Often when the French officials were sipping their light wines and absinthe and gave out their toast: “Vive la France,” those sinful maids would gaze into the English sailors’ eyes and murmur (out of earshot): “Vive la Angleese!”
The missionaries had a great deal of trouble to keep them away from those old sea salts, and the French authorities passed all sorts of peculiar Acts to keep them in order. It was a sight worth seeing when a missionary suddenly appeared on the scene where they all danced with the white men: off they bolted into the forest like frightened rabbits! I suppose the missionaries had gone over to Hatiheu that night, for as I passed the shanty the laughter and wild song was in full swing.
The deserted schooners lay out in the bay, not a soul aboard. I saw a canoe shoot across the still waters, paddled by frizzly-headed savages. The darkened lagoons, fringed by feathery palms, mangroves and guavas, loomed into view for miles along the shore, looking like a natural stockade that protected the approaches to fairyland.
Even when the moon hung out in the vault of heaven, the weird beauty of that island scene was not dispelled; for, like miniature starry constellations, swarms of fireflies danced and twinkled in the spaces for miles along the lagoons of the wooded coast.
I observed this from my bedroom, which, that night, was beneath a palm-tree by the shore. I awoke late, considerably refreshed and happy. As I looked about me, I saw several beachcombers still sleeping by me. They were genuine beachcombers, and only left their resting-places when the schooners arrived. These schooners brought in the generous sailormen, who lavishly spent their wages in the grog shanty, which was the economic centre of Tai-o-hae, for, believe me, beachcomberism in full swing—cadging drinks in exchange for fearsome tales, punctuated by mighty oaths—was the staple product and commercial stock exchange of that semi-heathen-land.
Mountain Scenery, Nuka Hiva
Though I had travelled through Samoa, Fiji, Solomon Isles, Tahiti, New Caledonia, also through the wilds of savage London town, I waxed enthusiastic over the wild life and primeval beauty of these scenes and wondrous folk. Touring inland, alone with my violin, I entered little villages that were tiny pagan cities of the forest. The inhabitants, a fine race of handsome, semi-savage people, lived in primitive splendour, nursing their old traditions and secretly practising heathen rites that were supposed to be extinct. Nature’s mysterious grace had given them a palatial home of natural warmth, beauty and plenty. Fertile hills, mountain slopes giving forth abundance of glorious fruits to the gaze of the kind sun, surrounded me. By the hut towns mighty sheltering trees, bending their gnarled, sympathetic arms, threw tawny bunches of coco-nuts and delicious foods into the hands of her wild children. Beneath the forest floor for ever toiled that patient eremite, Dame Nature, pushing up through the mossy earth the clothes that so well suited her children’s modest requirements: bright bows, green-fringed kerchiefs, weaved loin-cloths, stiff grass-threads for sewing fibrous materials into cheap scented suits, also debonair hats for their fierce heads! I liked those fierce heads. I found them crammed with kindness. They applauded my violin solos, and brought me sweet foods when I slept beneath the trees, untroubled by man! Yet how wealthy was I, lying beneath the coco-palms, counting my wealth in the numberless stars of strange constellations till I fell asleep. It was whilst I was hard up, sleeping beneath the friendly trees, that I first came across a native woman, Madame Lydia. She spied me from her bungalow window hole, as, lying on my cheap mossy sheet, I counted the clouds that crawled like monstrous spiders across my vast, blue ceiling.
“Aloah, monsieur,” she said, as she poked her sun-varnished physiognomy through the bamboos and handed me a pannikin of hot tea. I accepted the gift with alacrity and thanks, and I unconsciously ingratiated myself into her good graces. She turned out to be the kind old wife of B— —, an English sailor and trader. She was a full-blooded Marquesan, decidedly handsome, notwithstanding the expressive wrinkles mapped on her face. I discovered that she dwelt in a small bungalow that stood in a most picturesque spot on the slopes that fronted the sea. I was soon quite chummy with this native woman, told her who I was, and finally discovered that she was the mother of the beautiful half-caste girl, Waylao, whom I had met the day before on the beach. So much for old Lydia. But as my reminiscences will deal at times with the daughter, I will introduce her.
She was an attractive girl, about sixteen years of age. When I first saw her standing on the slopes she decidedly enhanced the scenery of Tai-o-hae, and that’s saying something for the beauty of Waylao.