CHAPTER XV ~ THE STORY OF TOKOLMÉ
Early one morning some native hunters came on board our vessel and asked me to come with them to the mountain forest of the island of Ponapé in quest of wild boar. Glad to escape from the ship, which lay in a small land-locked harbour on the south-eastern side of the island, I quickly put together my gear, stepped into one of the long red-painted canoes alongside, and pushed off with my companions—men whom I had known for some years and who always looked to me to join them in at least one of their hunting trips whenever our brig visited their district on a trading cruise. Half an hour's paddling across the still waters of the harbour brought us to a narrow creek, lined on each side with dense mangroves. Following its upward course for the third of a mile, we came to and landed at a point of high land, where the-dull and monotonous mangroves gave place to giant cedar trees and lofty palms. Here were two or three small native huts, used by the hunters as a rendezvous. Early as it was, some of their women-folk had arrived from the village, and cooked and made ready a meal of baked fish and chickens. Then after the inevitable smoke and discussion as to the route to be taken, and telling the women to expect us back at nightfall, we shouldered our rifles and hunting spears, and started off in single file along a winding track that followed the turnings of the now clear and brawling little stream. At first we experienced considerable trouble in ridding ourselves of over a dozen mongrel curs; they had followed the men from the village (two miles distant) and the women had fastened all of them in, in one of the huts, but the brutes had torn a hole through the cane-work side of the hut and came after us in full cry. Kicking and pelting them with sticks had no effect—they merely yelped and snarled and darted off into the undergrowth, only to reappear somewhere ahead of us. Finally my companions became so exasperated that, forgetting they were newly-made converts to Christianity, they burst out into torrents of abuse, invoking all the old heathen gods to smite the dogs individually and collectively, and not let them spoil our sport. This proving of no effect, an exasperated and stalwart young native named Nâ, who was the owner of one of the most ugly and persistent of the animals, asked me to lend him my Winchester, and, waiting for a favourable chance, shot the brute dead. In an instant the rest of the pack vanished without a sound, and we saw no more of them till we returned to the huts in the evening.
These natives (seven in all) were, with the exception of a man of fifty years of age, all young men, and fine types of the Micronesian. Although much slighter in build than the average Polynesian of the south-eastern islands of the Pacific, they were extremely muscular and sinewy, and as active and fleet of foot as wild goats. Their skins, where not tanned a darker hue by the sun, were of a light reddish-brown, and the blue tatooing on their bodies showed out very clearly; most of them had a very Semitic and regular cast of features, and their straight black hair and fine white teeth imparted a very pleasing appearance. Unlike some of the natives of the Micronesian Archipelago on the islands farther to the westward they dislike the disgusting practice of chewing the betel-nut, and in general may be regarded as a very cleanly and highly intelligent race of people. Somewhat suspicious, if not sullen, with the European stranger on first acquaintance, they do not display that spirit of hospitality and courtesy that seems to be inherent with the Samoans, Tahitians and the Marquesans. From the time when their existence was first made known to the world by the discoveries of the early Spanish voyagers to the South Seas they have been addicted to warfare, and the inhabitants of Ponapé in particular had an evil reputation for the horrible cruelties the victors inflicted upon the vanquished in battle, even though the victims were frequently their own kith and kin. When, less than twenty years ago, Spain reasserted her claims to the Caroline Islands (of which Ponapé is the largest and most fertile) and placed garrisons on several of the islands, the natives of Ponapé made a savage and determined resistance, and in one instance wiped out two companies of troops and their officers. A few years ago, however, the entire archipelago passed into the hands of Germany—Spain accepting a monetary compensation for parting with territory that never belonged to her—and at the present time these once valorous and warlike savages are learning the ways of civilisation and—as might be expected—rapidly diminishing in numbers.
After ridding ourselves of the dogs we pressed steadily onward and upward, till we no longer heard the hum of the surf beating upon the barrier reef, and then when the sun was almost overhead we emerged from the deep, darkened aisles of the silent forest into a small cleared space on the summit of a spur and saw displayed before us one of the loveliest panoramas in the universe. For of all the many beautiful island gems which lie upon the blue bosom of the North Pacific, there is none that exceeds in beauty and fertility the Isle of Ascension, as Ponapé is sometimes called—that being the name used by the Spaniards.
Three thousand feet below we could see for many miles the trend of the coast north and south. Within the wavering line of roaring white surf, which marked the barrier reef, lay the quiet green waters of the narrow lagoon encompassing the whole of this part of Ponapé, studded with many small islands—some rocky and precipitous, some so low-lying and so thickly palm-clad that they, seemed, with their girdles of shining beach, to be but floating gardens of verdure, so soft and ephemeral that even the gentle breath of the rising trade wind at early morn would cause them to vanish like some desert mirage.
To the southward was the small, land-locked harbour of Roân Kiti, whose gleaming waters were as yet undisturbed by the faintest ripple, and the two American whaleships and my own vessel which floated on its placid bosom, lay so still and quiet, that one could have thought them to be abandoned by their crews were it not that one of the whalers began to loose and dry sails, for it had rained heavily during the night. These two ships were from New Bedford, and they had put into the little harbour to wood and water, and give their sea-worn crews a fortnight's rest ere they sailed northward away from the bright isles of the Pacific to the cold, wintry seas of the Siberian coast and the Kurile Islands, where they would cruise for “bowhead” whales, before returning home to America.
Here, because the White Man both felt and looked tired after the long climb, and because the Brown Men wanted to make a drink of green kava, we decided to rest for an hour or two—some of the men suggesting that we should not return till the following day. Food we had brought with us, and everywhere on the tops of the mountains water was to be found in small rocky pools. So whilst one of the men cut up a rugged root of green kava and began to pound it with a smooth stone, the White Man, well content, laid down his gun, sat upon a boulder of stone and looked around him. I was pleased at the view of sea and verdant shore far below, and pleased too at the prospect of some good sport; for everywhere, on our way up to the mountains, we had seen the tracks of many a wild pig, and here, on the summit of this spur, could rest awhile, before descending into a deep valley on the eastern side of the island, where we knew we would find the wild pigs feeding along the banks of a mountain stream which debouched into Roân Kiti harbour, four miles away.
“How is this place named, and how came it to be clear of the forest trees?” I asked one of my native friends, a handsome young man, about thirty years of age, whose naked, smooth, and red-brown skin, from neck to waist, showed by its tatooing that he was of chiefly lineage.