White Shadows in the South Seas

by Frederick O'Brien

It should be so with all, for human locomotion in water is no more tiresome or difficult than on the earth. One element is as suitable to man as the other for transportation of himself, when habitude give natural movement, strength, and fearlessness. A Marquesan who cannot swim is unknown, and they carry objects through the water as easily as through a grove. I have seen a woman with an infant at her breast leap from a canoe and swim through a quarter of a mile of breakers to the shore, merely to save a somewhat longer walk.

One's hours at the beach were not all spent in the water. Many were the curious and delicious morsels we found on the rocks that were uncovered at low tide, stranded fish, crabs, and small crawling shell-fish. One of our favorites was the sea-urchin, called hatuke, fetuke, or matuke. Round, as big as a Bartlett pear, with greenish spines five or six inches long, they were as hideous to see as they were pleasant to eat. In the last quarter of the moon they were specially good, though what the moon has to do with their flavor neither the Marquesans nor I know. It is so; the Marquesans have always known it, and I have proved it.

The spines of these sea-urchins make slate-pencils in some of the islands, and are excellent for hastily writing on a nearby cliff a message to a friend who is following tardily. The creatures are poisonous when alive, however, and revenge a blow of careless hand or foot by wounds that are long in healing.

We found lobsters among the rocks, too, and on some beaches a strange kind of lobsterish delicacy called in Tahiti varo, a kind of mantis-shrimp that looks like a superlatively villainous centipede. They grow from six to twelve inches long and a couple of inches wide, with legs or feelers all along their sides, like the teeth of a pocket-comb. Their shells are translucent yellow with black markings; the female wears a red stripe down her back and carries red eggs beneath her. Both she and her mate, with their thousand crawling legs, their hideous heads and tails, have a most repulsive appearance. If one did not know they are excellent food and most innocent in their habits, one would flee precipitately at sight of them.

Catching the varo is a delicate and skilful art. They live in the shallows near the beach, digging their holes in the sand under two or three feet of water. When the wind ruffles the surface, it is impossible to see the holes, but on calm days we waded knee-deep in the clear water, stepping carefully and peering intently for the homes of the sea-centipede. Finding one, we cautiously lowered into the hole a spool fitted with a dozen hooks.

A pair of the creatures inhabits the same den. If the male was at home, he seized the grapnel and was quickly lifted and captured, the hooks being lowered again for the female. But if the female emerged first, it was a sure sign that her mate was absent.

I pondered as to this habit of the varo, and would have liked to persuade me that the male, being a courteous shrimp, combatted the invading hooks first in an effort to protect his mate. But the grapnel is baited with fish, and though masculine pride could wish that chivalry urged the creature to defend his domestic shrine, it appears regrettably certain that he is merely after the bait, to which he clings with such selfish obstinacy that he sacrifices his liberty and his life. However, the lady soon shows the same grasping tendency, and their deserted tenement is filled by the shifting sands.

Catching varo calls for much patience and dexterity. I never succeeded in landing one, but Teata would often skip back to the sands of the beach with a string of them. Six would make a good meal, with bread and wine, and they are most enjoyable hot, though also most dangerous.

“Begin their eating by sucking one cold,” warned Exploding Eggs when presiding over my first feast upon the twelve-inch centipedes. “If he does not grip you inwardly, you may then eat them hot and in great numbers.”

Many white men can not eat the varo. Some lose appetite at its appearance, its likeness to a gigantic thousand-leg, and others find that it rests uneasy within them, as though each claw, or tooth of the comb, viciously stabbed their interiors. I found them excellent when wrapped in leaves of the hotu-tree and fried in brown butter, and they were very good when broiled over a fire on the beach. One takes the beastie in his fingers and sucks out the meat. Beginners should keep their eyes closed during this operation.