South-Sea Idyls Part 4

He even meditated sending for me, in the same manner that I had sent for him; and, if he had done so, it was his purpose to see that I was at once made familiar with their Articles of Faith; for he antic.i.p.ated a willing convert in me, and it was the desire of his heart that I should know that perfect trust, peculiar to his people, and which is begotten of the brief gospel, so often quoted out of place: namely, that "seeing is believing."

It was a kind thought of his, and I wish he had carried it into execution, for then he might have lived. It was his susceptible nature that had come in contact with the great world, and received its death-wound. Had I been there to help him, I would have planned something to divert his mind until he had recovered himself, and was willing to submit to the monotony of life over yonder. Had he not done as much for me? Had he not striven, day after day, to charm me with his barbarism, and come very near to success? I should say he had. Dear little martyr! was he not the only boy I ever truly loved,--dead now in his blossoming prime!

O Kana-ana! Little Niga and I sat talking of you, down by the sea, and we wept for you at last; for the tears came by and by, when I began to fully realize the greatness of my loss. All your youth, and beauty, and freshness, in destruction, and your body swallowed up in the graves of the sea!

The meridian sun blazed overhead, but it made little difference to us.

Afternoon pa.s.sed, and evening was coming on almost unheeded; for our thoughts were buried with him, under the waves, and life was nothing to us, then.

I no longer cared to observe the lights and shadows on the cliffs, nor the poppy nodding in the wind, nor the seaward prospect: that was spoiled by our vessel,--the seclusion was broken in upon. I cared for nothing any longer, for I missed everywhere his step, patient and faithful as a dog's, and his marvellous face, that could look steadily at the sun without winking, and deluge itself with laughter all the while, for there was nothing hidden or corrupting in it.

Presently I returned into the sacred grove, touching the three letters he had carved there, and calling on his spirit to regard me as respecting his dumb idols, which were nothing but the representatives of his jealous G.o.ds,--dear to him as the Garden of Gethsemane, the Mount of Olives, and the s.h.i.+ning summits of Calvary to us. Then down I ran to the bathing-pools, and from place to place I wandered in a hurried and nervous tour, for it was growing dark. I saw the s.h.i.+p's lights flickering over the water, while the first cool whispers of the night-wind came down from the hills, filling me with warnings; in the midst of which there was a flash of flame and a sudden, thunderous report,--enough to awaken the dead of the valley,--and I turned to go.

I believe, if dear Kana-ana had been there, as I prayed he might be, I would have laughed at that signal, and hastened inland to avoid discovery; for I was sick of the world. I might have had reason to regret it afterward, because friends.h.i.+p is not elastic, and the best of friends cannot long submit to being bored by the best of fellows.

Perhaps it was just as it should be: I had no time to consider the matter there. I hurried to his mother, and she clung to me; others came about me, and laid hold of me: so that I feared I should be held captive until it was too late to board the vessel. Her sails were even then shaking in the wind; and I heard the faint click of the capstan tugging at the anchor-chains.

With a quick impulse I broke away from them, and ran to the beach, where Niga and I entered his canoe, and slid off from the sloping sands. Down we drifted toward the open sea, while the natives renewed their wailing, and I was half crazed with sorrow. It is impossible to resist the persuasive eloquence of their chants. Think, then, with what a troubled spirit I heard them, as we floated on between the calm stars in the heavens and the whirling stars in the sea.

We went out to the s.h.i.+p's side, and little Niga was as noisy as any of them when I pressed upon him a practical memorial of my visit; and away he drifted into the night, with his boyish babble pitched high and shrill; and the Present speedily became the Past, and grew old in a moment.

Then I looked for the last time upon that faint and cloudy picture, and seemed almost to see the spirit of the departed beckoning to me with waving arms and imploring looks; and I longed for him with the old longing, that will never release me from my willing bondage. I blessed him in his new life, and I rejoiced with exceeding great joy that he was freed at last from the tyranny of life,--released from the unsolvable riddles of the ages. The night-wind was laden with music, and sweet with the odors of ginger and ca.s.sia; the spume of the reef was pale as the milk of the cocoa-nuts, and the blazing embers on sh.o.r.e glowed like old sacrificial fires.

Then I heard a voice crying out of the shadow,--an ancient and eloquent voice,--saying: "Behold my fated race! Our days are numbered. Long have we feasted in the rich presence of a revealed deity. We sat in ashes under the mute G.o.ds of Baal; we fled before the wrath of Moloch, the destroyer; we were as mighty as the four winds of heaven: but the profane hand of the Iconoclast has desecrated our temples, and humbled our majesty in the dust. O impious breakers of idols! Why will ye put your new wines into these old bottles, that were shaped for spring waters only, and not for wine at all! Lo! ye have broken them, and the wine is wasted. Be satisfied, and depart!"

So that spirit of air sang the death-song of his tribe, and the sad music of his voice rang over the waters like a lullaby.

Then I heard no more, and I said, "My asylum is the great world; my refuge is in oblivion"; and I turned my face seaward, never again to dream fondly of my island home; never again to know it as I have known it; never again to look upon its serene and melancholy beauty: for the soul of the beloved is transmitted to the vales of rest, and his ashes are sown in the watery furrows of the deep sea!

[Decoration]

[Decoration]

TABOO.--A FeTE-DAY IN TAHITI.

It was on one of those vagabond pilgrimages to nowhere in particular, such as every stranger is bound to make in a strange land, that I first stumbled upon my royal Jester, better known in Tahiti as Taboo.

Great Jove! what a night it was! A wild ravine full of banyan and panda.n.u.s trees, and of parasite climbers, and the thousand nameless leafing and blossoming creatures that intermarry to such an alarming extent in the free-loving tropics, had tempted me to pasture there for a little while. I was wandering on among roots and trailing branches, and under ropes upon ropes of flowers that seemed to swing suddenly across my path on purpose to keep me from finding too easily the secret heart of the mountain. I felt it was right that I should be made to realize how sacred a spot that sanctuary of Nature was, but I fretted somewhat at the persistency of those speechless sentinels who guarded its outer door so faithfully. There was a waterfall within, that I had prayed to see,--one of those mysterious waterfalls that descend noiselessly from the bosom of a cloud, stealing over cus.h.i.+ons of moss, like a ray of light in a dream, or something else equally intangible.

You never find this sort of waterfall in the common way. No one can exactly point it out to you; but you must search for it yourself, and listen for its voice,--and usually listen in vain,--till, suddenly, you come upon it in a moment, almost as if by accident; and its whole quivering length glitters and glistens with jewels, where it hangs, like a necklace, on the bosom of a great cliff. It is the only visible chain that binds earth to heaven; and no wonder you gaze at it with questioning eyes!

Well, while I was looking about me, expecting every moment to feel the damp breath of the waterfall upon my forehead, night came down. Where was I? In the midst of a pathless forest; between cliffs whose sleek, mossy walls were so steep as to forbid even the goat's sharp hoof. Down the hollow of the ravine, among round, slippery rocks, and between trellises of giant roots, tumbled a mountain torrent. No human form visible, probably none to be looked for on that side of the inaccessible dome of the mountain; yet fearlessly I toiled on, knowing that food and shelter were on every side, and that no hand, whose clasp was as fervent as the clasp of the vine itself, would be raised against me; and, thank Heaven! outsiders were scarce.

In the midst of the narrowing chasm, with the night thickening, and the wood growing more and more objectionable, I heard a sound as of stumbling feet before me. My first thought was of _color_! I would scarcely trust a White Man in that predicament. What well-disposed White would be prowling, like a wild animal, alone in a forest at night? It occurred to me that I was white, or had pa.s.sed as such; but I know and have always known that, inwardly, I am purple-blooded, and supple-limbed, and invisibly tattooed after the manner of my lost tribe!

I was startled at the sound, and slackened my pace to listen: the footsteps paused with mine. I plunged forward, accusing the Echoes of playing me false. Again the mysterious one rushed awkwardly on before me, with footfalls that were not like mine, nor like any that I could trace: they were neither brute nor human, but fell clumsily among the roots and stones, out of time with me; therefore, no echo, and beyond my reckoning entirely.

At this hour the moon, of a favorable size, looked over the cliff, flooding the chasm with her soft light. I rejoiced at it, and hoped for a revelation of the Unknown, whose tottering steps had mocked mine for half an hour.

We were in the midst of a dense grove of breadfruit-trees. Scarcely a ray of light penetrated their thick-woven branches; but, against the faint light of the open distance, I marked the weird outline of one who might once have been human, but was no longer a tolerable image of his Maker. The figure was like the opposite halves of two men bodily joined together in an amateur attempt at human grafting. The trunk was curved the wrong way; a great shoulder bullied a little shoulder, and kept it decidedly under; a long leg walked right around a short leg that was perpetually sitting itself down on invisible seats, or swinging itself for the mere pleasure of it. One arm clutched a ten-foot bamboo about three inches in diameter, and wielded it as though it were a bishop's crook, and something to be proud of; the other arm--it must have belonged to a child when it stopped growing--was hooked up over one ear, looking as though it had been badly wired by some medical student, and was worn as a lasting reproach to him. A s.h.a.ggy head was set on the down-slope of the big shoulder, and seemed to be continually looking over the little shoulder and under the little arm for some one always expected, but who was very long in coming.

Upon this startling discovery I turned to flee, but the figure immediately followed. It was evidently too late to escape an interview, and, taking heart, I walked toward it, when, to my amazement, it hastily staggered away from me, looking always over its shoulder, quickening its pace with mine, slackening its speed with me, and keeping, or seeking to keep, within a certain distance of me all the while. My curiosity was excited, and, as I saw it bore me no ill-will, I made a quick plunge forward, hoping to capture it. With an energetic effort it strove to escape me; but, with the head turned the wrong way, it stumbled blindly into a bit of jungle, where it lay whining piteously. I a.s.sisted it to its feet, with what caution and tenderness I could, and, finding it still wary, walked on slowly, leading the way to the edge of the grove, where the moonlight was almost as radiant as the dawn. It followed me like a dog, and was evidently grateful for my company. I walked slowly that it might not stumble, and, as we emerged from the shadow of the breadfruits, I manoeuvered so as to bring its face toward the moonlight, and I saw--a hideous visage, with all its features sliding to one corner; and nothing but the two soft, sleepy-looking eyes saved me from yielding to the disgust that its whole presence awakened. As it was, I involuntarily started back with a shudder, and a slight exclamation that attracted its attention. "Taboo! Taboo!" moaned the poor creature, half in introduction, half in apology and explanation.

He was well named the "forbidden one": set apart from all his fellows; incapable of utterance; maimed in body; an outcast among his own people; homeless, yet at home everywhere; friendless, though welcomed by all for his entertaining and ludicrous simplicity; feeding, like the birds, from Nature's lap, and, like the birds, left to the winds and waters for companions.h.i.+p.

Somehow I felt that Taboo could lead me at once to the waterfall; and I tried to seek out the small door to his brain, and impress him with my anxiety to reach the place. O, what darkness was there, and what doubts and fears seemed to cloud the hidden portals of his soul! He made an uncouth noise for me. Perhaps he meant it as music: it was frightful to hear it up there in the mountain solitudes. He got me fruits and a little water in the palm of his hand, which he expected me to drink with a relish. He lay down at my feet in a broken heap of limbs, crooning complacently. He was playful and thoughtful alternately; at least, he lost himself in long silences from time to time, while his eyes glowed with a deep inward light, that almost made me hope to startle his reason from its dreadful sleep; but a single word broke the spell, and set him to laughing as though he would go all to pieces; and his joy was more pitiful than his sorrow.

In one of his silent moods he suddenly staggered to his feet, and shambled into a narrow trail to one side of the gorge. I wondered at his unexpected impulse, and feared that he had grown tired of me already, preferring the society of his feathered comrades, a few of whom sounded their challenge-note, that soared like silver arrows in the profound stillness of the ravine. It seemed not, however: in a few moments he returned, and signalled me with his expressive grunt, and I followed him. Through thickets of fern, arching high over our heads, down spongy dells, and over rims of rock jutting from the base of the mountain, Taboo and I clambered in the warm moonlight. Anon we came upon a barricade of bamboos, growing like pickets set one against another. I know not how broad the thicket might have been,--possibly as broad as the ravine itself,--but into the thick of it Taboo edged himself; and close upon his heels I followed. In a few moments we had crushed our way through the midst of the bamboos, that clashed together after us so that a bird might not have tracked us, and lo! a crystal pool in the heart of a wonderful garden; and to it, silently, from heaven itself descended that mysterious waterfall, whose actual existence I had seriously begun to question. It lay close against the breast of the mountain, strangely pale in the full glow of the moon, while, like a vein of fire, it seemed to throb from end to end; or like a s.h.i.+ning thread with great pearls slipping slowly down its full length, taking the faint hues of the rainbow as they fell, playing at prisms, until my eyes, weary of watching, closed of their own accord. I sank down by Taboo, who was sleeping soundly in the hollow of a great tree; and the one cover for both of us was the impenetrable shadow that is never lifted from that silent sanctuary of the Most High.

The sky was as saffron when we woke from our out-of-door sleep, and the whole atmosphere was less poetical and impressive than on the night previous. Stranger than all else, there was no visible trace of the mysterious waterfall. I even began to question my own senses, and thought it possible that I had been dreaming. Yet there sat Taboo in his frightful imperfection, as happy and indifferent as possible. Of course, he could tell me nothing of the magical waters. He had doubtless already forgotten the episode of the hour previous. He lived for the solitary moment, and his mind seemed unable to grasp the secrets of ten seconds on either side of his narrow present. In fact, he was playing with a splendid lizard when I returned from my brief and fruitless reconnoissance; and as I came up he wondered at me, as he never ceased to wonder, with fresh bewilderment, whenever I came back to him, after never so brief an absence.

I soon learned to play upon Taboo's one stop; to point a finger at him, and bore imaginary auger-holes right into him anywhere; for he always winced and whined, like a very baby, and yielded at once to my pantomimic suggestion. But what a wreck was here! A delicate instrument, full of rifts and breakages, with that single key readily answerable to the slightest touch of my will. I have often wished that it had been a note more deep, profound, or sympathetic. It was simply merry and shrill, and incapable of any modulation whatever. Point a finger at him, make a few coils in the air that grow to a focus as they draw nearer to him, and he would run over with uncontrollable jollity that was at times a little painful in its boisterousness.

I knew well enough that I had sucked the honey from that particular cell in the mountain, and that I might as well resume my pilgrimage. There was to be a _Fete Napoleon_ in Papeete. We hadn't heard, up to that hour, of the wreck of the great Empire, and, being in a loyal French colony, it behooved us to have the very best time possible. Said I to myself, "Taboo will find sufficient food for merriment in our mode of _feting_ an Emperor; therefore Taboo shall go with me to town and enjoy himself." I suggested an immediate adjournment to Papeete with the tip of my forefinger, whereat Taboo doubled up, as usual, and, in his own fas.h.i.+on, implored me to stop being so funny. We at once started; returning through the bamboo-brakes, fording the stream in some awkward way, and slowly working our pa.s.sage back to town.

The Tahitians have but one annual holiday. As this, however, is seventy-two hours in length, while everything relating to it is broad in proportion, it is about as much as they can conscientiously ask for.

Taboo and I entered the town on the eve of the first day, together with mult.i.tudes from the neighboring districts, flocking thither in their best clothes. The lovely bay of Papeete was covered with fleets of canoes, hailing from all the seaside villages on the island, and many of them from Moorea, and islands even more distant. No sea is too broad to be compa.s.sed by an ambitious Kanack, who scents a festival from afar.

Along the crescent sh.o.r.es of the bay, the canoes were heaped, tier upon tier. It was as though a whole South Sea navy had been stranded, for the town was crowded with canoe-boys and all manner of natives, in gala dress. The incessant rolling of drums, the piping of bamboo-flutes, and the choruses of wandering singers began early in the dawn of the 14th August, and were expected to continue, uninterruptedly, to the evening of the 16th. Taboo regarded it all with singular indifference. Everybody seemed to know him, and to take particular delight in greeting him. His sleepy disregard of them was considered extremely laughable, and they went their way roaring with merriment, that contrasted strongly with the grave, listless face of the simple one, who was apparently oblivious of everything.

The morning after we appeared in Papeete was Sunday, according to the calendar. The little cathedral, with banana-leaves rustling in the open windows, was thronged with wors.h.i.+ppers of all colors, doubly devout in the excessive heat. Various choirs relieved one another during Ma.s.s, and some diminutive fellows, under ten years of age, chanted Latin hymns in a pleasingly plaintive voice, led by a friar in long clothes and a choker. Taboo crouched by the open door during service, raking the gravel-walk with his crooked fingers, and hitching about with indefatigable industry. After the last gospel, we all went into the middle of the street--for there were no sidewalks--and got our boots very dusty. Little knots of friends seemed to sit down in the way wherever they pleased, and to talk as long as they liked; while everybody else accommodatingly turned out for them, or paused, and listened to the conversation, without embarra.s.sment on either side.

Liquor was imbibed on the sly; some eyes were beginning to swim perceptibly, and some tongues to wag faster and looser than ever. The Admiral's flags.h.i.+p was one pyramid of gorgeous bunting, and his band delighted a great audience, gathered upon the sh.o.r.e, with a _matinee_ gratis. At sunset the imperial batteries belched their sulphurous thunder, that came as near to breaking the sabbath as possible. In the evening more music, up at the Governor's garden,--waltzes, polkas, and quadrilles, so brilliantly executed that the listeners were half mad with delight; and you couldn't for the life of you tell what day it had been, nor what night it was, but Sunday was positively set down against it in the calendar. At ten P. M. a signal-gun says "Good-night" to the citizens of Papeete, and it behooves all those who are dark-skinned to retire instantly, on pain of arrest and a straw-heap in the calaboose.

In the midst of our Sunday festival, while yet the streets were hilarious, slap-bang went this impudent piece of ordnance, and at once the crowd began to disperse in the greatest confusion. Taboo, who had been an inanimate spectator during the day's diversions, seemed to comprehend the necessity of hasty flight to some quarter or other; and, with a confusion of ideas peculiar to him, he began careering in great circles through the swaying mult.i.tudes, and continued to revolve around an uncertain centre, until I seized him and sought to pilot him to some convenient place of shelter. I thought of the great market, that, like those ancient cities of refuge, was always open to the benighted wanderer; and thither we hastened. A lofty roof, covering a good part of a block, kept the rain from a vast enclosure, stored with stalls, tables, and benches. It was simply shelter of the barest kind, but sufficient for all needs in that charitable climate. There was a buzzing of turbulent throngs as we edged our way toward the centre of the market-place; you would think that all the bees of Tahiti were swarming in unison, from the noise thereof. The commotion was long in quieting.

It had to subside like the sea at flood-tide. Every little while a brace of _gendarmes_ strutted past the premises, feeling mighty fine in their broad white pants, like a s.h.i.+p with studding-sails out, and with those comical bobtails sprouting out of the small of their backs. I know that Taboo and I, having laid ourselves on somebody's counter, listened and nudged each other for two or three hours, and that it began to feel like morning before there was sleep enough to go entirely around the establishment.

The man who is the first to wake in Papeete lights his lamp and goes to market. As soon as he makes his untimely appearance, the community begins to stir; a great clatter of drowsy voices and dozens of yawns are the symptoms of returning day; and in ten minutes the market is declared open, though it is still deep and tranquil starlight overhead, with not a trace of dawn as yet visible.

When the market opens before 3 A. M.--and the hour happens to be the blackest of the four-and-twenty--it is highly inconvenient for any foreigner and his royal jester who may be surrept.i.tiously pa.s.sing the night upon one of the fruit counters, but there is no help for them: sleepy heads give way to fresh-gathered bread-fruits and nets of fragrant oranges; bananas are swung up within tempting reach of everybody; all sorts of natives come in from the four quarters of the Papeetean globe, with back-loads of miscellaneous viands, a mat under one arm, and a flaming torch in hand. Rows upon rows of girls sell fruits and flowers to the highest bidder; withering old women haggle over the prices of their perfumed and juicy wares; solitary men offer their solitary strings of fish for a _real_ each, and refuse to be beaten down by any wretch of a fellow who dares to insinuate that the fish are a trifle too scaly; boys sit demurely over their meagre array of temptations in the shape of six tomatoes, three eggs, a dozen or so of guavas, and one cuc.u.mber. These youngsters usually sit with a pa.s.sionless countenance that forbids any hope of a bargain at reduced prices, and they pa.s.s an hour or two with scarce a suggestion of custom; but it is suddenly discovered that they have something desirable, and a dozen purchasers begin quarrelling for it, during which time some one else quietly makes his purchase from one corner of the boy's mat; and, having closed out his stock in less than ten minutes, he quietly pockets his _reales_, and departs without having uttered a syllable.

Taboo and I went from one mat to another, eying the good things for breakfast. I offered him the best that the market afforded; and I could easily do so, for in no land is the article cheaper or better. Taboo, having made the circuit of the entire establishment, upon mature deliberation concluded to take nothing. At every point he was greeted uproariously by the noisy and good-natured people, who were willing to give him anything he might choose to take. They, probably, felt that it was worth more than the price of the article to see the sublime scorn on the poor fellow's face as he declined their limes, _feis_, mangoes, or whatever delicious morsel it might have been. As for me, I couldn't resist those seductions. I made my little purchases and withdrew to the seaside, where I could break my fast by sunrise, and enjoy comparative quiet. Taboo grinned in the market-place till he was weary of the applause showered upon him by the unG.o.dly, who made light of his irreparable misfortune and took pleasure in his misery. He hunted me up, or, rather, stumbled upon me again, and stayed by me, amusing himself with pelting the fish that sported, like sunbeams and prisms, in the sea close at our feet.

It was _fete_-day in Tahiti. I sat, at sunrise, by the tideless margin of a South Sea lagoon, bristling with coral and glittering with gem-like fish; in either hand I held a mango and banana. I raised the mango to my lips. What a marvel it was! A plump vegetable egg, full of delusion, and stuffed with a h.o.r.n.y seed nearly as large as itself. It had a fragrance as of oils and sirups; it purged sweet-scented and resinous gums. Its hide was, perhaps, too tough for convenience, but its inner lusciousness tempted me to persevere in the consumption of it. With much difficulty I broke the skin. Honey of Hymettus! It seemed as though the very marrow of the tropics were about to intoxicate my palate. Alas, for the hopes of youthful inexperience! What was so fair to see proved but a meagre mouthful of saturated wool; that colossal and h.o.r.n.y seed a.s.serted itself everywhere. The more I strove to handle it with caution, the more slippery and unmanageable it became. It shot into my beard, it leaped lightly into my s.h.i.+rt-bosom, and skated over the palms of both hands.

Small rivulets of liquor trickled down my sleeves, making disagreeable puddles at both elbows. My fingers were webbed together in a glutinous ma.s.s. My whole front was in a shocking state of smear. My teeth grew weary of combing out the beguiling threads of the fruit. The thing seemed, to my imagination, a small, flat head, covered with short, blond hair, profusely saturated with some sweet sort of ointment, that I had despaired of feasting on; and I was not sorry when the slippery stone sprang out of my grasp, and peppered itself with sea-sand.

I knew that there still remained to me a morsel that was of itself fit food for the G.o.ds. I poised aloft, with satisfaction, the rare-ripe banana, beautiful to the eye as a nugget of purest gold. The pliant petals were pouting at the top of the fruit. I readily turned them back, forming an unique and convenient gilded salver for the column of flaky manna that was, as yet, swathed in lace like folds. These gauzy ribbons fell from it almost of their own accord, and hung in fleecy festoons about it.

Here was a repast of singularly appropriate mould, being about the size of a respectable mouth, and containing just enough mouthfuls to temporarily satisfy the appet.i.te. Not a morsel of it but was full of mellowness, and sweet flavor, and fragrance. Not an atom of it was wasted; for, no sooner had I thrown aside the cool, clean, flesh-like case, than it was made way with by a fowl, that had, no doubt, been patiently awaiting that abundant feast.

Mangoes and bananas! Their very names smack of shady gardens, that know no harsher premonition of death than the indolent and natural decay of all things. The nostril is excited with the thought of them; the palate grows moist and yearns for them; and the soul feasts itself, for a moment, with a memory of mangoes and bananas past, whose perfection was but another proof of immortality, since it is impossible ever to forget them individually. Mangoes and bananas! the prime favorites at Nature's most bountiful board; the realization of a dream of the orchards of the Hesperides; alike excellent, yet so vastly dissimilar in their excellences, it seems almost incredible that the same beneficent Providence can have created the two fruits!

It was the memorable 15th of August, 1870; but I have reason to believe the bananas were no better on that particular occasion than almost always in their own lat.i.tude. The 15th of August, --where was the Emperor then? I forget; I know that we rejoiced in the blissful confidence that we were to have a grand time at all hazards. There were guns at sunrise from s.h.i.+p and sh.o.r.e; a grand national procession of French and Tahitians to High Ma.s.s at 10.30; guns--twenty-one of them--together with the ringing of bells, and a salute of flags, at the elevation of the Host, so that you would have known the supreme moment had you been miles away. Then came a sumptuous public breakfast for the Frenchmen; and for the natives, games of several sorts.

Taboo and I, having properly observed the more solemn ceremonials of the day, gave ourselves up to the full enjoyment of these latter diversions.

There was a greased pole, with s.h.i.+ning cups; and flowing prints, both useful and ornamental, hung at the top of it. Several naked and superbly built fellows s.h.i.+nned up it with infinite difficulty, and were so fatigued when they got there, they were only too willing to clutch the first article within reach, which was, of course, the least desirable, and scarcely worth the trouble of getting. O, such magnificent grouping at the foot of the pole, as the athletes shouldered one another in a sort of co-operative experiment at getting up sooner; such struggles to rise a little above the heads of the impatient climbers beneath as made the aspiring Kanack quite pale,--that is, greenish yellow; such losing of grips, and fainting of hearts, and slidings back to earth in the midst of taunts and jeers, but all in the best of humors and the hottest of suns! such novelties as these were a very great delight to Taboo and myself. He, however, didn't deign to laugh heartily: he merely smiled in a superior manner that seemed to imply that he knew of something that was twice as much fun and not half the trouble, but he didn't choose to disclose it. He nearly always seemed to know as much as any ten of us; and it was like an a.s.sumption of innocence, that queer, vacant expression of his face. I'm not sure that he was not possessed of some rare instinct beyond our comprehension, which was to him an abundant compensation for the fragmentary body he was obliged to trundle about.

Early in the afternoon, there were fresh arrivals in the bay: two mammoth double war-canoes, of fifty paddles each, came in from a remote sea-district; they were the very sort of water-monsters that went out to greet my ill.u.s.trious predecessor, Captain Cook, nearly a century ago.