I whiled away many a pleasant hour, learning a few of the native words in song and gossip. It is hard to distinguish one native from the other at first, but Fulaanu stood out above the rest like a creature over-imbued with good-nature. She was flat, flabby, with a drawl in speech that had the effect not only in her voice but her entire bearing of a leaning Tower of Pisa. Her body bent backward, her head was tilted up, and her long, prominent nose also slanted almost with pride. She was an enormous girl, plain, soft, with absolutely no fighting-spirit in her, but she stood her ground against all masculine advances with a charm that was in itself teasingly alluring. She was always flanked on each side by a sailor. They pretended to teach her the ukulele, they proffered English lessons, they found one excuse after another for being near her, and she never shooed them away; but I'd swear by all the gods that not one of them ever more than held her hand or leaned lovingly against her.
Yet Fulaanu was as sentimental a maiden as I have ever laid eyes on. She was constantly drawling some sentimental song she had learned in California, the ukulele was seldom out of her hands, she never joined in any of the card games going on constantly roundabout her, and she was always ready to swap songs with any one willing to teach her.
"I teach you my language," she said to me, and slowly, with twinkling eyes, she pronounced certain words which I repeated. We had often taught French to our boys at our little school in California in that way,—the Marseillaise, for instance,—and the method was not strange to me. She used the song method, too, an old English song that was just then the rage in Samoa. The English words run somewhat like this:
And you will take my hand
As you did when you took my name;
But it's only a beautiful picture,
In a beautiful golden frame.
I'm sure I have them all muddled, but let me hum this tune to myself and immediately Fulaanu, the hold, Fiji, Samoa, and all the scents and sounds of savagedom come instantly to my mind. For everywhere I went they were singing this song, through their noses but with all the sentimental ardor of the young flapper; as at a summer resort in America when a new song hit has been made, the sound of it is heard from delivery boy to housemaid and as many different renderings of it as individual temperament demands.
There was Setu, too,—tall, straight, with that easy grace known only among people free of clothes. Setu spoke English very well, and was as companionable a chap as one could pick up in many a mile. But Setu's heart was not his own; he stood guardian over a treasure he had found in San Francisco. Not an American girl, no, sir! These savage boys did not play the devil in our land as our savages do in theirs. But Setu was the personification of chivalry, and, what was more, he was in love. To look at him and then at her was to despair of human instinct of natural selection. How an Apollo of his excellence should have been unable to find a more handsome objet d'amour, I cannot imagine. She was short, well rounded, with a head as square as Fulaanu's was oblong, and a nose as snubby as Fulaanu's was romanesque. She was evidently committed, body and soul, to Setu for she was as devoid of charm for the others as Fulaanu was full of it. And so all day long, Setu and his sweetheart hugged each other in a corner, as oblivious of the presence of a ship-load of people as though they had been ensconced in a hut of their own. They were evidently taking advantage of proximity to civilization, for such immodest behavior is not frequent in the tropics. Civilization had taught the savages some things at least. Whenever Setu was free from love-making, he would spare a moment to me, and on those rare occasions he stirred my spirit with promises of guidance in his native island that threatened to exhaust my funds.
The romantic associations we have with the South Seas were in this group reversed, for to these primitive people the greatest romance imaginable came with their journey to America. There young people from different islands met and fell in love with one another; there, under the benign influence of American spooning, one couple was married, and there their first baby was born,—an American subject, brought back to Pago Pago (American Samoa) to resume his citizenship. There they learned true modesty, which comprised stockings and heavy boys' shoes; the art of playing solitaire, in which one fat, matronly-looking woman indulged all day as though she had been brought along as chaperon and felt herself considerably out of it; and even en route for home they were learning the art of striking by calculation and without passion or frenzy.
I was sitting on the hatch with Fulaanu, who was strumming away on her ukulele, when a ring was formed in the middle of the hold and a young white man began boxing with a Samoan. The white boxer was obviously an amateur, bearing himself with all the unpleasant mannerisms of his profession,—a haughty, pugnacious, overbearing self-conceit. He had every advantage in training over his antagonist, whom he peppered vigorously. He kept it up when it was evident that the young Samoan was going under. One last blow and the fellow doubled over, bleeding from nose and mouth. It took ten minutes to bring him round. In the meanwhile, the victor of the unfair bout strutted around as though he had accomplished something remarkable.
It was interesting to see the effect this had on the "primitive" Samoans. There was consternation among them; a hush came over the hold. The vibration of the steamer and the splashing of the water against its iron side alone broke the stillness. The Samoan girls, though they did not grow hysterical, were most decidedly displeased, turning in disgust from the sight of blood. Yet according to our notions they are primitive, and the fact is that a few generations ago they were savages.
But they were not long in distress. The spell of the equatorial sun was upon them, and they soon relaxed. There upon mats, as in their own huts, lay rows of fat, large, voluptuous men and women; nor was there even a rope to separate the sexes as in an up-to-date Japanese bath. They seemed to sleep all day, in shifts governed by impulse only. A woman would rise and move about a while, then go back to lounge again. Enormous, broad-shouldered and black mustached men would snore gently, rise and inspect life, and decide that slumber was better for one's soul. But Fulaanu lounged with her ukulele, surrounded by amorous sailors who gazed longingly into her eyes.