Part 5 (1/2)

The sky was as saffron when we woke from our out-of-door sleep, and the whole atmosphere was less poetical and impressive than on the night previous. Stranger than all else, there was no visible trace of the mysterious waterfall. I even began to question my own senses, and thought it possible that I had been dreaming. Yet there sat Taboo in his frightful imperfection, as happy and indifferent as possible. Of course he could tell me nothing of the magical waters. He had doubtless already forgotten the episode of the hour previous. He lived for the solitary moment, and his mind seemed unable to grasp the secrets of ten seconds on either side of his narrow present. In fact, he was playing with a splendid lizard when I returned from my brief and fruitless reconnoissance; and as I came up he wondered at me, as he never ceased to wonder, with fresh bewilderment, whenever I came back to him, after never so brief an absence.

I soon learned to play upon Taboo's one stop; to point a finger at him, and bore imaginary auger-holes right into him anywhere; for he always winced and whined, like a very baby, and yielded at once to my pantomimic suggestion. But what a wreck was here! A delicate instrument, full of rifts and breakages, with that single key readily answerable to the slightest touch of my will. I have often wished that it had been a note more deep, profound, or sympathetic. It was simply merry and shrill, and incapable of any modulation whatever. Point a finger at him, make a few coils in the air that grow to a focus as they draw nearer to him, and he would run over with uncontrollable jollity that was at times a little painful in its boisterousness.

I knew well enough that I had sucked the honey from that particular cell in the mountain, and that I might as well resume my pilgrimage. There was to be a _Fete Napoleon_ in Papeete. We hadn't heard, up to that hour, of the wreck of the great Empire, and, being in a loyal French colony, it behoved us to have the very best time possible. Said I to myself, ”Taboo will find sufficient food for merriment in our mode _feting_ an Emperor; therefore Taboo shall go with me to town and enjoy himself.” I suggested an immediate adjournment to Papeete with the tip of my forefinger, whereat Taboo doubled up, as usual, and, in his own fas.h.i.+on, implored me to stop being so funny. We at once started; returning through the bamboo-brakes, fording the stream in some awkward way, and slowly working our pa.s.sage back to town.

The Tahitians have but one annual holiday. As this, however, is seventy-two hours in length, while everything relating to it is broad in proportion, it is about as much as they can conscientiously ask for.

Taboo and I entered the town on the eve of the first day, together with mult.i.tudes from the neighbouring districts, flocking thither in their best clothes. The lovely bay of Papeete was covered with fleets of canoes, hailing from all the seaside villages on the island, and many of them from Moorea, and islands even more distant. No sea is too broad to be compa.s.sed by an ambitious Kanack, who scents a festival from afar.

Along the crescent sh.o.r.es of the bay, the canoes were heaped, tier upon tier. It was as though a whole South Sea navy had been stranded, for the town was crowded with canoe-boys and all manner of natives, in gala dress. The incessant rolling of drums, the piping of bamboo-flutes, and the choruses of wandering singers began early in the dawn of the 14th August, and were expected to continue, uninterruptedly, to the evening of the 16th. Taboo regarded it all with singular indifference. Everybody seemed to know him, and to take particular delight in greeting him. His sleepy disregard of them was considered extremely laughable, and they went their way roaring with merriment, that contrasted strongly with the grave, listless face of the simple one, who was apparently oblivious of everything.

The morning after we appeared in Papeete was Sunday, according to the calendar. The little cathedral, with banana-leaves rustling in the open windows, was thronged with wors.h.i.+ppers of all colours, doubly devout in the excessive heat. Various choirs relieved one another during Ma.s.s, and some diminutive fellows, under ten years of age, chanted Latin hymns in a pleasingly plaintive voice, led by a friar in long clothes and a choker. Taboo crouched by the open door during service, raking the gravel-walk with his crooked fingers, and hitching about with indefatigable industry. After the last gospel, we all went into the middle of the street--for there were no sidewalks--and got our boots very dusty. Little knots of friends seemed to sit down in the way wherever they pleased, and to talk as long as they liked; while everybody else accommodatingly turned out for them, or paused, and listened to the conversation, without embarra.s.sment on either side.

Liquor was imbibed on the sly; some eyes were beginning to swim perceptibly, and some tongues to wag faster and looser than ever. The Admiral's flag-s.h.i.+p was one pyramid of gorgeous bunting, and his band delighted a great audience, gathered upon the sh.o.r.e, with a _matinee_ gratis. At sunset the imperial batteries belched their sulphurous thunder, that came as near to breaking the Sabbath as possible. In the evening more music, up at the Governor's garden,--waltzes, polkas, and quadrilles, so brilliantly executed that the listeners were half mad with delight; and you couldn't for the life of you tell what day it had been, nor what night it was, but Sunday was positively set down against it in the calendar. At ten p.m. a signal-gun says ”Good-night” to the citizens of Papeete, and it behoves all those who are dark-skinned to retire instantly, on pain of arrest and a straw-heap in the calaboose.

In the midst of our Sunday festival, while yet the streets were hilarious, slap-bang went this impudent piece of ordnance, and at once the crowd began to disperse in the greatest confusion. Taboo, who had been an inanimate spectator during the day's diversions, seemed to comprehend the necessity of hasty flight to some quarter or other; and, with a confusion of ideas peculiar to him, he began careering in great circles through the swaying mult.i.tude, and continued to revolve around an uncertain centre, until I seized him and sought to pilot him to some convenient place of shelter. I thought of the great market, that, like those ancient cities of refuge, was always open to the benighted wanderer; and thither we hastened. A lofty roof, covering a good part of a block, kept the rain from a vast enclosure, stored with stalls, tables, and benches. It was simply shelter of the barest kind, but sufficient for all needs in that charitable climate. There was a buzzing of turbulent throngs as we edged our way toward the centre of the market-place; you would think that all the bees of Tahiti were swarming in unison, from the noise thereof. The commotion was long in quieting.

It had to subside like the sea at flood-tide. Every little while a brace of _gendarmes_ strutted past the premises, feeling mighty fine in their broad white pants, like a s.h.i.+p with studding-sails out, and with those comical bobtails sprouting out of the small of their backs. I know that Taboo and I, having laid ourselves on somebody's counter, listened and nudged each other for two or three hours, and that it began to feel like morning before there was sleep enough to go entirely around the establishment.

The man who is the first to wake in Papeete lights his lamp and goes to market. As soon as he makes his untimely appearance, the community begins to stir; a great clatter of drowsy voices and dozens of yawns are the symptoms of returning day; and in ten minutes the market is declared open, though it is still deep and tranquil starlight overhead, with not a trace of dawn as yet visible.

When the market opens before 3 a.m.--and the hour happens to be the blackest of the four-and-twenty--it is highly inconvenient for any foreigner and his royal jester who may be surrept.i.tiously pa.s.sing the night upon one of the fruit counters, but there is no help for them: sleepy heads give way to fresh-gathered bread-fruits and nets of fragrant oranges; bananas are swung up within tempting reach of everybody; all sorts of natives come in from the four quarters of the Papeetean globe, with back-loads of miscellaneous viands, a mat under one arm, and a flaming torch in hand. Rows upon rows of girls sell fruits and flowers to the highest bidder; withering old women haggle over the prices of their perfumed and juicy wares; solitary men offer their solitary strings of fish for a _real_ each, and refuse to be beaten down by any wretch of a fellow who dares to insinuate that the fish are a trifle too scaly; boys sit demure over their meagre array of temptations in the shape of six tomatoes, three eggs, a dozen or so of guavas, and one cuc.u.mber. These youngsters usually sit with a pa.s.sionless countenance that forbids any hope of a bargain at reduced prices, and they pa.s.s an hour or two with scarce a suggestion of custom; but it is suddenly discovered that they have something desirable, and a dozen purchasers begin quarrelling for it, during which time some one else quietly makes his purchase from one corner of the boy's mat; and, having closed out his stock in less than ten minutes, he quietly pockets his _reals_, and departs without having uttered a syllable.

Taboo and I went from one mat to another, eyeing the good things for breakfast. I offered him the best that the market afforded; and I could easily do so, for in no land is the article cheaper or better. Taboo, having made the circuit of the entire establishment, upon mature deliberation concluded to take nothing. At every point he was greeted uproariously by the noisy and good-natured people, who were willing to give him anything he might choose to take. They, probably, felt that it was worth more than the price of the article to see the sublime scorn on the poor fellow's face as he declined their limes, _feis_, mangoes, or whatever delicious morsel it might have been. As for me, I couldn't resist those seductions. I made my little purchases and withdrew to the seaside, where I could break my fast by sunrise, and enjoy comparative quiet. Taboo grinned in the market-place till he was weary of the applause showered upon him by the unG.o.dly, who made light of his irreparable misfortune and took pleasure in his misery. He hunted me up, or, rather, stumbled upon me again, and stayed by me, amusing himself with pelting the fish that sported, like sunbeams and prisms, in the sea close at our feet.

It was _fete_-day in Tahiti. I sat, at sunrise, by the tideless margin of a South Sea lagoon, bristling with coral and glittering with gem-like fish. In either hand I held a mango and banana. I raised the mango to my lips. What a marvel it was! A plump vegetable egg, full of delusion, and staffed with a h.o.r.n.y seed nearly as large as itself. It had a fragrance as of oils and syrups; it purged sweet-scented and resinous gums. Its hide was, perhaps, too tough for convenience, but its inner lusciousness tempted me to persevere in the consumption of it. With much difficulty I broke the skin. Honey of Hymettus! It seemed as though the very marrow of the tropics were about to intoxicate my palate. Alas, for the hopes of youthful inexperience! What was so fair to see proved but a meagre mouthful of saturated wool; that colossal and h.o.r.n.y seed a.s.serted itself everywhere. The more I strove to handle it with caution, the more slippery and unmanageable it became. It shot into my beard, it leaped lightly into my s.h.i.+rt-bosom, and skated over the palms of both hands.

Small rivulets of liquor trickled down my sleeves, making disagreeable puddles at both elbows. My fingers were webbed together in a glutinous ma.s.s. My whole front was in a shocking state of smear. My teeth grew weary of combing out the beguiling threads of the fruit. The thing seemed, to my imagination, a small, flat head, covered with short, blond hair, profusely saturated with some sweet sort of ointment, that I had despaired of feasting on; and I was not sorry when the slippery stone sprang out of my grasp, and peppered itself with sea-sand.

I knew that there still remained to me a morsel that was of itself fit food for the G.o.ds. I poised aloft, with satisfaction, the rare-ripe banana, beautiful to the eye as a nugget of purest gold. The pliant petals were pouting at the top of the fruit. I readily turned them back, forming a unique and convenient gilded salver for the column of flaky manna that was, as yet, swathed in lace-like folds. These gauzy ribbons fell from it almost of their own accord, and hung in fleecy festoons about it.

Here was a repast of singularly appropriate mould, being about the size of a respectable mouth, and containing just enough mouthfuls to temporarily satisfy the appet.i.te. Not a morsel of it but was full of mellowness, and sweet flavour, and fragrance. Not an atom of it was wasted; for, no sooner had I thrown aside the cool, clean, flesh-like case, than it was made way with by a fowl, that had, no doubt, been patiently awaiting that abundant feast.

Mangoes and bananas! Their very names smack of shady gardens, that know no harsher premonition of death than the indolent and natural decay of all things. The nostril is excited with the thought of them; the palate grows moist and yearns for them; and the soul feasts itself, for a moment, with a memory of mangoes and bananas past, whose perfection was but another proof of immortality, since it is impossible ever to forget them individually. Mangoes and bananas! the prime favourites at Nature's most bountiful board; the realization of a dream of the orchards of the Hesperides; alike excellent, yet so vastly dissimilar in their excellences, it seems almost incredible that the same beneficent Providence can have created the two fruits!

It was the memorable 15th of August, 1870; but I have reason to believe that the bananas were no better on that particular occasion than almost always in their own lat.i.tude. The 15th of August,--where was the Emperor then? I forget; I know that we rejoiced in the blissful confidence that we were to have a grand time at all hazards. There were guns at sunrise from s.h.i.+p and sh.o.r.e; a grand national procession of French and Tahitians to High Ma.s.s at 10.30; guns--twenty-one of them--together with the ringing of bells, and a salute of flags, at the elevation of the Host, so that you would have known the supreme moment had you been miles away.

Then came a sumptuous public breakfast for the Frenchmen; and, for the natives, games of several sorts.

Taboo and I, having properly observed the more solemn ceremonials of the day, gave ourselves up to the full enjoyment of these latter diversions.

There was a greased pole, with s.h.i.+ning cups; and flowing prints, both useful and ornamental, hung at the top of it. Several naked and superbly built fellows s.h.i.+nned up it with infinite difficulty, and were so fatigued when they got there, they were only too willing to clutch the first article within reach, which was, of course, the least desirable, and scarcely worth the trouble of getting. O, such magnificent grouping at the foot of the pole, as the athletes shouldered one another in a sort of co-operative experiment at getting up sooner; such struggles to rise a little above the heads of the impatient climbers beneath as made the aspiring Kanack quite pale--that is, greenish yellow; such losing of grips, and fainting of hearts, and slidings back to earth in the midst of taunts and jeers, but all in the best of humours and the hottest of suns! such novelties as these were a very great delight to Taboo and myself. He, however, didn't deign to laugh heartily: he merely smiled in a superior manner that seemed to imply that he knew of something that was twice as much fun and not half the trouble, but he didn't choose to disclose it. He nearly always seemed to know as much as any ten of us; and it was like an a.s.sumption of innocence, that queer, vacant expression of his face. I'm not sure that he was not possessed of some rare instinct beyond our comprehension, which was to him an abundant compensation for the fragmentary body he was obliged to trundle about.

Early in the afternoon, there were fresh arrivals in the bay: two mammoth double war-canoes, of fifty paddles each, came in from a remote sea-district; they were the very sort of water-monsters that went out to greet my ill.u.s.trious predecessor, Captain Cook, nearly a century ago.

Taboo and I were only too glad to sit meekly among the ten thousand spectators that blackened the great sweep of the sh.o.r.e, while these savages matched their prowess. With one vigorous plunge of the paddles the canoes sprang from the beach into the watery arena. How strange they looked! Long, low sides, scarce eight inches above water, and stained like fish-scales; big, yawning jaws in their snakelike heads, and the tail of a dragon in their wakes; every man of the hundred stripped to the skin and bareheaded; their brawny bodies glistening in the sun as though they had been oiled, while, with mechanical accuracy, the crews beat the water with their paddles, and chanted their guttural chants, with the sea gas.h.i.+ng and foaming under them. The race was a tie; perhaps it was fortunate that it proved so. I fear if one crew had beaten the other crew the breadth of a paddle, that other would have lain to and eaten that one right under our very eyes. They had their songs of triumph, both sounding the chorus, during which they drummed with their paddles on the sides of their canoes, till the frail things s.h.i.+vered and groaned in genuine misery. Then they renewed the race, because they couldn't possibly be still for a moment; and they looked like a brace of mastodon centipedes trying to get out of the water, with death hissing in their throats.

The evening of the great day was drawing to a close. Taboo and I again went out into the narrow, green lanes of Papeete, seeking what we might devour with all our eyes and ears. They were very charming, those long arbours of densely leaved trees, with little tropical vignettes set in the farther end of them. It was almost like getting a squint through the wrong end of a telescope, pointed toward some fairy-land or other. As it grew dark, a thousand ready hands began illuminating the avenues that lead to the Governor's house. Up and down its deep verandah swung ropes of lanterns; and as the guards at the garden-gate presented arms at the approach of the Admiral, or some distinguished and decorated foreigner, the strains of Strauss, deliciously played, filled the illuminated grove with an air of romance that was very Oriental in its mellowness, and quickened every foot that was so happy as to touch the soil of Tahiti in so fortunate an hour. On every part of the public lawns the revels were conducted after the native fas.h.i.+on. Bands of singers and dancers sang and danced in the streets, and were frequently rewarded with liberal potations. Taboo looked on as amiably as usual, and for some time as pa.s.sively also; but there was something intoxicating in the air, and it began to have a visible effect upon him. It was not long before he strove to emulate the singers. St. Cecilia! what a song was his! I could scarcely endure to hear that royal jester striving to tune his inharmonious voice to the glib though monotonous Tahitian madrigals. I walked away by myself, or rather went into another part of the village, and sought a change of scene; for there was no seclusion to be hoped for on a _fete_-night.

From the Governor's halls came the entrancing harmony of flutes and harps; from every lane and alley the piping of nose-fifes and the droning of nasal chorals; from the sea rolled in the deep, hoa.r.s.e booming of the reef, the rhythmical plash of oars, or the clear, prolonged cry of some one in the watery distance hailing some one close at hand. Even so savage and picturesque a spectacle as this grew wearisome after a time, and I turned my steps toward a place of shelter, and suggested to myself sleep.

In one lane was a throng of natives, wilder in their demonstrations of joy than all the others. My curiosity was excited, and I hastened to join them. Having with some difficulty wedged my way into the front row of spectators, I beheld the subject of their riotous applause. In the centre of a small ring was an ungainly figure, writhing in grotesque contortions; tom-toms were being beaten with diabolical energy and wildness; flutes and shrill voices were chiming in rapid and bewildering chromatics; the audience--the half-crazed and utterly inhuman audience--gloated over the shocking spectacle with devilish delight. In one moment I comprehended all: Taboo, overcome by the general and unusual excitement, had succ.u.mbed to its depraving influences; and, unable longer to control himself, he was broadly burlesquing, in his helplessness, one of the national dances. Music had at last reached his impenetrable soul, awakened his long-slumbering sympathies, and found him her willing slave. A pity that some diviner strain had not first led him captive, that he might have been spared this disgrace!