 67 The journey round the beach. It was on the fourth day of the first month of the Hegira, or flight from Tamay, we now reckoned our time, thus, that, rising bright and early, we were up and away out of the valley of Martare, before the fishermen even were stirring. It was the earliest dawn. The morning only showed itself along the lower edge of a bank of purple clouds, pierced by the misty peaks of Tahiti. The tropical day seemed too languid to rise. Sometimes, starting fitfully, it decked the clouds with faint edgings of pink and gray, which, fading away, left all dim again. Anon it threw out thin pale rays, growing lighter and lighter, until, at last, the golden morning sprang out of the east with a bound, darting its bright beams hither and thither, higher and higher, and sending them broadcast over the face of the heavens. All balmy from the groves of Tahiti came an indolent air, cooled by its transit over the waters, and grateful underfoot was the damp and slightly yielding beach, from which the waves seemed just retired. The doctor was in famous spirits. Removing his rura, he went splashing into the sea, and, after swimming a few yards, waited ashore, hopping, skipping and jumping along the beach, but very careful to cut all his capers in the direction of our journey. Say what they will of the glowing independence one feels in the saddle, give me the first morning flush of your cheery pedestrian. Once exhilarated, we went on, as light-hearted and care-free as we could wish. And here I cannot refrain from lauding the very superior inducements, which most intertropical countries afford, not only to mere rovers like ourselves, but to penniless people generally. In these genial regions, ones once are naturally diminished, and those which remain are easily gratified, fuel, house shelter, and, if you please, clothing may be entirely dispensed with. How different are hard northern latitudes, alas the lot of a poor devil twenty degrees north of the Tropic of Cancer is indeed pitiable. At last the beach contracted to hardly a yard's width, and the dense thicket almost dipped into the sea. In place of the smooth sand, too, we had sharp fragments of broken coral, which made traveling exceedingly unpleasant. Lord, my foot! roared the doctor, fetching it up for inspection, with a galvanic fling of the limb. A sharp splinter had thrust itself into the flesh through a hole in his boot. My sandals were worse yet, their souls taking a sort of fossil impression of everything trod upon. Going round a bold sweep of the beach, we came upon a piece of fine open ground, with a fisherman's dwelling in the distance, crowning a knoll which rolled off into the water. The hut proved to be a low, rude erection, very recently thrown up, for the bamboos were still green as grass, and the thatching, fresh and fragrant as meadow hay. It was open upon three sides, so that upon drawing near, the domestic arrangements within were in plain sight. No one was stirring, and nothing was to be seen but a clumsy old chest of native workmanship, a few calabashes, and bundles of tapa hanging against a post, and a heap of something we knew not what in a dark corner. Upon close inspection, the doctor discovered it to be a loving old couple, locked in each other's arms, and rolled together in a tapa mantle. Halawa Darby, he cried, shaking the one with the beard. But Darby heeded him not, though Joan, a wrinkled old body, started up in a fright and yelled aloud. Neither of us attempted to gag her, she presently became quiet, and after staring hard and asking some intelligible questions, she proceeded to rouse her still slumbering mate. But ailed him we could not tell, but there was no waking him, equally in vain were all his dear spouse's cuffs, pinches, and other endearments. He lay like a log face up, and snoring away like a cavalry trumpeter. Here, my good woman, said long ghost, just let me try. And taking the patient right by his nose, he so lifted him bodily into a sitting position, and held him there until his eyes opened. When this event came to pass, Darby looked round like one stupefied, and then, springing to his feet, backed away into a corner, from which place we became the objects of his earnest and respectful attention. Permit me, my dear Darby, to introduce you to my esteemed friend and comrade, Paul, said the doctor, gallanting me up with all the grimace and flourish imaginable. When this, Darby began to recover his faculties, and surprised us not a little by talking a few words of English. So far as could be understood, they were expressive of his having been aware that there were two carhalrys in the neighborhood, that he was glad to see us, and would have something for us to eat in no time. How he came by his English was explained to us before we left. Time previous, he had been a denizen of papity, where the native language is broidered over with the most classic sailor phrases. He seemed to be quite proud of his residence there, and alluded to it in the same significant way in which a provincial informs you that in his time he has resided in the capital. The old fellow was disposed to be garrulous, but being sharp-set, we told him to get breakfast, after which we would hear his anecdotes. While employed among the Calabashes, the strange antiquated fondness between these old semi-savages was really amusing. I made no doubt that they were saying to each other, Yes, my love, know my life, just in the same way that some young couples do at home. They gave us a hearty meal, and while we were discussing its merits, they assured us over and over again that they expected nothing in return for their attentions. Therefore we were at liberty to stay as long as we pleased, and as long as we did stay, their house and everything they had was no longer theirs but ours. Still more, they themselves were our slaves, the old lady to a degree that was altogether superfluous. This now is dehesion-hospitality, self-immolation upon one's own hearthstone for the benefit of the guest. The pollinations carry their hospitality to an amazing extent. Let a native of Huayurar, the westernmost part of Tahiti, make his appearance as a traveler at Part 2y, the most easternly village of Aimeo. Though a perfect stranger, the inhabitants on all sides accost him at their doorways, inviting him to enter and make himself at home. But the traveler passes on, examining every house attentively, until at last he pauses before one which suits him, and then exclaiming, ah, and amaitai, this one will do, I think. He steps in and makes himself perfectly at ease, flinging himself upon the mats, and very probably calling for a nice young coconut and a piece of toasted breadfruit sliced thin and done brown. Curious to relate, however, should a stranger carrying it thus bravely be afterward discovered to be without a house of his own, why, he may then sporth go a-begging for his lodgings. The car-how-rees, or white men, are exceptions to this rule. Thus is it precisely as in civilized countries, where those who have houses and lands are incessantly bored to death with invitations to come and live in other people's houses, while many a poor gentleman who inks the seams of his coat, and to whom the like invitation would be really acceptable, may go and sue for it. But to the credit of the ancient Tahitians it should here be observed that this blemish upon their hospitality is only of recent origin, and was wholly unknown in old times. So told me, Captain Bob. In Polynesia it is esteemed a great hit if a man succeeded in marrying into a family to which the best part of the community is related, heaven knows it is otherwise with us. The reason is that when he goes a-traveling, the greater number of houses are the more completely at his service. Receiving a paternal benediction from old Darby and Joan, we continued our journey, resolved to stop at the very next place of attraction which offered. Nor did we long stroll for it, a fine walk along a beach of shells, and we came to a spot where with trees here and there the land was all meadow, sloping away to the water which stirred a sedgey growth of reeds bordering its margin. Close by was a little cove, welled in with coral, where a fleet of canoes was dancing up and down. A few paces distant on a natural terrace overlooking the sea were several native dwellings newly thatched and peeping into view out of the foliage like summer houses. As we drew near, forth came a burst of voices, and presently three gay girls overflowing with life, health, and youth, and full of spirits and mischief. One was arrayed in a flaunting robe of calico, and her long black hair was braided behind in two immense tresses joined together at the ends and wreathed with the green tendrils of a vine. From her self-possessed and forward air I fancied she might be some young lady from Pappity on a visit to her country relations. Her companions wore mere slips of cotton cloth, their hair was disheveled, and though very pretty, they betrayed the reserve and embarrassment characteristic of the provinces. The little gypsy first mentioned ran up to me with great cordiality, and giving the Tahitian salutation opened upon me such a fire of questions that there was no understanding much less answering them. But our hearty welcome to Luhulu, as she called the hamlet, was made plain enough. Meanwhile, Dr. Longost gallantly presented an arm to each of the other young ladies, which at first they knew not what to make of, but at last, taking it for some kind of joke, accepted the civility. The names of these three damsels were at once made known by themselves, and being so exceedingly romantic, I cannot forbear particularizing them. On my comrade's arms, then, were hanging night and morning in the persons of Farnowar, or the day-born, and Farnupu, or the night-born. She with the tresses was very appropriately styled Marhararar, the wakeful or bright-eyed. By this time the houses were emptied of the rest of their inmates, a few old men and women, and several strapping young fellows rubbing their eyes and yawning, all crowded round, putting questions as to whence we came. Upon being informed of our acquaintance with Zeke, they were delighted, and one of them recognized the boots worn by the doctor. Kiki, Zeke, my tie, they cried. Nui, nui, hana, hana, portarteau. Makes plenty of potatoes. There was now a little friendly altercation as to who should have the honor of entertaining the strangers. At last a tall old gentleman, by name Marharvai, with a bald head and white beard, took us each by the hand and led us into his dwelling. Once inside Marharvai, pointing about with his staff, was so obsequious in assuring us that his house was ours, that Longo suggested he might as well hand over the deed. It was drawing near noon, so after a light lunch of roasted breadfruit, a few whiffs of a pipe, and some lively chatting, our host admonished the company to lie down and take the everlasting siesta. We complied, and had a social nap all round. CHAPTER 68 A DINNER PARTY IN IMEO It was just in the middle of the merry mellow afternoon that they ushered us to dinner underneath a green shelter of palm-bows, open all round and so low at the eaves that we stooped to enter. Thin the ground was strewn over with aromatic ferns, called Nahi, freshly gathered, which, stirred under foot, diffused the sweetest odor. On one side was a row of yellow mats, in rot with fibers of bark, stained a bright red. Here, seated after the fashion of the Turk, we looked out over a verdant bank upon the mild blue endless pacific. So far round had we skirted the island that the view of Tahiti was now intercepted. Upon the ferns before us were laid several layers of broad, thick poo-ru leaves, lapping over one upon the other, and upon these were placed side by side, newly plucked banana leaves at least two yards in length and very wide. The stalks were withdrawn so as to make them lie flat. This green cloth was set out and garnished in the manner following. First a number of poo-ru leaves by way of plates were ranged along on one side, and by each was a rustic nut-ball half filled with seawater and a Tahitian roll or small breadfruit roasted brown. An immense flat calabash placed in the center was heaped up with numberless small packages of moist, steaming leaves. In each was a small fish baked in the earth and done to a turn. This pyramid of a dish was flanked on either side by an ornamental calabash. One was brimming with the golden-hued poe, or pudding, made from the red plantain of the mountains. The other was stacked up with cakes of the Indian turnip previously macerated on a mortar, kneaded with the milk of the coconut, and then baked. In the spaces between the three dishes were piled young coconuts stripped of their husks. Their eyes had been opened and enlarged so that each was a ready charged goblet. There was a sort of sidecloth in one corner upon which in bright buff jackets lay the fattest of bananas, avi's red ripe guavas with the shadows of their crimson pulp flushing through a transparent skin and almost coming and going there like blushes, oranges tinged here and there berry-brown, and great jolly melons which rolled about in very portliness. Such a heap, all ruddy, ripe and round, bursting with the good cheer of the tropical soil from which they sprang. A land of orchards cried the doctor in a rapture, and he snatched a morsel from a sort of fruit of which gentlemen of the sanguine temperament are remarkably fond, namely the ripe cherry lips of Miss Dayborne who stood looking on. Our harvai allotted seats to his guests, and the meal began. Thinking that his hospitality needed some acknowledgement, I rose and pledged him in the vegetable wine of the coconut, merely repeating the ordinary salutation, yar onor boyoi. Sensible that some compliment after the fashion of white men was paid him with a smile and a courteous flourish of the hand, he bade me be seated. No people, however refined, are more easy and graceful in their manners than the aimeos. The doctor, sitting next to our host, now came under his special protection. Lying before his guest one of the packages of fish, marharvai opened it and commended its contents to his particular regards. But my comrade was one of those who, on convivial occasions, can always take care of themselves. He ate an indefinite number of pehi lilies, small fish, his own and his next neighbor's breadfruit, and helped himself to write in left with all the ease of an accomplished diner out. Paul, said he at last, you don't seem to be getting along. Why don't you try the pepper sauce? And by way of example, he steeped a morsel of food into his nutful of sea water. On following suit I found it quite peacant, though rather bitter, but on the whole a capital substitute for salt. The aimeos invariably used sea water in this way, deeming it quite a treat, and considering that their country is surrounded by an ocean of ketchup, the luxury cannot be deemed an expensive one. The fish were delicious, the manner of cooking them in the ground, preserving all the juices and rendering them exceedingly sweet and tender. The plantain pudding was almost cloying, the cakes of Indian turnip quite palatable, and the roasted breadfruit crisp as toast. During the meal a native lad walked round and round the party, carrying a long staff of bamboo. This he occasionally tapped upon the cloth before each guest, when a white clotted substance dropped forth with a saber not unlike that of a curd. This proved to be lony and excellent relish, prepared from the grated meat of ripe coconuts, moistened with coconut milk and sea water, and kept perfectly tight until a little past the saccharine stage of fermentation. Throughout the repast there was much lively chatting among the islanders in which their conversational powers quite exceeded ours. The young ladies, too, showed themselves very expert in the use of their tongues, and contributed much to the gaiety which prevailed. Nor did these lively nymphs suffer the meal to languish, or upon the doctors throwing himself back with an air of much satisfaction, they sprang to their feet and pelted him with oranges and guavas. This at last put an end to the entertainment. By a hundred whimsical oddities my long friend became a great favorite with these people, and they bestowed upon him a long comical title expressive of his length figure and rura combined. The latter, by the by, never failed to excite the remark of everybody we encountered. The giving of nicknames is quite a passion with the people of Tahiti and Aimeo. No one with any peculiarity, whether of person or temper, is exempt, not even strangers. A pompous captain of a man of war visiting Tahiti for the second time discovered that, among the natives, he went by the dignified title of Ati Poi, literally Poi Head, or Pudding Head. Nor is the highest rank among themselves any protection. The first husband of the present queen was commonly known in the court circles as Potbelly. He carried the greater part of his person before him to be sure, and so did the gentlemanly George IV. But what a title for a king consort. Even Pomeri itself, the royal patronymic, was originally a mere nickname and literally signifies one talking through one's nose. The first monarch of that name, being on a war party and sleeping overnight among the mountains, awoke one morning with a cold in his head, and some wag of a courtier had no more manners than to vulgarize him thus. How different from the volatile Polynesian in this, as in all other respects, is our graven decorus North American Indian. While the former bestows a name in accordance with some humorous or ignoble trait, the latter seizes upon what is deemed the most exalted or warlike. And hence among the red tribes we have the truly patrician appellations of white eagles, young oaks, fiery eyes, and bended bows. End of chapters 67 and 68, recording by Tricia G. Chapters 69 and 70 of Omu. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Omu, a narrative of adventures in the South Seas, by Herman Melville. Chapter 69, The Coco Palm. While the doctor and the natives were taking a digestive nap after dinner, I strolled forth to have a peep at the country which could produce so generous a meal. To my surprise, a fine strip of land in the vicinity of the hamlet and protected seaward by a grove of coconut and breadfruit trees was under high cultivation. Sweet potatoes, Indian turnips, and yams were growing, also melons, a few pineapples, and other fruits. Still more pleasing was the sight of young breadfruit and coconut trees set out with great care, as if for once the improvident Polynesian had thought of his posterity. But this was the only instance of native thrift which ever came under my observation. For in all my rambles over Tahiti and Aimeo, nothing so much struck me as the comparative scarcity of these trees in many places where they ought to abound. Entire valleys, like martyre, of inexhaustible fertility, are abandoned to all the rankness of untamed vegetation. Alluvial flats bordering the sea and watered by streams from the mountains are overgrown with a wild scrub guava bush introduced by foreigners and which spreads with such fatal rapidity that the natives, standing still while it grows, anticipate it's covering the entire island. Even tracks of clear land, which, with so little pains, might be made to wave with orchards, lie wholly neglected. When I consider their unequaled soil and climate, thus unaccountably slighted, I often turned an amazement upon the natives about Papiti, some of whom all but starve in their gardens run to waste. Upon other islands which I have visited of similar fertility and wholly unreclaimed from their first discovered condition, no spectacle of this sort was presented. The high estimation in which many of their breadfruit trees are held by the Tahitians and Aimeos, their beauty in the landscape, their manifold uses, and the facility with which they are propagated are considerations which render the remissness alluded to still more unaccountable. The cocoa palm is an example, a tree by far the most important production of nature in the tropics. To the Polynesian, it is emphatically the tree of life, transcending even the breadfruit in the multifarious uses to which it is applied. Its very aspect is imposing. Asserting its supremacy by an erect and lofty bearing, it may be said to compare with our trees as man with inferior creatures. The blessings it confers are incalculable. Year after year, the islanders repose beneath its shade, both eating and drinking of its fruit. He thatches his hut with its boughs and weaves them into baskets to carry his food. He cools himself with a fan plated from the young leaflets and shades his head from the sun by a bonnet of the leaves. Sometimes he clothes himself with the cloth-like substance which wraps round the base of the stalks, whose elastic rods strung with filberts are used as a taper. The larger nuts, thinned and polished, furnish him with a beautiful goblet, the smaller ones with bowls for his pipes. The dry husks kindle his fires. Their fibers are twisted into fishing lines and cords for his canoes. He heals his wounds with a balsam compounded from the juice of the nut and with the oil extracted from its meat embalms the bodies of the dead. The noble trunk itself is far from being valueless. Sawn into posts, it upholds the islanders dwelling. Converted into charcoal, it cooks his food and supported on blocks of stones rails in his lands. He impels his canoe through the water with a paddle of the wood and goes to battle with clubs and spears of the same hard material. In Pagan Tahiti, a coconut branch was the symbol of regal authority. Late upon the sacrifice in the temple, it made the offering sacred and with it the priests chastised and put to flight the evil spirits which assailed them. The supreme majesty of Oro, the great god of their mythology was declared in the coconut log from which his image was rudely carved. Upon one of the Tonga islands, there stands a living tree revered itself as a deity. Even upon the sandwich islands, the coco palm retains all its ancient reputation, the people there having thought of adopting it as the national emblem. The coconut is planted as follows. Selecting a suitable place, you drop into the ground a fully ripe nut and leave it. In a few days, a thin lance-like chute horses itself through a minute hole in the shell, pierces the husk and soon unfolds three pale green leaves in the air. While originating in the same soft white sponge which now completely fills the nut, a pair of fibrous roots pushing away the stoppers which close two holes in an opposite direction, penetrate the shell and strike vertically into the ground. A day or two more in the shell and husk which in the last and germinating stage of the nut are so hard that a knife will scarcely make any impression, spontaneously burst by some force within. And henceforth, the hearty young plant thrives apace and needing no culture, pruning or attention of any sort, rapidly arrives at maturity. In four or five years it bears. In twice as many more, it begins to lift its head among the groves where waxing strong, it flourishes for near a century. Thus, as some voyager has said, the man who but drops one of those nuts into the ground may be set to confer a greater and more certain benefit upon himself and posterity than many a life's toil in less genial clines. The fruitfulness of the tree is remarkable. As long as it lives, it bears and without intermission. 200 nuts besides innumerable white blossoms of others may be seen upon it at one time. And though a whole year is required to bring any one of them to the germinating point, no two perhaps are at one time in precisely the same stage of growth. The tree delights in a maritime situation. In its greatest perfection, it is perhaps found right on the seashore where its roots are actually washed. But such instances are only met with upon islands where the swell of the sea is prevented from breaking on the beach by an encircling reef. No saline flavor is perceptible in the nut produced in such a place. Although it bears in any soil, whether upland or bottom, it does not flourish vigorously inland. And I have frequently observed that when met with far up in the valleys, it's tall stem inclined seaward as if pining after a more genial region. It is a curious fact that if you deprive the coconut tree of the verdant tuft at its head, it dies at once. And if allowed to stand thus, the trunk, which when alive is encased in so hard a bark as to be almost impervious to a bullet molders away and in an incredibly short period becomes dust. This is perhaps partly owing to the peculiar constitution of the trunk, a mere cylinder of minute hollow reeds closely packed and very hard. But when exposed at top, peculiarly fitted to convey moisture and decay through the entire stem. The finest orchard of cocoa palms I know and the only plantation of them I ever saw at the islands is one that stands right upon the southern shore of Papati Bay. They were set out by the first palmery almost a half century ago and the soil being especially adapted to their growth, the noble trees now form a magnificent grove nearly a mile in extent. No other plant scarcely a bush is to be seen within its precincts. The broom road passes through its entire length. At noon day, this grove is one of the most beautiful serene witching places that ever was seen. High overhead are ranges of green rustling arches through which the sun's rays come down to you in sparkles. You seem to be wandering through illimitable halls of pillars everywhere you catch glimpses of stately aisles intersecting each other at all points. A strange silence too rains far and near. The air flushed with the mellow stillness of a sunset. But after the long morning calms the sea breeze comes in and creeping over the tops of these thousand trees they nod their plumes. Soon the breeze freshens and you hear the branches brushing against each other and the flexible trunks begin to sway. Towards evening, the whole grove is rocking to and fro and the traveler on the broom road is startled by the frequent falling of the nuts snapped from their brittle stems. They come flying through the air ringing like juggler's balls and often bound along the ground for many rods. Chapter 70 Life at Luhulu Finding the society at Luhulu very pleasant the young ladies in particular being extremely sociable and moreover in love with the famous good cheer of Oldmar Harvi we acquiesced in an invitation of his to tarry a few days longer. We might then he said join a small canoe party which was going to a place a league or two distant. So averse to all exertion are these people that they really thought the prospect of thus getting rid of a few miles walking would prevail with us even if there were no other inducement. The people of the Hamlet as we soon discovered formed a snug little community of cousins of which our host seemed the head. Marharvi in truth was a petty chief who owned the neighboring islands and as the wealthy in most cases rejoiced in a numerous kindred the family footing upon which everybody visited him was perhaps ascribable to the fact of his being the Lord of the Manor. Like Captain Bob he was in some things a gentleman of the old school a stickler for the customs of a past and pagan age. Nowhere else except in Tamay did we find the manners of the natives less vitiated by recent changes. The old-fashioned Tahitian dinner they gave us on the day of our arrival was a fair sample of their general mode of living. Our time passed delightfully. The doctor went his way and I mine. With a pleasant companion he was forever strolling inland ostensibly to collect botanical specimens while I for the most part kept near the sea sometimes taking the girls and aquatic excursion in a canoe. Often we went fishing not dozing over stupid hooks and lines but leaping right into the water and chasing our prey over the coral rocks spear in hand. Spearing fish is a glorious sport. The Imeos all around the island catch them in no other way. The smooth shallows between the reef and the shore and at low water the reef itself being admirably adapted to this mode of capturing them. At almost any time of the day save ever the sacred hour of noon you may see the fish hunters pursuing their sport with loud halos brandishing their spears and splashing through the water in all directions. Sometimes a solitary native is seen far out upon a lonely shallow waiting slowly along with eye intent and poised spear. But the best sport of all is going out upon the great reef itself by torchlight. The natives follow this recreation with as much spirit as a gentleman of England does the chase and take full as much delight in it. The torch is nothing more than a bunch of dry reeds bound firmly together. The spear along light pole with an iron head on one side barbed. I shall never forget the night that old Marharvi and the rest of us paddling off to the reef leaped at midnight upon the coral ledges with waving torches and spears. We were more than a mile from the land the sullen ocean thundering upon the outside of the rocks dashed the spray in our faces almost extinguishing the flambos and far as the eye could reach the darkness of sky and water was streaked with a long misty line of foam marking the course of the coral barrier. The wild fishermen flourishing their weapons and yelling like so many demons to scare their prey spraying from ledge to ledge and sometimes darted their spears in the very midst of the breakers. But fish spearing was not the only sport we had at Luhulu. Right on the beach was a mighty old coconut tree the roots of which had been underwashed by the waves so that the trunk inclined far over its base. From the tuft of the tree a stout cord of bark depended the end of which swept the water several yards from the shore. This was a Tahitian swing. A native lad seizes hold of the cord and after swinging to and fro quite leisurely all it once sends himself 50 or 60 feet from the water rushing through the air like a rocket. I doubt whether any of our rope dancers would attempt the feat. For my own part I had neither head nor heart for it. So after sending a lad aloft with an additional cord by way of security I constructed a large basket of green boughs in which I and some particular friends of mine used to swing over sea and land by the hour. End of chapters 69 and 70 recording by Trisha G. Chapter 71 and 72 of Omu. This Librabox recording is in the public domain. Omu, a narrative of adventures in the South Seas by Herman Melville. Chapter 71. We start for Talu. Bright was the morning and brighter still the smiles of the young ladies who accompanied us when we spring into a sort of family canoe wide and roomy and bid adieu to the hospitable Marharvi and his tenantry. As we paddled away they stood on the beach waving their hands and crying out, aroha, aroha, farewell, farewell as long as we were within hearing. Very sad at parting with them we endeavored nevertheless to console ourselves in the society of our fellow passengers. Among these were two old ladies but as they said nothing to us we will say nothing about them nor anything about the old men who managed the canoe but of the three mischievous dark-eyed young witches who lounged in the stern of that comfortable old island gondola I have a great deal to say. In the first place one of them was Marhararar, the bright-eyed and in the second place neither she nor the roms, her companions ever dreamed of taking the voyage until the doctor and myself announced our intention. Their going along was nothing more than a madcap frolic. In short, they were a parcel of wicked hoidens bent on mischief who laughed in your face when you looked sentimental and only tolerated your company when making merry at your expense. Something or other about us was perpetually awaking their mirth. Attributing this to his own remarkable figure the doctor increased their enjoyment by assuming the part of a merry Andrew yet his cap and bells never jingled but to some tune and while playing the tomfool I more than suspected that he was trying to play the rake. At home it is deemed auspicious to go a wooing in appellates but coming among the Polynesians your best dress in courting is motley. A fresh breeze springing up we set our sail of matting and glided along as tranquilly as if floating upon an island stream the white reef on one hand and the green shore on the other. Soon as we turned to headland we encountered another canoe paddling with might and mane in an opposite direction. The strangers shouting to each other and a tall fellow in the bow dancing up and down like a crazy man. They shot by us like an arrow though our fellow voyagers shouted again and again for them to cease paddling. According to the natives this was a kind of royal male canoe carrying a message from the queen to her friends in a distant part of the island. Passing several shady bowers which looked quite inviting we proposed touching and diversifying the monotony of a sea voyage by a stroll ashore. So forcing our canoe among the bushes behind a decayed palm lying partly in the water we left the old folks to take a nap in the shade and gallanted the others among the trees which were here trellis with vines and creeping shrubs. In the early part of the afternoon we drew near the place to which the party were going. It was a solitary house inhabited by four or five old women who when we entered were gathered in a circle about the mats eating poi from a cracked calabash. They seemed delighted at seeing our companions but rather drew up when introduced to ourselves. Eyeing us distrustfully they whispered to know who we were. The answers they received were not satisfactory for they treated us with marked coolness and reserve and seemed desirous of breaking off our acquaintance with the girls. Unwilling therefore to stay where our company was disagreeable we resolved to depart without even eating a meal. Informed of this Marharara in her companions evens the most lively concern and equally unmindful of their former spirits and the remonstrances of the old ladies broke forth into sobs and lamentations which were not to be withstood. We agreed therefore to tarry until they left for home which would be at the Aheharara or falling of the sun in other words at sunset. When the hour arrived after much leave-taking we saw them safely embarked. As the canoe turned to bluff they seized the paddles from the hands of the old men and waved them silently in the air. This was meant for a touching farewell as the paddle is only waved thus when the parties separating never more expect to meet. We now continued our journey and following the beach soon came to a level and lofty overhanging bank which planted here and there with trees took a broad sweep round a considerable part of the island. A fine pathway skirted the edge of the bank and often we paused to admire the scenery. The evening was still and fair even for so heavenly a climate and all around far as the eye could reach was the bending blue sky and ocean. As we went on the reef belt still accompanied us turning as we turned and thundering its distant base upon the ear like the unbroken roar of a cataract. Dashing forever against their coral rampart the breakers looked in the distance like a line of rearing white chargers rained in tossing their white mains and bridling with foam. These great natural breakwaters are admirably designed for the protection of this land. Nearly all the society islands are defended by them were the vast swells of the Pacific to break against the soft alluvial bottoms which in many places border the sea. The soil would soon be washed away and the natives be thus deprived of their most productive lands. As it is the banks of no rivulet are firmer. But the coral barriers answer another purpose. They form all the harbors of this group including the 24 round about the shores of Tahiti. Curiously enough the openings in the reefs by which alone vessels entered to their anchorage are invariably opposite the mouths of running streams an advantage fully appreciated by the mariner who touches for the purpose of watering his ship. It is said that the fresh water of the island mixing with the salts held in solution by the sea so acts upon the ladder as to resist the formation of the coral and hence the breaks. Here and there these openings are sentineled as it were by little fairy islands green as emerald and waving with palms. Strangely and beautifully diversifying the line of breakers no objects can strike the fancy more vividly. Homery the second with a taste in watering places truly Tahitian selected one of them as a royal retreat. We passed it on our journey. Omitting several further adventures which befell us after leaving the party from Luhulu we must now hurry on to relate what happened just before reaching the place of our destination. Chapter 72 a dealer in the contraband. It must have been at least the 10th day reckoning from the Hegira that we found ourselves the guests of Varvi an old hermit of an islander who kept house by himself perhaps a couple of leagues from Talu. A stone's cast from the beach there was a fantastic rock moss grown and deep in a dowel. It was insulated by a shallow brook which dividing its waters float on both sides until united below. Twisting its roots round the rock a gnarled awawa spread itself overhead in a wilderness of foliage. The elastic branch roots depending from the larger bows insinuating themselves into every cleft thus forming supports to the parent stem. In some places these pendulous branches half grown had not yet reached the rock swinging their loose fibrous ends in the air like whiplashes. Varvi's hut, a mere coop of bamboos was perched upon a level part of the rock the ridge pole resting at one end in a crotch of the awawa and the other propped by a forked bow planted in a fissure. Notwithstanding our cries as we drew near the first hint the old hermit received of our approach was the doctor stepping up and touching his shoulder as he was kneeling over on a stone cleaning fish in the brook. He leaped up and stared at us but with a variety of uncouth gestures he soon made us welcome informing us by the same means that he was both deaf and dumb. He then motioned us into his dwelling. Going in we threw ourselves upon an old mat and peered round. The soiled bamboos and calabashes looked so uninviting that the doctor was for pushing on to Talu that night notwithstanding it was near sunset but at length we concluded to stay where we were. After a good deal of bustling outside under a decrepit shed the old man made his appearance with our supper. In one hand he held a flickering taper and in the other a huge flat calabash scantily filled with vines. His eyes were dancing in his head and he looked from the calabash to us and from us to the calabash as much to say, ah, my lads, what do you think of this, eh? Pretty good cheer, eh? But the fish and indian turnip being none of the best we made but a sorry meal. While discussing it the old man tried hard to make himself understood by signs most of which were so excessively ludicrous that we made no doubt he was perpetrating a series of pantomimic jokes. The remnants of the feast removed our host left us for a moment returning with a calabash of portly dimensions and furnished with a long hooded neck the mouth of which was stopped with a wooden plug. It was covered with particles of earth and looked as if just taken from some place underground. With sundry winks and horrible giggles peculiar to the dumb the vegetable demi-john was now tapped. The old fellow looking round cautiously and pointing at it as much as to intimate that it contained something which was taboo or forbidden. Aware that intoxicating liquors were strictly prohibited to the natives we now watched our entertainer with much interest. Charging a coconut shell he tossed it off and then filling it up again presented the goblet to me. Disliking the smell I made faces at it upon which he became highly excited so much so that a miracle was wrought upon the spot. Snatching the cup from my hands he shouted out ah, car-how-ree-sabby-le-lee and a ar-vah-tay-mai-tai. In other words, what a blockhead of a white man this is the real stuff. We could not have been more startled had a frog leaped from his mouth. For an instant he looked confused in up himself and then placing a finger mysteriously upon his mouth he contrived to make us understand that at times he was subject to a suspension of the powers of speech. Deeming the phenomenon a remarkable one every way the doctor desired him to open his mouth so that he might have a look down but he refused. This occurrence made us rather suspicious of our host nor could we afterwards account for his conduct except by supposing that his feigning deafness might in some way or other assist him in the nefarious pursuits in which it afterwards turned out that he was engaged. This conclusion however was not altogether satisfactory. To oblige him we at last took a sip of his ar-vah-tay and found it very crude and strong as Lucifer. Curious to know once it was obtained we questioned him when lighting up with pleasure he seized the taper and let us outside the hut bidding us follow. After going some distance through the woods we came to a dismantled old shed of boughs apparently abandoned to decay. Underneath nothing was to be seen but heaps of decaying leaves in an immense clumsy jar wide-mouthed and by some means brutally hollowed out from a ponderous stone. Here for a while we were left to ourselves the old man placing the light in the jar and then disappearing. He returned carrying a long large bamboo and a crotch stick. Throwing these down he poked under a pile of rubbish and brought out a rough block of wood pierced through and through with a hole which was immediately clapped on top of the jar. Then planting the crotch stick upright about two yards distant and making it sustain one end of the bamboo he inserted the other end of the ladder into the hole in the block concluding these arrangements by placing an old calabash under the further end of the bamboo. Coming up to us now with a sly significant look and pointing admirably at his apparatus he exclaimed, ah kahauri anahana hana arvati as much as to say this you see is the way it's done. His contrivance was nothing less than a native still where he manufactured his island protein. The disarray in which we found it was probably intentional as a security against detection. Before we left the shed the old fellow toppled the whole concern over and dragged it away piecemeal. His disclosing his secret to us thus was characteristic of the two Tai Auri's or condemners of the missionaries among the natives who presuming that all foreigners are opposed to the ascendancy of the missionaries take pleasure in making them confidence whenever the enactments of their rulers are secretly said it not. The substance from which the liquor is produced is called tea which is a large fibrous root something like a yam but smaller in its green state it is exceedingly accurate but boiled or baked has the sweetness of the sugar cane. After being subjected to the fire macerated and reduced to a certain stage of fermentation the tea is stirred up with water and is then ready for distillation. On returning to the hut pipes were introduced and after a while Longost who at first had relished the arvati as little as myself to my surprise began to act sociable over it with barvy and before Long absolutely got mellow the old topper keeping him company. It was a curious sight everyone knows that so long as the occasion lasts there is no stronger bond of sympathy and good feeling among men than getting tipsy together and how earnestly name movingly abrasive worthy's thus employed will endeavor to shed light upon and elucidate their mystical ideas. Fancy barvy and the doctor then lovingly tippling and brimming over with a desire to become better acquainted the doctor politely bent upon carrying on the conversation in the language of his host and the old hermit persisting in trying to talk English. The result was that between the two they made such a fricacy of vowels and consonants that it was enough to turn one's brain. The next morning on waking I heard a voice from the tombs it was the doctor solemnly pronouncing himself a dead man. He was sitting up with both hands clasped over his forehead and his pale face a thousand times paler than ever. That infernal stuff has murdered me. He cried. Heavens, my heads all wheels and springs like the automaton chess player. What's to be done, Paul? I'm poisoned. But after drinking an herbal draft concocted by our host and eating a light meal at noon he felt much better so much so that he declared himself ready to continue our journey. When we came to start the Yankees boots were missing and after a diligent search were not to be found. Enraged beyond measure their proprietor said that Barbie must have stolen them but considering his hospitality I thought this extremely improbable though to whom else to impute the theft I knew not. The doctor maintained, however, that one who was capable of drugging an innocent traveler with RVT was capable of anything. But it was in vain that he stormed and Barbie and I searched. The boots were gone. Were it not for this mysterious occurrence and Barbie's detestable liquors I would here recommend all travelers going round by the beach to Partouy to stop at the rock and patronize the old gentleman the more especially as he entertains Gradis. End of chapters 71 and 72 recording by Tricia G. Chapter 73 and 74 of Oumu the slipper box recording is in the public domain Oumu a narrative of adventures in the South Seas by Herman Melville Chapter 73 our reception at Partouy upon starting at last I flung away my sandals by this time quite worn out with the view of keeping company with the doctor now forced to go barefooted recovering his spirits in good time he protested that boots were a bore after all and going without them decidedly manly. This was said be it observed while strolling along over a soft carpet of grass a little moist even at midday from the shade of the wood through which we were passing emerging from this we entered upon a blank sandy tract upon which the sun's rays fairly flashed making the loose gravel underfoot well nigh as hot as the floor of an oven such yelling and leaping as there was in getting over this ground would be hard to surpass we could not have crossed it all until towards sunset had it not been for a few small wiry bushes growing here and there into which we every now and then thrust our feet to cool there was no little judgment necessary in selecting your bush for if not chosen judiciously the chances were that on springing forward again and finding the next bush so far off that an intermediate cooling was indispensable you would have to run back to your old place again. Safely passing the Sahara or fiery desert we soothed our half blistered feet by a pleasant walk through a meadow of long grass which soon brought us inside of a few straggling houses sheltered by a grove on the outskirts of the village of Part 2Y my comrade was for entering the first one we came to but on drawing near they had so much of an air of pretension at least for native dwellings that I hesitated thinking they might be the residences of the higher chiefs from whom no very extravagant welcome was to be anticipated while standing irresolute a voice from the nearest house hailed us Aramay, Aramay Karhawri come in, come in, strangers we had once entered and were warmly greeted the master of the house was an aristocratic looking islander dressed in loose cotton drawers a fine white shirt and a sash of red silk tied around the waist after the fashion of the Spaniards in Chile he came up to us with a free frank air and striking his chest with his hand introduced himself as Iremir Popol or to render the Christian name back again into English Jeremiah Popol these curious combinations of names among the people of the society islands originate in the following way when a native is baptized his patronimic often gives a fence to the missionaries and they insist upon changing to something else whatever is objectionable therein so when Jeremiah came to the font and gave his name as Narmonana Popol something equivalent to the Darer of the Devils by night the Reverend Gentleman officiating told him that such a heathenish appellation would never do and a substitute must be had at least for the devil part of it some highly respectable Christian appellations were then submitted from which the candidate for admission into the church was at liberty to choose there was Adam, Adam Noah, Noah David, David Irkobar, James Eorna, John Petura, Peter Iremir, Jeremiah, etc and thus did he come to be named Jeremiah Popol or Jeremiah in the dark which he certainly was a fancy as to the ridiculousness of his new cognamen we gave our names in return upon which he made us be seated and sitting down himself asked us a great many questions in mixed English and Tahitian after giving some directions to an old man to prepare food our host's wife a large benevolent looking woman upwards of forty also sat down by us in our soiled and travel-stained appearance the good ladies seemed to find abundant matter for commissuration and all the while kept looking at us piteously and making mournful exclamations but Jeremiah and his spouse were not the only inmates of the mansion in one corner upon a large native couch elevated upon posts reclined a nymph who, half veiled in her own long hair had yet to make her toilet for the day she was the only daughter of Popol and a very beautiful little daughter she was not more than fourteen with the most delightful shape like a bud just blown and large hazel eyes they called her Lou a name rather pretty and genteel and therefore quite appropriate for a more genteel and lady-like little damsel there was not in all aimeo she was a cold and haughty young beauty though this same little Lou and never danged to notice us further than now and then to let her eyes float over our persons with an expression of indolent indifference with the tears of the Luhulu girls hardly dry from their sobbing upon our shoulders this contemptuous treatment stung us not a little when we first entered Popol was raking smooth the carpet of dried ferns which had that morning been newly laid and now that our meal was ready it was spread on a banana leaf right upon this fragrant floor here we launched at our ease eating baked pig and breadfruit off earthen plates and using for the first time in many a long month these as well as other symptoms of refinement somewhat abated our surprise at the reserve of the little Luh her parents doubtless were magnates in part 2 y and she herself was an heiress after being informed of our stay in the Vale of Martyr they were very curious to know on what errand we came to Talu we merely hinted that the ship lying in the harbor was the reason of our coming life was a right motherly body the meal over she recommended a nap and upon our waking much refreshed she led us to the doorway and pointed down among the trees through which we saw the gleam of water taking the hint we repaired thither and finding a deep shaded pool bathed and returned to the house our hostess now sat down by us and after looking with great interest at the doctor's cloak she scattered garments for the hundredth time and exclaimed plaintively ah Nui Nui Olimani Olimani alas they are very very old very old when our Freeti good soul thus addressed us she thought she was talking very respectable English the word Nui is so familiar to foreigners throughout Polynesia and is so often used by them in their intercourse with the natives that the latter supposed to be common all mankind Olimani is the native pronunciation of old man which by society islanders talking Saxon is applied indiscriminately to all aged things in persons whatsoever going to a chest filled with various European articles she took out two suits of new sailor frocks and trousers and presenting them with a gracious smile pushed us behind a calico screen and left us with all these scruples we donned the garments and what with the meal the nap in the bath we now came forth like a couple of bridegrooms evening drawing on lamps were lighted they were very simple the half of a green melon about one third full of coconut oil and a wick of twisted tappa floating on the surface as a night lamp this contrivance cannot be excelled as the evening advanced other members of the household whom as yet we had not seen began to drop in there was a slender young dandy in a gay striped shirt and whole fathoms of bright figured calico talked about his waist and falling to the ground he wore a new straw hat also with three distinct ribbons tied about the crown one black one green and one pink shoes or stockings however there were a couple of delicate olive cheeked little girls twins with mild eyes and beautiful hair who ran about the house half naked like a couple of gazelles they had a brother somewhat younger a fine dark boy with an eye like a woman's all these were the children of popo be gotten in lawful wedlock then there were two or three queer looking old ladies who wore shabby mantles of soiled sheeding which fitted so badly and with all had such a second hand look that I at once put their wearers down as domestic poppers who were relations supported by the bounty of my lady our free tea they were sad meek old bodies said little and ate less and either kept their eyes on the ground or lifted them up deferentially the semi-civilization of the island must have had something to do with making them what they were I had almost forgotten mony the grinning old man who prepared our meal his head was a shining bald globe he had a round little punch and legs like a cat he was popo spectotum cook butler and climber of the breadfruit and coconut trees and added to all else a mighty favorite with his mistress with whom he would sit smoking and gossiping by the hour often you saw the indefatigable mony working away at a great rate then dropping his employment all at once never mind what run off to a little distance and after rolling himself away in a corner and taking a nap jump up again and fall too with fresh vigor from a certain something in the behavior of popo and his household I was led to believe that he was a pillar of the church though from what I had seen in Tahiti I could hardly reconcile such a supposition with his frank cordial air but I was not wrong in my conjecture popo turned out to be a sort of elder or deacon he was also accounted a man of wealth and was nearly related to a high chief before retiring the entire household gathered upon the floor and in their midst he read aloud a chapter from a Tahitian Bible then kneeling with the rest of us he offered up a prayer upon its conclusion all separated without speaking these devotions took place regularly every night and morning Grace too was invariably said by this family both before and after eating after becoming familiarized with the almost utter destitution of anything like practical piety upon these islands what I observed in our host's house astonished me much but whatever others might have been popo was in truth a Christian the only one our Freeti accepted whom I personally knew to be such among all the natives of Polynesia chapter 74 retiring for the night the doctor grows devout they put us to bed very pleasantly lying across the foot of popo's nuptial couch was a smaller one made of core wood a thin strong cord twisted from the fibers of the husk of the coconut and woven into an exceedingly light sort of network forming its elastic body spread upon this was a single fine mat with a roll of dried ferns for a pillow and a strip of white tappa for a sheet this couch was mine the doctor was provided for in another corner Lou reposed alone on a little seti with a taper burning by her side the dandy her brother swinging overhead in a sailor's hammock the two gazelles frisked upon a mat nearby and the indigent relations borrowed a scant corner of the old butler's pallet who snored away by the open door after all had retired popo placed the illuminated melon in the middle of the apartment and so we all slumbered till morning upon waking the sun was streaming brightly through the open bamboo's but no one was stirring after surveying the fine attitudes into which forgetfulness had thrown at least one of the sleepers my attention was called off to the general aspect of the dwelling which was quite significant of the superior circumstances of our host the house itself was built in the simple but tasteful native style it was a long regular oval some fifty feet in length with low sides of canework and a roof thatched with palmetto leaves the ridge pole was perhaps twenty feet from the ground there was no foundation whatever the bare earth being merely covered with ferns a kind of carpeting which serves very well if frequently renewed otherwise it becomes dusty and the haunt of vermin as in the huts of the poorer natives beside the couches the furniture consisted of three or four sailor chests in which were stored the fine wearing apparel of the household the ruffled linen shirts of popo the calico dresses of his wife and children and diverse odds and ends of European articles strings of beads, ribbons, dutch looking glasses knives, coarse prints bunches of keys, bits of crockery and metal buttons one of these chests used as a band box by our free tea contained several of the native hats coal scuttles all of the same pattern but trimmed with variously colored ribbons of nothing was our good hostess more proud than of these hats and her dresses on Sundays she went abroad a dozen times and every time like Queen Elizabeth in a different robe popo, for some reason or other always gave us our meals before the rest of the family were served and the doctor who was very discerning in such matters declared that we feared much better than they certain it was that had Iremir's guests traveled with purses, portmanteaus and letters of introduction to the queen they would not have been better cared for the day after our arrival Mone the old butler brought us in for dinner a small pig baked in the ground all savory it lay in a wooden trencher surrounded by roasted hemispheres of the breadfruit a large calabash filled with tarot pudding or poe followed and the young dandy overcoming his customary langer threw down our coconuts from an adjoining tree when all was ready and the household looking on long ghost devoutly clasping his hands over the faded pig implored a blessing hereupon everybody present looked exceedingly pleased popo coming up and addressing the doctor with much warmth and our frity, regarding him with almost maternal affection, exclaimed delightedly ah, mycinary tatamaitai in other words what a pious young man it was just after this meal that she brought me a roll of grass cinnate of the kind which sailors sew into the frame of their tarpaulins and then handing me a needle and thread made me begin at once and make myself the hat which I so much needed an accomplished hand at the business I finished it that day merely stitching the braid together and our frity by way of rewarding my industry with her own olive hands ornamented the crown with a band of flame colored ribbon the two long ends of which streaming behind, sailor fashion still preserved for me the eastern title bestowed by long ghost end of chapters 73 and 74 recording by Trisha G chapters 75 and 76 of omu this LibriVox recording is in the public domain omu a narrative of adventures in the south seas by Herman Melville chapter 75 a ramble through the settlement the following morning making our toilets carefully we donned our sombreros and sallied out on a tour without meaning to reveal our designs upon the court our principal object was to learn what chances there were for white men to obtain employment under the queen on this head it is true we had questioned Popo but his answers had been very discouraging so we determined to obtain further information elsewhere but first to give some little description of the village the settlement of part 2y is nothing more than some 80 houses scattered here and there in the midst of an immense grove where the trees have been thinned out and the underbrush cleared away through the grove flows a stream and the principal avenue crosses it over an elastic bridge of coconut trunks laid together side by side the avenue is broad and serpentine from one end to the other and as pretty a place for a morning promenade as any lounger could wish the houses constructed without the slightest regard to the road keep into view from among the trees on either side some looking you right in the faces you pass and others without any manners turning their backs occasionally you observe a rural retreat enclosed by a picket of bamboo or with a solitary pane of glass massively framed in the broad side of a dwelling or with a rude strange looking door swinging upon dislocated wooden hinges otherwise the dwellings are built in the original style of the natives and never mind how mean and filthy some of them may appear within they all look picturesque enough without as we sauntered along the people we met saluted us pleasantly and invited us into their houses and in this way we made a good many morning calls but the hour could not have been the fashionable one in part 2 y since the ladies were invariably in disobey however they in all cases gave us a cordial reception and were particularly polite to the doctor caressing him and amorously hanging about his neck wonderfully taken up in short with a gay handkerchief he wore there Afriti had that morning bestowed upon the pious youth with some exceptions the general appearance of the natives of part 2 y was far better than that of the inhabitants of Pappity a circumstance only to be imputed to their restricted intercourse with foreigners strolling on we turned a sweep of the road when the doctor gave a start and no wonder right before us in the grove was a block of houses regular square frames boarded over furnished with windows and doorways high we ran up and found them fast going to decay very dingy and here in there covered with moss no sashes nor doors and on one side the entire block had settled down nearly a foot on going into the basement we looked up clean through the unboarded timbers to the roof where rays of light glimmering through many a chink illuminated the cobwebs which swung all round the whole interior was dark and close growing among some old mats in one corner like a parcel of gypsies in a ruin were a few vagabond natives they had their dwelling here curious to know who on earth could have been thus trying to improve the value of real estate in part 2 y we made inquiries and learned that some years previous the block had been thrown up by a veritable Yankee one might have known that a house carpenter by trade was a rising fellow by nature put ashore from his ship sick he first went to work and got well then sallied out with chisel and plain and made himself generally useful a sober steady man it seems he at last obtained the confidence of several chiefs and soon filled them with all sorts of ideas concerning the alarming want of public spirit in the people of Aimeo more especially did he dwell upon the humiliating fact in paltry huts of bamboo when magnificent palaces of boards might so easily be mortised together in the end these representations so far prevailed with one old chief that the carpenter was engaged to build a batch of these wonderful palaces provided with plenty of men he at once set to work built a sawmill among the mountains felled trees and sent over to Pappity for nails presto the castle rose but alas the roof was hardly on when the Yankees patron having speculated beyond his means broke all to pieces and was absolutely unable to pay one plug of tobacco in the pound his failure involved the carpenter who sailed away from his creditors in the very next ship that touched at the harbor the natives despised the rickety palace of boards and often lounged by wagging their heads and jeering we were told that the queen's residence was at the extreme end of the village so without waiting for the doctor to procure a fiddle we suddenly resolved upon going thither at once and learning whether any privy counsellors ships were vacant now although there was a good deal of my wagish comrades nonsense about what has been said concerning our expectations of court preferment we nevertheless really thought that something to our advantage and we ended up in that quarter upon approaching the palace grounds we found them rather peculiar a broad pier of hume coral rocks was built right out into the water and upon this and extending into the grove adjoining were some eight or ten very large native houses constructed in the handsomest style and enclosed together by a low picket of bamboos which embraced a considerable area throughout the society islands the residences of the chiefs are mostly found in the immediate vicinity of the sea a site which gives them the full benefit of a cooling breeze nor are they so liable to the annoyance of insects besides enjoying when they please the fine shade afforded by the neighbouring groves always most luxuriant near the water lounging about the grounds were some sixty or eighty handsomely dressed natives men and women some reclining on the shady side of the houses others under the trees and a small group conversing close by the railing facing us we went up to the ladder and giving the usual salutation were on the point of vaulting over the bamboos when they turned upon us angrily and said we could not enter we stated our earnest desire to see the queen hinting that we were bearers of important dispatches but it was to no purpose and not a little vexed to return to popos without affecting anything chapter seventy six an island gelt we visit the ship upon arriving home we fully laid open to popo our motives in visiting taloo and begged his friendly advice in his broken English he cheerfully gave us all the information we needed it was true he said that the queen entertained some idea of making a stand against the French and it was currently reported also that several chiefs from borah borah who whiney, rioter, and tahar the leeward islands of the group were at that very time taking counsel with her as to the expediency of organizing a general movement throughout the entire cluster with a view of anticipating any further encroachments on the part of the invaders should war like measures be actually decided upon it was quite certain that pommery would be glad to enlist a foreigner she could but as to her making officers of either the doctor or me that was out of the question because already a number of the Europeans well known to her had volunteered as such concerning our getting immediate access to the queen popo told us it was altogether doubtful she living at that time very retired in poor health and spirits and a verse to receiving calls previous to her misfortunes however no one however humble was denied admittance to her presence sailors even attended her levees not at all disheartened by these things we concluded to kill time in part 2 y until some event turned up more favorable to our projects so that very day we salad out on an excursion to the ship which lying landlocked far up the bay yet remained to be visited passing on our route along low shed a voice hailed us white men ahoy turning round who should we see but a rosy cheeked Englishman you could tell his country at a glance up to his knees in shavings and planing away at a bench he turned out to be a runaway ships carpenter recently from Tahiti and now doing a profitable business in I.M.E.O. by fitting up the dwellings of opulent chiefs with cupboards and other conveniences and once in a while trying his hand at a ladies work box he had been in the settlement but a few months and already possessed houses and lands but though blessed with prosperity and high health there was one thing wanting a wife and when he came to speak of the matter his countenance fell and he leaned dejectedly upon his plane it's too bad he sighed wait three long years and all the while dear little Lule living in the same house with that infernal chief from Tahar our curiosity was piqued the poor carpenter then had been falling in love with some island coquette who was going to jilt him but such was not the case there was a law prohibiting under a heavy penalty the marriage of a native with a foreigner unless the latter after being three years a resident on the island was willing to affirm his settled intention of remaining for life William was therefore in a sad way he told us that he might have married the girl half a dozen times had it not been for this odious law but laterally she had become less loving and more giddy particularly with the strangers from Tahar desperately smitten and desirous of securing her at all hazards he had proposed to the damsel's friends a nice little arrangement a nice little arrangement introductory to marriage but they would not hear of it besides if the pair were discovered living together on such a footing they would be liable to a degrading punishment sent to work making stone walls and opening roads for the queen Dr. Longgost was all sympathy Bill my good fellow said he tremulously let me go and talk to her but Bill declining the offer even inform us where his charmer lived leaving the disconsulate willy planing a plank of New Zealand pine an importation from the bay of islands and thinking the while of Luley we went on our way how his suit prospered in the end we never learned going from Popo's house toward the anchorage of the harbor of Talu you catch no glimpse of the water until coming out from deep groves you all at once find yourself upon the beach a bay considered by many a bay considered by many voyagers the most beautiful in the south seas then lies before you you stand upon one side of what seems a deep green river flowing through mountain passes to the sea right opposite a majestic promontory divides the inlet from another called after its discoverer Captain Cook the face of this promontory toward Talu is one verdant wow and at its base the waters lie still and fathomless on the left hand you just catch a peep of the widening mouth of the bay the break in the reef by which ships enter and beyond the sea to the right the inlet sweeping boldly around the promontory runs far away into the land where save in one direction the hills close in on every side knee deep in verdure and shooting a lot in grotesque peaks the open space lies at the head of the bay in the distance it extends into a broad hazy plain lying at the foot of an amphitheater of hills here is the large sugar plantation previously alluded to beyond the first range of hills you describe the sharp pinnacles of the interior and among these the same silent marling spike which we so often admired from the other side of the island all alone in the harbor lay the good ship Leviathan jumped into the canoe and paddled off to her though early in the afternoon everything was quiet but upon mounting the side we found four or five sailors lounging about the folks all under an awning they gave us no very cordial reception and though otherwise quite hardy in appearance seemed to assume a look of ill humor on purpose to honor our arrival there was much eagerness to learn whether we wanted to ship the unpleasant accounts they gave of the vessel they seemed desirous to prevent such a thing if possible we asked where the rest of the ship's company were a gruff old fellow made answer one boat's crew of them has gone to Davy Jones's locker went off after a whale last cruise and never came back again all the starboard watch ran away last night and the skippers ashore catching them and it's shipping you're after jules is it? cried a curly-pated little belfast sailor coming up to us then a raw my livelies just be after sailing ashore in a jiffy the devil of a skipper will carry yeas both to sea whether or no be off with thee then darlings and steer clear of the likes of this valley who of blazes as long as ye live they murder us here every day and starve us into the bargain here dick lad harl the poor long side and paddle away with yeas for dear life but we loitered a while listening to more inducements to ship and at last concluded to stay to supper my sheath knife never cut into a better sea beef than that which we found lying in the kid in the folks all the bread too was hard dry and brittle as glass and there was plenty of both while we were below the maid of the vessel called out for someone deck I liked his voice hearing it was as good as a look at his face it be token to true sailor and no taskmaster the appearance of the Leviathan herself was quite pleasing like all large comfortable old whale men she had a sort of motherly look brought in the beam flush decks and four chubby boats hanging at the breast her sails were furled loosely upon the yards as if they had been worn long and fitted easy her shrouds swung negligently slack and as for the running rigging it never worked hard as it does in some of your dandy ships jamming in the sheets of blocks like Chinese slippers too small to be useful on the contrary the ropes ran glibly through as if they had many a time traveled the same road and were used to it when evening came we dropped into our canoe and paddled ashore fully convinced that the good ship never deserved the name which they gave her end of chapters seventy five and seventy six recording by trisha g chapter seventy seven and seventy eight of omu the slipper box recording is in the public domain omu a narrative of adventures in the south seas by herman melville chapter seventy seven a party of rovers little lou and the doctor while in part two why we fell in with a band of six veteran rovers prowling about the village and harbor who had just come over land from another part of the island a few weeks previous they had been paid off at pappity from a wailing vessel on board of which they had six months before shipped for a single cruise that is to say to be discharged at the next port their cruise was a famous one and each man stepped upon the beach at tahiti jingling his dollars in a sock weary at last of the shore and having some money left they clubbed and purchased a sailboat proposing a visit to a certain uninhabited island concerning which they had heard strange and golden stories of course they never could think of going to sea without a medicine chest filled with flasks of spirits and a small cask of the same in the hold in case the chest should give out a way they sailed hoisted a flag of their own and gave three times three as they staggered out of the bay of pappity with a strong breeze and under all the muslin they could carry evening coming on and feeling in high spirits and no ways disposed to sleep they concluded to make a night of it which they did all hands getting tipsy and the two masts going over the side about midnight to the tune of sailing down on the coast of Barbary fortunately one worthy could stand by holding on to the tiller and the rest managed to crawl about and hack away the lanyards of the rigging so as to break clear from the fallen spars while thus employed two sailors got tranquilly over the side and went plum to the bottom under the erroneous impression that they were stepping upon an imaginary wharf to get at their work better after this it blew quite a gale and the Commodore at the helm instinctively kept the boat before the wind and by so doing ran over to the opposite island of Aineo crossing the channel by almost a miracle they went straight through an opening in the reef and shot upon a ledge of coral where the waters were tolerably smooth here they lay until morning when the natives came off to them in their canoes by the help of the islanders the schooner was hove over on her beam ends when finding the bottom knocked to pieces the adventurers sold the boat for a trifle to the chief of the district and went ashore rolling before them their precious cask of spirits its contents soon evaporated and they came to part 2 y the day after encountering these fellows we were strolling among the groves in the neighborhood when we came across several parties of natives armed with clumsy muskets rusty cutlaces and outlandish clubs they were beating the bushes shouting aloud and apparently trying to scare somebody they were in pursuit of the strangers who having in a single night said it not all the laws of the place had thought best to decamp in the daytime Popo's house was as pleasant a lounge as one could wish so after strolling about and seeing all there was to be seen we spent the greater part of our mornings there breakfasting late and dining about 2 hours after noon sometimes we lounged on the floor of ferns smoking and telling stories of which the doctor had as many as a half pay captain in the army sometimes we chatted as well as we could with the natives and one day joy to us Popo brought in 3 volumes of small its novels which had been found in the chest of a sailor who sometime previous had died on the island Amelia Peregrine you hero of rogues count fathom what a debt do we owe you I know not whether it was the reading of these romances or the want of some sentimental pastime which led the doctor about this period to lay siege to the heart of the little lou now as I have said before the daughter of Popo was most cruelly reserved and never deigned to notice us frequently I addressed her with a long face and an air of the profoundest and most distant respect but in vain she wouldn't even turn up her pretty olive nose ah it's quite plain thought I she knows very well what graceless dogs sailors are and won't have anything to do with us but thus thought not my comrade bent he was upon firing the cold glitter of the blue's passionless eyes he opened the campaign with admirable tact making cautious approaches and content for three days with ogling the nymph for about five minutes after every meal on the fourth day he asked her a question on the fifth she dropped a nut of ointment and he picked it up and gave it to her on the sixth he went over and sat down within three yards of the couch where she lay with admirable mourn of the seventh he proceeded to open his batteries in form the damsel was reclining on the ferns one hand supporting her cheek and the other listlessly turning over the leaves of a Tahitian bible the doctor approached now the chief disadvantage under which he labored was his almost complete ignorance of the love vocabulary of the island but French counts they say make love delightfully in broken English and what hindered the doctor from doing the same in dulcet Tahitian so at it he went ah said he smiling bewitchingly ohy mcconnery ohy ready bibley no answer not even a look ah my tie very goody ready bibley mcconnery Lou without stirring began reading in a low tone to herself mcconnery bibley ready goody my tie once more observed the doctor ingeniously transposing his words for the third time but all to no purpose Lou gave no sign he paused despairingly but it would never do to give up so he threw himself at full length beside her and audaciously commenced turning over the leaves Lou gave a start just one little start barely perceptible and then resembling something in her hand lay perfectly motionless the doctor rather frightened at his own temerity and knowing not what to do next at last he placed one arm cautiously about her waist almost in the same instant he bounded to his feet with a cry the little witch had pierced him with a thorn but there she lay just as quietly as ever turning over the leaves and reading to herself my long friend raised the siege incontinently and made a disorderly retreat to the place where I reclined looking on I am pretty sure that Lou must have related this occurrence to her father who came in shortly afterward for he looked clearly at the doctor but he said nothing and in ten minutes was quite affable as ever as for Lou there was not the slightest change in her and the doctor of course forever afterwards held his peace Chapter 78 Mrs. Bell one day taking a pensive afternoon stroll along one of the many bridal paths which wind among the shady groves in the neighborhood of Talu I was startled by a sunny apparition it was that of a beautiful young English woman charmingly dressed and mounted upon a spirited little white pony switching a green branch she came cantering towards me I looked round to see whether I could possibly be in Polynesia there were palm trees but how to account for the lady stepping to one side as the apparition drew near I made a polite obeisance it gave me a bold rosy look and then with a gay air patted its palfrey crying out fly away willy and galloped among the trees I would have followed but willies heels were making such a pattering among the dry leaves that pursuit would have been useless so I went straight home to popos and related my adventure to the doctor the next day our inquiries resulted in finding out that the stranger had been in the island about two years that she came from Sydney and was the wife of Mr. Bell happy dog the proprietor of the sugar plantation to which I have previously referred to the sugar plantation we went the same day the country round about was very beautiful a level basin of verdeur surrounded by sloping hillsides the sugar cane of which there was about 100 acres in various stages of cultivation looked thrifty a considerable tract of land however would seem to have been formerly tilled was now abandoned the place where they extracted the saccharine matter was under an immense shed of bamboos here we saw several clumsy pieces of machinery for breaking the cane also great kettles for boiling the sugar but at present nothing was going on two or three natives were lounging in one of the kettles smoking the other was occupied by three sailors from the leviathan playing cards while we were conversing with these worthy's a stranger approached he was a sunburnt romantic looking European dressed in a loose suit of nankine his fine throat and chest were exposed and he sported a guaya quill hat with a brim like a Chinese umbrella this was Mr. Bell he was very civil showed us the grounds and taking us into a sort of arbor to our surprise offered to treat us to some wine people often do the like but Mr. Bell did more he produced the bottle it was spicy sherry the wine was a purchase from the French in Tahiti now all this was extremely polite in Mr. Bell still we came to see Mrs. Bell but she proved to be a phantom indeed having left the same morning for papity on a visit to one of the missionaries wives there I went home much chagrined to be frank my curiosity had been wonderfully peaked concerning the lady in the first place she was the most beautiful white woman I ever saw in Polynesia but this is saying nothing she had such eyes such moss roses in her cheeks such a divine air in the saddle that to my dying day I shall never forget Mrs. Bell the sugar planter himself was young, robust and handsome so merrily made the little bells increase and multiply music in the land of Aimee all end of chapters 77 and 78 recording by Tricia G chapter 79 and 80 of Omu this Librebox recording is in the public domain Omu a narrative of adventures in the South Seas by Herman Melville chapter 79 Talu Chapel holding court in Polynesia in part 2 why is to be seen one of the best constructed and handsomest chapels in the South Seas like the buildings of the palace it stands upon an artificial pier presenting a semi-circular sweep to the bay the chapel is built of hewn blocks of coral a substance which although extremely friable is said to harden by exposure to the atmosphere to a stranger these blocks look extremely curious their surface is covered with strange fossil like impressions the seal of which must have been set before the flood very nearly white when hewn from the reef the coral darkens with age so that several churches in Polynesia now look almost as sooty and venerable as famed St. Paul's in shape the chapel is an octagon with galleries all round it will seat perhaps 400 people everything within is stained a tony red and there being but few windows or rather lasers the dusky benches and galleries and the tall specter of the pulpit look anything but cheerful on Sundays we always went to worship there going in the family suite of Popo we of course maintained a most decorous exterior and hence by all the elderly people of the village were doubtless regarded as pattern young men Popo's seat was in a snug corner and it being particularly snug in the immediate vicinity of one of the palm pillars supporting the gallery I invariably leaned against it Popo and his lady on one side the doctor and the dandy on the other and the children and the poor relations seated behind as for Lou instead of sitting as she ought to have done by her good father and mother she must needs run up into the gallery and sit with a parcel of giddy creatures of her own age who all through the sermon did nothing look down on the congregation pointing out and giggling at the queer looking old ladies in dowdy bonnets and scant tunics but Lou herself was never guilty of these improprieties occasionally during the week they have afternoon service in the chapel when the natives themselves have something to say although their auditors are but few an introductory prayer being offered by the missionary and a hymn sung communicants rise in their places and exhort in pure Tahitian and with wonderful tone and gesture and among them all deacon Popo though he talked most was the one whom you would have liked best to hear much would I have given to have understood some of his impassioned bursts when he tossed his arms overhead stamped scowled and glared till he looked like the very angel of vengeance deluded man sighed the doctor on one of these occasions I fear he takes the fanatical view of the subject one thing was certain when Popo spoke all listened a great deal more than could be said for the rest for under the discipline of two or three I could mention some of the audience napped others fidgeted a few yawned and one irritable old gentleman in a nightcap of coconut leaves used to clutch his long staff in a state of excessive nervousness and worried out of the church making all the noise he could to emphasize his disgust right adjoining the chapel is an immense rickety building with windows and shutters and a half-decade board flooring laid upon trunks of palm trees they called it a schoolhouse but as such we never saw it occupied it was often used as a courtroom however and here we attended several trials among others that of a officer and a young girl of fourteen the latter charged with having been very naughty on a particular occasion set forth in the pleadings and the former with having aided and abetted her in her naughtiness and with other misdemeanors the foreigner was a tall military-looking fellow with a dark cheek and black whiskers according to his own account he had lost a colonial armed rig on the coast of New Zealand had been leading the life of a man about town among the islands of the Pacific the doctor wanted to know why he did not go home and report the loss of his rig but Captain Crash as they called him had some incomprehensible reasons for not doing so about which he could talk by the hour and no one be any the wiser probably he was a discreet man and thought it best to wave an interview with the lords of the Admiralty for some time past this extremely suspicious character had been carrying on an illicit trade in French wines and brandies smuggled over from the men of war lately touching it Tahiti in a grove near the anchorage he had a rustic shanty and arbor where in quiet times when no ships were in Talu a stray native once in a while got boozy and staggered home catching at the coconut trees as he went he himself launched under a tree during the warm afternoons pipe in mouth thinking perhaps over old times and occasionally feeling his shoulders for his lost epaulets but sail hoe a ship is described coming into the bay soon she drops her anchor in its waters and the next day Captain Crash entertains the sailors in his grove and rare times they have of it drinking and quarreling together upon one of these occasions the crew of the Leviathan made so prodigious a tumult that the natives indignant at the insult offered their laws plucked up a heart and made a dash at the rioters one hundred strong the sailors fought like tigers but were at last overcome and carried before a native tribunal which after a mighty clamor dismissed everybody but Captain Crash who was asserted to be the author of the disorders upon this charge then he had been placed in confinement against the coming on of the assizes the judge being expected to lounge along in the course of the afternoon while waiting his honors arrival numerous additional offenses were preferred against the culprit mostly by the old women among others was the bit of a slip in which he stood implicated along with the young lady thus in Polynesia as elsewhere charge a man with one misdemeanor and all his peccadillos are raked up and assorted before him going to the school house for the purpose of witnessing the trial the din of it assailed our ears a long way off and upon entering the building we were almost stunned about five hundred natives were present each apparently having something to say and determined to say it his honor a handsome benevolent looking old man sat cross-legged on a little platform seemingly resigned with all Christian submission to the uproar he was an hereditary chief in this quarter of the island and judge for life in the district of part 2 y there were several cases coming on but the captain and girl were first tried to gather they were mixing freely with the crowd and is it afterward turned out that everyone no matter who had a right to address the court for ought we knew they might have been arguing their own case at what precise moment the trial began it would be hard to say there was no swearing of witnesses and no regular jury footnote this anomaly exists not withstanding that in other respects the missionaries have endeavored to organize the native courts upon the English model and footnote now and then somebody leaped up and shouted out something which might have been evidence of the arrest meanwhile keeping up an incessant jabbering presently the old judge himself began to get excited and springing to his feet ran in among the crowd waging his tongue as hard as anybody the tumult lasted about 20 minutes and toward the end of it captain crash might have been seen tranquilly regarding from his honors platform the judicial uproar in which his fate was about being decided the result of all was this that both he and the girl were found guilty the latter was a judge to make six mats for the queen and the former in consideration of his manifold offenses being deemed incorrigible was sentenced to eternal banishment from the island both these decrees seem to originate in the general hubbub his honor however appeared to have considerable authority and was quite plain that the decision received his approval the above penalties were by no means indiscriminately inflicted the missionaries have prepared a sort of penal tariff to facilitate judicial proceedings it costs so many days labor on the broom road to indulge in the pleasures of the calabash so many fathoms of stone wall to steal a musket and so on to the end of the catalog the judge being provided with a book in which all these matters are cunningly arranged the thing is vastly convenient for instance a crime is proved say bigamy turn to letter B and there you have it bigamy 40 days on the broom road and 20 mats for the queen read the passage aloud and sentences pronounced after taking part in the first trial the other delinquents present were put upon their own in which also the convicted culprits seem to have quite as much to say as the last a rather strange proceeding but strictly in accordance with the glorious English principle that every man should be tried by his peers they were all found guilty chapter 80 queen pommery it is well to learn something about the people before being introduced to them and so we will hear give some account of pommery and her family every reader of cooks voyages must remember who in that navigator's time was king of the larger peninsula of Tahiti subsequently assisted by the muskets of the bounties men he extended his rule over the entire island this O2 before his death had his name changed into pommery which has ever since been the royal patronymic he was succeeded by his son pommery the second the most famous prince in the annals of Tahiti though a sad bachi and drunkard and even charged with unnatural crimes he was a great friend of the missionaries and one of their very first proselytes during the religious wars into which he was hurried by his zeal for the new faith he was defeated and expelled from the island after a short exile he returned from Aimee with an army of 800 warriors and in the battle of Naray routed the rebellious pagans with great slaughter and established himself upon the throne thus by force of arms was Christianity finally triumphant into Tahiti pommery the second dying in 1821 was succeeded by his infant son under the title of pommery the third this young prince survived his father but six years and the government then descended to his older sister Aymata the present queen who is commonly called pommery or the first female pommery her majesty must be now upwards of 30 years of age she has been twice married her first husband was the son of the old king of Tahar an island about 100 miles from Tahiti this proving an unhappy alliance the pair were soon after divorced the present husband of the queen is a chief of Aimee the reputation of pommery is not what it ought to be she and also her mother were for a long time excommunicated members of the church and the former I believe still is among other things her conjugal fidelity is far from being unquestioned indeed it was upon this ground chiefly that she was excluded from the communion of the church previous to her misfortunes she spent the greater portion of her time sailing about from one island to another attended by a licentious court and wherever she went all manner of games and festivities celebrated her arrival she was always given to display for several years the maintenance of a regiment of household troops drew largely upon the royal exchequer they were trouserless fellows in a uniform of calico shirts and pasteboard hats armed with muskets of all shapes and calibers and commanded by a great noisy chief strutting it in a coat of fiery red these heroes escorted their mistress whenever she went abroad some time ago the queen received from her English sister Victoria a very showy though uneasy headdress a crown probably made to order at some tin man's in London having no idea of reserving so pretty a bobble for coronation days which comes so seldom her majesty sported it whenever she appeared in public to show her familiarity with European customs politely touched it to all foreigners of distinction wailing captains and the like whom she happened to meet in her evening walk on the broom road the arrival and departure of royalty were always announced at the palace by the court artillery man a fat old gentleman who in a prodigious hurry and perspiration discharged minute falling pieces as fast as he could load and fire the same the Tahitian princess leads her husband a hard life poor fellow he not only caught a queen but a tartar when he married her the style by which he is addressed is rather significant Pomerie Taney Pomerie's man all things considered as appropriate a title for a king consort as could be hit upon if ever there was a hen pecked husband that man is the prince and he was very pleased to see the king consort giving audience to a deputation from the captains of the vessels lying in papity he ventured to make a suggestion which was very displeasing to her she turned round and boxing his ears told him to go over to his beggarly island of I.M. if he wanted to give himself airs cuffed and condemned more than he ought six or seven years ago when an American man of war was lying at papity the town was thrown into the greatest commotion by a conjugal assault and battery made upon the sacred person of Pomerie by her intoxicated Taney Captain Bob once told me the story and by way of throwing more spirit into the description as well as to make up for his oral deficiencies the old man went through the accompanying procession, myself being proxy for the queen of Tahiti it seems that on a Sunday morning being dismissed contemptuously from the royal presence Taney was accosted by certain good fellows friends and boon companions who condoled with him on his misfortunes railed against the queen and finally dragged him away to an illicit vendor of spirits in whose house the party got gloriously mellow in this state Pomerie first was the topic upon which all dilated a vixen of a queen probably suggested one it's infamous said another and I'd have satisfaction cried a third and so I will Taney must have hiccuffed for off he went and ascertaining that his royal half was out riding he mounted his horse and galloped after her near the outskirts of the town a cavalcade of women came cantering towards him in the center of which was the object of his fury smiting his beast right and left he dashed in among them completely overturning one of the party leaving her on the field and dispersing everybody else except Pomerie backing her horse dexterously the incensed queen heaped upon him every scandalous epithet she could think of until at last the arranged Taney leaped out of his saddle caught Pomerie by her dress and dragging her to the earth struck her repeatedly in the face holding on meanwhile by the hair of her head he was proceeding to strangle her on the spot when the cries of the frightened attendants brought a crowd of natives to the rescue who bore the nearly insensible queen away but his frantic rage was not yet sated he ran to the palace and before it could be prevented demolished a valuable supply of crockery a recent present from abroad in the act of perpetrating some other atrocity he was seized from behind and carried off with rolling eyes and foaming at the mouth this is a fair example of a Tahitian in a passion though the mildest of mortals in general and hard to be roused when once fairly up he is possessed with a thousand devils the day following Taney was privately paddled over to Aimeo in a canoe in a banishment for a couple of weeks he was allowed to return and once more give in his domestic adhesion though Pamiri Vahini the first be something of a Jezebel in private life in her public rule she is said to have been quite lenient and forebearing this was her true policy for in her redditary hostility to her family had always lurked in the hearts of many powerful chiefs thrown by her grandfather Otu chief among these and in fact the leader of his party was Poufai a bold able man who made no secret of his enmity to the missionaries and the government which they controlled but while events were occurring calculated to favor the hopes of the disaffected and turbulent the arrival of the French gave a most unexpected turn to affairs during my sojourn in Tahiti a report was rife which I knew to originate with what is generally called the missionary party that Poufai and some of the other chiefs of note had actually agreed for a stipulated bribe to acquiesce in the appropriation of their country but subsequent events have rebutted the Calumni several of these very men have recently died in battle against the French under the sovereignty of the Pamiris the great chiefs of Tahiti were something like the barons of King John holding feudal sway over their patrimonial valleys and on account of their descent warmly beloved by the people they frequently cut off the royal revenues by refusing to pay the customary tribute due from them as vassals the truth is that with the ascendancy of the missionaries the regal office in Tahiti lost much of its dignity and influence in the days of paganism it was supported by all the power of a numerous priesthood and was solemnly connected with the entire superstitious idolatry of the island the monarch claimed to be a sort of bible of Tara Roa the Saturn of the Polynesian mythology and cousin German to inferior deities his person was thrice holy if he entered an ordinary dwelling nevermind for how short a time it was demolished when he left no common mortal being thought worthy to inhabit it afterwards I'm a greater man than King George said the incorrigible young O2 to the first missionaries he rides on a horse and I on a man such was the case he traveled post through his dominions on the shoulders of his subjects and relays of immortal beings were provided in all the valleys but alas how times have changed how transient human greatness some years since Pomeri Vahini the first the granddaughter of the proud O2 went into the laundry business publicly soliciting by her agents the washing of the linen belonging to the officers of ships touching in her harbors it is a significant fact and one worthy of record that while the influence of the English missionaries at Tahiti has tended to so great a diminution of the regal dignity there that of the American missionaries of the Irish Islands has been purposely exerted to bring about a contrary result End of chapters 79 and 80 Recording by Tricia G