Summer Cruising in the South Seas Part 10

Which of the hundred is the one so honoured is quite uncertain. What does it matter, so long as the whole mountain is a catacomb of kings?

No commoners are buried there. It was a kind and worthy impulse that could still venerate so far the mummy of an idol of such palpable clay as his.

Many of these singular caverns are almost inaccessible. One must climb down by ropes from the cliff above. Rude bars of wood are laid across the mouths of some of them. It is the old _tabu_ never yet broken. But a few years back it was braving death to attempt to remove them.

Cook's flesh was most likely burned. It was then a custom. But his heart was left untouched of the flames of this sacrifice. What a salamander the heart is that can withstand the fires of a judgment!

The story of this heart is the one shocking page in this history: some children discovered it afterwards, and, thinking it the offal of an animal, devoured it. Whoever affirms that the "Sandwich-Islanders eat each other," has at least this ground for his affirmation. Natives of the South Sea Islands have been driven as far north as this in their frail canoes. They were cannibals, and no doubt were hungry, and may have eaten in their fashion, but it is said to have been an acquired taste, and was not at all popular in this region. Dramatic justice required some tragic sort of revenge, and this was surely equal to the emergency.

Our advanced guard, in the shape of a month-earlier tourist, gave us the notes for doing this historical nook in the Pacific. A turned-down page, it is perhaps a little too dog-eared to be read over again, but we all like to compare notes. So we noted the items of the advance-guard, and they read in this fashion:--

OBJECTS OF INTEREST RELATING TO CAPTAIN COOK.

Item I. The tree where Cook was struck.

" II. The rock where Cook fell.

" III. The altar on the hill-top.

" IV. The riven palms.

" V. The sole survivor,--the boy that ran.

" VI. A specimen sepulchre in the cliff.

Until dark the native children have been playing about as in the sea, diving for very smooth "rials," and looking much as frogs must look to wandering liliputians. The artist cares less for these wild and graceful creatures than one would suppose, for he confesses them equal in physical beauty to the Italian models. All sentiment seemed to have been dragged out of him by much travel. At night we sit together on the threshold of our gra.s.s house, and not twenty feet from the rock--under water only at high tide--where Cook died. We sit talking far into the night, with the impressive silence broken only by the plash of the sea at our very door.

By-and-by the moon looks down upon us from the sepulchre of the kings.

We are half clad, having adopted the native costume as the twilight deepened and our modesty permitted. The heat is still excessive. All this low land was made to G.o.d's order some few centuries ago. We wonder if He ever changes His mind; this came down red-hot from the hills yonder, and cooled at high-water mark. It holds the heat like an oven-brick, and we find it almost impossible to walk upon it at noontime, even our sole-leather barely preserving our feet from its blistering surface. The natives manage to hop over it now and then; they are about half leather anyhow, and the other half appet.i.te.

We come first upon No. II. in the list of historic haunts.

Let us pa.s.s down to the rock, and cool ourselves in the damp moss that drapes it. It is almost as large as a dinner-table, and as level. You can wade all around it, count a hundred little crabs running up and down over the top of it. So much for one object of interest, and the artist draws his pencil through it. At ten p.m. we are still chatting, and have added a hissing pot of coffee over some live coals to our housekeeping.

Now down a little pathway at our right comes a native woman, with a plump and tough sort of a pillow under each arm. These she implores us to receive and be comfortable. We refuse to be comforted in this fashion, we despise luxuries, and in true cosmopolitan independence hang our heads over our new saddle-trees, and sleep heavily in an atmosphere rank with the odour of fresh leather; but not till we have seen our human visitor part of the way home. Back by the steep and winding path we three pa.s.s in silence. She pauses a moment in the moonlight at what seems a hitching-post cased in copper. It is as high as our hip, and has some rude lettering apparently scratched with a nail upon it. We decipher with some difficulty this legend:--

+ Near this spot fell CAPTAIN JAMES COOK, R.N., the Renowned Circ.u.mnavigator, who discovered these islands, A.D. 1778.

His Majesty's Ship Imogene, Oct. 17, 1837.

So No. I. of our list is checked off, and no lives lost.

"_Aloha!_" cries a soft voice in the distance. Our native woman has left us in our pursuit of knowledge under difficulties, and now there is no visible trace of her and her pillows,--only that voice out of the darkness crying, "Love to you!" She lives in memory,--this warm-hearted _Waihine_; so do her pillows.

Returning to our lodgings, we discover a square heap of broken lava rocks. It seems to be the foundation for some building; and such it is, for here the palace of Kamehameha I. stood,--a palace of gra.s.s like this one we are sleeping in. Nothing but the foundation remains now. Half a dozen rude stairs invite the ghosts of the departed courtiers to this desolate ruin.

They are all Samaritans in this kingdom. By sunrise a boy with fresh coffee and a pail of m.u.f.fins rides swiftly to our door. He came from over the hill. Our arrival had been reported, and we are summoned to a late breakfast in the manner of the Christians. We are glad of it. Our fruit diet of yesterday, the horrors of a night in the saddle--a safe and pretty certain mode of dislocating the neck--makes us yearn for a good old-fashioned meal. Horses are at our service. We mount after taking our m.u.f.fins and coffee in the centre of a large and enthusiastic gathering of villagers. They came to see us eat, and to fumble the artist's sketches, and wonder at his amazing skill.

Up the high hill with the jolliest sun shining full in our eyes, brushing the heavy and dew-filled foliage on both sides of the trail, and under the thick webs spun in the upper branches, looking like silver laces this glorious morning,--on, till we reach the hill-top.

Here the guide pauses and points his horse's nose toward a rude _corral_. The horses seem to regard it from habit,--we scarcely with curiosity. A wall half in ruins in the centre, rising from a heap of stones tumbled together, a black, weather-stained cross, higher than our heads as we sit in the saddle. It is the altar of sacrifice. It is here that the heart of the great navigator survived the flames.

No. III. scored off. At this rate we shall finish by noon easily. The sequel of an adventurous life is soon told.

After breakfast, to horse again, and back to the little village by the sea. We ride into a cl.u.s.ter of palms, our guide leading the way, and find two together, each with a smooth and perfectly round hole through its body about three feet from the roots, made by the shot of Cook's avengers. A lady could barely thrust her hand through them; they indicate rather light calibre for defence nowadays, but enough to terrify these little villages, when Cook's men sent the b.a.l.l.s hissing over the water to bite through the grit and sap of these slender shafts.

They still live to tell the tale in their way. So much for No. IV.

We pause again in the queer little straggling alleys of the village, planned, I should think, after some spider's web. They are about as regular in their irregularity. It is No. V. this time. A bit of withered humanity doubled up in the sun, as though some one had set him on that wall to bake. He is drawn all together; his chin sunk in between his knees, his knees hooped together with his dreadfully slim arms, a round head, sleek and shining as an oiled gourd; _sans_ teeth; eyes like the last drops in desert wells; the skeleton sharply quick and protruding; no motion; apparently no life beyond the incessant blinking of the eyelids,--the curtains fluttering in the half-shut windows of the soul.

_Is_ it a man and a brother? Yes, verily! When the uncaptured crew of the "Resolution" poured their iron shot into the tents of the adversary, this flickering life was young and vigorous, and he ran like a good fellow. Better to have died in his fiery youth than to have slowly withered away in this fashion. For here is the philosophy of mammon left to itself: when you get to be an old native, it is your business to die; if you don't know your business, you are left to find it out: what are you good for but to bury?

Let us slip over the smooth bay, for we must look into one of these caverns. Cross in this canoe, so narrow that we cannot get into it at all, but balance ourself on its rim and hold our breath for fear of upsetting. These odd-looking outriggers are honest enough in theory, but treacherous in practice; and a shark has his eye on us back yonder.

Sharks are mesmeric in their motions through the water, and corpse-coloured.

A new guide helps us to the most easily reached cave, and with the lad and his smoking torch we climb into the dusky mouth.

There is dust everywhere, and cobwebs as thick as cloth, hanging in tatters. An almost interminable series of small cells, just high enough to straighten one's back in, leads us farther and farther into the mountain of bones. This cave has been pillaged too often to be very ghostly now. We find a little parcel of bones here. It might have been a hand and an arm once, cunning and dexterous. It is nothing now but a litter. Here is an infant's skull, but broken, thin and delicate as a sea-sh.e.l.l, and full of dust. Here is a tougher one, whole and solid; the teeth well set and very white; no signs of decay in any one of these molars. Perhaps it is because so little of their food is oven warm when they eat it. This rattles as we lift it. The brain and the crumbs of earth are inseparably wedded. Come with us, skull. You look scholarly, and shall lie upon our desk,--a solemn epistle to the living. But the cave is filled with the vile smoke of our torch, and we are choked with the heat and dust. Let us out as soon as possible. The Great Navigator's skeleton cannot be hidden in this tomb. Down we scramble into the sand and shadow by the water, and talk of departing out of this place of relics.

We are to cross the lava southward where it is frescoed with a wilderness of palm-trees: for when the mountain came down to the sea, flowing red-hot, but cooling almost instantly, it mowed down the forests of palms, and the trunks were not consumed, but lay half buried in the cooling lava, and now you can mark every delicate fibre of the bark in the lava, as firm as granite.

Still farther south lies the green slope that was so soon to be shaken to its foundations. I wonder if we could discover any of the peculiar loveliness that bewitched us the evening we crossed it in silence. There was something in the air that said, "Peace, peace"; and we pa.s.sed over the fatal spot without speaking. But the sea spoke under the cliffs below us, and the mountain has since replied.

This place is named prettily, _Kealekakua_. You see that mountain?

There are paths leading to it. Thither the G.o.ds journeyed in the days of old. So the land is called "the path of the G.o.ds."

It is a cool, green spot up yonder; the rain descends upon it in continual baptism. The natives love these mountains and the sea. They are the cardinal points of their compa.s.s. Every direction given you is either toward the mountain or toward the sea.

There is much truth in the Arabian tale, and it is time to acknowledge it. Mountains are magnetic. The secret of their magnetism may lie in the immobility of their countenances. Praise them to their face, and they are not flattered; forget them for a moment: but turn again, and see their steadfast gaze! You feel their earnestness. It is imposing, and you cannot think lightly of it. Who forgets the mountains he has once seen? It is quite probable the mountain cares little for your individuality: but it has given part of itself to the modelling of your character; it has touched you with the wand of its enchantment; you are under the spell. Somewhere in the recesses of this mountain are locked the bones of the Great Navigator, but these mountains have kept the secret.

A CANOE CRUISE IN THE CORAL SEA.

If you can buy a canoe for two calico shirts, what will your annual expenses in Tahiti amount to? This was a mental problem I concluded to solve, and, having invested my two shirts, I began the solution in this wise: My slender little treasure lay with half its length on sh.o.r.e, and being quite big enough for two, I looked about me, seeking some one to sit in the bows, for company and ballast.

Up and down the shady beach of Papeete I wandered, with this advertis.e.m.e.nt written all over my anxious face:--

"WANTED--A crew about ten years of age; of a mild disposition, and with no special fondness for human flesh; not particular as to s.e.x!

Apply immediately, at the new canoe, under the bread-fruit tree, Papeete, South Pacific."

Some young things were pitching French coppers so earnestly they didn't read my face; some were not sea-faring at that moment; while most of them evidently ate more than was good for them, which might result disastrously in a canoe cruise, and I set my heart against them. The afternoon was waning, and my ill-luck seemed to urge upon me the necessity of my const.i.tuting a temporary press-gang for the kidnapping of the required article.

"Who is anxious to go to sea with me?" I shouted, revisiting the mob of young gamblers, all intently disinterested in everything but "pitch and toss." Not far away a group of wandering minstrels--such as make musical the sh.o.r.es of Tahiti--sat in the middle of the street, chanting. One youth played with considerable skill upon a joint of bamboo, of the flute species, but breathed into from the nostrils, instead of the lips.

Three or four minor notes were piped at uncertain intervals, playing an impromptu variation upon the air of the singers. Drawing near, the music was suspended, and I proposed shipping one of the melodious vagabonds, whereupon the entire chorus expressed a willingness to accompany me in any capacity whatever, remarking, at the same time, that "they were a body bound, so to speak, by cords of harmony, and any proposal to disband them would, by it, be regarded as highly absurd." Then I led the solemn procession of volunteers to my canoe, and we regarded it in silence; it was something larger than a pea-pod, to be sure, but about the shape of one. After a moment of deliberation, during which a great throng of curious spectators had a.s.sembled, the orchestra declared itself in readiness to ship before the paddle for the trifling consideration of seventeen dollars. I knew the vague notion that money is money, call it dollar or dime, generally entertained by the innocent children of nature; and, dazzling the unaccustomed eyes of the flutist with a new two-franc piece, he immediately embarked. The bereaved singers sat on the sh.o.r.e and lifted up their voices in resounding discord, as the canoe slid off into the still waters, and my crew, with commendable fort.i.tude, laid down the nose-flute, took up the paddle, and we began our canoe cruise.

The frail thing glided over the waves as though invisible currents were sweeping her into the hereafter; the sh.o.r.e seemed to recede, drawing the low, thatched houses into deeper shadow; other canoes skimmed over the sea, like great water-bugs, while the sun set beyond the sharp outlines of beautiful Morea, glorifying it and us.

There was a small islet not far away,--an islet as fair and fragrant as a bouquet,--looking, just then, like a mote in a sheet of flame. Thither I directed the reformed flutist, and then let myself relapse into the all-embracing quietness that succeeds nearly every vexation that flesh is heir to.

There was something soothing in the nature of my crew. He sat with his back to me,--a brown back, that glistened in the sun, and arched itself, from time to time, cat-like, as though it was very good to be brown and bare and shiny. From the waist to the feet fell the resplendent folds of a _pareu_, worn by all Tahitians, of every possible age and s.e.x, and consisted, in this case, of a thin breadth of cloth, stamped with a deep blue firmament, in which supernaturally yellow suns were perpetually settling in several spots. A round head topped his chubby shoulders, and was shaven from the neck to the crown, with a matted forelock of the blackness of darkness falling to the eyes and keeping the sun out of them. One ear was enlivened with a crescent of beaten gold, which decoration, having been won at "pitch and toss," will probably never again, in the course of human events, meet with its proper mate. On the whole, he looked just a little bit like a fantail pigeon with its wings plucked.

At this point, my crew suddenly rose in the bows of the canoe, making several outlandish flourishes with his broad paddle. I was about to demand the occasion of his sudden insanity, when we began to grate over some crumbling substance that materially impeded our progress and suggested all sorts of disagreeable sensations,--such as knife-grinding in the next yard, saw-filing round the corner, etc. It was as though we were careering madly over a mult.i.tude of fine-tooth combs. With that caution which is inseparable from canoe-cruising in every part of the known world, I leaned over the side of my personal property, and penetrated the bewildering depths of the coral sea.

Were we, I asked myself, suspended about two feet above a garden of variegated cauliflowers? Or were the elements wafting us over a minute winter-forest, whose fragile boughs were loaded with prismatic crystals?