While the reporters are gone to picture this unpleasant state of things to the Prince, a word or two may be said about this great personage.
Prince Hightide was a son of Dengeh, king of gods and men. He has, therefore, always stood very near the top of the line of aristocratic deities. His courage was thought to be many degrees above that of earth’s bravest sons; nothing could daunt it; while the resources of his massive mind, being vastly superior both in number and power to those of all his rivals, placed him well nigh beyond the possibility of being defeated by any difficulty. At the mere waving of his right hand all puny tribes would stand aghast! If he could not accomplish his designs in one way, he would in another. Now, he would assume the form of a goddess, anon, that of some animal, or even fruit or vegetable, sooner than give up what he had set his mind on doing. In the legends he is spoken of as the great patron of song, and is sometimes called The Singer. But his monster canoes, more especially the one now to be launched, and his own gigantic strength, have placed his fame high up out of the reach of every other aspirant after greatness in Cannibal-land.
At the time of the departure of the builders’ messengers to report the failure of all their attempts to launch this latest wonder, the Prince was living in easy style a little distance inland, but there was no keeping him there now that he knew the true position of things. Up he rose, and went down calmly, but determinedly, to the scene of action, where he surveyed with a sneer the ponderous thing that had balked the world. Then he stepped forward, and, after giving the canoe a few smart raps with his broad hand, as the manner is when getting canoes into the water, causing her to sound like a drum, or Chinese gong of unheard-of size—he put his own “shoulder to the wheel,” and shouting the usual shout, “ee!—oh!—yah!—eh!” as if expecting all to help on hearing the last syllable, he, of his own strength, sent the Ebbtide at full speed over the rollers, dashing and splashing into the sea,
“While all the world wondered!”
Here the poet drops the curtain on the second act in the history of the Ebbtide.
The largest canoes of modern Cannibal-land, i.e., Cannibal-land as known by the white man, had but one mast, which consisted of two parts spliced, or bound together with sinnet. But the Ebbtide, as the poet goes on to say, had three masts, namely, a “main,” a “main-top,” and a “main-top-gallant.” The first was made of a wood commonly known in Fiji as the “Fiji pine;”[[9]] the second of a harder and darker wood;[[10]] and the third of the most highly valued wood in the country.[[11]] Now the mainmast was so high that from its top the land near which the canoe lay at anchor looked somewhat hazy. From the “main-top,” a spectator could look right over the mountains of Viti Levu (Great Fiji), and see, eighty miles away, the island of Kandávu looming darkly up in the south. While, stranger yet, from the “main-top-gallant-mast,” all the flats and lowlands, that before lay hid immediately behind the above-named mountains, came into full view.
[9]. Dammava Vitiensis, Seem; Vulgo ‘Dakua.’
[10]. C. Burmanni Whight; Vulgo ‘Damanu.’
[11]. Afzelia bijuga, A. Gray; Vulgo ‘Vesi.’
Before a canoe-sail can be hoisted to its proper place, a sailor must climb the mast, carrying with him the halliard, which he passes through or over the mast-head. To do this on the Ebbtide would be a thing utterly beyond the power of the weakling climbers of modern times. And even in those days, when giants and god-strengthened men were by no means few, Prince Hightide, believing that for such a task one free man was worth two pressed men, thought it prudent to appeal for a volunteer. “Who will climb to the main-top-mast-top?” shouted the noble prince, and paused for a reply.