Part 5

The sugar plantations employ many Chinese and Japanese labourers, of whom there are a good many thousand, and we saw on two occasions “camps” of Japanese, as they are called. In the shops or stores attached to one plantation (as in others), I saw the Japanese costume again, for men and women--the _kimono_ and the _obi_ and the _geta_ or wooden clogs; of course they are mostly peasants or of low class, as I could easily surmise without inquiring, by Awoki’s manner. “They are great children,” says our good lady to me, and the doctor at one residence has much to say about the anomalous position he stands in with regard to them and others. He is employed by the government to inspect them, as well as other hands, to see that they are not made to work in illness, and he also examines the flock, in the interest of the employers, to see that they do not shirk. The result is that he is a physician who cannot trust the word of his patient about his ailings, after his patient has made up his mind to be ill, who if one ailing is dismissed, will call up as many as may seem available--and inscrutable. I am told that the Japanese illness, _kakke_, or as they call it here, _biri biri_, persists among them. It is a form of slow paralysis, having its premonitory symptoms; sometimes to be cured, but not often. The patients, not white, have the better chance if they be under competent care, for the government gives free medical attention, and I understood that many avail themselves of it who could as well pay.

I need not say that the great tariff question is that of the moment; free sugar with us will shake the Hawaiian tree, and weaker planters will go to the wall. I always feel regret when I see all put into one chance, so liable to fluctuation, and it is to be hoped that coffee, which here is excellent, may succeed and grow more available. I take it that the difficulty is always in the picking, and that there may be chance for some improvement in the facility.

September 22d.

Our last sugar plantation took us to the edge of the great valley of Waipio, from one to two thousand feet deep, at the further and higher inland end of which drops a great waterfall; from its outside sea-cliffs trickle down others from the lesser height of eight hundred. But all was wrapped in mist, for at this point of our ride we had almost the only bad weather of the trip. Here we turned toward the other side of the island, across great downs and spreads of land like those we had seen on first landing on the island. We were out of the rainy influence. The whole spread of the landscape was that of dryness; of the “Sierras”; we rode at first through vast fields or spreads of green, where the path was marked by the rooting of the pigs, who here run loose and grow wild. A great mountain slope rose to our left--Mauna Kea--and as we dipped to the sea we had Mount Hualalai to continue it. But that was after we had stopped on our last day’s ride in a dry country, where distances swam in the pale colours that belong to the volcanoes and the desert, while near us green marked the foreground.

We rested and dreamed in midday, at some hospitable residence, from whose verandah, in the great heat, we saw Hawaiians coursing recklessly about in the way you would like to ride; and cattle on many hills; while the young ladies in the shade made garlands (_leis_) for us to wear around our necks and hats on our last ride to the shore. Adams and I rode slowly down, a mile behind the others, in the blazing afternoon, a most delicious air breaking the heat; with that same sense of space that had accompanied our first day ashore. And as the sun set like a clear ball of fire over the blue sea, and sent rosy flickerings to the shore, we came down to the edges of the bay.

Above us to the left rose a hill crowned with the remains of some one building that trailed down its side, still red in the sunlight. To our right were palms and black sand and enclosures, apparently deserted, and with an afterglow like that of Egypt, a look of desolate Africa. In the dark we passed over the black sand, and behind the trees through which the moon moved restlessly in the water, and came up to an absurd little hotel kept by a Chinaman, where we dismounted among black pigs charging about, and bade good-bye to amiable Mr. Much, our guide, who had preceded us.

Then we met, at tea, the manager of the last place (Waimea) we had dined at. He told me of what I had missed by not getting in in the morning--the shipping of the steers, which are parked out on the shore, then singled out and lassoed by the “boys,” whom they rush after into the sea, where it is the horse and rider’s business to get them to the boats. To these their heads are secured, and they are rowed off swimming, willy-nilly, to the steamers, into which some contrivance hoists them.

These cattle came, I understand, from the great ranch of Mr. Sam Parker up in the mountains, a wealthy Hawaiian of partly white blood, whose name is well known besides as giving hospitality in a lordly way in his lonely domain.

And in the evening we waited for the steamer, not in the house of refuge and food, where water was scarce, and where poor Mr. Much could get nothing to eat, as being too late; but near by, under a verandah or wide canopy of palm branches lit up by the moonlight. There we listened to Hawaiian music--while our older hosts sat on the mats--melancholy chants adapted to European airs, and among them one apparently original, a sad, romantic sort of cakewalk, to which one could fancy dusky savage warriors keeping time, with many foliage-adorned feet, and hands tossed up and pointing out. It was called the March of Kamehameha (the old conqueror of these islands), and I let myself understand that it was a reproduction of the veritable sounds that once celebrated his triumphs and mastery over these islands; from which dates the royalty now existing, though his royal race itself is extinct.

And we, too, stretched on the mats brought out, and listened to lazy talk in the language, until the steamer came, when all walked down in time to the wharf, after the sheep and the freight had been put on board, and we rowed out on the water smooth as that of a lake, to the little steamer, and later went to bed and waited until morning, when we steamed for the next port and thence to Honolulu, and our own house in the valley.

We met on board many pleasant people, and among others a former neighbour, though unknown, who is now one of the few American missionaries in the Islands. These, I think he told me, are all that remain who are salaried from America. He spoke to us about Mr. Hyde, whom Mr. Stevenson had been attacking, as if he belonged to him by his name; and explained how exaggerated was the notion of this gentleman’s affluence. All, I understand, that he gets, besides what his wealthy family allow him (and for that he could not be held responsible), is some two thousand five hundred a year and his residence--surely not a large amount. I have not myself read all that Mr. Stevenson has written, so that I have but a vague idea of the question, but my informant tells me that Father Damien, as is well understood, was no saint, and that two pastors had told him of things that looked wrong. These are themselves rather vague to the outsider, but much weight seemed to attach to them with our informant--a gentlemanly person, who looked little like the usual clergyman, and had a brave air of the church militant about him. But it was more pleasant to talk to him about St. Gaudens, whom he knew, and about what he had done of late years; for everywhere we find that there are others who know friends; and the desert of Gobi alone would be without home associations.

At Sea, Oct. 2, 1890.

Yesterday we crossed the equator; it was cool and pleasant, as lovely as one could wish. In the evening I found an overcoat comfortable. To-day it is more salty and cloudy, wind behind us more from the north; indefinable blue sea that looks grey against the delicate blue and silver of the sky, but near by, under the guards, it is like a greener lapis lazuli.

Yesterday, as I wrote, we crossed the equator, and left it with disrespect behind us, almost unnoticed--the Line, as they used to call it. And soon we shall have dropped the sun also, which would, were there no clouds, no abundant awnings, leave us with diminished shadows, insufficient to cover our feet. And at the thought of dropping him, the old Taoist wish of getting outside the points of the compass comes over me, the feeling that leads me to travel. Can we never get to see things as they are, and is there always a geographical perspective? Should I reach Typee shall I find it invaded by others? Shall I find everywhere the company of our steamers?

On Sunday morning we shall be dropped into a boat off Tutuila, some sixty miles away from the Samoa to which we go. How long we stay as I told you, I do not know, but we think of Tahiti later, and even other places, that I dare not think of, for I must return some day. But before that day, I wish to have seen a Fayaway sail her boat in some other Typee.

PASSAGES FROM A DIARY IN THE PACIFIC

SAMOA

Off the island of Tutuila, on Board the Cutter Carrying Mail, Tuesday, Oct. 7, 1890 (Samoan Time).

The morning looked rainy with the contrary northwest wind that we had carried with us below the equator, when the shape of the little cutter that was to take us showed between the outstanding rocks of the coast of Tutuila. As the big steamer slowed up, a few native boats came out to meet it, manned with men paddling and singing in concert, some of them crowned with leaves, and wearing garlands about their necks, their naked bodies and arms making an indescribable red colour against the blue of the sea, which was as deep under this cloudy sky, but not so brilliant as under yesterday’s sun. They came on board, some plunging right into the sea on their way to the companion ladder, bringing fruit and curiosities for sale. But our time had come; and we could only give a glance at the splendid nakedness of the savages adorned by fine tattooing that looked like silk, and with waist drapery of brilliant patterns. We dropped into the dancing boat that waited for us and scrambled into the little cutter or schooner some thirty feet long, not very skilfully managed, that was to

[Illustration: FAYAWAY SAILS HER BOAT. SAMOA]

take us sixty miles against the wind to Apia. A few minutes, and the steamer was far away; and we saw the boats of the savages make a red fringe of men on the waves that outlined the horizon--a new and strange sensation, a realizing of the old pictures in books of travel and the child traditions of Robinson Crusoe.

Our crew was made up of the captain, a brown man from other and far-away islands, and two blacks, former cannibals from Solomon Islands, with gentle faces and manners, and rings of ivory in their noses. Our captain spoke of hurry, and used strange words not clear to understand in his curious lingo; but after an hour or so of heavy rain he announced his intention to beat in again and wait for some change of wind. And so we ran into a little harbour high with mountains, all wooded as if with green plumage, cornered by a high rock standing far out, on which stood out, like great feathers, a few cocoa-palms. Palms fringed the shore with shade. A blue-green sea ran into a thin line of breakers--like one of the places we have always read of in “Robinson Crusoe” and similar travellers: “A little cove with the surf running in, and a great swell on the shore.” Our cutter was anchored; then, as we declined to remain on board, either in the rain or in the impossible little cabin about eight feet long, we were taken into the boat, which was skilfully piloted through an opening in the inside reef; and, the surf being high, we were carried to shore on the backs of two handsome fellows whose canoe had come alongside. We walked up to the church, a curious long, low building behind the cocoa-palms; all empty, with thatched roofs and walls of coral cement; the doorway open, with two stones to block out casual straying pigs, I suppose. Inside I saw a long wooden trough, blocked out of a tree. I did not know that this was the old war-drum of pagan times, now used for the Christian bell.

Behind the church, a few yards off, was our destination--a Samoan “grass-house,” the guest-house of the village, as I know now. It was thatched with sugar-cane leaves, was elliptical, with a turtle-backed roof, supported by pillars all around, and by three central pillars that were connected by curved beams, from which hung cocoanut cups and water-bottles, or which supported rolls of painted bark cloth. The pebble floor showed at places not covered with the mats, as well as near the centre pillars, where a fire still smoked. Most of the screens of matting, which make the only wall between the pillars, were down, making a gentle shade, in which one woman was sleeping; another, on the opposite side to us, her back turned and naked to the waist, was working at large folds of bark cloth. The women rose from this occupation, and offered their hands, saying, “_alofa!_”[1] A younger woman was lying sick, her wrapped-up head on the Samoan pillow of a long bamboo, supported at either end, so as to free it from the ground.

With the same “_alofa_” came an elegant young creature, perhaps some sixteen years old, wearing a gay waist drapery of flowered pattern, red, yellow, and purple--with a loose upper garment or chemise of red and violet--open at the sides. Then another, short and strong, with heavy but handsome arms and legs, and with bleared eyes. And we sat down on the mats, the girls cross-legged, and looked at each other while the captain talked, I know not what of.

As I changed my seat and sat near the entrance with my back against the pillars, which is the Samoan fashion, though I did not know it, another tall creature entered, and giving us her hand with the “_alofa_” sat down against another pillar--also the proper dignified Samoan way. We did not notice her much; she was quieter, less pretty than the pretty one, with a longer face, a nose more curved at the end, a longer upper lip, and more quietly dressed in the same way. Then entered another with a disk-shaped face, her hair all plastered white with the coral lime they use to redden the hair, and dressed as the others, with the same bare arms and legs. She was heavy and strong below, and less developed above, with the same splendid walk and swing, the same beauty of the setting of the head on the neck.

And we drank cocoanut milk, while _kava_ was being prepared for us in an enchantment of movement and gesture, that I had just begun to feel, as if these people had cultivated art in movement and personal gesture, because they had no other plastic expression.

The movements of the two girls preparing the stuff would have made Carmencita’s swaying appear conventional; so, perhaps, angels and divinities, when they helped mortals in the kitchen and household. As the uglier girl scraped the root into the four-legged wooden bowl set between the two, in front of us, and before the central pillars, she moved her hand and body to a rhythm distinctly timed; and when her exquisite companion took it up, and, wetting the scraped root from double cocoanut shells, that hung behind her, moved her arms around in the bowl and wiped its rim, and frothed the mass with a long wisp of leafy filaments, she tossed the wet bunch to her companion, as if finishing some long cadence of a music that we could not hear, too slow to be played or sung, too long for anything but the muscles of the body to render. And she who received it, squeezed it out with a gesture fine enough for Mrs. Siddons or Mademoiselle Georges. I use these names of the stage, of which I have no fixed idea; those that I have seen could never have given, even in inspired moments of passion, such a sinuous long line to arm and hand. Then in a similar repetition of conventional attitudes the cups were presented to us, one after the other, with a great under-sweep of the full-stretched arm, and we drank the curious drink, which leaves the taste filled with an aroma not unlike the general aromatic odour of all around us, of flowers and of shrubs. For all was clean and dry about us, house and surroundings and crowded people, at least to the senses that smell.

* * * * *

In the slow hypnotism produced by mutual curiosity, by gazing with attention all centred on movement, while pretending to notice all the social matters as they went on about us, I could not disentangle myself from the girl who had bewitched us; and as she sat clasping her elbows, with her legs crossed in her lap, like the images of Japanese Kwannon and of Indian goddesses, I tried to copy a few lines. But the original ones flowed out again like water, before I could fix them. My model was conscious of the attention she called up, and from that moment her eyes always met ours, with a flirting smile, half of encouragement, half of shyness.

And now the tall girl that sat beside me, with the quiet face and unquiet eyebrows, put out her hand languidly to reach for my sketch-book. She was the “virgin of the village”--doubly important by being the old chief’s daughter, and elected to this representative position, which entails, at least, the inconvenience of her being always watched, guided, and intimately investigated by the matrons appointed thereto. The lines of my sketch, that would have puzzled the ordinary amateur, were clear to her: “See,” she said, “here is Sifá, clasping her elbows, but her face is not made. Draw me,” and she moved away the hanging mats that obscured the light. The sketch I made was bad, representing to my mind a European with strange features. I don’t know what she thought of it, but she recognized the chemise with ruffles on edges, that covered her shoulders, and made the motion of lifting it away, which I was slow to understand. Her eyebrows moved with some question for which I had no English in my mind. At last the word _misonari?_ as she looked toward Adams, explained what was meant; I said “no,” and looked approval. She rose, passed into the shade, and sat again before me, her upper garment replaced by a long, heavy garland of leaves and the aromatic square-sided fruit of the pandanus, that partly covered her firm young breast, and lay in her lap against the folds of the bent waist. But my drawing was scarcely better for all this, and I gave it to her, with the feeling that what made it bad for me, its resemblance to a European, might give it value for her. All the time the temptation was strong to treat this child of another civilization as a little princess. She had the slow manner, the slightly disdainful look, the appearance of knowing the value of her sayings and doings that make our necessary ideal of responsibility. What though the Princess puffed at my pipe, meanwhile having secured a cigar, less cared for, behind her pretty ear; what though she pressed two long, slender fingers against her lips, and spat through them, according to some native elegance, she knew that she was a personage and never was familiar, even when she pressed my arm and shoulder, and said, “_alofa oi_,” “I like you.” Her forehead was high and gently sloping, her eyebrows thin and movable, the eye looked gently and firmly and directly; the nose was a little curved at the heavy end, the upper lip a little long (and pulling on the pipe, if she used it, would lengthen it later yet more), the neck and back of the head had the same beauty of line and setting that I had seen in Hawaii, and her shoulders, and breast, and strong, lithe arms would have delighted a sculptor. She wore her hair gathered up by a European comb, and in front a forelock reddened to the tone of her face, with the coral lime they used. Her legs were strong and fine and her feet only as large as one could expect, with the soles hardened by use over stones and coral.

But she was not the pretty one; her sister, Sifá, was that. The charm of the older one, “the virgin of the village,” was in this incomparable savage dignity, that gave a formality to our visit. What to us was an amusement was to her evidently one of the necessities of hospitality, while Sifá could not move about or look without a ripple of laughter that undulated through her entire person. Occasionally, however, our “chiefess” looked at me with a gentle smile, and said “_alofa!_” and by and by, after showing me that she could write, and doing so in my album, (where she dated her inscription _Oketopa_, our October), she gave me a ring with her name Uatea--or Watea as she wrote it. She partook of lunch, eating after us (along with the captain who appeared again on time), and she refused to taste of some apples we had until we had some of her own fruit, all I suppose according to some proprieties well defined. Then Sifá, her sister, met with a little adventure in unpacking our food for us. The captain of the steamer had given us a block of ice on our leaving, telling us that it was the last we should see in this part of the world, and that it might comfort us during our long, hot sail under the tropical sun. In unrolling it, and taking it up, Sifá dropped it with a cry of “_afi!_”--“fire!” and for a few moments we struggled in an unknown tongue to explain what it might be. But I took it for granted that she must have had some Bible explanation of the places where the Bible comes from--that is to say, England and Scotland; hence about winter and bad weather, and perhaps snow and ice.