After the first day in Taiohae Bay, the Snark was deserted most of the time. There was never any danger of quitting the vessel with no one on board, for we had left the only persons who needed watching, back in America. Hermann was a great hunter. He usually started off early in the morning, and returned in the evening with birds of every variety, and he would sometimes return with wild goat. Once he shot a wild cow. It seemed a shame to kill the cattle, for such a little of the meat could be used, and the rest would p171 spoil in a day. Jack and Mrs. London went hunting one morning, and returned about noon with the native boys who had accompanied them bearing fourteen goats.
But the great attraction for the natives was our graphophone. When evening fell, they came about us in swarms to hear the playing, and they could never get over the belief that we had a little dwarf caged in the "talk-box." At times, there would be as many as two hundred brown people squatting on the grass, and they would never leave until we stopped the graphaphone. In the Hawaiian Islands, we had secured records of hula-hula music, which so delighted the Marquesans that sometimes we would have half a hundred dancing in front of the machine.
The natives who lived nearby in a small grass hut came to the house one day with the request that we play the graphaphone for them to dance by. Jack left his writing, and all that afternoon while he played these men practised different steps, and I believe a new hula-hula was originated that day.
The men, understanding nearly half of the Hawaiian language, sang with the graphaphone, keeping time by clapping their hands and swaying their bodies. They would anoint themselves from head to foot with cocoanut oil, until their skin was shiny. The cocoanut oil emitted a faint, pleasant odour, which, once smelled, is never forgotten. They would dance as fast as their limbs could carry them, the womenfolk keeping time p172 with their hands. Even the children imitated them. A native Polynesian can no more keep from dancing when he hears music than a duck can keep away from water.
The house where Jack lived was tended by an old man and a woman, who were covered with tattooing. The man's face looked like a convict's uniform—brown and blue instead of white and blue, with long stripes clear across the face. The woman had a trick of pulling up her dress and showing the tattooing on her legs whenever she saw anyone admiring it on her feet. Very immodest she was, but then, there is no such thing as modesty among such people as these. I think some staid persons I have seen in America would be vastly shocked by the things that take place in the Marquesas.
These natives are considerably larger than the average white person. Their skin is a light brown colour; their hair is thick, straight and black. Dark eyes and eyelashes make them appear a fine, handsome race. The only unfortunate thing is their tendency to age so soon. At fifteen the girls are fully developed women, and at twenty-eight or-nine they are old women. They seem to have no vitality; though they look strong and healthy, if one were told that he was going to die, and had the idea impressed on his mind, he would be sure to lie down and die.
They have no morals at all. Their marriage contracts are so flimsy that if one wants a divorce, he needs p173 only to apply to the chief; and a couple can be married and divorced in the same day. There were few white men here, but all had native women, and were continually changing. The girls, from fourteen years up, make their homes with first one native and then with another. If they want to marry a man they say so, and if he refuses them they call him "missionary." I was sitting on a barrel in front of the trading store one day, when several young vahines (women) came up, and tried to talk to me. One grabbed me by the arm, and pointing to the others: "She wife—she wife—she wife—me no wife!" One girl had a white baby of which she was very proud. To my mind, the girls here were better looking than the Hawaiian girls, but they were much more lax in their notions of becoming conduct.
All of Jack's photographic supplies were spoiled, so I was kept busy printing pictures from mine. Once, while I was engaged in this work, a girl came in the house, without knocking, and was tickled nearly to death watching me develop velox. After that, she came and went whenever she wished, but always dispensed with the formality of knocking.
We had aboard the Snark a full set of dentist's tools, which Jack had had no chance to use up to this time. His entire experience of dentistry had been gained by practise on a skull he had purchased in Honolulu. He was always wanting someone of the crew to act as patient. Wada had once pulled a tooth with a string p174 before Jack could get to him, and Jack never forgave Wada for that.
One day I found an old Chinaman—the only Chinaman on the island—groaning on the beach with the toothache. Here was Jack's chance; I rushed off and told him. He urged me to hold the Chinaman until Nakata went aboard for his tools. Then the Chinaman was led to the back of the house. The poor old fellow was shaking with fright. After Jack found, by reading in his little dental book, the proper forceps to use, and was ready to start on the operation, I cried for him to wait until I got my kodak. Mrs. London ran for hers, too. When I yelled "pull," Jack pulled mightily, and he nearly fell over on his back, the tooth came out so easily. But we got the photographs!