The marae of Tahiti have vanished, but on the way back we stopped to see all that remains of a once famous pile. Nothing now exists but a mass of overgrown coral stones, converted into a lime kiln. Fortunately Cook and his companion Banks both visited Mahaiatea in its glory and have left us descriptions, and we have also a drawing of it. It is obvious that these structures in no way resembled the ahu of Easter Island. Mahaiatea was a pyramid of oblong form with a base 267 ft. by 71 ft.; it was composed of squared coral stones and blue pebbles, and consisted of eleven steps each some 4 ft. in height. It impressed Banks as “a most enormous pile, its size and workmanship almost surpassing belief.”[[87]] The pyramid formed one side of a court or square, the whole being walled in and paved with flat stones.

Marae, as Arii Taimai explains, were sacred to some god; but the god was only a secondary affair; a man’s whole social position depended on his having a stone to sit on within his marae enclosure. Cook was asked for the name of his marae, as it was not supposed possible that a chief could be without one, and took refuge in giving the name of his London parish, Stepney.

Princess Takau kindly acted as interpreter when we went to look up the Easter Islanders who came here to work on the Brander plantation and who still form a little colony. One of our main objects in visiting Tahiti had been to inspect the tablets and Easter Island collection of Bishop Jaussen who died in 1892. In this we met with disappointment; the present authorities, whom we saw more than once, took no interest at all in the subject, and said that on Bishop Jaussen’s death, the Brothers had sent the articles home as curios to their friends in Europe. They gave us an address in Louvain, which it has not of course up to the present been possible to follow up.

FIG. 131.
MARAE MAHAIATEA TAHITI.
(From A Missionary Voyage in the Ship Duff, 1796–98.)

FIG. 132.
CHARLES AND EDWIN YOUNG.
The great-great-grandsons of Midshipman Young, the only commissione officer among the mutineers of the Bounty who took refuge on Pitcairn Island, 1790.

Our crew underwent some alterations at Tahiti. The post of engineer had been filled by a Chilean, and one deck hand had already gone home as a reservist; two more now desired to return direct to “serve their country,” one of these was my friend Bailey, the cook. As he had had no opportunity of spending his wages, he was, on being paid off, quite a millionaire. He invested in a number of white washing suits and took up his residence at our hotel. I was presented with his photograph clad in the new raiment. An officer travelling to England from New Zealand was kind enough to undertake to give him some care on the journey, and managed to get him safely home, though most of his fortune had disappeared en route. He took service as a ship’s cook, and we saw his name subsequently, with most sincere regret, in a list of “missing.”

Bailey’s place was taken by an American, who had formed part of the crew which had been discharged from a ship which they had brought to Tahiti from California. He declined to come on board till just before we sailed, as he was engaged for a prize-fight with a noted coloured champion; the prospective fight excited a good deal of local interest, but ended lamentably in the white man being knocked out at the first blow. As we were still short-handed, we arranged with our two Pitcairn Islanders to come on with us to England; Charles Young was signed on as deck hand, and Edwin, who was of less strong physique, as steward. They both gave every satisfaction, and Edwin, though he had of course to be taught his duties, was the best steward we ever had.

We had considerable conversation with our Consul, Mr. Richards, on the subject of Pitcairn, in which he has always taken great interest, doing all that he could for the Islanders. He had been anxious if possible to make a stay there of some duration, feeling, no doubt rightly, that the only way to solve its difficulties was for someone to dwell there long enough to see the situation, not as a visitor, but as a resident. Circumstances had not, so far, rendered this feasible, but it is to be hoped it may still be accomplished.