A bell rang from the church tower & the captain slapped his forehead. “D——my eyes, what am I thinking? It’s the Sabbath, by G—& these holy s—s’ll be a-braying in their rickety church!” We wound our way up the steep hill at a crawl, our party slowed by Cpt. Molyneux’s gout. (I feel a loamy breathlessness when I exert myself. Recalling my vigor on the Chathams, I am worried at how severely the Parasite taxes my constitution.) We reached Nazareth’s house of worship just as the congregation was emerging.
The captain removed his hat, boomed a hearty “Greetings! Jonathon Molyneux, captain of the Prophetess.” He indicated our vessel in the bay with a sweep of his hand. The Nazarenes were less effusive, the men awarding us wary nods, their wives & daughters hiding behind fans. Cries of “Fetch Preacher Horrox!” echoed into the church recesses as its native occupants now poured out to see the visitors. Upwards of sixty adult men & women I counted, of whom around a third were White, garbed in their Sunday “Best” (as could be managed two weeks’ voyage from the nearest haberdashery). The Blacks watched us with bare curiosity. The Native women were decently clothed, but more than a few were blighted with goiter. Boys protecting their fair-skinned mistresses from the sun’s fierceness with parasols of palm leaves grinned a little. A privileged “platoon” of Polynesians wore a natty brown shoulder band embroidered with a white crucifix as a uniform of sorts.
Now bounded out a cannonball of a man whose clerical garb declaimed his calling. “I,” announced the patriarch, “am Giles Horrox, preacher of Bethlehem Bay & representative of the London Missionary Society on Raiatea. State your business, sirs, be quick about it.”
Cpt. Molyneux now extended his introductions to include Mr. Boerhaave “of the Dutch Reformist Church,” Dr. Henry Goose, “Physician of the London Gentry & late of the Feejee Mission” & Mr. Adam Ewing, “American Notary of Letters & Law.” (Now I stood wise to the rogue’s game!) “The names of Preacher Horrox & Bethlehem Bay are spoken of with respect amongst us peripatetic devout of the South Pacific. We had hoped to celebrate the Sabbath before your altar”—the captain looked ruefully at the church—”but, alas, contrary winds delayed our arrival. At the very least, I pray your collection plate is not yet closed?”
Preacher Horrox scrutinized our captain. “You command a godly ship, sir?”
Cpt. Molyneux glanced away in an imitation of humility. “Neither as godly nor as unsinkable as your church, sir, but yes, Mr. Boerhaave & I do what we can for those souls in our care. ‘Tis an unceasing struggle, I am sorry to say. Sailors revert to their wanton ways as soon as our backs are turned.”
“Oh, but, Captain,” spoke a lady in a lace collar, “we have our recidivists in Nazareth too! You will pardon my husband’s caution. Experience teaches us most vessels under so-called Christian flags bring us little but disease & drunkards. We must assume guilt until innocence is established.”
The captain bowed again. “Madam, I can grant no pardon where no offense was given nor any taken.”
“Your prejudices against those ‘Visigoths of the Sea’ are amply warranted, Mrs. Horrox”—Mr. Boerhaave entered the exchange—”but I won’t tolerate a drop of grog aboard our Prophetess, however the men holler! & oh, they holler, but I holler back, ‘The only spirit you need is the Holy Spirit!’ & I holler it louder & longer!”
The charade was having its desired effect. Preacher Horrox presented his two daughters & three sons, all of whom were born here in Nazareth. (The girls might have stepped from a Ladies’ School, but the boys were tanned as kanákas beneath their starched collars.) Loath as I was to be lassoed into the captain’s masquerade, I was curious to learn more of this island theocracy & let the current of events carry me along. Soon our party proceeded to the Horroxes’ parsonage, which dwelling would not shame any petty Southern Hemisphere consul. It included a large drawing room with glass windows & tulipwood furniture, a necessary room, two shacks for servants & a dining room, where presently we were served with fresh vegetables & tender pork. The table stood with each leg immersed in a dish of water. Mrs. Horrox explained, “Ants, one bane of Bethlehem. Their drowned bodies must be emptied periodically, lest they build a causeway of themselves.”
I complimented the domicile. “Preacher Horrox,” the lady of the house told us with pride, “was trained as a carpenter in the shire of Gloucester. Most of Nazareth was built by his hands. The pagan mind is impressed with material display, you see. He thinks:—How spick & span are Christians’ houses! How dirty our hovels! How generous the White God is! How mean is ours!’ In this way, one more convert is brought to the Lord.”
“If I could but live my life over,” opined Mr. Boerhaave, without the slightest blush, “I should chuse the missionary’s selfless path. Preacher, we see here a well-established mission with roots struck deep, but how does one begin the work of conversion upon a benighted beach where no Christian foot ever trod?”
Preacher Horrox gazed beyond his interrogator to a future lecture hall. “Tenacity, sir, compassion & law. Fifteen years ago our reception in this bay was not so cordial as your own, sir. That anvil-shaped island you see to the west, thither? Borabora, the Blacks call it, but Sparta is an apter name, so warlike were its warriors! On the beach of Bethlehem Cove we fought & some of us fell. Had our pistols not won that first week’s battles, well, the Raiatea Mission should have remained a dream. But it was the will of the Lord that we light his beacon here & keep it burning. After a half year we could bring over our womenfolk from Tahiti. I regret the Native deaths, but once the Indians saw how God protects his flock, why, even the Spartans were begging us to send preachers.”
Mrs. Horrox took up the story. “When the pox began its deadly work, the Polynesians needed succor, both spiritual & material. Our compassion then brought the heathen to the holy font. Now ’tis the turn of Holy Law to keep our flock from Temptation—& marauding seamen. Whalers, particularly, despise us for teaching the women chastity & modesty. Our men must keep our firearms well-oiled.”
“Yet if shipwrecked,” noted the captain, “I’ll warrant those same spouters beg Fate to wash ’em up on beaches where those same ‘cursed missionaries’ have brought the Gospels, do they not?”
Assent was indignant & universal.
Mrs. Horrox answered my query about the enforcement of law & order in this lonesome outpost of Progress. “Our Church Council—my husband & three wise elders—passes those laws we deem necessary, with guidance of prayer. Our Guards of Christ, certain Natives who prove themselves faithful servants of the Church, enforce these laws in return for credit at my husband’s store. Vigilance, unflagging vigilance, is vital, or by next week …” Mrs. Horrox shuddered as apostasy’s phantoms danced a hula on her grave.
The meal over, we adjourned to the parlor, where a Native boy served us cool tea in pleasing gourd cups. Cpt. Molyneux asked, “Sir, how does one fund a Mission as industrious as yours?”
Preacher Horrox felt the breeze change & scrutinized the captain afresh. “Arrowroot starch & cocoa-nut oil defray costs, Captain. The Blacks work on our plantation to pay for the school, Bible study & church. In a week, God will it, we shall have an abundant harvest of copra.”
I asked if the Indians worked of their own free will.
“Of course!” exclaimed Mrs. Horrox. “If they succumb to sloth, they know the Guards of Christ will punish them for it.”
I wished to ask about these punitive incentives, but Cpt. Molyneux snatched back the conversation. “Your Missionary Society ship carries these perishable commodities back around the Horn to London?”
“Your conjecture is correct, Captain.”
“Have you considered, Preacher Horrox, how more secure your Mission’s secular footing—& by extension its spiritual one—would be, if you had a reliable market closer to the Societies?”
The preacher told the serving boy to quit the room. “I have considered this question at length, but where? Mexico’s markets are small & prone to banditry, Cape Town is a marriage of corrupt excisemen
& greedy Afrikaners. The South China Seas swarm with ruthless, saucy pirates. The Batavian Dutch bleed one dry. No offense, Mr. Boerhaave.”
The captain indicated myself. “Mr. Ewing is a denizen of”—he paused to unveil his proposal—”San Francisco, California. You will know of its growth from a paltry town of seven hundred souls to a metropolis of … a quarter million? No census can keep count! Celestials, Chileans, Mexicans, Europeans, foreigners of all colors are flooding in by the day. An egg, Mr. Ewing, kindly inform us how much is presently paid for an egg in San Francisco.”
“A dollar, so my wife wrote to me.”
“One Yankee dollar for a common egg.” (Cpt. Molyneux’s smile is that of a mummified crocodile I once saw hanging in a Louisiana dry-goods store.) “Surely, this gives a man of your acumen some pause for thought?”
Mrs. Horrox was nobody’s fool. “All the gold will be mined out soon.”
“Aye, madam, but the hungry, clamoring, enriched city of San Francisco—only three weeks away by a trim schooner like my Prophetess—will remain & its destiny is clear as crystal. San Francisco shall become the London, the Rotterdam & the New York of the Pacific Ocean.”
Our capitán de la casa picked his teeth with a bluefin bone. “Do you believe, Mr. Ewing, commodities grown in our plantations may fetch a fair price in your city” (how strange ’tis hearing our modest township so appelled!) “both of the moment & after the gold rush?”
My truthfulness was a card Cpt. Molyneux had played to his devious advantage, but I would not lie to spite him any more than I would to aid him. “I do.”
Giles Horrox removed his clergyman’s collar. “Would you care to accompany me to my office, Jonathon? I am rather proud of its roof. I designed it myself to withstand the dreadful typhoo.”
“Is that so, Giles?” replied Cpt. Molyneux. “Lead the way.”
Notwithstanding the name of Dr. Henry Goose was unknown in Nazareth until this morning, once the wives of Bethlehem learned a famed English surgeon was ashore, they recalled all manner of ailments & beat a crowded path to the Parsonage. (So odd to be in the presence of the fairer sex again after so many days penned up with the uglier one!) My friend’s generosity could not turn away a single caller, so Mrs. Horrox’s salon was commandeered as his consultation room & draped with linen to provide appropriate screens. Mr. Boerhaave returned to the Prophetess to see about making more space in the hold.
I begged the Horroxes’ leave to explore Bethlehem Bay, but its beach was unbearably hot & its sand flies pestilential, so I retraced our steps up the “Main Street” towards the church, whence issued the sound of psalmody. I intended to join in the afternoon worship. Not a soul, not a dog, not even a Native, stirred the Sabbath stillness. I peered into the dim church & so thick was the smoke within, I feared, erroneously, the building was aflame! The singing was now over & substituted by choruses of coughing. Fifty dark backs faced me & I realized the air was thick with the smoke not of fire nor incense but raw-cut tobacco! for every man jack of them was puffing on a pipe.
A rotund White stood in the pulpit sermonizing in that hybrid accent “Antipodean Cockney.” This shew of informal religiosity did not offend until the content of the “sermon” became apparent. I quoth: “So it came to pass, see, Saint Peter, aye, ’im ‘oo Mistah Jesus called Sweeter Peter Piper, he cameth from Rome an’ he taughteth them hooky-nosed Jews in Palestine what was what with the Old Baccy, an’ this is what I’m teachin’ you now, see.” Here he broke off to give guidance to an individual. “Nah, Tarbaby, you’re doing it all wrong, see, you load your baccy in the fat end, aye, that one, see, oh, J——s sneezed! how many times I told you, this is the stem, this is the d——d bowl! Do it like Mudfish next to you, nah, let me shew you!”
A sallow, stooping White leant against a cabinet (containing, I later verified, hundreds of Holy Bibles printed in Polynesian—I must request one as a souvenir ere our departure) watching the smoky proceedings. I made myself known to him in whispers so as not to distract the smokers from their sermon. The young man introduced himself as Wagstaff & explained the pulpit’s occupant was “the Headmaster of the Nazareth Smoking School.”
I confessed, such an academy was unknown to me.
“An idea of Father Upward’s, at the Tahitian Mission. You must understand, sir, your typical Polynesian spurns industry because he’s got no reason to value money. ‘If I hungry,’ says he, ‘I go pick me some, or catch me some. If I cold, I tell woman, “Weave!’ “Idle hands, Mr. Ewing, & we both know what work the Devil finds for them. But by instilling in the slothful so-an’-sos a gentle craving for this harmless leaf, we give him an incentive to earn money, so he can buy his baccy—not liquor, mind, just baccy—from the Mission trading post. Ingenious, wouldn’t you say?”
How could I disagree?
The light ebbs away. I hear children’s voices, exotic avian octaves, the surf pounding the cove. Henry is grumbling at his cuff links. Mrs. Horrox, whose hospitality Henry & I are enjoying tonight, has sent her maid to inform us dinner is served.
Monday, 9th December—
A continuance of yesterday’s narrative. After the smoking school was dismissed (several of the students were swaying & nauseous, but their teacher, an itinerant tobacco trader, assured us, “They’ll be hooked like pufferfish in no time!”), the back of the heat was broken, though Cape Nazareth still broiled in glowing sunshine. Mr. Wagstaff strolled with me along the wooded arm of land shouldering northwards from Bethlehem Bay. The youngest son of a Gravesend curate, my guide had been drawn to the missionary’s vocation since infancy. The Society, by arrangement with Preacher Horrox, sent him hither to wed a widow of Nazareth, Eliza, née Mapple, & be a father to her son, Daniel. He arrived on these shores last May.
What fortune, I declared, to dwell in such an Eden, but my pleasantry punctured the young man’s spirits. “So I believed in my first days, sir, but now I don’t rightly know. I mean, Eden’s a spick ‘n’ span place, but every living thing runs wild here, it bites & scratches so. A pagan brought to God is a soul saved, I know it, but the sun never stops burning & the waves & stones are always so bright, my eyes ache till dusk comes. Times are, I’d give anything for a North Sea fog. The place puts a straining on our souls, to be truthful, Mr. Ewing. My wife’s been here since she was a small girl, but that doesn’t make it easier for her. You’d think the savages’d be grateful, I mean, we school them, heal them, bring employment & eternal life! Oh, they say ‘Please, sir,’ an’ ‘Thank you, sir’ prettily enough, but you feel nothing”—Wagstaff pounded his heart—”here. Aye, look like Eden it might, but Raiatea is a fallen place, same as everywhere, aye, no snakes, but the Devil plies his trade here as much as anywhere else. The ants! Ants get everywhere. In your food, your clothes, your nose, even. Until we convert these accursed ants, these islands’ll never be truly ours.”
We arrived at his modest dwelling, crafted by his wife’s first husband. Mr. Wagstaff did not invite me in but went inside to fetch a flask of water for our walk. I took a turn around the modest front garden, where a Black gardener was hoeing. I asked what he was growing.
“David is dumb,” a woman called to me from the doorway dressed in a loosened, grubby pinafore. I am afraid I can only describe her appearance and manner as slovenly. “Dumb as a stone. You’re the English doctor staying at the Horroxes’.”
I explained I was an American notary & asked if I might be addressing Mrs. Wagstaff.
“My wedding banns and marriage lines say so, yes.”
I said Dr. Goose was holding an ad hoc surgery at the Horroxes’, if she wished to consult with him. I assured her of Henry’s excellence as a physician.
“Excellent enough to spirit me away, restore the years I’ve wasted here & set me up in London with a stipend of three hundred pounds per annum?”
Such a request was beyond my friend’s powers, I admitted.
“Then your excellent physician can do nothing for me, sir.”
I heard giggles in the bus
hes beyond me, turned around & saw a host of little Black boys (I was curious to note so many light-skinned issue of “cross-racial” unions). I ignored the children & turned back to see a White boy of twelve or thirteen, as grubby as his mother, slip by Mrs. Wagstaff, who did not attempt to waylay him. Her son frolicked as naked as his Native playmates! “Ho, there, young fellow,” I reprimanded, “won’t you get a sunstroke running about in that state?” The boy’s blue eyes held a feral glint & his answer, barked in a Polynesian tongue, baffled me as much as it amused the pickaninnies, who flew off like a flock of greenfinches.
Mr. Wagstaff followed in the boy’s wake, much agitated. “Daniel! Come back! Daniel! I know you hear me! I’ll lash you! Do you hear? I’ll lash you!” He turned back to his wife. “Mrs. Wagstaff! Do you want your son to grow up a savage? At the very least make the boy wear clothes! Whatever will Mr. Ewing be thinking?”
Mrs. Wagstaff’s contempt for her young husband, if bottled, could have been vended as rat poison. “Mr. Ewing will think whatever Mr. Ewing will think. Then, tomorrow, he will leave on his handsome schooner, taking his thinkings with him. Unlike you & I, Mr. Wagstaff, who’ll die here. Soon, I pray God.” She turned to me. “My husband could not compleat his schooling, sir, so it is my sorry lot to explain the obvious, ten times a day.”