And now, before I relate anything concerning our visit to this island, which proved to be so full of adventure, I ask permission to copy here that which I read many years afterward, and this I do because it would be impossible otherwise to describe the beautiful place—the most beautiful I have ever seen.
That which follows was written by a sailor[1] who spent many months on the island, and was fortunate in being able to describe in a most entertaining manner everything he saw, which is by long odds more than I can do.
"The cluster comprising the islands of Roohka, Ropo, and Nukuheva were altogether unknown to the world until the year 1791, when they were discovered by Captain Ingraham of Boston, nearly two centuries after the discovery of the adjacent islands by the agent of the Spanish viceroy.
"Nukuheva is the most important of these islands, being the only one at which ships are much in the habit of touching, and is celebrated as being the place where the adventurous Captain Porter refitted his ships during the late war between England and the United States, and whence he sallied out upon the large whaling fleet then sailing under the enemy's flag in the surrounding seas. This island is about twenty miles in length and nearly as many in breadth. It has three good harbors on its coast; the largest and best of which is called by the people living in its vicinity, 'Tyohee,' and by Captain Porter was denominated Massachusetts Bay. Among the adverse tribes dwelling about the shores of the other bays, and by all voyagers, it is generally known by the name bestowed upon the island itself—Nukuheva.
"In the bay of Nukuheva was the anchorage we desired to reach. We had perceived the loom of the mountains about sunset; so that after running all night with a very light breeze, we found ourselves close in with the island the next morning; but as the bay we sought lay on its farther side, we were obliged to sail some distance along the shore, catching, as we proceeded, short glimpses of blooming valleys, deep glens, waterfalls, and waving groves, hidden here and there by projecting and rocky headlands, every moment opening to the view some new and startling scene of beauty.
"Those who for the first time visit the South Seas, generally are surprised at the appearance of the islands when beheld from the sea. From the vague accounts we sometimes have of their beauty, many people are apt to picture to themselves enamelled and softly swelling plains, shaded over with delicious groves, and watered by purling brooks, and the entire country but little elevated above the surrounding ocean. The reality is very different; bold rock-bound coasts with the surf beating high against the lofty cliffs, and broken here and there into deep inlets which open to the view thickly wooded valleys separated by the spurs of mountains clothed with tufted grass, and sweeping down toward the sea from an elevated and furrowed interior, form the principal features of these islands.
"... As we slowly advanced up the bay, numerous canoes pushed off from the surrounding shores, and we were soon in the midst of quite a flotilla of them, their savage occupants struggling to get aboard of us, and jostling one another in their ineffectual attempts.
"Occasionally the projecting outriggers of their slight shallops, running foul of one another, would become entangled beneath the water, threatening to capsize the canoes, when a scene of confusion would ensue that baffles description. Such strange outcries and passionate gesticulations I never certainly heard or saw before. You would have thought the islanders were on the point of flying at one another's throats, whereas they were only amicably engaged in disentangling their boats.
"Scattered here and there among the canoes might be seen numbers of cocoanuts floating closely together in circular groups, and bobbing up and down with every wave. By some inexplicable means these cocoanuts were all steadily approaching toward the ship. As I leaned curiously over the side, endeavoring to solve their mysterious movements, one mass far in advance of the rest attracted my attention. In its centre was something I could take for nothing less than a cocoanut, but which I certainly considered one of the most extraordinary specimens of the fruit I had ever seen. It kept twirling and dancing about among the rest in the most singular manner, and as it grew nearer I thought it bore a remarkable resemblance to the brown shaven skull of one of the savages. Presently it betrayed a pair of eyes, and soon I became aware that what I had supposed to have been one of the fruit was nothing else than the head of an Islander, who had adopted this singular method of bringing his produce to market. The cocoanuts were all attached to one another by strips of the husk, partly torn from the shell and rudely fashioned together. Their proprietor, inserting his head into the midst of them, impelled his necklace of cocoanuts through the water by striking out beneath the surface with his feet.
"... We had approached within a mile and a half, perhaps, of the foot of the bay, when some of the islanders, who by this time had managed to scramble aboard of us at the risk of swamping their canoes, directed our attention to a singular commotion in the water ahead of the vessel. At first I imagined it to be produced by a shoal of fish sporting on the surface, but our savage friends assured us that it was caused by a shoal of 'whinhenies' (young girls), who in this manner were coming off from the shore to welcome us. As they drew nearer, and I watched the rising and sinking of their forms, and beheld the uplifted right arm bearing above the water the girdle of tappa, and their long dark hair trailing behind them as they swam, I almost fancied they could be nothing else than so many mermaids—and very like mermaids they behaved too....