Mystic Isles of the South Seas Part 10

The tension was extreme. The warrants had not come from the British consul, and there seemed no disposition on the Noa-Noa to save the face of la belle republique, for the blackened and blackguardly stokers still dangled their legs over the rail and made motions which caused the officials to shudder and the ladies to shut their eyes.

The agent of the vessel in Papeete, an American, appeared. He talked long and earnestly with the secretary-general and the first and second, and to lend even a darker color to the scene, the procureur-general, the Martinique black, tall, protuberant, mopping his bald head, took the center of the conclave. Noses were lowered and brought together, feet were stamped, hands were wiggled behind backs, and right along the American, the agent, talked and talked.

They demurred, they spat on the boards, they lifted their hands aloft--and then they ordered the pilot to return to the Noa-Noa, and that vessel, whistling long and relievedly, pointed her nose toward the opening in the reef.

Mon Dieu! the suspense was over. The people melted toward their homes and the restaurants, for it was nearly seven o'clock. I drifted into the knot about the officials.

"It is in the archives," said the secretary-general. "It will go down in history. That is enough."

The delightful M. Lontane, in khaki riding breeches,--he, as all police, ride bicycles--his khaki helmet tipped rakishly over his cigarette, blew a ringlet.

"C'est comme ca. We would not press our victory," he said gallantly. "We French are generous. We have hearts."

The secretary-general, the procureur-general, the first in command and the private secretary, sighted the carriage of the governor, who had not appeared until the Noa-Noa was out of the lagoon, and they went to tell him of the great affair.

The agent of the line, grim and unsmiling, climbed to the wide veranda of the Cercle Bougainville, and ordered a Scotch and siphon.

"There she goes," he said to me, and pointed to the steamer streaking through the reef gate. "There she goes, and I'm b.l.o.o.d.y well satisfied."

At tea the next afternoon the British consul cast a new light on the international incident. He was playing bridge with the governor and others when the demand for the warrants was brought.

"The blighters interrupted our rubber," said the consul, "and the governor was exceedingly put out. I told them the Noa-Noa couldn't proceed without the stokers, and as it carries the French mail, they patched it up to arrest them when they return. We quite lost track of the game for a few minutes."

But the cruel war would not down. There was not a good feeling between the English and French in Tahiti. A slight opposition cropped out often in criticism expressed to Americans or to Tahitians, or to each other's own people. New Zealand governs the Cook group, of which Raratonga is the princ.i.p.al island. Comparisons of sanitation, order, neatness, and businesslike management of these islands, with the happy-go-lucky administration of the Society, Paumotus, Marquesas, and Austral archipelagoes, owned by the French, were frequent by the English. The French shrugged their shoulders.

"The Tahitians are happy, and we send millions of francs to aid France," they said. "The English talk always of neatness and golf links and cricket-grounds. Eh bien! There are other and better things. And as for drink, oh, la, la! Our sour wines could not fight one round of the English boxe with whisky and gin and that awful ale."

The French residents protested at the missiles of the crew and the laissez-faire of the Noa-Noa officers, and the British consul received a letter from the governor in which the affair of the riot was revived in an absurd manner.

One might understand M. Lontane, second in command of the police forces,--six men and himself,--magnifying the row between the tipsy stokers and his battalions, but to have the governor, who was a first-rate hand at bridge, and even knew the difference between a straight and a flush, putting down in black and white, sealed with the seal of the Republique Francaise, and signed with his own hand, that "France had been insulted by the actions of the savages of the Noa-Noa," was worthy only of the knight of La Mancha.

So thought the consul, but he was a diplomat, his adroitness gained not only in the consular ranks, but also in Persia as a secretary of legation, and in many a fever-stricken and robber-ridden port of the Near and Far East. He pinned upon his most obstreperous uniform the medal won by merit, straddled a dangling sword, helmeted his head, and with an interpreter, that the interview might lack nothing of formality, called upon the governor at his palace.

He told him that the letter of complaint had roused his wonderment, for, said his British Majesty's representative, "There can be no serious result, diplomatically or locally, of this Donnybrook Fair incident. In a hundred ports of the world where war-ships and merchant ships go, their crews for scores of years have fought with the police. Besides, I am informed that Monsieur Lontane put a revolver against the stomach of one of the stokers, and that provoked the nastiness. Until then it had been uncouth mirth caused by the vile liquor sold by the saloons licensed by the Government, and against the Papeete regulations that no more intoxicants shall be sold to a man already drunk. But when this British citizen, sc.u.m of Sydney or Glasgow as he might be, saw the deadly weapon, he felt aggrieved. This revolver practice is all too common on the part of Monsieur Lontane. Six such complaints I have had in as many months. As to that part of your letter that the crew of the Noa-Noa not be allowed to land here on its return to Papeete, I agree with you, but it will be for you to enforce this prohibition."

It was agreed that on the day the Noa-Noa arrived on her return trip, all gendarmes and available guard be summoned from the country to preserve order, and that, as asked in the letter, the consul demand that the captain of the steamship punish the rioters.

And all this being done through an interpreter, and the consul having unlimbered his falchion and removed his helmet, he and the governor had an absinthe frappe and made a date for a bridge game.

"Te tamai i te taporo i te arahu i te umaru," the natives termed the skirmish. "The conflict of the limes, the coal, and the potatoes." A new himene was improvised about it, and I heard the girls of the Maison des Cocotiers chanting it as I went to Lovaina's to dinner.

It was something like this in English:

"Oh, the British men they drank all day And threw the limes and iron.

The French in fear they ran away.

The brave Tahitians alone stood firm."

And there were many more verses.

Chapter VIII

Gossip in Papeete--Moorea, a near-by island--A two-days' excursion there--Magnificent scenery from the sea--Island of fairy folk--Landing and preparation for the feast--The First Christian mission--A canoe on the lagoon--Beauties of the sea-garden.

My acquaintances of the Cercle Bougainville, Landers, Polonsky, McHenry, Llewellyn, David, and Lying Bill, were at this season bent on pleasure. Landers, the head of a considerable business in Australasia, with a Papeete branch, had time heavy on his hands. Lying Bill and McHenry were seamen-traders ash.o.r.e until their schooner sailed for another swing about the French groups of islands. Llewellyn and David were a.s.sociates in planting, curing, and shipping vanilla-beans, but were roisterers at heart, and ever ready to desert their office and warehouse for feasting or gaming. Polonsky was a speculator in exchange and an investor in lands, and was reputed to be very rich. He, too, would leave his strong box unlocked in his hurry if cards or wa.s.sail called. These same white men were sib to all their fellows in the South Seas except a few sour men whom avarice, satiety, or a broken const.i.tution made fearful of the future and thus heedful of the decalogue.

These merry men attended to business affairs for a few hours of mornings, unless the night before had been devoted too arduously to Bacchus, and the remainder of the day they surrendered to clinking gla.s.ses, converse, Rabelasian tales, and flirting with the gay Tahitian women in the cinemas or at dances. There was a tolerance, almost a standard, of such actions among the men of Tahiti, though of course consuls, high officials, a banker or two of the Banque de l'Indo-Chine, and a few lawyers or speculators sacrificed their flesh to their ambitions or hid their peccadillos.

A chorus of wives and widows--there were no old maids in Tahiti--condemned scathingly the conduct of the voluptuaries, and the preachers of the gospel lashed them in conversation or sermon now and then. But on the whole there was not in Tahiti any of the spirit of American towns and villages, which wrote scarlet letters, ostracized offenders against moral codes, and made Philistinism a creed. Gossip was constant, and while sometimes caustic, more often it partook of curiosity and mere trading of information or salacious prattle.

Tahitian women concealed nothing. If they won the favors of a white man, they announced it proudly, and held nothing sacred of the details. One's peculiarities, weaknesses, idiosyncrasies, physical or spiritual blemishes, all became delectable morsels in the mouths of one's intimates and their acquaintances. One's pa.s.sions, actions, and whisperings were as naked to the world as the horns on a cow. Every one knew the import of Polonsky's dorsal tattooings, that Pastor ---- had a case of gin in his house, and that the governor, after a bottle or two of champagne, had squeezed so tightly the waist of an English lady with whom he waltzed that she had cried out in pain. Though bavardage accounted for much of the general knowledge of every one's affairs, there was an uncanny mystery in the speed at which a particular secret spread. One spoke of the bamboo telegraph.

It was proposed at the Cercle Bougainville that we have a series of jaunts to points some distance away. I was promised that I would see fully the way my acquaintances enjoyed themselves in the open. Llewellyn was given charge of the first excursion. It was to Moorea, an island a dozen miles or so to the northwest from Papeete, and which, with Tetiaria and Mehetia and Tahiti, const.i.tute les iles de Vent, or Windward Islands of the Society archipelago.

In clear weather one cannot look out to sea from Papeete, to the north or west, without Moorea's weird grandeur confronting one. The island of fairy-folk with golden hair, it was called in ancient days by the people of other islands. A third of the size of Tahiti, it was, until the white man came, the abode of a romantic and gallant clan. Eimeo, it was called by the first whites, but the name of Moorea clings to it now. Over it and behind it sets the sun of Papeete, and it is a.s.sociated with the tribal conflicts, the religion, and the journeys of the Tahitians. Now it is tributary to this island in every way, and small boats run to and from with pa.s.sengers and freight almost daily.

We met at seven o'clock of a Sat.u.r.day morning at the point on the coral embankment where the Potii Moorea was made fast, the gasolene-propelled cargo-boat which we had rented for the voyage. A hundred were gathered about a band of musicians in full swing when I appeared at the rendezvous on the p.r.i.c.k of the hour. The bandsmen, all natives but one, wore garlands of purau, the scarlet hibiscus, and there was an atmosphere of abandonment to pleasure about them and the party.

A schooner swung at her moorings near by, under a glowing, flamboyant tree, and her crew was aboard in expectation of sailing at any hour. Another small craft, a sloop, was preparing to sail for Moorea, also. She was crowded with pa.s.sengers and cargo, and all about the rail hung huge bunches of feis, the mountain bananas. Most of the people aboard had come from the market-place with fruit and fish and vegetables to cook when they arrived at home. A strange habit of the Tahitians under their changed condition is to take the line of least resistance in food, eating in Chinese stores, or buying bits in the market, whereas, when they governed themselves, they had an exact and elaborate formula of food preparation, and a certain ceremoniousness in despatching it. Only feasts bring a resumption nowadays of the ancient ways.

The crews of the schooner and of the other Moorea boat besides our own had a swarm of friends awaiting the casting off. Even a journey of a few hours meant a farewell ceremony of many minutes. They embrace one another and are often moved to tears at a separation of a few days. When one of them goes aboard a steamship for America or Australasia, the family and friends enact harrowing scenes at the quay. They are sincerely moved at the thought of their loved ones putting a long distance between them, and I saw a score of young and old sobbing bitterly when the Noa-Noa left for San Francisco though they stormed the stokers l.u.s.tily when aroused. Their life is so simple in these beloved islands that the dangers of the mainland are exaggerated in their minds, and to the old the civilization of a big city appears as a specter of horrible mien. The electric cars, the crowds, the murders they read of and are told of, the bandits in the picture-shows, the fearful stranglers of Paris, the lynchers, the police, who in the films are always beating the poor, as in real life, the pickpockets, and the hospitals where w.i.l.l.y-nilly they render one unconscious and remove one's vermiform appendix--all these are nightmares to the aborigines whose relations are departing.

When heads were counted, Landers's was missing, and jumping into Llewellyn's carriage, an old-fashioned phaeton, I drove to Lovaina's, where he occupied the room next to mine in the detached house in the animal-yard. He was sound asleep, having played poker and drunk until an hour before; but when I awoke him I could not but admire the serenity of the man. His body was in the posture in which he had lain down, and his breathing was as a child's.

"Landers, get up!" I shouted from the doorway. He opened his eyes, regarded me intently, and without a word went to the shower-bath by the camphor-wood chest, returned quickly, and dressed himself. I fancied him a man who would have answered his summons before a firing-squad as calmly. He had a perfection of ease in his movements; not fast, for he was very big, but with never an unnecessary gesture nor word. He was one of the finest animals I had ever seen, and fascinating to men and women of all kinds.

The Potii Morea had taken on her pa.s.sengers when we returned, and we put off from the sea-wall at once, with two barrels of bottled beer, and half a dozen demi-johns of wine prominent on the small deck. Often the sea between Tahiti and Moorea is rough in the daytime, and pa.s.sage is made at night to avoid accident, but we were given a smooth way, and could enjoy the music. We sat or lay on the after-deck while the bandsmen on the low rail or hatch maintained a continuous concert.

During the several days between our first planning the trip and the going, a song had been written in honor of the junketing, and this they played scores of times before we set foot again in Papeete. It was ent.i.tled: "Himene Tatou Arcarea," which meant, "Our Festal Song."

One easily guessed the meaning of the word himene. The Polynesians'

first singing was the hymns of the missionaries, and these they termed himenes; so that any song is a himene, and there is no other word for vocal music in common use. The words of the first stanza of the "Himene Tatou Arearea" and the refrain were:

I teie nei mahana Te tere no oe e Hati Na te moana Ohipa paahiahia No te au Tei tupi i Moorea tamau a Tera te au Ei no te au Tamua a--aue

Ei reo no oe tau here I te pii raa mai Aue oe Tamarii Tahiti te aroha e A inu i te pia arote faarari

Faararirari ta oe Tamarii Tahiti La, Li.

Llewellyn put the words into approximate meaning in English, saying it was as difficult to translate these intimate and slang phrases as it would be to put "Yankee Doodle" into French or German. His translation, as he wrote it on a sc.r.a.p of paper, was:

Let us sing joyful to-day The journey over the sea!

It is a wonderful and agreeable thing to happen in Moorea, Hold on to it! That is just it; And because it is just it, Why hold on to it!