The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

WINE-DARK SEAS AND TROPIC SKIES

Lagoon Scene, Apia

WINE-DARK SEAS

AND

TROPIC SKIES

REMINISCENCES AND A ROMANCE OF

THE SOUTH SEAS

BY

A. SAFRONI-MIDDLETON

❦

NEW YORK

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY

1918

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED

EDINBURGH

I dedicate this book to you,

To your wild songs and laughter,

And to the half-remembered light

Here in my dreams years after;

To you, the men who sailed with me

Beyond each far sky-line,

And my dead self—the boy I knew

In days of auld lang syne.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FOREWORD

IN this volume of reminiscences and impressions I have endeavoured to express some of the elements of romance that remain in my memory of wanderings in the South Seas.

My characters are all taken from life, both the settlers and the natives. I have striven to give an account of native life, modes and codes, and to describe the general characteristics of certain island tribes that are now extinct.

My attempt is not so much the wanderer’s usual book with its inevitable blemishes, for the reason that it is one voluminous blemish, but I’m hoping that, after a lapse of years, my mind has retained the something that’s worth the recording. Besides, I’ve smashed about so much in this grey, swashbuckling world of Grand Old Liars, knighted thieves, rogues and successful hypocrites, that the background of my life in early boyhood seems a dim fairyland, whereover I roamed at will from wonder to wonder, laden with the wealth of cheek and impudence enormous. Reaping such wonders I fail to find in pages of romance experiences that outrival those of my boyhood, which leads me to imagine that I can paint down, out of the Past, some of the sparkling atmosphere that buoyed me up in the wide travels of my youth.

Wonderful and unsuspected are the unheard harmonies that guide the footsteps of romantic vagabonds. They know not that deep in the heart of their existence bubble the eternal springs of beauty, and, as they tramp on, their footsteps beat to the rhythm of the song they will not hear—until they be older! And stranger still have been my own immediate experiences. I once officiated as chief mourner at the burial of a romantic old trader who had suddenly died through the effects of a great spree! He had a wooden leg, a limb that he had extemporised from good, green wood. We stuck that sad heritage (it was all that he could leave us) over his grave in the forest, having made a cross of it. On visiting the spot about three months afterwards I observed that the old wooden leg had burst into leaf—had blossomed forth into pretty blue flowers! Sure am I that neither our old dead pal, in his wildest and most romantic moods, nor indeed one of us, had dreamed of the hidden potentialities of that wooden leg—how one day it would once more come to the poor body’s assistance, making his very grave in the solitude beautiful.

Well, in a way, I would think that my book is like unto that wooden leg; for, as that artificial member—being green—did not snap as it helped our stumbling pal along, so has the romance in these pages helped me along on my travels, buoying me up in my weakest hours. And now I feel that, like my old pal’s wooden leg, my half-remembered romance, reviving, may blossom over the long-buried light of other days.

So, should anyone notice that I sometimes write in a reflective strain when describing my experiences and those of my characters, it is because it is in that way the past is now presented to my mind. All that I wish to attempt is to throw my different characters into clear relief, and bring to the surface a hint of the undercurrents that moved them on their wandering ways.

Looking back, it seems like some wild dream that I arrived in that romantic world of islands when a boy; that I once stood in the presence of tawny, majestic, tattooed potentates who loved to hear me play the violin. Yet ’tis true enough. I have lingered by the side of dethroned kings and romantic queens, taken their hands in fellowship, lending a willing ear to their griefs. For I was in at the death of that tottering, barbarian dynasty of mythological splendour—the aristocratic world of force—which has now faded into the historic pages of romantic, far-off, forgotten things.

Not only those chiefs and chiefesses of the forests impressed my imagination, but also the white men, the settlers of those days. They were self-exiled men. Some belonged to the lost brigade, drifting to the security of those palmy isles.

When I think of that wild crew, their manly ways, keen eyes and strong, sunburnt faces, their diversified types, their brave, strangely original characters, it almost seems that I went away ages ago to another world, where I explored the regions of wonderful minds. And now I stare across the years into the nebulous memories of far-off, bright constellations of friendly eyes and hopes. Such hopes!

I now recall those rough men revealed to me the best and most interesting phases of the human mind roaming the plains of life, some staring at the stars with earnest wonder, and some searching for the lights of distant grog shanties!

Much of my apparently strained philosophical reflections may appear like strange digressions and slightly unbalanced rhapsodies. My excuse for this is, that I am endowed with a strange mixture of misanthropy and misplaced humour. Humour is like poetry, it cannot be defined. The humour that I possess is something of an unrecognisable quality, and I have often spent sleepless nights laughing convulsively over my own jokes! Often have I sat in some South Sea grog shanty telling my most exquisite joke, only to look up to see all the rough men burst into tears! On one occasion I told what I thought to be the most pathetic incident I knew—lo! men smacked me on the back and were seized with paroxysms of ecstatic laughter!

When I dwelt for a brief period in England I listened to many thousands of British jokes, but I cannot recall that I laughed more than twice. This fact alone convinces me that I am incorrigibly dull and devoid of recognised mirth. So, whoever takes up my book with the idea of gathering laughter will lay it down disappointed. I feel that it is better to make this confession at the outset.

Well, the men who travelled the South Seas in the days when I was a boy will vouch for the truth of what I say about the strange characters who lived in those wild parts—and they were wild in those days. I guarantee that, as I proceed with my chapters, my only artificial colouring will be introduced to enable me to touch up some of my characters so that they may be presented to polite readers in polite form.

When I think of those castaways from civilised lands, how I tramped across vast plains in their company, sat by their camp-fires far away in the Australian and New Zealand bush, I feel that I once met humanity in its most blessed state. Often they would sit and sing some old English, Irish or Scots song, as the whimpering ’possums leapt across the moonlit branches of our roof. Listening to their tales of better days, it seemed incredible that there really was a civilised world thousands of miles across the seas. The memories of the great cities appeared like far-off opéra bouffe, where the actors rushed across the phantom limelight in some terrified fright from their own dreams. The thought of vigilant policemen on London’s streets, the cataclysm of running wheels, crowds of huddled women and men staring in lamp-lit, serrated shop windows, pale-faced street arabs shouting “Evening News! Star and Echo!” swearing bus-men, shrieking engines, trains pulling back to the suburbs cargoes of wretched people who thought they were intensely happy—seemed something absurd, something that I dreamed before my soul fledged its wings and flew away from the homestead surrounded by the windy poplar trees—away to the steppes of another world.

Yet—and strange it is—had an English thrush, in some mysterious way, commenced to sing somewhere down the wide groves of banyans and karri-karri trees, our hearts’ blood would have pulsed to the soul of England!

One may ask, in this sceptical old world, why such fine fellows as my old beachcombers and shellbacks turned out such apparent rogues. I must say that I, too, have pondered on the mystery of it all. The only conclusion that I can arrive at is, that they were, very often, men who had been spirited, courageous, romantic-minded boys, and so had once aspired beyond the beaten track and made a bold plunge into pioneer life.

All men have some besetting sin, and it is so easy to slip and fall by the wayside, to wrap one’s robe of shattered dreams about one, and tell the civilised communities to go and hang themselves.

In reference to the half-caste girl and the white girl, Waylaos and Paulines exist in this grey old world by millions, and will do so as long as skies are blue and fields are green. Waylao was a half-caste Marquesan girl; and Pauline—well, she was Pauline! Neither are the leper lovers introduced for scenic effects. They, too, were terribly real. Their whitened bones still lie clasped together in the island cave in the lone Pacific. Terrible as their fate may appear, believe me, the terror, the horror of the leper dramas enacted on the desolate seas by Hawaii are only faintly touched upon in my book.

Old Matafa and his wife I number amongst my dearest Samoan comrades. It was with them that I stayed during my last two sojourns in Apia. The grog shanty near Tai-o-hae has possibly vanished. Could I be convinced that it still stands beneath the plumed palms, with its little door facing the moonlit sea, the dead men, out of their graves, roaring their rollicking sea chanteys, what should I do? I would long to speed across the seas, to become some swift, silent old sea-gull. Yes, to be numbered with the dead so that I might rejoin those ghosts and find such good company again.

As for Abduh Allah, the Malay Indian, I have expressed my opinion of that worthy in the book. I have no personal grudge against Mohammedanism in the South Seas, any more than I have for the Mohammedans and their white converts in the Western Seas. The islands—especially Fiji—through the immigration of men from the Indian, China, and Malay archipelagos are rapidly becoming South Sea India, the white man’s creed being converted into a kind of pot-pourri of Eastern, Southern and Western theology, doing the can-can.

When I, as a lad, arrived at the islands, the Marquesan race was fast ebbing to the grave. So my readers may take these incidents, of their dances, songs, ideas and laughter, as the last record of the Marquesans.

We are but wandering bundles of dreams!—Swagmen tramping across the drought-stricken track on the great, gold rush of this life’s Never-Never-Land.

I recall to mind how I once met a derelict old sundowner. I was quite a lad then, tramping alone across the Australian bush on the borders of Queensland. He hove into sight as a real godsend to me, and looked an awe-inspiring being. His ancient wardrobe, his enormous bushy grey beard, made him appear like a wonderful, emblematical ship’s figurehead from some wreck on the coast with all the crew lost; an apostolic figurehead, that had in some mysterious way become endowed with life and was curiously roaming inland. Approaching IT with considerable trepidation, I played a tender, conciliatory strain on my violin. Having the desired effect, we chummed together, and, notwithstanding his peculiarities, he became a boon and a blessing to me. His enormous grey beard, clotted with spittle and tobacco juice of other years, attracted all the irritating bush flies, and gyrating bunches of hungry, fierce mosquitoes. And as I kept to leeward of him, I travelled on quite untormented by the buzz of his mighty beard. Indeed I felt like some Pied Piper of Hamelin as I fiddled away by his side, happy as one could well be, all the flies dancing, like the singing spheres, to the leeward of that beard, as we tramped southward bound for Bummer’s Creek!

I recall that strange old sundowner because I cannot help feeling that his old beard, hoarding all the flies, bringing me intense relief beneath the scorching, tropical suns, resembled the vast cities of the world, which are like dirty, old, tangled, smelling beards that collect hungry, aspiring humanity, whilst the happy, musical vagabond, tramps along untormented by flies or men, out in the wide spaces of the world, breathing the transcendent beauty of God’s blue heaven. And now I could half imagine that that old man was like unto God Himself as he tramped across the spaces, his monstrous beard followed by the singing spheres—the fireflies by night—till, with his swag on his back, he disappears for ever from my sight, passing away into the silence of the ragged gum-trees on the sky-line.

So one may perceive that I have had more advantages than most men in this world where men stare fiercely, or kindly, at each other as they express their own opinions, and then depart!

Thus do I—by reviewing the shadowy pageantry of the sympathetic period of my career—apologise to myself for my book.

Gone the mediæval, heroic age of my existence, when chivalry’s wondrous light glistened in the deep eyes and on the tangled, kingly beards of strange, apostolic old men, and on the bronzed faces of hairy-chested sailormen. But the ineffable, eternal glory of romantic beauty still shines in the sad eyes of mysterious, homeless women and girls, men and yearning boys, who are, to me, the lost, wandering children of some far-off Israel of the great, glorious Bible of Youth—the shrivelled, fingered pages of the unforgotten light of other days—the light that warms the world.

A. S. M.

I cast my bread on the waters

In dreams of feverish haste,

But it came back after many days

Buttered with phosphorous paste!

New Proverb.

CHAPTER I

Impecunious Youth—In Sydney—Once more I go Seaward—In Fiji—Lose my Comrade—I arrive off Tai-o-hae—The Isles of Romance—French Officials and Convicts—I am welcomed by a Pretty Chiefess—The Brown Maids’ Preference for English Sailormen—Nuka Hiva by Night—Ranjo’s Grog Shanty—I sleep beneath the Palms—My First Meeting with Waylao, the Half-caste Girl—The Passing of the Great Mohammed—I feel a bit fascinated by the Half-caste Girl—Planting Nuts for a Living

I HAD been travelling a good deal when at length I left a ship and was stranded for the fourth time in Sydney. In those days the Australian seaboard cities seemed to have come into existence by special grace of Providence. They were kind harbours where Fate could dump, at leisure, impecunious, hopeful youths on the various wharves. Nor do I claim to have been the least hopeful of the multitudinous youths who in my day arrived fresh and green from other lands.

I do not think I was “on the rocks” for more than three weeks before the opportunity presented itself, and once more I secured a berth on a schooner that happened to be bound for the islands of the South Seas. I recall that I met an old pal at this period. We had been several voyages together and had shared many exciting adventures, through a deep faith in the impossible and absurd. This pal of mine secured a job on the same ship.

I was about sixteen years of age at this time. Crammed with the enthusiasm of romantic youth, nothing seemed improbable, and all that which was hopelessly absurd to the matured mind of man was to me something that glowed with inexhaustible possibilities. And all this notwithstanding the fact that I had already travelled the Australian and New Zealand bush, lived with deported Chinamen in ’Frisco and exiled wild, white men from civilised cities, besides roughing it before the mast on voyages across the world. Also, and not least, I had lived on nuts, green bananas, hard tack and the dubious “locusts and wild honey” of the wildernesses, and much suspicious-looking soup in the cities.

One fine morning, as sunrise imparadised the clean waters of beautiful Sydney harbour, off we went. I was delighted to see the steam-tug dragging our schooner from the miserable wharf near Miller’s Point. In due course we arrived at Fiji, where my comrade and I “jumped the ship,” as they say in sea parlance. A few days after arriving in Suva my pal came to me with melancholy aspect and told me that he had fallen in love with a nut-brown lassie.

I condoled with him and made strenuous efforts to restore his mental balance, but to no purpose whatsoever.

Fiji was a wild enough, God-forsaken, missionary-stricken township in those days, and to finish my last hopes my pal, on the third day, in a paroxysm of grief, eloped into the mountains with a celebrated high chief’s faithless partner—and I saw him no more.

A few days after, being quite fed up with Suva, I secured a berth on a schooner and again went seaward across the Pacific. We called at many wonderful isles, which suddenly loomed on the sky-line like enchanted lands of untravelled seas. I could devote chapters to the wonders of that voyage, the strange peoples I met, people wild and romantic, clad in no clothes, beautifully varnished by the tropical sunlight of ages. How they laughed and sang their wonderful songs to the sailors—songs that seemed to have been composed in deep ocean caves and blown into their heathenish brains on patches of moonlight. But I digress. The climax arrived when we reached Nuka Hiva—the shores of the gloriously romantic Marquesan Isles.

Though I was penniless, I felt as happy as a sand-boy when at last we dropped anchor in the bay off Tai-o-hae.

I was entranced as I stood on deck, and with all the fevered imagination of boyhood drank in the natural beauties of that land-locked bay. The inland mountain slopes, that reached their zenith in the peak of Ua Pu, were clad with feathery palms and beautiful pauroas. Peeping beneath the shore palms were the birdcage-shaped bamboo homes of the native village. It was silent and deserted on that “Pious Morn,” but its inhabitants would return. For lo! floundering in the ocean waters around the schooner, and clambering on the deck, were the handsome, mahogany-hued, scantily attired people of that little village. No wonder that I felt that I had, at last, arrived at the wonderful isles of dim Romance.

I made no delay in getting ashore. A large silk handkerchief contained my worldly goods, which consisted of a violin and bow, two flannel shirts, a small-tooth comb and one flask of bug-powder. It was terrifically hot. Leaving the curious traders loafing on the beach, I made my way up a track that led to the jungle-like scenery that overlooked the bay. I longed to be alone. I yearned to think out of earshot, away from the oaths and grousing of the crew who had been informed that the beer in the shore shanty had gone quite sour through the hot weather.

As I went up the track I was enthusiastically welcomed by vast crowds of sandflies. How happy I was! Turning seaward I saw the unrivalled blaze of the sun’s dying splendour flood the horizon.

I vividly recall the beauty of that sunset when, a romantic lad, I watched the tremulous stains of the western sea-line. Standing beneath the interlacing boughs of scarlet-flowered tropical trees, I seemed to be staring down upon some enchanted hamlet of romance that was nestling at the rugged feet of the mountains. That hamlet, the small, semi-pagan city of old Tai-o-hae, lay silent, like some little sculptured city beautifully engraved on a slope that fronted the sea. Its one little shore street of wooden houses stood out in clear relief in the light of the low sunset. The green jungle pauroas and feathery palm groves that sheltered the township of tin roofs were unstirred by one breath of wind. Out in the bay lay two schooners, their canvas hanging as motionless as though they were painted ships on an oil-painted bay of the deepest indigo-blue water.

But it was no painting, for the group of huddled Chinamen who toiled on the pineapple plantations by Prison Hill moved, and their pigtails tossed, and the grog shanty door by the shore-side opened as two traders emerged and spat violently seaward.

Such was the scene that met my eyes as I stood alone by that capital of Nuka Hiva. With the approaching coolness of night Tai-o-hae awoke from its lethargy, for only the Chinese worked in the heat of the tropic day. The French officials spent the day in a deep siesta, dreaming of La Belle France and sipping absinthe between their yawns.

Walking down the rugged slopes I met a white settler, who dwelt in a neat bungalow near an old mission-room.

“Where yer hail from, mate?” said he.

I told him.

“Any chance of getting a living if I stick here?” said I to him.

Hitching his trousers up he regarded me almost fiercely, as he scornfully ejaculated: “Why, don’t yer know this is God’s own country?”

“Oh yes, I quite forgot,” I said, half to myself as I smiled, for at every Australian and American port that I had entered I had never failed to meet some shore loafer who enthusiastically welcomed me to “God’s own Country.”

But still, Tai-o-hae certainly looked as though the Hand of the Creator had succeeded in making it the most picturesque and romantic-looking isle that one could well wish to come across.

For a time I wandered about like an inquisitive schoolboy. I went up to Prison Hill and watched some native convicts sweep the roads. A gendarme kindly pointed out Queen Vaekehu’s palace. He enlightened me as to Vaekehu’s past. I had already heard of that queen’s barbarian fame as a multitudinous lover and cannibal.

“Is she a cannibal now?” said I, as I stared beneath the palms and spied the old queen and her obsequious retinue of dusky chiefs on the verandah of her wooden palace. She had been a kind of Helen of Troy in the pre-Christian times of Tai-o-hae.

“Ah, no, monsieur, she is not zee cannibal now.” So saying, the gendarme, as he smiled and shrugged his shoulders, banged a native convict over the head with his bamboo truncheon by way of harmless digression. At this moment several natives, handsome youths and Marquesan maids, went laughing by. As they passed me they called out, “Aloah, monsieur!” One pretty chiefess, who had a figure like a goddess, arrayed in hibiscus blossoms and weaved grass, threw me a kiss.

“I’m going to stop on this isle,” murmured I to myself as I walked on. The shadows fell over the mountain range and hid the pinnacles of Ua Pu. I was still tramping inland, once more alone. The scene, as night fell, changed to one of magical beauty. Such a change! I heard the wild shouts of laughter, and the musical cries of approval, as the sailors and native girls met and whirled under the palms by the shanties. Those maids seemed to prefer English sailors. I recall that I often heard the Frenchmen say: “Ze Englese sailors are ze very deevils when they are tousand of miles from Londres.”

Often when the French officials were sipping their light wines and absinthe and gave out their toast: “Vive la France,” those sinful maids would gaze into the English sailors’ eyes and murmur (out of earshot): “Vive la Angleese!”

The missionaries had a great deal of trouble to keep them away from those old sea salts, and the French authorities passed all sorts of peculiar Acts to keep them in order. It was a sight worth seeing when a missionary suddenly appeared on the scene where they all danced with the white men: off they bolted into the forest like frightened rabbits! I suppose the missionaries had gone over to Hatiheu that night, for as I passed the shanty the laughter and wild song was in full swing.

The deserted schooners lay out in the bay, not a soul aboard. I saw a canoe shoot across the still waters, paddled by frizzly-headed savages. The darkened lagoons, fringed by feathery palms, mangroves and guavas, loomed into view for miles along the shore, looking like a natural stockade that protected the approaches to fairyland.

Even when the moon hung out in the vault of heaven, the weird beauty of that island scene was not dispelled; for, like miniature starry constellations, swarms of fireflies danced and twinkled in the spaces for miles along the lagoons of the wooded coast.

I observed this from my bedroom, which, that night, was beneath a palm-tree by the shore. I awoke late, considerably refreshed and happy. As I looked about me, I saw several beachcombers still sleeping by me. They were genuine beachcombers, and only left their resting-places when the schooners arrived. These schooners brought in the generous sailormen, who lavishly spent their wages in the grog shanty, which was the economic centre of Tai-o-hae, for, believe me, beachcomberism in full swing—cadging drinks in exchange for fearsome tales, punctuated by mighty oaths—was the staple product and commercial stock exchange of that semi-heathen-land.

Mountain Scenery, Nuka Hiva

Though I had travelled through Samoa, Fiji, Solomon Isles, Tahiti, New Caledonia, also through the wilds of savage London town, I waxed enthusiastic over the wild life and primeval beauty of these scenes and wondrous folk. Touring inland, alone with my violin, I entered little villages that were tiny pagan cities of the forest. The inhabitants, a fine race of handsome, semi-savage people, lived in primitive splendour, nursing their old traditions and secretly practising heathen rites that were supposed to be extinct. Nature’s mysterious grace had given them a palatial home of natural warmth, beauty and plenty. Fertile hills, mountain slopes giving forth abundance of glorious fruits to the gaze of the kind sun, surrounded me. By the hut towns mighty sheltering trees, bending their gnarled, sympathetic arms, threw tawny bunches of coco-nuts and delicious foods into the hands of her wild children. Beneath the forest floor for ever toiled that patient eremite, Dame Nature, pushing up through the mossy earth the clothes that so well suited her children’s modest requirements: bright bows, green-fringed kerchiefs, weaved loin-cloths, stiff grass-threads for sewing fibrous materials into cheap scented suits, also debonair hats for their fierce heads! I liked those fierce heads. I found them crammed with kindness. They applauded my violin solos, and brought me sweet foods when I slept beneath the trees, untroubled by man! Yet how wealthy was I, lying beneath the coco-palms, counting my wealth in the numberless stars of strange constellations till I fell asleep. It was whilst I was hard up, sleeping beneath the friendly trees, that I first came across a native woman, Madame Lydia. She spied me from her bungalow window hole, as, lying on my cheap mossy sheet, I counted the clouds that crawled like monstrous spiders across my vast, blue ceiling.

“Aloah, monsieur,” she said, as she poked her sun-varnished physiognomy through the bamboos and handed me a pannikin of hot tea. I accepted the gift with alacrity and thanks, and I unconsciously ingratiated myself into her good graces. She turned out to be the kind old wife of B— —, an English sailor and trader. She was a full-blooded Marquesan, decidedly handsome, notwithstanding the expressive wrinkles mapped on her face. I discovered that she dwelt in a small bungalow that stood in a most picturesque spot on the slopes that fronted the sea. I was soon quite chummy with this native woman, told her who I was, and finally discovered that she was the mother of the beautiful half-caste girl, Waylao, whom I had met the day before on the beach. So much for old Lydia. But as my reminiscences will deal at times with the daughter, I will introduce her.

She was an attractive girl, about sixteen years of age. When I first saw her standing on the slopes she decidedly enhanced the scenery of Tai-o-hae, and that’s saying something for the beauty of Waylao.

As I vividly recall her, Tai-o-hae, its romantic scenery, its background of pinnacled mountains and dim blue ocean horizons once more surround me. Waylao stands on the ferny slopes by the pomegranates and flamboyant trees. She has not yet perceived me. I hold my breath as I catch sight of her and stare with all the ardour of sanguine youth. The softest, warm sea wind creeps through the giant bread-fruits; her loose tappa robe stirs, lifted by the winds, and twines about the perfect limbs of the girl’s delicate figure. Standing there, with hand held archwise at her brow, her massive, bronzed hair uplifting to the breeze as she stares seaward, I half fancy that the dusky heroine of a romantic South Sea novel has suddenly stepped from the pages of my book and stands before me, smiling in the materialised beauty of reality.

“Aloah, monsieur!”—it is a salutation in French official fashion. Her speech rings in my ears like music. She seems even more beautiful than she appeared yesterday when listening to my violin solo in the grog shanty by the beach.

By degrees reality returns. It’s no dream at all. I’m an ordinary mortal, who was bitten ferociously last night by Marquesan fleas and who only possesses one English shilling and ten centimes in cash.

Though poor in worldly goods, I’m rich with transcendent cheek, gallantry and the enormous deception of youth. I take a mighty interest in all that interests the girl. I pluck a flower from the bush beside us. She smiles deliciously when I, recalling my old aunt’s advice to be polite to ladies, have bowed and fastened the flower in a fold of the diaphanous robe that modestly covers her maiden bosom. As we walk up the slope I feel that I am the old confidential friend of the family; in ten minutes I learn the last five years of her history. I know that her mother, old Lydia, kicks up a shindy if she’s out too late at night. I know that Benbow (as I will call him), her father, gets awfully drunk when home from sea. I know that, notwithstanding her rough surroundings, she is innocent as a child; I know she loves her pet canary. I envy that canary as she babbles on, and I catch glances from her fine lustrous eyes, dark with a blue depth in the pupils, a depth that sparkles at times as though a far-off star shines in their heavens.

In a few moments we part. I hear a musical ripple of laughter as she disappears in the mission-room where resides Père de ——, the old priest, who has known and educated Waylao since she toddled.

The next adventure that I can recall is that I was compelled to accept a rotten job on a plantation. It somewhat grieves me to confess that such humble employments came to me through the curse of being cashless. I sweated in fine style whilst planting nuts. I also pulled taro, broke copra with a native axe, cleared scrub, and did other odious things that did not chime in with the elements of romance.

Soon afterwards I threw the job up in disgust and eventually found it more congenial to consort with the derelicts who frequented the grog shanty hard by.

About those men and their ways I will attempt to discourse in the next chapter.

CHAPTER II

Men who shaved their Beards off—Grog Shanty Sympathy—The Dead who returned on the Tide—Indian-like Men from the Malay Archipelago—The Little Carpet Bag and its Hidden Potentialities—True Belief—Idol-Worship in Secret—My Incorrigible Reverence for a Heathen Idol—The Old Clothes of Kindness from the Hands of Civilisation, and their Hidden Potentialities—The Devil tempts Eve in the New Garden of Eden, with a Leg Bangle!—Waylao returns Home late—Her Mother’s Wrath—Benbow’s Cottage—I conjure up a Picture of what must have been when Waylao fell in the Arms of Mohammed—The Cockney’s Disgust—Where did You get that ’At—A Bankrupt Poet—Helen of Troy—Odysseus

IN that grog shanty congregated the derelicts from the civilised cities of the world, for the Marquesan Group was the special province of those men who found it extremely convenient to change their names and shave their chins.

Some would come hurrying up the shore, stagger into the grog shanty, swallow a few drinks and once more pass away to sea, like ships in the night.

Some were fugitives from justice, escaped from Ile Nouve, the convict settlement of New Caledonia. They came in like waifs on the tide; some on rafts and some disguised as passengers on the schooners that traded from isle to isle.

It was an open secret amongst the scanty white population who these hurried men really were.

The well-seasoned shellback would gaze critically at the gaunt, haggard stranger who had arrived on the last schooner and say quietly:

“Waal, stranger, where yer bound for?”

Then he would immediately stand the new-comer a drink, and give a significant smile that expressed brotherhood, and seemed to say:

“I know the kind ye are, but never you mind that; we don’t go back on a cove when he’s down—no, not in these parts.”

I was deeply interested in these derelicts of the world. Some were devil-may-care fellows, caring not a tinker’s cuss how the wind blew, so low had they sunk in the social scale of human affairs.

Others had haggard faces that expressed something of bygone refinement, and hunted-looking eyes, telling of a mind distraught with fears—and sometimes, who knows, an intense longing for the homeland. Those rough men, many quite youthful, would often disappear as mysteriously as they appeared, probably stowed away on the outbound friendly schooners, never to be heard of again—but stay, I forget—sometimes they came back—with the tide, as a derelict corpse washed up on the shores of one of the numerous Pacific Isles. I often saw those returning visitors, stricken dead men—and women too! I’ve folded the hands together, looked on the dead face and wondered if I dreamed it all—so sacred-looking, so ineffably sad were the faces. Alas! it was no dream. Often a brief note was found on the body, a last request for the one whom he thought might still retain a tender thought for his memory in the world that he had left for ever. These notes would sometimes awaken sentimental discussion in the grog shanties, bring a Bret Harte atmosphere and a whiff of pathos into the bar. At times the rough listeners received a bit of a shock when the biggest scoundrel of the group ceased his volley of oaths, and with emotion said something that revealed a long unsuspected organ—a heart, after all, pulsed in his sinful anatomy!

These travellers were not the only suspicious arrivals who sought the seclusion of the isles without letters of introduction. There also arrived, about that period, several stealthy-footed followers of Mohammed, a kind of mongrel, half-caste Chinese-Indian, hailing mostly from the Malay archipelagos. I think they had been expelled from Fiji for indulging in licentious orgies with natives. It was hard to tell their origin. The traders called them “B—— Kanakas.”

Some wore turbans and looked genuine specimens of the man tribe; but not one of them was as innocent, as artless-looking, as the little tapestry-carpet bag that he carried. This little bag was generally full of feminine linen and delicate Oriental silks, modest-looking merchandise that was their stock-in-trade, which they hawked for a living. A few worked on the copra, sugar or pineapple plantations. Their chief ambition seemed to be to try to get native converts to their creed and their moral codes.

A silk Oriental handkerchief, or a pair of bright yellow stockings, made the eyes of the native girls positively shine with avarice—and true belief!

Those swarthy men blessed Mohammed and had fine old times.

I would not wish to infer that Mohammedans are worse than others who are successful in their ambitions. But I would emphatically assert that the emigrant portion of Malay Indians of that day were a decidedly scummy lot. Briefly speaking, they made converts of many of the native women, reconverting them from Christianity to the bosom of Islam—and their own.

I recall that I had been in Tai-o-hae about two weeks when I heard that a native festival was in progress. My curiosity was at once aroused. I had read in South Sea reminiscent, missionary volumes about Marquesan native dances, but still I was eager to see the real thing in its natural element. Though I had secured a berth on a schooner that was going to Papeete, I was not over-anxious to sail. I had been to Papeete before, and knew well enough that I was as likely to be stranded there as at Nuka Hiva, so I let the job go. Indeed as that very schooner went seaward I stood in the forest thrilled with delight, as fierce, stalwart savage men and women danced around a monstrous wooden idol. The missionaries had long since issued an edict that no idols were to be worshipped. The penalty for so doing was the calaboose (jail), or a fine that would plunge the culprit into life-long debt. It follows, naturally enough, that idols were worshipped in secret. Consequently, that secret pagan festival I witnessed was attended by all the adventurous half-caste girls and youths, and made the more fascinating from its being strictly forbidden. I must admit that the scene I witnessed was a jovial contrast to the dull routine of Christianised native life, and I count myself as the holiest culprit at the festival in question.

I had seen idols in the British Museum, London, also in Fiji, one or two in Samoa, and rotting in the mountains of Solomon Isles, but the one that I saw that day in Tai-o-hae was exceptionally interesting. I was fascinated by its emblematical expression of material might. As the forest children crept from their citadel huts just by and knelt in its presence, I too felt a strange reverence for it! It looked an awesome yet harmless thing to worship. Its big, bulged, glass eyes, staring eternally through the forest tree trunks, gave out no gleam of light to those leafy glooms; its big wooden ears, stretched out, ever listening, were deaf to all human appeals as the forest children wailed to its wooden anatomy.

Though it is now many years since I stood before that thing, I still recall the glassy stare of wonder, the grin of the wide, carven lips, the one huge red, curved tooth. It may have been but a wayward boy’s imagination, but that idol seemed to express to my soul the great, indefinable something representing the Vast Unknown! I also felt the awful reverence that was so deep within the dreams of those barbarian children—dreams far more intense than the religious fervour of the cultured minds of the civilised world.

I know that I’m incorrigible. I know that my confession will strike horror into the hearts of white people—but I cannot help it—I still retain a deep, reverent affection for that heathen idol! To me it still possesses manifold virtues. The golden silence of its physiognomy, its awe-inspiring grin—as if fully appreciating the fantastic movements of those semi-nude high chiefs dancing in wild whirls with pretty maids round its monstrous feet—filled me with strange reverence. I could not deplore the fact that its wooden, hollow throat whispered no rebuke against the irreligious levity that I beheld. And the whole time barbarian drums crashed fortissimo, whilst heathen maids chanted. No solemn denunciation came from its lips to thwart human happiness. It seemed to say, with the great voice of silence: “O children of the forest, drink kava, dance and be merry, for to-morrow you die!” The furrowed frown of its carven brow seemed to wail: “Look ye upon me, here am I stuck up like an emblem of unjoyous death that is devoid of evil motives, secret human passions and ribald song. I say, can I help this cruel dilemma? O children, what else can I do but grin in perpetual silence—till my lips, as yours, in ripeness of time fall to dust? Who am I? Why this monstrous infinity cast about me, I, who yearn to lift these wooden feet and fly from the worship of mankind—or dance with ye all!”

So seemed to speak the idol in the forest by Tai-o-hae as I watched. That old idol even grew moss on its gigantic cranium, as though it would mock hairless old age and the unfruitful passing of man!

It was an unforgettable sight. As the festival progressed the prima donna became more excited. She was a maid of perfect beauty, possessing musical accomplishments; nor were her high kicks to be outrivalled the world over. This particular prima donna would have achieved a vast fortune in the western cities, I’m sure. Her rhythmic virtuosity was marvellous! The terrific encores of the tattooed chiefs became deafening as she sang and danced. She seemed to support her frame in space on nothing but the balancing, rapid movement of her limbs. Suddenly she jumped from the heathen pae-pae (stage), lay sideways up in the ether and moved her limbs as though she were performing mighty cadenzas on vast strings of some invisible violin—with her toes.

It seemed the time of my life as I watched, and the white settlers and beachcombers cheered and cheered each wondrous performance. As the shadows of night fell over the forest height, the natives came in from the plantations to join the festival. It was a weird sight to see them running along the forest tracks that had been made by soft-footed savages for ages. As they reached that opéra bouffe, each one rapidly cast off their European clothes with relief. Nor was this act of theirs to be wondered at, for those old clothes were supplied to them from the morgues of the South Seas and the far-off civilised cities, and usually swarmed with vermin and germs of latent disease that had managed to kill the late occupants. It is no exaggeration to say that the native cemeteries were crammed with victims who had been doubly unfortunate—those who had embraced the white man’s clothes as well as his creed.

As they leapt bodily out of those semi-shrouds, old coats and pants, they attired themselves in the cool, attractive suits that hung from the boughs of the forest. Dusky girls hastily attired themselves in sea-shells and strings of twisted leaves and tropical flowers. Then they embraced the impassioned youths, who blushed in green-fringed high collars that decorated their forest pyjamas, pyjamas noted for their cheap material and scanty width—but were of wide modesty.

While this was proceeding old chiefs joyously thumped mighty drums as they stood on the back level of the ancient pae-pae. The contagion of the glorious pandemonium spread. One by one old tattooed women remembered their happy heathen past, discarded the morgue chemise and plunged into the mêlée. During the excitement about a dozen dark ghosts who appeared to be clad in bath towels came on the scene; it was a crew of Indians. Standing there beneath the giant bread-fruits, they looked like majestic statues of the old Pharaohs that had somehow been dumped into that forest. As they approached the huts that surrounded the festival spaces, the pretty heathen girls rushed forth from the doors, for lo! the stealthy mongrel Indians opened their little carpet bags. One old Indian looked like some swarthy Pied Piper of Hamelin as the children followed, clamouring after him and his little bag. It seemed almost magical, that sudden change from sombre colours of green and gold as the native girls purchased those Oriental decorations. Blue sashes, crimson and saffron striped stockings, all the colours of the rainbow were suddenly to be seen fluttering to the scented breezes of the forest as the maids clutched their purchases. Flocking beneath the banyan-trees, they squatted and started to swiftly attire themselves in those gaudy, tinselled silks. It looked like some scene from an Arabian Night fairy-tale as the shadows fell and moonlight pierced the forest depth. Away flitted Marvaloa with her big blue silken sash flying behind her—her only robe of simple attire. She was held by the impassioned arms of some dusky Lothario who had never dreamed that he would live to see that exquisite hour, as the sash flapped and the bright crimson stockings tossed toward the forest height.

My attention was diverted from the pretty fairy toatisis[^[1]] by the appearance of a Malay Indian. He bowed to Waylao with Islamic politeness. Waylao was alone; old Lydia, her mother, had departed homeward—probably had a headache and wanted some “unsweetened.” I had previously observed Waylao’s interest in one named Abduh Allah, but took little notice. I had been speaking to her and had flattered myself on gaining her attention, when that Indian settler obtruded with his presence. Waylao took a deep, awestruck breath as he bowed majestically to her. I can well imagine the girl’s thoughts, for I too have known those deep breaths. I dare say the Indian seemed some splendid hero of Eastern romance to the girl’s eyes as he stood there crowned with his turban.

[1]. Little girls.

“Gorblimy ducks!” murmured my new chum, an impecunious Cockney, as he turned from the forest opera-box to light his short clay pipe.

“Who’s he?” said I to the handsome Marquesan chief who squatted beside me.

He responded in this wise: “He great Indian mans, teach us kanakas all bout big god Mohamma; sella jewels, nicer tappa cloth, mats, stocking to womans from wonderful little tarpet bag O!”

At this my Cockney friend gave his inimitable side wink, expectorated on to my boot and remarked:

“Seen ’im darn Mile End way; a damned ole Indian ’awker, hout ’ere in the Sarth Seas aselling doar-mats and getting raund gals—that’s wat ’e ’is!”

We saw this sight: Abduh Allah with one knee bent Islamic wise as he dangled before Waylao’s eyes a fascinating brass leg-bangle. It was a sight replete with Biblical import, resembling nothing so much as a modernised South Sea version of the devil’s first love affair in the Garden of Eden.

From all that I perceived I was convinced that the magic carpet with all its possibilities wasn’t in it with that little Islamic carpet bag. It could overthrow creeds and heathen deities; it brought thousands of dusky maids to the feet of that old fraud, the harem-keeper of Mecca—Mohammed. It was even hinted that the devil himself sighed amongst the forest mangroves, when the heathen maids crowded by the hut doors and the stealthy old Indian opened that little carpet bag. I managed to see Waylao alone, and begged the favour of escorting her home. I well knew, from her own confession, that she must not be too late. Old Takaroa, the great high chief, who had ceased to pound the big drum, and was telling me in vehement pidgin-English mighty incidents of his high lineage, tried to detain me longer in vain. My wish to accompany the half-caste girl was greater than my affection for that Marquesan chief and his kind. I admit I was deeply interested in those old chiefs. And some day, when the seas are safe from submarines and high explosives, when the war fever has subsided from the martial bosoms of the Western world’s high chiefs, I’ll cast my disembowelling instruments and guns on to the rubbish heaps and sail away down South once more.

I have basked in the spiritual light of the abstruse pages of Herachlitus, Empedocles, Plato, Socrates, Plotinus, Olympiodorus, Proclus, Synesius, down to Spinoza and Kant of the latest Old Gang, with the result that I am determined to live my life amongst uncivilised peoples, peaceful semi-heathen people of the Solomon Isles. How happy will I be! I’ve still a life before me—the consequence of beginning young.

O happy days! I recall the tumbling, moonlit, silvered seas breaking silently afar as I strolled by the side of that half-caste girl. We had left the barbarian festival behind. When we arrived at her bungalow her mother welcomed me with a smile, but with the impulsiveness of her tribe swore at Waylao with much vigour.

“Wheres you been? You lazy tafoa vale [beachcomber], I told you come ’omes soons.”

“Kaoah! Whaine! Aue!” wailed the maid, soothing the maternal wrath with swift Marquesan phrases that I could not understand.

The maternal ire vanished completely as Waylao hung her head with shame, and the old mother shrieked: “Père de N—— the good missions mans been ’ere. ’E want know whys you no be in mission-room these many days.” Saying this, the old native woman took a deep swig from her pocket-flask, wiped her mouth and continued solemnly: “Ah, Wayee, though you belonger me, allee same you never be good Cliston womans like youse ole movther, you no good—savee?”

I was invited into that little homestead. It was wonderful how neat and civilised it looked within. A grandfather’s clock ticked out its doom in the corner of the cosy parlour. On the walls were old oil paintings of English landscapes, also a few faded photographs of Benbow’s—Waylao’s father’s—relatives. The furniture was better than one might see in many a Kentish cottage. The old sailor had evidently fashioned his South Sea home so that it might be reminiscent of other days. Not the least important item of that homestead was the large barrel of rum which stood by the unused fireplace, a grim, silent symbol of what wild carousals! I, of course, knew not then that Benbow’s home-coming from sea was a mighty event in the monotonous lives of the settled beachcombers who dwelt beneath the shading palms by Tai-o-hae.

Sometimes Waylao came to the shanty and sang as I played the violin. All this to me was very pleasurable. But one must not suppose that I had no other purpose or ambition in life beyond playing sentimental solos to handsome half-caste maids and impecunious sailors who had seen “better days.” Indeed I took all advantage of my musical accomplishments, attending as soloist many social functions at the French Presidency. I also ingratiated myself into the good graces of high-class Marquesan chiefs and chiefesses—many of the surviving members of the old barbarian dynasty. For a while I became a kind of South Sea troubadour among those semi-civilised savages, gathering experience and honours enormous.

Old chiefs, dethroned kings and discarded queens, after hearing my solos, conferred upon me their highest honours.

It was in a pagan citadel in the north-western bread-fruit forests, after performing Paganini’s bravura Carnaval de Venise variations, that a mighty, tattooed monarch invested me with the South Sea equivalent of the Legion of Honour.

This degree was bestowed upon me in ancient style. Kneeling before the bamboo throne, I kissed the royal feet amid the wildest acclamations of the whole tribe. I was then tattooed on the right arm with peculiar spots, which turned out to represent a constellation of stars that were worshipped by that particular tribe. (I have those tattoo marks to this day.) I recall the admiration of the Marquesan belles as I stood by the bamboo throne wearing my insignia of knighthood—the whitened skull of some old-time warrior! I recall the music of the forest stream as it hurried by, and the noise of the winds in the giant bread-fruits, the monotone of the ocean beating inland as a majestic accompaniment to the musical exclamations of “Awai! Awai! Alohao! Talofa!” from the coral-red lips of sun-varnished savage girls, handsome, tattooed, lithesome, deep-bosomed chiefs, and youths.

I have been honoured with so many degrees, so many knighthoods, and so often elected to the peerage that it is no exaggeration on my part to say that I am a veritable living volume of all that’s distinguished—a genuine personification of Who’s Who.

I achieved far-flung fame as a mighty Tusitala, singer of wondrous songs on magic-wood with long spirit-finger (violin bow). Old semi-nude poets, scribes of the forest, left their forum-stumps of the village and followed me from village to village. Beautiful girls, arrayed in picturesque tappa of delicate leaves and shells, threw golden forest fruits at my feet, and then stood hushed, with finger to their lips as I played again. Kind, babbling old native women called me into their village homesteads, and without ceremony made me sit down and eat large gourds of taro and scented poi-poi, which was made of bananas and many indigenous fruits. As I seated myself on the homestead mat and ate, those kind old Marquesan women would squat and gaze upon me with intense curiosity, evincing little embarrassment at my presence. Indeed they would touch my white flesh, and one curious old chiefess leaned forward and lifted the upper lid of my eyes so as to better scan the unfamiliar colour, the grey-blue iris that so pleased those Marquesan ladies.

Though those heathen citadels had numerous advantages which left the vaunted claims of civilisation far behind, they had a few disadvantages. For, to speak truth, the township bailiff would arrive at the author’s, poet’s, or artist’s hut door with a regiment of determined warriors who were often armed with rusty ship’s cutlasses, ponderous war-clubs and heathen battle drums. It was no uncommon sight to meet some tribal poet flying with his trembling family across the mountain tracks in the agony of some great fear.

It was my lot to assist a distressed poet who was flying from the aforesaid avenging law. When I came across him he was camped with his wife and little ones on a plateau to the southward of Tai-o-hae. Hearing the troubles and facts of his case, I bade him fear not. Ere sunset I had taken him back into his native village so that he might appear before the tribunal chiefs. In the meantime he, with his little ones and trembling wife, stood in the background as I appealed on his behalf. After much gesticulation and argument, and many stirring violin solos performed before the whole tribe, I turned to the distressed Marquesan poet, and said, as I touched his shaggy head with my violin bow: “Arise, Sir Knight of Tai-o-hae!” Nor shall I easily forget the consternation of the tribe or the fleeting delight of my bankrupt poet’s countenance at this gracious act of mine, when I explained to all the assemblage how I possessed the power to dub one with the glory of English knighthood. So did I bring happiness to a savage author, and I believe he achieved mighty fame in consequence of my impromptu act. One thing I know, that his misdemeanours and debts after that event were looked upon with extreme favour, and his songs were sung and engraved on the receptive brains of island races as far as the equatorial Pacific Isles.

For a long time I roamed at will among the tribes of that strange land. I recall one village that was nestled by a blue lagoon; the bird-cage, yellow bamboo huts were sheltered by the natural pillared architecture of gnarled giant trees. The scene presented to my imagination some miniature citadel of ancient Troy as the romping, pretty, sun-varnished children rushed up to me. One pretty maiden was a veritable Helen, and the tawny youths loved to bathe in the sunlight of her sparkling glances. They even looked askance, frowningly upon me, as, like some wandering Odysseus, I wooed her with tender strains on my violin, and held her up and admired the forest blossoms that adorned the glory of her dishevelled tresses rippling down to the dimples of her cremona-like varnished shoulders. “Aloue! Awaie! Talofa!” said she, as the little woman in her soul gave wanton glances. She caressed my hand, and all the while, from those Hellenic-like enchanted forest glades, stared the envious little Trojans and Achæans who would slay each other to wholly possess her charms. She was only about eight years of age, but I could well believe that she inspired in the hearts of those youthful barbarians some epic glory of long-forgotten, fierce, bronzed lovers and romance, that seemed to sing over their heads as fitful sea winds sang in the lyric trees.

Ah me! I suppose some Paris arrived in due course from the civilised world and lured her from the arms of her dusky chief. And now ’tis only I of all the world would wish to be the Homer to sing her faery-like beauty, her childhood’s charms.

I never saw her again.

Talking in this strain reminds me of a Homeric character who suddenly arrived at Tai-o-hae. He was a wondrous-looking being, attired in vast pants that were held up by a monstrous, erstwhile scarlet sash, and a helmet-hat with another coloured swathing about it. He looked Homeric enough, indeed he could have walked on the stage anywhere on earth as Ulysses. He strode into the grog shanty, gazed half scornfully at the congregated shellbacks and ordered one quart of rum! He swallowed same rum in two gulps, then, looking round the bar, asked the astonished, staring shellbacks if their mothers knew they were out! The general atmosphere grew hot and thundery. It was only when his massive, vandyke reddish-bearded, sun-tanned face became wreathed in smiles, and his deep-set fiery eyes laughed, that we all realised that his apparently insulting manner was simply some fine overflow of inherent humour. His commanding way and height seemed to inspire all the respect that his rough audience had at their command. Ere he had shouted for his ninth rum, he got boisterous, drew an old Colt revolver from his dirty, blue, folded shirt and brandished it about as the whole crew dodged, blinked and listened with respectful awe to all that he told. Unfortunately he had to depart the next day on the same schooner that had brought him to Nuka Hiva. But he really did make up for his short introduction. He sang wondrous songs of adventure in far-off lands, of farewells to tender Nausicaas, of Circes and Calypsos, thundering forth in majestic strain of mighty warriors whom he had put out of action with one blow of his massive fist. His voice—well, all I can say is, “What a voice!” The shanty shook as he sang. The whole crew were transported into some age of Elysian lawlessness as he looked at us, darkling, spoke of Cimmerian tribes on isles of distant seas, and hinted of things that would have made blind old Homer tremble with envy. As he sang, a flock of naked goddesses on their way home from fishing in the ambrosial waters happened to peep into the shanty to see who sang so wonderfully well and loud. I shall never forget the massive gallantry, the inimitable Homeric grace of his manner when he sighted those maids, put forth his arms and sang to the pretty eyes of those Marquesan girls. As he stood there in the bar, his helmet-hat almost bashed against the shanty roof, so tall was he, the maids looked up at him with coquettish, half-frightened glance as he sang on. There’s no doubt he was handsome. What a nerve he had! Did not care one rap for the old beachcombers who looked on and wondered if they dreamed his remarkable presence. The muscles swelled on his neck like whipcord and his huge nostrils dilated in fine style. When he brought his enormous fist down on the bar to emphasise some bravura point, the empty batch of rum mugs seemed to do a double shuffle with astonishment. I admit that I breathed a sigh of relief when he replaced his fire-iron in his belt and demanded: “Rum—no sugar—damn you!” His vast Quixotic moustache backed to within two inches of his broad shoulder curves and seemed some mighty insignia of virile manhood. I could have wept with the joy I felt as he praised my violin-playing. “Play that ageen, youngster,” said he. Such fame I had never dreamed of achieving! And when he expectorated a swift stream of tobacco juice—no indecision, mind you—between the astonished faces of the two shellbacks who were sitting by the open window, my admiration for his prowess was something that thrills me to this day.

Though men doubt if Homer’s Odyssean characters ever lived, I for one have no doubt whatever that such redoubtable characters once walked the earth. For I met such men when the world was young.

That uninvited guest came into our presence, massive and wonderful, some strange embodiment of heroic romance and lore; then departed like unto a dream. He was the nearest approach to my idea of Odysseus that I ever came across. I can still imagine I hear the vibrant, melodious timbre of his utterance as he curses and swaggers up the little rope gangway that hung from the deck of the strange fore-and-aft schooner that had suddenly appeared in the enchanted bay off Tai-o-hae. The very deck seemed to tremble as his big sea-boots crashed on board. Even the skipper gave one awesome glance at that giant figure of his as he rattled his antique accoutrements; then with his huge, hairy, sun-tanned hand arched to his fine brow he stared seaward at the sunset. The dark saffron-hued canvas sails bellied to the soft warm winds as the outward-bound schooner went out on the tide, as he stood on deck and faded away on the wine-dark seas.

I could write many chapters on such men, their ways, virtues and sins. They were strange, unfathomable beings of Time and Space: men who followed their own wishes, who reigned as king over their own life: men who were disciples of the great transcendental school of the genuine old idealists—those spiritualists of the Truth, the wise and the beautiful, happy in the glad excitement of the wide and wonderful. They were men who in the great desert of life had found a wonderful oasis—in themselves! Men who were born to command themselves, standing on their own feet, standing apart from the supreme stagnation of conventional civilisation.

Heaven knows how it was, but I always liked that class. They were, to me, the posthumous books, works of long-forgotten heroes, the only works that I ever read with deep educational interest: they are still books to me, shelved tenderly in the library of my memory; books that I so well know are born to be sneered at, buffeted about and criticised, ye gods, by weak-kneed chapel disciples and all the sensual, godless, hypocritical survivals that pose as the personification of the beautiful.

CHAPTER III

Another Comrade—Things as I found Them—Taking Photographs—I introduce Père de N—— —Penitent Natives—I witness a Native Domestic Scene

AFTER the passing of Odysseus I met another good comrade, B——. He proved an estimable pal, and was of Scottish descent, consequently his mental equipment was valuable and enabled him to discern an intelligent joke, and laugh, if somewhat sadly, over English humour.

The absence of ordinary humour in the Scots is proverbial; but let me maintain that this proverbialness originated in England. The English, being unable to see through any joke other than their own, or a joke that had its point in the discomfiture of another, at once accuse the breezy, pithy Scot of lack of humour. The calumnies of my countrymen have misled me more than once. From my earliest recollection I can recall the old saying: “As mean as a Jew.” One can imagine my astonishment when travelling across the desolate, far-off spaces of the world, penniless and starving, I found my countrymen firing guns at me—whereas the Jews rushed to my assistance, and of all hosts proved the most courteous, gentle and generous.

I also found that the Japanese, Chinese and Kafirs were the cleanest livers, both in their persons, morals and domesticity. I discovered the French to be stoical, taking their pleasures sadly, phlegmatic and fearless. The Italians were mostly unmusical, the reverse of vindictive, and hated olives. The Germans I’ve met envied all that was British, sang old English melodies and vomited at the sight of sausages! I found the Irish somewhat humourless, but steadfast in friendship and good peacemakers during troublous times! I have lived with Turks and Armenians and found them deeply religious, clean in their mode of living and general outlook on life. As for the Greeks, those descendants of blind old Homer, I found them positively without any musical ear at all, unpoetic and even devoid of the simple love of Art that I discerned amongst the natives of Timbuctoo. I found Persians and Indians unphilosophical, exceedingly effeminate, and beyond the long grey beard, wise demeanour and picturesque turban of the Indian seer, I found no trace whatever of poetic ability, nor did I perceive otherwise than a great hatred for Indian curry.

The English I have always found gullible, and the finest hypocrites extant; brave, yet submissive under serfdom rule, and real stick-at-homes—such home-birds that the great cities of the world have arisen through their love of settling down! Americans I have met were decidedly undemocratic, unhurried in business, and in and out of their homes courteous and reserved. I observed that the cannibals, the wild men of the South Seas, were handsome, intelligent and poetical, their inherent love of peace being their most striking attribute. But I digress.

My comrade B—— possessed a camera, and as he was anxious to secure original photographs of natives and native life, I at once agreed to go off with him to the many scattered villages around and inland from the shores of Nuka Hiva. The least said about some of those photos the better. B—— had a contract with some publisher in Fleet Street, London, who desired native types for the halfpenny classics. Anyway, I can affirm that I placed my hand before my eyes and gazed seaward from the mountain villages more than once as my comrade followed the practical part of his tour through Southern Seas. And I will say on B——’s behalf that much that the reader may imagine exists in the imaginative mind only; that a background of palms and bread-fruit trees framed by mountain peaks makes a bevy of laughing girls with starry eyes and nut-brown knees (and, mind you, a mighty chief standing just by with huge war-club) a picture of perfect innocence not lacking poetic charm.

I recall that we came across a Chinaman in distress, in the act of being strangled by a Marquesan chief. We were passing through a mountain village when this adventure came to us. “O savee me! E killiee poor Chinemans!” yelled the yellow-skinned Celestial as he lifted his head, squirmed and appealed to us. B—— and I immediately gripped the chief’s leg and, giving a mighty pull, pulled him from the yellow man’s belly. The Marquesan still gripped the Chinaman’s pig-tail. Meanwhile the village children came rushing around us, screaming with sheer glee as they witnessed the struggle. I gave that chief a plug of tobacco as a bribe; he immediately rose to his feet, his mighty, tattooed chest swelling with the fierce desire that afflicted him as he grasped the tobacco and smiled his thanks. As he strolled away and coughed, and the children and shaggy-haired native women drew their rugs around them for sorrow that the fight was over, I asked the Celestial what he had done to fire such wrath.

“Me! noee dooey anytink. Markesans man hittiee me ’hind ear cause I sell woman’s one, two, three nicee opium pipe.”

B—— and I had our suspicions, but we wiped the blood off his face with leaves and fixed him up. He thanked us in pidgin-English, then waddled away.

I liked B——, but unfortunately he had to leave the next day, for his boat was sailing for Papeete. I saw him off early, at dawn. Then I went up the slopes and saw the old missionary, Père de N—— (Father O’Leary I will call him). He had just had his morning bath. His few grey hairs were still steaming as he stood bareheaded in the fierce sunlight that blazed over the mountains. I also had just bathed in those cool morning waters and had watched the broad awakening of the bright day. I saw the golden light of the sunrise touch the paddling, curling wings of a migrating flock of far-off parrots, twinkling as they sped away, fading like tiny canoes across the rifts of blue in the seaward sky. Those birds have flown away to their last roost these many years; but still over the azure heaven they pass, yes, as the priest once more turns away from the blue lagoon. As he stands before my memory I wipe my feet on an old shirt, for towels are scarce, and watch the ecclesiastic as he thoughtfully pulls his beard. Now he tugs the mission bell rope. Over the slopes comes another chime from the special mission building wherein Queen Vaekehu sings hymns and prayers for the sake of past sins. It sounds familiar, yet strange, to hear those bells in the wild South Seas. The priest looks worried; so much I notice at a glance as I stroll into the mission-room and proceed with my job, for I have come that morning to mend the broken stops in the mission harmonium. Père de N—— sighs, nor is it to be wondered at. Waylao and many of his flock are missing from early morning prayers. Well enough he knows the temptations that come to his flock on festival occasions: they are all semi-heathens, the penitent dusky maids, youths and chiefs with tawny wives who dwell around me. The holy Father is not at all a bigoted man. He often sighs in the thought of how white men rush across the seas, their brains afire with enthusiasm to paint the cannibal isles with tints of beauty—to make dark-skinned people as white as the driven snow. He well knows that rouged lips and jetty eyelashes do not make a whore a saint.

I have seen tears in the eyes of that old priest when tattooed chiefs once more turned up at his mission-room, fell on their trembling knees and bellowed forth fervent prayer, their voices shaky with fear and remorse—voices that smelt, alas! of gin.

Even as the old priest stands pondering in the bright sunlight and I watch, the reactionary period has set in, for lo! out of their huts one by one they creep, coming down the track to pray. Poor old Mazzabella, the great chiefess, staggers in front as they walk in Indian file. She is the essence of true belief and the finest example of tattoo art extant. Ye gods! only last night the moon hid its face behind its cloud-wisp handkerchief as the assembled tribe cheered with delight, and gazed with ecstatic admiration on her fat, whirling limbs of carven, hieroglyphic savage beauty. Her big throat pulses with the emotion she feels as she staggers on. Behind her totters three ridi-clad royal chiefs (one is a dethroned king, both his ears are missing). Their retinue consists of three more penitent maids. They are in full church dress—a loin-cloth and bright yellow silk stockings—finery that is fresh from the Islamic carpet bag. ’Tis grievously essential to tell one these things, for they are characteristic details, necessary, and full of the pathos of true native life. Even as I watch and mend the broken bellows of the sacred harmonium, I see the pathetic light in the Father’s eyes change to an amused twinkle, and no wonder! for, as poor Mazzabella kneels down in the pew, her mouth sobbing with ecclesiastical anguish, she takes a nip of rum out of the flask which she has hidden beneath her tappa gown.

Though I have not been long in the South Seas, I feel that there is no denying that a pick-me-up after a modern tribal festival is essential. In the olden days, ere casks of rum and Bibles were imported on sister ships to the isles, such pathetic duplicity was comparatively unknown. It is the combination of the Old World’s sins with the New World’s sins that is so disastrous to the native’s nervous system. Indeed so disastrous has been the introduction of Bibles and rum to the sins of the Old World that many an isle is to-day perfectly virtuous—for the whole native population, devoid of human passions, lie silent and sinless in their graves.

As the priest stands before those rows of dusky, savage faces, droning forth in reverent monotones the morning prayers, I finish my job and creep out of the mission-room. I have mended his harmonium gratuitously. I like the old fellow and know he’s as poor as a church mouse. How else could he be but poor, since he was earnest in his belief?

Again I am out in the glorious sunlight. As I walk beneath the bread-fruit trees I recall my promise; for I have quite forgotten to fetch the new-laid eggs for my host, a white settler hard by who has kindly given me shelter till I get a ship. Up the slopes I go, hurrying on. The parrots shriek, flapping away from the topmost branches. In a few moments I reach my destination—old Lydia’s cottage. Her new-laid eggs are noted for size and cheapness. I stand in hesitation by the doorway. It is quite evident that I’ve called whilst a little domestic drama is in progress. I listen, for I too suffer from the great weakness of mankind. “Deary me am! Poor chiles, mitia—Awai, Talofa! My poor Wayee, you sick?—and so sleep late these morning? Poor chiles.”

As I listen to the foregoing I still hesitate beneath the coco-palms. I can see through the slightly opened doorway. Old Lydia is stirring scented poi-poi on the galley stove. It is for poor sick Waylao. Alas! that I must confess that as I watch the honour that should be mine is mesmerised by the scene before me. There stands Waylao in complete deshabille by her mother’s side. Her unloosened hair falls in tangled masses to her dimpled shoulders. She has evidently hastily attired herself in that silken blue kimono gown. Her feet are bare. Her old mother looks positively jealous as the girl, sitting down on a chair, commences to pull on the Oriental, silk, pink-striped stockings.

“Wheres you git ’em?” screams the native mother with delight, eyeing the stockings with vivacious, child-like approval.

Again I remember that I am an honourable white man. Why should I pry on such domestic innocence? I attempt to stride towards the door and make my presence known, but my steps are arrested by a cry of joy. I make a mighty effort to be blind to it all—then I look. Old Lydia stands entranced, her mouth wide open with delight, for lo! Waylao has succeeded in bribing the old mother’s curiosity as to where she’d been the night before—has given her a brilliant pair of pink, yellow-striped stockings!

Yes, there stands old Lydia; in a moment she had pulled the stockings on, and now before the big German mirror sways and swerves in the most grotesque postures as the green and yellow stripes reach above her dusky knees.

Knowing not what else might occur, I hastily shuffle, cough loudly and knock at the door! It opens wider. The old woman grins from ear to ear, as, puff!—Waylao leaps out of sight into the next room.

Native instinct is deep: old Lydia stares at me suspiciously. With the external politeness of Western guile I blow my nose and make an attempt to appear more serious than usual.

I purchase the eggs.

“Nice eggs and good cheap,” says the old woman.

“Yes, very good,” I mutter.

“Good-morning, Aloha! Miss Waylao,” I say jokingly through the door chink as I spy Benbow’s daughter.

No answer comes. But as I stroll away I look back and just catch a glimpse of the girl’s face as she gazes after me through the little lattice window. I wave my hand, and she responds with a smile.

It seems a romantic isle to me as I stroll along. The very trees bend over me like wise old friends, wailing the lore of ages as the winds creep in from the empurpled seas. The exotic odours of forest flowers intoxicate my senses; they seem bright, living eyes of woods as they dance to the zephyrs. The very tinkle-tinkle of the stealing stream at my feet seems some wonderful song of sentient Nature as it ripples its accompaniment to the “Wai-le woo! wai-le woo! willy O!” of the mano alta (morning nightingale) as I fade into the forest shadows.

CHAPTER IV

Water-Nymphs—Ranjo’s Bath and Problem—The Old Hulk—Its Tenants—My Birthday—Shellback Accommodation—Washing Day

A DAY or so after the events of the preceding chapter I became chummy with the inhabitants of the beach. I had seen them before, but had kept slightly aloof. Finding me a musical vagabond at heart, they at once took me to their bosom. Before my reader becomes also intimately acquainted with them I will describe their quaint dwelling-place and its poetical surroundings.

God’s bluest sky lit the world as I roamed beneath the coco-palms. I had just left the kind host’s shanty wherein I had stayed for two or three days. It seemed like a dream to me as I reflected over all that had happened since I left the old country. The birds with brilliant wings in the bread-fruits, the beating of the native drums in the villages, and the tawny coco-nuts hanging over my head made me strangely happy. As I roamed beneath the palms I came to a hollow: it was near the Catholic mission-room. I heard a noise. It was Father O’Leary’s tired feet treading the musical treadmill, which is commonly known as the harmonium. I did not linger near that sacred spot; it reminded me too much of my childhood’s Sunday school afternoons in the British Isles.

I strode down and out of the forest shadows. Before me lay miles of winding coast. The odours of the forests breathed enchantment. As I stood beneath the flamboyant trees, and the migrating cockatoos screeched weirdly, I gazed at the ocean. Round the bend of that magic shore, just to the right of me, were droves of sea-nymphs. Their curly, wind-tossed hair streamed down their backs as they dived and splashed in the blue lagoons.

As I dream on once more, the scene vividly presents itself before my eyes, as I seem to stand again beneath the bread-fruit tree and watch those dusky, sportive angels. There they splash in the blue waters by the promontory. Soft-fingered paddles propel their delicate, shining bodies along. I see their eyes sparkling as they look shoreward and see me. I hear a wild shriek of fright as they mark my white face, then—splash! they have all dived into the deep blue sea—no sportive faeries, but native girls having their morning bath!

As I walk along the shore a more wonderful sight greets my gaze.

By the shore grog shanty, that lies just by the hollows, is something in the ocean that looks like the weather-beaten figurehead of a sunken Chinese junk. Suddenly it moves; at last two hands rise from the depths and start to rub with cleansing vigour the matted hair and crooked-nosed face. It is the gnarled, wrinkled physiognomy of Ranjo, the store-keeper of the grog shanty. He, too, is having his morning bath. As he stands there reflecting, immersed to the shoulders, he is deep in thoughts that are as vital to him as the problem of the visible universe. He does not yearn to probe Space and fathom the distance of the stars and the marvels of far-off worlds; he is simply wondering how he can manage to get those unprincipled beachcombers to pay their bills!

Not far away from Ranjo’s spacious bath is the promontory, on which grows three-plumed coco-palms. It looks like a tiny track from the sea that leads up, up into the vastnesses of the distant mountains. On the shallows of the sands, just below the promontory, lies the huge, wrecked hulk of the old windjammer, the South Sea Rover. Washed ashore during a terrific hurricane some years before, she lies almost high and dry, rotting and bleaching in the tropical suns. As I stare at that old hulk, the carved figurehead’s outstretched hands seem, to me, symbolical of that indefinable appeal to the heart which one feels in the atmosphere of great poetry. The praying hands point seaward, yes, to the far-off, dim, blue sky-line, as though, in her derelict old age, she longs to catch the tide, to go a-roving again with her merry crew.

Bobbing about by her stern is another shoal of native girls. As they turn somersaults in the warm liquid depths, only their small brown feet appear on the surface—such pretty feet they are.

Notwithstanding the picturesque sight, my attention is riveted elsewhere. Lo! something magically wonderful occurs. Suddenly, in the full flood of sunlight, that silent derelict hulk seems to mysteriously reveal the ghosts of her old crew. Lo! there they are: a dozen typical, weather-beaten sundowners of the ocean highways. Up they come, creeping through the rotting deck hatchway, clothed in bright-buttoned rags and dilapidated peaked caps, climbing one by one out of the hulk’s deep hold. My word! such weird, unshaved beings they look, but withal, ghosts in one sense only; they positively hate anything of a solid nature that resists muscular power—for they belong to the highest order of The Sons of Rest; in short, they are genuine beachcombers. Yes, reader, they were my beloved shellbacks and vagabonds of Tai-o-hae.

That old hulk was their home. I also have slept beneath those gloomy hatchways, many, many a time. But it was the first time that I had spied them coming out of doors, so to speak.

I see by my diary that I kept at that period that that day was my fifteenth birthday. I suppose that I enlightened some of those old shellbacks as to the fact, for it says here:

“Monday, September 3rd.—My birthday, am fifteen years old. How time flies! I feel quite ancient. Treated right royally by the big, sunburnt men from the seas. The red-bearded man who swears most terribly made me drink my own health in whisky. Phew! it tasted like lime-juice and paraffin oil. Felt sick—was sick. Had fine time. Two native girls danced round me in the shanty’s card saloon. They kissed me—it’s the fashion here. I turned quite red. Pretty girls. What would they think of it all in England? Slept on the old hulk last night, my birthday night, with a lot of jovial, fierce shellbacks. Played the violin to them in the bowels of the ship—it’s a wreck—they had a barrel of rum or strong beer down there with them—what a night! The very waves roared with laughter as the wild choruses echoed in that ship’s wooden inwards. I do like low men. Slept well.”

There is a good deal more here in my diary about those times, but I think it wiser not to publish it as it stands, so I will proceed from memory.

I recall those wild choruses as though it were yesterday; yes, as they blessed my name, and one by one fell asleep.

It was surprising how comfortable they had made their derelict home. Old ropes, empty barrels and rotting sails had been piled up so as to divide their sleeping apartments from the deck space. Rough bunks had been fitted up, filled with dead seaweed for mattresses, and were all that one could desire in the way of comfort. A little stove had been fixed by the mast stem that ran to the ship’s bottom. Its smoke stack had been placed so as to run out of the port-hole on the starboard side. Once a week they did their washing. It was a sight worth seeing as they stooped over the big empty beef casks, rubbed and rubbed away as they punctuated their labours with choice oaths—and what yarns!

CHAPTER V

The Derelict Hulk—The Signal of Prosperity in Tai-o-hae—The Night Phantoms—Representative Types of Nations—Grimes the Cockney

I CANNOT recall the history of that derelict hulk, from what port it sailed, or whether its crew found a refuge on that shore, or slumbered till the trump of doom beneath the sunny seas rolling to the sky-lines. All I know is, that it was beached there after buffeting its “roaring forties,” and by the cut of its jib, the beautiful curves of the bows and figurehead, it must have sailed from its native port long before I, or even its new derelict crew, were born. Could an aspiring novelist have hidden in that hulk’s depth and listened, he would have gathered enough vivid material to have lasted his lifetime.

The most wonderful sight on that hulk, to me, at any rate, was when the washing was hung out to dry. The clothes-line stretched from the forecastle to a portion of deckhouse stanchions amidships. On that clothes-line would hang—fitting flags for that derelict—ragged old shirts and pants, flapping and waving their many-coloured patches to the South Sea breezes. Those rough men only did their washing when things were slack, which meant no ships in, and therefore no treating going on in the grog shanty. Consequently the derelicts’ washing-line was an indisputable dial, signal and sign-post. Nor do I exaggerate when I say that those old pants and shirts told of the prosperous hours of drunken glory, or of the slack times on the slopes of the Parnassus of beachcomberism. Indeed the incoming schooners of those days, creeping through the sky-lines from distant seas, would sight the ragged shirts or the empty clothes-line through the ship’s telescope, and so know the exact state of affairs at Tai-o-hae.

Several of the beachcombers, however, positively refused to sleep on that old hulk and told tales of night phantoms. Even the men who did sleep in those gloomy depths said they did not like the noises that they could hear on wild nights; they had their suspicions. I must admit that some of the sounds I heard on that wreck at night did sound a bit uncanny. The masts were still standing, and on the yards hung the tattered rigging and rotting canvas. When the wind blew, even slightly, on hot nights, the rigging wailed. It would sound just like children crying in the night up there aloft. If the moon was out you could see shadows flitting across the grey sails and figures clinging to the moonlit rigging. These things made those superstitious shellbacks swear that the hulk was haunted at times by her old crew.

“I know, I know,” said one old fellow to me. “They comes back, climbs aloft and sings their old sea-chanteys, all out of their ’ere graves; that’s what it is.”

As those rough men became involved in a good deal that concerns my reminiscences, I will bring the reader into closer touch with them. As they crept up on to the deck, after a sound night’s rest, they would yawn and gaze about them, and then stare at the blue sky. Possibly they were thankful to be alive, maybe had just said their prayers. “No fear,” I hear you say. Well, it is faithfully recorded in the annals of beachcomberism that two or three of those sinful old shellbacks knelt by their bunks every night—and said their prayers.

Passing down the plank gangway in single file to the sands, they made a bee-line for the Alpha and Omega of their existence—Ranjo’s grog shanty. In that low-roofed saloon of the Southern Seas they sat enthroned on salt-beef tubs. Smoking their corn-cob pipes, they chewed plug tobacco, and proceeded religiously with their toilet—that is to say, one little small-tooth comb was handed around and each one combed his hair and tangled whiskers. One could search the world over and never sight so perfect a set of noble-looking vagabonds. Each one seemed some wonderful figurehead, some symbolical, living representative of a nation’s typical emotion and crimes. They were far from being bad men, notwithstanding their twinkling eyes and grog-blossomed nasal organs. I’m not going into details over their birth and the university they honoured. I know nothing about their lost opportunities; only one thing am I certain of—they were once boys. And, believe me, the boy, in a beautiful sense, still laughed and looked through their wicked eyes. Though dead for years, the boy’s ghost still lived, and shed tears when the chill came as hope ran high. It did the same childish things—gave away the last shilling when it should have been kept; and ah! how many more ridiculous, boyish deeds. They were, in short, the world’s worst men, and, as one knows, the world’s worst men have virtues that are undreamed of in the hearts of the world’s best men.

The tallest was a typical Yankee specimen. I never saw so perfect a resemblance to a cartoon in the flesh as “Uncle Sam.” His face was cadaverous, alert and pleasant-looking. The poise of his head told of imagined greatness, as one who felt that he had helped to create the universe as well as being a representative of the land of the almighty dollar. His chin resembled that of an aged billy-goat. Whenever he yawned or spat vindictively and yelled, “Waal, I guess,” his long, pointed beard inclined towards the roof. Another represented three races: Japan, the South Sea and Yankeeland. This mixture had made an argumentative strain. Nor could he help it, however he tried. The three separate emotions of three separate strains would come into forcible conflict during pugnacious arguments—consequently one of his ears was missing.

Yet another represented the Shamrock, the Thistle and the Rose. He had a huge, humorous mouth, merry blue eyes and a high bald head; a head that was a veritable incubator for hatching wildly unprofitable schemes. Ah! schemes that cracked through their shells so easily, just to flutter a little way and fall with broken wings, yes, on their first flight. Sometimes a new-born scheme even fluttered so far as to settle on a twig and sing sweetly for a moment, as though it yearned to express the hopelessness it felt, to write verse on the leaves with its tuneful beak, so that the old beachcombers would cheer with delight as they watched and yell deliriously:

“At last! at last! we’ve struck rich!”—and then it fell—dead at their feet.

In that motley crew was not one true representative of the John Bull type. There’s no denying the fact, but the typical John Bull is too avid of comfort and abnormal self-respect, and all that is conventional, to be found sitting on a tub in a grog shanty in the South Seas. It was even ridiculous to expect to find a true Britisher there. To annex a continent, or even an isle, to explain the religious significance of the annexation, while hiding that renowned smile behind the old red, white and blue John Bull handkerchief, was natural enough; but to find him sitting on an empty salt-beef tub in the South Seas—why, impossible, absurd!

Should he by chance be found there, rest assured it is in some mongrel state: some Britisher with the ravishing strain of the hilarious, inconsequential, romantic Irish; or the Odyssean strain of the Italian cavalier or Spanish hidalgo’s blood pulsing in his veins. Though, stay—there was one, by name Bill Grimes, a representative of the much-abused Cockney.

Men have toiled over the inscrutable wonders of Cockneyism. The short clay pipe, the black teeth, the perky shuffle of vile impertinence and blasphemous oaths have bedecked many a novelist’s pages with inky crime.

Believe me, Bill Grimes was a real out and outer good ’un. It is true enough that he chewed vilely and spat deliberately, so as not to miss, with that streaming certitude of black tobacco juice, when anyone capped his argument with indisputable conviction. But do not men argue the world over? Is it not far better to have a straightforward squirt of honest tobacco juice in one’s eye than life-long, stealthy enmity behind one’s back?

Ah, Bill Grimes (he’s dead now), the blue of your eyes was not counterfeit; your heart and voice had the genuine touch and true ring of the last half-crown you so often shared.

Yes, there he sits; what a face!—more like a half-worn-out broom, with two clear, sparkling eyes peeping from it, than anything else. A real “low ’un”—and yet his mouth, sensitive-looking, firm as a beautiful woman’s, as though ages back in British history some Roman captain, leader of invading legions, sighted and fell into the arms of a blue-eyed, golden-haired coster-girl, of leafy raiment and limbs of woaded beauty, as she pattered down that primitive Mile End Way.

As Grimes sat there on his tub, he gave them back as good as they gave when they chaffed him. He was no fool. His old grandfather and grandmother kept a pawnbroker’s shop down the Old Kent Road. He seemed to have tender memories of them and his kiddie days.

“Gorblimy, a dear old soul she were. She knewed all about Boyron the poyet; yes, she readed to me the poultry that made me wanter go to sea.”

“Fancy that,” said I, as I looked into those fine, low eyes.

“Yus; and I’m well connected, mate, I am. I had a hunkle on the Karnty Kouncil.” (Here he pulled his trouser-legs up and spat through the open door with mathematical precision.) “Clever bloke ’e was.”

So would Grimes ramble on, telling me of old times, and of his first aspirations to go to sea, in his picturesque style, till I saw, in my imagination, the wrinkled old grandmother staring through her spectacles as the little grimy imp looked up at her and drank in the romance of life.

CHAPTER VI

Tai-o-hae by Night—The Bowels of the Old Hulk—The Figurehead—A Mad Escape—South Sea Grog Shanty Barmen up to date—Men who shave their Beards off—Mrs Ranjo’s Blush—The Potentialities of a Bit of Blue Ribbon—A Picture of the Grog Shanty’s Interior—Pauline appears—Waylao appears—The Wonderful Dance of the Half-caste Girl—The Mixture of Two Races—The Music of a Marquesan Waltz

GRIMES was a blessing in those days; he was something new to me in the way of man so far as my experiences went.

We’d go off together and get some job on the plantations, get a little cash, then loaf by the beach, and by night sit together beneath the palms and dream.

The surroundings of Tai-o-hae by night were something that, once seen, clung to the memory like some scene of enchantment.

I wish I had the power to give a picture of that spot as night crept over the mountains, bringing its mystery. We would sit beneath the feathery palms and watch the snow-white tropic-bird wave its crimson tail as it swooped shoreward. Far away the sun, sinking like a burning brand into the ocean, fired the sky-line waves. The chanting chorus of cicadæ (locusts) would commence tuning up in the bread-fruits, as the O le manu-ao (twilight nightingale) and one or two of its feathered brethren sought the heights of the giant palms to warble thanksgiving to the great god of Polotu, the heathen god of Elysium. So the natives told us when they crept from the huts hard by, and made fantastic, heathenish incantations with their faces to the sky, while the birds warbled.

One songster was like an English blackbird. It would sit on the topmost bough and pour forth its song, “recapturing its first fine careless rapture,” and looking like some tiny Spanish cavalier serenading the starlit walls of heaven, as the sky darkened and the wind ruffled the blue, feathery scarf that seemed to be flung carelessly about its throbbing throat.

Then we would hear the forest silence disturbed by the faint booming of the native drums in the villages, beating in the stars as, in one’s imagination, those far-off starry battalions were marshalled slowly across the sky.

The moon rose, brightening the pinnacles of the palm-clad mountains, bringing into clear relief the wild shores and quiet lagoons. The scene, for miles, would appear like some vast canvas picture done in magical oils, daubs of moonlight, mysterious splashes of rich-hued tropical trees standing beneath the wonderful perspective of stars twinkling across the tremendous dark blue canvas of night.

Far away, tiny twirls of smoke rose from the huts of the villages and ascended into the moonlit air.

But to me the sight of all was where some great artist of night seemed to have toiled to transcendental perfection on a bas-relief just visible by the promontory of that little island world: a figure cut out in perfect lines of emblematical grief, the sad symbol of aspiring humanity, a beautiful, legendary woman, her carved arms outstretched, appealing eternally to the dim, greenish-blue horizon—the old hulk’s figurehead.

Only the curl and whitening of a wave by that wreck told of something real. Just up the shore stood the grog shanty, a ghostly light gleaming through its windows, and one pale flush streaming through the half-open door up the tall, plumed palms that half leaned over the corrugated tin roof. That was real enough; for who ever heard of a grog shanty on the oil painting of a tropical landscape with wild song issuing from its inwards and echoing to the hills?

Such was a characteristic scene of Tai-o-hae by night before my eyes, while Grimes snored beside me. For we slept out for several nights, preferring the beach to the bowels of that old hulk. I’ll tell you why. An escape, a Frenchman—from Noumea, I think—went raving mad one night down in that hold. Suddenly we were all awakened by terrible yells; we jumped from our bunks and rubbed our eyes. I grasped an iron stanchion, determined to sell my life dearly, for I thought that the natives were aboard seeking “long-pig” for some cannibal feast. We soon realised the truth, for the poor escape had been peculiar for several days. He rushed up and down that dark hold shouting “Mon Dieu! Merci!” for he thought that he was about to be guillotined.

Uncle Sam, Grimes, I and several others chased him up and down the hold, trying to catch him as he struck the vessel’s side with his fists. His eyes rolled fearfully. He’d gone stark mad. We tried to appease him, told him it was all right, that we would not guillotine him. It was no use; he fastened his teeth in Uncle’s Sam’s arm, thinking he was some Noumea surveillant who would lead him to that monstrous blade.

He bolted up on deck as we all gripped him. Jove! his clothing was left in our hands as he broke away in his wild delirium. He climbed aloft and up there he stuck.

We had a terrible night of it. He yelled forth, in his native tongue, heart-rending appeals for mercy, awakening the native villages for miles around.

He died next day. The weather was hot, so they buried him quickly in the quiet cemetery near the calaboose.

So that I didn’t fancy sleeping on the hulk for some time; that night’s adventure got on my nerves.

But to return to the grog shanty. While Grimes slept on under the coco-palms I would creep into that bar, sit among those rough men and listen to the sounds of O! O! for Rio Grande, Blow the Man Down, etc., bellowed forth, as they spent the best part of the night recounting their manifold adventures. I was fascinated by the sight before me, for that motley crew resembled some strange postage-like stamp collection of men who had once been recognised as genuine currency by governments, but had long since gone through the post and had become valuable and rare—some of them.

Mr and Mrs Ranjo, the grog shanty keepers, were delightful as they dodged from bar to bar, for they had one bar for derelicts and another for those mysterious, hurried individuals who arrived with cash. In the saloon bar old Ranjo would put on his holiest and most obsequious smile, as he praised his whisky, remarking: “Ho yes, Hi see, sir, Hi halways thinks as ’ow honesty is the best policy.” Saying this, he would swish his bar towel and hand another mixture of paraffin and methylated spirit to his customers, who were erstwhile bank managers, disillusioned ecclesiastics and men who had hurried from far countries and shaved their beards off.

Mrs Ranjo would blush in the saloon bar over the very story that she herself would have told the beachcombers in the next bar. It seems absurd, but that blush and old Ranjo’s “Ho” and “Hi see” increased the price of the drinks in the saloon bar by one hundred per cent.

So one will see that culture existed also in the South Seas. A tweed suit or a massive watch-chain secured immense respect and unlimited trust from the Ranjos; and that was everything, for one must remember that they owned the grog shanty. And this fact at Tai-o-hae or anywhere else in the South Seas gave them a social distinction of the highest rank; indeed they were as king and queen of beachcomberland, and appreciation from them was equal to conferring a knighthood.

No wonder these men were fascinated by the smiles of the Ranjos. To them, in their derelict times, a grog shanty was like that bit of blue ribbon with its many hidden potentialities—the ribbon that flutters at some pretty girl’s throat, or in her crown of hair, that insensate adornment that is the first magnetic glimpse that awakens the romantic dreams of some impassioned boy, yes, and even the staid man of the world. But I must leave blue ribbons alone, also my reasons for mentioning them, till later, and tell of one memorable night.

I was sitting in the grog shanty dreaming of old England, and wondering what my people would think could they see me playing my violin to that weird crew. I felt sure that it would have damped their ardour over any idea of my retrieving the family’s fortunes during my travels.

Well, as I sat there I noticed a handsome man (whom I will call John L——) stumble out of the bar as usual on his way home, drunk. He was seldom sober, had little to say and was regarded as a mystery by all. From hearsay I gathered that he had arrived in the Marquesan Group about ten years before, bringing a pretty mite of a girl with him. Probably he was one of those individuals who had hurried away from his native land so as to retain his liberty—or his neck. Anyway, the little girl interested me most. This little waif’s name was Pauline, and she had, at this period, arrived at the stage when girlhood meets womanhood. Her mother was dead. We all knew that, because when John L—— was drunk he would sweep the stick he carried about, and sweep imaginary stars from the low roof of the shanty as he cursed the heavens and God. Even the Ranjos paled slightly during those fits of ungovernable frenzy, when he yelled forth atheistic curses till he fell forward and sobbed like a child. It would strike me with sorrow as well as horror to witness those paroxysms.

John L—— and his daughter lived in a little homestead situated up near the mountains that soared in the background of Tai-o-hae. It was a wild spot this fugitive had chosen for his home in exile; only the South Sea plovers passed over that place on their migrating flight to the westward.

To me the memory of that homestead is like the “Forsaken Garden,” a remote spot of that South Sea isle, its ghost of a garden still fronting the sea:

“Where there was weeping,

Haply of lovers none ever will know,

Whose eyes went seaward, a hundred sleeping

Years ago.”

It isn’t a hundred years ago, though, but it seems so to me. I could half think that I dreamed that white wooden homestead by the palms; that it was some ghostly hamlet hidden up there in the wild South Sea hills—a beautiful phantom-like girl trembling inside—and Destiny knocking, knocking at the door. Ah, Pauline!

But to return to John L—— as he staggered away from the shanty into the darkness. I recall that his farewell sounded more like a death-groan than anything else. Almost every incident of that night is engraved on my memory. I still see the haggard, haunted face as he departs, and the shellbacks look into one another’s eyes significantly. I can even remember the swaying of the palm leaves outside the open door as I saw them drift apart, revealing the moonlit seas beyond, and John L——’s white duck-suit jacket fluttering between them as he staggered homeward. His thin-faced companion holds his arm—he’s a sardonic-looking individual—and I, as well as the shellbacks, wonder why he tolerates such a sinister comrade.

After their departure I played the fiddle once more, as that wonderful collection of the drifting brigade sat listening. Serious faces, funny faces, bearded, expressionless faces, sensitive, cynical, philosophical, humorous, tawny and pasty faces, all holding rum mugs, and looking like big wax figures clad in ragged duck-suits, dirty red shirts and belted pants, wide-brimmed hats or cheesecutters, sitting there on tiers of tubs, while Ranjo swished his towel and served out drink. Over their heads were suspended multitudes of empty gin bottles, hanging on invisible wires. Each bottle held a tallow candle that dimly flickered as the faintest breeze blew through the chinks of the wooden walls and open doorway. And as I fiddled on with delight, it seemed as if that bar was some ghostly room stuck up in the clouds, and that in some magical way those fierce, disappointed, unshaved pioneers of life had stolen a constellation of stars of the third and fourth magnitude, which shone, just over their sinful heads, in a phantom-roofed sky of ethereal deep blue drifts—tobacco smoke.

Against the partition Ranjo had fixed a huge cracked ship’s mirror, which had once adorned the saloon of a man-of-war, and which now revealed in a kind of cinematograph show all that happened within, and all who might enter.

The fiddle, the banjo and the mouth-organ were in full swing. Grimes had come into the shanty and was sitting beside me, and the French sailors from the man-of-war in the bay had just sung the Marseillaise for the last time and gone aboard. Suddenly the scene changed, silence fell over the shanty. I swear that I had only drunk a little cognac, so as to be sociable with Grimes, when something like an apparition stood before me, framed in the shanty’s doorway! It was a white girl.

A deep gleam shone in her blue, star-like eyes; her lips were apart as though she were about to speak; she seemed like some figure of romance, a strip of pale blue ribbon fluttering at her warm, white throat.

The wild harmony of oaths and double-bass voices of good cheer ceased. Each beachcomber, each shellback, stayed his wild reminiscences. The new-comers, who were sympathetically treating the old-comers, fairly gasped as they turned to see the cause of the sudden silence. That tableau of astonishment and admiration on the grim, set faces of those bearded sailors made one think of some mysterious contortion of the Lord’s Last Supper; and they—a crew of sunburnt disciples looking at the materialised divinity of their dreams.

The swashbuckler who spoke all day long about his pal Robert Louis Stevenson, and swore that he was the main character of that author’s latest book on the South Seas, dropped his glass smash on the floor and muttered: “What a bewt!”

As for me, I felt the first thrill of romance since I went to sea, arrived in a far country with a black eye and took up my residence in a wharf dust-bin.

The girl looked unreal, like some beautiful creation that had just stepped hurriedly out of the distant sky-line beyond the shanty’s door. Her crown of rebellious hair seemed still afire with some magical glow of the dead sunset. Nor was I quite mad, for as the escaping tobacco smoke of that low-roofed den enshrouded her in bluish drifts, as the winds blew up the shore, she did look ghost-like, and her delicately outlined form seemed robed in some diaphanous material cut out of the vanished glory, the golden mist of the western skies. Hibiscus blossoms, scarlet and white, were wantonly entangled in her mass of loosened tresses that fluttered to the zephyrs, as though magical fingers caressed her and would call her back to the portals beyond the setting suns. Ah, Pauline, you were indeed beautiful. When I was young!

Her clear, interrogating eyes seemed to say: “Is dad here?”

I saw her lips tremble. She wavered like a spirit as I watched her image, and mine staring in the mirror beside her.

None answered that gaze of hers. We all knew that her father had just gone staggering home, blind drunk, crying like a demented man.

Even Queen’s Vaekehu’s valet de chambre (a ferocious-looking Marquesan who haunted the shanty, cadging drinks) looked sorry for the girl.

Though it was years ago, I recall the sympathetic comments of those men, the look in their eyes, expressing all they felt.

That picture of astonishment, the breathless stare of admiration on the upturned, bearded faces, resembled some wax-work show, a kind of Madame Tussaud’s fixed up in a South Sea grog shanty. But I know well enough that those unshaved, apparently villainous-looking men gazed on the avatar of their lost boyhood’s dreams. So grim did they look, all mimicked in the huge ship’s mirror as they still held their rum mugs half-way between their lips, staring through the wreaths of smoke, in perfect silence.

“Gott in Himmel!” said the Teuton from Samoa.

“Mon Dieu!” said the awestruck gendarme from Calaboose Hill.

“A hangel form!” gasped Grimes, as the three swarthy Marquesan women, who wore loose ridis and had no morals, grinned spitefully to see such admiration for a white girl.

“Did you ever!” sighed several more, as I laid the fiddle down and felt a warm flood thrill me from head to foot.

Pauline vanished as swiftly as she came. Went off, I suppose, to seek her drunken parent.

I half wondered if I had dreamed that glimpse of a white girl, a glorious creation here in the South Seas, by the awful beach near Tai-o-hae. It seemed impossible.