twinkling over the grotesque heights of Aimeo, the air laden with the odor of orange and jessamine, we waded into the brook, and diverted ourselves by plashing water upon a group of maids of honor who had followed us.
Before we knew it, a heavy black cloud had stolen from the shade of the high mountains, and we had barely time to snatch our garments from the grass and scamper through the grove, before the rain was upon us: it passed as quickly—the wine was exhausted—the chieftainess presented me with a shell goblet, and bidding good night to our noble entertainers we were escorted to the palace of Pomàree, where the chief in waiting had large fine mats laid for couches, curtained by rolls of tappa, and with the moonlight glancing on the foaming reef, visible through the cage-built house, and the water rippling on the sandy shore, we betook ourselves to rest. Our repose was shortly disturbed by a regiment of juveniles who marched before the palace, chaunting, with great vociferation, the Marseilles hymn, giving the word "battalion" in full chorus; then, much to our astonishment, they struck up "Jim along, Josey," and concluded the opera with "Dan Tucker," set to native words. At this stage of the concert, our host, by request, made a few remarks, and the performers vanished.
Fleas were excessively troublesome, and, during the night, to get rid of the annoyance, we had several dips in the lagoon, which was an easy matter, since the water was nearly at the foot of our couches. Once I was on the point of shifting my bed of mats to the beach, under a clump of cocoanuts, but our host would not hear of it—declaring it was ita maitai! ita maitai!—impossible! not good! Indeed I afterwards found the practice was never indulged in by the natives—for should one of these heavy nuts—and they are very large—many containing a full quart of milk, to say nothing of the weight of shell and husk—falling from an elevation of nigh an hundred feet, chance to alight on the cocoanut of the sleeper, it is reasonable to suppose it would damage his ideas or slumber: besides, large rats ascend the trees, and sometimes detach the fruit, while knawing into the tender nut: crabs, too, the sagacious creatures, crawl up the trunks whose branches incline over the rocky shores, cut the stem with their claws, and the concussion attending the fall splits them wide open, or cracks them ready for eating. I never saw them at these pranks, but have the information from reliable authority. As the daylight guns from the Port of Papeetee came booming and echoing among the mountains, we sprang to our feet, swallowed a cooling draught of cocoanut milk, enjoyed another bathe in the stream, and then trudged gaily back to town.
A few days later, we were visited by our hospitable friend, Arupeii! He was shown every attention, and, at the usual hour, placed his heels under the gun-room mahogany. He dispensed with forks, and ate indiscriminately of viands, vegetables, and other dainties; occasionally storing away bits of bread and ham in the flowing bosom of his shirt, for, no doubt, a more convenient season. He never let a bottle pass him, either of port, sherry, or malt, appreciating brandy most, and having a fancy for drinking all from tumblers. With these little solecisms, he got on famously, and, at the termination of the dinner, patted his portly person and shouted maitai.
I do not know whether it be considered with the Tahitian aristocracy complimentary to covet a neighbor's goods, but certainly my stout chieftain was the most shameless beggar I ever remembered to have any dealings with. He volunteered to accept hatbands, plugs of tobacco, sealing wax, pistols, newspapers, anything and everything he saw, until, at the end of the third glass of strong waters after dinner, he requested, as a particular favor, the mess candlesticks, when, losing all patience, I told him his boat was waiting, so he hitched up his trousers, offered to rub noses, and with a present for his handsome wife stowed in the capacious shirt, we shook hands, and away he paddled on shore. This was the last we saw of Arupeii.
The frigate was always, Sundays excepted, surrounded by canoes filled with the natives, and they must have made a golden harvest, to judge from the immense quantities of fruits constantly coming over the gangways—so great was the demand for cocoanuts, that they were rafted off from the shore in strings, like water-casks. The canoes were awkwardly hewn out of rough logs, with ill-arranged, misshapen outriggers; quite unlike the buoyant, swift little water vehicles of the Sandwich Islanders.
One day, attended by a tidy little reefer, we hired a clumsy, crazy equipage, with a copper and indigo-colored monster in the stern to paddle us about the reef and harbor. It was low water, and as our canoe drew but an inch or two of water outside—she was half-full inside—we were able to skim over the shallowest parts; and, by the by, there is a strange anomaly in the tides of Papeetee, which are not in the least influenced by the moon—there are many ways of accounting for it—I only speak of the fact—we ever found a full sea at twelve, and low water at six.
In many places, a few feet below the surface, we glided over what seemed the most exquisite submarine flower-gardens, corals of all colors, and of every imaginable shape—plant, sprig, and branching antlers—of purple, blue, white, and yellow—variegated star and shell fish, and narrow clear blue chasms and fissures of unfathomable depths between; but what was equally beautiful to behold, schools of superbly-colored fishes swimming and darting about in the high blue rollers as raising their snowy crests just before breaking upon the outer wall of the reef, the finny tribes were held in a transparent medium, like that seen through a crystal vase.
A heavy shower interrupted our aquatic researches, and we sought shelter on Pomàree's diminutive island of Motuuata. It hardly covers an acre, but is a most charming retreat beneath the drooping foliage, and I did not wonder at the jolly queen's taste. She never goes there now: the Franees were busy with pick and barrow on parapet and bastion; blacksmiths and artizans were hammering away at the forges, and, beneath the trees and sheds, soldiers and sailors were munching long rolls of bread and drinking red wine. Who can wonder that the poor Queen has forsaken her former haunts, when her cane-built villas are polluted by foreign tread, and the weeping groves that sheltered her troops of languishing revellers, the "cushions of whose palms" had clasped the smooth trunks of all—where merriment, games, feast, and wassail went on unceasingly, in all the native abandonment of island life and pleasure; now to have those scenes so changed by red-breeched Franees—the shelly shores tossed with stone and mortar into embankments for dreaded cannon, and the grove resounding with stunning sound of hammer and anvil. Alas! poor Pomàree! recall the bright days of your girlhood, and curse the hour when you invited the stranger to your kingdom.