Vikings of the Pacific / The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward

by Agnes C. Laut

Now it is a sad fact that when a highly civilized people meet an uncivilized people, each race celebrates the occasion by appropriating all the evil qualities of the other. Vices, not virtues, are the first to fraternize. It was as unfair of Cook's crew to judge the islanders by the rabble swarming out to steal from the ships, as it would be for a newcomer to judge the people of New York by the pickpockets and under-world of the water front. And it must not be forgotten that the very quality that had made Cook successful—the quality to dare—was a danger to him here. The natives did not violate the sacred taboo, which the priest had drawn round the white men's quarters of the grove. It was the white men who violated it by going outside the limit; and the conduct of the white sailors for the sixteen days in port was neither better nor worse than the conduct of sailors to-day who go on a wild spree with the lowest elements of the harbor. {200} The savages were quick to find out that the white gods were after all only men. The true story of what happened could hardly be written by Captain King, who finished Cook's journal; though one can read between the lines King's fear of his commander's rashness. The facts of the case are given by the young American, John Ledyard, of Connecticut, who was corporal of marines and in the very thick of the fight.

At the end of two weeks the white seamen were, perhaps, satiated of their own vices, or suffering from the sore head that results from prolonged spreeing. At all events the thieving, which had been condoned at first, was now punished by soundly flogging the natives. The old king courteously hinted it was time for the white men to go. The mate, who was loading masts and rudder back on board the Resolution, asked the savages to give him a hand. The islanders had lost respect for the white men of such flagrant vices. They pretended to give a helping hand, but only jostled the mate about in the crowd. The Englishman lost his temper, struck out, and blustered. The shore rang with the shrill laughter of the throngs. In vain the chiefs of authority interposed. The commands to help the white men were answered by showers of stones directly inside the taboo. Ledyard was ordered out with a guard of sailors to protect the white men loading the Resolution. The guard was pelted black and blue. "There was nothing to do," relates Ledyard, "but move to new lands where our vices {201} were not known." At last all was in readiness to sail—one thing alone lacking—wood; and the white men dare not go inland for the needed wood.

So far the entire blame rested on the sailors. Now Cook committed his cardinal error. With that very dare and quickness to utilize every available means to an end—whether the end justified the means—Cook ordered his men ashore to seize the rail fence round the top of the stone burying-ground—the sacred Morai—as fuel for his ships. Out rushed the priests from the enclosure in dire distress. Was this their reward for protecting Cook with the wand of the sacred taboo? Two hatchets were offered the leading priest as pay. He spurned them as too loathsome to be touched. Leading the way, Cook ordered his men to break the fence down, and proffered three hatchets, thrusting them into the folds of the priest's garment. Pale and quivering with rage, the priest bade a slave remove the profaning iron. Down tumbled the fence! Down the images on poles! Down the skulls of the dead sacred to the savage as the sepulchre to the white man! It may be said to the credit of the crew, that the men were thoroughly frightened at what they were ordered to do; but they were not too frightened to carry away the images as relics. Cook alone was blind to risk. As if to add the last straw to the Hawaiians' endurance, when the ships unmoored and sailed out from the bay, where but two weeks before they had been so royally welcomed, they carried {202} eloping wives and children from the lower classes of the two villages.

It was one of the cases where retribution came so swift it was like a living Nemesis. If the weather had continued fair, doubtless wives and children would have been dumped off at some near harbor, the incident considered a joke, and the Englishmen gone merrily on their way; but a violent gale arose. Women and children were seized with a seasickness that was no joke. The decks resounded with such wails that Cook had to lie to in the storm, put off the pinnace, and send the visitors ashore. What sort of a tale they carried back, we may guess. Meanwhile the storm had snapped the foremast of the Resolution. As if rushing on his ruin, Cook steered back for the bay and anchored midway between the two villages. Again the tents were pitched beside the Morai under the cocoanut groves. Again the wand was drawn round the tenting place; but the white men had taught the savages that the taboo was no longer sacred. Where thousands had welcomed the ships before, not a soul now appeared. Not a canoe cut the waters. Not a voice broke the silence of the bay.

The sailors were sour; Cook, angry. When the men rowed to the villages for fresh provisions, they were pelted with stones. When at night-time the savages came to the ships with fresh food, they asked higher prices and would take only daggers and knives in pay. Only by firing its great guns could the {203} Discovery prevent forcible theft by the savages offering provisions; and in the scuffle of pursuit after one thief, Pareea—a chief most friendly to the whites—was knocked down by a white man's oar. "I am afraid," remarked Cook, "these people will compel me to use violent measures." As if to test the mettle of the tacit threat, Sunday, daybreak, February 14, revealed that the large rowboat of the Discovery had been stolen.

When Captain King, who had charge of the guard repairing the masts over under the cocoanut grove came on board Sunday morning, he found Cook loading his gun, with a line of soldiers drawn up to go ashore in order to allure the ruler of the islands on board, and hold him as hostage for the restitution of the lost boat. Clerke, of the Discovery, was too far gone in consumption to take any part. Cook led the way on the pinnace with Ledyard and six marines. Captain King followed in the launch with as many more. All the other small boats of the two ships were strung across the harbor from Kakooa, where the grove was, to Kowrowa, where the king dwelt, with orders to fire on any canoe trying to escape.

Before the fearless leader, the savages prostrated themselves in the streets. Cook strode like a conqueror straight to the door of the king's abode. It was about nine in the morning. Old Terreeoboo—peace lover and lazy—was just awake and only too willing to go aboard with Cook as the easiest way out {204} of the trouble about the stolen boat. But just here the high-handedness of Cook frustrated itself. That line of small boats stretched across the harbor began firing at an escaping canoe. A favorite chief was killed. Word of the killing came as the old king was at the water's edge to follow Cook; and a wife caught him by the arm to drag him back. Suddenly a throng of a thousand surrounded the white men. Some one stabs at Phillips of the marines. Phillips's musket comes down butt-end on the head of the assailant. A spear is thrust in Cook's very face. He fires blank shot. The harmlessness of the shot only emboldens the savages. Women are seen hurrying off to the hills; men don their war mats. There is a rush of the white men to get positions along the water edge free for striking room; of the savages to prevent the whites' escape. A stone hits Cook. "What man did that?" thunders Cook; and he shoots the culprit dead. Then the men in the boats lose their heads, and are pouring volleys of musketry into the crowds.

"It is hopeless," mutters Cook to Phillips; but amid a shower of stones above the whooping of the savages, he turns with his back to the crowd, and shouts for the two small boats to cease firing and pull in for the marines. His caution came too late.

His back is to his assailants. An arm reached out—a hand with a dagger; and the dagger rips quick as a flash under Cook's shoulder-blade. He fell without a groan, face in the water, and was hacked to pieces {205} before the eyes of his men. Four marines had already fallen. Phillips and Ledyard and the rest jumped into the sea and swam for their lives. The small boats were twenty yards out. Scarcely was Phillips in the nearest, when a wounded sailor, swimming for refuge, fainted and sank to the bottom. Though half stunned from a stone blow on his head and bleeding from a stab in the back, Phillips leaped to the rescue, dived to bottom, caught the exhausted sailor by the hair of the head and so snatched him into the boat. The dead and the arms of the fugitives had been deserted in the wild scramble for life.