South-Sea Idyls

by Charles Warren Stoddard

The last day of the fête was, of course, less joyous to me. A score of nameless nags were to be ridden by light weights in breech-cloths; and I sought consolation in the prospect of seeing some bewitching horsemanship. The track, in use but once every twelvemonth, and yielding annually a young orchard of guava-trees, presented to the astonished gaze of the foreign sporting-gentleman who happened to be on the ground—if, indeed, there was such a one present—a half-mile course, with numerous stones and hollows relieving its surface, while the rope that enclosed it kept giving way every few moments, letting in a mixed multitude among the half-broken horses.

The Queen was present at the races,—Pomare, whose life has been one long, sorrowful romance; the Admiral was also there; and many a petty officer, with abundant gilt and tinsel. At a signal from the trumpeter the horses were entered unannounced, and everybody betted wildly. One little African jockey, mounted upon the cleverest piece of flesh and blood in the field, called for the larger stakes; and he would certainly have won, but for an unavoidable accident: the little African was pressing in on the home-stretch, and everything looked lovely for the winning mare, when, unluckily, she put her nigh leg in a crab-hole, and snapped her shin-bone square off. The undaunted little African tried his best to finish the heat on his own responsibility, and went off into the air in fine style, but missed his calculation, and burrowed about three lengths from the goal. His neck was driven in nearly up to the ears, and the mare had to be shot; but the races went mercilessly on until a tremendous thunder-storm flooded the track and washed the population back to town. Dance after dance consumed the afternoon hours; and song upon song, eternally reiterated, finally failed to create any special enthusiasm.

I saw no further traces of Taboo. Again and again I followed knots of the curious into the larger native houses, where the lascivious dances were given with the utmost abandon; thither—I suspected—Taboo would most likely be impelled, for the music was wilder and the applause more boisterous and unrestrained.

The evening of the last day of the fête was darkening; most people were growing a little weary of the long-drawn festivities; many had succumbed to their fatigue, and slept by the wayside, or, it may be, they had known too well the nature of the Tahitian juices, such as no man may drink and not fall!

The palace of Pomare—a great, hollow, incomplete shell, whose windows have never been glazed, and whose doors have never been hung—was the scene of the concluding ceremonials of the season. The long verandas were thickly hung with numberless paper-lanterns, swinging continually in the soft night-winds that stole down from the star-lit slopes of Fautahua; the broad lawns in front of the palace were blocked out in squares, like the map of a liliputian city. Each one of these plats was set apart for a band of singers, and there were as many bands as districts in Tahiti and Moorea, together with delegations from islands more remote. Soon the choruses began to assemble. Choirs of fifty voices each, male and female, led by tight-headed drums and screaming fifes, drew toward the palace-gardens, and were formally admitted by the proper authorities, who were very much swollen with the pomp of office and, perhaps, a little sprinkle of the exhilarating accompaniments of the season. One after another the white-robed processions approached,—each fresh arrival looking more like the chorus in "Norma" than the last, though it then seemed impossible that any Druid could presume to appear more gracefully ghostlike. Each singer wore a plume of cocoa-leaves, whose feathers were more lovely than the downy wands of the ostrich. They were made of knots of long, slender ribbons, softer than satin, veined like clouded silver, as transparent as the clearest isinglass, and as delicate as the airiest gauze.

Out of the core of the palm-tree, in the midst of its rich, dark mass of foliage, springs a tuft of leaves as tender as the first sprouts of a lily-bulb. These budding leaves are carefully removed, split edgewise, and the enamelled sheets laid open to the sun; then, with the thumb-nail, passed skilfully over the inner surface, a filmy membrane is separated, and spread in the air to dry. A single tree yields but a small cluster of these pale, cloud-like leaves, scarcely a handful in all, yet the tree withers when they pluck the heart of it. It is the very soul of the Southern palm, with every leaf spiritualized, and looking vapory as tangible moonlight.

The leader of the concert having challenged the choruses from the veranda of the palace, at once twenty choirs struck into their particular anthem with the utmost zeal. A discord about six acres in extent was the result. It seemed as though each choir was seeking whom it might drown out with superior vocal compass and volume. With much difficulty the several bands of singers were persuaded to await their turn for a solo effort that might be listened to with no small degree of pleasure. From time to time, during the entire evening, some obstreperous chorus would break loose, spite of every precaution; and it had always to sing itself out before order could be restored. Taboo would have thoroughly enjoyed those two thousand singers, each singing his or her favorite roundelay, independent of all laws of time and melody. He might have been there, as it was, offering his inharmonious chant with the mob of contestants.

By the time the series of prize-songs had been sung, the sky grew cloudy, and the torches began to flicker in the increasing wind; a few great drops of rain spat down in the midst of the singers, and the reef moaned loudly, like the baying of signal-guns. It was ominous of coming storms. At the climax of a choral revolution, in which every man's voice seemed raised against his neighbor's, a roar as of approaching armies was heard, mingled with the accompanying crash of artillery. A sudden puff of wind extinguished the major part of the torches, and wrecked many of the lanterns in the palace porch. It was simply a tropical shower in all its magnificence; but it was enough! The fête concluded then and there, in the promptest manner. The narrow streets of Papeete were clogged with retreating hosts, who continually shouted a sort of general adieu to everybody, as they gathered their skirts about them, and, with shoes in hand, turned their bare feet homeward.

Since the end had at last come, and I had no further claims upon the people, nor the people upon me,—if, indeed, either of us were ever anything in particular to one another,—I drifted with the majority, and soon found myself in the suburban wilderness that girdles the small capital of the queendom. I wandered on till the noise of the revellers grew more and more indistinct. They were scattering themselves over the length and breadth of the island, carrying their songs with them. Now and then a fresh gust of wind bore down to me an echo of a refrain that had grown familiar during the days of the fête, and will not soon be forgotten; but the past was rapidly fading, and the necessities of the future began to present themselves with unusual boldness. Instinctively I turned into the winding trail that once before had led me toward that mysterious mountain sacristy, over whose font fell the spiritual and dreamlike rivulet whose baptismal virtues Taboo and I had sought together. I felt certain that I could find it without guidance; for the broken clouds let slip such floods of moonlight as made day of darkness, and rendered the smallest landmark easily distinguishable.

I paused for rest in the breadfruit grove where first I met with my weird companion. Presently I resumed my pilgrimage, wending my way toward the slender path that led through fern, forest, and bamboo-jungle, to the crystal lake and waterfall. In vain I sought it; the slightest traces of the trail seemed obliterated. I wandered up and down the winding way, till I was in despair of finding the slightest clew to the mystery. I sat down and thought how a slight accident of forgetfulness was lending a sense of enchantment to the whole valley, when I heard a stumbling step, too marked to be soon forgotten. I crept into a shadow, and awaited the approach of the solitary wanderer. How he tottered as he drew near! He seemed to have lost part of his small skill since I last saw him. He was laughing quietly to himself while he journeyed: perhaps some memory of the fête still pleased him. He passed me, unconscious of my presence. I ran cautiously, and followed him at a safe distance. We threaded the old path, by stream and cliff and brake, and, after a little, reached the secluded and silent borders of the lake. Once or twice he had heard me as I brushed past the bamboos or a twig snapped under foot, but those forest-sounds scarcely disconcerted him; he was too well used to them. He paused at the margin of the lake, stooped awkwardly and drank of it, went a little to one side where an outlet fed the torrent we had forded some distance down the valley, and there he bathed. Having started once or twice, as though with some remembered and definite purpose, he paused a moment or two, looked about him helplessly, and returned to the foot of the great tree where we slept the first night of our acquaintance.