Woodcut
CHAPTER XI
His Mother's People
The hurricane season ended in a fortnight of calm before the trade came up from the southeast, announcing its arrival with a three days' gale that caught our schooner among the outer islands of the group. It was by no means a great storm, yet the constant fury of the wind, unbroken by lull or gust, and the lines of huge breaking seas running under a cloudless sky impressed me more than anything I have experienced in ships. By day we lived in a world of blue-and-white—pale-blue sky; sea of a dark, angry blue; acres of white foam. To go on deck by night and watch the leaping ridges of salt water rear up to windward—formless, threatening, fringed with wan phosphorescence—was to revise any beliefs one might have had regarding the friendliness of nature.
On the evening of the second day we were laid-to under a rag of foresail, riding the seas obliquely, a few points off the wind. The schooner took them like an eider duck; it was so thick in the cabin that I slid back the hatch and squeezed through into the clean turmoil above. The mood of the Pacific was too impressive for pleasure, but I was glad at least of the fresh air and able to derive a species of awed enjoyment from what went on about me. It may have been fatigue, or carelessness, or inexperience—at any rate, the man at the wheel suddenly allowed the schooner to bear off; she was climbing the slope of a sea at the time—the crest of it caught her weather side with a crash and next instant a rush of solid water swept the decks. Thin and faint as the voices of sea birds above the roaring of the wind, the cries of native passengers drifted back, "Aue! Aue!"; the hatch slid back abruptly; the skipper burst on deck—bristling, gesticulating, clad in a waistcloth—to deliver an address in passionate Mangaian, insulting and only partially audible.
Under the swinging lamp in the cabin I found Tari—our singular and philosophic supercargo, whose calm no ordinary gale could disturb—bending over his books, a bottle and a glass in racks at his elbow. A mat was spread on the floor and on it—huddled under a quilt of bright patchwork—lay Apakura, his young native wife. Her feet were bound in a pareu and the quilt pulled over her head, for the cockroaches were everywhere. I entered my stateroom to lie down. A large cockroach, insolent and richly perfumed, trotted along the springs of the upper berth and halted just above my face. Waves of the hand had no effect on him—I had reasons for not wishing to crush him in his tracks. One of his comrades began a tentative nibbling at my hair—something tickled my foot—I started convulsively. The sudden rolls of the schooner flung me against her side; it was useless to try to sleep. As I sat down beside him, Tari closed his books and motioned me to fill a glass.
A faint noise of shouting came from on deck; the engine-room bell sounded a sudden and peremptory signal. The hatch opened with a gust of spray—the head of the skipper appeared dimly in the swaying light. "Atitu," he shouted; "I'm going to run into the lee and stand off and on till this blows over." The engine started and Tari and I went on deck for a glimpse of the land, looming close and vague in the starlight. Presently, as we took our seats in the cabin, the schooner ceased her violent pitching and began to ride a long, easy swell. Tari rose, stepped to where his wife lay sleeping, picked up the slender bundle in the quilt, and disappeared into his stateroom; next moment he was beside me again, uncorking a fresh bottle of rum.
"She's had a bad time of it," he said, "with a berth on the weather side; she was spilled on the floor half a dozen times before she gave up and came out here. I shouldn't have let her come along—I had my doubts of the weather, but it was a chance to see the relatives she's got scattered through the group. They're constantly visiting one another; blood means a lot down here where they recognize degrees of consanguinity absurdly farfetched to our minds. First cousins are like brothers, second and third cousins considered members of one's immediate family, and so on through the descendants of remote ancestors. When you stop to think of it, this respect for ties of blood—in the isolated communities of Polynesia—rests on a solid base."
I asked him a question concerning the end of these island people—whether they will fade away and disappear, like our own Narragansett and Seminole, without leaving their mark on the supplanting race or whether they will be absorbed gradually, developing in the process of absorption a new type. Tari set down his glass.
"One thing is certain," he replied—"if left to themselves they would soon be extinct. Wherever you go among the islands you will find couple after couple of full-blooded natives—young, strong, wholesome, and childless. No doubt the white man is partially to blame, but, for myself, I believe the race is worn out with isolation and old age. They are justified in their dread of being childless, but an infusion of European blood—however small—works a miracle; you must have noticed this, to me a most striking and significant fact. It is the cross of white and brown that is repopulating the islands to-day; one can venture a glimpse into the future and see the process of absorption complete—the Polynesian is not fated to disappear without leaving a trace behind ... and perhaps it will be more than a trace, for half-caste children cling strongly to the distaff side.