“Where yer hail from, mate?” said he.
I told him.
“Any chance of getting a living if I stick here?” said I to him.
Hitching his trousers up he regarded me almost fiercely, as he scornfully ejaculated: “Why, don’t yer know this is God’s own country?”
“Oh yes, I quite forgot,” I said, half to myself as I smiled, for at every Australian and American port that I had entered I had never failed to meet some shore loafer who enthusiastically welcomed me to “God’s own Country.”
But still, Tai-o-hae certainly looked as though the Hand of the Creator had succeeded in making it the most picturesque and romantic-looking isle that one could well wish to come across.
For a time I wandered about like an inquisitive schoolboy. I went up to Prison Hill and watched some native convicts sweep the roads. A gendarme kindly pointed out Queen Vaekehu’s palace. He enlightened me as to Vaekehu’s past. I had already heard of that queen’s barbarian fame as a multitudinous lover and cannibal.
“Is she a cannibal now?” said I, as I stared beneath the palms and spied the old queen and her obsequious retinue of dusky chiefs on the verandah of her wooden palace. She had been a kind of Helen of Troy in the pre-Christian times of Tai-o-hae.
“Ah, no, monsieur, she is not zee cannibal now.” So saying, the gendarme, as he smiled and shrugged his shoulders, banged a native convict over the head with his bamboo truncheon by way of harmless digression. At this moment several natives, handsome youths and Marquesan maids, went laughing by. As they passed me they called out, “Aloah, monsieur!” One pretty chiefess, who had a figure like a goddess, arrayed in hibiscus blossoms and weaved grass, threw me a kiss.
“I’m going to stop on this isle,” murmured I to myself as I walked on. The shadows fell over the mountain range and hid the pinnacles of Ua Pu. I was still tramping inland, once more alone. The scene, as night fell, changed to one of magical beauty. Such a change! I heard the wild shouts of laughter, and the musical cries of approval, as the sailors and native girls met and whirled under the palms by the shanties. Those maids seemed to prefer English sailors. I recall that I often heard the Frenchmen say: “Ze Englese sailors are ze very deevils when they are tousand of miles from Londres.”