Part 15 (1/2)
Savvee or catchee are practically the only words which have been introduced straight from pigeon English. Of course, pickaninny has happened along, but some of its uses are delicious. Having bought a fowl from a native in a canoe, the native asked me if I wanted ”Pickaninny stop along him fella.” It was not until he showed me a handful of hen's eggs that I understood his meaning. My word, as an exclamation with a thousand significances, could have arrived from nowhere else than Old England. A paddle, a sweep, or an oar, is called washee, and washee is also the verb.
Here is a letter, dictated by one Peter, a native trader at Santa Anna, and addressed to his employer. Harry, the schooner captain, started to write the letter, but was stopped by Peter at the end of the second sentence. Thereafter the letter runs in Peter's own words, for Peter was afraid that Harry gammoned too much, and he wanted the straight story of his needs to go to headquarters.
”SANTA ANNA
”Trader Peter has worked 12 months for your firm and has not received any pay yet. He hereby wants 12.” (At this point Peter began dictation). ”Harry he gammon along him all the time too much. I like him 6 tin biscuit, 4 bag rice, 24 tin bullamacow. Me like him 2 rifle, me savvee look out along boat, some place me go man he no good, he _kai-kai_ along me.
”PETER.”
_Bullamacow_ means tinned beef. This word was corrupted from the English language by the Samoans, and from them learned by the traders, who carried it along with them into Melanesia. Captain Cook and the other early navigators made a practice of introducing seeds, plants, and domestic animals amongst the natives. It was at Samoa that one such navigator landed a bull and a cow. ”This is a bull and cow,” said he to the Samoans. They thought he was giving the name of the breed, and from that day to this, beef on the hoof and beef in the tin is called _bullamacow_.
A Solomon islander cannot say _fence_, so, in beche de mer, it becomes _fennis_; store is _sittore_, and box is _bokkis_. Just now the fas.h.i.+on in chests, which are known as boxes, is to have a bell-arrangement on the lock so that the box cannot be opened without sounding an alarm. A box so equipped is not spoken of as a mere box, but as the _bokkis belong bell_.
_Fright_ is the beche de mer for fear. If a native appears timid and one asks him the cause, he is liable to hear in reply: ”Me fright along you too much.” Or the native may be _fright_ along storm, or wild bush, or haunted places. _Cross_ covers every form of anger. A man may be cross at one when he is feeling only petulant; or he may be cross when he is seeking to chop off your head and make a stew out of you. A recruit, after having toiled three years on a plantation, was returned to his own village on Malaita. He was clad in all kinds of gay and sportive garments. On his head was a top-hat. He possessed a trade-box full of calico, beads, porpoise-teeth, and tobacco. Hardly was the anchor down, when the villagers were on board. The recruit looked anxiously for his own relatives, but none was to be seen. One of the natives took the pipe out of his mouth. Another confiscated the strings of beads from around his neck. A third relieved him of his gaudy loin-cloth, and a fourth tried on the top-hat and omitted to return it. Finally, one of them took his trade-box, which represented three years' toil, and dropped it into a canoe alongside. ”That fella belong you?” the captain asked the recruit, referring to the thief. ”No belong me,” was the answer. ”Then why in Jericho do you let him take the box?” the captain demanded indignantly.
Quoth the recruit, ”Me speak along him, say bokkis he stop, that fella he cross along me”-which was the recruit's way of saying that the other man would murder him. G.o.d's wrath, when He sent the Flood, was merely a case of being cross along mankind.
What name? is the great interrogation of beche de mer. It all depends on how it is uttered. It may mean: What is your business? What do you mean by this outrageous conduct? What do you want? What is the thing you are after? You had best watch out; I demand an explanation; and a few hundred other things. Call a native out of his house in the middle of the night, and he is likely to demand, ”What name you sing out along me?”
Imagine the predicament of the Germans on the plantations of Bougainville Island, who are compelled to learn beche de mer English in order to handle the native labourers. It is to them an unscientific polyglot, and there are no text-books by which to study it. It is a source of unholy delight to the other white planters and traders to hear the German wrestling stolidly with the circ.u.mlocutions and short-cuts of a language that has no grammar and no dictionary.
Some years ago large numbers of Solomon islanders were recruited to labour on the sugar plantations of Queensland. A missionary urged one of the labourers, who was a convert, to get up and preach a sermon to a s.h.i.+pload of Solomon islanders who had just arrived. He chose for his subject the Fall of Man, and the address he gave became a cla.s.sic in all Australasia. It proceeded somewhat in the following manner:
”Altogether you boy belong Solomons you no savvee white man. Me fella me savvee him. Me fella me savvee talk along white man.
”Before long time altogether no place he stop. G.o.d big fella marster belong white man, him fella He make 'm altogether. G.o.d big fella marster belong white man, He make 'm big fella garden. He good fella too much.
Along garden plenty yam he stop, plenty cocoanut, plenty taro, plenty _k.u.mara_ (sweet potatoes), altogether good fella kai-kai too much.
”Bimeby G.o.d big fella marster belong white man He make 'm one fella man and put 'm along garden belong Him. He call 'm this fella man Adam. He name belong him. He put him this fella man Adam along garden, and He speak, 'This fella garden he belong you.' And He look 'm this fella Adam he walk about too much. Him fella Adam all the same sick; he no savvee kai-kai; he walk about all the time. And G.o.d He no savvee. G.o.d big fella marster belong white man, He scratch 'm head belong Him. G.o.d say: 'What name? Me no savvee what name this fella Adam he want.'
”Bimeby G.o.d He scratch 'm head belong Him too much, and speak: 'Me fella me savvee, him fella Adam him want 'm Mary.' So He make Adam he go asleep, He take one fella bone belong him, and He make 'm one fella Mary along bone. He call him this fella Mary, Eve. He give 'm this fella Eve along Adam, and He speak along him fella Adam: 'Close up altogether along this fella garden belong you two fella. One fella tree he tambo (taboo) along you altogether. This fella tree belong apple.'
”So Adam Eve two fella stop along garden, and they two fella have 'm good time too much. Bimeby, one day, Eve she come along Adam, and she speak, 'More good you me two fella we eat 'm this fella apple.' Adam he speak, 'No,' and Eve she speak, 'What name you no like 'm me?' And Adam he speak, 'Me like 'm you too much, but me fright along G.o.d.' And Eve she speak, 'Gammon! What name? G.o.d He no savvee look along us two fella all 'm time. G.o.d big fella marster, He gammon along you.' But Adam he speak, 'No.' But Eve she talk, talk, talk, allee time-allee same Mary she talk along boy along Queensland and make 'm trouble along boy. And bimeby Adam he tired too much, and he speak, 'All right.' So these two fella they go eat 'm. When they finish eat 'm, my word, they fright like h.e.l.l, and they go hide along scrub.
”And G.o.d He come walk about along garden, and He sing out, 'Adam!' Adam he no speak. He too much fright. My word! And G.o.d He sing out, 'Adam!'
And Adam he speak, 'You call 'm me?' G.o.d He speak, 'Me call 'm you too much.' Adam he speak, 'Me sleep strong fella too much.' And G.o.d He speak, 'You been eat 'm this fella apple.' Adam he speak, 'No, me no been eat 'm.' G.o.d He speak. 'What name you gammon along me? You been eat 'm.' And Adam he speak, 'Yes, me been eat 'm.'
”And G.o.d big fella marster He cross along Adam Eve two fella too much, and He speak, 'You two fella finish along me altogether. You go catch 'm bokkis (box) belong you, and get to h.e.l.l along scrub.'
”So Adam Eve these two fella go along scrub. And G.o.d He make 'm one big fennis (fence) all around garden and He put 'm one fella marster belong G.o.d along fennis. And He give this fella marster belong G.o.d one big fella musket, and He speak, 'S'pose you look 'm these two fella Adam Eve, you shoot 'm plenty too much.'”
CHAPTER XVII THE AMATEUR M.D.
WHEN we sailed from San Francisco on the _Snark_ I knew as much about sickness as the Admiral of the Swiss Navy knows about salt water. And here, at the start, let me advise any one who meditates going to out-of-the-way tropic places. Go to a first-cla.s.s druggist-the sort that have specialists on their salary list who know everything. Talk the matter over with such an one. Note carefully all that he says. Have a list made of all that he recommends. Write out a cheque for the total cost, and tear it up.
I wish I had done the same. I should have been far wiser, I know now, if I had bought one of those ready-made, self-acting, fool-proof medicine chests such as are favoured by fourth-rate s.h.i.+p-masters. In such a chest each bottle has a number. On the inside of the lid is placed a simple table of directions: No. 1, toothache; No. 2, smallpox; No. 3, stomachache; No. 4, cholera; No. 5, rheumatism; and so on, through the list of human ills. And I might have used it as did a certain venerable skipper, who, when No. 3 was empty, mixed a dose from No. 1 and No. 2, or, when No. 7 was all gone, dosed his crew with 4 and 3 till 3 gave out, when he used 5 and 2.
So far, with the exception of corrosive sublimate (which was recommended as an antiseptic in surgical operations, and which I have not yet used for that purpose), my medicine-chest has been useless. It has been worse than useless, for it has occupied much s.p.a.ce which I could have used to advantage.