Part 6

Roratonga gives you a kind of foretaste of the whole charm and beauty of the South Seas. It is the appetizer, the _hors-d’œuvre_, not the whole meal. Tahiti is the whole thing; the real thing; the thing one has dreamt about all one’s life; the thing which made Stevenson leave Europe forever. All tellers of fairy tales, and all poets from Homer downwards, have always imagined the existence of certain islands which were so full of magic and charm that they turned man from his duty and from all tasks, labour, or occupation in which he was engaged, and held him a willing captive, who would not sell his captivity for all the prizes of the busy world.

Stevenson in one of his books--“The Wrecker,” I think--says that if a man who was toiling in some English town were to be suddenly transported to one of the South Sea Islands, in the neighbourhood of Tahiti, and had a vision of the beauty that is there, and then were to be transported back again to his prosaic and ugly surroundings, he would say, “At any rate, I have had my dream.” That is how one feels when one has seen Tahiti. One feels one has had one’s dream.

The Bay of Papeete curves inward. As you sail into it you are sure to see several white schooners at anchor. At one side is a range of light-blue volcanic hills stretching out into the crystalline sea, reminding one of Naples, Capri, and Sorrento, and in the middle of the bay there is a tiny little island, consisting of a few cocoa palms. The sea is a transparent azure; little white houses are dotted all along the line of the beach, nestling in greenery. We got there in the afternoon and landed at once. We walked along the beach into the little town, and into the suburbs of it. It was spring in Tahiti, and every kind of imaginable blossom was flaunting its reckless and extravagant beauty. Everything grows wild in Tahiti. Nobody seems to bother about gardening or anything of that kind. It is not only the lilies who do not toil and spin, but the gardeners also. The unaided results of nature are so prodigious that the imagination is staggered to think of what might be done supposing an energetic gardener were let loose in these islands and allowed to try experiments. He would produce such a garden as the world has never seen.

I scarcely knew the names of any of the fruits or any of the blossoms which I saw. There were mango-trees, laden with mangoes which were not yet ripe; bamboo-trees, breadfruit-trees, cocoa palms, banana-trees, hibiscus bushes, a tree with a bright pink blossom which looked like a Judas-tree, but which was not one, bushes with intense mauve- and deep lilac-coloured flowers, and broad avenues of large green trees which shaded the road from the hot sun with great fanlike branches. As we walked along this avenue, on both sides of which there are little houses, we caught glimpses of wonderfully luxuriant and untrained gardens.

There seemed to be no birds except blackbirds and mina birds, which were hopping about in great quantities.

The people seem extraordinarily contented and invincibly indolent. I was walking along the main street and I wanted to get to the post-office, which I knew was somewhere along that street. I stopped at a store and asked whether I was going the right way. The storekeeper--who was a Frenchman--said, yes, I was going right. I then asked if it was far. The storekeeper said, oh, yes, it was very far; indeed, it would take me a good quarter of an hour or twenty minutes to walk there. I asked him if I could hire a conveyance, as I was in a hurry. He shook his head and thought it unlikely. I then went on my way. I thought I would just time myself and see how long it did take to reach the post-office. I walked fast; but I found, to my amazement, that it took me exactly three minutes to get there. Doubtless it would have taken a native of Tahiti twenty minutes. There is no such thing as hurry and no such thing as energy in these islands.

At five o’clock in the evening the football boys gave a display in front of the Governor’s house, and crowds of natives witnessed it. After that we all went to bathe in the bay, where sharks rarely come, although they do come sometimes.

In the evening we went to a picture-show, where there was a boxing-match between some native champions.

The people say that if you once drink of the water of Tahiti you will be bound to go there again, and I do not wonder at this. It is certainly the most fascinating and most beautiful spot I have ever seen. Its fascination lies not so much in the profusion and wealth of luxuriant vegetation and exotic colouring as in its subtle and indescribable charm. You do not feel as if you were in a hothouse. You feel as if you were in a most delicious country. You walk along by the side of streams where you see people doing their washing; you hear the cry of poultry; you see people driving oxen along the shady road. There is a wonderful fragrance in the air. Schooners come into the harbour from the other islands: the Marquesas Islands, etc. The Europeans walking about in their white clothes do not look like the Europeans you see in Ceylon, all washed out and wearied from the heat and strain; they look as if they were enjoying life, as if they were happy where they were.

There is a large Chinese population in Tahiti, but they busy themselves for the most part with agriculture. They do not do much work for the white people. The labour problem in Tahiti is consequently very vexatious for the white people. It is difficult to get work done at all; therefore, life in Tahiti is expensive. Often, for instance, the natives on market-day will bring no meat to the market, because it bothers them to do so. Of course, if white people consented to live entirely on fruit, as the natives do, the question would be solved, and certainly the fruit there is excellent. But man cannot live by breadfruit alone. He insists on sucking-pig and other more substantial delicacies; and to get these, in Tahiti, he has to pay money.

There is practically only one small hotel in Tahiti, a little two-storied house with a verandah. There are many French stores; the Governor’s House; the post-office; and a theatre. When the Panama Canal is opened, steamers, I suppose, will call at Tahiti in greater numbers than they do now, and that will be the time for speculators to build a larger hotel there. I have no fears of Tahiti ever being spoiled. It is the kind of place that will conquer civilization rather than be conquered by it. It was, at present,--I was told by people who had visited all the islands in the Pacific,--the most unspoiled of all of them. That is why I chose that route. Fiji is far more progressive, and I dare say far more satisfactory from a business and European point of view, but it is less interesting from a picturesque point of view.

I cannot imagine anything more ideal than to possess a schooner fitted with a small motor, in case of calm, and to cruise about the waters between Tahiti and the Marquesas, which, one is told, are indescribably beautiful.

I understand why Stevenson liked the South Seas above all things. I also understand why he was so loath to write descriptive articles about them. They are things to be seen; they are places to be seen and lived in; not to be written about. The pen can give no idea of their charm. Stevenson does it in his stories, and so does another well-known author, Louis Becke, who is rightly supposed to be the best writer of fiction on the South Seas.

It is possible now to take trips to the Marquesas from Tahiti in trading schooners, but I believe that is not a comfortable manner of transport. The thing would be to have a schooner of one’s own,--not an auxiliary schooner, because a schooner which is provided with steam ceases to be a sailing-vessel: the sails are never used; but a schooner fitted with a motor would ensure one against being becalmed, and, at the same time, the motor would not compete with and finally defeat the sails.

Lying at anchor in Papeete Harbour, there was a magnificent sailing-vessel which had come from San Francisco. It may not be very long before such vessels cease to exist altogether. Every day wind-jammers are being turned into steamers, and sailing-vessels become fewer and fewer. It is a melancholy fact for those who love the sea.

We stayed at Papeete only twenty-four hours. If you stay longer than that, you have to stay there a month, because the steamers only call there once a month. Tahiti is not connected by cable with any other country. Loath as I was to go, at the end of the twenty-four hours I felt it was a good thing that I was doing so; otherwise I should have been tempted to remain there for the rest of my life. Apart from other things, the climate is intoxicatingly pleasant; hot, but not too hot; prodigal, at sunset, of the most gorgeous effects of color and light; indescribably wonderful in the night-time.

The most beautiful spots in Tahiti are inland in the island, and it would take about a month to see the place properly. Papeete possesses three public automobiles for hire. I tried the whole of the morning on the day we left to get one of them, but they had all gone out. Apart from this, there are a few little carriages which act as cabs, driven by Chinamen, but they appear to go to sleep in the daytime, and only appear in the evening. The result was one had to walk about on one’s feet the whole time, and at the end of the morning I did not wonder that the inhabitants of this island are disinclined to make strenuous efforts. It is the kind of place where you are perfectly satisfied to do nothing. That morning, nevertheless, was one of the most enjoyable I have ever spent. I walked up and down the streets, looking again and again at the gorgeous-coloured blossoms and the wonderful green trees.

Between the hours of eleven and one o’clock the stores shut, and the business of life is interrupted for the midday meal and subsequent repose.

We left Tahiti in the afternoon, when the greater part of the population came down to the wharf to see us off. We left feeling like Ulysses when he was driven by force from the island of Calypso. And I for one, in any case, felt that come what might, I had had my dream. I had had a glimpse of Eden, a peep into the earthly paradise.

I have seen many of the beautiful corners of the world. A lake in Manchuria covered with large pink lotus flowers, as delicate as the landscape on a piece of Oriental china.

I have seen Linfa, the deserted ruin of the Roman Campagna, rising from waters thick with water-lilies, and a wilderness of leaves, like a castle which an enchanter has bade go to sleep for hundreds of years.

I have seen, in the Scilly Isles, that island which is a white garden set in the bluest of seas. I have seen Capri, and the Greek Islands, and Brusa in Asia Minor in the spring, when the nightingales sing all day, and the roses are in full bloom, and the noise of running water is forever in your ears.

But never have I seen anything so captivating as Tahiti, as those long shady walks, those great green trees, that reckless, untutored glory of blossom and foliage, those fruits, those flowers, and the birdlike talk of those careless natives, who wreathe themselves with flowers, and are happy without working, and who put scarlet flowers behind their ears to signify they are going to enjoy themselves: to have a good time; to paint the town red.

In Tahiti there are no snakes, and in this respect at least Tahiti is superior to the Garden of Eden, equal to Ireland.

_Across the Pacific: September 21-- October 3_

In describing the voyage across the Pacific (in “The Wrecker”), Stevenson says that there are certain periods in life which leave behind them a kind of roseate haze on the map of one’s existence. You cannot remember the details; you are merely conscious of a kind of pleasant blur. I feel the same thing about my voyage from Tahiti to San Francisco, but I have not yet forgotten and shall never forget the details. That voyage stands out for me like a kind of bath which had the power of restoring one’s youth for the time being. The trade winds blew freshly the whole time. There was a breeze even when we crossed “the line.” It was tropically warm, and yet never for one hour too hot. It was only at the end of the voyage that the freshness was overdone, that the weather grew cold, and the sea too rough for comfort; otherwise the weather was perfect. The huge clouds of the Pacific chased one another across the sky, as Stevenson describes them--“blotting out the stars” at night, and making fantastic citadels in the sunset.

Apropos of the stars in the tropics, one is always told that there is no twilight in these regions. This is not quite an accurate way of expressing it. What is accurate, is Coleridge’s line in “The Ancient Mariner,” when he says, “The Sun’s rim dips; the stars rush out.” He adds, “At one stride comes the dark.” The moment the sun goes down, you do see the stars at once; but the darkness that comes is not dark; the red afterglow down on the horizon, and above it the luminous mauve haze, which is peculiar to the tropics, lingers a long time, and against this the great shapes of the clouds stand out inky and black. It is a wonderful sight.

The football boys used to train twice a day. A large swimming-bath, made out of a sail, had been fixed up on the deck, so that after toying with a little amateur training, one could take off one’s clothes and splash about in the salt water. I do not think I ever enjoyed baths so much.

In the afternoon many of us used to take sunbaths, and lie half stripped on the upper deck in the sun, till our skin turned first red and then brown. At Sydney everybody takes these sunbaths, and this accounts for the bronzed complexion of the Australians.

The football boys had appetites which I have rarely seen equalled and never seen surpassed.

When I was at school at Eton, there was a phrase which was peculiar to the place, namely, “a brozier” (I am not certain that this is the right spelling). “A brozier” or “to brozier” meant when the boys ate all the food provided for them and clamored for more, until there was nothing left in the house.

There was, once upon a time, a much-venerated lady at Eton, called Miss Evans, who ruled over a house of boys. One day the boys settled on “a brozier,” and ate everything in the house, but Miss Evans was not to be defeated. She produced a large, evil-smelling cheese, and set it before the boys, and this cheese defeated them.

The football boys seemed capable of doing this every day, and the stewards were walked off their feet by the amount of fetching and carrying of dishes which they had to perform. As soon as the bugle blew, one heard a stampede of feet going down to the saloon. One felt inclined to quote Browning’s celebrated poem, and say,--

“Dinner’s at seven-- All’s right with the world.”

It is a curious thing that I got to know more about Australia and New Zealand after having left it than I did when I was there, by the presence and companionship of these football boys from New South Wales. Most of them were Australians, some had come from New Zealand. Besides being some of the best amateur football players in the world, they were the very best of good fellows, and to live with them was like being transported back again to Oxford or Cambridge and the days of one’s youth.

After dinner in the evening choruses used to be sung, and singing in chorus is the crown of good-fellowship.

In the eighteenth century in England, whenever people met together to eat, drink, and enjoy themselves, they sang. Song, alas, is now dying out of modern England, but it still lingers in the haunts of the young. Very few people now write drinking-songs, and this surely testifies to a lamentable decay in our morals.

I shall always be thankful to this trip for having afforded me a better glimpse of the new world, which I obtained through the companionship of these fine sons of Australia and New Zealand, than I might have obtained by living for months in Wellington or Sydney, because on board a small ship one gets to know people far more intimately than one does anywhere else, and it is by getting to know people that you arrive at an understanding of a country. It is not through sight-seeing that you get to know a country; it is through getting to know its people well, and through getting to know the right sort of people.

_San Francisco: October 3_

There is no subject in the world more hackneyed than American impressions. Nearly every month a writer of note discovers America over again. In spite of this, I am told, there is no stuff that is more eagerly read in the States, and outside of them, than impressions of America written by a foreigner. It doesn’t seem to matter whether such impressions are written by a writer of renown, such as H. G. Wells or Arnold Bennett, or by a totally unknown tourist; it does not matter whether they are well written or ill written, whether they are serious or flippant, amusing or dull; they are certain to be read.

I think I can understand the reason of this. People in any country like to read about themselves. They like to look upon their own image as it is reflected in the mirror of foreign observers.

It does not much matter what the mirror is like, so long as the image is there. There is no book of impressions of England, for instance, that I could not read with interest.

Nevertheless, all this does not make the task of writing about America to an American public any easier. If one is writing exclusively for one’s own native public, the task is not so difficult. One can describe an American hotel, for instance, a train, a tram-car; one can tell how one is shaved and how one’s boots are blacked; but the American public knows that already. So the task resolves itself into this: one has to write about things which are intimately familiar to the public one is addressing, in such a manner as to make it possible for them to read what one writes without being tired to death and throwing the book at some one’s head.

This being so, I revolve in my mind the different methods which could be applied to the task. First of all, there is the method to which I have already alluded, and in some cases used in these notes: the method of not writing about America at all, but about something else. You would begin writing like this: “The day I arrived at San Francisco, I was thinking about Venice,” and then you would write a chapter on Venice. But I do not think people would stand this.

Then you could use the manner of Bernard Shaw. You could write a “discussion” on America in three acts, in which an aeronaut, a milliner, a Salvation Army girl, a capitalist, a High-Church clergyman, and a lady Socialist would sit round a table and discuss America.

You would begin with a preface on trusts, Italian opera, vivisection, submarines, and prizefighting. Then you would get to the discussion. This would be prefaced by five pages of stage-directions, with regard to the room in which the discussion was to take place. Then one of the characters would enter, and there would be two pages of stage-directions in very small print about the facial expression, the clothes, the boots, the watch, the cigarette-case of that character. Then the character would do a little business,--open the window, perhaps, or shut it. More characters would enter, heralded by more stage-directions. Then the characters, having sat down, would discuss America, and incidentally every other country under the sun, especially England.

The discussion would be forbidden by the censorship in England, because one of the characters would be called Askfour, and this would be considered allusion to

(_a_) Mr. Asquith

(_b_) Mr. Balfour

(_c_) Sir George Askwith (on account of the “k”);--

and so the discussion would be acted in the Little Theatre at New York, and in London by the State Society on Sunday evenings.

Then I might adopt the method of Pierre Loti. This is called the “dot-and-dash” method. It is like the Morse code made poetic. You begin a sentence and leave it unfinished, adding a lot of dots like this:--

New York.............

I am in New York-.-...but I am not thinking of New York..-....-I am thinking of something else....-..the other places....... the East ......the desert........Stamboul............... Ispahan........Sadi......

(Then a whole line of dots.)

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

(Then you begin again.)

I am in New York............. tall buildings rise wistful and white in the pale milky sky...... They are very tall, those buildings........ They affect me with a strange longing to go away....... to be somewhere else...... anywhere else........ not here....There........ where?...... Beyond.......

Translate that into French, and you get the Loti-Morse method.

[Illustration: VERY FEW WRITERS THINK WHEN THEY ARE WRITING]

Then there is the Masefield method. That would consist in writing an enormously long poem about the Bowery, in verse full of expletives, oaths, and tough adjectives, called “Street-pity.”

“Take that, and that, and go to Hell. Hell, Hell, Hell, Hell.”

On reflection, I reject all these methods. I will leave the matter to my pen.

The only way to write is to let the pen do the work, like what happens in planchette (except when somebody cheats). Very few writers think before they write or even when they are writing; they let their pen guide their thoughts. And I am certain that those writers who write too much suffer from a disease of the fingers and not of the brain.

Before saying a word about America, I apologize for anything I shall say which may sound or be absurd.

A wit once said that the American and English people had everything in common, except, of course, the language. There is, I think, a great deal of truth in this: the words are the same, but they mean different things and they are used in different ways.

Some day, when I have learned the American language properly, I mean to write a large book on the American language. In the mean time, the following condensed grammar for foreigners may prove useful for Americans going to England, as well as for Englishmen going to America:--

_Chapter I_