The Call Of The South Part 6

"Then off you go with your wife and Terese, and don't set the ship on fire when you and your wife, and Harry and his begin squabbling as usual over your game of _tahia_."{*}

* "Tahia" is a gambling game played with small round stones; it resembles our "knuckle-bones".

The man laughed; the women, pretending to be shocked, each placed one hand over her eyes, and with suppressed giggles went down to the beach with the man, carrying a basket of steaming food. Launching a light canoe they pushed off, and as the man paddled the women sang in the soft Hawaiian tongue.

"Happy beggars," said my comrade to me, as he stood up and stretched his lengthy, stalwart figure, "work all day, and sit up gambling and singing hymns--when they are not intriguing with each other's husbands and wives."

The place was Providence Atoll in the North Pacific, a group of seventeen uninhabited islands lying midway between the Marshall and Caroline Archipelagoes--that is to say, that they had been uninhabited for some years, until we came there with our gang of natives to catch sharks and make coco-nut oil. There was no one to deny us, for the man who claimed the islands, Captain "Bully" Hayes, had given us the right of possession for two years, we to pay him a certain percentage of our profits on the oil we made, and the sharks' fins and tails we cured.

The story of Providence Atoll (the "Arrecifos" of the early Spanish navigators, and the "Ujilang" of the native of Micronesia) cannot here be told--suffice it to say that less than fifty years before over a thousand people dwelt on the seventeen islands in some twelve or fourteen villages. Then came some dread disease which swept them away, and when Hayes sailed into the great lagoon in 1860--his was the first ship that ever entered it--he found less than a score of survivors.

These he treated kindly; but for some reason soon removed them to Ponape in the Carolines, and then years pa.s.sed without the island being visited by any one except Hayes, who used it as a rendezvous, and brought other natives there to make oil for him. Then, in a year or so, these, too, he took away, for he was a restless man, and had many irons in the fire.

Yet there was a fortune there, as its present German owners know, for the great chain of islands is covered with coco-nut trees which yield many thousands of pounds' worth of copra annually.

My partner and I had been working the islands for some months, and had done fairly well. Our native crew devoted themselves alternately to shark catching and oil making. The lagoon swarmed with sharks, the fins and tails of which when dried were worth from sixty to eighty pounds sterling per ton. (Nowadays the entire skins of sharks are bought by some of the traders on several of the Pacific Islands on behalf of a firm in Germany, who have a secret method of tanning and softening them, and rendering them fit for many purposes for which leather is used--travelling bags, coverings for trunks, etc.)

The women helped to make the oil, caught fish, robber-crabs and turtle for the whole party, and we were a happy family indeed. We usually lived on sh.o.r.e, some distance from the spot where we dried the shark-fins, for the odour was appalling, especially after rain, and during a calm night.

We dried them by hanging them on long lines of coir cinnet between the coco-palms of a little island half a mile from our camp.

But we did not always work. There were many wild pigs--the progeny of domestic stock left by Captain Hayes--on the larger islands, and we would have great "drives" every few weeks, the skipper and I with our rifles, and our crew of fifteen, with their wives and children, armed with spears. 'Twas great fun, and we revelled in it like children.

Sometimes we would bring the ship's dog with us. He was a mongrel Newfoundland, and very game, but was nearly shot several times by getting in the way, for although all the islands are very low, the undergrowth in parts is very dense. If we failed to secure a pig we were certain of getting some dozens of large robber-crabs, the most delicious of all crustaceans when either baked or boiled. Then, too, we had the luxury of a vegetable garden, in which we grew melons, pumpkins, cuc.u.mbers, onions, tomatoes, etc. The seed (which was Californian) had been given to me by an American skipper, and great was our delight to have fresh European vegetables, for the islands produced nothing in that way, except coconuts and some jack-fruit. The lagoon teemed with an immense variety of fish, none of which were poisonous, and both green and hawk-bill turtle were captured almost daily.

How those natives of ours could eat! One morning some of the children brought five hundred turtle eggs into camp; they were all eaten at three meals.

That calm, quiet night the heat was somewhat oppressive, but about ten o'clock a faint air from the eastward began to gently rustle the tops of the loftiest palms on the inner beaches, though we felt it not, owing to the dense undergrowth at the back of the camp. Then, too, the mosquitoes were troublesome, and a nanny-goat, who had lost her kid (in the oven) kept up such an incessant blaring that we could stand it no longer, and decided to walk across the island--less than a mile--to the weather side, where we should not only get the breeze, but be free of the curse of mosquitoes.

"Over to the windward beach," we called out to our natives.

In an instant, men, women and children were on their feet. Torches of dried coco-nut leaves were deftly woven by the women, sleeping mats rolled up and given to the children to carry, baskets of cold baked fish and vegetables hurriedly taken down from where they hung under the eaves of the thatched huts, and away we trooped eastward along the narrow path, the red glare of the torches shining upon the smooth, copper-bronzed and half-nude figures of the native men and women.

Singing as we went, half an hour's walk brought us near to the sea. And with the hum of the surf came the cool breeze, as we reached the open, and saw before us the gently heaving ocean, sleeping under the light of the myriad stars.

We loved those quiet nights on the weather side of Arrecifos. Our natives had built some thatched-roofed, open-sided huts as a protection in case of rain, and under the shelter of one of these the skipper and I would, when it rained during the night, lie on our mats and smoke and yarn and watch the women and children with lighted torches catching crayfish on the reef, heedless of the rain which fell upon them. Then, when they had caught all they wanted, they would troop on sh.o.r.e again, come into the huts, change their soaking waist girdles of leaves for waist-cloths of gaily-coloured print or navy-blue calico, and set to work to cook the crayfish, always bringing us the best. Then came a general gossip and story-telling or singing in our hut for an hour or so, and then some one would yawn and the rest would laugh, bid us good-night, go off to their mats, and the skipper and I would be asleep ere we knew it.

CHAPTER VIII ~ THE CRANKS OF THE _JULIA_ BRIG

We were bound from Tahiti to the Gilbert Islands, seeking a cargo of native labourers for Stewart's great plantation at Tahiti, and had worked our way from island to island up northward through the group with fair success (having obtained ninety odd stalwart, brown-skinned savages), when between Apaian Island and Butaritari Island we spoke a lumbering, fat-sided old brig--the _Isabella_ of Sydney.

The _Isabella_ was owned by a firm of Chinese merchants in Sydney; and as her skipper (Evers) and her supercargo (d.i.c.k Warren) were old acquaintances of mine and also of the captain of my ship, we both lowered boats and exchanged visits.

Warren and I had not met for over two years, since he and I had been shipmates in a labour vessel sailing out of Samoa--he as mate and I as "recruiter"--so we had much to talk about.

"Oh, by-the-way," he remarked as we were saying good-bye, "of course you have heard of that shipload of unwashed saints who have been cruising around the South Seas in search of a Promised Land?"

"Yes, I believe that they have gone off to Tonga or Fiji, trying to light upon 'the Home Beautiful,' and are very hard up. The people in Fiji will have nothing to do with that crowd--if they have gone there."

"They have not. They turned back for Honolulu, and are now at Butaritari and in an awful mess. Some of the saints came on board and wanted me to give them a pa.s.sage to Sydney. You must go and have a look at them and their rotten old brig, the _Julia_. Oh, they are a lovely lot--full of piety and as dirty as Indian fakirs. Ah Sam, our agent at Butaritari, will tell you all about them. He has had such a sickener of the holy men that it will do you good to hear him talk. What the poor devils are going to do I don't know. I gave them a little provisions--all I could spare, but their appearance so disgusted me that I was not too civil to them. They cannot get away from Butaritari as the old brig is not seaworthy, and there is nothing in the way of food to be had in the island except coco-nuts and fish--manna is out of season in the South Seas just now. Good-bye, old man, and good luck."

On the following day we sighted Butaritari Island--one of the largest atolls in the North Pacific, and inhabited by a distinctly unamiable and cantankerous race of Malayo-Polynesians whose princ.i.p.al amus.e.m.e.nt in their lighter hours is to get drunk on sour toddy and lacerate each other's bodies with sharks' teeth swords. In addition to Ah Sam, the agent for the Chinese trading firm, there were two European traders who had married native women and eked out a lonely existence by buying copra (dried coco-nut) and sharks' fins when they were sober enough to attend to business--which was infrequent. However, Butaritari was a good recruiting ground for ships engaged in the labour traffic, owing to the continuous internecine wars, for the vanquished parties, after their coco-nut trees had been cut down and their canoes destroyed had the choice of remaining and having their throats cut or going away in a labour ship to Tahiti, Samoa or the Sandwich Islands.

Entering the pa.s.sage through the reef, we sailed slowly across the splendid lagoon, whose waters were as calm as those of a lake, and dropped anchor abreast of the princ.i.p.al village and quite near the ship of the saints. She was a woe-begone, battered-looking old brig of two hundred tons or so. She showed no colours in response to ours, and we could see no one on deck. Presently, however, we saw a man emerge from below, then a woman, and presently a second man, and in a few minutes she showed the Ecuadorian flag. Then all three sat on chairs under the ragged awning and stared listlessly at our ship.

Ah Sam came off from the sh.o.r.e and boarded us. He was a long, melancholy Chinaman, had thirty-five hairs of a beard, and, poor fellow, was dying of consumption. He told us the local news, and then I asked him about the cargo of saints, many more of whom were now visible on the after-deck of their disreputable old crate.

Ah Sam's thin lips parted in a ghastly smile, as he set down his whisky and soda, and lit a cigar. We were seated under the awning, which had just been spread, and so had a good view of the _Julia_.

The brig, he said, had managed to crawl into the lagoon three months previously, and in working up to an anchorage struck on one of the coral mushrooms with which the atoll is studded. Ah Sam and the two white traders went off with their boats' crews of natives to render a.s.sistance, and after some hours' hard work succeeded in getting her off and towing her up to the spot where she was then anch.o.r.ed. Then the saints gathered on the after-deck and held a thanksgiving meeting, at the conclusion of which, the thirsty and impatient traders asked the captain to give them and their boats' crews a few bottles of liquor in return for their services in pulling his brig off the rocks, and when he reproachfully told them that the _Julia_ was a temperance ship and that drink was a curse and that G.o.d would reward them for their kindness, they used most awful language and went off, cursing the captain and the saints for a lot of mean blackguards and consigning them to everlasting torments.

On the following day all the Hawaiian crew bolted on sh.o.r.e and took up their quarters with the natives. The captain came on sh.o.r.e and tried to get other natives in their place, but failed--for he had no money to pay wages, but offered instead the privilege of becoming members of what Ah Sam called some "dam fool society".

There were, said Ah Sam, in addition to the captain and his wife, originally twenty-five pa.s.sengers, but half of them had left the ship at various ports.

"And now," he concluded, pointing a long yellow forefinger at the rest of the saints, "the rest of them will be coming to see you presently--the tam teives--to see wha' they can cadge from you."

"You don't like them, Ah Sam?" observed our skipper, with a twinkle in his eye.

Ah Sam's reply could not be put upon paper. For a Chinaman he could swear in English most fluently. Then he bade us good-bye for the present, said he would do all he could to help me get some "recruits,"

and invited us to dinner with him in the evening. He was a good-natured, hospitable fellow, and we accepted the invitation with pleasure.

A few minutes after he had gone on sh.o.r.e the brigantine's boat came alongside, and her captain and three of his pa.s.sengers stepped on board.

He introduced himself as Captain Lynch Richards, and his friends as Brothers So-and-So of the "Islands Brothers' a.s.sociation of Christians ". They were a dull, melancholy looking lot, Richards alone showing some mental and physical activity. Declining spirituous refreshments, they all had tea and something to eat. Then they asked me if I would let them have some provisions, and accept trade goods in payment.

As they had no money--except about one hundred dollars between them--I let them have what provisions we could spare, and then accepted their invitation to visit the _Julia_.

I went with them in their own boat--two of the saints pulling--and as they flopped the blades of their oars into the water and I studied their appearance, I could not but agree with d.i.c.k Warren's description--"as dirty as Indian fakirs," for not only were their garments dirty, but their faces looked as if they had not come into contact with soap and water for a twelvemonth. Richards, the skipper, was a comparatively young man, and seemed to have given some little attention to his attire, for he was wearing a decent suit of navy blue with a clean collar and tie.

Getting alongside we clambered on deck--there was no side ladder--and I was taken into the cabin where Richards introduced me to his wife. She was a pretty, fragile-looking young woman of about five and twenty years of age, and looked so worn out and unhappy that my heart was filled with pity. During the brief conversation we held I asked her if she and her husband would come on board our vessel in the afternoon and have tea, and mentioned that we had piles and piles of books and magazines on the ship to which she could help herself.

Her eyes filled with tears. "I guess I should like to," she said as she looked at her husband.

Then I was introduced to the rest of the company in turn, as they sat all round the cabin, half a dozen of them on the transom lockers reminding me somehow of dejected and meditative storks. Glad of an excuse to get out of the stuffy and ill-ventilated cabin and the uninspiring society of the unwashed Brethren, I eagerly a.s.sented to the captain's suggestion to have a look round the ship before we "talked business," _i.e_., concerning the trade goods I was to select in payment for the provisions with which I had supplied him. One of the Brethren, an elderly, goat-faced person, came with us, and we returned on deck.

Never before had I seen anything like the _Julia_. She was an old, soft-pine-built ex-Puget Sound lumberman, literally tumbling to decay, aloft and below. Her splintering decks, to preserve them somewhat from the torrid sun, were covered over with old native mats, and her spars, from want of attention, were splitting open in great gaping cracks, and were as black as those of a collier. How such a craft made the voyage from San Francisco to Honolulu, and from there far to the south of the Line and then back north to the Gilbert Group, was a marvel.

I was taken down the hold and showed what the "cranks" called their trade goods and asked to select what I thought was a fair thing in exchange for the provisions I had given them. Heavens! Such a collection of utter, utter rubbish! second-hand musical boxes in piles, gaudy lithographs, iron bedsteads, "brown paper" boots and shoes eaten half away by c.o.c.kroaches. Sets of cheap and nasty toilet ware, two huge cases of common and much damaged wax dolls, barrels of rotted dried apples, and decayed pork, an ice-making plant, bales and bales of second-hand clothing--men's, women's and children's--cheap and poisonous sweets in jars, thousands of twopenny looking-gla.s.ses, penny whistles, accordions that wouldn't accord, as the c.o.c.kroaches had eaten them up except the wood and metal work, school slates and pencils, and a box of Bibles and Moody and Sankey hymn-books. And the smell was something awful! I asked the captain what was the cause of it--it overpowered even the horrible odour of the decayed pork and rotted apples. He replied placidly that he thought it came from a hundred kegs of salted salmon bellies which were stowed below everything else, and that he "guessed some of them hed busted".

"It is enough to breed a pestilence," I said; "why do you not all turn-to, get the stuff up and heave it overboard? You must excuse me, captain, but for Heaven's sake let us get on deck."

On returning to the p.o.o.p we found that the skipper of our vessel had come on board, and was conversing with Mrs. Richards. I took him aside and told him of what I had seen, and suggested that we should make them a present of the provisions. He quite agreed with me, so turning to Captain Richards and the goat-faced old man and several other of the Brethren who had joined them, I said that the captain and I hoped that they would accept the provisions from us, as we felt sure that our owners would not mind. And I also added that we would send them a few bags of flour and some other things during the course of the day. And then the captain, knowing that Captain Richards and his wife were coming to have tea with us, took pity on the Brethren and said, he hoped they would all come to breakfast in the morning.

Poor beggars. Grateful! Of course they were, and although they were sheer lunatics--religious lunatics such as the United States produces by tens of thousands every year--we felt sincerely sorry for them when they told us their miserable story. The spokesman was an old fellow of sixty with long flowing hair--the brother-in-law of the man with the goat's face--and an enthusiast But mad--mad as a hatter.

"The Islands Brothers' a.s.sociation of Christians" had its genesis in Philadelphia. It was formed "by a few pious men to found a settlement in the South Seas, till the soil, build a temple, instruct the savages, and live in peace and happiness". Twenty-eight persons joined and seven thousand dollars were raised in one way and another--mostly from other lunatics. Many "sympathisers" gave goods, food, etc., to help the cause (hence the awful rubbish in the hold), and at 'Frisco they spent one thousand five hundred dollars in buying "trade goods to barter with the simple natives". At 'Frisco the _Julia_, then lying condemned, was bought for a thousand dollars--she was not worth three hundred dollars, and was put under the Ecuadorian flag. "G.o.d sent them friends in Captain Richards and his wife," ambled on the old man. Richards became a "Brother" and joined them to sail the ship and find an island "rich and fertile in G.o.d's gifts to man, and with a pleasant people dwelling thereon".

With a scratch crew of 'Frisco dead beats the brig reached Honolulu.

The crew at once cleared out, and several of the "Brothers," with their wives, returned to America--they had had enough of it. After some weeks'

delay Richards managed to get four Hawaiian sailors to ship, and the vessel sailed again for the Isle Beautiful. He didn't know exactly where to look for it, but he and the "Brothers" had been told that there were any amount of them lying around in the South Seas, and they would have some trouble in making a choice out of so many.