Then as they stole across the water of the harbour, the dying breeze laying glittering fans before them, they saw, right ahead on the shore where the dark cliffs drew away, lights twinkling and dancing like fireflies, lights standing and moveless, lights crawling like glowworms. It was Amaho, the chief village of Motul, and the lights were the lights of the houses, the fish spearers, the lovers and the wayfarers of the chief town of Paradise.
For Motul is Paradise in all things that relate to the senses of sight, smell, taste, hearing and touch, and its people are part of their environment. Here there are no ugly women and few old people, here bathing is perpetual as summer, and summer is never oppressive. Here everything grows that is of any use in the tropics.
The pineapples of Motul are as white inside as sawn deal, yet you can almost eat them with a spoon, and their flavour beats that of the Brazilian pineapple, the English hothouse and the pine of Bourbon; they have fig bananas with a delicate golden stripe unobtainable elsewhere, and passion fruit with a vanilla flavour only to be found at Motul.
Also there are girls.
Harman and his companion, faced with the lights of the town, determined not to land till morning. They dropped their stone killick in six-fathom water, ate the last of their bananas, turned on their sides and fell asleep to be awakened by the dawn, a dawn of many colours standing against the far horizon on a carpet of rose and fire. Then, all of a sudden, tripping across the sea, she pulled up a curtain and the sun hit Amaho, the bay, the beach, and the anchored canoes, including the stranger canoe that had arrived during the night.
“Look,” said Harman, “they’ve spotted us.” He pointed to the beach, where a crowd was gathering, a crowd with faces all turned seaward. Children were running along the sands, calling their elders out of houses to come and look, and now heads of swimmers began to dot the water and girls with flowers in their dark hair came towards the canoe, swimming with the effortless ease of fish; girls, young men, and boys, the whole population of Amaho seemed to have taken to the sea, and with them Davis held converse in broken bêche de mer, while Harman gloomily considered the “skirts.”
I think Harman’s dislike of womenfolk had less to do with misogyny pure and simple than with a feeling, born from experience, that women tend to crab deals and interfere with the progress of prosperity, just as it is coming along to you by devious, not to say crooked paths.
There was nothing in the way of any possible deal looming before them this morning. All the same, the ingenuous Harman did not relax or unbend in the least before this vision of friendly mermaids, one of whom was boldly now grasping the starboard gunnel with a wet hand while another, to port, was engaged in putting a leg over the outrigger.
“They’re a friendly lot,” said Davis over his shoulder to the other. “Ain’t much to be done here as far as I can see, no shell nor turtle, and they’re too lazy to make copra, but it’s a good place to rest in and refit.”
“It’ll be a good place to drown in if that piece don’t get off the outrigger,” said Harman.