In my notebook I jotted down “interesting items”:—
Gilbertese stick-throwers.... One man with wreaths of flowers over head and shoulders, the other with pointed, fire-hardened stick about a yard long. Stick-thrower stood away from wreath-bearer only five yards, poised the stick, and after it had left his hand named the wreath that would be cut off. He never missed. If a man is accidentally killed by this, there is no legal penalty....
Concrete-topped graves to keep the tevoro from getting out. Graves decorated with dear possessions of deceased, derby hats, bottles, bicycles, spectacles, pipes. Saw one piano....
Wreckage that had floated to Tarawa from San Francisco ... common occurrence because of ocean currents....
Spiritualistic séance ... two old men and a hag sit in a one-room native house ... smoking short pipes, they go into a trance ... you ask them to make prophecies, simple ones like what’s tomorrow’s weather or when will the boat get in ... there’s a short silence, then you hear the queerest, eeriest whistling along the ridgepole ... pipes never leave their mouths. You run out to see if there is somebody on the roof ... bright moonlight, no accessory visible ... their prophecies are all wrong. They say it will rain tomorrow, but it’s clear, and the boat they name for Tuesday is a week late.... Probably ventriloquism....
All over the Pacific you hear brave stories of divers who cut the throats of man-eating sharks. When I ask about it they usually say “They do it in the Gilberts.” Made a standing offer of £5 for anybody who could do the trick. No takers. In Santa Ana, Solomons, I once saw boys thump sharks on the nose and take fish away from them. Here, when a canoe upsets, the natives climb into the wet sail, to avoid sharks....
But wonderful canoeing. Government is reviving the old custom of giant building. Saw one 109 feet long, sheer as a knife blade and with an outrigger float big as a young canoe. Could carry 150 natives; same people that once steered vast distances by the stars and with charts made of twigs and string. Gilbertese boys now prefer bicycles, but they’re making canoes on a grand scale....
District Officer of Tabatauea has one with accommodations like a yacht. I went out in a 30-footer, very fast. When they tack they disengage the mast in the stern and step it into a socket in the bow. Outrigger lifted clean out of the water, three men on it to keep it steady.... I got on to add my heavy weight. As we neared the ship, showing off, the outrigger’s framework stood almost upright, like a fence. We scooted around again and one of the native “captains” ran around on the uplifted outrigger. Seeing is believing. The swiftest of these canoes can make 18 knots. At the regatta in Sydney Harbor they rule them out—too fast, they always win....
I also made notes on the white inhabitants, and with a touch of sadness. Many of them had been so long away from the outer world and were so hungry for the sight of new faces that they joined the Pioneer at the slightest excuse until the boat looked like a picnic excursion. The resident physician was with us. A young cadet named Jones kept sending messengers, saying that he must be seen at once, as he’d had a serious accident. In mercy’s name we went to his island, 200 miles off our course—and found that he had nothing worse than a splinter in his leg and a slightly wrenched back. What he really wanted was an invitation for himself and his wife to join the joy ride, and I certainly sympathized with them. But the ship was already crowded to the gunwales.
The island group’s treasurer made the trip to check each island’s finances. He was a pleasant man, with a decided character of his own. Somehow I wasn’t surprised when he mildly informed me that he was a grandson of the frightful Bully Hayes. I had my phonograph along and delighted him by turning on the latest ditties from New York. Yes, he had a Victrola, he said, but the tunes it played were so mildewed that even his children were tired of them. When he got off the boat I gave him a record of “Mr. Gallagher and Mr. Shean,” and he was ever so grateful.... About the time our ship was turning back toward Fiji I heard of his death. For some morbid tropical reason he had taken his own life.