There was a high sea, and for a few seconds it was pitch and toss whether we could keep right side up. However, we struck the gait of the rollers, and, with Piri a Tuahine at the long steering oar, moved toward the beach, urged on by rowers and breakers, but opposed by a strong outsetting current.
The dexterity of the steersman saved us a dozen times from capsizing. Often we climbed waves that, but for an expert guidance, would have crashed over us. Many and many a boat turns over in these “landings” and spills its life freight to death or hurt. Nearing the passage, a white and brawling two hundred feet between murderous rocks, the boat had to be swung obliquely to enter, and we hung upon a comber’s peak for a seeming age, the rowers sweating furiously at the oars, until Piri a Tuahine gave a staccato signal. Oars inboard, we rushed down the shore side of the breaker, and were at peace in a lovely lagoon.
Of the many miles of circumference of Takaroa, a tiny motu was inhabited by the hundred and fifty people, and on it they had built a stone quay for small boats. We made fast to it and sprang ashore.
CHAPTER VI
Diffidence of Takaroans—Hiram Mervin’s description of the cyclone—Teamo’s wonderful swim—Mormon missionaries from America—I take a bath.
THERE was no stir on the quay of Takaroa. In these latitudes the civilized stranger is shocked by the indifference to his arrival of the half-naked native. It enrages a prideful white. He perhaps remembers the pages of Cook and the other discoverers, who wrote of the overflowing enthusiasm of the new-found aborigines for them; but he forgets the pages of history since national, religious, and business rivalries invaded the South Seas. These Paumotuans, and, indeed, most Polynesian peoples, are kin to pet cats who madden mistresses by pretending not to hear calls, and by finding views from windows interesting when asked to show their accomplishments or fine coats. Though they may have seen no outsider for months, these Paumotuans will appear as unconcerned at a white visitor’s coming as if circuses dropped in their midst daily. Yet every movement, every word of a newcomer is as alluring to their imaginations, bored by the sameness of their days, as a clown’s antics to a child.
“It is a politeness and pride, not indifference,” had explained my friend, that first gentleman of Tahiti, the Chevalier Tetuanui, of Mataiea. “We simple islanders have been so often rebuffed by uncultivated whites that we wait for advances. It is our etiquette.”
The main thoroughfare of the village stretched up from the quay half a mile, with one or two ramifying byways, along which straggled the humble homes of the Takaroans. There were not the usual breakfast fires before them, as in Tahiti, where breadfruit and feis are to be cooked, nor did the appetizing odor of coffee rise, as in Tahiti, for Mormonism forbade coffee to its adherents as it did alcohol and tobacco. Beside the quay were dozens of cutters, and a small launch. Canoes were being relegated to lesser civilizations by the fast sailing cutters. Motor power was new here; almost new in Tahiti. But a few years and it would be common, for while the islander cared nothing for time, he was attracted to labor-saving machines.
Captain Moet set the sailors to unload the Marara’s boat, and the chief of Takaroa appeared. The French, whose island possessions in Polynesia occupy sea room in spots from eight to twenty-seven degrees below the equator, and from 136 to 155 west of Greenwich, have left survive, in title at least, the chieftaincies, the form of government they found upon seizure. “Monsieur le Chef,” they said of the native officials here, as they did of a head cook in a restaurant. These chiefs, though nominally the representatives of French sovereignty, were, in pitiable reality, wretchedly-paid tax collectors, policemen, and bailiffs. But they often were gentlemen—gentlemen of rich color. The strapping fellow who had viséd the documents of the Marara, though wearing only denim overalls, lacked nothing in courtesy. A rent disclosed that the “alls” were over his birth-suit.