CHAPTER II
Passage from the cruising ground to the Marquesas--Sleepy times aboard ship--South Sea scenery--Land ho!--The French squadron discovered at anchor in the bay of Nukuheva--Strange pilot--Escort of canoes--A flotilla of cocoa-nuts--Swimming visitors--The _Dolly_ boarded by them--State of affairs that ensue.
I can never forget the eighteen or twenty days during which the lighttrade-winds were silently sweeping us towards the islands. In pursuit ofthe sperm whale, we had been cruising on the line some twenty degrees tothe westward of the Gallipagos; and all that we had to do, when our coursewas determined on, was to square in the yards and keep the vessel beforethe breeze, and then the good ship and the steady gale did the restbetween them. The man at the wheel never vexed the old lady with anysuperfluous steering, but comfortably adjusting his limbs at the tiller,would doze away by the hour. True to her work, the _Dolly_ headed to hercourse, and like one of those characters who always do best when letalone, she jogged on her way like a veteran old sea-pacer as she was.
What a delightful, lazy, languid time we had whilst we were thus glidingalong! There was nothing to be done; a circumstance that happily suitedour disinclination to do anything. We abandoned the fore-peak altogether,and spreading an awning over the forecastle, slept, ate, and lounged underit the live-long day. Every one seemed to be under the influence of somenarcotic. Even the officers aft, whose duty required them never to beseated while keeping a deck watch, vainly endeavoured to keep on theirpins; and were obliged invariably to compromise the matter by leaning upagainst the bulwarks, and gazing abstractedly over the side. Reading wasout of the question; take a book in your hand, and you were asleep in aninstant.
Although I could not avoid yielding in a great measure to the generallanguor, still at times I contrived to shake off the spell, and toappreciate the beauty of the scene around me. The sky presented a clearexpanse of the most delicate blue, except along the skirts of the horizon,where you might see a thin drapery of pale clouds which never varied theirform or colour. The long, measured, dirge-like swell of the Pacific camerolling along, with its surface broken by little tiny waves, sparkling inthe sunshine. Every now and then a shoal of flying fish, scared from thewater under the bows, would leap into the air, and fall the next momentlike a shower of silver into the sea. Then you would see the superbalbicore with his glittering sides, sailing aloft, and after describing anarc in his descent, disappear on the surface of the water. Far off, thelofty jet of the whale might be seen, and nearer at hand the prowlingshark, that villanous footpad of the seas, would come skulking along, and,at a wary distance, regard us with an evil eye. At times, some shapelessmonster of the deep, floating on the surface, would, as we approach, sinkslowly into the blue waters, and fade away from the sight. But the mostimpressive feature of the scene was the almost unbroken silence thatreigned over sky and water. Scarcely a sound could be heard but theoccasional breathing of the grampus, and the rippling at the cut-water.
As we drew nearer the land, I hailed with delight the appearance ofinnumerable sea-fowl. Screaming and whirling in spiral tracks, they wouldaccompany the vessel, and at times alight on our yards and stays. Thatpiratical-looking fellow, appropriately named the man-of-war's-hawk, withhis blood-red bill and raven plumage, would come sweeping round us ingradually diminishing circles, till you could distinctly mark the strangeflashings of his eye; and then, as if satisfied with his observation,would sail up into the air and disappear from the view. Soon, otherevidences of our vicinity to the land were apparent, and it was not longbefore the glad announcement of it being in sight was heard fromaloft,--given with that peculiar prolongation of sound that a sailorloves--"Land ho!"
The captain, darting on deck from the cabin, bawled lustily for hisspy-glass; the mate in still louder accents hailed the mast-head with atremendous "Where-away?" The black cook thrust his woolly head from thegalley, and Boatswain, the dog, leaped up between the knight-heads, andbarked most furiously. Land ho! Ay, there it was. A hardly perceptibleblue irregular outline, indicating the bold contour of the lofty heightsof Nukuheva.
This island, although generally called one of the Marquesas, is by somenavigators considered as forming one of a distinct cluster, comprising theislands of Roohka, Ropo, and Nukuheva; upon which three the appellation ofthe Washington Group has been bestowed. They form a triangle, and liewithin the parallels of 8 deg. 38{~PRIME~} and 9 deg. 32{~PRIME~} south latitude, and 139 deg. 20{~PRIME~} and140 deg. 10{~PRIME~} west longitude, from Greenwich. With how little propriety theyare to be regarded as forming a separate group will be at once apparent,when it is considered that they lie in the immediate vicinity of the otherislands, that is to say, less than a degree to the north-west of them;that their inhabitants speak the Marquesan dialect, and that their laws,religion, and general customs are identical. The only reason why they wereever thus arbitrarily distinguished, may be attributed to the singularfact, that their existence was altogether unknown to the world until theyear 1791, when they were discovered by Captain Ingraham, of Boston,Massachusetts, nearly two centuries after the discovery of the adjacentislands by the agent of the Spanish Viceroy. Notwithstanding this, I shallfollow the example of most voyagers, and treat of them as forming part andparcel of the Marquesas.
Nukuheva is the most important of these islands, being the only one atwhich ships are much in the habit of touching, and is celebrated as beingthe place where the adventurous Captain Porter refitted his ships duringthe late war between England and the United States, and whence he salliedout upon the large whaling fleet then sailing under the enemy's flag inthe surrounding seas. This island is about twenty miles in length, andnearly as many in breadth. It has three good harbours on its coast, thelargest and best of which is called by the people living in its vicinity,"Tyohee," and by Captain Porter was denominated Massachusetts Bay. Amongthe adverse tribes dwelling about the shores of the other bays, and by allvoyagers, it is generally known by the name bestowed upon the islanditself--Nukuheva. Its inhabitants have become somewhat corrupted, owing totheir recent commerce with Europeans; but so far as regards their peculiarcustoms, and general mode of life, they retain their original primitivecharacter, remaining very nearly in the same state of nature in which theywere first beheld by white men. The hostile clans, residing in the moreremote sections of the island, and very seldom holding any communicationwith foreigners, are in every respect unchanged from their earliest knowncondition.
In the bay of Nukuheva was the anchorage we desired to reach. We hadperceived the loom of the mountains about sunset; so that, after runningall night with a very light breeze, we found ourselves close in with theisland the next morning; but as the bay we sought lay on its farther side,we were obliged to sail some distance along the shore, catching, as weproceeded, short glimpses of blooming valleys, deep glens, waterfalls, andwaving groves, hidden here and there by projecting and rocky headlands,every moment opening to the view some new and startling scene of beauty.
Those who for the first time visit the South Seas, generally are surprisedat the appearance of the islands when beheld from the sea. From the vagueaccounts we sometimes have of their beauty, many people are apt to pictureto themselves enamelled and softly swelling plains, shaded over withdelicious groves, and watered by purling brooks, and the entire countrybut little elevated above the surrounding ocean. The reality is verydifferent; bold rock-bound coasts, with the surf beating high against thelofty cliffs, and broken here and there into deep inlets, which open tothe view thickly-wooded valleys, separated by the spurs of mountainsclothed with tufted grass, and sweeping down towards the sea from anelevated and furrowed interior, form the principal features of theseislands.
Towards noon we drew abreast the entrance to the harbour, and at last weslowly swept by the intervening promontory, and entered the bay ofNukuheva. No description can do justice to its beauty; but that beauty waslost to me then, and I saw nothing but the tri-coloured flag of France,
trailing over the stern of six vessels, whose black hulls, and bristlingbroadsides, proclaimed their warlike character. There they were, floatingin that lovely bay, the green eminences of the shore looking down sotranquilly upon them, as if rebuking the sternness of their aspect. To myeye, nothing could be more out of keeping than the presence of thesevessels; but we soon learnt what brought them there. The whole group ofislands had just been taken possession of by Rear-Admiral Du PetitThouars, in the name of the invincible French nation.
This item of information was imparted to us by a most extraordinaryindividual, a genuine South Sea vagabond, who came alongside of us in awhale-boat as soon as we entered the bay, and, by the aid of somebenevolent persons at the gangway, was assisted on board, for our visitorwas in that interesting stage of intoxication when a man is amiable andhelpless. Although he was utterly unable to stand erect, or to navigatehis body across the deck, he still magnanimously proffered his services topilot the ship to a good and secure anchorage. Our captain, however,rather distrusted his ability in this respect, and refused to recognisehis claim to the character he assumed; but our gentleman was determined toplay his part, for, by dint of much scrambling, he succeeded in gettinginto the weather-quarter boat, where he steadied himself by holding on toa shroud, and then commenced issuing his commands with amazing volubilityand very peculiar gestures. Of course, no one obeyed his orders; but as itwas impossible to quiet him, we swept by the ships of the squadron withthis strange fellow performing his antics in full view of all the Frenchofficers.
We afterwards learned that our eccentric friend had been a lieutenant inthe English navy, but having disgraced his flag by some criminal conductin one of the principal ports on the main, he had deserted his ship, andspent many years wandering among the islands of the Pacific, untilaccidentally being at Nukuheva when the French took possession of theplace, he had been appointed pilot of the harbour by the newly constitutedauthorities.
As we slowly advanced up the bay, numerous canoes pushed off from thesurrounding shores, and we were soon in the midst of quite a flotilla ofthem, their savage occupants struggling to get aboard of us, and jostlingone another in their ineffectual attempts. Occasionally the projectingout-riggers of their slight shallops, running foul of one another, wouldbecome entangled beneath the water, threatening to capsize the canoes,when a scene of confusion would ensue that baffles description. Suchstrange outcries and passionate gesticulations I never certainly heard orsaw before. You would have thought the islanders were on the point offlying at one another's throats, whereas they were only amicably engagedin disentangling their boats.
Scattered here and there among the canoes might be seen numbers ofcocoa-nuts floating closely together in circular groups, and bobbing upand down with every wave. By some inexplicable means these cocoa-nuts wereall steadily approaching towards the ship. As I leaned curiously over theside, endeavouring to solve their mysterious movements, one mass, far inadvance of the rest, attracted my attention. In its centre was something Icould take for nothing else than a cocoa-nut, but which I certainlyconsidered one of the most extraordinary specimens of the fruit I had everseen. It kept twirling and dancing about among the rest in the mostsingular manner: and as it drew nearer, I thought it bore a remarkableresemblance to the brown shaven skull of one of the savages. Presently itbetrayed a pair of eyes, and soon I became aware that what I had supposedto have been one of the fruit was nothing else than the head of anislander, who had adopted this singular method of bringing his produce tomarket. The cocoa-nuts were all attached to one another by strips of thehusk, partly torn from the shell, and rudely fastened together. Theirproprietor, inserting his head into the midst of them, impelled hisnecklace of cocoa-nuts through the water by striking out beneath thesurface with his feet.
I was somewhat astonished to perceive that among the number of nativesthat surrounded us, not a single female was to be seen. At that time I wasignorant of the fact that by the operation of the "taboo," the use ofcanoes in all parts of the island is rigorously prohibited to the entiresex, for whom it is death even to be seen entering one when hauled onshore; consequently, whenever a Marquesan lady voyages by water, she putsin requisition the paddles of her own fair body.
We had approached within a mile and a half perhaps of the foot of the bay,when some of the islanders, who by this time had managed to scrambleaboard of us at the risk of swamping their canoes, directed our attentionto a singular commotion in the water ahead of the vessel. At first Iimagined it to be produced by a shoal of fish sporting on the surface, butour savage friends assured us that it was caused by a shoal of"whinhenies" (young girls), who in this manner were coming off from theshore to welcome us. As they drew nearer, and I watched the rising andsinking of their forms, and beheld the uplifted right arm bearing abovethe water the girdle of tappa, and their long dark hair trailing besidethem as they swam, I almost fancied they could be nothing else than somany mermaids:--and very like mermaids they behaved too.
We were still some distance from the beach, and under slow headway, whenwe sailed right into the midst of these swimming nymphs, and they boardedus at every quarter; many seizing hold of the chainplates and springinginto the chains; others, at the peril of being run over by the vessel inher course, catching at the bob-stays, and wreathing their slender formsabout the ropes, hung suspended in the air. All of them at lengthsucceeded in getting up the ship's side, where they clung dripping withthe brine and glowing from the bath, their jet-black tresses streamingover their shoulders, and half enveloping their otherwise naked forms.There they hung, sparkling with savage vivacity, laughing gaily at oneanother, and chattering away with infinite glee. Nor were they idle thewhile, for each one performed the simple offices of the toilet for theother. Their luxuriant locks, wound up and twisted into the smallestpossible compass, were freed from the briny element; the whole personcarefully dried, and from a little round shell that passed from hand tohand, anointed with a fragrant oil: their adornments were completed bypassing a few loose folds of white tappa, in a modest cincture, around thewaist. Thus arrayed they no longer hesitated, but flung themselves lightlyover the bulwarks, and were quickly frolicking about the decks. Many ofthem went forward, perching upon the head-rails or running out upon thebow-sprit, while others seated themselves upon the taffrail, or reclinedat full length upon the boats.
Their appearance perfectly amazed me; their extreme youth, the light clearbrown of their complexions, their delicate features, and inexpressiblygraceful figures, their softly moulded limbs, and free unstudied action,seemed as strange as beautiful.
The _Dolly_ was fairly captured; and never I will say was vessel carriedbefore by such a dashing and irresistible party of boarders. The shiptaken, we could not do otherwise than yield ourselves prisoners, and forthe whole period that she remained in the bay, the _Dolly_, as well as hercrew, were completely in the hands of the mermaids.
In the evening after we had come to an anchor, the deck was illuminatedwith lanterns, and this picturesque band of sylphs, tricked out withflowers, and dressed in robes of variegated tappa, got up a ball in greatstyle. These females are passionately fond of dancing, and in the wildgrace and spirit of their style excel everything that I have ever seen.The varied dances of the Marquesan girls are beautiful in the extreme, butthere is an abandoned voluptuousness in their character which I dare notattempt to describe.
Our ship was now wholly given up to every species of riot and debauchery.The grossest licentiousness and the most shameful inebriety prevailed,with occasional and but short-lived interruptions, through the wholeperiod of her stay. Alas for the poor savages when exposed to theinfluence of these polluting examples! Unsophisticated and confiding, theyare easily led into every vice, and humanity weeps over the ruin thusremorselessly inflicted upon them by their European civilizers. Thricehappy are they who, inhabiting some yet undiscovered island in the midstof the ocean, have never been brought into contaminating contact with thewhite man.