In the South Seas | Page 7

how, against
some point of observance; and though I was drily thanked, my
offerings were left upon the beach. But our worst mistake was a slight
we put on Toma, Hoka's adoptive father, and in his own eyes the
rightful chief of Anaho. In the first place, we did not call upon him, as
perhaps we should, in his fine new European house, the only one in the
hamlet. In the second, when we came ashore upon a visit to his rival,
Taipi-Kikino, it was Toma whom we saw standing at the head of the
beach, a magnificent figure of a man, magnificently tattooed; and it was
of Toma that we asked our question: 'Where is the chief?' 'What chief?'
cried Toma, and turned his back on the blasphemers. Nor did he forgive
us. Hoka came and went with us daily; but, alone I believe of all the
countryside, neither Toma nor his wife set foot on board the Casco. The
temptation resisted it is hard for a European to compute. The flying city
of Laputa moored for a fortnight in St. James's Park affords but a pale
figure of the Casco anchored before Anaho; for the Londoner has still
his change of pleasures, but the Marquesan passes to his grave through
an unbroken uniformity of days.
On the afternoon before it was intended we should sail, a valedictory
party came on board: nine of our particular friends equipped with gifts
and dressed as for a festival. Hoka, the chief dancer and singer, the
greatest dandy of Anaho, and one of the handsomest young fellows in
the world-sullen, showy, dramatic, light as a feather and strong as an
ox--it would have been hard, on that occasion, to recognise, as he sat
there stooped and silent, his face heavy and grey. It was strange to see
the lad so much affected; stranger still to recognise in his last gift one
of the curios we had refused on the first day, and to know our friend, so
gaily dressed, so plainly moved at our departure, for one of the
half-naked crew that had besieged and insulted us on our arrival:
strangest of all, perhaps, to find, in that carved handle of a fan, the last
of those curiosities of the first day which had now all been given to us
by their possessors--their chief merchandise, for which they had sought
to ransom us as long as we were strangers, which they pressed on us for

nothing as soon as we were friends. The last visit was not long
protracted. One after another they shook hands and got down into their
canoe; when Hoka turned his back immediately upon the ship, so that
we saw his face no more. Taipi, on the other hand, remained standing
and facing us with gracious valedictory gestures; and when Captain
Otis dipped the ensign, the whole party saluted with their hats. This
was the farewell; the episode of our visit to Anaho was held concluded;
and though the Casco remained nearly forty hours at her moorings, not
one returned on board, and I am inclined to think they avoided
appearing on the beach. This reserve and dignity is the finest trait of the
Marquesan.

CHAPTER III
--THE MAROON

Of the beauties of Anaho books might be written. I remember waking
about three, to find the air temperate and scented. The long swell
brimmed into the bay, and seemed to fill it full and then subside.
Gently, deeply, and silently the Casco rolled; only at times a block
piped like a bird. Oceanward, the heaven was bright with stars and the
sea with their reflections. If I looked to that side, I might have sung
with the Hawaiian poet:
Ua maomao ka lani, ua kahaea luna, Ua pipi ka maka o ka hoku. (The
heavens were fair, they stretched above, Many were the eyes of the
stars.)
And then I turned shoreward, and high squalls were overhead; the
mountains loomed up black; and I could have fancied I had slipped ten
thousand miles away and was anchored in a Highland loch; that when
the day came, it would show pine, and heather, and green fern, and
roofs of turf sending up the smoke of peats; and the alien speech that
should next greet my ears must be Gaelic, not Kanaka.
And day, when it came, brought other sights and thoughts. I have
watched the morning break in many quarters of the world; it has been
certainly one of the chief joys of my existence, and the dawn that I saw
with most emotion shone upon the bay of Anaho. The mountains
abruptly overhang the port with every variety of surface and of

inclination, lawn, and cliff, and forest. Not one of these but wore its
proper tint of