TOC

One thousand miles to the west of the Marquesas Islands lie the Society Islands. Both groups are of volcanic origin. Stretching between them are the low coral reefs of the Paumota Archipelago. In order to get to the Society group, it was necessary for us to go through the thick of these low reefs.

Robert Louis Stevenson was lost for nearly two weeks among these lagoons; whaling and trading ships avoid them; and navigators have given them the name Dangerous Archipelago.

We had been in the Marquesas Islands a little over two weeks when Jack decided that we had better be getting on. So word was sent out to the natives that on a certain day we would want fruit and fowl; and on that day, canoes were coming and going from daybreak to twilight, and by evening our decks were littered with good things of every shape and colour; the life-boat had been filled with oranges; sacks containing pineapples, yams, and taro were piled on the deck; the cockpit was so full of green cocoanuts that there was barely room left for us to steer; and there were bananas of every stage of ripeness, from very green to very ripe, hung upside down to the davits.

We had expected to start away on December 17, p181 but we did not do so, for late in the afternoon a white spot showed on the horizon at the mouth of the bay and gradually got brighter until the schooner Tameraihoe Tahiti dropped anchor close to us. Here was news, and we could not leave until we knew what was going on in the world. The schooner had met the steamer in Papeete, Tahiti, two months before, and had some three-months-old San Francisco papers aboard.

There were three white men on this ship. One was such an interesting subject that I must tell of him. He had come years before, when only a young man. He was in the employ of some trading concern that he still worked for, and on his rounds among the islands he had met and fallen in love with a native girl, but she only laughed at him, saying that he was not nearly so good-looking as the natives, because not tattooed. Now, the girl's brother was just learning this art, and as he thought the white man's skin would be fine for practise, he persuaded the trader to be tattooed. The man quit the company, and for six months lived in a native house in the mountains while the boy practised tattooing on him every day, until the work was done and the skin healed up. Then he made his way to the girl's home. At first the girl was frightened; then she nearly went into hysterics, and ridiculed him; and finally, she insulted him in the worst possible manner—she spat upon him, and ran away into the jungle. And the tattooed white man never saw her p182 again. Now he is one of the wealthiest men in Polynesia; pearl shell, copra, and sandalwood have reaped him a fortune that is of no use to him, for he can never return to civilised people again.

On December 18 we left Taiohae Bay, at seven-thirty in the evening. We started thus late because we had to wait for a land-breeze to spring up before we could set sail. The trading vessel gave us three salutes with their cannon as we started. Owing to the lightness of the breeze, we were an hour getting out. All the time the vessel was giving us three salutes, while Hermann kept the shotgun hot answering. As long as I live, I shall never forget that clearing. The full moon was just rising over the mountains, making it almost as light as day. We caught the trades just out of the mouth, and soon were flying southeast at six knots. No one was seasick; it seemed almost as if we had not been ashore at all, but were still on the long traverse from Hilo.

The days were very hot. We accordingly changed our working hours, getting up early and laying off during the extreme heat. I say "working hours," but the truth is that extremely little work was done at all. Jack wrote as usual, Mrs. London did her typing, and all took their tricks at the wheel, but most of the time we just lay around on deck and read or chatted.

For the first two days or so we skirted the shores of numerous small islands of the Marquesan group, p183 but we soon left them behind. On the fourth day out, squalls began to blow up every few minutes, looking like storms as they came up over the horizon, but always fizzling away in a little rain. That evening the wind suddenly shifted from east to west, sending the sails across deck with a boom, almost enough to tear the masts out. As it was, it carried away a stanchion on the rail, and the boom tackle.

Everybody's nerves were on end, what of the nasty and uncertain weather. According to the chart, we had a coral reef about fifteen miles on either side of us, making this a bad place in which to encounter a storm. Early on the morning of the 24th, we sighted cocoanut palms on our port side, but no land at all, only the tall palms above the horizon. We left them behind, and soon picked up another island, but could see only the palms as before, though more of them. The barometer had been falling for thirty-six hours, and numerous quick squalls swept over us. All hands were kept on deck all of Christmas Eve and all of Christmas Day. No one seemed to realise that it was Christmas, for the heat and squalls and barometer together had greatly worried us. This was the middle of the typhoon season, and we were in the most dangerous part of the world for storms.

The day after Christmas we sighted the tall cocoanut palms growing on the first of the Taumotu Islands; then for two days longer we could see the tops of the palm trees on every side, but during this time we p184 could catch no glimpse of land, as the islands rise only between two and six feet above the water, and cannot be seen over five or six miles away.

Jack had decided that our first stop in the Taumotus would be on one of the largest of the atolls, known as Rangiroa. Early on the fifth morning we sighted what we supposed to be this atoll. We had not been able to make observations since leaving the Marquesas, for the sky had been overcast with low, black, threatening clouds, so we were navigating by dead reckoning only; and as the currents and tides are known to be very treacherous, it was merely blind guess-work instead of real navigating.

All morning and most of the afternoon we coasted along about a mile from a low coral reef, on which the surf thundered and pounded. The strip of land was only about a quarter of a mile wide, but one hundred miles in circumference, forming an atoll with a large lagoon in the centre. We sailed within a mile of the low sandy beach before we could make out an opening, and Captain Y—— finally decided that this was not the lagoon we were looking for, but that the one ahead was, so we sailed up the coast of this island, so close that we could plainly make out the remains of a schooner that had been wrecked upon the reef. Perhaps this old hull was the monument of human lives, the last relict of those who had sailed her. This did not prove to be the atoll we were looking for, nor did the next, or the next; we were getting among p185 islands so thick that it was necessary to carry double watches at night on deck. Captain Y—— acted like a man driven crazy, for the ship was in his care, and the currents and squalls were so deceptive during this time that he was almost entirely deprived of sleep. One day we had sighted several small sails to the leeward of us; on trying to get to them we found our way blocked by a reef just on a level with the water, so low that had it been night nothing could have saved us from being wrecked. While we were trying to get round the reef, the sails disappeared beneath the sky-line, and we were still in a dangerous position. Little islands scarcely large enough to bear one cocoanut tree would spring up ahead, and then we must spend valuable time beating around them. It was not the island itself that we were most afraid of, it was the reef that we knew always surrounded the island, sometimes over a mile from the land.

Large merchant ships have spent weeks and weeks trying to get out of this group. Little pearling luggers pile up on the white coral by the hundreds, every year. Something like two thousand of these small pearling vessels are scattered through these islands. Pearl shell is the only article of value to be found. Every season, scores of lives are lost in the hurricanes that sweep over the islands; the sand, being so close to the water, will often be levelled off to the water-line. The only safe place during such storms is on some sort of boat in the centre of the lagoon. p186

The atolls are all about the same shape—that is, circular. The land, about a quarter of a mile in width, will sometimes form in such a large circle that it will be impossible to see across the lagoon. However, we could see the whole of the atoll of the ones we sailed past.

We had been tangled up among these islands for seven days. There was no sun, no stars, from which to work our observations. We had now given up all thought of anchoring anywhere in the Archipelago—if we could only get away, far away, we would be more than satisfied. Even had we wanted to anchor, it seemed impossible, for the openings made by the run of the tide as it ebbed and flowed were too small for us to enter, and the reefs around the outside of the atolls were too rough for us to give a thought to. We knew that if we worked to the south, we would eventually get out. Had the islands been properly charted we could easily have located our position, but as it was, all was confusion and guess-work. In this duty, as in most others, the French had been very remiss. It was too late in the season for many pearling boats, and very few traders ever attempted these passages, although I afterward saw in Papeete several old Kanaka captains who had worked through these lagoons as the Indians used to locate themselves in America—more by instinct than through any practical knowledge.

It was on the seventh day out that we saw clear p187 water ahead. That night we sailed out of the reach of any cross-currents, and we now had clear water ahead to Papeete. All sail was crowded on, for the barometer was still acting queerly, and we did not relish the idea of being caught in a hurricane in so small a vessel. During this trip, we had not tasted one bit of meat. The fruit of every variety, and the yams and taro, made food that, for health, in the tropics has no equal.

Nakata was the biggest banana-eater I ever saw. He would keep his Japanese stomach filled with bananas all the time. Once he made a bet with Jack that he could eat twenty bananas in half an hour. He managed to eat a dozen with no difficulty, but after that he had to force them down, and he got stalled on his eighteenth banana. He just could not force down another one. One night, while it was his watch on deck, he got hold of a tin of salmon which gave him ptomaine poisoning. He was doubled up on deck for several hours while I poured mustard down him, but next day he was all right again.

On the morning of the ninth day we sighted the island of Tahiti, and raised a signal for a pilot. A Frenchman came out in a large whale-boat, manned by twelve big Tahitians. The wind was light, so that we did not get inside Papeete Bay until nearly noon. Papeete Bay is more like a lagoon with a narrow passage, than it is like a bay. About one mile across, the water is so deep close to the shore p188 that a ship can make fast to a cocoanut tree on the beach.

We had been expected in Papeete for a couple of months. Sailing authorities had given us up as lost.

I shall never forget that scene as we tacked back and forth against a light headwind; hundreds of little pearling luggers tied to the shore all around the bay, a French man-of-war tied up to a small wharf; an American warship anchored in the centre of the bay; and back on the gradual slopes of the mountains the city of Papeete, the capital of the South Seas, a city so gay that I can only compare it by calling it the Paris of the South Sea islands.

The American warship saluted us as we passed under her stern, and a couple of hundred American sailors set up a cheer that was worth all the hardships we had been through to hear. And to see the old Stars and Stripes again! Surrounded by flags of other nationalities, our old flag looked better than ever before; and no words can describe our feelings as those white-clad jackies cheered the crew of the Snark. We wanted to show our appreciation of their welcome, but the best we could do was to bare our heads as the big flag on the stern of the warship was raised and lowered three times.

Then as we passed the warship, a little canoe with two passengers bore down on us. One of the passengers was a big, sunburned white man, with long hair and beard, dressed only in a native loin-cloth. He p189 urged along the native who was paddling the canoe, while he stood upright waving a big red flag. When he got close enough to be understood, he yelled: "Hello, Jack," and Jack, recognising him, answered: "Hello, Darling." Then the Nature Man, as Darling is called, came alongside. We could not let him aboard, for the doctor had not passed us yet, but that did not hinder his piling baskets of fruit on our deck, and jars of honey, and jams, and jells, of his own make. He was so glad to see us that he cried; and as I leaned over to shake hands with him, it seemed that I had clasped the hand of a friend, and so it proved. Ernest Darling, the Nature Man, was one of the best friends I ever made in the South Sea islands. I came to know him well during our stay at Papeete, Tahiti.

The Society group comprises about twenty-five small islands, the greatest of which is called Tahiti. On the windward side of Tahiti is located the city of Papeete, the largest settlement in Polynesia.

Papeete has a population of five thousand. About one thousand of the population are French; five hundred are Chinamen, and the remainder are natives, with a sprinkling of New Zealanders, Australians, Germans and Americans. The city lies at the foot of a large mountain, and is fed by the finest supply of fresh, cool water of any city in the tropics. This water, coming from the high mountains, rushes down past Papeete as cool and clear and pure as spring p190 water. At the outside of Papeete are large cocoanut groves and sugar-cane plantations. In the city are several first-class business buildings, and the French have built splendid bungalows; but inside the town the natives live in their grass houses, and always will, I suppose, for a frame building is too close and confining for them—they will invariably select a grass house in preference to a frame. These islands belong to the French, than whom there are no people in the world with better ideas on making clean, pretty cities. As a consequence, they have in Papeete well-kept, parked streets, and cultivated lawns.

The tropical ferns and trees are excellent for decorating, as the trees are easily trained to any shape, and they use the rare figures to advantage. The traveller's palm is one of the rarest of the palm species, and is used quite extensively in decorating the government grounds.

The French government in the South Seas is as funny as a comic opera. In their love of pomp and display, the officials parade the streets in blue and gold uniforms, with medals pinned to their coats. The man-o'-war Zelle is stationed here to keep down rebellions, but even to think of these quiet people's rebelling is amusing.

The Zelle makes regular trips among the other islands, and the first class battleship Catinet makes one trip a year to Papeete from France. Each ship carries something like two hundred men, who just p191 about turn Papeete upside down when they get ashore. It seemed to me that the officers had very little control over the men, for they came and went from the ship whenever they felt like it, and the ships, as compared with the American warship Annapolis, were about the dirtiest, most ill-kept fighting vessels I ever saw. I have heard the French sailors talk back to the officers when they had been ordered aboard the ship; and one sailor told an officer to go to h—, that he intended to stay ashore all night. Should an American sailor ever return so much as one word to an officer, he would most likely be court-martialled.

About one hundred sailors were busy one day beaching a large coal-barge near the Snark, with six or eight officers overseeing the work. I stood on the rail of the Annapolis with several American jackies, watching the operation. The sailors were all talking at once, so loud that the officers could not be heard, and finally the officers gave up in disgust and let the men do the work to suit themselves.

But to me most interesting were the tiny trading schooners that ply between here and the hundreds of small islands within a radius of a thousand miles—dozens of them, some of such meagre proportions that a man can hardly stand between the rail and the tiny poop deck over the little hold. Yet, I have seen fifteen almost naked islanders squatted on the deck and poop, with no room to lie down, in which position they would probably remain until they got to their p192 destination, some minor coral island in the low Archipelago. It was always amusing to watch one of these vessels unload, for the cargo was sure to be queer.

One schooner I noticed had several bags of copra, several of pearl shell, four live turtles weighing about three hundred and fifty pounds—the largest I ever saw—and the rigging was hanging full of bananas. In addition, there were ten native men and women aboard. I wondered how they could make expenses, for the whole thing would not bring over twenty-five dollars. The turtles they sold for two dollars each, and the bananas at ten cents a bunch.

I think Papeete might easily be called the city of girls, for they outnumber the male population two to one. From the Taumotu and Marquesas Islands and the rest of the Society Islands, the girls come to Papeete when about fifteen years old to complete their education, which consists of playing the accordion and dancing the hula-hula. Playing an accordion is as much of an accomplishment with these girls as playing the piano is with an American girl. Every evening, from every direction, will be heard music and singing, and one will see crowds of girls, hand in hand, singing and dancing through all the streets. From eight o'clock in the evening until nearly midnight this merry-making goes on, like a continual carnival, every night. On account of the extreme minority of the men, the streets seem to be flooded with p193 nothing but girls. They wear a loose white wrapper in the evenings, called an au-au. In the daytime they wear gaudy coloured au-aus. The French government compels the girls to wear these dresses inside the city limits, but outside they wear only the comfortable pareus.

After the first day we had anchored the Snark in Papeete Harbor, we secured Darling, the Nature Man, to stay aboard; and while Mr. and Mrs. London rented a small house, Captain Y—— and I rented a small two-roomed bungalow, while Wada and Nakata found accommodation elsewhere in the town. Hermann went on a protracted drunk, which lasted so long that Jack gave him his walking papers. He afterward secured the job of second mate on a small trading vessel.

We had been in Papeete but a few days when the steamer Mariposa made port from San Francisco, and we learned the first of the panic in the United States. Jack's business affairs were badly tangled, so it became necessary for him to go back to attend to them, leaving the rest of the crew in Papeete. No one was sorry that we were delayed, for we had just about decided that we should like to live here.

An interesting place was the market. Life in Papeete starts at five o'clock, when the market opens. Fish, fruit and vegetables are brought before sunrise, and at five o'clock sharp the people may begin buying. Two known lepers have their booths in this market, p194 where they sell fruit that the Kanakas buy just as readily as from any other fruit vendors. For several hours the market square is crowded with buyers and with girls anxious to show their finery. It seems queer, but this is the time to show their clothes, for half the town is there to see them. The market is the most important place in Papeete. Even during the hottest part of the day, sleepy Kanakas will be on guard over the fruit until later in the afternoon, when the people come out again; and for the rest of the day until midnight the crowds loaf around here making small purchases of fruit, which is eaten on the spot.

Just imagine buying one of these big yellow bunches of bananas for what would equal ten cents of our money, and as many oranges as one could carry for five cents! But the best fruit, alone worth a trip to Tahiti, is the big red juicy mangoes, and another banana, the fei, which, when cooked, makes a substitute for the best pudding ever tasted.

I had secured the services of three French blacksmiths, who called themselves machinists, to help me on the engines. We took all the machinery from the engine-room, and completely overhauled it. Also, we installed new rigging on deck, swung our boats on their davits, and repainted the Snark, inside and out.

Our bungalow was just a block up the beach from the Snark, on a quiet, shady street where the Élite of the city lived. As no one worked during the middle of the day, Captain Y—— and I stayed at home in p195 our cool bungalow, eating fruit and reading, until late in the afternoon. We had always a bottle of cognac or absinthe, and plenty of tobacco, of which the natives who visited us partook freely. At our house, we saw the real hula-hulas, and heard native music and singing that tourists who happen to come to Papeete never encounter. Everyone smokes in the South Seas—girls, children, men and women—and all drink. The Kanakas would have drunk our cognac and absinthe like beer, had we allowed it. In the daytime, the girls came and squatted on our floor, making shell wreaths or weaving hats. Their toilet is very simple. On arising, they take a bath, slip on a pareu, over that an au-au, put on a wreath of flowers, wash their hair in cocoanut oil, tuck a flower under the right ear, and—the toilet is complete. They have a saying that only white people and fools wear shoes, so of course they go barefoot.

The girls gave a big hula-hula one day just back of our bungalow, in a big grass house built for the occasion. In the morning they got a large demijohn of orange beer from the mountains, and by evening were pretty drunk, but that did not prevent eighteen girls from giving the prettiest dance I ever saw, while four others played their weird music on tom-tom drums. One old woman kept shouting and jumping throughout the dance. At times they would shout in chorus, and all squat on the floor together, holding their hands over their heads and keeping time by p196 rhythmical waving. Again, they would give short hops and yells, holding on to each other and keeping time by a peculiar scraping of their bare feet.

In the cool of the afternoon, I would start again on the engines, and work until dark, while Captain Y——, in his new white clothes, would promenade around Papeete, telling everyone that he was captain of the Snark. Captain Y—— was really a pretty good fellow, but he took himself too seriously. He was well liked by everyone who knew him. He was known throughout the Society Islands in a short time. In fact, it was impossible to see him without getting acquainted, for he would have everybody know that Captain Y—— of the Snark was in town; and as he was a pretty good spender and a sociable club fellow, the people were always glad to have him about. The two clubs extended to him and Jack and me honorary membership cards to their club houses. One, the "Circle Bouganville," gave dances and held social sessions, which we usually attended. We were always sure of a good time, though it got very tiresome saluting the many captains we found there. These "captains" strutted about the streets like peacocks, and gathered in the evening at the "Circle Bouganville" to drink until morning. There was always plenty of them! It was safe to call any man captain, for even if he did not hold the title, he would be so flattered that he would take special pains to speak to you at every meeting.

p197

On the government grounds is a large bandstand. Here the band, pride of Papeete, plays several times a week. The band is small, very small, only a little larger than a tiny orchestra, and the music is horrible, but it supplies an excuse for the population to gather for a good time. Usually, a few hula-hula dancers have more attention than the band.

These people are great hands to bedeck themselves with flowers. The older people carry on a very profitable business during the evenings, selling wreaths. The Tahitians would no more think of going out in the evening without wearing flowers than the average man in the States would think of going without his shirt.

The Kanakas (the name holds even outside Hawaii) are very religious during church hours; the rest of the time they forget about it. The big Catholic church is the finest building in the town, being made entirely of coral cement. The other buildings are of wood.

Along the water-front the principal street, known as Broom Road, runs clear around the bay in the shape of a horse-shoe. One side of the street is lined with buildings. On the other side is the beach. At one end of the beach is a shipbuilding yard, where small pearling luggers are built and repaired. The rise and fall of the tide in this bay is so great that no dry dock is necessary. Some of the vessels have names almost as large as the ship. For instance, there is p198 the Teheipouroura Tapuai, a mission schooner belonging to the Catholics.

The streets running into the market square are lined with Chinese stores, and the headquarters of the several trading concerns that send schooners among the other islands. The Chinese are the only ones that can carry on a retail business. The Kanakas are too lazy, and the white people could not live on so small a scale. About all the natives need is coloured calico, fruits, cheap overalls, and singlets. They make their own hats when they wear any, and a white coat is the only thing the French ever buy in the way of luxuries.

Now that I am back in America, I can appreciate their quiet lazy life better than I could then. To be able to sit or sleep under those big shady trees or to take a book out there to read, all the time with plenty of fruit handy, and with nothing to worry over, is a genuine luxury.

Now and then a sailing vessel will drop in from America or Europe or Australia, loaded with lumber, and ships of wine come from France. Every six weeks arrive the Mariposa from San Francisco and the Manapaoura from New Zealand, while warships of every nation coal here on their long journeys across the Pacific. It is only when the South American warships put into port that any real trouble begins, for the South American jackies always have fights with the French jackies. The Americans licked a few of the p199 Frenchmen while I was at Papeete, and after that there was peace for a while.

Papeete is the centre of the pearling industry of the South Seas. Hundreds of little sloops lie here during the hurricane season, while the captains strut about the streets. None of the captains can navigate. They sail entirely from dead reckoning, often taking weeks to go a few hundred miles, when a captain who could navigate would take only as many days. But they put no value on time. They simply look for an island until they find it. Every year, when it is time for the pearling vessels to come in from the Taumotus, there are always many missing which are never heard from again.

The pearl shell is loaded in large sailing vessels. Most of it is sent to Europe. The pearl divers are only after the shell, and not after the real pearl, as most persons think. If they are lucky enough to find a pearl, they are that much ahead, but fishing for the pearl alone would be a very unprofitable business. p200