Part 13
The day had been hot and sultry. From a cloudless sky, the tropical sun shot down, without mercy, his arrows of heat, against which the lightest and most porous headdress, umbrella, roof and shade afforded but inadequate protection. Man and beast were listless, perspiring, careful to make no unnecessary exertion. The green, succulent foliage bowed under the oppressive heat, and even the gayest of the flowers drooped their proud heads in homage to the fierce king of the serene blue sky. The very atmosphere quivered in convulsive movements, and the intense light, reflected from the surface of the sleeping ocean and the white city, dazzled and blinded those who ventured to go out into the streets. The little capital city of Papeete, nestled on the plateau between the harbor and the foot of towering mountains, half hidden among the tropic trees, was at rest; market and streets deserted, business houses closed, and the wharf silent and lifeless. The numerous miserable curs in the streets sought shelter in the shade, lying in a position affording most perfect relaxation, with protruded, blue, saliva-covered tongues, fighting the heat by increasing the respiratory movements to the utmost speed. The numerous half-wild pigs in the streets, with paralyzed tails and relaxed bristles, buried themselves as deeply as possible in the nearest mud-pool, and with eyes closed, submitted passively to the fiery rays of the midday sun. The roaming chickens, from bald chicks a few days old to the ruffled, fatless veterans of questionable age, suspended their search for rare particles of food with which to satisfy their torturing sense of hunger, and simply squatted where the heat overcame them, in the nearest shady place, there to spend the enforced siesta with bills wide open and the dry, blue tongues agitated by the rapid and violent breathing. The birds of the air ceased their frolic; their song was silenced, and they took refuge in trees with thickest foliage. Men, women and children, rich and poor, merchant and laborer, were forced to suspend work and play, and seek, in the shadow of their homes or near-by trees, protection against the onslaught of the burning rays of the sun. Such is the victory of the sun of the tropics. He demands unconditional surrender on the part of every living thing. He knows no compromise, as he is sure of victory as long as his victim is in a favorable strategic position. This was the case on the day of which I speak. As the rays of the sun became more and more oblique, and the invisible great fan of the land-breeze was set in motion, wafting down from the high mountain peaks a current of cool air, the city woke up from its midday slumber. The sun had lost his fiery power. He was retreating from the field of combat, and approaching in the distance the rim of the placid ocean. The monarch of the day, so near his cool, watery couch, laid aside his mask of fire and smiled upon the vanishing world with a face beaming with happiness and peace.
The sun was set, and Vesper, to supply
His absent beams, had lighted up the sky.
DRYDEN.
It was an evening bright and still
As ever blush'd on wave or bower,
Smiling from heaven, as if naught ill
Could happen in so sweet an hour.
MOORE.
The last act of the retiring monarch of the day revealed his incomparable skill as a painter. He showed discretion in the selection of the time to demonstrate to the best advantage his matchless artistic skill. He chose the evening hour, when the soul is best prepared to take flight from earthly to heavenly things. He waited until man and beast had laid aside the burden and cares of the day, and were in a receptive, contemplative mood to study and appreciate the paintings suspended from the paling blue dome of the sky.
He waited until he could hide himself from view behind the bank of fleecy clouds moving lazily in the same direction. Then he grasped the invisible palette charged with colors and tints of colors unknown to the artists of this world, and seized the mystic, gigantic brush when
The setting sun, and music at the close.
As the last taste of sweets is sweeted last,
Writ in remembrance more than things long past.
SHAKESPEARE.
The time for this magic work was short. The moment the passing clouds veiled his face it began. From the very beginning it became apparent that the hidden artist exhibited superhuman skill. The most appreciative and scrutinizing of his admirers felt powerless to comprehend and much more to give a description of the panoramic views which he painted with such rapid succession on the sky, clouds and the dull surface of the dreamy, listless ocean. With intense interest we watched the constantly varying, artistic display, felt keenly the shortcomings of human art, and realized, to the fullest extent, the force and truth of
Who hath not proved how feebly words essay
To fix one spark of beauty's heavenly ray.
BYRON.
All painters place the greatest importance upon a proper background for their pictures in order to give light and shade a strong expression. So does the sun. With a few strokes of the magic brush, the deep blue of the horizon was wiped out and replaced by the palest shade of blue, so as to bring forth, in bolder relief, the resplendent colors on the moving canvas of the clouds. The artist fringed the margins of the clouds with delicate lace of shining gold. Through clefts and rents in the clouds the smiling face of the painter peeped upon the beautiful evening beyond. His work had only begun. In rapid turns the clouds were converted into a sheet of gold with a violet border that deepened into a vivid crimson hue. As the artist disappeared, inch by inch, under the limitless expanse of the ocean, he wiped out the brilliant colors on the canvas of clouds, and gilded the horizon with a sheet of gold, deepening his favorite color, yellow, into an orange hue, which remained unchanged until the approaching darkness threw a drapery of sombre black over the inspiring scene. Twilight shuns the tropics. Day lapses into night almost imperceptibly, and, with the setting of the sun, the earth is wrapped in darkness. There is no compromise in the tropics, between the rulers of day and night. With the disappearance of the last rays of the sun, the pale blue dome of the sky is decorated with millions of flickering stars, casting their feeble light upon land and sea through the immeasurable ethereal medium which separates heaven from earth.
The sun has lost his rage; his downward orb
Shoots nothing now but animating warmth
And vital lustre.
THOMSON.
On the evening of which I speak, the short twilight foreshadowed the appearance of the heavenly advance-guard proclaiming the coming of the Queen of Night.
When the evening King gave place to night,
His beams he to his royal brother lent,
And so shone still in his reflected light.
DRYDEN.
Looking in the direction opposite from where the monarch of the day had disappeared, the cloudless sky brightened over the bare gray mountain-peak, and the stars, in joyful anticipation of the approaching event, abandoned their stoic immobility and trembled in feverish excitement. An impressive silence reigned in the little city, broken now and then by the almost noiseless footsteps of half-naked, barefoot natives, or the clattering of the hoofs of a horse and humming of the wheels of a passing cart, and, once or twice, by the whirr of the only automobile in the island, steered by an enterprising, prosperous French merchant.
Nature awoke from her noonday slumber, the glossy leaves resumed their natural shape and freshness, the drooping flowers revived, expanded and exhaled their fragrance, perfuming the evening air. The birds had found shelter and protection for the night in the leafy domes of the many beautiful shade and ornamental trees. It was solemn eveningtide, when the heart of man is most receptive for noble and pure impressions. It was the time to turn away the thoughts from the busy, selfish world and reflect upon the wonders of creation. It was the time to look upward to the calm, pale, blue sky, feebly illuminated by the soft light of countless tiny lamps suspended by invisible cords from the limitless space above. It was the time to look beyond earthly things. It was the time to understand:
The beauty of the world and the orderly arrangement of everything celestial makes us confess that there is an excellent and eternal nature, which ought to be worshiped and admired by all mankind.
CICERO.
We were speechless spectators of the passing and coming. Our thoughts were turned to the invisible hand that created the earth we inhabit and all of the heavenly bodies, and which directs their movements with infallible precision and unfailing regularity. We thought of things incomprehensible to man, of things far beyond the grasp of the human mind, of things known only to the Almighty Lord, Creator of all things in heaven and earth.
With our eyes fixed on the gateway of entrance of the Queen of Night, we patiently awaited her arrival, anxious, however, to catch the first glimpse of her beautiful face. No blare of trumpets or bugle call announced her approach. She rose in the sky silently, resplendent in her own magic beauty, and her charms are always sweetest when the nights are calm and peaceful. She combined beauty with two of the most attractive feminine virtues—modesty and gentleness. As we watched her regal entrance into the sky, the golden arch assumed the deep yellow hue of the precious metal it resembled, and, in a few moments, the pale rim of her sweet face rose over the dark, bald mountain-peak, and ascended slowly and majestically, higher and higher, away from earthly things, on her journey through the pathless sky. This evening she appeared in perfect glory, permitting us to look into her full, calm face. Her consort, the sun, had just disappeared, leaving behind him a golden crescent on the opposite horizon. She was following his pathway and had taken possession of his throne for the night. The departing sun and the ascending moon were in strange and pleasing contrast at the threshold of that beautiful night.
O! belle nuit! mit preferable au jour!
Premier nuit a amour consacree!
En sa faveur, prolonge ta duree,
Et du soleil retarde le retour.
DE MALFILATRE.
The moon loves to reign in peace and quietude. She abhors the tumult of the battle-field and the struggles of man for wealth and honor. She is the friend of the wounded, the sick and the poor; and the guardian angel of all those in need of repose. As she ascended heavenward, the rippling ocean became a great mirror, a mirror worthy to reflect her beautiful face. The soft, pale light streaming out from the silvery orb cast phantom-like shadows in the forests, parks and streets. Solemnity reigned supreme.
On seas, on earth, and all that in them dwell,
A death-like and deep silence fell.
WALLER.
Happy the people who respect and love the Queen of Night and her reign of peace and rest! Charming Queen! Retard your journey, prolong your peaceful mission for the well-being of your loyal subjects so much in need of your calming influence and of your soft, soothing light! To such petitions the goddess of the sky has only one inflexible reply: "The universe is my kingdom, the earth you live in is only one of my smallest possessions. I must remain loyal to all of my realms."
This evening in Tahiti had another and still more sublime entertainment in store for us, a spectacle which can be seen in perfection only in the tropics, and, I imagine, Tahiti is the stage more perfect than any other in the world for the display of one of nature's grandest exhibitions. The soft light of the rising moon and the myriads of tiny, flickering stars furnished the illumination; the mountains, forests, harbor and ocean, the stage. We were roused from our reverie by distant peals of thunder. Looking in the direction whence these reports came, we saw black, angry clouds hovering about the mountain-peaks to the south and east of Papeete. The clouds were too heavy for the rarified mountain air and soon began to descend slowly but steadily until they wrapped the towering summits in a cloak of sombre black. The mountain-peaks, which but a short time before were caressed by the gentle, silvery light of the moon, were now completely obscured. Where did these clouds come from? No one could tell. No one could mistake their movements. They appeared to have had only one object in view, and that was to embrace the mountain-range well below the tree-line. Smaller clouds, fragments from the main mass, moving more swiftly in the evening air, impelled by the land-breeze, floated away from the dark wall enveloping the mountainsides, which seemed to possess some subtle, magnetic power buried in the Immense piles of volcanic rocks. At short intervals, great zigzag chains of lightning shot through these dark clouds, momentarily lighting up the dark, unbroken, primeval forest. These dazzling, blinding flashes of lightning were in strong contrast with the soft, tropic moonshine that remained outside of the limits of the aerial sea of clouds, which had commenced to discharge a drenching rain. Fleecy little wandering clouds now flecked the horizon, strangely and variously painted by the moonlight, shortly before the midnight hour. Through fissures in these fleeting, snowy clouds, the moon and stars often peeped at the grand spectacle which was being enacted on the stage below. Lightning and thunder came nearer and nearer with the approach of the weeping mass of clouds. The bolts of lightning must have found their marks with unerring precision in the crags and forest underneath the roof of dense clouds, as from there came at short intervals deafening peals of thunder reverberating through the calm evening air far out over the surface of the sleeping ocean, where the reverberations died out in a faint rumbling.
This majestic but awesome sight was of short duration. The pouring rain relieved the clouds of their abnormal weight, and, balloon-like, they rose, clearing the mountain-range, which then again made its appearance in the soft, bewitching moonlight of the tropics. Lightning and thunder retreated with the disappearance of the clouds. The atmosphere was cool and refreshing, purified by the pouring rain and the furious electric storm. At this stage of the nightly display in our immediate vicinity, in front of the veranda of the little hotel, in full view of the now deserted stage, from the clear, cloudless sky, gigantic drops of rain fell, sparkling in the magic moonlight like diamonds that had become loosened and had fallen from the jeweled crown of the Queen of Night, whose throne had then reached the zenith of the horizon.
Instead of wishing for an encore after such a brilliant act given by nature's artists, we took one more and last look at the serene, smiling, full face of the moon, and were then prepared to acknowledge reverently:
What else is nature but God, and divine reason, residing in the whole world and its parts.
SENECA.
IORANA!
The South Sea Islanders have beautiful words of welcome with which they meet the stranger. The Samoan greets you with _talofa_; the Hawaiian, with a clear, musical voice, welcomes you with _aloha nui_; and the Tahitian, with an open, friendly face and a smile, when he meets you, addresses you with that beautiful greeting, _iorana_. These euphonious words mean more than the words of our language intended for the same purpose; they come from the heart and are addressed to the heart much more so than our "Welcome," "How do you do?" "How are you?" or "I am glad to see you." These Polynesian words are not only words of welcome, but carry with them the best wishes of the natives for the stranger; they signify not only a formality, but also express a sincerity which is so often lacking in our conventional meetings with friends and strangers. The visitor who remains long enough in Tahiti to become acquainted with the natives will find that their greeting, _iorana_, is verified by their actions. The natives, educated and ignorant, young and old, are polite, friendly and hospitable to a fault. They are fond of making little gifts to strangers, and if these are reciprocated, they are really and honestly grateful. The people are charming, the island beautiful, and nature's storehouse never empty of the choicest that the sea can supply and the soil can produce. Any one who has seen Tahiti, the Island Paradise, on leaving it, and ever after, in recalling his experiences and observations in this island of peace, rest, charms and pleasures, will give expression to his feelings by repeating to himself.
Isle of Beauty!
Absence makes the heart grow fonder:
Isle of Beauty, fare thee well!
BAYLY.
THE END
ADDENDA
TAHITI
The waves that touch thy pebbly beach
With soft, caressing hand;
The scented breezes winging past
Above thy favored land;
The brilliant flowers, the glowing fruits,
Close to thy bosom pressed,
All, all are singing one sweet song,
Whose soft refrain is, Rest!
The sunset brush that tints thy skies
With wondrous, varied rays;
The birds that fill thy woodland haunts
With music's roundelays;
The sparkling streams meandering through
Thy valleys ever blest.
All, all are breathing one sweet song.
Whose soft refrain is, Rest!
The twilight hour that floods the soul
With waves of perfect calm.
Then gives us to the Queen of Night,
Who pours her soothing balm;
The still lagoon with coral reefs
Where beauty makes its nest.
All, all are breathing one sweet song.
Whose soft refrain is, Rest!
O Isle of Beauty! poets may
Dip pens in wells of light,
Or soar aloft on Fancy's wings
In wild, aerial flight;
But they can never voice thy charms,
O Island of the Blest!
Whose very air is perfumed with
The fragrance rare of Rest!
O Isle of Beauty! artists may
Coax every varied hue,
To lay upon the canvas wide
A portrait true of you;
But till they borrow heaven's power
To paint thee. Island Blest,
The task is vain, O Land of Peace,
Whose every breeze sings Rest!
Where man knows all the blissful charm
Of care-free, deep content;
Where life seems one long holiday
In childish gladness spent;
Where earth and air and sea and sky
So close to God seem pressed;
Ah, loath am I to turn from thee.
Dear Land of Perfect Rest!
MARY E. GRIFFIN.
THE STORY OF ARIITAIMAI OF TAHITI[1]
I wish peace, and any terms prefer
Before the last extremities of war.
DRYDEN.
In one of the far-off isles of the South Seas, in the garden-spot of the Pacific, in golden Tahiti, about the year 1848, when Victoria was a young queen and mother, when France was in the throes of a second revolution, when the United States, a young republic, was still on trial before the old world, there was enacted one of the most touching dramas history has ever recorded, and this among a people considered savages by the so-called civilized world, and almost unknown until discovered through the missionary fervor of a few priests. The place, a small island, only a speck on the map; the _dramatis personæ_, France, England and America, the hereditary chiefs of a people who for forty generations had known no other rulers, a weak, vacillating native queen, and a noble-hearted native woman who knew how to be at the same time a loyal subject, a skilled diplomat, and that rarer and more beautiful thing, a faithful friend. If you would hear a story of friendship pure and undefiled, listen to the story of Ariitaimai of Papara, a Tahitian of noble birth, a child of Nature in its wildest and grandest aspect, rocked in a gigantic cradle of sea, sky and towering mountains, in a land of palm forests, where Nature has provided everything necessary to the life of her children, and where the pearls are the purest. If Cicero had known the story of Ariitaimai he would not have written in _De Amicitia_: "But where will you find one who will not prefer to friendship, public honors and power, one who will prefer the advancement of his friend in public office to his own? For human nature is too weak to despise power." But to understand this thrilling and eventful drama, we must listen first to the chorus reciting something of the history of this strange people, and of the position of woman in a land where suffrage societies are unknown, and where the story of the inequality of the sexes had never been told by book or priest. Tahiti, Matea and Moorea are known as the Windward Islands of the Society Group in the South Seas. The Leeward Islands comprise the four kingdoms, Huahine, Borabora, Raiatea and Tahaa, together with some smaller islands, and are about one hundred and twenty miles from Tahiti. But it has always been in Tahiti, the gem of the Pacific, that the interest has been centered, and it was here that the struggle took place between the English and the French for supremacy in the South Seas.
It was in 1769 that Captain Cook entered Matavai Bay on his first voyage to observe the transit of Venus. This spot is marked by a stone monument and has been known ever since as Point Venus. At this time Cook estimated the number of inhabitants at two hundred thousand. To-day, after the long contention between the French and English for supremacy, after the brave struggle of the natives against both for independence, after all the ravages made by the diseases introduced by foreigners, and after years of a fearful mortality caused by the enervating effect of civilization upon a people suited only to be children of Nature, this goodly number has been reduced to a pitiful eleven thousand. In fact, our so-called nineteenth century civilization has succeeded in practically exterminating a people who could produce a pearl among womankind, a rare and tender soul, such an one as English history does not give us, and France has produced but one, her own Jeanne D'Arc.