by pounding the fine bark of certain trees with wooden mallets until the fibres were beaten and ground into a wood pulp. then she pounded the pulp into thin sheets from which the best sleeping mats and clothes could be fashioned. these kapa cloths had to be thoroughly dried, but the days were so short that by the time she had spread out the kapa the sun had heedlessly rushed across the sky and gone down into the under-world, and all the cloth had to be gathered up again and cared for until another day should come. there were other troubles. "the food could not be prepared and cooked in one day. even an incantation to the gods could not be chanted through ere they were overtaken by darkness." this was very discouraging and caused great suffering, as well as much unnecessary trouble and labor. many complaints were made against the thoughtless sun. maui pitied his mother and determined to make the sun go slower that the days might be long enough to satisfy the needs of men. therefore, he went over to the northwest of the island on which he lived. this was mt. iao, an extinct volcano, in which lies one of the most beautiful and picturesque valleys of the hawaiian islands. he climbed the ridges until he could see the course of the sun as it passed over the island. he saw that the sun came up the eastern side of mt. haleakala. he crossed over the plain between the two mountains and climbed to the top of mt. haleakala. there he watched the burning sun as it came up from koolau and passed directly over the top of the mountain. the summit of haleakala is a great extinct crater twenty miles in circumference, and nearly twenty-five hundred feet in depth. there are two tremendous gaps or chasms in the side of the crater wall, through which in days gone by the massive bowl poured forth its flowing lava. one of these was the koolau, or eastern gap, in which maui probably planned to catch the sun. mt. hale-a-ka-la of the hawaiian islands means house-of-the-sun. "la," or "ra," is the name of the sun throughout parts of polynesia. ra was the sun-god of ancient egypt. thus the antiquities of polynesia and egypt touch each other, and today no man knows the full reason thereof. the hawaiian legend says maui was taunted by a man who ridiculed the idea that he could snare the sun, saying, "you will never catch the sun. you are only an idle nobody." maui replied, "when i conquer my enemy and my desire is attained, i will be your death." after studying the path of the sun, maui returned to his mother and told her that he would go and cut off the legs of the sun so that he could not run so fast. his mother said: "are you strong enough for this work?" he said, "yes." then she gave him fifteen strands of well-twisted fiber and told him to go to his grandmother, who lived in the great crater of haleakala, for the rest of the things in his conflict with the sun. she said: "you must climb the mountain to the place where a large wiliwili tree is standing. there you will find the place where the sun stops to eat cooked bananas prepared by your grandmother. stay there until a rooster crows three times; then watch your grandmother go out to make a fire and put on food. you had better take her bananas. she will look for them and find you and ask who you are. tell her you belong to hina." when she had taught him all these things, he went up the mountain to kaupo to the place hina had directed. there was a large wiliwili tree. here he waited for the rooster to crow. the name of that rooster was kalauhele-moa. when the rooster had crowed three times, the grandmother came out with a bunch of bananas to cook for the sun. she took off the upper part of the bunch and laid it down. maui immediately snatched it away. in a moment she turned to pick it up, but could not find it. she was angry and cried out: "where are the bananas of the sun?" then she took off another part of the bunch, and maui stole that. thus he did until all the bunch had been taken away. she was almost blind and could not detect him by sight, so she sniffed all around her until she detected the smell of a man. she asked: "who are you? to whom do you belong?" maui replied: "i belong to hina." "why have you come?" maui told her, "i have come to kill the sun. he goes so fast that he never dries the tapa hina has beaten out." the old woman gave a magic stone for a battle axe and one more rope. she taught him how to catch the sun, saying: "make a place to hide here by this large wiliwili tree. when the first leg of the sun comes up, catch it with your first rope, and so on until you have used all your ropes. fasten them to the tree, then take the stone axe to strike the body of the sun." maui dug a hole among the roots of the tree and concealed himself. soon the first ray of light--the first leg of the sun--came up along the mountain side. maui threw his rope and caught it. one by one the legs of the sun came over the edge of the crater's rim and were caught. only one long leg was still hanging down the side of the mountain. it was hard for the sun to move that leg. it shook and trembled and tried hard to come up. at last it crept over the edge and was caught by maui with the rope given by his grandmother. when the sun saw that his sixteen long legs were held fast in the ropes, he began to go back down the mountain side into the sea. then maui tied the ropes fast to the tree and pulled until the body of the sun came up again. brave maui caught his magic stone club or axe, and began to strike and wound the sun, until he cried: "give me my life." maui said: "if you live, you may be a traitor. perhaps i had better kill you." but the sun begged for life. after they had conversed a while, they agreed that there should be a regular motion in the journey of the sun. there should be longer days, and yet half the time he might go quickly as in the winter time, but the other half he must move slowly as in summer. thus men dwelling on the earth should be blessed. another legend says that he made a lasso and climbed to the summit of mt. haleakala. he made ready his lasso, so that when the sun came up the mountain side and rose above him he could cast the noose and catch the sun, but he only snared one of the sun's larger rays and broke it off. again and again he threw the lasso until he had broken off all the strong rays of the sun. then he shouted exultantly, "thou art my captive; i will kill thee for going so swiftly." then the sun said, "let me live and thou shalt see me go more slowly hereafter. behold, hast thou not broken off all my strong legs and left me only the weak ones?" so the agreement was made, and maui permitted the sun to pursue his course, and from that day he went more slowly. maui returned from his conflict with the sun and sought for moemoe, the man who had ridiculed him. maui chased this man around the island from one side to the other until they had passed through lahaina (one of the first mission stations in ). there on the seashore near the large black rock of the legend of maui lifting the sky he found moemoe. then they left the seashore and the contest raged up hill and down until maui slew the man and "changed the body into a long rock, which is there to this day, by the side of the road going past black rock." before the battle with the sun occurred maui went down into the underworld, according to the new zealand tradition, and remained a long time with his relatives. in some way he learned that there was an enchanted jawbone in the possession of some one of his ancestors, so he waited and waited, hoping that at last he might discover it. after a time he noticed that presents of food were being sent away to some person whom he had not met. one day he asked the messengers, "who is it you are taking that present of food to?" the people answered, "it is for muri, your ancestress." then he asked for the food, saying, "i will carry it to her myself." but he took the food away and hid it. "and this he did for many days," and the presents failed to reach the old woman. by and by she suspected mischief, for it did not seem as if her friends would neglect her so long a time, so she thought she would catch the tricky one and eat him. she depended upon her sense of smell to detect the one who had troubled her. as sir george grey tells the story: "when maui came along the path carrying the present of food, the old chiefess sniffed and sniffed until she was sure that she smelt some one coming. she was very much exasperated, and her stomach began to distend itself that she might be ready to devour this one when he came near. then she turned toward the south and sniffed and not a scent of anything reached her. then she turned to the north, and to the east, but could not detect the odor of a human being. she made one more trial and turned toward the west. ah! then came the scent of a man to her plainly and she called out, 'i know, from the smell wafted to me by the breeze, that somebody is close to me.'" maui made known his presence and the old woman knew that he was a descendant of hers, and her stomach began immediately to shrink and contract itself again. then she asked, "art thou maui?" he answered, "even so," and told her that he wanted "the jaw-bone by which great enchantments could be wrought." then muri, the old chiefess, gave him the magic bone and he returned to his brothers, who were still living on the earth. then maui said: "let us now catch the sun in a noose that we may compel him to move more slowly in order that mankind may have long days to labor in and procure subsistence for themselves." they replied, "no man can approach it on account of the fierceness of the heat." according to the society island legend, his mother advised him to have nothing to do with the sun, who was a divine living creature, "in form like a man, possessed of fearful energy," shaking his golden locks both morning and evening in the eyes of men. many persons had tried to regulate the movements of the sun, but had failed completely. but maui encouraged his mother and his brothers by asking them to remember his power to protect himself by the use of enchantments. the hawaiian legend says that maui himself gathered cocoanut fibre in great quantity and manufactured it into strong ropes. but the legends of other islands say that he had the aid of his brothers, and while working learned many useful lessons. while winding and twisting they discovered how to make square ropes and flat ropes as well as the ordinary round rope. in the society islands, it is said, maui and his brothers made six strong ropes of great length. these he called aeiariki (royal nooses). the new zealand legend says that when maui and his brothers had finished making all the ropes required they took provisions and other things needed and journeyed toward the east to find the place where the sun should rise. maui carried with him the magic jaw-bone which he had secured from muri, his ancestress, in the under-world. they traveled all night and concealed themselves by day so that the sun should not see them and become too suspicious and watchful. in this way they journeyed, until "at length they had gone very far to the eastward and had come to the very edge of the place out of which the sun rises. there they set to work and built on each side a long, high wall of clay, with huts of boughs of trees at each end to hide themselves in." here they laid a large noose made from their ropes and maui concealed himself on one side of this place along which the sun must come, while his brothers hid on the other side. maui seized his magic enchanted jaw-bone as the weapon with which to fight the sun, and ordered his brothers to pull hard on the noose and not to be frightened or moved to set the sun free. "at last the sun came rising up out of his place like a fire spreading far and wide over the mountains and forests. he rises up. his head passes through the noose. the ropes are pulled tight. then the monster began to struggle and roll himself about, while the snare jerked backwards and forwards as he struggled. ah! was not he held fast in the ropes of his enemies. then forth rushed that bold hero maui with his enchanted weapon. the sun screamed aloud and roared. maui struck him fiercely with many blows. they held him for a long time. at last they let him go, and then weak from wounds the sun crept very slowly and feebly along his course." in this way the days were made longer so that men could perform their daily tasks and fruits and food plants could have time to grow. the legend of the hervey group of islands says that maui made six snares and placed them at intervals along the path over which the sun must pass. the sun in the form of a man climbed up from avaiki (hawaiki). maui pulled the first noose, but it slipped down the rising sun until it caught and was pulled tight around his feet. [illustration: hale-a-ka-la crater. where the sun was caught.] maui ran quickly to pull the ropes of the second snare, but that also slipped down, down, until it was tightened around the knees. then maui hastened to the third snare, while the sun was trying to rush along on his journey. the third snare caught around the hips. the fourth snare fastened itself around the waist. the fifth slipped under the arms, and yet the sun sped along as if but little inconvenienced by maui's efforts. then maui caught the last noose and threw it around the neck of the sun, and fastened the rope to a spur of rock. the sun struggled until nearly strangled to death and then gave up, promising maui that he would go as slowly as was desired. maui left the snares fastened to the sun to keep him in constant fear. "these ropes may still be seen hanging from the sun at dawn and stretching into the skies when he descends into the ocean at night. by the assistance of these ropes he is gently let down into ava-iki in the evening, and also raised up out of shadow-land in the morning." another legend from the society islands is related by mr. gill: maui tried many snares before he could catch the sun. the sun was the hercules, or the samson, of the heavens. he broke the strong cords of cocoanut fibre which maui made and placed around the opening by which the sun climbed out from the under-world. maui made stronger ropes, but still the sun broke them every one. then maui thought of his sister's hair, the sister inaika, whom he cruelly treated in later years. her hair was long and beautiful. he cut off some of it and made a strong rope. with this he lassoed or rather snared the sun, and caught him around the throat. the sun quickly promised to be more thoughtful of the needs of men and go at a more reasonable pace across the sky. a story from the american indians is told in hawaii's young people, which is very similar to the polynesian legends. an indian boy became very angry with the sun for getting so warm and making his clothes shrink with the heat. he told his sister to make a snare. the girl took sinews from a large deer, but they shriveled under the heat. she took her own long hair and made snares, but they were burned in a moment. then she tried the fibres of various plants and was successful. her brother took the fibre cord and drew it through his lips. it stretched and became a strong red cord. he pulled and it became very long. he went to the place of sunrise, fixed his snare, and caught the sun. when the sun had been sufficiently punished, the animals of the earth studied the problem of setting the sun free. at last a mouse as large as a mountain ran and gnawed the red cord. it broke and the sun moved on, but the poor mouse had been burned and shriveled into the small mouse of the present day. a samoan legend says that a woman living for a time with the sun bore a child who had the name "child of the sun." she wanted gifts for the child's marriage, so she took a long vine, climbed a tree, made the vine into a noose, lassoed the sun, and made him give her a basket of blessings. in fiji, the natives tie the grasses growing on a hilltop over which they are passing, when traveling from place to place. they do this to make a snare to catch the sun if he should try to go down before they reach the end of their day's journey. this legend is a misty memory of some time when the polynesian people were in contact with the short days of the extreme north or south. it is a very remarkable exposition of a fact of nature perpetuated many centuries in lands absolutely free from such natural phenomena. v. maui finding fire. "grant, oh grant me thy hidden fire, o banyan tree. perform an incantation, utter a prayer to the banyan tree. kindle a fire in the dust of the banyan tree." --translation of ancient polynesian chant. among students of mythology certain characters in the legends of the various nations are known as "culture heroes." mankind has from time to time learned exceedingly useful lessons and has also usually ascribed the new knowledge to some noted person in the national mythology. these mythical benefactors who have brought these practical benefits to men are placed among the "hero-gods." they have been teachers or "culture heroes" to mankind. probably the fire finders of the different nations are among the best remembered of all these benefactors. this would naturally be the case, for no greater good has touched man's physical life than the discovery of methods of making fire. prometheus, the classical fire finder, is most widely known in literature. but of all the helpful gods of mythology, maui, the mischievous polynesian, is beyond question the hero of the largest numbers of nations scattered over the widest extent of territory. prometheus belonged to rome, but maui belonged to the length and breadth of the pacific ocean. theft or trickery, the use of deceit of some kind, is almost inseparably connected with fire finding all over the world. prometheus stole fire from jupiter and gave it to men together with the genius to make use of it in the arts and sciences. he found the rolling chariot of the sun, secretly filled his hollow staff with fire, carried it to earth, put a part in the breast of man to create enthusiasm or animation, and saved the remainder for the comfort of mankind to be used with the artist skill of minerva and vulcan. in brittany the golden or fire-crested wren steals fire and is red-marked while so doing. the animals of the north american indians are represented as stealing fire sometimes from the cuttle fish and sometimes from one another. some swiftly-flying bird or fleet-footed coyote would carry the stolen fire to the home of the tribe. the possession of fire meant to the ancients all that wealth means to the family of today. it meant the possession of comfort. the gods were naturally determined to keep this wealth in their own hands. for any one to make a sharp deal and cheat a god of fire out of a part of this valuable property or to make a courageous raid upon the fire guardian and steal the treasure, was easily sufficient to make that one a "culture hero." as a matter of fact a prehistoric family without fire would go to any length in order to get it. the fire finders would naturally be the hero-gods and stealing fire would be an exploit rather than a crime. it is worth noting that in many myths not only was fire stolen, but birds marked by red or black spots among their feathers were associated with the theft. it would naturally be supposed that the hawaiians living in a volcanic country with ever-flowing fountains of lava, would connect their fire myths with some volcano when relating the story of the origin of fire. but like the rest of the polynesians, they found fire in trees rather than in rivers of melted rock. they must have brought their fire legends and fire customs with them when they came to the islands of active volcanoes. flint rocks as fire producers are not found in the hawaiian myths, nor in the stories from the island groups related to the hawaiians. indians might see the fleeing buffalo strike fire from the stones under his hard hoofs. the tartars might have a god to teach them "the secret of the stone's edge and the iron's hardness." the peruvians could very easily form a legend of their mythical father guamansuri finding a way to make fire after he had seen the sling stones, thrown at his enemies, bring forth sparks of fire from the rocks against which they struck. the thunder and the lightning of later years were the sparks and the crash of stones hurled among the cloud mountains by the mighty gods. in australia the story is told of an old man and his daughter who lived in great darkness. after a time the father found the doorway of light through which the sun passed on his journey. he opened the door and a flood of sunshine covered the earth. his daughter looked around her home and saw numbers of serpents. she seized a staff and began to kill them. she wielded it so vigorously that it became hot in her hands. at last it broke, but the pieces rubbed against each other and flashed into sparks and flames. thus it was learned that fire was buried in wood. flints were known in europe and asia and america, but the polynesian looked to the banyan and kindred trees for the hidden sparks of fire. the natives of de peyster's island say that their ancestors learned how to make fire by seeing smoke rise from crossed branches rubbing together while trees were shaken by fierce winds. in studying the maui myths of the pacific it is necessary to remember that polynesians use "t" and "k" without distinguishing them apart, and also as in the hawaiian islands an apostrophe (') is often used in place of "t" or "k". therefore the maui ki-i-k-i'i of hawaii becomes the demi-god tiki-tiki of the gilbert islands--or the ti'i-ti'i of samoa or the tiki of new zealand--or other islands of the great ocean. we must also remember that in the hawaiian legends kalana is maui's father. this in other groups becomes talanga or kalanga or karanga. kanaloa, the great god of most of the different polynesians, is also sometimes called the father of maui. it is not strange that some of the exploits usually ascribed to maui should be in some places transferred to his father under one name or the other. on one or two groups mafuia, an ancestress of maui, is mentioned as finding the fire. the usual legend makes maui the one who takes fire away from mafuia. the story of fire finding in polynesia sifts itself to maui under one of his widely-accepted names, or to his father or to his ancestress--with but very few exceptions. this fact is important as showing in a very marked manner the race relationship of a vast number of the islanders of the pacific world. from the marshall islands, in the west, to the society islands of the east; from the hawaiian islands in the north to the new zealand group in the south, the footsteps of maui the fire finder can be traced. the hawaiian story of fire finding is one of the least marvelous of all the legends. hina, maui's mother, wanted fish. one morning early maui saw that the great storm waves of the sea had died down and the fishing grounds could be easily reached. he awakened his brothers and with them hastened to the beach. this was at kaupo on the island of maui. out into the gray shadows of the dawn they paddled. when they were far from shore they began to fish. but maui, looking landward, saw a fire on the mountain side. "behold," he cried. "there is a fire burning. whose can this fire be?" "whose, indeed?" his brothers replied. "let us hasten to the shore and cook our food," said one. they decided that they had better catch some fish to cook before they returned. thus, in the morning, before the hot sun drove the fish deep down to the dark recesses of the sea, they fished until a bountiful supply lay in the bottom of the canoe. when they came to land, maui leaped out and ran up the mountain side to get the fire. for a long, long time they had been without fire. the great volcano haleakala above them had become extinct--and they had lost the coals they had tried to keep alive. they had eaten fruits and uncooked roots and the shell fish broken from the reef--and sometimes the great raw fish from the far-out ocean. but now they hoped to gain living fire and cooked food. but when maui rushed up toward the cloudy pillar of smoke he saw a family of birds scratching the fire out. their work was finished and they flew away just as he reached the place. maui and his brothers watched for fire day after day--but the birds, the curly-tailed alae (or the mud-hens) made no fire. finally the brothers went fishing once more--but when they looked toward the mountain, again they saw flames and smoke. thus it happened to them again and again. maui proposed to his brothers that they go fishing leaving him to watch the birds. but the alae counted the fishermen and refused to build a fire for the hidden one who was watching them. they said among themselves, "three are in the boat and we know not where the other one is, we will make no fire today." so the experiment failed again and again. if one or two remained or if all waited on the land there would be no fire--but the dawn which saw the four brothers in the boat, saw also the fire on the land. finally maui rolled some kapa cloth together and stuck it up in one end of the canoe so that it would look like a man. he then concealed himself near the haunt of the mud-hens, while his brothers went out fishing. the birds counted the figures in the boat and then started to build a heap of wood for the fire. maui was impatient--and just as the old alae began to select sticks with which to make the flames he leaped swiftly out and caught her and held her prisoner. he forgot for a moment that he wanted the secret of fire making. in his anger against the wise bird his first impulse was to taunt her and then kill her for hiding the secret of fire. but the alae cried out: "if you are the death of me--my secret will perish also--and you cannot have fire." maui then promised to spare her life if she would tell him what to do. then came the contest of wits. the bird told the demi-god to rub the stalks of water plants together. he guarded the bird and tried the plants. water instead of fire ran out of the twisted stems. then she told him to rub reeds together--but they bent and broke and could make no fire. he twisted her neck until she was half dead--then she cried out: "i have hidden the fire in a green stick." maui worked hard, but not a spark of fire appeared. again he caught his prisoner by the head and wrung her neck, and she named a kind of dry wood. maui rubbed the sticks together, but they only became warm. the neck twisting process was resumed--and repeated again and again, until the mud-hen was almost dead--and maui had tried tree after tree. at last maui found fire. then as the flames rose he said: "there is one more thing to rub." he took a fire stick and rubbed the top of the head of his prisoner until the feathers fell off and the raw flesh appeared. thus the hawaiian mud-hen and her descendants have ever since had bald heads, and the hawaiians have had the secret of fire making. another hawaiian legend places the scene of maui's contest with the mud-hens a little inland of the town of hilo on the island of hawaii. there are three small extinct craters very near each other known as the halae hills. one, the southern or puna side of the hills, is a place called pohaku-nui. here dwelt two brother birds of the alae family. they were gods. one had the power of fire making. here at pohaku-nui they were accustomed to kindle a fire and bake their dearly loved food--baked bananas. here maui planned to learn the secret of fire. the birds had kindled the fire and the bananas were almost done, when the elder alae called to the younger: "be quick, here comes the swift son of hina." the birds scratched out the fire, caught the bananas and fled. maui told his mother he would follow them until he learned the secret of fire. his mother encouraged him because he was very strong and very swift. so he followed the birds from place to place as they fled from him, finding new spots on which to make their fires. at last they came to waianae on the island oahu. there he saw a great fire and a multitude of birds gathered around it, chattering loudly and trying to hasten the baking of the bananas. their incantation was this: "let us cook quick." "let us cook quick." "the swift child of hina will come." maui's mother hina had taught him how to know the fire-maker. "if you go up to the fire, you will find many birds. only one is the guardian. this is the small, young alae. his name is alae-iki: only this one knows how to make fire." so whenever maui came near to the fire-makers he always sought for the little alae. sometimes he made mistakes and sometimes almost captured the one he desired. at waianae he leaped suddenly among the birds. they scattered the fire, and the younger bird tried to snatch his banana from the coals and flee, but maui seized him and began to twist his neck. the bird cried out, warning maui not to kill him or he would lose the secret of fire altogether. maui was told that the fire was made from a banana stump. he saw the bananas roasting and thought this was reasonable. so, according to directions, he began to rub together pieces of the banana. the bird hoped for an unguarded moment when he might escape, but maui was very watchful and was also very angry when he found that rubbing only resulted in squeezing out juice. then he twisted the neck of the bird and was told to rub the stem of the taro plant. this also was so green that it only produced water. then he was so angry that he nearly rubbed the head of the bird off--and the bird, fearing for its life, told the truth and taught maui how to find the wood in which fire dwelt. they learned to draw out the sparks secreted in different kinds of trees. the sweet sandalwood was one of these fire trees. its hawaiian name is "ili-ahi"--the "ili" (bark) and "ahi" (fire), the bark in which fire is concealed. a legend of the society islands is somewhat similar. ina (hina) promised to aid maui in finding fire for the islanders. she sent him into the under-world to find tangaroa (kanaloa). this god tangaroa held fire in his possession--maui was to know him by his tattooed face. down the dark path through the long caves maui trod swiftly until he found the god. maui asked him for fire to take up to men. the god gave him a lighted stick and sent him away. but maui put the fire out and went back again after fire. this he did several times, until the wearied giver decided to teach the intruder the art of fire making. he called a white duck to aid him. then, taking two sticks of dry wood, he gave the under one to the bird and rapidly moved the upper stick across the under until fire came. maui seized the upper stick, after it had been charred in the flame, and burned the head of the bird back of each eye. thus were made the black spots which mark the head of the white duck. then arose a quarrel between tangaroa and maui--but maui struck down the god, and, thinking he had killed him, carried away the art of making fire. his father and mother made inquiries about their relative--maui hastened back to the fire fountain and made the spirit return to the body--then, coming back to ina, he bade her good bye and carried the fire sticks to the upper-world. the hawaiians, and probably others among the polynesians, felt that any state of unconsciousness was a form of death in which the spirit left the body, but was called back by prayers and incantations. therefore, when maui restored the god to consciousness, he was supposed to have made the spirit released by death return into the body and bring it back to life. in the samoan legends as related by g. turner, the name ti'iti'i is used. this is the same as the second name found in maui ki'i-ki'i. the samoan legend of ti'iti'i is almost identical with the new zealand fire myth of maui, and is very similar to the story coming from the hervey islands from savage island and also from the tokelau and other island groups. the samoan story says that the home of mafuie the earthquake god was in the land of perpetual fire. maui's or ti'iti'i's father talanga (kalana) was also a resident of the under-world and a great friend of the earthquake god. ti'iti'i watched his father as he left his home in the upper-world. talanga approached a perpendicular wall of rock, said some prayer or incantation--and passed through a door which immediately closed after him. (this is a very near approach to the "open sesame" of the arabian nights stories.) ti'iti'i went to the rock, but could not find the way through. he determined to conceal himself the next time so near that he could hear his father's words. after some days he was able to catch all the words uttered by his father as he knocked on the stone door-- "o rock! divide. i am talanga, i come to work on my land given by mafuie." ti'iti'i went to the perpendicular wall and imitating his father's voice called for a rock to open. down through a cave he passed until he found his father working in the under-world. the astonished father, learning how his son came, bade him keep very quiet and work lest he arouse the anger of mafuie. so for a time the boy labored obediently by his father's side. in a little while the boy saw smoke and asked what it was. the father told him that it was the smoke from the fire of mafuie, and explained what fire would do. the boy determined to get some fire--he went to the place from which the smoke arose and there found the god, and asked him for fire. mafuie gave him fire to carry to his father. the boy quickly had an oven prepared and the fire placed in it to cook some of the taro they had been cultivating. just as everything was ready an earthquake god came up and blew the fire out and scattered the stones of the oven. then ti'iti'i was angry and began to talk to mafuie. the god attacked the boy, intending to punish him severely for daring to rebel against the destruction of the fire. what a battle there was for a time in the under-world! at last ti'iti'i seized one of the arms of mafuie and broke it off. he caught the other arm and began to twist and bend it. mafuie begged the boy to spare him. his right arm was gone. how could he govern the earthquakes if his left arm were torn off also? it was his duty to hold samoa level and not permit too many earthquakes. it would be hard to do that even with one arm--but it would be impossible if both arms were gone. ti'iti'i listened to the plea and demanded a reward if he should spare the left arm. mafuie offered ti'iti'i one hundred wives. the boy did not want them. then the god offered to teach him the secret of fire finding to take to the upper-world. the boy agreed to accept the fire secret, and thus learned that the gods in making the earth had concealed fire in various trees for men to discover in their own good time, and that this fire could be brought out by rubbing pieces of wood together. the people of samoa have not had much faith in mafuie's plea that he needed his left arm in order to keep samoa level. they say that mafuie has a long stick or handle to the world under the islands--and when he is angry or wishes to frighten them he moves this handle and easily shakes the islands. when an earthquake comes, they give thanks to ti'iti'i for breaking off one arm--because if the god had two arms they believe he would shake them unmercifully. one legend of the hervey islands says that maui and his brothers had been living on uncooked food--but learned that their mother sometimes had delicious food which had been cooked. they learned also that fire was needed in order to cook their food. then maui wanted fire and watched his mother. maui's mother was the guardian of the way to the invisible world. when she desired to pass from her home to the other world, she would open a black rock and pass inside. thus she went to hawaiki, the under-world. maui planned to follow her, but first studied the forms of birds that he might assume the body of the strongest and most enduring. after a time he took the shape of a pigeon and, flying to the black rock, passed through the door and flew down the long dark passage-way. after a time he found the god of fire living in a bunch of banyan sticks. he changed himself into the form of a man and demanded the secret of fire. the fire god agreed to give maui fire if he would permit himself to be tossed into the sky by the god's strong arms. maui agreed on condition that he should have the right to toss the fire god afterwards. the fire-god felt certain that there would be only one exercise of strength--he felt that he had everything in his own hands--so readily agreed to the tossing contest. it was his intention to throw his opponent so high that when he fell, if he ever did fall, there would be no antagonist uncrushed. he seized maui in his strong arms and, swinging him back and forth, flung him upward--but the moment maui left his hands he changed himself into a feather and floated softly to the ground. then the boy ran swiftly to the god and seized him by the legs and lifted him up. then he began to increase in size and strength until he had lifted the fire god very high. suddenly he tossed the god upward and caught him as he fell--again and again--until the bruised and dizzy god cried enough, and agreed to give the victor whatever he demanded. maui asked for the secret of fire producing. the god taught him how to rub the dry sticks of certain kinds of trees together, and, by friction, produce fire, and especially how fire could be produced by rubbing fire sticks in the fine dust of the banyan tree. a society island legend says maui borrowed a sacred red pigeon, belonging to one of the gods, and, changing himself into a dragon fly, rode this pigeon through a black rock into avaiki (hawaiki), the fire-land of the under-world. he found the god of fire, mau-ika, living in a house built from a banyan tree. mau-ika taught maui the kinds of wood into which when fire went out on the earth a fire goddess had thrown sparks in order to preserve fire. among these were the "au" (hawaiian hau), or "the lemon hibiscus"--the "argenta," the "fig" and the "banyan." she taught him also how to make fire by swift motion when rubbing the sticks of these trees. she also gave him coals for his present need. but maui was viciously mischievous and set the banyan house on fire, then mounted his pigeon and fled toward the upper-world. but the flames hastened after him and burst out through the rock doors into the sunlit land above--as if it were a volcanic eruption. the tokelau islanders say that talanga (kalana) known in other groups of islands as the father of maui, desired fire in order to secure warmth and cooked food. he went down, down, very far down in the caves of the earth. in the lower world he found mafuika--an old blind woman, who was the guardian of fire. he told her he wanted fire to take back to men. she refused either to give fire or to teach how to make it. talanga threatened to kill her, and finally persuaded her to teach how to make fire in any place he might dwell--and the proper trees to use, the fire-yielding trees. she also taught him how to cook food--and also the kind of fish he should cook, and the kinds which should be eaten raw. thus mankind learned about food as well as fire. the savage island legend adds the element of danger to maui's mischievous theft of fire. the lad followed his father one day and saw him pull up a bunch of reeds and go down into the fire-land beneath. maui hastened down to see what his father was doing. soon he saw his opportunity to steal the secret of fire. then he caught some fire and started for the upper-world. his father caught a glimpse of the young thief and tried to stop him. maui ran up the passage through the black cave--bushes and trees bordered his road. the father hastened after his son and was almost ready to lay hands upon him, when maui set fire to the bushes. the flames spread rapidly, catching the underbrush and the trees on all sides and burst out in the face of the pursuer. destruction threatened the under-world, but maui sped along his way. then he saw that the fire was chasing him. bush after bush leaped into flame and hurled sparks and smoke and burning air after him. choked and smoke-surrounded, he broke through the door of the cavern and found the fresh air of the world. but the flames followed him and swept out in great power upon the upper-world a mighty volcanic eruption. the new zealand legends picture maui as putting out, in one night, all the fires of his people. this was serious mischief, and maui's mother decided that he should go to the under-world and see his ancestress, mahuika, the guardian of fire, and get new fire to repair the injury he had wrought. she warned him against attempting to play tricks upon the inhabitants of the lower regions. [illustration: hawaiian vines and bushes.] maui gladly hastened down the cave-path to the house of mahuika, and asked for fire for the upper-world. in some way he pleased her so that she pulled off a finger nail in which fire was burning and gave it to him. as soon as he had gone back to a place where there was water, he put the fire out and returned to mahuika, asking another gift, which he destroyed. this he did for both hands and feet until only one nail remained. maui wanted this. then mahuika became angry and threw the last finger nail on the ground. fire poured out and laid hold of everything. maui ran up the path to the upper-world, but the fire was swifter-footed. then maui changed himself into an eagle and flew high up into the air, but the fire and smoke still followed him. then he saw water and dashed into it, but it was too hot. around him the forests were blazing, the earth burning and the sea boiling. maui, about to perish, called on the gods for rain. then floods of water fell and the fire was checked. the great rain fell on mahuika and she fled, almost drowned. her stores of fire were destroyed, quenched by the storm. but in order to save fire for the use of men, as she fled she threw sparks into different kinds of trees where the rain could not reach them, so that when fire was needed it might be brought into the world again by rubbing together the fire sticks. the chatham islanders give the following incantation, which they said was used by maui against the fierce flood of fire which was pursuing him: "to the roaring thunder; to the great rain--the long rain; to the drizzling rain--the small rain; to the rain pattering on the leaves. these are the storms--the storms cause them to fall; to pour in torrents." the legend of savage island places maui in the role of fire-maker. he has stolen fire in the under-world. his father tries to catch him, but maui sets fire to the bushes by the path until a great conflagration is raging which pursues him to the upper-world. some legends make maui the fire-teacher as well as the fire-finder. he teaches men how to use hardwood sticks in the fine dry dust on the bark of certain trees, or how to use the fine fibre of the palm tree to catch sparks. in tahiti the fire god lived in the "hale-a-o-a," or house of the banyan. sometimes human sacrifices were placed upon the sacred branches of this tree of the fire god. in the bowditch or fakaofa islands the goddess of fire when conquered taught not only the method of making fire by friction but also what fish were to be cooked and what were to be eaten raw. thus some of the myths of maui, the mischievous, finding fire are told by the side of the inrolling surf, while natives of many islands, around their poi bowls, rest in the shade of the far-reaching boughs and thick foliage of the banyan and other fire-producing trees. vi. maui the skillful. according to the new zealand legends there were six mauis--the hawaiians counted four. they were a band of brothers. the older five were known as "the forgetful mauis." the tricky and quick-witted youngest member of the family was called maui te atamai--"maui the skillful." he was curiously accounted for in the new zealand under-world. when he went down through the long cave to his ancestor's home to find fire, he was soon talked about. "perhaps this is the man about whom so much is said in the upper-world." his ancestress from whom he obtained fire recognized him as the man called "the deceitful maui." even his parents told him once, "we know you are a tricky fellow--more so than any other man." one of the new zealand fire legends while recording his flight to the under-world and his appearance as a bird, says: "the men tried to spear him, and to catch him in nets. at last they cried out, 'maybe you are the man whose fame is great in the upper-world.' at once he leaped to the ground and appeared in the form of a man." he was not famous for inventions, but he was always ready to improve upon anything which was already in existence. he could take the sun in hand and make it do better work. he could tie the moon so that it had to swim back around the island to the place in the ocean from which it might rise again, and go slowly through the night. his brothers invented a slender, straight and smooth spear with which to kill birds. he saw the fluttering, struggling birds twist themselves off the smooth point and escape. he made a good light bird spear and put notches in it and kept most of the birds stuck. his brothers finally examined his spear and learned the reason for its superiority. in the same way they learned how to spear fish. they could strike and wound and sometimes kill--but they could not with their smooth spears draw the fish from the waters of the coral caves. but maui the youngest made barbs, so that the fish could not easily shake themselves loose. the others soon made their spears like his. the brothers were said to have invented baskets in which to trap eels, but many eels escaped. maui improved the basket by secretly making an inside partition as well as a cover, and the eels were securely trapped. it took the brothers a long time to learn the real difference between their baskets and his. one of the family made a basket like his and caught many eels. then maui became angry and chanted a curse over him and bewildered him, then changed him into a dog. the manahiki islanders have the legend that maui made the moon, but could not get good light from it. he tried experiments and found that the sun was quite an improvement. the sun's example stimulated the moon to shine brighter. once maui became interested in tattooing and tried to make a dog look better by placing dark lines around the mouth. the legends say that one of the sacred birds saw the pattern and then marked the sky with the red lines sometimes seen at sunrise and sunset. an hawaiian legend says that maui tattooed his arm with a sacred name and thus that arm was strong enough to hold the sun when he lassoed it. there is a new zealand legend in which maui is made one of three gods who first created man and then woman from one of the man's ribs. the hawaiians dwelling in hilo have many stories of maui. they say that his home was on the northern bank of the wailuku river. he had a strong staff made from an ohia tree (the native apple tree). with this he punched holes through the lava, making natural bridges and boiling pools, and new channels for its sometimes obstructed waters, so that the people could go up or down the river more easily. near one of the natural bridges is a figure of the moon carved in the rocks, referred by some of the natives to maui. maui is said to have taught his brothers the different kinds of fish nets and the use of the strong fibre of the olona, which was much better than cocoanut threads. the new zealand stories relate the spear-throwing contests of maui and his brothers. as children, however, they were not allowed the use of wooden spears. they took the stems of long, heavy reeds and threw them at each other, but maui's reeds were charmed into stronger and harder fibre so that he broke his mother's house and made her recognize him as one of her children. he had been taken away as soon as he was born by the gods to whom he was related. when he found his way back home his mother paid no attention to him. thus by a spear thrust he won a home. the brothers all made fish hooks, but maui the youngest made two kinds of hooks--one like his brothers' and one with a sharp barb. his brothers' hooks were smooth so that it was difficult to keep the fish from floundering and shaking themselves off, but they noticed that the fish were held by maui's hook better than by theirs. maui was not inclined to devote himself to hard work, and lived on his brothers as much as possible--but when driven out by his wife or his mother he would catch more fish than the other fishermen. they tried to examine his hooks, but he always changed his hooks so that they could not see any difference between his and theirs. at such times they called him the mischievous one and tried to leave him behind while they went fishing. they were, however, always ready to give him credit for his improvements. they dealt generously with him when they learned what he had really accomplished. when they caught him with his barbed hook they forgot the past and called him "ke atamai"--the skillful. the idea that fish hooks made from the jawbones of human beings were better than others, seemed to have arisen at first from the angle formed in the lower jawbone. later these human fish hooks were considered sacred and therefore possessed of magic powers. the greater sanctity and power belonged to the bones which bore more especial relation to the owner. therefore maui's "magic hook," with which he fished up islands, was made from the jawbone of his ancestress mahuika. it is also said that in order to have powerful hooks for every-day fishing he killed two of his children. their right eyes he threw up into the sky to become stars. one became the morning and the other the evening star. the idea that the death of any members of the family must not stand in the way of obtaining magical power, has prevailed throughout polynesia. from this angle in the jawbone maui must have conceived the idea of making a hook with a piece of bone or shell which should be fastened to the large bone at a very sharp angle, thus making a kind of barb. hooks like this have been made for ages among the polynesians. maui and his brothers went fishing for eels with bait strung on the flexible rib of a cocoanut leaf. the stupid brothers did not fasten the ends of the string. therefore the eels easily slipped the bait off and escaped. but maui made the ends of his string fast, and captured many eels. the little things which others did not think about were the foundation of maui's fame. upon these little things he built his courage to snare the sun and seek fire for mankind. in a new zealand legend, quoted by edward tregear, maui is called maui-maka-walu, or "maui with eyes eight." this eight-eyed maui would be allied to the hindoo deities who with their eight eyes face the four quarters of the world--thus possessing both insight into the affairs of men and foresight into the future. fornander, the hawaiian ethnologist, says: "in hawaiian mythology, kamapuaa, the demigod opponent of the goddess pele, is described as having eight eyes and eight feet; and in the legends maka-walu, 'eight-eyed,' is a frequent epithet of gods and chiefs." he notes this coincidence with the appearance of some of the principal hindoo deities as having some bearing upon the origin of the polynesians. it may be that a comparative study of the legends of other islands of the pacific by some student will open up other new and important facts. in tahiti, on the island raiatea, a high priest or prophet lived in the long, long ago. he was known as maui the prophet of tahiti. he was probably not maui the demigod. nevertheless he was represented as possessing very strange prophetical powers. according to the historian ellis, who previous to spent eight years in the society and hawaiian islands, this prophet maui clearly prophesied the coming of an outriggerless canoe from some foreign land. an outrigger is a log which so balances a canoe that it can ride safely through the treacherous surf. the chiefs and prophets charged him with stating the impossible. he took his wooden calabash and placed it in a pool of water as an illustration of the way such a boat should float. then with the floating bowl before him he uttered the second prophecy, that boats without line to tie the sails to the masts, or the masts to the ships, should also come to tahiti. [illustration: hawaiian bathing pool.] when english ships under captain wallis and captain cook, in the latter part of the eighteenth century, visited these islands, the natives cried out, "o the canoes of maui--the outriggerless canoes." passenger steamships, and the men-of-war from the great nations, have taught the tahitians that boats without sails and masts can cross the great ocean, and again they have recurred to the words of the prophet maui, and have exclaimed, "o the boats without sails and masts." this rather remarkable prophecy could easily have occurred to maui as he saw a wooden calabash floating over rough waters. maui's improvement upon nature's plan in regard to certain birds is also given in the legends as a proof of his supernatural powers. white relates the story as follows: "maui requested some birds to go and fetch water for him. the first one would not obey, so he threw it into the water. he requested another bird to go--and it refused, so he threw it into the fire, and its feathers were burnt. but the next bird obeyed, but could not carry the water, and he rewarded it by making the feathers of the fore part of its head white. then he asked another bird to go, and it filled its ears with water and brought it to maui, who drank, and then pulled the bird's legs and made them long in payment for its act of kindness." diffenbach says: "maui, the adam of new zealand, left the cat's cradle to the new zealanders as an inheritance." the name "whai" was given to the game. it exhibited the various steps of creation according to maori mythology. every change in the cradle shows some act in creation. its various stages were called "houses." diffenbach says again: "in this game of maui they are great proficients. it is a game like that called cat's cradle in europe. it is intimately connected with their ancient traditions and in the different figures which the cord is made to assume whilst held on both hands, the outline of their different varieties of houses, canoes or figures of men and women are imagined to be represented." one writer connects this game with witchcraft, and says it was brought from the under-world. some parts of the puzzle show the adventures of maui, especially his attempt to win immortality for men. in new zealand it was said maui found a large, fine-grained stone block, broke it in pieces, and from the fragments learned how to fashion stone implements. white also tells the new zealand legend of maui and the winds. "maui caught and held all the winds save the west wind. he put each wind into a cave, so that it might not blow. he sought in vain for the west wind, but could not find from whence it came. if he had found the cave in which it stayed he would have closed the entrance to that cave with rocks. when the west wind blows lightly it is because maui has got near to it, and has nearly caught it, and it has gone into its home, the cave, to escape him. when the winds of the south, east, and north blow furiously it is because the rocks have been removed by the stupid people who could not learn the lessons taught by maui. at other times maui allows these winds to blow in hurricanes to punish that people, and also that he may ride on these furious winds in search of the west wind." in the hawaiian legends maui is represented as greatly interested in making and flying kites. his favorite place for the sport was by the boiling pools of the wailuku river near hilo. he had the winds under his control and would call for them to push his kites in the direction he wished. his incantation calling up the winds is given in this maui proverb-- "strong wind come, soft wind come." white in his "ancient history of the maoris," relates some of maui's experiences with the people whom he found on the islands brought up from the under-world. on one island he found a sand house with eight hundred gods living in it. apparently maui discovered islands with inhabitants, and was reported to have fished them up out of the depths of the ocean. fishing was sailing over the ocean until distant lands were drawn near or "fished up." maui walked over the islands and found men living on them and fires burning near their homes. he evidently did not know much about fire, for he took it in his hands. he was badly burned and rushed into the sea. down he dived under the cooling waters and came up with one of the new zealand islands on his shoulders. but his hands were still burning, so wherever he held the island it was set on fire. these fires are still burning in the secret recesses of the volcanoes, and sometimes burst out in flowing lava. then maui paid attention to the people whom he had fished up. he tried to teach them, but they did not learn as he thought they should. he quickly became angry and said, "it is a waste of light for the sun to shine on such stupid people." so he tried to hold his hands between them and the sun, but the rays of the sun were too many and too strong; therefore, he could not shut them out. then he tried the moon and managed to make it dark a part of the time each month. in this way he made a little trouble for the stupid people. there are other hints in the legends concerning maui's desire to be revenged upon any one who incurred his displeasure. it was said that maui for a time lived in the heavens above the earth. here he had a foster brother maru. the two were cultivating the fields. maru sent a snowstorm over maui's field. (it would seem as if this might be a polynesian memory of a cold land where their ancestors knew the cold winter, or a lesson learned from the snow-caps of high mountains.) at any rate, the snow blighted maui's crops. maui retaliated by praying for rain to destroy maru's fields. but maru managed to save a part of his crops. other legends make maui the aggressor. at the last, however, maui became very angry. the foster parents tried to soothe the two men by saying, "live in peace with each other and do not destroy each other's food." but maui was implacable and lay in wait for his foster brother, who was in the habit of carrying fruit and grass as an offering to the gods of a temple situated on the summit of a hill. here maui killed maru and then went away to the earth. this legend is told by three or four different tribes of new zealand and is very similar to the hebrew story of cain and abel. at this late day it is difficult to say definitely whether or not it owes its origin to the early touch of christianity upon new zealand when white men first began to live with the natives. it is somewhat similar to stories found in the tonga islands and also in the hawaiian group, where a son of the first gods, or rather of the first men, kills a brother. in each case there is the shadow of the biblical idea. it seems safe to infer that such legends are not entirely drawn from contact with christian civilization. the natives claim that these stories are very ancient, and that their fathers knew them before the white men sailed on the pacific. vii. maui and tuna. when maui returned from the voyages in which he discovered or "fished up" from the ocean depths new islands, he gave deep thought to the things he had found. as the islands appeared to come out of the water he saw they were inhabited. there were houses and stages for drying and preserving food. he was greeted by barking dogs. fires were burning, food cooking and people working. he evidently had gone so far away from home that a strange people was found. the legend which speaks of the death of his brothers, "eaten" by the great fish drawn up from the floor of the sea, may very easily mean that the new people killed and ate the brothers. maui apparently learned some new lessons, for on his return he quickly established a home of his own, and determined to live after the fashion of the families in the new islands. maui sought hina-a-te-lepo, "daughter of the swamp," and secured her as his wife. the new zealand tribes tell legends which vary in different localities about this woman hina. she sometimes bore the name rau-kura--"the red plume." she cared for his thatched house as any other polynesian woman was in the habit of doing. she attempted the hurried task of cooking his food before he snared the sun and gave her sufficient daylight for her labors. they lived near the bank of a river from which hina was in the habit of bringing water for the household needs. one day she went down to the stream with her calabash. she was entwined with wreaths of leaves and flowers, as was the custom among polynesian women. while she was standing on the bank, tuna-roa, "the long eel," saw her. he swam up to the bank and suddenly struck her and knocked her into the water and covered her with slime from the blow given by his tail. hina escaped and returned to her home, saying nothing to maui about the trouble. but the next day, while getting water, she was again overthrown and befouled by the slime of tuna-roa. then hina became angry and reported the trouble to maui. maui decided to punish the long eel and started out to find his hiding place. some of the new zealand legends as collected by white, state that tuna-roa was a very smooth skinned chief, who lived on the opposite bank of the stream, and, seeing hina, had insulted her. when maui saw this chief, he caught two pieces of wood over which he was accustomed to slide his canoe into the sea. these he carried to the stream and laid them from bank to bank as a bridge over which he might entice tuna-roa to cross. maui took his stone axe, ma-tori-tori, "the severer," and concealed himself near the bank of the river. when "the long eel" had crossed the stream, maui rushed out and killed him with a mighty blow of the stone axe, cutting the head from the body. other legends say that maui found tuna-roa living as an eel in a deep water hole, in a swamp on the sea-coast of tata-a, part of the island ao-tea-roa. other stories located tuna-roa in the river near maui's home. maui saw that he could not get at his enemy without letting off the water which protected him. therefore into the forest went maui, and with sacred ceremonies, selected trees from the wood of which he prepared tools and weapons. meanwhile, in addition to the insult given to hina, tuna-roa had caught and devoured two of maui's children, which made maui more determined to kill him. maui made the narrow spade (named by the maoris of new zealand the "ko," and by the hawaiians "o-o") and the sharp spears, with which to pierce either the earth or his enemy. these spears and spades were consecrated to the work of preparing a ditch by which to draw off the water protecting "the long eel." the work of trench-making was accomplished with many incantations and prayers. the ditch was named "the sacred digging," and was tabooed to all other purposes except that of catching tuna-roa. across this ditch maui stretched a strong net, and then began a new series of chants and ceremonies to bring down an abundance of rain. soon the flood came and the overflowing waters rushed down the sacred ditch. the walls of the deep pool gave way and "the long eel" was carried down the trench into the waiting net. then there was commotion. tuna-roa was struggling for freedom. maui saw him and hastened to grasp his stone axe, "the severer." hurrying to the net, he struck tuna-roa a terrible blow, and cut off the head. with a few more blows, he cut the body in pieces. the head and tail were carried out into the sea. the head became fish and the tail became the great conger-eel. other parts of the body became sea monsters. but some parts which fell in fresh water became the common eels. from the hairs of the head came certain vines and creepers among the plants. after the death of tuna-roa the offspring of maui were in no danger of being killed and soon multiplied into a large family. another new zealand legend related by white says that maui built a sliding place of logs, over which tuna-roa must pass when coming from the river. maui also made a screen behind which he could secrete himself while watching for tuna-roa. he commanded hina to come down to the river and wait on the bank to attract tuna-roa. soon the long eel was seen in the water swimming near to hina. hina went to a place back of the logs which maui had laid down. tuna-roa came towards her, and began to slide down the skids. maui sprang out from his hiding place and killed tuna-roa with his axe, and cut him in pieces. the tail became the conger-eel. parts of his body became fresh-water eels. some of the blood fell upon birds and always after marked them with red spots. some of the blood was thrown into certain trees, making this wood always red. the muscles became vines and creepers. from this time the children of maui caught and ate the eels of both salt and fresh water. eel traps were made, and maui taught the people the proper chants or incantations to use when catching eels. this legend of maui and the long eel was found by white in a number of forms among the different tribes of new zealand, but does not seem to have had currency in many other island groups. in turner's "samoa" a legend is related which was probably derived from the maui stories and yet differs in its romantic results. the samoans say that among their ancient ones dwelt a woman named sina. sina among the polynesians is the same as hina--the "h" is softened into "s". she captured a small eel and kept it as a pet. it grew large and strong and finally attacked and bit her. she fled, but the eel followed her everywhere. her father came to her assistance and raised high mountains between the eel and herself. but the eel passed over the barrier and pursued her. her mother raised a new series of mountains. but again the eel surmounted the difficulties and attempted to seize sina. she broke away from him and ran on and on. finally she wearily passed through a village. the people asked her to stay and eat with them, but she said they could only help her by delivering her from the pursuing eel. the inhabitants of that village were afraid of the eel and refused to fight for her. so she ran on to another place. here the chief offered her a drink of water and promised to kill the eel for her. he prepared awa, a stupefying drink, and put poison in it. when the eel came along the chief asked him to drink. he took the awa and prepared to follow sina. when he came to the place where she was the pains of death had already seized him. while dying he begged her to bury his head by her home. this she did, and in time a plant new to the islands sprang up. it became a tree, and finally produced a cocoanut, whose two eyes could continually look into the face of sina. tuna, in the legends of fiji, was a demon of the sea. he lived in a deep sea cave, into which he sometimes shut himself behind closed doors of coral. when he was hungry, he swam through the ocean shadows, always watching the restless surface. when a canoe passed above him, he would throw himself swiftly through the waters, upset the canoe, and seize some of the boatmen and devour them. he was greatly feared by all the fishermen of the fijian coasts. [illustration: a coconut grove in kona.] roko--a mo-o or dragon god--in his journey among the islands, stopped at a village by the sea and asked for a canoe and boatmen. the people said: "we have nothing but a very old canoe out there by the water." he went to it and found it in a very bad condition. he put it in the water, and decided that he could use it. then he asked two men to go with him and paddle, but they refused because of fear, and explained this fear by telling the story of the water demon, who continually sought the destruction of this canoe, and also their own death. roko encouraged them to take him to wage battle with tuna, telling them he would destroy the monster. they paddled until they were directly over tuna's cave. roko told them to go off to one side and wait and watch, saying: "i am going down to see this tuna. if you see red blood boil up through the water, you may be sure that tuna has been killed. if the blood is black, then you will know that he has the victory and i am dead." roko leaped into the water and went down--down to the door of the cave. the coral doors were closed. he grasped them in his strong hands and tore them open, breaking them in pieces. inside he found cave after cave of coral, and broke his way through until at last he awoke tuna. the angry demon cried: "who is that?" roko answered: "it is i, roko, alone. who are you?" tuna aroused himself and demanded roko's business and who guided him to that place. roko replied: "no one has guided me. i go from place to place, thinking that there is no one else in the world." tuna shook himself angrily. "do you think i am nothing? this day is your last." roko replied: "perhaps so. if the sky falls, i shall die." tuna leaped upon roko and bit him. then came the mighty battle of the coral caves. roko broke tuna into several pieces--and the red blood poured in boiling bubbles upward through the clear ocean waters, and the boatmen cried: "the blood is red--the blood is red--tuna is dead by the hand of roko." roko lived for a time in fiji, where his descendants still find their home. the people use this chant to aid them in difficulties: "my load is a red one. it points in front to kawa (roko's home). behind, it points to dolomo--(a village on another island)." in the hawaiian legends, hina was maui's mother rather than his wife, and kuna (tuna) was a mo-o, a dragon or gigantic lizard possessing miraculous powers. hina's home was in the large cave under the beautiful rainbow falls near the city of hilo. above the falls the bed of the river is along the channel of an ancient lava flow. sometimes the water pours in a torrent over the rugged lava, sometimes it passes through underground passages as well as along the black river bed, and sometimes it thrusts itself into boiling pools. maui lived on the northern side of the river, but a chief named kuna-moo--a dragon--lived in the boiling pools. he attacked hina and threw a dam across the river below rainbow falls, intending to drown hina in her cave. the great ledge of rock filled the river bed high up the bank on the hilo side of the river. hina called on maui for aid. maui came quickly and with mighty blows cut out a new channel for the river--the path it follows to this day. the waters sank and hina remained unharmed in her cave. the place where kuna dwelt was called wai-kuna--the kuna water. the river in which hina and kuna dwelt bears the name wailuku--"the destructive water." maui went above kuna's home and poured hot water into the river. this part of the myth could easily have arisen from a lava outburst on the side of the volcano above the river. the hot water swept in a flood over kuna's home. kuna jumped from the boiling pools over a series of small falls near his home into the river below. here the hot water again scalded him and in pain he leaped from the river to the bank, where maui killed him by beating him with a club. his body was washed down the river over the falls under which hina dwelt, into the ocean. the story of kuna or tuna is a legend with a foundation in the enmity between two chiefs of the long ago, and also in a desire to explain the origin of the family of eels and the invention of nets and traps. [illustration: wailuku river--the boiling pots.] viii. maui and his brother-in-law. the "stories of maui's brother-in-law," and of "maui seeking immortality," are not found in hawaiian mythology. we depend upon sir george grey and john white for the new zealand myths in which both of these legends occur. maui's sister hina-uri married ira-waru, who was willing to work with his skillful brother-in-law. they hunted in the forests and speared birds. they fished and farmed together. they passed through many experiences similar to those maui's own brothers had suffered before the brother-in-law took their place as maui's companion. they made spears together--but maui made notched barbs for his spear ends--and slipped them off when ira-waru came near. so for a long time the proceeds of bird hunting fell to maui. but after a time the brother-in-law learned the secret as the brothers had before, and maui was looked up to by his fellow hunter as the skillful one. sometimes ira-waru was able to see at once maui's plan and adopt it. he discovered maui's method of making the punga or eel baskets for catching eels. the two hunters went to the forest to find a certain creeping vine with which to weave their eel snares. ira-waru made a basket with a hole, by which the eels could enter, but they could turn around and go out the same way. so he very seldom caught an eel. but maui made his basket with a long funnel-shaped door, by which the eels could easily slide into the snare but could scarcely escape. he made a door in the side which he fastened tight until he wished to pour the eels out. ira-waru immediately made a basket like maui. then maui became angry and uttered incantations over ira-waru. the man dropped on the ground and became a dog. maui returned home and met his sister, who charged him with sorcery concerning her husband. maui did not deny the exercise of his power, but taught his sister a chant and sent her out to the level country. there she uttered her chant and a strange dog with long hair came to her, barking and leaping around her. then she knew what maui had done. "thus ira-waru became the first of the long-haired dogs whose flesh has been tabooed to women." the tahu and hau tribes of new zealand tell a different story. they say that maui went to visit ira-waru. together they set out on a journey. after a time they rested by the wayside and became sleepy. maui asked ira-waru to cleanse his head. this gave him the restful, soothing touch which aided sleep. then maui proposed that ira-waru sleep. taking the head in his hands, maui put his brother-in-law to sleep. then by incantations he made the sleep very deep and prolonged. meanwhile he pulled the ears and arms and limbs until they were properly lengthened. he drew out the under jaw until it had the form of a dog's mouth. he stretched the end of the backbone into a tail, and then wakened ira-waru and drove him back when he tried to follow the path to the settlement. hina-uri went out and called her husband. he came to her, leaping and barking. she decided that this was her husband, and in her agony reproached maui and wandered away. the rua-nui story-tellers of new zealand say that maui's anger was aroused against ira-waru because he ate all the bait when they went fishing, and they could catch no fish after paddling out to the fishing grounds. when they came to land, maui told ira-waru to lie down in the sand as a roller over which to drag the canoe up the beach. when he was lying helpless under the canoe, maui changed him into a dog. the arawa legends make the cause of maui's anger the success of ira-waru while fishing. ira-waru had many fish while maui had captured but few. the story is told thus: "ira-waru hooked a fish and in pulling it in his line became entangled with that of maui. maui felt the jerking and began to pull in his line. soon they pulled their lines close up to the canoe, one to the bow, the other to the stern, where each was sitting. maui said: 'let me pull the lines to me, as the fish is on my hook.' his brother-in-law said: 'not so; the fish is on mine.' but maui said: 'let me pull my line in.' ira-waru did so and saw that the fish was on his hook. then he said: 'untwist your lines and let mine go, that i may pull the fish in.' maui said: 'i will do so, but let me have time.' he took the fish off ira-waru's hook and saw that there was a barb on the hook. he said to ira-waru: 'perhaps we ought to return to land.' when they were dragging the canoe on shore, maui said to ira-waru: 'get between the canoe and outrigger and drag.' ira-waru did so and maui leaped on the outrigger and weighed it heavily down and crushed ira-waru prostrate on the beach. maui trod on him and pulled his backbone long like a tail and changed him into a dog." maui is said to have tattooed the muzzle of the dog with a beautiful pattern which the birds (kahui-zara, a flock of tern) used in marking the sky. from this also came the red glow which sometimes flushes the face of man. another arawa version of the legend was that maui and ira-waru were journeying together. ira-waru was gluttonous and ate the best food. at last maui determined to punish his companion. by incantation he lengthened the way until ira-waru became faint and weary. maui had provided himself with a little food and therefore was enabled to endure the long way. while ira-waru slept maui trod on his backbone and lengthened it and changed the arms and limbs into the legs of a dog. when hina-uri saw the state of her husband she went into the thatched house by which ira-waru had so often stood watching the hollow log in which she dried the fish and preserved the birds speared in the mountains. she bound her girdle and hala-leaf apron around her and went down to the sea to drown herself, that her body might be eaten by the monsters of the sea. when she came to the shell-covered beach, she sat down and sang her death song-- "i weep, i call to the steep billows of the sea and to him, the great, the ocean god; to monsters, all now hidden, to come and bury me, who now am wrapped in mourning. let the waves wear their mourning, too, and sleep as sleeps the dead." --ancient maui chant of new zealand. then hina-uri threw herself into the sea and was borne on the waves many moons, at last drifting to shore, to be found by two fishermen. they carried the body off to the fire and warmed it back to life. they brushed off the sea moss and sea weeds and rubbed her until she awoke. soon they told their chief, tini-rau, what a beautiful woman they had found in the sea. he came and took her away to make her one of his wives. but the other wives were jealous and drove hina-uri away from the chief's houses. another new zealand legend says that hina came to the sea and called for a little fish to aid her in going away from the island. it tried to carry her, but was too weak. hina struck it with her open hand. it had striped sides forever after. she tried a larger fish, but fell off before they had gone far from shore. her blow gave this fish its beautiful blue spots. another received black spots. another she stamped her foot upon, making it flat. at last a shark carried her far away. she was very thirsty, and broke a cocoanut on the shark's head, making a bump, which has been handed down for generations. the shark carried her to the home of the two who rescued her and gave her new strength. meanwhile rupe or maui-mua, a brother of hina-uri and maui, grieved for his sister. he sought for her throughout the land and then launched his canoe upon the blue waters surrounding ao-tea-roa (the great white land; the ancient native new zealand) and searched the coasts. he only learned that his sister had, as the natives said, "leaped into the waters and been carried away into the heavens." [illustration: "outside were other worlds."] rupe's heart filled with the desire to find and protect the frenzied sister who had probably taken a canoe and floated away, out of the horizon, seen from new zealand coasts, into new horizons. during the viking age of the pacific, when many chiefs sailed long distances, visiting the most remote islands of polynesia, they frequently spoke of breaking through from the home land into new heavens--or of climbing up the path of the sun on the waters into a new heaven. this was their poetical way of passing from horizon to horizon. the horizon around their particular island surrounded their complete world. outside, somewhere, were other worlds and other heavens. rupe's voyage was an idyll of the pacific. it was one more story to be added to the prose poems of consecrated travel. it was a brother feeling through the mysteries of unknown lands for a sister, as dear to him as an evangeline has been to other men. from the mist-land of the polynesian race comes this story of the trickery of maui the learned, and the faithfulness of his older brother maui-mua or rupe--one of the "five forgetful mauis." rupe hoisted mat-sails over his canoe and thus made the winds serve him. he paddled the canoe onward through the hours when calms rested on glassy waves. thus he passed out of sight of ao-tea-roa, away from his brothers, and out of the reach of all tricks and incantations of maui, the mischievous. he sailed until a new island rose out of the sea to greet him. here in a "new heaven" he found friends to care for him and prepare him for his longer journey. his restless anxiety for his sister urged him onward until days lengthened into months and months into years. he passed from the horizons of newly-discovered islands, into the horizons of circling skies around islands of which he had never heard before. sometimes he found relatives, but more frequently his welcome came from those who could trace no historical touch in their genealogies. here and there, apparently, he found traces of a woman whose description answered that of his sister hina-uri. at last he looked through the heavens upon a new world, and saw his sister in great trouble. according to some legends the jealous wives of the great chief, tini-rau, attack hina, who was known among them as hina-te-ngaru-moana, "hina, the daughter of the ocean." tini-rau and hina lived away from the village of the chief until their little boy was born. when they needed food, the chief said, "let us go to my settlement and we shall have food provided." but hina chanted: "let it down, let it down, descend, oh! descend--" and sufficient food fell before them. after a time their frail clothing wore out, and the cold chilled them, then hina again uttered the incantation and clothing was provided for their need. but the jealous wives, two in number, finally heard where hina and the chief were living, and started to see them. tini-rau said to hina, "here come my other wives--be careful how you act before them." she replied, "if they come in anger it will be evil." she armed herself with an obsidian or volcanic-glass knife, and waited their coming. they tried to throw enchantments around her to kill her. then one of them made a blow at her with a weapon, but she turned it aside and killed her enemy with the obsidian knife. then the other wife made an attack, and again the obsidian knife brought death. she ripped open the stomachs of the jealous ones and showed the chief fish lines and sinkers and other property which they had eaten in the past and which tini-rau had never been able to trace. another legend says that the two women came to kill hina when they heard of the birth of her boy. for a time she was greatly terrified. then she saw that they were coming from different directions. she attacked the nearest one with a stone and killed her. the body burst open, and was seen to be full of green stone. then she killed the second wife in the same way, and found more green stones. "thus, according to the legends, originated the greenstone" from which the choicest and most valuable stone tools have since been made. for a time the chief and hina lived happily together. then he began to neglect her and abuse her, until she cried aloud for her brother-- "o rupe! come down. take me and my child." rupe assumed the form of a bird and flew down to this world in which he had found his sister. he chanted as he came down-- "it is rupe, yes rupe, the elder brother; and i am here." he folded the mother and her boy under his wings and flew away with them. sir george gray relates a legend in which maui-mua or rupe is recorded as having carried his sister and her child to one of the new lands, found in his long voyage, where dwelt an aged relative, of chief rank, with his retainers. some legends say that tini-rau tried to catch rupe, who was compelled to drop the child in order to escape with the mother. tini-rau caught the child and carefully cared for him until he grew to be a strong young lad. then he wanted to find his mother and bring her back to his father. how this was done, how rupe took his sister back to the old chief, and how civil wars arose are not all these told in the legends of the maoris. thus the tricks of maui the mischievous brought trouble for a time, but were finally overshadowed by happy homes in neighboring lands for his suffering sister and her descendants. ix. maui's kite flying. maui the demi-god was sometimes the hercules of polynesia. his exploits were fully as marvelous as those of the hero of classic mythology. he snared the sun. he pulled up islands from the ocean depths. he lifted the sky into its present position and smoothed its arched surface with his stone adze. these stories belong to all polynesia. there are numerous less important local myths, some of them peculiar to new zealand, some to the society islands and some to the hawaiian group. one of the old native hawaiians says that in the long, long ago the birds were flying around the homes of the ancient people. the flutter of their wings could be heard and the leaves and branches moved when the motion of the wings ceased and the wanderers through the air found resting places. then came sweet music from the trees and the people marvelled. only one of all mankind could see the winged warblers. maui, the demi-god, had clear vision. the swift-flying wings covered with red or gold he saw. the throats tinted many colors and reflecting the sunlight with diamond sparks of varied hues he watched while they trembled with the melody of sweet bird songs. all others heard but did not see. they were blind and yet had open vision. sometimes the iiwi (a small red bird) fluttered in the air and uttered its shrill, happy song, and maui saw and heard. but the bird at that time was without color in the eyes of the ancient people and only the clear voice was heard, while no speck of bird life flecked the clear sky overhead. at one time a god from one of the other islands came to visit maui. each boasted of and described the beauties and merits of his island. while they were conversing, maui called for his friends the birds. they gathered around the house and fluttered among the leaves of the surrounding trees. soon their sweet voices filled the air on all sides. all the people wondered and worshiped, thinking they heard the fairy or menehune people. it was said that maui had painted the bodies of his invisible songsters and for a long time had kept the delight of their flashing colors to himself. but when the visitor had rejoiced in the mysterious harmonies, maui decided to take away whatever veil shut out the sight of these things beautiful, that his bird friends might be known and honored ever after. so he made the birds reveal themselves perched in the trees or flying in the air. the clear eyes of the god first recognized the new revelation, then all the people became dumb before the sweet singers adorned in all their brilliant tropical plumage. the beautiful red birds, iiwi and akakani, and the birds of glorious yellow feathers, the oo and the mamo, were a joy to both eye and ear and found high places in hawaiian legend and story, and all gave their most beautiful feathers for the cloaks and helmets of the chiefs. the maoris of new zealand say that maui could at will change himself into a bird and with his feathered friends find a home in leafy shelters. in bird form he visited the gods of the under-world. his capricious soul was sensitive to the touch of all that mysterious life of nature. with the birds as companions and the winds as his servants maui must soon have turned his inventive mind to kite making. the hawaiian myths are perhaps the only ones of the pacific ocean which give to any of the gods the pleasure and excitement of kite flying. maui, after repeated experiments, made a large kite for himself. it was much larger than any house of his time or generation. he twisted a long line from the strong fibers of the native plant known as the olona. he endowed both kite and string with marvelous powers and launched the kite up toward the clouds. it rose very slowly. the winds were not lifting it into the sky. [illustration: the home of the winds, hilo coast.] maui remembered that an old priest lived in waipio valley, the largest and finest valley of the large island, hawaii, on which he made his home. this priest had a covered calabash in which he compelled the winds to hide when he did not wish them to play on land and sea. the priest's name was kaleiioku, and his calabash was known as ipu-makani-a ka maumau, "the calabash of the perpetual winds." maui called for the priest who had charge of the winds to open his calabash and let them come up to hilo and blow along the wailuku river. the natives say that the place where maui stood was marked by the pressure of his feet in the lava rocks of the river bank as he braced himself to hold the kite against the increasing force of the winds which pushed it towards the sky. then the enthusiasm of kite flying filled his youthful soul and he cried aloud, screaming his challenge along the coast of the sea toward waipio-- "o winds, winds of waipio, in the calabash of kaleiioku. come from the ipu-makani, o wind, the wind of hilo, come quickly, come with power." then the priest lifted the cover of the calabash of the winds and let the strong winds of hilo escape. along the sea coast they rushed until as they entered hilo bay they heard the voice of maui calling-- "o winds, winds of hilo, hasten and come to me." with a tumultuous rush the strong winds turned toward the mountains. they forced their way along the gorges and palisades of the wailuku river. they leaped into the heavens, making a fierce attack upon the monster which maui had sent into the sky. the kite struggled as it was pushed upward by the hands of the fierce winds, but maui rejoiced. his heart was uplifted by the joy of the conflict in which his strength to hold was pitted against the power of the winds to tear away. and again he shouted toward the sea-- "o winds, the winds of hilo, come to the mountains, come." the winds which had been stirring up storms on the face of the waters came inland. they dashed against maui. they climbed the heights of the skies until they fell with full violence against their mighty foe hanging in the heavens. the kite had been made of the strongest kapa (paper cloth) which maui's mother could prepare. it was not torn, although it was bent backward to its utmost limit. then the strain came on the strong cord of olona fibre. the line was stretched and strained as the kite was pushed back. then maui called again and again for stronger winds to come. the cord was drawn out until the kite was far above the mountains. at last it broke and the kite was tossed over the craters of the volcanoes to the land of the district of ka-u on the other side of the island. then maui was angry and hastily leaped over the mountains, which are nearly fourteen thousand feet in altitude. in a half dozen strides he had crossed the fifty or sixty miles from his home to the place where the kite lay. he could pass over many miles with a single step. his name was maui-mama, "maui the swift." when maui returned with his kite he was more careful in calling the winds to aid him in his sport. the people watched their wise neighbor and soon learned that the kite could be a great blessing to them. when it was soaring in the sky there was always dry and pleasant weather. it was a day for great rejoicing. they could spread out their kapa cloth to dry as long as the kite was in the sky. they could carry out their necessary work without fear of the rain. therefore when any one saw the kite beginning to float along the mountain side he would call out joyfully, "e! maui's kite is in the heavens." maui would send his kite into the blue sky and then tie the line to the great black stones in the bed of the wailuku river. maui soon learned the power of his kite when blown upon by a fierce wind. with his accustomed skill he planned to make use of his strong servant, and therefore took the kite with him on his journeys to the other islands, using it to aid in making swift voyages. with the wind in the right direction, the kite could pull his double canoe very easily and quickly to its destination. time passed, and even the demi-god died. the fish hook with which he drew the hawaiian islands up from the depths of the sea was allowed to lie on the lava by the wailuku river until it became a part of the stone. the double canoe was carried far inland and then permitted to petrify by the river side. the two stones which represent the double canoe now bear the name "waa-kauhi," and the kite has fallen from the sky far up on the mountain side, where it still rests, a flat plot of rich land between mauna kea and mauna loa. x. the oahu legends of maui. several maui legends have been located on the island of oahu. they were given by mr. kaaia to mr. t. g. thrum, the publisher of what is well known in the hawaiian islands as "thrum's annual." he has kindly furnished them for added interest to the present volume. the legends have a distinctly local flavor confined entirely to oahu. it has seemed best to reserve them for a chapter by themselves although they are chiefly variations of stories already told. maui and the two gods. this history of maui and his grandmother hina begins with their arrival from foreign lands. they dwelt in kane-ana (kane's cave), waianae, oahu. this is an "ana," or cave, at puu-o-hulu. hina had wonderful skill in making all kinds of tapa according to the custom of the women of ancient hawaii. maui went to the koolau side and rested at kaha-luu, a diving place in koolaupoko. in that place there is a noted hill called ma-eli-eli. this is the story of that hill. maui threw up a pile of dirt and concealed rubbish under it. the two gods, kane and kanaloa, came along and asked maui what he was doing. he said, "what you see. you two dig on that side to the foot of the pali, (precipice) and i will go down at kaha-luu. if you two dig through first, you may kill me. if i get through first i will kill you." they agreed, and began to dig and throw up the dirt. then maui dug three times and tossed up some of the hills of that place. kane and kanaloa saw that maui was digging very fast, so they put forth very great strength and threw the dirt into a hill. meanwhile maui ran away to the other side of the island. thus by the aid of the gods the hill ma-eli-eli was thrown up and received its name "eli," meaning "dig." "ma-eli-eli" meant "the place of digging." how they found fire. it was said that maui and hina had no fire. they were often cold and had no cooked food. maui saw flames rising in a distant place and ran to see how they were made. when he came to that place the fire was out and some birds flew away. one of them was ka-alae-huapi, "the stingy alae"--a small duck, the hawaiian mud hen. maui watched again and saw fire. when he went up the birds saw him coming and scattered the fire, carrying the ashes into the water; but he leaped and caught the little alae. "ah!" he said, "i will kill you, because you do not let me have fire." the bird replied, "if you kill me you cannot find fire." maui said, "where is fire?" the alae said, "go up on the high land where beautiful plants with large leaves are standing; rub their branches." maui set the bird free and went inland from halawa and found dry land taro. he began to rub the stalks, but only juice came out like water. he had no red fire. he was very angry and said, "if that lying alae is caught again by me i will be its death." [illustration: bay of waipio valley.] after a while he saw the fire burning and ran swiftly. the birds saw him and cried, "the cooking is over. here comes the swift grandchild of hina." they scattered the fire, threw the ashes away and flew into the water. but again maui caught the alae and began to kill it, saying: "you gave me a plant full of water from which to get fire." the bird said, "if i die you can never find fire. i will give you the secret of fire. take a branch of that dry tree and rub." maui held the bird fast in one hand while he rubbed with the other until smoke and fire came out. then he took the fire stick and rubbed the head of the bird, making a place where red and white feathers have grown ever since. he returned to hina and taught her how to make fire, using the two fire sticks and how to twist coconut fibre to catch the fire when it had been kindled in wood. but the alae was not forgotten. it was called huapi, "stingy," because it selfishly kept the knowledge of fire making to itself. maui catching the sun. maui watched hina making tapa. the wet tapa was spread on a long tapa board, and hina began at one end to pound it into shape; pounding from one end to another. he noticed that sunset came by the time she had pounded to the middle of the board. the sun hurried so fast that she could only begin her work before the day was past. he went to the hill hele-a-ka-la, which means "journey of the sun." he thought he would catch the sun and make it move slowly. he went up the hill and waited. when the sun began to rise, maui made himself long, stretching up toward the sky. soon the shining legs of the sun came up the hillside. he saw maui and began to run swiftly, but maui reached out and caught one of the legs, saying: "o sun, i will kill you. you are a mischief maker. you make trouble for hina by going so fast." then he broke the shining leg of the sun. the sufferer said, "i will change my way and go slowly--six months slow and six months faster." thus arose the saying, "long shall be the daily journey of the sun and he shall give light for all the people's toil." hina learned that she could pound until she was tired while the farmers could plant and take care of their fields. thus also this hill received its name hele-a-ka-la. this is one of the hills of waianae near the precipice of the hill puu-o-hulu. uniting the islands. maui suggested to hina that he had better try to draw the islands together, uniting them in one land. hina told maui to go and see alae-nui-a-hina, who would tell him what to do. the alae told him they must go to ponaha-ke-one (a fishing place outside of pearl harbor) and find ka-uniho-kahi, "the one toothed," who held the land under the sea. maui went back to hina. she told him to ask his brothers to go fishing with him. they consented and pushed out into the sea. soon maui saw a bailing dish floating by the canoe and picked it up. it was named hina-a-ke-ka, "hina who fell off." they paddled to ponaha-ke-one. when they stopped they saw a beautiful young woman in the boat. then they anchored and again looked in the boat, but the young woman was gone. they saw the bailing dish and threw it into the sea. maui-mua threw his hook and caught a large fish, which was seen to be a shark as they drew it to the surface. at once they cut the line. so also maui-hope and maui-waena. at last maui threw his hook manai-i-ka-lani into the sea. it went down, down into the depths. maui cried, "hina-a-ke-ka has my hook in her hand. by her it will be made fast." hina went down with the hook until she met ka-uniho-kahi. she asked him to open his mouth, then threw the hook far inside and made it fast. then she pulled the line so that maui should know that the fish was caught. maui fastened the line to the outrigger of the canoe and asked his brothers to paddle with all diligence, and not look back. long, long, they paddled and were very tired. then maui took a paddle and dipped deep in the sea. the boat moved more swiftly through the sea. the brothers looked back and cried, "there is plenty of land behind us." the charm was broken. the hook came out of "the one toothed," and the raised islands sank back into their place. the native say, "the islands are now united to america. perhaps maui has been at work." maui and pea-pea the eight-eyed. maui had been fishing and had caught a great fish upon which he was feasting. he looked inland and saw his wife, kumu-lama, seized and carried away by pea-pea-maka-walu, "pea-pea the eight-eyed." this is a legend derived from the myths of many islands in which lupe or rupe (pigeon) changed himself into a bird and flew after his sister hina who had been carried on the back of a shark to distant islands. sometimes as a man and sometimes as a bird he prosecuted his search until hina was found. [illustration: the ie-ie vine.] maui pursued pea-pea, but could not catch him. he carried maui's wife over the sea to a far away island. maui was greatly troubled but his grandmother sent him inland to find an old man who would tell him what to do. maui went inland and looking down toward waipahu saw this man ku-olo-kele. he was hump-backed. maui threw a large stone and hit the "hill on the back" knocked it off and made the back straight. the old man lifted up the stone and threw it to waipahu, where it lies to this day. then he and maui talked together. he told maui to go and catch birds and gather ti leaves and fibers of the ie-ie vine, and fill his house. these things maui secured and brought to him. he told maui to go home and return after three days. ku-olo-kele took the ti leaves and the ie-ie threads and made the body of a great bird which he covered with bird feathers. he fastened all together with the ie-ie. this was done in the first day. the second day he placed food inside and tried his bird and it flew all right. "thus," as the hawaiians say, "the first flying ship was made in the time of maui." this is a modern version of rupe changing himself into a bird. on the third day maui came and saw the wonderful bird body thoroughly prepared for his journey. maui went inside. ku-olo-kele said, "when you reach that land, look for a village. if the people are not there look to the beach. if there are many people, your wife and pea-pea the eight-eyed will be there. do not go near, but fly out over the sea. the people will say, 'o, the strange bird;' but pea-pea will say, 'this is my bird. it is tabu.' you can then come to the people." maui pulled the ie-ie ropes fastened to the wings and made them move. thus he flew away into the sky. two days was his journey before he came to that strange island, moana-liha-i-ka-wao-kele. it was a beautiful land. he flew inland to a village, but there were no people; according to the ancient chant: "the houses of lima-loa stand, but there are no people; they are at mana." the people were by the sea. maui flew over them. he saw his wife, but he passed on flying out over the sea, skimming like a sea bird down to the water and rising gracefully up to the sky. pea-pea called out, "this is my bird. it is tabu." maui heard and came to the beach. he was caught and placed in a tabu box. the servants carried him up to the village and put him in the chief's sleeping house, when pea-pea and his people returned to their homes. in the night pea-pea and maui's wife lay down to sleep. maui watched pea-pea, hoping that he would soon sleep. then he would kill him. maui waited. one eye was closed, seven eyes were opened. then four eyes closed, leaving three. the night was almost past and dawn was near. then maui called to hina with his spirit voice, "o hina, keep it dark." hina made the gray dawn dark in the three eyes and two closed in sleep. the last eye was weary, and it also slept. then maui went out of the bird body and cut off the head of pea-pea and put it inside the bird. he broke the roof of the house until a large opening was made. he took his wife, kumu-lama, and flew away to the island of oahu. the winds blew hard against the flying bird. rain fell in torrents around it, but those inside had no trouble. "thus maui returned with his wife to his home in oahu. the story is pau (finished)." xi. maui seeking immortality. climb up, climb up, to the highest surface of heaven, to all the sides of heaven. climb then to thy ancestor, the sacred bird in the sky, to thy ancestor rehua in the heavens. --new zealand kite incantation. the story of maui seeking immortality for the human race is one of the finest myths in the world. for pure imagination and pathos it is difficult to find any tale from grecian or latin literature to compare with it. in greek and roman fables gods suffered for other gods, and yet none were surrounded with such absolutely mythical experiences as those through which the demi-god maui of the pacific ocean passed when he entered the gates of death with the hope of winning immortality for mankind. the really remarkable group of legends which cluster around maui is well concluded by the story of his unselfish and heroic battle with death. the different islands of the pacific have their hades, or abode of dead. it is, with very few exceptions, down in the interior of the earth. sometimes the tunnels left by currents of melted lava are the passages into the home of departed spirits. in samoa there are two circular holes among the rocks at the west end of the island savaii. these are the entrances to the under-world for chiefs and people. the spirits of those who die on the other islands leap into the sea and swim around the land from island to island until they reach savaii. then they plunge down into their heaven or their hades. the tongans had a spirit island for the home of the dead. they said that some natives once sailed far away in a canoe and found this island. it was covered with all manner of beautiful fruits, among which rare birds sported. they landed, but the trees were shadows. they grasped but could not hold them. the fruits and the birds were shadows. the men ate, but swallowed nothing substantial. it was shadow-land. they walked through all the delights their eyes looked upon, but found no substance. they returned home, but ever seemed to listen to spirits calling them back to the island. in a short time all the voyagers were dead. there is no escape from death. the natives of new zealand say: "man may have descendants, but the daughters of the night strangle his offspring"; and again: "men make heroes, but death carries them away." there are very few legends among the polynesians concerning the death of maui. and these are usually fragmentary, except among the maoris of new zealand. the hawaiian legend of the death of maui is to the effect that he offended some of the greater gods living in waipio valley on the island of hawaii. kanaloa, one of the four greatest gods of hawaii, seized him and dashed him against the rocks. his blood burst from the body and colored the earth red in the upper part of the valley. the hawaiians in another legend say that maui was chasing a boy and girl in honolii gulch, hawaii. the girl climbed a breadfruit tree. maui changed himself into an eel and stretched himself along the side of the trunk of the tree. the tree stretched itself upward and maui failed to reach the girl. a priest came along and struck the eel and killed it, and so maui died. this is evidently a changed form of the legend of maui and the long eel. another hawaiian fragment approaches very near to the beautiful new zealand myth. the hawaiians said that maui attempted to tear a mountain apart. he wrenched a great hole in the side. then the elepaio bird sang and the charm was broken. the cleft in the mountain could not be enlarged. if the story could be completed it would not be strange if the death of maui came with this failure to open the path through the mountain. the hervey islands say that after maui fished up the islands his hook was thrown into the heavens and became the curved tail of the constellation of stars which we know as "the scorpion." then the people became angry with maui and threw him up into the sky and his body is still thought to be hanging among the stars of the scorpion. the samoans, according to turner, say that maui went fishing and tried to catch the land under the seas and pull it to the surface. finally an island appeared, but the people living on it were angry with maui and drove him away into the heavens. as he leaped from the island it separated into two parts. thus the samoans account for the origin of two of their islands and also for the passing away of maui from the earth. the natives of new zealand have many myths concerning the death of maui. each tribe tells the story with such variations as would be expected when the fact is noted that these tribes have preserved their individuality through many generations. the substance of the myth, however, is the same. in maui's last days he longed for the victory over death. his innate love of life led him to face the possibility of escaping and overcoming the relentless enemy of mankind and thus bestow the boon of deathlessness upon his fellow-men. he had been successful over and over again in his contests with both gods and men. when man was created, he stood erect, but, according to an hawaiian myth, had jointless arms and limbs. a web of skin connected and fastened tightly the arms to the body and the legs to each other. "maui was angry at this motionless statue and took him and broke his legs at ankle, knee and hip and then, tearing them and the arms from the body, destroyed the web. then he broke the arms at the elbow and shoulder. then man could move from place to place, but he had neither fingers or toes." here comes the most ancient polynesian statement of the theory of evolution: "hunger impelled man to seek his food in the mountains, where his toes were cut out by the brambles in climbing, and his fingers were also formed by the sharp splinters of the bamboo while searching with his arms for food in the ground." it was not strange that maui should feel self-confident when considering the struggle for immortality as a gift to be bestowed upon mankind. and yet his father warned him that his time of failure would surely come. white, who has collected many of the myths and legends of new zealand, states that after maui had ill-treated mahu-ika, his grandmother, the goddess and guardian of fire in the under-world, his father and mother tried to teach him to do differently. but he refused to listen. then the father said: "you heard our instructions, but please yourself and persist for life or death." maui replied: "what do i care? do you think i shall cease? rather i will persist forever and ever." then his father said: "there is one so powerful that no tricks can be of any avail." maui asked: "by what shall i be overcome?" the answer was that one of his ancestors, hine-nui-te-po (great hine of the night), the guardian of life, would overcome him. when maui fished islands out of the deep seas, it was said that hine made her home on the outer edge of one of the outermost islands. there the glow of the setting sun lighted the thatch of her house and covered it with glorious colors. there great hine herself stood flashing and sparkling on the edge of the horizon. maui, in these last days of his life, looked toward the west and said: "let us investigate this matter and learn whether life or death shall follow." the father replied: "there is evil hanging over you. when i chanted the invocation of your childhood, when you were made sacred and guarded by charms, i forgot a part of the ceremony. and for this you are to die." then maui said, "will this be by hine-nui-te-po? what is she like?" the father said that the flashing eyes they could see in the distance were dark as greenstone, the teeth were as sharp as volcanic glass, her mouth was large like a fish, and her hair was floating in the air like sea-weed. one of the legends of new zealand says that maui and his brothers went toward the west, to the edge of the horizon, where they saw the goddess of the night. light was flashing from her body. here they found a great pit--the home of night. maui entered the pit--telling his brothers not to laugh. he passed through and turning about started to return. the brothers laughed and the walls of night closed in around him and held him till he died. the longer legend tells how maui after his conversation with his father, remembered his conflict with the moon. he had tied her so that she could not escape, but was compelled to bathe in the waters of life and return night after night lest men should be in darkness when evening came. maui said to the goddess of the moon: "let death be short. as the moon dies and returns with new strength, so let men die and revive again." but she replied: "let death be very long, that man may sigh and sorrow. when man dies, let him go into darkness, become like earth, that those he leaves behind may weep and wail and mourn." maui did not lay aside his purpose, but, according to the new zealand story, "did not wish men to die, but to live forever. death appeared degrading and an insult to the dignity of man. man ought to die like the moon, which dips in the life-giving waters of kane and is renewed again, or like the sun, which daily sinks into the pit of night and with renewed strength rises in the morning." maui sought the home of hine-nui-te-po--the guardian of life. he heard her order her attendants to watch for any one approaching and capture all who came walking upright as a man. he crept past the attendants on hands and feet, found the place of life, stole some of the food of the goddess and returned home. he showed the food to his brothers and persuaded them to go with him into the darkness of the night of death. on the way he changed them into the form of birds. in the evening they came to the house of the goddess on the island long before fished up from the seas. maui warned the birds to refrain from making any noise while he made the supreme effort of his life. he was about to enter upon his struggle for immortality. he said to the birds: "if i go into the stomach of this woman, do not laugh until i have gone through her, and come out again at her mouth; then you can laugh at me." his friends said: "you will be killed." maui replied: "if you laugh at me when i have only entered her stomach i shall be killed, but if i have passed through her and come out of her mouth i shall escape and hine-nui-te-po will die." his friends called out to him: "go then. the decision is with you." hine was sleeping soundly. the flashes of lightning had all ceased. the sunlight had almost passed away and the house lay in quiet gloom. maui came near to the sleeping goddess. her large, fish-like mouth was open wide. he put off his clothing and prepared to pass through the ordeal of going to the hidden source of life, to tear it out of the body of its guardian and carry it back with him to mankind. he stood in all the glory of savage manhood. his body was splendidly marked by the tattoo-bones, and now well oiled shone and sparkled in the last rays of the setting sun. he leaped through the mouth of the enchanted one and entered her stomach, weapon in hand, to take out her heart, the vital principle which he knew had its home somewhere within her being. he found immortality on the other side of death. he turned to come back again into life when suddenly a little bird (the pata-tai) laughed in a clear, shrill tone, and great hine, through whose mouth maui was passing, awoke. her sharp, obsidian teeth closed with a snap upon maui, cutting his body in the center. thus maui entered the gates of death, but was unable to return, and death has ever since been victor over rebellious men. the natives have the saying: "if maui had not died, he could have restored to life all who had gone before him, and thus succeeded in destroying death." maui's brothers took the dismembered body and buried it in a cave called te-ana-i-hana, "the cave dug out," possibly a prepared burial place. maui's wife made war upon the spirits, the gods, and killed as many as she could to avenge her husband's death. one of the old native poets of new zealand, in chanting the story to mr. white, said: "but though maui was killed, his offspring survived. some of these are at hawa-i-i-ki and some at aotea-roa (new zealand), but the greater part of them remained at hawa-i-ki. this history was handed down by the generations of our ancestors of ancient times, and we continue to rehearse it to our children, with our incantations and genealogies, and all other matters relating to our race." "but death is nothing new, death is, and has been ever since old maui died. then pata-tai laughed loud and woke the goblin-god, who severed him in two, and shut him in, so dusk of eve came on." --maori death chant, new zealand. xii. hina of hilo. hina is not an uncommon name in hawaiian genealogies. it is usually accompanied by some adjective which explains or identifies the person to whom the name is given. in hawaii the name hina is feminine. this is also true throughout all polynesia except in a few cases where hina is reckoned as a man with supernatural attributes. even in these cases it is apparent that the legend has been changed from its original form as it has been carried to small islands by comparatively ignorant people when moving away from their former homes. hina is a polynesian goddess whose story is very interesting--one worthy of study when comparing the legends of the island groups of the pacific. the hina of hilo is the same as the goddess of that name most widely known throughout polynesia--and yet her legends are located by the ancient hawaiians in hilo, as if that place were her only home. the legends are so old that the hawaiians have forgotten their origin in other lands. the stories were brought with the immigrants who settled on the hilo coast. thus the stories found their final location with the families who brought them. there are three hawaiian hinas practically distinct from each other, although a supernatural element is connected with each one. hina who was stolen from hawaii by a chief of the island of molokai was an historical character, although surrounded by mythical stories. another hina, who was the wife of kuula, the fish god, was pre-eminently a local deity, having no real connection with the legends of the other islands of the pacific, although sometimes the stories told concerning her have not been kept entirely distinct from the legends of the hina of hilo. the hilo hina was the true legendary character closely connected with all polynesia. the stories about her are of value not simply as legends, but as traditions closely uniting the hawaiian islands with the island groups thousands of miles distant. the wailuku river, which flows through the town of hilo, has its own peculiar and weird beauty. for miles it is a series of waterfalls and rapids. it follows the course of an ancient lava flow, sometimes forcing its way under bridges of lava, thus forming what are called boiling pots, and sometimes pouring in massive sheets over the edges of precipices which never disintegrate. by the side of this river hina's son maui had his lands. in the very bed of the river, in a cave under one of the largest falls, hina made her own home, concealed from the world by the silver veil of falling water and lulled to sleep by the continual roar of the flood falling into the deep pool below. by the side of this river, the legends say, she pounded her tapa and prepared her food. here were the small, graceful mamake and the coarser wauke trees, from which the bark was stripped with which she made tapa cloth. branches were cut or broken from these and other trees whose bark was fit for the purpose. these branches were well soaked until the bark was removed easily. then the outer bark was scraped off, leaving only the pliable inner bark. the days were very short and there was no time for rest while making tapa cloth. therefore, as soon as the morning light reddened the clouds, hina would take her calabash filled with water to pour upon the bark, and her little bundle of round clubs (the hohoa) and her four-sided mallets (the i-e-kuku) and hasten to the sacred spot where, with chants and incantations, the tapa was made. the bark was well soaked in the water all the days of the process of tapa making. hina took small bundles of the wet inner bark and laid them on the kua or heavy tapa board, pounding them together into a pulpy mass with her round clubs. then using the four-sided mallets, she beat this pulp into thin sheets. beautiful tapa, soft as silk, was made by adding pulpy mass to pulpy mass and beating it day after day until the fibres were lost and a sheet of close-woven bark cloth was formed. although hina was a goddess and had a family possessing miraculous power, it never entered the mind of the hawaiian legend tellers to endow her with ease in producing wonderful results. the legends of the southern pacific islands show more imagination. they say that ina (hina) was such a wonderful artist in making beautiful tapas that she was placed in the skies, where she beat out glistening fine tapas, the white and glorious clouds. when she stretches these cloud sheets out to dry, she places stones along the edges, so that the fierce winds of the heavens shall not blow them away. when she throws these stones aside, the skies reverberate with thunder. when she rolls her cloud sheets of tapa together, the folds glisten with flashes of light and lightning leaps from sheet to sheet. the hina of hilo was grieved as she toiled because after she had pounded the sheets out so thin that they were ready to be dried, she found it almost impossible to secure the necessary aid of the sun in the drying process. she would rise as soon as she could see and hasten to spread out the tapa made the day before. but the sun always hurried so fast that the sheets could not dry. he leaped from the ocean waters in the earth, rushed across the heavens and plunged into the dark waters again on the other side of the island before she could even turn her tapas so that they might dry evenly. this legend of very short days is strange because of its place not only among the myths of hawaii but also because it belongs to practically all the tropical islands of the pacific ocean. in tahiti the legends said that the sun rushed across the sky very rapidly. the days were too short for fruits to ripen or for work to be finished. in samoa the "mats" made by sina had no time to dry. the ancestors of the polynesians sometime somewhere must have been in the region of short days and long nights. hina found that her incantations had no influence with the sun. she could not prevail upon him to go slower and give her more time for the completion of her task. then she called on her powerful son, maui-ki-i-ki-i, for aid. some of the legends of the island maui say that hina dwelt by the sea coast of that island near the high hill kauwiki at the foot of the great mountain haleakala, house of the sun, and that there, facing the southern skies under the most favorable conditions for making tapa, she found the days too short for the tapa to dry. at the present time the hawaiians point out a long, narrow stone not far from the surf and almost below the caves in which the great queen kaahumanu spent the earliest days of her childhood. this stone is said to be the kua or tapa board on which hina pounded the bark for her cloth. other legends of that same island locate hina's home on the northeast coast near pohakuloa. the hilo legends, however, do not deem it necessary that hina and maui should have their home across the wide channel which divides the island hawaii from the island maui in order to wage war successfully with the inconsiderate sun. hina remained in her home by the wailuku river, sometimes resting in her cave under rainbow falls, and sometimes working on the river bank, trusting her powerful son maui to make the swiftly-passing lord of day go more slowly. maui possessed many supernatural powers. he could assume the form of birds or insects. he could call on the winds to do his will, or he could, if he wished, traverse miles with a single stride. it is interesting to note that the hilo legends differ as to the way in which ma-ui the man passed over to mau-i the island. one legend says that he crossed the channel, miles wide, with a single step. another says that he launched his canoe and with a breath the god of the winds placed him on the opposite coast, while another story says that maui assumed the form of a white chicken, which flew over the waters to haleakala. here he took ropes made from the fibre of trees and vines and lassoed the sun while it climbed the side of the mountain and entered the great crater which hollows out the summit. the sun came through a large gap in the eastern side of the crater, rushing along as rapidly as possible. then maui threw his lassoes one after the other over the sun's legs (the rays of light), holding him fast and breaking off some of them. with a magic club maui struck the face of the sun again and again. at last, wounded and weary, and also limping on its broken legs, the sun promised maui to go slowly forevermore. "la" among the polynesians, like the word "ra" among the egyptians, means "sun" or "day" or "sun-god"--and the mountain where the son of hina won his victory over the monster of the heavens has long borne the name hale-a-ka-la, or house of the sun. hina of hilo soon realized the wonderful deed which maui had done. she spread out her fine tapas with songs of joy and cheerily performed the task which filled the hours of the day. the comfort of sunshine and cooling winds came with great power into hina's life, bringing to her renewed joy and beauty. xiii. hina and the wailuku river. there are two rivers of rushing, tumbling rapids and waterfalls in the hawaiian islands, both bearing the name of wailuku. one is on the island of maui, flowing out of a deep gorge in the side of the extinct volcano iao. yosemite-like precipices surround this majestically-walled crater. the name iao means "asking for clouds." the head of the crater-valley is almost always covered with great masses of heavy rain clouds. out of the crater the massed waters rush in a swift-flowing stream of only four or five miles, emptying into kahului harbor. the other wailuku river is on the island of hawaii. the snows melt on the summits of the two great mountains, mauna kea and mauna loa. the water seeps through the porous lava from the eastern slope of mauna loa and the southern slope of mauna kea, meeting where the lava flows of centuries from each mountain have piled up against each other. through the fragments of these volcanic battles the waters creep down the mountain side toward the sea. [illustration: rainbow falls, hina's home.] at one place, a number of miles above the city of hilo, the waters were heard gurgling and splashing far below the surface. water was needed for the sugar plantations, which modern energy has established all along the eastern coast of the large island. a tunnel was cut into the lava, the underground stream was tapped--and an abundant supply of water secured and sluiced down to the large plantations below. the head waters of the wailuku river gathered from the melting snow of the mountains found these channels, which centered at last in the bed of a very ancient and very interesting lava flow. sometimes breaking forth in a large, turbulent flood, the stream forces its way over and around the huge blocks of lava which mark the course of the eruption of long ago. sometimes it courses in a tunnel left by the flowing lava and comes up from below in a series of boiling pools. then again it falls in majestic sheets over high walls of worn precipices. several large falls and some very picturesque smaller cascades interspersed with rapids and natural bridges give to this river a beauty peculiarly its own. the most weird of all the rough places through which the wailuku river flows is that known as the basin of rainbow falls near hilo. here hina, the moon goddess of the polynesians, lived in a great open cave, over which the falls hung their misty, rainbow-tinted veil. her son maui, the mighty demi-god of polynesia, supposed by some writers to be the sun-god of the polynesians, had extensive lands along the northern bank of the river. here among his cultivated fields he had his home, from which he went forth to accomplish the wonders attributed to him in the legends of the hawaiians. below the cave in which hina dwelt the river fought its way through a narrow gorge and then, in a series of many small falls, descended to the little bay, where its waters mingled with the surf of the salt sea. far above the cave, in the bed of the river, dwelt kuna. the district through which that portion of the river runs bears to this day the name "wai-kuna" or "kuna's river." when the writer was talking with the natives concerning this part of the old legend, they said "kuna is not a hawaiian word. it means something like a snake or a dragon, something we do not have in these islands." this, they thought, made the connection with the hina legend valueless until they were shown that tuna (or kuna) was the new zealand name of a reptile which attacked hina and struck her with his tail like a crocodile, for which maui killed him. when this was understood, the hawaiians were greatly interested to give the remainder of this legend and compare it with the new zealand story. in new zealand there are several statements concerning tuna's dwelling place. he is sometimes represented as coming from a pool to attack hina and sometimes from a distant stream, and sometimes from the river by which hina dwelt. the hawaiians told of the annoyances which hina endured from kuna while he lived above her home in the wailuku. he would stop up the river and fill it with dirt as when the freshets brought down the debris of the storms from the mountain sides. he would throw logs and rolling stones into the stream that they might be carried over the falls and drive hina from her cave. he had sought hina in many ways and had been repulsed again and again until at last hatred took the place of all more kindly feelings and he determined to destroy the divine chiefess. hina was frequently left with but little protection, and yet from her home in the cave feared nothing that kuna could do. precipices guarded the cave on either side, and any approach of an enemy through the falling water could be easily thwarted. so her chants rang out through the river valley even while floods swirled around her, and kuna's missiles were falling over the rocky bed of the stream toward her. kuna became very angry and, uttering great curses and calling upon all his magic forces to aid him, caught a great stone and at night hurled it into the gorge of the river below hina's home, filling the river bed from bank to bank. "ah, hina! now is the danger, for the river rises. the water cannot flow away. awake! awake!" hina is not aware of this evil which is so near. the water rises and rises, higher and higher. "auwe! auwe! alas, alas, hina must perish!" the water entered the opening of the cave and began to creep along the floor. hina cannot fly, except into the very arms of her great enemy, who is waiting to destroy her. then hina called for maui. again and again her voice went out from the cave. it pierced through the storms and the clouds which attended kuna's attack upon her. it swept along the side of the great mountain. it crossed the channel between the islands of hawaii and maui. its anguish smote the side of the great mountain haleakala, where maui had been throwing his lassoes around the sun and compelling him to go more slowly. when maui heard hina's cry for help echoing from cliff to cliff and through the ravines, he leaped at once to rush to her assistance. some say that hina, the goddess, had a cloud servant, the "ao-opua," the "warning cloud," which rose swiftly above the falls when hina cried for aid and then, assuming a peculiar shape, stood high above the hills that maui might see it. down the mountain he leaped to his magic canoe. pushing it into the sea with two mighty strokes of his paddle he crossed the sea to the mouth of the wailuku river. here even to the present day lies a long double rock, surrounded by the waters of the bay, which the natives call ka waa o maui, "the canoe of maui." it represents to hawaiian thought the magic canoe with which maui always sailed over the ocean more swiftly than any winds could carry him. leaving his canoe, maui seized the magic club with which he had conquered the sun after lassoing him, and rushed along the dry bed of the river to the place of danger. swinging the club swiftly around his head, he struck the dam holding back the water of the rapidly-rising river. [illustration: wailuku river, the home of kuna.] "ah! nothing can withstand the magic club. the bank around one end of the dam gives way. the imprisoned waters leap into the new channel. safe is hina the goddess." kuna heard the crash of the club against the stones of the river bank and fled up the river to his home in the hidden caves by the pools in the river bed. maui rushed up the river to punish kuna-mo-o for the trouble he had caused hina. when he came to the place where the dragon was hidden under deep waters, he took his magic spear and thrust it through the dirt and lava rocks along one side of the river, making a long hole, through which the waters rushed, revealing kuna-mo-o's hiding place. this place of the spear thrust is known among the hawaiians as ka puka a maui, "the door made by maui." it is also known as "the natural bridge of the wailuku river." kuna-mo-o fled to his different hiding places, but maui broke up the river bed and drove the dragon out from every one, following him from place to place as he fled down the river. apparently this is a legendary account of earthquakes. at last kuna-mo-o found what seemed to be a safe hiding place in a series of deep pools, but maui poured a lava flow into the river. he threw red-hot burning stones into the water until the pools were boiling and the steam was rising in clouds. kuna uttered incantation after incantation, but the water scalded and burned him. dragon as he was, his hard, tough skin was of no avail. the pain was becoming unbearable. with cries to his gods he leaped from the pools and fled down the river. the waters of the pools are no longer scalding, but they have never lost the tumbling, tossing, foaming, boiling swirl which maui gave to them when he threw into them the red-hot stones with which he hoped to destroy kuna, and they are known today as "the boiling pots." some versions of the legend say that maui poured boiling water in the river and sent it in swift pursuit of kuna, driving him from point to point and scalding his life out of him. others say that maui chased the dragon, striking him again and again with his consecrated weapons, following kuna down from falls to falls until he came to the place where hina dwelt. then, feeling that there was little use in flight, kuna battled with maui. his struggles were of no avail. he was forced over the falls into the stream below. hina and her women encouraged maui by their chants and strengthened him by the most powerful incantations with which they were acquainted. great was their joy when they beheld kuna's ponderous body hurled over the falls. eagerly they watched the dragon as the swift waters swept him against the dam with which he had hoped to destroy hina; and when the whirling waves caught him and dashed him through the new channel made by maui's magic club, they rejoiced and sang the praise of the mighty warrior who had saved them. maui had rushed along the bank of the river with tremendous strides overtaking the dragon as he was rolled over and over among the small waterfalls near the mouth of the river. here maui again attacked kuna, at last beating the life out of his body. "moo-kuna" was the name given by the hawaiians to the dragon. "moo" means anything in lizard shape, but kuna was unlike any lizard known in the hawaiian islands. moo kuna is the name sometimes given to a long black stone lying like an island in the waters between the small falls of the river. as one who calls attention to this legendary black stone says: "as if he were not dead enough already, every big freshet in the stream beats him and pounds him and drowns him over and over as he would have drowned hina." a new zealand legend relates a conflict of incantations, somewhat like the filling in of the wailuku river by kuna, and the cleaving of a new channel by maui with the different use of means. in new zealand the river is closed by the use of powerful incantations and charms and reopened by the use of those more powerful. in the hervey islands, tuna, the god of eels, loved ina (hina) and finally died for her, giving his head to be buried. from this head sprang two cocoanut trees, bearing fruit marked with tuna's eyes and mouth. in samoa the battle was between an owl and a serpent. the owl conquered by calling in the aid of a friend. this story of hina apparently goes far back in the traditions of polynesians, even to their ancient home in hawaiki, from which it was taken by one branch of the family to new zealand and by another to the hawaiian islands and other groups in the pacific ocean. the dragon may even be a remembrance of the days when the polynesians were supposed to dwell by the banks of the river ganges in india, when crocodiles were dangerous enemies and heroes saved families from their destructive depredations. xiv. ghosts of the hilo hills. the legends about hina and her famous son maui and her less widely known daughters are common property among the natives of the beautiful little city of hilo. one of these legends of more than ordinary interest finds its location in the three small hills back of hilo toward the mountains. these hills are small craters connected with some ancient lava flow of unusual violence. the eruption must have started far up on the slopes of mauna loa. as it sped down toward the sea it met some obstruction which, although overwhelmed, checked the flow and caused a great mass of cinders and ashes to be thrown out until a large hill with a hollow crater was built up, covering many acres of ground. soon the lava found another vent and then another obstruction and a second and then a third hill were formed nearer the sea. these hills or extinct craters bear the names halai, opeapea and puu honu. they are not far from the wailuku river, famous for its picturesque waterfalls and also for the legends which are told along its banks. here maui had his lands overlooking the steep bluffs. here in a cave under the rainbow falls was the home of hina, the mother of maui, according to the hawaiian stories. other parts of the pacific sometimes make hina maui's wife, and sometimes a goddess from whom he descended. in the south sea legends hina was thought to have married the moon. her home was in the skies, where she wove beautiful tapa cloths (the clouds), which were bright and glistening, so that when she rolled them up flashes of light (cloud lightning) could be seen on the earth. she laid heavy stones on the corners of these tapas, but sometimes the stones rolled off and made the thunder. hina of the rainbow falls was a famous tapa maker whose tapa was the cause of maui's conflict with the sun. hina had several daughters, four of whose names are given: hina ke ahi, hina ke kai, hina mahuia, and hina kuluua. each name marked the peculiar "mana" or divine gift which hina, the mother, had bestowed upon her daughters. hina ke ahi meant the hina who had control of fire. this name is sometimes given to hina the mother. hina ke kai was the daughter who had power over the sea. she was said to have been in a canoe with her brother maui when he fished up cocoanut island, his line breaking before he could pull it up to the mainland and make it fast. hina kuluua was the mistress over the forces of rain. the winds and the storms were supposed to obey her will. hina mahuia is peculiarly a name connected with the legends of the other island groups of the pacific. mahuia or mafuie was a god or goddess of fire all through polynesia. the legend of the hilo hills pertains especially to hina ke ahi and hina kuluua. hina the mother gave the hill halai to hina ke ahi and the hill puu honu to hina kuluua for their families and dependents. the hills were of rich soil and there was much rain. therefore, for a long time, the two daughters had plenty of food for themselves and their people, but at last the days were like fire and the sky had no rain in it. the taro planted on the hillsides died. the bananas and sugar cane and sweet potatoes withered and the fruit on the trees was blasted. the people were faint because of hunger, and the shadow of death was over the land. hina ke ahi pitied her suffering friends and determined to provide food for them. slowly her people labored at her command. over they went to the banks of the river course, which was only the bed of an ancient lava stream, over which no water was flowing; the famished laborers toiled, gathering and carrying back whatever wood they could find, then up the mountain side to the great koa and ohia forests, gathering their burdens of fuel according to the wishes of their chiefess. their sorcerers planted charms along the way and uttered incantations to ward off the danger of failure. the priests offered sacrifices and prayers for the safe and successful return of the burden-bearers. after many days the great quantity of wood desired by the goddess was piled up by the side of the halai hill. then came the days of digging out the hill and making a great imu or cooking oven and preparing it with stones and wood. large quantities of wood were thrown into the place. stones best fitted for retaining heat were gathered and the fires kindled. when the stones were hot, hina ke ahi directed the people to arrange the imu in its proper order for cooking the materials for a great feast. a place was made for sweet potatoes, another for taro, another for pigs and another for dogs. all the form of preparing the food for cooking was passed through, but no real food was laid on the stones. then hina told them to make a place in the imu for a human sacrifice. probably out of every imu of the long ago a small part of the food was offered to the gods, and there may have been a special place in the imu for that part of the food to be cooked. at any rate hina had this oven so built that the people understood that a remarkable sacrifice would be offered in it to the gods, who for some reason had sent the famine upon the people. human sacrifices were frequently offered by the hawaiians even after the days of the coming of captain cook. a dead body was supposed to be acceptable to the gods when a chief's house was built, when a chief's new canoe was to be made or when temple walls were to be erected or victories celebrated. the bodies of the people belonged to the will of the chief. therefore it was in quiet despair that the workmen obeyed hina ke ahi and prepared the place for sacrifice. it might mean their own holocaust as an offering to the gods. at last hina ke ahi bade the laborers cease their work and stand by the side of the oven ready to cover it with the dirt which had been thrown out and piled up by the side. the people stood by, not knowing upon whom the blow might fall. but hina ke ahi was "hina the kind," and although she stood before them robed in royal majesty and power, still her face was full of pity and love. her voice melted the hearts of her retainers as she bade them carefully follow her directions. "o my people. where are you? will you obey and do as i command? this imu is my imu. i shall lie down on its bed of burning stones. i shall sleep under its cover. but deeply cover me or i may perish. quickly throw the dirt over my body. fear not the fire. watch for three days. a woman will stand by the imu. obey her will." hina ke ahi was very beautiful, and her eyes flashed light like fire as she stepped into the great pit and lay down on the burning stones. a great smoke arose and gathered over the imu. the men toiled rapidly, placing the imu mats over their chiefess and throwing the dirt back into the oven until it was all thoroughly covered and the smoke was quenched. then they waited for the strange, mysterious thing which must follow the sacrifice of this divine chiefess. halai hill trembled and earthquakes shook the land round about. the great heat of the fire in the imu withered the little life which was still left from the famine. meanwhile hina ke ahi was carrying out her plan for securing aid for her people. she could not be injured by the heat for she was a goddess of fire. the waves of heat raged around her as she sank down through the stones of the imu into the underground paths which belonged to the spirit world. the legend says that hina made her appearance in the form of a gushing stream of water which would always supply the want of her adherents. the second day passed. hina was still journeying underground, but this time she came to the surface as a pool named moe waa (canoe sleep) much nearer the sea. the third day came and hina caused a great spring of sweet water to burst forth from the sea shore in the very path of the ocean surf. this received the name auauwai. here hina washed away all traces of her journey through the depths. this was the last of the series of earthquakes and the appearance of new water springs. the people waited, feeling that some more wonderful event must follow the remarkable experiences of the three days. soon a woman stood by the imu, who commanded the laborers to dig away the dirt and remove the mats. when this was done, the hungry people found a very great abundance of food, enough to supply their want until the food plants should have time to ripen and the days of the famine should be over. the joy of the people was great when they knew that their chiefess had escaped death and would still dwell among them in comfort. many were the songs sung and stories told about the great famine and the success of the goddess of fire. the second sister, hina kuluua, the goddess of rain, was always very jealous of her beautiful sister hina ke ahi, and many times sent rain to put out fires which her sister tried to kindle. hina ke ahi could not stand the rain and so fled with her people to a home by the seaside. hina kuluua (or hina kuliua as she was sometimes known among the hawaiians) could control rain and storms, but for some reason failed to provide a food supply for her people, and the famine wrought havoc among them. she thought of the stories told and songs sung about her sister and wished for the same honor for herself. she commanded her people to make a great imu for her in the hill puu honu. she knew that a strange power belonged to her and yet, blinded by jealousy, forgot that rain and fire could not work together. she planned to furnish a great supply of food for her people in the same way in which her sister had worked. the oven was dug. stones and wood were collected and the same ghostly array of potatoes, taro, pig and dog prepared as had been done before by her sister. the kahunas or priests knew that hina kuluua was going out of her province in trying to do as her sister had done, but there was no use in attempting to change her plans. jealousy is self-willed and obstinate and no amount of reasoning from her dependents could have any influence over her. the ordinary incantations were observed, and hina kuluua gave the same directions as those her sister had given. the imu was to be well heated. the make-believe food was to be put in and a place left for her body. it was the goddess of rain making ready to lie down on a bed prepared for the goddess of fire. when all was ready, she lay down on the heated stones and the oven mats were thrown over her and the ghostly provisions. then the covering of dirt was thrown back upon the mats and heated stones, filling the pit which had been dug. the goddess of rain was left to prepare a feast for her people as the goddess of fire had done for her followers. [illustration: on lava beds.] some of the legends have introduced the demi-god maui into this story. the natives say that maui came to "burn" or "cook the rain" and that he made the oven very hot, but that the goddess of rain escaped and hung over the hill in the form of a cloud. at least this is what the people saw--not a cloud of smoke over the imu, but a rain cloud. they waited and watched for such evidences of underground labor as attended the passage of hina ke ahi through the earth from the hill to the sea, but the only strange appearance was the dark rain cloud. they waited three days and looked for their chiefess to come in the form of a woman. they waited another day and still another and no signs or wonders were manifest. meanwhile maui, changing himself into a white bird, flew up into the sky to catch the ghost of the goddess of rain which had escaped from the burning oven. having caught this spirit, he rolled it in some kapa cloth which he kept for food to be placed in an oven and carried it to a place in the forest on the mountain side where again the attempt was made to "burn the rain," but a great drop escaped and sped upward into the sky. again maui caught the ghost of the goddess and carried it to a pali or precipice below the great volcano kilauea, where he again tried to destroy it in the heat of a great lava oven, but this time the spirit escaped and found a safe refuge among kukui trees on the mountain side, from which she sometimes rises in clouds which the natives say are the sure sign of rain. whether this maui legend has any real connection with the two hinas and the famine we do not surely know. the legend ordinarily told among the hawaiians says that after five days had passed the retainers decided on their own responsibility to open the imu. no woman had appeared to give them directions. nothing but a mysterious rain cloud over the hill. in doubt and fear, the dirt was thrown off and the mats removed. nothing was found but the ashes of hina kuluua. there was no food for her followers and the goddess had lost all power of appearing as a chiefess. her bitter and thoughtless jealousy brought destruction upon herself and her people. the ghosts of hina ke ahi and hina kuluua sometimes draw near to the old hills in the form of the fire of flowing lava or clouds of rain while the old men and women tell the story of the hinas, the sisters of maui, who were laid upon the burning stones of the imus of a famine. xv. hina, the woman in the moon. the wailuku river has by its banks far up the mountain side some of the most ancient of the various interesting picture rocks of the hawaiian islands. the origin of the hawaiian picture writing is a problem still unsolved, but the picture rocks of the wailuku river are called "na kii o maui," "the maui pictures." their antiquity is beyond question. the most prominent figure cut in these rocks is that of the crescent moon. the hawaiian legends do not attempt any direct explanation of the meaning of this picture writing. the traditions of the polynesians both concerning hina and maui look to hina as the moon goddess of their ancestors, and in some measure the hawaiian stories confirm the traditions of the other island groups of the pacific. fornander, in his history of the polynesian race, gives the hawaiian story of hina's ascent to the moon, but applies it to a hina the wife of a chief called aikanaka rather than to the hina of hilo, the wife of akalana, the father of maui. however, fornander evidently found some difficulty in determining the status of the one to whom he refers the legend, for he calls her "the mysterious wife of aikanaka." in some of the hawaiian legends hina, the mother of maui, lived on the southeast coast of the island maui at the foot of a hill famous in hawaiian story as kauiki. fornander says that this "mysterious wife" of aikanaka bore her children puna and huna, the latter a noted sea-rover among the polynesians, at the foot of this hill kauiki. it can very easily be supposed that a legend of the hina connected with the demi-god maui might be given during the course of centuries to the other hina, the mother of huna. the application of the legend would make no difference to anyone were it not for the fact that the story of hina and her ascent to the moon has been handed down in different forms among the traditions of samoa, new zealand, tonga, hervey islands, fate islands, nauru and other pacific island groups. the polynesian name of the moon, mahina or masina, is derived from hina, the goddess mother of maui. it is even possible to trace the name back to "sin," the moon god of the assyrians. the moon goddess of ponape was ina-maram. (hawaiian hina-malamalama), "hina giving light." in the paumotan islands an eclipse of the sun is called higa-higa-hana (hina-hiua-hana), "the act (hana) of hina--the moon." in new zealand moonless nights were called "dark hina." in tahiti it is said there was war among the gods. they cursed the stars. hina saved them, although they lost a little light. then they cursed the sea, but hina preserved the tides. they cursed the rivers, but hina saved the springs--the moving waters inland, like the tides in the ocean. the hawaiians say that hina and her maidens pounded out the softest, finest kapa cloth on the long, thick kapa board at the foot of kauiki. incessantly the restless sea dashed its spray over the picturesque groups of splintered lava rocks which form the kauiki headland. here above the reach of the surf still lies the long, black stone into which the legends say hina's kapa board was changed. here hina took the leaves of the hala tree and, after the manner of the hawaiian women of the ages past, braided mats for the household to sleep upon, and from the nuts of the kukui trees fashioned the torches which were burned around the homes of those of high chief rank. at last she became weary of her work among mortals. her family had become more and more troublesome. it was said that her sons were unruly and her husband lazy and shiftless. she looked into the heavens and determined to flee up the pathway of her rainbow through the clouds. the sun was very bright and hina said, "i will go to the sun." so she left her home very early in the morning and climbed up, higher, higher, until the heat of the rays of the sun beat strongly upon her and weakened her so that she could scarcely crawl along her beautiful path. up a little higher and the clouds no longer gave her even the least shadow. the heat from the sun was so great that she began to feel the fire shriveling and torturing her. quickly she slipped down into the storms around her rainbow and then back to earth. as the day passed her strength came back, and when the full moon rose through the shadows of the night she said, "i will climb to the moon and there find rest." but when hina began to go upward her husband saw her and called to her: "do not go into the heavens." she answered him: "my mind is fixed; i will go to my new husband, the moon." and she climbed up higher and higher. her husband ran toward her. she was almost out of reach, but he leaped and caught her foot. this did not deter hina from her purpose. she shook off her husband, but as he fell he broke her leg so that the lower part came off in his hands. hina went up through the stars, crying out the strongest incantations she could use. the powers of the night aided her. the mysterious hands of darkness lifted her, until she stood at the door of the moon. she had packed her calabash with her most priceless possessions and had carried it with her even when injured by her cruel husband. with her calabash she limped into the moon and found her abiding home. when the moon is full, the hawaiians of the long ago, aye and even today, look into the quiet, silvery light and see the goddess in her celestial home, her calabash by her side. the natives call her now lono-moku, "the crippled lono." from this watch tower in the heavens she pointed out to kahai, one of her descendents, the way to rise up into the skies. the ancient chant thus describes his ascent: "the rainbow is the path of kahai. kahai rose. kahai bestirred himself. kahai passed on the floating cloud of kane. perplexed were the eyes of alihi. kahai passed on on the glancing light. the glancing light on men and canoes. above was hanaiakamalama." (hina). thus under the care of his ancestress hina, kahai, the great sea-rover, made his ascent in quest of adventures among the immortals. in the tongan islands the legends say that hina remains in the moon watching over the "fire-walkers" as their great protecting goddess. the hervey island traditions say that the moon (marama) had often seen hina and admired her, and at last had come down and caught her up to live with himself. the moonlight in its glory is called ina-motea, "the brightness of ina." the story as told on atiu island (one of the society group) is that hina took her human husband with her to the moon, where they dwelt happily for a time, but as he grew old she prepared a rainbow, down which he descended to the earth to die, leaving hina forevermore as "the woman in the moon." the savage islanders worshiped the spirits of their ancestors, saying that many of them went up to the land of sina, the always bright land in the skies. to the natives of niue island, hina has been the goddess ruling over all tapa making. they say that her home is "motu a hina," "the island of hina," the home of the dead in the skies. the samoans said that the moon received hina and a child, and also her tapa board and mallet and material for the manufacture of tapa cloth. therefore, when the moon is shining in full splendor, they shade their eyes and look for the goddess and the tools with which she fashions the tapa clouds in the heavens. the new zealand legend says that the woman went after water in the night. as she passed down the path to the spring the bright light of the full moon made the way easy for her quick footsteps, but when she had filled her calabash and started homeward, suddenly the bright light was hidden by a passing cloud and she stumbled against a stone in the path and fell to the ground, spilling the water she was carrying. then she became very angry and cursed the moon heartily. then the moon became angry and swiftly swept down upon her from the skies, grasping her and lifting her up. in her terrible fight she caught a small tree with one hand and her calabash with the other. but oh! the strong moon pulled her up with the tree and the calabash and there in the full moon they can all be traced when the nights are clear. pleasant or nauru island, in which a missionary from central union church, honolulu, is laboring, tells the story of gigu, a beautiful young woman, who has many of the experiences of hina. she opened the eyes of the mother of the moon as hina, in some of the polynesian legends, is represented to have opened the eyes of one of the great goddesses, and in reward is married to maraman, the moon, with whom she lives ever after, and in whose embrace she can always be seen when the moon is full. gigu is hina under another and more guttural form of speech. maraman is the same as malama, one of the polynesian names for the moon. index page. akea or atea, see wakea, akalana, or ataranga, , , alae birds, , , , , , , alae-huapi, alae-nui-a-hina, ao-tea-roa, , , , , , aumakuas, ava-iki, or hawa-i-ki, , , , , , awa, axe, stone, , bailing dish, bananas, , banyan, , barbs, spears, , birds, , , , , bird-machine, birds, painted, , black rock, , boiling pots, , bones, fish hooks, , brittany, bua-tarana-ga, cain and abel, calabash, , , , cannibalism, , canoe, maui's, , , cats-cradle, cloud, maui's-ao-opua, coco-nut island, , cook, captain, cooking the rain, coral, creation, , , crocodile, death, , , , , , death chant, dog, , dragon, , , earth twisted, , eclipse, , eel, , , , , eel baskets, , eight-eyed, , ellis, william, egypt, evolution, , , , fairies, fire-finding-- australia, bowditch islands, chatham islands, de peysters islands, hawaii, , hervey islands, , indians, new zealand, , , peruvians, samoa, , savage islands, , society islands, , tartary, tokelau island, first man, fishing up islands-- hawaii, , , hervey islands, new hebrides, new zealand, , samoa, tonga, , fish hooks, , , , , , fish nets, flood, flying machine, forbes, rev. a. o., fornander, a., ganges, gilbert islands, , gill, w. w., gray, sir george, , , , , , green stone, , guardian of under-world, , , , hades, halai hills, , hale-a-ka-la, , , , , , hale-a-o-a, hau tree, hau spirit, preface haumia-tiki-tiki, hawa-iki, , , , , hawaii-loa, hawke's bay, hele-a-ka-la, hercules, , hervey islands, , , hide-and-seek, hilo, , , , , , , hina, , , , , , , , , , hina-a-ke-ahi, , , hina-a-ke-ka, hina-a-te-lepo, hina-kulu-ua, , hina-uri, hine-nui-te-po, , , hina's daughters, horizon or heaven, human sacrifices, hump-back, huna, iao, ie-ie, fiber, iiwi, ika-o-maui, ili-ahi, immortality, maui, imu, oven, ina, see hina, , , india, indians, fire-finding, indians, snaring sun, ira waru, kaahumanu, ka-alae-huapi, kahai chant, ka-iwi-o-pele, kalakaua, kalana-kalanga, see akalana, , , kalau-hele-moa, kamapuaa, kanaloa, , , , kane, , , kane's cave, kauai, kauiki, or kauwiki, , , , , kaula island, kipahula, ki-i-ki-i, , , kite-flying, , , ko, spade, kohala, koolau, ku, kualii, kuna, see tuna, , ku-olo--kele, ku-ula, fish god, la, or ra, , langi, lani, lahaina, lasso, , , , lifting the sky-- ellice islands, gilbert islands, hawaii, hervey islands, manahiki, new zealand, samoa, liliuokalani chants, , , , , long eel, lono, ma-eli-eli hill, magic fish hook, mahui, mahuika, mafuia, , , , , mahina, or masina, mamo bird, manahiki islands, , maori, , marama, or malama, , marshall islands, maru, mauna kea, maui akalana-- akamai, , baptized, , birth, bird or insect, , , , , , , brothers, , , , , , , canoes, children, , , creation, , death, , hawaii, hervey islands, new zealand, samoa, eight-eyed, footprints, , god or demi-god, , home, , , , , hook, , , , , of the malo, preface prophet, sister, the swift, , , uncles, maui-mua, or rupe, , maui hope, maui waena, , mercury, moemoe, mo-o, , , moon, , , moon, hina the goddess, , , motu, or mokua hina, mudhen, muri, , nauru islands, new heavens, new hebrides islands, new zealand, , , , niu islands, oahu legends-- maui and the two gods, how they found fire, maui catching the sun, uniting the islands, maui and pea-pea, obsidian, , ohia trees, olona, , , o-o, spade, o-o, bird, paoa, papa, payton, pea-pea, the eight-eyed, pearl harbor, peruvians, pictographs, pigeon, pimoe, pohakunui, prometheus, puka-a-maui, pumice stone, puna, puu-o-hulu, , ra or la, sun-god, , rainbow falls, , , , raro tonga, , roko, rongo, ru, , rupe, maui-mua, , samoa, , , sandalwood, savage islands, savaii, , scorpion, serpent, sharks, , short days, sina, see hina, , , , snaring the sun-- fiji, hawaii, , , hervey islands, indians, new zealand, samoa, society islands, , , , tonga, snow, society islands, spears, spirits, islands of, stone implements, , , sun, created, supporter of the heavens, tabu, , tahiti, , talanga or kalana, , tane, see kane, tangaroa or kanaloa, , , , , tapa, , , , , , , , taro, tattooing, , , tawhiri, te-ika-o-maui, ti leaves, ti-i-ti-i} } kii-kii, , , , , , tiki-tiki} tini-rau, , tokelau island, tonga, , , , tonga-iti, tracey islands, tu or ku, tuna or kuna, fiji, hawaii, , hervey islands, new zealand, samoa, turner, ulua, , under-world, , , , , , uniting the islands, upolu, vatea, or wakea, vatupu islands, waianae, , waikuna, , wailuku, , , , , waipahu, waipio, wakea, vatea, atea, , water of life, white, john, , , , wife of maui, , , , wiliwili tree, winds, , woman in the moon, mardi: and a voyage thither. by herman melville in two volumes vol. ii. . mardi contents vol. ii chapter . maramma . they land . they pass through the woods . hivohitee mdcccxlvii . they visit the great morai . they discourse of the gods of mardi, and braid-beard tells of one foni . they visit the lake of yammo . they meet the pilgrims at the temple of oro . they discourse of alma . mohi tells of one ravoo, and they land to visit hevaneva, a flourishing artisan . a nursery-tale of babbalanja's . landing to visit hivohitee the pontiff; they encounter an extraordinary old hermit; with whom yoomy has a confidential interview, but learns little . babbalanja endeavors to explain the mystery . taji receives tidings and omens . dreams . media and babbalanja discourse . they regale themselves with their pipes . they visit an extraordinary old antiquary . they go down into the catacombs . babbalanja quotes from an antique pagan; and earnestly presses it upon the company, that what he recites is not his but another's . they visit a wealthy old pauper . yoomy sings some odd verses, and babbalanja quotes from the old authors right and left . what manner of men the tapparians were . their adventures upon landing at pimminee . a, i, and o . a reception-day at pimminee . babbalanja falleth upon pimminee tooth and nail . babbalanja regales the company with some sandwiches . they still remain upon the rock . behind and before . babbalanja discourses in the dark . my lord media summons mohi to the stand . wherein babbalanja and yoomy embrace . of the isle of diranda . they visit the lords piko and hello . they attend the games . taji still hunted and beckoned . they embark from diranda . wherein babbalanja discourses of himself . of the sorcerers in the isle of minda . chiefly of king bello . dominora and vivenza . they land at dominora . through dominora, they wander after yillah . they behold king bello's state canoe . wherein babbalanja bows thrice . babbalanja philosophizes, and my lord media passes round the calabashes . they sail round an island without landing; and talk round a subject without getting at it . they draw nigh to porpheero; where they behold a terrific eruption . wherein king media celebrates the glories of autumn; the minstrel, the promise of spring . in which azzageddi seems to use babbalanja for a mouthpiece . the charming yoomy sings . they draw nigh unto land . they visit the great central temple of vivenza . wherein babbalanja comments upon the speech of alanno . a scene in the land of warwicks, or king-makers . they hearken unto a voice from the gods . they visit the extreme south of vivenza . they converse of the molluscs, kings, toad-stools, and other matters . wherein, that gallant gentleman and demi-god, king media, scepter in hand throws himself into the breach . they round the stormy cape of capes . they encounter gold-hunters . they seek through the isles of palms; and pass the isles of myrrh . concentric, inward, with mardi's reef, they leave their wake around the world . sailing on . a sight of nightingales from yoomy's mouth . they visit one doxodox . king media dreams . after a long interval, by night they are becalmed . they land at hooloomooloo . a book from the "ponderings of old bardianna" . babbalanja starts to his feet . at last, the last mention is made of old bardianna; and his last will and testament is recited at length . a death-cloud sweeps by them as they sail . they visit the palmy king abrazza . same pleasant, shady talk in the groves, between my lords abrazza and media, babbalanja, mohi, and yoomy... . they sup . they embark . babbalanja at the full of the moon . morning . l'ultima sera . they sail from night to day . they land . babbalanja relates to them a vision . they depart from serena . they meet the phantoms . they draw nigh to flozella . they land . they enter the bower of hautia . taji with hautia . mardi behind: an ocean before mardi. chapter i maramma we were now voyaging straight for maramma; where lived and reigned, in mystery, the high pontiff of the adjoining isles: prince, priest, and god, in his own proper person: great lord paramount over many kings in mardi; his hands full of scepters and crosiers. soon, rounding a lofty and insulated shore, the great central peak of the island came in sight; domineering over the neighboring hills; the same aspiring pinnacle, descried in drawing near the archipelago in the chamois. "tall peak of ofo!" cried babbalanja, "how comes it that thy shadow so broods over mardi; flinging new shades upon spots already shaded by the hill-sides; shade upon shade!" "yet, so it is," said yoomy, sadly, "that where that shadow falls, gay flowers refuse to spring; and men long dwelling therein become shady of face and of soul. 'hast thou come from out the shadows of ofo?' inquires the stranger, of one with a clouded brow." "it was by this same peak," said mohi, "that the nimble god roo, a great sinner above, came down from the skies, a very long time ago. three skips and a jump, and he landed on the plain. but alas, poor roo! though easy the descent, there was no climbing back." "no wonder, then," said babbalanja, "that the peak is inaccessible to man. though, with a strange infatuation, many still make pilgrimages thereto; and wearily climb and climb, till slipping from the rocks, they fall headlong backward, and oftentimes perish at its base." "ay," said mohi, "in vain, on all sides of the peak, various paths are tried; in vain new ones are cut through the cliffs and the brambles:-- ofo yet remains inaccessible." "nevertheless," said babbalanja, "by some it is believed, that those, who by dint of hard struggling climb so high as to become invisible from the plain; that these have attained the summit; though others much doubt, whether their becoming invisible is not because of their having fallen, and perished by the way." "and wherefore," said media, "do you mortals undertake the ascent at all? why not be content on the plain? and even if attainable, what would you do upon that lofty, clouded summit? or how can you hope to breathe that rarefied air, unfitted for your human lungs?" "true, my lord," said babbalanja; "and bardianna asserts that the plain alone was intended for man; who should be content to dwell under the shade of its groves, though the roots thereof descend into the darkness of the earth. but, my lord, you well know, that there are those in mardi, who secretly regard all stories connected with this peak, as inventions of the people of maramma. they deny that any thing is to be gained by making a pilgrimage thereto. and for warranty, they appeal to the sayings of the great prophet alma." cried mohi, "but alma is also quoted by others, in vindication of the pilgrimages to ofo. they declare that the prophet himself was the first pilgrim that thitherward journeyed: that from thence he departed to the skies." now, excepting this same peak, maramma is all rolling hill and dale, like the sea after a storm; which then seems not to roll, but to stand still, poising its mountains. yet the landscape of maramma has not the merriness of meadows; partly because of the shadow of ofo, and partly because of the solemn groves in which the morais and temples are buried. according to mohi, not one solitary tree bearing fruit, not one esculent root, grows in all the isle; the population wholly depending upon the large tribute remitted from the neighboring shores. "it is not that the soil is unproductive," said mohi, "that these things are so. it is extremely fertile; but the inhabitants say that it would be wrong to make a bread-fruit orchard of the holy island." "and hence, my lord," said babbalanja, "while others are charged with the business of their temporal welfare, these islanders take no thought of the morrow; and broad maramma lies one fertile waste in the lagoon." chapter ii they land coming close to the island, the pennons and trappings of our canoes were removed; and vee-vee was commanded to descend from the shark's mouth; and for a time to lay aside his conch. in token of reverence, our paddlers also stripped to the waist; an example which even media followed; though, as a king, the same homage he rendered, was at times rendered himself. at every place, hitherto visited, joyous crowds stood ready to hail our arrival; but the shores of maramma were silent, and forlorn. said babbalanja, "it looks not as if the lost one were here." at length we landed in a little cove nigh a valley, which mohi called uma; and here in silence we beached our canoes. but presently, there came to us an old man, with a beard white as the mane of the pale horse. he was clad in a midnight robe. he fanned himself with a fan of faded leaves. a child led him by the hand, for he was blind, wearing a green plantain leaf over his plaited brow. him, media accosted, making mention who we were, and on what errand we came: to seek out yillah, and behold the isle. whereupon pani, for such was his name, gave us a courteous reception; and lavishly promised to discover sweet yillah; declaring that in maramma, if any where, the long-lost maiden must be found. he assured us, that throughout the whole land he would lead us; leaving no place, desirable to be searched, unexplored. and so saying, he conducted us to his dwelling, for refreshment and repose. it was large and lofty. near by, however, were many miserable hovels, with squalid inmates. but the old man's retreat was exceedingly comfortable; especially abounding in mats for lounging; his rafters were bowed down by calabashes of good cheer. during the repast which ensued, blind pani, freely partaking, enlarged upon the merit of abstinence; declaring that a thatch overhead, and a cocoanut tree, comprised all that was necessary for the temporal welfare of a mardian. more than this, he assured us was sinful. he now made known, that he officiated as guide in this quarter of the country; and that as he had renounced all other pursuits to devote himself to showing strangers the island; and more particularly the best way to ascend lofty ofo; he was necessitated to seek remuneration for his toil. "my lord," then whispered mohi to media "the great prophet alma always declared, that, without charge, this island was free to all." "what recompense do you desire, old man?" said media to pani. "what i seek is but little:--twenty rolls of fine tappa; two score mats of best upland grass; one canoe-load of bread-fruit and yams; ten gourds of wine; and forty strings of teeth;--you are a large company, but my requisitions are small." "very small," said mohi. "you are extortionate, good pani," said media. "and what wants an aged mortal like you with all these things?" "i thought superfluities were worthless; nay, sinful," said babbalanja. "is not this your habitation already more than abundantly supplied with all desirable furnishings?" asked yoomy. "i am but a lowly laborer," said the old man, meekly crossing his arms, "but does not the lowliest laborer ask and receive his reward? and shall i miss mine?--but i beg charity of none. what i ask, i demand; and in the dread name of great alma, who appointed me a guide." and to and fro he strode, groping as he went. marking his blindness, whispered babbalanja to media, "my lord, methinks this pani must be a poor guide. in his journeys inland, his little child leads him; why not, then, take the guide's guide?" but pani would not part with the child. then said mohi in a low voice, "my lord media, though i am no appointed guide; yet, will i undertake to lead you aright over all this island; for i am an old man, and have been here oft by myself; though i can not undertake to conduct you up the peak of ofo, and to the more secret temples." then pani said: "and what mortal may this be, who pretends to thread the labyrinthine wilds of maramma? beware!" "he is one with eyes that see," made answer babbalanja. "follow him not," said pani, "for he will lead thee astray; no yillah will he find; and having no warrant as a guide, the curses of alma will accompany him." now, this was not altogether without effect; for pani and his fathers before him had always filled the office of guide. nevertheless, media at last decided, that, this time, mohi should conduct us; which being communicated to pani, he desired us to remove from his roof. so withdrawing to the skirt of a neighboring grove, we lingered awhile, to refresh ourselves for the journey in prospect. as we here reclined, there came up from the sea-side a party of pilgrims, but newly arrived. apprised of their coming, pani and his child went out to meet them; and standing in the path he cried, "i am the appointed guide; in the name of alma i conduct all pilgrims to the temples." "this must be the worthy pani," said one of the strangers, turning upon the rest. "let us take him, then, for our guide," cried they; and all drew near. but upon accosting him; they were told, that he guided none without recompense. and now, being informed, that the foremost of the pilgrims was one divino, a wealthy chief of a distant island, pani demanded of him his requital. but the other demurred; and by many soft speeches at length abated the recompense to three promissory cocoanuts, which he covenanted to send pani at some future day. the next pilgrim accosted, was a sad-eyed maiden, in decent but scanty raiment; who without seeking to diminish pani's demands promptly placed in his hands a small hoard of the money of mardi. "take it, holy guide," she said, "it is all i have." but the third pilgrim, one fanna, a hale matron, in handsome apparel, needed no asking to bestow her goods. calling upon her attendants to advance with their burdens, she quickly unrolled them; and wound round and round pani, fold after fold of the costliest tappas; and filled both his hands with teeth; and his mouth with some savory marmalade; and poured oil upon his head; and knelt and besought of him a blessing. "from the bottom of my heart i bless thee," said pani; and still holding her hands exclaimed, "take example from this woman, oh divino; and do ye likewise, ye pilgrims all." "not to-day," said divino. "we are not rich, like unto fauna," said the rest. now, the next pilgrim was a very old and miserable man; stone-blind, covered with rags; and supporting his steps with a staff. "my recompense," said pani. "alas! i have naught to give. behold my poverty." "i can not see," replied pani; but feeling of his garments, he said, "thou wouldst deceive me; hast thou not this robe, and this staff?" "oh! merciful pani, take not my all!" wailed the pilgrim. but his worthless gaberdine was thrust into the dwelling of the guide. meanwhile, the matron was still enveloping pani in her interminable tappas. but the sad-eyed maiden, removing her upper mantle, threw it over the naked form of the beggar. the fifth pilgrim was a youth of an open, ingenuous aspect; and with an eye, full of eyes; his step was light. "who art thou?" cried pani, as the stripling touched him in passing. "i go to ascend the peak," said the boy. "then take me for guide." "no, i am strong and lithesome. alone must i go." "but how knowest thou the way?" "there are many ways: the right one i must seek for myself." "ah, poor deluded one," sighed pani; "but thus is it ever with youth; and rejecting the monitions of wisdom, suffer they must. go on, and perish!" turning, the boy exclaimed--"though i act counter to thy counsels, oh pani, i but follow the divine instinct in me." "poor youth!" murmured babbalanja. "how earnestly he struggles in his bonds. but though rejecting a guide, still he clings to that legend of the peak." the rest of the pilgrims now tarried with the guide, preparing for their journey inland. chapter iii they pass through the woods refreshed by our stay in the grove, we rose, and placed ourselves under the guidance of mohi; who went on in advance. winding our way among jungles, we came to a deep hollow, planted with one gigantic palm-shaft, belted round by saplings, springing from its roots. but, laocoon-like, sire and sons stood locked in the serpent folds of gnarled, distorted banians; and the banian-bark, eating into their vital wood, corrupted their veins of sap, till all those palm- nuts were poisoned chalices. near by stood clean-limbed, comely manchineels, with lustrous leaves and golden fruit. you would have deemed them trees of life; but underneath their branches grew no blade of grass, no herb, nor moss; the bare earth was scorched by heaven's own dews, filtrated through that fatal foliage. farther on, there frowned a grove of blended banian boughs, thick- ranked manchineels, and many a upas; their summits gilded by the sun; but below, deep shadows, darkening night-shade ferns, and mandrakes. buried in their midst, and dimly seen among large leaves, all halberd- shaped, were piles of stone, supporting falling temples of bamboo. thereon frogs leaped in dampness, trailing round their slime. thick hung the rafters with lines of pendant sloths; the upas trees dropped darkness round; so dense the shade, nocturnal birds found there perpetual night; and, throve on poisoned air. owls hooted from dead boughs; or, one by one, sailed by on silent pinions; cranes stalked abroad, or brooded, in the marshes; adders hissed; bats smote the darkness; ravens croaked; and vampires, fixed on slumbering lizards, fanned the sultry air. chapter iv hivohitee mdcccxlviii now, those doleful woodlands passed, straightway converse was renewed, and much discourse took place, concerning hivohitee, pontiff of the isle. for, during our first friendly conversation with pani, media had inquired for hivohitee, and sought to know in what part of the island he abode. whereto pani had replied, that the pontiff would be invisible for several days to come; being engaged with particular company. and upon further inquiry, as to who were the personages monopolizing his hospitalities, media was dumb when informed, that they were no other than certain incorporeal deities from above, passing the capricorn solstice at maramma. as on we journeyed, much curiosity being expressed to know more of the pontiff and his guests, old mohi, familiar with these things, was commanded to enlighten the company. he complied; and his recital was not a little significant, of the occasional credulity of chroniclers. according to his statement, the deities entertained by hivohitee belonged to the third class of immortals. these, however, were far elevated above the corporeal demi-gods of mardi. indeed, in hivohitee's eyes, the greatest demi-gods were as gourds. little wonder, then, that their superiors were accounted the most genteel characters on his visiting list. these immortals were wonderfully fastidious and dainty as to the atmosphere they breathed; inhaling no sublunary air, but that of the elevated interior; where the pontiff had a rural lodge, for the special accommodation of impalpable guests; who were entertained at very small cost; dinners being unnecessary, and dormitories superfluous. but hivohitee permitted not the presence of these celestial grandees, to interfere with his own solid comfort. passing his mornings in highly intensified chat, he thrice reclined at his ease; partaking of a fine plantain-pudding, and pouring out from a calabash of celestial old wine; meanwhile, carrying on the flow of soul with his guests. and truly, the sight of their entertainer thus enjoying himself in the flesh, while they themselves starved on the ether, must have been exceedingly provoking to these aristocratic and aerial strangers. it was reported, furthermore, that hivohitee, one of the haughtiest of pontiffs, purposely treated his angelical guests thus cavalierly; in order to convince them, that though a denizen of earth; a sublunarian; and in respect of heaven, a mere provincial; he (hivohitee) accounted himself full as good as seraphim from the capital; and that too at the capricorn solstice, or any other time of the year. strongly bent was hivohitee upon humbling their supercilious pretensions. besides, was he not accounted a great god in the land? supreme? having power of life and death? essaying the deposition of kings? and dwelling in moody state, all by himself, in the goodliest island of mardi? though here, be it said, that his assumptions of temporal supremacy were but seldom made good by express interference with the secular concerns of the neighboring monarchs; who, by force of arms, were too apt to argue against his claims to authority; however, in theory, they bowed to it. and now, for the genealogy of hivohitee; for eighteen hundred and forty-seven hivohitees were alleged to have gone before him. he came in a right line from the divine hivohitee i.: the original grantee of the empire of men's souls and the first swayer of a crosier. the present pontiff's descent was unquestionable; his dignity having been transmitted through none but heirs male; the whole procession of high priests being the fruit of successive marriages between uterine brother and sister. a conjunction deemed incestuous in some lands; but, here, held the only fit channel for the pure transmission of elevated rank. added to the hereditary appellation, hivohitee, which simply denoted the sacerdotal station of the pontiffs, and was but seldom employed in current discourse, they were individualized by a distinctive name, bestowed upon them at birth. and the degree of consideration in which they were held, may be inferred from the fact, that during the lifetime of a pontiff, the leading sound in his name was banned to ordinary uses. whence, at every new accession to the archiepiscopal throne, it came to pass, that multitudes of words and phrases were either essentially modified, or wholly dropped. wherefore, the language of maramma was incessantly fluctuating; and had become so full of jargonings, that the birds in the groves were greatly puzzled; not knowing where lay the virtue of sounds, so incoherent. and, in a good measure, this held true of all tongues spoken throughout the archipelago; the birds marveling at mankind, and mankind at the birds; wondering how they could continually sing; when, for all man knew to the contrary, it was impossible they could be holding intelligent discourse. and thus, though for thousands of years, men and birds had been dwelling together in mardi, they remained wholly ignorant of each other's secrets; the islander regarding the fowl as a senseless songster, forever in the clouds; and the fowl him, as a screeching crane, destitute of pinions and lofty aspirations. over and above numerous other miraculous powers imputed to the pontiffs as spiritual potentates, there was ascribed to them one special privilege of a secular nature: that of healing with a touch the bites of the ravenous sharks, swarming throughout the lagoon. with these they were supposed to be upon the most friendly terms; according to popular accounts, sociably bathing with them in the sea; permitting them to rub their noses against their priestly thighs; playfully mouthing their hands, with all their tiers of teeth. at the ordination of a pontiff, the ceremony was not deemed complete, until embarking in his barge, he was saluted high priest by three sharks drawing near; with teeth turned up, swimming beside his canoe. these monsters were deified in maramma; had altars there; it was deemed worse than homicide to kill one. "and what if they destroy human life?" say the islanders, "are they not sacred?" now many more wonderful things were related touching hivohitee; and though one could not but doubt the validity of many prerogatives ascribed to him, it was nevertheless hard to do otherwise, than entertain for the pontiff that sort of profound consideration, which all render to those who indisputably possess the power of quenching human life with a wish. chapter v they visit the great morai as garrulous guide to the party, braid-beard soon brought us nigh the great morai of maramma, the burial-place of the pontiffs, and a rural promenade, for certain idols there inhabiting. our way now led through the bed of a shallow water-course; mohi observing, as we went, that our feet were being washed at every step; whereas, to tread the dusty earth would be to desecrate the holy morai, by transferring thereto, the base soil of less sacred ground. here and there, thatched arbors were thrown over the stream, for the accommodation of devotees; who, in these consecrated waters, issuing from a spring in the morai, bathed their garments, that long life might ensue. yet, as braid-beard assured us, sometimes it happened, that divers feeble old men zealously donning their raiment immediately after immersion became afflicted with rheumatics; and instances were related of their falling down dead, in this their pursuit of longevity. coming to the morai, we found it inclosed by a wall; and while the rest were surmounting it, mohi was busily engaged in the apparently childish occupation of collecting pebbles. of these, however, to our no small surprise, he presently made use, by irreverently throwing them at all objects to which he was desirous of directing attention. in this manner, was pointed out a black boar's head, suspended from a bough. full twenty of these sentries were on post in the neighboring trees. proceeding, we came to a hillock of bone-dry sand, resting upon the otherwise loamy soil. possessing a secret, preservative virtue, this sand had, ages ago, been brought from a distant land, to furnish a sepulcher for the pontiffs; who here, side by side, and sire by son, slumbered all peacefully in the fellowship of the grave. mohi declared, that were the sepulcher to be opened, it would be the resurrection of the whole line of high priests. "but a resurrection of bones, after all," said babbalanja, ever osseous in his allusions to the departed. passing on, we came to a number of runic-looking stones, all over hieroglyphical inscriptions, and placed round an elliptical aperture; where welled up the sacred spring of the morai, clear as crystal, and showing through its waters, two tiers of sharp, tusk-like stones; the mouth of oro, so called; and it was held, that if any secular hand should be immersed in the spring, straight upon it those stony jaws would close. we next came to a large image of a dark-hued stone, representing a burly man, with an overgrown head, and abdomen hollowed out, and open for inspection; therein, were relics of bones. before this image we paused. and whether or no it was mohi's purpose to make us tourists quake with his recitals, his revelations were far from agreeable. at certain seasons, human beings were offered to the idol, which being an epicure in the matter of sacrifices, would accept of no ordinary fare. to insure his digestion, all indirect routes to the interior were avoided; the sacrifices being packed in the ventricle itself. near to this image of doleema, so called, a solitary forest-tree was pointed out; leafless and dead to the core. but from its boughs hang numerous baskets, brimming over with melons, grapes, and guavas. and daily these baskets were replenished. as we here stood, there passed a hungry figure, in ragged raiment: hollow cheeks, and hollow eyes. wistfully he eyed the offerings; but retreated; knowing it was sacrilege to touch them. there, they must decay, in honor of the god ananna; for so this dead tree was denominated by mohi. now, as we were thus strolling about the morai, the old chronicler elucidating its mysteries, we suddenly spied pani and the pilgrims approaching the image of doleema; his child leading the guide. "this," began pani, pointing to the idol of stone, "is the holy god ananna who lives in the sap of this green and flourishing tree." "thou meanest not, surely, this stone image we behold?" said divino. "i mean the tree," said the guide. "it is no stone image." "strange," muttered the chief; "were it not a guide that spoke, i would deny it. as it is, i hold my peace." "mystery of mysteries!" cried the blind old pilgrim; "is it, then, a stone image that pani calls a tree? oh, oro, that i had eyes to see, that i might verily behold it, and then believe it to be what it is not; that so i might prove the largeness of my faith; and so merit the blessing of alma." "thrice sacred ananna," murmured the sad-eyed maiden, falling upon her knees before doleema, "receive my adoration. of thee, i know nothing, but what the guide has spoken. i am but a poor, weak-minded maiden, judging not for myself, but leaning upon others that are wiser. these things are above me. i am afraid to think. in alma's name, receive my homage." and she flung flowers before the god. but fauna, the hale matron, turning upon pani, exclaimed, "receive more gifts, oh guide." and again she showered them upon him. upon this, the willful boy who would not have pani for his guide, entered the morai; and perceiving the group before the image, walked rapidly to where they were. and beholding the idol, he regarded it attentively, and said:--"this must be the image of doleema; but i am not sure." "nay," cried the blind pilgrim, "it is the holy tree ananna, thou wayward boy." "a tree? whatever it may be, it is not that; thou art blind, old man." "but though blind, i have that which thou lackest." then said pani, turning upon the boy, "depart from the holy morai, and corrupt not the hearts of these pilgrims. depart, i say; and, in the sacred name of alma, perish in thy endeavors to climb the peak." "i may perish there in truth," said the boy, with sadness; "but it shall be in the path revealed to me in my dream. and think not, oh guide, that i perfectly rely upon gaining that lofty summit. i will climb high ofo with hope, not faith; oh, mighty oro, help me!" "be not impious," said pani; "pronounce not oro's sacred name too lightly." "oro is but a sound," said the boy. "they call the supreme god, ati, in my native isle; it is the soundless thought of him, oh guide, that is in me." "hark to his rhapsodies! hark, how he prates of mysteries, that not even hivohitee can fathom." "nor he, nor thou, nor i, nor any; oro, to all, is oro the unknown." "why claim to know oro, then, better than others?" "i am not so vain; and i have little to substitute for what i can not receive. i but feel oro in me, yet can not declare the thought." "proud boy! thy humility is a pretense; at heart, thou deemest thyself wiser than mardi." "not near so wise. to believe is a haughty thing; my very doubts humiliate me. i weep and doubt; all mardi may be light; and i too simple to discern." "he is mad," said the chief divino; "never before heard i such words." "they are thoughts," muttered the guide. "poor fool!" cried fauna. "lost youth!" sighed the maiden. "he is but a child," said the beggar. these whims will soon depart; once i was like him; but, praise be to alma, in the hour of sickness i repented, feeble old man that i am!" "it is because i am young and in health," said the boy, "that i more nourish the thoughts, that are born of my youth and my health. i am fresh from my maker, soul and body unwrinkled. on thy sick couch, old man, they took thee at advantage." "turn from the blasphemer," cried pani. "hence! thou evil one, to the perdition in store." "i will go my ways," said the boy, "but oro will shape the end." and he quitted the morai. after conducting the party round the sacred inclosure, assisting his way with his staff, for his child had left him, pani seated himself on a low, mossy stone, grimly surrounded by idols; and directed the pilgrims to return to his habitation; where, ere long he would rejoin them. the pilgrims departed, he remained in profound meditation; while, backward and forward, an invisible ploughshare turned up the long furrows on his brow. long he was silent; then muttered to himself, "that boy, that wild, wise boy, has stabbed me to the heart. his thoughts are my suspicions. but he is honest. yet i harm none. multitudes must have unspoken meditations as well as i. do we then mutually deceive? off masks, mankind, that i may know what warranty of fellowship with others, my own thoughts possess. why, upon this one theme, oh oro! must all dissemble? our thoughts are not our own. whate'er it be, an honest thought must have some germ of truth. but we must set, as flows the general stream; i blindly follow, where i seem to lead; the crowd of pilgrims is so great, they see not there is none to guide.--it hinges upon this: have we angelic spirits? but in vain, in vain, oh oro! i essay to live out of this poor, blind body, fit dwelling for my sightless soul. death, death:--blind, am i dead? for blindness seems a consciousness of death. will my grave be more dark, than all is now?-- from dark to dark!--what is this subtle something that is in me, and eludes me? will it have no end? when, then, did it begin? all, all is chaos! what is this shining light in heaven, this sun they tell me of? or, do they lie? methinks, it might blaze convictions; but i brood and grope in blackness; i am dumb with doubt; yet, 'tis not doubt, but worse: i doubt my doubt. oh, ye all-wise spirits in the air, how can ye witness all this woe, and give no sign? would, would that mine were a settled doubt, like that wild boy's, who without faith, seems full of it. the undoubting doubter believes the most. oh! that i were he. methinks that daring boy hath alma in him, struggling to be free. but those pilgrims: that trusting girl.--what, if they saw me as i am? peace, peace, my soul; on, mask, again." and he staggered from the morai. chapter vi they discourse of the gods of mardi, and braid-beard tells of one foni walking from the sacred inclosure, mohi discoursed of the plurality of gods in the land, a subject suggested by the multitudinous idols we had just been beholding. said mohi, "these gods of wood and of stone are nothing in number to the gods in the air. you breathe not a breath without inhaling, you touch not a leaf without ruffling a spirit. there are gods of heaven, and gods of earth; gods of sea and of land; gods of peace and of war; gods of rook and of fell; gods of ghosts and of thieves; of singers and dancers; of lean men and of house-thatchers. gods glance in the eyes of birds, and sparkle in the crests of the waves; gods merrily swing in the boughs of the trees, and merrily sing in the brook. gods are here, and there, and every where; you are never alone for them." "if this be so, braid-beard," said babbalanja, "our inmost thoughts are overheard; but not by eaves-droppers. however, my lord, these gods to whom he alludes, merely belong to the semi-intelligibles, the divided unities in unity, thin side of the first adyta." "indeed?" said media. "semi-intelligible, say you, philosopher?" cried mohi. "then, prithee, make it appear so; for what you say, seems gibberish to me." "babbalanja," said media, "no more of your abstrusities; what know you mortals of us gods and demi-gods? but tell me, mohi, how many of your deities of rock and fen think you there are? have you no statistical table?" "my lord, at the lowest computation, there must be at least three billion trillion of quintillions." "a mere unit!" said babbalanja. "old man, would you express an infinite number? then take the sum of the follies of mardi for your multiplicand; and for your multiplier, the totality of sublunarians, that never have been heard of since they became no more; and the product shall exceed your quintillions, even though all their units were nonillions." "have done, babbalanja!" cried media; "you are showing the sinister vein in your marble. have done. take a warm bath, and make tepid your cold blood. but come, mohi, tell us of the ways of this maramma; something of the morai and its idols, if you please." and straightway braid-beard proceeded with a narration, in substance as follows:-- it seems, there was a particular family upon the island, whose members, for many generations, had been set apart as sacrifices for the deity called doleema. they were marked by a sad and melancholy aspect, and a certain involuntary shrinking, when passing the morai. and, though, when it came to the last, some of these unfortunates went joyfully to their doom, declaring that they gloried to die in the service of holy doleema; still, were there others, who audaciously endeavored to shun their fate; upon the approach of a festival, fleeing to the innermost wilderness of the island. but little availed their flight. for swift on their track sped the hereditary butler of the insulted god, one xiki, whose duty it was to provide the sacrifices. and when crouching in some covert, the fugitive spied xiki's approach, so fearful did he become of the vengeance of the deity he sought to evade, that renouncing all hope of escape, he would burst from his lair, exclaiming, "come on, and kill!" baring his breast for the javelin that slew him. the chronicles of maramma were full of horrors. in the wild heart of the island, was said still to lurk the remnant of a band of warriors, who, in the days of the sire of the present pontiff, had risen in arms to dethrone him, headed by foni, an upstart prophet, a personage distinguished for the uncommon beauty of his person. with terrible carnage, these warriors had been defeated; and the survivors, fleeing into the interior, for thirty days were pursued by the victors. but though many were overtaken and speared, a number survived; who, at last, wandering forlorn and in despair, like demoniacs, ran wild in the woods. and the islanders, who at times penetrated into the wilderness, for the purpose of procuring rare herbs, often scared from their path some specter, glaring through the foliage. thrice had these demoniacs been discovered prowling about the inhabited portions of the isle; and at day-break, an attendant of the holy morai once came upon a frightful figure, doubled with age, helping itself to the offerings in the image of doleema. the demoniac was slain; and from his ineffaceable tatooing, it was proved that this was no other than foni, the false prophet; the splendid form he had carried into the rebel fight, now squalid with age and misery. chapter vii they visit the lake of yammo from the morai, we bent our steps toward an unoccupied arbor; and here, refreshing ourselves with the viands presented by borabolla, we passed the night. and next morning proceeded to voyage round to the opposite quarter of the island; where, in the sacred lake of yammo, stood the famous temple of oro, also the great gallery of the inferior deities. the lake was but a portion of the smooth lagoon, made separate by an arm of wooded reef, extending from the high western shore of the island, and curving round toward a promontory, leaving a narrow channel to the sea, almost invisible, however, from the land-locked interior. in this lake were many islets, all green with groves. its main-shore was a steep acclivity, with jutting points, each crowned with mossy old altars of stone, or ruinous temples, darkly reflected in the green, glassy water; while, from its long line of stately trees, the low reef-side of the lake looked one verdant bluff. gliding in upon yammo, its many islets greeted us like a little mardi; but ever and anon we started at long lines of phantoms in the water, reflections of the long line of images on the shore. toward the islet of dolzono we first directed our way; and there we beheld the great gallery of the gods; a mighty temple, resting on one hundred tall pillars of palm, each based, below the surface, on the buried body of a man; its nave one vista of idols; names carved on their foreheads: ogre, tripoo, indrimarvoki, parzillo, vivivi, jojijojorora, jorkraki, and innumerable others. crowds of attendants were new-grouping the images. "my lord, you behold one of their principal occupations," said mohi. said media: "i have heard much of the famed image of mujo, the nursing mother;--can you point it out, braid-beard?" "my lord, when last here, i saw mujo at the head of this file; but they must have removed it; i see it not now." "do these attendants, then," said babbalanja, "so continually new- marshal the idols, that visiting the gallery to-day, you are at a loss to-morrow?" "even so," said braid-beard. "but behold, my lord, this image is mujo." we stood before an obelisk-idol, so towering, that gazing at it, we were fain to throw back our heads. according to mohi, winding stairs led up through its legs; its abdomen a cellar, thick-stored with gourds of old wine; its head, a hollow dome; in rude alto-relievo, its scores of hillock-breasts were carved over with legions of baby deities, frog-like sprawling; while, within, were secreted whole litters of infant idols, there placed, to imbibe divinity from the knots of the wood. as we stood, a strange subterranean sound was heard, mingled with a gurgling as of wine being poured. looking up, we beheld, through arrow-slits and port-holes, three masks, cross-legged seated in the abdomen, and holding stout wassail. but instantly upon descrying us, they vanished deeper into the interior; and presently was heard a sepulchral chant, and many groans and grievous tribulations. passing on, we came to an image, with a long anaconda-like posterior development, wound round and round its own neck. "this must be oloo, the god of suicides," said babbalanja. "yes," said mohi, "you perceive, my lord, how he lays violent tail upon himself." at length, the attendants having, in due order, new-deposed the long lines of sphinxes and griffins, and many limbed images, a band of them, in long flowing robes, began their morning chant. "awake rarni! awake foloona! awake unnumbered deities!" with many similar invocations, to which the images made not the slightest rejoinder. not discouraged, however, the attendants now separately proceeded to offer up petitions on behalf of various tribes, retaining them for that purpose. one prayed for abundance of rain, that the yams of valapee might not wilt in the ground; another for dry sunshine, as most favorable for the present state of the bread-fruit crop in mondoldo. hearing all this, babbalanja thus spoke:--"doubtless, my lord media, besides these petitions we hear, there are ten thousand contradictory prayers ascending to these idols. but methinks the gods will not jar the eternal progression of things, by any hints from below; even were it possible to satisfy conflicting desires." said yoomy, "but i would pray, nevertheless, babbalanja; for prayer draws us near to our own souls, and purifies our thoughts. nor will i grant that our supplications are altogether in vain." still wandering among the images, mohi had much to say, concerning their respective claims to the reverence of the devout. for though, in one way or other, all mardians bowed to the supremacy of oro, they were not so unanimous concerning the inferior deities; those supposed to be intermediately concerned in sublunary things. some nations sacrificed to one god; some to another; each maintaining, that their own god was the most potential. observing that all the images were more or less defaced, babbalanja sought the reason. to which, braid-beard made answer, that they had been thus defaced by hostile devotees; who quarreling in the great gallery of the gods, and getting beside themselves with rage, often sought to pull down, and demolish each other's favorite idols. "but behold," cried babbalanja, "there seems not a single image unmutilated. how is this, old man?" "it is thus. while one faction defaces the images of its adversaries, its own images are in like manner assailed; whence it comes that no idol escapes." "no more, no more, braid-beard," said media. "let us depart, and visit the islet, where the god of all these gods is enshrined." chapter viii they meet the pilgrims at the temple of oro deep, deep, in deep groves, we found the great temple of oro, spreader-of-the-sky, and deity supreme. while here we silently stood eyeing this mardi-renowned image, there entered the fane a great multitude of its attendants, holding pearl- shells on their heads, filled with a burning incense. and ranging themselves in a crowd round oro, they began a long-rolling chant, a sea of sounds; and the thick smoke of their incense went up to the roof. and now approached pani and the pilgrims; followed, at a distance, by the willful boy. "behold great oro," said the guide. "we see naught but a cloud," said the chief divino. "my ears are stunned by the chanting," said the blind pilgrim. "receive more gifts, oh guide!" cried fanna the matron. "oh oro! invisible oro! i kneel," slow murmured the sad-eyed maid. but now, a current of air swept aside the eddying incense; and the willful boy, all eagerness to behold the image, went hither and thither; but the gathering of attendants was great; and at last he exclaimed, "oh oro! i can not see thee, for the crowd that stands between thee and me." "who is this babbler?" cried they with the censers, one and all turning upon the pilgrims; "let him speak no more; but bow down, and grind the dust where he stands; and declare himself the vilest creature that crawls. so oro and alma command." "i feel nothing in me so utterly vile," said the boy, "and i cringe to none. but i would as lief _adore_ your image, as that in my heart, for both mean the same; but more, how can i? i love great oro, though i comprehend him not. i marvel at his works, and feel as nothing in his sight; but because he is thus omnipotent, and i a mortal, it follows not that i am vile. nor so doth he regard me. we do ourselves degrade ourselves, not oro us. hath not oro made me? and therefore am i not worthy to stand erect before him? oro is almighty, but no despot. i wonder; i hope; i love; i weep; i have in me a feeling nigh to fear, that is not fear; but wholly vile i am not; nor can we love and cringe. but oro knows my heart, which i can not speak." "impious boy," cried they with the censers, "we will offer thee up, before the very image thou contemnest. in the name of alma, seize him." and they bore him away unresisting. "thus perish the ungodly," said pani to the shuddering pilgrims. and they quitted the temple, to journey toward the peak of ofo. "my soul bursts!" cried yoomy. "my lord, my lord, let us save the boy." "speak not," said media. "his fate is fixed. let mardi stand." "then let us away from hence, my lord; and join the pilgrims; for, in these inland vales, the lost one may be found, perhaps at the very base of ofo." "not there; not there;" cried babbalanja, "yillah may have touched these shores; but long since she must have fled." chapter ix they discourse of alma sailing to and fro in the lake, to view its scenery, much discourse took place concerning the things we had seen; and far removed from the censer-bearers, the sad fate that awaited the boy was now the theme of all. a good deal was then said of alma, to whom the guide, the pilgrims, and the censer-bearers had frequently alluded, as to some paramount authority. called upon to reveal what his chronicles said on this theme, braid- beard complied; at great length narrating, what now follows condensed. alma, it seems, was an illustrious prophet, and teacher divine; who, ages ago, at long intervals, and in various islands, had appeared to the mardians under the different titles of brami, manko, and alma. many thousands of moons had elasped since his last and most memorable avatar, as alma on the isle of maramma. each of his advents had taken place in a comparatively dark and benighted age. hence, it was devoutly believed, that he came to redeem the mardians from their heathenish thrall; to instruct them in the ways of truth, virtue, and happiness; to allure them to good by promises of beatitude hereafter; and to restrain them from evil by denunciations of woe. separated from the impurities and corruptions, which in a long series of centuries had become attached to every thing originally uttered by the prophet, the maxims, which as brami he had taught, seemed similar to those inculcated by manko. but as alma, adapting his lessons to the improved condition of humanity, the divine prophet had more completely unfolded his scheme; as alma, he had made his last revelation. this narration concluded, babbalanja mildly observed, "mohi: without seeking to accuse you of uttering falsehoods; since what you relate rests not upon testimony of your own; permit me, to question the fidelity of your account of alma. the prophet came to dissipate errors, you say; but superadded to many that have survived the past, ten thousand others have originated in various constructions of the principles of alma himself. the prophet came to do away all gods but one; but since the days of alma, the idols of maramma have more than quadrupled. the prophet came to make us mardians more virtuous and happy; but along with all previous good, the same wars, crimes, and miseries, which existed in alma's day, under various modifications are yet extant. nay: take from your chronicles, mohi, the history of those horrors, one way or other, resulting from the doings of alma's nominal followers, and your chronicles would not so frequently make mention of blood. the prophet came to guarantee our eternal felicity; but according to what is held in maramma, that felicity rests on so hard a proviso, that to a thinking mind, but very few of our sinful race may secure it. for one, then, i wholly reject your alma; not so much, because of all that is hard to be understood in his histories; as because of obvious and undeniable things all round us; which, to me, seem at war with an unreserved faith in his doctrines as promulgated here in maramma. besides; every thing in this isle strengthens my incredulity; i never was so thorough a disbeliever as now." "let the winds be laid," cried mohi, "while your rash confession is being made in this sacred lake." said media, "philosopher; remember the boy, and they that seized him." "ah! i do indeed remember him. poor youth! in his agony, how my heart yearned toward his. but that very prudence which you deny me, my lord, prevented me from saying aught in his behalf. have you not observed, that until now, when we are completely by ourselves, i have refrained from freely discoursing of what we have seen in this island? trust me, my lord, there is no man, that bears more in mind the necessity of being either a believer or a hypocrite in maramma, and the imminent peril of being honest here, than i, babbalanja. and have i not reason to be wary, when in my boyhood, my own sire was burnt for his temerity; and in this very isle? just oro! it was done in the name of alma,--what wonder then, that, at times, i almost hate that sound. and from those flames, they devoutly swore he went to others,--horrible fable!" said mohi: "do you deny, then, the everlasting torments?" "'tis not worth a denial. nor by formally denying it, will i run the risk of shaking the faith of, thousands, who in that pious belief find infinite consolation for all they suffer in mardi." "how?" said media; "are there those who soothe themselves with the thought of everlasting flames?" "one would think so, my lord, since they defend that dogma more resolutely than any other. sooner will they yield you the isles of paradise, than it. and in truth, as liege followers of alma, they would seem but right in clinging to it as they do; for, according to all one hears in maramma, the great end of the prophet's mission seems to have been the revealing to us mardians the existence of horrors, most hard to escape. but better we were all annihilated, than that one man should be damned." rejoined media: "but think you not, that possibly, alma may have been misconceived? are you certain that doctrine is his?" "i know nothing more than that such is the belief in this land. and in these matters, i know not where else to go for information. but, my lord, had i been living in those days when certain men are said to have been actually possessed by spirits from hell, i had not let slip the opportunity--as our forefathers did--to cross-question them concerning the place they came from." "well, well," said media, "your alma's faith concerns not me: i am a king, and a demi-god; and leave vulgar torments to the commonality." "but it concerns me," muttered mohi; "yet i know not what to think." "for me," said yoomy, "i reject it. could i, i would not believe it. it is at variance with the dictates of my heart instinctively my heart turns from it, as a thirsty man from gall." "hush; say no more," said mohi; "again we approach the shore." chapter x mohi tells of one ravoo, and they land to visit revaneva, a flourishing artisan having seen all worth viewing in yammo, we departed, to complete the circumnavigation of the island, by returning to uma without reversing our prows. as we glided along, we passed many objects of interest, concerning which, mohi, as usual, was very diffuse. among other things pointed out, were certain little altars, like mile- stones, planted here and there upon bright bluffs, running out into the lagoon. dedicated respectively to the guardian spirits of maramma, these altars formed a chain of spiritual defenses; and here were presumed to stand post the most vigilant of warders; dread hivohitee, all by himself, garrisoning the impregnable interior. but these sentries were only subalterns, subject to the beck of the pontiff; who frequently sent word to them, concerning the duties of their watch. his mandates were intrusted to one ravoo, the hereditary pontifical messenger; a long-limbed varlet, so swift of foot, that he was said to travel like a javelin. "art thou ravoo, that thou so pliest thy legs?" say these islanders, to one encountered in a hurry. hivohitee's postman held no oral communication with the sentries. dispatched round the island with divers bits of tappa, hieroglyphically stamped, he merely deposited one upon each altar; superadding a stone, to keep the missive in its place; and so went his rounds. now, his route lay over hill and over dale, and over many a coral rock; and to preserve his feet from bruises, he was fain to wear a sort of buskin, or boot, fabricated of a durable tappa, made from the thickest and toughest of fibers. as he never wore his buskins except when he carried the mail, ravoo sorely fretted with his hessians; though it would have been highly imprudent to travel without them. to make the thing more endurable, therefore, and, at intervals, to cool his heated pedals, he established a series of stopping-places, or stages; at each of which a fresh pair of buskins, hanging from a tree, were taken down and vaulted into by the ingenious traveler. those relays of boots were exceedingly convenient; next, indeed, to being lifted upon a fresh pair of legs. "now, to what purpose that anecdote?" demanded babbalanja of mohi, who in substance related it. "marry! 'tis but the simple recital of a fact; and i tell it to entertain the company." "but has it any meaning you know of?" "thou art wise, find out," retorted braid-beard. "but what comes of it?" persisted babbalanja. "beshrew me, this senseless catechising of thine," replied mohi; "naught else, it seems, save a grin or two." "and pray, what may you be driving at, philosopher?" interrupted media. "i am intent upon the essence of things; the mystery that lieth beyond; the elements of the tear which much laughter provoketh; that which is beneath the seeming; the precious pearl within the shaggy oyster. i probe the circle's center; i seek to evolve the inscrutable." "seek on; and when aught is found, cry out, that we may run to see." "my lord the king is merry upon me. to him my more subtle cogitations seem foolishness. but believe me, my lord, there is more to be thought of than to be seen. there is a world of wonders insphered within the spontaneous consciousness; or, as old bardianna hath it, a mystery within the obvious, yet an obviousness within the mystery." "and did i ever deny that?" said media. "as plain as my hand in the dark," said mohi. "i dreamed a dream," said yoomy. "they banter me; but enough; i am to blame for discoursing upon the deep world wherein i live. i am wrong in seeking to invest sublunary sounds with celestial sense. much that is in me is incommunicable by this ether we breathe. but i blame ye not." and wrapping round him his mantle, babbalanja retired into its most private folds. ere coming in sight of uma, we put into a little bay, to pay our respects to hevaneva, a famous character there dwelling; who, assisted by many journeymen, carried on the lucrative business of making idols for the surrounding isles. know ye, that all idols not made in maramma, and consecrated by hivohitee; and, what is more, in strings of teeth paid down for to hevaneva; are of no more account, than logs, stocks, or stones. yet does not the cunning artificer monopolize the profits of his vocation; for hevaneva being but the vassal of the pontiff, the latter lays claim to king leo's share of the spoils, and secures it. the place was very prettily lapped in a pleasant dell, nigh to the margin of the water; and here, were several spacious arbors; wherein, prostrate upon their sacred faces, were all manner of idols, in every imaginable stage of statuary development. with wonderful industry the journeymen were plying their tools;--some chiseling noses; some trenching for mouths; and others, with heated flints, boring for ears: a hole drilled straight through the occiput, representing the auricular organs. "how easily they are seen through," said babbalanja, taking a sight through one of the heads. the last finish is given to their godships, by rubbing them all over with dried slips of consecrated shark-skin, rough as sand paper, tacked over bits of wood. in one of the farther arbors, hevaneva pointed out a goodly array of idols, all complete and ready for the market. they were of every variety of pattern; and of every size; from that of a giant, to the little images worn in the ears of the ultra devout. "of late," said the artist, "there has been a lively demand for the image of arbino the god of fishing; the present being the principal season for that business. for nadams (nadam presides over love and wine), there has also been urgent call; it being the time of the grape; and the maidens growing frolicsome withal, and devotional." seeing that hevaneva handled his wares with much familiarity, not to say irreverence, babbalanja was minded to learn from him, what he thought of his trade; whether the images he made were genuine or spurious; in a word, whether he believed in his gods. his reply was curious. but still more so, the marginal gestures wherewith he helped out the text. "when i cut down the trees for my idols," said he, "they are nothing but logs; when upon those logs, i chalk out the figures of, my images, they yet remain logs; when the chisel is applied, logs they are still; and when all complete, i at last stand them up in my studio, even then they are logs. nevertheless, when i handle the pay, they are as prime gods, as ever were turned out in maramma." "you must make a very great variety," said babbalanja. "all sorts, all sorts." "and from the same material, i presume." "ay, ay, one grove supplies them all. and, on an average, each tree stands us in full fifty idols. then, we often take second-hand images in part pay for new ones. these we work over again into new patterns; touching up their eyes and ears; resetting their noses; and more especially new-footing their legs, where they always decay first." under sanction of the pontiff, hevaneva, in addition to his large commerce in idols, also carried on the highly lucrative business of canoe-building; the profits whereof, undivided, he dropped into his private exchequer. but mohi averred, that the pontiff often charged him with neglecting his images, for his canoes. be that as it may, hevaneva drove a thriving trade at both avocations. and in demonstration of the fact, he directed our attention to three long rows of canoes, upheld by wooden supports. they were in perfect order; at a moment's notice, ready for launching; being furnished with paddles, out-riggers, masts, sails, and a human skull, with a short handle thrust through one of its eyes, the ordinary bailer of maramma; besides other appurtenances, including on the prow a duodecimo idol to match. owing to a superstitious preference bestowed upon the wood and work of the sacred island, hevaneva's canoes were in as high repute as his idols; and sold equally well. in truth, in several ways one trade helped the other. the larger images being dug out of the hollow part of the canoes; and all knotty odds and ends reserved for the idol ear-rings. "but after all," said the artificer, "i find a readier sale for my images, than for my canoes." "and so it will ever be," said babbalanja.--"stick to thy idols, man! a trade, more reliable than the baker's." chapter xi a nursery-tale of babbalanja's having taken to our canoes once again, we were silently sailing along, when media observed, "babbalanja; though i seldom trouble myself with such thoughts, i have just been thinking, how difficult it must be, for the more ignorant sort of people, to decide upon what particular image to worship as a guardian deity, when in maramma, it seems, there exists such a multitude of idols, and a thousand more are to be heard of." "not at all, your highness. the more ignorant the better. the multitude of images distracts them not. but i am in no mood for serious discourse; let me tell you a story." "a story! hear him: the solemn philosopher is desirous of regaling us with a tale! but pray, begin." "once upon a time, then," said babbalanja, indifferently adjusting his girdle, "nine blind men, with uncommonly long noses, set out on their travels to see the great island on which they were born." "a precious beginning," muttered mohi. "nine blind men setting out to see sights." continued babbalanja, "staff in hand, they traveled; one in advance of the other; each man with his palm upon the shoulder next him; and he with the longest nose took the lead of the file. journeying on in this manner, they came to a valley, in which reigned a king called tammaro. now, in a certain inclosure toward the head of the valley, there stood an immense wild banian tree; all over moss, and many centuries old, and forming quite a wood in itself: its thousand boughs striking into the earth, and fixing there as many gigantic trunks. with tammaro, it had long been a question, which of those many trunks was the original and true one; a matter that had puzzled the wisest heads among his subjects; and in vain had a reward been offered for the solution of the perplexity. but the tree was so vast, and its fabric so complex; and its rooted branches so similar in appearance; and so numerous, from the circumstance that every year had added to them, that it was quite impossible to determine the point. nevertheless, no sooner did the nine blind men hear that there was a reward offered for discovering the trunk of a tree, standing all by itself, than, one and all, they assured tammaro, that they would quickly settle that little difficulty of his; and loudly inveighed against the stupidity of his sages, who had been so easily posed. so, being conducted into the inclosure, and assured that the tree was somewhere within, they separated their forces, so as at wide intervals to surround it at a distance; when feeling their way, with their staves and their noses, they advanced to the search, crying out--'pshaw! make room there; let us wise men feel of the mystery.' presently, striking with his nose one of the rooted branches, the foremost blind man quickly knelt down; and feeling that it struck into the earth, gleefully shouted: here it is! here it is!' but almost in the same breath, his companions, also, each striking a branch with his staff or his nose, cried out in like manner, 'here it is! here it is!' whereupon they were all confounded: but directly, the man who first cried out, thus addressed the rest: good friends, surely you're mistaken. there is but one tree in the place, and here it is.' 'very true,' said the others, 'all together; there is only _one_ tree; but _here_ it is.' 'nay,' said the others, 'it is _here!_' and so saying, each blind man triumphantly felt of the branch, where it penetrated into the earth. then again said the first speaker: good friends, if you will not believe what i say, come hither, and feel for yourselves.' 'nay, nay,' replied they, why seek further? _here_ it is; and nowhere else can it be.' 'you blind fools, you, you contradict yourselves,' continued the first speaker, waxing wroth; 'how can you each have hold of a separate trunk, when there is but one in the place?' whereupon, they redoubled their cries, calling each other all manner of opprobrious names, and presently they fell to beating each other with their staves, and charging upon each other with their noses. but soon after, being loudly called upon by tammaro and his people; who all this while had been looking on; being loudly called upon, i say, to clap their hands on the trunk, they again rushed for their respective branches; and it so happened, that, one and all, they changed places; but still cried out, '_here_ it is; _here_ it is!' 'peace! peace! ye silly blind men,' said tammaro. 'will ye without eyes presume to see more sharply than those who have them? the tree is too much for us all. hence! depart from the valley.'" "an admirable story," cried media. "i had no idea that a mere mortal, least of all a philosopher, could acquit himself so well. by my scepter, but it is well done! ha, ha! blind men round a banian! why, babbalanja, no demi-god could surpass it. taji, could you?" "but, babbalanja, what under the sun, mean you by your blind story!" cried mohi. "obverse, or reverse, i can make nothing out of it." "others may," said babbalanja. "it is a polysensuum, old man." "a pollywog!" said mohi. chapter xii landing to visit hivohitee the pontiff, they encounter an extraordinary old hermit; with whom yoomy has a confidential interview, but learns little gliding on, suddenly we spied a solitary islander putting out in his canoe from a neighboring cove. drawing near, the stranger informed us, that he was just from the face of the great pontiff, hivohitee, who, having dismissed his celestial guests, had retired to his private sanctuary. upon this, media resolved to land forthwith, and under the guidance of mohi, proceed inland, and pay a visit to his holiness. quitting the beach, our path penetrated into the solitudes of the groves. skirting the way were tall casaurinas, a species of cypress, standing motionless in the shadows, as files of mutes at a funeral. but here and there, they were overrun with the adventurous vines of the convolvulus, the morning-glory of the tropics, whose tendrils, bruised by the twigs, dropped milk upon the dragon-like scales of the trees. this vine is of many varieties. lying perdu, and shunning the garish sun through the day, one species rises at night with the stars; bursting forth in dazzling constellations of blossoms, which close at dawn. others, slumbering through the darkness, are up and abroad with their petals, by peep of morn; and after inhaling its breath, again drop their lids in repose. while a third species, more capricious, refuse to expand at all, unless in the most brilliant sunshine, and upon the very tops of the loftiest trees. ambitious flowers! that will not blow, unless in high places, with the bright day looking on and admiring. here and there, we passed open glades in the woods, delicious with the incense of violets. balsamic ferns, stirred by the breeze, fanned all the air with aromas. these glades were delightful. journeying on, we at length came to a dark glen so deftly hidden by the surrounding copses, that were it not for the miasma thence wafted, an ignorant wayfarer might pass and repass it, time and again, never dreaming of its vicinity. down into the gloom of this glen we descended. its sides were mantled with noxious shrubs, whose exhalations, half way down, unpleasantly blended with the piny breeze from the uplands. through its bed ran a brook, whose incrusted margin had a strange metallic luster, from the polluted waters here flowing; their source a sulphur spring, of vile flavor and odor, where many invalid pilgrims resorted. the woods all round were haunted by the dismal cawings of crows; tap, tap, the black hawk whetted his bill on the boughs; each trunk stalked a ghost; and from those trunks, hevaneva procured the wood for his idols. rapidly crossing this place, yoomy's hands to his ears, old mohi's to his nostrils, and babbalanja vainly trying to walk with closed eyes, we toiled among steep, flinty rocks, along a wild, zigzag pathway; like a mule-track in the andes, not so much onward as upward; yoomy above babbalanja, my lord media above him, and braid-beard, our guide, in the air, above all. strown over with cinders, the vitreous marl seemed tumbled together, as if belched from a volcano's throat. presently, we came to a tall, slender structure, hidden among the scenic projections of the cliffs, like a monument in the dark, vaulted ways of an abbey. surrounding it, were five extinct craters. the air was sultry and still, as if full of spent thunderbolts. like a hindoo pagoda, this bamboo edifice rose story above story; its many angles and points decorated with pearl-shells suspended by cords. but the uppermost story, some ten toises in the air, was closely thatched from apex to floor; which summit was gained by a series of ascents. what eremite dwelleth here, like st. stylites at the top of his column?--a question which mohi seemed all eagerness to have answered. dropping upon his knees, he gave a peculiar low call: no response. another: all was silent. marching up to the pagoda, and again dropping upon his knees, he shook the bamboos till the edifice rocked, and its pearl-shells jingled, as if a troop of andalusian mules, with bells round their necks, were galloping along the defile. at length the thatch aloft was thrown open, and a head was thrust forth. it was that of an old, old man; with steel-gray eyes, hair and beard, and a horrible necklace of jaw-bones. now, issuing from the pagoda, mohi turned about to gain a view of the ghost he had raised; and no sooner did he behold it, than with king media and the rest, he made a marked salutation. presently, the eremite pointed to where yoomy was standing; and waved his hand upward; when mohi informed the minstrel, that it was st. stylites' pleasure, that he should pay him a visit. wondering what was to come, yoomy proceeded to mount; and at last arriving toward the top of the pagoda, was met by an opening, from which an encouraging arm assisted him to gain the ultimate landing. here, all was murky enough; for the aperture from which the head of the apparition had been thrust, was now closed; and what little twilight there was, came up through the opening in the floor. in this dismal seclusion, silently the hermit confronted the minstrel; his gray hair, eyes, and beard all gleaming, as if streaked with phosphorus; while his ghastly gorget grinned hideously, with all its jaws. mutely yoomy waited to be addressed; but hearing no sound, and becoming alive to the strangeness of his situation, he meditated whether it would not be well to subside out of sight, even as he had come--through the floor. an intention which the eremite must have anticipated; for of a sudden, something was slid over the opening; and the apparition seating itself thereupon, the twain were in darkness complete. shut up thus, with an inscrutable stranger posted at the only aperture of escape, poor yoomy fell into something like a panic; hardly knowing what step to take next. as for endeavoring to force his way out, it was alarming to think of; for aught he knew, the eremite, availing himself of the gloom, might be bristling all over with javelin points. at last, the silence was broken. "what see you, mortal?" "chiefly darkness," said yoomy, wondering at the audacity of the question. "i dwell in it. but what else see you, mortal?" "the dim gleaming of thy gorget." "but that is not me. what else dost thou see?" "nothing." "then thou hast found me out, and seen all! descend." and with that, the passage-way opened, and groping through the twilight, yoomy obeyed the mandate, and retreated; full of vexation at his enigmatical reception. on his alighting, mohi inquired whether the hermit was not a wonderful personage. but thinking some sage waggery lurked in the question; and at present too indignant to enter into details, the minstrel made some impatient reply; and winding through a defile, the party resumed its journey. straggling behind, to survey the strange plants and flowers in his path, yoomy became so absorbed, as almost to forget the scene in the pagoda; yet every moment expected to be nearing the stately abode of the pontiff. but suddenly, the scene around grew familiar; the path seemed that which had been followed just after leaving the canoes; and at length, the place of debarkation was in sight. surprised that the object of our visit should have been thus abandoned, the minstrel ran forward, and sought an explanation. whereupon, mohi lifted his hands in amazement; exclaiming at the blindness of the eyes, which had beheld the supreme pontiff of maramma, without knowing it. the old hermit was no other than the dread hivohitee; the pagoda, the inmost oracle of the isle. chapter xiii babbalanja endeavors to explain the mystery this great mogul of a personage, then; this woundy aliasuerus; this man of men; this same hivohitee, whose name rumbled among the mountains like a peal of thunder, had been seen face to face, and taken for naught, but a bearded old hermit, or at best, some equivocal conjuror. so great was his wonderment at the time, that yoomy could not avoid expressing it in words. whereupon thus discoursed babbalanja: "gentle yoomy, be not astounded, that hivohitee is so far behind your previous conceptions. the shadows of things are greater than themselves; and the more exaggerated the shadow, the more unlike to the substance." "but knowing now, what manner of person hivohitee is," said yoomy, "much do i long to behold him again." but mohi assured him it was out of the question; that the pontiff always acted toward strangers as toward him (yoomy); and that but one dim blink at the eremite was all that mortal could obtain. debarred thus from a second and more satisfactory interview with one, concerning whom his curiosity had been violently aroused, the minstrel again turned to mohi for enlightenment; especially touching that magnate's egyptian reception of him in his aerial den. whereto, the chronicler made answer, that the pontiff affected darkness because he liked it: that he was a ruler of few words, but many deeds; and that, had yoomy been permitted to tarry longer with him in the pagoda, he would have been privy to many strange attestations of the divinity imputed to him. voices would have been heard in the air, gossiping with hivohitee; noises inexplicable proceeding from him; in brief, light would have flashed out of his darkness. "but who has seen these things, mohi?" said babbalanja, "have you?" "nay." "who then?--media?--any one you know?" "nay: but the whole archipelago has." "thus," exclaimed babbalanja, "does mardi, blind though it be in many things, collectively behold the marvels, which one pair of eyes sees not." chapter xiv taji receives tidings and omens slowly sailing on, we were overtaken by a shallop; whose inmates grappling to the side of media's, said they came from borabolla. dismal tidings!--my faithful follower's death. absent over night, that morning early, he had been discovered lifeless in the woods, three arrows in his heart. and the three pale strangers were nowhere to be found. but a fleet canoe was missing from the beach. slain for me! my soul sobbed out. nor yet appeased aleema's manes; nor yet seemed sated the avengers' malice; who, doubtless, were on my track. but i turned; and instantly the three canoes had been reversed; and full soon, jarl's dead hand in mine, had not media interposed. "to death, your presence will not bring life back." "and we must on," said babbalanja. "we seek the living, not the dead." thus they overruled me; and borabolla's messengers departed. soon evening came, and in its shades, three shadows,--hautia's heralds. their shallop glided near. a leaf tri-foiled was first presented; then another, arrow-shaped. said yoomy, "still i swiftly follow, behind revenge." then were showered faded, pallid daffodils. said yoomy, "thy hopes are blighted all." "not dead, but living with the life of life. sirens! i heed ye not." they would have showered more flowers; but crowding sail we left them. much converse followed. then, beneath the canopy all sought repose. and ere long slouched sleep drew nigh, tending dreams innumerable; silent dotting all the downs a shepherd with his flock. chapter xv dreams dreams! dreams! golden dreams: endless, and golden, as the flowery prairies, that stretch away from the rio sacramento, in whose waters danae's shower was woven;--prairies like rounded eternities: jonquil leaves beaten out; and my dreams herd like buffaloes, browsing on to the horizon, and browsing on round the world; and among them, i dash with my lance, to spear one, ere they all flee. dreams! dreams! passing and repassing, like oriental empires in history; and scepters wave thick, as bruce's pikes at bannockburn; and crowns are plenty as marigolds in june. and far in the background, hazy and blue, their steeps let down from the sky, loom andes on andes, rooted on alps; and all round me, long rushing oceans, roll amazons and oronocos; waves, mounted parthians; and, to and fro, toss the wide woodlands: all the world an elk, and the forests its antlers. but far to the south, past my sicily suns and my vineyards, stretches the antarctic barrier of ice: a china wall, built up from the sea, and nodding its frosted towers in the dun, clouded sky. do tartary and siberia lie beyond? deathful, desolate dominions those; bleak and wild the ocean, beating at that barrier's base, hovering 'twixt freezing and foaming; and freighted with navies of ice-bergs,--warring worlds crossing orbits; their long icicles, projecting like spears to the charge. wide away stream the floes of drift ice, frozen cemeteries of skeletons and bones. white bears howl as they drift from their cubs; and the grinding islands crush the skulls of the peering seals. but beneath me, at the equator, the earth pulses and beats like a warrior's heart; till i know not, whether it be not myself. and my soul sinks down to the depths, and soars to the skies; and comet-like reels on through such boundless expanses, that methinks all the worlds are my kin, and i invoke them to stay in their course. yet, like a mighty three-decker, towing argosies by scores, i tremble, gasp, and strain in my flight, and fain would cast off the cables that hamper. and like a frigate, i am full with a thousand souls; and as on, on, on, i scud before the wind, many mariners rush up from the orlop below, like miners from caves; running shouting across my decks; opposite braces are pulled; and this way and that, the great yards swing round on their axes; and boisterous speaking-trumpets are heard; and contending orders, to save the good ship from the shoals. shoals, like nebulous vapors, shoreing the white reef of the milky way, against which the wrecked worlds are dashed; strewing all the strand, with their himmaleh keels and ribs. ay: many, many souls are in me. in my tropical calms, when my ship lies tranced on eternity's main, speaking one at a time, then all with one voice: an orchestra of many french bugles and horns, rising, and falling, and swaying, in golden calls and responses. sometimes, when these atlantics and pacifics thus undulate round me, i lie stretched out in their midst: a land-locked mediterranean, knowing no ebb, nor flow. then again, i am dashed in the spray of these sounds: an eagle at the world's end, tossed skyward, on the horns of the tempest. yet, again, i descend, and list to the concert. like a grand, ground swell, homer's old organ rolls its vast volumes under the light frothy wave-crests of anacreon and hafiz; and high over my ocean, sweet shakespeare soars, like all the larks of the spring. throned on my seaside, like canute, bearded ossian smites his hoar harp, wreathed with wild-flowers, in which warble my wallers; blind milton sings bass to my petrarchs and priors, and laureate crown me with bays. in me, many worthies recline, and converse. i list to st. paul who argues the doubts of montaigne; julian the apostate cross-questions augustine; and thomas-a-kempis unrolls his old black letters for all to decipher. zeno murmurs maxims beneath the hoarse shout of democritus; and though democritus laugh loud and long, and the sneer of pyrrho be seen; yet, divine plato, and proclus, and, verulam are of my counsel; and zoroaster whispered me before i was born. i walk a world that is mine; and enter many nations, as mingo park rested in african cots; i am served like bajazet: bacchus my butler, virgil my minstrel, philip sidney my page. my memory is a life beyond birth; my memory, my library of the vatican, its alcoves all endless perspectives, eve-tinted by cross-lights from middle-age oriels. and as the great mississippi musters his watery nations: ohio, with all his leagued streams; missouri, bringing down in torrents the clans from the highlands; arkansas, his tartar rivers from the plain;--so, with all the past and present pouring in me, i roll down my billow from afar. yet not i, but another: god is my lord; and though many satellites revolve around me, i and all mine revolve round the great central truth, sun-like, fixed and luminous forever in the foundationless firmament. fire flames on my tongue; and though of old the bactrian prophets were stoned, yet the stoners in oblivion sleep. but whoso stones me, shall be as erostratus, who put torch to the temple; though genghis khan with cambyses combine to obliterate him, his name shall be extant in the mouth of the last man that lives. and if so be, down unto death, whence i came, will i go, like xenophon retreating on greece, all persia brandishing her spears in his rear. my cheek blanches white while i write; i start at the scratch of my pen; my own mad brood of eagles devours me; fain would i unsay this audacity; but an iron-mailed hand clenches mine in a vice, and prints down every letter in my spite. fain would i hurl off this dionysius that rides me; my thoughts crush me down till i groan; in far fields i hear the song of the reaper, while i slave and faint in this cell. the fever runs through me like lava; my hot brain burns like a coal; and like many a monarch, i am less to be envied, than the veriest hind in the land. chapter xvi media and babbalanja discourse our visiting the pontiff at a time previously unforeseen, somewhat altered our plans. all search in maramma for the lost one proving fruitless, and nothing of note remaining to be seen, we returned not to uma; but proceeded with the tour of the lagoon. when day came, reclining beneath the canopy, babbalanja would fain have seriously discussed those things we had lately been seeing, which, for all the occasional levity he had recently evinced, seemed very near his heart. but my lord media forbade; saying that they necessarily included a topic which all gay, sensible mardians, who desired to live and be merry, invariably banished from social discourse. "meditate as much as you will, babbalanja, but say little aloud, unless in a merry and mythical way. lay down the great maxims of things, but let inferences take care of themselves. never be special; never, a partisan. in safety, afar off, you may batter down a fortress; but at your peril you essay to carry a single turret by escalade. and if doubts distract you, in vain will you seek sympathy from your fellow men. for upon this one theme, not a few of you free- minded mortals, even the otherwise honest and intelligent, are the least frank and friendly. discourse with them, and it is mostly formulas, or prevarications, or hollow assumption of philosophical indifference, or urbane hypocrisies, or a cool, civil deference to the dominant belief; or still worse, but less common, a brutality of indiscriminate skepticism. furthermore, babbalanja, on this head, final, last thoughts you mortals have none; nor can have; and, at bottom, your own fleeting fancies are too often secrets to yourselves; and sooner may you get another's secret, than your own. thus with the wisest of you all; you are ever unfixed. do you show a tropical calm without? then, be sure a thousand contrary currents whirl and eddy within. the free, airy robe of your philosophy is but a dream, which seems true while it lasts; but waking again into the orthodox world, straightway you resume the old habit. and though in your dreams you may hie to the uttermost orient, yet all the while you abide where you are. babbalanja, you mortals dwell in mardi, and it is impossible to get elsewhere." said babbalanja, "my lord, you school me. but though i dissent from some of your positions, i am willing to confess, that this is not the first time a philosopher has been instructed by a man." "a demi-god, sir; and therefore i the more readily discharge my mind of all seriousness, touching the subject, with which you mortals so vex and torment yourselves." silence ensued. and seated apart, on both sides of the barge, solemnly swaying, in fixed meditation, to the roll of the waves, babbalanja, mohi, and yoomy, drooped lower and lower, like funeral plumes; and our gloomy canoe seemed a hearse. chapter xvii they regale themselves with their pipes "ho! mortals! mortals!" cried media. "go we to bury our dead? awake, sons of men! cheer up, heirs of immortality! ho, vee-vee! bring forth our pipes: we'll smoke off this cloud." nothing so beguiling as the fumes of tobacco, whether inhaled through hookah, narghil, chibouque, dutch porcelain, pure principe, or regalia. and a great oversight had it been in king media, to have omitted pipes among the appliances of this voyage that we went. tobacco in rouleaus we had none; cigar nor cigarret; which little the company esteemed. pipes were preferred; and pipes we often smoked; testify, oh! vee-vee, to that. but not of the vile clay, of which mankind and etruscan vases were made, were these jolly fine pipes of ours. but all in good time. now, the leaf called tobacco is of divers species and sorts. not to dwell upon vile shag, pig-tail, plug, nail-rod, negro-head, cavendish, and misnamed lady's-twist, there are the following varieties:--gold- leaf, oronoco, cimaroza, smyrna, bird's-eye, james-river, sweet- scented, honey-dew, kentucky, cnaster, scarfalati, and famed shiraz, or persian. of all of which, perhaps the last is the best. but smoked by itself, to a fastidious wight, even shiraz is not gentle enough. it needs mitigation. and the cunning craft of so mitigating even the mildest tobacco was well understood in the dominions of media. there, in plantations ever covered with a brooding, blue haze, they raised its fine leaf in the utmost luxuriance; almost as broad as the broad fans of the broad-bladed banana. the stalks of the leaf withdrawn, the remainder they cut up, and mixed with soft willow-bark, and the aromatic leaves of the betel. "ho! vee-vee, bring forth the pipes," cried media. and forth they came, followed by a quaint, carved cocoa-nut, agate-lidded, containing ammunition sufficient for many stout charges and primings. soon we were all smoking so hard, that the canopied howdah, under which we reclined, sent up purple wreaths like a michigan wigwam. there we sat in a ring, all smoking in council--every pipe a halcyon pipe of peace. and among those calumets, my lord media's showed like the turbaned grand turk among his bashaws. it was an extraordinary pipe, be sure; of right royal dimensions. its mouth-piece an eagle's beak; its long stem, a bright, red-barked cherry-tree branch, partly covered with a close network of purple dyed porcupine quills; and toward the upper end, streaming with pennons, like a versailles flag-staff of a coronation day. these pennons were managed by halyards; and after lighting his prince's pipe, it was little vee-vee's part to run them up toward the mast-head, or mouthpiece, in token that his lord was fairly under weigh. but babbalanja's was of a different sort; an immense, black, serpentine stem of ebony, coiling this way and that, in endless convolutions, like an anaconda round a traveler in brazil. smoking this hydra, babbalanja looked as if playing upon the trombone. next, gentle yoomy's. its stem, a slender golden reed, like musical pan's; its bowl very merry with tassels. lastly, old mohi the chronicler's. its death's-head bowl forming its latter end, continually reminding him of his own. its shank was an ostrich's leg, some feathers still waving nigh the mouth-piece. "here, vee-vee! fill me up again," cried media, through the blue vapors sweeping round his great gonfalon, like plumed marshal ney, waving his baton in the smoke of waterloo; or thrice gallant anglesea, crossing his wooden leg mid the reek and rack of the apsley house banquet. vee-vee obeyed; and quickly, like a howitzer, the pipe-owl was reloaded to the muzzle, and king media smoked on. "ah! this is pleasant indeed," he cried. "look, it's a calm on the waters, and a calm in our hearts, as we inhale these sedative odors." "so calm," said babbalanja; "the very gods must be smoking now." "and thus," said media, "we demi-gods hereafter shall cross-legged sit, and smoke out our eternities. ah, what a glorious puff! mortals, methinks these pipe-bowls of ours must be petrifactions of roses, so scented they seem. but, old mohi, you have smoked this many a long year; doubtless, you know something about their material--the froth- of-the-sea they call it, i think--ere my handicraft subjects obtain it, to work into bowls. tell us the tale." "delighted to do so, my lord," replied mohi, slowly disentangling his mouth-piece from the braids of his beard. "i have devoted much time and attention to the study of pipe-bowls, and groped among many learned authorities, to reconcile the clashing opinions concerning the origin of the so-called farnoo, or froth-of-the-sea." "well, then, my old centenarian, give us the result of your investigations. but smoke away: a word and a puff go on." "may it please you, then, my right worshipful lord, this farnoo is an unctuous, argillaceous substance; in its natural state, soft, malleable, and easily worked as the cornelian-red clay from the famous pipe-quarries of the wild tribes to the north. but though mostly found buried in terra-firma, especially in the isles toward the east, this farnoo, my lord, is sometimes thrown up by the ocean; in seasons of high sea, being plentifully found on the reefs. but, my lord, like amber, the precise nature and origin of this farnoo are points widely mooted." "stop there!" cried media; "our mouth-pieces are of amber; so, not a word more of the froth-of-the-sea, until something be said to clear up the mystery of amber. what is amber, old man?" "a still more obscure thing to trace than the other, my worshipful lord. ancient plinnee maintained, that originally it must be a juice, exuding from balsam firs and pines; borhavo, that, like camphor, it is the crystalized oil of aromatic ferns; berzilli, that it is the concreted scum of the lake cephioris; and vondendo, against scores of antagonists, stoutly held it a sort of bituminous gold, trickling from antediluvian smugglers' caves, nigh the sea." "why, old braid-beard," cried media, placing his pipe in rest, "you are almost as erudite as our philosopher here." "much more so, my lord," said babbalanja; "for mohi has somehow picked up all my worthless forgettings, which are more than my valuable rememberings." "what say you, wise one?" cried mohi, shaking his braids, like an enraged elephant with many trunks. said yoomy: "my lord, i have heard that amber is nothing less than the congealed tears of broken-hearted mermaids." "absurd, minstrel," cried mohi. "hark ye; i know what it is. all other authorities to the contrary, amber is nothing more than gold-fishes' brains, made waxy, then firm, by the action of the sea." "nonsense!" cried yoomy. "my lord," said braid-beard, waving his pipe, this thing is just as i say. imbedded in amber, do we not find little fishes' fins, porpoise- teeth, sea-gulls' beaks and claws; nay, butterflies' wings, and sometimes a topaz? and how could that be, unless the substance was first soft? amber is gold-fishes' brains, i say." "for one," said babbalanja, "i'll not believe that, till you prove to me, braid-beard, that ideas themselves are found imbedded therein." "another of your crazy conceits, philosopher," replied mohi, disdainfully; "yet, sometimes plenty of strange black-letter characters have been discovered in amber." and throwing back his hoary old head, he jetted forth his vapors like a whale. "indeed?" cried babbalanja. "then, my lord media, it may be earnestly inquired, whether the gentle laws of the tribes before the flood, were not sought to be embalmed and perpetuated between transparent and sweet scented tablets of amber." "that, now, is not so unlikely," said mohi; "for old king rondo the round once set about getting him a coffin-lid of amber; much desiring a famous mass of it owned by the ancestors of donjalolo of juam. but no navies could buy it. so rondo had himself urned in a crystal." "and that immortalized rondo, no doubt," said babbalanja. "ha! ha! pity he fared not like the fat porpoise frozen and tombed in an iceberg; its icy shroud drifting south, soon melted away, and down, out of sight, sunk the dead." "well, so much for amber," cried media. "now, mohi, go on about farnoo." "know, then, my lord, that farnoo is more like ambergris than amber." "is it? then, pray, tell us something on that head. you know all about ambergris, too, i suppose." "every thing about all things, my lord. ambergris is found both on land and at sea. but especially, are lumps of it picked up on the spicy coasts of jovanna; indeed, all over the atolls and reefs in the eastern quarter of mardi." "but what is this ambergris? braid-beard," said babbalanja. "aquovi, the chymist, pronounced it the fragments of mushrooms growing at the bottom of the sea; voluto held, that like naptha, it springs from fountains down there. but it is neither." "i have heard," said yoomy, "that it is the honey-comb of bees, fallen from flowery cliffs into the brine." "nothing of the kind," said mohi. "do i not know all about it, minstrel? ambergris is the petrified gall-stones of crocodiles." "what!" cried babbalanja, "comes sweet scented ambergris from those musky and chain-plated river cavalry? no wonder, then, their flesh is so fragrant; their upper jaws as the visors of vinaigrettes." "nay, you are all wrong," cried king media. then, laughing to himself:--"it's pleasant to sit by, a demi-god, and hear the surmisings of mortals, upon things they know nothing about; theology, or amber, or ambergris, it's all the same. but then, did i always out with every thing i know, there would be no conversing with these comical creatures. "listen, old mohi; ambergris is a morbid secretion of the spermaceti whale; for like you mortals, the whale is at times a sort of hypochondriac and dyspeptic. you must know, subjects, that in antediluvian times, the spermaceti whale was much hunted by sportsmen, that being accounted better pastime, than pursuing the behemoths on shore. besides, it was a lucrative diversion. now, sometimes upon striking the monster, it would start off in a dastardly fright, leaving certain fragments in its wake. these fragments the hunters picked up, giving over the chase for a while. for in those days, as now, a quarter-quintal of ambergris was more valuable than a whole ton of spermaceti." "nor, my lord," said babbalanja, "would it have been wise to kill the fish that dropped such treasures: no more than to murder the noddy that laid the golden eggs." "beshrew me! a noddy it must have been," gurgled mohi through his pipe-stem, "to lay golden eggs for others to hatch." "come, no more of that now," cried media. "mohi, how long think you, may one of these pipe-bowls last?" "my lord, like one's cranium, it will endure till broken. i have smoked this one of mine more than half a century." "but unlike our craniums, stocked full of concretions," said babbalanja, our pipe-bowls never need clearing out." "true," said mohi, "they absorb the oil of the smoke, instead of allowing it offensively to incrust." "ay, the older the better," said media, "and the more delicious the flavor imparted to the fumes inhaled." "farnoos forever! my lord," cried yoomy. "by much smoking, the bowl waxes russet and mellow, like the berry-brown cheek of a sunburnt brunette." "and as like smoked hams," cried braid-beard, "we veteran old smokers grow browner and browner; hugely do we admire to see our jolly noses and pipe-bowls mellowing together." "well said, old man," cried babbalanja; "for, like a good wife, a pipe is a friend and companion for life. and whoso weds with a pipe, is no longer a bachelor. after many vexations, he may go home to that faithful counselor, and ever find it full of kind consolations and suggestions. but not thus with cigars or cigarrets: the acquaintances of a moment, chatted with in by-places, whenever they come handy; their existence so fugitive, uncertain, unsatisfactory. once ignited, nothing like longevity pertains to them. they never grow old. why, my lord, the stump of a cigarret is an abomination; and two of them crossed are more of a _memento-mori_, than a brace of thigh-bones at right angles." "so they are, so they are," cried king media. "then, mortals, puff we away at our pipes. puff, puff, i say. ah! how we puff! but thus we demi-gods ever puff at our ease." "puff; puff, how we puff," cried babbalanja. "but life itself is a puff and a wheeze. our lungs are two pipes which we constantly smoke." "puff, puff! how we puff," cried old mohi. "all thought is a puff." "ay," said babbalanja, "not more smoke in that skull-bowl of yours than in the skull on your shoulders: both ends alike." "puff! puff! how we puff," cried yoomy. "but in every puff, there hangs a wreath. in every puff, off flies a care." "ay, there they go," cried mohi, "there goes another--and, there, and there;--this is the way to get rid of them my worshipful lord; puff them aside." "yoomy," said media, "give us that pipe song of thine. sing it, my sweet and pleasant poet. we'll keep time with the flageolets of ours." "so with pipes and puffs for a chorus, thus yoomy sang:-- care is all stuff:-- puff! puff: to puff is enough:-- puff! puff! more musky than snuff, and warm is a puff:-- puff! puff! here we sit mid our puffs, like old lords in their ruffs, snug as bears in their muffs:-- puff! puff! then puff, puff, puff; for care is all stuff, puffed off in a puff:-- puff! puff! "ay, puff away," cried babbalanja, "puff; puff, so we are born, and so die. puff, puff, my volcanos: the great sun itself will yet go out in a snuff, and all mardi smoke out its last wick." "puffs enough," said king media, "vee-vee! haul down my flag. there, lie down before me, oh gonfalon! and, subjects, hear,--when i die, lay this spear on my right, and this pipe on my left, its colors at half mast; so shall i be ambidexter, and sleep between eloquent symbols." chapter xviii they visit an extraordinary old antiquary "about prows there, ye paddlers," cried media. "in this fog we've been raising, we have sailed by padulla, our destination." now padulla, was but a little island, tributary to a neighboring king; its population embracing some hundreds of thousands of leaves, and flowers, and butterflies, yet only two solitary mortals; one, famous as a venerable antiquarian: a collector of objects of mardian vertu; a cognoscenti, and dilettante in things old and marvelous; and for that reason, very choice of himself. he went by the exclamatory cognomen of "oh-oh;" a name bestowed upon him, by reason of the delighted interjections, with which he welcomed all accessions to his museum. now, it was to obtain a glimpse of this very museum, that media was anxious to touch at padulla. landing, and passing through a grove, we were accosted by oh-oh himself; who, having heard the shouts of our paddlers, had sallied forth, staff in hand. the old man was a sight to see; especially his nose; a remarkable one. and all mardi over, a remarkable nose is a prominent feature: an ever obvious passport to distinction. for, after all, this gaining a name, is but the individualizing of a man; as well achieved by an extraordinary nose, as by an extraordinary epic. far better, indeed; for you may pass poets without knowing them. even a hero, is no hero without his sword; nor beelzebub himself a lion, minus that lasso-tail of his, wherewith he catches his prey. whereas, he who is famous through his nose, it is impossible to overlook. he is a celebrity without toiling for a name. snugly ensconced behind his proboscis, he revels in its shadow, receiving tributes of attention wherever he goes. not to enter at large upon the topography of oh-oh's nasal organ, all must be content with this; that it was of a singular magnitude, and boldly aspiring at the end; an exclamation point in the face of the wearer, forever wondering at the visible universe. the eyes of oh-oh were like the creature's that the jew abhors: placed slanting in his head, and converging their rays toward the mouth; which was no mouth, but a gash. i mean not to be harsh, or unpleasant upon thee, oh-oh; but i must paint thee as thou wert. the rest of his person was crooked, and dwarfed, and surmounted by a hump, that sat on his back like a burden. and a weary load is a hump, heaven knows, only to be cast off in the grave. thus old, and antiquated, and gable-ended, was the tabernacle of oh- oh's soul. but his person was housed in as curious a structure. built of old boughs of trees blown down in the groves, and covered over with unruly thatching, it seemed, without, some ostrich nest. but within, so intricate, and grotesque, its brown alleys and cells, that the interior of no walnut was more labyrinthine. and here, strewn about, all dusty and disordered, were the precious antiques, and curios, and obsoletes, which to oh-oh were dear as the apple of his eye, or the memory of departed days. the old man was exceedingly importunate, in directing attention to his relics; concerning each of which, he had an endless story to tell. time would fail; nay, patience, to repeat his legends. so, in order, here follow the most prominent of his rarities:-- the identical canoe, in which, ages back, the god unja came from the bottom of the sea. (very ponderous; of lignum-vitae wood). a stone flower-pot, containing in the original soil, unja's last footprints, when he embarked from mardi for parts unknown. (one foot-print unaccountably reversed). the jaw-bones of tooroorooloo, a great orator in the days of unja. (somewhat twisted). a quaint little fish-hook. (made from the finger-bones of kravi the cunning). the mystic gourd; carved all over with cabalistic triangles, and hypogrifs; by study of which a reputed prophet, was said to have obtained his inspiration. (slightly redolent of vineyards). the complete skeleton of an immense tiger-shark; the bones of a pearl-shell-diver's leg inside. (picked off the reef at low tide). an inscrutable, shapeless block of a mottled-hued, smoke-dried wood. (three unaccountable holes drilled through the middle). a sort of ecclesiastical fasces, being the bony blades of nine sword- fish, basket-hilted with shark's jaws, braided round and tasseled with cords of human hair. (now obsolete). the mystic fan with which unja fanned himself when in trouble. (woven from the leaves of the water-lily). a tripod of a stork's leg, supporting a nautilus shell, containing the fragments of a bird's egg; into which, was said to have been magically decanted the soul of a deceased chief. (unfortunately crushed in by atmospheric pressure). two clasped right hands, embalmed; being those of twin warriors, who thus died on a battle-field. (impossible to sunder). a curious pouch, or purse, formed from the skin of an albatross' foot, and decorated with three sharp claws, naturally pertaining to it. (originally the property of a notorious old tooth-per-tooth). a long tangled lock of mermaid's hair, much resembling the curling silky fibres of the finer sea-weed. (preserved between fins of the dolphin). a mermaid's comb for the toilet. the stiff serrated crest of a cook storm-petrel (oh-oh was particularly curious concerning mermaids). files, rasps, and pincers, all bone, the implements of an eminent chiropedist, who flourished his tools before the flood. (owing to the excessive unevenness of the surface in those times, the diluvians were peculiarly liable to pedal afflictions). the back tooth, that zozo the enthusiast, in token of grief, recklessly knocked out at the decease of a friend. (worn to a stump and quite useless). these wonders inspected, oh-oh conducted us to an arbor, to show us the famous telescope, by help of which, he said he had discovered an ant-hill in the moon. it rested in the crotch of a bread-fruit tree; and was a prodigiously long and hollow trunk of a palm; a scale from a sea-kraken its lens. then returning to his cabinet, he pointed to a bamboo microscope, which had wonderfully assisted him in his entomological pursuits. "by this instrument, my masters," said he, "i have satisfied myself, that in the eye of a dragon-fly there are precisely twelve thousand five hundred and forty-one triangular lenses; and in the leg of a flea, scores on scores of distinct muscles. now, my masters, how far think you a flea may leap at one spring? why, two hundred times its own length; i have often measured their leaps, with a small measure i use for scientific purposes." "truly, oh-oh," said babbalanja, "your discoveries must ere long result in something grand; since you furnish such invaluable data for theorists. pray, attend, my lord media. if, at one spring, a flea leaps two hundred times its own length, then, with the like proportion of muscles in his calves, a bandit might pounce upon the unwary traveler from a quarter of a mile off. is it not so, oh-oh?" "indeed, but it is, my masters. and one of the greatest consolations i draw from these studies, is the ever-strengthening conviction of the beneficent wisdom that framed our mardi. for did men possess thighs in proportion to fleas, verily, the wicked would grievously leap about, and curvet in the isles." "but oh-oh," said babbalanja, "what other discoveries have you made? hast yet put a usurer under your lens, to find his conscience? or a libertine, to find his heart? hast yet brought your microscope to bear upon a downy peach, or a rosy cheek?" "i have," said oh-oh, mournfully; "and from the moment i so did, i have had no heart to eat a peach, or salute a cheek." "then dash your lens!" cried media. "well said, my lord. for all the eyes we get beyond our own, but minister to infelicity. the microscope disgusts us with our mardi; and the telescope sets us longing for some other world." chapter xix they go down into the catacombs with a dull flambeau, we now descended some narrow stone steps, to view oh-oh's collection of ancient and curious manuscripts, preserved in a vault. "this way, this way, my masters," cried oh-oh, aloft, swinging his dim torch. "keep your hands before you; it's a dark road to travel." "so it seems," said babbalanja, wide-groping, as he descended lower and lower. "my lord this is like going down to posterity." upon gaining the vault, forth flew a score or two of bats, extinguishing the flambeau, and leaving us in darkness, like belzoni deserted by his arabs in the heart of a pyramid. the torch at last relumed, we entered a tomb-like excavation, at every step raising clouds of dust; and at last stood before long rows of musty, mummyish parcels, so dingy-red, and so rolled upon sticks, that they looked like stiff sausages of bologna; but smelt like some fine old stilton or cheshire. most ancient of all, was a hieroglyphical elegy on the dumps, consisting of one thousand and one lines; the characters,--herons, weeping-willows, and ravens, supposed to have been traced by a quill from the sea-noddy. then there were plenty of rare old ballads:-- "king kroko, and the fisher girl." "the fight at the ford of spears." "the song of the skulls." and brave old chronicles, that made mohi's mouth water:-- "the rise and setting of the dynasty of foofoo." "the heroic history of the noble prince dragoni; showing how he killed ten pinioned prisoners with his own hand." "the whole pedigree of the king of kandidee, with that of his famous horse, znorto." and tarantula books:-- "sour milk for the young, by a dairyman." "the devil adrift, by a corsair." "grunts and groans, by a mad boar." "stings, by a scorpion." and poetical productions:-- "suffusions of a lily in a shower." "sonnet on the last breath of an ephemera." "the gad-fly, and other poems." and metaphysical treatises:-- "necessitarian not predestinarian." "philosophical necessity and predestination one thing and the same." "whatever is not, is." "whatever is, is not." and scarce old memoirs:-- "the one hundred books of the biography of the great and good king grandissimo." "the life of old philo, the philanthropist, in one chapter." and popular literature:-- "a most sweet, pleasant, and unctuous account of the manner in which five-and-forty robbers were torn asunder by swiftly-going canoes." and books by chiefs and nobles:-- "the art of making a noise in mardi." "on the proper manner of saluting a bosom friend." "letters from a father to a son, inculcating the virtue of vice." "pastorals by a younger son." "a catalogue of chieftains who have been authors, by a chieftain, who disdains to be deemed an author." "a canto on a cough caught by my consort." "the philosophy of honesty, by a late lord, who died in disgrace." and theological works:-- "pepper for the perverse." "pudding for the pious." "pleas for pardon." "pickles for the persecuted." and long and tedious romances with short and easy titles:-- "the buck." "the belle." "the king and the cook, or the cook and the king." and books of voyages:-- "a sojourn among the anthropophagi, by one whose hand was eaten off at tiffin among the savages." "franko: its king, court, and tadpoles." "three hours in vivenza, containing a full and impartial account of that whole country: by a subject of king bello." and works of nautical poets:-- "sky-sail-pole lyrics." and divers brief books, with panic-striking titles:-- "are you safe?" "a voice from below." "hope for none." "fire for all." and pamphlets by retired warriors:-- "on the best gravy for wild boar's meat." "three receipts for bottling new arrack." "to brown bread fruit without burning." "advice to the dyspeptic." "on starch for tappa." all these mss. were highly prized by oh-oh. he averred, that they spoke of the mighty past, which he reverenced more than the paltry present, the dross and sediment of what had been. peering into a dark crypt, babbalanja drew forth a few crumbling, illegible, black-letter sheets of his favorite old essayist, brave bardianna. they seemed to have formed parts of a work, whose title only remained--"thoughts, by a thinker." silently babbalanja pressed them to his heart. then at arm's length held them, and said, "and is all this wisdom lost? can not the divine cunning in thee, bardianna, transmute to brightness these sullied pages? here, perhaps, thou didst dive into the deeps of things, treating of the normal forms of matter and of mind; how the particles of solids were first molded in the interstices of fluids; how the thoughts of men are each a soul, as the lung-cells are each a lung; how that death is but a mode of life; while mid-most is the pharzi.-- but all is faded. yea, here the thinker's thoughts lie cheek by jowl with phrasemen's words. oh bardianna! these pages were offspring of thee, thought of thy thought, soul of thy soul. instinct with mind, they once spoke out like living voices; now, they're dust; and would not prick a fool to action. whence then is this? if the fogs of some few years can make soul linked to matter naught; how can the unhoused spirit hope to live when mildewed with the damps of death." piously he folded the shreds of manuscript together, kissed them, and laid them down. then approaching oh-oh, he besought him for one leaf, one shred of those most precious pages, in memory of bardianna, and for the love of him. but learning who he was, one of that old ponderer's commentators, oh- oh tottered toward the manuscripts; with trembling fingers told them over, one by one, and said-"thank oro! all are here.--philosopher, ask me for my limbs, my life, my heart, but ask me not for these. steeped in wax, these shall be my cerements." all in vain; oh-oh was an antiquary. turning in despair, babbalanja spied a heap of worm-eaten parchment covers, and many clippings and parings. and whereas the rolls of manuscripts did smell like unto old cheese; so these relics did marvelously resemble the rinds of the same. turning over this pile, babbalanja lighted upon something that restored his good humor. long he looked it over delighted; but bethinking him, that he must have dragged to day some lost work of the collection, and much desirous of possessing it, he made bold again to ply oh-oh; offering a tempting price for his discovery. glancing at the title--"a happy life"-the old man cried--"oh, rubbish! rubbish! take it for nothing." and babbalanja placed it in his vestment. the catacombs surveyed, and day-light gained, we inquired the way to ji-ji's, also a collector, but of another sort; one miserly in the matter of teeth, the money of mardi. at the mention of his name, oh-oh flew out into scornful philippics upon the insanity of that old dotard, who hoarded up teeth, as if teeth were of any use, but to purchase rarities. nevertheless, he pointed out our path; following which, we crossed a meadow. chapter xx babbalanja quotes from an antique pagan; and earnestly presses it upon the company, that what he recites is not his, but another's journeying on, we stopped by a gurgling spring, in a beautiful grove; and here, we stretched out on the grass, and our attendants unpacked their hampers, to provide us a lunch. but as for that babbalanja of ours, he must needs go and lunch by himself, and, like a cannibal, feed upon an author; though in other respects he was not so partial to bones. bringing forth the treasure he had buried in his bosom, he was soon buried in it; and motionless on his back, looked as if laid out, to keep an appointment with his undertaker. "what, ho! babbalanja!" cried media from under a tree, "don't be a duck, there, with your bill in the air; drop your metaphysics, man, and fall to on the solids. do you hear?" "come, philosopher," said mohi, handling a banana, "you will weigh more after you have eaten." "come, list, babbalanja," cried yoomy, "i am going to sing." "up! up! i say," shouted media again. "but go, old man, and wake him: rap on his head, and see whether he be in." mohi, obeying, found him at home; and babbalanja started up. "in oro's name, what ails you, philosopher? see you paradise, that you look so wildly?" "a happy life! a happy life!" cried babbalanja, in an ecstasy. "my lord, i am lost in the dream of it, as here recorded. marvelous book! its goodness transports me. let me read:--'i would bear the same mind, whether i be rich or poor, whether i get or lose in the world. i will reckon benefits well placed as the fairest part of my possession, not valuing them by number or weight, but by the profit and esteem of the receiver; accounting myself never the poorer for any thing i give. what i do shall be done for conscience, not ostentation. i will eat and drink, not to gratify my palate, but to satisfy nature. i will be cheerful to my friends, mild and placable to my enemies. i will prevent an honest request, if i can foresee it; and i will grant it, without asking. i will look upon the whole world as my country; and upon oro, both as the witness and the judge of my words and my deeds. i will live and die with this testimony: that i loved a good conscience; that i never invaded another man's liberty; and that i preserved my own. i will govern my life and my thoughts, as if the whole world were to see the one, and to read the other; for what does it signify, to make any thing a secret to my neighbor, when to oro all our privacies are open.'" "very fine," said media. "the very spirit of the first followers of alma, as recorded in the legends," said mohi. "inimitable," said yoomy. said babbalanja, "listen again:--'righteousness is sociable and gentle; free, steady, and fearless; full of inexhaustible delights.' and here again, and here, and here:--the true felicity of life is to understand our duty to oro.'--'true joy is a serene and sober motion.' and here, and here,--my lord, 'tis hard quoting from this book;--but listen--'a peaceful conscience, honest thoughts, and righteous actions are blessings without end, satiety, or measure. the poor man wants many things; the covetous man, all. it is not enough to know oro, unless we obey him.'" "alma all over," cried mohi; "sure, you read from his sayings?" "i read but odd sentences from one, who though he lived ages ago, never saw, scarcely heard of alma. and mark me, my lord, this time i improvise nothing. what i have recited, is here. mohi, this book is more marvelous than the prophecies. my lord, that a mere man, and a heathen, in that most heathenish time, should give utterance to such heavenly wisdom, seems more wonderful than that an inspired prophet should reveal it. and is it not more divine in this philosopher, to love righteousness for its own sake, and in view of annihilation, than for pious sages to extol it as the means of everlasting felicity?" "alas," sighed yoomy, "and does he not promise us any good thing, when we are dead?" "he speaks not by authority. he but woos us to goodness and happiness here." "then, babbalanja," said media, "keep your treasure to yourself. without authority, and a full right hand, righteousness better be silent. mardi's religion must seem to come direct from oro, and the mass of you mortals endeavor it not, except for a consideration, present or to come." "and call you that righteousness, my lord, which is but the price paid down for something else?" "i called it not righteousness; it is religion so called. but let us prate no more of these things; with which i, a demi-god, have but little in common. it ever impairs my digestion. no more, babbalanja." "my lord! my lord! out of itself, religion has nothing to bestow. nor will she save us from aught, but from the evil in ourselves. her one grand end is to make us wise; her only manifestations are reverence to oro and love to man; her only, but ample reward, herself. he who has this, has all. he who has this, whether he kneel to an image of wood, calling it oro; or to an image of air, calling it the same; whether he fasts or feasts; laughs or weeps;--that man can be no richer. and this religion, faith, virtue, righteousness, good, whate'er you will, i find in this book i hold. no written page can teach me more." "have you that, then, of which you speak, babbalanja? are you content, there where you stand?" "my lord, you drive me home. i am not content. the mystery of mysteries is still a mystery. how this author came to be so wise, perplexes me. how he led the life he did, confounds me. oh, my lord, i am in darkness, and no broad blaze comes down to flood me. the rays that come to me are but faint cross lights, mazing the obscurity wherein i live. and after all, excellent as it is, i can be no gainer by this book. for the more we learn, the more we unlearn; we accumulate not, but substitute; and take away, more than we add. we dwindle while we grow; we sally out for wisdom, and retreat beyond the point whence we started; we essay the fondiza, and get but the phe. of all simpletons, the simplest! oh! that i were another sort of fool than i am, that i might restore my good opinion of myself. continually i stand in the pillory, am broken on the wheel, and dragged asunder by wild horses. yes, yes, bardianna, all is in a nut, as thou sayest; but all my back teeth can not crack it; i but crack my own jaws. all round me, my fellow men are new-grafting their vines, and dwelling in flourishing arbors; while i am forever pruning mine, till it is become but a stump. yet in this pruning will i persist; i will not add, i will diminish; i will train myself down to the standard of what is unchangeably true. day by day i drop off my redundancies; ere long i shall have stripped my ribs; when i die, they will but bury my spine. ah! where, where, where, my lord, is the everlasting tekana? tell me, mohi, where the ephina? i may have come to the penultimate, but where, sweet yoomy, is the ultimate? ah, companions! i faint, i am wordless:- -something, nothing, riddles,--does mardi hold her?" "he swoons!" cried yoomy. "water! water!" cried media. "away:" said babbalanja serenely, "i revive." chapter xxi they visit a wealthy old pauper continuing our route to jiji's, we presently came to a miserable hovel. half projecting from the low, open entrance, was a bald overgrown head, intent upon an upright row of dark-colored bags:-- pelican pouches--prepared by dropping a stone within, and suspending them, when moist. ever and anon, the great head shook with a tremulous motion, as one by one, to a clicking sound from the old man's mouth, the strings of teeth were slowly drawn forth, and let fall, again and again, with a rattle. but perceiving our approach, the old miser suddenly swooped his pouches out of sight; and, like a turtle into its shell, retreated into his den. but soon he decrepitly emerged upon his knees, asking what brought us thither?--to steal the teeth, which lying rumor averred he possessed in abundance? and opening his mouth, he averred he had none; not even a sentry in his head. but babbalanja declared, that long since he must have drawn his own dentals, and bagged them with the rest. now this miserable old miser must have been idiotic; for soon forgetting what he had but just told us of his utter toothlessness, he was so smitten with the pearly mouth of hohora, one of our attendants (the same for whose pearls, little king peepi had taken such a fancy), that he made the following overture to purchase its contents: namely: one tooth of the buyer's, for every three of the seller's. a proposition promptly rejected, as involving a mercantile absurdity. "why?" said babbalanja. "doubtless, because that proposed to be given, is less than that proposed to be received. yet, says a philosopher, this is the very principle which regulates all barterings. for where the sense of a simple exchange of quantities, alike in value?" "where, indeed?" said hohora with open eyes, "though i never heard it before, that's a staggering question. i beseech you, who was the sage that asked it?" "vivo, the sophist," said babbalanja, turning aside. in the hearing of jiji, allusion was made to oh-oh, as a neighbor of his. whereupon he vented much slavering opprobrium upon that miserable old hump-back; who accumulated useless monstrosities; throwing away the precious teeth, which otherwise might have sensibly rattled in his own pelican pouches. when we quitted the hovel, jiji, marking little vee-vee, from whose shoulder hung a calabash of edibles, seized the hem of his garment and besought him for one mouthful of food; for nothing had he tasted that day. the boy tossed him a yam. chapter xxii yoomy sings some odd verses, and babbalanja quotes from the old authors right and left sailing from padulla, after many pleasant things had been said concerning the sights there beheld; babbalanja thus addressed yoomy-- "warbler, the last song you sung was about moonlight, and paradise, and fabulous pleasures evermore: now, have you any hymns about earthly felicity?" "if so, minstrel," said media, "jet it forth, my fountain, forthwith." "just now, my lord," replied yoomy, "i was singing to myself, as i often do, and by your leave, i will continue aloud." "better begin at the beginning, i should think," said the chronicler, both hands to his chin, beginning at the top to new braid his beard. "no: like the roots of your beard, old mohi, all beginnings are stiff," cried babbalanja. "we are lucky in living midway in eternity. so sing away, yoomy, where you left off," and thus saying he unloosed his girdle for the song, as apicius would for a banquet. "shall i continue aloud, then, my lord?" my lord nodded, and yoomy sang:-- "full round, full soft, her dewy arms,-- sweet shelter from all mardi's harms!" "whose arms?" cried mohi. sang yoomy:-- diving deep in the sea, she takes sunshine along: down flames in the sea, as of dolphins a throng. "what mermaid is this?" cried mohi. sang yoomy:-- her foot, a falling sound, that all day long might bound. over the beach, the soft sand beach, and none would find a trace behind. "and why not?" demanded media, "why could no trace be found?" said braid-beard, "perhaps owing, my lord, to the flatness of the mermaid's foot. but no; that can not be; for mermaids are all vertebrae below the waist." "your fragment is pretty good, i dare say, yoomy," observed media, "but as braid-beard hints, rather flat." "flat as the foot of a man with his mind made up," cried braid-beard. "yoomy, did you sup on flounders last night?" but yoomy vouchsafed no reply, he was ten thousand leagues off in a reverie: somewhere in the hyades perhaps. conversation proceeding, braid-beard happened to make allusion to one rotato, a portly personage, who, though a sagacious philosopher, and very ambitious to be celebrated as such, was only famous in mardi as the fattest man of his tribe. said media, "then, mohi, rotato could not pick a quarrel with fame, since she did not belie him. fat he was, and fat she published him." "right, my lord," said babbalanja, "for fame is not always so honest. not seldom to be famous, is to be widely known for what you are not, says alla-malolla. whence it comes, as old bardianna has it, that for years a man may move unnoticed among his fellows; but all at once, by some chance attitude, foreign to his habit, become a trumpet-full for fools; though, in himself, the same as ever. nor has he shown himself yet; for the entire merit of a man can never be made known; nor the sum of his demerits, if he have them. we are only known by our names; as letters sealed up, we but read each other's superscriptions. "so with the commonalty of us mardians. how then with those beings who every way are but too apt to be riddles. in many points the works of our great poet vavona, now dead a thousand moons, still remain a mystery. some call him a mystic; but wherein he seems obscure, it is, perhaps, we that are in fault; not by premeditation spoke he those archangel thoughts, which made many declare, that vavona, after all, was but a crack-pated god, not a mortal of sound mind. but had he been less, my lord, he had seemed more. saith fulvi, 'of the highest order of genius, it may be truly asserted, that to gain the reputation of superior power, it must partially disguise itself; it must come down, and then it will be applauded for soaring.' and furthermore, that there are those who falter in the common tongue, because they think in another; and these are accounted stutterers and stammerers.'" "ah! how true!" cried the warbler. "and what says the archangel vavona, yoomy, in that wonderful drama of his, 'the souls of the sages?'--'beyond most barren hills, there are landscapes ravishing; with but one eye to behold; which no pencil can portray.' what wonder then, my lord, that mardi itself is so blind. 'mardi is a monster,' says old bardianna, 'whose eyes are fixed in its head, like a whale's; it can see but two ways, and those comprising but a small arc of a perfect vision. poets, heroes, and men of might, are all around this monster mardi. but stand before me on stilts, or i will behold you not, says the monster; brush back your hair; inhale the wind largely; lucky are all men with dome-like foreheads; luckless those with pippin-heads; loud lungs are a blessing; a lion is no lion that can not roar.' says aldina, 'there are those looking on, who know themselves to be swifter of foot than the racers, but are confounded with the simpletons that stare.'" "the mere carping of a disappointed cripple," cried mold. his biographer states, that aldina had only one leg." "braid-beard, you are witty," said babbbalanja, adjusting his robe. "my lord, there are heroes without armies, who hear martial music in their souls." "why not blow their trumpets louder, then," cried media, that all mardi may hear?" "my lord media, too, is witty, babbalanja," said mohi. breathed yoomy, "there are birds of divinest plumage, and most glorious song, yet singing their lyrics to themselves." said media, "the lark soars high, cares for no auditor, yet its sweet notes are heard here below. it sings, too, in company with myriads of mates. your soliloquists, yoomy, are mostly herons and owls." said babbalanja, "very clever, my lord; but think you not, there are men eloquent, who never babble in the marketplace?" "ay, and arrant babblers at home. in few words, babbalanja, you espouse a bad cause. most of you mortals are peacocks; some having tails, and some not; those who have them will be sure to thrust their plumes in your face; for the rest, they will display their bald cruppers, and still screech for admiration. but when a great genius is born into mardi, he nods, and is known." "more wit, but, with deference, perhaps less truth, my lord. say what you will, fame is an accident; merit a thing absolute. but what matter? of what available value reputation, unless wedded to power, dentals, or place? to those who render him applause, a poet's may seem a thing tangible; but to the recipient, 'tis a fantasy; the poet never so stretches his imagination, as when striving to comprehend what it is; often, he is famous without knowing it." "at the sacred games of lazella," said yoomy, "slyly crowned from behind with a laurel fillet, for many hours, the minstrel jarmi wandered about ignorant of the honors he bore. but enlightened at last, he doffed the wreath; then, holding it at arm's length, sighed forth--oh, ye laurels! to be visible to me, ye must be removed from my brow!" "and what said botargo," cried babbalanja, "hearing that his poems had been translated into the language of the remote island of bertranda?-- 'it stirs me little; already, in merry fancies, have i dreamed of their being trilled by the blessed houris in paradise; i can only imagine the same of the damsels of bertranda.' says boldo, the materialist,--'substances alone are satisfactory.'" "and so thought the mercenary poet, zenzi," said yoomy. "upon receiving fourteen ripe yams for a sonnet, one for every line, he said to me, yoomy, i shall make a better meal upon these, than upon so many compliments." "ay," cried babbalanja, "'bravos,' saith old bardianna, but induce flatulency.'" said media, "and do you famous mortals, then, take no pleasure in hearing your bravos?" "much, my good lord; at least such famous mortals, so enamored of a clamorous notoriety, as to bravo for themselves, when none else will huzza; whose whole existence is an unintermitting consciousness of self; whose very persons stand erect and self-sufficient as their infallible index, the capital letter i; who relish and comprehend no reputation but what attaches to the carcass; who would as lief be renowned for a splendid mustache, as for a splendid drama: who know not how it was that a personage, to posterity so universally celebrated as the poet vavona, ever passed through the crowd unobserved; who deride the very thunder for making such a noise in mardi, and yet disdain to manifest itself to the eye." "wax not so warm, babbalanja; but tell us, if to his contemporaries vavona's person was almost unknown, what satisfaction did he derive from his genius?" "had he not its consciousness?--an empire boundless as the west. what to him were huzzas? why, my lord, from his privacy, the great and good logodora sent liniment to the hoarse throats without. but what said bardianna, when they dunned him for autographs?--'who keeps the register of great men? who decides upon noble actions? and how long may ink last? alas! fame has dropped more rolls than she displays; and there are more lost chronicles, than the perished books of the historian livella.' but what is lost forever, my lord, is nothing to what is now unseen. there are more treasures in the bowels of the earth, than on its surface." "ah! no gold," cried yoomy, "but that comes from dark mines." said babbalanja, "bear witness, ye gods! cries fervent old bardianna, that besides disclosures of good and evil undreamed of now, there will be other, and more astounding revelations hereafter, of what has passed in mardi unbeheld." "a truce to your everlasting pratings of old bardianna," said king media; why not speak your own thoughts, babbalanja? then would your discourse possess more completeness; whereas, its warp and woof are of all sorts,--bardianna, alla-malolla, vavona, and all the writers that ever have written. speak for yourself, mortal!" "may you not possibly mistake, my lord? for i do not so much quote bardianna, as bardianna quoted me, though he flourished before me; and no vanity, but honesty to say so. the catalogue of true thoughts is but small; they are ubiquitous; no man's property; and unspoken, or bruited, are the same. when we hear them, why seem they so natural, receiving our spontaneous approval? why do we think we have heard them before? because they but reiterate ourselves; they were in us, before we were born. the truest poets are but mouth-pieces; and some men are duplicates of each other; i see myself in bardianna." "and there, for oro's sake, let it rest, babbalanja; bardianna in you, and you in bardianna forever!" chapter xxiii what manner of men the tapparians were the canoes sailed on. but we leave them awhile. for our visit to jiji, the last visit we made, suggests some further revelations concerning the dental money of mardi. ere this, it should have been mentioned, that throughout the archipelago, there was a restriction concerning incisors and molars, as ornaments for the person; none but great chiefs, brave warriors, and men distinguished by rare intellectual endowments, orators, romancers, philosophers, and poets, being permitted to sport them as jewels. though, as it happened, among the poets there were many who had never a tooth, save those employed at their repasts; which, coming but seldom, their teeth almost corroded in their mouths. hence, in commerce, poets' teeth were at a discount. for these reasons, then, many mortals blent with the promiscuous mob of mardians, who, by any means, accumulated teeth, were fain to assert their dental claims to distinction, by clumsily carrying their treasures in pelican pouches slung over their shoulders; which pouches were a huge burden to carry about, and defend. though, in good truth, from any of these porters, it was harder to wrench his pouches, than his limbs. it was also a curious circumstance that at the slightest casual touch, these bags seemed to convey a simultaneous thrill to the owners. besides these porters, there were others, who exchanged their teeth for richly stained calabashes, elaborately carved canoes, and more especially, for costly robes, and turbans; in which last, many outshone the noblest-born nobles. nevertheless, this answered not the end they had in view; some of the crowd only admiring what they wore, and not them; breaking out into laudation of the inimitable handiwork of the artisans of mardi. and strange to relate, these artisans themselves often came to be men of teeth and turbans, sporting their bravery with the best. a circumstance, which accounted for the fact, that many of the class above alluded to, were considered capital judges of tappa and tailoring. hence, as a general designation, the whole tribe went by the name of tapparians; otherwise, men of tappa. now, many moons ago, according to braid-beard, the tapparians of a certain cluster of islands, seeing themselves hopelessly confounded with the plebeian race of mortals; such as artificers, honest men, bread-fruit bakers, and the like; seeing, in short, that nature had denied them every inborn mark of distinction; and furthermore, that their external assumptions were derided by so many in mardi, these selfsame tapparians, poor devils, resolved to secede from the rabble; form themselves into a community of their own; and conventionally pay that homage to each other, which universal mardi could not be prevailed upon to render to them. jointly, they purchased an island, called pimminee, toward the extreme west of the lagoon; and thither they went; and framing a code of laws- -amazingly arbitrary, considering they themselves were the framers-- solemnly took the oath of allegiance to the commonwealth thus established. regarded section by section, this code of laws seemed exceedingly trivial; but taken together, made a somewhat imposing aggregation of particles. by this code, the minutest things in life were all ordered after a specific fashion. more especially one's dress was legislated upon, to the last warp and woof. all girdles must be so many inches in length, and with such a number of tassels in front. for a violation of this ordinance, before the face of all mardi, the most dutiful of sons would cut the most affectionate of fathers. now, though like all mardi, kings and slaves included, the people of pimminee had dead dust for grandsires, they seldom reverted to that fact; for, like all founders of families, they had no family vaults. nor were they much encumbered by living connections; connections, some of them appeared to have none. like poor logan the last of his tribe, they seemed to have monopolized the blood of their race, having never a cousin to own. wherefore it was, that many ignorant mardians, who had not pushed their investigations into the science of physiology, sagely divined, that the tapparians must have podded into life like peas, instead of being otherwise indebted for their existence. certain it is, they had a comical way of backing up their social pretensions. when the respectability of his clan was mooted, paivai, one of their bucks, disdained all reference to the dooms-day book, and the ancients. more reliable evidence was had. he referred the anxious world to a witness, still alive and hearty,--his contemporary tailor; the varlet who cut out his tappa doublets, and rejoiced his soul with good fits. "ah!" sighed babbalanja, "how it quenches in one the thought of immortality, to think that these tapparians too, will hereafter claim each a niche!" but we rove. our visit to pimminee itself, will best make known the ways of its denizens. chapter xxiv their adventures upon landing at pimminee a long sail over, the island of pimminee came in sight; one dead fiat, wreathed in a thin, insipid vapor. "my lord, why land?" said babbalanja; "no yillah is here." "'tis my humor, babbalanja." said yoomy, "taji would leave no isle unexplored." as we neared the beach, the atmosphere became still closer and more languid. much did we miss the refreshing balm which breathed in the fine breezy air of the open lagoon. of a slender and sickly growth seemed the trees; in the meadows, the grass grew small and mincing. said media, "taji, from the accounts which braid-beard gives, there must be much to amuse, in the ways of these tapparians." "yes," said babbalanja, "their lives are a continual farce, gratuitously performed for the diversion of mardi. my lord, perhaps we had best doff our dignity, and land among them as persons of lowly condition; for then, we shall receive more diversion, though less hospitality." "a good proposition," said media. and so saying, he put off his robe for one less pretentious. all followed suit; yoomy doffing turban and sash; and, at last, completely metamorphosed, we looked like hungarian gipsies. voyaging on, we entered a bay, where numbers of menials were standing in the water, engaged in washing the carved work of certain fantastic canoes, belonging to the tapparians, their masters. landing at some distance, we followed a path that soon conducted us to a betwisted dwelling of bamboos, where, gently, we knocked for admittance. so doing, we were accosted by a servitor, his portliness all in his calves. marking our appearance, he monopolized the threshold, and gruffly demanded what was wanted. "strangers, kind sir, fatigued with travel, and in need of refreshment and repose." "then hence with ye, vagabonds!" and with an emphasis, he closed the portal in our face. said babbalanja, turning, "you perceive, my lord media, that these varlets take after their masters; who feed none but the well-fed, and house none but the well-housed." "faith! but they furnish most rare entertainment, nevertheless," cried media. "ha! ha! taji, we had missed much, had we missed pimminee." as this was said, we observed, at a distance, three menials running from seaward, as if conveying important intelligence. halting here and there, vainly seeking admittance at other habitations, and receiving nothing but taunts for our pains, we still wandered on; and at last came upon a village, toward which, those from the sea-side had been running. and now, to our surprise, we were accosted by an eager and servile throng. "obsequious varlets," said media, "where tarry your masters?" "right royal, and thrice worshipful lord of odo, do you take us for our domestics? we are tapparians, may it please your illustrious highness; your most humble and obedient servants. we beseech you, supereminent sir, condescend to visit our habitations, and partake of our cheer." then turning upon their attendants, "away with ye, hounds! and set our dwellings in order." "how know ye me to be king?" asked media. "is it not in your serene highness's regal port, and eye?" "'twas their menials," muttered mohi, "who from the paddlers in charge of our canoes must have learned who my lord was, and published the tidings." after some further speech, media made a social surrender of himself to the foremost of the tapparians, one nimni; who, conducting us to his abode, with much deference introduced us to a portly old begum, and three slender damsels; his wife and daughters. soon, refreshments appeared:--green and yellow compounds, and divers enigmatical dainties; besides vegetable liqueurs of a strange and alarming flavor served in fragile little leaves, folded into cups, and very troublesome to handle. excessively thirsty, babbalanja made bold to inquire for water; which called forth a burst of horror from the old begum, and minor shrieks from her daughters; who declared, that the beverage to which remote reference had been made, was far too widely diffused in mardi, to be at all esteemed in pimminee. "but though we seldom imbibe it," said the old begum, ceremoniously adjusting her necklace of cowrie-shells, "we occasionally employ it for medicinal purposes." "ah, indeed?" said babbalanja. "but oh! believe me; even then, we imbibe not the ordinary fluid of the springs and streams; but that which in afternoon showers softly drains from our palm-trees into the little hollow or miniature reservoir beneath its compacted roots." a goblet of this beverage was now handed babbalanja; but having a curious, gummy flavor, it proved any thing but palatable. presently, in came a company of young men, relatives of nimni. they were slender as sky-sail-poles; standing in a row, resembled a picket- fence; and were surmounted by enormous heads of hair, combed out all round, variously dyed, and evened by being singed with a lighted wisp of straw. like milliners' parcels, they were very neatly done up; wearing redolent robes. "how like the woodlands they smell," whispered yoomy. "ay, marvelously like sap," said mohi. one part of their garniture consisted of numerous tasseled cords, like those of an aigulette, depending from the neck, and attached here and there about the person. a separate one, at a distance, united their ankles. these served to measure and graduate their movements; keeping their gestures, paces, and attitudes, within the prescribed standard of tapparian gentility. when they went abroad, they were preceded by certain footmen; who placed before them small, carved boards, whereon their masters stepped; thus avoiding contact with the earth. the simple device of a shoe, as a fixture for the foot, was unknown in pimminee. being told, that taji was lately from the sun, they manifested not the slightest surprise; one of them incidentally observing, however, that the eclipses there, must be a sad bore to endure. chapter xxv a, i, and o the old begum went by the euphonious appellation of ohiro-moldona- fivona; a name, from its length, deemed highly genteel; though scandal averred, that it was nothing more than her real name transposed; the appellation by which she had been formerly known, signifying a "getterup-of-fine-tappa." but as this would have let out an ancient secret, it was thought wise to disguise it. her daughters respectively reveled in the pretty diminutives of a, i, and o; which, from their brevity, comical to tell, were considered equally genteel with the dame's. the habiliments of the three vowels must not be omitted. each damsel garrisoned an ample, circular farthingale of canes, serving as the frame-work, whereon to display a gayly dyed robe. perhaps their charms intrenched themselves in these impregnable petticoats, as feeble armies fly to fortresses, to hide their weakness, and better resist an onset. but polite and politic it is, to propitiate your hostess. so seating himself by the begum, taji led off with earnest inquiries after her welfare. but the begum was one of those, who relieve the diffident from the embarrassment of talking; all by themselves carrying on conversation for two. hence, no wonder that my lady was esteemed invaluable at all assemblies in the groves of pimminee; contributing so largely to that incessant din, which is held the best test of the enjoyment of the company, as making them deaf to the general nonsense, otherwise audible. learning that taji had been making the tour of certain islands in mardi, the begum was surprised that he could have thus hazarded his life among the barbarians of the east. she desired to know whether his constitution was not impaired by inhaling the unrefined atmosphere of those remote and barbarous regions. for her part, the mere thought of it made her faint in her innermost citadel; nor went she ever abroad with the wind at east, dreading the contagion which might lurk in the air. upon accosting the three damsels, taji very soon discovered that the tongue which had languished in the presence of the begum, was now called into active requisition, to entertain the polysyllables, her daughters. so assiduously were they occupied in silent endeavors to look sentimental and pretty, that it proved no easy task to sustain with them an ordinary chat. in this dilemma, taji diffused not his remarks among all three; but discreetly centered them upon o. thinking she might be curious concerning the sun, he made some remote allusion to that luminary as the place of his nativity. upon which, o inquired where that country was, of which mention was made. "some distance from here; in the air above; the sun that gives light to pimminee, and mardi at large." she replied, that if that were the case, she had never beheld it; for such was the construction of her farthingale, that her head could not be thrown back, without impairing its set. wherefore, she had always abstained from astronomical investigations. hereupon, rude mohi laughed out. and that lucky laugh happily relieved taji from all further necessity of entertaining the vowels. for at so vulgar, and in pimminee, so unwonted a sound, as a genuine laugh, the three startled nymphs fainted away in a row, their round farthingales falling over upon each other, like a file of empty tierces. but they presently revived. meanwhile, without stirring from their mats, the polite young bucks in the aigulettes did nothing but hold semi-transparent leaves to their eyes, by the stems; which leaves they directed downward, toward the disordered hems of the farthingales; in wait, perhaps, for the revelation of an ankle, and its accompaniments. what the precise use of these leaves could have been, it would be hard to say, especially as the observers invariably peeped over and under them. the calamity of the vowels was soon followed by the breaking up of the party; when, evening coming on, and feeling much wearied with the labor of seeing company in pimminee, we retired to our mats; there finding that repose which ever awaits the fatigued. chapter xxvi a reception day at pimminee next morning, nimni apprized us, that throughout the day he proposed keeping open house, for the purpose of enabling us to behold whatever of beauty, rank, and fashion, pimminee could boast; including certain strangers of note from various quarters of the lagoon, who doubtless would honor themselves with a call. as inmates of the mansion, we unexpectedly had a rare opportunity of witnessing the final toilets of the begum and her daughters, preparatory to receiving their guests. their four farthingales were placed standing in the middle of the dwelling; when their future inmates, arrayed in rudimental vestments, went round and round them, attaching various articles of finery, dyed scarfs, ivory trinkets, and other decorations. upon the propriety of this or that adornment, the three vowels now and then pondered apart, or together consulted. they talked and they laughed; they were silent and sad; now merry at their bravery; now pensive at the thought of the charms to be hidden. it was o who presently suggested the expediency of an artful fold in their draperies, by the merest accident in mardi, to reveal a tantalizing glimpse of their ankles, which were thought to be pretty. but the old begum was more active than any; by far the most disinterested in the matter of advice. her great object seemed to be to pile on the finery at all hazards; and she pointed out many as yet vacant and unappropriated spaces, highly susceptible of adornment. at last, all was in readiness; when, taking a valedictory glance, at their intrenchments, the begum and damsels simultaneously dipped their heads, directly after emerging from the summit, all ready for execution. and now to describe the general reception that followed. in came the roes, the fees, the lol-lols, the hummee-hums, the bidi-bidies, and the dedidums; the peenees, the yamoyamees, the karkies, the fanfums, the diddledees, and the fiddlefies; in a word, all the aristocracy of pimminee; people with exceedingly short names; and some all name, and nothing else. it was an imposing array of sounds; a circulation of ciphers; a marshaling of tappas; a getting together of grimaces and furbelows; a masquerade of vapidities. among the crowd was a bustling somebody, one gaddi, arrayed in much apparel to little purpose; who, singling out babbalanja, for some time adhered to his side, and with excessive complaisance, enlightened him as to the people assembled. "_that_ is rich marmonora, accounted a mighty man in pimminee; his bags of teeth included, he is said to weigh upwards of fourteen stone; and is much sought after by tailors for his measure, being but slender in the region of the heart. his riches are great. and that old vrow is the widow roo; very rich; plenty of teeth; but has none in her head. and _this_ is finfi; said to be not very rich, and a maid. who would suppose she had ever beat tappa for a living?" and so saying, gaddi sauntered off; his place by babbalanja's side being immediately supplied by the damsel finfi. that vivacious and amiable nymph at once proceeded to point out the company, where gaddi had left off; beginning with gaddi himself, who, she insinuated, was a mere parvenu, a terrible infliction upon society, and not near so rich as he was imagined to be. soon we were accosted by one nonno, a sour, saturnine personage. "i know nobody here; not a soul have i seen before; i wonder who they all are." and just then he was familiarly nodded to by nine worthies abreast. whereupon nonno vanished. but after going the rounds of the company, and paying court to many, he again sauntered by babbalanja, saying, "nobody, nobody; nobody but nobodies; i see nobody i know." advancing, nimni now introduced many strangers of distinction, parading their titles after a fashion, plainly signifying that he was bent upon convincing us, that there were people present at this little affair of his, who were men of vast reputation; and that we erred, if we deemed him unaccustomed to the society of the illustrious. but not a few of his magnates seemed shy of media and their laurels. especially a tall robustuous fellow, with a terrible javelin in his hand, much notched and splintered, as if it had dealt many a thrust. his left arm was gallanted in a sling, and there was a patch upon his sinister eye. him nimni made known as a famous captain, from king piko's island (of which anon) who had been all but mortally wounded somewhere, in a late desperate though nameless encounter. "ah," said media as this redoubtable withdrew, fofi is a cunning knave; a braggart, driven forth, by king piko for his cowardice. he has blent his tattooing into one mass of blue, and thus disguised, must have palmed himself off here in pimminee, for the man he is not. but i see many more like him." "oh ye tapparians," said babbalanja, "none so easily humbugged as humbugs. taji: to behold this folly makes one wise. look, look; it is all round us. oh pimminee, pimminee!" chapter xxvii babbalanja falleth upon pimminee tooth and nail the levee over, waiving further civilities, we took courteus leave of the begum and nimni, and proceeding to the beach, very soon were embarked. when all were pleasantly seated beneath the canopy, pipes in full blast, calabashes revolving, and the paddlers quietly urging us along, media proposed that, for the benefit of the company, some one present, in a pithy, whiffy sentence or two, should sum up the character of the tapparians; and ended by nominating babbalanja to that office. "come, philosopher: let us see in how few syllables you can put the brand on those tapparians." "pardon me, my lord, but you must permit me to ponder awhile; nothing requires more time, than to be brief. an example: they say that in conversation old bardianna dealt in nothing but trisyllabic sentences. his talk was thunder peals: sounding reports, but long intervals." "the devil take old bardianna. and would that the grave-digger had buried his ponderings, along with his other remains. can none be in your company, babbalanja, but you must perforce make them hob-a-nob with that old prater? a brand for the tapparians! that is what we seek." "you shall have it, my lord. full to the brim of themselves, for that reason, the tapparians are the emptiest of mortals." "a good blow and well planted, babbalanja." "in sooth, a most excellent saying; it should be carved upon his tombstone," said mohi, slowly withdrawing his pipe. "what! would you have my epitaph read thus:--'here lies the emptiest of mortals, who was full of himself?' at best, your words are exceedingly ambiguous, mohi." "now have i the philosopher," cried yoomy, with glee. "what did some one say to me, not long since, babbalanja, when in the matter of that sleepy song of mine, braid-beard bestowed upon me an equivocal compliment? was i not told to wrest commendation from it, though i tortured it to the quick?" "take thy own pills, philosopher," said mohi. "then would he be a great original," said media. "tell me, yoomy," said babbalanja, "are you not in fault? because i sometimes speak wisely, you must not imagine that i should always act so." "i never imagined that," said yoomy, "and, if i did, the truth would belie me. it is you who are in fault, babbalanja; not i, craving your pardon." "the minstrel's sides are all edges to-day," said media. "this, then, thrice gentle yoomy, is what i would say;" resumed babbalanja, "that since we philosophers bestow so much wisdom upon others, it is not to be wondered at, if now and then we find what is left in us too small for our necessities. it is from our very abundance that we want." "and from the fool's poverty," said media, "that he is opulent; for his very simplicity, is sometimes of more account than the wisdom of the sage. but we were discoursing of the tapparians. babbalanja: sententiously you have acquitted yourself to admiration; now amplify, and tell us more of the people of pimminee." "my lord, i might amplify forever." "then, my worshipful lord, let him not begin," interposed braid-beard. "i mean," said babbalanja, "that all subjects are inexhaustible, however trivial; as the mathematical point, put in motion, is capable of being produced into an infinite line." "but forever extending into nothing," said media. "a very bad example to follow. do you, babbalanja, come to the point, and not travel off with it, which is too much your wont." "since my lord insists upon it then, thus much for the tapparians, though but a thought or two of many in reserve. they ignore the rest of mardi, while they themselves are but a rumor in the isles of the east; where the business of living and dying goes on with the same uniformity, as if there were no tapparians in existence. they think themselves mardi in full; whereas, by the mass, they are stared at as prodigies; exceptions to the law, ordaining that no mardian shall undertake to live, unless he set out with at least the average quantity of brains. for these tapparians have no brains. in lieu, they carry in one corner of their craniums, a drop or two of attar of roses; charily used, the supply being small. they are the victims of two incurable maladies: stone in the heart, and ossification of the head. they are full of fripperies, fopperies, and finesses; knowing not, that nature should be the model of art. yet, they might appear less silly than they do, were they content to be the plain idiots which at bottom they are. for there be grains of sense in a simpleton, so long as he be natural. but what can be expected from them? they are irreclaimable tapparians; not so much fools by contrivance of their own, as by an express, though inscrutable decree of oro's. for one, my lord, i can not abide them." nor could taji. in pimminee were no hilarious running and shouting: none of the royal good cheer of old borabolla; none of the mysteries of maramma; none of the sentiment and romance of donjalolo; no rehearsing of old legends: no singing of old songs; no life; no jolly commotion: in short, no men and women; nothing but their integuments; stiff trains and farthingales. chapter xxviii babbalanja regales the company with some sandwiches it was night. but the moon was brilliant, far and near illuminating the lagoon. over silvery billows we glided. "come yoomy," said media, "moonlight and music for aye--a song! a song! my bird of paradise." and folding his arms, and watching the sparkling waters, thus yoomy sang:-- a ray of the moon on the dancing waves is the step, light step of that beautiful maid: mardi, with music, her footfall paves, and her voice, no voice, but a song in the glade. "hold!" cried media, "yonder is a curious rock. it looks black as a whale's hump in blue water, when the sun shines." "that must be the isle of fossils," said mohi. "ay, my lord, it is." "let us land, then," said babbalanja. and none dissenting, the canoes were put about, and presently we debarked. it was a dome-like surface, here and there fringed with ferns, sprouting from clefts. but at every tide the thin soil seemed gradually washing into the lagoon. like antique tablets, the smoother parts were molded in strange devices:--luxor marks, tadmor ciphers, palenque inscriptions. in long lines, as on denderah's architraves, were bas-reliefs of beetles, turtles, ant-eaters, armadilloes, guanos, serpents, tongueless crocodiles:--a long procession, frosted and crystalized in stone, and silvered by the moon. "strange sight!" cried media. "speak, antiquarian mohi." but the chronicler was twitching his antiquarian beard, nonplussed by these wondrous records. the cowled old father, piaggi, bending over his calcined herculanean manuscripts, looked not more at fault than he. said media, "expound you, then, sage babbalanja." muffling his face in his mantle, and his voice in sepulchral tones, babbalanja thus:-- "these are the leaves of the book of oro. here we read how worlds are made; here read the rise and fall of nature's kingdoms. from where this old man's furthest histories start, these unbeginning records end. these are the secret memoirs of times past; whose evidence, at last divulged, gives the grim lie to mohi's gossipings, and makes a rattling among the dry-bone relics of old maramma." braid-beard's old eyes flashed fire. with bristling beard, he cried, "take back the lie you send!" "peace! everlasting foes," cried media, interposing, with both arms outstretched. "philosopher, probe not too deep. all you say is very fine, but very dark. i would know something more precise. but, prithee, ghost, unmuffle! chatter no more! wait till you're buried for that." "ay, death's cold ague will set us all shivering, my lord. we'll swear our teeth are icicles." "will you quit driving your sleet upon us? have done expound these rocks." "my lord, if you desire, i'll turn over these stone tablets till they're dog-eared." "heaven and mardi!--go on, babbalanja." "'twas thus. these were tombs burst open by volcanic throes; and hither hurled from the lowermost vaults of the lagoon. all mardi's rocks are one wide resurrection. but look. here, now, a pretty story's told. ah, little thought these grand old lords, that lived and roared before the flood, that they would come to this. here, king media, look and learn." he looked; and saw a picture petrified, and plain as any on the pediments of petra. it seemed a stately banquet of the dead, where lords in skeletons were ranged around a board heaped up with fossil fruits, and flanked with vitreous vases, grinning like empty skulls. there they sat, exchanging rigid courtesies. one's hand was on his stony heart; his other pledged a lord who held a hollow beaker. another sat, with earnest face beneath a mitred brow. he seemed to whisper in the ear of one who listened trustingly. but on the chest of him who wore the miter, an adder lay, close-coiled in flint. at the further end, was raised a throne, its canopy surmounted by a crown, in which now rested the likeness of a raven on an egg. the throne was void. but half-concealed by drapery, behind the goodliest lord, sideway leaned a figure diademed, a lifted poniard in its hand:--a monarch fossilized in very act of murdering his guest. "most high and sacred majesty!" cried babbalanja, bowing to his feet. while all stood gazing on this sight, there came two servitors of media's, who besought of babbalanja to settle a dispute, concerning certain tracings upon the islet's other side. thither we followed them. upon a long layer of the slaty stone were marks of ripplings of some now waveless sea; mid which were tri-toed footprints of some huge heron, or wading fowl. pointing to one of which, the foremost disputant thus spoke:--"i maintain that these are three toes." "and i, that it is one foot," said the other. "and now decide between us," joined the twain. said babbalanja, starting, "is not this the very question concerning which they made such dire contention in maramma, whose tertiary rocks are chisseled all over with these marks? yes; this it is, concerning which they once shed blood. this it is, concerning which they still divide." "which of us is right?" again demanded the impatient twain. "unite, and both are right; divide, and both are wrong. every unit is made up of parts, as well as every plurality. nine is three threes; a unit is as many thirds; or, if you please, a thousand thousandths; no special need to stop at thirds." "away, ye foolish disputants!" cried media. "full before you is the thing disputed." strolling on, many marvels did we mark; and media said:--"babbalanja, you love all mysteries; here's a fitting theme. you have given us the history of the rock; can your sapience tell the origin of all the isles? how mardi came to be?" "ah, that once mooted point is settled. though hard at first, it proved a bagatelle. start not my lord; there are those who have measured mardi by perch and pole, and with their wonted lead sounded its utmost depths. listen: it is a pleasant story. the coral wall which circumscribes the isles but continues upward the deep buried crater of the primal chaos. in the first times this crucible was charged with vapors nebulous, boiling over fires volcanic. age by age, the fluid thickened; dropping, at long intervals, heavy sediment to the bottom; which layer on layer concreted, and at length, in crusts, rose toward the surface. then, the vast volcano burst; rent the whole mass; upthrew the ancient rocks; which now in divers mountain tops tell tales of what existed ere mardi was completely fashioned. hence many fossils on the hills, whose kith and kin still lurk beneath the vales. thus nature works, at random warring, chaos a crater, and this world a shell." mohi stroked his beard. yoomy yawned. media cried, "preposterous!" "my lord, then take another theory--which you will--the celebrated sandwich system. nature's first condition was a soup, wherein the agglomerating solids formed granitic dumplings, which, wearing down, deposited the primal stratum made up of series, sandwiching strange shapes of mollusks, and zoophytes; then snails, and periwinkles:-- marmalade to sip, and nuts to crack, ere the substantials came. "and next, my lord, we have the fine old time of the old red sandstone sandwich, clapped on the underlying layer, and among other dainties, imbedding the first course of fish,--all quite in rule,--sturgeon- forms, cephalaspis, glyptolepis, pterichthys; and other finny things, of flavor rare, but hard to mouth for bones. served up with these, were sundry greens,--lichens, mosses, ferns, and fungi. "now comes the new red sandstone sandwich: marly and magnesious, spread over with old patriarchs of crocodiles and alligators,--hard carving these,--and prodigious lizards, spine-skewered, tails tied in bows, and swimming in saffron saucers." "what next?" cried media. "the ool, or oily sandwich:--rare gormandizing then; for oily it was called, because of fat old joints, and hams, and rounds, and barons of sea-beeves and walrusses, which then crowned the stratum-board. all piled together, glorious profusion!--fillets and briskets, rumps, and saddles, and haunches; shoulder to shoulder, loin 'gainst sirloin, ribs rapping knuckles, and quarter to none. and all these sandwiched right over all that went before. course after course, and course on course, my lord; no time to clear the wreck; no stop nor let; lay on and slash; cut, thrust, and come. "next the chalk, or coral sandwich; but no dry fare for that; made up of rich side-courses,--eocene, miocene, and pliocene. the first was wild game for the delicate,--bantam larks, curlews, quails, and flying weazels; with a slight sprinkling of pilaus,--capons, pullets, plovers, and garnished with petrels' eggs. very savory, that, my lord. the second side-course--miocene--was out of course, flesh after fowl: marine mammalia,--seals, grampuses, and whales, served up with sea- weed on their flanks, hearts and kidneys deviled, and fins and flippers friccasied. all very thee, my lord. the third side-course, the pliocene, was goodliest of all:--whole-roasted elephants, rhinoceroses, and hippopotamuses, stuffed with boiled ostriches, condors, cassowaries, turkeys. also barbacued mastodons and megatheriums, gallantly served up with fir-trees in their mouths, and tails cock-billed. "thus fared the old diluvians: arrant gormandizers and beef-bolters. we mardians famish on the superficial strata of deposits; cracking our jaws on walnuts, filberts, cocoa-nuts, and clams. my lord, i've done." "and bravely done it is. mohi tells us, that mardi was made in six days; but you, babbalanja, have built it up from the bottom in less than six minutes." "nothing for us geologists, my lord. at a word we turn you out whole systems, suns, satellites, and asteroids included. why, my good lord, my friend annonimo is laying out a new milky way, to intersect with the old one, and facilitate cross-cuts among the comets." and so saying, babbalanja turned aside. chapter xxix they still remain upon the rock "gogle-goggle, fugle-fi, fugle-fogle-orum," so hummed to himself babbalanja, slowly pacing over the fossils. "is he crazy again?" whispered yoomy. "are you crazy, babbalanja?" asked media. "from my very birth have i been so, my lord; am i not possessed by a devil?" "then i'll e'en interrogate him," cried media. "--hark ye, sirrah;-- why rave you thus in this poor mortal?" "'tis he, not i. i am the mildest devil that ever entered man; in propria persona, no antlers do i wear; my tail has lost its barb, as at last your mardian lions lose their caudal horns." "a very sing-song devil this. but, prithee, who are you, sirrah?" "the mildest devil that ever entered man; in propria persona, no antlers do i wear; my tail has lost its barb, as at last your mardian lions lose their caudal horns." "a very iterating devil this. sirrah! mock me not. know you aught yet unrevealed by babbalanja?" "many things i know, not good to tell; whence they call me azzageddi." "a very confidential devil, this; that tells no secrets. azzageddi, can i drive thee out?" "only with this mortal's ghost:--together we came in, together we depart." "a very terse, and ready devil, this. whence come you, azzageddi?" "whither my catechist must go--a torrid clime, cut by a hot equator." "a very keen, and witty devil, this. azzageddi, whom have you there?" "a right down merry, jolly set, that at a roaring furnace sit and toast their hoofs for aye; so used to flames, they poke the fire with their horns, and light their tails for torches." "a very funny devil, this. azzageddi, is not mardi a place far pleasanter, than that from whence you came?" "ah, home! sweet, sweet, home! would, would that i were home again!" "a very sentimental devil, this. azzageddi, would you had a hand, i'd shake it." "not so with us; who, rear to rear, shake each other's tails, and courteously inquire, 'pray, worthy sir, how now stands the great thermometer?'" "the very prince of devils, this." "how mad our babbalanja is," cried mohi. my lord, take heed; he'll bite." "alas! alas!" sighed yoomy. "hark ye, babbalanja," cried media, "enough of this: doff your devil, and be a man." "my lord, i can not doff him; but i'll down him for a time: azzageddi! down, imp; down, down, down! so: now, my lord, i'm only babbalanja." "shall i test his sanity, my lord?" cried mohi. "do, old man." "philosopher, our great reef is surrounded by an ocean; what think you lies beyond?" "alas!" sighed yoomy, "the very subject to renew his madness." "peace, minstrel!" said media. "answer, babbalanja." "i will, my lord. fear not, sweet yoomy; you see how calm i am. braid- beard, those strangers, that came to mondoldo prove isles afar, as a philosopher of old surmised, but was hooted at for his surmisings. nor is it at all impossible, braid-beard, that beyond their land may exist other regions, of which those strangers know not; peopled with races something like us mardians; but perhaps with more exalted faculties, and organs that we lack. they may have some better seeing sense than ours; perhaps, have fins or wings for arms." "this seems not like sanity," muttered mohi. "a most crazy hypothesis, truly," said media. "and are all inductions vain?" cried babbalanja. "have we mortals naught to rest on, but what we see with eyes? is no faith to be reposed in that inner microcosm, wherein we see the charted universe in little, as the whole horizon is mirrored in the iris of a gnat? alas! alas! my lord, is there no blest odonphi? no astrazzi?" "his devil's uppermost again, my lord," cried braid-beard. "he's stark, stark mad!" sighed yoomy. "ay, the moon's at full," said media. "ho, paddlers! we depart." chapter xxx behind and before it was yet moonlight when we pushed from the islet. but soon, the sky grew dun; the moon went into a cavern among the clouds; and by that secret sympathy between our hearts and the elements, the thoughts of all but media became overcast. again discourse was had of that dark intelligence from mondoldo,--the fell murder of taji's follower. said mohi, "those specter sons of aleema must have been the assassins." "they harbored deadly malice," said babbalanja. "which poor jarl's death must now have sated," sighed yoomy. "then all the happier for taji," said media. "but away with gloom! because the sky is clouded, why cloud your brows? babbalanja, i grieve the moon is gone. yet start some paradox, that we may laugh. say a woman is a man, or you yourself a stork." at this they smiled. when hurtling came an arrow, which struck our stern, and quivered. another! and another! grazing the canopy, they darted by, and hissing, dived like red-hot bars beneath the waves. starting, we beheld a corruscating wake, tracking the course of a low canoe, far flying for a neighboring mountain. the next moment it was lost within the mountain's shadow and pursuit was useless. "let us fly!" cried yoomy "peace! what murderers these?" said media, calmly; "whom can they seek?--you, taji?" "the three avengers fly three bolts," said babbalanja. "see if the arrow yet remain astern," cried media. they brought it to him. "by oro! taji on the barb!" "then it missed its aim. but i will not mine. and whatever arrows follow, still will i hunt on. nor does the ghost, that these pale specters would avenge, at all disquiet me. the priest i slew, but to gain her, now lost; and i would slay again, to bring her back. ah, yillah! yillah." all started. then said babbalanja, "aleema's sons raved not; 'tis true, then, taji, that an evil deed gained you your yillah: no wonder she is lost." said media, unconcernedly, "perhaps better, taji, to have kept your secret; but tell no more; i care not to be your foe." "ah, taji! i had shrank from you," cried yoomy, "but for the mark upon your brow. that undoes the tenor of your words. but look, the stars come forth, and who are these? a waving iris! ay, again they come:-- hautia's heralds!" they brought a black thorn, buried in withered rose-balm blossoms, red and blue. said yoomy, "for that which stings, there is no cure," "who, who is hautia, that she stabs me thus?" "and this wild sardony mocks your misery." "away! ye fiends." "again a venus car; and lo! a wreath of strawberries!--yet fly to me, and be garlanded with joys." "let the wild witch laugh. she moves me not. neither hurtling arrows nor circe flowers appall." said yoomy, "they wait reply." "tell your hautia, that i know her not; nor care to know. i defy her incantations; she lures in vain. yillah! yillah! still i hope!" slowly they departed; heeding not my cries no more to follow. silence, and darkness fell. chapter xxxi babbalanja discourses in the dark next day came and went; and still we onward sailed. at last, by night, there fell a calm, becalming the water of the wide lagoon, and becalming all the clouds in heaven, wailing the constellations. but though our sails were useless, our paddlers plied their broad stout blades. thus sweeping by a rent and hoar old rock, vee-vee, impatient of the calm, sprang to his crow's nest in the shark's mouth, and seizing his conch, sounded a blast which ran in and out among the hollows, reverberating with the echoes. be sure, it was startling. but more so with respect to one of our paddlers, upon whose shoulders, elevated vee-vee, his balance lost, all at once came down by the run. but the heedless little bugler himself was most injured by the fall; his arm nearly being broken. some remedies applied, and the company grown composed, babbalanja thus:--"my lord media, was there any human necessity for that accident?" "none that i know, or care to tell, babbalanja." "vee-vee," said babbalanja, "did you fall on purpose?" "not i," sobbed little vee-vee, slinging his ailing arm in its mate. "woe! woe to us all, then," cried babbalanja; "for what direful events may be in store for us which we can not avoid." "how now, mortal?" cried media; "what now?" "my lord, think of it. minus human inducement from without, and minus volition from within, vee-vee has met with an accident, which has almost maimed him for life. is it not terrifying to think of? are not all mortals exposed to similar, nay, worse calamities, ineffably unavoidable? woe, woe, i say, to us mardians! here, take my last breath; let me give up this beggarly ghost!" "nay," said media; "pause, babbalanja. turn it not adrift prematurely. let it house till midnight; the proper time for you mortals to dissolve. but, philosopher, if you harp upon vee-vee's mishap, know that it was owing to nothing but his carelessness." "and what was that owing to, my lord?" "to vee-vee himself." "then, my lord, what brought such a careless being into mardi?" "a long course of generations. he's some one's great-great-grandson, doubtless; who was great-great-grandson to some one else; who also had grandsires." "many thanks then to your highness; for you establish the doctrine of philosophical necessity." "no. i establish nothing; i but answer your questions." "all one, my lord: you are a necessitarian; in other words, you hold that every thing takes place through absolute necessity." "do you take me, then, for a fool, and a fatalist? pardie! a bad creed for a monarch, the distributor of rewards and punishments." "right there, my lord. but, for all that, your highness is a necessitarian, yet no fatalist. confound not the distinct. fatalism presumes express and irrevocable edicts of heaven concerning particular events. whereas, necessity holds that all events are naturally linked, and inevitably follow each other, without providential interposition, though by the eternal letting of providence." "well, well, babbalanja, i grant it all. go on." "on high authority, we are told that in times past the fall of certain nations in mardi was prophesied of seers." "most true, my lord," said mohi; "it is all down in the chronicles." "ha! ha!" cried media. "go on, philosopher." continued babbalanja, "previous to the time assigned to their fulfillment, those prophecies were bruited through mardi; hence, previous to the time assigned to their fulfillment, full knowledge of them may have come to the nations concerned. now, my lord, was it possible for those nations, thus forwarned, so to conduct their affairs, as at, the prophesied time, to prove false the events revealed to be in store for them?" "however that may be," said mohi, "certain it is, those events did assuredly come to pass:--compare the ruins of babbelona with book ninth, chapter tenth, of the chronicles. yea, yea, the owl inhabits where the seers predicted; the jackals yell in the tombs of the kings." "go on, babbalanja," said media. "of course those nations could not have resisted their doom. go on, then: vault over your premises." "if it be, then, my lord, that--" "my very worshipful lord," interposed mohi, "is not our philosopher getting off soundings; and may it not be impious to meddle with these things?" "were it so, old man, he should have known it. the king of odo is something more than you mortals." "but are we the great gods themselves," cried yoomy, "that we discourse of these things." "no, minstrel," said babbalanja; "and no need have the great gods to discourse of things perfectly comprehended by them, and by themselves ordained. but you and i, yoomy, are men, and not gods; hence is it for us, and not for them, to take these things for our themes. nor is there any impiety in the right use of our reason, whatever the issue. smote with superstition, shall we let it wither and die out, a dead, limb to a live trunk, as the mad devotee's arm held up motionless for years? or shall we employ it but for a paw, to help us to our bodily needs, as the brutes use their instinct? is not reason subtile as quicksilver--live as lightning--a neighing charger to advance, but a snail to recede? can we starve that noble instinct in us, and hope that it will survive? better slay the body than the soul; and if it be the direst of sins to be the murderers of our own bodies, how much more to be a soul-suicide. yoomy, we are men, we are angels. and in his faculties, high oro is but what a man would be, infinitely magnified. let us aspire to all things. are we babes in the woods, to be scared by the shadows of the trees? what shall appall us? if eagles gaze at the sun, may not men at the gods?" "for one," said media, "you may gaze at me freely. gaze on. but talk not of my kinsmen so fluently, babbalanja. return to your argument." "i go back then, my lord. by implication, you have granted, that in times past the future was foreknown of oro; hence, in times past, the future must have been foreordained. but in all things oro is immutable. wherefore our own future is foreknown and foreordained. now, if things foreordained concerning nations have in times past been revealed to them previous to their taking place, then something similar may be presumable concerning individual men now living. that is to say, out of all the events destined to befall any one man, it is not impossible that previous knowledge of some one of these events might supernaturally come to him. say, then, it is revealed to me, that ten days hence i shall, of my own choice, fall upon my javelin; when the time comes round, could i refrain from suicide? grant the strongest presumable motives to the act; grant that, unforewarned, i would slay myself outright at the time appointed: yet, foretold of it, and resolved to test the decree to the uttermost, under such circumstances, i say, would it be possible for me not to kill myself? if possible, then predestination is not a thing absolute; and heaven is wise to keep secret from us those decrees, whose virtue consists in secrecy. but if not possible, then that suicide would not be mine, but oro's. and, by consequence, not only that act, but all my acts, are oro's. in sum, my lord, he who believes that in times past, prophets have prophesied, and their prophecies have been fulfilled; when put to it, inevitably must allow that every man now living is an irresponsible being." "in sooth, a very fine argument very finely argued," said media. "you have done marvels, babbalanja. but hark ye, were i so disposed, i could deny you all over, premises and conclusions alike. and furthermore, my cogent philosopher, had you published that anarchical dogma among my subjects in oro, i had silenced you by my spear-headed scepter, instead of my uplifted finger." "then, all thanks and all honor to your generosity, my lord, in granting us the immunities you did at the outset of this voyage. but, my lord, permit me one word more. is not oro omnipresent--absolutely every where?" "so you mortals teach, babbalanja." "but so do they _mean_, my lord. often do we mardians stick to terms for ages, yet truly apply not their meanings." "well, oro is every where. what now?" "then, if that be absolutely so, oro is not merely a universal on- looker, but occupies and fills all space; and no vacancy is left for any being, or any thing but oro. hence, oro is _in_ all things, and himself _is_ all things--the time-old creed. but since evil abounds, and oro is all things, then he can not be perfectly good; wherefore, oro's omnipresence and moral perfection seem incompatible. furthermore, my lord those orthodox systems which ascribe to oro almighty and universal attributes every way, those systems, i say, destroy all intellectual individualities but oro, and resolve the universe into him. but this is a heresy; wherefore, orthodoxy and heresy are one. and thus is it, my lord, that upon these matters we mardians all agree and disagree together, and kill each other with weapons that burst in our hands. ah, my lord, with what mind must blessed oro look down upon this scene! think you he discriminates between the deist and atheist? nay; for the searcher of the cores of all hearts well knoweth that atheists there are none. for in things abstract, men but differ in the sounds that come from their mouths, and not in the wordless thoughts lying at the bottom of their beings. the universe is all of one mind. though my twin-brother sware to me, by the blazing sun in heaven at noon-day, that oro is not; yet would he belie the thing he intended to express. and who lives that blasphemes? what jargon of human sounds so puissant as to insult the unutterable majesty divine? is oro's honor in the keeping of mardi?-- oro's conscience in man's hands? where our warrant, with oro's sign- manual, to justify the killing, burning, and destroying, or far worse, the social persecutions we institute in his behalf? ah! how shall these self-assumed attorneys and vicegerents be astounded, when they shall see all heaven peopled with heretics and heathens, and all hell nodding over with miters! ah! let us mardians quit this insanity. let us be content with the theology in the grass and the flower, in seed- time and harvest. be it enough for us to know that oro indubitably is. my lord! my lord! sick with the spectacle of the madness of men, and broken with spontaneous doubts, i sometimes see but two things in all mardi to believe:--that i myself exist, and that i can most happily, or least miserably exist, by the practice of righteousness. all else is in the clouds; and naught else may i learn, till the firmament be split from horizon to horizon. yet, alas! too often do i swing from these moorings." "alas! his fit is coming upon him again," whispered yoomy. "why, babbalanja," said media, "i almost pity you. you are too warm, too warm. why fever your soul with these things? to no use you mortals wax earnest. no thanks, but curses, will you get for your earnestness. you yourself you harm most. why not take creeds as they come? it is not so hard to be persuaded; never mind about believing." "true, my lord; not very hard; no act is required; only passiveness. stand still and receive. faith is to the thoughtless, doubts to the thinker." "then, why think at all? is it not better for you mortals to clutch error as in a vice, than have your fingers meet in your hand? and to what end your eternal inquisitions? you have nothing to substitute. you say all is a lie; then out with the truth. philosopher, your devil is but a foolish one, after all. i, a demi-god, never say nay to these things." "yea, my lord, it would hardly answer for oro himself, were he to come down to mardi, to deny men's theories concerning him. did they not strike at the rash deity in alma?" "then, why deny those theories yourself? babbalanja, you almost affect my immortal serenity. must you forever be a sieve for good grain to run through, while you retain but the chaff? your tongue is forked. you speak two languages: flat folly for yourself, and wisdom for others. babbalanja, if you have any belief of your own, keep it; but, in oro's name, keep it secret." "ay, my lord, in these things wise men are spectators, not actors; wise men look on, and say 'ay.'" "why not say so yourself, then?" "my lord, because i have often told you, that i am a fool, and not wise." "your highness," said mohi, "this whole discourse seems to have grown out of the subject of necessity and free will. now, when a boy, i recollect hearing a sage say, that these things were reconcilable." "ay?" said media, "what say you to that, now, babbalanja?" "it may be even so, my lord. shall i tell you a story?" "azzageddi's stirring now," muttered mohi. "proceed," said media. "king normo had a fool, called willi, whom he loved to humor. now, though willi ever obeyed his lord, by the very instinct of his servitude, he flattered himself that he was free; and this conceit it was, that made the fool so entertaining to the king. one day, said normo to his fool,--'go, willi, to yonder tree, and wait there till i come,' 'your majesty, i will,' said willi, bowing beneath his jingling bells; 'but i presume your majesty has no objections to my walking on my hands:--i am free, i hope.' 'perfectly,' said normo, 'hands or feet, it's all the same to me; only do my bidding.' 'i thought as much,' said willi; so, swinging his limber legs into the air, willi, thumb after thumb, essayed progression. but soon, his bottled blood so rushed downward through his neck, that he was fain to turn a somerset and regain his feet. said he, 'though i am free to do it, it's not so easy turning digits into toes; i'll walk, by gad! which is my other option.' so he went straight forward, and did king normo's bidding in the natural way." "a curious story that," said media; "whence came it?" "my lord, where every thing, but one, is to be had:--within." "you are charged to the muzzle, then," said braid-beard. "yes, mohi; and my talk is my overflowing, not my fullness." "and what may you be so full of?" "of myself." "so it seems," said mohi, whisking away a fly with his beard. "babbalanja," said media, "you did right in selecting this ebon night for discussing the theme you did; and truly, you mortals are but too apt to talk in the dark." "ay, my lord, and we mortals may prate still more in the dark, when we are dead; for methinks, that if we then prate at all, 'twill be in our sleep. ah! my lord, think not that in aught i've said this night, i would assert any wisdom of my own. i but fight against the armed and crested lies of mardi, that like a host, assail me. i am stuck full of darts; but, tearing them from out me, gasping, i discharge them whence they come." so saying, babbalanja slowly drooped, and fell reclining; then lay motionless as the marble gladiator, that for centuries has been dying. chapter xxxii my lord media summons mohi to the stand while slowly the night wore on, and the now scudding clouds flown past, revealed again the hosts in heaven, few words were uttered save by media; who, when all others were most sad and silent, seemed but little moved, or not stirred a jot. but that night, he filled his flagon fuller than his wont, and drank, and drank, and pledged the stars. "here's to thee, old arcturus! to thee, old aldebaran! who ever poise your wine-red, fiery spheres on high. a health to _thee_, my regal friend, alphacca, in the constellation of the crown: lo! crown to crown, i pledge thee! i drink to _ye_, too, alphard! markab! denebola! capella!--to _ye_, too, sailing cygnus! aquila soaring!--all round, a health to all your diadems! may they never fade! nor mine!" at last, in the shadowy east, the dawn, like a gray, distant sail before the wind, was descried; drawing nearer and nearer, till her gilded prow was perceived. and as in tropic gales, the winds blow fierce, and more fierce, with the advent of the sun; so with king media; whose mirth now breezed up afresh. but, as at sunrise, the sea-storm only blows harder, to settle down at last into a steady wind; even so, in good time, my lord media came to be more decorous of mood. and babbalanja abated his reveries. for who might withstand such a morn! as on the night-banks of the far-rolling ganges, the royal bridegroom sets forth for his bride, preceded by nymphs, now this side, now that, lighting up all the flowery flambeaux held on high as they pass; so came the sun, to his nuptials with mardi:--the hours going on before, touching all the peaks, till they glowed rosy-red. by reflex, the lagoon, here and there, seemed on fire; each curling wave-crest a flame. noon came as we sailed. and now, citrons and bananas, cups and calabashes, calumets and tobacco, were passed round; and we were all very merry and mellow indeed. smacking our lips, chatting, smoking, and sipping. now a mouthful of citron to season a repartee; now a swallow of wine to wash down a precept; now a fragrant whiff to puff away care. many things did beguile. from side to side, we turned and grazed, like juno's white oxen in clover meads. soon, we drew nigh to a charming cliff, overrun with woodbines, on high suspended from flowering tamarisk and tamarind-trees. the blossoms of the tamarisks, in spikes of small, red bells; the tamarinds, wide-spreading their golden petals, red-streaked as with streaks of the dawn. down sweeping to the water, the vines trailed over to the crisp, curling waves,--little pages, all eager to hold up their trains. within, was a bower; going behind it, like standing inside the sheet of the falls of the genesee. in this arbor we anchored. and with their shaded prows thrust in among the flowers, our three canoes seemed baiting by the way, like wearied steeds in a hawthorn lane. high midsummer noon is more silent than night. most sweet a siesta then. and noon dreams are day-dreams indeed; born under the meridian sun. pale cynthia begets pale specter shapes; and her frigid rays best illuminate white nuns, marble monuments, icy glaciers, and cold tombs. the sun rolled on. and starting to his feet, arms clasped, and wildly staring, yoomy exclaimed--"nay, nay, thou shalt not depart, thou maid!--here, here i fold thee for aye!--flown?--a dream! then siestas henceforth while i live. and at noon, every day will i meet thee, sweet maid! and, oh sun! set not; and poppies bend over us, when next we embrace!" "what ails that somnambulist?" cried media, rising. "yoomy, i say! what ails thee?" "he must have indulged over freely in those citrons," said mohi, sympathetically rubbing his fruitery. "ho, yoomy! a swallow of brine will help thee." "alas," cried babbalanja, "do the fairies then wait on repletion? do our dreams come from below, and not from the skies? are we angels, or dogs? oh, man, man, man! thou art harder to solve, than the integral calculus--yet plain as a primer; harder to find than the philosopher's-stone--yet ever at hand; a more cunning compound, than an alchemist's--yet a hundred weight of flesh, to a penny weight of spirit; soul and body glued together, firm as atom to atom, seamless as the vestment without joint, warp or woof--yet divided as by a river, spirit from flesh; growing both ways, like a tree, and dropping thy topmost branches to earth, like thy beard or a banian!--i give thee up, oh man! thou art twain--yet indivisible; all things--yet a poor unit at best." "philosopher you seem puzzled to account for the riddles of your race," cried media, sideways reclining at his ease. "now, do thou, old mohi, stand up before a demi-god, and answer for all.--draw nigh, so i can eye thee. what art thou, mortal?" "my worshipful lord, a man." "and what are men?" "my lord, before thee is a specimen." "i fear me, my lord will get nothing out of that witness," said babbalanja. "pray you, king media, let another inquisitor cross- question." "proceed; take the divan." "a pace or two farther off, there, mohi; so i can garner thee all in at a glance.--attention! rememberest thou, fellow-being, when thou wast born?" "not i. old braid-beard had no memory then." "when, then, wast thou first conscious of being?" "what time i was teething: my first sensation was an ache." "what dost thou, fellow-being, here in mardi?" "what doth mardi here, fellow-being, under me?" "philosopher, thou gainest but little by thy questions," cried yoomy advancing. "let a poet endeavor." "i abdicate in your favor, then, gentle yoomy; let me smooth the divan for you;--there: be seated." "now, mohi, who art thou?" said yoomy, nodding his bird-of-paradise plume. "the sole witness, it seems, in this case." "try again minstrel," cried babbalanja. "then, what art thou, mohi?" "even what thou art, yoomy." "he is too sharp or too blunt for us all," cried king media. "his devil is even more subtle than yours, babbalanja. let him go." "shall i adjourn the court then, my lord?" said babbalanja. "ay." "oyez! oyez! oyez! all mortals having business at this court, know ye, that it is adjourned till sundown of the day, which hath no to- morrow." chapter xxxiii wherein babbalanja and yoomy embrace "how the isles grow and multiply around us!" cried babbalanja, as turning the bold promontory of an uninhabited shore, many distant lands bluely loomed into view. "surely, our brief voyage, may not embrace all mardi like its reef?" "no," said media, "much must be left unseen. nor every where can yillah be sought, noble taji." said yoomy, "we are as birds, with pinions clipped, that in unfathomable and endless woods, but flit from twig to twig of one poor tree." "more isles! more isles!" cried babbalanja, erect, and gazing abroad. "and lo! round all is heaving that infinite ocean. ah! gods! what regions lie beyond?" "but whither now?" he cried, as in obedience to media, the paddlers suddenly altered our course. "to the bold shores of diranda," said media. "ay; the land of clubs and javelins, where the lord seigniors hello and piko celebrate their famous games," cried mohi. "your clubs and javelins," said media, "remind me of the great battle- chant of narvi--yoomy!"--turning to the minstrel, gazing abstractedly into the water;--"awake, yoomy, and give us the lines." "my lord media, 'tis but a rude, clanging thing; dissonant as if the north wind blew through it. methinks the company will not fancy lines so inharmonious. better sing you, perhaps, one of my sonnets." "better sit and sob in our ears, silly yoomy that thou art!--no! no! none of your sentiment now; my soul is martially inclined; i want clarion peals, not lute warblings. so throw out your chest, yoomy: lift high your voice; and blow me the old battle-blast.--begin, sir minstrel." and warning all, that he himself had not composed the odious chant, yoomy thus:-- our clubs! our clubs! the thousand clubs of narvi! of the living trunk of the palm-tree made; skull breakers! brain spatterers! wielded right, and wielded left; life quenchers! death dealers! causing live bodies to run headless! our bows! our bows! the thousand bows of narvi! ribs of tara, god of war! fashioned from the light tola their arrows; swift messengers! heart piercers! barbed with sharp pearl shells; winged with white tail-plumes; to wild death-chants, strung with the hair of wild maidens! our spears! our spears! the thousand spears of narvi! of the thunder-riven moo-tree made tall tree, couched on the long mountain lana! no staves for gray-beards! no rods for fishermen! tempered by fierce sea-winds, splintered into lances by lightnings, long arrows! heart seekers! toughened by fire their sharp black points! our slings! our slings! the thousand slings of narvi! all tasseled, and braided, and gayly bedecked. in peace, our girdles; in war, our war-nets; wherewith catch we heads as fish from the deep! the pebbles they hurl, have been hurled before,-- hurled up on the beach by the stormy sea! pebbles, buried erewhile in the head of the shark: to be buried erelong in the heads of our foes! home of hard blows, our pouches! nest of death-eggs! how quickly they hatch! uplift, and couch we our spears, men! ring hollow on the rocks our war clubs! bend we our bows, feel the points of our arrows: aloft, whirl in eddies our sling-nets; to the fight, men of narvi! sons of battle! hunters of men! raise high your war-wood! shout narvi! her groves in the storm! "by oro!" cried media, "but yoomy has well nigh stirred up all babbalanja's devils in me. were i a mortal, i could fight now on a pretense. and did any man say me nay, i would charge upon him like a spear-point. ah, yoomy, thou and thy tribe have much to answer for; ye stir up all mardi with your lays. your war chants make men fight; your drinking songs, drunkards; your love ditties, fools. yet there thou sittest, yoomy, gentle as a dove.--what art thou, minstrel, that thy soft, singing soul should so master all mortals? yoomy, like me, you sway a scepter." "thou honorest my calling overmuch," said yoomy, we minstrels but sing our lays carelessly, my lord media." "ay: and the more mischief they make." "but sometimes we poets are didactic." "didactic and dull; many of ye are but too apt to be prosy unless mischievous." "yet in our verses, my lord media, but few of us purpose harm." "but when all harmless to yourselves, ye may be otherwise to mardi." "and are not foul streams often traced to pure fountains, my lord?" said babbalanja. "the essence of all good and all evil is in us, not out of us. neither poison nor honey lodgeth in the flowers on which, side by side, bees and wasps oft alight. my lord, nature is an immaculate virgin, forever standing unrobed before us. true poets but paint the charms which all eyes behold. the vicious would be vicious without them." "my lord media," impetuously resumed yoomy, "i am sensible of a thousand sweet, merry fancies, limpid with innocence; yet my enemies account them all lewd conceits." "there be those in mardi," said babbalanja, "who would never ascribe evil to others, did they not find it in their own hearts; believing none can be different from themselves." "my lord, my lord!" cried yoomy. "the air that breathes my music from me is a mountain air! purer than others am i; for though not a woman, i feel in me a woman's soul." "ah, have done, silly yoomy," said media. "thou art becoming flighty, even as babbalanja, when azzageddi is uppermost." "thus ever: ever thus!" sighed yoomy. "they comprehend us not." "nor me," said babbalanja. "yoomy: poets both, we differ but in seeming; thy airiest conceits are as the shadows of my deepest ponderings; though yoomy soars, and babbalanja dives, both meet at last. not a song you sing, but i have thought its thought; and where dull mardi sees but your rose, i unfold its petals, and disclose a pearl. poets are we, yoomy, in that we dwell without us; we live in grottoes, palms, and brooks; we ride the sea, we ride the sky; poets are omnipresent." chapter xxxiv of the isle of diranda in good time the shores of diranda were in sight. and, introductory to landing, braid-beard proceeded to give us some little account of the island, and its rulers. as previously hinted, those very magnificent and illustrious lord seigniors, the lord seigniors hello and piko, who between them divided diranda, delighted in all manner of public games, especially warlike ones; which last were celebrated so frequently, and were so fatal in their results, that, not-withstanding the multiplicity of nuptials taking place in the isle, its population remained in equilibrio. but, strange to relate, this was the very object which the lord seigniors had in view; the very object they sought to compass, by instituting their games. though, for the most part, they wisely kept the secret locked up. but to tell how the lord seigniors hello and piko came to join hands in this matter. diranda had been amicably divided between them ever since the day they were crowned; one reigning king in the east, the other in the west. but king piko had been long harassed with the thought, that the unobstructed and indefinite increase of his browsing subjects might eventually denude of herbage his portion of the island. posterity, thought he, is marshaling her generations in squadrons, brigades, and battalions, and ere long will be down upon my devoted empire. lo! her locust cavalry darken the skies; her light-troop pismires cover the earth. alas! my son and successor, thou wilt inhale choke-damp for air, and have not a private corner to say thy prayers. by a sort of arithmetical progression, the probability, nay, the certainty of these results, if not in some way averted, was proved to king piko; and he was furthermore admonished, that war--war to the haft with king hello--was the only cure for so menacing an evil. but so it was, that king piko, at peace with king hello, and well content with, the tranquillity of the times, little relished the idea of picking a quarrel with his neighbor, and running its risks, in order to phlebotomize his redundant population. "patience, most illustrious seignior," said another of his sagacious ahithophels, "and haply a pestilence may decimate the people." but no pestilence came. and in every direction the young men and maidens were recklessly rushing into wedlock; and so salubrious the climate, that the old men stuck to the outside of the turf, and refused to go under. at last some machiavel of a philosopher suggested, that peradventure the object of war might be answered without going to war; that peradventure king hello might be brought to acquiesce in an arrangement, whereby the men of diranda might be induced to kill off one another voluntarily, in a peaceable manner, without troubling their rulers. and to this end, the games before mentioned were proposed. "egad! my wise ones, you have hit it," cried piko; "but will hello say ay?" "try him, most illustrious seignior," said machiavel. so to hello went embassadors ordinary and extraordinary, and ministers plenipotentiary and peculiar; and anxiously king piko awaited their return. the mission was crowned with success. said king hello to the ministers, in confidence:--"the very thing, dons, the very thing i have wanted. my people are increasing too fast. they keep up the succession too well. tell your illustrious master it's a bargain. the games! the games! by all means." so, throughout the island, by proclamation, they were forthwith established; succeeding to a charm. and the lord seigniors, hello and piko, finding their interests the same, came together like bride and bridegroom; lived in the same palace; dined off the same cloth; cut from the same bread-fruit; drank from the same calabash; wore each other's crowns; and often locking arms with a charming frankness, paced up and down in their dominions, discussing the prospect of the next harvest of heads. in his old-fashioned way, having related all this, with many other particulars, mohi was interrupted by babbalanja, who inquired how the people of diranda relished the games, and how they fancied being coolly thinned out in that manner. to which in substance the chronicler replied, that of the true object of the games, they had not the faintest conception; but hammered away at each other, and fought and died together, like jolly good fellows. "right again, immortal old bardianna!" cried babbalanja. "and what has the sage to the point this time?" asked media. "why, my lord, in his chapter on "cracked crowns," bardianna, after many profound ponderings, thus concludes: in this cracked sphere we live in, then, cracked skulls would seem the inevitable allotments of many. nor will the splintering thereof cease, till this pugnacious animal we treat of be deprived of his natural maces: videlicet, his arms. and right well doth man love to bruise and batter all occiputs in his vicinity." "seems to me, our old friend must have been on his stilts that time," interrupted mohi. "no, braid-beard. but by way of apologizing for the unusual rigidity of his style in that chapter, he says in a note, that it was written upon a straight-backed settle, when he was ill of a lumbago, and a crick in the neck." "that incorrigible azzageddi again," said media, "proceed with your quotation, babbalanja." "where was i, braid-beard?" "battering occiputs at the last accounts," said mohi. "ah, yes. and right well doth man love to bruise and batter all occiputs in his vicinity; he but follows his instincts; he is but one member of a fighting world. spiders, vixens, and tigers all war with a relish; and on every side is heard the howls of hyenas, the throttlings of mastiffs, the din of belligerant beetles, the buzzing warfare of the insect battalions: and the shrill cries of lady tartars rending their lords. and all this existeth of necessity. to war it is, and other depopulators, that we are beholden for elbow-room in mardi and for all our parks an gardens, wherein we are wont to expatiate. come on, then, plague, war, famine and viragos! come on, i say, for who shall stay ye? come on, and healthfulize the census! and more especially, oh war! do thou march forth with thy bludgeon! cracked are, our crowns by nature, and henceforth forever, cracked shall they be by hard raps." "and hopelessly cracked the skull, that hatched such a tirade of nonsense," said mohi. "and think you not, old bardianna knew that?" asked babbalanja. "he wrote an excellent chapter on that very subject." "what, on the cracks in his own pate?" "precisely. and expressly asserts, that to those identical cracks, was he indebted for what little light he had in his brain." "i yield, babbalanja; your old ponderer is older than i." "ay, ay, braid-beard; his crest was a tortoise; and this was the motto:--'i bite, but am not to be bitten.'" chapter xxxv they visit the lords piko and hello in good time, we landed at diranda. and that landing was like landing at greenwich among the waterloo pensioners. the people were docked right and left; some without arms; some without legs; not one with a tail; but to a man, all had heads, though rather the worse for wear; covered with lumps and contusions. now, those very magnificent and illustrious lord seigniors, the lord seigniors hello and piko, lived in a palace, round which was a fence of the cane called malacca, each picket helmed with a skull, of which there were fifty, one to each cane. over the door was the blended arms of the high and mighty houses of hello and piko: a clavicle crossed over an ulna. escorted to the sign of the skull-and-cross-bones, we received the very best entertainment which that royal inn could afford. we found our hosts hello and piko seated together on a dais or throne, and now and then drinking some claret-red wine from an ivory bowl, too large to have been wrought from an elephant's tusk. they were in glorious good spirits, shaking ivory coins in a skull. "what says your majesty?" said piko. "heads or tails?" "oh, heads, your majesty," said hello. "and heads say i," said piko. and heads it was. but it was heads on both sides, so both were sure to win. and thus they were used to play merrily all day long; beheading the gourds of claret by one slicing blow with their sickle-shaped scepters. wide round them lay empty calabashes, all feathered, red dyed, and betasseled, trickling red wine from their necks, like the decapitated pullets in the old baronial barn yard at kenilworth, the night before queen bess dined with my lord leicester. the first compliments over; and media and taji having met with a reception suitable to their rank, the kings inquired, whether there were any good javelin-flingers among us: for if that were the case, they could furnish them plenty of sport. informed, however, that none of the party were professional warriors, their majesties looked rather glum, and by way of chasing away the blues, called for some good old stuff, that was red. it seems, this soliciting guests, to keep their spears from decaying, by cut and thrust play with their subjects, was a very common thing with their illustrious majesties. but if their visitors could not be prevailed upon to spear a subject or so, our hospitable hosts resolved to have a few speared, and otherwise served up for our special entertainment. in a word, our arrival furnished a fine pretext for renewing their games; though, we learned, that only ten days previous, upward of fifty combatants had been slain at one of these festivals. be that as it might, their joint majesties determined upon another one; and also upon our tarrying to behold it. we objected, saying we must depart. but we were kindly assured, that our canoes had been dragged out of the water, and buried in a wood; there to remain till the games were over. the day fixed upon, was the third subsequent to our arrival; the interval being devoted to preparations; summoning from their villages and valleys the warriors of the land; and publishing the royal proclamations, whereby the unbounded hospitality of the kings' household was freely offered to all heroes whatsoever, who for the love of arms, and the honor of broken heads, desired to cross battle- clubs, hurl spears, or die game in the royal valley of deddo. meantime, the whole island was in a state of uproarious commotion, and strangers were daily arriving. the spot set apart for the festival, was a spacious down, mantled with white asters; which, waving in windrows, lay upon the land, like the cream-surf surging the milk of young heifers. but that whiteness, here and there, was spotted with strawberries; tracking the plain, as if wounded creatures had been dragging themselves bleeding from some deadly encounter. all round the down, waved scarlet thickets of sumach, moaning in the wind, like the gory ghosts environing pharsalia the night after the battle; scaring away the peasants, who with bushel-baskets came to the jewel-harvest of the rings of pompey's knights. beneath the heaped turf of this down, lay thousands of glorious corpses of anonymous heroes, who here had died glorious deaths. whence, in the florid language of diranda, they called this field "the field of glory." chapter xxxvi they attend the games at last the third day dawned; and facing us upon entering the plain, was a throne of red log-wood, canopied by the foliage of a red-dyed pandannus. upon this throne, purple-robed, reclined those very magnificent and illustrious lords seigniors, the lord seigniors hello and piko. before them, were many gourds of wine; and crosswise, staked in the sod, their own royal spears. in the middle of the down, as if by a furrow, a long, oval space was margined of about which, a crowd of spectators were seated. opposite the throne, was reserved a clear passage to the arena, defined by air- lines, indefinitely produced from the leveled points of two spears, so poised by a brace of warriors. drawing near, our party was courteously received, and assigned a commodious lounge. the first encounter was a club-fight between two warriors. nor casque of steel, nor skull of congo could have resisted their blows, had they fallen upon the mark; for they seemed bent upon driving each other, as stakes, into the earth. presently, one of them faltered; but his adversary rushing in to cleave him down, slipped against a guavarind; when the falterer, with one lucky blow, high into the air sent the stumbler's club, which descended upon the crown of a spectator, who was borne from the plain. "all one," muttered pike. "as good dead as another," muttered hello. the second encounter was a hugging-match; wherein two warriors, masked in grisly-bear skins, hugged each other to death. the third encounter was a bumping-match between a fat warrior and a dwarf. standing erect, his paunch like a bass-drum before a drummer, the fat man was run at, head-a-tilt by the dwarf, and sent spinning round on his axis. the fourth encounter was a tussle between two-score warriors, who all in a mass, writhed like the limbs in sebastioni's painting of hades. after obscuring themselves in a cloud of dust, these combatants, uninjured, but hugely blowing, drew off; and separately going among the spectators, rehearsed their experience of the fray. "braggarts!" mumbled piko. "poltroons!" growled hello. while the crowd were applauding, a sober-sided observer, trying to rub the dust out of his eyes, inquired of an enthusiastic neighbor, "pray, what was all that about?" "fool! saw you not the dust?" "that i did," said sober-sides, again rubbing his eyes, "but i can raise a dust myself." the fifth encounter was a fight of single sticks between one hundred warriors, fifty on a side. in a line, the first fifty emerged from the sumachs, their weapons interlocked in a sort of wicker-work. in advance marched a priest, bearing an idol with a cracked cocoanut for a head,--krako, the god of trepans. preceded by damsels flinging flowers, now came on the second fifty, gayly appareled, weapons poised, and their feet nimbly moving in a martial measure. midway meeting, both parties touched poles, then retreated. very courteous, this; but tantamount to bowing each other out of mardi; for upon pike's tossing a javelin, they rushed in, and each striking his man, all fell to the ground. "well done!" cried piko. "brave fellows!" cried hello. "but up and at it again, my heroes!" joined both. "lo! we kings look on, and there stand the bards!" these bards were a row of lean, sallow, old men, in thread-bare robes, and chaplets of dead leaves. "strike up!" cried piko. "a stave!" cried hello. whereupon, the old croakers, each with a quinsy, sang thus in cracked strains:-- quack! quack! quack! with a toorooloo whack; hack away, merry men, hack away. who would not die brave, his ear smote by a stave? thwack away, merry men, thwack away! 'tis glory that calls, to each hero that falls, hack away, merry men, hack away! quack! quack! quack! quack! quack! quack! thus it tapered away. "ha, ha!" cried piko, "how they prick their ears at that!" "hark ye, my invincibles!" cried hello. "that pean is for the slain. so all ye who have lives left, spring to it! die and be glorified! now's the time!--strike up again, my ducklings!" thus incited, the survivors staggered to their feet; and hammering away at each others' sconces, till they rung like a chime of bells going off with a triple-bob-major, they finally succeeded in immortalizing themselves by quenching their mortalities all round; the bards still singing. "never mind your music now," cried piko. "it's all over," said hello. "what valiant fellows we have for subjects," cried piko. "ho! grave-diggers, clear the field," cried hello. "who else is for glory?" cried piko. "there stand the bards!" cried hello. but now there rushed among the crowd a haggard figure, trickling with blood, and wearing a robe, whose edges were burned and blacked by fire. wielding a club, it ran to and fro, with loud yells menacing all. a noted warrior this; who, distracted at the death of five sons slain in recent games, wandered from valley to valley, wrestling and fighting. with wild cries of "the despairer! the despairer!" the appalled multitude fled; leaving the two kings frozen on their throne, quaking and quailing, their teeth rattling like dice. the despairer strode toward them; when, recovering their senses, they ran; for a time pursued through the woods by the phantom. chapter xxxvii taji still hunted, and beckoned previous to the kings' flight, we had plunged into the neighboring woods; and from thence emerging, entered brakes of cane, sprouting from morasses. soon we heard a whirring, as if three startled partridges had taken wing; it proved three feathered arrows, from three unseen hands. gracing us, two buried in the ground, but from taji's arm, the third drew blood. on all sides round we turned; but none were seen. "still the avengers follow," said babbalanja. "lo! the damsels three!" cried yoomy. "look where they come!" we joined them by the sumach-wood's red skirts; and there, they waved their cherry stalks, and heavy bloated cactus leaves, their crimson blossoms armed with nettles; and before us flung shining, yellow, tiger-flowers spotted red. "blood!" cried yoomy, starting, "and leopards on your track!" and now the syrens blew through long reeds, tasseled with their panicles, and waving verdant scarfs of vines, came dancing toward us, proffering clustering grapes. "for all now yours, taji; and all that yet may come," cried yoomy, "fly to me! i will dance away your gloom, and drown it in inebriation." "away! woe is its own wine. what may be mine, that will i endure, in its own essence to the quick. let me feel the poniard if it stabs." they vanished in the wood; and hurrying on, we soon gained sun-light, and the open glade. chapter xxxviii they embark from diranda arrived at the sign of the skulls, we found the illustrious lord seigniors at rest from their flight, and once more, quaffing their claret, all thoughts of the specter departed. instead of rattling their own ivory iii the heads on their shoulders, they were rattling their dice in the skulls in their hands. and still "heads," was the cry, and "heads," was the throw. that evening they made known to my lord media that an interval of two days must elapse ere the games were renewed, in order to reward the victors, bury their dead, and provide for the execution of an islander, who under the provocation of a blow, had killed a stranger. as this suspension of the festivities had been wholly unforeseen, our hosts were induced to withdraw the embargo laid upon our canoes. nevertheless, they pressed us to remain; saying, that what was to come would far exceed in interest, what had already taken place. the games in prospect being of a naval description, embracing certain hand-to- hand contests in the water between shoals of web-footed warriors. however, we decided to embark on the morrow. it was in the cool of the early morning, at that hour when a man's face can be known, that we set sail from diranda; and in the ghostly twilight, our thoughts reverted to the phantom that so suddenly had cleared the plain. with interest we hearkened to the recitals of mohi; who discoursing of the sad end of many brave chieftains in mardi, made allusion to the youthful adondo, one of the most famous of the chiefs of the chronicles. in a canoe-fight, after performing prodigies of valor; he was wounded in the head, and sunk to the bottom of the lagoon. "there is a noble monody upon the death of adondo," said yoomy. "shall i sing it, my lord? it. is very beautiful; nor could i ever repeat it without a tear." "we will dispense with your tears, minstrel," said media, "but sing it, if you will." and yoomy sang:-- departed the pride and the glory of mardi: the vaunt of her isles sleeps deep in the sea, that rolls o'er his corpse with a hush. his warriors bend over their spears, his sisters gaze upward and mourn. weep, weep, for adondo, is dead! the sun has gone down in a shower; buried in clouds in the face of the moon; tears stand in the eyes of the starry skies, and stand in the eyes of the flowers; and streams of tears are the trickling brooks, coursing adown the mountains.-- departed the pride, and the glory of mardi: the vaunt of her isles sleeps deep in the sea. fast falls the small rain on its bosom that sobs.-- not showers of rain, but the tears of oro. "a dismal time it must have been," yawned media, "not a dry brook then in mardi, not a lake that was not moist. lachrymose rivulets, and inconsolable lagoons! call you this poetry, minstrel?" "mohi has something like a tear in his eye," said yoomy. "false!" cried mohi, brushing it aside. "who composed that monody?" said babbalanja. "i have often heard it before." "none know, babbalanja but the poet must be still singing to himself; his songs bursting through the turf in the flowers over his grave." "but gentle yoomy, adondo is a legendary hero, indefinitely dating back. may not his monody, then, be a spontaneous melody, that has been with us since mardi began? what bard composed the soft verses that our palm boughs sing at even? nay, yoomy, that monody was not written by man." "ah! would that i had been the poet, babbalanja; for then had i been famous indeed; those lines are chanted through all the isles, by prince and peasant. yes, adondo's monody will pervade the ages, like the low under-tone you hear, when many singers do sing." "my lord, my lord," cried babbalanja, "but this were to be truly immortal;--to be perpetuated in our works, and not in our names. let me, oh oro! be anonymously known!" chapter xxxix wherein babbalanja discourses of himself an interval of silence was at last broken by babbalanja. pointing to the sun, just gaining the horizon, he exclaimed, "as old bardianna says--shut your eyes, and believe." "and what may bardianna have to do with yonder orb?" said media. this much, my lord, the astronomers maintain that mardi moves round the sun; which i, who never formally investigated the matter for myself, can by no means credit; unless, plainly seeing one thing, i blindly believe another. yet even thus blindly does all mardi subscribe to an astronomical system, which not one in fifty thousand can astronomically prove. and not many centuries back, my lord, all mardi did equally subscribe to an astronomical system, precisely the reverse of that which they now believe. but the mass of mardians have not as much reason to believe the first system, as the exploded one; for all who have eyes must assuredly see, that the sun seems to move, and that mardi seems a fixture, eternally _here_. but doubtless there are theories which may be true, though the face of things belie them. hence, in such cases, to the ignorant, disbelief would seem more natural than faith; though they too often reject the testimony of their own senses, for what to them, is a mere hypothesis. and thus, my lord, is it, that the mass of mardians do not believe because they know, but because they know not. and they are as ready to receive one thing as another, if it comes from a canonical source. my lord, mardi is as an ostrich, which will swallow augh you offer, even a bar of iron, if placed endwise. and though the iron be indigestible, yet it serves to fill: in feeding, the end proposed. for mardi must have something to exercise its digestion, though that something be forever indigestible. and as fishermen for sport, throw two lumps of bait, united by a cord, to albatrosses floating on the sea; which are greedily attempted to be swallowed, one lump by this fowl, the other by that; but forever are kept reciprocally going up and down in them, by means of the cord; even so, my lord, do i sometimes fancy, that our theorists divert them-selves with the greediness of mardians to believe." "ha, ha," cried media, "methinks this must be azzageddi who speaks." "no, my lord; not long since, azzageddi received a furlough to go home and warm himself for a while. but this leaves me not alone." "how?" "my lord,--for the present putting azzageddi entirely aside,--though i have now been upon terms of close companionship with myself for nigh five hundred moons, i have not yet been able to decide who or what i am. to you, perhaps, i seem babbalanja; but to myself, i seem not myself. all i am sure of, is a sort of prickly sensation all over me, which they call life; and, occasionally, a headache or a queer conceit admonishes me, that there is something astir in my attic. but how know i, that these sensations are identical with myself? for aught i know, i may be somebody else. at any rate, i keep an eye on myself, as i would on a stranger. there is something going on in me, that is independent of me. many a time, have i willed to do one thing, and another has been done. i will not say by myself, for i was not consulted about it; it was done instinctively. my most virtuous thoughts are not born of my musings, but spring up in me, like bright fancies to the poet; unsought, spontaneous. whence they come i know not. i am a blind man pushed from behind; in vain, i turn about to see what propels me. as vanity, i regard the praises of my friends; for what they commend pertains not to me, babbalanja; but to this unknown something that forces me to it. but why am i, a middle aged mardian, less prone to excesses than when a youth? the same inducements and allurements are around me. but no; my more ardent passions are burned out; those which are strongest when we are least able to resist them. thus, then, my lord, it is not so much outer temptations that prevail over us mortals; but inward instincts." "a very curious speculation," said media. but babbalanja, have you mortals no moral sense, as they call it?" "we have. but the thing you speak of is but an after-birth; we eat and drink many months before we are conscious of thoughts. and though some adults would seem to refer all their actions to this moral sense, yet, in reality, it is not so; for, dominant in them, their moral sense bridles their instinctive passions; wherefore, they do not govern themselves, but are governed by their very natures. thus, some men in youth are constitutionally as staid as i am now. but shall we pronounce them pious and worthy youths for this? does he abstain, who is not incited? and on the other hand, if the instinctive passions through life naturally have the supremacy over the moral sense, as in extreme cases we see it developed in irreclaimable malefactors,--shall we pronounce such, criminal and detestable wretches? my lord, it is easier for some men to be saints, than for others not to be sinners." "that will do, babbalanja; you are on the verge, take not the leap! go back whence you set out, and tell us of that other, and still more mysterious azzageddi; him whom you hinted to have palmed himself off on you for you yourself." "well, then, my lord,--azzageddi still set aside,--upon that self-same inscrutable stranger, i charge all those past actions of mine, which in the retrospect appear to me such eminent folly, that i am confident, it was not i, babbalanja, now speaking, that committed them. nevertheless, my lord, this very day i may do some act, which at a future period may seem equally senseless; for in one lifetime we live a hundred lives. by the incomprehensible stranger in me, i say, this body of mine has been rented out scores of times, though always one dark chamber in me is retained by the old mystery." "will you never come to the mark, babbalanja? tell me something direct of the stranger. who, what is he? introduce him." "my lord, i can not. he is locked up in me. in a mask, he dodges me. he prowls about in me, hither and thither; he peers, and i stare. this is he who talks in my sleep, revealing my secrets; and takes me to unheard of realms, beyond the skies of mardi. so present is he always, that i seem not so much to live of myself, as to be a mere apprehension of the unaccountable being that is in me. yet all the time, this being is i, myself." "babbalanja," said media, "you have fairly turned yourself inside out." "yes, my lord," said mohi, "and he has so unsettled me, that i begin to think all mardi a square circle." "how is that, babbalanja," said media, "is a circle square?" "no, my lord, but ever since mardi began, we mardians have been essaying our best to square it." "cleverly retorted. now, babbalanja, do you not imagine, that you may do harm by disseminating these sophisms of yours; which like your devil theory, would seem to relieve all mardi from moral accountability?" "my lord, at bottom, men wear no bonds that other men can strike off; and have no immunities, of which other men can deprive them. tell a good man that he is free to commit murder,--will he murder? tell a murderer that at the peril of his soul he indulges in murderous thoughts,--will that make him a saint?" "again on the verge, babbalanja? take not the leap, i say." "i can leap no more, my lord. already i am down, down, down." "philosopher," said media, "what with azzageddi, and the mysterious indweller you darkly hint of, i marvel not that you are puzzled to decide upon your identity. but when do you seem most yourself?" "when i sleep, and dream not, my lord." "indeed?" "why then, a fool's cap might be put on you, and you would not know it." "the very turban he ought to wear," muttered mohi. "yet, my lord, i live while consciousness is not mine, while to all appearances i am a clod. and may not this same state of being, though but alternate with me, be continually that of many dumb, passive objects we so carelessly regard? trust me, there are more things alive than those that crawl, or fly, or swim. think you, my lord, there is no sensation in being a tree? feeling the sap in one's boughs, the breeze in one's foliage? think you it is nothing to be a world? one of a herd, bison-like, wending its way across boundless meadows of ether? in the sight of a fowl, that sees not our souls, what are our own tokens of animation? that we move, make a noise, have organs, pulses, and are compounded of fluids and solids. and all these are in this mardi as a unit. daily the slow, majestic throbbings of its heart are perceptible on the surface in the tides of the la-goon. its rivers are its veins; when agonized, earthquakes are its throes; it shouts in the thunder, and weeps in the shower; and as the body of a bison is covered with hair, so mardi is covered with grasses and vegetation, among which, we parasitical things do but crawl, vexing and tormenting the patient creature to which we cling. nor yet, hath it recovered from the pain of the first foundation that was laid. mardi is alive to its axis. when you pour water, does it not gurgle? when you strike a pearl shell, does it not ring? think you there is no sensation in being a rock?--to exist, is to be; to be, is to be something: to be something, is--" "go on," said media. "and what is it, to be something?" said yoomy artlessly. "bethink yourself of what went before," said media. "lose not the thread," said mohi. "it has snapped," said babbalanja. "i breathe again," said mohi. "but what a stepping-off place you came to then, philosopher," said media. "by the way, is it not old bardianna who says, that no mardian should undertake to walk, without keeping one foot foremost?" "to return to the vagueness of the notion i have of myself," said babbalanja. "an appropriate theme," said media, "proceed." "my lord," murmured mohi, "is not this philosopher like a centipede? cut off his head, and still he crawls." "there are times when i fancy myself a lunatic," resumed babbalanja. "ah, now he's beginning to talk sense," whispered mohi. "surely you forget, babbalanja," said media. "how many more theories have you? first, you are possessed by a devil; then rent yourself out to the indweller; and now turn yourself into a mad-house. you are inconsistent." "and for that very reason, my lord, not inconsistent; for the sum of my inconsistencies makes up my consistency. and to be consistent to one's self, is often to be inconsistent to mardi. common consistency implies unchangeableness; but much of the wisdom here below lives in a state of transition." "ah!" murmured mold, "my head goes round again." "azzageddi aside, then, my lord, and also, for the nonce, the mysterious indweller, i come now to treat of myself as a lunatic. but this last conceit is not so much based upon the madness of particular actions, as upon the whole drift of my ordinary and hourly ones; those, in which i most resemble all other mardians. it seems like going through with some nonsensical whim-whams, destitute of fixed purpose. for though many of my actions seem to have objects, and all of them somehow run into each other; yet, where is the grand result? to what final purpose, do i walk about, eat, think, dream? to what great end, does mohi there, now stroke his beard?" "but i was doing it unconsciously," said mohi, dropping his hand, and lifting his head. "just what i would be at, old man. 'what we do, we do blindly,' says old bardianna. many things we do, we do without knowing,--as with you and your beard, mohi. and many others we know not, in their true bearing at least, till they are past. are not half our lives spent in reproaches for foregone actions, of the true nature and consequences of which, we were wholly ignorant at the time? says old bardianna, 'did i not so often feel an appetite for my yams, i should think every thing a dream;'--so puzzling to him, seemed the things of this mardi. but alla-malolla goes further. says he, 'let us club together, fellow- riddles:--kings, clowns, and intermediates. we are bundles of comical sensations; we bejuggle ourselves into strange phantasies: we are air, wind, breath, bubbles; our being is told in a tick.'" "now, then, babbalanja," said media, "what have you come to in all this rhapsody? you everlastingly travel in a circle." "and so does the sun in heaven, my lord; like me, it goes round, and gives light as it goes. old bardianna, too, revolved. he says so himself. in his roundabout chapter on cycles and epicycles, with notes on the ecliptic, he thus discourseth:--'all things revolve upon some center, to them, fixed; for the centripetal is ever too much for the centrifugal. wherefore, it is a perpetual cycling with us, without progression; and we fly round, whether we will or no. to stop, were to sink into space. so, over and over we go, and round and round; double- shuffle, on our axis, and round the sun.' in an another place, he says:--'there is neither apogee nor perigee, north nor south, right nor left; what to-night is our zenith, to-morrow is our nadir; stand as we will, we stand on our heads; essay to spring into the air, and down we come; here we stick; our very bones make glue.'" "enough, enough, babbalanja," cried media. "you are a very wise mardian; but the wisest mardians make the most consummate fools." "so they do, my lord; but i was interrupted. i was about to say, that there is no place but the universe; no limit but the limitless; no bottom but the bottomless." chapter xl of the sorcerers in the isle of minda "tiffin! tiffin!" cried media; "time for tiffin! up, comrades! and while the mat is being spread, walk we to the bow, and inhale the breeze for an appetite. hark ye, vee-vee! forget not that calabash with the sea-blue seal, and a round ring for a brand. rare old stuff, that, mohi; older than you: the circumnavigator, i call it. my sire had a canoe launched for the express purpose of carrying it thrice round mardi for a flavor. it was many moons on the voyage; the mariners never sailed faster than three knots. ten would spoil the best wine ever floated." tiffin over, and the blue-sealed calabash all but hid in the great cloud raised by our pipes, media proposed to board it in the smoke. so, goblet in hand, we all gallantly charged, and came off victorious from the fray. then seated again, and serenely puffing in a circle, the circumnavigator meanwhile pleasantly going the rounds, media called upon mohi for something entertaining. now, of all the old gossips in mardi, surely our delightful old diodorus was furnished with the greatest possible variety of histories, chronicles, anecdotes, memoirs, legends, traditions, and biographies. there was no end to the library he carried. in himself, he was the whole history of mardi, amplified, not abridged, in one volume. in obedience, then, to king media's command, mohi regaled the company with a narrative, in substance as follows:-- in a certain quarter of the archipelago was an island called minda; and in minda were many sorcerers, employed in the social differences and animosities of the people of that unfortunate land. if a mindarian deemed himself aggrieved or insulted by a countryman, he forthwith repaired to one of these sorcerers; who, for an adequate consideration, set to work with his spells, keeping himself in the dark, and directing them against the obnoxious individual. and full soon, by certain peculiar sensations, this individual, discovering what was going on, would straightway hie to his own professor of the sable art, who, being well feed, in due time brought about certain counter-charms, so that in the end it sometimes fell out that neither party was gainer or loser, save by the sum of his fees. but the worst of it was, that in some cases all knowledge of these spells were at the outset hidden from the victim; who, hearing too late of the mischief brewing, almost always fell a prey to his foe; which calamity was held the height of the art. but as the great body of sorcerers were about matched in point of skill, it followed that the parties employing them were so likewise. hence arose those interminable contests, in which many moons were spent, both parties toiling after their common destruction. indeed, to say nothing of the obstinacy evinced by their employers, it was marvelous, the pertinacity of the sorcerers themselves. to the very last tooth in their employer's pouches, they would stick to their spells; never giving over till he was financially or physically defunct. but much as they were vilified, no people in minda were half so disinterested as they. certain indispensable conditions secured, some of them were as ready to undertake the perdition of one man as another; good, bad, or indifferent, it made little matter. what wonder, then, that such abominable mercenaries should cause a mighty deal of mischief in minda; privately going about, inciting peaceable folks to enmities with their neighbors; and with marvelous alacrity, proposing themselves as the very sorcerers to rid them of the annoyances suggested as existing. indeed, it even happened that a sorcerer would be secretly retained to work spells upon a victim, who, from his bodily sensations, suspecting something wrong, but knowing not what, would repair to that self-same sorcerer, engaging him to counteract any mischief that might be brewing. and this worthy would at once undertake the business; when, having both parties in his hands, he kept them forever in suspense; meanwhile seeing to it well, that they failed not in handsomely remunerating him for his pains. at one time, there was a prodigious excitement about these sorcerers, growing out of some alarming revelations concerning their practices. in several villages of minda, they were sought to be put down. but fruitless the attempt; it was soon discovered that already their spells were so spread abroad, and they themselves so mixed up with the everyday affairs of the isle, that it was better to let their vocation alone, than, by endeavoring to suppress it, breed additional troubles. ah! they were a knowing and a cunning set, those sorcerers; very hard to overcome, cajole, or circumvent. but in the name of the magi, what were these spells of theirs, so potent and occult? on all hands it was agreed, that they derived their greatest virtue from the fumes of certain compounds, whose ingredients--horrible to tell--were mostly obtained from the human heart; and that by variously mixing these ingredients, they adapted their multifarious enchantments. they were a vain and arrogant race. upon the strength of their dealing in the dark, they affected even more mystery than belonged to them; when interrogated concerning their science, would confound the inquirer by answers couched in an extraordinary jargon, employing words almost as long as anacondas. but all this greatly prevailed with the common people. nor was it one of the least remarkable things, that oftentimes two sorcerers, contrarily employed upon a mindarian,--one to attack, the other to defend,--would nevertheless be upon the most friendly terms with each other; which curious circumstance never begat the slightest suspicions in the mind of the victim. another phenomenon: if from any cause, two sorcerers fell out, they seldom exercised their spells upon each other; ascribable to this, perhaps,--that both being versed in the art, neither could hope to get the advantage. but for all the opprobrium cast upon these sorcerers, part of which they deserved, the evils imputed to them were mainly, though indirectly, ascribable to the very persons who abused them; nay, to the very persons who employed them; the latter being by far the loudest in their vilifyings; for which, indeed, they had excellent reason. nor was it to be denied, that in certain respects, the sorcerers were productive of considerable good. the nature of their pursuits leading them deep into the arcana of mind, they often lighted upon important discoveries; along with much that was cumbersome, accumulated valuable examples concerning the inner working of the hearts of the mindarians; and often waxed eloquent in elucidating the mysteries of iniquity. yet was all this their lore graven upon so uncouth, outlandish, and antiquated tablets, that it was all but lost to the mass of their countrymen; and some old sachem of a wise man is quoted as having said, that their treasures were locked up after such a fashion, that for old iron, the key was worth more than the chest and its contents. chapter xli chiefly of sing bello "now taji," said media, "with old bello of the hump whose island of dominora is before us, i am at variance." "ah! how so?" "a dull recital, but you shall have it." and forthwith his highness began. this princely quarrel originated, it seems, in a slight jostling concerning the proprietorship of a barren islet in a very remote quarter of the lagoon. at the outset the matter might have been easily adjusted, had the parties but exchanged a few amicable words. but each disdaining to visit the other, to discuss so trivial an affair, the business of negotiating an understanding was committed to certain plenipos, men with lengthy tongues, who scorned to utter a word short of a polysyllable. now, the more these worthies penetrated into the difficulty, the wider became the breach; till what was at first a mere gap, became a yawning gulf. but that which had perhaps tended more than any thing else to deepen the variance of the kings, was hump-backed bello's dispatching to odo, as his thirtieth plenipo, a diminutive little negotiator, who all by himself, in a solitary canoe, sailed over to have audience of media; into whose presence he was immediately ushered. darting one glance at him, the king turned to his chieftains, and said:--"by much straining of your eyes, my lords, can you perceive this insignificant manikin? what! are there no tall men in dominora, that king bello must needs send this dwarf hither?" and charging his attendents to feed the embassador extraordinary with the soft pap of the cocoanut, and provide nurses during his stay, the monarch retired from the arbor of audience. "as i am a man," shouted the despised plenipo, raising himself on his toes, "my royal master will resent this affront!--a dwarf, forsooth!-- thank oro, i am no long-drawn giant! there is as much stuff in me, as in others; what is spread out in their clumsy carcasses, in me is condensed. i am much in little! and that much, thou shalt know full soon, disdainful king of odo!" "speak not against our lord the king," cried the attendants. "and speak not ye to me, ye headless spear poles!" and so saying, under sufferance of being small, the plenipo was permitted to depart unmolested; for all his bravadoes, fobbing his credentials and affronts. apprized of his servant's ignoble reception, the choleric bello burst forth in a storm of passion; issuing orders for, one thousand conch shells to be blown, and his warriors to assemble by land and by sea. but bethinking him of the hostilities that might ensue, the sagacious media hit upon an honorable expedient to ward off an event for which he was then unprepared. with all haste he dispatched to the hump- backed king a little dwarf of his own; who voyaging over to dominora in a canoe, sorry and solitary as that of bello's plenipo, in like manner, received the same insults. the effect whereof, was, to strike a balance of affronts; upon the principle, that a blow given, heals one received. nevertheless, these proceedings but amounted to a postponement of hostilities; for soon after, nothing prevented the two kings from plunging into war, but the following judicious considerations. first: media was almost afraid of being beaten. second: bello was almost afraid to conquer. media, because he was inferior in men and arms; bello, because, his aggrandizement was already a subject of warlike comment among the neighboring kings. indeed, did the old chronicler braid-beard speak truth, there were some tribes in mardi, that accounted this king of dominora a testy, quarrelsome, rapacious old monarch; the indefatigable breeder of contentions and wars; the elder brother of this household of nations, perpetually essaying to lord it over the juveniles; and though his patrimonial dominions were situated to the north of the lagoon, not the slightest misunderstanding took place between the rulers of the most distant islands, than this doughty old cavalier on a throne, forthwith thrust his insolent spear into the matter, though it in no wise concerned him, and fell to irritating all parties by his gratuitous interference. especially was he officious in the concerns of porpheero, a neighboring island, very large and famous, whose numerous broad valleys were divided among many rival kings:--the king of franko, a small-framed, poodle-haired, fine, fiery gallant; finical in his tatooing; much given to the dance and glory;--the king of ibeereea, a tall and stately cavalier, proud, generous, punctilious, temperate in wine; one hand forever on his javelin, the other, in superstitious homage, lifted to his gods; his limbs all over marks of stakes and crosses;--the king of luzianna; a slender, dark-browed thief; at times wrapped in a moody robe, beneath which he fumbled something, as if it were a dagger; but otherwise a sprightly troubadour, given to serenades and moonlight;---the many chiefs of sunny latianna; minstrel monarchs, full of song and sentiment; fiercer in love than war; glorious bards of freedom; but rendering tribute while they sang;--the priest-king of vatikanna; his chest marked over with antique tatooings; his crown, a cowl; his rusted scepter swaying over falling towers, and crumbling mounds; full of the superstitious past; askance, eyeing the suspicious time to come;--the king of hapzaboro; portly, pleasant; a lover of wild boar's meat; a frequent quaffer from the can; in his better moods, much fancying solid comfort;--the eight-and- thirty banded kings, chieftains, seigniors, and oligarchies of the broad hill and dale of tutoni; clubbing together their domains, that none might wrest his neighbor's; an earnest race; deep thinkers, deeper drinkers; long pipes, long heads; their wise ones given to mystic cogitations, and consultations with the devil;--the twin kings of zandinavia; hardy, frugal mountaineers; upright of spine and heart; clad in skins of bears;--the king of jutlanda; much like their highnesses of zandinavia; a seal-skin cap his crown; a fearless sailor of his frigid seas;--the king of muzkovi; a shaggy, icicled white-bear of a despot in the north; said to reign over millions of acres of glaciers; had vast provinces of snow-drifts, and many flourishing colonies among the floating icebergs. absolute in his rule as predestination in metaphysics, did he command all his people to give up the ghost, it would be held treason to die last. very precise and foppish in his imperial tastes was this monarch. disgusted with the want of uniformity in the stature of his subjects, he was said to nourish thoughts of killing off all those below his prescribed standard--six feet, long measure. immortal souls were of no account in his fatal wars; since, in some of his serf-breeding estates, they were daily manufactured to order. now, to all the above-mentioned monarchs, old bello would frequently dispatch heralds; announcing, for example, his unalterable resolution, to espouse the cause of this king, against that; at the very time, perhaps, that their serene superfluities, instead of crossing spears, were touching flagons. and upon these occasions, the kings would often send back word to old bello, that instead of troubling himself with their concerns, he might far better attend to his own; which, they hinted, were in a sad way, and much needed reform. the royal old warrior's pretext for these and all similar proceedings, was the proper adjustment in porpheero, of what he facetiously styled the "equipoise of calabashes;" which he stoutly swore was essential to the security of the various tribes in that country. "but who put the balance into thy hands, king bello?" cried the indignant nations. "oro!" shouted the hump-backed king, shaking his javelin. superadded to the paternal interest which bello betrayed in the concerns of the kings of porpheero, according to our chronicler, he also manifested no less interest in those of the remotest islands. indeed, where he found a rich country, inhabited by a people, deemed by him barbarous and incapable of wise legislation, he sometimes relieved them from their political anxieties, by assuming the dictatorship over them. and if incensed at his conduct, they flew to their spears, they were accounted rebels, and treated accordingly. but as old mohi very truly observed,--herein, bello was not alone; for throughout mardi, all strong nations, as well as all strong men, loved to govern the weak. and those who most taunted king bello for his political rapacity, were open to the very same charge. so with vivenza, a distant island, at times very loud in denunciations of bello, as a great national brigand. not yet wholly extinct in vivenza, were its aboriginal people, a race of wild nimrods and hunters, who year by year were driven further and further into remoteness, till as one of their sad warriors said, after continual removes along the log, his race was on the point of being remorselessly pushed off the end. now, bello was a great geographer, and land surveyor, and gauger of the seas. terraqueous mardi, he was continually exploring in quest of strange empires. much he loved to take the altitude of lofty mountains, the depth of deep rivers, the breadth of broad isles. upon the highest pinnacles of commanding capes and promontories, he loved to hoist his flag. he circled mardi with his watch-towers: and the distant voyager passing wild rocks in the remotest waters, was startled by hearing the tattoo, or the reveille, beating from hump- backed bello's omnipresent drum. among antartic glaciers, his shrill bugle calls mingled with the scream of the gulls; and so impressed seemed universal nature with the sense of his dominion, that the very clouds in heaven never sailed over dominora without rendering the tribute of a shower; whence the air of dominora was more moist than that of any other clime. in all his grand undertakings, king bello was marvelously assisted by his numerous fleets of war-canoes; his navy being the largest in mardi. hence his logicians swore that the entire lagoon was his; and that all prowling whales, prowling keels, and prowling sharks were invaders. and with this fine conceit to inspire them, his poets- laureat composed some glorious old saltwater odes, enough to make your very soul sing to hear them. but though the rest of mardi much delighted to list to such noble minstrelsy, they agreed not with bello's poets in deeming the lagoon their old monarch's hereditary domain. once upon a time, the paddlers of the hump-backed king, meeting upon the broad lagoon certain canoes belonging to the before-mentioned island of vivenza; these paddlers seized upon several of their occupants; and feeling their pulses, declared them born men of dominora; and therefore, not free to go whithersoever they would; for, unless they could somehow get themselves born over again, they must forever remain subject to bello. shed your hair; nay, your skin, if you will, but shed your allegiance you can not; while you have bones, they are bello's. so, spite of all expostulations and attempts to prove alibis, these luckless paddlers were dragged into the canoes of dominora, and commanded to paddle home their captors. whereof hearing, the men of vivenza were thrown into a great ferment; and after a mighty pow-wow over their council fire, fitting out several double-keeled canoes, they sallied out to sea, in quest of those, whom they styled the wholesale corsairs of dominora. but lucky perhaps it was, that at this juncture, in all parts of mardi, the fleets of the hump-backed king, were fighting, gunwale and gunwale, alongside of numerous foes; else there had borne down upon the canoes of the men of vivenza so tremendous an armada, that the very swell under its thousand prows might have flooded their scattered proas forever out of sight. as it was, bello dispatched a few of his smaller craft to seek out, and incidentally run down the enemy; and without returning home, straightway proceed upon more important enterprises. but it so chanced, that bello's crafts, one by one meeting the foe, in most cases found the canoes of vivenza much larger than their own; and manned by more men, with hearts bold as theirs; whence, in the ship- duels that ensued, they were worsted; and the canoes of vivenza, locking their yard-arms into those of the vanquished, very courteously gallanted them into their coral harbors. solely imputing these victories to their superior intrepidity and skill, the people of vivenza were exceedingly boisterous in their triumph; raising such obstreperous peans, that they gave themselves hoarse throats; insomuch, that according to mohi, some of the present generation are fain to speak through their noses. chapter xlii dominora and vivenza the three canoes still gliding on, some further particulars were narrated concerning dominora; and incidentally, of other isles. it seems that his love of wide dominion sometimes led the otherwise sagacious bello into the most extravagant actions. if the chance accumulation of soil and drift-wood about any detached shelf of coral in the lagoon held forth the remotest possibility of the eventual existence of an islet there, with all haste he dispatched canoes to the spot, to take prospective possession of the as yet nearly submarine territory; and if possible, eject the zoophytes. during an unusually low tide, here and there baring the outer reef of the archipelago, bello caused his royal spear to be planted upon every place thus exposed, in token of his supreme claim thereto. another anecdote was this: that to dominora there came a rumor, that in a distant island dwelt a man with an uncommonly large nose; of most portentous dimensions, indeed; by the soothsayers supposed to foreshadow some dreadful calamity. but disregarding these superstitious conceits, bello forthwith dispatched an agent, to discover whether this huge promontory of a nose was geographically available; if so, to secure the same, by bringing the proprietor back. now, by sapient old mohi, it was esteemed a very happy thing for mardi at large, that the subjects whom bello sent to populate his foreign acquisitions, were but too apt to throw off their vassalage, so soon as they deemed themselves able to cope with him. indeed, a fine country in the western part of mardi, in this very manner, became a sovereign--nay, a republican state. it was the nation to which mohi had previously alluded--vivenza. but in the flush and pride of having recently attained their national majority, the men of vivenza were perhaps too much inclined to carry a vauntful crest. and because intrenched in their fastnesses, after much protracted fighting, they had eventually succeeded in repelling the warriors dispatched by bello to crush their insurrection, they were unanimous in the opinion, that the hump-backed king had never before been so signally chastised. whereas, they had not so much vanquished bello, as defended their shores; even as a young lion will protect its den against legions of unicorns, though, away from home, he might be torn to pieces. in truth, braid-beard declared, that at the time of this war, dominora couched ten long spears for every short javelin vivenza could dart; though the javelins were stoutly hurled as the spears. but, superior in men and arms, why, at last, gave over king bello the hope of reducing those truculent men of vivenza? one reason was, as mohi said, that many of his fighting men were abundantly occupied in other quarters of mardi; nor was he long in discovering that fight he never so valiantly, vivenza--not yet its inhabitants--was wholly unconquerable. thought bello, mountains are sturdy foes; fate hard to dam. yet, the men of vivenza were no dastards; not to lie, coming from lion-like loins, they were a lion-loined race. did not their bards pronounce them a fresh start in the mardian species; requiring a new world for their full development? for be it known, that the great land of kolumbo, no inconsiderable part of which was embraced by vivenza, was the last island discovered in the archipelago. in good round truth, and as if an impartialist from arcturus spoke it, vivenza was a noble land. like a young tropic tree she stood, laden down with greenness, myriad blossoms, and the ripened fruit thick- hanging from one bough. she was promising as the morning. or vivenza might be likened to st. john, feeding on locusts and wild honey, and with prophetic voice, crying to the nations from the wilderness. or, child-like, standing among the old robed kings and emperors of the archipelago, vivenza seemed a young messiah, to whose discourse the bearded rabbis bowed. so seemed vivenza in its better aspect. nevertheless, vivenza was a braggadocio in mardi; the only brave one ever known. as an army of spurred and crested roosters, her people chanticleered at the resplendent rising of their sun. for shame, vivenza! whence thy undoubted valor? did ye not bring it with ye from the bold old shores of dominora, where there is a fullness of it left? what isle but dominora could have supplied thee with that stiff spine of thine?-- that heart of boldest beat? oh, vivenza! know that true grandeur is too big for a boast; and nations, as well as men, may be too clever to be great. but what more of king bello? notwithstanding his territorial acquisitiveness, and aversion to relinquishing stolen nations, he was yet a glorious old king; rather choleric--a word and a blow--but of a right royal heart. rail at him as they might, at bottom, all the isles were proud of him. and almost in spite of his rapacity, upon the whole, perhaps, they were the better for his deeds. for if sometimes he did evil with no very virtuous intentions, he had fifty, ways of accomplishing good with the best; and a thousand ways of doing good without meaning it. according to an ancient oracle, the hump-backed monarch was but one of the most conspicuous pieces on a board, where the gods played for their own entertainment. but here it must not be omitted, that of late, king bello had somewhat abated his efforts to extend his dominions. various causes were assigned. some thought it arose from the fact that already he found his territories too extensive for one scepter to rule; that his more remote colonies largely contributed to his tribulations, without correspondingly contributing to his revenues. others affirmed that his hump was getting too mighty for him to carry; others still, that the nations were waving too strong for him. with prophetic solemnity, head-shaking sages averred that he was growing older and older had passed his grand climacteric; and though it was a hale old age with him, yet it was not his lusty youth; that though he was daily getting rounder, and rounder in girth, and more florid of face, that these, howbeit, were rather the symptoms of a morbid obesity, than of a healthful robustness. these wise ones predicted that very soon poor bello would go off in an apoplexy. but in vivenza there were certain blusterers, who often thus prated: "the hump-back's hour is come; at last the old teamster will be gored by the nations he's yoked; his game is done,--let him show his hand and throw up his scepter; he cumbers mardi,--let him be cut down and burned; he stands in the way of his betters,--let him sheer to one side; he has shut up many eyes, and now himself grows blind; he hath committed horrible atrocities during his long career, the old sinner! --now, let him quickly say his prayers and be beheaded." howbeit, bello lived on; enjoying his dinners, and taking his jorums as of yore. ah, i have yet a jolly long lease of life, thought he over his wine; and like unto some obstinate old uncle, he persisted in flourishing, in spite of the prognostications of the nephew nations, which at his demise, perhaps hoped to fall heir to odd parts of his possessions: three streaks of fat valleys to one of lean mountains! chapter xliii they land at dominora as erewhile recounted, not being on the best terms in mardi with the king of dominora, media saw fit to draw nigh unto his dominions in haughty state; he (media) being upon excellent terms with himself. our sails were set, our paddles paddling, streamers streaming, and vee-vee in the shark's mouth, clamorous with his conch. the din was soon heard; and sweeping into a fine broad bay we beheld its margin seemingly pebbled in the distance with heads; so populous the land. winding through a noble valley, we presently came to bello's palace, couchant and bristling in a grove. the upright canes composing its front projected above the eaves in a long row of spear-heads fluttering with scarlet pennons; while below, from the intervals of the canes, were slantingly thrust three tiers of decorated lances. a warlike aspect! the entire structure looking like the broadside of the macedonian phalanx, advancing to the charge, helmeted with a roof. "ah, bello," said media, "thou dwellest among thy quills like the porcupine." "i feel a prickly heat coming over me," cried mohi, "my lord media, let us enter." "ay," said babbalanja, "safer the center of peril, than the circumference." passing under an arch, formed by two pikes crossed, we found ourselves targets in prospective, for certain flingers of javelins, with poised weapons, occupying the angles of the palace. fronting us, stood a portly old warrior, spear in hand, hump on back, and fire in eye. "is it war?" he cried, pointing his pike, "or peace?" reversing it. "peace," said media. whereupon advancing, king bello courteously welcomed us. he was an arsenal to behold: upon his head the hereditary crown of dominora,--a helmet of the sea-porcupine's hide, bristling all over with spikes, in front displaying a river-horse's horn, leveled to the charge; thrust through his ears were barbed arrows; and from his dyed shark-skin girdle, depended a kilt of strung javelins. the broad chest of bello was the chart of mardi. tattooed in sea-blue were all the groups and clusters of the archipelago; and every time he breathed, rose and fell the isles, as by a tide: dominora full upon his heart. his sturdy thighs were his triumphal arch; whereon in numerous medallions, crests, and shields, were blazoned all his victories by sea and land. his strong right arm was dominora's scroll of fame, where all her heroes saw their names recorded.--an endless roll! our chronicler avouched, that on the sole of bello's dexter foot was stamped the crest of franko's king, his hereditary foe. "thus, thus," cried bello, stamping, "thus i hourly crush him." in stature, bello was a mountaineer; but, as over some tall tower impends the hill-side cliff, so bello's athos hump hung over him. could it be, as many of his nobles held, that the old monarch's hump was his sensorium and source of strength; full of nerves, muscles, ganglions and tendons? yet, year by year it grew, ringed like the bole of his palms. the toils of war increased it. but another skirmish with the isles, said the wiseacres of porpheero, and bello's mount will crush him. against which calamity to guard, his medicos and sangredos sought the hump's reduction. but down it would not come. then by divers mystic rites, his magi tried. making a deep pit, many teeth they dropped therein. but they could not fill it. hence, they called it the sinking pit, for bottom it had none. nevertheless, the magi said, when this pit is filled, bello's hump you'll see no more. "then, hurrah for the hump!" cried the nobles, "for he will never hurl it off. long life to the hump! by the hump we will rally and die! cheer up, king bello! stand up, old king!" but these were they, who when their sovereign went abroad, with that athos on his back, followed idly in its shade; while bello leaned heavily upon his people, staggering as they went. ay, sorely did bello's goodly stature lean; but though many swore he soon must fall; nevertheless, like pisa's leaning tower, he may long lean over, yet never nod. visiting dominora in a friendly way, in good time, we found king bello very affable; in hospitality, almost exceeding portly borabolla: october-plenty reigned throughout his palace borders. our first reception over, a sumptuous repast was served, at which much lively talk was had. of taji, bello sought to know, whether his solar majesty had yet made a province of the moon; whether the astral hosts were of much account as territories, or mere motoos, as the little tufts of verdure are denominated, here and there clinging to mardi's circle reef; whether the people in the sun vilified, him (bello) as they did in mardi; and what they thought of an event, so ominous to the liberties of the universe, as the addition to his navy of three large canoes. ere long, so fused in social love we grew, that bello, filling high his can, and clasping media's palm, drank everlasting amity with odo. so over their red cups, the two kings forgot their differences, and concerning the disputed islet nothing more was ever heard; especially, as it so turned out, that while they were most hot about it, it had suddenly gone out of sight, being of volcanic origin. chapter xliv through dominora, they wander after yillah at last, withdrawing from the presence of king bello, we went forth, still intent on our search. many brave sights we saw. fair fields; the whole island a garden; green hedges all round; neat lodges, thick as white mice in the landscape; old oak woods, hale and hearty as ever; old temples buried in ivy; old shrines of old heroes, deep buried in broad groves of bay trees; old rivers laden down with heavy-freighted canoes; humped hills, like droves of camels, piled up with harvests; every sign and token of a glorious abundance, every sign and token of generations of renown. rare sight! fine sight! none rarer, none finer in mardi. but roving on through this ravishing region, we passed through a corn- field in full beard, where a haggard old reaper laid down his hook, beseeching charity for the sake of the gods.--"bread, bread! or i die mid these sheaves!" "thrash out your grain, and want not." "alas, masters, this grain is not mine; i plough, i sow, i reap, i bind, i stack,--lord primo garners." rambling on, we came to a hamlet, hidden in a hollow; and beneath weeping willows saw many mournful maidens seated on a bank; beside each, a wheel that was broken. "lo, we starve," they cried, "our distaffs are snapped; no more may we weave and spin!" then forth issued from vaults clamorous crowds of men, hands tied to their backs.--"bread! bread!" they cried. "the magician hath turned us out from our glen, where we labored of yore in the days of the merry green queen. he has pinioned us hip and arm that we starve. like sheep we die off with the rot.--curse on the magician. a curse on his spell." bending our steps toward the glen, roaring down the rocks we descried a stream from the mountains. but ere those waters gained the sea, vassal tribute they rendered. conducted through culverts and moats, they turned great wheels, giving life to ten thousand fangs and fingers, whose gripe no power could withstand, yet whose touch was soft as the velvet paw of a kitten. with brute force, they heaved down great weights, then daintily wove and spun; like the trunk of the elephant, which lays lifeless a river-horse, and counts the pulses of a moth. on all sides, the place seemed alive with its spindles. round and round, round and round; throwing off wondrous births at every revolving; ceaseless as the cycles that circle in heaven. loud hummed the loom, flew the shuttle like lightning, red roared the grim forge, rung anvil and sledge; yet no mortal was seen. "what ho, magician! come forth from thy cave!" but all deaf were the spindles, as the mutes, that mutely wait on the sultan. "since we are born, we will live!" so we read on a crimson banner, flouting the crimson clouds, in the van of a riotous red-bonneted mob, racing by us as we came from the glen. many more followed: black, or blood-stained:--. "mardi is man's!" "down with landholders!" "our turn now!" "up rights! down wrongs!" "bread! bread!" "take the tide, ere it turns!" waving their banners, and flourishing aloft clubs, hammers, and sickles, with fierce yells the crowd ran on toward the palace of bello. foremost, and inciting the rest by mad outcries and gestures, were six masks; "this way! this way!" they cried,--"by the wood; by the dark wood!" whereupon all darted into the groves; when of a sudden, the masks leaped forward, clearing a long covered trench, into which fell many of those they led. but on raced the masks; and gaining bello's palace, and raising the alarm, there sallied from thence a woodland of spears, which charged upon the disordered ranks in the grove. a crash as of icicles against icebergs round zembla, and down went the hammers and sickles. the host fled, hotly pursued. meanwhile brave heralds from bello advanced, and with chaplets crowned the six masks.--"welcome, heroes! worthy and valiant!" they cried. "thus our lord bello rewards all those, who to do him a service, for hire betray their kith and their kin." still pursuing our quest, wide we wandered through all the sun and shade of dominora; but nowhere was yillah found. chapter xlv they behold king bello's state canoe at last, bidding adieu to king bello; and in the midst of the lowing of oxen, breaking away from his many hospitalities, we departed for the beach. but ere embarking, we paused to gaze at an object, which long fixed our attention. now, as all bold cavaliers have ever delighted in special chargers, gayly caparisoned, whereon upon grand occasions to sally forth upon the plains: even so have maritime potentates ever prided themselves upon some holiday galley, splendidly equipped, wherein to sail over the sea. when of old, glory-seeking jason, attended by his promising young lieutenants, castor and pollux, embarked on that hardy adventure to colchis, the brave planks of the good ship argos he trod, its model a swan to behold. and when trojan aeneas wandered west, and discovered the pleasant land of latium, it was in the fine craft bis taurus that he sailed: its stern gloriously emblazoned, its prow a leveled spear. and to the sound of sackbut and psaltery, gliding down the nile, in the pleasant shade of its pyramids to welcome mad mark, cleopatra was throned on the cedar quarter-deck of a glorious gondola, silk and satin hung; its silver plated oars, musical as flutes. so, too, queen bess was wont to disport on old thames. and tough torf-egill, the danish sea-king, reckoned in his stud, a slender yacht; its masts young zetland firs; its prow a seal, dog-like holding a sword-fish blade. he called it the grayhound, so swift was its keel; the sea-hawk, so blood-stained its beak. and groping down his palace stairs, the blind old doge dandolo, oft embarked in his gilded barge, like the lord mayor setting forth in civic state from guildhall in his chariot. but from another sort of prow leaped dandolo, when at constantinople, he foremost sprang ashore, and with a right arm ninety years old, planted the standard of st. mark full among the long chin-pennons of the long-bearded turks. and kumbo sama, emperor of japan, had a dragon-beaked junk, a floating juggernaut, wherein he burnt incense to the sea-gods. and kannakoko, king of new zealand; and the first tahitian pomaree; and the pelew potentate, each possessed long state canoes; sea-snakes, all; carved over like chinese card-cases, and manned with such scores of warriors, that dipping their paddles in the sea, they made a commotion like shoals of herring. what wonder then, that bello of the hump, the old sea-king of mardi, should sport a brave ocean-chariot? in a broad arbor by the water-side, it was housed like alp arsian's war-horse, or the charger caligula deified; upon its stern a wilderness of sculpture:--shell-work, medal-lions, masques, griffins, gulls, ogres, finned-lions, winged walruses; all manner of sea- cavalry, crusading centaurs, crocodiles, and sharks; and mermen, and mermaids, and neptune only knows all. and in this craft, doge-like, yearly did king bello stand up and wed with the lagoon. but the custom originated not in the manner of the doge's, which was as follows; so, at least, saith ghibelli, who tells all about it:-- when, in a stout sea-fight, ziani defeated barbarossa's son otho, sending his feluccas all flying, like frightened water-fowl from a lake, then did his holiness, the pope, present unto him a ring; saying, "take this, oh ziani, and with it, the sea for thy bride; and every year wed her again." so the doge's tradition; thus bello's:-- ages ago, dominora was circled by a reef, which expanding in proportion to the extension of the isle's naval dominion, in due time embraced the entire lagoon; and this marriage ring zoned all the world. but if the sea was king bello's bride, an adriatic tartar he wedded; who, in her mad gales of passions, often boxed about his canoes, and led his navies a very boisterous life indeed. and hostile prognosticators opined, that ere long she would desert her old lord, and marry again. already, they held, she had made advances in the direction of vivenza. but truly, should she abandon old bello, he would straight-way after her with all his fleets; and never rest till his queen was regained. now, old sea-king! look well to thy barge of state: for, peradventure, the dry-rot may be eating into its keel; and the wood-worms exploring into its spars. without heedful tending, any craft will decay; yet, for ever may its first, fine model be preserved, though its prow be renewed every spring, like the horns of the deer, if, in repairing, plank be put for plank, rib for rib, in exactest similitude. even so, then, oh bello! do thou with thy barge. chapter xlvi wherein babbalanja bows thrice the next morning's twilight found us once more afloat; and yielding to that almost sullen feeling, but too apt to prevail with some mortals at that hour, all but media long remained silent. but now, a bright mustering is seen among the myriad white tartar tents in the orient; like lines of spears defiling upon some upland plain, the sunbeams thwart the sky. and see! amid the blaze of banners, and the pawings of ten thousand thousand golden hoofs, day's mounted sultan, xerxes-like, moves on: the dawn his standard, east and west his cymbals. "oh, morning life!" cried yoomy, with a persian air; "would that all time were a sunrise, and all life a youth." "ah! but these striplings whimper of youth," said mohi, caressing his braids, "as if they wore this beard." "but natural, old man," said babbalanja. "we mardians never seem young to ourselves; childhood is to youth what manhood is to age:--something to be looked back upon, with sorrow that it is past. but childhood reeks of no future, and knows no past; hence, its present passes in a vapor." "mohi, how's your appetite this morning?" said media. "thus, thus, ye gods," sighed yoomy, "is feeling ever scouted. yet, what might seem feeling in me, i can not express." "a good commentary on old bardianna, yoomy," said babbalanja, "who somewhere says, that no mardian can out with his heart, for his unyielding ribs are in the way. and indeed, pride, or something akin thereto, often holds check on sentiment. my lord, there are those who like not to be detected in the possession of a heart." "very true, babbalanja; and i suppose that pride was at the bottom of your old ponderer's heartless, unsentimental, bald-pated style." "craving pardon, my lord is deceived. bardianna was not at all proud; though he had a queer way of showing the absence of pride. in his essay, entitled,--"on the tendency to curl in upper lips," he thus discourses. "we hear much of pride and its sinfulness in this mardi wherein we dwell: whereas, i glory in being brimmed with it;--my sort of pride. in the presence of kings, lords, palm-trees, and all those who deem themselves taller than myself, i stand stiff as a pike, and will abate not one vertebra of my stature. but accounting no mardian my superior, i account none my inferior; hence, with the social, i am ever ready to be sociable." "an agrarian!" said media; "no doubt he would have made the headsman the minister of equality." "at bottom we are already equal, my honored lord," said babbalanja, profoundly bowing--"one way we all come into mardi, and one way we withdraw. wanting his yams a king will starve, quick as a clown; and smote on the hip, saith old bardianna, he will roar as loud as the next one." "roughly worded, that, babbalanja.--vee-vee! my crown!--so; now, babbalanja, try if you can not polish bardianna's style in that last saying you father upon him." "i will, my ever honorable lord," said babbalanja, salaming. "thus we'll word it, then: in their merely mardian nature, the sublimest demi-gods are subject to infirmities; for struck by some keen shaft, even a king ofttimes dons his crown, fearful of future darts." "ha, ha!--well done, babbalanja; but i bade you polish, not sharpen the arrow." "all one, my thrice honored lord;--to polish is not to blunt." chapter xlvii babbalanja philosophizes, and my lord media passes round the calabashes an interval of silence passed; when media cried, "out upon thee, yoomy! curtail that long face of thine." "how can he, my lord," said mohi, "when he is thinking of furlongs?" "fathoms you mean, mohi; see you not he is musing over the gunwale? and now, minstrel, a banana for thy thoughts. come, tell me how you poets spend so many hours in meditation." "my lord, it is because, that when we think, we think so little of ourselves." "i thought as much," said mohi, "for no sooner do i undertake to be sociable with myself, than i am straightway forced to beat a retreat." "ay, old man," said babbalanja, "many of us mardians are but sorry hosts to ourselves. some hearts are hermits." "if not of yourself, then, yoomy, of whom else do you think?" asked media. "my lord, i seldom think," said yoomy, "i but give ear to the voices in my calm." "did babbalanja speak?" said media. "but no more of your reveries;" and so saying media gradually sunk into a reverie himself. the rest did likewise; and soon, with eyes enchanted, all reclined: gazing at each other, witless of what we did. it was media who broke the spell; calling for vee-vee our page, his calabashes and cups, and nectarines for all. eyeing his goblet, media at length threw himself back, and said: "babbalanja, not ten minutes since, we were all absent-minded; now, how would you like to step out of your body, in reality; and, as a spirit, haunt some shadowy grove?" "but our lungs are not wholly superfluous, my lord," said babbalanja, speaking loud. "no, nor our lips," said mohi, smacking his over his wine. "but could you really be disembodied here in mardi, babbalanja, how would you fancy it?" said media. "my lord," said babbalanja, speaking through half of a nectarine, "defer putting that question, i beseech, till after my appetite is satisfied; for, trust me, no hungry mortal would forfeit his palate, to be resolved into the impalpable." "yet pure spirits we must all become at last, babbalanja," said yoomy, "even the most ignoble." "yes, so they say, yoomy; but if all boors be the immortal sires of endless dynasties of immortals, how little do our pious patricians bear in mind their magnificent destiny, when hourly they scorn their companionship. and if here in mardi they can not abide an equality with plebeians, even at the altar; how shall they endure them, side by side, throughout eternity? but since the prophet alma asserts, that paradise is almost entirely made up of the poor and despised, no wonder that many aristocrats of our isles pursue a career, which, according to some theologies, must forever preserve the social distinctions so sedulously maintained in mardi. and though some say, that at death every thing earthy is removed from the spirit, so that clowns and lords both stand on a footing; yet, according to the popular legends, it has ever been observed of the ghosts of boors when revisiting mardi, that invariably they rise in their smocks. and regarding our intellectual equality here, how unjust, my lord, that after whole years of days end nights consecrated to the hard gaining of wisdom, the wisest mardian of us all should in the end find the whole sum of his attainments, at one leap outstripped by the veriest dunce, suddenly inspired by light divine. and though some hold, that all mardian lore is vain, and that at death all mysteries will be revealed; yet, none the less, do they toil and ponder now. thus, their tongues have one mind, and their understanding another." "my lord," said mohi, "we have come to the lees; your pardon, babbalanja." "then, vee-vee, another calabash! fill up, mohi; wash down wine with wine. your cup, babbalanja; any lees?" "plenty, my lord; we philosophers come to the lees very soon." "flood them over, then; but cease not discoursing; thanks be to the gods, your mortal palates and tongues can both wag together; fill up, i say, babbalanja; you are no philosopher, if you stop at the tenth cup; endurance is the test of philosophy all mardi over; drink, i say, and make us wise by precept and example.--proceed, yoomy, you look as if you had something to say." "thanks, my lord. just now, babbalanja, you flew from the subject;-- you spoke of boors; but has not the lowliest peasant an eye that can take in the vast horizon at a sweep: mountains, vales, plains, and oceans? is such a being nothing?" "but can that eye see itself, yoomy?" said babbalanja, winking. "taken out of its socket, will it see at all? its connection with the body imparts to it its virtue." "he questions every thing," cried mohi. "philosopher, have you a head?" "i have," said babbalanja, feeling for it; "i am finished off at the helm very much as other mardians, mohi." "my lord, the first yea that ever came from him." "ah, mohi," said media, "the discourse waxes heavy. i fear me we have again come to the lees. ho, vee-vee, a fresh calabash; and with it we will change the subject. now, babbalanja, i have this cup to drink, and then a question to propound. ah, mohi, rare old wine this; it smacks of the cork. but attention, philosopher. supposing you had a wife--which, by the way, you have not--would you deem it sensible in her to imagine you no more, because you happened to stroll out of her sight?" "however that might be," murmured yoomy, "young nina bewailed herself a widow, whenever arhinoo, her lord, was absent from her side." "my lord media," said babbalanja, "during my absence, my wife would have more reason to conclude that i was not living, than that i was. to the former supposition, every thing tangible around her would tend; to the latter, nothing but her own fond fancies. it is this imagination of ours, my lord, that is at the bottom of these things. when i am in one place, there exists no other. yet am i but too apt to fancy the reverse. nevertheless, when i am in odo, talk not to me of ohonoo. to me it is not, except when i am there. if it be, prove it. to prove it, you carry me thither but you only prove, that to its substantive existence, as cognizant to me, my presence is indispensable. i say that, to me, all mardi exists by virtue of my sovereign pleasure; and when i die, the universe will perish with me." "come you of a long-lived race," said mohi, "one free from apoplexies? i have many little things to accomplish yet, and would not be left in the lurch." "heed him not, babbalanja," said media. "dip your beak again, my eagle, and soar." "let us be eagles, then, indeed, my lord: eagle-like, let us look at this red wine without blinking; let us grow solemn, not boisterous, with good cheer." then, lifting his cup, "my lord, serenely do i pity all who are stirred one jot from their centers by ever so much drinking of this fluid. ply him hard as you will, through the live-long polar night, a wise man can not be made drunk. though, toward sunrise, his body may reel, it will reel round its center; and though he make many tacks in going home, he reaches it at last; while scores of over-plied fools are foundering by the way. my lord, when wild with much thought, 'tis to wine i fly, to sober me; its magic fumes breathe over me like the indian summer, which steeps all nature in repose. to me, wine is no vulgar fire, no fosterer of base passions; my heart, ever open, is opened still wider; and glorious visions are born in my brain; it is then that i have all mardi under my feet, and the constellations of the firmament in my soul." "superb!" cried yoomy. "pooh, pooh!" said mohi, "who does not see stars at such times? i see the great bear now, and the little one, its cub; and andromeda, and perseus' chain-armor, and cassiopea in her golden chair, and the bright, scaly dragon, and the glittering lyre, and all the jewels in orion's sword-hilt." "ay," cried media, "the study of astronomy is wonderfully facilitated by wine. fill up, old ptolemy, and tell us should you discover a new planet. methinks this fluid needs stirring. ho, vee-vee, my scepter! be we sociable. but come, babbalanja, my gold-headed aquila, return to your theme;--the imagination, if you please." "well, then, my lord, i was about to say, that the imagination is the voli-donzini; or, to speak plainer, the unical, rudimental, and all- comprehending abstracted essence of the infinite remoteness of things. without it, we were grass-hoppers." "and with it, you mortals are little else; do you not chirp all over, mohi? by my demi-god soul, were i not what i am, this wine would almost get the better of me." "without it--" continued babbalanja. "without what?" demanded media, starting to his feet. "this wine? traitor, i'll stand by this to the last gasp, you are inebriated, babbalanja." "perhaps so, my lord; but i was treating of the imagination, may it please you." "my lord," added mohi, "of the unical, and rudimental fundament of things, you remember." "ah! there's none of them sober; proceed, proceed, azzageddi!" "my lord waves his hand like a banner," murmured yoomy. "without imagination, i say, an armless man, born, blind, could not be made to believe, that he had a head of hair, since he could neither see it, nor feel it, nor has hair any feeling of itself." "methinks though," said mohi, "if the cripple had a tartar for a wife, he would not remain skeptical long." "you all fly off at tangents," cried media, "but no wonder: your mortal brains can not endure much quaffing. return to your subject, babbalanja. assume now, babbalanja,--assume, my dear prince--assume it, assume it, i say!--why don't you?" "i am willing to assume any thing you please, my lord: what is it?" "ah! yes!--assume that--that upon returning home, you should find your wife had newly wedded, under the--the--the metaphysical presumption, that being no longer visible, you--_you_ azzageddi, had departed this life; in other words, out of sight, out of mind; what then, my dear prince?" "why then, my lord, i would demolish my rival in a trice." "would you?--then--then so much for your metaphysics, bab--babbalanja." babbalanja rose to his feet, muttering to himself--"is this assumed, or real?--can a demi-god be mastered by wine? yet, the old mythologies make bacchanals of the gods. but he was wondrous keen! he felled me, ere he fell himself." "yoomy, my lord media is in a very merry mood to-day," whispered mohi, "but his counterfeit was not well done. no, no, a bacchanal is not used to be so logical in his cups." chapter xlviii they sail round an island without landing; and talk round a subject without getting at it purposing a visit to kaleedoni, a country integrally united to dominora, our course now lay northward along the western white cliffs of the isle. but finding the wind ahead, and the current too strong for our paddlers, we were fain to forego our destination; babbalanja observing, that since in dominora we had not found yillah, then in kaleedoni the maiden could not be lurking. and now, some conversation ensued concerning the country we were prevented from visiting. our chronicler narrated many fine things of its people; extolling their bravery in war, their amiability in peace, their devotion in religion, their penetration in philosophy, their simplicity and sweetness in song, their loving-kindness and frugality in all things domestic:--running over a long catalogue of heroes, meta-physicians, bards, and good men. but as all virtues are convertible into vices, so in some cases did the best traits of these people degenerate. their frugality too often became parsimony; their devotion grim bigotry; and all this in a greater degree perhaps than could be predicated of the more immediate subjects of king bello. in kaleedoni was much to awaken the fervor of its bards. upland and lowland were full of the picturesque; and many unsung lyrics yet lurked in her glens. among her blue, heathy hills, lingered many tribes, who in their wild and tattooed attire, still preserved the garb of the mightiest nation of old times. they bared the knee, in token that it was honorable as the face, since it had never been bent. while braid-beard was recounting these things, the currents were sweeping us over a strait, toward a deep green island, bewitching to behold. not greener that midmost terrace of the andes, which under a torrid meridian steeps fair quito in the dews of a perpetual spring;--not greener the nine thousand feet of pirohitee's tall peak, which, rising from out the warm bosom of tahiti, carries all summer with it into the clouds;--nay, not greener the famed gardens of cyrus,--than the vernal lawn, the knoll, the dale of beautiful verdanna. "alas, sweet isle! thy desolation is overrun with vines," sighed yoomy, gazing. "land of caitiff curs!" cried media. "isle, whose future is in its past. hearth-stone, from which its children run," said babbalanja. "i can not read thy chronicles for blood, verdanna," murmured mohi. gliding near, we would have landed, but the rolling surf forbade. then thrice we circumnavigated the isle for a smooth, clear beach; but it was not found. meanwhile all still conversed. "my lord," said yoomy, "while we tarried with king bello, i heard much of the feud between dominora and this unhappy shore. yet is not verdanna as a child of king bello's?" "yes, minstrel, a step-child," said mohi. "by way of enlarging his family circle," said babbalanja, "an old lion once introduced a deserted young stag to his den; but the stag never became domesticated, and would still charge upon his foster-brothers. --verdanna is not of the flesh and blood of dominora, whence, in good part, these dissensions." "but babbalanja, is there no way of reconciling these foes?" "but one way, yoomy:--by filling up this strait with dry land; for, divided by water, we mardians must ever remain more or less divided at heart. though kaleedoni was united to dominora long previous to the union of verdanna, yet kaleedoni occasions bello no disquiet; for, geographically one, the two populations insensibly blend at the point of junction. no hostile strait flows between the arms, that to embrace must touch." "but, babbalanja," said yoomy, "what asks verdanna of dominora, that verdanna so clamors at the denial?" "they are arrant cannibals, yoomy," said media, "and desire the privilege of eating each other up." "king bello's idea," said babbalanja; "but, in these things, my lord, you demi-gods are ever unanimous. but, whatever be verdanna's demands, bello persists in rejecting them." "why not grant every thing she asks, even to renouncing all claim upon the isle," said mohi; "for thus, bello would rid himself of many perplexities." "and think you, old man," said media, "that, bane or blessing, bello will yield his birthright? will a tri-crowned king resign his triple diadem? and even did bello what you propose he would only breed still greater perplexities. for if granted, full soon would verdanna be glad to surrender many things she demands. and all she now asks, she has had in times past; but without turning it to advantage:--and is she wiser now?" "does she not demand her harvests, my lord?" said yoomy, "and has not the reaper a right to his sheaf?" "cant! cant! yoomy. if you reap for me, the sheaf is mine." "but if the reaper reaps on his own harvest-field, whose then the sheaf, my lord?" said babbalanja. "his for whom he reaps--his lord's!" "then let the reaper go with sickle and with sword," said yoomy, "with one hand, cut down the bearded grain; and with the other, smite his bearded lords." "thou growest fierce, in thy lyric moods, my warlike dove," said 'media, blandly. "but for thee, philosopher, know thou, that verdanna's men are of blood and brain inferior to bello's native race; and the better mardian must ever rule." "verdanna inferior to dominora, my lord!--has she produced no bards, no orators, no wits, no patriots? mohi, unroll thy chronicles! tell me, if verdanna may not claim full many a star along king bello's tattooed arm of fame? "even so," said mohi. "many chapters bear you out." "but my lord," said babbalanja, "as truth, omnipresent, lurks in all things, even in lies: so, does some germ of it lurk in the calumnies heaped on the people of this land. for though they justly boast of many lustrous names, these jewels gem no splendid robe. and though like a bower of grapes, verdanna is full of gushing juices, spouting out in bright sallies of wit, yet not all her grapes make wine; and here and there, hang goodly clusters mildewed; or half devoured by worms, bred in their own tendrils." "drop, drop your grapes and metaphors!" cried media. "bring forth your thoughts like men; let them come naked into mardi.--what do you mean, babbalanja?" "this, my lord, verdanna's worst evils are her own, not of another's giving. her own hand is her own undoer. she stabs herself with bigotry, superstition, divided councils, domestic feuds, ignorance, temerity; she wills, but does not; her east is one black storm-cloud, that never bursts; her utmost fight is a defiance; she showers reproaches, where she should rain down blows. she stands a mastiff baying at the moon." "tropes on tropes!" said. media. "let me tell the tale,--straight- forward like a line. verdanna is a lunatic--" "a trope! my lord," cried babbalanja. "my tropes are not tropes," said media, "but yours are.--verdanna is a lunatic, that after vainly striving to cut another's throat, grimaces before a standing pool and threatens to cut his own. and is such a madman to be intrusted with himself? no; let another govern him, who is ungovernable to himself ay, and tight hold the rein; and curb, and rasp the bit. do i exaggerate?--mohi, tell me, if, save one lucid interval, verdanna, while independent of dominora, ever discreetly conducted her affairs? was she not always full of fights and factions? and what first brought her under the sway of bello's scepter? did not her own chief dermoddi fly to bello's ancestor for protection against his own seditious subjects? and thereby did not her own king unking himself? what wonder, then, and where the wrong, if henro, bello's conquering sire, seized the diadem?" "what my lord cites is true," said mohi, "but cite no more, i pray; lest, you harm your cause." "yet for all this, babbalanja," said media, "bello but holds lunatic verdanna's lands in trust." "and may the guardian of an estate also hold custody of the ward, my lord?" "ay, if he can. what _can_ be done, may be: that's the greed of demi- gods." "alas, alas!" cried yoomy, "why war with words over this poor, suffering land. see! for all her bloom, her people starve; perish her yams, ere taken from the soil; the blight of heaven seems upon them." "not so," said media. "heaven sends no blights. verdanna will not learn. and if from one season's rottenss, rottenness they sow again, rottenness must they reap. but yoomy, you seem earnest in this matter;--come: on all hands it is granted that evils exist in verdanna; now sweet sympathizer, what must the royal bello do to mend them?" "i am no sage," said yoomy, "what would my lord media do?" "what would _you_ do, babbalanja," said media. "mohi, what you?" asked the philosopher. "and what would the company do?" added mohi. "now, though these evils pose us all," said babbalanja, "there lately died in verdanna, one, who set about curing them in a humane and peaceable way, waving war and bloodshed. that man was konno. under a huge caldron, he kept a roaring fire." "well, azzageddi, how could that answer his purpose?" asked media. "nothing better, my lord. his fire boiled his bread-fruit; and so convinced were his countrymen, that he was well employed, that they almost stripped their scanty orchards to fill his caldron." "konno was a knave," said mohi. "your pardon, old man, but that is only known to his ghost, not to us. at any rate he was a great man; for even assuming he cajoled his country, no common man could have done it." "babbalanja," said mohi, "my lord has been pleased to pronounce verdanna crazy; now, may not her craziness arise from the irritating, tantalizing practices of dominora?" "doubtless, braid-beard, many of the extravagances of verdanna, are in good part to be ascribed to the cause you mention; but, to be impartial, none the less does verdanna essay to taunt and provoke dominora; yet not with the like result. perceive you, braid-beard, that the trade-wind blows dead across this strait from dominora, and not from verdanna? hence, when king bello's men fling gibes and insults, every missile hits; but those of verdanna are blown back in its teeth: her enemies jeering her again and again." "king bello's men are dastards for that," cried yoomy. "it shows neither sense, nor spirit, nor humanity," said babbalanja. "all wide of the mark," cried media. "what is to be done for verdanna?" "what will she do for herself?" said babbalanja. "philosopher, you are an extraordinary sage; and since sages should be seers, reveal verdanna's future." "my lord, you will ever find true prophets, prudent; nor will any prophet risk his reputation upon predicting aught concerning this land. the isles are oro's. nevertheless, he who doctors verdanna aright, will first medicine king bello; who in some things is, himself a patient, though he would fain be a physician. however, my lord, there is a demon of a doctor in mardi, who at last deals with these desperate cases. he employs only pills, picked off the conroupta quiancensis tree." "and what sort of a vegetable is that?" asked mohi. "consult the botanists," said babbalanja. chapter xlix they draw nigh to porpheero; where they behold a terrific eruption gliding away from verdanna at the turn of the tide, we cleared the strait, and gaining the more open lagoon, pointed our prows for porpheero, from whose magnificent monarchs my lord media promised himself a glorious reception. "they are one and all demi-gods," he cried, "and have the old demi-god feeling. we have seen no great valleys like theirs:--their scepters are long as our spears; to their sumptuous palaces, donjalolo's are but inns:--their banquetting halls are as vistas; no generations run parallel to theirs:--their pedigrees reach back into chaos. "babbalanja! here you will find food for philosophy:--the whole land checkered with nations, side by side contrasting in costume, manners, and mind. here you will find science and sages; manuscripts in miles; bards singing in choirs. "mohi! here you will flag over your page; in porpheero the ages have hived all their treasures: like a pyramid, the past shadows over the land. "yoomy! here you will find stuff for your songs:--blue rivers flowing through forest arches, and vineyards; velvet meads, soft as ottomans: bright maidens braiding the golden locks of the harvest; and a background of mountains, that seem the end of the world. or if nature will not content you, then turn to the landscapes of art. see! mosaic walls, tattooed like our faces; paintings, vast as horizons; and into which, you feel you could rush: see! statues to which you could off turban; cities of columns standing thick as mankind; and firmanent domes forever shedding their sunsets of gilding: see! spire behind spire, as if the land were the ocean, and all bello's great navy were riding at anchor. "noble taji! you seek for your yillah;--give over despair! porpheero's such a scene of enchantment, that there, the lost maiden must lurk." "a glorious picture!" cried babbalanja, but turn the medal, my lord;-- what says the reverse?" "cynic! have done.--but bravo! we'll ere long be in franko, the goodliest vale of them all; how i long to take her old king by the hand!" the sun was now setting behind us, lighting up the white cliffs of dominora, and the green capes of verdanna; while in deep shade lay before us the long winding shores of porpheero. it was a sunset serene. "how the winds lowly warble in the dying day's ear," murmured yoomy. "a mild, bright night, we'll have," said media. "see you not those clouds over franko, my lord," said mohi, shaking his head. "ah, aged and weather-wise as ever, sir chronicler;--i predict a fair night, and many to follow." "patience needs no prophet," said babbalanja. "the night, is at hand." hitherto the lagoon had been smooth: but anon, it grew black, and stirred; and out of the thick darkness came clamorous sounds. soon, there shot into the air a vivid meteor, which bursting at the zenith, radiated down the firmament in fiery showers, leaving treble darkness behind. then as all held their breath, from franko there spouted an eruption, which seemed to plant all mardi in the foreground. as when vesuvius lights her torch, and in the blaze, the storm-swept surges in naples' bay rear and plunge toward it; so now, showed franko's multitudes, as they stormed the summit where their monarch's palace blazed, fast by the burning mountain. "by my eternal throne!" cried media, starting, "the old volcano has burst forth again!" "but a new vent, my lord," said babbalanja. "more fierce this, than the eruption which happened in my youth," said mohi--"methinks that franko's end has come." "you look pale, my lord," said babbalanja, "while all other faces glow;--yoomy, doff that halo in the presence of a king." over the waters came a rumbling sound, mixed with the din of warfare, and thwarted by showers of embers that fell not, for the whirling blasts. "off shore! off shore!" cried media; and with all haste we gained a place of safety. down the valley now poured rhines and rhones of lava, a fire-freshet, flooding the forests from their fastnesses, and leaping with them into the seething sea. the shore was lined with multitudes pushing off wildly in canoes. meantime, the fiery storm from franko, kindled new flames in the distant valleys of porpheero; while driven over from verdanna came frantic shouts, and direful jubilees. upon dominora a baleful glare was resting. "thrice cursed flames!" cried media. "is mardi to be one conflagration? how it crackles, forks, and roars!--is this our funeral pyre?" "recline, recline, my lord," said babbalanja. "fierce flames are ever brief--a song, sweet yoomy! your pipe, old mohi! greater fires than this have ere now blazed in mardi. let us be calm;--the isles were made to burn;--braid-beard! hereafter, in some quiet cell, of this whole scene you will but make one chapter;--come, digest it now." "my face is scorched," cried media. "the last, last day!" cried mohi. "not so, old man," said babbalanja, "when that day dawns, 'twill dawn serene. be calm, be calm, my potent lord." "talk not of calm brows in storm-time!" cried media fiercely. "see! how the flames blow over upon dominora!" "yet the fires they kindle there are soon extinguished," said babbalanja. "no, no; dominora ne'er can burn with franko's fires; only those of her own kindling may consume her." "away! away!" cried media. "we may not touch porpheero now.--up sails! and westward be our course." so dead before the blast, we scudded. morning broke, showing no sign of land. "hard must it go with franko's king," said media, "when his people rise against him with the red volcanoes. oh, for a foot to crush them! hard, too, with all who rule in broad porpheero. and may she we seek, survive this conflagration!" "my lord," said babbalanja, "where'ere she hide, ne'er yet did yillah lurk in this porpheero; nor have we missed the maiden, noble taji! in not touching at its shores." "this fire must make a desert of the land," said mohi; "burn up and bury all her tilth." "yet, mohi, vineyards flourish over buried villages," murmured yoomy. "true, minstrel," said babbalanja, "and prairies are purified by fire. ashes breed loam. nor can any skill make the same surface forever fruitful. in all times past, things have been overlaid; and though the first fruits of the marl are wild and poisonous, the palms at last spring forth; and once again the tribes repose in shade. my lord, if calms breed storms, so storms calms; and all this dire commotion must eventuate in peace. it may be, that perpheero's future has been cheaply won." chapter l wherein king media celebrates the glories of autumn, the minstrel, the promise of spring "ho, now!" cried media, "across the wide waters, for that new mardi, vivenza! let us indeed see, whether she who eludes us elsewhere, he at last found in vivenza's vales." "there or nowhere, noble taji," said yoomy. "be not too sanguine, gentle yoomy," said babbalanja. "does yillah choose rather to bower in the wild wilderness of vivenza, than in the old vineyards of porpheero?" said braid-beard. sang yoomy:-- her bower is not of the vine, but the wild, wild eglantine! not climbing a moldering arch, but upheld by the fir-green larch. old ruins she flies: to new valleys she hies:-- not the hoar, moss-wood, ivied trees each a rood-- not in maramma she dwells, hollow with hermit cells. 'tis a new, new isle! an infant's its smile, soft-rocked by the sea. its bloom all in bud; no tide at its flood, in that fresh-born sea! spring! spring! where she dwells, in her sycamore dells, where mardi is young and new: its verdure all eyes with dew. there, there! in the bright, balmy morns, the young deer sprout their horns, deep-tangled in new-branching groves, where the red-rover robin roves,-- stooping his crest, to his molting breast-- rekindling the flambeau there! spring! spring! where she dwells, in her sycamore dells:-- where, fulfilling their fates, all creatures seek mates-- the thrush, the doe, and the hare! "thou art most musical, sweet yoomy," said media. "concerning this spring-land vivenza. but are not the old autumnal valleys of porpheero more glorious than those of vernal vivenza? vivenza shows no trophies of the summer time, but dominora's full-blown rose hangs blushing on her garden walls; her autumn groves are glory-dyed." "my lord, autumn soon merges in winter, but the spring has all the seasons before. the full-blown rose is nearer withering than the bud. the faint morn is a blossom: the crimson sunset the flower." chapter li in which azzageddi seems to use babbalanja for a mouth-piece porpheero far astern, the spirits of the company rose. once again, old mohi serenely unbraided, and rebraided his beard; and sitting turk- wise on his mat, my lord media smoking his gonfalon, diverted himself with the wild songs of yoomy, the wild chronicles of mohi, or the still wilder speculations of babbalanja; now and then, as from pitcher to pitcher, pouring royal old wine down his soul. among other things, media, who at times turned over babbalanja for an encyclopaedia, however unreliable, demanded information upon the subject of neap tides and their alleged slavish vassalage to the moon. when true to his cyclopaediatic nature, babbalanja quoted from a still older and better authority than himself; in brief, from no other than eternal bardianna. it seems that that worthy essayist had discussed the whole matter in a chapter thus headed: "on seeing into mysteries through mill-stones;" and throughout his disquisitions he evinced such a profundity of research, though delivered in a style somewhat equivocal, that the company were much struck by the erudition displayed. "babbalanja, that bardianna of yours must have been a wonderful student," said media after a pause, "no doubt he consumed whole thickets of rush-lights." "not so, my lord.--'patience, patience, philosophers,' said bardianna; 'blow out your tapers, bolt not your dinners, take time, wisdom will be plenty soon.'" "a notable hint! why not follow it, babbalanja?" "because, my lord, i have overtaken it, and passed on." "true to your nature, babbalanja; you stay nowhere." "ay, keep moving is my motto; but speaking of hard students, did my lord ever hear of midni the ontologist and entomologist?" "no." "then, my lord, you shall hear of him now. midni was of opinion that day-light was vulgar; good enough for taro-planting and traveling; but wholly unadapted to the sublime ends of study. he toiled by night; from sunset to sunrise poring over the works of the old logicans. like most philosophers, midni was an amiable man; but one thing invariably put him out. he read in the woods by glow-worm light; insect in hand, tracing over his pages, line by line. but glow-worms burn not long: and in the midst of some calm intricate thought, at some imminent comma, the insect often expired, and midni groped for a meaning. upon such an occasion, 'ho, ho,' he cried; 'but for one instant of sun- light to see my way to a period!' but sun-light there was none; so midni sprang to his feet, and parchment under arm, raced about among the sloughs and bogs for another glow-worm. often, making a rapid descent with his turban, he thought he had caged a prize; but nay. again he tried; yet with no better succcess. nevertheless, at last he secured one; but hardly had he read three lines by its light, when out it went. again and again this occurred. and thus he forever went halting and stumbling through his studies, and plunging through his quagmires after a glim." at this ridiculous tale, one of our silliest paddlers burst into uncontrollable mirth. offended at which breach of decorum, media sharply rebuked him. but he protested he could not help laughing. again media was about to reprimand him, when babbalanja begged leave to interfere. "my lord, he is not to blame. mark how earnestly he struggles to suppress his mirth; but he can not. it has often been the same with myself. and many a time have i not only vainly sought to check my laughter, but at some recitals i have both laughed and cried. but can opposite emotions be simultaneous in one being? no. i wanted to weep; but my body wanted to smile, and between us we almost choked. my lord media, this man's body laughs; not the man himself." "but his body is his own, babbalanja; and he should have it under better control." "the common error, my lord. our souls belong to our bodies, not our bodies to our souls. for which has the care of the other? which keeps house? which looks after the replenishing of the aorta and auricles, and stores away the secretions? which toils and ticks while the other sleeps? which is ever giving timely hints, and elderly warnings? which is the most authoritative?--our bodies, surely. at a hint, you must move; at a notice to quit, you depart. simpletons show us, that a body can get along almost without a soul; but of a soul getting along without a body, we have no tangible and indisputable proof. my lord, the wisest of us breathe involuntarily. and how many millions there are who live from day to day by the incessant operation of subtle processes in them, of which they know nothing, and care less? little ween they, of vessels lacteal and lymphatic, of arteries femoral and temporal; of pericranium or pericardium; lymph, chyle, fibrin, albumen, iron in the blood, and pudding in the head; they live by the charity of their bodies, to which they are but butlers. i say, my lord, our bodies are our betters. a soul so simple, that it prefers evil to good, is lodged in a frame, whose minutest action is full of unsearchable wisdom. knowing this superiority of theirs, our bodies are inclined to be willful: our beards grow in spite of us; and as every one knows, they sometimes grow on dead men." "you mortals are alive, then, when you are dead, babbalanja." "no, my lord; but our beards survive us." "an ingenious distinction; go on, philosopher." "without bodies, my lord, we mardians would be minus our strongest motive-passions, those which, in some way or other, root under our every action. hence, without bodies, we must be something else than we essentially are. wherefore, that saying imputed to alma, and which, by his very followers, is deemed the most hard to believe of all his instructions, and the most at variance with all preconceived notions of immortality, i babbalanja, account the most reasonable of his doctrinal teachings. it is this;--that at the last day, every man shall rise in the flesh." "pray, babbalanja, talk not of resurrections to a demi-god." "then let me rehearse a story, my lord. you will find it in the 'very merry marvelings' of the improvisitor quiddi; and a quaint book it is. fugle-fi is its finis:--fugle-fi, fugle-fo, fugle-fogle-orum!" "that wild look in his eye again," murmured yoomy. "proceed, azzageddi," said media. "the philosopher grando had a sovereign contempt for his carcass. often he picked a quarrel with it; and always was flying out in its disparagement. 'out upon you, you beggarly body! you clog, drug, drag! you keep me from flying; i could get along better without you. out upon you, i say, you vile pantry, cellar, sink, sewer; abominable body! what vile thing are you not? and think you, beggar! to have the upper hand of me? make a leg to that man if you dare, without my permission. this smell is intolerable; but turn from it, if you can, unless i give the word. bolt this yam!--it is done. carry me across yon field!--off we go. stop!--it's a dead halt. there, i've trained you enough for to-day; now, sirrah, crouch down in the shade, and be quiet.--i'm rested. so, here's for a stroll, and a reverie homeward:-- up, carcass, and march.' so the carcass demurely rose and paced, and the philosopher meditated. he was intent upon squaring the circle; but bump he came against a bough. 'how now, clodhopping bumpkin! you would take advantage of my reveries, would you? but i'll be even with you;' and seizing a cudgel, he laid across his shoulders with right good will. but one of his backhanded thwacks injured his spinal cord; the philosopher dropped; but presently came to. 'adzooks! i'll bend or break you! up, up, and i'll run you home for this.' but wonderful to tell, his legs refused to budge; all sensation had left them. but a huge wasp happening to sting his foot, not him, for he felt it not, the leg incontinently sprang into the air, and of itself, cut all manner of capers. be still! down with you!' but the leg refused. 'my arms are still loyal,' thought grando; and with them he at last managed to confine his refractory member. but all commands, volitions, and persuasions, were as naught to induce his limbs to carry him home. it was a solitary place; and five days after, grando the philosopher was found dead under a tree." "ha, ha!" laughed media, "azzageddi is full as merry as ever." "but, my lord," continued babbalanja, "some creatures have still more perverse bodies than grando's. in the fables of ridendiabola, this is to be found. 'a fresh-water polyp, despising its marine existence; longed to live upon air. but all it could do, its tentacles or arms still continued to cram its stomach. by a sudden preternatural impulse, however, the polyp at last turned itself inside out; supposing that after such a proceeding it would have no gastronomic interior. but its body proved ventricle outside as well as in. again its arms went to work; food was tossed in, and digestion continued.'" "is the literal part of that a fact?" asked mohi. "true as truth," said babbalanja; "the polyp will live turned inside out." "somewhat curious, certainly," said media.--"but me-thinks, babbalanja, that somewhere i have heard something about organic functions, so called; which may account for the phenomena you mention; and i have heard too, me-thinks, of what are called reflex actions of the nerves, which, duly considered, might deprive of its strangeness that story of yours concerning grande and his body." "mere substitutions of sounds for inexplicable meanings, my lord. in some things science cajoles us. now, what is undeniable of the polyp some physiologists analogically maintain with regard to us mardians; that forasmuch, as the lining of our interiors is nothing more than a continuation of the epidermis, or scarf-skin, therefore, that in a remote age, we too must have been turned wrong side out: an hypothesis, which, indirectly might account for our moral perversities: and also, for that otherwise nonsensical term--'the coat of the stomach;' for originally it must have been a surtout, instead of an inner garment." "pray, azzageddi," said media, "are you not a fool?" "one of a jolly company, my lord; but some creatures besides wearing their surtouts within, sport their skeletons without: witness the lobster and turtle, who alive, study their own anatomies." "azzageddi, you are a zany." "pardon, my lord," said mohi, "i think him more of a lobster; it's hard telling his jaws from his claws." "yes, braid-beard, i am a lobster, a mackerel, any thing you please; but my ancestors were kangaroos, not monkeys, as old boddo erroneously opined. my idea is more susceptible of demonstration than his. among the deepest discovered land fossils, the relics of kangaroos are discernible, but no relics of men. hence, there were no giants in those days; but on the contrary, kangaroos; and those kangaroos formed the first edition of mankind, since revised and corrected." "what has become of our finises, or tails, then?" asked mohi, wriggling in his seat. "the old question, mohi. but where are the tails of the tadpoles, after their gradual metamorphosis into frogs? have frogs any tails, old man? our tails, mohi, were worn off by the process of civilization; especially at the period when our fathers began to adopt the sitting posture: the fundamental evidence of all civilization, for neither apes, nor savages, can be said to sit; invariably, they squat on their hams. among barbarous tribes benches and settles are unknown. but, my lord media, as your liege and loving subject i can not sufficiently deplore the deprivation of your royal tail. that stiff and vertebrated member, as we find it in those rustic kinsmen we have disowned, would have been useful as a supplement to your royal legs; and whereas my good lord is now fain to totter on two stanchions, were he only a kangaroo, like the monarchs of old, the majesty of odo would be dignified, by standing firm on a tripod." "a very witty conceit! but have a care, azzageddi; your theory applies not to me." "babbalanja," said mohi, "you must be the last of the kangaroos." "i am, mohi." "but the old fashioned pouch or purse of your grandams?" hinted media. "my lord, i take it, that must have been transferred; nowadays our sex carries the purse." "ha, ha!" "my lord, why this mirth? let us be serious. although man is no longer a kangaroo, he may be said to be an inferior species of plant. plants proper are perhaps insensible of the circulation of their sap: we mortals are physically unconscious of the circulation of the blood; and for many ages were not even aware of the fact. plants know nothing of their interiors:--three score years and ten we trundle about ours, and never get a peep at them; plants stand on their stalks:--we stalk on our legs; no plant flourishes over its dead root:--dead in the grave, man lives no longer above ground; plants die without food:--so we. and now for the difference. plants elegantly inhale nourishment, without looking it up: like lords, they stand still and are served; and though green, never suffer from the colic:--whereas, we mortals must forage all round for our food: we cram our insides; and are loaded down with odious sacks and intestines. plants make love and multiply; but excel us in all amorous enticements, wooing and winning by soft pollens and essences. plants abide in one place, and live: we must travel or die. plants flourish without us: we must perish without them." "enough azzageddi!" cried media. "open not thy lips till to-morrow."' chapter lii the charming yoomy sings the morrow came; and three abreast, with snorting prows, we raced along; our mat-sails panting to the breeze. all present partook of the life of the air; and unanimously yoomy was called upon for a song. the canoes were passing a long, white reef, sparkling with shells, like a jeweler's case: and thus yoomy sang in the same old strain as of yore; beginning aloud, where he had left off in his soul:-- her sweet, sweet mouth! the peach-pearl shell:-- red edged its lips, that softly swell, just oped to speak, with blushing cheek, that fisherman with lonely spear on the reef ken, and lift to ear its voice to hear,-- soft sighing south! like this, like this,-- the rosy kiss!-- that maiden's mouth. a shell! a shell! a vocal shell! song-dreaming, in its inmost dell! her bosom! two buds half blown, they tell; a little valley between perfuming; that roves away, deserting the day,-- the day of her eyes illuming;-- that roves away, o'er slope and fell, till a soft, soft meadow becomes the dell. thus far, old mohi had been wriggling about in his seat, twitching his beard, and at every couplet looking up expectantly, as if he desired the company to think, that he was counting upon that line as the last; but now, starting to his feet, he exclaimed, "hold, minstrel! thy muse's drapery is becoming disordered: no more!" "then no more it shall be," said yoomy, "but you have lost a glorious sequel." chapter liii they draw nigh unto land in good time, after many days sailing, we snuffed the land from afar, and came to a great country, full of inland mountains, north and south stretching far out of sight. "all hail, kolumbo!" cried yoomy. coasting by a portion of it, which mohi called kanneeda, a province of king bello's, we perceived the groves rocking in the wind; their flexible boughs bending like bows; and the leaves flying forth, and darkening the landscape, like flocks of pigeons. "those groves must soon fall," said mohi. "not so," said babbalanja. "my lord, as these violent gusts are formed by the hostile meeting of two currents, one from over the lagoon, the other from land; they may be taken as significant of the occasional variances between kanneeda and dominora." "ay," said media, "and as mohi hints, the breeze from dominora must soon overthrow the groves of kanneeda." "not if the land-breeze holds, my lord;--one breeze oft blows another home.--stand up, and gaze! from cape to cape, this whole main we see, is young and froward. and far southward, past this kanneeda and vivenza, are haughty, overbearing streams, which at their mouths dam back the ocean, and long refuse to mix their freshness with the foreign brine:--so bold, so strong, so bent on hurling off aggression is this brave main, kolumbo;--last sought, last found, mardi's estate, so long kept back;--pray oro, it be not squandered foolishly. here lie plantations, held in fee by stout hearts and arms; and boundless fields, that may be had for seeing. here, your foes are forests, struck down with bloodless maces.--ho! mardi's poor, and mardi's strong! ye, who starve or beg; seventh-sons who slave for earth's first-born--here is your home; predestinated yours; come over, empire-founders! fathers of the wedded tribes to come!--abject now, illustrious evermore:--ho: sinew, brawn, and thigh!" "a very fine invocation," said media, "now babbalanja, be seated; and tell us whether dominora and the kings of porpheero do not own some small portion of this great continent, which just now you poetically pronounced as the spoil of any vagabonds who may choose to settle therein? is not kanneeda, dominora's?" "and was not vivenza once dominora's also? and what vivenza now is, kanneeda soon must be. i speak not, my lord, as wishful of what i say, but simply as foreknowing it. the thing must come. vain for dominora to claim allegiance from all the progeny she spawns. as well might the old patriarch of the flood reappear, and claim the right of rule over all mankind, as descended from the loins of his three roving sons. "'tis the old law:--the east peoples the west, the west the east; flux and reflux. and time may come, after the rise and fall of nations yet unborn, that, risen from its future ashes, porpheero shall be the promised land, and from her surplus hordes kolumbo people it." still coasting on, next day, we came to vivenza; and as media desired to land first at a point midway between its extremities, in order to behold the convocation of chiefs supposed to be assembled at this season, we held on our way, till we gained a lofty ridge, jutting out into the lagoon, a bastion to the neighboring land. it terminated in a lofty natural arch of solid trap. billows beat against its base. but above, waved an inviting copse, wherein was revealed an open temple of canes, containing one only image, that of a helmeted female, the tutelar deity of vivenza. the canoes drew near. "lo! what inscription is that?" cried media, "there, chiseled over the arch?" studying those immense hieroglyphics awhile, antiquarian mohi still eyeing them, said slowly:--"in-this-re-publi-can-land-all-men-are- born-free-and-equal." "false!" said media. "and how long stay they so?" said babbalanja. "but look lower, old man," cried media, "methinks there's a small hieroglyphic or two hidden away in yonder angle.--interpret them, old man." after much screwing of his eyes, for those characters were very minute, champollion mohi thus spoke--" except-the-tribe-of-hamo." "that nullifies the other," cried media. "ah, ye republicans!" "it seems to have been added for a postscript," rejoined braid-beard, screwing his eyes again. "perhaps so," said babbalanja, "but some wag must have done it." shooting through the arch, we rapidly gained the beach. chapter liv they visit the great central temple of vivenza the throng that greeted us upon landing were exceedingly boisterous. "whence came ye?" they cried. "whither bound? saw ye ever such a land as this? is it not a great and extensive republic? pray, observe how tall we are; just feel of our thighs; are we not a glorious people? here, feel of our beards. look round; look round; be not afraid; behold those palms; swear now, that this land surpasses all others. old bello's mountains are mole-hills to ours; his rivers, rills; his empires, villages; his palm-trees, shrubs." "true," said babbalanja. "but great oro must have had some hand in making your mountains and streams.--would ye have been as great in a desert?" "where is your king?" asked media, drawing himself up in his robe, and cocking his crown. "ha, ha, my fine fellow! we are all kings here; royalty breathes in the common air. but come on, come on. let us show you our great temple of freedom." and so saying, irreverently grasping his sacred arm, they conducted us toward a lofty structure, planted upon a bold hill, and supported by thirty pillars of palm; four quite green; as if recently added; and beyond these, an almost interminable vacancy, as if all the palms in mardi, were at some future time, to aid in upholding that fabric. upon the summit of the temple was a staff; and as we drew nigh, a man with a collar round his neck, and the red marks of stripes upon his back, was just in the act of hoisting a tappa standard-- correspondingly striped. other collared menials were going in and out of the temple. near the porch, stood an image like that on the top of the arch we had seen. upon its pedestal, were pasted certain hieroglyphical notices; according to mohi, offering rewards for missing men, so many hands high. entering the temple, we beheld an amphitheatrical space, in the middle of which, a great fire was burning. around it, were many chiefs, robed in long togas, and presenting strange contrasts in their style of tattooing. some were sociably laughing, and chatting; others diligently making excavations between their teeth with slivers of bamboo; or turning their heads into mills, were grinding up leaves and ejecting their juices. some were busily inserting the down of a thistle into their ears. several stood erect, intent upon maintaining striking attitudes; their javelins tragically crossed upon their chests. they would have looked very imposing, were it not, that in rear their vesture was sadly disordered. others, with swelling fronts, seemed chiefly indebted to their dinners for their dignity. many were nodding and napping. and, here and there, were sundry indefatigable worthies, making a great show of imperious and indispensable business; sedulously folding banana leaves into scrolls, and recklessly placing them into the hands of little boys, in gay turbans and trim little girdles, who thereupon fled as if with salvation for the dying. it was a crowded scene; the dusky chiefs, here and there, grouped together, and their fantastic tattooings showing like the carved work on quaint old chimney-stacks, seen from afar. but one of their number overtopped all the rest. as when, drawing nigh unto old rome, amid the crowd of sculptured columns and gables, st. peter's grand dome soars far aloft, serene in the upper air; so, showed one calm grand forehead among those of this mob of chieftains. that head was saturnina's. gall and spurzheim! saw you ever such a brow?--poised like an avalanche, under the shadow of a forest! woe betide the devoted valleys below! lavatar! behold those lips,--like mystic scrolls! those eyes,-- like panthers' caves at the base of popocatepetl! "by my right hand, saturnina," cried babbalanja, "but thou wert made in the image of thy maker! yet, have i beheld men, to the eye as commanding as thou; and surmounted by heads globe-like as thine, who never had thy caliber. we must measure brains, not heads, my lord; else, the sperm whale, with his tun of an occiput, would transcend us all." near by, were arched ways, leading to subterranean places, whence issued a savory steam, and an extraordinary clattering of calabashes, and smacking of lips, as if something were being eaten down there by the fattest of fat fellows, with the heartiest of appetites, and the most irresistible of relishes. it was a quaffing, guzzling, gobbling noise. peeping down, we beheld a company, breasted up against a board, groaning under numerous viands. in the middle of all, was a mighty great gourd, yellow as gold, and jolly round like a pumpkin in october, and so big it must have grown in the sun. thence flowed a tide of red wine. and before it, stood plenty of paunches being filled therewith like portly stone jars at a fountain. melancholy to tell, before that fine flood of old wine, and among those portly old topers, was a lean man; who occasionally ducked in his bill. he looked like an ibis standing in the nile at flood tide, among a tongue-lapping herd of hippopotami. they were jolly as the jolliest; and laughed so uproariously, that their hemispheres all quivered and shook, like vast provinces in an earthquake. ha! ha! ha! how they laughed, and they roared. a deaf man might have heard them; and no milk could have soured within a forty- two-pounder ball shot of that place. now, the smell of good things is no very bad thing in itself. it is the savor of good things beyond; proof positive of a glorious good meal. so snuffing up those zephyrs from araby the blest, those boisterous gales, blowing from out the mouths of baked boars, stuffed with bread- fruit, bananas, and sage, we would fain have gone down and partaken. but this could not be; for we were told that those worthies below, were a club in secret conclave; very busy in settling certain weighty state affairs upon a solid basis, they were all chiefs of immense capacity:--how many gallons, there was no finding out. be sure, now, a most riotous noise came up from those catacombs, which seemed full of the ghosts of fat lamberts; and this uproar it was, that heightened the din above-ground. but heedless of all, in the midst of the amphitheater, stood a tall, gaunt warrior, ferociously tattooed, with a beak like a buzzard; long dusty locks; and his hands full of headless arrows. he was laboring under violent paroxysms; three benevolent individuals essaying to hold him. but repeatedly breaking loose, he burst anew into his delirium; while with an absence of sympathy, distressing to behold, the rest of the assembly seemed wholly engrossed with themselves; nor did they appear to care how soon the unfortunate lunatic might demolish himself by his frantic proceedings. toward one side of the amphitheatrical space, perched high upon an elevated dais, sat a white-headed old man with a tomahawk in his hand: earnestly engaged in overseeing the tumult; though not a word did he say. occasionally, however, he was regarded by those present with a mysterious sort of deference; and when they chanced to pass between him and the crazy man, they invariably did so in a stooping position; probably to elude the atmospheric grape and cannister, continually flying from the mouth of the lunatic. "what mob is this?" cried media. "'tis the grand council of vivenza," cried a bystander. "hear ye not alanno?" and he pointed to the lunatic. now coming close to alanno, we found, that with incredible volubility, he was addressing the assembly upon some all-absorbing subject connected with king bello, and his presumed encroachments toward the northwest of vivenza. one hand smiting his hip, and the other his head, the lunatic thus proceeded; roaring like a wild beast, and beating the air like a windmill:-- "i have said it! the thunder is flashing, the lightning is crashing! already there's an earthquake in dominora! full soon will old bello discover that his diabolical machinations against this ineffable land must soon come to naught. who dare not declare, that we are not invincible? i repeat it, we are. ha! ha! audacious bello must bite the dust! hair by hair, we will trail his gory gray beard at the end of our spears! ha, ha! i grow hoarse; but would mine were a voice like the wild bulls of bullorom, that i might be heard from one end of this great and gorgeous land to its farthest zenith; ay, to the uttermost diameter of its circumference. awake! oh vivenza. the signs of the times are portentous; nay, extraordinary; i hesitate not to add, peculiar! up! up! let us not descend to the bathos, when we should soar to the climax! does not all mardi wink and look on? is the great sun itself a frigid spectator? then let us double up our mandibles to the deadly encounter. methinks i see it now. old bello is crafty, and his oath is recorded to obliterate us! across this wide lagoon he casts his serpent eyes; whets his insatiate bill; mumbles his barbarous tusks; licks his forked tongues; and who knows when we shall have the shark in our midst? yet be not deceived; for though as yet, bello has forborn molesting us openly, his emissaries are at work; his infernal sappers, and miners, and wet-nurses, and midwives, and grave- diggers are busy! his canoe-yards are all in commotion! in navies his forests are being launched upon the wave; and ere long typhoons, zephyrs, white-squalls, balmy breezes, hurricanes, and besoms will be raging round us!" his philippic concluded, alanno was conducted from the place; and being now quite exhausted, cold cobble-stones were applied to his temples, and he was treated to a bath in a stream. this chieftain, it seems, was from a distant western valley, called hio-hio, one of the largest and most fertile in vivenza, though but recently settled. its inhabitants, and those of the vales adjoining,-- a right sturdy set of fellows,--were accounted the most dogmatically democratic and ultra of all the tribes in vivenza; ever seeking to push on their brethren to the uttermost; and especially were they bitter against bello. but they were a fine young tribe, nevertheless. like strong new wine they worked violently in becoming clear. time, perhaps, would make them all right. an interval of greater uproar than ever now ensued; during which, with his tomahawk, the white-headed old man repeatedly thumped and pounded the seat where he sat, apparently to augment the din, though he looked anxious to suppress it. at last, tiring of his posture, he whispered in the ear of a chief, his friend; who, approaching a portly warrior present, prevailed upon him to rise and address the assembly. and no sooner did this one do so, than the whole convocation dispersed, as if to their yams; and with a grin, the little old man leaped from his seat, and stretched his legs on a mat. the fire was now extinguished, and the temple deserted. chapter lv wherein babbalanja comments upon the speech of alanno as we lingered in the precincts of the temple after all others had departed, sundry comments were made upon what we had seen; and having remarked the hostility of the lunatic orator toward dominora, babbalanja thus addressed media:-- "my lord, i am constrained to believe, that all vivenza can not be of the same mind with the grandiloquent chief from hio-hio. nevertheless, i imagine, that between dominora and this land, there exists at bottom a feeling akin to animosity, which is not yet wholly extinguished; though but the smoldering embers of a once raging fire. my lord, you may call it poetry if you will, but there are nations in mardi, that to others stand in the relation of sons to sires. thus with dominora and vivenza. and though, its majority attained, vivenza is now its own master, yet should it not fail in a reverential respect for its parent. in man or nation, old age is honorable; and a boy, however tall, should never take his sire by the beard. and though dominora did indeed ill merit vivenza's esteem, yet by abstaining from criminations, vivenza should ever merit its own. and if in time to come, which oro forbid, vivenza must needs go to battle with king bello, let vivenza first cross the old veteran's spear with all possible courtesy. on the other hand, my lord, king bello should never forget, that whatever be glorious in vivenza, redounds to himself. and as some gallant old lord proudly measures the brawn and stature of his son; and joys to view in his noble young lineaments the likeness of his own; bethinking him, that when at last laid in his tomb, he will yet survive in the long, strong life of his child, the worthy inheritor of his valor and renown; even so, should king bello regard the generous promise of this young vivenza of his own lusty begetting. my lord, behold these two states! of all nations in the archipelago, they alone are one in blood. dominora is the last and greatest anak of old times; vivenza, the foremost and goodliest stripling of the present. one is full of the past; the other brims with the future. ah! did this sire's old heart but beat to free thoughts, and back his bold son, all mardi would go down before them. and high oro may have ordained for them a career, little divined by the mass. methinks, that as vivenza will never cause old bello to weep for his son; so, vivenza will not, this many a long year, be called to weep over the grave of its sire. and though king bello may yet lay aside his old-fashioned cocked hat of a crown, and comply with the plain costume of the times; yet will his, frame remain sturdy as of yore, and equally grace any habiliments he may don. and those who say, dominora is old and worn out, may very possibly err. for if, as a nation, dominora be old--her present generation is full as young as the youths in any land under the sun. then, ho! worthy twain! each worthy the other, join hands on the instant, and weld them together. lo! the past is a prophet. be the future, its prophecy fulfilled." chapter lvi a scene in tee land of warwicks, or king-makers wending our way from the temple, we were accompanied by a fluent, obstreperous wight, one znobbi, a runaway native of porpheero, but now an enthusiastic inhabitant of vivenza. "here comes our great chief!" he cried. "behold him! it was _i_ that had a hand in making him what he is!" and so saying, he pointed out a personage, no way distinguished, except by the tattooing on his forehead--stars, thirty in number; and an uncommonly long spear in his hand. freely he mingled with the crowd. "behold, how familiar i am with him!" cried znobbi, approaching, and pitcher-wise taking him by the handle of his face. "friend," said the dignitary, "thy salute is peculiar, but welcome. i reverence the enlightened people of this land." "mean-spirited hound!" muttered media, "were i him, i had impaled that audacious plebeian." "there's a head-chief for you, now, my fine fellow!" cried znobbi. "hurrah! three cheers! ay, ay! all kings here--all equal. every thing's in common." here, a bystander, feeling something grazing his side, looked down; and perceived znobbi's hand in clandestine vicinity to the pouch at his girdle-end. whereupon the crowd shouted, "a thief! a thief!" and with a loud voice the starred chief cried--"seize him, people, and tie him to yonder tree." and they seized, and tied him on the spot. "ah," said media, "this chief has something to say, after all; he pinions a king at a word, though a plebeian takes him by the nose. beshrew me, i doubt not, that spear of his, though without a tassel, is longer and sharper than mine." "there's not so much freedom here as these freemen think," said babbalanja, turning; "i laugh and admire." chapter lvii they hearken unto a voice from the gods next day we retraced our voyage northward, to visit that section of vivenza. in due time we landed. to look round was refreshing. of all the lands we had seen, none looked more promising. the groves stood tall and green; the fields spread flush and broad; the dew of the first morning seemed hardly vanished from the grass. on all sides was heard the fall of waters, the swarming of bees, and the rejoicing hum of a thriving population. "ha, ha!" laughed yoomy, "labor laughs in this land; and claps his hands in the jubilee groves! methinks that yillah will yet be found." generously entertained, we tarried in this land; till at length, from over the lagoon, came full tidings of the eruption we had witnessed in franko, with many details. the conflagration had spread through porpheero and the kings were to and fro hunted, like malefactors by blood-hounds; all that part of mardi was heaving with throes. with the utmost delight, these tidings were welcomed by many; yet others heard them with boding concern. those, too, there were, who rejoiced that the kings were cast down; but mourned that the people themselves stood not firmer. a victory, turned to no wise and enduring account, said they, is no victory at all. some victories revert to the vanquished. but day by day great crowds ran down to the beach, in wait for canoes periodically bringing further intelligence. every hour new cries startled the air. "hurrah! another, kingdom is burnt down to the earth's edge; another demigod is unhelmed; another republic is dawning. shake hands, freemen, shake hands! soon will we hear of dominora down in the dust; of hapless verdanna free as ourselves; all porpheero's volcanoes are bursting! who may withstand the people? the times tell terrible tales to tyrants! ere we die, freemen, all mardi will be free." overhearing these shouts, babbalanja thus addressed media:--"my lord, i can not but believe, that these men, are far more excited than those with whom they so ardently sympathize. but no wonder. the single discharges which are heard in porpheero; here come condensed in one tremendous report. every arrival is a firing off of events by platoons." now, during this tumultuous interval, king media very prudently kept himself exceedingly quiet. he doffed his regalia; and in all things carried himself with a dignified discretion. and many hours he absented himself; none knowing whither he went, or what his employment. so also with babbalanja. but still pursuing our search, at last we all journeyed into a great valley, whose inhabitants were more than commonly inflated with the ardor of the times. rambling on, we espied a clamorous crowd gathered about a conspicuous palm, against which, a scroll was fixed. the people were violently agitated; storming out maledictions against the insolent knave, who, over night must have fixed there, that scandalous document. but whoever he may have been, certain it was, he had contrived to hood himself effectually. after much vehement discussion, during which sundry inflammatory harangues were made from the stumps of trees near by, it was proposed, that the scroll should be read aloud, so that all might give ear. seizing it, a fiery youth mounted upon the bowed shoulders of an old man, his sire; and with a shrill voice, ever and anon interrupted by outcries, read as follows:-- "sovereign-kings of vivenza! it is fit you should hearken to wisdom. but well aware, that you give ear to little wisdom except of your own; and that as freemen, you are free to hunt down him who dissents from your majesties; i deem it proper to address you anonymously. "and if it please you, you may ascribe this voice to the gods: for never will you trace it to man. "it is not unknown, sovereign-kings! that in these boisterous days, the lessons of history are almost discarded, as superseded by present experiences. and that while all mardi's present has grown out of its past, it is becoming obsolete to refer to what has been. yet, peradventure, the past is an apostle. "the grand error of this age, sovereign-kings! is the general supposition, that the very special diabolus is abroad; whereas, the very special diabolus has been abroad ever since mardi began. "and the grand error of your nation, sovereign-kings! seems this:--the conceit that mardi is now in the last scene of the last act of her drama; and that all preceding events were ordained, to bring about the catastrophe you believe to be at hand,--a universal and permanent republic. "may it please you, those who hold to these things are fools, and not wise. "time is made up of various ages; and each thinks its own a novelty. but imbedded in the walls of the pyramids, which outrun all chronologies, sculptured stones are found, belonging to yet older fabrics. and as in the mound-building period of yore, so every age thinks its erections will forever endure. but as your forests grow apace, sovereign-kings! overrunning the tumuli in your western vales; so, while deriving their substance from the past, succeeding generations overgrow it; but in time, themselves decay. "oro decrees these vicissitudes. "in chronicles of old, you read, sovereign kings! that an eagle from the clouds presaged royalty to the fugitive taquinoo; and a king, taquinoo reigned; no end to my dynasty, thought he. "but another omen descended, foreshadowing the fall of zooperbi, his son; and zooperbi returning from his camp, found his country a fortress against him. no more kings would she have. and for five hundred twelve-moons the regifugium or king's-flight, was annually celebrated like your own jubilee day. and rampant young orators stormed out detestation of kings; and augurs swore that their birds presaged immortality to freedom. "then, romara's free eagles flew over all mardi, and perched on the topmost diadems of the east. "ever thus must it be. "for, mostly, monarchs are as gemmed bridles upon the world, checking the plungings of a steed from the pampas. and republics are as vast reservoirs, draining down all streams to one level; and so, breeding a fullness which can not remain full, without overflowing. and thus, romara flooded all mardi, till scarce an ararat was left of the lofty kingdoms which had been. "thus, also, did franko, fifty twelve-moons ago. thus may she do again. and though not yet, have you, sovereign-kings! in any large degree done likewise, it is because you overflow your redundancies within your own mighty borders; having a wild western waste, which many shepherds with their flocks could not overrun in a day. yet overrun at last it will be; and then, the recoil must come. "and, may it please you, that thus far your chronicles had narrated a very different story, had your population been pressed and packed, like that of your old sire-land dominora. then, your great experiment might have proved an explosion; like the chemist's who, stirring his mixture, was blown by it into the air. "for though crossed, and recrossed by many brave quarterings, and boasting the great bull in your pedigree; yet, sovereign-kings! you are not meditative philosophers like the people of a small republic of old; nor enduring stoics, like their neighbors. pent up, like them, may it please you, your thirteen original tribes had proved more turbulent, than so many mutinous legions. free horses need wide prairies; and fortunate for you, sovereign-kings! that you have room enough, wherein to be free. "and, may it please you, you are free, partly, because you are young. your nation is like a fine, florid youth, full of fiery impulses, and hard to restrain; his strong hand nobly championing his heart. on all sides, freely he gives, and still seeks to acquire. the breath of his nostrils is like smoke in spring air; every tendon is electric with generous resolves. the oppressor he defies to his beard; the high walls of old opinions he scales with a bound. in the future he sees all the domes of the east. "but years elapse, and this bold boy is transformed. his eyes open not as of yore; his heart is shut up as a vice. he yields not a groat; and seeking no more acquisitions, is only bent on preserving his hoard. the maxims once trampled under foot, are now printed on his front; and he who hated oppressors, is become an oppressor himself. "thus, often, with men; thus, often, with nations. then marvel not, sovereign-kings! that old states are different from yours; and think not, your own must forever remain liberal as now. "each age thinks its own is eternal. but though for five hundred twelve-moons, all romara, by courtesy of history, was republican; yet, at last, her terrible king-tigers came, and spotted themselves with gore. "and time was, when dominora was republican, down to her sturdy back- bone. the son of an absolute monarch became the man karolus; and his crown and head, both rolled in the dust. and dominora had her patriots by thousands; and lusty defenses, and glorious areopagiticas were written, not since surpassed; and no turban was doffed save in homage of oro. "yet, may it please you, to the sound of pipe and tabor, the second king karolus returned in good time; and was hailed gracious majesty by high and low. "throughout all eternity, the parts of the past are but parts of the future reversed. in the old foot-prints, up and down, you mortals go, eternally traveling your sierras. and not more infallible the ponderings of the calculating machine than the deductions from the decimals of history. "in nations, sovereign-kings! there is a transmigration of souls; in you, is a marvelous destiny. the eagle of romara revives in your own mountain bird, and once more is plumed for her flight. her screams are answered by the vauntful cries of a hawk; his red comb yet reeking with slaughter. and one east, one west, those bold birds may fly, till they lock pinions in the midmost beyond. "but, soaring in the sky over the nations that shall gather their broods under their wings, that bloody hawk may hereafter be taken for the eagle. "and though crimson republics may rise in constellations, like fiery aldebarans, speeding to their culminations; yet, down must they sink at last, and leave the old sultan-sun in the sky; in time, again to be deposed. "for little longer, may it please you, can republics subsist now, than in days gone by. for, assuming that mardi is wiser than of old; nevertheless, though all men approached sages in intelligence, some would yet be more wise than others; and so, the old degrees be preserved. and no exemption would an equality of knowledge furnish, from the inbred servility of mortal to mortal; from all the organic causes, which inevitably divide mankind into brigades and battalions, with captains at their head. "civilization has not ever been the brother of equality. freedom was born among the wild eyries in the mountains; and barbarous tribes have sheltered under her wings, when the enlightened people of the plain have nestled under different pinions. "though, thus far, for you, sovereign-kings! your republic has been fruitful of blessings; yet, in themselves, monarchies are not utterly evil. for many nations, they are better than republics; for many, they will ever so remain. and better, on all hands, that peace should rule with a scepter, than than the tribunes of the people should brandish their broadswords. better be the subject of a king, upright and just; than a freeman in franko, with the executioner's ax at every corner. "it is not the prime end, and chief blessing, to be politically free. and freedom is only good as a means; is no end in itself nor, did man fight it out against his masters to the haft, not then, would he uncollar his neck from the yoke. a born thrall to the last, yelping out his liberty, he still remains a slave unto oro; and well is it for the universe, that oro's scepter is absolute. "world-old the saying, that it is easier to govern others, than oneself. and that all men should govern themselves as nations, needs that all men be better, and wiser, than the wisest of one-man rulers. but in no stable democracy do all men govern themselves. though an army be all volunteers, martial law must prevail. delegate your power, you leagued mortals must. the hazard you must stand. and though unlike king bello of dominora, your great chieftain, sovereign-kings! may not declare war of himself; nevertheless, has he done a still more imperial thing:--gone to war without declaring intentions. you yourselves were precipitated upon a neighboring nation, ere you knew your spears were in your hands. "but, as in stars you have written it on the welkin, sovereign-kings! you are a great and glorious people. and verily, yours is the best and happiest land under the sun. but not wholly, because you, in your wisdom, decreed it: your origin and geography necessitated it. nor, in their germ, are all your blessings to be ascribed to the noble sires, who of yore fought in your behalf, sovereign-kings! your nation enjoyed no little independence before your declaration declared it. your ancient pilgrims fathered your liberty; and your wild woods harbored the nursling. for the state that to-day is made up of slaves, can not to-morrow transmute her bond into free; though lawlessness may transform them into brutes. freedom is the name for a thing that is _not_ freedom; this, a lesson never learned in an hour or an age. by some tribes it will never be learned. "yet, if it please you, there may be such a thing as being free under caesar. ages ago, there were as many vital freemen, as breathe vital air to-day. "names make not distinctions; some despots rule without swaying scepters. though king bello's palace was not put together by yoked men; your federal temple of freedom, sovereign-kings! was the handiwork of slaves. "it is not gildings, and gold maces, and crown jewels alone, that make a people servile. there is much bowing and cringing among you yourselves, sovereign-kings! poverty is abased before riches, all mardi over; any where, it is hard to be a debtor; any where, the wise will lord it over fools; every where, suffering is found. "thus, freedom is more social than political. and its real felicity is not to be shared. _that_ is of a man's own individual getting and holding. it is not, who rules the state, but who rules me. better be secure under one king, than exposed to violence from twenty millions of monarchs, though oneself be of the number. "but superstitious notions you harbor, sovereign kings! did you visit dominora, you would not be marched straight into a dungeon. and though you would behold sundry sights displeasing, you would start to inhale such liberal breezes; and hear crowds boasting of their privileges; as you, of yours. nor has the wine of dominora, a monarchical flavor. "now, though far and wide, to keep equal pace with the times, great reforms, of a verity, be needed; nowhere are bloody revolutions required. though it be the most certain of remedies, no prudent invalid opens his veins, to let out his disease with his life. and though all evils may be assuaged; all evils can not be done away. for evil is the chronic malady of the universe; and checked in one place, breaks forth in another. "of late, on this head, some wild dreams have departed. "there are many, who erewhile believed that the age of pikes and javelins was passed; that after a heady and blustering youth, old mardi was at last settling down into a serene old age; and that the indian summer, first discovered in your land, sovereign kings! was the hazy vapor emitted from its tranquil pipe. but it has not so proved. mardi's peaces are but truces. long absent, at last the red comets have returned. and return they must, though their periods be ages. and should mardi endure till mountain melt into mountain, and all the isles form one table-land; yet, would it but expand the old battle-plain. "students of history are horror-struck at the massacres of old; but in the shambles, men are being murdered to-day. could time be reversed, and the future change places with the past, the past would cry out against us, and our future, full as loudly, as we against the ages foregone. all the ages are his children, calling each other names. "hark ye, sovereign-kings! cheer not on the yelping pack too furiously: hunters have been torn by their hounds. be advised; wash your hands. hold aloof. oro has poured out an ocean for an everlasting barrier between you and the worst folly which other republics have perpetrated. that barrier hold sacred. and swear never to cross over to porpheero, by manifesto or army, unless you traverse dry land. "and be not too grasping, nearer home. it is not freedom to filch. expand not your area too widely, now. seek you proselytes? neighboring nations may be free, without coming under your banner. and if you can not lay your ambition, know this: that it is best served, by waiting events. "time, but time only, may enable you to cross the equator; and give you the arctic circles for your boundaries." so read the anonymous scroll; which straightway, was torn into shreds. "old tory, and monarchist!" they shouted, "preaching over his benighted sermons in these enlightened times! fool! does he not know that all the past and its graves are being dug over?" they were furious; so wildly rolling their eyes after victims, that well was it for king media, he wore not his crown; and in silence, we moved unnoted from out the crowd. "my lord, i am amazed at the indiscretion of a demigod," said babbalanja, as we passed on our way; "i recognized your sultanic style the very first sentence. this, then, is the result of your hours of seclusion." "philosopher! i am astounded at your effrontery. i detected your philosophy the very first maxim. who posted that parchment for you?" so, each charged the other with its authorship: and there was no finding out, whether, indeed, either knew aught of its origin. now, could it have been babbalanja? hardly. for, philosophic as the document was, it seemed too dogmatic and conservative for him. king media? but though imperially absolute in his political sentiments, media delivered not himself so boldly, when actually beholding the eruption in franko. indeed, the settlement of this question must be left to the commentators on mardi, some four or five hundred centuries hence. chapter lviii they visit the extreme south of vivenza we penetrated further and further into the valleys around; but, though, as elsewhere, at times we heard whisperings that promised an end to our wanderings;--we still wandered on; and once again, even yoomy abated his sanguine hopes. and now, we prepared to embark for the extreme south of the land. but we were warned by the people, that in that portion of vivenza, whither we were going, much would be seen repulsive to strangers. such things, however, indulgent visitors overlooked. for themselves, they were well aware of those evils. northern vivenza had done all it could to assuage them; but in vain; the inhabitants of those southern valleys were a fiery, and intractable race; heeding neither expostulations, nor entreaties. they were wedded to their ways. nay, they swore, that if the northern tribes persisted in intermeddlings, they would dissolve the common alliance, and establish a distinct confederacy among themselves. our coasting voyage at an end, our keels grated the beach among many prostrate palms, decaying, and washed by the billows. though part and parcel of the shore we had left, this region seemed another land. fewer thriving thingswere seen; fewer cheerful sounds were heard. "here labor has lost his laugh!" cried yoomy. it was a great plain where we landed; and there, under a burning sun, hundreds of collared men were toiling in trenches, filled with the taro plant; a root most flourishing in that soil. standing grimly over these, were men unlike them; armed with long thongs, which descended upon the toilers, and made wounds. blood and sweat mixed; and in great drops, fell. "who eat these plants thus nourished?" cried yoomy. "are these men?" asked babbalanja. "which mean you?" said mohi. heeding him not, babbalanja advanced toward the fore-most of those with the thongs,--one nulli: a cadaverous, ghost-like man; with a low ridge of forehead; hair, steel-gray; and wondrous eyes;--bright, nimble, as the twin corposant balls, playing about the ends of ships' royal-yards in gales. the sun passed under a cloud; and nulli, darting at babbalanja those wondrous eyes, there fell upon him a baleful glare. "have they souls?" he asked, pointing to the serfs. "no," said nulli, "their ancestors may have had; but their souls have been bred out of their descendants; as the instinct of scent is killed in pointers." approaching one of the serfs, media took him by the hand, and felt of it long; and looked into his eyes; and placed his ear to his side; and exclaimed, "surely this being has flesh that is warm; he has oro in his eye; and a heart in him that beats. i swear he is a man." "is this our lord the king?" cried mohi, starting. "what art thou," said babbalanja to the serf. "dost ever feel in thee a sense of right and wrong? art ever glad or sad?--they tell us thou art not a man:--speak, then, for thyself; say, whether thou beliest thy maker." "speak not of my maker to me. under the lash, i believe my masters, and account myself a brute; but in my dreams, bethink myself an angel. but i am bond; and my little ones;--their mother's milk is gall." "just oro!" cried yoomy, "do no thunders roll,--no lightnings flash in this accursed land!" "asylum for all mardi's thralls!" cried media. "incendiaries!" cried he with the wondrous eyes, "come ye, firebrands, to light the flame of revolt? know ye not, that here are many serfs, who, incited to obtain their liberty, might wreak some dreadful vengeance? avaunt, thou king! _thou_ horrified at this? go back to odo, and right her wrongs! these serfs are happier than thine; though thine, no collars wear; more happy as they are, than if free. are they not fed, clothed, and cared for? thy serfs pine for food: never yet did these; who have no thoughts, no cares." "thoughts and cares are life, and liberty, and immortality!" cried babbalanja; "and are their souls, then, blown out as candles?" "ranter! they are content," cried nulli. "they shed no tears." "frost never weeps," said babbalanja; "and tears are frozen in those frigid eyes." "oh fettered sons of fettered mothers, conceived and born in manacles," cried yoomy; "dragging them through life; and falling with them, clanking in the grave:--oh, beings as ourselves, how my stiff arm shivers to avenge you! 'twere absolution for the matricide, to strike one rivet from your chains. my heart outswells its home!" "oro! art thou?" cried babbalanja; "and doth this thing exist? it shakes my little faith." then, turning upon nulli, "how can ye abide to sway this curs'd dominion?" "peace, fanatic! who else may till unwholesome fields, but these? and as these beings are, so shall they remain; 'tis right and righteous! maramma champions it!--i swear it! the first blow struck for them, dissolves the union of vivenza's vales. the northern tribes well know it; and know me." said media, "yet if--" "no more! another word, and, king as thou art, thou shalt be dungeoned:--here, there is such a law; thou art not among the northern tribes." "and this is freedom!" murmured media; "when heaven's own voice is throttled. and were these serfs to rise, and fight for it; like dogs, they would be hunted down by her pretended sons!" "pray, heaven!" cried yoomy, "they may yet find a way to loose their bonds without one drop of blood. but hear me, oro! were there no other way, and should their masters not relent, all honest hearts must cheer this tribe of hamo on; though they cut their chains with blades thrice edged, and gory to the haft! 'tis right to fight for freedom, whoever be the thrall." "these south savannahs may yet prove battle-fields," said mohi; gloomily, as we retraced our steps. "be it," said yoomy. "oro will van the right." "not always has it proved so," said babbalanja. "oft-times, the right fights single-handed against the world; and oro champions none. in all things, man's own battles, man himself must fight. yoomy: so far as feeling goes, your sympathies are not more hot than mine; but for these serfs you would cross spears; yet, i would not. better present woes for some, than future woes for all." "no need to fight," cried yoomy, "to liberate that tribe of hamo instantly; a way may be found, and no irretrievable evil ensue." "point it out, and be blessed, yoomy." "that is for vivenza; but the head is dull, where the heart is cold." "my lord," said babbalanja, "you have startled us by your kingly sympathy for suffering; say thou, then, in what wise manner it shall be relieved." "that is for vivenza," said media. "mohi, you are old: speak thou." "let vivenza speak," said mohi. "thus then we all agree; and weeping all but echo hard-hearted nulli. tears are not swords and wrongs seem almost natural as rights. for the righteous to suppress an evil, is sometimes harder than for others to uphold it. humanity cries out against this vast enormity:-- not one man knows a prudent remedy. blame not, then, the north; and wisely judge the south. ere, as a nation, they became responsible, this thing was planted in their midst. such roots strike deep. place to-day those serfs in dominora; and with them, all vivenza's past;-- and serfs, for many years, in dominora, they would be. easy is it to stand afar and rail. all men are censors who have lungs. we can say, the stars are wrongly marshaled. blind men say the sun is blind. a thousand muscles wag our tongues; though our tongues were housed, that they might have a home. whose is free from crime, let him cross himself--but hold his cross upon his lips. that he is not bad, is not of him. potters' clay and wax are all, molded by hands invisible. the soil decides the man. and, ere birth, man wills not to be born here or there. these southern tribes have grown up with this thing; bond-women were their nurses, and bondmen serve them still. nor are all their serfs such wretches as those we saw. some seem happy: yet not as men. unmanned, they know not what they are. and though, of all the south, nulli must stand almost alone in his insensate creed; yet, to all wrong-doers, custom backs the sense of wrong. and if to every mardian, conscience be the awarder of its own doom; then, of these tribes, many shall be found exempted from the least penalty of this sin. but sin it is, no less;--a blot, foul as the crater-pool of hell; it puts out the sun at noon; it parches all fertility; and, conscience or no conscience--ere he die--let every master who wrenches bond-babe from mother, that the nipple tear; unwreathes the arms of sisters; or cuts the holy unity in twain; till apart fall man and wife, like one bleeding body cleft:--let that master thrice shrive his soul; take every sacrament; on his bended knees give up the ghost;--yet shall he die despairing; and live again, to die forever damned. the future is all hieroglyphics. who may read? but, methinks the great laggard time must now march up apace, and somehow befriend these thralls. it can not be, that misery is perpetually entailed; though, in a land proscribing primogeniture, the first-born and last of hamo's tribe must still succeed to all their sires' wrongs. yes. time--all- healing time--time, great philanthropist!--time must befriend these thralls!" "oro grant it!" cried yoomy "and let mardi say, amen!" "amen! amen! amen!" cried echoes echoing echoes. we traversed many of these southern vales; but as in dominora,--so, throughout vivenza, north and south,--yillah harbored not. chapter lix they converse of the mollusca, kings, toad-stools and other matters once more embarking, we gained vivenza's southwestern side and there, beheld vast swarms of laborers discharging from canoes, great loads of earth; which they tossed upon the beach. "it is true, then," said media "that these freemen are engaged in digging down other lands, and adding them to their own, piece-meal. and this, they call extending their dominions agriculturally, and peaceably." "my lord, they pay a price for every canoe-load," said mohi. "ay, old man, holding the spear in one hand, and striking the bargain with the other." "yet charge it not upon all vivenza," said babbalanja. "some of her tribes are hostile to these things: and when their countryman fight for land, are only warlike in opposing war." "and therein, babbalanja, is involved one of those anomalies in the condition of vivenza," said media, "which i can hardly comprehend. how comes it, that with so many things to divide them, the valley-tribes still keep their mystic league intact?" "all plain, it is because the model, whence they derive their union, is one of nature's planning. my lord, have you ever observed the mysterious federation subsisting among the molluscs of the tunicata order,--in other words, a species of cuttle-fish, abounding at the bottom of the lagoon?" "yes: in clear weather about the reefs, i have beheld them time and again: but never with an eye to their political condition." "ah! my lord king, we should not cut off the nervous communication between our eyes, and our cerebellums." "what were you about to say concerning the tunicata order of mollusca, sir philosopher?" "my very honorable lord, i hurry to conclude. they live in a compound structure; but though connected by membranous canals, freely communicating throughout the league--each member has a heart and stomach of its own; provides and digests its own dinners; and grins and bears its own gripes, without imparting the same to its neighbors. but if a prowling shark touches one member, it ruffles all. precisely thus now with vivenza. in that confederacy, there are as many consciences as tribes; hence, if one member on its own behalf, assumes aught afterwards repudiated, the sin rests on itself alone; is not participated." "a very subtle explanation, babbalanja. you must allude, then, to those recreant tribes; which, while in their own eyes presenting a sublime moral spectacle to mardi,--in king bello's, do but present a hopeless example of bad debts. and these, the tribes that boast of boundless wealth." "most true, my lord. but bello errs, when for this thing, he stigmatizes all vivenza, as a unity." "babbalanja, you yourself are made up of members:--then, if you be sick of a lumbago,--'tis not _you_ that are unwell; but your spine." "as you will, my lord. i have said. but to speak no more on that head --what sort of a sensation, think you, life is to such creatures as those mollusca?" "answer your own question, babbalanja." "i will; but first tell me what sort of a sensation life is to you, yourself, my lord." "pray answer that along with the other, azzageddi." "directly; but tell me, if you will, my lord, what sort of a sensation life is to a toad-stool." "pray, babbalanja put all three questions together; and then, do what you have often done before, pronounce yourself a lunatic." "my lord, i beseech you, remind me not of that fact so often. it is true, but annoying. nor will any wise man call another a fool." "do you take me for a mere man, then, babbalanja, that you talk to me thus?" "my demi-divine lord and master, i was deeply concerned at your indisposition last night:--may a loving subject inquire, whether his prince is completely recovered from the effect of those guavas?" "have a care, azzageddi; you are far too courteous, to be civil. but proceed." "i obey. in kings, mollusca, and toad-stools, life is one thing and the same. the philosopher dumdi pronounces it a certain febral vibration of organic parts, operating upon the vis inertia of unorganized matter. but bardianna says nay. hear him. 'who put together this marvelous mechanism of mine; and wound it up, to go for three score years and ten; when it runs out, and strikes time's hours no more? and what is it, that daily and hourly renews, and by a miracle, creates in me my flesh and my blood? what keeps up the perpetual telegraphic communication between my outpost toes and digits, and that domed grandee up aloft, my brain?--it is not i; nor you; nor he; nor it. no; when i place my hand to that king muscle my heart, i am appalled. i feel the great god himself at work in me. oro is life.'" "and what is death?" demanded media. "death, my lord!--it is the deadest of all things." chapter lx wherein, that gallant gentleman and demi-god, king media, scepter in hand, throws himself into the breach sailing south from vivenza, not far from its coast, we passed a cluster of islets, green as new fledged grass; and like the mouths of floating cornucopias, their margins brimmed over upon the brine with flowers. on some, grew stately roses; on others stood twin-pillars; across others, tri-hued rainbows rested. cried babbalanja, pointing to the last, "franko's pledge of peace! with that, she loudly vaunts she'll span the reef!--strike out all hues but red,--and the token's nearer truth." all these isles were prolific gardens; where king bello, and the princes of porpheero grew their most delicious fruits,--nectarines and grapes. but, though hard by, vivenza owned no garden here; yet longed and lusted; and her hottest tribes oft roundly swore, to root up all roses the half-reef over; pull down all pillars; and dissolve all rainbows. "mardi's half is ours;" said they. stand back invaders! full of vanity; and mirroring themselves in the future; they deemed all reflected there, their own. 'twas now high noon. "methinks the sun grows hot," said media, retreating deeper under the canopy. "ho! vee-vee; have you no cooling beverage? none of that golden wine distilled from torrid grapes, and then sent northward to be cellared in an iceberg? that wine was placed among our stores. search, search the crypt, little vee-vee! ha, i see it!--that yellow gourd!--come: drag it forth, my boy. let's have the amber cups: so: pass them round;--fill all! taji! my demi-god, up heart! old mohi, my babe, may you live ten thousand centuries! ah! this way you mortals have of dying out at three score years and ten, is but a craven habit. so, babbalanja! may you never die. yoomy! my sweet poet, may you live to sing to me in paradise. ha, ha! would that we floated in this glorious stuff, instead of this pestilent brine.--hark ye! were i to make a mardi now, i'd have every continent a huge haunch of venison; every ocean a wine-vat! i'd stock every cavern with choice old spirits, and make three surplus suns to ripen the grapes all the year round. let's drink to that!--brimmers! so: may the next mardi that's made, be one entire grape; and mine the squeezing!" "look, look! my lord," cried yoomy, "what a glorious shore we pass." sallying out into the high golden noon, with golden-beaming goblets suspended, we gazed. "this must be kolumbo of the south," said mohi. it was a long, hazy reach of land; piled up in terraces, traced here and there with rushing streams, that worked up gold dust alluvian, and seemed to flash over pebbled diamonds. heliotropes, sun-flowers, marigolds gemmed, or starred the violet meads, and vassal-like, still sunward bowed their heads. the rocks were pierced with grottoes, blazing with crystals, many-tinted. it was a land of mints and mines; its east a ruby; west a topaz. inland, the woodlands stretched an ocean, bottomless with foliage; its green surges bursting through cable-vines; like xerxes' brittle chains which vainly sought to bind the hellespont. hence flowed a tide of forest sounds; of parrots, paroquets, macaws; blent with the howl of jaguars, hissing of anacondas, chattering of apes, and herons screaming. out from those depths up rose a stream. the land lay basking in the world's round torrid brisket, hot with solar fire. "no need here to land," cried yoomy, "yillah lurks not here." "heat breeds life, and sloth, and rage," said babbalanja. "here live bastard tribes and mongrel nations; wrangling and murdering to prove their freedom.--refill, my lord." "methinks, babbalanja, you savor of the mysterious parchment, in vivenza read:--ha? yes, philosopher, these are the men, who toppled castles to make way for hovels; these, they who fought for freedom, but find it despotism to rule themselves. these, babbalanja, are of the race, to whom a tyrant would prove a blessing." so saying he drained his cup. "my lord, that last sentiment decides the authorship of the scroll. but, with deference, tyrants seldom can prove blessings; inasmuch as evil seldom eventuates in good. yet will these people soon have a tyrant over them, if long they cleave to war. of many javelins, one must prove a scepter; of many helmets, one a crown. it is but in the wearing.--refill, my lord." "fools, fools!" cried media, "these tribes hate us kings; yet know not, that peace is war against all kings. we seldom are undone by spears, which are our ministers.--this wine is strong." "ha, now's the time! in his cups learn king-craft from a king. ay, ay, my lord, your royal order will endure, so long as men will fight. break the spears, and free the nations. kings reap the harvests that wave on battle-fields. and oft you kings do snatch the aloe-flower, whose slow blossoming mankind watches for a hundred years.--say on, my lord." "all this i know; and, therefore, rest content. my children's children will be kings; though, haply, called by other titles. mardi grows fastidious in names: we royalties will humor it. the steers would burst their yokes, but have not hands. the whole herd rears and plunges, but soon will bow again: the old, old way!" "yet, in porpheero, strong scepters have been wrested from anointed hands. mankind seems in arms." "let them arm on. they hate us:--good;--they always have; yet still we've reigned, son after sire. sometimes they slay us, babbalanja; pour out our marrow, as i this wine; but they spill no kinless blood. 'twas justly held of old, that but to touch a monarch, was to strike at oro.--truth. the palest vengeance is a royal ghost; and regicides but father slaves. thrones, not scepters, have been broken. mohi, what of the past? has it not ever proved so?" "pardon, my lord; the times seem changed. 'tis held, that demi-gods no more rule by right divine. in vivenza's land, they swear the last kings now reign in mardi." "is the last day at hand, old man? mohi, your beard is gray; but, yoomy, listen. when you die, look around; mark then if any mighty change be seen. old kingdoms may be on the wane; but new dynasties advance. though revolutions rise to high spring-tide, monarchs will still drown hard;--monarchs survived the flood!" "are all our dreams, then, vain?" sighed yoomy. "is this no dawn of day that streaks the crimson east! naught but the false and flickering lights which sometimes mock aurora in the north! ah, man, my brother! have all martyrs for thee bled in vain; in vain we poets sang, and prophets spoken? nay, nay; great mardi, helmed and mailed, strikes at oppression's shield, and challenges to battle! oro will defend the right, and royal crests must roll." "thus, yoomy, ages since, you mortal poets sang; but the world may not be moved from out the orbit in which first it rolled. on the map that charts the spheres, mardi is marked 'the world of kings.' round centuries on centuries have wheeled by:--has all this been its nonage? now, when the rocks grow gray, does man first sprout his beard? or, is your golden time, your equinoctial year, at hand, that your race fast presses toward perfection; and every hand grasps at a scepter, that kings may be no more?" "but free vivenza! is she not the star, that must, ere long, lead up the constellations, though now unrisen? no kings are in vivenza; yet, spite her thralls, in that land seems more of good than elsewhere. our hopes are not wild dreams: vivenza cheers our hearts. she is a rainbow to the isles!" "ay, truth it is, that in vivenza they have prospered. but thence it comes not, that all men may be as they. are all men of one heart and brain; one bone and sinew? are all nations sprung of dominora's loins? or, has vivenza yet proved her creed? yoomy! the years that prove a man, prove not a nation. but two kings'-reigns have passed since vivenza was a monarch's. her climacteric is not come; hers is not yet a nation's manhood even; though now in childhood, she anticipates her youth, and lusts for empire like any czar. yoomy! judge not yet. time hath tales to tell. many books, and many long, long chapters, are wanting to vivenza's history; and whet history but is full of blood?" "there stop, my lord," said babbalanja, "nor aught predict. fate laughs at prophets; and of all birds, the raven is a liar!" chapter lxi they round the stormy cape of capes long leagues, for weary days, we voyaged along that coast, till we came to regions where we multiplied our mantles. the sky grew overcast. each a night, black storm-clouds swept the wintry sea; and like sahara caravans, which leave their sandy wakes-- so, thick and fleet, slanted the scud behind. through all this rack and mist, ten thousand foam-flaked dromedary-humps uprose. deep among those panting, moaning fugitives, the three canoes raced on. and now, the air grew nipping cold. the clouds shed off their fleeces; a snow-hillock, each canoe; our beards, white-frosted. and so, as seated in our shrouds, we sailed in among great mountain passes of ice-isles; from icy ledges scaring shivering seals, and white bears, musical with icicles, jingling from their shaggy ermine. far and near, in towering ridges, stretched the glassy andes; with their own frost, shuddering through all their domes and pinnacles. ice-splinters rattled down the cliffs, and seethed into the sea. broad away, in amphitheaters undermined by currents, whole cities of ice-towers, in crashes, toward one center, fell.--in their earthquakes, lisbon and lima never saw the like. churned and broken in the boiling tide, they swept off amain;--over and over rolling; like porpoises to vessels tranced in calms, bringing down the gale. at last, rounding an antlered headland, that seemed a moose at bay--ere long, we launched upon blue lake-like waters, serene as windermere, or horicon. thus, from the boisterous storms of youth, we glide upon senility. but as we northward voyaged, another aspect wore the sea. in far-off, endless vistas, colonnades of water-spouts were seen: all heaven's dome upholding on their shafts: and bright forms gliding up and down within. so at luz, in his strange vision, jacob saw the angels. a boundless cave of stalactites, it seemed; the cloud-born vapors downward spiraling, till they met the whirlpool-column from the sea; then, uniting, over the waters stalked, like ghosts of gods. or midway sundered--down, sullen, sunk the watery half; and far up into heaven, was drawn the vapory. as, at death, we mortals part in twain; our earthy half still here abiding; but our spirits flying whence they came. in good time, we gained the thither side of great kolumbo of the south; and sailing on, long waited for the day; and wondered at the darkness. "what steadfast clouds!" cried yoomy, "yonder! far aloft: that ridge, with many points; it fades below, but shows a faint white crest." "not clouds, but mountains," said babbalanja, "the vast spine, that traverses kolumbo; spurring off in ribs, that nestle loamy valleys, veined with silver streams, and silver ores." it was a long, embattled line of pinnacles. and high posted in the east, those thousand bucklered peaks stood forth, and breasted back the dawn. before their purple bastions bold, aurora long arrayed her spears, and clashed her golden shells. the summons dies away. but now, her lancers charge the steep, and gain its crest a-glow;--their glittering spears and blazoned shields triumphant in the morn. but ere that sight, we glided on for hours in twilight; when, on those mountains' farther side, the hunters must have been abroad, morning- glories all astir. chapter lxii they encounter gold-hunters now, northward coasting along kolumbo's western shore, whence came the same wild forest-sounds, as from the eastern; and where we landed not, to seek among those wrangling tribes;--after many, many days, we spied prow after prow, before the wind all northward bound: sails wide- spread, and paddles plying: scaring the fish from before them. their inmates answered not our earnest hail. but as they sped, with frantic glee, in one long chorus thus they sang:-- we rovers bold, to the land of gold, over bowling billows are gliding: eager to toil, for the golden spoil, and every hardship biding. see! see! before our prows' resistless dashes, the gold-fish fly in golden flashes! 'neath a sun of gold, we rovers bold, on the golden land are gaining; and every night, we steer aright, by golden stars unwaning! all fires burn a golden glare: no locks so bright as golden hair! all orange groves have golden gushings: all mornings dawn with golden flushings! in a shower of gold, say fables old, a maiden was won by the god of gold! in golden goblets wine is beaming: on golden couches kings are dreaming! the golden rule dries many tears! the golden number rules the spheres! gold, gold it is, that sways the nations: gold! gold! the center of all rotations! on golden axles worlds are turning: with phosphorescence seas are burning! all fire-flies flame with golden gleamings: gold-hunters' hearts with golden dreamings! with golden arrows kings are slain: with gold we'll buy a freeman's name! in toilsome trades, for scanty earnings, at home we've slaved, with stifled yearnings: no light! no hope! oh, heavy woe! when nights fled fast, and days dragged slow. but joyful now, with eager eye, fast to the promised land we fly: where in deep mines, the treasure shines; or down in beds of golden streams, the gold-flakes glance in golden gleams! how we long to sift, that yellow drift! rivers! rivers! cease your going! sand-bars! rise, and stay the tide! 'till we've gained the golden flowing; and in the golden haven ride! "quick, quick, my lord," cried yoomy, "let us follow them; and from the golden waters where she lies, our yillah may emerge." "no, no," said babbalanja,--"no yillah there!--from yonder promised- land, fewer seekers will return, than go. under a gilded guise, happiness is still their instinctive aim. but vain, yoomy, to snatch at happiness. of that we may not pluck and eat. it is the fruit of our own toilsome planting; slow it grows, nourished by many teats, and all our earnest tendings. yet ere it ripen, frosts may nip;--and then, we plant again; and yet again. deep, yoomy, deep, true treasure lies; deeper than all mardi's gold, rooted to mardi's axis. but unlike gold, it lurks in every soil,--all mardi over. with golden pills and potions is sickness warded off?--the shrunken veins of age, dilated with new wine of youth? will gold the heart-ache cure? turn toward us hearts estranged? will gold, on solid centers empires fix? 'tis toil world-wasted to toil in mines. were all the isles gold globes, set in a quicksilver sea, all mardi were then a desert. gold is the only poverty; of all glittering ills the direst. and that man might not impoverish himself thereby, oro hath hidden it, with all other banes,--saltpeter and explosives, deep in mountain bowels, and river- beds. but man still will mine for it; and mining, dig his doom.-- yoomy, yoomy!--she we seek, lurks not in the golden hills!" "lo, a vision!" cried yoomy, his hands wildly passed across his eyes. "a vast and silent bay, belted by silent villages:--gaunt dogs howling over grassy thresholds at stark corpses of old age and infancy; gray hairs mingling with sweet flaxen curls; fields, with turned furrows, choked with briers; arbor-floors strown over with hatchet-helves, rotting in the iron; a thousand paths, marked with foot-prints, all inland leading, none villageward; and strown with traces, as of a flying host. on: over forest--hill, and dale--and lo! the golden region! after the glittering spoil, by strange river-margins, and beneath impending cliffs, thousands delve in quicksands; and, sudden, sink in graves of their own making: with gold dust mingling their own ashes. still deeper, in more solid ground, other thousands slave; and pile their earth so high, they gasp for air, and die; their comrades mounting on them, and delving still, and dying--grave pile on grave! here, one haggard hunter murders another in his pit; and murdering, himself is murdered by a third. shrieks and groans! cries and curses! it seems a golden hell! with many camels, a sleek stranger comes-- pauses before the shining heaps, and shows _his_ treasures: yams and bread-fruit. 'give, give,' the famished hunters cry--, 'a thousand shekels for a yam!--a prince's ransom for a meal!--oh, stranger! on our knees we worship thee:--take, take our gold; but let us live!' yams are thrown them and they fight. then he who toiled not, dug not, slaved not, straight loads his caravans with gold; regains the beach, and swift embarks for home. 'home! home!' the hunters cry, with bursting eyes. 'with this bright gold, could we but join our waiting wives, who wring their hands on distant shores, all then were well. but we can not fly; our prows lie rotting on the beach. ah! home! thou only happiness!--better thy silver earnings than all these golden findings. oh, bitter end to all our hopes--we die in golden graves." chapter lxiii they seek through the isles of palms; and pass the isles of myrrh now, our prows we turned due west, across the blue lagoon. soon, no land appeared. far as the eye could sweep, one azure plain; all over flaked with foamy fleeces:--a boundless flock upon a boundless mead! again, all changed. like stars in multitude, bright islets multiplied around. emerald-green, they dotted shapes fantastic: circles, arcs, and crescents;--atolls all, or coral carcanets, begemmed and flashing in the sun. by these we glided, group after group; and through the foliage, spied sweet forms of maidens, like eves in edens ere the fall, or proserpines in ennas. artless airs came from the shore; and from the censer-swinging roses, a bloom, as if from hebe's cheek. "here, at last, we find sweet yillah!" murmured yoomy. "here must she lurk in innocence! quick! let us land and search." "if here," said babbalanja, "yillah will not stay our coming, but fly before us through the groves. wherever a canoe is beached, see you not the palm-trees pine? not so, where never keel yet smote the strand. in mercy, let us fly from hence. i know not why, but our breath here, must prove a blight." these regions passed, we came to savage islands, where the glittering coral seemed bones imbedded, bleaching in the sun. savage men stood naked on the strand, and brandished uncouth clubs, and gnashed their teeth like boars. the full red moon was rising; and, in long review there passed before it, phantom shapes of victims, led bound to altars through the groves. death-rattles filled the air. but a cloud descended, and all was gloom. again blank water spread before us; and after many days, there came a gentle breeze, fraught with all spicy breathings; cinnamon aromas; and in the rose-flushed evening air, like glow worms, glowed the islets, where this incense burned. "sweet isles of myrh! oh crimson groves," cried yoomy. "woe, woe's your fate! your brightness and your bloom, like musky fire-flies, double-lure to death! on ye, the nations prey like bears that gorge themselves with honey." swan-like, our prows sailed in among these isles; and oft we landed; but in vain; and leaving them, we still pursued the setting sun. chapter lxiv concentric, inward, with mardi's reef, they leave their wake around the world west, west! west, west! whitherward point hope and prophet-fingers; whitherward, at sun-set, kneel all worshipers of fire; whitherward in mid-ocean, the great whales turn to die; whitherward face all the moslem dead in persia; whitherward lie heaven and hell!--west, west! whitherward mankind and empires--flocks, caravans, armies, navies; worlds, suns, and stars all wend!--west, west!--oh boundless boundary! eternal goal! whitherward rush, in thousand worlds, ten thousand thousand keels! beacon, by which the universe is steered!--like the north-star, attracting all needles! unattainable forever; but forever leading to great things this side thyself!--hive of all sunsets!-- gabriel's pinions may not overtake thee! over balmy waves, still westward sailing! from dawn till eve, the bright, bright days sped on, chased by the gloomy nights; and, in glory dying, lent their luster to the starry skies. so, long the radiant dolphins fly before the sable sharks but seized, and torn in flames--die, burning:--their last splendor left, in sparkling scales that float along the sea. cymbals, drums and psalteries! the air beats like a pulse with music! --high land! high land! and moving lights, and painted lanterns!--what grand shore is this? "reverence we render thee, old orienda!" cried media, with bared brow, "original of all empires and emperors!--a crowned king salutes thee!" "mardi's father-land!" cried mohi, "grandsire of the nations,--hail!" "all hail!" cried yoomy. "kings and sages hither coming, should come like palmers,--scrip and staff! oh orienda! thou wert our east, where first dawned song and science, with mardi's primal mornings! but now, how changed! the dawn of light become a darkness, which we kindle with the gleam of spears! on the world's ancestral hearth, we spill our brothers' blood!" "herein," said babbalanja, "have many distant tribes proved parricidal. in times gone by, luzianna hither sent her prom; franko, her scores of captains; and the dykemen, their peddler hosts, with yard-stick spears! but thou, oh bello! lord of the empire lineage! noah of the moderns. sire of the long line of nations yet in germ!-- thou, bello, and thy locust armies, are the present curse of orienda. down ancient streams, from holy plains, in rafts thy murdered float! the pestilence that thins thy armies here, is bred of corpses, made by thee. maramma's priests, thy pious heralds, loud proclaim that of all pagans, orienda's most resist the truth!--ay! vain all pious voices, that speak from clouds of war! the march of conquest through wild provinces, may be the march of mind; but not the march of love." "thou, bello!" cried yoomy, "would'st wrest the crook from alma's hand, and place in it a spear. but vain to make a conqueror of him, who put off the purple when he came to mardi; and declining gilded miters, entered the nations meekly on an ass." "oh curse of commerce!" cried babbalanja, "that it barters souls for gold. bello! with opium, thou wouldst drug this land, and murder it in sleep!--and what boot thy conquests here? seed sown by spears but seldom springs; and harvests reaped thereby, are poisoned by the sickle's edge." yet on, and on we coasted; counting not the days. "oh, folds and flocks of nations! dusky tribes innumerable!" cried yoomy, "camped on plains and steppes; on thousand mountains, worshiping the stars; in thousand valleys, offering up first-fruits, till all the forests seem in flames;--where, in fire, the widow's spirit mounts to meet her lord!--oh, orienda, in thee 'tis vain to seek our yillah!" "how dark as death the night!" said mohi, shaking the dew from his braids, "the heavens blaze not here with stars, as over dominora's land, and broad vivenza." one only constellation was beheld; but every star was brilliant as the one, that promises the morning. that constellation was the crux- australis,--the badge, and type of alma. and now, southwest we steered, till another island vast, was reached; --hamora! far trending toward the antarctic pole. coasting on by barbarous beaches, where painted men, with spears, charged on all attempts to land, at length we rounded a mighty bluff, lit by a beacon; and heard a bugle call:--bello's! hurrying to their quarters, the world-end's garrison. here, the sea rolled high, in mountain surges: mid which, we toiled and strained, as if ascending cliffs of caucasus. but not long thus. as when from howling rhoetian heights, the traveler spies green lombardy below, and downward rushes toward that pleasant plain; so, sloping from long rolling swells, at last we launched upon the calm lagoon. but as we northward sailed, once more the storm-trump blew, and charger-like, the seas ran mustering to the call; and in battalions crouched before a towering rock, far distant from the main. no moon, eclipsed in egypt's skies, looked half so lone. but from out that darkness, on the loftiest peak, bello's standard waved. "oh rifled tomb!" cried babbalanja. "wherein lay the mars and moloch of our times, whose constellated crown, was gemmed with diadems. thou god of war! who didst seem the devouring beast of the apocalypse; casting so vast a shadow over mardi, that yet it lingers in old franko's vale; where still they start at thy tremendous ghost; and, late, have hailed a phantom, king! almighty hero-spell! that after the lapse of half a century, can so bewitch all hearts! but one drop of hero-blood will deify a fool. "franko! thou wouldst be free; yet thy free homage is to the buried ashes of a king; thy first choice, the exaltation of his race. in furious fires, thou burn'st ludwig's throne; and over thy new-made chieftain's portal, in golden letters print'st--'the palace of our lord!' in thy new dispensation, thou cleavest to the exploded law. and on freedom's altar--ah, i fear--still, may slay thy hecatombs. but freedom turns away; she is sick with burnt blood of offerings. other rituals she loves; and like oro, unseen herself, would be worshiped only by invisibles. of long drawn cavalcades, pompous processions, frenzied banners, mystic music, marching nations, she will none. oh, may thy peaceful future, franko, sanctify thy bloody past. let not history say; 'to her old gods, she turned again.'" this rocky islet passed, the sea went down; once more we neared hamora's western shore. in the deep darkness, here and there, its margin was lit up by foam-white, breaking billows rolled over from vivenza's strand, and down from northward dominora; marking places where light was breaking in, upon the interior's jungle-gloom. in heavy sighs, the night-winds from shore came over us. "ah, vain to seek sweet yillah here," cried yoomy.--"poor land! curst of man, not oro! how thou faintest for thy children, torn from thy soil, to till a stranger's. vivenza! did these winds not spend their plaints, ere reaching thee, thy every vale would echo them. oh, tribe of hamo! thy cup of woe so brims, that soon it must overflow upon the land which holds ye thralls. no misery born of crime, but spreads and poisons wide. suffering hunteth sin, as the gaunt hound the hare, and tears it in the greenest brakes." still on we sailed: and after many tranquil days and nights, a storm came down, and burst its thousand bombs. the lightnings forked and flashed; the waters boiled; our three prows lifted themselves in supplication; but the billows smote them as they reared. said babbalanja, bowing to the blast: "thus, oh vivenza! retribution works! though long delayed, it comes at last--judgment, with all her bolts." now, a current seized us, and like three darts, our keels sped eastward, through a narrow strait, far in, upon a smooth expanse, an inland ocean, without a throb. on our left, porpheero's southwest point, a mighty rock, long tiers of galleries within, deck on deck; and flag-staffs, like an admiral's masts: a line-of-battle-ship, all purple stone, and anchored in the sea. here bello's lion crouched; and, through a thousand port-holes, eyed the world. on our right, hamora's northern shore gleamed thick with crescents; numerous as the crosses along the opposing strand. "how vain to say, that progress is the test of truth, my lord," said babbalanja, "when, after many centuries, those crescents yet unwaning shine, and count a devotee for every worshiper of yonder crosses. truth and merit have other symbols than success; and in this mortal race, all competitors may enter; and the field is clear for all. side by side, lies run with truths, and fools with wise; but, like geometric lines, though they pierce infinity, never may they join." over that tideless sea we sailed; and landed right, and landed left; but the maiden never found; till, at last, we gained the water's limit; and inland saw great pointed masses, crowned with halos. "granite continents," cried babbalanja, "that seem created like the planets, not built with human hands. lo, landmarks! upon whose flanks time leaves its traces, like old tide-rips of diluvian seas." as, after wandering round and round some purple dell, deep in a boundless prairie's heart, the baffled hunter plunges in; then, despairing, turns once more to gain the open plain; even so we seekers now curved round our keels; and from that inland sea emerged. the universe again before us; our quest, as wide. chapter lxv sailing on morning dawned upon the same mild, blue lagoon as erst; and all the lands that we had passed, since leaving piko's shore of spears, were faded from the sight. part and parcel of the mardian isles, they formed a cluster by themselves; like the pleiades, that shine in taurus, and are eclipsed by the red splendor of his fiery eye, and the thick clusterings of the constellations round. and as in orion, to some old king-astronomer,--say, king of rigel, or betelguese,--this earth's four quarters show but four points afar; so, seem they to terrestrial eyes, that broadly sweep the spheres. and, as the sun, by influence divine, wheels through the ecliptic; threading cancer, leo, pisces, and aquarius; so, by some mystic impulse am i moved, to this fleet progress, through the groups in white-reefed mardi's zone. oh, reader, list! i've chartless voyaged. with compass and the lead, we had not found these mardian isles. those who boldly launch, cast off all cables; and turning from the common breeze, that's fair for all, with their own breath, fill their own sails. hug the shore, naught new is seen; and "land ho!" at last was sung, when a new world was sought. that voyager steered his bark through seas, untracked before; ploughed his own path mid jeers; though with a heart that oft was heavy with the thought, that he might only be too bold, and grope where land was none. so i. and though essaying but a sportive sail, i was driven from my course, by a blast resistless; and ill-provided, young, and bowed to the brunt of things before my prime, still fly before the gale;--hard have i striven to keep stout heart. and if it harder be, than e'er before, to find new climes, when now our seas have oft been circled by ten thousand prows,--much more the glory! but this new world here sought, is stranger far than his, who stretched his vans from palos. it is the world of mind; wherein the wanderer may gaze round, with more of wonder than balboa's band roving through the golden aztec glades. but fiery yearnings their own phantom-future make, and deem it present. so, if after all these fearful, fainting trances, the verdict be, the golden haven was not gained;--yet, in bold quest thereof, better to sink in boundless deeps, than float on vulgar shoals; and give me, ye gods, an utter wreck, if wreck i do. chapter lxvi a flight of nightingales from yoomy's mouth by noon, down came a calm. "oh neeva! good neeva! kind neeva! thy sweet breath, dear neeva!" so from his shark's-mouth prayed little vee-vee to the god of fair breezes. and along they swept; till the three prows neighed to the blast; and pranced on their path, like steeds of crusaders. now, that this fine wind had sprung up; the sun riding joyously in the heavens; and the lagoon all tossed with white, flying manes; media called upon yoomy to ransack his whole assortment of songs:--warlike, amorous, and sentimental,--and regale us with something inspiring for too long the company had been gloomy. "thy best," he cried. then will i e'en sing you a song, my lord, which is a song-full of songs. i composed it long, long since, when yillah yet bowered in odo. ere now, some fragments have been heard. ah, taji! in this my lay, live over again your happy hours. some joys have thousand lives; can never die; for when they droop, sweet memories bind them up.--my lord, i deem these verses good; they came bubbling out of me, like live waters from a spring in a silver mine. and by your good leave, my lord, i have much faith in inspiration. whoso sings is a seer." "tingling is the test," said babbalanja, "yoomy, did you tingle, when that song was composing?" "all over, babbalanja." "from sole to crown?" "from finger to finger." "my life for it! true poetry, then, my lord! for this self-same tingling, i say, is the test." "and infused into a song," cried yoomy, "it evermore causes it so to sparkle, vivify, and irradiate, that no son of man can repeat it without tingling himself. this very song of mine may prove what i say." "modest youth!" sighed media. "not more so, than sincere," said babbalanja. "he who is frank, will often appear vain, my lord. having no guile, he speaks as freely of himself, as of another; and is just as ready to honor his own merits, even if imaginary, as to lament over undeniable deficiencies. besides, such men are prone to moods, which to shallow-minded, unsympathizing mortals, make their occasional distrust of themselves, appear but as a phase of self-conceit. whereas, the man who, in the presence of his very friends, parades a barred and bolted front,--that man so highly prizes his sweet self, that he cares not to profane the shrine he worships, by throwing open its portals. he is locked up; and ego is the key. reserve alone is vanity. but all mankind are egotists. the world revolves upon an i; and we upon ourselves; for we are our own worlds:--all other men as strangers, from outlandish, distant climes, going clad in furs. then, whate'er they be, let us show our worlds; and not seek to hide from men, what oro knows." "truth, my lord," said yoomy, "but all this applies to men in mass; not specially, to my poor craft. of all mortals, we poets are most subject to contrary moods. now, heaven over heaven in the skies; now layer under layer in the dust. this, the penalty we pay for being what we are. but mardi only sees, or thinks it sees, the tokens of our self-complacency: whereas, all our agonies operate unseen. poets are only seen when they soar." "the song! the song!" cried media. "never mind the metaphysics of genius." and yoomy, thus clamorously invoked, hemmed thrice, tuning his voice for the air. but here, be it said, that the minstrel was miraculously gifted with three voices; and, upon occasions, like a mocking-bird, was a concert of sweet sounds in himself. had kind friends died, and bequeathed him their voices? but hark! in a low, mild tenor, he begins:-- half-railed above the hills, yet rosy bright, stands fresh, and fair, the meek and blushing morn! so yillah looks! her pensive eyes the stars, that mildly beam from out her cheek's young dawn! but the still meek dawn, is not aye the form of yillah nor morn! soon rises the sun, day's race to run: his rays abroad, flash each a sword,-- and merrily forth they flare! sun-music in the air! so yillah now rises and flashes! rays shooting from ont her long lashes,-- sun-music in the air! her laugh! how it bounds! bright cascade of sounds! peal after peal, and ringing afar,-- ringing of waters, that silvery jar, from basin to basin fast falling! fast falling, and shining, and streaming:-- yillah's bosom, the soft, heaving lake, where her laughs at last dimple, and flake! oh beautiful yillah! thy step so free!-- fast fly the sea-ripples, revealing their dimples, when forth, thou hi'st to the frolicsome sea! all the stars laugh, when upward she looks: all the trees chat in their woody nooks: all the brooks sing; all the caves ring; all the buds blossom; all the boughs bound; all the birds carol; and leaves turn round, where yillah looks! light wells from her soul's deep sun causing many toward her to run! vines to climb, and flowers to spring; and youths their love by hundreds bring! "proceed, gentle yoomy," said babbalanja. "the meaning," said mohi. "the sequel," said media. "my lord, i have ceased in the middle; the end is not yet." "mysticism!" cried babbalanja. "what, minstrel; must nothing ultimate come of all that melody? no final and inexhaustible meaning? nothing that strikes down into the soul's depths; till, intent upon itself, it pierces in upon its own essence, and is resolved into its pervading original; becoming a thing constituent of the all embracing deific; whereby we mortals become part and parcel of the gods; our souls to them as thoughts; and we privy to all things occult, ineffable, and sublime? then, yoomy, is thy song nothing worth. alla mollolla saith, 'that is no true, vital breath, which leaves no moisture behind.' i mistrust thee, minstrel! that thou hast not yet been impregnated by the arcane mysteries; that thou dost not sufficiently ponder on the adyta, the monads, and the hyparxes; the dianoias, the unical hypostases, the gnostic powers of the psychical essence, and the supermundane and pleromatic triads; to say nothing of the abstract noumenons." "oro forbid!" cried yoomy; "the very sound of thy words affrights me." then, whispering to mohi--"is he daft again?" "my brain is battered," said media. "azzageddi! you must diet, and be bled." "ah!" sighed babbalanja, turning; "how little they ween of the rudimental quincunxes, and the hecatic spherula!" chapter lxvii they visit one doxodox next morning, we came to a deep, green wood, slowly nodding over the waves; its margin frothy-white with foam. a charming sight! while delighted, all our paddlers gazed, media, observing babbalanja plunged in reveries, called upon him to awake; asking what might so absorb him. "ah, my lord! what seraphic sounds have ye driven from me!" "sounds! sure, there's naught heard but yonder murmuring surf; what other sound heard you?" "the thrilling of my soul's monochord, my lord. but prick not your ears to hear it; that divine harmony is overheard by the rapt spirit alone; it comes not by the auditory nerves." "no more, azzageddi! no more of that. look yonder!" "a most lovely wood, in truth. and methinks it is here the sage doxodox, surnamed the wise one, dwells." "hark, i hear the hootings of his owls," said mohi. "my lord, you must have read of him. he is said to have penetrated from the zoned, to the unzoned principles. shall we seek him out, that we may hearken to his wisdom? doubtless he knows many things, after which we pant." the lagoon was calm, as we landed; not a breath stirred the plumes of the trees; and as we entered the voiceless shades, lifting his hand, babbalanja whispered:--"this silence is a fit introduction to the portals of telestic lore. somewhere, beneath this moss, lurks the mystic stone mnizuris; whereby doxodox hath attained unto a knowledge of the ungenerated essences. nightly, he bathes his soul in archangelical circumlucencies. oh, doxodox! whip me the strophalunian top! tell o'er thy jynges!" "down, azzageddi! down!" cried media. "behold: there sits the wise one; now, for true wisdom!" from the voices of the party, the sage must have been aware of our approach: but seated on a green bank, beneath the shade of a red mulberry, upon the boughs of which, many an owl was perched, he seemed intent upon describing divers figures in the air, with a jet-black wand. advancing with much deference and humility, babbalanja saluted him. "oh wise doxodox! drawn hither by thy illustrious name, we seek admittance to thy innermost wisdom. of all mardian, thou alone comprehendest those arcane combinations, whereby to drag to day the most deftly hidden things, present and to come. thou knowest what we are, and what we shall be. we beseech thee, evoke thy tselmns!" "tetrads; pentads; hexads; heptads; ogdoads:--meanest thou those?" "new terms all!" "foiled at thy own weapons," said media. "then, if thou comprehendest not my nomenclature:--how my science? but let me test thee in the portico.--why is it, that as some things extend more remotely than others; so, quadammodotatives are larger than qualitatives; forasmuch, as quadammodotatives extend to those things, which include the quadammodotatives themselves." "azzageddi has found his match," said media. "still posed, babbalanja?" asked mohi. "at a loss, most truly! but i beseech thee, wise doxodox! instruct me in thy dialectics, that i may embrace thy more recondite lore." "to begin then, my child:--all dicibles reside in the mind." "but what are dicibles?" said media. "meanest thou, perfect or imperfect dicibles?" any kind you please;-- but what are they?" "perfect dicibles are of various sorts: interrogative; percontative; adjurative; optative; imprecative; execrative; substitutive; compellative; hypothetical; and lastly, dubious." "dubious enough! azzageddi! forever, hereafter, hold thy peace." "ah, my children! i must go back to my axioms." "and what are they?" said old mohi. "of various sorts; which, again, are diverse. thus: my contrary axioms are disjunctive, and subdisjunctive; and so, with the rest. so, too, in degree, with my syllogisms." "and what of them?" "did i not just hint what they were, my child? i repeat, they are of various sorts: connex, and conjunct, for example." "and what of them?" persisted mohi; while babbalanja, arms folded, stood serious and mute; a sneer on his lip. "as with other branches of my dialectics: so, too, in their way, with my syllogisms. thus: when i say,--if it be warm, it is not cold:-- that's a simple sumption. if i add, but it is warm:--that's an _ass_umption." "so called from the syllogist himself, doubtless;" said mohi, stroking his beard. "poor ignorant babe! no. listen:--if finally, i say,--therefore it is not cold that's the final inference." "and a most triumphant one it is!" cried babbalanja. "thrice profound, and sapient doxodox! light of mardi! and beacon of the universe! didst ever hear of the shark-syllogism?" "though thy epithets be true, my child, i distrust thy sincerity. i have not yet heard of the syllogism to which thou referrest." "it was thus. a shark seized a swimmer by the leg; addressing him: 'friend, i will liberate you, if you truly answer whether you think i purpose harm.' well knowing that sharks seldom were magnanimous, he replied: kind sir, you mean me harm; now go your ways.' 'no, no; my conscience forbids. nor will i falsify the words of so veracious a mortal. you were to answer truly; but you say i mean you harm:--so harm it is:--here goes your leg.'" "profane jester! would'st thou insult me with thy torn-foolery? begone--all of ye! tramp! pack! i say: away with ye!" and into the woods doxodox himself disappeared. "bravely done, babbalanja!" cried media. "you turned the corner to admiration." "i have hopes of our philosopher yet," said mohi. "outrageous impostor! fool, dotard, oaf! did he think to bejuggle me with his preposterous gibberish? and is this shallow phraseman the renowned doxodox whom i have been taught so highly to reverence? alas, alas--odonphi there is none!" "his fit again," sighed yoomy. chapter lxviii king media dreams that afternoon was melting down to eve; all but media broad awake; yet all motionless, as the slumberer upon the purple mat. sailing on, with open eyes, we slept the wakeful sleep of those, who to the body only give repose, while the spirit still toils on, threading her mountain passes. king media's slumbers were like the helmed sentry's in the saddle. from them, he started like an antlered deer, bursting from out a copse. some said he never slept; that deep within himself he but intensified the hour; or, leaving his crowned brow in marble quiet, unseen, departed to far-off councils of the gods. howbeit, his lids never closed; in the noonday sun, those crystal eyes, like diamonds, sparkled with a fixed light. as motionless we thus reclined, media turned and muttered:--"brother gods, and demi-gods, it is not well. these mortals should have less or more. among my subjects is a man, whose genius scorns the common theories of things; but whose still mortal mind can not fathom the ocean at his feet. his soul's a hollow, wherein he raves." "list, list," whispered yoomy--"our lord is dreaming; and what a royal dream." "a very royal and imperial dream," said babbalanja--"he is arraigning me before high heaven;--ay, ay; in dreams, at least, he deems himself a demi-god." "hist," said mohi--"he speaks again." "gods and demi-gods! with one gesture all abysses we may disclose; and before this mardi's eyes, evoke the shrouded time to come. were this well? like lost children groping in the woods, they falter through their tangled paths; and at a thousand angles, baffled, start upon each other. and even when they make an onward move, 'tis but an endless vestibule, that leads to naught. in my own isle of odo--odo! odo! how rules my viceroy there?--down, down, ye madding mobs! ho, spearmen, charge! by the firmament, but my halberdiers fly!" "his dream has changed," said babbalanja. "he is in odo, whither his anxieties impel him." "hist, hist," said yoomy. "i leap upon the soil! render thy account, almanni! where's my throne? mohi, am i not a king? do not thy chronicles record me? yoomy, am i not the soul of some one glorious song? babbalanja, speak.--mohi! yoomy!" "what is it, my lord? thou dost but dream." staring wildly; then calmly gazing round, media smiled. "ha! how we royalties ramble in our dreams! i've told no secrets?" "while he seemed to sleep, my lord spoke much," said mohi. "i knew it not, old man; nor would now; but that ye tell me." "we dream not ourselves," said babbalanja, "but the thing within us." "ay?--good-morrow azzageddi!--but come; no more dreams: vee-vee! wine." and straight through that livelong night, immortal media plied the can. chapter lxix after a long interval, by night they are becalmed now suns rose, and set; moons grew, and waned; till, at last, the star that erewhile heralded the dawn, presaged the eve; to us, sad token!-- while deep within the deepest heart of mardi's circle, we sailed from sea to sea; and isle to isle; and group to group;--vast empires explored, and inland valleys, to their utmost heads; and for every ray in heaven, beheld a king. needless to recount all that then befell; what tribes and caravans we saw; what vast horizons; boundless plains: and sierras, in their every intervale, a nation nestling. enough that still we roamed. it was evening; and as the red sun, magnified, launched into the wave, once more, from a wild strand, we launched our three canoes. soon, from her clouds, hooded night, like a nun from a convent, drew nigh. rustled her train, yet no spangles were there. but high on her brow, still shone her pale crescent; haloed by bandelets--violet, red, and yellow. so looked the lone watcher through her rainbow-iris; so sad, the night without stars. the winds were laid; the lagoon, still, as a prairie of an august noon. "let us dream out the calm," said media. "one of ye paddlers, watch: ho companions! who's for cathay?" sleep reigned throughout the canoes, sleeping upon the waters. but nearer and nearer, low-creeping along, came mists and vapors, a thousand; spotted with twinklings of will-o-wisps from neighboring shores. dusky leopards, stealing on by crouches, those vapors seemed. hours silently passed. when startled by a cry, taji sprang to his feet; against which something rattled; then, a quick splash! and a dark form bounded into the lagoon. the dozing watcher had called aloud; and, about to stab, the assassin, dropping his stiletto, plunged. peering hard through those treacherous mists, two figures in a shallop, were espied; dragging another, dripping, from the brine. "foiled again, and foiled forever. no foe's corpse was i." as we gazed, in the gloom quickly vanished the shallop; ere ours could be reversed to pursue. then, from the opposite mists, glided a second canoe; and beneath the iris round the moon, shone now another:--hautia's flowery flag! vain to wave the sirens off; so still they came. one waved a plant of sickly silver-green. "the midnight tremmella!" cried yoomy; "the falling-star of flowers!-- still i come, when least foreseen; then flee." the second waved a hemlock top, the spike just tapering its final point. the third, a convolvulus, half closed. "the end draws nigh, and all thy hopes are waning." then they proffered grapes. but once more waved off, silently they vanished. again the buried barb tore, at my soul; again yillah was invoked, but hautia made reply. slowly wore out the night. but when uprose the sun, fled clouds, and fled sadness. chapter lxx they land at hooloomooloo "keep all three prows, for yonder rock." cried media; "no sadness on this merry morn! and now for the isle of cripples,--even hooloomooloo." "the isle of cripples?" "ay; why not? mohi, tell how they came to club." in substance, this was the narration. averse to the barbarous custom of destroying at birth all infants not symmetrically formed; but equally desirous of removing from their sight those unfortunate beings; the islanders of a neighboring group had long ago established an asylum for cripples; where they lived, subject to their own regulations; ruled by a king of their own election; in short, forming a distinct class of beings by themselves. one only restriction was placed upon them: on no account must they quit the isle assigned them. and to the surrounding islanders, so unpleasant the sight of a distorted mortal, that a stranger landing at hooloomooloo, was deemed a prodigy. wherefore, respecting any knowledge of aught beyond them, the cripples were well nigh as isolated, as if hooloomooloo was the only terra-firma extant. dwelling in a community of their own, these unfortunates, who otherwise had remained few in number, increased and multiplied greatly. nor did successive generations improve in symmetry upon those preceding them. soon, we drew nigh to the isle. heaped up, and jagged with rocks; and, here and there, covered with dwarfed, twisted thickets, it seemed a fit place for its denizens. landing, we were surrounded by a heterogeneous mob; and thus escorted, took our way inland, toward the abode of their lord, king yoky. what a scene! here, helping himself along with two crotched roots, hobbled a dwarf without legs; another stalked before, one arm fixed in the air, like a lightning rod; a third, more active than any, seal-like, flirted a pair of flippers, and went skipping along; a fourth hopped on a solitary pin, at every bound, spinning round like a top, to gaze; while still another, furnished with feelers or fins, rolled himself up in a ball, bowling over the ground in advance. with curious instinct, the blind stuck close to our side; with their chattering finger, the deaf and the dumb described angles, obtuse and acute in the air; and like stones rolling down rocky ravines, scores of stammerers stuttered. discord wedded deformity. all asses' brays were now harmonious memories; all calibans, as angels. yet for every stare we gave them, three stares they gave us. at last, we halted before a tenement of rude stones; crooked banian boughs its rafters, thatched with fantastic leaves. so rambling and irregular its plan, it seemed thrown up by the eruption, according to sage mohi, the origin of the isle itself. entering, we saw king yoky. ah! sadly lacking was he, in all the requisites of an efficient ruler. deaf and dumb he was; and save arms, minus every thing but an indispensable trunk and head. so huge his all-comprehensive mouth, it seemed to swallow up itself. but shapeless, helpless as was yoky,--as king of hooloomooloo, he was competent; the state being a limited monarchy, of which his highness was but the passive and ornamental head. as his visitors advanced, he fell to gossiping with his fingers: a servitor interpreting. very curious to note the rapidity with which motion was translated into sound; and the simultaneousness with which meaning made its way through four successive channels to the mind--hand, sight, voice, and tympanum. much amazement his highness now expressed; horrified his glances. "why club such frights as ye? herd ye, to keep in countenance; or are afraid of your own hideousness, that ye dread to go alone? monsters! speak." "great oro!" cried mohi, "are we then taken for cripples, by the very king of the cripples? my lord, are not our legs and arms all right?" "comelier ones were never turned by turners, mohi. but royal yoky! in sooth we feel abashed before thee." some further stares were then exchanged; when his highness sought to know, whether there were any comparative anatomists among his visitors. "comparative anatomists! not one." "and why may king yoky ask that question?" inquired babbalanja. then was made the following statement. during the latter part of his reign, when he seemed fallen into his dotage, the venerable predecessor of king yoky had been much attached to an old gray-headed chimpanzee, one day found meditating in the woods. rozoko was his name. he was very grave, and reverend of aspect; much of a philosopher. to him, all gnarled and knotty subjects were familiar; in his day he had cracked many a crabbed nut. and so in love with his timonean solitude was rozoko, that it needed many bribes and bland persuasions, to induce him to desert his mossy, hillside, misanthropic cave, for the distracting tumult of a court. but ere long, promoted to high offices, and made the royal favorite, the woodland sage forgot his forests; and, love for love, returned the aged king's caresses. ardent friends they straight became; dined and drank together; with quivering lips, quaffed long-drawn, sober bumpers; comparing all their past experiences; and canvassing those hidden themes, on which octogenarians dilate. for when the fires and broils of youth are passed, and mardi wears its truer aspect--then we love to think, not act; the present seems more unsubstantial than the past; then, we seek out gray-beards like ourselves; and hold discourse of palsies, hearses, shrouds, and tombs; appoint our undertakers; our mantles gather round us, like to winding- sheets; and every night lie down to die. then, the world's great bubble bursts; then, life's clouds seem sweeping by, revealing heaven to our straining eyes; then, we tell our beads, and murmur pater- nosters; and in trembling accents cry--"oro! be merciful." so, the monarch and rozoko. but not always were they thus. of bright, cheerful mornings, they took slow, tottering rambles in the woods; nodding over grotesque walking- sticks, of the chimpanzee's handiwork. for sedate rozoko was a dilletante-arborist: an amateur in canes. indeed, canes at last became his hobby. for half daft with age, sometimes he straddled his good staff and gently rode abroad, to take the salubrious evening air; deeming it more befitting exercise, at times, than walking. into this menage, he soon initiated his friend, the king; and side by side they often pranced; or, wearying of the saddle, dismounted; and paused to ponder over prostrate palms, decaying across the path. their mystic rings they counted; and, for every ring, a year in their own calendars. now, so closely did the monarch cleave to the chimpanzee, that, in good time, summoning his subjects, earnestly he charged it on them, that at death, he and his faithful friend should be buried in one tomb. it came to pass, the monarch died; and poor rozoko, now reduced to second childhood, wailed most dismally:--no one slept that night in hooloomooloo. never did he leave the body; and at last, slowly going round it thrice, he laid him down; close nestled; and noiselessly expired. the king's injunctions were remembered; and one vault received them both. moon followed moon; and wrought upon by jeers and taunts, the people of the isle became greatly scandalized, that a base-born baboon should share the shroud of their departed lord; though they themselves had tucked in the aged aeneas fast by the side of his achates. they straight resolved, to build another vault; and over it, a lofty cairn; and thither carry the remains they reverenced. but at the disinterring, a sad perplexity arose. for lo surpassing saul and jonathan, not even in decay were these fast friends divided. so mingled every relic,--ilium and ulna, carpus and metacarpus;--and so similar the corresponding parts, that like the literary remains of beaumont and of fletcher, which was which, no spectacles could tell. therefore, they desisted; lest the towering monument they had reared, might commemorate an ape, and not a king. such the narration; hearing which, my lord media kept stately silence. but in courtly phrase, as beseemed him, babbalanja, turban in hand, thus spoke:-- "my concern is extreme, king yoky, at the embarrassment into which your island is thrown. nor less my grief, that i myself am not the man, to put an end to it. i could weep that comparative anatomists are not so numerous now, as hereafter they assuredly must become; when their services shall be in greater request; when, at the last, last day of all, millions of noble and ignoble spirits will loudly clamor for lost skeletons; when contending claimants shall start up for one poor, carious spine; and, dog-like, we shall quarrel over our own bones." then entered dwarf-stewards, and major-domos; aloft bearing twisted antlers; all hollowed out in goblets, grouped; announcing dinner. loving not, however, to dine with misshapen mardians, king media was loth to move. but babbalanja, quoting the old proverb--"strike me in the face, but refuse not my yams," induced him to sacrifice his fastidiousness. so, under a flourish of ram-horn bugles, court and company proceeded to the banquet. central was a long, dislocated trunk of a wild banian; like a huge centipede crawling on its hundred branches, sawn of even lengths for legs. this table was set out with wry-necked gourds; deformities of calabashes; and shapeless trenchers, dug out of knotty woods. the first course was shrimp-soup, served in great clampshells; the second, lobsters, cuttle-fish, crabs, cockles, cray-fish; the third, hunchbacked roots of the taro-plant--plantains, perversely curling at the end, like the inveterate tails of pertinacious pigs; and for dessert, ill-shaped melons, huge as idiots' heads, plainly suffering from water in the brain. now these viands were commended to the favorable notice of all guests; not only for their delicacy of flavor, but for their symmetry. and in the intervals of the courses, we were bored with hints to admire numerous objects of vertu: bow-legged stools of mangrove wood; zig-zag rapiers of bone; armlets of grampus-vertebrae; outlandish tureens of the callipees of terrapin; and cannakins of the skulls of baboons. the banquet over, with many congees, we withdrew. returning to the water-side, we passed a field, where dwarfs were laboring in beds of yams, heaping the soil around the roots, by scratching it backward; as a dog. all things in readiness, yoky's valet, a tri-armed dwarf, treated us to a glorious start, by giving each canoe a vigorous triple-push, crying, "away with ye, monsters!" nor must it be omitted that just previous to embarking, vee-vee, spying a curious looking stone, turned it over, and found a snake. chapter lxxi a book from the "ponderings of old bardianna" "now," said babbalanja, lighting his trombone as we sailed from the isle, "who are the monsters, we or the cripples?" "you yourself are a monster, for asking the question," said mohi. "and so, to the cripples i am; though not, old man, for the reason you mention. but i am, as i am; whether hideous, or handsome, depends upon who is made judge. there is no supreme standard yet revealed, whereby to judge of ourselves; 'our very instincts are prejudices,' saith alla mallolla; 'our very axioms, and postulates are far from infallible.' 'in respect of the universe, mankind is but a sect,' saith diloro: 'and first principles but dogmas.' what ethics prevail in the pleiades? what things have the synods in sagittarius decreed?" "never mind your old authors," said media. "stick to the cripples; enlarge upon them." "but i have done with them now, my lord; the sermon is not the text. give ear to old bardianna. i know him by heart. thus saith the sage in book x. of the ponderings, 'zermalmende,' the title: 'je pense,' the motto:--'my supremacy over creation, boasteth man, is declared in my natural attitude:--i stand erect! but so do the palm-trees; and the giraffes that graze off their tops. and the fowls of the air fly high over our heads; and from the place where we fancy our heaven to be, defile the tops of our temples. belike, the eagles, from their eyries look down upon us mardians, in our hives, even as upon the beavers in their dams, marveling at our incomprehensible ways. and cunning though we be, some things, hidden from us, may not be mysteries to them. having five keys, hold we all that open to knowledge? deaf, blind, and deprived of the power of scent, the bat will steer its way unerringly:--could we? yet man is lord of the bat and the brute; lord over the crows; with whom, he must needs share the grain he garners. we sweat for the fowls, as well as ourselves. the curse of labor rests only on us. like slaves, we toil: at their good leisure they glean. "'mardi is not wholly ours. we are the least populous part of creation. to say nothing of other tribes, a census of the herring would find us far in the minority. and what life is to us,--sour or sweet,--so is it to them. like us, they die, fighting death to the last; like us, they spawn and depart. we inhabit but a crust, rough surfaces, odds and ends of the isles; the abounding lagoon being its two-thirds, its grand feature from afar; and forever unfathomable. "'what shaft has yet been sunk to the antipodes? what underlieth the gold mines? "'but even here, above-ground, we grope with the sun at meridian. vainly, we seek our northwest passages,--old alleys, and thoroughfares of the whales. "'oh men! fellow men! we are only what we are; not what we would be; nor every thing we hope for. we are but a step in a scale, that reaches further above us than below. we breathe but oxygen. who in arcturus hath heard of us? they know us not in the milky way. we prate of faculties divine: and know not how sprouteth a spear of grass; we go about shrugging our shoulders: when the firmament-arch is over us; we rant of etherealities: and long tarry over our banquets; we demand eternity for a lifetime: when our mortal half-hours too often prove tedious. we know not of what we talk. the bird of paradise out-flies our flutterings. what it is to be immortal, has not yet entered into our thoughts. at will, we build our futurities; tier above tier, all galleries full of laureates: resounding with everlasting oratorios! pater-nosters forever, or eternal misereres! forgetting that in mardi, our breviaries oft fall from our hands. but divans there are, some say, whereon we shall recline, basking in effulgent suns, knowing neither orient nor occident. is it so? fellow men! our mortal lives have an end; but that end is no goal: no place of repose. whatever it may be, it will prove but as the beginning of another race. we will hope, joy, weep, as before; though our tears may be such as the spice-trees shed. supine we can only be, annihilated. "'the thick film is breaking; the ages have long been circling. fellow-men! if we live hereafter, it will not be in lyrics; nor shall we yawn, and our shadows lengthen, while the eternal cycles are revolving. to live at all, is a high vocation; to live forever, and run parallel with oro, may truly appall us. toil we not here? and shall we be forever slothful elsewhere? other worlds differ not much from this, but in degree. doubtless, a pebble is a fair specimen of the universe. "'we point at random. peradventure at this instant, there are beings gazing up to this very world as their future heaven. but the universe is all over a heaven: nothing but stars on stars, throughout infinities of expansion. all we see are but a cluster. could we get to bootes, we would be no nearer oro, than now he hath no place; but is here. already, in its unimaginable roamings, our system may have dragged us through and through the spaces, where we plant cities of beryl and jasper. even now, we may be inhaling the ether, which we fancy seraphic wings are fanning. but look round. there is much to be seen here, and now. do the archangels survey aught more glorious than the constellations we nightly behold? continually we slight the wonders, we deem in reserve. we await the present. with marvels we are glutted, till we hold them no marvels at all. but had these eyes first opened upon all the prodigies in the revelation of the dreamer, long familiarity would have made them appear, even as these things we see. now, _now_, the page is out-spread: to the simple, easy as a primer; to the wise, more puzzling than hieroglyphics. the eternity to come, is but a prolongation of time present: and the beginning may be more wonderful than the end. "'then let us be wise. but much of the knowledge we seek, already we have in our cores. yet so simple it is, we despise it; so bold, we fear it. "'in solitude, let us exhume our ingots. let us hear our own thoughts. the soul needs no mentor, but oro; and oro, without proxy. wanting him, it is both the teacher and the taught. undeniably, reason was the first revelation; and so far as it tests all others, it has precedence over them. it comes direct to us, without suppression or interpolation; and with oro's indisputable imprimatur. but inspiration though it be, it is not so arrogant as some think. nay, far too humble, at times it submits to the grossest indignities. though in its best estate, not infallible; so far as it goes, for us, it is reliable. when at fault, it stands still. we speak not of visionaries. but if this our first revelation stops short of the uttermost, so with all others. if, often, it only perplexes: much more the rest. they leave much unexpounded; and disclosing new mysteries, add to the enigma. fellow-men; the ocean we would sound is unfathomable; and however much we add to our line, when it is out, we feel not the bottom. let us be truly lowly, then; not lifted up with a pharisaic humility. we crawl not like worms; nor wear we the liveries of angels. "'the firmament-arch has no key-stone; least of all, is man its prop. he stands alone. we are every thing to ourselves, but how little to others. what are others to us? assure life everlasting to this generation, and their immediate forefathers--and what tears would flow, were there no resurrection for the countless generations from the first man to five cycles since? and soon we ourselves shall have fallen in with the rank and file of our sires. at a blow, annihilate some distant tribe, now alive and jocund--and what would we reck? curiosity apart, do we really care whether the people in bellatrix are immortal or no? "'though they smite us, let us not turn away from these things, if they be really thus. "'there was a time, when near cassiopeia, a star of the first magnitude, most lustrous in the north, grew lurid as a fire, then dim as ashes, and went out. now, its place is a blank. a vast world, with all its continents, say the astronomers, blazing over the heads of our fathers; while in mardi were merry-makings, and maidens given in marriage. who now thinks of that burning sphere? how few are aware that ever it was? "'these things are so. "'fellow-men! we must go, and obtain a glimpse of what we are from the belts of jupiter and the moons of saturn, ere we see ourselves aright. the universe can wax old without us; though by oro's grace we may live to behold a wrinkle in the sky. eternity is not ours by right; and, alone, unrequited sufferings here, form no title thereto, unless resurrections are reserved for maltreated brutes. suffering is suffering; be the sufferer man, brute, or thing. "'how small;--how nothing, our deserts! let us stifle all vain speculations; we need not to be told what righteousness is; we were born with the whole law in our hearts. let us do: let us act: let us down on our knees. and if, after all, we should be no more forever;-- far better to perish meriting immortality, than to enjoy it unmeritorious. while we fight over creeds, ten thousand fingers point to where vital good may be done. all round us, want crawls to her lairs; and, shivering, dies unrelieved. here, _here_, fellow-men, we can better minister as angels, than in heaven, where want and misery come not. "'we mardians talk as though the future was all in all; but act as though the present was every thing. yet so far as, in our theories, we dwarf our mardi; we go not beyond an archangel's apprehension of it, who takes in all suns and systems at a glance. like pebbles, were the isles to sink in space, sirius, the dog-star, would still flame in the sky. but as the atom to the animalculae, so mardi to us. and lived aright, these mortal lives are long; looked into, these souls, fathomless as the nethermost depths. "'fellow-men; we split upon hairs; but stripped, mere words and phrases cast aside, the great bulk of us are orthodox. none who think, dissent from the grand belief. the first man's thoughts were as ours. the paramount revelation prevails with us; and all that clashes therewith, we do not so much believe, as believe that we can not disbelieve. common sense is a sturdy despot; that, for the most part, has its own way. it inspects and ratifies much independent of it. but those who think they do wholly reject it, are but held in a sly sort of bondage; under a semblance of something else, wearing the old yoke.'" "cease, cease, babbalanja," said media, "and permit me to insinuate a word in your ear. you have long been in the habit, philosopher, of regaling us with chapters from your old bardianna; and with infinite gusto, you have just recited the longest of all. but i do not observe, oh, sage! that for all these things, you yourself are practically the better or wiser. you live not up to bardianna's main thought. where he stands, he stands immovable; but you are a dog-vane. how is this?" "gogle-goggle, fugle-fi, fugle-fogle-orum!" "mad, mad again," cried yoomy. chapter lxxii babbalanja starts to his feet for twenty-four hours, seated stiff, and motionless, babbalanja spoke not a word; then, almost without moving a muscle, muttered thus:--"at banquets surfeit not, but fill; partake, and retire; and eat not again till you crave. thereby you give nature time to work her magic transformings; turning all solids to meat, and wine into blood. after a banquet you incline to repose:--do so: digestion commands. all this follow those, who feast at the tables of wisdom; and all such are they, who partake of the fare of old bardianna." "art resuscitated, then, babbalanja?" said media. "ay, my lord, i am just risen from the dead." "and did azzageddi conduct you to their realms?" "fangs off! fangs off! depart, thou fiend!--unhand me! or by oro, i will die and spite thee!" "quick, quick, mohi! let us change places," cried yoomy. "how now, babbalanja?" said media. "oh my lord man--not _you_ my lord media!--high and mighty puissance! great king of creation!--thou art but the biggest of braggarts! in every age, thou boastest of thy valorous advances:--flat fools, old dotards, and numskulls, our sires! all the past, wasted time! the present knows all! right lucky, fellow-beings, we live now! every man an author! books plenty as men! strike a light in a minute! teeth sold by the pound! all the elements fetching and carrying! lightning running on errands! rivers made to order! the ocean a puddle!-- but ages back they boasted like us; and ages to come, forever and ever, they'll boast. ages back they black-balled the past, thought the last day was come; so wise they were grown. mardi could not stand long; have to annex one of the planets; invade the great sun; colonize the moon;--conquerors sighed for new mardis; and sages for heaven-- having by heart all the primers here below. like us, ages back they groaned under their books; made bonfires of libraries, leaving ashes behind, mid which we reverentially grope for charred pages, forgetting we are so much wiser than they.--but amazing times! astounding revelations; preternatural divulgings!--how now?--more wonderful than all our discoveries is this: that they never were discovered before. so simple, no doubt our ancestors overlooked them; intent on deeper things--the deep things of the soul. all we discover has been with us since the sun began to roll; and much we discover, is not worth the discovering. we are children, climbing trees after birds' nests, and making a great shout, whether we find eggs in them or no. but where are our wings, which our fore-fathers surely had not? tell us, ye sages! something worth an archangel's learning; discover, ye discoverers, something new. fools, fools! mardi's not changed: the sun yet rises in its old place in the east; all things go on in the same old way; we cut our eye-teeth just as late as they did, three thousand years ago." "your pardon," said mohi, "for beshrew me, they are not yet all cut. at threescore and ten, here have i a new tooth coming now." "old man! it but clears the way for another. the teeth sown by the alphabet-founder, were eye-teeth, not yet all sprung from the soil. like spring-wheat, blade by blade, they break ground late; like spring-wheat, many seeds have perished in the hard winter glebe. oh, my lord! though we galvanize corpses into st. vitus' dances, we raise not the dead from their graves! though we have discovered the circulation of the blood, men die as of yore; oxen graze, sheep bleat, babies bawl, asses bray--loud and lusty as the day before the flood. men fight and make up; repent and go at it; feast and starve; laugh and weep; pray and curse; cheat, chaffer, trick, truckle, cozen, defraud, fib, lie, beg, borrow, steal, hang, drown--as in the laughing and weeping, tricking and truckling, hanging and drowning times that have been. nothing changes, though much be new-fashioned: new fashions but revivals of things previous. in the books of the past we learn naught but of the present; in those of the present, the past. all mardi's history--beginning middle, and finis--was written out in capitals in the first page penned. the whole story is told in a title- page. an exclamation point is entire mardi's autobiography." "who speaks now?" said media, "bardianna, azzageddi, or babbalanja?" "all three: is it not a pleasant concert?" "very fine: very fine.--go on; and tell us something of the future." "i have never departed this life yet, my lord." "but just now you said you were risen from the dead." "from the buried dead within me; not from myself, my lord." "if you, then, know nothing of the future--did bardianna?" "if he did, naught did he reveal. i have ever observed, my lord, that even in their deepest lucubrations, the profoundest, frankest, ponderers always reserve a vast deal of precious thought for their own private behoof. they think, perhaps, that 'tis too good, or too bad; too wise, or too foolish, for the multitude. and this unpleasant vibration is ever consequent upon striking a new vein of ideas in the soul. as with buried treasures, the ground over them sounds strange and hollow. at any rate, the profoundest ponderer seldom tells us all he thinks; seldom reveals to us the ultimate, and the innermost; seldom makes us open our eyes under water; seldom throws open the totus-in-toto; and never carries us with him, to the unconsubsistent, the ideaimmanens, the super-essential, and the one." confusion! remember the quadammodatatives!" "ah!" said braid-beard, "that's the crack in his calabash, which all the dicibles of doxdox will not mend." "and from that crazy calabash he gives us to drink, old mohi." "but never heed his leaky gourd nor its contents, my lord. let these philosophers muddle themselves as they will, we wise ones refuse to partake." "and fools like me drink till they reel," said babbalanja. "but in these matters one's calabash must needs go round to keep afloat. fogle-orum!" chapter lxxiii at last, the last mention is made of old bardianna; and his last will and testament is recited at length the day was waning. and, as after many a tale of ghosts, around their forest fire, hungarian gipsies silent sit; watching the ruddy glow kindling each other's faces;--so, now we solemn sat; the crimson west our fire; all our faces flushed. "testators!" then cried media, when your last wills are all round settled, speak, and make it known!" "mine, my lord, has long been fixed," said babbalanja. "and how runs it?" "fugle-fogle--" "hark ye, intruding azzageddi! rejoin thy merry mates below;--go there, and wag thy saucy tail; or i will nail it to our bow, till ye roar for liberation. begone, i say." "down, devil! deeper down!" rumbled babbalanja. "my lord, i think he's gone. and now, by your good leave, i'll repeat old bardianna's will. it's worth all mardi's hearing; and i have so studied it, by rote i know it." "proceed then; but i mistrust that azzageddi is not yet many thousand fathoms down." "attend my lord:---'anno mardis , , , o.s. i, bardianna, of the island of vamba, and village of the same name, having just risen from my yams, in high health, high spirits, and sound mind, do hereby cheerfully make and ordain this my last will and testament. "'imprimis: "'all my kith and kin being well to do in mardi, i wholly leave them out of this my will. "'item. since, in divers ways, verbally and otherwise, my good friend pondo has evinced a strong love for me, bardianna, as the owner and proprietor of all that capital messuage with the appurtenances, in vamba aforesaid, called 'the lair,' wherein i now dwell; also for all my bread-fruit orchards, palm-groves, banana-plantations, taro- patches, gardens, lawns, lanes, and hereditaments whatsoever, adjoining the aforesaid messuage;--i do hereby give and bequeath the same to bomblum of the island of adda; the aforesaid bomblum having never expressed any regard for me, as a holder of real estate. "'item. my esteemed neighbor lakreemo having since the last lunar eclipse called daily to inquire after the state of my health: and having nightly made tearful inquiries of my herb-doctor, concerning the state of my viscera;--i do hereby give and bequeath to the aforesaid lakreemo all and sundry those vegetable pills, potions, powders, aperients, purgatives, expellatives, evacuatives, tonics, emetics, cathartics, clysters, injections, scarifiers, cataplasms, lenitives, lotions, decoctions, washes, gargles, and phlegmagogues; together with all the jars, calabashes, gourds, and galipots, thereunto pertaining; situate, lying, and being, in the west-by-north corner of my east-southeast crypt, in my aforesaid tenement known as 'the lair.' "'item. the woman pesti; a native of vamba, having oftentimes hinted that i, bardianna, sorely needed a spouse, and having also intimated that she bore me a conjugal affection; i do hereby give and bequeath to the aforesaid pesti:--my blessing; forasmuch, as by the time of the opening of this my last will and testament, i shall have been forever delivered from the aforesaid pesti's persecutions. "'item. having a high opinion of the probity of my worthy and excellent friend bidiri, i do hereby entirely, and wholly, give, will, grant, bestow, devise, and utterly hand over unto the said bidiri, all that tenement where my servant oram now dwelleth; with all the lawns, meadows, uplands and lowlands, fields, groves, and gardens, thereunto belonging:--in trust nevertheless to have and to hold the same for the sole use and benefit of lanbranka hohinna, spinster, now resident of the aforesaid island of vamba. "'item. i give and bequeath my large carved drinking gourd to my good comrade topo. "'item. my fast friend doldrum having at sundry times, and in sundry places, uttered the prophecy, that upon my decease his sorrow would be great; i do hereby give and bequeath to the aforesaid doldrum, ten yards of my best soft tappa, to be divided into handkerchiefs for his sole benefit and behoof. "'item. my sensible friend solo having informed me, that he intended to remain a bachelor for life; i give and devise to the aforesaid solo, the mat for one person, whereon i nightly repose. "'item. concerning my private arbor and palm-groves, adjoining, lying, and being in the isle of vamba, i give and devise the same, with all appurtenances whatsoever, to my friend minta the cynic, to have and to hold, in trust for the first through-and-through honest man, issue of my neighbor mondi; and in default of such issue, for the first through-and-through honest man, issue of my neighbor pendidda; and in default of such issue, for the first through-and-through honest man, issue of my neighbor wynodo: and in default of such issue, to any through-and-through honest man, issue of any body, to be found through the length and breadth of mardi. "'item. my friend minta the cynic to be sole judge of all claims to the above-mentioned devise; and to hold the said premises for his own use, until the aforesaid person be found. "'item. knowing my devoted scribe marko to be very sensitive touching the receipt of a favor; i willingly spare him that pain; and hereby bequeath unto the aforesaid scribe, three milk-teeth, not as a pecuniary legacy, but as a very slight token of my profound regard. "'item. i give to the poor of vamba the total contents of my red- labeled bags of bicuspids and canines (which i account three-fourths of my whole estate); to my body servant fidi, my staff, all my robes and togas, and three hundred molars in cash; to that discerning and sagacious philosopher my disciple krako, one complete set of denticles, to buy him a vertebral bone ring; and to that pious and promising youth vangi, two fathoms of my best kaiar rope, with the privilege of any bough in my groves. "'all the rest of my goods, chattels and household stuff whatsoever; and all my loose denticles, remaining after my debts and legacies are paid, and my body is out of sight, i hereby direct to be distributed among the poor of vamba. "'ultimo. i give and bequeath to all mardi this my last advice and counsel:--videlicet: live as long as you can; close your own eyes when you die. "'i have no previous wills to revoke; and publish this to be my first and last. "'in witness whereof, i have hereunto set my right hand; and hereunto have caused a true copy of the tattooing on my right temple to be affixed, during the year first above written. "'by me, bardianna.'" "babbalanja, that's an extraordinary document," said media. "bardianna was an extraordinary man, my lord." "were there no codicils?" "the will is all codicils; all after-thoughts; ten thoughts for one act, was bardianna's motto." "left he nothing whatever to his kindred?" "not a stump." "prom his will, he seems to have lived single." "yes: bardianna never sought to improve upon nature; a bachelor he was born, and a bachelor he died." "according to the best accounts, how did he depart, babbalanja?" asked mohi. "with a firm lip, and his hand on his heart, old man." "his last words?" "calmer, and better!" "where think you, he is now?" "in his ponderings. and those, my lord, we all inherit; for like the great chief of romara, who made a whole empire his legatee; so, great authors have all mardi for an heir." chapter lxxiv a death-cloud sweeps by them, as they sail next day, a fearful sight! as in sooloo's seas, one vast water-spout will, sudden, form: and whirling, chase the flying malay keels; so, before a swift-winged cloud, a thousand prows sped by, leaving braided, foaming wakes; their crowded inmates' arms, in frenzied supplications wreathed; like tangled forest-boughs. "see, see," cried yoomy, "how the death-cloud flies! let us dive down in the sea." "nay," said babbalanja. "all things come of oro; if we must drown, let oro drown us." "down sails: drop paddles," said media: "here we float." like a rushing bison, sweeping by, the death-cloud grazed us with its foam; and whirling in upon the thousand prows beyond, sudden burst in deluges; and scooping out a maelstrom, dragged down every plank and soul. long we rocked upon the circling billows, which expanding from that center, dashed every isle, till, moons after-ward, faint, they laved all mardi's reef. "thanks unto oro," murmured mohi, "this heart still beats." that sun-flushed eve, we sailed by many tranquil harbors, whence fled those thousand prows. serene, the waves ran up their strands; and chimed around the unharmed stakes of palm, to which the thousand prows that morning had been fastened. "flying death, they ran to meet it," said babbalanja. "but 'tie not that they fled, they died; for maelstroms, of these harbors, the death-cloud might have made. but they died, because they might not longer live. could we gain one glimpse of the great calendar of eternity, all our names would there be found, glued against their dates of death. we die by land, and die by sea; we die by earthquakes, famines, plagues, and wars; by fevers, agues; woe, or mirth excessive. this mortal air is one wide pestilence, that kills us all at last. whom the death-cloud spares, sleeping, dies in silent watches of the night. he whom the spears of many battles could not slay, dies of a grape-stone, beneath the vine-clad bower he built, to shade declining years. we die, because we live. but none the less does babbalanja quake. and if he flies not, 'tis because he stands the center of a circle; its every point a leveled dart; and every bow, bent back:--a twang, and babbalanja dies." chapter lxxv they visit the palmy king abrazza night and morn departed; and in the afternoon, we drew nigh to an island, overcast with shadows; a shower was falling; and pining, plaintive notes forth issued from the groves: half-suppressed, and sobbing whisperings of leaves. the shore sloped to the water; thither our prows were pointed. "sheer off! no landing here," cried media, "let us gain the sunny side; and like the care-free bachelor abrazza, who here is king, turn our back on the isle's shadowy side, and revel in its morning-meads." "and lord abrazza:--who is he?" asked yoomy. "the one hundred and twentieth in lineal descent from phipora," said mohi; "and connected on the maternal side to the lord seigniors of klivonia. his uttermost uncle was nephew to the niece of queen zmiglandi; who flourished so long since, she wedded at the first transit of venus. his pedigree is endless." "but who is lord abrazza?" "has he not said?" answered babbalanja. "why so dull?--uttermost nephew to him, who was nephew to the niece of the peerless queen zmiglandi; and the one hundred and twentieth in descent from the illustrious phipora." "will none tell, who abrazza is?" "can not a man then, be described by running off the catalogue of his ancestors?" said babbalanja. "or must we e'en descend to himself. then, listen, dull yoomy! and know that lord abrazza is six feet two: plump thighs; blue eyes; and brown hair; likes his bread-fruit baked, not roasted; sometimes carries filberts in his crown: and has a way of winking when he speaks. his teeth are good." "are you publishing some decamped burglar," said media, "that you speak thus of my royal friend, the lord abrazza? go on, sir! and say he reigns sole king of bonovona!" "my lord, i had not ended. abrazza, yoomy, is a fine and florid king: high-fed, and affluent of heart; of speech, mellifluent. and for a royalty extremely amiable. he is a sceptered gentleman, who does much good. kind king! in person he gives orders for relieving those, who daily dive for pearls, to grace his royal robe; and gasping hard, with blood-shot eyes, come up from shark-infested depths, and fainting, lay their treasure at his feet. sweet lord abrazza! how he pities those, who in his furthest woodlands day-long toil to do his bidding. yet king-philosopher, he never weeps; but pities with a placid smile; and that but seldom." "there seems much iron in your blood," said media. "but say your say." "say i not truth, my lord? abrazza, i admire. save his royal pity all else is jocund round him. he loves to live for life's own sake. he vows he'll have no cares; and often says, in pleasant reveries,-- 'sure, my lord abrazza, if any one should be care-free, 'tis thou; who strike down none, but pity all the fallen!' yet none he lifteth up." at length we gained the sunny side, and shoreward tended. vee-vee's horn was sonorous; and issuing from his golden groves, my lord abrazza, like a host that greets you on the threshold, met us, as we keeled the beach. "welcome! fellow demi-god, and king! media, my pleasant guest!" his servitors salamed; his chieftains bowed; his yeoman-guard, in meadow-green, presented palm-stalks,--royal tokens; and hand in hand, the nodding, jovial, regal friends, went up a lane of salutations; dragging behind, a train of envyings. much we marked abrazza's jeweled crown; that shot no honest blaze of ruddy rubies; nor looked stern-white like media's pearls; but cast a green and yellow glare; rays from emeralds, crossing rays from many a topaz. in those beams, so sinister, all present looked cadaverous: abrazza's cheek alone beamed bright, but hectic. upon its fragrant mats a spacious hall received the kings; and gathering courtiers blandly bowed; and gushing with soft flatteries, breathed idol-incense round them. the hall was terraced thrice; its elevated end was curtained; and thence, at every chime of words, there burst a girl, gay scarfed, with naked bosom, and poured forth wild and hollow laughter, as she raced down all the terraces, and passed their merry kingships. wide round the hall, in avenues, waved almond-woods; their whiteness frosted into bloom. but every vine-clad trunk was hollow-hearted; hollow sounds came from the grottos: hollow broke the billows on the shore: and hollow pauses filled the air, following the hollow laughter. guards, with spears, paced the groves, and in the inner shadows, oft were seen to lift their weapons, and backward press some ugly phantom, saying, "subjects! haunt him not; abrazza would be merry; abrazza feasts his guests." so, banished from our sight seemed all things uncongenial; and pleasant times were ours, in these dominions. not a face passed by, but smiled; mocking-birds perched on the boughs; and singing, made us vow the woods were warbling forth thanksgiving, with a thousand throats! the stalwart yeomen grinned beneath their trenchers, heaped with citrons pomegrantes, grapes; the pages tittered, pouring out the wine; and all the lords loud laughed, smote their gilded spears, and swore the isle was glad. such the isle, in which we tarried; but in our rambles, found no yillah. chapter lxxvi some pleasant, shady talk in the groves, between my lords abrazza and media, babbalanja, mohi, and yoomy abrazza had a cool retreat--a grove of dates; where we were used to lounge of noons, and mix our converse with the babble of the rills; and mix our punches in goblets chased with grapes. and as ever, king abrazza was the prince of hosts. "your crown," he said to media; and with his own, he hung it on a bough. "be not ceremonious:" and stretched his royal legs upon the turf. "wine!" and his pages poured it out. so on the grass we lounged; and king abrazza, who loved his antique ancestors; and loved old times; and would not talk of moderns;--bade yoomy sing old songs; bade mohi rehearse old histories; bade babbalanja tell of old ontologies; and commanded all, meanwhile, to drink his old, old wine. so, all round we quaffed and quoted. at last, we talked of old homeric bards:--those who, ages back, harped, and begged, and groped their blinded way through all this charitable mardi; receiving coppers then, and immortal glory now. abrazza--how came it, that they all were blind? babbalanja--it was endemical, your highness. few grand poets have good eyes; for they needs blind must be, who ever gaze upon the sun. vavona himself was blind: when, in the silence of his secret bower, he said--"i will build another world. therein, let there be kings and slaves, philosophers and wits; whose checkered actions--strange, grotesque, and merry-sad, will entertain my idle moods." so, my lord, vavona played at kings and crowns, and men and manners; and loved that lonely game to play. abrazza--vavona seemed a solitary mardian; who seldom went abroad; had few friends; and shunning others, was shunned by them. babbalanja--but shunned not himself, my lord; like gods, great poets dwell alone; while round them, roll the worlds they build. media--you seem to know all authors:--you must have heard of lombardo, babbalanja; he who flourished many ages since. babbalanja--i have; and his grand kortanza know by heart. media (_to abrazza._)--a very curious work, that, my lord. abrazza--yes, my dearest king. but, babbalanja, if lombardo had aught to tell to mardi--why choose a vehicle so crazy? babbalanja--it was his nature, i suppose. abrazza--but so it would not have been, to me. babbalanja--nor would it have been natural, for my noble lord abrazza, to have worn lombardo's head:--every man has his own, thank oro! abbrazza--a curious work: a very curious work. babbalanja, are you acquainted with the history of lombardo? babbalanja--none better. all his biographies have i read. abrazza--then, tell us how he came to write that work. for one, i can not imagine how those poor devils contrive to roll such thunders through all mardi. media--their thunder and lightning seem spontaneous combustibles, my lord. abrazza--with which, they but consume themselves, my prince beloved. babbalanja--in a measure, true, your highness. but pray you, listen; and i will try to tell the way in which lombardo produced his great kortanza. media--but hark you, philosopher! this time no incoherencies; gag that devil, azzageddi. and now, what was it that originally impelled lombardo to the undertaking? babbalanja--primus and forever, a full heart:--brimful, bubbling, sparkling; and running over like the flagon in your hand, my lord. secundo, the necessity of bestirring himself to procure his yams. abrazza--wanting the second motive, would the first have sufficed, philosopher? babbalanja--doubtful. more conduits than one to drain off the soul's overflowings. besides, the greatest fullnesses overflow not spontaneously; and, even when decanted, like rich syrups, slowly ooze; whereas, poor fluids glibly flow, wide-spreading. hence, when great fullness weds great indolence;--that man, to others, too often proves a cipher; though, to himself, his thoughts form an infinite series, indefinite, from its vastness; and incommunicable;--not for lack of power, but for lack of an omnipotent volition, to move his strength. his own world is full before him; the fulcrum set; but lever there is none. to such a man, the giving of any boor's resoluteness, with tendons braided, would be as hanging a claymore to valor's side, before unarmed. our minds are cunning, compound mechanisms; and one spring, or wheel, or axle wanting, the movement lags, or halts. cerebrum must not overbalance cerebellum; our brains should be round as globes; and planted on capacious chests, inhaling mighty morning- inspirations. we have had vast developments of parts of men; but none of manly wholes. before a full-developed man, mardi would fall down and worship. we are idiot, younger-sons of gods, begotten in dotages divine; and our mothers all miscarry. giants are in our germs; but we are dwarfs, staggering under heads overgrown. heaped, our measures burst. we die of too much life. media (_to abrazza_)--be not impatient, my lord; he'll recover presently. you were talking of lombardo, babbalanja. babbalanja--i was, your highness. of all mardians, by nature, he was the most inert. hast ever seen a yellow lion, all day basking in the yellow sun:--in reveries, rending droves of elephants; but his vast loins supine, and eyelids winking? such, lombardo; but fierce want, the hunter, came and roused his roar. in hairy billows, his great mane tossed like the sea; his eyeballs flamed two hells; his paw had stopped a rolling world. abrazza--in other words, yams were indispensable, and, poor devil, he roared to get them. babbalanja (_bowing_)--partly so, my literal lord. and as with your own golden scepter, at times upon your royal teeth, indolent tattoos you beat; then, potent, sway it o'er your isle; so, lombardo. and ere necessity plunged spur and rowel into him, he knew not his own paces. _that_ churned him into consciousness; and brought ambition, ere then dormant, seething to the top, till he trembled at himself. no mailed hand lifted up against a traveler in woods, can so, appall, as we ourselves. we are full of ghosts and spirits; we are as grave-yards full of buried dead, that start to life before us. and all our dead sires, verily, are in us; _that_ is their immortality. from sire to son, we go on multiplying corpses in ourselves; for all of which, are resurrections. every thought's a soul of some past poet, hero, sage. we are fuller than a city. woe it is, that reveals these things. he knows himself, and all that's in him, who knows adversity. to scale great heights, we must come out of lowermost depths. the way to heaven is through hell. we need fiery baptisms in the fiercest flames of our own bosoms. we must feel our hearts hot--hissing in us. and ere their fire is revealed, it must burn its way out of us; though it consume us and itself. oh, sleek-cheeked plenty! smiling at thine own dimples;--vain for thee to reach out after greatness. turn! turn! from all your tiers of cushions of eider-down--turn! and be broken on the wheels of many woes. at white-heat, brand thyself; and count the scars, like old war-worn veterans, over camp-fires. soft poet! brushing tears from lilies--this way! and howl in sackcloth and in ashes! know, thou, that the lines that live are turned out of a furrowed brow. oh! there is a fierce, a cannibal delight, in the grief that shrieks to multiply itself. that grief is miserly of its own; it pities all the happy. some damned spirits would not be otherwise, could they. abrazza (_to media_)--pray, my lord, is this good gentleman a devil? media.--no, my lord; but he's possessed by one. his name is azzageddi. you may hear more of him. but come, babbalanja, hast forgotten all about lombardo? how set he about that great undertaking, his kortanza? abrazza (_to media_)--oh, for all the ravings of your babbalanja, lombardo took no special pains; hence, deserves small commendation. for, genius must be somewhat like us kings,--calm, content, in consciousness of power. and to lombardo, the scheme of his kortanza must have come full-fledged, like an eagle from the sun. babbalanja--no, your highness; but like eagles, his thoughts were first callow; yet, born plumeless, they came to soar. abrazza--very fine. i presume, babbalanja, the first thing he did, was to fast, and invoke the muses. babbalanja--pardon, my lord; on the contrary he first procured a ream of vellum, and some sturdy quills: indispensable preliminaries, my worshipful lords, to the writing of the sublimest epics. abrazza--ah! then the muses were afterward invoked. babbalanja--pardon again. lombardo next sat down to a fine plantain pudding. yoomy--when the song-spell steals over me, i live upon olives. babbalanja--yoomy, lombardo eschewed olives. said he, "what fasting soldier can fight? and the fight of all fights is to write." in ten days lombardo had written-- abrazza--dashed off, you mean. babbalanja--he never dashed off aught. abrazza--as you will. babbalanja--in ten days, lombardo had written full fifty folios; he loved huge acres of vellum whereon to expatiate. media--what then? babbalanja--he read them over attentively; made a neat package of the whole: and put it into the fire. all--how? media--what! these great geniuses writing trash? abrazza--i thought as much. babbalanja--my lords, they abound in it! more than any other men in mardi. genius is full of trash. but genius essays its best to keep it to itself; and giving away its ore, retains the earth; whence, the too frequent wisdom of its works, and folly of its life. abrazza--then genius is not inspired, after all. how they must slave in their mines! i weep to think of it. babbalanja--my lord, all men are inspired; fools are inspired; your highness is inspired; for the essence of all ideas is infused. of ourselves, and in ourselves, we originate nothing. when lombardo set about his work, he knew not what it would become. he did not build himself in with plans; he wrote right on; and so doing, got deeper and deeper into himself; and like a resolute traveler, plunging through baffling woods, at last was rewarded for his toils. "in good time," saith he, in his autobiography, "i came out into a serene, sunny, ravishing region; full of sweet scents, singing birds, wild plaints, roguish laughs, prophetic voices. "here we are at last, then," he cried; "i have created the creative." and now the whole boundless landscape stretched away. lombardo panted; the sweat was on his brow; he off mantle; braced himself; sat within view of the ocean; his face to a cool rushing breeze; placed flowers before him; and gave himself plenty of room. on one side was his ream of vellum-- abbrazza--and on the other, a brimmed beaker. babbalanja--no, your highness; though he loved it, no wine for lombardo while actually at work. mohi--indeed? why, i ever thought that it was to the superior quality of lombardo's punches, that mardi was indebted for that abounding humor of his. babbalanja--not so; he had another way of keeping himself well braced. yoomy--quick! tell us the secret. babbalanja--he never wrote by rush-light. his lamp swung in heaven.-- he rose from his east, with the sun; he wrote when all nature was alive. mohi--doubtless, then, he always wrote with a grin; and none laughed louder at his quips, than lombardo himself. babbalanja--hear you laughter at the birth of a man child, old man? the babe may have many dimples; not so, the parent. lombardo was a hermit to behold. media--what! did lombardo laugh with a long face? babbalanja--his merriment was not always merriment to him, your highness. for the most part, his meaning kept him serious. then he was so intensely riveted to his work, he could not pause to laugh. mohi--my word for it; but he had a sly one, now and then. babbalanja--for the nonce, he was not his own master: a mere amanuensis writing by dictation. yoomy--inspiration, that! babbalanja.--call it as you will, yoomy, it was a sort of sleep- walking of the mind. lombardo never threw down his pen: it dropped from him; and then, he sat disenchanted: rubbing his eyes; staring; and feeling faint--sometimes, almost unto death. media--but pray, babbalanja, tell us how he made acquaintance with some of those rare worthies, he introduces us to, in his koztanza. babbalanja--he first met them in his reveries; they were walking about in him, sour and moody: and for a long time, were shy of his advances; but still importuned, they at last grew ashamed of their reserve; stepped forward; and gave him their hands. after that, they were frank and friendly. lombardo set places for them at his board; when he died, he left them something in his will. media--what! those imaginary beings? abrazza--wondrous witty! infernal fine! media--but, babbalanja; after all, the koztanza found no favor in the eyes of some mardians. abrazza--ay: the arch-critics verbi and batho denounced it. babbalanja--yes: on good authority, verbi is said to have detected a superfluous comma; and batho declared that, with the materials he could have constructed a far better world than lombardo's. but, didst ever hear of his laying his axis? abrazza--but the unities; babbalanja, the unities! they are wholly wanting in the koztanza. babbalanja--your highness; upon that point, lombardo was frank. saith he, in his autobiography: "for some time, i endeavored to keep in the good graces of those nymphs; but i found them so captious, and exacting; they threw me into such a violent passion with their fault- findings; that, at last, i renounced them." abrazza--very rash! babbalanja--no, your highness; for though lombardo abandoned all monitors from without; he retained one autocrat within--his crowned and sceptered instinct. and what, if he pulled down one gross world, and ransacked the etherial spheres, to build up something of his own--a composite:--what then? matter and mind, though matching not, are mates; and sundered oft, in his koztanza they unite:--the airy waist, embraced by stalwart arms. media--incoherent again! i thought we were to have no more of this! babbalanja--my lord media, there are things infinite in the finite; and dualities in unities. our eyes are pleased with the redness of the rose, but another sense lives upon its fragrance. its redness you must approach, to view: its invisible fragrance pervades the field. so, with the koztanza. its mere beauty is restricted to its form: its expanding soul, past mardi does embalm. modak is modako; but fogle- foggle is not fugle-fi. media (_to abrazza_)--my lord, you start again; but 'tis only another phase of azzageeddi; sometimes he's quite mad. but all this you must needs overlook. abrazza--i will, my dear prince; what one can not see through, one must needs look over, as you say. yoomy--but trust me, your highness, some of those strange things fall far too melodiously upon the ear, to be wholly deficient in meaning. abrazza--your gentle minstrel, _this_ must be, my lord. but babbalanja, the koztanza lacks cohesion; it is wild, unconnected, all episode. babbalanja--and so is mardi itself:--nothing but episodes; valleys and hills; rivers, digressing from plains; vines, roving all over; boulders and diamonds; flowers and thistles; forests and thickets; and, here and there, fens and moors. and so, the world in the koztanza. abrazza--ay, plenty of dead-desert chapters there; horrible sands to wade through. media--now, babbalanja, away with your tropes; and tell us of the work, directly it was done. what did lombardo then? did he show it to any one for an opinion? babbalanja--yes, to zenzori; who asked him where he picked up so much trash; to hanto, who bade him not be cast down, it was pretty good; to lucree, who desired to know how much he was going to get for it; to roddi, who offered a suggestion. media--and what was that? babbalanja--that he had best make a faggot of the whole; and try again. abrazza--very encouraging. media--any one else? babbalanja--to pollo; who, conscious his opinion was sought, was thereby puffed up; and marking the faltering of lombardo's voice, when the manuscript was handed him, straightway concluded, that the man who stood thus trembling at the bar, must needs be inferior to the judge. but his verdict was mild. after sitting up all night over the work; and diligently taking notes:--"lombardo, my friend! here, take your sheets. i have run through them loosely. you might have done better; but then you might have done worse. take them, my friend; i have put in some good things for you:" media--and who was pollo? babbalanja--probably some one who lived in lombardo's time, and went by that name. he is incidentally mentioned, and cursorily immortalized in one of the posthumous notes to the koztanza. media--what is said of him there? babbalanja--not much. in a very old transcript of the work--that of aldina--the note alludes to a brave line in the text, and runs thus:-- "diverting to tell, it was this passage that an old prosodist, one pollo, claimed for his own. he maintained he made a free-will offering of it to lombardo. several things are yet extant of this pollo, who died some weeks ago. he seems to have been one of those, who would do great things if they could; but are content to compass the small. he imagined, that the precedence of authors he had established in his library, was their mardi order of merit. he condemned the sublime poems of vavona to his lowermost shelf. 'ah,' thought he, 'how we library princes, lord it over these beggarly authors!' well read in the history of their woes, pollo pitied them all, particularly the famous; and wrote little essays of his own, which he read to himself." media--well: and what said lombardo to those good friends of his,-- zenzori, hanto, and roddi? babbalanja--nothing. taking home his manuscript, he glanced it over; making three corrections. abrazza--and what then? babbalanja--then, your highness, he thought to try a conclave of professional critics; saying to himself, "let them privately point out to me, now, all my blemishes; so that, what time they come to review me in public, all will be well." but curious to relate, those professional critics, for the most part, held their peace, concerning a work yet unpublished. and, with some generous exceptions, in their vague, learned way, betrayed such base, beggarly notions of authorship, that lombardo could have wept, had tears been his. but in his very grief, he ground his teeth. muttered he, "they are fools. in their eyes, bindings not brains make books. they criticise my tattered cloak, not my soul, caparisoned like a charger. he is the great author, think they, who drives the best bargain with his wares: and no bargainer am i. because he is old, they worship some mediocrity of an ancient, and mock at the living prophet with the live coal on his lips. they are men who would not be men, had they no books. their sires begat them not; but the authors they have read. feelings they have none: and their very opinions they borrow. they can not say yea, nor nay, without first consulting all mardi as an encyclopedia. and all the learning in them, is as a dead corpse in a coffin. were they worthy the dignity of being damned, i would damn them; but they are not. critics?--asses! rather mules!--so emasculated, from vanity, they can not father a true thought. like mules, too, from dunghills, they trample down gardens of roses: and deem that crushed fragrance their own.--oh! that all round the domains of genius should lie thus unhedged, for such cattle to uproot! oh! that an eagle should be stabbed by a goose-quill! but at best, the greatest reviewers but prey on my leavings. for i am critic and creator; and as critic, in cruelty surpass all critics merely, as a tiger, jackals. for ere mardi sees aught of mine, i scrutinize it myself, remorseless as a surgeon. i cut right and left; i probe, tear, and wrench; kill, burn, and destroy; and what's left after that, the jackals are welcome to. it is i that stab false thoughts, ere hatched; i that pull down wall and tower, rejecting materials which would make palaces for others. oh! could mardi but see how we work, it would marvel more at our primal chaos, than at the round world thence emerging. it would marvel at our scaffoldings, scaling heaven; marvel at the hills of earth, banked all round our fabrics ere completed.--how plain the pyramid! in this grand silence, so intense, pierced by that pointed mass,--could ten thousand slaves have ever toiled? ten thousand hammers rung?--there it stands, --part of mardi: claiming kin with mountains;--was this thing piecemeal built?--it was. piecemeal?--atom by atom it was laid. the world is made of mites." yoomy (_musing._)--it is even so. abrazza--lombardo was severe upon the critics; and they as much so upon him;--of that, be sure. babbalanga--your highness, lombardo never presumed to criticise true critics; who are more rare than true poets. a great critic is a sultan among satraps; but pretenders are thick as ants, striving to scale a palm, after its aerial sweetness. and they fight among themselves. essaying to pluck eagles, they themselves are geese, stuck full of quills, of which they rob each other. abrazza (_to media._)--oro help the victim that falls in babbalanja's hands! media.--ay, my lord; at times, his every finger is a dagger: every thought a falling tower that whelms! but resume, philosopher--what of lombardo now? babbalanja--"for this thing," said he, "i have agonized over it enough.--i can wait no more. it has faults--all mine;--its merits all its own;--but i can toil no longer. the beings knit to me implore; my heart is full; my brain is sick. let it go--let it go--and oro with it. somewhere mardi has a mighty heart---_that_ struck, all the isles shall resound!" abrazza--poor devil! he took the world too hard. media.-as most of these mortals do, my lord. that's the load, self- imposed, under which babbalanja reels. but now, philosopher, ere mardi saw it, what thought lombardo of his work, looking at it objectively, as a thing out of him, i mean. abrazza--no doubt, he hugged it. babbalanja--hard to answer. sometimes, when by himself, he thought hugely of it, as my lord abrazza says; but when abroad, among men, he almost despised it; but when he bethought him of those parts, written with full eyes, half blinded; temples throbbing; and pain at the heart-- abrazza--pooh! pooh! babbalanja--he would say to himself, "sure, it can not be in vain!" yet again, when he bethought him of the hurry and bustle of mardi, dejection stole over him. "who will heed it," thought he; "what care these fops and brawlers for me? but am i not myself an egregious coxcomb? who will read me? say one thousand pages--twenty-five lines each--every line ten words--every word ten letters. that's two million five hundred thousand _a_'s, and _i_'s, and _o_'s to read! how many are superfluous? am i not mad to saddle mardi with such a task? of all men, am i the wisest, to stand upon a pedestal, and teach the mob? ah, my own kortanza! child of many prayers!--in whose earnest eyes, so fathomless, i see my own; and recall all past delights and silent agonies-thou may'st prove, as the child of some fond dotard:-- beauteous to me; hideous to mardi! and methinks, that while so much slaving merits that thou should'st not die; it has not been intense, prolonged enough, for the high meed of immortality. yet, things immortal have been written; and by men as me;--men, who slept and waked; and ate; and talked with tongues like mine. ah, oro! how may we know or not, we are what we would be? hath genius any stamp and imprint, obvious to possessors? has it eyes to see itself; or is it blind? or do we delude ourselves with being gods, and end in grubs? genius, genius?--a thousand years hence, to be a household-word?--i?-- lombardo? but yesterday cut in the market-place by a spangled fool!-- lombardo immortal?--ha, ha, lombardo! but thou art an ass, with vast ears brushing the tops of palms! ha, ha, ha! methinks i see thee immortal! 'thus great lombardo saith; and thus; and thus; and thus:-- thus saith he--illustrious lombardo!--lombardo, our great countryman! lombardo, prince of poets--lombardo! great lombardo!'--ha, ha, ha!-- go, go! dig thy grave, and bury thyself!" abrazza--he was very funny, then, at times. babbalanja--very funny, your highness:--amazing jolly! and from my nethermost soul, would to oro, thou could'st but feel one touch of that jolly woe! it would appall thee, my right worshipful lord abrazza! abrazza (_to media_)--my dear lord, his teeth are marvelously white and sharp: some she-shark must have been his dam:--does he often grin thus? it was infernal! media--ah! that's azzageddi. but, prithee, babbalanja, proceed. babbalanja--your highness, even in his calmer critic moods, lombardo was far from fancying his work. he confesses, that it ever seemed to him but a poor scrawled copy of something within, which, do what he would, he could not completely transfer. "my canvas was small," said he; "crowded out were hosts of things that came last. but fate is in it." and fate it was, too, your highness, which forced lombardo, ere his work was well done, to take it off his easel, and send it to be multiplied. "oh, that i was not thus spurred!" cried he; "but like many another, in its very childhood, this poor child of mine must go out into mardi, and get bread for its sire." abrazza (_with a sigh_)--alas, the poor devil! but methinks 'twas wondrous arrogant in him to talk to all mardi at that lofty rate.--did he think himself a god? babbalanja--he himself best knew what he thought; but, like all others, he was created by oro to some special end; doubtless, partly answered in his koztanza. media--and now that lombardo is long dead and gone--and his work, hooted during life, lives after him--what think the present company of it? speak, my lord abrazza! babbalanja! mohi! yoomy! abrazza (_tapping his sandal with his scepter__)--i never read it. babbalanja (_looking upward_)--it was written with a divine intent. mohi (_stroking his beard_)--i never hugged it in a corner, and ignored it before mardi. yoomy (_musing_)--it has bettered my heart. media (_rising_)--and i have read it through nine times. babbalanja (_starting up_)--ah, lombardo! this must make thy ghost glad! chapter lxxvii they sup there seemed something sinister, hollow, heartless, about abrazza, and that green-and-yellow, evil-starred crown that he wore. but why think of that? though we like not something in the curve of one's brow, or distrust the tone of his voice; yet, let us away with suspicions if we may, and make a jolly comrade of him, in the name of the gods. miserable! thrice miserable he, who is forever turning over and over one's character in his mind, and weighing by nice avoirdupois, the pros and the cons of his goodness and badness. for we are all good and bad. give me the heart that's huge as all asia; and unless a man, be a villain outright, account him one of the best tempered blades in the world. that night, in his right regal hall, king abrazza received us. and in merry good time a fine supper was spread. now, in thus nocturnally regaling us, our host was warranted by many ancient and illustrious examples. for old jove gave suppers; the god woden gave suppers; the hindoo deity brahma gave suppers; the red man's great spirit gave suppers:-- chiefly venison and game. and many distinguished mortals besides. ahasuerus gave suppers; xerxes gave suppers; montezuma gave suppers; powhattan gave suppers; the jews' passovers were suppers; the pharaohs gave suppers; julius caesar gave suppers:--and rare ones they were; great pompey gave suppers; nabob crassus gave suppers; and heliogabalus, surnamed the gobbler, gave suppers. it was a common saying of old, that king pluto gave suppers; some say he is giving them still. if so, he is keeping tip-top company, old pluto:--emperors and czars; great moguls and great khans; grand lamas and grand dukes; prince regents and queen dowagers:--tamerlane hob-a- nobbing with bonaparte; antiochus with solyman the magnificent; pisistratus pledging pilate; semiramis eating bon-bons with bloody mary, and her namesake of medicis; the thirty tyrants quaffing three to one with the council of ten; and sultans, satraps, viziers, hetmans, soldans, landgraves, bashaws, doges, dauphins, infantas, incas, and caciques looking on. again: at arbela, the conqueror of conquerors, conquering son of olympia by jupiter himself, sent out cards to his captains,-- hephestion, antigonus, antipater, and the rest--to join him at ten, p.m., in the temple of belus; there, to sit down to a victorious supper, off the gold plate of the assyrian high priests. how majestically he poured out his old madeira that night!--feeling grand and lofty as the himmalehs; yea, all babylon nodded her towers in his soul! spread, heaped up, stacked with good things; and redolent of citrons and grapes, hilling round tall vases of wine; and here and there, waving with fresh orange-boughs, among whose leaves, myriads of small tapers gleamed like fire-flies in groves,--abrazza's glorious board showed like some banquet in paradise: ceres and pomona presiding; and jolly bacchus, like a recruit with a mettlesome rifle, staggering back as he fires off the bottles of vivacious champagne. in ranges, roundabout stood living candelabras:--lackeys, gayly bedecked, with tall torches in their hands; and at one end, stood trumpeters, bugles at their lips. "this way, my dear media!--this seat at my left--noble taji!--my right. babbalanja!--mohi--where you are. but where's pretty yoomy?-- gone to meditate in the moonlight? ah!--very good. let the banquet begin. a blast there!" and charge all did. the venison, wild boar's meat, and buffalo-humps, were extraordinary; the wine, of rare vintages, like bottled lightning; and the first course, a brilliant affair, went off like a rocket. but as yet, babbalanja joined not in the revels. his mood was on him; and apart he sat; silently eyeing the banquet; and ever and anon muttering,--"fogle-foggle, fugle-fi.--" the first fury of the feast over, said king media, pouring out from a heavy flagon into his goblet, "abrazza, these suppers are wondrous fine things." "ay, my dear lord, much better than dinners." "so they are, so they are. the dinner-hour is the summer of the day: full of sunshine, i grant; but not like the mellow autumn of supper. a dinner, you know, may go off rather stiffly; but invariably suppers are jovial. at dinners, 'tis not till you take in sail, furl the cloth, bow the lady-passengers out, and make all snug; 'tis not till then, that one begins to ride out the gale with complacency. but at these suppers--good oro! your cup is empty, my dear demi-god!--but at these suppers, i say, all is snug and ship-shape before you begin; and when you begin, you waive the beginning, and begin in the middle. and as for the cloth,--but tell us, braid-beard, what that old king of franko, ludwig the fat, said of that matter. the cloth for suppers, you know. it's down in your chronicles." "my lord,"--wiping his beard,--"old ludwig was of opinion, that at suppers the cloth was superfluous, unless on the back of some jolly good friar. said he, 'for one, i prefer sitting right down to the unrobed table.'" "high and royal authority, that of ludwig the fat," said babbalanja, "far higher than the authority of ludwig the great:--the one, only great by courtesy; the other, fat beyond a peradventure. but they are equally famous; and in their graves, both on a par. for after devouring many a fair province, and grinding the poor of his realm, ludwig the great has long since, himself, been devoured by very small worms, and ground into very fine dust. and after stripping many a venison rib, ludwig the fat has had his own polished and bleached in the valley of death; yea, and his cranium chased with corrodings, like the carved flagon once held to its jaws." "my lord! my lord!"--cried abrazza to media--"this ghastly devil of yours grins worse than a skull. i feel the worms crawling over me!--by oro we must eject him!" "no, no, my lord. let him sit there, as of old the death's-head graced the feasts of the pharaohs--let him sit--let him sit--for death but imparts a flavor to life--go on: wag your tongue without fear, azzageddi!--but come, braid-beard! let's hear more of the ludwigs." "well, then, your highness, of all the eighteen royal ludwigs of franko--" "who like so many ten-pins, all in a row," interposed babbalanja-- "have been bowled off the course by grim death." "heed him not," said media--"go on." "the debonnaire, the pious, the stammerer, the do-nothing, the juvenile, the quarreler:--of all these, i say, ludwig the fat was the best table-man of them all. such a full orbed paunch was his, that no way could he devise of getting to his suppers, but by getting right into them. like the zodiac his table was circular, and full in the middle he sat, like a sun;--all his jolly stews and ragouts revolving around him." "yea," said babbalanja, "a very round sun was ludwig the fat. no wonder he's down in the chronicles; several ells about the waist, and king of cups and tokay. truly, a famous king: three hundred-weight of lard, with a diadem on top: lean brains and a fat doublet--a demijohn of a demi-god!" "is this to be longer borne?" cried abrazza, starting up. "quaff that sneer down, devil! on the instant! down with it, to the dregs! this comes, my lord media, of having a slow drinker at one's board. like an iceberg, such a fellow frosts the whole atmosphere of a banquet, and is felt a league off we must thrust him out. guards!" "back! touch him not, hounds!"--cried media. "your pardon, my lord, but we'll keep him to it; and melt him down in this good wine. drink! i command it, drink, babbalanja!" "and am i not drinking, my lord? surely you would not that i should imbibe more than i can hold. the measure being full, all poured in after that is but wasted. i am for being temperate in these things, my good lord. and my one cup outlasts three of yours. better to sip a pint, than pour down a quart. all things in moderation are good; whence, wine in moderation is good. but all things in excess are bad: whence wine in excess is bad." "away with your logic and conic sections! drink!--but no, no: i am too severe. for of all meals a supper should be the most social and free. and going thereto we kings, my lord, should lay aside our scepters.-- do as you please babbalanja." "you are right, you are right, after all, my dear demi-god," said abrazza. "and to say truth, i seldom worry myself with the ways of these mortals; for no thanks do we demi-gods get. we kings should be ever indifferent. nothing like a cold heart; warm ones are ever chafing, and getting into trouble. i let my mortals here in this isle take heed to themselves; only barring them out when they would thrust in their petitions. this very instant, my lord, my yeoman-guard is on duty without, to drive off intruders.--hark!--what noise is that?--ho, who comes?" at that instant, there burst into the hall, a crowd of spearmen, driven before a pale, ragged rout, that loudly invoked king abrazza. "pardon, my lord king, for thus forcing an entrance! but long in vain have we knocked at thy gates! our grievances are more than we can bear! give ear to our spokesman, we beseech!" and from their tumultuous midst, they pushed forward a tall, grim, pine-tree of a fellow, who loomed up out of the throng, like the peak of teneriffe among the canaries in a storm. "drive the knaves out! ho, cowards, guards, turn about! charge upon them! away with your grievances! drive them out, i say, drive them out!--high times, truly, my lord media, when demi-gods are thus annoyed at their wine. oh, who would reign over mortals!" so at last, with much difficulty, the ragged rout were ejected; the peak of teneriffe going last, a pent storm on his brow; and muttering about some black time that was corning. while the hoarse murmurs without still echoed through the hall, king abrazza refilling his cup thus spoke:--"you were saying, my dear lord, that of all meals a supper is the most social and free. very true. and of all suppers those given by us bachelor demi-gods are the best. are they not?" "they are. for benedict mortals must be home betimes: bachelor demi- gods are never away." "ay, your highnesses, bachelors are all the year round at home;" said mohi: "sitting out life in the chimney corner, cozy and warm as the dog, whilome turning the old-fashioned roasting jack." "and to us bachelor demi-gods," cried media "our to-morrows are as long rows of fine punches, ranged on a board, and waiting the hand." "but my good lords," said babbalanja, now brightening with wine; "if, of all suppers those given by bachelors be the best:--of all bachelors, are not your priests and monks the jolliest? i mean, behind the scenes? their prayers all said, and their futurities securely invested,--who so carefree and cozy as they? yea, a supper for two in a friar's cell in maramma, is merrier far, than a dinner for five-and- twenty, in the broad right wing of donjalolo's great palace of the morn." "bravo, babbalanja!" cried media, "your iceberg is thawing. more of that, more of that. did i not say, we would melt him down at last, my lord?" "ay," continued babbalanja, "bachelors are a noble fraternity: i'm a bachelor myself. one of ye, in that matter, my lord demi-gods. and if unlike the patriarchs of the world, we father not our brigades and battalions; and send not out into the battles of our country whole regiments of our own individual raising;--yet do we oftentimes leave behind us goodly houses and lands; rare old brandies and mountain malagas; and more especially, warm doublets and togas, and spatterdashes, wherewithal to keep comfortable those who survive us;-- casing the legs and arms, which others beget. then compare not invidiously benedicts with bachelors, since thus we make an equal division of the duties, which both owe to posterity." "suppers forever!" cried media. "see, my lord, what yours has done for babbalanja. he came to it a skeleton; but will go away, every bone padded!" "ay, my lord demi-gods," said babbalanja, drop by drop refilling his goblet. "these suppers are all very fine, very pleasant, and merry. but we pay for them roundly. every thing, my good lords, has its price, from a marble to a world. and easier of digestion, and better for both body and soul, are a half-haunch of venison and a gallon of mead, taken under the sun at meridian, than the soft bridal breast of a partridge, with some gentle negus, at the noon of night!" "no lie that!" said mohi. "beshrew me, in no well-appointed mansion doth the pantry lie adjoining the sleeping chamber. a good thought: i'll fill up, and ponder on it." "let not azzageddi get uppermost again, babbalanja," cried media. "your goblet is only half-full." "permit it to remain so; my lord. for whoso takes much wine to bed with him, has a bedfellow, more restless than a somnambulist. and though wine be a jolly blade at the board, a sulky knave is he under a blanket. i know him of old. yet, your highness, for all this, to many a mardian, suppers are still better than dinners, at whatever cost purchased. forasmuch, as many have more leisure to sup, than dine. and though you demi-gods, may dine at your ease; and dine it out into night: and sit and chirp over your burgundy, till the morning larks join your crickets, and wed matins to vespers;--far otherwise, with us plebeian mortals. from our dinners, we must hie to our anvils: and the last jolly jorum evaporates in a cark and a care." "methinks he relapses," said abrazza. "it waxes late," said mohi; "your highnesses, is it not time to break up?" "no, no!", cried abrazza; "let the day break when it will: but no breakings for us. it's only midnight. this way with the wine; pass it along, my dear media. we are young yet, my sweet lord; light hearts and heavy purses; short prayers and long rent-rolls. pass round the tokay! we demi-gods have all our old age for a dormitory. come!--round and round with the flagons! let them disappear like mile-stones on a race-course!" "ah!" murmured babbalanja, holding his full goblet at arm's length on the board, "not thus with the hapless wight, born with a hamper on his back, and blisters in his palms.--toil and sleep--sleep and toil, are his days and his nights; he goes to bed with a lumbago, and wakes with the rheumatics;--i know what it is;--he snatches lunches, not dinners, and makes of all life a cold snack! yet praise be to oro, though to such men dinners are scarce worth the eating; nevertheless, praise oro again, a good supper is something. off jack-boots; nay, off shirt, if you will, and go at it. hurrah! the fagged day is done: the last blow is an echo. twelve long hours to sunrise! and would it were an antarctic night, and six months to to-morrow! but, hurrah! the very bees have their hive, and after a day's weary wandering, hie home to their honey. so they stretch out their stiff legs, rub their lame elbows, and putting their tired right arms in a sling, set the others to fetching and carrying from dishes to dentals, from foaming flagon to the demijohn which never pours out at the end you pour in. ah! after all, the poorest devil in mardi lives not in vain. there's a soft side to the hardest oak-plank in the world!" "methinks i have heard some such sentimental gabble as this before from my slaves, my lord," said abrazza to media. "it has the old gibberish flavor." "gibberish, your highness? gibberish? i'm full of it--i'm a gibbering ghost, my right worshipful lord! here, pass your hand through me-- here, _here_, and scorch it where i most burn. by oro! king! but i will gibe and gibber at thee, till thy crown feels like another skull clapped on thy own. gibberish? ay, in hell we'll gibber in concert, king! we'll howl, and roast, and hiss together!" "devil that thou art, begone! ho, guards! seize him!" "back, curs!" cried media. "harm not a hair of his head. i crave pardon, king abrazza, but no violence must be done babbalanja." "trumpets there!" said abrazza; "so: the banquet is done--lights for king media! good-night, my lord!" now, thus, for the nonce, with good cheer, we close. and after many fine dinners and banquets--through light and through shade; through mirth, sorrow, and all--drawing nigh to the evening end of these wanderings wild--meet is it that all should be regaled with a supper. chapter lxxviii they embark next morning, king abrazza sent frigid word to media that the day was very fine for yachting; but he much regretted that indisposition would prevent his making one of the party, who that morning doubtless would depart his isle. "my compliments to your king," said media to the chamberlains, "and say the royal notice to quit was duly received." "take azzageddi's also," said babbalanja; "and say, i hope his highness will not fail in his appointment with me:--the first midnight after he dies; at the grave-yard corner;--there i'll be, and grin again!" sailing on, the next land we saw was thickly wooded: hedged round about by mangrove trees; which growing in the water, yet lifted high their boughs. here and there were shady nooks, half verdure and half water. fishes rippled, and canaries sung. "let us break through, my lord," said yoomy, "and seek the shore. its solitudes must prove reviving." "solitudes they are," cried mohi. "peopled but not enlivened," said babbalanja. "hard landing here, minstrel! see you not the isle is hedged?" "why, break through, then," said media. "yillah is not here." "i mistrusted it," sighed yoomy; "an imprisoned island! full of uncomplaining woes: like many others we must have glided by, unheedingly. yet of them have i heard. this isle many pass, marking its outward brightness, but dreaming not of the sad secrets here embowered. haunt of the hopeless! in those inland woods brood mardians who have tasted mardi, and found it bitter--the draught so sweet to others!--maidens whose unimparted bloom has cankered in the bud; and children, with eyes averted from life's dawn--like those new- oped morning blossoms which, foreseeing storms, turn and close." "yoomy's rendering of the truth," said mohi. "why land, then?" said media. "no merry man of sense--no demi-god like me, will do it. let's away; let's see all that's pleasant, or that seems so, in our circuit, and, if possible, shun the sad." "then we have circled not the round reef wholly," said babbalanja, "but made of it a segment. for this is far from being the first sad land, my lord, that we have slighted at your instance." "no more. i will have no gloom. a chorus! there, ye paddlers! spread all your sails; ply paddles; breeze up, merry winds!" and so, in the saffron sunset, we neared another shore. a gloomy-looking land! black, beetling crags, rent by volcanic clefts; ploughed up with water-courses, and dusky with charred woods. the beach was strewn with scoria and cinders; in dolorous soughs, a chill wind blew; wails issued from the caves; and yellow, spooming surges, lashed the moaning strand. "shall we land?" said babbalanja. "not here," cried yoomy; "no yillah here." "no," said media. "this is another of those lands far better to avoid." "know ye not," said mohi, "that here are the mines of king klanko, whose scourged slaves, toiling in their pits, so nigh approach the volcano's bowels, they hear its rumblings? 'yet they must work on,' cries klanko, 'the mines still yield!' and daily his slaves' bones are brought above ground, mixed with the metal masses." "set all sail there, men! away!" "my lord," said babbalanja; "still must we shun the unmitigated evil; and only view the good; or evil so mixed therewith, the mixture's both?" half vailed in misty clouds, the harvest-moon now rose; and in that pale and haggard light, all sat silent; each man in his own secret mood: best knowing his own thoughts. chapter lxxix babbalanja at the full of the moon "ho, mortals! go we to a funeral, that our paddles seem thus muffled? up heart, taji! or does that witch hautia haunt thee? be a demi-god once more, and laugh. her flowers are not barbs; and the avengers' arrows are too blunt to slay. babbalanja! mohi! yoomy! up heart! up heart!--by oro! i will debark the whole company on the next land we meet. no tears for me. ha, ha! let us laugh. ho, vee-vee! awake; quick, boy,--some wine! and let us make glad, beneath the glad moon. look! it is stealing forth from its clouds. perdition to hautia! long lives, and merry ones to ourselves! taji, my charming fellow, here's to you:--may your heart be a stone! ha, ha!--will nobody join me? my laugh is lonely as his who laughed in his tomb. come, laugh; will no one quaff wine, i say? see! the round moon is abroad." "say you so, my lord? then for one, i am with you;" cried babbalanja. "fill me a brimmer. ah! but this wine leaps through me like a panther. ay, let us laugh: let us roar: let us yell! what, if i was sad but just now? life is an april day, that both laughs and weeps in a breath. but whoso is wise, laughs when he can. men fly from a groan; but run to a laugh. vee-vee! your gourd. my lord, let me help you. ah, how it sparkles! cups, cups, vee-vee, more cups! here, taji, take that: mohi, take that: yoomy, take that. and now let us drown away grief. ha! ha! the house of mourning, is deserted, though of old good cheer kept the funeral guests; and so keep i mine; here i sit by my dead, and replenish your wine cups. old mohi, your cup: yoomy, yours: ha! ha! let us laugh, let us scream! weeds are put off at a fair; no heart bursts but in secret; it is good to laugh, though the laugh be hollow; and wise to make merry, now and for aye. laugh, and make friends: weep, and they go. women sob, and are rid of their grief: men laugh, and retain it. there is laughter in heaven, and laughter in hell. and a deep thought whose language is laughter. though wisdom be wedded to woe, though the way thereto is by tears, yet all ends in a shout. but wisdom wears no weeds; woe is more merry than mirth; 'tis a shallow grief that is sad. ha! ha! how demoniacs shout; how all skeletons grin; we all die with a rattle. laugh! laugh! are the cherubim grave? humor, thy laugh is divine; whence, mirth- making idiots have been revered; and therefore may i. ho! let us be gay, if it be only for an hour, and death hand us the goblet. vee-vee! bring on your gourds! let us pledge each other in bumpers!--let us laugh, laugh, laugh it out to the last. all sages have laughed,--let us; bardianna laughed, let us; demorkriti laughed,--let us: amoree laughed,--let us; rabeelee roared,--let us; the hyenas grin, the jackals yell,--let us.--but you don't laugh, my lord? laugh away!" "no, thank you, azzageddi, not after that infernal fashion; better weep." "he makes me crawl all over, as if i were an ant-hill," said mohi. "he's mad, mad, mad!" cried yoomy. "ay, mad, mad, mad!--mad as the mad fiend that rides me!--but come, sweet minstrel, wilt list to a song?--we madmen are all poets, you know:--ha! ha!-- stars laugh in the sky: oh fugle-fi i the waves dimple below: oh fugle-fo! "the wind strikes her dulcimers; the groves give a shout; the hurricane is only an hysterical laugh; and the lightning that blasts, blasts only in play. we must laugh or we die; to laugh is to live. not to laugh is to have the tetanus. will you weep? then laugh while you weep. for mirth and sorrow are kin; are published by identical nerves. go, yoomy: go study anatomy: there is much to be learned from the dead, more than you may learn from the living and i am dead though i live; and as soon dissect myself as another; i curiously look into my secrets: and grope under my ribs. i have found that the heart is not whole, but divided; that it seeks a soft cushion whereon to repose; that it vitalizes the blood; which else were weaker than water: i have found that we can not live without hearts; though the heartless live longest. yet hug your hearts, ye handful that have them; 'tis a blessed inheritance! thus, thus, my lord, i run on; from one pole to the other; from this thing to that. but so the great world goes round, and in one somerset, shows the sun twenty-five thousand miles of a landscape!" at that instant, down went the fiery full-moon, and the dog-star; and far down into media, a tivoli of wine. chapter lxxx morning life or death, weal or woe, the sun stays not his course. on: over battle-field and bower; over tower, and town, he speeds,--peers in at births, and death-beds; lights up cathedral, mosque, and pagan shrine;--laughing over all;--a very democritus in the sky; and in one brief day sees more than any pilgrim in a century's round. so, the sun; nearer heaven than we:--with what mind, then, may blessed oro downward look. it was a purple, red, and yellow east;--streaked, and crossed. and down from breezy mountains, robust and ruddy morning came,--a plaided highlander, waving his plumed bonnet to the isles. over the neighboring groves the larks soared high; and soaring, sang in jubilees; while across our bows, between two isles, a mighty moose swam stately as a seventy-four; and backward tossed his antlered wilderness in air. just bounding from fresh morning groves, with the brine he mixed the dew of leaves,--his antlers dripping on the swell, that rippled before his brown and bow-like chest. "five hundred thousand centuries since," said babbalanja, "this same sight was seen. with oro, the sun is co-eternal; and the same life that moves that moose, animates alike the sun and oro. all are parts of one. in me, in _me_, flit thoughts participated by the beings peopling all the stars. saturn, and mercury, and mardi, are brothers, one and all; and across their orbits, to each other talk, like souls. of these things what chapters might be writ! oh! that flesh can not keep pace with spirit. oh! that these myriad germ-dramas in me, should so perish hourly, for lack of power mechanic.--worlds pass worlds in space, as men, men,--in thoroughfares; and after periods of thousand years, cry:--"well met, my friend, again!"--to me to _me_, they talk in mystic music; i hear them think through all their zones. --hail, furthest worlds! and all the beauteous beings in ye! fan me, sweet zenora! with thy twilight wings!--ho! let's voyage to aldebaran.--ha! indeed, a ruddy world! what a buoyant air! not like to mardi, this. ruby columns: minarets of amethyst: diamond domes! who is this?--a god? what a lake-like brow! transparent as the morning air. i see his thoughts like worlds revolving--and in his eyes--like unto heavens--soft falling stars are shooting.--how these thousand passing wings winnow away my breath:--i faint:--back, back to some small asteroid.--sweet being! if, by mardian word i may address thee-- speak!--'i bear a soul in germ within me; i feel the first, faint trembling, like to a harp-string, vibrate in my inmost being. kill me, and generations die.'--so, of old, the unbegotten lived within the virgin; who then loved her god, as new-made mothers their babes ere born. oh, alma, alma, alma!--fangs off, fiend!--will that name ever lash thee into foam?--smite not my face so, forked flames!" "babbalanja! babbalanja! rouse, man! rouse! art in hell and damned, that thy sinews so snake-like coil and twist all over thee? thy brow is black as ops! turn, turn! see yonder moose!" "hail! mighty brute!--thou feelest not these things: never canst _thou_ be damned. moose! would thy soul were mine; for if that scorched thing, mine, be immortal--so thine; and thy life hath not the consciousness of death. i read profound placidity--deep--million-- violet fathoms down, in that soft, pathetic, woman eye! what is man's shrunk form to thine, thou woodland majesty?--moose, moose!--my soul is shot again--oh, oro! oro!" "he falls!" cried media. "mark the agony in his waning eye," said yoomy;--"alas, poor babbalanja! is this thing of madness conscious to thyself? if ever thou art sane again, wilt thou have reminiscences? take my robe:-- here, i strip me to cover thee and all thy woes. oro! by this, thy being's side, i kneel:--grant death or happiness to babbalanja!" chapter lxxxi l'ultima sera thus far, through myriad islands, had we searched: of all, no one pen may write: least, mine;--and still no trace of yillah. but though my hopes revived not from their ashes; yet, so much of mardi had we searched, it seemed as if the long pursuit must, ere many moons, be ended; whether for weal or woe, my frenzy sometimes reeked not. after its first fair morning flushings, all that day was overcast. we sailed upon an angry sea, beneath an angry sky. deep scowled on deep; and in dun vapors, the blinded sun went down, unseen; though full toward the west our three prows were pointed; steadfast as three printed points upon the compass-card. "when we set sail from odo, 'twas a glorious morn in spring," said yoomy; "toward the rising sun we steered. but now, beneath autumnal night-clouds, we hasten to its setting." "how now?" cried media; "why is the minstrel mournful?--he whose place it is to chase away despondency: not be its minister." "ah, my lord, so _thou_ thinkest. but better can my verses soothe the sad, than make them light of heart. nor are we minstrels so gay of soul as mardi deems us. the brook that sings the sweetest, murmurs through the loneliest woods: the isles hold thee not, thou departed! from thy bower, now issues no lay:-- in vain we recall perished warblings: spring birds, to far climes, wing their way!" as yoomy thus sang; unmindful of the lay, with paddle plying, in low, pleasant tones, thus hummed to himself our bowsman, a gamesome wight:-- ho! merrily ho! we paddlers sail! ho! over sea-dingle, and dale!-- our pulses fly, our hearts beat high, ho! merrily, merrily, ho! but a sudden splash, and a shrill, gurgling sound, like that of a fountain subsiding, now broke upon the air. then all was still, save the rush of the waves by our keels. "save him! put back!" from his elevated seat, the merry bowsman, too gleefully reaching forward, had fallen into the lagoon. with all haste, our speeding canoes were reversed; but not till we had darted in upon another darkness than that in which the bowsman fell. as, blindly, we groped back, deep night dived deeper down in the sea. "drop paddles all, and list." holding their breath, over the six gunwales all now leaned; but the only moans were the wind's. long time we lay thus; then slowly crossed and recrossed our track, almost hopeless; but yet loth to leave him who, with a song in his mouth, died and was buried in a breath. "let us away," said media--"why seek more? he is gone." "ay, gone," said babbalanja, "and whither? but a moment since, he was among us: now, the fixed stars are not more remote than he. so far off, can he live? oh, oro! this death thou ordainest, unmans the manliest. say not nay, my lord. let us not speak behind death's back. hard and horrible is it to die: blindfold to leap from life's verge! but thus, in clouds of dust, and with a trampling as of hoofs, the generations disappear; death driving them all into his treacherous fold, as wild indians the bison herds. nay, nay, death is life's last despair. hard and horrible is it to die. oro himself, in alma, died not without a groan. yet why, why live? life is wearisome to all: the same dull round. day and night, summer and winter, round about us revolving for aye. one moment lived, is a life. no new stars appear in the sky; no new lights in the soul. yet, of changes there are many. for though, with rapt sight, in childhood, we behold many strange things beneath the moon, and all mardi looks a tented fair-- how soon every thing fades. all of us, in our very bodies, outlive our own selves. i think of green youth as of a merry playmate departed; and to shake hands, and be pleasant with my old age, seems in prospect even harder, than to draw a cold stranger to my bosom. but old age is not for me. i am not of the stuff that grows old. this mardi is not our home. up and down we wander, like exiles transported to a planet afar:--'tis not the world _we_ were born in; not the world once so lightsome and gay; not the world where we once merrily danced, dined, and supped; and wooed, and wedded our long-buried wives. then let us depart. but whither? we push ourselves forward then, start back in affright. essay it again, and flee. hard to live; hard to die; intolerable suspense! but the grim despot at last interposes; and with a viper in our winding-sheets, we are dropped in the sea." "to me," said mohi, his gray locks damp with night-dews, "death's dark defile at times seems at hand, with no voice to cheer. that all have died, makes it not easier for me to depart. and that many have been quenched in infancy seems a mercy to the slow perishing of my old age, limb by limb and sense by sense. i have long been the tomb of my youth. and more has died out of me, already, than remains for the last death to finish. babbalanja says truth. in childhood, death stirred me not; in middle age, it pursued me like a prowling bandit on the road; now, grown an old man, it boldly leads the way; and ushers me on; and turns round upon me its skeleton gaze: poisoning the last solaces of life. maramma but adds to my gloom." "death! death!" cried yoomy, "must i be not, and millions be? must i go, and the flowers still bloom? oh, i have marked what it is to be dead;--how shouting boys, of holidays, hide-and-seek among the tombs, which must hide all seekers at last." "clouds on clouds!" cried media, "but away with them all! why not leap your graves, while ye may? time to die, when death comes, without dying by inches. 'tis no death, to die; the only death is the fear of it. i, a demi-god, fear death not." "but when the jackals howl round you?" said babbalanja. "drive them off! die the demi-god's death! on his last couch of crossed spears, my brave old sire cried, 'wine, wine; strike up, conch and cymbal; let the king die to martial melodies!'" "more valiant dying, than dead," said babbalanja. "our end of the winding procession resounds with music and flaunts with banners with brave devices: 'cheer up!' 'fear not!' 'millions have died before!'-- but in the endless van, not a pennon streams; all there, is silent and solemn. the last wisdom is dumb." silence ensued; during which, each dip of the paddles in the now calm water, fell full and long upon the ear. anon, lifting his head, babbalanja thus:--"yillah still eludes us. and in all this tour of mardi, how little have we found to fill the heart with peace: how much to slaughter all our yearnings." "croak no more, raven!" cried media. "mardi is full of spring-time sights, and jubilee sounds. i never was sad in my life." "but for thy one laugh, my lord, how many groans! were all happy, or all miserable,--more tolerable then, than as it is. but happiness and misery are so broadly marked, that this mardi may be the retributive future of some forgotten past.--yet vain our surmises. still vainer to say, that all mardi is but a means to an end; that this life is a state of probation: that evil is but permitted for a term; that for specified ages a rebel angel is viceroy.--nay, nay. oro delegates his scepter to none; in his everlasting reign there are no interregnums; and time is eternity; and we live in eternity now. yet, some tell of a hereafter, where all the mysteries of life will be over; and the sufferings of the virtuous recompensed. oro is just, they say.--then always,--now, and evermore. but to make restitution implies a wrong; and oro can do no wrong. yet what seems evil to us, may be good to him. if he fears not, nor hopes,--he has no other passion; no ends, no purposes. he lives content; all ends are compassed in him; he has no past, no future; he is the everlasting now; which is an everlasting calm; and things that are, have been,-- will be. this gloom's enough. but hoot! hoot! the night-owl ranges through the woodlands of maramma; its dismal notes pervade our lives; and when we would fain depart in peace, that bird flies on before:-- cloud-like, eclipsing our setting suns, and filling the air with dolor." "too true!" cried yoomy. "our calms must come by storms. like helmless vessels, tempest-tossed, our only anchorage is when we founder." "our beginnings," murmured mohi, "are lost in clouds; we live in darkness all our days, and perish without an end." "croak on, cowards!" cried media, "and fly before the hideous phantoms that pursue ye." "no coward he, who hunted, turns and finds no foe to fight," said babbalanja. "like the stag, whose brow is beat with wings of hawks, perched in his heavenward antlers; so i, blinded, goaded, headlong, rush! this way and that; nor knowing whither; one forest wide around!" chapter lxxxii they sail from night to day ere long the three canoes lurched heavily in a violent swell. like palls, the clouds swept to and fro, hooding the gibbering winds. at every head-beat wave, our arching prows reared up, and shuddered; the night ran out in rain. whither to turn we knew not; nor what haven to gain; so dense the darkness. but at last, the storm was over. our shattered prows seemed gilded. day dawned; and from his golden vases poured red wine upon the waters. that flushed tide rippled toward us; floating from the east, a lone canoe; in which, there sat a mild, old man; a palm-bough in his hand: a bird's beak, holding amaranth and myrtles, his slender prow. "alma's blessing upon ye, voyagers! ye look storm-worn." "the storm we have survived, old man; and many more, we yet must ride," said babbalanja. "the sun is risen; and all is well again. we but need to repair our prows," said media. "then, turn aside to serenia, a pleasant isle, where all are welcome; where many storm-worn rovers land at last to dwell." "serenia?" said babbalanja; "methinks serenia is that land of enthusiasts, of which we hear, my lord; where mardians pretend to the unnatural conjunction of reason with things revealed; where alma, they say, is restored to his divine original; where, deriving their principles from the same sources whence flow the persecutions of maramma,--men strive to live together in gentle bonds of peace and charity;--folly! folly!" "ay," said media; "much is said of those people of serenia; but their social fabric must soon fall to pieces; it is based upon the idlest of theories. thanks for thy courtesy, old man, but we care not to visit thy isle. our voyage has an object, which, something tells me, will not be gained by touching at thy shores. elsewhere we may refit. farewell! 'tis breezing; set the sails! farewell, old man." "nay, nay! think again; the distance is but small; the wind fair,--but 'tis ever so, thither;--come: we, people of serenia, are most anxious to be seen of mardi; so that if our manner of life seem good, all mardi may live as we. in blessed alma's name, i pray ye, come!" "shall we then, my lord?" "lead on, old man! we will e'en see this wondrous isle." so, guided by the venerable stranger, by noon we descried an island blooming with bright savannas, and pensive with peaceful groves. wafted from this shore, came balm of flowers, and melody of birds: a thousand summer sounds and odors. the dimpled tide sang round our splintered prows; the sun was high in heaven, and the waters were deep below. "the land of love!" the old man murmured, as we neared the beach, where innumerable shells were gently rolling in the playful surf, and murmuring from their tuneful valves. behind, another, and a verdant surf played against lofty banks of leaves; where the breeze, likewise, found its shore. and now, emerging from beneath the trees, there came a goodly multitude in flowing robes; palm-branches in their hands; and as they came, they sang:-- hail! voyagers, hail! whence e'er ye come, where'er ye rove, no calmer strand, no sweeter land, will e'er ye view, than the land of love! hail! voyagers, hail! to these, our shores, soft gales invite: the palm plumes wave, the billows lave, and hither point fix'd stars of light! hail! voyagers, hail! think not our groves wide brood with gloom; in this, our isle, bright flowers smile: full urns, rose-heaped, these valleys bloom. hail! voyagers, hail! be not deceived; renounce vain things; ye may not find a tranquil mind, though hence ye sail with swiftest wings. hail! voyagers, hail! time flies full fast; life soon is o'er; and ye may mourn, that hither borne, ye left behind our pleasant shore. chapter lxxxiii they land the song was ended; and as we gained the strand, the crowd embraced us; and called us brothers; ourselves and our humblest attendants. "call ye us brothers, whom ere now ye never saw?" "even so," said the old man, "is not oro the father of all? then, are we not brothers? thus alma, the master, hath commanded." "this was not our reception in maramma," said media, "the appointed place of alma; where his precepts are preserved." "no, no," said babbalanja; "old man! your lesson of brotherhood was learned elsewhere than from alma; for in maramma and in all its tributary isles true brotherhood there is none. even in the holy island many are oppressed; for heresies, many murdered; and thousands perish beneath the altars, groaning with offerings that might relieve them." "alas! too true. but i beseech ye, judge not alma by all those who profess his faith. hast thou thyself his records searched?" "fully, i have not. so long, even from my infancy, have i witnessed the wrongs committed in his name; the sins and inconsistencies of his followers; that thinking all evil must flow from a congenial fountain, i have scorned to study the whole record of your master's life. by parts i only know it." "ah! baneful error! but thus is it, brothers!! that the wisest are set against the truth, because of those who wrest it from itself." "do ye then claim to live what your master hath spoken? are your precepts practices?" "nothing do we claim: we but 'earnestly endeavor." "tell me not of your endeavors, but of your life. what hope for the fatherless among ye?" "adopted as a son." "of one poor, and naked?" "clothed, and he wants for naught." "if ungrateful, he smite you?" "still we feed and clothe him." "if yet an ingrate?" "long, he can not be; for love is a fervent fire." "but what, if widely he dissent from your belief in alma;--then, surely, ye must cast him forth?" "no, no; we will remember, that if he dissent from us, we then equally dissent from him; and men's faculties are oro-given. nor will we say that he is wrong, and we are right; for this we know not, absolutely. but we care not for men's words; we look for creeds in actions; which are the truthful symbols of the things within. he who hourly prays to alma, but lives not up to world-wide love and charity--that man is more an unbeliever than he who verbally rejects the master, but does his bidding. our lives are our amens." "but some say that what your alma teaches is wholly new--a revelation of things before unimagined, even by the poets. to do his bidding, then, some new faculty must be vouchsafed, whereby to apprehend aright." "so have i always thought," said mohi. "if alma teaches love, i want no gift to learn," said yoomy. "all that is vital in the master's faith, lived here in mardi, and in humble dells was practiced, long previous to the master's coming. but never before was virtue so lifted up among us, that all might see; never before did rays from heaven descend to glorify it, but are truth, justice, and love, the revelations of alma alone? were they never heard of till he came? oh! alma but opens unto us our own hearts. were his precepts strange we would recoil--not one feeling would respond; whereas, once hearkened to, our souls embrace them as with the instinctive tendrils of a vine." "but," said babbalanja, "since alma, they say, was solely intent upon the things of the mardi to come--which to all, must seem uncertain--of what benefit his precepts for the daily lives led here?" "would! would that alma might once more descend! brother! were the turf our everlasting pillow, still would the master's faith answer a blessed end;--making us more truly happy _here_. _that_ is the first and chief result; for holy here, we must be holy elsewhere. 'tis mardi, to which loved alma gives his laws; not paradise." "full soon will i be testing all these things," murmured mohi. "old man," said media, "thy years and mohi's lead ye both to dwell upon the unknown future. but speak to me of other themes. tell me of this island and its people. from all i have heard, and now behold, i gather that here there dwells no king; that ye are left to yourselves; and that this mystic love, ye speak of, is your ruler. is it so? then, are ye full as visionary, as mardi rumors. and though for a time, ye may have prospered,--long, ye can not be, without some sharp lesson to convince ye, that your faith in mardian virtue is entirely vain." "truth. we have no king; for alma's precepts rebuke the arrogance of place and power. he is the tribune of mankind; nor will his true faith be universal mardi's, till our whole race is kingless. but think not we believe in man's perfection. yet, against all good, he is not absolutely set. in his heart, there is a germ. _that_ we seek to foster. to _that_ we cling; else, all were hopeless!" "your social state?" "it is imperfect; and long must so remain. but we make not the miserable many support the happy few. nor by annulling reason's laws, seek to breed equality, by breeding anarchy. in all things, equality is not for all. each has his own. some have wider groves of palms than others; fare better; dwell in more tasteful arbors; oftener renew their fragrant thatch. such differences must be. but none starve outright, while others feast. by the abounding, the needy are supplied. yet not by statute, but from dictates, born half dormant in us, and warmed into life by alma. those dictates we but follow in all we do; we are not dragged to righteousness; but go running. nor do we live in common. for vice and virtue blindly mingled, form a union where vice too often proves the alkali. the vicious we make dwell apart, until reclaimed. and reclaimed they soon must be, since every thing invites. the sin of others rests not upon our heads: none we drive to crime. our laws are not of vengeance bred, but love and alma." "fine poetry all this," said babbalanja, "but not so new. oft do they warble thus in bland maramma!" "it sounds famously, old man!" said media, "but men are men. some must starve; some be scourged.--your doctrines are impracticable." "and are not these things enjoined by alma? and would alma inculcate the impossible? of what merit, his precepts, unless they may be practiced? but, i beseech ye, speak no more of maramma. alas! did alma revisit mardi, think you, it would be among those morals he would lay his head?" "no, no," said babbalanja, "as an intruder he came; and an intruder would he be this day. on all sides, would he jar our social systems." "not here, not here! rather would we welcome alma hungry and athirst, than though he came floating hither on the wings of seraphs; the blazing zodiac his diadem! in all his aspects we adore him; needing no pomp and power to kindle worship. though he came from oro; though he did miracles; though through him is life;--not for these things alone, do we thus love him. we love him from, an instinct in us;--a fond, filial, reverential feeling. and this would yet stir in our souls, were death our end; and alma incapable of befriending us. we love him because we do." "is this man divine?" murmured babbalanja. "but thou speakest most earnestly of adoring alma:--i see no temples in your groves." "because this isle is all one temple to his praise; every leaf is consecrated his. we fix not alma here and there; and say,--'those groves for him, and these broad fields for us.' it is all his own; and we ourselves; our every hour of life; and all we are, and have." "then, ye forever fast and pray; and stand and sing; as at long intervals the censer-bearers in maramma supplicate their gods." "alma forbid! we never fast; our aspirations are our prayers; our lives are worship. and when we laugh, with human joy at human things, --_then_ do we most sound great oro's praise, and prove the merit of sweet alma's love! our love in alma makes us glad, not sad. ye speak of temples;--behold! 'tis by not building _them_, that we widen charity among us. the treasures which, in the islands round about, are lavished on a thousand fanes;--with these we every day relieve the master's suffering disciples. in mardi, alma preached in open fields, --and must his worshipers have palaces?" "no temples, then no priests;" said babbalanja, "for few priests will enter where lordly arches form not the portal." "we have no priests, but one; and he is alma's self. we have his precepts: we seek no comments but our hearts." "but without priests and temples, how long will flourish this your faith?" said media. "for many ages has not this faith lived, in spite of priests and temples? and shall it not survive them? what we believe, we hold divine; and things divine endure forever." "but how enlarge your bounds? how convert the vicious, without persuasion of some special seers? must your religion go hand in hand with all things secular?" "we hold not, that one man's words should be a gospel to the rest; but that alma's words should be a gospel to us all. and not by precepts would we have some few endeavor to persuade; but all, by practice, fix convictions, that the life we lead is the life for all. we are apostles, every one. where'er we go, our faith we carry in our hands, and hearts. it is our chiefest joy. we do not put it wide away six days out of seven; and then, assume it. in it we all exult, and joy; as that which makes us happy here; as that, without which, we could be happy nowhere; as something meant for this time present, and henceforth for aye. it is our vital mode of being; not an incident. and when we die, this faith shall be our pillow; and when we rise, our staff; and at the end, our crown. for we are all immortal. here, alma joins with our own hearts, confirming nature's promptings." "how eloquent he is!" murmured babbalanja. "some black cloud seems floating from me. i begin to see. i come out in light. the sharp fang tears me less. the forked flames wane. my soul sets back like ocean streams, that sudden change their flow. have i been sane? quickened in me is a hope. but pray you, old man--say on--methinks, that in your faith must be much that jars with reason." "no, brother! right-reason, and alma, are the same; else alma, not reason, would we reject. the master's great command is love; and here do all things wise, and all things good, unite. love is all in all. the more we love, the more we know; and so reversed. oro we love; this isle; and our wide arms embrace all mardi like its reef. how can we err, thus feeling? we hear loved alma's pleading, prompting voice, in every breeze, in every leaf; we see his earnest eye in every star and flower." "poetry!" cried yoomy; "and poetry is truth! he stirs me." "when alma dwelt in mardi, 'twas with the poor and friendless. he fed the famishing; he healed the sick; he bound up wounds. for every precept that he spoke, he did ten thousand mercies. and alma is our loved example." "sure, all this is in the histories!" said mohi, starting. "but not alone to poor and friendless, did alma wend his charitable way. from lowly places, he looked up; and long invoked great chieftains in their state; and told them all their pride was vanity; and bade them ask their souls. 'in _me_,' he cried, 'is that heart of mild content, which in vain ye seek in rank and title. i am love: love ye then me.'" "cease, cease, old man!" cried media; "thou movest me beyond my seeming. what thoughts are these? have done! wouldst thou unking me?" "alma is for all; for high and low. like heaven's own breeze, he lifts the lily from its lowly stem, and sweeps, reviving, through the palmy groves. high thoughts he gives the sage, and humble trust the simple. be the measure what it may, his grace doth fill it to the brim. he lays the lashings of the soul's wild aspirations after things unseen; oil he poureth on the waters; and stars come out of night's black concave at his great command. in him is hope for all; for all, unbounded joys. fast locked in his loved clasp, no doubts dismay. he opes the eye of faith and shuts the eye of fear. he is all we pray for, and beyond; all, that in the wildest hour of ecstasy, rapt fancy paints in bright auroras upon the soul's wide, boundless orient!" "oh, alma, alma! prince divine!" cried babbalanja, sinking on his knees--"in _thee_, at last, i find repose. hope perches in my heart a dove;--a thousand rays illume;--all heaven's a sun. gone, gone! are all distracting doubts. love and alma now prevail. i see with other eyes:--are these my hands? what wild, wild dreams were mine;--i have been mad. some things there are, we must not think of. beyond one obvious mark, all human lore is vain. where have i lived till now? had dark maramma's zealot tribe but murmured to me as this old man, long since had i, been wise! reason no longer domineers; but still doth speak. all i have said ere this, that wars with alma's precepts, i here recant. here i kneel, and own great oro and his sovereign son." "and here another kneels and prays," cried yoomy. "in alma all my dreams are found, my inner longings for the love supreme, that prompts my every verse. summer is in my soul." "nor now, too late for these gray hairs," cried mohi, with devotion. "alma, thy breath is on my soul. i see bright light." "no more a demigod," cried media, "but a subject to our common chief. no more shall dismal cries be heard from odo's groves. alma, i am thine." with swimming eyes the old man kneeled; and round him grouped king, sage, gray hairs, and youth. there, as they kneeled, and as the old man blessed them, the setting sun burst forth from mists, gilded the island round about, shed rays upon their heads, and went down in a glory--all the east radiant with red burnings, like an altar-fire. chapter lxxxiv babbalanja relates to them a vision leaving babbalanja in the old man's bower, deep in meditation; thoughtfully we strolled along the beach, inspiring the musky, midnight air; the tropical stars glistening in heaven, like drops of dew among violets. the waves were phosphorescent, and laved the beach with a fire that cooled it. returning, we espied babbalanja advancing in his snow-white mantle. the fiery tide was ebbing; and in the soft, moist sand, at every step, he left a lustrous foot-print. "sweet friends! this isle is full of mysteries," he said. "i have dreamed of wondrous things. after i had laid me down, thought pressed hard upon me. by my eyes passed pageant visions. i started at a low, strange melody, deep in my inmost soul. at last, methought my eyes were fixed on heaven; and there, i saw a shining spot, unlike a star. thwarting the sky, it grew, and grew, descending; till bright wings were visible: between them, a pensive face angelic, downward beaming; and, for one golden moment, gauze-vailed in spangled berenice's locks. "then, as white flame from yellow, out from that starry cluster it emerged; and brushed the astral crosses, crowns, and cups. and as in violet, tropic seas, ships leave a radiant-white, and fire-fly wake; so, in long extension tapering, behind the vision, gleamed another milky-way. "strange throbbings seized me; my soul tossed on its own tides. but soon the inward harmony bounded in exulting choral strains. i heard a feathery rush; and straight beheld a form, traced all over with veins of vivid light. the vision undulated round me. "'oh! spirit!! angel! god! whate'er thou art,'--i cried, 'leave me; i am but man.' "then, i heard a low, sad sound, no voice. it said, or breathed upon me,--'thou hast proved the grace of alma: tell me what thou'st learned.' "silent replied my soul, for voice was gone,--'this have i learned, oh! spirit!--in things mysterious, to seek no more; but rest content, with knowing naught but love.' "'blessed art thou for that: thrice blessed,' then i heard, and since humility is thine, thou art one apt to learn. that which thy own wisdom could not find, thy ignorance confessed shall gain. come, and see new things.' "once more it undulated round me; its lightning wings grew dim; nearer, nearer; till i felt a shock electric,--and nested 'neath its wing. "we clove the air; passed systems, suns, and moons: what seem from mardi's isles, the glow-worm stars. "by distant fleets of worlds we sped, as voyagers pass far sails at sea, and hail them not. foam played before them as they darted on; wild music was their wake; and many tracks of sound we crossed, where worlds had sailed before. "soon, we gained a point, where a new heaven was seen; whence all our firmament seemed one nebula. its glories burned like thousand steadfast-flaming lights. "here hived the worlds in swarms: and gave forth sweets ineffable. "we lighted on a ring, circling a space, where mornings seemed forever dawning over worlds unlike. "'here,' i heard, 'thou viewest thy mardi's heaven. herein each world is portioned.' "as he who climbs to mountain tops pants hard for breath; so panted i for mardi's grosser air. but that which caused my flesh to faint, was new vitality to my soul. my eyes swept over all before me. the spheres were plain as villages that dot a landscape. i saw most beauteous forms, yet like our own. strange sounds i heard of gladness that seemed mixed with sadness:--a low, sweet harmony of both. else, i know not how to phrase what never man but me e'er heard. "'in these blest souls are blent,' my guide discoursed, 'far higher thoughts, and sweeter plaints than thine. rude joy were discord here. and as a sudden shout in thy hushed mountain-passes brings down the awful avalanche; so one note of laughter here, might start some white and silent world.' "then low i murmured:--'is their's, oh guide! no happiness supreme? their state still mixed? sigh these yet to know? can these sin?' "then i heard:--'no mind but oro's can know all; no mind that knows not all can be content; content alone approximates to happiness. holiness comes by wisdom; and it is because great oro is supremely wise, that he's supremely holy. but as perfect wisdom can be only oro's; so, perfect holiness is his alone. and whoso is otherwise than perfect in his holiness, is liable to sin. "'and though death gave these beings knowledge, it also opened other mysteries, which they pant to know, and yet may learn. and still they fear the thing of evil; though for them, 'tis hard to fall. thus hoping and thus fearing, then, their's is no state complete. and since oro is past finding out, and mysteries ever open into mysteries beyond; so, though these beings will for aye progress in wisdom and in good; yet, will they never gain a fixed beatitude. know, then, oh mortal mardian! that when translated hither, thou wilt but put off lowly temporal pinings, for angel and eternal aspirations. start not: thy human joy hath here no place: no name. "still, i mournful mused; then said:--'many mardians live, who have no aptitude for mardian lives of thought: how then endure more earnest, everlasting, meditations?' "'such have their place,' i heard. "'then low i moaned, 'and what, oh! guide! of those who, living thoughtless lives of sin, die unregenerate; no service done to oro or to mardian?' "'they, too, have their place,' i heard; 'but 'tis not here. and mardian! know, that as your mardian lives are long preserved through strict obedience to the organic law, so are your spiritual lives prolonged by fast keeping of the law of mind. sin is death.' "'ah, then,' yet lower moan made i; 'and why create the germs that sin and suffer, but to perish?' "'that,' breathed my guide; 'is the last mystery which underlieth all the rest. archangel may not fathom it; that makes of oro the everlasting mystery he is; that to divulge, were to make equal to himself in knowledge all the souls that are; that mystery oro guards; and none but him may know.' "alas! were it recalled, no words have i to tell of all that now my guide discoursed, concerning things unsearchable to us. my sixth sense which he opened, sleeps again, with all the wisdom that it gained. "time passed; it seemed a moment, might have been an age; when from high in the golden haze that canopied this heaven, another angel came; its vans like east and west; a sunrise one, sunset the other. as silver-fish in vases, so, in his azure eyes swam tears unshed. "quick my guide close nested me; through its veins the waning light throbbed hard. "'oh, spirit! archangel! god! whate'er thou art,' it breathed; 'leave me: i am but blessed, not glorified.' "so saying, as down from doves, from its wings dropped sounds. still nesting me, it crouched its plumes. "then, in a snow of softest syllables, thus breathed the greater and more beautiful:--'from far away, in fields beyond thy ken, i heard thy fond discourse with this lone mardian. it pleased me well; for thy humility was manifeat; no arrogance of knowing. come _thou_ and learn new things.' "and straight it overarched us with its plumes; which, then, down- sweeping, bore us up to regions where my first guide had sunk, but for the power that buoyed us, trembling, both. "my eyes did wane, like moons eclipsed in overwhelming dawns: such radiance was around; such vermeil light, born of no sun, but pervading all the scene. transparent, fleck-less, calm, all glowed one flame. "then said the greater guide this is the night of all ye here behold-- its day ye could not bide. your utmost heaven is far below.' "abashed, smote down, i, quaking, upward gazed; where, to and fro, the spirits sailed, like broad-winged crimson-dyed flamingos, spiraling in sunset-clouds. but a sadness glorified, deep-fringed their mystic temples, crowned with weeping halos, bird-like, floating o'er them, whereso'er they roamed. "sights and odors blended. as when new-morning winds, in summer's prime, blow down from hanging gardens, wafting sweets that never pall; so, from those flowery pinions, at every motion, came a flood of fragrance. "and now the spirits twain discoursed of things, whose very terms, to me, were dark. but my first guide grew wise. for me, i could but blankly list; yet comprehended naught; and, like the fish that's mocked with wings, and vainly seeks to fly;--again i sought my lower element. "as poised, we hung in this rapt ether, a sudden trembling seized the four wings now folding me. and afar of, in zones still upward reaching, suns' orbits off, i, tranced, beheld an awful glory. sphere in sphere, it burned:--the one shekinah! the air was flaked with fire;--deep in which, fell showers of silvery globes, tears magnified --braiding the flame with rainbows. i heard a sound; but not for me, nor my first guide, was that unutterable utterance. then, my second guide was swept aloft, as rises a cloud of red-dyed leaves in autumn whirlwinds. "fast clasping me, the other drooped, and, instant, sank, as in a vacuum; myriad suns' diameters in a breath;--my five senses merged in one, of falling; till we gained the nether sky, descending still. "then strange things--soft, sad, and faint, i saw or heard; as, when, in sunny, summer seas, down, down, you dive, starting at pensive phantoms, that you can not fix. "'these,' breathed my guide, 'are spirits in their essences; sad, even in undevelopment. with these, all space is peopled;--all the air is vital with intelligence, which seeks embodiment. this it is, that unbeknown to mardians, causes them to strangely start in solitudes of night, and in the fixed flood of their enchanted noons. from hence, are formed your mortal souls; and all those sad and shadowy dreams, and boundless thoughts man hath, are vague remembrances of the time when the soul's sad germ, wide wandered through these realms. and hence it is, that when ye mardians feel most sad, then ye feel most immortal. "like a spark new-struck from flint, soon mardi showed afar. it glowed within a sphere, which seemed, in space, a bubble, rising from vast depths to the sea's surface. piercing it, my mardian strength returned; but the angel's veins once more grew dim. "nearing the isles, thus breathed my guide:--'loved one, love on! but know, that heaven hath no roof. to know all is to be all. beatitude there is none. and your only mardian happiness is but exemption from great woes--no more. great love is sad; and heaven is love. sadness makes the silence throughout the realms of space; sadness is universal and eternal; but sadness is tranquillity; tranquillity the uttermost that souls may hope for.' "then, with its wings it fanned adieu; and disappeared where the sun flames highest." we heard the dream and, silent, sought repose, to dream away our wonder. chapter lxxxv they depart from serenia at sunrise, we stood upon the beach. babbalanja thus:--"my voyage is ended. not because what we sought is found; but that i now possess all which may be had of what i sought in mardi. here, tarry to grow wiser still:--then i am alma's and the world's. taji! for yillah thou wilt hunt in vain; she is a phantom that but mocks thee; and while for her thou madly huntest, the sin thou didst cries out, and its avengers still will follow. but here they may not come: nor those, who, tempting, track thy path. wise counsel take. within our hearts is all we seek: though in that search many need a prompter. him i have found in blessed alma. then rove no more. gain now, in flush of youth, that last wise thought, too often purchased, by a life of woe. be wise: be wise. "media! thy station calls thee home. yet from this isle, thou earnest that, wherewith to bless thy own. these flowers, that round us spring, may be transplanted: and odo made to bloom with amaranths and myrtles, like this serenia. before thy people act the things, thou here hast heard. let no man weep, that thou may'st laugh; no man toil too hard, that thou may'st idle be. abdicate thy throne: but still retain the scepter. none need a king; but many need a ruler. "mohi! yoomy! do we part? then bury in forgetfulness much that hitherto i've spoken. but let not one syllable of this old man's words be lost. "mohi! age leads thee by the hand. live out thy life; and die, calm- browed. "but yoomy! many days are thine. and in one life's span, great circles may be traversed, eternal good be done. take all mardi for thy home. nations are but names; and continents but shifting sands. "once more: taji! be sure thy yillah never will be found; or found, will not avail thee. yet search, if so thou wilt; more isles, thou say'st, are still unvisited; and when all is seen, return, and find thy yillah here. "companions all! adieu." and from the beach, he wended through the woods. our shallops now refitted, we silently embarked; and as we sailed away, the old man blessed us. for a time, each prow's ripplings were distinctly heard: ripple after ripple. with silent, steadfast eyes, media still preserved his noble mien; mohi his reverend repose; yoomy his musing mood. but as a summer hurricane leaves all nature still, and smiling to the eye; yet, in deep woods, there lie concealed some anguished roots torn up:--so, with these. much they longed, to point our prows for odo's isle; saying our search was over. but i was fixed as fate. on we sailed, as when we first embarked; the air was bracing as before. more isles we visited:--thrice encountered the avengers: but unharmed; thrice hautia's heralds but turned not aside;--saw many checkered scenes--wandered through groves, and open fields--traversed many vales--climbed hill-tops whence broad views were gained--tarried in towns--broke into solitudes--sought far, sought near:--still yillah there was none. then again they all would fain dissuade me. "closed is the deep blue eye," said yoomy. "fate's last leaves are turning, let me home and die," said mohi. "so nigh the circuit's done," said media, "our morrow's sun must rise o'er odo; taji! renounce the hunt." "i am the hunter, that never rests! the hunter without a home! she i seek, still flies before; and i will follow, though she lead me beyond the reef; through sunless seas; and into night and death. her, will i seek, through all the isles and stars; and find her, whate'er betide!" again they yielded; and again we glided on;--our storm-worn prows, now pointed here, now there;--beckoned, repulsed;--their half-rent sails, still courting every breeze. but that same night, once more, they wrestled with me. now, at last, the hopeless search must be renounced: yillah there was none: back must i hie to blue serenia. then sweet yillah called me from the sea;--still must i on! but gazing whence that music seemed to come, i thought i saw the green corse drifting by: and striking 'gainst our prow, as if to hinder. then, then! my heart grew hard, like flint; and black, like night; and sounded hollow to the hand i clenched. hyenas filled me with their laughs; death-damps chilled my brow; i prayed not, but blasphemed. chapter lxxxvi they meet the phantoms that starless midnight, there stole from out the darkness, the iris flag of hautia. again the sirens came. they bore a large and stately urn-like flower, white as alabaster, and glowing, as if lit up within. from its calyx, flame-like, trembled forked and crimson stamens, burning with intensest odors. the phantoms nearer came; their flower, as an urn of burning niter. then it changed, and glowed like persian dawns; or passive, was shot over by palest lightnings;--so variable its tints. "the night-blowing cereus!" said yoomy, shuddering, "that never blows in sun-light; that blows but once; and blows but for an hour.--for the last time i come; now, in your midnight of despair, and promise you this glory. take heed! short time hast thou to pause; through me, perhaps, thy yillah may be found." "away! away! tempt me not by that, enchantress! hautia! i know thee not; i fear thee not; but instinct makes me hate thee. away! my eyes are frozen shut; i will not be tempted more." "how glorious it burns!" cried media. i reel with incense:--can such sweets be evil?" "look! look!" cried yoomy, "its petals wane, and creep; one moment more, and the night-flower shuts up forever the last, last hope of yillah!" "yillah! yillah! yillah!" bayed three vengeful voices far behind. "yillah! yillah!--dash the urn! i follow, hautia! though thy lure be death." the cereus closed; and in a mist the siren prow went on before; we, following. when day dawned, three radiant pilot-fish swam in advance: three ravenous sharks astern. and, full before us, rose the isle of hautia. chapter lxxxvii they draw nigh to flozella as if mardi were a poem, and every island a canto, the shore now in sight was called flozella-a-nina, or the-last-verse-of-the-song. according to mohi, the origin of this term was traceable to the remotest antiquity. in the beginning, there were other beings in mardi besides mardians; winged beings, of purer minds, and cast in gentler molds, who would fain have dwelt forever with mankind. but the hearts of the mardians were bitter against them, because of their superior goodness. yet those beings returned love for malice, and long entreated to virtue and charity. but in the end, all mardi rose up against them, and hunted them from isle to isle; till, at last, they rose from the woodlands like a flight of birds, and disappeared in the skies. thereafter, abandoned of such sweet influences, the mardians fell into all manner of sins and sufferings, becoming the erring things their descendants were now. yet they knew not, that their calamities were of their own bringing down. for deemed a victory, the expulsion of the winged beings was celebrated in choruses, throughout mardi. and among other jubilations, so ran the legend, a pean was composed, corresponding in the number of its stanzas, to the number of islands. and a band of youths, gayly appareled, voyaged in gala canoes all round the lagoon, singing upon each isle, one verse of their song. and flozella being the last isle in their circuit, its queen commemorated the circumstance, by new naming her realm. that queen had first incited mardi to wage war against the beings with wings. she it was, who had been foremost in every assault. and that queen was ancestor of hautia, now ruling the isle. approaching the dominions of one who so long had haunted me, conflicting emotions tore up my soul in tornadoes. yet hautia had held out some prospect of crowning my yearnings. but how connected were hautia and yillah? something i hoped; yet more i feared. dire presentiments, like poisoned arrows, shot through me. had they pierced me before, straight to flozella would i have voyaged; not waiting for hautia to woo me by that last and victorious temptation. but unchanged remained my feelings of hatred for hautia; yet vague those feelings, as the language of her flowers. nevertheless, in some mysterious way seemed hautia and yillah connected. but yillah was all beauty, and innocence; my crown of felicity; my heaven below;--and hautia, my whole heart abhorred. yillah i sought; hautia sought me. one, openly beckoned me here; the other dimly allured me there. yet now was i wildly dreaming to find them together. but so distracted my soul, i knew not what it was, that i thought. slowly we neared the land. flozella-a-nina!--an omen? was this isle, then, to prove the last place of my search, even as it was the last- verse-of-the-song? chapter lxxxviii they land a jeweled tiara, nodding in spray, looks flowery flozella, approached from the sea. for, lo you! the glittering foam all round its white marge; where, forcing themselves underneath the coral ledge, and up through its crevices, in fountains, the blue billows gush. while, within, zone above zone, thrice zoned in belts of bloom, all the isle, as a hanging-garden soars; its tapering cone blending aloft, with heaven's own blue. "what flies through the spray! what incense is this?" cried media. "ha! you wild breeze! you have been plundering the gardens of hautia," cried yoomy. "no sweets can be sweeter," said braid-beard, "but no upas more deadly." anon we came nearer; sails idly flapping, and paddles suspended; sleek currents our coursers. and round about the isle, like winged rainbows, shoals of dolphins were leaping over floating fragments of wrecks:-- dark-green, long-haired ribs, and keels of canoes. for many shallops, inveigled by the eddies, were oft dashed to pieces against that flowery strand. but what cared the dolphins? mardian wrecks were their homes. over and over they sprang: from east to west: rising and setting: many suns in a moment; while all the sea, like a harvest plain, was stacked with their glittering sheaves of spray. and far down, fathoms on fathoms, flitted rainbow hues:--as seines- full of mermaids; half-screening the bones of the drowned. swifter and swifter the currents now ran; till with a shock, our prows were beached. there, beneath an arch of spray, three dark-eyed maidens stood; garlanded with columbines, their nectaries nodding like jesters' bells; and robed in vestments blue. "the pilot-fish transformed!" cried yoomy. "the night-eyed heralds three!" said mohi. following the maidens, we now took our way along a winding vale; where, by sweet-scented hedges, flowed blue-braided brooks; their tributaries, rivulets of violets, meandering through the meads. on one hand, forever glowed the rosy mountains with a tropic dawn; and on the other; lay an arctic eve;--the white daisies drifted in long banks of snow, and snowed the blossoms from the orange boughs. there, summer breathed her bridal bloom; her hill-top temples crowned with bridal wreaths. we wandered on, through orchards arched in long arcades, that seemed baronial halls, hung o'er with trophies:--so spread the boughs in antlers. this orchard was the frontlet of the isle. the fruit hung high in air, that only beaks, not hands, might pluck. here, the peach tree showed her thousand cheeks of down, kissed often by the wooing winds; here, in swarms; the yellow apples hived, like golden bees upon the boughs; here, from the kneeling, fainting trees, thick fell the cherries, in great drops of blood; and here, the pomegranate, with cold rind and sere, deep pierced by bills of birds revealed the mellow of its ruddy core. so, oft the heart, that cold and withered seems, within yet hides its juices. this orchard passed, the vale became a lengthening plain, that seemed the straits of ormus bared so thick it lay with flowery gems: torquoise-hyacinths, ruby-roses, lily-pearls. here roved the vagrant vines; their flaxen ringlets curling over arbors, which laughed and shook their golden locks. from bower to bower, flew the wee bird, that ever hovering, seldom lights; and flights of gay canaries passed, like jonquils, winged. but now, from out half-hidden bowers of clematis, there issued swarms of wasps, which flying wide, settled on all the buds. and, fifty nymphs preceding, who now follows from those bowers, with gliding, artful steps:--the very snares of love!--hautia. a gorgeous amaryllis in her hand; circe-flowers in her ears; her girdle tied with vervain. she came by privet hedges, drooping; downcast honey-suckles; she trod on pinks and pansies, blue-bells, heath, and lilies. she glided on: her crescent brow calm as the moon, when most it works its evil influences. her eye was fathomless. but the same mysterious, evil-boding gaze was there, which long before had haunted me in odo, ere yillah fled.--queen hautia the incognito! then two wild currents met, and dashed me into foam. "yillah! yillah!--tell me, queen!" but she stood motionless; radiant, and scentless: a dahlia on its stalk. "where? where?" "is not thy voyage now ended?--take flowers! damsels, give him wine to drink. after his weary hunt, be the wanderer happy." i dashed aside their cups, and flowers; still rang the vale with yillah! "taji! did i know her fate, naught would i now disclose; my heralds pledged their queen to naught. thou but comest here to supplant thy mourner's night-shade, with marriage roses. damsels! give him wreaths; crowd round him; press him with your cups!" once more i spilled their wine, and tore their garlands. is not that, the evil eye that long ago did haunt me? and thou, the hautia who hast followed me, and wooed, and mocked, and tempted me, through all this long, long voyage? i swear! thou knowest all." "i am hautia. thou hast come at last. crown him with your flowers! drown him in your wine! to all questions, taji! i am mute.--away!-- damsels dance; reel round him; round and round!" then, their feet made music on the rippling grass, like thousand leaves of lilies on a lake. and, gliding nearer, hautia welcomed media; and said, "your comrade here is sad:--be ye gay. ho, wine!--i pledge ye, guests!" then, marking all, i thought to seem what i was not, that i might learn at last the thing i sought. so, three cups in hand i held; drank wine, and laughed; and half-way met queen hautia's blandishments. chapter lxxxix they enter the bower of hautia conducted to the arbor, from which the queen had emerged, we came to a sweet-brier bower within; and reclined upon odorous mats. then, in citron cups, sherbet of tamarinds was offered to media, mohi, yoomy; to me, a nautilus shell, brimmed with a light-like fluid, that welled, and welled like a fount. "quaff, taji, quaff! every drop drowns a thought!" like a blood-freshet, it ran through my veins. a philter?--how hautia burned before me! glorious queen! with all the radiance, lighting up the equatorial night. "thou art most magical, oh queen! about thee a thousand constellations cluster." "they blaze to burn," whispered mohi. "i see ten million hautias!--all space reflects her, as a mirror." then, in reels, the damsels once more mazed, the blossoms shaking from their brows; till hautia, glided near; arms lustrous as rainbows: chanting some wild invocation. my soul ebbed out; yillah there was none! but as i turned round open- armed, hautia vanished. "she is deeper than the sea," said media. "her bow is bent," said yoomy. "i could tell wonders of hautia and her damsels," said mohi. "what wonders?" "listen; and in his own words will i recount the adventure of the youth ozonna. it will show thee, taji, that the maidens of hautia are all yillahs, held captive, unknown to themselves; and that hautia, their enchantress, is the most treacherous of queens. "'camel-like, laden with woe,' said ozonna, 'after many wild rovings in quest of a maiden long lost--beautiful ady! and after being repelled in maramma; and in vain hailed to land at serenia, represented as naught but another maramma;--with vague promises of discovering ady, three sirens, who long had pursued, at last inveigled me to flozella; where hautia made me her thrall. but ere long, in rea, one of her maidens, i thought i discovered my ady transformed. my arms opened wide to embrace; but the damsel knew not ozonna. and even, when after hard wooing, i won her again, she seemed not lost ady, but rea. yet all the while, from deep in her strange, black orbs, ady's blue eyes seemed pensively looking:--blue eye within black: sad, silent soul within merry. long i strove, by fixed ardent gazing, to break the spell, and restore in rea my lost one's past. but in vain. it was only rea, not ady, who at stolen intervals looked on me now. one morning hautia started as she greeted me; her quick eye rested on my bosom; and glancing there, affrighted, i beheld a distinct, fresh mark, the impress of rea's necklace drop. fleeing, i revealed what had passed to the maiden, who broke from my side; as i, from hautia's. the queen summoned her damsels, but for many hours the call was unheeded; and when at last they came, upon each bosom lay a necklace-drop like rea's. on the morrow, lo! my arbor was strown over with bruised linden-leaves, exuding a vernal juice. full of forbodings, again i sought rea: who, casting down her eyes, beheld her feet stained green. again she fled; and again hautia summoned her damsels: malicious triumph in her eye; but dismay succeeded: each maid had spotted feet. that night rea was torn from my side by three masks; who, stifling her cries, rapidly bore her away; and as i pursued, disappeared in a cave. next morning, hautia was surrounded by her nymphs, but rea was absent. then, gliding near, she snatched from my hair, a jet-black tress, loose-hanging. 'ozonna is the murderer! see! rea's torn hair entangled with his!' aghast, i swore that i knew not her fate. 'then let the witch larfee be called!' the maidens darted from the bower; and soon after, there rolled into it a green cocoa-nut, followed by the witch, and all the damsels, flinging anemones upon it. bowling this way and that, the nut at last rolled to my feet.--'it is he!' cried all.--then they bound me with osiers; and at midnight, unseen and irresistible hands placed me in a shallop; which sped far out into the lagoon, where they tossed me to the waves; but so violent the shock, the osiers burst; and as the shallop fled one way, swimming another, ere long i gained land. "'thus in flozella, i found but the phantom of ady, and slew the last hope of ady the true.'" this recital sank deep into my soul. in some wild way, hautia had made a captive of yillah; in some one of her black-eyed maids, the blue- eyed one was transformed. from side to side, in frenzy, i turned; but in all those cold, mystical eyes, saw not the warm ray that i sought. "hast taken root within this treacherous soil?" cried media. "away! thy yillah is behind thee, not before. deep she dwells in blue serenia's groves; which thou would'st not search. hautia mocks thee; away! the reef is rounded; but a strait flows between this isle and odo, and thither its ruler must return. every hour i tarry here, some wretched serf is dying there, for whom, from blest serenia, _i carry life and joy. away!_" "art still bent on finding evil for thy good?" cried mohi.--"how can yillah harbor here?--beware!--let not hautia so enthrall thee." "come away, come away," cried yoomy. "far hence is yillah! and he who tarries among these flowers, must needs burn juniper." "look on me, media, mohi, yoomy. here i stand, my own monument, till hautia breaks the spell." in grief they left me. vee-vee's conch i heard no more. chapter xc taji with hautia as their last echoes died away down the valley, hautia glided near;-- zone unbound, the amaryllis in her hand. her bosom ebbed and flowed; the motes danced in the beams that darted from her eyes. "come! let us sin, and be merry. ho! wine, wine, wine! and lapfuls of flowers! let all the cane-brakes pipe their flutes. damsels! dance; reel, swim, around me:--i, the vortex that draws all in. taji! taji!-- as a berry, that name is juicy in my mouth!--taji, taji!" and in choruses, she warbled forth the sound, till it seemed issuing from her syren eyes. my heart flew forth from out its bars, and soared in air; but as my hand touched hautia's, down dropped a dead bird from the clouds. "ha! how he sinks!--but did'st ever dive in deep waters, taji? did'st ever see where pearls grow?--to the cave!--damsels, lead on!" then wending through constellations of flowers, we entered deep groves. and thus, thrice from sun-light to shade, it seemed three brief nights and days, ere we paused before the mouth of the cavern. a bow-shot from the sea, it pierced the hill-side like a vaulted way; and glancing in, we saw far gleams of water; crossed, here and there, by long-flung distant shadows of domes and columns. all venice seemed within. from a stack of golden palm-stalks, the damsels now made torches; then stood grouped; a sheaf of sirens in a sheaf of frame. illuminated, the cavern shone like a queen of kandy's casket: full of dawns and sunsets. from rocky roof to bubbling floor, it was columned with stalactites; and galleried all round, in spiral tiers, with sparkling, coral ledges. and now, their torches held aloft, into the water the maidens softly glided; and each a lotus floated; while, from far above, into the air hautia flung her flambeau; then bounding after, in the lake, two meteors were quenched. where she dived, the flambeaux clustered; and up among them, hautia rose; hands, full of pearls. "lo! taji; all these may be had for the diving; and beauty, health, wealth, long life, and the last lost hope of man. but through me alone, may these be had. dive thou, and bring up one pearl if thou canst." down, down! down, down, in the clear, sparkling water, till i seemed crystalized in the flashing heart of a diamond; but from those bottomless depths, i uprose empty handed. "pearls, pearls! thy pearls! thou art fresh from the mines. ah, taji! for thee, bootless deep diving. yet to hautia, one shallow plunge reveals many golcondas. but come; dive with me:--join hands--let me show thee strange things." "show me that which i seek, and i will dive with thee, straight through the world, till we come up in oceans unknown." "nay, nay; but join hands, and i will take thee, where thy past shall be forgotten; where thou wilt soon learn to love the living, not the dead." "better to me, oh hautia! all the bitterness of my buried dead, than all the sweets of the life thou canst bestow; even, were it eternal." chapter xci mardi behind: an ocean before returned from the cave, hautia reclined in her clematis bower, invisible hands flinging fennel around her. and nearer, and nearer, stole dulcet sounds dissolving my woes, as warm beams, snow. strange languors made me droop; once more within my inmost vault, side by side, the past and yillah lay:--two bodies tranced;--while like a rounding sun, before me hautia magnified magnificence; and through her fixed eyes, slowly drank up my soul. thus we stood:--snake and victim: life ebbing out from me, to her. but from that spell, i burst again, as all the past smote all the present in me. "oh hautia! thou knowest the mystery i die to fathom. i see it crouching in thine eye:--reveal!" "weal or woe?" "life or death!" "see, see!" and yillah's rose-pearl danced before me. i snatched it from her hand:--"yillah! yillah!" "rave on: she lies too deep to answer; stranger voices than thine she hears:--bubbles are bursting round her." "drowned! drowned then, even as she dreamed:--i come, i come!--ha, what form is this?--hast mosses? sea-thyme? pearls?--help, help! i sink!--back, shining monster!---what, hautia,--is it thou?--oh vipress, i could slay thee!" "go, go,--and slay thyself: i may not make thee mine;--go,--dead to dead!--there is another cavern in the hill." swift i fled along the valley-side; passed hautia's cave of pearls; and gained a twilight arch; within, a lake transparent shone. conflicting currents met, and wrestled; and one dark arch led to channels, seaward tending. round and round, a gleaming form slow circled in the deepest eddies:-- white, and vaguely yillah. straight i plunged; but the currents were as fierce headwinds off capes, that beat back ships. then, as i frenzied gazed; gaining the one dark arch, the revolving shade darted out of sight, and the eddies whirled as before. "stay, stay! let me go with thee, though thou glidest to gulfs of blackness;--naught can exceed the hell of this despair!--why beat longer in this corpse oh, my heart!" as somnambulists fast-frozen in some horrid dream, ghost-like glide abroad, and fright the wakeful world; so that night, with death-glazed eyes, to and fro i flitted on the damp and weedy beach. "is this specter, taji?"--and mohi and the minstrel stood before me. "taji lives no more. so dead, he has no ghost. i am his spirit's phantom's phantom." "nay, then, phantom! the time has come to flee." they dragged me to the water's brink, where a prow was beached. soon-- mohi at the helm--we shot beneath the far-flung shadow of a cliff; when, as in a dream, i hearkened to a voice. arrived at odo, media had been met with yells. sedition was in arms, and to his beard defied him. vain all concessions then. foremost stood the three pale sons of him, whom i had slain, to gain the maiden lost. avengers, from the first hour we had parted on the sea, they had drifted on my track survived starvation; and lived to hunt me round all mardi's reef; and now at odo, that last threshold, waited to destroy; or there, missing the revenge they sought, still swore to hunt me round eternity. behind the avengers, raged a stormy mob, invoking media to renounce his rule. but one hand waving like a pennant above the smoke of some sea-fight, straight through that tumult media sailed serene: the rioters parting from before him, as wild waves before a prow inflexible. a haven gained, he turned to mohi and the minstrel:--"oh, friends! after our long companionship, hard to part! but henceforth, for many moons, odo will prove no home for old age, or youth. in serenia only, will ye find the peace ye seek; and thither ye must carry taji, who else must soon be slain, or lost. go: release him from the thrall of hautia. outfly the avengers, and gain serenia. reek not of me. the state is tossed in storms; and where i stand, the combing billows must break over. but among all noble souls, in tempest-time, the headmost man last flies the wreck. so, here in odo will i abide, though every plank breaks up beneath me. and then,--great oro! let the king die clinging to the keel! farewell!" such mohi's tale. in trumpet-blasts, the hoarse night-winds now blew; the lagoon, black with the still shadows of the mountains, and the driving shadows of the clouds. of all the stars, only red arcturus shone. but through the gloom, and on the circumvallating reef, the breakers dashed ghost-white. an outlet in that outer barrier was nigh. "ah! yillah! yillah!--the currents sweep thee ocean-ward; nor will i tarry behind.--mardi, farewell!--give me the helm, old man!" "nay, madman! serenia is our haven. through yonder strait, for thee, perdition lies. and from the deep beyond, no voyager e'er puts back." "and why put back? is a life of dying worth living o'er again?--let _me_, then, be the unreturning wanderer. the helm! by oro, i will steer my own fate, old man.--mardi, farewell!" "nay, taji: commit not the last, last crime!" cried yoomy. "he's seized the helm! eternity is in his eye! yoomy: for our lives we must now swim." and plunging, they struck out for land: yoomy buoying mohi up, and the salt waves dashing the tears from his pallid face, as through the scud, he turned it on me mournfully. "now, i am my own soul's emperor; and my first act is abdication! hail! realm of shades!"--and turning my prow into the racing tide, which seized me like a hand omnipotent, i darted through. churned in foam, that outer ocean lashed the clouds; and straight in my white wake, headlong dashed a shallop, three fixed specters leaning o'er its prow: three arrows poising. and thus, pursuers and pursued flew on, over an endless sea. the end.