South-Sea Idyls

by Charles Warren Stoddard

So No. I. of our list is checked off, and no lives lost.

"Aloha!" cries a soft voice in the distance. Our native woman has left us in our pursuit of knowledge under difficulties, and now there is no visible trace of her and her pillows,—only that voice out of the darkness crying, "Love to you!" She lives in memory,—this warm-hearted Waihine; so do her pillows.

Returning to our lodgings, we discover a square heap of broken lava rocks. It seems to be the foundation for some building; and such it is, for here the palace of Kamehameha I. stood,—a palace of grass like this one we are sleeping in. Nothing but the foundation remains now. Half a dozen rude stairs invite the ghosts of the departed courtiers to this desolate ruin.

They are all Samaritans in this kingdom. By sunrise a boy with fresh coffee and a pail of muffins rides swiftly to our door. He came from over the hill. Our arrival had been reported, and we are summoned to a late breakfast in the manner of the Christians. We are glad of it. Our fruit diet of yesterday, the horrors of a night in the saddle—a safe and pretty certain mode of dislocating the neck—make us yearn for a good old-fashioned meal. Horses are at our service. We mount after taking our muffins and coffee in the centre of a large and enthusiastic gathering of villagers. They came to see us eat, and to fumble the artist's sketches, and wonder at his amazing skill.

Up the high hill with the jolliest sun shining full in our eyes, brushing the heavy and dew-filled foliage on both sides of the trail, and under the thick webs spun in the upper branches, looking like silver laces this glorious morning,—on, till we reach the hill-top.

Here the guide pauses and points his horse's nose toward a rude corral. The horses seem to regard it from habit,—we scarcely with curiosity. A wall half in ruins in the centre, rising from a heap of stones tumbled together, a black, weather-stained cross, higher than our heads as we sit in the saddle. It is the altar of sacrifice. It is here that the heart of the great navigator survived the flames.

No. III. scored off. At this rate we shall finish by noon easily. The sequel of an adventurous life is soon told.

After breakfast, to horse again, and back to the little village by the sea. We ride into a cluster of palms, our guide leading the way, and find two together, each with a smooth and perfectly round hole through its body, about three feet from the roots, made by the shot of Cook's avengers. A lady could barely thrust her hand through them; they indicate rather light calibre for defence nowadays, but enough to terrify these little villages, when Cook's men sent the balls hissing over the water to bite through the grit and sap of these slender shafts. They still live to tell the tale in their way. So much for No. IV.

We pause again in the queer little straggling alleys of the village, planned, I should think, after some spider's web. They are about as regular in their irregularity. It is No. V. this time. A bit of withered humanity doubled up in the sun, as though some one had set him up on that wall to bake. He is drawn all together; his chin sunk in between his knees, his knees hooped together with his dreadfully slim arms, a round head, sleek and shining as an oiled gourd; sans teeth; eyes like the last drops in desert wells; the skeleton sharply protruding; no motion; apparently no life beyond the quick and incessant blinking of the eyelids,—the curtains fluttering in the half-shut windows of the soul. Is it a man and a brother? Yes, verily! When the uncaptured crew of the Resolution poured their iron shot into the tents of the adversary, this flickering life was young and vigorous, and he ran like a good fellow. Better to have died in his fiery youth than to have slowly withered away in this fashion. For here is the philosophy of mammon left to itself: when you get to be an old native, it is your business to die; if you don't know your business, you are left to find it out: what are you good for but to bury?

Let us slip over the smooth bay, for we must look into one of these caverns. Cross in this canoe, so narrow that we cannot get into it at all, but balance ourself on its rim and hold our breath for fear of upsetting. These odd-looking out-riggers are honest enough in theory, but treacherous in practice; and a shark has his eye on us back yonder. Sharks are mesmeric in their motions through the water, and corpse-colored.