As I strolled by with Marmona by my side they each saluted us with the exclamation of “Talafa!” and “Good white mans.” In the branched moonlit forest by the narrow pathways that lead from house to house, I saw dark figures pass; they were the natives passing and repassing along the silent forest tracks as they hurried each to his home in the woods or other distant villages. Many of them had stayed late in the village where I was staying, and suddenly remembering the domestic establishment, their lonely hut in the forest afar and the waiting wife, they one by one went off running at full speed, and often in those lonely South Sea hills you could hear yells and excited jabberings as the wretched wife screamed and the semi-savage husband endeavoured to explain the why and wherefore of his lateness. Indeed the traveller in the South Seas invariably is astonished by the sameness of the native and the European character. As men say, “civilisation is only skin deep,” and very often so is the difference between the white and brown man. I particularly noticed the manners of those who had better clothes on than their neighbours. They would walk along with a trader’s cast-off long-tailed shirt flapping behind them and gaze with a scorn-like glance upon their brown brothers who wore only a native “ridi,” and the native girls nearly burst with pride and vanity as they creep from their hut attired in a red sash only, a banana-leaf hat and white flower behind their ear, and others with a yellow pair of high-heeled shoes on and a white woman’s cast-off night-shirt. The traders call in at the villages and bring all kinds of cast-off European clothing, which they exchange with the natives for copra, yarns and many other things, and so you often are surprised by suddenly meeting a native creeping from the forest wearing some lady’s under-garments, or a pretty Samoan girl attired in a sailor’s cast-off pants, cut off close to the thighs and buttoning under her pretty curved chin!
The women struck me as being very industrious. They sit for hours and hours singing and making cloth stuff out of leaves and bark which they keep hammering and weaving. By their side lies the stupendous bamboo stick which every now and again they swiftly lift up and strike their children over the heads with—as they keep pestering them with questions and mischief the whole time that they are working, the bamboo rod gives forth a hollow sound on the tiny native skull, and seems to have no effect beyond checking the infantile activity for a few minutes, after which the mothers, without ceasing the song which is always flowing from their lips, lift the bamboo and strike once again. Out of the forest into the village often come the quick-footed youths and maidens with small baskets full of jumping fish which they have been catching down on the shore side in the lagoons and in the sea, and as they go along the tiny baby urchins run from under their mothers’ legs, steal the fish through cracks in the basket and eat them “all alive O.”
Round some of the hut dens sit the old stagers of other days, stalwart old men, brown as mahogany, their naked limbs striped with tattoo marks and scarred with spear wounds. Squatting under the shade of the palms they tell the younger men of ancient battles and of the old idols and the wonderful things those idols foretold and how it all came to pass. Those old warriors still believed in the old heathen gods, and when they were dubious about anything crept away into the forest depths and consulted some monstrous armless wooden image, rotting away in secrecy, staring with a big boss eye as it had stared for years through the shadows of the forest, till the superstitious chief crept behind the ancient tree trunks up to it and fell on his knees, lifted his hands and chanted the prayers of his heart to its wooden outstretched ears.
There was one aged chief in that village who looked as though he were a thousand years old; he had arched eye sockets and so deep were his eyes set that you seldom saw them, excepting now and again when a tiny gleam of the sunlight struck across his face through the palms as he spoke and lifted his head and finger skyward, telling of cannibalistic feasts of long ago. One of his ears was missing; he had once been hideous, but age had softened the wicked features and expressions down, and his wrinkled brown parchment-like face expressed only a death-like awfulness, and made you feel as though you saw life, distorted and wretched, gazing through a human skull which death had long since claimed but which would not die. That wretched old chief told me that he could remember quite well the first white man who had visited his Island, and as he gazed upon me I saw a gleam sparkle out from his hidden eyes and I instinctively wondered what might have happened to that white brother of mine who had fallen into the clutches of that fearful cannibal when he was lusty, strong, glowing with hunger and lust of blood. I do not think he was a Samoan. Many of the older inhabitants of those days were chiefs from other Isles who had fallen through some great tribal battle or had committed some crime and so sought the refuge of another Island where they could dwell in safety, away from the hot vengeance of their own people.
I stayed for two nights with Marmona and his wife; they made me up a soft bed in one of their spare huts, but I did not sleep very well for my brain had an annoying knack of starting to think whenever I was left alone. As it happened it was a good thing that I was sleepless on those two nights. As I lay the second night turning over and over on my matting bed, I got so sick of it that I arose and lit a cigarette, and without standing up I pulled myself towards the hole that served as a door, and pushing the sacking back I gazed out on to the moonlit village. The winds were all asleep and the shadows of the tropic trees and palms thrown by the moonlight on the wattle huts and roofs of the sleeping village lay perfectly still, and it all seemed as though it were some tremendous painted picture of a tropic South Sea village done in glimmering silver oils. As I gazed I felt that I was the only living creature in that ghost-like sleeping village, and then to my surprise a shadow moved across the moonlit patch, almost just opposite my hut door. Turning my head quickly I saw the frizzly head of a Samoan poke up out of the jungle ferns to the right of me. In a moment I dodged back and watched with one of my eyes fixed to a crack in my bedroom wall; my heart began to beat rapidly, for on all-fours he slowly moved along, stirring the grass aside silently with snake-like stealth as he came straight towards my hut! Every now and again he stopped and looked around to see if all was silent and unperceived. I began to feel in a terrible state of mind, and looking round I swiftly caught hold of an old club to protect myself with, for I saw that it was my sleeping place that his eye was on! He looked a great strong fellow and for a moment I wondered if I should wait and see what it all meant or go to the door and let him see that I had seen him, but extreme funk sent curiosity to the devil and I put my head out of the hut door and shouted Hallo! For a part of a second his eyes stared astonished, and then like a startled kangaroo he arose on his feet with one hop and ran off with the swiftness of a race-horse.
Marmona and I talked it over next day and we both agreed that my midnight visitor was an envious thief, who was after my violin and thought to steal it from my hut whilst I slept. As I have told you before, the whole of the Pacific Islanders are born thieves, and I noticed that as Marmona told me his suspicions and waxed indignant over that midnight thief his own dark eyes gave one avaricious gleam as he caught sight of my violin, which he would have stolen in five seconds if he had thought I should never suspect him. For the brown men are no better than the whites, and will, in due course, all be virtuous and honest, valuing their neighbour’s opinion more than the article which their hearts long to steal. When I look back and think of the native villages and the peace, with no police patrolling the village road with truncheons and bull’s-eye lanterns to quell the courage of the evil-doer, I really believe the South Sea Island heart is not half so evil as it has been painted, and though I have travelled the South Sea villages, mixed with the native men and women, drank and laughed with them, separated them in their childish squabbles, I have never seen their women creeping about with smashed noses or swollen lips and blackened eyes, as I have seen the women of the white men on the cold streets of London Town.
The morning after my night fright I intimated to Marmona that I must leave the village, and he arranged to go with me with the idea of showing me the way through the forest to the village of Maffo, as far as I can remember that was the name, but so many of the village names were similar and extraordinary that I cannot be certain of my exactness in pronouncing them now. It was situated near to the sea. Mrs Marmona almost embraced me as I bade her farewell, and I held up her hand, bowed and gently kissed it in courtly fashion. I then did likewise to her late enemy who stood beside her; for I knew that had I not done so trouble would crop up as soon as Marmona and I were out of sight. Old Marmona’s daughter, whom I have not mentioned before, but who nevertheless was a great deal by my side during that visit, came forward and gave me a beautiful native-made comb from her hair, and by the way she gave it I should think that it was the greatest compliment that a native girl can pay a youth. I kissed her hand twice and with sorrow in my heart waved my hands as I passed away into the forest. Poor old Marmona crept along in front carrying my portmanteau, which was a large silk handkerchief that held my violin and bow, a small tooth-comb, brush, and a clean shirt.
XIII
I tramp through the South Sea Forest alone—Play my Violin to the Natives—The Trader’s Vision—The Rivals