During our stay, Kanaka men and women and girls paddled out, and we let them aboard. Great was their curiosity at the electric lights. One Kanaka wanted to turn them on and off so much that I had to switch the current off at the engine room, so that the lights went dead; but they could hardly keep away from the five-horse-power engine, which I ran most of the time in order to fill the storage batteries. I took some of the girls out in the launch, to their almost frantic pleasure. I towed an outrigger canoe with two girls across the bay, and as quick as they could paddle back they wanted me to do it again.
Darling, the Nature Man, and Young, a Socialist, had accompanied us. It was amusing to see Darling splash along shore in the shallow water, catching fish. At times he lay in the shade of a tree, resting. When a crowd of natives gathered around him, he would jump up and yell like an Indian war dancer, which performance always doubled the natives with laughter. They all like Darling, and he likes them. He told us that he knew he would be making a fool of himself p214 among white people, but that he liked to amuse the Kanakas. Darling was full of energy—much different from the wraith of a man who had lain on his bed in Portland, Oregon, looking forward to nothing but death. He chopped wood for Wada and made trips up the mountains after fruit. He had the deck lined with half a dozen different varieties of bananas.
The next day I spent in reading and sleeping, except when I took the launch to go watch the Kanaka boys fish. They first catch a small fish among the coral banks, then bite out a chunk for bait; then another chunk, which they eat. I have seen them eat fish raw, just as they were pulled wriggling from the water. But usually they soak them in vinegar before eating. Raw fish is the favourite dish among the Kanakas. I tried to develop an appetite, but I fear I made no startling success.
We were a week at Moorea; then a casting on the engine broke, making it necessary for us to return to Papeete. It was just before we started back that a long canoe, filled with men and women, paddled past us and bombarded us with oranges until the decks were covered, then paddled away, its occupants laughing and shouting. Darling said the oranges were to pay us for being so good to them. The Moorea orange is nearly green in colour, and tastes the same as the California variety.
We had difficulty in getting away. I had a short circuit on the wires that I was puzzled to find; but p215 when we were finally able to start, I beat my record coming over by forty-five minutes.
Arrived at Papeete, it took two days to put the machinery in order again. We then set sail for Raiatea. It was on April 4 that we cleared Papeete Harbor. The usual large crowd had assembled to see us off. After getting about five miles off the reef, I stopped the engine, which was running splendidly. We sailed all night with a fair breeze, and in the morning sighted Huahina, which we steered for, but kept one mile off the lee shore until we had left it far behind. Soon Raiatea was sighted. Its ragged peaks looked at a distance the same as Tahiti or Moorea. When about twenty miles off, I started the engine. We got through the reefs and anchored in the bay by seven o'clock.
On account of engine repairs having delayed us, Helene had given up our coming, and had gone to the mountains to visit relatives. But she heard that we were in the bay, and next day we were honoured by a visit from her. She came out to the Snark in a small canoe, and invited us ashore to her home. Jack had promised us every night off while at this island, so Ernest and I took the launch for shore. We took a five-mile walk along the beach and up the mountain to her mother's house. Along the shore, grass huts were built on stilts over the water. Kanakas sat, or rather squatted, all along the road, and each greeted us in the native tongue. We found the house p216 away back among the mountains, a long, low grass house, with a huge waterfall made by a mountain stream in the rear. Oranges, limes, cocoanuts, papaias, guavas, bananas, and several kinds of fruit I cannot spell the name of, were thick for miles up and down the valley. We found Helene, her mother and her father, and several other members of the family, and were given a hearty welcome. Ernest talked French, Helene and her mother, Kanaka, while I used English, French and Kanaka—and we all used gestures. Her father could speak only the native tongue, and was an ordinary Kanaka. Her mother was a typical Tahitian. So I have never been able to understand why Helene should be so far above her class. Her environment had been no better; it must have been some strength of character, some intrinsic worth, that elevated her in station and in mind. Anyway, she proved that she was a person of authority on her own island when she ordered a big feast prepared in our honour, and the natives gathered with roasted wild boar and gave an imitation of their old-time "long-pig" feast.
We stayed at Helene's home until one o'clock in the morning. We remained four days on the island. Helene came to the village, to stay while we were in port. Later, we took a daylight trip to her mountain home, in order to enjoy the natural beauties. The scene from the waterfall was great. We had viewed some wonderful scenery in the Hawaiian and Marquesas p217 Islands, but nothing to compare with this. There was not a sign of cultivation anywhere—everything in its wild natural state; and as for fruit, it was everywhere in abundance, buds, blossoms, half-ripe and ripe fruit on the trees at the same time.
Before going further with the voyage of the Snark, and while the Snark is still anchored at Raiatea Island, I want to tell of the comic opera war that once occurred here.
The natives of Raiatea, tired of the French system of government, pulled down the French flag, and raised the flag of England. They put the French officials then living in Raiatea adrift in open boats. These people made their way to Papeete and informed the governor, who had never seen any more active service than strutting around the streets of Papeete, and did not know what to do in such an emergency. The governor went to the British consul stationed here, and demanded that he cause the natives of Raiatea to lower the British flag. Now the British consul was only a figure-head, and had never attended to any duties other than signing pratique papers for the British ships that came here. Sometimes as many as two or three a year dropped anchor in Papeete. The rest of the time there was nothing to do. So now he was nonplussed. Long debates took place. At last it was agreed that both governor and consul should go to Raiatea and put down the rebellion.