South-Sea Idyls

by Charles Warren Stoddard

I knew that there still remained to me a morsel that was of itself fit food for the gods. I poised aloft, with satisfaction, the rare-ripe banana, beautiful to the eye as a nugget of purest gold. The pliant petals were pouting at the top of the fruit. I readily turned them back, forming an unique and convenient gilded salver for the column of flaky manna that was, as yet, swathed in lace like folds. These gauzy ribbons fell from it almost of their own accord, and hung in fleecy festoons about it.

Here was a repast of singularly appropriate mould, being about the size of a respectable mouth, and containing just enough mouthfuls to temporarily satisfy the appetite. Not a morsel of it but was full of mellowness, and sweet flavor, and fragrance. Not an atom of it was wasted; for, no sooner had I thrown aside the cool, clean, flesh-like case, than it was made way with by a fowl, that had, no doubt, been patiently awaiting that abundant feast.

Mangoes and bananas! Their very names smack of shady gardens, that know no harsher premonition of death than the indolent and natural decay of all things. The nostril is excited with the thought of them; the palate grows moist and yearns for them; and the soul feasts itself, for a moment, with a memory of mangoes and bananas past, whose perfection was but another proof of immortality, since it is impossible ever to forget them individually. Mangoes and bananas! the prime favorites at Nature's most bountiful board; the realization of a dream of the orchards of the Hesperides; alike excellent, yet so vastly dissimilar in their excellences, it seems almost incredible that the same beneficent Providence can have created the two fruits!

It was the memorable 15th of August, 1870; but I have reason to believe the bananas were no better on that particular occasion than almost always in their own latitude. The 15th of August, —where was the Emperor then? I forget; I know that we rejoiced in the blissful confidence that we were to have a grand time at all hazards. There were guns at sunrise from ship and shore; a grand national procession of French and Tahitians to High Mass at 10.30; guns—twenty-one of them—together with the ringing of bells, and a salute of flags, at the elevation of the Host, so that you would have known the supreme moment had you been miles away. Then came a sumptuous public breakfast for the Frenchmen; and for the natives, games of several sorts.

Taboo and I, having properly observed the more solemn ceremonials of the day, gave ourselves up to the full enjoyment of these latter diversions. There was a greased pole, with shining cups; and flowing prints, both useful and ornamental, hung at the top of it. Several naked and superbly built fellows shinned up it with infinite difficulty, and were so fatigued when they got there, they were only too willing to clutch the first article within reach, which was, of course, the least desirable, and scarcely worth the trouble of getting. O, such magnificent grouping at the foot of the pole, as the athletes shouldered one another in a sort of co-operative experiment at getting up sooner; such struggles to rise a little above the heads of the impatient climbers beneath as made the aspiring Kanack quite pale,—that is, greenish yellow; such losing of grips, and fainting of hearts, and slidings back to earth in the midst of taunts and jeers, but all in the best of humors and the hottest of suns! such novelties as these were a very great delight to Taboo and myself. He, however, didn't deign to laugh heartily: he merely smiled in a superior manner that seemed to imply that he knew of something that was twice as much fun and not half the trouble, but he didn't choose to disclose it. He nearly always seemed to know as much as any ten of us; and it was like an assumption of innocence, that queer, vacant expression of his face. I'm not sure that he was not possessed of some rare instinct beyond our comprehension, which was to him an abundant compensation for the fragmentary body he was obliged to trundle about.

Early in the afternoon, there were fresh arrivals in the bay: two mammoth double war-canoes, of fifty paddles each, came in from a remote sea-district; they were the very sort of water-monsters that went out to greet my illustrious predecessor, Captain Cook, nearly a century ago. Taboo and I were only too glad to sit meekly among the ten thousand spectators that blackened the great sweep of the shore, while these savages matched their prowess. With one vigorous plunge of the paddles the canoes sprang from the beach into the watery arena. How strange they looked! Long, low sides, scarce eight inches above water, and stained like fish-scales; big, yawning jaws in their snakelike heads, and the tail of a dragon in their wakes; every man of the hundred stripped to the skin and bareheaded; their brawny bodies glistening in the sun as though they had been oiled, while, with mechanical accuracy, the crews beat the water with their paddles, and chanted their guttural chants, with the sea flashing and foaming under them. The race was a tie; perhaps it was fortunate that it proved so. I fear if one crew had beaten the other crew the breadth of a paddle, that other would have lain to and eaten that one right under our very eyes. They had their songs of triumph, both sounding the chorus, during which they drummed with their paddles on the sides of their canoes, till the frail things shivered and groaned in genuine misery. Then they renewed the race, because they couldn't possibly be still for a moment; and they looked like a brace of mastodon-centipedes trying to get out of the water, with death hissing in their throats.

The evening of the great day was drawing to a close. Taboo and I again went out into the narrow, green lanes of Papeete, seeking what we might devour with all our eyes and ears. They were very charming, those long arbors of densely leaved trees, with little tropical vignettes set in the farther end of them. It was almost like getting a squint through the wrong end of a telescope, pointed toward some fairy-land or other. As it grew dark, a thousand ready hands began illuminating the avenues that lead to the Governor's house. Up and down its deep veranda swung ropes of lanterns; and as the guards at the garden-gate presented arms at the approach of the Admiral, or some distinguished and decorated foreigner, the strains of Strauss, deliciously played, filled the illuminated grove with an air of romance that was very Oriental in its mellowness, and quickened every foot that was so happy as to touch the soil of Tahiti in so fortunate an hour. On every part of the public lawns the revels were conducted after the native fashion. Bands of singers and dancers sang and danced in the streets, and were frequently rewarded with liberal potations. Taboo looked on as amiably as usual, and for some time as passively also; but there was something intoxicating in the air, and it began to have a visible effect upon him. It was not long before he strove to emulate the singers. St. Cecilia! what a song was his! I could scarcely endure to hear that royal Jester striving to tune his inharmonious voice to the glib, though monotonous Tahitian madrigals. I walked away by myself, or rather went into another part of the village, and sought a change of scene; for there was no seclusion to be hoped for on a fête-night.

From the Governor's halls came the entrancing harmony of flutes and harps; from every lane and alley the piping of nose-fifes and the droning of nasal chorals; from the sea rolled in the deep, hoarse booming of the reef, the rhythmical plash of oars, or the clear, prolonged cry of some one in the watery distance hailing some one close at hand. Even so savage and picturesque a spectacle as this grew wearisome after a time, and I turned my steps toward a place of shelter, and suggested to myself sleep.

In one lane was a throng of natives, wilder in their demonstrations of joy than all the others. My curiosity was excited, and I hastened to join them. Having with some difficulty wedged my way into the front row of spectators, I beheld the subject of their riotous applause. In the centre of a small ring was an ungainly figure, writhing in grotesque contortions; tom-toms were being beaten with diabolical energy and wildness; flutes and shrill voices were chiming in rapid and bewildering chromatics; the audience—the half-crazed and utterly inhuman audience—gloated over the shocking spectacle with devilish delight. In one moment I comprehended all: Taboo, overcome by the general and unusual excitement, had succumbed to its depraving influences; and, unable longer to control himself, he was broadly burlesquing, in his helplessness, one of the national dances. Music had at last reached his impenetrable soul, awakened his long-slumbering sympathies, and found him her willing slave. A pity that some diviner strain had not first led him captive, that he might have been spared this disgrace!

I saw his unhappy body ambling to the shame of all. I saw those pitiful, unshapen shoulders undulating in vain attempts at passional expression; the helpless arm waving at every movement of the body, while the withered hand spun like a whirligig above his ears; his eyes, having lost their accustomed mild light, stared distractedly about, seeking rescue and protection, as I thought. In a few moments I attracted his notice, though he seemed but partly to recognize me. There was his usual uncertain recognition grown more doubtful,—nay, even hopeless,—as his face betrayed. Again I caught his eye: I felt that but one course was left me, and at once I aimed my finger at him. He winced in his delirious dance. I coiled it round and round, weaving airy circle within circle; quicker and quicker I wove my spell, and at last shot the whole hand at him, as though I would run him through. He doubled, like one struck with a fatal blow, and went to the ground all of a senseless heap. There was a disturbance in the audience. Some of them thought I had bewitched Taboo; and it behooved me to go at once, rather than seek to make explanation of the singular result of my presence there. I went, and spent a dull night, accusing myself of being the possible spiritual murderer of Taboo. I had no business to bring him to the metropolis at that unfortunate season; I had no right to leave him with his traducers: and that was the whole statement of the case.