Atolls of the Sun

by Frederick O'Brien

As at Niau, the schooner lay off the shore, and the long-boat was lowered. In it were placed the cargo, and with Moet, McHenry, and me, men, women, and children passengers, four oarsmen and the boat-steerer, it was completely filled, we sitting again on the boxes.

Once more the Flying Fish towed the boat very near to the beach, and at the cry of “Let go!” flung away the rope’s end and left us to the oars. The passage through the reef of Anaa was not like that of Niau. There was no pit, but a mere depression in the rocks, and it took the nicest manœuvering to send the boat in the exact spot. As we approached, the huge boulders lowered upon us, threatening to smash us to pieces, and we backed water and waited for the psychological moment. The surf was strong, rolling seven or eight feet high, and crashing on the stone with a menacing roar, but the boat-steerer wore a smile as he shouted, “Tamau te paina!”

The oars lurched forward in the water, the boat rose on the wave, and onward we surged; over the reef, scraping a little, avoiding the great rocks by inches almost, and into milder water. The sailors leaped out, and with the next wave pulled the boat against the smoother strand; but it was all coral, all rough and all dangerous, and I considered well the situation before leaving the boat. I got out in two feet of water and raced the next breaker to the higher beach, my camera tied on my head.

There was no beach, as we know the word—only a jumbled mass of coral humps, millions of shells, some whole, most of them broken into bits, and the rest mere coarse sand. On this were scattered enormous masses of coral, these pieces of the primitive foundation upheaved and divided by the breakers when the cyclone blew. The hand of a Titan had crushed them into shapeless heaps and thrown them hundreds of feet toward the interior, the waves washing away the soil, destroying all vegetation, and laying bare the crude floor of the island. From the water’s edge I walked over this waste, gleaming white or milky, for a hundred yards before I reached the copra shed of Lacour, a French trader, and sat down to rest. The sailors bore the women and children on their shoulders to safety, and then commenced the landing of the merchandise for Lacour. Flour and soap, sugar, biscuit, canned goods, lamps, piece goods; gauds and gewgaws, cheap jewelry, beads, straw for making hats, perfumes and shawls.

Lacour, pale beneath his deep tan, black-haired and slender, greeted us at the shed with the dead-and-alive manner of many of these island exiles, born of torrid heat, long silences, and weariness of the driven flesh. A cluster of women lounged under a tohonu tree, the only shade near-by, and they smiled at me and said, “Ia ora na oe!”

I strolled inland. It was an isle of desolation, ravaged years ago, but prostrated still, swept as by a gigantic flail. Everywhere I beheld the results of the cataclysm.

Picking up shells and bits of coral at haphazard, I came upon the bone of a child, the forearm, bleached by wind and rain. Few of the bodies of the drowned had been interred with prayer, but found a last resting-place under the coral débris or in the maws of the sharks that rode upon the cyclone’s back in search of prey.

It was very hot. These low atolls were always excessively warm, but not humid. It was a dry heat. The reflection of the sunlight on the blocks of coral and the white sand made a glare that was painful to whites, and made colored glasses necessary to shield their eyes. Temporary blindness was common among new-comers, thus unprotected.

I walked miles and never lost the evidence of violence and loss. There was an old man by a coral pen, in which were three thin, measly pigs, a grayish yellow in color. He showed me to a small, wooden church.

“There are four Catholic churches in Anaa,” he said, “with one priest, and there are three hundred souls all told in this island. The priest goes about to the different churches, but money is scarce. This New Year the contribution was so trifling, the priest, who knew the bishop in Papeete would demand an accounting, sent word to know why—and what do you think he got back? That Lacour, the trader, with his accursed cinematograph, had taken all the money. He charged twenty-five cocoanuts to see the views in his copra shed, and they are wonderful; but the churches are empty. We are all Katorika.”